Archive of Our Own

Bressie doesn’t make a habit of checking up on Niall via social media. He's always been concerned for Niall's well-being, his mental health, but he has far better things to do. Living a life of simplicity and trying to be mindful doesn’t lend itself well to trawling the underbelly of the internet. There are times when things slip through, though.

One Direction is on a break (a hiatus, a sabbatical, a leave of absence, whatever they're calling it now), so of course the gossip rags and lesser media outlets have to create stories out of nothing and blow them up, shoving them in everyone’s faces. Bressie wasn’t expecting his face in particular to be vulnerable, but here he is with a picture of Niall and Selena Gomez sitting resolutely on his screen.

The glow of it is too bright in the twilight of his townhouse. He won’t take his phone to bed, a hard rule these days in the pursuit of serenity, which means he’s folded himself up onto his couch instead. He's in a jumper and jogging bottoms with a thick-knitted throw covering about half as much of him as he’d like, goosebumps covering the rest.

Niall’s been mates with Gomez for years now, and with her man Justin, too, if Bressie’s got the right of it. It all seems a bit complicated, but it’s not entirely surprising. Niall’s a creature of habit, and his habit has always been to hitch his cart to the most emotionally unavailable women he can. He goes so far as to shift girls with boyfriends more often than not, and doesn’t even apologise for it when Bressie drunkenly has a go at him. Bressie's remarks always come from a place of concern, from knowing how bad things can get in their industry if they fester, but sometimes he gets carried away.

“They’re fuckin’ people, Brez,” he said the last time. “I’m not forcing anyone to do anything. I just tell them I’m around and interested and leave it up to them. If they don’t want to tell their boyfriends, that’s none of my business, is it?”

Bressie groaned and scrubbed his hands over his face. “It is your business. It’s not right to go stealing some other fella’s bird.”

“They’re girls, they don’t belong to any fellas,” Niall said, holding Bressie’s gaze evenly but with a crook of a smile at the corner of his lips.

“Sure, don’t go twisting my words,” Bressie said with a laugh. “It’s not emotionally mature to shrug off all the responsibility. Just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should, chief.”

Niall shook his head and downed the rest of his beer. “How about you stay out of it, then?” he said. “Unless I’m fucking you, it’s not something you gotta worry your enormous head over.”

Bressie sucked in a breath at that, but covered it with a smile. He deflected. “If you were fucking Roz,” he said, trying not to laugh, “it’d be something to worry my head over.”

“If you think she’d cheat on you, maybe you should be worrying about that, hmm?” Niall was grinning, cheeky. "Keep 'em happy and they won't want to call me, that's all I'm saying." And that had been the end of it.

Bressie takes a long sip of his tea before he types out a text to Niall. Gonna be seeing you for Xmas head?

Niall answers only a few minutes later. You know it Bigface !! Lets get on the beers , unless youre too healthy now ..

Bressie shakes his head, fondness pooling gently in his belly. You’re lucky I’m healthy enough to carry your arse home from the twelfth pub singin Dirty Old Town. Can’t wait.

*

Christmas in Mullingar is crisp and cozy in turns. The same people and places and comforting smells of home wrap around Bressie as he goes for a morning run in his parents’ neighbourhood, skirting around pastures and fields in the hills of the midlands.

He’s got All Tvvins in his headphones and the beat of his feet against the frozen ground keeping time with his heart, the opaline clouds like a thick grey blanket over the countryside. The knots in his mind loosen and fall away, the nagging anxieties of the week so far muted and benign as he focuses on each breath, on each smell and colour and footstep.

When he finishes his circuit and runs up the walk to his parents' house, there are sounds coming from the kitchen and the dogs aren’t leaping at him, occupied elsewhere. “Hello?” he shouts, yanking his earbuds out and stretching his arms over his head, keeping his shoulders from stiffening up.

“Big Face!” he hears, and then he’s got an armful of Niall. He’s sweaty and gross from the run, but Niall doesn’t seem to care, giving him a tight squeeze around the ribs, palms flat and fingers spread against his back. “Your mam’s put the kettle on for me,” he says, grin as bright and disarming as always.

Bressie laughs and manages to get his arms around Niall in return, confusion not lasting long in the face of Niall’s earnest joy at seeing him. “What’re you doing up so early, chief?” he asks, Niall feeling small and breakable as he gives him a solid hug. He lets go before he squeezes him too tight or gets him any sweatier, but Niall doesn’t step back for another moment or two. “Would’ve thought all the diva pop stars'd be asleep at this hour.”

“You’d know,” Niall says, still smiling. Bressie’s mam comes through from the kitchen, leaning against the doorjamb, watching them with a sweet expression.

“He called first,” she says. “Always a little gentleman.”

“Taught him everything he knows,” Bressie says, cheeky. “Sorry I got you all rank,” he adds to Niall. “Wasn’t expecting anyone to be rubbing up on me until I had a chance to shower.”

Niall laughs and shrugs. His cheeks are pink with the cold, eyes bright blue, hair freshly dyed. His jumper is grey and cozy like the sky. “Not fussed,” he says. “Haven’t got my own workout in yet, maybe yours’ll be contagious. You can go shower up and we’ll have you some tea and breakfast by the time you’re out?”

Bressie nods, warmth tingling through his fingers and toes now that he’s inside, cheeks hot. “Sure, chief. See you in a bit.” Kaiser the bull terrier trots in from the dining room, butting his head against Niall's shins as Bressie goes upstairs.

Bressie empties his mind as best he can in the shower, taking deep breaths and concentrating on the feel of the water sluicing over his body, the cold tile against his shoulder heating up in the steam, the crisp scent of the fancy bodywash Roz bought him. It's more difficult than usual, knowing that Niall's bustling around in the kitchen with his mam, making himself comfortable in Bressie's family home. He sings an old Rubberbandits song to distract himself as he soaps up, paying attention only to his old injuries and tight muscles.

Once he's dried and dressed, the sounds of breakfast-making filter up the stairs, Niall doing his own singing along with the kitchen radio tuned to 2fm. "Where's Roz?" he asks as soon as Bressie joins him. He pushes a mug of tea across the counter. It's Bressie's favourite mug, the one with the dog, and he can't remember if he ever told Niall that.

"Thailand," he says, chest warm and grin tugging at his lips as he takes in Niall's tidy workspace and the plates of food. It's always so good to see Niall in Mullingar, like he never left.

"Sick! You know me and Baz and the Devines are planning a whole trip down around there for after the new year. I should give her a ring and get some tips."

"Definitely," Bressie says, taking a welcome sip of his tea. "Still can't get my head around the fact you haven't met her."

"I know!" Niall says, comically enthused. His energy is always so good, makes Bressie smile and keeps him on his toes. He never gets too sunk into himself around Niall. "It's unbelievable. We have to fix that. I'll start thinking you're keeping me away from her on purpose." Niall raises his eyebrows, surprising a laugh out of Bressie.

"Right, don't trust you as far as I can throw you," Bressie says.

Niall laughs. "You can throw me about four miles, so that sounds pretty good, to be fair."

Bressie steps around the counter and tugs Niall into a quick hug. Niall makes a confused noise at first, but then squeezes Bressie tight around the middle. The bones of his wrists press against the muscles over Bressie's ribs at his back, sharp and welcome. "Glad you're home for a bit, head," Bressie says, voice gone soft with how nice the moment is.

"Me too."

They Facetime Roz after breakfast, Niall's poached eggs and spinach-and-avocado toast sitting surprisingly light in Bressie's stomach even though he also snaked several of Niall's rashers of bacon.

Roz looks gorgeous and tan, eyes as bright blue as the ocean. Her lips are slick with balm, no other makeup to speak of. Her skin is glossy with just enough perspiration to make her glow. Bressie would be a wet red mess, if it were him. She has a real hibiscus flower in her hair that looks like it came off the thick row of plants next to her. A bright pink bandeau cups her chest softly and she's in front of a white sand beach and endless blue sky. He can see the shadow of her abs disappearing into her white linen sarong where's she's sitting. Bressie's belly clenches and he misses her, deep and pressing.

"It's the little bollix!" she coos, waving at Niall and laughing as she presses her lips together, leaning forward on the wicker chair. "Keeping our Big Face company?"

"Home invasion," Niall says, grinning back at her. "Howiya, Roz? It looks fuckin' gorgeous wherever you are."

"Phuket," she says, twisting to look behind her. "Not too shabby. We been loads of other places too, though." Roz and Niall get along like a house on fire whenever they talk. Spunky and funny and irreverent, but deeply competent and driven when it's time for it, the both of them—no wonder.

Roz's sister Rachel pokes her head into the shot with a wave. "Hiya," she says. "Just been to a cooking class, actually. It was wicked." There's a clatter somewhere in the background and she pops back out again.

"And hot as balls," Roz says. "Could've halved the water and salt in the recipe for all the sweat I poured in it."

"That's disgusting," Niall says, laughing through his grimace. "Tell me everything." Bressie laughs, too, but mostly just at the bubbling enthusiasm in Niall's voice.

"I'll leave you two alone, shall I?" he says, and takes his laptop into the living room to get some work done, their twin happy chatter sweet and soothing as he scrolls through business emails.

*

Eoghan makes it up for a pint in town, just dropping by on his way to present something or other. Bressie's glad to see him, but he doesn't leave his phone unattended on the table when he gets up to buy the next round. "I learned my lesson last Christmas, messers," he says, glaring. Niall leans a shoulder against the window they're sat next to, and the glass gets misty from the heat of him.

"Two Guinness and a Jameson and ginger?" Bressie asks Mac at the bar. "And two extra shots of the whisky." He balances the shots across the top of the three glasses on the little lacquer tray Mac slides him, holding them steadily in a triangle, the cold soothing his sweaty palms.

"What're you gonna do next then, Nialler?" Eoghan asks once Bressie's back, drinks distributed, and Niall shrugs.

"Going to LA for a bit, then down to Oz with the crew," he says, smiling. "A contingent of it, anyway. Willie, Martin, Basil. We'll meet up with Adam, then Deo's gonna housesit for me back in London."

"That's all before Thailand?" Bressie asks without looking up, wiping one of Eoghan's chips around in some vinegar on his plate. He's not hungry, but it's something to do. "You just gonna stay down there, then?" Niall being away from home, from his friends and therapist, right after his band's as good as broken up and everything's on the bubble—it leaves Bressie feeling anxious, and it's not even his own life.

"What, forever?" Niall asks, laughing. He kicks at Bressie under the table, the sting of his boot into Bressie's shin distracting, but Bressie doesn't look up. There's a curdling in his gut that he's not proud of. "No, Big Face. Maybe for a bit. They're sound down there, y'know? Don't have time for drama or whatever."

"You say this as someone who had a city-wide radio-endorsed stalking competition started in his honour the minute he landed in Melbourne," Eoghan says in his you're-an-idiot voice. Niall rolls his eyes. "Also had pictures of you and that Melly smeared all around everywhere."

"So?" Niall asked, laughing but clearly unamused.

"So they're no more chill than we are, that's all," Eoghan says, taking a prim sip of his drink.

Bressie stays quiet, the conversation going fuzzy in his head. It's far, and it's worrying, but Niall's done it before and seems to be fine now. He keeps his reservations to himself.

"Whatever," Niall says, doing his shot without waiting for Bressie to do his as well. Bressie can't help but meet Niall's eyes, incensed but trying to look impassive. He tosses back his shot quickly, not too far behind. "I'm gonna go backpacking with that lot anyway," Niall continues. "We're heading to Indonesia from there."

"Indonesia?" Bressie says, nonplussed. "Backpacking? I thought you had a chat with Roz. It was all Thailand and resort cooking classes, last I heard."

"Well it's a long trip," Niall says, sounding cheerier. "There's a whole itinerary. Two months."

"You're fuckin' mental," Bressie laughs, but he puts some bite in it. "You're not serious."

"I fucking am," Niall says, and now he sounds properly cross.

Genuine concern bubbles up in Bressie, and he can't keep quiet when Niall's about to risk his mental health for no reason. He knows how rough the last five years have been, has had long talks with Niall about how to take proper care of himself. "Not to stick my enormous nostrils where they don't belong—" Bressie starts.

"Which of course means you're about to say something wildly inappropriate as you go and do it anyway," Eoghan interrupts.

"—But you've got a massive wad of cash and access to every possible mode of transport and shelter known to humankind." He doesn't care that Niall's going to hate him for bringing it up, that it's uncomfortable. Sometimes tough love is the only way. "You know better, mate."

Eoghan puts his hands up and leans back like he's trying to avoid the crossfire.

"Cut the lecture and get to the point," Niall says with a huff through his nose that might be a laugh under other circumstances.

Bressie puts his hand out like he's steading a skittish colt. He covers Niall's forearm where Niall's leaning against it on the table, and his muscles twitch under Bressie's fingers, skin shivering into goosebumps like he wants to jerk away. "You're definitely taking Baz?" Bressie asks, voice softer now. "I'm just thinking about you, chief. I know you like to be as normal as you can, and you know I think that's incredible, but you can't just obliviously wander around. You know that better than anyone. Think what would happen if the blokes at a hostel saw you. They'd rob you blind, never leave you alone, surround you with crowds. Who knows what."

Niall shakes his head, and he does pull away this time. "I'm capable of taking care of meself. And yeah, Baz is coming, of course."

Bressie doesn't say anything else at first, just nods. It should probably ease his mind, that Basil's going to be there, but the guy's got a record and isn't even allowed into America, so there's only so much peace he can bestow. Plus, he's kind of a douche, though his pizza place in Dublin is top-drawer.

After a moment of tense silence, Bressie finishes, "All I'm saying is that sleeping on a shite mattress in a cinderblock room in a beautiful country isn't actually any more worthwhile than sleeping somewhere that costs more'n ten euros a night. But it is less safe, and that's all that really matters."

"I get it," Niall says, waving Bressie off, leaning away from the table and Bressie's hands. "Your complaint's been registered by the management, whatever-whatever." Bressie takes a deep swallow of his Guinness, watching over the rim as Niall chews absently on his lower lip.

"Hey," Niall says, drawing it out a bit. Bressie raises his eyebrows without putting the beer down, needing a drink more that to be polite. "Would you wanna come along?" Niall asks, suddenly bright. "It'd be such a laugh. And who'd dare to nick my stuff with you there to look like you'll rip 'em apart?"

Bressie's belly flips, and he almost spits out his beer laughing. "Ah sure, look," he says, coughing. "I'm not an eighteen-year-old gobshite on a gap year."

"Plenty of people who travel aren't eighteen-year-old gobshites on gap years," Niall says, like butter wouldn't melt.

"I've got an Ironman coming up anyway," Bressie adds, shaking his head with a rueful smile. He had one when Niall played Croke Park, too. And the O2. "I have to train near enough every day between now and spring."

"You're the definition of a killjoy," Niall says. He sounds gutted, and Bressie hates himself a little. "Would've been great craic."

Bressie sighs and scrubs his hands over his face, wretched even though he wasn't even invited until three seconds ago and the entire thing is far from his style. "I'll get the next round for you to mend your broken heart, how's that?"

Niall heaves a theatrical sigh, and Bressie's not sure if he's taking the piss. "Fine, I s'pose," he says.

"What am I, chopped liver?" Eoghan asks, putting on his radio voice.

