A/N:

Eight weeks?! I know, what's all that about?! Does anyone still even remember this fic?! I am so sorry I'm such a pain in the arse, although this chapter has had so many face lifts it's insane. I was hoping to install the hope back in and I might have ended up with something sickeningly romantic in an angsty way instead, but that's for you to decide.

Please let me hear some words even if it's just death threats for making you wait too long! Reviews really are motivation so if you want me to continue, (faster this update!) Let me know :)

Also you can play spot the canon quote if you like – there are eight in this chapter!

This chapter is dedicated to the miraculous and exceptional Marble Eyes who not only has been my marvellously talented beta but also my eternal supporter, I gain so much motivation from her.

Chapter Warnings:

Reference to sex, angst and violence – it's UP after all!

Chapter Twenty One – Brendan Brady.

One man's weakness is another man's power; I should know - it's the code I live by. You can't let people see that you care about anything, or anyone. Cos then they got ya - they'll use it to hurt you in a way you thought you could never be hurt. You put the weapon in their hand and you only got yourself to blame.

I met Simon Walker when I was eighteen. I was upping the ranks in the Loft and he was the one who should have got there first. He was smart, charismatic and calculating - dangerous in a way that I could never hope to be. We formed an uneasy alliance, a cold war agreement of peace and amity. I could step on him and obliterate his form from this universe. He could sneak in under the cover of darkness and close any heart that was open to me. So instead we formed something like friendship.

Last night I couldn't contain my impulses. I was furious at Terry, Blake, the lack of protection my boy had faced and I took it out on Walker. The evidence is his puce eyelid and scarlet lip. I'm still unaware what happened. Black holes of memory aren't new to me – the monster inside me is made from amnesia; it's been there my whole life and reminds me that I have so much to be ashamed of. I could never let anyone know my real past, especially men like Simon Walker.

I never wanted Walker to know about Steven, he wasn't my first choice of guardian. It was always supposed to be Joel - a young apprentice in the Loft keen to show his colours. But Walker twisted Joel against me and took the role himself. I was forced to confess, expose my hand to a cheat and Walker got me right where he wanted me. Smart, charismatic and calculating – modus operandi Simon Walker.

Tonight, Walker is finely tuned; on high alert; every sense refined. He's come here for battle; I just need to work out what his weapon of choice is. Like I'm a novice to wars of words, my talk reveals nothing. So, as we stand in the kitchen, I wrap Steven close to me - taking care of the boy who's always by my side. I won't involve him in any of our sordid games. He's mine to protect.

"I'll leave you to two it."

"You don't have to go, Steven."

"It's cool - Jeremy Kyle's on anyway - Christmas special," when Steven says it I see Simon smirk behind me. In his eyes are his words from last night: scally; council rat and they chill through me, numb me, awaken the monster.

I'm in Walker's space as soon as my boy is safely out of the room, threat in every inch of my posture.

"Put some fucking clothes on!" I demand as soon as I know Steven is out of ear shot.

"Come on," Simon whispers, a smile playing across his face. "Don't tell me you don't like this," he says waving a hand down his torso, towel slipping lower. "Not with what you were screaming last night, you have such a filthy mouth on you when you get in the moment."

"Making things up now Simon? Sad really, that you're that desperate for some action."

"Come on Brendan don't tell me you don't remember. You wanna see some evidence?" he asks, biting the middle of his bottom lip, splitting the cut open. He turns around, lowers the towel and there are bright red fingernail crescents in his arse. I swallow. I tell myself the marks are not proof of my infidelity.

"Why would I want that, when I have him upstairs?"

"What? That kid?!" Walker laughs, a tone that sickens me. "The one who's watching Jeremy Kyle?! I don't know Brendan, enlighten me."

"You know a few years ago we lived over the road from a Tesco, but still every Friday Eileen would go to the butchers in town and buy us nice fresh joints of prime beef. I can understand now why she'd go to that much effort when there was cheap suspicious meat so easily available."

