Not much had changed in the village. Carter and Hay was characteristically closed in the middle of the day, at its best hour for business. No Douglas inside. No Steven. It wasn't unusual or a particularly bad omen, of course not, but any small thing like that could get Brendan anxious. He'd had to go to that cosy rammed in coffee place instead, luckily not many of the prying regulars were around. There were a few of those genius school kids, or Jesus, maybe they were university students now, who had hung round with that crew that had run Steven over in a bus. He would have delighted in giving them a scare before he'd gone inside, but now he didn't bother with them. His mind was buzzing already with every other slight thing about this place. He took his coffee to near the window, so he could watch the comings and goings in central Hollyoaks, the way into Chez Chez (now gallingly called something else) and the way up to the Deli.
Through the window, it was just the boring display of teenagers, shoppers, dog-walkers, and runners. When Brendan had been there for an hour and a miserable hurried looking Darren Osborne had been the highlight, he knew he was wasting his time. But he didn't stop. As always when he came out of prison (when was he going to start getting used to that line?), he hated rushing in head first, fancy free, without a clue about what, where, and who had changed, being a step behind the game, at disadvantage. He didn't have a home here, now. He didn't have his old vantage points. But after a fierce, bald, and tattooed man strolled leisurely past, he hit the jackpot, what he hadn't allowed himself to hope that he'd see. Steven.
It wasn't the Steven he'd first known: quick and mouthy, eager to please. Or the Steven that had been with Doug: all that sassiness in chinos. Or the Steven after he'd finished coming out, trying to find himself, and once he'd ditched that no hope, Noah: slighty camp, cock-sure, a cock tease, tetchy, desperate, keen on ultimatums. And it wasn't the Steven he'd known after Dublin, either: proud, at ease with himself, chatty, clever. Nor was it that sobbing mess he'd had in his head all that time he'd been locked up, the Steven that Brendan had left behind, hoping more than anything that he'd be able to move on. This Steven looked tough and dark. Steven was always strong, true. The sight made Brendan's breath momentarily hitch, suddenly alert, his eyes glued to the boy.
Steven was wearing tracksuit bottoms and a loose fitting light zip-up jacket, the hood from the jumper beneath it over the top of his head. He had a black sports bag casually over one shoulder. He had been pacing self-assuredly along, but now he'd paused, faced away from Brendan, as though he'd seen something out the corner of his eye. He turned slowly so that Brendan could see his face in profile. It was Steven's calculating face. His mouth dropped open and he held his tongue, twisted, slightly between his teeth. His eyes glimmered with that hint of a sinister plan. Brendan didn't move, he watched it all, entranced, not surprised at how suddenly his awareness of Steven had rushed to his groin. Steven turned, carefully, towards the window behind which Brendan was sat, and Brendan stared back, in awed anticipation for that moment when their gazes locked. And Steven, setting his head down slightly, his shoulder rolling in the smallest sign of nervousness, headed straight towards him. Then he grinned, wide and smooth. And Brendan was hit with an odd mixture of delight and confusion. Would it really be as easy as all this? Would Steven just march in here grinning, and then they'd be back to having the greatest sex of their lives within minutes? But it wasn't right. If he'd meant anything to Steven, if he'd had any effect on him, Steven would be annoyed, livid, down-right murderous. Steven would be shocked, scared, and confused. That wasn't, couldn't be, his Steven's reaction.
But it was Steven, only perhaps he hadn't seen Brendan sitting here at all. Steven bent over hurriedly and snatched up something from the floor (something that looked like a heavy bit of piping, perhaps), and he tested throwing it and catching it again, eyes shining. Then he got up and ran.
Brendan grabbed his suit jacket hurriedly from the back of his chair. He couldn't say for sure what Steven was up to, but it didn't look good. He shoved the chairs and tables out of his way, he kicked open the door of the shop. Steven was ahead, ducking round a corner, and Brendan jogged up to it, pausing, and slowing his breath down, before peering around into the alley.
