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Chapter Text

Remus

Remus smiles to the makeup artist as she folds back her brush kit. He checks behind the prompter for Mary and her sharp brown eyes. Lips pinched, she details him from head to toe, from the blue glitter turning his scars into lightning bolts on his face to the pristine lilac suit and down to the point of his polished shoes.

After all these years and much fumbling he knows he’s found his ground, a thin line between freak in drag and elegant dandy. Take the makeup away and he looks like the kind of dude who’d take you to Italy and propose with a diamond the size of Brazil on the Riviera. Take the well pressed suit away and he’d be excommunicated faster than it takes to say “Jesus”. On that thin line dances his camera ready persona, or what his fans like to call The Gentleman Monster.

After she’s kept her brow furrowed for so long he fears she’ll be stuck like this for ever, Mary gives her nod of approval. He blows her a kiss, she rolls her eyes, the audience giggles.

Clark Reeds, the host and absolute star of the most watched show in the country, has his own makeup artist finish applying foundation on his face while chatting away with his producer.

On each side of Mary like chess pieces around their queen sits his band, the very lungs of his existence. Lily and her fiery red hair gathered in a ponytail, restless fingers tapping on her bare thigh, her right leg in a calf, the left one sprawled on Marlene’s knees. Marlene and her signature red lip in a perpetual scowl, fashionably annoyed at everything, a cigarette propped up behind her ear as she turns the pages of a busted old poetry book. And Tonks, last but certainly not least, flipping him the bird and yawning profusely, the sleeping mask from the plane still around their neck, their hair a neon purple in the studio’s lights.

He travels with about half a dozen more musicians all year, not mentioning those who lend him their expertise for the recording of his albums, like that time on Out Here Overall when he wouldn’t wrap up track 3 without a tar for the interlude. Ride or die hardworking people he owes his entire career to. But these three, they’ve been by his side from the beginning. When he was fifteen and had a vision, talking Lily’s ears off with music sheets they couldn’t yet read spread all over her bed. When Marlene broke noses in Remus’ defense, the scar and overall queerness a little bit too much for the crowd of these small town bars. When Tonks could only afford half a kit and drummed on borrowed pans and pots in Lily’s garage.

From his cousin’s wedding to sold out stadiums, from their first interview in the high school’s paper until now, they’ve never left his side, undeterred even if they’re all completely jet lagged, fresh off the plane from Japan where Lily broke an ankle jumping off the stage during their twelfth sold out night in a row.

It’s a fairy tale, a love story, and it’s theirs.

“Ready, Remus?” Reeds asks, his smile all but ravishing as the spotlights switch and move to the stage.

“Absolutely.”

Remus crosses his legs, one arm propped on the armrest of the couch, as the chef operator starts counting.

“And three, two, one!”

Reeds’ mask turns even glossier as he lights ups from the inside, eyes fixed on the camera “Hello Los Angeles! Clark Reeds here for the County Daily Show and today ladies and gentlemen, we have a very special guest.”

Remus tilts his head resting on his fist to the camera and smiles, just the right amount of cheeky, as the public claps and whoops.

“Remus it’s very good to have you here.”

“An honor, Clark.”

“And fresh off your Asian Tour too! You just came home, correct?”

“We landed at six in the morning,” Remus confirms and Reeds whistles like he’s impressed.

“How does it feel to be back?”

“Like LA always feels. Crammed.”

Genuine laughter blooms through the rows. Reeds follows suit, head thrown back in silent laughter before coming back to Remus.

“The Asian Tour officially ended two years on the road. I’ve got to ask. Does one ever get tired of playing the same songs over and over again? Is there a song you hate playing?”

“People come see us to have fun and hear their favorite songs. I wouldn’t want to disappoint them. When I write a song I always think about what it’ll sound like live, so that we have fun on stage too. It’s an exchange, you know?”

“Even Jaded Dream?”

Remus grins. Jaded Dream was his first ever single. First ever hit. Broke records for fastest single to go multi platinum. Eight years later he may find it a little naïve in its execution but he’ll be damned if he doesn’t love this song to death.

“Especially Jaded Dream. Do you know how many people tell me “I met my wife to this song”? If I don’t play it during a show I ruin like eighty marriage proposals.”

“Is it your favorite song to play live, then?”

“It was for a while.”

“And now?”

“It would be Lucky Felix.”

For the electrifying communion on stage with Lily, for the collective inhale in the crowd when he hits that E6, for the giggles and screams and jumping up and down when they finalized it in the back on their tour bus with Tonks drumming with chopsticks and a wooden plank.

Reeds blindingly white smile widens “I’m not familiar with that one.”

“Someone hasn’t listened to the secret tracks.”

The secret tracks are not so secret. Anybody who doesn’t immediately get up to change the record on the player knows that if you wait a little bit, you have a handful of unlisted songs waiting for you at the end of the track list. They started doing it for his second record, Moonlight Monster, where it made sense to hide some of the songs just like the Monster would be hiding, and the public loved it so much they kept doing it ever since.

Remus bites the inside of his cheek watching Mary glare at the producer who sheepishly avoids her gaze.

“What’s it about, then?” gleefully asks Reeds.

“Just listen to the song when you get home, Clark. It’s good, I promise.”

A slew of giggles run through the audience. Reeds doesn’t budge an iota. You don’t record one live show a day for ten years and squirm and apologize at the slightest mishap after all.

“Between the world tour and the recording of the album, you must be exhausted!”

“Oh I am.” Remus pauses to take a sip of water while the audience giggles some more. “But I wouldn’t change it for the world. Happiness is exhausting.”

“And right after you were hospitalized, too!”

Remus swirls the water in the glass. Thinks of Marlene, her bored, heavy lidded eyes. Tries to embody her. Unbothered. Regal.

“Rumor has it you provoked the car accident to build hype for the tour, and eventually your new album. Moonlight Monster, but bigger.”

Remus purposefully steadies the glass on the desk and fully turns to the audience. He takes his time to hook as many eyes as he can, fully meeting their gazes, moving only when the connection has been established. When he’s not just a monster on a stage, but a human in make up looking right at you.

“You really shouldn’t believe everything you hear on TV,” he tells them. Not the camera, not Reeds. Them, the people who waited in line for hours to see him sit in a chair and answer questions. The people who, he’s sure, know all his secret soundtracks by heart.

“Next question.”

Reeds keeps going like nothing happened. Asks how he gets so creative (look around and look inside; the art exists where the two don’t match), about the making of the album (a logistical nightmare but being stuck on a tour bus for a year made it so they just couldn’t stop writing), his plans for the future (learning how to play the harp once and for all) and that time a paparazzi got hit in the face with Marlene’s lacy umbrella in Kyoto (they had it coming, don’t stand so close to the ladies if you don’t want to get hit).

The interview is coming to a close and Remus praises himself for the one question that’s left: the upcoming Grammy Awards and his nomination for best album.

“You’re head to head with The Marauders this year Remus. How does it feel to share the spotlight? Do you feel threatened?”

 “Oh absolutely.” He channels Lily’s legendary calm for this one. Crosses his legs and smiles politely despite his heart beating a hundred pulses per second and his cheeks heating up under his makeup. “They created something incredible. We all needed a band like that.”

“My my! And what would be your favorite song?”

Remus takes a sip of water to force himself to pause and be normal about this, like he’s just thinking about it, like the song hasn’t been playing in his head constantly since he saw the Marauders perform in Memphis a few months back. Usually he would describe their music as playfully dark. Humor to mask the pain type of vibe. But this one, a straight forwards three minutes verse-chorus-bridge bit, was just so raw and genuine, so youthful that he still feels the pang in his chest after dancing like he hadn’t danced in years.

He still dreams about it. The heat, the lights, the people bouncing and screaming like possessed banshees, him included. And the absolute power house giving it all on that stage.

“Mmh, I’d have to say Disgrace.”

Track 8 of their first album Just Lovers. The one he bought two copies of because he can’t seem to take the record off the player and he’s afraid he’s going to scratch it.

Reeds nods like he couldn’t agree more, then leans in in a performative show of camaraderie. “If you had a message for them before the ceremony, what would it be?”

Remus turns to the camera and looks straight into it, straight into the memory of blue almond eyes against smudged black eye shadow. A drop of sweat on a temple, arms spread like a saint on the cross, a Fender covered in starry stickers across a tattooed chest.

“May the best musician win.”

Only when the lights are off, rows emptied and he’s in the dressing room lightening up a cigarette for Lily does he realize he said “musician”. Singular.

Oh fuck.

Chapter Text

Sirius

Sirius knows he is, by all accounts, a drama queen. He’s demanding and stubborn and basically never satisfied. So it’s only natural that after having made the best first record he knew they could possibly make, the Marauders reworked all their songs and a few covers to add some flare, some panache if you will. Studio version: perfect. Live version? It must be stellar.

Simple as that.

Every single one of them will work until their fingers bleed to achieve this vision. Their vision. James who never said no to Sirius a day in their lives, Regulus who says nothing but no while holding Sirius and himself at a higher standard than anyone else, Dorcas who doesn’t even try to pretend she will settle for anything but perfection and Peter whose quiet talent lets him handle anything that’s thrown at him.

“If it doesn’t make me want to smash my guitar, it’s not good enough.”

It only happened once. In Memphis. Last year. Sirius still doesn’t know truly what happened that night. Same old green rooms, same old pills, same guitar, but it’s like they all broke out of their skin to become vibrations and sounds. The highest of highs.

James was in a fury, a comet. Peter, unstoppable, moved so fast his movements were blurry. Dorcas had a smile he’d never seen on her before, of pure unbridled pleasure, her eyes pooling into Regulus’ from across the stage, all his stiffness and fear abandoned, his entire body alight like the star he is.

And Sirius had reached them, the stars. Bent with his back against James’, or jumping everywhere throwing himself in the crowd, reaching notes he’d never reached before, and for the last song of the encore, in front of a crowd in full riot, he’d smashed his guitar.

Not the Fender. That one he’d take a bullet for. It was a Gibson, black of course, stained with Dorcas’ red nail polish after that nightmarish bumpy road outside of Nashville.

He had kissed James with all his soul, which was just what the crowd needed to start absolutely tearing the place down, and had smashed his guitar as Peter changed lives with the drum break of Crimson Love.

It simply must happen again, every night of their upcoming tour if Sirius has anything to say about it. Hence today’s rehearsal. All day in the studio with coffee delivered at the door, Kingsley hovering with almighty judgment, a mess of music sheets all over the floor and a strict “no distraction” policy.

But because Sirius is a drama queen, they make an exception and take a break at 5p.m. Remus fucking Lupin is on TV.

And no amount of daydreaming could’ve prepared Sirius for whatever the fuck that was.

“Did you hear that?”

“We’re all right here.”

“No but did you hear that?”

“Remus fucking Lupin likes our music,” James says. He crowds closer to Sirius on the large amp they’re sitting on and puts his hand on Sirius’ legs to stop it from bouncing. “That’s what I heard.”

“What? Didn’t you get it? The… The condescension?!” Sirius throws his hand in his hair and starts pacing the floor, his platform boots leaving nasty print on the red carpet of the studio.

“He literally said “may the best musician win,” sighs Dorcas. “That’s literally the most PR friendly response I’ve ever heard.” She’s sipping on a cup of coffee the size of her head, knuckles tight around it like a lifeline in the middle of a hurricane.

Sirius glances at Regulus, his brother’s eyes narrowed on Dorcas. This detail is definitely ending up in a song later.

Regulus writes their songs. Always watching for every minute detail like an owl, that one. He can make you sweat and cry and scream about the story of an old scarf in a drawer. With Peter as a safety net chiming in with happy groovy bits between two of Regulus’ incredibly catchy but immensely depressing psychosexual metaphors about unrequited love and deep rooted trauma, the Marauders are indeed bringing something the industry desperately needed, thank you very much, asshole.

“He seemed genuine to me,” tries James from his amp.

“Everything seems genuine to you,” shoots Regulus. James rolls his eyes as Sirius frantically points at his brother. Regulus waves his hand away. “You’re still overreacting. At least he said he liked your song.”