"You'd get us deported on day one," Niall says, laughing.

"Fair enough," Eoghan says, looking pensive. "I would."

"Of course you're invited," Niall says, clapping him on the shoulder. Bressie's pleased, but something tugs sharp in his chest.

"I may have to do some interviews from a hot tub full of island girls, but I can probably manage it," Eoghan says, sounding long-suffering. "The things I do for you." Bressie just rolls his eyes.

Christmas Eve is always a loud, happy mess, and this year is no different. Bressie and Niall and their hometown crew stuff themselves into the fourth pub out of twelve with raucous laughter and nowhere near enough seats for everyone. Someone snaps them all grinning and merry, and it's a perfect shot. Warmth thrums through Bressie's fingers as he holds his phone, and not even from the whiskey.

"Can I post this?" he asks Niall, mouth bent right down to his ear. Niall's stiff and doesn't answer for a second, and Bressie's worried he put his foot in it.

"Not now," Niall says, voice a little strained.

"No, fuck, of course not now," Bressie says, relieved. "I meant tomorrow. I'll queue it."

Niall backs up a step and looks more relaxed, eyes booze-bright and cheeks pinked up. "Then yeah, of course." He looks pleased. "You like it?"

"I look fit," Bressie says, teasing, and Niall snorts.

Bressie doesn't often get drunk anymore, austerity and all that, but he's solidly on his way to legless when he finally finds a chair to slump into in the next pub. He has farther to fall than anyone else, and it's only fair. "How's the—" he starts, staring at Niall's glass. He can't tell what's in it.

"Apparently a winter sidecar. It's shite." Niall looks despondent. Probably more than is warranted by the drink, but then they're all squiffy and emotional. It's Christmas Eve and they're on round who-knows.

"Give it here, then," Bressie says, in his firm but gentle grownup voice. He furrows his brow for effect, but it takes a lot more effort than he expected.

Niall slides it across the table, and at first it seems like a clean pass, but then the bottom of the glass snags on something sticky, and the whole thing tumps over, gushing icy watered-down cocktail all over Bressie's new skinnies. "Jesus," he coughs, shoving back from the table to miss the sheet of it pouring over the side.

Niall's got a hand clapped over his mouth, eyes wide. "Fuck, I'm sorry. Christ, what an idiot," he manages between his fingers. After a frozen moment he lurches into motion, grabbing napkins as he laughs, a mix of nervous and drunk.

"It's fine," Bressie says, and presses his tongue to the backs of his teeth, trying not to smile. "Now no one'll be able to tell when I piss meself." He mops at the spill on the table and drops a pile of the napkins onto the floor, smushing them around with one foot to absorb the worst of it down there.

"Glad to help," Niall says, leaning over with a few napkins in one sticky hand. He starts pressing at Bressie's thighs with them, soaking up what he can. He keeps going, to the hem of Bressie's shirt, right over the stripe of his flies, hands firm and insistent.

"Okay!" Bressie says, overloud, pushing Niall's hands away from his lap. He's hot-faced and his skin is too tight. It's like the heavy weight of every eye in the pub hangs between his shoulder blades even though no one's actually looking. "I think I got it from here," he adds.

Niall blinks at him, mouth slack and damp. He's quiet for a moment before he laughs. "Right," Niall says, slapping the rest of the napkins down on the table. "I should probably get some water."

"As long as you don't pour it on my crotch, that's a grand idea," Bressie says, and Niall's eyes twinkle.

The rest of the pub crawl passes in a blur. Bressie remembers at least two rousing rounds of 'Fairytale of New York' in two different pubs, as well as telling Niall he'd consider Thailand after all with a rush of drunk affection. He wakes up in his own bed on Christmas morning to a dozen nonsensical, emoji-filled texts from Niall, as well, so all told, it was a successful night.

*

The new year brings with it new hassles. The Independent hounds him about Roz being in Thailand over Christmas, as if there isn't any real news. A journalist calls him and leaves at least a dozen messages.

"Why wouldn't you want to spend the holidays with your girlfriend?" she asks. "Aren't you serious? Isn't that a move you should've made years ago? You were with your mate Niall Horan—" Bressie deletes all the messages after that without even listening to them.

They run a story anyway, of course. One of Ireland's hottest couples spent Christmas apart, with Roz jetting off to Thailand and Bressie staying at home in Mullingar, prompting speculation about their relationship status. While the former Miss Universe Ireland set social media alight with a string of sexy selfies during her holiday with sister Rachel, Bressie wasn't resting on his laurels at home in Westmeath as he spent time with fellow Mullingar man Niall Horan.

"I don't give a fuck," Roz says over Skype, laughing. Bressie's stretched out on his bed at his parents' house, heels right at the edge of his mattress. Jack the terrier is eyeing him from the rocking chair in the corner. "It literally makes no difference to me what they're saying. It's just Christmas. You wanted to be with your family, I wanted to get paid to Instagram myself on a beach. Win-win for everyone, I think."

Bressie laughs too, and wishes suddenly that he could touch the soft skin at the crook of her elbow. "Alright, well. As long as you don't care, I don't care." He makes a ridiculous tweet that night, a purposely shoddy effort at photoshopping himself into one of Roz's decadent Thailand snaps. It gets several hundred likes, and it makes him feel better for not missing her on Christmas morning.

He is sorry that Niall had to jet off not long after he got home. It was hardly two weeks before he hopped a plane to LA. "You're coming to Bangkok, though," Niall said furtively when Bressie loaded his luggage into the back of his Audi.

"I can't promise," Bressie says, though it's like there's a splinter in his throat. Niall looks resigned, and that's what bothers him the most.

"'Course," Niall says, with a tight smile but a genuine hug. "We were drunk, caught up in a moment. I'll send you snaps of the whole 'round the world in eighty days, shall I?"

"I don't have a Snapchat," Bressie says, sliding his hands in his pockets. There's nothing else to do with them besides rub at Niall's tense shoulders.

"I'll send them to Roz, then," Niall says with a laugh. "She's a riot, you know. You oughta get one just to follow her." Bressie rolls his eyes.

He drops Niall off at the airport, a pre-arranged side entrance situation to minimise drama. Bobby had to work today or he'd have done it, and Bressie's glad because there are definitely too many Range Rovers around for comfort. He blocks as many of them as he can, and Niall makes his flight without a hitch or a picture.

He doesn't hear from Niall again until he's in Melbourne, picnicking with the Devines for Australia Day. "Olympia says she's actually heard of the Blizzards," Niall says. He started in as soon as Bressie picked up the phone.

"Who's Olympia? Also hi, mate."

"Hi!" Niall says, chipper. He sounds relaxed, and warm. Bressie can hear the sun down the line, feel the grass under his feet. He's actually got acupuncture pins in his fucked up ankle at the moment, himself, so it's quite the achievement. "Olympia's my friend." Bressie knows what that means. "She's on TV."

"Of course she is," Bressie says. "Are you her—what d'you call it. Temporary fix?" The fluorescent light over his head flickers, and he closes his eyes.

Niall laughs. "Not this shit again," he says, and then a girl's voice comes over the line.

"I Love 'Trust Me, I'm a Doctor'," Olympia says. She's got a lovely voice, and Bressie can picture her even though he's never seen her. Probably a brunette, probably brown-eyed, probably sweet and smiley. His belly flops uncomfortably, and he tries to ignore it.

"Thanks for that," Bressie says. "You know we're gonna get back together this year. I'll send you tickets if you're gonna be in the area."

He follows her on Twitter. Two weeks later, Olympia tweets that she and her boyfriend have broken up, and Bressie tries not to read anything into it.

*

Natural Born Feeder, Roz's cookbook, has been in the works for years, and Bressie knows it better than anyone but Roz. He's eaten more failed attempts at raw delicacies than she has, and far fewer of them were delicious than most people think.

Through the entire experience, she was rarely frazzled and took meticulous notes. She left several catastrophic messes for him to deal with but always made up for it with cocoa-flavoured kisses and towering stacks of the fluffy kind of pancakes set at his place at the table in the morning. She packed him lunches, she made him snacks. She fed him up like her book title proclaimed.

He got to the see the galley copies of the book before anyone else. He got to see her eyes light up when she opened the box of them on her kitchen table, right next to a giant platter of peanut butter protein balls.

He also got to field her stressed what-ifs in the middle of the night. What if no one buys the book. What if one of the recipes she made up turns out to be the same as someone else's recipe and they do her for copyright or plagiarism or whatever they do people for.

"They won't do you for anything," Bressie laughed, pulling her in, holding her tight to his chest, a hand cupping the back of her head. He could feel the tension in her body. "I will, though."

It's published, now, all that work come to this. He tweets pictures of the books on the shelves at Easons. He big-ups her every chance he gets, bursting with pride every time she gets another cover or another feature or another spot on telly.

They honestly don't see each other a ton, Roz on the promo circuit and tending to signings and appearances. Sometimes they're both in town but sleeping at their own places, too much going on to bother with extra drives in the morning. As far as the media are concerned, they live together at Roz's with her sister, but it's always been easier for Bressie to keep his townhouse as well.

When they're able to be in the same place at the same time, she's always glowing. Bressie comes home from a meeting about the Lust for Life Triathlon kit one evening to find her sitting at his kitchen table on her laptop. She's got a key, and he's used to seeing her show up unannounced—maybe she has a meeting in the morning closer to Baggot Street, or Rachel needed their apartment to herself for a night.

She's lit by the soft glow of her computer, suggesting she's been on the call for a while, the light outside fading and no lights on inside. She looks good in his kitchen. The discussion is about capacities and invoicing and creative direction, or something else restaurant-related—he's at a loss, really, but she sounds brilliant as usual. He grabs his laptop from the counter and goes into the living room to send out notes from his own meeting.

Roz doesn't announce herself when she joins him, except by the gentle smell of her perfume and the curtain of her thick, soft hair falling across his shoulder as she leans in to give him a peck hello. "I got a pop-up," she says.

"You too?" he says, looking down at his lap with a smirk and a waggle of his eyebrows.

"Fuck off," she laughs. "Idiot. I mean, I'm going to do the pop-up restaurant. For my food. For the book." She's wearing one of his undershirts and a pair of plain black Nike leggings, but she's not sweaty from the gym. She smells like berry lip balm.

"Roz, that's amazing," Bressie says, shutting his laptop with a click and sliding it onto the coffee table. He looks up at her, her happiness tangible in the air between them. Her eyes are hopeful, proud. "You'll sell out of everything soon as the doors open."

She's kissing him suddenly, deep and hard, and something in him loosens. It's been days since they've seen each other not through their phone screens. He grabs her around her ribs, hands spanning the width of her, tugging her easily over the arm of the couch and into his lap.

She straddles his thighs, hands cupping his face, fingers rubbing through his stubble as she kisses him. Her lips are warm and open under his, so soft but demanding as she finds purchase on the sofa cushions with her knees, leaning close to his chest, her tits pressing firm against him. She's not wearing a bra, and he slides his thumbs over the worn cotton of his undershirt. She shivers, nipples hard through the weave of it.

"Gonna congratulate me properly?" she asks, breathless, grinning. Her mouth is kiss-red and slick, and Bressie nods gracelessly as he pulls her hips to him, hand grabbing the lush curve of her arse through her leggings. He's half-hard in his jogging bottoms already, rutting up against her between her thighs—it's warm, there, and he fits just right. Her eyelids flutter and her lips part on the hint of a gasp.

Bressie laughs, just a breath through his nose, smiling at her. It turns to a groan as she swivels her hips and his cock fattens up. "We'll need to get you a whole restaurant chain," he murmurs, kissing her gently at the corner of her mouth, then down her neck.

"I'm working on it," she says, and pushes back with a hand over Bressie's thumping heart to pull her shirt off, hair staticy and clinging to her mouth and eyelashes. Bressie smooths it back, then pushes his fingers down to knead at the base of her neck and shoulders where she always carries the most tension.

He ducks his head to suck her nipple into his mouth, grazing it with his teeth, rubbing his stubble over the soft, sensitive skin of her breasts. Roz groans, head tipping back as she starts rutting against him in earnest. She bows her back and pushes her chest out, both hands in his hair, fingers knitted together behind his head, keeping him where he is. He has enough range of motion to switch sides, licking over her other nipple, thumbing at the first with a guitar-callused thumb, smearing through the spit and over the hard nub of it until Roz is hissing.

She's so responsive, so sensitive, hot where she's riding against him. The air in the room is close, heavy and humid with her breath. His prick twitches, precome smearing against the head, messy already inside his pants. "Let me eat you out," he says, mouth watering just thinking about how wet she must be, getting his tongue into that heat.

Roz doesn't stop moving against him, though, so he picks her up, pressing her against him, hand clutched between her thighs from behind, palm pushing up against her pubic bone as he lays her back on the sofa. She writhes, riding his hand, and his chest is tight with how much he wants to lick into her.

She bends her arms over her head to grip onto the arm of the sofa as Bressie yanks her leggings off, tan skin stretching invitingly over the muscles of her hips and belly, smoothing up to her armpits. He nuzzles into them with his stubble and she laughs, breathy and light. "Fucker," she pants, muscles tight where she's keeping herself from snapping her arms down to her sides, and Bressie grins down at her. Her eyes sparkle with arousal, and the smell of her is thick as Bressie scoots down, face at the vee of her thighs. "Go on then," she says, like she's trying to be flippant, but it's thin and shivery with need.

He loves being able to disarm her like that, loves seeing her easy and pliant for him. Bressie noses at her underwear, licking at the wet cotton, sucking the taste of her out of it. She cants her hips, trying to get him where she wants him, and he pulls back instead, teasing. She presses her lips together and groans, and he sucks twin kisses onto her inner thighs, biting at the muscle, rubbing his chin over the marks. "Please, Brez," Ros breathes, and Bressie gives in.

He pulls her underwear off with a hand slid under the waistband on either side, manhandling her by her hips and legs, and her breath catches when she drops back down on the sofa, thighs parting like she didn't even mean to do it. It makes something hot flare in Bressie's belly, dick heavy and insistent tenting out his joggers, wet spot seeping through. He pushes her thighs apart farther, shouldering between them to finally get his mouth on her.

She's slick and open, the tangy taste of her welcome on his tongue. She's shaved, hairs just starting to grow back in, the bare prickle of them satisfying. He licks into her pussy, then over her clit, sucking and tonguing at it until the tendons stand out at the tops of her thighs and her nails dig into his scalp.

Roz shifts against him, thrusting her hips like she can't help it, riding his face. He keeps his lips tight around her clit and slips two fingers into her pussy, the give easy and messy with how wet she is, how ready for it.

Bressie's hands are big compared to her narrow hips but she just groans as he pushes his knuckles deep inside her, index and middle finger, crooking them and rubbing at her insides until her mouth drops open and she sucks in a high-pitched breath. She bites her bottom lip and moans in the back of her throat as he works on her, using the flat of his tongue now to lick around where he's spreading his fingers apart inside her.

He can't get enough of her like this, feeling her shake around him, the sounds he draws from her, that she lets him have this, lets him prove he's worthy of it. He's distractingly hard, cock rubbing against his own thigh as he crouches and shuffles forward, lifting up her hips to a better angle over his lap. "Oh Christ," she manages, and hisses, fucking back on his fingers as he thrusts a third one in. He focuses in on that one spot now, loses all track of time as she gushes wetter around him and he laps it up. He drags his tongue back to her clit, making tight circles as her breaths come erratically, her thighs shivering over his arms where he's holding her.

