Archive of Our Own ^beta

"Sirius, James will be coming over tonight, so be sure that you're prepared for a family dinner," Orion said, and Sirius just barely managed to keep himself from gaping at his father. 

"What? Why is he coming here? You divorced Euphemia, like, three years ago." And his current outfit was far too good for someone like James. He didn't want James to think that he'd gotten dressed up for him or summat. Sirius just always looked this good. 

"Yes, well, you can divorce a wife, but not your children," Orion said distractedly. 

Sirius scoffed and rolled his eyes. "Isn't he busy in uni?" 

"It hasn't started yet." 

"Figures," Sirius muttered. 

Orion glanced at him. "Why are you so against this? He's your brother." 

"He's not my brother; he's your ex-wife's son. Our connection to him is long over." 

"Can't divorce your child," Orion repeated, turning back to the papers in front of him. 

Sirius rolled his eyes again and left the room. The term hadn't started yet, so what? It's not like James lived here. He had an actual home of his own that he could stay at, where he had a parent that actually had responsibility to him. 

James showed up way before dinner, like he lived here or something. It's not like Sirius hated him, but he always acted like Sirius was an idiot. Like just because he didn't talk like a bloody professor all the time, that meant he didn't know anything. What a tosser. "Hey Sirius," he said, then took a swig of orange juice straight from the bottle. Who did that? Honestly, every time he came around, it was like living with a pig. If Sirius wanted to live with a pig, he'd buy from from the animal shelter or wherever it is people bought pigs from (how would he know? He's not a farmer, and a pig wouldn't fit in very well at their house-- pigs and this many stairs don't mix.). 

Sirius made a face at him and reluctantly said, "Hi. Is this what you're learning at uni? How to mess up someone else's kitchen?" Because in addition to his bottle-drinking ways, he'd opened a loaf of bread and left the peanut butter with the knife still in it-- and still sticky with jelly. 

"Relax, it's not like you're the one that has to clean it up." 

"I can't believe Professor Binns gave me this bad a grade," Sirius said, frowning at his report card. 

"Ugh, I know right?" Lily said, easily falling into step beside him. "I got the same grade. My dad's totally going to choke when he sees it. You look pretty calm considering I know your dad's going to flip too." 

"It's not set in stone yet," Sirius said, thinking about all the other report cards that he'd been able to fix. 

"You going to get it fixed?" 

"Yep." 

"Binns is notoriously hard to please. I don't think he'll change it for you." 

"I've done the impossible before," Sirius said, tucking the paper in his bag. 

"Like that time you convinced Severus to cut his hair short?" 

Sirius gave a decisive nod. "Exactly. This is just a little grade; Binns won't even remember it by the end of the year." 

"Good luck," she said, voice light enough that Sirius knew she doubted his ability to get it done. 

But really, what did she know? Sirius had been taking care of his grades like this for years, and Orion was never the wiser that Sirius failed to turn in so much of his homework. He didn't have the time to do homework though, not after the designer stores started opening so close to their house. Great outfits didn't just put themselves together. Lily knew that. 

"Hey kiddo," Orion said, looking up from his dinner as if suddenly struck with a memory, "where's your report card?" 

Sirius had to swallow thickly around food he hadn't quite finished chewing. "I don't have it yet." 

"You don't have it? What is that supposed to mean?" 

"Yeah, Sirius," James said, looking far too smarmy for his own good. "Didn't everyone else get their's today?" 

Sirius glared at him, but he had to think up a response because Orion was still looking at him expectantly. "Dad, you always say that you should never accept a first offer. I'm negotiating." 

James snorted, but Orion nodded approvingly. 

"Do you think you'll be able to do it?" Orion asked. 

"Totally." 

"How?" James said derisively. "Going to give your professors a makeover?" 

"-and I was like, er hello? Gideon's Welsh, and if we go on a date or something, people are going to expect me to know how to speak Welsh. It's like, a super hard language to learn, and I'd totally butcher it," Lily said. 

