fifteen
By the time summer started, Evan was over the whole kissing situation. He hadn’t kissed anyone since, and that entire night definitely didn’t haunt his dreams, so he was over it.
Totally, completely, over it.
—
To celebrate their birthdays, Xeno had somehow gotten two joints for Pandora, Evan, and Barty, and him to split. Evan didn’t bother asking where they came from. They all climbed out onto Xeno’s house's roof, legs folded together while they passed it around.
Evan’s smoked before, but he still hacked up a lung every single time no matter what. Barty would tease him over it relentlessly, but offered him water and hit him in the back in an attempt to get it out nonetheless. Pandora took to smoking like a duck to water, because of course she did, and Xeno had been a stoner since he was thirteen, so he was always unbothered and fine.
Barty shoved a water bottle into Evan's hand, which he took eagerly and chugged down. He still coughed a few times after, but the majority of the feeling was gone.
“We should play something,” Pandora spoke up after a bit, thrumming her fingers along the roof. Xeno and Barty both nodded eagerly.
“Like…?” Evan asked, laying down on his back and shoving his head into the side of Barty’s thigh.
Pandora thought it over before answering. “Truth or dare, or truth or truth?”
“Oh, hell yeah!” Barty grinned, looking down at Evan.
“I’m good with that,” Xeno agreed. Evan just closed his eyes, humming in something that resembled agreement.
“I’ll start, Xeno, truth or dare?” Barty asked.
“Truth.”
“Pussy. I didn’t plan a truth,” He paused. “Who was your first celebrity crush?”
“Easy. Keira Knightley in that soccer movie,” Xeno laughed at himself.
Evan lifted his head off of the roof, opening his eyes a bit. “Bend It Like Beckham ?”
“Yeah, that’s the one!”
“Damn, Evs, you have a thing for her too?”
Pandora piped up. “She is pretty hot in that one.”
Xeno started next, asking Pandora. She chose dare. He dared her to speak in an American accent for the rest of the game, which was kind of stupid, but it was still funny.
Pandora dared Barty to lick one of the tree’s that stood alongside the roof; he did so without question.
“Evan?” Barty waggled his eyebrows in his direction. He’d forgotten he would be involved in this, too.
“Mhm, yeah?”
“Truth or dare?” He definitely would not choose dare, because Barty would come up with something absolutely ridiculous. Truth could go poorly, but not too bad. He didn’t keep very much to himself.
“Truth.”
“You guys are so lame,” Barty whined, slapping Evan’s cheek. He was sitting right next to his head. “But, fine. What’s your first kiss story?”
Truth was definitely the wrong choice. He still hadn’t even told Barty he kissed someone during the school year, the last time they talked about it was last fall. Then again, Barty had been there. Evan saw him looking at him. More like Evan stared at him until he noticed.
Evan bolted up to sit, blinking rapidly. He pretended to busy himself with the water bottle. “Uh, it was at a Ravenclaw party.”
“Come on, there’s more than that,” Pandora was the one who was egging it on this time.
“No, not really,” He bit, slightly surprised by his own tone. “I think she was from Ravenclaw, we were in history together.”
“Any good, then?” Barty smirked before Pandora reached over and swatted at him, saying he was gross for asking. Evan shrugged.
They left it at that, the game going on a few more rounds before their conversation spiralled into something else.
—
Evan made Barty go back to the creek this year. Nobody was there this summer, Pandora went off to Lily’s after a week and Dorcas was with Marlene. Xeno was…somewhere. Wherever he went, he wasn’t around.
Well, he didn’t have to make Barty do anything. As soon as the creek was suggested, he was practically pulling on swim trunks and running out the door.
Spending time there now, when comparing it to when they were kids, was weird. They were both too tall to risk jumping off of the tire – even when the water was high. Not that the tire was even usable, the rope it hung from looked rotted enough that it would snap if someone so as much sneezed on it.
There honestly wasn’t very much to do, at least with just the two of them. It was difficult to entertain themselves with dumb made up games like they had before – the childhood imagination very unfortunately having begun to dwindle away. Besides, a lot of them required more than two people – Gracie always counted as an additional person back then.
She was a big fan of tag.
After an hour of watching Barty try, and – just like when he was nine – miserably fail at skipping rocks, Evan suggested they explore the rest of the woods.
