REMUS BENNET
Elliot’s full name was Elliot Bane.
Yes.
Bane.
Though he was nothing like Bane of Batman.
Elliot was thin, and lanky.
He had small blonde hair, and he was nearly as stubborn as himself.
There were many similarities between the two of them, like how both of them had lost their fathers at a young age, and how both of them appeared completely unaffected by that trauma, even if it was nearly the very center of our being.
Both of them wanted to be musicians.
Elliot had little interest in singing or performing, so he had always dreamt of being a producer or a shadow writer.
He had even sold a few of his beats and melodies.
But they had their differences as well, for while Elliot used drugs to drown out his pains, Remus refused to rely on these things.
It was another point of contention between them, and while Remus was not opposed to an occasional smoke or joint, he refused to do anything beyond that, while the same could not be said for Elliot.
Still, despite their differences, they were brothers in all but name.
“Holy shit, that was a bad fall,” Elliot cursed as he pushed the ice pack to his face while spinning on his chair.
“You could have used the door like a normal person?” Remus suggested, and his friend shrugged.
“Now, where would be the fun in that?” Remus chuckled slightly at that response.
“Still, you are lucky that the branch cushioned your fall; otherwise, you would have broken a bone as well,” and instead of disappointment, Elliot’s face lit up with excitement.
“That would have been something. We could have become cast brothers,” and Remus rolled his eyes.
“What! You think you are the only one allowed to break a bone?” Elliot challenged, and he shook his head.
“You are an idiot,” he retorted.
“You are a bigger idiot,” Elliot countered.
“You are the biggest idiot,” Remus countered, and before his friend could add anything, he quickly cut in.
“That is the final form. You have lost,” and with that he shut his mouth.
“Still, how are you now?” Elliot’s voice grew heavy as he looked down at the boot on his leg.
“Better,” he answered honestly.
“I heard that the accident was pretty bad?” Elliot questioned somberly, and it was.
“I am sorry for not coming to meet you in the Hospital, but you know what those things do to…”
“It’s okay. I understand,” Remus cut in, and Elliot loathed hospitals because of his own past, and he did not mind that he did not come to visit him.
“So, should we talk about what you were doing when I was trying to sneak into your room?” and he nodded simply.
“Yeah, I was singing,” and Elliot chuckled as he stood up.
“That was not singing. That was something else,” he added, and in his mind he was overreacting.
“You do that. You sing like that, and then you tell me you are going to give up on your talent and become a Software Engineer,” and something on his face must have shown irritation, as Elliot raised.
“I know I promised you that I won’t mention this again, but dude, you have to listen to me. You can do it. You have the talent for it, and those lyrics. Fuck, I have never heard anything like that,” and Remus began to chuckle.
“Stop it, man. You and I both know what that was,” and how could he not know about Lewis Capaldi?
Elliot made a face as he pushed his hands forward.
“What?” he asked.
“It was Lewis. Before you go,” and Elliot was still acting oblivious.
“What are you talking about. Lewis who?” he questioned, and he could not quite believe that his best friend did not know about Lewis Capaldi.
Still, a strange realization dawned on him as he reached for his phone, and Elliot came and sat down beside him.
“Are you ok, man?” he questioned, but Remus was ignoring him as he quickly typed a name on Google.
Lewis Capaldi, and it took half a second for the results to show, and his eyes widened as he found himself staring at a blank page.
Nothing.
Impossible.
He did the same on YouTube and on Instagram.
He typed the lyrics of some other songs, but in the end, all he saw were empty results.
Lewis Capaldi did not exist in this world, and his heart began to beat faster and faster.
“Hey! Hey!” Elliot’s worried whispers broke him out of his trance as his friend came and sat down beside him.
“Are you ok, man?” he asked, and he nodded.
“Look, I understand your fear, man. I do, but you giving up on your dream because of fear will be perhaps the greatest tragedy ever,” Elliot added softly.
“I know,” he answered on instinct.
“Did you just agree with me?” Elliot gasped in surprise, and his mind was in shambles.
“Look, I understand you. I know that what you are saying is right, but I need to settle back in my life first. I am still recovering,” and Elliot smiled.
“That’s fine. I am not asking you to come to my home with me tomorrow,” he joked.
“I will think about it. I promise,” and Elliot smiled as he slapped his arm.
“Good. I am telling you, man, we are going to light up the world. The entire fucking world,” he said, as he held his arm tightly.
“Still, I never knew that you had written such a piece.
Those were some hard-hitting lyrics, man, but they were not his.
They were someone else’s.
Perhaps this was a boon.
A gift from the deity for all the suffering he had endured.
