There are certain things a bloke expects when
he's visiting a mate at
work. That the mate will be happy to see him, for instance, that the
mate will welcome the break in the tedium that is clerking at a dusty
bookshop, that the mate will be effusively thankful for the lunch which
is being brought to him, and if that mate happens to be a werewolf the
day after the full moon, that he will admit that coming into work the
very next day was a singularly stupid idea.
What he does not
expect is to find the mate carrying on with some girl, laughing and
smiling, and leaning over the counter as though he has having a
marvelous time, and having his forearms pawed by said strumpet.
"What's all this then?" Sirius barks, advancing on the counter and
jostling the girl aside so that her hand drops from the sleeve of
Remus' sweater. Sirius casually elbows her stack of books off the
counter while he's at it, so that she'll be forced to drop out of sight
for a moment.
"Sirius," Remus seems unconcerned about the
discovery of his illicit affair, "you remember Janie Higgs? Ravenclaw,
two years behind us?"
"Black," Janie greets unenthusiastically
as she straightens up and sets her books as far away from Sirius as
possible on the counter.
"I've brought you lunch," Sirius says,
brandishing the lunch sack and suppressing a smirk at the huff of
feminine irritation he hears beside him. "It's chicken and noodles from
that place you like round the corner."
That gets a smile out of
Remus, for whom noodley soups are a guilty pleasure, and Sirius preens
in the midst of Remus' full attention, forgetting all about the trollop
for a moment.
"I'll sit it in the back then…" Remus is
reaching up for the bag, and the cuff of his jumper slips off his hand
and down his forearm, revealing two pale scars curling around Remus'
wrist, and Janie lets out a sympathetic "oh!" that sets Sirius' teeth
on edge.
"Oh
Remus," she gushes, leaning on the
counter so that her arm is pushing up her breasts in a highly
scandalous manner, "however did you do that to yourself?"
"It's nothing really," Remus eyes Sirius, making him squirm, "just got
a bit of a nip from an overenthusiastic dog."
"You poor dear! Are you sure the beast didn't have rabies?" Janie
exclaims, and Sirius goes stiff with indignation as Remus murmurs that
no, he's quite familiar with the dog, and he hasn't had any diseases
since that bout with the poodle in Liverpool. Something in Sirius'
chest snaps when Janie's fingers come up to brush the scars.
"That's nothing," he scoffs, too loudly, but it at least makes Janie
turn her head a little. "You should see some of the scars I've got from
my
flying motorbike. Very dangerous, highly illegal."
Remus gives a suspicious-sounding cough, because the only scar Sirius
has is the barely existent one from an exploding inkwell, and you
would've thought he was bound for the freak show the way he carried on
when Pomfrey said it was too close to his eyes to heal the whole way.
"I don’t see any scars," Janie reports, and given how tight Sirius'
t-shirt and jeans are, she probably would see them at that, if he had
any. And really, there's something very wrong with this bint if some of
Remus' piffly scars turn her on more than a flying motorbike.
"They aren't anyplace I can show in public," Sirius leers. Janie
narrows her eyes.
"You're a dog, Black," she sneers. Sirius leans over her menacingly.
"We're a perfect match then, aren't we?" he smiles with a lot of teeth,
"because you are a bi—"
"How about I wrap those up for you?" Remus interrupts smoothly, sliding
Janie's books off the counter and tucking them neatly into a paper bag.
He hands them over the counter with a smile that is a little frayed at
the edges. "Do come again."
Cheeks flushing at the abrupt
dismissal, Janie snatches her books out of Remus' hands and flees the
shop. The bell above the door tinkles cheerfully, and Sirius agrees
whole-heartedly.
"Just what do you…" Remus starts to demand
as the door swings shut, but Sirius is already vaulting the counter and
twisting hands in Remus' robes and pushing him back against the shelves
behind him. "Sirius, you can't…"
"The hell I can't," Sirius
growls in between fierce kisses to Remus' lips and jaw, "if that bint
can just come in here…and just touch you any place she wants…" Sirius'
hand slips down to grip Remus' wrist, fingers biting into the skin
where Padfoot's teeth had scored the night before, "…then I jolly well
can."
"Someone's going to see," Remus reaches up to catch Sirius' face
between his hands and holds him still for a firm kiss before pushing
him back a step, "people do come into the shop, you know."
"Not
if I can help it." Sirius lets go of Remus long enough to draw his wand
from his back pocket and flick the door locked with a click that
brooked no opposition, then turned back to pull Remus up against his
body.
"You're going to get me fired," Remus sighs, drawing
his own wand to at least flip the 'closed for lunch' sign the right way
around.
"You're going to get fired anyway," Sirius retorts,
plucking the wand out of Remus' hand and setting it on the counter with
his own before bending his head to bury his nose in the crook of Remus'
neck.
"I know." Remus slides his arms around Sirius' waist
and leans against him. "I liked this one, though. Hoped it might last a
bit longer."
The resignation in Remus' voice nettles Sirius in
a way that Janie Higgs couldn't've managed even if she had a million
breasts and did a striptease for Remus in the cooking section. Sirius
snatches up the bag with their lunch in it and begins to pull Remus out
from behind the counter.
"Where are we going?" Remus asks.
"To the back room," Sirius announces, crinkling the bag enticingly,
"where I am going to take off all your clothes and feed you noodley
soup. And possibly if I am satisfied with the results, I will let you
go back to work sometime this afternoon."
"If
you're satisfied?" Remus asks, smiling, and Sirius is
pleased to note he's stopped dragging his feet on the carpet.
"Well you know," Sirius can't help but reach out to brush the corner of
Remus' smile with his thumb, "a bloke has certain expectations when he
visits a mate at work."