Juxtapose
Title: Juxtapose
Author: chococoffeekiss
Ratings: PG, just in case.
Warnings: This is fluff with a motif.
Word Count: 1,710
Prompt: Wrapping Paper
Summary: "Together they laughed awkwardly, finally realizing what exactly they had done, just how subconscious their relationship was, just how much they were a part of each other, even though nothing had ever happened between them before."
Author's Note: My second fic for this event, since we're allowed to do more than one, and since this is what the Plot Fairy left under my pillow last night. It's been haunting me ever since. I guess that Fairy Repellent didn't work like the infomercial said it would. Oh well.
Remus Lupin, compared to his current housemates, was a quiet fellow. Well, he was a quiet fellow compared to most people, but that’s not to say that he didn’t have a stellar sense of humour, or didn’t like to cause a little bit of trouble every now and again. But not today-today was his day off from both causing and remedying trouble. And at the time, the house was just almost as quiet as he was, being devoid of the various children and adults that had occupied it in the past few months. It wasn’t completely quiet, but enough so to wander the halls with a book in one hand and a mind to find a suitable place to read, or to pretend to read and really daydream about a certain Auror instead…
Quiet enough, that is, until he reached the long, dark, grim, elf-head decorated hall outside the kitchen and heard the ominous noises emanating from within.
Crumple. Crumple. Shred. Crunch. Boom.
“Bollocks.”
Crackle. Crinkle. Tear. Scrunch. Scratch.
“Well, shite.”
Crunch. Snap. Rip.Thud.
“Bloody hell!”
Nymphadora Tonks, compared to her current housemates, was a hurricane. Well, she was a hurricane compared to most people, but that’s not to say that she didn’t have her calm, zen-ful, eye-of-the-storm moments. Right then just was not one of those moments, as she lacked dexterity and patience when it came down to tasks that didn’t involve stakeouts, arrests, escaped criminals and generally dangerous situations. She was no good at wrapping Christmas gifts, she realized, when it came time for her to wrap Christmas gifts. The kitchen table was a large enough space, and with the Weasleys at the hospital it would give her the privacy enough to fail at gift-wrapping in peace, and daydream about her cousin's best mate instead…
Privacy enough, that is, until it was interrupted by a slight, brown-haired, quiet fellow with a book in one hand, sticking his head around the door and giving her a wide-eyed, curious look.
“Wotcher, Remus.”
Nymphadora was seated at the table, adrift in a veritable sea of brown craft paper, twine, and boxes (only a few of them wrapped), scowling prettily and jabbing her wand at a parcel.
“Hello, Tonks. Having problems with paper?”
“If you only knew.” she muttered. She felt a surge of panic twinge in her stomach, accompanied by the heat of a blush on her cheeks. The room was a shipwreck, her gifts were scattered all over like jetsam and she was not having much luck with the Spello-Tape, either. This was not the best time for the guy she secretly fancied to come strolling in, unknowingly demanding her full and undivided attention as he so often did.
Remus sat down at the table across from her, surveying the scene. The girl he secretly fancied had indigo hair today, chin length and curly, and was wearing a snug yellow shirt that read “It’s Not Paranoia if They Really Are Out to Get Me.” She poked the box again with her wand and sighed. He toyed with one of the seemingly several billion small scraps of brown paper that littered the room.
“It, uh…looks like one-hundred percent recycled warfare in here.”
She sniggered. “Yeah, and guess who’s winning…”
He grinned. “Do you want some help? I mean, I’m not trying to be a bother, but-“
She plunked a stack of unwrapped boxes on the table in front of him before he could get another word out, and peered around the heap to smile at him gratefully. Nymphadora desperately needed help, and didn’t have too much pride to admit it, but then again, she was no Gryffindor…Thank goodness, as they all seemed to have too much pride to admit that they wanted or needed something, especially the one sitting across from her.
“I take that as a yes, then.” Remus laughed. Now, he had no qualms in helping her, as long as he had some way to keep from staring at her. It had been becoming a bit of a problem lately-he couldn’t seem to stop looking at her, whether or not she was looking back. People were beginning to notice. Well, actually it was only Sirius that had noticed, but he was very annoying about it.
“I expected you to have… I don’t know, orange plaid wrapping paper with pictures of the Weird Sisters all over it.”
“That kind was sold out.” She smirked. “Besides, I like this better anyways.”
