Notes: Written as a request for someone one Tumblr and turned into a bit of a beast! It will only have two parts so it's not overly long and I won't be annoying people with my WIPesess clogging up the entire place. I also feel a bit like it's one of the perviest things I've ever written just for the sheer fact of the setting.

Title from Imagine Dragons - Round and Round.

Word Count ~ 8000

Warnings: If teacher/student squicks you out then this is definitely not for you.

The first thing he notices about this place is the smell.

It's all damp and must and mould. The building's old, well-worn and scuffed, brown brick exterior and chipping, shedding layer upon layer of duck egg blue paint across every inside fucking wall like there was a sale on for the stuff. There's three huge buildings surrounding a courtyard at the centre, bunch of grass patches and picnic benches and it's a lazy, hot and melting late summer so the place is packed with kids at lunchtime - packed with sixth formers every other hour of the day.

He's lucky; the sixth form is more modern. They've had the builders and decorators in recently by the smell of almost-fresh paint and new carpets. He's only dealing with the sixth formers and he's only dealing with them for four months whilst their Chemistry teacher's off partaking in the miracle of life. From what he can tell not one of the fuckers wants to learn Chemistry anyway.

They find it particularly, irritatingly amusing that they're learning anything from an Irishman.

"Where are you from, sir?"

"What, you can't tell?"

"Scotland?"

"You kiddin' me?"

"He's from Ireland, dickhead."

"He sounds Scottish."

"Scotland's nowhere near Ireland, in't that right, sir?"

"Got a geography star pupil over here, guys," Brendan drawls, gets a laugh.

They're an alright bunch, mouthy and chatty but he likes that, enjoys the banter they throw his way. It's easy to fall into a repertoire with them, makes his days pass quicker. The staff are okay, mostly his age or older, gets on with some more than others. There's the obligatory two dippy ones and it takes him a while to find out they're sisters - different last names, Fisher and Valentine, neither their maiden names - and he doesn't know how they've managed to get work anywhere let alone here in a school. There's the weary older ones, existing out their time until retirement and freedom.

There's a kind of lazy, deliberate inefficiency here. Everyone's just settled, spread across life's rut like rich butter on thick bread - comfort food. There's no drive. Everyone's just - content and stuck that way. It's peaceful in some ways. He wants to bash heads in others.

He gets into a pattern and it takes him two weeks to notice.

Although to be fair to him it takes him that long because it takes two weeks for Steven Hay to turn up to his class.

He swaggers in like he owns the fucking place, tie unknotted, shirt untucked, loose and easy and like the summer breeze. The blonde girl, Amy, beckons him closer and he goes but not before he tosses Brendan, his damn teacher, a smile that could cut glass.

Brendan gets his bearings. "Who the hell are you?"

"Ste."

"I'm gonna need a bit more than that. I've never even seen you before."

"Might wanna check your register, then."

Brendan cocks his head, can't stop the quirk of his lip. "Might wanna check your tone, boy."

Self-proclaimed Ste looks up at him through Bambi lashes and it's not defiance he sees there, although Brendan doesn't doubt that's what he thinks he's projecting. It's something closer to exhaustion, to age beyond his years. Brendan's seen that expression a hundred times and it's always bad news.

He logs it away, won't even be here that long but he's a teacher for a reason and he already carries enough weight around on his shoulders without adding guilt by negligence.

Steven doesn't cause him much bother, mix of absence and general disinterest in anything academic. His work is half-arsed when it appears but Brendan can see he has an aptitude for this stuff, can see he's physical, likes to get his hands dirty and play and there's no better subject for that, but he doesn't even try. He chatters on to Amy Barnes and Doug Carter, slopes in late and unapologetic. Brendan keeps meaning to schedule a 'word' with the boy and he checks his diary, tries to find ten minutes but can't seem to find enough urgency to want to give up that much of his free time.

So he leaves it. Three months left, that's all. Steven Hay is probably fine. He's a trouble maker, he's one of the too-cool-for-school crowd. He's fucking eighteen and has no legal obligation to be here. Brendan doesn't have to worry about him.

He doesn't have to but -

- somehow it becomes an itch he can't banish.

Brendan's so fucking bored.

His eyes swim against ink and paper, names and equations. Leanne Holiday, Texas Longford, John Paul McQueen. Darren Osborne - not as smart as he thinks he is. Brendan would be hard pushed to even give him a D on a good day.

He taps his red biro on the wooden desk, blows out a tuneless whistle, stares out the windows of the lab but can't see much, this part of the school is sunk to basement level and the windows barely peak out over the courtyard. He twiddles his pen round his fingers like a baton and then promptly drops it with a clatter when the door opens.

Brendan rolls his eyes, searches for his lost pen. "What d'you want, Will?"

"I've got something to tell you, sir."

"Make it quick, I'm busy - " He's about to give Will the brush off, gets enough of his whinging in lessons, but when he looks up he realises it's serious. "Who gave you that?"

"Ste Hay," he tells Brendan instantly, thick on his split lip, squinting against his reddening eye.

