Warning: Macca is OOC – but really, who cares about him anyway, right?

IRELAND; JANUARY 2014

Brendan ran a hand over his face and sighed deeply. He felt frustrated and trapped, like rutting all morning hadn't given him enough of a release. But he wasn't really frustrated with himself, it was Macca. He didn't understand the lad. He'd screwed him slow when he'd pleaded, impaled him into the mattress when he'd begged. He'd licked, sucked and screwed in exactly the ways he'd demanded. He'd fulfilled every one of Macca's fleeting fantasies and now he wished the little princess would repay him the favour by leaving.

He wasn't even talking. That would be infinitely less annoying. No, Macca was just lying on his side, elbow bent so he could rest his head in his hand and just staring at Brendan. It was like he was hoping he'd start a conversation, or maybe tell him how pretty he looked in the dim light of an Irish winter that was coming through the window. Well Brendan wasn't going to say that. Macca didn't look pretty, not after they'd screwed. His face always blushed red in blotchy patches, his hair always stuck up in weird angles which did nothing for his prematurely receding hair line and he always had this goofy look in his eyes, which made Brendan want to punch him. He didn't always entirely manage to resist that urge.

'What are you looking at?' Brendan asked eventually. He hadn't really taken his eyes off the white ceiling, but he couldn't stay there in silence any more. It was driving him crazy.

'You.' Macca's voice sounded distant and dreamy.

'Well … don't,' Brendan muttered, reaching over to shove Macca in the face so that he fell onto his back.

'But this is when you look your best,' Macca continued. Brendan could hear his grin in his words: 'All sexed-up and rough and dangerous.' Brendan said nothing. He just worked really hard to repress a groan of boredom. 'How do I look?' Macca asked after a second.

'Dirty,' Brendan answered, knowing it would probably make Macca happy and have the dual purpose of not being a lie.

'I am dirty,' Macca growled. He was so predictable. 'I'm dirty for you, Bren.'

'Mm-hmm.' He didn't really fancy round four, not now the light was up and he could hear people moving around outside. The real world, or at least The Estate, was calling him.

'So … what should I do about it?'

'About what?'

'Being dirty.'

'Take a shower,' Brendan said, looking over at the other man. He watched Macca's face fall a little and then immediately light up. He knew where the boy's mind had gone before he even said it and he could have mouthed along with the flirtatious:

'I'll meet you in there, yeah?'

'No.'

Macca opened his mouth as though about to launch into some whiney protest but just then, there was a knock at the door.

'Come in,' Brendan yelled. He didn't care that Macca was strolling around the room naked and Macca didn't seem to care either. Warren did though.

'Oh god!' he shouted, as he caught an eyeful. 'You couldn't have made me wait until he was clothed?'

'No,' Brendan shook his head. Then he turned to Macca. 'Hey,' he called to him. 'Scram. Foxy and I need to talk business.'

Macca pulled an unhappy face but Brendan just ignored him. He wasn't in the mood for Macca's amateur dramatics, so he waited until he'd gone into the en suite bathroom and asked:

'How can I help you, Foxy?'

'You could put some clothes on and get up.'

'All in good time,' Brendan waved dismissively at him. 'What's happened?'

'There's been another fight down in Blue Zone. Larry seems to think he's some kind of boss down there, keeps throwing his weight around with the new boys.'

'Thinks he's the boss, does he?' Brendan asked, scratching his chin a little with his thumb. 'Interesting. Remind me,' he said suddenly. 'What's his speciality?'

'Arson,' Warren shrugged. 'Nothing special, torched a few buildings in London during the 2011 riots.'

'Arson,' Brendan frowned. That was the most cowardly of crimes, starting a fire and walking away. There was no skill to it. People do it by accident every day. Little girls do it when they forget to turn their straighteners off before leaving for school. 'Okay,' he thought out loud. 'Tell him, we want him to burn down the police station in Belfast. Tell him he needs to come up with a plan by the end of the week that we need to look through it before he goes.'

