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Ruben locks the door behind them.
He shushes Niall with three fingers and a grin he hopes Niall's drunk enough to think reaches his eyes.
"Hush, Bambi. You want to wake the hags? Want Lezzy Mammy to see you being compromised? Ruining that bright future? Fucking it all up for a fling in the toilet?"
Long past midnight and graduation just a few hours ago and three Tennent cans later, Niall wobbles on his feet.
A short lean line of mildly sloshed out of his gourd. Nightmare and miracle to have gotten up the stairs without either of them snapping their necks or waking the house. Saved only by Ruben’s ability to carry the little prince despite all the squirming and wiggling and hair pulling and kicking at the banister and telling Ruben, again and again, You’re so strong. Why are you so strong?
Ruben grabs Niall by the front of his shirt to keep him from tipping any which way and cracking his head on the tiles.
"Thought you were giving me a present? Why are we in our toilet?" Niall says, searching for balance and discovering it in the folds of Ruben's tartan over-shirt.
His hands sweaty and warm, long narrow fingertips as red as his cheeks.
He’s a tomato. Glossy and ripe as any in the basket. Ruben wants to pop him in his hand.
"Because you spew." Ruben reminds him.
"I don't. Haven't."
He's pouting. Jutting out that shit lower lip of his like he's asking for Ruben to take a bite out of him or knock it back in place with his fist, with any part of Ruben.
He’d take it.
Ruben can’t.
He flicks the light on in the bathroom and it’s blaring. Buzzing. Made out of plasma and nuclear bullshit. Fucking bright enough to sear. Center of the universe made out of pink tile.
Ruben squints and Niall’s hiding his face in his hands like that’ll do anything.
Dork. Freak. Smart fuck with one ticket out.
Firming up his grip on Niall’s shirt, he leads him backwards to the sink. Slaps at his wrists and pulls them down so Niall’s squinting like him, one eye nearly closed.
“You spew.” Ruben gives him another shake and steadies him after. “You always spew. When we drink. When you get a ball to the gut. When there’s two cars on the road - you spew. Can’t hit the breaks without getting your lunch on me.”
“Stop yelling at me. And I’m - I’m a better driver than you.”
"And I’m not about to clean that shit out of carpet again."
"You don't clean." Niall careens to the left and Ruben rights him, grabbing at his shoulder. Thin. Bird-boned. Turning sullen, Niall plucks at Ruben’s shirt, just under his necklace, "You binned my stuff. My - my Indiana Jones."
His fingers dance through Ruben’s worn shirt and it nearly feels like he’s tapping along Ruben’s chest. Hand on bare skin. Drink-warmed fingers tapping at his sternum, checking to see if it’s hollow or not.
All Sober Niall would need is a look from Ruben. Maybe a Steady said sternly and clear. Not mean. Not too-gruff. Some kindness in there. A perfect amount of Do as your told and Be a good lad, now.
"And my Doctor Who - how come you don't - you don't like Doctor Who, Ruben?" Niall tilts forward, a deep furrow between his bushy eyebrows. A lean to his eyes that slides too close to woe.
Dramatic, scrappy little prince of the castle. Kicking up shit when he's supposed to do as he’s told. Just for now. Just for the few hours before morning when there’s sunlight and they’ll have even less time.
He cups Niall’s cheeks, his thumbs pressed to where even not-smiling he has dimples.
"'Cause it's boring, Niall. It’s the worst show I’ve ever seen. Why the fuck’s he in a phone box carrying around a dildo? Why’s he always fighting a trashcan? Fucking dumb, Niall. Now, can you shut the fuck up, yeah? Shut it? Yeah?" He shakes him, gives that big head of his a rattling and thinks he can hear that giant brain in there bump up against his giant ears. "Fucking hell you've got a melon."
"Don't say that.” His voice wobbles, cracks in the middle as his eyes go wider, his facer somehow brick redder. He says, “It's mean. Saying that.”
