*Deserving Of Love*

A/N: Hope you enjoy! Sorry it took so long, don't give up on me! Read and review please!


Charlie reached over and picked up Remus’s glass, sniffed it and pulled back sharply before placing it back on the bar.

“And two more of these please Aberforth…doubles please.” He asked the barkeep as he shrugged out of his damp coat. He threw down some coins and nodded his thanks as Aberforth set a pint and two glasses of tawny liquor on the bar top, and slid one of the firewhiskey's over to Remus before picking up the other.

Remus stared at the drink for a second before looking up at the younger man next to him. His head was still spinning from a combination of the alcohol he had already consumed that evening and repeatedly beating his head against the counter, but he doubted that any of the confusion he was currently feeling was from either of those previous actions. He glanced at the drink again skeptically, the rational part of him trying to decide whether or not he should really be accepting a drink from a man who may or may not be sleeping with his girlfriend. But the much more forceful sodding drunk part of him decided that he shouldn’t care - if Charlie was sleeping with Tonks, then he should be buying him drinks, so he drained the glass in one swallow.

Charlie snorted as he saw a stream of firewhiskey miss Remus’s mouth and drip down his stubbled chin onto his sweater. Remus wiped clumsily at his chin and set the glass down harshly on the bar before swiveling to look at Charlie. To his surprise there were two of him, both wearing identical smirks that Remus wanted to knock off of those freckled faces. He swung to do just that, but aimed for the wrong one, his fist punching sloppily into the stagnant air just shy of Charlie’s cheek, pitching Remus forward with the force of the swing. He fell to the floor next to Charlie’s stool and lay still for a moment before realizing what had happened, eventually looking up at the hulking figure seated above him. The liquor-induced bravery faltered and a sudden fear of being crushed beneath those dragon-hide boots sprung to his mind and he rolled away from the stool, blocking his face with his arms as he anticipated Charlie’s retribution.

He lay like that for what seemed like a lifetime, cowering on the sticky floor of the bar until he heard a loud sigh and felt strong hands pull him abruptly to his feet.

“I’m not here to fight you. But if you take one more swing at me, I swear to Merlin that I will not hesitate in kicking your ass all up and down this pub. Just sit still, I want to talk to you.”

Remus didn’t argue as Charlie threw him back in his stool and he chanced a glance at him as he sat back down at his side. Charlie reached for his whiskey and drained it, then rubbed a large rough-looking palm over his freckled face before meeting Remus’s wide-eyed stare.

“Tonks showed up at Sirius’s awhile ago, completely livid and looking for you. She told Sirius what happened and the reason you walked out, and wanted him to contact her if you showed up. She didn’t know I was there, and she has no idea that I came out looking for you. But since I am partly to blame for what transpired tonight, I thought it would be the decent thing to find you and set the record straight.” Charlie paused and drank deeply of his pint before continuing on with his story. “Nothing happened tonight between Tonks and me. I know you saw me leave, and you found my key, but nothing happened. Yes I went over there with the intention of shagging her –“ Remus shifted uncomfortably in his stool at these words and Charlie shot him a glare to warn him against any threatening movements, continuing only when he realized that he wasn’t going to start swinging. “- but nothing happened. I didn’t know before tonight that you two were together. If I had, then by no means would I have gone. I have too much respect for the both of you to fuck up anything that you have.” Charlie broke off and drained his pint, motioning for two more before looking at Remus.

Remus felt ashamed at his words and broke eye contact to look down at his folded hands. Remus knew that he was telling the truth, a part of him had known that nothing had happened between Charlie and Tonks even as he was walking out.

He looked back at Charlie and nodded slowly, letting him know that he was still listening.

“I’m sorry for any doubts that I made you have about your relationship Remus. I know that you’ve noticed that over the past few months I have been flirting with Tonks, and I do understand your jealousy. We have a past. But she had no part in it. Not once did she flirt back, or lead me on in any way. We have been friends for a long time and she had no idea how I felt, feel, about her… until tonight. And believe me when I say that she turned me down. Without a doubt she turned me down.” Charlie let out a sad chuckle and threw more coins on the bar when the pints were set down, sliding one over to Remus before continuing. “She loves you. And by what I heard her saying to Sirius, she has been fighting for a long time to make you realize that. So do both of you a favor and just let her…” Charlie trailed off and stared into his beer, a heavy look of sadness on his normally smiling face.

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Remus felt like an idiot, which was a feeling he was quickly getting used to. He also had a pounding headache, a sour stomach and a cramped neck from falling asleep on a mattress that was probably older than him.

He had woken up an hour previous with weak sunshine falling over his face from a dirty window. He was in a small dusty room, his face pressed into a flat pillow, the tickling sensation of a spider crawling its way through his arm hair initially waking him. He thought for a brief moment that it was Tonks’s finger running up his arm and was sorely disappointed to find out that it was not. He sat up quickly, not knowing where the hell he was and nearly fell out of bed with the fierce pain that shot through his head at his quick movements. He rubbed his temples and closed his eyes until the pain subsided into the dull ache that still plagued him, and squinted around the room. Charlie was passed out on the second bed in the room, his snoring loudly vibrating off the yellowed walls so loudly that he was surprised that he was able to sleep at all. He slowly pulled himself from the bed and staggered toward the bathroom, his stomach threatening to empty itself on the rug before he got there.

