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Sirius walked into their flat with a grin on his face. He looked breathtakingly beautiful, as always. It was something James always noticed about him, but that didn't make it less impactful-- sort of like the way the sun was bright: an everyday occurrence but no less noticeable for it. "Guess what happened today?" he asked.
"You finally got the kids at the playground to pet you?"
Sirius didn't bother to glare at him for the joke, which meant that whatever news he had, it was big. He took off his jacket and hung it on the hook but didn't bother with his shoes.
Yes, James watched his every move. No, he didn't care to change that habit. It's not like Sirius didn't know he did it. Sirius had caught his staring back in Hogwarts and never told him to stop; as far as their relationship was concerned, that was Sirius telling him that he could look as much as he wanted.
"Are you ready for this?" Sirius asked as he sat sideways on the couch, one leg bent so his foot hung off the cushion. "You don't look like you're ready. Mentally prepare yourself, James."
"For Godric's sake, just tell me," James said, as if annoyed, but he was grinning.
"I got a modeling job at Sleekeazy's."
A laugh ripped out of James, hurting his throat a little, but Merlin, he couldn't keep it in even if he wanted to. Sirius was gorgeous and always willing to pose in front of a camera, but modeling?
Sirius was laughing along with him, both of them finding the situation more than a little ridiculous.
When he could finally speak instead of laughing-- a venture that took a few tries before it worked-- James asked, "How in the world did that happen?"
"Gods," Sirius said, still snickering, "do you remember that auror calendar they asked us to do?"
"Yeah." Their auror careers had been short lived, with the both of them quitting as soon as the war was over; the ideals of being in law enforcement couldn't compare with the realities of the job, and neither of them had been willing to put up with all the rubbish and corruption it entailed.
"They had a copy, I guess, and when they were thinking about who to use for their new campaign, they thought of me."
James wrinkled his nose to affect disgust and said, "You sure you want to work with people that've jerked it to a photo of you?"
"If I held to that rule, I'd never work with anyone ever again," Sirius said, sending both of them into new peals of laughter.
"And now you're giving everyone new material," James cooed, patting Sirius on the cheek. "You're so selfless."
"I know. It's one of my best qualities."
"Tied for first with all of your other qualities," James said, nodding sagely.
"And don't you forget it," Sirius said, wrapping his fingers around James's arm and moved James's hand from his cheek to his shoulder.
His fingers were thick and strong, just like the rest of him was. James had had more than one fantasy about Sirius's hands, and he liked how they felt against his skin like this, even in such a non-sexual manner. Him and Sirius were so comfortable around each other. James could tell Sirius that he thought about him when he tossed off, and Sirius would probably shrug and say 'of course you do' and nothing between them would change. He wondered, sometimes, if it was like that for Sirius too. If Sirius ever thought about how handsome James was and touched himself thinking about it. That was a nice thought; he liked when they were equal in everything.
James chuckled, pulling himself away from those thoughts. "Merlin, I can't believe you're going to model."
"Right? I could've cashed in on my good looks years ago, and I didn't think to. I wouldn't have had to bother with the shop at all."
"Yeah, right," James snorted. Sirius loved that shop. Nothing on the planet could've stopped him from spending his days breaking curses on household objects, including modeling and entering dog shows-- he'd gotten third the one time they did it, and James had been so offended by that placement that they hadn't tried again.
"Watch yourself James, in a month I'll be more famous than you can handle."
"I'm sure," James said, taking his hand off Sirius's shoulder to boop his nose.
Sirius swat his hand away, so he did it again.
That was an invitation as far as Sirius was concerned, so he transformed into Padfoot and easily knocked James over and sat on his stomach, tail wagging in satisfaction as James alternated between laughing and ineffectually trying to push him off. They really wanted to make this arse a model? Best of luck to them.
Sirius's modeling rapidly went from the funniest thing in James's life, to the most terrible.
Everyone had seen the pictures from Sleekeazy's new advertisements. Everyone.
Two teammates and four associates in Puddlemere asked James if Sirius was single and if he thought his best mate would be interested in going on a date with him. Marlene reported that three of her coworkers at The Prophet asked her if Sirius would be interested in a 'private interview'. Lily said that more than one of her students at Hogwarts carried a cut out picture of Sirius with them. Rosmerta had jokingly asked if Sirius would sign one of the pictures for her (he did so with a wink), and the next time they came in, she told them that she'd had to use a sticking charm on it so no one would lift it as they exited. They'd all had a good laugh over that when Rosmerta told them that, but James's had been a little forced.
It all drove James mad. He tried to keep a good humour about it, but it was impossible.
This was different than what used to happen. This wasn't people doing a double take when they saw Sirius, or someone's eyes trailing after him like they couldn't believe someone so handsome was walking the earth. It had never bothered James before. He used to laugh about it with Sirius and argue over which of them the person was actually checking out.
It stopped being funny when James realised that everyone felt entitled to a piece of Sirius. They thought they could ask for a moment of his time, an autograph, a date. Whether James was stood right next to him or not, people would go up to Sirius and ask him out. This sort of thing had happened at Hogwarts too, and James had hated it as much then as he hated it now. It wasn't just that people usually ignored him to talk to Sirius, it was... bugger, he didn't even know what about it he hated so much, but it was horrible. People came up to Sirius in public, and he had to pause his conversation with James so he could let them down gently. James used to at least attempt to be kind about it and wait patiently, but after every single outing getting interrupted several times, he'd had enough.
