My accuracy on both dyslexia and rehabilitation are a bit shoddy here. So apologies for that. And this chapter is a bit wishy-washy I'm afraid… I struggled with it a bit.
XOXOXOX
He's awoken by the touch of lips, tentative and testing and hesitant against his neck. The wispy strands of Steven's messed-up hair tickle his chin and lips and underneath his nose, Steven's leg still draped across Brendan's body as it was last night. Steven's head fits perfectly in the crook of Brendan's shoulder blade, like it was always supposed to be there. Or like during their countless nights of lying just like this, he'd moulded his own cushion into Brendan's skin.
Brendan keeps his eyes shut as Steven becomes more sure of himself in what he's doing. His lips feel incredibly familiar against Brendan's skin; his caress touchingly innocent. Brendan used to wake up to this back in Hollyoaks in the dead of night, and the sweetness of Steven's kisses would always alarm him juxtaposed against the rough, relentless fucking that had usually preceded a few hours prior.
He smiles, brings his fingers to Steven's hair and strokes softly his appreciation. Steven feels fragile underneath his touch. It occurs to Brendan that this is his second chance after everything… his second chance to look after the man who presents himself as so strong, but can crumble so majorly.
Steven's hand traces softly up the inside of Brendan's shirt, and his fingers feel the hair on Brendan's chest. Brendan had almost forgotten – almost forgot to appreciate – Steven's smaller gestures like this. The way his fingers would tangle idly in Brendan's body hair, the way his legs would wrap tightly around Brendan's like a coil. The way he always snuggled so close, as though he could never get close enough.
Brendan presses an intimate appreciative kiss to the top of Steven's head, consumed with fondness.
But Steven has other ideas.
Brendan feels Steven's hand sliding underneath the waistband of his jogging bottoms. He feels Steven's breath hitched in anticipation against his neck. He feels Steven hardening against his leg.
And his heart starts to hammer.
Fuck.
He can't say no to this. There is no way on Gods earth that if Steven wanted to grind himself on Brendan's cock right now, Brendan could refuse him. He so wants to be with him again, to reacquaint what they had, to be inside him and be his completely. He wants Steven more than he ever thought it possible to want another person.
On a couple of nights in prison he had tried to recreate this through use of another small prisoners body, but it had never been the same. Those were the worst nights he remembers – fucking a random, telling him to leave, and then feeling that cold dank emptiness. The hard-hitting realisation that what he had with Steven, he will never ever have again. Life would never be the same for him.
"Fuck Steven," He sighs, as Steven's hand wraps around his dick. He's already so hard. It's been so long, so terribly long, and he wants him so much he aches with it. "Come here,"
He peels himself from the mattress, positions himself above Steven. The lads eyes are glazed over with lust and need, mirroring exactly what Brendan feels. Sex has never and will never be with anyone like what it is between them. And even with the scars on Steven's thighs and the bruises on his arm, in this moment nothing has changed as their tongues move against each other, and their erections grind tantalisingly together.
Steven's legs wrap tight around Brendan's back as he whispers, "I want you."
"Hm," Brendan responds, swallows, already breathless.
"I need you to fuck me, Brendan."
Really, this is exactly what Steven doesn't need. But Brendan is helpless to be logical right now. He doesn't think about Steven's conflicted feelings for him, and he doesn't think about what went wrong between them, and he doesn't think about how Steven's body was used during the helpless pit of his overdose. To think of those things will be to make what they're doing wrong, but it feels so right.
He's going to make this all better. He and Steven will be together like they were, and Brendan will heal every wound and mend every break in his boys heart and soul. He will be on-guard like he wasn't last time. He will protect him from harms way.
Which is why, when the faint sounds of scuffling from outside fill his ears… he pulls away from Steven's intoxicating embrace.
"What's up?" Steven asks groggily, legs still wrapped around Brendan and kissed lips open and red.
"D'ye hear that?" Brendan asks.
"No…"
It's more clear now. Footsteps shifting around outside the walls of this flat. Mens voices talking hurridly. Leering, jeering, egging each other on. Too close to the flat for Brendan's comfort, and showing no signs of moving.
It's the loud SHATTER of smashing glass that spurs Brendan into action.
As he legs it from the bedroom, he can just hear Steven cry a shaken, "What were that?!" but Brendan has already reached the living room before the lad's even stirred into sitting position.
