Chapter Text
It was August 30th, 1997, and summer was slowly undoing itself, like a knot he had failed to tie tight enough. Remus didn’t know it yet, but everything was slipping through his fingers; he was falling into his own high-speed car chase with time, trying to prolong the precious seconds before impact by closing his eyes as he soared through the wind tunnel.
He braced his body before it hit the sides. The explosion was a crude kind of technicolour, reminding him of a dirty, smog-filled sunrise. He felt like a pig having a nosebleed in an abattoir, like he was doing the right thing but in the wrong way. He tasted someone else’s spit between his teeth before he realised it was his own.
“Shit!” Somebody exclaimed next to him. The sound brought him back down, but he didn’t fall to the same level he’d ascended from. He tried to look for something wonderful in the realisation, but truthfully he just felt unsteady.
Mark slugged one half-muscular arm around Remus’ shoulders. Remus didn’t look at his friend, just stared down at the black surface of the electric hob in the corner of Mark’s mother’s kitchen. They’d evaporated four off-white lines from it between the lot of them. Speed had sounded like something that would be disgusting, and Remus felt that it had been disgusting, especially on the way down, but he was feeling a strange kind of euphoria now. He didn’t know what else to name it, so he just pushed it as far down as he could.
Baz moved back from the rest of them like he was leaping through time, but really in the small, third floor council flat, it wasn’t far to go to reach the stereo. There was a disjointing stutter as Baz pushed the CD tray in too hard, and Remus let go of a breath as the room filled with guitar noise and Liam Gallagher’s voice. Nobody loved Manchester like Baz loved Manchester; you could cut him and he’d bleed Gallagher parka green.
“Nobody ever seems to remember…” Neil made a mockery of singing along, words muffled around the freshly-rolled cigarette between his lips. He slammed the toaster’s lever down with his lager-drunk, speed-spun hand, leaning over the slots waiting for the metal to burn orange.
“Life is a game we play.” Baz smirked as he threw his body back into one of Mark’s mum’s kitchen chairs, looking relieved to find that it the was one with all four legs stable and intact. “There’s a lighter here, you prick.” Baz plucked a bright yellow clipper out of the plant pot and chucked it at Neil.
“Fuck off.” Neil twisted his skinny body to miss its impact, and pulled himself upright, puffing his cigarette quickly to get the spark to catch.
Remus regarded the two with a lazy smile as he stepped away from the hob and joined Baz at the kitchen table. One of the legs on his chair was wonky, so he was sat back at a weird angle, balanced between trying to look cool and effortless and trying not to lean back too far and smash his head against the linoleum.
“That’s something else…” Mark muttered, as if he wasn’t quite aware he’d been speaking out loud. His blue eyes were still fixated on the stovetop.
“Yeah, that’s a little bit of magic, mate.” Baz grinned, popping the metal top of a beer bottle hard against the edge of Mark’s mother’s unfinished wooden table. Remus thought that Mark would have yelled at him for that, but this time he didn’t seem to notice.
Remus shrugged and began to roll a cigarette, he didn’t feel much different. Well, his thoughts were starting to pick up their pace, and he was starting to feel strangely warm in his chest, but these felt like insignificant changes. He still felt sixteen years old, he still remembered when being tucked up to sleep on his mother’s sofa turned into the cold, metal-framed bed at the children’s home. He still remembered starting at the comprehensive school half-way through year nine, he still remembered the glint in Baz’s eyes when he caught Remus’ for the first time.
Baz had looked at him like he’d picked a scratch card up off the floor and known he could trade it in for a tenner before he’d even scratched the foil off. Remus remembered that it had made him feel disgusting, like he was being sized up, but it had made him feel wanted. Remus supposed the rest was history; here he was now, the fourth wheel of Baz, Mark, and Neil’s getaway car that was hurtling at high-speed off the road of sense.
Remus didn’t feel much different; he still remembered his foster parents’ faces when they’d taken him out for a lunch for the first time, at a greasy cafe in Levenshulme. When he’d told them quite plainly that he didn’t want anything from them and they could fuck back off to whatever pleasantly middle class street they’d come from. They hadn’t looked at him with pity, they’d looked at him like he’d set a challenge they were eager to meet. He’d been fourteen and already tall enough to meet Roger eye-to-eye. Remus had tried to look intimidating, but even at the time, he knew he just looked angry.
