Under the Table

"I bought you something," she said.

Remus looked up from his book. Unusually, he hadn't heard Tonks come in, but there she was, shifting from foot to foot, having apparently bought him something. He wondered if it was dragon pox.

He raised his eyebrows at her in question, and she produced a bottle from behind her back and placed it on the table. "It's a peace offering," she said sheepishly.

"A peace offering?" he said, baffled, looking from the bottle to her.

"Well, not a peace offering, I suppose," she said, "more of an apology for kicking you in the shin and calling you an infuriating bastard last week."

"I'd have thought if you were going to apologise for any of your colourful insults, the one about me being me a pathetic, evasive, emotionally-crippled wanker is the more deserving."

"All right - " she said, but before she could get any further, he interrupted.

"Of course, you shouting that I'm more mouse than Marauder was my particular favourite," he said.

She let out an exasperated sigh, and he met her eye and grinned self-consciously, only too aware that in doing so he was letting her know that she was off the hook entirely. She smiled back and straightened up, adopting a look of entirely mock seriousness.

"I apologise for calling you a pathetic, emotion - "

"Evasive," he said. She glowered briefly at his correction, but he could tell she was desperately trying not to laugh.

"I apologise for calling you a pathetic, evasive, emotionally-crippled wanker, and an infuriating bastard, and shouting that you're more mouse than Marauder."

"There's really no need," he said.

"Why not?"

He leant back in his chair, surveying her and smiling slightly at the confused look on her face. "Well they're all true," he said. "I am a pathetic, evasive, emotionally-crippled wanker, definitely more mouse than Marauder these days, and probably an infuriating bastard to boot. I'm not sure it's fair to hold a grudge about things that are as obviously true as the fact that my hair's brown."

"All right, then," she said, rolling her eyes at him, and then fixing him with a completely unnecessary look of contrition, "it's mostly an apology for kicking you in the shin."

He let out a soft chuckle. "There's no need," he said quietly. "Really."

She smiled at him, and he found it oddly more unnerving than if she'd glared. He looked away, his eyes flickering to the bottle of clear golden liquid on the table. "What is it, anyway?" he asked, with not a little trepidation.

"Tequila."

"Ah," he said. "How appropriate."

"Is it? Why?"

"Well," he said, "I believe it's the traditional apology gift of the Mexican people."

"Really?" she said, face lighting up.

"No."

Her face slackened into a disappointed glare, and he couldn't resist another chuckle, wondering why he really did never get tired of that game.

"Are we going to have a drink then, or what?" she said, smiling at him to let him know that he was, as always, forgiven for his teasing. He considered it for a minute before turning back to his book, although if someone had put their wand to his head and demanded to know what he was reading on pain of death, he wasn't certain he'd have been able to remember the title.

"I'm not sure that's a very good idea," he said.

"Why not?"

"Because - as you've so kindly pointed out on many occasions - I'm boring. Boring people don't drink tequila."

"They do if they want to convince other people that they were wrong."

"What?" he said, looking up, interest piqued. Tonks' face was sporting a rather teasing smile.

"Think of this as an opportunity to convince me once and for all that you're not as boring as I think you are," she said.

He felt his lips twitch and give him away. He knew he should probably say no, but he knew just as certainly that he wasn't going to.

"Well when you put it like that," he said, and closed his book, stashed it on the hearth and went over to join her at the table.

One shot each

Remus had never had tequila before, but he found it not unpleasant.

Tonks refilled their glasses. "Erm - " he said, not sure if he was putting up a token protest or a real one. She raised her glass to her lips.

"If you don't drink it, you have to do a forfeit," she said.

"What?"

"Drink or forfeit, those are your choices. I thought you understood the rules of the game," she said, lowering her glass again.

"To even have a chance of understanding the rules of the game I suppose I'd need to know that we were playing one," he said, raising an eyebrow at her.

She tutted at him. "All those years as a supposed Marauder and you can't recognise a little drinking game when you see one?" she said. She studied him for a moment, eyes narrowed slightly, and he looked away. "Well, when one of us drinks, the other one drinks," she said, "or you have to do a forfeit. First one under the table loses."

"Ah," he said.

She raised an eyebrow at him. " 'Ah' what?"

"I see."

