"There's three conditions."

He expected this. Steven can see it in his eyes.

"Go on," Brendan says, voice breaking and betraying how terrified he is of these conditions.

"One, this is all it's ever gonna be - you, me, this hotel room. That's it, okay? We meet at the same time each week, we make each other come, then we leave. It's not a date, okay - we're not dating."

Brendan hums in agreement, can't speak, doesn't trust himself to.

"Two, we don't tell anyone about this. It's not their business, and as far as they know you're back here to catch up with people, see the club again - it has nothing to do with me."

Brendan doesn't voice the obvious: it has everything to do with him. Always has done, always will do, not a damn thing that can change that. His sister's in her country mansion, Mitzeee's in America; there's no one to catch up with. What's he going to do, grab a coffee and a panini with Douglas? There's only one person in this entire place who he wants to see. One person who he came back for. He could have opted for a quiet life, going straight from prison to Dublin, starting again.

He chose this. He chose Steven. There was never going to be any other choice. He doesn't like it, wishes that there was an alternative, but he's never been able to walk away, not where Steven's concerned. God knows he's tried.

He nods, because it's required, expected. If he doesn't agree to Steven's terms then he's got nothing, and he's lived for too long in that state. Five years with tense phone calls to Eileen, fleeting visits from the kids when she would allow it, and tearful meetings with Cheryl that would always leave him feeling emptier than the moments when she wasn't there.

Nothing from Steven. He didn't allow it, tore up every letter than the boy sent him in his untidy scrawl. He knew that if he read them, his resistance would be weakened.

He couldn't afford to be weak.

"Number three. We can still see other people. I can fuck whoever I want, and you..." Steven hesitates, nibbling on his bottom lip unconsciously, a nervous habit that he's never quite shaken off. "You can too."

Brendan can see the jealousy there, wants it to give him some kind of satisfaction, any satisfaction from this cold and mechanical arrangement. But his stomach twists; he hates for Steven to feel any pain. It's become stronger since they were separated, the need to protect him. It's grown to smothering proportions; someone can't accidentally bump into the boy in the street without Brendan threatening their life. Everything seems startlingly vulnerable; Steven, and everything they have.

"None of this possessive bullshit, yeah?" Steven's face is as hard and smooth as marble, carved from the bitterness and abandonment that's developed over the years. Brendan's created this, made this man, and he can barely look at him, too painful a reminder of what his actions have turned him into. He knows about the drug dealing, knows that Steven stole the money that Amy saved up to send him to rehab, cashing it in on cocaine instead. Two years of being clean hasn't replaced the evidence. The boy's different. The warmth that used to surround him like a comforting blanket has gone, and Brendan's the one who's been left out in the cold.

This is what he gets from Steven now. Clipped words and fifteen minute meetings. They haven't kissed; Steven hasn't included it in his terms, but Brendan knows it's there: he doesn't kiss anymore. They won't be doing that.

It kills him. Kissing Steven had sustained him in prison for months. During the darkest winters, the thought of it kept him from following suit like the other men he'd seen. It had kept the noose from his neck, kept the drugs from fizzing on his tongue.

He looks at those lips now, full and further reddened by the icy weather outside. Brendan can still remember what they taste like. The knowledge has never left him.

Steven's waiting for his reply. There can't be any hesitation, not here, not with this. It's a yes or a no, and if he gets it wrong then the boy will walk away from him, and Brendan will begin the journey back to Ireland, into an existence that he can't withstand.

He isn't sure when it happened, when he could no longer exist without Steven. It crept up on him slowly, and it strikes him now with crippling realisation: he won't last a day without him, and he's not sure he wants to.

"Yeah." It doesn't feel like he's agreeing to anything, feels like he's denying Steven's terms with every bone in his body, fighting harder than he ever has in his life. He'll have no say in any of this now. All ownership has been torn from him. Steven could be fucking another man tonight and he'll have to sit in his hotel room and let it happen, try and fall asleep while Steven lies in someone else's arms.

"You sure you can do that?" Steven's sceptical; he knows Brendan too well. Knows how he'd have killed anyone who tried to take him away from him, came pretty damn close to it with Noah and Douglas.

"If I say no, will you leave me?"

Steven nods immediately; he won't be owned by anyone anymore, least of all Brendan.

Brendan swallows down his nausea.

"Then I'll have to be okay with it." He pastes a smile on his face, jaw in pain from the physical effort of doing so.

"Good." Steven looks away, grabbing his jacket from where it's draped over the chair.

Eleven minutes. Brendan's counted: that's how long this has lasted. That's how long the boy can bear to be in the same room with him.

"I'll see you tomorrow night then."

Brendan says nothing, waits for the moment when Steven will leave - because he always does leave - and switches on the television loud enough for the people on the other side of the wall to knock roughly on his door and complain about the noise. He apologises, again, and they accept, again. He can't explain to them that the sound helps him to drown out the screaming in this head, the non stop chorus of this is wrong this is wrong this is wrong.

He douses himself in aftershave and combs his hair. He wears a red shirt and hopes it'll trigger a memory, something for Steven to hold onto and remember.

He's got a packet of condoms and lube in the drawer beside the bed. It felt strange to buy them. The last time he was with Steven he went into him with no barriers, nothing but the feel of his cock filling the boy's hole, tight and accommodating.

