if patience started a band, i'd be her biggest fan.
not writing anything except drabbles for months allows me to forget the way i agonize over things that are over 100 words long. eep.
anyway, here's my longer Marauder Rhombus-verse (so we're still in guitars-and-booze mode, here.) baby, which has been sitting around for weeks. i finished it mostly because i love jackie, but partially because i wanted to write the author's notes, which makes me feel a little stupid.
in any case, love and kisses to all of you who read the last one. <333
[bigger than the both of us]
It's another night in another hotel, and the glamour that being in a band seemed to promise is a long way off. A few weeks and a few hundred miles ago, their room ended up being shared with some rats, which had Peter standing on top of the nightstand, shrieking and knocking over the lamp. Since then, he's been making himself a huge nest of blankets in the center of his bed, cocooned in nubbly synthetic fabric and questionably clean sheets. Sirius has been toying with pointing out that the rats, should they really want to bite him, wouldn't be too discouraged by this flimsy fortress. In the end though, he always keeps his mouth shut and Peter gets to sleep soundly for another night.
James usually falls asleep sitting up in a chair. Sometimes he falls out of the chair and sleeps on the floor, and wakes up with the imprint of the earpiece of his glasses gouged into one side of his face, hair far from what passes as "sexily tousled."
Remus always gets the bed that Peter doesn't claim, and somehow that's never been contested. He sits against the headboard, blankets around his waist, smoking and reading battered paperback books. He's always the one to turn out the light.
Sirius sleeps on the floor, as close to the foot of the bed as he can manage without feeling like it's obvious, and tries to stay awake and listen to Remus fall asleep.
Another night, another hotel. It's 2 am, and the pile of blankets that is Peter has been snuffling in its sleep for an hour or so now. James is watching M*A*S*H on tv, snickering, and attempting to pour another glass of vodka. Sirius counts all the way up to seven in his head before James tries to slurp the puddle off of the table. He looks over at Remus, who's holding his place in his book and raising his eyebrows, and takes the bottle from James's hand.
"Hey," James begins, squinting at Sirius and apparently deciding this will work better if he shuts his right eye, "I was...pouring that."
"Yeah, pouring it all over the table and wasting it," Sirius says, bending down to look for the cap, which is under James's chair and covered in dust. He winces, blows the dust off, and screws it back onto the bottle. James tries to glare at him with one eye, and Sirius ignores him and puts the vodka next to the Bible in the nightstand drawer. When he turns around, James is back to snickering at M*A*S*H. By the time he gets back from a pointless trip to the ice machine (more to annoy the other hotel occupants than anything else), James is snoring.
Sirius shuts off the television, wiggles out of his jeans, and stretches out on the floor. Remus clears his throat quietly and speaks, and Sirius is vaguely embarrassed by the whiplash speed with which he turns to listen.
"You going to sleep?"
"Yeah...yeah, I guess so. Seems to be the popular option, doesn't it?" Sirius smirks at Peter's nest and James, slumping in the rickety chair with his shoulders at an impossible angle. Remus follows his eyes and smiles along.
"Well here, have a pillow, or you'll fuck up your neck again," he says, and throws one to the end of the bed. One of the first shows they'd played, Sirius had tried to headbang while playing his guitar for most of the set, and woke up the next morning (and spent the next couple days) unable to look from side to side without turning his whole torso. Ever since, Remus has always made sure he has a pillow, and Sirius never mentions the real cause of his injury, because he likes the concern. And the pillows.
"And if you want a blanket, just take the one at the foot of the bed," Remus continues, and Sirius scoots over on the floor to grab it. He fidgets for a bit, arranging a makeshift bed on the gritty carpet, and stifles a wide, fake yawn.
"G'night, then," he says, and Remus nods at him, smiling faintly, and looks back down at his book. Sirius lies back, shuts his eyes, and listens to the pages turning, waiting a bit before he evens out his breathing, feigning sleep.
Sirius always feels like his hearing gets better in the dark, even the artificial dark of closing his eyes, and he listens carefully as Remus keeps turning pages, the people in the next room are watching what sounds like a shootout scene in a western on TV, and a girl on the street is adamant that "BENNY WAS NO GOOD FOR YOU, ANYWAY," and then there's the soft thud of a paperback hitting the nightstand, the click of the lightswitch, and the dark behind Sirius's eyelids goes darker. He listens for the sounds of Remus shifting around to go to sleep (he sleeps with one arm curled around the back of his head and the covers pulled up to his shoulders), but the slide of sheets and creak of bedsprings are followed by the distinctive squeak that belongs to the hinges on Remus's bass case.
