Macca had spent a lot of the night awake. Bonfire night.

He'd been moved back down from the respiratory ward just yesterday, to a general ward on the ground floor, now that his treatment was more for the aftermath of the infection he'd picked up than for the injuries to his ribs and lung. And the window of his bay had a good view of the entrance where ambulances pulled in to deliver people to A&E, so he'd seen it get busy as the night went on. People with burns, he guessed, from messing around with fireworks; and then a bit of a commotion with police as well, and when he woke up in the morning he asked one of the nurses what had happened.

She gave him a few scraps of information.

"... And then there were a few cases brought in, from a fire in down in Hollyoaks village. Nothing to do with fireworks, I don't think, so there you go."

"Who? Do you know who was hurt in the fire, or where it happened? I've got... I know people there, see."

"I can't really say. It's not my department, my love, and I couldn't tell you even if it was."

Macca could tell she knew something though.

"Please." He looked at the nurse, and she sighed.

"All I've heard is, there was someone who died at the scene; and we've got a couple of casualties in, and two little kiddies. I'm sorry, that's all I know."

As soon as the nurse left him, Macca called Brendan's number on his mobile, but there was no answer. He almost rang Cheryl, but she didn't know he was still in Chester, and if Brendan found out that he'd let on, he was bound to be angry. That's if Brendan was okay, and wasn't one of the casualties. Macca abandoned his breakfast, put on his dressing gown and left the ward, to see if he could find out anything.

:::::::

Stephen had barely said a word during the drive to the hospital, and Brendan had given up trying to engage him. The help the boy would accept was practical, that was clear: not comforting platitudes, but getting him to the hospital, getting him to his children. Brendan could at least do that.

They'd been to this hospital together once before, to get Stephen's punched ribs looked at; so at least Brendan knew the best place to park. They went inside.

The boy looked lost, and as he looked at him, Brendan felt his chest constrict. Stephen seemed not to be able to make sense of the direction signs, and when Brendan steered him to the right place, he couldn't frame a question to ask the woman at the reception desk. Brendan took over, and told her who Stephen was, and Amy's name, and the names of the children.

They took him to see his kids first; Brendan waited outside. They had to be alright. They had to be, it would kill Stephen if they weren't. Brendan touched his cross. That stupid, stupid girl Amy: if she'd been as scared by Brendan's threats as she'd made out to Stephen, she'd have stayed at home and not taken her kids with her to someone else's flat, and not been caught up in that fire.

Stephen reappeared. Brendan stood up, trying to gauge from his face what the news was.

"They okay?"

"They inhaled some smoke." Stephen's voice was flat as he repeated what he'd been told. "They've got to stay in for obv... observation, but the signs are good."

"That's good news, yeah? They awake, are they?"

"Leah's sitting up, I played with her. Lucas is sleeping, but they said he was awake though, before."

"I'm glad to hear it." Brendan put a hand on Stephen's arm, but Stephen shrugged him off and walked away.

"Gotta go to Amy now." He stopped and looked around him.

Brendan took over again. He found out where Amy was, and they went into her room together.

Someone was with her, Lee, one of the students from her college; Stephen and Brendan encouraged him to leave, and he got the message.

Amy was asleep, and looked pretty bad. Not burnt or anything – the opposite, not a mark on her – but pale as a ghost and breathing through a mask, like Macca had been a few weeks back.

"She doesn't look too good, does she?" Brendan said involuntarily.

"Do you even care?"

So this was it. This was what had been in this lad's head since Brendan had walked in on him this morning, in bed with that other little blonde of his. Turned out, Stephen thought Brendan must be glad about what had happened to Amy, because it would suit him to have the interfering cow out of the way.

Fuck him. Did he really think Brendan would want that? Brendan wanted to say a lot more to Stephen, put him straight on a few things, but if that was what the boy thought of him, what was the point?

"You know what? Forget it." Brendan turned to go.

"Oh, so you're just gonna walk away from it all, are you?"

Jesus.

"What would you have me do, Stephen, huh?"

And then Amy woke up, and Stephen was all, It's alright, I'm here.

Brendan left them, and told a nurse that Sleeping Beauty had been awakened by her council flat prince.

A moment later, his mobile rang. It was Lynsey.

"Lynsey, I've been trying to get hold of you all night. Is Cheryl with you?"

"Yeah, sorry Brendan, my phone was off. I'm at the hospital, Cheryl's here too. I've come outside to get a signal. You've heard about Mal?"

"I heard something, yeah. Chez okay?"

"She's in bits, Bren. Mal's not good, and Steph..."