Disgrace, the only song Sirius’ ever written on his own. A one time thing, a struck of inspiration in the middle of the night. Beginner’s luck, Kingsley liked it.

What were the chances Lupin would mention this song when they have absolute bangers like Chasing Stars is beyond him.

It feels so personal on so many levels it makes Sirius’ skin crawl.

“I’ll make him eat that stupid smile!”

Peter throws his drumstick at him. It hits Sirius full on the head. “You’ll not get in a fight with Remus fucking Lupin or so help me God!”

Sirius is way passed feeling like he’s going mad. That ship has sailed. Certifiably, clinically insane. Nothing would be reasonably put past him, especially not after an entire day of rehearsal in the only room within the Phoenix Records complex that has broken AC, and especially not after Remus Moony The Monster Lupin was asked about them on live TV.

So it’s a possibility he’s hallucinated this entire thing completely. That Lupin did not address him specifically at all.

Musician. Singular.

Most people don’t know that the lyrics they are screaming to the top of their lungs are Reggie’s insanely good poetry. That the one reason he ever had the money to afford a guitar in the first place is because of James’ parents taking them in when Sirius ran away at fourteen with his twelve years old little brother in tow. That Peter’s good nature is what convinced Kingsley to give them a shot and listen to their tape. That Dorcas is the one who taught him how to croon these deep notes in the way that makes the crowd go absolutely wild.

So it would make sense Lupin thought it’s him he has to beat. And it was so obvious he didn’t care, like he’d rather be anywhere else doing literally anything, like a crossword or having his tires changed or something, than talking about them. He cared more about his fucking water than about what Clark Reeds was asking. 

Sirius is pissed. Exhausted, fingers calloused, eyes red from the smoke the crumbling old system can’t filter properly, hair stuck to the back of his neck because it’s fucking boiling in here and pissed.

He’s a lot of things, and delusional definitely is one of them, but there’s a limit. And the limit is the gentleman monster on the tiny screen, waving at the crowd with his glittering scars and lilac suit as Reeds shows the cover of Takes One To Know One in the background.

Lupin’s new album is very contemplative. Heavy with grief and sorrow. The first track, Now Or Never, is an eight minutes long reflection about wanting to jump from a bridge, deciding not to, and feeling the weight of this decision every day since. It brought Sirius to tears about twelve seconds in with its melancholic guitar riff. And the hidden tracks that you can listen to if you let the record play for seven minutes and forty seconds after track 13 are all masterpieces.

Sirius has seen him play live. Demonic, fiery, monstrous. His soul left his body and has yet to return.

Part of him is over the fucking moon that Remus Lupin, THE Remus Lupin, with his scars, his pearl earring and his cheeky dimpled smile, mentioned him, nay, addressed him as a threat.

The rest of him wants to punch something.

“That fucking bastard!”

Regulus appears from nowhere and hits him in the chest with his own guitar and a feral look in his eyes.

“See that? Whatever’s boiling right now, you take that and you make music with it, alright?” and with that, he steals the remote from Sirius’ hand and turns the TV off.

Regulus storms back to his keyboard, swiftly avoiding James who tries to ruffle his hair on the way. Dorcas swats James on the back of his head in retaliation. She takes one last long gulp of coffee and puts the cup on the floor before cracking her joints and picking up her bass. Peter raises a hand, Sirius throws him the stick he attacked him with. Peter catches it mid air.

“Finally.”

They all turn at the sound of the cavernous voice at the door. Kingsley closes it behind him and perches himself on a stool.

His presence is like a blanket, both comforting and heavy. When Kingsley Shacklebolt walks into a room, it goes increasingly quiet and is instantly filled with music at the same time. Almost three years working with him and Sirius is still intimidated, although no one could waterboard that out of him.

“Baby Black has had enough of a tantrum and we can go back to playing music.”

“I didn’t-” starts Regulus but Kingsley cuts him, a glint of mischief in his dark eyes.

“I meant the other baby Black.”

Sirius huffs. “You think Lupin’s the best thing since sliced bread anyway.”

“He is the best thing since sliced bread. Now where were we?”

“Highway Ninety,” says Dorcas.

Sirius loves the studio version of Highway Ninety. Something swampy, very gravels under sliced tires or something. They turned Regulus’ hallucinatory lyrics about a road trip love story into something weirdly concrete, almost crude. Gotta love the dichotomy.

But people gotta move when they go on tour next month. They’ve been trying to give it a bit more oompff all day. Dorcas changed her bass line for something jumpier, Peter plays it just slightly faster, it’s all coming together pretty well. They’re just lacking on the solo.

It’s coming. Sirius knows it’s coming damn it, that’s always when it comes, when he’s stupid tired, drunk on heat and caffeine and whatever he had left on his back pocket that he swallowed dry before they turned the TV on.

Reggie’s right. He was missing something, and the sheer fury he’s feeling in his bone marrow like melted iron might just do the trick.

Sirius passes the strap around his neck and goes to his designated spot, elbow to elbow with James. James pushes his glasses up his nose. Kingsley crosses his arms.

“Peter,” Sirius says, “On three.”

Chapter Text

Remus

Remus isn’t what you’d call difficult. He doesn’t ask for stuff like jars full of only yellow MnM’s, or a pet iguana, or to have the walls of his dressing room painted black so he can focus better. His list of off limit topics, given by Mary to every show producer days before the interview, is reasonably short.

• His mother
• Severus
• The car crash

His old scar, the one he’s had since he was five years old, is up for talk all day long. He still remembers the whole body shivers the first time Lily got the idea to enhance it with glitter instead of trying to conceal it under layers of cakey foundation. He’s never played live or appeared publicly without it, eerie and magical on stage; hardened and popping on album covers and photo shoots. His entire act is based on this scar. Remus Lupin, Moony the Monster.

It feels like it belongs to his fans as much as it belong to him. His very own Sistine Chapel, if he wants to brag.

It’s the recent ones, the additional ones that prompted three new bright lightning bolts on his face as well as the cane he keeps hidden deep in his closet under his red gogo boots and arguably too many hat boxes (if having too many hats is a thing that exists, which he doubts). The cane only Lily knows about.

Those scars are off topic. Simple, right?

“You did amazing anyway,” reinsures Lily as she puts two cigarettes in her mouth, lights them both and hands one to Mary who thanks her with a tender kiss on the temple.

Remus snorts, and he bets Marlene would too if they hadn’t dropped her at the house she shares with Tonks five minutes ago. She exited the limo with a half convinced “I’m sick of your faces, see you never” while Tonks left big smooshes on their cheeks before trotting after her.

Lily and Mary are next, about ten minutes away from Remus’ house in the hills. Mary blows the smoke of her cigarette through the creak of the barely opened window.

“They signed the pre-interview documents anyway. If anything, there’s money there,” she says. She’s so tired her words start to drag, her southern accent creeping back.

Mary’s been their manager since their very first album. When Remus made the girls and Tonks want to strangle him because he refused offer after offer saying he was waiting for the one while they were still playing for free every night on the strip. Lily thanked him after. Had he not waited for Mary, they wouldn’t be where they are now, and she wouldn’t have met the woman she calls her wife.

Lily snuggles against her, her face half hidden in Mary’s neck. “Get them babe.”

“Oh I will.”

“If you need some kneecaps knocked off, just say the word boss,” Arthur chimes in from the driver seat.

They all break in giggles, Arthur included. This man, as tall and lanky as Remus would be without the years of ballet lessons, media training and corseted tops, wouldn’t hurt a fly if it shot him in the head. He was so surprised to know the job he was applying to consisted in driving a rock star and his band on their world tour, so removed from his domestic life as a married, father of seven Irish immigrant, that he frequently jokes about it having turned into a movie.

“Hey Art, do you mind dropping me at Phoenix please?” Remus asks as Lily and Mary’s hacienda appears into view.

Mary, busy gathering her million purses and a sleepy Lily, springs upwards.”You need to sleep, Remus.”

“I’ll sleep when I’m dead.”

“No you don’t,” Mary groans, just as Lily darkly murmurs “Still not funny Rem.”

He goes to put his hand on her calved leg but she wriggles to get out the car, forcing him to squeeze by the door.  

“Lily you’ll wrinkle my suit!”

“I’ll wrinkle your ass.”

He fakes outrage. Truth is the suit is effectively ruined. He’ll never get all that glitter off the linen even if he spends the next ten years roaming the country looking for the Prophetic Miraculous Dry Cleaner.

“I just want to say hi to Kingsley, show him a thing or two. It’ll be an hour, tops.”

“Arthur has a family, you know?”

“You’re a good boss and the pay is fine but yeah, you’re on your own, my contract ended twenty five minutes ago,” says Arthur, a shy smile on his freckled face.

“I’ll just take a cab, don’t worry.”

They all arch eyebrows. Remus hasn’t been able to “just take a cab” in years. Not unless he wants to provoke a riot. That’s what you get when you base your entire career on a very distinctive facial feature that borders on disfiguration.

“Or I’ll ask Kingsley for a ride,” he corrects himself, and Arthur visibly relaxed in his seat as he pulls in the girls’ driveway.

“He’s worse than you,” says Mary. “You’ll never go home.”

“So mote it be.”

Arthur still agrees to drop Remus at Phoenix. Remus, who had already planned to send Arthur and his entire family on a five stars holiday as soon as he can get Molly on the phone for the kids’ school schedule, decides that he’ll also buy him a new car.

Kingsley’s at the studio, because Kingsley’s always at the studio. He’s currently towering over the front desk, his massive frame engulfed in too many cardigans for LA's weather, as Barty, the receptionist, holds the phone tight against his chest as to mute their voices for whoever is on the line.

“I can tell her to fuck off,” Barty offers with his signature deranged smile.

“You absolutely cannot. Give me this phone.”

“You’re no fun.”

“And you’re not as cute as you think. Give me this phone.”

Barty petulantly huffs and gets the phone back to his ear, his thorny voice smoothing to a honeyed parody of politeness. “Mr Shacklebolt will hear you now.”

Kingsley, rolling his eyes profusely, takes the phone and instantly closes them, already tired as his interlocutor starts positively screeching.

“I can’t control what the police does when your men trespass, Miss Skeeter,” he finally says, his voice cavernous.

This tone usually shuts everyone up. Kingsley’s got bass. Barty winces in direction of Remus, both of them sorry for what’s coming in Rita Skeeter’s way as she absolutely does not shut up and keeps talking Kingsley’s ear off.

“It’s a private parking lot, Miss Skeeter. You’ve got a window. It was stipulated- Listen now you cockroach, I won’t go as far as to say you’ve orchestrated the whole thing because that would mean I think you’re capable of it, but if I get wind of anything suspicious let me tell you our layers are really, really good. The day you cross me is the day you can say goodbye to that brand new local of yours. Got it?”

Barty whistles as Kingsley slams the phone on its base.

“Damn boss, you got her.”

“If she calls again you write the time and length of the call and you send it to Rufus.”

“Yes sir.”

“Good. Now!”

Kingsley’s entire demeanor changes. He pats Barty on the shoulder as he sits back at his desk, mumbling “Did good, kid. Did good” and turns to Remus, his blinding smile in stark contrast against his skin as deep as his voice.

“Young Remus!” He exclaims as he wraps him in a tight hug. “How are you my boy?”

“Not feeling so young right now King.”

“Nonsense. Fresh as a daisy.”

Remus takes a second to let himself be embraced.

Kingsley’s the closest thing he’s ever had to a father. They never spoke about it, but it's Kingsley who brought Remus back every time, when even Lily was close to leaving him. Kingsley who looks him dead in the eye when he thinks Remus is fucking up. In life, in his career, in the record booth. “You’re making a mistake, son.” Remus stands his ground, they take whatever they recorded that day and knock on doors to ask people what they think and low and behold, Kingsley is right every time.

It was Kingsley who Remus asked for when he woke up in the ambulance and couldn’t feel half his body.

“How’ve you been doing then?” Remus asks.

“Oh, you know. We live the best life, here. Wonderful, wonderful life. I make music. I help people make music. What could I want more?”

“What indeed.”

They understand each other. Always have. It’s about the music, but it’s also about the people who make it. Mostly about them. That’s why Remus still sits his ass on a tour bus ten hours a day with twelve people and Marlene’s cat while he’s on tour instead of flying first class and showing up at the venue an hour before the show.

