Mexico
Mexico welcomes them with 45°Celsius, and Remus hates himself for not showing his scars sooner; he would love to be walking around in beach shorts, flip flops and nothing else, but of course he had to be an insecure asshole and only feel secure under his jeans and shirt. So, it’s Mexico, and Remus is burning alive.
It’s been three days since they arrived, and they’ve been around Mexico City, they’ve visited the streets and the museums and the galleries and the palaces. They’ve gone to the most important Aztec temple in Mexico City, the Templo Mayor Museum, and they’ve seen the monuments in and around the city. Now, on day third, Moody granted them their first full beach day on the 14th of June. Remus dared wearing shorts, after very purposefully not waking up until the last moment to not give himself time to doubt himself. He feels squeamish, but he felt mostly out of place, being the only one still wearing full length trousers while everyone had switched to shorts for a while now. So, now, Remus is laying on the beach with Lily, Mary, Peter, Sybill and Pandora, who have properly incorporated themselves to the group, at last, while Sirius, James, Marlene and Dorcas have a very intense game of volleyball on the beach. They’re all laughing and sweaty, and without surprise, Remus and Lily are staring unwaveringly at them, at Sirius’ hair tied in a bun that Remus desperately wants to pull on, at the drops of sweat running down the side of his neck and at the slight tan forming on his usually ghostly white skin, somehow highlighting the tattoos on his legs and stomach, while Lily is surely getting an eye candy of James in all his sports glory, like the football captain he is at core.
Mary looks at them at rolls her eyes, “Look at you two, staring at your lovers,” she sighs, “May someone end my days if I ever look this besotted.”
“Shut up.” Both Remus and Lily say in unison, not even looking over to her. “See Mary, that’s exactly why Lily’s my favourite.” He adds and grins when Mary huffs and adds an ‘So unfair’ under her breath. Then, over on the makeshift volleyball pitch, Sirius takes down his hair and pulls it back up tighter, looking every bit edible, and Remus feels the sexual frustration deep in his bones. His fingers twitch, and Lily of course notices.
“I get you, Rem. He’s hot.” Lily sighs, “Not as much as Potter, of course, but still. You’ve got taste.” She nods approvingly. Remus does look over to her and frowns, not even trying to cover himself.
“Am I really that obvious?” he asks under his breath. Peter cannot hear this: he can’t keep a secret with his life.
Lily giggles, “About as obvious as your nose.”
He snorts, “You’ve been around James too much.” It is true, he thinks, as jokes about his oversized nose are often heard around the group.
“Maybe. But at least I get some.” She shrugs, and who know Lily Evans could be this evil?
“I’ve changed my mind, Mary’s my favourite.” He says, making Lily chuckle, and keeps on staring for the remaining for their game. Half an hour later, they all turn up, after a dip in the ocean to wash off the sweat and Sirius and James try to convince Lily and Remus to join them in the ocean. It takes a long, long time, but once Lily agrees, Remus doesn’t have a reason not to go. So, he stands up and gets in the overly warm ocean with his friends, not going past his waist as to not wet his shirt, something that doesn’t get past James Potter.
“Why’d you still have your shirt on?” James frowns, “It’s bloody Mexico! You must be burning up under there.”
Remus shrugs, “I’m fine.” He glances down and sees the hem of his shirt getting wet with the waves, and he knows that he just needs one forceful wave to be completely soaked.
“You’re not, you’re clearly sweating.” James remarks, and Remus knows that he doesn’t mean to make Remus feel uncomfortable, but he still does.
“I’m fine, okay!” Remus says more forcefully and looks over to Lily, silently begging for support. Of course, she supplies.
“James, just drop it.” She says quietly, and James being James, he doesn’t. Because he has never quite known when to give up. And because in his attempts to be the nicest possible, he ends up being a bit clumsy. That’s just James.
“I just don’t understand why you don’t feel comfortable with taking off your shirt. I mean, you know none of us would ever judge you, don’t you?” he asks gently, and it’s getting a bit too much for Remus. He feels a bit warmer under his now soaked through shirt, and it’s more uncomfortable than he thought.
“Drop it, James. I’m not taking off my shirt.” Remus voices harshly and starts to walk out of the water towards the beach. He feels more insecure than ever, his half naked legs feeling particularly on spot and his shirt is clinging to his skin far too much for his liking. His breathing feels shallow, and he doesn’t want to be here anymore, but it takes longer to walk in the water than it does on earth. Long enough for Sirius, who has been oddly quiet all through the conversation, to reach out to Remus. He grabs his wrist strongly enough for Remus to turn around, startled. He finds Sirius staring at him with incredibly sincere looking eyes.
