A/N

My first fanfic in longer than I care to admit so I hope I'm not too out of practice. I've never been much of an AU fan but having caught up with some of the fantastic Stendan stories on here I was inspired to write one myself, transporting the boys away to a different setting.

Usual disclaimer: not making any money from this and certainly don't own the characters - if I did, Brendan wouldn't be rotting in jail, for a start…

Chapter 1

'Right guys! Listen up. We're here!' The tanned young holiday rep called out in a thick Mancunian accent, trying to recapture the wandering attentions of his increasingly inebriated tour group. 'This is our next stop and one of my personal favourites…' He turned and gestured like a gameshow hostess presenting a prize, directing the gaze of the assembled audience towards the awning-covered terrace of a bar, over which hung a dark green neon sign proclaiming the name of the place in capital letters, 'Brady's'.

As his gaze turned to follow his arms, the young rep found himself looking directly at the glowering figure blocking the threshold several metres away, a stern, dark haired man with a thick black moustache and shirt sleeves rolled up to the elbows, menacingly.

The vision on the horizon wasn't enough to dampen the young man's ebullient attitude, though.

'Just ignore the local wildlife,' he called, confidently holding the man's eye. 'His bite's much more pleasurable than his bark, or so I'm told.' He giggled slightly to himself at a private recollection that soon became public. 'I can't say I've been there personally, but my mate John Paul has been, and he said they got so carried away he nearly ended up in hospital! Best night of his life, John Paul said.'

'God Ste, you're terrible!' The hench black guy standing next to him brushed Ste's chest as he flirtatiously chastised him.

Brendan flinched at the contact between the two men.

When the second guy had opened his mouth to speak Brendan could see the gap in his teeth, even at this distance. He had seen him a few times before, training clients at one of the local gyms. Brendan knew at the time that there was something about that face he didn't like, and his brief moments here told Brendan that he had been right, as usual, in his prejudgement. Harmless enough but there was just something about that face he wanted to punch. And what was he doing here with a holiday group when he bloody lived here, anyway? Needing his hand holding? Chasing around after some mouthy rep? Brendan felt himself bristling.

'Thanks Noah, I'll take that as a compliment,' Ste retorted cheekily, not missing a beat and clearly not minding the attention.

Ste switched swiftly back to his duties. 'Here's your drink tickets guys!' He had to shout even louder now that the bass at the club next door had kicked in. 'Don't spend them all at once,' he cautioned as he made his way around the group, pressing a carefully counted ration of tickets into each of the group's palms. 'What am I saying? It's your holidays. Let your hair down!' Several of the group whooped their approval at this change of heart as they began to move along the terrace towards the now-vacated doorstep.

Typical Chez, Brendan thought to himself. She'd only come to visit for a fortnight but even fourteen days had been enough to cause lasting chaos.

Take the contract, she had said. What's the worst that can happen? She had said.You haven't been here that long, Bren. You can't be turning away guaranteed business. And he knew she was right. But what she had failed to mention was that the deal she had agreed on his behalf through an old contact of hers wasn't any old weekly bar crawl; it was an LGBT bar crawl through that specialist queer operator. She might as well have hung a rainbow flag outside the place. It was her way of being supportive, he knew that, but it didn't stop him wanting to wring the necks of each and every one of those out-and-proud poofters that came through the door every week. And as for that scrawny fairy of a rep, cracking out crude comments, usually at Brendan's expense… Brendan took a swig out of the whiskey glass in his hand in a useless attempt to erase that piercing, knowing grin from behind his eyes and drown out the raucous laughter spreading all around him as though it was taunting him.

He had to try and relax. He'd come out here for a fresh start. No more secrets, no more lies, no more violence. But it was hard to break the habits of a lifetime, or at least the impulse towards them.

Each week he regretted not taking Tuesday nights off. Either he was a masochist, a workaholic, or there was something at home he didn't want to face; or more likely, it was all three.

It must feel like such a relief, Cheryl had said to him when he had come out to her, once the dust had settled and she'd picked her jaw up from the floor. Wasn't that what everyone thought? That admitting who you were was the hard part and then after that the words you used to tell everyone would somehow morph into a teleporter to happiness? Because Out equalled Proud, in their minds, didn't it? But that was far too simplistic an equation. Not that Brendan was ashamed. It just didn't mean that he had any greater tolerance for public displays of affection, particularly gay ones, than he did before. And just because he was gay he didn't have to like every fucking poof that walked through the door, did he? Straight people don't like every other straight person on Earth just because their fucking straight, do they?

