Work Text:
Asa Fell has had days like this his whole life; these slow, miserable days where he felt entirely lost. he knew these rituals well, the signs of them. The worsening insomnia, the consuming loneliness that crept into the most crowded rooms, the grief, coiled in his chest and waiting for the day he loses another person, the way even his favorite tea tasted horrible on his tongue.
Today was a day like every one, but still so very new. He was curled into his favorite armchair with that well-worn copy of Grimm’s Fairy Tales like he always did when the melancholy became too much, but now the glint of a simple ring on his finger and the presence of a lithe ginger on the sofa next to him were changes enough to throw him off.
Anthony always made him feel better, could usually quell his anxieties with a single touch and swan him off to some posh wine tasting where’d he would laugh and smile and feel like himself again. Asa would be eternally grateful that his fiancee was such a wonderful man, but today wouldn’t be healed as easily. The best course of action was to simply lie here in the loneliness, leaving Anthony to fidget nearby.
Asa’s deepest-buried anxieties crept towards the surface, whispers insisting that he’d be alone in no time. Anthony would leave him, or Anthony would die, like his mum had, like Tracy had, and he’d be alone again. Nothing lasts forever, so grieve it now.
Anthony pressed a tentative kiss into his hair, squeezed his hand and set a small plate of eccles cakes in his lap. Anthony was here. Anthony would sit in this loneliness with him, even if he was the very one being mourned. Anthony loved Asa. They would be okay.