There was Steven knelt over on the slightly wet floor next to a line of wheelie bins, unzipping the bag, and pulling out something small and black. He then took the bag and squashed it up, sliding it behind the middle bin, so that it was almost imperceptible from where Brendan stood watching. Steven picked up the large heavy pipe, testing its weight in his hand. Then, with the other hand he deftly pulled the black thing over his head, adjusting it slightly around his eyes. It was a balaclava.
Brendan looked away quickly, and then back. It was testing his reserve not jumping in and grabbing Steven now. But he wanted to know, needed to know, what Steven was planning on doing, what Steven had got messed up in, what was going on in his boy's head, and he wasn't sure that Steven would be happy to tell him if he asked nicely. He waited for Steven, collecting himself with a deep breath, to make his determined way to the end of the alley, before Brendan moved in after him.
Brendan got to work, quickly and quietly taking the bag from behind the bin. He looked both ways down the alley. Steven had disappeared from the other end. Brendan had to act fast. He unzipped the bag, right hand searching hurriedly inside of it. He was expecting… He hated to think it but the way Steven had acted, he couldn't help expecting some kind of incriminating package, drugs or cash. After Steven had been so appalled, so recently, so soon before Brendan had gone down, seeing him with that coke that Kevin had planted, it maddened Brendan that he could even think this of his Steven, and that it was bound to be one or the other boiled his blood. What he couldn't stand was Steven's hypocrisy and stupidity, and mostly, Brendan's own guilt that he wasn't here to stop it. But when he opened it up, he was surprised to find both packages of bank notes and pills. Why was Steven carrying this around and putting it behind wheelie bins? Jesus, what had got into him? No time to think, he zipped the bag up and looked for a slightly safer spot (safer also meaning that Steven wouldn't find it). He climbed up on the bin, and placed it behind the relatively low wall of the alley, on some kind of shed roof or something, which sloped upwards, and would conceal the sight if anyone happened to be in the garden there. He jumped down easily. He was fit from having nothing to do but exercise in prison. Then he rushed to the end of the alley, pausing again, before he looked round the corner.
It was a good job that he had. Steven was very near him, still and crouched behind a skip, looking beyond it steadily at the bloke about ten yards away. Steven's hands were hidden by his tense body, but Brendan knew he still had that pipe clenched in his grip. The man he was looking at was the fella that Brendan had seen earlier, the one with the odd tattoos, the assured walk, and the horrible smile. Brendan's fists involuntarily clenched as the fact that this man had dared get involved with Steven, and get involved in such a way that Steven took pleasure in seriously hurting him, became clear. But for his slight frame, his determination, his slight hesitation, all of which Brendan knew so well, this Steven, waiting calculatingly in the balaclava could almost not be Steven at all, and just some regular thug. The man was wriggling his shoulders, bored, waiting, and unaware. Then, Steven slipped past the skip and Brendan felt his body become ready to pounce.
Steven was quiet and quick. Brendan followed. Steven raised the hand that was holding the pipe. It wasn't until his arm was drawn back that the bloke noticed him, a mad kid ready to swing a heavy object down on his head. Their eyes locked, the bloke caught unexpected by the recognition of who it was that was about to cause him imminent pain. Well, Brendan knew what that felt like, too, didn't he? Steven let his arm crash down. But Brendan had grabbed his elbow, and Steven's arm buckled. The lead pipe came flying out of Steven's loosing grip straight back at Brendan himself. Brendan dodged it, still holding tight onto the boy's arm, feeling the blood and the adrenaline pumping through it, the boy he hadn't held onto at all for too long.
"Oi!" Steven yelled, trying to twist away and shoving at the bloke who'd just ruined his attack. "Gerroff! Get off me!"
His balaclava-clad head swung right and left, his arms shoved and scratched, but Brendan wasn't about to let go. Instead, he brought Steven's twisting body towards him so that he could grab the other elbow, too, and force Steven to look at him, and to recognise who was holding him.
And then Steven did look at him. The boy's arms went suddenly lifeless. Brendan's pulse started going dangerously fast. He could only see Steven's eyes, but that was enough, more than enough. They were wide, caught off guard, and fearful.
"Is that you, Ste?" The other bloke, madly thinking that anyone could give a fuck about him, was talking. He addressed Brendan. "I owe you one, don't I? The name's Trevor."
