Part of Anthony thought about turning Terry away, of telling him to go back to his own bed, but being alone felt like too much for him to handle at the moment. He had thought maybe the two of them could go to the common room and waste the night away there. Instead, he scooted over a bit to allow Terry to join him in his bed.
It was different, sharing space with Terry this way. There was a layer of intimacy they hadn’t shared before, almost overwhelming in its intensity. Anthony shifted, turning so he was on his back and allowing his gaze to focus somewhere besides his friend. The two of them laid there in silence at first, and for all that the past few days had been awkward when they came into contact, there was a comfort in his friend’s closeness. The presence of Terry filled the usually empty corners of his bed, his familiar scent creeping over the pillows and setting Anthony’s mind at ease. For the first time in weeks, he felt safe. Lying with Terry like this was reassuring, comforting. It felt like home.
“Merlin, but what if he didn’t? Isn’t that almost worse?” Anthony asked, biting back the acidic taste of the bile he felt rising in his throat. “Who would have been with him, at the end? Some sadistic asshole watching him die? Another Muggle-born, knowing that they were gonna have the same fate?” The breath he let out was shaky, uneven. Anthony couldn’t imagine how Oliver felt in those last few moments he had. Did he know what was coming? Did it hurt? Did he have hope? No one deserves to die alone, but Anthony somehow doubted that Oliver would have wanted anyone to see his life end like that. Had Anthony been the one on the run, the one to die, he wouldn’t have wanted anyone to have to cope with the weight of the memory of his death.
“Terry,” he said, his voice soft as he almost absentmindedly reached out to intertwine his fingers with his friend’s. It hurt Anthony to see Terry hurting, but he understood the sentiment his friend was expressing so well. “Normal, normal doesn’t really exist for us, not right now. However we act tomorrow? However we face the day? That’s part of our new normal, as fucked as it is.” He squeezed Terry’s hand gently and spent a moment’s pause wondering if it was an odd thing to do before deciding it didn’t matter. Not now. “There’s no set way to feel. Loss is…it’s complicated, and messy, and painful. Everyone’s going to experience it in a different manner. You don’t have to know how you feel, but just no that there’s no right or wrong way to mourn Oliver.”
Perhaps he was overstepping his boundary, and he had no idea what he’d say to Michael if he were to wake up and find the two of them sharing a bed. But in the moment, Terry didn’t really care. There was an overwhelming need to be close to Anthony - in a way that he hadn’t experienced before. “I guess you’re right,” he softly replied, realizing that there was no way to look at Oliver’s death without feeling sick to his stomach. “No point to thinking about it. He’s gone, doesn’t matter how or when it happened or who he was with.” He let out a shaky breath, trying not to think about Oliver in a situation like the one Anthony said. He only wanted to keep the good memories around - not the images of Oliver running or trying to hide, of him scared or in pain, of him dying. “Grief is... strange,” he started before half-shrugging his shoulders. “I’m not good at this. I don’t know how I’m supposed to feel, or what I’m supposed to do, or what I should even say. And nothing is getting easier. I wish I had some sort of an answer on how to deal with it.”
He stopped talking when Anthony took his hand, his voice seeming to falter at contact. And he stayed quiet, listening and memorizing the way it felt when his friend squeezed his hand. “Anthony?” he finally asked quietly. He kept his hand still where it was, not wanting to break away from the feeling that had settled over him. It wasn’t anything new, that Anthony was the one who left him feeling centered and safe - and oddly vulnerable, like his friend could see right through him.
When Terry started to speak, he realized that maybe there was more than one thing he needed to talk to the other boy about. This moment right here - even though there was plenty of space between them, even though they were barely touching - felt intimate. But more than that, it felt normal. Everything that had happened lately between them felt natural, even though it seemed out of the ordinary.
Terry’s mind was overflowing with things he could say, his eyes flickering over Anthony’s features. He hesitated, before finally opening his mouth. “Promise me I’ll never lose you,” he said quietly. Even though it would’ve been simple to speak everything that was on his mind, to just come right out and say it - he couldn’t do it. Being here in this moment just proved how much he didn’t want to be without Anthony in his life, and he couldn’t risk anything that might ruin that. He felt stupid - promises were pointless, just words tossed around without any meaning. “Everyone I care about... it feels like I always lose them in some way and I - I can’t lose you.”