Sirius tries to filter out the superfluous noise, and imagines he can hear Remus's fingers brushing against the worn fake lambskin lining of the case, and in his mind, there's a perfectly clear picture of Remus picking up his bass gingerly, wiping imperceptible smudges off its scratched surface, hair falling over his face as he leans down with closed eyes, fingers flickering over the strings. Sirius knows that Remus has only had the thing for two years, he made some kind of deal involving his old television for it in a pawn shop, but before he'd heard the story, Sirius had guessed that he was practically born with it, that it was one of those afterschool special things where the bass was the only thing that kept Remus from trying to slit his wrists when he was fourteen. Sirius told him this, and he laughed and said I just appreciate beautiful things. Sirius had looked down at the bass, which was probably once black, now scuffed and scratched and faded into something much closer to grey, its most distinguishing characteristic the shredded remnants of its previous owner's AC/DC sticker, and shook his head.
Sirius shifts on the floor in a way that he hopes looks convincingly sleep-like, and cracks an eye open to see Remus's silhouette in the dim orange light that's coming in from the streetlight because the curtains don't close all the way. In the dim light, through one half-open eye, he's just a blur of light and dark. Pale skin, shadows of hair falling around his face, black t-shirt, bony arm angled around the neck of the bass. He plays a few preliminary notes, and unamplified, the actual notes are almost drowned out by the buzz of the strings. Sirius re-closes his eye, listening to Remus's fingers sliding along the frets and the rattles and hums of the strings being plucked. When Remus starts singing, Sirius holds his breath. His voice is barely above a murmur, and grates slightly in the back of his throat in a way that makes Sirius think of awkward mornings that haven't happened, and he feels like he knows them the way that he can see Remus's hands on the bass without the lamp on, without even opening his eyes. And he wastes a moment thinking this is what it would be to wake up with you, the muted sunlight and the shy smile and your voice hoarse and your eyes half open before he starts listening so hard for the words that his shoulders are tense. And Remus sings, using the bass as sporadic percussion rather than an accompaniment, a barely audible note behind his voice now and then.
And it never gets quiet
So I just take what comes
While the sirens spin by and the radiator hums
The neon signs flicker and the city sheds its glow
I can't see the stars
But you're the brightest one I know...
It's hard to stay quiet
But I take what I can get
I don't want to spend your grace on something I'll regret
So I pour my stupid heart out
To the lights as they fade low
And I don't need the stars,
You're the brightest one I know.
Someone slams a door across the hall, Peter coughs in his sleep and turns over heavily, and Sirius can hear Remus stilling the strings, putting the bass away and slipping into bed.
He reminds himself to start breathing again. And he wonders, for a moment, if he should get up, and take his pillow with him, and slip into bed as well, because he knows what his name means, and maybe Remus does, too. James may front the band and write the lyrics and give the interviews, but Sirius is the brightest star in the sky. He remembers the swell of strange pride, reading that in an astronomy book in the library when he was a kid. The thought that his name meant something, that it had a shine.
He feels trite even thinking it, but he lets himself go, and composes sappy greeting cards in his head, things that should be in wedding-invitation script and bordered with flowers: shine isn't about a name or a star or girls with signs. Shine is being the one who always remembers how everyone likes their coffee, it's being able to appreciate beautiful things, it's always singing like you mean it, even at 2:30 a.m. in a shitty hotel room while people are arguing and snoring and watching westerns.
The crinkle of the cellophane on Remus's pack of cigarettes stops Sirius's mind short, and he listens for the snick of his lighter, and waits to smell the smoke.
He rolls onto his back as quietly as he can, and stares up at the ceiling listening to Remus exhaling, and waits for his heart to slow enough to beat the rhythm of the song.
_____
[notes]
(1) title is from "sleeper car" by veruca salt. (bright you are / and bigger than the both of us / though i'm star / i can't burn that bright.)
(2) Remus's song was written while i wandered around in the supermarket one day. (before i wrote it, he was going to be singing "ever fallen in love" by the buzzcocks, as a vague tribute to miraminx's 'lost feelings' arc.). obviously, i am not meant to be a songwriter. jackie has a horrible quality wav of me singing the second verse, the tune is half-stolen from joni mitchell's "river."
(3) thanks go to my friend shaun (quite unbeknownst to him) for playing his bass unplugged all the time, although trying to describe the sound was really impossible.
(4) Sirius's little hallmark monologue about "shine" was actually written at the time of day when it was supposed to have occured (around 2:30 a.m.), and i kept it because i like the odd authenticity of its origins, even though i'm not too fond of the way it reads.