"You see what?"

"This is how you ended up in my bed with no clothes on."

"No," she said tersely, and drank her shot. "That was vodka."

She looked from him to the small, golden liquid-filled glass on the table in front of him, not a small hint of challenge on her face. He eyed the glass too, knowing that if he drank this one he would have effectively accepted her challenge, and probably committed himself to half a bottle of tequila and a night with his head in one of Grimmauld Place's less than salubrious toilets.

All in the name of proving that he wasn't boring, to someone whose opinion on his boringness really shouldn't matter to him in the slightest.

"What kind of forfeits would we be talking about?" he said, leaning on his hand and rubbing his chin as he weighed up the situation he'd managed to get himself in.

"What?"

"Well," he said, waving his hand over the glass in question, "if I'm going to make a truly informed decision about whether I want to drink this or not, I'd like to know what the alternative is."

"All right," she said. She thought about it for a moment, biting her lip a little as she did so. "Either you drink that or you answer my question truthfully, once and for all."

"And what question would that be?" he asked, even though he suspected he already knew the answer.

"Do you fancy me or not?" she said.

He gave her half a smile, and swallowed his drink.

Two shots each

"Don't you think we should slow down?" he said, wiping his fingers on the knee of his trousers after Tonks refilled their glasses and dribbled some on them.

"Do you?" she said.

"Yes."

"Well that's because you're the sensible one," she said.

"I suppose," he said, noting how weary his voice sounded, wondering why he minded the word 'sensible' so much when she said it. It was hardly an accusation he was unaccustomed to hearing, and yet....

"Don't you ever get tired of it?" she said.

"Of what?"

"Of always being so damn sensible - of always being right."

"I'm not always right," he said, steepling his fingers on the table in front of him. "Far from it."

"Give me an example," she said, "of when you've been wrong recently?"

"I've a feeling agreeing to this was very, very wrong," Remus muttered, and Tonks grinned at him rather inexplicably.

"Actually," she said, "I think this is the most right thing you've done since we met."

He smiled back, wondering if she was right.

Three shots each

"I daresay I'll regret this in the morning," Remus said, fingering the freshly re-filled glass in his hand accusingly.

"Sometimes, Remus," Tonks said, leaning forward on the table and peering directly at him, "it's fun to do things you think you might regret in the morning."

Four shots each

Remus was beginning to feel the effects. A kind of warm glow had settled in his stomach, and a fuzziness of thought ebbed through him. He loosened his tie and undid the collar of his shirt, and then elected to take the tie off all together. "Wow," Tonks said, leaning on her hand and staring at him devilishly. "I thought that thing was surgically attached."

Remus closed his eyes for a moment to block out the thought that Tonks was looking at him devilishly. "About these forfeits," he said, desperate for a distraction. "Just for future reference, do they all have to be questions?"

"No," she said. "Dares would be perfectly acceptable."

"What kind of thing are we talking about?"

"Well that would be up to the deviousness and discretion of the setter," she said, twitching her eyebrows at him, "which means that things don't look good for you."

Five shots each

Part of Remus' brain knew that no good would come of this. Unfortunately, a rather different part appeared to be in charge, and it enjoyed Tonks' company, liked teasing her, and enjoyed the way she sometimes teased him back in a way he often thought was tinged with flirtation. Even though the rest of his brain told that part that it had an overactive imagination, it didn't want to listen and was providing increasingly vociferous opposition the more he drank.

"Will you be terribly disappointed if I out drink you and you don't get to have your fun with me?" he said.

"What?" Tonks said, looking up from the fingernail she'd been picking at with an expression of surprise.

"Well you've obviously got a forfeit already planned," he said, spreading his ahnds across the table. "I'm a little intrigued to see what you've come up with. You've had a while to plot, after all."

"Yes," she said looking rather pleased with herself. "I have."

"So what is it?"

"Oh it's good," she said, grinning and then chuckling quietly to herself.

"Aren't you worried," he said, raising an eyebrow at her, "that I could come up with something fairly devious myself?"

She scoffed. "As if," she said.

"I'm offended," he said, resting his elbow on the table and his chin on the heel of his hand. "I assumed my reputation had preceded me. Apparently not."

"Reputation?" she said. "What reputation?"

