Chapter Text
“Now you’re the biggest, brightest flame
You are the fire that can’t be tamed
You’re better than ever, but I knew you when
It’s bittersweet to see you again”
-Lucy Dacus
The five-thirty alarm wakes Sirius up, and he sits, cross-legged at the end of the bed. He was having some sort of dream, he knows. He doesn’t think it was good. There was an owl on his chest, at one point. Fuck knows what that means. Marlene would know, he thinks, from that one summer she pretended to be really into dream interpretation and astrology and crap to impress a girl at a coffee shop. He’d made fun of her at the time; they all did, but now he has to admit, he sort of does believe in that sort of thing. So maybe, the owl did mean something. It had been heavy. in the dream. He could feel the talons (do owls have talons? He should ask Remus.) digging into him, like it was trying to claw his heart out. So, that’s probably not great. He rubs the Lord Ganesha medallion he wears on a chain around his neck, once, twice, for good luck, until the feeling subsides. Sirius doesn’t actually believe in God or Gods, in a material sense, but he’s always had a bit of a soft spot for Lord Ganesha, who was beheaded by his father on accident. Poor fucker got his head replaced with an elephant ’s, for Christ’s sake, and still remains relatively jolly. It’s the only superstitious thing he allows himself, partly because he likes the look of it, partly because in his great act of rebellion, he’s never been able to get the chain (24-karat gold, from a jeweler in the family) off his neck. He likes to think he’s grown into being the kind of guy who can get away with wearing semi-religious jewelry, but on mornings like these, he can’t help but make fun of himself for being so goddamn superstitious.
He tiptoes across the hall, peeping into Remus’s adjoining room. Of course, of course he’s still asleep. Sirius is an aggressive morning person, and an aggressive night person; perhaps, just an aggressive insomniac. Remus is the exact opposite. He goes to bed early, gets up late, which seems baffling to Sirius. Who wants to spend so much time asleep? Last year, when he’d lived with James, they had been more on the same page, sleep-schedule wise. Also, everything-wise. It’s always been like that-Sirius and James-middle school, high school, college. They’re those kind of friends. Remus and Peter joined later, and they, too, created their own kind of twosome that he doesn’t truly understand. So it’s not like he and Remus don’t get along, because they do, mostly. There’s just an added carefulness to their relationship, a fragility to it, that Sirius feels more acutely than with his other friends. Remus is so brilliant, and so serious, and Sirius is whatever the opposite of those things are. He often feels as though he’s wounding the other boy, upsetting his carefully created equilibrium, just by being himself. Not that Remus would complain.; it’s not in him. But just once, he wishes they could have a nice fight or something, instead of the grin-and-bear it dance that they spin around each other, as roommates.
His phone buzzes. Remus shifts, turning over. “Fuck.” Sirius hisses, and retreats to his room, to check said buzz. It’s Gideon, his (current, and first, and only) boyfriend.
fuckk i’m so horny 4 u
He cringes. He likes Gideon; he really does, but oh my God, he has never met a hornier motherfucker. Not even James, who can go on for a frightening length of time about the proportions of Lily Evans’ hip-to-breast ratio. James and Lily are completely disgusting, but at least they’re disgustingly in love. Dating Gideon sometimes feels like being just a collection of holes. But Gideon’s been his longest relationship, ever, and all their friends are head-over-heels happy for him, or at least they pretend to be, so he sucks it up, stands in front of the mirror, and snaps a blurry shot of his bare chest. Then he retrieves one of the dick pics he took from the password-protected folder on his phone, and adds that too, with the peace sign next to it.
Gideon responds with three nut-face emojis, at which Sirius rolls his eyes. Good. He should be off the hook for explicit content creation. At least for now. Going to the gym is next on the agenda. Despite his supposed status as a wild card, a free spirit, Sirius actually thrives on a routine. He’s not, thank God, one of those gross people who says stupid things like “the gym is my therapy” but it…grounds him, in a sense. Quiets the voices in his head and all that. Plus, the only people who come to the gym in the wee hours of the morning are the kind of fitness people who don’t have a personality outside of how much they bench, so it’s not like anyone will actually talk to him.
After the gym, he will take a very long, very hot shower, the kind that almost burns his skin off, and then he will shave, and brush his teeth, and do the skincare routine Mary set up for him, a month after they started dating back in freshman year. Then, and only then, will he allow himself to walk to campus, where upon arriving, he will treat himself to a very small latte with regular milk instead of oat milk. (Gideon, who recently discovered the gospel of veganism, truly believes everything will be better for Sirius if he starts drinking plant-based milk, which Sirius attempted to do, more or less sincerely, until he learned that oat milk is vile . He still pretends, for Gideon’s sake.) He will see the sun rise, over the mountains, and he will think about how lucky he is, in this place in time, to know these people, to see this view.
