Entry tags:

100quills, ficlets, harry/severus 50.3 (joanwilder), my snarrys, slash

FIC: Strangers
Title: Strangers (written for 100quills)
Author: joanwilder
Rating: PG-13
Prompt Set: 50.3
Prompt: 3
Word Count: 380
Beta: jadzialove
Summary: Harry and Snape get along just fine...except when they don't.

Strangers


They sort of just fell into it, Harry realized.

Living together.

He simply forgot to go home one night, and then never went home again.

Well, of course he did, to pack up his things, cage his cat, and lug it all back to the flat that was so much smaller than his own; they should've moved into his, but Snape wouldn't bend that far, Harry knew. He counted himself lucky that there'd been that moment of insanity, when Snape had asked him to stay in the first place.

They inhabited the four small rooms together, Snape begrudgingly making room on shelves and seats, in drawers and the bathtub. He grumbled, but Harry knew he was wanted there. It wasn't long before they could anticipate each other's moods and finish sentences that weren't their own.

All of this was fine and dandy for the most part.

Except for the times when, for no particular reason, the air became chilly between them, they spoke to each other only when spoken to, and avoided sharing anything¸ let alone each other.

Not because of a misunderstanding, nor an offensive habit; not even because Harry'd farted in bed or Snape had called his father a piss-head.

On these mercifully short and infrequent occasions, they inexplicably became strangers—exquisitely awkward with each other, sometimes to the point of embarrassment.

They'd rotate through the flat, two bodies in orbit around each other, one moving toward perigee, the other approaching apogee, and Harry would almost despair that they'd ever be normal again.

As if what they had could ever be normal.

It was cold and lonely, snorting in the darkness alone, pawing at the empty space, eyeing each other scornfully, and yet…with longing.

Harry became convinced this was why they never stayed stuck in these extreme orbits. They'd become attached to what they gave and took from each other, the things that strangers could never offer: comfort, warmth, the security of falling asleep at night beside a living, breathing person who knew your good bits, as well as your bad ones.

"God," Harry muttered, after an episode of estrangement had ended as it always did—suddenly and heatedly. "It's like we're a split personality. I wonder what sets it off?"

Snape only laughed and fucked him harder.