Down On His Knees

  A couple of glorious weeks off from having to go to confession had made Barty forget how much he hated it. Having to confess was the easy part, it was the penance he truly hated. Every. Single. Time. His penance was being sent to his father, who would deal with Barty as he saw fit. Confessions are sworn to be secret, they say. Confessions are anonymous, they tell him. That’s the biggest lie they’ve ever told him. Nothing Barty said or did was ever secret unless he was in his room alone. Even then he wouldn’t be surprised if his father found a way to know what he was doing. Everyone around town kept track of Barty, and if they saw anything slightly off, they told his father. He couldn’t get away with anything. Everything he said in confession his father surely already knew, except the fact that he swore in church. Thankfully, there was no one to witness that besides Evan. In the end though, it didn’t matter because he confessed that as one of his sins. 

But now he was sitting in the dark at home, twiddling his thumbs as he waited for his father to get home with an uneasy stomach. He knew that the on-duty priest had debriefed his dad by now, so the only thing he could do was wait. Barty didn’t know what his father got up to after mass was over, as Barty had always left as soon as he could. He didn’t want to stay there longer than he needed. If he stayed there too long, he would start thinking and the guilt would start to seep in. 

The side door swung open, and Barty steeled himself. He took a breath and let his face go blank. No reason to be angry, you knew this was coming. You know exactly what they told him. You know what to expect. He repeated to himself inside his head, something he had learned to do long ago. It kept him calmer while his father yelled at him, but obviously, words could only do so much. 

“You cheated on your test?” Crouch Sr. asked as he now stood in front of Barty. Barty nodded.

“And you got into an argument with your teacher?” Barty nodded again. It wasn’t really an argument, but he did get detention because of it. 

“You cursed in church today?” Barty nodded. He knew better than to say anything.

“You were hanging out with that Rosier boy too, weren’t you?” Barty went to nod when he froze. He knew about Evan? Who had seen them? He tried to think of the people in line, he didn’t remember seeing anyone who he’d thought would tell his father. Or did the priest see them? Barty could feel his heart in his hands, and he closed his fist. 

“No.” He lied. It would get him nowhere, but the last thing he wanted was to drag Evan into this mess. And hopefully, if his father thought that it was just a one time thing, what came next wouldn’t leave him struggling to breathe normally for the next couple days. 

Crouch Sr. looked down at his son, and Barty felt himself shrink in on himself. But he forced himself to look his father in the eyes, a futile attempt at showing he won’t back down. “How did I end up with such a disappointment as a son?” Barty felt his anger rise at the admonishment from his father. He wants to talk about Barty being a disappointment? When he’s the reason Barty acts the way he does? Fuck you, he wanted to say, you have no right to say anything about me. But the words died on his tongue as his father ordered,

“Get on your knees.” 

Barty sat there, his delay being his last form of retaliation before the inevitable.

“Did I stutter? Get on your knees, Bartemius.” 

God, please, if you’re listening… make him stop. Don’t let him hurt me. Barty prayed silently, his eyes still locked on his father. But God wasn’t listening then it seems, as Barty’s father finally got annoyed with him ignoring his orders, and grabbed Barty by the hair, forcefully bringing him to his knees. Barty grunted as his knees hit the floor with a thud, pain shooting up his legs. Barty tried to look down– to look away and hang his head as a sign he wasn’t fighting back anymore. His father wasn’t letting go. Barty never disobeyed his father for long. But he forced Barty to look up at him, the grip on his hair only tightening. Had this been any other time with literally any other person, Barty would’ve enjoyed this. But it wasn’t any other time with any other person.

“Don’t look away now. You wanted to defy me so badly, at least follow through on it!” He spat at Barty, spittle flying into Barty’s eye. Fucking disgusting, Barty thought internally. Barty then let his face drop into one of boredom and detachment, the fight leaving his body so that his father was the sole thing holding him upright. His head burned from the way his hair was being pulled, but it felt like a throb. Barty knew he’d feel it later, but for now… This is what he had to do. To separate himself from what was happening. He just had to go along with it. His father finished taking off his belt and folded it in two, cracking it twice. 

It didn’t do him any good to resist, he knew this. It was his punishment from God. 

Barty had to sleep on his stomach that night. It hurt that way too, because his father kicked him in the stomach while he was doubled over to make him upright again– but at least this way, he wasn’t lying on the reddening and throbbing welts on his back. He tried not to think too hard about it, instead letting his mind wander back to Evan. Barty knew that if he hadn’t denied talking to Evan, his punishment might have been less severe, but he couldn’t find it in himself to regret it. Evan, he thought. Talking to Evan had been… interesting, to say the least. The blonde boy was so much more surreal when talking to him than from afar. He was coy, but stoic– and he was so much prettier up close… Not that that mattered. He also somehow always managed to leave Barty reeling with his replies, when he did bother to say something. 

