Work Text:
Niall Kennedy’s finger traces the top of the glass, watching the yellow liquid of his drink sit flatly near the brim. He hasn’t had anything to drink in a while, but he supposes that this occasion fits the bill. He pulls out his cellphone, opening the texts sent earlier with a shaky breath.
Bambi
Who is this?
C’mon shagger
Cant recognize me after all this time?
Ruben?
Catching on eh
Come on now, don’t leave me hanging with my arse out in the open
Bambi
Niall
It’s rude to ignore a bloke wantin your attention
Probably wonderin where I got your cell from
I have my ways
What do you want?
Us
That isn’t very specific.
Niall scrolls hurriedly through what could barely be called a conversation. Walls of text from Ruben asking how he’s been faring without him the years he was in prison, questions about what he was eating, what he was wearing, questions about everything and nothing, with Niall often responding with short and one-word replies.
He reaches the bottom of the thread. The texts span a couple of days.
Lets have a little get together, yeah
Name the place and I’ll come running
Sandy’s near Oxford. Tomorrow around 6.
Aye, time to show out bambi
Be seeing you
And so, here he is. Niall checks the time. 6:40. Figures. It wasn’t like Ruben to be on time to anything, really. He instead chooses to focus on the noises around him, something to keep the nerves away while he anxiously waits for him to show. The steps of boots and shoes against the wooden floor. The voices of folks humming along to the music in the bar, asking for drinks, laughing at jokes.
“Waiting on someone?” The bartender asks him. He’s a little on the younger side, probably in his mid twenties. With short hair and a piercing on the ears and in-between the nostrils, an angular and sharp face with olive skin, Niall can tell he’s one of the popular ones here. He looks like some of the nameless men that he had dalliances with when doing his Master’s at Oxford– with hurried breaths, hands roaming bodies, and the uncertain silences that followed after the fact.
“Aye, I am. He is the kind of man to keep someone waiting.” Niall responds in a light tone, taking a swig of his drink.
“Shame. It’s not nice to keep a handsome man waiting.”
Niall widens his eyes before having a coughing fit. ‘I… er…”
A slam on the seat next to him. Niall nearly jumps out of his skin. The first thing he notices about him from his peripheral vision is that he’s put on quite a bit of mass. His muscular frame is imposing on the space around him, as if he’s almost too larger-than-life to fit in the spaces that try to contain him.
He quickly looks back down. Stares at the liquid and the ripples formed by his sudden appearance.
“One Highland. On the rocks.”
The bartender nods, a little shaken by the sudden appearance. Ruben's eyes bore into him menacingly, as if he could turn him into ash where he stood with one glance.
Niall is still looking at the cup. He’s terrified of what he might see if he turns his head completely.
He feels a warm hand on his back. The liquid finally stabilizes in its cup. Niall feels like he’s tethered to the Earth now, despite his body feeling a little lighter from the drink.
“Hey shagger.”
Niall continues to circle his finger around the rim.
“It’s been a minute, hasn’t it?” Niall responds, taking another swig of his drink. The hand on his back feels too warm. He figures he should take his chances and just make a break for it. Why did he agree to this? What was there to salvage? Ruben seemed amicable over the texts, but he knew. He knew the simmering rage within, the dragon that hides just beneath the surface of his wicked smile.
“Hey, look at me. You there, Bambs?” Ruben asks, his voice sharp gravel against his ears. Niall feels a chill run up his arms.
No use in fighting it now. He needs to make the best of the situation.
He turns his neck, and gets a good look at Ruben Pallister for the first time in 6 years.
His face has gotten more somber, more elongated. The baby fat is gone. He grew out the facial hair he used to complain to Niall about.
All traces of the boy he used to know are gone. Gone and replaced with something more hard and refined. His eyes still carry a sort of gravity to them, to the point where Niall feels himself being pulled into their axis.
Ruben’s face beams. He has a crooked smile, reminiscent of a shark that sees a cloud of blood floating in the water. Niall still considers him handsome.
“There you are.” Ruben remarks.
—
Several things happen at once. Ruben gets up after Niall looks him in the face. Niall feels his legs move on their own to do the same. It feels like an old routine. Wherever you go, I go.
Ruben pulls in Niall for a deep embrace, encircling his large arms around him tightly. Ruben’s nose trails down his neck quickly, breathing him in like he needs this to survive.
