written for @drarrymicrofic prompt “paper” | M, 463 words | thanks to the microfic queen herself @amortentiaboys for the beta!!
On paper, they’re roommates.
“Fuck, Harry, Harry, right there right there right there oh god–”
“That’s it, you’re so good, Draco, baby, you’re so good for me, come on, you can come–”
Draco sends passive aggressive paper swans to beat around Harry’s head when he forgets to take out the trash, and Harry rolls his eyes but secretly likes the attention. Whenever he trips over Draco’s shoes in the entryway he yells into the flat as loud as he can, knowing it’ll get him a row that neither of them actually cares about, but they’re both angry enough at the world to need. During pub nights they bicker until one of them cracks up laughing, and Hermione watches with sharp eyes.
“Are you still going out with that witch from the International Travel department on Friday?” she asks.
“Yeah,” Harry says, grinning as he’s jostled by Draco’s arm over his shoulders. “Why?”
Hermione looks away from him, her lips pressed thin. “I was just wondering.”
“You’re really going out with her?”
“But I didn’t think it was real.”
“Of course it’s real, it’s a date.”
“I thought you were just saying it for our friends– Oh, fuck you, Harry.”
“Get the fuck out of my room!”
Harry slowly shreds his paper napkin as Emily stares at him.
“So you’re in the Department of Magical Creatures?”
Harry grabs another napkin. “Yep.”
“Always thought you’d be an Auror.”
She blinks her big blue eyes at him. She’s pretty, and he wants to tell her, except the words keep getting stuck behind something that aches a lot like the way looking at Draco in the morning makes Harry ache. No strings, they’d said. It just made sense, when Draco ended up shaking in Harry’s bed with nightmares anyways.
“So…” Emily starts, and Harry stands up.
“I’m sorry,” he says truthfully, and then he runs.
“You’re real. What I feel for you is real.”
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Please. Please let me fix this.”
“No. I don’t want pity. I don’t want to be a second choice.”
“There was never any other choice. I’m sorry. You’re it, Draco. You’re it, I just didn’t see. I didn’t know.”
“Don’t play the ‘baby’ card.”
“But I want that. I want to call you baby like this, standing across the room from each other. Not just when we’re– be my baby. Be my sweetheart.”
“Merlin, Harry, you don’t… you don’t know how to do anything halfway, do you?”
“Please let me come over there.”
On paper, they’re roommates. But in the honey-warm light of the kitchen, Harry reaches for Draco, unraveling the narrative.
