Can't Hide Forever
In hindsight, it may have been a mistake to choose Cheryl's mansion to hide out in.
She's still his friend; one of the best - but there will always be that one painful memory between them.
And Ste has come to Ireland to escape pain.
Here, he is only faced with more of it. Being in Ireland only reminds him of the happiness he could have had.
The only reason he's come here is because this place is as far away from Chester as he's ever managed to get. That, and the fact that Cheryl will never turn him away, even having had no warning of his arrival.
She owes him.
It's an ugly thing to think when the situation was half decided for her, but Ste isn't in the right frame of mind to be reasonable right now. Too much has happened.
Deciding that he's been lurking outside like a lunatic long enough, he approaches the door and knocks firmly.
"Ste!" Nate greets him politely; doesn't look at all put out despite how early it is in the morning. "Come in, come in. I'll go and fetch Cheryl."
He follows him into the living area - one of them, at least. It's still as jaw-droppingly massive as he remembers from his first visit, a few months back.
Nate tells him to take a seat, and he does so while the other man disappears to find his wife. He's relieved not to be asked why he's here. He wouldn't know where to begin on that.
If he had the head-space to care about that sort of thing, Ste might feel embarrassed about the state of himself. He knows how scruffy he looks, how unkempt he is compared to the likes of the Tenbury-Newents.
But these aren't the sort of things he worries about these days.
Instead he's dug himself in holes so deep that his main concerns now are staying alive and avoiding prison. The first problem is courtesy of Trevor Royle. The second - Pauline.
His mother.
"Oh my God, Ste!" Cheryl's voice brings him out of his thoughts, and he attempts an 'everything's normal' smile.
"Hiya," he says, standing up to meet her for a hug.
"It's so good to see ye babe! How are ye? Oh, I wish ye'd called - look at the state of me!"
Cheryl points at her just-out-of-bed attire, which consists of a fluffy pink dressing gown and slippers.
Glancing up at a clock on the wall, Ste realises that it's earlier than he thought. It's barely 6am. He wonders whether any other unexpected guest would be taken in so kindly, or if they'd be told where to go, posh-style.
But Cheryl took a big chunk of his life away from him, and he knows she'll over-compensate for it by looking after him.
"Sorry, I know it's really early but...I just had to get away."
He catches the look Cheryl gives her husband to signal that she wants to be left alone with Ste for a bit. When Nate leaves them to it, they sit down together.
"What's happened, love?"
And her warm, comforting tone makes him want to confide in her. Despite the fact that he still holds resentment towards her, despite the fact that he's come here to take shelter and nothing else; he wants to give in and tell her everything.
Only he can't, because saying it out loud means he has to face up to what he's become.
He's just like Cheryl now, and the moment he admits it he'll lose all sense of control and self-preservation.
"I don't want to talk about it," he says softly, trying not to sound defensive.
"Okay," Cheryl replies in a small voice. "Well then, why don't ye go for a lie down or something. Ye look exhausted!"
She's treading carefully, knows he's in the middle of a breakdown and that this is not a social call. Ste is about to protest against her pity, but then he considers what he's doing here: he's here to hide away.
There's no reason to argue with her because her suggestion means that he doesn't have to relive anything. He can disappear in a quiet room on his own; try and find some peace.
"I think I'll do that. Thanks."
She takes his bag from him and takes him up the winding staircase, stopping in front of the same guest bedroom they gave him last time.
"Get some rest," she tells him, her voice soft and full of concern. "I'll come and check on ye in a little while."
When Cheryl closes the door Ste sinks down onto the bed, waiting for his brain to click onto the fact that for now, he is safe.
He doesn't feel any better for it. Thoughts of what he's left behind back home plague his mind.
Trevor, probably angry enough to beat the life out of him again for bailing on their latest deal; the bag of drugs still sitting in his now empty flat.
Tony and Doug, both knowing what's just happened with his mum; both with differing opinions on it. And then there's the nurse who reported him in the first place.
Ste doesn't know if the police know of his vanishing act yet, but he's sure it won't be long before they find out.
Doug had offered to stay with him when he'd been released on bail, but he'd declined the offer.
Even the knowledge that not everyone would hold it against him wasn't enough to stop him from running.
Ste finally relents and, taking his shoes off, he lays flat out on the bed. Cheryl is right - he is exhausted. His whole body aches with guilt and grief.
He never thought he would feel an ounce of grief for the woman who'd constantly rejected him throughout his life, but his heart is heavy with it.
He's barely recovered from losing Brendan to a life sentence, and if he wasn't broken before then this is likely to be the deciding factor.
Deep down inside there's a nagging feeling that his mum was using him to get what she wanted, and then leaving him with the consequences without so much as a care.