"Welsh is hard. It's like, almost impossible to learn even if you are Welsh," Sirius agreed. "Total downer." 

"It's almost impossible to learn Welsh because the British government is still trying to make it a dead language and is actively working to make that happen," James interrupted, and Sirius and Lily turned around to glare at him. He was eating cereal from the box. Again. "If either of you paid attention to your history class instead of talking about your nails, you'd know that." And then he stormed away. Like he thought he was some sort of storm god that came down to interrupt perfectly nice conversations. They'd barely been talking about Welsh and British colonialism in the first place. 

"What's his damage?" Lily said. 

"God, who even knows. Maybe you could ask Gideon on a not-date first. See if it's worth the trouble first," Sirius suggested. Then he shrugged and added, "Or you could go my route and not date because everyone our age is kind of a bonehead anyways." 

"Are you including yourself in that?" Lily asked pointedly, and Sirius just rolled his eyes. As if. 

"Hey Sirius, have you seen my cellphone?" Regulus asked. 

"No, and I'm not going to help you look," Sirius said, flipping a page of the fashion magazine he was reading. Well, looking at. They never had good articles in these, he was sure. "Maybe next time you'll carry it in a bag like me." 

"I'd look like a ponce," Regulus said, then poked his head up and looked at him. "Like you." He ducked back down before Sirius could decide to throw the magazine at him. 

"Well there are worse things in life than looking like a ponce, Reggie." 

"Don't call me Reggie," Regulus muttered, and Sirius summarily ignored him-- summarily, his big vocab word of the day; he was trying to get better about those so he wouldn't sound so clueless all the time. 

"For one, you could be crawling around on your hands and knees looking for something that you could have so easily kept in your bag. For another, you wouldn't fail to find it and have to ask Dad for a new one. You know he's not going to give it to you, right? Not after he just bought you that new desktop computer." 

"I'll find it," Regulus growled, all prepubescent certainty. 

"Sure you will," Sirius said. "And while we're on the subject, I didn't say you have to carry a purse, I said a bag. Get a bag to match your school bag or something so that you can avoid being bullied like you imagine your dear old brother was." 

"You weren't bullied," James said, choosing that moment to enter the room, looking a little more angry at the world than he usually did before talking to Sirius. 

"Exactly my point! So, dear sweet Regulus, get yourself a bag. Or a purse, if you are so bold. Hi James." 

"Er, hi. You lose something Reg?" James asked, bending over a little as if the changed angle would help him find the answer to his question. He was a total prick and all, but at least he had a nice backside. God only knows how he got it though, sitting around reading boring books. 

"My cellphone. Matty said he would call me tonight, so I need my cellphone." 

"Would that be the same cellphone I saw sitting on the balcony upstairs?" James asked. He had that answer all prepped and ready to go before Regulus had said a word. Weird. 

Regulus shot up, eyes wide. "Really?" He went running off up the stairs before James could answer. 

"You okay?" James asked, and Sirius frowned up at him. 

"Yeah? What, are we having heart to hearts now? Because if there's something you want to talk about, there are therapists for that." Aka, please don't talk to Sirius about that sort of thing. It's not like he was against James talking to him, but if James was in a talking sort of mood, he'd probably want to talk about, like, world hunger or something and then James would get mad at him for not doing more to help-- just like he always did. 

"No, I- I meant with Regulus?" 

"What about my dear sweet brother? I was being honest before; Dad won't give him a new cellphone if he doesn't manage to hold onto that one for another month. At least." 

"Not that. He called you..." 

Ah, so James had been listening the whole time. "You can't say that surprises you," Sirius said. "The makeup is usually a dead giveaway for people when I'm not wearing a skirt." Although, he did usually wear a skirt because if he could look that good in something, why wouldn't he? 

"Yeah, I didn't mean that." He was still giving Sirius a too-severe look. Normally at this point in a conversation, they'd be poking and needling at each other. "...Whatever." He walked around and joined Sirius on the couch, landing heavily specifically to displace Sirius's comfortable position. "Bloody hell, you're reading a fashion magazine. And here I thought you were reading something intellectual for once." 

