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The t-shirt’s still there, lying in the sink where he left it. White cotton, gone grey at the collar, with some band Niall doesn't recognise printed across the chest in letters that are cracking and peeling away like old skin. The faucet’s been dripping on it steady for maybe an hour now, maybe longer, he doesn't know how long he’s been standing here just looking at it. Droplets landing one after the other, tap tap tap against the fabric, spreading out slow like little dark blooms, and Ruben’s not here to see it, because Ruben’s never here when he leaves his clothes in the sink or on the floor or hanging off the back of a chair.
Niall’s used to it by now. Picking up after Ruben when Ruben can’t be bothered, or when Ruben’s too drunk to remember where he took his jumper off, or too high to care if his trainers are blocking the doorway so Niall nearly breaks his neck. He folds the clothes. He does it careful, the way his mum taught him when he was wee, smoothing out the wrinkles with the flat of his palm before he sets them on the chair by Ruben’s side of the bed. And Ruben never says anything about it. Not thank you, not piss off, not why do you keep doing that like you’re my mother. Just nothing. And Niall doesn't say anything either. That’s the way it works between them now, has been working. There’s a lot of things they say nothing about. A whole language of silences that Niall’s learning to speak without opening his mouth.
He smiles sometimes, when he thinks about it. And lately they’ve been sharing more things. Their mums have noticed how close they’ve gotten. You’re settling him down. You’re a good influence, hen.
A good influence.
Niall wants to believe that. He wants to be the reason Ruben gets up in the morning, the reason he comes home at night, the reason he laughs. He wants to be good for him. He wants to be good, period. That’s not too much to ask, is it? But Ruben’s off somewhere right now, probably with Mona, and Niall doesn't want to think about Mona, about the sounds they make. Ruben’s probably climbing something he shouldn't be climbing, or yelling at the top of his lungs just to hear his own voice bounce off the walls, or doing something else that’s gonna leave a bruise or a scar or a story he’ll tell Niall about tomorrow in that low quiet voice that means it’s a secret, just for them.
And Niall’s here.
Standing with his hands clenched into fists at his sides, staring at a wet t-shirt in the sink like it might give him answers if he looks long enough. Alone. It’s a different kind of alone, a louder kind, the kind that fills up all the empty space in the flat and presses against Niall’s chest until he forgets how to breathe right. He hopes Ruben comes back tonight. So they can talk. So Niall can listen to that voice and pretend he really understands what Ruben’s saying, pretend he knows how to fix it, pretend he’s not terrified half the time by the things that come out of Ruben’s mouth.
He half hopes Ruben doesn't come back tonight. Not because he wants Ruben gone, not because he wants to be alone forever. But because he wants to do something. Something. He doesn't know what that something is yet, and that’s the part that makes his stomach turn over on itself like a pup looking for a place to sleep. He wants to do something.
He likes their talks at night, though. Ruben comes home, Niall loses track of time sometimes, and they end up sitting on the floor by the window where the street lamp bleeds orange light across the carpet. Ruben smokes, and Niall watches the smoke curl up toward the ceiling, and Ruben talks. Sometimes it’s nothing, just stories about people Niall doesn't know or places Niall’s never been. But sometimes Ruben’s voice gets so quiet Niall has to lean in to hear him, lean in until he can feel the heat coming off Ruben’s skin, and Ruben says things that make Niall’s blood run cold.
He always listens. And sometimes, Niall makes him smile. He doesn't know how. He just says something, or sometimes he doesn't say anything at all, just looks at Ruben a certain way, and Ruben’s mouth twitches at the corner and the dark thing in his eyes recedes a little, just a little, and Niall feels like he’s done something important. Like he’s won something. Like he’s the only person in the world who can do that.
Ruben looks so dark at night, he thinks. In the street lamp light or the soft glow of the lamp that’s become theirs now. Ruben’s face gets all sharp angles and deep shadows, and his eyes go hollow in a way they never do during the day. Niall can hear the unspoken promises between them. You tell anyone what I said, I’ll kill you. I mean it, Niall. I’ll fucking kill you.
And Niall believes him. He believes Ruben would do it, that Ruben’s capable of things Niall can barely imagine, that Ruben’s got a darkness inside him. He believes it, and it scares him, and he nods anyway, and he thinks, I won’t tell. I’d never tell. And he means it. He would never. Because Ruben’s his brother. From another lover, like he says.
Niall looks at the t-shirt in the sink again. The faucet’s still dripping. The water’s spread further now, soaked through to the band letters that were already peeling away. eventually his hands unclench because his fingers are cramping up from being squeezed so tight, and he lets out a breath, and he reaches in and picks the shirt up.
It's cold and heavy and dripping all over his fingers, running down his wrists and soaking into the sleeves of his own jumper, and for a second he just holds it there, suspended over the sink, watching the water fall back down in little streams. The fabric is limp and sad and smells like Ruben, like soap and sweat and the cheap deodorant Ruben buys from the corner shop and something else underneath that's just him, just Ruben, just the person Niall has been sharing a bedroom with. He squeezes the shirt once, twice, three times, wringing the water out until it's just damp instead of soaked, and then he just holds it.
It hangs from his hand, and he doesn't fold it. Not yet. He needs to brush his teeth, because his mum always said that was the one thing you do no matter what, brush your teeth before you sleep, and Niall's never been good at breaking habits. Niall blinks against the light as he sets the damp t-shirt down on the edge of the sink, right next to the tap where Ruben's stubble still clings to the porcelain from this morning. He picks up his toothbrush, squeezes toothpaste onto the bristles, and starts brushing while looking at himself in the mirror, and he looks like shit, honestly. Dark circles under his eyes that make him look older than he is, or maybe younger, he can never tell which is worse. Ruben thinks he looks like a young thing. Bambi, Bambi, little Bambi. His eyes are wide, the kind of wide that means he's listening for something, waiting for something, his ears practically perked up.
He brushes his teeth slowly, but his head is tilted toward the door the whole time, toward the possibility of Ruben's voice calling out something stupid as he stumbles through the door. Every creak of the building makes Niall's heart jump.
Sometimes Ruben comes back early. Sometimes whatever he's doing with Mona goes wrong, goes sour, goes sideways the way things always seem to go with Ruben eventually, and he comes storming back before midnight, before Niall's even thought about going to bed, and he's not drunk or high or happy. He's mad. He's furious, is what he is. His jaw is set and his hands are shaking and his eyes have that dark look that makes Niall want to shrink down into nothing, and he doesn't talk to Niall at first, just paces back and forth across the room like an animal in a cage, kicking at the furniture, muttering under his breath. And then he starts talking, and what comes out is never good.
Stupid bitch, Ruben will say, spitting the words like they taste bad in his mouth. She thinks she knows me. She doesn't know anything. She's nothing to me, Niall, do you hear me? Nothing.
And Niall nods because that's what Ruben wants, Ruben wants him to agree, Ruben wants him to say yeah, mate, she's nothing, you're right, but the words always get stuck in Niall's throat because there’s something that feels warm and wrong in his chest when Ruben says Mona means nothing to him.
He doesn't like that feeling. He doesn't like what it says about him, what it means about the kind of person he is, the kind of thoughts he has when he should just be being a good brother, a good friend, a good influence like their mums think he is.
He spits into the sink and rinses his mouth out, and the t-shirt is still sitting there on the edge, damp and crumpled, and Niall picks it up again without thinking, just lets it hang from his fingers while he wipes his mouth with the back of his other hand. The fabric is cold against his palm, and he can feel the wetness seeping into his skin, and he thinks about how sometimes him and Ruben share hash at night, and Ruben will take a long drag and pass it over, and the tip of it is always still wet with Ruben's spit, and Niall puts it in his mouth, puts his lips where Ruben's lips just were, and he doesn't know if that's something he should be noticing.
He looks down at his arm, at the bruise blooming there, purple and green and yellow at the edges, the size of Ruben's fist almost exactly. It's from boxing, or what Ruben calls boxing anyway. They've been doing it, Ruben teaching him how to fight, how to stand with his feet apart and his hands up, how to throw a punch without breaking his thumb, how to roll with a hit so it doesn't knock him flat on his arse. You need to learn to defend yourself, Ruben said at the beginning. You're too soft, Niall. The world's going to eat you alive if you don't grow some fucking balls.