Barty wanted more. He wanted to see Evan again. He wanted to feel like that again. Evan had made Barty feel… more. More than Barty had ever really been allowed to. So he decided on a plan: To sit with Evan at lunch tomorrow and become his friend. 

***

The plan was already failing miserably. He never realized it before but… Evan didn’t sit in the cafeteria. Which meant Barty had no clue where he was. But Barty didn’t give up that easily, no. He was wandering around the school grounds in search of Evan. It was their senior year, so they were allowed to leave the cafeteria for lunch– Barty had a lot of ground to cover. First he checked the football field, a safe guess, but a wrong one. Evan wasn’t there. He wasn’t on the steps of the school either. Nor was he sitting by the fence that separated the school from the surrounding forest. By now, most people would’ve given up and concluded Evan had gone somewhere into the town for lunch. But Barty was determined. He had a feeling Evan was practical, why go so far away for lunch without any guarantee to get back to school in time? Which meant Evan was near the school, but just not on school grounds. Barty looked both ways before scaling the fence and hopping over. 

If Evan wasn’t at school, he was somewhere he most definitely shouldn’t be. The forest. To be fair, it was a spot Barty liked too. He walked a couple minutes, the opposite way than he normally did because Evan wouldn’t be there. Barty would’ve seen him long ago otherwise. And he was never so happy to be right. Evan was there, sitting up on a branch of a tree. He was just… staring. Not at Barty, but somewhere– out in the distance. He seemed so concentrated on whatever he was looking at that Barty couldn’t bring himself to say anything. Barty walked closer slowly, trying not to make too much noise. Evan looked so… ethereal. He fit in perfectly with the forest scenery around him, he looked like something out of a myth that Barty had heard or something. He couldn’t really remember. 

“You keep staring like a creep.” Evan said, causing Barty to jump a bit. He hadn’t realized Evan noticed him. Barty scratched his head, grinning up at Evan, “Didn’t realize you saw me, woops.” Evan looked down at Barty blankly, and Barty couldn’t tell if he was appraising him or zoning out again. 

After a minute of silence had passed, Barty decided to speak again. “So, whatcha doin’ out here?” He cursed himself internally because the answer was so obvious he could answer it himself. 

“Lunch.” Evan simply said, swinging his legs a bit. 

“Ah- right, right, that makes sense. It’s lunchtime.” 

Evan hummed, nodding his head. It was becoming increasingly obvious to Barty that Evan would not speak unless Barty gave him something to speak about. Lucky for Barty, his brain was always thinking of something to conversate about.

“So, why do you sit out here for lunch?” He figured that was a safe enough question. Evan studied Barty for a moment, before saying, “It’s quiet.” Two words. Barty counted that as a win. Looking around, Barty did realize it was really quiet out here. When he wasn’t talking, it was so silent all he could hear was the mix of their breaths. Evan did seem like the type to like silence.

“Yeah, it sure is. Do you not like noise?” Evan nodded. Doesn’t like noise– that doesn’t bode well for him. 

“What do you do while you’re out here?” Barty asked, deciding to climb up the tree to sit next to Evan. He scraped himself when he slipped on the way up, cursing under his breath. Evan shrugged again– Barty was starting to think Evan only came equipped with default responses– going, “Just watch.”

“Watch what?”

“Whatever I can see, Barty.” 

Barty wanted to say something witty, like No shit, but I meant what can you see, but the sound of his name on Evan’s lips made his mind go blank momentarily. “Could you see me? Lookin’ for you?” Evan watched as Barty righted himself on the branch next to Evan. He nodded once Barty could see him. 

“I was wondering what you were doing. You were looking for me?”

“Yeah, well, after yesterday it was hard not to.” He left an impression on Barty. And Barty wanted more. 

Evan raised an eyebrow at him but didn’t say anything else. At that moment, Barty wasn’t sure if he wanted to open Evan’s head to see what the hell he was thinking, or if he wanted to shake the boy senseless. He took a breath and sighed. He needed to calm down. Right now, if this was some weird game, the more he got worked up, the more Barty was losing. 

“Can you work with me here, Rosie? I’m tryin’ to be your friend.” He put on an easy grin with his words, looking the epitome of nonchalance despite how he felt on the inside. Fake it til you make it, as they say. 