“If it’s about what I saw the other day,” he preambles, thankfully not telling James and Lily what it is, “then you have nothing to be embarrassed about. It’s gorgeous. I told you it was hot.” He explains, his fingers still wrapped around his wrist.
Remus blinks once and feels a panic attack coming: his breathing comes much more rugged, and he feels his mind slipping away from him. Used to them, and mostly used to hiding when he has them, he turns around and runs away at once, all the way towards the end of the beach, where Mary and the rest are. He grabs his phone and wallet that he miraculously left on his towel and leaves the group without looking back. His breathing is a bit more controlled by the time he’s alone on the path back to the beach-city; his running away helped him feel a bit more in control of himself, and far less overwhelmed. He still isn’t feeling great by the time he reaches Tecolutla and enters the first pub he can find. He remembers the advice Madam Pomfrey, Godwin’s school nurse, gave him about his panic attacks, so he finds something cold: the steel of the stool of the bar to ground himself, he strains his ears and concentrates on the sound of an old fisherman’s voice speaking in Spanish, and he feels better. The barkeeper asks him what he wants, or Remus thinks he does as he doesn’t understand a bit of Spanish, and he points to the first thing he can see on the menu. Soon enough, he has something that looks like a beer in front of him, and he’s starting to realise what he just did: he just ran away from the group that allowed him, him, little Remus John Lupin who grew up in a farm and was actively dead for two whole minutes at age nine, the guy who’s far too tall and lean for eighteen, the poor scholarship student in a posh school, they allowed him to have a once in a lifetime experience across 17 countries. And he’s running away from them, just because he hates the thought of someone seeing his body.
How fucked up is it? He has this wonderful chance ahead of him and he just pisses all over it, not even paying respect to Moody and running away, and fucking up the holiday for his friends who have to keep up with his bloody moods.
He downs his drink in one go, which isn’t smart because beer isn’t a shot drink, and he’s filled with regret and self-hatred so hardly, that he considers, for a minute, just leaving the group. Maybe establishing this random town in east Mexico as his home, and just never coming back. Abandoning everything. Wouldn’t it be great if it was an actual possibility? If he could just bolt away from his previous life and become someone new?
But he can’t, because he his far too tall to not be noticed, and because of the three great slashes cutting open his body. He’ll always be Remus Lupin. Whether he likes it or not.
He pushes his depressing thoughts out of his mind for a minute and looks at his phone. He sees a bunch of unanswered calls and texts, that he has no doubt are mostly from James who is apologising profoundly, but he ignores them. He will forgive James, already has, really, but he wants to feel sorry for himself for a bit longer, so he ignores it and glances at the other end of the bar instead, and he doesn’t regret it.
Sipping on a beer much like Remus’ is sitting a broad-shouldered man who looks handsome: he’s all muscles and brown curls and a nice stubble that makes him look rather hot. He must be around twenty and he’s looking at Remus not subtly. Without warning, or perhaps the staring was one, he slides over two stools to sit next to Remus.
“¿Puedo invitarte a una copa?” he asks, pointing at Remus’ drink, and he understands.
“Por favor.” He smiles, “No hablo Español.” He gestures to himself as well as he can, and the man seems to understand. He doesn’t gesture at the barkeeper, but instead smirks down at Remus.
“Ah. I don’t speak English good, cariño. But I know to ask for sex.”
Remus feels a wave of cold wash over him and thinks for a minute. He’s never had a one-night stand, and that should be an experience an eighteen-year-old should have. This guy is hot, and there won’t be any awkward talk since they don’t speak the same language. And also, Remus is a free man. So he nods.
“Lead the way.” He says simply, and the man chuckles. Remus is sure he didn’t understand exactly what he said, but he’s standing up and walking out of the pub, so Remus takes it as a good sign. He follows him onto the street and onto a flat complex. The man opens the door and kisses Remus without warning, and it’s good. A bit teasing and perhaps a little desperate, but he definitely knows how to do this, so Remus doesn’t think. He shuts his brain off and kisses back, sliding his hands over the man’s stubble, and he likes it. It feels manly, and it’s been so long since Remus has been with someone that his dick is hard within seconds. The man slides his thigh against Remus’ dick and puts his hands under Remus’ shirt, and he doesn’t realise until it’s too late that a man’s hands are touching his chest. He breaks the kiss, and the man doesn’t take it as a dismissal but starts kissing Remus’ neck while still touching his chest. Apart from Kingsley, no one has ever seen him naked, and it’s only downing on him now that this stranger won’t understand why he’s not taking off his shirt while having sex. It’s definitely an odd thing to do, so Remus will be expected to be shirtless sooner than later. Interrupting his train of thought, the man slides his hand down Remus’ pants without waiting for approval, which ought not to surprise Remus. It still does, and he gasps when the man grabs him and strokes him slowly.
