Author's Note: No, you are not imagining this. I've returned. I am back into fanfiction. Assuming all of you who are reading this are reading Sick, then you will perhaps know already that I have come back. But I guess I can imagine not all of you have read Sick. Anyway, for some reason it is harder to update this one than Sick. But I shall not complain any longer. Please review, darlings. Please. This and Sick. I would also suggest that you maybe reread, or at least skim, the other chapters before reading this.

By the waaaaay, this chapter focuses a bunch on Sirius' feelings for a certain boy. This may not suit all of you, but not necessarily will every chapter focus on this. I will not say none of them will after this, however. I do hope I won't be abandoned.

There had never been such tension in a room before. In the history of the world. Nobody seemed quite sure what had happened.

Well, it was obvious what had happened. Sirius Black had grabbed James Potter and kissed him. But what was not obvious was why.

Remus was speechless, his eyes seeming permanently wide.

Peter seemed to be wracking his brain to come up with something—anything—to say. From the looks of it, he wanted to make things less uncomfortable for all of them.

Sirius paid no attention to Remus and Peter, though he was aware they probably felt he had lost his mind. He was no exception; he was also wondering why the hell he had done it. He had spent days trying to avoid James when he was confused about his feelings. When he had finally figured them out, instead of doing something proper—denying it, avoiding him, focusing on something else—he had decided to tell James in the worst way possible.

He kissed his obviously heterosexual best friend on the lips.

In front of their other friends.

Sirius was thankful that James had not shouted or shown any disgust, but surely…surely he was not happy about it. How could he know for sure, though? James had been in the bathroom for a good fifteen minutes.

Remus cleared his throat, finally. Sirius turned his head to him slowly.

"Just to be clear…you just kissed James, right?"

Sirius raised an eyebrow at him and said nothing, turning back to watch the bathroom door.

Moments later, James emerged. Sirius honestly did not know what to expect. He prepared himself for the worst.

But it did not appear he was going to get the worse. James smiled at Sirius, made his way to his bed, and collapsed.

Sirius saw Remus and Peter exchange a look through his peripheral, but he continued to watch James curiously.

James laughed. "Stop staring at me, you git. Listen, I'm thinking…" he said slowly, addressing them all, "we continue tomorrow on our little operation."

Remus and Peter took the hint, and the discussion moved to their plan to become animagi. Sirius did not participate. He was not, at that moment, particularly enthusiastic about their plan. He was focused on James. He wanted to know what he was thinking. Why was he not saying anything about the kiss? Was it going to come up later?

Sirius figured he should have been pleased with the reaction he was getting. He had chosen to stupidly kiss his very male best friend. He was not being shunned, and he was not being interrogated.

Part of him was glad he did not have to talk about it.

But part of him wanted to talk about it, to know what James was thinking.

Maybe Sirius had the hope somewhere within him that James would have been fond of it?

Sirius shook his head quickly. If so, he had to rid himself of that fantasy.

….

James often pushed his glasses up and down on his face with his left hand when he was deep in thought. He would smile to himself when the answer—as it always would—popped into his brain.

James was oblivious to Sirius' staring. He was probably also unaware that Sirius had noticed these things, along with many other things about him.

Sirius had been struggling to accept his feelings for James, and in the process, he realized that perhaps the feelings had been with him for a long time, somewhere beneath the surface. How long had he been feeling this way? He had been fascinated by James Potter since the day they had met, but was it a crush from the start?

James laughed out loud. What joke had Sirius missed, staring at James?

"All right, Sirius?"

Sirius blinked, alarmed by James addressing him.

James had a smile on his face (what else was new?), but there was some worry behind it. "Are you feeling okay?" he said, when Sirius had not responded.

"Oh, yeah," said Sirius, pulling himself back into reality. The common room, which had ceased to exist, came back into focus. "I'm all right. Just tired."

James nodded understandingly. "It is late."

Remus looked at him curiously, but said nothing. Peter did not seem curious at all.

It had been a week since the incident in the dormitory, and no one had spoken of it. James had been acting as though nothing out of the ordinary had happened. As he had been the night it happened, Sirius was torn about what he wanted. Did he want it acknowledged, to touch base with James? His head screamed that he did not want that at all.

But then why did it feel so bad to have it unacknowledged?

And why was James avoiding it? Was he too embarrassed that a boy had kissed him to even broach the subject? Sirius supposed he was. Perhaps James also thought that bringing it up would put pressure on or ruin their friendship. Sirius was thankful that had not yet happened.

Every direction seemed a bad one. It was one crappy situation.

But somehow…

Sirius smiled despite himself.

Somehow the feelings were nice…

Sirius had spoken with Lily the day after their date. He was afraid of how it would go, and he was not so sure what to tell her. Did he admit he was…well…what he was? Did he simply tell her he did not feel right with her and that they should just remain friends?

He knew that he was not going to tell her James was against their relationship. That was one thing he easily ruled out.

When he finally went to speak with her, she did not seem unhappy at all. She admitted that there did not seem to be a spark between them, that she had hoped he felt it, too: that they were just meant to be friends.

It had gone much better than expected. The two decided to forget the whole thing ever happened.

"I do have a couple questions, though," Sirius had said to her that day. "Were you really raving about the kiss, and if so, why?"

