CHAPTER NINE: 2020 – Brendan

AN: This is a pretty long one!

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He was too late.

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Brendan was pissed. More than pissed. He was ready to kick somebody's fucking head in right now, and he knew exactly who's fucking head that would be.

"Where is he?" he snarled.

Leo just laughed back at him and Brendan bit down hard on the back of his gums. Bouncing off the fucking walls, naturally. He could smell flesh in the air before it even happened. Well, Brendan wasn't in the mood for Leo's shits and giggles.

"I said where the fuck is he, Leo!" It wasn't a question anymore. Brendan was pissed with Leo too. He was meant to be the one that kept this shit off Brendan's radar, that dealt with it quickly and cleaned up the mess after.

But it was on Brendan's radar now.

"Through here, boss," Leo gave him, cheeky bollocks, fucking regal wave to guide him through the hardware store to the pokey room at the back where your man was sat. Crying, for Jesus's sake. Crying. Were there no fucking men left in the world?

"Why are you crying, Jim?" Brendan asked, teeth clenched as tight as his fists as he drank in the floored eyes and face already swelling from the fight getting him here. He'd be curled up into the fucking foetal position if his arms weren't reefed behind him by the handcuffs. "Aw, is it because you're ginger? Are ye afraid the girls won't fancy ye?"

Leo was practically jumping up and down now, loving this, Bishop Brady going to work like the good ol' days. Brendan wanted to give him a sock in the fucking stomach, but he held back.

"Ye know, Jimmy, there's all sorts of hair products available nowadays," he continued, raising his hand to scratch a finger to his moustache, letting the snivelling cunt get a glimpse of the Colt45 in it. "Just coz you're born a ginge minge doesn't mean ye need to stay that way."

He moved as he spoke and bent down, nose to nose with the quivering runt, forcing those shit-brown eyes to look at the throbbing vein in his temple, smell the sweat on his forehead.

"Course, the girls, they'll find out when they look down, won't they?" he breathed, jerking the barrel of the gun into his crotch so he bucked.

"No, Brendan, please!" Course, he found his voice now. Once the family jewels were in danger. Brendan smirked. "I swear, Brendan–" his tongue darted out, wetting his lips to help him beg "–I swear, man, it wasn't me took that money."

"Doesn't really matter, kid," Brendan shrugged, pushing the gun harder into his balls. "You were looking after it. It goes missing, it's on you!"

"Please…" It was whimpering now. Enough to make Brendan wrinkle up his nose. He lifted the gun and smacked it hard against the kid's skull, drawing blood and dazing him enough to shut up that fucking tirade of whinging for a second or two. And if felt good. He lifted his hand again and slammed it onto the same spot, knocking his head sideways. Fuck yeah. Again, he lifted and he slammed and the head rolled. Again…

Brendan became vaguely aware of a vibration suddenly. His phone. He paused, hand and gun mid-air, fishing it out.

"DECLAN CALLING…"

Huh.

"Here," he said to Leo, shoving the gun into his hand as he spun on the spot. "Gotta take this." A glance towards his right-hand-man before he strode out into the shop and slammed the windowed door behind him. Cold, calculating eyes trying to figure out who was calling. Brendan met them with a poker face and nodded towards the reeling scobe. "Don't kill him."

He let a second pass by, slowing his heart rate, dissipating the adrenaline. Then he answered.

"Declan!" he said, voice forced.

He still couldn't get used to this. Two years and he couldn't get used to that weird jolt in his stomach when he heard his son's voice, coated in that iridescent hope. Messed up.

"Hey Da!" Declan had got used to it right away. Or was good at faking it. "You busy?"

"Ah, no, not really," Brendan answered, eyes watching through the frosted glass in the door as Leo's hazy outline started focusing fists on the stomach, slamming them rhythmically until the kid was straining against the cuffs to bend double. "Just a work meeting."

"Right, yeah." Declan didn't pry. "Listen, I was wondering if you'd be free on Saturday for dinner maybe?"

Brendan felt his stomach flutter. What the fuck was wrong with him? Palpitations because his son wanted to eat dinner with him?

"Yeah, yeah, sounds good…" he started, but Declan interrupted.

