Sorry everyone, this was meant to be attached to the last chapter!

Steven didn't grin when he saw him. He didn't pucker up in some attempt to draw Brendan into a kiss. He didn't push his way past him, or moan about having to walk all the way from Blue Zone in the rain, and it was raining. The lad looked like a drowned rat; hair flat, creating a slide to direct droplets to run down his face. He was shivering, teeth rattling noisily in his skull. It didn't matter, Brendan could think of plenty of ways to heat things up.

He reached forward and pinched the front of Steven's jumper in an attempt to pull the lad towards him, it was soaking wet beneath his fingertips.

'No,' Steven shook his head firmly.

'No?' Brendan asked, raising an eyebrow and allowing his hand to drop to his side. "No" wasn't a word he was used to.

'I can't,' Ste said and he sounded oddly apologetic and he was talking like he was sick, or being strangled. He almost looked ill. 'Not anymore.'

Brendan just sighed. Hadn't all this Katy Perry-style "hot and cold" nonsense with Steven gone on long enough? If the lad wanted to play games, there were plenty of more interesting ones.

'Come here,' he repeated, attempting to reach for Ste's jumper again.

'No,' Steven took a step backwards. 'I said; not anymore.'

'You really want to do this again?'

'What?'

'I tell you something's going to happen, you say it won't and then it happens anyway.'

'That's not how it goes.' He may have sounded indignant, but the blush of his cheeks gave him away. Then, for the first time since they'd started this pointless exchange, Steven glanced up and Brendan could see a funeral-like sense of sorrow in the boys eyes as he whispered: 'It's different this time, now.'

'How?' Brendan humoured him. 'How is it different this time?'

'It's Rae. I can't do it to her anymore.'

'Sounding pretty familiar so far, Steven.'

He hadn't called the lad here because he really wanted to rehash past conversations. He'd called to get laid. He'd called because he needed to get rid of the stress of a bad day, and Steven was usually great at dispelling Brendan's stress for many reasons. Now, Steven was just making his day worse.

'She loves me,' the lad muttered.

'And you're telling me this because…?' He had no interest in the delusions of some hooker.

'This isn't some game anymore, Brendan. This is her life and I can't keep stringing her along.'

'So don't.'

'It's over,' Steven said. Brendan just rolled his eyes.

'Yeah, yeah,' he dismissed, moving forward to kiss the boy. A kiss was all it would take to forget these momentary worries. But Steven turned his head and Brendan's lips were met by the lad's cheek. Two hands shoved against his chest and pushed him away. Brendan could feel the fuse on his temper burning away rapidly.

'Not anymore,' Steven repeated. 'It's everything or nothing.'

And Brendan felt the dam marked "sanity" snap and the anger and insults came flooding out, twisting his face into a furious snarl. His hands were like claws, next to Steven's face and the lad looked scared. Good. He was Brendan Brady. He didn't get given ultimatums, not by stupid, jumped-up, little council rats with an inflated sense of self. When had Steven decided he was worth so much, when did Steven forget that his place was in the sewer with all the other rats?

'You're pathetic, Steven,' he snarled. 'You think you could be everything for me. You're fooling yourself, boy. You're nothing to me. Just a nice body for me to break in, but I've got all I wanted from you. I've had you bent up and begging in every conceivable way. What more do you honestly think someone like you could have to offer someone like me?'

Brendan was hurting more than he should have been and he wanted Steven to hurt too. It was working. Steven looked as though someone had rammed a knife through his heart and twisted and twisted until there was nothing left. His eyes held back his agonised anger but, as he'd proved a million times before, he wasn't like the others. He clenched his jaw, rubbed the emerging tears away with the cuffs of his sleeves and said with dignity:

'Right … fine.'

He turned on the spot and began to walk away from the office towards the front door. Brendan couldn't stop his feet from taking a few involuntary steps after him. He was stood in the office doorway when Steven reached the street and stopped. He turned back, determination in every crevice of his face. Brendan knew what was coming; an apology, a beg for forgiveness or possibly a fiery last insult. Brendan was wrong and Steven hit Brendan with something more forceful than any of that, more forceful than the truth or a brief two word snarl. His words were quiet, and very deliberate:

'You know, I should thank you really, because I thought that this was going to be most difficult thing I'd ever have to do … but you just made it really easy.'

And like that, he was gone.

Brendan heard his own slight gasp. It was like all his emotions were escaping at once; anger, frustration, loss, pain, and now he was only left with one … revenge.

No one refused Brendan Brady and got away with it, no one.

He turned and marched purposefully to his office and picked up his mobile. He searched the phonebook until he saw the name: "Mitzeee…x".

'Bren? Are you okay?' She sounded concerned when she answered, but it was the middle of the night and he had hung-up on her earlier so that was understandable. Now wasn't a time for niceties. He just went straight to the point:

'Anne. I need you to do me a favour.'