Too many years spent as a bachelor had created a solo routine for Remus Lupin. In the mornings, he awoke early, prepared cocoa, and drank it out of a grey ceramic mug while reading the balderdash in The Daily Prophet from cover to cover. While living alone this had been a relatively simple task that was completed daily without any sort of trouble. Now that he spent most of his time in London at Order of the Phoenix headquarters at Number 12 Grimmauld Place, it was a challenge to get peace and quiet for any sort of period, much less long enough to devour twenty pages of rubbish.
The home's most permanent resident, and owner, Sirius Black, was, fortunately, a late sleeper, but everyone else seemed to be perfectly capable of distracting Remus without his help. Molly Weasley, who, after all, was only trying to be motherly and helpful, usually began the mornings with a new round of her constant food pushing—"you're much too thin, dear…If only you'd have a sausage?", then some combination of her children, Harry, and Hermione would join the group in the kitchen, banging loudly around like teenagers do, jabbering about this and that, and who Ginny was or wasn't snogging. Though, on this particular morning, none of these things were happening--the students had returned to Hogwarts, and Molly and Arthur were settling some affairs back at the Burrow—Remus was still incapable of reading.
Nymphadora Tonks, who was referred to by her surname only, per her wishes, had sidled herself into the seat next to him after making and absolute mess of the kitchen trying to fix herself an omelette in the muggle manner. "Scourgify," she said listlessly as she pointed her wand back over towards the stove, knowing full well that she had no talent for household charms. A few broken eggshells moved themselves into the dustbin, but the splattered yolks stayed put. Remus looked up and she smiled at him, flashing her dark twinkling eyes and shrugging her shoulders. "Wotcher, Remus!" she greeted.
He finished the cleaning with a quick wand flick and a few muttered incantations and warily returned her grin with a small upturns at the corners of his mouth. "Good morning," he replied, and quickly returned to his paper. This was a harder task than he had expected, as her vivacious nature, combined with acute clumsiness and contrasting masses of intelligence made her utterly un-ignorable. That and the fact that she had not stopped speaking since his returned greeting.
"…then Moody showed up and I…Remus?" she interjected, bringing his thoughts from a heavy concentration on the newsprint in his hands to the actual contents of her speech. He met her eyes again and mentally reprimanded himself—"too old, too poor, too dangerous" was somewhat of a mantra now, to remind himself how inappropriate it would be to respond to her advances on him in the way that he wished.
She was now staring down at her breakfast as she stuffed large pieces of egg and cheese into her mouth in a very unladylike manner, swallowing quickly and getting in a few sentences between each bite. "So, I was saying that the Holyhead Harpies aren't doing very well this season, and Ginny and I are rather disappointed…." Chew chew chew. A small piece of egg hit Remus's cheek as Tonks began to speak without entirely consuming her latest mouthful. "I've got an extra ticket if you don't have duty this weekend…"
It was impossible to read the article about recent yeti sightings by muggle mountain-climbers and the real struggle that the ministry's Obliviators had making the entire group forget the incident without leaving them in an unsafe amnesiac state halfway up the peak. "So, what do you think about Arthur? I think he's looking a little worse for the wear lately, and I was planning on taking his shift tonight..." She really wouldn't shut up, even without response from her "listener". Looking up at her, Remus did the only thing that came to his mind, completely forgoing all of his reservations. She swallowed and opened her mouth for another leg of the one-sided conversation and he brought his lips to hers. After a few slightly egg-y and chocolate-y minutes, he removed his hands from her currently vibrant turquoise bob and relished in the moments of quiet that followed. He folded up the paper, and setting it down on the seat next to him asked, "So what were you saying?"
Author's Note: This was written for the LJ community rtchallenge's August R/T ficathon. This was off of prompt number five--"A kiss is a lovely trick, designed by nature, to stop words when speech becomes superfluous." - Ingrid Bergman.