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It was a humble little cottage, though far more generous in size than either of them had imagined when they first stumbled across the listing online. From the narrow lane, it appeared almost storybook in character, nestled behind a crooked flint wall draped heavily in wandering ivy, its roof sagging beneath layers of emerald moss and the burden of passing years. The whitewashed stone had long abandoned any pretence of symmetry; the walls curved with the graceful fatigue of age, the windows tilted ever so slightly askew, and the chimney stood with a charming awkwardness, as though some absent-minded mason had affixed it centuries too late. Asa had fallen in love with it at once.
Inside, the cottage unfolded in warm little surprises. There were no doors downstairs besides the pantry; each space melted seamlessly into the next through rounded archways, framed with ancient oak beams low enough that Anthony was forced to bow his head whenever he passed beneath them. Unfortunately, remembrance rarely arrived before impact. By the third occasion he struck his skull against the timber separating the kitchen from the sitting room, Asa had begun flinching in anticipation each time he approached the threshold.
“Country living,” Anthony had muttered, pressing a hand to the top of his head while Asa laughed helplessly into a tea towel.
Still, it was charming in a way neither of them could quite put into words. The floors creaked companionably beneath their feet, worn smooth in the places generations of people had walked before them. A faint fragrance of woodsmoke lingered perpetually in the kitchen no matter how widely they flung the windows open, and the fireplace in the sitting room yawned so wide that Anthony could stand inside if he stooped. Someone had left hooks along the ceiling beams for drying herbs, and Asa had already begun talking about hanging bundles of rosemary and thyme there by winter.
Beyond the back windows, the South Downs rolled away in long green folds beneath the afternoon light. Sheep grazed lazily in distant fields bordered by hedgerows thick with hawthorn, and narrow walking paths curved through the hills like pale ribbons stitched into the landscape. The air felt different here than it had in London—cleaner somehow, touched constantly by wind carrying the scent of damp earth, wild grass, and rain waiting somewhere just over the horizon.
The garden had clearly been neglected for years, which meant Asa considered it perfect—they loved that prospect of wilding—whilst Anthony considered it a project. Roses climbed wildly over a crooked wooden trellis near the back gate, lavender crowded the stone path in fragrant purple bursts, and something sprawling and aggressively green had entirely consumed what Anthony suspected had once been a birdbath.
“There’s probably a fox living in that,” he observed.
“Oh, I hope so,” Asa replied absently, already kneeling to inspect a patch of overgrown weeds with the sort of reverence they usually reserved for rare manuscripts.
Anthony watched the sunlight catching silver in their curls as the breeze tugged at the sleeves of their cream jumper. Eighteen months together and the sight of Asa moving through a space that was now totally theirs was a little startling. Their cottage. Their garden. Their ridiculous little life tucked into the hills where nobody needed anything from them.
Back inside, Asa had already claimed the sitting room entirely without meaning to. Open boxes surrounded them in cheerful disarray, their contents spilling steadily across every available surface despite Anthony’s increasingly half-hearted attempts at organisation. Books appeared first, of course. Endless books. Great tottering stacks beside the fireplace, crowded along the windowsills, tucked beneath chairs, and arranged in delicate, precarious towers around Asa’s feet as they unpacked each volume with unconcealed delight, as though reacquainting themselves with old friends.
Anthony had once asked how many books a retired bookseller actually needed to keep. Asa had looked genuinely offended.
They drifted through the cheerful disorder in thick woollen socks, humming softly beneath their breath as they arranged beloved volumes into categories comprehensible only to themself. First editions were placed with veneration to one side. Annotated favourites formed another pile entirely. Every so often they would pause to reread a passage, smile faintly to themself, and then forget whatever task they had originally been doing.
Their magician’s things emerged next. Anthony leaned against one of the low archways—ducking automatically this time—and watched as Asa carefully unwrapped velvet cloths, worn decks of cards, silver coins polished smooth with use, and several lacquered boxes full of props Anthony still did not entirely understand despite eighteen months of dating and at least six performances attended voluntarily.
“There’s no earthly reason,” Anthony said as Asa produced an alarming quantity of silk handkerchiefs from a single case, “for one human being to own this many scarves.”
“They’re not scarves,” Asa replied patiently, without looking up. “They’re silks.”
Asa smiled wistfully as they arranged everything atop the old writing desk beneath the front window, transforming it within minutes into something that looked halfway between a magician’s workshop and an occult archive.
Then came the snuff boxes. Anthony had forgotten about the snuff boxes.
“Oh good,” he sighed as Asa opened another carefully wrapped parcel. “The tiny haunted treasure chests survived the move.”
“They are antiques,” Asa informed him, scandalised.
“They’re creepy.”
“They are exquisite.”
They were, Anthony had to concede, rather beautiful in their own unnerving way. Tiny, impossibly ornate things fashioned from enamel, silver, and shimmering mother-of-pearl, each absurdly elaborate for an object originally intended to hold powdered tobacco. Asa handled them with almost ceremonial delicacy, arranging them along the mantelpiece with the solemn concentration of a curator positioning crown jewels within a royal collection.
The late afternoon sun spilled gold through the cottage windows, catching against polished silver and dust motes drifting lazily through the air. Somewhere outside, sheep bleated faintly across the hills. Asa stood balanced on the balls of their feet trying to reach the highest shelf of the bookcase, muttering softly to themself as they attempted to decide whether nineteenth-century theology belonged beside stage magic memoirs or the Dickens.
Anthony watched them for a long moment. Watched the familiar crease appear between their brows. Watched them push their sleeves up absently with ink-stained fingers. Watched them settle themselves into this strange little cottage as though they had always belonged here.
Oh, he thought. I’m going to marry them.
Anthony lingered there another moment longer than was probably normal, leaning against the archway with his hands tucked loosely into the pockets of his coat while Asa continued unpacking in blissful ignorance of the fact that they had just rather irrevocably altered the trajectory of his entire life. Or perhaps they were aware. Asa tended to notice things Anthony would happily have hidden forever.
Still, they seemed occupied enough now, kneeling beside another box of books with the concentration of a medieval scholar uncovering sacred texts, and so Anthony escaped before he could say something embarrassing aloud.
The kitchen was full of his things.
Well. Mostly plants. An unreasonable number of plants, according to every friend either of them had ever had.
Anthony ignored this slander as he began carrying pots from their boxes and arranging them around the cottage with great care. A broad monstera claimed the sunny corner beside the back windows almost immediately, its enormous leaves looking absurdly tropical against the old cottage stone. Ferns appeared along shelves and windowsills. Several succulents took up residence beside the sink. Ivy was positioned strategically atop one of the exposed beams where it could begin what Anthony privately hoped would be a slow but respectable takeover of the entire house.
The final plant—a snake plant nearly as tall as Asa’s shoulder—was lowered beside the fireplace with a satisfied nod. He moved toward the stairs, pausing halfway as another thought occurred to him.
“Oh,” he said casually, “I’m driving back into London tomorrow.”
Asa looked up immediately. “Are you?”
“Mhm. Need to pick Bentley up.”
Bentley had been staying temporarily with one of Anthony’s former colleagues during the move, largely because Asa had gently suggested that transporting both two entire households and a six-foot snake simultaneously might be “overly ambitious.”
Bentley was a glossy black kingsnake with narrow bands of deep bronze along his scales that caught copper in the light. He had a permanently unimpressed expression and the peculiar habit of draping himself around Anthony’s shoulders like an expensive feather boa whenever he was feeling sociable, which was often. Technically, he belonged in his terrarium, which was large enough to qualify as furniture, but Bentley had long ago decided ordinary reptile behaviour was beneath him. Asa adored him shamelessly.
