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"We're going to make them so ashamed of you," James says, the time that Sirius leaves his house in the middle of the night and doesn't go back in the morning. He climbs up the fire escape and scratches at the window and makes sad, high cat noises until James wakes up to let him in, half-asleep and hair everywhere.
They do this a lot, only this time Sirius has a suitcase and his guitar strapped to his back and is mostly sober when James jumps on him and covers his mouth so his parents can’t hear him laughing. It's why he went to James and not Remus in the first place, because James is insane and hilarious and a giant fucking asshole, and Sirius knew that he would understand this was something to be celebrated and not try to make him talk about his feelings. He wants to get up onto the roof and scream at the stars that he can't see because of the city lights and laugh for days. He wants to go back to his parents' house just long enough to set it on fire and watch the smoke curl up as it burns down from his uncle's tiny, beautiful apartment in Brooklyn that he was supposed to move into for college.
"They’re going to burn all your pictures," James says, big manic eyes and no glasses on, bouncing on the balls of his feet.
“Won’t matter,” Sirius says, dropping the suitcase and kicking it underneath the bed. He’s vibrating, grabbing at James’ shoulders to have something for his cold hands to touch.
“Yeah, that’s right.” James bares his teeth, the wildest grin, because he always knows what Sirius is talking about. They’re brothers, yeah, but the kind of brothers that are thicker than blood and water and whatever else. They both know like an absolute truth that his family can burn every bit of him not-smiling in portraits, because soon his face is going to be plastered to the sides of buildings and buses, and they’re never going to get him out of their heads.
He shrugs his guitar case off his shoulder and tosses it onto the bed, looking around at the posters on the walls, Morrissey brooding in his direction and Robert Smith glaring from the ceiling. There are twenty Beatles postcards taped to the back of the door from when the Potters went to London.
They’re going to be bigger than all of them. The world’s not even going to know what hit it.
*
The band's been around in one way or another since they were fourteen, and they met Remus, who could play the drums. James and Sirius were both taking guitar lessons because they never did anything apart, and Peter took up bass because it was what was left over. It's been the most constant thing in Sirius' life since he was a kid and still believed in his parents.
They have the next practice at his new apartment, and nobody asks him how he's feeling, though he can tell that Remus wants to from the way his face goes soft when he looks at him.
The people living below yell when they play too loud.
It's fucking glorious.
*
There’s an old warped six string that lives in an alcove on James’ roof. They think it once belonged to his father, but nobody really knows for sure. Remus is sitting with his back against the door, eyes trained away from the view of the city while Sirius gets on his hands and knees to try to pull it out. He winces at the feel of insects skittering off to their deaths in the shallow rain water until his fingers glance over the neck. There’s a long, broken note while he drags it out, and Remus makes a strange, hurt noise.
“Shit,” he says, softly. “Can that thing even hold a tune anymore?”
Sirius moves to sit too close to Remus for how hot it is, so Remus has to shift away and pretend like he’s not uncomfortable. He folds his arms around himself, sharp elbows and the fraying arms of his t-shirt rolled up over his shoulders. Sirius doesn’t know what to play, because there has to be something to fit this moment, to fit the way Remus’ face has gone tight when he turns to the side. He doesn’t like it here, this high up. Once, when they convinced Remus to drink vodka after a practice, he’d followed Sirius up and sat with his head on his Sirius’ shoulder and told him about nightmares he used to have as a kid. How he’d fall and fall and never get back to the ground.
Sirius thinks about nightmares and watches Remus bite down on his lip so it turns pale under his teeth and starts to play a song he’s been writing in his head for days.
“It still needs words,” he says, and Remus angles his head so they can look at each other. He chews on his lip while he listens to the song, a little color rising in his cheeks because Sirius is watching him listen.
“It’s about your family,” he says, eventually, and Sirius rolls his eyes and makes sure Remus can see it.
“It’s about fucking a girl,” Sirius says.
“I didn’t realize you still did that.” Remus folds his hand over his knees, stares at his feet, and Sirius wonders when he stopped. He hits the wrong chord on purpose and breaks off into a Sonic Youth song that sounds shitty acoustic, and he sings too loud. ( I wanted to know the exact dimensions of hell. Does that simple enough? Fuck you! Are you for sale! Does fuck you sound simple enough!) He doesn’t really notice that Remus is standing up until he’s already backing away, eyes a little regretful, like he didn’t mean to say anything at all.
