A/N: Not sure how many parts there will be yet, perhaps three. This is set four years from now and will go some way in explaining what's happened between now and then. Ties in a little with my Double Date fic but you don't need to have read that to read this. Hope you enjoy!

Mitzeee's Birthday

Part One

"Look! It weren't that long ago you were saying –" Ste cleared his throat, adopted his trademark (and appalling) Irish accent – "Steven we should get away for a bit, spoil ourselves." He growled. Brendan hadn't growled in the conversation Ste re-enacted, but his pressing Ste up against the door frame with a hard on, had said as much.

Brendan, up to his elbows in soap suds, played the martyr after a row that morning. Ste had yapped on like a harpy claiming he wasn't Brendan's little wifey there to cook, clean and shag; they were meant to be equals. Brendan had been working longer hours getting the new club up and running and claimed he didn't feel like coming home and cleaning up. Ste shouted back that maybe he didn't feel like cleaning up either. Brendan dipped into his wallet and told him to hire someone. The arms were folded as he said, "That's not how life works, Brendan. You can't just chuck money at something to fix it." Brendan had perked up at this, brazenly tucking a wad of Euros into the waistband of Ste's trousers. The inevitable anger that erupted and Brendan settled for fish finger sandwiches, less appetising than what he was expecting for tea, and Ste ignoring him for most of the night. It was made better with his warm hand span across Ste's belly and a sorry in his ear. He was pressed nose to nape as he made excuses for his selfishness, ones that Ste conceded, and told him how much he loved and appreciated Steven, more than he could any 'wifey'.

He flicked a soap bubble. "I meant the two of us, I didn't mean Anne tagging along,"

Ste tutted, resting his back against the sink next to Brendan. "She's meant'abe your best mate." He looked over at Brendan's perfectionist circling of the sponge. "You could have bunged them in the dishwasher, you know."

"I don't have 'mates', Steven," Brendan said, sliding plates into the rack. "I have people who work for me and family,"

"And enemies," Ste said, a dorky grin. His humour in that was found in Brendan's enemies now being tight suppliers and the woman at the pharmacy who raised her eyebrows at the amount of lube he bought, rather than the drug dealers and murderers of the past. The odd punter had his arm contorted in such a way that left him yelping, but nothing as bad as that would warrant police involvement anymore.

"Okay, so Mitzeee's the closest thing you've got to a mate," Ste said, he was clutching the email from her. He still printed off emails, finding them easier to read that way. It was addressed to him, Mitzeee knowing all too well that Brendan didn't really do modern technology. "And California, Brendan. Hollywood and everything." Ste's whole face lit up with excitement. "We could go n'mingle with the celebrities,"

Brendan glanced at him, enamoured by his boyish enthusiasm and wonder for things most people would find childish or insignificant. Ste gave him a new appreciation for the world.

"Fine. Fine. We'll go and give Anne the Birthday of her dreams!" he said, dramatizing his words in the style of the email.

X

Ste was like a child on a flight. He coped fine on the short leg between Dublin and England, something they did all too frequently to see the little ones in Manchester, but give him a longer flight and he behaved like the kid you don't want to sit behind on a journey. He'd emptied the contents of a carrier bag, which had been stuffed into his eyesore of a sport's holdall, onto the little pull down table. He'd bought a variety of confectionary, chocolate, sweets and – strangely – popcorn ("For the movies," he'd explained) and then a magazine selection that made it look as if Brendan was sitting beside someone with multiple personalities. Good Food, PlayStation, attitude. Brendan gawped at the latter.

"You can't be serious," he said, not even attempted to hide his contempt.

"What?"

"This." He pointed. "Is pornography."

Ste eyed the cover – some swimmer he'd never heard of – not exactly bad looking, but nothing worth getting excited about. He wasn't even really sure why he'd bought it, he didn't really do reading, but the magazines at the airport somehow made him feel like he was supposed to buy them. And the speed he read at could take him through a couple of hours of the flight.

"I only bought it for the articles, didn't I? Could learn how t'get a gym body." Ste stroked down his chest.

"Going to the gym would be a start," Brendan said, unfolding his newspaper.

"I thought you liked my body?!" Ste's voice changed pitch when he got riled over something. The magazine fell off the table and into Brendan's lap.

