Only Coffee

The pair stumbled drunkenly through the front door of her flat and along the corridor that was liberally decorated with discarded shoes, unopened letters and other random detritus that she hadn’t quite got round to tidying up.

“Coffee, yeah?” Tonks yelled as she swung into the tiny kitchen, not bothering to wait for a reply. It’s why she’d invited him back, after all. Best make with the pretence. Concentrating, she turned on the kettle, and grabbed two quite-possibly-clean mugs off the draining board, as he leant against the doorway. He’s drunk, she thought. Mind you, so was she. A long week at work for both of them, and then all the Order stuff on top of that meant they both needed a good night out. There’d been a fair few of them at the start of the night – three of his brothers, and four of her work-friends, for a kick-off, but he’s the only one she invited back. Only one she’d really ever contemplate inviting back. The others were nice and all had their own charms, but she’d fancied him for a hell of a long time, and he wasn’t in the country very often. Why spoil an opportunity like that?

“Yeah, thanks”, Charlie replies, as she ladles coffee granules into each mug with extreme care, still managing to spill half of it. She’d been introduced to instant coffee by her Gran, and considered it one of the better muggle inventions she’d come across. Oh, she knew that the cafetiere made better coffee, but the little glass things were expensive, and the whole process was far too complicated for the time of day she usually drank coffee. Pouring the now-boiled water into the mugs, she passed one across to him

“Come on,” she said “we may as well go into the living room, you can swing a cat in there”

The living room was just as messy as the rest of the house, and just as chaotically furnished. One corner was taken up with a bean-bag covered in neon green fur, while another was taken up with a rickety-looking bookshelf. The sofa had a patchwork throw tossed over it, and mugs balanced along both arms. On the windowsill, a wireless played quietly, some muggle tune she didn’t remember and he didn’t recognise

“Nice place you’ve got here,” Charlie said with a grin, glancing about
“Sod off,” she said, grinning back at him “It’s got to be better than your tent, or wherever it is you live”

“Winter quarters at the moment. We get actual walls and everything” he replied, finding out that the throw hadn’t been thrown over mere cushions as he’d first presumed, but over books, and other lumpy objects. He wondered if he’d actually found the one person in the world that was messier than him. His mother would never believe him.

“Well, just colour me impressed,” Tonks replied, laughing as she carefully sat down on the beanbag, trying not to fall over or spill hot coffee all over herself “Actual walls?”

“Yeah, it’s a real luxury,” he said, sipping coffee and smiling “as soon as the snow melts, we’re back in the tents, moving with the dragons.”

“What, you can’t stay in one or the other all year round?” she asked, genuinely interested.

“Nah, can’t keep the dragons around the castle during spring and summer, they fight too much. And the snow was six feet deep in places when I left. Not good tent weather.”

“Fair enough,” she replied. She’d never really thought about what it must be like for them, up there on their mountain. Hell, once she’d left Hogwarts for London, she’d forgotten that not everyone considered a light frost to be dangerously arctic weather. “So what is there to do up there on your mountain, other than dragon stuff?”

Charlie leant back against a bit of sofa that he’d discovered actual cushioning on. No wonder she’d gone for the beanbag. Not that he minded, of course – it gave him a great view. Contemplating, he answered “Not a lot, actually. It’s too far to get to any of the towns, and there’s no real wizarding communities nearby. We tend to just hang about in the main halls, reading and stuff. Can’t even get the wireless if the wind is blowing in the wrong direction”

“Merlin, I couldn’t cope without the wireless” she said, shaking her head “I’ve got to have music on, or I just go crazy”

“Who is this, anyway?” he asked “I don’t recognise it”

She leant back, trying to remember “This show is Muggles at Midnight, so this has got to be… King. I think. Or Prince.”

“I don’t think I’ve heard of them”

“Dad’s really into them. I’m not so much of a fan, but they’re pretty good. Don’t like this song so much, though.” Carefully placing her mug out of reach of flailing feet, she added “I’ve got one of their albums around here somewhere, hang on, I’ll put it on”.

Tonks went to stand up. Now, getting up from the beanbag could be rather perilous for her at the best of times, but combined with drunkenness, was simply a recipe for disaster. Thing is, she almost made it, but almost doesn’t count for anything when you’re arguing with gravity, and she fell back down, knocking her head on the floor

“Ow” she said, pulling herself up to something resembling sitting.