_
“So then I said,” James says, “ ‘what do you mean, you spilled all of it?’ And then he says, ‘It’s literally all gone!’ So, at this point, I’m like, freaking out, because if he poured the whole thing down the sink it’s a huge environmental hazard. Not to mention, I could totally get fired for letting him do such a dumb-ass thing, so then -“
“Oh my God,” Lily interrupts, with fond exasperation. “This is just not the story you think it is. A freshman poured reagents down the sink in the Gen Chem lab, but he got let off easy because it’s the first week. Sirius does not need the play-by-play, I swear.”
James’s mouth opens in an expression of complete outrage, black eyes crinkling. “You are absolutely murdering my delivery. And Sirius does too need my play-by-play, now that he’s a rent-payer, as a real adult.”
“Hey,” Sirius reminds him. “I wouldn’t have to be a rent- payer if someone didn’t want to be a glorified babysitter.” James is a freshman RA this year, something Sirius finds horrifying and amusing in equal measure. No one says it outright, but he absolutely does it so he can spend more time with Lily, who’s been an RA since last year.
“It’s not that bad,” Lily says. “I mean, they’re eighteen; they can mostly look after themselves.”
“Yours can,” James grumbles. “Mine keep getting locked out.”
Sirius rolls his eyes. “I’d leave ‘em out there. Builds character.”
“You wouldn’t,” Peter chimes in, from across the table. “You’re way too soft. Cave at the first sign of tears.”
Peter is actually very right, more than he knows, but Sirius isn’t one to lose an argument. “I’d go full Ayn Rand on them; I would, Pete. You have no idea what I’m capable of.”
“What d’you mean, Ayn Rand?”
“You know, something about how capitalism breeds competition, and the ones who don’t cut it get left out in the cold, and how it’s actually a metaphor for real life.”
“Okay, you’re horrible.” James says, but he’s smiling. “How’s Gideon? You’re always so mysterious about him.”
“Oh…” Sirius started dating Gideon just around the first time Lily rejected James, and when Peter declared, after a string of terrible hookups, that he was just completely unfit for relationships, so he’s always felt a little awkward talking about it, like shoving the look how happy and stable I am in my functioning relationship ! thing in their face. Plus, there’s the constant demand for…content, which he would rather die than talk about with anyone, even James. Especially James, now that the whole Lily thing seems to be paying its dividends. “Good. He’s writing a play, did I tell you that?”
Lily nods, slowly. “A play . Right.”
“Why are you saying it like that?” It’s one thing for him to criticize Gideon in his head, but he’s not quite at the level where he wants his friends to do it out loud.
“Like what?” Lily opens her eyes wide, the picture of innocence. He gives her the finger, which she returns, giggling. They’ve only recently gotten here; a year ago, they would grate on each other, being so fiercely possessive of James, albeit in different ways. Peter and Remus took it in stride, but Sirius is…a little more averse to change than he’d like to admit.
“Is it any good?” Pete asks.
“Yes,” says Sirius loyally. He’s only read some of it, and in truth, he’s not sure how good it is, but it feels wrong to make fun of Gideon when he’s not even here to defend himself.
“I’m fucking starving,” Marlene announces, sitting down. “Remus ditched me to go to lab early; that’s why he’s not here.”
“For Christ’s sake.” Sirius says. “It’s not like anything will happen if he’s a little bit late.”
“Easy for you to say; you’re never on time.” Marlene retorts.
“Hey, hey, for the last time, Marls, being on time is-“ James starts, and Sirius finishes, grinning “ literally white supremacy, because what are y’all always on time to do? OPPRESS. ”
“I regret letting Mary show them that video.” Marlene says to Peter and Lily, as James and Sirius dissolve into laughter. “Yeah, yeah, laugh it up; you’re both still half white. Where is Mary, anyway?”
“On a Tinder date.” says Lily, with no small amount of pride. “I convinced her to. Just because Simon broke up with her doesn’t mean she has to be miserable.” Ever since the triumph of getting James, Lily has thrown herself into matchmaking with a slightly horrifying degree of glee. Sirius gets it, though. One of life’s great pleasures is forcing one’s friends to do embarrassing things to broaden their horizons. Although, knowing Mary, it’ll probably be more embarrassing for whoever she’s on a date with, given that she’s so cool.
Sirius’s phone buzzes. He looks down.
GODDD i’m scrolling thru your insta and i want to cum in your mouth so bad
He winces. Just…why? His Instagram doesn’t even have very good pictures of him. Also, shouldn’t Gideon be in class or something? He responds hahaha and hopes that’ll be the end of it.
Of course, as soon as he types it, he can see Gideon drafting a reply. Meet me for dinner?
