[Sun of a Beach]
The gremlins were screaming again.
It shouldn't have been a surprise seeing as they yelled over every other thing but after hours of complaining of the hot, un-air-conditioned air inside the car they would shut their traps for a little while after getting what they wanted. Yet now they were complaining of the hot, un-air-conditioned air outside of the car and Remus was at his wit's end.
"Moony, please. Please with a cherry on top."
"No."
"Mom said you had to."
"Your mother told me to keep you right where you are so you don't get run over by a speeding BMW that wouldn't look twice to your two atom-sized bodies pancake-shaped on the ground."
The twin seven-year-olds huffed angrily and resigned to plopping themselves down on the bench and glaring down at the ground with an expression that could have counted as satire. He wasn't going to feel guilty - he wasn't. He was a sweating pig himself and would do anything to slip into the pool as well but his Aunt Druella was still inside the town building getting them their keys to the rooms.
"Can we go to the park at least? It's right there!"
"No," he huffs, swiping a bead of sweat away from his forehead. He'd forgotten how unforgiving the Florida heat was. "Your mum should be out any second and you can ask her."
Taking the straw of his god-knows how sugary drink in his mouth, he takes in the tall orange and red villas surrounding them and the shiny brand new cars bumper to bumper on the road, eager to start their vacation. Their 2005 soccer van he was leaning up against in the shade stuck out like a sore thumb.
It was like this every year since before he was born. Frankly, Remus had no idea how his family afforded such a place when most of them were either working blue-collar jobs or unemployed altogether. He'd asked once when he was smaller and got a vague answer that his grandma had bought a timeshare years before the company started taking off meaning his mother's side of the family all shared the five suits offered to them for two weeks a year. It would make sense to sell the share now and get the probably thousands offered for it now but his grandmother was a mean old bitch and refused. He should thank her for that, he supposed, because it was practically the only time he ever got to see his family anymore now that he was in university.
"What the hell is taking her so long?" Madaline swore under her breath right next to him. Her vivid purple hair was pulled up in a high ponytail with loose strands sticking out all over the place and her tank top was beginning to become soaked.
"I can go in and check if you keep an eye on the demons."
She side-eyes him. "You just want to go inside for the air-conditioning."
Remus raises an eyebrow at her, looking down. She was shorter by half a foot despite being half a year his senior. "And what if I do?"
"You'd have to beat me to it."
"Leave me here alone with them and I hold no responsibility if I end up strangling one of them."
She watches her little brothers talking excitedly under their breaths to one another. They were tearing apart the fan palm bushes placed on the side of the building for decoration now. Remus would never understand how they were able to jump so quickly from one thing to another.
Madaline's nose scrunched up before sighing dramatically. "Drama queen."
He wiggles the melted slushie in his hands in front of her tauntingly. She eyes it greedily. She'd been asking for a sip the entire ride. "I'll let you have the rest."
"Fine, then. Get the keys from her if you can. I swear I'm gonna evaporate into mist and absorbed into some rich guy's gourmet ice cubes before she gets out." She says with a huff. She reaches out for it excitedly but he pulls back just in time.
He tsks. "Except, you still owe me from the crisps incident."
"Chips, you mean."
Remus gave her a smirk before slipping past her and into the large double doors that led into the building. Immediately a large gust of air blew at him from above in an attempt to keep the bugs out. Remus was tempted to just stand in the doorway and let the cool air rush past him until some guard kicked his poor ass out, but people were coming in behind him. Madaline smirked at him through the glass doors knowing exactly what he was thinking. She mocked him fainting causing him to playfully flick her off. (He hopes the little ones didn't see it. His aunt will have his arse. Snitches.)
The grand room was dozens upon dozens of people waiting in line at each and every welcome booth on top of the families and luggage taking up every available seat. Large overhead signs were overhead advertising discounted tickets to the dozens of attractions around the city. The beady eyes of Mickey Mouse stared at him tauntingly. He glared back. (He'd never actually been to Disney World despite it being around the corner. They'd never had enough money to go due to medical expenses.)
He was immediately able to pick out what was taking so long. A pale, primly dressed woman with her hair fitted into a tight bun on the top of her head stood front and center of the floor as if she owned the place and judging by expensive clothes and jewelry, not practical for the weather, she just might.
She's yelling at a couple of feet away from her who return it with the same fierceness.
