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carmillaSUMMARY: The Maurauders go to see the Death of Glitter and meet some very interesting Muggles.
PAIRINGS: Various, principally Sirius/Remus, Ripper/Ethan.
NOTE: This story, like many others, owes a great debt to the very wonderful ‘Fairy Boys’ series by Auburn Crimson.
“They’re here, they’re here!”
Peter burst into the Gryffindor common room, waving an envelope over his head.
Remus looked up from his book.
“Padfoot and Prongs are in the dorm if you’re looking for – hey, is that what I think it is?”
Peter nodded excitedly.
“They arrived at my parents’ house, and they sent them on by Owl Post.”
Remus grinned.
“Brilliant. Let’s let the others know.”
Sirius gave a guilty start as the dorm room door slammed open, and attempted to hide the Chocolate Frog he was holding under a pillow. Then he relaxed as he saw Remus standing in the threshold, with Peter a step behind him wearing a sly smile.
“Moony, Wormtail, come and look at this!” He uncovered the frog. “I think we’ve finally ironed out the kinks – this one was singing a minute ago.”
Remus smiled.
“Wormtail’s got a better surprise for you than a silly old Singing Charm.”
James looked up with interest.
“Really? Go on then, hand it over.”
Peter slowly brought the envelope out from behind his back, and dropped it into James’s lap. Looking slightly puzzled, James broke the seal. The his eyes lit up as he drew out four gilt-edged tickets.
“Boys,” he drawled, “we’re going to London.”
Peter grinned, nodding. “The Death of Glitter concert. We’re going to be there.”
“Not quite as good as Brian Slade –“ Sirius began, and got no further as Remus pounced on him and proceeded to tickle him into submission. “But almost! Very nearly!” he managed to gasp as his friend finally relented.
“Nessum dorma…” sang the frog.
~
“Oh please, Ripper?” Ethan pouted. Ripper grunted, rolled over, and tugged a pillow over his head. Ethan pulled him back again, snatching the pillow away.
“Pretty please?” he tried, batting his eyelashes for good measure. Ripper usually gave in if he was pestered for long enough.
Ripper cast a desultory glance over the flyer being waved in his face.
“The Flaming Creatures? Jack Fairy? Ain’t exactly Pink Floyd, is it?” He paused. “Curt Wilde’s OK, I guess.”
Ethan grinned.
“Was that a yes?”
“It was a maybe,” said Ripper, grudgingly. “Now let me get a couple of hours’ sleep, it’s half five in the bloody morning.”
“Ripper, you know how stubborn I am,” Ethan’s fingertips began to wander across Ripper’s stomach, “and until you say yes, I’m just going to have to keep trying to – persuade – you.” Ethan’s head followed his hands in a downward spiral, and in a very short space of time, Ripper was making sounds that could well have meant ‘yes’, were they slightly more coherent.
Five minutes later, Deirdre burst through the bedroom door, leaving it swinging in her wake.
“What a night! Drinks at Charlie’s – the bar, not the roach demon -” she flung her jacket at the chair in the corner of the room, “a couple of hits with Benjie – you guys ever tried Purple Haze? You should, it’s good -” she checked herself in the mirror, primping her hair and removing a spot of smudged eye makeup from her cheek, “picked up some guy at the Blue Bar, lost him again at Neverwhere – good club, that, you should go -” her lipstick touched up, her handbag joined her jacket in the corner, “and finally we all end up at Rosa’s at half three in the morning, and she suggested a séance – which oddly enough turned out to be rather good fun. My guardian spirit’s called Brent, by the way, and I’m going to meet a pale blond stranger.” She collapsed into the chair, toeing off her heels. “I’m famished. What do you boys want for breakfast?”
Glancing over to the bed for the first time, she noted Ripper’s flushed and scowling face, and Ethan’s slightly swollen lips. She arched her eyebrow a fraction.
“Ah. I see you already ate.”
~
Spike stepped out of the Tube station, cast an eye over the smoke-stained brick buildings and bustling tourists, lit a cigarette and took a long, contented drag. Nevermind that he was born over a hundred miles from here, over a hundred years ago – there was something about London that always made it feel like home.
His peace was disturbed by a jostling group of boys coming up the steps behind him.
“Padfoot’s got the map the wrong way up!” one of them was complaining loudly.
“Well it won’t make much odds, Prongs, considering that’s a Tube map and we’re walking the rest of the way.”
“I still don’t see why we couldn’t have just Apparated there,” said the tallest of the bunch sulkily, folding the map up and putting it back in his pocket.
