Casper stopped a few shops down. So much for that slow heartbeat. With his head tilted back like that, the artificial light casting his jawline into sharp relief, there was no chance the stranger had seen him.

Was the guy following him? Had he picked up one of those stalker types? Like that had gone well the first time. Jack had been a technicality away from prison for the rest of his natural life because no one else in the system or the entire world gave a damn that Casper couldn't leave his flat without getting that spine-chilling mixture of death threats, confessions of love, and eyes on him from the other side of the street.

That was half the reason why Jack said no more to the tricks. The other half was that it made him feel sick that Casper was just like the girls he paid to abuse.

Shit. Casper rubbed his hands over his face and shook the thoughts of Jack free of his head. Fuck him. Fuck that he couldn't see that Casper spent every day treading water a second from drowning.

This guy wasn't following him. Casper hadn't even known he was coming here until he already left, and there he was, already here anyway. Call it chance, probably. Besides, like hell would Casper be chased away from his one paper lantern in the darkness.

And he'd pretend it was that. Not the way he kept finding himself thinking of how amazing that smile had been.

Definitely not that.

Casper straightened up and walked over to the Chinese. His legs trembled the whole way there.

The man did a good job of pretending he wasn't waiting for Casper to show up if he was. His head stayed tipped back (and god, that jawline made lust worth every second in hellfire), eyes trailing across the starless sky overhead. Casper walked quietly, and the man jumped when he spoke.

"Are you following me now?"

An expression of sheer wondrous joy lit up his face as his eyes touched, bright and awed, on Casper. No one should look at him like that. This prick had met him once and he'd told him to fuck off, but god, he looked at Casper like he was an angel sporting gold wings and the cure to fucking world hunger or something. It made him melt. No bullshit about it. It nearly made him cry.

Somehow he looked at Casper as if he were the most beautiful thing in the world.

Shit, he never should have talked to the guy. Casper tore his eyes away and dug in his jacket pocket for his tobacco. The guy even smoked straights. Casper made a policy of not getting involved with people who smoked straights. Heat flushed up his throat, through his cheeks, a shivering contrast to the ice chilling his nose and ears.

"I'm sorry," the stranger’s voice sounded even smoother out here on the quiet street, low, like molten dark chocolate, "did you say something?"

Casper looked up with an arched eyebrow. He'd reined in the expression a little now, but that awestruck grin still suffused his whole face. Like Casper was going to buy into this. Keep it surly, roach boy. He stuck a filter between his lips and croaked around it.

"I asked if you're following me now."

A blink. Then another. A car rumbled past down the street. "What?"

And that was actually kind of adorable. "You're outside the Chinese I'm going into. Are you following me or what?"

"Oh." His fingers carded back through his soft fall of hair, catching the light like soft velvet, and a chagrined sort of twist came to his lips. "No, I just ... this is my Chinese. I—I already ordered. I'm just waiting..." The smile softened out, and he took a drag on his cigarette. The exhaled smoke made a haze before his face in the still air. "Do you come here too?"

Not following him then. Probably. Casper didn't answer straight away. His fingers kept themselves occupied prodding tobacco into his paper and rolling the cigarette, and his mind kept itself occupied studying that idiotically doe-eyed expression on the stranger's face. It didn't falter once, even though Casper was certain he didn't look as if he were looking. In fact, the stranger just stared, beatific, the whole time, pretty lips wrapped around the filter of his cigarette.

Lips tight, Casper stuck the cigarette in the fold of his beanie and turned to go into the shop. He spoke his reply to the window. "No."

In the reflection of the door, he caught a flash of white in the man's grin. "Are you sure you're not following me?"

The heat of the shop engulfed him, and Casper let the door slam behind him.

Inside the Chinese was warm and clean, and it smelt like five spice and soy sauce. Real dream come true, that. Casper could bathe in soy all day long and sniff himself all night and never get sick of the scent. His shoes clicked against the tiles and the lucky cat on the counter waved hello. Yeah, it was nice here. Sort of place he’d come all the time if he had as much money as rich boy outside.

Really ruined the atmosphere when the old Chinese lady at the till got really shifty with him and asked if he knew tall sir outside.

Casper scowled at her. “No. I just want some food.”

But she just huffed, hands flying up in the air as her brows got tighter. “You talk to tall sir outside. You friend?”

“No, I’ve literally met him twice. Can I get some food, please?”

“No, but you talk to tall sir, yes?”

Fuck this man was giving him so many fucking obstructions to his monotonic trudging apathy it was unreal. Casper rubbed hishand over his scarred cheek and sighed. The heat had started to itch beneath his collars, trapped against his throat. “Yes, I talked to him. I just want some vegetable udon noodles and the vegetarian spring rolls. Please.”

With a sage nod, the woman finally tapped his order into her register. It came up four pound forty no matter that Casper was staring at the menu and putting two and two together to make eight.

“That’s not right,” he told her. Like a total idiot.

“Four pound forty,” she told him right back.

Like he was going to argue over a half price meal twice.

Then for some stupid reason, Casper went back outside. Dickhead was still there. Obviously. The door opening startled him from his smog-gazing and that same stupid grin brightened his face.

“It’s far too warm in there, isn’t it?”

Casper raised his eyebrow and as soon as he did, the man’s fingers trapped the bridge of his nose and his eyes rolled skyward, his lips moving around some inaudible muttering.

God, he was so endearing Casper just wanted to run away.

The shop window didn’t creak and bow as he put his back to it, unlike his old Chinese. Rock solid like a window probably should be, and no steel grating waiting to drop come close. All those bare branches sketched motionless through the air, the tips trembling as they reached for the touch of their neighbours and fell achingly short. Everyone who walked past looked athim. People usually did, and it made his skin crawl, but the trees were almost like a veil between him and the world. Few enough frequented the street this late on a Sunday as it was. All the more a strange coincidence meeting him here.

At the flare of his lighter, the cigarette smoke flooded his mouth and nose and lungs. A dry drowning. He pulled deeper and closed his eyes, trapping the smoke down in his lungs with his lips pressed tight together. Too easily, his head whirled, floating up to heaven as an offering to the stars in place of the smoke.

His stomach growled its reminder. His legs trembled. One by one, the nerves in his body woke up until the whole intricate web screamed out a plea to breathe. Casper denied it until with a final, petulant wail, his body asserted its will and let the smoke go. Survival, lighting up his nerves.

Surrender to instinct.