A/N Hey, this is a songfic, but I didn't structure it like a typical one. It just really conforms to the story of the Lady Antebllum song, and I directly quote some of the lyrics. For those of you who can't start a story before knowing exactly when it takes place (ahem, me), it's about the middle of HBP. Also, just a technical note: Tonks can floo out of but no one can floo into her apartment.
Need You Now
Breathe. Just breathe. It's ok, it's all right. You can do this. The movement of the figures in the photographs on the floor was starting to make her queasy, and Tonks' shaky fingers reached for the open Firewhiskey bottle sitting next to her, as though getting even tipsier would make her less dizzy. Logic was never her strong suit, as anyone who had witnessed any aspect of her failed attempt at romance with Re– Lupin could attest to. Impersonal is better. Hadn't she fended off a few suitors at Hogwarts that way, by being impersonal and unapproachable? She snorted. Maybe she should have just acquiesced; maybe then she would be happy, maybe even engaged to some bloke who would let her love him.
Sitting in her flat, trying to sort through the photos Sirius (she swallowed some more liquid courage at the thought of her deceased cousin) had taken at his childhood home. She was going to burn the pictures of Remus– Lupin, damnit!- but first, she had to find them all. Tonks was well on her way to drunk, and the next sip of Firewhiskey hardly burned at all on its way down. The waving, laughing people in the photographs sucked her in; she couldn't look anywhere else and the picture-perfect memories were burning more than Firewhiskey ever could.
That's when the sobs hit, dryly wracking her chest; her lungs tried to suck in air, and tears prickled their way from her soul to her eyes.
But she was an Auror, and she had trained her body to obey her every command.
Well, her commands not to trip over every sodding uneven bit of floor went unheeded by her body, but clumsiness was the least of her problems now. Calming her breathing through sheer willpower, she squinted up at the ceiling, willing the tears to reabsorb. As she was sniffing, a pot on the fireplace mantel caught her eye. Suddenly, it was all she could do not to reach out and grab just a bit of floo powder, just enough to stick her head through and hear his voice. It was completely out of the question, but pictures of them laughing together were winking up at her, her chest was splitting in two, and her sanity was flying apart. She swallowed thickly, but the lump that had taken up permanent residence in her throat would not budge.
Just for a minute. I'll just….it'll just be for a minute.
"Lupin!" she whispered loudly, choosing to ignore the fact that her stifled laughter completely undermined her harsh tone. He had nipped her chocolate and run away, taking the invisibility cloak they were both supposed to be hiding under with him. She was stuck behind the bush, not knowing exactly where he was, but positive that he was devouring her chocolate. Besides, they were supposed to be watching Harry.
But it was so hard not to laugh at the antics of the normally stoic Remus. The smile she had been trying to abolish stayed firmly on her face. A minute later she felt fabric whoosh by her face and, whirling around, suddenly she could see him, very close to her, as the magic of the cloak enveloped them once again.
"Don't you think we should be on a first name basis by now?" he said, nodding his head toward the empty chocolate wrapper in his hand, as if to say 'I did just steal and mercilessly devour your chocolate. If that's not friend material, what is?'
"As if, Lupin. I don't let anyone call me that- horrid name," she asserted, dramatically shuddering. He chuckled.
"A compromise, then, Dora?" It was a statement more than a question and when he put his hand on her shoulder in a friendly manner, she thought she was falling in love.
One hand was gripping the mantel, and her head was level with it, her back hunched in a conflicted and defeated posture. She was staring at the grubby pot smeared with soot. She wasn't quite drunk enough to do something as stupid as floo R– Lupin.
But she was drunk enough to down another shot of Firewhiskey, pushing her past the limit where rational thought really kept any hold over action. Her other hand was clutching a photo and then her head was hanging down; she was glaring at it for all she worth, as though the answer to all her troubles could be found in the likeness of Lupin's countenance, now crinkled by her ferocious grip on the photo.
She could morph away the blush, but he was so very, very close to her. Was it possible a werewolf could hear an excessively loud and frantic heartbeat, even if it wasn't a full moon? She desperately hoped it was not; she was perilously close to utter mortification. She knew that half the Order could tell she had feelings for him, and she was sure they all thought of it the way Remus himself would- it was a silly crush, like a schoolgirl mooning over her teacher.