Sirius likes it better when Remus says the things that he thinks he shouldn’t. He wants him to yell and throw things and tell him to stop touching him. He wants him to say that his voice isn’t as good as Kim Gordan’s and maybe he should try writing his own songs for once. He wants him to say, “I’ve loved you since we were fourteen,” because everyone knows that Remus has always loved Sirius in that unconditional, hopeless kind of way. It doesn’t matter that he’s never said it, that he pushes it inside and looks away when Sirius catches him staring.
“Just,” Remus murmurs, shifting his weight, “just record it and send it to me. I’ll come up with something sufficiently heterosexual.”
“Remus.” Sirius sits down the guitar and starts to get up, but Remus shakes his head, grabbing the door and hurrying off down the stairs. The rusted metal shrieks when it opens and shuts, and it echoes back to Sirius and off the edges of the roof. He tosses the guitar to the side and pulls his legs up to his chest, leaning down to bite down on the denim over his knee and yell until he’s sure he won’t be able to sing tomorrow.
*
They get a gig.
It’s really just Lily’s birthday, in this old warehouse that James’ dad owns for no conceivable reason. She didn’t want it to be a big deal, but James is continually head over heels for her, and he tends to express that with grand gestures and trying to, as he says with grandiose hand motions and long syllables, “give her everything she never had. “
(Lily was friends with Remus, first. They lived in the same neighborhood for years, and Mrs. Lupin likes to pull out the pictures of them in the bathtub together. So, when Remus got a scholarship and ended up at the same school as them, it wasn’t long until Lily followed, and until James started following Lily. And once he got over trying to woo her by acting like a richer-than-thou douche, Lily started to be okay with it.)
Because James is planning it, everyone from the school comes, four hundred kids all crowded up in front of the makeshift stage except for the freshman who huddle around the food, drinking too much beer. It’s the first show they’ve ever played with an audience that didn’t consist of people who love them, and they’re completely terrible, goddamn awful, but nobody stops cheering. Once they fumble through the only songs they’ve written, James asks for requests, and they can all hear Remus groaning over the feedback.
Someone yells out, “Ke$ha!” and Sirius laughs and swears into the microphone.
James and Peter start to play something that nobody can recognize, and Remus drums off-beat and unenthusiastic while Sirius sings the only Ke$ha song he knows any words to. He jumps around the stage and drops the microphone twice and kneels down in front of the drum set to sing to Remus, like he does at practices, like a joke. (Do you want to make your heart beat like an 808 drum?) Remus glares so hard that Sirius gets away before anybody can get hit with a stray drumstick and sings to a tiny sophomore girl instead, reaching out when she reaches up to brush her fingers and grin so hard his mouth starts to hurt.
After the show, people cluster around to tell them they're amazing, and it doesn't even matter that they're lying through their teeth. Somewhere between signing ironic autographs and a few shots of tequila and accepting hugs from girls they've never met, Remus slips away, and Sirius finds him sitting in a chair with Lily on his lap, talking to her quietly. His hand is resting lightly on her waist, and he's smiling.
"Better not let James see you two," he says.
"Fuck off," Lily says, not entirely sharp and just a little drunk. She hugs Remus around the neck, and he laughs until she slides to the floor and stands, straightening her skirt. "I should find him and thank him, though, shouldn't I?"
"You'll have to pull him away from the fans," Sirius says, seriously, and she shoves him lightly as she moves past. He walks forward slowly to see that Remus isn't really smiling anymore, and it's gone entirely when Sirius sits on the floor next to him, reaching up to tug at his hand and try to pull him down. Remus resists, but Sirius has a pleasant fuzzy feeling in his head, and he needs someone closer to him. He slides an arm around Remus' waist when he crawls down next to him, burying his nose in his neck.
"You don't have an inappropriate crush on Lily, do you?"
"You know I don't." If they hadn't made Remus take shots earlier, he would have already gone home, but now he leans into Sirius.
"Uh huh," Sirius says. "You're only supposed to have an inappropriate crush on me." He runs fingers over the seam of Remus' dark jeans, down his thigh until he can wrap fingers around the delicate bones of an ankle. Remus doesn't say anything, no confirm or deny, and they stay there awhile longer, watching James and Lily slow dance in the middle of the crowd.