'We're attacking a police station in Northern Ireland?' Warren frowned.

'No of course not.' Sometimes he wondered why he'd surrounded himself exclusively with imbeciles. 'I just want him to come up with a plan so we can tear it apart. Show him how worthless to us he really is.'

'And if Larry's plan is good?'

'We're talking about Lawrence from Blue Zone?' Brendan clarified.

'Yeah.'

'Then it won't be good,' he said confidently. Lawrence was thick as pig dung, most of the people in The Estate were. That's why there were here though, wasn't it? Too uneducated for a real job, too stupid to successfully get away with crime. They needed someone to look out for them and Brendan Brady was that someone. He'd send them out all over Europe to complete petty crimes and then he'd take the profit in exchange for giving them a safe place to stay, food cooked for them and protection from the police. It was a fair deal and Brendan made millions in stolen money that he didn't even have to touch. It was the perfect set up.

For a winter's Friday in Ireland, the weather was okay. There was no rain, and no threat of rain and although the air was cold, the wind had died down until it was nothing more than a gentle breeze. Brendan was on his balcony, long leather jacket with a fur ruff pulled around him. It was enough to keep him warm. He liked to be on his balcony as much as possible. The house he lived and worked from was further up the hill than the others and the balcony allowed him to see across all seven zones and they could see him. He'd be not much more than a spec to some of the outer districts, but it would be enough for them to know he was there; an omnipresent being.

Brendan heard the balcony door slide open behind him, followed by an overly pronounced shiver.

'W-what are you doing?' Macca barely managed to say around his faked teeth chattering.

'Just looking,' Brendan shrugged. And: 'Go back inside if you're cold.'

'I'd rather be with you,' Macca insisted, putting a hand on Brendan's arm. He immediately shrugged him off. No, not in public, not when people from the districts could see him. They might all know he was a queer, but they didn't need to see it. Macca sulked at the action, but he'd get over it. He always did. He shivered again, rubbing his palms up and down his biceps. He was only wearing a thin jumper; idiot.

'Can I have your coat?' he said after a moment. 'I'm gonna die out here.'

'No.' It was an obvious answer to a ridiculous question.

'But I….'

'Where's your coat?' he demanded.

'Inside,' Macca shrugged.

'Go and get it then.'

'I just thought….'

'…that I should freeze because you're too lazy to get your own jacket?' Brendan finished. 'Anyway,' he looked over to his scrawny companion. 'It takes a certain kind of man to pull off this jacket.' Macca just nodded. He was always so quick to agree but that wouldn't stop Brendan finishing his insult: 'You'd look like a wee girl.'

'That's no good. I might end up in Purple Region Zone.'

'Exactly,' Brendan nodded, turning his attention back to his estate. It was eerily beautiful. An abandoned well-to-do housing estate housing estate built for the emerging middle classes and destroyed by Europe's very own underclass. There were a few estates like this dotted around Ireland, big property developers getting over excited in the boom and getting screwed over in the recession. Still, one man's abandoned housing project was Brendan's private kingdom.

He'd made a fortune out of the unfortunate circumstances of "Leroy and Son Ltd." He knew it was them. There were a few bits of bent up scaffolding, which were holding a couple of the houses in Green District up, with the company poster tacked to it. They were cheap nasty things, for a cheap nasty company that had done a cheap nasty job on a nice area of Ireland.

'Brendan,' a voice distracted him. He turned and found Warren waiting patiently at the door to the balcony. Thick blue puffer jackets wrapped tightly around him. He looked like a child on their first day of school, whose mother had bought him a coat to "grow in to".

'Get lost,' Brendan said to Macca. 'The men have to talk business.'

Macca rolled his eyes and stormed back inside, almost shoving Warren out of the way.

'He's got a temper, hasn't he?' Warren remarked, raising his eyebrows. 'But I guess you like your boys feisty.'