"I swear - "
“ - And it’s not a dildo , it’s - “
“ - I don’t care - “
“ - It’s a sonic - a - a sonic screwdriver - “
“ - Breaking my heart saying this shit - “
" - It's a good show, Rubes, you'd like it if you gave it a chance and - and you never give anything a - "
Ruben slaps his hand to Niall's mouth, covering half his face. Niall’s eyes lighting up with shock and his mouth keeps moving, muffled and quieted and he’s still chattering.
A compulsion. A nutter. Ruben’s mental little brother.
Ruben’s knuckles are scabbed over from a week ago. Punched that cunt-face Barry Ogilvie and his brother Colin from down the road for starting shit.
Ruben’s lips brush against his scabs. Scratchy. Rough. This close, he can count Niall’s eyelashes. His hard to see freckles Niall moans about whenever he’s near a mirror. Can measure the millimeters Niall’s pupils dilate until there’s only Ruben being reflected.
On his palm are Niall’s harsh breaths, gusts of hot air exhaled through his nose only to be sucked right back up through the vents of Ruben’s fingers.
His lips are wet.
It’s not a good idea.
Ruben’s out of options.
At least Niall’s mouth has stopped.
"Quiet time, now, Bambi." Ruben whispers, nodding until Niall is following along. "That's good, pet. Good. You put your hands on the sink and shut your trap, yeah? Can you do that for me? Be quiet for me?”
And Ruben waits. Hand growing hot on Niall’s face. Niall’s face growing hotter under Ruben’s hand. The two of them starting to sweat.
The silence sits between them. The house creaking. The boiler clanging. Lori snoring down the hall. Their mother’s expecting them to stay out late. It’s graduation night. There’s every kind of party they could be at instead of the pond where they’d been, just the two of them and the drinks Ruben bought.
Niall presses his lips together. Ruben feels it happen. Feels the blood inside of him respond.
Niall doesn't say another word when Ruben peels his hand from his mouth, Ruben’s palm slick with sweat and his spit. He doesn’t wipe it off.
He walks backwards, hand hooked back in Niall’s shirt, and Niall follows, until Ruben’s ass hits the lip of the sink. Agitation tickling at the base of his stomach.
It’s quiet and his head is so damn loud.
Niall lifts his hands to grab at the sink and he hesitates. Has his hands hovering there. Fingers stretched out in the air by Ruben’s sides, wavering to take that final step to do as he’s told and cage Ruben in. Trap him exactly where Ruben wants to be.
If Niall could only get on with it.
If Niall could stop making him feel Niall’s own nerves. Numbed by drink. There, still, like another body in the bathroom. Jabbing at Ruben’s crowded head. Radiating thick into the air to stick on Ruben like a summer's sweat.
It fills the room and Niall’s hands are shaking like the rest of him.
"Shit." Ruben mutters too loudly and grabs him by his wrists and yanks him forward, their chests bumping together, knocking what air is left in Niall out of him.
He's stopped breathing.
Niall stares up at him with this glassy-eyed fucked-out look that's as unfair as moving three hours away.
Scared and a nervous little thing and all Ruben can see still is himself reflected in all that brown turned black.
"Breathe." Ruben tells him in hush.
Just a word. As good as Steady said sternly and clear.
Niall’s sucking in a breath. His chest expanding against Ruben’s. Feels the heavy rabbit-kicks of his pulse racing through Niall’s ribs to rattle at his. Feels it under the pads of his fingers pressed tight to Niall’s wrists.
Ruben tries to be gentle. Wants to be. Is inspired when Niall is near him. Wearing his worn shirt. His trousers. His aftershave.
He brings Niall’s arms down, slides his grip backwards, down Niall's wrists to his hands and pulls. Forces Niall to take that last step. Plants those hands on the sink behind him where they'd been meant to go in the first place if Niall Kennedy could listen and if Ruben could talk better.
"Ruben?" Niall says. Soft eyed. Soft faced. Sweet and wobbly kneed nervous. All the trust in the world with an ocean behind his ears. Earning his nickname since he was a wean.
