Chapter Text
Remus leaned back on his chair, smiling as his friends’ laughter filled the voice channel. It had been a long day: after getting back from his afternoon lecture, he'd done a lengthy politics stream, debating against various bad takes he'd seen circulating around the internet. He'd gotten an influx of unfriendly messages that made it more tiring than usual, and he was more than happy to just sit back and listen to Lily and Marlene entertain their respective streams.
He switched tabs from watching Marlene to his half finished essay. He was struggling with this one, and had no idea why he'd chosen to write about the evolving architectural form of granaries: it was only vaguely related to their module. Scrolling through his chaotically-organised Google Doc, he yawned, and Lily's voice cut back in through his headset. "Remus, you still here?"
Ctrl-Tab. He switched back to the stream. They were playing chess, and Marlene had started yelling at her chat for their unhelpful suggestions (“Queen to G4? Shut the fuck up."). He smiled. "I'm here," he replied, "It's been a long day. I'll probably head to bed." They said goodnight, and Remus smiled as he logged off. His small room was left in darkness as the monitor switched off, and his eyes adjusted to the silhouettes of his room.
He'd rearranged it when he moved in to make it feel like his. Not liking having his back to the door, he’d moved the sickly orange-stained oak desk that had been at the window to the opposite wall— the difficulty of the activity multiplied by the scratchy carpet providing maximum friction. The desk was barely big enough for his computer, nevermind endless library books built up in ridiculously large piles. A twin bed took up the length of the wall with the window, more books precariously overloaded on shelves above the bed. It was incredibly tiny, barely building regulation size, but it was his, his with a lock on the door and his with his books and computer, the outlet to his own little corner of the internet.
It was only just past midnight so Remus made himself toast before sitting cross-legged on his bed to finish reading the book Lily had sent him.
His phone lit up with a notification, announcing a text from Marlene. ive been invited to a minecraft tournament and we need another teammate!!!!! pls say yes remus we need u <3
Remus sighed, typing a reply. minecraft? you know how shit i am at that game. Despite being a streamer on a platform designed around video games, he rarely played and even less on stream. Between his weekly politics streams, working weekend shifts and university, he had absolutely no time. Streaming was the only thing he could feasibly give up but he was too attached to the small audience he had gradually built up.
my skill will make up for yours anyways. theres $10000 if we win
That was enough to convince Remus, so he reluctantly agreed. Opening Twitter, he quickly saw the announcement for the tournament retweeted by Marlene. He scrolled down to see Lily's reply enthusiastically hyping up their team. 'This will be cool,' he added in return.
Immediately, notifications flooded his phone. Most were excited fans jokingly proclaiming some shit about Remus finally doing something interesting on stream. A few people followed him, including some other contestants. He decidedly turned off his phone and dropped it somewhere off the side of his bed, the clothes currently taking over his bedroom floor guaranteeing a soft landing. It wasn't long after he closed his eyes that he drifted off to an albeit unrestful but much needed sleep.
Despite his tiredness, he woke up early at seven and ignored his phone in lieu of getting his morning coffee and toast. Pulling on a jumper to keep out the cold he stepped into the kitchen, where one of his roommates was already sitting. He mumbled a "good morning," going directly to the kettle.
He lived with two other people from his university. Sophie, who he knew from his classes, and their mutual friend Theo. He wasn't particularly close with either of them and they mostly kept to themselves, which was fine with him. The important thing was he could do his streams uninterrupted. They were aware of his majority long distance friend group having previously met Marlene, although they only had a vague idea of the extent of his online presence.
Turning on his phone, he scrolled through the notifications that built up overnight. Mary had tweeted an apology for not being able to attend the minecraft tournament. He saw a reply to Lily under his tweet from popular Minecraft YouTuber, jamestv. He rolled his eyes. Not this motherfucker, he thought. James had responded excitedly to finding out Lily was going to be in the same minecraft tournament as him. He'd been followed by both James and Sirius: they were an inseparable pair, James initially dragging Sirius to fame with him as his channel rapidly grew, before Sirius’ gaming content took off on his own. Remus observed how much easier it was to grow by posting family friendly minecraft content opposed to his edited stream highlights.
