When Brendan was eleven years old, he began spending a lot of time at his friend Pete's house. He'd met Pete through school, and they struck up an easy kind of friendship based on a shared enjoyment of generally terrorising their teachers and playing practical jokes in class. Brendan was drawn to Pete's wide, open smile, his warm house where his mum always seemed to be cooking something wonderful, the smells from the oven hitting Brendan the minute he walked through the door. He felt safe there. It was a respite for a few precious hours, and he could almost forget what was going on in his head. The pressure on his shoulders suddenly felt manageable, as though Pete was helping with the load.
Pete had an uncle, Luke. During the summer of Brendan's first year at secondary school, Luke moved into Pete's house after he had divorced from his wife. He would crash on the couch, constantly exhausted while Brendan and Pete would watch television beside him. He would mind the two boys when Pete's parents were out of the house, helping them make their lunches and taking them for walks in town.
Pete told Brendan that he'd overheard his mum and dad saying how Luke was "depressed", that sometimes at night he could hear him cry. Brendan vaguely remembered that, crying. He could still picture what it felt like to have the sensation of tears stinging his eyes, and falling down his cheeks. But it felt like a distant memory, something he could no longer get in contact with. He hadn't cried in three years.
Brendan thought that the sadness in Luke ought to scare him. He'd never seen a man behaving in that way before, eyes rimmed with red, holding the hands of his sister in the kitchen and talking to her about missing a woman. It was an alien concept to Brendan that a man should show affection and emotion so easily. It confused him, and he wondered if he should hate Luke, and wondered why he didn't.
No matter how despondent Luke was feeling, he would always welcome Brendan into the house, almost like he was his nephew alongside Pete. He would smile for Brendan's benefit, ruffle his hair and ask him about school. When Brendan would struggle over homework he'd pull up a chair and sit down beside him, however many hours it would take.
When Brendan was called home early one day by Seamus, it was one of the rare times that he couldn't hide his discomfort. Before he left the house he excused himself to go to the bathroom, and threw up the lunch that Luke had carefully prepared for him. He felt sweaty and clammy, and rested his head against the coldness of the bath. He hoped he'd been quiet enough for no one to hear him retching, and when he was ready he went downstairs again, trying to hide what he'd been hiding his whole life.
Luke wiped the perspiration from Brendan's brow, and hugged him before Brendan could stop him. He struggled in his hold, because he didn't hug anyone but Cheryl, and that was as much for her benefit as it was for his. He heard Luke murmur something very softly. "It'll be okay, you'll be back here soon." And then he let him go.
During the last day of summer, Brendan came over to Pete's house. They no longer called each other up - they didn't need invitations, and Pete's parents would open the door as though Brendan were a family pet, as though his absence was more unusual than his presence.
Pete was out though, had gone to the swimming pool with his dad, and it was only Luke there. These days he was no longer sprawled on the sofa, instead presenting as smart and formal in his suit which he'd been wearing to job interviews, going to one almost every day. When he saw Brendan he beamed, and told him that he could wait, that Pete wouldn't be long.
Brendan had been careless that afternoon. In Pete's house he became lax, and he'd taken off his jumper without thinking. It made him furious because he always, always remembered. He tried to rectify his mistake immediately, but it was already too late, and Luke rushed over to him, holding his arm in concern and asking him where the bruises had come from. He tried to shrug him off but Luke was bigger and stronger than him, and he felt helpless against him, like the walls were closing in. He knew that he had to be very, very careful about this, that he had to think about what he said and not slip up. He was a master at thinking up stories, and the extent of his deception made him proud.
He told Luke how he'd had an accident at the playground, that he'd had a nasty fall and bruised his arms. He listened to his voice, at the calmness of it. It sounded dead, and it delighted him, and it scared him.
He felt very little panic, because he knew that Luke would leave him alone and let him carry on waiting for Pete. Perhaps they'd talk about one of the jobs Luke had applied for, and he'd tell him something funny that one of his interviewers had done.
Except he didn't leave him alone.
"How did you get hurt, Bren?"
"I fell over in the playground." He was having to repeat himself, and he didn't like it.