He dragged himself from the grimy bathroom to find a tray of tepid tea on the small table in the room with Charlie awake and sipping out of a chipped cup in front of the window. He didn’t know what to say, he didn’t remember much about last night after Charlie lectured him on just letting Tonks love him, so after a few awkward words and on Remus’s side, apologies, he decided to go and face the firing squad.

Which was where he currently was - pacing back and forth nervously in front of a small wooden door in a red brick wall, his keys held tightly in his hand as he contemplated his next move. Should he just walk right in and immediately start apologizing? Hide out at Sirius’s until she came looking for him again? Should he ring the bell and wait for her to answer the door in case he wasn’t exactly welcome? He decided on the last and reached a trembling finger to the buzzer.

The door swung open right as he neared the bell and he jumped back slightly as a tousled haired and robed clad Tonks appeared in the doorway. She stood staring at him for a long moment, her face completely void of any emotion as she took in his rumpled appearance as she took a sip from a steaming mug of tea.

“Nymphadora, I don’t even know –“

“You look terrible Remus.”

Remus looked down at his clothes and brushed away the lint and dirt that had found its way onto his sweater. He gave up and sighed, looking back up at Tonks sheepishly before making another attempt to apologize. Her hand shot up to stop him as he started to talk and a sudden fear of her not letting him explain and shutting the door in his face hit him. She stepped inside set down her mug before returning to the doorway to stare at him for a second before speaking to him in a calm but slightly menacing tone.

“Remus… I only have one thing to say and then I don’t want to talk about last night again. I don’t want apologies, I don’t need explanations. I just want you to listen to me then decide what you are going to do. Got it?”

Remus nodded vigorously, immediately regretting the quick movement as his head pounded in protest, but kept his eyes focused on her. She looked beautiful this morning, as she always did in the mornings, and he suddenly felt panicked that he would be losing her forever. Remus suddenly understood the saying ‘be careful what you wish for, you might just get it’ – for he knew that he had pushed her too far this time, and that she might actually just give him up for gone. He could feel each agonizing second pass in silence between them and he felt that he had to say something – anything – to make her realize that he loved her and was sorry. But when he went to open his mouth again her hand shot up one more time and she threw him a warning glare that made the words catch in his throat.

“You can’t keep doing this to me. You can’t just walk out and push me away whenever you feel like it Remus. You can’t decide one minute that you can’t live without me then the next decide that I’d be better off without you. And you have to trust me. I trust you. I trust that you won’t hurt me, even though you have several times in the past six months. But this is it. You have to decide whether or not you want to stay in this relationship or walk away right now, because I’m not doing this anymore. I’m not going to walk on eggshells around you anymore. You have to decide if you can handle the day-in day-out work of this relationship, or you have to split. I want this to work. Even with you pushing me away from you every other week and making me feel like I’m crazy for loving you, I do love you. I love you. And I want to be with you, but I’m not going to be the only one working at it anymore.”

Tonks paused and closed her eyes briefly, causing a tear to squeeze out of it and fall onto her flushed cheek. Remus reached up and tenderly brushed it away, the contact of his hand on her cheek making his heart speed up. He hated the fact that he made her cry and he wanted to pull her into his arms and hold her, but didn’t know if it would be a welcome gesture right now. She was still angry at him, and rightly so, and he didn’t want to move to quickly and make her think that he was just trying to get back on her good side. But when he felt her lean slightly into his hand he threw all doubts out of his mind and pulled her against him. Tonks nuzzled his neck and wrapped her arms tightly around him, her palms on his back pulling him even closer to her soft body.

“I want to stay… I love you…” Remus whispered against her ear quietly, not knowing what else to say at the moment. He wanted to tell her how sorry he was and that he would never walk out again, but he couldn’t. Somehow those were the only words that he could find. Tonks buried her head tighter against his neck, fully understanding the weight of his few words, and brushed her nose against his throat lightly, her breath driving him slightly mad as it tickled over his skin. He placed several light kisses against the top of her head and pulled her even closer, crushing her to him as a way to show her what he could not say.

“I love you too… Oh and Remus?” Tonks whispered, her lips barely touching the sensitive skin of his throat, causing his pulse to quicken even more. He was quickly getting aroused as she touched him, her nose pressed into his neck, her breath against his skin, her fingers moving down his back toward the waist band of his pants. He wanted to take her inside and spend the day and night making his behavior last night up to her and pulled back to look at her with clouded eyes.

“Yes love?”

Tonks smirked at him and Remus knew that she knew exactly what he was thinking – she had been with him long enough to know that look in his eye – and she leaned in closely, torturing him by keeping her mouth only an inch away from his.

“You smell even worse than you look… stale firewhiskey and dust. Shower. Now.”

