Archive of Our Own

As first dates went, theirs had gone spectacularly well.

Asa still hadn’t quite managed to believe their own improbable luck. When they’d invited Anthony to dinner, they’d expected hesitation at best—a politely evasive excuse at worst. Instead, he’d accepted almost immediately and insisted they meet that very evening, as though the prospect of waiting any longer was genuinely irksome to him. And the date itself had been lovely. Effortlessly so.

Anthony had spent the better part of the evening leaning across the little restaurant table, arms folded loosely beside his glass, listening with an attentiveness that left Asa feeling strangely unmoored. Not the usual half-hearted politeness people adopted when they started rambling, but earnest interest, almost disarming in its sincerity. Even when they drifted into more personal territory, such as growing up non-binary, the odd liminality of never quite fitting where people expected them to, and the peculiar joys and catastrophes of teaching children of wildly different ages, Anthony had listened as though none of it was tedious. As though Asa was not tedious.

He’d even asked questions. Thoughtful ones. Tender little follow-ups that made it painfully obvious he’d been paying attention. He’d asked how they’d ended up working in the bookshop, whether they missed teaching full-time, what they imagined for themselves once retirement eventually came shambling along. As though he genuinely wanted to know. Like Asa’s life was something worth carefully unravelling rather than merely skimming over. Like he cared.

Asa had expected that once their meals arrived, Anthony might finally be put off by their unabashed enthusiasm for good food. On the contrary, he’d seemed utterly enamoured by every small hum of appreciation that escaped them, watching with a fondness so undisguised it left Asa feeling pleasantly febrile beneath the skin. The moment they’d finished, he’d immediately offered to order pudding as well, entirely without judgement, as though delight ought never be rationed. Never before had Asa felt comfortable enough to eat precisely as much as they wanted while out with a paramour. Usually there was some lingering self-consciousness haunting the edges of the evening—the quiet urge to appear restrained, elegant, less visibly eager. But with Anthony, that anxious vigilance had begun to dissipate, little by little, until Asa found themselves accepting another offer of dessert with something dangerously close to ease.

Chipping away at Anthony had proven a trifle more difficult. He carried himself like a man who deeply cherished his privacy, and many of his early answers had a polished quality to them, as though they’d been carefully rehearsed beforehand or pre-approved by some invisible selection committee.

Yes, he’d grown up in Scotland. Yes, he missed his hometown. Yes, he wished his book had sold more copies. Each response had arrived as neatly as folded linen, giving away very little in truth.

Eventually, though, through what seemed to be a genuinely easy connection between them, finer details had begun to emerge through the cracks. Anthony was more than merely a professor in title; until recently, he’d taught physics at university level, and apparently with considerable acclaim if the fleeting comments from former students online were anything to go by. He mentioned it all with an almost austere reluctance, however, plainly disliking any conversation that lingered too long on his own accomplishments. Praise embarrassed him. Speaking too earnestly about himself appeared to strike him as unbearably droll.

And so, with practised deftness, he continually redirected the conversation back toward Asa before they could examine him too closely, all without seeming evasive enough to offend.

When the evening finally drew to a close, Anthony had thanked Asa for being brave enough to ask him on a date in the first place, which alone had been enough to leave them feeling incandescent. Then, with a small, almost shy smile Asa suspected very few people were privileged enough to witness, he’d insisted they absolutely do it again soon. They exchanged numbers at last, lingering outside the pub beneath the amber wash of the streetlamps while vague but enthusiastic promises of a second outing were made. Asa had walked home feeling mightily happy—light in a way that bordered on giddy, as though something long dormant inside them had abruptly stirred back to life.

Unfortunately, that buoyant feeling failed to survive the night intact.

By morning, the familiar ache of uncertainty crept in, stealthy and insidious. In the cold grey light of dawn, the whole evening suddenly seemed almost too good to be trusted. Asa found themselves dissecting every moment miserably; every laugh Anthony had given them sounded rehearsed now, every touch of eye contact merely polite. Surely they must have imagined most of it. People did not look at Asa like that, not really. Certainly not men as clever, composed, and charmingly magnetic as Professor Anthony J Crowley.

They dressed with little enthusiasm, pulling on their usual attire by rote rather than conscious thought: a soft blue shirt, one of their dove-grey sweater vests, and neatly pressed beige trousers. The familiar ritual ought to have been comforting, but Asa still felt vaguely discomposed, as though the previous evening had unsettled something delicate inside them. By the time they arrived at the bookshop for their shift, the city was still damp with morning drizzle, the windows faintly fogged against the autumn chill. The comforting scent of dust, old paper, and brewing tea wrapped around them almost immediately.

Derek was already there, of course. The elderly co-owner sat perched behind the till with his usual air of benign nosiness as he sorted through a precarious stack of second-hand crime novels. He glanced up the moment Asa entered, and a distinctly knowing smile crept across his face.

“Well?” he asked at once. “How’d the date go with the handsome professor, then?”

“Really,” Asa chided, fighting the beginnings of a smile as they hung their coat on the rack. “There’s nothing to be prudish about. We had dinner, and we talked, that’s all. And it was…”

Derek straightened slightly. “Yes?”

“Perfect,” Asa admitted at last with a wistful little sigh. “Wondrously perfect.” Their expression softened despite themself, gaze drifting somewhere far beyond the cluttered little shop. “He may be the one. It’s ridiculous, really. We only spent a few hours together, but it felt so… easy. No awkwardness, no tedious posturing. He actually listened to me, Derek.”

“Well, I should hope so,” Derek said dryly. “So, if it was so marvellous, why do you look glum?”

Asa’s hands stilled against the stack of books they’d been pretending to organise. For a moment, they simply exhaled through their nose, shoulders sagging with defeat. “I don’t know. That’s the dreadful part of it.”

Derek’s frowned.

“It was all so perfect that now I’m convinced I must have imagined half of it,” Asa continued, fiddling absently with the cuff of their sleeve. “This morning it suddenly felt terribly implausible. Anthony is intelligent and accomplished and absurdly handsome, and I…” They gestured vaguely at themself. “Well.”