That was more like it. Sirius hit him on the head with the magazine and got tickled in the side for it. Besides, it totally wasn't fair for James to say that. Sirius had watched the news some to that he knew what a little of what was going on. And he actually listened when Professor McGonagall talked about the various disasters happening around the world. 

"We should be friends with him," Sirius said, and Lily looked at him like he was crazy. 

"Um, excuse me? Sirius, look at him." 

Sirius looked. His nose wrinkled, but he shook it off. "Yeah, I know. God, I know, he looks like a total burn out." He had baggy clothes, and the lip ring wasn't doing him any favours. He'd dyed his hair green, which served to make his skin look pale and sallow. "But, you know Lily, we've been trying to do more good things for the world, and that starts where we live." 

"That means planting flowers that don't grow on bushes; not bringing down our credibility by being seen with... someone like that." 

"You'll survive," Sirius said before raising his voice and calling, "Remus!" while waving a hand at him. "Hi, I'm Sirius, and this is Lily." 

Lily gave a terse little smile. "Hi." She sounded way too snooty for what they were trying to do. 

Sirius gave her a warning glare for it, then turned back to Remus with a bright smile. 

"Oh. Erm, I'm Remus. Just moved down here," he murmured. He had a Northern Irish accent. God, who even lived there anymore? At least it explained why he was more pale than he should've been. Honestly, the porcelain look had been a mistake for everyone. 

"Yeah, that's great honey. Listen, if we're going to be mates, you need to not mumble everything. You're proud of yourself-- or at least you're going to be-- and people who are proud of themselves don't let their mouths muss up their speech so much. Okay?" 

"Erm. Okay?" 

Sirius beamed. "Great! You free tonight? No offense, but I was thinking you could come over and we could get started on a makeover for you. Maybe buy some new clothes this weekend if this is representative of your entire wardrobe." 

Remus tugged on his shirt self-consciously. "I'm here on scholarship," he muttered, face getting a bit of colour as he blushed. 

"Oh, don't even worry about that. I've totally got you covered." 

"Why? I mean, why would you do that for me? We've just met." 

"Because he's totally lost his marbles and decided that he needed a male best friend," Lily said, rolling her eyes. 

"I've done nothing of the sort, Lily. I'm simply... expanding the group." 

"Group? There's no 'group'. It's you and me." 

"Well, now it's you and me and Remus, so we're a group. Right?" Sirius said, looking at Remus. 

"I guess?" Remus agreed tremulously. 

The good news-- the really really excellent news-- was that Remus was pretty cute once the weekend was over. His natural hair was loads better than what he'd done to it before, and with the lip ring gone, he had the face of an angel. Well, an angel with freckles, but some people liked that. 

Lily had missed most of the transformation because she'd had a date with Gideon-- apparently, the Welsh thing wasn't an issue so long as they were still in the city because everyone around them pretending that Gideon wasn't Welsh-- but she was suitably impressed when they showed up to school on Monday. 

"Okay, lesson number two, Remus, is making sure that if you're going to date, you're dating the right sort of person. Your new look, new diet, and new workout regime won't mean anything if you spoil it by dating the wrong sort of person. Benjy, for example, is a burn out. You don't want to join that crowd. They're all going to end up flunking out before they can decide what they want to do with their lives, and you're going to be just like them if you date him." Sirius wasn't used to being so harsh with people-- other than Regulus and James because duh, they both needed the help big time-- but Remus had given Benjy a shy smile and friendly wave when he'd seen him a few moments ago. Remus could always decide not to date like Sirius had, but Remus had seemed gobsmacked at the idea that Sirius wasn't having sex. Aiming him in the right direction had a better chance of success than convincing him that guys their age weren't worth his time. "Look, for example, at Peter." Peter was a friend, and they got on pretty well considering they hardly hung out because Peter lived in the exact opposite direction of Lily. "He's popular, very nicely groomed, and most importantly, doesn't smell like weed because he doesn't smoke it. Tell you what, I'll help you get his attention, and we'll see where it goes from there." As if he stood a chance of failure. He'd gotten two of his professors together just to help boost his grade; getting Remus and Peter together was going to be a piece of cake. 

