When you really want something you have to work at it. Orchestrate. I'm the master composer of this story; I'm turning the cogs. Steven's love for my brother was – is – stubborn and obsessive. They'd leave a trail of corpses to be together. They have. But then so would I. I guess the Brady blood we share is thicker than I thought. Violent and brutal. It's why I had to butcher dear old Brendan.

Steven wasn't going to slip quietly into my grasp – I had to work on him. Comfort him, touch him, be in his thoughts. There was a danger of acting too soon and losing him, but I had a plan for that too. I wasn't going to give him much choice in the matter.

::

"I don't know what I was thinking," Ste said, throwing his hands across his face and slumping back down on the wall. How could he have kissed Diarmuid? He considered backing away, running away and hiding his shame but Diarmuid was equally as apologetic.

"Fuck. I'm sorry," Diarmuid said, touching his lips and bowing his head. He eased away from the wall. "I'll leave you to – er…"

Ste's chest hammered and he still had tears slugging down his cheeks but being alone felt too terrifying when he was awake. Guilt consumed him but he let Diarmuid make the excuses for him, retreating into a hunched position and tugging at the sleeves of his mourning suit. He remembered Lynsey's funeral years ago, a lifetime, and how Brendan's grief had manifested into anger and the need to be close to someone. Ever since Ste could remember he'd longed to feel looked after and loved. He knew on the shrink's couch he'd put it down to childhood and a lack of a loving stable family but in truth nothing could fill that emptiness. Not quite. Not until Brendan. It felt as if his whole life had been waiting for him. It seemed cheesy – the made for each other phrase was overused and tired – but he couldn't think of it in any other way. Brendan made him complete. They made each other whole. Without that they'd both spent years masking their emptiness with people the wrong fit.

"Don't go," Ste said, his voice just louder than the crickets buzzing in the gardens. "You're the closest I've got to him left."

Diarmuid's voice didn't change in the darkness and he moved closer, sitting beside Ste again. Despite the kiss, Ste felt it was understood – just a moment of madness - and leaned onto Diarmuid's body for support, clutching onto his suit and letting soft cries be muffled into him. Diarmuid's caressed the back of his neck, smooth and steady. He felt safer than he'd felt in months.

Later they had dinner together in an overly large dining hall. It felt ridiculous just the two of them there overlooked by paintings of all the potentates in history with their glassy eyes. Ste's eyes were sore and bloodshot like a battleground and he was quietly thankful for the room's dimmed lighting. He sat opposite Diarmuid, both of them with their funeral jackets and ties discarded and shirt sleeves rolled up as they chased food around their plates. It all tasted metallic to Ste after so long being medicated.

"I didn't think you'd be bi," Ste said when they were alone. The mystery of Diarmuid's sexuality had resurfaced now that his misery had settled. It felt like blood in the system; the grief was constant – he knew it was there – but he couldn't feel its journey.

Diarmuid's mouth lifted and he slotted his fingers together. "What, you thought there could only be one in every generation?"

Ste blushed, shrugging in his ignorance. He sipped at the wine to his right even though he knew it was bad to mix. His dreams might be worse – more vivid – but they might let him hold onto Brendan too if he was lucky.

"I thought you might have noticed when we first met." He fixed him with his gaze.

"I thought you were with Marianna?" Their first meeting came flooding back to him – Diarmuid's sharp, small eyes following him around the room, drinking him in. There were his comments too about being beyond a wife, the incident with the lad from the press office.

"I was," Diarmuid said reaching over to top up Ste's glass, "but I was with the nineteen year old intern too. You've not met him." Diarmuid's tone and the way he acknowledged his promiscuity with a jovial wink at Ste eased the tension in the air if only for a moment. Diarmuid's laughter warmed the room in a sickly ringing sound. Ste smiled briefly. Diarmuid continued, between sips of wine. "I enjoy people. Company. Intimacy. Pleasure. Sex. We all do, don't we?"

Ste nodded, his head barely moving. His thoughts drifted back to Brendan. He stopped eating, folding his knife and fork together.

"What about love, though?" He scratched at his skin, fidgeting in his seat. He felt under pressure again, under the weight of sadness and wanted to escape.

