The Devil Makes Work For Idle Thumbs, a harry potter fanfic

"The Devil Makes Work For Idle Thumbs"

Pairing: Sirius Black / OC; implied Sirius Black / Remus Lupin

Rating: "M" – for language and sexual content.

Disclaimer: This story is fictional – that's F-I-C-T-I-O-N. It never happened, and is not real. It is the product of my own imagination. It contains descriptions of male slash (that's male/male homosexual relations). If you do not like this type of content, or if you find homosexuality or its practice offensive, please click the "Back" button or close your Internet browser NOW, and do not read any further. All characters and copyrights are owned by J.K Rowling and Warner Brothers™ (AOL Time Warner), but this story is owned by me and is all my own work.

The character known as "Jon" is an original character entirely of my own invention, and bears no intentional resemblance to any real persons, living or dead. All associated copyrights belong solely to the author. SEB, October 2006.

Dedications: To Stephen, for showing me the way to McNary; to John, who is still (I hope) crawling; and to Steve, who wanted to take me with him. Till Sverige; Jag önskar så pass jag kunde har sa "ja"… Come back soon, my friend, I miss you more and more each day…

Author's Notes: I do not know whether McNary, TX is a real town or is simply made up; my own description of it is, however, definitely fictional.

"I wake up in the morning and I raise my weary head,
I got an old coat for a pillow and the earth was last night's bed.
I don't know where I'm going, only God knows where I've been –
I'm a devil on the run, a six gun lover; a candle in the wind!"

Bon Jovi

"Blaze of Glory"

Instinctively, I hold out my thumb. Thank fuck – the truck blasts its horn and the truck whistles and whines to a halt and finally comes to a stop just a few yards down the road. At least that means I won't have to walk some of the way in this blistering, desert heat. It seemed like such a good idea at the time – flee to the States and lie low until the heat is off for a bit. But how the hell was I supposed to know that the fucking Ministry would put out a semi-international alert that I'd escaped Azkaban? Still, at least the Muggle authorities over here don't know about me yet; if they did, I'd be well and truly buggered. Royally so. So hopefully I should be able to sneak down to Mexico and, from there, Brazil.

Oh my God – I've become a walking fucking cliché!

The desert sun beats down relentlessly as I muster the strength to run towards the long-distance eighteen-wheeler before the driver changes his mind. He's still waiting, thank Christ, and I jog up to the passenger side to come face to face with the driver, who sneers

"What, buddy? You gonna sit in my lap or what?" He laughs as I realize my mistake – they drive on the right in America! You'd think I'd've learned by now, after nearly getting myself killed about three times crossing the road in Phoenix, but no; I've never been a stickler for the fine-print, me.

Blushing, I run around to the right-hand side of the truck-cab and hoist myself through the door I find open for me and nervously blurt out an apology. The driver chuckles, showing a mouthful of yellowing teeth.

"No problem, buddy. You British, or what?"

"Yeah."

"That explains it." I shut the door, and the driver pulls the truck out down the long, dusty road whilst I stare out of the window and watch the city of Phoenix, Arizona slowly fade away in the distance.

Phoenix – it had seemed like such a good omen. Sort of poetic irony, really. In my mind, I was supposed to find some sort of sanctuary there; a chance to fade away for a while. Only all I really found in Phoenix was trouble, in the form of the U.S. Magical Ministry putting out my description around the magical community.

The driver extends his hand, and I clasp it back. He's got a tight grip.

"What's your name?"

"Peter." The pseudonym I've been using. Sort of poetic justice, I'd thought, but now it just feels irksome and I just want to drop it like the nasty, poisonous scorpion that it is.

"Peter what?"

"Just Peter."

"Well, just Peter," he grins again. "I'm Jon. Nice to meet ya." I grin back, hoping that my eyes don't reveal that I no more believe that this guy's parents named him Jon as I'm really called Peter Pettigrew. Jon, who looks about forty-seven or forty-eight maybe, is a big bear of a man. Tall and fat with bulging muscles, great tufts of dark red hair spill over his tank-top from his chest, matching the thick, messy mop of hair and shaggy beard. His jeans and tank-top are covered with stains, probably resulting from the litter of burger cartons which decorate the cab's floor. His right arm sports a tattoo of the Confederate flag, with the word "TRIXIE" underneath it; only the name has been crudely crossed out with what looks like biro ink and a needle from a hotel sewing kit.

