Evan was pining. He knew he was. But simply knowing that did not make him feels less pathetic. It should be impossible to fall on love with one’s best friend. But Evan’s poor heart had gone and done it anyway. Barty, of course, was wholly oblivious to Evans pining. Evan supposed it was a blessing anyway. He wasn’t sure if their friendship would survive the thing.
The thing, was what Evan called is quiet obsession with Barty that threatened to burst put into a huge love confession along the lines of, love me like I love you, let’s grow old together; every time Barty smiled at him. Or flirted with him. Or just sat next to him, smelling sinfully good. Or just existing in Evan’s vicinity. Evan had it bad.
But Barty didn’t know. And Barty flirted with everyone. Evan had even seen him trying to charm Lily Evans after she had deducted 10 points from Slytherin after she had caught them charming Snapes hair to grow an inch every time he sneered at somebody. Thinking back on it, Evan was sure she had been more horrified of Barty’s attempted flirting than the actual prank itself. Snapes hair had trailed from the Great Hall all the way down to the Slytherin common room.
Usually, Barty was quite excellent at flirting tough. After all he had snogged most of the Slytherins in their year. Even Regulus, once, when he had been a sad drunk sniffling over Potter. With his stupid hair, stupid sexy glasses, and his very sexy fingers. There had been no flirting involved on this occasion though. Barty had just wanted to cheer Regulus up and had aimed for a kiss on the cheek. But at this point Regulus had started to hiccup slightly and jerked when Barty had leaned in. This had resulted in a full-on smack on the lips. Regulus had turned scarlet, yelped that he would never betray sodding Potter that way and had scampered of to bed. To this day he denied that the incident had even happened. Ever so often Barty liked to bring it up to take the piss and watch Regulus turn bright red every single time.
Right know Evan was sitting in the library trying to do his charms homework when Barty sauntered in and flopped down in the chair opposite him. His hair styled into artful waves, the top two buttons of his dress shirt unbuttoned, and the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, he looked like every wet dream Evan had ever had. He was even wearing cologne for fucks sake.
“Got a date?”, Evan asked, even if he didn’t really want to know the answer to that question. “Nope.”, Barty retorted, popping the ‘p’ and resting his elbows on the table. “Why do you ask?”
“You’re all dressed up that’s all. Normally you’d go out on a date like this.”
“Aww.”, Barty cooed. “You think I look pretty, but no Evan my love it is all for you.”
Evan wasn’t sure he had heard Barty correctly. It was not uncommon for Barty to refer to Evan as ‘my love’ or ‘my rose’ and drop innuendos but the actual flirting with Evan was new. “So, you just dressed up, spritzed on some cologne to sit next to me in the library hoping to seduce me?” Evan did not know where that had come from but somehow in that moment, he had been braver than he thought he could be. Judging by the look on Barty’s face he had not expected Evan to react that way, or even further comment on what he had said. If Evan didn’t know any better, he thought that Barty looked flustered. Barty opened his mouth as if to say something, but apparently all words had left him. Finally, he mumbled something Evan could not quite catch. “Sorry, what was that.”
Slowly Barty’s lips spread into a smirk, eyes raised to meet Evans, a determined look in his eyes. “So what if that was exactly what I was doing!” Now Evan was the flustered one. Barty’s gaze was challenging, almost sincere. At this moment Evan thought his friend cruel, playing with his feelings like that. Because it was not real. This was just Barty being Barty. And Barty did not know about Evans huge crush. He did not know that Evan’s heart broke a little at the statement because he knew that Barty was just kidding. “Shove off.”, Evan muttered, his voice slightly wobbly. Something he could not place flashed in Barty’s eyes and then Barty frowned slightly. “Alright, I’ll leave you to it then.”, Barty sniffed haughtily and pushed his chair back, which made a horrible screeching noise on the wooden floors. With that he sauntered out the library presenting Evan with a view of his delicious butt. Puzzled Evan turned back to his essay, not sure what this whole ordeal had been exactly. But somehow, he had managed to piss Barty of.
