Chapter Text
James Potter has a type. He doesn't know how he's only just realising this, but he definitely does.
“Why is everyone so mean to me?!” James cries out as Evan cackles from the other side of the couch.
It's Friday, which has been their pretty much weekly date night since they started dating just over two months ago. Tonight they decided to stay in and watch a film with takeaway pizza instead of doing anything fancy, and James is really quite enjoying it. Harry is with his Tatta and Patti for the night and Lily and Marlene are at Emmeline's for the evening, so it's quite peaceful just the two of them.
Until Evan decided it was a great time to insult James' whole personality, that is.
“So, wait, let me get this straight,” Evan says, finally calming down a bit. “The chef at this pub got your order wrong and you apologized profusely for ‘causing a hassle’?” He uses finger quotes for the last bit and then collapses into laughter again.
James sticks his bottom lip out and crosses his arms, sulking.
“Awh, Baby,” Evan says when he calms down again and James ignores the butterflies he gets at the nickname. Reaching over to cradle James' face between his hands, Evan makes an over-exaggerated sympathetic face, sticking his own bottom lip out and all, and speaks to James in a baby voice. “It's okay, you'll get brave one day, I believe in you.”
Mean and pretty and sarcastic, that's his type.
James just glares at him but then Evan giggles and he can't hold in his smile anymore. He loves it when Evan giggles, he's convinced it's one of the happiest sounds on Earth.
“It's cute, though,” Evan says finally, more sincerely, “how much you care about everything, including people's feelings. But…” He glares at James. “...you need to get better at standing up for yourself, yes?”
James groans, having heard this lecture about a million times over the course of his life by now. “If you insist.”
“I do insist.” Evan grins at him.
Evan goes on a bit more about self love and especially how important it is when raising a child, and then somehow they get onto the difference between a sofa and a couch, and then onto the classic topic of whether pineapple belongs on pizza, of course.
Evan laughs again multiple times during the conversation, and James loves the way that his eyes crinkle delicately at the corners every time. He loves the way his cheeks take on an even rosier tint when James takes every opportunity to compliment him. He loves the way he tilts his head slightly and listens intently to every word when James goes on one of his long rants. He loves…well, he loves everything about Evan Rosier.
And James feels happy in that. He feels so, so content in himself and in this relationship and he wants it to last forever, even if he's only known Evan a few months. He's just thinking about admitting some of that to Evan, because that's the kind of person he is, he likes everything out in the open, but then they're interrupted by Evan's phone buzzing.
Looking at the text, Evan curses under his breath and then jumps up.
“I'm so sorry to interrupt our deeply philosophical conversation about pizza,” Evan says, “but my friend is here to pick me up and he's not the patient type, so I should probably go.”
“Oh!” James jumps up after him, ignoring his heartbeat and his breathing and his fucking butterflies in his fucking stomach. “I didn't realise the time, sorry. I'll walk you down.”
As they're making their way down the three flights of stairs, something niggles at the back of James' mind, and when he finally remembers he stops in his tracks.
“Wait!” he bursts out. “I just remembered!”
Evan frowns at him and then gestures at him to continue down the stairs. “Well keep walking as you tell me, I need to hurry.”
James bounds down the steps to catch up with Evan.
“I'm gonna be at Hogwarts on Monday,” he explains, slightly breathless.
“Oh?”
“Yeah, just talking to some kids. I might see you, I might not, but I just thought I'd let you know.”
Evan smiles. “I'll try not to swoon in front of the students if I catch sight of your beautiful face, don't worry.”
“Oh, hush.”
Evan laughs his beautiful laugh, and James gets the strong urge to kiss him. They've kissed a few times, but never anything further because Evan doesn't like that kind of thing and James is honestly perfectly happy with that. He thinks he could be banned from touching Evan ever again and still just be perfectly happy to be in his presence and nothing more.