“Poor creature’s probably plotting my murder as we speak,” Anthony continued solemnly. “He despises being separated from his emotional-support human.”
Asa snorted softly and returned to unpacking. Anthony watched them for another brief moment before forcing himself to sound normal.
“You should stay here while I’m gone,” he said. “Get settled properly. Make the place feel like home.”
Asa smiled without looking up from the book in their hands. “Anthony, it already does.”
And there it was again, that dreadful, exquisite tenderness unfurling beneath his ribs. Anthony turned away quickly before he did something catastrophic like propose immediately without any planning.
Instead he reached for another plant, mind already racing ahead towards London.
Towards phone calls.
Towards rings.
Towards every disastrously incompetent friend they had.
By the time Anthony reached the coffee shop the next morning, London felt strangely loud. Not unpleasantly so; he still loved the city in the way one loved somewhere that had shaped them for years, but after only two days in the South Downs, the constant movement of it all just seemed too much somehow. Car horns, sirens somewhere in the distance, the blur of colourful umbrellas and hurried footsteps along wet pavements.
The Downs had spoiled him embarrassingly quickly. There, his mornings had begun with wind through hedgerows and birdsong in the guttering. Home, some inconveniently sentimental part of Anthony’s mind kept insisting. He’d lived in London for decades, built an entire life there, taught half the city’s physics students at one point or another. Marked theses in a cramped university office and spent too many nights pacing observatory rooftops under sodium-orange skies that drowned out most of the stars. London had given him friends, purpose, independence. And then somehow, Asa.
Still, as Anthony stepped around a cluster of tourists blocking the pavement outside the station, he caught himself thinking longingly of uneven stone floors and rain rolling over green hills. And of Asa, probably still in their dressing gown at this hour.
The little café opposite Asa’s old bookshop, however, remained gloriously unchanged. Warm yellow light glowed through fogged windows despite the grey weather outside, and the air smelled richly of espresso, cinnamon pastries, and damp wool coats drying over chairs. The bell above the door gave its familiar off-key jangle as Anthony stepped inside, immediately wrapping him in warmth after the spring-time chill outdoors. He had spent an alarming amount of time here over the last year and a half; at first because it had been conveniently close to the bookshop; then, because Asa had liked the lemon cake.
Then because, somewhere along the line, coffee dates had stopped feeling like dates entirely and started feeling like routine woven seamlessly into the stitching of his days before he’d fully realised what was happening. He could still remember the first time he’d come in looking for Asa after one of their longer shifts at the shop, only to find them sitting exactly where they always sat by the window with a book open in one hand and a rapidly neglected cup of tea beside them. Anthony had sat down intending to stay ten minutes. Three hours later, the café owner had politely informed them she was closing.
Anthony spotted the others immediately gathered around two pushed-together tables near the back. Erik waved both arms the moment he saw him.
“Anthony!”
Several customers looked up. Anthony winced automatically. “Yes, wonderful, thank you Erik. Subtle as always.”
Erik grinned, entirely unbothered. Anthony shrugged out of his coat and draped it over the back of his chair as he took in the group properly.
Muriel sat beside Erik with both hands wrapped carefully around a hot chocolate piled irresponsibly high with whipped cream. They smiled brightly at Anthony, though there was something anxious in the way they kept glancing around the table like they were worried they’d accidentally say the wrong thing at any moment. Mrs Sandwich occupied the end seat like a monarch holding court, elegant even beneath a dramatic faux-fur coat and enough chunky jewellery to make small movements seem hazardous. Beside her sat Mr Arnold, quirky as ever in a pressed brown jumper and piano tie, stirring his tea with a pleasant smile.
Joshua and Adam sat opposite them. Joshua looked up first, smiling warmly before shifting several mugs aside to make space for Anthony. There was something very kind and thoughtful about him, though he still carried himself like someone occasionally surprised the world expected him to function as an adult; as though he had only recently realised nobody was coming to explain how council tax worked and was trying very hard not to panic about it. Adam, meanwhile, was entirely too perceptive for a man his age. Anthony had met him only recently through Joshua, but already suspected he understood most things about you within minutes of entering a room. It was unsettling. The young man lounged easily in his chair with one arm draped behind Joshua, coffee balanced loosely in his other hand, observing the world with the amusement of someone who had somehow skipped ahead and read the final chapter, while everyone else was still struggling with the first third.
“You look nervous,” Adam observed immediately.
“I’m not nervous.”
“You texted eight people asking for an urgent meeting before noon,” Adam replied. “You’re either nervous or…maybe starting a cult.”
Erik perked up. “Are we starting a cult?”
“No,” Anthony and Joshua said together.
Mrs Sandwich reached over and patted Anthony’s hand. “Go on then, darling. You’ve got ‘proposal face’.”
Anthony froze, brown eyes wide like a deer caught in the headlights. Muriel inhaled sharply into their hot chocolate, almost choking. Mr Arnold sighed. “Honestly, perhaps let the poor man say it himself.”
Mrs Sandwich wrinkled her nose dismissively before swivelling straight back to Anthony, wholly unrepentant and entirely undeterred. “Well?”
Anthony rubbed a hand over his mouth, suddenly aware this had felt significantly easier when he’d rehearsed it alone in the car on the drive back from Sussex. Then he thought of Asa standing in the cottage yesterday morning. The words came easily after that.
“I’m going to ask Asa to marry me.”
The table erupted instantly. Muriel made a tiny emotional squeak and clapped both hands over their mouth. Erik looked moments away from climbing across the table to hug him. Mrs Sandwich immediately seized Anthony’s arm with a delighted “Oh, sweetheart,” while Mr Arnold drummed happily on the wooden table with his index fingers.
Joshua smiled warmly. “That’s wonderful.”
“About time,” Adam added.
Anthony pointed at him immediately. “You are twenty-two. You’re not allowed to say things like that. And anyway... ” he shifted uncomfortably in his seat and pushed his glasses back up his nose. “I was worried it might be too soon. Eighteen months might be too quick.”
Not because Anthony doubted what he felt. If anything, that was the frightening part. He had spent most of his adult life carefully independent, moving through academia and publishing and crowded London for years without ever seriously imagining himself settling permanently beside another person. Relationships had happened, certainly, but never this. And eighteen months was not very long at all. Except…somehow it also felt like he had known Asa forever.
“Oh, nonsense,” Mrs Sandwich cut in matter-of-factly. “Some people just know.”
Anthony looked down at the table for a second, smiling in that helplessly fond way he couldn’t help around conversations about Asa.
He thought of Asa standing in the doorway of the cottage yesterday evening holding two mugs of tea while the rain battered softly against the windows; thought of them humming absentmindedly while unpacking books; thought of the way they reached for his hand whenever they sat on the sofa; thought of waking up beside them that morning and feeling that every good thing in his life had somehow led him there.
“Aye,” he conceded dopily. “Think I do.”
“Oh, he’s gone,” Adam announced.
“Completely gone,” Joshua agreed fondly.
Anthony rolled his eyes, though the smile tugging at his mouth remained impossible to suppress. “Shut up.”
Then Erik leaned forward so abruptly he nearly elbowed Muriel’s drink onto the floor. “How are you going to do it?”
“That,” Anthony said with a long exhale, “is what I need your help with. I just want it to be right. Not perfect, Asa doesn’t care about things being perfect. But I want it to feel…” He paused briefly, searching for the words. “Fit for an angel.”
“Well,” Mr Arnold declared briskly, setting down his teacup. “First things first. Any worthwhile proposal requires music.”
“And romance,” Mrs Sandwich added.
Anthony blinked. “Music? What is this, Say Anything?”
Adam looked at Joshua. “See? This is why I like old people.”
