Chapter Text
It is really rather ludicrously hot in Berlin.
Like, the backs of Sirius’ thighs are stuck to his plastic seat hot.
Like, maybe there is a reason he and James had planned this holiday with a nocturnal schedule in mind hot.
But then again, they had also planned this holiday without a surprise reunion with an old friend in mind. So. Win some, lose some.
~
Remus had said it would be a good day for the lake.
He was fully dressed at the time, early as it was, and again in all black. Cropped black stovepipes and a loose, black, squarish sort of tee shirt and even a ridiculous black fisherman’s beanie that did a laughable job containing his sleep-mussed curls. Sirius, still sleepy, had been tantalisingly reminded of the night before, when they’d exchanged light touches and warm laughs. It was good to have his friend back; good to hear his laugh again — so much deeper in timbre now but still the loveliest sound in the world, especially when Sirius was the one who managed to pull it forth.
“I’ve rehearsal until two,” Remus said then, interrupting the sluggish, churning thoughts of a half-conscious Sirius, slumped in the kitchenette of the studio flat at just gone seven in the morning. “But I can meet you up by the lakes at three-ish?”
Sirius nodded his groggy agreement and Remus scribbled down his number and informed Sirius to WhatsApp him for details once he was fully conscious.
“These are the keys,” he said, dropping a ring of three on the countertop in front of Sirius’ nose. “Medium one’s for the door. Lock up on your way out and bring them with you to the lake, alright? Might have to turn twice to get the lock to catch.”
Sirius said ‘yes’ while rubbing his eyes with the heels of his palms and Remus smiled in a way that might—might—be described as fond, and then he turned around and Sirius almost had his nose bonked by the massive hard-backed cello case strapped to the other man’s back. Then the door was swishing open and slamming shut and Sirius was alone in the flat.
It was all white-washed walls and frayed wool blankets, overstuffed bookcases and ungainly houseplants. The kitchen was well stocked with bagged teas and not much else, and Sirius would bet anything that if he opened the freezer, it’d be empty of everything but Haägen Dazs Coffee Heath Bar Crunch. Sitting in this space that already, against all logic, felt achingly familiar, Sirius had known he would never survive this. Not if he was wrong about what page Remus was on. Not if he had found Remus only to lose him again.
~
Now, on the train, Sirius thumbs through a LonelyPlanet Berlin that he found on one of Remus’ shelves. It’s dated to 2014, but he figures it should still have something to tell him. A city near eight hundred years old surely couldn’t change that much in a matter of seven years.
Krumme Lanke, named for its crooked shape, is located in the south-west of Berlin.
The book supplies a picture of the lake. It is shaped like a sickle, and Sirius immediately likes it. It’s sharp and unusual and everything kindred.
It is surrounded by the dense green forest of the Grunewald. Its cool waters and ample beach space make it a popular locale for swimmers during the summer months.
Oh, god. Cold water. Yes. That is what he needs. Sirius pulls out his mobile, flicks over to WhatsApp. ‘I cannot wait to swim dear god.’ He sends it without thinking, like he would have texted James. Simple. All the ease is still there.
The book goes on.
Notably, it is nudist friendly, and many visitors elect to skinny dip.
Sirius feels his stomach drop. In his mind, unbidden, arises an image of acres and acres of freckled skin, shining with water and uninterrupted by fabric.
So maybe not that simple.
“Krumme Lanke,” the cool feminine voice of the U-Bahn says. He jerks out of his reverie and stands quickly. Too quickly. He probably loses a layer of skin to the damned plastic seat. But, no time to cry over it. He exits the metro, taking the stairs three at a time simply because he can, and reenters the brilliant, furious sunlight of the day.
~
Before catching the metro in Kreuzberg that afternoon, Sirius had met James for lunch at a sidewalk cafe where the flimsy table umbrellas struggled to hold their own against the sun’s glaring rays. At least James had brought him a change of clothes from the hostel. Spending the entire day in his black skinny jeans from the night before would have been hell. With James was the redhead he’d seen only a glimpse of the night before. She introduced herself as ‘Lily’ in pristine, German-accented english and informed Sirius that she was a biochemistry researcher at Freie Universität.
“I am working on my doctorate,” she told him. “I study yeast genetics.”