His grip on Niall feels suffocating. They spend a couple of minutes like that, with Niall's arms dangling uselessly until he decides to reciprocate, his right arm holding the back of Rubens head. His left wraps around his backside. Ruben notices this, and exhales shakily. He feels the warmness of the air brush his throat. Niall’s head maneuvers itself up and into his broad shoulder. A mix of standard cologne, detergent, and a masculine musk. He still smokes those shite cigarettes.
Niall tests Ruben’s grip, and wiggles a little bit to indicate just how tightly he’s being held. Ruben doesn’t budge. He spent so much time wondering what would happen when he sees him again, if Ruben’s rage could ever be contained. And yet, despite his general nervousness at the situation, the way the heat from his body makes his stomach turn on its own head, he figures one thing:
There’s no place he’d rather be.
–
The next few minutes branch off into easy conversation. Ruben’s been enrolled into a career placement program for recently released inmates. Niall's been working on a fantasy book for the publisher he’s currently employed with. He’s about halfway done with the plot.
“What field are ya lookin’ to get into?” Niall asks after hiccuping. This is his second drink. He feels an ease settle over him, his face bright while looking at Ruben.
Ruben chugs the ale he was drinking, and slams it down onto the counter. The cup stays intact, miraculously.
“They’re trainin’ me to be an electrician.”
Niall raises his eyebrows at that.
“Ruben! That’s brilliant!” Niall exclaims.
A small smile forms on Ruben’s face. Self-satisfied. He motions the bartender to get him one more glass of ale.
“I mean, you were complete shite at repairing the Nintendo when there was an issue, but…”
“Aw, piss off!” Ruben laughs and brings him into a playful embrace.
After a few bouts of loud laughter from the both of them, Niall notices from the corner of his vision wandering eyes looking at the both of them, curious and watchful, hoping that some of their happiness would rub off on them.
“But seriously, Ruben. I’m rooting for ye.” Niall says sincerely, and an unrecognizable emotion spreads on Ruben’s face.
He quickly cradles Niall’s face in his hands, bringing their heads together. Niall closes his eyes and basks in this warmth. Their breathing begins to synchronize.
“Uh… Can I get you boys anything else?” The bartender asks.
“No.” They both say in unison after separating, eyes never leaving the other.
The brisk footsteps of the bartender leaving fill Niall’s ears.
“Hey. You hear that?” Ruben says, a hint of deviousness in his voice.
“Here? In front of all these people?” Niall questions. A typical Scottish jig. Niall finds his feet moving on their own. He stares at Ruben, who locks arms with him and begins to move at a brisk pace, matching the rhythm of the bagpipes.
Niall is dumbfounded at how much Ruben has seemed to have changed with the passage of time. Back then, he would have bleached the eyes of anyone who dared to witness him dance. The almost comical contrast of it back then would put Niall into a trance. A man so capable of violence, moving so elegantly to some stupid top 100 hit played on the radio.
He remembers reading an article about how some professional fighters see their matches as a dance, a way of gouging the opponent’s intentions before finding the opportune moment to strike.
Perhaps now, he and Ruben were engaged in that very dance. Niall was looking for some ulterior motive, something unseen that he might not have picked up in all the pleasantness, all the lightness of the situation before them. A ticking time bomb. I’ll make you fucking ugly.
He watches Ruben follow his face as they move around each other, the dim bar lights illuminating the sheer joy on his face.
—
“Let’s head over to my place.” Niall suggests after the song ends.
Ruben’s eyes intensify darkly at that notion, scanning Niall’s expression for– something? Niall doesn’t know.
“Lead the way.” Ruben says simply.
He walks past Ruben, his hand brushing against his fingers. Ruben swiftly grabs them, his thumb brushing against the inside of Niall’s palm. Niall turns to look at him with a questioning look, as if to indicate, Really?
“Too much of a coocher to hold my hand, Bambers?” Ruben asks.
Niall sighs. There’s the typical Ruben, always egging him on without end.
“Well, lets get on with it then.” Niall says calmly before taking a couple of steps more.
“It’s nice to know the fags are properly leavin,” A man with a stocky build and a face full of fur says as they pass by.
A huff of breath and Niall braces for what’s to come. Ruben lets go of Niall’s hand immediately to turn to their assailant.
“Say that again, cunt.” Rubens stares him down, closing the distance between their faces inch by inch.
The man doesn't back down, despite his obvious height disadvantage. He doubles down on Ruben and takes and taps his finger on his chest with every word that comes out of his mouth to emphasize.
