When Gethin got back from the hospital, Jonathan was already there, a pan of stew on the stove and a hug waiting. He listened to Gethin's account of the hospital visit with appreciative delight.

'A virtuoso performance from Maeve! Well done, that girl!' he said. 'I'm pretty sure she's mistaken about Ivan, but then, wasn't everyone? With a bit of luck, he'll sidle off back to wherever he's from and leave us in peace!'

'Hope so. Anyway, I've done all I can. It looks tidier in here, have you been busy?'

'A little. We'll be changing schedule soon, stepping it up a bit, so we finished earlier today. I've just moved a few of my bags, really.'

'Well, thank you.'

'You're welcome. Stew's ready, hope you're hungry.'

The next few days passed in a mixture of sameness and newness, no different from other weeks in the shop, meetings to supervise – but completely fresh and new upstairs, with Jonathan there in the flat in the evenings, in Gethin's bed overnight, off about his day when Gethin opened up, rarely back at lunchtime, usually home by half six or seven.

Friday evening, though, was theirs, Jonathan back not long after Gethin had locked the shop.

'Nobody wants to rehearse on a Friday evening or over the weekend,' Jonathan said. 'So until we get right up to the last couple of weeks, we're not going to. It means putting in an extra hour or so in the day, but the company felt it'd be worth it. What do you want to do, club, drink, pictures, what?'

'Haven't been to the pictures in years,' Gethin said. 'Might be fun. Get something to eat as well, maybe a drink?'

'Now, that sounds like a plan... where's that paper, what do you fancy seeing?'

'I think that Eastwood film's still showing, if you fancy it? It's either that or some WWII horror story about a demon in a Nazi prison camp...'

'Clint Eastwood, every time,' Jonathan said. 'Hmm... quite an early showing, meal afterwards? Then on somewhere, if we fancy it?'

'Perfect. Are you going to show me how to do eye shadow tonight?'

'If you like.'

Gethin enjoyed getting ready, the process of preparing for the night. With a little tuition, he managed some grey eyeshadow without ending up looking like he'd been fighting, and eyeliner, and allowed Jonathan to pick out clothes for him – a dark green shirt and black jeans.

'Makes you look even more intense than usual, I love it,' Jonathan said. 'Knowing I get to bring you home looking like that...'

'Thank you, not so bad yourself, you know... so what are you wearing? Or do I get to help choose?'

'Well... I was going to go out like this,' Jonathan said. 'Or didn't you notice me getting changed? You were certainly staring...'

'Of course I noticed, and you look great, but I just thought you might want to wear one of your dresses. Or something. I...'

'It's a bit nippy tonight,' Jonathan said. 'Besides, if we go dancing after, I thought these jeans were pretty flattering...'

'Pretty tight, you mean!' Gethin said. 'And they look fabulous...'

'That's sorted, then.'

And the film was good, back row, nobody sitting near enough to care what two random men did instead of watching Dirty Harry on the big screen, but the sense of it, of other people around them in the dark adding to the excitement of one of Jonathan's already-exquisite blowjobs, Gethin stifling his voice and trying not to laugh as Jonathan rearranged his jeans after and licked his lips, grinning, and the little place they found for supper serving excellent food in such huge quantities that after the meal, Jonathan sighed and patted his ribs.

'Don't know about you, Gethin-love, but I don't think I could go dancing on top of all that food. Just a gentle walk to the tube, I think, maybe buy a bottle, continue at home?'

'Sounds like a great way to end the evening,' Gethin said. 'Besides, I owe you one, so to speak...'

'Well, I'm not keeping tabs, personally, but it does sound like fun. What other place names are there for you to tease me with tonight?'

Out dancing on Saturday, though, once the Saturday Group had left, Jonathan again eschewing a dress in favour of tight trousers, teamed with a blue open-neck shirt, beautiful on the dance floor, his eyes locked on Gethin though every dance with an almost feral hunger, home in the early hours, abandoning various items of clothing on the stairs in their haste to tumble down together in intoxicated, intoxicating love-making, all heat and hands and cries and urgent, pounding lust, and it was wonderful.

