Who: Remus & Tonks What: Talking it out When: Thursday, 24 June, 1997 (early morning, after Dumbledore's death) Where: Tonks’ flat Rating: PG?
For all that he had wanted to go home with her the night before, Remus had been unable to trust himself against the forces of her formidable arguments, especially given the similar circumstance to the evening they had let themselves create the problem they were faced with now. There was something about death that made you want to feel alive, and if he was alone with her, sitting on the couch stuffed with old batting and lurid memories, Remus would have lost out.
He was armed now, with daylight and reason, with coffee and scones and eggs to cook. The boys hovering near the stoop had grown slightly older, and the staircase was familiar, despite the months spent avoiding it. Remus wasn’t a stranger to denying himself that which he wanted, that which he wanted most even, but there was something about being back at the heart of it which made his resolve turn gritty, from a brick and mortar building to a castle molded of damp sand. For a moment, he lingered beside her door, contemplating turning back and pushing the conversation to an even later date. It wouldn’t do to create another scene at the funeral though, and so, mentally reciting the reasons for why this did not work, Remus knocked.
--
Usually one to sleep until the very last moment before she had to leave for work - being a Metamorphmagus meant she had other means of making herself look presentable - Tonks was nevertheless awake, curled on her couch drinking yesterday’s cold coffee. Her reasons for being unable to sleep were few, but powerfully debilitating, and the knock at her door roused her from contemplation of what she could possibly do next for the Order, and for herself. What her neighbors wanted with her at this hour she couldn’t fathom, and anyone else calling would be a wizard with more bad news. Still, she had to answer.
Opening the door on Remus was about as bad as it could get, and Tonks filled the doorframe whole, arms crossed over her chest, but too exhausted and sorry to feel angry.
"What do you want?"
To feel too angry.
--
He ought to have put it off, Remus thought when greeted with something distinctly less than affection. This could make things easier, however, and so rather than retorting with an equally irritated ‘Absolutely nothing,’ the weary man offered the cardboard tray that clutched their coffees. "We should talk about this." Wisely, he left the remainder of his thought without voice, before you turn the whole of the Order against me by breaking down at the funeral.
It was true that he had been avoiding her since his return from the forests, dodging out of rooms soon after Dora entered them, volunteering for duties that she would not be a part of, and taking seats that would not face her during their meetings. Temptation was easier to battle when you were able to remove it from your reach, he had reasoned, when all of his other protestations and hurtful insights had proven insufficient to drive her away.
--
Tonks exchanged her cold coffee for a hot one, lifting it from the cardboard tray and turning back into her flat, leaving the door open for Remus to enter.
"You’ve said everything you wanted to, haven’t you?" She retorted, collapsing on the couch only just carefully enough to keep from spilling her coffee. Glancing at him out of the corner of her eye, Tonks felt the hot ache in her chest she always did when she was near Remus. It had been all passion and energy once, something that drove her. Now, though, it seemed she’d only be driven mad by wanting him, by a bone-weary sorrow she’d never felt for any other man... that she’d never felt before for anyone.
"What do you want me to say?"
Quiet, this time.
--
Closing the door behind him, Remus remained beside it rather than venture into the kitchen or near where she sat. If she didn’t want him here, there wasn’t any need for this conversation at all. "You were the one who brought everything up again, Dora," he sighed, weary in the early hours of the morning met from a sleepless night. "If you don’t want to talk about it, I can leave."
When you could count the persons who loved you on one hand, it made arguments all the more unbearable. In the last year he had caused the two of them enough pain to last lifetimes, with weakness of will and hardness of heart. If he had made her hostile, it was better than making her a pariah. If he had made her bitter now, it was better than making her a monster later. Remus didn’t deny that he wanted her, even now, but there was so much more to consider in life than want alone.
--
Tonks wasn’t sure what she heard in Remus’ voice, but she knew what she couldn’t bear to hear, and that was more excuses.
"There wasn’t any bringing it back up, Remus. It, we, have been on my mind everyday. You can’t avoid me for six months and just expect that I’m going to get over it."
Loss had brought them together before, but Tonks didn’t want him to want her out of desperation. And she wanted him to stay.
--
"I thought it would be easier," Remus protested. "I thought that not being around each other all of the time, talking every day, that it would help get over... this." Never mind that it was easier for him, to not have to see her and wonder if she might still want him. If she was angry that he had avoided her, then the weeks spent apart had served enough of their purpose.
He couldn’t resist giving a sleeping dragon a hex, however, and Remus took a step forward before adding, "You can’t get over me trying to give us room to move on, and you can’t get over the idea that my condition shouldn’t prevent us from -" it felt painfully ridiculous to even say it, for Remus had always been certain that he would never find himself in a position to be deserving of such things, "being together. What is it that you want me to do, exactly?" It wasn’t hostile, if anything it came from a true desire to come to some sort understanding, something that could end the awkwardness and hurt that filled every empty moment between them.