"I heard. Where are you? I'm at the hospital now."

Lynsey told him where to find them, and he went there straight away. Thank Christ, Cheryl was okay. She flung herself at him and he hugged her, but she broke away.

"Don't be nice, Bren, or I'll cry again, and if I start I don't think I'll ever stop."

Brendan nodded. He understood.

He was never sure about Lynsey, didn't know if she liked him even, but they went back a long way. Right now, she wanted a hug too, and he obliged.

"D'you need a lift home?" he asked them both, but they were staying for Malachy. "Call me if you need me, okay?"

There was nothing he could do here. The girls had each other, didn't they. It was Stephen who needed him, whether he wanted Brendan or not.

:::::::

Macca hadn't been able to find out much about the people who'd been in the fire. One, a man, was in a pretty bad way. Another was a woman, the mother of the two little children the nurse had mentioned. But that was all he knew.

He was on his way back to his ward when he saw Brendan. Macca happened to glance down a corridor as he passed the end of it, and there he was, having a fight with a vending machine.

Christ. The sight of him made Macca's insides twist into a knot of desire, fear, love. Every bloody time. Even after everything the man had done, the relief that Brendan wasn't one of the casualties made Macca momentarily unsteady. He took a breath, pushed open the swing doors, and walked to within a pace or two of him.

"No point hitting it, Bren. You just need the right technique."

Brendan was startled.

"The fuck are you doing here?"

"I'm a patient, aren't I. Or had you forgotten?" Macca nudged the hatch on the machine that Brendan had been hammering, and it let him reach in to pick up a Mars bar. He handed it to Brendan and looked up at him. "King size."

"Thanks." Brendan paused. "I mean, what are you doing here, on this floor? Last time I saw you, you were upstairs."

"I'm in a general ward now." Macca watched Brendan unwrap the chocolate and take a big bite out of it. "So I take it you're not here to see me."

"There was a fire in the village."

"I heard."

"Malachy's here, got injured."

"Mal Fisher? You've come to see him? Thought you always hated each other."

"No, Amy's in here too. Girl from the village. And her kids. Wanna bit?" Brendan thrust the Mars bar at Macca's face; Macca took hold of it and took a bite, their fingers touching inadvertently and making him shiver. "I brought their dad in to see them."

Their dad. Ste. Shit. Macca swallowed his mouthful of chocolate, wondering if that was the last time he would ever sample Brendan's saliva.

"Ste okay?" He watched Brendan's face carefully. The mask was in place, but his eyes darted everywhere but at Macca.

"Early days. I don't want him seeing you, Macca, you hear me?"

"Why's that then, Bren?"

Brendan looked at him then, and the blue of his eyes was like ice.

"No-one knows you're here, and it's gonna stay that way, yeah? I don't want anyone asking questions. So you're gonna disappear back to bed, and stay there."

He gave Macca a shove towards the doors. Macca pushed them open, glancing back to see Brendan eat the last of the Mars bar and chuck the wrapper on the floor.

Macca hurried back to his ward. This needed some thinking about.

He'd already worked out that Ste was Brendan's new boyfriend, and Brendan's behaviour only confirmed it. But they couldn't have been together very long – Ste had definitely still been at the hero-worship/curiosity stage last time Macca had seen him, which was the day Brendan had put him in hospital. He'd been straight, Ste, up until then: Macca would bet on it, going by the conversations he'd had with him when he'd stayed over at Ste and Amy's flat. So realistically, how good in bed could he have become in the few weeks since then? Sure, Brendan would have educated him, but Macca had had a whole year to find out what did it for Brendan, the tricks that made him come back for more. Plus, Ste had all that baggage, Amy and the kids, whatever state the poor mites were in. No, it wasn't time to give up hope yet.

:::::::

Brendan didn't like hospitals at the best of times, and with Macca liable to appear at any second, he was feeling jumpy.

The doctor was with Leah and Lucas; Brendan was waiting outside in the corridor with Stephen. The boy was barely holding it together; no attempts at reassuring him made any difference, Stephen's mind was careering all over the place.

"How did it start?"

"What?" Brendan asked.

"The fire, how did it start?"

"I dunno." What did it matter anyhow?

"This can't be happening." Stephen broke down.

Brendan's instinct was to go to him, rub his back, just like he'd do if Declan or Padraig was upset; and for the first time, Stephen let him. Brendan made the boy look at him; promised to help him get through it; told him he didn't have to worry about coming back to work.

Stephen thanked him, and Brendan felt as if something inside his body was perforating.

"Come here. S'okay mate." He wrapped the boy in his arms and held him until a nurse came and took Stephen in to speak with the doctor.

