Chapter Text
It would be a stretch to describe Remus Lupin as attractive, at least according to himself, and that guy on the pier last summer who drew caricature portraits of unsuspecting tourists. His mother would disagree probably, having spent his entire childhood ruffling his hair and calling him her most handsome boy - up until he grew too tall for her to comfortably reach and settle for patting his cheeks instead. It’s not like he is properly ugly or even unpleasant-looking - just weird enough for people to take a close look at him with questioning eyes.
It’s not just one thing either, if it had just been the one thing then maybe he might have coughed up the cash to fix it. But it is the whole combination of body parts that does it. His height for example, being tall was usually believed to be an attractive tribute for a man to possess but when he went over one hundred and ninety centimeters before he even reached eighteen, Remus became aware that it was probably such a thing as being too tall, causing him to slouch and develop an even worse posture.
His height makes him a decent swimmer though; his long arms and legs, too large feet, and hands help him propel his body through the water at a speed that makes it encouraging for him to continue the activity almost every morning in the small swimming pool in the basement of his apartment building.
It’s his nose as well, Remus thinks as he views it in the mirror when he brushes his teeth that morning. It’s long with a bump on the bridge. Slashed across that crooked bridge is a scar he has had his entire life, a scar that strangers tend to ask about before being let down when they hear it’s from an accident as a child and nothing more thrilling than that. His eyes on either side of it, large and slightly downturned at the outer edges - like a perpetually sad and exhausted creature.
I t could be his body, Remus runs a hand across his naked chest still with the toothbrush in his mouth, he has always been gangly and skinny, possibly stronger now with his new swimming routine and after joining the queer bouldering group around a year ago. But never really the finely shaped standard that dominates nowadays. There is a dusting of light brown hair on his sternum and under his navel.
It doesn’t matter, Remus spits out the toothpaste and rinses his mouth, runs a hair through drying curls that might have been in better condition if he just took care of them better, light brown tests that are fighting a losing battle against the grays at his temples. Ever the winner of the genetic lottery, Remus Lupin started going gray at age twenty. What he looks like is not that important. At least that’s what he tells himself as he gets dressed. Obediently buttons each button on a white shirt before pulling a thin beige pullover on top. He tightens the black leather belt to its smallest setting at least he doesn’t have to add another hole to this one, he has gained weight since he last bought a belt.
*
The apartment is clean and quiet as Remus packs his lunch in his work bag, located on a much quieter street than when he lived with Ben who insisted they live right by the main street where noises could be heard every hour of the day, no matter the price or the space sacrificed for the prime location.
But it is clean, because Remus likes it clean, and he likes living alone - thank you very much. No one to pick up after, or chase out of bed in the morning because someone forgot to set an alarm. And Remus doesn’t mind cooking for one or coming home to an empty house with just himself to fret over, feeling both tired but also unstimulated after a day's work. Or maybe he does mind, but it’s fine.
The good thing about his apartment building, besides his access to the pool and gym in the basement, is how close he is to the nearest bus stop despite not being located in the city center. Just one bus ride, not even having to exit and change transit is one of those things that excite a newly twenty-nine-year-old man with a job he’d rather sleep through and no romantic prospects to place his excitement onto. And it’s so fine that he often doesn’t open his mouth and speak to anyone as soon as the clock strikes five in the afternoon. It’s fine that he finds joy in the fact that he can read on the bus to work, without even having to stop before being outside his office.
Lily would tell him to date, she has already actually tried to force him on the apps as if they could offer any salvation to his apparent loneliness. It’s not like she met her partner on a dating app - no, she met him when she came as Remus’ date for the office Christmas party a year and a half ago.
But dating cannot solve everything, it can ruin everything. It can force you to move out of the space you have called home for the last two years just because your ex bought the place, even if it was his fault the relationship broke in the first place. It can force you out of previous friend groups, making you go on Facebook of all places to find community elsewhere. And a breakup can help you find a group of really nice people who spend their time chit-chatting in between climbing increasingly more difficult problems and passing small blocks of chalk to coat their hands.
No, Remus thinks as he locks his door and heads down to the bus stop, everything might not be perfect. But it’s fine.
*
Remus tucks the worn-down Pride and Prejudice copy in his bag as he gets off the bus outside his office building. The air is warm on his skin and the sun is peeking out through misty clouds in the sky above. He strides in through the reception just like he has every Monday through Friday for the last five years, greeting the young receptionist with a small smile. Walking into the elevator he presses the button corresponding to Horace’s Home & Business Services - number four to be exact. The elevator offers a small reprieve before it's time for Remus to meet the office for the second time that week. He takes a large breath, and closes his eyes against the overhead lighting.
