Archive of Our Own

"When did you first notice me?"

The question felt small in the motel room, in a room that seemed almost too big compared to the cramped confines of the bus they'd spent the last three days on, pressed close to each other at all times. 

Ryan's neck had started aching hours ago, the awkward angle of his head resting on Naim's shoulder taking its toll, but he hadn't minded the discomfort one bit.

On the second night of the bus ride, after their visibly irritated driver had ordered everyone off for a forty-five-minute break, they had fought. Ryan couldn't quite recall how it had started—probably something small, like him shoplifting something for Naim, and Naim getting angry because he hadn't wanted Ryan taking that kind of risk on his behalf.

It had ended with both of them crying, Naim apologizing over and over, begging for the same forgiveness Ryan had already given him back at the bus stop back home, not even two days earlier. Naim had cried over Hunter, cried over his mother, his father, and over Ryan too—over all the things he believed he'd taken from him, things he couldn't ever give back.

The desperation in Naim's voice had reminded Ryan, in some strange way, of church, of the prayers he used to whisper as a kid, desperate for God to intervene in something, anything. The memory had struck him so hard, so unexpectedly painful, that it had snapped him clean out of his own trance, and he'd simply pulled the other boy into a hug instead of saying anything at all.

He'd been careful not to hold him too tightly, quietly terrified that Naim might somehow link the touch, the physical affection, to what the thing had left on him—the bruises still faintly visible on his throat, the small, barely noticeable bald patch at the back of his head that was probably tied to the same entity, the same nightmare they'd both run from.

An older woman on the bus had shot them a strange look as she climbed back aboard, Ryan still holding onto Naim, and if he'd been a little bolder, a little angrier, more like his father,he might have flipped her off without a second thought. He didn't, though. Instead he nudged Naim gently forward, helped him back onto the bus, made sure Naim stepped through the door first, and kept hold of his hand as they passed the driver. Turned out some people genuinely didn't give a damn whose hand you were holding, so long as you paid them enough to keep driving the bus.

After they'd finally gotten off, they'd somehow managed to book a room without handing over any real information, settling instead on a fake name that had made Naim giggle for the first time since they'd boarded that bus. The sound had filled Ryan's chest with something that felt even better than lying on an actual bed, no matter how thin or lumpy the mattress turned out to be.

Ryan had been fairly certain Naim had already drifted off, his breathing even against Ryan's chest, his whole posture loosened in a way it never quite managed to be while he was awake, always waiting, always braced for someone, or something, to strike. Ryan liked this side of him. The vulnerable, careless version of Naim that only seemed to surface when he was asleep, unguarded in a way he could never let himself be otherwise.

"What do you mean?" Ryan asked, not entirely sure what Naim was getting at.

Naim's hair tickled faintly against his chin as he shifted, tilting his head up to look at Ryan in the dim light of the room, the only glow and sound drifting in from the road outside. He held Ryan's gaze for a second, and Ryan had to fight down the urge to bring his hands up, to trace his thumbs slowly over that pretty face.

"When did you first notice me. At school, I mean." He clarified, trying to sound sure of himself, though the edge in his voice gave him away, that faint upward lift at the end of the sentence, the way his tone climbed just slightly on the last syllable.

The question caught Ryan off guard for a moment, but his brain supplied an answer almost instantly, and before he could stop himself, before he could find a way to make it sound any less embarrassing, he simply blurted it out.

"First day you came in. Math class, first period, on a Monday. I was so tired and had actually thought about skipping."

The last part slipped out without permission, and Naim smiled faintly at that. Ryan couldn't find it in himself to feel embarrassed, not really. He'd have gladly shared every mortifying thought he'd ever had about Naim, every failed, half-formed attempt at working up the nerve to approach him, if it meant getting to see that smile again.

Ryan remembered wanting to skip that day—he only hadn't, because they'd threatened to call his father if he racked up one more unexcused absence. Ryan remembered going rigid at the mention of his father, remembered the sinking realization that they'd finally found something they could actually use against him. 

Not even his math teacher's soft, well-meaning smile had managed to make him feel any better as he'd rushed toward the back of the classroom, dropping lazily into his seat and trying to convince himself to just get through the day, or if not the whole day, then at least this one class.

Thing was, Ryan didn't particularly hate math. He just couldn't find it in himself to try hard enough, and he hated sitting still for that long, hated the way the voices in the classroom always seemed to blur together into one indistinct hum, hated the way he'd sometimes only manage to grasp a concept right as his teacher had already moved on to explaining the next one.

The one good thing about math class, though, had always been that it was one of the rare periods he got without Hunter or Macca or any of his other fucked-up friends, that Ryan had started calling the Minions in the back of his mind. 

In that room, at least, he didn't have to stare at the back of Hunter's head and replay whatever he'd spat in his face a few days earlier, didn't have to remember the disgust twisting Hunter's expression, or the fresh bruises he'd left behind afterward. He didn't feel the constant pressure to perform there either—no need to make sure he didn't seem too soft, too gentle around the edges, nothing that might catch Macca's attention and give him an excuse.

"I was scared that day," Naim admitted, his voice a little smaller than before, and before he could stop himself, Ryan moved his hand slowly up and down the smaller boy's back,a small gesture, but one that seemed to settle something in Naim, who eased into the touch without hesitation.

"Yeah, I could tell. Saw you fidgeting and shit," Ryan started, feeling Naim's eyes still on him, missing the ghost of his hair against his chin the second it was gone. "Wanted to make you feel less nervous. Didn't know how, though."

It was true. Ryan had spent that entire class running through countless ways he might possibly ease Naim's nerves, and had discarded every single one just as quickly. Approaching him outright had felt like overstepping some invisible line, like it would only make things worse. Naim had settled into a seat two rows ahead of him, almost directly in front of the teacher's desk, which gave Ryan a clear, unobstructed view of the back of his head but no real opportunity to talk to him without making the whole thing painfully obvious.

