Title: Friday

Character(s)/Pairing: Remus/Tonks
Genre: Fluffity fluff. Maybe a bit of angst, maybe.
Summary: Tonks can't wait until Remus returns home on Friday. Post HBP.
Length: about 1600 words
Rating: T/PG-13 for language and lots of sexual references.
Disclaimer: Nope, not JKR. Guess again.
Author's Notes: Wrote this in about an hour. Maybe a bit more, but not much. Actually I think this is the longest piece I've ever written in one sitting. Forgive me for any errors cause it's unbetaed. Yeah, sorry about that. Matt helped prompt me with an object and an emotion: bowl and ecstasy, respectively. Oh yes, and about Sensitivity. Am working on it. Not very productively, but the document is open, I swear.
Dedication: For my boyfriend (though he will never read it, the illiterate jerk). Who just might be coming to see me (for the first time in two and a half weeks) on Friday. Yay. Also, he's bringing me GoF on DVD. He loves me, you see. (Basically, this story was a way for me to complain in an inexplicit way about how much long-term, long-distance relationships suck, but also can be completely worth it.)

When she wakes, Tonks realizes she's drooled all over her hand. Shit. She's fallen asleep at the desk. For the third night in a row.

"Morning Tonks!" Chrysanthemum chirps. Nobody should be allowed to this chipper in the morning, especially not her boss who always looks fresh and pretty and blonde. "I thought I'd told you to go home two days ago?"

"Fuck that." She mutters softly to herself, then, "Morning Chrys."

"Meeting at nine." Chrys checks her watch. "That's in seventy-two minutes. I'll be expecting a full report from you. I'm excited to hear what you've accomplished with all this overtime you've been putting in." Of course she's excited. Chrys is always excited about something. But not necessarily in a happy way.

"Fuck that," Tonks coughs loudly.

Turning towards her office, which is set apart from the Aurors' cubicles, Chrys adds, "Really, though, you should go home."

Home. She doesn't really have a home, not right now. She has a flat. An empty flat. Home is where Remus is. He is not at their flat.

But he will be. For the first time that morning she smiles.

Soon, Friday, Remus will walk in the door, the one that opens into the kitchen, and she will run up to him, throw her arms around his neck, wrap her legs around his waist, and kiss him until her neck aches. Then she will wrestle him the floor, never mind that it's hard and needs mopping, tear off his clothes, pin his arms above his head, and–

"Shite, Tonks, I can smell your breath from three feet away."

She resists the urge to repeat her earlier mantra of "Fuck that," and instead, nods, saying curtly, "Tom." Friday. She just has to make till Friday.

"Looks like somebody has a case of the Mondays." Tom, her smarmy old partner, must have a death wish.

Monday. She still has to make it to Friday.

"Fuck. That."

"Tonks, dear, I really need to go to bed." Molly, is usually very accommodating with Tonks, but she supposes after the second night of tea and not talking till four in the morning, a woman's patience is bound to run out. "So do you."

Ha. She hasn't slept in days. She can't. Worries about Remus, fantasies of Remus, memories of Remus keep her up all night when she stays in her flat. She'd tried working non-stop, which had done a good job refocusing her thoughts on something other than Remus (most of the time), but Chrys had given her the rest of the week off (or rather, more accurately, forced her bodily out of the office) "as a reward for the overtime this weekend." Tonks thinks it might have less to do with her extra work and more to do with the fact that she'd disrupted three meetings by Tuesday afternoon with her snoring. Sleeping is fine, Chrys has informed her, but snoring ruins others concentration as well.

So she's made her way to the Burrow. Tea with Molly is always comforting, except for when Molly cuts it short saying silly things like, "I can give some blankets and you can try resting on the couch."

"Remus likes to have sex on the couch." Tonks' hand flies to her mouth. "Erm. Sorry." She is far more tired than she'd thought.

Molly doesn't blush, which is okay, Tonks reasons, as she is red enough for both of them, she only smiles tiredly. "Then you should have a nice shag there on Friday."

Friday.

It's Wednesday. No, Tonks corrects excitedly, glancing at the clock, Thursday. Tomorrow. Remus will be home (yes, the flat will be 'home' again with Remus there) tomorrow. And they will shag continuously, as Remus is always very horny upon returning from Greyback and the pack, on the couch. The couch on which she'd spilled wine last Thursday night while trying to get drunk and watching porn on the Muggle television she'd inherited from her father. She should really clean that up.

