Note This is the last chapter of 'Out'. Thank you to everyone who's taken the time to read it.

Time to go.

Macca had called a taxi to take Brendan to the port; the two men stood in the front room and waited.

"Thanks for... you know, putting me up, Macca. It was... I appreciate it, so."

It was true, Brendan was thankful: more than a couple of nights in a B&B and he'd have been climbing the walls with the house rules, and in any case he hadn't had any money when he'd arrived in Belfast, and Macca had helped him out with that, too. He was still puzzled as to why this lad had put himself out for him, because it wasn't as if they'd parted on good terms back in Chester a year ago. A picture came into Brendan's head of that day – a picture of Stephen, kissing Macca – and he remembered how he had felt when he saw them. Jealous. Frightened. Betrayed. Furious. It was almost funny, thinking about it now; all those feelings, like everything was under threat, and yet it was nothing compared with what had happened since. All Macca had done was a bit of light manipulation – wonder who he'd learnt that from – to get Stephen to kiss him to prove a point. He hadn't fucked him. The man who did that came later, and the thought of him, Noah, that crass faithless fallguy, with his hands on Stephen, still had the power to make the bile rise in Brendan's throat. He was long gone, but who was screwing Stephen now? A boy like him wouldn't be short of offers.

So what, though? That was his business.

"No problem." Macca's words brought Brendan back to the present. "You've eaten me out of house and home, mind."

"You okay for money now though, yeah?"

"Yeah, I'm only messing. You paid me back what you borrowed, didn't you. It's fine."

"Okay."

Macca's phone rang.

"Cheers, mate," he said, and hung up. "That's your cab, Brendan. He's outside."

This was it, then. Brendan was going, out of Macca's flat, out of his life forever, probably. He'd thought the same thing before, but this time it really felt like it, because there was something different about Brendan now. The air of defeat that had hung around him when he'd turned up three weeks ago had faded, along with the cuts and bruises on his face, but what was left in its place was a kind of sadness. Even when he'd got angry, or sarcastic, or decided to be funny, something was gone from the core of him that used to be there, or maybe something had grown where once there was nothing. Either way, he was being drawn back to England, and Macca couldn't imagine that Brendan would turn to him again. The fact of it hit him like a punch.

No sentimental departure. Brendan had made that mistake before, when he left Macca at the end of their affair: he'd bedded him one last time, the boy's face swollen from a backhander he'd earned by telling Brendan he loved him. Should have left then, after that last angry fuck, but he'd gone back to finish it a better way – god alone knew why: guilt, maybe – on his way to the ferry. Went back to Macca's flat, found him drunk and sleeping; held him, said goodbye, woke him up just enough for him to remember: and that was the mistake, because it had fuelled whatever fucked-up fantasy the kid had in his head, enough for him to think it was a good idea to follow Brendan to England.

Best not make the same mistake again. Brendan held out his hand.

They were shaking hands, were they? After everything they'd... Macca felt tears forming, and hated himself for it, and tried to blink them away.

Jesus. The boy looked distraught all of a sudden. Brendan's hand dropped to his side. Fuck. What was he meant to say?

"You alright?"

Macca nodded.

"Aye, just..." He attempted a smile. "Hate goodbyes, don't I."

"Come on, son, been cramping your style, ain't I. You'll be glad to see the back of me."

"Liam will, that's for sure."

"Yeah, don't think he took to me. Maybe it's the beard."

"Yeah, that must be it."

Down in the street, the taxi hooted.

"I better head, Macca."

Macca looked up at Brendan and took a step towards him, but stopped dead when he saw in him the change in energy which he'd learnt long ago meant danger.

"I'm sorry, Bren, I wasn't gonna – "

There was a look in Macca's eyes – of terror and trying to hide it, of disappointment, of damage and resilience – that propelled Brendan into other times, other places, with another man, and for a moment he didn't know if he was going to throw Macca across the room or –

He pulled Macca roughly into his arms and held him there, just for a moment. Then he picked up his bags and headed down the stairs, calling over his shoulder as he went, "If Liam gives you any bother, tell him I'll batter him."