For a second his face blanches and scowls so tightly you can see every tendon through his pale crunched up paper-thin skin. Then as though the anger was just a trick of the mind, it's replaced with that Oscar-worthy smile.

"So I was thinking," he whispers, his voice sickly silky, "either you give me more, or I might be tempted to tell Warren what you get up to with seventeen year old boys."

My heart pumps full of loathing. The monster within me prowls. If Warren were to find out about Steven he wouldn't stop for a heartbeat before seeking vengeance. My feelings for Steven have already led me to betray my business partner and they could lead to so much worse. Warren and I dance a path of lies, lies that innocent eyes like Steven's need to be blinded too.

Walker tilts his head, stretching his neck and whispers, "granted Ste is very pretty, does he take it well? Does he bite his lip and flutter those pretty little eyelashes at you? Let you wipe your cock over that pretty little mouth?"

"Shut up do you hear me? Shut the fuck up!" My fingers are tensed by my side; the monster shakes the bars of his cage.

"You like me talking about him, don't you? I can tell," Walker whispers taking a step closer to me. "We could involve him if you like? Tie him up, let me fuck him - you can watch, you'd like that wouldn't you? He's something to watch alright; I bet he begs beautifully doesn't he?"

I prepare to push him away, slam his head hard into the counter. But as I breathe in the delight of black punishment the light behind us fleets.

"Steven."

Shit!

"I'm sorry right? I didn't mean to-" he says, taking a step backwards.

"Steven it's not what it looks like, I swear to you."

"I don't even get what it looks like," he says - beautiful eyes wide and pained.

"I'm not sleeping with him!"

After the shock Steven looks like he could believe me; like he trusts me, but Walker doesn't miss a beat.

"Well apparently he's not sleeping with me without you anyway," as Simon talks Steven doesn't move a single muscle, he looks like he couldn't if he tried. "Yeah thinking about it Brendan, I'm down with that," his finger trails up Steven's arm. "I'd like a go with this."

I snap - slam Walker up against the wall. My fingers are at his throat, stopping his breath and making his eyes pop.

Walker's horrific words choke clandestine into the space I give him, "Started like this," he purrs, "do you remember? You on top of me on my bed. God I can feel your heart rushing Brendan, still turned on aren't you? Would you like me to turn around?"

My monster is barely contained. I want to break Simon. I would destroy him right now if it wasn't for Steven. Steven is my peace, my serenity and his presence pulls me back. I'm torn between a place of heaven and a place of hell. All I can do is run to the boy I care for, grab his arm and pull him to me.

As I pull him back though he misunderstands my intent.

"You want me t'…" he starts to say.

"What? No! Steven please you have to believe me, I'm not sleeping with him."

"I'm going to get a little offended if you keep saying that Brendan." I hear Walker say behind me. "It was good last night."

Steven's gaze catches on the words, you can almost hear the rumble of his racing thoughts, "so when you left me in bed, when you had to go and sort out some business…"

Steven begs for the truth so I tell him. He hears it all wrong, or I tell it all wrong. He looks at me like I'm the worst sort of human. For the first time he looks at me like he can see the monster everyone else knows. A voice inside me says 'finally'. Maybe now he'll understand why he needs to keep away from me.

"Did you fuck him?" Steven cries, "tell me the truth please."

Twisted with no possible answer, I give him the only truth I can, "I can't."

The moment Steven slams the door I run into Walker and push him hard against the wall.

"What the fuck is wrong with you?!"

He just smiles, laughs and tilts his head to one side.

When his words finally come his voice is different – he sounds smaller, more fragile, you know even breakable. The monster crouches in the darkness. Tricksters by trade, Walker and I dance a predatorial game.