And the truth was that he didn't feel all that much happier or like a changed man or that a weight had been lifted. Sure, he didn't feel the need to beat up any guy who so much looked at him the wrong way anymore, but it also wasn't as if he was getting much more action than he was before either. In fact, the bitter-sweet thought struck through him that he'd been having more sex with men when he was still with Eileen, living in the closet, than he was getting these days out here, regardless of the apparent hedonism of the place, the drinking, the casual sex, the endless stream of boys - gay, straight, tall, short, scrawny, butch - that walked the strip and into his bar every single night of the week. And of course he could have gone out there and picked up a stranger any time he liked, but he just didn't feel the desire to do that too often. But he did feel desire, however much he tried to swallow it down like a bottle of whiskey. He could feel it burning away in the pit of his stomach, that old catalyst, gnawing at him, like a swelling carbuncle that would one day explode - in violence or sex, or god forbid, his old, familiar combination of the two…

'Alright handsome.' The sound of Ste's cheery chorus and his physical intrusion into Brendan's eye-line brought his attention back to the here and now. He knew that Steven only did it to wind him up, saying things like that in an overly-perky way. He knew exactly which of Brendan's buttons to press to get a reaction. He couldn't compete with Brendan in terms of direct aggression, nor was he stupid enough to try, not with a work contact, anyway. So this was his game instead, a game from which he seemed to take almost visceral pleasure. Each. And Every. Bloody. Week.

'We're off now, so thanks for having us. I'm looking forward to next week already, sweetheart.'

Did he just wink at me? The cheek.

'And try not scare the punters away with that pretty face of yours.' Ste turned to leave, calling back as he went, 'Miss you already!'

Why did it always seem so quiet in here after Steven's group left? There were still plenty of punters in the bar, but it felt to Brendan as if the life had been sucked out of the place. Or perhaps it was Brendan the life was sucked from, every time Steven left.

This week, Brendan didn't have to wait the full seven uneventful days that he usually had to last out before seeing Ste again. Sure, they bumped into each other out and about from time to time, but Brendan still had to do a double-take when the very next night he came out from the office onto the bar floor just as the evening was getting going and saw a familiar figure propped up with a beer in hand.

If he was honest, this happened frequently - not Ste's presence but Brendan thinking he had caught sight of him. More often than he would care to admit, if he happened to glimpse a similar slim frame or quaffed hair across the street or on the other side of the dance floor his brain jumped to the conclusion his body was longing for. It was that instinctive second look without registering properly who or what he expected to see, followed by the inevitable lurch of disappointment.

Tonight though, there was no doubt, no correction, no second pang. The figure was instantly recognisable, even if he wasn't wearing his usual red branded polo shirt. Instead, the young man was dressed in a sky blue shirt that echoed against the colour of his eyes and made them glow the endless, saturated cerulean that all those deluded holidaymakers pretended the sea, just few hundred yards away was. But Ste's eyes, they were the real thing.

'You not working tonight, Steven?'

'No, you see, got this beer in me hand and, like, I never drink on a work night me, so it must be me night off, right.'

Brendan looked down at the whiskey glass in his own hand and grunted. One day, kid, one day you'll change your mind.

Coming from anyone else what Ste had said would have sounded idiotically longwinded or even sarcastic, but Ste had an uncensored candour that it was impossible to dislike, no matter how hard Brendan tried.

'So what you doing sat here?' Brendan tilted his head intently. He wanted to add all on your own, but he bit his tongue. It was none of his business. Repeat after me Brendan: it's none of your damn business.

'Yeah, proper busman's holiday, int'it? But you're just as bad. You can't keep away from this place. Don't you want a night off or a change of scene or sommat?'

For a brief moment, Brendan looked down at the floor between his feet and felt an uncomfortable wave of melancholy bubbling towards to surface. With practiced precision he pushed it down just as quickly as it had threatened to come over him completely and he broaden his shoulders back up to their usual lofty height.

