Work Text:
We became inseparable. Like an illness
- Fleur JaeggyI’m not strong enough to be your man / I lied / I am.
- boygenius
“Coffee?” Sirius to Lily, who looked barely human on the living room floor.
“Absolutely.”
“Decaf?”
“Shit-head.”
“How was the break through?” Sirius, putting the jug on, leaning against the kitchen cabinets.
“It wasn’t one. I just had to write a thousand words to figure that out.”
“Grim.” Sirius said, half listening.
“Undeniably. Good sleep?”
“Spent most of the night trying to find a weed dealer who delivers.”
“On Incognito I hope?”
“Obviously. MI-6 isn’t catching me.”
“Find anyone?”
“A few. Also an acid guy.”
“No acid.”
“Well, we’ll obviously do coffee first–“
“We are not dropping acid locked inside during a pandemic. We’ll kill each other.”
“I’m telling you,” Sirius, pulling out two cups, half clean, “maybe acid will give you the thesis break through–“
“Christ–“
“For your studies, Evans–“
“Stop trying to pitch me on acid before coffee.”
“After coffee?”
Lily groaned. Sirius stirred the coffees with a fork, looking at her expectantly.
She considered. “How good is the pitch?”
“There’s a Powerpoint.”
She sat up, “Really?”
“Okay, no, but listen,” Sirius, walking over with the overfull coffees, liquid slopping out, “Just drink this first.”
//
They both set lockdown goals. Lily wanted to write ten thousand words before it was over. Sirius wanted to learn to light a cigarette off their electric stove. When asked to pick another goal, Sirius said his second goal was to complete his first goal.
//
“I can’t see shit, turn your camera on-“
“It is on, give it a sec-“
James and Remus blinked into view. James in pyjamas, Remus, standing over his shoulder, still brushing his teeth. It was stupidly good to see them.
“See us now?”
“Sorry to interrupt the morning routine.” Sirius said.
“You’re forgiven.” Remus garbled through a mouthful of toothpaste.
“I see Prongs hasn’t exactly dressed up.”
“It’s seven am! You’re lucky I’m here.”
“Are we?” Lily asked, “Your shirts inside out.”
James looked down, saw that it wasn’t, and flipped her off, “Like you two are in ballroom attire, Black’s owned that shirt through four PM’s.”
“What thoughtful political commentary, Prongs.”
“Cheers, I’m booked for Newsnight. How’s it been?”
“At Newsnight? No idea,” volunteered Sirius, “but here I’m so desperate I’m thinking about having sex with Lily.”
“Hard pass.”
“Handjob?”
She considered. “Ten pounds.”
“Five.”
“I’ve already had sex with Remus.” James cut in.
“Don’t make me jealous” said Sirius. Remus, rolling his eyes, went to spit.
//
Marlene, lying on her bathroom floor, had the wine bottle so close to the camera Lily could read the label.
“I would give anything–anything” Marlene sloshed the bottle around, “to be in a bar and have some girl spill a drink on me right now. Anything in the world.”
“Paying too much for a gin and tonic–“
“Being hit on by the pin-ball machines–“
“Waiting in line for a bathroom–“
“A public bathroom–”
“Communal pissing!”
“God,” Lily took a huge sip of tequila, poorly mixed, “I would do anything to see a public bathroom. One day I will get married in a public bathroom.”
“James would probably do that.”
Lily grinned. “Don’t tell him, he’ll do it to be funny.”
“He does everything to be funny. You couldn’t get married there anyway, lighting would be so bad. Photos would be shit.”
“Can’t have that. Also, imagine trying to rent it– nightmare.”
“Yeah, better not.”
Lily considered. “It would be so funny, though.”
“God so true,” Marlene slugged wine, looking off into the distance, lips red, “It would be so funny but the photos would be so shit. This is like Stella’s choice, or whatever–“
“Stella’s choice?”
“Yeah, that lady? What’s her name? Not Stella. Something S. I want to say Seraphina but that feels more wrong.”
Lily was convulsing with laughter, “Sophie-“
“Oh, I was close!“
“No you weren’t-“
//
The whole thing felt like something a grownup should handle, only technically grownups were handling it, it just did not at all feel like that. It was such a strange, boring fear. The kitchen was always dirty and the news always on, saying nothing helpful, playing on the TV James had bought a hundred years ago. It still had the bumper sticker saying HONK FOR TITS stuck on the top of it.
A few weeks in, they got really high and put old Glastonbury sets on with the chrome cast. Surreal, even then, to see all those people pressed against each other, not a mask in sight. Lily was spraying all their groceries with disinfectant. Sirius wore a mask and gloves to go buy cigarettes. He couldn’t get the US embassy on the phone for love nor money, his visa problems utterly eclipsed.
“It could be worse.” Sirius said, looking at Lily Allen in 2008.
“I like this song.” Lily said defensively.
“No–“ his slow, deliberate voice, rolling over her like TV static. “This. The whole thing.”
“Yes.” She said, as immediately as she could while being very high. The news was a parade of terrible, but their own luck was holding. They weren’t sick and neither were the boys, James’ parents, her mother. They had places to live. They still, at the moment, had jobs. Money. “So much worse.”
“Yeah.” Sirius was looking up the ceiling like there was something there. “Could’ve happened ten years ago.”
Lily almost asked what he meant, and then she remembered. Ten years ago, they would have been kids, locked down at home. Strange to have to be remember, again and again, how Sirius was raised in a pit of knives. She was very, very high, but still managed to squeeze his wrist.
//
“You are horrible.” James said, the second she picked up the phone, “Truly horrible.”
“Is that my new nickname? ‘Horrible’?”
“It’s one of them, you terrible creature.”
“Terrible creature?”
“Moony wrote down a list of names for me to call you.”
“I didn’t tell him to buy it!”
“You let him buy it. You live with him, he’s your responsibility.”
“Do you know how hard he worked to find a pet service that delivered? I’ve never seen him work so hard, on anything, ever.”
“That’s disturbing seeing as I’m in business with him.”
Lily grinned. “I take it you guys haven’t bonded it yet?”
“Are you joking? We can’t find it, haven’t seen it since we opened the box.”
“Try under the couch.”
“There might be shit under there, no way.”
“Have you fed it?”
“Moony put out lettuce or something, I don’t know. He said he’s going to bill Black for living costs.”
“That’s hardly in the birthday spirit.”
“You got–“
“Sirius got–“
“You let Sirius get us a rabbit infestation for Lupin’s birthday, you ruffian, that’s hardly in the birthday spirit.”
“Ruffian?”
“Moony is very upset.”
“Is it a rabbit infestation if it’s just one?”
“Dramatic license.”
“So unlike you to be dramatic.”
“Don’t try to charm me, I cannot be charmed.”
“Liar” Lily pointed out, cheerfully, “At least it’s fluffy, Sirius showed me a photo.”
“Ah yes, our furry little problem.”
“That sounded almost fond.”
“Our connection must be bad.” he deadpanned, and Lily grinned again.
“Remus got any more names for me?”
“Enabling bastard and traitorous leech are also on here.”
“God, if this is my list I shudder to think what Sirius is getting.”
“He hasn’t even written those down yet, says if he does he’ll get put on a watchlist– what?” muffled noise, the jostling of the phone.
“Lily?” Remus’s voice, mildly out of breath, “Put him on, him screening my calls will not stop me from wringing his neck through the phone.”
//
“How’s business?” Lily asked at dinner, the first time they’d spoken all day.
Sirius looked like he had just woken up because he had. “Shit. Money’s drying up.”
“Grim.”
“Don’t suppose you’ve got any?”
Narelle, who’d been Lily’s boss for two years, was currently ignoring her calls, something she hadn’t told the boys about yet because then James would try to give her money and it would make her crazy.
“I’ll get back to you.”
Sirius smiled, barely. “How’s thesis?”
“Shit. Can’t look at it.” Lily blew hair out of her eyes, “I thought I’d have written, like, next great American novel by now.”
“You’re not American.”
“Why let that get in the way?”