"So, just Peter, where ya headed?"

"South."

"Goin' to Mexico, are ya? On the run, maybe?"

"No," I reply.

"Yeah, well… I got me some business down near the border myself, so I can drop ya off, if ya don't mind crossing from Texas," he says, slipping me a wink. The Interstate goes on and on in a seemingly endless straight line of asphalt, whilst the red Arizona desert rolls by. The radio blasts out a Bon Jovi track, and Jon and I sit in silence.

"When you're brought into this world, they say you're born in sin.
Well at least they gave me something I didn't have to steal or have to win!
Well they tell me that I'm wanted – yeah, I'm a wanted man!
I'm colt in your stable! I'm what Cain was to Abel!
Mister Catch-Me-If-You-Can!"

Christ, I swear that fucking song is following me everywhere! Every bar, every hitched ride, it seems to hunt me down, telling everyone exactly what I am – a fugitive, an escaped con, on the run from the Law.

"So," Jon asks, breaking the increasingly uncomfortable silence. "Whereabouts in Britain you from, then?"

"London."

"Oh." He doesn't give a shit where I'm from, really. He only asked for something to say.

"Is it okay to smoke in here?" I ask.

"Sure, buddy." And I know it's cheeky, and it's rude, but I ask anyway.

"Got any fags?"

"What!" Jon gives me a dark look.

"Oh, sorry – cigarettes. You got any cigarettes?" I'd forgotten about that little dialectal difference. Loosely-worded slang can really cause misunderstandings!

"Oh, sure, buddy!" he giggles. "My mistake!" He tosses me a half-full pack of Marlboros and a box of matches from the dashboard. "Light me one too."

"No problem." I light a cigarette and hand it to Jon, before taking one for myself. God, it's good! I haven't had a smoke yet today. The tobacco makes me cough, but I smoke it down anyway; the nicotine calms my nerves. I go to return the cigarettes, but Jon dismisses the gesture with a wave of his big paw.

"Keep 'em. Got another pack right here," he says, patting his trouser pocket. Maybe it's a trick of the light, or my tired brain playing up on me, but for an instant I'm sure that he squeezes at his crotch before returning his hand to the wheel.

The heavy silence starts to close in around us again so, desperate for something to say, I ask

"Who's Trixie?"

"She's none of your goddamn fuckin' business, that's who she is!" he bellows, giving me a stare which could melt lead. But just as suddenly as his temper flared up, his face relaxes into another yellow-tinged grin. "Sorry, Peter. Old girl o' mine. Bit of a delicate subject, if ya know what I mean."

"Yeah," I chuckle nervously.

"So, ya got a girlfriend?"

"No!" But by the time I realise that I've answered far too firmly and quickly, it's already too late.

"Now I ain't no queer, buddy, but I'm pretty sure that that means you are, Pete." Jon laughs – a deep, fruity guffaw laced with the asthmatic wheeze of a twenty-year-long smoker. "Aw, don't you worry none, buddy! I like queers, me. Ain't got no fuckin' problem with 'em. But do yerself a favour – ya may wanna keep it under wraps in these parts. Some people down here ain't too friendly towards your sort."

"Mmm," I reply, mortified at my own stupidity.

"So, ya got a boyfriend?" he chuckles.

"No," I lie, wincing as pictures of Remus flash in front of my eyes and I feel my face burning.

"Which means 'yup', don't it? Don't wanna talk about it? That's cool, buddy. Hope he didn't get ya in too much trouble, like!"

"Nah, he didn't."

"Good." And I finish my cigarette in silence, thinking was it me, or did Jon just reach down and squeeze his crotch again?

