This is a companion piece to the previous chapter, and is set a few weeks later.
Inside-Out
Outside Number 12 Grimmauld Place, this whole thing is making Remus feel calmer than he has in years. The first few weeks of being with Tonks were thrilling and nerve-wracking and, well, amazing. The idea that she liked him was bafflingly wonderful and he'd had to get used to being touched and spoken to that way, to letting his guard down and having fun with her. For months he'd forced himself not to stare at her too long or laugh too hard at her silliness, so being able to do so when they were alone together was strange and lovely. It had been like finding a type of chocolate he'd liked as a child that he hadn't tasted again for years. But they're a few weeks in now and the initial exhilaration's worn off, making way for a sense of overall calm. Remus' worries don't seem as important when he's with Tonks, and he's sure he can take them on if she's beside him. When she touches him his body stills, his breath levels. He astonishes himself at the things he talks to her about; stuff he hasn't spoken of in years is suddenly easy to say if she's the one listening. She makes him feel happy and comfortable and safe.
Inside Grimmauld Place everything is different. At Grimmauld place he feels giddy with lust and joy. In Order meetings he's sometimes so pre-occupied daydreaming about her that he loses track of the conversation and jumps when Mad-Eye barks, "Lupin, what do you reckon?". Sirius smirks and mocks him about it later, but he's hardly embarrassed by Sirius' teasing anymore. Padfoot was right- Tonks did like him, she does. What an astounding turn of events, Remus grins to himself, and Sirius cackles and makes a crack about how he knew that all Moony needed was to get laid.
Outside Grimmauld he likes to think of their relationship as an intellectual one- yes, they kiss and hug and hold hands, but they spend more time talking, sharing anecdotes and making each other laugh. He reads her parts of books he's found interesting or funny; she tells him silly stories from her work and Diagon Alley. Outside headquarters Remus is militant about not being seen together. They've been out on dates a few times but he insists that Tonks morphs when they do, and the whole time they're out he's on the lookout for anybody who might recognise him. He much prefers spending time in together. Less worrying for him, much safer for her. He doesn't want it secret exactly, but…private. Tonks grumbled at first but she grudgingly goes along with it now- except in Grimmauld where she seems to want to get caught and, bizarrely, Remus enjoys that risk too. Inside 12 Grimmauld Place it's all physical; hands and mouths and necks, fumbling with each other's clothes and pushing one another against the wall. Inside the house all his pleas for discretion go out of the window. Remus is half-convinced that she's slipped Essence of Insanity into his drink because there's no other explanation for why he feels like this, why being found in the library with a girl on his lap seems exciting and sexy. Tonks, naturally, is all too aware of this and plays up to it in that show-off way she has. Most of the Order hug each other hello these days, and when Tonks hugs him she'll stroke a finger down his spine, nip at his ear, or whisper that she's been thinking about him all day. If she's sitting on the other side of the table to him at a meeting Tonks will start tapping his toes with her shoe and then run her foot up his calf. When she sits beside him he finds himself holding her hand under the table. He likes it when she fidgets with his fingers, and sometimes her nails will doodle patterns on his thigh. If they're alone in the kitchen she'll mutter, "Hold still" and then run her hands over his shoulders, chest and back, mumbling that she needs to be touching him. Remus gropes her in return, knowing in the back of his mind how it'll look if somebody walked in on a werewolf with his hands all over a woman a decade and a half younger. If they were outside Grimmauld the thought would make him panicky, sickened even, but in here he doesn't care. A couple of times he's found a note in his pocket saying, Meet me in the study. 10 mins. When he gets there Tonks grabs his lapels and bundles him against the doorframe to snog. The study was gifted, if that's the right word, to them by Sirius. He's the only person whose caught them so far, and Remus isn't sure that Padfoot actually counts considering he's egged them both on from the start, and he can't leave the house.
Outside headquarters Remus' lust for her feels unclean to the point of perverted, and he's nervous at the thought of sex. The times he's done it before (though not for years now) it's been nice at the time but afterwards he's felt confused and ashamed. He's spent most of his adult life disgusted by the carnal, the animal. He's always tried to be more of a human than that, but the trouble is he's a man as well and of course he thinks about it, he wants it…and then he feels revolted at himself, and it's worse with Tonks being so much younger, and the truth is that the last few weeks have been so fantastic and he's scared that if they start doing anything more Tonks suddenly going to fully realise what he is and she's going not to want anything to do with him anymore, and who could blame her? Inside Grimmauld he none of that matters. She's so hot when she laughs, or when she's concentrating, when she teases people or when she's chattering excitedly. She's bonkers and alive and incredible. Why on earth is he denying himself her? Tonks has always worn tight t-shirts and short skirts although they seem to make more appearances at Order meetings these days, in what Remus suspects is an attempt to fluster him. When they're kissing and she puts his hands on her chest or hips he finds it hard to refuse, and sometimes he finds himself pulling at her clothes himself. When Tonks mumbles, "Is this okay?" before slipping her fingers underneath his shirt or into his back pocket he hears himself murmur in agreement. Once or twice recently Remus has had her backed up against the desk and Tonks has bitten her lip, gazed up at him with eyes she's morphed huge, whipped her t-shirt off and tossed it into the corner. His heart hammers and he feels hot all over and God, she is so beautiful. Wedged between him and the desk with so much of her olive skin on show for him to touch, lick, stroke, kiss. A ludicrously colourful bra. A wicked grin on her lips. In those moments and plenty more Remus has considered biting the bullet and asking her, "Look, shall we just get on with it right here?". That's why Sirius gave them the study after all. And Remus is sure that he'd feel less apprehensive about sex in there than he would at home or in her flat. But he wants to make their first time right for her- and he's sure that having sex on a dead man's office floor, surrounded by dusty heirlooms belonging to the family that disowned her mother, doesn't count as 'right'.
Outside Grimmauld he's embarrassed by how much older than Tonks he is and how even older than that he looks. Inside the house he feels younger than he has in years. It's like being sixteen and in the first flush of romance. She makes the decrepit house seem bright, and not just because of her ridiculous hair. Sometimes she'll completely pull the rug out from under him and instead of a frenzied snog and squeeze she'll want to corner him alone to hug him and burrow her face into his jumper.
"Everything alright?" he asks, because it's not like her to be clingy.
"Yeah," she'll reply into his chest, exhaling contently. Remus kisses her forehead and holds her against him, until there's a squeak outside the door and he reluctantly lets her go, asking himself why getting caught like this seems worse than getting caught snogging. Perhaps he suspects that if someone walked in on him holding her tenderly like this, they'd have questions, whereas if someone walked in on them when his tongue was down her throat, their interrupter would shut the door quietly and scurry away with a red face.
For weeks, outside Grimmauld Place Remus asked himself what someone like her- brilliant and bright and with so much in her future- was doing with someone like him; jaded, penniless and cursed. Tonks tells him that he isn't those things; she likes to sift her fingers through his hair and murmur words so kind and generous that Remus can't look at her. She must have fixed his face to a perfect imaginary boyfriend because the things she says cannot be true if they're about him. In Grimmauld, none of the hows and why-nots and when-is-she-going-to-realise matter. Tonks has chosen him and in Grimmauld Remus lets himself believe the things she says. He believes he's worthy of her words and praise, her time and attention. Her love. And the amazing, intoxicating trouble, the kind of trouble that only this remarkable girl with dark eyes and pink hair could get him into, is that outside the house he's starting to believe it too.
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