I won't be surprised if nobody reads this, but for my own sanity I had to put this stuff into words. Otherwise I ain't getting any work done! So this is an angsty one-shot of them discussing the abuse and trying to find a way out of it.

I haven't even read it back, because I really should be doing other stuff! This is just my form of therapy. Depressing therapy.

Set around an hour or so after last nights beating. Brendan's sobered up mostly.

XOXOXOXOX

Brendan had found him crouched on the floor of the deli, concealed behind the counter like he was cowering there, hiding. All the lights had been off. There were no signs of anyone having been there at all, but he knew. He could sense Steven there. He could sense the tension as he pushed open the deli door… like Steven had stopped breathing. Like he was scared.

Scared of Brendan, who in that moment couldn't ever imagine hurting him, ever. Would die before he did that. Would kill anyone that tried.

And yet he had. Again. He doesn't remember it happening… but he remembers the way Steven ran. The blood on his face.

He'd tried apologising. He'd tried coaxing Steven out from behind that counter, but the boy refused to budge – didn't want to look at Brendan. Or worse yet, didn't want Brendan to look at him… face his own damage. It was, in a way, Steven's way of continuing to protect him.

Brendan had been afraid to move further than the door. Was scared of what he'd see. Was scared of experiencing the fear in Steven's expression. In the end, it's Brendan's hopeless babbled explanations that drive Steven out from his hiding spot.

"It… it was my Dad," Brendan explains feebly, knowing it's no excuse and hating himself for it, "I… I just… he was there and then… and you were sayin' about him and I couldn't I just… I lost control. I'm sorry!"

"I know what it feels like to lose control," Steven voice travels, broken and rasped with tears from behind his counter, "But you don't punch someone SIX TIMES IN THE FACE!"

And that's when he emerges, and Brendan stumbles, horrified by his own work. The blood spread all over Steven's face… only relenting where the tears have left watermarks through the stains. He's a mess. A state… and Brendan's caused it with his own fists in the heat of a dark clouded moment that will forever haunt him.

He can hardly take it in. Wants to turn and run. Feels like he's in the middle of some freakish nightmare, where everything around him boils and corrupts with his own poisonous presence.

But he can't run from this… can't even take his eyes off Steven and finds himself travelling mindlessly towards him with no other instinct than to cure and heal.

But Steven's having none of it. When he backs away, crashing into trays as he does so, Brendan stops – terrified of alarming him any more.

"I'm sorr…" Brendan tries weakly… but his statement dies under Steven's next confession.

"I didn't think you were ever gonna stop!" He cries, eyes deadened with pain, alive with tears. "It probably only lasted a second but it seemed like forever. Do… do you even know what that feels like?!"

Brendan swallows something thick in his throat. It's hard to speak, but he answers honestly.

"Yes."

And he feels sick and dizzy with the idea he put Steven through that. Knows it well. Doing the eight times table. Waiting for it all to be over. Feeling that it never will be, and it won't. Even when it's stopped… it's never over.

"No, except you don't though cos…" Steven sniffs, wipes his nose with his sleeve and he's trying to hold it together, but breaking in front of Brendan's eyes. "Cos I thought we were in love and we were happy."

"We are. Were. Are." Brendan doesn't know what to say. He feels hollow and empty. So ashamed. So desperately sick. If he could rewind time in his life, he'd go back to a lot of places, change a lot of things. But nothing more so than this.

This was it; his chance at happiness, and he's fucked it; it's gone.

Steven, who has given up everything for him. Steven who's showed him more love and support and understanding than anyone has in his whole life. And this was Brendan's repayment.

"I ruined it." Brendan breathes, rasps, "When I hit ye."

He catches a bitter roll of Steven's eyes just before he raises his own sleeve to wipe his tears. He thinks what Brendan's saying is obvious.

"When… when I hit ye two years ago." Brendan says steadily, "That's when I ruined it. And ever since then it's been ruined but we've pretended it's not."

Steven says nothing, but Brendan can tell that even now… even despite everything… there's something in Steven that wants to object that theory.

Because this is what Brendan does to him. Ropes him in. Makes him weak. Even now, he won't be surprised if Steven somewhere along the line is willing to give him another chance and it's that… that that he can't stand. He's dragged Steven into the ruthless pits of his fucked-up life, and he holds him down there. Drowns him in it. Makes Steven suffer for Brendan's grievances. And his grievances are too harsh, to relentless to put on shoulders like Steven's.

It's why he should have left him. Should have let him go to New York and lead his normal life with his husband and children and business.

