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Sirius is happy, mostly. He has the Marauders and he has James, who is separate for reasons he doesn't like to think about, and. Well, he has those two things and wants very badly for them to be enough. They should be; it's only that some small part of him seems determined to mess them up. Because sometimes he wakes up and he's friendly and affable and happy, but then other (most) days it takes everything in him to tamp down the feeling of annoyance that flares all too often. He thinks if he were a good person, like James, maybe, he'd paste a matte smile on his face and wait for the turmoil to fade and restrict his pettiness to the inside of his skull, but there's something satisfying about lashing out, about making people feel like he does.
He's nineteen and old enough to know better, all alone in a too-big flat he bought with his dead uncle's money. He's nineteen and he doesn't know better, crouched on the kitchen floor of his too-big flat, head down as he stares into a mirror reflecting nothing but his own face. Nineteen and this is where he's ended up, everything around him reminiscent of failure: his uncle's money because he doesn't have his own because he's been declared too unstable to be an Auror, only family member who might have loved him gone, James not answering. He thinks of getting up, of sitting at the table and maybe drinking some tea like a normal person, but when he tries to make it happen, something in him gives out and he's back on the floor again, eyes watering. The mirror falls when he does, and for a moment he doesn't look at it, afraid when he does it will be broken, sure he won't be able to take it when it is. And it's not, of course, because he's fucking magic, which he forgets altogether too often for someone whose childhood was centered around it. (It's never fixed anything else, so he doesn't see why it should fix this.)
“James,” he says again, desperate and barely in control because he's convinced, totally and completely sure, that James is ignoring him on purpose. It's three in the morning and James isn't answering and logically he knows those things are related but truthfully he can't quite make the connection stick. If he calms down and thinks it through, he can almost see sense, but he's nineteen and he's still never learned to do that, so instead he repeats James' name like a mantra and thinks he's finally snapped.
“Hullo?” James answers, bleary-eyed with sleep, and Sirius cuts off abruptly, the way he didn't think he could moments before. It's a blessing that James doesn't look at him strangely, doesn't ask what he wants or worse, what's wrong with him. He just blinks himself awake, then says, “Did I tell you what happened when I tried to fix the roof?” and launches into a long, involved story intended to take Sirius out of his own head. It doesn't work, but that's not James' fault. It's distracting, his ability to lead a totally normal life. Because he and Lily saved up for a house, and yes, his parents helped, but mostly they paid for it themselves, and that makes it theirs and not their dead uncle's. When Sirius' ceiling leaks, he doesn't even bother searching for the problem, just dams it up with a spell that will lead to it buckling in under a decade. He doesn't plan to still be here in under a decade, but then, he never planned to be here in the first place either. (Nineteen and he doesn't know a wake-up call when he sees one.)
“How's work?” James is babbling on about something when Sirius cuts him off (nineteen and he still has no fucking manners). It's not something he's ever wanted to talk about and they both know it, both know he's doing this to hurt himself somehow, to revel in the feelings of self-loathing the topic always brings.
“It's good,” James says uncertainly. “Fabian Prewett, you know, from the year above us? He challenged me to a duel. We'll probably get written up for it, but how could I say no? I'm not even sure what I did to get on his bad side, but he did always have a flair for dramatics, so it could have been anything.”
“He's better than you.” Finally faced with what he's been clamoring for, all Sirius wants is to sleep, to escape the situation he's put himself in, and his words come out slightly thick. “Always was.” He's being mean, pointlessly cruel (nineteen and); he thinks it's the “flair for dramatics” that's set him off, because he knows Fabian all too well, is maybe a bit offended on his behalf because they're more similar than not and “flair for dramatics” doesn't cover it. He's (more than) a bit worried for James too, because they're similar, him and Fabian, so a duel can only end badly.
“He's all offense, leaves his left side totally unguarded because he's too focused on attacking.”
“My, don't we sound like an Auror.” His voice comes out a bit off, and something flits across James' face: frustration before he fights it down. “Sorry.”