They've reached the ground floor now, and Evan turns to look at him. Leaning in slightly, James glances at Evan's lips and then back up at his eyes, and raises his eyebrows in question. Evan purses his lips and then shakes his head slightly.
“Sorry, I just—”
“Nuh-uh!” James says, drawing back. “You're not allowed to apologize for not feeling comfortable, remember? We talked about this.”
Evan stares at him for a moment, then smiles gratefully, and James is unashamed to admit that he—a twenty-five year old man—gets butterflies when his crush (aka his whole-ass boyfriend) smiles at him. You gotta enjoy the little things in life.
“Anyway, what was I gonna say before I got sidetracked by your irresistible beauty?” James asks. Evan rolls his eyes but James isn't really paying attention, frowning as he tries to remember. “Oh yeah, because I'm at the school on Monday, I offered to give Remus a lift home because Sirius' bike broke down—which he is in agony over, by the way—and Pete is busy lawyering, whatever that entails, so I was wondering if you want a lift back to your place as well? I know you usually get the bus so I thought it might be a nice change.”
James has only been over to Evan's a couple of times, very briefly, because Evan isn't ready for him to meet his flatmates yet, which James can understand. To be honest, the only friends of James' that Evan has met are Lily, Marlene, and Remus (and Harry, if he counts). Lily and Marlene live with James, so Evan was bound to meet them here, and Remus and Evan work together, which is actually how James and Evan met. Evan hasn't even met Sirius and Peter yet, he just knows of them as Remus' boyfriends and some of James' best friends.
Evan ponders for a second, having seemingly forgotten about his friend waiting outside. “You know what, why not? I was actually—” He pauses and seems to blush a bit. “—well, I was wondering if you wanted to maybe meet some of my friends? So if you're not busy after dropping me off you could, I don't know, stay for tea or something?”
James blinks at the request and then grins. Meet Evan's friends? The people who know Evan best in the entire world? The people who can tell him anything he wants to know about Evan? “Of fucking course I do!”
Evan's smile grows and they just sort of stare lovingly at each other for a minute. Then Evan's phone starts ringing.
“Shit,” Evan says, eyes widening. “I completely forgot he was waiting.”
“Oh,” James says, and then flaps his hands in the direction of the door. “Go on then, shoo. Can't have you keeping your friend waiting, can we?”
Evan suddenly stands on his tiptoes and kisses James on the forehead. Then, blushing slightly, he rushes out the door.
“Goodbye!” James shouts after him.
“Bye!” Evan calls back.
Then James smiles like an idiot and starts back up the stairs.
~
Barty watches impatiently as Evan runs out of the building and down the street towards him. He's panting by the time he reaches the car, but he's also grinning as he gets in.
“I take it you had fun?” Barty drawls, raising an eyebrow.
“Oh, Barty, how could you tell?” Evan chuckles. “You must be a mind reader.”
“Clearly I am.”
Barty starts the car and they sit in silence for a few streets. He taps his fingers on the wheel.
“Well?” he demands, when Evan doesn't elaborate.
“What?” Evan looks slightly startled.
“Are you just going to sit there smiling about it or are you actually going to tell me what happened?”
“Oh.” Evan smiles again, staring into space all dreamy-like. Barty rolls his eyes. “Well, there was something that I want to talk to both you and Reg about later, but other than that I just like being around him I guess.”
“Well no shit, he's your boyfriend, isn't he?”
Evan seems to glow just thinking about it.
He sighs dreamily. “Yeah…”
Fucking. Dreamily.
Ugh.
Barty is sure he doesn't act like this when talking about Regulus, so why he is being subjected to this, he really doesn't know.
“As long as you're happy, I guess.” It comes out grumpier than he intended, and he winces as soon as he says it.
Barty can't see Evan's face because he's driving, but he can sense the frown from across the car.
“What's that supposed to mean?” Evan asks, voice harder than it was thirty seconds ago.
“Nothing, I—” Barty bites his lip. “Nothing.”