"You don't get bruises like this from falling over."
Brendan didn't know what to say to that. He didn't understand why he was being questioned. Why did Luke care?
Luke drew him into his arms then, and they sat together on the couch while he was being held. Luke was close to him, and Brendan could smell his aftershave, and the heat from his body. He was wearing a suit like one of the one's his father wore. He was touching Brendan's body with his hands, holding him around the middle firmly.
Brendan disentangled himself enough from Luke's hold to start undoing the older man's belt. His hands then started on his fly, his grip solid, because he didn't shake, he never did.
But someone was shouting at him now, pushing him away and standing in front of him, their frame bigger, stronger, and none of this made sense. This is what his dad did. He brought Brendan's hands to his crotch, forcing him to undo his trousers until Brendan wasn't sure whether it was his idea or Seamus's.
"What the hell are you doing, Brendan?" He'd never heard Luke angry before, and he looked wild now, hastily doing up his trousers and staring at Brendan like he'd done something wrong.
Brendan didn't say anything, because it was no longer safe here for him, and anything he said would feel like a trap. His throat felt dry and he didn't know where he wanted to be, imagined what it would be like to want to go home. He couldn't explain to Luke that he had hoped this was what everyone did, because he thought then that it would be normal, that maybe he'd be normal. He'd wanted to ask Pete about it when he met him, wanted to ask if his dad hurt him and put things in his mouth that he didn't want, and did things to his body that he hadn't asked for, and that had made him bleed for a long time.
He sensed early on that there was something different about Pete's relationship with his dad. Pete wasn't afraid of touching him or of being touched, and would actively seek it out like it was his right. He would smile goofily up at his dad like he was his hero, and Brendan didn't know how to put something like that into words, couldn't ask him if his dad came into his room at night and pinned him to the bed. So he never asked.
Luke kept on asking him what he was doing, Brendan could hear him muttering "You're eleven years old, Jesus." All he could think of was whether that was meant to mean something. If his age was important. He felt like he was watching a child come apart at the seams, Luke pacing the room and fidgeting, nervous, and he was watching him, composed, had already floated away from his body, like he was looking in on this from the ceiling.
The only thing that reached him was when Luke said "I have to tell someone about this." Because he knew that whatever this thing was, it wasn't something you told. It was to be locked away, to be kept in a dark place, because that's what it was. Dark, dirty.
But there was a tiny sliver of light, and Brendan felt it like it was hitting him square in the chest. Luke wanted to tell someone, and something could change. Even when he wrangled out of Luke's hold, excusing himself to go home, ignoring the adult's protestations, he had enough energy to run, and the energy was something like hope.
Seamus was drunk enough that night to not come into Brendan's bed, but he was being kept awake for a whole other reason, the first glimmer of excitement growing inside him. He imagined the teachers who had told him off for being late, calling him insolent, a word that he didn't understand and had never been explained to him. He pictured them apologising, and making it so that when he went home that day, he'd only have Cheryl and her mum, and they'd have made the bed with fresh sheets. He'd have a lock on his door, but he wouldn't really need it, because there would be nothing to keep out anymore.
The next day he found out that Luke had left, that he'd moved away after he'd got a job offer, and they didn't know if they'd ever see him again. When Brendan went into school his teachers gave him detention for not doing his homework, and when he went home that night it was just him and Seamus, and there was no lock.
"I don't hate you."
It veers so far off the script that Brendan hears the boy for the first time, lets his words sink in, just hot air before. Everything is falling apart, dangerously, dangerously apart, and he can't hold it all together like he always does, like he no longer has the implements to stitch it all up again, heal the wound, good as new.
Brendan has never told anyone before, thought it would feel like freedom but it feels like punishment, like he's just shared the burden of his life with someone else, and now it's their burden too. It wouldn't mean anything to a stranger in an alleyway, would earn him a pitying glance but nothing more. But with Steven it fucking matters, he's not running away and he's not silencing him, and he looks at him with more concern than he deserves.
