Vanya and Anna work on making wedding favours until the afternoon light fades. It’s barely four by the time cutting out the gossamer fabric becomes too tricky. Vanya quietly curses, scissors clattering on the windowsill after he drops them to suck a finger. “Ouch.” He inspects his last gauzy circle. “Shit. I ruined this one, sorry.”

“Don’t be.” Anna hugs him hard for a second time that afternoon. “We’ve made amazing progress. Thank you so much for helping.”

“Don’t be too grateful until you’ve seen the others I cut out. I’m not exactly the neatest.” Her hair is warm under his chin, her hug tight and long-lasting. “What’s up?” he asks quietly when her grasp doesn’t loosen.

“Nothing.” Her arms tighten around him, and she whispers even though they’re utterly alone with no one here to witness this needy moment. “I just can’t believe we’re actually going to do it. We’re really going to have enough after the wedding to get our own place.” Her voice gets quieter. “It wouldn’t have happened without your connection to Jason.”

“I could say the same about you. Chantel really likes you.”

She squeezes him one more time before inspecting his final attempt. “This is fine. The edges don’t have to be perfect. It’ll look the same as all the others once it’s tied with the ribbon you cut.”

“How many more do we need?”

Anna counts their work-in-progress, neat lines of favours covering desks they pushed together. “Only a few more.” She consults her clipboard. “For the adults, at least. But Chantel wants some little gifts for all the children as well.” Her worry is barely visible now that the light outside has dimmed. “I have no idea what to buy for them.”

“Let me help you with that.” A task for tomorrow will help the day pass.

She opens an envelope of cash and counts what remains there. “Chantel’s a stubborn one,” she says as she pulls out the last few bank notes. “Insisted it was her idea to include every single child in her class, so their gifts should come from her own money.” She holds it out to Vanya. “This is all that’s left. See what you can do with it.”

He can do a whole lot with very little now that he’s had so much practice. Purpose fuels a smile that he finds hard to keep in. A busy day that ends with dinner at Jason’s place sounds more than perfect.

Anna doesn’t share the happiness that warms him. “My hands are cold already.” She sets down her clipboard and shoves her hands deep in her pockets. “I think it’s going to be a bad night.”

Outside, the cloudy sky has cleared. It doesn’t matter that light pollution will still hide stars much later, that clear sky signals a cold night. “You know,” he offers, “If it gets too cold, we could go back to the—”

“No. I’m never going back there.”

It’s not hard to understand why. Heating and hot water at the hostel count for nothing if they come with being frightened. He wouldn’t knowingly want to revisit the alley where he’d been attacked either. It’s bad enough that the one downstairs is a constant reminder. “But it is going to get colder.” It’s a fact that’s inescapable. “If it gets really cold, we could rent a room in a hotel.” Both their gazes flick to where their rental deposit is secreted—wages, tips, and cash from Jason’s appointments—and equally as quickly, they both shake their heads.

They’re so close now.

Anna’s right: Another week of living like this, at most, and they’ll have enough to rent a safe space that no one can take from them. But her next shiver turns to a full-body shudder.

“Maybe I could talk to Jason,” Vanya offers without thinking. “If he knew—”

“If he knew what?” Anna’s next headshake is firm. “That the top-class wedding planner he hired is squatting in an old call centre? That his boyfriend doesn’t know the first thing about fashion or have a work visa?”

“I could say we had a power cut or a burst pipe or something. I know he has a spare room.”

“Seriously?” She parts the fabric that curtains the snug area where they sleep close together. “You’re going to tell a man who loves to fix things that there’s a problem with where you’re living?” Her sharp tone softens. “He’ll only want to mend it for you. Come on,” she says. “Kaspar will be home soon with some supper. Let’s make a nest before he hogs all the covers.” She rearranges cushions and the blankets they’ve pooled, holding one up until Vanya sits beside her. She shuffles closer, and her voice is quiet. “Tell me a story while we wait.”

“What about?”

“I don’t care.” She sniffs and then stifles a sneeze. “Tell me about the last wedding you went to at home. Or the last big family dinner.”

Remembering food and drink and good times weighs much heavier than her head on his shoulder. He’s spent almost a year avoiding thinking about extended family. Recalling the last time they shared a celebration stings like another cut from her scissors.

Not one of those family members came to see him while he was hospitalised for so long.

Not a single person.

They’d cut ties, like he’d cut lengths of ribbon today, before he’d even left Russia.

His storytelling stops and starts a few times. Yet, as Anna asks more questions, he finds unexpected comfort.

So what if none of those blood relations stood by him? Somehow, a new family’s found him—here and in Moreton-in-Marsh—linked to him by a man he can love without hiding, if he wants. He pulls Anna closer and tells more tales from a past that sting a little less, hurting in a way he can live with now that he might have a real future.

* * *

Vanya daydreams as he travels under London the next evening, not caring for one moment how he appears to other people. No one pays attention when he smiles at nothing, thoughts full of the last time he journeyed, Jason’s smile just as helpless.

The closer he gets to his last station, the more that mental image transforms, and it’s not the warm breeze filling each tunnel between platforms that heats him or the thickly padded jacket he borrowed. It’s the thought of Jason’s reflection in a steamed up bathroom mirror, his arm an unrelenting thick bar across Vanya’s chest, holding him tight as they fucked.