Brendan's large living room window is shattered. A brick lies on the floor, smashed through his glass coffee table. The sheers are scattered across the wooden floorboards.
"The fuck…" He breathes.
He bursts out of the front door. The cold is bitter, and he's only in boxers and a t-shirt. His bare feet sting with the cold of steel as he runs down the staircase… can hear feet running just below him. He'll catch and beat the fuckers, but when he gets to the ground below there's nobody there. Just a battered shit excuse for a car swerving off into the distance. A blokes middle finger waves out of the passenger seat window. The horn blows furiously, and an undistinguishable voice muffled by the noise screams, "FUCK YOU!".
When Brendan gets back to his flat, Steven is standing in the centre of the living room. The brick is tucked underneath his left arm. A crumpled piece of paper is scrunched up in the fist of his right.
"Mother-fuckers." Brendan breathes, observing the mess of his broken window. It creates a blast of frozen air all over them.
"Bren," Steven whispers. He holds the piece of paper out.
Of course.
If he'd had time to think about it, it would have been obvious.
Brendan looks into the estate listing of his own flat… his own mobile number scrawled at the top. The information he'd left with Steven at the council estate just days beforehand.
"It was wrapped round the brick." Steven says apologetically, "I just… I must've left it there, I'm sorry."
"S'okay." Brendan grumbles, but it's not really. He can't help the feeling of irritation chew at his insides. Will cost a fucking fortune to get that window fixed. And alongside the ridiculous price of a private rehab, that's another expense he doesn't need.
"Did you see him?" Steven asks, "Andy?"
"There were a whole bunch of 'em. They went off in a car."
"A whole bunch?" Steven seems to pale.
"It's okay." Brendan says, looks Steven dead in the eye to make sure he's listening, "Hey? It's okay. I'm here, aren't I?"
"…Yeah…"
Steven chews nervously on the nail of his middle finger. It's a nervous thing… not new… but he never went as far as biting the nails off before, only playing with them. For the first time Brendan notices that his nails are now non-existent.
"So they can throw a brick," Brendan dismisses, "So what?"
"Yeah but… it's a warnin' though, innit?"
"You're not worried, Steven, are ye?"
"You don't know what they're like!"
Brendan scoffs. Couldn't give even the tiniest shit about those clowns.
"I know their type." He says flatly.
"Look, this is what I were worried about, right?" Ste replies, "This is why I need to go back – they're not gonna…"
"Woah, woah, woah. Go back?!"
"Yeah…"
"The only place you're goin' is a fucking rehab; we're not gonna be scared off by a bunch of crack-heads who need to psyche each other up to throw a god damn brick."
He grabs a broom from the kitchen and starts sweeping the shattered glass of his coffee table.
"Watch your feet." He grunts, and prods Steven's bare feet with the broom.
Steven steps back silently.
He just watches Brendan for a moment or two… seemingly lost in thought. The intensity of their encounter in the bedroom is gone. Reality is upon them, and now it's more clear than ever that what they were going to do was too much… too soon. There's too much shit going on without adding their relationship into the mix, which is and always was a head-fuck of its own.
"I don't want to go to rehab, Bren." Steven croaks eventually.
Brendan takes a deep breath. He knew this was coming – Steven's a stubborn bugger, and the idea of being sectioned off for 28 days is hardly an appealing one in anybody's book. It was only a matter of time before Steven refused, but Brendan's not taking 'no' for an answer. He's not going to sit back and watch Steven pump himself full of shit any longer, and there's no argument to be had about it.
So he ignores him. Focuses his attention on the glass on the floor. Focuses his attention on counting down the minutes… because in 13 of them, the rehab will open and Brendan can call and make their appointment official. He can start actually doing something other than being confused and powerless and hopelessly, unhelpfully in love.
Steven uses the silence as an opportunity for appeal, like he can somehow change Brendan's mind.
"I know what them places are like, right? And… they just poke ya and prod ya, and then leave ya to rot. And I can be left to rot here, without you dishin' out thousands of pounds."
"I'm not strong enough to stop you injecting." Brendan says heavily. He remembers the way Steven screamed and cried and hit him. His whole body shaking with the need for a fix – like he'd die without one, and probably by killing himself. Brendan doesn't want to see him like that again, and if he does it will only end the same way. There's something inside him that can't bear to see Steven suffer, which is why there's now a stash of heroin in this very flat, ready for when Steven next needs it.
