clock - @bartylusmicrofic - words: 619
The way Regulus understands it: the Hufflepuff boy had just looked at Evan wrong and Evan had punched him, and Barty had seen an altercation happening and thought it looked like great fun.
The way Barty understands it: Barty was being loyal, because Evan is their family and soulmate, and people aren’t allowed to treat Evan that way.
Either way it occurred, Barty has ended up in detention yet again, for the fourth time that week. But, Regulus supposes, at least Barty managed to land a detention for a different reason than the typical, ‘why haven’t you completed the allocated reading?’ or ‘where is the assignment that’s due?’ or the more frequent, ‘why aren’t you brewing the potion / the answering the questions / practising the spell?’
Barty is so regular a participant in after-class detentions that several of their professors have gotten tired of his presence and instead allocated him to sessions in Study Hall.
This is one of those times.
Regulus drops himself into the seat next to Barty, who has filled his parchment with doodlings of two figures in what Regulus assumes is meant to be suggestive positions. Grinning, Barty writes under two stick figures doing Merlin-only-knows-what: this one is you.
Regulus frowns, confused, because he’s pretty sure he’s looking at two stick figures. ‘They’re never going to let you out if you don’t complete your assignments,’ he whispers. ‘We have chapter 9 to read for Transfiguration before tomorrow, and the essay on non-verbal spells was due yesterday…’
‘I don’t need to write a stupid essay, I know all that shit already.’ Barty scoffs and rolls his eyes. ‘The intermediate transfiguration textbook is so dull, anyway. It’s got shit all information about non-verbal magic,’ he says, squinting down at his new set of doodled stick figures. ‘Rabelais’s Book of Magickal Law is so much more comprehensive. If you wanna know about non-verbal magic, I recommend you read that.’ He points at a stick figure that appears to be doing a handstand and says with a smile that’s a little bit devious, ‘this one’s you.’
‘Whether you know it is not the point, you still need to complete the coursework.’
‘That,’ Barty says, dramatically adding a flourish to the stick figure that’s meant to be Regulus, ‘is the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard in my life. And I’ve heard a lot of stupid things. In fact, most people just live their lives walking around saying stupid things.’ He pauses. Frowns. ‘I need to add your floppy hair.’
‘Can we help you, Black?’ When McGonagall stops by their desk, Regulus quickly covers Barty’s parchment, because the last thing he needs is for Barty to end up in even more detentions. She frowns, suspicious, but doesn’t address the matter. Most likely, Regulus assumes, because she doesn’t want to have to put up with yet another afternoon of babysitting Barty Crouch Jnr.
McGonagall sighs. ’Please sit elsewhere. Your friend is not here to socialise.’
Regulus picks up his books and tucks them under his arm. He knows Barty is going to be here for a while, because Barty is stubborn and enjoys antagonising teachers who have yet to learn one very important fact: Barty Crouch Jnr is perpetually bored and needs a challenge, and if that challenge cannot come in the form of an academic challenge, he will happily accept a battle of the wills.
Regulus leans down and whispers by Barty’s ear, because even if Barty will not listen to a teacher, he'll always listen to Regulus, ‘Do your work. I’m bored, and I wanna get out of here.’
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dan heng x gn reader — 1.0k — HIGH SCHOOL AU, delinquent reader, you MIGHT be able to tell that i've been playing persona 5 with the way i wrote this, himeko is dan hengs adoptive mother SPREAD THE WORD, nebulous and ambiguous school setting
notes: my first drabble of what will probably be hundreds in the dan heng x delinquent reader saga... THANK YOU GWEN ( @tragedy-of-commons ) for entertaining me and my silly ideas , GUYS READ OUR BIG THREAD ABOUT THIS CONCEPT LINKED HERE i loved yapping about it and i cannot wait to write a million more drabbles for this concept OKAY!!!
warning for mild blood description but nothing really graphic, just the aftermath of a scuffle
—°+..。*゚。*゚+.*.。.—
Dan Heng finds you behind the school in a pool of your own blood, though—it’s less of a pool of it, and more of a steady drip drip drip through the fingers clasped over your bleeding nose. You’re scrambling to get back up on your feet at the sight of him, and he catches a glimpse of a stupid smile from behind the gaps in your fingers.
Whoever beat you up—successfully, by the looks of it—has long since disappeared, and it’s just you and Dan Heng and your bloody nose alone in the grassy courtyard.
“Are you serious,” Dan Heng deadpans, because this is not the first time he’s caught you like this and it surely won’t be the last.
