Just a reminder that Brendan went to prison in this fic for his 'sexual assault' on Kevin, not for the Seamus stuff cos I started writing it long before that happened. So he was falsely accused, rather than sacrificial.
Again, sorry if it's completely outside the realms of realism – I have no idea.
XOXOXOXOX
"The police said they got called to the restaurant and they found drugs there."
Ste's mind is racing a mile a minute. He can't process this. The police. Looking for Brendan. Not now. Not again. Holy shit, no, not now, not again.
"Ste you need to get back here – they think the drugs have something to do with Brendan."
He can hear the accusation in Cheryl's tone.
She thinks the drugs have something to do with him.
But they don't have anything to do with him. For once, they don't. And this isn't fair. And the police can't stay at the restaurant because there's blood there… blood streaked just outside the fire exit door.
Ste shakes Brendan's shoulder urgently, forcing him awake.
"Look, Cheryl, tell 'em I'm comin', but I gotta get a taxi first… so I'm gonna be…"
Fuck he doesn't know how long he's going to be. He doesn't know how long he and Brendan were in the car with Andy's dying body.
Brendan, immediately alert, snatches the phone from Ste's hands.
"Chez?" He barks into the receiver.
All Ste can hear then is Cheryl's worried tones over the line… Brendan's eyes turning dark, the crisis dawning on him as he takes in what Cheryl's saying.
Ste's growing impatient – he needs that phone to order the cab – he doesn't have time for this!
He tugs the phone out of Brendan's hands, hangs up immediately… shaking fingers fumbling with the keys to find the number for a taxi. Somewhere in the back of his mind he awaits Brendan's outrage at him hanging up on his sister…
But it never comes.
Ste stops his panicked movements to glance upwards… meet Brendan's exhausted expression.
They don't have time for him to be exhausted now!
"What?!" Ste demands, breathless.
"What? I'm thinking."
Ste sighs, irritated by Brendan's lack of urgency. He finds a contact on Brendan's list 'PREMIERE TAXIS' and dials the number. Again, he awaits some kind of intervention from his lover but it never comes. The way Brendan's watching him… silent, tired, resigned… it unnerves him.
"Premier Taxi?"
"Yeah hi, I need a taxi, now, please."
"Where to?"
"Cheryl's. Urrr… Um…" Fuck. Fuck, shit, Christ, where does Cheryl live?! "Uhh… hold on!"
He turns to Brendan, demands, "What's the address? Tell 'em!"
He pushes the phone back into Brendan's hands.
Brendan hangs up. Silent and expressionless, like their whole lives aren't about to be ripped to pieces all over again.
"BRENDAN, WHAT ARE YOU DOIN'?! WE'VE GOTTA GO!"
"What, to the police? And tell them what?"
"That them drugs aren't yours! That they're Andy's!"
"Uh-huh. And where's Andrew to witness this?"
Ste feels a cold shiver run up his spine. It's like he can FEEL the dead, bloody eyes of Andy leering at him from the boot of the flaming car. You did this to me. You killed me.
"Right." He says shakily… decisively… "I'll tell 'em they're mine then."
"And go to jail?" Brendan says flatly. "Why'd you think I've just done all this shit?!"
He motions towards the burning wreckage.
"So that that doesn't happen."
Ste feels frustration tear through him. He's scared, he's cold, he's hungry, he's confused, he's distressed. He's a fucking murderer for a second time and he's minutes from losing Brendan again – losing him to soulnessness and blame or losing him to jail. He doesn't know which one is worse.
"What are we gonna do then?" His voice trembles, trying to stay calm.
Brendan closes his eyes, looks deep in thought.
"I need a minute." He says. His voice is heavy and fatigued.
"We can just run away."
"The kids."
"We can… we can…" Ste's heart sinks morbidly, heavily, to the pit of his stomach. He feels sick. Helpless – again. And he lashes out. His fist meets Brendan's shoulder heavily, FURIOUSLY as he cries, "Don't jus' SIT THERE, THINK of something! Why aren't you comin' up with anything?! "
"Hey," Brendan grabs Ste's fist mid-motion, holds it with alarming ease despite the ferocity of Ste's movement. "Calm down."