The truck rolls on through the desert, but Jon and I exchange no more conversation; the only thing he says for nearly an hour is that we've crossed the State Line into New Mexico. Eventually, Jon (which I still don't know if it's short for Jonathan or whether it's just 'Jon' – if, indeed, it is his real name) pulls the truck over to the side of the seemingly abandoned road and announces

"We're makin' good time. I'm gonna go take a leak. Now don't try ter take my truck or nothin', buddy!" and with another chuckle, a sound which is beginning to go through me, he jumps out of the stationary cab. Moments later, a splashing sound informs me that Jon is, indeed, tending to business, and I'm alone with my thoughts.

The only thing I can think about is Remus. He must be going frantic with worry – in my last owl I told him that I was going to have to try and leave America as soon and as quickly as possible. It was him who tipped me off as to the American authorities starting to look for me. Bless his little hundred-percent cotton wash-at forty-degrees-to-help-save-energy underpants – after all that I put him through, he still believed me when we finally met again in June. He still sent word after me that he loved me. Now, if Remus wasn't here, or if he'd turned around and said that he wanted nothing to do with me after all, then I'd honestly just walk up to the nearest Ministry Official and turn myself in, because the Kiss would be a far better price to pay than to be free without Remus loving me. But he does still love me – he tells me so in every one of his owls. He signs every one of them 'Padfoot, Padfoot, I love you.' So every letter that I send him, I end with 'Moony, Moony, I love you too!' It honestly feels like he's the only thing worth running for. And I'm so very tired of running, so completely exhausted, and at times it feels like I can't go on. But when I just want to stop, I think of him and I think of Harry, and Dumbledore, and the Order, and then I keep running. I keep running for them all, because how can I be of any possible use to any of them if I don't?

"Far away there, buddy?" a voice calls in my ear and a set of fingers snap in front of my face, hauling me back to the real world with a dizzying thump. I look around, uneasy and slightly panicky; as I do, Jon laughs and gently places a giant paw on my shoulder. "Woah" Easy, Petey! 'S'only me. Didn't mean to startle ya none!" He offers me a cigarette, which I gladly take.

"Sorry."

"Don't worry 'bout it. But, man, you were totally – aw, fuck, how do you Brits say it? – away with the fairies, there!"

"Yeah, I guess I was."

"You thinkin' 'bout home?"

"Of sorts."

"Alright," he says, suddenly turning towards me. "Why don't ya tell me what's goin' on, an' I'll tell ya about Trixie, 'kay? Deal?" I look at him warily.

"I don't know."

"Hey, buddy – I won't tell nobody, promise! 'Sides, I'm involved now. Ya owe me that much, at least."

"I guess so."

"Alright. Why don'cha start with your man there. What's his name?"

"James," I say, pulling the first Muggle-sounding name out of my head, disgusted with myself at my shameless desecration of the memory of the dead. Can you imagine? Lily would castrate me on the spot with her fucking teeth! That is, if James wouldn't kick the shit out of me first for implying that I'd had my wicked way with him!

"So names have been changed to protect the innocent, huh?" Jon grins. How the fuck does he keep guessing? "So tell me, why you really headed down to Mexico? An' how does, er, James fit in with all this?"

"He doesn't," I reply. "Look. I really don't want to talk about it, alright? If you're trying to find out if I'm on the run or in trouble or something, then I can assure you that I'm not. I'm just trying to get to Mexico to visit some friends for a while. I was travelling down from Canada, but I got robbed in Phoenix and had all of my cash stolen, so I had to hitch, okay?"

"Okay, okay," says John, waving his hands at me. "Keep your pants on, buddy! Didn't mean to pry, like!"

"Sorry, it's just that –"

"Your reasons are your own?" Jon finishes my sentence for me. "No big deal. 'S just that ya can't be too careful with hitch-hikers in these parts, y'know"

"Yeah? So if you're so worried, then why did you pick me up?" I snap. Jon's face falls, and he looks down at his lap.

"I was lonely," he sighs, defeated, and the truck crosses over into Texas with the cab in silence; the only sound is the radio which, by some annoying twist of fortune, is playing that fucking Bon Jovi song again.