"Love is painful," Diarmuid said and then reached across the table to touch Ste's hand in an acknowledgement of his loss, "but I'm not against it. In fact…I want it."

Ste had spent almost twenty one years of his life believing he'd worked out what love was. He'd known Pauline and Terry hadn't given it to him and what he'd had from fleeting girlfriends like Theresa McQueen hadn't been it, but Amy and the kids – that had been love. The closest he felt to it. Meeting Brendan had turned that upside down – then he really knew. He'd had every heart-stopping, painful, beautiful unconditional moment of it.

Diarmuid's thumb passed over Ste's knuckles and at the same time Ste cleared his throat and pushed his plate away interrupting the silence.

"Thanks for dinner. I needed that. It was good." Ste was aware his sentences were awkward and overly formal and he felt light headed from the wine. "I should really get going back to my room."

Diarmuid straightened himself up and gestured to the wine. "There's still a glass left if you want to help me finish it."

"No you're alright. I've had enough. Probably not a good idea anyway, what with the pills n'that. Don't want to be knocked out." He made light of it, but he'd rarely been conscious the last six months.

Diarmuid smiled faintly. "No, you don't." He threw back the remains of his glass into his mouth, leaving his lips wet. "Let me escort you back."

Ste stood and shifted on his feet. "You know I think it's probably better if I go on my own. Like, alone." He was thinking about the kiss - the heat of it - he felt vulnerable and he didn't want Diarmuid to get the wrong idea, didn't want to use him. His grief was fragile too.

"I wasn't trying to take advantage earlier. If that's what you're worried about." There was an edge to his voice, an accusation that only served to make Ste feel guiltier.

He tried to laugh it off, squeeze out a smile. "Nah, nah I know. It ain't that."

"Good," Diarmuid said standing up and dwarfing Ste's height, "because it was just a moment of comfort. I needed it. You needed it. You mustn't avoid comfort because you feel guilty."

Comfort was a shoulder to cry on or a warm bodied hug, soothing words, company to break up the loneliness. Ste swallowed the knot in his throat. That wasn't the way he remembered the kiss but his memory lately had been like trying to sieve treacle. Maybe he was getting confused; perhaps he'd be lost in his visions of Brendan and the kiss had been innocent after all. Yet if he could drag his mind back to it he could have sworn a feeling of sex pulsed behind the kiss.

Diarmuid's hand rested on his shoulder and the free hand cupped the side of Ste's cheek. He was very hands on with everyone, not just the staff he was sleeping with. Diarmuid's heavily shadowed face was hard to read. He kissed the side of Ste's forehead paternally and wished him goodnight.

:: ::

Disturbances ripped Ste from sleep twice in the night; one the fever of a wet dream and then much later when he'd lulled himself back to sleep, a loud and desperate knocking on the door of his room.

He dreamt of sex. The type of sex he hadn't had in a long time. Not the type of entwined intimate sex of a couple that have been together so long that the rhythms and lusts are like well-driven roads; not the sex which wakes him in the morning and leaves him burying under the covers with his mouth to satisfy his hunger; not the kind where he takes charge or plays at submission when Brendan's fired up and cavemen about things. No. New sex. First time virgin territory. Fear and nerves and discomfort and uncertainty about pace and position and protection and head face down into the bed submission. Speechless and awed. Utterly surrendered.

The dream had been like watching his first time with Brendan as a movie, but more vivid - reliving it all over again. Not their frenzied encounter in the cellar of the club where Ste came too fast and had the taste of Brendan's cock in his mouth for the first time. No, they were in the village, on Ste's old bed with the flowery wallpaper peeling behind them, the stringy net curtains throwing mottled light onto their naked bodies. Brendan arched above him, his thighs open, pinning Ste to the bed. His sexuality felt threatening. Ste hadn't seen him like this: uncaged. He'd wanted to gabble but Brendan had shushed him with his mouth, fisting his cock in a way that made Ste's head scream. He broke away from the kiss with nervous laughter and Brendan's mouth disappeared to kiss his inner thighs. With his moustache it was ticklish anyway but no girl had ever cared to do something like this. He felt special.