"Aunty Cheryl is going to come too."

Brendan couldn't say anything then, no matter how much practice he'd had forcing his voice with Declan. Cheryl. Jesus. Every time he saw her face in his mind it was twisted into that screaming horror, a bloody Halloween mask from nine years ago. When she found him over Mick's body. And that was back when murder still meant something. Back when he actually knew the names of the people he killed. He was watching Leo's outline, now back at the face, shiny slick red covering pasty skin and Leo's right hand covered in both. Would she see it, Cheryl? Would she look at his face and just know that he didn't deserve one drop of the forgiveness he wanted nine years ago? He licked his lips and dragged in a breath. He knew the answer.

"Right, I see, grand," he finally found his voice, thick and mangled and nine years heavy. Cheryl. That screaming judgement. He couldn't look at it again. "Actually Declan, this Saturday, it's not good for me. Work thing, can't get out of it. I'll have to go now, son. Gotta get back to this meeting."

He'd have his Judgement Day eventually, and he'd be truly fucked then. Why bother with the preview?

"But…" Declan was saying.

Brendan hung up on him. He didn't give himself a second for any wiry little thoughts to muscle their way into consciousness then, just reefed open the heavy door, roared inside and seized an arm to drag it upwards, cuffs and chair and all, right up to his face so he could almost taste the tangy metal of the blood covering the half-conscious head.

"GET ME MY FUCKING MONEY! ROB A BANK, PIMP OUT YOUR SLUT OF A GIRLFRIEND, I DON'T GIVE A SHIT! JUST GET ME MY FUCKING MONEY, YOU GINGER CUNT!"

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"We're gonna need at least two outside, man," Leo was saying, low urgent tones soothing Brendan's nerves. He preferred Leo like this, quiet and calm and ruthlessly planning. None of that giddy heat-of-the-moment bullshit. His grey eyes were bright but that grimy sheen of excited sweat was missing, the weird battle-fuelled adrenaline that made him and Brendan do stupid things.

"Me and Banner can do it," a voice growled from the corner. Brendan's eyes flickered to him, face unmoving. Mattie. Quiet. Forgettable. But a long scar running from under his eyelid to his jaw that said to Brendan he forgot nothing.

"Naw, Banner can, but I'll need you with me," Leo shook his head. Brendan trained his gaze on Mattie, gauging the reaction. A second's widening eyes, then back to stone. That was what promotion felt like, son.

Brendan fingered the whiskey glass on the table in front of him as he listened, hearing Leo pouring Brendan's plan into the eager ears of the top ranks. He let Leo do the talking, mostly. Orchestrated at first – the less he spoke, the more impact when he did – but by now it was as natural the rain and the clouds. He sat and listened and watched and knew before anything happened which one was going to snort a few lines on the job and which one was going to tell his mot the whole story and which one was going to fuck it all up. Like that ginger muppet.

"The Bishop needs this one to go well, lads," Leo was saying, voice grave but Brendan could almost see the fucking smirk around his lips. Leo loved that one. It was a Sunday morning it appeared in the paper, a fuzzy shot of him walking out of Sunday Mass and the caption "Bishop Brady: drug lord prays as two more die in gangland feud". Brendan had been livid, ready to find that bollocks of a photographer and make him say some fucking prayers, but Leo had been all over it with a big sloppy grin smacked on that deadly face. Publicity, he called it. Glory.

"Your name's at every fuckin' breakfast table, man, and don't worry, they got nothing on ye that'll stick."

Yeah, yeah, all fun and games for Leo. Brendan didn't want his name at every fucking breakfast table. Some of those breakfast tables belonged to people he knew. Used to know.

It faded out of the papers as soon as it faded in. He kept things dull as drying paint for a few months. And he stopped going to fucking Mass. What was the point, anyway? But Leo kept it up, using it to fuel the fear. Brendan unintentionally helped him along, his reckless couldn't-give-a-fuck approach to everything that left them all thinking there was something unhinged there – where was the greed? Where was the lust? Where was the hungry struggle for control?