She comes with a shaky whimper, pumping against his fingers and mouth, obscene squelches punctuating each roll of her hips. She pants, drawing her knees together after a moment, muscles twitching everywhere. Bressie pulls back with a satisfied sigh, wiping at his face with the inside of his elbow, sucking the taste of her off his teeth and swallowing.

Roz has her eyes closed and a bare hint of a smile on her face, fly-away tendrils curling damply around her ears. "Alright then," she says, no more than a breath.

Bressie can't hold off any longer and pulls the waistband of his joggers down just to his thighs so he can wrap his cunt-slick hand around his cock. He wanks himself artlessly, looking down at Roz with her splayed, glossy thighs and hard nipples more than enough to get the rest of the way off. "Can I come on you?" he asks, hoarse.

"Mm," she says, nodding dreamily as she opens her eyes, looking up at him for a heavy moment before she looks down at his dick, licking her lips. "Come on my tits."

It's only a minute before he does just that, the relief of it flooding through him in a tingling rush, his jizz stringing thickly over her chest, catching on her nipples, sliding in clumps to the creases under the rounds of her breasts. "Fuck," he says tightly, gasps as he wrings the last of his load onto the taut line of her belly. She's grinning, posing perfectly so the wads of it shine in the lamplight.

"Messy," she says, sounding tired but sweet. "Come soap me up in the shower."

She doesn't have to tell him twice.

*

Bressie isn't the first person through the door at the Natural Born Feeder Cafe. That honour is reserved for Doireann, Roz's bestie, who Bressie gets several pictures from with charmingly misspelled captions. John is there as well, Roz's father, and though Bressie tweets about it as soon as he can, it isn't until the afternoon that he's actually able to make it himself. He's more than bogged down in speech-writing for his address to the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Health and Children and half a dozen other appearances, plus organising all the campaigns for mental health awareness before the leader debates.

What can I bring? he texts to Roz around one PM, starting to feel the anxious tug of panic in his chest. He has to get out.

There's bskts of veg in the pantry bring all of it!! she texts back immediately, with every veggie emoticon there is.

They're almost sold out of everything by the time he gets there, the vegetables he's brought only enough for one or two more rounds. "Jesus, look at you," he says, beaming. Roz is beaming, too, a flurry of movement and smiles. Everyone in the cafe turns to look at him and he gets a few people wanting selfies, but in general it's all about Roz and the food—as it should be.

The rest of the week progresses much the same, a rousing success. He's thrilled for her, and says as much whenever he can, to her or to anyone else who'll stop long enough to listen.

Things don't slow down after that. The new year is well underway, and Roz is busy enough that she doesn't catch most of Bressie's speeches or races. She's definitely coming to Run Your Life with Bressie and the Lust for Life gang, and that's enough for him. It's his own problem if the house feels empty a little more often, if he has to go on longer and longer runs and bike-rides to keep his mind occupied. He's back and forth between Mullingar and Dublin more often, too, and he's not sure which is cause and which is effect.

"I still want a dog," he says one day, Kaiser's head plunked in his lap. He picked him up from his parents' house yesterday so his mam and da can go on a much-needed holiday.

"What's that in your lap then?" Roz says absently from the sink where she's peeling sweet potatoes.

"You know what I mean," Bressie says with a laugh. "I love this little bollix, been wanting one of me own for ages. With Rachel around, and you and me, and the folks at home, seems like someone would always be there for it."

Roz turns off the water, looking over her shoulder at him with her eyebrows raised. "If you're asking me, you must want it to be our dog, then."

Bressie thinks for a long moment. He hadn't considered it like that. "I guess I am, yeah."

Roz turns around, propping her arse on the edge of the sink, arms crossed. She sucks at her teeth for a moment, thinking. "Okay," she says.

"Okay?"

"Okay, let's get a dog." She smiles, pushing her hair behind her ear with wet fingers. "But don't tell my parents, they'll shit."

"I thought you had loads of dogs growing up?" Bressie says, brow furrowing.

"Oh, they love dogs. It's getting one with you they'll yell at me about. They didn't want us to live together, either. They'd rather I was traveling the world, single and free, didn't settle down until I had a multi-million euro food empire."

Bressie laughs and shrugs. "Can't argue with 'em, if I'm honest."

"Yeah well," Roz says with a smirk. She turns back to the sink. "Check my calendar before you make any appointments to look at dogs and we'll pick one out. A girl one."

"A girl one," Bressie confirms. "Don't worry, that's not a slight at you," he says to Kaiser, scritching him behind his ears.

The following week, they make the trek to Tipperary and the Deise Animal Sanctuary, where Roz knows the adoption coordinator. They pick out a sweet little Chocolate Lab puppy who was born on the premises to a rescued mum. Bressie's heart squeezes in his chest when he picks her up, barely the size of his hand. "Ruby," he says immediately, and Roz tugs gently on her little tail.

"Ruby Tuesday?"

"Ruby Soho," Bressie says, and presses a kiss to her soft little head.

*

"Big Face got a dog," he hears when he comes back to the greenroom at The Late Late, Roz's voice rising above the low-level din of activity.

"Oh, I'm sending snaps," Roz tells him. "I sent one of your enormous head on the monitor a minute ago, but now I'm replying to Niall's one. He's on a cruise." She tilts her phone and uses her one replay to show Bressie Niall shirtless against the railing of a boat, making the ridiculous face that means he's mocking Bressie. Roz has the sound in her headphones, so Bressie can't hear him, but he looks so good it's a shock, an extra step at the bottom of the staircase.

He hasn't forgotten about him, but he wasn't expecting to see him like that. He's shining, happy and relaxed. Sunburned, it looks like, just enough to be pink across his shoulders. His hair is rooty but even paler blond at the tips, saltwater textured and sticking up every which-way. He's got a dusting of stubble on the line of his jaw. The ocean is jewel-blue over the side of the boat, just like Niall's eyes. "He should be using factor fifty," Bressie grumps. "And stop takin' the piss. I can tell he is."

Roz just laughs at him. "If you got Snapchat like a functional person who's not ninety, maybe he wouldn't."

"You started it," Bressie says, but he can't stay grumpy when Niall's beaming like that. "Tell him I say hi, and to send you more snaps."

Niall does send her more snaps. Bressie's in Lanzarote training for his triathlon after that, but he gets updates every day from Roz. She relays news about herself and videos of Ruby, of course, but also screenshots of Niall in Boracay, Hanoi, Siem Reap.

Why don't you send me pics?? he texts Niall, along with at least four thumbs-down emojis.

coz you're a grandda and don't deserve em !! Niall texts, predictably with the old man emoji and the big red X. After about five minutes of no response from Bressie, though, he sends an Instagram picture to Bressie's inbox. It's of himself on a balcony, looking out over a white-sand beach just like the ones Roz took pictures at over Christmas.

Bressie has no idea where it is, but Niall's still topless, still pink and fresh-faced and soft-haired. His lips are slack, eyes bright. Bressie swallows thickly. Niall's swim trunks ride low on his hips, barely visible at the bottom frame of the picture, almost like he's about to go skinny-dipping. Happy? it says at the bottom, as if it could be describing Niall as well as asking Bressie a question.

Bressie hasn't been having dreams while he's training, or at least not that he remembers. He's working too hard all day to have an active brain at night. The next morning, though, He wakes up remembering his dream. He's achingly hard, hips snapping guiltily against the mattress, fingers dug into his pillow.

In the dream, Niall had shown up in Lanzarote to open a Southeast Asian restaurant, tasking Bressie with catching all the fish for him to cook. The fish were enormous and impossible to catch, and Bressie had been in a blind panic, Niall's success resting on his ability to come through. He showed up with nothing but a handful of minnows, but instead of being angry, Niall had kissed him. It was a deep, dirty kiss in the dream, and he'd slid down Bressie's body to suck him off while Bressie watched Roz win Miss Universe on a TV mounted on the ceiling.

In his lush hotel bed, Bressie closes his eyes and goes back to the feeling of Niall's mouth on him, eager but sloppy, stretching so wide to accommodate him that his jaw must be aching after only a moment. With the physics of dreams, Niall deepthroats him, humming, looking up at Bressie with wide eyes and wet lips.

Bressie wanks himself with the slick of his own precome, foreskin dragging over the head of his cock. He slips his thumb under the edge of it, rubbing hard, fucking his hips into the tightness of his grip. "Niall," he groans, imagining Niall's short hair between his fingers as he holds his head still, fucking into the soft heat of his throat.

He comes with a quiet cry into the pillow, guilty but so fucking turned on, the pulse of it pulling out from deep inside him, hand wet with clingy wads of spunk. "Christ," he murmurs, still twitching with it, the image of Niall naked and on his knees burned into the backs of his eyes. He hates himself, but he still smears his come into his own belly, imagining it's Niall's. He gets up to have a shower, examining every vaguely jealous or lustful feeling he's ever had about Niall, poking at it like a sore tooth.

The weather in Lanzarote is uncharacteristically awful, and he drags through the rest of the week with lashings of rain and high winds and general misery. He makes himself feel better by complaining on Twitter and Instagram, and he gets his fair share of condolences from Roz and smug pictures from Niall.

You'll be here soon enough , Niall sends, along with an emoji of the sun setting over the ocean and a tropical drink. can't wait .. He hasn't been snapping Roz lately, and Bressie tries not to feel victorious, the guilt over his dream still welling up deep in his belly.

*

Once he's on the plane to Thailand, Bressie is equal parts excited and panic-sick. He's got an email from Eoghan about what to do once he's landed at the airport in Bangkok pulled up on his phone, and he's read it about a thousand times, now. It's only with meditation followed by death metal through his noise-canceling headphones that he can get through the flight.

There's another plane to catch to from Bangkok to Krabi, and Bressie's hardly felt so huge and oafish, even on the tiny Ryanair flights from London to Dublin.

He makes it in one piece with only minor aches and pains in his knees and gammy ankles. Stretching in the sun once he's on the boat to Ko Phi Phi Don is one of the top five best feelings, especially coming from the desolate, disappointing storms of Lanzarote.

The address Eoghan sent him is in Ton Sai Bay, and he walks there with little trouble. The steep rises of the cliffs are topped with deep, jewel-bright green. The water sparkles in the sun, crawling with longboats. Even though the beaches he passes are packed with burnt tourists just like himself, it's gorgeous, the landscape subsuming everything else.

He feels the heat down to his bones, layers of tension sloughing off him, the knotted anxiety of the plane a distant memory with so many sights around him, each sense heightened, his focus drawn from each moment to the next, soft and stretchy, snapping into place each time.

The place Niall and the lads are staying is right in the middle of the main action of the island. It's a short walk from Tonsai Pier, and while it's not the Ritz, it's also not the cinderblock hostel Bressie feared back at Christmas. He checks in under their group name and drops his bags—it's a huge place, compared to many of the others he's passed. All the better for blending in.

His room is wood-paneled and spotlessly clean, dusted with flowers and intricately folded towels. The view is unbelievable. Niall's suite is right next door, and Bressie opens his adjoining door. Niall's is still shut tight.

He goes down to the pool to meet up with the crew, and they're immediately visible. A load of pasty Irish boys with frilly drinks, all of them languid and strewn around on the beach chairs under umbrellas. "Alright then, messers?" Bressie asks with a wave. He's wearing a plain t-shirt and swim trunks with flip-flops, and he feels ridiculous even though it's the uniform out here. He pulls his hat down lower on his brow.

Niall sits up, and it's like a punch to Bressie's guts—he's shirtless and pink, exactly like he was in the snaps, like in Bressie's dream. His hair is beachy-soft and sticking up, his chest lightly furred between his pecs like he shaped it that way on purpose. He's got the shadow of stubble, the bright blue in his eyes reflecting the pool and the sky. He looks at home. "Big Face!" he shouts, and hops up, stumbling a little as he runs to give Bressie a tight hug. A long moment passes before he punctuates it with a smack on the back, an afterthought.

"Hey, little bollix," Bressie says, not unkindly, giving him a squeeze in return. Niall's swim trunks are the stripey ones Bressie's seen a thousand times before. He ruffles a hand through Niall's hair, tightens his fingers a little because the need to is pulling hard in lungs like a hook. Niall just grins up at him, pleased. He's always surprised by how small Niall is, like his personality should give him inches.

"So glad you made it," Niall says, squinting into the sun as he looks up. Bressie puts his hand up to block it, and Niall laughs. He tugs Bressie by the wrist over to the rest of the lads. "Gang's all here." They chorus a greeting, and Basil gets up to give him a hearty handshake, left hand closing around his arm by his elbow, firm.

Everyone's burned and peeling, although some are worse than others. Willie looks more pristine than the rest, and Bressie can't say he's shocked. The lad's always been practical; Niall couldn't have picked a better housemate.

Eoghan waves vaguely as he sucks down his drink—he's seen Bressie recently, of course. They had a meeting about The Voice last week, and he only just arrived yesterday. "What's on tonight, lads?" Eoghan asks.

Bressie claps his hands together, rubbing them eagerly, soothing his buzzing palms. "Did I miss anything good?"

"This deeply uncool lot spent last night at an Irish pub," Eoghan says, rolling his eyes. "We're on Ko Phi Phi Don, surrounded by a bustling culture, bursting with excitement, and they're screaming at the rugby on TV like we've never left."

"You were watching the leader debates," Basil says, pointing an accusing finger.

"I was keeping informed about the world," Eoghan says, exasperated, but everyone's laughing.

"Well good, so I didn't miss much then," Bressie says.

"We did see an MMA boxing ring next door to Jordan's," Niall says. "I think we're gonna go have a look at that tonight."

"McGregor would be proud," Bressie says with a wink.

*

"They played 'Sunscreen' last night at the pub," Eoghan says. They're walking along the beach at sunset, Niall a few paces ahead with Basil, Martin and Willie a few paces behind.

"Love that one," Bressie says. He does a little jog and pulls out his phone, snapping a picture of Niall silhouetted against the orange sky, the surf playing around his bare feet, flip-flops in his hand. Eoghan stays quiet for a moment, just watching. Niall waves when he notices Bressie took the picture, but that's his only indication, and Bressie can't see his face.

"Mm," Eoghan says. "Anyway." Bressie shoots him a look, hearing something weird in his tone. Eoghan ignores it, pushing on. "I was thinking about that line, you know: Do one thing every day that scares you."

Bressie nods, trying to suss out where Eoghan's headed with this. "Sure, that's a classic. I think about that a lot. Doing open-water swims. Live television. Speaking to government arseholes. Keeps me sane, like. I jumped off that fuckin' waterfall with you and ruptured my tendon 'cause of that. And I'd do it again."

"Well, if you did it again you'd leave out the rupturing part, I imagine," Eoghan says, grinning. Bressie kicks sand at his legs. "I don't scare myself half so much as you do, though."

"You're not scared by half so many things as I am, either, I don't think," Bressie says. He feels the gravity of the conversation rest around his shoulders, heavy but warm. Eoghan just looks at him as they walk.

