[closed] when the moon doesn't hit your eye like a big pizza pie
Who: Nymphadora Tonks and Remus Lupin.
When: November 20th, the evening hours.
Where: They begin at Fort Tonks but who knows where it will end...
Format: Paragraph to start, action or whatever to follow.
What: Remus has asked Tonks out on a date though they may not make it past her front door but not for reasons one might expect.
Warnings: Maybe ( Read more... )
When: November 20th, the evening hours.
Where: They begin at Fort Tonks but who knows where it will end...
Format: Paragraph to start, action or whatever to follow.
What: Remus has asked Tonks out on a date though they may not make it past her front door but not for reasons one might expect.
Warnings: Maybe ( Read more... )
The second time they kissed had been a somewhat charming encounter. They were both young. They both had issues, but he hadn't ran away and she hadn't driven him off.
The third time they kissed, it had been an act of comfort. It had been something more intimate than an embrace. The kiss had been needed by the both of them.
... Which brings them to this point. Neither one of them need comfort. Neither one of them are promising anything. For the first time (in their adult lives), it is a kiss for enjoyment's sake. And Tonks very much enjoys this one.
Her body leans into him. While her left hand still has a secure hold on the front of his shirt, her right hand casually comes to a rest on his shoulder. Her fingertips and hand then slide around his neck locking them together.
Eventually, she becomes aware of just how much she likes where his hands are. She likes what his lips are doing. Tonks had not been expecting to dislike their first romantic kiss but neither had she been expecting to enjoy it quite this much. He's kissing her like he knows exactly what she likes and he does know.
Remus Lupin, you are a dirty cheat.
The realization causes her eyes to open (and she hadn't realized up until that point that she had closed them). Tonks breaks the kiss gently but does not break the hold she has on him. It takes her a moment to catch her breath.
"That's not fair..." Her tone is both plaintive and bemused. "You seem to know everything that I like." Tonks' hands are now at his neck. Her thumbs are resting against his jaw while her fingers dance up and down on the back of his neck. "I think you have me at a disadvantage."
In truth, it's mostly column A and a little bit from column B.
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Sirius thumped loudly down into the chair, then outdid it by thudding his arms more loudly down on the tabletop. Last to fall was his head in a raven heap into his elbows. "Dammit, Loop," he huffed. "How did you know?"
..
James tore his eyes away from her retreating back and made a horrible face, so the others wouldn't see his real expression. "Man, Moon. You read my mind."
..
Peter jerked a little and looked at him with something close to fear on his face. It was an expression he'd had for Sirius and James but never before for Remus. "You know about that?"
..
Harry simply looked at his professor in open amazement, as if Lupin had just read his mind.
..
Lily arched an eyebrow at Remus, mostly smiling, just a little bit not. "If I didn't know better, I'd think you were studying legilimency."
She had known better, from talking to Snape or not. Lupin really wasn't a legilimens. Not a proper one. He'd briefly studied the basics, thinking it seemed almost remiss not to. Quickly he became too alarmed and repelled by it to go further. Also, perhaps more tangible was the fact that the wedge between Snape and Sirius/James had become something Remus could no longer try to keep from applying to himself. (Or hadn't learned yet that he should try harder.)
It was probably a good thing he weren't, lest he pick up from Tonks that thought.
Of course, if he could read minds, perhaps he wouldn't learn only the words but the intent. He'd therefore know right away she meant you have an unfair head start -before he could misinterpret as even with another version of her, you're cheating on your wife.
Would he still think that? Had those feelings been truly worked through, or could they be resparked?
Or is he wondering that regardless of whether he could or could not pick up on her reactions, and to what extent?
He wasn't a legilimens but he was almost preternaturally perceptive; so he's not surprised, may even be preparing for it, when she pulls away.
He is, however, surprised, that she doesn't pull away more.
And what she's doing with her fingertips is making it harder to control these thoughts. Perhaps he can make that mean the thoughts stop happening entirely, rather than his conscious filter fails and they pour out all the faster.
The solution, as it's always been for him: turn his focus away from himself and entirely onto her.
Oh, what an easy and delightful prospect.
And he has learned some of the more important things with that head start.
As she linked her fingers behind his neck, he links his hands together against the small of her back, and leans a bit so they're balanced, mutually supporting one another.
