Chapter Text
“Rise and shine, party animal. Our flight leaves in an hour.” His father’s voice was intentionally subdued, likely to accommodate the headache that he knew would be festering in Remus’ skull, but his softened tone really didn’t make any difference. He may as well have been shouting from the other side of their shared hotel room. “I know you only got in a few hours ago, but you can sleep on the plane.”
In response to the sudden noise, the sudden light, the sudden movement, a terrible groan rolled up through Remus’ throat, fizzling out into the fibers of his cheap hotel pillowcase as a pathetic sort of whimper. He tried screwing his eyes closed tighter to keep the light out, but the effort only made his head pound that much harder. “Please tell me I have aspirin in my bag,” Remus breathed out, voice low.
“It’s already on the nightstand. Next to your glasses,” Lyall replied, practically a whisper, and Remus tried to appreciate the measures his father was taking to accommodate Remus’ hangover, despite the fact that it had very much been self-inflicted. In more ways than one. As Remus blindly reached toward the table without opening his eyes, he pushed his clubmaster glasses aside in an effort to locate the elusive bottle of pills. “And there’s a Vitamin Water to your left,” his father added as Remus continued fumbling defiantly, refusing to open his eyes, and knocking over everything on the table as a result. “Your other left.” Lyall stifled a snicker. Remus pried open a single eye just to glare at him.
“Don’t laugh, I’m sure I made an absolute arse of myself last night,” Remus said with a heavy exhale as he struggled to sit up through the dizziness the motion left behind. “But I can’t know for sure since I don’t remember anything beyond walking down to the ballroom and grabbing the first champagne flute I saw.” Aspirin bottle in hand, he poured out a number of them, not bothering to count before throwing them into the back of his throat, washing it down with a greedy swig of electrolyte water.
“I heard you were the life of the party, actually,” Lyall said, clearing his throat to cover a laugh.
“Oh my God,” Remus groaned softly, burying his face into his hands. “Please just let me remain ignorant to anything I might’ve said or done last night. I’d rather not live with the embarrassment.”
“If you get your arse out of bed so we don’t miss our flight, you’ve got a deal,” his father said with a very particular, very specific glance of delicate sternness that only Lyall Lupin could convey.
“Fine,” Remus agreed with a throaty whine, moving carefully as he dragged himself out of bed, getting dressed as slowly and as painlessly as he could, which was practically impossible considering every tilt of his head made him feel like the whole room was spinning and every heavy swallow of the acidity in his throat made him feel like he could lose the contents of his stomach at any given moment.
“I thought you weren’t going to the banquet last night,” Lyall prodded mindfully, glancing at Remus in concern. They hadn’t really gotten to talk about the competition since that afternoon, and even then, Remus hadn’t really wanted to talk about it at all, considering what a colossal failure it had been.
“I only went for the alcohol,” Remus said, and it was only half a lie. The alcohol gave him the incentive to stay, but not the incentive to go. He could’ve gotten just as drunk on the various liquor in the mini bar in his hotel room and not made an absolute fool of himself in front of dozens of his peers.
For a moment, his father was silent, packing without a word, until, “If this is about your performance, Remus, I already told you …” But Remus cut him off before he could speak any further.
“It’s not about my …” he paused to take a deep breath and let it back out again. “I’d rather not talk about my abysmal performance. Please.” Apparently, Remus hadn’t stated himself plainly enough.
“You just got nervous. You’ve been nailing that program in practice, and you killed it in the British Championships, you’ve just never had to do it in front of –” Remus didn’t let him finish.
“Don’t say it. Please, can we just go?” Remus said with a loud sigh that echoed in his skull. He didn’t want to be reminded of how he massacred his short program yesterday in front of the one person in that stadium that he wanted to impress. The person he would probably never get to see again. The person he had idolized for the last ten years. The person who probably had no idea he even existed.
It was silent as they finished packing, silent in the lift down to the lobby, silent in the taxi on the way to the airport. And Remus wasn’t sure what was worse, analyzing his very public failure with his father (and coach) to discuss exactly what had gone wrong in his program the day before or agonizing over it internally by himself. Eventually, he chose the silence. They were bound to have to go over it at some point anyway, and he’d rather delay that as long as he possibly could. The wound was still too fresh.
However, distracting himself with social media was the wrong call. He couldn’t scroll mindlessly through any of the apps he frequented without seeing the headlines about the Euros. Of course, he already knew who had come in first, he’d stayed long enough to watch that final free skate of the competition and it had been, as always, flawless. The winner hadn’t come as a surprise to anyone.
What was a surprise, and an unpleasant one at that, was how much media coverage Remus’ failure was getting. Once Promising Welsh Figure Skater Remus Lupin Shocks With Disappointing Last Place Finish In European Championships, one headline bluntly said. He didn’t even bother to click the link. Another read Retirement Already For Rookie Remus Lupin? and that didn’t sound like a terrible idea just then. Some nobody on Twitter went so far as to tag him to remind him that he’d missed both of the quads he’d attempted. Not to mention, he’d never been able to land a quad lutz in competition, anyway. He’d only attempted it because he was trying to show off. That had obviously backfired.
He locked his phone and set it into his lap as a shallow breath moved through his lips. His father, ever the supporter and comforter, decided this was the best time to reignite the conversation. “I say we get right back into the rink, train harder than we ever have, focus on perfecting the quad lutz so well you could do it in your sleep, rework the –” Again, Remus shook his head, cutting his father off, midsentence.
“Maybe they’re right, Dad,” he said with a heavy sigh. “Maybe I should just retire.” Before Lyall could jump back in with his arguments, Remus continued. “I train my arse off just to skate a mediocre program, knowing every season there’s someone younger than me, in better shape than me, better at the sport than me, and I –” He thought of the newest Russian prodigy, the fifteen-year-old who everyone said would take the throne from the reigning king next year when he moved up from the junior levels. “I just don’t think there’s a reasonable chance that I’ll make it to the Worlds like I wanted. Not anymore.”
“The mediocre program is my fault,” Lyall said, immediately retreating into self-criticism, a defense mechanism that Remus had unfortunately inherited from him. Before Remus could disagree, he added, “You need a choreographer, my experience in the rink was never at the level that you’re at now.”
“You didn’t skate that program, Dad,” Remus fought, shoving his phone into his coat pocket, and pretending he hadn’t seen all those terrible headlines. “And I choreographed half of it. The half with all the jumps I missed. I shouldn’t have even attempted that quad lutz, but I just –” He cut himself off abruptly, not wanting to admit exactly why he had been trying to show off. Not like his Dad didn’t already know already. To circumvent that conversation, Remus reverted. “It might be time for me to call it quits.”
