I'm moving house soon, so I'm trying to update as much as I can because I'm expected a large drought in updates over the next fortnight or so :(

'Tell me this is a joke,' Brendan muttered, pinching the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. 'It's a joke, isn't it? Some elaborate prank just to push me over the edge.'

'I enjoy a joke, Brendan,' Walker said, which was humorous in itself. Brendan had never known anyone with less sense of humour than Walker. 'But not even I would break my collar bone to confirm a cheap laugh.'

Brendan hummed. He couldn't bring himself to do any more than that. He couldn't quite process the information that was being fed to him. Two of his best Red Zoners Mark and Darren; dead. An Orange Zoner in hospital and Walker with a shattered collarbone. They'd lost all the money, lost the car and the weapons put aside for the job. It was The Estate's worst job since the place had opened and Warren couldn't stop laughing.

'You really made a mess of this,' he kept repeating. 'I know it was a big job but….'

'I can't put any of you in charge of anything, Walker,' Brendan snapped, his anger making him drop his guard and be just a little too honest. 'I went to Barcelona for a few days, Warren ended up in hospital. I send you out on a job in Russia, you break a bone and lose my men.'

'It was a bad job, Brendan,' Walker said, trying to shrug and hissing in pain at the movement. 'Things went wrong. They were always a step ahead, it was like….'

'What?' Brendan demanded. 'What was it like, Walker?'

'It was like they already knew exactly what we were going to do. It was like he'd been tipped off.'

'Get out,' Brendan said calmly. It was all too much now. The idea that anyone could have a snitch on the inside of The Estate was something he didn't want to think about. He'd always thought he was a good judge of character that he could tell a cop or a backstabber from just one look but it would only take one. He had to consider that maybe, just maybe one of those people Walker had brought to his front door may have been some kind of mole.

Or maybe it was the Russian Banda that had turned south, decided to attack his men for no reason. His mind wandered to Lawrence, the guy from Blue Zone. He'd been Russian, he'd come from the Banda in Volgograd, could he have been a spy? Had he been targeting Steven because of Brendan's interest in the boy? Did the Volgograd Banda know that Brendan had removed Macca from his life? Did they know about his sister settling down with her husband in Northern Ireland? Did they know about Anne?

Did they know about Steven?

He needed to reassure himself, remind himself that he was overreacting, convince himself that maybe Walker was right and it was just a job gone wrong. He couldn't; not until he called Cheryl and heard her ever-optimistically inviting him around for lunch sometime and Anne's: 'This better be good Brendan'. And Steven, he had to see Steven.

Despite endless stupid comments and nearly-obvious gesturing Joel had been as good as his word. He hadn't brought up Brendan again; not when the boys from House 14 threw Ste some weird party for being the first person ever to tailgate a "patrol car", not when Mickey mentioned that Brendan didn't seem to bothered about his breakup with Macca and Joel was most brilliantly silent when Brendan had appeared in the sitting room unannounced one day claiming he had to take Ste on a job.

'Do we have to go back to Barcelona?' Ste had asked hopefully as he followed the older man to the front door.

'No, just paradise,' had been the muttered reply, which had made him blush all the way to the tips of his ears.

Ste had found himself practically thrown into the back seats of Brendan's beemer. He couldn't help but shake his head when he saw the way Brendan was looking at him.

'It has to be on your terms, doesn't it?'

'If you don't like it Steven, you can get out of the car. There are plenty who'd kill to be in your position.'

He thought about it. He genuinely thought about heading back to House 16, just to see if Brendan would follow him, but he was almost certain Brendan would just drive off without so much as a backwards glance, so instead he smiled surely and whispered:

'I guess that would depend on which position I'm in.'

Brendan gave a low, rumbly laugh that made Ste's skin prickle and drove back to his house.

Once they were at Brendan's, any thoughts Ste might have had about resisting had proved pointless. Brendan didn't take him seriously and as much as Ste mentioned Rae and dropped into the conversation that he didn't want to be some dirty secret, there was no conviction in his words, even if there was truth in them. He didn't push Brendan's mouth away from his neck and he didn't stop the older man from pushing down his tracksuit trousers and he didn't resist when Brendan kissed him.