"You ask about my conscience and I offer you my soul.
You ask if I'll grow to be a wise man? Well, I ask if I'll grow old!
You ask me if I known love and what it's like to sing songs in the rain?
Well, I've seen love come, and I've seen it shot down; I've seen it die in vain."

Another hour passes, without a single word spoken between us. I think of Remus – what's he going to do now? I hope he's managed to get some money saved up from that year teaching at Hogwarts. I hate to think of him living in squalor because he can't afford anything decent! If it wasn't too risky, I'd send him an order to open my vault at Gringotts, or my key. But the goblins would soon shop him to the Ministry for being my accomplice or some other crap like that, just for being in contact with me. And the Ministry isn't so hot on actually listening to the likes of Remus, present climate or not.

How many full moons have I missed now? Too many to count, I should imagine. I wonder how he copes with it all, without me and Prongs and (and I mentally curse myself for thinking it but, after all, he was our friend once) Wormtail there to look after him. How he must suffer – the Transformations alone must be murder, but without us there to keep the Wolf occupied? Christ, he must be ripping lumps out of himself! I think of all his scars; start counting them, cataloguing their sizes and shapes and placements and textures. I can still remember every one of the forty-six jagged lines which criss-cross his little body. But then I remember that my mental map must be hopelessly out of date. How many scars does he have now? Fifty? Sixty? One hundred?

"Buddy?… Yo, buddy!" Jon's voice snaps be back from the sea of dreams to the dry land of consciousness. How long had I been out of it?

"Uh?"

"God, man! You must be real exhausted," he says, concern threading through his voice. "You've been asleep near two hours!"

"Oh. I, er, I guess I didn't sleep too well last night."

"Nor the night before that, I'll bet. You been sleepin' rough?"

"Yeah."

"You mean out in the desert? What are ya, crazy? Anythin' could've happened to ya!" He smiles. "Look, I'd tell ya to go take a snooze in the back o' the cab there," he points to a bedroll and a couple of pillows which I hadn't noticed before with his thumb, "but we've only got about a half-hour's drive left, an' ya don't wanna be too groggy when ya cross the border. Police might get suspicious an' think you're up to no good."

"Oh, yeah. Thanks."

"Like I said before. Don't mention it, buddy." And we drive on. "We're gonna end up in a little town called McNary, Peter," Jon explains. "You can see the border point from there. In fact, you could prob'ly stand beside the last buildin' there an' spit right into Mexico!"

"Great."

"So," he says, and pauses. "You still with that James o' yours, huh?"

"Of sorts."

"So he's back in London, eh?"

"No, he's in Kent."

"Sorry?"

"Oh, in the south of England." Jon turns round again.

"You love him, buddy?"

"Yeah… Yes I do. You don't know how much I do."

"I think I do," he replies quietly, his hand dropping down to squeeze his crotch again in the way it's been doing for most of the ride. "My Trixie's a long way aways, too…" He trails off, and looks down at his lap.

"What happened to her? If you don't mind me asking?"

"Naw, I don't mind none. She met herself a sticky end is what she done!" he laughs. I don't like the sound – deep, throaty and menacing, it is not the sort of laughter I want to hear at that precise moment. "Oh, don't worry none, buddy! Wasn't nothin' to do with me! Love o' my life, that gal was." Although every fibre in my being screams at me not to ask – I don't even believe that he's told me his real name, so why the hell should I believe his protestation of innocence? – for some reason, I have to know. I have to. Even if curiosity proved fatal to the proverbial domestic feline, I need to find out if I'm about to meet the infamous Trixie who hasn't been covered over or blotted out, but simply crossed out with nothing more than a crude, homemade tattoo stylus. So I pry further.

"So, what happened?"

"She ran away off to L.A. and ended up working as a cheap ten-dollar whore, before gettin' herself killed by her drugs," says Jon, his eyes moistening. "Stupid bitch!" he adds, his tongue spitting arsenic.

"I'm sorry," I offer, knowing that the platitude is emptier than my stomach.

"Don't be. I ain't," Jon remarks, and leaves it with that.

