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Sing Along Forever	By : JBankai89 Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Remus/Sirius Views: 3825 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: JK Rowling owns Harry Potter, I gain nothing from this but a way to pass the time.

Chapter List
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A/N: Everyone has a different definition of what Punk and Hardcore is. This is mine. Debate with it as you will. Factoids and stuff that I couldn't remember offhand are from American Hardcore: A Tribal History by Steven Blush, We've Got The Neutron Bomb: The Untold Story of L.A. Punk by Mark Spitz, and Punk's Not Dead, a documentary by Susan Dynner. If you're into music history at all you MUST watch it because it's epic. Fic title unceremoniously stolen from The Bouncing Souls. I tried to keep this strictly to 70s-early 90s punk and hxc, but some first-wave emo might've snuck in when I wasn't looking. Whoops. The club used in this fic is made up and based on a local venue in my city, set up exactly as it's portrayed in this story. It's fucking boss and I've been to some epic shows in that tiny attic.
I want to be clear that a good chunk of the the ableist language in this fic is intended to be internalized ableism/self-esteem issues relating to his lack of able-bodied...ness. If anyone feels I've overstepped that, or represented the character's feelings badly, please point it out to me. It's not intentional, and I will fix it.
Sing Along Forever

Chapter 1 – The Freaks, Nerds, and Romantics

Some say they've been left out
I wonder why they still hang around
I wonder where all these sure things could be
Then I realized that somehow I've found them in me
-The Freaks, Nerds, and Romantics – The Bouncing Souls

Remus had no idea what he was doing here.

The place reeked, but Alice seemed to be practically bouncing off the walls with excitement. Stale beer, sweat, and another smell he could not completely identify permeated the air. He'd noticed Alice breathing deeply, taking it all in like it was some sort of religious experience for her.

What was he doing here again?

A tiny London club called Underground, which, ironically, was more or less an attic above a skate shop that Remus had never been to before. Not that this was all that surprising, skateboarding wasn't exactly his thing, and he felt acutely out of place as he looked around.

People varying in age from their late teens to their early forties, nearly all of them in black graphic T-shirts emblazoned with music group names he'd never heard of—Circle Jerks, Black Flag, The Exploited, The Buzzcocks, The Casualties, Fugazi, Subhumans, The Germs...Who on earth named these groups anyway?

“I wanna thank you for coming with me Remus,” Alice said, getting on her toes to speak into his ear. It wasn't particularly loud—at least, not yet, but the music pouring from speakers hidden somewhere in the ceiling made it difficult to speak at a normal level. “I know this isn't really your thing, but with Frank stuck out of town...”

“It's fine,” Remus replied, shoving his hands into his pockets as he gazed anxiously at the low, empty stage. Unlike other concert halls he'd seen, the stage was barely a foot off the ground, meaning the musicians were nearly at eye-level with the attendees. It was barely seven or eight feet across, littered with guitars, a drum set, and large amplifiers stacked one on top of the other.

Alice beamed at him and squeezed his hand once, her hair piled on her head in a messy bun, her own black T-shirt bearing the words, Minor Threat. It was unnerving almost, save for the different graphics, it was like a uniform for some kind of cult. Jeans, trainers, black T-shirts. He saw some of the people looked how Remus always pictured Punk Rockers, with tall, brightly coloured mohawks, piercings on places that Remus did not think should be pierced, and tattoos in all colours of the rainbow. Other people however looked no different than him, save for The Uniform.

Remus glanced down at his ticket again, and he felt a thrill of nerves run through him. This was well outside his comfort zone, and he had no idea what to expect when the lights went out. Hoodwinked: Tributes to American Hardcore and Punk, it read. Remus didn't quite understand the terms, but Alice had acted like Jesus Christ was coming to town when she'd first mentioned it to him. If nothing else, tonight would certainly would be an experience.

“I think I'm gonna to get a beer, do you want anything?” At Alice's question he looked up and shrugged a little. She was still dancing from foot to foot in her excitement, and Remus was so used to Alice being calm and collected that this overexcited version of her was a little strange to see.

“Sure, whatever you're having,” Remus replied and she offered him another smile and made to go but faltered for a moment, grabbed his forearm, and all but dragged him to the far left of the small stage. He staggered a little in surprise, and quickly followed her lead to ensure that he wouldn't fall.