"You! You're what's wrong with me Brendan," he whispers, "how the fuck can you want him?! You can meet any broken kid in any gang around here, Warren has an endless supply of them; what makes you want Ste Hay?" His words rush and give me no time for breath, "I used to think it's cos he's fuckable: an easy lay that's not bad to look at – but it's more than that isn't it? You love him." My heart makes a confirmatory beat, my fingers grip harder into Walker's skin. "But that's OK, it is. I can put up with that, I mean you must know it can't go anywhere, you and him…"

He eats at my guilt and worthlessness. He wields the knowledge that protecting Steven means keeping him far away from my world as though it's his new toy.

"But you and me, Brendan," Walker whispers. "We work, we're a perfect combination."

"What the fuck are you on about?"

"Us, Brendan. You and me. I know I wasn't ready for this before, but last night… fuck last night..." his words drawl off and a smile snakes itself over his thin dried splitting lips.

"You really don't remember do you?" he asks when he remembers to look disheartened, "would you like an action replay?!"

"I'm with Steven," I say.

The words are an impulse; you know it's like they didn't even register in my brain before I say them out loud but out loud they sound…right – honest and true. And I realise that whilst I've been fighting to keep Steven safe we've been growing into something so real. You know I think he stole the still beating fragment of my heart right from the first time I met him, when I took him to bed and taught him the beauty of his body. I was set as his protector from the very beginning: four months ago, when I knew he was facing Warren's drug-laced punishment. It has always been me who has had to keep him safe. Could it be that our paths are now so entwined that I can't live without him under my protection?

Walker starts to breathe more easily - with my thoughts full of Steven my grip has loosened.

"Brendan, think about it, you could never be with him could you? Not in the way you could be with me. Think about how much you'd risk with him, your kids, your sister…your alliance with Warren."

Walker's words only serve to make me certain of my feelings for Steven. I realise how much I would have risked to have kept Steven in our world this morning. All I needed was that look in his eyes as they began to recognise shelter, the slow flicker of his smile as we healed the cracks of his heart.

This morning I gave him the safety he was so in need of. Tonight my monster has changed that safety into something sordid; Steven's rightful safeguard has weakened at the claws of revenge. But you know I'll stop at nothing before I bring my boy back to me. The monster within me is clear to him now, but I can still protect him. For his protection I would lose my world.

"Get out," I shout at Walker - the man who I should have kept far away from our story.

I grip Walker by the shoulders, slam him up into the wall one last time, "get out!"

***M***

My heart is pounding and I'm only functioning on instinct. My every sense pulled tight in their search for Steven. My thoughts storm as I visit every place he has mentioned in darkness and in light. The first place I go is the shelter where I found him and the twins. Coldness and lifelessness say that he hasn't been here in months, even places of hell shine when he's present. But he's nowhere else either.

I race to town and my tyres screech into a gutter of fag ends and glitter. I follow two teenage boys to the destination of an over blasted stereo and when they try to shut the door I yank it off its hinges. Steven showed me this flat the day of our date, it's what caused that sparkle in his eye and set off the chain of events that led us to forgo coffee for illicit alleyway sex. He told me then that these are his best friends, but when I ask for him they say they haven't heard from him in months.

I drive to a place we found together, a few miles outside the city. Here, the Dee meanders peacefully across patches of downy green that are unbelievably soft at the touch of a bare writhing back. The hills in the background are now peaked with snow. That afternoon I didn't notice how the beauty of this hill was discordant with the filth of Manchester. But that must be why he looked so perfect here, my diamond in the rough. It's with that thought that I drive to the underbelly of this city: The estate that dared to call Steven its resident. I wait for blood curdling minutes until a stumbling Mrs Piggy and her fat old balding husband sing of Steven's absence as though its gleeful.

My lungs swell to aching point as I slam the car into fifth gear. I left him alone, insecure and of course I know where he would go. But I've been telling myself I'm wrong, that he wouldn't end up back here in front of a queue of desperation. There would be no where worse I could find him than Blake's. I pray Steven can still feel how amazing he is to me; I can only hope that that would be enough to stop him from misusing his perfection.

