Under the Table

Tonks fell off her chair.

Remus assumed it was probably something to do with surprise at what he'd said, although as she disappeared beyond the tabletop and landed with an 'oof', he was too busy trying to stifle a snigger with the palm of his hand to really be certain.

When Tonks didn't re-appear immediately, he ran a hand over his face in a futile attempt to make himself feel a bit more sober, and ducked his head down to make sure she was all right. He found her lying on her back on the floor, staring at the underside of the table and shaking with silent giggles. "Tonks?" he said.

When she didn't reply he slid off his chair, a little less gracefully and more rapidly than he intended, landing painfully on his knees and narrowly missing catching his chin on the table edge.

He crawled towards her, stopping next to her outstretched legs and squinting at her inquisitively, blinking to try and clear his head. "Are you all right?" he said, offering her his hand. She accepted it, and, despite the fact that she seemed altogether too floppy, he pulled her more upright. She collapsed against his shoulder, giggling, her fingers scrabbling against his jumper for something to steady herself on, balling it into her fists. "You know - " he said. He sat up straighter so she didn't pull him down with her, and promptly banged his head on the table. "Oww."

His hand darted up to his head, pressing the point where he'd hit it, trying to mollify the burning pain with his fingertips. He sucked in a breath through his teeth.

"Whatdyoudo?" Tonks said, looking up from his chest. He pointed at his head, and she shuffled a bit closer and took his face in her hands, easing him towards her as she tilted his head down and looked at his crown for a moment. "S'not broken," she said, grinning as she tilted his head back. "You'll live."

"I'm not sure about that," he said, chuckling. "It's been a while since I had this much to drink."

"Feel like you might be on your way to a little dancing?" she said, her mouth quirking into a sly smile. "A little semi-nudity, possibly?"

"I think I can probably contain myself," he said, rubbing his head rather ineffectively.

"Spoilsport," she said, giggling as she dropped her hands heavily into her lap. She let out a long amused sigh.

"What about you?" he asked, smiling at her. "Are you all right? You fell off your chair - I didn't mean to - "

"Well," she said, brow creasing into a rather adorably mock-cross expression, "you can't spend weeks being all evasive and infuriating and then suddenly get all sexy and flirty and not expect me to be a bit startled." She folded her arms across her chest. "Thoughtless of you, really," she added, her words a little slurred, which completely undid any chastening effect her stern tone had, "not to give me some kind of warning."

He pressed his lips together to keep from laughing. "Sorry," he said. "You know, if I'd known you'd be this easy to bowl over - "

Tonks slapped him on the arm, perhaps a little harder and less playfully than she intended, but he couldn't help smiling at the amused infuriation on her face, or the way the sudden movement had caused her to sway quite dramatically and then scrabble to steady herself.

When she had, they glanced at each other briefly, smiling slightly nervously.

"So what do you think?" he asked tentatively, wondering if she'd forgotten what caused her fall in the first place. "Are you going to teach me..?"

Tonks grinned, and summoned the tequila.

Remus fingered the glass Tonks had just furnished him with. She tutted at the amount she'd spilt on the floor, before vanishing it with a flourish of her wand and looking up. She grinned at him rather impishly, her eyes just a little bit glazed. "It's really very simple," she said, her words sliding into one another as she waved a hand vaguely over the salt and limes they'd assembled on the floor between them. She leant a bit further forward, studying his face intently with a playful glint in her eye. "You just need to decide where you want to put the salt," she said, poking him in the chest for emphasis before sitting back on her heels and watching him, giggling quietly to herself.

For a second he contemplated the possibilities. He wasn't entirely sure what the parameters of the game were, what might be allowed. He swallowed. "When you say decide where I want to put the salt," he said slowly, peering at her through the ends of his fringe, "am I deciding where it goes on me, or...."

As he trailed off, unsure he really wanted to finish the thought, let alone the sentence, Tonks' lips drew themselves up into a lopsided, suggestive smile. "Or," she said. He swallowed again, and she giggled at him. He smiled and then rolled his eyes at himself for deteriorating so quickly into stuffy old man territory.

A proverb about fortune favouring the brave drifted through his mind, but he wasn't entirely sure he remembered enough of it to pay it any attention. He reached for her hand.

"Remus," she said, scoldingly, "that's really not very - "

She stopped when he turned her hand over and lightly licked the inside of her wrist. As he looked up and raised an eyebrow at her, her mouth formed into an 'oh', although she didn't make any discernable sound. He forced himself not to look away as he shook the salt over it. "Now what?" he whispered.

She took his hand and turned it over slowly in hers, fumbling with the button at his cuff and then hitching up his sleeve. She twitched her eyebrows at him, and then lowered her tongue to his skin.