Suddenly she is not tired at all, she's very awake. Awake and ready to clean the flat. Remus, despite his worn appearance, likes things tidy. And the pile of dishes in the sink is definitely not tidy. Nor is the clothing strewn about the floor of their bedroom. Nor are the toothpaste flecks on the mirror in the bath.

Tonks has her work cut out for her. She only hopes she can finish before Friday.

Because Remus is coming home on Friday. Tomorrow.

Tonks reaches up to place the last bowl into the cupboard. The first glass she'd tried to Banish back to its place had shattered, so she'd resigned herself to putting the dishes away by hand.

Actually, most of her cleaning had to be done the muggle way. When she'd tried to charm the sponges to clean the sink, they'd dipped themselves into the toilet water and proceeded to rub themselves all over her shoes. So she'd had to go to the store and buy herself new sponges (and shoes). These ones she had not charmed, but herself used to scrub the toilet, sink, and shower using marginally cleaner water from the bucket she'd filled with lemon soap.

Then she'd had a disagreement with the mop, and ended up with large bruises on her shins and a broken mop. When she'd charmed it to clean the kitchen floor, it had only danced in a circle in front of the door, refusing to finish the rest of the linoleum tiles. When she'd screamed at it, pointing her wand threateningly in it's direction, it had proceeded to make it's away across the room and whack her repeatedly in the shins. Needless to say, after snapping it in half, she'd had to fetch herself another mop and then wash the floor herself.

But now the kitchen is clean. And Remus will be home in an hour, maybe two. But probably only one. She hopes. But it is Friday, after all. One hour won't make a difference, not after a week and a half of waiting. Except that she knows it can make all the difference.

She's left the couch for last. Partly because she had only a very vague idea of how to remove the wine stain and partly because she knew the couch itself would be a distraction.

Walking in the room armed with a dry towel, her soap bucket, and a fresh rag, Tonks smiles menacingly. This stain is in for a battle. No, a war. She's given up the use of magic altogether. Cleaning manually feels more violent, releasing more of her pent up energy, anyway. She's ready to scrub this couch until is shines, or at least, she reconsiders, until the stain disappears.

But scrubbing is hard work, and she's done a lot of it in the last twenty-odd hours. Her arm is tired and she thinks, giving the spot one final rub, Remus will never be able to see the faint discoloration.

The cuckoo clock her father gave her as a flat-warming gift chimes. The time has ran away from her: Remus should be here, home, soon. Very soon.

Perhaps she'll just take a quick nap before he gets home, to be ready for the wild sex they will have right here on the this still slightly damp couch. Stretching out, she realizes how sore her back is. If Remus wants the flat neat again, he can do the job himself.

Just a few more minutes, she closes her eyes, and Remus will be home.

"Tonks!"

The kitchen is dark and smells strongly of lemon. Cleaning solution, maybe. But, no, Tonks doesn't clean. Remus wonders, a little bit desperately, where she could possibly be, as he flips on the light. The kitchen is clean. And the dishes are done.

"Nymphadora!"

Maybe she's waiting for him (with a surprise?) in the bedroom. Naked, probably. She's done that before. And in one of his favorite fantasies she's laying, like a queen, atop the piles clothes and touching herself there. But, walking into their room, he sees that she's put all her clothes away. And made the bed, which is empty, though the comforter is turned down invitingly.

That leaves the living room and bathroom. Or maybe, he thinks suddenly, something's gone wrong. Maybe the Death Eaters captured her. Maybe something happened at work.

Heart racing, he passes the bathroom which smells slightly less strongly than the kitchen of lemon and calls out again. Upon entering the living room, he sighs.

Tonks is curled up, not naked and not touching herself, but fast asleep on the couch, surrounded by cleaning supplies. There is a damp spot next to where her left hand lays limply and he wonders whether the discoloration is from cleaning water or wether it will remain as a stain. He wonders what she's spilled this time. Not that it matters.

"Tonks," he whispers in her ear, turning her fully onto her back. He shakes her a bit, "I'm home."

Her lips lift in a vague almost-smile and she relaxes a bit, but does not wake.

"Tonks." He tries again.

This time she snores in response.

He cannot help but be disappointed. He was expecting a long shag, a couple of long shags, actually. But he relents and lies down next to her, moving her slightly in order to make room for his only slightly larger body.

He wraps his arms around her and she snuggles close to him. He's exhausted too, he realizes, and the warmth he feels lying beside Tonks, who's snoring lightly into his ear, is much better than even the ecstasy of a long-awaited orgasm. Anyway, there is always Saturday.

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