Instead he encouraged this fate for Steven. This one where he crouches, distraught, on his deli floor, which is stained with his own blood.

"You were supposed to change." Steven says weakly, "You were supposed to change for me."

"I tried."

"How did you though?!" He demands. He sounds like he wants to be furious, but there's a shake in his voice… a tremble that is nothing more than hurt, hurt, hurt. An incurable breakage that takes even his right to be angry away from him.

"You can't just decide to change, Brendan!" He cries, "You can't just decide, you 'ave to get help… proper help like I did! I woula helped ya, I woulda come with ya except…"

And he breaks. Then and there, before Brendan's eyes, when he's in no position to hold or comfort him. Tears roll insistently from Steven's eyes, and he looks so young and vulnerable that Brendan could kill himself for ever having touched him, in any way.

"Except I was… stupid enough… to think… that it would be better." Steven chokes, "An' I just thought… I thought I could fix you myself."

And it's sickening, but Brendan realises that Steven's tears and anger aren't even aimed at him… but at himself.

But they SHOULD be… they SHOULD be aimed at Brendan! And he can't stand here and watch Steven beat himself up when Brendan's already done far too much of that for him.

He tears himself from his rooted position, forces himself to act, pushes himself closer to the bloodied face of his lover even though he wants to run for it.

And he demands, "Hit me."

Steven blinks, confused for a second, "What?"

"C'mon, hit me!" Brendan barks, determined. He wants to feel the pain. He wants to feel exactly what he's inflicted; he wants it back. He wants Steven to take back the power. He wants him to kill him if he has to; Brendan will let him. Anything to share out the pain, to make Steven's suffering stop.

"C'mon Steven, PLEASE!"

"Stop it." Steven says. He looks alarmed again. But he surely must be tempted.

"HIT MEEE!" Brendan roars. He sounds mad. Insane. Perhaps he is insane. Perhaps this has broken him too.

Perhaps that's why Steven flinches, shocked, and then makes his way towards the door like he's running for his life. Like he's FINALLY realised that that's what he needs to do; run from Brendan like his being depends on it.

So why can't Brendan let him?

Why does he grab him back and plead and beg?

"Please, I need you to help me make this better Steven," He chokes, and there's tears falling from his eyes too now, and his grip is hard on Steven's wrist because he needs Steven's guidance, always has.

"Please help me make this better, tell me what I can do to fix this… to fix you or…or me. Just… I'll do whatever you say…"

"You can't do anything, Brendan." Steven even sounds sorry about that. Even shoulders that pain of Brendan's, even now. "It's done."

"No, no, it's not done." Brendan chants, trance-like, and traces his fingers over the cuts on Steven's eyebrow and lip, "It's not done, I'm gonna make it better. I'm gonna find a way, for you. And me. For us. To make it better. For us. Me and you."

He still sounds like a madman, but this time Steven doesn't look scared.

He only looks desperately desperately sad. And Brendan will never decipher which one is worse.

"Nothing's ever gonna make me stop loving you Brendan." Steven whispers painfully.

And for some reason, though the statement should calm him, it just makes all of this so very much worse. Like Brendan's own hot iron claws in Steven are worse than he ever imagined they could be. Like Steven is prison-sentenced to be forever subjected to Brendan's insanity, which gnaws in his chest now more prominently than it ever has done.

"I'm always gonna help you." Steven continues, voice still thick with tears. "I'm not gonna give up on ya. Just…. we can't be together now. Not now. Like this."

"So… so what then?"

"So one day." Steven says, like a promise. A promise that hurts and sections both of them in equal measure. "One day we can, when things are better. When we've made everything better."

Brendan wishes these were words of tolerance; he wishes Steven was just indulging his insanity. But he sounds like he's serious. Like he's mirroring Brendan's babbles of madness with his own. Like he's just as sick, through osmosis. Brendan's already poisoned his blood too deeply to have granted him any sanity.

This will be Steven's life, and he's accepted it. Waiting, hoping, loving. Supporting someone who doesn't know what to do with support. Helping someone who is incurable. Trying to drag Brendan out of the darkness he was born into… to no avail. These cycles with them will continue forever. This is Steven's life. His doomed destiny. And it's all in Brendan's hands. All his entire fault.

"I love you." Brendan breathes.

And quite obviously, Steven doesn't know what to do with that right now; here where his face is growing scabs and bruises. But he doesn't fight or reject it. He accepts it. He knows it.

But he doesn't know that it's Brendan's love that means he has to remove himself from Steven's life forever.