Ste fell prey to Brendan's will over and over again, while Brendan continued to promise him nothing.

::

Ste didn't know why he wanted this thing with Brendan to matter so much. He'd had meaningless one night stands before. Now with Brendan, it was like he was an innocent needy virgin all over again, and in a way perhaps he was. But he knew that he wasn't getting anywhere with this weird obsession for more than just a "boss with benefits". He decided to relax, to just enjoy the time he got with Brendan and not feel wounded when Brendan sent him away like a common whore. He was just going to live in the moment, and right now, the moment was lying in bed close to Brendan who had an arm draped loosely around him.

'You're quiet,' Brendan mumbled. 'It's usually about now that I can't get you to shut up.'

'Just tired, aren't I?'

'You've worked hard tonight,' Brendan said, his thick moustache quirking just slightly.

Ste gave him a look that he hoped would make him seem disproving, but he imagined would just show how much he still wanted Brendan, even thought he'd just had him. Brendan leant forward and pressed his lips to Ste's chastely, before they fell back into a comfortable silence. Ste closed his eyes. He felt Brendan's fingers running through his hair and he wanted to ask a million questions, but instead, he said:

'You're quiet too.'

'I'm thinking,' Brendan hummed, still painting patterns with his fingers.

'So am I,' Ste replied. It wasn't a lie, he was thinking about how Walker had ended up in the sling, he was thinking about the reason Mitzeee winked at him every time she saw him, he was thinking about the Blue Zone rumour mill and how fast in must be spinning with the way Brendan kept coming up with little personal jobs for him.

'Really? About what?' Brendan wasn't laughing like he usually did when Ste dared to suggest he might actually be conjuring up a thought in his brain. Instead, he almost sounded interested. Maybe that was why Ste so carelessly launched into a long monologue about Mitzeee's winks and Walker's sling and…. He stopped there. It wouldn't be okay for Brendan to think Ste wasn't being careful about hiding their thing from the rest of the Blue Zoners.

'Mitzeee's just a silly wee girl at times,' Brendan said steadily. 'And Walker got messed up in some nasty business in Russia.'

'How nasty?' Ste asked, twisted his head to look up at Brendan. The angle made Brendan seem bigger and hairier somehow; Ste wasn't complaining.

'It's nothing for you to worry about. I promise,' he assured him, with a small smile that Ste hadn't seen from the older man before. He almost looked happy, really happy, not just putting it on for the crowd or to emphasise a joke. 'I promise.'

Ste just smiled back, and returned to enjoying the heat, the warmth and the sound of the rain, pattering against the sliding, glass doors.

'I like the sound of the rain outside, me. Makes me feel safe.'

'You are safe Steven,' Brendan muttered. He sometimes got like this afterwards; tired and accidentally affectionate. 'I'll make certain of that.'

'You've got a lot of people to keep safe, Bren,' he pointed out. They hadn't shut the curtains and through the glass of the doors Ste could see the houses of the Red Zoners and the rooftops of Orange and Yellow Zone. He could imagine the amount of people in each house, the amount of lives dependant on the man curled next to him. He wasn't sure, because Brendan was on the cusp of sleep so his accent was more pronounced than ever and he was mumbling almost indecipherably but it really sounded like he said:

'Only a handful that matter, Steven.'

And Ste drifted off to sleep trying to work out who that handful might be; Walker, Warren, Mitzeee, his sister and … Ste, or was that just wishful thinking?

Brendan had made Anne come with him. He'd expected something close to a riot at the memorial for the men lost in Russia. He knew what The Estate was like, relationships built up quickly, it took just hours for strangers to become friends, days for friends to become brothers, barely weeks for an affair to become a relationship. The bonds among the men and women in their zones had the loyalty of a family or a nationality. They were fierce and Brendan had expected a fearsome reaction, but the Red Zoners were mostly subdued.

Walker was talking at the memorial. It wasn't Brendan's place, he hadn't been there in the end.

'Dodger and Darren were good friends to many of us here, most of us saw them as brothers. They were….'