Can’t, Sirius responds, eager for the excuse. Got work.
Saving the world can’t wait for one evening? Pouty face. He can practically see Gideon’s face, contorting.
Sirius grins. It’s not a particularly mature impulse, no doubt some vestige from his childhood, but he does like to be needed. Not a chance.
“Hello!” Marlene chimes in. “Earth to Sirius.”
“Huh? Oh yes, sorry.”
“We have class , my God.”
James rolls his eyes. “You have to leave him alone. He’s bewitched. Gideon’s bewitched him.”
“Oh fuck off, you two,” he says, embarrassed.
_
Realistically, Sirius is aware he is a smart guy. Always has been. Most everything came easy to him, back in school, in a way he knows it doesn’t for a lot of people. He’s never had to try particularly hard to do passably well, something that irritates people like Peter and Marlene because they do try, and irritates people like James and Lily because of the principle of the thing. “I just don’t get it,” James said, once in their first year, in between flicking through his bio textbook. “Wouldn’t you feel so much better if you felt like you tried your hardest?”
“Think that’d make me feel worse, to be trying so hard. I could hurt myself.” he’d said, flippantly. James laughed, and they never talked about it again. James is brilliant, too, but he puts in the hours. Anyone can see he deserves to be there. On the other hand, Sirius is just a very good example of how one can be set up for success if you have enough money. He knows things, knows how to think about things, but none of that is him, really. If his parents had been any worse off, he knows, he’d struggle just as much as anyone else, maybe even more. Everything at school that he’s ever been good at has been drilled into him, often unwillingly. He’s never had any kind of innate interest, or talent, for any kind of subject, so he selected psychology as his major, like everyone else who isn’t quite good enough at the humanities or the sciences to pick between the two.
He did not expect to love it. All right, it’s a little cliche, everyone likes introductory psychology. But the logic of it is unique, the philosophy is unparalleled. Here , it seems to say, is the set of steps that put us on the path to understanding the human animal. We may argue over the steps, or the order, or how much of it is feeling and intuition and how much of it can be distilled and quantified, but the goal is the same-to know why we as people act like the people that we are. He likes that interplay, the dance between statistics and theory, wants to bridge that gap, draw it closer. It’s like religious studies or philosophy, he thinks, the leap of faith you have to take to believe. But he has taken his leap, and ever the skeptic, has hung his star on the walk of Kubler-Ross and (God forbid) Freud and Carl Rogers and all the rest. He also likes (but this makes him feel very juvenile) that it’s the sort of thing that his parents would hate, that it’s impractical and that he’ll never make any money with it. Marlene always tells him he’s exaggerating, that psychologists actually do make a decent living, but he’s looked it up and it’s definitely not what his family would consider “comfortable.” They are all massive assholes, though, so he supposes it doesn’t matter very much.
This semester, he’s taking an introductory clinical class with Marlene, the only other one of their friends who’s in psych. She picked it, of course. He always lets her pick their electives, so they can have all of their classes together. “It’ll be easy for you.” she said, a little enviously. “Everything’s easy for you.”
Sirius winced then, but did not correct her. “All right.” And she had signed them up, and that was that. The professor is someone new this semester, listed only on the registration website as M. McGonagall. They have online stalked her a little, as is only natural. She’s visiting this year, from some big school in Florida they’ve never heard of. “Bet she’s got an accent,” Sirius whispers to Marlene. “Twangy.”
“What if she was in a sorority?”
“Oh my God, can you imagine?”
But Professor McGonagall is not a drawling, bleach blond Panhandle belle, much to their chagrin. She’s actually an older, petite woman, with a slight Scottish accent, who wears tweed pantsuits with uncomfortable-looking seashell-shaped buttons, and smells vaguely of Chanel No. 5. “My name is Minerva McGonagall. Obviously, from my name, you can tell I come from a lineage of deeply pretentious classicists, which is unfortunate, but there we have it. You may address me as Professor McGonagall, but I will require you to call me Minerva after you graduate and go on to do something worthwhile.” So definitely not what he predicted. Okay.
“I am certain,” she says. “why many of you think you are here. Because you did well in intro psychopathology, because you were good at memorizing symptoms and matching them with the right diseases. Maybe you have even read a few papers about therapeutic techniques, learned some buzzwords. You can probably identify the flaws in any experimental study with ease, know the difference between accuracy and precision, can run an analysis of variance through any program I put in front of you. Of your mental resources, your proficiency in your field of study, I have no doubt. These are valuable skills to have, and will serve you well, but what I am looking for you to develop is a little different. I want you to learn how to care about people. When we think of the patients we study more as clinical cases, we deny them their humanity, in all of its difficulty, its complexity. Yes, complexity , for no one is simply a collection of symptoms. If you learn anything from me this year, I hope it is this, the skill of eliciting the person from beneath the density of the case notes. When you can look someone in the eye, man-to-man, that is where the foundation of the most successful therapeutic work begins.”