“Yeah, great idea Pads, Apparate right in the middle of a crowd of Muggles,” piped up the short, blond kid bringing up the rear. “We’d lose our licenses, and that’s if we were lucky.”
“Come on guys, or we’ll be queuing for hours. Follow Moony, since he’s so sure he knows what he’s doing.”
The four teenagers moved off, bickering. Spike was intrigued. He prided himself on his knowledge of slang, especially in London, but ‘Muggle’ was a new one on him. Besides, a queue meant a gig or a club, and either was a good hunting ground. He dropped his cigarette, stepped on it, and began to follow them.
~
“Hurry up, we’re going to be late!”
Randall was bouncing on the balls of his feet, loosing a fresh cloud of glitter dust each time he did so. He’d covered himself in the stuff – on his eyelids, his cheekbones, in his hair, all down his arms, which the net vest he was wearing left bare. Ripper suspected Ethan’s influence. He shot a venomous glare at his friend, who was adding a fresh coat of black nail polish, oblivious to Randall’s fidgets.
“I still can’t believe you talked me into this.” Ethan merely smiled serenely, so Ripper turned his glare on Randall, who was now pacing up and down their narrow hallway. “You can shut up and all. We only live round the bloody corner, you know. We’ll be there in five minutes.”
Ethan stood up, blowing on his nails.
“Come on, fellas. Wouldn’t want to miss the show, now would we?”
He grinned wickedly, slapped Ripper’s derriere in passing, and pelted down the hall.
“You’ll pay for that, Rayne!” Ripper shouted at his retreating back, as he allowed Randall to take him by the hand and drag him out of the house.
~
The inside of the club was hot, and smoky, and smelt of stale beer and sweat. It was packed to the rafters, mostly with teenagers Remus judged to be around his own age, although there was a scattering of older people. Peter, almost ready to die of excitement, had scurried off to the front of the hall, to get a place as close to the stage as possible; James had headed to the bar, brandishing a magically forged Muggle I.D. card. Remus was content to stop and people-watch for a little, as the milling crowd of bright-coloured clothes and exotic makeup swirled around him.
Sirius leant over and spoke into his ear.
“I don’t know about you, but I’m feeling a little under-dressed. Want to go spruce up?”
They fought their way through to the men’s toilets, which proved to be deserted aside from a six foot tall man standing at one of the urinals, wearing a red evening dress and a neatly styled blonde wig. Sirius waited until he left, then grinned broadly.
“I love this city. Here, make yourself useful.” He produced from his backpack the things they hadn’t felt quite comfortable wearing to walk around London: silver eyeshadow for Sirius, gold for Remus, kohl eyeliner, mascara, lip gloss, and matching leather chokers. They smeared themselves with cheap glitter on every available surface. As he was making up, Remus was distracted by the muffled noises emanating from somewhere in the room; clanks, bangs, bumps and scuffles. Once he thought he heard a voice, but it was too indistinct for him to be sure. Faulty plumbing, he eventually decided; the Hogwarts pipes could make a terrible racket when they were playing up.
As he was adding the final dabs of glitter across his collarbone, Sirius sidled up behind him and wrapped his arms around his waist. Remus leaned back against him, turning his head, and they shared a lazy kiss.
“You look gorgeous,” Sirius breathed in his ear. “Good enough to eat.” He nipped his neck playfully. “It’s all I can do not to -” but Remus batted his hands away as they reached for his shirt buttons.
“Not now, Pads,” he admonished. “We wouldn’t want to miss the show.”
Sirius smiled, and kissed his cheek, leaving it sticky with lip gloss. Arms looped casually around each others’ waists, they went back into the club.
As they left, a voice whispered, “All clear,” and the door of one of the cubicles creaked open. Ethan stumbled out, his perfectly styled hair and perfectly applied makeup in a state of severe disrepair, and Ripper sauntered after him, casually – a little too casually – adjusting the buttons of his jeans.
“Geez,” Ethan complained, fingering a still-tender love bite on his neck, “when you threaten to make a person pay you really don’t kid around, do you?”
Ripper smiled at him superciliously.
“You wouldn’t want me any other way.”
~
As Sirius and Remus elbowed their way through the crowd, they spotted Peter waving to them from a spot near the stage. Making their way towards him, they saw him point at them and say something to a slight, sandy haired boy at his side. He was wearing a sleeveless mesh top and extravagant quantities of eyeliner; Remus thought he was maybe a couple of years older than them.