//
Sirius was supernaturally exhausted, up early and half-living on California time so he could do business stuff with the boys. He kept getting the dates and times wrong on all the emails and when they’d call James would joke, asking what it was like to live in the future. Sirius would answer something crazy, the submarine traffic is insane, a flamingo’s been made PM, everyone’s gotten into eating bees. James was desperately, deliriously, trying to raise enough money to keep them afloat. He was good at selling the company, selling things, always had been. He could probably get everyone into eating bees.
It was stupid, but Sirius often found himself at three am, waiting on zoom or emailing the visa office or eating a huge piece of toast, looking at photos of highways around the world. Abandoned roads snaking around each other. Dead rivers, ghostly as shit without cars. It freaked him the fuck out, but he couldn’t look away. It was like the stuff he’d do as a kid: holding his hand over the lighter flame, breaking the speed-limit in Remus’ car, looking at Regulus. If he did it to himself, if he did it enough, it wouldn’t hurt anymore.
//
“I was just thinking about you.” James said, picking up the phone without saying hello.
“Being filthy in the middle of the work day?”
“You really know me.”
“Regrettably–“
“And permanently. But seriously–“
“What’s he got to do with it?”
“That barely worked.”
“You laughed.” She said, because he had, and that was the point.
“Touché.”
“You were saying why you were thinking of me.”
“Yeah, what’s that song by that guy–“
“Descriptive.”
“It always played that cafe across the street from school, it was a guy writing about his girlfriend, her name was like Deborah or something-“
“Deborah?”
“Okay, not Deborah-“
“Surely not.”
“But it was like Deborah, or Debby, or something, and they were long-distance and there was lots of guitar? It played all the time–“
“Oh, Hey There Delilah” Lily realised, “The café across from school always played Hey There Delilah by the Plain White Tees.”
‘Brilliant, knew you’d know.”
“Hey There Deborah?”
“It doesn’t sound as good I will admit.”
Lily smiled, “How’d that come up?”
“I wanted to add it to my ‘home’ playlist and Moony was being very unhelpful.”
“Was he busy working?”
“Yes, buzzkill. I even sent him a Microsoft teams invite to help me brainstorm ideas but he rejected it.”
“How unreasonable.”
“Right?”
“How’s thesis?”
“Don’t ask.”
“Fair enough.”
“Oi! Tell Potter to stop flirting with you and get back on this call!” Sirius hollered from the other room.
“I think you’re being summoned” Lily said.
“Dickhead. He was twenty minutes late to this investor summary this morning.”
“Part of his charm.”
“You’re starting to sound like him.”
“What a horrible thing to say.” Lily said, grinning.
//
Marlene spent a lot of time writing passive aggressive messages in her flat group chat about her housemates dishes that Sirius, who was in the group chat somehow, would love react. He did this for a reason surpassing understanding.
Marlene, over it, would call to tell him to piss off, only then they would end up talking about something stupid like whether you could use baking powder to clean the sink instead of baking soda, or the best-looking person in the background of Marlene’s graduation photos, and Marlene would make Sirius walk into Lily’s room to ask about the baking soda thing, and then they would all stand there on the phone for another hour talking about nothing. Lily’s thesis open on her laptop the entire time, untouched. Sometimes these phone calls would go on so long they would get wine out.
“Ever been to jail?” Marlene asked.
“No.”
“Liar.” Lily said, sipping her pinot.
“If it’s for less than forty-eight hours it doesn’t count.” Sirius pointed out, lying on the floor in front of the camera, “So no.”
“When was that?” Marlene asked, bemused.
“Parking ticket thing.”
“You drive?”
“No,” Lily said, darkly, “He doesn’t.”
Sirius waggled his eyebrows and Marlene rolled her eyes. “You ever, Mar?”
“Not yet, but if Kieran doesn’t start doing his dishes I just might.”
“Can’t wait to have to testify in court about this conversation.”
“Please, Black, like anyone would put you on the stand.”
“I’m definitely taking Kyle’s side then.”
“It’s Kieran, you massive bitch.” Marlene corrected, and Sirius coughed into his wine glass, pretending not to laugh.
//
They were alternating movie nights, Lily’s picks had been the eclectic choices of Moonlight, Princess Diaries Two, A Room with a View, Minority Report, and (very stoned) the Annie remake.
Sirius’ picks had been The Princess Bride exactly once and then Megamind the last six times. The joke had now gone on so long it had warped into something genuine, back to joke, and was now edging toward genuine again. They’d had more than one actual sober conversation about the film’s depiction of idol worship and how great the score was.
//
Lily had fallen into a pit of reading entirely unrelated to the thesis that she was utterly convinced for 48 hours was a breakthrough. Days later, coming out of it, standing over Sirius in his bed:
“Maybe I can use the arrest in a footnote–“
Sirius, never listening and half asleep, mumbled, “Whose arrest?”
“Hugh Grant’s, from the 90’s.”
“I thought you were talking about my arrests, could footnote those.”
“They wouldn’t all fit.”
“You could index them.”
“My poor wordcount.”
“See, this is why I left academia,” Sirius said, eyes shut but still half-gesturing with his hand, “it’s so limiting–“
“If by ‘left academia’ you mean ‘graduated sixth form’”
“Yes, exactly.”
“Getting back to Hugh Grant–”
“How is Hugh Grant related to my academic career?”
Lily pretended he hadn’t spoken, “I don’t think I can use his arrest stuff, since–”
“It has nothing to do with Jane Austen?”
Lily shot him a look, “Why didn’t you say that two days ago?”
“Supporting you through this crisis.” Sirius said, rolling over.
//
Marlene McKinnon to absolute lot: day 14 of kieran not washing a dish
Remus Lupin: who
Marlene McKinnon: my flatmate
Lily Evans: hes the one sirius calls Kyle because he looks like a surfer dude
Remus Lupin: oh kyle
Marlene McKinnon: im going to drown him in the sink
James Potter: poor surfer Kyle
//
Narelle fires her. She talks in circles on the phone for a while and then finally tells her she doesn’t have a job anymore; which Lily knew anyway but still felt like all the air leaving the room. She then started to try arrange for Lily to return the roller skates, and because she no longer getting paid Lily could hang up mid-sentence and not feel too bad. She was calling James before she remembered the time difference.
“Lil?”
“Sorry, fuck, sorry, it’s not important, go back to sleep, I’m going–“
“No, it’s okay, I need to be up in an hour anyway. What’s going on?”
“You were going to be up at four am?”
A momentary pause so he could think of a lie. “I’ve started running.”
“Locked down in the house?”
“Remus and I are doing laps around the living room.”
“At four am, huh?”
“Our downstairs neighbours are pissed.”
“Mutinous, I would imagine.”
“Mutinous. See, that’s why you’re a Master of English Literature.”
“Not yet.”
“Soon. What’s wrong.” He always knew. With anyone else she could put it on, even Sirius sometimes. Yet on the other side of the world, with just her voice, he could read her backwards and through. She hated her phone more and more now: endless scroll, old photos, horrible news, only she would never get rid of it because it had James’ voice in it.
“Can we just not talk about it right now” she shut her eyes, no tears, no way, “Could we just– tell me something interesting. Tell me anything.”
“Okay.” he said, instantly, reading her through again. “Remus and I watched Megamind the other night. The score is not that great.”
//
“Coffee,” Lily mumbled, putting it on his bedside table. “Black. Black,” Lily poked him with her foot, sipping her coffee, “Sirius–“
“Piss off.”
“You have a meeting.”
“Fuck you.”
She leaned over and flicked him on the eyelid.
“Ow! The fuck–“
“Coffee. Meeting. ”
“You are a shit unpaid secretary.” He said, grouchily, sitting up.
“And proud of it.”
//
For some reason things have started opening up again, even though things don’t seem that much better, plague-wise. Sirius doesn’t go to the pub but does chain-smoke in the park so he won’t have to do it out the window of the bathroom with the fan on anymore. It’s about dignity, you see, he says to the boys on a call, and they both roll their eyes.
//
“Did you–“ Lily started, turning to Sirius.
“Shit, forgot.”
