Oh, gosh. This is so strange. I never write the notes to these things. I just turn over the computer to Laanessness, and God knows what winds up on the webpage. Very strange indeed. At any rate, as usual, we'd like to thank all of you heartily for your lovely reviews and support. Kudos to you for being kind people. (snaps fingers in recognition) Keep up the good work, kiddy winkies. We hope you enjoy this chapter!

Much love, evilemmylou -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Naughty Boys and Vibrant Flats"

The next morning, a considerably better rested Remus and Tonks ambled into the kitchen, both clad in rather bizarre pajamas, to the sight of a concerned looking Sirius poring over a letter at the breakfast table. Despite the lack of wisdom they would display entering the room of underlying discord, they quickly were confronted by the scent of waffles and were compelled to shuffle in.

"Morning, Padfoot."

"Hi, Sirius."

"Hi," Sirius said distantly, taking a sip of his orange juice. He glanced up, promptly spewing out the recently consumed orange juice through his nostrils.

Remus rolled his eyes. "I'll never figure out why you do that."

Sirius chose to ignore the comment and launched into "fashion police" mode. "What the fuck are you wearing?" he asked in a terrible awe.

"Oh. That." Remus shrugged. "You seem to have stolen my standard pajamas, so I had to borrow a pair of Tonks'."

"I did not!" Sirius protested. He glanced down. "Oh. Maybe I did. Sorry about that. Are those the only pajamas you have?"

"Well, no, but considering that you used my other pairs to patch that leak in the roof…"

"Oh, right."

Tonks looked up in interest. "The ones that the chandelier ate?" Remus nodded. "Those were yours?" He nodded again. "Oh, I'm sorry! Sucks to be you!"

"It's all right. They were moldy anyway."

"And this is completely ignoring the fact that he could have used magic?" Tonks asked teasingly.

"He figured that one out about a day and a half later," Remus smiled. "Quite an escapade, no?" Sirius grunted, having returned to his letter. "Is everything all right?"

"Bee in your bonnet?" Tonks grinned, sashaying to the coffee.

"Hmmm." Sirius looked up. "Harry wants to get his….his, ah, thing….pierced. Is that normal?"

"We'll come back later," Remus said abruptly, pulling Tonks out the door with him.

"No, wait!" She resisted and pulled them both back to the kitchen table. "I'm so glad that we're the ones you asked!"

Remus looked startled. "Um."

"Oh, Bill and Charlie went through the exact same thing." Tonks waved her hand impatiently.

"And yet he buttered your muffin—"

"Shut up! That was before he had a needle jammed through, which, by the way, looked excruciating—"

"You were there?"

"He needed moral support. The point is (so to speak), tell Harry not to do it."

Sirius grinned at his cousin. "You're a lot cooler than I thought."

"I know." Tonks reached across the table and purloined one of his waffles, promptly coating herself and Remus in syrup. "Bugger." She sighed. "We're using the sixth floor shower this time," she said as Remus silently mopped up the stickiness with his—take a wild guess—dish towel.

"Why?"

"It's bigger." Tonks very much wanted to slap Sirius for the look that he was giving them, but she instead ignored it and allowed herself to be caressed with terry cloth.

"We might as well do some laundry while we're at it," Remus added. "All of my clothes have been doused in coffee or consumed by chandeliers or something."

"Speaking of that, I would like to get back to my flat today and pick up some more clothes." Tonks considered this. "And to make sure that Bill hasn't totally fucked up my home."

"Don't get your hopes up," Remus said as Sirius asked eagerly, "which kind of fuck?"

Tonks sighed. "Boys."

"Men!" Sirius said indignantly.

"Boys," Tonks said again.

"Boys," Remus agreed. He took a caffeinated quaff of the coffee in front of him. "So where do you live?"

"London. Not very far from here. About twelve blocks, actually. Although I still don't want to walk." She paused. "You just took a sip of my coffee."

"Did I?" Remus gave the coffee a puzzled look. "Oh."

"That's a very couple-y thing to do. Share coffee," Sirius said nonchalantly. The non-couple glared at him. "I'm just saying."

"Well, then. Where were we?"

