WHO: Nora Peakes & Nicodemo Penrose
WHAT: He gets a not-so-foreign surprise
WHERE: Egypt!
WHEN: Toooday?

This little excursion had taken Nora completely by surprise. The paperwork had literally fallen into her lap this morning while she was at her desk, filling out some official documents on the nest of ashwinders she’d extracted from the fourth year Gryffindor boys’ dormitory because Hagrid couldn’t fit in the room and Professor Kettleburn was in St. Mungo’s nursing some suspicious burns. Nora couldn’t believe her luck, and had maintained a straight face as to not let her supervisor know that she was more than ready to for a weekend in Egypt.

There were some very lovely things about this ‘long-distance’ thing like letters in the post and trinkets from ancient tombs. Nora appreciated it all, but as she trudged through the camp, having been pointed in the right direction by one Miss. Whitby (who was quite, quite amused by her appearance), she realized how very much she’d missed snogging Nico’s face off. That’s the only way she could refer it to, really, and she hoped Nona was proud of herself. That girl had turned Nora into a right randy nut, and she took a breath and patted down her hair as she stopped in front of the flap to Nico’s tent.

“Official Ministry business!” she let out, staring up at the crystal clear, star-dotted sky. Mother Nature was so bloody beautiful. “There’s been reports of some foolhardy curse breakers letting loose a sphinx!”

At the sound of the voice, Nicodemo furrowed his brow and jammed the letter he was reading between the pages of his Tom Swift novel into the toe of his spare boots. He jumped up from his seat on the floor, because, despite the tiny table and two chairs, he still opted to lounge on a rug. His tent tended to simplicity, with just the one bunk, some shelves laden with his supplies and few personal effects, and a miniscule, hardly-used kitchen, all easily crossed in three long strides.

As he made those three strides, Nicodemo was wondering who on earth would be calling on him at this hour for this particular reason. He readied himself for the patently laconic exchange that was sure to follow, as was the case with any Ministry official that crossed his path these days.

Drawing open the flap, he first saw a pair of feet, worked his way up the legs, until, finally, he got to the face. "Blimey," he said, bringing his free hand to stroke his chin. "You look just like this witch back home who's in quite a tizzy over me."

She couldn’t deny his words, but Nora clicked her tongue and stuck up her chin like she was still on official business. Which, she technically was; Gringotts curse breakers (save for Nico) having a hell of a time in a tomb, facing a sphinx, and then said sphinx decides to roam through nearby villages asking unanswerable riddles and swiping down every cabbage stand in sight? The Ministry had been contacted immediately, and seeing as Nora was the only magizoologist in the office that day (and the only one that would willingly flee the country on a knut), she’d been sent. Back home they were none the wiser that the bloke she’d been seeing actually was one of the curse breakers in the tomb.

Which, by the way, Nora was extremely jealous about.

“Sounds like she’s got a few issues,” she said, unable to hide her grin, hands going to her hips. Nora’s nose scrunched happily and she dropped her attempt at being authoritative. “I wasn’t expecting to see you in one piece!”

One scruffy, dirty, very good looking piece!

Galloping gargoyles, had it been a very close call, though. Nicodemo still had nightmares about sinking into a bog of quicksand with no one to hear him scream.

Or discover his remains.

Thankfully, he had neither been eaten by a giant snake, sucked into a pit of sand, or gored by a sphinx—though he couldn't quite say the same for some others—allowing him to live another day and receive cute witches here on Official Ministry Business.

"The leg's a very convincing fake," he said, slapping one of his thighs as he grinned. "I wasn't expecting to see you in any pieces. Egyptian Ministry demanding we clean up after ourselves?" Another reason he was so pleased to be a pirate, as Larkin had dubbed him—the lack of institutional responsibility. Although he supposed, since Gringotts had contracted him for this expedition, he was technically culpable, but trivialities, trivialities. Well, really, being a pirate meant he was fair game for any Ministry, but that was a position he was comfortable with, as he tended to trust nothing and no one.

Nicodemo then held up his hand abruptly. "Wait. Have you brought my most excellent friend along with you?"

“The beastie has decided to take a tour of the neighboring towns,” Nora said with a wave of her hand, “if it hadn’t been for the goblins complaining about it up at Gringotts we probably wouldn’t have gotten involved, but I’m quite sure they only caused a fuss to get you lot fired or something as equally amusing to them.”