*
After that, they get 10,000 song listens on their Myspace, and a mysterious message from someone named Minerva referencing record labels and demos.
“We have three songs,” Remus says, tentatively. “You don’t get signed with three songs.”
“You do when they’re amazing songs,” James says, and Sirius knows that it’s bullshit, but he nods. He reaches out a foot to kick at James’ ankle, grinning.
“And when you have a lead singer,” Sirius says, “that looks like me.”
“Right, and when your lead singer’s a fox,” James agrees.
“We have three songs,” Remus repeats, “and no name.”
“What? We totally have a name,” Peter says, sitting up and actually paying attention. He turns his laptop around so they can see their Myspace open. “The Marauders? It says it right up there.”
“I thought that was a joke,” Remus says, “until we found a name that didn’t, you know. . .suck.”
“You want to name it something pretentious and obscure, don’t you,” Sirius says, and it’s not even a question. He keeps talking when Remus opens his mouth to protest, moving forward on his knees to look Remus in the eyes, faces too close for comfort, liking the way the way Remus twists his lips up. “No, you totally want to have a name that’s entirely punctuation marks or, like, a fucking Milton quote.”
“Oh, god,” James says. “I won’t be named Better To Have Reigned In Hell, Remus.”
“No, it would be Better? To Have Reigned; In Hell!” Sirius says, solemnly, sitting back on his heels. He doesn’t move away, though, sitting close enough that his knees are almost touching the side of Remus’ thigh. “Remus wants us to be an emo band. We should have seen this coming.”
“I’m just saying, the whole the and a noun thing has been. . .done.” Remus has started making really elaborate annoyed faces at them, the way he does when he thinks they’re being immature and all those other words he uses that make him sound like a high school teacher.
“Yeah,” Peter says, smiling at his bass. “By the Beatles.”
“And the Rolling Stones,” James says.
“And the Stooges, and the Zombies, and the Smashing Pumpkins and every other band that was ever relevant, ever,” Sirius says. “It’s an homage. We can still be whatever pretty, polite indie genre you’ve put on our Myspace without having a name that makes us sound like we’re English majors at NYU.”
“The Marauders,” Remus says, huffing and leaning back against the wall, stretching his legs out in front of him. “Jesus.”
Sirius falls forward to wrap arms around Remus, making him yelp quietly, making them both fall to the floor. They fight a little while James and Peter get out of the way, quietly discussing changing their genre to cabaret metalcore twee pop, until Sirius finds himself sitting on top of Remus, straddling his hips. He’s got his wrists pinned down to the cold floor, and, holy fucking shit, this is a moment, isn’t it? This is more of a moment than that first actual Moment with a capital m, when he snuck into Remus’ bed instead of sleeping on his floor after practice one night and slid fingers under his shirt and kissed him slow, until Remus kissed him back. It’s definitely more of a moment than all those times Sirius pretended it never happened.
He watches Remus swallow hard, eyes darting back and forth but never looking up. He looks scared, and part of it makes Sirius want to push down harder, so their hips fit together and he can taste Remus’ tongue, and part of it makes him want to go back to his apartment and lock the door and think about starting a solo career.
Instead, he lets go of him and pushes off his shoulders, getting to his feet. Remus sits up on his elbows, hair haloed around his face.
“We’re the Marauders,” Sirius says, quietly. “We’ve always been, right?”
A split-second smile, the kind that’s a little too beautiful, and Remus laughs the kind of laugh that means oh, yes, of course.
*
It takes a few months, but somehow people outside of the school start paying attention and offering them shows for no pay in the kind of venues that people occasionally get mugged outside of, Remus starts to write more songs. They all have strange, pretty metaphors that everyone will pretend to get, and he tries to write all the music himself even though he can only play the drums. Once they get the lyrics from him, it's not long until they patch something together with a little bit of each of them, and somehow they form a fucked up, beautiful album that they burn for CDs and sell for two dollars at shows.
They keep getting messages from the same lady, vague until she drops the name Albus Dumbledore, and James freaks out and starts trying to climb the walls.