Turned out, nothing frightened other men more than a man who didn't give a shit what happened to him. Ironic, really. Fourteen years of struggling for dominance, desperate to be kingpin, and when he quit giving a flying fuck suddenly the world bowed down. Bishop Brady, it said.

Still, Brendan didn't like the name. His furtive eyes were still watching Leo's newest next-in-line. He was thin. Everything about him. Long, thin face. Hard, thin mouth. Hunched, thin shoulders. Someone who'd spent his life foraging for scraps. Not impressed by "Bishop". Good.

There was someone banging on the shop door, loud and unapologetic. Leo fell silent. Brendan tensed. Seven faces leaning over the round table turned to him.

"Bren?" Leo asked, and Brendan could hear the dribble of worry in it. It almost made him smile, that sloppy little fear.

"It's your shop, mate," he retaliated, shrugging back in his chair. Leo hesitated a minute then heaved himself up to stride out into the dusty store. Brendan stayed reclined, but gave the steely bulge at his waistband a calculated stroke and knew that seven heads were seeing him do it and getting the message: this interruption was unexpected. Be ready.

He could hear Leo rattling with locks and bolts, could imagine them slipping a little bit on that awkward one at the top, and he let his hand trail up underneath his shirt so his fingers grazed the cold metal of the trigger.

"We're closed," he heard, gruff and barking and knew that fangs were being shown with the words. Enough to make some pleb change their mind about buying that tin of fucking paint after all.

"I'm… I'm looking for Brendan Brady, d'ye know him?"

Brendan knew that voice.

Fuck.

He was out of his chair and in that shop so fast he must have left a trail of fucking dust behind him. The back of Leo's head, hanging out the door into the darkening evening, obscuring the intruder from Brendan's view. Drinking in all the details, Brendan knew.

"Deccy!" he snapped, pushing roughly past Leo to the dirty blond hair and light eyes and sheepish grin. "What the fu… what are ye doing here?"

Fuck.

Seven filthy hands stroking seven hidden weapons a few metres behind him. Who cared why he was here, he needed to get the hell away.

Declan was opening his mouth but Brendan's hand was flat in the middle of his chest pushing him backwards into the street, throwing his weight into it as well so the two of them toppled out.

He could feel Leo behind him, those dead grey eyes peering over his shoulder to see the boy.

"All okay Bren?" he asked, innocent as the fucking Milky Bar kid, raking over Brendan's son like he was a sweet to be unwrapped. "What ye got here, then?"

"Fuck off, Leo," he said, low and menacing, as if the bolstered threat was ever going to work.

"Well, we can't go on without the Bishop, can we?" Leo slid Brendan's growl off his back easily, wet gaze still slithering over Declan. "Don't tell me you're mixing a bit of business and pleasure, Bren? You like 'em young, don't ye?"

Brendan's whole body was trembling now and if Declan wasn't there, Leo'd be floored right now, choking up at him like he had from the ground of that fucking shed. Instead he stepped up to the cocky prick, chest to chest, peering down, and breathed onto him.

"Leonard, get the fuck back into that room if you want to be around in another ten minutes."

He got the intent this time. Leo was a smart shit, after all. He was gone, hands up in surrender, slinking back inside with "okay, okay, take your time – I'll run over the details with the lads" and Brendan could feel his pulse slowing now the immediate danger was gone, but fuck, Leo must know now. Nine years of watching Brendan being afraid of fucking nothing and now he'd know it was a lie. He was a smart shit, after all.

"Who was that?" Declan was giving it, but Brendan just needed to get them the hell away from there now and was barrelling him across the street and tripping over his own feet and Declan's as they made towards the canal and trying not to think about the trip he'd made down this street with Leo a few hours ago, Jim's unconscious weight bundled between them making him all hot and bothered and knowing that he'd fuck him when he got back to the store.

"Why are you here, Declan?" Brendan asked when he finally felt the silence of the canal around them. Sharper than he meant it but not even close to sharp enough.

Declan dropped his gaze.

"Well, uh, we got cut off earlier…" He was shifting from one leg to the other. Nervous. "I just thought maybe you'd had a chance to think about Saturday?"