"You don't have to. I will stop."
Brendan scoffs, a hard biting laugh, before a doubtful, "Yeah."
"I will. I don't wanna go through that again, do I? What happened with Andy an' Gordon."
"You said yourself. You can't help it."
"Yeah but I will though."
It's feeble and Steven knows it. Even as he says it his voice wavers, like he's giving up. Perhaps he's too tired to fight. Perhaps he's already feeling the itch in his skin for another fix. Brendan readies himself. It was hard enough watching him yesterday… wincing in sadness as the needle pierced Steven's skin with a pop, and his eyes glazed over. The needle had gone in somewhere between all the scabs and bruises that pre-existed there. It made Brendan's skin crawl, and he wasn't usually faint-hearted.
It was with a casual attitude that Steven did it. It wasn't for attention and it wasn't even for pleasure, or any reason at all. It was pure habit. Procedure. And it will continue to be so until Brendan helps him sort it.
XOXOXOXOX
"Yeah, hi. I want to book someone in for private rehabilitation."
"Okay. And what is your name, Sir?"
"Brendan Brady. I'm… calling on behalf of Steven Hay."
"Please hold."
As the god-awful elevator music starts to chime down the phone, Brendan busies himself in the paperwork that litters the bedroom. Not work paperwork – although that is what he consciously aims for. It's his subconscious that makes him dig out his things from prison… the postcards from Cheryl and the photographs of Declan and Padraig and Steven.
And the two letters that Steven had written to him when he was at the very end of hope for being able to contact him any other way.
The first letter trembles in Brendan's fingers as he holds it. Behind bars, he'd forced himself not even to read it… but his self-will hadn't been strong enough. He still remembers it; the day he peeled open the envelope and was forced to face the scribbly handwriting of the man he ACHED with the pain of missing. It had been like all the air was extinguished him; Steven's presence pouring out of his written words, and stabbing Brendan with grief.
Brendan,
Iv got to rite to you now. cos for yor own stupid reeson you wont let me see you.
I mis you so much. And I need you to let me see you. I wory about you evrey day. I want to talk about wot you said about yor dad. You cant just say sumthing like that and then not speek to me!
Your driving me mad and im not gona stop trying ever so your just making me madder. Your being selfish and a barsted. I no about Walker. I no about evryfing.
Please stop doing this.
I love you so much.
After you read this – aproove my visit.
Ste.
PS: This took me fukin forever to rite – dont make me regret it.
"Mr Brady… Mr Brady?"
Brendan blinks; realises that the womans voice is squawking irritably at him down the phone.
"Sorry… yeah." He mutters, and massages his forehead with a low sigh.
"We have a space to sign in this week. Check in when it's good for you and go on from there."
"We want it as soon as possible."
"Well there's an induction slot today at 4.30pm."
"Yeah." Brendan says firmly, "We'll be there."
He hangs up the phone immediately. It's stupid, but reading this letter makes him miss Steven all over again. It brings back those feelings of conflicted pain, frustration and futility. He knew at the time that he was bringing Steven hurt, but he was so sure it was for the best. Tortured himself by reading the letter every single night, but continuing to answer "no" when the officers told him Steven Hay had filed for visiting rights.
Now Steven's back in his life… and Brendan is shipping him off to some clinic before they've even had time to talk things through properly. To work out their feelings for each other. Or explain.
And maybe this is him just fucking up all over again. This is him forcing control on Steven's life – again – when it's Steven who really can know what's best for him.
He can't shake the feeling.
Not even when Steven's in the car beside him, still numb from his latest fix, on the way to the clinic.
He's quiet and just staring out of the window, like he's accepted the fate Brendan has forced upon him. Docile, like when he laid in Andy's bed waiting for further instruction. The submissiveness of a man who gave up on himself some time ago.
Brendan keeps stealing glances at him… half-hoping to catch his eye and exchange some sort of smile or wink with him.
But Steven just looks on blankly.
"You errr… " Brendan coughs, clears his throat. "You had enough to eat, or d'ye wanna stop before we get there?"
"No, I'm fine." Steven says – because he eats fuck all these days.
"They'll have food there anyway." Brendan says… and then inwardly winces. Jesus – he sounds so awkward. His voice is sodden in the guilt he is feeling.
"It's gonna be nice." He continues, trying to ease the tension, "I saw on the website they got… they've got a lake and wooded trails and… stuff like that…."