"I'm going to box, was what I was getting at," Eoghan says eventually. He's looking down at their tracks in the sand. "Do something that scares me. You should, too."

"I'm not gonna fight you," Bressie says, soft but laughing.

"They weigh you before they match you up," Eoghan says, like Bressie's an idiot for not knowing the rules. "They wouldn't put me with you. Maybe if I had a twin they'd match the two of us against you."

"There's not going to be anyone to match me up with at all, then," Bressie says, eyebrows raised. They're catching up with Niall and Basil, now.

"Hey Baz," Eoghan says, "you know first aid and that, right?"

"Yeah," Basil says, sounding suspicious. "Why?"

"Bressie and I are gonna beat up some punters." Bressie can't tell if Basil's about to cheer them on or berate them, when Eoghan continues, "In the ring, of course."

"I haven't officially agreed," Bressie says.

"Sick!" Niall says at the same time, punching the air. "I was hoping someone would do some actual fighting. I can't 'cause my body will literally fall apart, but—"

"But you're bloodthirsty anyway," Bressie finished, shaking his head. He's smiling fondly, though, shoving down the urge to ruffle Niall's hair again.

"That's me," Niall says. Basil sighs, put-upon.

The ring is raised in the middle of a fair-sized arena, bleachers all around and crowded with spectators. There are real Muay Thai boxers on when they get there, so they shuffle into the nearest available seats.

They're next to a group from what sounds like Spain, chanting loudly in Spanish and jumping every time a hit connects. Niall strikes up a conversation immediately, of course, and Bressie makes sure to sit next to him, wary. Eoghan's on his other side, then Basil, the Devines on the aisle. Everyone's deep in their cups, and even Bressie's on his fourth drink despite having promised himself he'd stay sober.

"Basil's the designated driver," Eoghan says. "That's the point of having a real bodyguard."

"He's not a real bodyguard," Bressie laughs. "He's not here in an official capacity. This isn't a world tour."

"As good as," Eoghan says.

Niall leans over from Bressie's other side, elbow poking painfully into the meat of Bressie's thigh where he's resting on it. "I'm paying him, I'll have you know," Niall says. "Have another drink and shut the fuck up, head."

Bressie does have another drink, but he'll damned if he shuts up. He tries valiantly to talk Eoghan out of signing up to get the shit beat out of him, but he won't hear reason. "Fine, then I'll sign up too," Bressie says. "Maybe if they can't match me with anyone they'll let me help you."

"I'll be fine," Eoghan says, frantically googling MMA moves.

"Check this out," Niall says, pulling up one of the Instagram accounts he follows. "This is McGregor's trainer—he has demonstration videos. There's gotta be something here you can use."

"Shadow Elbows," Bressie reads aloud. "That sounds good. Elbows hurt." He pushes Niall's elbow off his thigh where it's come to rest again, and Niall jolts before catching himself. Bressie reaches over to like the post. Niall grabs his wrist, fingers too tight on his hot skin. He can feel it all the way up his shoulder.

"That's my account," Niall says. "I'll send you the link." Bressie just stares at him, feeling slow and syrupy from drinking. He barely drinks at all these days, hasn't since Christmas, really. Plus he keeps dropping weight from all the training, no matter how much he eats, and doesn't have any idea what his tolerance is anymore. "Maybe you shouldn't do this," Niall says, voice suddenly unsure.

"No, I'll be fine," Bressie says, coughing loudly. "Niall, tell Roz to take care of the mutt if I die. Eoghan, let's go, buddy." He drags Eoghan after him to sign up and get weighed.

"They're supposed to test you to make sure you're not too drunk," Eoghan says. The beanpole Scandinavian in front of him looks a little tipsy. It turns out the test consists of checking a box on waiver that says I certify that I am not intoxicated at the time of the fighting? Y/N

"Well," Bressie says, scrawling his signature on the bottom of the form, "here goes nothing."

Eoghan gets matched with the beanpole Scandinavian—he's considerably bigger than Eoghan, but scrawnier. Bressie gets matched with one of the Spanish guys, not quite as tall as Bressie but noticeably thicker all over, now that Bressie's slimmed down some from all the triathlons. "Shit," Eoghan says, looking at the man out in the ring and the man's friend trying to pump him up.

"Do one thing per day that scares you, right?" Bressie says, taking deep, whole-body breaths. "This makes at least three." He shimmies into the ridiculous satin boxing shorts everyone has to wear, and Eoghan helps him buckle his foam helmet on.

"You can skip a few days this week, then," Eoghan says, and tweaks Bressie's nipples with a grin. "He's drunker than you, and less fit than you, and you've got a longer reach. Shadow Elbows. You can do it."

Bressie hikes his loaned socks up over his knee pads, looks out at the crowd, and sees Niall's blond shock of hair across the way. He's already jumping and cheering and Bressie hasn't even got in the ring yet. Butterflies flutter unhelpfully in his stomach and he's sweating like crazy with nerves, but his mouth is bone dry. "Here goes."

The fight passes in a blur, Bressie envisioning his opponent—Fernando—as the punching bag at his gym. He tries Shadow Elbows and only connects a couple times, but it's enough to knock Fernando for a loop each time. He uses his longer reach and Fernando's own body weight against him, tripping him up to land hard, sending him into the ropes with momentum.

He can hear Niall's cheering louder than anyone else's—probably just because he's used to being next to that, to hearing him shouting for Joe Dolan and Conor McGregor. Bressie imagines himself as one of those guys, imagines Niall excited like that, bragging that he knows him, that he was there when Bressie had his first knockout at a Muay Thai boxing arena on Ko Phi Phi Don.

He ends up grabbing Fernando close, holding tight as he struggles, and bashing an elbow into his ear. Bressie doesn't have much leverage, but it's enough to send him to the floor. The referee grabs Bressie's hand before he's even registered his win, and Niall's jumping up onto his back with a whoop. "I filmed the whole thing," he shouts, knees tight around Bressie's sweaty sides. "Fuck, that was mental!" He's more out of breath than Bressie is, and when Bressie reaches back to pull him off, Niall's flushed all over and his pupils are huge.

"Are you okay?" Bressie asks, pushing Niall's sweaty fringe away from his face before he can stop himself.

"You just took a pummeling and knocked a guy out and you're asking me if I'm okay," Niall says, laughing open-mouthed, joyful. "Yeah, I'm fine. Fuckin' thrilled for you though, Christ." He looks at Bressie a beat too long, eyes raking head to toe over his whole stupid boxing getup, helmet to kneesocks.

Bressie glances down, rubbing at the back of his neck as he smiles. The adrenaline is wearing off, and the fact that Fernando punched the shit out of him is starting to sink in. His sides hurt, and his knuckles, and gammy ankles. "I have to change. Then Eoghan's next. Gotta pay attention or he'll have our bollocks."

"Shame," Niall says, and Bressie's not sure which thing he's referring to.

He takes his seat again once he changed, sweating through his swim trunks and vest. Eoghan comes out with his arms up, doing a lap of the ring like he's about to be broadcast on Showtime.

The fight starts, the crowd cheers. If Bressie looked half as idiotic as Eoghan does, he regrets everything. There's more abortive kicking than just about anything else, glancing punches and weak holds and knees to the groin. Bressie cheers Eoghan on as best he can, but he catches himself laughing instead of hollering more than once.

"Oh saints alive," he says, a hand gripping at Niall's shoulder for moral support more than anything. "I know I'm supposed to be cheering for him, but—"

"He's doing his best," Niall says, but he's clearly trying not to laugh, too. "And he’s winning. We can't all be machines like you."

Bressie tries not to feel proud, but after they watch the videos back at the huge party on Phra Nang Beach that night, it's hopeless. "I'm sending this to everyone," Niall says. "My parents. Your parents. Your siblings. Roz."

"Ugh, don't send it to Roz, she'll thrash me," Bressie says. "Me mam, too. How about just Andrea, Ronan, and your da."

Niall shrugs. "Suit yourself. The rest are missing out."

Eoghan has to leave the party in the small hours of the morning to call Macklemore for his radio show; Bressie and Niall sit on the prow of a moored longboat, listening in. The thick blanket of stars over the ocean is just starting to disappear in the faint light of dawn trickling over the horizon by the time Eoghan's done. Niall's forehead droops against Bressie's shoulder, and Bressie doesn't move him even though he's got a bruise forming there and it hurts like hell.

Eoghan comes to sit with them for a bit, and Niall wakes up. "We should go back to the party," Eoghan says. He has a bruise on his collar bone. "I'm going back to the party."

Bressie doesn't move to follow him, and Niall doesn't either. They watch the sun come up in comfortable silence. Even when he's looking out over the water, Bressie can feel Niall next to him, his even breaths, the hush of the breeze through his hair. Everything inside of him calms, the aches drain out of him. His shoulder is pressed to Niall's, their thighs and shins as well. Something knits them together, pulls at Bressie's skin to keep them close.

He turns to look his fill, Niall's new freckles visible even in the muted glow of early morning. Bressie's quiet and lit up all the way through by the time the men come down to tend to their boats. "Let's go back to the hotel," Niall says, voice tired but warm, meeting Bressie's gaze.

Bressie just nods.

They spend five sun-drenched days on Ko Phi Phi before heading back to Bangkok. Willie hooks up with at least two different girls, and Martin's almost never at breakfast, relying on room service wherever he ends up instead, bed-hopping like it's summer hols in Ibiza.

Eoghan and Bressie have girlfriends and act like it. Basil makes out with a woman while they watch a fire show on the third night, but he's sheepish afterwards and swears it was on a one-off. Niall, as far as Bressie can tell, doesn't shift anyone at all. "You're not still seeing that Olympia bird, are you?" he asks, and Niall looks at him incredulously.

"We were never seeing each other," Niall says. "Why do you ask?"

Bressie motions around at all the girls in bikinis. "Haven't seen you meeting anyone new, is all." Niall laughs and doesn't even dignify him with a response.

In Bangkok, Niall meets someone new.

They're at Q Bar in Makkasan, folded comfortably into the VIP section upstairs, such as it is. Bressie excuses himself to take a piss, the champagne they've been draining from bottle service going right through him. There are plenty of dark, muggy alcoves scattered around, and he peers curiously at the people tucked away in them, titillated in spite of himself, heat pooling in his belly.

He pees quickly and washes his hands, but the music is different in the bathroom and he ends up listening to it, shoulders pressed to the blessedly cool glass of the full-length mirror hanging on the wall, taking deep, even breaths. It isn't until a couple shoves into the stall next to him that he goes back out to the club. He's not into the nightlife scene much anymore, and when he is, he's DJing—a task, a space of his own, one or two drinks and that's it.

He's so bogged down in his own thoughts that he almost doesn't notice the people in the alcove by the VIP section. One of them has rooty blond hair and pink-pale skin just starting to toast into a tan; it's Niall.

Bressie slips into a shadowy nook across the walkway, guilt twisting in his belly for stooping to this. He has to watch because Niall needs looking out for, may need backup or even just a wingman if it gets rough.

He squints through the fog-machine gloom, and eventually a strobe floods the corner with light. The other person in the alcove with Niall is a guy. His first instinct is that Niall's trying to score something, but he immediately quashes that—Niall wouldn't be dumb enough to get anything from a stranger in a club, even if that were his scene.

Niall's hips are tilted towards this guy, his shoulders leaning against the wall of the alcove. Their feet are slotted together, and Niall keeps brushing a hand through his hair, thumbing his sideburns smooth, licking his lips. The guy is taller than Niall but not by much, has dark hair, short but longer than Bressie's. He puts a thumb through one of Niall's belt loops, and Niall's fingers close loosely around his wrist.

Bressie swallows thickly, belly sinking and chest swooping painfully, disconcerted, stumbling through his shock. He never knew, hadn't even guessed. He wonders if Basil knows, if Niall brings him along to keep him safe when he wants to hook up. He wonders if Niall's lawyers know, if there are NDAs and contract clauses. If his managers know, his parents, his bandmates.

Panic rises in Bressie's throat, a tight band around his lungs, and it's not even him who's been found out. Nothing has changed at all, except that Bressie's seen this one thing. This one interaction.

That's when Niall kisses the strange guy. Bressie presses back farther against the wall, drawing himself up, heels tight to the baseboard. If he walks by now and Niall catches him, he can't just pretend he never saw anything. If he doesn’t walk by now, he risks Niall seeing him when he leaves to go back to the table.

He tries to keep himself from watching, but he can't, eyes peeled and no self-control. The guy has his hand at Niall's jaw, thumbing over his lips, and Bressie's never wanted to rip a limb off someone so badly. He longs for the gristly crunch of a Shadow Elbow connecting with that guy's ear.

When the guy presses Niall against the back wall, Bressie finally has a chance to walk by—either Niall won't see him, or he can believably pretend he didn't see Niall.

"Did you fall in?" asks Basil, handing Bressie his nearly-full glass of champagne as soon as he sits down. Bressie puts it back on the table, clasping his hands together, squeezing them fitfully as he perches on the edge of the velvet sofa. It's too low for him, knees practically up by his ears, but it's better to sit than to stand and end up pacing.

"I was listening to music," Bressie says, only half a lie. "They're playing something different in the toilets." Basil looks at him like he's crazy. "Where's Niall?" he asks.

"Didn't you see him in there?"

"No," Bressie says, throat tight. "Shouldn't you—you know, be with him?"

"I don't hold it for him when he fucking pisses," Basil says, laughing. He drinks half his glass of champagne in one pull. "He'll call if he needs something."

Bressie doesn't have any service in the club. He downs the rest of his drink just to have something to do, but he switches to water afterwards.

Niall finally comes back, and when Bressie checks his phone, it's only been about fifteen minutes. It felt like hours. "Where've you been?" Bressie asks, going for casually interested instead of the morass of complicated emotions trying to leak out of him.

"The toilet?" Niall says, looking at Bressie like he's had a mental break. Which is fair enough, because he has.

"I was just there," Bressie says. He tilts his head and looks at Niall meaningfully, or so he hopes. He doesn't know what he's going for, since everything is a cloudy mess.

It puts Niall on edge; he starts picking at the hem of his shirt and shrugs twice in a row. "Just having a look around. It's a big club."

"Just—be careful," Bressie says. He squeezes Niall's shoulder, muscles tense under his grip. Niall nods, biting at his lower lip, and pours himself a glass of water.

Bressie loses track of Niall once more before the end of the night. Everyone's had their fill of dancing and sweating, drunkenly singing along with the greatest hits of the 90s divas as they pour out the back door of the club and into the street. Niall's not with them, and Bressie holds everyone up while he goes back in to find him.

"Hey," Basil says, coming out of nowhere on the second floor of the club, grabbing Bressie's elbow. "He's outside. Wanted to round up some guys to come back with us and party at the hotel."

What Bressie really wants is to go the fuck to sleep. Instead, he stays up for a couple hours with the rest of their lot, including five or six Australians that Niall picked up—guys and girls, mostly long-haired and scantily clad. They're drinking beer now, and he has one to be a good sport, but he's too old to keep up and finally decides to pack it in when Niall starts recounting the top ten most spectacular Derby moments to a weirdly entranced pair of Australian boys. "I'm off," he says, and Niall waves vaguely in his direction.