“Typical. If you hadn’t–“
“It was an emergency!–“
“Please–“
“Hypocrite–“
“Are you really–“
“Ugh. Fine” Sirius sighed dramatically against the doorframe, pulling out his phone. Lily grinned, victorious.
“Full sentences please” Marlene requested, voice crackling through the computer.
“Sirius forgot to re-buy the emergency Baileys which he finished–“
“You also drank it.”
“I had a real emergency, you just wanted to drink.”
‘Your emergencies are my emergency’s, Evans.”
“Funny, I don’t remember you saying that when you were telling me to stop going on about it–“
“-It’d been hours.”
“-I lost access to my whole g-mail.”
“If your password is your last name I’m not even sure that counts as hacking-“
“Your password was your last name, Lil?” Marlene was in disbelief.
“Why would anyone want to hack my email! It’s just uni stuff and Asda promotions!”
“And yet when I pointed this out yesterday you called me an insensitive dickhead.” Sirius said, scrolling on his phone, “God, do you know how much it’s going to cost to deliver a bottle of Bailey’s? This really does seem like–”
“Don’t even think about it–“
“An emergency. Get the glasses!”
//
Every window open, body sticky as wet cement, her thesis unopened for days. Yesterday, Sirius, in a fit of desperation, had shoved a shirt under the shower and tried to fill it up to cool down.
Lily shut her eyes, tried not to pay attention to her slick back, sticking singlet, how long it had been since she’d been touched in a real way. Remembering James’ hands, voice, laugh, the way all of them would move through her. Like a hand through water.
//
Lily, appearing in the doorway with her hair everywhere:
“Sirius you insufferable git-“
“I hope there’s another Sirius here.” Sirius mumbled, half-awake on his bed in jeans.
“It’s your turn to make dinner and you’ve made none-”
“We’re having eggs.”
“No more eggs. I'm going to develop an egg intolerance.”
“Pathetic.”
“I have a proposal I think you’re going to like.”
Sirius opened one eye. “Go on.”
“You. Me.”
“Obviously.“
“Pizza-“
“Yes.”
“And The Princess Bride.”
“Absolute yes. Lock that in.”
//
“How’s living in the future?”
“Shit” Sirius answered, yawning.
“Yeah.”
“Yeah.”
“Last night I watched four hours of Youtube and went to sleep at eight p.m.”
“What Youtube?”
“I’m not telling.”
“Prongs.”
“Padfoot.”
“Prongs.”
Long, long pause. Then: “Videos of old trains crashing into each other.”
“There’s four hours-worth of videos of that on the internet?”
“Honestly it was closer to five.”
“How did you even get on to that?”
“I can’t get into it,” James sighed. “Tell me something embarrassing so I feel less pathetic.”
“Last week I watched every Narnia movie.”
“With Lil?”
“Alone.”
“God.”
“Feel less pathetic?”
“Definitely. I didn’t know you were such a big fan.”
“I’m not. And then I made the mistake of telling Lil who started talking about how the whole thing was all religious.”
“That sounds like her.”
“Yeah, the lion was God or some shit. I don’t know. The third one sucked.”
“Only the third one?”
“Second one kind-of ruled. Cool battles.”
“I’ll have to check it out.”
“Only if you can fit it around the trains.”
“Oh, fuck you,” James said, and Sirius grinned, “just cause you and Lil are sitting around watching Megamind all the time-“
“It’s called taste-“
“It’s not even that good, man.”
“You dick, it fucking rules–“
//
“Have you seen my phone?”
“Loads of times, yeah.”
“Recently” Lily clarified.
“Then, no.”
“Shouldn’t you be asleep?”
“Call got pushed back.” Sirius’ eyes were barely open.
“Did you check your email for the thing?”
“Haven’t got it.”
“Want me to call?” As his visa battle was almost entering its third year Lily had gotten quite good at impersonating Sirius on the phone.
“Later.”
“Want me to sit in the corner pinching you so you’ll stay awake?”
He half-smiled, “You’re so generous.”
Lily, leaving to make coffee: “I know, right?”
//
They stood on the stoop, banging pots with the rest of the street.
“I’d just want more money, personally.” Sirius yelled.
“Oh, for sure!” Lily yelled back, going ballistic with the pans.
//
It had been the longest period of time he’d gone without getting a tattoo since he was sixteen, Sirius pointed out to Lily as he sat on mute during a business zoom-call. The next week Lily had a stick-and-poke kit.
“What do you want?” She had washed her hands four times and before she had even put gloves on, and Sirius’s arm was probably too legally wasted to drive, she’d put that much rubbing alcohol on
“Hadn’t thought about it.”
“Could do my name?”
“No.”
“Mean.”
“I’ll do your name if you get mine.”
“Fine. No names."
“What about my visa case number? 874679-.”
“Absolutely not. What about a square or something?”
‘Boring. Does Jane have any funny quotes or some shit?” He often spoke about Jane Austen as if she was Lily’s friend, which was also how Lily spoke of her.
“I could tattoo the second chapter of my thesis on you.”
“Isn’t that the chapter where you don’t know the argument yet?”
“I could work it out on your arm.”
“Pass.” Sirius flexed his fingers, his entire arm tingling a little from the rubbing alcohol. “Hey, actually– I have an idea.“
Lily gets NO on her ankle, and Sirius gets MURDERS on the back of his wrist. He’ll have to wear a watch at all future business meetings, but worth it for the joke.
//
Drunk on zoom, all of them talking over each other. Remus was drinking out of a vase, Marlene had a baseball cap on backwards, and James was wearing one of Lily’s old shirts for a reason somehow unrelated to the drinking game. It was nowhere near as good as the real thing but Lily was so giddy she felt like crying, everyone drunk enough to not notice the occasional screen freezing, Sirius’ shoulder pressed against hers to get in the frame.
“You know Ella Hollis?” Marlene asked, dubiously, slurring a little.
Sirius winked, “Very well.”
“You’re disgusting. Poor Ella.”
“I can’t help it if I’ve got great taste.”
“Mariah Hawthorne” Remus countered, instantly.
“One date.”
“Four dates.” James corrected, the image jumping.
“She asked you to move in with her.”
“–And you did!”
“Okay,” Sirius held both his hands up while the girls died laughing, “That was for one weekend while you lot were away.”
“Shit excuse.” Remus said, trying not to laugh.
“I was bored!”
“What was wrong with her?”
“Oh, Mar,” James leaned into the camera, and Lily knew she was drunk because her heart grew three sizes, “she was insane. She called the bus a ‘poor taxi’ and–“
“Her bathroom was carpeted and she defended it.” Remus cut in.
“The fuck?”
“Oh my god! Gross, Sirius!”
“Okay,” Sirius, still holding his beer, waved his finger at the screen, “I pissed at the gas station across the street while I stayed there–“
“lived there–“
“She was drawing up a new lease–“
“I didn’t sign it!”
“Only because we came home!”
“You were gone the whole long weekend–“
“Shit excuse!” Lily and Remus yelled at the same time.
“Jinx! Got to drink!” Sirius crowed.
“Group cheers.” James raised his glass, holding up Remus’ wrist to pull the vase into the frame, which slopped liquid everywhere.
“Shit, James.”
“Nah, the mousepad was already fucked”
“Chug it!”
“Sirius, no–“
“Oh my God!” Marlene, almost spitting out her wine. “I FOUND HER INSTAGRAM. SHE HAS PHOTOS IN THE BATHROOM.”
//
Their relationship had always been balanced on a careful table of always flirting without ever meaning it, as was every close relationship in Sirius’ life. It was now getting annoying.
“Could you not do that?” he snapped. Lily was clicking her tongue like she always did when she was looking in the fridge and couldn’t find anything. She was now ignoring so many emails from her supervisor that yesterday he found her googling the Gmail space limit.
“What happened to the milk?”
“We drank it.”
“It’s your turn to buy more.” She said, instantly, irritatingly.
“Says who?”
“The chart.” Lily pointed at the running tally of milk-buying on the back of an Asda receipt, that had gone from barely legible to non-functional now that they were both home, twenty-four seven, all the time. When he could sleep, he kept having dreams where he was walking the house and just as he got to end of the hallway he would fall through the ground into his old room.