“It's supposed to start soon,” she said by way of explanation when they'd come to a stop, “trust me when I say you don't want to be in the centre like that when the lights go down. I'll be right back,” she said with a grin, and disappeared into the crowd.

Left alone, Remus felt more than a little unsettled by her words. What was supposed to happen that would make him not want to be in the centre of the room like that when this thing started? It seemed a little strange to him, but then he knew next to nothing about these kinds of events. Had he not been here, it was likely he'd be at home, buried in nineteenth-century literature and working on his thesis, which he'd been procrastinating so spectacularly on.

Alice was quick to return and pressed a cold bottle into Remus's hand. He opened his mouth to thank her, but at that same moment the lights dimmed and he immediately understood why he would not have wanted to be in the centre of the floor at that moment.

It was pandemonium. A collective roar followed the hall darkening, people threw their fists in the air, jumped up and down excitedly, and the was a mad surge of bodies that rushed towards the stage. Alice shoved her beer into his hand and disappeared into the madness, just as a group of four men wandered onto the low stage. They picked up their instruments and struck up a slower tempo than Remus had expected, just as a female voice began to speak over the roaring crowd.

“Look at mankind, our planet poisoned and diseased,
Past generations raped it with their greed,
Yet we still destroy all the oceans and pollute the sky,
What's left for our future, nothing but extinction.
Drink a glass of water, you're drinking acid rain,
Take a deep breath, pollution in your brain.
They fucked up everything, the planet doesn't lie,
They fucked up everything, leaving us to die!”

The tempo suddenly sped up as the lead singer began to sing—though it was unlike any singing Remus had ever heard before. It was raw, more like an infuriated snarl than actual melody, while the crowd seemed to have lost their minds in their excitement, and roared the words back to the singer, following along easily, though Remus was at sea. The centre of the crowd broke up into what he recognized as a mosh pit, but looked to him more like a brawl. Men with their shirts stripped off throwing themselves into each other, girls acting just as violently, a few people staggering out every few minutes with split lips and bloody noses, but looking as though they were having the time of their lives. Remus saw a few people tumble to the ground of the pit, but instead of them getting trampled, Remus watched with amazement as everyone stopped what they were doing and helped them up.

He could hardly discern the words the band sung, it was a mess of fast instruments and equally fast singing, and it made him dizzy to try and work out what they were saying. He caught a phrase here and there, but it made little sense out of context, and as the concert progressed, he couldn't help but be impressed by the fans easily following along with the singer.

Half an hour later, it was all over.

The lights came back on, and Remus saw Alice limp towards him, a bruise blossoming on her cheek, her hair a mess and clinging to her sweaty face, and she grinned as she took her beer back from him.

“Cheers,” she said as she took a swig.

“What the bloody hell did I just witness?” Remus asked, still staring at the stage. The musicians were alternating between packing up their equipment and talking to the fans that were still hanging around the stage.

“That was Punx, The Casualties cover band,” she said, and Remus returned his attention to Alice as she spoke. “There's five cover bands, two are local, three are from America. Blaq Fag is supposed to be really good—they're on next. They're from London and they're the Black Flag cover band. Apparently the lead singer is this incredibly hot flaming homosexual, and I've heard that he sounds exactly like Henry Rollins.”

“You do realize I have no idea who that is, right?” He asked, and she laughed.

“Well, either way, they're supposed to be amazing.”

They fell into a comfortable silence, and soon Remus caught sight of Alice beginning to hop from foot to foot again in anticipation. On the stage, a group of men in The Uniform were setting up guitars, microphones, and a drum set with a graphic on the bass drum of four uneven vertical rectangles in red, orange, blue and purple.

The lights dimmed again, Alice pressed her beer on Remus and disappeared just as five young men stepped onto the stage. They appeared to be around Remus's age, in their early twenties, dressed in The Uniform, just like everyone else.

One of them stepped up to the centre mike, and Remus felt his breath catch because Alice—damn her—had been right.

Gorgeous didn't even begin to cover it.

Tight black jeans, a fitted black T-shirt with the words The Adicts written on it below a white graphic of a clown, waves of dark hair falling just past his shoulders, and Remus could see a tattoo on the man's inner forearm of the same four vertical, uneven rectangles, though in black instead of multicoloured.

“We're Blaq Fag,” the man murmured into the microphone, not even looking at the screaming, frenzied crowd as he spoke, “you know what to do.”