Brendan wasn't listening to the words. They didn't matter, words weren't going to bring back Darren and Mark, and words had always been Walker's forte.

'You okay?' Anne whispered, rubbing her hand up and down his bicep.

He just nodded and gave her a weak kind of smile. She was dressed in black, but it was hardly an appropriate outfit for something akin to a funeral. Her dress was tighter than was acceptable, it was more low cut and shorter than it should have been and her fascinator was … fascinating. It was huge with a big black netting and a dark green peacock feather. She was the only women there, which was probably why so many of the Red Zoners kept looking their way. Or maybe they were silently blaming Brendan for not looking after Mark and Darren when they'd needed him.

'It's not your fault, you know,' Anne whispered. 'There was nothing you could have done, you weren't there.'

'Exactly,' Brendan nodded. 'I wasn't there. I'm never there, am I?'

'You're always there when it matters Brendan,' she insisted. 'You've never let me down.'

'Give it time,' he muttered. It might have seemed pessimistic to Anne, but it felt honest to him. He'd let everyone down eventually. Anne wouldn't be any different. Not in the end.

xXx

The Estate had regained some twisted semblance of normality after the memorial. The Red Zoners had picked themselves up and welcomed some new men in, people Warren had found in Northern England and Walker's sling was gone. They'd finally been able to put the hellish mess of Russia behind them and the jobs in Paris, Vaasa and San Marino had gone well. Steven had stopped asking Brendan to define what they were but would still come running whenever Brendan clicked his fingers, a delicious, sordid smile playing on his sweet lips. Things were good … mostly.

'Three weeks,' Anne sang as she wafted through the office door on a cloud of expensive perfume. 'And it's a big one.'

'Yes, alright,' Brendan dismissed.

'27,' Anne wrote the number in the air with her finger. 'You wouldn't think it was a big birthday but, you just sort of sound old. Like you should probably be married, maybe working on your first child.'

'I'm not married.'

'You're….' She looked like she was struggling for the right word and eventually settled on: 'different.'

'And you're not too far from 27 yourself, Anne.'

'Far enough,' she practically sang. 'I'm still a young adult, my whole life ahead of me. I just need to stop hanging around with people in their thirties.'

'I'm not in my thirties, Anne.'

'Close enough.'

'No,' he said firmly. If his sister was concerned about turning 27, it was nothing compared to Brendan's constant fear of turning thirty with such a gaping black hole in his life that he didn't know how to fill. Anne paused for a moment, twisting her hair idly around in her fingers and then she said:

'We should get her a thirty card,' she commented. 'Just as a joke.' She beamed: 'She'll hate it.'

'You are not being involved in any party planning or gift giving,' he said firmly as he scrolled through endless Amazon pages looking for something suitable for his little sister's birthday. 'You just turn up.'

'I know, I know,' she sighed, squeezing her way around to his side of the desk. 'I just have to pose as your trophy girlfriend.'

He hummed noncommittally and pointed to a coat that looked like it was made of fake flamingo feathers. 'What do you think?'

'That's disgusting,' she scorned. 'Are you sure your gay? Aren't you all meant to be stylish?'

'For Chez,' he sighed. He could already predict her response and she didn't disappoint him. 'Oh yeah,' she smirked. 'She'll love it. Almost as much as she'll love this.' She pulled a birthday card from her tiny handbag.

Brendan took it from her and skimmed it quickly. It had the words "Signs You're Getting Old" in optimistic yellow letters and under it was a long, long list of would-be humorous insults.

'No,' he said, shoving it back at her so hard, it bent in half.

'Why not? It's humorous. I found it in the "humour section".'

'It's not humorous,' he mimicked her accent, 'when you're unable to stand in the same room as the person you're giving the card too without arguing.'

Anne frowned and perched herself on the desk.

'You're no fun.'

'I know,' he agreed, tapping her leg sharply. 'Off. I've got an important meeting and he doesn't need to see the sticky outline of your arse.'

'You're a real charmer, you,' she scowled, but she got down anyway and wandered around to the chair on the other side of the desk.

'So who's the client?' she asked, crossing her legs. 'It's not often you invite people onto The Estate.'