Brendan lifted the magazine like it was infected, smiled at Ste. "More than like, Steven." His eyes fell to the page that the magazine had parted on. A commercial on one page advertised chatlines with leather clad men and an article divulged all the details on how to avoid mediocre blow jobs. As Ste angled for a kiss, Brendan halted him, tore out the page, shredded it and stuffed it into the dregs of the chalky coffee he couldn't drink.

"I just paid for that," Ste said, snatching it back off him.

"It was irrelevant." He paused, flicking the page of his newspaper. "Unless you've got any complaints?"

Ste shrugged. "Don't think so." And then he beamed at Brendan, just as his eyes had reached that steely coldness, then melted.

"Good," Brendan said, rustling his way through the newspaper.

He was woken a little while later by Ste's elbow in his side – he'd been too sugared up to sleep. Ste offered him some popcorn and was grumpily batted away.

"You woke me up just for that?"

"No," Ste said, leaning over the arm of the chair that separated them and gave Brendan a brief cuddle. "I was watching this film, right. A girlie one –"

"Why?"

"Nothing else to watch and I thought if I watched sommit loud it might wake you up," Ste said, scrunching his nose when Brendan's chest hair tickled it. Brendan smiled fondly at his thoughtfulness, despite him nudging him awake not long after considering it.

"Anyway," Ste said, carrying on regardless. "There was this couple right. Man and woman. Well they had this big row n'that, but then they met on this bridge and kissed and got together again. Made me think of me and you, didn't it?"

Brendan looked down at Ste, his blue eyes shining brightly with the memories. It struck him, daily, how lucky he was to still have Ste. Through all the rough patches, the months they were separated by the agonising time in prison, the relief at making it out of their alive with charges dropped, finding each other again and making the promise – vows and all – to never let each other go. He stroked Ste's cheek with the side of his thumb. There was a woman on an adjacent aisle watching but it didn't make him want to hide away like the past, he wanted to bark back any judgements she might have had straight in her face. This was their fourth year together.

"You and me on the Ha'Penny, eh?"

"Yep," Ste said, triumph in his voice. He sat up, back in his seat. "Back to sleep old man, I gotta see whether they get a happy ending."

X

Mitzeee stood waiting at the airport, hair tousled and shades on, holding up a sign – adorned with love hearts – saying Bradys.

She'd made it over for their wedding of course; it wouldn't have been right without her. They'd had it in Hollyoaks, low-key and thankfully drama-free, before they packed and moved to Dublin. Moving far from home had once seemed like a torturous prospect for Ste, one full of doubt and uncertainly. Dublin felt right, obvious even.

Mitzeee almost been appalled that Ste had so easily given up his surname.

"Well he ain't gonna take mine, is he?" Ste had told her over a foamy coffee the day before the wedding. College Coffee was no longer and they'd been squeezed into a corner of Tony's new restaurant. He had his usual Tony way about him, sighing and eye-rolling at them passing up on a food order. "We're a bistro Ste, not a cafe." He said cafe without the accent – caff – in that snobbish way of his. Two years in remission and little had changed, he was still squeezing them dry with the catering bill for the wedding.

Brendan had been banished from their meet and had gone to pick up his kids instead. Leah and Lucas were arriving, Amy in tow, later in the day. The word to describe her was: thawing. She scrutinised Brendan with no room for manoeuvre. Since Ste's slump back into dealing her trust in him had also shrunk, but things had changed in the year that followed Brendan's release and Ste's – to want of a better word – rehabilitation. She could barely understand his transformation from the mess she'd seen him in to the man who'd been given a second life. "It's him, isn't it?" she'd said, like she needed to ask. It was and always would be. Brendan wrecked and rebuilt.

"Brady-hyphen-Hay," Mitzeee had said, dragging out her hands as if their names were to be lit up in neon. "It has a certain ring,"

"Bit of a mouthful," Ste'd said, dunking a shortbread into his hot chocolate.

Mitzeee waggled her perfectly pencilled eyebrows. "I bet."

Ste tutted. "Cheeky."

"We're all friends here, Ste!" She teased, clutching at his hand.

"A gentleman never tells," Ste said. He hardly needed to with Mitzeee, her imagination filled in the gaps of what she hadn't seen. And well, what she had seen was a rather graphic desk-top grunt of sweating bodies almost three years to the day she let herself (and Rae) into the club office and almost copped a round-two midlow. This time, alone, she'd stared long enough to take a picture until Brendan had screamed at her to get out. That had only been two days ago and he carried round that thunderous expression right up until his gruff "I do."