About twenty minutes later, Jon pulls the truck over into a small dirt track at the side of the road.

"See over there?" he gestures out of the windscreen at two small buildings. I nod. "That's McNary, Texas. You're practic'ly out of these United States now, buddy." He stops the truck and pulls the key out of the ignition slot. Placing it in his jeans pocket, he turns toward me again, flashing his nicotine-and-decay stained grin; his hand now groping his groin without any pretence, openly pulling and squeezing at the pronounced lump between his legs.

"That's fantastic," I say, fumbling at my seatbelt. His hand suddenly shoots out and grabs my wrist, tightly. So tightly, in fact, that it hurts.

"Oh, don't worry, buddy. I'll take ya right down close to the border. All in good time. But first… As ya can see, I've got myself a little problem," he chuckles, punctuating his revelation with another blatant squeeze of his groin. I sit, motionless, thinking what the hell have I got myself into now "After all, I can't exactly be walkin' aroun' town with a hard-on like this now, can I? Wouldn't be right. Might give some o' the young ladies a scare!" Another nasty chuckle floats through the truck's cab.

"S'pose not."

"Yeah." He pauses, looking at me, still clasping my wrist.

"So… take care of yourself and let's go," I try, but somehow the idea of quickly masturbating does not appear to be in Jon's mind at all, although I think that I appear there somewhere. Probably with quite the starring rôle, too.

Jon looks at me expectantly.

"You know," he starts. "I ain't no fuckin' queer. I told ya that already. But a mouth's a mouth as far as I concern myself, buddy. Just as I'm sure that a cock's a fuckin' cock to you, eh?" His grin twists into a sneer – the type of sneer that one usually associates with nastiness and bad things happening to people; the sort of look that when you were a little boy you were always taught to run ten miles from – with the fading afternoon Texan sun illuminating his face in a sinister, orange glow which, in combination with his hair colour, only makes the overstuffed teddy-bear seem more malevolent than ever before. "I know you been lyin' to me, Peter, if that's even close to your real name. I know you're on the run. D'ya think I came down in the last fuckin' shower? Huh? I've been a goddamn trucker for the last twenty-five years! I've picked up hundreds of hitchers in my time; all of 'em headed down south to see friends or relatives or whatever. You don't think I ain't seen this bullshit before?"

"No, you probably have."

"You bet your ass I have!" he laughs, triumphantly, slamming his free hand down on the steering wheel, before returning it to his crotch. "So I'll strike ya a deal, Mister-Just-Peter. You help me, an' I'll help you. You take care of this for me, or I'll drive ya straight to the Border Patrol an' rat ya in for the fugitive ya so obviously are, 'kay? You open yer mouth, an' I'll keep mine shut. Deal?" he says, taking his hand off my wrist and offering it to me. What choice do I have? A fat lot of good I am to Remus if I get myself arrested and locked up, aren't I? It's a lose-lose situation, isn't it, where I'm damned if I don't, and damned if I do, right? So, with the thought of Remus suffering more if I get caught than if I have to eventually tell him that I've cheated on him, I do the only thing that I can do. I clasp Jon's outstretched hand and, closing my eyes, whisper the word which binds me to Jon the Trucker's mercy.

"Deal…"

"Hot damn!" Jon exclaims, punching the steering wheel again in delight. I knew ya'd see sense, buddy! In the back!" he motions with his thumb, and starts climbing through between the seats towards the little makeshift bed. Sighing, I follow him. Jon lies down on the bedroll and unbuckles his belt. He makes as if to unzip his fly, but stops, informing me "Naw. I think you can do the work, Petey." So I do. I reach out, my hands trembling, and undo his jeans, revealing a pair of dirty, greying white underpants. Jon closes his eyes, and I think that it must have been a while since he has seen any action which didn't involve his left hand. So I relieve him of his filthy underwear. A rock-hard erection springs up to meet me, the head glistening an angry, bright red and clashing with the deep ginger hair which surrounds his crotch. I grasp the short, fat penis and give it a quick lick along its length. Jon groans, and his legs tense and hunch up towards his torso. The taste is disgusting – the man hasn't bathed for days. But then again, I'm hardly in any sort of position to pass judgement on that front – I'm sure that I must stink to high heaven myself. And then, in the corner of my eye, I see the lice; tiny black and white dots which creep all over his pubic thatch like little spiders on a web, making me rethink my earlier conclusions about Jon's sex-life and willingness to associate himself with 'cheap, ten-dollar whores'. I hold back the gag in my throat, and look up at him.