It's acid in Ruben's stomach. Eats away at his body. Gnashes on his will.
Somewhere in the years and months Ruben’s tongue has tied itself in a knot.
Ruben drops to his knees in the small bit of space between Niall's twiggy legs and the hard porcelain of the sink.
The tiles are cold and harsh and the ugliest sickly-pink underneath him. His socked toes twitch. His head bumps the sink and it's a dull pain, hardly worth anything. It's why he'd had a couple of beers. It's why Niall had more.
Ruben looks up at Niall and Niall looks down at him between his outstretched arms. A shadow under a blaring, buzzing sun, ears gone vibrant. Somehow, against every bit of anatomy Ruben's acquainted himself with, Niall’s eyes have grown larger, darker, two black holes of the universe about to suck Ruben in.
And maybe that would be for the best. Disappeared and swallowed up. Already stretched to his breaking point. Niall would be a cozy home to live in.
Ruben holds his finger to his lips, smiling and he knows Niall can see it doesn't reach his eyes.
"Is this - is this my present?" Niall whispers so quietly, his words falling like feathers to tickle at Ruben’s ears, his voice cracking again like he’s fifteen and telling Ruben to Stop messing already.
"Yeah.” Ruben’s says, unsteady, mind drifting and his body tensing wanting to find something to focus on. “So shut up about it."
Niall swallows and the heavy gulp of it rings in the quiet bathroom with the only door that locks and Ruben finds the sharp point and grabs it, pours his attention on what his hands are meant to be doing - not how warm Niall is centimeters from him or the last time he'd been kneeling on the floor between a man's rigid, trembling legs.
And that’s what Niall is now. A man. A little prince grown up.
He reaches for the waste bin and tugs it over to him, pulls at the corner of its bag and reaches to the bottom of the metal basket.
A plastic baggie holding his needle wrapped in string and opened-biro.
Niall tucks his chin to his chest, watching Ruben between the bars of his arms.
Ruben shakes the bag up at him.
"This'll sting." He says, a proper big brother thing to do. Warn the wean when the shot's coming. Gracious. Kind.
Niall trembles. Starting from his knees up his thighs to the rest of him. Ruben rubs a hand up and down his leg along the seam, stopping around his knee. He draws circles with his fingers on the soft backside through the thick denim, trying to bring out the calm in him. Waits until Niall's found a bit of bravery in that big head of his.
When he stops and when there’s only his rattling, uneven breath, Ruben sets the bag down on the tiles and sits up on his knees and goes for Niall's belt.
Niall flinches. He steps back. Ruben snatches him. Hooks his fingers into the hem of his jeans and holds him there, fingers flattened between his belt and soft skin.
Steady.
"Told you not to move." Ruben reminds him, gently, sweetly, it's three in the morning and they only have a month. Ruben reels him in. "Hands on the sink, Niall."
"I don't think this is a good - Ruben, I don't know - "
" - You don't have to know shit. That's why I'm here." Ruben snaps. Too loud again. The tiles bounce his words back in his face and he hates it.
He tugs at Niall again and this time Niall listens.
He takes back that step.
Ruben's nose is at Niall's zipper. Stiff denim. Days of wear between them. A thick mixed musk reminding him of their room.
He puts his hands back on Niall's belt buckle and glares up at him as he undoes it, daring Niall to move, asking Niall to just this once, tonight, do as he's told.
Niall bites his pouty wet lip and chews at it. Worrying it fat and red. Ruben strips his belt off and sets it quietly on the floor so its metal doesn’t clink. Pops the bronze button of his jeans and takes a deep inhale through his nose until it hurts. Smelling Niall at his core.
He goes for the zipper. The little pully and long line of metal teeth separating them. He doesn’t look at the thick stiffening line growing in his face.
He tugs the zipper down.
Niall's hard and Ruben doesn't take it personally.
"I'm sorry.” Niall’s voice quakes. “I’m, Ruben, I don't - "
"Shush." Ruben pulls Niall's and his jeans down his shaking thighs and they drop in a pile of harsh fabric around his ankles.