Dumbledore’s this burned out musician who started a tiny record company in his dead boyfriend’s basement and somehow manages to start the career of every new prodigy in the area. He's known for plucking amateurs out of obscurity and turning them into low-grade legends, and his bands are almost all Pitchfork darlings, those little pale kids with big words and thrift store sweaters that got made fun of in high school for writing poetry and having weird hair. It’s always the obvious inspirational success stories, too, the ones that grew up poor and stole their first guitar and, like, sold their soul to Satan in an alleyway for a voice that sounds like Conor Oberst’s (but not too much like Conor Oberst, because you never want to be too much like Conor Oberst, you know?) and enough cash to make a demo.
So, maybe they don’t match that story exactly. Maybe James and Sirius and Peter all have parents who are young and attractive and rich enough to play teenagers on Gossip Girl, and maybe they've all had a lot of sex in high school, and maybe Remus is the only one who’s actually a pale, spend-thrift talented young urchin from the wrong side of the tracks who knows how to string words together to make grown men cry. They're good, though. They're young and messy and good, and the next message has an address and tells them to bring their instruments.
James runs around his house, saying, "Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit," until his mother makes him sit down, and Sirius starts practicing and doesn't think he'll stop until they're signing a contract.
*
At the studio, they play all their record straight through so they're sweating and aching and Sirius can barely speak, thirteen songs about being young and stupid and in love. Dumbledore doesn't smile while he's watching them through the glass, fingers tugging at his graying beard, and Sirius would throw up on something if he didn't think that might ruin their chances. When they file out, Remus shifts to stand behind him and James, ducking his head to worry at his thumbnail. He looks younger than he normally does, and Sirius reaches behind him without thinking about it, taking his hand away from him and lacing their fingers together tight.
Dumbledore stands up to look down at them, and Sirius thinks his eyes are honest to God twinkling.
"You boys are good," he says. "Not great, but good."
They stare at him, and all of them are standing close enough to feel each other shaking.
"Excuse me, but, uhm," James says, coughing. "What. . .does that mean, exactly?"
"You're not a sure bet," Dumbledore says, and Sirius feels his heart plummet. There's a long silence where he's seriously considering grabbing his guitar and getting the hell out there until he feels Remus shift, let go of his hand to step forward slightly.
"But are you a gambler?" he asks, softly, and Dumbledore smiles for the first time.
A week later, they're signing contracts and talking about going on tour.
*
It's a month long tour in August through New England with the Longbottoms, a husband and wife folk duo with a small cult following. They're living in Dumbledore's van because he says it's more authentic, even though they have the money for hotel rooms, and Frank and Alice have a small bus of their own. It has a rainbow painted on the side. Sirius is really jealous.
They're playing real shows, though, shows that people paid to get into. Since they got signed, Dumbledore had them practicing every day, refining their songs to the point that they can make an actual album that isn't drawn on in pink Sharpie. Lily comes along to help them sell merch, and she tells them about the girls who come asking who the hell they are and where they have been all their lives? Halfway into the tour, people are singing their songs back to them, and local papers are writing reviews that are mostly about the way Sirius runs into James on purpose, the way Sirius jumps up on amps to reach out to Remus who continues to firmly ignore him, the way he sometimes has to stop to hug Peter and fuck up the song and nobody seems to care.
Sometimes, one of the girls who come just for them will wait to catch him after the show is over, and he comes back to the van with bruises bitten wet on his neck and curls next to Remus in the back.
Remus always turns so his back is facing him, pressed close to the carpeting on the sides.
*
When they get back to New York City, they've missed a week of school, and Remus doesn't talk to any of them for a few days while he's catching up on homework. Sirius goes to his house that Saturday and knocks on his window until he opens it.
"I have a door, you know," Remus says, quietly. He looks tired, drawn out, and Sirius ignores him and climbs inside. Remus puts a hand on his shoulder to help him balance, and Sirius touches his waist, lets their fingers touch once or twice. He smiles as sweet as he can, looking around at the books on the desk. There are papers piled next to them, in dark blue ink, with things scribbled in the margins and marked out thickly. He moves past Remus to look at them, and Remus says, "Wait, don't. . ."
"They're lyrics, aren't they?" he asks. He's closer than Remus is, and he can't help but grab a handful. Remus makes a half-hearted sigh, sinking down onto his bed while Sirius reads. The words are scrawled and hard to read, but Sirius can pick out phrases and lines. He can almost hear the rhythm in his head already.