'You see this, Steven?' He swept his arms out in front of him grandly. 'This isn't just a bar. This here is a man's castle. And I'm not here to work. I'm here to guard my empire,' he proclaimed, theatrically.

'You're all talk, you.'

'You think so?' He couldn't help but slip Steven a knowing grin. Their eyes didn't waver from each other. It was almost an exact repeat of the charged eye contact, the knowing smiles, the double meanings they had exchanged so briefly the first time they had met at the start of the season, when Brendan didn't know the other man's name and never for a second thought that he would have to see him again, let alone week after week… It was another memory Brendan was used to swallowing down, with varying degrees of success, given how the image of Steven Hay semi-clad and looking at him with that heart-stoppingly seductive smile was ingrained in his mind as though it had been burned behind his eyelids.

'Doesn't it get tiring though?' Ste's voice had softened into a meaningful tone that Brendan wasn't used to hearing. He wasn't sure whether he liked the sound of it or if he was alarmed by its seriousness. Or if he was alarmed that he liked the sound of it. 'I mean, I love me job right, but its a performance. Not like in that old job with the strippers and that. But it's still an act. Don't you want to stop sometimes, just take a night to sit on the sofa in your underpants and just be yourself for a bit?'

Brendan wanted to say that without the bar, without the act, he didn't know who else he was. Or perhaps it was that person, that yourself, that he was trying so desperately to avoid. Or maybe he'd just been acting for so long that he didn't know where the line was anymore.

'Ah, the old job with the strippers.' Brendan feigned nostalgia to deflect the question.

'Don't say it like that, I saw your mug there. Never forget a face, me.'

'Yeah, that was my little sis's way of being supportive, believe it or not. Dragging me along to that place. NOT my cuppa tea.'

'Really? Cos I thought I saw you on your own there after that first time, more than once. Lurking at the back.' It wasn't a question.

'Well maybe I saw something that caught my eye. Maybe I had to go back for another look.' The statement was loaded with possibility, both men knew it. And there, as if by magic, it was again - that smile of Ste's, his lips curling ever so slightly at the edges, his eyes glinting as they threatened to be obscured by a fistful of the darkest lashes Brendan had ever seen. It was the smile that charged Brendan up and made him feel like he had oxygen in his blood again, that he could be human, living breathing, feeling, open to all those overwhelming emotions and desires he had worked so hard to keep in check, to keep from swallowing him whole.

'Brendan, mate. I think the barrel's gone.' Bloody Kevin.

'Kevin, mate,' Brendan practically spat the words at the intruder without bothering to turn his head from Steven's to look at the barman. 'Does that sound like my problem?' In a flash he was right up in Kevin's face, his eyes practically popping out of their sockets with the intensity of his glare. 'Does it? What do you think I pay you and that useless piece'a meat over there for?' His eyes gestured to where Rhys stood leaning over the bar, chatting up a group of girls. 'Yeah, yeah that's right.' His tone had softened but it was no less threatening. 'So I can be left in peace with the grown ups. Now run along.'

'Don't worry, I should be getting off anyway. I'll see ya around, Brendan. Cheers for the drink.' He downed the remnants of the bottle in his hand, slipped off the stool and disappeared into the stream of bodies moving along in the fluorescent light of the strip.

Brendan went straight back into his office and slammed the door behind him. Behind closed doors he let out a roar and swept the pile of papers from the top of the filing cabinet onto the floor. He hadn't needed reminding of those first times he had laid eyes on Steven. He had been trying so hard to forget that face, those eyes, ever since. And he had been remarkably successful in morphing that slick, nude body into someone else's; in his mind he had crowned those slim hips and ripe nipples with someone else unremarkable's face, dissociating that pert body from the perky young rep that appeared at his bar every week. Brendan was good at survival techniques.

The rage Brendan felt was partially tied up with the fact that he would never be able to erase the humiliating memory of the night Cheryl had dragged him practically kicking and screaming to that gay strip club.

So…any of them caught your eye, Bren? She had said it so mischievously as she gazed around the dim room with wide eyes. Why did he have a feeling that she had enjoyed it in there more than he had? Not that that would have been hard. He found the whole experience humiliating, and he of all people was nearly impossible to embarrass.