He doesn't know why he said it, has never planned on spilling his guts out to anyone, least of all a person he's planning on fucking, but he'd seen the judgement in Steven's eyes, known that he thought him a psychopath, capable of killing his own father, and for what - family rivalry? An argument gone awry? Just because he was that sick?
He's kept this inside his whole life, and he's surprised it hasn't already killed him, that the knowledge of it alone hasn't carved a path through his heart and gutted it whole. For a fleeting moment he wonders if he can take it back, if he can laugh it off and say he was just messing around, make Steven think that he's that twisted as well as violent. But you can't take something like that back, can you? Once it's spoken it's there forever. He's just dug a hole a mile wide and it's up to him to dig himself out of it, inch by precarious inch.
"I could change that, if I wanted to." It's what he does, makes people see the ugliness in him, breaks that belief that there's something good there, until there's nothing left.
"I dare you." Steven's voice falters, but there's a strength there, a determination.
Brendan looks at him for the first time since he told him, and fucking hell, the boy looks like he's aged about ten years in the space of ten minutes. Still gorgeous though, still ripe and delectable, enough to take a man's mind off his entire life for the past thirty two years.
"You want me to break your heart, Steven?" His voice is playful, teasing, but the question isn't.
"Do you do that a lot?"
He's not proud of it, not proud of the way he tossed Vincent aside in the days before he died, left him so vulnerable that he'd sought comfort in a guy like Danny. He'd seen Vincent's cell before the officers had managed to cover it up, before they'd made it into an official crime scene. Blood had spattered the walls, and Brendan had wondered if the boy had even struggled, or if he'd simply given up. "I'm nothing if I'm not with you, Brendan." The kid had been young, impressionable, had believed that love could save him, that when it was taken away he was no more than a carcass, resenting every expansion of his lungs that allowed him to carry on breathing.
The courts had charged Danny with the boy's death, but Brendan knew he had all but put a noose around his neck.
"Yes."
"Me too," Steven says softly.
It wasn't what Brendan was expecting to hear, can barely imagine a person like Steven saying boo to a goose. He's seen the temper in the boy, seen how his skin goes red, replacing the golden tone to it that makes him look like he's been basking in sunshine his entire life. But there is a strange kind of gentleness there. He's seen the boy consciously trying to calm himself down, seen as he's drained of anger like he's ruling it completely, saying fuck you, I call the shots here.
"Let me guess. You were seven, and you told a girl you wouldn't save a swing for her?"
Steven laughs, rolls those blue eyes of his, but Brendan can tell his heart's not in it. This is exactly what he'd feared would happen if he told someone, that they'd go soft on him, that they'd feel the need to protect him.
"I've done some things I'm not proud of. I've hurt the people I love."
What is this, tit for tat? Brendan tells him something, he tries to even the score?
"I...I beat Amy up. The mother of my kids."
Brendan doesn't know what to do with that, has never laid a hand on a woman in his life. Even when Eileen found him in bed with Macca he didn't touch her, knew that he could control her with his fists, and God he wanted to, but that's not what he did.
Brendan feels disgusted with Steven, but it's not enough to make him not want him. Not nearly enough.
"She forgave you?" He'd seen them at visiting hours. She'd been a pretty girl, face delicate and pale, small body that made the fact that she was a mother at her age seem even more ridiculous. He'd heard them arguing, had barely even been able to concentrate on what Cheryl was saying to him, eyes so drawn to the boy, to the way he bit his lip like he was trying to provoke. He'd been curious, wanted to know what their relationship was like, if there was still anything there. Anyone could spot a mile off that she'd been frosty as hell with him, voice colder than ice, but there was still something that was relaxed about them. You could tell that they'd been doing this for years, fighting and talking and hugging and kissing and loving each other no matter what the betrayal.
"Yeah. I went to get help...anger management."
Anger management. Brendan laughs inwardly, fucking anger management, like he can go to a class, read a couple of leaflets and be fixed. You can't rewire something that's broken. You may as well smash something to pieces, watch as it falls and revel in the chaos that you've created.
"Did you ever...did you ever tell someone, Brendan?"
