“You’re hurt-”
Barty’s never heard Evan’s voice so fervently panicked.
Maybe he’s imagining it, actually, because there’s no reason for Evan to be so stressed. It’s just a little gash, right? Maybe it’s just a gash, maybe he’s not delusional right now, maybe he’s not hallucinating the voice of his best friend, soothing him solely with just the incessant worry in his tone.
“Barty, Barty. Can you hear me? Merlin, fuck, please tell me you can hear me. I swear, I swear to fuck, Barty. Not now. Not like this-”
Barty’s vision was fading in and out, but from the familiar creaking of wooden floorboards, and the feeling of a mattress beneath his back, he can piece together that they’ve somehow ended up in Evan’s bedroom, of the apartment the two share. At that, though, he can’t help but laugh. In his state of complete incapacitation, Barty finds Evan bringing him to his own room so fucking hilarious. Evan doesn’t take notice for a few seconds, throwing his hands about in a panic, his movements blurred together in Barty’s view. Despite Barty not being able to tell, Evan was looking for some kind of potion to maybe heal him even just a little bit, maybe ease his pain, make him less.. delirious.
Aware the adrenaline is making Barty numb, Evan found himself taking just a second or two to take in the sight of Barty lay on his back, on Evan’s bed, cackling mindlessly with an alarming amount of blood gushing down his chest. Evan drank the image in like he had been dehydrated for weeks, on the cusp of withering away from the drought he’d been experiencing for months, years.
The sound of an unearthly screech of pure, unfiltered pain broke Evan out of his small trance, with the source of the noise of course being his best friend. The adrenaline must’ve worn off. Evan sprung back into nursing.
It didn’t take too long for Barty to calm down. Evan had learned about potions from the best, from Regulus, and so their stock was always full and ready for situations such as this. The amount of pain and the blood left him dazed and out of it, though he was well enough to move whilst Evan fumbled around and tried to rid of the blood stained sheets. “My poor bed-” he had mumbled, sitting Barty up in the section of his bed currently bare from his comforter. “Merlin, Barty, you do just bleed in the most inconvenient of places, don’t you?”
“Can I sleep in here tonight?”
Evan had never heard Barty’s voice so unbelievably.. Frail. Vulnerable.
A lot of the time, Evan forgets that underneath all of the bravado, and worrying behaviour, Barty has that same, softer interior to himself. Evan forgets, and he theorises that most others do as well, that Barty is just like them, in the way that he needs those harder exterior layers peeled back, slowly, and gently, with more patience than with which you would craft a watch. And in that moment of realisation, Evan’s heart cracked, slowly splintering away, left to rattle around within his ribcage forevermore.
Barty sounded almost childlike. Innocent, frail. Like he would shatter at the simple rejection of Evan saying no, despite enduring that rejection every other time he had asked in the months that they had resided together.
So Evan said yes.
He said yes, and he finished making his bed, gently moving Barty between the areas that make it easiest for him to flatten his sheet without fault. Evan said yes, and he helped Barty change out of his clothes, dragging his fingers along bare skin and trying his best to just test the waters of what Barty gave to him, instead of diving in head first and letting himself get distracted. Barty needed him, and Evan could pine for him as much as he wanted; it wasn’t going to happen. Barty was still practically inebriated by all of the potions, all of the pain; his speech slurred, his movements slow and lazy, and Evan supported him in everything. Held his arms up over his head to take his shirt off, to put a clean one on. Lifted his legs to get his shoes off, listened to his every wish that slipped from his lips and obeyed like his life depended on it.
It didn’t take long for the two of them, together, to end up in the bed and comfortable; or as comfortable as you can get with a wound still healing on his chest. Evan sat, his back against the headboard, and Barty was not hesitant in the slightest to cuddle himself right up to his best friend, head in his lap, on his side so his face was buried just gently into Evan’s lower stomach.