"Stop tellin' me to calm down." … somehow he says it calmly. There's something about Brendan's low sleepy tone that is hypnotic.
"It's just drugs. Okay?" Brendan says, almost to himself, "They're at Cheryl's… about drugs, it's… it could be worse."
It couldn't, Ste thinks to himself. It couldn't possibly get any worse than this.
He pulls another cigarette out as Brendan continues slowly uselessly staring into space. Ste's fingers shake as he lights it, but before the tip can reach his lips, Brendan's thumb is there… stroking lightly.
Ste glances upwards, finds Brendan's eyes staring penetratingly into his own.
For a second everything seems still. The fire stops crackling and Ste's heart stops hammering… things go motionless and for an age all he sees is Brendan's eyes.
And then all he feels is Brendan's lips and the cigarette drops forgotten to the ground.
It's wrong. It's so wrong that they would be doing this here, now, but Ste can't stop it… Brendan's lips are the only thing that feel real and sane to him. The way they push against Ste's: firm, dominant, familiar, safe. And Ste opens his mouth and pushes his tongue against his lovers, brow furrowed with distress and the need to be that bit closer to him. His hands are clasped tight around Brendan's neck; the prickle of Brendan's re-growing stubble against his fingers. Brendan's hands are in Ste's hair, then creeping up his hoody and touching his waist. His touch is warm against the cold surroundings.
When Ste pulls away to speak, Brendan tugs him back; kisses him more feverishly. Now is not the time for talking.
He feels his back hit the ground and Brendan's on top of him, knee pushing between his legs, hand rising up his chest, growing warmer. And his tongue never leaves Ste's mouth – explores it like he's on a mission, like he can't get enough. Their mouths stay hungrily connected until there's no breath in them, then they pull away for a seconds air before returning.
Ste stops thinking about how wrong this is. He can't think of anything else but Brendan, Brendan, Brendan as Brendan pushes down Ste's jeans, takes hold of his cock and strokes it lustfully, meaningfully. Ste pulls Brendan's hoody off himself, revealing his bare chest. His skin tingles with the open air, with the sensation of Brendan's tongue and hands and presence… his body pushed against him.
There's something overwhelmingly final about it that Ste doesn't want to think about. Everything is so fragile and his mind is so spent that he couldn't articulate what's happening even if he tried.
So he just goes with it. He goes with instinct, works for more of Brendan's touch and taste. Something in him needs this and knows he needs to take it.
His fingers are still shaking violently when he reaches for Brendan's trousers, tugs down the zipper, pulls them off him. Clothes are discarded hurriedly and carelessly into the dirt beside them and Ste folds his legs tightly over Brendan's shoulders, clutches his buttocks, pulls him inwards.
Brendan's mouth leaves his, just for a second to line himself up, and then Ste feels skin and pressure against his insides – burning with it. It's rushed and it's painful, but he needs Brendan deeper, closer.
He feels hot – flushed all over – disorientated by the combination of lust and fear. Brendan thrusts into him, slow at first but he quickly moves faster, spurred by Ste's low growls and moans. And all Ste can think in this moment is I love you, I need you, don't leave me – don't ever leave me again, until he's completely lost in the sensations and he's consumed by nothing but Brendan's hot breath on his neck and mouth, and the stars invading his sight.
Brendan holds Steven like it's the last time he'll ever do so… he didn't have the benefit of foresight the last time those sirens called him, but he's not going to make that same mistake today. He fucks him until he knows Ste can't think… until Ste's nothing but a hazy-eyed crusade of gasps and moans and pleads. Brendan buries his mouth in Ste's collar-bone, bites down, gasps out as he feels himself sink repeatedly inside the tight heat of Ste's body. His boy, who he loves. His boy, who he has to leave… again.
Never before has he had somebody love him like this, like Steven does. Take him and accept him so completely.
He'll do anything for Steven. Absolutely anything.