"- no right!"
"He's not your son!"
"He's as good as!"
He takes notice of the two boys standing behind the couple. A boy with dark hair cascading a little past his shoulder and sharp, angular features that matched the screaming woman was holding tight of the boy with the glasses' arm. Neither looked much older than himself.
"He's his own person!" The women of the couple hissed. "You have no right! I swear I'll sue you to pieces if you touch so much as a hair on his head again!"
"How dare you-!"
The crowd had thinned around them. Some were trying to mind their own business while others tried to discreetly get it on tape. Remus cringed at the insensitivity. He looked around for his aunt to get out of there as quickly as possible to find that she was stuck behind the commotion.
If there was one thing Remus Lupin hated, it was attention. He'd tried to live most of his life away from it but the double-takes seemed to follow him regardless. The second was rich assholes. Remus wanted to barf at the drama.
Remus managed to weasel his way through the people over towards her trying his best the block it out. His aunt's eyes lit up with relief at the sight of him. "Sorry hun," she says, "they're still processing our reservation. If I'd known it'll have taken this long…" She side-eyes the fight with the same distaste as him.
"Maddie is losing her shit."
"Yes, well. Not much of a surprise there." She sighs. She reached into her bag and pushed her keys into his hands. "I told him to call ahead and look at what happened. That man… The rooms are in building 5800. Go ahead and drive over there and we'll meet you. Though I don't know how long that'll be. The audacity of people these days."
His Aunt Durella was nearing her late forties and took the same attitude as her mothers in old-fashioned ways of keeping your affairs private. Evidently, that had rubbed off on him over the years. He kept his mouth shut from yapping some snarky reply that got him in trouble far too often and pocketed the keys.
He spins around eager to get out of the crowded space (he hadn't been good with a large number of people since he was a child) and into the cool comforts of the king-sized mattress of their rooms. Perhaps it's his own impatience on that part that was to blame for what happened next, though he wouldn't admit it on his dying breath.
He pushed through the crowd using his free hand not caring for the snobbish complaints. He'd expected them living the life he had. What he hadn't been expecting was for one woman to shove her side right back at him, tipping him over just slightly enough for his prosthetic to give in and into a burly-looking man who flicked him off his side without so much as a second glance. He reeled backward with an apology on his lips, but the dramatic shift in weight had him tumbling once again. His hands flung out to his side in a helpless attempt to steady himself. With widening eyes he realized an unexpecting toddler was in his path (fall) of travel. In a desperate attempt not to fall over them and cause a scene, he skidded to the side where his weight tipped dangerously just as a woman shoved her trailing luggage back behind him. He'd accepted his fate when the drink slipped from his hands into the air as he started to finally take his not-so elegant face-plant to the ground.
It seemed to happen in slow motion just to taunt him. The primly dressed woman from earlier had turned around abruptly in an attempt to get the last word from her screaming match. You could almost see the fumes leaving her nose from her nasty temper. She'd pushed through the crowd at exactly the wrong moment causing her to come in full contact with a faceful of the bright red, sugary slushie. Unadulterated terror overflows from Remus and takes the colour out of his face as he jerks his head up as the foam cup clattered to the floor next to him.
Any other time seeing a pretentious snob get their worth of hell would have made Remus shit his pants in laughter. Only that he realizes oh shit I'm in so much trouble as the shocked expression on her stained and dripping face begins to mix with pure fury. A few people around them who noticed the accident are now laughing slightly under their breath after a minuscule silence. The embarrassment now feels as if it'll permanently burn onto his face.
He tries to scramble upwards with the help of a nearby luggage case ignoring the pounding in his skull and his hip from the fall. A quick glance now made sure nothing had fallen or broken. That wasn't his main issue though. Holding a hand to his bleeding nose, he met the eyes of the frozen woman right in front of him. She seemed to be in so much shock that her mouth opened and closed like suffocating fish without a word being muttered.
"Oh my god. Oh my god. I'm so sorry. It was an accident, I swear it. Are you okay? I can help you if you need me to-" Remus's apology comes tumbling out of his mouth but it's quickly cut off with an outrageous howl of laughter that rises above all the rest. Remus's eyes dart behind her shoulder and notice it was the same teenagers behind the couple from earlier.