"No." Brendan say it as if it's obvious, because it is. He doesn't tell anyone these things, because no one cares enough to save him, and he'd stopped wanting to be superman when he was a kid, or of hoping that anyone else could be.
"Why me then?"
It's not that Brendan trusts him. He barely even knows the boy, is well aware that there's an expiratory date on this, and he'll be walking through those gates in a few months time. Brendan will die here, knows that if he does ever get out then the world will have changed, will have turned into a place he barely recognises. It's hard to imagine a time when he won't be woken up by the officers banging on his door, when he won't have to constantly be on his guard and exploit the terror that he produces in people.
"I have no idea." It's honest, as close to the truth as he can get. Perhaps he's just got sick of carrying this around with him, day after day, year after year. It's like an infection that never leaves him, something that's buried itself deep into his skin, and it's unrelenting, never letting him forget what happened. He is so, so tired.
"You can talk to me -"
Brendan silences him, moves towards him and pushes him onto the bed, gets on top of him, straddling Steven's knees and kissing him with everything he has, all the energy he has left. He wants it rough, wants to fuck him so hard that his screams can be heard by the whole prison, echoing round the walls, cries of pleasure so acute that they ring in Brendan's ears days afterwards.
Steven responds at first, moulding against his body, so receptive like he's offering Brendan every part of him.
Brendan's balls are aching, and he murmurs words against Steven's throat as he kisses him, can't fucking stop himself. "Going to sit your pretty little arse on my face and let you ride me, make you come, yeah?"
He wants more than that though, far, far more, wants to fuck the boy with the harshest intensity, wants to hoist Steven's legs around his waist and back them both against the wall, encourage the boy to stroke his cock and then get inside him with one clean push. It's where he gets his escape, loses himself in another man's heat, feels himself come apart in the security that a warm body can bring. All he concentrates on is the sensation of milking his cock, and his head can clear, can resemble something that is as close to normality as he can get.
Brendan pulls down Steven's trousers, can see the outline of his cock in his underwear, not hard yet, but he'll suck him till it's rock solid, till he can taste the salty pre cum and have the boy shooting down his throat, seeing stars.
He grasps at it through the fabric, gives it a few teasing strokes, observing as Steven's breathing hitches, his head rolling back, exposing that smooth and slender neck that's just begging to be grazed by Brendan's teeth. There's no rush though, not now he's got the boy where he wants him, not with the night stretching before them, and months of nights after that. He's going to become on first name terms with every part of Steven's anatomy, plans on making a mark of ownership on every inch of his skin.
Brendan dips his head, wants to give Steven a few slow licks of his cock through his boxers, but the boy pushes his head away. Brendan grunts, thinks he's playing that game, trying to make him want him more than he already does, as if that's even possible.
He's nothing if not determined though, wants to pin Steven's arms onto the bed and reduce all the other men before him into a pile of dust and ashes, nothing more than faceless and nameless strangers, make it so all that Steven can see is him.
He hears a croaky "no" for the second time that day, the word that possibly effects him more than anything on this earth, and he can't fight it, can't refuse it for one second, stops immediately like he's frozen.
Steven looks upset, and how did he not see that before? He's scrabbling up in the bed, looks close to tears, composing himself and doing up his trousers. Brendan feels frustrated, doesn't know what he's done to upset the kid, thought he wanted this just as much as he does, to be touched and sucked and licked and stroked, to just forget about the world for a while.
"That's not what I...I didn't come back here for this."
Brendan can't comprehend what he did come back here for. Was it to talk, to have some heart to heart like they're friends? The mere notion is ridiculous, impossible. Brendan had seen Steven's face when he'd touched him in bed, seen the reaction it had caused. The boy must have been wise enough to know exactly what Brendan had in mind, that it was never going to be a fucking massage.
"Brendan, you just told me -"
He puts his finger over Steven's lips, applies it with more pressure than necessary, but Steven's pushing it, pushing him, asking questions that no one's ever asked him, no one's ever cared to know.
"Thinking about your boyfriend Walker, are you? Feel guilty?" He doesn't mean to say it, it just slips out of him, jealousy like an angry, irrational, unwanted enemy that hasn't visited in a while.
