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“Where did you put the toothpaste?” Naim was on his knees in the cramped toilet, had one of them knocked it off the counter last night? He was pretty sure they brushed their teeth. Like, 90% sure. 80%? No, 90%.
“Um” There was shuffling from the main room, then scraping, which was probably the desk chair, “I’ve got no clue, sorry. It’s not on the counter?”
“Oh, great idea. That never even crossed my mind. I’d be lost without you.” The words were sharp, sharper than Naim intended them. Actually, he hadn’t intended them at all, and he felt sick now having said them in the first place. He waited for Ryan to respond, and after a few seconds, knew he was waiting for nothing.
The toothpaste was in the rubbish bin, somehow, tucked beneath a wad of bloodied tissue. Which, Naim recalled, he had thrown in last night after he’d scratched open one of the scabs running across his hipbone. Ryan had stuck a bandaid on and gave it a gentle peck.
God, he was an asshole lately. He wasn’t trying to be. There was just so much built up tension. Fuck, he hadn’t been alone for a month straight. He hadn’t been safely alone for even longer. He cared about Ryan. A lot. He enjoyed being with him, hanging out, eating meals, sharing earbuds. But he would also love to be able to sit in a room alone and draw with nothing but his own thoughts to fill the space. He would kill to lay down on the grass with nothing for miles and fall asleep under the summer sun, wake up with nothing wrong but a gnarly sunburn. Instead, there is the constant background noise of Ryan’s humming, his breathing, his sniffs and coughs and yawns. There was an underlying, ever-present layer to his life now, one that was never going to stop. Not that he wanted it to, not really. He was so fucking grateful that Ryan had accepted him back, had forgiven him–that had been a long conversation, one that probably wasn’t actually over yet and maybe never would be. But it wasn’t fair. It just wasn’t.
“Found it,” Naim pulled himself up from the ground, clutching the toothpaste and waving it through the door frame. No response. If Ryan wanted plaque covered teeth and gingivitis that was his prerogative.
When he left the toilet, Ryan was sitting at the desk and looking out the window. Naim was about to say something. Maybe “I’m sorry. I was out of line.” or “Are you okay?” or even “You wanna get something to eat?” When Ryan beat him to the punch, still staring out the window.
“I’m gonna go get some ice” He stood, sliding the chair back and grabbing the insulated bucket from the desk.
Naim turned, grabbing his discarded socks, “Yeah okay, let me just—”
“No. It’s fine, I’ll be like, two minutes. Don’t open the door. I’ll know you’re in here, you’ll know I’ll be back soon.” Ryan was already at the door, shrugging on a flannel and sliding the locks open
Naim rolled his eyes, dropping his shoes back on the floor, “You can’t be serious. That’s so fucking stupid and you know it,” His palms dug into his eyes, “Don’t go.”
“Two minutes.” The door closed behind him and Naim fell backwards on the bed, his eyes were really starting to hurt from the pressure he was putting on them, but he rubbed his hands over them anyways. He took a deep breath, Ryan may have been being stupid but that didn’t mean he had to be. So he got up, locked the door, and sat back down.
Two minutes later, there was a knock. Ryan’s voice, heavy with a sigh, “Forgot my key, let me in.”
He tried not to, he really did, but Naim rolled his eyes, hard, and slipped his lighter into his pocket. Looking through the peephole, he saw Ryan’s face, distorted .5x fishbowl lens Ryan, but Ryan nonetheless. “You really should remember that, kind of important.”
Ryan’s face scrunches up in an awful forced smile, “Yeah, sure. Let me in. It’s hot as balls out here.”
“Oh yeah? Is it boiling?” He could unlock the door, or he could watch Ryan roll his own eyes, pull a smile out of him, a real one.
“Yes.” Ryan puts a hand flat on the door and Naim tenses. From across the door Ryan is silent for a few hollow seconds, then, “It’s like,” his voice trails off, “that one myth.”
“What are you even on about?”
“You know, the one.”
“Very specific, Ryan.”
“The one where they talk through the wall? It’s Greek I think. Maybe Roman.”