Of course, they’d done plenty of exploring back there before, but never very far away. Usually just far enough to find an old bottle or piece of scrap metal and get distracted.
Over the years a few people mentioned some abandoned buildings, so that was their goal.
Sure enough, forty five minutes later, the two of them stood in front of a crap-shack of a house. The front of it was covered in a mix of poorly-done graffiti, tarps, and bullet holes. Hopefully from BB-guns and not actual bullets, but, the holes were there.
“Oh-ho-hooo,” Barty walked up to one of the broken windows, standing on his toes to peek inside. “This is sick!”
It was sick, Evan couldn’t believe they hadn’t been there before. He shuffled around through the leaves, digging through them if something happened to catch the sun's reflection.
He heard a rattling sound and turned around, finding Barty shaking around a rusty bottle of spray paint.
“You think this still works?” Barty held it closer to his face, finger fumbling with the nozzle.
“Well don’t huff it,” Evan sighed, snatching the bottle from his hands once he grew close enough. “Idiot.”
Barty frowned, tilting his head just slightly. “Is that why they lock those away in stores?”
Instead of answering, Evan gave the bottle one last shake before pressing down on the nozzle. A weak spray of bright green paint came out, but – if they were lucky – it’d be enough to draw something small.
“Still works!” He smiled, turning his head to look over at Barty – who seemed equally thrilled.
“Give it! Give it here,” Barty scrabbled at the bottle, pulling it back into his grasp and holding it to the wall of the house. He paused. “I don’t know what to draw.”
“Quite the big decision, huh?”
“Here, take it. You can draw better than I can,” The bottle was pressed back into Evan’s hands, Barty pushing him forward by his shoulder.
It was true, Barty possessed the drawing abilities of a six year old. Evan wasn’t all that much better, but there were a few things that consistently turned out mostly decent.
“...What am I supposed to draw?” Evan glanced down at the bottle. “Pan said my…sign thing is bad at decision making.”
He could hear a muttered ‘You just bullied me about that. ’ from his right, barely resisting the urge to turn and mock Barty right back.
—
Like every other summer, once they found one place they enjoyed, it became the place.
After the second week of running off to the abandoned house – which Barty fondly named ‘Garth’s’ – they finally found a short-cut. Which meant they could spend even longer there, no longer having to trudge through weeds and fallen trees for nearly an hour just to get there.
Evan pussied out of using the spray paint the first time, saying they should save it until they made a ‘good choice’ on what to write, so it sat right inside the torn-off door for whenever that would be. He had a hard enough time deciding where to put stickers, so clearly painting something on a wall was a lot of responsibility. Barty didn’t seem to care, but he still asked if ‘Today is the day ’ every single time they went.
Going out to the house also revealed that Barty was mortified by the idea of ghosts. Apparently he was a firm believer that all of his houses – however many that is – were haunted by shadow people at night. Evan told him he’s probably having sleep paralysis.
“Boo,” Evan dropped over the edge of the roof, hanging his head down right in front of where Barty was passing by.
“Stop! You freaky fuck,” Barty’s fist was clenched by his side, like he was genuinely considering swinging. Evan laughed at him, breath's coming out more as wheezes from how he was hanging. Barty whined. “You’re being mean! This is, like, best friend neglect.”
“You’re scared of squirrels and ghosts, B.”
“Those are perfectly normal fears! Any sane person would be scared of both of those! Besides, you’re the one who’s scared of birds.”
Evan huffed. One bad experience at a zoo bird-feeding experience later and he’s being bullied for life.
“Okay, you gotta help me down. I’m stuck.”
—
On their last night, Evan and Barty hung off of the air mattress in the tent.
Earlier that morning, they’d finally commit to the spray paint. After all of the weeks of build up, Barty ended up taking it and drawing something with a very vague resemblance to a snake wearing a hat. Quite the reward for all of the time spent mulling over it, right?
Normally they wouldn’t use an air mattress, just their sleeping bags, but they weren’t going to complain about the extra comfort.
The LEGO Batman Movie was picked for this year, mostly motivated by the fact that Barty loved the original LEGO movie.
“Is this the guy Reg always raves about?” Barty pointed at the screen, where Batman was in the middle of talking about relationships with the Joker.
