Chapter Text
Remus really had no choice.
The following evening, Hope had practically packed his swimming bag herself, deposited his trunks inside and driven him to the leisure centre before he could invent an excuse.
As they pulled into the car park, he found himself remembering the first time Lily had brought him here. Back when he'd been terrified of being seen. Terrified of swimming. Terrified of looking foolish.
The car park had seemed enormous then, packed with vehicles and possibilities for humiliation. Tonight was different. The evening session was quiet. Only a handful of cars occupied the spaces nearest the entrance. The building looked smaller somehow. Less intimidating. He automatically scanned the car park for Lily's cream Fiat 500 and felt an odd mixture of disappointment and relief when he didn't find it.
Hope pulled up beside the entrance and switched off the engine. For a moment neither of them moved. Then she leaned across the centre console and kissed his cheek.
"Bye, my little dolphin."
Remus groaned immediately. "Mum."
"Love you."
"Mum."
"Swim."
She pointed towards the building. Remus sighed dramatically, grabbed his bag and climbed out. He had checked in, shuffled through the changing rooms and changed into his blue trunks and black t-shirt.
The familiar fabric settled over his stomach like armour.
Good.
Safe.
Staying on.
He hadn't seen Sirius. He hadn't seen Severus.
As far as Remus was concerned, that counted as an excellent start to the evening. And regardless of what happened next, there was absolutely no chance he would be taking his t-shirt off again.
The annoying thing was that the second Remus slipped into the water, he knew his mother had been right.
He hated that. Hated it with every fibre of his being. The cool water wrapped around him and, almost immediately, some of the constant ache in his hip eased.
Not disappeared. Just softened.
The stiffness that had followed him around for the last month loosened its grip. His movements felt smoother. Lighter. Less cautious. On land, every step required consideration. Every staircase was a negotiation. Every bad day announced itself through a sharp pulse of pain. In the water, however, his body remembered how to move. He pushed off from the wall and glided forwards, feeling muscles stretch and work without complaint.
The freedom of it made him irrationally angry. Weeks of misery and all it had taken was five seconds in a swimming pool to remind him what he'd been missing.
So he swam. One length became three. Three became six. Then ten. He lost count somewhere after that. The world shrank to the rhythm of breathing, kicking, and pulling through the water. Nobody was staring at him. Nobody was talking to him. There was only the gentle rush of water around his body and the feeling of moving properly again.
Like a dolphin, his mother would have said.
Remus normally rolled his eyes whenever she called him that, but as he turned beneath the surface and pushed himself forwards once more, he reluctantly admitted she might have had a point. For the first time in weeks, he felt less like somebody dragging himself through life and more like somebody moving through it.
He swam for almost an hour and a half before exhaustion finally caught up with him.
His shoulders ached pleasantly, his lungs felt warm and for the first time in weeks his hip wasn't the loudest thing in his body. Breathing heavily, Remus hauled himself out of the pool and pushed wet hair from his face. Then he looked up. And there he was.
Sirius bloody Black.
Standing on the poolside in red lifeguard shorts. He looked different somehow. Not physically. Just... sad. Annoyed. Like somebody who hadn't been having a particularly good month. Their eyes met for a fraction of a second.
Remus immediately looked away.
Nope.
Absolutely not.
Turning on his heel, he headed towards the showers as quickly as his hip would allow. Which wasn't very quickly at all, unfortunately. He could feel his pulse speeding up with every step. Maybe Sirius wouldn't follow him. Maybe Sirius would stay exactly where he was. Maybe—
Footsteps.
Damn it.
"Why have you been ignoring me?!"
Sirius's voice echoed far louder than he probably intended.
Several people turned to look.
A teenager near the diving area visibly perked up at the possibility of drama.
Remus kept walking.
His shoulders tensed.
The footsteps continued behind him.
For a moment, he didn't answer because he genuinely couldn't think of anything to say. Not when Sirius was standing this close again. Not when he could hear his voice properly for the first time in over a month. Not when he looked so unfairly beautiful. Remus hated that his brain still noticed these things. The dark hair curling slightly from the humidity. The sharp jawline. The tattoos disappearing beneath the collar of his staff shirt. The concerned expression now replacing the annoyance. It would have been much easier if Sirius had been ordinary looking. Much easier if he hadn't been Sirius.
Then the memory arrived.
Cruel and immediate.
I'm pretty sure the bloke's put on weight.
He should've kept the shirt on.
The words hit as sharply as they had five weeks ago.
