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For the last couple minutes he’s been a dead weight on the mattress, laying here beneath the covers in a bed he’s often dreamed about all too vividly within the past decade. Moonlight sneaks through the thin curtains, veiling the room in an incandescent sheen, a soft gloss of white brightening up the walls and floorboards and their beds. Ruben can’t stop staring at the mess on the floor. Boots sitting in the corner. They’re beside Niall’s beaten up shoes—a pair of pale cream and navy-striped Adidas sneakers he remembers gifting Niall for Christmas.
Blooming in his stomach and steadfast in its rise, a chest-pressure settles there, warm when expanding, stirring alive. Trepidation (since picking up reading in prison his vocabulary has expanded, even in silent moments with no one to impress). Fear he might have actually gone mad—crazy—because he can recall everything.
Barn doors closing. Hands squeezing the life out of Niall’s throat. Blood—his own dripping all over Niall’s kilt. Niall—motionless and open-eyed on the dirty floor. Dead—and him following the same fate soon after.
This all should seem impossible.
Their matching lamps side by side, small and familiar, right next to his head—so close he can stretch his arm out and tug at the thin metal chain, brighten up the room with one downward tug—he can, he should.
Ruben knows he should still feel that anger—the murderous rage of a man scorned—yet throughout these minutes the anger has died down into a waning flicker, weak and quickly forgotten because here, he is simply a boy, and across the room rests his brother, also a boy.
Bambi—his sweet-faced Bambi. Doing something naughty under the covers, either believing Ruben has already fallen asleep or believing Ruben’s ears aren’t catching every wet note of those palm-humping squelches, the needy thrusts boring down into a friction-chasing fist, the tiny, voice-cracking whimper too sharp to be muffled against the pillowcase. Ruben knows what he’s up to under there—used to hear him often, had always let him think he was quiet enough, unheard. Because his Bambi—restless little thing—always sounded too small on those nights. Breakable, capable of being worn down even more than he usually seemed, and if Ruben had chosen to go through with teasing him, Niall probably would have cried, turned ripe-tomato red, stammered out some piss-poor excuse. Grown even more cautious, even more secretive, even more ashamed of having a needy body that sometimes spilled all over the sheets.
Precious—that word invades Ruben’s mind and sticks there, sap clinging onto bark. Listening to his blush-prone boy failing in keeping quiet; again, the mattress springs whine beneath the next thrust, sharp and ear-ringing in the near-silent house; there’s another pleasure-startled whimper breaking free, airing out between lips gone slack. Louder than the bed-creaks, this warbling note straining thin inside Niall’s throat, pitching up-up-up in volume. Nearly a full-on cry. Noise that coaxes Ruben into motion—because that’s his boy yet to betray him, his aching boy who must be thinking of no one else, except for him; his breathless baby brother stiff and leaking, on the verge of wailing. Desperate to come, seeking relief. Desperate, Ruben can guess, for touch. Gentle touch, affection on the body: along sweat-glossed skin, across throbbing muscle. Maybe he even craves Ruben’s hand threading through his hair, tender thumb-strokes around the nape where, naturally, the skin runs warm, shame-pink and peach-soft.
Ruben feels sick with the want to see him and hold him and touch him, stomach churning in on itself—one hand shaking when yanking harshly on the lamp switch. Feet pressing along the cold hardwood, he folds the blanket back, slips out of bed before crossing the small gap between them, chest shuddering through three hitching breaths. All the noises—the slick slide of Niall’s clumsy-working fist, the protest stemming from the rickety bedposts—have ceased. Abrupt in their end—though the echoes linger. And the blanket ruffles the slightest bit beneath Niall’s knees drawing up, instinctively pulling themselves back in, close to what must be Niall’s rabbit-fast rising chest.
Gentle. Ruben craves to embody that. Gentleness. For his shy boy.
If he were still as mentally young as his body, he might have thrown out some joke, a bid for banter, but he can’t manage one word right now, his useless tongue knotting up and his mouth drier than the stale air, because Niall’s unmoving beneath the covers, barely breathing, it seems.
Precious Bambi feigning sleep. Pretending to be a good, sleeping boy. Probably white as a sheet because, finally, he’s been caught: slick-handed and his voice whimper-worn. Floorboards creak beneath Ruben’s bare heels. Four more steps and he’s there—could kneel down beside Niall’s bed. He could, but chooses otherwise. Less distance. His arm—almost shaking—rises and curves toward its target.