Sirius says, "These are good," and means it, and Remus shakes his head.
"They're not for the band," he says. "They're not like. . .the other songs."
"They're better," Sirius says. He flips through the papers until something catches his eye. His name is written on top of one of the pages, in big, dark letters. The song underneath is written in short, quick bursts, and it makes his breath go strange while he reads it. He starts to sing it as it comes to him, and Remus gets to his feet, grabbing the papers away from him. He puts them back on the desk neatly and doesn't turn around to look at Sirius again. He moves forward, touching fingers to the small of Remus' back so he jumps, just a little.
"They're about you," Remus says.
"I know," Sirius says, because they've all known. When Remus writes love songs, he writes love songs about Sirius. It's just how they work.
"All of them, they're about you," Remus says, quick and low, "and if I spend another month watching you fuck everyone who compliments your voice, I'm going to have enough songs to write another album."
"Hey." Sirius closes a hand on his arm, tugging him gently so he can look at him. "You never told me."
"But you knew," Remus says, shaking his head. He doesn't look like he's going to cry, because Remus doesn't cry. He just looks frustrated, a little sad, and Sirius doesn't like him looking like that. He pushes Remus carefully, so he steps back into the desk, eyes going wider. His hair is standing up on end, and Sirius reaches up to smooth it out. When he leans down to press lips to Remus' cheek, Remus doesn't react at all. He stands there, hands shaking at his sides, while Sirius kisses the corner of his lips and moves closer.
He says, "I think we could be good for each other."
Remus says, "I can't just be another one of those girls," and it's almost an ultimatum, an if you screw this up, everything's going to fall apart.
Sirius slides arms around his waist and kisses him again to answer, biting lightly at his lower lip until Remus is pressing back, opening his mouth to it. It's different from the way Sirius steals stupid little kisses to mess with him, from that first time late at night, trying to be quiet so Remus' parents wouldn't hear. This time, Remus moves with him, making noises into his throat that aren't soft. When he moans, it's just on the edge of breathy, but it sends sparks all the way through Sirius as he untucks his shirt to get at warm skin.
*
When they walk into the next practice in James' basement holding hands, Peter starts laughing so hard he falls off his chair, and James says, "Jesus, finally."
Remus ignores them and goes to set up his drums. Lily walks over to talk to him, and Sirius watches as Remus shakes his head, and Lily looks increasingly more mad until she takes his wrists and makes him come upstairs with her.
"What's that about?" he asks, trying to tune his guitar even though he doesn't need to.
"She's probably telling him to make sure his heart doesn't get broken," James says, "and I think I'm probably supposed to be giving you some kind of a 'don't be an asshole' speech."
"Maybe a 'don't sleep with people on tour' speech would be better," Peter suggests, lightly.
"That's what you guys are worried about? You think you might want to worry more about interband dating instead of assuming I'm going to cheat on him?" Sirius sits his guitar down so he can turn to face them both. They have the same skeptical looks on their faces, and they stare for a long time until James finally stands up and takes Sirius' face in his hands.
"Sirius, I'm one step away from giving Lily a tambourine and making her join the band," he says, slowly. "The only thing wrong with you guys dating is you doing that thing you do."
Sirius stares at him.
"The sex thing," Peter says, from behind them. "Specifically, the sex with the ladies."
The door shuts behind Remus and Lily as they walk in. Remus glances at Sirius who smiles at him, carefully. It takes a second, but Remus smiles back.
"Could we maybe play some music now?" he asks.
*
After the reviews from their shows with the Longbottoms get noticed, Dumbledore sets them up some small headlining shows around the city, and this time it's people from the local high schools mixed up with locals and college kids. Most of them have heard their music before, and the first show they play, there's a line of kids in the front wearing their t-shirts. They yell along to the lyrics, and Sirius stops in the middle of one of the songs to shake their hands, messing up their hair. When they get off stage, Sirius grabs Remus and spins him around, and Remus laughs. His hair is slicked back over his forehead, and he stands on his toes to kiss Sirius hard, knocking them into the far wall.
"We're rock stars," Sirius says, into his mouth, "we're rock stars," and Remus smiles against his lips.