"You'll have to bear with me, Jon," I tell him. "It's just that I've never –" I stop myself from saying 'sucked off someone crawling with crabs' and rescue myself by saying "given a blowjob to someone who was circumcised before. They don't go for it much in Britain."

"Oh, don' worry none, buddy! Yer doin' fine!" he gasps as my hand creeps up and down the short shaft. "Jes' take yer time if ya need to…"

Suppressing the urge to vomit, I open my mouth and plunge down again. To hell with it – I'm fucking sick of this beard, anyway; it'd be a hell of a relief to shave it off for a bit. Swallowing down most of his cock, Jon gives a scream of delight:

"Sweet Jesus! You're fuckin' good, buddy!", and I begin to move my head up and down, sucking and licking, concentrating on those parts of his penis which extract the more animalistic grunting noises from the trucker. I just want to get this over with as quickly as I can. The only thought that pulses in my head is 'make him come... make him come... just make him fucking come…'

It's so completely different to when I used to do this with Remus. God, Remus! What would he think of me if he could see what I'm doing now? Would he understand? Or would he be appalled with me, reject me, never wanting to be in the same room as me ever again? I try imagining that it's my beautiful werewolf in my mouth, instead of this dirty, smelly truck-driver. But all the little tricks I learned for him, the slow licking around the ridge of the head, the excruciatingly slow half-suction up and down the shaft, followed by the furiously fast movements with just the head in my mouth – they just don't seem to be having the same effect. Where Remus would squirm and beg for me to go harder, Jon just breathes heavily, and he positively screams when I hit that little spot which Remus finds is rather indifferent. It is so very hard, pretending that you're making love to someone else when all you can do is listen out for grunts and groans which don't come; every moan that doesn't happen reminding me of my infidelity towards the one man who I love with all of my heart.

Finally, I feel the head start to swell up in my mouth, and Jon's testicles tense and draw up tightly. Jon, reduced to nothing more than a quivering, sweating wreck, his head thrashing violently from side to side and moaning

"Trixie! Oh, Trixie! Yes, girl!", is in no fit state to give me any sort of warning as a gush of sticky, warm liquid hitting the back of my throat forces me off him. I swap my mouth for my hand and rapidly stroke the erection up and down as a second and third spurt of pungent-smelling semen dribble out over my fingers; all the while Jon whimpers and whines the name that he's spent years trying to forget and now is the only thing which he can remember.

Jon slumps back down, exhausted, panting.

"Jesus fuckin' Christ, buddy!" he manages after a few minutes. "That was the best blowjob I ever…" He stops, eyes glistening with moisture, and his face falls as if he is a puppet whose strings have been slashed. Suddenly, he jumps up and pulls up his clothes. "Look, I, uh –" he mumbles, and then he starts to cry. Great, heaving sobs fill the cab as tears stream down his face. I reach out to touch his shoulder, and he grabs at me, pulling me into a deathly-tight bear-hug; almost as if he is holding on to me for sheer life itself. He feels as delicate and as fragile as a china doll; as if one false movement would send him tumbling down onto the floor where he would smash, irreparably forever, into a million tiny pieces.

"Hey," I offer.

"Look, buddy," he says through those terrible tears which threaten to set me off crying myself. "I shouldn't oughtn't've made ya do that. 'S my fault! 'S'all my fuckin' fault!" he screams. "I jus' miss her so badly… so terrible, like…" And it hits me – he didn't want a quick blowjob in the back of his cab as payment for driving me all the way down here at all. He never wanted that. He was just desperate for half a chance to replicate the touch of his long-dead lover. So desperate, in fact, that he'd tried to force it out of a solitary hitch-hiker who he'd picked up because he was, by his own admission, lonely; and now I finally realise just how lonely he was trying to tell me that he is.