Admittedly, Evan froze. He wasn’t sure. Is he ever sure, when it comes to Barty? His mind asks a thousand similar questions ran through his mind at once, before the inevitable realisation that those feelings, those feelings from when he was thirteen, watching Barty start to realise his feelings for Regulus, those feelings from when he was fourteen, coaching Barty through trying to make Regulus his boyfriend, those feelings from when he was fifteen and watching Barty get his heartbroken over and over and over, knowing he could treat him better. Those feelings from when he was sixteen, watching Barty obsess over Regulus’ dark mark. Those feelings from when he was seventeen, when Regulus Black went missing, and Barty and Evan were left to their own devices without him. Those feelings from when he was eighteen, and Regulus Black was announced dead, and Evan watched Barty drown his sorrows in every coping method but the right one, watched him mourn the love he never truly received, gave him the love and attention he needed when Barty was too inebriated to think straight beyond the loss of Regulus, and continued to do so even when he got no guidance himself on how to navigate losing his best friend. Those feelings weren’t gone, those feelings weren’t gone at all. The feelings at nineteen, watching his best friend heal from an unknown injury, having called for him to come and rescue him from whatever scenario he’d been in. Evan’s feelings, at nineteen, still choked his heart, his lungs, his ribs, and squeezed them together at every instance in which Barty was in the vicinity.
“Put your arms around me..” Barty’s voice, once again, drew Evan from his place of thought, pulling him out from the rabbit hole in his brain he’d fallen down. It was the most coherent sentence Barty had said since the request to sleep in Evan’s bed, about thirty minutes beforehand. Everything else was just groans, mumbles, whining, incoherent grumblings complaining of the pain. But throughout all of that, Evan had been doting on Barty’s every wish, sympathetic to his pain, and that wasn’t going to change now.
Barty had moved, and Evan, holed within his thoughts, hadn’t realised. His body was rested gently between Evan’s legs, his head leaned on Evan’s chest with the angle he was laying.
“Evan… please?”
That tone was back again, that broken, vulnerable speech with those big, wide eyes. Evan had always adored his eyes; so he obliged. He slipped his arms around Barty’s middle, careful not to brush the wound he knew was still recovering; he could still hear the small noises of skin repairing.
With Evan’s arms around him, Barty relaxed. His whole body gave way, like this was all he’d been waiting for, for years.
Evan found it odd. No crude comments, no joke about the two of them shagging, not even anything about Reg. It was off, it was strange. The last time things were like this, was.. Well, it was every time Barty was drunk enough to want to sleep in Evan’s bed. And it was the last time, the first time it happened, that Evan had said yes. And even then, Barty asks to cuddle, and then he’s out. He’s gone, and he sleeps till morning, takes a pain potion, and repeats the process. But now, Barty is almost limp, and he’s silent, except for the sound of his slightly laboured breathing. His eyes weren’t shut, but instead gazing up at Evan as if waiting for him to say something. Waiting for one of them to break the silence.
“What? What do you want?” Evan’s tone was a little harsher than intended, and he grimaced in response to hearing himself. He didn’t apologise - him and Barty never apologise to each other.
“I miss your glasses..” Barty’s voice was that same vulnerable tone, raw and full of pain, full of the ache for Evan to just keep talking to him. And Evan can see that, painfully. “I miss them, where are they?”
Evan couldn’t bring himself to lie, or to just ignore him. He just couldn’t. He never could. “They’re in the drawer there, in their case.” He was weak for him. His heart was pounding, and he was certain Barty could feel it, could hear it in his chest, could see how the beating was ringing in his ears. Barty was sparing him the teasing, though, instead taking that little bit of energy he had remaining to reach into Evan’s bedside drawer, remove his glasses from their case, and slowly slide them onto Evan’s face. Evan had to adjust them, untucking his hair and pushing them further up his face.
“There..” Was all Barty muttered, a smile twinging his lips, wistful and almost nostalgic in a way; even though every time Evan had worn his glasses over their eight years of knowing each other, Barty had laughed at him, mocked him, and eventually led him to stop wearing them altogether. “That’s better..” Barty mumbled, energy depleted, and began to nestle his way closer into Evan’s chest.
“Barty, don’t..” Evan paused, about to protest Barty falling asleep when Evan hadn’t even changed yet, but after only a moment did he exhale, a deep sigh, and shake his head. “Nevermind.. Sleep, go on.. You need it..” But by the time he was finished, and the final words had left his mouth, Barty’s breathing had already evened itself out, a small snore leaving his lips.
With an internal decision just to give in, Evan leaned his head back against the headboard of his bed, trying his best to resist the internal urge to gaze at Barty until he himself was relaxed enough to sleep. It would be the second time he’d done it. And, in Evan’s mind, he silently hopes that time won’t have been the last, then dismisses that thought before it can develop into anything gayer than it already is.