Regulus was a big Batman kid, just like Evan was to Star Wars and Barty was to Jurassic Park.
Evan scrunched his eyebrows. “Not that Robin, he likes the one named Tim. I think.”
“There’s more than one?”
“Ugh, I envy your ability to tune people out,” He didn’t really mind listening to Regulus talk about Batman, as long as Regulus would listen when Evan went on rants about things he was interested in. “There’s, like, five of them.”
By the time the credits ran, they’d spiralled off into a conversation about clothes – brought on by Barty making a look of disgust when Evan pulled out a jumper.
Evan never really cared all that much about his clothes. He wasn’t walking around looking ridiculous, but he wasn’t particularly worried about dressing elaborately or anything. Most mornings, he just put on whatever he found first.
Over the last year though, Barty had gotten really into fashion. This year at school, they’d be allowed to go down to Hogsmeade more, which he was elated about. He listed off a bunch of different stores they’d need to stop at, including that he wanted to grab hair dye again – to get revenge on his dad all these years later (or something like that).
“I saw this jumper when we went last time, they better still have it,” Barty was staring up and out of the mesh window, seeming to be more zoned out than actually looking at something.
“I don’t really get it all,” Evan scooched over to also look out of the window. He saw absolutely nothing.
“What? Like fashion rules?”
“You’re following rules? And they’re imaginary ones?”
“Never said I was following them,” Barty yawned, turning his head to look at Evan. “When we get back, I’ll help you figure it out. Gotta look good for the parties this year, we have a reputation to uphold.”
The reputation was being fifth years, so it really wasn’t anything special.
“I don’t even want to think about being a fifth year,” Evan turned to face Barty as well. “You’ll be here next summer, right?”
Every year it felt sillier to ask, but he still asked anyway.
“Yep. Every summer, idiot.”
“Swear it?”
“Swear it.”
✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧
Barty kept his promise about the clothes. For the first week of classes, they went to Hogsmeade as much as possible and tried on, what felt like, hundreds of different clothes. Evan saved a bunch of money over the years from birthdays, he really didn’t have much to buy in general, so they’d always return to school with bags of things. That being said, he didn’t fail to notice when something that he put away somehow ended up in his dresser of clothes.
They weren’t allowed to be out of uniform during the week, so he was incredibly excited when it was passed around at lunch that there would be a Slytherin party that weekend. Barty nudged him excitedly, already seeming to be planning things in his mind. None of the clothes he had gotten were particularly special, but they did feel more ‘him’ than what he had worn before.
On the night of the party, Barty was pacing in front of his bed, a pile of different tops laid out on top of it.
“B, it really isn’t that serious,” Evan was half-sitting half-lying down on his bed, shoved into a pile of pillows, “You always look good.”
“Really?” Barty turned to him, the stupid ‘I’m-going-to-be-annoying’ twinkle in his eye visible from the other side of the room, “Just come and kiss me already, why don’t you?”
Evan nearly choked on his own spit. “You wish that I would.”
Barty turned back to the clothes.
A few minutes later, he disappeared into the bathroom with a handful of shirts, resurfacing after a moment. “What about this one? I got it in the women’s section from that one store, the one you got those jeans with the stars on them from. They always have better clothes in that section, completely unfair–”
Barty stood in the doorway in torn jeans, a very ‘Barty’ studded belt wrapped around his waist, and a shirt that was cropped just beneath his ribs. There were a few chains hanging from his neck, the typical rings lined his fingers as well. He looked better than good.
“Uh, yeah, I like that one,” Evan swore he could feel himself blushing. His eyes kept darting to Barty’s waist, he needed to stop. Grabbing a textbook from near his feet, he opened it as an excuse to look away. “Looks great.”
“Hey, no reading, idiot. You need to get dressed.”
A chunk of paper hit Evans face, making him roll his eyes before reluctantly closing the book. He didn’t look up. “You can pick something.”
Eagerly, Barty ran over to his dresser and started digging around before moving onto the closet. In the end, he handed Evan two things that he definitely did not buy.
“Where did you even get these? I didn’t buy them.”
“Santa,” Barty blurted, shoving Evan in the direction of the bathroom. “He came early. Doesn’t keep receipts, either.”