“No clothes. We are sex now.” The man explains in a very approximal English, and Remus needs to make a quick decision. So, he makes two plans:
1- Not taking off his shirt and probably leaving the flat right then with a boner.
2- Taking off his shirt, finding out whether his scars are disgusting like he thinks or beautiful like Sirius thinks, and possibly having sex with this stranger.
In the end, Remus hasn’t seen a dick that wasn’t his own in about six months, so he takes off his shirt. The man mirrors his movement and takes off his shorts and pants too, so Remus does too. They stand there, both naked, for an instant, and Remus looks at him: he’s hot, he’s known that, and he might be a nice shag. The man takes a little longer looking at Remus, before reaching over and kissing Remus hungrily.
“You are hurt?” he asks, gesturing to his scars.
“No.”
“Ok. I fuck you then.” The man smirks and he does fuck him. An hour and a half later, Remus is walking back to the meeting point Moody set up with a satisfied smile and the limp of a happy man. He quickly answers the messages; mostly James, twice Lily and once Sirius, telling them he’s coming back, and that he’s sorry he left so quickly. James calls him right away, apologises over and over again, until Mary takes his phone and yells at him for leaving.
“Remus fucking Lupin do you realise how worried we were?” she asks with a thrill voice, “You have a fight with James, which is fucking unusual, and then you just up and leave and ignore all of us!”
“I’m sorry Mary.” He repeats, for the thousandth time.
“What happened?” she asks, “I won’t tell the others if you don’t want them to know.” She adds.
He sighs, “Just felt overwhelmed. Had a bit of a panic attack. Don’t tell them, I don’t want to worry them.” He explains, “It happens often, and I don’t need them to mother me.”
“I understand, that’s tough. Though they will mother you after you left today. They were proper worried.” She says solemnly.
“I know.” He groans, “James called like twenty-five times.”
“James wasn’t the worst actually, Sirius was. If you ask me, I think he likes you.” She adds in a whisper that makes Remus chuckle.
“He’s just feeling bad.” He mumbles. Why does he feel guilty for sleeping with someone else when they’re not even remotely involved with each other? “I think I see you.” He says as he reaches the beach, “Oh yeah that’s you. I’m hanging up.”
He does and walk over to the group, where Dorcas, Marlene, Peter and Sybill are laying on the sand while Lily is rubbing James’ back, Mary is a little further away, walking back towards James to give him back his phone, when Sirius spots him and runs over to him. He latches onto him, wraps him arms around his frame and squeezes harshly.
“Never do that again, you scared the shit out of me!” Sirius admonishes and hides his face in Remus’ neck. He inhales sharply, still hugging Remus, when he suddenly takes a step back. “You smell weird. Where have you been?” he asks, worried lines taking over his face.
“A pub.” He says quietly. Why does he feel guilty? It’s so stupid. He’s irritated with himself for being scared to hurt Sirius by sleeping with other people when Sirius has no reason to be. “Went home with a guy, too.” He adds, just to make that delusional part of his brain who thinks Sirius cares about who he shags shut up.
Sirius stands upright, and his eyes widen, “Oh.” He breathes out and stares at Remus with something in his eyes that Remus can’t quite place. He continues to stare, not saying anything else, so Remus prompts him to continue.
“’Oh’ What?”
He blinks again and looks down, “Nothing, just wasn’t expecting…” he clears his throat and looks back at Remus, “Nothing. Good for you, mate.” He taps on his shoulder twice and walks back towards the group, keeping a distance between him and Remus.
It doesn’t escape Remus’ notice, who definitely thinks it’s weird, but he simply follows Sirius and lets himself get bombarded by questions from his friends and feels weirdly cared for as he apologises and explains that he felts a little overwhelmed. Maybe being Remus Lupin isn’t quite so bad.
