AN:Here's the second part of the fic,guys!Again,thanks to adventitiious for her wonderful beta work! :)

Chapter 2

Remus checked the front door and smiled when the bell tinkled; there was something nostalgic about the noise of a bell in any kind of store. He made his way to the back and into the kitchen to set things up for the day and yawned as he flicked on the lights. He really could have done with an hour or two more of sleep but last night's events had caused him to be late and well, Fridays were always rushed. It was a good thing that Sirius had practically begged him for work; apparently, people were very hesitant to work with someone who had served time even if they hadn't actually been criminals.

"I'm going mad, staying home with nothing to do," Sirius had told him, and Remus had caved in. It would seem that pretending to not have known Sirius had been a good route. Twelve years away from everything, Remus knew how daunting the world could be after a period of isolation, and Sirius's haunted eyes had caused that protective streak in him to come pounding on his heart.

Of course he knew Sirius, anybody who owned a television or read the newspapers knew him, but Remus hadn't actually thought it was really Sirius Black—ex-police officer, who had been wrongly convicted and released after twelve years of imprisonment. Sirius Black, the man Remus had known from a distance during his first year at work. Only, the Sirius Black of that time had not had time for anything other than his best friend and jobs well done; Remus had just been another tree in the backdrop.

He cleared his mind as he tugged open the drawer that held three of his favourite rolling pins, fingers wrapping around the one in the middle, and then pulled it out with a flourishing move he would never perform in front of anybody else before setting it gently on the table and diving into work whole-heartedly.

The morning outside was still quiet enough, the bustling activities, the honking and the clack of shoes on pavement would begin soon, but for now Remus could let his guard down fully, almost be himself and not turn around to constantly watch his back.

It was almost forty minutes later that a knock sounded at the staff entrance door and Justin—Justin Finch, as he liked to be called—their newest waiter entered with a good morning as he munched on a peanut butter sandwich while holding a Styrofoam cup in one hand. Oh, to be that young.

"Morning," Remus greeted easily. "You know, you don't have to be here until seven." He looked at the young teen, who blushed slightly before stuffing the rest of the sandwich into his mouth.

"I know, but better safe than sorry, right?" he said, and Remus shook his head.

"Of course, now if only Fletcher could follow an example," he muttered under his breath, but Justin caught it anyway and sniggered before disappearing inside the pantry to change into his uniform.

Blueberry scones? Check. Vegan muffins? Check. Cream puffs? Check. Check, check and—the key lime pie? Remus rubbed the back of his neck as he eyed the bag of flour.

The shop was well into two hours of business, but Sirius still hadn't shown up. Remus brushed the back of his hand across his forehead and leaned back, the last of the pies baking in the oven. In the end, he'd had to do much of the work himself since Dung had unsurprisingly strolled in late; he really should have asked for another patissier long ago. He rubbed at his eyes tiredly.

A sharp knock at the staff entrance door jolted him out of his half-sleepy state, and Remus looked around furtively to see if anyone had seen the short lapse he'd had. The knocking grew more insistent. Damn it! He scowled and hurried to get the door before whoever-it-was knocked it down.

"Sirius?" Remus asked, more out of shock than anything else; besides the fact that he had given up any hope of him actually showing, this man looked nothing like he had yesterday. Gone was the scruff, his hair was combed, and in the light Remus could really see his silver-gray eyes like he never had a chance to before. And that the apologetic smile made his heart jump up just once was unexpected too.

Residual feelings, Remus he told himself. "I was sure you were not going to show up," he admitted as he let Sirius in.

"Sorry about that, I haven't woken up early in a long time," Sirius said genuinely and pointed towards the table that was now dusted in flour and powdered sugar, "I hope I'm not too late to help with anything." Remus smiled properly at him for the first time as he closed the door.

"Not at all," he said as he led him into the pantry, "perfect timing, actually."

"What can I say?" Sirius said airily, surprising Remus with his speech that sounded smoother than his gruff tone last evening, "You see, I have a way with people, being the knight in shining armour and all." Remus snorted before shoving a list into Sirius's hands.

"Get dressed, we have work to do."

"Bossy," Sirius muttered and hurried away with a chuckle when Remus made a show of tightening his hold on his rolling pin.