“Remus,” Lyall said with a defeated tone. He couldn’t argue, Remus knew, because Remus was right. There was always someone better, waiting just behind him, waiting for him to fuck up. And now he had. Astronomically. In front of … well, everyone, technically. But especially in front of him.
Before Lyall could reply, the taxi pulled up to the curb outside of the Minsk National Airport, and Remus was quick to jump out, anxious to derail this conversation with his father. For the most part, as they unloaded their bags, it seemed Lyall got the picture and stopped trying to change Remus’ mind. But as they walked to their gate, he spoke again. “You’re too young and too talented to give up now.”
With a huff, Remus tore his phone from his jacket pocket, unlocking it and holding it out in front of him so that his father, standing next to him, could see the dreadful things the media was already saying about him. “Dad, they’re telling me to retire. I can’t come back from that.” Remus seethed through clenched teeth, frustrated at the situation, frustrated at his father, frustrated at himself. “I appreciate the support, I always have, but I –” Phone still in hand, his arguments came to a silent, screeching halt when his gaze happened to fall upon Sirius Black, striding confidently down the terminal in their direction, surrounded on all sides by fans and paparazzi and reporters. Eyes ever widening, Remus went very still.
Sirius Black was a Russian figure skating prodigy. By the time Remus made it to his first real competition, Sirius Black had already won gold at the Junior Worlds. By the time Remus made it to his first Junior Worlds (where he didn’t make the podium), Sirius had already won gold at the Worlds. By the time Remus had landed his first quad in competition, Sirius had already skated for the Russian Olympic team, becoming an international sensation when he performed an illegal move that got him media attention from all over the world (though the inevitable point deduction prevented him from medaling).
Though there was only a two-year age gap between them, Remus felt like he had grown up watching Sirius Black compete, winning one gold medal after another. Sure, Remus’ father, who had been a semi-professional skater himself, had gotten Remus into the sport, but it was Sirius Black who made him hungry for it. Even as young as he’d been when he had first watched Sirius skate, in the audience at a competition he was too young and too inexperienced to compete in, Remus could still remember how mesmerized he’d been by the boy with the long, black hair who could spin so effortlessly, who could glide around the ice so gracefully, who moved to the music like it had been written specifically for him. He wanted to do the things on the ice that Sirius Black could do, he wanted to skate like Sirius Black could skate. He wanted to be just like him. At the very least, he wanted to meet him. That, he could manage.
To meet that end, he trained. Every day after school, he went to the ice rink to practice his jumps while other boys his age signed up for hockey. When Sirius competed with a brand-new program, Remus would memorize it, drilling it over and over, practicing it almost more than his own programs. Once Sirius became a celebrity, Remus studied his every competition, hung posters of Sirius Black in his bedroom.
Sirius was the one who had placed first at the Euros, the eternal favourite in every figure skating competition in the world. It had been Sirius Black that Remus had been trying to impress, it was Sirius Black that had made him so nervous that he essentially forgot how to skate. It was Sirius Black who likely didn’t even know Remus’ name because Remus was a nobody compared to someone like him.
That was never more apparent than when the crowd that surrounded Sirius came barreling through, nearly pushing Remus over in an effort to keep Sirius in their sights and camera lenses. However, as Remus tried to get a firmer grip on his luggage that kept getting caught between warm bodies of overzealous reporters, the crowd seemed to part in their direction, accompanied by the buzz of whispers.
Just as Remus started to rise to his toes to see if he could tell what was going on, Sirius stepped through the hoard, with his ever-present, gold-medal-podium smile. Stunned, Remus could do nothing but stare back at him, swallowing nervously as Sirius met his gaze. When Sirius’ silver eyes narrowed slightly in Remus’ direction, it almost seemed like he was searching for something, waiting for something.
Finally, with that curious expression still in place, in his softened voice that carried his definable Russian accent, he smiled, despite the heavy side-eye he was giving to the crowd that was becoming more unruly with Sirius’ continued disregard, and said, “Ignore them. Ready for that photo?” At first, Remus’ brows furrowed. What photo? He was speaking like this was a standing arrangement, like they had ever even spoken to each other before, like Sirius had ever even acknowledged him before.
And all at once, Remus realized he was still holding his phone upright, looking very much like he’d been primed to take Sirius’ photo as he passed. With a sharp exhale of stinging disappointment, Remus lowered his head. He’d been right after all. Sirius really did have no idea who he was. Didn’t even recognize him as a fellow skater. Probably hadn’t even seen Remus skate that awful program that he’d intentionally choreographed just to get Sirius’ attention. All for the best, since he’d fucked it up anyway.
Without reply, Remus turned, heart at the bottom of his chest as he pushed through the crowd, not even bothering to look back in Sirius’ direction. With his father hot on his heels, and just as silent, he skulked off in the direction of their gate. The flight home was going to be more painful than he thought.
The nearest airport to his hometown was well over an hour’s drive, but that didn’t stop his best friend Pete from gathering a small welcoming committee to meet them at the terminal. Remus’ whole family was there, including his mum and his maternal grandparents, as well as a number of people Remus didn’t really know, and they were all waving banners with his name on it, holding up posters of Remus in the middle of a jump (that Pete had obviously made for this occasion), cheering obnoxiously.
He and Pete had been friends since they were eleven. They’d met at the local ice rink – most of the other boys, like Pete, were there to sign up for the youth hockey league. Those same boys were quick to bully Remus for his love of such a ‘girly’ sport, but not Pete. In fact, ever since standing up for him that day, Pete had been one of Remus’ biggest (and loudest) supporters. When he went on to buy that same hockey rink, he closed up early every night just to give Remus the entire rink to himself to practice.
“Oh my God, Pete,” Remus seethed through clenched teeth, blushing furiously. With a sharp yelp of excitement, Pete dropped his end of the banner and went racing toward Remus. Despite his stout, muscular frame, when he reached Remus, he softly enveloped Remus in a delicate embrace, careful to avoid crushing the lenses on Remus’ face against his broad shoulder as he craned his neck to nuzzle his cheek against the side of Remus’ dark curls that were mussed with unrest and disappointment.
