Vanya hasn’t moved from the window when Anna returns later. He’s frozen in more ways than one, slow to unfold his fingers from the jacket he tightly clutches to his chest and unmoving when she drapes it across his shoulders. He’s also slow to respond when she asks what happened. Perhaps he doesn’t need to. She stops questioning, encourages him instead, her voice low-pitched and soft, to take one step after another away from the spot where he last saw Jason. She’s right, part of Vanya’s consciousness recognises. There’s no point in staring down at the alley for so long after he left, like that might somehow summon him back.

Jason’s gone.

He’s gone, and that’s exactly what he deserves.

Anna pulls back the curtain around their sleeping area, only taking her hands off him for a few moments while quickly texting Kaspar. “He’s on his way,” she promises, like that might fix all Vanya’s problems, shushing him when he protests, his voice harsh and croaky.

“No.” His throat hurts as he speaks, like he’s spent the last hour screaming instead of staying silent when Jason demanded answers, words refusing to line up in English while stress kept his tongue tied. “This is the only shift Kaspar has all week. He needs to stay at work.”

“You are more important.” She won’t be persuaded to text Kaspar back to cancel. Vanya searches for his phone to do it himself before he remembers he doesn’t have it. For all he knows, it still lies shattered in pieces halfway down Jason’s hallway.

Closing his eyes doesn’t dim that awful vision.

It just summons an even worse one.

The last phone he’d owned had been broken as well, crushed underfoot by vigilantes in the alley where this whole nightmare started.

He doesn’t realise how cold he is until Kaspar arrives with steaming cups of take-out tea and coffee. He scalds his tongue as he sips, but he’s a little more coherent when Kaspar asks questions.

“Tell me what happened,” he demands, much like Jason had only a while earlier. However, when Kaspar adds, “Ivanushka, I know you didn’t want to talk last night, but you have to tell me what happened,” he can’t find any reserve to hold back. Kaspar’s seen him at his worst, still physically recovering months after his beating, and he’s woken often to his nightmares. There’s precious little left to shock him.

“Jason found out about us squatting. He found out everything. About me lying to him from the beginning and about me telling you about this place.”

“Okay.” Kaspar huffs out a long breath. “You say he knows everything. That means he knows why you’re here in the UK?” He frowns when Vanya shakes his head. “But did you tell him why we moved in here?” His gaze flicks to Anna. “Did you tell him about the break-ins and our money getting stolen and about how it’s only short term? Did you tell him that we’re not arseholes, that we’re taking care of the place and that we’ll leave it tidier than we found it?”

“No.” Last night panic had overwhelmed him before he could get a word out. That same reaction surged back this morning the moment Jason laid all his lies out before him.

“Did you at least tell him that you didn’t want to do it? Any of it?” Kaspar leans closer, forcing him to maintain eye contact when he’d much rather close his. “I was the one who let him think you were a personal shopper, not you. I was the one who said we should live here until we saved the deposit. You must have told him that much?”

“N-no.” Forming words had been impossible in any language. “Anyway, I didn’t think he’d listen.”

“Ivanushka.” Kaspar’s tone is tired but kindly. “He’d listen to you tell him that black was white, if only you spoke up. You could tell him anything at all, and he’d want to believe you.”

All Vanya can do is shake his head. There’s no way Jason will trust him ever again or believe an apology, no matter how it’s phrased.

“He would,” Kaspar insists. “Because he’s fallen for you almost as hard as you’ve fallen for him.” His voice lowers. “Did you think we didn’t notice? You look like he hung the moon every time you mention his name. Surely he’s got to know the way you feel about him?”

“He won’t believe me after last night.”

“Why?” Anna sounds just as gentle as her boyfriend, her hand a slight, warm weight on his shoulder. “What happened?”

