002. Middles

It was a quandary of biblical proportions. A perplexing puzzle, a taunting question lingering on the horizon of discovery, toying with him. One that he knew he must answer in order to satisfy his own sense of contentment with the world at large. Sirius' eyes narrowed in careful, precise concentration, lips pursing together.

Was he too biased to make such a decision? Was his own fear or preconceptions distorting the reality of things? He wasn't sure. And this was certainly something he needed to be assured of.

Was he getting fat?

Sirius stared contemplatively in the mirror, studying the reflection carefully, turning this way and that. He poked. He prodded.

Damn, he still couldn't tell. He had always been a lanky boy, but as of late he was filled with an ominous fear that he was beginning to get a bit… pudgy. Just above his waistband, he could swear he was starting to fill out. But the longer he stared at his stomach, the less and less he could remember whether or not it had always looked that way or if this was some new arrangement.

He tapped the skin over his belly button, listening to the sound it made. He didn't know if it meant anything. The twacking sound filled him with no great sense of comfort, though it didn't sound particularly soggy, which was encouraging. He sucked in his gut, straightening his back, then let his breath out with a whoosh.

Nope, he was getting nowhere.

What he needed, he decided resolutely, was a second opinion. And possibly a third.

With a last determined look back over his shoulder at the mirror, Sirius trooped purposefully down to the common room. The only students there were James and Peter, playing chess in the corner and talking amidst themselves. Perfect. They would do smashingly.

"James, Peter, I need your opinion on a most important subject," he declared as he swung around the banister, gaining a bit of air and landing solidly on the floor with a rather loud thunk, announcing his entrance into the room boisterously.

"What is it n—" James broke off from his drawling question with a start as he happened to glance over at the new arrival. "Why haven't you got a shirt on?" He quirked an eyebrow at Sirius' bare chest.

Peter made an odd sound, the sort of noise one makes when a laugh gets caught in the vicinity of one's throat.

"Am I getting fat?" he demanded, craning his neck down to study his own stomach again.

James stared at him incredulously a moment, and then laughed.

Sirius' head snapped up, and he glared heatedly. "This is serious, Prongsie. Come on, tell me the truth."

Peter rose hurriedly. "I'm going to… go find…Remus. I had a question about our…assignment," he blurted in a rush, abandoning the game and edging around Sirius. "You leave that question up to James. He's definitely more knowledgeable. I mean, I'm not exactly one to go by." With that he rushed out of the room, raising his eyebrows and shrugging his shoulders at James from behind Sirius' back as soon as the other boy had turned his attention back to Potter.

"So?" Sirius asked.

It took everything in James not to laugh at the sight of his friend in the middle of the common room, with no shirt and a hand on his hip, demanding to know if he was getting out of shape. If he flicked his hair at the moment, it would kill James for sure. "Of course you're not fat, mate," he replied earnestly. Honestly, whether being addressed by a male or female was inconsequential. There was only one answer to that question. Ever.

"You sure?" Sirius still appeared dubious. He turned so that James could study his profile. "Even from the side?"

"Even from the side." James ruffled his hair in an attempt to keep from grinning. And failed.

Sirius was taking offense at the smirk dancing so obviously across his friend's face. "You're not really looking," he said, tone a bit injured.

James employed all of his years of bullshitting in order to pull off a somewhat earnest response. "Of course I am. We both know you're not fat."

"Not even slightly?"

"No."

Sirius sighed for a moment, and James dared to hope that perhaps his doubts and concerns would be assuaged.

He hoped in vain.

"But feel right here…" Sirius grabbed for James' hand, nearly pulling him out of his seat.

"Whoa, what are you doing?" James demanded, trying to snatch his hand back.

"No, I swear it's squishy right here!"

Tussling broke out between the two of them as Sirius tried to drag James closer to inspect, and James tried unsuccessfully to recoil in appropriate levels of manly horror. "Sirius, this really isn't necessary. Have one of the girls feel you up and tell you how hot you are, but leave me out of it."

"They won't give me an honest, man to man opinion. Now suck it up and tell me if my tummy is squishy, man!" Sirius demanded, jerking hard on James' arm.

"Fine!"

James was cursed.

There was really no other way to explain the horrendous twist of fate that occurred at that precise moment. It was cruel and unfair, and sheerly the product of some twisted higher power toying with his sanity. It was concrete proof that someone was out to get him. For goodness sakes, a giant radioactive slug oozing out the roaring fire would, at that point, been more welcome then the events that followed.

Because, in accordance with every twisted law of inconvenience, at the exact instant that James' hand came in contact with the skin of Sirius' stomach as they stood in the cozy common room, the door opened to admit none other then one Lily Evans.

James did not have time even to register whether or not the texture beneath his hands did or did not, in fact, possess a squishy or solid nature. He flew away from Sirius roughly, looking in a terrified frenzy between the gaping Lily and the shirtless Sirius. He flashed back, all to sharply, to barely three seconds ago, three rushed breaths, three panicked moments, to their exact circumstances, trying madly to convince himself that they could not be construed in some disturbing manner.

Him. Sirius. Shirtless. Alone. Common room. Sirius grabbing his arms. Him touching Sirius' chest.

His head spun for a moment. Then he nearly laughed at the ridiculousness of it all. Oddly enough, his own humor didn't seem enough to stop his cheeks from flushing scarlet.

Lily, meanwhile, was moving back toward the door, mumbling some incoherent and irrelevant apology beneath his breath and averting her eyes.

"No, Lily, wait!" James protested, taking a step toward her. "It's not—we weren't—Sirius was just... asking me to check if he was fat."

He wondered if that sounded not only untrue, but decidedly pathetic to anyone else but him.

Lily, glanced back at the completely unfazed Sirius before ducking out of the room, her own cheeks tinged pink.

"What?" Sirius asked, shrugging his shoulders and staring with unconcerned eyes at the frustrated, angry, embarrassed James.

With a half-groan, half-growl of suppressed rage, James snatched a weighty pillow from the cough and flung it in the general direction of Sirius' face before bolting toward the common room door after the elusive redhead.

"Lily! Wait!"

Sirius caught the pillow and tossed it back onto the couch, sighing resignedly. So, it appeared his question wouldn't be answered after all. At least, not by James. It didn't seem wise to bring it up with him again. Next time he might not throw something as light and fluffy as a pillow. Something with more velocity and weight would not be welcome when aimed at his face.

Hmmm…. Maybe Moony would help him out.

He would need a shirt, though. He couldn't simply go traipsing down the halls in the middle of the evening in a half state of undress.

Or could he?

Was it specifically in the rules that one could not walk down to the library while bereft of a shirt? Sirius wasn't sure. He pondered it a moment, stalking across the floor a few times.

Well, he always had learned best by experience.

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I have no idea where this came from, but I couldn't resist the idea. I had this brilliant image in my head of Sirius poking his tummy and that basically spun off into...this.

It's number 2 of a fanfiction100 list I'm writing (most dealing with Marauder characters and Lily). Number 1 is "what remains" and has Sirius too, but it's got a more serious/graver tone to it.