Easier, less tiring maybe. But so lonely, too.

“I’m fine, thanks for asking,” says Barty from his desk and Kingsley playfully waves him away like he’s a particularly persistent bug.

“Course you are.” Remus goes to perch himself crossed arms on the front desk. “If anything, you’re the cockroach.”

“Invincible,” Barty confirms.

“You’re alright though?”

“Oh stop that, you’re not my dad, fuck off.”

But Barty smiles as he pretends to be terribly busy straightening piles of papers and sharpening pencils.

“I’ve got a few things to show you actually, King.”

Kingsley chuckles “You haven’t even gotten the award for the last one, kiddo.”

“Yeah but you know,” Remus shrugs. No further explanation needed. Kingsley knows.

“Actually,” he says, his huge hand landing firmly on Remus’ shoulder, “Your room is booked right now. There are some people I’d like you to meet.”

“Oh yes!” Barty jumps up, sending his chair to crash into the wall “Brilliant, can I come?”

“You’re staying here.”

“But-”

“Obviously you can’t come Bartemius, your job is to answer the phone.”

Barty mumbles half heartened protestations as Kingsley guides Remus away from the front desk and into a maze of red carpeted corridors, walls covered in framed platinum records.

His favorite room, isolated on the far end of the block, is indeed crowded. Music sheets everywhere, ashtrays overflowing with barely put out cigarettes, take out containers on every available surfaces. The only thing handled with any semblance of respect are the instruments, numerous, all personalized and covered in doodles and stickers but squeaky clean and carefully kept away from the mess of ashes and coffee stains.

And scattered around the room in various state of typical all-day-rehearsal disarray…

“Remus, this is Peter.” Kingsley has a mischievous twinkle in his dark eyes as he pulls Remus by the drum kit in the corner. “Hell of a good one.”

Remus shakes the hand of a solid round man, Peters’ blue eyes the most earnest he’s ever seen. “Kingsley told me all about you, it’s good to finally meet you!”

“Funny, he never mentioned you.”

Remus surprises himself by giving a full body laugh.

Kingsley then reverently takes him to a bumped out leather couch where an immense woman with dark eyes adorned in a blue homage to Cleopatra is tuning a matte black bass by ear.

“This is Dorcas. Dorcas, Remus.”

“Dorcas, hello,” he says, shaking her ring cladded hand. “Love the makeup.”

“Pleasure,” she answers, and he’s not sure if she’s saying it’s a pleasure to meet him or if it’s her pleasure to allow him to witness her beauty. Either way, he’s sold.

The next hand presents itself to him before Kingsley has a chance to say anything. The man the hand belongs to smiles from ear to ear, eyes covered by opaque sunglasses that manage to not hide an ounce of his elated expression.

“That goon would be James.” Kingsley rolls his eyes fondly.

“James of course, nice to meet you.”

“Pleasure’s all mine!” James bellows with his whole chest. He shakes his hand so vigorously Remus hears his shoulder crack.

“And the hermit over there is Regulus.”

From behind the keyboard, a small man with dark curls and almond eyes waves at him. A wave that could equally mean “I acknowledge your presence” and “come anywhere near me and you’re dead”. Remus waves back. The day he tells Regulus Black his lyrics have changed his life will have to wait.

Remus takes the scene. Dorcas like the goddess of wisdom observing him from the couch, James and his sunglasses reflecting the lamps, Regulus’ academic posture as he stretches his fingers, Peter talking animatedly to Kingsley.

“But then where is…” Starts Remus.

He’s interrupted by the backdoor brutally slammed into the wall. A platform boot and a leg in ripped black jeans erupt from the back alley, then the second leg and boot, then a Fender with stars stickers all over it.

“Alright let’s fucking go. Dorcas I’m with you. James and Pete you keep the ternary. Reg volume up so I can hear you. On three.”

Fingers painted in dark blue start dancing on the chords and just like magic, probably like magic actually, the Marauders seamlessly fall into step.

Dorcas strikes a C Major and lets it linger, then snaps the third, her eyes closed like she’s playing a lullaby and not touching the rock and roll Gods. Regulus slams the keys like a possessed man, all rigidity gone. Peter is implacable, a cutthroat precision miles away from the jesting teddy bear. James, like a metronome, plays the original part of what Remus recognizes to be their song Highway Ninety. Track Five. He always thought it deserved a better solo.

And there it is.

Sirius Black, body bent backward in total communion with his instrument, long dark locks falling over a haughty nose and parted lips. Like magnets, he and James pivot towards each other. Black’s uncanny blue eyes hook James’ through the dark shades and they finish the segment so close their knuckles are practically touching.

Remus is floored seeing their legendary alchemy on stage burns even brighter here. The second the solo is over Black lets go off his guitar so hard it flies halfway around his waist and he latches onto James, both hands around his neck, forehead against forehead so close they could be kissing. Dorcas Pete and Regulus all stop in perfect unison and everyone wait with bated breath, Remus included.

“What do you think?” Black asks, both thumbs digging into James’ dark skin.

“It’s amazing man.”

That, James’ approval, breaks the spell. Dorcas coughs and reaches for her coffee, Peter grunts and stretches on his stool. James, after one last look into Black’s eyes that seems to mean the world to them, peels himself away and walks up to Regulus who stands once again straight like justice behind his keyboard. They immediately start whispering, Regulus smoothing the collar of James’ ridiculous Hawaiian shirt.

Kingsley wraps his arm around Remus’ shoulder, his deep voice complimenting the scene like caramel on a sundae.

“Beautiful life, son.”

And that’s when Sirius Black realizes Remus is here.

Chapter Text

Sirius

Sirius and James used to sneak out at night with the Potter’s boat, back in New Orleans. They’d roam the river with their flashlights looking for alligators, just to see the light reflect in their eyes.

“Sirius,” Lupin purrs.

Purrs, of all things. Remus fucking Lupin, in the flesh and glitter, slithering forward to shake Sirius’ hand. Purring.

“Consider me utterly charmed.”

Once, Sirius had gotten too close to the water and the out worldly orange eyes. He’d almost lost an eye himself.

Sirius thought with age would come the time he didn’t let his temper take the best of him, that he’d learn to deal with the fist clenching, blood boiling things and breathe his way through like Dorcas, or take it and turn it into art like Reg.

He was wrong.

“Fuck off,” he spits.

A loud concert of protestation explodes around them as Lupin's hand falls back at his side, his smile even larger if possible. Kingsley barks a heartfelt “Black, manners!” as James scolds “Padfoot, come on!” and Peter and Dorcas groan various versions of “Seriously” and “What a fucking twat” to Regulus who tiredly starts apologizing on his behalf.

“Why?” Sirius insists. “Why Disgrace?”

“It’s a good song, Sirius.”

The way Lupin pronounces his name. Like he’s whisper singing.

Sirius fishes for the pack of Winstons in his back pocket and lights one with a zippo that was once James. The click of the wheel doesn’t soothe him at all this time.

“It’s not that good,” he chews around the cigarette.

“The studio version maybe.”

“What the hell? Fuck you, seriously!”

“You literally said the exact same thing this morning!” Regulus hisses, exasperated.

He absolutely did and he would say it again. This song was meant to be played live. It’s like touching the sta-

“Live, however, it’s like touching the stars,” singsongs Lupin.

Sirius chokes and coughs around the smoke so hard James has to come and pat him in the back.

How does he do that? Say the exact worst thing at the exact worst time? Is it some strategy or something? And with that smile as well?

It’s one thing to see it on TV. The practiced pantomime. It’s another thing to say something like that to his face, in front of the band and Kingsley. With remnants of makeup glistening under the lamps and kohl lined eyes so brown they’re golden.

“And how can you know that? We haven’t played it live on forever.”

“True.”

Sirius forces himself to blow smoke to the ceiling. Watches it twirl and vanish. One, twice.

Kingsley’s talking with James and Peter, James’ hand on Regulus’ shoulder. Regulus who is currently sipping on some of Dorcas’ coffee, because James loves everyone and exceptionally him, and Dorcas hates everyone but him. Regulus who stares at Sirius with a warning in his eyes.

Don’t fuck this up.

Alright. Breathe in, breathe out, finish the fucking cigarette. He goes to stub it out in the ashtray right behind Lupin, just to show he’s not that bothered. And Lupin doesn’t not move one bit, like he fucking owns the place or something. Way to realize someone has six inches on you, that they’re plastered in freckles in a way you couldn’t have made up from the pictures and that their hair is secretly alight with red.

“You’re gonna make me ask?”

How many “gotcha” smiles can one person throw at you? It takes every ounce of Sirius’ strength not to go punch a wall.

“Alright then. When did you see us play?”

“Last time was in Memphis.”

The entire room goes silent.

The last time.

Memphis.

“Oh fuck,” James shoots.

“Yeah,” Lupin beams.

“We did touch the stars that night,” Peter smiles dreamily.

Even Dorcas smiles at the memory. Dorcas never smiles.

“And all of us with you”, Lupin professes, solemn like a priest.

He fidgets with the inside of his jacket to produce a pack of Marlboros. Sirius crosses the space between them in what, three strides? Just to see the surprise in Lupin’ eyes when Sirius lights up the cigarette he put between his lips.

“Here,” he says.

Lupin takes a long puff, the cigarette flying with a graceful twist of his hand to dissipate the smoke. “How very chivalrous of you.”

“Don’t get used to it.”

“Shouldn’t I?”

There might be a song to write on that shit. The opposite of the world spinning. When someone looks at you and everything just.

Stops.

Sirius has to sit down for a second. Just a second. He plops down on a stool in the corner of the room that nobody goes to because it’s crammed with instruments and you virtually can’t move. He has no idea how he got there. Didn’t feel his legs move. His arms wrap instinctively around the cello.

How does one look like a pearl in a velvet box?

Lupin looks at him over the cello. The playful grin is gone.

Sirius is bad at reading people in general. He’s not the best with emotions. He’s not his brother. He’s not James. The look on Lupin’s face right now, he can’t make what it is, but he knows how he feels about it.

It’s like a punch in the guts.

Lupin turns away so abruptly Sirius sways forward like he’s being pulled along. He snaps back and it hurts. Pinocchio without his strings.

“Oh yes, Regulus I’ve wanted to tell you since ever since, the violin on Chasing Stars? Impressive.”

Lupin’s voice is breathy, cloud light when he lets it free. When he’s not modulating it. When he’s done performing.

When it becomes about the music.

Regulus bows rigidly as James wolf whistles and Dorcas mumble something about inflated ego that makes Peter and Kingsley laugh, Lupin right behind them.

“I hadn’t danced like this in years,” he says, vigorously gesturing at Kingsley who nods, amused.

James and Dorcas both pretend to swoon. It’s not nothing, coming from. You know.

Sirius isn’t a fan of the first hour. He completely missed Lupin’s first record, too busy working three jobs to keep Reggie in music school. No, he hopped on the fascinating life changing world ending bandwagon with the second album. Moonlight Monster.

The cover, for starters. A black and white picture of Lupin’s face cut in half by creeping shadows, only his scarred half visible, eye circled heavily in kohl and a smile so canine and deranged you don’t know whether you should keep staring or look away.

Sirius had kept staring.

Lupin was everything your pastor tells you you shouldn’t be thinking about. The uncanny valley of a midnight movie in an empty theatre, of a sensationalist periodic about cryptids and aliens, of a small town whispering about the beast that lurks in the woods. Way too other, and way too close to home. Sirius had long escaped his parent’s grip at this point but it still tasted like danger, sliding coins to the cashier of the record store, the bag bouncing against his thigh on the way to their one bedroom flat.

To say he wasn’t expecting that would be the understatement of the century. Moonlight Monster is the story of a werewolf and his life with one foot in each world, light and darkness. Monster and man. It’s a fairy tale, a fever dream and a philosophical journey through owning one’s heart all at once. Sirius was hooked in the first seconds, when the agonizing howl of a wolf crying at the moon invaded the shitty living room he shared with James.