“I-I was looking forward to seeing him. B-but….” He sets down his cup with a clatter. “He was already furious when I got there. I understand now, but yesterday I didn’t. I went to greet him like usual, but he grabbed my jacket to pull me inside.” He can guess why, now that he’s had time to think about it; Jason hadn’t wanted to air his dirty laundry in public, that’s all. “But I… I—” He closes his eyes before blinking them open just as fast when a circle of men he has no hope of escaping lurk behind his eyelids.

Kaspar says it for him. “You had a panic attack. About what happened to you in Moscow?” His next words are aimed at his girlfriend. “I used to have the room next to his at the hostel. I heard him scream through the wall just about every night after he moved in. That’s why we ended up rooming together—it saved getting up to wake him.”

“I lost it.” That short phrase doesn’t even come close to Vanya’s loss of control. “I fought him off when he wasn’t even trying to hurt me.” That much is crystal clear now.

“You fought him?” Kaspar sits back. “I’ve never once seen you do that, not even at your worst. You usually freeze. What the hell did he do to make that happen?”

“Nothing.” Hindsight lends more insight. “It wasn’t what he did, it was the location, I think. It was dark without the lights on, and his hallway is quite narrow.” The walls had seemed to close in so fast; it had been so convincing. Even now he has to blink a few times to be sure he’s not back there. “I didn’t see it as his home at all. The moment he put his hands on me, I was back where….”

“Back where they nearly killed you.”

All Vanya can do is nod.

“You had a flashback, some kind of panic attack. You were terrified, so you lashed out and ran.” The jut of Kaspar’s jaw is familiar when anger colours his words. “But he ignores all that and instead, he came here today to pick up where he left off—”

“No!” Finally Vanya’s voice finds some volume. “No.” His headshake is so vehement that his borrowed jacket slips from his shoulders. “He came here to find out if I was okay. It was the first thing he asked. And he came to bring me this jacket.” He picks it up from the floor. “Last night I thought he was grabbing me like they did. I slipped out of it when he held on, and then I left it behind. He was worried.” It’s hard to get out the next sentence, so perfectly describing Jason. “He was worried I’d be cold.”

He hugs the jacket tightly until he feels a bulge in one of its pockets.

It contains the last thing he wants.

“What’s that?” Anna takes it from him and then removes the band to count. “A hundred pounds,” she quietly utters as she rolls the band around it again. “Why would he give you money if he doesn’t care about you?” She holds it out like it’s proof. “He must still care if he brought you this. He must want another chance.”

Vanya shakes his head. It’s not a gift, he knows. It’s the payment he refused to take after their last fake appointment.

“It’s not a second chance.”

Jason’s paid the last of his debts so he owes Vanya nothing.

* * *

Vanya’s had worse nights, he supposes, but it’s hard to compare what keeps him awake this time to the last time he hurt so badly. Others caused that agony, while this pain is self-inflicted.

It’s a truth that’s hard to swallow while regret tightens his throat.

He lies awake and wonders. Did Jason sound hoarse at the end of their one-sided conversation because he felt the same way—regretful and so sad? Is he watching shadows cross his ceiling right now, rewinding and replaying each of their conversations, wondering why Vanya didn’t ever take the chance to come clean?

Somehow minutes tick past, hours dragging towards morning excruciatingly slowly. The light is meagre when dawn breaks, but eventually it’s bright enough for him to focus on the roll of cash Jason left him. It’s also more than enough light to see what Anna does shortly after waking.

Maybe she couldn’t sleep too. She certainly appears tired as she folds clothes, steadily gathering objects they’ve collected since sharing this space together. A postcard, a favourite book, and a scarf all get added to the large bag she shoulders.

There’s the stone Kaspar found on their first date, shaped like a love heart. He watches as she cradles it in her palm. She pauses next by the fir cone Vanya brought home from Riversmeet that first time, her touch lingering for a moment before she slides it carefully into her bag too, like it’s very precious.

She’s packing like they might need to leave any minute, gathering every single thing here that has meaning to them.

Anna moves with quiet purpose while Kaspar’s still sound asleep, scooping up his possessions as well. She only pauses when she gets to the table covered with wedding favours. Her hand shaking when she touches a ribbon prompts him to speak out.