When Remus arrives he almost knocks into his boss Poppy on her way to the coffee machine.
Poppy is a kind woman in her fifties who took him under her wing when he started as a fresh graduate, she insists on everyone calling her by her first name and bakes treats for the entire floor when the mood strikes.
“Good morning Remus, still available for our ten o’clock tomorrow? We’ll meet in my office,” Poppy is still walking as she speaks, turning her head to keep eye contact with him as she goes.
“Good morning. Yes, that works,” Remus says his first words since leaving the day prior.
Poppy rounds the corner but manages to toss out, “And don’t forget the morning brief!”
Right, it’s Tuesday, Remus thinks as his gaze wanders over to the desks closest by. The open office landscape doesn’t have cubicles but rather the newer version of them; desks with soundproof textile dividers where his colleagues tend to pin to-do lists and personal photographs. Remus’ own has none of that, but the desk his eyes always catch on does.
It’s slightly messy with post-its containing phone numbers to prospective clients and a cord tangle under the desktop screen that would have made Remus go mad. Pinned on the divider is a photograph, the glare on the glossy page makes it hard for him to see what it is, but he has seen that picture enough to know. It pictures two young teenagers, with dark wavy hair on both of their heads as they stand with arms around each other’s shoulder. A large grin covers one of their faces - the one whose hair brushes his shoulders.
“Morning,” Pomona greets him over the edge of her mug of tea as he sits down at his sparse desk having just collected his own hot beverage in the breakroom.
“Good morning, anything new?” Remus asks her as usual, this is a well-practiced dance at this point. Something he could do in his sleep.
“You know how it is, fires needing to be put out,” Remus just hums his response as he goes through his emails, noticing quickly that Pomona is right; it’s all the same old scramble of problems as usual.
See, Horace’s Home & Business Services is a large company that offers a bunch of different services. It started as a home cleaning business. Clients with too much money and too little time needed their houses cleaned every two weeks and Horace’s had personnel with cleaning supplies and the need for an income to do it. It expanded over the next twenty years, the company grew to not only offer its cleaning services to private individuals but also businesses who had the added stipulation of needing cleaning outside of business hours.
After that took off, Horace started looking into even larger projects - moving services to be more precise - so he hired two teams of a total of forty men who learned how to carry furniture down flights of stairs ergonomically and drive large trucks, to later carry the same furniture up a different set of stairs and into empty homes. So besides the cleaners and the movers, team leaders were hired to schedule workers and clients, take care of keys, and offer compensation in case of damages. A whole sales team was then hired to take care of prospective clients, mostly families with complicated moves and business clients. And then there was Remus, who worked internally.
The whole back-office operation sits on the fourth floor and reports to Poppy, the team leaders with their own boss sit a floor below.
It’s not like Remus hates his job, it’s fine. He works in the finance and accounting department at the large cleaning and moving business. The job is just dull; budget reports to be delivered, KPIs need to be analyzed and presented, entrepreneurial ideas need to be brought down to earth because of budget constraints - that sort of thing. The same thing happens day in and day out, week in and week out, but it's fine.
He even likes his colleagues well enough, Pomona’s decent even though she can be a bit kooky with her no-nonsense attitude and wild gray hair giving her a striking resemblance to the crazy cat lady from The Simpsons. Pete from accounting is nice, and James in HR is another good one despite his high energy and positive outlook. And Remus actually thinks so, he isn’t saying that just because the poor sod fell in love with Lily the first time he saw her and almost tripped over his own two feet and spilled holiday punch all over himself to introduce himself.
No, it’s not a reinvigorating workplace, the most exciting thing that happens might be when the sales workers hand in their receipts for reimbursement. Then Remus can spend time imagining the conversations that took place over the overpriced coffee or what music played in the rented car’s speakers that correlates to each receipt. Sometimes he even gets to decline their reimbursement claims and have a heated discussion with one of the over-charismatic gits over what actually counts as a business expense. It makes Remus pulse race. He’s pathetic.
