Taking Advice

They are having drinks, just the two of them- Sirius has been sucking fitfully at his fire whiskey and communicating only in grunts of at least twenty minutes, and James is about to hit him- when Sirius pops the question.

"James?" he asks, not quite looking at his best friend. James supposes that the big knot in the bar top is rather fascinating and he'll let Sirius's close scrutiny of it slide this once rather than following through on his plan despite the sudden coherent speech and hitting him anyway. "James, if one of your best mates fancied you, would you want to know? Because friends are supposed to be truthful and not have secrets and all that, even though there'd be, hypothetically, almost no chance that you fancied him and in all likelihood you'd hate it and never be able to look him in the eye again? Or would you want him to keep shut up about it forever?"

The words have all come out in a rush; suddenly, James's mouth feels very dry in sympathy. He takes a long sip of his drink to stall for time. He never, ever expected this, and he shudders to think of the complications it will cause for everybody.

"You're in love with me?" he asks finally, once stalling is no longer practical or reasonable.

Sirius gives a strangled yelp. "What? No- no! Christ, no. You? Oh, Merlin."

James sniffs. "Well, it seemed like a reasonable question under the circumstances."

"Look, James, I'm sure you're a fine specimen of manhood, but you're not my type." A pause. "For one, you're straight."

"So're you," James points out, reasonably enough.

Sirius snorts. "Look, I've been discreet and all, but I'm not that good. You know I'm mostly straight at best. You can't have missed the thing with Terrence Bones."

"Yeah," James agrees after a moment, taking another long draught. "Yeah."

Silence stretches out between them. Sirius goes back to nursing his whiskey; it dawns on James that he looks rather miserable.

"So who is it, then?" he asks, just to shake Sirius out of his apparent and irritating despair.

"Remus," Sirius answers instantly, then gives another of his ironic little pauses. "What, who else? Peter? Christ." He makes a noise of total disgust.

"Peter's not a bad sort," James admonishes automatically. "He's a bit slower, yes, but he likes us and he's really handy. And cheerful. Handy and cheerful. And he only twitches when you stare at him like that, so don't say it."

"James. Focus. Please."

"So. So you, Sirius Black, breaker of hearts, serial monogamist, commitment-phobe, you want to snog our Moony senseless."

"That's about the way of it, yes."

"And you think this is a good idea?"

That does it; Sirius explodes. James isn't expecting it, exactly, but it's reassuring that Sirius feels this strongly about the whole thing. "No! I think it's a bloody terrible idea, it's probably the worst idea I've ever had, but it won't go away, will it? No matter what I do, it's just hovering there, and then he shows up and my voice goes squeaky and he's bound to notice at some point, you know I'm crap at hiding anything, so my choices are to slobber all over him and drive him away forever so that we end up acquaintances on the bloody street, or to go all stiff and have him think I hate him for no reason, and I couldn't stand that, so either way I'm fucked! And not by Moony, which is the problem!"

James sighs loudly in a desperate attempt to keep himself from spluttering. "That, that right there, may be too much information, mate."

"Sorry," Sirius mutters, and drops his forehead to the bar with a painful-sounding thump. James studies him quietly; there is anguish writ large in every line of his body. In all James's memory, Sirius has never looked so much a bothered over a crush, even an unrequited one. James has a nagging suspicion that, no matter what Sirius may say, it isn't just a crush. That's all right, then.

Sirius says something to the bar top, dragging James out of his reverie. "What?"

The question gets Sirius to sit up again, at least. "I said, so what do you think?"

"I think you're an idiot," James says cheerfully, eliciting a pained noise from his best mate. "An idiot. Blind as a tree stump, and stupid." It's his turn for an ironic pause. "But I'll let Moony tell you all about it."

A muscle in Sirius's jaw jumps amusingly. "And what, exactly, does that mean?" he grits.

"I think you should tell him, you great blind lump."

There's a definite implication in the words, and it sends a spark of hope spinning through Sirius; he tries, desperately, to quash it, but at heart he is a Gryffindor and hope doesn't easily quash. Maybe it will be all right. He'll just go up to Remus and say "Well, Moony, old chap, I've a bit of a fancy for you, but it will pass in due time. I thought you ought to know so if I act like a total prat you don't worry, that's all it is. Now, lunch?" And that will be that.

***

Well, Moony, old chap, I've a bit of a fancy for you, but it will pass in due time. I thought you ought to know so if I act like a total prat you don't worry, that's all it is. Now, lunch?

Sirius finishes mouthing the words and groans. James is right. He is an idiot, and he sounds like an idiot, and this is only going to end in humiliation and angry werewolves. He has seen the angry werewolf, and it is intimidating, and he'd cherished hopes that he'd never fuck up badly enough to see it again, but no, his stupid libido has had to run away with him and his stupid face can't ever hide what he's thinking and-

"Hi," says Remus's voice from above, and Sirius jumps up from his perch on the front stoop of his flat in a panic.

"Nnaugh!" he says.

"Nnaugh," Remus agrees. "What are you doing out here? It's your flat, you know, you can go in."

"Well, Moony, o-" Sirius starts a little desperately, because it's literally all his mind can think to say, but he stutters to a stop because his stomach has gone knotty and his throat is catching and the one remaining sane bit of his mind is chanting 'Idiot, idiot, idiot,' and why does he feel like a fourteen-year-old girl?

"Moonyo?" Remus asks, arching one eyebrow. It is an expression that fascinates Sirius, one that he has tried in vain to mimic since third year, staring into mirrors and trying to hold one eyebrow down, sure that if he could master this one thing he'd finally be utterly, inescapably cool. Besides, the quirk of Moony's lips that completes the expression makes Sirius want to lick him. It is all he can do to keep from saying 'nnaugh' again.