“Oh, don’t start,” Derek warned at once.

“I’m being realistic.”

Derek only snorted and returned to sorting books. “Did he ask to see you again?”

“Yes.”

“Did he give you his number?”

“Yes.”

“Did he spend the entire evening staring at you like a starving man presented with a roast dinner?”

Asa flushed furiously. “Derek!”

“Well, did he?”

“Possibly.”

“Then kindly stop behaving as though the poor man merely tolerated your presence out of civic duty.” Derek scolded. “I can't deal with all this self-pitying so early in the morning.”

After that, the day dragged by in uneven, languid stretches. At first, Derek’s reassurances lingered enough to keep Asa’s anxieties at bay. They shelved books, recommended novels to customers, rang up purchases, all while privately replaying fragments of the previous evening in their head. But as the hours crept onward, certainty began to erode.

By midday, Asa had convinced themself Anthony had only been caught up in the pleasant atmosphere of the evening. By two o’clock, they were fairly certain he’d awoke and realised Asa was not nearly as charming as he’d initially thought. By four, every compliment he’d given them had begun to sound suspiciously like ordinary politeness in retrospect.

They checked their phone far too often for someone who was supposedly behaving normally. Derek caught them staring bleakly at the screen at least twice and responded each time with increasingly theatrical sighs.

“You know what they say about a watched pot,” he informed them while dusting the mythology section. Asa muttered something unconvincing about simply checking the time.

Outside, the sky had turned the colour of wet slate, rain stippling against the shop windows. The bookshop felt suddenly too quiet, too insular, and Asa found themselves wondering whether they’d somehow imagined the entire date in a moment of pathetic romantic desperation.

Then their phone pinged. The sound was so abrupt in the hush of the shop that Asa nearly dropped the stack of paperbacks in their arms. Their pulse stumbled unpleasantly as they fumbled the phone from their pocket.

It was Anthony. Just the sight of his name was enough to send a bright, electric relief flooding through their chest.

Had a truly lovely time with you yesterday. Any chance you’re free Friday evening?

The astronomy exhibit occupied the museum’s upper floor, tucked away beneath low lighting and deep blue walls that made the illuminated displays appear almost celestial themselves. Constellations glimmered faintly overhead, scattered across the ceiling in delicate silver pinpricks, and somewhere nearby a recorded voice murmured about collapsing stars and impossible distances. It suited Anthony disconcertingly well.

At first, he’d remained much as he had during their first date: attentive, curious, always gently redirecting attention back toward Asa whenever conversation threatened to settle too long on himself. But as they wandered deeper into the exhibit, something gradually shifted. Perhaps it was familiarity, or comfort, or simply the fact that physics was woven through the entire place like invisible thread. Whatever the reason, Anthony began speaking more freely.

Not boastfully—Asa suspected he was fundamentally incapable of that—but with an unguarded joy that transformed him entirely. He explained gravitational lensing to them while standing before an enormous projection of distorted galaxies, hands moving animatedly for once instead of remaining primly tucked into his coat pockets. He spoke about black holes with near-reverent fascination, about theoretical particles and the unbearable vastness of the universe, occasionally interrupting himself to apologise when he thought he was rambling.

Asa could have listened to him for centuries.

“You know,” they murmured eventually, smiling up at him beneath the indigo glow of the planetarium lights, “you become terribly handsome when you’re explaining astrophysics.”

Anthony nearly walked directly into a display case. Asa laughed, and something in Anthony’s expression gentled at the sound. They lingered beside a massive suspended model of Saturn, its rings glowing gold in the dimness around them. For a little while, neither spoke, and the quiet between them felt companionable rather than strained. Then, unexpectedly, Anthony sighed.

“I should apologise to you, actually.”

Asa blinked. “For what?”

“For being…” He hesitated, brow faintly furrowed as though searching for the least objectionable phrasing. “Guarded, I suppose. On our first date.”

“Oh.”

Anthony kept his gaze fixed somewhere near Saturn’s illuminated rings rather than directly at Asa. “I’m aware I can be somewhat difficult to know properly. It’s not intentional, precisely. I just…” He gave a small, self-deprecating huff of laughter. “I spent a very long time in academia. You learn rather quickly which parts of yourself people value, and which parts they merely tolerate. But you,” he looked at Asa, “are the sort of person I find myself actually wanting to know me.”

Asa felt their breath catch a little. Anthony looked horrified immediately afterward, as though he regretted the honesty the moment it escaped him. “That sounded rather more intense aloud than it did in my head.”

“It was intense,” Asa informed him gently.

“Oh, stars.”

“But,” they added, unable to stop smiling now, “in a nice way.”

Anthony gave a small, nervous laugh and glanced away. “I'm sorry. I can be a little too candid once I get comfortable with someone.”

“I’ve noticed,” Asa replied.

His eyes flicked back to theirs at once. In them reflected a familiar look. Searching and uncertain, and just enough to make Asa feel suddenly brave. The air between them seemed to tighten, and they became suddenly, acutely aware of the way Anthony was looking at their mouth.

“May I kiss you?” they asked, barely above a whisper.

“Please,” Anthony breathed.

Asa lifted one hand carefully to his coat, fingertips brushing the wool lapel before sliding higher, settling lightly against the side of his neck. Anthony leaned into it instantly, unconsciously, like a man starved of touch.

Then Asa kissed him. Anthony inhaled sharply against their mouth, and the sound travelled through Asa like electricity. 

Strangely, it didn’t feel like the beginning of something, but the end of an impossibly long absence. The kiss deepened in tiny increments, neither of them hurried, both seemingly reluctant to break whatever fragile, miraculous thing had unfurled between them. Anthony’s hand tightened at their waist with palpable hesitation before drawing them closer at last, and Asa realised with sudden dizzying clarity that he was kissing them like someone who had spent years denying himself this exact kind of closeness. Like someone finally coming home.