Steven looks confused, looks even more perfect and fragile with his brows creased together, lip jutting out.
"This isn't anything to do with him."
Brendan's seen Walker sniffing around him, knew from the first day that he met Steven that Walker would be after him, would look at him like some prize that could be won, wouldn't stop until he had him in his bed.
He'd come to Brendan in the dining room, leaned in close, intimate "He looks pliable don't you think, Brady? Like I could bend him in two and he'd still have room for more."
Brendan had tried to smile at him, turn it into some kind of joke, but his mouth wouldn't let him, like it physically found it impossible. Steven talked back far too often, wore his heart on his sleeve far too easily, kicked off over the smallest thing, trusted Douglas like he'd known him his entire life, had kids when he was still a kid himself, but God, he was fucking beautiful. And Brendan couldn't bear for all that childlike innocence and joy that Steven still managed to possess in a hell hole like this to be snapped under Walker's grip.
"Why don't you just go to him, eh? He's good in bed, don't worry about that. I should know."
He's turning ugly now, uglier than he already is, letting this beast that's inside him come out and play. He can see it in Steven's eyes, like they're being widened by the true nature of him, seeing all that he is and not liking one single drop. It's comforting in a sense, natural, doing to the boy what he does to everyone else, pushing them away until there's nothing left. But it's doing nothing to lessen the pounding in his head, the voice that's telling him to hang on for dear life, that I need this kid. I don't know why, but I do.
"You've slept with Walker?" Brendan can hear the spark of a temper again, the colour that's bloomed back into Steven's cheeks, something like anger.
"You jealous?" He finds himself longing for the answer to be yes, doesn't know why, because that's a feeling, and he doesn't do feelings.
"Don't flatter yourself." It's defensive, and he doesn't completely believe it. "Did you really? You and him..."
Brendan can hear how much Steven needs it not to be true.
"No. I just...I'm being a bastard."
Steven's eyes soften like he undestands, and that's even worse. He won't be someone who some twenty three year old kid feels sorry for. "I can't...we can't...not after what you just told me. Brendan, your dad -"
"Yeah, I'm aware." He rocks back on his heels, slight manic laughter escaping from his throat. "I don't need it repeating." It hurts enough just living with the knowledge of it. A reaffirmation might just kill him.
"When did it start?" Steven asks quietly. Very, very quietly.
"Eight," Brendan finds himself saying. But it was long before that, the beatings, the insults. It has no clear start because it's always been there.
He sees Steven's expression turn to one of shock. Brendan knows realistically that eight's young, but it's just become a number to him, just a five letter word.
"And when did it end?"
"It never ends." Because it doesn't. And Steven just seems to know, no other explanations required.
Brendan gets off Steven's bed, because if he's not going to be sleeping with him then it's too intimate, too close, and he keeps his distance instead, doesn't trust what he'll do to him. If it's not sex, then it's violence, and something tells him that if he hurts the boy then there's no sure way back from it.
"Your sister doesn't know, does she?"
Why won't he stop talking? Can't he hear all the noise that's in my head, that leaves such little room for anything else?
"No."
"What does she think happened?"
"She thinks I've been wrongfully charged." He laughs, he can't help it, can't believe the tales that Cheryl fabricates in order to believe him to be a good man, contrary to all available evidence. "They had everything - fingerprints, DNA, and she still thinks I've been set up."
"Love."
"What?" Brendan turns on his heels, the word sounding strange, alien.
"She loves you," Steven says softly.
She must, but he doesn't have a clue why. No other person would have stuck by him like this, visiting him and talking like he's going to get out in a month, a year, when he can already envisage Cheryl having her own kids, showing him pictures, feeding him stories, until the pictures become that of her grandkids, and they become the same age as he is right now, living the life he could have lived.
"She doesn't always make the best choices, my sister."
"She obviously sees something in you."
Brendan laughs. "Yeah, blood. The same genes. She wouldn't be here if it wasn't for that."
"You don't know that."
"Trust me kid, I've been around a bit longer than you."