“Man-to-man?” Marlene jokes. “My Lord, the chauvinism. She is so getting cancelled.”
“You love her.” Sirius says, in wonder. Marlene is not the type to blindly fall victim to hero-worshipping any authority figure, unlike some of the other psych majors. If she can only muster old-cishet-white-man-esque jokes about cancel culture to take the professor down a peg, she must think the older woman has something worthwhile to say.
Marlene blushes. “You do too! Just admit it.”
“I…might be a little excited about the class now.”
She shoves him. “Fucking nerd.”
_
“Hello.” Sirius says a couple hours later, trying to keep the exhaustion out of his phone voice. “You’ve reached the campus crisis center. How can we assist you?”
“I’m a freshman,” says the nervous voice on the end of the phone, “and I-wait, this is anonymous, isn’t it? You’re not going to tell my parents or something, are you?”
“No.” Sirius says. “I mean, shit. Yes. Sorry. Yes, this is anonymous, and no, I’m not going to tell your parents.”
He swears he can feel the tension releasing on the other line. “Oh. Okay. Well, my roommate this year is really homesick, and she’s sort of in a bad place. I think she had a lot of friends in high school, more than she has here. I try to make her go out with me, but she’s always tired, or sick. She never leaves the room, like ever , and I don’t think she’s doing well in classes or anything…so, what should I do?”
“Hmm.” He pauses, thinking. “Have you tried talking to her about how she’s feeling?”
“A little, but she’s pretty introverted. I don’t want to make her think that I’m bossing her around or anything.”
“Well-what can I call you?” He’s careful about how he asks for information. Apparently that statement is less invasive than “What’s your name?”
A pause, then. “Aaron.”
“So, Aaron. This might be hard to answer, but I’m required to ask. Do you know if your roommate is considering suicide?” The question always jolts him, makes him feel like burning his skin off.
“What? God, no , I don’t think so.”
“Okay.”
“I mean, is that something I should be worried about? Should I ask?” His voice pitches, a little desperate, and Sirius feels a pang of sympathy. “I don’t want to make her…like, start, considering it, if that makes sense.”
“Um, no, it’s just-” You are fucking this up big time . “We have to ask, just to be sure. And you’re doing a great job.” he adds. “I can tell you’re a very empathetic person, and I understand why you’d worry about that. But if someone isn’t suicidal, asking them about it won’t plant the idea in their head.”
The voice is silent. He doesn’t think Aaron believes him. “Right. Okay.”
“Aaron?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m serious. I’m not saying you should ask her; you know her better than me. But if you’re calling, I’m assuming it’s a real situation, and you’re worried. Am I right?”
Aaron takes a breath. “Right. You’re right.”
“Okay.” He pauses, choosing his next words carefully. “So what I like to do, in a situation like this, is make sure that I have a plan about what I’m going to do. So we’ll come up with it, together. How does that sound?”
“Okay.”
“So the first thing we can do is identify her some resources. Do you know if this person has a support system at home?”
“Yeah. I think she talks to her sister on weekends.”
“Mmhm, that’s good. And is she in contact with your RA, do you know?”
“Probably not. I don’t think she’d be super comfortable talking to him, you know? He’s so serious.”
“No, I get that.” He can’t remember talking to their freshman RA, a senior named Benjy, more than twice, and both times were painfully awkward. “Even still, it might be nice, you know? For her to know she has other options, besides you and her sister.”
“Other resources…” Aaron is thoughtful. “Like counseling? She used to go, in high school, she said.”
“Could be. It’s not a requirement, however, and you can’t make anyone go to counseling. Even still…I could give you some information on free campus counseling, if you’d like?”
“Uh, yeah, sure, sounds great.” He looks up a few phone numbers in the database and reads them out to Aaron. This seems to relax Aaron, finally, and he asks a couple more questions, about insurance, and wait times, which Sirius is happy to provide, and even though he’s just reading off of the computer screen, Aaron thanks him profusely, which makes him feel kind of awful and imposter-y.
“Okay, so another thing that I like to do, when it comes to these kind of situations,” he continues, “is think about time. Sometimes, if someone is not doing well, mentally, it can be helpful for people to have a kind of event that they’re looking forward to, to ground them.” He swallows. “So, for instance, if you can think of something that’s coming up in the future…”
“Her sister’s coming up, for Labor Day.” Aaron says in a rush.
“Yes, that’s a perfect example! Just finding ways to slip that into a conversation can remind someone that there are good things coming, even if it doesn’t seem very positive right now.”
