[june mp] familiar souls [fflur]

“So many moves,” Fflur agreed, exaggerating her movements. She wasn’t sure how much longer she would be able to keep this up; in any other dancing situation she had found herself in, the venue had been much darker, much smokier, and Fflur would have many less inhibitions. Still, there was something almost familiar, though it was far from it, about letting her guard down just the littlest bit. It was hard not to take her eyes off of him, even as she tried to convince herself that she was only staring because she wanted to out-move his own moves.

But as he stopped and moved past her, she slowed down her movements to something a bit more relaxed, a simple sway of her shoulders as the song played out. “Least I can do,” she offered with a shrug, turning slowly to refocus her gaze on him. “You faked an illness, I can fake being courteous.” But he wasn’t looking at her anymore, so she slowed to a stop, shrugging again to herself.

Fflur, feeling rather warm all of the sudden either from the small bout of exertion or the sheer embarrassment of the situation, figured it was a good a time as any to take off her robes and toss them over the back of one of the kitchen chairs. She was pushing back the sleeves of her sweater as the song changed rather dramatically, and she mentally congratulated herself for stopping her dancing a moment before. She looked up with a grin as Robin laughed, unsure why it was happening but finding it hard to suppress one of her own all the same.

She raised both eyebrows at him, unable to stop herself from smiling now that he had called her out on it. She was sure she had smiled plenty when they were younger and was about to tell him as much before she remembered that he simply hadn't been paying any real attention to her then. Her face fell but she shrugged it off like she had planned it all along. "I can stop if it's making you uncomfortable." She smirked the slightest bit, hoping to relay her sarcasm.

But her cheeks felt warm and her hands suddenly felt incredibly empty; she moved over and picked up her tea quickly, leaning back against the counter next to him, staring straight ahead. “I think you’re just giving me less things to be upset about these days.” She shrugged again, talking almost completely about quidditch. She took a quick gulp of her tea, the burning sensation from the heat the closest thing she could get to the burning taste of vodka.

Robin had worried he would get some kind of eyeroll or scowl as soon as the comment left his mouth, but he didn’t seem to have caused much offense. “I mean—” he still tried to clarify, a little sheepishly. “I…don’t really know what I mean. I think I just remembered you as kind of…” He gestured aimlessly. “Tough. I remember I liked making you laugh.” He’d respected her opinion in that matter. It made him feel like he was doing something right.
 
Fflur moved beside him and picked up her tea, a smirk on her lips. “True,” said Robin with another little laugh. “Now that I’m no longer endangering your Cup chances or disappointing your sister.” He stopped abruptly and took another slow sip of tea. It was the first time either of them had so much as alluded to Nerys’s existence, much less the fact that he’d ever been involved with her. He wasn’t sure how they’d started it. He’d spoken at length about his own family as he’d spoken at length about plenty of other things. But Fflur had seemed rather more reluctant to talk about herself. He had some moments of curiosity, but he was generally better about asking unsolicited personal questions these days. And then after a while, it seemed like it would kill the mood to acknowledge how wild he’d been about her sister at one point. It certainly felt like that now. Some part of him hoped she hadn’t heard. He didn’t want to put her off, and he also didn’t really want to get into what had happened with Nerys in any capacity deeper than a quick joke. But also, that curious part of him was very interested.
 
His temptation to brush it aside won, as it always did. “The next song’s easier to talk over,” he said, a little loudly over the music. “Sorry, I always go to put on the first one and I forget…”

Well, Fflur liked when he made her laugh, too. Maybe now she was just having a harder time pretending she didn’t enjoy his company as much. Maybe she just wasn’t tough anymore, had gone soft. Maybe he didn’t make her grind her teeth every time she thought about him. “Maybe you’re just funnier now.” She nodded seriously, nudging him lightly with her elbow.

She had been thinking of Nerys, sure, but that didn’t mean she was expecting Robin to bring her up, all the same. But she wasn’t about to get all emotional about whatever, wasn’t going to get mad like she had when she had seen her sister a month ago. “Ah yes,” she said casually after a brief pause and another gulp of tea. “Now I’m fully capable of doing both of those things on my own.” She twisted her torso to set her cup down on the counter beside her, before straightening up and crossing her arms across her chest.

“At least losing the Cup was fun. Disappointing my sister is starting to lose its luster.” She was tempted to mention something horrible about Nerys, but every character flaw she could think of to disparage her — she looks old, she’s gained weight, whatever — better described herself. The only thing left to knock Nerys down a notch would be to mention she was happily married, but unfortunately that was no longer true, either. Better to just gloss over the whole thing like it didn’t matter.

