Chapter Text
The day it happens, Remus is doing his usual pre-stream waffling about, just chatting about what he's been up to in the last couple days—mainly his latest Lego building chronicles, and which toys his grumpy old man of a cat has decided he no longer likes to play with this week. As much as Gryffin likes to play up the aloof front, one of his favourite pastimes is making a nuisance of himself while Remus streams: scratching the back of his gaming chair, walking in front of the monitor, laying on top of the keyboard; anything to divert Remus's attention.
It's honestly pretty endearing, and his audience does love when they see his big floofy orange shape entering the frame. Sometimes Gryff will even bless them by purring or chirping right into the mic; Remus has been sent many a compilation of the various cute cat noises he makes. He's been told before that some people watch videos like that to cheer themselves up when they're having a hard day, and it warms his heart to no end.
Rowena, his blue-tongued skink is much more camera shy as she's very picky about being handled: the stars have to align just right for her to be in the mood to be social, so he tries not to force it just for the benefit of content.
Remus guesses he would classify himself as more of a cosy streamer, rather than a punchy, reactionary type of creator. He likes to focus on exploring the fictional worlds he plays in, figuring out all hidden little quests and details the programmers took the time to include in their work. It's not that he doesn't enjoy combat or more high-stakes scenarios, but building character relationships and connecting with the world around him is what interests him most in RPGs.
Today he's about to embark on his third run of Baldur's Gate 3, and he's ecstatic to try out a new combination of party members, switch up their classes, and see what novel little details he can find.
He's taking the time to talk the audience through the different class and character combinations he's considering—sometimes if he's unsure he likes to throw a poll in the chat to outsource some of the decision making process. He loves the community engagement, and it adds an exciting randomness factor to the whole thing. Occasionally the poll results are very far from what he expects, and it's fun to be kept on his toes.
He did try to talk with Regulus about it in the past, but their approaches to the game are so different all it did was give Remus a headache, to be honest. He finds the way they have so many shared interests while also having wildly opposing in-game preferences fascinating. Don't get him wrong, he'll happily listen to his friend yap about the thought process behind his heavily mechanics and tactics based approach to the whole thing, but sometimes trying to talk character-driven possibilities feels like pulling teeth. Their brains just aren't quite wired the same. It definitely has its pros and cons, but Remus would rather talk things like that out when it's just him and his chat.
He's distracted looking at his main monitor as he shows off the customisations he's chosen for his player character, so he doesn't quite catch when exactly it starts. One second he's thanking someone for subscribing, and the next his whole feed is inundated with question marks and exclamation points and one word repeated again and again.
Not a word, he realises.
A username.
WhySoSirius.
There's so many messages coming he can't quite keep up, but the snippets he catches are all people seemingly freaking out this WhySoSirius person popped up in the chat. Remus scours his brain for any semblance of recognition, any reason it would be such a big deal that this one person is watching, but he draws a complete blank. It does feel oddly vulnerable to ask for clarification for the happenings in his own live chat, but is it even weirder if he just keeps going like nothing out of the ordinary is happening? He doesn't have the biggest audience ever, usually he's pretty good about keeping up with the chat. His viewer count might not be an insane number like some other streamers pull, but they're a very passionate bunch. A small but mighty arm—his Moonbeans, as they've dubbed themselves.
Things fizzle off the same way they crescendoed, and soon Remus feels like his chat has mostly gone back to normal, most likely due to the work of his lovely mods muting the people who got too obnoxious. He goes through the polls results and swiftly makes his final party decisions, before eagerly pressing the play button.
It's right as the opening scene fades in that the somewhat robotic voice of his text-to-speech comes through his headphones; someone's donated to have their message read out:
Moony Moony the brightest star in the sky just joined, is this an astronomy focused sci-fi campaign now?
"Uh," Remus hesitates, trying to make sense of the question. "This is a regular high fantasy campaign. I don't think the BG3 franchise does any sci-fi stuff? Could be fun, though, I'd love to explore a magical galaxy. If anyone knows about about a game like that, please let me know, maybe after this one we'll try something different, yeah?"
It takes him a bit longer than usual to get into the gameplay, his mind still somewhat distracted by that whole situation. He's never had someone pop in and completely derail a stream like that. Be it a guest player or a spectator themself.
WhySoSirius.
The name seems to take residence in the 'intriguing subjects' part of his brain for further analysis at a future date—when he's not being watched by thousands of people as he attempts to both have a good time with the game, and be interesting enough to watch.
Later, he promises himself.
In true Remus Lupin fashion, as soon as his stream is done, he crashes.