"What, so that makes you some kind of expert? And stop with this kid stuff, I thought we were past that." Brendan notices the way Steven's accent becomes even more pronounced when he's mad. His initial assessment hasn't changed. Straight from the gutter. He just never realised he liked the gutter so damn much.
Steven moves off the bed, comes towards Brendan, and it's his turn to try and push him away now. The boy's made it clear that he doesn't want him for sex, and Brendan's got nothing else to give him.
"Please, you can talk to me. You don't have to shut me down."
"Jesus kid, you're needy, you're clingy." And I'm a bastard.
He's hurt him, he can tell. He's got that wounded puppy look, and Brendan may as well have just punched him, would have probably stung less. It's important he knows what he's like though, before Steven gets any ideas. Crazy ideas, like Vincent and Macca had, that they could be together. He wants to scream at all these boys, ask them what the hell they want him for, and don't they get it? Everything was torn out of him in that bedroom twenty four years ago.
"I just want to help you."
Help. For a second, he almost sees it, tastes it, feels it, what it would be like. Having someone who he can let go with like that, and the world won't crumble, he won't be left naked and humiliated, won't be cold and on his own again.
But it's too much, he's on the edge of a cliff and he can't afford to fall, can't even take a step towards it, because what if he nearly falters and he has nothing to hold onto anymore?
"Don't need anyones help," he mutters, firm. "Least of all yours. So go back to Simon."
"Fuck sake, Brendan." The kid's running his hands through his hair, looks exasperated, about ready to tear it out. "I was never with Walker, I never will be with Walker. Just drop it, yeah? I want to talk about you."
"Unless you're sucking my cock, I'm not interested."
Steven squares his eyes at him, a flash of disgust on his face that Brendan knows he deserves.
"You don't mean that, and you're not nearly as tough as you think. So try your worst on me, and I think I can take it. But I'll still be here."
"Not if I kill you." He doesn't mean it, of course he doesn't mean it, the idea of anyone hurting Steven makes him fucking protective and scared as anything, wants to wrap him in cotton wool and keep him safe from harm.
"Go on then." This kid's a chancer, bold as brass, up in his face, dark brows raised in a challenge.
Brendan slides down the wall then, wants to sink into the ground and build a home there, anywhere but here. He closes his eyes, lets himself drift away for a second, but still senses that Steven's there, and true to his promise, he's not going anywhere. He hears him crouch down with him, can almost see his eyes boring into his, unwavering.
"My step dad used to beat me up -"
"It's not the same." It gets to him though, the idea of Steven being hurt, but it doesn't come close.
"I know, I wasn't saying - let me finish, won't you? I know it could never be the same, and I don't have a clue what you went through, but - well, I know some of it. A tiny bit. We still don't know each other that well, but I think you're someone I want to know."
Brendan laughs. The boy's crazy, has no idea what he's getting himself into.
"I've always felt a bit different to other people."
Brendan listens, can't help himself.
"Like I never really...fit in. Anywhere. Even with Amy, I always feel like it's only a matter of time before she chucks me out, tells me it was all a mistake, and I can't even get being a dad right. After what she said to me today...well, that might happen."
Brendan wants to tell him that it won't, that whatever mistakes Steven's made he still reckons he's a pretty decent father. He cares about things, cares about people, even when he shouldn't.
"I feel like I fit in with you, though. Even when you make me feel like a right idiot." It's Steven's turn to laugh, nervously this time. "But I don't feel weird when I'm with you."
"Because I'm a freak."
"You know you've said that twice to me now, and neither time I've believed it."
"Please just go away, Steven." That'll hurt him enough to make him stop. But the boy never does what's expected.
"Don't think I will, actually."
Brendan's eyes open, and there he is, sitting there, arms crossed, challenging look in his eyes, not backing down, not for one second. God, Brendan really hates him.
"Think I'll just stay here all night, me. Camp out here, make it proper cosy, have a midnight feast, maybe lay a picnic blanket..."
"We're in a fucking prison."
The boy smiles. Taking the piss seems to be one of his favourite pastimes.
"We can roast some marshmallows and everything. How crispy do you like yours, Brendan?"
"I like choking them in your throat."
