Characters not mine.

Another one that just would not go away.

Sirius was sprawled in the grass, half-asleep, when James landed. For a moment, James didn't even want to move, because even at school, he rarely saw Sirius with his guard this far down. Certainly never in the summer, even this summer, after he'd left home. If anything his hackles were farther up now, and he was watching James for cues as though he might have to leave the Potters in much the same way he'd left home. James alternated between wanting to shake him and wanting to get him away from everything.

"What're you looking at, Prongs?" Sirius asked without opening his eyes.

James shook his head. Sirius was wearing Muggle clothes again - biker boots, jeans, and a t-shirt, like he had been almost since he'd arrived at the Potters'. James had always considered Muggle clothes something of a chore, and of course both Remus and Peter had enough Muggle blood in them that the clothes were just part of their wardrobes, but Sirius's preferences had been crafted as much by rebellion as anything else. Although he did look more his age dressed that way - in robes he had to express the attitude and the politics in his stance, whereas the leather jacket tended to say it all on its own and Sirius himself could relax. "I should have landed on the other side of you."

Sirius chuckled. "Probably. I'm not moving. You going in, then?"

James shrugged. "I thought I'd go to the pub this afternoon."

"Which one?" Sirius's tone was bored, but Merlin knew James could parse the various shades of Sirius's boredom by now. He already knew the answer, but he wanted it confirmed before he regalled James with his opinion of this idiocy.

James rolled his eyes. "The Leaky Cauldron."

"You've gone into London three times this week already." Sirius finally opened one eye, the left one nearest James.

"And?"

It should not be possible for Sirius to look down his nose at anyone while sprawled on his back in the grass, but that had always been a special element of Sirius's "Do you take me for an idiot?" glare. "Who are you waiting on that you can't just owl?"

James considered it. "Anyone, frankly."

Sirius snorted.

James knew the answer his friend had been waiting on, and he wasn't over-inclined to give it. This one was equally true. "I'm bored and I'm tired of having to look in the Prophet for everything. Things are happening, Sirius. Big things."

"I know." This time the tone wasn't incredulous or bored, but James knew this one, too. He didn't need spellwork to hear the "Let's not talk about this" in the undertone.

James gave in. "And yes, there has been a significant lack of talking to certain Gryffindor girls."

Sirius smiled slightly, satisfied. "Merlin, you can be such an arse sometimes, James."

James reached up to rumple his already wild hair and rolled his eyes. "And what makes you say it this time?"

"All the usual reasons. Are you going around me or stepping over me?"

James sighed, set the broom down, and sat down on the grass beside his best friend. Sirius didn't move, but there was no sound of protest, either, so James was pretty certain he was all right. "You all right, there, Padfoot?" he asked quietly. Sirius hadn't matter-o-factly informed him he was an arse in two months, so that he was doing so now meant he was finally starting to relax again - or that James had really done something to piss the him off.

Sirius propped himself up on one elbow. "Fine. So have you gone back to the showing off and pretending its not for her stage, or are you looking to make an idiot of yourself?" He sat up the rest of the way, rubbed at his eyes with the heel of his palm, and added, "Or have we completely progressed to stalking?"

James nearly shoved him back onto his back. "It's not like I've even sent her a letter!"

"Good. I really don't want to spend three hours looking up the countercurse again. For a Muggle-born, that girl certainly knows some obscure curses."

Half the time, Sirius not knowing the countercurse simply meant that the spell was harmless, not that it was particularly obscure, but James kept his mouth firmly closed on that point. He didn't need any sore spots about his family brought up after this summer, not when he was going to go back to school and deal with his brother. Instead, James rolled his eyes. "Yeah, it's not like I'm so head-over-heels I don't actually notice the rejection," he said.

"Glad to hear it. It's not like there aren't enough girls who would be happy to date you around."

James glowered. "I don't settle."

Sirius grinned. "I don't know. I think you settled for me after a couple of trips to the hospital wing, didn't you?"

James chucked a handful of grass at him, but Sirius just laughed at him rather than retaliating in kind. "I don't settle," he repeated. "I still fancy her."

"I will grab the hat and be resorted into Slytherin before that changes, James. You're stubborn."

"But I'm not. . . ." James hesitated.

"You're not what?"

"Not that much of an arsehole, I guess. I can back down. Maybe I can even figure out what she wants if I hold back long enough, too."

Sirius nodded. "But if she does show up at the Cauldron while we're there, it's hardly going to stop you from making an idiot of yourself trying to apologize for being a bastard and then impress her in the same breath, is that it?"

James shoved his glasses back up the bridge of his nose and tried not to look too irritated at that probably-accurate description. "I'm not just hoping to run into someone, though, I really want to talk to people. There've been so many disappearances lately. . . . Storm's coming."

"And instead of enjoying the last of the sunshine like sensible people, the two of us want to be there when it starts to rain." Sirius nodded and ran a hand through his hair. "Just try not to embarrass me too much, will you?"

"I take it you're coming?"

"Might as well. I like your mum, James, but I'm not certain I want to be left alone in the house with her."

He nodded, started to get to his feet, and then hesitated. Sirius rarely opened himself up for a conversation regarding relationships - and it was even rarer for it to even approach seriousness. "Speaking of hopeless love lives - "

"Yeeeah?" It came out of Sirius's mouth as a monotone, not bored or irritated or any of the various other common tonalities of Sirius Black, just very carefully blank. James had never quite learned how to react to that tone in the way he had to most of the others, because neither the punches nor the kid gloves had ever worked.

James sighed. "I've told you before, Padfoot, I'm not blind."

And he wasn't, although it was only sometime in the past term that he'd really noticed. He suspected that it hadn't come to their attention much before, either. But Sirius and Remus both had their moments - when Sirius, who was normally about as touch-happy as a frightened hedgehog, was willing to grab Remus Lupin and just hold on, and Remus was even more likely to give in to Sirius than he was to James or Peter, or how incredibly easy it was for Sirius to make Remus blush and how very much it amused Sirius to do so. When James and Peter had started losing track of the both of them at the same time, it had started to click. Slowly. But they were relatively discreet and never said anything and it was hard for James to say he was entirely certain. Except for the way the phrase "hopeless love lives" made Sirius, the shameless flirt who nonetheless never seemed to get a date, go stiff.

James wasn't entirely certain what he was supposed to do with this knowledge, except hope that it didn't change either of them too much, and try to ignore it until they forceably brought it to his attention. If they forceably brought it to his attention. Sirius had said one or two things, on occasion, that could be interpreted one way or another. But James sometimes had to wonder if they'd ever made anything clear to each other. His selective blindness wasn't so complete that he didn't realize how bloody uncertain the both of them were. That still didn't mean he was going to be the one to ask, though.

"You think either of us will ever get there?" he asked.

"What, that she'll ever say yes?" Sirius asked. "Or that I'll ever open my mouth and say . . . whatever it is you think the magic words are. God, James. . . ." His voice dropped, almost nervously, "You're more of a girl than me or Remus, you know that?"

James rolled his eyes.

"I don't know. Maybe. People keep telling me I'm still too damn young to throw my life away, after all." Sirius lay back on the grass and closed his eyes against the sun again. "Now, are you going to the pub in your quidditch gear, or are you going in and changing before we leave?"