Work Text:
Oxford was not the freedom that Niall had been looking for.
Ruben followed him like a shadow, lurking in the dark corners of every room he entered. He never left his mind, no matter how hard he tried to push him away. Niall woke up most nights in a pool of sweat, gasping for air that refused to fill his lungs, and he wouldn't be able to sleep again until he checked every inch of his flat to make sure that someone else wasn't inside.
He imagined Ruben meeting people in prison. He imagined him telling them about how his brother had betrayed him on the stand and gotten him sentenced to the clink. He imagined Ruben striking up deals with those people and sending them after him.
We won't come back from this. I will make you fucking ugly.
Ruben may have been the one in prison, but Niall felt like he was the one trapped inside a cage.
His studies were becoming too hard to focus on. All of his attention was on the looming threat of Ruben's retaliation. Every time Niall thought of him, the further behind he got, and soon enough, he was sending out a notice and filling out the paperwork to drop out of Oxford.
He told Joanna that it was because of the snootiness -- that everyone around him gave off the air of being better than him -- but deep down, he knew that if he stayed here for any longer, Ruben just might appear on his doorstep and kill him.
Niall moved flats to try to ease his mind, but after one of his neighbors stared at him for too long one morning, he no longer felt safe, not even in the comfort of his own walls. He tore every room of his flat apart, convinced that someone had been inside while he was away and bugged the place. He had grown too paranoid to sleep, especially in his own room, and when he did finally give in to exhaustion, Niall found himself stumbling out to the garden and collapsing into the bushes to rest for a few fitful hours. His neighbors had finally had enough of him when one of them woke up to him outside, tearing up the telephone wires, fearful that Ruben had tapped into them and was listening to his calls, trying to figure out where he was, trying to figure out what he was saying.
His mother demanded that he return home after that, and Joanna came up to get him. The only way she could convince Niall to go with her was by promising him that Ruben was still locked away and that no one back home was looking for him.
Part of Niall didn't believe it, but he allowed Joanna to take him home.
×××
He tried not to think about Ruben when he was meeting up with other men in dirty bathrooms, or in his car, or in dark parking lots. He went for guys who looked like him, or were fat and ugly, or anyone who just didn't look like Ruben.
It didn't matter, though.
Niall thought about Ruben's cheek pressed up against his, his hand squeezing his face. He thought about Ruben's other hand wrapped around the base of his cock, his breath falling across Niall's face.
Walk. Don't trot.
He squeezed his eyes shut and tried not to imagine someone else underneath him -- someone bigger, someone with hard blue eyes, someone with a gold chain and ring around his neck. Someone who could snap him in half and choke the life out of him. Someone who could make him ugly.
He dug his teeth into his bottom lip to muffle himself, swallowing down a desire that he would not let himself have.
×××
Niall let his teeth grind against the pen cap, the plastic denting and scratching under his molars. In his cramped flat, he labored over his laptop, fingers clacking away on the keyboard as he tried to finish his first novel.
The blinds were shut tight, and he had checked the lock on the door at least three times before he sat down. It didn't stop the hair on the back of his neck from constantly prickling, though, and Niall kept glancing around him every few words, feeling like there were eyes on him everywhere.
Niall moved to pick up his pen from his desk, scribbling down a plot note for later on his notepad. He moved his fingers up to his mouth, parting his lips to pull the pen cap from between his teeth, but he suddenly stopped himself.
He thought of Ruben getting out of prison. He thought about Ruben getting into his flat and looking through his things while Niall was out. He thought about Ruben finding his chewed-up pen caps covered in dents from his teeth and his saliva. He thought of Ruben using something just as simple as his ruined pen caps to finally destroy Niall once and for all.
Before he could stop himself, Niall was swallowing, choking down the pen cap. It scratched his throat and sat like lead in his belly, but at least it was safe from Ruben's touch.
And if twenty-nine more joined it in the following weeks, that was for Niall to know and worry about later.
×××
Niall lay on his back in the bed in his childhood bedroom. He had been back from the hospital for a few days now, stuck under his mother's roof until he could prove himself well enough to leave again.
His hand slid down his bare belly, lingering along the healing scar on his stomach from his gut operation. His fingers dragged over the raised flesh, and his stomach turned as Ruben wriggled his way into his mind.