“You should see the other guy,” you joke back, the same way you joked a thousand times before and the same way you’ll joke a thousand times again. It was never funny, not in Dan Heng’s opinion, and each stupid quip of yours makes his patience run thinner and thinner.
The sight of blood smeared across your face is sickening. It seeps into the cracks of your fingers with every attempt you make to wipe your lips clean, but blood clings and sticks and you never learn your lesson. Dan Heng sighs, the first of many, already swinging his backpack off his shoulder and rummaging through it to find his usual pack of baby wipes and gauze.
It’s not exactly a daily occurrence, but this has happened often enough to train Dan Heng’s hands. He moves silently, brow furrowed and fingers shaking with hesitation—like he’s scared that he’ll hurt you, which is funny because you’ve already been hurt at the hands of someone else. If he lingers on that thought for too long, his stomach will start to twist, so he leaves it alone.
The damp cloth of a baby wipe is cool against his fingers as he swipes it across your face, his other hand firmly planted on your shoulder to keep you still. He clicks his tongue when you make a gargled sniffling noise, muttering a low stop that before you choke on your own blood.
“Why so quiet?” you ask, still with that stupid smile on your face even as he pulls out a second wipe for your face. “There’s so much to talk about. Did you take that quiz in Gallagher’s class today? It was so bad! Half the stuff on there wasn’t even in the study guide.”
“Shut up,” Dan Heng mumbles, loud enough that you can hear him but quiet enough that there’s no real bite to it. The shake in his hands has only grown, because there was so much blood dried on your face that it’s already soaked through the wipe and smears across the tips of his fingers, and it’s not just the sight of blood that makes him nauseous, but the knowledge that it’s yours.
“Heng,” you say, something like a petulant whine in your voice, and he wishes god, for once, can’t you take this seriously, you’ve caused him so much grief in the last two months of knowing you and it’s a miracle that he hasn’t gone gray already. Your hand—still blotted with crimson, dried into rusty smudges—goes up to grab his. It’s pressed against your cheek, the half-dry wipe still in his grasp, clinging to your skin. Dan Heng holds back a flinch at how warm your hands are compared to his own—cold, clammy, trembling.
“It’s late,” you continue, voice still light but the weight of your words settling deep between his shoulder blades, “I have to walk you home. Otherwise your mom will think I’m busy beating you up.”
“Not—“ he starts, choked and face warming so suddenly that it makes his head spin, “—she’s not my mom,” and it’s an oversimplification, and not important right now, and soon he’ll develop an immunity to your distractions. “That was a lot of blood. You should be going straight home.” And he realizes he doesn’t even know where you live, doesn’t know how far you are from his home, how out-of-your-way it is to walk him home nearly every day. He doesn’t ask—you’d never answer.
“It wasn’t that much,” you wave off his concern, “it stopped bleeding already. And my nose isn’t broken. And I’m walking just fine!” It’s one positive after another with you, and Dan Heng sighs again, already losing count of how many times he’s done it.
There’s a moment where you waver, face tensing and wobbling, bloody lips bitten back for a second before that stupid grin is on your face again and you say, tersely, “What, scared you’ll get caught with me?”
And isn’t that an odd way to say it—caught with me, spoken like it’s a curse. Like he’s paying penance by standing behind the school with you, your hand clasped around his. It takes every ounce of self-control for him not to drag his fingers down and wipe the blood off your face himself, staining his fingers and his heart. He wonders what it would mean, then catches himself, again and again, like he’s been doing for two months on repeat.
“No,” he says, urgent in a way that’s unfamiliar to him, like he’s trying to prove himself, dedicated in a way that makes him nauseous, the same way that the blood on your face makes his stomach squeeze. “That’s— not it. You can walk me home. But Himeko will— she’ll fuss over you, you know that. It’ll be annoying.”
“Annoying?” you say, incredulous. “As if! I love that woman. I hope she has those almond cookies, you know, like the ones from last week,” because of course you walked him home last week, too, and Himeko spent thirty minutes making you taste-test every sweet thing she had in her cabinets all while giving Dan Heng an unsettlingly knowing look. He represses a shudder at the memory, and gives you an acknowledging hum.
“Probably not,” he tells you, “she eats them all before I even get a chance.”
“She wouldn’t do that if you told her they were for me! Since I’m her favorite person, and all.” And Dan Heng can neither confirm nor deny, but his finger twitches when it brushes against your hand as you walk side-by-side, and he thinks you might’ve hit it right on the money, whether you’re Himeko’s favorite person or his.
—°+..。*゚。*゚+.*.。.—
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