Even though Sirius had a fully qualified therapist, a lifetime of repressing his emotions made coping with what had happened…difficult. He suspected that was the whole reason that he had to go to therapy. Trauma, coping mechanisms, all of these were foreign to a young man who had spent much of his life being shamed, looked down upon, and generally rejected by everyone. Finding a family with the Potters, and later the Order, had helped, but being in Atlantis had taught him that even that momentary happiness was fleeting. He missed the simplicity of school, where he could do something horribly, horribly wrong, serve detention, and be done with it. The real world -- or Atlantis, as he supposed was his reality for now -- was far more difficult and depressing.
He was grateful that his best mate was here. Mostly because he knew that he and James could sit, doing practically nothing, for hours on end and he'd consider that a success. Not that he suspected they would be sitting around all day. Something told him that it wasn't just his therapist who was keen to get him over the whole losing-the-loves-of-his-life-death-mojo thing.
James did know that he and Sirius were good at just being. Being in the same space and even if some people might not believe it, good at being silent around each other. That was what was easiest about their friendship.
Still, James didn't always want to be silent, and even though he knew as well as he knew himself that the last thing Sirius probably wanted to talk about was everything that happened in that death arena, he also knew he couldn't let it go. "So, I didn't - really watch much of it," he admitted. "Maybe I should have but …"
"Don't worry about it. It was…" Awful, horrific, never-to-be-repeated. Sirius didn't have the words to describe the experience. He'd tried with his counselor, and he'd failed. Going off on some tangent about Quidditch, and marriage, and had he actually brought up marriage to avoid coping? He leaned back against the tree, looking up at the sky. If he leaned just right, he could imagine that they were back at Hogwarts again. That all of this -- Atlantis, COS, the Arena -- were just a dream that they'd made up to pass the time between classes.
"Not my best TV debut." He smiled faintly, too close to a grimace to be a smile, really. "Got blown up by a pinecone. My mum'd be proud."
James had known that, about the pinecone, but he hadn't watched. He was glad he hadn't watched. "No, our TV debut ought to have been something far more clever, something like … being arrested for setting off too many firecrackers or … you know." He couldn't really even come up with something funny to say and he hated that.
"I mean, eventually …" Would it get better? Had knowing that he was moments from his own death gotten easier to deal with? Was that even the same as actually being blown up by a pinecone on live TV.
"I know." Sirius knew that he should be grateful. Fake dying was infinitely better than what awaited them back home. But the realistic (and sadistic) nature of the Arena left him feeling anything but. "I just wish… I knew what to say about it. I hate it. They've signed us up for counseling, and all I can think about is… what if it had been real? What if COS got their shit together and actually made us watch while murdering us off one by one? I dunno which'd be worse." He continued to look up the sky. "I mean, I know it's worse back home...and all...but sometimes, I just want to go back to that. At least we...we knew what to do there. We knew what we were up against."
That was a pretty bleak outlook, pretty bleak way to think about things and yet, James couldn't exactly disagree with him. "Yeah but … look, I know the pinecone is bullshit and unavoidable and like a fucking deux es machina or whatever but we still have a fighting chance here. We don't there, back home. Like, it's already been written, right? That's unchangeable. Here is still -" James shook his head and raced a hand up through his hair. "I don't know. Is it?"
Sirius swallowed thickly. He felt weak here, weaker than he did at home where they didn't have gods, or superheroes, or anything else. But James was right. Back home, the future was bleak, bleaker than anything Atlantis could provide. They couldn't fix that future, but they did have a fighting chance here.
"Right, but we win at home, don't we? Eventually. After we're all…" He pressed his head back against the tree, willing himself not to think about all they had to sacrifice -- both here and there. "Well, y'know. Harry seems alright as a dad, even without us around bunging it up."
James had barely a year and a half with Harry before he wasn't his dad anymore, so he wasn't sure how much he agreed with Sirius here, but he also didn't really want to argue about it. "Sure, we - they - won there, eventually, but at what cost? And here - we have to hope that we'll win here too. Otherwise, what's really the point, and I don't like feeling hopeless like that."