"Remus, I- I told you, I can handle dinner." She tried to sound exasperated with him despite her embarrassment and secret frustration with herself- she couldn't go a sentence without saying his name these days. It was really quite inexcusably desperate that she was so in love with the sound of his name (and the connection it seemed to fabricate between the two of them when she said it), she just spouted it out every chance she got. Like word vomit.
He picked his wand up off the counter, where he had set it before leaning past Tonks- really, really close to her, she might add- to grab a pot. "No offense, Dora? But you're rather hopeless at domestic charms." She shivered a bit when he said her name, but she had gotten pretty good at hiding that from him. The blush that stained her cheeks at the sight of his crooked grin, however, was not so easy to morph away. She hoped he would be typical Remus, oblivious to the inconvenient feelings of others, but he saw. Of course he saw. It was just her sodding luck that his gaze would find her ruddy cheeks when, if it had been anybloodyone else, it would have slid over to the sink, where perhaps some interesting lint might have been lurking.
She prepared for the awkwardness, when he would return to being typical Remus, who, having noticed something so mortifying, would politely ignore it and allow everyone to tensely mumble an excuse and flee. But his eyes, after lingering on her cheeks, seemed to be wandering down… Her body was on fire with the mere thought he might ever even entertain the idea of kissing her- her!- the bumbling idiot with pink hair that was nowhere near his league. Her mouth went dry and her humiliation was only mounting (of course he wasn't thinking about ravaging her in the middle of the headquarters' kitchen!); she quickly worked some saliva back in her mouth, as if he could have magically known it had gone dry and excuse her of inappropriate thoughts.
When she flicked her tongue out to wet her lips, his arms were suddenly surrounding her head, his hands braced against the cabinets behind her head. His body against her hips pressed her back into the counter and he was kissing her, the stolen affection tasting much more animalistic than anyone would have expected from Professor Lupin. But just what she would have expected of Moony.
It wasn't a choice anymore. She needed him now. Hand shaking with anger or desperation, she didn't know which, she threw a handful of the glittering powder into the fire, thrusting her head through as though knowing sanity could descend at any minute, taking away the chance her weakness was giving her. She thanked Merlin, not for the first time, that there was a fireplace in his room as she vaguely heard the clock chime a quarter after one. The weathered floorboards and dingy wallpaper of his room, so familiar to her, barely registered as her eyes fell on him.
"Dora!" The book he had been reading fell from his hands, off his lap, and onto the floor. After a moment the shock was gone, and he was on his feet and kneeling before the fire in an instant. The wide eyes of surprise had become slitted with concern, appraising what he could see of her.
"What's wrong? Are you all right? Are you hurt?" He sounded so concerned that tears started welling in her eyes again. For a moment, a wild thought took hold of her mind; she could just let him believe she had been injured on a mission. Maybe he would even come to her flat, take care of her… Wistful visions were swiftly taking over the present, but even drunk, Tonks knew she could never tell such an unforgivable lie.
"I said I wouldn't floo, but I just…you're my best…" she trailed off and one tear leaked out of its confinement under her eyelid, sliding down her face. The sound of her wretchedly thick voice and the look on his face… suddenly, she felt foolish, and she ducked her head, trying to figure a way out of the mess she had just made. Her Firewhiskey-laden brain came up short. All she wanted was for him to say she crossed his mind, at least sometimes. For her it happened all the time. Too much.
"Tonks," he sighed, getting up from his spot by the hearth to stand a few feet away. He had seen her eyes, glazed from intoxication, knew she was not hurt, not physically at least, and now his eyes were guarded. She gasped, feeling for all the world as though he had slapped her. No more nicknames, no more concern. Worst of all, she felt like a lecture was coming. She really was a schoolgirl with a crush. That's when the tears gushed and she didn't try to make her foggy brain solve the problem. She let her body do what nature intended: flee.