But Ste can't allow that thought to creep in, in the same way that he can never let himself imagine what a future with Brendan would have been like.
His mum had said she loved him, and it just had to be true.
Somehow, clinging onto that small amount of warmth, he manages to fall asleep.
He wakes up sobbing, with an uneasy Cheryl in front of him.
"Ste? Hey, hey it's okay, come here. Shhh, it's alright babe." She pulls him into her arms and he falls against her, his mind still on the edge of the dream.
It had felt so real that waking up from it now was like a new loss for him.
Brendan had been with him.
He'd still messed things up, made all his recent mistakes, but Brendan was there.
And now, in the cold light of day, waking up without him again is physically painful.
Cheryl is rocking him in her arms now, and his body is still shaking. "Ste, you're scaring me. Please talk to me."
"Brendan..."
That's all he gets out, and when she pulls back to look at him her face has paled visibly.
Ste wonders whether she thinks he's lost his mind.
He thinks he probably has. But he's not that confused - of course he knows full well where Brendan is. He just needs him here.
"Ste, what's happened to ye?"
"I can't...please, I need..."
Cheryl is close to tears, he can see she doesn't know how to help him. No one can. He's lost himself.
"What do ye need?"
He lets out another sob - they seem to be replacing his ability to form coherent sentences.
"Please, Ste, I don't know how to help ye!"
"I need Brendan," he croaks out brokenly. "I can't do this without him..."
There's a long beat of silence, presumably while Cheryl contemplates how to deal with his desperation for a man he can no longer have.
"What is it, love? What can't ye do?"
What he can't seem to do right now is breathe, but even in the state he's in that sounds over-dramatic.
He tries to calm down, to say something that makes some kind of sense. All that comes out is another anguished cry.
Cheryl continues to hold him, and nothing more is said when he eventually relaxes enough to breathe again.
She makes him lay down again, pulling the duvet over his shaken form and telling him to sleep.
Ste closes his eyes and waits for her to go. Eventually he hears her make her way out of the room and close the door. Then after a minute there's a whispered, inaudible conversation going on between her and Nate.
The hushed voices grow further and further away, and he gives up caring about what they're saying about him.
The next thing he's aware of is a loud beeping, and as his eyes shoot open he realises he must have drifted off for a while.
His phone is still in his pocket. It's a text from Doug, asking if he's okay. It's not something he feels like he'll ever be able to answer, so for the time being he ignores the message.
In truth, his head is splitting with mixed emotions. The longing for Brendan is still there - it'll always be there, but right now he can't shake it off like he's been doing for the last few months.
The trauma of what's happened in the last few days is still weighing heavily on him, as is the guilt.
Looking at his phone again, Ste notices that a few more hours have passed. He's just considering getting up when there's a tap at the door, and Cheryl walks in with a tray of tea and toast.
"Thought ye might be hungry," she offers with a tentative smile.
He's so embarrassed about his earlier outburst that he doesn't have the heart to pass up on her attentiveness.
Later, he forces himself to shower and change, and joins Cheryl and Nate for dinner in their huge dining hall. He's grateful when neither one of them asks what's wrong with him, although he senses that Cheryl will be asking questions again soon enough.
He sends a quick reply to Doug, without disclosing where he is. It means that when the police do come sniffing around the village, the American will be able to answer honestly that he has no idea where Ste is.
It's the least he owes his friend for being the only person who's not quick to judge him these days.
The next few days pass by without much visible fuss. He manages to dodge every question Cheryl poses about 'whatever situation he's got himself into'.
She and Nate offer him the guest room for as long as he needs it.
And every time he sleeps, he dreams of Brendan.
He tries to muffle his helpless sobs each time he rouses, but on the third night he wakes up to the strangled sound of Brendan's name leaving his lips.
He thinks he would have screamed it had he not woken up sooner.
The following day, Cheryl is unusually quiet, her face white as a sheet.
She stops prying, instead busying herself with cooking and tidying, as if trying to avoid a conversation - one he'd rather not have anyway.
It's in the aftermath of his next dream that he finds out why.
In his unconscious state he is back at the flat, still in turmoil but with Brendan at his side.
Then, in that stomach-dropping way that dreams seem to be famous for, he is suddenly ripped away from him and Ste is screaming his name even more urgently than he remembers doing that day at the hospital.
This time it bursts loudly from his throat before he works out it's not real.
"Brendan!"
When he pulls himself out of his restless sleep, he doesn't have to open his eyes to know that he's not alone.
There's a hand gently stroking his hair away from his face. He instinctively knows it's not a woman's hand; it's not soft enough to be Cheryl's.