He hasn't had sex with him for five years. There's been others, men like Steven. He's tried to get the exact build, the same shade of hair, the lengthiness of the eyelashes, the Manchester accent. He put the theory to the test: if he took them from behind, could he convince himself that they were Steven? If he couldn't see their eyes, could he fool himself?

He never could.

This will be the first time that he's fucked Steven since that spring day when he told him what Seamus did. It's all he can think about as he paces the hotel room, going back and forth so many times that his head begins to spin. The men in prison didn't know, didn't have to be careful and gentle, weren't disgusted by him. Brendan didn't have to care if they were.

Steven taps on the door twice, his signature knock that Brendan's discovered is the best sound in the world, better than the scraping noise of the prison gates being opened, the sunshine pouring through.

If the boy's repulsed by him, then he conceals it with all his strength. He doesn't give Brendan a chance to talk, pushing him backwards onto the bed and climbing on top of him, scratching to get past the layers of fabric to the skin underneath.

For all of Steven's coldness and detachment during their previous meetings, the heat's spreading through his body now, and his dick rubs against Brendan's stomach as their chests collide.

Brendan's lips find his, and it's only when Steven pulls back sharply that he remembers: he's not allowed to do that.

Steven's ribs protrude as Brendan strokes down his skin, and it startles him enough to pause in his exploration, and smooth his hand tentatively across the boy's back. He's lost a lot of weight, weight that he couldn't afford to lose, and he feels fragile in Brendan's arms. It changes the atmosphere, this act of tenderness. Heat and longing and sex are replaced by a new desire: protection. Brendan wants to protect this boy more than he's ever wanted anything in his life.

It unsettles Steven. He shifts, trying to get Brendan's lips on him, pressed against his neck where they were moments before.

"Come on." His voice is full of desperation, raw and unashamed. Brendan's finally glimpsing what's been lacking for all these weeks. He feels how much the boy wants him, thought that would be enough, but want and need has never been a problem with them. He needs something more, needs to know if Steven has missed him. Needs to know if Steven loves him.

"You're not changing your mind, are you?" Steven asks harshly, a spark of irritation running through him. He's more of a challenge than anyone Brendan's ever met, and it's only increased in the years that they've spent apart. He's buried all the other parts that made him Steven; there's hate in his eyes as he regards Brendan through heavy lids.

Brendan can't make love to someone who hates him. Not Steven. Never Steven.

"Maybe we shouldn't..."

His hesitation earns him a firmer push onto the bed, his attempt to stand up denied.

"No." Steven's panting, frustration growing like a storm in the pit of his stomach. "No."

Brendan doesn't ask what he means. His concerns are silenced by Steven roughly discarding him of his trousers, his lips fitting snuggly over the head of Brendan's cock.

He lets out a grown worthy of five years spent in the darkness, his toes curling as Steven begins to lick him from base to tip.

He can feel the aggression in Steven's actions. The boy's restless, unsatisfied. He strokes down Brendan's legs, gripping his thighs as he sucks Brendan's balls, strokes his cock, lifts his legs higher to eat his hole, running his tongue along Brendan's foreskin. He can't stay still, can't concentrate for long enough. There's too much lost time to make up for. He doesn't know what he wants the most, doesn't know how to enjoy any of it when there's still that ever looming threat of it being torn from him again.

Brendan hears the boy gasp, a sob without tears. He reaches out and takes his cock from Steven's mouth, his lips shiny and wet. He lifts him up, and dares to brush their lips together. It's fleeting and very, very soft.

He leans back on his elbows and waits. Waits for Steven to start shouting at him. Waits for the boy to leave.

Waits.

"You're not my boyfriend."

It sounds unnatural, forced.

"I could be." He realises he was a fool to do this, to agree to this arrangement, this half life. He can't pretend worth a damn, hasn't been able to since that day on the Liffey bridge when his life began. "Could be a lot more." He doesn't know what he's saying. It's a jumble of words fighting to be released, falling over each other. "Could be everything. I love -"

Steven places his hands over Brendan's mouth, not ready to hear those words.

"Just take me to bed, Brendan. Please."

He's a bastard. He knows he should send Steven home in a taxi and let him sleep it off, let him wake up in the morning and go back to the life he was building before Brendan came back and disrupted it, rocking its foundations.

Neither of them are equipped to go back to that place.

But he's selfish, and in love, and he's never been capable of doing the right thing.

He treats Steven's body gently until the boy begs him not to. It's been a long time since Steven's been penetrated, and Brendan wants to ease him into it, placing the boy onto his front. He encourages Steven to draw his knees up, propping his arse in the air while Brendan strokes down his back, making him slippery and loose with lube coated fingers.

The boy cranes his neck, their eyes locking together as Brendan stretches him. He's never known a thrill like this, never seen someone as expressive as Steven. The boy's face is a plethora of emotions; that first flush of pain as Brendan breaches him, and the overwhelming fullness when Brendan enters him, holding him close and kissing him when he meets no resistance.

Steven doesn't try to disentangle himself from Brendan's arms. He settles in beside him, and stays until the first rays of light begin to seep beneath the curtains. It's easier, in the dark.