Fingers grazing the blanket’s border, Ruben lifts it up. Lips parting around a gasp that comes out thin and small as Niall’s own moments ago. His boy is right there. Beautiful. Blushing. Bambi, sweet Bambers. Both knees nearly give out at once. He swallows around an airless sound, the sandpaper-swallow interrupting the quiet, tension-filled moment. Praying the tear-clung corners of Niall’s eyelids remain closed—not opening just yet—as Ruben slides into the too-small bed, knees knocking into Niall’s bony ones. He’s suddenly overcome with the urge to cry, throat tightening up, starving eyes mapping that tiny wrinkle of distress dead-center of Niall’s forehead; a face Ruben hasn’t seen in so long. His blush-sweet, shy baby brother who looks so impossibly young at this moment, younger than Ruben can remember. Broad shoulders shame-shrunken, a terrible, stomach-sinking sight. Because it’s partly Ruben’s fault. His lifelong self-consciousness, currently fearing what Ruben may do or say, bracing for a taunting.
If he were truly his younger self, teasing would be in the cards, maybe a “needy little faggot” tossed out without regard. But he knows those words will stick with Niall long after. Decades after. Doing that would lead to them ending up in the same situation: Niall afraid to come out, Ruben stomping Alby’s face in.
Estrangement, unfixable.
Tenderness, here and now within his sweet Bambi’s bed, is crucial. Ruben makes sure every moment unfolds as slow as possible, unrushed, non-startling: one palm cradling his Bambi’s overheating cheek, his thumb stroking over the ridge of cheekbone where the skin’s tear-damp and smooth, his neck arching when leaning in to press warm lips along the endearing wrinkle between his sweet Bambi’s eyebrows.
Lingering there—in the moment—against the softness there—he breathes in, nostrils flaring. Drinks up that scent: vanilla and sandstone, subtle in its sweetness but not too soft. Eyelids collapsing the moment warmth meets an even softer warmth. Niall lets out a tiny gasp, breathless around the edges. Fresh and searing, a tear soaks Ruben’s thumb-pad. Lashes fluttering open, because he needs to see his precious boy, Ruben cannot stop staring. Mouth ceaseless in its path over Niall’s forehead, nose, one reachable cherry-red cheek.
Niall’s all balled up in the bed.
Limbs tight with tension: one hand that’s dirty, pre-cum glistening three knuckles, tight-fisted around shirt-fabric; his other cheek smushed into the pillow, probably redder than fresh blood-spill; both thighs clasped against each other; unfallen tears clinging onto lashes; bottom lip getting teethed down to rawness; his other hand somewhere behind the pillow.
Ruben’s tongue tries to function. Bambi. Bambers. Ultimately, speech fails him while soaking in this sorely missed sight; a rarely, if ever, unspoken endearment flashes through Ruben’s mind.
Baby.
Tender-soft, each letter rests in his mouth, latched down by his teeth. This right here is Ruben’s baby. This sweet, blushing mess: a baby Niall.
These various endearments could hold similar weight on Ruben’s tongue, but his mouth shapes the first option. Expected. Less startling than the cautious meeting of their foreheads, the nuzzling of their noses. “Bambi,” he whispers—almost coos without conscious thought.
Niall flinches, mouth trembling open. Brown eyes snapping open, wet and widening in panic. “I wasn’t—I swear, Ruben, I wasn’t—”
“I heard you, Bambers,” he cuts off the stammering, endearing as it is. Leaning their foreheads closer together, still nuzzling Niall’s red-tipped button nose, one thumb-pad catching the countless slow-spilling tear. “Practically hyperventilating under there, and that frantic little fist of yours—so damn clumsy.”
Lids falling shut again, Niall rasps out a wounded, tiny sound smaller than breath, brittle, a devastating sound Ruben’s mouth wants to swallow up. This side of him, soft and wanting and needy and flushing, will be Ruben’s downfall. Maybe it would have always been, if one of these past nights, fear of giving in hadn’t been the uncrossable bridge keeping them apart, keeping them from closing that distance. Niall’s fingers clench within shirt-fabric—a nervous reflex because the air is still, the room is quiet, they are almost chest to chest, kneecaps touching, warm and real and the tension undeniable.
Needy boy. Precious boy. Bashful boy.
My shy boy.
Ruben’s hand drags down Niall’s tear-damp cheek, down Niall’s cotton-soft ribcage and waistline, down to falter along the waistband of Niall’s boxers—grey and damp through the crotch—and his fingers brush the fine trail of hair there, these soft-fingertipped strokes over sensitive skin already gone clammy from exertion and the clinging shirt hem just above. “Been holding in that ache for so long, haven’t you, precious?” Niall’s breath cuts short, hips starting to squirm through a restless thrust when—finally and with tender-fingered focus—Ruben’s warm, broad hand slips inside to find the slick-sticky heat of his neglected cock. “You don’t have to bear that burden alone, Bambers, not anymore. I’ll help you, sweet thing, give you anything.”