He'd even considered, briefly and pathetically, dropping his pencil on purpose as he left the classroom after class ended and therefore causing some small, clumsy accident that would force Naim to bend down and pick it up, hand it back to him. 

He'd get to hear his voice again that way, maybe even feel the brush of those long, pale fingers against his own, fingers that looked like they belonged to a pianist, delicate and precise in a way that made Ryan's chest ache a little just thinking about it.

Naim let out a small laugh at that, shaking his head slightly, and Ryan's brows drew together in confusion.

"What?"

"No, it's just—" He didn't quite laugh again, just took a slow breath instead. "When I was looking around the room, standing in front of everyone, I saw you in the back and thought you looked kind of scary. Like someone who'd make fun of me, you know?"

"Why would I make fun of you?" 

Naim shrugged, trying for casual. "Dunno. Some people did, at my old schools. Growing up, a lot of people thought my name was funny." 

He sighed, the sound landing somewhere between relaxed and worn out. "Asked my mom once why she gave it to me. She started going on about some story in the Bible—a town, a dead son rising back to life, making his sad mother happy again. Whatever the fuck that means."

Ryan had never told him, had always assumed it might be a sensitive topic, one probably tangled up with his father and almost certainly tied to his mother. But he liked Naim's name. Liked the way it rolled off his tongue, liked that it was rare, not something you'd hear tossed around every day, not the kind of name the neighbor two doors down would happen to share. Not that he'd ever admitted it out loud, but Ryan had actually looked up the meaning of Naim that very same night—reading up on the story Naim had just told him about, learning that the name meant something close to "beauty" or "pleasantness" in Hebrew. It fit, uncannily well, with everything Ryan had already come to associate with him.

He'd never planned on confessing that embarrassing little detail. He'd deleted his search history afterward, almost frantic about it, like what he'd been doing was somehow illegal, like he could feel his mother's eyes on the back of his neck even though she was nowhere near his room. But maybe Naim deserved to know. Maybe it would lift some small piece of the weight that had been sitting on his shoulders, had been sitting there especially hard this past week, though probably long before he'd even moved here. Ryan could stomach that little embarrassment. He could stomach just about anything, if it meant Naim might feel a little lighter for it.

"I know. I looked it up after your first day at school."

Naim didn't reply right away, his eyes still evaluating Ryan carefully, like he was waiting for the confession to be walked back, like he expected it to turn out to be some kind of joke at his expense.

"Okay, wanna hear something else?" Ryan offered instead, not quite knowing what to do with the silence stretching between them, uncomfortable in a way it rarely was with Naim. "Remember it took a while before you accidentally stumbled into me behind school, while I was out there smoking and shit," he started, already feeling himself spiral into rambling territory.

"You remember that time I supposedly forgot my pencil case at home? Well, I lied about that—I didn't even own a fucking pencil case, never had. I always just kept a few pens loose in my bag. I only asked because I wanted one of yours that day. Wanted an excuse to talk to you." Before he could stop himself, before he could think better of it, he kept going. "Maybe I was also thinking about what it'd feel like, touching your fingers when you handed it over."

He couldn't say for certain whether Naim even remembered that particular incident, but Ryan certainly did. He remembered every detail of it with an almost embarrassing clarity. He'd spent two full hours the night before, lying awake and talking himself into asking, convincing himself he wouldn't come across as weird for doing it. He'd never liked anyone before, not like this. Had never wanted someone to actually look at him, notice him, exist in the same space as him and mean it. If he'd been a little less scared, a little less anxious back then, he might have actually gone to his sister for advice—might have lied and told her it was about some girl, might have begged her to help him figure out what to say. But his sister had drifted into something distant a while back, only a year older than Ryan and just two months out from starting college in some city he actively tried not to remember the name of. Maybe if he didn't let himself remember it, it would all feel a little less real, a little less permanent.

Finally, he heard Naim take a slow breath before he spoke.

"You had a crush on me."

For a second, Ryan thought Naim might laugh, might playfully shove his arm afterward and call out something so painfully obvious it barely needed saying. Instead, Naim stayed quiet, struggling to meet Ryan's eyes, the sentence hanging between them more like a tentative suggestion than a stated fact—something that might be true, rather than something he already knew for certain. Naim shifted slightly beneath the covers, shivering faintly, and Ryan felt a sudden, fierce urge to shield him from the cold entirely, to hand over every sweatshirt and hoodie he owned, even though he'd only managed to bring three with him in the first place—one currently wrapped around Naim, another stained with old coffee and shoved to the bottom of his bag, and the last, a deep blue one, still on Ryan's own back. He forced himself to circle back to what Naim had just said, suddenly terrified that his own silence might be read as rejection.

Naim had to have known, on some level, that Ryan liked him, had liked him for a while. Ryan had gone out of his way to talk to him more than once: the whole pathetic ordeal with the pens, and then again in the bathroom, where he'd spent a solid three minutes hiding in a stall, waiting for the exact moment Naim would wander over to the sinks to wash his hands. Ryan had been the one to ask him to hang out in the first place. He'd been the one trying so painfully, so transparently, to impress him, even while hiding it all behind a carefully constructed wall of nonchalance, some act he'd convinced himself was working. Hell, he'd been the one who'd pinned Naim down and kissed him during their very first time hanging out—hungry, reckless, so thoroughly unable to restrain himself, to control the fucked-up desires his mother used to warn him about back when he was a kid too small to understand why he couldn't just have an ice cream bar before dinner.

"Well, I obviously did. You didn't know?" he asked slowly, careful, scared of saying the wrong thing and setting something off in Naim he wouldn't know how to undo.

Naim's spine softened under the hand Ryan still had resting on his back.

"Well—I kinda thought you wanted to intimidate me—" He let out a soft chuckle, and Ryan felt himself breathe a little easier, relieved at the sound, at the obvious loosening of tension in Naim's body. "—the pencil thing was weird, not gonna lie, but I didn't really think anything of it at the time. In the bathroom, though, I kinda figured you were gonna threaten me or something."