“Yes dear…”

Remus chuckled and placed a kiss on her forehead before releasing her. She stood aside and let him pass her into the apartment, slapping him playfully on the ass as he crossed the threshold into the building. She carefully locked the door behind her and climbed the stairs slowly, hoping that she wasn’t making a mistake by forgiving Remus yet again. She desperately wanted to believe that he did want to stay, and she was hanging all her hopes on those words of his.

And she also hoped that he didn’t call her bluff by walking out again – she said that this would be the last time she would take him back, but she knew that it wouldn’t. She was a fierce fighter and was as stubborn as can be, but when it came to Remus Lupin, she would always cave.

She heard the shower turn on as she passed the bathroom and smiled as the low sound of his humming drifted over the noise of the running water. She pressed her ear to the door and listened for a minute before carefully opening it, shrugging her robe off of her shoulders and letting it pool on the floor. She pulled the curtain back slowly and slipped into the tub behind Remus, moving closer to him until she could press her front to his back and wrap her arms around him. He jumped slightly at the contact and turned to face her, brushing her hair away from her face with his large hands before leaning down to kiss her gently.

Remus held the kiss for a moment, groaning and pulling Tonks closer to him when he felt her tongue flick across his bottom lip. He deepened the kiss and wrapped his arms around her tighter, lifting her against him as he turned to push her against the tiled wall of the bath. Remus broke the kiss and leaned into her, his breath against her ear causing her to shiver as he spoke.

“I’m sorry about last night… Let me make it up to you.”

He ran his tongue over the shell of her ear before trailing kisses down her throat to her chest. Tonks ran her hand through his hair as he dropped to his knees, holding him tightly to her breast as he ran a tongue across her nipple. He lightly bit down on the pebbled peak, causing a low soft moan to escape her parted lips. The moan turned to a whimper when Remus ran his tongue along the underside of each breast before turning to the other nipple. He was slowly driving her crazy as he worked it between his lips, alternating between gently biting and softly sucking on it, then pulled away to blow across each one in turn. He reluctantly pulled away from her breasts and continued kissing and licking down her body, moving slowly and torturously toward his goal, his hands running lazy patterns up her slightly shaking legs.

She was wildly excited and the scent of her arousal was growing stronger with each movement of his mouth against her skin until he could barely contain himself any longer. He placed one last lingering kiss onto her belly and tickled his fingers up her legs, gently opening them. Remus looked up at Tonks as he ran his tongue across the hyper-sensitive skin of her inner thigh; she was watching him with half-closed eyes, her cheeks flush with desire and anticipation, her breathing growing more ragged with each swirl of his tongue. He kept watching her as he ran his tongue softly over her slit, once, twice, three times before parting her with one hand and finding her sensitive bud. A loud moan reached his ears as he licked across her clitoris, her legs nearly buckling as he sucked it into his mouth. He released her and started again, his tongue running a firm slow lick from her heated opening until he reached her clitoris and pulled the swollen nub into his mouth. He repeated the action several times until she was begging him for release, her hips moving erratically against him as she desperately reached for her orgasm.

Remus ran a hand up her leg and parted her further, his thumb running small slow circles over her clitoris as his tongue dipped in and out of her tight opening. He felt her tightened even further around his tongue, her legs quivering and her hands grasping at his head tightly, her raspy voice calling out his name as she came undone; he waited until she was nearing the end then quickened the circles on her clitoris until he was positive she could take no more.

Tonks moaned half in relief and half in disappointment as she felt his head and hand leave her body, sighing as he stood to wrap his arms around her. She fell against his chest, thoroughly exhausted from the extreme pleasure that she had just felt. She stayed like that for a while, finally lifting her head sleepily when she felt Remus press against her. She smiled and wrapped one leg around his waist, grateful when he lifted the other before sliding into her slowly. Her head tilted back at the sensation of his hardness moving across and into her still-sensitive flesh, the feeling causing her to tighten her legs around him to pull him further into her. Remus kissed her roughly as he quickened his thrusts into her, his tongue mimicking the movements of his hard length sliding in and out of her. He broke the kiss and buried his head in her neck, biting down softly as he found his release and emptied himself into her warm body. She cried out when she felt him spill into her, her orgasm quickly coming in a loud throaty scream that she was positive the whole block heard.

Remus pulled her close to him and rested his head on her chest, pressing soft kisses on her water and sweat soaked skin before raising once more to look at her.

“That was the best apology I have ever received. You are definitely forgiven.”

Remus chuckled and lowered her feet carefully to the floor, holding her steady until her legs adjusted to holding her up. He brushed her wet hair out of her eyes and stared into them, seemingly searching for something before he kissed her and smiled.

“That was only the beginning… I’m going to spend the rest of the day making it up to you love…”

Remus trailed off and kissed her again, only pulling back when a rather loud rumbling noise came from Tonks’s belly. She smiled sheepishly as he smirked at her, then wrapped her arms around his neck to pull him closer.

“If you are going to be… apologizing to me all day, then you better start by feeding me. Or I don’t know if I’ll have the energy for it.”

Remus leaned in and pressed a kiss to her ear, smiling when he heard her breathing catch in her throat at his closeness.

“Yes dear… definitely have to keep your strength up. You’ll be needing it.”