Palms/ Psalm
There is gravel embedded into the scrapes on his palms. His mother spends most of the church service pulling dirt out of his hands. Her cracked, tired fingers gently hold his as she uses her uncut nails to brush away the pain. She carefully tells him how it would be all better now. Even at 7 years old, Barty knows what his mother has done for him. And there is a faint humming of the priest’s psalms washing away the metaphorical dirt of his childish sins.
God is embedded into the wounds of his mother, much like the dirty is in Barty. Yet God has had more time to sink into his mother, he has had time to rot and spread. Barty can’t help but think God has only got in so deep because there was no one who held her and cleaned her injuries.
No one who calmly whispered to her that the pain would pass.
He loves God, like he loves his father. He believes so does his mother. He feels the need to prove himself to a force that would never grant him a response. He thought he wasn’t good enough to receive praise or even dismissal… but Barty knew that if his mother could forget god and help him then prayer and pilgrimages were worthless. He must be somewhat worthy if he could distract his mother, the utter picture of devotion, away from her golden idol. He could be totally ignorant, to God, to his Father.
He had tried to believe it when his father ignored him, or whipped the skin on his back till it split. But he couldn’t, because even as his skin was raw and blood dripped down his arms as hot as tears, he still felt the beating of heart and the relief in his chest. He would stare at the scars that coated his spine just as a reminder he was not forgotten.
He wasn’t sure when God stopped being God and became his father. But the moment he feels the crackle of the belt against his flesh, he knows his father is God because he too, like a deluded Jesus, pinned against the cross, realises he will die gladly as long as his father is proud.
Because Barty’s father, God, loves his mother but not him, never him.
God knows Barty took away parts of his mother from her pious position on her knees in holy devotion to our heavenly father. They don’t understand she only turns away from her position to try and make him comprehend her piety.
Yet his mother will never realise both God and his father will only ever love him like a bee loves pollen. The bee takes and takes to spread his power and returns each time, if nothing but to show how it has grown stronger, with no regard to the diminishing pollen that it takes from.
And yet his Father will never realise that his mother is the heavenly flower they feed from.
After ten years he can still feel the gravel in his palms even if it has been brushed away, but it’s the 3rd of November and the blood and dirt on Regulus’s hands is dripping and digging.
It is Sirius Black birthday. A day to many that means oh so much, for it was the day the glorious saint of long, rough hair and dark eyeliner was born.
In holy worship many do care to pray at Sirius Blacks godly feet. Yet if Barty has any say in it they should be praying for him, in the hopes all his black eyes and head trauma that Barty shall one day bestow on to him shall heal swiftly.
Regulus doesn’t want to wake up. Barty has known that since 4th year and the most painful part of that is the pure, hateful fact that Regulus has felt that longer than Barty has known.
He can picture it so vividly, his best friend curled up in the covers of his bed, his face taunt and pale. There are no tears, why would there be. Regulus says he doesn’t care for his brother any longer, and what Reg says is what is true.
But in this image, there are tear tracks across his morose skin, a symbol that he once did cry… and care and laugh and love and hurt and bleed and lose, again and again.
Evan is doing his hair in the bathroom, but the door is open, a sign that if Regulus needs anything Evan isn’t even a door away. Regulus is regretfully adjusting his collar as if it is trying to personally suffocate him, perhaps it is. Everyone always wants to hurt him, why wouldn’t his shirt have a similar agenda?
“We could smoke before class,” Barty says, he is trying to be helpful, “might help you relax.”
Regulus’s head snaps toward him, a silver idol of melancholy emotion, “Why would I need to relax?”
“Reg – I”
“Listen to me carefully, Crouch, I don’t need to relax or… or anything at all. I don’t need anything,” Reg says, in his voice there is the hiss of a cobra but his eyes are round like a small child looking for their mother in an overcrowded shop.
“You need something, Reg.”
“I am tired and your constant jabbering is driving round the bend,” he says, and Barty is sure it’s just to be cruel. But as Reg knows, his feelings won’t be wounded or let his friendship be pushed away, so easily.
Barty expels a breath that had been lodge silently in his chest and stands from his bed, beginning to approach Reg. Regulus looks away, at Evan, Barty realises. He makes eye contact with Evan, who is leaning against the door frame. The blonde quickly averts his gaze.