Macca shut the flat door behind him and leaned against it. Liam wouldn't give him any bother, because he wasn't like that, he knew how to love and how to treat the person he loved. That moment of fear with Brendan had been a sharp reminder.

That door was closed for good.

His eye was caught by an envelope on the coffee table. Brendan had given it to him yesterday, paying back the cash he'd borrowed. Some of it was in euros left over from his trip to the South, he'd said, but it was all there. Macca sat down and unsealed it, and counted the money. The euros amounted to a couple of hundred, and with the rest of it it came to about five hundred pounds more than Brendan had borrowed.

Macca shook his head. Brendan Brady: one of the good guys.

:::::::

He hadn't had a bad night's sleep on the ferry. He'd made inroads into a bottle of Jameson's in his cabin, which had helped him drift off, and the couple of times he'd woken during the night he'd found that looking at the pitch blackness outside the window had been oddly soothing, and sent him back to sleep.

When they docked at Liverpool just after six it was still dark; by the time Brendan found a place to get some breakfast it was beginning to get lighter. He was ravenous, but felt sick. Eating didn't make the feeling in his stomach any better or worse, but it chased his headache away at least.

He couldn't face the hassle and the stop-start of buses or the train, so he found a taxi that would take him all the way home, and shut his eyes in the back of it, and must even have slept because when he opened his eyes he wondered why Stephen wasn't beside him, and realised that he had been dreaming. His dream was of a night a lifetime ago, when he'd gone to a casino with Danny Houston and Jacqui McQueen, and with Stephen; and on the way back the boy had fallen asleep in their taxi, his body heavy as he slumped against Brendan. When Jacqui had opened the door to get out, the light had come on and Brendan had looked at Stephen, and Stephen had looked flawless, uncorrupted. Beautiful.

Brendan hadn't yet had him then, but already knew he was going to. Maybe it would have been better if he'd paid attention to the warning – because there was a warning, he knew that now – that was fatally fused with the potential that crackled around Stephen like static as he slept. A warning that this time, it wasn't only the boy that would get burnt.

A lifetime ago.

The village was quiet when Brendan got out of the taxi. The place looked almost the same but felt different. Maybe it was the change of season: it had been September last time Brendan left here, driving off in a panic to look for Lynsey, but now the air and the light of December altered the atmosphere in some way.

He stood for a few moments at the bottom of the steps leading up to... home, he supposed. He was scared. Fuck. Cheryl and Lynsey had both stood by him, believing he would get out even when he'd thought he wouldn't. They would be glad to see him, but first they'd be angry because he had disappeared on them for these last three weeks.

Man up. He'd faced worse. Brendan ran up the steps, dug his keys out of his holdall; took a breath, and let himself in.

The radio was on, so someone was home. Brendan walked through to his bedroom and dumped his bags on the floor. Someone – Cheryl, most likely – had tidied the room, because everything on the shelves had moved slightly from its usual position. Of course, the place would have been turned over by the police when they searched it. He opened a drawer, and the contents were more orderly than when he'd left them: condom packets tidily stacked; lube lying neatly beside them; a photograph face-up whereas he'd left it face-down. Cheryl had gone mad taking pictures in the club when it first opened, and this one was of Stephen, skinny as fuck in his uniform, with a look on his face half defensive, half shy, What you want a photo of me for?

"Brendan?"

He turned around. Lynsey was in the doorway, her mouth open with shock and then turning into a smile as she came and embraced him.

She knew now wasn't the time for a string of questions. Clever girl.

"But you've been okay, Brendan? You're okay now?"

"You know me."

Lynsey nodded.

"If I'd known what was gonna happen to you, Brendan, I'd never have got you involved. I feel so – "

"Hey, you must never think that, okay? Getting involved, it's my job, like if Chez is in trouble. I wish... I wish I'd believed you sooner, Lynsey, that's all, then I coulda stopped it before... If anything happened to you and I coulda stopped it, it'd kill me."

"I know. But it's over, I'm safe now, and you're home, and we can all get on with our lives. That's all that matters. Now why don't you get some rest? I'm off to my counsellor now anyway, and Cheryl's out."

