A/N: This week has been epic hasn't it? These are just two things I really needed to see after the beauty of what was on screen. I'm going to make this a collection that I may add too, but theyre really just love shots.

First ones fluffy, second angsty and T for language.

To all those waiting for What Love Is (including my awesome guest who left a message) I'm really sorry I know I'm a pain in the arse but I have actually written a little bit more today but their smut is coming slowly and proving difficult (weirdly).

"They're called lovelocks"

"Why are you here?" Ste prompts, for once feeling a breaths distance away from honesty. The only thing he's ever craved from Brendan.

"Cos I love ye," is the answer.

Brendan's gaze drops. Steven had every reason to refuse him. He knew the twists and knots of their relationship were mainly made by his hands. Only a few hours before he had looked right into those beautiful eyes and said he wanted to spend every night with a stranger. And those words had been true. Each conquest had to be a stranger – finished before the climax, because he couldn't think of being with anyone else the way he had always been with Steven. He couldn't stand the thought of being intimate with any other man. And the thought he could be with Steven hadn't even been worth it. But now standing here, stripped bare in Steven's honest fight, he knows there will never be anything more perfect, more worth fighting for than his embrace.

I love you – he said it and his words have rung over the river and back again to them, and Steven is still looking at him like he's fighting his heart. Brendan had hoped his words would be enough, would cause his boy to melt for him once again, but he knows Steven is different now, stronger, prouder. Under his watch he has grown into the only man he is ever going to love.

Brendan's heart shakes with nerves as his fingers curve around the metal object in his pocket. A padlock. He isn't sure he is strong enough to do this, has never felt so weak, so without power. He closes his eyes to search for an inner strength he isn't certain he possesses.

His thoughts rush to another time, a distant memory of when he had been a different man standing on a beach fingers in his pocket playing with a ring of eternity. He thought he was close to love then, thought it could be found in Eileen's smile. But now, as his eyes blink open to see the boy watching him, he knows he had no idea what being in love meant. He was clueless at to what it was to need someone, have to share your life with someone because without them you don't have a purpose.

"Cos I can't live my life without ye. I love ye Steven," Brendan feels a smile forming over those words, if he had known before how good it would feel to say them he would have done it a million times over.

Each promise from Brendan's lips causes Ste's heart to grow, he wants so much to believe him, but there have been so many lies. Even if he could hear the honesty now, how did he know Brendan wasn't just going to run again? Even the man's hands were clenched as though he was seconds away from a fight, as though he was scared. But as Brendan's fingers unfurl he sees a golden object twinkling in the low glow of the bridge lights.

A padlock.

A lovelock as Brendan had called them.

Brendan's shaking fingers turn the lock around to reveal two sets of initials engraved onto the back.

SH & BB.

Ste feels his heart catch. It's theirs.

Brendan's hand hadn't been furled because he was scared - instead it had only been waiting for his to join him, just like his heart had been closed until their love.

Brendan's gaze catches Ste's and his brow raises – asking for permission to fix their love to this spot, this day, for an eternity. There's only one slight nod from Steven but it is all Brendan needs without a word he locks the padlock against the railing.

"If they want the love to last for an eternity – they throw the key in the water," he explains, passing Ste the key, leaving their future, his life, in the boy's hands.

Brendan feels each second drag as Ste inspects the key. Ste reaches into his pocket and removes an object, an item of jewellery branded forever into Brendan's scars. A wedding ring.

Brendan feels his heart thrumming, the thought that Ste could chose Doug burning through him. He can't not see him again, he knows that now. Loosing Ste to that yank would be as unbearable as losing the boy all together. There's a happiness to be found in Ste's heart that is quite possibly the meaning of his existence.

Ste steps away from Brendan, towards the water's edge. He lets the ring fall between his fingers, watches as it lands with a splash into the frozen world beneath. His eyes sting with the tears he had shared at the end of goodbye.

Brendan feels the surge to protect as he sees tears breaking the boy's blue world. But as that blue fixes on him once again he understands everything clearly. He knows Ste just needed one moment to say goodbye.

Silently, Ste helps Brendan through the start of their new chapter. He brings the key up to his lips, kisses it, pulls his arm back and throws it with all his might into the night, the strength demonstrating his conviction that they would work.

Brendan feels his breath disappear with the key, his heart missing its beat as the key fades to black. Ste's eyes reach up to his shining in the light, sparkling with unspent tears of distance and hope.

As Ste looks on, Brendan's gaze is an exploration of every inch. Everywhere he looks he knows every sense, the feel of Ste's knuckles and the down of hair on his fingers, the movement of his throat, the smell of his hair, the taste of his kiss. He knows in his heart that the boy is made for him, that they were made to be together.

Ste's small laugh fills the night and Brendan's lips pull to an instinctive smile though confusion tinges his happiness.

"What?"

"You're looking at me like you want to kiss me!" Ste giggles.

"Well maybe I do."

"Here?" Ste asks, his eyes flashing around the bridge, Brendan's gaze refuse to leave his.

"There's a load of people around!" Ste said, drawing the battle lines of Brendan's last fight.

"Does that matter? I'm looking at the only person I ever want to see."

Ste stares right into those blue eyes like he doesn't know if he can believe the love Brendan speaks of.

"I love you too," he says though his jaw tightens in uncertainty.

As Brendan hears those words a multitude of emotions pass through him, he feels the fresh cold air bite at his extremities, the dizziness from the disused whisky, he feels his heart restart it's beat. It's like those words have the power to heal. Like he's been growing numb through all their missed chances, all the times when he could have kissed him and should have kissed him back and should have said more of what was in his heart. He feels now like the sum of the rejection and the separation has left him heartless and he's only now finding it's beat – in the boy's unrelenting gaze.

"I'm going to kiss you now," Brendan sighs, finally.

His fingers curl, beckoning the boy close and he feels his heart grow with each step his boy makes toward him.