“No.” Evan turns fully towards him. “No, no, no. I know you better than that, Barty. That was not your usual ‘I sincerely wish you happiness’ voice.”
“Sorry, yeah, I shouldn't…I'm sorry. And I honestly do hope that you're happy with him,” he adds, “I really do! I'm just…” He bites his lip and shakes his head. “You know what, nevermind.”
“Barty.”
“What?” he snaps.
Evan stays silent, just glaring at him.
Barty sighs, deflating.
He parks the car in the first space he sees and turns off the engine, then he slumps forward, head resting on the steering wheel. After a minute he grips his hands onto the steering wheel either side of his head and then pushes himself up, slouching back against the seat now. He only looks at Evan out of the corner of his eye.
“I'm just worried about you, that's—”
“Worried about me?” Evan interrupts, staring at him in disbelief. “I have been dating him for two months and not once—not once—has he done anything at all that could—”
“Okay!” Barty says. “Okay! I know, it's not—” He sighs. “Okay, I'm not worried about you exactly, it's more…I'm worried about us.”
“What?” Evan squints at him. “What does that mean?”
Barty feels himself blush slightly, but forces himself to continue. He's been feeling shitty for the last two months for reasons that he doesn't fully understand but he needs to explain them to Evan anyway. Evan always understands. Evan always helps him understand.
“I just feel like we don't hang out together as much anymore and when we do you're distracted and—”
“You're jealous? Oh my god, you're jealous!” Evan gapes at him, then shakes his head and turns away, slumping into his own seat. “Fucking typical,” he murmurs.
Barty frowns and actually looks at him for the first time since they stopped. So much for Evan being understanding.
“What do you mean, ‘fucking typical’?” he snaps. “What's so ‘fucking typical’?”
“It's fucking typical,” Evan snaps back, “that you would get jealous when deprived of the slightest bit of my attention! It happens every time, every time someone new comes into my life: a friend, a boyfriend, whatever the fuck else! It happened with Panda, and with Mary—who was your friend first, might I remind you—and Dorcas, and even with Regulus, your own fucking boyfriend!”
“I—” Barty tries to interrupt, but Evan cuts him off.
“I swear to every god I know, if you ruin this relationship for me like you have every other, I will never forgive you.”
Barty blinks, and then he scowls.
“I wasn't aware that I'm to blame for all your relationship failures,” he snaps, his own voice hard now.
Evan doesn't seem to hear him, which Barty is slightly grateful for as soon as he says it.
“We fucking live together, Barty!” he continues. “I see you every fucking day, and we hang out alone for at least three hours every single fucking Sunday, and yet you're upset because I want to spend time with my boyfriend?! You're fucking unbelievable sometimes, you know. Just. Fucking. Typical.”
Holding back tears, Barty just stares at him. Evan glares back for a moment, but then he starts looking slightly guilty. He has always been too apologetic for his own good.
Coming to a decision, Barty watches Evan's eyes widen at the same time. For one of the first times ever, he hates how well Evan knows him.
“Barty—”
But he's already out of the door and sprinting down the street.
He hears Evan calling after him for a few streets, but as soon as he loses him, Barty stumbles into the first pub he finds and gets absolutely plastered.
~
When Evan gets home—without Barty but with Mary—and explains the argument, Regulus is a little bit worried. When an hour passes with no sign of Barty, no text, no phone call, no nothing, Regulus is a bit more worried. When Evan and Mary set off an hour after that (refusing to take Regulus because his surgery was less than two weeks ago, ugh) Regulus is a lot worried. When half an hour passes without a word from anyone, Regulus is officially panicking.
He gets up and starts pacing back and forth, thinking about Evan and thinking about Barty and thinking about them together and thinking about when the fuck Barty will get his fucking act together and admit his feelings for Evan.