“I know you’re beating yourself up, but I thought you skated beautifully,” Pete said at once, and for the first time since leaving Belarus, Remus let himself exhale a welcomed sigh of relief before breathing in again, bringing with the new air the very unique scent of the local ice rink that they grew up in, the same one that Pete now owned. It was an uncommon mixture of smells – the chemicals used to cool and maintain synthetic ice, the cheap, powdered hot chocolate from concessions, musk from the sweat of hockey players stuffed in a locker room that was way too small to accommodate them, the distinct odour of the rubber floor mats that surrounded the rink to protect the integrity of blades. It was a collection of scents that Remus had come to associate with Pete, a fragrance he loved for that reason.
“Thanks, Pete,” Remus said with a shaky sigh that hissed out over Pete’s puffy jacket.
“You got nervous in front of Sirius Black, didn’t you?” he asked quietly, holding Remus more tightly so Remus couldn’t hit him, which he absolutely would’ve done if his arms had been free.
“Shut up,” he replied instead as Pete let him go, flashing a knowing grin in Remus’ direction.
“Remus, love,” his mother said in that quiet voice she used when she knew something was bothering him. As he stooped down to put his head onto her shoulder, her hands moving up to hold his shoulders, he began to feel a surge of the emotion he’d been stifling since leaving the ice at the meet.
“I’m sorry,” he found himself saying, tears swelling into his eyes and spilling over before he could even convince himself to try to hold them back. The grip of his mother’s hands increased just slightly.
“You have nothing to apologize for, not a thing,” Hope whispered, pulling back to wipe the tears from his face, taking a moment to hold him by the cheeks and admire him. “Now, your Baachan and Jiichan came all the way from Hasetsu to spend time with you. Go and show them how tall you’ve gotten.”
“Mum, I just saw them last year, I haven’t gotten any taller,” Remus laughed.
With a glimmer in her eye, his mother glanced up at him. “Are you sure? Because your grandmother told me on the way over that she would make you a pork cutlet bowl for every inch you grew since we visited them in Japan last summer.” With a slightly raised brow, Remus looked over Hope’s shoulder to smile at his waiting grandparents, both of them smiling, his grandmother waving.
“Would you look at that,” he said with a devious grin to match his mother’s. “I must’ve grown a whole foot since then.” With a pat on his arm as he moved past her, she let out a victorious laugh.
“That’s what I thought you’d say.”
When Remus’ maternal grandparents came over from Japan in the seventies, they bought an old boarding house and renovated it to make it feel a little bit more like their home in Hasetsu – tatami mats on the floors, shoji sliding doors, ornamental cherry trees in the garden. Once his grandfather found a way to engineer a man-made hot spring, they opened the house up to accommodate guests and the Hasetsu Castle became a regular tourist utopia. By the time Remus was eight, his grandparents decided to retire back to Hasetsu, and his parents took over the hot spring tenement. For as long as he could remember, and certainly for as long as he’d been skating, Remus would come home to a hot bath in the open air after a long training session, the heat and the minerals soothing his tired, aching muscles.
“Baachan, I could eat four more bowls of katsudon if you’d let me,” Remus muttered through a mouthful of his grandmother’s specialty, his favourite dish. With a smile, his grandmother kissed the top of his head (she did the same for Pete who was sitting across from Remus under the kotatsu, with round, pink cheeks full of food, looking pleased). In the middle of his mouthful, Remus took another bite.
“And I would keep cooking them for you if I didn’t think they would weigh you down,” she said with a mischievous grin that morphed into something that looked like caution in her kind gaze.
After one last bite, Remus set his chopsticks across the top of his bowl and let out a sigh. “If you’re worried that a little weight gain will hinder my figure skating career, don’t bother.” From over the top of his bowl (that he’d lifted to help spade the last bits of rice into his mouth), Pete shot a worried glance in Remus’ direction, piercing blue eyes under blonde brows. “I’m … I’m thinking of retiring.”
“What?” Pete practically shrieked, dramatically slamming his ceramic bowl onto the tabletop. He was lucky it didn’t shatter. He was also lucky that Remus’ grandmother was standing right behind him to administer a few strong blows to his back because he immediately started choking on the leftover rice that suddenly got sucked into his windpipe. When he finished nearly dying, he followed up with, “Why?”
“Pete, I’m old compared to all these prodigies coming out now.”
Pete instantly set into arguing. “Sirius Black is two years older than you are.”
“Sirius Black is a world champion. I didn’t even win the British Championship.”
“You did well enough to be selected for the Euros.”
“That’s not the point,” Remus huffed at how easily Pete could derail his conversations. “Have you seen the new kid from Russia? The one everyone said Sirius was mentoring? I can’t beat him.”
“What is he, like, twelve?”
Remus rolled his eyes. “He’s fifteen. You know that.” Before Pete could shoot back another well-timed quip, Remus’ grandmother stood over him, her hand on Pete’s shoulder, challenge in her eye.
“I don’t know this Russian child, but I know you,” she said to Remus, watching him so pointedly that Remus adjusted his glasses as a way to break the stern gaze. “And you can do anything, Tsuki-chan.”
Pete barely stifled a snorting laugh. “Thank you, Obaasan,” he said, patting her hand, still on his shoulder. As she walked away, Pete’s laughter slipped out. “I forget that’s why we call you Moony.”
“You’re just bitter because she still calls you Nezumi-chan,” Remus grinned obnoxiously.
“Hey, being likened to a mouse is way more adorable than being the fucking moon.” Pete reached out his foot and kicked Remus from underneath the warm kotatsu. Remus didn’t hesitate to kick back.
“The name is not what’s important, the story is what’s important,” Remus reminded him. “And last I checked, she calls you a mouse because you didn’t say a single word when you first met her, which is really more embarrassing than cute, isn’t it?” In retaliation, Pete flipped Remus his middle finger.
“Oh, right, and reaching up to try to grab the moon as a kid is not at all embarrassing.”
“You’re right, it’s not, it’s endearing.” When the playful jabs came to a sudden halt, Remus looked back to find Pete with a strangely troubled expression, fiddling with a loose thread on the kotatsu blanket.
“Are you really going to retire?” he asked, risking a glance back in Remus’ direction.
“I don’t know, Pete,” he said, followed by a weighted sigh. He habitually adjusted his glasses.
“After one bad program?” Pete pressed.
“I don’t know, Pete,” Remus repeated, more emphatically. “I’m feeling sort of hopeless just now.”
Without missing a beat, Pete pulled himself up, standing before Remus even had the chance to raise his head. “You know what will cheer you up?” He rounded to Remus’ side of the kotatsu before Remus could even get himself out from underneath it. He held out his hand expectantly. “Getting back on the ice and proving to yourself that Minsk was a one-off. You can land those quads. I’ve seen you do it.”
