A/N – Happy valetines day! This chapter is umm, chatty? I guess. And a little angsty toward the end, too. I was gonna keep it strictly fluffy, with it being the day of love and all, but what's Stendan without a bit of angst on a day like this? :P Anywayss, enjoy! X

Ste couldn't sleep. It wasn't that he wasn't tired enough, he was knackered after the night he and Brendan spent together. He just had a lot on his mind. Too much. For two weeks now, they had been seeing each other nearly every other day since their "date". Ste spent most of his time over at Brendan's, only going back to his flat to see the kids and pick up some more clothes (though it wasn't like he really needed them much). Things were going good between them. They talked, and laughed, and even went out in public together. Just as mates, though. They had tried going out as people in a "relationship" once before, but Ste could see how uncomfortable it made Brendan. Holding hands in public, talking loudly about their private lives - he hated it. He was way out of his comfort zone, so Ste got them out of there as quickly as he could and made it up to him the minute they got back to Brendan's flat.

But now in bed, with Brendan's arm slung around his shoulder, his mind began to wander. These feelings Ste had for Brendan ... were they mutual? After everything that had gone on between them over the last few months, was it still possible that Brendan was just using him? Amy had been warning him almost every time he went back to the flat, to be careful, to not pin his hopes on Brendan too much, but why not? What good would it do if Ste went on not trusting him? He'd already messed up enough, when Brendan went to prison. He wasn't gonna mess up again. He was certain that neither of them would, yet as he laid next to this man he thought he knew so well, he wasn't sure. Part of him was tempted to get up, leave a note and call it a day. Better off cutting all ties before someone ended up getting hurt, wasn't it? At least that way, Ste won't have fallen in too deep again. He wouldn't have to build himself back up, the way he had to before, and Brendan .. well he would be fine, wouldn't he? He could go into town, get himself a different twink every night and Ste would be nothing but a distant memory. Ste looked up at Brendan, in his sleeping state, and prodded him in the side. The first time Ste prodded him, he didn't even move. The second, he tried to bat whatever was poking him away with his free hand. And then the third, finally one of his eyes opened lazily, still drooping heavily as though he would fall back to sleep any minute.

"Brendan?" Ste whispered, still looking up at him. His chin now resting on Brendan's bare chest. "You awake?"

"Hm." Brendan grunted. That would be a no, then.

Ste prodded him a few more times, a little harder, until one of his eyes opened fully. "Brendan?"

Brendan took back his arm from around Ste's shoulders, and sluggishly reached over to his bedside table and picked up his watch. "Stephen, do ye have any idea what time it is?" He asked, groggily.

"Half four." Ste had checked Brendan's watch ten minutes earlier. "I wanna talk to you."

"And it couldn't wait until a double-digit time?"

"Not really."

Brendan glanced down at him, and propped a pillow up behind his own head. "Okay. Okay go on."

"Right-"

"And if this isn't important, ye will have to make it up to me."

"Right, shut up then!"

"Okay."

"You know .. this .."

"This?"

"Me and you,"

Brendan groaned rather loudly. "Please don't tell me ye woke me up to talk about feelings,"

"Not feelings."

"Thank god."

"But about us."

Brendan groaned again, rubbing his face with his hands. "What about it?"

"When you came out of prison," Ste began. However he was soon interrupted.

"Stephen." Brendan warned. "Not now."

"No, but-"

"I said," His voice got lower. "Not now."

"Why?"

"Because."

"Because what?"

Brendan let out a long, exasperated sigh. "Just.. not tonight. Please."

"We need to talk about it, though." Ste shuffled a little further away from Brendan. He was pushing it now. He could feel it.

"And we will. But at half four in the morning? Are ye kidding me?"

"I couldn't sleep."

Brendan stared at him for a moment. Taking in what he could see of the boy in the darkness of the room. A sadness covered his entire face. It made Brendan's chest ache, seeing that look, when for the past two weeks he had worked so hard at trying to get rid of it. To make him smile, and laugh. To make him happy. Yet his best efforts didn't seem to be working. He'd done everything Ste wanted him to do, and more, yet he still wasn't happy. Why? What could he do, to change it? He knew talking about prison was a no-go. Too raw of a subject for them, especially this late at night, because he knew how it would end. Ste would walk out, and Brendan would be back where he was before. Alone, and miserable. Drinking vast amounts of alcohol to numb the pain. To help him fall unconscious at the end of the night, when he found it the hardest to be alone. He couldn't sleep, not properly. His bed didn't feel like it was his own. Like it belonged to him. It was huge, with just him in it. One side cold, and empty, where Ste should be. Where Ste was now. That's what he wanted. He didn't want him to go anywhere, not now, but if they talked about prison, about what happened ... he would. He would leave him, maybe once and for all. Brendan wouldn't exactly blame him if he did, either. Sometimes he wished he could do the same.

Brendan stretched his arm out, so his fingers brushed lightly against Ste's cheek. His skin, so soft, so smooth, so warm. The corners of Ste's mouth turned upwards at Brendan's touch, but his eyes betrayed him still.

"Go on then." Brendan muttered.

"What?"

"Let's talk about it."

"Really?"

"Ye wanted to talk, didn't ye?"

"Yeah, but.."

"Go on, then."

"Okay." Ste rested his head on the palm of his hand. "Were you scared?"

"No. Next question."

"Brendan."

Brendan pinched the bridge of his nose, then let his hand flop down onto the bed. "Wouldn't ye be? If ye laid in yer bed listening to grown men in the cell next to ye, screaming out in pain because they'd had a run in with one of the other lads? Or if ye sat there waiting for someone to come for ye instead? Because someone had sent them to hurt ye, real bad. So bad that ye couldn't move, or breathe afterwards. And ye just had to be ready for it. To accept that, in any minute, ye were about to have the daylights beaten out of ye. Three or four men entering yer cell, all ten times bigger than ye. Wouldn't ye be scared, if ye had to face that every day?"

