Five years ago
"Stop calling me."
"But I need to see you -"
"I told you, it's never going to happen."
Brendan can hear the boy's hurt over the phone, the way he's nearly crying with it. He had been reluctant to pick up at all, but he knows that Macca will continue trying until he gets the contact he craves. The boy's voice has been laced with desperation from the first sentence, and the frantic urgency to convince Brendan to listen.
"I can talk to Eileen."
Brendan laughs at his nephew's naivety. He's bullshitted Eileen a lot over the years - if he can't convince her, then Macca's got no chance.
"And tell her what? That her eyes were deceiving her when she found us in bed together?"
He doesn't tell the lad that he'd tried this tactic himself, and half believed that it would work.
Brendan listens absentmindedly as Macca conjures up possible scenarios, all of which are futile. It's over. Brendan's already planning ahead in his mind. His priority isn't getting Eileen back; he knows it's useless, that she's seen through the years of lies. It's too late for Cheryl too: she knows what he is now, and it's her decision whether to be disgusted or to let him back in.
His only hope now is to stop Eileen from poisoning the boys against him. He can't lose Declan and Padraig. Everything feels delicate, vulnerable.
This boy doesn't hold any interest anymore. They'll be other Macca's, and one's who are far less risky; preferably not family members of Eileen's, and not someone who insists on clutching on for dear life when Brendan is dying to sever ties.
"We're not going to be seeing each other anymore." Brendan cuts through the lad's words, his voice sharp and knowingly cruel. He pictures Macca's expression, the way that the hope drains from it, leeching from him violently, leaving a sharp sting.
It can't be helped. Macca's still young, too young to be trapped in this, and Brendan has no question of whether he'll be better off without him. Everyone is.
"But..." Macca trails off helplessly, a small amount of fight still in him which is increasingly petering out. He's wary of Brendan when he's like this; he knows the signs. Even over the phone he's scared, and Brendan wonders if he's imagining it: the punches, the beatings, the bruises.
"Have you got enough money, kid?"
He doesn't know why he asks it. He's never supplied Macca with money. They've never gone out anywhere for him to pay for dinner. On the rare occasions that they eat together, it's day-old take out from Macca's fridge.
But Brendan feels like he owes him something. Needs the lad to walk away from this at least semi intact.
Macca seems to understand what Brendan's getting at, and his tone turns hostile. Immediately defensive.
"I don't need to be payed off, Brendan."
His anger is easier to accept than his snivelling and begging. Brendan's almost relieved.
"Jesus. I'm not - I'm just offering, kid."
"I'm not a prostitute."
Brendan rolls his eyes; the lad's just being dramatic now. But he feels the need to be careful, to not push him over the edge. Macca knows what's important to him, knows how to wound him. He could pay a little visit to Declan and Padraig, tell them everything that their dad's been up to.
"I'm sorry, okay? That's not what I meant."
Macca sniffs, and it's followed by silence on the other line.
"I just want you to be okay," Brendan says, continuing in the same vein; he effortlessly makes his voice softer, the way he used to when he wanted Macca to forgive him after a beating.
He can feel it working. It always does.
"It's alright. But..."
"What?" Brendan probes, with more concern than he feels.
"I'm not going to be okay without you."
Brendan closes his eyes, is relieved that Macca's not in the room with him to see his reaction. Frustration is coming off him in waves; he wanted something simple, something so gloriously uncomplicated. Macca was supposed to provide him with that. Now it feels heavy, stiflingly so.
"You'll meet someone else." Even as he says it he feels jealousy stir within him. He's wanted to end things with Macca for weeks, but the idea of him being with another man makes him furious.
"I don't want to. I want to be with you. I love you, Bren."
Brendan's hands ball into fists, an involuntary reaction he has every time Macca says those words. He's told him that he doesn't like it, had thought that the punches would be enough to deter him from saying them again.
Macca waits. Waits for him to say it back for the first time. Brendan will never say those words to another man.
"Take care of yourself, son."
"Bren -"
Brendan ends the call, shoving his phone in the drawer by his bed. He's going to get a new mobile as soon as possible; he'll pass on his new number to the kids, Cheryl and Eileen. Next time he'll be more careful with who he gives his details to.
He stretches out on the bed. He needs a shower and a shave, but there's no one to see him in his current state, no one to care about how unkept he looks. He's been staying in this hotel for the past week, spending his days trying to convince Eileen not to hang up on him.