"Jesus - okay, okay - " Brendan's not ashamed to admit when he's wrong, not ashamed to conclude that maybe this place has made him complacent. "Get to the infirmary, Will. I'll deal with it, don't worry."

Will glares at him and it's pretty cold, pretty unnerving the way he's almost completely dead behind the eyes - another thing he's never really noticed. He leaves the room and Brendan paces and fidgets, feels the tide of guilt start to creep in. His gut reaction has always served him well but nowadays he hasn't the energy to act on it, nowadays he spends too much time feeling empty and fucking revelling in his angst like a martyr.

Isn't that what Eileen had called him? Right before she'd kicked him out and told him to find somewhere else to live, preferably another country if he could manage that one favour.

Pull yourself together, Brendan. How can you help those kids when you can't even help yourself.

The thought that maybe this half-arsed pit of apathy really is the most suitable place for him is a bleak one.

"Any of you's got Steven Hay for next hour?"

"Why what's he done, now?"

Brendan's hardly taken aback by the assumption - Jack's right, after all - or the blasé tone. "I just need to talk to him about somethin',"

"Think Browning's got him for Biology but it'll be a coin toss whether you'll actually find him in there."

There's a rumble of assent, a little wave of dry laughter around the sofas. Ste Hay, ah what a tonic.

"Well - if I don't then where do I find him? It's pretty urgent," Brendan says and presses weight on the word urgent. He needs it, the urgency.

"Probably in the field round the back of the gym. Who was it you caught him out there with last time, Frankie?"

"He had Theresa McQueen's thighs wrapped round him as far as I can remember."

"That's - lovely, thanks for that." Brendan rolls his eyes, sips his coffee, tries to tune out when the story topping starts.

No he didn't know that Steven Hay was a notorious thief. No he didn't know that Steven Hay had slept with more girls than most of the adult male teachers - and Jen. No he didn't know that Pauline Hay had turned up to the last parents evening drunk off her tits and sporting a black eye.

He didn't know that but it's another thing he logs away, another important detail in solving this self-enforced puzzle he's getting more and more determined to give a shit about beating.

He doesn't find Steven in Biology with Dr Browning.

Paul absolutely doesn't want him in his lab, either; that much is certain. Brendan almost wants to loiter around and have a chit-chat with his students just to really piss him off but he doesn't want to get on Mercedes' bad side, the last time he did he nearly ended up with his testicles in the Design Technology room vice. He doesn't know why it's him that ended up taking the rap for Dirk's ill-advised jokes about the two of them shagging against the work bench. The woman's certifiably crazy.

Brendan heads through the courtyard, takes the stone steps down to the grass in a jump and gets a few whistles for his trouble. It's hot out and it looks like Benidorm fucking beach out here with the amount of teenagers laying around like sun-murdered sealife. He's got his shirtsleeves rolled up and his top buttons undone but he's already prickling with sweat.

He heads around the gym and slows, strains to listen for anything awkward because as hilarious as it is catching a student doing something mortifyingly embarrassing he has this absolute need, the kind that he doesn't even want to consider, mull on, poke, scratch or pick at, to not see Steven Hay in any state of undress or sexual activity.

There's nothing and he peers round the corner of the building, feels the grain of it under his fingers, fading, white paint over sand blasted stone.

The field spreads out for hundreds of yards, uneven and rolling like waves - completely pointless for doing any kind of sport. There's an incline to his left, a hill that peaks about five foot high and then goes flat on top. That's where he spots Steven.

He's alone and facing away from him, out over the grass, legs spread in a sprawl and knees pulled up, arms resting across the top.

Brendan approaches him, makes sure to kick up the loose grass the field mower's chopped and discarded so Steven can hear him coming, so he doesn't startle the boy. He shifts where he's sat, glances over his shoulder briefly and turns straight back to the view. Brendan stops next to him, studies him and the way the sunlight catches against the blond tips of his hair. He quickly looks away.

"Ain't you supposed to be in Biology?"

"Didn't know you taught that an' all," is the stubborn and typical answer he gets.

Brendan folds his legs under him and plants his arse in the grass. "Yeah, I'm tryin' to steal Browning's job."

Steven looks at him, pleased and surprised curve to his sullen mouth. "He'd kill you before you got the chance."

"Yeah?"

"Well - that or Mrs Fisher would."

Brendan barks an unexpected laugh. "I don't know what on Earth you're talkin about, Steven."

"I'm sure you don't."

He lets silence float like a soft haze, watches out of the corner of his eye as Steven gazes out over the field. He's giving Steven time to get comfortable with his presence but it feels sickly, somehow. Not like usual. He feels like he's taking in too much detail, studying Steven's sun-caught features too astutely to feel entirely comfortable with. When he flicks his eyes away he can still see the plush lips and curved nose and soft skin like it's superimposed over his vision.

"You punched William Savage in the face," Brendan states, not an accusation, just a fact. He pulls blades of grass between his fingers at his side. "Wanna tell me what that was about?"

