"Fucking car alarms. If it's so hard to get your alarm fixed, then don't fucking have a car. It's the middle of the night, for fuck's sake."
Draco rubs his eyes and stares at the ceiling, the sound of the car alarm from down the street having woken him up for the fourth night in a row. He knows exactly which car it is - the blue one with the scratch on the door, the one that sits in front of the brown building and is always parked too close to the damn fire hydrant. Draco doesn't know about cars, but he thinks it's either a Ford or a Toyota. It's probably a Toyota. Of course the bastard would own a Toyota. Draco doesn't know why it makes sense, but it does.
He sits up in bed and bangs his head against the headboard. He has to be up early tomorrow - or today. Whichever. Either way, he has paperwork waiting for him and bad coffee to drink and this damn car alarm won't let him get the six hours of sleep he needs to be able to deal with Blake from two rooms down at the office because Blake from two rooms down is always so goddamn perky in the morning that it makes Draco want to jump out of the window, and now this car alarm is making him want to jump out of the window and his health insurance doesn't cover attempted suicide.
The car alarm is still going, and Draco finally looks at the clock to see exactly how much time is left before he has to officially get up. 3 A.M. 3 A.M.
Why does the car alarm always go off at three in the fucking morning?
Either fate is cruel, or a very punctual, very unskilled burglar just won't quit, and the latter certainly doesn't sound right to Draco - the Toyota isn't that nice.
He sighs and pulls back the thin sheet he uses for a blanket in summer and sets his feet on the floor. He glares out the window in the direction of the car and hopes that the asshole himself at least woke up because of the alarm, too.
He puts his head in his hands for a second before deciding that maybe a glass of water would be a good idea right now - and hopefully, by the time he comes back that alarm will have been dealt with and he can drift back into a semi-peaceful sleep and dream about things that had nothing to do with annoying car alarms or Blake from the office.
He sleepily walks through his small apartment, not bothering to turn on the lights, a habit that's given him more stubbed toes than he can count, but Draco Malfoy is nothing but stubborn. He pads through his small living room, the carpet slightly scratchy against his bare feet, and passes by the photograph of his father glaring at him from the top of his desk. For the millionth time, he decides to change the picture in that frame to a different, less aggressive (in theory) picture of his father, even though he knows he won't.
Running his hands through his hair, he heads over to the kitchen. He stands in the doorway, feeling around a moment for the light switch on the left-hand side of the wall. When the lights flip on, he sees it.
A spider.
A fucking spider.
Just what he needs.
He blinks for a moment, his brain still booting up like a computer from the 90s, and then blinks again. Then, he jumps about three feet into the air, and the scream he lets out sounds surprisingly (unsurprisingly) close to that of a nine-year-old girl. He's sure his cousin Teddy probably doesn't even scream that high.
But none of that matters because holy hell there's a fucking spider in his kitchen and it looks as big as a grapefruit.
(It probably isn't that big, but Draco does have a flair for the dramatic).
He backs up until his back hits the side of the couch, not taking his eyes off of the eight-legged demon from hell for even a second. It was on his stove, now he's going to have to disinfect the entire damn thing when he gets home tomorrow - that is, if he doesn't abandon the house and all his belongings and just leave everything to the spider, including the picture of his father that he can feel is judging him from behind his back.
He takes a deep breath, staring at the spider stretch out one of its legs. How does one kill a spider? Will bug spray work or will it just piss it off? Does he even have bug spray? Can he hit it with something? No, hitting it with something will require him to get close to it, and he's not doing that. He looks around the kitchen and sees a broom sitting in the corner.
A broom. Maybe the broom can kill it? Draco nods his head and takes another deep breath.
"God, if I can make it through the night without the spider eating me, I swear I'll be nice to Blake from two doors down. For, well, a day, but still."
He stands up straight, his eyes still not leaving the stove, and begins to walk very slowly toward the broom. Luckily, it was near the door instead of on the side that had the hell-spawn, so he could easily grab it. He inches closer and closer to the doorway, taking one step at a time. He takes a step back and whimpers when the spider waddles over to the right burner. He takes a moment, breathes, and steels himself once more, taking a few more steps toward the broom. After what feels like an eternity, he finally reaches it and wraps his hand around the handle.