So Niall lets Ruben teach him. Lets Ruben stand across from him in the living room with the furniture pushed back against the walls, lets Ruben put gloves on his hands and show him where to put his feet, lets Ruben throw punches at him that he's supposed to block, that he's supposed to dodge, that he's supposed to take and give back twice as hard. Ruben says he's still a small thing, and he laughs at Niall's punches sometimes, not mean exactly but not gentle either, honest. You punch like a wee lassie, Bambers. Come on. Put some fucking weight behind it.
And then Ruben hits him. Ruben hits him for real, hard enough to leave marks, hard enough to make Niall's ears ring and his eyes water and his knees go weak. He hits Niall until Niall learns how to block, how to get his hands up in time, how to turn his body so the blow glances off instead of landing square. There you go, Ruben says when Niall gets it right, and his voice is different then, proud maybe, or something like it. There you go. That’s a boy. Now hit me back.
And Niall tries. He swings, and Ruben blocks it easy, too easy, grinning that grin that shows his teeth. It makes Niall feel fevered and sickly, like he needs his mum to press a moist towel to his head and spoon-feed him medicine. Hit me, Bambers. Come on. Hit me.
He nuzzles Niall's head sometimes, when they're done, when they're both breathing hard and Niall's got sweat dripping down his face and his arms ache and his knuckles are raw even through the gloves. Ruben reaches out with his gloved hand, the big padded thing that could crack Niall's skull if Ruben wanted it to, and he rubs it against Niall's hair, messing up everything until Niall's hair is sticking up in every direction like he's been electrocuted. And Niall grins too, because he can't help it, because Ruben is looking at him, because in that moment Niall feels like he's something.
He spends all his time with Ruben, really. That's not an exaggeration. Ruben is the first person Niall sees in the morning and the last person he sees at night, and all the hours in between are just filler, just waiting until they're back in the same room together again. Niall goes to school, and Ruben goes to school, and they meet up at lunch and between periods and after the final bell, and Niall doesn't even notice other people most of the time because he's too busy watching Ruben, making sure Ruben's okay, waiting for Ruben to look at him and nod or smile or say something.
Everyone at school thinks Ruben is cool. They want to be near him, want to be seen with him, want to soak up some of whatever it is he has that makes him different from all the rest of them. And because Niall is Ruben's brother, the other kids think Niall is cool too.
But Niall knows the truth. He's not cool. He's just the person Ruben lets stand next to him. And the other kids, the ones who want to be Ruben's friend, the ones who hover at the edges of whatever Ruben's doing, hoping to get noticed, they're not afraid of Ruben exactly, but they're afraid of something. They're careful around him. They watch what they say. They laugh at his jokes even when the jokes aren't funny, and they agree with his stupid opinions even when they don't know what his opinions are yet. They're afraid of getting on his bad side.
Ruben hates when they ignore Niall. Hates it. If someone tries to talk to Ruben without acknowledging Niall first, without looking at Niall and saying something to Niall and treating Niall like he exists, Ruben gets mad. He gets that hard set to his jaw and that flat look in his eyes, and he calls them all sorts of names too, tells them they're nothing, tells them they don't get to talk to him if they can't talk to his brother, tells them to fuck off and come back when they've learned some fucking manners.
And then he puts his hand on Niall's back. It's a broad hand, warm and heavy, and Ruben pushes him forward, pushes him to the front, makes sure the other person is looking at Niall, talking to Niall. And Niall wants to die every time it happens, wants the floor to open up and swallow him whole, because he's awkward and he's shy and he never knows what to say to people who aren't Ruben. He stumbles over his words and his face gets hot and he can feel his ears turning red, and he just wants to disappear.
But it's nice, too. It's nice to have someone who gets angry, who stands up for him even when he can't stand up for himself, who puts a hand on his back and pushes him forward into the light and says, This is my brother. You talk to him, or you don't talk to me. It's mortifying and it's awkward and it's nice all at the same time, and Niall doesn't know how to hold all those feelings at once without something cracking inside him, so he just doesn't say anything. He just lets Ruben push him forward and lets his face go red and lets the other person talk to him while Ruben stands there with his hand still on Niall's back, and then later, when they're alone again, neither of them mentions it. It's just something they don't talk about, like the clothes.
But it happens. Ruben is Ruben and Niall is Niall and they're brothers. Inseparable, the word he hears come out of his mum’s mouth when she’s whispering to Ruben’s mum. Inseparable. It's like they're attached at the hip. I've never seen Niall like this with anyone.
Inseparable.
But they're separated now.
Inseparable means nothing when Ruben's off somewhere with Mona, does it? Ruben's off with Mona, touching her in ways he'll tell Niall about tomorrow. You should've seen her face, Bambers, Ruben will say, his voice all rough and pleased with itself. I had two fingers in her, aye? Curling them up just right, the way they fucking like it, and she was soaking, mate. Soaking. Dripping down my wrist and everything. She couldn't even look at me, just kept her eyes squeezed shut and her mouth open, making these little sounds like she was gonna fucking cry. I had her right there against the wall in the alley behind the pub, Bambi. Anyone could've walked past and seen. I think she wanted someone to see, honestly. The state of her. The state of her cunt, fucking hell.
And Niall will laugh. He'll laugh because that's what Ruben expects, because that's what brothers do, because if he doesn't laugh then Ruben will look at him with that questioning look and ask him what's wrong, ask him why he's being weird, ask him if he's got something to say. And Niall doesn't have anything to say, not anything he can say out loud anyway, so he laughs and nods and maybe makes some joke back, something stupid about Ruben being a right menace, something that makes Ruben grin and ruffle his hair and call him a wee shite.
And then the morning after, Niall won't want to eat breakfast.
It's not that he's not hungry. He's always hungry, the kind of hungry that comes from being seventeen and sharing all your food with someone who eats twice as much as you do. But the thought of putting cereal in his mouth, of chewing and swallowing while Ruben sits across from him with that satisfied look on his face, still smelling like Mona's perfume or Mona's skin or whatever's left of her on him, the thought makes Niall's stomach turn over.
But Ruben tells him to eat up. Come on, Bambers. Growing boys like us have to eat. You're small enough as it is. You want to blow away in the wind?
So Niall mouths his cereal. He chews and swallows and chews and swallows, and the milk tastes like nothing and the cereal turns to paste on his tongue, and he forces it down because Ruben's watching him, because Ruben's hand is warm on the back of his neck, because Ruben's saying that's it, good lad, and Niall would drink poison if Ruben told him to, probably, if Ruben said it was good for him, if Ruben looked at him with those dark eyes and said come on, Niall, just swallow it down.
And he doesn't think about it. He doesn't think about Ruben's hands on Mona, doesn't think about where those hands have been, doesn't think about what Ruben's fingers looked like when he got back that one time, all shiny and wet in the streetlight, and Niall had to look away, had to stare at the wall, had to pretend he hadn't noticed anything at all.
But he's thinking about it now.
He's thinking about it as he turns away from the bathroom mirror, as he walks back, as he stands there in the doorway looking at the two beds, close enough that Niall can hear Ruben breathing at night. He doesn't know why he hasn't let go of the shirt.
It's still hanging from his hand, damp and crumpled and starting to smell weird now, not like Ruben anymore but like something like pennies or like blood, the way the air smells after you've been punched in the nose and you're standing there waiting for the bleeding to stop. He should put it down. But he doesn't let go of it.
He crosses the room to his bed, and he sits down on the edge of it with the shirt still in his hand, and he doesn't put it down. He hopes Ruben isn't coming back anytime soon. Because Niall wants to do something. He wants to do something, and he needs time to do it, and he can't do it with Ruben here, can't do it with Ruben three feet away in the other bed, can't do it with Ruben's breathing and Ruben's shifting. So he hopes Ruben doesn't come back. He hopes Ruben stays with Mona, touches Mona, laughs with Mona, forgets that Niall exists for a few more hours. And then he hates himself for hoping it, hates himself for being the kind of person who wishes his brother would stay away, hates himself for all of it.
