Painting signs - a prongsfoot microfic
@dailyprongsfoot - June 8: solve - words: 435
Sirius jumped up and sat down on the workbench at the back of the garage. A moment later, he had to move over to the pile of tires when James spread out pieces of cardboard, paint cans, and brushes.
“Don’t you want to paint? Look at this. It’s going to be a forest, with a highway running through it, kind of.”
“Whatever.” Sirius shrugged irritably.
The weather was nice. They could have been riding their bikes around or hanging out in the town square. But ever since James had gone and fallen in love with a girl, all he wanted to do was grown-up, pretentious things.
“Do you want to come on Saturday, then?”
“Marching around for some stupid animals? I don’t think so.”
James didn’t answer. He just kept painting.
Before long, Sirius got bored. He picked up a brush and tried to paint a lion with a rope around its neck. It looked like a cow. A messy, smudged cow. He put the brush back in the paint can and glanced enviously at James’s neat pictures.
“What’s this supposed to be, then?”
“What do you think?”
Sirius picked up one of the signs and grinned.
“Pandas. Aw, how cute. Lily is going to like that, isn’t she?”
“They’re koalas, idiot.”
Sirius would probably have heard that his tone was off, if he hadn’t feelt so jealous.
“How nice that the two of you are going to solve all the world’s problems in this protest march.”
James threw the brush into the plastic bucket, splattering paint everywhere. He stomped over to the half-open garage door and kicked over a bicycle on the way.
Sirius watched him standing in the doorway with his arms crossed, his shoulders rising and falling with quick, hard breaths, and realized he had gone too far.
He was good at that.
Not so good at fixing things afterward.
Still, he walked cautiously toward his friend. When he was almost there, James spoke without turning around.
“We’re not going together.”
“What do you mean?”
Sirius took the last few steps forward. James spun around and looked him almost defiantly in the eye.
“I mean what I said. We’re not going together. She doesn’t like me anymore.”
Sirius looked away. He scraped at the gravel along the edge of the concrete floor with his toes.
“Can I come with you on Saturday?”
Sirius didn’t dare look up, but he heard James snort. Then swallow.
“Yeah. If you let me fix your sign.”
James’s smile was obviously forced, but Sirius returned it as broadly as he could.
“Please do. That mess is embarrassing.”