“You’re the one having seven teas a day.”
“Five.”
“That’s not better.”
She was back to doing the tongue thing, letting all the cold air out of the fridge and through the kitchen. It was stupidly irritating. He would get up to leave only there was nowhere to go anymore.
//
James gets the plague. He is quite brave about it. When he told them Lily felt herself holding her breath. No one said anything for a minute.
Sirius pulled his phone out of his pocket and looked at it. “Wow, have you seen the news?”
“What?”
“The NHS have just announced nudes are the cure. Do your part Lil.”
“You first” she replied, automatically. Sirius smirked. Lily grinned. James did a horrible wheeze cough, and they both groaned.
//
Marlene McKinnon to Lily Evans: just fully blew up at kyle and said he was a piece of shit for not cleaning anything and he said he said he would try harder and then got up and just LEFT HIS PLATE AND CUP AND EVERYTHING IN THE LOUNGE.
Marlene McKinnon: also i keep calling him kyle to his face we have to start calling him kieran again
Lily Evans: my god
Lily Evans: love and light mar but no one’s ever going to call him kieran
Marlene McKinnon: yeah i know worth a shot
//
James and Sirius were on the phone in the kitchen and she stopped in the doorway, just out of sight, half-listening to them laugh. Struck by something James had said to her once, years ago now, talking on the hood of Sirius’ car. I was an only child until I met him.
//
“You have yawned, like, seven times on this call.”
“No I haven’t.”
“You have.” Remus said, “I’ve been counting.”
“That is so weird.”
“Yawning upwards of four times in a half-hour period is weirder.”
Sirius yawned again, huge and traitorously.
“I think I’ve got that sleep condition. Narcissism.” He said, knowing it wasn’t.
He heard Remus smile. “Narcolepsy.”
“Yeah, that.”
“Narcissism maybe, Narcolepsy I doubt.”
“Hurtful.” Sirius said, toothlessly.
“I think you’re actually just tired from living in two time-zones during a pandemic.”
Sirius ran his knuckles along his bedframe. It was five a.m. London time, Lily would up in a few hours, if she wasn’t already. The girl was practically a nocturnal animal. It was his turn to make coffee. “Aren’t you going to ask me what the future’s like?” he asked.
“Is the plague still there?”
“No actually, eight hours ahead and we finally cured it.”
“Wow, congratulations.”
“Naturally I was very involved.”
“Oh, aren’t you always.” Sirius could hear papers moving around, “Black, really. Take tomorrow, take the week. Sleep.”
“I can’t believe you’re actually telling me to take time off.”
“Look–“
“I should call someone about this, get a voice-recorder in here. This is history, baby, call Newsnight–.”
“Sirius.” His voice, one of the only things Sirius’ knew well enough to write a thesis on. “Really, you sound– you sound tired.”
“Pot. Kettle.”
“Yeah, but– don’t deflect.” He knew Remus was rubbing his face, sat at his desk in computer light. He knew it like he was sat in front of him, within arm’s reach.
“I’ll take a day when you take a day.”
Remus sighed. Sirius shut his eyes and hated the future. He wanted to undo oceans. He wanted so many things he was not allowed.
“Maybe we should let it fail.” Remus said, finally.
“James.” Sirius reasoned, his name the whole argument. James couldn’t let the company fail. He had never failed at anything, he didn’t know how.
“I think he’s on the verge of selling a kidney to keep it going.”
“Funny, that’s what he was saying about you last week.”
“Maybe we should all sell one. Triple the cash.”
Sirius grinned, “I’ll suggest that on the call tomorrow. Today.” he corrected himself, “Fun team building.”
“It’ll never pass HR.”
“Aren’t you HR?”
Remus laughed, “I think I am, actually. Maybe it will get it through.”
“Speaking of, I actually want to file a complaint.”
“Oh really?”
Sirius dropped his head back against the bedframe, going for the laugh, “Yeah, I’ve just heard I’m going to have to sell a kidney and I think I need both of those to battle this narcissism thing I have.”
Remus laughed. Jackpot.
//
“If Potter calls, say you and me are in a fight.”
“We are?”
“Yes, a bad one. Enough that you cannot get me to come to the phone.”
“Shame.” Sirius said, biting an apple, “What are we fighting about?”
“Who cares?’
“What’s going on?“
“Nothing."
“Fine,” Sirius took another bite of his apple. Lily relented.
“We had a fight.”
“You’ve already said that.”
“No, me and James.”
“God, why?”
They’ll understand that you need a break, a few months, until everything’s less fucked, it’ll be fine, you can go back later.
“He won’t stop trying to fix my life.”
“Yeah, he does that.”
I’m not telling you what to do, hold on– don’t take this out on me-
“I don’t want unsolicited advice, he fucking– he knows I hate that.”
“He can’t help it, he’s built to be the hero.”
I’ve got shit on too but I’m not–
“Why are you defending him? You hate it too.”
I literally was not going to say that, what the fuck?
“Hey,” Sirius held up his hands, “I agree with you, I just hate that whenever you two are in a fight I’m the one who gets paragraphs of sad-sack Potter asking how you are and if you’ve said anything. It’s so boring.”
“It’s incredible how you’ve managed to make this about you.” Lily snapped.
You are being so fucking unfair right now. Fuck this.
Sirius shrugged, “Things are just so much more interesting that way.”
Everything: Sirius, the apartment, the world, had reached the limits of its charm. She went to her room and shut the door to be horrible and drink wine and above all be stupidly, unspeakably sad and furious that James was right. She was borrowing staggering amounts of money to live and write something she wasn’t even sure she liked anymore, let alone actually complete. She hadn’t written in weeks. The only thing to do was to put it on pause, and this was nothing but failure. She put on the Sense and Sensibility soundtrack and cried.
//
The next evening, she called first.
“I sent them an email saying I want to defer.”
Silence for a long minute.
“I don’t want you to do anything you don’t want to do.”
“It’s the right thing. It’s–“ She shut her eyes, deep breath, forcing it out. “I want to love it. I want to write something good, because its Jane and it should be good. And right now I’m writing the least original thing in the world.”
“You’re not.” James said, instantly.
“It might be. Everything that could be written about this woman has been written.”
“That just means you have sources.”
“Or it means I’m boring and can’t write anything that hasn’t existed a hundred times before.”
“You are not boring, you’re the most interesting person I know.” His voice was absolute, solid as brass. “And besides, a lot of what everyone has written is wrong.”
“How do you know?”
“You told me.”
She smiled. “Sorry for being defensive and a bit of a cow."
“Sorry for being a sanctimonious dick.”
“’Sanctimonious’? Wow, you really do listen to me.”
“That’s all I’m good for.”
She wanted to drink the sea between them.
“So,” he started, “You and me–“
“You and I.” She corrected, even though it wasn’t.
“Are you serious right now-“
‘No, he’s in the other room.”
“Hating this." James said, off-hand, and Lily could only grin and grin, biting her lip.
“We’re good, aren’t we? You and I?”
His voice, no better sound. “Yeah. Always.”
//
“It’s literally chewed through the whole cord. You are fucking fired.”
“I’m not employee–“
“–So fired”
“We’re co-partners–“
“The whole cord, Sirius!” the speaker in Sirius’ phone blared.
Sirius mouthed ‘the rabbit’ at Lily. She smirked and put the kettle on.
“You are fucking insufferable.” Remus was saying.
“Well, suffer me–“
“You are buying us a new Xbox. Today. I am literally pulling up my email now to bill you–“
Lily looked at Sirius, both of them still grinning. "Tea?" she mouthed.
//
Sirius was having odd dreams, reliving things from years ago. He lived it in reverse, the final act happening first, crack of a knuckle, rings against his check, blood in his mouth, head pounding, and then works his way to the beginning. The look, gesture, comment that set it off. His jaw already smarting from something that hadn’t happened. Pulsing habit. Ruinously jolting awake, heart ramming in his chest like a slamming door.
//
On the date her thesis officially got deferred because everything was fucked and wrong she hysterically cried in her room for hours, Sense and Sensibility soundtrack playing on loop. She couldn’t even get drunk or high anymore because it was starting to freak her out how often she did that now. No longer something fun, done with people she loved, but just something to do. She hadn’t called James in a few days. There was everything and nothing to say.
