Work Text:
When asked later on, James couldn't really explain how things got this bad. It had started innocently enough- a bit of food thrown at dinner, a funny note sent in class. They'd never pranked each other before. Early on in their friendship, it had been mutually-agreed-upon that their skills were best used as an unstoppable team, rather than splitting up their unique abilities to end up in civil war. Strength in numbers, and all that.
But the sexual tension between Sirius and Remus had reached horrifying heights, and somehow, the two had ended up in an all-out war. James and Peter both struggled to stay out of it, only because they were both too terrified to take sides, and if they were honest, it was much more entertaining to watch from afar.
From James's point of view, Remus and Sirius were evenly matched. Remus was smart. He had brilliant ideas and was skilled at all forms of magic. But he lacked nerve and, of lack of a better word, the utter balls to go overboard.
That, of course, was what Sirius had in excess. Sirius acted first and thought later, which resulted in many situations that caused James to almost piss himself laughing.
Of course, the whole thing was caused by the fact that neither would admit that all of their underlying irritation and anger toward the other was caused by feelings and tension that had been building since September 1st of their first year. James and Peter both had lamented to each other that the way Moony and Padfoot both looked at each other was disgusting, and the sooner the two came to their senses, the better.
It turned out that it was the pranks that did it.
On one random Wednesday evening, Sirius decided it was a genius idea to charm the shower to spray some sort of questionable goo out of the spout, right before Remus showered. This went flawlessly, right up until a very angry Remus tried to fix the showerhead and the whole thing fell off. So, Remus, with nothing but a towel wrapped around his waist stomped out of the bathroom, goo cascading down his bare chest and a furious expression on his face.
But, rather than looking scared, Sirius looked very distracted.
Because up until that point, Remus had been quite shy about his body. None of them had made a big deal of it. They knew of his scars and his desire to hide them, so even though they'd all caught glances, they didn't push him to walk around shirtless like they did. He swam with a t-shirt and changed in the bathroom and that was that.
So this was the first time Sirius had gotten a good look. And from what James could tell, he had quite forgotten how to use his brain. All of his blood had gone...elsewhere.
"Erm, Pads? Help Remus fix the shower, yeah?" James pushed him, trying to shock him out of his gaping.
But Sirius, who had turned bright red, was only able to mumble, "Fucking- fuck," under his breath before following a now-quiet Remus into the bathroom.
At first James was nervous that Remus would take Sirius's staring the wrong way. But suddenly, he heard a small thump and a suspicious moan that he was sure he was not supposed to hear.
"C'mon, Wormy, let's go!" he shouted quickly, pulling his friend out of the room just as another moan was heard through the bathroom door.
He figured his friends could finally figure out what to do from here.