Breath rushing out in one trembling moan—airy and jaw-slack—Niall arches his hips forward, further into the clasp of Ruben’s hand. Bucking up into the bony fingers binding around the girth of him, the tender-throbbing swell of his cock, leaking out more sweltering bursts of pre-cum. “Ruben,” he pants out, growing breathless as his eyelids squeeze even tighter, evolving into a mewling, needy wreck after one promising upstroke. Niall’s fingers unravel and find sanctuary within their fistfuls of Ruben’s sleep shirt, clinging on for dear life.
Because this is his first time with a boy. Because he’s always wanted to be a soft thing in Ruben’s hand—anyone with eyes could see that. Because he’s already so close, three cautious strokes in and scrunching his kissable face up—his eyebrows knitting together, his lips trembling around another ragged breath, his cheeks flushing deeper, his tear-wilting lashes shining against warm lamp light, his nose bumping into Ruben’s when he tries hiding face-first in the pillow, his voice splintering beneath a shrill whine when Ruben’s thumb roams higher to sweep through the slickness welling from his oversensitive slit, rubbing firm and slow.
“Don’t have to hide from me, Bambers,” Ruben says, his own voice breathless and wearing thin. “Never around me, you know that?” Palm cupping Niall’s overheating cheek, he keeps them face to face, unwilling to let Niall turn away. Needs all this, too: this closeness, this sharing of breath, this tender press between their bodies: forehead against forehead, knees brushing knees. Ruben keeps his strokes steady but gentle enough to never near a blistering pace. Niall’s cock, warm and pulsing and mourning from the inside out, lacks the same calloused experience as his own. Lips pressing against Niall’s cheek, he nuzzles his nose there. More comfort. Grounding them both. “I wanna see you, my shy boy.”
The moment he comes, a soft shuddering, spurting release inside Ruben’s fist—a sob wrenches free—and Ruben can’t stand it. The tremor enwrapped in Niall’s voice, like he’s afraid of finishing too soon, like he’s expecting a mocking, like he doesn’t believe he deserves anything this sweet: the tender clasp of a brother’s guiding hand, easing him through an overwhelming first, being held inside a palm and urged nowhere else, simply here, a doting brother’s hand, between warm fingers that only seek to cradle him close, flesh against flesh and nothing less.
God—Niall sounds so small when wailing out Ruben’s name, fingers digging into Ruben’s ribcage. He sounds far younger than Ruben can remember, childlike in a manner that makes Ruben’s eyes burn and Ruben’s throat tighten up. His breath, shuddering and tearful, warms Ruben’s lips—the closest thing they experience to sharing a kiss. He’s a soft thing beneath tender touch, unsurprising but no less soul-warming. His thighs squeezing tight, entrapping Ruben’s wrist. His glimmering lashes trembling, star-bright against the faint glow in their bedroom. His voice breaking beneath a keen, a rasping cry that pierces through the quiet—a cry that, under any other circumstance, would require shushing.
Now, though, even in the dead of night?
Ruben wouldn’t dare. Never, when he can barely breathe himself, lungs turning into airless sacks because he’s got his boy back, his cherished treasure collapsing against his chest, shyly clinging on and tucking a wet cheek against his neck, seeking comfort there, shelter from the prying moon and their mums.
I missed you, Ruben almost confesses, easing Niall through one final aftershock. Instead, he slips his hand out from Niall’s boxers; tells himself they can get Niall cleaned up better in the morning; but for now he can do the bare minimum for Niall, kissing a sweaty temple and letting the affection linger there for a handful of heartbeats, one, two, three, sparing a moment to tenderly brush his fingertips over Niall’s hip bones and soft underbelly, these indulgent comfort-instilling caresses, eventually threading his fingers around the waistband of Niall’s boxers and slipping them off careful centimeter by careful centimeter, slow and gentle.
For his shy boy.
For his panting boy who blushes brighter.
Fearing being seen, more eventful baring of his pale, inexperienced body. Niall’s stomach must be swooping.
Ruben tosses the garment to the ground. Letting it slip away without care, smearing the mess soiling his hand along his sleep pants, fast and unbothered about the likelihood of it crusting over. Unable to resist, his mouth presses its reassurance along the tense line of Niall’s forehead—over that worried wrinkle of self-consciousness.
“Precious,” he murmurs, a soft breath between them, and adores the small, throat-caught gasp stirring the air around them, knuckles curving against Niall’s cheekbone and stroking tender circles there. “Prettiest flower in the field, you are. My Bambers.”
Laying it on thick usually isn’t his style. But he’d rather come on too strong than have Niall think he’s unimpressed, unaffected, unfeeling when it comes to intimacy between them. Loving him outright; that’s what this was and is and always will remain. Love, the tender flutter of the heart, the untimely uptick. Niall deserves every bit of this, the affection that’s closer to coddling, the gentle wipe-down between his shy-spreading legs, the encouraging pull of a hand around his waist, giving him permission to curl closer, to become a beloved boy at rest against an older brother’s chest with a temple-kiss of a promise this won’t end by the time the sun rises the next morning.