“You have nothing to apologize for.” And the stupid thing is that James means it, doesn't even seem to notice, like he's gotten so used to fighting the annoyance Sirius evokes that he no longer recognizes it. Sirius must do something, shift his weight from right to left or cross his arms or bite the inside of his cheek, because James squints at him. “No, stop. Stop whatever you're thinking and explain it to me, because I'm sure it's stupid but I need to know what it is so I can tell you why.”
“It's.” He pauses, leans his head against a cupboard for a moment, knob poking into the back of his neck and Merlin he's still on the kitchen floor, isn't he, has been this whole time. (Nineteen and there's a mile-long list of things his friends just ignore about him, write off as quintessentially Sirius and try not to think about too hard. Nineteen and he's crouched on his kitchen floor talking to his best mate and the only thing that used to make everything stop doesn't anymore.) “I bother you. I can tell. You make these faces and then you cover them up and that's our entire friendship, isn't it, you suppressing your own feelings to take care of me and it's not fair.”
“It's not like that.” But it is, and they both know it. “No, stop it. You're an idiot and no one's ever had a poorer understanding of a contentious situation than you right now. I care about you. But when I have something to say, I'll say it. I'm not suppressing anything to help you; I don't even think it would.” He pauses. “I think it's time you stop hiding from this, Sirius. You don't have to talk to me—” This is laughable and Sirius does laugh, because there's no one else who is even an option (nineteen and he's pretty sure he had a brother once), but it seems to be important to James, who clears his throat and waits until Sirius has achieved an appropriately solemn expression. “Anyway, you don't have to talk to me, but you should find someone.”
“Yeah? I have two friends besides you, and we think one's a traitor and the other's Peter, who I'm pretty sure is terrified of me. So who else am I talking to, exactly?”
“Well, I didn't say you couldn't talk to me.” Except that at sixteen Sirius kissed James for comfort and James kissed back, and at seventeen James told him they couldn't because the risk of ostracization was too great, and at seventeen-going-on-eighteen he asked Lily to Hogsmeade and she said yes. At nineteen Sirius knows that he and Lily were never in direct competition, that the choice was never about loving Lily more, but living comfortably in society. Still, the thought that maybe he could have done something eats away at him. He doesn't know how to be weak around James anymore. He still does it, sure, but gone is the comfortable routine they once had. Because now there's some part of James he officially no longer has the right to, some part that's Lily's. The worst of it is that he can't even hate her for it; she is smart and pretty and way too good for James, so honestly he doesn't see why she couldn't just leave his stupid, dorky best mate for him. (Okay, he can hate her for it a little, but he can't make it stick.)
“I just thought, y'know, you're so busy with your job and your wife and—” He means for it to be just one more item in a list, but he can't quite keep the accusatory inflection out of his voice. (Nineteen and he'd like to be better than what he is.)
“Is this about Lily?” Sirius wants to say no, of course it's not, but James can always tell when he's lying, and it is, just a little. James' marriage has nothing to do with most of this, but Sirius likes to think under different circumstances he wouldn't have ended up screaming into a mirror in the middle of the night. “I am sorry, you know. I just couldn't—” James' gaze shifts from Sirius' eyes to something above it. “I wish things were different but they're not. I wish I were stronger but I'm not, and I understand that you'll always resent me but—”
“I don't resent you.” Which is categorically untrue because he can't stop unfairly blaming James for his own misery. It's untrue, but James is desperate enough for absolution that he takes it, lets his shoulders relax and his eyes drift back to Sirius' face. “You had more to lose than I did. My parents were—my parents and Reg was a lost cause by third year. Besides, this isn't that, not entirely.” He doesn't know how to explain everything that's going on in his head and, despite all logic to the contrary, despite James' advice and the fact that he called with that in mind, he doesn't think he wants to. So he goes with the simplified version, which is hard enough to say. “I've never lived somewhere that was mine. My parents' house and then yours and now my uncle's. His money paid for it; I don't even have a job. It's just. It's pathetic, don't you think?” Instead of looking at James, he traces the tile pattern, confines his finger to the spaces between black tiles and thinks it symbolic. (Nineteen and he's big on heavy-handed metaphors but has no desire to consider what they mean.) “I didn't even decorate the place.”
