Chapter 2

 

I come hard, white stars exploding spectacularly behind my eyelids, and my teeth sink deeply into my lower lip to prevent me from making any sound. I don’t know if it’s from fear of our being discovered or if it’s to keep the words I would scream locked inside. The name I would scream. The name I must never utter in a moment like this.

 

I return slowly to earth, to sticky sweat, tangled hair, the smell of sex. My breathing evens and my pulse slows.

 

“You’re amazing, Sirius,” the praise is a rough purr that makes even my tired blood hum.

 

“That good, huh?” I manage to ask flippantly. I know what is expected of me.

 

“You know it.” I can hear the satisfied grin in every word. “Good for you, too?”

 

“Always,” I reply. My tongue darts out to feel my dented lip and I taste a trace of blood. Always, I think.

 

I roll over onto my side and am confronted with a pale-skinned back. I shift closer and wrap my arms around the slender waist just above the line of the sheet.

 

“Sirius.”

 

“I just want to hold you.”

 

“Sirius.”

 

“Shh.” I bury my face in the tangle of red hair, inhaling deeply the scent of shampoo and something unique. “Stay,” I whisper.

 

“Sirius, I can’t. You know I can’t.”

 

I bite my lip again as my chest tightens inexplicably. “I know. Just… stay until I fall asleep? Like you usually do?”

 

I can feel the hesitation in every line of every tense muscle under every inch of satin-smooth skin that meets my body, then the gradual relaxation that indicates capitulation.

 

“All right.”

 

I release my lip and the breath I don’t remember holding as I bury my nose once more in the mass of silky red hair. “Thank you,” I breathe.

 

I close my eyes and try to lose myself in the warmth of the body pressed against mine. Slowly I convince myself the warmth will stay with me, though deep down I cannot forget that it really won’t, and allow myself to drift off to sleep.

 

– – – – –

 

Remus is swiftly and neatly copying down the notes Professor Flitwick has written on the board, when a scrunched up ball of parchment lands in front of him, conveniently smudging the last line of ink before it has had a chance to dry. He scowls at the inanimate interloper rather than bothering to turn and glare at the one responsible. He knows right off that the culprit is Peter, because James would have made a crane or a penguin instead of a ball, Lily would have folded it into a pretty-but-small-and-not-so-flashy design, and Sirius, who is sitting next to Remus, would have just kicked him and whispered, doing without the middle-page all together. And sure enough, when Remus finally deigns to open the note, the three-word message within has been written in Peter’s distinctive handwriting, which is neither sharp nor curvy, with its little dashes instead of dots over the i’s.

 

What’s with Evans?

 

Remus’s scowl deepens in confusion. He scribbles a question of his own at the bottom of the scrap of paper.

 

What?

 

When Flitwick turns away, he tosses it back to his friend.

 

Peter’s response nearly upsets his inkwell.

 

She keeps staring at Padfoot. He doesn’t seem happy about it.

 

Remus glances up in time to see Sirius narrow his eyes pointedly at Lily, who has indeed been staring at him from across the room with a very strange expression on her face.

 

The redhead flushes when she realizes that Remus is looking at her, and hastily turns back to the front of the room.

 

Remus turns to Sirius, kicking the boy’s ankle to get his attention. When Sirius looks at him, he jerks his head in Lily’s direction, raising an eyebrow in question. What’s that about?

 

Sirius shrugs. “How should I know?” he mutters, and bends over his notes.

 

Remus frowns and bites his lip, but doesn’t say anything. He flips the note over.

 

I’ll ask her about it later, he writes, then adds, just to be on the safe side. Don’t say anything to James. He slips it to the boy behind him, then returns his attention to the lesson. Whatever the problem is – if there is a problem, which he assumes there is – he’s sure it will keep until the bell rings. He’ll deal with it then.

 

– – – – –

 

“Eyes closed,” Lily orders.

 

Remus obeys automatically, shifting position slightly on the camp stool. “So, are you going to tell me why you’ve taken up Sirius-watching?” he inquires as Lily’s fingers start to comb through his hair.

 

“I hadn’t planned on it.”

 

“Lots of things happen that we don’t plan on.”

 

“Clearly.” Her fingers tug a little harder than necessary on his hair.

 

He ignores the slight physical abuse, knowing he can outwait her.

 

After several long moments she sighs in exasperation. “You know why I was looking at him.”

 

“I forget,” he drawls, just because he can. “Enlighten me.”

 

He can hear the scowl in her voice. “I don’t approve of his behavior in public,” she informs him, for what must be the millionth time this week alone. She’s clearly annoyed at having to repeat herself.

 

Remus is mildly amused at the way her annoyance increases each time he makes her say it. He knows he probably shouldn’t goad her about this, but she could be a little gentler on his head, and, quite frankly, he’s getting sick of talking about this with her.

 

“He takes risks he shouldn’t. I’m surprised he’s not pushing for public displays of affection. He doesn’t seem to understand the meaning of discretion, lately, if he ever did.”

 

“Haven’t I told you to stop worrying so much?” Remus inquires, tilting his head forward so that Lily can reach the back more easily.