"I need the dirt for my speech," Mitzeee said, getting out her phone ready to make note of the gory details. She already had typed out two hundred words of blue prose about the encounter she'd interrupted, saving it to add a little spice (gay was the new Shades of Grey) to her next novel. That was the new ambition: novelist. She'd already penned a modestly successful one about a glamorous heroine struggling in the wake of her footballer beloved's murder. Semi-autobiographical. The footballer had been called Rory and the girl, Marniee. Two e's.

Ste shook his head fiercely with dread. "Brendan said no speeches."

"And you're telling me that gobby sister of his won't stick her oar in?!"

Ste licked the squirty cream from his top lip and pointed his finger at her. "That's my future sister in law you're talking about,"

"Yeah yeah," she said dismissively. "No Best Man? I thought you'd ask Doug." She had a glint in her eyes, on the wind up.

"Funny," Ste said. He span the cup around in its saucer. "He's not coming. Bit awkward, innit? Not just cos we were married, but we don't talk much anymore and Brendan hates his guts. Still hates his guts." Doug had moved the premises of the deli out of the village and there became less opportunity for them to cross paths, much to the relief of all parties.

"Of course he does. Little American took what was 'his', didn't he?" Mitzeee said, fingers doing air quotes. "He got to marry you first." Mitzeee was right on that front, it was a constant point of tension between them and Brendan's possession of him had been unrelenting to the point of screaming rows. Although, it went both ways, Ste was the centre of his world and that seemed like something neither wanted or could change.

Ste stopped his cup spinning. "Yeah and look how that turned out! But what does it matter? Brendan's the love of me life and he was still the love of me life when I was getting married to Doug!"

Mitzeee rolled her eyes then, slipping her phone away, defeated. "You know you two are enough to make a girl queasy, don't you?"

Naturally, she hadn't been queasy on the big day, she'd been misty eyed and drunk with the kind of emotion that made her express love for them repeatedly.

She greeted them with a choking hug in the terminal, pulling Brendan back so she could look at him and press her cerise lips to his before doing the same to Ste.

"How are my two favourite boys?" she asked, voice squealing with excitement. Brendan winced already, creasing at the way she described them. He refused more than a grunt before picking up a coffee, leaving 'the ladies' as he referred to them, to catch up.

Mitzeee linked arms with Ste the way his sister did and they stood to the side of the Starbucks queue, Anne wanting to know all the details of the restaurant and adjoining bar they were hoping to open once Brendan had got the other new club settled, which had just opened in one of the backstreets of Dublin. They had attempted a modest lifestyle once Brendan had been released, but guilt meant Cheryl flooded them with money that seemed like charity and Ste's little stash of drug money stretched further than they expected. So things slipped back into the way things should have gone, Brendan was back in tailored, buttock-skimming suits and opening businesses to be emperor of, Ste kicked the dealing and got chef jobs to pass the time until they had enough cash for their own restaurant. It sounded easy laid out like that, in reality Ste found life back with Brendan tougher than he expected.

Night terrors were frequent. Not just bad dreams but full panic attacks, sweats, sleep walking and screaming. His doses of painkillers were a crutch, but even then, the idea of sleeping – and what he might experience during – terrified him. The anger, resentment and attitude, the reluctance to give up dealing hadn't been what Brendan had expected from him either. Part of him looked back on the time and was grateful, purely because it had snapped him out of the insular, twitchy state of mind that prison had inflicted. Thankfully for him prison had brought him compulsory therapy, a bane which had become a blessing and he tuned out of the prison walls, focusing his energy on Ste instead, stubborn fucker that he was. That made two of them.

When they reached Mitzeee's car, a jeep with tinted windows and with her driving, an embarrassing turning circle, Anne ignored Brendan's jibes about women drivers and asked about married life.

"It's no different," Ste said. He was sat in the front next to Mitzeee, his eyes widening at every brand new expanse of America on the horizon. Brendan had offered it up to him, partly for selfish reasons because he wanted the expanse of cool backseats to doze on, but more because little pleased him more than Ste experiencing the world. Brendan kept his eyes clamped shut in the back, claiming to be dozing but listening to every word. "He prefers it because less guys crack onto me." Ste flashed his wedding band at her like it had some sort of laser "Back the fuck off" signal.