The moment I pull up I hear Blake smiling and laughing. Clearly Blake didn't get the message last night; I need to warn him that if he ever goes near my boy again he won't live to reap the rewards. Blake walks along a side path next door to his "business" and into the garden. I follow silently. I pick the lock and sidle into the house. I find him in the bath, singing as he sweeps his rubber duck through the water – what the fuck does he think he is? Taking away these boys' innocence as he tries to manifest some sordid part of his own. The man I am is sickened to the core and I become only the monster. Everything is black.

Later, I remember the delivery of my warning in fragments: Blake's mouth gasping, eyes popping and shrieks of surprise. I remember pale, clammy, lifeless skin and I don't know if it's reality or fantasy.

Sometime later I shake towards the front of the house, through a queue of men on a mission to kill their Christmas induced loneliness with teenage boys. When I'm there, I barely manage to breathe Steven's name but the boy on the door recognises me; gives me a genuine warm smile and tells me Ste Hay no longer works there.

Back in the car I punch the steering wheel and bang my head flat into the rest. I asked for a sign didn't I? Today in Christmas Mass with my family I asked for a sign that I should stay with Steven and God has answered; Steven is as lost as any hope of my salvation. In the dark, a doubt clogs my thoughts, silencing any other truth - I don't know him. Steven Hay, the boy who stole my life, was barely more than a figment of my imagination. I only ever saw in him what I wanted to see; my desire to protect him emerged merely from the big gaping scars of my own stale torture. I never took the time to learn him. I acted from pure selfishness and I have only ended up failing him. My thoughts echo and play with Walker's words,

"You could never be with him could you?"

"Think about how much you'd risk with him, your kids, your sister."

I am no worse than those men who have lived out there fantasies in him. I have kept him at arm's length and taken my pleasure from his body. I flip down the mirror and I stare at my reflection until I can no longer breathe, the light of the full moon shows my monster clearly.

Lost to my own self-disgust I drive to the car park we went to last night, the place where I can let my monster roam. My tyres screech as I tear up the tarmac, accelerating until I reach the roof.

And then I breathe, air fills my lungs leaving my chest heaving. Then my heart beats, my blood pumps and I know I am human. I see him.

***M***

"You are one hell of a man to track down Steven Hay."

As he looks at me it's with blue eyes the shade of a frozen river, unshed tears stay as though they're frozen in his fucking soul.

Irony twitches on his lips as he responds, "Wouldn't have thought you wanted to anyway…why don't you just go Brady? Go back to Walker; you don't wanna be with me no more."

My lips stretch to scream the truth, but my self-disgust blocks the noise. I know it's me who has bought him to the danger he feels now.

His snarled lips attempt a laugh so bitter it's like it couldn't even come from him. He moves off the wall. "OK well I'll make it easy on you, I'll go."

"Steven," I say my fingers flexing around his wrist impulsively, but he only looks at me to say I disgust him too.

"Get your hands off me!" He demands, "Do you not realise what you've just done to me?"

"You can't do this to me Steven, please… hear me out."

He stares at me as though he'd never want to hear any other word from my mouth and I sigh in frustration, pushing my hand through my hair.

"I need to tell you some things, some things about me. I need you to listen to me. If you do and you still wanna go then I won't stop you, I won't follow you; but you need to know."

Big blue eyes, more innocent than I deserve, stare point blank at me.

"Please Steven?"

Silence seems to stretch as distrust writhes between us, almost like it's forming a perceptible blockade. But he's staying. Finally he shakes his head before sitting away from me. His body is contracted and small, curved against the bench; my monster struggles not to oppress him.

"Look I'm bad news;" I tell him, introducing myself properly after all this time. "I know that and you know that. I've done a lot of terrible things and I used to hurt a lot of people, damage people – for a word of out place or for no other reason than they looked at me funny. People were little more than cockroaches and it was so much easier to just step on em. Sometimes…Sometimes I used to go so far I couldn't control my actions, mist would… gather."