'None of your business,' he muttered, flipping the computer screen around to face her and pointing to a weird hat with a huge purple feather sticking out of the top. 'What do you think of that?'

'I hate it.' Anne turned up her nose in disgust. 'Which will mean, of course, Cheryl will love it.'

Brendan groaned loudly and turned the screen back to himself. She was being literally no help and Brendan was glad for more than one reason when he finally heard the familiarly impatient tap at the door.

'Who's that?' Anne demanded. 'This is Britzeee time.'

'No,' he said firmly. She'd tried this Britzeee idea when they'd met. Brendan had hated it then and he hated it now. Stupid Bennifer for beginning this ugly trend of merging names together. Anne loved it but she loved the world of celebrity and everything it included. He was at her side, dragging her out of her seat.

'You need to leave.'

'What are you doing!' She struggled against his grip as he escorted her to the door. 'I might help, give them something nice to look at while you're striking a deal.'

Brendan didn't answer, he just opened the door to reveal….

'Oh.' Anne's face clouded with realisation. 'That that sort of client.' She rolled her eyes as Steven pushed his way into the office.

'Mm-hmm,' Brendan nodded. 'Now, scram,' he added, trying to shove her through the doorway. She didn't budge, just stuck her arms and legs against the doorframe and made herself completely ridged.

'Not so fast.' She held out her hand and flexed her fingers meaningfully. 'You owe me money so I can go shopping.'

'How have you worked that out?' he asked, but he was already freeing his wallet from his pocket. She wasn't going to leave until he handed over some money and he had more pressing matters to deal with.

'You want me to look good at your sister's birthday, don't you?' And as a not-so-quiet afterthought, she added: 'At least one of the women there should.'

'Hey,' he warned, pointing his finger so close to her face that she almost poked her nose. 'That's my sister.'

'Sure,' she agreed easily, slapping his hand away pinching a credit card from his wallet. 'Thanks babe,' she mocked, reaching up to kiss him on the cheek. He was sure that her disgusting, pink lip-gloss would have left a mark, but he didn't have time say anything because like a perfumed whirlwind she was gone calling:

'Bye Steven,' over her shoulder.

Brendan turned to look at the boy. He was just in his tracksuit today, trainers battered to bits, barely clinging together. Brendan quite liked the council rat look, though he had to admit, he quite liked any look on Steven.

'I didn't know you had a sister,' the lad said, picking up a pen from Brendan's desk and twirling it idly around his fingers. 'We don't really talk much though, do we so….'

'We usually have better things to be getting on with,' Brendan shrugged, stalking towards Steven purposefully.

'I don't have any brothers and sisters, me,' Steven continued. He didn't even seem fazed when Brendan began to slowly unzip his hoody. 'Me mum only had me, then she married me step-dad and he hated kids, hated me especially.'

Brendan could feel his blood boiling. He didn't really think anyone could hate Steven, not really.

'I just ran away, right, got myself in trouble a few times but juvie wasn't so bad once I met Callum.'

This time Brendan's blood boiled for a totally new reason.

'Who's Callum?' he asked, as Steven's hoody fell to the floor and Brendan attacked the exposed skin along his collarbone.

'He was me best friend,' Steven explained, his voice strained from more than just painful memories. 'More like a brother, but….'

'But, what?' Brendan encouraged, kissing Steven's lips just briefly before reaching for the hem of his shirt to lift it over his head.

'He went straight, didn't he? Got this skank pregnant and decided he wanted a proper job, a proper life, without me.'

'Isn't that what you want … with May?'

'Rae.'

'Sure,' Brendan began to unbutton his own shirt, hoping Steven would catch on sooner rather than later.

'But I can't really imagine giving up this life, giving up The Estate … I enjoy it too much.'

'Good to hear,' Brendan just managed to say before silencing both of them with a long, searing kiss and finally, Steven got the message and took over the fiddly task of unbuttoning Brendan's shirt, which he did with practiced ease.

::

'Tell me about your sister,' Steven said.

Brendan had invited him to stay and watch a film, in what must have been some post-coital millisecond of insanity. Warren was working from his own home for a change and Walker had some debriefing to do with the Orange Zoners, who would be heading out on a jewellery shop heist on Cartier in Paris tomorrow. Brendan wasn't expecting to be disturbed.