Instantly, every stupid flutter of affection vanished beneath humiliation.
Beneath anger.
Beneath hurt.
Remus finally stopped walking.
"Leave me alone, Sirius."
He heard Sirius stop behind him.
For a second, Remus thought that might be it. That Sirius would finally leave. Instead, footsteps moved again.
A moment later, Sirius stepped around him and planted himself directly in Remus's path. Remus immediately looked away, which was difficult when Sirius was standing right there.
"Why have you been ignoring me?" Sirius demanded.
The frustration in his voice sounded genuine.
Confused.
Almost hurt.
Before Remus could answer, Sirius continued.
"And why did Lily slap me the other day?!"
Remus blinked.
"What?"
"Lily."
Sirius pointed vaguely.
"Your Lily."
"My Lily?"
"You know what I mean."
"No, I don't."
"The red-haired menace."
Sirius threw his hands in the air.
"She stormed into the staff room, called me a horrid little man, told me you deserved better than me, smacked me across the face and left."
Remus genuinely didn't know what to say.
Because Lily Evans was many things.
Stubborn.
Terrifying.
Capable of holding a grudge for years.
But violent?
Not really.
The image of Lily marching into the staff room specifically to slap somebody was so absurd that his brain struggled to process it. A tiny part of him was impressed. Another part was horrified. Mostly, however, he was confused.
Sirius folded his arms.
"So."
He looked directly at Remus.
"Would you like to explain what the bloody hell is going on?"
"I heard what you said about me."
Sirius frowned.
"To Snape."
Sirius simply stared. Not guilty. Not caught. Just confused.
Remus could already feel tears threatening behind his eyes, which was mortifying. He hated crying. Hated crying in public even more.
The humid air from the pool suddenly felt suffocating. His wet black t-shirt clung unpleasantly to his skin, plastered against his chest and stomach in a way that made him painfully aware of every inch of himself.
He resisted the urge to tug at the fabric. To hide. To fold his arms across his middle.
Because if he had noticed it, then Sirius definitely had too. Sirius, who looked effortlessly beautiful even after a full shift. Sirius, who apparently thought Remus should have kept his shirt on. Heat flooded his face. Embarrassment twisted into hurt and then back into anger. The worst part wasn't even repeating it aloud. The worst part was that some horrible part of Remus still cared what Sirius thought of him.
"Remus, I don't know what you're talking about."
The confusion on Sirius's face looked genuine. Hopelessly genuine. That only made Remus angrier, because if Sirius was going to be cruel, the least he could do was own it.
"You don't know?"
Sirius opened his mouth.
Remus didn't let him speak.
"You don't know?"
His voice rose.
Several people nearby glanced over.
Remus didn't care.
"Snape said Lily told you I was here to fix my hip and get a better body."
Sirius's expression changed. Not to guilt. To alarm.
But Remus was too upset to notice.
"'I'm pretty sure the bloke's put on weight.'"
The words came out sharp.
Bitter.
Months of humiliation packed into a single sentence.
Sirius looked utterly lost.
Remus carried on anyway.
"'He should've kept the shirt on.'"
The silence that followed was deafening.
Whatever expression Sirius wore on his face, Remus didn't stay to see it.
He was done.
Done with explanations.
Done with swimming pools.
Done with Sirius Black.
His vision blurred as fresh tears threatened.
Humiliation burned through him.
Before Sirius could say a single word, Remus turned and stormed away.
Not gracefully.
Not dramatically.
Just fast.
Fast enough that his hip immediately protested.
Behind him, he vaguely heard Sirius call his name.
Once.
Twice.
But Remus kept walking.
When Remus got home, he was furious. Not sad. Not heartbroken. Furious. At Sirius. At Severus. At himself. At the stupid swimming pool.
At the fact his hip hurt from storming away. At the fact he'd somehow let Sirius Black get under his skin so thoroughly.
He paced his bedroom for nearly an hour before finally collapsing onto his bed. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw Sirius's face. Not smug. Not cruel. Confused. Which somehow annoyed him even more.
Because if Sirius genuinely didn't know what Remus was talking about, then what exactly was going on?
The following afternoon, the doorbell rang. Hope answered it first.
A few moments later she appeared in Remus's bedroom holding a CD case and an envelope.
"Lily dropped these off."
Remus frowned and hurried downstairs, only to catch a glimpse of Lily disappearing back down the garden path.
"Lily!" he called.