He thought about how they were matching now. Niall had his belly scar from his surgery, and Ruben had his belly scar from the stab wound he had received and then superglued shut when they were younger. He wondered what Ruben would think of it if he were able to see it now. They shared everything. Ruben had said that to him before.
Niall dug his nails into the healing skin until it hurt and closed his eyes.
×××
Niall spent his nights torn between stalking Mona's Facebook page and sitting outside Ruben's house in his car after using his business card to find the address. There was no sign of Ruben anywhere on social media, so Mona's page was the only thing that he had to go off of. He didn't know where else Ruben went during the day, and he was too scared to follow him, so the house was the only place where Niall could watch him. He must have been on his three months off because he was home with Mona every night.
He watched Ruben through the windows, trying to imagine what his life could possibly be like now that he was on the outside and had seemingly begun to forget about Niall's existence despite funding everything for him. He tried to imagine why Ruben thought that he didn't need to come and apologize to Niall. He had ruined his life the most.
He tried to imagine Ruben coming to him. It didn't fill him so much with fear but with something else. He tried to imagine Ruben groveling, begging for Niall's forgiveness as he apologized.
Niall chose to ignore the meaning behind it as his hands ended up down the front of his jeans.
×××
Niall lay stiff as a board on the hospital bed, stuck like a deer in headlights under Ruben's piercing blue gaze. His eyes flicked between Ruben's face and the hood ornament in his hand. "I-I didn't know it was your driveway---"
"Have it your way then," Ruben snarled at him before he threw himself on top of Niall. Niall turned in his bed, raising his arms up to shield himself, but Ruben clambered on top of him, straddling his waist as he grabbed at Niall's forearms, fingers digging in hard enough to bruise. "This is what you came back for?" he hissed, face pressed against Niall's neck as he struggled, one large hand cupping over Niall's mouth as he attempted to cry out for help. "Wasn't it, Bambi? This is what you wanted?"
The pet name was sour on Ruben's tongue, spat like venom, and it made Niall sick to hear. This wasn't what he wanted. This wasn't how he wanted it.
Ruben's fingers dug into his cheeks as he shoved Niall onto his side, pressing him into the mattress. Niall's hands shot up to Ruben's hand over his mouth, digging his nails into the back of his palm. Ruben pinned his legs to the mattress, his other hand shoving itself up under Niall's hospital gown to pull his boxers down to his knees.
Ruben's mouth pressed against his ear, his beard tickling Niall's skin. "This is what you've always wanted from me, Bambi?" he taunted.
"Don't, please---" Niall begged into Ruben's palm, hands scrambling for purchase on the sheets.
Niall howled into Ruben's palm as his fingers and the hood ornament were shoved into him repeatedly, pressing deeper and harder each time. It was agony and punishment. Ruben had always handled him roughly until he broke, even when they had been younger. He kicked and flailed until his mouth slipped free of Ruben's palm, screaming out for help that he knew wouldn't come.
Ruben rolled him onto his back, crushing him under his weight as Niall babbled, trying to buy himself time. He held Ruben's forearm tightly with both hands to steady himself, feeling the rapid pulse of his brother under his fingers. He knew he was beginning to say the wrong things, and he shot out of the hospital bed as soon as he could before Ruben could strangle him with some cording on the wall, limping to the other side of the room.
"I'll beg for forgiveness," he pleaded to Ruben, "if that's what you want."
Niall knew that Ruben didn't want to see him beg. Ruben wanted to see him hurt. And that nasty, evil, twisted part of Niall that he had been trying to push down for over the past decade and a half wanted Ruben to hurt him.
He took the shoves. He allowed Ruben to throw him to the floor. He accepted the kick in the gut and backtalked enough in hopes of once again seeing that familiar rage in Ruben that had been present all throughout their youth. He let Ruben ridicule him for providing in secret for Niall over the years when Niall hadn't been able to take care of himself.
"I'm your fucking muse," Ruben spat in his face. "I'm the reason you have meaning in your miserable life!"
And Ruben was right. The reason why Niall had any purpose to keep living was Ruben. Ruben had been the one to shape Niall into the man he was today, and he had also been the one to destroy his life, haunting his every waking moment. He was so ever-present that his next book idea was about him.