He pressed play on a playlist on his phone and got to work on his essay. He had to finish it by tonight, and the soft melody of the music soothed his nerves.
As soon as he finished, he saw Marlene online and joined her voice channel. "Hey Marls," he greeted.
"Remus!"
"I finally finished the fucking essay," said Remus, lounging back. "Took forever."
"Good thing I don't have to listen to you stress about it anymore," responded Marlene. "Now we can focus on honing your gaming skills."
Remus snickered. "Just what I need. Finally I can pursue my lifelong dream of becoming a fucking Minecraft YouTuber .”
"Hey!" He could feel Marlene roll her eyes. "It's a respectable profession."
He laughed at that as Marlene continued, "did you see you've been followed by both James and Sirius? God, if Mary finds out she'll be so jealous. Maybe it's my lesbianism but I can't comprehend how she finds Sirius hot. He's a fucking Minecraft YouTuber."
Remus snorted. "I thought you just said that was respectable?"
"It doesn't make someone hot," said Marlene. "It cancels out anything they have going for them."
He did a quick google search of Sirius. Unlike how Remus didn't know his face to his viewers, Sirius flaunted himself everywhere. The majority of photos on google were taken from Sirius' livestreams and included what Remus assumed were intense gameplay moments, capturing a range of over-dramatic facial expressions. But he couldn't disagree with Mary: saying he found Sirius unattractive would be a lie. "I guess it's weird to say that about someone you don't know," Remus responded, quickly closing the tab.
"Yeah, exactly," said Marlene. "Things should stay platonic between streamers."
"Tell that to James and he'll have you punched,” said Remus, ”his interactions with Lily are borderline creepy, I don’t care if it’s a bit." It was unnerving how quick James replied to Lily’s tweets, practically an on-going joke with his audience that he was obsessed with her— and they’d barely interacted.
"He's an annoying brat," said Marlene. "It'll be nice when we beat him next Saturday."
“Ugh,” he replied, rolling his eyes. “We’d better.”
So, he spent the evening on the stupid block game, Marlene’s voice slipping in and out through the headphones, patiently giving him pointers on the various mini-games they’d be playing. Thank god she had patience, he was terrible: build battle was the only game he somewhat enjoyed, flying around and bickering with Marlene over what toppings they should put on their block-version of an ice cream cone. “No, fuck that, you can’t even tell they’re meant to be sprinkles!”
They stayed on call for the better part of that evening, Lily and Mary eventually joining too, jumping in with ideas for Saturday.
“Huh,” began Lily, “do you really think they’d keep Bingo in? There’s like no strategy, it's terribly boring, but maybe it could be an easy win for us—”
“Are we seriously still discussing strategy for minecraft?” Remus asked jokingly, having temporarily zoned out of their conversation.
“Remus—” Lily began, “you have no idea the depths of strategising required— what, have you been thinking I do all this with no thinking behind it, whatsoever? Everything is a learned skill , thank you very fucking much.”
“Al’right, right-click, left-click, the fuck else can you do?”
Mary laughed, yelling, “Remus! Don’t get her started!”
Marlene cut in, “yeah, you’re forgetting the space button, WASD, shift….”
“Remus RegardsTheMoon Lupin, do not test me right now,” began Lily, “and Marlene, don’t you encourage him. On Saturday I expect you both to do absolutely everything I say, no questions asked.”
Eventually, they figured out something that resembled a plan, Lily typing everything out and practically begging Remus to read it at least once before Saturday.
“Who do you take me for?” joked Remus, “you know I'll read them— though I stand by thinking they’re excessive— and I will try my best. But only because it’s you, Lily.” He smiled, thinking he probably would do anything for Lily.