He'd let Steven pick the film; some weird action movie starring Jason Statham, which was more funny that good. Brendan didn't mind too much. He was a hell of a lot better than the pretentious art house crap Macca used to make him watch. Brendan was pretty sure that not even Macca enjoyed it , he just wanted to seem sophisticated. Steven had no such insecurities; thank God! But he did have questions – lots and lots of questions.

'What do you want to know?' Brendan frowned.

'What's her name?'

'Cheryl.'

'Like Cheryl Cole?'

Brendan wondered briefly how this boy had ever thought he wasn't gay, but he just answered in his most sarcastic voice:

'Yes, like Cheryl Cole.'

'Where does she live?'

'Killough.' And on seeing the blank expression, he explained: 'It's about forty-five minutes South of Belfast.'

'Does it rain as much there as it does here?'

Brendan couldn't stop himself smiling when he heard that question and he almost chuckled at Steven's expression when answered:

'More.'

'Not possible,' Steven shook his head firmly. He was silent for maybe half a minute before the next set of questions began:

'Is she younger than you, or older?'

'Younger.'

'Married?'

'No,' Brendan frowned. 'Are you getting information for a dating website here, Steven?'

'No,' he smiled. 'Just wondering, 'cause I hardly know anything about you, do I?'

'And you think asking questions about my sister will change that?'

'Didn't think you'd answer any questions about you,' he shrugged.

It was a weird kind of conversation. Steven was acting like he was only half interested, and that the action film had most of his attention but it was the first time any of Brendan's lovers had wanted to talk about anything other than themselves. They'd all been self-hating egotists, which was a combination that had proved difficult to like in the long-run. Steven was different, which might have been why Brendan heard himself say:

'Alright. One question, about me. I promise to answer it truthfully.'

Steven pulled a strange thinking face; sort of creased in the middle and quite gormless, but what could you expect from a Blue Zone boy with a limited education.

'Okay,' Steven said eventually. 'I've got one.'

'You sure? You only get one chance.'

'Yeah, yeah,' he nodded eagerly. 'You ready?'

'Yes.'

'Right,' he grinned. 'Who's your favourite singer?

Brendan just stared in disbelief.

'Or band?' Steven added, as the silence became comfortable.

'Who's my favourite …? Brendan trailed off in astonishment. 'I gave you an open invitation Steven. You could have asked me anything; biggest crime, how much I'm worth, how many people work for me on The Estate, if I've killed anyone … anything, and you ask "who's your favourite singer"?'

'I don't really care about all that other stuff, me,' Steven shrugged. He seemed honest. Brendan almost believed him. 'I just wanna know something about you.'

'Unbelievable,' Brendan murmured. Only Steven could throw away an opportunity like that, and rationalise it in a way that made Brendan want to kiss him.

'So…' Steven encouraged, a little nudge in the ribs with his elbow. 'Come on. Who's your favourite singer?'

'Johnny Cash.'

There was a pause before Steven admitted what was already obvious from the expression on his face: 'Never heard of him.'

And that was how Brendan ended up spending the rest of his afternoon and some of the evening introducing Steven to The Man in Black. It was a faintly irritating experience to hear Steven's main comments of "I know this one", when Brendan played Hurt and: "I think I played a drinking game to this", when Brendan finally relented and played Ring of Fire.

But despite Steven being a boorish little street rat, Brendan still quite enjoyed giving him a musical education. That was until Steven said:

'You know what you should listen to … Katy Perry.'

'No.' He didn't need to know what a Katy Perry was to know he wouldn't enjoy it.

'Don't be a spoilsport, it'll be like one of them cultural exchange thingies.'

'Yeah, I'm giving you culture and you're exchanging it for crap,' Brendan scorned, but he still listened to the pop-princess-crap that Steven insisted on playing and although he'd never admit it out loud, he didn't entirely hate it.

Thanks for reading. I never thought this fic would get a fluffy moment, but then I didn't think Hollyoaks would give us a fluff-filled Stendan moment and there were plenty in the end, weren't there? xx