Contentment bloomed through Asa so swiftly it almost hurt. Every lonely, uncertain part of them, every old fear that they might be too odd, too much, too difficult to truly love, seemed to go blessedly quiet beneath the gentle press of Anthony’s mouth. They could feel him smiling into the kiss by the end of it, as though he, too, was discovering something he hadn’t realised he’d been missing.

When they finally parted, neither of them went very far. Anthony remained close enough that Asa could feel the unsteady heat of his breath. His forehead nearly brushed theirs, his eyes still half-lidded and shining beneath the dim constellation light overhead.

“Well,” he breathed after a moment, sounding dazed.

Asa laughed nervously. “Was that okay?”

“No,” he said immediately. “The opposite, actually. Because now I'm not sure I can ever let you go again.”

Oh,” Asa sighed dreamily.

Anthony’s smile dropped at once. “Shit, there I go being intense again. You’ve kissed me exactly once and I’ve immediately become a needy—”

Asa cut him off by kissing him again.

By the time of their third date, Asa had begun to suspect that simply existing beside Anthony for extended periods of time was hazardous to their long-term emotional stability.

Everything about him seemed engineered specifically to unmake. The way he listened as though every word Asa spoke mattered immensely. The dry little remarks delivered with impossible sincerity. The careful reserve that occasionally cracked without warning to reveal startling tenderness underneath. Asa found themselves thinking about him at deeply inconvenient moments—while shelving books, while making tea, while lying awake at two in the morning replaying the memory of Anthony’s mouth against theirs beneath artificial starlight.

The theatre had been Asa’s suggestion this time; a small independent venue staging Girl: A Gender Expression, a raw and deeply intimate play concerned with trans identity, gender anxiety, selfhood, rage, loneliness, and the fragile salvation of being truly seen by another person. Asa had warned Anthony beforehand that it was likely to be a bit emotionally devastating, to which he had replied, with suspicious confidence, that he possessed an excellent tolerance for devastating art.

He had, apparently, been incorrect. By the interval, Anthony looked utterly shell-shocked. They stood together in the crowded lobby with little paper cups of wine in hand while patrons murmured around them, all low conversation and rustling programmes beneath the theatre lights. Anthony had been very quiet since the first act ended, his thumb absently worrying at the rim of his cup.

Asa studied him carefully. “You alright?”

Anthony exhaled slowly through his nose. “Mm. Yes. I think so. It’s just rather…incisive, isn’t it?”

“That’s one word for it.”

“I’m fairly certain parts of it reached directly into my ribcage and tampered with several organs.”

Asa laughed, relieved enough to see him teasing again that they nudged his arm with theirs. Anthony smiled at the contact, though it faded again after a moment into something more thoughtful. The theatre lights caught warm copper in his hair as he glanced down at his untouched wine. “There’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you, actually.”

They straightened slightly. “Alright.”

Anthony remained still for several long seconds, gaze lowered, jaw tense as though carefully arranging the words before allowing them to exist aloud. Asa had already learned that Anthony treated honesty almost reverently; every genuine confession seemed to cost him something. Then, without quite looking at them, he said, “I’m genderfluid.”

Asa blinked once, surprised only because Anthony had always presented himself with such deliberate masculinity—tailored coats, neatly buttoned shirts, the shadowy stubble, the low cultivated voice. It had not occurred to them that it might be something consciously chosen rather than innate. Anthony gave a small, awkward huff of laughter at their silence. “I realise I’ve made rather a committed effort toward masculinity recently, which perhaps renders this revelation slightly abrupt.”

There was humour in the words, but Asa could hear the apprehension beneath it all the same. It lived in the tightness around his mouth, the way his shoulders had gone subtly braced as though awaiting impact.

“No,” Asa said immediately, heart aching a little at the thought of Anthony expecting rejection from them of all people. “No, not abrupt. Just…Thank you for telling me.”

Anthony finally looked at them then.

“I haven’t really…” He paused, searching for the words with visible care. “Indulged other presentations in quite some time. It became easier not to, eventually. Academia isn’t always especially forgiving of ambiguity, and after a while masculinity simply became the path of least resistance.” Something mournful flickered briefly across his face before disappearing again beneath dry humour. “And I happen to wear tight trousers exceptionally well.”

“You do,” Asa admitted before they could stop themselves.

Anthony barked out a startled laugh, some of the tension immediately dissolving from his shoulders. “I wasn’t entirely certain how to tell you. Which is ridiculous, considering you are probably the safest person I could possibly have told.”

The sincerity of it struck Asa squarely in the heart. Not because the compliment itself was grandiose, but because Anthony clearly meant it. He had offered them something tender and frightening and deeply personal, and somewhere amidst all his caution and reserve, he had trusted Asa to hold it gently.

They reached for him instinctively, fingers curling lightly around his wrist. “You never have to be only one thing with me.”

Something fragile moved across his face then, a relief so profound it bordered almost on grief. His composure faltered around the edges, leaving him suddenly looking younger somehow, softer, like a man exhausted by years of compressing himself into acceptable shapes.

Anthony covered Asa’s hand with his own and held it there like something unexpectedly precious, his thumb moving slowly across their knuckles while the theatre lobby murmured and shifted around them in indistinct noise. Then, with visible hesitation, he said, “There’s actually something else I ought to tell you.”

Asa looked at him attentively. “Go ahead.”

Anthony exhaled, gaze dropping toward the wine in his hand. “When I was younger, before academia consumed my entire personality, I used to perform in drag.”

“You did?” they asked gently.

Anthony nodded once, still seeming faintly braced for discomfort. “Mostly throughout my twenties. In Soho.” His mouth twitched with something almost shy. “I danced to Bowie songs, mostly.”

And suddenly something sharp and electric jolted through Asa’s memory, a recognition wrapped in music and coloured lights and longing so old it had practically fossilised. “Wait.”