At first, Remus just looked at him, his gaze darting back and forth between Pete’s face and his outstretched hand. It would be nice to get back on the ice, to land those jumps he’d missed. “Fine,” he said with a defeated sigh as Pete let out a victorious whoop. “But just for a bit!” he amended. “I haven’t had a soak in the hot spring in weeks because of all the training and I’ve been dying to come home to it.”
“Obaasan, we’re going to the rink!” Pete shouted into the kitchen. “Save me some daifuku!”
“You got it, Nezumi-chan!” Hiroko called back. Pete’s pale skin went pink, but only for a moment.
“I’m not ashamed. I love it,” Pete admitted with a blissful grin and a bubbling laugh as he and Remus threw on their jackets. As soon as Remus had a chance to gather up his equipment bag, ever ready for times like this, Pete was already tugging Remus along by one hand, rushing them out into the cold.
Being in the rink was like being hugged by Pete really tightly and really constantly. The whole place smelled like him. Or, rather, Pete smelled like this place because of all the time he spent in it, but Remus had never been able to dissociate this place from Pete. Despite the fact that Remus had been skating here since he was barely five years old, he could hardly recall a single memory of this rink without Pete in it, from that first day at eleven years old when Pete showed up in his hockey gear, front tooth already missing, a grin as wide as the rink itself, as bright as the silver ice. Remus took in a deep breath.
“Go ahead and lace up, Remus, I’m going to pop down to the cellar and grab a couple beers. I’m hoping inebriation will get you to reconsider retirement,” he winked before jumping the counter into the dark concession booth instead of walking all the way over to the door on the other side. Ever since Pete took over ownership of the rink, he kept a secret stash of alcohol in the refrigerator in the cellar, mostly for him and Remus after painfully long practice sessions, sometimes for the blokes on his hockey team.
As soon as Pete disappeared into the dark, Remus shed his coat and safely tucked his glasses into their case before trading his heavy jumper for a lighter, more fitted long-sleeved shirt that he kept in his bag, one that could facilitate his upper body movements a little better. While rummaging in the bottom of his bag, he also retrieved his contact case, and he popped them in without a mirror, so used to having to trade his glasses for contacts before every skate. As he blinked, he took a seat on one of the benches outside the rink to pull on his skates, tugging at the hips of his slim-fit joggers to accommodate the spread of his thighs and to hike the hem to his lower calves, where they could tuck into the top of his skates.
As he laced up his skates, he considered where to start. Should he run through the whole program, top to bottom? Should he just focus on the jumps he’d fucked up? Should he specifically practice the quad lutz that always seemed to trip him up? Should he start working on a new program?
The answer was in the back of his mind before he stood. As he walked over to the edge of the ice, feet heavy from his skates, he took his phone from his pocket and scrolled through his music until he landed on the song he’d been looking for, a song that he’d played many times in his head as he skated.
It was the free skate that took the entire skating community by surprise. Until this season, Sirius skated to classical pieces, religiously, despite the fact that his counterparts skating for other countries had begun to embrace the rule change that allowed them to skate to music with lyrics. Previously, he’d skated to Tchaikovsky, to Rachmaninoff, to Boléro, even to John Williams and Howard Shore a time or two.
But then, just before the start of the season, Sirius Black did something that nobody expected. He fired his coach. Even more controversially, he did something that Russian skaters simply did not do – he left Russia and moved to London to employ the services of a relatively new English coach, James Potter, a figure skater who had his career cut short by a debilitating hip injury from which he never fully recovered.
Lucius Malfoy, the most celebrated figure skating coach in Russia, had been Sirius’ coach since he was thirteen. To say Lucius Malfoy was a dictator would be too polite. There were widespread rumors that Lucius used brutal tactics to motivate his athletes toward perfection – verbal and physical abuse, starvation and daily weigh-ins, forced to skate through crippling injuries. Remus had even heard that Lucius’ skaters weren’t even allowed water before a skate for fear it would throw off their equilibrium.
Despite the rumors, nobody expected Sirius Black to leave his coach, to leave Russia. He was very vague about whether or not he would ever return to Russia, but he didn’t mince words when he explicitly stated he would never again skate under the coaching of Lucius Malfoy. When questioned further in interviews about why he left Russia, about why he left Lucius specifically, Sirius would just smile at the camera, with a quietly solemn sort of expression, and give the same answer. ‘I left to save my life.’
The whole world was watching when Sirius Black took the ice at the Internationaux de France, the first of two competitions that Sirius had been assigned in the Grand Prix. Had his skating style changed under a new coach? Would he still be the same flawless skater as he was under Lucius’ coaching?
His short program was just as beautiful as it had ever been, but, at first, it didn’t seem starkly different from what he’d done in the past. He skated to Rachmaninoff, a medley arrangement that started slow and solemn and built into something hopeful and promising. As always, his jumps were clean and precise, his spins were beautiful and tight, but the longer he skated, the clearer it became. There was something different. It wasn’t in the program, it was in Sirius himself. For the first time that Remus could remember, Sirius didn’t skate with a stern, determined expression built on focus and fear. In this program, he actually smiled. He moved with more feeling to the song. He skated like he loved doing it.
The next day, Sirius was the last to take the ice for the free skate. Unlike his custom of wearing brightly colored, attention-grabbing outfits, the first surprise of the program was Sirius’ attire. His well-tailored outfit was completely black, the only break from the darkness was a sheer feather appliqué that exposed part of his chest from shoulder to hip, outlined in shimmering silver rhinestones. His shoulder-length black hair was pinned back into a braided bun, one side adorned with a glittering white barrette.
The silence in that rink was unlike anything Remus had ever experienced, and he wasn’t even the one on the ice, wasn’t even competing in this event at all – he didn’t share either of his two assigned Grand Prix events with Sirius. He had traveled to France only to see this. But even in the stands, the air was so still and so silent that Remus could hear every scrape of Sirius’ blades as he skated to the center of the ice. He swore he could even hear the short sigh that Sirius breathed out before the music started.
It didn’t matter that Remus had studied every single one of Sirius’ programs up to that point, when Sirius finished that free skate, breathless and wearing the most victorious smile that Remus had ever seen on his face, Remus felt tears stinging at the corners of his eyes. Remus wasn’t the only one. The crowd gave him the first standing ovation of the entire competition. And Sirius left with gold.