Of course he didn’t keep the receipt.
Reluctantly, Evan went into the bathroom and tugged the clothes on. The shirt was soft, made out of some type of silk fabric, and the pants fit loosely. They flared at the end, which he wasn’t sure about. As he buttoned up the shirt, he stared at it in the mirror. It looked stupid.
“Uh, I don’t know about this one,” He called out the door, putting on the rings that had been left for him to put on. Rings still weren’t his favourite, but they did usually make things look better.
“What do you mean? Open the door!”
Evan pulled the door open, standing awkwardly as Barty looked him over.
“Oh, you have to leave the shirt unbuttoned,” He walked over, undoing each of the buttons himself. For a split second, his fingers were softly pressed against Evan’s stomach, pausing before they started to move again.
Barty backed up, eyes scanned up and down for a moment. “Much better. Go look,” There wasn’t any other option, his hands landing on Evan’s shoulders and leading him back.
“Barty, my tits are out,” It did look better. A lot better. Evan liked it, actually. He’d never been particularly self conscious over his body, he knew he was remarkably in shape from football, but he’d never really dressed in a way that showed it off either.
“Exactly!” They stared at each other in the reflection of the mirror, both of them holding eye contact before Barty broke it away with a cough. He scampered out of the bathroom, coming back a second later with a necklace that Evan apparently needed to wear.
It had a spider on it, which was fairly ironic. Both of them always made Regulus kill any spiders they found.
Barty clasped it around his neck, grabbing his fingers and tugging a few of the rings off after. When he eventually backed up, he looked very pleased with himself. “Oh yeah, that’s it. You need to dress like this more often.”
Evan really blushed this time.
Whatever Barty’s goal was with the outfit, both of theirs actually, it definitely worked. Evan never had so many people speak to him in his life than he did right after they walked into the common room. All of the boys on the football team wolf-whistled at him, earning a middle finger in response, but he still grinned regardless.
In the beginning, they made their way around the room with Barty’s arm wrapped over his shoulder. Like every other party, they eventually got separated. This time was mostly because Evan got distracted by doing shots with Sirius, who requested every possible detail on his outfit.
Once they were each an undetermined amount of shots deep, Sirius held up a hand and beckoned him closer. “Have you gotten it figured out yet?”
“What’re you talking about?” He had to yell to get his voice over the music.
He tried to think back to past conversations but his brain was not loading things at all. At least, not coherently.
“You and what's-his-nuts. Barty. Have you gotten it figured out yet?”
“Excuse me? ” Evan seethed, suddenly upset for reasons he didn’t know.
“Oh, shit.” Sirius’ face went white, obvious even beneath the coloured lighting that flashed throughout the room. He started to ramble. “I didn’t mean that in a bad way. I like boys. Like, a lot. Remus and I are well, you know. Shagging. Snogging. Quite often. I thought you and Crouch had something going on.”
“Why the hell would you think that?”
“Is that a joke, are you joking?”
“Black, I’m quite close to strangling you.”
“Okay, let me get this straight. Well, not straight,” Sirius laughed at his own joke. Evan was growing closer to killing him. “The two of you just happen to sleep in the same bed – Reg told me that, take it up with him –, climb on top of each other all the time, watch each other constantly from across the room,” He pointed behind Evan’s head. When he turned around, Barty was staring at him with darkened eyes from over the rim of his cup. “Don’t even get me started on the hallway conversation from last year, either. You guys just… do that? There’s no feelings involved?”
“He’s my best friend,” Evan answered. He was starting to feel exactly how he did last year. Maybe he needed to stop going to parties. Or stop speaking to Sirius. Well, it wasn't really Sirius' fault. He didn't have much of a filter on him.
His head swam as he thought it over. It wouldn’t be the first time someone looked into their relationship for more than it was, plenty of people stared at the two of them in the halls or whispered things beneath their breath. Hell, Barty had a girlfriend dump him after she walked into the two of them sharing a bed. So sure, the thought was always there, people thought they were together, or were something, but nothing really ever gave him reason to look further into it.
He turned back around for a moment to look at Barty, who hadn’t moved an inch but was yelling into someone's ear. Whipping back to Sirius, Evan repeated himself, “He’s my best friend.”
Right?