Now, for the hard part.
Killing the fucking thing.
He leans back against the wall that the broom was propped up against and lets out a long, loud breath. He can do this. He's twenty-nine, for God's sake, he can kill a goddamn spider.
He takes a few steps toward the stove, his heart pounding so hard that he's sure the spider can hear it. (If the spider can hear, anyway. Do spiders have ears? Can they hear things? Why does he think about the most irrelevant shit in stressful situations?)
He's almost three feet away from the spider now, and he has the broom raised in the air. He's ready. He can do this. He just needs to smack it down with as much force as possible. He can kill it. He takes a deep breath through his nose and aims, slamming the broom down on the stove.
It lands next to the spider.
The next five seconds are a blur of movement. The spider jumps to the left, Draco screams and scrambles back, the broom hits the floor with a disappointing clang, and the spider then starts to scurry around on the oven top, and the goddamn car alarm is still going off. Draco quickly shoots up, almost falling over in his haste, and darts out of the kitchen, through the living room, and straight to the front door. He takes the keys from the bowl on the table beside it and unlocks it before hurrying outside, slamming the door behind him.
He finally stops to take a breath when he hears the lock click into place. He places his forehead on the cool wood of his front door, hating himself a little, and he can't help thinking that if he lived in a time when "the survival of the fittest" was more relevant, he'd have probably died a long time ago. Or he'd have been the only one to live because he ran like a track star when he was scared. Either way.
He turns away from his door and leans his back against it. What the hell is he going to do now? It's three in the morning, and a spider the size of Wales has taken over his house. He has no cell phone, no shoes, no bug spray, and no dignity. The picture of his father is probably laughing at him right now. He wouldn't be surprised if it was.
He runs a hand over his face and tries to think of a solution. His eyes drift to the door in front of him.
Harry Potter. Green eyes, curly hair, strong hands, and a smile that makes Draco's knees weak every time they see each other in the halls. They've only talked a handful of times, and half of those times Draco barely heard what the other man was saying because he was too busy trying not to fall at his feet, because not only would that be embarrassing, it would also imply something that Draco would rather not imply.
Draco sighs. Waking up your extremely attractive neighbor and asking him to go kill a spider in your house because your aim is shit is not the kind of icebreaker he was hoping for. Nevertheless, hell-spider is in his kitchen, and he needs to get back to sleep, so he walks over and knocks on the door. To his surprise, Harry opens the door rather quickly. His hair is a mess, but that's less of a surprise, considering that Draco doubts the man even owns a comb in the first place.
"Um, hi. Sorry, I hope I didn't wake you," Draco says shyly, giving Harry an apologetic smile.
"No, don't worry. You didn't wake me up, the car alarm did. That's, what, the third time this week?"
"Fourth," Draco grits out bitterly, the spider momentarily forgotten in his anger at the blue Toyota-Ford-thing.
The corners of Harry's mouth twitch up in an adorable grin and Draco's problem of trying not to fall at his feet starts up again.
"So, did you need something? Cup of sugar, perhaps?" Harry says, his grin widening.
Thoughts of the demon-spider come back, and Draco shakes his head. He can feel his cheeks heat up in a blush and he averts his gaze to the floor, instead looking at the socks on Harry's feet.
"Um, well, you see... I have a bit of a... problem."
Draco wants to bang his head against Harry's doorframe when his grin drops and is replaced with a look of concern.
"Problem? Is everything ok? How can I help?"
Damn helpful attractive men. One word, and they're ready to drop everything (though Draco doesn't think Harry has much pressing business to attend to at three o'clock in the morning) and help. Chivalry is supposed to be dead, not standing in front of him in plaid pajama bottoms. The nerve.
Draco rubs the back of his neck and reluctantly looks up at Harry.
