Chapter Text
Sirius is convulsing, falling apart grabbing onto Remus, choking out words, “He—James would be—I could’ve lost James.” He heaves, breaths short as he grips onto Remus’ sweater. He’s pulling apart at the seams, sinking into Remus as he hiccups sobs, which shake his whole body, tearing him apart further. “Where did I go wrong—- fuck Remus, I could’ve—I would’ve lost him.”
“You didn’t tell me,” Sirius gasps, pulling Remus’ face to his own, face twisting in an expression that rips and tears Remus into shreds. “Why didn’t you, why didn’t he—you didn’t tell me.” His voice cracks in the middle, the words twisting around each other, leaving Sirius choking and gasping. James, Astronomy Tower, infirmary. He lets go, Remus’ arms around him the only thing keeping him from collapsing, from falling apart. His teeth clack together as he shakes, trying to fit together pieces, draw a map, make a list on where he went wrong, what he missed, how he’d failed.
James. Astronomy Tower.
He gags, the thought snaking around his throat and killing him, taking the air around him and leaving him to suffocate. James, his best friend, him, without James there is no Sirius, he wouldn’t—
There’s a wash of panic that overtakes him again, and he grips back onto Remus like he’s the only thing keeping Sirius afloat, helping him breathe and breathe through it.
“I didn’t know,” Remus whispers, “I’m sorry Sirius, I didn’t know either—” Sirius paws at Remus’ chest, pathetically, a sad whine escaping his throat. Remus is crying now too, silent tears falling from his eyes, wetting his lashes. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t—” He shudders, steeling himself as much as he can as his voice cracks, “James didn’t tell me either, not on purpose—it—he—”
Remus’ words taper out, as he screws his eyes shut, holding Sirius gently.
And oh. Those words take Sirius apart further, the thread unravelling, leaving him a mess on the floor, tangles and knots—it’s so overwhelming Sirius can only grip Remus tighter, his hold bruising. Not on purpose. Of course James wouldn’t have told anyone on purpose, not allowed anyone to know, kept it locked up to not hurt anyone. A choked sound leaves Sirius, tears flowing steadily out. His James, his best friend, his, Sirius can’t breathe without him, the world would stop spinning, the stars would burn out, he can’t—a world without James was a world without warmth.
“What did I
miss?”
Sirius whispers hoarsely, “I didn’t
know,
Merlin—how did I not know?” He shakes, trembling and rattling apart, unravelled and torn at the seams, chest heaving. “I should’ve done more, I don’t—I can’t—
When?
Remus, do you know when?”
Remus shakes his head slowly, pressing his forehead to Sirius’. “I don’t know. You’d have to ask James—or Regulus.”
Sirius shuts his eyes, unable to look at Remus’ eyes, warm and soft around the edges. He doesn’t deserve warmth, not after this, not after he’d failed. How James, who filled up the room with his presence had slipped through Sirius’ fingers, he doesn’t know, he feels helpless as Remus holds him together.
“What’s wrong James, what can I do to help? Please, why—give me something, please.”
“Me, I’m wrong, somethings wrong with me, I can’t—” James says, wringing his hands, “Except it’s really nothing I swear, and it was so long ago I—”
“I’m just trying to understand,” Sirius pleads, distance between them that feels never ending. “You don’t—you really don’t see your life as that important, and I don’t know why you would—” Sirius cuts himself off, voice tapering off as if the words won’t form, won’t budge, stuck to the roof of his mouth as if glue. The words are turned into dust, and Sirius wishes he could separate James and gone in his mind, biting his tongue till he tastes blood, metallic and coppery in his mouth.
“I do,” James iterates, again, echoing past conversations, “I’m not—It’s just, there’s bigger things than just me, you know?” He sounds helpless, he is, shrugging with such a sad smile on his face and Sirius hates it, hates the smile with his whole being, he knows what James’ smile is and that isn’t it. James is always solid, unwaveringly him and undoubtedly the person everyone would go to lean on, but right now he seems fragile, as if a draft of wind would barrel him over.