He shivered. All of a sudden he was glad he hadn't gone for anywhere more drastic.

The salt on his wrist sparkled slightly in the dim light of the kitchen, and he watched it, oddly fascinated by the tiny darts of light that glittered up at him. "Now," she said, her voice low and smiling, "it's just like we did it before. Ready?"

He nodded, and she raised an eyebrow at him rather disbelievingly as she offered him her wrist. She held his a little closer, swaying since she didn't have a free hand to prop herself up with anymore. "One, two, three," she said, slowly.

Remus wasn't quite sure if his skin under her tongue or hers under his was the more distraction sensation, but either way it was only when she reached for her glass that he remembered he was supposed to be doing the same. He knocked his shot back and then bit into his lime, shaking his head vigorously at the taste. She laughed, and he did too, although he wasn't entirely sure why. She shifted a little closer, tipping forward - he wasn't entirely sure intentionally - and resting her head on his shoulder. He sniggered at her, and she looked up at him, grinning at him from the crook of his neck. "How did I do?" he said.

"Very good," she replied.

"Thank you."

"And you do have very comfy shoulders," she murmured. He sniggered rather drunkenly.

She rested against him for a moment, and then, with some apparent considerable effort, she eased herself back up and re-filled their glasses, pinching her tongue between her lips as she concentrated on pouring, licking her fingers when she dribbled some on them. "Well," she said, "now you've got the hang of it, how about we try somewhere a bit more adventurous?"

He wondered if he'd ever been asked a more dangerous question.

Fifteen shots for Remus, five with weird lime and salt additions - two quite pleasant, one quite unpleasant, one utterly delightful owing to licking salt off Tonks' delicate wrist, one absolutely terrifying, owing to licking salt off Tonks' neck whilst having her do the same to him.

They both sat back. Remus wondered if he looked as startled as he felt. He idly wondered if she'd been able to feel his racing pulse as her tongue passed over the vein in his neck.

That had been....

Well, that had been....

Minutes lost to startled silence and drunken grinning: two and a half.

"Where to next, Professor?"

Remus swallowed. He hadn't the faintest idea what to suggest, and he felt his grin take a turn for the distinctly sheepish.

"Are you hairy?" Tonks asked, gesturing vaguely to his body with a limp-wristed wave. Remus blinked, trying to clear his head. He wasn't sure what that had to do with anything.

"What?"

"Well," she said, leaning forward conspiratorially, steadying herself with one hand on his thigh, "I was going to suggest stomachs - because that's always fun, but.... Are you?"

"Only once a month," he said, his mouth having apparently decided to answer the question without involving his brain. Tonks laughed.

"Game?" she said, raising her eyebrows at him.

His skin prickled. He couldn't be sure - because he'd had far too much to drink to be sure of anything other than that he'd had far too much to drink - but he thought that she was looking at him differently, as if she was just a little bit impressed with his actions so far.

He studied the stone floor for a moment, taking in the chill it cast on his fingers before raising his eyes back to hers.

"Always," he said.

Seconds lost to pondering if this was a really bad idea or a really, really, good one: ten.

Tonks settled back on the floor, grinning at him encouragingly, and Remus slowly hitched her shirt up a little, exposing a decent, but not inappropriate, work area above her belt and just over towards her hip. She shivered as his fingers brushed her skin, and he wondered if she was ticklish, or if it was just the chill of the floor on her exposed back.

From what he could see, she really did have a very nice stomach.

He considered his options for where to put the salt.

"Not going to chicken out are you?" she said, startling him out of the trance he'd apparently been in. He wondered how long he'd been staring, since marking the passage of time had been the very lowest of his brain's priorities.

"Certainly not. I'm a Marauder, remember?" he said, and she laughed. He watched her stomach bob up and down for a moment, and then he settled on her hipbone, having decided that if he was only going to do this once, he might as well make it count.

As he sprinkled on the salt, the fantastic ridiculousness of the situation seemed to dawn on him, and he laughed, scrambling across the floor to bring his lime and shot glass closer.

"I thought you were more mouse than Marauder these days?" she said.

"So did I," he said, his surprise at his own actions evident in his voice as he lowered his mouth to her skin. "Apparently not."

Sixteen shots for Remus, six with weird lime and salt additions: two quite pleasant, one quite unpleasant, one utterly delightful, one absolutely terrifying and one...well, one that he thought probably defied description.

Remus thought he probably shouldn't think about Tonks' stomach too much, or what he'd just done to it, especially when she had him pinned to the floor by his hips and was untucking his shirt.