As soon as his words faded, Remus could hear a soft roll from the drummer, and watched as the guitarist joined in, and, if possible, the crowd went even more mad than before. Over the din of screaming fans and guitars, Remus heard the singer start up in that same rough, growl of a vocal style that seemed to be major theme of these 'bands'. It was like watching a man transformed, from the calm, collected person standing there mere moments before to an almost mad possession as he threw everything he had into his performance.

“Jealous cowards, try to control,” the lead singer snarled.

“Rise above, we're gonna rise above!” screamed the crowd back at him.

“They distort what we say,” he sang, throwing his head back and Remus felt his heart speed up a little as he watched.

“Rise above, we're gonna rise above!”

“Try and stop what we do,” the singer's teeth were bared as he growled the words, his long dark hair falling into his eyes as he stared intensely at the crowd.

“Rise above, we're gonna rise above!”

“When they can't do it themselves,”

“Rise above, we're gonna rise above!”

“We are tired of your abuse, try to stop us, it's no use,” he sang, and Remus watched as the crowd's chanting bled together with the singer's snarl of a voice. Remus shifted his gaze for a moment from the singer to the crowd and gaped as he watched a string of people were hobble from the mosh pit. They were cradling their face in their hands as blood dribbled from between their fingers, their free hands in the air formed into a fist while they continued to scream the lyrics at the top of their voices, bouncing forward as though someone had attached springs to their feet.

This is absolute madness...Remus thought, shifting his gaze back to the singer, his breath catching again when he saw that the singer was staring right at him. The intensity of that gaze focused solely on Remus made it feel as though his heart had momentarily stopped, but after a split second he looked away, and it was like he could breathe again. The song ended, and the next one started up at once, eliciting another excited roar from the bloodied attendees. Instead of the singing he expected, the vocalist spoke, his lilting, posh accent sounding a little rough around the edges, as though he was attempting to mimic the American accent of the original singer.

“I've got a six pack, and nothing to do,” he said, “I've got a six pack...and I don't need you!”

The guitars started up again, and it dissolved into snarled fast singing that Remus couldn't hope to follow.

The band continued to perform, punctuating the songs with a word here and there, thanking the crowd for listening to them, and Remus felt his heart flutter every time the singer spoke. Remus shook himself.

Don't be stupid, he thought, you're from a completely different world than these people, you'd have no hope of getting in with a man like that.

“This is our last song,” the singer said to the assembled crowd some twenty minutes later, “thanks for listening to us, we'll be at the merch table right after, so please come say hi and buy a shirt so that we can get more beers. This is TV Party,” he broke off when the crowd screamed, “so if you know the lyrics please sing along.”

At once, a chant started up between the singer and the crowd.

“TV party tonight! TV party tonight! TV party tonight! TV party tonight!”

“We're gonna have a TV party tonight,” he sang.

“All right!” The crowd answered.

“We're gonna have a TV party, all right!”

“Tonight!”

Remus could not help but smile as he watched the back and forth between the crowd and the singer, the musicians looking as though they were having as much fun as the crowd. All too soon it was over, and the lights came back on. Remus was rather surprised at how disappointed he felt at that.

Alice hobbled out of the crowd, looking less like she had been enjoying music, and more like she'd participated in a brawl. Her hair was an even bigger mess than it had been before, the bruise on her cheek seemed more pronounced, her lip was split, and her shirt clung to her, soaked with sweat.

“Cheers,” she said again as she reached him, taking back her beer. “What did you think?”

“It was...an experience,” Remus said, smiling faintly when she laughed.

“I know this isn't your thing Remus, but I meant more what did you think of Sirius Black, the singer?” She asked, grinning knowingly when Remus felt his face grow warm.

“They definitely don't make them like that back at Uni,” he said after a pause, sipping his beer while his eyes strayed to the stage, where a handful of men were packing up instruments and equipment.

“You could say that,” she said with a laugh.

They passed fifteen minutes in relative silence then Remus pushed himself off the wall he'd been leaning against, and Alice arched a brow in confusion.

“Where are you going?”

“Don't panic,” he replied with a small smile, “I just need some air. Be back soon.”

“Oh, but...the Minor Threat cover band is gonna be on soon...” she trailed off with a frown, but Remus didn't budge.

“All right,” she said, deflated, “hold on to your ticket, or you won't be let back in.”

He nodded once, and slipped off, weaving through the battered attendees as he went.