"He was askin' for it."

"Nobody asks for a beating, Steven."

Steven turns to look at him sharply. "That right?"

He's clenching the fist of his right hand where it's laid across his knee and Brendan's eyes are drawn to it suddenly by the movement. Steven's shirt's folded up to his elbow and there's a bruise suspiciously like a handprint peaking out from under the watch strap on his wrist.

Steven sees him looking and Brendan panics, tries to catch him before the boy shuts down on him, says, "that's right, nobody. Whatever Will did - " and Steven scoffs, shucks his loose sleeve down over his hand.

"He slept with his brother's girlfriend, my mate's girlfriend."

"You can't go around hitting people, you'll get kicked out and then what?"

"Maybe I'll sell it on the streets, Mr Brady." Steven wields words like a weapon with cutting intent and Brendan's shocked by how deep that cold cynicism runs in him. "People always tell me my mouth's only good for one thing - "

"Steven," he blurts out, sharp and loud and he doesn't mean to say it at all.

Steven just watches him coolly, seems completely uninterested and he wears the mask well but he's still an eighteen year old boy and he isn't as hard as he wishes he was. One day he will be, Brendan's sure of it. One day the world will carve out all his soft flesh and over the years the raw scabs will turn to well-worn scars until there's not a single nerve ending left to process pain. Looking at Steven is like going back in time and looking in a mirror and the boy's future is pretty clearly mapped out to him.

"What? Don't think I'm pretty enough?" Brendan's ready for it this time, though. It doesn't send him reeling this time.

"I think you're better than that. I think you want to be better than that," he says smoothly and Steven narrows his eyes like he's heard that one before. "Some unlucky bastards get dealt the worst cards in life but that doesn't mean they give up, just means sometimes they've gotta fight harder."

Brendan lifts his knee, lays his arm out straight over the top of it in a mirror of Steven's position, turns it over until the sunlight catches on the small, almost invisible, circular scars peppered across his skin. It's only in brightness they become clearly visible, fucking ironic that light and heat makes them glow, and Steven looks, eyes focusing in like they're a beacon.

He watches Steven's throat dip like he's forcing it down.

"You have to apologise to Will or I'll have to get the Head involved. He'll be callin' in your parents, maybe the police - I don't wanna see it happen, okay?"

There's a long pause and then a soft, "okay."

"You might wanna start thinkin' about showing up for Chemistry, too. I don't give out too many compliments but you've got a knack for it."

"You jokin'? I can't even say half those words let alone spell 'em," Steven scoffs and it's dry, cutting but inwardly this time.

"That's because they're stupid words; nobody can spell them. That's why we shorten them," Brendan drawls easily and Steven softens. "Come on, it's the only subject where you get to basically use that crappy text language all you lot use instead of English."

Steven seems to consider him, soft twist to his mouth. He holds out his hand slowly. "Okay, I apologise to Will and come to your lessons and you don't get me arrested. Deal?"

Brendan can't help but shake his head at this kid's gall. He's fucking cheeky as hell and appealing with it, thrilling in his insolence and set off against his fragility. He's got light in him and Brendan can see it trying to push its way out of all those tiny wounds, all those cracks he tries to paper over with sarcasm and indifference, the two things that the very air in this place seems to be made from.

He takes Steven's hand, warm and elegant, long fingers and rough palm, and a spark shoots out from the point of contact, races its way up his arm and into his suddenly pounding heart.

"Deal."

He doesn't like the way it comes out like a dry choke.

Brendan wants to revise his earlier assessment.

Steven Hay is causing him bother.

It's just not the kind of bother he'd anticipated.

Not ever.

Just because he shows up doesn't mean he listens. Just because he and Brendan had made a deal doesn't mean he doesn't cheek him like nothing on Earth, in fact it's like he takes joy in it and not the usual teenage kind of joy - sniggering with his mates after a stern telling off. It's like a fondness, like he's caught onto Brendan's wavelength and he enjoys the conversation. It makes it difficult to look at Steven like a student and that in itself is a danger.

Once he starts noticing things he can't stop. His complacency starts to drip away with his new resolve to be a more efficient member of humanity and he watches more, listens more. The effort feels good, like exercising muscles he hasn't used in a long time. After every day he feels like he's done a vaguely satisfactory work out. It just brings with it some frightening consequences.

For instance: Steven's got this laugh. It sounds like a trumpet player with asthma. He notices it and then he notices he doesn't use it that much with his friends, although God love them they try for it. He uses it when Brendan chastises him for something stupid, he uses it when Brendan drawls at him sarcastically it's not supposed to be on fire, Steven, but nice try. On one memorable occasion Brendan heard it ring out through the whole class when he managed to spill an entire flask of ethanol all over him, shock of freezing cold shooting up his hand.