He wants to repeat it.

He wants to repeat the whole thing, only without any white lies between them.

It’s a wish that only firms on his way to Jason’s, intensifying when he arrives at the end of his street. Each big bay window he passes offers glimpses of how life might be when he lives someplace safer.

Soon, he silently promises.

He’s already waited almost a year for a decision—six months longer than average, maybe due to his poor English or to the anti-foreigner headlines he has no trouble translating each time he sees a newspaper.

But, his conscience counters, if he’d been granted asylum quickly, he wouldn’t have met Jason.

Happiness surges when he spies him silhouetted in his front window, joy spurring Vanya into a jog past the last few houses. He waves, and it doesn’t matter that Jason doesn’t return the gesture—he’s only hurrying to the front door, likely just as keen as Vanya to pick up where they left off. His smile is impossible to restrain when he knows full well what’s coming.

Jason’s going to hug him so hard, like he has the last few times, so his feet leave the floor for a few seconds.

He’ll hug him and kiss him right there in full view of the whole street, and Vanya’s more than okay with that.

Excitement has him tripping over the doorstep in his hurry, laughter bubbling at the picture he must paint, stumbling like Lady’s brand new foal, so keen to see his boyfriend. He’s still unsteady when the front door opens, but that doesn’t matter. He launches himself regardless, so certain Jason wants him.

He’ll open his arms at any moment, Vanya’s sure, instead of standing stock-still, and he’ll kiss him back, instead of turning his face away with a grimace. Jason will hold him tight, just like he imagined, rather than letting him rebound and stumble backwards.

Only none of that happens.

Instead of bending so their lips can meet when he tries once more, Jason jerks his head back like Vanya’s a viper about to strike him. All he gets is a faint brush of stubble against his lips for his trouble, and Jason saying a firm, “No.”

Vanya echoes those two letters. “No?”

“No.” Jason confirms that with his next actions, the flat of his hand pressing directly over Vanya’s heart to push him away. “No fucking way.”

Somehow, Jason’s voice cracking somewhere between those three words registers faster than his actions.

Vanya speaks, he thinks, but he’s not sure any sound comes out. “But why?” he repeats when he stumbles, leaving him off-balance. The sound Jason lets out is disbelieving, but he grabs the lapel of the jacket he lent, hauling Vanya inside and slamming the door closed behind him.

The hallway is unlit tonight, intensely dark and narrow.

The walls close in as Vanya’s heart trips and skips and skitters.

Jason doesn’t notice, too busy marching Vanya along the hallway, not stopping even when Vanya’s phone falls from his pocket and a button pings free from his jacket. Both are left unnoticed as he hauls Vanya into his kitchen, which is unlit too and full of shadows.

Vanya’s thousands of miles from Moscow tonight, and yet he’s in a very familiar dark place.

He barely survived the last time he confronted this much anger.

A repeat will surely kill him.

He shuts down and panics.

Run.

He doesn’t see Jason’s hand reach out to the light switch, only that his arm’s raised.

He pivots, muscles bunched on instinct, straining to spring like a gazelle from the hand of the hunter as he should have done so much sooner the last time he was cornered.

Escape.

He turns on his heel, rubber squealing against floor tile, his arms raised like a bird about to take flight, helpless to do anything but tear away from what feels like fatal danger. It doesn’t matter that Jason speaks, his voice distorted as if underwater. Vanya’s too far gone to hear him, sunk deep and nearly drowning in fright that saturates him.

Survival commands take over.

Run and escape are a deafening klaxon as he lurches, struggling out of the jacket Jason still holds onto. He skids as he pulls free and then stumbles hard against the doorjamb. Stars spark in the periphery of his vision when his head makes contact, but it’s lack of oxygen, not a fracture this time, that makes those sparkles brighten. His lungs are locked tight, reliving sharp slivers of rib he couldn’t breathe through last time and he staggers forward, deaf to Jason’s surprised yell over the roar behind his eardrums.

He runs for the front door, so close to escaping.

So close to surviving.

It’s his phone that fells him.

The case cracks when he treads on it, screen shattering as it takes his full weight, skidding wildly under his foot.

His fall is headlong, face-first onto floor tile only seconds since his arrival. None of that registers as more adrenaline floods him, fight warring with flight to shape his next reaction.

An attacker looms above him, his face completely shadowed.

It’s not Jason who extends a hand in his direction. Nothing of Jason—his Jason—registers while Vanya relives almost dying.

Fight wins over flight even as he lunges for the front door. He evades Jason’s hand one more time despite it being held open rather than curled into a tight fist. Instead, he kicks out wildly.

“Vanya!” is the first word he hears clearly, followed by the sound of keening.

It’s him, Vanya realises.

It’s him who sounds like an animal that’s cornered.

Him, who chokes instead of speaking, like hands still tighten around his throat a year after he last blacked out, suffocated.

And it’s him, who finally drags in a lungful of air that floods his brain far too late for reason. His vision clears to show Jason, on his knees, blood smearing his mouth and chin for some reason.

A siren sounds as a police car passes, lending a final spurt of terror, its wail a stark reminder of police officers who watched the end of his beating with blank indifference.

Run and escape take over for a third time in as many minutes.

This time, he gets to the door and flings it open, oblivious to the cold outside as he runs from Jason.