But Remus agreed, and that's all that was important. Even if dating Peter didn't last, it would get his mind off Benjy and on the right track. 

"I bet you've never done anything selfless in your entire life," James said, and Sirius glared at him. 

Partly for the (very unfair) comment, partly because there was no reason for James to be here right now when there wasn't a break in uni, but mostly because he was sporting facial hair that looked more like razor burn than anything else. "What is that thing on your face?" 

"My glasses? I've had them since before we ever met." 

"No, that disgusting peach fuzz on your chin. You look fourteen; it's despicable. Shave it off or you'll risk looking like an even bigger berk than you already do. There, I did something selfless." 

James rolled his eyes. "It doesn't count as selfless if you're telling me to help your own senses." 

"So you admit that that thing is an abomination to my eyesight?" 

James snorted and muttered something about he was right about Sirius being selfish, but the light dusting of hair along his jaw was gone. He looked much better this way, but it's not like Sirius could say that to his face; that would be too much like getting along. 

Still, James thinking that Sirius was selfish stuck with him. "Lily? Would you say that I'm selfish?" 

"Not to your face." 

Sirius pouted. "I do good things." 

"Sure you do. You're better than me, anyways. I'm still not sure about your whole mentoring-Remus kick, but whatever." 

This was probably the worst night of Sirius's life. Really. Worse than Dad's last wedding, when the priest showed up drunk, and Regulus puked all over the cake because he'd been sneaking ice cream all day and Sirius had had to run around fixing everything-- why Sirius had taken care of it instead of James's mum, he'd had no idea, but it had been very stressful. Wedding cakes took ages to make, and priests were surprisingly hard to pin down even though they were supposed to serve the people or whatever. 

But anyways, this was worse. Because not only had Peter stolen a kiss and pretty much ignored Remus the whole party and come onto him in the car and then driven away when Sirius got out of the car because he wouldn't stop touching him, leaving Sirius stranded in the middle of nowhere, but someone had mugged him! Mugged! Like it was the bloody dark ages! he had no phone, no cash, and he'd gotten mud on his Jimmy Choo's. Mud. That wasn't going to come out. He'd just gotten these heels, and now they were ruined. Ruined! Why did he try to have anything good in this life? It was just going to end up splattered with mud. 

Since he didn't know how to use the tube much less where it was and Dad would totally be mad at him if he had to leave the house to come pick Sirius up from a party he wasn't supposed to be at, that left Sirius with only one real option: James. James would come get him, if only because it would make Sirius owe him a favour. 

Getting his hands on a phone he could use was a little bit more difficult than it should have been, and he was glad that he'd taken the time to memorise the number for James's dorm room. 

"Hello?" 

"Hi James, it's Sirius, and I need for you to come pick me up." 

"Pick you up? Where the hell are you?" 

"I was at this party that Dad doesn't know about, so I couldn't call him!" Sirius didn't really mean to shout, but he was tired and-- quite frankly-- on the verge of crying. "It's been like, the worst night ever. Someone stole my phone so I can't call a cab." 

"Okay," James said slowly. "Weren't you at a party with your friends? Why didn't one of them drive you home?" 

"Peter started to, but then he like, practically assaulted me for some reason, and he wouldn't stop touching me, so I had to get out of the car, and when I wouldn't get back in, he left. Can you believe that? He just left me out here all by myself, and then someone stole my phone and stuff, so I couldn't call a stupid cab for myself, and I just ruined my new pair of Jimmy Choo's, so I need you to come get me!" 

"Jesus, I'm coming. Just- don't cry, I'll be there soon." 

Sirius was already crying. He sniffled a little and went outside to wait since he'd already ruined these shoes and a little more harsh pavement wasn't going to do anything worse to them. Sirius thought that he couldn't feel any worse about himself, except he got in the car when James showed up, and some little fuck buddy of his was there, took one look at Sirius and said, "God, is he your step-brother or a rent-boy?" 