Sirius looked over the top of his sunglasses from her to James and then back to her.
“And you went home with Jamie? Don’t you want someone better?”
Lily laughed very prettily and James tried to punch Sirius in the arm but missed because he was too busy watching Lily with stars in his eyes. When he recovered enough to string words together again, he asked Sirius about his night.
“Where’s your bloke, then? Suppose he couldn’t wait to get away from you?”
Sirius felt his jaw slam shut. He still wasn’t ready for James to know about Remus. Maybe it was unfair of him — James had been close to Remus too, after all. He was going to be overjoyed when he discovered his reemergence in their lives. But Sirius needed to know where this — this thing with Remus was going before he let anyone else in. James would have to forgive him a few more hours of omission.
James, apparently sensing Sirius’ tension, looked concerned. “Sirius, mate, I was just kidding. I’m sure he had a great time, or — I mean, was everything alright last night? I should have checked —”
“No, no, it’s fine,” Sirius interrupted before James could work himself up more. “He was, ah, great, but he works Saturdays. He’s a musician. Has rehearsal.”
“Oh, right! That’s very cool, then. What’s he play?”
Sirius hesitated again. But then, there were a lot of cellists in the world, weren't there? “Cello.”
“Oh! Like Remus did, right? Fuck me, d’you remember Remus?”
“I —”
“James, do you still want to go to Museumsinsel?” Lily interrupted. “It will be very crowded if we wait much longer. Everyone will be seeking out air conditioning.”
“Oh, yeah! Sirius, Lily said she’d show us the museum-island-thing today. Want to come?”
Sirius glanced at Lily, grateful and uncertain if he should be. She smiled a very slight smile. It was too hot for this.
“What — er, no, I’m going swimming. I, ah, heard about a lake.”
“Oho! Is the bloke from last night going with you?”
~
Outside the Krumme Lanke U-Bahn, Sirius receives a message from Remus.
“Rehearsal ran a bit late. I’ll be there in 10. Wait for me by the station? There’s a cafe across the street.”
Sirius looks up from his mobile to see that, indeed, caterwise across the intersection, is another sidewalk cafe. More of a chippy, really, with large, bright signs advertising various fried golden foods and an awning that proclaimed Eis! in looping cursive. There is also a large plastic ice cream cone out front, blue and pink and topped with a white cloud of whipped cream, and it beckons to his heat-hazy mind.
He crosses the street — remembering a little late to look left first and nearly getting mown down by a bicycle in the process — and arrives in front of the cafe. The smell of the greasy food makes him vaguely queasy but, beyond the queue of other customers, he can see the frosted glass case and all of its creamy, pastel-coloured riches. He takes his place, trying not to think too hard about what will happen when Remus finally arrives.
At the front of the queue, he is confronted with his options. There are thirty-two flavours and, were it not for the little pictures in the corner of each tag, he would have no idea what any of them were. Or, maybe that’s an overstatement — he can guess that Vanille means vanilla, Schokolade chocolate. Still, he finds himself wishing he’d taken up Mrs. Potter’s suggestion of looking through a phrasebook before leaving for the trip.
Behind the ice cream case, a young woman in a pale blue polo top watches him expectantly. And… with some interest. “Was möchten Sie gerne?” she asks, and Sirius isn’t sure what it means but he recognises that tone of voice. She is eager to be of assistance. Possibly in more ways than one. It wouldn’t be the first time he left a shop with a number scrawled on the side of his paper cup.
“Er,” he vamps, partially because he hasn’t decided what he wants yet and partially because he isn’t yet sure how to communicate: You’re really very pretty and I’m really very flattered but you are Not Remus, so you might as well give up now.
Finally, his eyes land on a lightly flecked, beige ice cream. Haselnuss, the label says, with a tiny picture of a Nutella jar. Perfect.
“Ha — hassle — noose?”
The woman behind the counter giggles adorably and covers her grin with her plastic gloved hand. Sirius smiles his best self-deprecating smile; ducks his head. He’s not trying to flirt but it’s impossible not to feel like a bit of a guilty schoolboy when he’s so obviously butchering someone else’s language.
“What size?” she asks, having correctly deduced that English is his best bet. Her hand is hovering over the example cup sizes. Klein. Groß. He has no idea which is which. And, oh no. She’s giggling at him again.