“I have no idea.” Naim rested his forehead on the door, still watching as Ryan smiled lightly, maybe even sadly. “But you sound very smart right now.” That made Ryan smile for real, a bright one.
“There’s these lovers, they can’t be together. Their parents are rivals.”
“Like Romeo and Juliet?” Naim laughed.
“Shakespeare had to be inspired by something.” Ryan breathed in deeply, “Anyway. Their houses were next to each other, they shared a wall. And it had this crack in it, and they talk through the crack.”
“Does it end well, then?” Naim’s mind flooded with pictures of friars and poison and crypts and daggers.
“I don’t remember.” Ryan looked up then, through the peephole and right into Naim’s eyes, “Let’s just say yes.”
“They,” Naim paused, thought about it, “They take an ancient sledgehammer and break down the wall and he gives her a pash on top of the rubble.”
Ryan laughed, nodding, “Yeah, exactly. And then they run out, steal a chariot, and ride off into the sunset.”
Naim hummed, happy. And he was happy. Ryan made him fucking happy. “I’m sorry, I’ve been a dick to you lately.”
“You have been,” On the other side of the door, Ryan cocked his head, tugs at his flannel, then at the door handle, “Let me in.”
“Everything is just–”
“I know. You’re right. It is.” Ryan bites his lip, “It’s not just you, you know. I’ve been feeling it too. It’s hard, what we’re doing.” Naim hummed. “If you open the door, we can make it up to each other.”
Naim cracked his neck, stretching, and turned a bit to look at the room they shared. One bed, one desk, the little night stand with two half empty glasses of water on it, Naim’s room key resting on a napkin covered with pen doodles. He paused, he was sure that Ryan’s key had been there, right next to his own when they woke up, wrapped up in each other. He peered back through the peephole. Ryan stood there, rocking back and forth on his heels, hands in his pockets. No bucket. Naim took five steps back, pulled his phone out of his pocket, turned it on mute, and rung Ryan.
From outside the door, an impatient voice, “Naim? Are you really going to leave me out here? Like, actually?”
It rang, once, twice, and then picked up. Ryan’s exasperated voice from the other end of the line, “Naim. What. I’m gonna be a minute, I went to the wrong side of the –” the call ended.
BANG BANG BANG. The door bowed under the force of the thing slamming against it, “Naim! Open the fucking door!” then again, a loud series of thuds against the wood. Naim’s breath came hard and fast as he ran further back into the room, then into the toilet, latching the door. He shot Ryan a text:
Naim: its outside
hitting the door
fucking hard it wont stop its so loud
i dont know what to do fuck
fuck
be safe
please
(delivered 08:19)
It wasn’t long, less than a minute, before Naim heard the locks of the door click open and then the door slam shut. “Naim!” His hand slid into his pocket, pulling out the lighter, the cold metal of it searing hot in his palm. He couldn’t dare breathe, felt a hot tear roll down his cheek. “Naim, are you okay?” He struck the flint wheel, sparked the flame. “Naim, it’s me.” He rounded the corner, arm outstretched.
Ryan stood in the centre of the room, eyes wide. “Naim.”
Naim gasped a breath, staring at the flickering flame he held out in front of him. It was shaking, no, it was his arm that was quaking. He gripped his wrist with his other hand, holding it steady. He looked up, locked eyes with Ryan, the neckline of his shirt was soaked. With sweat or tears he didn’t know. “Stick out your hand.”
Ryan rolled up his sleeve, hands held up in surrender, and stepped forward which was immediately rendered useless as Naim moved backwards. “Your fucking hand, now.” Ryan nodded, extending his arm, palm faced down over the fire, skin glowing orange and pink. One second, two. The lighter clicked shut, and Naim was on the floor, arms firmly wrapped around him.
“Fuck, Naim. I’m here. I’m here.” Ryan’s arms were tight, near painful, as they squeezed him, “I’m sorry, so fucking sorry.” Naim opened his mouth and found no words there, tongue thick and useless behind his teeth. Instead, he buries his head against the other boy’s neck, looking over his shoulder at the black ice bucket laying empty.