Brendan just sighed and turned away from the other man. 'Get to the point, Warren.'

'Larry from Blue District; he gave me his plans today.'

'And?'

'It's nonsense,' Warren grinned, pulling out a crumpled sheet of paper from his coat pocket. 'He didn't even have it written down, just came up and told me they were going to send Pete in….'

'The cripple?'

'Yeah, send him in with some lighter fluid so he could pour it over the floor.'

'That's not suspicious?'

'No,' Warren laughed, slapping Brendan on the shoulder. 'Because he's in a wheelchair.'

'Oh Lawrence, what a mastermind move,' he scorned.

'The rest of the plan's not much better,' Warren continued. 'It involves the rest of them running in with matches and dropping them on the lighter fluid.'

'Dropping matches?' Brendan frowned, though honestly that was just one of the smaller flaws in the plan.

'Dropping matches,' Warren nodded, pointing to a picture of a match crudely drawn on the crumpled scrap of paper. 'I made Larry write down his plan on paper. Turns out….'

'He can't write,' Brendan finished, standing shoulder to shoulder with Warren so he could better see the plan. Though "plan" was a frankly generous description of the mess of scrawls on the paper: a building, some matches, a fire and a lot … a lot of pictures of penises. He screwed up his face, were these the kind of idiots he housed in The Estate? 'This looks like it's been done by a horny teenage boy.'

'Oh, I thought you'd have been into that,' Warren joked, digging his elbow into Brendan's side, which earned him a stony expression and a muttered:

'Funny.'

Though Warren clearly thought it was because he was grinning like a fool as he asked:

'So what do you want me to do, eh?'

'It won't take you long to come with a list of everything that's bad about it, will it?'

Warren shook his head, looking at the paper again. There had to be at least eight things Brendan had spotted just glancing at the paper, if he gave Foxy five minutes and a pen, he was sure he could come up with a long, long, long list.

'Good, do that,' he said thoughtfully. 'We'll speak to Lawrence at dinner.' And: 'Who's cooking tonight?'

'Blue Zone.'

'Ergh,' Brendan groaned loudly. 'Really. That lot can't cook for all the money in my bank account.'

'Yeah, well, they're crap at everything. They do the pettiest crimes, they haven't done time. We should have a cull, get rid of all of them.'

'We should?' Brendan frowned. He wasn't in the business of removing people from The Estate. He couldn't imagine trying to clear out the whole of Blue Zone based on the whim of his right hand man. But then Warren had always been much less empathetic than Brendan. Brendan believed everyone who came here was in his care and some twisted part of his brain, the Irish Catholic part, made him feel like he had to protect all of them.

'Yeah. Just a few of them, the ones that can only manage to steal a few frozen chickens from the local super market occasionally.'

'And if they weren't here, who would steal the chickens?' Brendan questioned. 'The guys in Red Zone think it's below them. Orange Zone are too unstable to be in public. Yellow Zone aren't hands on enough. Green Zone are too high all the time. And Indigo and Violet Zones do go out occasionally, when they're not getting angry about their rights as women.'

'Keep some of them then, but fill the ranks with Red Zoners.'

'Hmmm,' Brendan hummed in a bored tone, looking at his watch pointedly. 'Well,' he said eventually, when Warren still hadn't got the hint. 'Get lost.'

'Right,' Warren chuckled a bit, holding up the "plan". 'I'll just get on with this, shall I?'

'Exactly,' Brendan nodded, but his attention wasn't on Warren. He'd been distracted by Macca, who was stood the other side of the sliding glass doors, arms crossed, scowling like a three year old who'd been denied sweeties.

'What's wrong with you?' Brendan asked, once Warren had gone and Macca had made a big show of not talking to Brendan.

'Hmph,' was the only response he could get, coupled with a flick of his head which would have sent long hair flying huffily. He was like a moody cartoon princess.

'Macca,' Brendan encouraged.

Nothing.

'Macca, say something.'

Nothing.