"You- You-" The woman seethes at the flustered Remus. The hand at her side twitches as if she wanted to smack her. Subconsciously, he dared her to. Go on, knock me upside the head. I need to cover college tuition somehow.
"Go on, mother! Tell him off! I'm sure a firm lecturing by the Kool-Aid man will keep him up at night!" One of the boys taunted loudly with wheezing laughter. He's doubled over, holding his stomach with a stupid grin. She whips around, bristling with rage. Still, she does nothing but let out what can only be assumed as a strangled sort of growl. She wipes her face with the handkerchief she just so happens to have in her designer purse then decides to display her wrath even further by crushing the foam cup beneath her feet in a singular movement of her shoe pumps.
Remus is just thankful the murderous glare is longer on him. He backs up hesitantly in an attempt to flee the scene in case she starts to demand he pay for the damage.
A cool hand is placed on his shoulder from behind. He immediately recognizes it as his aunt and his anxiety lessens just the smallest bit.
"I'm really sorry," Remus tries again as his aunt takes the place next to him. "It just kinda slipped-"
She doesn't bother to let him finish. In fact, she doesn't even look at him. She turns on her heel and flees through the front door while keeping her walk brisk to regain some of her dignity. She glares at everyone with her head held high on her dramatic exit, yet her dripping dress makes it lose some of its obvious power she'd used to having. A shaky smile etches into his face at the trail of red footprints she leaves behind.
Remus lets out a heavy sigh of relief. Hesitantly, he moves a hand up to his upper lip where blood flow has started.
"Oh dear," she mutters softly. She's smiling too as despite trying to hide it for her nephew's sake. "They do say karma's a bitch."
? ﾟﾌﾣ?
"Come on, already. You can't do homework on vacation. I'm pretty sure that's illegal."
"Leave me to my misery."
Madaline flops down on her back beside him on the bed. Her untameable mass of curly hair falls around her like a halo. "You can't sit here all vacation."
Remus flips the page of his book raising an eyebrow. "I'll leave. When the entire world forgets."
Madaline turns around on her stomach to face him. She gives him that head tilt and irritated glances she always did. Her own bed on the other side of the room was perfectly lay-able but he was beginning to suspect she only was on him to irritate him further. "It's not like you'll see any of them again. Excuses."
Fair point. He'd gotten over the fiasco hours ago. In all honesty, he was taking a break from applying more weight to his leg. His grandfather had seemed to forget that 1) he was a scrawny wimp with no muscle mass and 2) he was missing an eighth of his body. Ok, that might have been dramatic but carrying heavy boxes up and suitcases up three flights upstairs on a prosthetic leg because they just had to be given the only building with a broken lift, hurt. He wanted to take a break from it before he was pulled into some other strenuous activity insisted upon him by his smaller cousins. Of course, he couldn't say that outright without his aunt causing a scene with his grandparents, and after the events from earlier today, he'll rather avoid as much of those as he could.
Currently, it was detached underneath the blanket as much as it could without looking suspicious. It was one of the below-knee ones so it wasn't that hard.
"You caught me."
She sighs dramatically and shimmied herself off the bed and into their shared bathroom after grabbing her bathing suit. "You better be ready to go in twenty."
"Hooray," he mutters under his breath once she closes the door. He lays down the thick biology textbook on his lap and looks around the room. It was a shared suite that hung off of his aunt's larger one. Their own bedroom that held a balcony over one of the pools slid into a kitchen and living room. To the right of the kitchen counter was the door into the large shared living area with the rest of the family.
He decides to say fuck it as he hazardously tosses the book back in his overstuffed bag. Normally he always skipped the 'owners barbeques' that the company threw every couple of days. He'd realized early on that most of them were either filled with old people (which mixed into the slippery poolside was not usually a good result) or snobs.
He was hungry as hell though and there was only so much granola bars could do. It wasn't as if he had to swim, really. He didn't like doing so in front of many people anyways - too many stares. He could easily convince Madeline into slipping away for some ice cream.
Remus slips off the edge of the bed and fixes the liner and sockets the leg. He always preferred to add a matching shoe on the shell of it for a bit of normalcy. It made walking harder than normal but it was something he was willing to suffer for. He side glanced at his beat-up sweatpants that were his usual go-to in public. It would be too hot to suffer through today without the chances of a heat stroke. That was one thing he loved about his school, Princeton. No matter the time of year, it was always cold enough to wear pants. He didn't have much of an option here. Shorts it would be.