It's not that he doesn't enjoy streaming, obviously he does, immensely so, and he refuses to spend so many hours playing games he doesn't feel passionate towards, but it's draining all the same. Even if he makes a concerted effort not to "perform" too much, even if he tries to let his natural personality come through as much as possible, gaming for an audience is never going to be as restoring as gaming completely alone in his room, and that's just a fact. He's absolutely ecstatic he's been able to build an audience and do this for supplemental income, but that fact and getting tired after a full stream are not mutually exclusive.
At the end of the day, disability and chronic fatigue don't care how much fun you've been having, they will inevitably catch up to you.
So, after spending the better part of a few days laying in bed with mostly a book, his comfort playlist, and Gryff for company, Remus finally logs back onto Discord to find a couple unexpected notifications. The only person he usually chats regularly with is Regulus, and he has everything else muted, pretty much. However, there's an uncharacteristic message from James, his video editor, as well as a message request from an account that's not on his friends list.
It's not unheard of for James to message him on Discord, but since they're technically coworkers, most of their communication takes place over their proper work emails. Even then it's a quick and to-the-point affair, mostly confirmation that files have been uploaded to their designated places, with the occasional note from Remus if there's anything he absolutely wants to be included or omitted in the videos when James edits his streams down to be posted on YouTube.
Remus has gone to great lengths to maintain his online presence separate from his offline life, so he rarely gets messages or friend requests on Discord, or anywhere really. He has DMs turned off on all his official Moony accounts and only a handful of people have knowledge of his personals, so this is extremely unusual. He will admit he is intrigued, but ultimately he decides to check James's message first.
@ james
[ + Message @jfpotts ☺︎ ]
It does take a second for the words on the screen to break through the brain fog, but when they do, Remus's curiosity about the message request grows tenfold. The surprising, ruckus-causing presence from the stream is not only friends with one of the rare people who actually knows Remus, but wants to talk to him.
Very interesting, indeed.
Honestly, Remus should probably run a quick check for this Sirius's online presence, try to gauge what his vibe is, but apparently James's word is good enough for him, as he finds himself clicking on the red icon before his brain forms any further conscious thought.
@ sirius
[ + Message @whysosirius ☺︎ ]
Remus can't help but take a peek at Sirius's questions before diving into the admin he has to handle. He has to try really hard not to get sidetracked, because honestly most of them have him buzzing with excitement to write down his answers. The questions are so thoughtful, so earnest, and there are few things that make Remus happier than being able to talk about his interests with someone who truly wants to listen to him. To be fair, he's liable to start yammering away to anybody who will listen, regardless of their actual interest in what he has to say, but it doesn't hurt to have an invested audience.
That's probably a big reason he stuck with streaming. He's sure some of the proper big creators on the platform get bad faith viewers and interactions, but so far he's been blessed with overwhelmingly positive experiences. And now someone wants his input to make a video all about his area of expertise—how could he not be even just mildly flattered? He is only human, after all.
He knows he's likely to get lost writing his answers, so he sets a timer to remind him he needs to stop before dinnertime. And it's a good thing he had the foresight, since he does in fact spend an extended period of time crafting his thoughts into actually usable (he hopes) quotes. He talks about the first game he ever played, his first long term campaign, the freedom Role Playing Games provide in terms of exploring gender and sexuality through characters before feeling comfortable enough to come out oneself—which was very much Remus's experience, although he chooses to leave that little personal tid-bit out of his official answers—and he'd be remiss not to mention the incredible diversity of experiences that the actual play shows he's a massive fan of are committed to represent.
He doesn't quite get through the whole document before he makes himself pause to make sure he actually eats a good meal and drinks some water, but he decides the break is a good time to look up Sirius's channel, see first hand the kind of content he makes.
When he types in 'Sirius' into YouTube's search bar, it autofills to 'Sirius Black coming out reaction', and Remus can't help but click it. He's astonished by the sheer number of results. From quick webcam videos to long form timeline deep dives to angry thumbnails with too many red emojis, it seems everyone and their mother has an opinion on Sirius's gender identity and expression, and his general queerness.
Remus isn't one to really care about strict labels and gender norms, but he can't help the smile that pulls at his lips, the pleased flutter of his heart as he finds out it seems like they both have at least one thing in common, beyond Sirius's current research for the TTRPG video.
It takes him a second to connect the dots.
To wade through the flood of videos as something he can't quite name niggles the back of his mind.
Sirius Black.
Sirius Black.
Sirius Black.
Sirius–
"Oh, bloody fucking fuck," Remus murmurs.