you know, i talk a lot about how much i hate bartylus but you know what i need to talk about more? how much i ADORE platonic bartylus.
it comes through pretty clearly in my fics but if you just follow my tumblr and don't read anything from my ao3 it doesn't really come up so here is a very long rant about all my favorite things about their friendship (mostly headcanons) and some of this is pulled directly from my fics lol
so i fucking love regulus and barty's friendship. it's so incredibly special to me. i love that they love each other so dearly but they're also absolute menaces to each other. i love that when one of them is sad they're secretly really really soft but around other people they act like mortal enemies.
i love that they absolutely would help each other make people jealous (what can i say, a star for a summer's day was my first jegulus fic). i am very pro bartylus making out to make people jealous (i'm looking at you, halloween party from asfasd).
i love that they either despised each other at first sight or became instant friends and there is no in between. i love that they bond and joke over their family issues. i love that barty is really clingy and regulus pretends to hate it. i love that barty pretends to be grossed out by jegulus but secretly he's so so happy to see his best friend happy.
i love that barty and evan totally parent regulus and he hates it. i love that if regulus were an animagus he would make barty's life hell by biting and scratching him. i love that they actually have a lot in common and have conversations in the middle of the night excitedly talking and evan can't sleep. i love that regulus will infodump to barty and barty will listen to every word and make sure that regulus knows what he's saying is valuable.
i love that they taught each other what love means.
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Here is how to slowly, completely, and irrevocably fall into having someone know your soul as well as you do theirs:
First, be enemies, but of circumstance. Neither of you were really on opposite sides so much as connected to them. You think he loved them, though, that side that was only your enemy by virtue of not being your ally. He loved them, even if he didn't spend as much time with them. You mock him for this. For calling their leader 'king'. (Later, you'll hold onto mockery like it's all you have. You know it's not a game and you know he was really king, but without your ability to make fun of what's happening, you won't be much at all.)
You have a best friend then. This, too, is almost an accident, although to explain all the ways it's also on purpose will take longer than you have to explain. He's wonderful, and loyal, and going to die. So you die fast and young first, before him. You die in front of your friend. You die in front of him.
You don't regret it, the dying young, because it means you die before anyone else can die for you.
Second, watch your best friend fall in love with him, although that phrase feels both too pedestrian and too much like it's overstating the thing that really happens. You have your own drama for too long to really understand how it happens, of course. You're too busy facing a betrayal that will scrape the inside of your soul forever. (To tell the truth, you've already forgiven him for it, but there's something easy about being each other's enemies, so you keep going, orbiting around each other in betrayal betrayal betrayal. But that's someone else who knows your soul, another story.)
Then your best friend dies, as does nearly everyone else. You sit around a campfire with him. You tell him that your best friend trusts him; you'll trust him too. He stands by your side near the end, the two of you running together, another man's memories on your lips.
You're not sure what you regret, then, but you know there's something that won't undo that's a part of you now.
Third, learn the value of choices, as the universe tries its best to take yours from you. In this one, the people you're by the side of is at once familiar and strange. The finalists who'd protected you last time are now an ugly mix of your chosen soulmate and your enemy by making that choice; you attempt to hold on to your ability to choose even as blood makes it clear you can't. (The universe tried to pick someone who would fit you well, you realize later. More people who know your soul that this story isn't actually about. You care for him too, is the thing; you care for choosing more.)
You don't see him much, this time. You respect each other, though. It's hard not to respect each other after everything that's happened. Still, you don't see him, and he doesn't see you. Instead, you see the end of the game. You nearly hold it in your fingers.
You regret. You regret deeply. You are so tired of watching people die, you think, and you regret more than anything else that you couldn't stop it.
Fourth, become enemies, but this time intentionally. Enemies, maybe, is a strong word; you're assigned co-parents, except bad, divorced ones. There's something hysterical about the whole thing, in both the comedic sense of the word and in the original, more concerning sense, especially given the way you all have thought about your best friend-now-son in the past. (Family ties are a thing you'll come to value; it's just that what the names are don't count, really, not when you do this again and again and again. Plus, it's nice to be able to have an excuse to yell.)