"I'd be terrified."

"I wasn't far off."

"Did you, uh .. did you think that you wouldn't .. that you .."

"Wouldn't come out alive?"

Ste nodded.

"It wasn't an option." Brendan said, matter-of-factly.

"Did you fight back?"

"The first couple of times.." Brendan sniffed. "After that there was no point. I'm no superman, Stephen."

"How did you get through it?"

Brendan shrugged. "Dunno. Determination, I guess."

"What did Warren even want from you, anyway?"

"The club."

"Are you serious?" Ste asked in disbelief. "That's it?"

"What do ye mean, 'that's it'?"

"It's a club, Brendan!" Ste cried, "You almost got killed over the club?"

"Stephen, calm down."

"No, right, did you not think about what it would do to Cheryl if you died? She would have been in bits, Brendan! And your kids! What about them?"

"And that," Brendan settled down into bed again, "is why we shouldn't talk about it."

"What is?"

"Yer getting angry."

"No I'm not."

"Sounds like ye are to me."

"I was just saying." Ste's voice became calmer, "The club wasn't worth almost dying over."

"Well I didn't, did I?"

"But if you did.."

Ste couldn't even bear to think about it, Brendan not being there. Being taken away by some thug with a grudge. It sent his blood ice cold, and he found himself covered in goosebumps. His own fingers traced lightly over the little bumps covering his skin. "Did you hate me?" he managed to croak out, finding it impossible to swallow the lump in his throat.

"What?"

"When you were inside." Ste continued, "Did you hate me?"

Brendan let out a dry laugh. "No," He mumbled. "No I didn't."

Something about the way Brendan spoke, and the way his entire posture changed once Ste asked the question put him on edge slightly. Brendan was an unpredictable man, and it took the smallest things to trigger him off sometimes. Adding to the fact that he was probably tired, too, it was overall a dangerous combination.

"I do have one question, though." He stated, "Just one."

"Okay."

"Why?"

"Why what?"

"Why did ye think it?"

"Um," Ste began fiddling with his hands. Suddenly he felt tiny, against Brendan, in this big room. He'd never really thought about his reasoning for believing Brendan was the killer. At the time, it just all seemed to fit. Brendan would do literally anything to protect his children, from pain and from the truth of who he was. So when Rae blurted out Brendan's most important secret, Ste knew how Brendan would react. He would be angry, and panicky. The last Ste saw of Brendan was when he had Rae pinned against a fence near MOBs, and he was shouting in her face. Screaming at her. Something about, if she ever came between him and his family again; he would kill her. Those words. Kill her. That's all Ste could think of when Brendan was in prison, and he would be laying in bed. Going over it in his mind. Why couldn't he see it coming? Why did he not read the most obvious signs? He could have stopped it. He could have stopped him. Or at least, who he thought killed her at the time. But then Silas was found out. Exposed to the village as the serial murderer. And Ste's entire logic completely went to crap. He'd accused Brendan, shouting his hate for the man all over the village, refusing to go visit him whenever Amy (Amy, of all people) tried convince him that it might be worth hearing him out. He'd completely betrayed Brendan's trust, and he was terrified. Terrified of how Brendan would react when he found out Ste thought, like everyone else, that he was guilty. He was right to be worried, too. The way Brendan spoke to him when he first came home ... like he was a stranger. A bit of dirt on the bottom of Brendan's shoe. It broke his heart, seeing Brendan look at him like that. Ste's lack of trust in him was something that blurred their vision of each other. They didn't look at each other in the way they used to. Their eyes filled with adoration, and love, and on Brendan's part - trust. That wasn't there anymore. It was all lies, pain and bitterness. No love, no adoration, no nothing. And now everything had changed. Again. Those looks, they were returning to the way they were before. The smiles were genuine. The feelings .. it was all still there. So why, sat next to Brendan now, did Ste feel like it was about crumble down into dust? Why did he feel like his explanation would completely ruin everything all over again?

He took a deep breath, and spoke. "I know what you're capable of, Brendan. What you've done to me in the past, what you've done to other people. I know how much you wanted to keep being .. y'know .. quiet while Declan was around. So he wouldn't find out. But he did find out, and I knew you'd go mad. I saw how you were with Rae, before she ... and at the time, it just made sense. They found her body .. and the weapon .. what was I supposed to think, when I know you better than anyone?"

"But hurting a woman, Stephen-"

"I know you, Brendan. When you get pushed too far ... I know what happens. What can end up happening." Ste felt a wetness travelling down his cheeks. "When you get angry... you're out of control. How many times have I tried to stop you, eh? From hitting me?"

Brendan didn't say anything.

"It was easier to believe it, than it was to go against everything I already knew." Ste wiped his nose with the back of his hand and let out a shaky breath. "I'm sorry."

Brendan remained speechless. Just staring down at the bed, and his hands. He didn't move. For a second, Ste wasn't sure he was even breathing.

"Do you want me to go?" Ste asked. He just needed to hear Brendan speak to him. To reassure him that he hadn't just ruined everything, again, with simply a few sentences.

Brendan coughed, and wiped at his face. "Come here." He raised an arm for Ste to slide under.

"What?"

"Come here." Brendan repeated. A little more aggravated this time.

Ste hesitantly did as he was told and slid underneath Brendan's arm, letting it curl around him. "Go to sleep." Brendan murmured, sounding already half-way there himself.

It was then that Ste knew. The way Brendan's arm was around him. Not protective, nor caring like before. Just there, hanging onto his shoulder, half heartedly.

It was finished. All of it. Everything. It was all finished.