“You okay?” Charlie asked concernedly, standing up “that was a nasty bump you must have given yourself”

“Thick skull” she replied, still sat on the floor as she rubbed the bump, and he laughed as she pouted up at him “C’mere,” he said, reaching down to pull Tonks off the floor “let me kiss it better”

She consented to letting him pull her off the floor and into a hug, which she returned, wrapping her arms around his torso. He placed a delicate kiss on the side of her head, and said “There, all better?”

She nodded, smiling at the gesture. But he didn’t release her from the hug, and she didn’t release him. Instead, she twisted a little, and kissed him back.

The kiss went on for a long time, building from tentative at the start to passionate, and Tonks didn’t remember putting her arms around his neck, but there they were, just as his arms were around her waist, pulling her closer

Eventually, they had to break it off, foreheads resting against one another. “Hi,” she whispered, a grin on her face. “So, ah-”

Charlie cut her off with another kiss. He didn’t want to do talking right now, couldn’t focus his mind enough. A combination of the drink and the girl. She smelt fantastic, he thought, as one of her hands sneaked into his hair. Chocolate and the mint of her shampoo, and, because of tonight, beer and cider and smoke, and he wasn’t sure if he would ever be able to think of those as bad smells again.

She could feel him, pressed against her, growing harder. She could have cheered, but managed to restrain herself, instead sliding an arm down his side, and onto the waistband of his jeans. Still locked together in a scorching kiss, she slipped her hand beneath denim, and he repaid in kind, his hands slipping up and under her t-shirts

The kiss broke off mutually, as they looked at the sofa. The small, already dilapidated sofa with its unknown, but also rather pointy contents. They looked at each other.

“Not the sofa”

“No”

“Got a bed in the next room”

“Glad to hear it”

They disengaged from the embrace, and she grabbed his hand, leading him into a room decorated with slightly less intense colours, and rather softer piles. The large bed was in the far corner, under a window, and from what he could see, didn’t contain anything more dangerous than a very well thumbed paperback, which she knocked away before he could get a glimpse of the title.

He wondered, fleetingly, if he should stop, to ask if she really wanted this. After all, they were both drunk, and he didn’t want to take advantage of that, but before he could formulate the words, she pulled him down onto the bed, arms wrapped around his neck, kissing him deeply, and the thought of asking, of stopping, flees. His hands were spilling all over her, from her shoulders, down her sides where she was just at the edge of ticklish and swarming over her back, trying to keep their bodies close together, and to control his movement so that she doesn’t fall. He didn’t know how they managed it, but they did, and then he was on top of her, kissing her like he needed it more than air, one arm taking all his weight as the other snakes down her side, brushing her nipple through two layers of t-shirt and her bra. She could have sworn they’ve never been that sensitive before, but his hand didn’t stop there, even as his calloused thumb traces along the bottom of her breast, it’s moving south, slipping beneath the waistband of her jeans, and she squirms, trying to get a little more, but the waistband isn’t that loose, and there’s only so much he can do.

Without breaking their kiss, he undid the buttons, and pushed the offending article over her hips, and now he had so much more free space, but she didn’t, can still barely move her legs, because denim isn’t very stretchy, and he didn’t bother taking her jeans off fully, and it doesn’t matter any more, because his hand was snaking over her underwear, and between her legs, and she had to break off the kiss, no two ways about it, because otherwise she wouldn’t be able to breathe enough. His hand was nearly in the right place, nearly, and she wiggles and writhes and sweet Merlin, just there, just there, but then the hand was gone, and he was kneeling to one side, pulling her jeans off completely, then her underwear, but the hand didn’t come back, and she could have screamed with frustration, but then his head was between her legs, and her fingers curl through his already-messy hair, biting her lip to keep from shouting, because she’s loud, she knows she is, but then he slips a finger inside her, and then another, she wants to know just who the hell taught him to do this, because she wants to track them down and give them a knighthood, a standing ovation, her firstborn, whatever they’ll accept in recognition of the sterling work they’ve done in training him, because it’s just that good, and she’s lost, lost, lost, crying out his name.

After what felt like to her, an eternity, she drifted back down to earth. He’d moved, and his head was on the pillow next to hers, grinning like a cat that’s got not just the cream, but the entire dairy. As she pillows her head on his chest and attempts to control her breathing, it occurs to her that that’s not an accurate simile. Charlie isn’t really a fan of mammals in the same way he is of dragons, but right now, she can’t think of a good way to make it fit. A dragon that got the cow just isn’t sexy, and she snorts at the thought.