He slides under the covers without letting go of the shirt. He's still holding it, pressed against his chest now, and he pulls the duvet up to his chin and stares at the ceiling, at the crack in the plaster that looks like a map of somewhere he's never been, at the nothingness of it all, the empty white expanse above his head that doesn't have any answers for him, that never has any answers for him.
The bruises on his skin are tender. The one on his arm where Ruben caught him last week, the one on his ribs from Tuesday, the one on his shoulder from today's session, from Ruben laughing at his punches and hitting him hard and telling him to block better, to be faster, to be harder, to be more of a man. He presses his fingers against the bruise on his arm, feels the ache of it, the deep purple throb that reminds him of Ruben's fists. That's how he feels around Ruben sometimes. Bruised. Tender. Like something that's been hit too many times and hasn't had time to heal before the next blow comes. Like a piece of fruit that looks fine on the outside but when you press your thumb into it, it just gives way, soft and mushy and rotten underneath.
A pulpy thing.
That's what he is. That's what Ruben's made him, maybe, or maybe he was always like this and Ruben just showed him. A pulpy thing that falls apart when you touch it too hard, that leaves juice all over your fingers, that stains and sticks and won't come clean no matter how much you scrub. Stop thinking about Ruben, he tells himself, and the words are loud in his head, almost angry, the way his mum sounds when she's had enough of his nonsense. Jesus Christ, Niall. Just stop.
This is the only time he can do things like this, when Ruben's gone and he has the room to himself. During the day there's always someone around, always something happening, always the risk of Ruben walking through the door at the wrong moment and catching him at something he shouldn't be doing. And even when Ruben's in the shower, even when Ruben's in the kitchen, even when Ruben's supposedly asleep in the other bed three feet away, Niall's too aware of him.
Ruben would just know. Ruben would know what he was doing, would sense it somehow, would roll over in the dark and say something like what are you thinking about, Bambers? in Niall would have to lie, would have to say nothing or sleeping or some other stupid thing that Ruben wouldn't believe for a second.
So he does it when Ruben's gone. No one to ask him what he's thinking about with his hand down his pants and his teeth sunk into his bottom lip and his eyes squeezed shut so tight he sees stars. But it takes so long. He lies there with his hand on himself, rubbing through his boxers, trying to make his mind go empty, trying to think about nothing, trying to just feel the physical sensation of it without all the other stuff.
It's so hard to keep his mind empty. His mind doesn't want to be empty. He tries thinking of tits. That's what lads are supposed to think about, isn't it? That's what Ruben talks about, what the other boys at school talk about in the changing rooms and the corridors, all those whispered conversations about who's got what and who's doing what and who let them put their hands where. So Niall tries. He squeezes his eyes shut and he tries to picture tits, big ones, small ones, any ones. He tries thinking of Mona.
Mona in the parts she played, the girl with the drawl, the girl with the sharp tongue and the darker eyes, whatever else she's offered him. He tries to imagine what she felt like, what his hands felt like on her skin, laughing, always laughing, like it's all just a big joke, like none of it means anything. But nothing works.
His mind won't cooperate. He rubs and he rubs and he tries to focus on the physical sensation, on the heat building in his groin, on the way his breath is getting faster and his hips are twitching up off the mattress, but his brain is a traitor, and it won't give him what he needs.
He rubs until he's sensitive, until the friction starts to feel more like burning than like pleasure, until his hand is cramping and his jaw is sore from clenching it so tight. It takes longer than an hour, maybe longer than that. But eventually, eventually, he gets there.
He's panting now, loud in the quiet room, his breath coming in ragged gasps that he should probably try to quiet down but he can't, he just can't, because his whole body is straining toward something, reaching for something. He's sweating, his forehead damp and his chest damp and his boxers sticking to his skin, and he knows his face must be red all over because he can feel the heat radiating off his cheeks, can feel the flush spreading down his neck and across his collarbones.
His hand is down his pants now, not just rubbing through the fabric but inside, fingers wrapped around his cock, stroking fast, faster, the way he's learned works best even though it never feels quite right. He bites his lip, and he frowns in concentration, his eyebrows drawn together, his whole face screwed up like he's solving a maths problem instead of doing this, instead of trying to make his body do the one thing it's supposed to be able to do without all this struggle.
And then he's about to come. He feels it building, that pressure behind his cock, that tightening in his balls, that wave of sensation that's supposed to be pleasure, that's supposed to be good, that's supposed to make everything okay for a few seconds at least. He's about to come, and his eyes are squeezed shut, and his hand is moving so fast it's almost a blur, and—
Things flash in his mind. Bambi. Ruben's voice saying it, soft and low, the way he says it when they're alone, when it's just the two of them in the dark, when Ruben's hand is on his jaw, tilting his face up, making him look. Bambi, Ruben says. Ruben’s Bambi, no one else calls him that.
Ruben's face above him. Ruben's face above his, close enough that Niall can see the flecks of gold in his blue eyes, can see the small scar on his eyebrow where he split it open falling off a wall when he was thirteen, can see the way his mouth curves. Ruben's hand on his jaw, holding him still, making him look, making him see. Ruben. It's always Ruben. Ruben, Ruben, Ruben.
It's horrible. That's the only word for it, really. Horrible. He's about to come, he's right there, he's so close he can feel it spreading through his groin like fire, and he thinks he would cry, thinks he's about to cry, feels the tears burning behind his eyelids, feels his throat tightening around a sob. And then—
A loud curse comes from the window. It's sliding open now, the old wood scraping against the frame with a sound that sets Niall's teeth on edge, and he's moving before he can think, throwing Ruben's damp t-shirt onto the floor like it's burned him, yanking his hand out of his boxers so fast he nearly tears the fabric, sitting up straight in bed with his heart pounding so hard he can feel it in his throat.
Ruben's climbing through the window, one leg swinging over the sill, then the other, his trainers scuffing against the wall because he never does anything carefully, never does anything the way he's supposed to. He's stumbling a bit, not so drunkenly, but more like he's tired, like he's been walking for a long time. His hair's a mess, stuck to his forehead with sweat or rain or something else Niall doesn't want to think about, and his jumper's got a tear in the sleeve.
Ruben lands on the bedroom floor with a soft thud and stands there for a second, breathing hard, his hands braced on his knees like he's just run a marathon. And then he looks up, and his eyes find Niall sitting up in bed with his hair a mess and his face flushed and his hand still sticky with whatever he was doing, and for one horrible moment Niall thinks Ruben knows, thinks Ruben can see right through him, thinks Ruben's going to say something that will crack him open and leave him bleeding out on the floor.
But Ruben just snorts, pushes his hair back from his forehead, and flops down onto his own bed without taking his trainers off, without taking his jumper off, without doing anything except lying there on his back with his arm thrown over his eyes like the light from the street lamp is too much for him.
"Fucking night from hell, Bambers," Ruben says. "Mona's doing my head in, man. She's got this thing now, this whole thing about—" He waves his free hand in the air like he's trying to catch a thought that keeps slipping away from him. "I don't even know. She's fucking mental, that one. Proper mental. Starts crying in the middle of it, just fucking crying, and I'm sitting there like, what do you want me to do here? What am I supposed to do with that?"
He doesn't say he was with Mona. He just says Mona's doing his head in, which means he was with her, probably, or maybe he wasn't, maybe he just talked to her on the phone, maybe he just saw her for five minutes and then left, maybe he's lying, maybe he's not, Niall can never tell with Ruben when it comes to things like this. Ruben tells him things, so many things, things he doesn't tell anyone else, Niall's sure of that. But he also keeps things back, things he doesn't say, things he buries under the words he does say, and Niall's never been good at digging.
"The window's still fucked, by the way," Ruben adds, pulling his arm off his eyes and turning his head to look at Niall across the three feet of space between their beds. His eyes are dark in the orange light. "Told you three weeks ago. Fucking nearly broke my arse climbing in just now."
"I didn't—" Niall starts, but his voice comes out all wrong, too high and too breathy, and he has to stop and clear his throat and try again. "I didn't know you were coming back tonight."
