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)
Rating: PG
Summary: Harry hated Adam’s music but he loved the effect it had on Adam.
For: crossovers100
Prompt: 037. Sound.
Disclaimer: The characters are the property of their respective creator. I own nothing.
Prompt table
A Different Kind of Friendship - main entry
037. Sound.
Harry had no illusion about being a typically nineteen year old out there. The way he had grown up, the things he had seen and done, the fact that he spent most of his teen years in the magical world, all of this made him a thousand miles away from your typical nineteen year old male. He knew it and it usually didn’t bother him at all. He didn’t even really notice it anymore.
Still, sometimes, at random, he would see something happening that seemed to come so naturally to those doing it, or hear about an event that sounded so obviously normal to those who were talking and yet, to him, it would appear so completely alien that he couldn’t help seeing the differences between the other young people and him.
Listening to Adam’s music was a damn good example of this.
The kind of music Adam listened to - and to be fair, Harry wasn’t sure he would even have called that music at all - sounded like noises to him, very annoying noises at that. He may have been a bit old school on this matter, but he tended to like for his music not to drown completely the lyrics and for the lyrics to mean something and not be screeching at the audience. He liked them sung with the heart; he didn’t mean love songs especially, but tunes that obviously meant something to those who were singing.
Adam’s music, on the other hand, was something that was very in vogue with the young crowd today. Harry knew that and he was aware he was the strange one out there for not liking it but there was just nothing to appreciate for him in that kind of music. He just hated it. He couldn’t have explained the real reason why, he just knew he did and it wouldn’t change at all.
That was why he couldn’t help grimacing when he entered the apartment that evening and heard the drumming beat of music coming from the living room. Usually, Adam tended to listen to that kind of album in his room and not the common part of the flat. It wasn’t that Harry had told him to, he hadn’t, but Harry guessed that Adam may have realized he didn’t really like it and chose not to subject him to this when he could listen perfectly well in his own room.
With the sound as loud as it was, Harry wasn’t surprised to see Adam hadn’t heard him come in. Harry had difficulty to even hear himself think, he thought that a flock of death eaters could have crashed in and he wouldn’t have been any the wiser. Good thing he wasn’t a thief, otherwise everything would have been gone from the apartment before Adam even realized someone had been there.
He went to the living room to see what Adam was doing exactly and had to hold back a chuckle. Well, that wasn’t a very common sight. Adam was dancing around to the rhythm of music, though Harry wasn’t sure he could call that dancing. He was mostly moving around, more or less in synch with the beat, and using a spatula as a micro, mimicking a singer as his lips moved along the words.
Harry should have made his presence known but he decided not to, staying silent and observing his friend’s little show without interrupting. He knew that, at one point or another, Adam would realize he wasn’t alone anymore. Of course, by this point, he would probably be mortified at having been caught like this. Still, Harry was enjoying this way too much, enough to ignore that the screeching sound was destroying his eardrum at any rate.
And if there was only one redeeming quality that Harry could find in Adam’s music, it was the way it could get the other man to loose himself in it.
Adam was haunted by something, something in his past. He did hide it fairly well, buried underneath the jokester façade and the downpour of words that always fell from his mouth but Harry, with the live he had lived, had always been able to see through it. He just didn’t know what was there and probably wouldn’t ever unless Adam decided to tell him because he knew you just didn’t ask that kind of things, you let the other decide the moment he felt ready to talk. Losing himself in the music, though, Adam lost that haunted look and became more carefree. Sometimes Harry wished he still had the possibility to fly as much as before because flying had always been his own way to feel this carefree for a few moments.
It took until the very last note of the song for Adam to turn around, as if giving his imaginary audience a view of his back. It was only then that he saw that Harry had come in at some point during his impromptu performance. As Harry had guessed, he was embarrassed and you could almost see the red in his cheek.
“Harry! I hadn’t heard you come in. I didn’t think you would come back so soon. I’m sorry about the music, I know you don’t like it. If I had known you were coming home, I would have stopped it. Please don’t tell anyone about that, I don’t think they would ever let it go.”
Harry chuckled out loud this time around. Adam may have been more and more at ease with him, that didn’t mean the nervous babble would stop anything soon.
“It’s fine Adam. I had noticed you hadn’t heard me coming. You were quite a bit into your performance,” Harry joked and Adam ducked his head. “But seriously, you have nothing to be sorry for. It’s your apartment to. You have a right to listen to your music, even if I’m here. But do me a favor and don’t do it twenty-four/seven.”
Adam shrugged.
“I know you don’t like that kind of music,” he said as an explanation and Harry knew he had been right earlier about Adam always going to his room with his earphone.
“No, I don’t really like it. But it’s you, it’s very much you and that mean that I will learn to appreciate it in time, because I like the effect it has on you. I don’t think you realize how different a person you are when you’re lost in your own world. And I would like to get to know this Adam too, on top of the one I already know and like.”
Harry wasn’t sure his explanation made a lot of sense; to him, it seemed pretty confuse. However, the way Adam’s face lit up when he said it? He probably understood completely.