"Oi, what the fuck would I threaten you for? Your pretty face, huh?" Ryan teased, reaching out to poke Naim's nose lightly, and Naim swatted his hand away in a gesture that already felt familiar between them, his nose scrunching up in mock offense.

"Fuck if I know. People always found a way."

Ryan hated how small his voice sounded, even though he tried his best to keep it casual, to make it seem like it wasn't anything worth dwelling on. He hated seeing Naim like this. Hated even more that Naim clearly felt the need to hide behind whatever forced nonchalance he tried to put on, like he couldn't be fully honest around Ryan, like some part of himself still needed to stay guarded even now. Ryan did his best not to let it hurt, tried to swallow the feeling down and not take it personally, reminding himself that this was about Naim's feelings, not his own.

An unpleasant memory clawed its way up from the back of Ryan's mind—the morning before, the day that had ended with Naim breaking down and sobbing against his shoulder, apologizing over and over. It must have been around eight in the morning, the two of them just surfacing from whatever restless half-state you couldn't really call sleep, when the bus had rolled to a stop and announced another twenty-minute break. Naim had yawned and mentioned he needed to use the bathroom, and Ryan had gone with him without a second thought, pocketing his phone in his jacket before stepping off the bus alongside him. They hadn't held hands, but they'd stood close enough that it probably would've raised suspicion regardless.

They were already standing in front of the grimy bathroom door when Ryan patted down his pockets and realized his wallet was missing. "Shit," he'd muttered. "Can we go back real quick? I forgot my wallet, don't want it getting stolen or whatever."

Naim had turned to face him, brows knitting together before he spoke. "I really have to go. Like, right now." He'd shifted his weight from foot to foot, glancing toward the door before continuing. "I'll just use the bathroom alone. There's two other people already in there—saw them walk in when we were coming up."

Ryan had wanted to argue, wanted to insist Naim come with him, promise they'd be quick about it. But Naim had genuinely looked like he couldn't wait much longer, and all their money was sitting in that wallet, every last dollar they had left over from the string of shitty summer jobs Ryan had worked between fifteen and sixteen. Somehow, the fight had drained right out of him before he could put up much resistance. He knew perfectly well the bus driver never bothered locking the door during breaks, didn't even know if the lock on that run-down bus still worked in the first place. Maybe it was the sleep deprivation talking when he finally answered.

"Alright. But be quick, okay? I'll be back in a second."

Ryan had taken off at a run, covering the few hundred feet back to the bus, searching frantically until he found his wallet wedged beneath his seat, the money still tucked safely inside, before sprinting back toward the gas station bathroom. It couldn't have been more than two and a half minutes total that he'd been gone. When he finally stepped back into the dimly lit bathroom, the air thick with the faint smell of piss and disinfectant, he found Naim standing there, his posture already setting off alarm bells—drawn into himself, fidgeting, picking at his nails hard enough to nearly draw blood, clearly on edge. The expression on his face might have looked unreadable to a stranger, but Ryan recognized it instantly, recognized exactly what he saw in Naim's eyes: he was scared.

Then Ryan looked to Naim’s left, only to see a man standing there. He seemed to be older, but not yet middle aged, maybe in his early to mid thirties, wearing a simple white shirt and jeans, but something about him made Ryan feel unnecessarily tense. He was taller than Naim, which meant he was probably taller than Ryan too and he seemed to be built fairly well, not skinny but not too jacked either, something Ryan could maybe fight in case of an emergency. Before he could think further, he crossed the distance, coming to a halt besides Naim, eyes searching for an answer. 

"You okay?" The question had slipped out before Ryan could stop it, even though the answer was kind of obvious already, written all over the way Naim held himself.

The man had looked between Ryan and Naim, once and then again, and he'd just opened his mouth to say something—maybe something that would've had Ryan lunging at him, or spitting straight in his face—when Naim had suddenly grabbed a fistful of his cargo jacket's sleeve, gripping it with a strength he rarely showed, a strength that caught Ryan completely off guard.

Before Ryan could properly register what was happening, not used to resisting Naim, not the version of him wearing that thing's shadow but truly his Naim, he'd found himself being dragged bodily out of the bathroom, the door swinging shut behind them the moment Naim finally let go of his jacket.

Ryan had stood there for a second, confused, wanting to ask what the hell had just happened, wanting to demand why Naim had yanked him out of there like that, his father's voice already sneering somewhere in the back of his mind, already calling him a coward for not staying to find out. But then Naim had simply let out a long sigh, and the question died in Ryan's throat.

"What was going on?" Ryan finally managed, trying his best to keep his voice level, hoping it didn't sound frantic, didn't sound like he was pushing, didn't sound angry even though something hot and unnamed was still coiled tight in his chest.

Naim had stared down at his feet for a moment, hands drifting up to fidget before he seemed to catch himself, forcing his fingers still, and finally lifted his gaze to meet Ryan's.

"Let's get out of here."

As always, Ryan had wanted to push further, wanted to fight for an answer, but something in Naim's tone had knocked all of that fight clean out of him, had left him with no choice but to comply. Naim clearly didn't want to talk about whatever had happened in there, didn't want to even acknowledge it out loud, and if Ryan was reading the look in his eyes correctly, there was something else buried beneath the fear too, something that looked a lot like shame. Shame at having to explain it to Ryan at all. 

Somehow, Ryan couldn't help but wonder, there in the quiet of the scabby motel room, Naim's words still echoing in his head on some kind of loop, whether this was something he'd had to deal with his whole life: people threatening him, people mocking him, people slowly carving that habit into him, the constant fidgeting, the way he picked at the skin around his nails until he drew blood without even seeming to notice he was doing it.

"You look funny when you're pondering." Naim's voice pulled him out of his own head, a thumb coming up to smooth away the furrow between his eyebrows. Ryan hadn't even realized he'd been making that expression, but he felt an immediate, embarrassing urge to lean into the touch, like some stray cat starved for attention, desperate to be pet by anyone willing to bother. Naim didn't seem to mind at all, just chuckled softly as he smoothed the skin there, his thumb grazing briefly over the small scar cutting through Ryan's right eyebrow in the process, and for one sharp second, it stung.