“Don’t leave again, please. Please don’t leave me alone.” Naim’s voice was hoarse. Had he yelled?
“I won’t, I promise.” Ryan’s hands cupped his face, tipping his head back to look him in the eye, “You’re stuck with me. Not going anywhere.” A soft kiss, placed to his forehead, his cheek, his lips.
. . .
The spot on Ryan’s palm was raised and angry. Whenever Naim’s thumb ran over it, smoothing in the burn cream—no matter how softly—he breathed in a quick and sharp hiss. Naim screwed the cap back onto the cream, and walked to the desk. The container slid neatly into the medicine pocket of their duffle bag, which Naim had spent an ungodly amount of time organizing the last time they were on the bus. It was important that it was easy to grab what they needed when they needed it. A large chunk of their money had gone into the stuff in that pocket, and he hated the fact that it was getting used at all. A scream was brewing in his throat but he bit it back, swallowed it down, there was something he had to do. He was getting really tired of apologizing twice. He made a mental note to be sure to pick the right guy next time before having important and emotionally draining conversations.
“You said you were sorry earlier, for leaving me alone in the room.” He leaned back against the desk, which groaned under the pressure.
Ryan rolled his wrist in a circle and looked up from his perch on the bed, staring past Naim’s shoulder at the wall. “I am sorry about that. You were right, and I knew you were right. I just needed a minute.”
Naim shrugged, “I get it. If I were stuck with me nonstop I’d need several minutes. Multiple times a day.” Ryan snorted, raised his eyebrows, and didn’t negate it. “I already said this, to—well, to you. But I’m the one who should be sorry. We’re both feeling this way, we both know it’s hard. It’s not normal. Our lives aren’t going to be normal. But I don’t have to make them any harder. So, I’m sorry, Ryan.”
Ryan sniffed as he looked down at his lap, blond curls obscuring his face, “I’m sorry you’re stuck with me.” His voice was reedy and broken. Before Naim could think about it, he moved to stand in front of Ryan, taking his hands in his, careful not to press on his burnt palm.
“Never apologize for that. Never. You are the only person I want to be stuck in the middle of nowhere with. The only one. We could be sleeping in cargo trains and stealing bread for the rest of our lives and as long as it was you I was next to, I’d be just fine.” He ran his fingers over Ryan’s head, which had fallen forward to rest on his stomach. It was soft, and frizzy from poor quality products, a little longer than it had been when they’d first met. “I want you next to me, Ryan. I won’t leave if you don’t leave.”
Ryan’s arms wrapped around Naim’s waist, tugging him tight, “I’m so scared.”
Naim’s breath caught, his fingers halting their twisting in Ryan’s head. He had known, well, suspected that Ryan was scared. Naim was fucking terrified. All the time. Almost all the time. When Ryan had him in his arms, when they were together listening to music or laughing over greasy burgers he wasn’t scared. When he got to lean in and press kisses to Ryan’s neck, run his fingers over his shoulders. He knew Ryan probably felt the same way. But he’d never said it, not once. Until now.
“It’s okay to be scared.” Naim whispered, “I’m scared too,” his fingers started back up petting Ryan’s hair and he felt as he nodded against his stomach. “But I’m also so fucking lucky that I get to be scared next to you. To know that if I reach to my side you’ll be there to hold my hand.” The boy in his arms suddenly felt so small, and this feeling in his chest that had been slowly swallowing him whole since the first time he saw Ryan from across the classroom felt so big in comparison.
“You’re going to share your location with me right now.” Naim paused at Ryan’s non sequitur, “And I’ll send mine to you. In case we’re ever separated. So we can look down and know exactly where the other one is, if they’re across the street staring at us or if they’re in the store getting milk or whatever.”
It made sense, Naim agreed. Another thing they should have done ages ago.
“And,” Ryan continued, looking up at Naim now, blue eyes serious and fierce, “If for any reason we need to separate or come back to each other, we will send a message saying so and give a time to expect us there.” Naim only nodded, stroking Ryan’s neck.
“But please,” Ryan melted into the touch, “stay.”
