eeh

“—and I tell him, ‘that’s not minimal,’ and he goes, ‘well, I want it delicate,’ and I’m like, those are not the same—Evan, they’re not the same—”

Another soft hum. Agreement, probably. Or maybe just acknowledgment.

Barty keeps going.

He talks about the apprentice who almost passed out during a piercing. About the playlist at the shop that got stuck on the same three songs for an hour. About a woman who tipped him with homemade cookies that may or may not have been underbaked but he ate anyway because she looked proud.

At some point, his voice slows. Not because he’s running out of things to say—Barty never runs out of things to say—but because the warmth of Evan’s lap and the steady motion in his hair is dragging him somewhere soft and hazy.

Still, he keeps talking.

“…and I told him, if you touch that again before it heals, I will personally haunt you,” he mutters, words starting to slur together. “Like, not even in a threatening way, just… a promise…”

Evan’s fingers don’t stop. They comb, scratch, smooth. Over and over.

Time passes.

A lot of time.

Barty doesn’t notice how long until he pauses mid-sentence and the quiet stretches just a second too long.

His eyes blink open.

“…wait.”

Evan’s hand is still in his hair.

The room is dimmer than it was before. The light outside has shifted—golden hour bleeding into something softer, something evening.

Barty goes still.

“How long have I been talking?” he asks slowly.

Evan doesn’t answer right away. His fingers just glide through Barty’s hair again, like the question isn’t urgent. Like nothing is.

That’s when it hits.

Barty bolts upright so fast he nearly headbutts Evan’s chin.

“Jesus—Evan, why didn’t you tell me to shut up?” he blurts, already scrambling off the couch. “I’ve been going on forever, haven’t I? You were just sitting there—fuck, you were being polite—”

He starts pacing, running his hands through his own hair now, undoing all of Evan’s careful work.

“I didn’t even ask about your day, I just came in and started—God, I do this all the time, don’t I? I just talk and talk and—”

He turns, ready to keep spiraling, already halfway into an apology—

And Evan moves.

It’s quick, but not rushed. Deliberate.

His hand catches Barty’s wrist mid-gesture.

The contact is warm. Grounding.

Barty freezes.

Evan tugs—just enough to stop him, not enough to pull him off balance. His thumb brushes once over the inside of Barty’s wrist, absentminded, familiar.

“Barty.”

The way he says it—quiet, steady—cuts clean through the noise in Barty’s head.

Barty swallows. “Yeah?”

Evan looks at him like this is simple. Like this has always been simple.

“I love the sound of your voice.”

Barty blinks.

Once. Twice.

“…what?”

Evan’s expression doesn’t change. If anything, it softens, just slightly at the edges.

“I like listening to you,” he says, like he’s clarifying something obvious. “You get excited. You ramble. You make everything sound more interesting than it has any right to be.”

His thumb brushes Barty’s wrist again.

“It’s my favorite part of your day.”

Barty stares at him.

There’s a laugh somewhere in his chest, but it gets stuck halfway up, tangled with something warmer, something heavier.

“You’re insane,” Barty mutters, but it comes out quieter than usual. Less bite, more disbelief.

Evan just shrugs, like that’s not really a denial.

“Come back,” he says, giving Barty’s wrist a small tug.

Barty hesitates for half a second.

Then he folds.

He drops back onto the couch, a little less dramatically this time, settling with his head in Evan’s lap again like he was never gone. Like this is where he’s meant to be.

Evan’s fingers return to his hair immediately. Like they missed it.

For a moment, Barty is quiet.

Then—

“Okay, but I didn’t even get to the worst part,” he says, already shifting, already warming back up. “Because after the dragon guy left—”

Evan smiles, small and private, fingers moving in slow, steady patterns.