Ryan winced, and Naim yanked his hand back like he'd been burned, guilt flashing across his face. Ryan almost reached out, almost grabbed his wrist to pull it back where it had been, but he didn't.

He knew Naim had to be dying to ask about it, in the exact same way Ryan was desperate to know how he'd gotten those bruises circling his throat. They were purple, ugly, frightening in a way that made Ryan's stomach turn every time he caught sight of them and he was desperate to know why Naim sometimes coughed a little too hard, flinched a little too fast whenever Ryan's hand accidentally brushed against his neck on the bus.

But Ryan wasn't brave enough to ask again, not really, mostly because some part of him already knew the truth without needing to hear it out loud. The thing had hurt him. It had hurt him badly enough to leave marks, visible proof written right there on his skin, and Ryan hadn't been there to stop it, hadn't been there to keep it from happening at all, because he'd been too fed up with Naim in that moment, too sad, too fucking selfish, like he'd been  so many times before in his life. At first Ryan had tried to pin the blame elsewhere, on Naim's mother for not staying, on the neighbors for never once considering taking him in, but in the end, none of that mattered. It had been his fault. His, and only his.

Before Naim could shape the question fully, before his lips could move to ask about the cut on Ryan's eyebrow, about whatever incident had put it there, which was something Ryan would honestly rather block out entirely, Ryan spoke first, desperate to steer them both somewhere else.

"Has this—has this happened a lot?" he found himself asking, immediately regretting the way it came out, too blunt, too clumsy. The last thing he wanted was to spook Naim into shutting down completely. "The making fun of you thing, I mean. Like, at your old school, or—"

Something passed over Naim's face, the particular expression Ryan had come to recognize as him shutting down, folding inward, and for a second he looked almost eerily like his mother, shoulders climbing tense, lips pressing into a thin, familiar line. Ryan had only ever seen the woman a handful of times: at church, that one time at the servo, and once overhearing her voice through the phone as she spoke to his own mother the day after Naim had been dragged off to see the healer. But he knew he didn't like the look on her face back then, and he liked it even less now, watching that same coldness surface unbidden on Naim's. For a moment, Ryan was certain he'd pushed too far, that he'd lost whatever ground he'd gained. But then something shifted in Naim's expression, and he let out a long, steady sigh, his shoulders loosening back into something softer before he finally spoke.

"Sometimes. Had some friends in Melbourne, though." He swallowed hard, twice, his eyes carefully avoiding Ryan's. "It only really got worse when, you know—" he wet his lips before continuing, "—my dad died, and I got even more quiet, and people—" another pause, another swallow, "—people didn't really like that, I guess."

Ryan had never once considered that Naim might have been different before coming to Bandee, before his father died. Had never entertained the possibility that there might have existed some other version of Naim Reid out there—a little louder at school, a little less flinchy at the sound of a bathroom door slamming shut down the hall. He'd never imagined there could be a different Naim, one who wouldn't have assumed Ryan was threatening him that day in the bathroom, one who'd actually eat his lunch at school instead of just staring at it, bored and disinterested, one whose mother hadn't done any of the things she'd done to him. For one strange, ugly second, Ryan felt almost jealous of whoever had gotten to know that more careless version of the boy sitting in front of him now, before the sheer tragedy of the thought caught up with him. Naim wasn't scared by nature. He'd been made this way, folded inward by everything that had happened to him.

The realization sat in Ryan's stomach like something sour, something close to sickness.

When Ryan didn't say anything right away, Naim shifted slightly, bracing himself as if to keep from reconsidering, and pushed on anyway.

"Mum said it would get better once we moved away from the city. Said country kids were different—easier to get along with." He paused. "Said I'd find meaning there."

Of course she'd think that, Ryan thought bitterly. Of course Arlene had convinced herself that Bandee was the answer to whatever loneliness she and Naim had probably shared in equal measure—a tight-knit little community, everyone knowing everyone else's business, a church on every corner, a nice enough pastor to smile at them on Sundays. Probably everything she could've wished for, and Naim, God help him, had probably believed every word of it.

Naim let out a dry, humorless laugh, the sound catching in his throat in a way that reminded Ryan uncomfortably of the coughing fit he'd had that first night on the bus, hands flying to his own throat, wheezing. Ryan felt a jolt of alarm immediately, wanted to check on him, wanted to reach out and make sure he was okay, but he held himself back, terrified Naim might flinch away from the touch, might look at him with that particular kind of fear in his big hazel eyes. Ryan had never wanted to be something someone was scared of. Never wanted to be treated like a threat, like something contagious to avoid. Especially not by Naim.

His fingers twitched uselessly at his sides before he finally gave in, reaching out to brush Naim's bangs off his forehead, slow and careful, leaving him every possible chance to pull away if he wanted to. Naim melted into the touch for a few seconds, eyes fluttering half-shut, before tensing again, biting down on his lip like he was working through something difficult in his head.

"I—" He swallowed again, and it must have hurt going down, because he visibly suppressed a wince. "I have to tell you something."

He could tell, just from the tone Naim used, serious with something guilty running underneath it, that this had been sitting heavy on his mind for a while. Some part of Ryan wanted to tell him to save it, wanted to shut the whole conversation down before he had to think too hard about everything, all the bad that had led them to this exact motel room. But he couldn't do that. Not when Naim looked like he genuinely needed to get it out.

"When we were fighting, and I apologized—last night, at the gas station—" he stopped, maybe gathering his words, maybe just steeling himself. "I didn't tell you the whole truth. About why I did what I did."

Naim had apologized to him the night before, crying in that gut-wrenching way he had, the kind that somehow still managed to make him look heartbreakingly pretty under the dim streetlight outside the gas station. He'd explained himself through it, said how scared he'd been, said he'd wanted Hunter's father to step in and keep his son away from Ryan, wanted some adult, any adult, to finally intervene and stop them from tearing each other apart. "I didn't take it seriously, y'know," he'd said between sobs he kept trying and failing to swallow down, Ryan standing in front of him where he sat. "The church. My mum's whole thing with it. How far they'd actually go."