Remus still remembered the way Roger was kinder to him than anyone had ever been, and the way Remus had always taken that as an excuse to run circles around him. Laura and Roger had been married for eighteen months before she’d been honest enough with him to admit that she couldn’t have kids. Remus had imagined many times in the last two years of his life, a pathetic stench of unconditional kindness steaming out of Roger when she’d finally told him, and how there had been no need for a shouting match, a drunk one-night stand, the threat of divorce, just acceptance, and a plan. That was how Laura had told it to Remus, and she’d told it to him many times. Just like she’d told him, when they’d first met him at the cafe, that they both knew that Remus needed people like them, people who were willing to give him that kindness, what Laura had called unconditional love.
Remus hadn’t had the guts to tell Laura that he didn’t believe in any of that shit, or more accurately that he knew it didn’t exist. Not the first time she’d said it, when Remus was fourteen years old, on brief reprieve from the home to stay at the Dickson’s house for the weekend, which was not-so middle class at all, and in Fallowfield, actually. Not the tenth time she’d said it, when she’d picked Remus up from school, after he’d been excluded for giving Jimmy Borix a black eye, and all Laura had said was love, are you alright?
Remus had never told anybody that hitting Jimmy had come like instinct, he’d said something particularly unsavoury about Mark’s mother, who’d always been kind to Remus and the lot of them, no matter what state she found her flat in. It was a real honest kindness, not the same factitious shit that Roger slathered himself in. Jimmy Borix had talked shit about everyone, like a late night talk show host who was being paid for his time, and promised commission if he managed to get anyone to rise, but the shit he’d said about Remus, (and there’d been plenty, the children’s home had been no secret) could stick to the wall as far as Remus was concerned. His friends were a different matter, though. Remus would never to admit it to anyone, especially not Mark, Baz, and Neil themselves, but he would fight the world for them, a hundred thousand times over.
Remus still hadn’t had the guts to tell Laura that he didn’t believe that she and Roger loved him, nor that he didn’t care to want them to, not even the thousandth time she’d rattled off the same unconditional love shit. It had been January earlier that year, and Remus was just shy off sixteen years old, so he didn’t know why they’d bothered with it, he didn’t know why they bothered with him at all, but he’d let them sign the papers. If it made them happy, then so be it. Who was he to intrude on their righteous tirade of saving him? Who was he to intrude on their performative display of doing it? Adoption didn’t mean anything, except in the eyes of the law.
Remus still remembered the look in Roger and Laura’s eyes when he’d opened his GCSE results last week. He’d gotten seven good passes without even trying. Roger and Laura must have been well aware that he hadn’t been trying, as they’d had to collect him off Mark’s mother’s couch at six in the morning, still smelling of cheap cider, to actually get him to sit his Maths exam. Remus remembered it now, they’d actually looked proud of him, looking down at that slip of paper, reading ‘Mathematics at grade C’. Not high enough to sit at A Level, of course, but still a damn good achievement, Remus. Roger’s words were still stuck in Remus’ teeth. English Language and Literature grade B, those you could take to A Level.
The memory made Remus feel sick. He didn’t give a damn about what subjects he could take to A Level. He already knew exactly what he was going to do with his life, thank you very much. Remus was going to do exactly what Baz was doing, working four days a week at his dad’s business, with one day a week at college that he could surely bunk off if he felt like it. Electricians make good money. Laura hadn’t looked too impressed. It’s not about the money, not when you’ve got all that in your head. Remus still didn’t not know what on earth she’d been on about. He knew they couldn’t afford to get a mortgage, not with them both working at a non-profit.
All of that didn’t matter anymore because Neil had hit him square in the face. Remus blinked quickly like waking from sleep, and found himself still sitting at Mark’s mother’s kitchen table. The cigarette in his hands had burned down to the filter and he didn’t remember ever smoking it.
“What the fuck was that for?” Remus spluttered, chucking the cigarette butt into the plant pot.
“I asked you if you wanted another bump.” Neil said.
“Didn’t realise that was an excuse to sock me.” Remus muttered, and reached across the table for Baz’s rizlas, starting to roll himself another cigarette.
“I thought speed was supposed to get you high,” Mark said, his voice working at high tempo, “You, mate, you just look low.”
Remus sighed, and rolled his eyes. He snatched the yellow clipper from Baz’s closed palm when he purposely tried to hide it from him. “Well maybe I could do with another one.”
“Yeah, alright, just don’t zone out for another ten.” Baz stood up, withdrawing the wrap from his inside jacket pocket, and heading back up to the stove. “That bump was wasted on you, I swear.”
“I put in, didn’t I?” Remus snapped, tapping ash into the plant pot.