"Never mind," he said, and then on impulse, added "maybe I'll show you later."

She looked vaguely intrigued for a minute, but then shook her head and the expression disappeared. "I think I'll take my chances," she said, rather too dismissively for his liking. He raised an eyebrow at her.

"You know, the more you scoff, the more devious I'll be."

"I'm pretty confident in my hollow-legged abilities," she said.

Remus took a long breath in, trying to quash his amusement as he remembered her behaviour the previous week. "I suppose you know that werewolves are quite rarely affected by alcohol," he said. He delivered the line matter-of-factly, even though he could feel the effects seeping into his brain and wasn't sure he'd said the word 'alcohol' correctly.

"But there are exceptions," she said, pointing at him and grinning. "Firewhiskey, for example, is often metabolized faster by werewolves than other people, consequently making them more drunk more quickly."

"Yes," he said, staring ruefully at the table. "I have found that."

"And tequila," she said, "being a Muggle contraption - "

"Concoction," he corrected, laughing. Tonks peered at him from beneath a puzzled frown.

"What did I say?"

"Contraption."

She frowned a little deeper, swaying slightly in her seat and pouting in consternation with herself. "You're adorable when you're drunk," he said, and then joined in with a frown of his own when he realised he'd said it out loud. Tonks grinned.

"I'm adorable all the time, you just haven't noticed," she said. Remus opened his mouth to protest, but she cut him off. "Anyway," she said. "Where was I?"

"No idea," he said, shaking his head and chuckling to himself.

She let out a long, frustrated, sigh, and then her eyes widened as she remembered. "Oh yes. Tequila. Muggle...thingy. Level playing field. I looked it up."

"Very impressive," he said. "Bottoms up."

Six shots each

"So what happened the last time you had Firewhiskey?" she said.

"I'd rather not talk about it," he said.

"Oh come on," she said. "Don't be such a stick-in-the-mud."

Seven shots for Remus, six for Tonks

"The first time, there may have been dancing," he said. "And some slight stripping."

"You?" she said, eyes wide.

"Yes."

"Stripping?"

"Slight stripping."

"Slight?" she said. "How do you strip slightly?"

He pointed at her untouched drink on the table, and she lifted it to her lips and drank it down. "Someone stopped me before I got too far," he said. "If you want the full story you'll have to ask Sirius," he said, wincing at the images than danced through his mind. "My memory of the details is a little vague."

"Don't think I won't," she said, with a mischievous glint in her eye. "You don't suppose he thought to take any photos?"

Remus distracted himself by pouring them both another drink.

Eight shots each

Tonks leaned forward, resting her head on both of her hands and drumming her fingers on her cheeks. She grinned at him, biting her lip at whatever thought she was having. "How much do I have to make you drink to get you to take your clothes off?" she said, twitching her eyebrows at him suggestively. Remus shot her a warning glare that he was pretty certain had no effect whatsoever. "Twice what you've had now?" she said, eying the bottle with consideration.

"Why do you want to know?"

"Just asking," she said, a slow smile of rather false innocence drawing its way across her mouth.

"You want me to take my clothes off?" he asked cautiously.

"Not necessarily," she said. "I might just have been asking for a general gage of how much fun you're going to be."

"Oh."

She leant back in her chair and stretched, wiggling her shoulders around in their sockets before settling. "I'm going to take your 'oh' - which I felt was ever so slightly tinged with disappointment - as a sign that you want me to want you to take your clothes off, though," she said, leaning forward and grinning at him impishly. "Just so you know."

Nine shots for Remus, one for medicinal, shock-relieving, purposes.

"You didn't even think about taking advantage of me when I was rat-faced, did you?" Tonks said. Remus grinned.

"Are you going to extend me the same courtesy?"

"Probably not."

Ten shots for Remus, two for medicinal, shock-relieving, purposes.

"Ooh," Tonks said. "I know what we need."

She took her wand out of her pocket and tapped it lightly on the table. A small salt seller and half a dozen limes appeared, the limes quickly starting to make a bid for the edge of the table until Tonks stood up, swaying slightly, to collect them.

"That's a very odd snack, Tonks," he said. "If you'd said you were hungry - "

"It's a Muggle thing," she said. "You lick the back of your hand - " He watched, fascinated, as she demonstrated. He swallowed. " - then pour salt onto it."