A few days later Barty was mostly back to his normal self. But Evan had noticed that Barty seemed to refuse to be alone in a room with him. Evan was not sure what was up with that, so he decided to ask Regulus about it. But Regulus was to busy glaring at the Gryffindor table at breakfast, to be any actual help. Sirius had not even come down for breakfast yet, so Evan was unsure what purpose Regulus glaring served, if it was not directed at his brother.
The only actual piece of advice Regulus had offered was to “just talk to the fucker”, but that sounded rather unappealing to Evan. Mostly, because he was convinced that Barty would try to flee if Evan cornered him, making the whole situation even worse. He was contemplating the misery of his predicament when Sirius strutted into the Great Hall, Remus trailing after him. But only Remus sat down next to James who started waving his hand around. Evan thought Sirius looked rather unimpressed by James’s antics. “But you promised, Pads!”, James yelled exasperated and loud enough to even be heard at the Slytherin table. Remus seemed to comment on that too and Sirius threw his hands in the air in defeat. Evan briefly wondered how people could be this dramatic, but then he remembered that he was sitting next to the other Black brother and suddenly it rather made sense.
Sirius was now strutting over to the Slytherin table and Regulus seemed to fake total uninterest. But being friends with Regulus for years now Evan knew that he was burning to know what the whole ordeal had been about.
“Hi…”, Sirius said uninspiringly when he stopped before Regulus. Regulus stared at his brother and raised one very thin eyebrow. Somehow even that miniscule movement of muscle seemed poised and elegant. “Hello brother. To what do I owe the displeasure?”, Regulus drawled.
“We are having a party.”, Sirius supplied. Regulus second eyebrow joined the already raised one. “Soooooo…?”, he asked. “You just came here to tell me that, because...?”
Sirius fidgeted uncomfortably. “Because you are invited.” Both Evan and Regulus were quite surprised at that. Regulus had never been invited to anything Gryffindor related by his brother. Especially not one of the infamous Gryffindor parties.
“Why?”
“Because you are my brother and I love you?” Sirius sounded like that did not convince even him. The Black brothers had a somewhat complicated relationship ever since Sirius had gone of to live with the Potters.
“Yeah, no that’s not it.” Regulus countered, tilting his head to one side. “Try again.”
Sirius huffed indignantly. Then he said something very fast not quite looking at his brother. “Sorry, I did not catch that.”, Regulus said, sounding not at all sorry.
“James says that family is important and that I should invite you so we can have a future together even though we don’t live together anymore. And he also said that if I don’t invite you, he will shave off all my glorious hair in my sleep!”, Sirius looked a bit pink in the face at this admission and fingered one of the bouncy locks falling into his face.
Personally, Evan thought the whole situation was sort of funny. “So basically, what you are saying is that you are willing to mend our relationship because it will save your hair, and not because I am your brother?”, Regulus tone was rather sharp.
“I no, that’s not, Reggie come on. That’s really not it. James said you can bring all of you friends.”, Sirius gaze shortly grazed over Evan and snapped back to Regulus.
Regulus just stared at his brother for a while an unreadable look on his face. “Fine.”, he finally muttered. “But I will not be held accountable for any of my friend’s behaviour.”
Regulus narrowed his eyes at Sirius. “Especially not Barty’s!”
Sirius paled slightly but stuttered a ‘that’s great Reggie’ and all but fled back to the Gryffindor table.
Regulus turned to Evan. “You are welcome by the way.” Evan scrunched up his face in confusion. “Why?”
“You know Barty can not say no to a party.” Evan was still confused. Regulus sighed exasperated. “That means he will not run from you there so just talk to him there.” How Evan was supposed to do that in a room full of people, Gryffindors nonetheless was beyond him and Regulus did not seem to be partial to elaborate on that.