“Yeah, well, it’s not like I’m up to my eyes in ways to get this shit.” Baz tipped more of the powder out onto the hob and snatched Neil’s bus pass off the side.
“That’s a fucking lie.” Mark said, it was what they had all been thinking.
Baz rolled his eyes, working on chopping up the powder into four piles. It almost looked like he knew what he was doing. Remus knew the truth, Baz loved his movies, and Baz loved to play a character.
“Hash and speed are two very different things, gentlemen.” Baz gave his best attempt at Bond-style received pronunciation, but the mancunian slipped through too easily.
“And don’t I know it.” Neil laughed, getting up to fiddle with the stereo like he needed something to do with his hands. He slammed his fist down on the pause button.
Baz looked up from the hob. “Don’t you dare fuck with the Gallagher brothers.”
Neil shrugged, ejecting the CD and looking through the shelf for another one.
“And don’t you dare play Blur,” Mark said, turning to Remus and sharing a grin with him, like a secret kept between just the two of them.
“Pulp it is.” Neil inserted Different Class into the CD slot and slammed it back in.
“Brilliant compromise, that,” Remus muttered, “now no one’s happy.”
“Look at the lot of you… Mis-shapes, mistakes, misfits.” Baz sung along as noise poured back into the kitchen.
As the tempo increased, Remus knocked his head back in his chair, temporarily fixated on tracing the shapes in the Artex ceiling, until Baz called him over to the hob and pointed Remus’ nose down with a gentle hand to the back of his neck.
Remus didn’t know why they hadn’t just used a CD case; he lamented leaving his cigarette to burn into the dry soil of the plant pot, too dirty to ever be retrieved again. Remus supposed they hardly knew what they were doing. The four of them had been sneaking behind classrooms and bus shelters to smoke poorly-rolled joints since they were fourteen, but speed was a new thing. They had all turned sixteen by now and Baz had seen too many movies and demanded that they must start acting like they were fully grown.
Remus leant over the hob and pressed one index finger to his left nostril, like Baz had showed him. It’s easy actually, just like breathing in.
Remus reeled back, the drip was just as disgusting the second time; he’d never get used to it and he didn’t much want to, but even in that very moment, he knew he would grow up to miss this.
He would miss the fire in Neil’s eyes as he guarded the stereo set, slamming skip on the slow tracks, the quip to Baz’s tone as he parroted lines he’d thieved from movies and magazines like they were anecdotes from his own sixteen years alive, the grin Mark’s face morphed into as he recounted seeing Remus for the first time, so sparky for such a skinny thing, the knot in Baz’s brow when he’d compared Remus to a livewire and he had cursed out Neil for claiming Baz was growing up to be just like his dad. Never, never, in my life, and all lives that might happen afterwards.
He would miss the howl to Neil’s laugh as Baz shoved him back against the wall like he was going to punch him, but instead started dancing. He would miss the beer spilled down Mark’s front, jumping up to shout at Neil when tried to put Blur on, Manchester ‘til I die motherfucker, he’d screamed, not like a girl’s scream, but a scream like he was really feeling something, and for the first time in Remus’ life, he felt it too. He felt what they were all feeling, he felt high, he felt illuminated, he felt alive.
They drank and spoke and swore, and snorted and laughed and danced, until the wrap was empty and a little way past that too. Remus did not remember crashing on Mark’s mother’s sofa at at two in the morning. He never did, and that was the best part. Like this, he could sleep. He lamented staring at the ceiling of the box-room turned bedroom in Roger and Laura’s house in Fallowfield, trying to sleep without any hash in his system. Remus never regretted his brain short circuitting, exhaustion catching up to him at the dead end of a dopaminergic shutdown. Remus only regretted taking it all for granted.
All of it. Manchester, Mark’s mother working night shifts, the four of them having the flat to themselves, Baz’s stupid stories, Neil’s stupid music taste, and Mark’s stupid gormless look on his face when he was high, pink-lipped, glassy blue-eyed. Remus thought he almost looked pretty like that, pretty like a girl should. In fact, there was no almost about it. Remus regretted taking for granted the way he could collapse those kinds of thoughts in his mind in the looming wake of a comedown.
Diana had died at approximately four am, that night, August 31st, Paris time. This translated to approximately three am, British Summer Time, as Remus lay deep in broken sleep, not knowing that his own getaway car had also just hit the wall.
Remus didn’t think Roger had ever been so angry in his life. Remus didn’t think Roger had ever been angry in his life. There was a first time for everything, he supposed.
“Remus, I thought you’d cut this shtick out.”