"I know all about the red mist Brady, you don't grow up with a step father like mine and not know that."

"OK. You know about my Dad, he used to say all these things – puff, queer… He gave me this nickname; all his mates used to say it, Brenda. I couldn't …I couldn't deal, the weakest part of a man is his heart and mine was full of hatred so I used to hurt people." I say and he looks at me like he can see within me now, like I don't need to say any more than that and he can see the brutality of my monster.

"What made you stop?"

"My wife."

He looks at me and raises an eyebrow. I'm not sure how he's decoded my relationship with my ex wife, my sons' mother; but that wasn't the answer he was expecting. And I have to let him know – I need to convince him that someone saw light in me once.

"I'm gay; the most significant sexual relationships of my life, the most honest ones have been with men. But Eileen was…she was my guardian angel. People can't know I'm gay," I tell him one of the fundamental facts of my existence and he shakes his seventeen year old head at me.

"I'm a roman catholic, single father who earns money through drugs. No-one needs to know I'm gay; other than those I shag, those-" As I look at him there are words I need to speak, in this place that knows all my secrets and in my darkness with just the light of his honesty, I need to say this. "Other than those I want to make love to." I feel the moment his eyes land on my skin, the power of those words are now a part of him. I can't describe the influence of his gaze in that moment, but it's like it opens more trapdoors of my history and I tell him more; I tell him it all. I want to let him inside.

"When I met Eileen I was twenty three, it was set up through Warren and we got on well. She seemed to…I don't know; understand me, I guess. I stopped sleeping with men. We got pregnant on our third date."

He shifts uncomfortably in his seat, the maths already completed.

"We lost her, our first born, Niamh. You don't want to know what that feels like. There was so much pain, so much darkness. I started sleeping with men again. Eileen worked out quickly that I was fucking her nephew. I thought she was going to kick me out; expose me; humiliate me. Instead she told me she was pregnant - Declan; we… talked. We talked a lot that night. I told her things that I had never told anyone else before and in the end we just stopped. We came to an agreement - a different sort of marriage: I slept with men and she knew everything about me. And it worked because it had to – in the circles we moved in you're told that you are not a man unless you have a wife, a family…"

"Paddy? I mean did you-"

"Paddy was IVF; we both wanted a big family, we wanted three children at least and we were going to do it with whatever means necessary. Declan was a beautiful baby, a high achiever, so we knew we could. We were getting ready to leave; we were gonna leave England, go and live in Belfast near her parents, but she – but then she wasn't there anymore." I feel my scars reopen as he looks on; he rests his hand on my shoulder, comforting.

But his question is, "why you telling me this Brady? What's the point?"

"There was a time I wasn't like this, as violent as this. But the moment Warre-…the moment Eileen died I lost all that. No matter how far we'd gone into my retribution, I went straight back to the person I always used to be. I was losing all these people and all the time there was a voice in my head. It begged the question who does the universe really want me to be – a God fearing man, or who I really am?"

"And what was the answer?"

"I missed the old me. I went back to the Loft, back to violence and... back to the mist. I slept with a lot of boys, men; I didn't remember names or faces. Not because I was drunk, or high, but because that's what happens. It's as if there's this other part of me that just fights or fucks, that's all it wants to do, as many people as possible. It doesn't stop to feel emotion, or remember anything."

My monster has no memories, no capacity for feeling. I've committed so many sins that I couldn't face being the person I am without amnesia. All the men I've fucked before have been forgotten by the front door. I've never remembered anything like the shape of a throat, the tone of a moan, the feel of grass against a naked back. I've forgotten all those things, until now. I don't love men, I fuck them, I use them for release. Until now.

Steven shakes his head rapidly, "that's not what you're like Brady," he tells me. "I mean this morning, you could have proper fucked me and there would have been nothing I could have done about it right? You didn't though. You knew something weren't right, you stopped. And in the shower last night – I was proper begging you for it but you didn't do anything. Right you're not like that."