"Aw, that's dead nice, that is. You're a charmer, you."
Brendan has never met anyone like him before, doesn't know whether he wants to laugh or beat him with a stick while Johnny Cash drowns out his cries.
"As long as you promise not to kiss me again." Steven's looking at him in amusement. "I know I'm irresistible, but..."
"I think I can manage," he replies through gritted teeth, his patience wearing thin. Although in all honesty it's a struggle, the boy's smile showing those teeth of his, teeth that he really wouldn't mind feeling around his nipples right about now.
"You don't have to tell me about what happened with your dad now." He's serious then, looking at Brendan with concern. "Maybe one day."
Maybe never. But something stops him from saying it. A grunt is the only reply Steven gets.
"But I'll listen when you do."
"Thanks..." It's meant to come out sarcastic, but somehow it doesn't.
Steven props his feet against the wall, his trousers riding up, exposing the hairiness of his legs. Brendan's throat is anything but dry right now, swimming with saliva the way it always does when he's turned on, wants to lick down the hair on Steven's legs until it's even darker, wet to the touch. The boy seems to have no idea what effect he has, probably thinks that if he stripped down to his underwear the prisoners would still look the other way. It's annoying, and more charming than Brendan would like to admit.
"Right, you coming to bed then?"
Brendan thinks he's misheard, can't take the way Steven's mind seems to work a mile a minute, jumping from subject to subject, has an endless amount of energy that he's never seen in anyone before.
"What?"
"You coming into my bed?" Despite the boldness of his words he's still shy, Brendan can see it. His lip is quivering, and he looks close to retracting the offer.
"I thought you said..."
"I'm not going to have sex with you. I'm just asking you if you want to sleep with me."
"It's barely eight o'clock." Steven's just asked him to jump into his bed, and he's focusing on the time.
"It's been a long day, hasn't it? I'm exhausted, and I don't know about you, but this is the worst excuse for a sheet I've ever seen." He pulls himself to his feet and toys with the bedcovers as if proving his point. He's not wrong. Brendan spends half the night just trying to get warm.
"I don't...I don't cuddle, Steven." The idea is absurd.
"I'm not asking you to spoon me or anything." He rolls his eyes, looks at Brendan as if saying why do you have to make everything so difficult? "You just look hairy, don't you? Like you could keep me warm."
"You're using me for my hair, Steven?" He almost laughs at the question.
"You can pay me back for me making you the buttercream."
Silas had ended up eating most of the cake when Tony wasn't looking anyway, the greedy git. Along with a fondness for jewellery, it seemed to be the older man's weakness.
"I don't..."
"Come on!" Steven pulls him up, actually bends down and takes him by the hands, and he allows himself to be led.
Steven doesn't bother to change into his nightclothes, just lies down on his bed, moving as close as possible to the wall to give Brendan enough space.
Brendan removes his shirt, his white vest underneath. He can see Steven's eyes on him, knows the boy fancies the pants off him whatever he says, can't help feeling slightly smug at the fact. Brendan looks at the door, but no one's looking through the screen window. Even if they do, he's had lads in here before, had Vincent sprawled out naked on his bed. Anyone looking in would just think he and Steven had fallen asleep afterwards. He smirks at the image of Walker looking through the window, seeing his boy become Brendan's boy.
Brendan keeps his trousers on, doesn't want Steven thinking that he's going to take advantage of this, even if it's what he wants most of all.
He climbs in beside him. It's a tight squeeze, the bed's not built for two people, but it's had the desired effect, and even with them sharing the sheet between them the cold feeling has gone, replaced by a warm snugness.
He doesn't put his arm around him, waits to see what Steven will do instead. He's willing to bet that if he placed a hand over the boy's heart it would be beating rapidly, jumping all over the place.
Steven leans his head against Brendan's shoulder, and the skin of his cheek is smooth, soft.
"Goodnight."
He feels Steven drifting away from him already, and is tempted to do the same, just give it all up, forget about tomorrow and allow the blanket of sleep to envelop him. He closes his eyes, knows that the boy's beside him the whole time, and feels himself give into it.