_____________________________________
The rest of the trip to Mexico goes swimmingly, they visit Monterrey with its Fuente de Neptuno, they taste the tequila of Guadalajara and see its wonderful architecture, they go scuba diving in Puerto Vallarta and end the trip on the ninth day in Oaxaca, which is Remus’ favourite city since the beginning of the trip. It’s beautiful and full of culture and wonderful people: after all, Remus knew that he would love Latin America more than the rest. Mexico was truly amazing; save for his little breakdown in the third day, everyday was perfect, spent with his group of friends that is now spending all of its time together: James, Sirius, Peter and him, the four boys from Hogwin, the two pranksters, the sweet, funny guy and the sarcastic one; Lily, Mary and Marlene, the girls from Rowena, the smart and witty, the funny and dramatic and the sarcastic and athletic; and finally, the girls from Salazar, Sybill, Pandora and Dorcas, the weird one, the intuitive one and the confident one. Even Moody has taken a liking to them, allowing them to decide the activities for the next day on multiple occasion.
On the ninth day, to celebrate the end of the Mexico phase of their trip, they gather in a pub and drink to Mexico, to friendship and to Moody who allowed them to be here, in the middle of the city that night instead of at the hotel pub. After a couple of other rounds, Dorcas declares that they have to play a game.
“Okay, we usually play it in our common room in Salazar.” She starts, “It’s simple, for each round, one person sets a rule, and everyone has to answer to that rule, or they drink.” She explains. “I’ll start: say the name of one person you’ve ever fancied but haven’t told anyone. Pandora.” She chuckles, making Marlene turn on her girlfriend rather forcefully. They all chuckle and the round starts; Mary tells the same of some guy in their school, Lily says that she kind of liked Remus back in Japan, which makes him blush all over, Marlene says that she liked Mary at some point, followed by two ‘we’ve been known’ from Mary and Lily, Pandora says that she’s never liked anyone who wasn’t her boyfriend, Sybill and Peter say the same of random people, James says that he once liked Sirius’ little brother, which earns him a handful of punches and mentions of ‘incest’ from Sirius, Sirius says that he likes Euphemia Potter to piss James off and Remus says that he fancied James in third grade.
“What!” James cackles loudly.
“You just said you had a crush on Regulus Black, you can’t judge me!” Remus laughs at him.
“Like you’re one to talk about the Blacks.” James mutters and takes a sip, making Remus splutter his own all over the table. Everyone laughs, miraculously without hearing what James said, and Pandora starts the second round “You have to point at the prettiest person in the room in your opinion.’ To which Remus very promptly drank away, getting called a prude by almost everyone but Lily and Pandora, the nice ones. A couple of rounds go around until James starts a new one.
“Okay, so just anything we’ve never said to anyone ever. Like the biggest secret ever. And no one is allowed to react or say anything.” He explains, and Remus is immediately scared. He has about a thousand of those. But what has James Potter hidden from everyone? “I was offered a position in Manchester United Youth Team.” He announces with a large grin, making everyone around the table gape at him. This is huge, and it has also been James’ dream since he’s learned to shoot a football. Remus is so incredibly happy for him, but when they all start to congratulate him, he heaves a hand, “No reactions.” He smiles, “We’ll all react after everyone has gone.”
This is actual torture, Remus thinks. Well, not for him, because he has never had trouble to keep his thoughts to himself, but Sirius and Mary both seem close to dying. He chuckles to himself and listens to Peter say that he once almost joined a cult without meaning to, which makes everyone burst out laughing. No words are exchanged, so the rule isn’t broken, and the round continues. Everyone seems to have understood that they’re supposed to be big secrets, so each of their confessions make Remus’ jaw drop lower and lower. Mary declares having a twin sister somewhere, because her biological parents abandoned her and kept her twin. Marlene explains that she once caused a car accident, crossing the road when she shouldn’t have, making a car pull the breaks and getting itself ran into. Lily shares the moment she mixed mayonnaise with her sisters skincare and when she didn’t understand why she was sprouting pimples all the time, and left it for months, even after the mayonnaise had definitely gone bad. Remus is genuinely terrified by her cruelty but laughs anyway. When it’s his turn, he decides to shock them all as well.
“I was legally declared dead for two full minutes when I was nine.” He smiles and sees with satisfaction as everyone’s jaw drops even lower, as their eyes widen, and as James’ mouth turns into a perfect ‘o’. He chuckles to himself and prompts Sirius to go, the last for this round.
He takes a breath and blurts out right away, “I’m bisexual.”
Right then, is when Remus’ world crumbled.