Ruben stares at him for a long moment, his head still turned on the pillow, his eyes moving slowly over Niall's face. "Where else would I go, Bambers?" he says finally, and his voice is quieter now, softer, almost gentle in a way that makes Niall's throat tight. "This is where I live, remember? With you. In this shithole."
Niall doesn't say anything. He can't. His hand is still under the duvet, still sticky, still shaking a little, and Ruben's t-shirt is lying on the floor between their beds.
"You look weird," Ruben says after a moment, his brow furrowing. "You alright? You're all red."
"Fine," Niall says. "Just tired. Was almost asleep when you came in."
Ruben stares at him for another long moment, and Niall holds his breath, waits for the question he knows is coming, the what were you thinking about, Bambers? that he won't know how to answer, that he'll have to lie about, that Ruben won't believe for a second because Ruben always knows, Ruben always fucking knows.
But Ruben just shrugs, turns his head back toward the ceiling, and closes his eyes. "Whatever, man," he mutters. "Go back to sleep. I'm knackered."
And Niall lies back down, his heart still pounding.
Ruben's breathing is slow and deep on the other side of the room, the kind of breathing that usually means someone's fallen asleep, and Niall lets himself believe it for a minute, maybe two, maybe long enough that his own heartbeat starts to slow down from a gallop to something closer to a jog. Ruben's asleep. But something makes him move his eyes.
Ruben's lying on his back with his head turned toward Niall's side of the room, his eyes wide open in the orange lamplight, and he's looking at Niall with an expression that Niall can't read, can't name, can't file away in any of the categories he's created for the many different ways Ruben looks at him throughout the day. Ruben's mouth moves up at the corner, slow and lazy, and he's smiling.
And then Ruben laughs. Ruben proper laughs, loud, his whole body shaking with it, his head thrown back against the pillow, his mouth open wide, the sound filling up the entire room and spilling out through the cracks in the walls, through the window that won't close properly, through the thin door that leads to the hallway. He laughs like he's forgotten where he is, like he's forgotten that it's the middle of the night.
Niall has half a mind to tell him to quiet down. The words are right there on the tip of his tongue, the same words his mum used to say to him when he was wee and couldn't stop laughing at something stupid, shush now, Niall, you'll wake the whole street, but he can't get them out because Ruben's laughing.
"Fuck off," Ruben says when he finally catches his breath. "The look on your face, Bambers. You should have seen yourself. Proper deer in the headlights."
Niall doesn't tell him to quiet down. Then he's laughing too. He doesn't know what's funny. What's funny to Ruben is also funny to Niall, even when he doesn't know what it is, even when he can't see the joke, even when all he's got is the sound of Ruben's laughter and the warmth of Ruben's eyes on his face and the knowledge that for this one moment, they're in it together, whatever it is. He laughs until his stomach hurts.
And then Ruben quiets down. He moves on the bed, shifting his weight, turning onto his side so he's facing Niall properly, his head propped up on his hand, his elbow digging into the mattress.
"You can finish, you know," Ruben says, and his voice is quiet now, not joking anymore, not laughing. Like he's telling Niall that the corner shop's open till ten or that it's going to rain tomorrow. "I'm not giving you blue balls, Bambi. That'd make me a shite brother, wouldn't it?"
Niall freezes. His whole body goes stiff, every muscle locking up at once, and the laughter dies in his throat like something being strangled. He can feel the blood draining from his face, can feel the heat that was there a second ago replaced by something cold, something sick, something that makes his stomach turn over and his hands go clammy under the duvet.
"What?"
Ruben's eyebrow lifts, just a fraction. “I know what you were doing," Ruben says. "You think I can't tell when a shy boy like you's been wanking? Red as a tomato, Bambi. Red as a fucking tomato. And your hand was down your pants when I came in. Saw it before you pulled it out. Don't bother lying."
Niall swallows. His throat feels like it's full of broken glass, like someone's taken a handful of sharp edges and shoved them down past his tonsils, and every breath he takes scrapes against them and makes everything worse.
There's sickliness in his stomach, a thick, oily nausea that coils and uncoils like a snake, and there's something else too, something softer and more pathetic, something that makes him want to curl up in a ball and disappear.
"Ruben," Niall says, and his voice cracks on the name. "You're mad. I wasn't—I'm not doing that. I was just—I was sleeping. You woke me up. That's why I—"
"Stop. Just stop, aye? You're shite at lying. Always have been. It's one of the things I like about you, actually. You're shite at lying. So just stop. You were wanking. I don't care. I've wanked in this room a hundred times. While you were asleep right there in that bed. So what?"
Niall shakes his head, a small, jerky movement that doesn't seem to be under his own control. "It's not the same," he says, and his voice is barely a whisper now. "You're in the room. I'm not like you. I can't just—I can't do that with you here. It's different. Just—no. Just no, Ruben."
Ruben's eyebrow stays lifted, and something moves behind his eyes, something Niall can't read, something that makes him feel like prey. "Why not?" Ruben asks. "Why's it different with me here? What's so different about me, Bambers?"
Niall opens his mouth and closes it again. He doesn't have an answer. He has a hundred answers, a thousand, a whole universe of answers that he'll never say out loud. He just shakes his head again and looks away, turns his face toward the wall.
Ruben hates it when Niall doesn't look at him. Niall knows this. He's learned it the hard way, through a dozen small moments and a few larger ones, through the way Ruben's hand will reach out and grab his chin and turn his face back, through the way Ruben's voice will go flat and cold and dangerous when Niall tries to hide from him. Look at me when I'm talking to you, Bambers. Don't be a wee shite. But Niall can't look at him now. He can't.
"Nothing," Niall says. "I wasn't thinking about anything. I was just—I told you. I wasn't doing anything. You're wrong."
Ruben is quiet for a long moment. Niall can hear him breathing, can hear the slight shift of the mattress as he moves. The drip of the faucet.
"Don't like when you lie, Bambi," Ruben says finally, and his voice is different now, harder. "You know that. I don't like it. You're not like other people. You're my brother."
Niall can still smell Ruben's shirt. It's lying on the floor somewhere between their beds, he can't see it from this angle but he can smell it. He thinks the smell has permeated the entire room now, has seeped into the walls and the carpets and the sheets on his bed.
He swallows again, forces his voice to be steady. "I was thinking of last time," he says, and the words taste like ash in his mouth, "You know. With Mona. I was thinking about—what she looked like. What she sounded like. That's all. Just that."
Ruben laughs.It's something smaller, something almost bitter, something that makes Niall's skin prickle with unease. "That's really all you have in that mind of yours, I guess," Ruben says. "Mona. Right. Of course."
Niall forces a laugh of his own, a fake one, hollow and wrong. "Yup," he says. "That's all. Just that. Mona."
Ruben doesn't say anything else. The room goes quiet again. He counts his own heartbeats to keep himself from going mad, one two three four five, all the way up to a hundred, and then he starts again because a hundred isn't enough. But then Ruben speaks.
"You know," Ruben says, "I've been thinking about that night with Mona. The three of us."
He doesn't turn around. He doesn't say anything. "You have a lot to learn, Niall." Ruben's voice is thoughtful now, almost musing, like he's working something out in his head and he's decided to do it out loud because Niall's here to listen. "That's not an insult, aye? It's just true. You've got a lot to learn. But how are you supposed to learn, wanking off here in your room fucking alone all the time?"
Niall closes his eyes. He shrugs, a small movement that he hopes Ruben won't notice, a tiny lifting of his shoulders that's meant to convey that he doesn't care. But Ruben's not done. Ruben's never done when he gets started on something, never willing to let something go once it's caught his attention.
"Made Mona and me do all the work for you, didn't you?" Ruben says, and there's a smile in his voice now. "Had to hold it up for you, Bambi. Remember? Had to stand there and hold your cock up while Mona did her thing because you couldn't even keep it up on your own. Pathetic, that was. Endearing, but pathetic."
And Niall does remember. He remembers the way Ruben's hand had felt around him, warm and dry and certain, holding him up. He remembers the way Ruben's fingers had wrapped around his cock. He remembers the way Mona had looked at him, her eyes half-lidded and amused, like she was watching a puppy try to climb stairs, like she found him sweet and funny and a little bit sad. He remembers the way his teeth had ached.