Remus gets up out of his office chair when he spots Poppy rolling on the large whiteboard with notes for this week’s brief. There is an area that the whole fourth-floor office landscape is modeled around, and it's the breakroom in the middle, it is in this area in front of the breakroom that Pomona stands for everyone to see and hear her. They used to have these meetings on Mondays before realizing that the sales staff would usually be out on client meetings on Monday mornings, or that everybody just hated having floor-wide meetings first thing on the first day of the week.
“Hiya, Lupin,” Pete greets him as he makes his way over to stand next to Remus and Pomona.
“Morning,” Remus responds and almost manages to ask if Pete’s had time to look over that report that he emailed just yesterday before Poppy claps her hands and gets everyone’s attention.
The door that leads to the stairwell and the elevators opens and a person slips inside right before Poppy starts speaking. Remus catches a glimpse of black hair before said someone tosses their jacket onto their office chair and stands by the others in the sales team. The slight commotion makes several heads turn despite Poppy standing there ready to deliver as the late-comer whispers something to the person at their side, making them laugh silently. The day hasn’t even started and Remus feels his patience thinning slowly, like water emptying of a clogged drain. He hates when people are late, especially if they’re going to be disturbing everyone who’s already on time.
“Good morning everyone! I hope you had a lovely start to your week. Right, so the mid-year meetings are starting today and I hope all of you have confirmed your invite as of now - as you know it’s very important that we have these meetings to make sure you’re up to speed and we can go over any goals or development areas,” Pomona starts, Remus had actually confirmed his invite weeks ago and it’s been marked in his calendar since, not because he’s looking forward to it, he just is like that.
“Moving on to more fun events, the summer conference is happening in a few weeks. I remind you again to send any information regarding diets and allergies to Gil in admin so that he can forward them to the venue.”
“Where do you think we’re going?” Pete asks Remus in a whisper, “My money’s on the hotel from last year’s Christmas party, you know the one with the uncomfortable chairs.” Yeah, that party was something; Pomona got too drunk and started a betting pool with the IT guys and everything had to be broken up when discussions of winnings got too heated. Horace had held a speech that ran far too long and made everybody squirm in their uncomfortable seats, something about being passionate about their work, likening the office to a marriage that needed attention and care.
“I bet it’s that conference hall in the city, I have a hard time believing Horace feels generous enough to pay for everyone to sleep over,” Remus responds thinking of that awful gray building that housed the anime convention a few months ago, he passed too many adults dressed up in cosplay as he was out looking for a good pair of slacks that Saturday.
“And it is a two-day conference, and this year we have decided to go a bit farther away,” Pomona claps her hands together again in an effort to excite her audience of tired office workers. “We’re actually going to the Godric Estate and everyone is invited to sleep over!”
Well, that was new. Remus knew the company had a good year last year - he was the man with the numbers after all - but he also knew of the owner's stingy spending habits so this was without a doubt a surprise.
The Godric Estate is located a bit of a drive outside the city and houses conferences and weddings in old but maintained rooms with high feelings and velvet drapes. The food is supposed to be good, Lily was there with her swanky consulting firm last year.
“Looks like neither of us won that bet,” Pete shrugs and brushes his hand through his straw-colored hair as the meeting gears from conference talk to game-plan for the upcoming week, neither he nor Remus paying any attention to it. Remus shrugs once more.
When the meeting ends, everybody just goes back to their desks and continues their assigned work assignments. Pete curses when Excel freezes and Pomona grumbles about the new interface of their internal platform where she can’t find the links she’s looking for and Remus sighs over the over-enthusiastic newsletter written by one over-enthusiastic HR representative named James Potter.
The day passes slowly.
First, Remus can’t get access to the budget portal and he has to make his way down into the basement to see the IT guys for a renewed access license. Then he replies to emails. Then it's lunch and he reheats his leftovers in the microwave in the breakroom and sits down with Pete who wants to discuss last night’s football game, a conversation Remus really isn’t that interested in but has heard enough about from his dad to keep the conversation going.
In the afternoon Remus is out of immediate fires to put out. He could start on the presentation for the conference, several projections and models need to be made and he likes to take his time with those. But the information required is still subject to change and he doesn’t really feel like doing the same work twice if there are any irregularities between now and then that makes those projections change. He drums his finger on his desk, and swivels in the chair restlessly as he checks the system for reimbursement requests.
There are a total of nine entries. Nine people in the sales department have turned their requests in and Remus scrolls through them quickly. They’re all going to be accepted, he just has to press the button that signals his approval to send the report out.
Nine.
There are nine entries for a total of ten people working in sales. The remaining office staff also have the ability to turn reimbursements in - none have this month.
