He feels it like a punch in the gut. Lynsey telling him, casual as you like: they'd checked in Cinergy when they were searching for Declan, and there'd been no sign of him, so that couldn't have been where he was found.

Stephen had lied to him, lied about his son. Harboured him, even though he knew Brendan was going out of his mind wondering where the kid had gone to. But that isn't the worst of it: worse is the disappointment. Brendan had dared to think that this might be the beginning, when Stephen had turned up at the flat bringing Declan home. The beginning of some kind of accommodation. The possibility that they would find their way back to each other, himself and Stephen, slowly and painfully – there was always pain, wasn't there, with that boy? – but with the ghost of a chance which he'd thought was gone for good.

But he knows now that it had been an illusion: another lie between them. Brendan's disappointment becomes anger, a cold white rage that builds and builds until he arrives at the council flats, and sees him. Stephen is putting out a sack of rubbish, and doesn't see Brendan until he's on him and drawing back his fist, and Stephen's eyes open wide and he says, "No." Just that. One word, and Brendan stops dead, lets go of him. Takes a step back.

"You shouldn't have lied to me, Stephen." His voice sounds different as it leaves his lips, not how he wants it to sound. Not angry. Hurt.

Stephen hears it too.

"I didn't... I didn't want to." Stephen speaks quietly. He needs Brendan to stay calm long enough to hear this. "I had to though, didn't I? Declan, he wouldn't go back to you, he said if I phoned you he'd run away. Properly, you know? Disappear somewhere."

"You had no right, Stephen. He's my son. He's just a kid, for chrissake - "

"What was I meant to do then, Brendan, eh? Tell him to go home and hope for the best? Ring you up and watch him do a runner before you got here? Listen, right, I've had enough of this. I kept Declan safe, and as soon as he - "

"Stephen - "

"... As soon as he was ready, I brought him back. Now I'm sorry if I didn't get it right, okay, but it's not like I could just talk to you about it, is it, and I did what I - "

"Stephen, will - "

"I did what I thought was the best for him, for you, for everyone, right, and if that's not - "

"Stephen! Jesus, boy, do you ever stop talking?"

Brendan steps towards him, and Stephen flinches and staggers back against the wall, and again says, "No."

"I wasn't gonna..." Brendan takes Stephen's face in his hands. "I wasn't gonna hurt you, Stephen. I... I was just gonna..."

And he kisses him. Softly, once, on his lips. He'd forgotten his lips: how they feel; how they taste; the breath between them – and yet he'd remembered, every single day since that last time, when he'd thought it was the beginning of something not the end. He rests his forehead against the boy's, and they are both acutely aware of each other's heat. And then Stephen puts a hand in the centre of Brendan's chest and pushes him back.

Brendan shakes his head.

"I'm sorry, Stephen, I shouldn't have - "

"We'll have to be quiet."

"What?"

"Amy's home. She's gone to bed though, so... as long as we're quiet."

He reaches out and takes Brendan's hand, and leads him inside and into his bedroom, and shuts the door. For a moment they look at each other, and then they come together, their mouths hungry and familiar, their hands clumsily pulling at each other's clothes, until naked, they crash onto the bed.

It's as if they were never apart. Stephen's on his back, grabbing and clawing at Brendan, getting him where he wants him, where Brendan wants to be, Stephen's legs wrapped tightly around him so that Brendan has to wrestle out of their grip a little before he can manoeuvre himself to where he needs to be. And then he's there, and easing inside him, and Stephen opens himself like he's opened his arms and his heart, and Brendan stops holding back and pushes hard into him, and Stephen forgets to be quiet and cries out, "Oh god, oh fuck - " and Brendan clamps a hand over his mouth, and watches his eyes as he thrusts rhythmically deeper and deeper, and only takes his hand away to kiss him. And their moans are smothered deep in each other's throats as they come together.

Brendan slumps onto Stephen's body, skin on skin, sweat and cum slippery between them.

They fall asleep. Tomorrow, they'll talk.