OOooOO

It turned out that Sirius was horrible, absolutely horrendous, when it came to following directions, and he was very chatty to top it off. He asked everything from, 'So, what did you actually want to be when you grew up, because you look like an art student kind of a person?' to, 'Did you know that there are more gay dogs in this world than gay elephants?' and everything in between that had nothing to do with whipping the batter he was supposed to.

"Sirius!" Remus exclaimed finally, when the man dipped his finger in the chocolate batter. "These are going to be for sale, you can't do things like that." Sirius adopted an expression of utter bliss and dipped his index again. Remus slapped his palm against his forehead.

"It's good," Sirius told him with a grin that got under Remus's skin again. "Relax, will you? We aren't advertising my taste-testing, are we? Nobody will know."

"That's not the point," Remus said before morphing his expression into a scowl when he made to do it again, which had Sirius setting the bowl down and retrieving a round pan. Someone called out Remus's name from the counter, and he sighed before addressing Sirius. "Don't forget to grease that one."

"Sure," Sirius quipped as Remus left to deal with the old woman in a vulture hat, who kept tapping on the glass shelf with her walking stick to point out the pastry she wanted; Marlene—their hostess and saleswoman—telling her not to do so was apparently very offending.

Sirius was so busy taking a peek through the window at the spectacle that he actually did forget to grease the pan, and the cake that he had managed to bake had been turned to a parfait as a specialty dish for the day thanks to Remus's quick thinking.

This was going to be so much work…

OOooOO

"I'm done for, Remus is going to be so fucking mad," Sirius moaned from his seat as Justin patted his shoulder.

"Yeah, you should have known better," Justin agreed. "There's a reason the chefs wear those hats, you know."

It was later on in the evening, a week after Sirius had officially begun working after an interview with 'Abe' who wore his collar up and sunglasses at night. Sweet Love Pastries had been closed for the day, and Sirius was slumped over one of the little round tables in the dining area. Remus had tersely told him to just 'stay put, Sirius' earlier and since then he had smoked half a pack of fags outside the shop, and was currently enjoying one inside.

"Here he comes," Dung—Mundungus Fletcher, shortened to Dung. Honestly!—murmured as he placed a shiny fork back on the table from where he had been about to sneak it in his sleeve.

Sirius looked up to see Remus and put out the cigarette; he had upset the man enough for one day. Lupin had somehow managed to get to him, and not necessarily in a bad way. He was still cautious, but the man's never-ending kindness was like a balm to his weary soul, and more and more Sirius found himself giving up a little more of himself to the man—where he was from, where had grown up, and how he had loved his school in Scotland at which point Remus had looked strangely sad.

"That sounds great," Remus had said, "We used to live around the East End until I got a scholarship for university, so I didn't get to attend school regularly."

"And yet you managed a scholarship?" Sirius asked, in slight awe, and Remus flushed a little behind his scruff. "What did you do before this?" Remus looked at him and bit his lip.

"You really don't remember, do you?" Remus replied, more of a statement. Sirius cocked his head in a confused manner, and Remus paused in his work. "I used to work for the Metropolitan Police." Sirius's eyes widened.

"You don't say, but then that means we would have—" Sirius flailed his hands madly as he began understanding the implication of Remus's words, "—you, I, we worked in the same place, at the same time." He leaned back against the table, astounded. Sirius wondered how different things might have been had he noticed this man; Remus and he would have been friends for all their life. But then he thought of James and Peter, and he decided that maybe it wouldn't have remained so.

In the end though, Remus hadn't killed him except maybe with his patient understanding that made Sirius feel quite guilty, it turned out that a young girl named Millicent Bulstrode—they had found that out through an impromptu 'customer's comments' provision on the back of her receipt—had thrown a hissy fit over finding a black hair in her muffin. Sirius was actually slightly offended; the girl should have been honoured.

It wasn't Sirius's fault that he absolutely hated how he looked with a plastic cap on.

OOooOO

By mid-September, Sirius had a new-found respect for all those poor souls who had made his birthday cakes and catered to his mother's orders. This cooking and baking business was harder than catching a robber running a red light.

"I have to say, you might have beautiful hair, Black, but nobody needs it as part of their daily nutrition." Sirius frowned as Remus held up the pie pan. Remus just had to find a fault with everything he did; he had worked so hard on this one, pressing and shaping it to perfection-

"Oh." Sirius managed as he squinted and found a strand of black embedded in the crust and then gave a shite-eating grin, "it could be nutritional." Remus was not impressed, and Sirius sighed heavily as he pulled out the crust. All that work.