“We’re not old,” Mrs Sandwich and Mr Arnold said together.
Meanwhile Erik had already pulled out his phone.
“I’m making a group chat.” He looked up brightly. “What are we calling it? Operation Holy Matrimony? Ooh yes, that's good.”
Anthony immediately regretted involving any of them. He pinched the bridge of his nose with a long-suffering sigh. “Just don’t tell Derek. He’s getting on a bit these days—”
“Says the fifty-one-year-old retired university professor,” Adam jibed immediately.
Anthony pointed at him at once. “First of all, rude. Second of all, I aged beautifully.”
Joshua snorted unexpectedly into his coffee.
Mrs Sandwich gave Anthony a long critical once-over. “He’s got a point, actually.”
Anthony looked smug for approximately three seconds. “Thank you.”
“You’ve got very good hair for your age.”
His expression flattened instantly. “What I’m trying to say is that Derek’ll likely blab. Not his fault, but he’ll forget it’s supposed to be a secret five minutes after somebody distracts him with a biscuit.”
“That did happen once,” Mr Arnold admitted thoughtfully.
“It happened three times,” Mrs Sandwich corrected.
Anthony sighed. “I just don’t want anything ruining the surprise, alright? I want to do this properly.”
Muriel pressed both hands against their chest with visible emotion. “That’s so romantic.”
Erik nodded vigorously. “Like a heist, but emotional.”
Joshua frowned slightly. “I don’t think proposals are usually compared to crimes.”
“You’re not thinking big enough,” Adam told him.
Anthony laughed softly despite himself, shaking his head. “You lot are ridiculous.”
“Yeah,” Mrs Sandwich said warmly, “and you still came to us.”
That, unfortunately, was true. Because for all their chaos—Erik’s inability to whisper, Muriel’s catastrophic honesty, Adam’s terrifying perceptiveness, Joshua’s tendency to overcomplicate things, Mr Arnold’s obsession with finding a soundtrack to suit every occasion—they all loved Asa dearly. And they loved him too, somehow.
“I just…” He paused briefly, trying to articulate the feeling lodged somewhere behind his ribs. “They’ve spent so much of their life taking care of everyone else. The shop, customers, all those lonely people who came in just to talk to somebody. Even me. “I want them to have something lovely. Something that’s just for them.”
For a moment, nobody spoke. Then Adam said quietly, with surprising gentleness, “Okay. We’ll help.”
Anthony glanced up. And because apparently this morning had not yet humiliated him enough emotionally, he felt his throat tighten a little at the sincerity of it.
Erik ruined the moment almost instantly, of course. “I’ve added everyone to the ‘Operation Holy Matrimony’ group chat.”
Anthony rolled his eyes. “Right,” he muttered, getting to his feet. “I’m getting a caffeine source before you people give me an aneurysm.”
And then he disappeared toward the back of the café, one hand tucked into the pocket of his jeans as he ducked past a waitress carrying pastries towards the counter. The second he was out of earshot, Muriel made a tiny horrified sound. Erik stared at his phone.
“Oh, shit.” he whispered.
“Oh no.” Muriel echoed faintly.
Joshua immediately straightened. “What?”
Erik turned the screen around with the expression of a man moments away from being publicly executed. The second name on the recipient list, nestled neatly beneath Adam’s contact information—
Asa Fell.
Erik: FCK FCK ASA PLSE DONT TELL ANT I DID THAT! I DELETED THE CHAT B4 HE SAW! PRETEND U DINT C IT!!!
Asa stared down at their phone in mild horror.
For a long moment, they simply stood there in the middle of the cottage kitchen in complete silence, save for the kettle rattling faintly behind them on the stove and the soft ticking of rain against the windows. Outside, misty silver rain drifted across the South Downs in long delicate sheets, blurring the hills beyond the glass into muted washes of green and grey. The garden looked dreamlike in weather like this; lavender bowed gently beneath the rain, and the old climbing roses trembled softly against the crooked trellis by the gate. Inside, however, Asa felt as though the entire world had abruptly tilted sideways.
Slowly, they lowered themself into one of the kitchen chairs.
Their phone buzzed again.
Muriel: We are so, so sorry! Please forgive Erik. He is crying a little.
Another message appeared immediately after it.
Adam: In Erik’s defence, Anthony should’ve known better than to trust him with technology.
Asa pressed a hand over their mouth. Not because they were upset. Quite the opposite, actually. Their eyes drifted slowly back upward toward the first notification, the one that had flashed across their screen before Erik deleted the group chat in a panic.
Operation Holy Matrimony a.k.a Anthony stop being a wet paper towel and be a MAN, Asa ain't getting any younger!!!
Asa felt their chest ache suddenly with unbearable affection. Oh, Anthony, the poor darling.
They could picture him so vividly sitting in that little café opposite the bookshop, probably hunched slightly over his coffee with that thoughtful crease between his brows while everyone inevitably overwhelmed him with opinions. Nervous beneath the sarcasm. Trying to act casual about something that clearly mattered enormously to him. Anthony wanted to marry them! Asa looked down at their phone, suddenly smiling helplessly to themself.
Eighteen months. Objectively, perhaps, that was quick.
And yet somehow it felt impossible that there had ever been a version of their life without Anthony winding himself quietly through it. Without finding his glasses abandoned beside the kettle. Without hearing his faint Scottish accent drifting through the house whenever he spoke to Bentley. Without the gentle weight of him leaning against Asa in the evenings while they both read separate books in companionable silence, hands clasped tight. Anthony had settled into their life with such certainty that Asa sometimes forgot there had ever been an adjustment period at all. He simply belonged. Warmth bloomed painfully through Asa’s chest.
Then came the second horrifying realisation—Anthony thought this was still a surprise.
Asa stared at the messages in growing alarm. “Oh dear.”
They were going to be absolutely dreadful at pretending they didn’t know.
By the time Anthony returned from London that evening, the rain had eased. Asa heard the car before they saw it, tyres crunching softly along the gravel lane beyond the garden wall, followed almost immediately by muffled voices and the unmistakable sound of Anthony swearing at something or other. They smiled automatically and set their book aside. The front door burst open a moment later in a gust of damp spring air.
“Right,” Anthony announced breathlessly from the hallway, “who designed snake enclosures to weigh approximately the same as a dying star?”
“Physics joke,” Adam said flatly somewhere behind him. “Drink.”
Joshua laughed under the strain of helping manoeuvre Bentley’s enormous terrarium through the doorway. “Mind the wall—mind the wall—!”
“I am minding the wall!” Adam protested.
Asa appeared from the sitting room just in time to watch Adam roll his eyes with the weary resignation of someone accustomed to managing disasters for a living. Anthony stood in the middle of the hallway with rain dampening the shoulders of his black coat, ginger hair slightly windswept, his glasses fogged from the sudden warmth of the cottage. In one hand he carried a sleek black travel case vented carefully along the sides; Bentley’s case.
“Oh, hello angel,” Anthony said instinctively.
“Hello yourself,” they replied. Stars, they had missed him.
Which felt ridiculous considering Anthony had only been gone a matter of hours, but the cottage had seemed oddly incomplete without him moving through it. Too quiet, too still. Asa had spent most of the afternoon unpacking the last of their books simply to distract themself.
Behind Anthony, Joshua shifted awkwardly beneath the weight of the terrarium. “Where do you want this?”
“Oh, right.” Anthony blinked like he’d briefly forgotten the rest of the world existed. “Spare bedroom for now, please. Till I sort out where everything’s going permanently.”
Adam and Joshua disappeared obediently down the narrow hallway carrying the enclosure between them. A loud thud sounded almost immediately upstairs. He sighed towards the ceiling. “Wonderful.”