Evan took one last look at his slumbering best friend, the slumbering best friend he just wished would apologise, take back any wrong doing he’d ever done, and for once kiss him as more than just a drunken attempt at a shag. He felt that ache in his chest one more time, that heat that turns bitter and stings him, cuts him deeper than he’d ever been affected before. But it’s fine, he’s fine, is he not? He’s alive, Pandora’s alive, Barty’s alive, he holds out hope that Regulus might be, somewhere. What else does he need? What else could he possibly want?
A hug, maybe. Maybe a kiss. Maybe a chance to talk about how much he misses his best friend. Maybe for someone to take some interest in how he’s feeling, rather than catering to Barty’s every need without the slightest bit of reciprocation.
With a flinch, Evan says it to himself, feeling as though maybe eight years is a sufficient enough time to be able to admit it. He loves him. He’s in fucking love with Barty Crouch Jr. A groan escaped Evan’s lips, with a grimace on his face to match; only silenced by Barty’s stirring from the sudden change in volume.
“Fuck you, Crouch.” Evan mumbles it right to the boy in his arms, resisting the urge to get up and go smoke, or go get a drink, or go and light something on fire or something else destructive. If this was three years ago, he would’ve ran straight to Pandora, cried in her arms, not even having to ask for her to understand; she would’ve immediately. But she’s happy, he knows that. And they’re on opposite sides of the war. She probably doesn’t even want to see him. Evan’s head once again hits the headboard, with a soft thud, and his eyes well with tears. Not at the pain of the situation at hand, but perhaps the pain of his situation overall.
That’s it, he decides, all of a sudden, taking no care when shoving Barty up and off of him, getting out of the bed and taking one, big, deep breath. Barty groaned, head hitting the mattress, rolling over onto his side to look at Evan. “Rosier? What are y-”
“You’re taking the piss out of me.” Evan admits, sudden. Back towards Barty, but his shirt coming off ‘to change’. As if he’s casual about this, as if it’s something he hasn’t been thinking about it for years now. “You’re taking the piss, and I’m fucking done, do you hear me? Done, Barty. I’m not playing your fucking nanny anymore.” He was practically spitting, and it quite clearly took Barty by surprise a little bit, with him and coughing and laughing, accompanied closely by a small wince and a hand placed on his chest.
“The fuck are you on about, Rosie? Come on, I’m not-”
“Whatever you’re going to say, you are, Barty. Every single fucking night. You drink, you leave, I come get you. You cry, you whine, you’re hurt, I take care of it, you go to bed. I’m fucking sick of it. Do you know that? I’m fucking done.”
What Barty found was the worst part was that Evan wasn’t yelling. He wasn’t raising his voice. He was just.. Cold. He’d never seen him do that before, just switch off and become utterly numb. No volume increase, just a hiss of nothing but venom. It reminds him of Regulus. Maybe that’s where Evan got it from. “Is this a dream? I’m dreaming, aren’t I? ‘Cause this is hot. You’re going to turn ‘round and shag me, aren’t you?” As Barty spoke, he was slipping himself up out of the bed, looking around for wherever his shoes had gone and his shirt.
He was quite disillusioned to feel Evan’s hand hit his face, rings and all, but of course, this is Barty Crouch Jr we’re talking about, and as Evan recoiled his hand, bracing it again for another slap, Barty let out the noise of all noises, an awfully overt moan escaping his lips, partially to tease, and partially from genuine enjoyment of the situation. “Merlin, Rosie, I’ve only dreamed of this, so watch it, don’t want to make a mess of my-”
The impact of a slap once again cut Barty off, and Evan gave a low sound only akin to some sort of angry grumble. “Shut the fuck up, Barty!” With his voice raised, and his fists now clenched at his sides, Evan took one deep breath, and then turned on his heels to storm out of the room, deciding he was going to make a big show out of this so maybe, maybe, Barty might realise that something’s wrong.
Knowing Barty was hot on his heels following, Evan plucked open each cupboard in their shared kitchen, opened the bin, and started taking each individual bottle of liquor; no matter full, half full, or mostly empty, and making the pointed action of dropping them into the bin. Each one separately, aggravatedly. Upon realising what he was doing, Barty’s eyes flared open, wide, and he let out a choked string of noises of pure confusion.
“Rosie? Rosie? What are you- stop- what are you doing? What the fuck is going on? Have you seen christ or something? Are you repenting or some shit?” Barty’s voice wasn’t that frail, soft tone Evan yearned to hear again so badly. That Evan cherished so dearly.