“Look,” Barty says starting to fix Regulus’s murderous collar, “you need anything,” he looks harshly into Reg’s eyes, “ever… then I have you.”
He looks over the now ajar bathroom door where Evan had been leaning only seconds ago, “Both of us do,” Barty finishes.
The voice that responds is tight and small, not sounding at all like his friend, “I know.”
Barty rest his hands on Regulus’s shoulders and smiles.
He glares at him hoping Regulus can hear his soul tensing, palpitating platonic devotion. He hopes he can understand the words that are stuck between his ribcage and heart.
There is a false, elegant cough that arises from Evan, and as Barty turns to look at him he says, “Should we be off?”
Regulus looks at the door and firmly nods, “Yes lets.”
As Reg slips through the door and then presumably down the corridor if the ascending footsteps are anything to go off.
Evan goes to follow after him but Barty grabs his hand before he can escape their hotbox of a dorm, “Why the cough?”
Evan turns to him his hand starts to creep up his throat rubbing gently at the skin, “It must be the beginning of a cold I am getting.”
“Fucking liar,” Barty says absurdly with a smile, only after a second does he realise he is staring very profoundly at the hand Evan has around his throat, “that was such a fake fucking cough.”
Evan drops his hand quickly, staring at Barty bluntly, “Fuck you! That was not a fake cough.”
“Yes, it fucking was, cunt.”
“Why would I fake a cough?”
“You riddle me that,” Barty says turning his head to the side, in a way he knows people (girls) find endearing.
“How would you even know what a fake cough sounds like, huh,” Evan says, mockingly tilting his head.
“I don’t know what a fake cough sounds like, but I know what you sound like when you really cough and that, wanker, was a fake fucking cough.”
“Oh really,” Evan steps closer.
“Yes really,” Barty mirrors him and naturally moves closer as well.
“What’s my real cough, huh?” Evan stares at him with a charming smile that would make even king Midas reveal all his golden secrets.
“It’s more spluttery, like when you smoke too much, you really start hacking like some sort of plague-ridden child,” Barty states.
He is so close to Evans face that he can feel his breath but he doesn’t miss the glazed look in his eyes as if he can’t quite believe that Barty knows the very sound he makes when he coughs.
Of course, Barty knows. He knows every molecule of Evan like the back of his palm. He could be blindfolded and know Evan just by sound alone.
“Why do you know my cough, B,” Evan says then teasingly adds in a lower voice, “you obsessed or something?”
And suddenly everything feels ten times more intimate.
“Because,” Barty says, “my darling rose, you’re so fucking, precisely perfect all the time it’s a nice reminder that even you choke occasionally.”
“You sound psychotic, Crouch,” Evan says and his voice is lower than Barty has ever heard it before. There also closer than they have ever been before.
Barty grins, that manic kind that he only seems capable of in front of Evan. He is smiling so widely, that his teeth could almost bang against Evan’s mouth if they were even a millimetre closer.
He makes the mistake of letting his eyes fan down to Evan’s lips and all he can think to say is, “Your psychotic.”
The word come out much more breathless than he meant for them to.
“Well that’s sweet,” Evan says playfully, it sounds as if he is taunting him. Like he is trying to drag something buried deep within Barty’s bones. Barty can feel it tugging out of his soul, shouting at him to give everything to Evan. He can’t pinpoint what it is exactly, but Barty fears it the very thing he is trying to keep buried.
Barty swallows deeply, “I am rather sweet, Rosie.”
“You really aren’t, you can be on fair occasion, there is a difference,” Evan says using that dangerous voice again that makes Barty feel rather light-headed.
“Mm,” is the only noise Barty can let out, it sounds desperate and pleading, it is unlike any noise he has ever made before.
Evan half gasps- half gulps, the light is gleaming on half of Evan’s face, it makes his eyes burn a crisp emerald hue. Barty has never seen that colour before, and out of fear he never will again, all he can physically and restlessly do is stare into Evan’s eyes.
Barty isn’t very good at defining his emotions, but the one that is clinging in his chest right at this very second is one he is certain he has never felt before.
He has never felt this feeling for anyone in his entire life and he has absolute zero clue to what it is.
Suddenly heaven and hell are just words to him.