“You don’t need to pack.” It’s the only thing he’s certain of right now. “Jason won’t tell anyone we’re here, not before the wedding.” After that is anyone’s guess. Getting thrown out is what they always half-expected, but Jason won’t make that happen until the wedding is over.

Anna finally crouches next to him. She inclines her head at the roll of cash. “What are you going to do with it?”

If he adds it to the wedding payment, it’s more than enough to make a difference. Kaspar could sign a lease this weekend and have some left over. For once, that thought doesn’t give him any pleasure. Loss settles low in his chest, heavy and relentless, bruising his ribs from the inside and making his eyes water.

“I don’t want his money.”

“I know.” She wipes his damp cheeks with the hem of her sleeve. “Do you want me to come with you today?”

“Where?” Moving from this spot is far too hard to consider. He’s exhausted—tired in heart and bone and body.

“To the immigration centre. Did you forget your appointment?”

It takes time to pull himself together, even longer to get ready for a meeting that couldn’t be worse timed if he planned it. For once, he doesn’t bother to dress up before gathering his folder of documentation, thicker now than ever. It’s filled with everything he’s found online reporting his attack as justice instead of as a hate crime the authorities did nothing to counter. All those hours at the library reading that Russia was well rid of a potential pervert sure to ruin the lives of children had hurt. His ears rang sometimes, knowing the same accusations must have filtered back from Moscow to his hometown, but he printed every sentence in case they might somehow save him.

But for what?

So he might get to stay here knowing he’s lost the one man who matters?

It’s a thought he mulls over alone on the long bus journey to the centre, oblivious to the dismal weather as he walks through drizzle to queue for a ticket. Numbers get called out as he waits, but it’s hard to pay attention or to care if he misses his turn.

For once, it doesn’t matter that only a few rows of plastic seating block him from real freedom, and he barely listens to what the official says when his turn eventually comes. What’s the point in concentrating when he has about as much chance of being granted asylum as he has of convincing Jason that he wants so badly to love him?

And he does.

He wants to love him so much it hurts more than his Moscow beating.

It isn’t possible to sink any lower.

“…and after five years, if it’s still unsafe for you to return, you can apply for a legal status called Indefinite Leave to Remain.”

Vanya has to ask the official to repeat his last sentence, sure that he misheard him.

The official does so, citing immigration rules Vanya knows by heart—he’s definitely at risk of persecution in Russia, his government making no promise to safeguard him if he’s returned.

Vanya deserves the fullest extent of British protection.

His claim for asylum is granted, at last.

He can stay in Britain.

When the official says, “In the meantime, all prior restrictions on your stay are lifted,” hope that Vanya thought had burned out flares, bright and hot and shocking.

He sits in full view of a sea of strangers who washed ashore in Britain from the world’s four corners, overwhelmed with emotion when they offer warm congratulations in languages he can’t name. Children clap their hands, spurred on by their parents’ cheers, and even the official cracks a small smile when Vanya repeats a dazed “Thank you” over and over.

He leaves the immigration centre clutching a folder describing a horror story that turned out to be the key to unlocking a safer future on this island. Still, he can’t bear to put his new official papers next to everything so awful. Instead they’re snug in the breast pocket of Jason’s jacket, rustling next to his heart as he sees this grey city through new eyes, even though they’re tired and red rimmed.

London is dirty and overcrowded, its unspoken rules of conduct sheer cliffs much taller than its skyscrapers, almost impossible to scale by newcomers who barely master English, but when the sun peeks through dark clouds, he’s struck by its beauty.

It resides in every library where all are welcome regardless of where they come from and in every story listened to there by children from so many nations, and now… now he has a chance to give back.

Finally he can make a difference in their futures.

Surely that alone is worth the pain that’s been his shadow for so long.

And if he’s fought to escape that shadow, and won, there’s one more battle he can take on.

He can damn well fight for Jason.