In fact, the more Brendan... notices the more he realises Steven hardly engages with the people around him at all. They gather and talk and nudge him for approval but it's like they don't exist. It's like they're petty arguments and who-fancies-who is meaningless to him, like he's not like them. Steven loses himself in gazing off like he's trapped, alone, in some kind of fog that nobody can penetrate. It's something else he recognises, that detachment. It's easy enough to tell himself that's why he watches, that's why he takes extra care with the boy. He's vulnerable and that's his damn job.

It's easy to tell himself that but it's harder to make himself believe it.

"Mr Brady."

Mr Bradeh.

Fuck. It shouldn't send heat under his ribs like that.

"Yeah, what is it, Steven?"

He's sat on his desk, looking out like usual, out at the small strip of sunlight he can just about see through the sunken windows.

"Umm - I just wanted to - I thought I should - "

Normally he'd be saying spit it out by now but he can't, not with Steven. He has the overwhelming urge to touch and before he's conscious of it he has a hand on Steven's shoulder. "Hey, what's up?"

"I'm leavin' the school."

Brendan's struck dumb for whole seconds, feels the fingers of his hand start to dig into Steven's shoulder against his conscious efforts. Eventually he grinds out a quiet, "why?"

"Gettin' a job."

"That's - it's a bit sudden, isn't it?" It wasn't what he was expecting at any rate. "You've only got a year to go and you're more likely to get a job with a few more qualifications behind you."

"I need one now, though," Steven says softly and he raises a hand, fiddles his bottom lip between his fingers.

"What's the urgency?" There's that word again. He bloody well feels it now, urgency coursing through him like his rushing blood.

Steven looks at him, soft expression like wanting, wanting something, to tell maybe, to unburden himself. Wanting -

Then he shuts down, right in front of Brendan's eyes. "What's with the twenty questions? I'm only 'ere to let you know I won't be comin' to your lesson anymore - "

He tries to move away and Brendan's hand slips from his shoulder to his wrist, same wrist he saw the bruise against but it's gone now, abuser wasn't careful enough that time - won't make that mistake again for a while. Not until the next time control slips and they do. Hope upon fear there'll be enough of a mark to make someone just notice. He wants it. At the same time he doesn't.

Brendan doesn't even know who he's monologuing about in his head anymore, line between himself and this boy terrifyingly blurred because he's suddenly desperately afraid of losing something that's slowly building back his self-belief and it's affecting his judgement.

"Get off me - " Steven struggles in his grip and Brendan instantly releases him like he's been burned. "What the - "

"Sorry, I shouldn't have touched you," Brendan says quickly, firmly. He pulls up his years of experience and uses it to ground him, to stop his tail-spinning. "I'm sorry."

Steven looks at him like he's never heard those words in his life, eyebrows turned down in a confused frown. He swallows, bites his lip, flicks his eyes over Brendan's face, lashes fluttering, soft smudges of black against his skin. There's a word for this boy - beautiful - but he won't let it get any deeper than the surface, can't let it take root and grow into anything more than just a complimentary verb.

"I'd just like you to consider this, okay? I don't want you to fall at the last hurdle."

"Why not? Why do you even care? You care about this place less than I do," Steven states, not an accusation just a fact.

A statement Brendan's not surprised to hear. The boy's a watcher, he takes things in, notices how people behave. Brendan had thought as much. Not like his peers; he doesn't know the luxury of repose and they don't know the toll of constant hyper-awareness, the ever-present fear of knowing how but not when.

Unfortunately Brendan doesn't know how to answer his question. He could go the after-school special route - I know how you feel, son. I can relate. He could say something cheesy like I can see myself in you. Or not. Absolutely not.

"Forget it - " Steven moves away again and Brendan hops down off the desk, urgency, and throws himself in front of him, skids to a stop with his back thrown against the door and his hands up. "What, I can't leave now?"

Fucking infuriating.

"Will you just listen to me?"

"You're not exactly sayin' much, sir."

"You've got some mouth on you, you know that?" Brendan asks roughly, irritation leaking out through his voice, temper fraying, mix of anger and confusion and wrongwrongwrong.

Steven narrows his eyes, gets that real nasty look about him, practically purrs, "it's been said," and he's leaning in, so close, body heat bleeding all up Brendan's front, soaking through his thin shirt. Brendan watches in fascination as Steven's expression falls from angry goading to soft, slack surprise. Whatever he sees in Brendan's face, fucking doesn't have a clue what he's throwing out there for the whole world to see right now, reeling too much from the intensity of actually feeling something for the first time in so long, he's shocked by it.

He knows what's about to happen before it does. He needs to stop it but he doesn't know how.

Brendan's frozen in place when Steven leans in, unsure and shaky as hell but suddenly right there, less than an inch away, lips parted and so soft looking, so appealing, so - so fucking eighteen and his student.

"Steven - " he whispers, turns his head ever-so-slightly away and feels Steven's lips drag across his jaw, Jesus, feeling of it shooting straight to his dick.

He daren't touch, not even a finger. If he did it would all be over. Steven pulls back slowly, blinking and wide open and mortified. Brendan wants to say something to make it easier for him but he can't even summon words.

Steven finds some first. "I'm sorry - "

"You don't have to apologise."