At the top of the rickety staircase that led back down to the skate shop, there was a line of booths Remus hadn't noticed before. Tables covered in T-shirts, pins, patches, CDs, and other such paraphernalia. The tables were surrounded by people, and Remus caught sight of the handsome singer from before, grinning at fan after fan who came up to talk to him.

Forcing himself to look away, Remus descended to the main level, and after flashing his ticket at the store's employee, he stamped the back of his hand before letting Remus go outside.

The damp London air was refreshing after over an hour in the loud, stuffy attic. Remus hadn't noticed it before, but his ears were ringing slightly, and he hoped this experience wouldn't cause him to go deaf. He pressed his back against the cool bricks, and took a deep breath.

“Not a Minor Threat fan?”

Remus jumped at the sound of the voice, and whipped around to see the singer—Sirius, leaning against the wall right next to him, smiling at him while he fished a crushed pack of cigarettes from his jeans pocket. Remus felt himself flush under the other man's gaze.

“Oh no, I—er, I just needed some air,” Remus replied awkwardly.

“Fair enough. You looked a little uneasy in there, I've never seen you at one of these before, your first time?” Sirius asked while he pulled out a fag and lit it, then offered the pack to Remus, who shook his head minutely. Sirius shrugged and stowed it back in his pocket.

“Is it that obvious?” he asked, and Sirius smiled, a toothy, brilliant smile that reached his grey eyes and seemed to make his whole face light up.

“Well you do sort of...stand out,” he said, his voice dropping to a softer tone, which brought out the rough edge to his voice, though Remus supposed that could have been the result of the kind of singing he'd been doing not half an hour earlier. Sirius cleared his throat once and continued, “The community is really small, so you tend to see the same faces at most of the shows.”

“It's not exactly my thing, this sort of music,” Remus began, smiling a little when Sirius chuckled.

“I assumed,” he replied, taking a slow drag off his cigarette.

“What was your first clue?”

“Well, the Librarian-In-Training outfit was sort of a dead giveaway,” Sirius arched an elegant brow as Remus looked down at his clothes. Jeans and a brown cardigan equated to Librarian? It was a little confusing, but he had a feeling Sirius hadn't meant it as an insult.

“My friend Alice,” Remus said, gesturing back to the building, “her boyfriend backed out at the last minute, some work thing, and she didn't want to go alone so she sort of begged me to come with her.”

“Well, remind me to thank her for forcing your hand,” Sirius said with a short laugh. “What do you think of it?”

“It's...intense,” Remus said after a moment's pause. He didn't dislike it in the strictest sense, but it did alarm him a little that the attendees seemed to get a kick out of beating each other bloody. “It's not like anything I've ever been to before.”

“It's therapy for me, in a way,” Sirius said softly, his eyes dropping from Remus as he kicked at the pavement with the toe of his Doc Marten knockoffs. “I get all my shit out and I can be a functional member of society again.”

“Doing this really helps you that much?” Remus asked, surprised at the words. He'd never heard of someone so deeply affected by something as simple as music before.

“Yeah, it does,” he looked back up, and that perfect smile was back. Remus could practically feel his legs turning to jelly at the sight of it. Remus had no idea what to say in response to his words; he couldn't remember anything having that deep of an impact on him.

Remus opened his mouth to speak, grasping at straws in an effort to find something to say, but at the same moment a tall man around their age burst through the shop's doors, his messy black hair clinging to his face. He looked as thrashed as Alice had.

“Pads, gotta go—Misfits,” he said, and Remus watched as Sirius's eyes lit up at the words. He turned back to Remus while he dug something out of his pocket.

“Gotta get back in there but...” he paused and pressed a paper into Remus's hand, “call or text me sometime? I'd love to go out for drinks or something.”

Remus stared, certain he was having him on. Drop-dead gorgeous rock musicians did not ask out meek little English Literature students. When Remus did not immediately react, Sirius covered Remus's hand with his own, making him curl his fingers over the little piece of paper.

“Think about it, yeah?” he asked, and without another word Sirius turned and hurried back in, following the other man back inside at a run.

Remus looked down at the little paper in his fist. He could be having him on, but somehow, Remus didn't think that that was the case. Sirius just seemed too earnest to be that big of a prat. He uncurled his fingers and stared down at the numbers written down in neat, elegant script.

Making a decision, Remus pulled out his mobile, unlocked it, and selected, 'Add Contact'.