He held his breath as her tongue passed over the skin next to his bellybutton, waiting until she'd bitten her lime to let out the sigh he'd been battling for minutes. Her giggle drifted up from his stomach, where she was apparently resting her head. Not that he minded; there was something comforting about the feel of her skin on his.

He expected her to move away, but rather than doing that, she pulled herself up his chest and settled there, looking down at him with a rather cheeky smile. She bit her lip, and their breath mingled as they laughed. He felt his hands settle on her waist, half-wondering why it didn't feel odd to have them there. "This is a very silly game, Tonks," he said.

"And here I was, just about to say something nice to you," she said, shaking her head at him.

"I take it back, then," he said, intrigued. "This is not a very silly game at all."

She chuckled, and the vibration of her laugh went right through him. "What were you going to say?" he asked, barely registering the circles his fingers were stroking against her skin beneath her shirt.

"Just that you've got a very lickable stomach," she said, nodding once, very seriously. He raised his eyebrows at her.

"Is that a good thing?"

"Well that depends," she said, "on whether you liked having it licked or not."

"Hmm," he said, desperately battling the urge to laugh. "I suppose it does."

She rolled her eyes. "Never a straight answer," she said. He blinked with rather drunken confusion.

"Did you ask me a question?" he said.

She rested her elbow on his chest and attempted to prop herself up on her hand, missing it twice before finally managing to catch her chin with the heel of her hand. "It was implicated," she said. He tried desperately not to laugh.

"Implicit?" he said, although he felt that his answer would, indeed, have been implicating. She frowned.

"Yes," she said, pouting a little. "That's what I said."

He let out a soft amused snort at her indignation, and she raised her eyebrows at him as if she was still very much expecting an answer. "I did like it," he said, "so I suppose it's a good thing you think it's lickable. Even though that's not a real word." She gave him a quick admonishing glare. "Sorry," he muttered through a chuckle.

"Good," she said, grinning. "And since you're being all - " she took a deep breath as she tried to find the right word, puffing out her cheeks and then letting it out as a long sigh as she thought, " - not quite as infuriating and gitish as you usually are - "

He took the opportunity to look a little mock-offended, but she just giggled at him. " - I think I should make the most of it," she said. He wondered what on earth she meant and offered her a rather worried frown. She rolled her eyes at him. "Don't panic," she said. "I'm just going to ask you the teensiest little question."

"Oh," he said. He wasn't particularly reassured, but he didn't really feel up to protesting.

"Do you still think I'm adorable when I'm drunk?" she said.

The thought flashed through his mind that that was an infinitely more dangerous question than the other one about where he wanted to put the salt, and really didn't qualify for use of the word 'teensiest'. There was nothing teeny about it.

For a second he contemplated lying or trying to dodge the question, but he found he really didn't want to. He avoided her gaze, and smiled slightly. "I think you're adorable all the time," he said quietly, and for a second his breathing felt oddly constricted.

"Really?"

He grinned and met her eye, sniggering a little. He just couldn't resist it. "No," he said. She glared at him, even though she was laughing too, and then freed her hand from underneath her head and swatted him on the shoulder, quite hard in her drunken enthusiasm. He winced, shying away from her hand as he laughed.

"Are you lying?"

He slid his hand up to her neck, playing with the ends of her hair as he eased her face closer to his. "Yes," he said.

"Git."

Before he could over-think things or talk himself out of it, he lifted his head a little and brushed his lips over hers. It was just the briefest flutter of a kiss - he thought he probably could've passed it off as a friendly gesture, were it not for the fact that they both knew it wasn't, and had she not have had him pinned to the floor underneath the kitchen table.

He pulled away just far enough to look into her eyes, to see what she thought. He thought she was smiling, although she was so close it was hard to tell. "You kissed me," she said.

"Yes. Glad you noticed."

"Don't girls normally notice when you kiss them?" she said.

"Well there have been a few occasions...." he said, adopting a look of entirely mock anguish. "I'd prefer not to talk about it."

She sniggered, and his chest fluttered. Why had he never noticed how much he liked to make her laugh?

"What happened to your whole full control of your faculties thing?" she said softly. He smiled slightly at the way she'd stumbled over the words.

"The brain cells that think that are lolling about pissed somewhere," he said, waving his hand dismissively, even though he couldn't remember ever feeling less dismissive about anything. "I daresay they'll be very cross with me in the morning. Give me a good telling off, one of those headaches that makes you feel like there are hippogriffs tap-dancing on your cranium."

Her eyes widened as if she was genuinely concerned for him, rather than just playing along, and he couldn't help but feel a little twist in his chest at how endearing that was. "What'll you do?" she said.