In the afternoon Sirius knocked on her door for ten straight minutes straight, refusing to leave. When she opened the door the look of pity on his face was unbearable.
“Don’t look at me like that” she snapped, and he kept doing it, clinically incapable of following an instruction. She shut her door. Horrible, to be known like this by Sirius Black, who ate tomato sauce with a spoon, played darts blindfolded, and used to hang through the bars of their school gate at fifteen when they met, rolling his eyes as James’ called her name. Back then she’d thought the lot of them were so, so stupid, only now nothing works without them.
He kept knocking for another five minutes and she kept ignoring him. Then:
“No murders?”
She opened the door. He wordlessly held up the Megamind DVD he had bought a few days ago online and that must have just arrived, appearing to be the Cantonese translation. This shocked her into laughing, which got rid of her crying hiccups.
Half-way through the movie they were streaming illegally, after Megamind had transformed into Bernard and is talking in the elevator with Roxanne, without looking over at her Sirius said “You’re the second smartest person I know.”
This made her want to cry ridiculously but that would only freak him out again. Instead she bit her lip really hard. Tried for a joke.
“Not the smartest?”
“Remus.”
“Fair.” She said, burying her head into his shoulder.
//
They have the worst Christmas morning imaginable, sat in their rooms, utterly miserable and stewing in it, before Lily turned off the wifi and pried Sirius out of his room. They sat on their tiny stretch of Balcony in the cold, bitching, wearing socks on their hands because they couldn’t find mittens. For dinner Lily makes a terrible Christmas ham and Sirius makes a half-decent mash, shocking everyone including himself. They throw the ham in the bin and eat the mash out of the pot in the middle of the table, using the last clean spoons, trying to find Die Hard on streaming.
She knows he’s been on the phone with embassy’s again, working on the visa stuff even over the holidays. It’s so selfish, she’d never say, but the idea of living in London without him is intolerable. It bores her to tears.
//
Marlene McKinnon to absolute lot: just put all kyle’s his dirty plates in his bed while he is in the shower
Marlene McKinnon: feeling incredible
//
He’d been in his room all day, on his bed looking at the ceiling. This was such a pointless thing to note, or even be aware of, because really he’s been in this room for months. An incurable amount of time.
“What’s wrong?” Lily’s voice, familiar as his own, leaning in the doorway.
“Nothing.”
“Liar.”
He said nothing.
“Come and hang out with me.”
“Oh, you’re the only one who gets to lie around like a sad sack in their room, huh?”
“No,” Lily said, “And because you’re sulky I’ll forgive you for that being a little mean.”
Sirius, who did regret it, said nothing. Lily walked over, arms folded, and prodded his foot with her own. He could feel her looming over him, a small shadow, even though he wouldn’t look at her.
“Come make dinner with me.”
“I don’t want to be funny right now.” The roof was a big white square. Sick expanse, punctuated by one light fixture. No photos or posters ever since the one of Bowie fell down six months ago while he was asleep. He could draw this room blindfolded and underwater, at this point. Every corner.
“That’s fine, it’s allowed. Come anyway.”
I can’t be funny or interesting, he wants to say, which really meant, I can’t be useful.
“Hey,” Lily’s foot against his for a second, harder this time, and he finally looked at her. “I need help, c’mon.”
“Can’t boil pasta on your own?”
“Whose boiling pasta? I was going to make toast.” Lily smiled a little, “And don’t look now but that was a little funny.”
If he shuts his eyes he’s still in this room, is the thing. Even in dreams he’s still in this house, or worse, his mother’s. He is entirely too close to himself, right to the bone.
“C’mon, we’ll watch a film or something. No wine or Megamind. Something actually good, like Ocean’s Twelve.”
Deep breath. If she worries, she tells.
“That is the worst one.”
“False.”
“Thirteen is the best one.”
“That’s deranged, you’re deranged. You are probably confusing the two, and the only way to fix this is to watch it. it is.” Lily leant forward, leaning on his ankles, “C’mon, Black.”
Deep breath, again. He sat up on his elbows. “We are not having toast.”
//
“He’s asleep on the call.” Remus doesn’t even say hello. Lily sits up.
“God, video?”
“Just speaker, thank god. His breathing went weird.”
Lily made it to Sirius’ room, where he was indeed sat at his desk, hair sprawled over a piece of paper covered with spiral doodles. He’d coloured in the tattoo of a tooth on his wrist with sharpie.
“He’d been quiet for so long, it was unnerving.”
“Yeah you can never trust that. How are you anyway?”
“Fine. I wish James would make something other than toasted sandwiches for lunch, but other than that.”
Lily smiled. “They’re his favourite meal, he loves those things.”
“Last night I hid the sandwich press in the bin.”
“He’ll probably use the stove.”
“I’m cutting the electric line, I can’t eat anymore warm bread.”
Lily snorted, and then gently poked Sirius on the arm, “Black, hey–“ Sirius started up, looking almost angelic.
“Your call.” she mouthed, pointing at the phone. He nodded slowly, blinking and turning back to the speaker.
//
“Sirius you insufferable dickhead!”
“I hope there’s someone else in this bathroom called Sirius.”
“You’ve been in there for twenty minutes–“
“–you say that like it’s an hour–“
“Sirius–“
“It’s been maybe fifteen minutes–“
“You said you would be quick I have to pee–“
“We have a sink–“
“don’t even joke about that-“
“I’m coming out now, but be warned, I don’t have a towel on.”
“No!”
“Cover your eyes!”
“You are a shithead-”
“Are they closed?”
“Obviously, hurry up!”
//
Remus gets an Appendicitis. This involves twenty-four hours of James alternately being on the phone with either them in London or every hospital in the California area, frustrated and increasingly sick with worry before finally giving up on the ambulance and hot-wiring a car in their apartment parking lot to take Remus, now unconscious in the backseat, to the hospital where they barely get him on the table on time.
Miles away, in London, they sit up in the living room all night, waiting for news and not speaking. Sirius smokes two packets of cigarettes, one after the other, and Lily doesn’t even move to crack a window.
Looking at their still phones on the table, Lily thinks, ridiculously, of being nineteen, when the boys all lived together but she lived with Marlene and Lily Marks, who had hated the boys because of the nickname they gave her and ended up moving to Brighton with her boyfriend. Lily had gone to her twenty-first birthday sans James and been bored senseless, but then they’d all met up in town later and had taken over what was left of the party, Sirius climbing behind the bar, Remus fucking with the lights, James starting karaoke from nowhere. Lily Marks, furious because her boyfriend was on the DJ table with James singing ‘Take on Me’.
“Remember Lily Marks.” Lily said, just for the noise. Her voice sounded rusted.
“Who?”
“She lived with me and Mar, two years ago.” Sirius looked blank, sat in a haze of smoke. Lily tried again: “You guys used to call her ‘two’, like the number.”
”Oh. Her.” he took a drag, cigarette down to a stub. “It wasn’t like the number.”
“What?”
“We called her too, like T-O-O. “The Other One.” The other Lily.”
Lily laughed, once. “That’s- wow, that’s kind of clever.”
“My idea. But then James started calling you ‘to’, like T-O, and Moony made us stop.”
“T-O?”
“The One.”
Briefly, the middle of her glowed.
She’d forgotten that that was the same year Sirius and James had been obsessed with confusing everybody, culminating in them nicknaming each other ‘you’, which caused unbelievable frustration and derailed almost every conversation (“you told me” “no I didn’t” “No, you.” “I didn’t– oh, fucks sake, just say Sirius”). A baffling six weeks before Remus had forced them each to the table, full on shouting match, before beating them both at darts and ending the nickname as a reward. From then: a piece of paper with the word ‘you’ written on it burning on the stove-top, James and Sirius watching on mournfully, a party full of people cheering.