Then, with the air of someone remembering something important, he crouched carefully beside the travel case and unlatched it. “Well then,” he murmured. “Let’s get you out, darling.”
Bentley emerged with slow regal dignity, glossy black scales glittering where the hallway light struck them. He slid easily into Anthony’s waiting hands, tongue flicking curiously against the air before immediately beginning his usual climb upward. Within seconds, he had draped himself comfortably around Anthony’s shoulders like living jewellery, looping once loosely across the back of his neck while the rest of him coiled down Anthony’s chest and arm with practiced familiarity.
“There he is,” Asa smiled.
Anthony smiled back. “He missed you.”
“I missed him too.”
“Mm.” Anthony’s mouth twitched, a tender smirk, then he reached out, fingers brushing lightly against Asa’s wrist before sliding upward to cup gently at the side of their face.
The kiss that followed was slow and deep; Anthony still tasted faintly of coffee beneath the cold air lingering on his skin. Asa’s hands settled automatically against his coat, while Bentley remained draped over Anthony’s shoulders with the complete indifference of someone profoundly accustomed to human affection occurring nearby.
Anthony kissed them like coming home. When he finally pulled back, his forehead lingered briefly against Asa’s. “How was your day?”
Asa looked up at him, heart suddenly full to aching. Wonderful, they almost said. Terrifying. Life-changing. Instead, they rested one hand lightly against Bentley’s cool scales and replied, “Oh, fairly quiet.”
Which was technically true if one ignored the emotional collapse they had experienced in the kitchen earlier.
It had, admittedly, taken considerable effort to convince the others they had not seen anything before Erik deleted the chat. Asa had been forced to perform a level of strategic dishonesty entirely unnatural to them as a person. Lying had never come easily; their face alone tended to betray them within seconds, and Anthony claimed regularly that Asa possessed “the moral constitution of an anxious golden retriever.” Under ordinary circumstances, the guilt would have consumed them almost immediately. But these, Asa felt, were extraordinary circumstances. Anthony was clearly going to great lengths to organise something beautiful and meaningful for them, and if feigning ignorance preserved even a fraction of that surprise for him, then Asa was willing to suffer through the performance.
Adam, unfortunately, had almost certainly realised the truth within minutes. He had merely sent one final message—You’re a terrible liar, by the way, followed by a winking emoji. Asa still had not recovered from the humiliation. A few minutes later, they excused themself under the pretence of checking that nobody had concussed themselves upstairs. Anthony, currently occupied in the kitchen trying to make a coffee one-handed while Bentley remained looped around his shoulders like a smug black scarf, waved them off easily enough.
The moment Asa reached the landing, however, they immediately cornered Adam beside the open spare room door. “Right,” they whispered urgently.
Adam looked entirely unsurprised. Joshua, meanwhile, knelt beside the terrarium attempting to reconnect one of the heat lamps with the deeply focused expression of a man pretending very hard not to overhear any of this.
“I knew it,” Adam said.
“Hush.”
“You saw the chat.”
“I saw some of the chat,” Asa corrected in a frantic undertone. “Entirely against my will.”
Adam leaned lazily against the doorframe, looking deeply entertained by the whole thing. “You’re a terrible actor.”
“Yes, well, I’m not usually forced into elaborate deception.” Asa pressed both hands briefly over their face, then spoke through their fingers. “Adam, please. You cannot tell Anthony that I know.”
“I wasn’t planning to.” Adam pulled a face, then grinned. “Actually, this is kind of useful.”
Asa blinked. “Useful?”
“Yeah.” Adam shrugged. “Anthony was panicking earlier about ring sizes and—”
“NO.” The word came out so abruptly and loudly that Joshua jumped. Asa looked genuinely stricken. “Absolutely not,” they hissed immediately, horrified. “No more information. None. I know nothing. You’re saying nothing. This conversation never happened.”
Later, when the two young men had finally left and both Asa and Anthony were curled together beneath a tartan blanket watching old reruns of The Golden Girls, a sudden and deeply irritating realisation washed over Asa: His ring size, actually, probably would have been useful information for Anthony to have, and now Asa somehow needed to find a way to casually provide that information without remotely implying they knew a proposal was coming.
Which, given their current acting abilities, seemed increasingly impossible.
The next morning, Asa discovered Anthony in the kitchen wearing a faded Queen t-shirt, one of their many beige house coats, and soft black lounge trousers, standing barefoot while watering plants. Asa watched him with utter adoration; one sleeve of the house coat had fallen halfway down his forearm while he reached carefully to rotate a fern toward the light, hair still sleep-tousled from bed.
The previous day’s revelations remained lodged inconveniently near the centre of their chest. Every soft domestic little thing Anthony did now seemed charged with terrifying new significance. The way he automatically made Asa’s tea before his own. The absent-minded hand resting briefly at Asa’s waist when he passed behind them in the narrow kitchen. The fact that he had apparently spent time worrying about ring sizes. Asa felt determination settle abruptly over them. Today, they decided, they would casually and naturally provide Anthony with this information. It could not possibly be that difficult.
This was, in hindsight, their first mistake.
An hour later, Anthony sat at the kitchen table proofreading notes for his next manuscript, one ankle hooked loosely over the opposite knee while he muttered occasionally to himself and annotated printed pages in sharp, red pen. Asa, meanwhile, unpacked another box nearby labelled FRAGILE/ABSOLUTELY NOT RUBBISH. Inside lay several velvet-lined jewellery cases, silver letter openers, pocket watches, antique cufflinks, opera glasses, and a frankly alarming quantity of tiny decorative objects no modern person had practical use for whatsoever. Anthony glanced up as Asa carefully unwrapped an ornate gold ring inset with dark enamel.
“Oh good,” he said. “More cursed Victorian artefacts.”
“It’s a mourning ring,” Asa corrected absently.
“See? Even the name sounds haunted.”
“Did you know, Victorian ring sizing was actually rather inconsistent,” they said with what they hoped sounded like casual academic interest.
Anthony hummed distractedly over his notes. “Mm.”
Encouraged, Asa continued, turning the mourning ring between their fingers with faux nonchalance. “Though modern British sizing, I believe, is fairly straightforward once one understands the lettering system.”
Anthony looked up now, mildly curious. “Is it?”
“Yes,” Asa replied, trying very hard to appear normal. “For instance, I’m a little larger than most.”
Anthony blinked once. “You’re a little larger than most…”
“For rings!” they clarified far too quickly.
Anthony’s eyebrows lifted slowly over the rim of his glasses. “As opposed to?”
“As opposed to…” Asa faltered. “…other measurements?”
A dangerous smile began twitching visibly at the corners of Anthony’s mouth.
“It’s useful information for close-up magic,” Asa pressed onward in mounting desperation. “Finger sizing. I need U.”
Anthony stared at them for a very long moment. Then he slowly set his pen down. “Asa, is this your oddly strange way of asking me to have sex with you?”
Asa made a sound of absolute mortification. Anthony burst into startled laughter. “Well, forgive me,” he grinned, “but you’ve cornered me in the kitchen to discuss your fingers and how skilled they are.”
“That is not what I said.”
“It’s very much the atmosphere you created.”
“I was discussing historical jewellery!”
“Mhm.”
“And sleight of hand!”
Anthony laughed again, warm and helpless, and pushed himself up from the table. “Oh, come here,” he said fondly. Before Asa could protest further, Anthony stepped into their space and caught them gently by the hips, smiling down at them with unbearable affection. “You are catastrophically terrible at being subtle, did you know that?”