Sirius ripped one of his shoes off and shoved it in their face. "These are Jimmy Choo's. Rent-boys that have to stand on the side of the road in the middle of the bloody night can't afford those, and I'm sixteen. If you want to be a piece of shite, maybe you could just say so." He put his shoe back on and sneered at him now that he was looking. "And if you want to say I'm pretty, you could just fucking say that too." 

James pressed his lips together to keep from laughing, which kept Sirius from feeling even worse about himself. Of course, then James's little friend started talking about Shakespeare-- probably to make him feel inferior-- and he had to butt in partway through. 

"That's Twelfth Night, not Taming of the Shrew." 

"I think I know more Shakespeare than you do," he said, all condescension. 

"Congrats, I know my American high school movies. Channing Tatum was the one that gave the greatness speech in She's the Man, not Heath Ledger in 10 Things I Hate About You. She's the Man was based on Twelfth Night, so that's what it's from." 

This time, James couldn't completely hold back his laughter. 

"Hi Dad." 

"Hi pumpkin," Dad said distractedly, not looking up from the paper in front of him. 

"What are you working on?" 

"Just a case." 

"Ah." Sirius rocked back on his heels. He didn't feel like being alone, but he also didn't want to leave the house or... do anything, really. He just wanted to hang out with Dad a little. "Anything I can do to help?" 

Dad looked up at him, over the rim of his glasses. Then he smiled. "Sure. Here," he said picking up a stack to the left and handing it to Sirius along with a highlighter, "highlight every call that was made on March third." 

"Okay." Sirius sat down next to him and started working. It was pretty quiet, just the sound of them breathing, the squeak of highlighters, and the occasional paper being flipped. 

"Are you watching the news?" James asked. He sounded a little surprised, but not incredulous. 

"Yeah. Trying to stay up to date with the world like you suggested." 

"Huh." James threw himself on the couch next to him and stole his snack. 

People who stole his snacks should not be allowed to look so cute, especially since James said it tasted weird and then kept eating it instead of giving it back. And really, who looked cute in denim anyways? This was totally not on. 

Sirius didn't think anything about the fact that he'd called James cute in his mind until a few minutes later, when James pulled a blanket over their legs. This was... soft. Comfortable, even. Snack stealing aside, it made Sirius's chest feel all warm to be snuggled up like this with James. 

Realising that he fancied James was kind of like that time he was a kid and realised that he was stuck with Regulus for life, unlike Dad's wives that had a habit of coming and going before Sirius had to really accept them. Only this was worse because unlike then, there was no guarantee that everything would turn out okay. Sirius and Regulus had had to get used to each other; James was under no such commitment to fancy Sirius back, especially since James's type seemed to be arseholes that thought they knew Shakespeare and had no idea how to dress themselves. 

Sirius hadn't decided what he was going to do about it, which made it so much worse when Remus turned to him one day and said, "Hey, would you help me get James?" 

"What?" Sirius said, blinking at him. Surely that had been an auditory hallucination. Since when did Remus want to date James?

"James," Remus said, as if there had been any doubt. He might as well have elaborated to explain who James was for all that had made sense. Of course they were still talking about James. If they were talking about someone else, Sirius wouldn't care. More power to Remus for finally getting his legs under him. But James? Really? The last guy that Remus had been interested in of his own volition was Benjy. "Will you help me? I mean, you know him so much better than I do." 

"Why would you want to date James? He's not exactly your type." 

"You've been saying that I should get a new type," Remus reminded him. 

Aw shite, he had said that. Of course, at the time that he'd been saying it, he meant Peter. He didn't mean that anymore, but he really did not meant James. "Well yeah," Sirius hedged, "but I don't think you're his type either. I mean, he likes, like, brainy people." 

"Are you saying I'm stupid?" Remus asked, and he wasn't hurt by it, he was belligerent. 

"What? No, I just mean that-" 

"If you're going to be an arse about this, I won't bother sticking around," Remus said. Before Sirius could collect himself enough to protest or correct him, Remus had gathered his things and left. 