Moony made us stop. That was the thing, wasn’t it. Their whole bit didn’t work without each other, they all took turns being each others guardrail. Sirius dragged on the cigarette, amber-end flaring in the half-dark. It occurs to her that their confusion bit got swallowed by his accident later in the year, the terrible one. Sirius, drunk, slipping over a balcony edge, blood everywhere, James’ horrible scream in the dark. Later, in the white-light of the hospital vending machine, Remus’ voice, ragged, afraid: I can’t help it. I grew up in the back of his car.
The apocalypse, which always felt close at hand these days, really did feel right upon them now, hovering like Sirius’ cigarette smoke. How close to near disaster they all were, loving people this far away, all in their own fatal bodies. Sirius kept smoking, and the phone kept not ringing. It wouldn’t, not for hours.
//
“This has to be the most irritated he’s ever been at you” Lily said, mildly, after Sirius had played a curse-ridden voicemail about the rabbit, which Lily had started calling fluffy. Apparently, the boys had come back from the hospital and it had eaten through the couch to make a nest.
“Nah, that’s still when I slept with his professor.”
“What?”
“Yeah. Two of them, actually. Property and Arbitrage. And then they both found out about each other.”
“Shut up.”
“For real. He didn’t talk to me for a week over that.”
“I thought that was about you losing all the spoons?”
“Nah, this was after that. But he was pretty pissed about that too.”
“Where was I for all this?”
“It was third year.” Sirius said, not saying your father died and you lost your mind for months listening to Petunia’s voicemail and drinking rosé.
“Who was better?”
“What?”
“Property or arbitrage. Who was better?”
Sirius grinned wolfishly, for the first time in ages. “Property. It was in his office, too.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Nope, still Sirius.”
Lily groaned, laughing.
//
“Ow,” Lily sucked her smarting thumb, “Christ.”
“Speaking?” James said, ludicrously.
“Dickhead.” Lily said, grinning, phone between her shoulder and ear, “I just burnt my hand.”
“You alright?”
“It was on toast, I’ll be fine.”
“You know, toast is not a food group.”
“That is so rich coming from you, I think Remus is going to drown you in the bath if you don’t stop making toasted sandwiches.”
“He can try, we don’t have a bath.”
“The sink then.”
“Hey, I’ll happily go down in the name of toasted sandwiches. I love those bastards, they’re being served at our wedding.”
“Maybe to your other girlfriend.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Sirius doesn’t believe in marriage.”
Lily laughed. “He wouldn’t let you serve toasted bread either, even he’s not that bad.”
“You’re going to let me, they’ll be gourmet. They’ll have like nice cheese–”
“I can’t believe you’re acting like you’ve thought about this.”
“I have! They’ll have tomatoes and shit, I have a vision.”
“Your vision is tomatoes–“
“And Salmon! Spinach and shit, it’s all coming together, deadass.”
“Oh Christ.”
“Spea-“
“Shut up,” Lily was grinning so, so hard, “Shut up, you bastard–“
//
“Padfoot, how’s the future?”
Long. Dull. Knives and knives of rain. Endless. Ages. Without. Just me. I can’t say. I can’t say or you’d never let me hang up the phone again.
“Sirius? Are you still there?”
//
Lily walked in, bleary eyed, and handed him a mug. He eyed it suspiciously.
“This isn’t made with coffee grounds I just heard you drop on the ground right?”
“No, its-“ she stopped, mid-word, “I don’t have the energy to lie right now, it is. Take it or leave it.”
Sirius yawned, took the mug.
//
Long morning. Made all the calls and went back to bed. Woke up at four pm and went looking in the bottom of the laundry basket, insane.
“Oi Black,” Lily’s voice. Lily in the doorway. “we said no drinking alone.”
He didn’t say anything. I’ll keep you here. Misery is so boring but it’s his gravity. He knows it like he knows this room, or Remus’ voice. That no matter how fast he goes, or loud he is, he always ends up back here. She walked over and sat on the floor with him, shoulder to shoulder.
“No murders. What’s going on?”
There was no lying left to do. “I’m wrong.” He was so calm. alcohol through him, clean and corrosive. He didn’t have any jokes left. “I’m wrong in the middle.”
“You’re n-“
“I am.”
“Sirius–“
“I am,” he sounded mean. His mother’s voice, living in him after everything. “Stop trying to fix it. I’m– you all keep trying to bail me out but it doesn’t–doesn’t work, it won’t, ever.”
All true: the company was James’ idea, James’ code he wrote instead of getting his degree, James’ tech. And then Remus, who’d ended up hating depositions and jumping ship as soon as James had asked him, writing company into something real. Sirius was only there because he was bored at the bar and James was in the business of throwing lifeboats to people he loved. And Sirius always needed the lifeboat, the saving, the pulling back. Thinking about what James had said to him at the hospital after he’d stepped off the roof, crazy, too close to the thing you can’t undo: I’ll keep you here. His voice like a fist, like fingers gripping his arm. James was very, very far away now
“I am so fucking tired. “ He knew he was slurring a little, freaking her out, but he couldn’t stop, “so tired, all the time. Not just because of California–because–my whole life. Won’t go away, can’t turn it off. I tried, I’m trying.” I’ll keep you here, fucks sake, “I want to feel better.”
“I know,” she said quietly. “I know.” Her shoulder pressed against his. The only person he’d touched, cooked for, sat beside, in months. She reached out and took the scotch bottle, taking a pull and immediately making a face. She hated scotch, always had, since high school. He gave her a look.
“We said no drinking alone.” She explained. They looked at his bedroom wall, door still open. “I’m not trying to fix anything, or bail you out or–just– we love you. I love you. And if that’s bailing you out then sorry, but that’s the deal. That’s always been the deal.”
She put her head on his shoulder. He was so grateful to not be looked at. The steady rhythm of her breathing, in and out, again and again, a steady, beating thing.
“It’s you and me forever, you know.” She said it so easy. “I know that sitting here and saying that is nothing but–“
“It isn’t nothing.” Memories of the long corridor of his childhood, what it feels like to go days without anyone saying a word to you. “It isn’t nothing.”
“Good.”
He takes a breath. Focus on the real things, a physiatrist had said to him once. The things you can hold, can count on. Lily’s head, Remus’ voice, James’ grip.
“Isn’t it you and I?”
“What?”
“You and I, forever, not you and me?”
“God, who knows.” She put her head up and took another swig from the scotch bottle. This time he took it off her.
“This is expensive.” He said, when really he should’ve said sorry or thanks or some other stupidly sincere shit but he couldn’t. Didn’t, because he never had too. At some point she’d learned to read his mind. No wonder James had always liked her so damn much. He turned his head and kissed the top of her shoulder. She squeezed his arm.
“There’s Baileys” he remembered, after a while.
“Good point.” Lily made a move to get up, “No more scotch.”
“Quitter.” He said, but gave her the bottle anyway.
“Damn right. This shit’s yuck. We need the emergency Baileys” she stood up, turned to him, arms out to pull him up, “Coming?”
//
“I mean, who starts an email like that? he didn’t even say dear or hi or anything.”
“Wow. What an animal.” Sirius deadpanned, phone pressed to his ear.
“I mean, it’s just rude.” Remus said.
“I can’t believe it’s the beginning bit that has you and not the part where he wished you happy birthday-“
“Yeah, what was that? It’s literally not my birthday.”
“He did say ‘early’” James said, half muffled. He was eating a toasted sandwich.
“My birthday isn’t for another three weeks.” Remus pointed out, “and that’s weird for a business email.”
“Maybe he was being polite.” James said.
“You are only 25 once Moony.”
“Actually you’re 25 for the whole year.”
Sirius bark-laughed.
“Honestly.” Remus reprimanded, sounding pleased.
“Deadass, we should still follow up with him.” James, still chewing, “He seemed interested.”
“Too interested.”
Sirius yawned, “Speaking of Moony’s birthday, how’s Fluffy?”
“She’s not called that.” Remus objected, just as James said, “Fine.”
“We’re not calling the rabbit ‘Fluffy.”
“Moony, it’s been a year. If you haven’t named her by now she’s legally called Fluffy.”
“No she isn’t. The name is still TBD.”
“That sounds like an STI.” James said.
“It means to be decided, dumbass.”
“I know that, birthday boy, but it still sounds like it’s an infection.”
