Disclaimer: Not JKR, anything you recognise is hers etc.
A/N: Took ficlet requests on my LJ this week, and I was really pleased with the way some of them turned out. This one's for Shwenny, requested by Captain Raz, using the prompts: Ogden's finest, Sirius, and playing cards.
She sits on the carpet, shuffles the cards, then deals them out: seven columns, a decreasing number of cards in each, the last card of each face-up, on display.
She sees two aces, diamonds and clubs, and makes a new pile for each of them, turns the downward facing cards that sit where they once did face-up. She places the three of spades on the four of diamonds –
The floorboards creak, and she looks up.
Remus freezes in the doorway, an empty glass in his hand.
He's been avoiding her, ever since she said she liked him, asked if maybe –
That's why she's sitting here, hoping to force the issue, because although he said no, she knows he was lying, can sense there's more to it, because the way he looks at her –
She justknows that they shouldn't be about words like can't and won't.
"Wotcher," she says, as if everything is normal between them, and not impossibly strained. He swallows.
"I didn't know you were here."
She bites back the urge to say obviously, because if he had, he'd be hiding in his room or would have looked for an excuse to leave. She smiles instead, looks back at her cards, hoping he'll take this as a sign to come in. There are no other moves, and so she takes the deck, deals three cards and turns the last – ten of spades, which is no use.
"I was just – " He gestures to the sideboard. "I fancied a drink."
She smiles again, doesn't say anything, because what small talk can she make when all she wants to know is why the hell not, and deals another three cards. Her eyes burn with the effort of not following him as he crosses the room and pours Firewhiskey slowly into his glass.
"Would you like one?"
"Yeah, thanks," she says, and looks at the card she just turned, a black eight. She puts it on a red nine, adds a red seven, thinks that the game is picking up.
He hands her her drink, and their fingers brush. She meets his eye, heart pounding, and he swallows heavily, as if she's the very essence of temptation and he mustn't give in.
She wants to press the matter, invite him to sit with her on the carpet and play something else –
But doesn't, because him not fleeing at the sight of her, not snatching his hand away the second their skin touched, is progress, of a kind.
She hates that every move with Remus must now be calculated. She hates that she can't crack a joke or tease him like she used to, hates that none of this went the way she thought it would.
He smiles, says something about leaving her to her game, and moves away down the hall.
She presses her lips together, tries to think positive, that that was almost a conversation, and maybe one day –
She turns back to the cards, deals another three, reveals the five of hearts.
There's another creak in the doorway, and she looks up, her stomach lurching –
But it's only Sirius.
"Hey cousin," he says. "What are you playing?"
She takes a sip of her Firewhiskey, and then sets the glass neatly on the carpet, trying not to think that the glass is warmer where Remus held it. She smiles faintly, goes back to the cards, and murmurs, "Patience."
A/N: Thanks for reading. Reviewers get a card game with a character of their choice. Strip poker an optional extra ;).