He remembers the swirling stillness once the album was over, unsure if he was staring at the floor or the ceiling, facing the fact that his life was changed forever. And right there, when Sirius though he’d felt all he could feel, danced all he could dance and cried all he could cry, came the last blow. The secret tracks.

There’s the complete unprecedented freedom felt by eighteen years old Sirius. And there’s the twenty six years old man, blood boiling watching James’ hand fall on Lupin’s very tangible shoulder as they chat eagerly like they’ve known each other their whole lives.

Too Much Is Sirius’ middle name. But this is beyond.

Before he realizes it, his fingers start pinching the cello’s chords.

“I don’t know how you’ve managed to make a D Major song sound so doomed,” praises Lupin. They’re discussing Holy Father now, their most recent single.

“Oh that would be Dorcas,” Peter explains. “She can make anything sound doomed.”

“It’s Reggie’s lyrics, I can hardly be jumping up and down playing about suicide.”

“I can,” Peter laughs.

“That’s also a prowess. I had to listen to Freaks In The Streets twice to make sure I had heard the lyrics right.”

“Oh yeah, I was feeling frisky.” Peter wriggles his eyebrows, Regulus smacks him on the head.

“It’s nothing you haven’t done, I mean, the escalation on Second Coming was mind blowing.”

“It’s all in the brass,” Lupin explains. “I had my friend Gid in the studio and we tried them all until we settled on the sousaphone. It took hours”

‘Days,” corrects Kingsley in fake pain.

“And I love when you play that trumpet,” interjects Dorcas. “When you come on stage with the black wings and all, and that’s when you get it’s not the second coming of Christ at all, it’s more like the-”

“Apocalypse, yes, thank you! Someone gets it; you have no idea how many people I’ve heard hadn’t got a freaking clue!”

“Nothing like church trauma to make good rock n roll,” Dorcas approves. It throws everyone in a fit, including Kingsley with his silver cross always around his neck.

Sirius’s nose is hitching. He’s too high for this, and not enough at the same time. Part of him wants to go home, empty the pill box in his nightstand, close his eyes and listen to Janis Joplin. Throw his soul in the washing machine.

He also wants to take apart the man in the lilac suit. To peel the layers of freedom and awe and hope and wait, you can do that? until there’s only tendrils and cartilage and veins and bones. Fingers on strings. Vocal chords. Beating heart.

“They started asking me to come to the confessional every week when I was six,” Lupin laughs.

“Oh you beat us, we were ten!” Regulus deplores, James shaking his head in sympathy.

No! Don’t tell him our secrets! Traitors! That’s not how it’s supposed to go, I'm supposed to know him! The alien, the alligator! Don’t spill it out for him, he’ll only use it, like he used Disgrace, like he’s using you!

Sirius has worked too hard for this. For the only things standing between him and his lifelong dream to be chatting with his family, his band, his producer, looking so…

So.

It makes no sense. He wants him so close, he wants him open like a book, he wants him to get rid of his collection of masks and personas, the costumes, the decorum. He wants him newborn bare and raw. And he wants him gone. Gone far away, until they win the fucking Grammy and he comes to shake his hand, head bowed in contrition.

Defeated.

Maybe it shouldn’t matter. Maybe, as Kingsley says, the only thing that does is the music and the people who make it.

Sirius hasn’t been that selfless a day in his life.

Sorry Reggie. Looks Like I'm going to fuck this up.

The bow appears in his hands just like magic.

He starts slow. Feeling the low vibrations against his chest as he embraces the cello. When he closes his eyes, they’re dry like he’s been staring at the sun for too long. His fingers lace around the neck.

The first notes to Tell Me A Secret, track 4 of Lupin’s third record, glide out of him like in a dream.

If the bastard has come to brag, Sirius will give him something to brag about. I’ll give you mind blowing you haughty son of a bitch. Look at your award winning song.

Listen how it sounds when I play it.

I’ll show you charmed.

He picks it up right away and goes in fast. Rough. Bloody. Nothing like the resigned sadness of the original version. Sirius cuts his heart open on his instrument. Empties his veins, spills his guts, gives everything the song lacks. Teeth. Bite. Purpose. From tender melancholy, he makes it raging. Screaming agony. All or nothing.

Life or death.

The secret is no longer something simply longed for, something he will patiently wait after. Something that will remain just as beautiful if it remains untold. No, this secret will be ripped out of your throat if it’s the last thing he does, motherfucker. Because there is nothing else. There can be nothing else. So I’ll either hear it, or die trying.

Watch me. Fucking watch me.

Sirius bends with the cello, knees spread and hair lose, strands in his eyes as his hands go faster. The screams get louder. The secret burns harder. It’s the end and the beginning of everything. It will swipe it all clean in its wake. End worlds. Defeat gods.

The secret is secret no more.

He’s never played like this. Maybe because he hadn’t felt like this in so long. Flayed. Exposed. Lost.

It’s with claws as his own chest cavity and at the neck of his instruments that he crests the bridge of the song. It’s with claws that he allows himself to open his eyes.

Lupin’s face is everything.

Now, we understand each other.

Cello like a weapon in his arms, whole body thrown into it, the melodic pleading of the last chorus turn into shouts in his hands. Excavated shouts. Tell me a secret. He goes deeper, faster. Harder. Tell me a secret. Escalates in intensity, Lupin’s eyes wide open as he reaches the last note.

TELL ME THE SECRET.

Sirius stops, bow in the air.

There’s complete silence. Regulus is writing furiously in his notebook. James’ face is burried in his hands.

Lupin stands incredibly still, arms crossed. Tall. Head held high. He inhales, making himself even taller. 

Challenge accepted, then.

God it feels good. Sirius' blood rushes like crazy, beating up in his temples. He’s vibrating with adrenaline, breathing stars and gnawing at the music gods’ robes. That was good! So good he could smash the cello.

He doesn’t. Sirius gets up, clasps his guitar back in its case and slams the door behind him.

Chapter Text

Remus 

Remus waits three fashionable days to have a hundred black roses delivered to Sirius Black’s doorstep. Three days spent in an agonizing daydream that resulted in the writing of way way too many cello and piano duets. But as Lily told him when he whined about it on the phone “You can’t just wait for him to notice you. You’re Remus fucking Lupin.”

It went like this.

“I met someone.”

“I leave you for five minutes!”

“I know.”

“And you meet someone?”

“I didn’t mean to.”

“You never mean to.”

“It’s not like that. Kingsley introduced us.”

“Rem, we said no more artists!”

“I know, damn, it’s not my fault they’re everywhere!”

“Who is it, do I know them?”

“Promise you won’t judge.”

“I physically cannot do that. Spill.”

“So. The Marauders.”

The distinct sound of someone choking and coughing on their drinks. “Excuse me?”

“They were using the red room at Phoenix, so Kingsley introduced us.”

“Which one.” Remus audibly winced. “Rem, which one? Tell me it’s not the guitarist.”

“What’s wrong with James?”

“Oh, James is it?”

“It’s his name, Lil.”

“Tell me you’re not fucking him.”

“Why?”

“His fashion sense is atrocious.”

“Therefore I am not fucking him, obviously.”

“Who is it then? The sick Victorian child on keys?”

Remus snorted. Regulus does have an impeccable sense of fashion in fact, if you don’t like colors or, really, joy.

“I haven’t fucked anyone.”

“Rem. Stop sighing. You sound like a Disney princess.”

“I don’t sound like-”

“It’s Black, isn’t it.”

“Yeeees?”

“Why? Why do you do this to me? We just got home!”

“He yelled at my face. He hates me.”

“Oh boy.”

“Ripped me a new one with a cello.”

“What?”

“It’s a long story.”

“Is that why you haven’t left the house? Barty is worried.”

“What do I do?”

And Lily was right, because she always is. So he bribed Barty into sending the flowers and the next morning he put on his best pants, the pleated ones that hug his waist just right, his peacock feather earring and way too much mascara and headed back to Phoenix.

Kingsley and him spent all day alternating between console and record booth working on the nameless shadow of a song, something he came up with on the tour bus but that didn’t feel right for Takes One To Know One. And since he’s forbidden to propose any new official project until further notice by literally everyone, he supposes this bit will go to whoever wants it.

Remus settles on his stool for the top lines, fiddling with the pedals. They’ve recorded a base lines and pretty good drums. He waits as Kingsley adjusts the sliders.

“Ready when you are kid.”

“So, I was thinking-”

“If you ask me to put Black on the cello I'll disown you.”

“But daddy, I love him!”

“Oh shut it,” Kingsley laughs.

The firm knock on the door makes Remus jump out of his skin.

He spent literally every second since he first met Sirius Black thinking about him. Dreaming of dancing cellos in Dante’s inferno, twirling in his silk robes to Just Lovers blasted at full volume, talking Lily’s ears off and then Tonks’ when Lily had enough of his lovesick rambling. Swooning every time he crossed path with a chord instrument, which made his collection of antique harpsichords a real problem. Spending an ungodly amount of time writing the little note he sent with the flowers.

No matter how much he’s been fantasizing about it, seeing Sirius in the flesh is a slap in the face.

“Am I interrupting?”

“No!” shouts Remus rather pathetically as Kingsley goes “Yes.”

Sirius blinks and steps inside for good. “Sorry King, just wanted to know if I could…” he vaguely gestures towards the record booth and Remus. His nail polish is a deep purple today.

Remus puts a hand on his chest like why, little old me? and Sirius glares at him.

Kingsley keeps his finger firmly on the communication button “What are we?”

“King, really…”

“I said what are we?”

“Professionals,” both Remus and Sirius chant in the same dire tone, much to Remus’ surprise. The tour happened in a vacuum. Remus forgets the world kept spinning without him. He forgets that Sirius and the band have been around for long enough that they’ve probably had this scolding many, many times.

“That’s right. So see that you are.”

The second the door is closed, Sirius is all over him. Remus barely sees him enter the record booth.

“What are you doing?”

“Showing my admiration.”

“How did you find my address?”

“I didn’t. I had Barty handle the delivery.”

“You think this a game, do you?”

“Isn’t it?”

“Certainly not.”

“How dull.”

This last bit, Remus is quite good at. Cocking his head as he watches a gorgeous man completely lose his bearings.

Remus isn’t pretty. He’s not beautiful, per say. Too sharp, too pointy. Too scarred. He looks like a fork you’d shove in a plug socket. So he compensates by being mysterious. By the way he moves. The black swan, Lucifer, whatever ballet rocks your socks off. How he looks at people; with intention. Intensity.

Just the slight tilt of his head, just the right amount of canine smile. Works every time.

Sirius crosses his arms. Unfolds them. Fidgets with a patch on his jacket that’s already hanging on by a thread. Then his hands fall on Remus’ guitar where it’s still strapped across his chest.

Correction. Remus is wholly unequipped. He forgets how to breathe, how to blink, how to stand, wishing with every atom of his body Sirius would just start and play. Destroy another song. Anything. My entire catalogue is yours. Damn, do ABBA at this point, I’ll be on my knees all the same if not more. I’d love to know your take on ABBA.

Sirius takes a step back instead. Remus runs his tongue on the edge of his teeth.

“If you‘re gonna play, I’d rather record you this time.”

“Yeah, about that. I was supposed to apologize.”

“What’s stopping you?”

“What do you think?”

“Your ego? The flowers?”

“Honestly? Both.” Sirius’ hand flies to his hair, pushing it away just so it can cascade back on his shoulders, revealing multiple loops cresting the shell of his left ear.

Remus grips the neck of his guitar with everything he’s got. “For the record, I thought it was magnificent.”

“I was told it was immature and really fucking stupid.”

“Not for me. Although you left before I could offer any feedback, so…”

Sirius’ hands are moving again and Remus’ heart is about to drop off his mouth. But he doesn’t come near Remus or his guitar again. Instead, he reaches for his back pocket and produces Remus’ note, opening it to show the shaky words written on it as if Remus didn’t spend hours raking his brain for something witty and intriguing only to give up and go for the first thing that crossed his mind.

It was like touching the stars

“Is that supposed to be your feedback?”

“Kind of.”

“Care to elaborate?”

“Don’t you think it was?”

Sirius puts the note back in his pocket so quickly it’s like he’s scared Remus is going to snatch it off his hand. “So you weren’t kidding?”