“You’re stuck with me, Whelan. No walls.”
“What?”
Naim tensed, “Something it said to me. About a Roman myth or something. Some forbidden lovers have to talk through a crack in the wall.” Ryan tugged at his waist and Naim brought his knees up on the mattress, sliding into his lap.
“Pyramus and Thisbe?”
Naim shrugged, nosing at Ryan’s cheek, “No idea.”
“It’s from Greece or Babylon I think, but a Roman poet wrote about it later. It’s sad as fuck.” Ryan rubbed Naim’s back, breathing in at the crux of Naim’s neck. “They’re in love, Thisbe runs away from a lion and loses her, like, jacket or whatever. Pyramus finds it and thinks she’s dead, so he kills himself. She comes back to tell him the story, but he’s dead, so she kills herself too.”
Naim is a little impressed, but also feels sick, and not just because Shakespeare is apparently a total fraud.
“We’re not like that,” Ryan said with a decisive shake of his head. Something fluttered around in Naim’s stomach, hope maybe, as Ryan finished, “No walls.”
Naim hoped he never got over the little thrill he got from linking their fingers together. The gentle press of Ryan’s hand in his, squeezing softly, and then pulling back to ghost his fingers over Naim’s own. He watched as Ryan traced over his rings. Softly etched the perimeter of his father’s wedding band, slid the tip of his finger along the swirling length of the snake. And then slid his fingers back between Naim’s, and coaxed him forward.
This, Naim knew, he would never get tired of. Kissing Ryan felt like a little rebellion at first, and then desperation, then commiseration, and now like being understood more deeply than he thought was possible. But it was always good, even when their teeth clinked together or Ryan bit too hard on his lip. Every time, a revelation.
Ryan leaned back, laying down against the mattress, leaving Naim straddling his lap and leaning over him. Ryan kissed like something had been holding him under water, and Naim’s mouth was his reward for breaking the surface. Needy, gasping, like he could die any minute and this thing between them was the only solution. Which, of course, it was. Naim took a breath to thank whatever semblance of God existed that this was the solution; Ryan’s mouth on his, his hands in his hair, his body next to his in the bed. For as long as he would keep Naim around, anyway.
Ryan’s hands laid heavy on his waist, guiding his hips as he thrust upwards lazily, bringing them to a slow grind as he charted the lines of Naim’s bitten lips with his tongue. Naim whined into Ryan’s mouth, letting him push and pull at his hips as he saw fit.
“Fuck, Ryan.” He felt dizzy, like 100 bees were flying around where his brain should be, “I–fuck.” His hands fell to Ryan’s chest, separating their lips as he pushed up to grind down properly. It felt good, so fucking good, with an added bonus of getting to look down at Ryan’s face, his chest heaving with every breath, skin flushed. He looked like he wanted to eat Naim whole. Christ, Naim might even let him.
“Wait, stop” Ryan’s hands gripped his waist, and Naim blinked, still in a haze.
“You okay? Did I–”
“No, no. I’m fine. It’s just,” Ryan looked away, rubbed at his eye, “I was just gonna” he trailed off.
Bright laughter fell from Naim’s lips, “Isn’t that, you know, the whole point, or?”
“Shut up, you’re such a dick.” And Naim’s hand was being pulled from Ryan’s chest to his lips, a gentle kiss placed on his inner wrist. “I don’t want to get it all on my daks. Like, at the very least.”
“You’re worried about laundry right now?” Naim hooked a finger into Ryan’s mouth, feeling at his teeth, slick with spit.
Ryan gave the finger a soft suck before reluctantly pulling it out, “They’re my last pair of clean ones.” Oh, he was still on about that, “And we have to take the bag to the laundromat. Do you want me to do that in only a shirt? Would that do it for you?” Well…actually that sounded a bit stupid.
“You’re just trying to get me naked.”
“Well it wouldn’t hurt.” The heat that had been on pause for a minute was suddenly back in full force in Naim’s bloodstream as Ryan flipped them over, fingers pulling at Naim’s belt.