:::::::

It was the way Brendan looked at Ste, and the way Ste let himself be held so tightly in Brendan's arms. Macca saw it, through the glass in the door, as the two of them sat in the corridor: Brendan and Ste. The intimacy of it made him look away, but he couldn't help looking again, and saw Brendan shut his eyes and kiss the top of Ste's head.

This wasn't how Brendan was, not in Macca's experience of him. There'd been moments of tenderness in among the fucking and the fighting, but nothing like this: Brendan was with Ste, in public, just because Ste needed him.

Macca left them.

Maybe if Ste knew what Brendan had done to Macca, he might decide it wasn't worth the risk, and walk away. But it had to happen soon, before Brendan fell any deeper and wouldn't let him go. Macca had never spoken to anyone about Brendan, except briefly and awkwardly once to Eileen. Never betrayed him. Not been to the police when he had every right to. Not given up on him. But what if he did tell Ste now? What could Brendan do to him that he hadn't done already?

He waited and watched, until he found Ste alone.

"I thought that was you," Macca said to him. "What are you doing here?"

Ste told him about his kids and Amy. He was surprised to see Macca, naturally.

"What happened to you?"

This was it now: lie again, or say enough for Ste to make the link.

"You'll have to ask Brendan." Then Brendan walked in: shit. "Talk of the devil. How's it going, Brendan?"

:::::::

Stephen and Macca, sitting together, Macca being all pally. Brendan couldn't believe it, couldn't believe Macca had defied him like that; it was becoming a habit.

The boy said something to Stephen about having an accident on his way back to Ireland. He said it like a threat.

Brendan needed to separate them. He asked Stephen to come outside with him for some fresh air, but Macca wasn't giving up, and came too, and kept needling away like he wanted another kicking. What did he want? That was what Brendan couldn't work out. All he knew was, he seemed dead set on stirring things up: telling Stephen that Brendan had visited him in hospital; making some crack about falling down the stairs; saying what a good mate Brendan was.

Brendan feigned boredom. He knew Macca would leave when he couldn't get a rise out of him, knew he wouldn't have the guts to come out with anything directly to Stephen with Brendan standing right there: and he was right, the kid skulked off.

"Catch you later, yeah?" Brendan called after him, knowing that Macca would recognise it as a warning; and then, to Stephen, "Hey, what he say to you?"

"He told me to ask you. What's going on?"

Then Rae made an entrance, and it was the first time Brendan had ever been pleased to see her. Stephen's question was dropped, and the pair of them went off together.

Brendan stood for a moment, feeling like a spare part, then pulled himself together. He went back to his car, and drove home to the village.

The club was in no state to open because of the fire damage to the roof. Brendan went inside and had a look around, then sat in the office for a while, making phone calls to staff to stop them coming in; cancelling deliveries; sorting out a surveyor to come and inspect the place. Then he checked the doors, tested the alarm and reset it, and headed home.

:::::::

He wasn't sure if he'd been asleep for minutes or hours when he woke up on the sofa. The lack of sleep must have caught up with him.

Someone was pounding on the front door. It was Stephen, and he pushed his way in. He was angry, letting rip, making accusations.

"You pretended to be me mate, pretended to care for me."

He shoved Brendan: that was a dangerous game to play. Brendan warned him.

"Calm down Stephen."

"No! Why have I been so stupid? It was you. You did all this didn't you?"

Jesus. So, Stephen didn't just think Brendan was glad that Amy was hurt: now, he actually believed he'd torched the place. It was because of some hysterical message the girl had left on Stephen's phone before the fire, saying that Brendan was coming for her. Brendan couldn't believe what he was hearing. Right now, he really could kill her for poisoning this boy's mind; but before? Did Stephen really think that of him?

And now he was threatening to go to the police.

"Stephen... Stephen, ask yourself why. Why would I do that to you?"

"Because the message... Because she knew about us, that's why."

Stephen was becoming less sure of his ground, his anger disintegrating into distress. Brendan ought to knock some sense into him, make sure he was in no doubt what would happen to him if he started mouthing off like this in public.

Instead, he talked him down. The boy had to understand that what he was accusing him of wasn't true. He held his face, willing him to believe that he wasn't a killer.

"You know that. Tell me you know that."

Their foreheads touched, and as Brendan talked to him he saw tears flooding Stephen's eyes. He looked very young, and way out of his depth. Brendan's throat tightened.

"I'm sorry." Stephen's voice was choked.