“Okay,” Sirius nodded slowly, clearly seeing something in Evan’s eyes, “I’m sorry for assuming.” With that, he disappeared back into the crowd until popping up next to Remus, immediately bending down to whisper something into his ear. Would it be ignorant to think that they were talking about him? Remus scrunched his face up and said something back, but Evan was too far away to lip read.
For good measure, Evan took another shot before stumbling back to Barty.
“Hiya,” Barty smirked at him, pulling him to his side by the top of his pants. “Who broke your heart to make you drink like this tonight?”
Evan was more than distracted by the feeling of his breath hitting his ear. God, this wasn’t even close to the first time that he’d felt it, but now it seemed amplified. Fuck Sirius for saying something. He shrugged, swaying slightly on his feet. “Nobody.
Really, there was nobody. He’d kissed someone earlier in the night, mostly out of being piss drunk and the adrenaline getting to him, but there was no will to do anything further. He never really thought about any further, either. Last year, Barty dated around a few times. Regulus even had a boyfriend for a minute. Evan was never interested, he always just told them he was waiting for the right person.
“Sirius say something, then?” Barty asked, positioning his face directly in front of Evans. He looked dead serious, it almost made him want to laugh. “Do I need to go beat his ass? ‘Cause I totally could.”
He’d probably try, but the chance of him winning wasn’t super promising.
A small, airy laugh left Evan before he let his head tip onto Barty’s shoulder. He knew he was drunk, it was obvious to anyone that looked at him for longer than a second, but he was also trying to test what Sirius had said. Deep down, or maybe not so deep down, he was curious.
Part of him wanted to cry. Really, really, really bad, actually. He really needed to stop this, getting drunk and looking at Barty and thinking and wanting to cry. Third time's the charm?
“Do you want to get out of here?” Barty asked suddenly, grabbing Evan’s cup and putting both of theirs on the table.
Evan nodded into his shoulder, standing back up again with a loud sigh. He ran a hand across his face, pausing at his forehead for a moment. Tequila, loud music, flashing lights, and thinking did not mix particularly well.
Barty led the way out of the common room, shutting the door behind them before flopping onto his bed. “Talk about a ladies man, Evs. You had like, half the Hufflepuff football team all over you tonight.”
“I guess,” Evan whispered, changing back into pyjamas before shoving his face into his pillow. Barty was telling the truth, there were a lot of people talking to him tonight. More than one put their hands on him too, complimenting his form and how the outfit made him look and god it made him want to throw up. He didn’t hate the attention, not at all. He liked making and having friends, or at least meeting people well enough to wave at in the halls.
It was just what came with that kind of attention that made him feel weird and gross, the expectation of kissing and ending up in someone's bed somewhere. The expectation to date, or to sneak away from classes to see each other in dark corners and walk away with marked necks.
“They’re all fine,” He added, sensing that Barty was looking for him to say more.
Barty sat up, his hair flopping over his eyes as he shook his head around, “Anyone in particular?”
Evan squeezed his right hand into a fist, letting his nails bite into his skin. He breathed deeply, “Do we have to talk about this?”
“No, ‘course not. Just… curious.”
—
Once the middle of the year rolled around, everyone’s sexcapades were the topic of practically any meal. Evan couldn’t escape it. He really, really, really was not interested in anyone else's shagging habits, or shagging at all for that matter. Most meals, he ended up having to leave early from the never ending conversation about it. Wasn’t that kind of thing supposed to be, well, private?
Barty was no better, unfortunately. Evan thought he was just looking for an outlet in some way, though. He couldn’t really figure it out, but he knew Barty got a lot more…radical when it came to decision making after reading a letter from his father.
There were no more girlfriends after Sydney, at least. Nobody came back to the room either.
—
Sometimes Regulus would have someone over, but they were always just…hanging out. There were no touchy-feely hands or whatever going on, ever. According to Regulus, they were always more than friends. It made Evan wonder, something like that was very appealing to him, but he didn’t know what to say or ask about it.
So for now, he let his friends tease him for ‘never giving in’ to everyone asking him out. Sometimes he’d lie, say he got up to something with someone he made up off the top of his head, just to get them off his back.