(5) if the ending is utter crap, that's because i had no idea what to do with it. i redid it about five times and then gave up.
anyway, here's my longer Marauder Rhombus-verse (so we're still in guitars-and-booze mode, here.) baby, which has been sitting around for weeks. i finished it mostly because i love jackie, but partially because i wanted to write the author's notes, which makes me feel a little stupid.
in any case, love and kisses to all of you who read the last one. <333
[bigger than the both of us]
It's another night in another hotel, and the glamour that being in a band seemed to promise is a long way off. A few weeks and a few hundred miles ago, their room ended up being shared with some rats, which had Peter standing on top of the nightstand, shrieking and knocking over the lamp. Since then, he's been making himself a huge nest of blankets in the center of his bed, cocooned in nubbly synthetic fabric and questionably clean sheets. Sirius has been toying with pointing out that the rats, should they really want to bite him, wouldn't be too discouraged by this flimsy fortress. In the end though, he always keeps his mouth shut and Peter gets to sleep soundly for another night.
James usually falls asleep sitting up in a chair. Sometimes he falls out of the chair and sleeps on the floor, and wakes up with the imprint of the earpiece of his glasses gouged into one side of his face, hair far from what passes as "sexily tousled."
Remus always gets the bed that Peter doesn't claim, and somehow that's never been contested. He sits against the headboard, blankets around his waist, smoking and reading battered paperback books. He's always the one to turn out the light.
Sirius sleeps on the floor, as close to the foot of the bed as he can manage without feeling like it's obvious, and tries to stay awake and listen to Remus fall asleep.
Another night, another hotel. It's 2 am, and the pile of blankets that is Peter has been snuffling in its sleep for an hour or so now. James is watching M*A*S*H on tv, snickering, and attempting to pour another glass of vodka. Sirius counts all the way up to seven in his head before James tries to slurp the puddle off of the table. He looks over at Remus, who's holding his place in his book and raising his eyebrows, and takes the bottle from James's hand.
"Hey," James begins, squinting at Sirius and apparently deciding this will work better if he shuts his right eye, "I was...pouring that."
"Yeah, pouring it all over the table and wasting it," Sirius says, bending down to look for the cap, which is under James's chair and covered in dust. He winces, blows the dust off, and screws it back onto the bottle. James tries to glare at him with one eye, and Sirius ignores him and puts the vodka next to the Bible in the nightstand drawer. When he turns around, James is back to snickering at M*A*S*H. By the time he gets back from a pointless trip to the ice machine (more to annoy the other hotel occupants than anything else), James is snoring.
Sirius shuts off the television, wiggles out of his jeans, and stretches out on the floor. Remus clears his throat quietly and speaks, and Sirius is vaguely embarrassed by the whiplash speed with which he turns to listen.
"You going to sleep?"
"Yeah...yeah, I guess so. Seems to be the popular option, doesn't it?" Sirius smirks at Peter's nest and James, slumping in the rickety chair with his shoulders at an impossible angle. Remus follows his eyes and smiles along.
"Well here, have a pillow, or you'll fuck up your neck again," he says, and throws one to the end of the bed. One of the first shows they'd played, Sirius had tried to headbang while playing his guitar for most of the set, and woke up the next morning (and spent the next couple days) unable to look from side to side without turning his whole torso. Ever since, Remus has always made sure he has a pillow, and Sirius never mentions the real cause of his injury, because he likes the concern. And the pillows.
"And if you want a blanket, just take the one at the foot of the bed," Remus continues, and Sirius scoots over on the floor to grab it. He fidgets for a bit, arranging a makeshift bed on the gritty carpet, and stifles a wide, fake yawn.
"G'night, then," he says, and Remus nods at him, smiling faintly, and looks back down at his book. Sirius lies back, shuts his eyes, and listens to the pages turning, waiting a bit before he evens out his breathing, feigning sleep.
Sirius always feels like his hearing gets better in the dark, even the artificial dark of closing his eyes, and he listens carefully as Remus keeps turning pages, the people in the next room are watching what sounds like a shootout scene in a western on TV, and a girl on the street is adamant that "BENNY WAS NO GOOD FOR YOU, ANYWAY," and then there's the soft thud of a paperback hitting the nightstand, the click of the lightswitch, and the dark behind Sirius's eyelids goes darker. He listens for the sounds of Remus shifting around to go to sleep (he sleeps with one arm curled around the back of his head and the covers pulled up to his shoulders), but the slide of sheets and creak of bedsprings are followed by the distinctive squeak that belongs to the hinges on Remus's bass case.
