Spaghetti
He's known for a while that he has to tell her, but he isn't sure how. It's not exactly the sort of thing you bring up when you're over at your girlfriend's, is it? (Remus isn't entirely sure that Tonks is his girlfriend. It certainly feels like that but they haven't used those words for it: girlfriend, boyfriend, couple, item, dating. He doesn't know how to ask about that either). Sometimes he suspects that Tonks might have an inkling about it already, but if she does she's waiting for Remus to mention it first. So on Monday evening when she's over at his cottage, wolfing down the carbonara he's made (he likes cooking for her. He likes it when she comes home from work, pecks his cheek and sits down to dinner at his kitchen table. He likes the domesticity and normalcy of it, especially as so little else about them can be normal), he forces himself to say it out loud.
"I need to tell you something. I don't believe it's a bad thing but you might find it a bit strange,"
Tonks gulps down her mouthful of pasta. "Fire away,"
Remus looks at her, sitting opposite him in her tight black t-shirt and her purple hair. Her Auror robes are draped on the back of the chair and her gloves are balled up on the table beside her wand.
"When we were at school Sirius and I used to mess about," he says, cringing at his own evasiveness, "You know. Together,"
Tonks picks up her fork and sighs disinterestedly. "Yeah. Course you did,"
He nearly chokes on his pasta. "You knew?"
"Sirius told me,"
Remus balks. He'd suspected that she suspected, but he hadn't expected this. "What? When?"
"About five minutes after the first Order meeting I came to," she says, smiling wickedly.
"Bastard," he hisses, and Tonks laughs.
"You don't mind, do you?" Remus adds, "We were teenagers, it was just-" Just what, exactly? Experimentation? Lust? Boredom? A joke that got out of hand? Finding someone who'd known him long enough and well enough not be revolted by what he is?
"Just teenagers," he repeats.
Tonks swallows her next mouthful (she eats distractedly loudly, he's noticed), and says, "Will it make you feel better if I tell you that I was madly in love with him at about the same time,"
"Pardon?"
"Come on, you were obviously thinking it about him too. I was a little kid and he was my mad cousin who turned up unannounced, riding a motorbike and reeking of fags," she leaves a beat, then adds, "My taste in men has sophisticated since then,"
"I noticed," Remus grins, wondering if this is flirting. It makes him feel giddy.
"Don't tell him I told you or I'll never hear the end of it,"
"He told you about us," Remus points out, but only to wind her up. He and Sirius have already had enough trouble with him thinking Tonks is in love with Padfoot. He's not about to open that can of worms again.
"That's different. I was a seven-year-old. You two were an actual item,"
The word surprises him. "Is that what Sirius said?" Remus asks, trying not to balk again.
"Dunno. That's what I thought he meant,"
"Umm. No. I wouldn't say that we were. We didn't go on dates or anything. I can't remember if I actually-" Remus cuts himself off, confused.
"Fancied him? It's alright, Remus, you can say it,"
"Yes, then. I don't remember if I actually fancied Sirius,"
Tonks hooks her foot between his, pins him with a look and says, "But you fancy me,"
Nymphadora, I fancy you to death. He runs his toe up the back of her calf.
"So, how d'you two end?" Tonks asks, after a moment of doing what Remus can only, madly, describe as gazing at him. She drains her glass and continues, "I imagine he wanted to go up in flames and you wanted to back away quietly,"
"Not really. We just...stopped,"
"Disappointing. I was hoping you crashed and burned,"
"Did he tell you that as well?"
"No, but you know what he's like. Always has to make a show of things,"
But Padfoot hadn't made a show of him and Remus. It had been private and tender and nice. Just nice. They hadn't pretended it was anything other than what it was, whatever it had been. Sirius is more understated and sensible than most people give him credit for, especially nowadays.
"Hmm," Remus murmurs, feeling suddenly morose, and stabbing aimlessly at his pasta.
"Remus?"
He looks up and forces another smile, but she doesn't buy it.
"You know I'm joking, right? Of course I don't mind,"
"No. I wasn't thinking about that," he admits. If it were almost anybody else asking he'd change the subject, but he often finds himself telling the truth to Tonks when he hadn't been expecting to.
"How old were you when he went to prison?" Remus asks, "Eight?" (It's not a guess. He knows, because he always knows how much younger she is than him because it's always so glaringly stark). She nods.
"D'you remember it?"
She nods.
"It's fine, you don't have to tell me-"
"Mum was awful. She cried loads and she was really angry. It was weird and confusing. I kept asking why we couldn't visit him,"
Remus nods thoughtfully. Weird and confusing- she's right.
"I think the two people it was worst on was you and my Mum," Tonks observes.
"And Sirius," Remus points out.
"Yeah, obviously. Come on, let's talk about something else- he'd kill himself laughing if he knew you and me were sitting around on date night talking about him,"
You don't know what he'd do, Remus thinks, you don't know him because he disappeared when you were eight.
"Alright," he sighs.
Tonks reaches over, gives his hand a single tight squeeze, and announces, "I fell down some stairs today,"
She always tells him daft stories like this to cheer him up.
"Oh?"
"Right in the entrance hall. Crashed into one of the clerks and spilt ink all over her- total fiasco,"
"Of course you did," Remus smirks, "What did she say?"
"Dunno, I legged it," Tonks shrugs, and inexplicably, something about her tone makes Remus' heart flutter.
"Tonks, that's terrible," he reprimands.
"I was in rush! That's why I tripped in the first place, I was running,"
"You left this poor woman covered in ink?"
"Not covered," she protests, "Only on her hands. And her shirt. And her shoes. Which makes it probably the least-disastrous day this month," she finishes.
He loves that she knows exactly how to time a punchline. Before they were together Remus had to try not to laugh too much at her jokes, but now they're...now they're what? In an undefined state where he allows himself to laugh with her properly? That's stupid and he knows it, and he hears himself blurt, "Are you my girlfriend?"
Carefully, Tonks puts her cutlery down. In the momentary silence Remus panics that he's misunderstood and she's going to yell at him to get out, that kisses and cuddling and dinner are fine, but putting on a label on it is a step too far and how dare he be so presumptuous and-
"Why don't you ask me?" Tonks replies, looking him in the eye.
"I am asking," Remus points out.
"No, why don't you ask me to be your girlfriend," she says. And she winks.
"I don't know what you're going to say,"
"Won't know if you don't ask,"
He thinks this is good. She can't be insulted by the question if she's teasing him like this. "Nymphadora, will you be my girlfriend?"
There's a pause. Then she grins. "Yeah, you daft thing. Of course I'm your girlfriend,"
That was easier than he anticipated. It feels a bit anticlimactic now. "Right. Good. I'm your boyfriend then," Remus says awkwardly, testing the word out and finding that, unsurprisingly, it sounds ridiculous. For a start because he's an old man, not a boy, and because "boyfriend" makes him think of James, of Gid Prewett, of all the men he knows more suited to being anybody's boyfriend than he is.
"That's what I've been telling people when they ask," Tonks shrugs.
He looks up sharply, "I thought we agreed not to-"
"A boyfriend, I say I have a boyfriend. I don't go telling everybody your name, address and vault number,"
"Alright, alright," Remus says quickly. She gets cross when he talks too much about how this has to stay private. She doesn't understand that he's trying to protect her.
Thankfully, Tonks takes the hint and changes the subject, saying, "Tell you what, though,"
"What?"
She scoops up another forkful of pasta, "If you weren't Sirius' boyfriend and you are mine, that's something I've definitely beaten him on".
Thank you for your time. If you'd like more about Sirius and Tonks growing up, please check out my story Boy. Thanks, and have a fun weekend.