"You're going to enjoy this, Steven," Brendan had said in a way that made Ste believe it. His mouth hung open and he felt just about brave enough to reach out and touch Brendan on the shoulders.

The dream diverted from reality then. Because in the dream Brendan didn't lift up Ste's legs and tease his finger around the hole. In the dream he didn't keep eye contact and keep checking Ste liked it, or find condoms and lube. In the dream Ste didn't get to see Brendan's irises melt and his face shudder when he entered Ste for the first time.

In the dream, Brendan flipped him onto his front and buried his rough mouth between his cheeks, tonguing him open and not waiting for even so much as a breath from Ste before he was deep inside him, pounding him into the bed. With Ste's head turned and the back of his head stroked over and over in time with Brendan's thrusts, Ste could only just make out the shadowy form of Brendan behind him, fucking the virgin out of him. He took charge of Ste's body, pulling him up onto all fours. All his words were a blur and Ste's cries were nothing more than jibberish and snatched breaths. Brendan came and Ste found himself falling flat on the bed, eyes closed and body ringing. He was pulled onto his back and finished off, deep at the back of his lover's throat.

When he came he opened his eyes and the man who looked triumphantly straight into his eyes, the man wiping his mouth wasn't Brendan at all. It was Diarmuid.

Ste was thrown straight into consciousness and woke up, skin prickled with sweat and the bed sheets stuck to him. He reasoned with himself – the kiss, the wine, the day's entanglement of Brendan with Diarmuid. He bundled the bed clothes in the wash basket and slumped on the edge of the bath making himself sob and retch with the guilt and grief before eventually crawling back to bed with exhaustion.

Hours later he was woken again with the door thudding in the frame. His heartbeat raced to match up to the speed of the knocking and he ran to the door.

Diarmuid answered looking dishevelled but dressed. The atmosphere of the building told Ste it must have been the early hours and to wake him like this something serious had happened. He searched his face for answers.

"What is it? What's wrong?"

Diarmuid clutched at him, inhaling labouredly. "It's the kids, Steven. Someone's taken the kids."

Ste staggered backwards, the world feeling light and shaky around him. He stumbled around for something to hold onto and Diarmuid was there, holding out his arms ready to catch him. His screams of no blurred into one pained sound until desperation tugged at him and he begged Diarmuid for answers.

"I'm going to find them, Steven. I'll make sure of it. I promise you. I'm going to find them myself. And whoever did this will pay." An assistant stood nearby and handed Diarmuid his coat.

"The car's waiting, Mr Brady," the assistant said.

Diarmuid pressed his mouth to Ste's forehead, combing back his hair. "Steven I promise you, okay? The kids are going to be fine. We've got everyone searching. We will find them." He took Ste's face in his hands, holding him firmly. "Look at me. I promise you."

Ste was limp as Diarmuid handed him over to his assistant and instructed her: "Don't let him leave your sight and don't let him do anything stupid."

Diarmuid had everything ready to leave in his mission to find the kids as Ste called out to him.

"Diarmuid!" he said, hysterical. "Please…please."

:: ::

At Ste's angered insistence, Diarmuid's assistant let him watch the news in the room. Ste remembered that Brendan stopped listening to Isle News once Diarmuid took over saying the stations had started covering things up, had started twisting things.

"The news ain't news now," Brendan had said once he'd turned off the TV over dinner. "It's what they want you to know. They tell you what makes Diarmuid look good. That ain't the truth."

Ste sat alert watching the news unfold, the live ticker tape detailing his children's kidnap and the reporters pulling concerned faces as they updated the audience.

"The two children – Leah and Lucas Hay – are believed to have been taken from the potentate's estate at three o'clock this morning and discovered missing by the nanny an hour later. The children are the offspring of Steven Hay the widower of terrorist Brendan Brady, who died after starting conflict with The East. Earlier this year Brendan Brady, the half-brother of Diarmuid Brady, had his estate burnt down in a retaliation attack. It is believed that Mr Hay's children have been taken as further punishment for the terrorist actions of Brendan Brady. Rumours are circulating that attempts to take Mr Hay's life were thwarted by the potentate's security force in recent months."