His free skate had been unique for so many reasons. Of course, it was just as technically difficult as the judges were used to from Sirius Black, but he didn’t skate to a classical piece from a Russian composer, as he’d done in dozens of other programs. This program, he skated to Bird Set Free.
By now, Remus had that program memorized. He’d skated it many times, just for the practice, because it was such a challenging program – four quads (including a lutz in combination with a triple toe loop, which took place in the second half of the program), two triple axels, even a Beillmann spin, one of Sirius’ signature moves, something which most male figure skaters didn’t even attempt because of the flexibility required to execute it well. As everything else in the program, Sirius made it look effortless.
With the song paused and ready on his phone, Remus set it down to roll his shoulders a bit, to bounce in his skates, to tilt his head deeply to both sides in an effort to ease the tension he could feel building, readying his muscles for the difficult skate ahead. He thought of Sirius and the tension abated.
Because of all the upgrades Pete had done on their old home rink (that he’d done almost exclusively to make Remus’ practices that much easier), Remus no longer had to find a way to get his program music onto a CD or a cassette, for fuck’s sake, and instead could use the Bluetooth connection on his phone. He stepped onto the ice before circling back to where his phone was lying on the top of the wall around the ice, and he took a moment to queue the song, pausing it before it could get started.
Setting his phone aside again, Remus skated out to center ice, taking a short breath and letting it out, the same way Sirius had done just before he skated this very program. From his watch, Remus hit play and used the delay between his phone and the overhead speakers to position himself the same way Sirius did – left leg crossed behind his right, right hand stretched out toward his left skate, left elbow raised to let his hand fall, draping over his face, a deliberate push, casting his gaze down toward the ice.
As the solemn piano melody began, he held this posture, just as Sirius always had, purposefully prolonged to emphasize the message he was trying to convey. While he held still, Remus couldn’t help but feel the helplessness in this stance, his gaze being forced downward, forced away from the audience, forced to pose for an uneasy length of time, the curve in his waist uncomfortably contorted to one side.
The moment the backbeat moved into the song, Remus let his hand slide around the back of his neck as the rest of his body followed, his feet working on the muscle memory of having skated this program almost more often than his own. As he let his arms drag down his torso, he closed his eyes for a moment, focusing on the sincerity and agony of the lyrics, ‘Clipped wings, I was a broken thing. Had a voice, had a voice but I could not sing,’ beating his fist against his chest in time to the repeated phrase and wondering if this was the truth of Sirius’ career. Surrounded by people who eternally silenced him, people who used him for their benefit regardless of the negative effect it would inevitably have on Sirius himself.
With the rasp of ‘You would wind me down, I struggled on the ground,’ Remus fell to one knee, letting his momentum and the slick of the ice propel him before twisting back onto both feet again, his hands fluidly following the rotation of his body before he moved them over his hair, just the same way that Sirius did in his free skate. Remus could still recall the way his heart skipped a beat during Sirius’ program at the Internationaux over the way Sirius had leaned into the touch of his own hands, porcelain fingers slipping over his dark hair, the elegant arch of his back as he’d moved across the ice.
The song moved into ‘So lost, the line had been crossed’ and Remus moved into the first combination jump –a triple axel followed by a triple toe loop – which Remus managed to time quite well to the open and close of the lyric ‘Had a voice, had a voice but I could not talk,’ that followed, surprising even himself. Turning at the edge of the ice, Remus let his hands roll down his shoulders as he turned gracefully, stretching his arms out to each side, matching his movements to the line ‘I struggle to fly now.’
On cue with the line ‘But there’s a scream inside that we all try to hide,’ Remus turned to skate backward, preparing for the first quad of the program, a quad flip that Sirius timed always timed so expertly to the triple drumbeat that changed the pace of the song, striking it up into something more biting and raw than the sober, solitary piano. Launching himself off the ice with his right toe pick, he held his arms tightly to his chest as he rotated in the air, coming down to land smoothly on the outside edge of his right skate, just as that distinct triple drumbeat ended. He smiled to himself, wishing Sirius could’ve seen it, imagining the characteristic grin on Sirius’ face, the same one he’d worn in his free skate.
With the first quad out of the way, the residual nerves in Remus’ chest began to mellow as he swept across the very outer edge of the ice, clenching his fists with outstretched arms to the sharp, stinging, savage delivery of the harmony in ‘We hold on so tight, but I don’t want to die,’ that always made Remus’ heart break a little. Every time he heard it, he thought of Sirius saying the words ‘I left to save my life’ and Remus couldn’t help but curl his fists a little tighter, grit his teeth a little harder, the movement of his whole body subconsciously following the underlying aching beat of the drums.
A triple axel followed at the start of the chorus, with ‘I don’t care if I sing off key, I find myself in my melodies,’ and Remus was in the air before he even realized his skates had left the ice, his body following every change in the song like it inhabited his limbs. When he landed on that right skate again, just as stably as he had in the quad before it, he let the rigidity in his spine lapse a little, let the framework of his body loosen a bit so he could move more freely, so that he could feel what Sirius felt in this song.
When the singer reached high to sing the words, ‘I sing for love, I sing for me,’ there was a familiar and affectionate pull in Remus’ chest as he recalled watching Sirius land the second quad of the program to that lyric. Remus was so focused on the energy of the song and the thrill of skating that his landing skate was back on the ice before he even had time to fret about how he would complete it. It was so nice to be on the ice without being in his head that he let his head fall back, his eyes fall closed, palms open at his sides, just for a split second, just to revel in the movement, in the freedom, in the serenity.
The drive of the song continued as Remus moved into the combination spin, starting with a flying camel, a rush of cold air against his flushed cheeks as he held his body parallel to the ice in the spin, his hands clasped tightly behind his back as the title of the song repeated emphatically, ‘I’ll shout it out like a bird set free.’ With graceful movement that he borrowed from all the time he spent watching Sirius move the same way, he shifted into a sit spin, holding onto his skate extended in front of him, leaning deeply into his thigh to increase the speed before moving upright again, spinning with one hand to his chest, the other above his head. He pictured the agility with which Sirius moved and chased it to claim for himself.
As the beat dropped out, leaving only the backbeat and the piano again as the singer crooned with ‘Now I fly, hit the high notes. I have a voice, have a voice, hear me roar tonight,’ there was a complicated step sequence that started with him rising up onto the toe picks of his skates and letting the movement roll up through his body before gliding off, turning and twisting as he increased his speed.
