Chapter 2

 

“Where’ve you been, Remus?” he asks me the moment I walk into our dorm room.

 

“What?” I eye him, unsure why his tone is one of controlled anger. Despite my uncertainty, I can’t help but admire the view. A picture of a dark angel. He’s stretched out full-length on my bed, open robes spread around him like wings, hair like a dark halo on my pillow. His grey eyes aren’t looking at me – they’re focused firmly on the canopy above his head. His tie is off, wound tightly around his fists. His shirt is still open at the top, revealing that tempting stretch of skin. I feel a tightening in my chest, and try to ignore the heat that begins to spread through my veins.

 

“Have you been with Davenport this entire time?” he wants to know. His knuckles are turning white as he savagely twists his tie, the movements of his long fingers completely at odds with his calm voice.

 

“No.” I am still confused.

 

“You didn’t come to dinner.”

 

“I wasn’t hungry.”

 

“Where did you go?”

 

“I went for a walk.”

 

“Where?”

 

“Around the lake. Not that it’s your business, Sirius.” I don’t like being interrogated by someone who won’t even meet my eyes. And why is he on my bed?

 

“Did you walk with Davenport?”

 

“No. Sirius, look at me, will you!”

 

His eyes drop from the canopy to my own eyes, and I feel like they’re burning into me. I crave the heat. I want more.

 

“Why are you on my bed?”

 

“Why not?”

 

“You have your own.”

 

“I like yours.”

 

Don’t do this to me. “I like it, too,” I try for a light retort, hoping to ease the tension I can feel hanging thick in the air between us. It doesn’t help.

 

His eyes go back up to the canopy, hands still knotting his abused tie. I try not to think about his hands, strong, masculine. They’re callused from playing Quidditch, but I know from my bouts recovering from a transformation that they’re gentle when applying salves and wrapping bandages. Those long fingers are extremely talented at drawing, and I have to force myself not to think about what else they might be skilled at.

 

“Where are Prongs and Wormtail?” I ask to distract myself and end the uncomfortable silence. I can’t help but feel trapped, still standing by the door, unable to move farther into the room, or leave, or even tear my eyes away from him.

 

“Not here.”

 

Really? Allow me to express my non-surprise! “I can see that, Sirius.” My hands fist in my pockets, nails digging into my palms as I try to focus on my irritation instead of the images trying to crowd into my brain, all inspired by his position on my bed. “I asked you where they are, not where they aren’t.”

 

“I don’t know where they are. And I don’t care. What did Davenport want?”

 

I don’t know what to say. I’ve never had to keep anything from him, with the obvious exception of my lycanthropic condition, and I don’t like the idea of lying to him. He can always tell. But something has changed between us in the space of a few hours, and even more in the course of the last few minutes, and I’m not sure what it is. I know, somehow, that it is not a good idea to tell him about Bryan’s proposition. Call in canine instinct. The question, of course, then becomes what I should tell him.

 

I choose to avoid both his question and mine. “I need to talk to James,” I tell him, and manage to escape from the room before he can call me on my evasion.

 

I hurry down the stairs to the common room, out through the portrait hole, through the castle, and back out onto the grounds, heading straight for the lake. I’d come here to think earlier, after Bryan’s kiss. I’d skipped dinner, needing the time to myself. Now it seems I have more to think about.

 

I begin the familiar trek around the edge of the lake.

 

I’m not sure what happened up in the dorm. He was angry. Very angry. And his quiet, controlled anger worried me far more than if he’d been shouting. He always shouts. Shouting I can handle. But this tense, boxed-in, tightly coiled, cold fury was something I’d rarely seen before, and, to be honest, it always frightens me when I do see it. Especially now. I don’t know what caused it. Maybe he has something against Bryan, though I can’t imagine what. He’s never said anything against Bryan before, and he usually tells me everything.

 

And there was something besides anger, some emotion I didn’t recognize, or couldn’t place. But what?

 

I toy with various ideas and discard them all as I begin a second lap of the lake’s perimeter, barely realizing how long I’ve been outside.

 

I know nothing about what’s going on in his head. I want to, oh, how I want to, but it is a mystery to me. A mystery I am unable to solve. If he won’t tell me, I cannot force him to.

 

As for myself, I know I’m getting worse. The fire in my blood is fighting, even now in the cold pre-winter wind from the lake. It wants me to go back up to the tower and…

 

But I can’t. Can’t. I can’t. I need to. I want to. I ache to. But I mustn’t. No. No. No. I mustn’t. I can’t. I won’t.

 

“Remus?”

 

I whip around, lose my balance, and stumble backwards, towards the rim of the lake.

 

Bryan catches me before I fall, wrapping strong arms around me and pulling me back to safety, holding me for a brief moment against his chest as he moves us both away from the steep bank and the icy water.

 

“Sorry,” he whispers in my ear, breath hot against my skin. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

 

“It’s all right,” I manage to mutter, and disentangle myself from his loose embrace. “It’s my own fault for standing so near to the edge.”

 

“I saw you race out,” he says, suddenly sounding unsure. “And then you didn’t come back. I probably shouldn’t have followed you, but…” he trails off, brown eyes pleading with me to say something.

 

“It’s all right,” I say again. My brain and my mouth don’t seem to be working properly at all. Visions of him on my bed and the heat radiating from Bryan’s body are getting mixed up. I think I can still taste Bryan’s kiss, but it’s not his kiss that I want. It’s not Bryan I want.

 

“Have you… have you thought about… about what I asked you earlier?” Bryan wants to know.

 

“Yes,” I answer truthfully. I’ve been thinking about it since he left me… except for when I’ve been thinking of… other things. Hot grey eyes blaze in my mind’s eye.

 

“Oh?”

 

I can see he’s trying not to sound too hopeful, trying not to sound as though he’s pressuring me, trying to sound casual. He’s failing miserably, but I give him points for trying.

 

I still don’t know how to tell Bryan I can’t. I don’t know how to explain that I want someone else, someone who will never want me, not the way I want him. I don’t know how to describe the hammering of my heart to this copper-haired young man standing in front of me, trepidation apparent in eyes that are not grey. I am unable to articulate to this mere acquaintance that the one who yanks the breath from my lungs and makes me feel strong and faint all at once is someone I have no illusions about claiming in my waking life.

 

I want to let Bryan down gently, tell him that he is wonderful, but there is someone else I crave, someone else I yearn for. Because Bryan is wonderful. If he weren’t, I wouldn’t feel so terrible about having to reject him. But reject him I must. It’s for the good of all, and the only fair thing to do. Because, although his kiss was sweet, and I wouldn’t mind more kisses from him, I don’t really want them. I don’t want Bryan’s interest, his affection, whatever it is he has for me, or thinks he has for me.

 

Bryan bites his lower lip, dark eyes unsure but with a wish under hair that is not raven-black.

 

“I’ll go with you,” my mouth says.

 

A grin spreads across his lightly freckled, but not tan, face, and he sweeps me up in a hug, spinning me around.

 

Part of my brain screams to take it back, but the rest understands.

 

It is not Bryan I want, but, for now, he will do.

 

TBC