He trails off feebly.
"Wooded trails?" Steven repeats … the tiniest suggestion of a smirk in his tone.
Brendan smiles. "Yeah, I know how much you love them wooded trails. That's why I chose this place."
"They got a rainbow and a wishing well n'all?"
"No, but I got ye a room with rainbow wallpaper – how's that?"
"Gay as fuck." Steven smiles, eyes glinting mischievously.
"It's called the Gay As Fuck room, funnily enough. I had them clear it out especially. There was some daddy-bear in there, but he's gone now."
"Lots of man meat there, is there?"
"Tons."
"Won't be so bad then, will it?"
"Hey." Brendan shoots back warningly.
As the car stirs back into silence he realises his mistake. Steven's not his boyfriend. So caught up in the exchange he was, Brendan forgot that fact, and that he's not allowed to even jokingly allude to the idea that Steven can't see other people. Christ. And now it's strained again. All the things they STILL so desperately need to discuss suffocate them in the space.
He slams down on the brakes without plan or preparation, and their bodies are thrown forward.
"What were that for?!" Ste snaps, sulkily rubbing his neck.
"What do ye wanna do?" Brendan asks. Steven looks at him blankly, so he pushes on; "C'mon what do ye wanna do?! You don't wanna go to this fuckin' place, so if you could do anythin' right now… anything in the world… what would it be?"
"I don't know." Steven says with automatic defensiveness.
"Well I'm tellin' ye to think about it. C'mon, what?!"
"I dunno Brendan!
"I'm not gonna force ye to go to this place if you don't want to, Steven."
"Wha…!" Steven splutters, "What you bein' such a scitzo for?!"
"I'm not bein' scitzo!" Brendan sighs, exasperated, "I just don't like seeing you sit there all fucking miserable like I'm shipping you off to some Asylum."
"Right, so if I coulddo anything in the world?" Steven asks.
"Yeah."
"Anything? And you'll help me do it?"
"I'll try. C'mon – what is it?"
"I wanna forget everything." Steven says simply, "I wanna snort a load of coke and take a loada pills and get so fucked I can't even see straight. And that's what I want, Brendan, more than anything."
His words are spoken with painful straight-forwardness.
They're spoken with the intention to make Brendan hurt, but at the same time he can't help feel there's a huge amount of truth in them too.
Brendan looks at him for another moment, as though praying Steven's face will break into a big goofy grin that says 'just kidding!'.
But of course, he doesn't, and Brendan draws a heavy moaning sigh and his head hits the steering-wheel despairingly.
From his position he vaguely hears Steven light up a cigarette. Steven takes a long inhale, and then says slowly, "So come on then. You set up this meetin', so lets go to it."
"There's no point going to rehab if you don't wanna get clean." Brendan mutters darkly. "You have to want it, not be forced into it."
"People force me to do all kinds of things. At least this way I can clear me head."
"And what if you stay with me? Can I not help you do that?"
He's genuinely curious. He wants what's best for Steven – always has. He can't trust his own judgement on what's best anymore though; needs Steven's guidance.
"No." Steven says quietly. "I'm supposed to hate you."
"And don't ye?"
Steven thinks about it for a second. His eyes shine over, conflicted.
"I don't think so." He whispers eventually.
"And that's why ye need to clear your head?"
"I need to clear my head cos I think I still love you, and that's fucked up." He says, voice trembling with the efforts to hold back tears. "And I wanna get clean so I know what's drugs and what's not. And then maybe I won't need your help anymore."
Brendan has no words for that.
His heart jitters nervously though with the declaration that Steven's just made… and the precious fragility of it. He still loves him. After everything, a part of Steven still gives itself over to Brendan. And it's that part of him that Brendan can nurture, and fix him with. He knows, because that's exactly how Steven fixed him all those years ago.
"Lets just go to the meeting." He says carefully, giving away no feelings so as not to scare Steven off. "See what they say, then you can make up your mind."
"Okay." Steven replies, with equally quiet carefulness.
Brendan starts the car again, all momentary thoughts of spontaneous road-trips out of the window. Back to Plan A. Get Steven clean, and then work out all the other shit.
"You better not be lyin'," Steven says lightly as the car takes off again, "About that rainbow room."
XOXOXOXOX
The next few hours are a series of meetings and hand-shakes and procedure-talks and booklets and leaflets and tours. Forms are filled out and intrusive personal questionnaires answered, and on too many occasions Brendan had to struggle to write down his relationship to Steven, as his emergency contact.