It was then that Ryan had understood, really understood, that Naim had simply been naive in a way Ryan had never once had the luxury of being. Naim had come from a big city. He'd told Ryan once that his mother had only turned devoutly religious after his father died, that it hadn't always been like this. Naim didn't sing during church, had looked around irritated and vaguely baffled the very first time Ryan had spotted him in a pew. Naim had never learned how things actually worked inside the fucked-up little machine Ryan's own mother liked to call "community." What would've been painfully obvious to Ryan—the consequences of telling anyone, let alone the pastor of all people—simply hadn't occurred to Naim at all. Ryan had grown up here. He knew exactly how long he could let his eyes linger on the back of Naim's head during a service before it started looking suspicious, knew precisely how to carry himself so nobody ever thought twice. Naim didn't know any of that, wasn't built for this place.

Even though Ryan had already forgiven him days ago, he'd cupped Naim's face in his hands again that night, told him once more that none of it was his fault, not really, told him he understood completely. Naim had cried a little longer into his shoulder after that, until the rest of the passengers started filing back onto the bus, forcing the two of them to break apart and rejoin the group. 

Naim's voice tore him out of his thoughts.

"One day, I was walking home, y'know. My mum wanted me back quick—said she needed help unloading more moving boxes, wanted to bake something for church, whatever it was that day." He didn't meet Ryan's eyes as he spoke, gaze fixed somewhere off to the side. "So I was actually in a hurry to get home, and—" he paused, throat working, "—someone was following me."

Confusion flickered through Ryan's head, unsure where Naim was heading with this, before he continued.

"It was Macca. Two other boys I don't remember the names of. I tried not to remember them, honestly. And Hunter." His voice dropped a little smaller there, though it didn't waver, didn't lose its steadiness. "I'd almost expected you to be one of them. But you weren't."

That last part settled uneasily in Ryan's chest, made him want to comb back through every interaction he'd ever had with Naim, every glance exchanged at school, searching for whatever had planted that expectation in his head in the first place. But it wasn't exactly illogical, when he actually thought it through. Ryan had always kept his distance from whatever fucked-up shit Macca got up to at school, the way he was usually spitting insults at other guys, or talking about girls in ways that made Ryan's skin crawl, but he was still respected by that crowd, at least to some degree. 

He'd grown up around them, was used to their orbit whether he wanted to be or not. He talked to Macca sometimes in English class, when the room was empty and he was bored enough to bother. He exchanged words with Hunter in hallways, words that always felt heavier somehow than whatever rock Hunter had thrown at him the day before. 

Maybe some small, buried part of Ryan had already known it was possible, had never really been able to rule out the likelihood that Naim might've ended up a target of Macca's particular brand of cruelty. Maybe he'd simply chosen not to face it head-on, because he had no idea what he would've done if it turned out to be true.

He remembered one incident from PE class, years back, when he must've been fourteen or fifteen. Macca had  smashed a basketball straight into the face of some kid who'd just moved in to live with his dad after his parents split. The sheer amount of blood on the kid's face had startled Ryan so badly he'd genuinely thought he might throw up right there on the court. "What?" Macca had asked, catching sight of Ryan's blank, horrified expression, and in that exact moment Ryan had understood he had precisely two options in front of him. His looks, his build, none of that mattered here. He could either fall in line with Macca's little crusade, or he could pull back, keep to himself more at school, become someone who didn't get pulled into it. Hunter had chosen the first option, buried so deep in whatever denial he lived in that it hadn't even seemed like a choice to him. Ryan had chosen the second.

"They were screaming, calling me names. I was used to people maybe pushing me around at school, getting shoved into a locker or whatever, but that was—it was a different kind of thing, you know."

Before Ryan could even think of what to say, Naim kept going, his tone growing more distant, almost clinical, like he was actively trying to put space between himself and the memory, trying to make it feel less real, less like something that had actually happened to him.

"They made me undress. Made me get into the creek —you know, the one close to my house." He paused. "It was fucking cold. Freezing, basically." He sniffed, like the memory alone had brought the sensation rushing back into his body. "Made me sing the national anthem and shit, standing there like that."

Ryan felt himself tensing up before he could even fully process why, something twisting hard in his chest as he tried to make sense of what Naim was telling him. Before he could stop it, the image had already formed in his head: The image of Naim, scared and shivering, knee-deep in freezing water in the dead of winter, standing there while people Ryan had known his entire life hurled insults at him from the bank. It made him furious. Furious at Macca, and, for the first time, genuinely furious at Hunter too. It was the first real emotion he'd felt toward the boy that wasn't tangled up with guilt—guilt that was already crawling up his spine, sticking to his fingers like it had a physical weight, dragging up the words Izzy had  thrown at him that night. Because you made him feel that way.

He wanted to reach out, wanted to tell Naim he understood, that he didn't have to keep going if he didn't want to. Somehow, he couldn't make himself say it.

"They called me all kinds of shit—said I was disgusting, said I was—" Naim swallowed hard, sounding uncertain in a way Ryan rarely heard from him. "You know what."

Unfortunately, Ryan knew exactly what word he meant, and he bit down hard on the inside of his cheek to stop himself from either crying or lashing out, some tangled knot of emotion threatening to spill over if he let it.

It had only ever been thrown at Ryan once, back when he was around nine, when his father had called him a fag for crying after his sister left for summer camp, told him to man up and stop acting like a girl about it. After that, Ryan had grown too broad, too unassuming in the wrong ways, to ever get called it again. Not even Hunter used it against him, even during their worst fights, some part of him seemingly aware that nothing about it would land the way he wanted, that whatever Hunter believed was wrong with people like that, some quiet, unspoken part of him knew the same thing was true of Ryan and himself too.

