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After one-too-many conversations where others insist Evan’s feelings are reciprocated, Evan has to prove them all wrong. It sits wrong with him, and he needs to shut them all up for sure.
Not to say he hasn’t let himself hope. He has. And he wishes he hadn’t. the daydreams haunt his every passing moment, each additional word spoken to him only making it worse, only allowing his delusions flourish until the very moment that brought him here.
Regulus trying to tell him to tell Barty about his feelings. Regulus! The very same one who has gone years without so much as acknowledging his obvious feelings for James Potter. He needs to shut them all up, so he concocted his plan.
It took him about 4 seconds, but it would be too much work to go back now.
He’s stolen a bottle of cologne from Regulus, right from the box of gifts from his relatives he’s never touched and never will, and is now halfway through brewing a pot of amortentia, which is is going to be filling the bottle with and asking Barty what it smells like, accompanied with some response about how his mom sent it for him and he had no interest in it, so he figured he’d just give it to Barty, who might end up using some of it. Might being the opporative word. Barty had a few bottles of cologne he acquired over the years, though rarely did he use them. Evan just had to convince Barty that maybe he’d use it, and maybe is far more than Evan’s ‘certainly not’, of which they all knew to be true.
Thankfully, the potion looks fine, so he’s spent his day studying beside it in hopes nothing will go wrong. He would have no idea how to fix it.
It’s almost done, and so is all his schoolwork. Nothing 6 hours beside a cauldron can’t fix. Now he’s more caught up than he has in years, despite the fact that he couldn’t be more scared for what tomorrow will bring him.
On one hand, he won’t have to listen to any theories with any loose shreds of hope taking place within his heart, weaving themselves into baskets for his inevitable broken heart. On the other, the shreds of hope won’t be there. All that will be inside his chest is broken shreds of that very same basket and an empty cavern.
Either way, something will be dead inside of him. Whether it’s the sense of hope in a good or bad way is yet to be seen.
He pulls the empty bottle from his bag. It wasn’t empty when he stole it, but he poured the full bottle of what might be hundreds of dollars in cologne into a sink and peeled the label off himself to make this stupid plan work.
After a few more minutes of staring into the cauldron, familiar scents grace his nose. The citrus he’s come to associate with Barty, from the shampoo he choose one day years ago and has been using ever since. Other scents are there, too, but none as prominent.
After filling the bottle and cleaning up the mess, he goes back to his room to sleep, ruminating over what he would work up the courage to do the next day.
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It’s time. He has to just get it over with, needs to prove everyone wrong. Even if he might not want to.
Cologne bottle in hand, Evan walks over to where Barty sits in their dorm. Regulus went out about an hour ago to study.
As Evan’s weight shifts Barty’s mattress, Barty looks up, a question in his gaze.
“I, uh, my mom gave me some cologne when I last saw her, and, I, uh, just found it in my trunk. You use cologne sometimes… so I figured I’d give it to you.”
Barty takes it from his hands, voicing gratitude.
Now, for the moment of faith. Barty twists off the cap, leaning in to smell it, and, without any prompting, says, “Wow, Ev, even if you did use cologne, this stuff would have been a waste. It smells just like you.”
He tries his hardest to act natural, to not freeze up, wide eyed, while Barty watches him in confusion, asking question after question about what he could have possibly said to make things go this wrong.
But he fails miserably, and is now stuck attempting to explain in what comes out as incomprehensible nonsense until he finally just says it. “That bottle is full of amortentia.” Barty blanches. “Everyone kept trying to tell me you liked me, and… and I didn’t want to have to hope anymore, so I just wanted to get it over with and know once and for all that you aren’t as in love with me as I am with you… but… but—”
Without another word, Barty pulls Evan into his arms, the weight forcing them both to lie down, Evan on top of Barty.
The rest of their afternoon is out of Evan’s wildest dreams, with whispered conversations and experimental touches and light kisses.