~*~

At the end of the evening, Remus was relieved that it was over. It hadn't been awful—the intermission with Sirius Black being the highlight of his evening—but he couldn't exactly say that he was a convert or anything. He didn't quite understand the appeal, and it all just seemed very violent and angry to him.

“I really appreciate you coming with me,” Alice said for what was likely the dozenth time, “I know it's not your thing but...thanks.”

“S'fine,” Remus replied with a small smile as they descended into the Underground, trying and failing to ignore the stares they got. He was certain they looked like an odd couple, Alice looking like a huge mess and positively reeking of sweat and beer, and a huge bruise on her cheek. Remus next to her, in his favourite brown cardigan and jeans, looking more like he'd just gotten out of a University class.

“Did you like it, or is it an Alice never ever make me do that ever again sort of thing?” Remus barked a laugh to her question as the train pulled up.

“I wouldn't object to going again,” he began, thinking of Sirius, “but don't expect it to become a regular thing.”

“Fair enough,” she said with a small laugh. He smiled a little, but had kept his encounter with Sirius to himself. Until he found out whether it was some elaborate prank or not, he wasn't keen to share what had happened with her.

Alice's stop came first and she got off, offering him a quick half-wave as the doors closed and he sped off. Remus pulled out his mobile and quickly found Sirius's number in his contacts. He couldn't quite understand what someone like him saw in Remus—they came from two completely different worlds. Didn't people like that tend to stick with their own tight-knit group? Remus frowned. Maybe Sirius really just had been taking the piss out of him, pitying the poor bookish kid who'd been dragged by their friend into his insane world of music.

The train pulled up to his stop, and Remus walked, trance-like, to his duplex. He snapped out of it almost at once when an excited bark sounded from the other side of his front door, and he suddenly found himself with an armful of malamute.

The dog's weight nearly made Remus buckle under him, and chuckling he shepherded the dog back inside and shut the door. He grabbed the red leash off the hook, and hooked it to the collar of the huge animal.

“C'mon Moony, I bet you really need to go,” Remus said, and the dog wagged his tail excitedly, his tail making a loud thump, thump, thump against the wall as he grabbed a handful of poop bags. He turned around and stepped back out into the cool night air.

Mouth open in a doggie grin, Moony trotted beside Remus as he led him down the short staircase and into the front garden. He relieved himself on the front gate, and Remus then led him in a walk around the block.

As he walked, his mind strayed back to his bizarre evening. Alice dragging him to some sort of punk rock show in the attic of a shop, of all places, being hit on by a musician that was leaps and bounds of his league, then being given his number. His mobile seemed to burn in his jeans pocket as he thought of it. Did he actually want to contact him?

Remus had always been very cautious about who he associated with, and he almost never dated. The reason for this was well-hidden beneath his clothing.

Scar tissue.

Not minor cuts here and there, but a good portion of his upper body was littered with a crisscross of pearlescent scars. Below his waist was no better, his left leg ending three inches above the knee before it gave way to his prosthetic.

At age six, he'd been in a car accident. He was in the front seat with his mother at the wheel, and unbeknownst to him, she had had one cocktail too many, and hadn't noticed that Remus did not have his seat belt on.

After she expertly wrapped the modest Toyota around a lamppost, Remus had been thrown from the vehicle before it had come to a complete stop, and was subsequently pinned beneath it. It was nothing short of a miracle that he'd managed to survive.

Remembering the accident as Moony trotted happily at his side, he felt more and more depressed by his encounter with the musician. The last bloke he'd been seeing, a campy classmate who was a little too enamoured with Gertrude Stein, had left him the moment he'd found out that he was an amputee. What would happen if he mentioned it to Sirius, would he turn tail and run off too?

Fifteen minutes later Remus returned home, stripped out of his street clothes and took a quick shower before he climbed into bed. He detached his prosthetic and set it aside, then moulded himself around the enormous canine that already occupied it.

“I'm glad I have you Moony,” he mumbled, patting the dog on his side, “you don't care if I'm able-bodied or not. Just as long as I feed you and walk you.”

Remus laughed a little when the dog huffed, and as the excitement of the day began to wear on him, he slowly fell asleep.
A/N: Songs used in this chapter: Apocalypse Today by The Casualties, Rise Above by Black Flag, Six Pack by Black Flag, and TV Party by Black Flag.
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Sing Along Forever