The knock was firm; the knock of someone who knew they had the right to be there. It was a confident sound, assertive.

Ste hadn't been expecting anyone. He was just finishing the washing up, the kid's colourful plastic plates now marred by the tell-tale whiteness caused by too many uses. He put the last cup by the sink and dried his hands quickly on a nearby towel, before bustling to the door.

The second the metal lock was free, Ste knew he'd made a mistake. It was a mistake he'd made many times before, and he cursed himself for it. The door swung faster and harder than he could stop, though the second he felt the extra momentum he tried to push himself against it. The force behind it was too strong, and before a protest could even form on his lips, a tall figure had stridden into his flat.

His stomach tensed in the all too familiar knots this unexpected visitor always created. The mixture of lust, love, fear and longing was immense, and he was almost overwhelmed by it, but today the fear was dominant. This man shouldn't be here.

"Brendan!" he said, unnecessarily. The blue eyes he craved the most bored into his, and his feet retreated of their own accord, backwards into the living room. Pointed shoes followed him, and the sound of the door shutting firmly echoed ominously through his head.

"Amy in?" drawled the lazy Irish accent, eyes leaving his to glance around the room.

Ste paused too long. "Yeah."

The corner of Brendan's mouth curled upwards, and he strolled past Ste to the bedroom he knew was Amy's, then quickly checked the kid's rooms.

"Lost weight, has she? She doesn't need to."

Ste realised his hands were shaking, and bunched them into fists in a desperate attempt to hide this from Brendan. "Alright… but… she'll be back."

Brendan smirked, still surveying the flat. "When would that be, then, Steven?"

Ste's heart did a summersault at his full name in that accent. He'd been missing it. "Soon!" he tried.

Brendan smirked, "I'd best be quick then."

He turned his full attention back to Ste, who took an involuntary step backwards. Brendan watched him, curiously, his face unreadable.

"What…" Ste breathed in fast, "what do you want?" Brendan blinked, but said nothing. Despite his fear, Ste's anger surfaced, his self hatred. "'ow are you even 'ere? You're supposed to be locked up."

Brendan stood stock still. Silence reigned for what felt like hours to Ste.

Brendan broke the silence with a simple statement.

"You didn't believe me."

Ste wrinkled his nose in confusion.

"What?"

"You didn't…" Brendan turned away, setting his jaw. He tried again "You thought I'd …"

Ste's eyes darted around the room, certain that whatever Brendan would do next would not be good.

"Steven." The Irish drawl was gravelly, broken. He brought his hand up to Ste's face, not quite daring to touch it, then pulling away again, "You know… you know I wouldn't, I would never…" He cleared his throat.

"But…" Ste floundered, then swallowed. Brendan's eyes seemed drawn to his Adam's apple as it quivered. The sudden lack of eye contact spurred Ste into motion. He dodged past Brendan and made a dash for the door.

He didn't make it that far.

A strong hand closed on his wrist. The grip forced him to swing, and in seconds he found himself trapped between the wall beside the door and Brendan's body, now far too close for comfort, with Brendan's hands holding his wrists beside his head; a forced pose of surrender.

Tears prickling insistently at his eyes, Ste started to struggle, unable to look at his former lover. Panic swelled within him, and his lips started begging furiously for his life, without the consent of his brain.

"Please… Brendan… I've got kids, me, yeah? Please…. What'd Amy do, yeah? Please… don't…"

"Steven…" Brendan's voice sounded cracked, heart-broken, "Steven, I'm not gonna hurt you, Steven."

He leant his forehead against Ste's. The position was so familiar to Ste, something he'd been missing so much, it nearly broke his heart.

"Steven, I need you to listen to me," Brendan's voice was urgent, desperate. "I didn't do what they say I did. You have to believe me!"

"No…" Ste sniffed, "But... they caught you…"

"I was set up!" Brendan's temper was flaring. Ste knew he should probably stop. He didn't know when Amy would be back, and if Brendan lost his temper now there would be nothing to make him stop. But Ste had never been able to control that part of him that pushed, that need to know, and to share what he knew.

"But you were so angry with her! And it weren't the first time she'd upset you… and…"

"Alright, I was angry with her" Brendan interrupted, taking a step away and releasing Ste's hands, voice cold in a way Ste almost didn't recognise. "What she told Declan!"