Anthony glanced up. Asa stared at him properly now, pulse beginning to quicken as disconnected fragments abruptly assembled themselves somewhere deep in their mind. Velvet curtains. Cigarette smoke clinging to old coats. Glitter caught beneath stage lights. A tall, impossible figure in black and gold “What was your stage name?”

“The Starmaker.”

Asa’s breath caught. “Oh, my stars.”

Anthony immediately looked pained. “Yes, that does seem to be the general reaction—”

“No,” Asa interrupted, voice gone soft with astonishment. “No, Anthony, I know who you are. You used to perform at The Comet Room, didn’t you?”

Anthony went very still. “Yes.”

Asa let out a disbelieving little laugh, one hand lifting instinctively to their mouth. “I used to go there.”

“What?”

“When I was younger,” they said, eyes wide now with recollection. “Not often—I was still trying to figure myself out at the time, and places like that felt…sacred, almost. Frightening, too. But I remember you.”

And they did. The Starmaker beneath ultraviolet lights and drifting cigarette haze, beautiful and strange and utterly unapologetic in a way Asa had not yet known a person could be. They remembered sitting rigid with yearning in the back corner of The Comet Room clutching watered-down drinks and watching her move across the stage like freedom made flesh.

Anthony was looking at them now as though the ground beneath him had shifted.

“You wore silver platforms,” Asa continued, memory unfurling in vivid fragments now. “And that enormous blue coat with the stars stitched into the sleeves.” Their smile grew. “You performed ‘Starman’ once and half the room cried.”

“You remember that?” Anthony whispered.

“Of course I do.” Asa looked at him with something approaching wonder. “You were extraordinary. I remember thinking that whoever you were offstage must have been very brave.”

Anthony’s eyes flickered downward then back up to theirs. “I wasn’t. Not really.”

“Well,” Asa replied, squeezing his hand gently, “you made the rest of us feel brave.”

Anthony looked at them then with such raw affection that Asa nearly forgot where they were entirely. After a moment, he cleared his throat, visibly gathering himself. “I still have some of the costumes,” he admitted. “Packed away somewhere at home.”

Asa beamed. “You kept them?”

“I couldn’t quite part with them.” he smirked. “They felt like evidence that I’d once been larger somehow.”

“You still are.”

Anthony’s breath hitched. “If you’d like, after the play, ngk…perhaps you could come back to mine for a hot drink. Ngh. I could, uh, show you them.”

Asa’s heart felt painfully full. “I would love nothing more.”

Anthony’s house sat along a quiet residential street in Muswell Hill—a narrow mid-terrace tucked between rows of similarly respectable Victorian homes, all brick façades and glowing windows against the dark. From the outside, it looked almost aggressively ordinary, which somehow made the thought of the Starmaker existing inside it all the more enchanting.

“It’s a bit untidy,” Anthony warned while unlocking the front door.

Asa merely hummed politely as they stepped inside. The house smelled of coffee, old paper, and cedarwood—unmistakably Anthony. The interior reminded Asa, oddly enough, of a version of Anthony himself. It possessed the dramatic bones of something darker and more austere—matte black shelves, deep charcoal walls in places, low amber lighting instead of harsh overhead bulbs. But also, thick knitted throws had been abandoned over the sofa. Beautiful plants occupied from shelves beside expensive-looking speakers and framed astronomy prints. It was beautiful.

Large windows dominated the back wall, and beyond them Asa could see a tiny garden overrun with flowers and stubborn ivy.

“It’s lovely,” Asa said honestly, still turning to take everything in. Anthony looked strangely relieved by that. Then Asa noticed the terrarium.

“Oh,” they breathed, immediately crossing the room toward it.

Inside, curled elegantly around a branch beneath the glow of a heat lamp, was a kingsnake so dark it looked almost lacquered black, bronze patterning gleaming coppery along its scales.

Anthony brightened at once. “Ah. Yes. That’s Bentley.”

He had forewarned Asa of his unusual pet on the tube ride over; they had made a flirtatious joke at the idea that he owned a ‘very large snake’, to which Anthony had sputtered and blushed furiously red.

Bentley lifted his little head at the sound of voices, tongue flicking inquisitively against the glass. Asa stepped closer to the enclosure, utterly enchanted. “Hello, darling.”

“I’m afraid he’s spoiled beyond reason,” Anthony said, moving beside them. “Refuses frozen-thawed mice unless they’re warmed properly. Has opinions about music.”

Asa chuckled. “You talk to him, don’t you?”

Anthony looked offended. “Of course I talk to him. It would be terribly rude otherwise.”

Asa felt irrevocably drawn in; the astronomy exhibits, the drag performances, a snake named Bentley. Every new revelation seemed less like discovering entirely new facets of Anthony and more like being entrusted with rooms he’d kept locked for years. They found themself wanting to enter every single one.

Anthony disappeared briefly into the kitchen after that to put the kettle on.

Asa wandered while they waited, fingertips grazing lightly across book spines and framed photographs. There were more traces of Anthony everywhere they looked—a stack of astronomy journals abandoned beside a bowl of citrus fruit, expensive records leaning precariously against overflowing shelves…Asa paused.

Half-hidden beneath a precarious stack of papers on the side table was a familiar hardback. It was the copy of The Mathematical Theory of Relativity Anthony had bought from the bookshop the day they first met. Fondness unfurled immediately in their chest at the sight of it sitting so naturally amongst Anthony’s belongings. Then their eyes shifted slightly left. And there, resting directly beside it, was another copy. Older. Much older.

The spine was cracked with wear, pages yellowed faintly with age and use, several sticky notes protruding from the sides like little paper flags. The sort of book that had clearly been read and reread over years until it became less object than companion. Asa stared at the two books side by side for a long moment. Then they began to smile.

Anthony had not needed to buy that book at all. He had already owned a copy, likely for years, and judging by the state of the older edition, probably knew the contents practically by heart. Which meant he had either purchased the second copy on impulse for entirely innocent reasons…or he had simply wanted an excuse to keep talking to the pretty non-binary bookseller who’d recommended it to him.