Niall’s boxers that are Ruben’s boxers tent heavily in the front.
Ruben forces himself to ignore that. Add it to the pit where the rest of it goes.
He says, “Just look at that pretty reflection of yours."
"I'm sorry."
“Don’t.”
“I’m sorry.”
“At the mirror.”
“Ruben.”
“Graduation presents are meant to be a surprise.”
“Ruben, please.”
“If you look down here again I’ll send you out that window, melon head first.”
Niall stops talking, but he doesn’t quiet. He huffs. He whimpers. Makes a racket of noises Ruben doesn’t want to hear.
A weight lifts from Ruben's head. Without having to crane his own neck back he knows Niall's listened.
"Good lad." Ruben tosses the words up towards him. Pats at his hairy thigh twice. Niall’s feet shift, squeaking on the tiles and constrained by his trousers around his ankles.
Ruben tugs at the corner of his boxers, under his left hip. He pulls the waistband down just enough to expose a new plane of pale skin.
"I don't want it to hurt." Niall says over his head, adrenaline burning off the alcohol Ruben had been thoughtful enough to pry him with.
"Tough."
"Seriously, Ruben."
Ruben takes his needle out of the baggie and his biro. He knows exactly what he's going to dig into Niall's skin. He shoves up Niall's shirt and starts.
Above him, Niall pants. He winces. He hisses. He makes noises that belong to a wounded rabbit having its big ears pulled. His cock strains at the front of his boxers, twitching with every prick from Ruben, leaking a growing spot on the front.
All from a little needle Ruben could stab himself in his eye with and go on about his day.
“It - it stings.”
“Steady.”
"Are you doing a smiley face? Like the one on your hand? I like that one."
"Does it feel like I am?"
"I don't know, it just hurts."
"Baby."
“Shove off.”
Ruben inks his needle. Rolls up Niall’s shirt a bit more. He’s got a good line down. He focuses and that’s all he can allow himself.
“Meaner.” He says, pushing a little harder on Niall’s stomach where his shirt’s rucked up, making Niall hold himself tighter, his stomach flexing under Ruben’s balled up hand. “C’mon. Let me have it.”
“Fuck off.”
“I almost believe you.”
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
Ruben tuts at him. The same clipped noise Maura and Lori make when either of them step out of line. Ruben more often. Niall fast on his heels to follow.
He finishes the second letter with a bit more force. He stops and breathes.
Gentle.
Steady.
Niall groans nearly as loudly as Lori’s snores.
“Doctor Who’s better,” It’s ground out of him, “Than anything you like.”
Ruben snorts at that, laughing, ducking his head. The needles scrapes and skips across their boxers.
“There he is. My boy. Dark horse of a man. No whimpering mare here."
“It hurts.”
“Delicate fucking flower, fucking Christ. Jesus didn't complain this much. Shut up.”
"I don't want to shut up."
"No shit. Stand still, will you?"
Ruben dips the needle in the ink and then stabs at Niall's skin and he does it over and over, not paying any mind to anything. The strong scent coming off of him. Salty and familiar. It does laps in his head, reminding him.
"You're always ordering me around." Niall sniffles. His voice takes on that high pitched climb over cracking rocks. He says, waterlogged, “I’m sorry. I don't want to go to uni. I'm sorry, Ruben. I don’t want to go. I don’t want to. You’re my only. I’m sorry - I’m your - I’m yours and I’m leaving you and I’m such a cock.”
Ruben’s a little meaner with his next few jabs. Steady and gentle set aside like his belt by his knees.
His shirt. His jeans. His smell. His pants. His socks. His patch of pale skin. His ink. His needle. His hands.
He digs the needle deeper. Niall rattles on. Apologies falling out with every shuddered exhale. I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry. The stain on the front of him growing. Smells him leak even more. Ruben widens his knees on the floor, can feel that churning sensation of heat creeping from the back of his neck down his chest.
He drops Niall’s shirt to shove his hand inside. Slaps at his stomach. Makes him flinch. Niall’s hands stay on the sink.