“Hey guys!” Peter called as they approached. “This is Randall. Randall, these are the friends I was talking about. This is Sirius, and this is Remus.”
Randall stuck out his hand, looking a little awkward.
“Nice to meet you guys. Umm, I’m sure my mates are around here somewhere as well….”
“Randall lives on the next street over from here,” Peter cut in excitedly, “and he was a Brian Slade fan.”
The stagehands were beginning to set up for the first act when James rejoined the group, a plastic pint glass clutched in one hand.
“This Muggle stuff’s not a patch on Butterbeer,” he grouched; then he caught sight of Randall, who was peering off into the distance. “Who’s your new friend?”
Before introductions could be made, however, Randall dived into the crowd, and returned a moment later dragging two other boys in his wake; one was stocky, with tousled hair and badly smudged lipstick, the other looking somewhat out of place in faded jeans, combat boots, a white T shirt and a patched leather jacket.
“These are my housemates,” he panted. “The tall one’s Ripper, and the one with the just-shagged look is Ethan.”
Ethan grinned and shook hands all round, not in the least embarrassed. Ripper did the same, but with far less good grace. Sirius privately put his ill temper down to his wearing a leather jacket inside a club, a purgatory he knew all too well.
Before the group had done more than exchange a few pleasantries, the background music cut out, leaving the crowd in a hush of expectancy. Smoke machines went off with a hiss, and as a voice over the loudspeaker announced the ‘Flaming Creatures’, a spotlight picked out a small figure on the stage, wearing a top hat and a wicked smile.
“Wow,” Sirius gasped. He leaned over to Remus. “Moony, you know I love you dearly, but would you mind if, hypothetically -”
The crash of the guitars’ opening chords hid Sirius’s yelp as Remus swatted him over the head.
~
Spike leant against the side of the building, taking another drag of his cigarette. Dimly, he felt the pulse of the music through the wall at his back; if he’d bothered, he could have heard it clearly, but the required concentration to sharpen his senses seemed like too much effort. He was considering going inside – security wouldn’t be too much of a problem by this point in the evening, and he was hungry – when he saw someone hurrying out of the door, his eyes hidden by dark glasses and his face muffled by a coat. The figure paused, seemed to take a deep breath, and slumped against the wall.
Spike decided the opportunity was as good as any, and wasted no time in appearing at the stranger’s side.
“Cigarette?” he offered, producing a pack from one pocket and a lighter from the other. “You look like you could use one.”
The stranger glanced up at him suspiciously, but accepted without a word.
“’M Spike, by the way.”
“Brian.”
“So, what’s eating you, Brian?”
The stranger laughed; it sounded forced.
“Very long story. You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
“Oh, I think you’d be surprised what I can believe.”
Spike softly removed the dark glasses; the eyes that looked up at him were tear reddened, and desperate; the desperation of a junkie needing a fix. He wasn’t surprised to find himself being shoved up against the wall and kissed hungrily and messily, fingers fumbling at his belt. As they broke the kiss, he licked long stripes down the stranger’s neck, then whispered in his ear,
“What’s the matter? Do I remind you of someone you know?”
Brian stiffened in protest, but relaxed again slowly as Spike held him in place, lightly biting his earlobe, then his throat. He took in the bleached hair, the eyeliner, the supreme self confidence, the vague threat of sudden violence in the hands that held him in place.
“Maybe just a little,” he conceded.
Spike smiled at him, and kissed him again, circling an arm around his waist. When Brian felt teeth breaking his skin, he was no longer sure if this was real, or just the best trip of his life; he’d dropped a tab or two to give him the courage to come here. As he grew more and more light-headed, he felt like he was slipping away from himself, to someplace new and better.
When his victim lost consciousness, Spike released him, dropping him to the pavement. Somehow, he didn’t feel like killing this one. Slowly, he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, savouring the heady mix of blood, narcotics, and jumbled memories. Finally, he looked down at the body lying at his feet.
“Bloody hell, mate, you weren’t kidding. That’s some story.”
And with that, he disappeared into the shadows of the London night.
~
“Guys, you’re being ridiculous,” said Ethan. “This one can hardly move, for starters.” He nodded to James, who was propped up between Sirius and Peter, muttering incoherently to himself. “Come back to ours, crash on our floor, and you can head home to Scotland or wherever it is in the morning.”
Sirius shot another glance behind him, scowling when he saw Remus was still deep in conversation with Ripper. But James was feeling heavier by the minute, and he certainly wasn’t going to risk him travelling by Floo in this state.
“Alright then, if you don’t mind,” he said. “Lead on.”