Again that stupid stomach flip. Jesus. But then, maybe that was because his son had just been one crummy store length away from seven murdering bastards. And was still face-to-face with one.

"I can't come, Declan, I told ye."

"Why don't you want to see her, Da? She's ready to talk, y'know. Meet her half way. Please."

Talk. What a bloody joke. About what, the last nine years? It was better leave her thinking he was a monster than let her see he was the actual fucking Devil. He just shook his head and watched the swans waddling awkwardly around the grassy banks.

"You're a coward, Da," Declan said suddenly, and Brendan was so taken aback by it, by the sheer fucking truth of the words, that he laughed out loud.

"Yeah," he agreed. Absolutely spot on. Bullseye. And Declan didn't know the half of it. "Why d'ye say that?"

"Because you're afraid to meet her, aren't ye?" he accused.

Brendan sighed, mirth leaking rapidly away, and suddenly the whole thing just felt too heavy. He didn't even know why he went to that fucking funeral. What did he expect to see? Some strange parallel existence floating above the chapel like a cloud? Some alternate world where Brendan wasn't diseased by what had been done to a little boy, where he hadn't rolled himself in dirt for twenty years until his mind became the black filthy place it was in this one? He saw nothing. He felt nothing. Just sat, squeezed into the back row of the little church, watching the faceless box bob its way down the aisle, and it was just a meagre pointless end to a story that he knew so well it bored him to tears, a story that had been over since the first day Nana and Cheryl had gone into town for an afternoon's shopping and left him at home with that man. Even Cheryl's noisy sobs or the sight of Declan's broad shoulders and earnest, serious face couldn't muster any flicker of emotion. As soon as the throng started towards the exit, he slipped through the side door and started back towards his zombie existence to wade through day after day 'til the finish.

The next moments had seemed like a dream. Declan, his face round and eager and hopeful. How was there hope in those eyes? Brendan was mesmerised. Heart-dead slaughtering zombie, cowed and stumbling over sentences at the feet of his own son. I was afraid, he told him. And then Declan told him who had built the protective little wall around his son's hope. Stephen. Brendan's heart, asleep for nine years, stuttered back to life.

But now… Now it was too much, too heavy. Declan was saved, and Brendan was so glad, but that was as far as this could go. Declan shouldn't be yanking on his collar like this, trying to pull him out of the brine.

"There's no point, Declan," he said, trying to push the yanking hands away. "All the stuff that made her hate me, it's still there. It's worse."

Declan shook his head. Unbelievable. Wouldn't let Brendan just sink into the cesspit he'd been falling through for nine fucking years.

"No, Da, you're a good man," he banged on. This again. This stupid made-up story. A ripple of irritation ran across Brendan's shoulders. "I know you don't believe it. But we do, me and Ste–"

A flash of anger now.

"Shut the fuck up about Stephen, Declan," he was barking, half-subconscious the way he stepped forward and got up in his face. "The two of you, great pals… You know fuck all about him, ye hear me?"

But Declan wasn't a kid now. He was a man, and he was ballsy, and he squared up to Brendan's pushing stance and the swans ruffled a little bit like they were watching. Declan's voice was hard and unafraid.

"I know he left Doug."

Again, unwantedly, Brendan's heart stuttered a few ragged beats. What? When? No, that couldn't be right. It couldn't be right because Brendan had a copy of the Chester Gazette under his mattress from three months ago with Stephen and Douglas smiling out from page seven holding a "Small Business of the Year" award between them. They'd expanded, apparently. Opened a Manchester branch. Brendan had spent a lot of hours staring at page seven and eventually had stuffed it under his bed like a fucking teenage girl because he… Because, well, he just had.

"No he didn't!" he snapped at his son, but his voice was diluted now. This couldn't be right. Could it? The whole thing was so fucking heavy he just wanted to fall down under it, to slide away on his belly and roll in the dirt that he was used to. Why did he even go to that funeral? Even as a dead man his Da could drag a fucking rake across his soul.

"He did." Declan's voice was clear and confident and deadly. "Years ago. Before Aunty Cheryl moved back home. Doug came to see her, really upset, and told her it'd all been pretending. He asked Ste to marry him, see, and he said he couldn't… Just in case."

