the_debt_of_time

"I'll go get it," Remus said, dropping the bathrobe as he made a dash for the
bedroom door without pausing to reflect on the fact that he was naked and dripping water
everywhere.
Mia put her hands up against his bare chest, briefly looking away and praying that
Sirius did not try to walk in at that moment. Thank Merlin she locked the door when she
first came in the room. "Remus! You're naked."
"Nothing you haven't seen.. ." Remus scoffed, having lost all shame and
sensibility in that flash of gold. He kept moving forward, his eyes set, his jaw tight, and Mia
could tell he did not even realise he was doing it. "I need... I need to go out there.
Something smells―"
"Remus!" Mia snapped. "You cannot go out there! Especially naked."
"Why? I mean, not the naked part, that's fairly obvious." Almost as if the words
reached his own ears for the first time, Remus realised that, yes, he was indeed still naked,
standing soaking wet in the middle of her and Sirius's bedroom. Flushing crimson, he
snatched a pillow from the bed and covered his groin with it.
Letting out a sigh of relief in thanks for him coming to his senses, Mia let her
shoulders relax. "Sirius's cousin is here with her little girl."
"Andromeda?" Remus asked, raising a curious brow. "Isn't she supposed to be
the good one?"
"She is."
"Then why are you—?" His nostrils flared once more and a glazed look fell over
his still-golden eyes. "Is it you? You smell.. ." he whispered, leaning forward to actually
sniff at her.
Under normal circumstances, the gesture might have earned him a smack to the
head, but she was feeling slightly sympathetic to his plight, especially since he did not even
know what it was yet.
"But not you... .Your hands." He took one of Mia's hands, dropping the pillow
covering himself, and brought her fingers up to his face to sniff. "What were you—?"
"Colloportus!" Mia yelled, the wand in her free hand aimed at the door as she added
another, stronger Locking Spell on top of the general one she already had thrown up.
Almost as though he suddenly realised that she was keeping something from him,
something important, something necessary and life-sustaining, Remus rushed to the door.