Ethan did, shoving his way through the crowd around the exit and onto the street. He took a minute for the rest of the group to catch up, then headed towards home.
“What happened to Randall?” Peter wheezed from behind him.
“Don’t worry about it, he knows the way back,” Ethan called distractedly over his shoulder. He was trying to listen to whatever James was burbling about; it mostly concerned ‘damn Muggles and their damn tricksy drinks’, whatever that meant. He fell into step with the three of them.
“So, what exactly is a Muggle?” he asked Sirius conversationally. Sirius started.
“It’s, well, it’s -”
“It’s a poor bastard like you who can’t do magic,” said James very distinctly, while Peter tried desperately to shush him. Sirius shrugged, embarrassed.
“But we do do magic,” said Ethan, smiling. “Ripper and Randall and I, and Deirdre, the one you haven’t met yet.”
Sirius looked at him suspiciously.
“You were never at Hogwarts. I’d have remembered.”
“What the hell’s a Hogwarts when it’s at home?”
“Apparently, some kind of school for wizards,” Ripper cut in, catching up with them. “Remus has been telling me about it, it sounds fascinating. A whole different kind of power, although there are some intriguing similarities in how spells are cast.”
Ethan looked at him warily. Ripper only used words like ‘fascinating’ at his most enthusiastic, and Ripper at his most enthusiastic was always a dangerous proposition. And he wasn’t too happy with how Ripper was looking at Remus, either. Ethan preferred that light in Ripper’s eyes to be reserved exclusively for him, and the occasional rare first edition.
When they arrived back at the house, the hall light was on, and Ripper and Ethan weren’t surprised to find Deirdre slumped on a couch in the sitting room, giggling at nothing. Ethan played host.
“Guys, this is Deirdre. Deirdre, these are some friends we made at the gig – Remus, Sirius, James and Peter.”
Deirdre kissed each of them on the cheek in turn, but stopped when she came to Peter, running her hand through his hair.
“You’re blond,” she said dreamily. “I’ve been expecting you.” And without further ado, she took a bemused but unprotesting Peter by the hand, and led him upstairs.
Ripper broke the silence.
“Don’t worry, she does stuff like that all the time.” He turned back to Remus. “What was that you were saying about wizards born to all-Muggle families?”
~
A couple of hours later, James had thrown up all over the toilet, apologised noisily but sincerely while Remus made snide comments about Purebloods and Muggle drinks not mixing, and passed out none too gracefully on the kitchen floor. Now, Ripper and Remus were sitting side by side on the sofa, knees touching, heads bent over Remus’s wand, which Ripper was inspecting closely, running his fingers over the rough grain.
“Fascinating,” he murmured. “I can sense the power, but it’s not like any enchantment I’ve seen before. And a wizard can’t cast spells without one of these?”
“A really powerful one can,” Remus amended. “And the early signs of magic show up without the need for a wand. But wandless magic is dangerous because it’s unpredictable – it can’t be properly controlled.”
“Like casting a circle,” Ripper nodded. “It limits and channels the power.”
Remus smiled at him.
“See if you can do anything with it,” he encouraged. “Make it glow, or shoot sparks, or something.”
From his corner, where he was watching the two intently, Sirius scowled. Ethan, who had been watching Sirius for the past couple of minutes, noticed. He decided something ought to be done.
“Seems to me,” he drawled in Sirius’s ear, “that we’re not getting enough attention over here."
Sirius’s startled yelp brought Ripper out of his seat and Remus rushing to his side. Ethan had tumbled him with a sudden lunge, and was pinning him to the floor and kissing him expertly. Ripper’s hand closed over Remus’s as they both reached to pull him back by the shoulder. Ethan smiled up at them, unrepentant, and taking Remus’s other hand, drew a finger into his mouth. Sirius growled possessively, an arm around Remus’s waist, but his other hand was still tangled in the hair at the back of Ethan’s neck, stroking gently. And just like that, they all knew exactly how they were going to end the night.
~
It was five in the morning when the last of the stragglers left the club. The tattered remains of the Death of Glitter were scattered among them; posters, guitar plecks, scraps of backdrop, many of them autographed. Randall was carrying a rolled up poster and a shirt one of the performers had thrown into the audience. He stooped to add a discarded ticket to his haul, and as he straightened he bumped into someone.
“Sorry,” said the young man. He looked dishevelled, but happy; his hair was dyed a brilliant blue.
“Don’t worry about it. My name’s Randall.”
“Arthur.”
“Had a good night?”