So far he's had one successful attempt, when she stayed on the phone long enough to swear at him for ten seconds, before slamming it down and leaving him with the emphatic sound of the dial tone.
He can't go this long without speaking to his kids. All those nights when he made excuses to leave them, spending hours trailing bars and clubs to pick up men; he'd give anything to have those times back. To make a different choice.
He's about to go back to bed, doesn't care that it's mid morning and the sun's already sneaking out from behind the curtains. He can shut it out, pretend that it's pitch black if he wants to.
When the phone begins to ring before he's barely closed his eyes, he grabs it angrily, accepting the call before he sees who it is.
"I told you, I don't want to -"
"It's me."
Brendan curses his own stupidity. What if it had been Eileen, and he'd said something he shouldn't of, something that was intended for Macca's ears only?
"Chez." He swallows down his previous irritation, amazed at hearing the sound of her voice again. He'd thought it would be weeks, months before she'd get in contact. "Sorry about..."
She interrupts him, seemingly unconcerned about his hostility moments before.
"I've got some news."
He can hear it in her voice: happiness. It makes him wary, suspicious. He can't think of a single thing that's good about either of their lives at this current moment. Cheryl's verged from being disgusted at him that he'd cheat on Eileen with her nephew to being disappointed with him; he hasn't worked out which one's worse.
When she tells him and he hears those words, he feels a cold sweat running through his body. It's that instantaneous and he shivers, drawing the blankets around him with shaking hands.
After more than five years with limited contact, Seamus has come home to see them.
Brendan plans his strategy all the way to Cheryl's house - and that's what it feels like, a strategy. Something that needs to be carefully considered, feels like if he makes a wrong move where his father is concerned, then he could lose everything. The life he's built in these years apart, however much it's come crumbling down. It's still his life, independent of Seamus.
When the door opens, he expects to see Cheryl. Expects to quickly usher her away into another room, where they can be alone together. It's all he needs; a few minutes to explain to her that he can't do this, before making a swift exit. She wouldn't let him make excuses over the phone, and he knows that the time he has now is precious. Cheryl's always been overexcited in their father's presence; she becomes that little girl again. He's not got long before she gets distracted by their guest.
Some of the details are sketchy. He doesn't know how to explain himself. The truth is irrelevant - it always has been. It has no place here, no purpose. Anything resembling it is problematic and impossible when Brendan considers it. If he tells Cheryl that he can't bear to be in the same room as his father, then she'll want to know why. The idea of her being hurt by his words makes the idea less than appealing.
She's meant to be protected from all this.
He's not prepared for Seamus to be behind the door. Brendan takes a step back, feeling like his body's dictating his movements, separate from his own mind. He needs to create that distance, but he tenses up, that old, familiar feeling of being paralysed with fear creeping back in.
Seamus smiles at him. It looks like a leer.
It feels like they're there for a long time, silence stretching before them, and Brendan feels stiflingly hot, completely at odds to the initial icy coldness that infiltrated him when Cheryl first told him the news.
Cheryl's voice, when he hears it, sounds far away. Foggy.
"There you are!" She's smiling at him, and for a moment he lets himself remember what it felt like to experience that on a daily basis. Having Cheryl dote on him used to be his role; the faultless older brother.
He almost feels grateful until he remembers where he is, who he's with.
She says something about her favourite boys being back together at last, and the door closes with a chilling sense of finality.
She's in the middle of them, and Brendan's aware of how near he is to Seamus, how if Cheryl moved out of the way they'd be side by side, after all this time. He's suddenly overcome by the fear that Cheryl will ask them to hug.
She's in her stepford wife role. She puts on an apron, laying cutlery, clean plates and napkins around the table. This isn't Cheryl - she's a takeaway kind of girl, the one who'll suggest a large fried breakfast in order to soak up the alcohol from the night before. She's effortlessly adjusted to the new attire and the new attitude, but Brendan hasn't; he doesn't like this version of her. It feel as though she's a puppet whose strings are being rigidly tugged, tight enough for her to choke.
He can feel his father's eyes on him, assessing him. He keeps his own downcast, trying to block out the sight of the man, but he's seen enough to give him an impression. He's not aged drastically - he's still the person who Brendan remembers, facial lines just that much harsher and more defined now, hair beginning to be speckled with grey.