Good, Ruben thinks.
"Get this out of my way." Ruben tugs at his hem, cupping his hand around the tattoo to hide it, the head of the needle poking at his thumb.
Niall stares. And keeps staring. He’s got problems creating a brawl between his big ears. What’s left of the Tennents in him should muffle every one of them.
They don’t. They never do. Ruben chases after it, anyways. Had hoped it’d be different for Niall.
Quiet all this mess.
"But you said I can't take my hands off the sink.”
"And I said to get your fucking shirt out of my face." Ruben says hating suddenly how Niall looks down on him with all that sorry on his face and out of his mouth. "Put it in your mouth."
"Um."
"Bite it." Ruben says, a sick stirring between his legs growing thicker the longer he's kissing the floor and Niall's standing almighty up top. "It'll keep you good for me."
Stern and clear. Gentle and steady.
Ruben tries and fails at all of them.
Niall's hand shakes prying himself off the sink and taking the bottom of his shirt in his grasp. His knuckles pop in front of Ruben’s nose.
He’s slow. Drags his shirt up. Shows his jumping stomach and patches of fuzzy hair Ruben tries not to think about.
Niall licks his lips first before he puts his hem into his mouth.
"More." Ruben says, voice rasping out of him. "Higher."
Niall waits. He’s thinking too much. Ruben thinking at all. Acceptance letters. Thirty days. A sunken quiet between them. A sorry fucking look.
He opens his mouth and his shirt drops. He rolls up more of it, pulls it back up his tensing stomach, exposing his chest, the dark pink of his nipples standing hard in the chilly bathroom. He bites on his shirt again, a stain of spit already blossoming from his lips through the fabric. His chest pumping out small rabbit-breaths underneath the deep flush that's spread from his face and big ears and has fallen down the rest of him.
Big eyes watering, catching all the buzzing light. Hair a mess from Ruben tugging at it since this afternoon. Panting. Red. Twitching. Leaking. Familiar. A pit in Ruben’s gut. A thump in his chest.
He’s a picture. One Ruben can’t look at for long. Can only glance at from the corner of his eye.
Niall’s hand hovers in the air, above Ruben’s head. His hair stands on end, tickling. He can feel him hesitating under the weight of all his thinking.
It wouldn’t be so bad to have his long fingers gripping him. Scratching at his scalp. Tugging him closer, urging him to lean in. Niall would be sweet. He’d be gentle. No one’s more steady.
He’s sick at the thought.
He spreads his knees a little wider.
Niall puts his hand back on the sink before Ruben can jab himself in the eye or worse.
Ruben dips his needle back into his biro. Places his hand on Niall's hip. Bony and pale as anyone in Glasgow, but Ruben's thumb fits perfect under the jut of it. Niall's shudder wracks through his fingers, up his arm, to warm at his cheeks.
He's cold, Ruben allows. Standing in his drawers. Shirt rucked up to his tits. Cold and dotted with goose pimples all across the length of him and hard at Ruben's cheek, pulsing like a storm and battering at the cotton fly of his pants, drenched like any girl Ruben's had his hands on and quaking for it like a boy clawing at his sheets.
Ruben’s nearly done. Lori snores. The lock on the bathroom door stays unchallenged.
Mouth full of shirt, Niall whines. Low then high. Louder than he should. His hips jerk forward, bucking harsh into Ruben’s needle. His lean body stiffens. His stomach clenches tight. His thighs flex going tense with it. His bare toes curl useless against the tiles peeking out from the pile of his jeans.
Ruben sees the fabric of Niall's boxers move. Smells it thick in the air, the stench of his load staining the insides of Niall's pants. Ruben’s. Theirs.
Over his head, Niall's huffing ragged, struggling to catch his breath, chomping on their shirt and Ruben can't look up. Can't look away from this small patch of skin that’s his now and can still see Niall in his head, the face he’s making.
Ruben's gone too deep. Niall’s shoved himself where he shouldn’t have.