Thirty-minutes and a Thomas-the-Train-themed shuttle later, he's laying under the shade of a flamboyantly large beach umbrella by the poolside. There's vibrant music playing from inside the outside bar and fake Hawaiian leis and grass skirts covering the area in an attempt to make the place seem more lively than it already was. Madaline is sitting criss-cross from him on the end of the long beach chair with a plate of food and pina colada in her hand. An alcoholic one of course - just to try it. She'd turned twenty-one a couple weeks ago and was enjoying her new-found liberty.
"I told you it'll just be old people," he says, stealing a sip of it when she's not looking. The mist-blowing fans were keeping him cool but the heat was starting to get to him. The breezy, gray tank-top was beginning to soak with sweat again.
"You could get in the pool."
"I could."
"And I'll death-glare anyone who much as looks at you too long."
A small grin appears. She'd been the same way since he was fourteen and first got the damned thing. She once 'accidentally' locked someone who asked him how it happened in the bathroom for two hours when they were in ninth grade. He could take care of himself yet it was a nice change of things.
Remus waves her off leaving her to jump in by herself. She had a fluid sort of grace in the water that was more animal than human as she weaved through other party-goers like a natural. With a small pang, it reminded him of when his father had taught him to swim in this same exact pool at four years old.
Remus sits there on his own, fairly content as he watches her. His uncle and aunt and a couple of other family members were off somewhere else and came to check in on him every couple of minutes. They tried to get him to join in but politely refused. He was about to see if he could sneak off to smoke a quick fag when he spots them. The same Indian couple and the two boys from earlier that day.
God fucking dammit.
There had to be some sort of god laughing at him from up above because there was no way his life was naturally such a badly-written sitcom. Out of the hundreds, maybe thousands, of people in the entire resort and it just had to be the people that would make forgetting that morning that much harder. It doesn't help that the paler-one meets his gaze at the exact moment he tried to look away. He can tell by the way his eyes light up immediately that he recognizes him and his stomach starts to form knots.
It was just his luck when he started to make his way to exactly where Remus was sitting.
"You're that bloke from the town hall this morning, aren't you?" He says, taking the lounge chair right next to his. The British accent immediately stands out and makes Remus perk up seeing as he was welsh himself.
Remus wasn't going to lie to himself. The boy was hot. Really hot. Both literally and metaphorically. He hadn't noticed it from the distance earlier, but now that he was up close he could see his bright gray eyes and delicate features. Remus had gotten over his sexuality troubles ages ago, yet this was just another double-whammy to the face.
He picks at a loose string at his shorts. Remus wouldn't say he was a timid person usually, just that the cards that he'd been dealt with at the moment weren't very ideal. Subconsciously he rubbed his hands over the dozens of scars that littered his arms and everywhere else of his body. "Yeah. I suppose that's me. Rather not advertise it."
"Why not? It was bloody brilliant!" The boy grins. It's rather infectious, he realizes, because it almost makes him want to as well. "The best thing I've seen in weeks, I tell you. I think my mate pissed his pants in laughter."
"Good to know it provided amusement for the audience," he mutters slightly. He takes another bite of his food to avoid talking.
The boy hesitates. "That came out wrong, didn't it?"
"A bit, yeah." Remus is only having him on but it was funny. His aunt always was lecturing him on his people skills. It wasn't his fault though when most of them walked into it.
He gave a small smirk to let him know he was only joking and the boy automatically reinflates.
He held out his hand. It hung heavily in the air between the two seats as Remus eyed it oddly. He was obviously posh - or just more so better off than him. He's what his grandmother would call 'well bred'.
"New start then? Names' Sirius Black."
"For real?" He asked. That was nearly as pretentious as his own.
"That's what's written on my underwear. Why, what's yours? Please don't be something like William, you're way too badass for that."
Remus raises an eyebrow as he reaches for the hand. That was the first time he'd ever been described like that other than from little children. Then again, the boy seemed much like a kid himself. "We've been talking for less than a minute. You don't even know me."
"Do I have to? You poured your drink all over my bitch of a mother. That's good enough in my book."
"On accident."
Sirius shrugs indifferently. "Humour me, then."
He sighs as he takes a bite out of his fruit salad. "Remus Lupin."
Sirius' eyes light up once again. "Oh, this is too good."