“Shut the fuck up, Barty! Shut it! Shut the fuck up! Shut your mouth!” The commands, for once, resulted in Barty nipping everything in the bud, his mouth snapping shut as quickly as it had opened in the first place. His eyes widened, gleaming with something Evan didn’t quite recognise, and in the moment didn’t care to. “I’m fucking sick of your shit, Barty. It’s always you, always you and what you want and what you need and how you miss Reg and how you need to sleep somewhere warm and how hurt you are and- and I’m fucking sick, Barty, I’m so fucking sick.”
Somewhere in the midst of everything, of all of the words tumbling out of Evan’s mouth without him even really realising, he’d stopped what he was doing, stood in the middle of the kitchen in just his pyjama pants and his socks, one fist balled tightly, and the other gripping the final bottle of alcohol left in their apartment. Evan’s eyes were welling with tears, and he was aggressively holding them back with the fear of Barty making fun of him. Not now, he didn’t need that now. “Do you ever think about any fucker else, Barty? Do you? Ever?” That venom was dissipating, and Evan was surprised that Barty had kept his mouth tight shut the whole time, not even opening it like he had something to say. “No, no, you- you don’t and I- I’m fucking sick of it, Barty. I miss Regulus, you know. I fucking miss him, I miss our Reg, but you know in some sick and fucking twisted way, I’m glad I have you to myself now.” Evan’s voice faltered, hitched, and he gradually began to take notice of the tears rolling down his cheeks, mentally cursing himself out for letting it happen. But when Barty didn’t speak, Evan continued. “But you don’t even realise, do you? You don’t even realise how sick this makes me. How ill it makes me to have every day be the exact same when all I want is for things to change. Barty, things are supposed to change once we left school-”
A pregnant pause befell the two, and there was eye contact that Evan will never be able to explain.
“What are you saying, Rosier?” Barty’s voice fell in the middle ground of that tone he used in bed with Evan, gentle and sweet, and the commands he used in every other situation; the tone Evan found so incredibly charming.
Both tones of voice, Evan can’t say no to. Can’t lie to.
“You’re so fucking stupid.” Was his response, not a lie, just not the truth Barty had been looking for. “It’s painful, you know that?” Evan turned his head away, in an attempt to discreetly wipe his tears. “It’s painful how stupid you are.”
Barty let out a laugh. One of those barked laughs that echoes a little, something that makes Evan’s knees buckle a little bit, weak down to the bone. Barty always makes him weak like that, and Evan despises it. For the most part. “I think I’ve learned as of late that you like painful things, Rosier.” And the joke makes Evan roll his eyes, which only makes his best friend laugh that loud, obnoxious laugh once again. That open window of a slightly more relaxed conversation gave Barty the time to take a few steps closer to Evan, a grin slipping onto his face. Evan didn’t protest, never protested Barty’s attention, even as Barty’s arms slipped around his middle, giving a grin that was only met with another eye roll.
Evan seemed to relax at that show of affection, leaning his back against the counter and taking one deep breath, exhaling it upwards to keep his eyes on the ceiling. “You’re such a pain in the arse, Barty. Please, explain to me why I have any feelings for you at all.”
That laugh came back, almost maniacal in nature, though when Barty’s head craned back from his stretched position, it landed right in the crook of Evan’s neck. Evan could feel Barty’s grin against his bare skin, and Barty could feel the heat radiating on said skin. “You wouldn’t be the first to think that, and still have a little crush on me, Rosie.” He’s teasing, and Evan knows he’s just teasing, but he freezes anyways, tenses, and that reaction just makes Barty laugh. And laugh, and laugh, his shoulders shaking so intensely he had to separate himself from Evan, hands on his middle, doubled over just a little bit. “Merlin, don’t fucking stress, Rosier. I’m joking. Best buds, right? Best mates, me and you. We can shag, I know you don’t have a crush on me. Not really.” Barty clapped him around the shoulder, the noise of skin hitting bare skin echoing through the kitchen.
Evan never untensed, never flinched. Just watched Barty laugh, listened to his words, and finally gave up. He let out a breath, a short exhale, and no longer hesitated to peel himself from Barty’s vicinity, from his attention, until finally finding himself in the doorway, what felt like an eternity later.
“Sleep in your own bed tonight, Crouch.”