"Why?" he said.

"Just do it," she said, voice equal parts irritation and encouragement. He stared at her. "If you don't, I will."

"Promises, promises," he said, without really thinking.

Tonks gave him a wicked grin. She reached for his hand, having to lean right onto the table to catch it in hers and raised it to her lips, her eyes never wavering from his. She lowered the tip of her tongue onto the back of his hand, licking it once, lightly. She shook the salt seller over his hand, and then set it back on the table, retreating back into her chair. She considered him for a moment, one eyebrow raised in triumph and the barest hint of a smirk on her lips before she grabbed her wand and performed a slicing spell, dividing one of the limes into four neat wedges and pushing one across the table towards him.

Eleven shots for Remus, one with weird lime and salt addition

"I take it this isn't a game your father taught you?" he said, when he'd recovered from the shock of biting into the lime.

"Oh no," she said. "I went out with this Muggle-born bloke when I was in Auror training. Except we used play another version where we'd put the salt - " Tonks paused, sniggered at either the rather horrified expression he was pulling or the memory, and then shrugged. " - well, other places."

"If I beg, do you promise not to go into more detail?" he said. Tonks gazed at him, her lips pursed and switching from side to side as she took him in.

"Hmm," she said.

"Hmm what?"

"Well, either you're jealous - " Remus shifted in his seat a little as the weight of her stare seemed to increase his body temperature. " - or you really don't like talking about that kind of thing."

"It's definitely the second option," he said.

Then he completely undid his words by laughing.

Twelve shots for Remus, two with weird lime and salt additions, one more pleasant than the other owing to a slight confusion with his sequencing.

Remus screwed his eyes shut in a tight grimace. It wasn't nearly as pleasant with the salt last and the lime first as the other way round.

He rested his elbow on the table and leaned on it heavily, propping his head up with his hand. He spent a few moments contemplating how close his face seemed to the table, and then another couple contmplating saying something very, very stupid. "All right," he said. "I'm drunk enough."

Tonks looked at him with glassy incomprehension and he realised that he'd had most of the significant part of the conversation in his own head. "To make up for being a wanker last week," he said, "I thought you could ask me something. Anything."

Tonks narrowed her eyes at him slightly, considering him - scrutinising, he thought. "And you won't be an evasive infuriating bastard?"

He chuckled, running his fingernail along a groove in the table. "I shall try my very best."

Tonks sought his eyes and held his gaze as he looked up. "You know what I'm going to ask," she said.

"Oh, you're not going to ask that," he said, looking away again.

"I'm not?"

"No," he said. "Because the more you persist in wanting to know the answer, the more I think I was right all along about why you want to know, and we both know that you don't want me to think that."

Thirteen shots each, three with weird lime and salt additions.

"You know what I hate about you?" Tonks said, into her lime as she bit it, shaking her head a little at the taste.

"I've been lead to believe there are a great many things," he said.

She let out a frustrated huff, tossing the remains of her slightly chewed lime wedge at him. He ducked, laughing, even though her aim was off and it wouldn't have hit him anyway. It landed with a vague splat on the floor behind him. "Talking to you is like playing chess," she said, letting out a long exaasperated, and yet resigned, sigh.

Remus let out a confused chuckle, unable to decide whether that was the thing she hated about him or just an aside. "How so?"

"Well, it's like you're always thinking six moves ahead."

"Am I?"

"I don't see how else you can be doing it," she said.

"Doing what?"

"Doing what you just did," she said, gesturing at him with a wave of irritation. Remus propped his head up with his hand and gazed at her, unable to fully process any particularly cohesive thoughts. Tonks narrowed her eyes at him. "But you know what I've noticed?" she said. He shook his head. "You only do it to me," she said, poking the table for emphasis, and then shaking her hand as if she'd poked a little bit harder than anticipated.

Remus' elbow slipped on the table, dropping him a little closer to the surface. "Do I?" he said, sitting up, attempting to regain his poise.

"Yes," she said. "And I want to know why."

"Maybe I'm just a git."

"You're not," she said fervently, shaking her head to accentuate the point.