“Why? It seems too ordinary for someone like you, Nymphadora.” He nodded toward her hair, which would’ve looked unnatural on anyone else. In his opinion, plain brown paper did seem out of the vein for someone with wild purplish hair and a tattoo of a green dragon morphed down the inside of her arm. She didn’t even doodle on the paper, or put a fancy tag on the gift, she just wrote the recipients’ names in ink on the top of each box.
“Haven’t you ever seen The Sound of Music? Brown paper packages tied up with string, these are a few of my favorite things!” She sang in a chirpy, lilting voice. The movie was one of her favorite Muggle things, though she wasn’t about to own up to the fact that she, a punk rocker, sang the score from a Rodgers and Hammerstein musical in the shower, as Sirius would never let her live it down.
“I haven’t seen that in years.” He smiled at her and tapped another present with his wand, wrapping it neatly. She grinned at him while her own present sat before her, haphazardly wound in a piece of paper. His whole stack was finished and piled neatly to the side, while the other gifts were looking on in crumpled dismay. It didn’t seem to bother her, though- she accepted it and moved on, but not everyone could be a Hufflepuff.
“You do know what I’m talking about, that’s good. What are your favorite things, Remus? Is it raindrops on roses or whiskers on kittens? I can’t remember.” She winked at him. He blushed the tiniest bit but countered wittily-
“Neither, actually. I’m rather fond of the cream-colored ponies, to tell the truth.”
To tell the complete truth, Remus did have a list of favorite things, and she was very close to the top of that list. Well, that’s a lie; she was, in fact, number one on his list of all-time favorite things. He just didn’t want to own up to it. Ponies were also on the list, but he was definitely not going to own up to still being the slightest bit resentful that he never had one growing up- Sirius would never let him live it down.
“Surely you have a favorite something…right? You like sweets.”
“A- a bit.”
“Don’t sell it short, I’ve seen you sit here at the table and eat an entire bowl of cake frosting!”
Nymphadora wasn’t about to tell him that watching him eat an entire bowl of cake frosting was definitely number one on her list of “Tonks’ Top Ten Most Favoritest Things Ever!” and hoped that he wouldn’t find out. In fact, that particular cake frosting incident was the reason for the exclamation mark and the italics in the title of the list. But she wasn’t going to inform him about that, either.
“And we’re still not telling Molly that was me, right?” He traced a crack on the tabletop, grinning bashfully.
“Of course not. What else?” She prompted, “Come on, Remus. Favorite things! You’ve got to tell me.”
“Oh. Well, one of my favorite things…erm…” He tapped his fingers on the table, sliding a piece of paper across the top. “I like origami.”
“What’s that?” She asked interestedly. “Sounds like Indian food? Or is it something from the Kama Sutra?”
“Indian food? What? Kama-no, it’s ah…” He blushed thoroughly this time, then took the paper, charmed it into a nice shade of sunny yellow and started creasing it. “It’s…well, it’s folded paper, basically.”
“What’s so great about folded paper?”
“Well, you can make anything out of it. It can take any shape.” He smiled, and continued, thankful for the opportunity to quit staring at her. “It can be functional and beautiful at the same time, it can be very complicated-looking…intimidating, but it’s actually quite easy to understand, once you know how it works. It’s getting to know how it works that takes the longest.”
She watched him fold the square of paper in complex triangles until the beginnings of a flower started forming in his fingers, all without magic. With a second sheet of paper charmed indigo he folded another flower, putting the two together in a tiger lily with gracefully curved petals.
“Oh. How pretty…” She whispered, struck by how odd it looked to see him, in his grey trousers and brown jumper, with his brown hair falling into eyes, folding a piece of stunningly bright paper into a beautiful, complicated flower which he held almost respectfully.
“What’s so great about plain wrapping paper, then?” He asked thoughtfully, and avoided her fascinated gaze.
“It’s…mysterious...in its simplicity.” She looked back to her gifts, and spelled a small box to wrap itself, copying the wand motion and inflection he had used. It was considerably neater this time around, and she smiled in approval. ”But the most important part-you know, is that it may be plain on the outside, but that’s okay because it’s what’s inside that matters most.”
“I see.” He said quietly, watching her tie a bit of string around the box in as neat a bow as she could muster. It was strange to watch her make something so ordinary and normal-the little brown box looked so out of place among her bright yellow and vivid purple, but she held it lovingly.
"Here," They both said at once, each holding out the paper trinket to the other.
Together they laughed awkwardly, finally realizing what exactly they had done, just how subconscious their relationship was, just how much they were a part of each other, even though nothing had ever happened between them before.
"No, you keep it." They said together again, each staring bemusedly at the tiny paper replica of themself in the other's hand.