He even held out his hand to be shook. Brendan and Steven continued to stare at each other.
But Steven's eyes clouded over, and Brendan could no longer read them at all. Steven started to hurriedly shove away, again, with even more urgency than before.
"Get off." He said again. "Get off."
Brendan staggered. He accidently loosened his grip. Steven pulled free and shoved Brendan so that he was launched a couple of paces backwards. Then he spun around, lopsidedly, and ran, legged it, away.
"Steven." Brendan murmured, starting after him. But the idiot bloke (Trevor?) had used the hand he'd wanted to shake Brendan's with to grab onto the back of Brendan's suit jacket, wrinkling it up in his grip. Brendan spun round to face him.
"He's your friend, is he?" Asked Trevor, apparently not intimidated by Brendan's (very intimidating) expression, and placing a hand onto Brendan's chest. Brendan cocked his head to one side to watch him. "If you see him, be sure to tell him: I've got a good memory."
Brendan's head turned downwards to look at the hand there, slowly.
"I've not forgotten what he owes me," Trevor said jovially, though looking towards Brendan with a slight confusion, "And I don't usually forget when kids try to dent my head in."
Brendan waited, looking up at him again.
"Kids like him," Trevor continued, "are a bit dim. They take a couple of lessons before they really learn anything, they really need it beaten into them. But the session he's got coming to him... well, it should be very educational."
Trevor smiled. Brendan smiled back at him. Then Brendan took him by the throat, and in one solid movement shoved the whole of Trevor's hefty body up and backwards so that he was leant, arched back over the yellow skip. Trevor let out a surprised splutter. Brendan's fingers tightened around the man's neck, pushing him backwards, until the man winced in pain. Brendan bent down over him, repositioning himself so that his lips were a hair's breadth away from Trevor's ear. Trevor really needed to hear what he was going to say.
His voice came out deep, and at its most Irish: "Have you ever been in the middle of mutilating a man when your little sister comes in and sees you with blood all down your arms, your front, your face?"
Brendan stopped. He checked to look how Trevor was taking this. He seemed perplexed and mildly disgusted, still trying to be the hard man. Not perfect. But good.
He went back up to his ear, and whispered, demandingly: "Well, have ye?"
"Not recently." Trevor said.
Brendan let out a mean laugh. He carried on, low and quiet: "So you might not quite remember, then, what it's like to have your own little sister look at you, and finally see the monster that you've been hiding from her, so successfully, for so long."
Trevor tried to shake his head. Brendan still had a grip on it. He was at his strongest now.
"I'll remind you, shall I? It's not very nice, Trevor." Brendan looked at him under his heavy eyelids, and bent back closely to his ear. He repeated in a whisper anunciating each word: "It's not very nice."
Brendan drew back, cocked his head again, and regarded Trevor plainly. "But if you ever go anywhere near Steven again, if you talk about Steven, if you think about Steven… the whole world could come and watch me chopping you into little tiny pieces… and I wouldn't mind."
Brendan breathed out long and heavily into his face. Trevor was angry now. That was good. It made Brendan smile and he let out a little laugh.
"I don't think you quite realise who your talking to." Trevor told him, hard face at its most deadpan.
Brendan laughed again, and then his face was drawn into a deeply etched scowl. "Why would it matter at all who I was talking to?"
Brendan drew a fist back and punched the man hard in the eye. Trevor, caught off guard, reeled and fell to the ground, and Brendan shook his hand to cool it down, to calm himself down, to stop himself from continuing to punch until there was no going back. He wiped his hand over his mouth, wet with spit, and he patted Trevor on the chest. Trevor had just managed to look back at him, calm and angry and calculating. Brendan pushed himself away, and turned from him. "Well… see you." He said, quickly, striding away from the other man, and leaving him to hoist himself up from the floor against the skip, his mean glare following Brendan.
Steven might still be in the alley, looking for that valuable bag. But Brendan must have taken more time with Trevor than he'd thought (and annoyingly hardly any time at all with Steven) because Steven had scarpered without it. Brendan found the bag where he had left it. He jumped back down from the bin and hurried back towards the village.