Brendan wonders how he appears. He barely had time to worry about what he's wearing, had thrown together whatever was the least creased. He smoothes down his shirt, wondering when the last time he washed it was. It feels unclean.
It's barely gone one, but Cheryl's prepared the table like they're having a dinner party. Brendan's eyes trail to the champagne that she's pouring; he could do with a glass, but he remembers the way Seamus drinks. With alcohol in his system his moods become more turbulent, more alarming. It emphasises what's already there, twisting it and making it more ugly.
"Sit down!" Cheryl's beaming at them, mouth stretched wide. It's as though everything that's happened recently - Macca, Eileen, her own failed relationship - has been erased, forgotten in favour of Seamus joining them here. He makes things better for her, makes her put her hair in plaits and wear her best dress and coo and laugh louder than she usually would.
He makes her a child again.
Seamus sits at the head of the table, his permanent position in their former childhood home. Brendan tries to sit beside Cheryl but she motions to the seat beside their father, and the thought of arguing makes him grow weary; she wouldn't understand if he caused a fuss.
She's made dinner. It's cooked to perfection - she must have followed an actual recipe for once instead of going by the own inventions of her mind. But the roast chicken sticks in Brendan's throat, chewy and dry and too much. He washes it down with the whiskey that Cheryl's provided on Seamus's behalf.
Brendan hates that he likes the same drink as his father.
He's unusually silent throughout the meal. He waits for Cheryl to notice - how every time he visits her here there's warmth and embraces and love, the closest thing to it that he's experienced with anyone, his interactions with his own children uncomfortable and mechanical.
She can't not notice the atmosphere, the way that he's sitting with his body drawn in on itself, shoulders hunched and head down, picking at his food and drinking far more than he should. He knows he should keep a clear head. It feels dangerous to lose himself when Seamus is here, but it's tempting; the heat of the whiskey blurs the edges and eases the distress that's beginning to creep further in.
The idea doesn't form straight away. Brendan doesn't plan to kill his father while attempting to eat an apple crumble, the custard pooling at the sides and reminding him of the puddings that Cheryl's mother used to make.
It doesn't work like that: his mind doesn't work like that.
It's slower, like a seed being planted and gradually growing stronger and more evident, until it can't be ignored.
They're sitting on the sofa, Seamus between them, so close that Brendan can smell the aftershave and stench of alcohol on his breath. He never thought of Cheryl's flat as small, but it's claustrophobic now. He's sitting as far to the edge as he can, but he still brushes against Seamus when either of them move.
The questions start, as Brendan knew they would. How's that wife of his. When are they going to have more children. Brendan looks at Cheryl warningly, but she's blind to everything when their father's with them.
"Actually, daddy...they broke up."
Brendan turns to face her, feeling betrayal stir in his gut. He hardly dares to breathe as he waits, wants to see if she'll go further, twisting the knife in and revealing why he and Eileen are getting a divorce.
Seamus has his eyes on him, and Brendan feels like he's scanning his whole body, assessing for fatal flaws.
"What happened?"
Brendan pours another glass of whiskey. He feels alarmingly, disappointingly sober still.
"It just didn't work out."
He considers telling him that Eileen cheated, exactly what he planned on telling Cheryl before his wife told her the truth down the phone, couldn't bad mouth him fast enough. But he can't do it, can't lie with Cheryl here, so intent on telling her daddy the truth.
"Find someone better, did she?"
Cheryl scolds him, slapping him lightly on the arm, daddy, but there's no real malice there.
Brendan smiles tightly, has to otherwise he'll do something else, something that Cheryl will hate him for.
He's thought about it himself. Eileen's a pretty girl, won't have any trouble finding someone else. There had been a guy sniffing around, a guy from Eileen's work - Michael Donavan, the type of man who'd laugh at her jokes and make her feel good in a dress and go down on her, do things for her that Brendan wouldn't.
He'd been suspicious and questioning until Eileen had grown angry, accusing him of being irrationally jealous and possessive.
It made him feel worse. He wanted to be jealous. Wanted to hate the thought of another man's hands on his wife, of the potential for him to take her away. It shouldn't be because he was worried about what people would think, what they'd say; that they'd somehow think he was less of a man without her. That they'd notice that something wasn't right, that he wasn't normal.