"Thought we'd try new nicknames," he mutters, darkly, instead. "Mine can be Priscilla."

"Priscilla," Remus repeats, drawing the final syllable out as if he's rolling it about on his tongue. Sirius gulps. The eyebrow quirks further, then settles back to its normal position. "May I ask why you're suddenly advocating girl's names for yourself? As I recall, you almost murdered James fourth year when he called you 'Siri' for a joke, and that's not even actually a girl's name, it just sounds like one."

"Because I am a fourteen year old girl with a crush and fantasies of licking, and it fits," Sirius says, and then he realizes that he's said it out loud, and he attempts to kick himself. He succeeds only in tripping; unfortunately, the pavement does not catch his face, thereby distracting everybody with blood and pain and death. No. It is Remus who catches him.

Sirius goes completely still as Remus steadies him; every moment that those hands linger first on his hips and then on his shoulders, making sure he's balanced, sends tingles so intense as to be almost painful up and down his spine. He gives in to the fact that he is completely insane, because innocent touch isn't supposed to feel better then sex, and nnaugh. It is now or never, and Sirius doesn't believe in never.

"Look, Moony," he says, ignoring his own desperate voice; in his head he's reciting the line-ups of the professional Quidditch teams, even that Taiwanese one whose very existence is a bit inexplicable, because it's the only way he'll get through this. "Look, Moony, I've got a bit of a fancy on for you, haven't I, you can probably tell since I'm such a slobbering tree stump, but I thought maybe I should tell you and James said definitely I should, and James wouldn't lie to me, unless this is paybacks for the balding potion last year, ha ha, if it is I'll have to kill him unless I die first which is seeming more promising by the second, and anyway I'll understand if you don't say 'Hello, Priscilla' when we meet on the street anymore, and also you should probably take your hands off me, I think they're giving me a fever."

Remus stares at him in a way that makes Sirius finally understand what 'agog' means. He's not moving his hands, and Sirius reasons that he probably hasn't caught up to the last bit. "Really, a fever," he squeaks to help him along.

Remus continues to ignore the advice. "You. You have a bit of a fancy. For me." He sounds more than a bit dazed. Sirius has probably broken his brain.

If that's the case, he might as well finish the plunge, as it were. Remus is going to stop touching him any second now anyway. "Actually," he admits, "It's not a bit of a fancy. It's, it's rather like having butterflies eating my brain all the time. Sometimes they sing." There. The truth is out. Now Moony can wrench away and go look for a new friend, one who doesn't want to lick him.

Or now.

Perhaps now.

"For Chrissake," Sirius says finally, when it becomes clear that Remus is just going to keep staring. "The fever, Moony! Maybe it's the butterflies giving me the fever," he adds hopefully. "That has to be it, right? Maybe I'm very, very sick. Maybe I'm delirious! You should have a Mediwitch come and get me, and I'll be better tomorrow, and we can forget this and you won't have to hide from my fancy forever?"

"I think," Remus says very, very slowly, "that if you are delirious, I am going to hate you forever."

"All right, look, I- wait. Wait, what?"

"If this is some sort of insect-induced fever talking," Remus says in a voice of unnatural calm, the sort of calm that conceals anger or excitement or quite possible madness, "then I won't ever forgive you. Let's experiment. I'll stop touching you," he does, and Sirius makes an involuntary noise of sadness, "and we'll see. No fever, right, if it was my hands? So. How's the bit of fancy?"

"I told you," Sirius says, finally exasperated. First James and now Remus, implying things when he knows that Remus doesn't fancy him, Remus doesn't fancy anyone except maybe his old defense textbook, Remus is complete unto himself and unlike Sirius does not need the other half of 'Moony and Padfoot' to feel whole. It is cruel that they're doing this to him. The balding potion wasn't that bad, and he had the antidote. "I told you, it's not really a bit of fancy. It's more a great whomping fancy that won't go away, it's just taken up residence and it's eating everything in the cabinets, it's a bloody houseguest of a fancy and why are you touching me again?" Remus's hands are back on his shoulders, and this time it is painful even though Moony is being gentle.

"You're a horrible, self-absorbed git," Remus tells him, apparently discarding 'gentle' in favour of 'murderous.' Sirius wants very much to die of an aneurism or a stroke or something that will cause his brain to shut down right away, though he supposes that it's true. After all, he is forcing his feelings on Remus.

"Nnaugh," he agrees.

"Shut up, let me finish," Remus admonishes, his fingers tightening on Sirius's shoulders. "You can't see past your own nose and so it's your own fault if you think I'll hate you. James figured out that I was in love with you years ago, and I think he's taking bets on when you'll catch up, and if you notice something after James Potter, Mr. Black, you deserve what you get."

"Wh-" Sirius starts, but then one of Remus's hands has moved to cup his cheek and the other is in his hair and Remus is wearing a heartbreaking smile and then everything in his mind slams to a stop. Remus is kissing him, Remus is kissing him and it feels so exactly right, as if it has happened a thousand times, as if it will never stop being new. Moony and Padfoot but better, whole, perfect, and where did Moony learn to kiss like this?

Eventually it occurs to him that while it is more than possible to breathe through a kiss he has somehow forgotten to and if this keeps going he will have to pass out in the street. Passing out would be inauspicious, he decides, and so he pulls away ever-so-slightly and gulps in air. Remus is flushed and panting and smiling like sunrise and star fall and Sirius cannot keep himself from leaning in to trail his tongue over jawbone and lips, laughing against Moony's mouth.

"What was that?" Remus asks, sounding bemused although Sirius feels the question more than hears it.

"About time," he replies, and it is. "Shall we tell James?"

"Tell him with balding potion," Remus suggests, and they laugh and loop their arms around each other, and Sirius feels whole at last.