“No. One. Wants. Your. Lot. Here.” He spits, words dipped and caramelized in malice.
Niall’s heart begins to palpitate in his chest. Ruben cannot get into a public fight like this after being released. He can’t. They’ll throw him in there again. They will throw him in there and Niall will be standing by, like he always has, passive to the forces at play. He needs to calm him down, he needs to–
Before he can even finish the next thought, the man takes a swing at Ruben. Ruben takes the hit full force, one eyebrow raised in an expression of faux-confusion.
Niall thinks of all the things that could happen next. Prison, again. An imaginary scene with the flaring blue and red lights of police cars illuminating the crime scene. Someone beaten and bloodied to a pulp. More confessions on the stand. Prision, again. Being separated from the most important person in his life, again.
He cannot allow it. He will not allow it.
His hand grabs the glass set on the table, and smashes it into the head of the man. He falls flat onto the ground, dazed by the sudden attack.
“Don’t you fucking touch him!”
Niall doesn’t even comprehend that he’s already on top of him, punching his face repeatedly, blow after blow after agonizing blow. Thwack. Thwack. Thwack. There’s a faint pain in his knuckles beginning to creep up on him.
People are clamoring over the man in an attempt to get Niall off of him. He hears the high pitched scream of a woman, who he assumes is his girlfriend. He stops for a second just to grab the man by the neck and sees in all its grueling, cathartic, glory just what he has accomplished. The nameless man’s face is contorted. His nose is probably broken, given by the way it shifted slightly to the left. Blood is leaking out of his mouth.
A hard, mountain moving grip lifts him off of the ground. Ruben hoists Niall over his shoulder, carrying him easily while taking long strides to get them out as soon as possible. Niall protests, saying to put him down, that he’s not bloody finished.
Niall eventually stops protesting, feeling the cool air of the night hit his back as Ruben opens the door without a word. The last thing he sees of the scene is the yellow lighting of the bar illuminating the blood pooling on the ground, and the look of paralyzing fear from the young bartender.
—
The ride on Ruben’s bike to Niall’s house is silent. Niall grips onto Ruben’s waist tightly, unaware of the knuckle he used to attack seeping blood into Ruben’s shirt.
The night air of the city feels good dragging on his body, but the suffocating nature of the helmet, which Ruben had given to him to wear without a word, makes it difficult to take it all in.
At a stoplight near his home, Ruben puts his hand over Niall’s, a reassuring pressure.
“I’ve got you. We'll get you sorted, yeah?” He says tenderly.
Niall notes one thing about this.
He’s never told Ruben his address.
—
Niall shakily puts his keys into the lock, and opens the door to his home.
Ruben shuts the door promptly as he enters, locking it shut.
“Ruben, I–”
He doesn’t get a chance to speak before Ruben practically runs to him and lifts him up in a cheerful embrace, laughing like a boy while spinning them both. Niall can't help but laugh with him as he crashes them both onto the couch.
“You fuckin’ beauty, you. You were a beast.” Ruben says, light in the eyes.
A modicum of shame accompanies the sheer joy that he basks in from Ruben’s mood. He beat that man up bad. Oh god. This is going to fuck everythin’ up, isn’t it? You daft cunt. The book deal, the–
“Niall. You’re still bleeding.” Ruben says gently.
He hasn’t noticed. His mind is racing, firing all jets, wondering about how the night could have gone so wrong.
The racing is calmed when Niall feels Ruben places a gentle kiss on Niall’s knuckle. He then puts a firm grip on his neck, places their foreheads together.
“Hey. Follow my breath. That’s it. In and out, In and out.”
Niall focuses on the stability of Ruben’s breathing, the inflation and deflation of his broad chest. He takes it a step further and places his hand on Ruben’s chest, feeling the erratic thump of his heartbeat.
Human after all, huh. He thinks to himself.
“I thought about you every day in that shit hole. Wanted to know just who you were with, whether you were gettin’ along just fine without me.” Ruben confesses, staring into Niall as if he were an endless abyss.
Niall supposes that's an appropriate metaphor. He doesn’t know the depths of what he's capable of taking for Ruben.
“I thought about you every day, too.” Niall confesses.
“Then why did you never visit? Why did you abandon me?” Ruben asks. It makes him look small, vulnerable.
Niall stands up quickly, and begins to pace around the room, scratching the back of his head for some sort of stimulation or relief, and finding none.