Brendan doesn't know where Eileen is right now. Doesn't know whether she's with Michael, or someone else who makes her realise what was missing in her marriage.
"Cat got your tongue, Brendan?"
Seamus's voice is mocking, eyes dark and expression challenging, wanting him to rise to the bait and alienate himself from his sister. She's doing the dishes now, the radio playing lightly in the background. He can hear her humming along. It's the sound of contentment, and Seamus is smug: he knows he's the one causing it.
"Shit happens, dad."
He rarely swears in front of his father, and he half expects to be clipped around the ear for it. Seamus says nothing, just stays silent, and it feels more dangerous than an insult.
Brendan wonders if Cheryl would notice if he moved from the sofa and disappeared through the front door. He's sorely tempted to try it, can sense how clear the air would be, how he'd feel with it in his lungs.
It's only when Cheryl turns up the radio and begins to sing along tunelessly that Seamus truly starts. There's nothing to stop him now, no audience to make him continue the pretense. Brendan has his hand tightly around the half full whiskey glass as he listens, feeling chained to his seat like Seamus is the one keeping him there. His father's wisdom is nothing new: he needs to fix his marriage or find someone else, and fast. Otherwise people will begin to talk, will call him poof and queer and fag, and he can't, can't, bring shame upon Seamus and the family. Seamus says it with a strange mixture of disgust and glee, like he can't decide whether Brendan's inadequacies make him more appalled or pleased for being the one to correct him, to send him down the right path.
Brendan's sweating. He can feel it pooling around his forehead, little beads that he wants to wipe off, but doing so would only draw attention to the fact that it's there to begin with, that Seamus is affecting him.
When Cheryl sits down and joins them again, Brendan almost jumps, is startled to find her still in the room. He'd momentarily forgotten that they weren't alone, had felt the walls increasingly closing in. It's been a year since he and his father have been by themselves, but Brendan can still recall the older man's routine: the way he'll wear him down with intimidation, and Brendan will wait for the violence to begin, or something more. Something else.
"I'm gonna take off, Chez." Brendan rises, shaky on his feet, mouth dry and throat scratchy. He can feel his sister's eyes on him, curious and concerned.
How can she not see? He needs her to see.
But she couldn't survive if she did.
"But you only just got here!" Her hands are on his shoulders, trying to lower him back down to the sofa. He resists, grateful that he's stronger than her.
"Long day tomorrow. I need to get some sleep before my shift tonight." He looks at her knowingly; he's told her all about his plan to turn up at Eileen's place, will wait there all day if it means he'll stand a chance of seeing the kids, to make her understand, ease up on her attempts to faze him out of their lives completely.
"Bren, please." Her expression is imploring, her eyes large and hopeful. He hates doing this to her, hates letting her down when he's already cost her so much, but he can't stay in this room.
He kisses her on the forehead softly, trying to convey everything that he can't say, an apology pressed into her skin. When Seamus stands Brendan panics, waiting to see what he'll do, whether he'll try and make contact. His father rarely hugged him as a child; it used to be something that Brendan longed for. Now he fears it, feels his skin prickling at the mere idea.
"I'll see you tomorrow then, son?"
So they'll be a tomorrow. He should of expected it, should have realised that Seamus wouldn't come for a fleeting visit. But the prospect of tomorrow fills Brendan with dread. He knows he'll be included, that whatever Cheryl has planned involves him - more family meals, family days out. A prolonged bonding session, all the while not realising everything that's happened.
It makes him sick, filling him with a type of rage that terrifies him. It won't allow him to settle when he goes back to the hotel. He has a routine that he's adjusted to; he'll watch some mindless television after his shift at the club, eating takeout before falling asleep in the early hours, his stubble overgrown and his dirty clothing stacked on top of the only chair in the room. It's nothing like the life he knew before - perfectly ironed shirts and fresh linen and home cooked meals - but it enables him to get some rest, the rest that evades him now.
He stares up at the ceiling in the darkness, recalling the way that Seamus had looked at him when he'd left the house. There was a blankness to the man's face, making it impossible for Brendan to know what he'd been thinking. He needs to know something - needs to know whether his father is repulsed by him, whether he's disappointed or furious. The lack of knowing makes him nervous.
Brendan rolls over in the bed. It's approaching three in the afternoon, and he's managed to shut out most of the natural light from outside. He knows he needs to have enough sleep in order to face Eileen tomorrow, but it's impossible. He takes his phone from the drawer, writing out a quick text to Cheryl, sending it before he can change his mind.