“Okay, so.” There’s a pause, and he realizes that Aaron is writing what he’s saying down. “I’ll mention the counseling, because I really think she would go again if I told her where it is. If she still seems down, I’ll talk about her sister coming up; maybe mention she can talk to the RA as a last resort. Does that sound good?”
“That’s right. It’s not a particularly complicated plan, but that’s best, I think, for situations like this. It may get better soon, too. And Aaron…you’re know that you’re doing all the right things, you know? You called, which is a great first step. You’re providing a distraction, too, which…the importance of that can’t be understated.” He thinks about being fifteen, James lying in bed next to him, talking about nothing. How grateful he was, to not be made to talk just then, their shoulders touching. “She probably appreciates that more than you know. And, look, you don’t have to have all the answers. God knows, I certainly don’t. It’s sometimes good enough just to try. And you are trying, so…” He lets it hang in the air.
“Thanks.” Aaron says cautiously. “I-I think I’ll go now.”
“Of course.”
“Can I call back?” the younger boy asks. “If it doesn’t work out? If it gets worse?”
Sirius exhales slowly. “You can call back any time.”
When Aaron hangs up, he puts his head down on the table for three seconds. Holds his breath, closes his eyes, watches the red mirages dance across his eyelids. By the time the phone rings again, he’s back at it, maybe a slight tremor in his right hand, but an even voice, a calm voice, a reassurance, a promise to be here, to be present , to watch . It’s such a fragile thing, what holds us to this life, he thinks, and he knows the comfort he offers can feel incomplete, hollow, impersonal. But it would be worse to do nothing, to languish in complacency, to throw up his hands and waste away. Better to try, and fail, he knows all too well, then let the lethargy win.
_
Once his shift ends, he walks across the road to the shopping complex where Mary works. It’s a strange bond, the one the two of them share, two people who are mirror images of each other in a peculiar way. They like their drinks strong, their conversation sharp and witty. Mary shares his restlessness, his constant need for the new and exciting; while he shares her impulsivity, her tendency to leap before looking. They both enjoy being the center of attention, the catalyst for something interesting and fun. He had thought that after they’d broken up she wouldn’t want anything to do with him. They’d been too similar in too many ways; they never should have been together in the first place. But that gave way to a friendship that, if not the same as his one with James, is similar in its closeness. It’s Mary who shows him how to use their shitty toaster in the apartment, courtesy of Peter’s parents, Mary who tells him everything about her relationship problems (he usually doesn’t have particularly good advice, but most of the time, she just wants a sympathetic ear, which he can provide.), Mary who he can count on to always say yes to any last-minute going-out plans. It’s also to Mary he first confessed that he was thinking of experimenting with his gender presentation a little bit, and she hadn’t even blinked, just did his eyeliner and painted his nails. Realistically, he knows that a lot of her romantic partners think their friendship is a bit of a threat; after all, who wants their girlfriend to be close friends with her ex from two years ago? But she always dismisses it. “We’re the kind of friends who transcend romance.” she said once, dramatically.
He had raised an eyebrow. “The fuck does that mean?”
“Oh, you know, now that we’re over the mystery of what dating each other would be like, we can worry about more important things.” And she had been right, he knows. He loves Mary, not in spite of them not being together, but rather, because everything that happened, every space she’s occupied in his life, was exactly where she was meant to be at the time, and he knows she feels the same way about him. There’s strength in that, and comfort, too, in knowing someone so well.
She’s waiting for him, out front, her hair in bouncy curls, raspberry lip gloss a halo on her full mouth. “Black.” she says, almost serious, like they’re 1920s gangsters making a deal.
“You’re talking to me like I’m a 1920s gangster making a deal, MacDonald .” he informs her.
“Ha ha. Didn’t you and James go to some kind of horrible pre-frat all-boys private school where everyone called each other by their last names? I was trying to channel that.”
He groans. “Oh, God. Don’t remind me.” He’d loathed high school, probably would have dropped out if it hadn’t been for James. Also, being referred to by his last name is just…No. He changes the subject. “How’s work? Any horror stories?”
“You’re asking me that?”
“You know I can’t tell you my work horror stories. I’m a confidential resource.”
She swats at him, like an irritated cat. “You have such a big mouth; I can’t believe they hired you.”
He opens his big mouth, injured. “I can keep a secret!”
“ Peter can keep a secret. Remus can keep a secret. James can keep a secret, if you bribe him enough. Not you.”
“ You can’t, either.”
“True, but at least I get to bitch about the customers to Moranda.” Moranda is Mary’s manager at the beauty supply store where she works. They have a vague, mostly joke-y, shared Mom-crush on her, since she drives a very clean Mercedes and has three kids. “I’d be fucking losing it.”