"I see. Not giving out so many knuckle sandwiches to the love rivals now, Bren?" Mitzeee said directing her gaze to the mirror. Brendan twitched and grunted a response.

Ste gave her a look. "Not since he was banned from a bar for grabbing some bloke's nose."

"One time," Brendan called out from the back. "And it's not like you haven't emptied a pint over a fella, Steven."

Ste grimaced like he was remembering the exact contempt held for this guy making advances on Brendan. "Right tart he was."

Mitzeee sighed, turning off down a freeway. "When are you two ever just going to be normal?"

"We're happy the way we are, alright?" Ste said. His elbow squished against the window, having been told not to open it and let the hot air in and have her hair go all frizzy. It was air-con only. "I thought you were meant to be giving us the guided tour?"

It wasn't long before they arrived at Mitzeee's sand-coloured apartment, a building with all its glass and angular features looked like it had been designed by someone with too much time on his hands. She lived within spitting distance of the beach, a sloped road away, with a balcony to overlook it. It was an understatement to say Ste was awed with envy, he walked around the apartment dumbstruck.

"Nice," Brendan said stepping into the reception room and snapping his sunglasses away. "You've done well for yourself kid." The photos of Riley on every surface indicated the Costello cash-cow had paid for the place. "I was expecting something a little more upmarket…"

They exchanged looks before she batted him on the arm.

Truth be told, Ste was a little disappointed there was no pool. On having visited Disneyworld back in 2011 – the most bitter and depressing holiday he'd taken – he'd been under the impression all Americans had a pool in the garden. Yard. But with the Pacific so close, he could see why she had no need.

"Phe loves the ocean," she said and then immediately cringed, "You know, that sounded less 'Mommy' in my head." She threw her bag and keys on the sofa, prised her poor feet from her heels and slumped down. "I'm not sure we're getting into this whole L.A. thing, me and Phoenix." She wafted her hand around behind her indicating the guys could help themselves to drinks or sit down. "Well, he's fairing better than me, but then he is four."

"It's new innit, new way of living," Ste said, placing himself next to her, with a grumbled "I'll make the coffees then," in the background from Brendan. Ste assessed their surroundings. "It's gotta be better than Hollyoaks,"

"It wasn't so bad, village life." There was a pang across her face. "Out here it's a little bit lonely."

"Not bumped into any local totty then?" Ste asked.

"Oh there's plenty of that," she let out a little cackle that quickly turned shallow. "But I don't want that. The last time I did that I thought I was pregnant by a stripper." She shuddered at the memory. "We can't all be lucky enough to find our soulmate on our doorstep," she said, the word soulmate sounding as if she'd covered it in glitter. Fairystory they weren't – and if they were it was certainly a bit more Grimm than it was Disney.

Ste had wanted to quip that she'd found her soulmate in her family tree, but wasn't sure what the etiquette was on making jokes about the man who'd been murdered instead of himself.

Brendan handed her a coffee and she perked up a little, less of the Anne more of Mitzeee. "So I've gotta pick Phoenix up from pre-school, whip us up some dinner –"

Brendan eyed her warily, he'd not been near seafood since Trish's paella and he remained convinced that poor culinary skill was in her blood.

"Takeaway," she said, "Wait for the babysitter and then the night is ours!"

When Mitzeee left, dressed like a movie star, to pick up Phoenix, Ste pulled Brendan by the arm and dragged him out to sit on the balcony. He pressed himself against the side of Brendan's body as they sat side by side on the bench.

His eyes followed the dotted trail of palm trees for as far as he could see. "This proper like I imagine Heaven would be." He was off in his own boyish dreamworld again. It always surprised Brendan to see Steven like this, when he'd been through so much, he still believed in an idyllic life. And even the simplest of pleasures thrilled him. He seemed get a real kick out of Brendan (trying) to cook dinner; or remembering the name of a restaurant Ste had banged on about and booking it in surprise; or even referring to him as 'my fucking husband' during an altercation with a vicious bouncer in his own club who wouldn't let Ste in; or buying a painting of the Ha'Penny bridge as the first thing they hung up in the bedroom.

Money wouldn't be a problem for them to move out to America – and besides, despite the Douglas reminders, Brendan enjoyed hearing Ste say the place name, its final vowel dissolving under his Mancunian accent – but the Greencard would. They wouldn't be chomping at the bit for a couple of gay ex-cons.