"We've been rock stars," he says.
"But they came here for us," Sirius says.
"You," Remus says, "They kind of came here for you." Sirius starts to protest, but Remus kisses him again, running a hand over his cheek.
James yells, "Celebratory alcohol before we go out and meet these amazing fuckers!" from one of the back rooms, and Remus pulls away, offering a hand like a question.
Sirius takes it.
*
After those sets of show, local magazines and blogs start to review their record, and sales pick up. They're not getting radio play or anything, but they can walk into a store and see their faces sitting near the Meat Puppets and Modest Mouse. Sometimes, Sirius waits and watches to see who buys it, and James has to stop him from going to give them all hugs.
At night, Remus comes to his apartment, and they go through all the songs he wrote on the New England tour. It's more than enough for a new album. And then Remus pulls out new songs to show him, and they're different. They need more layers of music, horn sections and strings, and he says something about Lily on the tambourine that Sirius thinks may or may not be a joke. They're happy.
"We're making a joyful noise, aren't we?" he asks, after Remus sings one of the songs to him, haltingly and too self-aware.
Remus reaches out to spread his fingers over Sirius' knees, leaning close to him.
"Yeah," he says. "We are."
They take the songs to Dumbledore, who stares at Remus for a long time and then wanders off saying something about budgets and studio musicians and who's going to learn to play the organ for this?
James says, "I think that means he's excited."
"Don't get your hopes up, Potter!" Dumbledore yells from somewhere deep inside his basement, and Remus is glowing.
*
Graduation comes sooner than they expected, and Remus gets all the letters to colleges that none of the rest of them applied to, and he leaves them sitting in a row on his desk and doesn't open them. Sirius spends a lot of time coming into his room to stare at them like he'll somehow be able to figure out what's inside Remus' head. They spend a whole lot of time not talking about it, even more time in bed not talking about it, which is very nice but not helpful in the long run. Soon, he crawls through Remus' window one day to see all of the envelopes gone, the letters scattered across the bed.
Sirius lingers in the middle of the room while Remus stares up at him.
"So," he says. "What's the verdict?"
"I'm in," Remus says, quietly.
"Yeah?" Sirius moves closer, sitting on the edge of the bed. He catches names like Columbia and Dartmouth and Yale. "Where?"
"Pretty much everywhere." Remus reaches out to take Sirius' wrist, pulling him closer. He leans his face into Sirius' shoulder. "It turns out colleges really like people who have good ACT scores and are also almost kind of famous." Sirius stares at their hands resting on the comforter. He squeezes a little tighter, listening to Remus breathe quietly against his sternum.
"You're not going, though," he says.
Remus goes still.
"I," he says, then pauses. He sighs, and Sirius doesn't like where this is going. "The band's not definite, you know?"
"What happened to being a gambler?" Sirius asks.
"Sirius, I just want options. If it doesn't last."
Sirius slides off the bed, and Remus sits up, eyes worried. He doesn't know why he's suddenly so angry, but there's something about how rational Remus is being, like he's been spending time thinking about the logistics of their band breaking up. He wants to know how many of his action plans involve Sirius fucking something up.
"It's nice to know you have so much faith in us," he says, and Remus pushes himself off the bed, coming to catch his hands.
"I'm trying to be smart," he says.
"You're too smart," Sirius says, but he doesn't pull away. If they fight, that's just the start. "Don't think so much, okay? That's what we've got Albus for."
"I'll try," Remus says, agreeably. Sirius moves to put all the letters in a stack, sitting them neatly in the middle of the desk. He picks up the notebook Remus has been rewriting lyrics in, and they get back on the bed to pretend to work.
*
By the time they record their next album, all the college acceptance dates that Sirius researched and wrote out have passed, and they're out on the West Coast, opening for the Prewett Brothers. These are the biggest venues they've ever played, almost a thousand people in little theatres and buildings that are nothing but a shitty stage and an open pit and little unknown outdoor festivals. They play a different set every night, and Sirius sings love songs standing on the riser that the drums are set up on, half-turned to look at Remus. It was a joke before, except for those times that it wasn't, but now he's looking at him and feels like his heart wants to stop all the goddamn time.
They're sharing a bus with Gideon and Fabian, and they share a bunk even though it's cramped, elbows and knees hitting the ceiling and walls.
