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“I fucked that lass so hard she was walkin’ sideways for a week, I swear it.”
They were too many drinks in to count and Niall could tell by the way Ruben’s eyes shone up at him mischievously that he was drunk. His face held the same ‘I’m wasted now’ expression it had when they were kids, drunk off a swiped bottle of vodka on the floor of their shared bedroom.
An old fondness bloomed in Niall’s chest at times like this. It felt like peeling the scab off a wound not yet healed. The neon signs in the dimly lit pub colored everything their light touched. Ruben was all dark shadows and electric purple.
“Course that was ‘fore Mona and I joined back up.” Ruben took a long drink of his beer, foam catching in his mustache.
“Yeah, mate, I believe you.” Niall had been trying, failingly, to change the subject from sex (mainly the wide expanse of Ruben’s sexual conquests) for ten or so minutes and finally had given up.
He nearly jumped out of his seat when Ruben’s heavy hand came down on his leg, unconsciously rubbing slow circles into the inner part of Niall’s thigh with his thumb. Niall squirmed on his barstool.
At times he felt so small, minuscule really, next to Ruben – had when they were kids too, but Ruben was even bigger now, burlier. Niall, essentially, had stayed the same size. He’d grown into his too-long, gangly teenage arms, at least, but remained too-thin and too-gaunt as he always had been.
After the accident, in that dreary, gray hospital room, Ruben had manhandled Niall like he was no more than a ragdoll, weightless in comparison to the great bull of a man Ruben had become. All chorded muscle and brawn.
He looked at his brother and thought of the Minotaur. The creature with the stout head of a bull and body of a mortal man, who lived and died imprisoned in Minos’ Labyrinth simply for being as he was: a raging beast victim to his own being. Half man, half monster.
“Ava calls me daddy. In bed. I don’t ask her to, she just does, if you can believe it.”
Niall regretted it immediately. He kept his eyes and hands on his glass, watching the condensation collect and drip lazily, tilting the cup just to see white foam lap the rim.
He was being pointlessly competitive. When they were boys he never felt the need to puff up his chest for Ruben, who puffed for the both of them. Now Niall took every God granted opportunity.
It’d been one thing, Ruben taking care of him as he did, when they were kids. As a man, though, his existence was one completely impotent. He drove a car given him by another man, lived under his own woman’s roof, shagged her rarely and without any joy, borrowing and thieving from her pocket and Ruben’s both. He could as well have been their pet eunuch. He clung desperately to any evidence (falsified or not) of his retained manhood, eager to push it under his brother's nose.
“Yeah?” Ruben’s voice lowered impossibly, a crooked, prideful smile broke on his face.
His thick fingers picked at the inseam of Niall’s jeans.
“No wonder. I bet you spear her right through with that massive thing. Bet you put her on all fours, make her bloody eyes pop out of her head and shit. Little Niall Kennedy.” Ruben laughed, clapped him on the back and jostled him jovially.
There was something dangerous and playful in the set of Ruben’s eyes. The steely blue moved right through Niall, cut him open like a blade, cowardly chin to soft belly, and peered inside.
Niall could only nod jerkily. The closed-mouth smile on his face was stretched tight across his teeth, disingenuous.
The veined hand on his leg squeezed. He felt his body pull closer to Ruben’s without his permission.
It was a half-truth, really, not a lie. Niall was full of half-truths. Someone called him daddy. Many someones – but never Ava.
He thought of all of the boys: on their backs and on their knees and up against the cold doors of bathroom stalls. Many of them were fresh-faced uni boys with their whole lives on the horizon and their twiggy legs clamped around his hips or slung over his shoulders.
He’d always had to tell them to call him daddy, commanded it. It didn’t come naturally, didn’t occur to them, but it made him feel big and unlike himself, not-Niall. Someone else who was bigger, more masculine, who could fuck better, harder than he ever could. He wore it like a crown in the heat of the pushed back passenger seat of his car.
Ruben downed what was left in his glass and Niall watched the steady bob of his throat. The tattoo behind Ruben’s ear peeked up at him shyly. Kilroy was here.
Niall thought he could get his own version, Pallister was here, scrawled across his pale skin. Pallister’s bitch, perhaps more accurately.