She turned briefly, pressed two fingers dramatically against her lips in a zipping motion, pointed at the items in his hands and then continued walking towards her car.
Remus stared after her in disbelief. No greeting. No explanation. No hug. No twenty-minute conversation. Nothing. Lily Evans had never once voluntarily left his company in under thirty seconds. The whole thing was deeply unsettling.
Back inside, Remus examined the envelope. Across the front, in neat handwriting that definitely did not belong to Lily, were the words:
Read after watching
With a little doodle of a smiley face underneath.
He turned it over. Nothing. No name. No explanation. Just those four words. The handwriting looked vaguely familiar, though he couldn't place why.
Suddenly very aware that something strange was happening, Remus glanced between the envelope and the CD case resting on the table. Whatever this was, Lily clearly knew exactly what it contained. And apparently she thought it was important enough to deliver personally without saying a single word.
Remus stared at the CD for several seconds before sighing heavily and carrying it upstairs. Whatever this was, Lily clearly wasn't going to explain it.
Muttering darkly to himself about meddling redheads and their inability to mind their own business, he loaded the disc into his computer.
The machine whirred noisily as it processed the file. Remus folded his arms and glared at the screen.
"This better be worth it," he informed the computer.
The computer, unsurprisingly, offered no response.
A grainy security camera recording appeared on screen.
The timestamp placed it on the exact evening everything had gone wrong. Remus felt his stomach drop immediately.
The camera was pointed towards the entrance of the changing rooms. He watched. And watched. Then his breath caught.
Sirius appeared on screen first. Not entering the changing rooms. Not even approaching them. He simply walked past the corridor and disappeared towards the other side of the building.
Seconds later, Severus and William entered the changing rooms together, laughing about something. Even through silent CCTV footage, their expressions looked cruel.
Then Remus appeared. Topless. He physically cringed at the sight of himself and nearly looked away. A few moments later he watched himself emerge again and disappear around the corner.
The footage continued. No Sirius. No Sirius at all. Remus stared at the screen. Then replayed it. Then replayed it again. His heart began hammering painfully against his ribs.
Oh. My. God.
Sirius hadn't been there. Sirius hadn't said those things. Sirius hadn't been talking about him. It had been Severus and William.
William, who Remus vaguely remembered James jokingly say sounded exactly like Sirius.
William, whose voice Remus had barely heard before.
William.
Not Sirius.
Remus's hands were shaking by the time he tore open the envelope.
His stomach twisted.
Then he began reading.
Dear Remus,
After last night I went to Lily to ask what the hell you had heard. After about thirty minutes of me begging her to tell me, she explained that you thought you'd overheard me saying horrible things (things I don't believe are true btw) about you.
I knew you wouldn't believe me if I had just told you, because Lily certainly didn't, so I had to ask Mr Evans for the CCTV footage of outside the changing rooms, to prove that it wasn't me.
I've been angry at you, for ignoring me. Really, really angry actually. But I'm not anymore because I understand what you thought you heard and that bastard James might be right that me and William sound alike (bastard).
Anyway, I explained to Mr and Mrs Evans what had happened and Severus and William have both been fired (finally) for being horrid to their customers.
I really bloody like you, Remus Lupin.
If you forgive me, please call me so I can take you on a date and you can get some banana bread even though it's quite frankly horrible - sorry. :)
P.S. I really really like you so please please call me.
Yours,
Sirius the lifeguard.
The one with the nice bum that you told Lily about xxx
"Oh, for God's sake."
Remus dropped his head into his hands.
His eyes immediately darted back up to reread it.
Then again.
Then once more.
Just to make sure he hadn't imagined it.
Instead, sitting alone in his bedroom with tears drying on his face and Sirius Black's letter clutched in his hands, Remus found himself smiling so hard his cheeks hurt.
Before he could lose his nerve, Remus grabbed his phone from the bedside table.
His fingers fumbled slightly as he navigated to his blocked contacts and unblocked Sirius's number. For a moment he simply stared at it, his thumb hovering over the call button while his heart attempted to escape through his ribs. Then he pressed it. The ringing seemed to last forever.
Remus quickly wiped at his face, sat up straighter, and tried to compose himself into something resembling a functioning human being. It didn't work. He was still smiling like an idiot when the call connected. There was a brief rustle on the other end, followed by Sirius's voice.
"Hello?"
Just one word. Nothing special. Yet somehow Remus felt every awful thing that had happened over the last month loosen its grip on him. He smiled so hard it almost hurt.
"Hi, Sirius."