And it doesn’t matter how many times he has repeated himself throughout this scope of his responsibility, someone is always late. And it’s always the same someone. Remus sighs. He could just send the report anyway. The late-comers only have themselves to blame for not getting compensation for their expenses, Remus is fully capable of ensuring that. He hovers the mouse over the button titled Approve All.
Remus closes the system for reimbursement requests. He can wait one more day. Despite having to clench his jaws so hard his molars grind against each other because there are a few things that Remus hates as much as failing deadlines, even if it is personal ones.
*
If Remus had told his younger self that he would one day spend a few times a week with five other queer adults, climbing pretend rocks and actually enjoying it, his past self would have laughed. His past self who brooded and read classic literature and smoked hand-rolled cigarettes until his lungs hurt and thought he’d go to uni to study creative writing.
Then Remus spent a few weeks on a summer course for creative writing and actually learned that people who studied creative writing were pretentious at best, god-awful at worst, and went with his second option - finance. Not as cool, a lot more math but it offered a steady paycheck at the end of each month and gave Remus the ability to excel - pun intended - in an environment where his type A personality tendencies were encouraged.
And then his life fell apart because one dick-head couldn’t keep it in his pants and he lost his friends and had to go through the mortifying ordeal of trying to find new ones as an adult. Good thing they were good friends. Even if they had a bouldering group on Facebook.
The group is made up of five people - excluding Remus who is the latest newcomer, and they meet at the climbing gym a few times a week, rarely everyone at the same time thanks to differing work schedules. There is Dorcas and Marlene - the lesbian couple, Dorcas a few years Remus’ senior and works in graphic design, and Marlene who is two years his junior and pursuing her phd. They’d been together since university and that math hadn’t worked itself out in Remus’ brain before Dorcas had explained that she had taken a few years off traveling before going to school. Nonetheless, they were two of the coolest people he had ever met.
Then there were the Prewett twins - Gid and Fabian, both equally hilarious and handsome, but in very different ways. Fabian was more classically attractive and had done some catalog modeling during his university days, Gideon was more approachable, with his wide grin and freckled-covered face. They are currently both working to take over their father’s business when he is set to retire in a few years. The last member was Xeno, Remus isn't sure that is actually his real name and he is flaky and rarely shows up. But he is eccentric and always offers to hook Remus up on any drug requests he might have, not that he ever does, he stopped doing them in uni when he also stopped being cool.
“If you hate it that much, why don’t you quit? Find another job?” Marlene asks with her head tilted to look at Dorcas closing in on the end of the problem she is climbing. Dorcas’ long braids were clasped at the nape of her neck in a pink scrunchy and sways against her back as her head shifts.
“It’s more complicated than that. It’s not like I hate it, and I don’t want to let my boss down after she’s done so much for me,” Remus is - weirdly - also looking at Dorcas’ butt as she maneuvers the wall.
“Well, you complain about it every time I see you, sounds to me like you hate it,” Marlene levels him with a hard stare under her bleached eyebrows. And even though hate is a strong word she might be right. Maybe Remus hates his job. “You don’t even need to hate it, you can just look online, see what’s out there. Maybe even go on some interviews,” Marlene continues, again with a nonchalant shrug of her shoulders.
Remus had previously thought that Marlene would have been the louder one in the couple the first time he met her, based solely on her bleached hair and her countless random tattoos. But Marlene is introspective and blunt, and when she says something like that it makes him hear it differently than from his own internal monologue. Her girlfriend on the other hand, the one dangling up there, she’s a brash gossip. And Remus loves them both for it.
“Yeah, maybe,” Remus hums without any commitment but the thought still stays with him.
To be fair, he has thought about it a number of times before, especially since the whole break-up fiasco, but there always seems to be something in the way of him actually doing it. It could be a new show on Netflix that seemed more interesting that night. A few times it has been a buttload of laundry that requires his immediate attention. And more times than what he is comfortable admitting to, it is seeing his old university mates post about their own flourishing careers on LinkedIn and realizing that he has already spent five years essentially working a dead-end job and the competition for interesting roles is ruthless. That’s what he gets for not choosing a Big Four firm, like Lily did, right after graduation.
So he just resigns himself to possibly working at Horace’s forever, at least during those dark gray evenings in his sad lonely apartment when the only thing he can motivate himself to do is break out those expensive biscuits to have with his tea.
