Feeling a lot lighter after his conversation with Sirius, Remus falls asleep with much welcomed ease. It's been a while since he last fell asleep so quickly. But of course it's just too good to be true, because the door to his room—the guest room—is thrown open rather rudely, making Remus jerk awake only a little over an hour after falling asleep.
Once his vision clears a little, in the dim light of the corridor falling into the room in soft beams, Remus can see someone standing at the door.
"James?" he frowns, sitting up.
"Oh," comes the reply, "Wrong room, sorry." James turns to leave. Remus frowns to himself. Before he can think anything, he finds himself calling out. "Hey," he stops James, "Wait."
James waits.
"Why don't you come in?" Remus reaches over to the light switch and turns it on. James walks over, closing the door behind him. Remus crosses his legs to make space before pulling James over to sit. "Sit down, and tell me what's wrong."
Remus is sure that James is worried about Sirius—they all are right now—and he remembers that James hardly spoke about it. With Remus, at least. However, he is definitely not expecting the broken sob that pushes out of James.
"Oh God," Remus whispers, all traces of sleep abandoning him as he moves to hug James. He suddenly remembers their interrupted conversation at St. Mungo's. "James..."
"I'm such a horrible person, Re," James cries. Remus carefully removes his glasses for him, an arm around him all the while. "Why am I so horrible?"
"James Potter," Remus shakes his head, "You are anything but horrible," he sighs as he twists himself to reach the nightstand so that he can put the glasses away.
James palms at his eyes, trying to stop crying. Remus wishes he wouldn't do that. "You can cry," he says softly, "It's okay."
James nods, but wipes his eyes a final time anyway, forcing deep, shaky breaths in. Remus watches him quietly. He doesn't know what to do or what to say. "I'm going to go downstairs," he says eventually, "And make us some tea. We can talk over tea, right?"
James stays quiet. Remus gives his shoulder a small squeeze. "Right, James?"
"Right," James says in a muted voice. Remus gives him another squeeze. He's tired and his back is starting to hurt, but he drags himself into the kitchen anyway. When he returns, James has stolen his pillow and is hugging it to his chest. Remus places the mugs next to James' glasses and sits down, squeezing in between him and the headboard.
It's almost déjà vu, because comforting crying and/or sad boys has been a surprisingly frequent occurrence for Remus. Everyone, it seems, is going through something. As if Sirius' accident—Remus knows it wasn't an accident, but he still calls it that anyway—somehow triggered a massive snowball reaction, bringing out the sadness in everyone.
"So," Remus hands James his glasses, "Do you want to talk about it?"
James shrugs. "I don't know if you'd want to hear it,"
"What does that mean?" Remus frowns. Clearly, this is something bigger than what happened with Sirius.
"It means that I'm horrible," James sniffles, clutching the pillow tighter, "And I don't want to tell you why I'm horrible."
Remus bites his lip. God, what is he supposed to say? How is it so easy for James to comfort him every time he's upset? "You're not horrible," he says.
"I know you think that," James mumbles, "Which is exactly why I don't want to tell you and change your mind,"
"How about you just tell me, " Remus suggests, "and leave the judgement to me?"
"Are you saying that you're going to judge me?"
Remus gives him a look. "Yes," he says pointedly, "Now tell me."
James gives a little smile at that, and Remus instantly feels better. "Okay," James takes a deep breath, like he's about to dive into a pool from high above. "But if you think I'm horrible—"
"I won't,"
"My girlfriend of five years broke up with me and I got so mad that I ended up destroying half the electrical stuff in our house, I also missed fourteen calls from my best friend right before he tried to take his own life because I fucked up both our phones, and now I've kissed a boy I was pretty sure I absolutely hated and then I also had a fight with him and probably broke his heart while I was at it too," James says all in one go, hardly stopping to even catch his breath.
And Remus... Remus just stares. For a whole minute, that's all he does. That's all he can do.
"Still think I'm not horrible?" James asks weakly, marking the end of his question with a laugh so frail that it breaks Remus' heart.
"I..." Remus closes his eyes, trying to reboot his brain after that information overload. "Yes," he manages to say, "I still think you're not horrible... But..."
