Howdy folks! And we make our splashing return! Heh. Anyhoo, thanks to all our darling reviewers, you are all wonderful beautiful people. Proceeding… this is a long chapter so enjoy! Yay Lupin/Tonks are sooo cute! Weeee! Prances off

Chapter 3

Sirius grinned from his hiding spot in the hallway. Thank God for clumsy cousins. His plan had been a resounding success. The crazy glue that not-so-innocently bound the two occupants of his kitchen was no ordinary wizarding crazy glue. (Had it been such a substance, the skin cells in Remus' and Tonks' hands would have covalently bonded for good, and even Sirius couldn't find it in himself to do that.)

No. This glue had been a patented experiment of Fred and George Weasley. A tube of the project had been "conveniently" left in a desk drawer when they deemed the experiment a success and graduated it to a Weasley Wizarding Wheeze. Ah, the dangers of childhood….

At any rate, this not so ordinary and not so innocent dollop of glue would, indeed, bind two people stubbornly, but there was a catch: once the uninformed parties had been attached, the only antic that would release them would be a mutual, oral confession of love for each other. How sweet.

Well, usually.

Sirius had often thought it would be highly amusing to bind Snape and Mad-Eye Moody, but he'd suppressed the urge.

Anyway.

At the sound of confuzzled voices, Sirius strode back into the kitchen. (Buckbeak, meanwhile, was left in Madame Black's bedroom, alone and hungry.)

"Good God!" he playacted. "What did I tell you right before I left the room?"

"I know," Tonks said, exasperated and upset. "That's what triggered it. I have to touch forbidden oozing things. It's my nature. I'm so sorry." She looked apologetically at Remus. Minutes earlier, she'd been having visions over pancakes made by her dream man who, on top of everything else, could apparently cook, and now she was stuck to him, pondering whether this was a blessing or a curse. Sigh.

Remus shrugged nonchalantly, though thoughts were busily buzzing about his brain. How, exactly, were they going to escape this one?

"Surely there's a way to dislodge this stuff?" Tonks said hopefully. Remus shook his head.

"I doubt it. If it's a wizarding glue, which I believe it is, it's been made to permanently bind objects to each other. This could be quite serious." Sirius flinched at the unfortunate homophone of his name. "Haven't you outgrown that?" Remus asked bemusedly.

"Nope."

"Well. Anyway. Maybe there's a way to remedy it if we work quickly enough. Sirius, what was that stuff?"

"Dunno. Unmarked tube."

"Shit," Tonks said flatly. There was a long and nearly awkward silence in which she suddenly felt as though she were being chastised. "Oh, God," she mumbled, closing her eyes. "I'm sorry I said the word 'shit' in front of you, Professor Lupin."

Professor Lupin looked amused. "I assure you, I've heard the word 'shit.'" (Tonks stared in shock.) "I was a Marauder, after all."

"That's right." Sirius winked at Remus. "I just don't know how you managed to do this."

Tonks hung her pink, spiky head, which seemed to be turning a bit mousy. "I really am sorry," she said sadly. "I guess we could always amputate."

Remus looked up in alarm. "I write with that hand!"

She wilted even more dramatically. Remus patted her on the head with their hands. "It's all right. Maybe Severus knows something about binding potions…."

"Snape?" Tonks and her hair follicles snapped to attention. "We're having Snape un-stick us? Forget it." She got to her feet, abruptly dragging her new bodily addition with her. "We're finding a brick."

"A…what?"

"A brick. A really huge one, if we can manage it. Come on." She started to drag them off. Remus' voice wafted back into the kitchen.

"Wait…Tonks….maybe we ought to rethink this? Oh, dear…."

Sirius sat back in his chair to chew a chocolate chip pancake and look thoughtful. Upon doing so, he instantly laid eyes upon a certain red haired person with a nasty habit of apparating into people's kitchen chairs.

"Hello," the certain red haired person said with a smile.

"Morning, Bill. Pancake?"

"Sure. Unless…" Bill inspected the pancake. "Those aren't raisins, are they? Or doxie droppings?" He looked alarmed. "Surely not actual doxies, dropped into batter? No, even you wouldn't stoop that low…"

"Pull yourself together," Sirius said impatiently. "It's chocolate."

"Oh, good." Upon receiving this information, Bill happily selected a pancake and began to butter his breakfast. "Sorry. Bad pancake experiences in the past. You never really outlive finding a spider leg in your breakfast. Anyway." He took a bite of the food, which Sirius had, in the last five minutes, sprinkled with beetle eyes for no reason at all.

Just kidding, Bill.

Bill swallowed the fantastic pancake. "So. How goes it around here?"

A thump was heard in the background, accompanied by an anguished scream.

Sirius grinned. "Brilliantly."

Bill looked a little scared. (Hey, it's Plotting! Sirius. Wouldn't you?) "Was that Remus?"

"Poor man." Sirius shook his head. "If he'd just face his issues like any other normal person, I wouldn't have had to do this."

"Do what?"

"Hold still!" Another voice floated into the kitchen. "I bet….just…one more go at it….oh, ouch."

"Is that Tonks?" Bill asked.

"That is correct, sir."

"What did you do to them?"

"Remember the crazy glue that the twins made?"

"Sure," Bill said through another mouthful of chocolate chip goodness. "The stuff that holds you together until you confess love for—oh. Oh."

"Right." Sirius smiled in satisfaction.

"You didn't."

"I did."

"Shit, Sirius. When's the next full moon?"

"Last week, Bill. I'm not that stupid." Pause. "Don't give me that look."

"Right. Okay. Whatever you say." Bill rolled his eyes and summoned a cup of tea. "But what if they don't say it in the next three weeks?"

