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They’re lying in her bed, late in the night, when Tonks decides to ask the question that she’s forced herself to refrain from asking.
“Why don’t you ever take this off?”
She traces her finger down the thin fabric obscuring Remus’s chest, wishing she could feel his skin as he feels hers.
“I’ve got a scar,” he replies tightly, “and it’s twisted and ugly. I don’t want you to see it.”
“I don’t mind.”
“I do.”
She wants to take the vest off and see what he’s hiding. She’s seen the pictures of werewolf bites from her case studies. She knows what to expect. It isn’t his bite she wants to see—it’s him.
“Will you tell me about it instead?”
Remus presses his lips together. “If I do, will you stop asking me to take my shirt off?”
“Probably not,” she says truthfully, “but I’ll stop for tonight.”
With a long, exaggerated sigh, he says, “It’s got the obvious outline of a werewolf’s jaw. It’s easy to see how it got its shape.”
Tonks drapes herself over his body and lays her head over his heart. “Tell me more.”
She learns that Fenrir reached for his heart, sinking his incisors into Remus’s ribs. He clamped down on a frightened boy’s chest cavity, and it was then that Lyall Lupin blasted him away from the window. Fenrir took with him Remus’s innocence and health, leaving not only a curse in his veins and a maw-shaped scar, but two grotesque, crooked lines where the werewolf’s canines dragged along Remus’s midsection.
It’s not as pronounced as it used to be, he tells her. The wound took almost a year to fully heal, and five more years to grow from its raw, angry red to a leathery pink. It’s raised and silvery in some places, while in others it’s a pinkish white, not quite blending with his skin. The other scars faded into lines on his face and body, which pass off as signs of premature aging.
But Tonks knows better. She’s made her own study of Remus’s face and body. She sees the lines, silvery webs of aging and pain, and doesn’t care. She wants him—all of him—and doesn’t care that he’s a werewolf.
“Would you look at me any differently if I had a scar like that?”
Remus hesitates. He closes his eyes and his forehead creases.
“There’s no way for me to answer that without coming off as an idiot.”
“I know.”
She smirks at him and scrunches her eyes, picturing the scar he told her about. She dreams up the silvery-pink ropes of flesh and healed sinew, placing lines across her chest and back, attempting to recreate a werewolf’s maw. It won’t be her best work, she knows, as she’s not in front of a mirror to adjust her morphing, but it should do.
She rises from her bed and watches Remus’s eyes widen.
“Do you still like what you see?”
Remus’s throat bobs and his pupils expand. It’s been weeks like this, the two of them getting tangled in each other’s beds, exploring and touching their bodies in all the breathless, intimate ways. He never fails to make her feel beautiful, with the raw longing that fills his warm eyes from the moment they touch to the moment their passion reaches a loud, satisfying crescendo.
She turns around to face her mirror, giving him a view of her backside. She sees him lick his lips in the reflection and grins triumphantly.
“So?” She teases, gesturing at the scars she’s morphed on her body. “You still want me, don’t you?”
“It’s not the same—”
“—no, it’s not,” she agrees, returning to bed and running her fingers along his biceps and forearms. “But if I’m willing and happy to shag you senseless, knowing you’re a werewolf, do you think a scar would stop me from wanting you?” She lets one of her hands find him, stroke him, readying him for another romp. He responds immediately and she smiles, bringing her lips up to his jaw.
“You don’t have to take it off tonight,” she promises, whispering against his lips. “But you’ll take it off for me someday, I hope.”
His body is ready for hers and his hands are wrapped around her waist, grazing the skin of her back and bum.
“Okay,” he gasps, as her hand grips him. “I want—for you—”
Tonks sits up, shocked, and her hands find the hem of his vest. “You’ve changed your mind?”
He nods and closes his eyes. “You can take it off.”
Slowly, reverently, she rolls up the garment, revealing the thick ropes of healed muscle. He’s cracked an eyelid open and his breathing has all but stopped.
Her mouth comes down to the edge of his scar, and she kisses him there, making a path along the scar tissue as she continues to take off his vest. He helps her with tossing it over his head, and when he’s fully revealed to her, she takes his face in her hands and kisses him tenderly, moving her soft lips over his, running her tongue along his bottom lip, and moans breathily into his mouth.
“Thank you,” she breathes, “for showing me.”
An awestruck look crosses his features; it’s the one he had when they first kissed, the night he finally gave himself to her.
Her heart skips a beat and knows they’ve reached something deeper than what they had before, but it doesn’t scare her.