"I asked you a question, Bambi." Ruben's voice has lost its musing quality. "You remember or no? Because I'm trying to help you here, and I can't help you if you're not going to pay attention."
Something snaps inside Niall. He's sitting up in bed and he's turning around to face Ruben and he's glaring at him, actually glaring, his eyes narrow and his mouth tight and his whole face twisted.
"Yes, I remember, Ruben." His voice comes out harder than he expected. "I remember everything. I remember all of it, alright? So will you leave it alone now? It's Sunday night. We have school tomorrow. Just shut up and go to sleep."
Niall watches Ruben's face change. The smile drops off it, and for a second Ruben just looks at him. He takes a shuddering breath. His body twitches on the bed, an involuntary movement, a spasm of nerves and adrenaline. He's still hard under the duvet, he realises, still half-aroused from before.
Ruben seems to think for a moment. He's still lying on his side, still propped up on his elbow. And then he moves. He gets up from his bed, and Niall watches him come. He bends over Niall, and Niall can't move. Ruben's face is close to his, close enough that Niall can see the individual lashes around dark eyes, close enough that he can smell the beer on Ruben's breath, sharp and sour and unmistakable. So he was drinking. Not so drunkenly, not stumbling and slurring, but drinking enough that Niall can taste it.
Ruben smacks his hand on Niall's cheek. And then his hand slides down, his fingers curving around Niall's jaw, gripping it, turning Niall's head this way and that, showing him where to look, making him see. Ruben grins.
"I have to teach you everything, don't I?" Ruben says, and his voice is low, almost a whisper, meant only for Niall's ears. "That's what brothers are for, Bambi. Teaching each other things. I taught you how to fight. How to block a punch. How to stand like you've got a pair of balls. And now I have to teach you how to fuck, apparently. Because you clearly don't know what you're doing."
Niall shakes his head. It's a small movement, restricted by Ruben's grip on his jaw, but he manages it, a tiny back-and-forth that's meant to convey no. Ruben clicks his tongue, a soft sound of disapproval. "Come on, Bambi. Pop quiz. I can't bear the thought of you fucking a girl without me there to supervise. It would be proper embarrassing for both of us, you know that? People would talk. They'd say, have you seen Ruben's brother? He doesn't know what he's doing. Ruben must have dropped the ball with that one." Ruben shakes his head before Niall can answer, before Niall can even open his mouth to try. "Do you even know what to do? Like, actually know?"
Niall doesn't answer. He can't. His throat is closed up tight, his tongue is glued to the roof of his mouth. "Blue balls aren't healthy, you know," Ruben says, and his thumb moves against Niall's jaw. "There's actual fucking—science behind it. And stuff. You can do damage. You're supposed to finish what you start. That's just basic biology."
Niall finds his voice somewhere, finds it buried under all the other things he's feeling, and forces it out. "Ruben, please," he says, and his voice is small. "Please just go to bed. Just go back to your bed and go to sleep. Please."
Ruben frowns. The grin disappears, replaced by something that looks almost like confusion, almost like hurt, almost like Ruben genuinely doesn't understand why Niall isn't grateful for this. "Don't you want to see?" he asks, and his voice is softer now, more sincere, like he's actually asking, like he actually wants to know the answer. "Maybe Mona's sick of me and wants you instead. Have you thought about that? Maybe she's been watching you, Bambers. Maybe she's been waiting for you to step up. But how are you supposed to step up if you don't know what you're doing?"
He leans in closer, close enough that Niall can feel the warmth of his breath on his cheek, close enough that their noses are touching. "Do you want her to laugh at you again?" Ruben whispers, and his voice is soft and cruel and kind all at once. "Do you want her to look at you like you're a wee boy playing dress-up? While you lie there with your cock going soft because you don't know what to do with it?"
The words hit Niall like punches, each one landing somewhere soft and vulnerable. Little Bambi. Niall's eyes are stinging. He blinks hard, forces the wetness back. Ruben's hand is still on his jaw, and Niall wants to pull away but he can't, doesn't know how, has forgotten how to move his own body because Ruben is touching him and that's all he can think about.
"Ruben," he tries again, and his voice cracks on the second syllable, breaks open like an egg, spills yolk all over the place. "Ruben, please. I'm tired. I just want to sleep. Can we talk about this tomorrow? Please?"
Ruben looks at him for a long moment, his dark eyes searching Niall's face for something Niall doesn't know how to give him. The thumb on his jaw keeps moving, back and forth, back and forth. The orange light from the street lamp catches the side of Ruben's face, makes him like staring directly at the sun. And then Ruben moves.
He steps back from Niall's bed, just one step. But Ruben doesn't go back to his own bed. Instead, he turns around and reaches down and grabs his pillow, he one Niall's seen him sleep on a hundred times, the one that probably still has the shape of Ruben's head pressed into it, the one that smells like Ruben. He turns it over in his hands once, twice, like he's inspecting it for something, like he's making sure it's fit for whatever purpose he has in mind, and then he walks back to Niall's bed and sets it down.
Right there. In front of Niall. On the mattress, between Niall's knees, the white fabric of the pillowcase glowing. Ruben grins. "Use that," he says. "I'll show you. Come on, Bambers. It's not complicated."
Niall swallows. His throat clicks, dry and tight, and he looks down at the pillow, at Ruben's pillow, at the thing Ruben puts his head on every night.
"What are you talking about?" he asks, and his voice comes out strange, distorted, like someone else is speaking through him.
Ruben looks at him like he's just said something incredibly stupid. "What, you've never fucked your pillow before as a boy?" Ruben asks. "I did it all the time when I was younger. Before I started actually getting girls, I mean. It's just what lads do. It's normal. It's practice."
He shakes his head, a small, almost pitying movement, and reaches out to ruffle Niall's hair, the way he does sometimes when Niall's said something particularly naive. "God's sake. You know nothing, do you? Nothing at all. It's a miracle you've made it this far without someone taking advantage of you."
The words should sting. They do sting, a little, but mostly they make something else stir in Niall's chest, something that feels almost like relief. Because Ruben's saying this is normal. Ruben's saying lads do this. Ruben's saying it's just practice, just something you do to get ready for the real thing, and if Ruben says it's normal then it must be, mustn't it? Ruben knows about these things. Ruben's done everything, been with everyone, knows all the secrets that Niall's still stumbling around in the dark trying to find.
"Come on," Ruben says, and his voice is softer now. "You'll thank me for this once Mona gets her hands on you again. Trust me. I'm trying to help you."
Niall looks up at Ruben. He looks at his face, at the sharp line of his jaw, at the dark smudge of his eyebrows, at the curve of his mouth that's still holding onto the edge of that grin, at his eyes that are watching Niall. Ruben's hand is warm on his head, Ruben's fingers are running through his hair, and that feels real.
"Will she really?" Niall asks, and his voice is small, smaller than he meant it to be, smaller than he wants it to be, the voice of a boy asking his big brother for reassurance. "Will she really want me? Mona, I mean. After last time? After I—after I couldn't—"
Ruben nods. His hand keeps moving through Niall's hair, petting him like you'd pet a cat. "Maybe," Ruben says. "Maybe she will. And maybe you'll fuck her better than I can, Bambers. Have you thought about that? Maybe you've got something I don't have. Something she's looking for that I can't give her. You never know with girls. They're fucking mental, the lot of them. They want all sorts of weird shit."
Niall shivers. "Go on," Ruben says, and he gives Niall's head a push, hard, enough to break the spell, just enough to remind Niall that he's supposed to be moving, supposed to be doing something, supposed to be participating in whatever this is.
Niall crawls toward the pillow. He doesn't think about it. That's the trick, maybe. He just moves, lets his body do what Ruben's told it to do, lets his knees shift on the mattress, lets his hands reach out and touch the pillowcase, lets his fingers press into the soft fabric. Ruben's pillow. He's on Ruben's pillow. He's crawling toward Ruben's pillow with Ruben watching him from the foot of the bed, and somehow this feels less horrible than when he was doing it on his own, with his hand down his pants.