A hand, still damp from the sweat of the glass, came around to grope the back of Niall’s neck, wrenching the two of them together. Ruben pressed his forehead to Niall’s temple and nuzzled, nose brushing Niall’s cheek, hooking under Niall’s ear and inhaling him.
His movements were languid and touches lingering. Niall felt properly drunk, swimming in his affection, dizzy with it.
Ruben’s beard scratched his throat just so and the memory, which he tried not to dwell on often, of Ruben in bed with him at the hospital hit with such force it knocked the air out of his lungs. Ruben’s hand clamped over his mouth, holding him firmly with a fist coiled around something gleaming and sharp shoved under Niall’s hospital gown.
That beard had looked strange on Ruben at the time, Niall only remembering him as the clean shaven lad who had promised to make Niall ugly in a stuffy courtroom that smelled of mildew a million years ago.
The room around him seemed to close in on itself. It was hot, too hot and the body against his swallowed him up and strangled him.
Niall thought about how they must look, Ruben who was slung over him with such little care, Niall tucked into him like — he couldn’t think about what like.
“I’m gonna go for a piss.” He mumbled, clumsily pulling himself away from Ruben and off of the barstool. He was half-surprised Ruben let him up so easily.
He walked to the bathroom, not chancing to look back. There was only a scattering of patrons left in the pub, none of whom seemed to pay any mind to him or what he was doing, but he couldn’t quiet the fear that pulsed through him full-bodied: They know what you are.
He closed the door and collapsed into the counter, turning on the sink and wetting his hands, bringing them to cool the back of his neck and his face.
Niall’s head was pounding, in need of a straightener. He, not for the first time, regretted sobriety.
After a few moments, Ruben slipped in, shirtsleeves hugging the bulge of his arms as he closed the door behind himself. All the air seemed to leave the room with him. Niall straightened.
“Sorry, mate. Think I’ve gotta head out. Ava…” Niall cleared his throat and shrugged, trying to be definitive.
“She’ll be waiting up, will she?” Ruben smiled and took a step forward. Niall’s pulse quickened.
“Well,” He swallowed thickly. “She always does.” That was partially true. He’d told her not to wait for him that night, though.
“Daddy’s gonna teach her a lesson tonight, yeah?” Ruben teased, smile turning sharp.
“Christ, Ruben. You’re a sick bastard, y’know that? Fuck off, I’ve gotta get goin’.”
He tried and failed to squeeze past Ruben, who careened back into his path, laughing. He made to grab Niall’s arm but Niall batted him away seriously.
Ruben paused, craning his neck downwards to meet him at eye-level. They were able to communicate like that, with looks alone. When Ruben reached towards him again Niall didn’t stop him.
“Big shaggin’ cock Niall Kennedy,” Ruben walked him a few steps backwards into the wall. “Don’t get so worked up, Bambers, I’m just messin’. C’mere, Bambi. Relax.”
Niall let his eyes fall shut as Ruben’s fingers carded through his hair, pet at his cheeks and ran down his shoulders, settling finally and firmly on his chest,
“Settle. Your heart’s goin’ mad.”
“Ruben…” Niall whined childishly. He liked it in truth, relished the comfort that came with Ruben’s attention, his praise. Who else evoked from him such fear and desire?
“I wanna see it,” Ruben breathed the words like a secret. Niall barely heard him, face screwed together in some distant worry.
He smells like beer, was the thought he was stuck on.
The roaming hands found themselves at his sides, holding him a bit harder, needlessly so. Niall let Ruben fit them together, chest-to-chest.
He felt himself being turned around gently. When Niall opened his eyes he was looking at himself in the cracked and dirty mirror that hung over the single sink, back against the hard line of his brother's body.
He looked tired. He always looked tired, he could sleep for thirty years and it wouldn’t smooth the bags from under his eyes, the worry lines from his brow, creased even then. His eyes were two big, black holes bored into his head, his mouth a perpetual frown. Ruben still held him at his middle. The wedding ring on his left hand shone in the pallid light.
“C’mon, daddy. Show me what you’re gonna do to ‘er.” It was mocking now, the playfulness leeched out of it.
Niall went rigid. Again his cock throbbed between his legs. Ruben’s eyes were heavy lidded and dark in the reflection.
“That’s enough,” Niall made to move out of Ruben’s grip, but thick arms wound around him quickly. Ruben rocked them for a moment until Niall went still, breath coming out in short, scared puffs.