By the time that Roger’s hard face had softened enough to allow words out, he didn’t sound angry, only displeased, disappointed. Remus thought he would have preferred the alternative; he could have shouted as loud as he wanted, even punched the wall if he wanted to, and he couldn’t be blamed for it, because all he would have been doing was matching Roger’s tone. A fair fight. For a moment, Remus allowed himself to miss the children’s home.
“I don’t know where you got that impression.” Remus mumbled, eyes to the ceiling. He held his cheek out, waiting for a slap that didn’t come. Roger wasn’t like that. For a moment, Remus allowed himself to wish that he was.
Laura’s voice came booming in, “Seven GCSEs A*-C. That gave me the impression of someone who’d finally realised it might be worth applying himself.”
Laura wasn’t angry either, just disappointed and overly enthusiastic.
“Look, son. Sit down, let’s talk about it.” Roger said.
Remus winced. Roger had started calling him son approximately two weeks after they’d signed the papers, and legally, he was, Remus Lupin, Roger and Laura Dickson’s adopted son. But Remus didn’t feel like anyone’s son, instead he felt more like a car, or a dog, or a house: something Roger had purchased and signed the papers for.
The Dickson’s living room was small and cramped, with a three-seater sofa, an armchair, coffee table, bookcase, and TV set, all shoved into the space. Laura had littered the place with decorations, a lot of vintage trinkets and hippie memorabilia, a dream-catcher hung from the curtain rail that collected nothing but dust. Despite this, the room looked offensively beige.
Remus sat leant forward on the edge of the chair, feet planted flat to the floor. Laura noticed his posture and looked disgustingly sorry for him.
“Those were awfully good GCSE results, son.” Roger said, sat needlessly close to Laura on the big, beige sofa.
Remus shrugged. “Suppose so.”
“Yeah,” Laura smiled, “I suppose so too.”
“Cool.” Remus said, flatly.
“Cool,” Roger mimicked, smiling in a way that was downright embarrassing.
Remus wanted to scream at him. Remus didn’t, because Roger didn’t deserve that. He felt awfully ashamed of himself all of a sudden; Roger and Laura had both been so patient with him the past two years, and he could barely keep himself from throwing his right hook into their coffee table. Fuck, Remus thought, that was exactly how they wanted him to feel.
“So what?” Remus raised the tone of his voice, “It was a Saturday night, what’s wrong with a drink and a bit of rock ‘n’ roll? No girls were there, neither, so I don’t know what it is you’re so bothered about.”
“The law, Remus,” Laura said, “That’s what’s wrong with ‘a drink and a bit of rock ‘n’ roll. You’re sixteen years old.”
Remus was so glad they didn’t know about the speed. Baz was smart and always cleaned up after himself. Mark’s mum was too tired to notice and too kind to be angry. In the end, he cut his losses.
“Yeah, you’re right,” Remus sighed.
“I’m glad we understand each other,” Roger said earnestly. He smiled at Remus in a way that made him feel sick.
“Me and Roger, we just… Look, Remus, you’re awfully smart and you’re awfully bad at hiding it. We know you could do well for yourself, if you just… applied yourself. Staying over at Mark’s is fine on the weekend. You’re lucky, I’ll let the drinking slide, but it’s not just the weekend, is it, Remus? We never see you. It’s like you finished school and then just ran off straight out of our lives.”
Yeah, Remus thought, that was the point.
“And frankly son,” Roger sounded bold all of a sudden, “I think you can easily apply yourself to things far more worthwhile than Mr Huntsman’s Electrical Services Limited.”
“And what’s wrong with that? Finish your apprenticeship and you’re on good money,” Remus said.
“Remus, with all the love and respect in the world, when have you ever even remotely showed any interest in being an electrician?”
Remus would admit that Laura had got him there, just not out loud.
“Does it matter?” Remus asked.
“It’s what Baz is doing,” Laura said, “That’s why it matters. Mark, I like, but that Baz is just a big ball of bad news.”
Remus was secretly amused that Neil didn’t even get a mention in her hierarchy of how much she disliked his friends.
“Nevermind that,” Roger interjected, “You don’t do what your mate is doing, just because your mate is doing it. You do what you want to do, and quite frankly, I
think you could succeed at just about anything you wanted.”
Remus didn’t allow himself to stop and think about what he wanted. He didn’t know. He had been born in Fallowfield, he would grow up in Fallowfield, and he would die in Fallowfield, happy only if he outlived Baz, at least. Baz was the one of the four of them that they’d decided would certainly die before forty, dramatic and tragically, with many women swooning at his grave. At least, that was how Baz had told it.
