James can remember it like it was yesterday.
An alcove, the steady wind its cemented frame caught, inky curls flayed to that breeze, his tanned hand twisted up in them. Grey eyes that shutter, that light up and pull back, a soft voice, “James, Jamie.”
Something twists in him. Standing here, five years later, the alcove dark and dull in front of James, a thousand memories writhing from it like a ghost.
Marlene comes up beside him, a smack of loud gum in his ear.
“James?” James rips his eyes away, looking to her.
She’s frowning, slightly, arms twisted around a giant speaker, bangs plastered to her forehead under the thick August heat.
“Let’s go, yeah?” James swallows, looks back at the alcove one more time, and nods.
“Yeah.”
**
For a long time, James considered if there was something wrong with him. His inability to shake something that was just a blip in time. He saw a therapist. He tried to talk to his parents, to Sirius, Marlene. Remus sometimes, even. Pete. And they all wore their own faces, their unique expressions, but it was the same emotion flickering throughout.
Pity. Sympathy. Something like “Oh, James.” And a steady hope and promise that it would pass.
It didn’t.
A year came, two, three, and eventually, James had to pretend as if it had.
Marlene’s boots clunk around the stage, twisting through wires and arranging plugs.
James is sitting on top of an equipment box with Remus, flipping through Sirius’ stagebook, his loopy scrawl.
Remus puts out his cigarette, huffing as he moves to peer over James shoulder.
“That's the one I vetoed.”
Something of a grin slides on James face, he feels a steady thrum of sick, honestly, brimming beneath everything, but the grin is there as he flicks his eyes to Remus.
“Probably why he choose it.”
Remus glowers.
“‘Course.”
“It’s the only one where you’ve got a guitar solo!”
“Which is why I vetoed it.”
James laughs at that. “And why he chose it.”
Remus huffs, squinting out at the field. The sun has just begun to lower, brimming the horizon with hazy gold.
“He’s annoying. I hate him.”
James clicks his tongue, peering back down at the book.
“Uh huh.” Remus doesn’t respond, but he huffs again.
James eyes flit through the rest of the setlist.
He knows the first five, they decided that months ago, but Sirius had workshopped some extra songs in to lengthen their set. Told them so last night, at the request of Minnie, when another band dropped out.
Indiana
Star, Star
Bright and Wild…
So Well
Pane
Mm. That’s—
“Alright?!”
James head snaps up, Sirius coming towards them, a mess of wild hair and sun scorched leather.
Beside him, Remus huffs.
“The setlist or us?”
Sirius is in front of them now, and he falters.
“Er- both?”
“Horrid.”
Sirius gives an amused frown, sharing a sidelong glance with James.
“For— ah— both?”
“Yes.”
Sirius clicks his tongue. “Moony, moony, moony. You’ll be great.”
Remus rolls his lips, looking up, meeting Sirius’ gaze.
“I know I will. That’s not the problem.”
“What? Well, then what’s the problem?”
They keep staring at each other. A beat. Two. Finally, Remus looks away.
“Never mind.”
Sirius frowns.
“Remus-“
“Oi! Marlene!”
Remus hops off the box just as Sirius reaches out, brushing past his hand and joining Marlene where she’s just steadily been sendjng sparks flying from a single speaker.
Sirius plonks down next to James.
“What’s he on about?”
James shakes his head.
“I don’t know mate, seems like you’re supposed to know.”
“Yeah. But I don’t.” Sirius extends his hands, palms up.
“Supposed to though.” James teases, still staring down at the book.
“Shove off,” Sirius elbows him, snatching his setlist from James’ hands.
He’s silent for a beat as he skims it over.
“Well, what do you think?”
And. Well.
“We haven’t played some of these in a really long time. Years.” Four of them.