Suddenly, Tonks toppled into the kitchen, Remus at her heels. And hands, of course.

"Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow!" they chorused.

Bill and Sirius watched as the soon to be couple stumbled over to the freezer, wrenched open the door, and inserted their hands, gasping in relief.

"Ahhh…."

Sirius smiled in satisfaction. "They will."

Tonks let out another breath and glanced at Remus. "So, blow torch—bad idea?"

Remus gave a very uncharacteristic glare. "Very bad idea."

"Tough night?" Bill inquired merrily.

"Good morning, Bill!" they said in unison, turning around.

"What did you guys try to – "

" Don't ask," Remus said darkly.

Bill grinned "Fine, then, just don't hurt yourselves, odds are that glue isn't coming off for awhile." He gave Sirius a wink which Remus thought to be way too suspicious, but he shrugged it off, after all he had a bigger issue to deal with: Tonks. Upon Bill's last words, her hair had perked up a bit.

"A while? So there's hope?" she said happily.

Sirius shot Bill a dirty look. "Doubtful. Very little. Bill doesn't know what he's talking about. No hope. None. Sorry."

Her hair drooped.

"Tonks, it's all right," Remus said for the umpteenth time that day. "We'll figure out…something….somehow. Maybe there's a book on melding charms somewhere around here…."

"So now I have to be in on your library escapades, too?" The pinkness fled from her non-spiky hair. Bill looked a little alarmed. This wasn't normal, even less normal then when her hair turned grey for three weeks in 6th year for no reason whatsoever.

" Do you want to get detached or not?" Remus asked irritably. There was a long awkward silence in which Tonks battled her instinct to blurt out 'NOT!"

She finally whispered, " I guess so."

"Why don't we discuss logistics over a nice cup of hot chocolate?" Sirius said, merrily clapping his hands. After all, this whole ordeal had sprung from an ancient bar of Honeydukes' finest consumed in the company of a hippogriff. There was a flurry of nods.

"Can I stay?" Bill asked.

Tonks gave him a puzzled look. "Why?"

He shrugged. "I'm bored."

Pause.

"Well, can you think of a better reason?"

Twelve minutes later, the four were convened around the table, gravely working out ways to allow Tonks and Remus to live at peace for however long it would take to unbind them.

"What about my job?" Tonks asked. "I can't be an auror with someone attached to me by the wrist."

"Fingers," Sirius corrected. "And you have a nasty case of the Gulping Plimpies. You'll be out for a month."

Remus gave him a funny look. "Gulping Plimpies are an urban legend."

"No they're not."

"But they are—I've looked them up, no one's seen them since about the sixth century—"

"Remus," Sirius said sternly, "can you think of a better disease?"

They sat in silence for a moment.

"Gulping Plimpies it is." Remus clumsily stirred at his cocoa with his left hand. "And what about the full moon?"

"I wouldn't worry too much about that," Bill said reassuringly. "We'll probably have figured out a way to separate you by then. Right, Sirius?" he added menacingly.

Sirius gave him an angelic grin. "Of course."

"How are we going to sleep?" Tonks asked abruptly.

"Together!" Sirius said joyously, delighting in his implications and their shocked faces. "Well, obviously, you're going to be sleeping together. In the same bed, I mean. How else would you do it? I mean, sleep."

Remus and Tonks stared at each other. "This is all my fault," Tonks said dismally. "If I didn't have to touch every buggering substance in my direct line of vision—oh, damn," she concluded, knocking over her cocoa with a hand motion. "Life is not helping!"

"It's all right." Using the dishtowel (which, for some reason, he was still brandishing), Remus mopped up the mess. "At least it wasn't hot."

She smiled back. "At least we're not attached by the leg."

"At least you're friends," Sirius commented, thinking about Mad-Eye and Snape.

"At least my mom isn't here," Bill added. Everyone looked at him.

"Who asked you?" Tonks demanded.

Bill shrugged. "She would go nuts over how adorable and romantic this is," he said, ignoring Sirius' frantic hand signals not to hint. Tonks and Remus stared at each other with even more awkwardness. Bill shrugged again. "Well, it is."

"Don't you have a day job?" Tonks seethed.

"Don't you?"

"FUCK!" Tonks jumped up, very nearly jerking Remus up with her. He calmly pulled her back down into her chair.

"Tonks," he said patiently, "it's a Saturday. And you have Gulping Plimpies."

"Oh. Right."

"But now that you mention it," Bill said, rising from his seat, "I really should get going. I've got a date."

"With who?" Sirius asked hungrily.

"Remember that girl in the Tri-Wizard Tournament?"

Sirius gaped. "You're screwing the French chick?"

"For your information, her name is Fleur, she's a quarter vela, and very hot!" Bill scowled and stepped toward the hallway. "Bye," he said listlessly, disappearing with a pop.

"Why don't I ever get dates with hot French chicks?" Sirius demanded.

"Because you're a convict!" Tonks said irritably. Stupid Sirius.

"Oh, that."

A sudden squawk was heard.

Sirius leapt out of his chair and dashed out to the hall. "Forgot to feed Buckbeack," he called. "Be back in a minute."

"Wasn't he feeding Buckbeack when we were in the kitchen this morning?" Remus asked pointlessly.

"Dunno. Don't care." Tonks pouted. The two sat in silence for a moment. Tonks broke that silence. "Remus?"

"Yes, Tonks?"

"I have to pee."

And so we conclude this exciting installment of Stuck on You. We would gratefully appreciate it if you expressed your opinion of the fic…. (Cough…review…cough) Anyhoo, hope you liked it! And see you all next time!