"Oh, really," he said, restraining a smile. "The dilapidated, deformed old man has an advantage of the athletic, beautiful young woman. I think we should call it a handicap. Level the playing field just enough for my self-esteem."
[ooc: here's a good source of "Lupin seeming to read minds" canon quotes; also where I introduced to the idea that people thought he might be a legilimens.]
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Tonks is grinning again. There's a mischievous glint to her expression. "Although I think afterwards you might feel a little worn out."
As if to make her point, she kisses him again. Her intentions, she feels, should be clear.
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If this Remus pauses at all, it's only to think, bypassing plan; was going to give you a beautiful night; earn…more…
But there are more important things to focus on. Like how his theory that a person will do to their partner what they themselves want and enjoy, at least initially before more data has been gathered; how he knows to what degree that's true in Tonks's case; so he shifts the kiss from her mouth to her cheek, across her jaw, and to the side of her neck; doing to her with his lips what she's doing to him with her fingers.
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When his mouth shifts, Tonks momentarily goes weak in the knees. Oh. She momentarily loses her hold on him. She opens her eyes, again not realizing that she had closed them. "Remus..."
Her hands clasp the side of his face. "If you keep doing that to my neck we might not ever make it off of my front stoop." Tonks kisses him, briefly. "I wouldn't mind so much but when I asked for the evening, I meant all of it."
Tonks arms are draped casually around him. Oh, it wouldn't be entirely unpleasant if they didn't make it out but she has the notion that this should be special, whatever happens. She's going to try to keep from jumping Remus like a randy rabbit.
"I liked that though..." She can't help it. She kisses him again.
Tonks is going to have to try very, very hard but, (and as the Narration had previously stated) she wouldn't be entirely aggrieved if the opposite happened either.
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So, having been advised by her, for good teamwork, he takes his turn and makes this kiss a brief one.
"It might be time for dinner, then." He looks down between them-their arms still loosely around each other-at what he can see of her outfit. He's never sure how to compliment someone on how they look: does it turn every time he doesn't compliment them into an insult? Especially when they look great regardless? But there are rituals for times like this, so he goes ahead and says what he means anyway: "You look fantastic." Doesn't bother with hope I measure up 'cause he knows he doesn't and never will, but that she doesn't care, and hers is the only opinion that matters in such things.
A cloud of a thought passes through his eyes. There's that hesitation. He'd fought off a different one, so this one slipped through. Nobody can kill a moment like you, Loop. "Do we need to talk about…" Bellatrix "anything-" just say things, remember? -no, not that name, after a kiss "-before we go out?"
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Maybe she hadn't started out with the notion that she wanted to dress to impress. However, the thought of him undoing each button, now that she had said it, was incredibly appealing.
At his questions, Tonks' face falls a bit. "You want to talk about Bellatrix?" Now? She doesn't have any training in legilimency. She doesn't need it. Like the last time, she had known a 'talk' was coming.
She starts to shake her head. Tonks is nearly angry. How can he bring this up now? Why now? "I can't and I don't want to forgive her, Remus. Not now, maybe not ever. I tried. I really did but.. she's just... I can't." She repeats again. Her face falls more to the point where she rests her forehead on his shoulder. Tonks doesn't want him to see her face.
Tonks had spent days thinking on it. She had agonized over it but there is still too much pain and too much hurt in her heart. Forgiveness wouldn't be genuine, not on her part.
"You can have her wand. I don't want it." Please don't ask me to forgive her. "The only thing I can do is to not throw what she did back in her face. Please don't ask me to do more than that. I can't." I won't.
Please.
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"I don't think you should do anything more than you've done. I think that's quite a lot already, and I'd never try to make you do more. I'd never try to make you forgive her. I just… wanted to make sure we were… if you'd forgive me."
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"Forgive you?" Now, it is Tonks' turn to look confused. She wears it well (and sometimes often). She lifts her head up to look at him. "You've not done anything... have you?"
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He tilts his head a little looking back. "How quick I was to accept her. Rationally, I don't believe it was a betrayal of you. And you've certainly not said or done anything to imply you feel it was, which either means you don't feel that way, or you do but understand the rational argument. Either way, I appreciate it. But… on some level, even for me, it still does feel that way, so I'd understand if… I hope we can both believe it isn't. And maybe now wasn't the best time to bring it up. But any time… I'd be glad to talk about it."