'Fine, I'll go and help Walker with his rounds.'

'You always do that!' Macca said accusatorily. Brendan threatening to leave always got him to talk, or in this case shout.

'Do what?'

'Throw me out when he's around.' Macca pointed wildly to the door, and Brendan was left to assume he was talking about Warren, which was completely ridiculous and faintly annoying.

'It's business,' Brendan shrugged. He didn't need this, not from Macca.

'But you tell me everything about business.' That wasn't true but it was good that he thought it. 'We don't have any secrets.'

He was acting whiney now, pushing himself up to Brendan's side and running a finger across his chest

'Get your hand off,' Brendan seethed under his breath. 'Or I will break it off.'

Macca took he hint and put his hands back at his own side, but he didn't stop complaining. He never did.

'Be honest with me,' he said slowly, digging his hands into his coat pockets. It was good that he had a coat now, it meant the cold Irish weather couldn't be another just another thing for him to moan about. 'Are you having an affair with Warren?'

'Foxy!' Brendan spluttered. It might have been funny if it wasn't so disgusting.

'See,' Macca said. His coat pocket jutted forward, as though he might have been pointing inside the warmth of the lining. 'You have a little pet name for him.'

'This is a joke,' Brendan muttered, scratching his chin and turning away from the other man. He just couldn't look at him when he was acting insane. He preferred it when Macca was his shadow, who followed him around and put up with his crap and never demanded anything more than a good seeing to every night. The only thing better than that was Macca deciding to go back to Blue Zone to see his old friends. Though that was happening less than less, his old friends didn't seem to like him anymore and that had created this: Macca moving in and becoming whatever the hell he was now. It was too much, too intimate. He hated what they had become. And then Macca whispered:

'I can be better.'

Brendan felt himself turning around to look at the younger man. He was met with the top of his head, Macca seemed fascinated by his own shoes all of a sudden. They were expensive, personalised "Mario Brothers" converses. Macca had wanted them so Brendan had bought them for him. He couldn't remember why. Maybe he'd been apologising for some reason, maybe he'd just liked Macca more back then. The shoes were pretty battered now.

'I could be into it,' Macca continued. 'If you want me to be. Let you both have me…. Same time if you want.' He didn't sound confident, but he'd do anything to make Brendan happy, which was exactly how he liked his boys. 'I'll do whatever you want Brendan,' he looked up now, and Brendan found himself looking into the teary grey eyes. 'Just don't abandon me.'

'Abandon you?' Brendan frowned. 'No one's abandoning anyone, Macca.'

'But I just thought….' He sniffed a bit. It was disgusting. Macca was an ugly crier, his face screwed up and his mouth opened wide and his skin would go blotchy. He was already heading that way.

'Me and Foxy, yeah, I know.' Brendan was bored of this conversation now. 'Tell you what, Macca, when I find someone new, you'll be first to know.'

He sniffed again, tears falling faster and fatter down his bony cheek and he could barely whisper:

'I don't want you to find someone new. I don't want to lose you.'

'Well then,' Brendan reached out, hooking his finger over the top of his coat collar and pulling the younger man towards him. 'Don't annoy me.' And then he kissed Macca. If nothing else it would shut him up and stop him sniffling. He could taste the salty tears that had gathered on Macca's bottom lip, he licked the taste away and pulled the younger man close. He was small and skinny, but had a certain strength that only a man could possess and he seemed to fit well in Brendan's embrace.

They were disturbed by the sound of an uncomfortable clearing of the throat.

He shoved Macca away and looked towards the voice. Walker stood half knocking on the glass balcony door. Could his henchmen not do anything for themselves today?

'Yes,' Brendan answered the unasked nicety. 'You are interrupting.' He noticed Macca blush a little. He seemed pretty pleased with himself. Maybe he felt like he'd staked his claim in front of another one of Brendan's possible lovers. No one was free from the little Northern Irishman's jealousy.