Sirius’ face falls, “Why? Can’t you put yourself first for once? You’re not worth any less than others.”
“I can’t,” James says, “You can’t expect me to put myself above others, that’s just wrong—”
“And if it were Moony saying this? Or Pete?” Sirius asks, barely pausing between the questions. “Me?”
“Stop—it’s different and you know that—”
“How is it any different when it’s you?”
James takes a step back, words hitting him square in the chest and fracturing it further. Bits and pieces at this point, Sirius wonders when he’ll shatter completely.
“Falling would’ve been so much easier than this,” James says in a whisper, eyes shut tight until his face scrunches. Sirius can tell he doesn’t mean it, he hopes, but it doesn’t stop the words from sucking the air from the room. The words weigh heavily, coating the air and clinging to Sirius, threatening to drag him down. Down. Sirius tries to fight the image of James going down, gravity’s hand unwavering as James plummets. His eyes sting as he pushes down tears, bile rising in his throat. A wave of nausea hits him at the image, and he swallows drily.
“Don’t—don’t say that,” Sirius responds, voice raspy. “James, James please don’t say that.”
His words fall into the room, bouncing off the floor and echoing, please please please.
Sirius staggers forward to James, pulling at his neck until they’re hugging. He tugs at James to sit on the floor, and they do, warm bodies against cold tile. It’s clumsy, but they settle against one another, suffocating and breathing and thriving with one another. He breathes in James, rosemary and eucalyptus and comfort . How even now, when Sirius was meant to be confronting and comforting, James turned it on Sirius, safe and warm and so James Sirius couldn’t take it if he were to lose this, lose them. Sirius and James, James and Sirius, never apart never separate—horrible and lovely and intertwined and—
“Sorry.” James says, the air swallowing up the word immediately, an apology encompassing everything, and nothing at once. It’s a tumbling stone, rolling and rolling and it’s lost, the silence of the room coming back to fill up the space again, space where explanations are needed, forgiveness given. The air is thick with it, expectation and hesitation in one. Sirius waits for more, an explanation, a denial—but James stays silent now, hunched into the crook of Sirius’ neck.
Sirius tightens his hold slightly, waiting still. James shifts closer, seeming smaller than he ever does, dim and so out of character Sirius can’t. He can’t, can’t, can’t imagine a place without his best friend. “What’d I miss, James—I thought you were good, I thought we were good,” he takes in a breath, filling his lungs with heavy air, full of unanswered questions, “I could’ve lost you and I wouldn’t know a thing.” His voice is weaker than he’d like it to be, wavering.
“You mean so much to me, to us.” Sirius says then, and James’ breath hitches. “You put everyone before yourself, I think you’re drowning in it, I’ll help you swim, please just stay—don’t drown, stay with me, I can help, Moony and Pete can too—” His words don’t make sense, it just spills out of him as James begins to shake against him, muffled hiccups escaping into the air. “It’s alright James, you can be not alright, you can be as upset as you need, break things and yell—just be here, please just be here.”
It’s quiet, how James falls apart, an explosion in space, a tree in the forest, his sobs are quiet and swallowed, but the way it rattles his frame gives him away. Sirius feels James crumbling as if it were him, holding him through it, even as James whispers broken apologies to his chest, barely a whisper. Sirius hears it all.
Sirius cradles James’ face, tilting him up to face him, red cheeks and a tear tracked face. Determinedly, he bites out, “You—don’t have to apologize, not for this—you’re allowed to feel.” He hugs him close again, letting James dig his face into his shoulder, glasses clattering off somewhere. “I’m sorry if we ever made it so that you felt you had to be happy all the time, that it was on you to take on everyone’s problems single handedly—”
And somehow, tears are falling from Sirius’ eyes too, a blink dispelling them onto his face and his chest is stuttering too. “You’re enough, you’re always enough James, I don’t know what’s going on in your mind, but nothing will change the fact that you are enough.”