"I'll tell them that it's their own fault for getting pissed and leaving the rest of me to my own devices," he said.

She considered him for a moment, and his eyes roved her face, trying to figure out what she might be thinking. He drew a blank.

And then, she grabbed his face and crushed her lips against his, making her thoughts entirely apparent.

For a second he was too surprised to do anything.

But only for a second.

He kissed her back, slipping his fingers into her hair and pulling her closer. He couldn't quite believe it was happening. He accepted it as he would have a dream about broom-less flying or an eternal moonless existence - it couldn't be real, and therefore he could do anything he wanted, as the normal rules that would stop him from doing it didn't exist.

The kiss grew slowly deeper, and she tasted of tequila. He supposed he must too. She was infinitely more intoxicating than the drink, though. She made his head spin and his legs go weak and if he hadn't been lying down he thought that he probably would've toppled over.

She ran her fingers gently over his jaw, and he realised that he really was kissing her, that, unreal as this felt, this wasn't some day-dream or idle thought-inspired fantasy. The lips moving over his were real, the hair beneath his fingers was real, the sensations.... He swallowed. They were all too real.

"This is probably a very bad idea," he said, murmuring the words between kisses, not sure whether he really meant them or not.

"Uh-huh," she said, nodding, even though the way she was taking his lip between hers seemed to indicate she thought otherwise.

"We're very different," he muttered, and she pulled back just a little.

"Well you are an emotionally-crippled wan- "

"Evasive," he said, steering her lips back to his. "Don't forget evasive."

She let out a soft snigger against his lips. "You're an emotionally-crippled, evasive, wanker," she said, holding his face in place and pressing her lips back to his.

"And you're annoyingly chipper," he said, returning the kiss with just a touch more pressure.

"And you're very boring," she purred, shifting down a little to kiss his neck. He chuckled, wondering if the word 'boring' had ever sounded sexier. "And far too sensible. And a little bit stuffy. And a total git."

"And you never know when to be quiet."

She pulled away, open-mouthed with indignation. Her eyes swept over him and her hands on his shoulders appraisingly. "I suppose you want me to let you go, then," she said.

"Actually, no," he said, tightening his grip on her. She looked a little startled, and he grinned, rolling her over. She let out a surprised giggle as he settled against her, pinning her to the floor.

"I thought you thought I was annoyingly chipper?" she said, wide-eyed but grinning.

"I do. You are."

She offered him an adorable puzzled frown. "But, well...." He trailed off, lightly stroking her neck with the very tips of his fingers. "You see - " He paused to follow the path his fingers had taken down her throat with kisses, and then traced a new one back up again to her ear. He lowered his voice to little more than a flirty whisper, breathing his words against her hair. " - it does appear that - " He kissed his way along her jaw and back to her lips, and then met her eye. He tilted his head down, peering up at her through his lashes as he raised one eyebrow. " - I do fancy you just a little bit after all."

She smiled and bit her lip. "Oh," she said. He returned his lips to hers earnestly, and this time, neither of them could think of anything that needed saying.

The intensity of it all took him a little by surprise, although he wasn't entirely sure why. He ran his hand down her side and pulled her closer, enjoying the sensation of her wrapping her arms around his neck and running her hands through his hair nearly as much as he was enjoying having her body moving against his.

He was just wondering where this could possibly be leading - or more precisely, if it was wise to let it lead where he thought it was leading - when the door opened. They both stopped, but springing apart didn't really seem an option. Tonks' hands drifted out of his hair, and he removed his hand from where it had been - toying with the place he'd put salt earlier. Remus peered out into the kitchen, even though he knew who it was.

Sirius' bare hairy legs and the hem of his red dressing gown met his eyes.

"Not interrupting anything, am I?" Sirius said. Remus shot Tonks a guilty and embarrassed glance, and she covered her mouth with her hand to stifle a giggle.

"No," Remus said, grimacing at Tonks, painfully aware that their bodies were still pressed together and telling an entirely different story. She bit her lip and laughed a little, her eyes sparkling at him and making his insides do things they hadn't done in quite a while.

He lifted himself off her and sat up, smacking his head on the table. Tonks giggled, and pushed herself more upright, leaning on her elbows. He rubbed his head.

"So what have you two been up to?" Sirius' voice said from above, his toes wiggling at them in what Remus interpreted as either a deeply amused or annoyed way.

"We were just - " Remus started. He looked desperately at Tonks, who shrugged and grinned.

"Yes?" Sirius said, tapping his foot at them.

"We were - " He gestured at Tonks for support, for some lie that would explain what he was doing trapped under a kitchen table in the small hours of the morning with a woman he'd vehemently denied fancying who was half his age and also his best friend's cousin. " - looking for something," he said, wincing at his own lame excuse.