“It makes good money,” Remus said.
“It’s not about the money, son. It’s about achieving something worthwhile. I know you can make something out of your life.”
“Something good too.” Laura tried to appease him with a smile.
Remus felt like exploding. He couldn’t believe how dishonest they were being, spinning him the lie that they had his best interests at heart, that they were putting him first, trying to ensure that he did what he wanted to do, when really, all they were doing was pushing their own narrative on him about what they wanted him to do, or wanted him to want to do, whatever. It was a load of hypocritical bullshit.
Remus doubled-down. “What if I want to be an electrician?”
He didn’t, he just quite fancied the work-life balance. Spending his days with Baz would be a laugh. More of a laugh than working at the shop with Neil, even more of a laugh than doing whatever Mark was doing. Mark hadn’t decided yet himself, maybe that was why Remus had chosen Baz to copy. Besides, he wasn’t copying his friends, he was just borrowing their ideas.
“Well, son, I don’t believe that for a minute.” Roger said kindly.
“I’m not your son,” Remus said, pedantic and pissed off that he was losing an argument he had started.
Remus felt bad almost immediately, seeing the half-broken looks on Roger and Laura’s faces. He knew that more than anything, that was what the both of them wanted, for Remus to be their son. And legally, he was.
“I’m sorry, I…” Remus couldn’t say that he didn’t mean it, so he did all he could do. Rather than remove the bullet, he busied himself with the covering the exit wound. “I just thought, the money. It would be good for you too. I know the charity stuff is bad money, I know the back door lock needs fixing. I just thought I could help you with things.”
Roger and Laura looked at each other and shared the saddest smile Remus had seen in his life.
“Oh Remus!” Laura exclaimed, and practically leapt off the sofa to shuffle over to the chair and hug him.
Remus felt sick. It had worked exactly how he intended it to.
“That’s so thoughtful of you.” Laura had perched herself on the arm of the armchair, sat awfully too close to him. Remus allowed it, so long as it got him off the hook.
“But,” Roger said and immediately Remus looked up, meeting him eye-to-eye.
“But what?” Remus asked.
“Well, Laura?” Roger looked to his wife, floundering pathetically as soon as any pressure was placed on him.
“Yes, Roger,” Laura snipped back, tongue-in-cheek. She turned to look directly at Remus. “Look, Remus, we’ve been looking for the right time to tell you this, but the problem is there’s never really been a right time. I suppose that for some things there never is. I know it’s not going to be what you want to hear, I know you love it here, I know you’re really settled, and that’s lovely, and we don’t mean to disrupt your happiness or just uproot your like you’re some old plant we’ve forgotten about, but…” Laura finally paused to draw breath.
Yes, Remus thought. He’d expected as much, he just hadn’t expected it to happen so quickly. Though when he thought about it, he didn’t think he done anything remotely so downright delinquent for them to want to get rid of him so quickly. He was their son, after all, in the eyes of the law. Roger would have to unsign a lot of paperwork to accomplish that.
And then, no, Remus thought. Where would he go? Where would they send him to? He was sixteen now, too old for the home. They’d been cruel to leave it this long. He’d have to fend for himself. Maybe he could sleep on Mark’s sofa for a while, but eventually push would come to shove and shove would come to push and…
“Auntie Janie didn’t get the house!” Laura barked out suddenly, like she was still reeling from the revelation herself.
“Cool.” Remus said, flatly.
Roger looked at Remus, brow furrowed into a frown. Remus could tell that Roger thought he knew what Remus was thinking, but Roger didn’t dare to say it. He never would.
“Son,” Roger said, over-emphasising the word, “We thought, we all thought, Laura’s mum, Margaret, your nan, she…” Roger flushed like he’d made a mistake.
She’s not my fucking nan, Remus thought. This time, he didn’t say it.
“We thought she’d leave the house to your auntie Janie,” Laura continued, both of them swapping between sentences. Remus didn’t know why one of them couldn’t just spit it out without leaning on the other.
She’s not my fucking auntie, neither, Remus thought.
“But she left it to your mother.”
She’s not my fucking–
Remus shot up, his eyes wide. “Oh no, no, no, no. Absolutely fucking not thank you very much.”
Both Roger and Laura stared at him, speechless. As if that was the most shocking thing he’d said that afternoon.
Remus had to fill in the gaps. The silence made him uncomfortable.
