"Come back to bed," he called across the room, but Remus wasn't listening. He was already pulling on the second of his shoes, wand in pocket, long Muggle coat swirling around his ankles.

"I'll be back by dinner," Remus said, shooting a small half-smile back at his lounging partner, immune to the puppy eyes. "Well. Probably," he amended, and Sirius's eyes shuttered just a bit more. He was thinking of all the other dinners that had gone cold, Molly Vanishing them with an unconcerned wave of her hand; of all the nights spent alone in the dark creaking mansion with its endless hallways and the sharp memories that still lingered in its walls.

"What are you heroically defending this time?"

The sardonic tone was not lost on Remus. Suddenly that look was back in his eyes, the sadness and exhaustion that had never been far away since the day of Sirius's trial years ago. "Dumbledore has a theory He's moving on Libya."

Sirius's muscles tensed. It went against everything he had ever been to sit still, to keep from rushing into action at the Order's side. "The vampire lords?"

"They would be a great advantage. Albus thinks that if we -"

But the door opened and Mad-Eye filled the frame, focussing his natural eye on Remus as the other looked somewhere through the floor. Sirius he ignored. "Kingsley's here. Time's come."

Sirius watched as they conferred quietly, his legs jittering restlessly against the threadbare mattress. From across the room he could pick out the strands of grey on the back of his lover's head.

When did we get so old, he thought helplessly.

Remus stepped out of the room, pulling the door half-shut behind him. "You could use me," Sirius called out after him, and the werewolf turned back with pale time-deepened eyes. He didn't speak. "You need me," he insisted. "They're not going to know me there. I can come, Remus, I can fight, it's what James would have wanted -"

"James would have wanted you safe." The gentle tone was more undermining than a sharper one could ever have been.

"James wouldn't fucking care! There's a war on, in case you hadn't noticed -"

"I had, actually -"

"I'm not a child! I am going insane in this bloody house with Kreacher and Mother and Molly's bloody cooking! If you think for a second I wouldn't rather lay down my life, be a man -"

"Sirius." And Sirius read in his eyes that he didn't understand - that Remus thought him immature. Foolish, even. His Remus. His love. The one who had always had an infinite supply of patience. "I know you are just as capable as any of us. I know you. What the Order needs right now is for you to keep yourself from getting arrested, which means that, yes, you will have to put up with staying home and Molly and house-elves..."

"That's not what I left Azkaban for!"

Silence fell. Their gazes held, communicating more quickly than any words. Remus opened his mouth to speak, but a voice came from downstairs -

"Remus! We need to leave."

The werewolf watched Sirius a moment more, then shook his head and sighed. "I'll see you later."

"Moony." He couldn't ask Remus to stay. His hold was gone, they were no longer children; the world needed Remus Lupin almost as much as Sirius Black did, and when it came down to it there was no contest.

But any man who would stay imprisoned, who would keep himself from rushing to his lover's side?

Well. Such a man was no longer really Sirius Black at all, now was he?

Remus closed his eyes briefly, some kind of pain flickering through them. When he opened them the half-smile had forcibly returned. We're not kids anymore, he would not say. We cannot be the same. "Goodbye, Sirius." They both knew they'd given up on the concept of a future, of an 'after the war' - already they were living on borrowed time. There would be no living through this.

Sirius bolted upright. "Moony!" Wait, he thought, aching with all the things he could not say at once. Do you remember sixth year by the lake when Lily gave us her blessing through chocolate, and it melted all over your hands, the sun was so bright, we skipped Potions and just lay there in the glory of it? Of us. We have a history. We weren't made for this. Every day in Azkaban I thought of you - I didn't escape for this! I'm losing myself, and you're the only one who could ever help me find me again. Please, tell me how to go back to the way things were. Please. Or else I... or else we...

But the door had already closed behind him.