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Barty loved running a bar. He loved the creative freedom. He loved having something that was his. He loved flirting with patrons and making Evan jealous.
But most of all, he loved the opportunity to meddle.
And he was really good at it.
“Hello to you, my angel of darkness,” he sang into the phone wedged between his shoulder and his ear.
Every time he dropped said phone into the sink, one of his awful friends would remind him that wireless headphones exist, but there was a quaint harried mother in a 90s sitcom thing about it that Barty just loved. Like holding a hamper of laundry against your hip and feeling like a medieval washerwoman. That sort of thing. No one understood him.
Not true: sometimes Regulus’s sibling understood him. No one he wanted to like understood him.
“What do you want, B?” Regulus grumbled in his ear.
“What a question! World peace, obviously.” Regulus snorted, and the man at the bar who was pretending not to eavesdrop twitched as he held back a smile. “A best friend who is nice to me. Evan on his knees-”
“Christ, enough! Aren’t you working right now?”
“Nominally, yes.”
“You can’t call me from work.”
“Boss said it’s okay.” Barty could hear the eyeroll, well-oiled though it was.
“And would the boss mind explaining why he’s interrupting my nice relaxing evening to say exactly nothing?” A quiet swish of water sounded in the background.
“My, my, princess. Are you in the bath? How saucy of you, talking to me and being naked at the same time. I’m all flustered, you little minx.”
Barty’s grin was sharp and toothy and had often been described as unsettling, but Regulus heard it and knew it to be unbridled amusement. The man at the bar looked a bit awkward. Served him right.
“Barty.”
“Ah yes, my reason for calling. Since you refuse nice normal social calls.”
“I see you more than I want to in person, B. I don’t need updates in between.”
“Hurtful, truly, sugarplum. But circling back to your saucy nakedness.”
“Barty.”
“I think there’s someone here who’d be interested in experiencing that first hand, if you know what I mean.”
“There was no nuance there, B. I know what you mean. Nominally. Otherwise, what are you talking about?”
“Well, my scrumptious little morsel, do you remember Friday night, you and your ‘fuck me’ eyes?”
“Firstly, we’ve been over this. I do not do ‘fuck me’ eyes, I gaze temptingly. Secondly, no? I only got back this morning.”
“I’m aware, sweetness. My heart has ached in your absence. No, funnily enough, I’m not talking about last Friday. I’m talking about three Fridays ago, before you left.”
Regulus was silent.
“I knew you’d remember.” Barty’s grin was predatory. “But just in case, let’s set the scene. You were here, dancing. Dora was with you, and Dorcas. Evan and Hestia arrived at 22:37,” Regulus snorted, and Barty ignored him, “and God, were you dancing. All lithe and sinuous and sweaty-”
“I have asked you not to use me to rile Evan up, B. He put salt in my drinks for a week last time.”
“Evan isn’t here,” Barty said sweetly. “So there you were, all sexy and there. In that top with the cut-outs, you know the one?”
“It’s my top, Barty. I know the one.” The bath must have put Regulus in a good mood, because he rarely indulged Barty’s games like this.
“It’s a good one, pretty thing. Shows off your slutty little shoulders and your slutty little collarbones. Overall, pretty-”
“Slutty?”
“Ah, petal, self-awareness is the first step to recovery. But please never recover.” Barty paused for breath. “That top, though, shows your tramp stamp pretty nicely. Plays a little peeky-boo, y’know.”
He cackled as Regulus spluttered. “A tattoo being on a back does not make it a tramp stamp, you absolute fiend.”
“Yes, yes. Constellations of the entire northern hemisphere. Classiest tramp stamp around.”
This was the first of Barty’s planned punchlines, and it worked like a dream.
The eavesdropper at the bar had been gradually frowning since ‘three Fridays ago’, but the tattoo was the kicker. He became entirely still, eyes fixed on the bar.
Barty turned toward him and leaned against the back bar.
“Your point, Barty?”
“My point is that you looked good. And people noticed.” The eavesdropper’s hand clenched into a loose fist. “And you noticed one of them back.”
“If you say eye fuck one more time-”
Barty laughed delightedly and the eavesdropper winced. “I said nothing, my lovely smooth pebble. You’re the one bringing up the eye fucking.”
The eavesdropper’s eyes hadn’t moved. Barty was so entirely pleased that he gave up all pretences and walked up to him, leaning his chin on one hand with his elbow propped on the bar. They were at eye level, and he finally met the brown doe eyes that drunk Regulus had babbled about the whole way home.
“He was lovely though, your pretty boy. Remind me of his name?” Barty tipped his head teasingly.
“You know I didn’t get it. What’s your point?” Regulus was gritting his teeth, Barty would bet money he didn’t have on it.
“Ooh touchy, little lamb. Are we regretting not being a big boy and talking to him?”
The eavesdropper glared weakly.
“The point.”
“The point is, that every night since then-” Barty had to pause to avoid cackling at the hysterically horrified way the eavesdropper’s face fell. After a steadying breath, he continued “he’s been here, moping.” That loosely clenched fist tightened, white knuckles and all.