One by one, Remus tells himself. First, the breakup. And then he almost falls out of the bed because oh my God, James broke up. With Lily. And Remus had no idea. Oh God. Oh fucking God.
Remus can understand James not tellin him... But Lily? They were best friends. And they had even seen each other at the hospital. And he didn't even notice that something was wrong.
But Sirius did. Of course he did.
"You... Lily..." he wants to cry. "Why?"
James looks like he wants to cry, too. Remus has always thought of James as an open book. Remus has also always thought that James and Lily were practically made for each other. Bright and beautiful, the both of them. But right now, he's starting to doubt if anything he ever took for granted was actually true.
"It's just..." James sighs, squeezing the pillow.
"What happened?"
"Nothing happened, which is what bothers me the most." James shrugs despondently, "Something like... I don't even know... You ever heard of losing the spark?"
The thought of James and Lily losing their spark is terrifying. They were so wonderful together. And if not even they couldn't make it, then... Oh God.
"And I had absolutely no idea," James says miserably, voice muffled by the pillow. "Cause you know, I'm really stupid."
"You're not stupid..."
"Lily used to call me stupid. All the time."
Remus swallows. "I'm sorry, James," he says, rubbing his back. James shrugs again. "Is that why you fought with Lily?"
"Because she called me stupid? I never thought anything bad of it... Kind of liked it, actually,"
"No, no," Remus quickly says, "Because... you... lost the spark?"
James gives him a wry smile. "Something like that," he sighs, putting his pillow away and grabbing the mug of tea. "Fuck, why is it so hot," he curses, immediately putting it back. "Um, as for your question... I didn't really fight with her, you know. And I guess she tried to tell me, too. Started bringing it up a month or so ago," James pauses.
"What do you mean?"
"She's told me that, well, that things aren't the same and she feels like I'm distant. Even if I feel like if anyone's distant, it's her. And you know, maybe I always knew she wasn't as happy as she used to be. Actually, I'm not even sure if she ever was happy with me, you know? Maybe I just tried too hard for a girl who never wanted to be with me in the first place,"
Remus shakes his head, squeezing James' shoulder. "Don't say that," he says, "Lily's not the type of person to stay with a guy just because. Especially not for four years, James,"
"Yeah," James smiles a little, his eyes filling up with tears, "You're right. I wish I knew what I did wrong, Re. Then I could've fixed it. Or done something, I don't know."
"It's not your fault," Remus tells him. He wants to say something like 'These things happen', but it sounds a bit dismissive so he keeps quiet.
"It feels like it is." James leans forward to touch the mug once more. He takes it into his hand with caution, and dares a small sip. "But yeah. So she finally told me that we needed a break, and I asked her why and it kind of escalated until things just... Sort of exploded. Literally exploded. I broke three light bulbs. And the fridge, too. We had meat in there, you know. It all went bad."
Remus nods. So that's why his phone wasn't working. Or Lily's.
This realisation provides a smooth transition to the next item in James' list of troubles.
Fourteen missed calls from Sirius. Remus remembers how anxious James was that night when they met up at St. Mungo's. How he had known something was wrong even before Remus told him what happened. How sad, and now that Remus really thinks about it, how guilty he looked. Auguste blamed himself, too. Everyone did, even Remus and Regulus. And as it turns out, James was no exception either.
As he turns all these things over his head, Remus can't help the long sigh that leaves his lips.
James looks at him, concerned. "Are you okay?"
Remus turns to him, a little in disbelief. "I'm the one who should be asking you that," he says, taking a sip of his own tea.
"We can both be not okay at the same time," James gives a grin that somehow looks miserable. "I'm totally down."
Remus shakes his head again. "I'm okay, James," he smiles. "Why don't you finish your tea first? And then we can talk about everything else."
***
Author's Note
I hate this chapter so much it's probably the most half-arsed one in this whole book but you guys all seem to prefer conversations over flashbacks so here you go
I gave blood for a test today and now my whole arm is sore and weird even if it's not supposed to hurt at all (It's never hurt me before) but yeah I'm miserable (I kinda always am though)
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