*

Bressie's comfortably on the edge of sleep when he hears something next door, through the join between his room and Niall's. It starts as a quiet shuffling, but turns into thumps, a clang. He presses his ear guiltily against the wall above his headborad, not sure what he's expecting to hear, or what he wants to hear.

After a moment of nothing, there are two hushed voices, then a muffled yell. He sits bolt upright. There's another thud. He slips out into the hall, pressing an ear against the door, all guilt evaporated with the sick clench of fear. The sounds of struggle are unmistakeable.

Bressie doesn't think, just backs up, then runs at the door with his shoulder, the one he's dislocated five times at least. It doesn't matter. Nothing outside the sound of scuffling and Niall's choked noises on the other side of the door even registers as he collides with the wood. It cracks immediately, not heavy or reinforced, and it sounds like lightning hitting a tree and splitting the air. The thud of it reverberates in the bones of his shoulder. The doorjamb busts apart and the doorknob slams against the wall.

Niall's on the bed, limbs gripped tight by two guys so he can't struggle, can't curl up to protect himself. Bressie processes the tableau in a fraction of a second, doesn't have time for anything but an instantaneous decision. He lunges for the nearest one, fingers itching to slam into flesh, throat clogged with the tang of fear and rage. His heart hammers against the cage of his chest.

There's a guy sitting on the backs of Niall's thighs, and his arm is what Bressie grabs first. The man grunts, eyes wide. "Hey," he starts, but Bressie's fist is in his face before he can get anything else out. The thump of it rings in the room, but it's not satisfying. Bone didn't give way under his knuckles.

Bressie aims for the guy's chest next, socking the air out of him in a hot whoosh that sends him wheezing and moaning, crumpled on the floor. Next, he lashes out at the other man, who's trying to make a break for the door. He trips him and wrenches the guy's arm up behind his back, shoving him nose-first into the wall. That's not enough, though, so Bressie grips a fist in his long hair and bashes his forehead against the wall again.

With both of them dazed, he drags them out into the hallway, putting precious distance between them and Niall. Their dead weight feels like nothing with the hot spark of adrenaline burning through his nerves, the taste of bile in his mouth and the wooly pain of punching starting to gather around his knuckles and wrists.

He takes a deep breath, pressing his own forehead against the wall for just a moment, just enough to stop shaking, to keep it together. He can't be anything but calm and sure as soon as he steps through that door.

Niall isn't immediately visible when Bressie walks in this time. Anxious breaths and fear are fairly radiating out from under the bed, though. He gets down on his knees and pulls aside the dust ruffle—Niall's still half-sticking out on the far side, unable to squeeze any farther under. He's facing the wall, eyes shut tight, silent but for his wheezing inhales and exhales.

"Niall," Bressie says, gentle and low. He doesn't touch him, fists clenched at his sides, worry threading through every empty space inside him until he's stifled by it, pressing on his skin from the inside out. "You're alright, lad." He swallows thickly past the lump in his throat. "It's just me, Bressie." Niall shivers, doesn't move. Bressie tries again. "They're—gone."

Niall tries to say something, but it comes out creaky, hoarse. Bressie can see it more than he can hear it, the fluttering of Niall's back where he's trying to keep air in his lungs. He clenches into an even tighter ball, after, elastic waistband of his shorts askew and half-dragged down to his thighs.

Bressie's muscles twitch and he flexes against it, reaching over to wrap an arm around as much of Niall's torso as he can, intent on pulling him out, on checking him over and fixing it, fixing everything somehow. It's a desperate whine in his head, the frantic background noise to everything he's seeing, that he has to make this okay somehow.

Niall thrashes when Bressie pulls him up, his body still scared and wild. Bressie tries his best not to hurt him, not to let him scrape against anything, but he'll probably have some carpet burn. The least of any of their problems.

He lets go instantly, as soon as Niall's clear of the bed with enough space to sit. His chest aches to pull Niall in and hold him, but he knows better. "You're safe," Bressie says, hands and eyes as calm as he can keep them. He focuses on every feeling he can trace in his entire body. On every sound he can hear. Each breath is a careful task. "I'm gonna call for a medic so we ca—"

"No," Niall says, and Bressie can hear him this time. It sounds like it hurts him to speak. "No one else."

Bressie presses his lips together, heart hurting at Niall's tone, every word scraping against his ribs. "We have to—how do we make sure they don't—" Niall is shivering in fits and starts, though it's uncomfortably warm in the room. Bressie wants to put his hands on Niall's shoulders and hold him still until he stops, but he just grips at his own thighs instead.

Niall glances up, meeting Bressie's eyes for the first time, visibly focusing. Bressie feels soft and achy at the look on his face. He moves slowly. "Can I?" he asks, voice low, hands hovering over Niall's disheveled clothes. Niall doesn't say anything, just stares back at him. "Niall," Bressie says, not impatient, but needing confirmation. Niall nods.

Bressie tugs gently at Niall's clothes, righting them, checking Niall over as he does. "C'mere," he says, sitting on the bed, holding dizziness at bay. Niall was cowering under this bed just minutes ago. His skin crawls, and he nods to the space next to him. "Can you tell me what happened?"

“Where are they?” Niall asks, biting his lip, sitting next to Bressie but hunching up, pressing close. Bressie lifts up the arm Niall’s leaning against, wrapping it around him, loose enough that Niall can wriggle out of it if he needs to but drawing him close enough to feel useful and protective, keeping Niall safe inside the cage of his body.

Bressie hesitates for a second before he says, “In the hall. They’re not—conscious.”

Niall’s eyes bug and he sits up a bit. “What?”

Bressie presses his lips into a stoic line and he glares at the ground, takes a deep breath to find his center. “Ah sure, look,” he says after a moment. “What else was I gonna do, Niall?” He looks back up, meets Niall's eyes. He still seems scared, and it's scratchy and unbearable in Bressie's head. “I think they’ll be okay, but I had to—you know. Sort ‘em out.”

“How do we keep them from talking?” Niall says, focusing on that one thing, what must be the most important thing to him, now.

Bressie shakes his head. “Did they—take any photos?” he asks, dragging it out of himself painfully. His fingers press into Niall’s arm, just a bit, but Niall doesn't jerk or start.

“I don’t think so,” Niall says. “I can’t—I don’t remember.”

“I think it’ll be alright, then,” Bressie says. “What are they gonna tell people that we can’t deny, long as they haven’t got pictures?”

Niall nods slowly. He's been listing gradually closer to Bressie’s side. He smells a little like beer but mostly like sweat and bile and seawater. “Thanks,” he says.

Bressie just shakes his head, swallowing audibly. It's sharp and metallic in his throat. “Are you hurt?” he says after the silence has drawn too thin.

“I dunno,” Niall murmurs. He closes his eyes, like he's trying to feel his body, doing one of the mindfulness exercises Bressie taught him.

“Can I check?” Bressie asks, voice soft and low. “You can say no.”

Niall just leans back deliberately, spreads his arms out with his palms on the bed. “I think I’m fine,” he says, meeting Bressie’s gaze evenly.

“Try and stand up,” Bressie says. Niall stands, and he winces. It looks like it’s a bit painful, but he can manage it okay. “What hurts?” Bressie asks.

“Knee. Ankle,” Niall says, trying to rotate a foot. “But they work.”

Bressie nods. He feels sick to his stomach, but he has to ask. Every muscle in his arms clenches. “Did they—” he motions behind Niall with a heavy look, and Niall's brow furrows for a moment before he realises what Bressie means.

“No. They were about to, but. Just handsy, not like—you know. The whole—deal.” Niall can barely get it out.

It doesn’t really feel like Niall dodged a bullet, even though Bressie knows he did. Bressie nods but the relief loosening his chest feels superficial. “It could’ve been worse,” he says. “Not that that should make you feel any better. Just an observation, I guess.”

Niall is silent for a long moment, and Bressie wishes he hadn't said anything. “What now?” asks Niall eventually. The room smells stale. There's still no sound coming from the hallway, no sign the guys have come to. “I want to sleep.”

“Would you be willing to come with me?” Bressie asks, rubbing a hand gently over Niall’s arm. “We’ll find somewhere else, somewhere safe, and you can have a nap.”

Niall nods, looking fuzzy and despondent. “Yeah, okay. Let me get my things.”

“I got it,” Bressie says, shifting into gear. He checks his phone and makes lists of hospitals, hotels, the Irish embassy, any addresses they might need depending on what happens with the two guys out in the hallway. Niall just sits there watching, like he's at a loss, and Bressie lets him decompress.

He calls Basil to come take the scumbags to the hospital—better than they deserve, but necessary. Bressie doesn't offer an explanation, and after taking in the scene, Basil doesn't ask for one. He gives Bressie a knowing look, and Bressie's going to have to tell the whole story later, but not yet.

Bressie books a penthouse suite at a new hotel with Niall's card. He calls a car and shepherds Niall into it, all their luggage in his arms. He's got tunnel vision, pushing through one task to the next, just trying to keep Niall above water and his own encroaching panic fog at bay.

The new room is opulent and enormous, the most private he could get, but Bressie doesn't investigate it—just tows Niall immediately to the bed from the elevator that opens onto the foyer of the suite. He tucks Niall into bed in all his clothes, even his shoes, loath to undress him considering what he just went though.

Niall goes willingly, dragging like he's sleepy, and Bressie can't let himself worry about it yet or he'll lose the momentum he's got going.

He calls Basil for updates, keeping his voice as low and soothing as possible because he refuses to leave Niall in the room alone. Before long, Niall's slow sleeping breaths seep from under the fluffy duvet.

*

Basil gets full details on the assailants, but Niall doesn’t press charges. He doesn’t do much of anything, actually. He says he just wants it all to go away.

Bressie tells the lads that Niall’s ill. "He didn't want to have it coming out of both ends when you can hear everything that happens in the toilet through the wall," he says with a strained laugh. "I got a swank room where he can convalesce." Everyone always buys stories that are personal and embarrassing—he’s done it himself many times, masking things even more personal and embarrassing. He imparted that wisdom to Niall when he first met him.

Bressie sticks around so Niall doesn’t get too freaked out being alone, but not so much that Niall feels smothered. “Alright, head?” he asks, coming in with a bag of take-away boxes.

“Mm,” Niall says, looking up from the cricket match he’s watching. Bressie put it on for him before he left. It's evening now, and he doesn't seem to have mustered up the motivation to get in the shower yet, but looks pretty good otherwise. Bressie gives him a once over, appraising. “Fine, yeah.” Niall grins at him, a purposeful smile like the ones he gives in interviews. I’m comfortable, it says. You’re doing the right thing. This will be easy. It doesn't put Bressie at ease, but he smiles back.

They eat at the table under the window, blackout curtains drawn. Niall doesn’t even ask about the food, which Bressie got from the noodle place down the street that was the highest recommendation in the neighbourhood on Yelp.

“Listen,” Bressie starts, and Niall looks immediately uncomfortable. “You gotta be honest with me about how you’re doing." He takes a bite while he lets that sink in. "That was some scary shite, and there’s a lot that goes on in your head after that kinda thing.” He tries to keep his voice soft and comforting even though he's being firm, making Niall listen to something he doesn’t want to hear about.

“I’m fine. Like you said, could’ve been so much worse,” Niall says, shrugging dismissively, voice flat. His hair is greasy at the roots, and his stubble has pushed into scraggly. “It’s not—it was fine, you know.” He laughs, rueful. “Don't necessarily mind a bit of backdoor action, but at least buy me dinner first.” He gestures at his styrofoam container of noodles with his chopsticks.

Bressie gives him a long, skeptical look, stomach churning unpleasantly. “Even if you like guys," he starts, treading carefully, "that doesn't mean you deserve to be assaulted. It’s good that you’re not upset, Niall, and I don't want to catastrophise, but you can’t just ignore it. You have to like—acknowledge what happened.” Bressie tries not to dwell on the implication that Niall would fuck him in return for the noodles rapidly cooling on the table. The words rattle around in Bressie's head, heavy and distracting.

Niall just laughs. “I am. It happened and I’d rather it hadn’t, but what am I gonna do about it now?” He pushes his food around on the plate.

“Are you staying in Bangkok?”

“Until our flight out. ‘Course I am.”

“I have to go to Mullingar for training day after tomorrow,” Bressie says. Niall knows his schedule, but he feels the need to reiterate, to absolve himself of leaving Niall in the lurch. He shifts awkwardly in his chair, every position uncomfortable. His chest hurts, and he rubs nervously at his lips with his thumb and forefinger, the conversation as clunky and difficult as he thought it would be. His unease makes Niall visibly uncomfortable, too, and he hates himself.

“I know,” Niall says, eyebrows raised, permissive. “This doesn’t change anything.”

“I just want to—”

“Babysit me?” Niall laughs again, taking a big bite of noodles. He talks around it. “I told you I’m fine. The rest of the lads are still here. It’s not like those two arseholes are movie villains lying in wait for me so they can finish the job. They’re just a couple of drunk tossers who thought I’d be into something I wasn’t into, and they didn’t care they were wrong. I’ve had to do a lot of shit I wasn’t into because my opinion on it wasn’t the majority’s, to be fair.” He shrugs again, putting his chopsticks down with a squeak of Styrofoam and scooting back in his chair. “Get on the damn plane day after tomorrow and I’ll be fine. I'll talk to my therapist when I get home. Christ, I’m not sixteen anymore.”

Bressie feels worse, not better, but he nods anyway. He can't eat any more of his food, everything in his belly congealed and nauseating.

There are two big beds in the room, and Bressie took the one by the door out into the rest of the suite. He slept in it last night while Niall was dead to the world, but he made it this morning—pristine even in the absence of housekeeping because he needed something to keep himself busy. He rifles through his bag on the luggage rack at the end of his bed, taking stock of what clean clothes he has left. "You gonna go out tonight?" he asks, keeping it light.

Niall tidies up the detritus from their food, binning it all in the can next to his bed. “Supposed to meet the lads for dinner and drinks but I don’t really want to go,” he says, scrubbing a hand through his hair. “Just ate, after all.”

“You didn’t have to,” Bressie says, giving him a soft look. “I just thought you might be hungry. Didn’t know you were planning on dinner.”

Niall laughs, tugging at the hem of his shirt. It's the one he was wearing last night, a smudge of something next to the collar. “Like I’m gonna turn down food. Do you even know me?”

“Fair play to you,” Bressie says with a smile. “Well if it means anything, which it probably doesn’t, I think you should go out." He stills with a shirt in his hand, thinking through his tactics. "I was sort of hoping I could tag along? Maybe crash here tonight, too? I know I don’t need to stay with you, but I don’t have anything planned. I was gonna go for a run, but I don't really have a good route and—”

“’Course you can come along,” Niall says, heading over to Bressie’s bed, standing on the opposite side of it and watching him sort through his clothes. “Wear something sharp but not formal, if you’ve got it.” He seems more vital, suddenly, eyes brighter. "I'm a scuzzy mess from rolling around on the floor and sleeping in my own filth," he says. "It's time for a shower."

Bressie takes the small victories.

*

Niall promises Bressie he'll update him regularly after he leaves. Their goodbye is stilted and Bressie feels an uncertain intensity bubbling between them, just under the surface. Niall hugs him before he gets in the car to the airport, but it's tentative, and Bressie's heart aches with it.