Steven looks at him again, broken desperation, before the shutters come back down, blank and cold and hard. "Can I get past?"

Every instinct screams at him not to let this boy leave but he needs space, desperately. Space or he's going to do something stupid.

So Brendan moves.

And Steven leaves.

He sits in his flat and drinks whiskey from the bottle and stares blankly at the TV for about two hours before he realises the thing isn't even on. It doesn't need to be since there's enough moving images of Steven Hay in various states of undress, arousal, orgasm, post-coital and cuddling running through his brain like an actual TV show. No matter how much whiskey he drinks it won't dull the vibrancy of them, no matter how much he tries to push them out with the mundane, shopping lists, doctors appointments, visit Cheryl, phone the kids, none of it pushes out those pictures.

How he's going to deal with this fiasco, he doesn't know. He has less than three months left and Steven's leaving the school to get a job, for reasons unknown, and he shouldn't even care regardless of the time he's got left. His decision to be a more productive teacher was a stupid fucking decision anyway. Clearly.

But he's worried; Steven just up and deciding to leave like that, the constant presence of someone else behind his eyes, the fact that he'd tried to kiss his teacher, possibly the first adult that had ever shown him a genuine concern. It's wrong on so many levels, a cry for affection at best and a desperate display of worryingly destructive behaviour at worst.

Christ if he didn't want to kiss the boy back, though.

Brendan has a type, he knows this, it's just one of those pieces of human behaviour, another thing he's dryly catalogued about himself in his more self-deprecating moments. Eileen had thrown things at him when she'd found him in bed with Macca but weeks later, when she'd had time to calm down, she's scoffed and rolled her eyes and said well at least he's pretty - makes me feel a little bit better. Brendan has a type and Steven's it, he'd known it from the moment he'd seen him and kept his eyes off accordingly. Except when he'd had to keep his eyes on because of aforementioned worry. Catch-22. What do you do?

He sucks it up, that's what. He goes to Steven and talks to him, convinces him to stay in the school, tells him it's okay, the kiss, they can forget it. Move on. Brendan doesn't want anything in return for wanting to help him for fucks sake. That's not how it works, despite what Steven might have been raised to believe and isn't that a terrifying thought.

Tomorrow he'll go the office, find out where he lives - in a completely not fucking creepy way - and pay him a visit.

But tonight he'll drink himself into a stupor. That's step one of his plan.

Nobody asks him why he's as grey as trampled snow and talking through a cheese grater the next day.

They know. It's not the first time one of them has turned up to this place still fucking drunk and it won't be the last. He gets through his morning lessons, lays sprawled out across his desk with his head hanging off the end all lunchtime. In the afternoon he has Amy Barnes and she looks suitably depressed without her best friend and after class he asks to see her, wonders if it might help.

She looks at him with wide, wary eyes like he's about to slap her or something.

"You're not in trouble, Amy. I just wanna ask you about Steven."

"Oh."

She's a bit grey herself, come to think of it. Sickly looking and holding her stomach, rubbing a thumb low on her abdomen.

"I know he's left, I just wondered if you can tell me anything about it?"

"Why would I?" she asks defensively.

"Because I'm worried about him." It resonates in her, she's clearly worried about him too and he wonders how much she knows but he won't ask, won't break Steven's trust like that, not in either of them.

She jigs a little, bounces her leg and looks like she's itching to say something so he waits her out patiently. "He said his mum said he had to get a job 'cause - " Any halts and he sighs, please Amy, and she relents like it's forced out her in a rush. "Because she said if he got her some money then she could leave his step dad."

Step dad.

"Thank you, Amy, really. I'm gonna sort this, okay?" he tells her firmly and she looks like she might believe him, relief and hope.

She leaves the lab and his headache pounds behind his eyes like a persistent drumbeat. He's got the address, rough part of town, doesn't particularly want to take his car up there but needs must. He doesn't know what he's going to say. The boy's eighteen and not currently attending school, Brendan can't get social services involved, he can't do a damn thing from an official standpoint. All he's got are his words and his convictions.

He hopes it''l be enough for both of them.

He pulls up outside the house, scruffy semi-detached with drying, calf-high grass in the front garden and an old, rusted and mangled swing set that looks like it hasn't seen anything other than rain and neglect in years. He leans up against his car, jangles his keys in his hand nervously. If he doesn't play this right he's going to fuck it up and he has a feeling he might only have one shot at this.

He tuts and sighs, whistles a bit. Time to move. He'll know what he needs to say when he gets there, no point in over planning it or making it sound stilted and rehearsed. In the movies all those good-guy teachers speak from the heart, or something. He's no Sidney Poitier and he's not actually sure whether it's a heart that pumps blood round his body or some joy-sucking black hole but he can give that crap a try.

When he knocks there's a certain amount of shouting, woman's voice, high and screechy. She swings the door open and doesn't say a word so he presumes it's him that's speaking first in this exchange.

"Hey, are you Pauline Hay?"

"What's it to you, Scotty?"