Of course, when Regulus first started dating Barty, he wasn't so impatient for that, but after years of dealing with this bullshit, he just wants them to fuck already. Well, not actually fuck, obviously, but, like, metaphorically fuck. The thing is, Regulus knows that Barty is in love with Evan, but he also knows that Barty is in love with him. Maybe nineteen year old him would have been less certain, more insecure, but the last five years have taught him a lot, including the importance of loving oneself, and the importance of trust. Because he does trust Barty, trusts him to be in love with multiple people at once, and trusts him to not be a complete arse about it.
So he's spent the last year trying to gently, discreetly, guide Barty towards this revelation (because he's too much of a coward to say it outright), but Barty has clearly been practicing this suppression of feelings for a long time, because he's a pro at it by now. Long story short, Barty is just as deep in his denial as he was when they first met.
Regulus' phone pings and he practically collapses onto the sofa in relief when he reads the text.
Rosie: Found him
His panic scales back down to a lot worried at that, and then to a bit less worried when he opens the door to Mary and Evan practically carrying a stumbling Barty, who is really quite drunk. Regulus avoids looking at his tear-stained face. Not a word is spoken between any of them as Regulus lets them in and they carry Barty through to his bedroom.
~
The point of getting drunk was to distract himself from his own shitty-ness, but no matter how much alcohol he downs, Barty's still thinking about how much he fucking hates himself. How he ruins everything. How he can't control his own actions or emotions or words, and how he's going to be his own downfall. His father says it, his mother thinks it, he himself knows it, and now Evan feels the same way, apparently. Why can't he just be fucking normal?
Sobbing onto Mary's shoulder, not sure when Mary got there but not really caring either, he thinks of everything he's already managed to ruin. His own parents left him, and he tries to tell himself that it doesn't matter because he hates them and they're the ones who chose to leave, but in this moment he knows better. In this moment, he knows that it was him. It was all him, all along, he's the one who chased them away, he's the one who chases everyone away. He's chasing Evan away, and he's going to chase Regulus away, he just knows it, just like he chased James away all those years ago.
Oh, James.
He wishes James were here. James always knows what to say.
Someone is guiding him to his bed and taking his shoes off, just like James used to do. Just like James used to do before Barty ruined everything. Ruined everything by being scared of a fucking four letter word.
“James,” he murmurs, too quietly to be heard.
“What?” a voice asks him. Not James. No, of course it's not James. Evan.
Evan.
He shakes his head.
“Evan,” he corrects himself.
“I'm here,” Evan murmurs. “I'm right here, and I'm sorry, I'm so fucking sorry, Barty.”
No, that's not right, he thinks. Evan shouldn't be sorry. He's the one who's sorry.
“No,” Barty says, and he shakes his head again, more firmly this time. “No.”
He doesn't get a chance to explain what he means before he's fast asleep.
~
Regulus grabs a glass of water and takes it through for Barty before retreating back to the sofa. Mary joins him a minute later, and then Evan a couple minutes after that. They just sit in silence for a while, staring at the floor, until Mary gets up, jangling her keys.
“I should probably—”
“No, fuck, Mary,” Regulus says, and he doesn't have the energy to stand up right now but he looks up at her pleadingly, “it must be past midnight by now, please just stay?”
“But—”
“You can stay in my room, it's practically just a guest room at this point anyway, seeing as I barely use it.”
She purses her lips, and he smiles slightly, taking her consideration as a win.
“Where will you sleep?” she asks. “I mean I wouldn't want to share a bed with Barty right now, if I'm honest…”
“Oh, I can just—”
“He can sleep in my room,” Evan pipes up. Regulus blinks at him and Evan's eyes widen. “Only if you're comfortable, of course! I just thought that since we've been living together for so long and all—”
“Yes.” Regulus smiles. “Yes, I'll sleep in your room, if that's okay.”
Mary argues a bit about how it's not fair for her to kick Regulus out of his room and that she should be the one rooming with Evan, but they both brush her off, insisting that she's their guest therefore she gets her own room, and practically shove her in. Once Mary is settled, Regulus looks over at Evan and smiles.
