Author's Note: Written for the rt challenge community on LJ. This is the most explicit quasi-sexual scene I've ever written, by the way. It's a little sad.
Good Fortunes
"Ow," said Tonks. "These things hurt."
Remus stopped eating to look up. "Having trouble?"
"They almost snagged, but I got 'em."
"Good."
"No one likes hole-y tights."
"I know I detest them, personally." Remus went back to his food, some Chinese takeout she had picked up for them. He remained intent on his food after having earlier been chastised by her for watching her getting dressed. He didn't quite understand this, because he had watched her get dressed many times before, but his watching right now, she had said, the rather ungraceful process involved in getting into the tights, the dress, and the rest of the outfit, would ruin the mood. He had accepted this amiably because it had been such a nice day that it seemed a shame to ruin it by arguing over something silly like fishnet tights.
Tonks would have preferred to dress in the bathroom and then enter the bedroom ready, but the current inhabited state of Grimmauld Place had prevented this, and also the fact that Sturgis Podmore had the awful habit of entering bathrooms without knocking. ("Honestly, was he raised by wolves? No offense, Remus.")
"You don't mind if I change in here, before we get started, do you?" Tonks had asked as she took off her shirt.
"I might be able to stifle my disappointment."
A little later: "Man, these shoes are really constricting."
"Then why are you wearing them?"
"Keep your head down. I'm wearing them because it is what's expected of me. It's like those poor little girls in China, who used to have to have their toes all bound up under their feet until they were all deformed."
"Well, yes, but it's a bit different. I mean, they lived in a highly misogynist society, and if they didn't bind their feet they were unlikely ever to be married by anyone. Whereas I think you look perfectly fine two inches shorter."
She wasstill struggling with the tights and didn't answer him.
"I mean, really," he said musingly, "if you really wanted to be two inches taller you could just wear flats and morph yourself and no one would really know the difference."
"It's the principle of the thing, Remus."
He grinned to himself. It had been a good day, overall. He had used the chopsticks that came with meal with moderate success for the first time in his life, and now this. Certainly they slipped a little, but still, he was proud of his own sudden dexterity.
"All right," said Tonks, slipping her pantyhose-ed feet into the shoes and standing up straight. "You can look up now."
He did and did not speak for a few seconds as he stared at her.
"Oh, and Remus, you know what else kills a mood as fast as anything?"
"What?"
"Fortune cookie crumbs on the bed." She sighed. "Honestly."
THE END