Panicked that the ruse was up, Asa flapped their mouth a few times, trying to think of something to say to throw him off the scent, when suddenly Anthony was kissing them, smiling softly into it, one hand sliding beneath their sleep-shirt. When Anthony finally pulled back, he brushed his nose lightly against Asa’s.
“For the record,” he said quietly, amusement still lingering in his voice, “if you were hinting, you could simply ask.”
And then he clutched a handful of Asa’s bottom and squeezed and—oh, he genuinely thought this was what Asa had been trying to accomplish. Anthony squeezed again lightly, eyes sparkling now behind his glasses. The entire situation had become so catastrophically ridiculous that Asa almost wanted to laugh. Unfortunately, Anthony was warm and broad and smiling at them like they were the loveliest thing he’d ever seen, which made coherent thought increasingly difficult.
“You know,” Anthony murmured, thumb stroking lazily at their hip now, “if you wanted attention, angel, you already had it.”
Asa looked up at him helplessly; Anthony always sounded so sincere, even when teasing. There was still that underlying tenderness threaded through everything he said to them, gentle enough to make Asa’s chest ache. Because he meant it, he truly did adore them. And some day soon, if Erik didn’t accidentally leak the entire plan first, he was apparently planning to propose marriage to them.The thought hit Asa so suddenly they nearly short-circuited again on the spot.
Anthony misread their expression entirely. “Oh, pumpkin. You really are flustered.”
“You have no idea,” Asa muttered weakly.
“No, I think I’ve got a fairly solid grasp actually.”
Asa wasn’t going to correct him on it. For one thing, the misunderstanding was technically his own fault. For another, Anthony was kissing them again like he’d been thinking about it all morning, languidly savouring their taste and entirely convinced he’d successfully decoded some bizarre attempt at seduction. What followed was the inevitable consequence of two people very much in love, left alone together in an isolated cottage with entirely too much mutual affection and very little self-restraint. And thus, rather inevitably, the kitchen counters became the first piece of furniture in the cottage to be thoroughly violated by their ardent lust.
By the time Erik and Muriel finally finished plugging in the last set of fairy lights, the old bookshop scarcely resembled itself anymore.
Light glimmered absolutely everywhere, twined around shelves and curled along bannisters and draped between archways in soft glowing strands. They shimmered across the ceiling beams like captured starlight and twinkled against polished wood, brass lamps, and old framed prints until the entire shop looked dreamlike; like somewhere one would accidentally stumble upon in the middle of a sentimental fairytale.
Anthony stood near the counter slowly turning in place, slightly awestruck despite himself. Asa would love it, and that thought alone settled all the anxiety within his chest. Because ultimately that was all he wanted tonight—not perfection, not grandeur, just something that felt like them. Warm and gentle and magical in the same way Asa somehow made ordinary life feel magical simply by existing inside it.
Erik emerged from the back room with an extension lead in each hand. “I think we’re done!”
Anthony reached up to adjust one of the fairy-light strands hanging low over the poetry shelves. The shop looked beautiful, intimate, every corner glowing honey-gold beneath the lights, illuminating rows of old books. Muriel appeared beside Anthony now, hands clasped tightly beneath their chin while they looked around the transformed shop with visible emotion.
“Oh, Asa is going to cry.”
Anthony swallowed. “Hopefully after saying yes.”
“They’ll definitely say yes,” Erik declared immediately.
“Well,” Muriel said, glancing toward the windows where evening had begun settling blue-grey across Soho, “we should probably leave before Asa gets here.”
He’d told Asa that the new owners had apparently discovered another box of their belongings buried somewhere in the back room storage; old paperwork, perhaps, or books accidentally packed away during the transition. They’d sounded immediately concerned at the possibility of having left something behind, which unfortunately made Anthony feel briefly guilty for weaponising their sentimental attachment to old books. Why couldn’t they simply drive there together? Ah, well, conveniently, Anthony had a meeting with his publisher in the city that afternoon, so it would apparently make far more sense for Asa to head in separately and meet him at the shop afterwards once it had closed for the evening. Perfectly reasonable.
Anthony was rather proud of himself for constructing such a believable little lie.
It wasn’t too elaborate. Elaborate lies tended to unravel the second one overexplained them, and, more importantly, Asa hadn’t seemed remotely suspicious. They’d simply nodded over breakfast while buttering toast.
“You alright?” Muriel asked softly.
Anthony blinked. “Hm?”
“You’ve gone a bit peaky.”
“I’m fine.”
Erik squinted at him. “You look like you’re about to throw up.”
“Thank you, Erik. Deeply comforting.”
Muriel moved, hugging Anthony tightly before he had time to properly prepare for it. “Good luck!”
“Thank you.”
Muriel squeezed once more for emphasis before finally releasing him, eyes visibly damp already. Erik followed immediately afterwards. “You’re gonna do great.”
Anthony laughed quietly into his shoulder. “Cheers.”
Then they disappeared out into the dusky London evening, the little bell above the shop door chiming softly behind them, and Anthony was left standing alone in the middle of the bookshop. He exhaled slowly through his nose. In a few minutes, Asa would walk through that door and everything would change. Slowly, almost nervously now that nobody else remained to distract him, he reached into the pocket of his coat.
The ring box felt suddenly very heavy in his palm. Anthony opened it carefully; simple and elegant, the band was warm brushed gold etched all the way around with delicate featherwork, tiny overlapping lines carved lovingly into the metal like folded wings. Fit for an angel.
He almost dropped the ring box entirely when the bell above the shop door suddenly tinkled. Anthony jolted so violently he fumbled the box outright, barely catching it again against his palm with a muffled, “Oh, fuck—”
He shoved the box hastily back into the inside pocket of his coat just as the front door swung fully open, cool evening air drifting into the shop alongside the familiar silhouette stepping inside.
“Asa,” Anthony breathed.
They looked beautiful, wrapped in their camel-coloured coat with a knitted scarf looped loosely around their throat, cheeks flushed from walking through the evening chill from the tube station. They paused just inside the doorway blinking slowly at the sight that met them: the lights, the glowing shelves, the entire transformed bookshop shimmering gold around them. “Oh,” they said quietly.
The bell above the door gave one final soft chime as it swung closed behind them. Anthony suddenly became aware of his own heartbeat. Too fast, far too fast.
Asa turned slowly in place, eyes shining faintly in the low light. “Anthony…”
And that was the exact moment Anthony realised two things simultaneously. Firstly, Asa clearly loved it. Secondly, he had absolutely no memory whatsoever of the speech he’d spent three days rehearsing. Not a word. Well, shit. He shoved both hands into his coat pockets before they could visibly shake. Right, it was now or never, and he was going to have to free-style this.
“Asa,” he began carefully. “I know things’ve been…big lately. Moving in together and leaving London and all that.”
Asa turned toward him fully now, expression immediately gentling.
“And I know we’ve only been together eighteen months. I just…” He rubbed awkwardly at the back of his neck. “I need you to know that meeting you changed everythin’ for me. You make everywhere feel like home—not the cottage, or London. You. Long as you’re there, I’m alright.”
The words came easier now. He grabbed Asa’s hand in both of his own, clutching them to his chest.
“I spent most of my life thinkin’ I preferred being alone,” he admitted with a self-conscious smile. “Turns out I was just waitin’ for somebody who understood me enough to make the quiet feel nice instead of lonely.”
Asa’s eyes looked suspiciously bright already; Anthony’s heart nearly gave out on the spot.
“And every morning I wake up beside you and somehow I still—”
Then somewhere upstairs came a loud electrical pop, and suddenly, they were drenched in darkness. Anthony stared blankly into the abyss.
“...shit.”
“So apparently,” Asa said a couple of hours later from beneath their duvet, “plugging approximately eight hundred fairy lights into multiple extension leads is considered a fire hazard.”