And most importantly, they could move away from the subject of Nerys altogether. “S’alright,” she agreed with a shrug. “It’s a good album.” She turned to pick up her tea again, this time leaning sideways into the counter, using her free arm to prop herself up. “Sometimes not talking is just as good.” She drained what tea was left in her cup, shrugging and smirking as she brought it away from her lips. “Who knew you were such a good dancer?”

Robin leaned into her a little when she elbowed him, laughing again softly. “I’d imagine so,” he said. “Now that I’m older and wiser.” He looked down into his mug and quirked one side of his mouth up. “More one than the other, of course, but every little bit helps.” He did certainly hope he came off a bit wiser now than he had done when he was a teenager, after thirteen years of life experience and four years of counseling. With Fflur it was weird, getting to know each other piece by piece, slowly covering up the old impressions and memories with new replacements. He hoped she’d forgotten the occasional mean comment that had slipped past his ineffectual adolescent filter already, at any rate.
 
She joked back, in the thoughtful, too-true sort of way with which he was intimately familiar. “It does lose its appeal, doesn’t it?” he said. There had been times when he took pride in not being what he was expected to be, when he embraced impulsivity or apathy or hedonism or whatever alleged character flaw was causing problems then, but those times were mostly when he was shouting at someone. It didn’t give him much lasting satisfaction. The defensive empowerment was fleeting and what lasted was the insecurity and despair. Robin looked over and quietly wondered what Nerys had had to say about Fflur’s life so far to put that look on her face, and felt rather more connected to her then than he had before. “We’re some pair,” he mumbled. And she, like him, had little intention of dwelling on it.
 
“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’m not very good at not talking,” said Robin. He glanced down at the dog, who’d settled at their feet, and back up at her. “It helps a lot when I have someone to talk to, I look less insane. And same with the dancing, come to think of it.”

Her sister was always at the center of everything, it seemed, never mind talking about her now. If Nerys and Robin hadn't started dating, she wouldn't have been so focused on quidditch, maybe never being scouted by the Catapults. If she hadn't shown up at Hogwarts during the Beltane Festival to let her know exactly how she felt, Fflur wouldn't have felt the need to go to the Three Broomsticks that night, certainly wouldn't have felt like she had anything to prove by striking up a conversation with Robin. But Fflur wasn't about to start thanking her now.

"I mean... some parts of it are still rather appealing." If she wasn't so ready to stop talking about Nerys, she might have gone on to tell Robin all about how she didn't think that their renewed friendship would receive the Sister Stamp of Approval. A smile tugged at her lips at his comment about being a pair and she nodded, unable to possibly agree more.

She grinned again, rolling her eyes. "Oh I've noticed." She shrugged, quickly adding, "Not that I mind or anything. Might get weird if we just sit and stare at each other all day." The last thing Fflur wanted these days was to be alone. She didn't look crazy or anything, never resigning to talking to herself whenever she found herself without company. Instead, she always resorted to internally criticizing herself for every decision she had ever made, which wasn't much better. And now she had the added pleasure of convincing herself not to drink when she had nothing else to do.

Fflur followed his gaze as he looked down. "Have you considered teaching the dog to dance?" She grinned as she looked back up. "Not sure that will help the 'not insane' look you're going for but it might be worth a shot." She nodded as the song changed again; it was definitely quieter and a bit slower and closer to how the first track had sounded. "You're on the right track now, though, hanging out with actual people."

“Oh, are you joking?” Robin set aside his mug, patted his chest, and grabbed Bert’s front paws as the dog leapt up. “You try and resist dancing a little when he jumps on you like this; we do it all the time.” He pushed and pulled the paws a little in time with the music before letting Bert go, and then elbowed Fflur. “Go on, have a try. He’s a terrible dancer, but he makes up for it with enthusiasm.” He picked up his tea again and finished it off, licking his lower lip. “We’re quite alike, Bert and I.”
 
She commended him on making a human friend. “I hang out with people,” he said, giving her a faux scowl. “At work, y’know.” Never mind that he didn’t spend as much time with them and their after-work pub of choice as he did before. “And around town.” If small talk with occasional unreciprocated oversharing counted. “And my brother.” That one, at least, was solid. “I just also talk to my dog. He’s a good listener.”
 
“I don’t mind looking insane, really,” he continued lightly, looking out over the kitchen. “I don’t like being insane, but I think as an aesthetic it sort of works for me.” As an aesthetic he was quirky and spontaneous without being tempestuous and hard to work with. Everything he’d gotten in life he’d gotten by being unusual. The destructive parts of him had to be worked on, but he treasured the benign side of his weirdness. Hopefully Fflur’s sarcasm meant she was kind of fond of it too. He gave her a small, earnest grin.