So why was it, making bacon sandwiches on Sunday morning, that Gethin felt uneasy? Jonathan was there at his back, touching him up with a suggestion and a smile while he was trying to turn the bacon, affectionate and gorgeous as ever, they were happy together, it was all easy between them.

Except it wasn't, not quite. But Gethin couldn't quite put his finger on why; the only thing, and it was possibly just a very small thing, was that since the night of Gethin's panic attack, Jonathan hadn't worn any of his dozens of dresses. Maybe it was just, as he'd said on Friday, a bit cold for a frock. Maybe at first, he'd been trying to gauge Gethin's reaction, and so had worn them more often than he would have done otherwise. Maybe Jonathan just didn't feel in the mood for skirts.

Or could it be because Gethin's panic attack had freaked him out, too, and he was keen to avoid anything that might make it happen again?

Whatever it was, Gethin didn't want to raise the subject and possibly spoil the mood, not with Sunday before them. full of the promise of peaceful lazing before the onslaught of the week. Besides, they were just getting to know each other a little more deeply now, beyond the taste in films and music and food and books, to discover how they felt about the world and its workings, and with every revelation, every confidence, Gethin was drawing closer and closer to the chaos and wonder that was Jonathan Blake.

As for Jonathan, he smiled his easy smile and cuddled up like a great big lion cub, snuggling in around Gethin's daily routine as if he belonged there.

So when Gethin locked up the shop on Wednesday evening and went up to the flat to find the door to the guest room open and almost all of Jonathan's bags gone, he didn't quite know what to make of it.

He didn't enter the room – to his mind, it was Jonathan's personal space (not that he seemed to need, or want, personal space, but still...) so he stood staring from the doorway, looking and looking as if by doing so he could make the missing bags appear, as if he could make sense of it.

Keys in the lock down stairs. Gethin reminded himself to breathe, forced his feet to move him down to the kitchen to get the kettle on, Jonathan bounding up the stairs whistling, hanging up his coat, coming to bearhug his arms round Gethin and kiss his neck in greeting.

'You okay, Gethin?' he asked as Gethin clung and tried not to and looked for the right words.

'Ah... yeah. Sorry. Just... the door was open upstairs and I wondered if we'd been robbed by very particular thieves, or something?'

'Oh... oh, that... yes...' Jonathan relaxed his arms a little so he wasn't squeezing quite so tight. 'If you remember, I did say they were lining up some digs...'

'Yes, you did say that... but...'

'And we're about to enter the next phase of rehearsals, I thought, take them up on their kind offer, get my stuff out of your way...'

'...not in my way...' Gethin said, faintly protesting.

'...easier all round, really, nothing's changed, just work, I have to work...'

'Yes, I know. But, I could have helped...'

'You have enough to do with the shop. The only time you could have helped would have been in your free time, and your free time is our free time. And I have better things to do, when you're not working, than move bags around.'

'It's about that turn I had, isn't it?'

'No, of course it isn't, Geth-love, it's about full-on rehearsals from Monday onwards, eleven to six, every day except Sunday now, learning lines, costume try-outs, reading scenes through with people who have part-time jobs in bars and day jobs and the director's an arse and things like that. Just work, Gethin. Work. I'll still come over, when you haven't got a meeting on downstairs, and at weekends, it's just the digs are near the theatre, and it costs less, and...'

'Really? We're okay? Not to sound insecure, or anything... God, I sound like a child, don't I, like you're my first crush?'

'Yes, we're okay. And if you do sound insecure, then I'm flattered I matter...'

'Of course you matter,' Gethin muttered.

'And you matter to me too, Geth-love. I don't know what I do without you, your hand on my kite string.'

This was said with a little squeeze and shake, the smile that filled up Jonathan's eyes, and Gethin nodded, and breathed again, and only when he went to make the tea did he realise he was shaking.

They were okay.

He tried to believe it, he wanted to... and, when they were lying together after love, with the dark lying across their bodies like a blanket of truth, he couldn't see any reason not to believe it.

But when the morning came, Jonathan whistling as he cooked breakfast, that strange, uneasy feeling returned, and Gethin wondered what he could possibly do to stop the disaster he sensed looming from crashing down on them both.

After all, it was his fault, wasn't it?'