XOXOXOXOX
2012
He watches the clock turn to 00:00 and whispers into Steven's ear, "Hey. Happy Christmas, kid."
This isn't what he had planned for Christmas this year. Cos he had thought about it, of course, in November when he'd been buying presents for Cheryl. He'd bought something for Steven too; had been planning to slip it anonymously under the door whilst listening to him and Douglas on the other side, celebrating.
But it hasn't turned out like that.
He's here, in Steven's place, post-cotial and lazily wrapping the last few presents for the kids stockings. Steven's sat cross-legged in his boxers and grey socks and Brendan's hoody slumped around his shoulders, hanging open. He's taken a real liking to that hoody.
He's got a goofy grin on his face that is distinctly Steven's. He's fucked through but still looks like he could go for another.
"Happy Christmas." He says, grin wide, and kisses Brendan on the lips.
There's something about this – sitting in the low lights of Steven's hideously decorated bedroom – that's intimate and safe. Something about being cocooned in with the person he loves that makes Brendan forget everything else, even the man who waits for him back in his home. Not that it's much of a home. The décor is nice, sure, but somehow Steven's shit-hole with the plug-in heater blasting and the wallpaper rotting and the sink dripping feels more like home to him now.
He hadn't even realised there was a difference between 'house' and 'home' before today.
"D'you want your present now?" Steven asks him.
"You got me a present?"
They only got back together a few days ago, really. Brendan hasn't had time since then to get Steven anything more substantial than the 'this-is-from-me-as-a-friend' cook book he'd bought – "White Trash Cooking". He'd thought Steven would've found it funny… but he'd probably never have plucked the courage to actually give it to him, in hindsight.
"Nothing good." Steven says, unapologetically. "I got it before you even went to Dublin – was just a gesture thing."
Brendan blinks, surprised.
Steven tosses him a light badly-wrapped parcel.
"I just saw it and it made me think of ya." He says, with an amused smirk.
Brendan pulls the paper off… comes face-to-face with some soft fabric, patterned with cartoon moustaches.
Steven looks really fucking pleased with himself.
"The hell is this?" Brendan asks
"Take it out."
Brendan pulls out what transpires to be a ONSIE. A mother-fucking onesie. Bought by Steven back in the depths of Brendan's depression when he had nothing and needed out get the hell out of Chester, for good.
"You've gotta be kidding me." Brendan mutters. He tries to hide his smile.
"What? I thought it'd look dead good on ya, that."
"Oh yeah?!" Brendan smirks, and tosses it into Ste's face. "Takin' the mick of an old man in a wheelchair, that's nice."
"No, you weren't in the wheelchair no more when I got it."
Brendan wants to ask him when he got it. He wants to know the exact date, the exact time, that Steven was living a perfect life but thinking of him. He finds it hard to believe, but here's the proof.
They probably both had presents for each other – crap as the may be – and would have never handed them over for fear of opening a can of worms.
Meeting Steven on that bridge was the best thing that ever happened to him. Always would be.
XOXOXOXOXOX
"Can we sleep?" Brendan whispers lowly to Steven.
Ste's relaxed for the first time, limp in Brendan's arms – exhaustion finally overpowering his panic. Perhaps he's reached the same conclusion as Brendan; that they can't escape the inevitable. The best they can do is delay it. The best they can do is lie here and enjoy the few hours of freedom they might have left.
"Hm." Ste sighs. It comes out strained and distressed-sounding… but a few minutes later his breaths are slow and he's out for the count.
Brendan knows he'll sleep well because it's the minds way of avoiding trauma. Brendan did the same when he killed Houston… felt like a fucking psycho for it… but he was out like a light. The brain's funny like that.
Brendan can't sleep now though. His sleeping days are over, and so quickly too.
He pulls himself off the ground, finds his clothes and re-dresses. The blaze will keep Ste warm for a while, but Brendan tosses the hoody over his bare chest anyway.
He calls Premiere Taxi.
"Number eleven, Warrick Road please." He grunts, "Be quick."