Still, Ryan had grown used to that particular brand of hypocrisy, was on the receiving end of it at least once a week without fail. Back when it had first started, he'd genuinely wanted to hurt Hunter in return, wanted to make it sting just as badly. But as the months dragged on, he'd come to realize hurting Hunter back never actually made him feel any better. It didn't erase anything, didn't make him feel any less like the thing he already knew, deep down, that he was. So instead he welcomed whatever punishment came his way, took it almost gratefully, because it was the only punishment available to him that no one else could ever hand out—not for the real reason, anyway. Because no one could know. No one could know what thoughts lived in Ryan's head at night, what images kept him awake, the way his stomach twisted and flipped for all the wrong people, in all the wrong ways.

Next to him, Naim shifted, drawing in a deep, shaky breath.

"When I saw him—Hunter, with you—" He forced himself to look up at Ryan, eyes glassy and a little too wet. "I was angry. Angry at him for hating me for something he was guilty of himself." He sniffed, looking away again before he could finish the thought. "It made me think that maybe I deserved to get hurt too. That maybe I deserved what they did to me that day."

Ryan's brain couldn't catch up fast enough before his body had already started moving, hand coming up to cup Naim's jaw before he'd even fully decided to do it.

"Fuck—no, you didn't. You could never deserve that fucked-up shit. Not what Hunter did to me, not what they did to you—"

Before he even realized it, he felt something wet stinging at his own eyes, and understood, almost distantly, that he must have started crying too. He wasn't sobbing, wasn't shaking, but two tears slipped silently down his face regardless.

"What I did with Hunter was wrong. Took me a while to actually see that, but I think—for him, it was the only thing keeping him together. Probably the only thing stopping him from completely losing it. But that doesn't make it right. Doesn't make it deserved."

Naim didn't meet his eyes as Ryan said it, his face still cradled in Ryan's hands, skin cool to the touch, until Ryan felt something wet land against his palm. It was one of Naim's own tears, followed by a shaky breath that came dangerously close to a sob. Ryan wanted nothing more than to pull him into a hug, hold him until he finally fell asleep, abandon the whole conversation right there. But he could feel there was still more sitting unsaid between them, something Naim hadn't gotten to yet.

When Naim spoke again, his voice came out surprisingly steady, and something in Ryan swelled with a strange, quiet pride at that.

"And I think I was also a little angry at you."

If the room hadn't felt so heavy, so charged with everything already spilling out between them, Ryan might have shoved his arm playfully, pinched his side right where he knew Naim was ticklish, teased him with an oi, you don't say? Instead, he just listened, nodding slowly. "I know you were."

"And I know we weren't—" he let out a sound that was probably meant to be a dry laugh but came out closer to a whine, "—exclusive. I knew that even that night, sitting at home trying to eat dinner in front of my mum, trying to act normal."

"But you lied to me, y'know?" His voice dropped even quieter than before. "I asked if you'd done whatever we were doing with someone else before—that day after the mill—and you said no."

It was true, and the accusation landed exactly where it was meant to, stinging. Ryan understood why it had angered Naim. He understood that Naim, lonely as he was, had only ever wanted honesty from him, had only ever asked not to be kept in the dark about things. But Naim didn't know how fundamentally different it had all been. Whatever Ryan had done with Hunter—all teeth and blood and something way closer to violence than it could ever be to affection—wasn't remotely comparable to how soft Naim's lips had felt against his that day at the mill, how careful the whole thing had been.

"I shouldn't have said that, but—to me it wasn't the same thing. What I did with Hunter was angry, and you weren't angry. You were gentle, the first time I met you, and you didn't flinch away when I touched you, didn't hit me across the face after I kissed you—" He swallowed hard. "So I guess, in some way, this was my first time actually doing this. Being with someone. Caring about someone and having it come back."

He regretted the words almost the second they left his mouth, right up until he looked down and found Naim's eyes finally lifting to meet his, somehow softer than before, as Naim brought a hand up to scratch at his own nose, scrunching it in that familiar way, another tear sliding down his cheek. Ryan wanted to kiss every single one of them away.

"I was scared too. Scared you might hurt me the way you hurt him. Scared that this was just how things worked, at least around here. You were the only person I had—the only one I still have, really—and I was scared you might hurt me. Like you hurt him."

Ryan didn't know what to say, didn't know how to put into words that Naim was the one person he would never, could never hurt, that he'd been drawn to him precisely because he was everything Hunter wasn't, everything the pain Ryan associated with Hunter had never come close to touching.

He would never have hurt Naim. Hadn't even told anyone about him, not once, not even when the entity had tormented him half to death that day in the photo booth, when Ryan had been so certain, so bone-deep sure, that he was actually going to die in there. He remembered Naim—the real Naim, standing right in front of him, worried, photo strip clutched in one hand, pointing at the booth with an expression caught somewhere between confusion and outright fear.

He remembered yelling, begging him for something he hadn't even fully understood himself in the moment. Please, don't make me tell anyone.

Ryan would've rather died than purposefully hurt Naim, fully aware of exactly what that kind of pain looked like, felt like, carried with it—remembering the guilt afterward, the ache blooming across his chest, the way the entity had pressed its finger directly into whatever bruise was freshest, digging in until Ryan actually broke down crying, only to laugh it off afterward, claim the whole thing had been a joke.

But he understood, too, that Naim had no way of knowing any of that. He'd never heard Ryan say it out loud, never heard him apologize for what he'd done with Hunter, never once heard him say that he didn't want to hurt Naim, could never bring himself to. Ryan had said all of it, every word, but only ever to something wearing Naim's face, mimicking his soft voice and shy smile with a precision that still made Ryan's skin crawl. And sometimes, if he was honest with himself, the memories blurred together in his head, real Naim and entity Naim tangling into something he couldn't always separate anymore, no matter how hard he tried.

"Hey," he said softly, quiet, hands still cupping Naim's jaw. "Can you look at me, please?" He heard the plea in his own voice before he'd even meant to let it show, and Naim complied after a moment, lifting his head back up, wet eyes finally meeting Ryan's. They looked a little more green than usual when wet like that, Ryan thought, catching the stray, useless detail even now.

