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He couldn’t tell quite why he’d decided to do it, Anthony had never been great at writing letters. Whenever he got a letter, he would take the longest time to respond to the point where his sister, Molly, told him over and over: “Would it kill you to write back every once in a while?”
But this was different. Anthony was writing a letter because he had no other way of reaching out to him. Why Anthony wanted to contact a stranger was something he didn’t want to give much thought to, he just felt compelled to. But to be fair, the person he was writing to wasn’t really a stranger. Alastor had been there for him for the past few months, cheering him up, making him laugh even on days when Anthony thought that was impossible. So no, Alastor wasn’t a stranger. They just didn’t know each other.
Anthony didn’t want to lose his train of thought but he put his pen down for a second to turn on the radio. Alastor’s show was about to start.
That voice made him feel less alone, it made his worries disappear for an hour. It even gave him hope. And it was all this that Anthony was now pouring into a letter.
He didn’t expect a response, so he wasn’t disappointed when weeks went by without one. Honestly, he wasn’t. He wasn’t bitter either. He still tuned in to Alastor’s show every night and his heart jumped to his throat every time the radio host read messages from the audience, but there was no acknowledgment to his letter there either. No matter. Anthony didn’t need a mention or an answer. He did wonder if Alastor had received his letter, after the third one he had no doubts.
“My dearest listeners, you know that as much as Radio DMN is your space, I don’t usually take requests! But here is a song for a very special someone.”
A pang of jealousy took over Anthony until he recognized the first few bars. It was the song that he had mentioned in his latest letter. It couldn’t be a coincidence.
He wrote Alastor twice more after that. It was easy now, to just put pen to paper and ramble about his days, his nights, how he felt as though he knew Alastor and Alastor knew him. Still, he didn’t expect a reply. It was a one-sided conversation but the possibility of writing to Alastor was all Anthony needed.
So it was really a shock when he got a letter back. Anthony ripped open the envelope with trembling fingers, hoping it wasn’t a cease and desist notification from the radio station’s legal team. His hands shook even more when he read the first line.
“Dear Anthony,”
He started writing back before he was done reading Alastor’s missive.
They weren’t love letters. At least they hadn’t started as love letters, but they became so just as they became phone calls became visits... and then became love.