"She alright?"

"Keeping busy. I think that's helped."

"Tidied my room, did she?"

"No, she didn't feel up to it after the police had been in. I did it."

"Cheers." Bad enough that the police had seen the contents of that drawer, never mind this girl who was like a little sister to him.

"No problem." Lynsey glanced from the drawer to Brendan, and tried not to smile.

Brendan found himself shuffling his feet and unable to meet her eyes. How old was he, fourteen?

"Thanks, Lynsey."

"I'll leave you to it."

"Don't tell Cheryl you've seen me, okay? I'll see her when she gets back."

They hugged again, and Lynsey left him alone.

:::::::

There were things he had to do. Scores to settle, plans to make; status to be reclaimed.

His first visit to the club was a short one. He didn't want Warren Fox to hear from someone else that he was back; he wanted to wrongfoot him. Brendan found Warren drinking alone in the upstairs bar. Champagne, Foxy? You shouldn't have.

Warren wanted answers, but Brendan didn't want a conversation. He walked quickly around the premises inspecting the place. In the office, he spent a few minutes flicking through the books, and it looked as if the business hadn't been doing too badly in his absence.

He studied the rota board, made a mental note of Stephen's shifts so he'd know when not to come in. Jesus, what was that about? Avoiding his own fucking club because he didn't want to run into one of the barmen?

That was what he was thinking about, the first time he saw Cheryl. Brendan was back at home, trying to get things in order in his head. Warren had looked as if he owned the club when Brendan had seen him. He'd been startled to see Brendan, but still he looked comfortable, like it was his domain. A stop had to be put to that. Brendan didn't know how yet, but it would fall into place, he was confident of that. Schemes were what he did, what he'd always done, and he would come up with one that would get rid of Foxy for good, because he had it coming.

So it must be something else that was making him feel off balance. And of course, it was Stephen. The prospect of seeing him was frightening. Christ. It wasn't as if the boy had any power: he was an employee, that was all he was now. Everything they'd done was history, there was no getting past the fact that Stephen had thought Brendan killed those girls – even if either of them even wanted to get past it – and in any case Brendan was toxic for him, always had been. Never mind that the months since he'd seen him hadn't dislodged Stephen from his place in Brendan's head: he'd made the decision in prison that he would be better off without that boy, and he was going to stick to it. So why the fear of meeting him again?

It was when Cheryl walked in and Brendan held on to her as if he never wanted to let her go, that he worked out what he was afraid of. He was afraid of what he would feel. Feelings made you weak.

:::::::

Cheryl had some interesting information about what had gone on in his absence. Turned out, Warren had a son, some lad who'd turned up out of the blue. Could be useful: Mitzeee and this lad, a pair of Achilles heels. And when Brendan saw the kid – tall, good looking, just eighteen – it was irresistible. A few little comments to Foxy to get under his skin, freak him out, give him nightmares he never knew he could have. Ask him if he'd told his son about the birds and the bees, put the thought of sex in his head, the thought of his boy being the object of it. Let him walk in on you staring at him. Say how the name rolls off the tongue: Joel. Let Warren's imagination do the rest. Let his feelings make him weak.

:::::::

Next day, Cheryl told Brendan to take it easy, stay off work.

"Although Ste will be in today, so you could pop in and say hi."

"Why would I wanna do that?" Why would Chez even suggest it?

She was gone by the time Brendan formulated the question: Are you saying that he would want to see me?

Wouldn't have asked it anyway.

:::::::

Brendan had had breakfast but he was still hungry. He was always fucking hungry, ever since he got out and got to eat proper food again, not mass-catered crap. He wandered into the kitchen; there was a dish there with a load of sweets in it. He dug in, and picked out a lollipop. Cherry flavour. That would do for now.

Coming down the steps from the flat, he spotted Warren and his kid heading off from the club. Better follow, do a bit of needling, a bit of digging.

Someone walked into him, and had a go at him like it was his fault, stroppy as all fuck.