"No, I'm - I'm not Scottish - " He can feel his face pull into a scowl. Pointless. "Never mind, look - I need to see your son, Steven?"

Her expression turns nasty, sly and sneering, and she looks him up and down distasteful. "Whatever. Ste!"

He hears Steven's voice call, "what?" from somewhere inside and she shrieks back, "just come 'ere, would you?" and Brendan rolls his eyes, feels like he's in an episode of Shameless. Steven appears in the hallway behind her, soft and rumpled in his grey jogging bottoms and thin white t-shirt, hair messy and ruffled and standing up all over the place. He spots Brendan and freezes, eyes going wide in shock and hand unconsciously coming up to smooth his hair into its usual quiff in a way that makes Brendan's heart kick up and his stomach flutter.

Pauline turns and rounds on her son and Brendan hears her say in a low voice, "this is how you're gonna make me some money? I don't remember tellin' you to go out and suck off strangers for cash."

"Mum - " Steven's furious and he pushes past her.

"This what all you little queers get up to these days?"

Steven shoves Brendan out of the doorway, hard and stumbling back onto the path, and he slams the door in his mother's face, demands, low and rough, "come on."

Brendan follows him, shock and anger through his veins, too rattled to actually speak until they get at least 500 yards away, "where we going?" but Steven doesn't answer him in words, just gestures with a nod of his head up across the main road ahead. There's a long, high wall stretching far to either side of them and a small fence with a hole in it leading onto some kind of playing field surrounded with thick trees.

They cross over and Steven wriggles through the fence, Brendan following, and he leads them out onto the grass towards an island at the centre, almost perfectly round patch of tall grass and thick oaks and bluebells right in the middle of the expanse of grass.

He hears Steven sigh when they get to the edge of it, sees his shoulders visibly loosen, entire posture changing from tense fury to something like relaxation. There's a low, oval shaped stone stuck right in the ground, flat on top, and Steven perches on the edge of it like he's settling in.

Brendan peers around, sweeps his way through the thigh-high grass and flowers, disrupted, white and fluttering dandelion heads erupting all around him when he brushes them aside, catching the sunlight streaming in from the canopy of overhead trees.

"Nice little place," he comments, leans his back against a wide and solid tree trunk.

"It's alright. Grew up playin' round here, me and Amy and Justin. We used to pretend there was this monster that lived in that dark patch up at the top - " He points and Brendan sees it. "It made a weird sound when it walked and we'd run away from it and make it the noise right quick like it was chasin' us." Brendan laughs, takes in Steven's faraway expression. When Steven focuses back in on him it feels like the weight of the sun. "What're you 'ere for?"

"Was worried about you, after yesterday," Brendan tells him, rubs a hand over the back of his neck. "I shouldn't have let you go like that."

"You jokin'? I made a right tit of myself," Steven says with an eye roll and Brendan laughs again, can't help but think that this boy is fearless even if he knows it's not entirely true. There's things he fears but those fears are private and deeply ingrained to the point of invisibility. He snorts, scoffs, "you're not even disgusted."

"No, I'm not, Steven. You didn't do anything disgusting." It's funny to hear himself saying those words now. Years ago he would have smacked the kid in the face, felt the cold horror of wondering if Steven had seen what he'd once thought was a sick and dark corruption in Brendan, if the whole world could see it. "I'm your teacher, I'm not supposed to just let you walk away when you need support."

He looks at Brendan appraisingly, something on his face, knowledge? Confirmation? It's something soft and sly and impressed. Familiar. "You're not my teacher, anymore," and Brendan does not like the way he says those words.

"Yeah, that's what I wanted to talk to you about. I wondered if I could persuade you to come back?"

Steven sighs, shakes his head. "I can't. I don't want to."

He says it but Brendan doesn't believe it, not for a second. "You were doin' well, imagine if you got your A levels, got a decent job - "

"But that's ages away. My mam needs money."

"And what do you need?"

It seems to stump him, completely. He frowns and looks down and picks at a fraying hem on his t-shirt. "Dunno."

"I don't say you have to have it all mapped out, hell - I didn't have a clue what I wanted to to with my life until I was much older than you. But isn't there something you enjoy? Something you feel good at?"

"There's this bloke," he starts quietly, so soft Brendan almost can't hear him over the soft breeze. "Tony. He runs a restaurant in the village. I used to wash up for him sometimes for a few quid and he taught me how to cook."

Good with his hands, good with mixtures and reactions. "Used to?"

"My mum made me leave, said I was spendin' too much time out of the house and for not enough cash and she dun't like being on her own with - "

"With who?" Brendan knows but he wants Steven to tell him.

"Terry. My stepdad."

"Right

"She gets it easy when I'm there," Steven tells him and Brendan's blood runs cold and Steven snaps his head away and to the side, wide-eyed alarm on his face like he can't believe he just spoke those words aloud. Brendan knows the shutters are about to come down again; he's revealed too much, desperately blurted out something in an effort to be heard but instantly wants to take it back. Brendan knows that feeling of confusion, that juxtaposition of wanting so bad to talk but feeling ashamed for doing so. It's how abusers work, how they make everything so pointless that hopeless resignation to a forever of the same fear and pain seems like the only option, that anything different is little more than a pipe-dream so get used to it.