"So, you did…"

"No!" Brendan's hands flew back towards Ste with force. He closed his eyes, flinching away, but they landed on each side of his head, causing the wall to shudder. "You know… You know I could never…"

"What, kill someone?"

The words hung between them; the unnamed thing, the guilt that could only eat them both up from the inside.

"You know…" Brendan was becoming less and less coherent. He cleared his throat, "you know I wouldn't hurt a woman."

"Do I?" Something within Ste kept his potentially paralysing fear at bay. "How do I know that? I know you're a psycho, I know you get angry, I know you hurt the people you say you love."

"Think about it Steven! I was angry with Rae, but Mitzeee blackmailed me, for God's sake, and I never laid a finger on her"

"You threatened Amy! You tried to get Rae sent down for drugs!"

"But I never hurt them! Steven, I never would hurt them. Steven, please…." Brendan pressed himself as close to Ste as he could, as if being that close could keep them together, make the boy believe him. "Steven, I swear on my kids' lives, I didn't kill those girls." He lifted his head far enough away from Ste's that their eyes could meet. "You have to believe me Steven."

Ste's heart was bursting. He found himself caught in the intense blue gaze. The gaze of the man who'd hurt him almost as much as Terry, the man who'd held him when he thought his best friend might die, when his kids were in hospital, the man who manipulated and bullied him, the man would do anything to protect him and had. The man he'd never been able to resist.

He nodded.

He wasn't sure if it was because he believed Brendan, or if it was just because they were so close now, and being so close to Brendan did bad things to his head. And wonderful things to other parts of him.

Brendan let out a staggering breath, once again letting his forehead rest against Ste's. His eyes dropped closed, one hand caressing Ste's face, the other falling to his shoulder.

"I love you, Steven"

Time could stop when they were like this, when it was just the two of them, being so close but needing, desperately, to be closer, for it never to end, for the rest of the world outside those closed doors to drop away.

"I love you, too," Ste replied, and despite the fear and the doubt and the pain, he really truly meant it. He couldn't remember loving anyone else like this, though he'd said it to enough people. He dreaded the thought of not seeing Brendan.

And then their lips met.

And the kiss was glorious, like arriving home after an eternity, like Brendan's lips were meant to be against Ste's and they should never be apart. Ste's hands found their own way around Brendan's back, to grip his neck and nestle in his hair, while Brendan's dropped lower, to Ste's waist which they gripped briefly, before wandering even lower.

Ste's T-shirt was the first to go, and as it flew across the room, Ste briefly wondered who had actually thrown it. Brendan's shirt became a victim of their haste, as buttons dropped to the floor around their feet, the rest of the garment tossed carelessly aside. They gripped at each other's newly exposed flesh, desperate for the contact, for warmth, each revelling in the beauty of the other.

Brendan tugged at Ste's joggers, pulling the waist band down, revealing Ste's cock. Their breathing was ragged and fast, hearts beating like a bird in a cage. Brendan brought their lips together once more, before spinning the boy around so that he faced the wall, their bodies still flush against each other.

Ste was lost in sensation. No one else could make him feel like this, could awake this yearning within him. He felt Brendan's hands on him, inside him, preparing him, stroking him. Then the sound of Brendan's fly being unzipped, and he twisted his head in time to see the older man rip open a condom.

Brendan prepared himself with ease, before catching Ste's mouth in another kiss, searing hot despite the awkward angle. He lined them up and pushed in.

Ste opened his eyes. He took a moment to remember where he was. He waited, expecting the shift of weight on the bed next to him. None came.

The wave of self hatred and guilt hit him suddenly. Another dream. There were two kinds; the one he'd just had, and the other, the one with Rae, where he stood by while Brendan strangled the life from her again and again.

Somehow, this one was worse. The idea that he would just take Brendan back, that all the Irishman would have to do would be to be here, and to say what he wanted to hear, and Ste would fall for it, and back into his arms. However many times he'd been lied to and abused

Whatever Amy said, he had to hold on to this hatred. Brendan killed Rae. Whatever he wanted to believe, whatever his heart told him, that was the truth. And Brendan was in prison for it, as he should be, and where he would stay.

And that was the end of it.

Wasn't it?