Brendan was gone after that. A split second, a half breath, and the face pushed up against his son had disappeared and he was legging it back to those seven men with their hard thin faces and their seven guns. Back to where he was safe. Because all this shit, it was just too fucking heavy.

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Back in the pokey room behind the empty hardware store, Brendan had tried to watch and listen and figure out who'd be fucking up and in what way, but his heart kept stuttering some weird forgotten disjointed rhythm and his mind kept floating to a fluorescent orange café three miles north of Southport. It was three am and nine years ago but suddenly Brendan could see it all clear as fucking day. That was the moment. Not staring at a shitty coffin, sighing end to his fucking tragic riot. The parallel existence, it was above that café, it was that night, it had been close enough to close trembling fingers around and he had balked. He had looked at total-fucking-blindsiding salvation that night and had been terrified by its purity and goodness and what his filth would do to it, so he bolted. But that was it. That was his chance.

Leo was still giving it with gusto, telling the boys with their tongues hanging out for his bullshit what the Bishop wanted, but all he could hear was that voice, through chattering salty lips, moonlight glancing on the sharp smooth angles and bronze skin of the naked boy who owned it: "Then I'll take care of you".

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Leo wasn't happy. Like Brendan gave two shits. The sales patter came out: run a fucking nightclub, was he serious? He'd miss it, Leo assured him, he'd miss the buzz of all this. Yeah, maybe Leo would miss the buzz of being inside man to the Bishop, but that wasn't Brendan's problem. Why? Leo kept asking that too, eyes narrowed in calculating suspicion and Brendan was wary of those eyes. The less Leo knew the better. Brendan was bowing out, that was it. End of story.

And Joel was too happy. The kid's face actually lit up like it was fucking Christmas morning when Brendan sauntered into that office. Then he caught himself, frowned and grunted and offered him a whiskey. Brendan obliged, sat and drank with the kid and noticed the way he knocked it back fast and drummed his fingers on the bar in some weird show to distract from what was going on in his face. It was subtle as hell, a skittish flicker of the eyes, but Brendan caught it because it was like looking at a fucking home video of himself from ten years ago – all bravado and not-giving-a-shit and checking to make sure people didn't think you cared what they thought.

He couldn't bite back the stupid grin, though, when Brendan told him he wanted back in. That was different. Joel had something breathing light into him, even if his eyes were screaming with Mick – a murder that meant something, a name he remembered. Partners, Joel had said and Brendan shrugged. Whatever stories the kid wanted to invent in his head.

He didn't go near the deli. Didn't know what to do with it. Fucking stupid, really. It was his whole reason for coming back to this puny village, to this dingy club. And now he was close enough to touch and he was just clueless and fearful and impotent.

Instead, he watched. He stood on the metal balcony of his old fortress and watched. Maybe all he needed was a glimpse, or a tiny flicker of the voice carried to him on the wind, and he'd know what to do. Or maybe he just wanted to see the response. The curl of that mouth, up or down, when he clocked Brendan standing there in the sky. See what whirred through his brain, splayed all across the open face. Know where the cards lay before any bets were placed. Brendan was a fucking coward, after all.

But a week of watching drained away and nothing. Then another. And another. Brendan saw that little runty Yank sauntering in and out like an entrepreneurial dick, chatting and waving and turning fucking beetroot when he looked up at the club – that was one little satisfaction in the first nothing week – but always alone. He watched the streets, combed and raked and bent his line of vision into every hole and corner, but nothing stretched on. Joel was irritating him already, always dragging him away from his sentry post to explain the suppliers list, or the novelty nights, or the staff rota for the nightclub that hadn't changed at all in nine goddamn years. Oh, and a bit extra going on at the side, he'd said with a smug little grin and pulled a half fucking kilo of heroin out of a drawer. Brendan had actually laughed in his idiot face at that before he stalked back outside to the balcony.

By the end of three weeks, he was frayed. Nerves loose and hanging, mouth acid from so much whiskey, seeing ghosts and phantoms and even in his waking hours was living those fucking dreams. He was frayed and whipped and feeling naked under the confused suspicion in Joel's eyes and every shocked shitty face looking up at him from the street and suddenly he was fucking angry as hell and wasn't going to take this no more.