“We could call it infection.” Remus suggested.
“Compromise.” Sirius suggested, “Fluffy Infection.”
James laughed. “Done, sold.”
Remus sighed. “Christ.”
“Speaking?” James said, because he was always doing that bit.
“C’mon, Moony. Fluffy Infection has a ring to it.”
“We could call her ‘Fi’, for short” Remus admitted. Sirius grinned.
“Brilliant.”
“I’ve been waiting for you to suggest Louis the Second, or something.” Remus said
“Oh my God–“ Louis, the house mouse from three years ago who they thought was dead, held a funeral for, and two weeks later found in the bread bin.
“That almost made me religious, genuinely.”
“- Literally saw the body–“
“I know!”
“-That was the second coming. That really was Christ-“
“Speaking-“
“That doesn’t even work-“
“You laughed!”
Sirius, who had, said “Fi’s middle name should be Lewis.”
“Fluffy Infection Lewis TBD PLB.”
“PLB?”
“Potter Lupin Black, obviously.” James explained, “Actually, Evans needs to be in there. PLEB.”
“I can’t believe it’s ‘Pleb’.” Remus laughed.
“We should rename the company that.” Sirius suggested.
“We could. We don’t have business cards yet.”
“You want business cards so bad-“
“Like you don’t?”
“Point taken.”
“PLEB industries,” James mused. “I like it. Is it too late to refile the legal stuff?”
“Yeah, but I’d do it for PLEB.” Remus’ voice.
“Deadass?” James asked.
“When did you start saying ‘deadass’ so much?” Sirius asked, “very American.”
“Just wait, two weeks and you’ll be saying it, it’s addictive–”
“Deadass is addictive? Is that deadass?” Sirius yawned again.
“See, you’ve already started.” James paused. “Anyway, we should go. It’s late.”
“It’s like the middle of the afternoon in California.”
“I mean for you. It’s, like midnight, you must be tired.”
Lily, the traitor. She’d told just like he knew she would. “It’s okay, I’m awake.”
“Tomorrow.” James voice, sure and solid, the kind he used when he was promising something. He could stand for parliament or something if they hadn’t been suspended so many times.
“Deadass.” Remus added. Everyone laughed.
“Et tu, Moony?” James joked.
“You have been saying it a lot, on that call with Trevor–“
“I didn’t say it then–“
Sirius, grinning, “Jim, oh my god-“
Remus, going on: “I saw you start and then stop yourself–“
“That is a lie–”
“But is it a lie, deadass?”
“Oh my God.”
“You have a problem.”
“Yeah, it’s you two.”
“Maybe we should call the company deadass.” Sirius groped around his bedside table for chapstick. His lip had cracked from laughing.
“That I am vetoing.” Remus said, “Anyway. It’s late. Goodnight, Sirius.”
“Oi Black, quick” James again, “What’s the future like?”
There must be a word for it, old friends and their secret codes, secret languages. Lily would know. He’d ask her tomorrow.
“It’s crazy man, deadass. I’ll meet you there.”
//
Lily had started writing again. Slowly circling back to it, drawn back in by the same arguments, same preoccupations she’d always been stuck on: the steadiness of love, reliability as a kind of higher sexiness, or however she explained it to James on the phone.
Her new due date was August but she was trying not to think about it. If she wrote with the lights off, at night, with the books spread around her, it was like she was having in an endless conversation with Jane Austen over and over again, like how it felt when she was a teenager. Like her dad was still alive, just around the door, and they were about to old BBC adaption of Northanger Abbey like they used to when it rained. If she did it like this, she could write anything she wanted. It didn’t have to be anything, it just had to exist. It was like something she would tell Sirius: it’s all in the trying. Before she knew it, she had a revised chapter.
//
They were all about to hang up. Everyone had a sink full of dishes to get too.
“Wait Mar, fuck, before I forget,” Lily said, quickly, “Nathan messaged me to ask how you were doing.”
“He also messaged me to ask if I’d heard from you.” Remus added.
“Now that’s desperate.” James commented, throwing a ball up and down in the air and somehow not hitting his laptop.
“God,” Marlene rolled her eyes, “tell him I fell down the stairs and died, or something, he keeps sending me these crazy emails.”
“Yeah, and you’ve moved on to Kyle now.”
“I have not moved on to Kyle, Potter. Firstly: his name is Kieran, and secondly: I hate him.“
“You hated Nathan.” Sirius said, lying on the living room floor, head just in frame.
“I hate you.”
“I mean, you have slept with Sirius as well.”
“God Lil, it was one New Years, that doesn’t count.”
“I think it counted for you at the time.”
“Ew.”
“Gross, Sirius.”
“I’m just saying.” Sirius held up his hands, grinning. Lily half-kicked him from where she was on the couch.
“We could fake your death Mar,” James suggested, “he’d probably stop calling then.”
“Might be rather uncomfortable when he sees me shit-faced in a bar once this is over.”
“Especially because you’re probably going to try and shag him-“
“Remus!” Lily objected, unsuccessfully trying to not smile. Sirius and James were laughing.
Marlene looked scandalized, “Lupin I’ve grown, okay, my New Year’s resolution was to stop having sex with people who suck.”
“Hear that Black?” James called gleefully, “Mar’s never going to shag you again.”
Sirius sat up on his elbows, “I can’t believe this is how you’d break the news, McKinnon.”
“Fucks sake–“
“– Cruel and unusual, really–“
“One New Years, one time–“
“What’s that noise?” Remus asked.
“It’s McKinnon breaking my heart–“
“No git, the music.”
“Oh, I’m on hold with the immigration office.”
“How’s that going?” Marlene asked.
“Well my case has been passed from Ange to Caty to Liam to Louise–“
“Hate Louise.” Lily said, darkly, remembering the emails.
“- and now to Sarah, who seems more promising than Louise.”
“Thank God.”
“At this point you should just kitesurf over, or something.” James said.
“Oh yeah?”
“We’d put a net out.”
“Cheers Prongs.”
“Could you take Nathan with you?” Marlene asked.
“Top of my priority list McKinnon.”
Lily grinned, unable to stop herself: “It’ll be like a convention of idiots Mar’s slept with-“
“That’s not true,” Sirius interrupted, “Kyle won’t be there-“
“Fucks sake!” Marlene tried to sound indignant. “I’m not going to sleep with Kyle! And his name is Kieran!” There was door slamming somewhere in the distance on her side of the zoom.
“Oh my God.”
“Do you think he-“
“He definitely heard!”
“Fuck!”
“I can’t believe you -“
“Goddamnit, now I almost have to sleep with him, just to make it up to him-“
“Mar oh my God-“
//
“We could do this”
“Do what?”
“This?” Sirius gestured at the television where they were watching an old Fleetwood Mac performance of ‘Silver Springs’ to drown out the immigration hold music that was entering its second hour. She hadn’t even had to try that hard to get him to come out of his room. “Start a band.”
“Oh really”
“We’ve got a vibe.” He shrugged, “we could write songs like this.”
“You think we could write one of the greatest albums ever made?”
“We could give it a go. You write. I’ll learn the guitar.”
“Potter knows piano.” Lily considered.
“He does too, forgot about that. All Moony has to do is learn drums.”
“Mar knows drums.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Deadass.” Lily said. Sirius laughed like an idiot.
“What?”
“Nothing. I didn’t know McKinnon knew drums.”
“Yeah, she learnt in uni.” Lily took a handful of popcorn out of the bowl between them, “this is really coming together, actually.”
“See, told you. Now one of us just needs to learn to sing.”
“Remus.” Lily said, instantly.
“Definitely Remus.”
“We’ll have to let him know.”
“I’ll send him an email.” Sirius said through a mouthful of popcorn, pulling out his phone.
//
“You look like a wet cat.” She could hear the smirk in James’ voice through the phone.
“How do you know that?”
“A source who wants to remain anonymous sent a photo.”
Sirius was such a traitor. She took her jacket off and threw it on the bed to stop it dripping on the carpet. “It rained.”
“I can see that.”
“Maybe if I still had that green jacket.”