As the pre-chorus moved on with ‘Eats us alive, oh, it eats us alive,’ Remus steadied into a straight, backward glide, striking his right toe pick onto the ice to propel into the triple lutz and triple loop combination jump, landing precisely on the return of that distinctive beat. Strangely, there was almost a moment when Remus looked up, as if he would see Sirius standing at the wall, cheering for him.
There was something in this song, in this program that Remus didn’t have in his own programs, something emotional and strong and alive, and he never felt it more than he did right then. He could feel the anger at himself for how poorly he’d done in his own short program, but it wasn’t the same as the disappointment he’d felt that day, it wasn’t the sadness he’d felt apologizing to his mother for his embarrassing performance. No, there was fire in this anger – a burning to do better, to be better. To show Sirius Black that he could skate, that he could contend, that he was worth paying attention to.
With the compelling move back into the pre-chorus came the combination – a quad lutz immediately followed by a triple toe loop. It wasn’t that Remus wasn’t paying attention to the fact that he was moving into his most difficult jump, a jump he had a hard time landing even when not in competition, a jump that he’d fucked up the last time he’d attempted it. No, it was quite the opposite, he was strikingly aware that the jump was coming, and maybe it was the music, maybe it was thirst for vindication, maybe it was pretending that Sirius was skating next to him, but whatever it was, Remus wanted that jump.
On a long, backward glide across the ice that corresponded to the plea of ‘I don’t want to die, I don’t want to die,’ Remus struck the ice with his right toe pick and his breath held, propelling himself into the air with a clean four rotations, landing fluidly on that outer edge of his right skate only long enough to crack the ice again with his left toe pick to immediately launch into the triple toe loop before coming back down to his right skate again, left leg elongated behind him just the line closed and the chorus returned.
For all the trouble that jump usually gave him, it felt like nothing. Of course, Remus had always had the gift of stamina, so the combination being in the second half of the program wasn’t terribly inconvenient for him, and he often used that perk to his advantage in his own programs. But to land a quad lutz that easily, that evenly was something he had only done, even in practice, maybe a few times.
The focus of his mind in that jump, in this whole program, was Sirius. After that interaction at the airport, there was something simmering in the pit of his stomach, and Remus couldn’t quite tell what it was. At first, he thought it was the resignation of defeat, in knowing that Sirius Black would never notice someone like him. But with this routine, and especially with that jump, this strange simmering reached a feverish boiling point that grew until it filled every space in his chest, suddenly so clear and so insistent. It was the determination to be seen. It was the resolve to make sure that Sirius Black would know his name.
With the renewed vigour of the success of that jump combination, when the chorus returned with ‘And I don’t care if I sing off key, I find myself in my melodies,’ Remus was beaming as he flew over the ice, his arms moving over his head with finesse that felt foreign and familiar all at once. This salvation, this release was what Sirius must’ve felt the first time he skated this program. It was like nothing else.
The second combination spin started with the first instance of the line ‘I sing for love, I sing for me’ in the chorus, but Remus lost himself in listening to that line, remembering the way he’d felt the first time he watched Sirius skate to it, and by the time his focus moved back to the movement of his feet, he was already moving out of the back sit spin at the end before even realizing he’d already changed his foot from the sit spin just before it. That was the effect that Sirius Black had on him, the effect he’d always had on him. Even at eleven years old, even at nineteen, even now at twenty-three – every interview, every program, every competition. Sirius Black held his attention like nothing else in the world could.
The first time Remus had seen Sirius skate this program, when it got to the repeated chorus stanza and the songstress went high to sing ‘I sing for love, I sing for me,’ and Sirius had gone to one knee again, leaning back as far as he could go without touching the ice with his arms outstretched behind him, just as Remus was doing now, it was like watching an entirely different person skate. Someone with the level of talent that only Sirius Black could possess but with a passion and fervour that Remus had never before seen from him. Or from anyone, for that matter. Because nobody in the world could skate like Sirius Black could skate, especially not when he was this free. It was powerful. It was beautiful.
As the beat strengthened under the first repetition of ‘I’ll shout it out like a bird set free’, Remus rose to his feet again for the choreographic sequence that followed, twisting and turning as he made his way across the entire expanse of the ice, leaning into an arabesque with one leg extended behind him as he glided down the center of the ice. He used the momentum to lean backward into a layback Ina Bauer, the exhaustion in his body catching up to him as the muscles in his abdomen fluttered with the effort it took to keep him upright through how far he leaned back, nearly parallel to the ice. With one leg in front of the other, skates facing out, he breezed past the wall around the ice, eyes closed and palms open.
As the song went on, Remus thought of Sirius again, of the way watching Sirius skate made him feel, of the way seeing Sirius walk into a room made his heart race in a way that skating couldn’t. He prepared for the last quad of the program without a scrap of hesitation, turning and sweeping his right skate up and across his left before taking off from the edge of his left skate into a quad salchow, starting to feel the fatigue in his legs from the difficulty of this program. It didn’t keep the smile from his face.
‘I’ll shout it out like a bird set free,’ she sang for the last time, as if singing it to Remus, her voice rasping as she moved into the wordless vocalization, while Remus moved into the last combination spin, starting with a sit spin with a twist, one hand raised above his head, and moving into a camel spin, arms open wide at each side as his right skate made tight circles in the ice underneath it, the other level to his body and the ice. His fingers were spread broadly as he pumped his arms to the beat of the song, like the flap of wings, like a bird set free. As he righted himself within the spin, he reached back for his skate, pulling it up over his head and arching his back into a Beillmann spin, a spin that Sirius Black was famous for, a spin that Remus had spent countless hours on, just so he could do it like Sirius did it.
The soft piano from the intro of the song returned as the pace slowed, and the rate of Remus’ spin slowed in response as he released his skate. When Remus turned out of the last spin, he set the toe of his right skate to the ice, legs slightly parted, holding both arms above his head and looking upward, the victorious stance a stark difference from the downcast expression of the start of the skate.
With his chest heaving in exhaustion, Remus held that position for a moment after the song faded out, only to be startled from it as he heard Pete say, rather loudly, “Where the fuck did that come from?” As Remus lowered his arms and met Pete’s triumphant gaze, he found that Pete was holding up his cell phone with both hands, having apparently recorded what Remus hoped was the whole, successful program. With a sheepish grin, Remus lowered his head, running his hand over the back of his neck, up through the back of his unruly hair, glancing up only once as Pete looked on in wild bewilderment.