“So you’re selling it, I presume. And then you’ll get some nice little cushty mortgage somewhere upmarket and all gentrified and you’ll hope I won’t ever see my good-for-nothing mates again because they’re all on the other side of Manchester. Actually, you’re hoping I’ll love it, I’ll settle right in and make some new nice cushty little mates of mine and we’ll start up our own little non-profit just like you two did, and I’ll never fucking see Baz or Neil or Mark again. Well, good luck with that. You can’t stop me getting the metro back down and you can’t take Mark’s sofa away from me.”
Roger and Laura didn’t stop staring. They let him get it all out. Remus didn’t know if that was some new-age parenting tactic of Laura’s, or if they both truly just didn’t know what to say.
Again, Remus had to fill in the gaps. “And you can’t stop me working at Baz’s dad business. Wherever you put me, Fallowfield ain’t that far.”
“We’re not selling it, actually,” Laura said, gently.
Oh?
Roger smiled the widest smile Remus had ever seen. “We’re moving in.”
Oh.
Fuck.
Remus wanted to punch him, but he didn’t have it in him. Suddenly, Remus felt like a lead balloon, sinking as it deflated, no longer riding the high of the argument, the comedown trickled back into his bones.
Roger and Laura were quiet again, clearly waiting for him to say something else. This must be some more of Laura’s new-age parenting bullshit. Remus wanted to shout, tell her so, punch something, surely he’d more than enough earned it by now. But truthfully, he didn’t have the energy. Remus sat in silence until he sunk.
Then Remus said, very quietly, “Islington’s in London, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” Laura said, matching his tone.
“Now that, will be quite far on the metro,” Roger said, jovially, clearly trying to lighten the mood.
Remus wished he had punched him. Maybe then they would have changed their mind. Suddenly, Remus wished this had been all what he’d thought it had been, that they were getting rid of him. At least then, he still have Baz, and Neil, and Mark. The people that actually mattered to him. He would sleep on Mark’s sofa for the rest of time if it meant that he’d never have to miss one of their Saturday night sessions. He would sleep on Mark’s sofa for the rest of time, regardless. He couldn’t bear the thought of never seeing his friends again. It sank in him like a stone. Because, yes, Roger, Islington will be quite far on the metro.
Remus had wanted to burst out of the front door. His first instinct was to run all of the way to Mark’s, roll a joint, put the music on loud, they could listen to whatever Mark wanted, one of Mark’s pop punk songs if he so wanted it. Anything, everything to not just sit there and cry about it.
The phone rang before Remus could get his feet to move, and he found himself sat, stunned into silence as Laura followed the sound into the kitchen. She left the door open as she removed the handset from the hook. The white door to the kitchen seemed to glare at him as it glistened, catching the afternoon sun as it tore through the tiny living room.
“Oh, Janie,” Laura’s voice was as loud and clear as if she was stood right next to Remus. Their house wasn’t very big at all. Hardly middle class like he had thought it would be, back when he was fourteen.
Suddenly, Remus realised that this must mean the world to Roger and Laura. Laura’s dead mother, Margaret’s, house in Islington. Now, that must be suitably middle class, with rooms that were too big for the furniture in them, and not the other way around. That would surely change their lives. A back door that locked properly, no more dismal old Fallowfield. No more Baz, Neil, Mark. No more Baz, Neil, Mark, Remus.
Mark had always told him, Remus, you have such an absolutely awful name. Remus understood where Mark was coming from. It had never sounded right in step with the others’. It sounded absolutely archaic, but Remus didn’t say that, because he knew Mark wouldn’t know what archaic means. Instead, Remus had said, Mark, you have such an absolutely boring one. And Mark had smiled and said, oh really, can’t get it out of your mouth though, can you?
“Yes, I know, dear… it’s awful news… she was so young and the only good one of the lot of them… yes indeed… I do hope they do something on the BBC… And yes, thank you, I’ve told him just now actually… well, as well as you can expect…”
As Laura buried herself in conversation with her sister over the phone, Roger did the only commendable thing he’d done since Remus had known him, and switched the TV on to drown out the bloody noise of it.
“...an early morning car crash in a Paris underpass ended a life with with more than it’s share of pain and courage, warmth and compassion. Just over two hours ago…”
Remus had to sit through tea and the whole bloody broadcast to wait to use the phone. He wanted to run, but he felt as if his feet were bolted to the living room floor. Remus thought about this strange little house, suddenly he didn’t want that to disappear either.
“And where the bloody hell is Islington?”