"Apparating to my lovely flat," Tonks reminded.

"Lovely?" Sirius scoffed. "Green walls? Hardly lovely."

"What d'you call this dump?" Tonks sneered.

"A dump," Sirius answered.

"And they're not always green! They change colors."

"Hmm. Apparently, interior design runs in this family," Sirius said lightly, opening his newspaper (which had been delivered by a particularly violent owl earlier that morning, but we'll get into that later).

"We're leaving," Tonks declared, rising from the table and pulling along her protesting companion.

"But I haven't finished my coffee yet—"

"My coffee!"

"All the same, I think—AGH!"

Five seconds later, Remus found another reason to scream.

"Are you okay?" Tonks asked, looking worried.

Remus blinked at the decidedly….psychedelic living room that they were standing in. "Is…is this where you live?"

"Yup!"

"Wow. It's…it's really, very….very…"

"Vibrant?" Tonks chirped.

"You could say that…" So you want a woman whose apartment burns holes in your corneas?

And thus began the unfortunate return of the voices.

It's not that…bad…It's charming….ish….

It's gross. You should have screwed her in the shower when you had the chance.

It's NOT gross. It's just different. The color combinations are really quite, erm, imaginative, and—oh, my God, that wall just turned puce. I'm going to have a seizure.

"Want some tea, Remus?" Tonks said, busily bustling towards the kitchen in a manner not dissimilar to Mrs. Weasley on a mission.

"I'm—I'm all right, thanks," he answered a bit shakily, allowing himself to be led into a smaller room lined with wallpaper blaring out images of cherries, bananas, pineapples, limes and strawberries.

"Well, I want some tea," Tonks said defiantly. "With that watered down shit Sirius claims is Earl Grey, I feel as though I deserve a good strong cuppa."

Haha. She said cuppa!

Quiet.

Tonks poked at the kettle with her wand, and as the shiny red pot began to hiss steam, she reached up for a mug. "Remus," she said over the boiling water's screech, "would you look in the fridge and see if Bill's bought new milk or let it all go green?"

"Green?" Remus queried as he checked the nearly empty shelves, laden with thirteen brands of diet soft drinks, a pint of mushy coffee ice cream, and what appeared to be a leapord-printed tooth brush.

"It's happened. Trust me," Tonks replied with a shudder. She plopped a tea bag into her mug and drowned it in a stream of hot water. "So what's the verdict?"

"Sorry? Oh, the milk. Right." Remus glanced in again. "I don't think you have any…there's a tooth brush, if that helps you."

Tonks' head whipped to the interior of her refrigerator. "You're kidding me." She poked her face next to Remus' and scowled. "Dammit! Bill's been using my tooth brush! I hate that!"

"How do you know?" Remus asked, rather bewildered as he stared into a field of soda cans, cheek to cheek with an exceptionally lovely young woman with a home that matched her hair.

"I keep my tooth brush in the freezer normally so that he can't get at it," Tonks explained. "But he must have come across it and put it back in the wrong spot."

"Oh." Well, that….sort of made sense…."Is that why the ice cream's in the wrong place?"

"No, the ice cream's in the right place. It gets all nice and soft when it's not so cold. Here." Tonks pulled her pink hair out of the refrigerator, taking the ice cream with her. After pulling Remus aside and slamming the door shut, she reached into a drawer, pulled out an engraved spoon and plunged it into the carton. "Open your mouth," she coaxed. Without thinking, Remus did so (actually to speak a word of quiet reason, but all the same) and found his tongue being slathered with creamy espresso goodness.

The authoring team will now need to take a six minute break to dash off and get their own ice cream, as this scene is proving to be a great prompter for their own cravings.

All right. Much better. Moving on. Remus with coffee nipping through his veins.

"Nice, isn't it?" Tonks smiled, removing the spoon and digging into the pint again for her own serving. "All right. I need to go pack some things." Remus and ice cream in tow, she plowed off to her bedroom, which turned out to be less intense in color scheme, but mind-boggling in its messiness. Panties of all shapes and patterns were strewn across the floor, donning roses, teddy bears, more cherries, candy canes and little hearts. Newspaper articles and moving photographs were pinned so thickly to the walls that had they been painted an offensively bright color, Remus wouldn't have been able to tell. A model Nimbus 2001 buzzed in circles over a heap of books and bras, half-consumed cups of tea littered the dresser, and a wastebasket was overflowing with decidedly rumpled and desecrated documents. The only neat part of the room seemed to be the centered bed, which was swathed in a straight and tidy orange and pink striped comforter. Tonks pouted.