“About Disgrace? Or the band? Or about you?”

“… Yes.”

“You shouldn’t care, you know.”

Sirius throws his hand in the air so close to Remus’ face he’s tempted to just lean into them.  “Do you ever speak like a normal person?”

“Not by recent accounts, no.”

“You’re a walking puzzle. Like a labyrinth made man.”

Remus’ jaw falls open, eyelashes furiously fluttering on their own accord. “Thank you so much,” he breathes, a smile wide as the pits of hell blossoming on his face.

“I don’t particularly like puzzles.”

And all playfulness deflates instantly. “Oh. I see.”

“Always makes me want to pick them apart. Crack the code.”

Unless…

“Crack me then.”

That, somehow, gets him his first real Sirius Black laughter.

Life altering. The smile so wide the blue eyes turn into crescent moons above his cheekbones, both hands shoved into jean pockets pulling them down just so that a sliver of skin appears above the waistband.

“Maybe I will.”

Remus all but dies. What a death, by the way. Love struck, merging his soul with his guitar, forever haunting the studio. Beautiful.

“I really am, by the way. Sorry. I can be an asshole sometimes.”

It takes an alarming amount of time to understand what on earth Sirius would be sorry about “It’s alright. I wouldn’t have known how to react either.”

In fact, please do it again.

“You probably wouldn’t have made a scene though.”

It’s Remus’ turn to laugh “Oh you really don’t know me at all.”

He may or may not crowd closer, both absolutely mesmerized by the mirth lightning up the blue eyes and in a desperate attempt to have Sirius put his hands on the guitar again.

Without missing a beat, Sirius does exactly that.

“Yet,” he says.

They’re show men. They know there’s something crucial called timing. Sirius’s fingers dance along the guitar’s neck to the unmistakable riff of Elvis' A Little Less Conversation. A little more action please.

What to do but blindly obey? 

But the moment Remus dives for the kiss, Sirius lets go and walks backwards to the door, eyes not leaving Remus’.

“Thanks for the roses.”

Remus can’t make up a good come back before the door closes behind a hurricane of bitten lip and black leather.

It takes him a good fifteen minutes to notice there’s a note tucked in the pocket of his pants. To think Sirius' hand went there and he didn't even feel it makes him squeal out loud. He opens the note with shaky hands, heart running like a rabbit on steroids, and screams again when he sees what's inside, next to a poorly drawn star. 

May the best musician win

Chapter Text

Sirius

Sirius’s skin is scraping at his bones.

The red carpet was fun. They all looked absolutely gorgeous. Dorcas needed three people to set her sixteen feet long train for pictures. Regulus and James perfectly matched in negative, James’ red suit ornamented with black roses when Regulus had red roses on black, both sporting a pair of round sunglasses so that James wouldn’t be the only one wearing them. Peter walked in like the fucking King, regal with a top hat and a cane, owning the space so much that a staff member tripped and fell when he passed by her, the photographs going wild when he caught her in a swift movement. Sirius changed his mind about his outfit halfway through the ride to the venue and wriggled in the limo to shed shirt and tie and keep only the black vest of his three piece suit, tattoos in full display under the cameras, solidarity sunglasses low on his nose so the half hour it took Dorcas to do his eyes wouldn’t go to waste.

He missed Remus’ arrival, but he certainly didn’t miss him sitting down first row with his band. He looked… Blasphemously angelic, the way only Remus Lupin can. Strikingly genderless, perfectly alien. Blue lightning bolts flashing under the lights, pristine white suite, white fedora. Sinful red lips. As in, lipstick red. Expensive ass crimson lips.

Sirius fell in James’ arms and has yet to recover.

The meal was good, too fancy for what it was but, as Regulus said after chewing slowly like the filet was trying to poison him, “passable”. Peter and Dorcas become real petty bitches when they’re drunk on champagne, so they commented on everything until James and Sirius were roaring in laughter. They cheered and whooped for every winner, going absolutely ballistic every time Kingsley hopped on stage –which was often, half the room owed him their career after all. He ended his short speeches always with the same transfigured “We’re living a wonderful life”.

Truly. Yes.

Fleetwood Mac had them all crying hysterically, Dorcas’ nails sinking into Sirius’ skin where they held hands across the table because Stevie. They all danced to Gloria Gaynor, the entire audience singing at the top of their lungs. Toto gave a lukewarm performance that still had James bounce on his chair like a kid and he was quite the only one until Debbie Harry got on stage and shook the place to the ground, as she tends to do.

Sirius could feel Remus’ eyes on him sometimes. He’d chosen the seat with its back to his table because he knew he wouldn’t pay any attention to anything if he had him in direct view. That was a mistake. His skin has been prickly and tight the entire night.

Good fun, overall.

The problem is that the ceremony lasts hours. And you can be as much of a good sport as they come, but when you’ve been cheering for people you’ve never met for what feels like days, Blondie’s performance long forgotten and the only exciting thing that happened is your stupid best friend moving closer and closer to your stupid brother’s until they're literally a breath away from each other's faces because they can’t just talk like normal people and the entire table was just waiting for them to finally do something about it, you get bored.

Sirius doesn’t do bored.

The award for best album is at the very end. Hours to go. At first, he fidgets, James immediately putting his hand on his knee to calm him down. Then, he starts playing with his rings, his necklaces, taking them off, making them cling. Then he borrows Reggie’s pen and scribbles on the napkins until Dorcas tells him they’re actually linen so he stops. The prospect of sitting in this chair for a minute more cuts his breath. The longer it goes, the louder the little pouch in his back pocket call to him.

That’s when the scraping begins.

He tries to laugh at something Peter says but it sounds like a dying car running out of gas. James shoots him a worried glance –or what he assumes is a worried glance, but he hasn’t needed to see James’ eyes to know how he feels for about a decade now so.

“Pads, you alright?”

“Bitchin. I’ll be right back, Jamie, yeah?”

“Want me to come with you?”

In the midst of skin pulling and bones dusting away, Sirius wants to hug James. Because Regulus’ hand is on his arm and Sirius knows James would rather never move ever again, even if James doesn’t quite know it himself. And yet still he offers, and he would come if Sirius asked.

“I’m fine. Just need a break.” Sirius straightens his hands to stop them from scratching his arms “Powder my nose and all that.”

“Don’t splash water on your face, you need to look pretty up there,” Dorcas reminds him.

“Yes m’lady.” She waves him away and goes back to her whisper match with Regulus.

His entire body is stiff as he makes his way to the bathroom. Corridors with joints screaming like badly oiled robotic arms, stairs with his heart pounding in an empty rusty cage. He wouldn’t be surprised if he left a trail of gasoline behind him.

There’s someone in the golden bathroom. Sirius has the instant urge to bark a good “get the fuck out of here” before he realizes who it is.

A red lipstick glides on parted lips in the mirror, blue glitter ablaze under the light bulbs, splattered all over the sink. Long legs in gogo boots cross at the ankle. This close, Sirius can see the entire suit is embroidered with discreet silver motives, like clouds, or thorns. Heaven and hell.

There’s a unique star pinned on his lapel. Sirius' breath hitches.

A thousand songs couldn’t sum up the rush in his veins when Remus realizes he’s here.

He looks different in the mirror. The scars don’t shape his face the same. His smirk isn’t crooked the right way.

It stabs through the ribs all the same though.

Remus’ eyes trail along Sirius, thoroughly epidermal, detailing every part, every tattoo, every piece of jewelry. Gliding along his neck where loose strands escaped from the messy bun to caress Sirius’ skin. He takes his sweet sweet time, which is good because Sirius is helpless to remember how to function right now.

“You’re gonna win you know?”

Sirius runs his thumb across the crescent moon on his collarbone. One, two, three times.

“Are we?”

“Oh yes.”

He slides his hand under his vest. Remus’ eyes follow the movement, animal.

“Stop that.”

“I’m not doing anything.” Remus finishes applying his lipstick, smacks his lips together, backs away with an appreciative look at his reflection and spins around like a ballerina to face Sirius. He leans nonchalantly against the sink. “Yet,” he completes.

Sirius’ head is spinning “Oh my God you did not just say that.”

Remus only grins.

Sirius laughs and leans with his back against the wall, opposite side of the room, mirror on mirror. “So that’s what you do? Mess with people’s head and get them off in the bathroom later?”

“Oh I’m messing with your head? Sorry I don’t have any instruments on me this time.”

I bet I could make you sing real pretty, though.

There’s a heavy silence of glittery scars and the glint of a silver star on white silk and a heart beating a thousand beats per second. That damn fedora. Sirius wants to take it off and get all up on him. His hair must be so soft, those curls damnit.

Remus seems ever so amused. “Gotcha”, always. Sirius takes a step forward. He’d walk to him on embers, on blades. For this crimson smile, he’d crawl through hell and back.

Well. That escalated quickly.

But then, Sirius doesn’t care. Doesn’t care a bit. He’s not James. Slow burn has never been his thing.

It took a while for the sting of the interview to subdue. Many angry pulling at his guitar, many Patti Smith sessions, many late night chain smoking by the pool with James and many quiet scolding from Regulus. Eventually, he had to admit Remus didn’t mean anything bad.

He almost started having remorse for the cello thing until the world was kicked right off its axis again, with black roses this time. Who does that? Who takes whatever the hell that was and just goes “let’s send this idiot a bouquet the size of Brazil”? No one had given Sirius flowers before in his life. It was weeks ago and he still finds petals on every corner of his room, inside drawers, on the inner pocket of his jacket.

The card wasn’t even signed. That’s how fucking confident Remus is.

So Sirius played. Hands on Remus’ guitar, so close he could smell his perfume, something bougie and probably French, the long peacock feather at his ear tickling Sirius’ cheek. A little Elvis, because nobody can resist Elvis.

He regrets every day that he didn’t kiss him right there. He made the mistake once, for the sake of panache and spectacle and also a little bit so he could be able to say “I denied him, me” but enough now. He’s had enough.

“I’m not getting you off in a bathroom, Sirius.”

Sirius freezes as Remus pushes himself away from the sink and starts walking up to him. The fine hair in his neck are up on end as Remus gets closer. One touch could probably reduce him to ashes. How long does it take to cross this room? How many more steps before impact? Those eyes… Those eyes! Sharp and alight and deadly.

But the impact never comes. Barely a brush of fabric against Sirius’ forearm that makes him shiver from head to toe. Remus walks right by him. Where the door was supposed to close behind him, there’s a beat of silence. Sirius turns to see Remus watching him pensively from the threshold.

“Yet,” Remus says.

Sirius spends the rest of the ceremony is a robotic state. He is way too aware of Remus and his team a few tables away from him, the flaming redhead Lily Evans in a ruby satin suit with her partner, a beautiful black woman Sirius has never seen before, her afro gloriously enhanced by golden flickers catching the light. They’re not even shy about it, holding hands over the table for everyone to see. Tonks, their drummer, their hair bright pink with a lightning bolt on their face of colors opposite to Remus’ shimmering blue. Marlene, the bass player, always scowling, her icy eyes mapping the crowd.

Catching him watching.

He immediately looks elsewhere, but he slunk in his chair at an angle where he can still see. He’s not watching, but he sees Marlene bend towards Remus and whisper to him. And he feels Remus’ eyes on him for the rest of the night like hands on skin.

He realizes when the album of the year nominees start rolling that he completely forgot why he was in that damn bathroom in the first place.

*

"Album of the year baby!!!"

Dorcas shares pills like the goddess of debauchery at the after after party, curves hugged by a cream crochet dress leaving nothing to the imagination, her locks tied in a monumental bun on top of her head. Sirius kneels before her, arms spread and neck bare, and she gracefully places something pink on his tongue before turning to another worshipping adept. Then he’s with James on a balcony doing lines off each others’ hands, James’ body burning against his, city lights a blur under them. Then he’s lapping salt on some girl’s neck, bites the lime and kisses her, tequila mixed with cherry chap stick. Then Regulus appears out of nowhere, his pupils blown into oblivion, and produces a bottle of champagne they down just the two of them, on the floor with their backs against a bedroom door. Then the bedroom door opens and Sirius is pulled inside by a movie star and her boy toy for the night and they take more pills and next thing he knows he emerges from the threesome having lost vest and shoes and crashes into Remus fucking Lupin.