Because Ruben's telling him to do it. That's the thing that makes it possible, that makes it okay, that lets Niall move when every other part of him is screaming at him to stop, to hide, to pull the duvet over his head and pretend he never heard any of this. Ruben wouldn't tell him to do something that was going to get him hurt by someone else, something that was going to make things worse. Ruben's his brother. Ruben's trying to help him. Ruben's teaching him, the way he teaches him to fight, the way he teaches him to stand up for himself.
Niall tells himself that as he settles in front of the pillow, as he gets his knees positioned on either side of it, as he sets his hands over the fabric the way he would a girl, the way he imagines he would a girl, the way he's seen Ruben do. He tells himself that this isn't something he's doing that's perverted and wrong, something that makes him sick afterwards.
Ruben kneels in front of him on the bed.
The mattress shifts under his weight, dips in the middle, makes Niall's knees slide a little closer together. Ruben's face is level with his now. "Guide your prick in," Ruben says, the same voice he uses when he's telling Niall to keep his hands up, to block left, to pivot on his back foot. "I'm not doing it for you again, Bambers. You have to learn sometime. I won't always be there to hold it up for you."
Niall hesitates. His hands are on the pillow, his knees are on the mattress, and Ruben's watching him, waiting for him to do something, to move, to show that he's actually capable of following instructions, of learning, of being the kind of man who doesn't need his brother to hold his cock up for him. Niall's chest tightens, hardens.
He dips his hand inside his boxers. His fingers are shaking as they wrap around his cock, as they pull it out into the cool air of the bedroom, as they start to stroke, automatically. His rhythm is fast, maybe too fast, born of nerves and shame and the desperate need to get this over with, to prove something to Ruben, to prove something to himself.
Ruben smacks his cheek again. "Focus," Ruben says, and his voice is harder now, more insistent. "You're not wanking in your bed alone now, are you? You're practicing. You're learning. So focus. Pay attention to what you're doing. Feel it."
Niall lets out a breath, long and shaky, and nods. His cheek is warm where Ruben smacked it, tingling, and somehow that small sting helps. He looks down at the pillow, at Ruben's pillow, at the soft white fabric that's going to be the thing he fucks, apparently, the thing that's going to teach him how to be a man, how to please a girl, how to not be little Bambi anymore.
He guides himself to the pillow. He presses the head of his cock against the fabric, feels the softness of it, the give of it, the way it yields to him. He pushes his hips forward, presses his pelvis against the pillow, and it's not the same as a person would be, he knows that, he's not stupid, but it's something, it's close enough, it's practice like Ruben said, and maybe that's all he needs, maybe if he practices enough he'll be ready when Mona looks at him again, when she decides she wants him instead of Ruben.
He shudders. His whole body shakes with it, a tremor that starts in his spine and radiates outward, and he can feel his cock twitching against the pillow, can feel the warmth of his own skin, can feel the way his hips want to move, want to thrust, want to do what comes naturally even though he's never done it before, not like this.
"Ruben," he says. He doesn't know what he's asking for. He doesn't know what he needs. He just knows he can't do this alone, can't do this without Ruben telling him it's okay, without Ruben's voice in his ear guiding him, without Ruben's hand on his jaw or Ruben's fingers in his hair.
Ruben nods. His hand comes up to Niall's head again, tugging on his hair harshly. "That's a boy," Ruben says,almost proud. "That's a boy, Bambers. Now show me what you think you should do. When you fuck a girl. Show me what you've got."
Niall closes his eyes. He can feel Ruben's hand in his hair, Ruben's knees bracketing his own on the mattress, Ruben's breath warm on his face, and he tries to empty his mind the way he always does, tries to think of nothing, tries to just feel. He pushes his hips forward again, slides against the pillow, feels the friction of the fabric against his cock, and it's not good, not really.
But Ruben laughs. It's the laugh of someone who's seen something amusing, something almost pathetic, something that makes him want to shake his head and say oh, Bambers, what am I going to do with you? Ruben's hand is still in Niall's hair, but his fingers have stopped moving, stopped stroking, and he's just watching now, his dark eyes tracking the movement of Niall's hips, the way Niall's cock disappears into the pillow and emerges again, over and over, fast and frantic and wrong.
"No, no," Ruben says, and he's shaking his head, his grin wide. "No, Bambers. What are you doing? Are you a rabbit? Is that what you are? A wee fucking rabbit humping away up there? That's not going to make any girl moan. That's not going to make any girl do anything except laugh at you. Again."
Niall grits his teeth. His jaw aches with the pressure of it, his molars grinding together, and he keeps going, keeps thrusting, because stopping would mean admitting that Ruben's right, that he doesn't know what he's doing, that he's still the same useless boy who couldn't keep it up for Mona. His hips pistoned forward, into the pillow, out of the pillow, and his breath is coming in short, sharp gasps, and his face is red, and his whole body is shaking, and he hates this, hates all of it, hates Ruben for watching and hates himself for letting him and hates the way his cock stays hard.
"What should I do then?" The words come out of Niall's mouth before he can stop them, harsh and angry and desperate all at once, and he doesn't look at Ruben when he says them, keeps his eyes fixed on the pillow, on the place where his body meets the fabric, on the small wet spot that's starting to form there. "If you're so good at this, Ruben, what should I do? Tell me. Tell me what I'm doing wrong."
Ruben's grin softens into something else, something almost thoughtful, and he takes his hand out of Niall's hair and places it on Niall's hip instead, his fingers pressing into the bone there, hard enough to slow Niall's rhythm, hard enough to make him stop thrusting altogether. "Slow," Ruben says. "You go slow, Bambers. You don't just jackhammer away like a fucking machine. That's not how it works. You start slow. You build up."
Niall's hip twitches under Ruben's hand, wanting to move, wanting to keep going, wanting to find the release that's been building inside him for what feels like hours now. But Ruben's grip is firm, immovable, and Niall can't thrust even if he wants to, can't do anything except sit there with his cock pressed against the pillow and Ruben's hand on his hip and Ruben's voice in his ear.
"You start with just the tip," Ruben says, and he moves his hand from Niall's hip to the base of Niall's cock, his fingers wrapping around it the way they had that night with Mona, warm and dry and certain. Niall makes a sound, something small and strangled, something he didn't mean to let out, and Ruben ignores it, ignores him, just keeps talking like he's explaining something simple, something obvious, something Niall should have already known. "Just the tip, Bambers. You put it in a little bit and you pull it out. A little bit in, a little bit out. You tease her. You make her want it. You don't just shove the whole thing in there like you're trying to win a race."
Ruben demonstrates, guiding Niall's cock so just the head presses against the pillow, so just the tip sinks into the soft fabric, and then he pulls it back out. Niall's breath catches in his throat. His hands clench in the sheets on either side of the pillow, his knuckles white, his whole body taut.
"You keep doing that until she starts moving with you," Ruben continues. "Until her hips start coming up to meet you. Until she's pushing back against you. Until she's making those little sounds, you know the ones, those little breathy sounds that tell you she's ready for more."
"I don't—" Niall starts, but his voice cracks and dies in his throat, and he has to swallow, has to try again. "I don't know what sounds you're talking about."
Ruben looks at him for a long moment, his yes unreadable, and then he laughs again. "Of course you don't, Bambers. Of course you don't. You've never made a girl make those sounds for real, have you? That's why I'm helping you."
He lets go of Niall's cock and cups Niall's face instead, both hands on either side of his jaw, squishing his cheeks so hard it hurts, so hard Niall's lips pucker out like a fish, so hard his teeth press against the inside of his cheeks and he can taste blood. Ruben forces Niall's head up, forces him to look, forces their eyes to meet, and Niall hates it, hates the way his own eyes want to slide away, to look at the wall or the ceiling or anything except Ruben's gaze boring into him like a drill.
But looking at Ruben makes him hard. Looking at Ruben makes him hard, the way it did last time, the way it did that night with Mona when Ruben's hand was on his cock and Ruben's face was close to his and Niall had looked at him, had looked right into those eyes, and had felt himself get harder than he'd ever been in his life, harder than Mona could ever make him, harder than any girl could ever make him, probably. That's not something they talk about. That's not something Niall will ever talk about, not with Ruben, not with anyone, not ever.