“The best.” The young man smiled, a small, secret smile. “You’ll never guess what I’ve been doing....”
PAIRINGS: Various, principally Sirius/Remus, Ripper/Ethan.
NOTE: This story, like many others, owes a great debt to the very wonderful ‘Fairy Boys’ series by Auburn Crimson.
“They’re here, they’re here!”
Peter burst into the Gryffindor common room, waving an envelope over his head.
Remus looked up from his book.
“Padfoot and Prongs are in the dorm if you’re looking for – hey, is that what I think it is?”
Peter nodded excitedly.
“They arrived at my parents’ house, and they sent them on by Owl Post.”
Remus grinned.
“Brilliant. Let’s let the others know.”
Sirius gave a guilty start as the dorm room door slammed open, and attempted to hide the Chocolate Frog he was holding under a pillow. Then he relaxed as he saw Remus standing in the threshold, with Peter a step behind him wearing a sly smile.
“Moony, Wormtail, come and look at this!” He uncovered the frog. “I think we’ve finally ironed out the kinks – this one was singing a minute ago.”
Remus smiled.
“Wormtail’s got a better surprise for you than a silly old Singing Charm.”
James looked up with interest.
“Really? Go on then, hand it over.”
Peter slowly brought the envelope out from behind his back, and dropped it into James’s lap. Looking slightly puzzled, James broke the seal. The his eyes lit up as he drew out four gilt-edged tickets.
“Boys,” he drawled, “we’re going to London.”
Peter grinned, nodding. “The Death of Glitter concert. We’re going to be there.”
“Not quite as good as Brian Slade –“ Sirius began, and got no further as Remus pounced on him and proceeded to tickle him into submission. “But almost! Very nearly!” he managed to gasp as his friend finally relented.
“Nessum dorma…” sang the frog.
~
“Oh please, Ripper?” Ethan pouted. Ripper grunted, rolled over, and tugged a pillow over his head. Ethan pulled him back again, snatching the pillow away.
“Pretty please?” he tried, batting his eyelashes for good measure. Ripper usually gave in if he was pestered for long enough.
Ripper cast a desultory glance over the flyer being waved in his face.
“The Flaming Creatures? Jack Fairy? Ain’t exactly Pink Floyd, is it?” He paused. “Curt Wilde’s OK, I guess.”
Ethan grinned.
“Was that a yes?”
“It was a maybe,” said Ripper, grudgingly. “Now let me get a couple of hours’ sleep, it’s half five in the bloody morning.”
“Ripper, you know how stubborn I am,” Ethan’s fingertips began to wander across Ripper’s stomach, “and until you say yes, I’m just going to have to keep trying to – persuade – you.” Ethan’s head followed his hands in a downward spiral, and in a very short space of time, Ripper was making sounds that could well have meant ‘yes’, were they slightly more coherent.
Five minutes later, Deirdre burst through the bedroom door, leaving it swinging in her wake.
“What a night! Drinks at Charlie’s – the bar, not the roach demon -” she flung her jacket at the chair in the corner of the room, “a couple of hits with Benjie – you guys ever tried Purple Haze? You should, it’s good -” she checked herself in the mirror, primping her hair and removing a spot of smudged eye makeup from her cheek, “picked up some guy at the Blue Bar, lost him again at Neverwhere – good club, that, you should go -” her lipstick touched up, her handbag joined her jacket in the corner, “and finally we all end up at Rosa’s at half three in the morning, and she suggested a séance – which oddly enough turned out to be rather good fun. My guardian spirit’s called Brent, by the way, and I’m going to meet a pale blond stranger.” She collapsed into the chair, toeing off her heels. “I’m famished. What do you boys want for breakfast?”
Glancing over to the bed for the first time, she noted Ripper’s flushed and scowling face, and Ethan’s slightly swollen lips. She arched her eyebrow a fraction.
“Ah. I see you already ate.”
~
Spike stepped out of the Tube station, cast an eye over the smoke-stained brick buildings and bustling tourists, lit a cigarette and took a long, contented drag. Nevermind that he was born over a hundred miles from here, over a hundred years ago – there was something about London that always made it feel like home.
His peace was disturbed by a jostling group of boys coming up the steps behind him.
“Padfoot’s got the map the wrong way up!” one of them was complaining loudly.
“Well it won’t make much odds, Prongs, considering that’s a Tube map and we’re walking the rest of the way.”
“I still don’t see why we couldn’t have just Apparated there,” said the tallest of the bunch sulkily, folding the map up and putting it back in his pocket.
