You often don´t realize a special moment until you have lived it.
Sometimes you do, but then you don´t want the moment ever to end.
Sometimes you don´t and still want to live in the moment forever.
They were lying on the roof of their school, stargazing, even though they´d never admit it out loud. Would be very humbling, that.
There was a small shiver going down Evan´s spine, the nights are colder again as autumn comes, nights darker. So it´s the perfect time for not-stargazing.
“There´s that airplane again,” Barty says and they laugh because they both know it´s a satellite, but saying everything else that comes to mind first is easier.
“A satellite?” Evan asks 'cause they both know it is.
“Yes! Look how fast it is, gee.”
It is indeed a fast one, or just closer to earth, who knows.
A scream from both, excited one, and then laughing,
“Did you see it!?” Barty shouts and Evan says silent.
A good 5 seconds later, “Yes! No, but it was so bright.”
Barty laughs “I would´ve thought I was seeing things if you wouldn´t have seen it as well.”
They are quiet for a while again, trying to catch another shooting star. And they don´t need to talk, which is unusual for both of them.
Or extraordinary, maybe.
Maybe is the same, after all.
Barty turns to lie on his stomach, looking somewhere else. So, Evan does the same.
“Look at the moon, it´s literally so bright, what.” Evan tilts his head, looking at the moon and then Barty.
The moonlight caresses the brunette's face, making his nose and jawline look even sharper and the green highlights glow in the dark. Barty turns his head to meet Evan´s gaze, smiling at the other boy before Evan lies down on his back again.
A shooting star.
Evan closes his eyes, thinking and wishing. He doesn´t particularly believe in magic but he likes to pretend it´s real, that if you hope for something for long enough your wish may come true.
It´s a children’s fantasy, the same as the tooth fairy or Santa Claus.
But maybe it also makes him feel like a kid again. The thought of it is comforting.
So, he wishes, then opening his eyes again and looking at the stars. His phone buzzes, getting a new message. Evan takes his phone with a small laugh. “Mother the dearest, she´s asking when I´ll come home and that I should come home right now.”
He opens the messages, bringing his phone closer and sending a voice message, “I´ll be out for a bit later, there´s no lights and you can see the stars pretty fucking well.” He sent.
It seems that, either Minette Rosier was annoyed enough to have her son spending every night out doing whatever stuff they do (stargaze) or that she just ignored Evan’s voice message but she sends another message. “come home, right now!”
Evan chuckles, moving his eyes back to the sky and passing the phone to the brunette. Barty reads it through before giggling.
“She should be happy that we aren´t even high right now.”
“I think she´d have a heart attack if I came home high.”
A comfortable silence falls over them, the cool breeze of September nights crawling up and under Evan´s hoodie. It has been a good day, or a good evening, or night.
They had laughed enough that Evan´s cheeks hurt even when relaxed, it’s nice and he’s glad to the moments of happiness between everything else going on.
He knew to appreciate the little things in life ever since his father had got suddenly sick in July. The whole thing was a mess and is still a mess but it’s the new normal. Every moment at home is weighted by the chance of anything and everything going wrong, every day is filled with a chance that it´s the last with his father.
Evan almost felt bad. His father had been trying to think of new hobbies, new anything, old anything or just any ways to get to spend more time with his boy if the day was his last.
The more that Evan´s father tried, the more Evan avoided spending time at home at all. When they got the news it he was out all day and most of the night, in the morning waiting for mother to leave to work and father to go lay down and maybe sleep before getting up, grabbing breakfast and walking out of the door, his phone already dialling Barty´s number.
He was glad for Barty. Summers weren’t ideal to the brunette, blaming the ever-famous Crouch Sr and the lack of school which meant there wasn’t an obvious reason to leave the house every day. So, Evan’s new need to be out of the house as much as possible got Barty a chance to leave his house as much as possible.
The promise was to not tell anyone about his father’s sickness.
The first thing Evan did that evening was to tell Barty.
Evan wasn’t too concerned, his relationship with father had changed a lot through the years and they weren’t close.
But he cared, so he told Barty and Barty did the thing he does the best (among other things) distraction.
They walked, talking about anything and everything and it was nice, Evan found himself feeling a bit more human again.
So, they continued this till the break was over, and they continued this after the break was over.
They watch the sky, eyes flickering from star to another, trying to find shooting stars. At some moment Barty had turned to his side, probably to look at the moon which was shining fascinatingly bright but when Evan glanced at the brunette their eyes locked.
Evan couldn’t help but notice again how the moonlight caressed Barty's features, they were close enough so Evan could see the faint freckles dusting his cheeks and nose, how his hazel eyes were intensive and full of lust.
There was something else, Evan couldn’t think of what the something else was when his phone chirped with another message and Barty moved his gaze to the phone, whatever the something else was disappearing.
Evan didn´t immediately understand why, but he wanted to go 10 seconds back, give or take, and solve whatever it was in Barty’s eyes that he noticed.
Magic still wasn’t real, so that didn’t happen. But Evan knew that he’d miss this night.