But Ruben's looking at him now, really looking, and Niall's cock is pressed against the pillow, still hard, still wanting, still betraying him in all the ways it's always betrayed him, and there's nothing he can do about any of it except sit here and let Ruben squish his face.
"Then you go deeper," Ruben says, and his thumbs move against Niall's cheeks, digging. "You push in a little more. Not all the way. Just a little more. And you watch her face, Bambers. You watch her face and you listen to her breathing and you pay attention to every little thing she does, because that's how you know if you're doing it right. That's how you know if she likes it."
Niall's breath is coming in short, shallow gasps now, his chest heaving, his heart pounding so hard he can feel it in his throat, in his temples, in the places where Ruben's fingers press into his skin. "What if she doesn't like it?" he asks, and his voice is small, muffled by the way Ruben's squishing his cheeks, barely intelligible. "What if I'm doing it wrong and she doesn't tell me?"
"Then you pay attention harder," Ruben says, and his voice is hard too, harder than before, almost impatient, like he can't believe Niall is asking such a stupid question. "You watch her. You feel her. You don't just go in there like a bull in a china shop and hope for the best. You pay attention, Bambers. That's all it is. Paying attention. Most lads don't give a shit. They just want to get theirs and get out. But you're not most lads, are you? You're softer than that. You actually care. That's your advantage, if you'd just fucking use it."
Ruben lets go of Niall's face, and Niall's head drops forward, his chin hitting his chest, his whole body sagging with relief and something else, something that feels almost like disappointment, though he doesn't know why, doesn't want to know why. Ruben's hands are on his hips now, both of them, large and warm and firm, and he's guiding Niall's movements, making him slow down, making him pull back until just the tip of his cock is touching the pillow, making him pause there for a long, agonizing moment before pushing forward again, just a little, just an inch.
"Like that," Ruben says. "That's how you start. Slow. Teasing. Building it up. You don't rush, Bambers. You never rush. Rushing is for boys who don't know what they're doing. And you're not a boy anymore, are you? You're learning."
Niall tries to follow Ruben's instructions. He tries to go slow, tries to pull back to just the tip, tries to build up the way Ruben said, but it's hard, so hard, harder than anything he's ever done. He's shaking. His whole body is shaking, fine tremors running through his muscles like he's cold, though he's not cold, he's the opposite of cold, he's burning up from the inside, sweat beading on his forehead and dripping down the back of his neck. His cock is leaking against the pillow, making the fabric wetter, making it slide easier, and every time Ruben pushes him forward, every time the head of his cock sinks into the soft cotton, he makes a sound, a small, broken sound.
The sound of it is awful, wet and rhythmic and desperate, the way his hips smack against the pillow over and over and over like a rabbit, like Ruben said. Niall can hear himself breathing, can hear the little gasps that escape his throat every time he pushes forward, can hear the way his own skin slaps against the fabric. His hips just keep moving, keep pistoning.
Ruben's probably disgusted, knows Ruben's sitting there thinking what the fuck did I expect from you, you can't do anything right, can you, can't fight, can't fuck. The thought makes Niall's stomach clench, makes his thrusts get faster, more desperate, like he can somehow make up for his failure by trying harder, by moving faster, by showing Ruben that he's trying, at least, that he wants to learn, that he's not completely useless.
"You're doing it wrong, Bambers." Ruben's voice is tight, controlled, the kind of controlled that means he's angry, that means he's holding something back, that means Niall's about to get it. "I told you. Slow. You're not listening to me."
Niall can't stop. He tries to stop, tries to make his hips slow down, but his body isn't listening anymore, isn't responding to his brain the way it's supposed to, and he just keeps going, keeps fucking the pillow, like he wanted to do with the shirt. "I'm sorry, Ruben," he says. "I'm sorry, I'm trying, I'm trying, I just—I can't—"
"I'm sorry, Ruben," Ruben mimics, his voice high and whiny and cruel. The mattress shifts behind him. Niall feels it before he understands what's happening, feels the dip and sway of the bed as Ruben moves, as Ruben climbs onto Niall's bed, as Ruben gets behind him, close behind him, close enough that Niall can feel the heat of Ruben's body through his own thin t-shirt, through the fabric of his boxers, through everything that's supposed to separate them. Ruben's chest presses against Niall's back, Ruben's thighs bracket Niall's hips, Ruben's breath is hot on the back of Niall's neck, and Niall freezes, goes completely still, his cock still pressed against the pillow, his hands still gripping the sheets, his heart stopped dead in his chest.
And then Ruben's hand is on his throat. Ruben's hand wraps around Niall's throat like he's grabbing a thing, like he's grabbing an animal by the scruff, and his fingers press in on either side of Niall's windpipe, squeezing, not hard enough to cut off his air completely but hard enough to let him know that Ruben could, that Ruben could squeeze harder whenever he wanted.
"Listen to me." Ruben's voice is low in Niall's ear, rough and harsh and so close Niall can feel the vibration of it against his skin. "You're going to do it the way I told you."
Niall locks up. His cock is still hard, still pressed against the pillow, and he's terrified, more terrified than he's been in a long time, because he's about to come, he can feel it building, that pressure behind his cock, that tightening in his balls, and if he comes now, if he comes while Ruben's hand is on his throat and Ruben's body is pressed against his, Ruben will know. Ruben will hate him, will beat him bloody.
But Ruben lets him go. The hand on his throat releases, pulls away, and Niall gasps, gulps down air in big, heaving breaths that make his whole body shake. Ruben's arm comes around his waist. It slides across Niall's stomach, solid and warm, and Ruben pulls him back, pulls him closer until Niall's spine is curved against Ruben's chest, until there's no space left between them at all. Niall can feel Ruben's heartbeat through his own back, or maybe that's his own heartbeat, he can't tell anymore.
And then Ruben moves his hips. He pushes against Niall from behind, his own hips thrusting forward, driving into the curve of Niall, and the force of it pushes Niall forward too, pushes his cock deeper into the pillow, and Niall moans, a sound he didn't mean to make, a sound that comes from somewhere deep in his chest and escapes before he can stop it.
"This is how I fuck Mona," Ruben says, and his voice is different now, softer, almost hypnotic, like he's telling Niall a bedtime story. "This is what she likes. Slow and deep. You let her feel every inch of you. You make her wait for it."
Ruben thrusts again, and Niall moves with him, doesn't have a choice, his body just follows, like Ruben's pulling the strings. Ruben's arm is tight around his waist, holding him in place, and his hips keep moving, setting a rhythm that Niall's body is forced to match.
"Feel that?" Ruben asks, and his lips are so close to Niall's ear that they brush against the skin when he speaks. "Feel the difference? This is how you make a girl moan, Bambers. This is how you make her forget her own name. Not with that wee rabbit fucking you were doing. That's embarrassing."
Niall can't breathe anymore. His eyes are stinging again, the tears threatening to fall, and he thinks he might cry, thinks he might actually let them fall this time. Ruben must feel it, must sense the shift in Niall's body, the way he's trembling harder now, the way his breath is catching on something that isn't pleasure. The rhythm slows, then stops, and Ruben's arm tightens around his waist, pulling him closer, holding him.
"Hey," Ruben says. "Hey, hey. Come on, Bambers. Breathe with me. You hear me? You need to breathe." Niall shakes his head, a small, jerky movement, because he can't, he can't breathe, he can't do anything except sit here with Ruben wrapped around him. A tear escapes, slides down his cheek, hot and shameful, and then another, and another, and he can't stop them, can't stop any of it.
"Breathe with me, Bambi," Ruben says again, and he takes a slow, deep breath, his chest expanding against Niall's back, and then he lets it out, and his hand comes up to rest on Niall's chest, right over his heart, so Niall can feel. "Come on. In. That's it. And out. Good. Again. In. Feel that? Feel my breath? Just match it, shagger. You can do that. You can match my breath."
Niall tries. He forces his lungs to work, forces himself to breathe in when Ruben breathes in, to breathe out when Ruben breathes out, and it's hard, so hard, like trying to swim through mud, but slowly, slowly, the shaking starts to ease, the tears start to slow, the tightness in his chest starts to loosen. Ruben's hand is still on his chest, Ruben's arm is still around his waist, Ruben's body is still pressed against his, and somehow, impossibly, Niall is breathing.