Steven wasn't out in the open, but seeing as he was still knocking about here it was more than likely that he was still living at his old house. Brendan decided to lock the bag into the boot of his Mercedes before he went. What about Leah and Lucas? They must be here, too, after Brendan had gone. Brendan felt after all those times Steven had looked down, had shouted at him, he could take the moral high ground, now. Steven was being so reckless and stupid messing around with drugs with his kids around him. He couldn't be taking them too, could he?
Perhaps that's why Steven had sprinted off when he'd seen him. Maybe Brendan hadn't been able to conceal the disappointment in his look, after how much Steven had changed, after how much Steven had changed him, to see him acting not just like a selfish, idiotic, little scally, but thuggish, too, full of that anger and violence which he'd tried over and over to get Brendan to do away with.
Or maybe it was just disgust. Steven hadn't had sex with him since that last time that Brendan beat him up, since Brendan had told him all those things about his dad. Brendan had wracked his mind when he was in prison, torturously going through all the details of their last time together, about whether Steven had really forgiven him, whether Steven could ever look at him in the same way again.
But Brendan had tried to get better for Steven. He'd even been to one or two of those anger management classes inside that Steven had told him he needed. They were shit. 'Count to ten'… not much better than doing the eight times table, digging into the past, reminding himself over and over who he was, why he was this way. But he had tried. He still had a couple bruises from the closing days of being inside. One was dark purple, and high on his cheekbone, only half hidden by his overgrown facial hair. Maybe Steven had thought he'd been getting into fights, but he'd been trying to walk away all the time. Someone had been orchestrating it. It might not have been Warren this time, but the same thing had happened as it always does, people going for him, picking on him, torturing him. It was like they knew, could see right into him, who he was and what he deserved, but Brendan also knew that really all they were doing were following orders. But this time that he'd got out, revenge hadn't been his priority. And that was because of Steven and what he'd taught him. That was because his priority was Steven.
He banged heavily at the familiar blue door, and took a step back, waiting.
A girl he vaguely knew answered, one that used to hang around with that lad Bart, Sinead O'Connor. Brendan's stomach rose to his throat. He was suddenly hit with the worry that Steven had moved out, and that Brendan wouldn't be able to find him. Who knew what Steven might get up to in this mad mood of his? Brendan needed to be there.
Sinead was on her phone at the same time as opening the door, chatting away blithely, but when she saw who it was her eyebrows rose, and she hung up.
"Brendan."
Brendan scratched the back of his neck awkwardly, trying to see around her. "Is he here?" He muttered.
She crossed her arms and stood up straight, suddenly tough and cool, apparently un-faze-able. But a shy glance behind her gave away her vulnerability. She was a bit like Steven, really. "What you doing here?" She demanded, instead of answering. "Shouldn't you be in prison?"
"Yeah, yeah, I was released." Brendan, irritated, tried to get back to the matter in hand. "Is Steven here?"
Sinead paused. Her lips pursed tighter as if she was about to deny it, but then she bent her head. "I'll go tell him you're here." She ordered, quickly: "You stay there."
Brendan nodded, not wanting to argue.
He waited, tensely. It wasn't long before he could hear commotion and the slamming of doors in the house, and then, eventually, Steven's fast footsteps getting louder.
Steven had pulled off his jacket and jumper and the collar of his red polo shirt was half sticking up. His hair was lopsided, too. His walk was brusque, his body tense, but he still moved with that absurdly attractive boyish and lackadaisical grace.
Except that Steven was a little paler, perhaps, there was no indication that Brendan's brief meeting with him had much impact. He seemed the same man Brendan had watched from the coffee shop. It was that reckless, dark, and angry version of Steven that Brendan had known time and time again. It was the Steven that had grinned down at him just before he lost consciousness holding a baseball bat. It was the Steven who had harboured Brendan's Declan in his house, coming out to face him with a paintbrush in his hand and scowl on his face. Or it was the Steven that marched up to the police station ready to have Brendan done for assault. It was how Steven was when Brendan had hurt him, after Brendan had hurt him really badly.
"Steven." Brendan said, in a low exhale, pleased that Steven had come at all to the door to see him.