Evan turned his head to Barty, just staring with his head cocked to the side in the slightest. “Why would you want to be my friend? That makes no sense.”

He was right. It made no sense. Barty wasn’t even completely sure why himself– he was just chasing a feeling without thinking much of it. So how the hell did he explain that?

Barty was silent for a beat longer than he should’ve been, but he eventually came up with an answer that seemed reasonable enough. “I’m curious about you. And just because you don’t believe what I do doesn’t mean we can’t be friends, that’d defeat the purpose of the whole love thy neighbor thing, y’know?”

Staring at Barty again– Barty was getting used to it at this point– Evan seemed to be contemplating something. What to say to that, Barty assumed. 

“The others in this town don’t seem to hold that same opinion, especially not your father. Who raised you. Usually kids adopt their parent’s values.” 

“Usually, you said. Since you’ve met me, do I seem like the type to hold my father’s values?”

Evan nodded. Well shit. 

“I’m not! I fucking hate him, I don’t just follow whatever the hell he says blindly!”

“I’ll take your word for it then. We can be friends.”

Barty blinked, not expecting it to be that easy. He thought he’d have to go back and forth with Evan at least a couple more times.  

“Yeah?” 

Evan nodded. “Yeah.”

“Oh cool, that went a lot smoother than I thought it would.” Barty laughed, running his hands through his hair. 

“What do you like?” Barty opened his mouth to speak but paused. Huh? “What do you mean?” He asked, confused as to why Evan asked.

“I mean, what do you like? What interests you?” 

“Yes- I understood that part, but why are you asking all of a sudden?” 

Evan shrugged, looking back off into the distance. 

“I thought friends were supposed to know things like that about each other.”

Oh- Yeah that checks out. “You could’ve just said that.” Evan opened his mouth to say something, probably that he did just say that, but Barty kept going before he had a chance.

“I like lots of things, it’s hard to really just list them off all at once though. I like sunny weather, music, smoking, playing the drums– it’d probably be easier to tell you the things I don’t like, rather than the things I do like. Like, I don’t like my father, nor do I like the snow. I also don’t like organized shit, it looks weird to me, and I definitely don't like this town, it can go fuck itself. I don’t like wool, and I don’t like suits. I don’t like the smell of grass, and I don’t like milk or water-”

“You don’t like water?” Evan cut him off, his tone sounding more confused than his face looked. 

Barty nodded, “It tastes bad.”

“It’s water.”

“And your point is?”

Evan blinked. Barty had confused him, and he was proud of himself. For once he left Evan speechless– which, if he thought about it, wasn’t that big of a feat. 

“Nevermind. Continue.” Evan eventually sighed, probably deciding that it wasn’t worth going back and forth about. 

Barty shook his head, not really having anything else to add. He wasn’t that interesting of a person. “That’s all basically. I don’t have much going for me. So tell me about you. What do you like?”

And had Barty known the response he would get, he would’ve asked much sooner.

“I like science, specifically biology. I like looking at and deconstructing living organisms. It’s interesting. When it comes to humans especially. Most people don’t think twice about it really, but there’s so much going on inside of us, and practically no one questions it unless they’re doctors. Like, did you know that there’s a bone that supports your eyeball called the orbital floor? It basically protects your eyes if– by some weird way– you get hit directly in the eyeball, instead of your eyeball itself rupturing, the orbital floor breaks instead, therefore saving the eyeball. I’ve always wondered if there’s a way to rupture the actual eyeball without breaking the orbital floor, but there’s no way for me to find it out for sure. Animals can only stand in for humans so much…”

Barty had never heard Evan speak so much, let alone so expressively. His eyes lit up in this way that Barty didn’t completely understand, considering the subject, but it made Barty want to ask even more about it. Just to see Evan speak like that more. Apparently Evan had continued on, but Barty hadn’t heard it. He was too busy thinking about Evan to actually listen to the last part of what he said. 

“Barty?” Evan poked him, trying to get his attention. Barty jumped and lost his balance, flailing his arms as he fell backwards off the branch. Evan watched with wide eyes as he fell. 

“Fuck-!”

Barty hit the ground with a hard thud. Luckily, the branch hadn’t been that high, so he was pretty sure he didn’t break anything. But-

“Fucking hell, that hurt! Evan, what the hell?” He glared up at Evan, who was still perfectly sitting on the branch. He shrugged, not even looking the least apologetic. 

“I was just trying to get your attention. I didn’t know you’d do all that.”