Sorry for leaving early. How long is dad going to be around for?
It feels like he waits forever for the reply. He shrugs the covers off himself, suddenly feeling too overheated by them. When he hears the vibration of his phone he makes a hasty grab for it, needing something to make him relax, to give him a form of hope.
He wants to move down here.
Brendan's eyes scan over the words repeatedly, unsure whether he's fabricated a nightmare. His thumb moves over the screen, as though he's trying to wipe the message away. He hits the reply button and begins to type, but nothing sounds right; the response he wants to give isn't the one that Cheryl wants to hear. It's safer if he says nothing.
He feels a pounding in his head. Rubbing his eyes, he looks at the text again, but nothing's changed. He imagines Seamus and Cheryl discussing it now, her encouraging him, enthusiasm coming off her in waves. Perhaps if he'd stayed at the house, and been able to deter her, make her realise how terrible the idea is -
Except she wouldn't listen. He knows she wouldn't. It's something he loves about his sister the most. She's innocent and childlike, untouched by time or growing up. He doesn't want to be the one to break her.
Brendan sits up in bed, abandoning his attempt to sleep. Distance has been the one thing on his side in recent years - the knowledge that his father was living somewhere else, away from him and Padraig and Declan. There had been a few requests to babysit, many of them brought up by Eileen when she suggested they go away for the weekend, just the two of them. Brendan had been firm. If Cheryl or one of Eileen's friends were busy, then they'd stay at home. Seamus wasn't part of this.
Eileen learnt to stop asking.
He shouldn't of left Cheryl and Seamus alone. Without him there, there's no one to stop his father from getting answers to the questions he wants to ask the most: why he and Eileen have separated, and if there was anyone else involved. Cheryl gets a loose tongue around him - ordinarily Brendan would be able to trust her to stay silent, but not now. Not with him.
He doesn't know how long he stays sitting on the bed for. Somewhere along the way he loses all semblance of time, rendered inactive by fear and the sinking dread of what his sister could be revealing. Seamus has met Macca once or twice; the boy's out, and comfortable with it, and Seamus hadn't tried to conceal his feelings. He'd worn his judgement with pride. Brendan imagines his father looking at him the same way as he does Macca, all of his suspicions over the years being proven correct: that Brendan's nothing but a dirty queer.
"You told him, didn't you?" Brendan's stoic, already defeated: he knows.
"He wants to know everything about you. You've been so distant with him."
Brendan snorts, almost asking her why she's surprised, but stops himself. Sometimes he forgets that no one else knows what Seamus did, that it's something he's fought to protect Cheryl from. It startles him, that people can't see it when they speak to him, look at him, like an infection of his skin that's overtaken everything.
"Did you ever think that maybe I didn't want him knowing that?" His voice is rising now. He hates getting angry around Cheryl, hates getting angry around any woman. He looks for any sign of fear in her, but she isn't shaking, isn't staring at him like he's something dangerous. She trusts him more than he deserves.
"I'm sorry." He can tell she is; away from Seamus, it's as though she's wondering why she did it, why she would reveal something so private. "He asked me if you were seeing someone, and -"
"You didn't tell him about Macca?" Brendan interrupts, his eyes widening. The lad's scrawny, can't easily defend himself. He'd be no match for Seamus, especially a drunk and vengeful Seamus.
"No, of course not."
He breathes a sigh of relief, but it's only momentary. His father knows.
"This is a good thing." Cheryl's hand is on his shoulder, and he lets it stay there, doesn't shrug it off and reject her, even if it's exactly what he'd like to do. "He can get to know the real you now, properly." Brendan wonders who she's trying to convince: even she doesn't seem to entirely believe in her words. That flicker of doubt is what gives him hope sometimes, has been something that's sustained him. It makes him believe that there's a chance, however slim, that Cheryl sees something in Seamus that she doesn't particularly like. That goes beyond the bullshit and the idolisation.
"He's not going to suddenly love me because I'm gay," Brendan mumbles, finds saying the word out loud excruciatingly difficult. It goes against everything that feels natural and right, but he knows it's honest. Ever since Eileen found out, ignoring it hasn't been a possibility.
"He already loves you."