He considered his options for a moment. "Maybe I just don't like you very much," he said. He expected her to fly into some kind of rage, but she didn't. She just met his eye, smiling a little.

"We both know that's not true," she said.

He knew she'd rather effectively backed him into a corner, and for a second he tried to come up with some lie, some witty retort, to get out of it, but he found he couldn't really be bothered.

Remus peered at her through his hair. "Maybe," he said, "the only reason I do it to you is because I know that the only reason you're even a little bit interested is that you can't quite figure me out."

A proverb about loose lips and ships sailed through his mind, and he wondered if he hadn't just said far, far too much.

Minutes passed in uncomfortable silence: six and a bit.

"Do you really think that?"

"Well," he said, "I've looked at it from a number of angles, and I can't imagine it's anything else."

Minutes passed in uncomfortable silence: two and three quarters.

"You think too much," Tonks said.

"Did you ever consider," he said, "that it's not me who thinks too much, but everyone else who thinks too little?"

"No," she said, the word distinctly slurred. She swayed a little in her seat, pointing at him with her empty shot glass. "It's definitely you."

He laughed.

Tonks slumped so far down in her chair that only her shoulders and head were visible above the tabletop, and he wondered if she might slide off the chair entirely. "Do you ever have fun?" she asked, head lolling slightly to one side. Ordinarily he'd have been surprised by her change of direction, her question out of the blue, but he was just relieved that they weren't talking about what they had been talking about any more.

"Of course I do."

"Fun not involving books?"

He glared at her playfully, even though he was desperately battling a grin. "I'm having fun now, actually," he said.

"Really?" she said, her face lighting up. Then she drew her forehead slowly into a frown, held up her hand to stop him replying and shook her head. "No, wait, don't answer that."

"Why not?"

"Because I don't want you to do the thing you do - which is dead annoying, by the way - where you say something, and I say 'Really?' and then you say 'No'."

Remus fixed his eyes on the table, tracing the pattern of the grain with his eyes. "I wasn't going to say no," he said quietly.

"Oh."

Minutes passed in uncomfortable silence: four and a half.

"You know it's all bollocks, don't you?" Tonks said.

"What?" he said, looking up a little startled. "What is?"

"That the only reason I'm interested is because I can't figure you out."

Remus made a noise of disbelief somewhere in the back of his throat, raising his eyebrows at her as best he could with his drunken facial muscles.

"Because, Professor," she continued, "I know you think you're some big mysterious enigma, but I can figure you out, and I have."

"Really?" he said, rubbing his forehead and slumping down onto his hand.

"Yes. You're not nearly half as complicated as you think you are."

"You think not?"

"No."

"No you don't think not or no you do?"

Her eyebrows darted together and lowered, and she looked at him open-mouthed for a moment. "What?" she said, tilting her head to one side in confusion.

"Nothing," he said, laughing slightly to himself at the look of utter befuddlement on her face. "Never mind. What have you figured out, then?" he said.

"Lots of things," she said, waving his question away. "I've figured out that if I got up and came round to your side of the table you'd completely freak out because you'd think I was going to try and kiss you again. That's why I'm sitting over here. And I've figured out that the reason you won't say whether you fancy me or not is that you do, you just think you're not supposed to or that I wouldn't want you to, or something."

Remus covered his mouth with his hand, smiling into his fingers and breathing heavily against his knuckles. "Very perceptive," he said. "But no."

Tonks' face fell, her forehead creased. "No what?" she said in a voice that was little more than a whisper.

"No I didn't know it was all bollocks."

Tonks' lips curved into a rather enchanting smile that slowly spread up her face until it reached her eyes and then she laughed softly. "Well now you do," she said.

"Yes," he said, quietly, closing his eyes briefly and offering her a small nod. "Now I do."

She was quiet for a minute, and then she leant back in her chair and looked right at him. "Can I ask you another question?" she said.

"Go on," he said, resisting the pedantic impulse to point out that she just had.

"And do you promise not to be all evasive and infuriating about it?"

"I'll try," he said, "although old habits die hard."

She let out a soft breath of laughter. "What are you going to do about it?" she said.

Remus paused, wondering what indeed he was going to do with the new information he had acquired. His eyes drifted over the remaining limes and salt on the table.

He fixed his gaze on hers, and said "Teach me how to play the other version."