Barty huffed, “Bitch. You could’ve just called my name. You didn’t have to poke me if I obviously wasn’t paying attention!”

Evan shrugged again, “Are you hurt? Any fractures?”

Barty stared at him for a moment before huffing– of course that’s all he cared about– not if Barty was okay or anything like that. 

“Nothing’s broken, sorry to break it to you. Just hurts like a bitch.”

Evan had the nerve to look slightly disappointed, sighing a bit. “That’s too bad. I could’ve tried to fix it myself.” 

Fix it himself? Images of Barty lying down on a hospital bed and Evan being his doctor flashed in his head… And while Evan wasn’t actually a doctor, or even medically certified, it was an enticing thought. Maybe getting hurt around Evan wouldn't be that bad after all. 

“You look upset now.” Evan pointed out, making Barty fix his face. He hadn’t realized he’d been so obvious about what he was thinking. 

“I’m not upset, just disappointed I didn’t break anythin’ now. Would’ve been fun to have you fix me up.”

He looked like he was sizing Barty up, and Barty wasn’t sure if he should say anything else. But Evan made the choice for him by speaking, 

“You like the idea of being treated by me. Would you like it if I tested on you too?”

Now see, Barty hadn’t been thinking that hard into it, but he was starting to think that if it was Evan, he’d like whatever the boy did to him– This was bad. Oh, this was so bad. It’s only been two days and Evan’s managed to get Barty to start letting down the barrier he’d put up within himself. He couldn’t like a boy- and it's not like it was anything other than interest right now… Right?

“Yeah,” He nodded, despite the swirling thoughts in his head, “I probably would.”

Evan laughed a bit, and Barty ignored the thought that he’d do anything to hear more of it, “You’re weird.”

“Says you, of all fucking people!” Barty blinked twice before laughing at Evan with a scoff, “You're like the weirdest one in this damn town.” 

Shaking his head, Evan jumped down from the branch, walking over to where Barty was sitting on the ground. He didn't offer Barty a hand, just standing there. “Actually the weirdest one in this town would be my sister. She would be offended that you said that.” 

In all honesty, Barty wasn't really surprised about that. From what he'd heard and seen of Pandora, she did seem like the type to take pride in something like that. Wear it as a badge of honor, that type of thing. Barty rolled his eyes, dusting himself off as he stood. He'd gotten dirt and leaves all over his back and ass, and he was not happy about it. He'd been planning to reuse those pants at least once more that week, but now he couldn't. 

Now standing face to face with Evan, he realized that he was taller than Evan. Not by very much, probably no more than an inch, but he was still taller nonetheless. “I'm taller than you.” He pointed out, not even sure why it really mattered. 

“So?” Evan asked, as if trying to figure out where Barty was going with this. 

“Nah, I just didn't realize until now. That's all,” he then grinned, ruffling Evan’s hair, “You're short, Rosie.” 

Evan slapped his hand away with a curt, “Don't touch me.” 

Barty was stunned for a moment, surprised at the force, before making a mental note. Doesn't like to be touched— ignoring that. 

“Sorry sorry.” He apologized but it was so flippant it was up for debate whether it was truly an apology. 

“And our heights don't matter. You're barely an inch taller than me.”

“Awww it sounds like someone's upset that they're short.” 

“I will slap you again, Barty.”

“Yeah, well jokes on you I'm into that.” 

And once more Barty felt proud that he'd managed to catch Evan off guard. He took a minute before finally deciding on asking, “You get turned on by being slapped?”

Barty nodded, an easy grin on his face, “Yeah, it's hot. Gotta have someone to put me in my place, y’know?” 

Evan stared at Barty for a moment, something like amusement shined in his eyes, “Good to know.” 

Barty opened his mouth and closed it again, not sure what to say to that. He wasn't sure what he'd been expecting but it wasn't that. Though, Barty quite literally was saved by the bell, as the loud ringing noise filled the silence between them. 

“I guess it's time for you to go back now, huh.” Evan commented, jerking his head in the direction of the school.

“Me? I mean yeah, but what about you?” 

“I'm skipping.” 

“Ah, okay then.” He shrugged, trying to sound nonchalant about the fact that he was disappointed they couldn't walk back together. But maybe that was for the better… He couldn't be seen with Evan again, or his father wouldn't be happy. Especially not after he lied. 

“I'll see you tomorrow then?” Barty asked, knowing he'd come back whether Evan said no or not. 

Evan nodded, his face back to its usual blankness. 

And since Evan didn't say anything else, Barty took that as his cue to leave, walking away from something far more interesting than calculus.