Brendan looks past Cheryl, over her shoulder and out towards the city skyline. He'd insisted that she meet him at the hotel. He's even more glad of it now - he isn't ready to face Seamus and have his mind filled with what the man must think of him, now more than ever.
"You just don't make it easy..."
He's always known that. He isn't an easy person to love, makes it damn hard work for anyone who tries to get close. Eileen had called him a mystery, had thought that he had another woman on the sly months before they got married and that was why he always held something back, never truly let her in.
He found her demands exhausting. There was a constant pressure to be a husband - he'd never known before how much weight and meaning there was behind that one title. She wanted him to be strong, to be brave, but never cold, never indifferent. She wanted to be respected, but when he made excuses not to make love to her she would create a divide in the bed with her humiliated body, her voice taking on a whining quality that only increased his sense of guilt and inadequacy.
Macca had loved him, still loves him, but Brendan hadn't made it easy there either. He'd tried to beat it out of the boy, would have succeeded if there was a shred of self worth left inside him.
"I know," he says quietly, and Cheryl must hear something in his voice because she apologises again, putting her arms around him. He doesn't let many people do this - hold him and hold them back - but she smells like she did as a child, that familiar scent of comfort and solace, and for a while he forgets that it's not just the two of them anymore.
"Will you try again? For me, please. Come to dinner tonight."
He draws back, hands falling to the side.
"It's not a good idea."
"Look around, Bren - you're alone here."
He winces. Cruelty doesn't suit Cheryl, and her breed of tough love makes him hurt.
"It's not too bad." He stares at his surroundings, knowing that it's vastly different from his own home, but appreciating the safety of it in a way he never did when he first arrived. He's paid for the room. He sleeps here, alone. The only other person who has a copy of the key is the hotel staff, and there's something about that that allows him to be calm. Even Seamus can't get him here.
They had lived in a nice house when they were younger. Polished furnishings, cream walls which had given the impression that they had more space than they did. People had admired it from afar, had commented and made him feel uncomfortable. He couldn't agree with their compliments; there was nothing about the house that he liked.
Cheryl's growing more exasperated now, hand on her hip like a nagging wife, and Brendan can sense that she's moments away from attacking old wounds: Macca, Eileen, the way he's treated Declan and Padraig.
"Fine, I'll be there." He's not sure why he agrees to it; being reminded of his own failures as a husband and father and person is better than sitting with that man, but he's never found it easy to refuse Cheryl anything.
They arrange to meet at six o'clock, enough time for him to get changed and freshen up. He spends almost an hour choosing what to wear. Everything feels too revealing, his shirt buttons bursting at the seam. He's had his fair share of mocking jokes about his moustache over the years, but it could be invisible now: his face feels bare. There's not enough to cover him.
Before he leaves, he brings a bag with him. Small, nondescript. Almost unnoticeable. Just large enough to contain a small hammer that he last used to fix the burst pipes in Cheryl's flat.
He doesn't know why he does it. He barely even thinks about it. But he feels safer with it. And that's when it forms: when he truly starts considering the fact that he could kill.
He realises the moment he walks through Cheryl's front door that it's a trick, a trap he's walked into like an unknowing victim.
But it's too late.
She's planned it. She's nowhere to be seen, no matter how many times Brendan strains to hear her laughter or her voice drifting down the stairs. It's quiet, eerily so, and he's only just noticed how dark the flat can be. He can't imagine his sister leaving her home like this; it's always bathed in light, lit up from the inside. The term welcome home means something here.
This has to be him: Seamus. Brendan knows that his father gets some sense of satisfaction out of it, creeping out from the shadows like a monster that had plagued the childhood films that Brendan had watched. Except there's something infinitely more terrifying about this: Seamus is the monster from his childhood.
Brendan moves towards the door, not realising that he's already pressed against it, as far back as he can be. He likes to think he does it unconsciously, but it's only a ploy to make him feel slightly less cowardly; the movement's deliberate. He wants to run. He's craved escape before - from Eileen, from his binding faith, from what's expected - but not like this.
It suddenly occurs to him that he could die. It's as though it comes to him like a fact, devoid of emotion. He cuts all ties with fear, has to otherwise he'll drown in it. He only tries to think logically, calmly: I could die. This is real.
But there's something that scares him more than death, and Seamus knows it.