Ste could barely process what they were saying and the way they were talking about Brendan made him feel sick. He sat for a while in the bathroom, gagging on bile as the assistant rapped softly on the door asking if he was okay. He was washing his face, choking through sobs when he heard her voice cry out through the door.

"They're safe! Ste! The kids! They're safe!"

Ste tore out of the bathroom to watch the news unfold. It was like watching somebody else's tragedy. His children came into focus, sleepy and confused by unharmed. In Diarmuid's arms. Diarmuid himself looked bloody and beaten but he was shielding the children like they were his own. The press leapt on him immediately, grilling him for answers.

"The children need to get home to bed and to see their father. I'm just relieved they're safe and well."

"Mr Brady, what was your involvement? You look shaken."

"I did what needed to be done. There was a scuffle, but I rescued these angels, that's all that matters."

"That sounds heroic."

"I'm not a hero. I'm just looking out for my family. Protecting them at all costs."

"That must be especially important now after the betrayal of your brother-"

"-let me get the children home and you can interview me in the morning."

With that, Diarmuid was packed into a car and the reports were summarised back in the TV studios. Ste's breathing was ragged and he sat on the edge of the bed, adrenaline making him shake. An hour later when Diarmuid and the children came rushing through his door, Ste held his kids and never wanted to let go.

Diarmuid had his staff set up camp beds in Ste's bedroom and security on the door at all times. He stood in the doorway, fresh cuts bleeding onto his shirt and darkness pooling under his eyes. Ste clung to him, crying with relief.

"Thank you," he said, trembling. "Thank you."

Diarmuid stroked the back of his neck, shushing him like a child. He winced as Ste's arms tightened around him. "Shit, sorry," Ste said, pulling away, "are you okay?"

His face crumpled a little and he raised his shirt to show Ste a whole map of bruises on his torso. "I'll live. I'm just glad your babies are safe."

"I don't know how to repay you."

He shook his head gently, holding Ste's head in his hands. His fingers were rough with scraped skin. "You don't need to."

Ste could feel himself crumbling again. "Everything they were saying on the news…"

Diarmuid put a solid arm around Ste's shoulders and guided him into one of the smaller rooms connected to Ste's bedroom. The kids had crashed out as soon as they'd got into bed but there were still people milling around trying to sort out security and press issues. There was a small bar where Diarmuid took Ste and he poured them both a drink before nodding at Ste to sit on the couch.

"Eighty seven," Diarmuid said.

It seemed unconnected to anything and Ste's brow fell, waiting for an answer.

"That's how many attempts on your life we've stopped this month. Eighty seven threats." He spoke plainly. Ste found it cold almost, business like. It was like he didn't want to scare Ste but chill him enough that he'd take notice. "In their eyes you're the husband of a terrorist. They want you dead, Steven. They want your kiddies slaughtered. They want repayment. Revenge."

Ste said nothing – what could he say? He'd been dragged into a world he didn't even know existed.

"I'm struggling to keep you all safe," Diarmuid said, head bowed, his voice a gruff whisper. "I can't lose you too."

"But…you can't keep me safe? My kids?!"

Diarmuid ran a hand through his thick hair. It looked like he was sitting on his words, choosing his answer – battling with himself to speak. "I can. I know how."

Ste's voice fluctuated, indignant. "Well why don't you then?!"

"Steven, for me to truly keep you safe, to give you the ultimate protection. To make sure something like this never happens again…" Diarmuid breathed in deeply and placed his hand on top of Ste's, "You have to marry me."

:: ::

Of course no one was interested in Steven Hay or his children. Or even Brendan for that matter. Insignificant. There were no death threats, arson attacks or kidnaps. The press called Brendan a terrorist because I told them to. The kids were kidnapped because I paid for them to be. The house was burnt down because I ordered it. My big rescue attempt? A set up. I knew where the kids were. The injuries were authentic but then I needed him to see me as a hero. His big, strong saviour. He believed everything I told him. He fell for my lies and it was only a matter of time before he fell for me.