Brendan kissed him, lips dry from the flight. He believed in Heaven, he just didn't have the heart to tell Ste that they wouldn't end up there.

Ste's fingers unbuttoned the already gaping shirt Brendan wore, breaking mouths to kneel up and angle deeper for a longer kiss, arms curling around his neck. It was obvious where this was headed and despite Brendan's growing comfort with more public displays of affection, those were only usually for show, they were still sat on a balcony on what seemed like a busy block.

When he pushed Ste away, his bottom lip had swelled with teeth marks and protruded now, wet and sulky.

"Coming in the shower?" Brendan said, less of a question more a prediction. His voice never stopped making Ste's flesh shiver and he'd stripped his polo shirt and bounded to the bathroom before Brendan had even stood.

He stood with water from the shower raining down his hips when Brendan entered through the glass door. Ste grinned wildly like he always did during moments when he thought they were being particularly mischievous. Like a heavy-handed grope in the booth of a dim club that Brendan had despised up until Ste had whispered hot in his ear. Or a grimy and uncomfortable lube-less fuck in an alley – not one of their proudest moments but one hell of a shag. Or pretending to get lost on their way to a dinner at Cheryl and Nate's but instead having a summertime screw in an overgrown acre of their land so far from the house that they were two hours late for the meal.

Brendan took charge of the shower, spraying Ste from head to toe and then doused himself so his thick body hair clung like dark fur. Ste reached for the head of Brendan's cock, squeezing its solid thickness in his hand. He jolted when he felt the tingling sting of Brendan's hand slap across his arse and they exchanged laughter, humming through heated kisses, before Brendan got serious and pinned him against the wall with his hand slammed on the tiles. When Ste gulped his throat pulsed and Brendan's mouth invited itself to feast upon his water-sheened body, leaving his lids flickering and mouth parted. His nails scratched at Brendan's muscular back, over every warm ridge and trembling muscle. He couldn't kid himself, Brendan's body in its strength and power and dominance was something he would never stop fantasising about.

His hands were on the back of Brendan's thighs now and he matched the grip when Brendan clawed at his arse cheeks, probing a finger inside him and twisting right to the knuckle. Ste yelped a little, turning it into a soft cry.

"We got time?" Ste said as their foreheads pressed together, Brendan grunting as their cocks rutted together in his hand. Brendan only grinned in that intimidating, manic way of his, one which made blood pump faster and usually spelt the end of Ste's reign of control in the bedroom. The grin meant you'd lost.

Brendan pumped himself a little longer just to make the lust flicker in Ste's eyes when his cum shot over his skin. He sunk to his knees and taking Ste right to the back of his throat without a moment's hesitation. He heard an ohgod from Ste before he threw his head back with a painful thwack against the tiles. Ste had long since decided Brendan was living proof that men were better at sucking cock. He couldn't imagine anyone else with that kind of hunger and force. His mouth grew merciless, exquisitely attentive to nerve endings Ste didn't even know existed. Ste pulled at his hair until their eyes met and Brendan's shallow breathing came out in little huffs above his moustache.

He let Ste free for a moment, unable to resist a bite of his fleshy, trembling belly and grinned again as Ste groaned in frustration, squeezing his fists. "Finish the job," he said, forcing Brendan's head and watching in agony as Brendan licked him with infuriating delicacy. The underside of his tongue lapped the head like a butterfly, whisper thin and tickled his balls like tracing a maze.

"You're a fucking bastard and I hate –"

The last word was lost as Brendan took grip of his hips and pulled him into his mouth, lips viced around him. He sucked and tugged for mere seconds before Ste was flooding his mouth and thumping his shoulder with his fist. As his pulse descended he took Brendan's face in his hands.

"I'm a bastard and you hate me, do you?" Brendan said, climbing to his feet and cornering Ste. He had his hand on the temperature controls.

"I love yer," Ste said, prising his hand away, "Git. You know what you do to me,"

"Mm-hm," Brendan said, eye rolling and with a lick to his lips.

And just as they were about to kiss, they heard the bathroom door rattle, a child's voice chanting "Wee! Wee! Wee!" in desperation and Mitzeee screaming "Brendan! Ste! Get some clothes on!"

She told Phoenix later over dinner that Uncle Brendan and Uncle Ste liked saving water to help the planet like he'd learn at pre-school. She gave the pair of them a death stare.