Basil drives him in their rental, and swears on his life he won't let anything happen once Bressie's gone—not that it's really meaningful, not like Bressie blames him for anything. He appreciates the platitudes all the same.

He sleeps on the flight, not waking up until the impact of the wheels on the tarmac. He takes a cab to his empty townhouse; Roz is in Kilkenny for a book signing and an interview for the next two days. He repacks and heads to Mullingar rather than cooling his heels with Rachel until she comes home. He misses Ruby, who's staying with his parents, but more than that, he doesn't know what to tell Roz. It seems like lying not to say anything, but it's really Niall's story to tell, not his own.

He's on his way home from Sports Med a few days later when he gets a call. He normally never talks on the phone when he's driving, but it's Niall, so he hits speaker.

"Hey," he says, pleasantly surprised. "Alright?"

"Yeah, good," Niall says, and his voice sounds chipper enough. "Got to LA a bit ago."

"Sure, ever the world traveler." Bressie's not sure if he should try and get to the point, or just let Niall shuffle there—it's nice to hear him.

"Weather's perfect. I'm training with the Galaxy tomorrow, going to a hockey game with Willie the day after that."

"McGregor's in Vegas," Bressie suddenly remembers. "Are you going? A couple lads from home were flying over just for that. It's supposed to be a hell of a fight."

Niall laughs. It sounds warm even tinny through the speaker. "I am. I was thinking of you in that Muay Thai ring. Next stop UFC, right?"

Bressie laughs too, that memory clear and bright compared to the pall over the end of the trip. "Sure," he says. "They're exactly the same. I could take Conor McGregor easy." After a moment of dead air, he says, "Not that I don't love havin' the bants with you, Nialler, but did you have something you wanted?"

"Where are you at the moment?" Niall asks, and Bressie looks around at the pavement on either side of the car as if he might be there, watching.

"In the car. Staying in Mullingar for a bit while I do some training. Why?"

"No reason," Niall says, nonchalant. But then, "I was thinking I might want to look for a place in Dublin. Every time I come back I have to rent a place and it's kind of a pain in the arse, you know? What if I want to stay for longer, or like—want to make an investment?"

Bressie rubs at his chin, considering. His lungs feel fluttery and he has to remind himself to pay attention to the road. "I could help you look," he says, and it comes out before he can weigh it properly. "You could crash with me if you want, even. Rachel is going back to Tipp for a while so you'd have a room."

"Sick," Niall says. "I don't have a schedule or anything yet but I'll keep you in the loop."

"Thanks," Bressie says faintly. It feels like he's going about a hundred kilometers an hour, but it's only fifty.

"See you, Big Face," Niall says. "Love you."

"Sure," Bressie says, hands white-knuckled on the wheel. It's not an unusual thing for Niall to say, but it goes down warmer this time, heating Bressie up from the inside out.

Niall calls several more times over the next week—he always starts out with chitchat about what he's doing in LA or London. He went to Griffith Observatory, a taping of Corden's Late Late, Danny Jones's birthday, Manchester United with Olly Murs. He tells Bressie about the paps catching him taking a leak in an alley, and about how he's got a new PA, Jasper, who's a fair hand at golf. Bressie loves Niall's easy enthusiasm, his gratitude, the joy he takes in his friends, just like he always has.

His belly twists when he thinks about Niall staying in the next room, and he doesn't know if it's anxiety or excitement.

Jasper recommends an estate agent called Sharlaine for Niall's Dublin house-hunt. She calls on Niall's first day in Bressie's house, his luggage still packed up and sitting in the corner of Rachel's room. Niall sprawls on the couch as he talks to her, and Bressie tries not to think about the night Roz found out she would get her cafe.

Sharlaine's voice is audible even through the phone, so it's easy to eavesdrop. "The clear choice for you is Killiney or Dalkey," she says.

"Isn't that where Bono lives?" Niall says with an incredulous snort. He puts the phone on speaker when he starts laughing and can't seem to stop.

“And Enya,” Sharlaine says, like that makes it any better. “Pierce Brosnan.”

“Ah, sure look,” Bressie says, trying to keep from laughing himself. “He does have to be able to afford this, you know.”

“Is that Bressie, then? I feel like maybe you just don’t have a concept of Niall's position in the market,” Sharlaine says, fondly but also like Bressie's a slow dog. “You’ve been investing since 2010," she says to Niall. "You have hardly any significant expenditures. You can afford to be Bono’s neighbour, I promise. It’ll be worth it for the isolation and the security. Plus, can’t hurt if you run into him down the pub, right?”

“Right." Niall shakes his head.

"Unbelievable," Bressie says.

"I'm for shit at all this," Niall says. "Just don't have a taste for it, Sharlaine, so you'll have to hold me hand. I only wound up with my current house 'cause my mate Marvin had it first and wanted to sell it when he got married. Helping out a pal was as good a reason to buy as any."

"Always good to live near someone you can trust in case the pipes burst and you need advice," Bressie says, huffing a laugh through his nose. "Bono can help you out, now."

Niall smacks at him, but he's laughing too. He hasn't ever cared about resale value or high-yield property investments. His Hertfordshire place is modest by the standards of his echelon, at least to Bressie's eye. The rest of his band have posh London flats in addition to big country houses, plus places in America. Niall says he's never seen the need.

"I just needs roots here," he says to Sharlaine. "Somewhere other than my da's little semi. He won't even let me buy him someplace bigger. Someplace with a gate."

The first place Sharlaine shows them definitely has a gate. They're standing shoulder to shoulder on the curved drive of a ridiculous Georgian estate. It's crisp and bright, cold but not frigid. Niall's wearing his ridiculous fashion glasses and Bressie's wearing his real ones, paging through the documentation on the house she passed over.

The house looks more like Castletown than anything a normal human would live in, but Sharlaine suggested they come look at it anyway. Niall doesn't seem entirely out of place here, in his slim-cut button-down and dark trousers, an upscale bomber jacket zipped to the collar against the cold, and that tweed farmer's cap he loves so dearly. His scarf is soft grey, cashmere probably, and Bressie doesn't rub the backs of his knuckles against it even though he wants to.

There's ornate moulding on the ceilings and a what appears to be an actual ballroom, and Niall dismisses it summarily. "I'm not paying to heat all this," he says. "Or for a cleaner."

"You haven't seen the beach yet," Sharlaine says, smiling excitedly, ignoring his tone altogether. She leads them onto a wide terrace out back, overlooking Killiney Beach. The tide laps quietly at the sand, and Bressie holds his breath, listening to the wind on the water. It's beautiful, but it's too much. He can't imagine himself here, shooting the shit with Niall in the midst of crown mouldings and servant's quarters and a private beach. It doesn't settle right around his shoulders. He thinks of sitting on the longboat at Phra Nang, night turning into dawn around them. This is nothing like that.

Next, they check out a mediocre house that sits in the middle of hundreds of acres. Niall loves the views but doesn't want to get a groundskeeper. They look at a beautiful house with frankly horrible interior decorating. The wallpaper is ridiculous, everything gaudy and overwrought, the kitchen some sort of Tyrolean nightmare. Niall tries to squint around the rooms, seeing what they'd look like if he gutted everything and redid it. "Not worth it," Bressie says. He can't see himself here, either, not with the weird fireplaces with the padded railings like he's meant to be taking communion there.

"Torca Cottage," Sharlaine says after they've looked at about half a dozen houses. It's only been two weeks but it feels like a century. "George Bernard Shaw used to live here. There's a historic plaque and everything."

Bressie loves it before they even step inside. It's smaller than many of the other houses they've seen, but still opulent. Simple and crisp and modern, nothing too weird or flashy. Tasteful.

Once they do walk in, it immediately feels like Niall: the blue arched entrance hall, the floor-to-ceiling plate glass windows, the wide wooden deck perfect for grilling. Everything is flooded with light, open and airy and clean. The view is breathtaking. He would fit here, too, leaning up against the railing, looking out over the bay.

Sharlaine calls the owners while they're outside, asking some questions or whatever it is estate agents do. Bressie follows Niall back into the kitchen. "You don't have to come along to every viewing, you know," Niall says, peering inside the oven.

“Trying to get rid of me?” Bressie asks, amused. He peers over Niall's shoulder, but there's really nothing to see.

Niall turns back to him, an unimpressed twist to his mouth. “Obviously not, don’t be an idiot. I’m just—I dunno. I guess I’m asking when I'm gonna end up overstaying my welcome. I already owe you big time for putting me up. And it’d be nice not to be constantly worried Roz was gonna come back and I'd have to sort something out with a hotel.”

It's been a laugh, having Niall around the house. There's always music, impassioned discussions about the football, something on the grill. But Bressie's felt the tension, too. He wants to touch Niall every time he sees him, thinks about him wanking behind closed doors, in the showers. He wants to slide his hand into Niall's soft joggers when he wears them around, and it turns his stomach as much as it makes him hard. He shouldn't be thinking about taking advantage like that.

His silence turns tense, like they're teetering on the edge of something. It crackles through the air between them, here in this immaculate kitchen, in a house that feels like a dream. “Hey,” Bressie says, carried on a soft breath. He's next to Niall in two strides, bracing his hands on either side of Niall's narrow hips, pressing his lower back into the line of the counter. Holding him in place. Keeping him. “I don't want you to leave,” he says.

It’s a fragile moment, cliché but spread delicately between them like something new and special. The trees outside the window shake gently with the cold breeze off the water, and the sunlight is crisp. Tremors crawl over Niall's skin.

“C’mere,” Bressie says, low and barely audible over the coo of the wind. “You’re shivering.” The kitchen is warm, heat turned up against the brisk cool outside. Bressie can smell the bay, and the fresh cotton of Niall's t-shirt.

Niall looks up to meet his gaze, and Bressie feels the urge well up inside him. That everything has been leading up to this. He gives in to it, leaning down to press a kiss to Niall's lips, warm and dry. It could be chaste except that Bressie can feel the weight of it pressing out of him, the edge that he's trying to hold back.

Niall opens his mouth against Bressie’s, a small noise huffing through his nose, something scared but hungry. Bressie’s hand comes up from the counter to wrap around the back of Niall’s neck, drawing him up, collecting him closer so they’re tucked together from chest to hip, propped in the corner of the kitchen in the spill of sun from the skylight. Niall mewls, kissing him back, lips soft and open. Bressie swallows thickly at the helpless sound of it, like they're swept up in this, like neither of them are culpable.

Niall tastes like sleep and coffee and his Nutribullet smoothie from this morning. He’s not wearing any aftershave, just smells like Bressie's shower, like the tang of skin. Bressie slides a hand up into the fluff of his hair and it slips through his fingers so easily.

Bressie breathes heavily through his nose and puts an arm around Niall's back, keeping the edge of the counter from digging into him, pulling him up onto his toes so Bressie can kiss him better, deeper. It's a rush, every nerve in him firing at once like it's all static, skin fuzzy with it, everything tuned to Niall and the twitch of his muscles and the sounds he makes, shurring hums and swallowed groans.

It feels like it's been an eon, but it's only after a moment when Niall pulls back with a bitten-off groan. “What—” he starts, but Bressie’s in motion then, pushing closer until Niall slides his feet apart on the floor, accommodating Bressie's body in the vee of his legs. It sends a thrill down Bressie's spine, slotting in between Niall's thighs, even just sitting here in the kitchen.

“Say okay,” he murmurs, rough against Niall’s jaw as he crowds in close. Niall doesn’t say anything at all, just stares at Bressie, nostrils flared and pupils huge. Bressie kisses at his neck, at the soft skin behind his ear, thinking of his hunched shoulders and a hotel bed.

“Okay,” Niall finally manages, voice raked over and awed. "Yes."

Bressie kisses him again, and Niall surges up to meet him, lips open against his, tongue teasing at his teeth and the inside of his cheek, the softness of the skin around Niall’s mouth rubbing against Bressie's stubble. It sends tingles all down his spine.

Niall pushes his hands up Bressie’s chest, fingertips pressing in, feeling along his muscles all the way up to his neck. Niall's thumbs graze over Bressie’s jaw, and he cups his palms on either side of Bressie's throat.

Bressie takes deep breaths, folding his hands over Niall's, tracing down his arms to his shoulders. He wraps his fingers around Niall's ribs, under his arms, feeling the rise and fall of his lungs, the thud of his heart. He loses himself in kissing him.

Bressie traces down Niall’s neck with the tip of his tongue, rubs his lips against Niall's throat, his smooth jawline, his collarbone. “Christ,” Bressie says, nosing all the way to Niall’s armpit, tip of his nose and lips in the fold between Niall's arm and his chest, the seam of his t-shirt, the warmth there. He inhales deodorant, sweat, and hums against Niall’s shirt.

Niall's arms wrap around his middle. He smooths his thumbs along Bressie’s back, and Bressie snuffles his nose in Niall's hair, the two of them just tasting each other, hands spread over bodies.

Bressie hears Sharlaine at the sliding door a split second before it's too late. He pushes away with a grunt and a cough, Niall almost losing his balance, elbow banging against the counter.

"Hi," Bressie says, overloud, but Sharlaine just smiles at him. "Looking good?"

"Just spoke with the owners," she says. Niall is deep pink from forehead to chest, rubbing his elbow, but she doesn't comment on it, flipping through her notes. "It meets your specifications in most ways, but it will need significant work on the roof. The neighbouring properties are also both occupied by families and there are some restrictions on the kind of fencing you can build, so you may not have much privacy."

"I see," Niall says, and the look he gives Bressie is lost.

"We'll press on to the next, shall we?" Sharlaine says.

*

They don't see much of each other for the next couple days, the air in the house rushed and tense. Bressie's busy the next time Sharlaine calls with a viewing for Niall. He has to go to Galway for a couple days for business, and he leaves Niall with the house and Ruby.

Meet me for lunch? Roz texts on his last day. In Galway for wellness workshop.

He meets her at Cupan Tae, giving her a kiss and a smile and all the news that's fit to print about Niall's housing search and his own work. She's tired but cheerful, and she doesn't push, doesn't make any demands. They just sit and enjoy their tea for an hour before she has to go, and Bressie has to get back to Dublin.

When he gets back, Niall isn't there, but he was meant to have a meeting with Sharlaine, so Bressie doesn't let himself worry. He just takes Ruby for a run and has a perfunctory shower afterwards, not letting himself think about Niall at all, or the kiss, or any of it.

Niall's not home by the time he's out of the shower, and he takes advantage of it. He goes to the shop instead of waiting around, trying to minimise the time they'll have alone together, trying to put off talking about anything. He's tempted to go to his townhouse and leave Niall alone altogether, but it feels like a step too far.

It's bad for him, letting things eat away inside him—he needs to discuss things, talk them out, focus on them and then put them away. But he's never been able to do that with feelings like these, has never been able to confront them or deal with them or share them. Not about Niall, not about any guy. It's better just to ignore it, go about his life, not let it change anything. It's no one's business.

By the time he gets back, Niall's in his room with the door closed. Bressie can't avoid him forever, though, and eventually he's faced with more than the few scant signs of his presence like his shoes by the door and his charger plugged in the living room.