Mark’s voice sounded wrong through the receiver, as if muted by the machine. It wasn’t quite Mark as if he was standing right next to you. Just a change of inflection in Mark’s voice could make Remus feel things. Remus didn’t know how Mark did it, but Remus thought Mark’s voice was magical. It was nothing like that through the phone, though. A hazy imitation of the truth. Remus shuddered as he thought about resigning himself to an indefinite future of Mark only through the phone.
“London.”
“Right.” Mark sounded like he was holding his breath.
“Yes, that is right.”
Remus was keen to be pedantic. He found it always made difficult conversations easier if he pissed the other person off, if he redirected their attention to the way he was speaking to them, rather than what he was actually saying.
“Piss off, you tosser.”
Remus smiled.
“And you’re going with them?”
“I have to.” Remus sighed.
“Don’t bloody have to do nothing, as far as I’m concerned.”
“Well it isn’t like that, Mark.”
“What because you’re all legally adopted and that now? They can’t just cart you about wherever they fucking feel like it.”
“Apparently they can.”
“Sounds to me like a bit like human trafficking.”
Remus groaned, “Mark, I don’t think you know what that means.”
“Yeah, and I don’t think Baz knows either and he’s the one that told it to me, so shut up.”
Remus sighed. He did shut up, just for a moment. He stared across the darkened kitchen, watching the moon rise through the twilight out of the tall, narrow window. He thought, suddenly, that he would miss this strange little street.
Roger and Laura had gone to bed an hour ago. Remus had spent too long staring at the phone, and then staring at the front door, and not knowing which one to choose. He’d chosen the easy option in the end. He was tired, and still fighting a comedown too.
“Do you want to go?” Mark asked, and Remus suddenly remembered the phone in his hand.
“Of course I don’t want to go.”
“Then don’t go.”
“It int that simple.” Remus wished it was.
“Seems simple enough to me. They leave. You, don’t leave.”
“Well yeah, but where would I go? This house will be gone too. They’ll rent it back out to someone nice, quiet and respectable, I imagine.”
This strange little house, gone too.
“I’ve got a perfectly good sofa.”
That perfectly good sofa, gone too.
“I can’t do that. Your mum would say no.”
“Actually, I think she would say yes. I think she likes you best. Actually, I know she likes you best.”
“Doesn’t matter who likes and doesn’t like what. I’m going. I have to go.” Remus couldn’t bring himself to say it. Cause they’re my parents.
No, they’re not, another part of him started to say. Yes they are. The voice in his head sounded like Laura’s.
“Fuck,” Mark said, “Have you talked to Baz?”
“No. I don’t know what to say.” Remus meant it. Baz was wonderful, but he wasn’t Mark.
“Said it alright to me,” Mark pointed out.
“Well…” Baz isn’t you. “Baz is Baz.”
“Baz is Baz. Can’t argue with that.”
“I wish you would,” Remus said, suddenly.
“What? Argue with you?”
“Would make it easier.”
“Why?”
“‘Cause if I was pissed off at you, I wouldn’t miss you half as much.”
“Aw…” Mark’s tone was mocking, “That, my dear Remus, was quite… dare I say… romantic.”
“Piss off.”
“Well, if you like, off I piss…”
“Mark, no–” Remus stammered.
“No, don’t go?” Mark laughed, “Could say the same to you, you dick.”
Remus was quiet for a moment, he didn’t know what to say.
“Was it working?” Mark asked.
“Was what working?”
“I was trying to make you pissed off with me,” Mark said, “y’know so you wouldn’t miss me half as much.”
“Don’t do that. I’ll miss you as much as I want to, thank you very much.”
“And how much is that?”
“Depends on the day.”
“Hm.”
“Yeah.” Remus feels panicked suddenly, it felt all too real, the weight of everyone and everything exploding around him.
“When do you leave?” Mark did it for the both of them, asked the question they didn’t dare to touch with a barge pole. Both for their own reasons.
“Uhh…” Remus stammered. It felt painful to say, it felt painful to think. “Friday.”
“Friday?”
“They uhh… Roger and Laura, they uhh… enrolled me at this sixth form college, right? In Islington. Term starts next Monday. So I suppose I…”
“Sixth form?”
“Yeah.”
“And how do you feel about that?” Mark asked.
“I don’t know. That’s the least of my problems.”
“I thought you were going to be a sparky,” Mark teased, “What will Baz have to say about that? Sixth form, blimey.”
“Funnily enough, I’m not all that worried what Baz will have to say,” Remus felt he sounded too severe when he said it, and was quick to correct himself. “Baz can barely count to six.”
Mark laughed, a real laugh, a Mark laugh. Almost Mark enough to be real, even down the phone.