It's almost fun again. Maybe it's almost fun. You trade barbs with each other, and try to kill each other, and this time the consequences are light enough that you try to help each other, too. You see each other a lot. You're enemies, of course, but you see each other a lot, as you are: scared, and tired, and not as frightening as you appear, and happy, despite it all.
You don't regret much. You die fast and young, alongside your allies. You see his face before you do though, and you think he's the one with regrets.
Fifth, trip over him as you run across the first session of a new game. You don't know yet what this one will be, if it will be betrayals, or more stolen choices, or family, or fun, or anything else, but you look him in the eyes and make a choice. You will be friends this time instead of enemies. And it's nice. He and you fit together oddly now, but well, despite the oddities. You've had time to learn to, from a distance, and then closer and closer. (People seem baffled you're friends now. You wish you could explain that that's how these stories go sometimes.)
You're pretty certain he'll leave you when the time comes. He says he's a runner, and not a protector, and yet, when the time comes to betray you, you both know he won't hurt you, and you're both surprised anyway.
"You might regret this," you tell him quietly. You both have scars.
"You might regret this," he agrees. But you also both have choices.
"Okay," you say. "Have you ever fallen in love?"
"Cleo," he says, brushing your hair aside, and he doesn't answer.
"I don't think I have," you say honestly. "I think it's something else. Have you ever accidentally given someone a piece of your soul?"
"All the time," he says, and that's that.
The end is coming soon. You'll find out if you regret it.
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I was just thinking about how I apparently have the same taste in women as my dad. Can you imagine Steve finding out his parents have a lavender marriage? Also, imagine him flipping his lid when he realizes his dad's taste in men kind of looks like Eddie and his mom's taste in women kind of look like Nancy. Robin, who found out at the same time, was there too. He turns to her.
"Robin!" He squeaked. "I have the same taste in people as my parents!"
Meanwhile, Robin is on the floor laughing her ass off. She sat up for a moment, gasping for breath as tears came, and pointed at him. She collapsed back on the floor, still pointing.
"Robin! This isn't funny!" Steve squawked.
"It's a little funny," Eddie said, snickering.
Oh, yeah, Eddie was there too.
"Eddie, if my dad was younger, he would go for you!" He yelped.
"And I would be very flattered, but baby, you're the only Harrington I want," Eddie replied. "There's nothing to be jealous of."
"I'm not jealous! I'm freaking out!" Steve said. "We. Have. The. Same. Taste."
John Harrington came waltzing into the living room, whistling.
"You want a scotch, son?" John said. "A nice glass of scotch always calms me down."
"No, I do not want a scotch, dad," Steve bitched at him. "I hate scotch."
"See, now, there's something," John said. "Your mother and I both love scotch. We don't have exactly the same tastes. Now, if you want to, you can have the house to yourself. There's a nice bar in Indie your mother and I like to go to."
"Is it the one with all the goofy shit on the walls?" Eddie asked.
"Yes!"
"Robin and Steve like to go there too!" Eddie said, and Steve slapped a hand to his face.
"Well, we're just going to get out of your hair. Edward, don't get my son pregnant. His mother isn't ready to be a grandmother yet," John said and walked out of the room, waving at them.
"I LOVE your dad," Eddie cackled.
"I thought you said that I had nothing to worry about," Steve scowled and threw a pillow at him.
"You know, your mother kind of looks like Robin," Eddie said, scrunching up his nose.
"Does this mean that we're destined to have a lavender marriage of our own and have a turkey baster baby too?!" Robin exclaimed with a gasp. "Because I'm telling you right now I am not pushing your big headed baby out of my vagina!"
"Well, if you give me your gender, Buckley, I would gladly do it myself!" Eddie exclaimed. "It's really very selfish of you."
Robin glared mockingly at him before hitting him with a pillow, which resulted in a pillow fight. Steve rolled his eyes at the ceiling.
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