“Are we going to address the elephant in the room, Ruben?" He says, biting.
“Aye, I thought that's what we were fuckin’ doin.”
There it is. The Ruben who pushed back. The Niall in the past might have just stopped there. But with time and the ocean of resentment he carries for everything, he can’t help but push a little harder.
“You said you were going to make me fuckin’ ugly. That we would never come back from this. And now out of the fuckin’ blue, you drop a text, wantin’ to know every bit about my life?”
“Bambi.”
“Don’t Bambi me, Ruben. What are your intentions here?”
“Reconciliation.” Ruben says plainly.
“Bullshit. If you want to take a swing at me. Do it now. Just fuckin’ do it. I’ve been on edge this entire night thinking about if you were going to kill me or not.”
“Is that really what you think of me? I’m not the one who betrayed his own family!”
“And I live every fuckin’ day with it! What choice do you think I had, huh? Don’t put the blame on me for your own actions!”
“Alby pushed you. He hurt you. I had to make an example of him.”
“He’s disfigured, Ruben! Alby will never go back to–”
Ruben suddenly stands to push Niall to the wall, his forearm against his neck. There’s no pressure, only resting against it as a display or promise of something more. Something stirs in Niall’s belly.
“Don’t ever mention that slimy fuck’s name. He’s the reason why we’re like this. He’s the reason I–”
“Alby’s not–” Ruben’s forearm pushes forward slightly.
“Alby’s not the reason we were separated, Ruben. You are.” He manages to get out.
“That fucking cunt put me in there! What could he have possibly fuckin’ done to have you beggin’ for his grace? Huh? When you should be sitting pretty against my feet, hoping for mine?”
He removes his forearm across his neck to pull Niall by the shirt. Their faces are so close. He can smell the ale in Ruben’s breath.
“Has he fought for you? Has he stood by you? Has he fuckin’ tought ya to defend yourself? Has he bled for you? Huh?”
Truth be told, he has. Niall decides to keep his mouth shut about that.
“He helped me with the publishing deal.” He says.
Ruben’s face contorts. He lets out a shaky exhale, one that devolves quickly into a full blown laughter as he takes steps back. He then grabs one of Niall’s centerpieces on his coffee table near the couch, and lobs it at the wall opposite Ruben, letting out a terrifying primal shout.
Niall doesn’t even flinch. He supposes he deserves this.
“After all this time,” Ruben scoffs in disbelief. “After all this…” His lip quivers. His face contorts with disgust.
He continues. “You get off on this? On betraying the people that look out for ye? On tearing my heart out of my chest and stompin' on it with those shiny Oxford's yer wearin'?” Niall can see the slightest bit of water coming out of the bottom of Ruben’s eyes.
“I’m gay, Ruben.” Niall confesses. The confessions this night have just been coming up like a leaking dam. Niall is just tired of it. Better to let it all out and worry about the consequences later. Just like Ruben would do.
Ruben’s eyebrows furrow, looking at Niall with bewilderment.
Niall’s had enough of standing near the wall. He walks over, dragging his feet, and takes a seat on the couch. He stares at the empty space where the vase used to be.
Ruben, not content to just let it sit, always noticeable in a room, walks to stand in front of Niall.
“How long?”
“Some part of me always knew.” Niall says blankly, staring off into nothing.
Ruben goes on his knees. Niall makes room for him by sitting with his legs apart. Ruben gingerly has one hand, trembling, raised and moving towards his face. He cups Niall’s face in his hand.
“Bambers.” His eyes are shiny and emotional. Wide and doe-eyed.
They collide. Two planets in orbit crashing into one another. The birth of something grand. If God wanted him to experience something divine, it just might be this.
He holds on tight to Ruben, his lifeline. He might die if he lets go. Ruben, turning his head, inhales the presence of him. His hands are folding together on Niall’s neck, as if the slightest gust might push him away again.
“I’m so sorry.” Ruben sobs.
“I’m sorry too.” Niall says, and he can feel a wetness drop down from his eyes and onto Ruben’s shirt.
Ruben lets out an animalistic grunt, as if his brain cannot decide on what noise is appropriate for the moment. Niall simply tightens his hold.
—
They stay interlocked like that for more than an hour. Ruben protests when Niall eventually separates them to get the first-aid kit for his hand.
Ruben begins to wipe Niall clean with the alcohol, Niall groans in pain.
“Stings.”
“I’ll bet. You did him a number, yeah? Gorgeous.”