Carefully, Ruben plucks the needle out of Niall.
A line of blood races down his hip to stain on the hem of his boxers, too. Ruben watches the red bloom next to where he’s come.
"No worries, Bambi. I've got you." Ruben says, softly, gently, steady, hidden from the buzzing light in the bathroom by Niall hunched over him and the quiet closed space of Niall's trembling legs and the hard-porcelain sink at his back.
Niall doesn’t have to have his fingers in his hair to tug him close.
Ruben leans those few breaths away and licks the line of blood up, carefully lapping over the ink he's buried for safe keeping, tasting earthy copper and the specific tang of biro, gripping Niall tighter, firmer, sterner, at his hip as he curls over him, sweaty hands squeaking as they slide along porcelain.
Muffled, Niall says his name.
A small drop of something best ignored hits the top of Ruben’s head. Then another. He presses his lips to match where his thumb is - just under the jut of his bone, entire cities and an entire ocean from his tattoo.
He digs the bloody needle into his palm until it punctures and he’s bleeding, too.
Ruben sucks on the hem. His nose filled with the scent of Nialls spunk. He licks his lips.
He doesn't take it personally.
Finishing is easy enough. The letters are blocky. Niall’s done well, better than he’d thought. A few more prods and he's dropping his needle and pen on the floor and patting at Niall's stomach again. Lower this time, below his bellybutton, on the light hairs leading downwards. He leaves his hand there and that’s all he can give himself.
“Back, back.” Ruben tells him.
His knees are sore and his hands shake tugging up their jeans to hang loose and low just under his work.
Niall takes two steps back, holding his hands out like he's daft and not uni-bound, like he flick them off of his wrists. Eyes wide and scared, a nervous little prince terrified of the people down below.
The air between them is heavy. Ruben hates it. It had been easy for so long. It had worked for them.
Ruben plucks the sopping wet shirt out of Niall's mouth and lets it drop onto his stomach.
"Ru - Ruben - "
" - Congrats on graduating, Niall." Ruben cuts him off before he can turn down a road neither of them would survive. He doesn't bother plastering on a smile. It'd hardly reach even his lips.
He does what he can.
He nods. He keeps nodding until Niall does, too.
Gingerly, with trembling lean hands meant for writing and doing grand things, Niall pulls up his shirt and reads the letters.
“Rip? RIP?” Niall says, trembling voice to go along with the rest of him. His fingers hover over his new ink. Afraid and curious. “That’s - I’m not dying?”
There are tears still sitting heavy on his eyes. Watery and glassy and threatening.
“Love to argue with yourself, don’t you?”
Niall touches the R and flinches.
He says, “Writing that on me is cruel, Ruben.”
“And you know what cruelty is? You?”
“I’m sorry. God, Ruben. I’m fucking - ” Niall slaps a hand over his mouth. The tears go through with their threat and fall, leaving shining tracks on Niall’s red cheeks, falling over the edge of his knuckles.
Ruben shoos his hand away, cups Niall's face, catching a string of his tears with his thumb. Slides his fingers around Niall’s neck and gathers him up, brings him in. All of Scotland is asleep and the door is locked and Niall can’t look at him like that. Horrified and happy and sorry and unsure about any of it after calling himself Ruben’s.
“Christ, Niall.” Ruben says into his short-cut hair, fisting at his shirt. Their shirt. “How are you still this goddamn terrible at being pissed? An overgrown baby. Can't handle a bit of a pricking or a couple of drinks. You're an embarrassment.”
Niall shudders. His hands squeeze in between them to clutch at Ruben’s shirt, winding it tight around his fingers. Hiding his face in Ruben’s neck and soaking him with fat tears falling plenty and freely.
“Ian, you gobshite.” Ruben tells the crown of his head. “It’s my name.”
“But you’re Ruben.” Niall whines. Complains. Sloshed and handling it about as well as he ever does.
“Should’ve raised you better.” Ruben says and kisses Niall’s ear. Holding him until he stops shaking. Until their shirts dry.