“Yeah, great idea Pads, Apparate right in the middle of a crowd of Muggles,” piped up the short, blond kid bringing up the rear. “We’d lose our licenses, and that’s if we were lucky.”
“Come on guys, or we’ll be queuing for hours. Follow Moony, since he’s so sure he knows what he’s doing.”
The four teenagers moved off, bickering. Spike was intrigued. He prided himself on his knowledge of slang, especially in London, but ‘Muggle’ was a new one on him. Besides, a queue meant a gig or a club, and either was a good hunting ground. He dropped his cigarette, stepped on it, and began to follow them.
~
“Hurry up, we’re going to be late!”
Randall was bouncing on the balls of his feet, loosing a fresh cloud of glitter dust each time he did so. He’d covered himself in the stuff – on his eyelids, his cheekbones, in his hair, all down his arms, which the net vest he was wearing left bare. Ripper suspected Ethan’s influence. He shot a venomous glare at his friend, who was adding a fresh coat of black nail polish, oblivious to Randall’s fidgets.
“I still can’t believe you talked me into this.” Ethan merely smiled serenely, so Ripper turned his glare on Randall, who was now pacing up and down their narrow hallway. “You can shut up and all. We only live round the bloody corner, you know. We’ll be there in five minutes.”
Ethan stood up, blowing on his nails.
“Come on, fellas. Wouldn’t want to miss the show, now would we?”
He grinned wickedly, slapped Ripper’s derriere in passing, and pelted down the hall.
“You’ll pay for that, Rayne!” Ripper shouted at his retreating back, as he allowed Randall to take him by the hand and drag him out of the house.
~
The inside of the club was hot, and smoky, and smelt of stale beer and sweat. It was packed to the rafters, mostly with teenagers Remus judged to be around his own age, although there was a scattering of older people. Peter, almost ready to die of excitement, had scurried off to the front of the hall, to get a place as close to the stage as possible; James had headed to the bar, brandishing a magically forged Muggle I.D. card. Remus was content to stop and people-watch for a little, as the milling crowd of bright-coloured clothes and exotic makeup swirled around him.
Sirius leant over and spoke into his ear.
“I don’t know about you, but I’m feeling a little under-dressed. Want to go spruce up?”
They fought their way through to the men’s toilets, which proved to be deserted aside from a six foot tall man standing at one of the urinals, wearing a red evening dress and a neatly styled blonde wig. Sirius waited until he left, then grinned broadly.
“I love this city. Here, make yourself useful.” He produced from his backpack the things they hadn’t felt quite comfortable wearing to walk around London: silver eyeshadow for Sirius, gold for Remus, kohl eyeliner, mascara, lip gloss, and matching leather chokers. They smeared themselves with cheap glitter on every available surface. As he was making up, Remus was distracted by the muffled noises emanating from somewhere in the room; clanks, bangs, bumps and scuffles. Once he thought he heard a voice, but it was too indistinct for him to be sure. Faulty plumbing, he eventually decided; the Hogwarts pipes could make a terrible racket when they were playing up.
As he was adding the final dabs of glitter across his collarbone, Sirius sidled up behind him and wrapped his arms around his waist. Remus leaned back against him, turning his head, and they shared a lazy kiss.
“You look gorgeous,” Sirius breathed in his ear. “Good enough to eat.” He nipped his neck playfully. “It’s all I can do not to -” but Remus batted his hands away as they reached for his shirt buttons.
“Not now, Pads,” he admonished. “We wouldn’t want to miss the show.”
Sirius smiled, and kissed his cheek, leaving it sticky with lip gloss. Arms looped casually around each others’ waists, they went back into the club.
As they left, a voice whispered, “All clear,” and the door of one of the cubicles creaked open. Ethan stumbled out, his perfectly styled hair and perfectly applied makeup in a state of severe disrepair, and Ripper sauntered after him, casually – a little too casually – adjusting the buttons of his jeans.
“Geez,” Ethan complained, fingering a still-tender love bite on his neck, “when you threaten to make a person pay you really don’t kid around, do you?”
Ripper smiled at him superciliously.
“You wouldn’t want me any other way.”
~
As Sirius and Remus elbowed their way through the crowd, they spotted Peter waving to them from a spot near the stage. Making their way towards him, they saw him point at them and say something to a slight, sandy haired boy at his side. He was wearing a sleeveless mesh top and extravagant quantities of eyeliner; Remus thought he was maybe a couple of years older than them.
“Hey guys!” Peter called as they approached. “This is Randall. Randall, these are the friends I was talking about. This is Sirius, and this is Remus.”