Niall closes his eyes a little bit to focus on Ruben’s hands caressing and dressing the wound.
“Why’d you do that, Niall?”
“You just got out of prison, Ruben. I couldn’t–”
Another dab of pain. Niall hisses.
“I couldn't bear the thought of losing you again. I couldn’t.”
Ruben flashes a small, adoring smile.
“I can’t stand it,” Ruben finally says after a beat of silence.
“Stand what?”
“How am I supposed to be okay with you fancyin' blokes? I’m supposed to be the only man in your life. I’m your family. No one else. You’re mine.” He finishes wrapping up the bandage nicely.
“I’ve always been yours. Ever since that shitty weed you passed to me on the edge of our beds, when we were just lads.”
Ruben says no words, his eyes simply scanning Niall’s face blankly before he goes in to put their lips together, gently.
Niall holds his breath, goes wide-eyed, and freezes. He thinks now that the nickname so lovingly given to him is appropriate.
Ruben looks unusually bashful. Niall can feel the heat rising in his cheeks. “Shit, I’m sorry Bambers. Just—”
Niall’s had enough of that.
He moves in to bring their lips together again, and that awakens something in Ruben. He opens his mouth and kisses Niall like he’s trying to devour him whole. Niall simply moans in response, enjoying the feel of his tongue scraping across the lines of his mouth.
Niall cannot stop the feeling of relief, of pure, unadulterated joy that escapes him. It balloons up and through his lungs, releasing itself into Ruben's mouth in the form of sated sighs and wistful moans. He feels like Aragorn charging into battle, ready to take back Middle Earth.
Niall gives it right back, two fold. Both hands on his face, their tongues dancing against each other. The alcohol’s worn off, but he feels light. Floating, like a flying lantern he set off into the sky on a cloudy day with Ruben.
Niall breaks free to rub his nose against Ruben’s face, sniffing. A pleasant aftershave. Ruben basks in the attention Niall’s giving him, grabbing his hand and holding it to his heart.
“Take me to my bed, Ruben.”
“Why wait? I need you now. We can have a go right on this couch–” Ruben attempts to close the distance, with Niall retreating.
“Ruben. Please.” Niall responds.
He laughs with so much jubilee in his heart as Ruben hurriedly carries him in his arms and takes them up the stairs.
—
When they are sated and spent, done confessing world shattering truths to one another while Ruben coaxes pleasure out of Niall again and again and again with obsessive focus, they fall into an easy silence on the carpet floor of his bedroom, with Ruben spooning Niall tightly against him.
“I think I know why Hamlet was talking to that skull.” Ruben says, like he’s found the answer to life through deep contemplation and not Niall’s co–
“Teaches us somethin’. Yeah? About appreciating what time we got ‘fore the reaper comes to collect his dues.”
Niall lets the thought hang in the air.
“I lost it, Niall. I lost you. Doin’ dumb shite that I should have left when I was younger.”
“It wasn’t all bad. You protected me, when I needed someone to. A man amongst men.” Niall says, earnest.
“I don’t feel like a man without you, Bambi." Ruben says softly, taking the time to plant a kiss onto Niall's neck, pressing his nose against him and inhaling.
"I was in that prison alone and I felt like a boy again. I’ve had to do some awful things to blokes to survive there, when I was startin’ out.”
Niall turns around quickly in his embrace to trace his fingers against the tattoos that litter his body, up to his nose, cupping his cheek.
“What are you trying to say?”
“I’m ashamed, Bambers.” He says with such sorrow tinged at the edge of his tone, as if that one, honest confession could cause it all to come crumbling down a mountain of regret.
“There is nothing shameful about surviving.” Niall says, simply.
Ruben looks at him like he puts the very sun in the sky. Niall doesn’t know if he’ll be crushed by his own gravity, let alone Ruben’s.
Ruben puts his head into Niall’s chest and inhales. Niall begins to mimic him, eventually synchronizing their breathing, holding him close and resting his chin atop his head.
He wonders if this is good for him, if being entwined so deeply with another human being could only result in self-destruction. Two-halves of the body. Jekyll and Hyde.
He doesn’t care. As long as it’s him.
“It’s a good interpretation, by the way.” Niall says suddenly.
“What is?”
“The skull. Hamlet.”
“Oh. Well, I did a wee bit of readin’ when I was locked up, for lack of a better thing to do.”
“Didn’t know you had it in ya.”
“Piss off.” Ruben says, with no heart in it.