Fflur watched the pair dance with a smirk, throwing up her hands in mock defeat. "Maybe later," she said rather wistfully, declining the offer to also have a spin with Bert. "Alike? What, you're both hairy and you drool a lot?" She raised an eyebrow and laughed.

She nodded along as he listed off all the people he spent time with, laughing as he thought that he actually needed to have proof that he had friends. She mostly believed him, but there was still the small part of her that was forced to think a little bit less of him because of who he was currently talking to. "As long as you don't mind," she conceded, nodding again. Getting a dog was probably a smart idea in the long run, having a constant companion, though she was just now figuring out how to take care of herself, let alone another thing that breathed.

"Yeah, whatever you're doing is definitely working for you." She didn't know what she was trying to achieve by saying this. Being Robin's acquaintance or friend had been nice so far, much less frustrating than it had been when they were in school. It was good to have someone to actually talk to, even if they only hinted at the most serious things on their minds, and even then they were laced in layers of sarcasm. But it was a nice change from her usual, where most conversations ended with consuming more than a few drinks and sleeping together. Not that she would be totally opposed to either of those options now, or anything.

She hadn't stopped being curious what it was like to kiss him, but now that she was older and wiser, to use Robin's words, she had more mature interests. But they were drinking tea and playing with the dog and she had already made the day weird enough by asking him to go to the quidditch match with her in the first place.

Clearing her throat, Fflur straightened up, bringing her empty mug up with her, not overly pleased with where her mind was taking her. "More tea?" she offered, as if she ought to be the one being hospitable.

“Yeah, something like that,” Robin said with a laugh. He was tempted to add all manner of other comparisons, many of them relating to an enjoyment of being stroked, but this was not the sort of friendship yet, if it would ever be, in which those kinds of jokes were appropriate. He released Bert and scratched behind his ears instead. “Why, thank you,” he replied.”In that case, I’ll keep being ridiculous.”
 
She offered him more tea, and he held out his mug at once. “Oh, yes please,” said Robin. “But—did you have anything you needed to do today?” He hadn’t exactly been clear, but he had been under the impression that the Hogwarts staff had some obligations throughout the day’s events. “I could help you get out of that too, I guess,” he said. “But hanging out with me all day long might be even worse.”

"I --" she stopped short and glanced down at her watch. It hadn't been too long since the match had started, but knowing all those oversized egos on the pitch, the show-off star seekers wouldn't be able to put off fighting it out for the snitch for too much longer. "Yeah, shit." She frowned, trying to convince herself that skipping out on the rest of her work day wouldn't be the worst thing she could do. But that new 'try to do better' part of her conscience won out and she smirked, adding "That would be so much worse."

She set the mug down one more time. "I should be getting back." Hogwarts was going to play host to the all-stars after the match's conclusion, and Fflur was on the hook to help corral the students and other guests, something about the lowest professor on the totem pole getting the most enjoyable of tasks. "Thanks again." She stood there awkwardly for a minute, wondering if they had yet progressed to that part in their friendship where they hugged good bye but after a few more seconds of deliberation she decided it definitely hadn't.

"See ya, then," she said, cementing one of the most awkward good byes she had been a part of in recent history. She grabbed up her discarded robes, threw them back on, and headed out the door before she could change her mind.

“Oh well,” said Robin, looking down into his cup. “We can’t shirk all our responsibilities, I suppose.” He laughed when she took his bait and replied that a day with him would be the worst prospect. He couldn’t be offended if he’d handed it to her. “Well, I’ll be here if you need me,” he said, and then he nudged the dog with his foot. “So will he.”
 
They looked at each other in a heavy silence. Robin had felt his usual social finesse deteriorating the longer he spent with her—something about Fflur threw him off his game. The way she’d come into his life as if straight from his past, maybe, bringing it all with her. Or maybe it was the kinship he felt now that he didn’t feel with his other friends, the weighty something they didn’t touch but knew was there.
 
“Really glad you invited me, honestly,” he said. He’d been sort of touched to know he was the person she’d thought of to accompany her to this event that might have dredged up all manner of sensitive things. Of course, she’d been abroad and he was probably the only person she knew outside of Hogwarts, but he chose to take it personally anyway.
 
He waved as she gathered her things and swept quickly out the door. The music was still playing. Glancing at Bert again, Robin slid down to sit on the floor with his tea and wrap an arm around the dog.
 
"What am I doing?" he mumbled. Bert licked his cheek