"What the...?" Sirius shook his head. Whatever. If Remus wanted to act like he was better than him, then fine. Sirius didn't need him, and obviously Remus didn't need him anymore. 

Sirius didn't know how big of a mistake he'd made with Remus until they were at school, and Remus didn't just brush off Benjy when he dropped by their table; he made fun of him. Listen, Sirius wasn't responsible for a change of mind, and he knew that. But there was something about the way he did it, like it was a performance he was doing to please everyone around him. The amused look he shot Lily afterwards only cemented that idea. 

Sirius went to find Benjy after last class, because he figured someone owed him an apology and Remus sure wasn't going to do it himself. "Hi," Sirius said. 

Benjy looked up at him, looking less stoned than usual. "Hey. Erm, sorry about your shoes." 

"What shoes?" 

"The er, red ones that I spilled a drink on. Like, a few months ago, remember?" 

"Oh, those are so last season, it's fine. Listen, I wanted to apologise for Remus being... well, a total arse. I told him that he should take more pride in his appearance and like, apparently he took that to mean he should be rude to people that like him if they aren't popular." There were a few details that he was leaving out, but they weren't important to the situation. It didn't really matter that Sirius had given Remus a makeover and told him straight out that dating Benjy would bring him down, because Remus hadn't even listened to him. It was only once Remus had turned confident that he started acting like an arse, and Sirius didn't think he could be credited with that. "Did you want to-" god this pained him "-like come over for pizza or something?" 

"Huh?" 

"Just to make you feel better," Sirius said quickly. He didn't want Benjy to think they were suddenly friends. "You looked like a kicked puppy after Remus blew you off. And I need an excuse to order pizza," he added. Lily was going gluten free, and as the best friend, Sirius wasn't supposed to order any food that would mess up her diet. Of course, Sirius also wasn't supposed to be eating that much cheese and bringing Benjy around would give a good excuse for both of them. 

Sirius had sort of been having not good luck lately, so it was a surprise when Benjy said yes, but not a surprise when Benjy, Lily, and Sirius showed up to find that James and Remus were already there. Personally, Sirius wanted to know why Remus thought he could invite himself over when they were in the middle of a fight, but whatever. 

"James, do you want pizza?" Sirius yelled. He wasn't going to make the effort to go over to him and ask like a civilised person because he didn't want for James to think of him as put together all the time. Looking as good as Sirius did on a daily basis took time. 

"Pineapple!" 

Sirius only had to stare at him incredulously for a moment before he cracked up. He found it endearing. It was a stupid joke-- a barely there joke, even-- and James was guffawing, something that Sirius usually did not find pleasant in the slightest. Somehow though, all Sirius could think was that James looked super adorable and he wanted to squish his cheeks. Or maybe kiss him. Or maybe hug him. Feelings were confusing. 

"Cheese is fine," James said. 

Sirius stuck his tongue out then went to make a call, nodding when Lily said they should do thick crust. He had no idea what happened when he was gone, but Benjy and Remus had both vanished. Together, according to Lily. "Well where did they go?" 

"Based on the moon eyes they were giving each other, I told them to get a room, and I think they listened to me," Lily said. "I'd give them some time alone before going looking for them. I don't think it's something either of us want to see." 

"What, are they getting along again?" 

"Guess so," James said. "Isn't that why you brought that guy here? What did you say his name was? Ben?" 

"Well yeah, but I didn't know that Remus was here." Sirius narrowed his eyes at James. "What were you even talking about? And why are you here? Don't you ever go to school?" 

"You're just now realising this?" James asked, raising an eyebrow. 

Sirius's crush on James was out of hand. Normally, Sirius only helped with Dad's work when Dad was around. The whole point was to spend time with him. Right now though, Dad was still at the office, and Sirius was helping with the work to spend time with James. He wasn't sure when James had decided to work with Dad, but it meant that Sirius was poring over papers in the study with James and Lucius instead of going shopping with Lily and Remus like he wanted to; he'd even gotten all dressed up for it, and it felt kind of ridiculous to be wearing a skirt this short if he was staying in but whatever. 