"I would never hurt you, yeah? And I—I understand it. Why you told them, back then. I really do, okay?" he said, hoping it landed as genuine as it felt coming out of him. Naim let out a slow breath, another tear tracking down his cheek, and Ryan leaned in closer, resting his forehead gently against Naim's, careful to leave him every bit of room to pull back if he needed to.

"Thank you for telling me, yeah?" he whispered, hoping he sounded steadier than he actually felt, blinking back a tear of his own. Naim seemed to loosen at that, some of the tension bleeding out of his shoulders, his breathing evening out, growing easier by the second.

Ryan could feel him breathing against his mouth now, warm and achingly familiar, and he found himself itching to close that last bit of distance, to feel Naim's soft lips against his own, to somehow kiss away every worry still sitting heavy in the other boy's chest.

Naim flinched slightly, hesitating for just a beat, before closing the distance himself. It was unusual enough that it sent a small, unexpected thrill through Ryan, something like excitement bubbling up, almost embarrassingly eager. Normally it was Ryan doing the reaching, Ryan taking that first step, gently coaxing Naim into taking what he actually wanted instead of waiting to be given it. Ryan felt a smile tugging at his mouth right before Naim's lips finally pressed against his.

It wasn't hungry, wasn't rushed or desperate the way some of their other moments had been. It started slow, almost tentative—lips meeting once, briefly, before Naim pulled back only to lean in again, more insistent this time. Ryan's hands found their way to Naim's hips almost on instinct, steadying him, silently urging him to keep going, and Naim finally pushed his tongue past Ryan's lips, clumsy and a little unsure of himself, like he was still working out exactly what he wanted to do with it.

When Ryan's tongue slipped into his mouth, Naim let out a small, unmistakably satisfied sound, and Ryan felt himself go almost dizzy on it, some instinctive part of his brain already cataloguing the noise, tucking it away in some private mental box no one else would ever get to open.

They kept kissing lazily after that, unhurried, Naim somehow ending up settled in Ryan's lap at some point without either of them fully deciding it, fingers grasping tighter at the fabric of Ryan's t-shirt every time Ryan managed to coax another sound out of him.

When Ryan finally pulled back to catch his breath, chest rising and falling fast, he found himself talking before he'd really thought it through.

"You know how bad I wanted you to come to the mill with me that day?" he said, a little breathless still. "Was so scared you were gonna say no. Think I was being weird."

Naim laughed quietly at that, the sound rare enough that it landed on Ryan's ears like something precious. "It was a little weird. Thought you were gonna jump me, like that small dog my neighbors used to have."

Ryan pinched his side in retaliation, making Naim squeak and swat his hand away. "You know how much courage it took me to even ask you?"

"Aw, really?" Naim tilted his head, teasing, looking down at Ryan from where he sat perched in his lap, drawing the first syllable out slow and deliberate.

"Yeah. I even thought about what I was gonna wear that day, once you said yes." He laughed at the memory himself, a little disbelieving. "Never cared about that shit before in my life."

Naim's eyes narrowed, though the smile stayed plastered across his face, dried tear tracks still faintly visible on his cheeks. "And your big pick landed on a slutty tank top?"

"Hey, I'm not a slut, you cunt!"

"Well, you kissed me the first time we hung out and immediately grabbed my crotch. Didn't even take me out to dinner first." Naim clicked his tongue in a mocking little tsk, doing his best impression of disapproval.

"You liked it though."

"Never said I didn't."

Ryan bit his lip before continuing. "Remember when we started throwing shit at stuff at the mill? And I had that big-ass stone?" he started, watching Naim's face carefully, trying to gauge whether he'd actually remember the moment. When Naim nodded almost immediately, Ryan pressed on. "I kinda picked up the biggest one I could find, just to impress you a little. Thought it'd make me look cool. Tough, I guess."

Naim hit him playfully on the arm.

"Yeah, no shit, dickhead. Wanted me to see how strong you are, huh?"

Ryan's hands tightened slightly on Naim's hips, not hard, never hard, just enough pressure to make him aware of exactly where they were resting. "Maybe."

When Naim shifted slightly in his lap, probably just trying to find a more comfortable position, he ended up brushing a little too close to Ryan's crotch, and Ryan hissed before he could stop himself. He was already half hard in his sweatpants, and from nothing more than a little kissing, a handful of sounds pulled out of Naim's throat, embarrassing, really, if it had been anyone else. But it was Naim, so somehow it didn't feel that way at all.

Recognition flickered across Naim's face, quickly followed by something that looked suspiciously like a smirk.

"I thought you weren't a slut, huh?"

Before Ryan could respond Naim shifted again, clothened thigh rubbing against Ryan’s cock in the process. He suppressed another sound, forcing himself to swallow it down.

“You’re whining like a pornstar in my ear. Sorry if I get hard from that.”

“I do not. I think you’re the only one who thinks that.”

Ryan’s ears perked slightly at the denial. His gaze drifted from Naim’s face down to the black sweatpants Ryan had packed for him. They were slightly too big, the waistband occasionally slipping just low enough to flash the sharp line of a hip bone. He’d noticed it earlier when Naim stood up from the bed to grab one of the protein bars they’d bought.

“Well, it’s not like I have anyone else who’s heard you before that I could ask, huh?”

Ryan shifted him closer, guiding Naim against his own body. Naim let himself be moved, biting back a sound that could’ve been irritation or something softer. One of his thighs brushed the hard line in Ryan’s pants and Ryan groaned under his breath.

Fuck. He was already hard from nothing more than a little kissing. He might’ve been doomed, but he couldn’t bring himself to care.

Naim went quiet at the friction, biting his lip as he let out a shaky breath, swallowing whatever noise had been about to escape. Ryan felt the loss of it immediately.

"C'mon, don't do that," he must've sounded pretty desperate, the words coming out almost whining as he grabbed Naim's hips, not too hard, careful even now in how he touched him. Naim looked at him, hazel eyes blinking for a second at the unusual edge in Ryan's voice, before he swallowed once and nodded with a seriousness that came off almost comical, right before he let out a small laugh, almost an actual giggle, the kind Ryan had only ever heard out of him twice before in his life.

