Straight Talking

A startled gasp became a series of coughs when Sirius Black floo'd from his apartment into a smoking pan of something dark and greasy, much like the man he suspected had left it there. No doubt to deliberately aggravate him, he thought in annoyance. Which was at least a step up from how he would've reacted in the past. He hoped his godson had noticed his efforts of late.

Harry himself was there a minute later, giving him a hand out of the fire. "Crap, I can't believe I forgot to take that off," he muttered, tossing the offending pan carelessly onto the hearth. "Come in. Are you ok? I've got some basic meds and stuff, but Sev's away and I'm not sure what does what."

"No, no, I'm fine, just got caught by surprise," Sirius assured him, feeling slightly guilty for his instant mental accusation. "What is it?"

"What was it supposed to be, more like. It was supposed to be some kind of magical cake. I wanted to see if I could make anything traditional, but I think I'll just have to be a wizard who uses Muggle technology a lot. Oh well. Come sit down; how long can you stay?"

Sirius smiled. His godson was always accommodating for him, making up for lost years. "Well, Remus is staying out of town for a few days with the convention, and I figured I could see what you were up to."

"Having heard that Severus is in Norway evaluating a research project, of course," added Harry with a teasing smile.

"Well, that helped, but you know I would've come anyway. So," began Sirius before Harry could say anything else about his lover, "what are you up to, besides cooking disasters?"

"It wasn't a disaster until you stepped in it, you know. I'm not doing much, just relaxing and letting loose while the mistress is away..."

Sirius snickered and hoped Snape never heard Harry say that. Unless Harry was right about how Snape would never hurt him, in which case he really hoped Harry did say that in front of him.

The flicker of muted light from the other room drew his eye. "What are you watching?" he asked curiously. It hadn't been all that long since Harry and Snape's protracted fight over the presence of Muggle items in the shared rooms. The television had been one of the toughest points of contention.

"Oh, uh, didn't realize I'd left that on," stalled Harry. "Nothing. I'll just go turn it off."

"No, I want to see," said Sirius, who had himself only recently re-discovered television, and was enthralled by it, to his flatmate Remus' mostly-amused indulgence. "I've seen all the American stuff. 'Wheel of Fortune' and 'The Osbournes' and 'Days of Our Lives' and two episodes of 'Friends' only then I couldn't remember when it came on again--"

"Ever seen 'Queer Eye for the Straight Guy'?" asked Harry with too straight a face.

"No."

"Oh well."

"So, what are you watching? Is it any of those?" asked Sirius hopefully.

"Well... not exactly... look, I'll just go turn it off. You'll think it's stupid."

"No I won't!" Actually, thought Harry, he probably wouldn't. "Come on, what is it?"

Harry sighed. "Well, you'll think it's for kids. A lot of it's not, though. It's sort of like a cartoon, but it's a special kind, from Japan, and sometimes the art's really well-done and attractive." Sirius looked like he was still waiting, so Harry went on. "It's called anime... well, people who are into it call it that; others sometimes call it Japanimation or just Japanese animation. But you can tell when they don't know what they're talking about; it's just like how people say S&M when they have no idea what it's about and the inside people just say SM."

Sirius looked at him funny. "Huh. I guess that should have been obvious, what with your taste in men," he muttered half to himself.

Even past childhood, Harry could still blush like a thirteen-year-old girl. It was a characteristic his lover often used viciously against him and he lived in terror of public fights.

"I just heard, that's all," he answered hastily. "So, yeah, my point was that anime is really pretty cool, and I rented some for while Sev is gone."

"What, you think he wouldn't approve of you watching Muggle cartoons on a television in your living room?"

Harry rolled his eyes and merely said, "So, do you still want to watch? We could find something different. I'd offer to rent a movie, but he threw the VCR out the window."

Sirius had heard about the altercation from the Weasley twin and decided not to reopen any wounds. "Yeah, this'll be fine. I want to see what it's all about."

They watched for a little while, with Harry pointing out nuances and explaining the complicated plot. Sirius was rather intrigued by some of the female characters, and remarked upon them as tactfully as he knew how between two men (even when one was gay), which was usually something along the lines of "Whoa, if she's a student I want to teach!" and so forth.

After a while, Harry got bored and decided to put in his own opinions, just for fun. "Oh, I dunno," he remarked airily after his godfather had complimented the amazingly nonexistent school skirt worn by a rebellious redhead. "She's too excitable. But look at him!"

"What!" squawked Sirius, who (being forgetful in his new happy pursuits) had thought he was going to comment on the brunette and had nearly agreed wholeheartedly. Harry didn't pause.

"Long legs, wild hair, tight little arse... and oh, look at those hands! Just edible..." Sirius launched Snape's centenarian embroidered lounge pillow at him and fell back groaning with his hands over his ears.

"Oh, grow up, I've spent fifteen minutes listening to you go on about all the sexy chicks," Harry informed him playfully. "The least you can do is let me get some of my own in."

"But you don't mind the chicks!" argued Sirius. "You said they were sexy too."

"They are." Harry lay back with the air of one who gets their massage and cocktail while waiting for the rest of the world to catch up to them.

Sirius floundered in the mud swimming hole and hard lemonade of the world. "I don't get it. You're gay. That means you think men are sexy."

Harry tried not to snicker at the interpretation. "Yeah... but I can see when women are sexy without being attracted to them in the same way. And the way anime is drawn, both genders are supposed to be attractive. Can't you see that the guys are attractive too?"