Suddenly, there’s a large hand against his lower back and Remus is by his side.
“Groß,” he says. The girl looks between the two of them, eyebrows slightly raised. Her eyes track down to Remus’ arm around his back, and she smiles again. Then Remus says a lot of other things, too quickly for Sirius to understand, and the girl is scooping two large cups of ice cream, one with the hazelnut flavour he’d requested and one that looks like raspberry and chocolate. Sirius fumbles for his wallet, pulls out a twenty euro note because he figures he won’t understand the price when she says it but that this will likely cover it, and hands it over to her.
“No change,” he says before she can offer, waving a hand in front of his face. She giggles again, shares an amiably long-suffering look with Remus. Remus, who’s hand is still resting lightly on his lower back. Then there’s an ice cold cup in his hand and they’re stepping away from the counter.
“That was generous of you,” is the first thing Remus says to him. “You gave her a ten euro tip.”
“Really?” Sirius asks. “Oh well. I guess I’m used to London prices.”
Remus snorts lightly, and his hand absents itself. Sirius immediately misses it. “Glad to see you’re still a rich boy at heart.”
Sirius gasps his faux offense and reaches out to tweak Remus’ shoulder. “Me? Never.” He accidentally-on purpose forgets to move his hand away afterwards.
“No?” Remus chuckles, and Sirius can feel the rumble of his chest radiate out through his shoulder, and he knows he would walk across hot coals to make it happen again. “What happened to the Black family fortune?”
Well. “I wouldn’t know, haven’t spoken to any of them since I came out.”
A feeling of unreality visits Sirius for a brief moment, then. To mention that time so casually, and to Remus of all people, the person he had most wished for when it had all been going down. But then Remus freezes, holding his drippy ice cream cup sideways even though the quickly-melting chocolate custard is spilling out, and Sirius forces himself back to centre and gives the bony shoulder under his hand another squeeze. Gentler this time, but for longer.
“I had no idea, Sirius,” Remus says. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have joked — fuck — ”
“Hey! It’s alright!” And it is alright; it’s somewhat more than alright. Sirius is twenty-two and he’s in Berlin and he’s watching as Remus Lupin attempts to lick melted ice cream off the side of his hand and being an angry, scared sixteen-year old is about as distant a feeling as he can imagine at present. “Anyway, you’re right, I am still a posh fuck. I’ve been living with the Potters ever since.”
“Ha.”
“So, how far to this lake you’ve promised?” Sirius asks, and he knows he’s steering them away from words that need to be said. He can’t help it.
Remus takes the cue. “About a kilometre. It’s just a straight shot down this road.”
The road is wide and tree lined, the two lanes populated by more bikes than cars. Two cyclists zip past them just then, and the breeze of it lifts Sirius’ hair off his neck. A strand gets caught between his lips.
Without a word, Remus reaches over and tucks it back behind his ear.
“I was so glad, last night, when I saw you hadn’t cut your hair.”
He speaks so gently and so matter-of-factly. Again, Sirius is in his orbit, in the bubble of his presence. So quietly affecting. He can’t look away.
“I would wonder, sometimes, over the years. How you were doing. What you looked like. What pranks you and James were playing on the teachers. And I could never imagine you looking any different, really, than you had at thirteen. Taller and older and everything, sure. But. Yeah. I’m glad you didn’t cut your hair. I’m glad I wasn’t imagining you wrong.”
“I’m glad, too,” Sirius chokes out.
And he is. It’s odd, because he can’t go back, can’t change how things were, and yet still, there’s comfort in knowing: all those times he felt alone, and there was someone out there thinking of him. There was Remus. Thinking of him.
“You were like — like a magnet, last night,” he says then. “I didn’t know who you were at first but I think something in me did. Recognised you. I needed to get closer to you. It was like — like. Fuck. I don’t know. I can’t explain it.”
“I was scared that you just wouldn’t recognise me,” Remus says, and it sounds like an admission. He reaches up a hand, traces over the scar that renders his grin slightly crooked. “I had never really cared about this thing until that moment.”