The first time had been at the mill, Naim a little high, rambling about some childhood friend who'd once gotten chased around by the neighbor's Pomeranian puppy, apparently scared out of her mind by the tiny thing. It had been his seventh birthday, his parents letting him invite a handful of friends over for it.

"She was screaming and shit," he'd said back then, laughing in that exact same unguarded way. "My mum was panicking, trying to get the dog off her. She's never liked animals much."

The second time had been the night Ryan suggested using a fake name for the motel check-in, landing, after far too much deliberation, on "Willy Wheelin." It had been a lame joke, honestly, something he'd blurted out without thinking twice about it. But it had gotten Naim laughing anyway, the sound settling into Ryan's chest comfortably.

“You’re kind of cute, y’know?” Naim said, voice soft and teasing but carrying a surprising sincerity that pulled Ryan straight out of his thoughts. 

“Like an overgrown puppy. ’S adorable.”  

He said it almost absently, like he was noting something down out loud, even as his hips shifted again. The slow, deliberate grind of his body against Ryan’s thigh was unmistakable, a warm pressure, that sent tickles down his spine.

If Ryan were meaner, he probably would’ve made him ask for it. But with his palms spread over Naim’s waist, feeling the heat of bare skin and the way it dipped in just above the waistband of those too-big sweatpants, he couldn’t bring himself to. His thumbs brushed the soft skin there without thinking, holding him steady as Naim moved.

“Would you still find it cute if I told you I’d been staring at your neck the whole maths class on your first day?”

The words slipped out before he could stop them. Naim’s reaction was immediate, as he let out a small, broken whimper that vibrated against Ryan’s chest, followed by a sharper roll of his hips.

 He kept grinding, lazy but focused, pressing the hard line of himself against Ryan’s clothed thigh with a kind of quiet dedication that might’ve made Ryan laugh if he’d been crueler. Instead it only made his grip tighten, fingers digging in just enough to feel the give of muscle and the way Naim’s breath hitched.

“You like hearing that, don’t you?” Ryan murmured, voice lower now, watching the way Naim’s lashes fluttered at the words.

Naim whined again, almost a sound of disapproval, and the noise went straight to Ryan’s dick, making it twitch hard against the front of his sweatpants. 

Truth was, Ryan was kind of pathetic. He knew damn well he could come like this, untouched, just from watching Naim grind against his thigh and hearing those little sounds. He wouldn’t even need to be touched, wouldn’t need one of Naim’s slender hands wrapped around him. 

“You—” Naim cut himself off mid-grind, biting down on his lower lip the way he usually did when he was nervous. This time it wasn’t nerves. “You never shut the fuck up, do you?”

Ryan’s fingers stayed anchored on Naim’s waist, thumbs tracing slow, deliberate paths over the warm skin.

“Has never been my best quality, y’know?”

He used a little more strength to guide Naim down his thigh again, catching him off guard. Naim actually moaned, as his head tipped  back, exposing his throat, his Adam’s apple on full displa and Ryan felt the damp spot of his own precum spreading against the fabric of his sweatpants. 

His brain short-circuited, before he leaned in and dragged his tongue up the column of Naim’s neck, slow and deliberate, from the curve of his collarbone all the way to the two small moles just below his right ear. 

The skin there was warm and faintly salty, and Ryan lingered, pressing an open-mouthed kiss against the moles before licking over them again.

Naim made a broken sound that was almost Ryan’s name. His hand came up, fingers threading into Ryan’s hair—not pulling him away, just holding him there, tightening slightly when Ryan’s tongue pressed harder. Ryan had noticed how much Naim liked his hair: the way his hands always seemed to end up in it, the way he sometimes looked like he wanted to brush the dust from the mill out of the strands.

No one needed to know that Ryan had started borrowing his sister’s hair products the second he caught Naim looking. That secret was going to the grave.

“I—” Naim’s voice was completely wrecked, panting hard against Ryan’s mouth, breath warm and shaky. Ryan felt the distinct twitch of Naim’s dick against his thigh and had to fight the urge to reach down and finish him off. Not yet. He wanted Naim to come untouched this time, wanted him to actually work for it, to fall apart just from this.

Before Naim could say anything else, Ryan kissed him, letting Naim take the lead in a way he almost never did. Naim drank it in like he was starving for it, lips parting immediately. When Ryan finally swept his tongue deeper, Naim made a sound Ryan wanted to record and replay for the rest of his life. It was soft, desperate, almost punched out of him. As he let it escape his lips, his hips stuttered hard, grinding down with less control, and Ryan felt something warm and wet soak through the fabric against his thigh.

He pulled back slowly, a thin string of spit still connecting their lips, breathing the same air as Naim’s chest rose and fell hard.

Naim’s lips were red and a little swollen, his eyes still dazed in what Ryan had come to recognize as his post-orgasm expression. He took a few more deep, unsteady breaths while holding Ryan’s gaze, chest rising and falling against him. Then something seemed to click back into place. His eyes drifted down Ryan’s body and landed on the front of his sweatpants.

Only when Ryan followed that look did he notice the wet spot darkening the fabric. He hadn’t even realized he’d come, too caught up in watching Naim fall apart, in the way he’d ground down against his thigh and the sweet little sounds he’d made.

Naim scrunched his nose once, expression somewhere between amused and faintly embarrassed, before lifting his eyes back to Ryan’s face.

“You’re a freak, you know that right?”

Ryan couldn’t fight the smile tugging at his mouth. “Oi, you came too. On my leg, I might add.”

The comment landed exactly the way he’d hoped. Naim’s ears flushed a soft red, something Ryan was secretly fond of, and he looked away for half a second before forcing his gaze back.

“Well, I already fucking regret it.”

“No you don’t.”

Naim’s lips twitched despite himself. “You always need to have the last word, don’t you?”