One night, he wakes up, and Remus isn't there. He gets out quietly to walk to the front, trying not to wake anyone up, and he sees Remus sitting in a pool of lamplight. He's got a book open in his lap.
"What are you reading?" Sirius asks, smiling lazily.
"Uhm," Remus says, and there's a stutter at the edges of his voice. He shuts the book, moving it to the side, and Sirius catches Western Civilization written on the front.
"Is that a textbook?" he asks.
Remus nods.
"Why are you reading a textbook?" Sirius sits down next to him, still a little asleep.
"Because," Remus says, voice so soft that Sirius can barely hear him, "I'm getting ready for the fall semester. At NYU."
"No. . .no, because the band's working out. We have a new album, Remus, it's working." Sirius turns to sit with his legs crossed, facing Remus straight on, and Remus puts hands on his thighs to still him.
"I can do both," Remus says, smiling a sick, sad sort of smile that makes Sirius want to push him down and sit on him until he changes his mind, like they're twelve-years-old.
"If you thought you could do both," Sirius says, "you wouldn't be hiding it." He wants to leave, but the bus is moving, so he gets up before Remus can stop him and goes back to the bunk. He won't try to come talk to him here. There are too many people sleeping, and Remus just hates to bother people. He wouldn't want to make a scene.
*
They don't talk to each other for most of the tour, and, sometimes, girls find Sirius backstage. And, sometimes, he's so mad that he does things he shouldn't. He holds up thin, pretty girls against sinks in venue bathrooms and thinks about Remus gasping underneath him, hands digging into his back. But Remus has his own bunk, now, and soon they're going to be back in New York, and he can start his new life without them. The girls all moan like they actually mean it, but Sirius doesn't know how they could. He wonders why it doesn't feel like it did on that first tour.
He goes back to the bus early with one of them after the very last show, and Remus walks in after she leaves. Sirius is pulling on a shirt, and there are bite marks down his neck, lipstick stains.
Neither of them say anything all the way back to the city.
*
They take a break, because James hasn't seen Lily in weeks, and Peter needs to visit family. Sirius doesn't leave his apartment until James tells him they're having the next practice there. He comes early to set up the equipment, and Remus shows up a few minutes late, his notebook in hand.
"I wrote a song," he says, not looking at Sirius, "on tour. I thought I could sing it, maybe?"
Remus has gotten better at writing music. He shows what he has to them so they can get an idea of what to play, and he has to lace his hands together when he moves to face the microphone. It takes a few starts, before Remus stops hedging and coughing and apologizing. But then Remus sings.
Remus sings, and it's one of those songs that he used to write when it felt like the world was falling down, and it's the goddamn saddest noise he's ever heard. It makes Sirius want to climb up the fire escape and jump off the edge of the building, dissolve before he gets to the ground and get everyone wet so they know. Everyone else quiets their instruments, James barely touching his guitar, the soft thudthudthud of Peter's bass that Sirius can't feel in his feet anymore. And he never even started playing, backing up to the wall to watch Remus half-clinging to the microphone, drumsticks shoved in the back pocket of his corduroys.
He's not as good as Sirius. Even now, he's thinking it, and if this was before they were dating or whatever it is they were doing, he would have made sure Remus knew. If this were a real show, not just Lily and her friends sitting with their long, long legs in dark tights pulled up in the window seats and hardly paying attention, he would have sidled up to Remus and pressed a kiss to the edge of his jaw, bite his neck, fuck him up enough to steal the spotlight back. Now, though, Remus is singing like choking and yelling and not-crying, and Sirius curls fingers around the neck of his guitar and holds down so hard the strings bite into the skin a little more with every line he didn’t help write.
Remus wants to have a backup plan if things don't work out, and Sirius doesn't want him to have any plans that don't involve him.
*
That night, Remus slides into bed next to Sirius in his apartment, on top of the sheets. They're lying facing each other, nose to nose.
"I can still drop out before classes start," he says.
Sirius thinks about how Remus has loved him since forever. He thinks about the irrevocable, terrible, cruel kind of love that means he'll always forgive Sirius. And he knows he should say no, because he's messed up and Remus should do what he wants to. Sirius moves forward to kiss him once. He doesn't say anything at all.
They shut their eyes to try to sleep.