Smile
Something's wrong with Remus. It's not something big enough that James and Peter notice it. It's not big enough that his pranking habits have changed. It's nowhere near big enough to affect his studying habits. It's really just there in a little tightness around his eyes, but it's there. And Sirius is going to fix it.
First he has to find out what's wrong. And that's going to be the hard part, because Remus represses everything like those Vulcans in that muggle tellywhatsit that James had shown them. But Sirius can do this. This is Remus, after all. And no one knows Remus better than Sirius does.
Plus, Sirius can totally do sneaky. He's got mad ninja skills. If he needs to slink around behind suits of armor and blend into the shadows to watch Remus until he figures out what the problem is, he is so there. And there is a problem because, borderline obsessive tendencies aside, he's not crazy. He's just very observant. Especially when it comes to Remus.
He's not imagining things. Absolutely not.
Even more definitely when it gets worse. And it does. Because now the tightness has moved from his eyes so that it's in his smile, too. Remus is giving Sirius fake smiles, and it's just wrong.
But it's more wrong that he's not giving them to anyone else.
So he makes good on his obsessive stalking plans and spends a week skipping class and following Remus around. Remus tells him to stop it and go to class after that, but Sirius can pinpoint the exact moment at which Remus found out he was there. Because Sirius knows Remus, and he can just kind of tell these things.
So he looks at what he'd noticed in the first two days, and what he notices makes him sad. Because Remus is sad. And he doesn't like it when Remus is sad.
Remus should be gleeful and mischievous. Well, gleefully mischievous. Mischievously gleeful. Like the rest of them are. He hasn't stopped pranking, it just seems like he isn't really enjoying it very much. Like it's a duty or something and his heart's just not there and that definitely means that it's starting to get serious. Haha. Sirius.
It's not long after that that Peter starts to pick up on it. James is still stuck up in his own less important issues (Lily bleh), but now the wrongness is definitely not in his head even more than it was before. And even though Peter has noticed it, Sirius is still the only one who's getting the fake smile and it's killing him. What has he done wrong?
It's really all he can think about. When he's in class, when he's on the quiddich pitch, when they're all scheming together, when Remus smiles at him with that tense, trying-too-hard-to-be-happy smile. Even in his dreams. Especially in his dreams.
And then the dreams really aren't about what he could have done wrong, anymore so much as they are about all the things that he really wants to do wrong.
And there are a lot of them, as it turns out.
It just starts out as, you know, wrong. Like things he should not be dreaming about doing to a friend. It's easy enough to just brush it off as a hormones thing. Except then it happens really a lot. And that still isn't a reason to worry because, come on. For Sirius, sex really isn't that big a deal. Even sex that he's not having. Especially sex that he's not having. Only then they aren't sex dreams, anymore. Well, not all the time. Sometimes it's just dreams about the two of them laughing together or sitting in the library or Remus just actually smiling at him for real again and somehow it still doesn't feel platonic.
Because dreams can do that.
And that's when it becomes a problem.
So now Sirius has a problem and Remus (obviously) has a problem with Sirius and nothing is getting resolved. But Sirius has spent enough time just trying to figure things out. It's high time to go straight to the source.
"What's wrong with you?"
"Sorry?"
Okay, so it's not exactly the most delicate way to ask.
"Something's wrong, and you're going to tell me what it is."
"I'm dealing with it, so if you could-"
"No." There's so much that's gone wrong with his life that this just has to be okay. Because Remus somehow makes things okay, except for when he's making them wrong. "It's me you have the problem with and it's been driving me mad for months, so we're going to get this out. Right now."
But "right now" isn't exactly right since Remus doesn't say anything.
He kind of just sits there looking everywhere but at Sirius as his face turns redder and redder, and Sirius sort of thinks he gets it.
"I guess I was just, uh, that is-" and this is fascinating because Sirius has never heard Remus sound so inarticulate. "I mean, it's uh. It was, uh, you know. Stupid crush and all. So."
And then Sirius totally gets it because,well, it's Remus after all and, yeah. How else would he expect Remus to react to something like that? He doesn't have anything near Sirius' levels of confidence.
So Sirius reaches out (because Remus can't) and takes Remus' hand. And smiles.
And Remus smiles back.
For real.
A/N
Not entirely sure how I feel about this one. Feedback appreciated.
Misprocuous