“That was just something I thought up while I was in the Hospital,” he lied, for that was easier than telling him the truth, and Elliot nodded.
“Well, maybe that accident opened up a few windows,” and he quickly tried to change the topic.
“Tell me about school?” Elliot made a face, and he understood it well enough.
“Don’t tell me you have been skipping again?” Elliot shrugged.
“I won’t,” and so he was skipping again.
“You do know that we have to get our SATs this year, right?” Elliot waved it away.
“It will work out. It’s not like I want to go to college or anything,” and Elliot was much more loyal to his talents than to himself, even though he was not quite loyal to himself.
“Speaking of that, I heard a new rumor that Nate and Maddie are separate again,” and he had heard this tale a thousand times.
Nate and Maddie Perez were the it couple of their high school.
It was like the most obnoxious pairing, with her as cheer captain and him as the football team captain.
But both of them had issues and were toxic like hell.
They were in the same grade, but Remus and Nate dwelled in entirely different circles.
Moreover, he was friends with McKay, and so if anything, one could peg them to be enemies rather than friends.
Nate was a half psycho, and while before that was just an observation, now he knew it to be the truth.
He also knew the reasons behind it, and as he thought them, he realized that he just might have to do something about them.
Still, those were all concerns for later.
“You know very well how much I hate them both,” Remus replied, and Elliot nodded before adding.
“I do, but that does not make it any less entertaining,” and then he plopped down on the chair and began to poke around his piano.
“It’s out of tune. You will have to get this fixed,” and then he glanced towards him.
“I can do that,” and Elliot, for all his habits, was a genius himself.
He hesitated for a second before he gave him a nod.
“Later maybe,” and Elliot nodded, and the boy had built himself a small studio in his home for his work, and it was their usual place for jamming or to just sit and ponder.
“What about your sister? How is she now?” he questioned.
“Rue’s in rehab now,” Elliot scoffed.
“That’s a waste of money,” and his face darkened.
“You and I both know what goes on in there,” and they did indeed, for Elliot himself had been a frequent visitor to such institutes.
“The only way to beat this thing is to find purpose,” and Elliot’s purpose was music production, and though he was not clean yet, he was in a far better condition than he was before.
“I know,” Remus added, and Elliot kicked his legs and rolled the chair to his work desk.
“How many days do you get to play truant?” he questioned, and he shrugged.
“I think ten,” and that was a good number.
“That’s not a small amount of time. We can record a song in that time,” he calculated.
“I haven’t said yes yet,” he countered, and Elliot looked him dead in the eye as he added.
“You will,” and he seemed certain.
The two of them sat and talked late into the night, yet amidst all that, his own mind continued to go back to the black search pages of his phone.
Elliot dipped by Dawn, and despite being awake the entire night, Remus found himself tossing and turning in his bed before he finally gave in and pulled up his laptop from the drawer.
A few seconds later, he was in Safari and searching through all the major websites.
Google.
Instagram.
Youtube.
Facebook.
Such was his desperation that he even carried out the blasphemous act of using Bing.
Yet despite his search, he found no trace of him.
Simply put, a singer by the name of Lewis Capaldi did not exist at all.
He had tried searching for his sons as well, but once again, there was no trace of his singles or his album.
He simply did not exist.
He searched some more.
He searched for songs and singers, but in the end, the rest of the world seemed largely intact except for a few changes.
He saw that a few other songs were missing as well.
Some were yet to come out, but many of them should have been online by now.
So, in the end, it clicked together.
“The playlist,” and in his past life, he had his own playlist of some fifty to sixty songs.
It contained all of Capaldi’s songs along with a few dozen songs from other singers as well, and that little playlist had been his only muse.
It was those songs that were missing.
Those songs that he had loved.
That he had listened to on repeat for years.
“Is this a sign?”
Later, while he was still searching around on his laptop, there was a knock on his door, and he looked up.
“Come in,” he said, and his mother walked into the room.
“You are already awake?” she questioned, and he shook his head.
“I couldn’t sleep,” he answered as he pulled the earpods out of his ears.
“Is everything alright?” she asked quickly, and he reassures her.
“It’s fine. I will sleep in a few hours,” and she nodded, then her eyes fell to the open window, and she raised a brow.
“He used the window again, didn’t he?” she questioned, and he nodded.
“You know him. He is a creature of habit,” and she shook her head in disbelief.
“Even after the fall. He truly is something else,” and with that she walked out after picking up his empty tray from last night, as he continued to scroll for a few minutes before the weariness began to catch up with him and his world descended into darkness once more.
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Have a fantastic day!