Steven has not once seen this monster because he is not like those other men. As soon as I see him everything I used to do before, all those games, seem pointless. I'm done with it all, I'm exhausted, and all I want is his comfort.

"So all this is just another lie innit? All this 'bout forgetting and not thinking it's just proper bull – I know what you're like with me."

I sigh deep, my eyes closing. Steven will never again believe in the promise I made him this morning, but I meant faithfulness with my very being. I am not in control of the part that destroyed it.

"It's not that part of me that's with you; I feel emotion with you, God Steven that doesn't even cover it."

He rolls his eyes; a deep bitter laugh is dragged from his lips at what he perceives as another dishonesty. But I couldn't cope if he remains hating me.

"I can't tell you when you became different to all those other men, the faceless men. You just have to believe me that you are. And the person who went into Walker's last night; that was the other half of me."

"So you're saying you don't remember what happened?"

"I wish I did."

He stares at me, and as I look in his eyes it's as if he finds some form of remedy. His blue world finds its sparkle on this cold night.

"So you might not have-" he starts to whisper as though it's the first thing he can make sense of, but I can't force him to believe that Walker is a liar. Not when I know what I could have done.

"You saw him," I remind him, "you know it's the only thing that makes sense, but I wouldn't have…"

"Exactly, you wouldn't have…. you proper wouldn't have. You told me this morning you wouldn't have and I could proper see you meant it Brady."

"Steven."

"He could be lying," he says and he's animated now, it's like his eyes start to glow. It's as if those words are pumping him alive.

"Steven."

"Over the last two weeks, has there been anyone else? Anyone else you might have fucked?"

I trail through my memory, shake my head and he stares at me like I've just given him a declaration of love. I haven't. I can't.

"Steven, this is all I can give you, can't you see? This isn't enough."

He nods slowly, swallows deeply, speaks as though he's certain, "it's enough for me."

He takes my hand in his like he's presenting me with a gift, I snatch myself back.

"It will never be enough for you."

He sighs deep. When he next speaks it's with pain.

"I was gon-… I was gonna text you," he says and he hands me his phone, a message half typed to me:

If that's what you want, I'm up for it. Ca-

"You know what I meant? Wouldn't have been owt I haven't done before, so you know if that's what you were down with then I would have let Walker…"

"Don't say it, please don't say it."

"So it is enough for me, what you have is enough for me."

My history reverberates around us as we sit in uncomfortable silence. I have never told anybody that much before, I have never had anyone accept me so whole heartedly and I have never been more undeserving.

The snow settles around us as we sit, his body starts to tremble but I don't trust myself to pull him close and keep him warm. I don't trust myself at all. How can I when I can only give him fragments of a story? It's our pasts that make us human, that bind our identity, and mine will always be broken.

"I…I went back to Blake's," I don't even realise it's me who's speaking, he has unlimited access to my thoughts; "I thought maybe...I mean I was sure you were there and…" there's a confession balanced on my tongue, I am about to admit to another atrocity until Steven gives me words of pure gold.

"I wouldn't go back there Brady, I'm better than that."

I feel my heart beat easy, that is all I've ever wanted him to know.

"You are," I promise him.

I let my gaze trail over his face, drink in the pure essence of him, feel myself prepare to say goodbye. I won't leave him alone again but I can't let him further into my heart, there's too much danger there for either of us, especially somebody as pure and innocent as him.

As I look, his eyes shift to me, and away quickly a couple of times. I watch in delight as a small natural laugh peaks his lips. He performs an uncertain act finally fitting for a boy of his years.

"What?" I laugh with him.

"Nothing, just when you look at me like that I feel…" He sighs, shakes his head, and lowers his gaze, looks like he hates himself and kicks the edge of the wall; "don't worry sounds proper crap."

"What?" I whisper, needing the end of that sentence to complete our story.