The thought filled Asa with such ridiculous giddiness, they had to bite the inside of their cheek to keep from grinning outright. Still, they decided not to mention it, not yet. There was something unexpectedly dear about the discovery, something they wished to tuck away quietly for a while longer and savour in private. Besides, the prospect of one day confronting Anthony with the evidence and watching him attempt to explain himself felt far too entertaining to waste immediately.

So, Asa merely stepped away from the bookshelf wearing the faintest, fondest smile imaginable.

By the time Anthony returned carrying two mismatched mugs, he looked more relaxed than Asa had yet seen him, with shirtsleeves rolled carelessly to his elbows, ginger hair slightly mussed from repeatedly dragging his hands through it. There were lighter strands, too, the beginnings of a silver fox.

Asa accepted the tea gratefully, fingers brushing his for the briefest moment; even that tiny contact still sent warmth spiralling through them in a thoroughly unreasonable fashion.

Anthony lingered awkwardly for a second afterward, mug cradled between both hands. Then he said, “If you still wanted to see the outfits, they’re in my bedroom upstairs.”

Asa’s eyebrows lifted slightly, just enough to make Anthony realise precisely how his sentence had sounded.

He visibly short-circuited. “Not—no, hang on—that sounded more suggestive than I intended.”

“It did a bit.” They laughed into their tea while Anthony closed his eyes briefly in visible despair.

Anthony pointed a warning finger at them, though his mouth twitched at the corners. “Be kind.”

“I am being kind,” they chuckled. And really, how could they possibly not be gentle with him when he looked at them like that? All clever reserve fraying at the seams whenever emotion caught him off guard. “Truthfully, I’m very eager. I just wish I could go back in time and see you in them, knowing who you are now.”

“I could put one on,” Anthony said quickly, grimacing instantly. “I mean, I haven’t changed that much body-wise, so the dresses still mostly fit, and I didn’t wear wigs, it was all my own hair at the time, though obviously it’s shorter now, so that won’t quite resemble whatever you remember—oh, and I don’t actually have all the stage makeup anymore, so that’s another thing entirely—”

“Anthony,” Asa cut into his spiral “I would be honoured.”

The expression that crossed Anthony’s face afterward was so luminous that Asa thought that they might remember it for the rest of their life.

“You really wouldn’t mind?” he asked, but the question barely waited to exist before he was already setting his mug down on the coffee table with poorly concealed eagerness, all restless limbs and sudden bright energy. The shift in him was almost charmingly immediate.

“Mind?” Asa echoed. “Anthony, I think this may be the highlight of my month.”

That earned them a grin so dazzlingly boyish that Asa felt their entire internal structure dissolve on impact.

“Well,” he said, suddenly animated, “in that case! It may take me a few minutes, though. There’re layers involved.”

“As all great art demands.”

Anthony laughed, visibly delighted now rather than self-conscious. “Oh, you understand me perfectly.”

From above came the unmistakable sounds of Anthony excavating history from his wardrobe. Cupboard doors opened and shut in quick succession. Hangers scraped noisily along rails. Something heavy hit the floor with a muffled thump, followed immediately by an aggravated sigh. Asa sat curled into the corner of Anthony’s sofa trying not to smile too hard into their tea.

Finally, footsteps creaked overhead. Asa looked up instinctively just as she appeared at the top of the stairs. Anthony was gone. Or rather, transformed.

She wore black velvet so deep it seemed almost liquid in the shadows, the gown sculpted close through her waist and hips before falling into a long, sweeping skirt slit sharply along one thigh. The neckline plunged daringly low, softened only by sheer black mesh dusted faintly with bronze glitter that caught the light whenever she moved, like constellations briefly surfacing against a night sky. From her shoulders spilled dramatic gossamer sleeves; translucent charcoal fabric embroidered with tiny stars and crescent moons, drifting behind her with every measured step like celestial smoke.

Heavy bronze jewellery gleamed at her throat and wrists: stacked bangles, rings darkened with age, a long starburst pendant resting against the velvet at her chest. On her feet were towering platform boots polished to a mirror-black shine, decadent and unapologetically theatrical, the thick heels clicking against the wooden stairs as she descended.

Her hair remained short, the same crop Anthony wore every day, but styled now into artful waves that curled slightly around her temples and ears. Her glasses were gone; dark liner elongated her eyes into something sharp and devastating beneath delicately fluttering lashes, while her mouth, painted in rich wine-dark colour, curved with unmistakable anticipation the moment she caught Asa staring at her. She looked like starlight dragged bodily into human form.

Beautiful did not remotely cover it—Asa almost forgot to breathe.

“Well?” she asked lightly, though Asa could hear the vulnerability still hidden underneath it. Her voice was gentler than before, lilted and the Scottish accent thicker. Asa found the sound of it unexpectedly intoxicating. “Do I still pass inspection after thirty years in storage?”

Asa stood before they entirely realised they were doing it. Their tea sat abandoned somewhere behind them on the coffee table, forgotten instantly beneath the sheer gravity of her presence. They crossed the room as though pulled there by tidewater, heart thundering painfully hard against their ribs.

“Oh,” they gasped, voice threaded with awe. “You surpass it completely. You are the most beautiful person I’ve ever seen.”

They kissed her. The Starmaker answered immediately, one sharp inhale escaping her before her hands rose to cradle Asa’s face with startling tenderness, rings cool against their skin. Her lipstick smudged almost instantly against Asa’s mouth, careless and intimate enough to send heat unfurling straight through their chest, down to their groin. Asa kissed her deeper without thinking, greedy suddenly for every hushed sound she made against their lips, for the velvet press of her body against theirs, for the dizzying realisation that Anthony—their brilliant, guarded man—was her, too. Not separate, not a performance detached from the person Asa was falling for. Simply another constellation of the same soul.

When the Starmaker drew back, excitement rekindled visibly across her features. “Sit,” she instructed gently, already reaching for her phone from somewhere hidden within folds of velvet.