“Surely you’re rethinking this whole early retirement business now, right?” Pete asked before taking another long swig from his beer. With a sigh of contentment, he set the amber bottle on the flat stones that made up the edge of the open-air bath but didn’t neglect to give Remus a sarcastic glare.
“Just because I skated one good program?” Remus scoffed with a roll of his eyes, holding his bottle by the neck as he took a drink of his own. “One good skate out of hundreds of bad ones?”
“You didn’t just skate a good program,” Pete corrected, dipping his hands into the hot water they were settled in so that he could push his wet fingers through his previously dry hair. “You skated Sirius Black’s program. Arguably his most difficult program to date. And it was fucking flawless, mate.”
There was pink in Remus’ cheeks, but he pretended it was because of the steam from the hot spring. “It wasn’t flawless. I saw the video. Plenty of room for improvement.” Pete let out a derisive snort.
“Tell that to Sirius Black when he –” Suddenly, he pulled his lips into his teeth to silence himself.
“When he what?” Remus clarified, brows furrowed as he looked over at Pete in concern.
“Eh, nothing,” he shrugged in response, but Remus continued looking at him suspiciously enough that Pete felt compelled to change the subject. “Did Hiroko have any more of that red bean daifuku? I love those, I could eat a hundred of them. How does she make it? Think she would give me the recipe?”
Though Pete’s sudden rambling made Remus even more suspicious, he decided to drop it for now as he said, “Smooth transition, Pete, but unless you sent that video directly to Sirius Black himself, I guess it doesn’t matter.” He went still, eyes wide. “Please tell me you didn’t send that video to Sirius Black.”
“I did not do that, no,” Pete said with a laugh. “You think I have contact info for Sirius Black?”
“You’d better pray you don’t,” Remus said in a playful half-growl as he stared Pete directly in the face, narrowing his amber eyes. “Because if I found out you’ve been holding out on me, I will not only murder you, but I will find a way to bring you back from the dead, and then murder you all over again.”
“Your crush is getting rather … serious, isn’t it?” Pete said, laughing hysterically at his own joke.
“Like you haven’t used that joke a thousand times,” Remus groaned. “Also, shut the fuck up, my Dad still thinks I just enjoy watching Sirius skate, he doesn’t exactly know I’d –” Remus quickly quieted himself before he could admit anything terrible incriminating – not that Pete didn’t already know.
“Kneel before him, so to speak?” Pete said, with a smile that was as wide as it was innocent.
Remus’ cheeks flushed again, and he couldn’t really blame it on the hot spring. “Yes, thank you.”
“You’d think your dad would’ve figured it out by now.” Pete said, taking the last, long drink out of his bottle with a loud snap of a sigh. “I mean, your tongue is practically hanging out of your mouth –”
Remus interjected with an “Oh my God, shut up,” but Pete continued.
“ – Like a cartoon wolf every time you see him anywhere, on the ice or off.”
“Jesus Christ,” Remus groaned.
“I think you actually whimpered out loud in that last interview when he winked at the camera, am I remembering that correctly?” Pete grinned stupidly, elbowing Remus in the ribs very deliberately.
“Why are we friends? I hate you so much.”
“Imagine – you’re that person to someone else,” Pete said, suddenly so solemn that when Remus looked over to argue, he was convinced otherwise by Pete’s expression alone. “If you retire now, you might be letting down a lot of people. Yourself the most. I just don’t want you to look back in ten years and regret it, Moony.” He specifically used the English version of his grandmother’s nickname just to add an extra layer of sentimentalism to the guilt he was laying on rather thickly. Remus sighed heavily.
“I know. You’re right,” he admitted, much to Pete’s delight.
“I always am,” Pete flashed a grin just before he stood quickly and unexpectedly, not giving Remus the time to courteously look away before Pete’s bare arse took up his whole field of view.
“I remember when you used to hate the open-air bath,” Remus said with a grumble of annoyance as he turned his head deeply to one side. “I miss that. We’re far too comfortable with each other.”
“Says the naked bloke sitting right next to me,” Pete glanced back at Remus with a shrewd expression as he wrapped a towel around his waist, tossing his empty glass bottle into the recycling bin.
“Last I checked, I was the one who just skated my – what was it you said – most difficult program to date?” Remus clapped back with sass in his voice. “I’m soothing tired muscles. What’s your excuse?”
“I just enjoy seeing you naked. You’re very fit, you know,” Pete smirked wickedly as Remus splashed a handful of water in his direction. “Which reminds me, I can’t sit next to you anymore.”
“It’s because I’m gay, isn’t it,” Remus deadpanned as Pete laughed boisterously, retaliating by throwing a rolled-up towel at Remus’ head – entirely unsuccessful as it unrolled before it reached him.
“It’s because you make me look like a porker in comparison.” His laughter continued as he opened both palms to give himself a few playful slaps on the belly on his way to the door inside.
“You’re not fooling anybody, that’s practically all muscle, Defenseman of the Year,” Remus called, alluding to the title that the local hockey league had bestowed on Pete this past year for outstanding work in his chosen position. “You and I both know you’re probably much more fit than I am, actually.”
“Right, I could beat you in arm wrestling,” Pete nodded, sagely at first, but then the corners of his mouth turned up into something devious as he added, “and you could beat me at … doing the splits.”
Remus growled behind closed lips. “Now I know why you really don’t want to sit by me – it’s so I can’t fucking hit you,” he fussed playfully. With nothing to throw, he shot Pete his middle finger instead.
“Listen, do you want to practice tomorrow?” Pete asked, opening the steam-covered glass door and leaning on the handle as he continued. “Say yes and I’ll be here at 8am with two protein shakes.”
“Not tomorrow.” Remus shook his head softly, garnering a concerned glance from Pete. “I just want to take some time to rest and reflect and decide if I’m about to change the whole course of my life.”
With a nod of understanding, Pete smiled. “Well, call me tomorrow, either way.”
“I will,” Remus agreed. When Pete gave him a look of disbelief, Remus added, “I promise.”
“Good,” Pete grinned as he walked inside. “And eat an extra daifuku, you’re an absolute waif.”
“I am not a waif!” Remus shouted, but the door was already closed. With a great exhale, Remus dipped below the surface of the water, leaving no trace of him but a stream of bubbles in the bath.
He’d hardly no sooner resurfaced than Pete appeared in the doorway again, dressed now, wearing an expression that gave Remus pause. Some uncomfortable mixture of concern and amusement.