He puts up a protest through his fleeting gaze, blushing skin, but my eyes stay steady and true.

"Just no one looks at me like you do," his smile forms through his words.

"How do I look at you?" I whisper.

I'm exhausted and I can't fight a smile like that. It's impulse that makes my body shift closer to his.

"Steven?" I whisper and I can feel my warm breath reverberate from his cheek. "How do you feel when I look at you?"

"Loved."

There's a beat of silence. My heart misses, pumps, skips, performs a rhythm it's unfamiliar with.

"Is that…" he starts his voice is hesitant. "Is that OK?" He asks and how can I tell him no? He is loved, treasured and he deserves to know it. But there has not been a single moment I have understood the language of my heart and he has always been its native. So I look into his eyes as I search for the words to say.

But his fingers interweave my own, like he's the one protecting us now. He lifts my hand toward his face, presses my fingers to his cheek and nuzzles his face towards my skin.

Now with the touch of his face against my fingertips, I remember him. Now with my heart aligned with his I know I know him. He, this seventeen year old lad, is the tamer of my monster and the conqueror of my darkness.

I don't protect him out of selfishness; I do so because I need him to know that he is cared for, I need to show him how many doors he opens with a smile. I don't treasure him out of foolishness, it is because he has grown up in a world without love and yet he has the biggest most untainted heart that has ever been open to me. I don't stay out of weakness, I stay because a world without him is cold, muted and colourless and with just one smile he can make everything beautiful again.

I could take this moment as ours. We're surrounded in the dark of night, the full moon our only light. Our only witnesses to this one moment of passion would be the factory chimneys and the darkened shop windows. I reach my thumb to run across his bottom lip, and he sucks in a breath as his eyes greet mine with caution.

And then there's more light than the moon, a flash from a torch is directed behind us and I jump around to investigate. His body makes an impulsive leap into my own, aware of it's protector.

"This is private property, anyone here will be prosecuted," a deep male voice calls.

Shit.

"Fuck, what do we do?" Steven whispers.

"Run!" I shout, leaping from the wall and helping him off.

Steven gathers up speed quickly, running to the fire escape. I follow behind him and as I turn around to shut the door I catch a sight of the man about to challenge us. A fifty something, over weight man, in a shirt pulled too tight across his swollen stomach. As he sees the door close he begins what I can only assume is a jog, but drops a paper bag and a doughnut rolls across the tarmac.

"Damn it!" I hear him curse, "ah well, three second rule."

"Brendan!" I hear Steven whisper a warning.

I can't help but laugh that our intruder is someone so futile.

"It's OK."

***M***

I follow him down the stairs; pull him by the shoulder towards an abandoned shop doorway.

"What's so funny?" Steven asks the moment he makes eye contact with me.

I look at him, his body arched into the wall, his chest heaving as his lungs fight for oxygen. I smile genuinely; I don't need to embarrass him with the knowledge of that cop.

"Twenty years I've been sitting up there, never once has it had any security," I laugh. "I've done all sorts."

"Yeah?" He smiles, stepping close. "Like what?"

His question is a flirt; it's designed to make me smile. But it brings me face to face with every demon that lives up there, including the one I have promised never to talk about.

"A lot of things, things I never want you to know about."

He shakes his head, and I feel the pull of the distance he makes. He laughs quietly at a joke I won't understand, shrinks into his hoody and turns his back on me.

"Where are you going?"

"No clue, for a walk I guess."

"Come home?" I ask and the words feel like oxygen, like I can breathe easily for the first time.

But he shrugs telling me he feels lost and homeless. What is the point in living if you are too scared to try? He is the only light I have felt in years; the boy who lets me create a sanctuary to protect him and the only one who puts me in control when I have spent my life as something uncontainable. I need my days to be full of Steven Hay, like I need my heart to beat and my lungs to breathe. So as he silently asks where his home his, I give him an answer I would do anything to make true.

"Your home's where I keep you safe."