Asa obeyed at once; they suspected she could have instructed them to walk calmly into traffic at that point and they might at least have considered it.

They lowered themself onto the sofa almost automatically, pulse still fluttering unevenly beneath their skin while the Starmaker crossed the room toward the speakers with effortless fluidity. A moment later, the opening notes of Starman crackled through the room. She glanced back over one shoulder, smiling, and then she began to move. Her dress clung and flowed around her body in hypnotic turns, bronze stars glimmering along her sleeves whenever she spun beneath the light. Those towering platform boots struck confidently against the wooden floorboards, each movement precise yet effortless, sharpened by long-buried instinct and memory.

And all the while, she looked directly at Asa. Not toward some imagined audience. Not into the middle distance. At them, as though this performance belonged solely to them now. By the time the chorus swelled, Asa felt almost unbearably overwhelmed by the intimacy of it all. Not merely because she looked beautiful, though she did, devastatingly so, but because this was clearly a part of Anthony that had been sleeping for years.

And now, the Starmaker was alive again.

By the second chorus, Asa was in serious trouble, and not subtle trouble, either. The Starmaker moved through the sitting room with such languid confidence that Asa felt almost hypnotised by her, every movement seemingly designed to unravel them patiently from the inside out. By the time she spun slowly on the lyric there’s a starman waiting in the sky, Asa realised with mortification that their attraction had become visibly apparent beneath their trousers.

The Starmaker noticed almost immediately. Her movements abated, then stopped entirely. Her eyes flicked downward briefly before returning to Asa’s face, darkened now with unmistakable want. “Oh.”

Asa flushed violently. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to—”

“Don’t you dare apologise for that.” The words came out low and immediate, the Starmaker briefly transforming back into Anthony.

She crossed the room toward them. When she stopped in front of the sofa again, Asa had to tilt their head back slightly to look up at her. Her lipstick was still smudged from their kiss.

“Do you have any idea,” she murmured, fingertips brushing lightly beneath Asa’s jaw, “what it does to me to be looked at like that?”

“You’re beautiful,” they admitted helplessly.

After the briefest hesitation, she asked quietly, “Would you like to take things to the bedroom?”

They did not rush upstairs, and that was what Asa would remember afterward most vividly—no frantic desperation, but almost devout unhurriedness.

The Starmaker guided them up the staircase by the hand while Bowie still drifted below them through the house. Asa followed half-dazed, pulse fluttering wildly beneath their skin, every nerve awake with anticipation and disbelief alike.

The bedroom felt deeply lived-in in a way the rest of the house only hinted at. Lamps cast pools of honeyed light across dark painted walls. A navy cardigan had been abandoned over the back of a chair. Constellation maps and framed space photography leaned haphazardly along the walls beside the bed rather than hanging properly, as though Anthony had meant to sort them out months ago and simply never had. And, of course, plants crowded the windowsill, their fresh scent mingling with the other mix of clean cotton, sandalwood aftershave, and candle wax.

As soon as the bedroom door clicked shut behind them, the Starmaker kissed them again, deeply. Asa melted into it at once, hands sliding instinctively against velvet-clad hips while her fingers threaded gently into the hair at the nape of their neck. Soft mouths locked over and over; lingering breaths and quiet moans were swallowed between them. Savouring, that was the word for it.

The Starmaker eventually guided Asa backward toward the edge of the bed, her boots discarded somewhere along the journey with heavy thuds against the floorboards. When Asa sat down almost blindly beneath the pressure of her hands, she followed immediately, settling herself carefully into their lap with her dress pooling around both of them like spilled ink. Her rings brushed coolly against their jaw as she kissed them again, tongue licking into their mouth lazily. Asa could feel the shape of her beneath the dress, feel the heat of her thighs straddling theirs, the steady rise and fall of her breathing, the faint tremor that betrayed she was not nearly as composed as she appeared.

“You should tell me something first,” they murmured as she began to plant tender kisses at his ear lobe, his neck.

“Mm?” She didn't stop, now tasting his salt-tang skin with the flick of her tongue.

“How would you like me to address you?”

The question seemed to catch her off guard. She pulled back, blinking through tears that were quickly gathering in her eyes. Her thumb stroked along Asa’s cheekbone.

“Anthony,” she said quietly after a moment. “A man, during this, I think.”

Asa nodded immediately. “Alright, Anthony.”

The effect of hearing his own name in their mouth while dressed like this was immediate. Anthony inhaled sharply, eyes fluttering closed for a brief second as though something inside him had unclenched unexpectedly. They kissed him again then, gently, trying to pour every ounce of care they felt into the simple meeting of their mouths. Anthony answered with a growl low in his throat, hands tightening briefly at their waist over layers of clothing.

Then his fingers moved leisurely to the buttons of their sweater vest, then their shirt. Once the fabric had been pushed from Asa’s shoulders, Anthony stopped in his tracks.

Asa’s stomach tightened instinctively beneath the weight of the look he bestowed upon them. They had never really thought of themself as desirable, not truly. They had spent too many years feeling awkward in their own body, too soft here, too large there, too visibly outside whatever narrow shape desirability was apparently meant to occupy.

But Anthony looked at them as though they were something exquisite. His gaze moved carefully across every newly revealed inch of skin with aching admiration, want threaded through tenderness so profound Asa nearly couldn’t bear it.

“You’re gorgeous,” Anthony said, as simple as that. 

Asa almost laughed from sheer disbelief; the absurdity of hearing that while Anthony himself existed directly in front of them dressed in velvet and stars and smudged lipstick nearly overwhelmed them entirely.

“You can’t possibly say that while looking like that,” they murmured.

“I mean it,” Anthony whispered, and then kissed them again.

Asa helped him with the velvet dress next. Their fingers trembled slightly against the hidden zip at his back, from the sheer overwhelming intimacy of it all. Anthony shivered visibly when their knuckles brushed bare skin beneath the fabric.

“You alright?” Asa murmured against his jaw.

“More than alright,” he admitted.