Sirius tries to filter out the superfluous noise, and imagines he can hear Remus's fingers brushing against the worn fake lambskin lining of the case, and in his mind, there's a perfectly clear picture of Remus picking up his bass gingerly, wiping imperceptible smudges off its scratched surface, hair falling over his face as he leans down with closed eyes, fingers flickering over the strings. Sirius knows that Remus has only had the thing for two years, he made some kind of deal involving his old television for it in a pawn shop, but before he'd heard the story, Sirius had guessed that he was practically born with it, that it was one of those afterschool special things where the bass was the only thing that kept Remus from trying to slit his wrists when he was fourteen. Sirius told him this, and he laughed and said I just appreciate beautiful things. Sirius had looked down at the bass, which was probably once black, now scuffed and scratched and faded into something much closer to grey, its most distinguishing characteristic the shredded remnants of its previous owner's AC/DC sticker, and shook his head.
Sirius shifts on the floor in a way that he hopes looks convincingly sleep-like, and cracks an eye open to see Remus's silhouette in the dim orange light that's coming in from the streetlight because the curtains don't close all the way. In the dim light, through one half-open eye, he's just a blur of light and dark. Pale skin, shadows of hair falling around his face, black t-shirt, bony arm angled around the neck of the bass. He plays a few preliminary notes, and unamplified, the actual notes are almost drowned out by the buzz of the strings. Sirius re-closes his eye, listening to Remus's fingers sliding along the frets and the rattles and hums of the strings being plucked. When Remus starts singing, Sirius holds his breath. His voice is barely above a murmur, and grates slightly in the back of his throat in a way that makes Sirius think of awkward mornings that haven't happened, and he feels like he knows them the way that he can see Remus's hands on the bass without the lamp on, without even opening his eyes. And he wastes a moment thinking this is what it would be to wake up with you, the muted sunlight and the shy smile and your voice hoarse and your eyes half open before he starts listening so hard for the words that his shoulders are tense. And Remus sings, using the bass as sporadic percussion rather than an accompaniment, a barely audible note behind his voice now and then.
And it never gets quiet
So I just take what comes
While the sirens spin by and the radiator hums
The neon signs flicker and the city sheds its glow
I can't see the stars
But you're the brightest one I know...
It's hard to stay quiet
But I take what I can get
I don't want to spend your grace on something I'll regret
So I pour my stupid heart out
To the lights as they fade low
And I don't need the stars,
You're the brightest one I know.
Someone slams a door across the hall, Peter coughs in his sleep and turns over heavily, and Sirius can hear Remus stilling the strings, putting the bass away and slipping into bed.
He reminds himself to start breathing again. And he wonders, for a moment, if he should get up, and take his pillow with him, and slip into bed as well, because he knows what his name means, and maybe Remus does, too. James may front the band and write the lyrics and give the interviews, but Sirius is the brightest star in the sky. He remembers the swell of strange pride, reading that in an astronomy book in the library when he was a kid. The thought that his name meant something, that it had a shine.
He feels trite even thinking it, but he lets himself go, and composes sappy greeting cards in his head, things that should be in wedding-invitation script and bordered with flowers: shine isn't about a name or a star or girls with signs. Shine is being the one who always remembers how everyone likes their coffee, it's being able to appreciate beautiful things, it's always singing like you mean it, even at 2:30 a.m. in a shitty hotel room while people are arguing and snoring and watching westerns.
The crinkle of the cellophane on Remus's pack of cigarettes stops Sirius's mind short, and he listens for the snick of his lighter, and waits to smell the smoke.
He rolls onto his back as quietly as he can, and stares up at the ceiling listening to Remus exhaling, and waits for his heart to slow enough to beat the rhythm of the song.
_____
[notes]
(1) title is from "sleeper car" by veruca salt. (bright you are / and bigger than the both of us / though i'm star / i can't burn that bright.)
(2) Remus's song was written while i wandered around in the supermarket one day. (before i wrote it, he was going to be singing "ever fallen in love" by the buzzcocks, as a vague tribute to miraminx's 'lost feelings' arc.). obviously, i am not meant to be a songwriter. jackie has a horrible quality wav of me singing the second verse, the tune is half-stolen from joni mitchell's "river."
(3) thanks go to my friend shaun (quite unbeknownst to him) for playing his bass unplugged all the time, although trying to describe the sound was really impossible.
(4) Sirius's little hallmark monologue about "shine" was actually written at the time of day when it was supposed to have occured (around 2:30 a.m.), and i kept it because i like the odd authenticity of its origins, even though i'm not too fond of the way it reads.
(5) if the ending is utter crap, that's because i had no idea what to do with it. i redid it about five times and then gave up.