Stumbling backwards, barely noting the fire change from green back to its natural hues of orange and yellow, her feet crunched over the photos, and she barely made it to her bed before collapsing into a ball. This had never happened to her. She had always been possessed of a largely cheerful and resilient disposition. But now, it was all turbulent depression, loss of control, outpouring of emotions.
It's not all right.
She needed him, her best friend, more than ever. But she couldn't have him, her destroyer, see her like this, be near her ever again. Despite that terrible pain, the knowledge that seeing him would make it worse, she rolled over to face the door, wishing he'd come sweeping in the way he did before, robes billowing behind, ready to rescue her from anything (mostly that umbrella stand). He would pat her on the back and brush his fingers through her hair just like he had that time she'd been upset with her mum (except that her once vibrant hair was now a dull brown) and they would be together just as soon as he realized how stupid he was being. She saw the bottle on the floor and it seemed the best idea in the world to grope for it and down the last two fingers straight from the bottle. He's so fucking stupid, she thought groggily.
He acted like he was protecting her, but there could be nothing worse, nothing she needed protecting from more, than this frightening pain and loneliness.
"Dora. Tonks. Look, I'm sorry about what happened, but can't we just- drop it now?" His eyes looked everywhere but at her, and she couldn't make hers look anywhere but him.
"Drop it? But you-" she cut herself off, the fire and defiance in her eyes dying as her heaving chest halted. She couldn't take air in fast enough a second ago, but now it was deserting her. "You didn't…want to kiss me?" If she had been thinking at all, she never would have let such a pathetic sentence fall from her lips, making her sound weak and desperate. She guessed that was the thing about love- it had a way of making you act like an idiot.
Remus looked pained when she said that, but he didn't glance at her. "That's beside the point, Dora. It's entirely inappropriate. I'm far too old for you. You are young, so very young. I'm very poor and…with my condition, it would be dangerous for anybody to ever remain close to me." His words gave her hope; it wasn't that he didn't want her, he was just being misguidedly noble.
"That's ridiculous, Remus! You hung round with Sirius and James all the time, before the Wolfsbane potion, even! And I don't care how old you are or how much money you have! I've a job, and it's not much money, but we'd be fine," she said, her earnestness impossible to mistake, she was sure. No one would say these things with such wide, hopeful eyes if they didn't mean them wholeheartedly. She grabbed his hand, as though she could force him to understand, to be with her. He took a step back and tugged his hand free, shaking his head. The creak of the floorboard under his feet sounded like a door squeaking closed and she gulped.
"And what of the months I can't afford the potion? I should subject some poor woman to the strain of worrying and caring for a sick man, one who might accidentally hurt her if all the precautions were not taken? No. I promised myself a long time ago I would never commit such a crime." His mouth was a hard line and she had never seen him look so grim. When he walked from the room, she did not follow.
But she kept challenging him for months, until he made it abundantly clear he could have nothing to do with her, that he wanted nothing to do with her. She had been so hurt, so tired of rejection, that she agreed to keep as much distance as possible. She had even lost her conviction that his protests were all noble sacrifice; maybe he truly didn't want a naïve klutz like her. And now she was reduced to this, a weeping ball that recalled none of the strength and vibrancy she used to identify as central to her self, her personality. Unable to smile or morph, she had been gliding through the last couple months looking haggard, world weary, and lost.
Far away, outside the no-apparition zone she had charmed around the apartment building, she heard a crack. Her heart pounded and, though the tears kept coming, she lifted herself off her bed a little, waiting for him to come bursting in, all male confidence and romantic bravado.
She didn't get out of bed for three days when it was Molly Weasley who bustled through the doorway to care for her, orange hair a reminder of the fire that would never turn green again, not for him.
Three weeks later, Tonks locked the floo powder in a cabinet before taking the pictures and Firewhiskey out again. She wouldn't make the same mistake twice, but, still, she had to see the memories of another, happier, time. I guess I'd rather hurt than feel nothing at all.
A/N I hate ending a story on a bad note but the song and the setting aren't conducive to a happy one. But we know it turns out well! I mean, they get together, but on the other hand they die…
Anyway, I don't like this story; something about the way it's written bugs me but I've been editing it on and off for a month and it's not getting better so I figured I'd just post it. Review!