The dress slipped from his body, whispering down pale skin before pooling darkly around his feet, revealing what could only be described as a constellation of freckles across two broad shoulders. His figure was slender yet toned; two prominent pectorals adorned with dark hairs caught Asa’s attention first, and then the flat stomach and slinky hips. A silken, lacy thong encased what appeared to be a rather lengthy and hard-as-diamond cock. And then the legs—oh, Anthony’s legs went on for days.

The more of their own clothing disappeared between kisses and trembling hands, the more Asa felt layers peeling away emotionally too. All the practiced composure. All the assumptions they'd each carried about themselves. The old fear of being merely tolerated instead of truly wanted. Anthony touched them like none of those things had ever existed.

He removed their trousers slowly enough that Asa could have stopped him at any moment, palms gliding reverently along their thighs afterward as though committing every inch of them carefully to memory. His expression never once shifted toward awkwardness or politeness, only wonder.

By the time they were both finally bare, the room had gone very quiet around them. Anthony climbed onto the bed first, settling against the pillows before reaching for Asa almost shyly. “Come here.”

Asa went immediately. There was no desperation to consume one another whole before the moment vanished; it was as though they were each discovering something miraculous inch by inch.

Anthony traced Asa’s body sedately with reverent fingertips, learning them patiently—the swell of their stomach, the curve of their hips, the places that made them shiver when touched. Every so often he would pause simply to look, eyes dark and awed beneath smudged liner, like he genuinely could not fathom being allowed this closeness.

Asa returned the attention just as carefully. They mapped Anthony’s body with gentle hands and lingering kisses, learning the elegant lines, the warmth of his thighs beneath their palms, the way he inhaled and groaned whenever Asa kissed the hollow just below his ribs.

Each discovery felt oddly precious, and neither of them seemed interested in racing ahead toward anything more. The pleasure was in the looking, the touching. The quiet unravelling of shame.

At one point Asa found themself lying half atop him, their cocks grazing together, absentmindedly tracing circles across Anthony’s collarbone while he carded slow fingers through their hair.

“You know,” Anthony murmured after a long silence, “I think you may actually be the loveliest thing that’s ever happened to me.”

A feeling arrived with alarming force, sudden enough to frighten them slightly. They had known Anthony for such a short amount of time, less than a fortnight, and yet already he seemed to be embedding himself carefully into every part of them. It would have been terribly easy to say far too much in that moment.

Instead, Asa smiled delicately and brushed their fingertips through the hair at his temple. “You have an astonishing talent for saying exactly the sort of thing that makes a person want to kiss you senseless.”

Anthony chuckled. “That's encouraging.”

Asa kissed him again, because it was swiftly becoming their favourite thing to do, and Anthony answered immediately with a pleased sound against their mouth, hands settling at their waist. When they eventually parted again, slightly breathless and smiling into the small space between them, Anthony hesitated.

Then, with visible care, he asked, “How would you like to do this?”

Asa smiled. “I'm a switch, generally speaking.”

Anthony nodded immediately, listening with the same focused attentiveness he always gave them, like nothing they said could possibly be unimportant.

“But,” Asa continued, cheeks flushing slightly, “I usually prefer bottoming.”

Anthony’s hands tightened ever so slightly where they rested against Asa’s hips, thumb brushing absent circles against soft skin. “Alright, can I move you a little?”

Asa allowed him to guide them onto their back across the rumpled sheets, heart fluttering hard beneath their ribs as Anthony adjusted them with almost absurd attentiveness. He slid one of the pillows carefully beneath their lower back, lifting their hips slightly until Asa settled more comfortably against the mattress.

“Comfortable?” He asked, and Asa could only nod.

Anthony’s hands lingered briefly along their thighs afterward, affectionate and grounding against skin that already felt electrically sensitive from so much touching. Then he leaned down to kiss them once, reassuring, before reaching toward the bedside table. Asa watched him slide open the top drawer; inside, nestled amongst loose receipts and what appeared to be an alarming quantity of pens, Anthony retrieved a bottle of lube and a foil-wrapped condom.

“I realise this perhaps slightly ruins the aesthetic,” he said dryly, holding up the condom packet between two fingers.

Asa giggled at his inevitable need to puncture vulnerability with humour. “No, I rather think it improves it considerably.”

Anthony exhaled, then he climbed carefully back between their thighs, one hand braced beside Asa’s head while the other brushed tenderly down their stomach. “Tell me if anything feels wrong. Or uncomfortable. Or too much.”

The seriousness in his voice made Asa’s heart skip a beat. They reached up instinctively, fingertips brushing a smudge of lipstick near the corner of Anthony’s mouth.

“You’re being very lovely about this,” they whispered. “It's not my first time, you know.”

“Be that as it may,” he said, voice roughening just slightly, “you deserve lovely things.”

His hand drifted gradually lower, fingertips gliding along the inside of Asa’s thigh. Asa inhaled at the sensation, body already sensitive everywhere Anthony touched them.

“You still alright?” Anthony murmured.

“Yes,” Asa breathed immediately. “Very.”

Anthony grinned as he uncapped the bottle of lube one-handed with mild difficulty, earning a laugh from Asa when it nearly slipped from his fingers.

“Terribly dignified,” he muttered.

“You’re doing wonderfully.”

“Hm. Delighted to hear it.”

Anthony worked Asa open without haste, ensuring each ring of muscle was massaged into pliancy with the utmost of care. When his fingers finally eased inside of them, they let out a shaky exhale against his shoulder. His free hand stroked slowly through their hair while he waited for them to adjust to the intrusion, grounding them with gentle touches and absent circles against their hip.

Anthony pressed another kiss briefly to their forehead before moving again, impossibly gentle as he prepared them with careful movements. Asa gradually relaxed beneath him by degrees, tension melting from their body each time Anthony praised them quietly under his breath.

Once Asa was fully opened, Anthony finally reached for the condom resting beside them on the sheets. Asa watched him through half-lidded eyes while he rolled it on, their chest tightening unexpectedly at the simple intimacy of witnessing him like this.