"You wanna watch what you're – " Stephen said, then the wind went out of his sails. "Brendan... I heard that you were back."

Focus. Focus on the Foxes and on keeping tabs on where they were going. Don't focus on Stephen, real and vivid in front of you, his hair soft and thick at the top of his head like you had to comb your fingers through it; his eyes on you, intense, and looking... what? Concerned, was it? His voice kind of hesitant, same as his body language, like he was holding back. Like he was holding himself back.

Brendan threw him a smart comment and tried to walk away, but Stephen stopped him. How, though? He didn't grab him to keep him there – he'd be a fool to try a move like that. He just... stopped him.

More concern from Stephen. More smart remarks back at him. He wasn't getting away with this, turning it around, making out he cared. If he thought his betrayal was forgotten, he'd got another think coming.

"D'you know what it's like to lose all hope? That even those closest to you had their doubts? Every day my life flashed before me, and you know the one image I kept seeing, over and over?"

"No."

You. Your face, in my hands. Your body in my bed. You, wanting me, giving yourself to me. You, taking yourself from me. You. Always, always you.

"You've gotten taller. Maybe it's just me." Brendan shoved the lollipop into Stephen's mouth, because the only other options were to kiss him or to kill him. "This has been fun. See ya."

Focus on those two in the distance, Warren and his son. Anything but this, these feelings. Because feelings – these feelings – make you weak.

:::::::

It was the middle of the afternoon when Brendan headed home again, and already the light was beginning to fade.

Near the bottom of the steps, something caught his eye, a small red object lying in the gutter. He stopped, looked down. Crouched and picked it up. It was that lollipop: Stephen must have thrown it away as soon as Brendan walked off.

He could have kept it.

:::::::

Brendan had expected that being back in his own bed would have made his sleep more restful. He'd pinned his hopes on it, because he didn't know what else would put an end to the thoughts that rushed in on him and the dreams that left him tired out and anxious when he woke; but these couple of nights since he'd got home hadn't been much better.

How had he got here? That was what he lay awake puzzling over. Not the dealing and the feuding and the making a living in the shadows; all of that just was what it was. But the rest of it, all the lies he told, even to his own sister; abandoning his kids and throwing money at them as if that would make it better; turning someone who'd once said he loved him into someone who could believe he was a serial killer.

What was it Peter had said a few days ago in Belfast? Sure, you'll deal with Warren, you'll talk about Warren, but the rest of it, the stuff that matters? You run, don't you? Every single time. He was right, and Brendan wasn't going to do that any more. What he was going to do instead was, he was going to build higher walls, and the people he had to protect would be inside with him, but nobody else would get near because he couldn't risk it. He would look after Declan and Padraig, because that's what a father was meant to do, wasn't it? And he would keep Cheryl safe, and Lynsey, because he'd always tried to ever since the two of them were little girls, and harm coming to either one of them was unthinkable. But as for anyone else, he'd found out that if they forced their way in, they changed you in ways you'd never imagined, and it hurt. It hurt.

They? He.

Stephen was still there when Brendan closed his eyes, his image more solid than it had been in the months he'd been away, now that he'd seen him again. He'd looked good. Jesus, he'd never looked better, and Brendan remembered the pores in his skin, and the bits of stubble that he'd missed with his razor, and his dark eyelashes and his heavy brows giving a shadow to his eyes so you couldn't quite read what was in them. It was easy – so easy – to think that he'd be here in the bed if you opened your eyes and turned your head. He'd be sleeping, and you'd blow on his face to wake him, and he'd be irritated, so you'd say sorry even though you weren't, and he'd smile and you'd kiss the smile, and you'd taste him, and you could remember the taste of him even though it was four months since you'd been with him. And his hands would be all over you, stroking, scratching, demanding, and you'd be on him and in him, and his body would tighten around you and claim you as much as you were claiming him. And it wouldn't matter if he stayed, and it wouldn't matter if someone saw him when he left, because you were out now to anyone that mattered, and could give him what he'd wanted all along.

Fuck. The walls could go as high as they liked and it would make no difference. Stephen was still on the inside, where he'd always been.