“We can debrief. With each other.” An opportunity he rarely takes, as talking about his feelings with the other student workers in the program, most of whom he doesn’t know well, feels like head-butting a wall.
“Yeah? Well, that’s good.” says Mary, thoughtfully, because she’s not a pusher. They operate that way around each other-fiercely guarding the other’s privacy. If he wants to talk, she knows, he will. “I am sort of proud of you, you know. For doing it. It’s what my mom would say is doing God’s work.”
“Oh…eh, thanks. How was your date?”
“Don’t ignore me! I’m proud of you!” She cups her hands around her mouth, projecting her voice into his ear. “I’m PROUD of you!”
“Ugh,” he sniffs, ever the touchy oldest brother. “Stop it.”
“Say you’re welcome.”
He grits his teeth. “You’re welcome.”
“And my date was fine, by the way. We went thrifting-“
“Wait, on a date ? What is that, the lesbian equivalent of making out at the mall?”
“Shut up, it was fun. I got this-“ she points at the slim black belt on her waist. Sirius approves. “and she gave me her number so we can like, plan the next one. If there’s a next one.”
He nudges her, gently. “Of course there will be.”
“I don’t know. She’s not Simon.”
He sticks his bottom lip out, poutily. “I hate Simon.”
“You do not. I don’t hate -“
“And you know what?” he says, interrupting. “I never thought he was very good-looking, anyway. All the curly hair, and the newsboy caps…it’s a bit much , don’t you think?”
“You,” she retorts, teasing, “are the very definition of a bit much .”
“Hey, I’m just saying, you can do so, so much better.”
“I know, I just…I want to be sad for a bit. Maybe single and sad.”
“In that case,” he says, “you’ll have company.”
“Not from you, though.” She puts on a dreamy voice that Sirius gathers is supposed to be him. “Oh, Gideon , you big strong man, come tie me to the bed. Write me in one of your plays like your French girls.”
He blushes, thinking about the six (unread) messages Gideon has sent him. The top one reads, I want to make you beg for it. He can’t bring himself to read the rest. “Shut up.”
_
“Oi, luv!” he slurs, about two hours later. “Fancy a shag?”
“Mm-mm.” Peter tuts, disapprovingly. “That was basically Australian .”
“Fuck you, it’s close enough.” Beside him, arm thrown around his shoulders, James squawks, “Calm your tits!” and they both dissolve into helpless laughter.
“You aren’t even close!” Peter, who has been coaching them on the Cockney accent he had to put on in A Christmas Carol , throws up his hands in exasperation. “It’s like you’re getting worse.”
“Or maybe,” says Sirius, practically inhaling another shot, “you’re just not a very good teacher.”
Peter huffs. “It would be one thing, if you were actually trying -“
“Pshh,” He flaps an arm, lazily, downs shot number four (Jack, straight) without making a face, a skill he is more proud of than he would like to admit. “Trying’s overrated.”
“Come on,” says James, before there can be an argument. “We have to go; we’ll be late to meet the girls.” He makes a valiant effort to stand, then goes. “Absolutely not ,” and collapses back into the couch, crushing Sirius’ arm a little.
“We’ll Uber then,” he decides, quickly. “You-drink some water , you hear? Five minutes.” James nods, sleepy. A summer with his parents has actually murdered his alcohol tolerance. “Pete-watch him.”
“What the fuck -why do I always have to-?”
“Thanks!” he blurts, and heads to the kitchen, snagging a couple plastic water bottles. Perhaps he’s being a little abrupt, but Peter gets so irritating when he drinks; there’s really no living with him. He opens them with his teeth, because fuck it, and unceremoniously dumps the contents down the sink. Next, he rifles through the kitchen drawers until he finds the plastic funnel James lifted from the chemistry lab their freshman year, balancing it on the rightmost bottle. From under the sink, he pulls out the huge bottle of cheap, horrible red wine they keep “for cooking.” (Really, it was a gift from Marlene’s cousin, who’s twenty-one. Sirius has no fucking clue how he would cook with wine.) It smells like lighter fluid. He carefully starts pouring it into the bottles.
“What are you doing?” He jumps, but it’s just Remus back from…well, whatever he does all day.
“Jesus Christ .” he says. “You scared me.”
“What are you doing?” Remus repeats, like he wasn’t sure he had been heard the first time. Sirius smiles, the tendrils of something evil taking root in his heart. It’s not a nice impulse, but, oh well.
“What does it look like?” He poses it as a question. It’s not, not really.
“You could just take the big bottle.” Remus says mildly. “We all know you’re the only one that drinks that stuff.”
“Right.” He bares his teeth, “Because I’m always the drunk one.”
Remus gulps, his Adam’s apple standing out in sharp relief against the pale skin of his neck. Sirius fights the sudden, childish impulse to spit wine on him. He’s so incredibly fair-skinned; he’d probably get stained. “That is not what I meant.”