“I’m sorry,” James whispers, a broken record, “I never meant to—I didn’t want to—” he’s almost hyperventilating, quiet sobs rattling him apart, until he’s broken shards of glass and Sirius just keeps holding him, keeping him together. He’s splinters and rough edges, but he’s soft and warm and Sirius won’t let go, even as he cries too, just Sirius and James and James and Sirius and—
They’re all harsh strokes and blurred edges, a tangle and a heap and you couldn’t tell where James starts and Sirius ends. Sirius just holds him through it, picking the pieces of James back up from the ground and putting him together again, and it feels right, it all feels right, pieces settling back into place like they’ve been there all along. They just breathe, in and out until they’re steady, one, air wrapping around them like a blanket, questions weighing lighter on them.
Questions lie on the tip of Sirius’ tongue, like a bruise he refuses to let heal, he keeps prodding at it and it’s a bad idea, but he has to know, needs it like oxygen, needs to understand James. His thoughts, his actions. Sirius chokes on it, the want, the need, he has to know, a visceral need as to why —how James—the Astronomy Tower, what he—James beats him to it.
“I,” he breathes, voice hoarse, “I was—it was, October, I think.” He pauses, breathing through it all, head against the crook of Sirius’ neck. “I just, I was so tired I think, I don’t know what was happening that day, it just, was—foggy? I guess?” He speaks like he’s not so sure himself, voice high as he tries to harness his words, and Sirius shuts his eyes and holds James as he shakes.
“I’m sorry—I don’t know, I was, not, I just—I flew up to the tower, I just, I sat there for a bit—I remember having to sit because I was shaking so hard, and then it, then it was like I wasn’t there, I stood up and I remember swaying with the wind, I was so ready— Sirius, I was so ready—” He breaks off, shuddering and shaking and threatening to rattle apart again. “It was like I was already in a limbo, I don’t—I’m so scared, Merlin, I didn’t want to, I don’t think so but—did I? Do I?” His breaths quicken and tears fall faster. “I’m so tired, I just don’t want to be sad, I can’t be sad—I don’t know, I don't know.”
“James,” Sirius whispers, heartbroken.
James takes in a breath, shuddering slightly against a chill that doesn’t exist. His head slips down til he’s pressed into Sirius’ chest, as if he could crawl in between his ribs and just settle there. “I really don’t know, it was more a thought of if I’d actually do it, and then I was there and realized how much I wanted to, and that scares me.”
Sirius swallows again, mouth full of lead as James’ words wash over the room. “You said, under the veritaserum—you, you…” James stiffens at the mention, pulling away some, emotions shuttering away behind his eyes.
“Hate myself?” James finishes, almost bitter. Sirius flinches some, ashamed. James bites back a scoff, anger simmering, tear tracks still drying on his face. “I’m not, that’s not…” He trails off, face twisting.
“James,” Sirius starts, unsure how to even approach, how to apologize. He doesn’t regret it. Except. It’s them, always them, but there’s an undercurrent of distrust from James that’s never been there before. It’s a rift, one that Sirius scrabbles to fix, if he could understand James first. James doesn’t seem to think the same, and Sirius gets it, and yet.
James looks off, hand coming up to rub at his eyes. “You don’t get to make any assumptions, you’re not—you’re not entitled to drugging me—just ‘cause, just because I’m not telling you, it’s not, I’m not…”
“I’m sorry,” Sirius says as James trails off, it’s a shit apology and he knows it. “It was fucked up of us, I just. We just thought…”
James stays silent, anger under the surface of his skin, and Sirius bites his lip, unsure what to do now. He reaches blindly for James’ glasses, and when his hands clamp around it, he offers it up weakly. James takes it, gently, no words swapped. The air is lighter now, but at the reminder of veritaserum, it’s tense.
Sirius nudges James’ foot gently, and James does it in return. It’ll have to do for now.