“You could. And then there'd be something of you in it, something personal.” Because James knows, doesn't he, that the only room Sirius can stand is his bedroom, decked out in red and gold nostalgia. Knows that this call coming from the kitchen means Sirius tried for something and gave up halfway through.
“I could. But I don't want it to just be Hogwarts stuff. I'm not sure I know what I like.” This is true; who is he separate from the Marauders? From James? (Nineteen and he's never known himself to be anything but fleeting and impermanent.)
“Sirius, turn off the kettle.” He doesn't even notice it whistling until the firm tone of James' voice mingles with the shrill sound, propelling him to his feet, where he falters. “Turn it off. Make yourself something relaxing. Chamomile.” There's something about the way he's speaking, not exasperated but not calming either, like he's pretending this is something they do every day, something normal. (When it's never been this bad before, not quite. Today just happens to be a perfect storm of loneliness and inadequacy and instability. And somehow it's even easier for James to put him back together than it was to fall apart in the first place.) He watches Sirius search his mostly-empty cabinets until he finds something that's not caffeinated. “Good. Now go to bed.” Sirius begins to protest, but James talks over him. “I'm not saying sleep, I know you can't right now, just take your tea and your mirror and go someplace you don't hate.”
He is not, at this exact moment, sure where that place is meant to be, but he is sure that it's not a conversation he wants to have with James, that he doesn't want to explain how being with James used to be enough to quiet his mind, doesn't want to talk about this desire to climb inside James and see what makes him tick. He wants to be shrouded in James' normalcy, but it's not healthy and, more pressing, it's not working, so instead of saying what he wants—can I spend the night with you—he heads to his room.
It's better. Nowhere near perfect, but it feels like him—maybe not the right version, but anything's an improvement over the clinical apathy of the rest of his flat. Here he is reminded that he has been confident in his self-definition and will be again. This is not entirely a positive feeling, because between rebuffing his parents and embracing James, he's made himself A Gryffindor when he would not otherwise have been. The striped scarf does not feel genuine, and he has grown to hate the picture of the Marauders decked out in full regalia. They're in their seventh year, standing in a line set against a throng of Quidditch goers, James on the end, clutching his broom in one hand and Sirius in the other, grinning his unselfconsciously dorky smile. He is the only one who is at ease. Remus and Peter both seem determined to occupy as little space as possible, and Remus is sporting the nervous habit he developed around fourth year, one calculated hand covering the scars on his cheek. And Sirius? He looks fine, reciprocal arm around James' waist. It would be fine except that he knows what he was thinking, how he was simultaneously relieved to be finished because he hated Quidditch and disturbed because he'd convinced himself he liked it, just to please James.
Sirius sits down on his dichromatic bed and something grips his heart and refuses to relent. “Thank you. I should— go now.”
“All right. I'll be over tomorrow around six to help with the decorating or whatever you want.”
He means to say yes, means to be grateful because with everything that's been going on, he hasn't seen James in weeks. But what comes out is, “I think I might need to do this on my own.” James just stares, quietly processing, then nods. Sirius has never rejected his company like this, as something other than a tantrum. He needs James, will always need James because he spent his formative years clinging to him like devil's snare, but that doesn't necessitate being consumed by him. This feels, maybe, like a step in the right direction.
He doesn't make progress. Or he does. It doesn't matter. In the end (and it is the end, even if he lives another decade and a half), James dies. And he dies essentially at Sirius' hand. It's a defining moment, so he lets it define him, lets the knowledge that he killed his best friend stop him in his tracks, freeze him where and when he is, so the veil comes and he is young, still, because years half-lived don't count, and it is the release he's been waiting for.