You Make Me Lovely

Valiantly

"Mr. Black."

Sirius' head snapped up as he heard the nurse called his name. He stood quickly, knocking over a magazine rack in the process, and followed the woman down the hall into one of the exam rooms.

"So how have you been feeling, Sirius?" she asked as soon as the two of them were in the room.

"Fine I guess," he shrugged, tugging on the sleeves of his sweatshirt nervously. If he were being honest with himself, he didn't really know how he felt. He would go through periods of time where he felt fine and then something would happen and he would be miserable. Usually the mood changes accompanied thoughts about the way he looked or comments made by other people. But wasn't everybody like that? He sighed to himself before turning his attention back to the nurse.

"Could you step on the scale for me please?" She covered the number with a piece of paper as soon as he stepped on and he could not have been more grateful for that. He didn't want to see or even know his weight. He knew he'd gained weight since his last appointment. It was all too obvious. Apparently it was only obvious to him, though, because when he asked Remus about it, the other boy just told him that he didn't look noticeably different. "Okay, you can sit back down," he heard her say. "The doctor will be in to see you in just a moment." And just like that, he was alone with his thoughts again. Not for long, though, because not even ten minutes later Dr. Riley walked in.

"Nice to see you again Sirius," he said, shaking Sirius' hand as though they were meeting for the first time.

"Hi," Sirius replied awkwardly.

"I'm glad to see that you took my advice after our last meeting, Sirius. I'm looking at your chart and you've been making good progress in your recovery." He stopped talking once he noticed the nervous look on Sirius' face and he rose his eyebrow at the younger boy. "This makes you uncomfortable."

"What does?"

Dr. Riley gestured vaguely at pretty much the whole room. "All of this. Being here, hearing me talk to you about your recovery; it's all scary and new and uncomfortable for you." Sirius merely nodded in response. "It's okay to feel uneasy, Sirius. But just know that you're doing a good thing for yourself."

"Okay." Both men stood up, walking out of the exam room together.

"Take care of yourself, son."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"So how was your appointment?" Remus asked as Sirius entered the kitchen later that day.

"It was fine." Sirius paused for a moment, thinking it over before deciding to continue. "Actually, it was kind of uncomfortable."

"What happened?" Remus asked, motioning for Sirius to sit at the table with him. The other boy sat down slowly, refusing to meet his boyfriend's eyes.

"Dr. Riley said I'm doing a little better. I've gained some weight, which he said is a good thing...I guess." Remus was just about to respond with what he hoped was something reassuring when he heard the other boy chuckling to himself.

"Why are you laughing?" Remus didn't know what was going on. Just a few minutes ago, Sirius seemed kind of upset. So why was he laughing now?

"Because I'm ridiculous." Remus gave him a confused look as he continued. "All this stuff means that I'm getting better, which is a good thing. Yet here I am being upset and uncomfortable about it."

"You know, feeling uncomfortable with change is normal. It doesn't mean you're ridiculous."

"That's debatable. Anyway, I can't believe James just wants to spend his bachelor party staying in and watching football."

"It's probably because he's working in the morning."

"Or it's because he can't miss a match, even for something as important as this." Remus rolled his eyes as Sirius said this, watching the other boy go into the bathroom to shower.

"Don't forget we need to pick up Peter in an hour and a half!" With that, Remus went back into the kitchen, doing work on his computer. He couldn't concentrate on what he was doing, though, his thoughts moving to his boyfriend. He knew this was hard for the other boy, but Remus couldn't deny that he was proud of him. He was also nervous, though, because he knew Sirius tended to take things to heart and he was scared that something would go wrong. He heard the bedroom door shut loudly and he snapped out of his thoughts. He looked at the computer screen, surprised to see that almost thirty minutes had passed. He figured that it was probably safe for him to change at this point so he made his way to the bedroom, pausing to knock a few times.

"You can come in." Remus quickly entered the room, closing the door behind him and stopping in his tracks at the state of the room.

"Sirius,"Remus sighed, looking around.

"Hmm?" he replied, glancing over at his boyfriend.

"The room was clean this morning, what happened?" He picked up a few shirts and tossed them on the bed as though to prove his point.

"I needed to find something to wear," he shrugged as though it were obvious. He seemed pretty calm about it, though, which Remus assumed was a good thing. He sure hoped it was. "How does it look?" Sirius continued, turning to face his boyfriend.

"You look..." he started, thinking of his words carefully. "You look good." There were a few seconds where he couldn't read Sirius' expression, but eventually the other boy smiled slightly.

"Really?" Remus nodded in response and Sirius laughed. "You're not just saying that to get me out of the house?"

"I really think so," Remus said, taking the other boy's hands and tugging him toward the door. "We do need to get going, though. But in all seriousness, you look good, happier."

"You're the greatest person in the world," Sirius said, kissing him lightly on the lips. "And I love you."