"There's a, uh - I have a, um - " He takes a deep breath. "There is a spider the size of a small car in my kitchen and I was wondering if you could help me kill it. Please," he says all in one breath. His blush deepens when Harry lets out a soft laugh and smiles.
"Oh, so that was you screaming? I thought it was Mrs. Smith's twin daughters."
"I - What?"
Harry shakes his head, smile still on his face, and walks out of his apartment, shutting the door behind him.
"Come on, lead the way. Show me this giant spider."
Draco walks over to his door and opens it, sticking his head in and carefully scanning the floor and the table beside the door to make sure they're spider free. He then moves back over the threshold.
"It's, well, it's in there," he says, pointing toward the darkness in his house. "You can go first."
Harry laughs a little before walking inside, turning on the light when he does. Draco follows behind him.
"Now, where was the spider?" he asks, looking around the living room.
"In the kitchen. It's in through there, past the living room."
"Alright, you stay here, and I'll take care of it. Don't worry." He gives Draco a reassuring smile that does things to Draco's insides that are rather embarrassing to think of in front of the picture of his father.
He watches Harry walk over to the kitchen and disappear. He crosses his arms over his chest and begins tapping his foot, visibly anxious. He also looks around every few seconds in case the spider decided to invade the living room while he was gone.
He hears a loud laugh coming from the kitchen. "Really? This little guy? Draco, it's a baby."
"A baby Godzilla, maybe!" he says back. Clearly, Harry was out of his mind if he thought that monstrosity was a baby. Cute, but completely out of his mind.
"I got it. I'm coming out, don't be alarmed."
Draco turns to look at the doorway to the kitchen, relief flooding through his body. The feeling was short-lived - it came back as soon as he saw Harry walk in with a very alive spider in one of his nice glasses with a small plate over the rim. He jumps back and his back hits the wall.
"What in the hell? Are you mad? It's still alive, Harry!"
Another grin - apparently Draco was very amusing tonight - graces Harry's features. He brings the glass up to eye level, with the spider's legs tapping against the side. Draco is going to have to burn that glass now. Or break it. Or throw it out the window. Maybe he can go out the window with the glass; that sounds like a nice idea.
"You know, we have this family friend, his name is Hagrid. He's a zoo keeper. He loves animals and insects and basically anything non-human, and when I was younger he taught me that these little guys are much more afraid of us than we are of them."
"I beg to differ," Draco squeaks out, making Harry laugh again.
"Well, maybe you're the exception, then. Don't worry, I'm taking him downstairs and releasing him into one of the bushes. He won't bother you again, I promise."
Draco straightens, very happy at the idea of having the spider out of his house. He smiles at Harry. "Thank you. And again, I'm very sorry for bothering you so late at night. I just, I didn't know what else to do." He gives him a small smile. "I'll make it up to you. Um, I'll make you something. A cake, maybe. Pie. Cookies. Something."
Harry's eyebrows raise. "You bake?"
"Well, good enough not to kill you. I think."
"How about instead I take you out to lunch one day and we call it even?"
And Draco's legs almost give out. Again. He almost thinks he's hallucinating, that the spider has induced some sort of arachno-psychosis. But with the expectant way Harry is looking at him, he knows he didn't just imagine it. Harry just asked him out.
And he's standing there like an idiot gaping like a fucking fish.
"Yes. Yes, that could work. I mean, I'd like that. We could do that," he babbles out and Harry nods his head.
"Say, Saturday?"
Draco nods, "Yes. Yes, that works."
"Great. Now, I'm going to get this little guy back out into nature. I'll see you tomorrow. Oh, and I'll wash the glass before I return it, don't worry," he says as he walks out the door.
"Thank you again."
"No problem, really."
He starts down the hallway, the spider still tapping against the sides of the glass. He then pauses for a moment.
"Oh, and Draco?" he says, turning back.
"Yes?"
"I'd be happy to come over and save you from spiders anytime." He gives Draco one last butterfly-inducing smile and continues down the hallway, leaving Draco a blushing mess as he closes his door.
Thank God for spiders.