Some might find the fact that Nora reported back to the Ministry and had her own, very empty little desk in the Beast Division, very strange given how prone she was to flee the country, but she was glad to have some sort of reason to come home. This past year had been all about her nephew’s birth, but with a sister-in-law like Kate it wasn’t easy to pretend that she was here to help the new parents. Kate would have the kid doing sit-ups once he could lift his head on his own. Her division gave her a place to share her research with the world and since she was no good at putting her thoughts into words, at least written ones, her time spent with the various and ferocious beasts could be properly documented to further help the different species. They let her go off and make some wild adventures, so long as she came back and gave them all the details.

“It was last spotted about five miles east---I’ve got an itch to try and convince it to come to Gringotts as a guard, but,” she shrugged, “that might take more than a weekend to convince her of.”

Nora mimicked Nicodemo’s hand as he questioned about you-know-who, and laughed, “Mister Kenneth is currently berating a camel for spitting at him.” She shook her head, knowing that he’d be at it for hours and be covered in slobber that she would have to wash out. “Not to say he didn’t deserve it, of course...”

"Nasty things, camels," he agreed. "Kenneth has the right idea." He still stood in the opening of the tent, neither in nor out. He'd had the brief notion of stooping to pick up the lantern by his feet and heading off to the nearby saltwater lake with her, but stopped himself. Likely, Nora had just reached their camp, and might only have popped in to say hello, or, at the very least, expected the option of being able to comfortably sit during her calling on him.

"Never had cause to see one of those sphinxes myself," he mused aloud, reaching forward to grab one of her wrists. "No one ever trusted me around the vaults, if you can believe such a thing."

Moving to the side, he pushed the flap open wider and tugged Nora inside. "But I imagine she's pretty ticked at the general institution for, you know, bringing ruin and desecration to her tomb."

With the flap closed, Nico swung her around so his back faced the opening of the tent. "I imagine it'd be quite difficult to sweet-talk her into agreeing."

He wasn't such a barbarian that he couldn't entertain conversation indoors (well, it was a tent, but—for all intents and purposes). Pausing a moment, Nicodemo looked her up and down, smiling rather ferally. "Hello."

Or… perhaps he was.

Kenneth was going to get himself eaten one day if he didn’t learn when to keep his big mouth shut. She knew it was in the jarvey’s nature to be aggressive, but when he also insisted on coming with her on her expeditions (or else he tore apart every last inch of her flat, or tortured whoever was to watch him) and then started to cause trouble with the native animals, well. Nora wasn’t going to show (much) sympathy when his tail got bit clean off.

She held her breath, forcing herself not to jump Nicodemo once the tent flap had closed. Her inner dialogue had been chattering on incessantly about nothing else besides snogging Nico the moment she saw him and she didn’t know how much longer she’d be able to control herself (Nona must be in a fit of giggles right about now back in England). Nora nodded in agreement with his comment about the sphinx, directing her attention toward the actual reason why she was here. She did her best work in high risk situations and it was really only her that was thinking the sphinx might want a bit of a holiday away from the heat and sand, so she should probably put some more thought into the matter. Though, really, who was she to read the mind of such a majestic creature?

Though, with a majestic creature like Nico staring her down in the way he was in this very moment, Nora felt a bit of encouragement and excitement course through her. That look of his didn’t leave much room for the imagination and she stepped closer to him. Nora let out the breath she’d been holding (for nearly a month now, it seemed), shoulders dropping in a relaxed manner as she grinned wickedly at him. “Hi.”

"Hi," he repeated, sounding amused.

Nicodemo had made it a sort of rule-of-thumb to let Nora initiate anything physical between them. It wasn't that they hadn't had several mind-blowing snogging encounters, because they had, and he'd enjoyed every last one, but Nora had seemed… resistant, he supposed, to moving things further. Nico couldn't quite recall the last time someone hadn't just fallen into bed with him, but that was fine. While he had never been the most honest or forthcoming wizards, he was quite sure he'd moved past the point of sleeping with someone and skipping the country practically the next day, so he hadn't pressed on account of the Egypt expedition.

But Nicodemo was honest enough to admit seeing her here had thrown him for a slight loop. They were dating, he knew that, but it didn't alter the fact that anything with even the smell of a relationship on it was foreign to him. For obvious reasons, he'd never fostered many serious relationships of any kind in his life. Oftentimes, his easygoingness was almost a defense mechanism that a lot of the witches he'd been involved with in the past couldn't get past. But Nora had said she was here on business, she hadn't seemed off-put by his personality thus far, and having just had one of his more traumatising near-death experiences, he was more than willing to let this all play out however it might.

Not that leaving her to initiate things meant he couldn't give her some… gentle encouragement.