"You just can't do what you're told, can you?" Remus commented irritably, finally showing a sign that he was actually human and not just an efficient, nice robot with a thousand-watt smile at the ready. Sirius was about to retort when Remus's hands landed on his shoulder to steady him.

"What-" heat bloomed across Sirius's face when Remus's hands began fussing with his hair, and he felt his hair being bunched and pushed into the tiny space of the shower cap. "Err-thanks I suppose," Sirius told him once be had cleared his throat before he realised something.

"You said I've got beautiful hair," he said in a teasing tone as he checked his reflection on a shiny pan and fixed the hideous green cap.

"I said no such thing, Sirius," Remus replied immediately, but Sirius continued grinning as he balled up another piece of dough and began kneading it. "All right, maybe I did," he admitted with a smile of his own after he had set the oven for forty-five minutes.

"There's something about dark hair," Remus said, and Sirius glanced up at him to indicate that he was listening before returning to his task.

"Mhmm. I suppose," Sirius mused aloud while dusting flour over the pan. "But I guess I don't see the appeal, my whole family looks like me." Remus snorted at that.

"Inbreeding?" he asked with a cheeky smile that did strange things to Sirius's insides. "Not that I mean to pry, but have you got a woman waiting for you at home?"

Sirius rolled his eyes good-naturedly. "You mean a sister, right? Have you looked at the state of me? Even a hag wouldn't have me if I paid in thousands, Remus." The brown haired man pinned him with a sharp look before his eyes began to rove over Sirius's form all the way from his head to his toes. It became unusually quiet, and odd , as Sirius found himself being studied by Remus, intensely, and Sirius found himself locking eyes with him. His mouth went dry. "Remus?" Finally, the man looked away.

"You're being too hard on yourself," Remus said, "You look more than all right to me. A hag would be over the moon to have somebody like you even give her a second of your time." Sirius felt the air around them change oddly again and decided to shift the focus from him.

"What about you? A woman? Girl?" Remus laughed at that and turned to him with a secretive smile.

"No girls, not that kind of a man," he answered easily. "There was a woman for a while." He didn't divulge any more information.

"Hey, everyone's got a story, right?" Sirius said amicably, and Remus nodded, still watching him with a look that seemed to shoot straight right into his heart and poke at his deepest secrets. "What happened in yours?" he asked, just to fill the sudden silence.

Remus sighed at that and brushed his hands against his apron before turning his attention to Sirius and saying slowly, "I couldn't give her what she wanted, not exactly." Sirius paused and then set the pie-pan aside and faced Remus, legs crossed at the ankles as he leaned against the table.

"Commitment issues?" he asked, trying to keep up the curious expression, although he suddenly was beginning to have his doubts at the way the man was looking at him. Remus shook his head.

"No, we sorted that one out with a long 'talking and throwing plates' process," he explained to Sirius, "but that's not why we broke up eventually." He looked at Sirius as if contemplating. "I'm not as straight as I made myself out to be when we met."

Sirius's breath left him at the admission but still, he didn't know why for sure, he had to confirm it.

"You saying you cheated on her with a man or something?" Remus laughed at that lightly before pushing away from the table and shifting unnecessarily close to Sirius. He reached around him to grab the bag of flour before stepping away from Sirius's personal space.

"I never cheated on her," Remus told him slowly, still standing rather close. Sirius swallowed at the proximity, inhaled sharply at the look Remus was giving him, but he wasn't ready for the way his breath stuttered in his throat when Remus's free hand ghosted across his cheek.

"You had a bit of flour there," Remus said softly before backing away quietly to resume working and then added, "I'll understand if you have a problem working with me."

Sirius didn't respond at first. Did he have a problem with Remus's orientation? Judging by the way his skin was still tingling from that little touch, the answer to that was a shocking and rather resounding 'no'.

"I-I don't," Sirius told him before turning away, willing his overreacting body to just calm down. He hadn't been laid in weeks, that was the only explanation for his sudden urge to want to close the distance between them and touch the man's shoulder, feel the bone and muscle working underneath his hands—He cleared his throat and set back to work, and forced himself to stop thinking in that line.

The silence they continued working in was the most awkward kind ever until the rest of the crew began filtering in.

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