Anthony grumbled something deeply Scottish into his pillow. The entire evening had collapsed into gentle anticlimax after the catastrophic power outage at the shop, followed shortly by the new owners arriving in visible alarm to discover half the building’s electrics had given up on life. One of the owners had uttered the phrase “insurance nightmare” while staring into the middle distance. And Anthony himself had stood there with a ring box burning invisibly against his ribs while the most important sentence of his life died somewhere behind his teeth. Absolute disaster.
Beside him, Asa shifted beneath the covers and snuggled closer, one arm sliding lazily across Anthony’s middle. Anthony automatically lifted his own arm to accommodate them without conscious thought. That, at least, remained wonderfully easy; Asa fitting against him, as natural now as breathing.
“You never actually explained,” Asa murmured after a moment, voice muffled sleepily against his shoulder, “why there were fairy lights all over the bookshop in the first place.”
Anthony froze almost imperceptibly. “Oh, uh…book event.”
“…Right,” Asa said slowly.
Anthony stared fixedly at the ceiling. “Mm.”
“I suppose we’ll have to pick up that box of my old things another day, yes?”
“Sure thing, angel.”
Anthony had the increasingly bizarre sensation that they were somehow both pretending very hard not to notice something. Which was ridiculous, obviously, because Asa couldn’t possibly know he’d been trying to propose. Still, there was something suspiciously measured about Asa’s tone tonight, thoughtful in a way that made Anthony feel vaguely like prey being politely observed by a very gentle predator. They’d spent the drive home talking about how lovely the shop had looked beneath the lights before immediately pretending not to care about the increasingly suspicious circumstances surrounding said lights.
Which, now that Anthony thought about it, was slightly odd. Normally Asa would have politely interrogated him at least three more times by now. Instead, they seemed almost determined not to ask too many questions.
Beside him, Asa yawned softly and tucked themself even closer against his chest. Perhaps he was simply overtired and mildly traumatised from accidentally causing an electrical incident in Soho. Anthony lowered his gaze toward the soft outline of Asa curled against him and felt the earlier disappointment ache deep in his bones. He’d really wanted tonight to work. He’d wanted to see Asa’s face when he opened the ring box. Wanted to say all the things he’d spent days rehearsing. Wanted that moment preserved forever as something beautiful and certain and joyful.
He sighed quietly through his nose and bent his head to press a tired kiss into Asa’s hair. They made a tiny sleepy sound at the contact and Anthony’s heart gave its usual pathetic little squeeze. “Night, angel.”
“Mm. Night.”
Anthony let his eyes drift shut at last, listening to the sounds of the country outside and Asa’s breathing slowly evening out beside him. And somewhere between wakefulness and sleep, he decided cantankerously that next time, Erik and Muriel were being kept several postcodes away from the proposal.
The weather had been lovely when they left the cottage that morning.
Spring sunlight spilled across the South Downs as Anthony had driven them through winding country lanes with one hand lazily hooked over the steering wheel and the other resting atop Asa’s knee, the windows cracked slightly open to let in cool air carrying the scent of wet grass and wildflowers.
Now, nearly an hour later, Asa sat cross-legged atop a tartan picnic blanket spread beneath a large chestnut tree in a small local park nestled between green hills and a sleepy village high street. Ducks drifted lazily across the pond nearby while children shrieked happily somewhere in the distance chasing one another through buttercup-speckled grass.
It was peaceful in that deeply English countryside sort of way, and Anthony had packed far too much food. The picnic basket contained fresh bread from the bakery in the village, strawberries, little lemon cakes dusted with sugar, a thermos of tea, two proper ceramic mugs, and enough pastries to sustain a medium-sized hiking group.
“Darling,” Asa said as Anthony unpacked yet another container from the basket, “are we picnicking or surviving an apocalypse?”
Anthony pushed his sunglasses slightly further up his nose. “I don’t want my pumpkin to get even slightly peckish.”
Asa smiled helplessly and leaned over to steal a kiss from the corner of his mouth. Anthony immediately returned it in that instinctive lovely way he always did, turning toward them automatically like a flower following sunlight. One hand came up without thought to settle warmly at Asa’s wrist while he chased the kiss for another lingering second, mouth soft and smiling against theirs. Stars, Asa loved him so much, it sometimes felt physically embarrassing. And unfortunately, that feeling had only intensified over the past week, because now every little thing Anthony did carried unbearable hidden significance. Every thoughtful outing, every oddly nervous expression, every suspiciously romantic gesture. Asa was beginning to feel like a participant in a very gentle psychological thriller.
Across from them now, Anthony sat with his long legs stretched out across the blanket, hair bright copper beneath the sunlight while he poured tea into their mugs with visible concentration. “Comfortable?” he asked as he passed one over.
Asa took it gingerly, fingers brushing his briefly in the exchange. “Extremely.”
Anthony’s shoulders relaxed fractionally as though Asa being comfortable remained one of his primary life objectives.
For a while they simply ate together in comfortable quiet while sunlight shimmered across the pond and ducks wandered dangerously close to the picnic basket with criminal intent. One particularly bold duck waddled directly towards Anthony’s shoe.
Anthony squinted down at it. “Don’t you look at me like that. I know what you are.”
The duck remained unmoved.
“A hardened opportunist,” Anthony informed Asa gravely.
Asa giggled into their tea, and Anthony’s expression immediately gentled at the sound. There it was again, that look, as if hearing Asa laugh remained one of the best things he’d ever discovered. The warmth of it curled through Asa’s chest so fiercely they had to glance away toward the pond for a moment just to steady themself. When they looked back, Anthony was still watching them. Something nervous flickered briefly behind his glasses. Then he set his tea down carefully beside the basket.
“Asa,” he began.
Immediately, Asa’s heartbeat kicked painfully against their ribs.
“Hm?” they replied with what they hoped sounded like calm innocence rather than the internal screaming currently occurring within them.
“I’ve just been thinkin’ lately,” Anthony said slowly, brows pinching. “about the future. About the cottage. And us livin’ there properly. Growin’ older together and all that.”
Asa felt suddenly breathless. Beside the pond, ducks quacked loudly at one another like tiny chaotic demons while the wind stirred gently through the trees overhead.
“I always thought I’d hate the countryside, honestly,” he admitted. “Too quiet. But with you there…” He shrugged a little helplessly. “Everythin’ feels right somehow.”
Asa looked at him and felt their heart ache so painfully it was almost unbearable. Then a raindrop landed squarely on Anthony’s glasses. He blinked. Another struck the blanket. Anthony glanced upward slowly; the sky above them had become suspiciously grey.
“No,” he said immediately.
A third raindrop splashed directly into his tea. Asa bit the inside of their cheek violently.
Anthony narrowed his eyes toward the clouds with visible distrust. “It said light clouds.” Anthony ignored this and turned determinedly back toward them. “Anyway, what I was trying to say was—”
Thunder cracked somewhere overhead, causing both of them to jump, and the rain arrived properly—a full catastrophic English downpour descending from the clouds with approximately three seconds warning.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Anthony burst out as rain immediately hammered across the picnic blanket hard enough to bounce. He frantically began shoving containers back into the basket.
Asa laughed helplessly despite themself as cold rain drenched straight through their coat. Anthony muttered several deeply offensive things beneath his breath before snatching up the blanket, and then they were running. Rain poured from the sky as they sprinted across the park half-laughing and half-drowning, shoes skidding through wet grass while Anthony clutched the picnic basket against his chest like valuable cargo. By the time they finally reached the awning of a little village shop near the road, both of them were utterly soaked through.