Randall stuck out his hand, looking a little awkward.
“Nice to meet you guys. Umm, I’m sure my mates are around here somewhere as well….”
“Randall lives on the next street over from here,” Peter cut in excitedly, “and he was a Brian Slade fan.”
The stagehands were beginning to set up for the first act when James rejoined the group, a plastic pint glass clutched in one hand.
“This Muggle stuff’s not a patch on Butterbeer,” he grouched; then he caught sight of Randall, who was peering off into the distance. “Who’s your new friend?”
Before introductions could be made, however, Randall dived into the crowd, and returned a moment later dragging two other boys in his wake; one was stocky, with tousled hair and badly smudged lipstick, the other looking somewhat out of place in faded jeans, combat boots, a white T shirt and a patched leather jacket.
“These are my housemates,” he panted. “The tall one’s Ripper, and the one with the just-shagged look is Ethan.”
Ethan grinned and shook hands all round, not in the least embarrassed. Ripper did the same, but with far less good grace. Sirius privately put his ill temper down to his wearing a leather jacket inside a club, a purgatory he knew all too well.
Before the group had done more than exchange a few pleasantries, the background music cut out, leaving the crowd in a hush of expectancy. Smoke machines went off with a hiss, and as a voice over the loudspeaker announced the ‘Flaming Creatures’, a spotlight picked out a small figure on the stage, wearing a top hat and a wicked smile.
“Wow,” Sirius gasped. He leaned over to Remus. “Moony, you know I love you dearly, but would you mind if, hypothetically -”
The crash of the guitars’ opening chords hid Sirius’s yelp as Remus swatted him over the head.
~
Spike leant against the side of the building, taking another drag of his cigarette. Dimly, he felt the pulse of the music through the wall at his back; if he’d bothered, he could have heard it clearly, but the required concentration to sharpen his senses seemed like too much effort. He was considering going inside – security wouldn’t be too much of a problem by this point in the evening, and he was hungry – when he saw someone hurrying out of the door, his eyes hidden by dark glasses and his face muffled by a coat. The figure paused, seemed to take a deep breath, and slumped against the wall.
Spike decided the opportunity was as good as any, and wasted no time in appearing at the stranger’s side.
“Cigarette?” he offered, producing a pack from one pocket and a lighter from the other. “You look like you could use one.”
The stranger glanced up at him suspiciously, but accepted without a word.
“’M Spike, by the way.”
“Brian.”
“So, what’s eating you, Brian?”
The stranger laughed; it sounded forced.
“Very long story. You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
“Oh, I think you’d be surprised what I can believe.”
Spike softly removed the dark glasses; the eyes that looked up at him were tear reddened, and desperate; the desperation of a junkie needing a fix. He wasn’t surprised to find himself being shoved up against the wall and kissed hungrily and messily, fingers fumbling at his belt. As they broke the kiss, he licked long stripes down the stranger’s neck, then whispered in his ear,
“What’s the matter? Do I remind you of someone you know?”
Brian stiffened in protest, but relaxed again slowly as Spike held him in place, lightly biting his earlobe, then his throat. He took in the bleached hair, the eyeliner, the supreme self confidence, the vague threat of sudden violence in the hands that held him in place.
“Maybe just a little,” he conceded.
Spike smiled at him, and kissed him again, circling an arm around his waist. When Brian felt teeth breaking his skin, he was no longer sure if this was real, or just the best trip of his life; he’d dropped a tab or two to give him the courage to come here. As he grew more and more light-headed, he felt like he was slipping away from himself, to someplace new and better.
When his victim lost consciousness, Spike released him, dropping him to the pavement. Somehow, he didn’t feel like killing this one. Slowly, he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, savouring the heady mix of blood, narcotics, and jumbled memories. Finally, he looked down at the body lying at his feet.
“Bloody hell, mate, you weren’t kidding. That’s some story.”
And with that, he disappeared into the shadows of the London night.
~
“Guys, you’re being ridiculous,” said Ethan. “This one can hardly move, for starters.” He nodded to James, who was propped up between Sirius and Peter, muttering incoherently to himself. “Come back to ours, crash on our floor, and you can head home to Scotland or wherever it is in the morning.”
Sirius shot another glance behind him, scowling when he saw Remus was still deep in conversation with Ripper. But James was feeling heavier by the minute, and he certainly wasn’t going to risk him travelling by Floo in this state.
“Alright then, if you don’t mind,” he said. “Lead on.”