Sirius wants to take that hand in his own, wants to kiss that scar until the uncertainty clouding Remus’ lovely, warm eyes disappears. “It wasn’t the scar, really,” he says instead. “I just —”
“What?” Remus asks. Whispers.
“Blimey, Remus, do you know how beautiful you are?” It bursts out of him without his permission. “I saw you and I thought you were made of magic. It’s not that I didn’t recognise you so much as I didn’t even — fuck, I didn’t even know what to think. My brain wasn’t working well enough for that.”
Remus is silent, his eyes wide, pink high in his cheeks and a shimmer of sweat across his forehead. Then he grins, all crooked and knowing, and Sirius can hear his heartbeat in his ears.
“You always were the charmer,” Remus says. He takes Sirius’ hand, then, and both their palms are sticky with melted ice cream, and it doesn’t matter at all.
“What happened to you?” Sirius wonders aloud, unable to contain his smile.
“You mean the scar? Bike accident. Right over the handlebars. Never bike in a new city until you’re used to the rules of the road.”
“No, no,” Sirius chuckles, although he’s relieved to learn that it was nothing more dramatic. “I mean, like, what happened to the shy kid I used to hang around with? You’re so — you’re so — self-possessed.” Saying it out loud shows him how true it is. “Yeah, you’re just. Fuck, Remus. It’s bloody hot. You’re bloody hot.”
Remus laughs, lifts there joined hands and brushes a kiss across the back of Sirius’. “I dunno know,” he says. “I guess I figured somewhere along the line that —” he hesitates, and Sirius wants to know what he was going to say more than he wants air to breath.
“What?”
He shrugs. “I figured — now, don’t hear this the wrong way, but. I spent a lot of time alone, when we first moved. I was just playing music all the time, walking around the city alone. I was so bad at making friends, and I didn’t know very much German, and, well. I got really used to myself. And at a certain point, I kind of realised — I kind of realised how much I liked myself. Who I was. And then it didn’t matter as much, you know, if I was good looking. Or clever.”
He glances at Sirius sideways through thick lashes; a cautious, measuring look.
“I think it’s… I think it’s good, in some ways, that I had those years alone, without you and James. I think I needed to know I was good on my own. Even if it was lonely, sometimes.” He sounds apologetic, and Sirius squeezes his hand.
“I know exactly what you mean.”
Suddenly, Sirius catches a glimpse of sparkling blue through the trees. “I see water!” he yelps. He’s visited by the urge to start running, and it’s only his fingers tangled with Remus’ that stop him.
“Should we run?” Remus asks, like he’s read his mind, and then, without waiting for a reply, he lets go of Sirius’ hand and breaks into a sprint. Sirius trips over his own feet a bit in his hurry to catch up.
Through the trees, down a sandy path, and the beach greets him in all of its wide, sun-soaked glory. There are bathers here and there, stretched out on towels or splashing in the water. With a jolt, Sirius recalls the words of the guidebook. Nudist friendly indeed.
Remus, two steps ahead of him, throws a wicked grin over his shoulder. Then he’s shucking out of his all-black ensemble, dropping it in a pile on the sand, and striding ahead to the water without another backwards glance.
Sirius watches him go with more than a little awe. Then he’s pulling his own clothes off, so quickly and wildly that he hears a seam tear. It doesn’t matter. In seconds, his clothing is on the ground next to Remus’ and he’s walking brazenly across the sand.
The water, when his feet finally reach the place where the lake kisses the shore, is cold and so clear he can see tadpoles darting around beneath the surface. Remus is already all the way in, a fact that Sirius regrets only briefly before following suit.
The sound he makes as the water envelops him, lifting sweat and ice cream and city grit from his skin, is indecent. Remus wrinkles his nose, his eyes sparkling. “Should I give you two some privacy?” he asks.
“Don’t you bloody dare,” Sirius all but growls back. He swims after Remus, three long strokes. They’re past the buoy line now.
Remus is looking directly into his eyes. His lips are parted. There are droplets of water caught in his eyelashes.
It’s hard to say who starts the kiss. They’re already so close, their hands brushing together under the water as they move to stay afloat. Maybe it’s Remus tilting his chin up. Maybe it’s Sirius, darting forward those last centimetres.
All Sirius knows it that the feeling of Remus’ lips against his is the closest thing to home he’s ever known.