"You're alive!" Niall says the next afternoon, eyebrows raised. He's sat at the kitchen table with his laptop and a beer as Bressie comes in with Ruby, bike leaned in the entryway. "Thought maybe you'd cycled off Dun Laoghaire Pier." Niall's voice sounds flat and Bressie presses his teeth together, jaw flexing, uncomfortable. "I'm about to ghost, you won't have to deal with me in your space anymore, so."

"What?" Bressie says, still panting from his ride, face windblown-cold but body sweaty. Niall's a ball of tension, and it's making him anxious.

"I bought a place, so I'm gonna get out of here. Figure it's about time, right? Only so long you can share space with a fella you shifted before things fall apart."

Bressie scrubs his hands over his face. This is all wrong. "No, Niall, of course you don't have to leave just because—"

"I know I don't have to, but I've got a place now. I'm going back to London to get some things ready for moving in." He shrugs and laughs a bit, though he's not looking up and his shoulders are still set tightly. "Leaving tomorrow, if one more night's okay. If not, I can work something out."

"It's okay," Bressie says. "Fuck, of course it's okay." Words clamour against his tongue to be said but he can't force his lips to move. He reaches out instead to squeeze Niall's shoulder. He's wearing a soft black jumper and Bressie rubs his thumb back and forth against the weave of it for a moment. "Congratulations on your house, chief. I'm sure you picked a winner."

Niall just looks up at him with a tight smile. "It's Torca Cottage," he says.

*

Niall makes dinner his last night at Bressie's place. He does one of Roz's recipes from her binder on the counter, bacon and colcannon, because Niall loves nothing better than baked ham and they've already got all the ingredients laid in. Bressie doesn't complain, something warm seeping into his fingers and toes watching Niall cook again, like back when he showed up at Bressie's parents' house in Mullingar.

The food is excellent, and Bressie does the washing up like he always does when Roz cooks. He's a little uneven, a little unsettled as he puts everything back in order for Niall instead. Strains of music come from the living room where Bressie's favourite guitars are stood in the corner.

He wanders in with the dish towel still over his shoulder, drying his hands. “Where’s Roz now?” Niall asks from the armchair by the fireplace. Bressie flops down on the sofa, tilts his head back over the arm of it to get a good look at Niall. Niall looks back at him evenly.

“She’s in Iceland, actually. Blogging and snapping and all that, but also meeting with some people about a cooking show. Top secret, didn’t hear from me, you know the drill,” he says, holding Niall’s gaze.

"I'm good at secrets," Niall says. Bressie's throat feels tight, and not just for himself—there's Thailand, still sitting between heavy and conspicuous. He takes deep breaths and wills himself calm, focuses on the feel of the sofa cushions, the smell of washing up liquid, the sound of his guitar in Niall's talented hands. Niall stops for a moment then, smoothing down his sideburns restlessly, resituating himself in the chair.

“Guess you are,” Bressie says, softer than he meant to. Niall starts playing again and Bressie takes the opportunity to redirect everything—the conversation, their energies. “Working on something?” he asks.

“Not really, just fucking around,” Niall says. "I love this Rickenbacker. Just like George Harrison's." He turns the guitar over in his lap.

"It's new." Bressie holds his breath, watching Niall's fingers sliding over the edges of it. "Every now and then you put something in your hands and you know you have to have it."

Niall's grip tightens on the neck of the guitar, and he takes an audible breath, steadying himself. "Yeah," he says, quiet.

The hair stands up on the back of Bressie's neck. "Play me something?"

“What were you hoping to hear?”

“I dunno, that bit you were just fiddling with was incredible, if you want to keep going.” He gets himself settled, the couch creaking under him unreasonably loud in the loaded quiet of the living room.

Niall stalls a bit, doodling around. Bressie immediately recognises when he plays the guitar slide solo from Harrison's Give Me Love. "C’mon,” Bressie says, grinning. “Something of yours. It’s only me, then.”

Niall looks at him, clearly remembering the last time Bressie said that. It sits like a secret between them, and Niall starts playing again before Bressie can even finish processing it. He plays the same tune as he was picking out earlier, but more deliberate this time, slower and warmer, a bit different. The chords slot together better than they did before. He starts humming, a melody with no words, and after a few bars, Bressie picks out a subtle harmony, humming along.

Niall lets the tune fade away, and they sit for a moment, breathing in time. Niall puts the guitar down slowly, eyes still on Bressie. Bressie watches him, feeling it as Niall gets up and walks over to him, heel-toe steps that take forever. He kneels down in front of where Bressie's sitting on the sofa, body slotting right between Bressie's knees. Bressie sucks a sharp breath in through his nose, and Niall leans forward. He's already more than half hard in his jeans just from listening to Niall, watching him.

It's his last night, and Bressie's too reckless to stop him when Niall fumbles Bressie's flies open, lips parted. There are a million reasons they shouldn't do this, and they all pale in comparison to Niall with his soft pink tongue out, lapping at the head of Bressie's cock, grip tight around the base of it.

"Jesus," Bressie murmurs, and Niall scoots closer on his knees, eyelids fluttering shut. His cheeks are a hectic pink but he just hums, mouth hot and wet around the head of Bressie's dick. It's a stretch, and his cheek pokes out, distended as he bobs along the length of it. It's obscene, and Bressie can't stop staring.

Niall can't go down far before he starts to gag, but he does it anyway, enthusiastic. He lets the spit pool in his mouth, running down the spine of Bressie's dick, making everything slimy-warm and perfect. Bressie braces himself against the sofa, groaning, trying not to fuck into the tight heat of Niall's throat.

He feels the noises Niall makes deep down in his pelvis, his balls drawing up tight at the nasty squelch and retches that punctuate each slide of Niall's tongue, the fluttering motion of his throat. Bressie slides one hand into Niall's hair, not holding his head or pushing him down, just gripping at the nape of his neck, and Niall moans in response. Bressie sighs and pushes a little, just testing, and Niall grunts, bobbing his head faster on the red length of Bressie's cock, lips screwing down tighter.

Bressie swallows back a moan and thrusts up into Niall's mouth, meeting the motion of his head. It's an irresistible rhythm, and he's already dangerously close when Niall takes the hand that was propping himself up against Bressie's knee and slides it into Bressie's pants, instead, pulling gently at his balls, rubbing back behind them just hard enough to make Bressie gasp. "Niall, fuck," he manages, and Niall pulls off enough so just the thick head of Bressie's cock is between his lips when Bressie loses it.

His hip jerk with the deep pull of orgasm, creaming Niall's mouth, dick flexing around each wad of come. Niall catches it all on his tongue, licking the insides of his cheeks, swallowing everything with a bob of his Adam's apple. Bressie's cock twitches weakly with aftershocks, and Niall slides as much of it as he can into his mouth, swallowing one last time. He gags as he lets it fall from his mouth, and Bressie presses a hand over it, still achingly turned on despite his dick being spent.

He tucks himself away while he's still spit-wet and sensitive, pulling Niall up into his lap immediately. Bressie kisses him fiercely, licking at the traces of his own load in Niall's mouth, swallowing his moans hungrily, needing to reciprocate. "God I wanna fuck you," Bressie says, barely more than a growl. "Such a hot mouth, Jesus, Niall." He stands up while he holds Niall close, and Niall's legs go around Bressie's waist automatically, like he was made for this.

"Do it, then," Niall says, but it doesn't sound smug or demanding, just needy. He's panting, voice wrecked.

"I can't," Bressie says, laughing. "You sucked it out of me. I'll make it up to you, though." He takes Niall to his room, throwing him on the bed. Niall laughs as he bounces and starts shimmying out of his clothes. Bressie gets a hand around Niall's thigh and tugs him bodily to the edge of the bed. Niall gasps and puts an arm over his eyes, like he's overwhelmed already.

Bressie pushes his legs apart, eager to look at him, the pink furl of his hole, the straining pink line of his dick, leaking copiously on his belly. Bressie doesn't waste any time teasing, not after the show Niall just put on in the living room. He ducks in to lick around Niall's hole immediately, holding him open even as Niall's thighs squeeze and he tries to draw his knees together.

His breathy keening still sounds hoarse, but make Bressie's soft cock twitch as he rims Niall, messy and deep. He lets his stubble scrape against Niall's thighs and arsecheeks, eating at him and into him until he's wet enough for Bressie to slide a finger into him, knuckles looking thick as they push into his slight body, stretching him. Niall cries out and looks down along his body to meet Bressie's gaze, and the strung-out look on his face is more than enough to make Bressie try for a second finger fitting alongside the first.

He fucks them messily, noisily, in and out of Niall's hole, chest tight with how fucking hot it is, how badly he wants to get his cock in there too, prying Niall open, fucking him in half, listening to him beg for it. He can't though, at least not right now, so he eases a third finger in, instead.

Niall grits his teeth against his moan, one hand shooting up to brace against the headboard with a bang. He fucks back against Bressie's fingers, and Bressie's hips tick up into the edge of the mattress, desperate to feel the slutty roll of Niall's hips all around him instead of just on his hand.

It's too soon when Niall claps a hand over his mouth, muffling his words as he sobs, "I'm gonna come." Bressie only just gets his hand around Niall's dick, a perfect handful, when Niall shoots. His whole body convulses with it, flush spreading down his whole chest. His mouth is open around a silent yell, little gasping ahs all that he can manage as he shakes. He clenches around Bressie's fingers, the tight heat of him almost unbearable. He wants nothing more than for Niall to come on his dick, next time.

He pushes a hand through the thick splatters of come across Niall's chest, rubbing it in, giving it an experimental lick. He pulls Niall up by the waist, holding him close as he sits on the edge of the bed, and kisses him. "I got you," Bressie says, and Niall just gives a shaky sigh, turning his head into Bressie's chest.

He holds him for a while before he goes to get a flannel, and when he comes back, Niall's already got pyjamas on. "I'm okay," Niall says, but there's something fragile in his expression. Bressie kisses him, thumbing at the flutter of his pulse under his jaw, trying not to think of anything but this. Niall just pushes him away. "Need to sleep," he says, and Bressie lets him.

Bressie doesn't sleep at all that night, the reality of what they did sinking in, eating away at him.

*

Niall goes back to London before Roz comes home from Iceland, leaving Bressie alone in the house. It's too big, suddenly, even Ruby not enough to make it feel like home. He spends more time in his studio, instead, overseeing instrument deliveries and paint jobs and bookings that he usually just lets the managers handle. The lads from The Blizzards come in for rehearsals and he loses himself in the music, in catching up. The stories of their lives and families can eclipse the anxious clench of Bressie's belly, if he lets them. When he has to leave, he goes to his townhouse instead of Roz's.

Roz comes home with a million pictures and a good chance at getting her own food show. Bressie welcomes her with open arms, but every time he sees her, it gets harder. He ignores Niall's texts and doesn't answer the one time he calls, but it doesn't help.

He meditates every day, emptying his mind, trying to guide himself back into the comfortable track he was on before all this, before Christmas. Every talk he gives feels like a lie, every piece of advice ashy in his mouth after he speaks it. He knows what he's done, and no matter how often he tells the groups of people looking for hope wherever they can find it that they deserve forgiveness from themselves, that they deserve to show themselves self-love, he can't do it for himself. Peace is elusive.

Keeping his thoughts quiet even during meditation is almost impossible. He misses Niall, a painful tug in his chest. Everything is the sick punch of hearing noises through the wall in Bangkok, the warm thrill of kissing in the Dalkey kitchen. The tight clutch of Niall's body and the soft, wet heat of his mouth.

Bressie trains harder than he ever has. No matter how much he eats, the level of training he does means he can't keep weight on. He bikes everywhere, barely using his car at all, even back and forth from Galway to Mullingar to Dublin when he needs to. He runs seventy or eighty miles a week.

He outruns the guilt, pounds it into the dust under his soles. He told the nation he was straight when he knew it was a lie because he thought it would be easier, that it wouldn't matter. He lies to Roz every single day when he looks her in the eye and doesn't say anything.

He avoids Niall to punish himself as much as to try and get things back to the way they were—but it doesn't work. And if he's honest with himself, he knew it wouldn't. Not least because Niall has never taken well to Bressie ignoring him, and this time is no different.

Bressie's in his office at Camden Recording Studios when Kelly, the booking manager, sidles up to him with a clipboard. "We have—um. A high-profile artist looking to book studio time," she says, and rocks up onto her toes, doing a nervous little bounce. "Which you probably know. When are you free to show him around and discuss services and all?"

Bressie furrows his brow, clicking his pen in and out a few times. "Who is it?"

Kelly cocks her head. "Niall. Horan. I assumed he'd told you already, that it was your idea." She looks confused. Bressie's skin prickles uncomfortably and he can't quite get a full breath in.

"No, I hadn't heard. That's grand, though. I'm so busy for the next couple weeks—can Chloe take him around? She's here nights, which would be best."

"Sure," Kelly says, but she doesn't sound convinced. "I'll send an email and copy her on it."

Chloe leaves Bressie a voicemail on his office phone that everything went well and Niall's booked in for studio time. Bressie asks for a complete schedule, or as much of one as she knows right now, so that he's not in for any surprises. Even if he doesn't have to do direct management of the studio space, he still comes in for rehearsals with the Blizzards or to do recording. It's cowardly, but effective.

In the meantime, he's going to Eoghan's to watch the rugby. He hasn't had a real drink in ages, or eaten anything horrible for him, and he's looking forward to both immensely. He comes prepared with a platter of nachos, and Eoghan greets him at the door with a full-body hug.

"Big Face!" he says, yanking the food out of Bressie's hands and ushering him in. There's a few other lads he knows already dotted around Eoghan's living room, though the match hasn't started yet. Everyone's animated and loud and having the craic, and the tension starts seeping out of Bressie's shoulders.

He's embroiled in a heated debate about Ireland's tendency towards dismal second halves when Eoghan's voice carries over the din. "There he is!"

Bressie turns to look at who's come through the door, and of course it's Niall. "Wey hey!" Niall cheers, playing it up for the benefit of the room. "Up the lads!"

Everyone crows back, and Bressie grins like he knew this whole time that Niall was going to show up. He didn't, though, and it rankles that Eoghan didn't say, even when Bressie's fully aware Eoghan has no idea about anything that's happened in the past weeks.

"Alright?" Niall asks Bressie from behind the club chair, grinning and game such that no one would even be able to tell.

"Great," Bressie says. "How've you been?"

"Sure you wouldn't know, since you don't return any of my texts, like," Niall says, elbowing Bressie gently in the shoulder. There's only the barest thread of anything but genial laughter in his voice, but Bressie hears it all the same.

"Oh, you know, got so much going on—" he starts.

"Like what?" Niall asks, looking guileless.

"So much training," Bressie says, and Niall's eyebrows are raised like Bressie's got to keep going. Darragh's sitting just next to them and looks over like he's half listening. "Uh, got—got an award," Bressie says, thinking of a letter folded on his desk at work. "Writing a speech to give at the RTE People of the Year thing."

Niall laughs, but there's no humour in it. "So you're Person of the Year are you? Seems like the nomination committee's had a few, maybe." It should sound like good-natured ribbing, and Bressie laughs like it is, but it hurts like a pinch in his chest.

"No accounting for taste," he says, mouth gone dry. The tension draws tight, but Niall's simple, easy smile belies it. "I'm going to get a drink," he adds.

"See you, Brez."

He doesn't come back.