Lily reddened slightly. "Surely you also made the date sound better than it was, Sirius?"

After raising her eyebrows knowingly, she had left to join her other friends.

At least, through all that had happened, Sirius had managed to keep both James and Lily as his friends. When he thought about all that had occurred, it really did seem quite a miracle that there was nothing uncomfortable between himself and Lily and no avoidance, anger, or disgust from James.

There was something strange about the way Lily had been talking to him, though. Sirius could not quite put his finger on what.

"I say we get off to bed, then," said James, always the leader of the group. He stood up, expecting the others to follow. "Sirius is too tired to focus on anything, Remus is practically asleep in his book…"

Sirius laughed. "Yeah, that's probably wise."

Sirius was anything but tired, but going up to his bed did not seem that bad of an idea. Sirius and James often stayed up talking after Remus and Peter had fallen asleep, and Sirius was…though he hated to admit it, even to himself, anxious for this kind of "James time."

It's never going to happen, Sirius had to remind himself. He could not let for one second any kind of notion enter his mind that there was any potential for James Potter to be anything more than his friend.

Though Sirius may have known without the reminder, he still felt it could not hurt to give it to himself.

Well, it did hurt. But that pain was the kind he would have to deal with until this unasked for crush dissipated.

Sirius tried to be subtle when focusing on other things while his roommates changed into their sleepwear. Nobody questioned him, but he had no idea whether or not he was receiving confused glances. He looked anywhere but at his friends. When they had all gotten into bed, he took his change of clothes into the bathroom with him with the excuse that he wanted to shower.

When he was done with his shower, he was pleased to see that James was still awake, flipping through a Quidditch magazine on his stomach. Remus and Peter were out.

He got into his own bed, hoping that James had stayed up for him.

James tossed the magazine to the floor. "Hey, listen," he said, turning onto his back. Glancing at Remus and Peter, he dropped his voice to a whisper. "I've got to talk to you about something."

Sirius' eyes widened, but he quickly tried to hide this from James. "What's that?" he whispered.

James looked uncomfortable.

Was this it? Was James going to bring up what had been avoided for so long? Sirius did not know if he could handle it.

"I know I told you not to go out with Lily…and…that wasn't really fair of me."

"Oh," said Sirius. At that point, they were both on their sides, facing each other. "Well, Lily and I—it was mutual. We realized that we're not really…like that…for each other."

James looked relieved. "But I still…I didn't have the right…"

"Don't worry about it," whispered Sirius.

James grinned. "Thanks."

James' hazel eyes were bright, the smile clearly in them, as well. He started to talk of other things, unrelated to Lily, and Sirius found himself talking, too. The smile in James' eyes as he talked enthusiastically about everything seemed to calm Sirius for a while. He smiled back, delighted to see the happiness simply radiating off of James.

Sirius loved everything about James. His smile, his contagious, infectious smile and laughter. His messy hair that he so often ran his hands through. His compassion. His loyalty. His…

The smile nearly fell completely from Sirius' face, but he did his best to keep it there, fake as it may have been. He realized that this was not just a simple crush. No, not at all.

The happiness James gave him worked both against him and in his favor.

And the new realization both hurt him and made him happy.

This was going to be both pleasant and torturous.

Sirius had fallen for James Potter.

….

Sirius was trying his hardest to not think about his realization from the previous night. He had stayed up talking nonsense with James until about two a.m. The two had been chastised by Remus when they were forced to get up for class in the morning.

But it had been worth it. All time with James was worth it.

Ever since he had come to the conclusion that he was in lo—that he felt what he felt, he had been trying to push the thought out of his head.

Well, not completely. Sometimes he liked to think about it, truthfully. But he pushed the thoughts away quickly, if he could.

He tried.

But something always reminded him. Even James' smile could do it, and James was always, always smiling.

James had excused himself from further time with the marauders after Transfiguration, with plans to spend time with Lily.

As wonderful as Lily was, he was pretty much using her to get away from the bloody smiler.

One second, he wanted to be near James as much as possible. The next…he needed to get away.

Sirius found Lily, as expected, in the library with Alice. When he sat down with them, Alice stood up to leave them be.

"No, no," he said. "No, feel free to stay."

Alice glanced between the two. "It's all right, Sirius. I've had enough of her anyway," she said teasingly, waving at them both.

Sirius grinned guiltily. "I didn't mean to drive her away."

Lily shrugged. Smiling kindly, she asked, "Something up, Sirius?"

Sirius shook his head immediately. "No, I'm fine."

Lily closed her book. "You know," she said, leaning forward, "you can always tell me."

Lily looked at him as though she could tell he was lying. Her eyes were not pushy, but knowing. She would not make him tell her anything, but it seemed she knew there was something to tell.

Sirius looked away from her knowing eyes. "I'm just having a little problem with James," he said, after a long silence.

"Hmm," said Lily.

Sirius did not know what that meant. He met her pretty green eyes again. "Well, just know you can trust me, Sirius. I'll never reveal any secret, and I'll never judge you."

Sirius smiled appreciatively. "Thanks," he said. "But I'm fine."

"Mhm," she said, nodding. When she opened her book, Sirius could have sworn she was smirking.