Ruben reached for Niall’s belt with one hand, locking him against his chest with the other. Niall’s arms flew up from his sides, grasping desperately at his jailer's forearm.
“Stop! Stop, stop, stop Ruben, please.” His own voice was thin and pitiful in his ears.
What they both already knew, because Niall could feel the strain and Ruben could see it in the mirror, tenting the front of his jeans, was that Niall was hard, abominably so. He was so turned on he felt like he might pass out from lack of blood supply to the brain.
Niall began to truly claw at Ruben then, thrashing in his arms like a fish out of water, digging his short nails into any part of Ruben he could reach.
Ruben shushed him, not meanly, pausing to finger the hem of his shirt, before his palm, warm and huge, found its way under the fabric to lay flat against his bare stomach. His blunt fingers ran hesitantly over the scar that decorated Niall’s abdomen.
“Don’t, please,” Niall tried one more time. Hot tears threatened to spill down his cheeks.
“You’re alright, son. Just breathe. Breathe with me, you know how,” Ruben inhaled and exhaled deeply, setting a pace, and Niall, trembling, tried to follow his lead, breaths shaky and catching in his throat.
“That’s a good lad, there you are,” Ruben’s voice was thick with something he’d heard only once or twice before.
Niall tried to say something back. A high-pitched, strangled noise came out in its place.
Ruben resumed his fumbling with Niall’s belt, finally getting it undone after several failed attempts. He shoved Niall’s trousers and boxers out of the way with little resistance.
Niall really did have quite a large penis. Surprisingly so, came the feedback he often got. It was pink, slightly upturned with a wonderfully blushing red tip, begging to be touched. Ruben ran his fingers along his cock lightly.
“Fuckin' beauty,” Ruben mouthed the shell of his ear, head locked over his shoulder.
Sweat broke on Niall’s forehead. He tried half-heartedly to wiggle away again but Ruben grabbed the base of his cock and squeezed it so hard Niall yelped and smacked his shoulder a few times rapidly as if to tap out.
Niall wanted to hit him as hard as he could. He wanted to stay gelled together like this forever, be entombed curled into each other like two perfectly fitting puzzle pieces.
Ruben loosened his vice grip on Niall’s chest, rubbing circles into his breastbone with the heel of his palm. He brought his other hand up to Niall’s face, letting his cock bob in the cool air.
Niall shook his head ‘no’, earning him a light slap on the cheek. Niall felt like a teenager. Ruben offered his hand once more and Niall, abandoning any dignity he retained, stuck out his tongue and lapped at it, letting spit pool in the palm. Ruben’s breath stuttered behind him.
“Good.” His voice was un-wavered but Niall could feel how Ruben melted into his body.
A thin trail of saliva dribbled down Niall’s chin. He relaxed slightly, letting Ruben support his weight, leaning back into him.
Ruben wrapped around his prick, hot and wet; his vision went spotted.
His hand was calloused and the rhythm erratic, if it was anyone else in any other context it almost wouldn’t have been a good handjob. Slow, like he was trying to make a point, but impatient with sudden snaps of his wrist that made pleasure ripple through Niall’s body.
It was startling even seeing Ruben’s hands, which he knew like his own, on him in such a way. The wedding ring caught painfully against Niall’s skin with every few passes of Ruben’s fist.
It got better after the initial adjustment, smoother, like Ruben figured out what he was doing. Niall could've exploded into flame. Ruben grazed the head of his cock and he whined, hating the noise even as it came out of him.
He’d never been particularly noisy during sex, always too ashamed.
Ruben caught the hint and did it again, bringing his thumb up to fondle the tip while he stroked the length of him. Niall bit into the meat of his lip hard enough to draw blood.
“That’s it, darlin’. I gotcha.”
His heart fluttered. Ruben had built up quite the repertoire of nicknames for Niall over the years but that one was new, laced with affection. The name wound itself around his ribcage, saccharine and pink, and made him purr.
Distantly, in the pub, someone shouted loud enough to startle Niall into remembrance. Neither of them had bothered with the lock on the door. His head snapped towards the source of the noise and a hand wrapped tightly around Ruben’s wrist, trying to still him.
“The fucking door’s unlocked. Someone could –”
“Doesn’t matter.” Ruben cut him off, voice gravel in his throat.