He loved this friend group he’d amassed, their messages on his phone becoming a world he could escape into, slipping into their far-away lives through the glimpses they’d shared— photos and videos, ridiculous memes and gifs, vulnerable texts and late-night serious conversations. It was something completely private to them and they knew what was maybe the truest version of Remus— a version he didn’t know how to be in real life. It was with love that he made fun of Lily and Marlene’s competitiveness, when really he was completely overjoyed at being included, even if it was regarding a video game he didn’t care about.
They’d called it for the night and Remus was about to engage in his daily toast-and-tea ritual when he checked his direct messages on Twitter. With a jolt of surprise, he clicked open the notification at the top of his inbox.
@siriusly: Heyyy
@siriusly: No follow back?
Remus scoffed. Who does this guy think he is? He left him on read, clicking onto his profile and scrolling through his tweets.
@siriusly, 08/02/21 23:05: [image: a mirror selfie, long hair falling into his face, half-hiding a small smile. His pose showed off his outfit— black leather jacket, faded band tee and ripped jeans—and Remus couldn’t deny he did look cool.] Hey say it back ;)
@siriusly, RT @jamestv 05/02/21 20:08: @Siriusly Thank you! #siriuslyAWESOME
@siriusly, 05/02/21 19:05: [image: a quiche with golden-browned colourful vegetables, bordered with thinly layered sheets of pastry that spiralled out like flower petals.] @jamestv Never say I don’t treat U right bby. Filo pastry quiche w/ courgette tomatoes N feta <3
Remus’ mouth watered at the quiche, and he scrolled up. His latest tweet, the mirror selfie captioned Hey say it back, was from 30 minutes ago, and his stomach flipped as realised that was just after Sirius had messaged him. Another notification popped up, a third message from Sirius.
@siriusly: ?
Remus sighed. He was persistent. Why did he care so much about whether Remus followed him or not?
@remus_regards: ???? hey
@siriusly: I almost thought you were ignoring me ;/
@remus_regards: i was.
@siriusly: Trying to break my heart, Remus?
@remus_regards: it’s not strong enough to deal with not being followed back?
@siriusly: No. I am delicate
@remus_regards: sorry, i just don’t follow back people i don’t know. its not personal
Remus shifted in his chair, resorting to scrolling through his other notifications. Sirius had liked most of his recent tweets:
@remus_regards, 06/02/21 16:51: [image: selfie of Remus leaning towards his computer, a mug of tea in one hand directed towards the camera, positioned to block his face] live in 5! weekly news recap then geoguessr w/ chat !!!! twitch.tv/RegardsTheMoon
@remus_regards, 03/02/21, 17:47: uni kicking my ass, will try stream in the next couple days. thx for the patience <3
Uni had been kicking his ass. He had a ton of deadlines before the welcome relief of his mid-February reading week and he was already regretting taking on the minecraft competition: whatever usamerican time zone it was based in meant it wouldn’t end until 3am, which would make getting up for his 9am Sunday shift very painful.
Another message from Sirius popped up, and Remus smiled, despite himself.
@siriusly: Guess i’ll have to get to know u then ;)
He rolled his eyes, resolving himself to actually ignore him this time. Sirius was too confident, too self-assured, too loud . He had no idea why he was interested in Remus at all and assumed that’s just the way he was: obnoxiously in everyone's face, all the time.
They would compete against each other on Saturday and Remus would do his best not to drag Marlene and Lily down with him, the two of them actually good at the game, and they’d hopefully not come last— he wouldn’t even entertain the possibility of coming first, not wanting to be hopeful about the cash prize, too good to be true— and Sirius would continue charming the internet, whatever it was he did alongside James. Video after video of fun with his friends, thousands of people in his chat each stream all demanding his attention: his intrigue in the small new-name streamer would be forgotten. There would be no getting to know Remus, and he was fine with that.