Now, Sakai Michiba presents:
Just Remus
Prompt 018: Pain

Remus looks up as Tonks curses loudly, her hair a vibrant red and her clothes his—a pair of old pyjamas he’d had for years and lent to her on request—this morning. She had been cutting up leeks for lunch, as she liked to do on Wednesdays. “What’s wrong?” he asked quietly, and he blinked when she turned towards him with her right index finger clutched in her left hand. There was a steady trickle of blood dripping from the pad of her finger, and she frowned. “Oh, bring it here,” he demanded, and he waved her over. He blushed when she sat down on his lap and showed her the finger.

“Knife got away from me,” she whispered, and she met his eyes with an almost mousy expression. They had not been together very long at all—three weeks—but she had insisted that he stay the night with her on Tuesdays and Thursdays. They had not even slept together yet. She had claimed that she got frightened and just having him there with her even though they did not share a bed help to alleviate her fear of the dark.

He nodded and smiled, summoning a washcloth from the counter and dabbing the blood off of the cut. She winced, and he laughed quietly, enjoying the weight of her in his lap. When the cut was cleaned, he healed it with a swish of his wand, and she smiled quietly as the cut sealed itself. “There you are,” he said with a smile, and he lifted the finger to his lips. He kissed it.

Tonks blushed and wiggled slightly in his lap before she started to get up, but Remus caught her and pulled her back down. “Hey!” she laughed, and she slapped his shoulder playfully. “Pervy old man, you let me go!”

Remus shook his head and took a deep breath before he tilted her head towards him and leaned up to kiss her soundly on the lips. They were still a brand-new couple, still so very cautious around one another, and so this kiss caught her by surprise. She squeaked quietly into it then kissed him back, her heartbeat racing as Remus’s mouth opened over hers. He kissed her roughly, and she knew he did not really know how to be gentle about it. Not anymore, not since Sirius came back from prison.

She was glad. She didn’t like gentle. He was a werewolf, damn it! She kissed him back just as fiercely, and she laughed as his hands, his old, tired hands, lifted to her sides and seized her ribs in a teasing tickle. “You bastard!” she laughed, and she leapt out of his lap, flustered as she went back to the counter.

Remus frowned and looked down at the table. Didn’t she recognise that as an invitation? His heart ached for Sirius, who would have had him in bed five minutes ago.