Work Text:
Asa Fell was quite nervous for this evening.
He and Anthony had been dating for nearly four months, now, but meeting the family was a rather large step.
His own parents had been dead for decades, and Anthony had met Derek, the closest thing he had to a father-figure, on that first day at the bookshop. There was nothing to reveal to Anthony anymore, but Asa had yet to meet his beau’s own family.
Anthony had explained how his dad had left when he was four, how his mum married Bee’s ma when he was twelve, making him a brother to a two-year-old rather suddenly. Bee was fiercely protective of their brother after watching a series of failed relationships and a particularly horrible marriage break him down, and their opinion mattered more to Anthony than he’d prefer to admit.
A night to the pub was decided: a neutral location, somewhere already social to ease Asa’s nerves.
No social lubrication was necessary, in the end. Bee slumped into a chair across the table— the slouch must be a family trait, then— and Anthony squeezed his hand tight. Bee’s signature snark and incessant questioning was well met, Asa slipping a bit more sass into his responses. Suspicion and judgement melted away, and by the end of the pub quiz, the pair of them were laughing and bickering as if they’d known each other for years instead of hours.
Asa relaxed easily, and Anthony simply watched them talk and gesture and lean in with excitement as the night passed, a bit unsure how on earth he got so lucky.
At the end of the night, Bee admitted to some fascination in their brother’s choice— Asa the total opposite of Anthony’s previous ex-boyfriends— but was proud to know Anthony finally picked a good one.