“Yeah.” Sirius sounds a little defeated, scrubs at his face. “Yeah, I know. I just-“ He looks out at the field, their school’s campus looming in the distance, peering at it from the same perspective they last saw it, walking across the stage at graduation. It’s a long moment before Sirius speaks again. “Nostalgia, I guess.” And James gets it. Can see it in his eyes, the stiff set of Sirius’ jaw, who he’s thinking of. Because James is, too. Thinking of him. It clogs his throat. Still, somehow, he manages, “Pane?”
Sirius’ face doesn’t even shutter. Doesn’t blink, his eyes are actually a little glazed over as he continues to stare off. “Didn’t seem right not to.”
And unfortunately, James gets that, too.
As much as he hates it. As much as he wants to rip the setlist, that little scrawled word, clean in two, it feels like breaking the bone of a body he’s supposed to hold onto. Can’t let go of. Won’t. Wouldn’t ever.
“Yeah.” That’s all he can really seem to articulate today.
***
Peter is in the audience, that night. Front row, grinning up at them, arms slung around Mary and Lily.
James tries to focus on that, the familiarity that is present tense. Tries tries tries.
They breeze through the first few songs, Sirius’ voice echoing through the tree lined grounds, twisting in with the leaves, crawling up the bark, fading out into the glow of dusk. It’s beautiful. Remus nails his solo, fingers twisting gracefully, plucking hauntingly at his twelve string. He doesn’t look at Sirius once as he does it. James knows there’s something big there, something both him and Sirius are missing, but he can’t bring himself to try and dissect the moment enough to understand, because Pane is next, and the loom of it- it’s approach, it’s pressing on him like fingers on a bruise. Blossoming further and further, as the song grows closer. So well ends, Remus slinging off his acoustic to move to the synth board, and Sirius steps back from the mic, looking to James.
James moves towards it like walking to a grave. Dusk has faded into time of night where the sky looks black, stars clear above the field.
Remus’ synth starts up, and James takes off his guitar, hands it to Sirius. Sirius meets his eyes for a moment, and they’re sparked. Something burning, there. It settles something in James, grasps at the unrest that’s been bubbling beneath him. Because, he can do this for more than one reason. He can do this for Sirius, too. Sirius, who wears those silver headphones and blasts music loud enough to blow an eardrum when James finds him on dark nights, curled in and over himself on the sofa. Not in bed.
Sirius who- well- James internally shutters, not able to take that thought much further. Sirius who needs this. As much as James. As Remus’ intro pace begins to close, James feels himself careen into an emotion of needing, of looking out at the campus grounds and the stars and the feeling of his breath, the alcove, and just, needing. Needing this, too.
Remus hits his last note. James’ eyes fall closed.
His voice is a bit husky, smooth, it’s never been quite as hauntingly beautiful as Sirius’, but rather steady, pinning you down. James sings, and everything in him is stimulatenously flinching and calm.
Sun bleached flies, sitting on the windowsill
They wrote this song for Regulus.
Waiting for the day they escape
Of course they did.
They talk all about their money and how their babies are always changing
It poured out of them, each of them, bringing their own narratives together into some sort of cohesive storyline, trying to tie an end that was flayed.
While they’re breathing in the poison of the pane
They wrote it for Regulus. A year after he ran away.
Dead, as the headlines had printed.
…
God loves you, but not enough to save you
So, babygirl good luck taking care of yourself
So I said fine, because that’s how my daddy raised me
If they strike once then you just hit them twice as hard
But in the end, if I bend under the weight that they gave me
Then this heart would break and fall twice as far
We all know how it goes
The more it hurts the less it shows
But I still feel like they all know
And that’s why I could never go back home
And I spend my life
Watching it go by from the sidelines
And god, I’ve tried
But I think it’s about time I put up a fight
…
But I always knew no one was coming to save me
So I just prayed
And I keeping praying, and praying
And praying
If it’s meant to be then it will be
So I met him there and told him I believe
Singing, if it’s meant to be then it will be
And I forgive it all as it comes back to me
…
And I’m still praying for that house in Nebraska
By the highway, out on the edge of town
Dancing with the windows open
I can’t let go when something’s broken
It’s all I know, and it’s all I want now