'Sorry about that.' Walker didn't look sorry, in fact he looked like he was trying pretty hard not to laugh.

'Mmm,' Brendan was sceptical. 'Go on then, why are you here?'

'New recruit,' he smirked. 'Young lad, brief time in young offenders very,' he paused for a moment before smirking widely and finishing: 'Well … you'll like him.'

'You look giddy. Anyone would think you'd been screwing him,' Macca scorned, scrunching up his face in disgust and leaning into Brendan's side. He was delusional and Brendan found himself shoving the younger man away in favour of slapping Walker heartily on the shoulder.

'Show me the way,' he said. He liked new recruits. However small time they were, they always caused a few changes around the place. That's what happened when you put a load of egotistical wanna-be bad boys together. Even the kids with the good families who were just doing a week's crime taster course, they changed things a bit, stopped the place stagnating.

The new lad was just another Blue Zone council rat. He was scuffing stones with his tatty trainers when Brendan first saw him. The laces were frayed but still tied, so he must just slip his feet in and out. The bottom of his tracksuit trousers were worn from years of being trodden into the mud and his matching jacket was faded. He looked like he probably smelt bad, like he wouldn't think showering was important and he wore a sullen look on his face, which said "poor me". He was a nobody, Brendan was sure of that. His crimes would be petty though he'd probably been some big shot on some tiny council estate in England. But the lad was going to be nothing here and that would probably annoy him, which Brendan thought would be fun to watch.

''Bout time,' the rat said, not managing to tear his eyes away from the floor. 'Been waiting ages, haven't I?'

'Is that right?' Brendan smirked. He tried not to, but no one had spoken to him like that for a while and there was something almost funny about it.

'So what? You king or something?' he demanded. He was still staring at the floor, for all his bravado and big words he couldn't bring himself to make eye-contact. Coward.

'King,' Brendan repeated. He quite liked that; King Brendan. He glanced over to Walker who just shrugged. He clearly had his doubts about the rat, but Brendan had seen bigger and he'd certainly seen uglier rats turn out alright in the past. 'What's your name kid?' And before the boy could say something faintly ridiculous like "Ben Dover" he said: 'And look at me when you answer.'

The boy glanced up and Brendan noticed he wore less of a scowl and more of a pout on his sharp features. He looked like an elf, all pointed ears and cheekbones with eyes that pierced you with a glare. And then he answered:

'Ste.'

'No, you misunderstood,' Brendan frowned. 'I didn't ask what queer nickname you'd given yourself. I asked for the name your mama gave you when she popped you out all gooey and slimy.'

'In that case, I'm probably called "that little bugger".'

Brendan found himself laughing. He couldn't help himself. He'd dealt with the "poor me" runaways before. Their mums so evil because they wouldn't buy the kid the latest iPhone. Their dad's so neglectful because they were working three jobs to keep the kid fed. They were all the same, they came here looking for an identity and soon found one: "mummies-boy". They all went running back to the fat breasted women who'd dragged them up sooner or later.

'Well,' Brendan said. 'I'll call you Steven.'

'No one calls me that,' he kicked out at another stone, which shot across the pavement in front of Brendan's house and hit the drainpipe.

'I do,' Brendan insisted. He was bored of the games now. 'Go with Walker. He'll help you pick a place to stay.' He turned to his lackey: 'Blue Zone,' he said, Walker just nodded and grabbed hold of Steven's sleeve shoving him towards the BMW they used to move around The Estate.

'Blue Zone?' Macca questioned, once the car had pulled away. Of course that little git had been listening. He just couldn't stay where he was told. 'Don't think much of him then?' He seemed pleased at that and he would. If Macca could think that Warren and Walker were a threat, who knew what he thought of young, elfin council rats.

'He's just a wee lad with a temper, Macca,' Brendan assured him. 'Let him shout "mummy didn't love me" a few times and he'll leave. He wants attention and if one thing's for sure, no one on The Estate will give him any.'

Thanks for reading...xx