 

Lily sighs again. “Yes, but still. Secret affairs are supposed to be secret. If they were meant to be publicized, they wouldn’t be secret affairs. They’d be…” she trails off, at a loss.

 

“Public affairs?” Remus offers, trying not to laugh.

 

Lily swats the back of his head, but it’s half-hearted.

 

“Look,” he says, as kindly as he can with his jaw pressed against his own chest so she can get at the nape of his neck, “It is a secret. Only the three of us know about it. Unless you’ve gone and told half the school?”

 

She swats the back of his head again, with a bit more force this time. “No more than you have.”

 

“Good. Then it’s just the three of us in the know, so there’s nothing to worry about.”

 

“Done,” she says. “You can open your eyes while we wait. What if he’s told somebody?”

 

Remus opens his eyes a crack, then the rest of the way, peering at her as she moves to lean against one of the sinks. “Who would he tell?”

 

Lily is silent for a moment, thinking. She opens her mouth, then closes it again. When she finally speaks, it’s clearly not what she had originally been thinking. “Pettigrew?”

 

The boy snorts. “Peter? Not likely. He doesn’t talk about such things with Peter, and it’s a good thing. I don’t think Peter could handle this.”

 

She nods, but offers nothing else.

 

Remus regards her for a long moment. “Ask it,” he says at last.

 

“Ask what?”

 

“Don’t play dumb with me, Evans. You know as well as I do that he’d never talk about something like this with Peter.”

 

She sniffs indignantly. “Fine,” she grants. “I know he wouldn’t talk to Peter about it. But I do know there are two likely candidates for Primary Witness to any Sirius Black soul-baring. Remus Lupin and James Potter. You obviously already know. That still leaves number two.”

 

“James is the person he’d be most likely to tell any sort of secret to,” Remus concedes, “but you can be sure he hasn’t said anything to James about this. I’d have heard about it if he had. You’d have heard about it if he had. Everyone would have heard about it if he had.”

 

Lily rolls her eyes. “You’ve got a point,” she admits.

 

He grins.

 

“Stop smirking,” she orders him.

 

He laughs.

 

She rolls her eyes again, then checks her watch. “Go rinse,” she tells him.

 

He rises from the stool and turns one of the showerheads on, sticking just his head under it so he can run the water over his hair. When he’s done, he shuts the water off and watches the last traces of the excess dye run towards the drain like streams of weak blood.

 

He’s silent as the green-eyed girl makes sure there’s no dye left on his skin.

 

“I don’t think he knows why you’ve been staring at him,” Remus remarks at last, buttoning his shirt, which he had removed and hung on a hook for safekeeping.

 

“What?” Lily asks. She’s already heading for the door.

 

“He didn’t seem to know why you were staring at him, earlier,” Remus clarifies, looping his school tie carelessly around his neck. “You might want to let him know you’ve been doing it because you disapprove. Wouldn’t do for him to get the wrong idea.”

 

Lily gasps indignantly and turns to glare at her friend.

 

Remus chuckles, and winks, then slips past her and out into the corridor, snagging the ‘Out of Order’ sign from the door and stowing it safely in his school bag.

 

– – – – –

 

It’s nearly dawn when I finally creep into my own bed, his heat and scent still on my skin.

 

“You’re amazing, Sirius,” I’d told him. I always do. That’s what’s expected of me. Of course, it helps that it’s true. He is amazing. In more ways than one.

 

But discretion is certainly not his strong point, at least not when it comes to this particular situation. I try not to worry, but it’s getting harder. He’s so casual about it these days, about soft touches and little brushes when he thinks no one’s watching. It’s almost as if he wants to get caught. I know that’s not true, and I know he really is trying to be careful, but I have this niggling fear that he’ll slip up, that the secret will get out. And then it will all be over. Everything.

 

We’re not a couple. We can’t be. We don’t want to be. We agreed on that at the beginning. Well, actually, we barely spoke at the beginning, we just fucked, because that’s what we wanted, that’s what we needed. But later, when this… arrangement… became whatever it is now, we decided that this is all it would be. We’d screw like rabbits in private, if that’s what we needed, but it wouldn’t affect the rest of our lives, or the relationship we have in public. It would be a secret. So that’s what it is.

 

Only… lately, he’s been different, and I don’t understand it. I’m not really sure I want to understand it. We do this for stress relief, and stress relief only. It’s just sex. That’s it. I get the feeling that if I try to understand, my stress levels will go way up, which would really defeat the purpose.

 

I groan into my pillow and give my bed curtains an extra twitch, to keep out the light of the rising sun.

 

Maybe there’s nothing to understand, I think to myself, tired enough to half believe it. Maybe he’s just behaving like this… asking me to stay… because he likes the heat of another body in bed with him. He doesn’t like the cold. Everyone knows that.

 

I have to admit, as I huddle in my cold sheets, the thought of shared body-heat is very appealing.

 

I remind myself firmly of the dangers of staying in bed with him, of the consequences of being caught. The consequences for both of us.

 

It’s enough to keep me safely in my own chilly bed, but it’s a close call.

 

TBC