Waking up with Tonks's warm, soft and gloriously naked body in his arms, Remus was conscious first of a deep sense of contentment, and then of absolute amazement as the events of the previous night came back to him. The warm glow of sunlight oozed its way around the dark curtains of Remus's room and swathed her face in a rosy glow which was itself extraordinary, as his room was north west facing and barely ever got any sun. It's as though even the sun can't resist her, he thought, and then laughed inwardly, imagining her snort of derision if he was stupid enough to suggest that idea to her, particularly after the many cold, grey missions they had undertaken together.
She occasionally made happy little sleeping sounds. He watched her, waiting for the furious, wretched voices of self-recrimination in his head to start up. They didn't. They would, of course, but they hadn't yet and he was grateful. He felt high, high like he never felt after smoking those roll-ups of which the content was best not asked too much about but that Sirius claimed was medicinal. Under the gentle weight of her body his left arm was going to sleep, but still he tried not to breathe too much in case he woke her: moments like these hadn't been so plentiful in his life that he wanted to rush this one through. By the time she eventually stirred it seemed quite likely that he'd never be able to use that arm again, and he considered it a price very much worth paying.
She wrinkled her nose before she opened her eyes. Remus looked down at her as she did so, unable to replace the broad grin of delighted fondness with anything more dignifed. She didn't seem surprised to find him there.
"Wotcher," she said, her voice husky with sleep.
"Do you know, until I met you I had no idea that those were the sexiest two syllables in the English language. Good morning, Nymphadora."
She propped herself up on her elbow, though she didn't untangle her body from his. "Weird time to decide you want to be enemies, but okay," she said through narrowed eyes. "Told you how I feel about that stupid name."
"I certainly didn't mean to incite hostility," he held his hands up in a gesture of surrender. "But I can't - I really can't - call you Tonks in bed."
"Yeah, I noticed that last night. I let it go because you were doing other compensatory things at the time."
"Would you like me to do them again?" He knew his smile was lovesick, and he knew that his words were over-eager. Tonks laughed, in her normal, comeadely, matter-of-fact way. He loved that everything was different - for him, anyway - but that she was still the same. Before she could answer, he said in a rush and suddenly serious, "Don't ever change."
"That's quite a big ask for a metamorphmagus," she said, holding out one arm and turning its skin into scales, experimentally. She laid the arm - more of a flipper, now - across Remus's bare chest and he yelped. The skirmish that followed as he tried unsuccessfully to wriggle away and Tonks hooted with laughter ended when Tonks changed her arm back and wrapped it around him. Her kiss was deep and soft and questioning and he was glad and giddy with it.
Some time later, Tonks returned clean and pink haired from the bathroom to find a half dressed Remus with two mugs of tea. She gave him a friendly shove and he moved aside to let her sit on the bed, before awkwardly sitting down next to her.
"Don't go all embarrassed and reserved on me now," she said, taking a hearty slurp of tea.
"Sorry. I'm not. I mean, I am, but - I don't really know how to behave."
"You seemed to know pretty well just before," she said, with one eyebrow raised.
"Oh. That's not what I meant, but... Thank you. I'm - I haven't had a huge amount of experience recently, so I'm glad you were ... erm.. satisfied."
She snorted at that. "Like you couldn't tell I was. I even let you get away with another bloody Nymphadora."
"To be fair, I don't think I got the first two syllables out very clearly, my mouth being very much in the throes of doing something else at the time, so it was more like Dora." The awkwardness wasn't gone, but his happy grin was back as he said this.
"Dora isn't so bad," she said, snaking her fingers through his. "Listen, Remus, I don't know how to behave either, really. I don't usually do this."
"Don't usually...?" He had to ask, although he wasn't sure he wanted to know the answer. Didn't usually sleep with colleagues, or werewolves? Didn't usually have one night stands - oh Merlin, if that's all this was... He steeled himself to bear it.
She looked at him frankly, but ever so slightly shyly. "I don't usually stay."