The party was already in full swing when Evan clambered through the portrait hole behind Regulus. Barty had already left earlier, claiming he needed to procure some alcohol. Evan had watched him leave, tight jeans hugging his frame, wearing a crop top that Barty had fashioned out of one of Evan’s old T-Shirts. As soon as Evan and Regulus joined the Gryffindor throng they were spotted by James, who yelled excitedly and bounded over to them.
Regulus blushed when James stopped in front of them grinning like loon. “Reggie you made it. Come on lets get you a drink!” Then James all but dragged a still furiously blushing Regulus of towards the drinks table, completely ignoring Evan’s presence. Regulus made a disgustingly lovesick expression when James handed him a slightly smoking drink and Evan could have sworn he even smiled at James.
Evan just hoped he did not look equally pathetic whenever Barty was in his vicinity. Or that obviously smitten, for that matter. “He really has it bad, hasn’t he?”
Evan jumped. Somehow Barty had managed to sneak up on him. “Yeah, I know right. He fussed about his hair for like half an hour after you left.” Barty sniggered and swayed slightly bumping into Evan. Not sure what had prompted the sudden change in Barty’s behaviour Evan chose not to investigate, because he was just grateful Barty had started talking to him again. Instead, he sat down on one of the ridiculously fluffy couches, Barty settling next to him as they watched James and Regulus. James was waving his hands around wildly, making Regulus smile. At one point it even looked like Regulus giggled. Regulus never giggled.
“You know it’s sort of cute though. Reggie being all smitten and that.”, Barty mused sipping his drink. Evan sighed. It wasn’t that Barty was not right, but something made his chest ache when he looked at James and Regulus. James in particular, who seemed equally smitten with Regulus as the latter was with him. “At least he isn’t in love with someone who will never love him back.”
Next to him Barty tensed, whipping his head around to look at him startled; eyes wide. Evan was equally shocked, not sure why he had said that. An emotion passed over Barty’s face, but it was gone before Evan could recognize it.
“Evan”, Barty said very slowly, “are you in love with someone?” Evan wanted to say no, he wanted to deny it and forget all about this stupid conversation. But something in the way Barty was looking at him made it impossible. “Yes.”, he whispered, a lump forming in his throat. “Have you told them that?”, Barty whispered back.
“No.”
Barty frowned at that. “So how do you know that they don’t love you back?”
Maybe it was the Gryffindor atmosphere that was rubbing off on him, but suddenly Evan felt rather brave. “Because they only see me as a friend.”
Barty’s face contorted comically. “You know I never thought that Reggie was you type, besides e is totally in love with the Potter boy over there.”
There was a whirring noise in Evan’s ears. Barty didn’t get it. Barty thought he loved Regulus. “It’s not Reggie.”
Barty snorted. “But you don’t have any other friends except…”, he trailed of suddenly unsure. Evan licked his lips nervously and Barty’s eyes flickered down to them.
“You!”, Evan murmured and then he couldn’t take it any longer and crashed his lips onto Barty’s. Barty made a surprised sound against his mouth but then he wasted no more time and kissed Evan back eagerly fisting his hands in Evans hair. And Evan, Evan felt like he was drowning, drowning in Barty’s delicious smell, in the way he tasted and if those sinful sounds Barty made against his lips were the last thing he ever heard, he would die a happy man. When Barty pulled back and gasped for air a few moments later he looked delectably debauched, pupils blown wide Evan could not believe it was all because of him. Barty leaned in again and touched his forehead to Evan’s. “For your information, I like you too you prat. I just thought you weren’t interested after the way you acted in the library a few days ago.”
Something dawned on Evan. “Oh! That’s why you’ve been avoiding me. I didn’t mean it like that I just thought you were taking the piss on me.”
Barty chuckled and lightly pecked Evan on the mouth. “No, my rose. I meant what I said.”, Barty murmured, leaning back so he could look Evan in the eyes. “Everything I do, it’s all for you.”