Without his Trixie, he is dead inside. He just carries on existing, a dried up, withered husk; and he does it because there is nothing else left for him to do. Because he's just punching time until he is one day reunited with his lost love. He just carries on, relentlessly, killing time; and all the while he just keeps on moving, and moving, and just fucking moving…

Because that's what time does…

He jumps off me and clambers back into the driver's seat of the cab. Fumbling around in the dashboard, he turns back towards me and thrusts a dirty-looking wad of crinkled, scrunched-up banknotes.

"Here," he whispers. "Take it. There's nearly two hundred Dollars there. I wish it could be more, but 's'all I got with me."

"Now you don't have to d-"

"Please?" he interrupts. "Take it. I shouldn't o' asked ya to…" He sobs again. "Jus' take it. From me an' Trixie. Ya can change 'em for Pesos later if ya want, but I'll advise ya that the U. S. Dollar can go a long way in Central America. Oh, an' smokes," he adds, bundling two full packs of Marlboros into my hands. "Ya'll need those too."

"Er… thanks."

"Don't thank me, buddy. I've caused ya enough trouble as it is. Jus' get across the border safe fer me, yeah? You'll have to hurry – it's near dark an' the police get awful suspicious of people crossin' on foot at night. Jus' tell 'em that yer bound for a night out or somethin'."

"I will. And thanks for your help today. You've really saved me a hell of a lot of bother, you know."

"Naw, Pete. Thank you." He pulls me into another deep, rib-fracturing, lung-puncturing bear-hug before reaching over and opening the cab door for me. And I turn to him and say it, because there's nothing else that's appropriate enough to say anymore.

"Don't mention it, buddy."

Jon's money buys me a night in a room at the McNary Guest-House, and the next day a change of clothes and a haircut and shave. As luck would have it, my face seems to be lice-free; but I looked too scruffy to cross the border without some suspicion last night anyway. So, later that afternoon, I find myself walking down a dusty road in Mexico. I owled Remus earlier, to let him know that I'm safely out of America; but I didn't tell him about the extra 'taxi fare' that I paid – no – I will tell him, I will, but I think that that's something that needs to be given the dignity of being done face-to-face.

I think about Jon – I wonder what he did after dropping me off in McNary. Did he manage to sort out his 'business near the border', as he put it? And where is he headed now? I hope he finds himself a bit of company – a new girlfriend, maybe – because all that pent-up loneliness just isn't good for a man at all. But I think most of all about Remus, of what he's up to, and how he's coping without me.

I hear a truck rolling down the road behind me, and it makes me remember that I've still got a hell of a journey before I even reach Guatemala. Instinctively, I hold out my thumb. The truck blasts its horn and whistles and whines to a halt and finally comes to a stop just a few yards down the road. And then I look at my outstretched thumb, and think of what happened the last time I hitched a ride in the blistering heat. That time, I was lucky. It was just a guilty blowjob that the driver wanted. But what of this time, or the next? What if the next driver wants more? Next time, I might not be so lucky… Drawing level with the truck's cab, apologise in broken Spanish, and say that I've changed my mind. The driver grunts, and pulls off again, muttering something under his breath which I'm sure is not meant to be a pleasant conversational phrase.

No – next time, I might not walk away with a friend and a fistful of Dollars in exchange for a mouthful of spunk and, quite frankly, I'm not sure that I could bear to do that to Remus again. I can picture his reply to my last owl right now – 'Thanks for letting me know. I'm glad that you're out safe. Please, please take care of yourself, and stay safe for me, Padfoot. Padfoot, I love you.' They say that the Devil makes work for idle thumbs, and last night I think I found out exactly what that proverb means. I don't know. But one thing which I do know for certain is this – it's going to be a bloody long journey to Guatemala, and on to Brazil, and finally back to the waiting arms of my Remus; but it's a journey that I'm definitely going to be making on foot.