Ruben shifted, pulling them impossibly closer. Niall felt the full outline of Ruben’s cock against his ass. He could’ve cum right then, just from the thought of it, had to grit his teeth and squeeze his eyes shut not to.
Terror lanced through him at the idea that someone could walk in at any moment and see them, see Niall, like this. He bucked into Ruben’s fist.
Ruben rutted against him like he was trying to fuck him through their clothes. He watched Niall writhe in the mirror, maw hung open, red and hungry like a wolf.
More than anything he’d ever wanted Niall wished Ruben would take it out and fuck him properly — bend him over the sink and turn him into a bleeding mess. Maybe bash his head into the porcelain sink until he died to save him the shame afterwards as well.
“What’s my name, Niall?” Ruben panted. His eyes blazed and sputtered in the reflection. Their temples slid together, slick with sweat.
“Daddy, daddy, dad, dad, dad.” Niall rattled off mindlessly between little hiccups of breath. His brain had stopped working completely, feeling only the divine heat of Ruben’s skin against his.
Niall came hard. It was like having the soul ripped straight from his body.
Before he could even begin to recover he was being spun around by his shoulders and shoved roughly to the ground. His knees hit the tile with a thud he knew from experience would leave dusky red bruises in its wake.
“Open,” Ruben grabbed a fistful of his hair painfully, wrenching his head upwards. Niall had to blink a few times to register what was going on.
Ruben shoved down the front of his joggers and pulled his cock out. It was just as big as the rest of him, veined beautifully and set in a bed of surprisingly well-kept thick, black curls. Niall wished he had longer to admire it.
Niall happily obliged, letting his mouth gape. He held onto Ruben’s clothed thigh for support.
He hoped Ruben would fuck his throat, make him choke on his prick until he suffocated. He wondered thoughtfully if he’d use Niall as a urinal – men had asked him to do it before. It’d always been a ‘no’ in the past.
Ruben stroked himself hurriedly, teeth buried in his lower lip, eyes locked with Niall’s. Energy crackled around him.
Ruben moaned, girly and unguarded and embarrassing and came on Niall’s face. It seared. What made it into his mouth he swallowed, licking his lips without thinking. Niall’s flaccid cock twitched.
They stilled for a moment, breathing in time with one another, hard and labored.
Ruben straightened, tucking himself back into his trousers. He stepped around Niall, still splayed, boneless on the floor, and ran his hands under the sink. Red cat scratches littered his wrists and biceps.
“I’ll get the tab.” His voice was hoarse. Ruben adjusted the collar of his shirt in the mirror and slunk out the door without a look behind him.
Niall, slightly braindead, stumbled to his feet like a baby animal on new legs, his pants tangled around his ankles. Later his entire body would ache – he was at that age.
The air in the room was muggy and smelled like sex; it was jarringly reminiscent of his days cruising various public bathrooms. He cleaned himself up as quickly as possible and with dread coiling in his stomach wondered if Ruben had seen the thin, pale scars that adorned his thighs and hip bones.
Somehow in the midst of all that had happened a button had been ripped clean off the middle of his shirt. It lay helpless and lonesome under the sink. Niall didn’t bother.
At the bar, Ruben shoved his wallet back into the pocket of his brown leather jacket.
He seemed to still be catching his breath when Niall cautiously approached.
“Still on for dinner tomorrow, yeah? With the girls?” Ruben spoke, head down to avoid making eye contact. His body was taut as a rope.
Niall remembered the first time, with Mona. He had looked only at Ruben’s face, handsome and calm and so sure, eyes all leaping blue flame. Then, the morning after, Ruben, bashful and contemplative – nervous, almost, like he knew he’d done something wrong and was waiting for his lashing.
“Sure. Of course.” Niall felt like a deer that’d stood stupidly in the road as a truck barreled towards it, guts and brains splattered all across the asphalt in a gruesome display.
They would add this to the list of things they didn’t talk about, Niall knew.
Ruben stood for a second too long, chewing the inside of his mouth (a bad habit he’d never kicked.)
When he met Ruben’s eyes, however briefly, they were dark and sad. He nodded, finally, giving Niall a resolute ‘mm’ and leaving through the front of the pub.
Niall slipped his coat over his shoulders and walked empty-headed to his car.