Anthony bent forward slightly with his hands braced against his knees, rain dripping steadily from the ends of his hair. Asa’s perfectly combed hair had completely collapsed into damp chaos around their face.
Anthony looked sideways at them and gave a weak breathless laugh. “This is usually the point in a Richard Curtis film where people look deeply into each other’s eyes and fall in love.”
Asa looked at him standing there drenched and dishevelled and still trying so hard to salvage romance from disaster. “I’m already in love with you.”
Anthony didn’t say anything, but his posture seemed to stiffen. Asa stepped closer. instinctively, reaching up to smooth rainwater gently from his cheek with their thumb. “You know I have everything I could ever want, don’t you?”
Anthony’s expression shifted, a tiny flicker of sadness passing behind his eyes before he smiled softly again. “Aye,” he murmured. “Good.”
So, Asa didn’t want to get married, that much was now agonisingly obvious.
Perhaps Anthony had mistaken happiness for wanting the same things. Perhaps Asa simply liked their life exactly as it was. And honestly, Anthony understood that, he did. Marriage was hardly the sole measurement of devotion. Asa had never cared much about grand declarations or paperwork or tradition for tradition’s sake. Yet, the disappointment sat inside Anthony’s chest like something heavy and bruised, because he’d let himself imagine it, and he had an awfully good imagination.
He’d imagined rings and vows and growing old together in a way that felt official somehow, tangible and deliberate and permanent. Imagined introducing them as his spouse and feeling unbearably smug about it. And now, unfortunately, his own imagination was mocking him relentlessly.
By the time he met Mrs Sandwich and Mr Arnold for drinks in London later that week, Anthony had entered a state of romantic despair dramatic enough to qualify him for a role in a badly acted soap opera. Anthony sat hunched slightly over a glass of whisky at their usual table near the back, one elbow braced against the polished wood while Mrs Sandwich watched him over the rim of her cocktail glass with increasing concern.
“You look like somebody’s widowed you,” she observed.
Anthony took a long swallow of whisky. “Might as well have.”
Mr Arnold sighed patiently into his pint. “Oh dear. We’re still on this?”
Anthony turned toward him with genuine offence. “Rich, I got emotionally rejected, so yeah, I’m still on this.”
“You did not get rejected.”
“Donna, back me up.”
Mrs Sandwich snorted softly. “Darling, all Asa said was that they already have everything they could ever want.”
Anthony pointed morosely into his whisky glass. “Exactly.”
Mr Arnold rubbed briefly at his forehead like a man developing a stress headache. “Anthony, has Asa at any point said they don’t want to marry you?”
“No,” Anthony admitted.
“So, why are you behaving like a sixteen-year-old poet dying of consumption?” Mrs Sandwich asked.
Anthony looked deeply wounded. “I’m having a moment, here.”
“Come on, lad,” she patted his hand, “Asa adores you. Anyone with functioning eyesight can see that, and you’re acting as though they handed you divorce papers beneath the rain instead of saying something objectively lovely.”
Anthony had never once doubted being loved by them. Only, now, whether Asa wanted more. He rubbed tiredly at his face, sighed heavily and drained the rest of his whisky before slamming the glass back down on the table. “Well, regardless, I should probably head back. Arcturus, Spica, and Denebola are going to be visible tonight, so I’m taking Asa to Bignor Hill to have a look.”
Mr Arnold brightened instantly. “Ah. Stargazing. Romantic, one might say.”
“It’s not a whole thing,” Anthony muttered as he pulled on his coat. “We just do that sometimes.”
Which was true; ever since moving to the South Downs, they’d fallen into the habit of driving up to the hills at night wrapped in blankets and clutching thermoses, watching the stars together. Asa loved listening to Anthony talk about astronomy almost as much as Anthony loved talking about it. He’d point out constellations while Asa listened with attentive eyes like every word mattered. It was one of Anthony’s favourite things in the world.
“And this definitely isn’t another proposal attempt?” Mrs Sandwich asked.
“Stars, no,” Anthony laughed. “I’m retired from romance for the foreseeable future, thanks.”
By the time they reached Bignor Hill, the skies had cleared completely.
The rain from earlier that week felt impossible now; the night stretched vast and crystalline above the Downs, dark velvet scattered thick with stars. The hills cradled them in silver-shadowed waves beneath the moonlight, fields divided by hedgerows and ancient stone walls barely visible in the dark. Somewhere far below, lights from tiny villages glimmered warm and golden against the countryside like fallen constellations.
Asa stepped out of the Bentley and immediately tipped their head back toward the sky with a quiet breath of awe. The air smelled of cold grass and damp earth.
“Lovely,” they murmured.
Anthony smiled beside them. “Aye. Good night for it.”
He sounded calmer tonight. Not entirely relaxed, because Anthony rarely ever was beneath all the restless cleverness constantly whirring inside him, but softer somehow. The melancholy that had quietly haunted him all week seemed gentler out here beneath the open sky. Or perhaps Asa simply wanted it to be.
Anthony busied himself unloading the car of foldout chairs, thick tartan blankets, the battered green thermos permanently smelling faintly of tea leaves, and finally his travel telescope, which he handled with utmost reverence. Asa watched him with absolute affection.
Anthony loved astronomy with his entire soul. Not simply academically—he possessed enough knowledge to terrify most ordinary people into silence—no, Anthony loved the universe emotionally. Wonderingly.
By the time they settled into their chairs side-by-side near the crest of the hill, wrapped snugly in blankets against the cold, the telescope stood pointed skyward beside them like some elegant mechanical bird. Anthony passed Asa a steaming mug of tea before settling back into his own chair with a sigh.
For a little while they simply sat together quietly beneath the stars; silence between them never felt empty, only peaceful.
Wind stirred softly through the long grass around them while somewhere nearby an owl called faintly through the dark.
Anthony eventually lifted one hand toward the sky. “Right there. See that bright one?”
Asa followed the line of his finger. “Mhm.”
“Arcturus. It’s roughly about thirty-seven light years away,” he continued. “Which means the light reaching us tonight started travelin’ toward Earth before either of us had even met.”
Asa looked sideways at him instead of the sky. Anthony remained focused upward, glasses reflecting lambent starlight while cold wind tugged copper strands of hair across his forehead.
“And there,” he continued, pointing again, “that’s part of Centaurus. Can’t see all of it from here, obviously, but…” He tilted his head slightly. “Alpha Centauri’s somewhere down there.”
“The nearest star system to Earth,” Asa said promptly.
Anthony looked delighted immediately. “There you go. You have been listenin’ to me ramble.”
“I always listen to you ramble.”
“It’s funny,” he said quietly after a moment. “We call it one star, but Alpha Centauri’s actually three stars bound together gravitationally. They orbit each other over thousands of years. Separate bodies, same system.”
Asa’s chest fluttered suddenly.
“The universe is full of things held together by invisible forces. Gravity. Time. Light. You can’t see most of it directly. You just know it’s there because of the effect it has on everythin’ around it.”
Asa’s pulse began hammering outright now. This was it, surely.
The stars, the romantic speech about invisible forces binding celestial bodies together over millennia. This was absolutely a proposal, and Asa could not bear the thought of something ruining it again. He deserved at least one successful attempt at romance.
Anthony shifted slightly in his chair beside them, voice gentling further. “And sometimes, you spend most of your life thinkin’ you’re driftin’ through space alone before you realise—”
“Yes.”
Anthony stopped mid-sentence. He turned toward them slowly. “What?”
Asa smiled, cheeks already warming with nervous affection, and clutched their mug a little tighter between both hands.
“I said yes,” they repeated softly.
Anthony continued staring at them blankly. Asa’s smile grew helplessly fond.
“Yes,” they said. “I’d love to marry you.”
