for Remus

[permanentlypink]

It was rare that Tonks and Remus were completely alone these days, with Teddy nearly always under the supervision of at least one of them. But he was off spending some quality time with his "uncle" Bill when Tonks came home to their hut and found Remus on the bed reading a book

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[furry_lil_prblm]

Some people were satisfied with reading a book once and having done with it, but Remus was in the habit of reading the same book over and over, so that the spine would start threatening to fall apart from the strain of being opened and bent backwards so many times. One of his favourite books was Catch-22, and the copy he'd got from the bookshelf nearly three years before was decidedly worn.

That was what he was reading when his wife came into their hut, and he looked up at her with a smile as he turned the page. There was something slightly troubling about her expression, though, and Remus' smile faltered slightly as he went to ask her if something was wrong...except she spoke first. And what she said made his jaw drop and his eyes go as wide as saucers.

"Am I what?"

[permanentlypink]

Tonks suddenly looked really nervous. She wished she'd made this decision more carefully, if only because she could have planned out what to say.

"I saw you kissing him." There, there it was. After months of keeping that in, it felt strangely good to just have it out in the open. "I saw you kissing him, and it seemed... I don't know, it looked so... and you're been kind of... weird, ever since he got back, and you didn't even tell me about you and him until you were forced to, and I hate it that you keep so much from me but I just want to know because it's been eating me up inside..."

She said this all practically in one breath, and afterwards her whole body seemed to slump a little.

[furry_lil_prblm]

At first, he couldn't even recall to what she was referring, and then it hit him. "At the school? That was months ago," he said, brows furrowing in confusion. "Have you thought - this entire time, you've thought what? That I've been having an affair with him?"

He wasn't sure whether to be insulted or not at the knowledge that she'd think him possible of such a thing, though realistically he knew it wasn't a completely far-fetched accusation given his and Sirius' history. "I suppose you didn't stay long enough to see me push him off, then," Remus continued, setting the book aside. "Dora, I am most certainly not sleeping with Sirius."

[permanentlypink]

Relief flooded through her... followed by guilt.

"But I did see you kissing him! And you - you were kissing him back. And - and it's not like you came clean about it, you never would have told me, just like you weren't ever going to tell me about you and Sirius in the first place, or about that book..."