“Remus, I think … I think you might want to come see this,” he grinned, slightly forced.
“Oh God, what now,” Remus muttered, not really a question, as he emerged from the water and begrudgingly wrapped a towel around his waist. Luckily, Pete allowed him the time to get dressed before they moved into the common lounge area of the boarding house, a spacious sitting room with plenty of sofas and squashy chairs and a few kotatsu in front of a large television, just off the main dining area.
Strangely, his father was there, despite the fact that it was well after midnight and his mother had long since gone to bed. As he and Pete moved into the room, Remus realized that his father had a video paused on the television – something from his phone that was cast onto the larger screen.
“Now don’t get mad,” Lyall said cautiously. Remus furrowed his brows.
“Mad about what?” Remus asked, worry storming into his chest. As Lyall played the video from his phone, and it began to play on the screen, Remus’ heart went into his throat immediately. It was a video taken from the Minsk National Airport the day before. He knew this because the video was of Sirius Black, wearing the same black jeans and black hoodie he’d been wearing at that airport, with his hair tied up in the same careless fashion, carting the same dark green suitcase at the same determined pace.
“Sirius, how does it feel to win gold at the Euros for the third year in a row?” one reporter asked, while another moved straight into his personal life with “How do you respond to Lucius Malfoy’s claims that you’re in a relationship with James Potter?” and that one left Remus feeling a little dry in the mouth.
Tastefully, Sirius kept silent to every inquiry, but with the cameras in his face, Remus could see the exact moment that Sirius’ expression switched instantly from vague annoyance and indifference to what looked like genuine interest. It was subtle, but the furrow in his dark brows relaxed slightly, the curve of his lips turned upward just a bit, the silver in his eyes regained a little bit of its lost luster.
When Remus saw what it was that led to that reaction in Sirius’ face, he let out an audible gasp, his hand moving out to clamp over his mouth to keep it in. Because as Sirius pushed through the crowd of reporters, the camera panned over to show Remus’ face, awestruck and doe-eyed in Sirius’ presence.
Remus had no time to analyze what exactly that expression in Sirius’ face had meant because Sirius spoke those painful words, ‘Ready for that photo?’ and Remus watched, in real time, the hope drain from his own face. The moment he effectively ignored Sirius Black had been caught on camera, and as Remus watched himself storm away down the airport terminal, he was a little perturbed to hear one of the reporters ask, “Was that one of your fans?” as if Remus wasn’t an internationally recognized figure skater on his own, even if he was a much lower-level talent compared to someone like Sirius Black.
With the camera now back on Sirius’ face, Remus realized that this nameless emotion in Sirius’ face was not so nameless. “No,” Sirius replied softly, the smile of polite tolerance no longer on his face, instead replaced by something that looked a lot like rejection. There was a bit of bite in his tone as he turned back to the camera only to say, “If you were any good at your job, you’d know who he is.”
As Sirius shoved through the crowd again, the video ended, and Remus was absolutely horrified to find the title of the video – ‘Welsh Figure Skater Remus Lupin DISMISSES Three-Time European Champion Sirius Black.’ As the screen went black, Remus went still. Pete and Lyall exchanged a glance.
“Oh God, I think I’m gonna be sick,” Remus moaned, immediately doubling over so strongly that Pete had to reach out to keep him upright. Lyall just rubbed wide, placating circles over his back.
“Look at it this way,” Pete said with a falsely cheery voice. “At least he knew you weren’t a fan.”
“You think maybe he was asking you for a photo?” Lyall said carefully, as if that were somehow supposed to make Remus feel better, but it only added fuel to an already rampant wildfire as Remus continued to moan dramatically, burying his face into both hands. “Oh, I shouldn’t have said that.”
“My life is over, I might as well retire right now, I am never going to recover from this,” Remus whined as Pete maneuvered his way underneath where Remus was bent over so that he could place Remus’ face underneath his shoulder for a bit more support. “I would’ve been thrilled to get a photo!”
“You had a bad day, I’m sure Sirius understands that,” Pete said, patting Remus on the back.
“I could try to contact his coach to issue an apology?” Lyall offered, but Remus shook his head.
“I’m sure he’s forgotten all about me by now anyway,” he sighed heavily, pulling himself up from Pete’s shoulder. “I appreciate the thought, but I highly doubt he was losing any sleep over it.”
“Remus,” Lyall said in that sympathetic way, but it felt patronizing just then.
“It’s fine, I’ll forget about it, too, I’m sure,” he shrugged, adding with a whine, “In ten years or so.”
“Get some sleep,” Pete offered, guiding Remus to the stairs, and Remus reluctantly let him, as Lyall wordlessly offered his apologies by squeezing Remus’ shoulders before going down the opposite hallway. “I’ll bring you a caramel latte with whipped cream and a raspberry pastry in the morning.”
“Better yet, bring me a first aid kit since I just shot myself in the foot.”
Pete just laughed. “Come on, it’s not all bad,” he said, flashing a curious smile as he glanced back to make sure Remus’ father had indeed gone off to bed. “He looked rather disappointed to not get a photo with you, didn’t he?” he said, both strawberry-blonde brows raised high on his freckled forehead.
“He … did, sort of, didn’t he,” Remus repeated without the rise of questioning inflection.
“And,” Pete added emphatically, “He seemed quite keen to see you at the start, didn’t he?”
“Did he?” Remus hissed sharply, hand shooting up to cover his mouth again.
“If you ask me,” Pete said with a simple shrug as he moved away from the stairs and toward the direction of the front door. “Sweet dreams, lover boy. I’ll lock up on my way out.” With a wink, he left.
As Remus padded slowly in his bare feet up the stairs and all the way down the long hallway, lined with doors that led to guest accommodations, his thoughts were swarming. Silently, he closed his bedroom door to see the poster of Sirius that hung there – a photo taken during the last Worlds, in fitted black velour embellished with red and yellow and orange flames, all the way up to his neck. His arms were outstretched to either side, his legs spread with his skates even as he leaned back into an outside Spread Eagle that had been part of his choreographic sequence of that free skate. His black hair, longer then than it was now, had been tied into a flowing ponytail that swept across his shoulder, his head turned deeply to showcase the sharp lines of his elegant throat. With a tortured sigh, Remus looked up at his idol.
“How could I have fucked up so massively and not even realized it?” he asked the still image of the boy he’d had a crush on since before he knew what it was called. Another frustrated grunt moved from his lungs as he threw himself into bed. Despite his exhaustion, it took a long time to fall asleep.