"Bill's been sleeping in my bed? After using my toothbrush? Bitch." She plodded to the other side of the room, kicking a pair of cat shaped slippers that promptly meowed in annoyance, and grabbed a large polka-dotted tote bag.

"How can you tell?" Remus asked as Tonks began to toss in underwear, t-shirts, socks, and the occasional robe or notepad.

"He made it." She grinned. "He should know me better than that. I never make my bed." She returned to her casual packing.

Remus smiled back and looked at the bulletin board camouflaged with the wall. On it were tacked photographs of Andromeda and Ted, Sirius, Kingsley Shacklebolt, several of the Weasleys, Snape (this picture rather looked as though it'd been used as a dartboard), and…himself.

"You have a picture of me?" he found himself saying.

"Yeah…Dumbledore sent me a slew of pictures when I joined the Order so that I would recognize everyone. Kind of stupid, though. I knew all of you, mostly. I mean, we've known each other since I was four, for God's sake. You always had the best games when you baby-sat." She gave the pictures a fond and reminiscing glance. "It was a pleasure to see you again."

"Ah." Remus looked at the board again. Between the Weird Sister's poster and the "Make Love, Not War" button, Sirius' picture winked down at him. Remus swallowed. "Tonks—"

"Do you like Exploding Snap? Or should I leave my set at home? I'm only asking because the one at Grimmauld's Place is kind of moldy and sets of these weird blue sparks—"

"Tonks, can I talk to you for a moment?"

"Of course. We're attached by the hand. You can tell me anything."

"Right. All right." Remus gently sat down on the well-made bed. Tonks obediently perched next to him, still grasping her bag and cards. Her hair, as opposed to last night's wavy locks, was again standing in straight pink spikes, and her eyes glowed curiously lavender to coordinate. The room's business reflected off of her pale cheeks, she still smelled sugary from the ice cream, and she was smiling.

"What is it?" she asked pleasantly.

Remus swallowed again. "Listen, in the last couple of days, I've been thinking—"

"You always are, Professor."

"Right. And after mulling this over many times, I think, ah, I know, actually—"

"Know what? What are you saying?" Tonks said almost hopefully. Remus closed his eyes.

"I lo—"

"Eez zees zee place, Bill?" The door creaked open and voices fluttered in. Tonks twitched to attention.

"This would be it. What say you, darling?"

"Well, eet certainly eez a pig sty! What a slob you must be!"

"Yeah, but I'm a sexy slob, right?"

"Mmm….I am not so sure about that…per'aps you could prove it to me? Mmm?"

"I don't see why not!" came the cheerful response.

Tonks pulled a terrible face. "Oh, my God!" she whispered. "He's going to shag her on my couch! It'll be descecrated!"

"Why would he do that?" Remus whispered back, wrenching himself out of his confessing mode.

"Remus, are you kidding me? He's sweet talking her, and doing that—that thing with his tongue, I swear to God I can hear him do it—"

"No. Why would he desecrate your couch when there's a perfectly good bed right in here?"

Pause.

"Oh, my GOD!" Tonks screeched under her breath. "We have to go."

"Now?"

"Yes, now. This will become awkward and unpleasant."

"Shouldn't we just stay for a while and say hello?"

"NOW!" Tonks grabbed her bag, squinted, and promptly had them back to Grimmauld's Place, where they found a sink full of dishes, a pile of letters to answer, and Sirius psychoanalyzing Buckbeak.

Remus internally sighed and braced himself for another long day.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- SIGH! POOR REMUS! All right. The authoring team is calming itself as it reaches the end of another chapter. We hoped you liked it, and just remember—the more reviews we get, the more motivation we have to write. Sex, drugs, and rock 'n roll to you all!

God, we're hot!