He circles him at first, gets Brendan quivering and stuttering as he asks useless, pointless questions - where's Cheryl, why isn't she with us - when he knows that this is his sister's idea of a surprise, something that she thinks will held build bridges between them. Father and son bonding time. She thinks she can slip out for a few hours, and by the time she arrives home everything will be fixed, glued back together again.
Brendan didn't intend to move away from the door. It's safe there - an exit - and he'd wanted to keep close, feel the solid wood against his skin. But Seamus has come too near, and Brendan's had to move to get further away. He's closer to the kitchen now, and it causes him to panic more; he can smell the sweat gathering under his armpits.
"I should call Cheryl." Perhaps if he tries to pretend that this is normal, then it will be. "See where she's got to," he continues, laughing as though his sister's got lost somewhere, silly her, and that he can't see the way Seamus is looking at him. He's seen that look before.
"What's wrong, Brenda?"
It makes Brendan wince, hearing that name again. He closes his eyes against it, but he realises his fatal mistake a moment later: he can't close his eyes around his father. Not ever.
He shakes his head, a rejection of Seamus's words when he's not able to reply, isn't able to answer against them. Seamus won't stop, comes closer and punches him, and the shock of it rather than the blow itself makes Brendan fall to the floor, small and insignificant.
He can hear a whimpering, and he thinks it's coming from him.
"Please dad -" It makes him sick that he's begging. He never wanted to beg.
It starts again. An old, familiar nightmare. There's nothing to hide behind now, no denial of being everything that Seamus says he is - queer and disgusting and asking for it, and when Seamus reaches for his belt and begins to undo his trousers, Brendan considers grappling for his own throat and starving off the oxygen; it would be preferable, would be painless in comparison.
Seamus is lowering himself down, a smirk painting his features.
"You've been a naughty boy, Brendan."
"No, no I haven't -" He's crying, tears stinging his eyes and rolling freely down his cheeks, never felt more weak or defenseless in his life.
He's not strong enough to fight Seamus off. He should be, he fucking should be but it's left him, that fight. But he can see it, when his back's against the kitchen floor and his father's weight is pressing down on him, his hands trying to roll him onto his back to get inside him. He can see his bag.
He doesn't think about it. He reaches frantically and undoes the zip, holding the hammer in his desperate grip and bringing it down, hard, on top of Seamus's skull. The man staggers back, eyes wide: it's his turn to be shocked now. Blood's cascading from his head like the Red Sea, and he extends his hand as though asking Brendan for help.
He doesn't help. He knows he could call for an ambulance. Could run out of the house right now, leaving Cheryl to find their father still alive.
He doesn't stop. He raises the hammer, smashing it onto solid muscle and bone until the screams and the pleas become silenced. It's the first time he's killed someone, blood staining Brendan's hands and clothes, and even after the damage he's done he still checks for a pulse, still can't believe that he's done this.
There's not much of a body left. He's made sure of that, and it'll be used against him in the trial, said to be a sign of a twisted psychopath, to get such pleasure from ceasing a human's life. It's not one wound, or one blow: Brendan lowers the hammer forty eight times before he leaves the kitchen, blood soaking through the material of the floor, splatters forming on the walls.
He runs until the police find him. It doesn't take long: a man with a distinctive moustache whose clothes are covered in blood isn't inconspicuous.
When he's arrested he makes a phone call, an apology already on his lips for Cheryl. She interrupts him before he can speak, crying and telling him that she believes none of it, that she knows someone broke into the house; that the police have always hated him, that someone's framed him.
He lets her believe it. He loves her, so he listens to her lie.
"I've waited a long time for you to tell me this." Steven's voice is soft, gentle, and Brendan wonders how the hell he can still love a man like him. A man whose done the things he's done.
They lie wrapped in each other on the bed. Brendan hadn't thought it was appropriate; Steven might not want to touch him when he'd reached the end of the story. But the boy had nestled his head underneath Brendan's chin, and before he'd been able to stop it he'd lowered him down to the mattress, resting in his arms.
"Now you know, Steven."
He turns to the boy, stroking a single finger along his face, has to feel him if this is all he gets. He's waiting, needs to know if this has changed Steven's mind, if seeing the ugliness of what's inside him has made him realise how this could change his entire life, this decision he makes today.
"Tell me," he pleads, can't wait anymore. Steven looks at him knowingly, expression torn, forehead crinkled from frowning.
He begins to speak, and Brendan can only listen, pulling him closer like it's the last time.