Like, literally, full chest running crashes into him.

“You!” he screams over the music “Where were you two hours ago?”

“At another party.” Remus’ glittery scars are just a little too outworldly in this light. He’s changed out of the sinful white suit and into navy pleated pants and a psychedelic shirt that makes Sirius close his eyes.

He reopens them immediately because it’s Remus fucking Lupin and he simply must feats on every second he gets of him.

The star pin is still there. 

“Are you alright?” Remus asks, and he’s holding Sirius forearms, and Sirius could swoon and fall at his feet. He’s already swaying like a ship at sea. It’s the music. It’s… swayey.

“I’m so alright. Have you seen the new James Bond?”

The words are slurred both too fast and too slow, but Remus smiles and he’s still wearing the lipstick and damn. Sirius has lipstick marks all over his body and he so, so wishes he could add more. Crimson ones.

It’s a hell of a night to finally know what it’s like to touch you.

He makes a note to repeat that to Reggie later. He might just do something with it.

“I’ve seen the posters.”

“You don’t go to the movies?”

“Rarely.”

“What do you do then? When you’re not, you know.” Sirius gestures vaguely in Remus’ general direction.

Remus laughs and looks sheepish suddenly, like he’s about to say something uncool like crochet or taxidermy.

“I make music.”

“You nerd.”

“Yes.”

That damn smile. Damn damn crooked smile.

“Hey.” Sirius tugs at the stupid dream inducing shirt “Take me somewhere.”

“Where?”

“Anywhere. I don’t care. I’m hot, are you hot?”

Remus chuckles and it vibrates through Sirius’ entire body. “Where are your things? Not that you were so covered in the first place, but I remember less tattoos on display earlier.”

“No idea. Hold on.”

He disappears into the bedroom where the movie star and her boy are sound asleep, finds exactly one shoe and goes back to Remus who welcomes him with the biggest brightest laugh, the kind you can only respond in kin to.

“You’re not really that moon-like, Remus Lupin. You seem very sunny to me.”

The way Remus looks at him, Sirius fears he just said something horrendous. At least. Something that warrants a word that long. But then Remus shakes his head and grabs his wrist.

“Okay, come on.”

Chapter Text

Remus

The Marauders win.

The cheeky brunette handing the trophy aims for Sirius but he dodges it and the band parts as one man to push Regulus upfront. He delivers as clipped and short a speech as could be expected, James’ arm slung around his neck and Sirius beaming at him when he isn’t blinking at the ceiling to stop tears from falling.

“And to the lost kid in the middle of nowhere who wonders if there’s a way out. There is. You’ll find the door. You are the key.”

The audience explodes in cheers. Much to the dismay of the cameras trying to catch him being a sore loser, Remus wolf whistles with his whole chest.

Everyone in this room and beyond knows about the Black brothers’ upbringing. They all heard the story of the night they ran away to James’. They know about the hope, the warmth, and the devastation when the Potters passed away four years later, leaving three boys orphaned instead of one. It’s like Remus’ scar; the question they’ll never escape.

That must be why none of their songs seem to be happening in daylight. You don’t write about sunrise if you were reborn at midnight.

Sirius’ eyes find Remus as they walk back to their table. Remus raises his glass. With two fingers, Sirius taps his vest where Remus pinned a star on his own.

Mirrors.

Oh God.

“Lil, this is bad. This is so bad.”

“No. Stop this. Buy the man a drink before you lose it, yeah? At least make sure he’s not in a cult this time.”

“Fuck you.” She blows him a kiss.

They pile in the limo like kittens, Mary screaming at them to look out for Lily’s ankle, Marlene yelling about her dress being wrinkled. She refused to tell who sent the ginormous ruby necklace she’s wearing over the turtle neck of her black dress. The photographs lost it over the cut in the back, so low she’s about an inch away from exposing her ass.

First stop is the girls’ where big fat burgers wait for them along with a good shower and a change of clothes.

“Every year I write to the committee and beg, and every year the food is atrocious,” Tonks moans around their strawberry milk shake. They switched their red thunderbolt for a green clay mask and cucumber slices that clash deliciously with their pink spiky hair.

“You could make a better filet in your sleep with your hands tied.” Remus catches a fry Lily throws at his mouth, hand on the towel wrapped around his head. Tonks vigorously points their finger at him.

“Right? Thank you!”

“Where are we going after? I heard Barry’s throwing a-”

“Nope, not Barry. The music always sucks.”

Even Arthur, green clay on his face and a mouthful of bacon, nods to that.

“I know a place,” Marlene casually says, elegantly dabbing the corners of her mouth with a napkin.

There is no such thing as refusing to go to one of Marlene’s parties. So they finish their burger, fight for a spot in the mirror to reapply makeup, lace up boots and corsets and hop on the limo once again, giggles ringing like bells.

Lily leans into his hear when she sees him fiddle with the star at his collar “I thought you were gonna wear the dress?”

He packed two outfits for tonight. The one he’s wearing now, nice but practical, and a lacy black gown that was once qualified as “devastatingly morbid” and “life ruining” by an ex who then went and made two movies about it. Lily insisted they watched them; women wear the dress on screen, tentative vixens that both end up murdering the transfixed main character, so it’s not about Remus per say. But if you know whose dick was in whose mouth that fateful week in Pasadena, you know.

“Changed my mind. The dress doesn’t bear witnesses.”

“Oh you’re bad.”

He pokes his tongue at her.

No Sirius at Marlene’s party but the light work is perfect and the music is top notch. Remus dances his ass off with Tonks, matching thunderbolts ablaze under the mirror balls. He’s drunk on disco and love and the flip of his heart every time a dark haired head appears in the crowd. He spots Mary and Lily furiously making out against a wall on his way to the bar for Tonks’ dirty martini and a diet coke. Some business man accosts him and slides a card in Remus’ pocket. He feels twenty two again.

It lasts until the hero in charge of the music is replaced by someone who doesn’t understand the importance of a good transition. Mary gathers them with a sneer and the trip to the next party is spent looking out the windows and screaming as soon as they spot a milkshake place. Lily wipes vanilla off of Mary’s upper lip and licks her finger with such intensity it is decided they’ll be dropped back at their place.

They lose Marlene an hour later to the loving arms of a tennis champion. Tonks vanishes as soon as they enter the third party, drawn to the hot tub like a moth to a flame.

Remus squeezes a lemon in a glass of water and wanders around, looking at people. There’s something sloppy at this hour of the night. The hungriest lovers have left, heads are bopping to Sony and Cher, the entire place smells like patchouli. It’s like walking in a house haunted by placid ghosts.

Sirius barges out of a room on the second floor like thunder, half naked and covered in hickeys and proceeds to compare Remus to the sun. One look at his pupils is enough for Remus to decide he needs to get him the hell away from here.  

As they wait for Arthur by the front gates, Remus drapes his jacket over Sirius’ shoulders. He startles, his hand hesitantly patting the fabric like he’s never touched a jacket before. “It’s soft,” he murmurs.

Once in the car, Sirius turns completely silent. He opens the window and sticks his arm out into the night, following the variations of the wind running along the flanks, blue eyes hooked on the bundling lights. He undoes his bun in a swift movement, the black strands flying everywhere, reflecting the buzzing neons.

There’s a song in there somewhere, Remus thinks.

Sirius comes back alive when Arthur takes a turn in Phoenix’s back alley.

“Seriously?”

“Very.”

“Nerd.”

The windy ride had the merit of taking Sirius’ down a notch. He doesn’t just fall in whatever direction he is shown and his words resemble actual English when he thanks Arthur for the ride. He leans onto the wall, arms crossed under the jacket floating on his shoulders like a cape, his stare drilling holes in Remus’ face as he opens the backdoor that leads directly to the red room.

“Stay here.”

“Yes sir.”

Remus looks for the tallest cup in the break room and fills it with water. He grabs a few chocolate bars from Barty’s secret stash behind the Lysol under the sink. When he’s back at the door he marks a pause, hand on the doorknob.

Take a deep breath. Lower your shoulder blades. Chin high. Go.

Sirius waits in the middle of the room, jacket properly buttoned, sleeves rolled up to his elbows. The blue eyes envelop Remus like a wave.

A snake coils into his left palm while runes ornate his knuckles on the right hand. A crescent moon peaks out the lapel of the jacket, a constellation Remus doesn’t know the name of on the opposite collarbone. A chain of runes runs down his solar plexus, disappearing under the jacket where he closed the second button. His pale skin glistens with sweat.

He’s a mess. A beautiful addictive mess.

“Here, drink.”

“Thank you.”

Sirius doesn’t break eye contact as he raises the glass to his lips. Remus swings on his feet and goes to seek solace by the wall of guitars.

The water is spat out as soon as it’s drunk. “What the fuck is that?”

“Water.”

“Jesus Christ, warn me next time!”

Remus picks up an acoustic. The high E needs changing and the strings, of course, are right behind Sirius. The way there is excruciating. Sirius is tense like a bow, his eyes scream finally, come here, eat me now. It takes everything in Remus to kneel by the bottom drawer and grab a pack.

“So we’re really here to play music?”

“Uh huh.” Remus has to laughs at the way Sirius’ face crumbles “You told me to take you somewhere. Had to be more specific.”

“So if I’d said “Hey lover, take me home and specifically bend me over the piano”?”

The damaged chord, released from its tension, snaps in the air.

Deep. Breath.

“You’re awful at that you know?”

“At what?”

“Flirting.”

“What are we, sixteen?” His hand drags along the electrics on the wall. Remus watches the long fingers as they fill the room with pearling sounds. 

“Don’t you like a bit of romance sometimes?”

Sirius plucks a fender off the wall, weights it, makes a face and puts it back to grab another. This time he nods like that’ll do and plops himself on an amp to tune it. “Not particularly, no.”

“Not the impression I got.”

Blue eyes shoot straight to Remus’ heart as Sirius looks up through black strands falling across his face.

“Just come play, Remus.”

Remus is a dirty, dirty liar because that’s flirting if he’s ever seen it, those eyes burning his skin.

He drags a chair to where Sirius is perched on his amp like a heathen. “So, what are we doing?”

“Stevie?”

“Wonder?”

“Nicks.”

“After you.”

Remus thought the cello was some sort of once in a lifetime epiphany. He was dead wrong. Watching Sirius annihilate his song out of spite was magnificent, but playing with him? Losing it together? Scream about Rhiannon and her lovers and discover Sirius can go banshee high and smile through it?

After, they do Wonder. Signed, sealed, fucking delivered. I’m yours.

Sirius is fidgety, he’s loud, he has five hundred ideas a second but that’s the thing. It’s not sink or swim with him. He takes you in, swipes you off your feet and laughs and cheers when you give back. And he knows when to take a step back. He’s dead good at harmonies. Backups when Remus loses it on Dancing Barefoot.

They’re about ten songs in when they stop playing other’s people music, and about twenty minutes into the loop when they stop looking at their guitars. Remus doesn’t even try to mask the stutter in his voice when the blue eyes hook him behind dark locks.

He backs up Sirius on a melancholic descent of notes, like rain on sea, like teardrops. Sirius starts humming at a riff Remus makes up, just the right base so that Remus can take it to a groovier place, something peeping, insolent. Garage, almost.

They migrate to the piano and Remus’ heart about shatters when Sirius brings the cello and sits next to Remus on the stool, back turned to the keys, and props the cello bent between his legs.

A silent question. A nod. A missing beat.

Remus starts playing. Sirius closes his eyes. His breath aligns with the tempo, chest rising and falling with Remus’ hands. He drapes his arms around his instrument.

There’s orgasms, there’s drugs, and there’s this. Vibrating, moving together like water. Perfect communion. Sirius is possessed, Remus is lost to reality. Their bodies are closer than they’ve ever been, touching more than they’ve ever touched, and it doesn’t hold a candle to the thrill of the music they make. It tastes like stars, like nebulas, like forever.

Kingsley’s voice makes reality snap like an elastic. “That better not be you I hear in there Remus!”

He barges in, cars keys and coffee cups still in his hand, sunlight pooling in the room from behind him. One look at them and he rolls his eyes so hard only the white appears for a second.