Then he tucks his mobile underneath Ste's arm, with a £50 note stuffed inside the cover.
And then he walks away from him.
He knows he shouldn't turn back. He knows it will be painful to do so. But just before he reaches the T-junction that's to take him to his awaiting taxi, he turns back and looks at Ste's sleeping figure in the distance. He looks so small; silhouetted against the fading fire of the car. So vulnerable and alone.
Brendan's heart physically aches inside of him, and a prickle of tears sting his eyes, because the boy is never ever ever going to forgive him for this.
But Brendan has to wrench his eyes away, for both their sakes, and keep walking to the taxi that's going to take him straight to the police. His old companions.
The taxi stops at a pay-phone for him and he leaves a message on the mobile he's left behind.
"Steven, it's me. I need you to get yourself to Cheryl's for me, okay? And I'll explain everything when you get there. There's money in the phone cover – the address is Number eleven, Warrick Road. Okay? And I'll see you soon."
He means that. I'll see you soon, Steven. I will. I promise.
He makes a second phoencall, to Cheryl.
"Chez, it's me."
"Brendan, what the hell is going on? What's happening?"
"Tell the police to stay there. I'm coming."
OXOXOXOXOXOXOX
THREE DAYS AFTER.
"This is Brendan Brady. Leave a message."
Ste holds his breath for a moment. He feels ridiculous. But he's all alone here… nobody to hear how pathetic and weak he is… nobody to hear him cry… nobody to pick him up and hold him and tell him it's going to be okay.
"Um, hi." He says weakly into the phone.
He doesn't know why he's doing this. Brendan's phone is in custody somewhere… sealed in a see-through bag like the ones they took all his stuff out of the flat in. That was two days ago, and Ste still hasn't closed the draws or wardrobe that they raided.
"Um." Ste sighs, head falling into his palm. "Urr. Well. I know you're not gonna hear this. But… I just wanted to say anyway… I believe ya."
He licks his lips, heart hammering for some unknown reason like a boy on the phone to his first crush. A nervous rush of adrenaline.
"I didn't get a chance to tell ya, did I? That I believe ya." He sniffs loudly, and only then does he realise he's crying. His fingers shake slightly as he wipes his nose with his hand. "But I do. And I love ya. And… I really really miss ya. Flat feels well big now."
He swallows… glances around the bedroom. The drawers are still upturned… his clothes on the floor… Brendan's clothes gone. His wet bath-towel is on the floor, leaving Ste sat naked and damp on the bed from his shower where he'd remembered Brendan pushed against his back and rocking into him underneath the water flow.
"Please let me see you." He says. And his voice cracks emotionally… breaking down. "Please. Please change your mind; I wanna see ya. I'll come all the time. Every day. All the time if I can – I don't want to do anythin' else. I… I don't…"
He swallows, steadying himself. Even though there's NO ONE on the end of the line to want him to.
"I don't want to live if you can't, Bren. I 'aven't got a life without you, have I? I… I got nothin'. Nothin' to live for."
XOXOXOXOXOXOXXO
To Steven,
I know you're gonna hate me for this, but I'm telling you not to do anything stupid when you find out what I've done.
Because it's important for you to stay clean and safe, and get your kids back in your life again. I know you can.
Cheryl is going to let you stay here, with her. There can't be any drugs in her house or she'll freak, I'm serious. Stay away from that shit. Stay with Cheryl.
This time's going to be different.
I want you to visit me in prison this time. Every single visiting hour. And I'm going to call you. Every single week. And it will be like I never left, I promise. I've told the police the drugs were mine – it's going to be six years MAX.
That's six years to quit smoking.
….Kidding.
I really don't want to marry you in a shitty cell but I already predict you're gonna get in a sulk about this (!). So we can do that too – if that's still what you want.
I love you. Very very much.
If you want to wash your hands of me, that's ok and I'll understand. But otherwise, please come visit as soon as possible. I'll send the visiting order as soon as I get my sentence.
And everything will be okay.
Everything will be okay.
From Brendan.
XOXOXOXOX
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