All My Cards are Here - Marauders+Wolfstar+Jily

Chapter 11: get a load of this trainwreck

Songs in this chapter:
Headstones and Landmines by Lizzy McAlpine
This is Home by Cavetown

"You know what's been really weird recently," Peter said to the rest of his bandmates as he made breakfast in the bus' kitchenette. "I've started to dream in German."

"Really?" James said with a grin. "How strange is that?"

Sirius was threatening to break into giggles. Remus kicked him under the table.

Last week, they had begun playing a German learning podcast into Peter's headphones as he slept without him knowing. They all had been on edge for days just waiting for him to catch on.

"Yeah, it's really weird because I've never taken German but all of a sudden, I'll be dreaming and I'll just see a door and say Tür in my head."

"And you're sure you've never taken German?" Remus asked.

"Positive," Peter buttered some toast. "Just strange what your mind can do."

"Yeah, so weird, Pete," Sirius said and at this point, even Marlene was sporting a mischievous smile.

They were three weeks into the tour and things had begun to get monotonous. Interviews and shows and constant travel. They were never in one place more than a night or two and the whole crew was exhausted.

Remus especially didn't know how Marlene did it. Somewhere in week one, the entire tour had sold out, and ever since, she was constantly on the phone with Phoenix Records about the next tour or the album drop.

The band was the very definition of up and coming - their Twitter followers had doubled in three weeks, now almost to ¾ of a million and their singles had tens of millions of Spotify plays.

With that fame, came new eyes, thousands of them, watching their every move. Marlene had scrubbed all their Twitters of almost everything older than three years old. Every show was constantly crowded and the meet and greets were getting longer and longer. Remus was grateful, of course, but it had all changed so fast.

And none of it felt real. The tour made things so strange already. If they weren't traveling, they were almost always rehearsing, or performing, or doing press. It was hard to tell if Remus' life had really changed all that much.

But then he would call Oliver and Oliver would talk his ear off about work gossip and something a regular at the bar did, and Remus would feel a pang of homesickness, something he never expected. This was supposed to be the dream, but it just felt like a strange vacation, and any day now he would return to his late-night shifts at the bar.

"You know what I would kill for?" James said to the room. "A good run."

"I think you're the only one," Sirius said and Peter vigorously nodded.

"It's good to stay in shape, boys," Marlene said. "The tour is a marathon, not a sprint."

"I'll start running when someone is chasing me," Remus said.

Marlene rolled her eyes and opened her phone. As she did, Remus watched all humor fall from her face. "Sirius," she said, voice cold as ice. "Why is #SiriusBlackIsOverParty trending worldwide?"

Sirius sat up immediately, "What?" He opened his phone and Remus peered over his shoulder and sure enough, it was the top hashtag around the world.

As he clicked through, the first thing that came up was, "Why We're Cancelling Sirius Black: A Thread. #SiriusBlackIsOverParty." Marlene came over and snatched the phone out of his hand.