"Aye, I know. I know. Just wish we could skip to the winning, heroic part, y'know?" He looked over at his best mate. Neither of them would get see Harry grow up at home. Neither of them lived past that war. He paused meaningfully. "Would it be mad to suggest that I'm thinking of getting married? Y'know, before we're all blown up by pine cones and what not…" It was the sort of rash proposal that Sirius would come up with, the sort of twist between dark and light that ran rampant through his mind these days.
James wasn't the person to ask about that, after all, he and Lily had married young and fast and in the middle of the war. Or, maybe, he was exactly the person to ask. He laughed, a little, kind of a bubbly laughter as he shook his head. "If it's mad, then I was mad to do it too, yeah?" He set a hand down on Sirius's shoulder and gave it a squeeze. "You've got to do what's right for you, Pads."
"Yea, that's what the head doctor said." He smiled, faintly, enjoying the shift in subject. "Not about the mad bit. Don't think they can call their patients mad and keep their jobs. She said something about blah blah the future isn't inevitable blah." He wasn't sure if that was true, since he was fairly certain that in one future he had to have twins and, well, live happily ever after. But maybe it was true in the sense that they could still make their own decisions about what they wanted. "So, you'll be the best man, yea?"
"Sometimes it feels pretty damn inevitable," James muttered. He was tired and he didn't want to parse out every reason why he felt hopeless lately, but he also knew that Sirius knew him better than anyone else, so that was fine, too. He sighed and looked at Sirius, managed a real smile. "Course I will be," he said. "I mean, who else would you ask?"
Sirius had to agree with James. Whatever his therapist said, the future seemed a distant, far off inevitability. They died in their own future, didn't they? And how was here any different?
"Suspect I could ask Lils," he said, with a grin. "Seeing as she's got a soft spot for hopeless causes."
James gave him a look but there was a smile there anyway. "You're not hopeless," he said, grinning.
"Says the happily married success story," said Sirius, almost teasing. Sirius knew to enjoy this light, teasing banter. That this was what his therapist ultimately wanted him to seek, even if it was intermittently plagued with visions of being blown up and, well, everything terrible. "Looks like we'll be having those double family playdates after all. Mind, our kids are a bit grown."
At that, James couldn't help but pull a face. Whether it was about the married success story or the fully-grown kids, he couldn't be sure, and he wouldn't say. "Probably more like loud family dinners with copious amounts of alcohol and chocolate desserts," he said.
"Copious amounts of alcohol, pick up Quidditch, and board games, if my children are involved. Eliot's taught me a new one. Catan? It's the sort of thing Remus'd like." His expression grew softer as he thought about his son and the man that his son most resembled. It was hard to believe that they (he, Julia, and Remus) could create children and raise them without screwing it up. "Which is to say very involved and complicated."
James pursed his lips and smiled. "I don't know that one and would probably be rubbish at it but count me in for poker or like, what's that muggle take over the world one? I like that one even if it takes a week to play."
"I dunno. We can ask Eliot. He's very good at all of that," said Sirius. He paused and smiled. "I think we might be getting old, Prongs. Here we are reminiscing about Muggle games and our potential deaths."
James rolled his eyes but it was good-naturedly. "We're not that old," he said. "Just feels like we're really old."
"That's what comes with living three lives before we're twenty-five," said Sirius, laughing. "Got to say, we've got Moony beat on that account."
James laughed too. "Well, that's a good point."
"Yea, I think it might be time to slow it down a little. Don't you?" It was one of the unique opportunities presented by choosing to stay in Atlantis -- they could choose to live just a little longer, as they might have done if fate and prophecies had never intervened.
It was something to consider, at least. James leaned back a little, rubbed the back of his neck and gave Sirius a hesitant nod. "I'm not sure I know how to slow down but maybe it's time to learn, yeah."