The next time they were walking down Diagon Alley and someone said, "Excuse me, but you're Sirius Black, aren't you? The new model for Sleekeazy's?"
Sirius slowed to do his usual niceties, but James was done with this shite. "He's busy with someone who actually knows him." He didn't bother trying to sound nice, because there was no way to make that sound nice.
She blinked up at him. "I just-"
"Do us all a favour and bugger off," James said, but he didn't trust that she would. He grabbed Sirius's arm and continued on their way. Sirius didn't offer resistance as James dragged him away, but he could sense his confusion. He didn't bother to explain himself.
After their was enough distance between them, James let go of his arm.
"What was that about?" Sirius asked.
"What was what about?"
"Don't play dumb. Blowing that person off back there."
James glanced at Sirius and knew he wouldn't be able to brush this off. But hell if he wasn't going to try. "I'm just hungry. Some of the people that want to talk to you never shut it."
Sirius hummed, not buying James's excuse for a second, but he didn't ask about it further as they walked.
He didn't ask about it all through lunch, either.
James could see the confrontation coming and knew it wouldn't be pretty, like a horde of Blast-Ended Skrewts cresting a hill.
As soon as they got home, Sirius rounded on him, anger writ across his face. "What the hell is wrong with you?"
"Relax, it's not as if my trainer will know I had a basket of chips with lunch," James said. Despite the words, he didn't bother to play innocent or pretend that he didn't know that Sirius was talking about something else. He said it flatly, looking Sirius dead in the eyes as he crossed his arms over his chest.
Sirius's jaw ticked. "James," he growled.
"I'm tired of the way everyone treats you."
"Like a minor celebrity?"
"Like they want to eat you alive," James corrected, narrowing his eyes at Sirius, daring him to say that wasn't what was happening. "You can't sodding tell me that you don't know what they think about you."
"So what? A couple random arse people think they want to date me because I'm hot, and you lose your head?"
"Yes, because it's ridiculous!"
"It's ridiculous that people want to date me?" Sirius asked, eyes hard and blazing as he glared at James across the small amount of space separating them. it was little more than an arm's length between them. One step forward, arm extended, and one of them could put a hand on the other's shoulder. Neither of them did it. It wasn't that sort of disagreement.
"It's ridiculous that they think they're worth your time."
"Oh you've got to be sodding kidding me. Seriously? This is some weird possessiveness because you don't like to share your toys?"
"You're not a toy," James snapped. "You're my best mate, and none of them know you!"
"So what? They've got a crush but aren't allowed to act on it because you don't think they know me well enough?"
"They don't know you, so they shouldn't be bothering you!"
"Who said they were bothering me? I've never been bothered by it."
"Lie to yourself if you want, but don't lie to me," James bit out. Sirius covered it well, but James could see the way it chipped at him every time he had to pull up a certain level of politeness when he thought he was simply existing with James in public.
"You don't speak for me," Sirius snapped back.
"Maybe I should if you're going to lie about it."
"Put me in a box then. Take me out and dust me off when you invite people over. Tell me who I'm allowed to talk to and for how long, and about what, and maybe you'll be happy. Merlin forbid you let me live my life without you breathing down my neck."
James didn't believe for a second that Sirius really thought that, but he'd gotten under his skin. He'd made Sirius upset enough that he wanted to lash out. He'd tried to be logical with James in the beginning and it hadn't worked, so now he'd moved into trying to scare him to back off.
It would've worked if James didn't know better. It had worked the first few times they got into real arguments back at Hogwarts, but then he had learned the flow of it. It didn't work anymore, but that didn't stop Sirius from trying, from trying to protect himself when he felt vulnerable and didn't know what else to do.
James stepped forward, put a hand on the back of Sirius's neck, and yanked him closer in quick succession, quick enough that Sirius didn't really know what was happening until it was done. "If you aren't going to tell people to bugger off when you want space," James said in the scant space between their faces, his voice low and dangerous, "then I will." He breathed in, then out. "And I don't care if it pisses you off."
"What if I don't want space?"
"You do."
"You want that space between us more than I do," Sirius said, and James knew that 'us' meant the fans, the people that were always fawning over him and his photos.
But to James, it felt like it meant more than that. 'Us' like the fans, but also 'us' meaning the two of them.
They were standing close. Close enough that James could easily kiss him, and if anyone else had been standing like this, James would've thought snogging was an inevitability. He was the one that had initiated it, but Sirius hadn't pulled away; he didn't look the least bit uncomfortable with it. That fire within his eyes had grown, and it felt-- all of a sudden-- like he was waiting for James to do something, like he'd wanted that something for a while, but James had never noticed before.
He jerked forward, kissing Sirius hard.
There wasn't a moment's hesitation in Sirius kissing him back, hands going around James's waist and curling over his back in an instant. James licked into his mouth, and he moaned. Every hint James gave that he wanted something, and Sirius would give him that and more.
Long before Sirius pulled him into his room, James knew that he loved him.
Being in love with Sirius wasn't new, he realised. It was like the stones inside Hogwarts being white. They'd always been white, but it wasn't until someone said it to his face that he acknowledged and really thought about it. Yeah, the stones were white. He'd known it, it had always been true, but he hadn't thought about it in those exact terms before. Of course he was in love with Sirius and had been for more years than he could count on one hand, but he hadn't thought about it exactly like that before.