Ethan did, shoving his way through the crowd around the exit and onto the street. He took a minute for the rest of the group to catch up, then headed towards home.
“What happened to Randall?” Peter wheezed from behind him.
“Don’t worry about it, he knows the way back,” Ethan called distractedly over his shoulder. He was trying to listen to whatever James was burbling about; it mostly concerned ‘damn Muggles and their damn tricksy drinks’, whatever that meant. He fell into step with the three of them.
“So, what exactly is a Muggle?” he asked Sirius conversationally. Sirius started.
“It’s, well, it’s -”
“It’s a poor bastard like you who can’t do magic,” said James very distinctly, while Peter tried desperately to shush him. Sirius shrugged, embarrassed.
“But we do do magic,” said Ethan, smiling. “Ripper and Randall and I, and Deirdre, the one you haven’t met yet.”
Sirius looked at him suspiciously.
“You were never at Hogwarts. I’d have remembered.”
“What the hell’s a Hogwarts when it’s at home?”
“Apparently, some kind of school for wizards,” Ripper cut in, catching up with them. “Remus has been telling me about it, it sounds fascinating. A whole different kind of power, although there are some intriguing similarities in how spells are cast.”
Ethan looked at him warily. Ripper only used words like ‘fascinating’ at his most enthusiastic, and Ripper at his most enthusiastic was always a dangerous proposition. And he wasn’t too happy with how Ripper was looking at Remus, either. Ethan preferred that light in Ripper’s eyes to be reserved exclusively for him, and the occasional rare first edition.
When they arrived back at the house, the hall light was on, and Ripper and Ethan weren’t surprised to find Deirdre slumped on a couch in the sitting room, giggling at nothing. Ethan played host.
“Guys, this is Deirdre. Deirdre, these are some friends we made at the gig – Remus, Sirius, James and Peter.”
Deirdre kissed each of them on the cheek in turn, but stopped when she came to Peter, running her hand through his hair.
“You’re blond,” she said dreamily. “I’ve been expecting you.” And without further ado, she took a bemused but unprotesting Peter by the hand, and led him upstairs.
Ripper broke the silence.
“Don’t worry, she does stuff like that all the time.” He turned back to Remus. “What was that you were saying about wizards born to all-Muggle families?”
~
A couple of hours later, James had thrown up all over the toilet, apologised noisily but sincerely while Remus made snide comments about Purebloods and Muggle drinks not mixing, and passed out none too gracefully on the kitchen floor. Now, Ripper and Remus were sitting side by side on the sofa, knees touching, heads bent over Remus’s wand, which Ripper was inspecting closely, running his fingers over the rough grain.
“Fascinating,” he murmured. “I can sense the power, but it’s not like any enchantment I’ve seen before. And a wizard can’t cast spells without one of these?”
“A really powerful one can,” Remus amended. “And the early signs of magic show up without the need for a wand. But wandless magic is dangerous because it’s unpredictable – it can’t be properly controlled.”
“Like casting a circle,” Ripper nodded. “It limits and channels the power.”
Remus smiled at him.
“See if you can do anything with it,” he encouraged. “Make it glow, or shoot sparks, or something.”
From his corner, where he was watching the two intently, Sirius scowled. Ethan, who had been watching Sirius for the past couple of minutes, noticed. He decided something ought to be done.
“Seems to me,” he drawled in Sirius’s ear, “that we’re not getting enough attention over here."
Sirius’s startled yelp brought Ripper out of his seat and Remus rushing to his side. Ethan had tumbled him with a sudden lunge, and was pinning him to the floor and kissing him expertly. Ripper’s hand closed over Remus’s as they both reached to pull him back by the shoulder. Ethan smiled up at them, unrepentant, and taking Remus’s other hand, drew a finger into his mouth. Sirius growled possessively, an arm around Remus’s waist, but his other hand was still tangled in the hair at the back of Ethan’s neck, stroking gently. And just like that, they all knew exactly how they were going to end the night.
~
It was five in the morning when the last of the stragglers left the club. The tattered remains of the Death of Glitter were scattered among them; posters, guitar plecks, scraps of backdrop, many of them autographed. Randall was carrying a rolled up poster and a shirt one of the performers had thrown into the audience. He stooped to add a discarded ticket to his haul, and as he straightened he bumped into someone.
“Sorry,” said the young man. He looked dishevelled, but happy; his hair was dyed a brilliant blue.
“Don’t worry about it. My name’s Randall.”
“Arthur.”
“Had a good night?”
“The best.” The young man smiled, a small, secret smile. “You’ll never guess what I’ve been doing....”