He asked what she was laughing at, and she couldn’t explain it, just laughed some more, before reaching up to deliver another scorching kiss, just because she can, and because he’s quirking an eyebrow at her, and because she’d still not come down properly from what he just did to her, doesn’t know if she ever could.

She runs a hand up his side, realising to her consternation that he’s fully dressed. They didn’t even pause for that before falling together, and she wants to see him, see his skin and his scars. It was the work of a moment to get him to lose the t-shirt she was admiring earlier, and the jeans follow quickly after that. Charlie Weasley doesn’t believe in underwear, it seems.

He’s got scars. In a line of work like his, it’s a very rare person that doesn’t. The dragonkeepers wear them as badges, as a soldier wears medals. They’ve all got stories attached to them – sad ones, funny ones, ones that you can’t believe they managed to survive, and maybe someday she would get him to tell her, but for now she just stuck to sitting on his lap, tracing them with the tips of her fingers, making him bite his lip and close his eyes, and she couldn’t be having with that, not at all, so instead she let her fingers wander a little further. She wanted to find out just how ticklish Charlie Weasley is.

Very, is the answer. He spasms, trying to escape, but she was faster, cackling at his reaction, her hands chasing after him. He wriggles and laughs, and so does she, until he spots his opportunity, flipping her onto her back, and managing to grab her hands. She shouts out, pouting, but not for long. He could never have resisted that look on her face, and leant in to kiss her once again, thinking that right now, he’d like to never stop kissing her.

But first, he thought, he really should do something about the appalling amount of clothing she was still wearing. He pulled her upright, back into his lap, and pulled both t-shirts over her head with an economy of movement, mouths connecting again as his hands go her bra clasp, fiddling and finally freeing it. He’d never really been a breast man, but hers are gorgeous, fantastic, even, and his hands were roving all over her body, and hers are doing the same. The tempo picks up as his hands find her nipples, and her hands find his dick, and dear Merlin, she can’t do that to him, not if she wanted him to last any decent length of time.

She broke the kiss, moving to tease at his earlobe, along his jawline, and it was just too much for him, it wasn’t fair, and so he pushes her down onto the bed, knowing that he probably shouldn’t be so rough, but she was grinning, so maybe she didn’t mind.

She hates being treat like a piece of china, like a delicate, breakable thing, and so when he pushed her down, she grinned happily. She wasn’t about to shatter, and it seems he understood that as she guided him down, guided him in.

Breath hissed between teeth, and she pillows her head against his shoulder as they got used to each other, as they start to move, slowly at first, building faster, and faster, as her head drops back against the thin pillow and she writhes, back arching. The headboard of her bed was knocking rhythmically against the wall, and she briefly wondered if her next-door neighbours would be giving her evil looks the next time she saw them, but that thought doesn’t get a chance to settle in before he drives it away, thrusting into her.

Her fingers found his nipples, tracing along the curving scar that runs under one, playing with them, teasing him. In response, his mouth finds hers. No hands for her, he needs those to support his weight, to let him keep thrusting, but it’s a little too much for her, a little too strong, so she shifted away, just out of his reach, and instead grabbed his head, distracting him with a kiss as she started to snake her legs up his sides, crossing her ankles at the small of his back, and keening, as suddenly, he was able to drive in much deeper.

Neither of them had much in the way of conscious thought. Just concentrate on the bodies, on what feels good, and what feels great. There was no need for thought. Just movement, friction, tension, growing exponentially and there’s just no conceivable way you could stop now, none at all.

She morphed herself a little to meet him, and his breath, already harsh, became ragged. She loved that aspect of her talents, the power it gave her. She could feel him shuddering as he neared his climax, and so if she just did this…

“Oh fuuuuck, Tonks!” He shouted, his head falling against her as he came hard, gasping for breath. She grinned, and reached up with trembling arms to pull him closer, to get him to rest his head on her breast as he regained his breath.

They laid like that for a while, still and silent, not thinking about anything, and just letting the tattered remains of their minds drift. But you can’t stay like that forever, and it became more and more uncomfortable for both of them, so he withdrew, moved over to the side. Resting his head on the pillow, he threw a heavy arm over her, before falling asleep near-instantly.

She could feel his breath against the side of her head, soft and calming. The arm was a reassuring weight, and she turned to him, snuggling close, her hand playing gently in his hair until she too fell asleep.