Steven took a step back, almost toppled over, before regaining composure, and demanding: "What the hell do you think you're doing?"
"I could ask you the same question." Brendan pointed out. ('No you can't!' Brendan was expecting in return, 'What right do you have to come back into my life and ask me questions?')
"I was about to kill him!" Steven said instead, his hands turning into fists, "Then you…! Then you…"
Steven threw a punch at Brendan, hitting him squarely in the chest, and throwing him back a step, though Brendan was trying to hold himself firm. Brendan managed to grab hold of his wrist, but Steven's other fist came in and winded him in the stomach, then hit him again on the shoulder, before Brendan could get a hold of that one, too. Steven tried to free his other hand, he squirmed around out of Brendan's hold. But Brendan held firm, just as he had earlier on. Steven was shaking, his back rising up and down, hot and fast. Brendan pulled him towards him, Steven's arms crumpled at his chest, clinging onto him, and finally letting go of one wrist to hook an arm around his back and bring him tightly into his hold. Steven was panting heavily. It wasn't until Brendan leaned down to look at his face, raised a hand to cup Steven's chin so that he could see it, that Brendan realised Steven was sobbing. Tears were streaming from his eyes. Brendan pressed the wet face into his shirt, wrapped both his arms strongly around him, and waited for as long as it would take, for the tremors through the boy's body to stop.
"Shh…" He said, softly, "I've got you."
"No." Steven said, starting to pull away again, "no!"
He tried to shove Brendan away, and Brendan, not expecting this, ended up after a tangle of limbs, just holding onto one arm of Steven's. It was so hard, being this person for the both of them. He wished that Steven would just give him something.
"Aw, come on, Steven!" Brendan said, aggravated. Steven shook his arm free and used the back of it to wipe his nose and eyes, and clear his face of signs of weakness too late. "D'you want me to leave?"
Steven stopped and looked at him. "No."
"So can I come in, then?"
"No!"
"So you want me to stand on the doorstep not touching you? Is that it, then?"
"Just… just wait." Steven finished up wiping his face. "Are you… you're all bruised… Have you been alright?"
"Yeah. Course I have."
Brendan tried to stop his eyes from dropping down Steven's body, or focussing on his lips. It wasn't the right time, was it? He couldn't help himself from touching the boy though. His arm reached out to bring Steven's shoulder towards him, and as he did so Sinead appeared behind it, with a pram.
"Thought I'd just go out for a bit." She said, dryly, and Steven mutely stepped aside.
So did Brendan. His eyes followed Sinead's down into the pram, to the little curled up baby inside it. That couldn't… that couldn't be another one of Steven's… could it?
When he looked back towards Steven, the boy was looking at him, disgusted. He must have picked up on Brendan's mind. "I can't believe you'd even think that!" He said.
Brendan looked away. "Well, come on! How am I supposed to know what you'd do?" He looked back at Steven, "It's not like you're not the cause of most teenage pregnancies around here."
"That was ages ago!" Steven protested, eyes going dark. "Shut up."
"Yeah, well I thought drug dealing and petty crime was ages ago, too." Brendan tried to grab him again. "Next time you won't just go to Juvy though will you, Steven? You know that, don't you?"
"Yeah, well," Steven fought him off, "you don't know anything. You don't know anything about my life, anymore. And whose fault is that? You left me."
"I was in prison, Steven."
"Yeah, but I couldn't visit, could I?" Steven looked him suddenly and fiercely in the eye. He repeated: "You left me."
"I wanted you to move on!"
"Then why are you here?" Steven spoke through gritted teeth. He took a step back inside the door. "How did you even get out?"
"I was released, yeah? It's complicated…"
"No, look, it's simple, right. You left me. I don't know you're not going to leave me again." Steven took hold of the door. His face was all dry now. His eyes had that same glint as when he'd spotted the lead pipe. "You wanted me to move on. Well, guess what? I have."
The blue door slammed in Brendan's face. And Brendan looked briefly towards the sky, an old habit, a hasty prayer to God. He breathed out. He looked for the nearest thing to throw. The pole holding up a washing line would do. He flung it through the garden fence. Anger management. He had been trying. It was no good. He couldn't get it out of his head.
You left me.