“Nah, that’s Neil,” Mark said.
“Nah, that’s you.”
“Mm.” Mark paused for a moment, then said, “No, but you are worried about what Baz will say because you haven’t bloody told him. Why?”
“I don’t want to.”
“Why?”
“I don’t have to, do I?”
“Well, he is going to notice when you suddenly disappear and don’t show up to work with him,” Mark quipped.
“Maybe that would be the best way to go. Just disappear without telling anybody.”
“Well it’s too late for that now, because you’ve already told me.”
“Yeah. Shot myself in the foot with that one.”
“Yeah, you did,” Mark said and sounded as if he was talking about several things at once.
Several Remus and Mark things, several Mark and Remus things. Things Remus couldn’t explain to Baz or Neil, because he wouldn’t know how to. Baz was mad and enchanting, madly enchanting, if you like. And Neil was Neil, easy-going and hilarious, hilariously easy-going. But Mark was his best friend. Mark would always understand when Baz didn’t, and Mark would always know what to say when Neil wouldn’t. That was why.
“I didn’t tell Baz because I don’t want to let him down. I don’t know how to make him understand. Baz is just… Baz. I didn’t tell Neil because… well, I just don’t think he would know what to say.”
“And I always know what to say, do I?”
“Yeah, Mark, you do.” Remus said, and felt a twinge in his chest that told him he meant it.
“Well, I’ll tell them, then, shall I?” Mark said, his voice had the inflection of a question, but he wasn’t asking Remus’ permission. “So you don’t have to.”
“Okay,” Remus said, I trust you. He didn’t say that, because that would be going too far. As much as Mark was his best friend, Remus felt like he was holding himself back around Mark, all of the time.
“Okay, I will,” Mark said, “Consider it a parting thing. Actually one more thing, Friday you said?”
“Yes.” Remus grimaced as he spoke it aloud.
“Right then, Thursday night. We’ll throw you a party. Not like a leaving party, not all sad and shit. A party party.”
Remus wanted to say no, absolutely fucking not, but he didn’t, because he didn’t want to let Mark down, and because he secretly did want it. One last hurrah. Remus thought that was more than fair enough.
“Okay, just us four, though,” Remus said, “I don’t want the whole world showing up.” I don’t need the whole world showing up.
“Okay, just us.”
Just you, Remus thought. He suddenly felt warmth in his chest like he did on his second bump of speed, with Baz’s music in his ears, playing from Mark’s stereo, with Neil playing DJ. He didn’t know how he would manage without his friends.
“Consider it done, Reems.”
Remus cringed, “You know I hate that. No one is allowed to call me that.”
“If it’s the end of times, I say I get special privileges.”
No, don’t say that, Remus thought. Say anything else. Just don’t say that.
“Fine. Just because it’s you.”
“I’m touched, Reems. Trust me, I’ll sort it. You’re one special fella, alright. I’ll sort it, I got to. I’ll miss you on my sofa, won’t I?”
Don’t say that. Don’t make it true.
Remus wished they’d stayed up talking on the phone all night. It felt like suddenly there was so little time, although, of course they had phones in Islington. He knew he’d be able to call Mark, and Baz, and Neil. But he knew it wouldn’t be the same. He didn’t know what part of Mark he was trying to capture in the last few days they had together, but it felt like something he needed to do.
Remus hated that feeling. Compulsion. For his whole life he felt he’d been propelled from place to place, person to person, by other people’s wants, feelings, and actions. It made him feel powerless. He couldn’t bear it to continue, and yet here he was again, letting it happen. Islington. Mark was right, he could refuse. He could live on Mark’s sofa, he could stay, he could stand his ground. But it felt like the wrong thing to do. For Roger, for Laura. This was what they wanted, and they wanted him to be a part of it too. As angry as Remus was, even he could recognise that as a kindness.
He would never admit it to himself, but he didn’t want to hurt Roger and Laura, antagonise them yes, but that was another thing entirely. They would never be his parents, but they were good people. Remus knew if he ran, he’d never find anyone that could replace them, not at his age. No, Remus didn’t need to have Roger and Laura, but he wanted to have them regardless, as wrong and selfish as it felt to admit that to himself. For them, Remus would go, wherever they wanted him to.
Remus hung up the phone. He didn’t want to answer Mark’s question. He didn’t want to find out what it was that made this all so unbearable. He wanted to miss Mark as he was, to capture everything in amber, just as it had always been. Anyway, he was due to leave in five days, there was no time for anything else now.