Ste doubts there's even a slim chance that Nate would be comforting him like this, so that's the two occupants of this house accounted for.
He reaches out and pushes the hand away, letting out a soft whimper. Over the past few days he seems to have turned back into a child, and he feels like one now.
"Hey, shhhh...it's okay," comes the voice of the man in front of him.
It's the voice of his dreams.
He sucks in a sharp breath, and feels the warmth of the man slip away in response.
He can't not open his eyes now.
When he finally focuses on the figure standing near the door, he's certain he must still be asleep. This can't be real.
"Steven."
Slowly sitting up, Ste decides that as much as it's going to hurt later on, he's going to make the most of this while he can.
Brendan is dressed in tracksuit bottoms, and the type of hoodie he is prone to wearing himself. He has a full beard, camouflaging his trademark moustache from the world.
It occurs to him that if he were dreaming, he'd be seeing the polished version of Brendan - just as he has in every other dream so far.
This man looks in just as much of a mess as Ste is. And yet he longs to touch him.
"Steven, I-"
Cheryl bursts in before he can say anything of value, with Nate close behind her.
"Brendan, what the hell are ye doing?"
Ste stays on the bed, transfixed.
"Chez, could ye just leave us alone for a bit. Please?"
She shakes her head at him. "Look at him," she replies, gesturing towards Ste. "He's in no fit state for this right now. I just don't understand what it is ye hoped to achieve by doing this!"
"Ye were the one who said he needed me," Brendan shoots back, voice laced with exasperation.
"I only told ye so that maybe ye would change your mind and let him visit ye. I didn't think ye would go insane and break out of prison!"
Ste can't believe they're talking about him like this while he's in the room. I'm numb, not deaf, he wants to shout.
He doesn't, though. Because the thing is, his brain has just registered something. This conversation is making it sound an awful lot like Brendan has just escaped jail for him.
"Since when have ye let what Ste needs dictate your life decisions?" Cheryl continues. "Ye didn't think of him when you were deciding our futures for us!"
Brendan looks away, shuffling around on his feet, and even with the mess that's going on inside his head Ste feels a twinge of anger at Cheryl. First for speaking for him, and then for sounding so ungrateful for the ridiculously large sacrifice her big brother made for her.
Even if it did play an overwhelming part in ruining two other lives.
"Listen Chez, I won't be out for long. I'm bound to get caught sooner rather than later, and when I am what difference does an extended sentence make when I've already gone down for life?"
The last few words seem to linger over the room.
Ste is hit with a wave of nausea from the images flooding through his mind. Images of a balcony, of police swarming around below it. Images of the love of his life being gunned down and then taken away from him forever.
Except now he's found his way back to him; even battled his way out of a prison cell to be with him.
He looks up at Cheryl. The look on her face says that the enormity of what she's said has finally hit home.
Having remained quiet until now, Nate ushers his wife out of the room and closes the door behind them, mumbling that they should 'leave Ste and Brendan to it'.
And suddenly they're alone together.
He doesn't move an inch; feels like he might break if he tries.
"Steven-"
"How did you get out?"
There's a pause.
"A couple of the guys in there have been planning their escape for months. I was staying out of it; said I'd keep my mouth shut but that I wouldn't get involved. Had no reason to, until I spoke to Chez."
"What...what exactly did she tell you?" Not that he'd told her anything new for her to pass on.
"That ye turned up here and ye are in some sort of trouble. She said ye were screaming for me..."
Ste winces, embarrassment making him want to lash out. "Bet that made your day, did it?" he drawls sarcastically.
"No. Not like this."
Yet another emotion runs through him. This time it's anger again.
"Where were you when I really needed you, eh Brendan? Like when some drug dealer beat me to a pulp the other month, or a couple of days ago when I found out my mam was dying and she asked me to kill her?"
Brendan's face pales.
"Where were you when I needed someone to hold my hand when I decided to go through with it? You think I need you now, right, and the truth is I do. But I've had months of hell without you and now you turn up when all the crap's over and done with. All I'm left with now is the pieces."
His eyes blur with tears, and he hears rather than sees Brendan edging towards him. After all the hours of desperately craving his comfort, now Ste just wants to push him away.
He hits out blindly until his hands meet the hard muscle lying beneath Brendan's clothes.
"Hey, Steven, Steven stop!" the Irishman's hands clasp around his arms, holding them still.
He's out of energy anyway, and eventually he just gives in, his head falling against Brendan's chest as the man's weight falls beside him on the bed.
"It's okay," the older man tells him.
"No it's not."
"I know. I don't know how to make it all go away for ye," Brendan says quietly.
"You can't." His voice breaks, and he feels himself being encircled in those strong arms and held tightly.