If this was a different situation, Sirius might think that James was interested in him. Sirius was playing with his hair because he categorically refused to pull it back unless he was doing something physical, and he was trying to keep from getting too bored. It wasn't all that strange, but he'd be messing with his hair, and James would glance at him before tearing his eyes away. Then, a minute later, it would happen again. Sirius would poke James with the non-ink point of his pen, and James would give him a little shove in return. It was playful, almost like flirting. If it were anyone else, Sirius would think it was flirting, but this was James, and since when was James interested in someone like him? 

Lucius shuffled some of the stacks around, looking confused. "Where are the call records?" 

"What call records?" James asked. 

"The ones our client made. It was over a hundred pages, where did it go?" 

"You mean the March calls?" Sirius said, and they both looked at him. "I highlighted the calls from March and then put them in two piles since there was..." he slowed a little at the angry twist to Lucius's face, "so much. Was that not right?" 

"No, you absolute idiot, it wasn't right. The March calls are nothing; we don't need them. It's going to take hours to find all of them again, and it's your fault." 

"Hey," James protested, and Sirius shrunk back a little. 

"We have to have this case ready by tomorrow, and now we won't be able to." Lucius shook his head. 

"I didn't mean to," Sirius said quietly. 

"Congratulations, you didn't mean to bugger up," Lucius said flatly. "You still did. Why are you here, again?" 

Sirius wasn't in the mood to get yelled at, so he slid out of his chair and left the room. 

"That was uncalled for," James said. "He's not getting paid for this, and he had no idea that he shouldn't split them up." 

"Leave it to you to defend him." 

"What's that supposed to mean?" 

"That maybe if you weren't busy making puppy eyes at him, you would've noticed that there was an issue sooner and we would actually have the time to fix this. But you were busy thinking with your prick, and now we're buggered. Besides, isn't he supposed to be your brother?" 

"Step-brother, and we weren't bloody raised together," James defended automatically. 

"Do whatever the hell you want," Lucius said, getting to his feet, "I'm calling in sick tomorrow so I don't have to explain to the boss why his stupid son messed it all up." 

"He's not stupid; he's just not trained for this. He didn't have to be there at all, and-" 

Lucius cut him off with a groan as they walked to the front door. "For god's sake, if you want to moon over him, do it with someone that cares. I'll talk to you when you have half a brain again." 

"I doubt I'll ever see you again if you're ducking out of this now, Lucius, but go on and get a good night's rest, I'm sure you'll need it for job hunting." James sort of slammed the door as soon as Lucius was out of the house. He rubbed at his forehead tiredly as he turned, catching sight of Sirius sitting on the middle landing of the stairs. It was obvious that he'd been there the whole time. He looked sad. James had seen him upset a few times, but never so dejected. He had his knees pulled up a little, arms resting on top of them. The way Sirius dressed was so innocent. He wore a short skirt because he liked knee-high socks and the way his legs looked, not because he was trying to seduce anyone. That being said, James felt thoroughly seduced. 

"Did I really mess it all up?" Sirius asked, sounding as depressed as he looked. 

"Nah." James walked up the stairs and sat down next to him. "Lucius is just blowing off steam. I mean, yeah, it'll take some time to sort out, but it's not going to ruin the case or summat." 

"You sure?" 

"Yeah." 

Sirius turned and hugged him, hiding his face in James's neck. "Thanks." Then, a moment later, he added, "Thanks for sticking up for me. I know you think I'm kind of vapid." 

"You're not vapid; you're just not a bloody professor. That's not a bad thing." 

Sirius leaned back a little. "Were you really making puppy eyes at me?" 

"What?" James asked, a blush rising in his cheeks far too fast for it to be innocent. 

Sirius kissed him. It was a little clumsy, but the important part was that James kissed him back. James's hand was warm on his knee, and Sirius wondered if it would be wildly inappropriate to climb into his lap.