"You wanna protect her, that's fine, Steven, that's good," Brendan says quickly, tries to bowl over whatever Steven's thinking in his messed up head. "But you're not gonna be there with her forever and maybe the sooner she realises that the sooner she'll help herself."

"Only think my mum helps herself to is the vodka from the booze cupboard."

"Yeah, well that ain't your responsibility. You're your responsibility. You're the one that's gotta live in this world and make the best of it, try and be happy. I want you to make the best of it."

"I don't know."

"Look - just take a couple days to think about it? Please? I want you to seriously think about it," Brendan says with as much conviction as he can, hopes it's enough to drive him.

"Why?" Steven asks on a breathe and there's that question again. Why. He's not asking what's the point he's asking why me, why are you so bothered?

"Like I said, I'm your teacher."

"Bullshit," he scoffs and slips off the rock and steps closer and Brendan's heart lurches up into his throat and gets lodged there like a gobstopper. Steven kicks up more dandelion seeds, gets washed in a cloud of them, a haze of sparkling motes of sunlight like a dream. "Why am I the one you bother with?"

"Because I - " There's a droning litany in his head. Do NOT say 'see myself in you'... DO NOT say 'see myself in you'...

"Did you wanna kiss me back yesterday?"

"No - "

"I felt like you did," Steven murmurs and he's close now, a foot away with Brendan backed up against this solid-as-fuck tree and nowhere to go.

"I'm your teacher," he repeats and what does that even mean? It sounds lame even to his ears at this point.

"You told me to take a few days to think about it. You're not actually my teacher right now."

"Nobody likes a smart-arse, Steven," Brendan drawls, tries to claw back his rapidly flailing composure. It's hard, this boy is fucking beautiful. It was like the Universe created him for the sole purpose of tempting Brendan. Cruel bastard that universe. "Anyway, I didn't think I'd be your thing."

"Why, what 'ave you heard?" Steven asks with amusement. "Pretty sure I know what all the teachers say about me."

"Might have been an incident with Theresa McQueen."

"Fucks sake, that was years ago. They think I've shagged every girl in school."

"Haven't you?" Brendan asks slyly and he can't help it, can't help the pull at the corner of his mouth, the small smirk, he's fucking flirting with this boy and what does he think he's playing at!?

"Might 'ave," Steven tells him with a little smile of his own and Brendan watches his mouth, watches the pretty curve of it. "You wanna ask, don't you?"

"Don't know what you're talkin' about, Steven."

"You wanna ask me if I've ever slept with a bloke." Brendan watches his darkening eyes, feels himself respond, feels the air thicken like sweet and sticky molasses until everything feels smooth and edgeless. Steven steps closer, lessens the space between them like a gravitic pull. Brendan feels the heat of him through his shirt, smells the soap and clean sweat and deodorant. His heart pounds an abstract, jarring rhythm against his ribs. He's half-hard in his suit pants, already. Steven's eyes drop to Brendan's mouth, eyelashes fluttering and when he speaks it's so soft and so fucking filthy, "I haven't. No bloke's even touched me. I want it, though."

"Steven - " he chokes out and it's just a sigh, soft and breathy and puffing against Steven's face inches away.

"Please, sir," Steven croons and that's fucking it.

Brendan snaps, feels a physical thing in him break, and he grips Steven's hips and spins him, slams him up against the tree and plasters himself all up his front.

"Now, how am I supposed to resist you begging like that?" he asks in a rough growl and Steven gets with it, takes the hint.

"Please kiss me, Mr Brady," he whispers and fuck.

He slides his lips over Steven's, parts his mouth and pushes his tongue deep, licks inside, slipping, dragging, wet heat. The boy kisses like surrender, opens up and yields and Brendan's drunk with it, devours Steven's mouth and takes all that sweetness on offer. He drags kisses against Steven's jaw, trails a damp path down his throat and Steven's shameless moans and breathy sighs are the hottest thing he's ever heard in his life, his fingers digging into the skin under Brendan's shirt across his shoulders the most delicious thrill.

He wants to make him come undone.

"What d'you want, Steven?" Brendan asks because he's not too far gone to need Steven to give him this absolute, iron-clad permission.

He pitches his voice, high and soft and innocent because he knows exactly what he's doing right now. "For you to make me come, sir."

Jesus.

Brendan grips Steven's thigh and pulls up, bends his leg at the knee and presses his way into the gap between it creates, hard length of his cock pushing snug up against Steven's through his joggers. He watches Steven's expression as he grinds him back, hard and slow, into the wood, watches his mouth fall open in a gasp, his eyes squeezing shut and head falling back to expose his throat. Brendan sucks kisses against the skin there, gentle, doesn't want to leave a mark although he's like to, purple up this boy's pretty skin, paint him like a canvas under Brendan's mouth.