"Girls won't like it if you cry," Ruben says, so serious. "You can't cry in front of them."
Niall nods, a small, shaky movement, and rubs his face against Ruben’s shoulder shoulder to wipe away the tears, embarrassed and ashamed and something that feels almost like gratitude, though he doesn't know why, doesn't know what he's grateful for, doesn't know why Ruben's gentleness makes him feel worse instead of better.
"There you go," Ruben says, and his hips start moving again, pushing Niall forward. "There you go, Bambers. Just like that. Just let me show you."
Niall breathes with him. He moves with him. His body falls into the rhythm Ruben's set, slow and deep, the way Ruben said it should be, the way Ruben fucks Mona, the way Ruben fucks everyone probably, the way Niall will maybe never be able to fuck anyone unless Ruben is there to guide him. His cock slides against the pillow, wet and hot, and the pleasure builds slowly, differently than before, deeper somehow, like it's coming from somewhere further down.
"You're doing good, Bambers," Ruben murmurs, and his voice is warm now, proud, the way it gets when Niall blocks a punch right, when he lands a hit that actually makes Ruben stumble back half a step. "You're doing really good. That's it. That's how you do it.”
Niall thinks about it. He thinks about the time Ruben choked him with an arm around his neck, when Niall woke, there was a stain on his shorts. He thinks about Mona. About that night, the three of them, and the way Ruben had guided his breathing then too, had whispered in his ear just breathe. Everything's easier, if Ruben makes him do it.
That's the thought that surfaces as Niall moves with Ruben's rhythm, breathes with Ruben's breath, lets Ruben's body guide his own. Everything's easier when Ruben's in charge, when Ruben tells him what to do. He doesn't have to think. He doesn't have to try. He can breathe with Ruben. He can fuck like Ruben. He can share everything with Ruben, the way they've been sharing everything lately.
He shudders, his whole body trembling against Ruben's, and Ruben's arm tightens around his waist, holding him steady, keeping him from falling apart. "That's a boy," Ruben whispers, and his lips brush the back of Niall's ear, soft and warm.
Niall feels it before he understands what it is, before his brain catches up to the signals his body is sending him, before he can put words to the sensation that's pressing against him from behind. Ruben's hard. That's what Niall's feeling. Ruben is hard behind him, and every thrust of Ruben's hips pushes that hardness against Niall's body, makes him feel it, makes him aware of it in a way that he can't ignore. It makes him whine.
The sound comes out of him before he can stop it, the kind of noise that makes Ruben laugh. Ruben's chest shakes against his back, Ruben's breath huffs warm against his ear, and Ruben laughs, like Niall's whine is the funniest thing he's heard all night.
Niall's face burns. Ruben's probably thinking about Mona, Niall tells himself. That's what this is. Ruben's hard because he's thinking about Mona, about her warmth, about the way she feels around him, about all the things they've done together in the dark of some other room, some other bed, some other place where Niall wasn't there to see it.
Ruben keeps going. His hips keep moving, keep pushing, keep pressing that hardness against Niall's body with every thrust, and his arm is still wrapped around Niall's waist, keeping him close. He squeezes Niall tighter to him, pulls him closer, makes their bodies align in a way that feels almost like they're one person instead of two.
Ruben's panting in his ear now, his breath coming fast and hot against Niall's neck. "Does it feel good, Bambi?" Ruben asks, and his voice is rough, breathless. "Not as good as a cunt, I know, but just imagine, aye? Just pretend. Close your eyes and pretend it's her. Pretend it's Mona. Pretend she's the one underneath you, the one making those noises, the one taking it."
Niall doesn't answer. Ruben's breath is hot on his neck and Ruben's voice is in his ear and Ruben's hand is on his chest and Ruben's arm is around his waist and Ruben, Ruben, Ruben everywhere, Ruben inside him, Ruben around him, Ruben filling up every empty space in the room and in Niall's head and in Niall's heart.
Ruben's hips stop moving. Just for a second, just long enough that Niall feels the absence of the rhythm, feels the emptiness of the space where Ruben's body was pressing against his. And then Ruben's voice comes again. "Niall. I asked you a question."
"It feels good, Ruben," he says.
"Good," Ruben says, and his voice is satisfied now, pleased, like Niall's given the right answer on a test. "Good. That's good."
They keep going. The room is quiet except for the sounds they're making, the soft wet sound of Niall's cock moving against the pillow, the huff of Ruben's breath against his neck, the small involuntary noises that keep escaping from Niall's throat no matter how hard he tries to keep them in. The pleasure is building inside him, coiling in his stomach, tightening in his balls, spreading through his groin like something liquid and hot.
He keeps making those little whining sounds, the ones that make Ruben laugh, and he can't help it, can't control it, can't do anything except let them out because his body is doing things he doesn't understand, feeling things he can't name, and his voice is the only outlet he has. But Ruben laughs at him again.
"Don't whine like a bitch, Bambers," Ruben says. "Come on, now. Come on. You can do better than that."
Niall tries. He bites his lip, hard, tries to keep the sounds inside, tries to be quiet the way Ruben wants him to be, but his body won't cooperate, his breath keeps coming in ragged gasps, and every time Ruben's hips push forward, every time Ruben's hardness presses against him, every time Ruben's arm tightens around his waist, another sound escapes, another whine, another little broken noise that makes Ruben's chest shake with silent laughter.
"I think—I think I'm going to cum," Niall says, and his voice is desperate now, urgent, because he can feel it building. Ruben's hips slow.
"Pull out," Ruben says. "You're not wearing a condom. You have to learn to pull out. It's important."
Niall nods, a jerky, frantic movement, but he doesn't think he can do it, doesn't think he can make his body obey, doesn't think he can stop the wave that's building inside him, cresting, about to break. He's so close, too close, closer than he's been all night, and the thought of stopping now, of pulling out now, of denying himself the release that's right there, right at the tip of his cock, seems impossible.
But Ruben's hand is around him. Ruben's fingers wrap around the base of his cock, warm and dry and certain, and Ruben pulls him out of the pillow, pulls him back, pulls him away from the soft wet fabric. And the moment Ruben's hand touches him, the moment Ruben's fingers close around him, Niall's body gives up, gives in. His cock pulses in Ruben's hand, once, twice, three times, and he comes all over Ruben's pillow case, white streaks on the white fabric, visible even in the orange light, visible even through the tears that are blurring Niall's vision, visible even though he's trying so hard not to look.
Ruben grunts against his ear. Then they stay like that, for a second, for two, for a handful of heartbeats that stretch out like hours. Niall breathes with Ruben. He shakes when Ruben shakes. Then Ruben laughs. Ruben's hand lets go of Niall's cock, Ruben's arm unwinds from his waist, Ruben's body pulls back, pulls away, leaves Niall cold.
"Good work, Bambi," Ruben says, and his voice is back to normal now, casual and easy and a little bit bored. "I'll tell Mona all about it. She'll be impressed, I reckon. Maybe she'll give you another chance."
Niall shakes. His whole body is shaking, convulsing almost, little tremors that run through his muscles and make his teeth chatter and his hands clench and unclench in the sheets.
"Thank you, Ruben," he says, and his voice is barely a whisper, barely even there, but he needs to say it, needs to put the words out into the air between them, needs to acknowledge whatever Ruben has just done for him.
Ruben hums against him, a noncommittal sound, and then he's gone, pulling away completely, leaving Niall kneeling on the bed alone, his cock soft and sticky against his thigh, his lip throbbing where he bit it. Ruben drops onto his own bed, falls back onto the mattress with a sigh of satisfaction, and Niall watches him, watches him stretch out like a cat.
Ruben's pillow is a mess. Niall stares down at it, at the white fabric now stained and wet, at the evidence of what he's done spread across Ruben's pillow case in streaks and smears.
"Put that in the wash, will you?" Ruben says from his bed, not even opening his eyes, his voice already heavy with sleep. "And you can fold it after. When it's dry. You're good at folding."