“Sure.” He takes a swig from one of the bottles. “You’re not being judgmental at all. Want some?” He offers the bottle, a test, a challenge.
The other boy tenses. “You know I don’t-“
“I’m kidding! Oh my God, your face! It’s like I suggested we smoke crystal meth together. You know, trying it once won’t kill you.”
Remus shakes his head. Sirius isn’t sure, but he thinks the other boy is smiling. “You’re like those peer pressure videos from high school.”
“I’m the devil on your shoulder.” he says self-importantly, and takes another long sip of wine. It’s probably staining his teeth blue. God, it’s bad.
Remus snorts. “Okay.”
“This isn’t working, is it?”
“Not particularly. Hey, um-?” He pauses, trying to thread the words together, but even tipsy (not drunk, admitting drunkeness is a weakness) Sirius knows exactly what he means.
“We’ll be quiet when we come back in. Swear. You know, you could come, too. You’re not…not invited.”
“That’s not the same thing as being invited .” Oh. He hasn’t thought about it like that. “Besides, I don’t really want to babysit.”
Sirius rolls his eyes. “You act like we’re such burdens.”
“You try being around a bunch of drunk and high people when you’re the only sober one. Then tell me you don’t want to rip your hair out.”
“I wouldn’t rip my hair out for anything.” (Maybe he is drunk. That sounded better in his head.)
Remus drums his fingers on the kitchen counter. “Will Gideon be there?” A little too casual, like he’s just curious. Sirius is totally going to make him squirm.
“Probably. Why?”
“Just curious.”
“Of course you are. Would it kill you to not be condescending for a bit? You don’t have to like him.”
“I don’t…not like him.”
“Mmhm. That was very convincing.” He swigs the wine irritably, which now has a distinct taste of plastic bottle, because honestly, he really could care less about what Remus thinks. The goodness, the fucking moral high horse… God .
James calls from the living room. “Will we EVER go?” and Sirius takes that as his cue, adroitly balancing the plastic wine bottles between his arms. Remus tuts, concerned, probably, about his ability to carry all of them, but Sirius isn’t in the mood for a lecture.
“Bye,” he gets out, flashing a purple-teeth grin. “Enjoy homework.”
_
The party’s far away, at someone’s house they don’t know, and everyone’s dressed up in that not-dressed up casual-cool way that Sirius has learned defines West-Coast chic. Everyone is very drunk, very high, and packed into a tight living room. Remus would probably hate this, but Sirius, as a “party person,” more or less, finds there’s something comforting in the crush of limbs thrown over each other, the smell of cigarettes and vodka and terrible body spray and girls’ shampoo. There is absolutely no food, save a half-open bag of off-brand potato chips, and the fumes from the stoners’ corner on the patio are wafting into the house. Whoever has the aux is playing some sort of 2000s mix-Sasha Fierce Beyoncé, Katy Perry. It’s exactly the same as every other one of these, except at a different house.
James, who is drunk, but less drunk than he was an hour ago, is draped over Lily, his face covered in glitter from her neon-green, SHEIN tube top. They’re the same height, which Sirius and Peter find amusing. Peter spots the girl who threw up on him at an orientation party freshman year, and immediately goes into hiding mode, attempting to blend into the furniture. It absolutely doesn’t work, and then she’s coming over, and pulling him onto the makeshift dance floor. Sirius laughs, making absolutely no attempt to rescue him. Marlene nudges him. “Mean.”
“Am I my brother's keeper?" he says, snottily, and when she glares at him, he reminds her, "I am quite literally quoting the Bible. Where’s Mary? Still being single and sad?”
She rolls her eyes, blue brought into sharp relief with messy cobalt liner. Mary’s definitely done that for her. “Fuckin’ wish. She’s chatting up some anthro guy; never seen him before in my life.” She rolls her shoulders, antsy. He hears them pop, even with all the noise.
“Fuck, Marlene, you’re tense .”
“Shut up.”
“Why?” He scans the dance floor, follows her eyes to a tall, rail-thin Black girl, with light skin and dreads tied up loosely on top of her head, who is dancing a la Kat Stratford in 10 Things I Hate About You , all free and vibrant, like she’s the only one in the room. “Oh. I see. You should go talk to her!”
“That’s a terrible idea.”
“But staring at her like you’ve never seen a girl before isn’t? Who is she, anyway?”
A reluctant smile crosses Marlene’s face. “Dorcas Meadowes. She’s a model .”
“Wait, really?”
“Well, an Instagram model, but you know, close enough.”
“Talk. To. Her.”
“No.”
“If you don’t talk to her, I will.”
