This fic owes more than a little to The Mighty Boosh. I thought that comparison was pretty funny and it just came out - Remus the put-upon Howard Moon type and Sirius the showboating Vince Noir. There's a simple truth to it.
Voldemort never existed. James and Lily got married but didn't have kids because Snape cast a Sterilisation Charm. Remus and Sirius moved in together after Hogwarts, into a small flat in South London. Sirius works as a DJ and Remus as a milkman; the proverbial odd couple. Harry Potter doesn't exist. Sirius and Remus are all that is left of the marauding days of seventies Hogwarts. Theirs is a life of drink, drugs, cheap slappers and all night benders. DJ Dogboy and the Rock N' Roll Milkman.
"What do you think of this, Moony?" Sirius asked.
"Er, I'm not sure I'm a fan of the military look," Remus said, looking up from his copy of Zoo.
"Really?" Sirius wrinkled up his nose. "The Libertines wore these all the time."
"About five years ago now. Indie's over, Sirius."
"No way." Sirius was defiant. "No fucking way, man. I'm bringing it back."
"You mean like you were gonna bring back MC Hammer trousers?"
"Everyone this side of the river's got Hammer pants." Sirius said, taking the jacket off.
"Nobody with an ounce of cool comes this side of the river."
"Er, yeah they do," Sirius said. "Fancy a G & T?"
"I'll have a beer," Remus said, putting down his magazine and wandering through to the kitchen. He picked up a bottle of Bombay Sapphire and another of tonic water, and grabbed a Carling from the fridge. When he went back in, Sirius was sporting a sarong and an England shirt.
"David Beckham's out too," Remus said, sitting back down.
"Oh fuck off Moony."
That night they decided to go to a rave. There was a queue of fifteen year old girls in denim skirts and leggings standing outside, swigging cider from 2 litre bottles.
"Sod this for a game," Sirius said, and he barged to the front, flapping his Hammer pants as he went. "Yeah, we're on the guest list," he said to the meat head bloke on the door.
"No guest list mate."
"You serious?" Sirius said.
"It's an illegal rave, nobody knew about it until an hour ago, there isn't a fookin' guest list."
"Yeah alright, alright."
"We're not gonna get past this queue are we?" Remus said quietly, casting a sideways glance at Sirius.
"Look mate," Sirius said, completely forgetting that he could have just used magic and confused the guy into letting them in, "don't you know who we are?"
Remus's hands went straight to his head as it always automatically did when Sirius began the 'don't you know who we are' speech.
"No I don't," said Meat Head. "Who are you?"
"DJ Dogboy," Sirius said, doffing his fedora to Mr. Meaty. "And this is my bitch—"
"I'm not your bitch, Sirius," Remus began, but Sirius shushed him.
"This is my bitch."
"And what's your name?" Mr. Meaty said with a smirk.
"I'm er…I'm the…"
"Spit it out," Meaty said, his look of amusement dissolving into one of annoyance.
Remus sighed heavily and shook his head. When he spoke it was barely audible. "The Rock N' Roll Milkman."
"You what?" said a zit-ridden fifteen year old behind them.
"Rock N' Roll Milkman inne?" Sirius said. "Can we come in then?"
"Mate," Meaty said, directing his attention to Remus and actually looking like he felt a bit sorry for him, "there's gange in the punch. Get in there. And you," he turned to Sirius, "Dogbreath. Sort that fucking skirt out."
"Cheers mate," Sirius said, and he led the way into the rave
Inside it was delightfully full of fourteen year old girls and an assortment of eighteen year old public schoolboys carrying as many drugs as their parents' allowance would permit. These boys were all sporting huge scarves, neon pink plastic-framed sunglasses, skin-tight jeans and whistles on strings around their necks.
"See, Sirius, this is what it's all about," Remus said, pointing at the nearest hoodlum, who seemed to be screeching along to the music about how it wasn't over, wasn't over, wasn't over, wasn't over yet.
"What you talking about, Moony?" Sirius said, nodding his head and looking around for some semblance of a bar.
"Nu-rave."
"You what?"
"Nu-rave," Remus repeated, this time a little slower. "Haven't you seen Skins?"
Sirius stared at Remus, completely bemused. "What are you talking about, mate?"
Remus sighed. "Never mind. The punch is over there," he added, craftily changing the subject.
They made their way over towards the punch bowl where they were greeted by a midget and a guy in a gorilla suit.
"Alright Frank," Sirius addressed the midget while pouring himself some punch. He gulped it down eagerly then looked intently at Frank.
"Not bad," the midget said, in a particularly high pitched voice.
"Still struggling to reach stuff?"
"Yeah," Frank said. "It's a bit of a bastard accidentally getting your legs chopped off by a mantrap."
"I told you not to go to an anti fox-hunting protest," Remus chipped in. "It was only a matter of time before the toffs fucked off the foxes and started on people."
"Yeah," Sirius was nodding as Frank jumped up and down on the spot trying to reach the punch and not being entirely (at all) successful.
"What about you fellas?" the gorilla said, passing Frank a drink.
"Yeah, yeah, sweet mate, sweet," Sirius drawled, swaying slightly. "I think that gin's gone to my head."
"You had one shot, Sirius, one."
"Yeah but it was a big shot… woah…" Sirius had gone cross-eyed, and he began to twitch his hips in time with the music. "This is mint, I'm so hammered…"
Remus rolled his eyes. "I hope this isn't gonna be a repeat of what happened at your birthday party."