Touching her but not quite, he nonchalantly traced a lock of her hair from her temple to its end with his finger, he asked, "Any new bets I should be made aware of? Perhaps some more imaginative ways to compromise my virtue?" Nico drew the back of his finger down her jaw, tapping her chin lightly with it. "Divest me of my honour?"

Nora tilted her head, twisting her lips as if trying to remember exactly what it was that her audacious friend had said this time, but Nona hadn’t gotten the chance. She hadn’t let anyone know she was leaving the country, which was probably a poor decision in hindsight, but one that happened often enough that people tended not to worry if they didn’t speak to her for a few days to a week. No, no, any compromises of virtue were going to be all of Nora’s own doing, and she reached forward to grab hold of the hem of his shirt.

“Nothing from my friends, no,” she said. Nora couldn’t say that as much as she wanted Nico right now that there wasn’t any nervousness for her to deal with. Her anxieties weren’t about---about performance or anything of that sort, but she’d been used and dropped before. She knew that she was the one making the advances now, as her hand ran up Nico’s side, but completely shaking the thought that moving to that next level might ruin things took some effort. Sex messed up plenty of relationships, she’d seen it happen too many times to count, but---Nicodemo had never pushed her, he seemed to enjoy her company whether or not they were snogging, and hell; she’d survived a dragon attack with him, she should probably trust her instincts on this one.

Nora pressed forward and against him on the tips of her toes, trying her best to play coy,

“Only one with myself. Tried to see how long I could keep my hands off of you.” She shrugged her shoulders, not looking disappointed that her hands had locked themselves around his neck.

Thinking back to her friend's orders that Nora had let slip on their picnic always tickled Nicodemo immensely, and he doubted he'd ever miss an opportunity to bring them up. Part of him had to admit true disappointment that she had been given no new task which involved the shameless usage of his very willing body.

But there was always next time.

Murmuring as if in commiseration, he pursed his lips thoughtfully. "Ah, well, can't win them all," Nico said, as his own hands slid around her waist, mostly of their own accord.

"Was it just the hands?" he inquired politely, as if they weren't just moments away from, to borrow his earlier phrase, thoroughly compromising one another's virtue. "No other… body parts?"

Tightening his grip on her, he pulled her as flush against him as was possible. "I ask so I know what rules to follow." Smiling lazily, Nicodemo gazed at her through slitted eyes and angled his head slowly towards hers, closing in the distance. "I am an ardent follower of rules."

She kissed him because she couldn’t resist it any longer. Bloody hell, it had been a very long time since they’d kissed last. Nora had quite normally gone on with her normal, daily routines since Nico was shipped off to Egypt and had been very proud with how perfectly fine she was with the distance and time apart, but oh! Ever since she’d received this impromptu assignment all that had been on her mind was feeling this again. An involuntary hum of pleasure escaped her and she only broke away for a moment,

“Let’s just say,” she breathed, “All bets are off---”

The kissing commenced once again and there was knee knocking and roaming hands. Nora’s mind was swirling far too much to come with anything witty at first, but when Nico’s kisses went to her neck, a perfect response popped into her head. Her eyes shut at the lovely feeling and she stretched her neck to give him more skin to explore.

“One rule.” Her hands gripped onto his shirt and she grinned. Nora didn’t bother to try and catch his eye as she really did not want him to stop what he was doing. Her face did flush at her rather racy thoughts, but she was in the middle of a desert, in a tent, snogging her rather gorgeous and fit curse breaker. Time to let up on some of her prudish ways. Nora’s lips went to his ear, “Make it good.”

Actually growling a little, he pulled away from her neck and spared one hand to guide her face rather roughly toward his, channelling all the pent-up frustration of the past month into the kiss that followed. Nicodemo's hands, once again acting of their own volition, began to ghost their fingers around the fastenings to her clothes, teasing small circles where they found warm skin, stroking smooth, brief expanses into gooseflesh.

When his lips broke contact with hers, it was only because he had run out of patience and had bent to sweep her right up into his arms, wasting no time in heading straight for the (insanely luxurious) bed that masqueraded as a cot. Tossing her lightly down upon it, he shortly followed suit, and ran his finger from the hemline of her shirt up the line of buttons. Circling the protrusions of her collar bones briefly, he then jerked his finger down along the seam, sending buttons scattering every which way as her shirt opened.

Looking inordinately pleased with himself, Nicodemo kissed up the newly revealed skin all the way to her jaw, pausing just before he reached Nora's mouth again. "Challenge accepted."