“Well, it didn’t start as moping. It started as coming in, looking around, not finding what he was searching for, buying a couple of drinks and leaving. But the mope levels have been gradually increasing, buttercup. I think it’s terminal.”
Regulus was quiet. “Are you fucking with me?”
Barty scoffed. “I meant it when I said never again, angelface. One go with you was enough for me. Besides,” he leant a little closer to the eavesdropper’s frozen face, “it’s nice to share our toys, no?”
The eavesdropper blushed so hard that neither his dark complexion nor the half-light of the bar could hide it.
“Oh sweetheart,” he said lowly, both to the man on the phone and the man inches from his face. “I didn’t know people could blush this hard. I mean it, my petit pois, I don’t think he’d manage a boner right now. There’s that much blood in his face.”
There was a quiet thunk as the eavesdropper’s head hit the bar, and a comforting couple more thunks as he gently hit his head against it repeatedly. At least he hadn’t passed out.
“Barty,” Regulus’s tone was low and wary, “tell me he can’t hear you right now.”
“He can’t hear me right now,” Barty said with a smile, lifting a wild curl to uncover the eavesdropper’s eye. They were very pretty eyes, Regulus wasn’t wrong.
“Oh my god, you insufferable bastard.” There was a lot more splashing as Regulus got out of the bath.
“I think he requested that song you and Dora salsa-ed to at least twice last week,” Barty said idly, twirling the eavesdropper’s curl around his finger. The man did nothing to stop him, or to prove he had any higher motor function left at all.
“Barty, I swear to god-” Regulus sounded out of breath.
“Are you leaving the house right now, my turtle dove?” Regulus had half drowned him last time Barty had interrupted bath time. A brown doe eye moved to meet Barty’s.
“I hate you.”
“Not for long, orange blossom.” Barty trailed a finger along the catatonic eavesdropper’s cheekbone, marvelling at how perfectly this had played out.
“Not for long,” Regulus huffed, still out of breath. He was clearly moving fast.
“Don’t look too sweaty and dishevelled when you get here, will you, my crunchy little toffee apple? Put all my hard work to waste?”
“Your hard work?”
“Yes, my-”
“Please explain what the fuck you mean by that,” Regulus said in weird stereo, still on the phone but also slamming the door open. His face was stony and murderous and Barty had always said he was the most beautiful on the brink of violent crime.
“I mean you’re here. And really, I thought you’d make more of an effort.”
Regulus looked down at his T-shirt and jeans, thrown on in the panicked hazy knowledge that Barty was going about speaking freely again. Regulus was clearly wishing he had made more of an effort, but the eavesdropper had sat up the second he arrived and been entirely entranced ever since, so it obviously didn’t matter.
“I’m going to fucking kill you, Crouch.”
“You’d take that honour from me?” The stranger’s voice was deep and rich and Barty was seventy percent sure Regulus had just come in his pants.
“Someone’s perked up! Are we showing off now that your husband’s returned from the war, my tragic moping marigold?”
The eavesdropper flushed again, but not nearly as much as when Barty had discussed sharing Regulus. Someone was more horny than ashamed, and it showed.
Regulus went from glaring at Barty to warily watching the eavesdropper, looking faintly nauseous. “I suppose we could make it a team effort,” he said weakly.
A hand that had once been a white knuckled fist was held out to Regulus. “James,” he said with a devastating half-smirk. “You must be Buttercup. Smooth pebble? My scrumptious little morsel?”
Regulus flushed, and on his pale skin it was a violently obvious thing. James-the-eavesdropper was enchanted, and Barty found himself a bit disappointed to have become irrelevant in the conversation.
“Regulus,” he gritted out, eyes caught on their entwined hands.
“Regulus,” James said on an out breath, like a sigh of relief. “Dance with me.” It should probably have been a question rather than a command, but Barty knew Regulus, and he certainly didn’t mind.
Without releasing Regulus’s hand, James moved toward the dance floor, not caring that they’d be the only ones on it.
“You know the song,” James threw over his shoulder.
“You’re insane,” Barty breathed, “if you get bored of Regulus-”
“I won’t,” James said coolly. Regulus looked up at him incredulously and Barty could see the hearts in his cool grey eyes. They’d been there since three Fridays ago.
When Regulus looked back at Barty, he scowled petulantly. “You’ve got Evan. Hands off mine.”
Barty’s eyebrows raised to meet his hairline. “Evan is my fiancé.”
“Yes?” James’s voice was low, and his only other reaction to the ridiculousness was the tightening of his grip on Regulus’s hand.
Speaking of, the flush painting Regulus’s cheeks had spread so far it might have reached his hands.
“Insane,” Barty grinned, “both of you.”
“You’re a fucking hypocrite,” Regulus spat, too full of pleased flush to carry any bite. “Play the song.”
“Anything for you, my precious mongoose.” Barty smiled, more genuine than he’d been in a while.
Damnit. He’d just meant to stir some trouble. Sexy trouble, you know. Now he’d gone and accidentally done a good deed.
“Don’t be too gentle with him, Marigold,” incited some more healthy blushing. There. That’s better.