"Douglas!" he was trying to say it friendly, cheery, stark against the blue-green door he'd just slammed open with his fist.

Doug was white. Like the crash of the door made him drop a bag of flour on the ground and the dust had jumped all over him. Brendan would have loved it if the tension wasn't coiled so tightly in his chest that it hurt.

"Been a long time, Dougie-boy," Brendan was drawling, letting his shoulders settle into it. Three weeks of frustration had them knotted to rock. "My, my, you've grown. And is that a new haircut et cetera?"

Doug didn't even speak, just put his big juicy lips together and swallowed and Brendan wanted to laugh because he could actually taste the apprehension and he'd spent so much time around scumbags now that he'd almost forgotten how normal people acted when you shoved their faces in it.

"Me? I'm good, good. Thanks for asking," he continued, moving further into the shop now. God, this felt familiar. He was almost waiting for the head to poke up behind the hatch with some pathetic quip and a scowl that didn't make it all the way to the eyes. Fucking hell. "Been here, been there. Little of this, lot of that."

"He's not here," Doug spoke suddenly. He'd been backing up as Brendan advanced, like he didn't trust the counter and the cash register to stop the man closing in on him. He was right about that.

"Yeah," Brendan remarked, pressing his mouth thin and small and impatient. Small-talk done. "Where is he?"

It was constructed, the impatience. Brendan used it like a cloak, wrapping it around himself as he tucked his fingers into his chest, tight arm-fold around the lungs that weren't moving because they were holding a breath in. Balancing on a pin.

"Why do you want to know?" came the smart-ass reply, bloody DOUCHEBAG American, so Brendan was around that fucking counter in a second and had the loser's chin swallowed in the palm of his hand, forcing his forehead into the spotless glass of the display.

"Where is he, Douglas?" he was hissing and he hadn't planned on doing it this way but it'd been three long fucking weeks and nine long fucking years and he just wanted a straight fucking answer to a straight fucking question.

"Why do you want to know?" He said it again, shaky voice and choking a bit against Brendan's grip, but something defiant mixed in with it. "So you can smash him up a bit more?"

"Douglas," he was warning but it was drowned out by the pinned man.

"You fucking smashed him apart, Brendan. I know. I was here. I picked up the goddamn pieces and tried to put him together again."

Tried? Brendan's grip slackened a bit. What did he mean, tried? And now those stupid half-sleeping dreams that he'd woken with for the last nine years were squirming into his wide-awake brain again, like they had been all week. A warm, panting body throbbing its pulse against Brendan's slow, writhing jerks, filling him up.

"So what, could you sense it, you unbelievable dick?" the American was spitting, words fogging up the spotless glass and wafting in through the distant moans bubbling in Brendan's head as hands wrapped around his hips and pulled him in closer, deeper. "Did you know that he was doing whatever he could to survive? Building a new business, moving near his kids?"

Something white hot was hitting Brendan in the chest, bubbling in his oesophagus.

"Did you know and decide you better poke your goddamn head out of whatever hole you fell into and rip him to shreds for good this time? You're fucking diseased!"

Brendan dropped him, opened the hand wrapped around the stubbly chin and let him crumple to the floor like an empty bag. What the fuck was he doing?

The dream. It had changed after the funeral. After Declan told him. Every night he'd feel it, that white untameable heat curling through him and suddenly erupting in scalding tears burning a path down his cheeks, dripping onto Stephen's naked chest and then Stephen's arms, lean and strong and gentle, wrapping him up. Every morning he'd wake up and examine it, searching for the sucking, choking fury. It wasn't there anymore.

He left Douglas. What did Brendan think that meant? That he could rush to Hollyoaks and find him there, perfect and beautiful and open, and they'd collapse into each other and suddenly Brendan wouldn't be the blood-stained shell he was? That nine years of rolling around in filth would just wash away in the fucking sea?

He'd had his chance. It had dangled there, above a café north of Southport nine fucking years ago. Back when things meant something. Back when he remembered names. Back when there'd still been something left in him to save.

Not like now.

He was too late.