"I'm not gay!" Sirius protested.

For the first time Harry's face grew a little more serious, and he sat back. "Alright, hold up. There are two things I really think I need to tell you."

Sirius straightened up, worried that he'd gone too far and offended his godson. Once Harry had come out to him, privately and before he'd come out to the rest of his friends, he'd thought long and hard and decided that it wasn't an obstacle. He'd realized he wasn't homophobic, just decidedly heterosexual himself, and he didn't care one whit which gender Harry was attracted to: he was still the same person. No, the real obstacle had definitely been just whom of that gender Harry was attracted to.

Harry saw he had Sirius' attention, and began. "Ok, first point: I've always appreciated that you didn't try to change my mind when I told you I was gay, or cure me, or anything. You didn't second-guess me, and I appreciate that. But you should also understand that I don't second-guess you, either. You've told me you're straight and I'll believe that no matter what you do until you tell me differently. I don't know if you realize it, but I think you try an awful lot to make your own sexual position clear." He softened at the chastened look on Sirius' face. "It's ok, Sirius. You've never really offended me or anyone else. I just thought you should know - we know that you're the only person who knows your own mind, ok?" He smiled. "Second point: You can recognize that someone of your own gender is attractive, or sexy, without wanting to have sex with them. Hell, maybe you can even want that, if you don't intend to act on it, and still not be gay. I think that's more of a guy thing; women seem generally fine with it. Not that I'd be the best person to ask..." He grinned. "Are you ok?"

"Yeah, yeah, ok," Sirius admitted gruffly, sighing like a martyr. "Just don't expect me to be commenting on Snape's arse anytime soon." He shuddered. "Ugh.. can't believe I just said those two words together..."

"Don't. I get terribly jealous."

"I can't think where you'd have much of an opportunity to..." Sirius retorted, then changed tactics before Harry started talking about Snape and Sex and Being Gay and Snape's Arse and oh, god, no, start talking, quick-- He remembered what had been bothering him in the first place, and decided now was as good a time as any to talk with Harry. Quickly, before he could talk himself out of it, he started, "Well... in that vein... I mean, seeing people are attractive, not sex with Snape, I mean jealousy for Snape--I have something to ask you."

Harry waited until he could see that this would take a little reciprocating initiative. "What?"

Sirius took a deep breath. "Isremuslupingay."

Harry took a moment to add punctuation and then burst out laughing. Sirius sat there looking wounded to cover up his mortification.

"I'm sorry," gasped Harry in between laughing, "I'm not laughing..."

"Are too." Sirius looked deeply injured.

"I don't know if he's gay; why are you asking me?"

"Gaydar?" This was met by more choking laughter and an "Oh, Sirius..." sent briefly his way. He waited in patient suffering.

"Er. Sorry. Again." Harry calmed down, though Sirius was no longer sure it wasn't temporary. "He's never brought it up. Why don't you ask him? He probably could tell you better."

"I can't ask him something like that, then he'll know!"

Harry wondered briefly if this sort of announcement had been what had incited Severus' all-consuming hatred of Sirius in their teenage years. Then he decided it was stupid of him to wonder.

"Know what?" Harry plodded patiently on. I wonder if I could be a therapist. If I ever got tired here. Would I have to go to school or could I just counsel some patients and have them review me?

"That I...that I wanted to know. That--so I think he's sexy, so what?" Harry assumed the last indignant bit was directed at him.

"So what? It's ok. You're sexy too."

Sirius surreptitiously moved an inch or two away. Then, remembering who it was, he inched back so Harry wouldn't see. Then he worried that Harry'd seen him move forward, and tried to turn it into a stretch. Then the tension that the conversation was creating in him made him overbalance. Then he fell off the sofa. Harry watched the proceedings in bemusement.

"Just kidding," mentioned Sirius from somewhere past Harry's feet.

"So get back on the couch. Lousy mutt."

"The noble house of Black produces only sickly purebreds who intermarry and die of consumption, I'll have you know," pronounced Sirius, clambering back up. He rubbed his back and winced. "I guess what they say about old married couples is true. 'Lousy mutt' indeed. I've warned you before and I'll warn you again: he's rubbing off on you."

"Funny, he warns me about you when you've been visiting," answered Harry mildly.

Sirius nodded as if he had expected this, when something occurred to him. "You know, speaking of Snape, you've never really gone into detail about how you two got together."

Harry's eyebrows went up. (He'd been trying for months to get just one up, annoyed with his lover's arching-ability, but so far it was no-go. He'd had to stop practising when Severus caught him in front of the mirror and inquired as to whether he needed a new contact lens prescription, or perhaps some time in the loo.) "I didn't think you were all that interested in details, where Severus and I are concerned," he replied.

"Harry, you're like a son to me, except for the part where we talk about sex and stuff," Sirius reprimanded. "Where your happiness is concerned, I want to be as involved as possible. I hope you've always know that."

Harry nodded slowly. "I'm touched. So where do you want me to begin?"

Sirius smiled with what someone had apparently once told him was nonchalance. "I was just wondering... once you knew you were attracted to him, how did you first find out if he felt the same way too?"

With great diligence, Harry held back a smile that had wanted to see sunlight for years and began tactfully, innocently, and with a carefully constructed aura of self-involved obliviousness, to help his godfather figure out how to win his best friend's heart.