Dorcas manages her current problem and climbs down efficiently. It’s Remus’ turn now, so he walks on the thick mat up to the bouldering wall in front of him. Apparently, climbing a physical wall using only his calloused fingertips feels less like a challenge than climbing the mental one.
*
With aching, chalk-flushed fingers he calls his mother's number as he steps into his apartment ready for a chat as he heats up his leftovers.
Hope Lupin answers after three rings.
“Hi, love! You’ve caught me in the middle of Antiques Roadshow,” his mother’s voice is a thrill in his ear. Remus sometimes wonders how he is related to her at all, as everything about him, down to the shape of his fingers and the low rumble of his voice, is a carbon copy of his dad.
“Sorry about that, how are you?” Remus presses his phone in between his ear and his shoulder as he moves around the small kitchen and puts his plate in the microwave as his mother platters on.
“-and you know how your dad is about the car,” Remus can faintly hear his father defend himself from his mother’s accusations on the other line. “You know very well what I’m talking about, Lyall. Well, anyway. We’ve booked our tickets for next week,” she continues after chastising his father.
“Right, send me the information and I’ll come to meet you at the station, make sure you get to the hotel alright,” Remus says and feels a tinge of home-sickness, it’s easy to miss them when he stands by the counter in his empty apartment, eating reheated leftovers right out of the container.
“Good thing we’ve got you, love,” Remus can hear Hope’s smile through the receiver, and his heart tugs once again. “Right, I’ll send you the travel details.” They say their goodbyes and hang up the phone. Remus manages to turn the TV on even before the complete silence of the apartment properly settles and he grabs his personal laptop and sits down on the couch.
With the evening news in the background, he goes on the hell-site also known as LinkedIn, and sets his search for jobs in the city. Would I move for a job? He thinks before pressing the enter key. Moving would mean a brand new town, zero friends, and having to find a new place. No, he decides, one step at a time.
The reason why job hunting is so atrocious that Remus had procrastinated doing it and denying the fact that his workplace is anything other than stale, is the uncertainty of it all. None of the listings offer anything other than unrecognizable titles and skills such as “Being able to work solitary as well as in teams”. Those are perfect contradictions. Or this one, Remus shivers, “Looking for someone with an entrepreneurial spirit”. Fuck off with that.
But there are jobs out there, there is no denying that. Now he just has to find some that seem interesting enough for him to apply to, send out his CV and cover letter, be totally chill about it, and maybe go to a few interviews without caring how it goes. And if nothing tickles his fancy he will just stay at Horace’s, like Marlene said.
Remus has never done anything like that before, just carelessly tried and not cared about the consequences. He cares a lot. When he went to business school he threw himself into it even if he had his doubts about him fitting into that environment. Then when he learned that he was good at it, even liked it he indulged in the materials, in the graphs and the stupid finance vocabulary, and the calculations.
When he met Ben he threw himself into him as well, headfirst, and he cared so much. Enough to make a calculated decision, if the cost-benefit analysis of dating that smooth, handsome son-of-a-bitch turned out with a net positive. All of his careful calculations showed positive net-present values in perpetuity, Remus was set to be happy. But just like any business graduate knows; you can diversify your portfolio to escape operational risks, it’s the market risks that are harder to protect yourself from.
The operational risks in this scenario were the two of them, Remus ponders, Ben, and himself. Remus could mold himself after Ben, compromise to avoid conflicts and steer clear from unruly tides. If that was the case then the market risks, the unforeseen and unavoidable ones, would be his straying ways and complete disregard for Remus’ happiness-
Okay, that’s enough.
Remus closes the laptop still perched on his thighs. This is what happens when he stays up late and considers his past, his present, and his future. Even if the only thing he was trying to do was look for a new job.
He tosses the computer to the side, turns off the TV, and heads to the bathroom. After brushing and flossing his teeth, gurgling mouthwash because his dentist told him to do so, he slips under his heavy comforter in his bed. It’s slightly too large for just one person and Remus never really got over the habit of sleeping on the one side; he has four pillows in his bed and only actively uses two of them. Even after over a year, falling asleep by himself feels almost like a waste.
It is here where the existential thoughts hit him the hardest. During the day, he has made sure to curate a very distracted existence where he doesn’t have to think too hard about the way he feels about things. It’s different here, where the silence is only broken by his own breathing and the shuffling of his own feet under the soft sheets. It was worse before, the depth of despair feeling almost unendingly deep. Now it’s just a reminder of things that were, and the projection of what he has in front of him.