He arches and moans, grinds back helplessly like he's lost in it and with a powerful jolt, Brendan realises it's the first time a man has done this to him, first time someone bigger than him, someone who has the power to take that they want from him, has touched him like this and Brendan wants him to feel every bit of it, wants him under no illusions of what he's dealing with.

He pushes up with all his weight, pulls Steven up against him, right off his feet, legs clenching tight in panic around Brendan's hips as Brendan lifts him and presses him firmly back against the wood. He holds him with on hand under his arse, fingertips just brushing up against the weight of his balls and when he moves them Steven makes this soft, little sound like a punched out whimper. With his other hand he cups Steven's neck and tips his head for another kiss, another mesh of tongues, addictive and heady and like nobody he's ever kissed before.

Steven's skin is soft where he strokes it, trails his fingers down across his neck and dips into the neck of his t-shirt, flattens his palm against Steven's pounding heart and wriggles his hand in between their tightly pressed bodies.

"You want me to touch you, Steven?" he mumbles into Steven's mouth and Steven gasps, moans.

"Please, Mr Brady, please touch me."

Nothing has ever elicited such a powerful reaction in him before. His balls tighten so suddenly, so painfully that for a second he feels like he's going to come in his pants just from the friction of Steven's rolling body and his words alone.

Quickly, he leans back, keeps Steven pinned with his hips but creates enough space to work his hand inside his waistband and get a solid grip around Steven's cock. He boy bucks against him, fuck, oh my god, and Brendan stares into his face and strokes up, up and down, slow at first and then faster, harder, gauging his reaction, seeing how he likes it.

Steven's legs lock around him and his muscles seize and spasm and Brendan strips his dick, rough, hard, slick with a steady dribble of pre-come. He throws his head back and loses it, spills come over Brendan's fingers, moans through his damp and parted lips, eyes squeezed shut against the sensation.

Brendan strokes him through it and feels Steven go slack against him. He leans in, nuzzles against his jaw and cheek and lips, "you okay?" and Steven nods, pants against him and lets out a breathy laugh and Brendan eases him to his feet on the grassy ground. He croons, "good boy," into his skin and Steven breathes, Jesus Christ, and jerks against him just once like he can't control it.

He gazes at Brendan through half lidded eyes, touches his shoulders and chest and stomach with shaking hands. "Can I touch you?"

"You are touching me," Brendan says playfully, leans both palms against the tree trunk for support.

"You know what I mean."

"I don't think I do, Steven."

Steven smiles, coy and sweet, lowers his eyes like he's suddenly nervous and fuck if that doesn't just do things to him. "I wanna make you come."

If that's what Steven wants then who's Brendan to deny him?

"Yeah, Steven," he chokes out roughly. "Whatever you want."

Stevens' hands skate down his front, pull at his shirt, untuck it and slide up underneath tentatively. He breathes heavy and hot and spreads his palms against Brendan's body, whispers, "can I?" and Brendan nods. Steven fiddles with Brendan's buttons, eyes completely focused on his bared skin, rakes his fingernails through the dark hair on Brendan's chest, dips his head and presses his lips and nose against him, rubs back and forth and Brendan feels weakened by his fascination. His hands make a path down, wrestle with his button and zip and he can't see Steven's face, his forehead is tipped against Brendan's collarbone and he's looking down at what he's doing, but he hears the intaken breath, hears the soft fuck when he releases Brendan's hard dick from the confines of his trousers.

He looks up, eyes wide and bright, and Brendan gives him as steady a gaze as he can manage through his straining nerves and woozy vision. He'd never imagined in his wildest dreams how much he'd want this, how close he is to begging Steven to put a hand on him. Then he does. He watches Brendan's face intently like he's studying, trying to be a good pupil, Jesus, and he strokes Brendan with one firm palm, slow up an down through his long fingers.

Brendan encourages him, harder, Steven, yeah that's right, that's good, faster, and Steven obeys every command instantly like they're wired together. He's perfect, eager to fucking please and beautiful the way he watches and Brendan leans heavier against him and the tree, forehead resting against Steven's as he gasps into the space space between them.

"Steven, I'm gonna come, don't stop," he breathes and Steven doesn't, cups Brendan's neck with his free hand and looks into his face.

"Tell me your name, sir," Steven demands and it's not fair, fucker's catching him when he's vulnerable the sneaky little shit.

He blurts out, "Brendan," and Steven repeats it back at him, low and smoky and hot with intent, Brendan, and he blows over the edge with a low groan.

It rattles through his bones and blood and Steven's so warm, so sweet and fucking good, good boy, and Brendan's muttering all this out loud, he thinks, and he'll be suitably mortified later. Later if Steven comes back to school and Brendan has to teach him, look at him every day in his shirt and tie and damn fitted trousers. He's an idiot and it's never felt so good in his life.

"Bloody hell," Steven laughs through his haze and Brendan's slumped against him, just about ready to fall over.

"Bloody hell," Brendan agrees.

Bloody hell.