“Don’t-” But Sirius, who does not feel embarrassment to the same acute level as Marlene, is already crossing the room to stand in front of Dorcas Meadowes, who is drinking water with the same ferocity with which she dances. “Hi.”
Dorcas eyes him, suspiciously. “What do you want?” She’s prickly. Marlene loves prickly.
“So my friend- over there -who is very single and very cute…” Marlene cuts in, mercifully, pushing him out of the way.
“Your freaky ginger boyfriend is here, so leave her alone. ” she informs her. “I’m Marlene.”
Dorcas waggles a cute little eyebrow in amusement. “I know.”
“Gideon’s here?” He feels panic, feels bad about feeling panic, and starts looking around. Shit…he is the world’s worst boyfriend.
“Yes.” Marlene gives him a little shove, but he’s already moving. He can take a hint. Where the fuck…he chugs his wine, trying to restore his buzz, until-Gideon’s hand clamps down on his shoulder.
“Hi.”
“You never responded to me.” Sirius is observing the arc of Gideon’s collarbone, firm under his t-shirt. Really, it’s a bit obscene.
“Sorry.” He looks up. Honestly, it’s too easy sometimes. “I was…distracted.”
“Mm, I can see that. Well…are you going to make it up to me?” Gideon leans over and pulls him into a bruisingly violent kiss, the kind that he knows people will be staring at.
He pulls away. “Right..right now?” It had been the shamelessness, he admits, that drew him to the other boy in the first place. He was so refreshingly different from the staid placidity of most of the people Sirius is used to seeing, the kind of people who blushed when you asked them what they wanted you to do in bed. He just, once in a while, wishes Gideon had a few more hang-ups, a bit more self-awareness.
Gideon laughs, blue eyes mostly black pupil. “Yeah, they have a bathroom…”
And so, after he downs two more shots, enough so his vision gets blurry and he has to feel along the edge of a wall for balance, he finds himself kneeling on the tile floor, diligently sucking his boyfriend off.. He’s better at this than he used to be-when they first got together, he’d been hopeless, having only dated girls. He knows, now, to put up his hair so it doesn’t get in his face, to make the appropriate noises, to make sure he’s not using too much teeth, to look up with what he hopes is a glazed look of happiness right before Gideon finishes, with an unceremonious moan. He wipes cum off his mouth and tries not to retch as Gideon zips his pants up. Stupid fucking alcohol…
“I could do you, too, if you want…” Gideon’s voice is meek, but he’s already moving to undo Sirius’s belt.
“Um…” Fortunately they’re saved by a fierce banging on the door.
“If y’all are going to fuck, can you do it literally anywhere else? We need to pee!” They both start cracking up, first little giggles, then hysterical laughter, until Sirius trips into the shower, knocking his head on the tile.
“Fuck…” he holds his head.
“You big baby.” Gideon pulls him to his feet, as the knocking reaches a fever pitch. “We’ll be out in a second, Jesus.” He opens the door, and they spill into the hall, avoiding the dirty looks of the bathroom goers, and okay, Sirius is embarrassed now, hot, sticky shame that spreads from his face to his toes.
He steals an unattended beer from a table, before they head out, and polishes it off in one.
_
The verdict, when they go back to the apartment, is this: one broken nail (trapped in the Uber door; hurts like fuck), a smudge on his left boot (regrettable, but fixable), a bruise on the back of his head from falling into the shower, swollen, cracked lips and twin hickies on the right side of his neck (no comment), and a scraped elbow from not-so-gracefully rescuing himself from a face-plant into the shrubbery. All in all, it could be worse. Gideon’s holding onto him, to steady him, he says, but he’s in no better shape, his face bright red and pouring sweat. It only takes him three tries to unlock the apartment door, and then they stumble inside, trying to be quiet and failing miserably.
The lights are on, which is weird. Remus should have been asleep ages ago. He moves to turn them off, but then, “Sirius, is that you?”
“Fuck.” he hisses.
“Yes, then.” Remus steps into the kitchen, looking put-out, his feet bare. He doesn’t even acknowledge Gideon, which Sirius thinks is rather rude. He is about to tell him this, when Remus says. “I’m not exactly sure how to say this.” He’s twisting his fingers together, anxiously.
“You can’t kick me out; you need my share of the rent.”
“What? No. Oh my God, are you still drunk ?”
“Yes,” giggles Gideon.
“Well, you need to get your shit together, because…” And it’s then that a fourth person steps into the kitchen, and Sirius’ heart stops . No, it can’t be.
But it is. Brown-black hair, longer than it used to be, grazing his chin. Olive skin, light against his hair, throwing the purple-blue shadows under his grey eyes into sharp relief. A longer nose, a weaker jaw, but it’s like looking into a mirror, other than that. Regulus.
“You got tall.” his brother says.