James was nervous.
No, scrap that, James was terrified.
I mean, it wasn't like introducing Sirius to his parents, or going to see the head teacher when he was seven. That was nervous.
Terrified was his first ever performance in the tent. Terrified was telling his parents that he was staying with the circus. Terrified was leaving his home to travel around the country for lousy pay, doing magic tricks. Terrified was telling Sirius that he was dating his baby brother.
What had he been thinking? He should have let Regulus tell Sirius. He can imagine how that would have gone down. "Hey, Reg. I'm going out for the day, to the other side of the country. Can you do me a favour and tell your brother about us while I'm gone?"
Yeah. Not well.
So he just had to get up the guts and do it himself.
...
For the first show, James managed to forget about it. He was on stage; he was in his element, doing what he loved best. He got the audience laughing and told jokes to distract them while Sirius hid the doves, and he snuck behind the curtain to change the playing cards while Sirius did his 'ribbon trick'. The act required focus, and calm, and he never lost it, not once. He ignored Sirius' subtle glances at his watch, and Peter's snickering whenever he looked the front row. Of course he knew, the bastard.
But James managed to ignore all of this, and play his part. He brought up the beautiful assistant from the audience and Sirius pretended to be offended that he wasn't beautiful enough. They worked together, sawing the woman in half, before miraculously putting her back together with some improvised magic words.
Then they did some more small tricks: cards, and levitating objects, and reading each other's' minds. They pulled bunnies out of hats, and made bunnies disappear. They set things on fire, and put it all out, all the while telling jokes, pulling one-liners, and making the audience laugh. That was the trick to all magic. It wasn't swapping the deck of cards, or fake pockets and weighted dice; it was distracting the audience. Make them look the other way, make them think the trick is somewhere else, and then, for the love of God, make them laugh. And then, kaboom, magic.
It was Sirius and James did best.
And then the finale. Another beautiful assistant, probably a kid this time, in the box they go, spin it round, the kid disappears. Kaboom, magic. Round it goes again, and the kid is back. Kaboom, magic. Couple of puffs of smoke and the two amazing, hilarious wizards are gone. Kaboom. Magic.
And nobody knows how.
Except, of course, the two wizards.
And the ringleader. And the guy who runs the sweet stall. And the lion tamer, who walked in on them practicing. And the flame thrower, who bet they couldn't do it drunk. And the acrobats, who taught them to back flip in exchange for learning how to disappear. And that one kid who they got to be a beautiful assistant and then followed them offstage when they were in Manchester.
But the audience didn't, and that was the main part.
The first show went off without hitch. And then they went back stage, and the audience for the evening show began to come in.
…
"Come on, mate, just tell me his name."
"No."
"Please?"
"Nope."
"Okay, because a name is harmless, I'm going to assume that I know them, then."
"Not saying."
"Oh, come on, James. Please. Pretty please. Pretty please with 43 cherries on top."
"Why 43?"
"I don't know, it was the first number that popped into my head."
"Well, that's a bit random. I mean, it's not even a good number! It's not a square number or a triangular number, or a… is there such thing as a pentagon number?"
"I dunno, do I? I flunked—wait, you're trying to distract me."
"No, I would never!"
"Jamieeeeeeeee."
James sighed. "You'll find out in a few minutes Sirius."
"So you might as well tell me now?"
James rolled his eyes, and stepped into the audience area, still mostly empty, except a section on the right, the best seats of the tent. All of the acts' friends, family, and partners were sitting there, chatting. Marlene, and Frank, and Filius, and Barty, and Amos, and Molly, and Ted were there today, and Remus, of course, in his usual seat next to Frank.
The seat next to him, however, was the seat belonging to whoever James wanted to bring along. It usually held a friend, or a cousin, or often a second friend of someone who wanted to bring two people, or rarely, and very rarely, a boyfriend. James didn't really do boyfriends that much.
But today, Sirius had confronted him about the guy he kept sneaking off with, and demanded that he brought him to the evening show today.
James hadn't known that Sirius had noticed. Peter knew who it was obviously, and Lily, and Alice, and Arthur, and, now that he thought about it, all of his friends and colleagues. Remus had been the most helpful, always covering for him, but, the traitor, had also been the one to agree with Sirius, and suggest that it was about time, and maybe they could go on a double date.
And so sitting in the seat next to Remus right now was Regulus Black.
Sirius looked back at James to continue begging, only to blink and turn back to the seats, looking bewildered. And then, while James waited with baited breath, he groaned heavily, and strode off to the seats.
"Regulus!"
Regulus, Remus, and everybody else in the boxes (and James suspected, everybody in the tent) turned to look at Sirius coming towards them, James panting as he ran after him.
"Brother dear," Regulus greeted, smirking. James hid his face in his hands and waited.
"Reg, that's James' seat." James looked up in confusion. "I know I said you should come see us again sometime, but you could have given me some warning. 'Cause today James' boyfriend's coming and we need that seat free!"
James and Remus shared a bewildered, exasperated glance, but neither said anything in their surprise. How could Sirius not realise?
Regulus however, was able to vocalise his thoughts very well.
He fell out of his seat from laughter.
"Regulus." James finally managed to get out, after a long, painful silence from everybody but the man rolling about on the floor. "My boyfriend. His name is Regulus. But you owe me 43 cherries."