Sirius's legs crossed the kitchen, and Remus heard a tap running and a glass filling. Then Sirius' legs came back and his knees stared at him accusingly. "Did you find it?"

"Er - " Remus screwed his eyes shut and rubbed his forehead. "Not yet," he said. It was the best he could come up with under the circumstances.

"Well carry on, then," Sirius said, his feet turning away and heading for the door. "Although if I may make a suggestion, unless it's teeth you're searching for, you might want to look somewhere other than each other's mouths."

The door swung closed behind Sirius, and Remus blinked a couple of times and then ran his hands over his face. It didn't have much of a sobering effect, although Sirius' appearance certainly had. "And the award for World's Worst Timing goes to...." Tonks said, before dissolving into a fit of giggles.

"Quite," Remus said. He gestured to the rest of the kitchen. "Shall we?" Tonks nodded.

He crawled out from underneath the table, and when she followed, clutching the bottle, he offered her a hand up from the floor. He pulled her to her feet and they both staggered a little. He rested against the table for support, and she grabbed the back of one of the chairs, swaying slightly.

He didn't have the faintest idea what he was supposed to do or say next - he looked to Tonks for some indication, but she was just grinning, and he couldn't work out if it was a shy grin, or just a drunken one. He thought his own expression might be something along the startled rabbit line.

Minutes passed in uncomfortable silence: three and three quarters.

His hands seemed as if they should have something to do, and his brain was whirring with a whole lot of nothing in particular, like a demented spinning top. He wondered how, when barely a few minutes ago he was lying on top of this woman, now, he couldn't think of a single thing to say to her, how he could suddenly feel so awkward.

Unless, of course, he reasoned, it was the fact that he'd been lying on top of her that was causing his brain the problems. He thought that that was probably it.

"So," she said.

"So...." he echoed.

Minutes passed in even more uncomfortable silence: two and a bit.

"Well," she said. "I should probably go home."

"Yes," he said, relieved that she'd finally said something. "And I have to go upstairs so Sirius can kill me for molesting his cousin."

"I'll say goodnight, then," she said, turning away. She dropped the bottle onto the table, fiddling with the label for a moment.

"Ok," he said. "I'll - er - see you out."

They staggered to the front door together in silence, and then out onto the street.

Minutes passed in palpably excruciating silence: one and a half.

Tonks pulled her jacket closer to her and rubbed at her arms. He thought that she was probably waiting for him to say something, or maybe do something, although he didn't have the faintest idea what.

Toes curling with embarrassment: ten.

He wondered if he should kiss her again, if that's what she wanted, but in the end he left it too long, and the tension he'd created was so unbearably thick the distance between them seemed insurmountable.

Minutes spent wishing for the swift release of sudden death: two.

Tonks sighed and rolled her eyes. "Look," she said, "I'm as much of a fan of the uncomfortable silence as the next man, but this is ridiculous. If I wait long enough, are you going to say something or shall I just go home?"

Remus let out a soft, amused snort. She really was arresting company. "I do want to say something," he said, "I'm just not entirely sure what. I'm open to suggestion."

She laughed, which seemed like progress. "You could tell me you had fun," she said.

"I'd have thought that was evident," he said.

"Yeah well," she said, glancing up at the sky. "Sometimes people like to hear the things you think are evident."

His lips twitched in amused embarrassment, and she met his eye, staggering slightly on the spot. He wondered what it was that he thought he had to lose, and then took a quick fortifying breath. "When we've both sobered up a bit," he said, "if I asked you out, do you think you'd say yes?"

"Probably," she said, offering him a rather mischievous smile. "I'd have thought that was evident."

He grinned, and she shoved him slightly on the shoulder. He took a steadying step back, and she considered him for a minute. Then she smiled rather shyly, and shrugged. "Well, goodnight, Remus," she said, and then turned.

"Goodnight," he said, not even knowing if she'd heard before she Disapparated.

He stood looking at the spot where she'd been for a moment, and then went back to the kitchen, where the remains of the tequila winked at him from the table as he stumbled to the sink to pour himself a glass of water.

"I don't know what you're laughing at," he said to the bottle. "This is all your fault."

He lurched up the stairs to his room, grinning like an idiot and spilling most of his water down his front, and was just about to open the door when Sirius's voice boomed through the night. "Are you alone, Moony?"

Remus rolled his eyes as Sirius cackled hysterically. "I really didn't know you had it in you!" he chortled.

Well that makes two of us, Remus thought, and slipped into his room, just catching Sirius calling him a sly old dog.