Eventually, he got impatient. He wanted to feel the way that other people were feeling, he didn’t want to be left out anymore. So, one night, when Barty was out doing god knows what, he went and sat on Regulus’ bed.
“Rosier,” Regulus flicked his eyes up from his book for a moment, going back to the page without another word.
“I have a question,” Evan said, folding his legs up underneath him.
“Hm.”
“You’ve dated before, right?”
Regulus’ eyes bolted up away from the page completely now, one of his hands blindly putting in a bookmark before setting the book aside, “Yes, a bit.”
“Okay.”
“Is the question portion of this question coming soon?”
“I think there’s something wrong with me,” Evan groaned, flopping onto his back.
“There’s plenty wrong with you, Evan. You’ll need to be more specific.”
Evan turned his head to look directly at Regulus, tossing the next sentence over in his head before deciding to just ask. “Do you like, shag?”
“Oh, what the fuck?” Regulus backed up just slightly. “Is this some weird way of saying you want to fuck?”
“No! No. No, the opposite actually.”
“The opposite?”
Evan winced, debating if he wanted to even continue this conversation. They could forget about it, right? Probably not. “Can you just answer my question?”
“About if I have sex with people?”
“Yes, Regulus. Jesus, this was an awful idea.”
Regulus moved closer again, positioning himself near Evans' head. “No.”
“No you aren’t answering? Or no you don’t have sex with people?”
“Oh my god, no. I don’t have sex with people.”
“You can date and not have to…?” Evan let out a small breath, hoping the relief wasn’t obvious on his face.
“Shag? Yes. Not everyone wants to climb each other like a tree, Evan,” Regulus sighed, long and dramatic.
Evan hummed, thinking it over.
“If you go and blab about that, I’ll slit your throat in your sleep.”
“What? No, I won’t do that,” He lifted a hand to shove his hair back. He should probably get it cut soon. “I think I’m the same way, anyway. Maybe. I don’t know.”
That seemed to really get Regulus’ attention. “You don’t need to have it figured out, you know.”
“Tell everyone else that.”
“I have more important things to think about than other people's interest in my bedroom,” Regulus shrugged. Evan supposed that was true. He probably shouldn’t be thinking so far into it. Still, that wouldn't stop him. “So, what’s going on then?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, you wouldn’t just come climb into my bed and ask about sex without reason.”
“I could have.”
“No, you couldn’t have.”
Evan huffed, “I guess I just feel…left behind. Everyone at football praises me for playing hard to get, for being –” He lifted his fingers to put his words in quotes, referring to something he’d been called last week, “ a ‘heartthrob’” His hands lowered back down to his stomach, folding over one another. “But I just don't want to. In fourth year, I made myself kiss someone at a party. God, I still feel awful for that girl, but I brought myself to tears immediately after. That really cannot be normal.”
“I shouldn’t whine about it, really. I’m sure other people wish that they were in this sort of position. I’m literally laying in your bed saying that there are too many people who like me. This is so stupid.”
Regulus laughed. He laughed .
“Seriously?”
“I felt the same way. I didn’t make myself kiss anyone, though. That’s funny.”
Evan groaned.
“There’s a name for it, you know,” Evan sat up, as if that would help him listen better. “Well, I guess there's a spectrum of it. Asexuality. There’s also demisexuality, which is pretty similar to asexuality, but you’re still sexually attracted to someone in a way. Usually, in that case, you have to be really close with the person to feel that way.”
“So, you’re…?” He didn’t want to just guess, that seemed rude. “Wait – You don’t have to tell me. That was shit of me to ask–”
“Asexual. Gay, too, if you really want to get specific,” Regulus said nonchalantly, as if he and Evan talked about this all the time. Obviously he knew about Regulus’ prior partners, but they never discussed sexuality at any point.
“What am I, then?” Evan furrowed his brow.
“That’s for you to figure out on your own.”
He didn’t want to figure it out on his own. He wished there was a button he could press, or a switch he could flip, that would just tell him everything he needed to know.
Evan and Regulus discussed it more, mostly Regulus explaining how he figured things out. None of it really applied to Evan, apart from the not-really-wanting-to-have-sex part, but it was nice to hear regardless.
Of course, before the conversation ended, he promised to murder Evan in several different violent ways if he spoke a word of their conversation.
Evan believed him.