As if, sis. I told you, this ain't my scene.

So many hunks though, Bren. She continued to oggle the copiously lubricated, bronzed flesh parading around them. Not even him? She was staring up at a bear of a man, biceps bulging like a bodybuilder and with an obscene swelling in his thong to match. Probably muscled up to distract from the fact that he was significantly older than everyone else in the room, Brendan had noted.

Definitely not him.

No, I shoulda known you'd be after something a bit classier. I, on the other hand, have no such standards! She had positively cackled with delight.

When he had got home that night and had to put Chez to bed following all the excitement and one too many glasses of wine, he had firmly and quietly closed his bedroom door. Reclining back on the pillows in just his boxers he had flicked on his laptop and idly inserted the headphones. Although he had had no definite intentions when he lay down, it seemed inevitable what would happen next, what happened almost every night when he was alone in his apartment, though he usually didn't bother to try and conceal the sound.

He flicked up his regular porn site and began to flick through the alphabetical list of categories for something that might catch his eye. Asian, Bareback, Bear, Big Dick… No, no, no and no. None of these was what he was looking for. …Threesome, Twink…He clicked on the link without a second thought, and hit download on the first half-decent looking thumbnail that he came across. He slipped his hand inside the fabric of his pants, pulling his stiffening dick out as the video loaded. With his free hand he scrolled through the timeline to try and get to the good bits. Tonight wasn't the night for a leisurely wank. He needed instant relief, for his mind as much as his body.

Why had he chosen this one? There was a niggling feeling in Brendan's brain that there was something about the young actor on screen that seemed familiar. It wasn't until he shut his eyes as his cheap orgasm flooded over him that he made the unwanted realisation. The face on screen was just similar enough - the haircut, the hips, those butt cheeks - just close enough to allow himself for a split second the fantasy that he was seeing someone else on that screen. That smile… How the fuck was it possible that after spending a night surrounded by naked flesh and with the hardcore action taking place on the screen in front of him that when he closed his eyes it was nothing more than a smile that prompted his orgasm to take over his entire body? He did his best to bury the thought, but as he shut his eyes again and prayed for sleep to take him, his mind had continued to run over the events of the evening.

Chez had gone to the toilet and left him at the bar to get the next round of drinks in.

'I could've told her when you first walked in that those guys aren't your type,' the scrawny barman had leaned in towards Brendan as he almost whispered in his thick Mancunian accent. He must have caught their conversation.

'Is that right?'Brendan had drawled back, working out whether he should be turned on or affronted.

The young man had moved from behind the bar and was now collecting empty glasses from the table next to where Brendan was perched. Brendan had spun round to follow his movements and was now leaned back with elbows on the bar, subconsciously thrusting his groin forward. He was a predator in his natural habitat. He had grown up in bars and clubs. He had picked up more men and started more fights in these places than he cared to remember, but that didn't stop a prickle of electricity running over his skin.

This new position gave Brendan a perfect view of the lad's tight buttocks curving out from his slight frame, the slender jut of his hips, the hardly visible tufts of hair that thickened towards the waistband of the uniform briefs, his only current clothing, that the staff had to wear. He wasn't waxed to within an inch of his life, Brendan noted with approval. He was so unlike the rest of the meatheads in that place. It was disarming.

Neither man said any more, but as he moved to the next table and out of Brendan's earshot the young barman had turned around and looked at Brendan over his bare shoulder, catching the older man's shameless gaze and clearing enjoying every moment of it. Despite his youthful face and air of innocence, the look on his face was filthy, a knowing stare through thick black lashes that said not only I know exactly what's your type but undressed Brendan as he stood there, as though he could see the hot, bare skin prickling with the faintest trace of sweat beneath his clothes. It was a look that instinctively told Brendan that this guy knew exactly how Brendan wanted him to take it, what those hands gripping those glasses could do to him, what it would feel like to press flesh onto flesh in the heat of the moment. It was almost enough to get Brendan hard, just looking at him. But Brendan hadn't expected it to be that same glance that would cut into his brain and push him over the edge of a searing orgasm just a few hours later as his dick throbbed in his hand and hot drops of come splattered across his fingers and stomach.

The relief of the accumulated pressure was enough to send him straight to sleep.