"Ah no…no way," the gorilla said shaking his head, eyes wide. "That was messy, man. I can't believe you ate that budgie…"
"Budgie schmudgie!" Sirius yelled and began nodding his head in time with twitching his hips in time with the music.
"You ate the budgie," Frank said, standing on his tiptoes and trying to get a refill of punch, "and then you jumped out of the window and broke your hand."
"Yeah, yeah!" the gorilla said, excited as the memories came flooding back to him, "You were going: 'I can fly! I can fly!' and then you started singing that R. Kelly song…
"…and then you jumped out the window and nearly landed on that bird, and her fella stamped on your head."
"Rock 'n' ROLL!" Sirius proclaimed, still looking like he was fighting off a seizure. He twitched over to the dance floor, where, within seconds, some fifteen year old girl was sidling up to him.
Remus sighed heavily. "We're not gonna be able to get a cab home if he carries on like this. Nobody'll take him."
"I wouldn't, mate," the gorilla said.
"Oh that's right, isn't it? You're a cabbie now?" Frank said, giving the gorilla's leg a congratulatory slap because he couldn't reach his shoulder.
"Yeah, yeah, that's right. I've got the knowledge."
"Well done, Dave," Remus said, holding up his glass. "Congrats."
"Cheers mate. Anyway, how are you? I haven't seen you since that night Sirius did down the Nag's Head."
"That night was mental," Frank said, nodding sagely.
"Don't remind me," Remus said, trying to suppress the memory of scraping Sirius off the tarmac after one too many shots of absinthe.
"So what you up to?"
"Not much really, just trying to keep it together."
"You still a milky?"
"Yeah, it works out alright. I do the nights with piss-head over there, then when I've put him to bed I go off on my round."
"Doesn't sound too bad," Dave agreed. "Anyway, I'm off outside for a fag. Bloody smoking ban."
Remus and Frank shrugged as if to say 'what can you do?', then Remus left Frank by the punch (because there was nobody there to carry him) and headed over to the dance floor to try and keep an eye on Sirius.
"Weeeeeeeeeyyyy!" Sirius slurred as soon as he saw Remus.
"Christ, you really can't hold your drink can you?"
"Woss that now?"
"Nothing, nothing. Doesn't matter. I'm off to the toilets."
Sirius paused for a moment, then his eyes widened with understanding and he made a very exaggerated wink at Remus. "I getcha," he said, nodding emphatically.
Remus sighed heavily and found himself rolling his eyes again. "Not for…oh for fuck's sake, I've just gone to the bogs alright? Don't do anything stupid."
Sirius held his arms wide in mock offence. "Would I?" he bellowed.
"Yes," Remus called over his shoulder without bothering to look back.
Needless to say, the night had gone from bad to worse. Sirius had at least three more glasses of punch and seemed to have lost his grasp of the English language, so Remus had to pull him into an unsteady fireman's lift and carry him back through Shoreditch. Unfortunately, the punch repeated on Sirius, and most of it ended up down Remus' back, ruining his Smiths T-shirt. When they got back home, they found the door had been kicked in and the offender seemed to have locked themselves in the bathroom.
Sirius was draped over the couch singing Abba songs entirely out of tune. Remus headed to the bathroom and knocked angrily on the door.
"Who's in there?" he shouted, wishing that the night could just be over and he could get back out there and do his round; then it would finally be bedtime.
The toilet flushed and Remus heard the sound of somebody struggling with the lock.
There was a momentary pause, then the door shuddered in the frame.
"Er," came a voice from inside, "I can't get the bloody door open."
"You have to lean on the door and then turn the key," Remus said, standing back slightly.
There was another rattle, then the door opened to reveal a girl in a My Chemical Romance t-shirt with stars tattooed on her feet.
"What's going on, Moony?" Sirius called from the front room.
"Nothing mate, there was just a prostitute in the bathroom, that's all."
The girl's mouth fell open. "What are you on about?" she said, clearly a touch hacked off. "I'm an emo, not a hooker."
Remus heard a laugh from behind him, and suddenly Sirius came crashing towards them.
"An emo? In my house?" Sirius roared dramatically, then collapsed into a fit of hysterical laughter, which resulted in some dry heaving and an unsuccessful attempt to vomit.
"What's up with him?" the girl asked, her eyebrows hovering somewhere near her hairline.
"He's a terminal idiot," Remus said.
"Fuck off!" Sirius managed to say as he crawled along the floor and into the bathroom.
"Alright then." Remus turned and walked away, leaving Sirius clutching at the toilet bowl, the MCR clad stranger looking on in utter confusion. Deciding she might get more sense out of the man who wasn't hovering over the john, she followed Remus into the front room where he was cracking open another beer.
"Aren't you going to ask what I'm doing in your flat?" she said, sitting down on the chair opposite where Remus sat on the couch, his feet up on the coffee table.
"I don't mean to be rude," he said, "but I really can't be bothered getting into it. I've got to go to work in a couple of hours and I'm knackered from the evening's events."
"He's pretty rough, eh?" the girl said, as another retch issued from the bathroom.
"This is nothing," Remus said, "you should have seen him the night we had the Nag's Head Christmas party. Egg nog going in the wrong direction is not something you want to experience."
The girl laughed. "So what's your deal then?" she said, leaning back.
"Ah. Little of this, little of that."
"A man of mystery, eh? Got any special talents?"
"I can arm wrestle with my left hand."
"Oh yeah? Very good. Did you know you've got sick on your back?"
"Yeah," Remus said. "I should probably wash my shirt."