The clinic lives up to its expensive price, but even the luxurious décor and swimming pools and games rooms can't hide the fact that the place is stale and like a prison. A woman leads him and Steven to a bedroom, and it's generously spacious with a comfortable double bed and window over-looking the fields. The setting is undeniably beautiful, but Brendan can't imagine Steven here.
"What do ye think?" He mumbles quietly as Steven runs his fingers thoughtfully across the bed post.
"It's alright, innit?" Steven replies. He sounds deliberately upbeat, when the situation gives him no reason to be.
"If you hate it I want you to say."
"What's the hate? S'proper posh; I never lived anywhere like here before."
Brendan can't work out why Steven's being so positive. Whether he has an ulterior motive, whether he's genuinely decided to turn his life around, or whether for some reason he wants to please Brendan.
Or maybe just get away from him.
"I'm gonna miss ye, if you stay here." Brendan says, his teeth gritting a tad with the old deeply-ingrained urge to repress anything too emotional.
Steven snorts, "I've only been stayin' with you a couple of days. And we've most argued."
"I know but… y'know."
There's a silence for a moment while Brendan looks out at the endless fields and quiet and serenity. Steven would get bored here in a matter of seconds, and Brendan can't see him getting much time on the X-Box judging by that rough-looking skinhead they'd seen attached to the controls earlier.
"No, y'know what?" He says, "Lets just go back. This is stupid. I can help ye get clean; we can do it together."
"Brendan!" Ste says, and then softly, "You're not gonna lose me y'know. I'm gonna let you visit."
Brendan hadn't even considered that. What if that's what Steven's doing? Revenge? A taste of Brendan's own medicine? Brendan refused access, not knowing how Steven's holding up, being expected to continue life as usual despite the huge void.
"I need time. To work things out." Steven says simply.
Brendan shuffles awkwardly on his feet. The desperation not to leave him here is overwhelming. They've only just come back into each others lives for fuck sake.
"Are we even gonna talk about what happened this morning?" He asks gruffly. He fixes his eyes firmly on the floor, vulnerable and open for Steven to destroy with one harsh bitter line.
Steven nods. A promise that yes, they will. But not now.
This is another subject, along with the other heavy looming subjects of Walker and Seamus and Andy, that will all have to be covered at a later date.
"I'm gonna be strong." Steven says. And his voice for the first time sounds so young and delicate… like he could break. But he doesn't. There's a determination in him… something that wants to take control back. It's the closest thing to old Steven that Brendan has seen.
And so Brendan leaves him.
And it's awful as he drives away, looking into a big building and not having a clue what's going to happen to Steven inside. But at least this way he's away from Andy and his threats. And away from Brendan and his inadvertent head-fuckery. At least this way, if he decides he needs Brendan out of his life, he can do so with clear head.
Brendan parks halfway home, and can't help but pull out the second letter that Steven wrote him when he was in prison. It's been tucked in his jean pocket all day… unable to suffer through it the first time. And all over again there's that messy scrawl that tugs at his gut with longing and pain. Fuck, he misses him again. He wonders what he's doing now.
Brendan,
So this is what it cums to? After EVREYFING we have dun. After evreyfing I gave up for you. You are spineles. I wish I never met you. I wish I dident kid myself that you cared. But evreyone is rite about you.
You make me hurt and hurt and hurt but im not gona let you anymore. Wen you get out, I wont be yours. Im taking controle of my own life now. You dont get to deside things for me. I wont try and visit you agen. ROT FOR ALL I CARE.
STEVEN.
Hindsight tells Brendan this letter was written a mere days before Steven shot Simon Walker in the head. His tears stain the paper and the word 'rot' has a hole in it, like the pen tore through.
He would have been fucking Walker during this time. Maybe he wrote this while Walker slept. He would have been hating himself for it, but doing it for Brendan… for them.
Whilst Brendan continued to shun and deny and torture him.
As far as he's concerned, this letter is dignified. Brendan deserved, and still does deserve, so much worse a punishment.
XOXOXOX
I am going to TRY and wrap this up next chapter. So if there is anything anyone thinks I haven't gone into enough detail on, or if I've forgotten to explain any bits, do tell me. I've been very busy lately, so distracted from this, so I definitely might have dropped the ball a bit.