He brought up Maura to make him angrier, being rewarded with Ruben tackling him onto one of the other hospital beds in the room before tossing him across the room into one of the metal cabinets.
He hoped that Ruben would kill him at some point. He deserved it. To be killed by Ruben's hand would have been a blessing. It was the least he could do after ruining his life.
Niall got up to his feet shakily, and everything that was on his mind came tumbling out. His hatred for Maura. The use of illness to blame the horrific acts Ruben had committed in the past. His jealousy of Ruben.
"I hate everything about you," Niall choked out, "and the giant shadow you cast, which seems to turn with the sun whichever way I'm walking." His bottom lip trembled. "But that doesn't stop me...wanting every bit of it."
He told Ruben of his loneliness, the depression, his longing for an apology. He brought up the blackmailing from the library owner and tried to ignore the swoop low in his gut as Ruben's eyes just barely narrowed in interest.
"I'm bitter that I had the whole world at my fingertips," Niall gritted out, voice cracking, "and I squandered it all thinking about you."
Ruben's eyes narrowed further. "What the fuck are you talking about?"
Niall stared at him for a moment, shocked that Ruben could be so blind, so stupid. He blurted out everything about the past years as he collapsed onto the furthest hospital bed -- the guilt from the court case, the threat of becoming ugly, the insomnia, the pulled-up telephone wires, the swallowed pen lids and paranoia, the madhouse, the surgery. All because he had been telling the truth. All because he hadn't lied and said that Ruben had been groped by Alby.
"So, just be safe in the knowledge that when you're imagining the worst kind of revenge for me," Niall said, staring up at Ruben, "nothing can come close to the damage that I've unleashed on myself. So, go ahead, Ruben, fucking kill me." He sounded like he was almost begging him. "I'm already dead."
Ruben's blue eyes bored into him for a moment before he slowly turned to head towards the bed Niall had previously been inhabiting. He sat down, the silence stretching between them. "I didn't know any of this," he said after a minute. "Your mum never said that part...The part about the hospital."
Niall was slightly taken aback. "It's good to know she still has some respect for me left."
"You're getting blackmailed?"
Niall shrugged. "Yeah, sort of."
Ruben stared at him, unblinking. "You know their name?"
Niall's stomach dropped for a moment, and he tried to push away the slight shock of giddiness that followed it. The memory of Gus beaten black and blue and Alby's head getting stomped into the floor helped to stem it.
He shook his head slightly. "No...not like that."
"What do you need?"
"Money."
Ruben's eyes never left his face. "I've got money."
He hesitated, knowing that nothing could come free from the man across from him. "And what do you want in return?"
The silence stretched between them again for a moment.
"An apology..." Ruben demanded. "For what you did."
Niall looked away, feeling unsure. "That's it?"
Ruben's blue eyes burned his skin. "It's a lot, Niall. It's a hell of a lot."
Niall exhaled and nodded slightly, swallowing his pride that he had been trying to hold onto for nearly a decade and a half. "I'm sorry."
Ruben's eyes searched his face for a moment before he tilted his head slightly, his gaze finally leaving Niall. He hummed, considering the words with a sigh. Niall watched as his face contorted, twitching, and he prepared himself for the worst.
"Well, I'm sorry, too."
Niall lifted his head, surprised, and watched Ruben for a moment, waiting for him to laugh or something to show that he didn't mean it. When nothing changed, he gradually slid off of the hospital bed mattress and lingered between the two beds, unsure if he should approach as Ruben looked him up and down.
Niall slowly crossed the distance between the two beds, placing his hand on Ruben's shoulder. His head tilted slightly, asking an unspoken question with his eyes, and before he could do anything else, Ruben's muscular arms wrapped around him, pulling him close.
Niall settled himself into Ruben's lap as he wrapped his own arms around Ruben's neck, letting himself be engulfed in his brother's hold. Ruben pressed his face into the crook of Niall's neck, inhaling deeply, and he hummed low in his chest, the sound rumbling through Niall's own body.
Niall stared off over Ruben's shoulder and allowed himself to finally relax for the first time in nearly fifteen years, hoping that Ruben wouldn't let him go again.