For one long bewildered moment, Anthony simply froze. Above them, stars burned cold and brilliant across the endless dark sky while the telescope stood abandoned beside them pointed uselessly toward Centaurus.
“Asa,” he said slowly, with the careful tone of a man approaching a wild animal, “I was explainin’ gravity.”
Oh. Oh no.
Horror flooded Asa instantly. The entire world seemed to briefly leave their body all at once, all of it vanishing beneath the crushing realisation that they had just apparently proposed to themself in the middle of an astrophysics lecture. Not even a particularly romantic astrophysics lecture, in hindsight. Just Anthony speaking earnestly about gravitational systems while Asa, apparently drunk on starlight and latent emotional tension, had launched directly into accidental matrimony.
Asa stared at him in dawning, soul-curdling mortification. Anthony stared back with equal alarm. Above them, the effulgent constellations glittered in ancient indifferent splendour, entirely unmoved by human humiliation.
“…you weren’t proposing?” they whispered.
Anthony barked out a laugh. “Well, not currently. Stars, angel.”
They looked down into their lap immediately, unable to withstand the sight of Anthony’s face any longer without potentially dissolving into pure embarrassment and floating bodily off Bignor Hill. Their fingers tightened around the mug of tea still warming their hands. “Oh, this is humiliating...I should probably confess something.”
Anthony raised a single eyebrow.
“Erik accidentally added me to the Holy Matrimony group chat. The, uh, the proposal group chat.” They pressed both hands helplessly against their burning face. “He sent it to me by mistake! I wasn’t meant to see it! And then everyone panicked and started messaging me not to tell you and I’ve been trying not to ruin the surprise ever since!”
Anthony’s entire expression went strangely blank. “You knew?”
“I knew there was going to be a proposal,” Asa corrected desperately. “Not when! Or how! I tried so hard to pretend I didn’t know. Do you understand how difficult that’s been for me emotionally? I attempted to casually tell you my ring size through a conversation about Victorian jewellery and somehow accidentally propositioned you instead—”
Anthony choked outright. “You what?”
“I said this was humiliating!”
“The kitchen thing was about the ring?”
“Yes!”
Anthony abruptly bent forward laughing helplessly into his hands again while Asa considered quietly allowing the cold vacuum of space to claim them where they sat.
“I genuinely thought,” Anthony wheezed, “you were trying to seduce me through discussions of finger measurements. Oh, angel.”
“I’m sorry,” they said. “I really did try not to spoil it for you.”
For a moment Anthony just watched them as they wriggled uncomfortably in their embarrassment. And then he reached over and took their hand in his. “You said yes.”
Then, assumedly before he could lose his nerve entirely, he stood abruptly from his chair.
“Asa,” he said breathlessly, already reaching into the inside pocket of his coat. Asa’s eyes widened instantly. Anthony’s hands trembled slightly as he pulled out the small velvet box. Then he lowered himself onto one knee in the damp grass. “Asa Fell.”
Asa immediately made a distressed little sound and covered their mouth with both hands as he opened the ring box carefully. Gold gleamed beneath the starlight, delicate featherwork etched around the band. Anthony looked up at them, eyes shining faintly behind his glasses.
“I had this whole speech planned,” he admitted shakily. “Several, actually. But apparently the universe has spent the past month personally sabotagin’ my romantic life, so honestly, I’m improvisin’ at this point.”
Asa laughed wetly behind their hands. Anthony smiled helplessly at the sound, his expression melting into something so open and earnest it made Asa’s chest ache.
“I spent most of my life thinkin’ romance was somethin’ that happened to other people,” he admitted with a small chuckle. “I never really understood it properly, all those stories about recognisin’ someone instantly or fallin’ head over heels at first sight. I liked people. Cared about people. But…” He shrugged, eyes never leaving Asa’s. “It always took me longer. Trustin’ someone enough. Knowin’ them enough. I never thought that sort of love would happen for me at all.”
Asa felt tears finally spill warm down their cheeks. Because there he was, their Anthony. Their impossible, soft-hearted, endlessly loving Anthony who spoke about the cosmos like poetry and held snakes like beloved children and kissed Asa every morning like gratitude.
“And then you came into my life and somehow became my favourite person before I even realised what was happenin’. You snuck up on me entirely.” His eyes crinkled faintly behind his glasses. “Now I can’t imagine existing without you in it. I love you so much it frightens me sometimes.”
Anthony drew one small unsteady breath.
“So,” he sniffed, “Asa, angel, pumpkin, love of my life—would you do me the unbelievable honour of marrying me?”
“Oh, Anthony,” they breathed.
Their vision had gone embarrassingly blurry now, stars and moonlight smearing softly together beyond the sting of emotion gathering behind their eyes. Down on one knee before them, Anthony looked equally overwhelmed, still clutching the little velvet ring box in visibly trembling hands like he couldn’t quite believe this was happening either.
Asa was struck by the staggering enormity of it all. Their chest ached so fiercely with affection it bordered on painful.
“Yes,” They said again, voice shaking now with tears and laughter both. “Yes, darling. Of course I’ll marry you.”
Anthony made the softest sound. His shoulders sagged visibly beneath it, eyes squeezing shut briefly like he’d been bracing for heartbreak this entire time without Asa ever realising.
“Oh,” Asa whispered brokenly, climbing immediately out of their chair. “Oh, sweetheart.”
Anthony barely had time to rise from one knee before Asa caught his face between both hands and kissed him, hard. The ring box nearly went flying into the Sussex countryside.
Anthony made a startled noise against their mouth before kissing them back with equal desperation, one arm wrapping tightly around Asa’s waist. The kiss was breathless and tear-salted and deeply, dizzyingly emotional.
“You absolute disaster,” Asa breathed against his mouth between kisses, forehead knocking affectionately against his. “You catastrophic romantic.”
Anthony was smiling so hard now it kept interrupting the kiss entirely; his joy seemed almost too large for his body to contain.
“You said yes,” he said again, sounding stunned by it still.
“Yes!”
“You said yes before I even asked!”
“Well,” Asa laughed wetly, brushing their nose against his, “you were monologuing romantically beneath the stars, Anthony. What exactly did you expect me to think?”
With astonishing gentleness, Anthony took Asa’s left hand in his, his thumb brushing with veneration across Asa’s knuckles. He slid the ring from its box; moonlight caught along the brushed gold as he lifted it between gentle fingers. Then, still looking at them like they were something miraculous, he guided it slowly onto Asa’s finger. The fit was perfect.
“There,” he murmured. “Size U. Larger than most.”
Asa burst into helpless laughter, tears still streaming down their face. Without another word, they stepped forward and kissed him. Anthony’s free hand slid firmly against the small of Asa’s back and drew them closer with unmistakable need, the ring pressed cool and unfamiliar against Asa’s finger where it curled against Anthony’s shoulder.
Warm mouths parted against one another, Anthony growling low in his throat as Asa tangled their other hand into the soft ginger hair at the nape of his neck. He kissed them with trembling intensity, slow at first, before emotion overtook restraint entirely and he chased them closer with an aching desire that made Asa feel incandescent from the inside out.
His tongue brushed softly against theirs and Asa melted into it. Everything about Anthony always felt so wholehearted, even kissing.
Around them, wind whispered through the tall grass atop the hill. The telescope stood abandoned beside overturned blankets and half-finished tea. Above them, constellations burned across the endless dark in impossible astral rivers of light, ancient stars watching silently as two very foolish, very devoted people clung to one another beneath the Sussex sky.
And somewhere between Anthony’s trembling hands, the taste of him, and the gold ring gleaming softly on Asa’s finger, the universe felt perfectly aligned.