“They’re multiplying now. Great.”

“Hi Boss.”

“Congratulations kid. I’m glad to see this little quarrel is ov-”

Remus catches the exact moment Kingsley’s smile falls when he takes in the state of Sirius. The pupils, the sweat, Remus’ jacket, the missing shoe. He crosses the room way too fast and next thing he knows, Remus’ face is being held to the light and his own pupils are being examined. Remus lets him. Relaxes into the firm touch.

“S’alright, King.”

Kingsley scans him a little bit longer, how steady his hands are on the keys, if he’s sitting straight on his stool. Finally, he lets go. “Good, good,” he says.

Behind his massive silhouette, Sirius’ eyes are piercing. Analyzing. Making assumptions. Remus wonder how close he got, given his feet haven’t touched God’s green earth in about eight hours if Remus had to guess.

“What time is it?”

“Ten to eight.”

Bingo.

“You stole the show last night Kingsley! That was a record, no?”

“Record is 71. Nah, this year I only had six.”

“If you add the ones we got, you’re closer to fifteen.”

“You’re not getting in my good graces with flattery Black.”

“You love me.”

Kingsley scoffs, but he pulls a handkerchief out of his front pocket and offers it to Sirius. He wipes pearls of sweat off his forehead and goes to give it back, Kingsley waves him to keep it.

“Alright. You two go home now. I’ve got a session planned at nine and I don’t need you all up in my air.”

“But King-”

“I said home!”

“I just need to write something down real quick,” hurries Sirius, reaching for his guitar and the stack of music sheets at the same time. Remus swings his leg over the stool and grabs two pens, lands him one and takes a few sheets for himself.

Kingsley leaves with one last “And what are we?”

“Professionals!”

They write down all they can remember, papers rumpled on knees and amps. Remus helps Sirius remember a certain cascade in c minor, Sirius hums back a riff Remus was quite happy with.

Forty five minutes later, Remus hangs up with Arthur’s stand in Rufus and Sirius takes possession of the phone to try and get a hold of James.

“Hey Pro… Reg? What are you doing up this early, go back to bed! You bet I can tell you what to do, you’re an infant! A fetus, Reginald. Oh yeah? Well the zombie look isn’t as cute as you think!”

Remus chuckles when Regulus starts yelling back at his brother. He’s got pipes. Sirius hangs up fuming.

“Reggie’s not coming.”

“So I gathered.”

“Fucking prick,” he mumbles as he flips through the pages for the number of a taxi company. It’s endearing in ways Remus really wasn’t expecting, this glimpse of something soft behind all the walls of leather, curses and tattoos.

Kingsley walks them out, his dark eyes on Sirius’ back as he strolls to the parking lot.

“Be careful, son, alright?”

“Yes Dad.”

Kingsley closes the door in Remus’ face.

They wait for Sirius’ cab in another silence, but this one’s different. It’s charged. The music sheets brush between them in lieu of skin after hours of elbows in thighs and bumping knees, of Sirius’ hair tickling Remus’ forehead and Remus’ arm around Sirius’ waist to keep him steady on the stool. The air is alive with electricity when the cab makes it into the parking lot. A mutual “not so soon”. Sirius halfway hops in the car and stops one foot in, one foot out, both arms crossed on the open door. The blue eyes pin him in place through wild dark strands. The wind is against Remus, the sunlight is against Remus, the morning breeze is against Remus. It’s all way too goose bumps inducing.

Those eyes. Those eyes.

“Thanks for the jacket.”

“Keep it. It suits you.”

“We should do this again.” And he shoots him a smile, a new one Remus doesn’t know. It’s not flirty, it’s not daring. It’s… Tender, almost.

Remus watches his hand reach for Sirius’ face, catch a strand of silky dark hair and tuck it behind his ear, knuckles brushing silver hoops. The metallic door is cold between them. Sirius blinks like he just woke up from a dream. Remus steps back.

One thing about Remus; he likes the chase. He loves the tipping point from stranger to lover. Spent his whole life trying to put it into words. Half his songs are about the very seconds before the first kiss, full of questions and hope and wonder and yearning and hunger. The prodigious vertigo.

He refuses to have that with Sirius while he’s high as a kite.

“Call me,” Remus says.

“I don’t have your number.”

“I didn’t have your address. Use your imagination.”

“Oh I will.”

Remus does his very best not to squirm as he closes the door behind Sirius. In the roar of the cab starting, he points at the music sheets in his hand. The look on Sirius’ face when he realizes Remus wrote his number there when he wasn’t looking is priceless. Remus winks.

The last thing he sees is Sirius gaping in absolute bewilderment as the cab takes a turn left to the street.

Chapter Text

Sirius

The second Sirius is on his feet and the world stops swaying, he calls Barty. Regulus lets him bargain and plead for twenty minutes, rolling his eyes where he's leaning against the kitchen counter, before he orders him to move and takes the phone.

“Bart, it’s me. Hi. No not today, I’m not sure I could even see the fucking keys. I’m never drinking champagne again. No, he’s hopeless, I know it’s pathetic. Oh My God, shut up. Can’t you just give him the damn address? Because I’m asking you. My head already hurts, please don’t be difficult. Fine, I am eternally grateful to you, happy? Yeah, see you tonight at Cas’.”

Sirius claps loudly as Regulus hangs up the phone. “You owe me one,” he mutters, shoving the paper in Sirius’ hand.

Sirius opens his arms wide. “Come here Reggie give me a hug!” Regulus tries to writhe away but Sirius is faster and squeezes him cooing like an idiot until Regulus begs James to come release him.

Sirius absolutely does no wait three days to send the flowers. He’s had the perfect idea in a fever dream in the aftermath of the mountain of pills he was offered at the after after party and it’s just too good for Remus to go and one up him.

The phone rings the very same night.

“Belladonna?”

“So we’re passed saying hello already, got it.”

“Should I feel threatened?”

“How did you get my number?”

“Sirius.”

“They made me think of you. Beautiful and deadly. Fitting for a witch.”

“Oh… I’m flattered. They are. Beautiful.”

“I should fucking hope so, they were a pain in the ass to find.”

“Poetry.”

“You had poetry alright.”

Remus marks a pause. Sirius can almost see him read the note he sent with the flowers.

Labyrinth, mirror, prism/What colors shine under your layers/Shed your coats before my eyes/I can’t think of a better prize

“And I really appreciate it.” The depth in Remus’ voice steals the air off Sirius’ lungs. “Will you be at Phoenix tomorrow?”

“Yes.”

“It’s a date.”

The morning after, Sirius takes so much time picking up an outfit and fixing his hair that Regulus resolves to honking nonstop until he gets down. He barely gives Sirius enough time to jump in the backseat before he barrels out in the street like a heathen, James’ laughter roaring in the wind.

Sirius finds Remus in the archive closet, perched on a ladder as he reaches for the highest shelves. Remus welcomes him like he’s the one who found him, his entire face lightning up. “There you are!”

Sirius trips and catches himself on a shelf. Remus gives him a crooked smile, a bunch of records pressed against his chest as he jumps off the ladder. He lands right in front of him and everything Sirius was about to say, every line he has more or less rehearsed, every move he wanted to pull is instantly forgotten.

“Wow.”

Remus pinches the skirt of a purple dress between two fingers and twirls. Waves of flowery silk dance around his legs. “You like it?”

Euphemism of the millennia. Sirius doesn’t like. He either loves until it obstructs all the chambers of his hearts of hates until all his guts rot.

This, the dress moving like water around Remus as he lilts back on the first step of the ladder, treacherous knee high boots and dark eye shadow, scars raw red slashes against his skin, his hair a tumble of auburn curls under the light bulb of the closet, is beyond liking.

And not just because he’s gorgeous. Of course he is. Sirius isn’t stranger to a little drag, or, well, a lot of it, Peter aka Petty Petra being one of his best friends and all. That’s not what’s exceptional about this. It’s the intention Remus obviously put behind it. The purple lips, the knife sharp eye liner. The leafy pattern of the dress. The jewelry, pagan, thorny. All reminiscent of a certain poisonous flower.

“Sirius?”

“Sorry, you left me speechless for a second.”

Remus’ laughter rings like bells “Why, thank you.”

“What’s the occasion?”

Remus blows the dust off a record. “Just felt like it.”

“Entirely unrelated to the belladonna, then.”

“Entirely.”

They grin at each other and Sirius finds himself quite incapable of stopping, or wanting to stop at all really. He’s tipping on a line he doesn’t know how to cross. Part of him wants his hands on Remus immediately, to ruffle his skirt high up on his thighs, kiss his neck and make him moan in his ear. And part of him want to just stay in this dusty closet and watch Remus smile for a period of time that dangerously starts to border on forever.

“I have to get these back to Kingsley,” Remus breathes finally, showing up the records in his arms.

Sirius diligently opens the door, Remus passes with a little curtsey that about swings Sirius’ heart out of his chest.

“You working today? Or just looming around like an alligator?”

With a smile that could count as an answer in itself, Remus turns on his heels to walk backwards facing Sirius, a glint of mirth in his eyes. “Is that gonna end in a poem later too? Alligator?”

“Works with witch, no?”

“I can’t wait to read it, then.” Remus falls back first against a door, pushing it open. “I will see you later.”

It’s certainly not pleasantries. It’s not a question. It’s an order. Sirius bows his head in capitulation –not that he particularly fought, mind you.

“You will.”

“Good.”

Remus vanishes through the door, chin superbly high, leaving Sirius wondering how fast exactly can someone develop a new kink.

Whatever he’s feeling, it’s never big enough that he can’t put it all in the music. That’s how he got himself out of the academic mindset of his parents and started loving music for himself. Took it back. By pouring all his rage, despair, fury into it. First his cello, then the piano, then the guitar thanks to Monty and Effie. He’s been diving into drums with Peter’s help lately and no wonder the man is so calm, that shit empties you and washes your heart clean better than any new age retreat could.

James whoops and jumps around with him, feeding on his energy, playing so close their knuckles touch and they’re breathing the same air. They drag themselves to the break room for lunch covered in sweat, arms slung around each other.

Sirius’ heart leaps treacherously. Remus is there, eating a salad so elegantly it’s frustrating, somehow ever more stunning than he was this morning in his dress.

Dorcas stops at the door so abruptly Regulus crashes against her. “Remus, you look absolutely fantastic.”

Remus puts his hand on his chest and bows reverently “Coming from you, I take it as the highest of compliments.”

He does a turn of greetings and hellos, waving from afar to Regulus and shaking James’ hand so vigorously James has to adjust his glasses back on his nose.

“Where did you get those boots?” Peter shrieks when Remus gets up to fill up a glass of water. “I’ve been miserable wearing the same platforms for years!”

“We have some shopping to do, you and I,” Remus declares.

And just like that’s it’s like Remus has always taken his lunch with them. Peter and him get absorbed into a conversation about Petty Petra “Fascinating, absolutely fascinating”. James’ jokes makes him laugh so much he almost falls off his chair. Regulus defrosts slowly, enough that he’s chuckling behind his hand at the end of the lunch. Dorcas leaves the room with Remus’ number and the address to his tailor.

As the day passes, it turns out Remus isn’t here to loom around at all. Every time Sirius catches a glimpse of him Remus is rushing from one room to another with a new instrument or cable or pedal in his arms, starting to talk to Kingsley before he even opens the doors.

They push the rehearsal until seven when Peter has to go get ready for a show and Dorcas announces she’s already late for her date. As they invade the lobby, someone brutally yanks Sirius back.

“Kingsley went home already,” Regulus whispers, showing the way to the blue room. “He’s alone in there.”

“How did you… No, I don’t wanna know. Since when do you play matchmakers?”

“Since I’m just tired of you acting like a fourteen years old. Ask the guy on a date, fuck him far away from me and stop embarrassing yourself.”

“I’m trying Reg, if only you knew, but he’s-”

“I don’t want the details.”

Regulus barely escapes a good ol’ revenge roughing of the hair.

Sirius glides inside the blue room as quietly as possible.