"It's okay. Hey, it's okay. But you need to go to Rae and set her mind at ease, cos I'm assuming you went there before you came here." Brendan saw a flicker of apprehension. "And that's okay, that's okay. We don't want her stirring any stuff about us, do we?"

Stephen shook his head.

"I'll speak to her."

"Yeah." Brendan brushed Stephen's fringe off his face. "Yeah, I know you will. Come here."

He pulled him into a hug, Stephen's head against his shoulder.

These girls, with their attention-seeking, their suspicion, their need to get their claws in. It was Amy's fault Stephen was in this state. Brendan needed to get her away from him, as soon as she was better, far away from anywhere she could spread her gossip. For a moment his hatred of her overtook him, but then his attention returned to the boy in his arms.

Stephen's breathing was ragged with crying. His ribcage heaved jerkily. He was holding on tightly, his fingers digging into Brendan's back. The boy turned his head, and Brendan felt his lips on his neck, his breath damp and hot.

"Stephen." This wasn't the time; Brendan prised him off and held his face again. "You need to get this sorted with Rae, yeah?"

The boy looked up at him. His eyelashes were spiked and darkened with tears, giving this awkward little scally an incongruous, startling beauty. Brendan's eyes slid involuntarily to his mouth; Stephen took that as a cue to kiss him, but Brendan evaded it.

"No, Stephen. You're in no fit state. Anyway, Cheryl might come home."

"Please." Stephen reached for Brendan's hips, moving his hands up beneath his T-shirt. "Please."

The possibility of resistance was vanishing. Brendan kissed Stephen's closed eyelids, one then the other, the lashes fluttering against his tongue. Tears had smeared their way down the boy's face and merged with the snot that pooled on his top lip; it was viscous and salty as Brendan kissed his mouth, and his tongue felt hot as it pushed its way in. Stephen's kiss was full of need.

Brendan bent his knees, pulled the boy against him and lifted him up. Stephen instantly clung on with arms and legs, and Brendan carried him to bed.

Their clothes were gone in moments, and the two men fell onto the bed, their mouths crushing together, their hands clutching at each other's flesh to bring their bodies nearer. Brendan must have felt another man's heart beating against his chest before, but it had never registered with him like it did now, the aliveness of it.

He groaned as Stephen's hand found his cock, and for a minute they lay still, kissing and breathing each other's breath, as Stephen made him hard.

Brendan freed himself and got his lube and a condom from the drawer. He stood and put it on, aware of Stephen's eyes on him, then rolled his lover onto his back, and covered him with his body, and kissed him, and pushed inside him, drawn in deeper as the boy's muscles pulsed around his cock. Stephen enveloped him, his hands stroking and grasping at Brendan's back, and at his arms, and in his hair; his legs circling his waist, pulling him closer.

How did this boy do it? Even as he fucked him, Brendan tried to figure it out. This feeling of being utterly embraced was new, beyond how he'd felt with any man before, but there was no physical trick that was so unusual, so what was it? Stephen was doing this right now to forget, presumably, and yet it wasn't about his own needs. At least, it didn't feel like that to Brendan. It felt generous, as if the boy was offering Brendan everything he had.

Stephen uncurled one leg and slid it down Brendan's body, the heel brushing over his bum and along the back of his leg. Brendan could feel the hairs on Stephen's thigh alongside his own, making his skin tingle. Then Stephen's hand moved too, down from Brendan's neck to his backside, which it squeezed as Brendan thrust in and out of him. Brendan paused, and retrieved Stephen's hand from his arse, and closed his mouth around its fingers letting his spit coat them; then he replaced the hand where it had been. He looked into the boy's eyes, and waited for him to get the message. He did. Brendan felt a wet finger find his hole, but it was tentative, and he had to say Go on, before one finger, and then two, invaded him and hooked in hard, multiplying the intensity as he picked up the pace again.

Brendan worked Stephen's cock with his fist, so that when they came, they came together. The boy's gasps sounded like sobs.

:::::::

They both slept. Brendan woke as he felt Stephen leave his arms, and heard him go upstairs to the bathroom. He returned in a pair of boxers; he gathered the rest of his clothes and got dressed quickly.

"You okay?"

"I've gotta go. Gotta tell Rae I was wrong. And I've gotta go home and get some things for Amy and me kids. I shouldn't be here, I should be at the hospital, I should never..."

He hurried out of the bedroom. Brendan got out of bed and caught him as he headed for the front door, and made him stand still. Naked while Stephen was fully dressed, Brendan felt weirdly vulnerable.

"It's okay, Stephen. It'll get better, okay?"

As he said it, Brendan wasn't even sure himself what he meant; so he kissed him, because at least that was simple, and let him go.