Fic: a Different Kind of Friendship (HP/CSI:NY, gen)
Title: A Different Kind of Friendship
Author: loonie_lupin (ff. net)/nilitara (livejournal)
Fandom: HP, CSI :NY
Characters/pairing : Harry Potter, Adam Ross (friendship only), cameo by Mac
Rating: PG
Summary: Maybe Adam should have remembered that Harry had a mischievous streak.
For: crossovers100
Prompt: 015. Orange.
Disclaimer: The characters are the property of their respective creator. I own nothing.
015. Orange.
Today had to be the strangest day Adam had ever spent and he had known some weird days before that. He had no idea why but from the moment he had left the apartment, people had been odd and he was absolutely certain it had something to do with him.
Had someone told a story about him? He wasn’t sure what kind of story it would have been, especially since he couldn’t think of anything he had done recently that would make good gossip material, anything funny or weirder than usual by his standard. Besides, he would have known if it had been gossip; they usually always reached him, when he wasn’t the one propagating it.
Today, though, he had no idea why.
It had begun since before he even got to work - yet another reason he didn’t believe it to be gossip, or maybe he had just imagined the whole thing at this point and, thinking back on it after the rest of the day made it worse than it really was? Who knew - people had been looking at him strangely. Now, had it been one or two people here and there, he would have thought he was imagining things. Sometimes, working with cops on a regular basis, you became kind of paranoiac; risk of the job, apparently. You knew what kind of wacko inhabited the streets and you couldn’t be as naïve about the truth as most people and it made you think that anyone looking crossly at you wanted to gut you.
Seeing how many people did today, though, he didn’t think it was his overactive imagination. There must have been something that made them point at him, but he had no idea what. The worst was that it hadn’t stopped once he had reached his office. And no one, absolutely no one, had let on the reason why. It was driving him mad.
Still, as he saw people pointing and laughing, he knew he had to ask someone. He decided on Lindsay, asking her if there was something on him making him everyone’s laughing stock. He usually appreciated a joke, even when it was at his expense, but it was getting annoying. Still, she answered by the negative; he had no paper sign on his back, twigs caught in his hair or even something between his teeth. Had it been anyone else, he may have doubted their words but Lindsay wouldn’t lie to him like that so he decided, even when early morning’s event made it doubtful, that it must have been a rumor circulating in the lab.
At the beginning, it had been slightly difficult to concentrate on his work but then an very important case came in, one on which Mac needed him, and he got so involved in his work, not wanting to disappoint his boss, that he forgot about everything else. It had not been a very long case, but his part had been important and he had worked for a long time, no chuckling or whispering distracting him, preventing him from finding the solution.
Once people saw him working, they usually didn’t interrupt. Even if there was a rumor about him, they were all professional enough not to let it interfere with their work. They knew what they did was too important to have stupid things like gossip making it even more difficult and risking to compromise the solidity of their results. Nothing was more embarrassing or annoying to have a criminal be released because of a vice of procedure during the testing on the evidences and their subsequent testimony when asked to give it in a tribunal.
He had almost forgotten all about it by the time he had finished working but one of the janitor, who hadn’t been working when he had begun his shift, saw him and smiled brightly at him. He didn’t say anything, but his eyes were amused and, just like this, it all came back on his mind.
“Problem, Adam?”
He startled when he heard Mac’s voice coming from right behind him. How did his boss always manage to do that? Half the time, Adam didn’t hear him coming, which usually resulted in very awkward situation for him, especially was he wasn’t very comfortable with Mac. Nothing against him, he was a great boss, but he was almost a legend and always asked the best from people working with him and Adam was persuaded he always came short.
“No, I mean yes.”
He hesitated for a second, before his nature took over and he began to babble.
“People have been looking at me strangely all day long. I mean, at the beginning I thought I was just imagining things but it went on and on and I don’t know why. It think there may be a rumor about me running around but I don’t know what it is and I’m babbling?” he ended with a cringing look, not believe he had just said all this to Mac of all people.
Mac gave him his indulgent smile, the one that said that he didn’t really know what Adam was talking about and didn’t really care either because it didn’t matter to the investigation but he would still listen because maybe, just maybe, there would be a point to all the chatter in the end that would turn into something useful.
“I haven’t heard any rumor about you, Adam,” Mac said after a reflective pause during which Adam wondered how to make a hasty exit without attracting attention to himself. “But I think some people may be taken aback by your new bright orange hairstyle .”
Mac said it so matter-of-factly that Adam didn’t register anything wrong with the sentence at first. Then it clicked. A bright orange haircut?
“What!” he exclaimed, his jaw hanging, and he just fled, barely managing a ‘see you later’ addressed to Mac - he would panic about having left his boss in the middle of a conversation later - towards the nearest bathroom to look into a mirror.
Bright. Orange. Mac was right, it was a bright neon orange color and there was only one person who could explain to him how that color had landed in his hair when he had definitively not decided to try on a new dye.
He took his phone out, composed a number and waited for his correspondent to take the call.
“Harry, I’m going to kill you.”
Prompt table
A Different Kind of Friendship - main entry