Remus is bent over a soundboard playing the same bass loop over and over again as he mumbles to himself around a cigarette. Notebooks and music sheets cover every surface including the two chairs and the stool in the booth. He modifies something at the very back of the sound and listens with his eyes closed.

“It was better before. Swampier. If that’s what you’re looking for.” Sirius says when Remus cuts the bass.

He thinks about it, biting on his lower lip. Moves a few sliders, listens to the loop again. Bops his head softly.

“I think you’re right.” He offers his zippo when Sirius gets himself a cigarette.

Remus is thorough. Not a bar, not a note escapes his razor sharp inspection. They go back and forth, ideas bouncing like ping pong balls until their stomachs growl. Sirius gathers emergency noodles from the break room, whistling low when he sees the time.

“Its two a.m,” he announces as he kicks the door open with his foot. “Any plans on going home?”

Please say no, please say no.

Remus moves a pile of records off a corner to make room for his noodles. “I wasn’t really planning on sleeping tonight. You can go whenever, if you want. Not everyone is a -how did you put it? An absolute fucking nerd.”

Sirius slouches down with one leg over the arm of the chair to mask his relief. “I’ll sleep when I’m dead.”

“I’ve been told it’s quite a self destructive thing to do.”

They exchange a knowing look. Sirius would bet everyone in Remus’ life keeps begging him to slow down, as if it’ll make sleeping any easier.

Remus takes a bite of his noodles, standing up by the console as he runs the tracks once again. Sirius extends an arm to free the other chair of its music sheets, puts them on the rogue bass drum in the corner and pushes the chair towards Remus with his boot.

“You’ll ruin your feet with heels like these.”

Remus abides with much flouncing of his dress “Thank you, my very own insomniac companion.”

It goes straight to Sirius’ veins, that word. That thing.

My companion.

Being someone’s… something. Remus’ something.

Sounds just the right kind of crazy. Sirius can do crazy. He can do dream-come-true. He can do never-in-a-billion-universes-and-yet-there-you-are.

He absolutely will spend all night making music with the witch in the belladonna dress.

*

The song is coming together nicely.

Remus wanted him on the cello, so Sirius went on the cello and smugly turned the rock hard track into something bordering on venomous, Remus jumping up and down repeating “I like this Sirius, I like this very much” like some kind of incantation. They end up every night exhausted and happy, sharing a cigarette on the parking lot at five in the morning with the for now lyricless chorus’ crescendo imprinted in their heads, humming in harmony until Arthur arrives.

Regulus doesn’t bother pretending they’ll take the same car to Phoenix anymore. James  rides with Sirius in the mornings and comes home with Reg after much back patting and eyebrow wriggling in Sirius’ direction as Sirius floats to wherever Remus is like the kids swindled by a piper in this fairy tale he used to read to Reg at night.

Barty stops teasing. Kingsley stops frowning. James gets increasingly curious and every time he asks about it, fighting with the radio on Sirius’ passenger seat as Regulus passes by them way too fast for this hour of the morning, Sirius doesn’t know what to answer.

He just knows it feels good.

It’s been a week, of very little sleep and much, much music. When Sirius isn’t rehearsing with the band, he’s working in the blue room with Remus. When he’s not working with Remus, he’s stealing Reggie’s notebooks and filling them at light speed.

Sirius is not a writer. Meaning, lyrics are not his thing. He’ll come up with an entire record in his dreams and will interrupt a conversation to play out something that’s been turning at the back of his head. He can turn Reggie’s poetry into platinum hits with his hands tied. But he doesn’t write write, usually. Disgrace was supposed to be a one time thing.

And now Remus… Remus’ silhouette crouched over the pedal board deserves a three acts musical. Sirius is losing it over the canine smile he has when he starts liking a mix, like he’d eat the music if he could. Even the way he stretches, grunting like an animal, is entrancing. Sirius darkened an entire page about that time Remus crossed his legs at the ankle.

That’s not the only thing that’s indescribable. Sirius was used of Remus haunting his every thought since the cello incident, The mystery, the game, the cracking of the code. Trying to get a reaction, waiting for openings, tipping the line. The line is very much still there, and very much still not crossed, but it’s much much blurrier now.

Remus’ tradition of bringing Kingsley and Barty (and half the building really) coffee in the morning now includes Dorcas and Reg’s black-as-their-souls triple espressos, Peter’s vanilla atrocity as well as James’ hot chocolate with extra whipped cream. “I didn’t know what you wanted, so I got blueberry,” he told Sirius the first time he did that. He produced a dozen donuts, dark glazing already sweating butter and staining the box. “For all the… aesthetic you all have going on.”

Dorcas positively cooed. At the end of the day when everyone zipped up their bag and rolled the cables back on their hooks, Regulus offered Remus a cigarette. Regulus never offers anyone anything.

Two days ago, Sirius was driving James to his eye doctor appointment. He saw this billboard he thought Remus would find funny. He called him and they laughed until their stomachs hurt, then they talked until Reg demanded Sirius stop howling and let the good people sleep.

Remus found a record of a band neither of them had ever heard at the back of his favorite record shop -“I simply must take you there, it’s Ali Baba’s cave”. They listened to it twice in a row, laying on the floor of the blue room, then had Kingsley listen to it the second he passed the front door. He was on the phone with the band before ten.

Sirius stumbled upon a silver jacket with glittery fringes that just screamed Remus when he was shopping for tour outfits with James. It’s currently hiding at the back of his closet.

No more Elvis. Sirius would love more conversation actually. Would love more phone calls, more notes hidden in pockets, more glances from across the room, more music, more more more.

The notes for fuck’s sakes. He has a box full of notes at the side of his bed. He rereads them at night.

Where do the lost souls go, Oh brightest star in the sky? They say you’re a good omen, yet those who follow your light are never seen again

Even if Sirius was diligently going to bed at nine p.m every night after a glass of green juice and a full yoga routine he wouldn’t be able to sleep knowing someone, Remus, wrote this to him. For him. About him.

He wants more. Of everything. And then sometimes, every cell in his body is just begging for some damn action.

Remus growls in the record booth and Sirius, hands holding on the sliders like a lifeline, is trying and failing to breathe. They’re done with the instrumental part and they’ve been trying top lines all day. Pushing it harder until they found this raw animal sound, this broken rhythm. It’s so sexual, so far from what Remus usually puts out that Sirius has to close his eyes for a second as he leans into the mic.

I want a bite of that heart on your sleeve/Carve my way in/Skin of my teeth/All up on you/Down on my knees

Remus’ eyes hook Sirius’ through the glass. He wonders how many gods decided to torture him like this. Remember when he thought Remus wasn’t playing along when it came to music? Sweet summer child. Remus can do anything as far as music is concerned. Sirius is pretty sure he could make him come on the spot if he hit the right note.

Ascend in your light/This could take all night/This cross I bear /Tear it apart

“That’s not bad at all,” Sirius stutters through the intercom as Remus takes the headphones off, a mischievous glint in his eyes.

“I feel like this one begs for desperation.”

“Desperation,” Sirius dumbly repeats, his throat bone dry.

Remus jumps out the booth like a devil in a box and wastes no time to swoop on the console to play that verse back and naturally, like he’s done it all his life, without giving it a single thought, sits right on Sirius’ lap. He’s so bouncy Sirius has to hold on to him with both arms wrapped around Remus’ middle.

The sudden proximity, Remus’ weight against him, Remus’ hair tickling his face, Remus’ perfume strong in his nostrils, throws Sirius’ heart into frenzy. The ferocious voice howling in the speakers doesn’t help calming the raging wave of heat surging through his body.

Seven days. Seven nights. Notes and looks and music and skin. Skin brushed in passing, skin freckled under the lamps, skin bruised where lips have been bitten. Desperation alright.

The music stops. Remus goes to play it again but Sirius catches his hand and holds it flat against the board.

“Wait,” he murmurs.

Remus stills.

Sirius leans forward and presses his forehead to Remus’ nape. Remus exhales shakily. Sirius drags his nose along the line of fine hair. Remus’ entire body shivers.

Sirius forces himself to slow down. He wants to kiss him there, right under his ear. To lap and nibble and bite until Remus melts in his arms and he can bend him over the soundboard. But he remembers something Remus said, and it’s been in his head ever since, and he just has to ask.

“Did you mean it?” Sirius whispers.

“Mean what Sirius?”

Somehow they both seem to agree that this moment suffers no sound. Like it’s so fragile anything could break it.

“What you said that night. The romance thing.”

Remus’ hand covers Sirius’ where his arms are laced around his chest.

“I have never met anyone whose job is to sing on a stage who doesn’t crave love with all their guts.”

Sirius takes a lifetime to punch out the next sentence. Remus waits, leaning against him like there’s nowhere he’d rather be, like he’s already used to Sirius’ arms.

Sirius definitely feels like Remus belonged there from the start, anyway. Maybe that’s what makes him finally say it.

“Have you ever been in love?”

“I don’t think being in love has anything to do with loving somebody.”

Sirius takes a moment. Considers it. Rolls it on his tongue.

“But have you?”

“Yes.”

He’s so close his lips are dancing on Remus’ skin when he speaks. It should be terrifying -and it is- but somehow it helps to drag out of him the words that have been turning in his head since the Grammy’s. What he’s almost written on every note. A warning, but also something much more shameful.

Hope.

“I don’t think I’ve ever been. In love.”

Remus wraps both his arms around Sirius’, locking them together. “And James?”

A bewildered laugh escaped Sirius. He pushes on Remus’ shoulder with his forehead.

“How did you know?”

“A hunch.”

“Damn you.”

It should sting, Sirius supposes. The memories of his star struck confession, James’ panicked tears at the idea of hurting him, the rejection, hard on a recently disowned fifteen years old. Living in the same house as his dashing best friend, finding out he’s terrific at the guitar, sharing his bed in hormonal agony. Watching Regulus slowly resolve to be the invisible third wheel little brother. It took a long time before Sirius found a place where he could let Reg and James be what they are and still have enough of them both.

It’s so far away, the fluttering heart, the weak knees, the slurred words and heated cheeks and overall awe.

“First time I saw him I knew. First day of school. I was eleven,” Sirius laughs thinking of a wailing windswept James the size of a boot and a half throwing a ball across the schoolyard and hitting him right in the face. “He saved our lives. Reg and me. I thought I’d found an actual angel.”

Remus hums low, waiting. Giving space and time to unweave all that. Sirius holds him tighter, submerged by a wave of gratitude.

“I’m so damn happy Remus, really. I’m so glad that didn’t happen. We were kids, and I didn’t understand people can be so many things, that it didn’t have to be all black and white. It’s so much more than what I would’ve thought back then, even if he’d loved me back. I mean he does love me, just not… But that doesn’t mean it’s lesser than. I mean it’s James.”

Remus nods, his hair tickling Sirius’ forehead. “I’m beginning to understand, yes.”

And they stay like this. Remus on Sirius lap with their arms laced around him, Sirius chin hooked on Remus shoulder. Tasting it, this proximity so alien and familiar at the same time. Sirius thinks of eighteen years old him falling head over heels for The Monster in black and white on a records’ cover. He’s still in here somewhere, calloused fingers and bags under his eyes, joggling between three jobs and making music with James on their one shared guitar, counting bean cans so that Regulus can shower with hot water in New York. Singing his heart out to Moonlight Monster thinking finally someone gets it.

“Don’t you want to be romanced?” Remus asks.

Sirius can hear the rest, even if he doesn’t say it out loud. Tell me the truth this time.

For all answer, he kisses him. At the base of his neck, just above the collar of his shirt. Light, but patient. Something he hopes Remus will remember.

The silences stretches and settles, soft, sweet. Comfortable. None of them seem to want to turn the music back on. Remus fully settles against Sirius, Sirius nudges his nose in the crook of his neck, breathing him in. The voices telling him to run, that this is fleeting, fragile, that this will hurt, vanish all at once when he realizes he can feel Remus’ heart pumping under his hand.

He holds him, lulled by the rhythmic pulse, until he can’t feel his right leg anymore.

“Remus?”

“Yes darling?” Judging by his drawl, Remus was either falling asleep or so at ease all the southern belle in him came back full front. Sirius smiles at the pet name, leaving one last kiss on Remus’ nape.

“Let me take you home.”