#why am i obsessed with silly geese. literally cannot stop writing them

[rockingrobin69]

Seriously, though

“Here,” with a giant heave, “just a little—c’mon, Potter,” pulling the arm slung around Draco’s shoulder tighter. “It’s just a bit further, you twat.”

Potter’s smile was smeared all across his face, unbearable at such a close distance. “You’re so strong,” he said, twattily. Draco resisted the urge to push him off.

“You’re making it so much harder than,” short on breath for laughing. “Come on, you big lug. There’s a warm bed waiting for you just the other side of this corridor.”

“How do you know it’s warm?” Potter asked. “Did you try it?”

“Of course. Nothing but the best at Chez Malfoy. See, if you were a normal house guest and not a silly goose—”

“Am not a goose,” indignantly. “Silly, maybe.”

Draco stopped them both halfway through the corridor. “Maybe?”

“Maybe. I’ll give you somewhat silly, on occasion.”

Eyebrow hiking: “On occasion.”

“And only somewhat.”

This grin-thing his face was trying to pull was achey around the corners. “You mean,” Draco said, “that cursing yourself with jelly-legs and getting your own flat flooded with patchouli was not an entirely silly thing to do. Only somewhat silly.”

“Certainly an occasion,” Potter said, and his eyes sparkled. “Thanks for having me, by the way.”

“Oh, sure. What else could one do when the Chosen Git wakes them up in the middle of the night in uproarious fits of laughter? It’s no problem, I mean,” when the smile on Potter’s face dimmed. “I’m happy to have you here. As long as you need.”

They both swallowed at the same time. It was quiet, middle of the night, just them here. Holding each other and standing very close. In his house coat, and his red-red cheeks, Draco felt miserably naked, too obvious.

Then Potter’s legs started twitching again, and he started laughing, again, this helpless, raw sound, and Draco was helpless too. To it, to him. With his shoulders and colourful socks and the strands of his hair that kept catching his eye.

“Here,” Draco realised he was saying, only after he brushed a few of those away. Gulped loudly. “Let’s—come on, let’s get you to that blasted bedroom.”

Potter echoed his swallow. His nervousness, for some reason. “What’s that door over there?” pointing at the nearest one.

“That one’s mine.”

“Oh.” Sucking in his bottom lip in a truly unfair display. “What if,” he started, shook his head, nodded, “wouldn’t it be easier if—”

“I’m not giving you my bed,” Draco heard himself say with pure shock, instead of, for example, “yes, of course, anything you’d like, forever actually.”

“I’m not asking you to, git. I meant, maybe we could share.”

“Share…” comprehension, rather than dawning, sank. “Share my bed?”

“God, you can be so thick,” and why did Potter sound fond? “Had to curse my own legs and still you continue to—”

“I’m the thick one, when you cursed your—wait, what?”

“Will you just,” laughing, “Malfoy, shut up, for the love of god, and take me to bed already?”

His heart splattered against his ribcage. “Take you to bed. Yes, I can do that.”

To the… guestroom, right? That’s what they were talking about.

“Malfoy,” again in that inexplicable tone, the one that went soft and low instead of—instead—“I was serious. About sharing. I’ve been serious about if for quite some time.”

The heat in his cheeks and the frenzy in his chest: “Yes?” meaning, really? Meaning, me?

“Yes.”

Melting a little, “It is closer. My bed, I mean. And, the sheets are clean.”

“Always prepared at Chez Malfoy.”

“Shut up, you absolute goose.” Nearly brave enough for a smile, tilting his head towards his room. Bursting when Potter, eyes twinkling, nodded.

He was taking the silly goose to bed. How… fortunate, really, that he opened the door. That Potter’s legs were still dancing, that the other, nearer guestroom for some reason didn’t come to mind. That Potter was serious, he said, had been for a while now, and that Draco was too, entirely too serious for him. Almost too serious to laugh when Potter’s right foot sent in a truly spectacular jig: almost.

They laughed together. Twats. Even the bedroom door laughed with them as it closed. Then the hinges of the bed as they gingerly climbed on. Then the birds in the morning, when they woke up, still holding each other’s hand.

(Hi, so, I might be doing a bit of flufftober? Grab a link to AO3 if you want to keep up with the sporadic posting schedule. Love and soft to us all).

Freely Given and Entirely True - Robin's 2023 flufftober collection