The night of the awards ceremony arrives quickly. Bressie is scrambling to get ready and make sure everything is in order. Roz had a photoshoot she couldn't move, so he arranges to go pick her up on the way to The Helix for the event.

He met with the team from Chess of London to get his suit sorted since he'd never be able to buy one off the rack that fits. By evening he has a perfectly tailored charcoal wool three-piece, a crisp, barely-pink shirt with french cuffs, and a wide, deftly-knotted navy silk tie.

He has Roz's favourite hair guy come give him a cut and a shave at home, makes him some coffee and gives him a tupper of her homemade peanut butter cups in addition to the usual fee to make it worth his while. He stuffs a few in his mouth himself, too, shuffling through all the papers and mail on the counter to try and find his notes for his speech tonight.

He checks the kitchen table, the coffee table in the living room, his nightstand—the paper's nowhere to be found. Bile rises in his throat and he has to take a long moment to breathe and focus, staving off a panic attack. His hands clench painfully on the edge of the counter as he retraces his steps.

The last place he had it was the other day at the studio, on the couch in the control room, making some edits while The Academic tried out his equipment. He grabs his keys and hits the road, suit and all. There's still some time since he was planning on leaving early to pick up Roz anyway.

It's was a slow day, and the studio is mostly deserted now. There's a golden glow limning the control room door, though, and when he pushes it open, the lamp on the table by the wall is on. The wood panels and plush, wine-deep carpet look rich in the low light.

Niall is sitting on the sofa, knees tucked up to his chest, looking at something in a notebook balanced on the arm. The click and snap when Bressie pulls the door shut behind himself is muffled, swallowed by the acoustics of the room.

Niall looks up, and his surprise is clear in his eyes. His hair isn't styled up, and he's wearing a striped t-shirt, glasses hooked in the collar, pulling it down just enough that Bressie can see a hint of his chest hair. His jeans are tight around his slim legs and have rips in the knees and thighs. Bressie's fingers itch to slide into them. He's wearing black socks with little multi-colour diamonds on them and orange toes. He looks soft.

Bressie swallows thickly, the clench in his chest turning to heat, cheeks flushing. "Sorry," he says, going for casual. It scrapes in his throat. "Looking for my notes."

"For your Man of the Year speech?" Niall asks, but there's no venom in it. He sounds tired, if anything. Worn.

Bressie nods, and starts opening drawers, focusing on the search instead of on the blue of Niall's eyes and the vulnerable curve of his body on the couch.

"Here," Niall says, holding out a piece of paper. His lips are pressed thin and his voice is quiet. "It's really good. Maybe they're not wrong after all."

Bressie looks down at him, taking the notes slowly. His hand folds over Niall's fingers, just long enough to feel the spark of it, to hear the sounds Niall made when Bressie's mouth was on him, to feel the writhe of him on Bressie's tongue. He's turned on already, just seeing him like this, alone and quiet and soft. It sinks into the pit of his stomach.

Niall turns his hand and grips around Bressie's wrist, meeting his gaze, face tilted up into the light. The sense memory of his skin in the sun, his body silhouetted on the beach, is a fist tight around Bressie's lungs.

They’re silent for a long, fraught moment before the tension snaps. No sooner is Niall up off the sofa than Bressie has him around the waist, pushing him against the soundboard with a thunk. The edge of it is just the right height to press into Niall’s belly and he bends over, hands flat on the edges where there aren’t any sliders. Bressie brackets him with one arm, the plastic cool against the hot sweatiness of his palm. He can hear the breath pressing out of Niall's lungs as he leans into him, and Niall moans with it, muffled as he presses his lips together.

Bressie kisses at the back of Niall's neck, behind his ear, need overwhelming him and trying to push everything else out of his mind. The pull of his suit jacket around his shoulders keeps him from forgetting completely where he's supposed to be, but he just doesn't care.

Bressie’s hips are jammed against Niall’s arse, the perfect pert swell of it, his hand spread across Niall’s pelvis, the other at Niall’s throat, curled just below it, not choking him but an inch away.

“All I can think about is fucking you,” he says against the shell of Niall’s ear, each word dragging out of him, ragged. “I shouldn’t, you know I can’t, but that’s all there is for me.”

Niall reaches behind himself to clutch at Bressie’s shoulder, fingers mussing the crisp cut of his suit. “This doesn’t have to be anything,” he murmurs. “Christ, Brez, I want you so bad. You don’t have to tell anyone, I don't need that. It’ll just be us." Bressie grabs Niall's wrist, pushing it back down the sound board, holding both his hands there so he can't touch Bressie. "Can't handle it like this. You not talking to me. Never seeing me.”

Bressie doesn't say anything, a rushing in his ears, heart hammering in his chest. He pulls down Niall's jeans and pants and pushes up his shirt, jarring his body against the soundboard. He reaches blindly for the condom out of his wallet and Kelly's travel-sized tube of Inis, rolling on the condom and squirting the lotion messily into his palm.

He doesn't have the control for finesse, Niall's back bowed slutty and hips canted up, begging for Bressie's cock. He barely gets his suit trousers pushed down to his thighs before he's slicking himself up, fingering Niall's arse just enough to coat him inside.

Niall's so tight when Bressie pushes in—it almost hurts, but it's intense and unbelievable, the hot squeeze of him, the hiccuping, needy sobs he tries to muffle as Bressie spreads him open on his cock, coring him.

Niall reaches back to pull at Bressie's side, thighs spreading farther, and Bressie takes the hint. He snaps his hips, jarring Niall into the soundboard, pressing the air out of him even as Niall fucks back against him. "Oh fuck," Niall manages, breathless. "C'mon, c'mon, c'mon."

Bressie pulls out almost all the way and shoves back in with a grunt, and Niall cries out through gritted teeth. He does it again, faster this time, and then he's fucking into Niall over and over, jackrabbiting thrusts that punch needy little noises out of him every time, both of them desperate and hazy and burning up.

Bressie looks down between them, the thick length of his dick disappearing inside Niall's perfect little arse. It's unreal, viscerally, unbelievably hot, how much Niall can take, how much he's loving it as he comes apart on Bressie's cock. Without even thinking, Bressie brings his open palm down on Niall's arse, the ringing smack of it piercing through Niall's muffled noises. He keens, head thrown back, and before Bressie realises what's happening, Niall's coming, dick trapped against the wood of the soundboard, body shaking and clenching on Bressie's dick, fucking back into him erratically with each wave shivering through him.

"Holy shit," Bressie manages, pushing a hand through Niall's hair and grabbing at it, pulling his head back so he can look down, see the clinging wads of jizz on Niall's t-shirt, the smear of it on the soundboard. Niall's eyes are closed now and he's so open, sloppy and hot and pliant with orgasm. Bressie pounds into him, dick flexing and huge inside him.

He holds Niall's hips as it tears through him, fucking into him with abandon, eyes squeezed shut and forehead pressed against the sweaty back of Niall's neck. His cock swells and jerks as he creams the condom, his load squeezing hot and wet under the latex. He grunts, animalistic, thinking about coming bare in Niall instead, what it would feel like raw. His breaths are heavy and loud as he slows, the desperate grip of his orgasm slackening around him.

He stays in Niall for a long moment, both of them catching their breaths, braced against the soundboard like their last tether to reality. He pulls out with a dirty, sucking noise, and Niall mewls in the back of his throat.

Bressie turns him around without even pulling the condom off first, checking him over, tilting his face up. Niall's eyes are teary, and Bressie's belly sinks. "Are you okay?" he asks, eyes searching.

Niall nods, taking deliberate breaths, and leans against Bressie's chest, mouth slack but tilted up for a kiss. Bressie brushes his sweaty hair away from his forehead and presses their lips together, gently at first, the kiss turning deeper as Niall licks into his mouth, breathing hard through his nose. Bressie keeps kissing him as he pulls off the condom and drops it in the bin under the soundboard.

His phone chimes angrily in his pocket, and it takes everything he has to pull away from Niall's mouth long enough to check it. He holds him close even as he flips off the screen lock, and there are three texts and a miss call from Roz.

getting cab. Hope youre okay her last text says, and Bressie feels a sick lurch.

"I have to go," he whispers, lips against Niall's ear. He silences his phone and slips it back in his pocket, sliding his hand around Niall's hip after. He dips down to feel at Niall's used hole, slick and open. Niall hisses and buries his face in Bressie's shirt, and Bressie squeezes roughly at the hot skin of his arse where he smacked it. Niall shudders, breath coming ragged.

He steps back, fighting against the urge to catch at Niall when he tips, knees weak. Niall watches Bressie with wet eyes and pink-stained cheeks as Bressie rights his suit, fingers shaking on his flies. He should say something, but everything he can think of clogs heavy in his throat and his heart is beating loud in enough in his ears that it drowns out everything else.

When he accepts his award in an hour's time, the irony isn't lost on him, and he delivers his speech in a fog, skin clammy under his suit. Roz's face is the only thing he can see through the bright stage lights.

*

What now ??

That's all Niall's text says the next day. It's enough to make Bressie squeeze his fists tight in his pockets as he smiles for the cameras with Roz. They're at the launch party for The Taste, which Bressie's only even vaguely familiar with, some sort of foodie lifestyle magazine or website.

He lets the text burn a hole in his pocket and turns his attention to being a good guest and a good foil for Roz—not that she needs much help. She's in her element and she looks beautiful in the slim purple suit she designed herself. Even as he tries to slot in with her, to get that rapport going that always made them so good together at these things, he can feel it slipping away from him.

"What's wrong?" she asks over her glass of champagne. She's frowning, worried instead of upset. They're tucked together behind a high table, a plate of delicate-looking appetizers between them. She eats one, still watching him as she chews, waiting for some sort of reasonable answer.

She deserves better than this. He's become a cliche, even worse than the guys he's always been judgmental of. His sense of responsibility is crushing, as it should be, and feeling weak just leaves him raw and open to the worst his own brain can dish out. "Not feeling great," he says with a tight smile. Niall deserves better, too.

"You can go home if you need to," Roz says, giving him a sympathetic pat and a quick kiss on the cheek. "You've done your duty well." She grins sweetly, but it lodges sharp behind his ribs all the same.

He has a voicemail by the time he gets home. He already knows who it'll be before he plays it.

Look, Niall says through the speaker. We need to not fucking do this, Brez. I'm sorry—like, I feel like shit. I should never have let it get here. It's fucked up to get in the middle of someone's relationship, and it's fucked up that it took me so long to care enough about what it was doing to you to say that. He sighs heavily, and Bressie's heart sinks. I just wanted to say that I'm going to pretend none of this ever happened. It's gonna be totally fine between us. We can hang out and I won't—I won't do anything or say anything. It can't happen and I get that now. So. Bye. Love you.

Bressie stands clutching his phone, fingers tight around it. He needs Niall. It's clear, now—he has to tell Roz what's been going on. He needs to end it, and be honest, and let her find something else to make her happy.

He needs to tell Niall he's worth it, that the heavy loss in his voice in that message is more than Bressie can bear hearing from him. Niall is worth setting everything right, starting over, and being better this time.

Even though anxiety eats at him, the spectre of confronting Roz and coming clean hovering everywhere he looks, there's already a hint of relief in him, a gentle wash of positivity starting to dilute the poison that's been sitting in his belly all this time, because now he knows.

It feels wrong to just stay here like nothing's wrong, waiting for Roz to come home, pretending to be ill. Bressie has his townhouse to go to, but he doesn't want to be there alone right now, either. He doesn't want to listen to the bad parts of himself on constant loop all night with no escape.

He leaves a note on the fridge and gets in the car. At first, he just drives—straight through Ballsbridge to the 118, switching between Abba and the Beach Boys. It isn't until he can see Killiney Hill that he remembers Torca Cottage, tucked up behind the quarry. He pulls over at the entrance to the park at the base of the hill.

You home? he texts Niall. He lets his head thunk back on the headrest, gazing up at the moon through his sunroof, feeling his heartbeat pulse in his entire body. Deep breaths and the hard curve of the steering wheel under his hands are all that tether him to the moment.

yeh Niall texts back simply. It's enough to get Bressie the rest of the way up to the cottage, letting himself through the little front gate. He rings the doorbell and rests his head heavily against the doorjamb. He hasn't been here at all since Niall's lived here.

The door opens and Bressie catches himself before he stumbles in. "Hi," he says, palms sweating. Niall's in jogging bottoms and a white henley with stripy blue socks, and it hurts deep in Bressie's chest.

"Hi," Niall says, brow furrowed. "Alright?" It takes a moment, but he smiles, true to his word—pretending nothing happened.

"Not really, no," Bressie says, and already he feels better for it.

"Come in, then." Niall walks back into the house, and Bressie follows him. Niall hasn't lived here long, but it already feels like he fits. Bressie looks around and everything is comfortable, right. "Tea?" Niall asks.

They're in the kitchen, kettle on, when the words finally come to him. "So," he starts, and Niall looks braced, skittish. Bressie hates that he made him look like that. He wants the easy quiet of the beach, of playing guitar in Bressie's living room. "I got your message." Niall's sat on one of his bar stools and Bressie's at the table, looking across at him, allowing him the distance.

Niall laughs nervously, fidgeting with the tie on his joggers. "Then why're we having this conversation?"

"Because I don't want to pretend like it never happened. I love you." It feels right, though Bressie's never said it to him before. "You don't deserve what we were doing. I was the same as every other person who took you for granted, and it makes me shit miserable to think about it. I was a dick to Roz, and to you. And I don't want to do that anymore."

Niall's eyes are wide, and he's turned to look at Bressie, knuckles white on the back of his stool. Bressie's breath comes shallow and fast, willing Niall to understand.

"You don't want to do it anymore?"

Bressie gets up and closes the space between them, putting a hand up to Niall's face, gently thumbing over the dimple in his chin, the soft slack of his lower lip. He looks down at him, chest full of warmth. "Not like we were. I want to try for real, if you'll have me. I want to tell Roz. Not about you specifically, but—I'll tell her we need to break up. I'll tell her about me."

Niall inhales sharply, turning to press his face into Bressie's hand, opening his mouth against it, eyes drifting closed. "Yes," he murmurs. "I'll have you." He surges off of the stool, feet still balanced on the bottom rung, and kisses Bressie, arms around his neck. It's perfect, buzzing through every nerve until Bressie's lit up with it, Niall's mouth warm and sweet on his as Bressie kisses him back. "I'm—Christ, Brez, I've loved you for ages. Missed you so much."

"Well, I'm here now," Bressie says, tilting their foreheads together, the two of them of a height with Niall standing on the stool. "It's not going to be easy, though. I still need to talk through it all with Roz."

"None of it's fair to her," Niall agrees. "I was a dick too, not just you."

"I'll have to move out."

"Well, I've got four bedrooms," Niall says, cheeks flushed pink and eyes bright despite the furrow in his brow. "And a favour to repay. As I recall, a mate of mine who has a knack for getting me out of trouble let me crash while I looked for somewhere to live."

"What comes around, goes around," Bressie says.

"Are you gonna do it right now?" Niall asks, stepping down to the floor. "Do you need to meditate first?" He rubs at Bressie's biceps, and Bressie takes a deep breath.

"That's not a bad idea," Bressie says. The weight of it sits heavy on his chest, but Niall is here with him, and that makes everything worth it.

*