Neither of them speaks for a few long minutes, and then, on a whisper, Ste cuts into the silence.
"She said she loved me, before she died. Said she was proud of me," he says of his mother.
"How could she not be?"
"She might have been lying," he adds, still unable to stop himself from thinking it. He wonders whether he'll ever stop torturing himself.
Brendan doesn't try to tell him otherwise - it's the shared knowledge of bad childhoods that makes him understand better than anyone else. "It doesn't matter. Ye still loved her."
Ste nods from his position on the bed, face buried in the other man's shoulder.
"I know ye; and I know what ye are thinking. Ye are not a murderer, Steven Hay. Ye did what ye did out of love, and it wasn't evil or twisted because ye are nothing like me. D'ye hear me?"
He doesn't answer.
"As for this drug dealer-"
That brings him back to life. "Don't. I know I'm a hypocrite."
"I was going to say I'd have him beaten up for ye."
For the first time in weeks, Ste laughs.
"Just stay with me."
"Ye know they'll find me eventually."
"The same goes for me anyway," Ste sighs.
Brendan pulls back to study his face. "What d'ye mean?"
"I'm out on bail. Got arrested for murder," he elaborates, voice shaking on the last word despite what's just been drummed into him about who he is.
"Steven...ye have to go back. I can't believe I'm saying this, but ye have to go back or the police will have ye for going AWOL."
"Look who's talking."
"Doesn't matter about me. I'm never getting out once they've found me. Ye, ye are going to have a life. Ye have to go back so that Leah and Lucas don't lose their daddy."
It shouldn't do, but the mention of his kids throws him. It's just that he's had to block out all thoughts of them in order to get to this point. Now he has to acknowledge that Brendan is right. Ste owes it to his son and daughter to fight to stick around.
All he can do is nod his agreement.
The minutes pass by comfortably. They both know their time together is limited, that this is the calm before the storm; but they're savouring it before they have to give it all up again.
Their bubble breaks when his phone beeps. He almost doesn't look, but is hit by a momentary flash of panic that the police have found out about his disappearing act.
It's Doug - who else would it be - saying that he's spoken to Sandy Roscoe, his mother's nurse.
She's changed her statement; told the police that Pauline Hay could in fact have ended her own life.
Sandy's lied for him.
It's over.
He bursts into fresh tears, and Brendan takes his face in his hands, glancing down at the phone in Ste's hand.
"What is it?"
"It sounds like I'm not going to be charged after all."
The man lets out a breath and brings him even closer to his body. "So now ye can go home and start living."
"How am I supposed to do that without you?"
"Ye can, Steven. Ye have to, for the kids. I can't hide forever. I didn't do this so I could go on the run and drag ye with me. I won't do that."
He knows he can't argue with that logic. It's just that Brendan has made moving on that bit harder by turning up and giving him a taste of what they could have had.
Again.
Then he remembers that he'll never be completely free. "I can't go back there. Trevor's not going to leave me alone any time soon, not unless I sell this bag of drugs he gave me..."
For a minute he thinks Brendan is going to start planning a way to kill the guy. But instead he shakes his head in disbelief.
"Chez will give ye some money if ye need to pay him off. Just get rid of the stuff and tell him ye sold it all. Just get him out of your life, Steven. And if that doesn't work, I'll think of something."
Ste is too tired to protest, just lets Brendan plan his way out of trouble for him.
"Ye need to rest," The Irishman's voice is soft. "Lie down."
Suddenly he is panicking again. He knows that if he closes his eyes now, Brendan won't be here when he opens them again.
"Come on, just relax and go to sleep." He's lifting him easily now, placing him across the length of the bed, and Ste is tugging frantically on his arms.
"I will if you lie with me," he begs, weak and pathetic but too desperate to keep this man to care.
He watches Brendan carefully, sees the exact moment he relents, kicking off his shoes and placing his own body next to Ste's so that they're barely an inch apart.
The returning warmth soothes him instantly.
"Ye know how much I love ye, don't ye?" The volume of the sudden statement almost makes him jump, but he smiles back at its sincerity.
"Yeah," he whispers back. "Love you too."
Brendan surprises him by pressing a tender kiss to his lips. He returns it immediately, but he can feel the man holding back from letting it go too far, and he knows all too well why that is.
This moment could be so normal if their situations weren't so abnormal. If Brendan weren't an escaped convict whose hours were numbered; if Ste hadn't just helped his mother to die - the reason he'd ended up legging it to Ireland in the first place.
If none of that were happening, they could just have this forever.
Ste closes his eyes and holds on for dear life to the man laying beside him.
And as he drifts off, he allows himself to pretend that this is what he'll wake up to.
The little piece of heaven that he'll never be able to have again.