See first part for notes about this collection of stories.

Disclaimer: I am but a poor college student. Please don't sue me.

"When the gods wish to punish us, they answer our prayers."

The room is blazing with daylight as he opens his eyes, blinking hard. It is too much, too bright—it is painful to behold. Light reflects off the walls, the mirror, the long pale stretch of James's back, and Sirius closes his eyes.

The air is heavy still with the scent of sex. His muscles ache with strain and barely sated need—he is exhausted, but his body still wants. He longs to reach across the sheets and pull James to him, bury his face in James's neck, breathe and breathe and breathe the other man's scent. But he doesn't. He won't.

The sun is warm on his lips.

James. James. He cannot go back to sleep, not with James in his bed. His body wants. James.

He can't help but listen to the slow shallow rhythm of the other man's breathing.

He's a fucking wanker, James is, and when he wakes up, he is going to get out of bed and pull on his clothes and go back to Lily, as always. He always goes, and he always comes back.

But which one of us does he come back to?

He's an absolute bastard. (Sirius knows this, has always known it.) He is a selfish, treacherous weasel with no regard for anyone's feelings but his own. And he is a bloody idiot, and a traitor, and he's got arse for brains, but he's all Sirius has.

The great sodding git is still the man

(the boy)

who would leap into fistfights on Sirius's behalf,

who used to snatch away every letter emblazoned with the Black crest and explode the damn thing before Sirius could read it,

who stroked and petted and murmured nonsense to him while his hands still shook from his mother's goodbye curse,

who fucked him up against the wall in a dozen empty classrooms, hissing and gasping his name like it hurt to say.

Sirius stares at the inside of his eyelids and tries not to think.

All his life, he has felt so old—prematurely aged and disillusioned by the House of Black. Now, at nineteen

(crippled with desperation and uncertainty in his own bed)

he feels impossibly young. Immature. Vulnerable.

He wants to rage, wants to hit and scream and throw things until the windows break and the ceiling falls and his throat is in shreds. He wants to, but he doesn't. He won't.

For seven years, James was his. James was his closest friend, his only family, his truest lover. James was James, the arrogant troublemaking bastard who plotted with him and scuffled with him and kissed him breathless while poring over the Map. James was his entire fucking world.

Now James is a husband, and soon will be a father, the head of a proper grown-up family unit. James is an adult now, maybe, and Sirius trails along in his wake, lost and bewildered by the brutally abrupt end of their era.

James is not his.

When James leaves, Sirius will tell him not to come back. He will tell him to go home to his wife, his fucking gorgeous pregnant wife, and to stay with her. He will tell him to forget every kiss, every moan, every last fumbling grope of fingers heavy with lust. He will tell him never to mention it again.

He will tell him, These are the rules, now.

He will refuse to listen to James's reasoning, or his arguments, or his pleas. He will watch him leave. He will curl up on James's side of the bed, and he will let out a great shuddering breath.

He will pray to whoever is listening that James will break the rules just once more.

There is movement on the other side of the bed. Sirius risks opening his eyes again, and glances over to see the gleam of hazel underneath a flicker of dark lashes. His breath catches; he stares

(wanting needing hating)

for just a moment too long, until his eyes fill with tears from the sunlight's glare and he has to close them.

The sheets rustle, as intimate as James's voice whispering, "Good morning."

Under his closed eyelids, his eyes are still watering. Don't leave me, don't leave me, don't leave me…

A firm hand nudges his shoulder, and he submits, rolling to his side. He can't help himself. James's arm slides warm and heavy over his waist. Steamy breath ghosts over his neck. James is behind him, around him, flush against his back and entwined with him in a tangle of overwarm limbs.

A tear rolls hot and damning across the bridge of his nose. The sun is too bright; he can't look.