An: This has been bouncing around in my brain for a few days, so hopefully it's as good as it ever would be. It's set after Sirius escaped Hogwarts in the third book. Enjoy.

Watching You Walk Away

They were sat in a grubby café on the outskirts of Manchester. It offered breakfasts all day long, and the coffee was brewed so strong you could stand a spoon up in it. The café wasn't dirty, just well worn and past its best.

Sirius was sat in the furthest corner, with his back to the door, a hood obscuring his face and hiding his newly shorn hair. He hated it so much; he hadn't had short hair in years, but Azkaban had put knots in it that wouldn't come out. He'd done it himself, stealing a razor from an open bathroom window. He was cradling a coffee – black, three sugars- in his hands, watching his best friend walk to the table, carefully carrying a mug of tea, making sure he didn't drop it.
"I missed you." It was a simple statement, but heartfelt. Sirius didn't go in for extravagant gestures anymore. It was something the dementors had taken from him along with his precious happy memories.

Remus didn't reply, but simply stirred his tea – white, one sugar - with a pathetically tiny plastic spoon. The silence was deafening. Sirius had never thought he would object to silence, not after twelve years of screams, but this was killing him.

"Did you miss me?" Sirius felt pathetic for asking it, but this was Remus, his Remus, who had seen him much worse than this.

"Of course." Remus' voice was quiet as he met the other man's eyes. "We were best friends. Why wouldn't I miss you?"

"We were more than just friends," Sirius said with a familiar glint in his eyes. He took a hand off his mug, and it hovered for a moment as he tried to decide whether to take Remus' hand. It was decided for him as Remus took his hand off the table to wrap it around the red mug.

"We were," Remus acknowledged softly. He was doing his best not to remember. Not to remember what it was like to kiss Sirius, what it was like to embrace him, what it was like to wake up next to him. Remembering was useless, because they weren't those people anymore. Sirius was a wanted criminal, on the run after escaping from the ministry's clutches at Hogwarts. He wasn't the laughing twenty one year old who had sworn at his godson's christening anymore.

"I wanted. I was wondering." Sirius stopped, looking furious with himself for not being able to utter a complete sentence. "I wanted to know if we could be more than friends again." His eyes were pleading. Remus looked away. "Please, Remus, we could live together again. We could, we could," he insisted. "Please." His voice broke on the last word.

"You thought I was the spy," Remus told him hopelessly. "All that time, the whole time. Did you think I was lying when I told you I loved you? Or was it just when I told you about how scared I was that I'd never find a job?" He looked away, not being able to face the memories he was finding in Sirius' eyes. "Did you think it was all a ploy to get you to break the fidelius charm?" Sirius' silence answered all of his questions, and he stood, abandoning his tea. "I can be your friend, but I can't be anything else."

"Remus, I didn't- please." Sirius' imploring tone was too much, and Remus had to bite his lip.

"I think you ought to leave the country, until the search dies down," Remus told him blankly. "Be safe." He walked out of the café, and allowed himself to get swallowed in a crowd of day trippers. Sirius watched him go, clenching his fists, because he would not cry. Not when he had a country to leave.