“Oh my god, don’t start-“
Lily grinned, “My greatest jacket, so waterproof. Maybe the greatest jacket, dare I say–.”
“God, you leave one thing on one tube two years ago and you’re never allowed to forget it.”
“Three years ago actually, but yes.”
“You’re not wearing those New Balances are you? You’ll be soaked.”
“No.” Lily lied. Her socks were sopping. “How’s business?”
“Fine, the new client is kind of weird and I’m behind on all my emails but other than that, not bad. How was your mum’s birthday?”
She’d had the world’s most awkward zoom with Petunia and her mother where her mother pretended nothing was wrong and Petunia didn’t look or address Lily once, but once it was over Sirius came in her room and did a recreation of a call he’d just had with an investor that made her laugh so hard she cried, so it didn’t matter anymore. “The usual. Mum says hello.”
“Did you tell Petunia I said hello?”
“Oh for sure. And then I serenaded her with that song you wrote for her.”
James laughed, “Cheers, hope you included my verse about Vernon.”
“Always.”
“Remus says you look like you just crawled out of a lake.”
Lily, trying to slip her shoes off with her heel, leant back against the wall, “Where did Sirius even put this photo.”
“The business group chat.”
“Hardly very businessy.”
“Yeah, Moony is sending him an email about it. He also says to get a new rain jacket, by the way.”
“Remus did not say that.”
“He did actually, he’s saying right now – mouthing it actually – he says ‘you’re never going to find that green jacket, James went to like four different lost and founds and it wasn’t there’-“
“Oh my god–“
“so get a new one already its been ages-“”
“He said all that huh?”
“I’m quoting.”
Lily broke and laughed. “You are such a liar-“
“Hey, so are you, I can see those New Balances in this photo, they look drowned.”
“The first time you told me you loved me I was wearing these shoes, I can never throw them away.”
He was quiet for a second too long. “Really?”
“Yeah.” Under the Bentham Ave street sign, laughing, sky big and blue, God, I love you, her body lit like a firework.
“Evans, you sap.”
“Don’t tell anyone.”
“Never.” He sighed, “Wow, that’s how you know I’m nuts about you, those shoes have always been shit.”
“They have not-“
“They have purple stripes.“
“They’re blue.“
“That’s worse.”
“You were in love with me in these shoes. You said so.” Lily pointed out
“I’m in love with you all the time, that’s my permanent state. It’s like having blood. Get new shoes.”
Lily grinned, leaning against the wall and dripping on the carpet, lit again. “Is the new weird client that guy that wished Remus a happy birthday?”
“Oh, I wish. That guy turned out to be fine. This new guy is so random, he runs this sex shop warehouse and has the weirdest email signature, let me find it–“
//
Lily jump scared him when he got out of the shower, or rather, Lily was standing right by the bathroom door when he got out of the shower.
“What the?“
“Laptop. Laptop now, where?”
“It’s your laptop, how should I–“
“You took–“
“Oh, yeah. By the couch, I think.”
Lily got on the ground and started groping, somehow accusatorially, under the couch, “That towel does not look secure.”
“You wish Evans.”
“To be flashed in my living room? Hardly.”
Sirius combed wet hair out of his eyes, ends dripping on the living room carpet. “You look nice”
“Really?” Lily straightened up, looking at him.
“Yeah, what’s on?”
“Supervisor zoom about chapter four.”
“On right now?”
“In about one minute, yeah.”
“You’ve already eaten lunch right?”
“What?”
“You won’t be holding a plate on the zoom?”
“I wasn’t planning on it, but Laurie wouldn’t care. I mean, I don’t think it would matter. Who cares?”
“I just don’t want her to try hand you a plate through the screen.”
Lily could not help laughing. “Oh my god, you are insufferable–“
“You are literally in all navy–”
“It’s a nice jumpsuit!”
“It is, but she’s definitely going to think you’ve dressed as a waiter”
“I’m going, you absolute dickhead,” Lily, still laughing, threw a couch cushion at him, the laptop, glinting, revealed itself. “I am shutting my door. Do not interrupt, you are horrible–“ She gave him the finger, disappearing behind the door.
“Split any tips with me!”
//
Lily Evans to absolute lot: can exclusively report that marlene has slept with Kyle
Marlene McKinnon: you disloyal cow!!!!!
Remus Lupin: christ
Marlenen McKinnon: goddamnit remus
Marlene McKinnon changed the group name to potter don’t you dare say ‘speaking’
Remus Lupin: james im not picking up your call i know what you’re going to say
Lily Evans: oh great now hes calling me
//
“They approved my visa.”
Sirius was stood in the kitchen doorway, phone in hand.
“What?” Lily was fighting with the cheese grater and not listening.
“My visa.” his voice, awed. “For the States. They approved it.”
She put down the grater. “What?”
“They cleared it. I’m off the possible-terrorist list. I can have it in a month, maybe two, tops, once the money goes through.”
“Oh my God.” Lily had had two years to think of a joke for this moment and here she was, unable to think of a single funny thing to say. They had never even done acid. “Holy shit.”
“I know.” Sirius looked back at his phone. Shook his head clear. “I was looking at flights for August, and they’re not bad, cost-wise. I mean, not great, but not terrible. Moving will be a shit show but we’ll have the vaccine by then and the quarantine period is just the two weeks. Fuck, they better have room for us-“
Lily shook her head, “What do you mean?”
“I mean they better have room for you and me and all our shit. We’ll have to kick Fluffy out of the lounge-“
“No, I mean, why go in August?”
“Your new hand-in is in August right?”
“Yeah?”
Sirius waved a hand, “Right, so I was looking at August–“
“What are you talking about?”
“What are you talking about?”
Lily held both hands up in an attempt to get a grip on the conversation, “Why aren’t– why not just go now? Next month, I mean.”
“Because your hand-in is in August?” Sirius was looking at her like she was an idiot, and Lily figured it out, just then, like a light going on.
“You don’t– you don’t have to wait for me. You can go. I’ll meet you there.”
“It’s just six months. It’s nothing, it’s a hockey season.”
“What?” he didn’t even watch hockey. “You should go now, get started now–“
“Evans,” that old name, the one he used to call her all the time, years ago. It was always Lil now. “Don’t be thick. I’m not going without you.”
He said it like it was so simple, but Lily still felt like she’d been hit in the head with a glass bottle. The sun was coming through the window, slivers of light.
“Hey,” he was just looking at her, “what’s wrong with you?”
“Nothing.”
“You look like you’re about to start crying.”
“I’m not”, Lily said, lying. The thought of Sirius not leaving without her made her want to bawl her eyes out but he would only laugh at her, and then look worried, and then go in the bathroom and call James.
“Okay”, he eyed her warily for a minute, and then looked back at his phone, still disbelieving. “I can’t believe this bloody visa shit is over. I can’t believe we’re gunna be able to move, and all this other horrible shit is, like, not over-over, but like, on the way to getting better, I guess? I don’t know. Fuck.” he looked back at her. “Imagine.”
Imagine. It was crazy, but Lily wanted to say there was no horrible shit. You were there. Which was a lie because things had been both horrible and shit, absolutely, but then they had never been unbearable. They’d been wretched, but also funny, stupid, survivable, only because Sirius was in the next room, yelling at her to say oi, the jug’s boiled, have you seen the news? Fuck. Come in here, come in here and watch this. And make me a tea as well, would you?
//
Thesis Submitted for the Requirements of a Masters of English Literature
Candidate: Lily Louise Evans
Title: Reliability as Sexiness: Depictions of Love and Romance in Austen.
Acknowledgements:
Thank you to my thesis supervisor Laurie Gross, for her unbelievable patience. Thank you to my family: my mother and sister, for years ago. My brilliant friends are invaluable, particularly Remus Lupin and Marlene McKinnon, who answered the phone no matter the time or the timezone. Thank you forever to my dad, who was the world.
This is finished because of James Potter: I wrote this so you could read it, and I’ll do that my whole life. I tell all my jokes to make you laugh. I love you so stupidly.
Finally, thank you to Sirius Black, even though you didn’t read any of this and didn’t stop me with the Hugh Grant thing. No Murders forever, as long as I live. Where you go, I go.