(…He'd said "accept." Not "forgive".)
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"I..." Eventually, she'll say the same thing to Merlin. "It makes me angry when I see people talking to her, forgiving her... How can you? It feels like you don't remember at all what she did." Tonks inhales a breath but it's not exhaled immediately. Sometimes, she gets so mad that she wants to throw things. She goes silent for a moment. Even now, she can feel herself getting angry.
That's not right. Her feelings are on her. They are something she has to deal with. No one else can help her.
Tonks finally exhales that breath.
"You've not done anything wrong, Remus." She accepts it. It doesn't need to be forgiven. "I understand why you talk to her. You wouldn't be you if you didn't try and I want you to be you but... I just... It's hard." Tonks lips form a thin line before they start to tremble.
She lowers her head and rests her forehead against him again.
"It's so hard."
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The selfish, inevitable thought: I remember things you never lived through.
The flash that is Sirius in his eyes shifts suddenly to a new thought.
Both are shaken quickly away and he refocuses entirely on her. Meets her eyes while she holds his, then rests his lips on her hair when she ducks her head.
"I know. I can't see how it couldn't be hard. I just don't want to make it any harder, if I can help it. I know you know… that how I treat her now is my way of dealing with the fact that I do remember what's been done, and is the only way I know to move forward from it. In the hope of doing better next time. Never letting it happen again."
He suddenly puts his arms more firmly around her and gives her a terrific squeeze, lifting her slightly off her feet. Then cranes his head down to catch her eye. "And that can be the end of that conversation for tonight, or ever, if you like. I'm sorry I mentioned it. I didn't want it to hang over the evening… probably botched that, but I'm going to do my best to dispel it now."
And he will take Bellatrix's wand, if Tonks still gives it to him. And leave for some other night wondering what in Hell, on Earth, and in Anatole he's meant to do with it.
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She wants to try, however.
With her head still on his shoulder, her left hand reaches up. Tonks thumb brushes across his lips. "D'you promise to do your very best?" She means that in more ways than one because she likes the sudden show of strength.
"I think you said something about dinner."
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She accepts his arm, "That sounds lovely, Remus." Tonks makes sure she is holding on tight and for more reasons than just side-along apparition.
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Dinner would prove Remus true to his word: not only was that particular awful conversation over, he would not attempt to steer them in any laborious direction, but maintained a level of good cheer and fun that James and Sirius would have approved of. So doing, he demonstrated that, whatever had been lost from his last life, the one beyond Tonks's timeline, he'd gained a few things too: an easiness, a calmer confidence, than he'd ever had before. As a teacher he could be sedate and comforting, in wartime he could be commanding, but these were all focussed externally, on his students or to protect or cooperate. He seemed, even if only by degrees, easier in his own skin than he'd ever been.
In part it could be that this was a world where Moony was unprecedentedly under control. Could be, unbelievably, trusted and accepted. Even forgotten. That could be part of it… possibly… but was more likely to be an effect than a cause.
Could Tonks possibly know how much it had to do with her? Either her?
Many light-hearted stories later-some, predictably (eternally) to do with James and Sirius in school years; some, more novelly, to do with recent developments in Anatole, to do with Remus's walks with Iolanthe's dog and being haunted by Shirley in the Clinic garret when he wanted to sleep but she wanted to talk literature and hints of his students (Ciel, Asellus, Hermione) at the Dojo and any light moment he may have ever shared with Heine;
and realising the food was long gone and they'd been sitting in the restaurant past a reasonable duration; he offered her his arm and they swung off the road into the park.
He was decidedly leading the way. Which hadn't exactly come naturally to him; where "women" as a theoretical rule, and Tonks in particular, had usually been concerned, his inclination was always to defer. He was working on the theory that now and then it really was pleasurable, and not necessarily chauvinistic, to attempt to take the lead.
And he had a plan.
Their setting foot down a certain side path was the trigger. Down a small lane of rosebushes, suddenly every flower contained a light that seemed to bloom; and the path was filled with coloured lights, the shades of Tonks's favourite ways to make her hair, buzzing around in the shape of dragonflies.
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