Anthony looked back toward them once his cock was fully sheathed; it was long, flushed, and leaking from neglect.

“Okay?” he asked again.

Asa nodded. “Yes. I want this. I want you.”

Anthony shifted carefully between their thighs, one hand smoothing gently along Asa’s leg while the other guided his tip to their hole. The first languid push inside made them both inhale sharply. It wasn't painful, just intense in a way that stole breath straight from Asa’s lungs. The stretch of him felt dizzying and deeply intimate as their body instinctively tightened before gradually yielding beneath the gentle pressure. Anthony kissed them while easing further inside them inch by inch with impossible patience. Every movement remained cautious, centred entirely around Asa’s reactions. His hand stroked slowly along their waist the entire time, soothing them through each new stretch until tension gradually melted away.

When he finally settled fully inside of them, hips meeting hips, he exhaled shakily and dropped his forehead to theirs. The feeling of him fully inside them left Asa almost breathless.

When Anthony began to move, it was yet again without haste. Asa lay beneath him feeling absolutely cared for while Anthony kissed them intermittently between slow thrusts. Their mouths met lazily, uncoordinated sometimes from the sheer distraction of sensation, and each exhale Anthony made against their lips sent another tremor of desire spiralling through Asa’s stomach.

Stars, he was attentive. Every time Asa’s breathing changed slightly, Anthony noticed. Every time their fingers tightened against his shoulders or hips, his gaze flicked immediately back to their face as though checking they were still comfortable, still with him in this.

The slow drag of him inside them on every movement made thought difficult in the most exquisite way imaginable. The tenderness of it was emotionally consuming. He kissed them again and again, deeper, hungrier. One hand slid beneath their thigh to draw them slightly closer against him, and the new angle made Asa gasp into his mouth, their back arching.

“There,” Anthony breathed, as though pleased merely to have discovered what made them feel good. “Oh, you're perfect. An angel, my angel.”

The praise in his voice sent another flush rushing through Asa immediately. Nobody had ever taken such obvious pleasure in their pleasure before. Anthony continued at that same deliberate rhythm, never rushing toward some invisible finish line, each slow movement seemingly designed to make Asa feel wanted rather than merely desired, and the distinction between those things felt enormous.

Eventually, the steady rhythm Anthony had set began to falter. Asa could feel it in the way his breathing roughened unevenly against their throat, in the occasional loss of composure that slipped through whenever they tightened around him unexpectedly. His movements remained controlled, but effort had begun threading through them now. Anthony was close.

He seemed to decide honesty was easier than pretending otherwise, because after one particularly shaky exhale against Asa’s jaw, he admitted, “I’m getting dangerously near the end of my self-control here.”

The confession made Asa laugh breathlessly, though the sound dissolved quickly into a moan of pleasure when Anthony’s hand finally slid between their bodies and wrapped around his straining cock. His hand moved in gentle strokes, matching the same unhurried rhythm he’d maintained all evening.

“Fuck, Asa…” he mumbled into their throat. “So good for me… so beautiful…”

“Anthony—” they gasped against his mouth.

“Yesss,” Anthony hissed immediately, hearing the shift in them at once. “That’s it, angel. Let go for me.”

When they fell over the edge, it was like being gently pulled beneath warm water rather than falling hard over a ravine. Asa came with Anthony’s name in their throat, fingers tightening helplessly against his shoulders while pleasure rushed through their entire body in blissful waves. Anthony held them through all of it, kissing them and uttering praise while Asa shook beneath him.

The feeling of Anthony finally losing composure afterward nearly sent them over again. He buried his face against Asa’s neck with a low, broken sound that seemed dragged from somewhere deep inside him, movements stuttering once before stilling completely.

For several long seconds neither of them moved. Anthony’s breathing remained uneven against their throat. His heartbeat hammered wildly beneath flushed skin where their chests still pressed together. Asa had never felt so close to another human being in their entire life.

Eventually, Anthony lifted his head slightly; his eyeliner was thoroughly ruined now. Asa thought he had never looked more beautiful. 

“Still alright?” he asked.

“I might never recover,” Asa joked. “Yes, I feel wonderful.”

“Good.”

He reluctantly extracted himself from their hole with a wince, pressed an apologetic kiss beneath Asa’s jaw, and slipped from the bed. Asa watched him disappear briefly into the hall and assumedly into the bathroom, listening to the sounds of running water and drawers opening.

When he returned a minute later, the condom had been discarded, along with most evidence of the practicalities of sex. In one hand he carried a glass of water. In the other, a warm damp cloth. The sight of it made something unbearably tender twist through Asa’s chest.

Anthony climbed carefully back onto the bed beside them.

“You need hydration,” he informed Asa with mock sternness, offering the glass first.

Asa smiled as they accepted it. “Yes, doctor.”

“Professor, actually.”

“Mm. Very authoritative.”

Anthony huffed a laugh at that before setting the water aside and turning his attention toward the cloth in his other hand. “May I?” 

They nodded, and Anthony cleaned them up, impossibly delicate around their sore, sensitive skin. When he finished, he deposited the cloth somewhere nearby before settling back properly beneath the covers beside them. One of his hands found Asa’s almost immediately beneath the sheets, fingers threading together naturally as breathing.

A thought arrived, clear and whole and terrifying in its simplicity.

I love you.

The words bloomed soundlessly through Asa’s mind. They looked over at Anthony lying rumpled beside them, ginger hair mussed against the pillows and freckles standing out across flushed skin.

Anthony, who talked to his snake.

Anthony, who bought duplicate physics books simply for an excuse to linger in bookshops.

Anthony, who had unfolded hidden pieces of himself into Asa’s waiting hands with trembling trust and let himself be loved there.

The feeling settled deeper, as though Asa’s heart had recognised something long before the rest of them managed to catch up.

Anthony glanced toward them “What are you looking at?” 

Asa smiled back. “Nothing.”

Everything.