“You know, under other circumstances I might suggest making it an official sleepover with popcorn and films and all that,” he says, “but I think we're both too exhausted for that right now.”
Evan smiles. “I was just thinking the same thing! It's really a pity, but I suppose we'll just have to make up for it by doing it again sometime, right?”
Regulus feels his own smile growing. “Of course.”
~
Evan wakes up the next morning to find his limbs all tangled with Regulus', and he smiles. Extracting his arms first and then his legs, he carefully sits up, but he can't seem to tear his eyes away from the sleeping man. The idea of running a hand through Regulus' dainty curls is far too tempting right now. Why does he get to be so pretty? He chuckles to himself.
When Regulus' eyes finally flutter open, he looks up at Evan and smiles.
“Good morning,” Evan says softly.
“Morning,” Regulus mumbles, then closes his eyes again, still sleepy. And gods, isn't he just adorable when he's sleepy?
“Shall we go and check on Barty?”
Regulus grunts, then shakes his head. Or at least he attempts to shake his head, but only really manages to smush his cheek further into the pillow and mess up his curls a bit more.
“Not yet,” he mumbles, then reaches up to blindly grab Evan's arm and pulls him back down.
Evan lets out a startled, “Oh.” but Reg ignores him in favour of wrapping his arms around Evan like a giant teddy bear. Evan chuckles slightly and then wraps his arms around Regulus in return. They stay like that for a while—just…cuddling?—until Regulus' stomach lets out the loudest growl Evan has ever heard, and they both giggle. They both try to sit up at the same time, somehow just getting even more tangled, and then Regulus' head knocks into Evan's and they both collapse back to the mattress, laughing and clutching their heads. They laugh until they're both breathless and then laugh some, struggling to stop because every time they calm down a bit they just look at each other and then explode again.
Slowly, slowly, they manage to untangle their limbs and shuffle away from each other before trying to sit up, but they're both still slightly breathless.
“My head hurts,” Regulus groans.
“Well whose fault is that?” Evan says. “And anyway, I'm sure it's nowhere near as bad as Barty's is going to be, poor thing.”
Regulus groans again, in sympathy this time. “Oh, gods.”
“My thoughts exactly.”
Regulus hums and then they just sit there for a minute in silence, thinking.
“Well,” Evan says, finally standing up, “I'll go check on him and you go get some breakfast started, if that's alright?”
It's Evan's stomach's turn to growl now, just at the thought of breakfast, and Regulus laughs and nods.
“I think we both need it.”
Barty is fine, though very hungover, so Evan leaves him to his nice, dark room and heads to the kitchen, where he can already smell the coffee and the—his eyes widen in excitement—hot chocolate.
“God, Reggie, I love you so much!” he declares as he skids into the kitchen.
Regulus laughs and braces for the hug that Evan practically tackles him into.
“I love you too,” Reg says quietly, and they smile gently at each other.
Evan loves calling Regulus ‘Reggie’, partially because it's just really cute and partially because nobody else is allowed to call him that, not even Barty. He doesn't know why, and Regulus never bothers to explain, of course, but he likes it anyway.
Grabbing the eggs from the fridge and a frying pan from the cupboard, he joins in helping Reg make breakfast.
Then Evan remembers something.
“Oh, hey,” he says, turning back towards Regulus, “I was talking to James yesterday and, well…”
“Well?” Reg prompts, eyebrows raised.
Evan grins. “I invited him over! To meet you two! On Monday!”
Regulus' mouth drops open. “Wait, really?!”
“Yes! Yes, really!”
Regulus squeals and Evan squeals and they dance around the kitchen, squealing like pigs.
“What the fuck?” Mary mumbles, stumbling into the kitchen, and they fall silent, staring at her. Evan looks at Regulus. Regulus looks at Evan. They look at Mary. They look at each other. Then they burst into laughter. Again.
Mary just glares at them, and then joins in making breakfast.