“Fuck,” his head rolled back onto the mattress as he moaned, raising his hips to help Ryan pull off his pants. This wasn’t new, they’d done this part before. In the past month they’d gotten quite a bit of experience with mindless grinding in inopportune places. A few wristies. Once, Naim had gotten on his knees and licked over the line of Ryan’s dick through his underwear, which had made Ryan come almost instantly. “You do it too.” Naim swallowed hard, it hurt in the back of his throat, “That was your main concern anyways, right?”
Ryan paused, running a thumb over Naim’s hipbone, the bandaid he’d placed there, “Yeah.” He made quick work of it, pulling off his shirt, then the pale denim, dropping them on the floor. Naim tugged off his long-sleeve and licked his lips, taking in the expanse of skin of Ryan’s chest, his shoulders. When he got back around to looking at Ryan’s face, he found his eyes already on him. “You’re so fucking pretty, Naim.”
“Don’t say that.” Naim kicked at him.
“You’re blushing, mate. You know it’s true.” Ryan leaned back over him, hand moving to cup over his dick, swallowing the noises Naim was making. “You sound pretty too.”
“Stop fucking saying that word, you’re such a dick.” At that, Ryan squeezed his. Naim keened, head rolling back, which Ryan seemed to take as an invitation to suck at his jaw. If he really had a problem with it, he knew Ryan wouldn’t say it again. For all his bark, his bite—at least with Naim—wasn’t all that deep.
Ryan hummed, stroking softly over the front of Naim’s boxers, then at the elastic. His fingers running teasingly at the line where the fabric hugged his hip. “Can I?”
“Fuck, yeah, please.”
“And I’m the impatient one?”
Naim’s retort was cut short as Ryan knocked the breath out of him by slipping his hand down and onto his dick. “Seriously Naim, I could listen to your sounds on loop."
“You’re so gross.”
“Whatever.” Ryan pulled Naim’s underwear off, drinking him in with his eyes, thumbing at the tip, collecting the wetness there. He stopped for a second, looking back up at Naim’s confused face, and tugged his own briefs down, laying his dick on top of Naims. Fuck, his skin was so warm against his. Ryan’s hand shot up under Naim’s mouth “Spit.”
Naim almost came right then, but he was glad he hadn’t. Because a few seconds later Ryan had both of them in his slick hand, thrusting up in a gut clenching drag in time with the movement of his wrist.
English was something completely lost on them then, Naim gripping one hand on the sheets, the other on Ryan’s free arm, blunt nails biting into his skin. The silver chain Ryan wore hung down, and Naim fought down the urge to suck it into his mouth.
From there, the climb and descent was rapid. The wet heat and pressure of it, the cool metal of Ryan’s rings, the sounds of it, of them, the muscles of Ryan’s arm flexing under Naim’s fingers, the drop of sweat from his hair falling on Naim’s chest. It was too good to last, and Naim came fast over his chest and Ryan’s dick, which brought Ryan over the edge right after him. And suddenly Naim had a panting, sweaty boy collapsed on top of him, kissing at his collarbones in between rasping breaths.
He held him for a minute or so, rubbing at the curves of his shoulder blades, the knobs of his spine. Ryan wiped a hand across his forehead, and Naim, hit with a sense of dread, grabbed his wrist. Five angry red crescents dug into Ryan’s forearm, ugly marks marring his warm skin, overlapping light freckles and childhood scars.
“Jesus, I’m sorry. I didn’t realise I was holding you that hard.” He felt like he was about to throw up.
Ryan looked over at his arm in Naim’s grasp, “Oh. Naim, it’s fine.”
“It’s really not.” Naim shook his head, “I didn’t mean to.”
“I know,” Ryan pulled back a bit, looking over his face, “It’s really okay. I like that they’re there. That they’re yours. I can look at them and know that you put them there, like this. Because I made you feel so good.” He shrugged, free hand pushing wet hair back from Naim’s forehead, “I’d much rather have them for that reason.”
“Oh.” His heart was going to stop any second now. It was. Really. He was pretty sure.
“Stop thinking so much,” Ryan murmured, nosing at Naim’s cheek. “You’re giving me a headache.”