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“Naim?” Ryan’s whisper is loud in the too still room. The curtains are pulled closed, the only light coming from the crack beneath the door.
Ryan’s parents are asleep down the hall, and his piece of bed won’t stop squeaking, with every tiny movement jostling the loosened springs.
He’d managed to sneak Naim in without getting caught. He can’t risk his dad bursting in and ruining everything. He’d haul them both down to the church, to the deliverance healer again, demand he do the ritual again until it sticks.
Until whatever is wrong with Ryan is gone.
He feels Naim’s arm move against his. They’re on their backs, side by side, practically melting into each other in the suffocating heat, but neither of them moves away.
It would feel wrong to, Ryan thinks.
“Yeah?” Naim whispers back, gentler.
“What you saw today-“
“I don’t want to talk about it.” Naim stiffens. He’s afraid. They both are. Whatever that thing is, it’s after both of them.
“Don’t let it use me against you.”
Ryan feels Naim’s head turn to look in his direction. “That thing. It wasn’t you. It had your face. But it wasn’t you.”
Ryan feels a prickle of fear. He doubts, for a second, if it’s even Naim in bed beside him. But he’d know if it wasn’t, wouldn’t he? He’d know.
“It’s better if we stay together. Izzie said it comes when we’re alone, right?”
Naim nods. Ryan feels the motion.
“So we stay together as much as possible.” Ryan adds, quieter than he usually is. He can hear Naim’s steady, slow breathing. Can smell his shampoo, his toothpaste. He’s so close. So close, and Ryan could just reach out-
“I don’t want to die,” Naim whispers. His hand latches onto Ryan’s arm, his fingers wrapping around the faded scars.
“Hey,” Ryan turns his body so he’s on his side, arm beneath his head. “I’m not gonna let that happen. We’re gonna be okay.”
“I think this is my fault,” Naim shakes his head. “This thing. I think I brought it here.”
“How could it be your fault?”
Naim’s fingers tighten around Ryan’s arm. It’s starting to hurt, but Ryan’s used to the pain of being held too tightly.
Naim shakes his head. As if he wants to say more but he’s holding himself back. “Ryan, I can’t stop thinking about you,” Naim admits. “Fuck. I think about you. Like that.”
Ryan feels dizzy.
“You too?”
He hears Naim’s inhale.
“Say it, Naim.”
“I can’t.”
“Say it.” Ryan pushes. Naim caves.
“I like you, okay? Like that.”
Ryan’s stomach swoops. He lets his thumb swipe beneath Naim’s eye, to where a tear has landed. “You didn’t bring this thing here, Naim. It was already here. I think.. I think it was just waiting. And the ritual-“
Naim stiffens again. Ryan apologises quietly, promised he’d never bring it up again.
“I think that healer guy let it out. And now it’s latched onto us.”
“It’s a sin,” Naim adds, voice thick.
“Maybe,” Ryan says. He thinks about the bible, about his nana’s angry face when she caught him kissing the neighbour’s son. He thinks about the scars on his back from his dad’s belt, about the weight of the deliverance healer’s hand on his head, about gluttony and lust and the way Naim tasted when they’d kissed.
He thinks about Naim’s lips, soft and willing. He thinks about the first time a boy pushed him on his back, thinks about a rosary gripped in his fist, sobbing and choking on his damnation.
Maybe it is a sin. Maybe he is damned, and he damned Naim in the process. But fuck, Ryan is sick of denying himself that in which he wants. And as he runs his thumb over the apple of Naim’s cheek, he wants.
More than he ever has in his life, and it’s disarming and terrifying. Part of him wants to run, as far as his legs can take him. The other part wants to curl tighter into Naim.
They both hold their breaths as the floorboards in the hallway creak. The bathroom light switches on, a stream of urine hitting the toilet bowl is the only sound in the otherwise eerily silent house.
“Dad.” Ryan whispers in Naim’s ear, afraid to speak too loud in case he’s overheard. He squeezes his eyes shut as the toilet flushes, the light switches off, and a bedroom door is closed.
Ryan doesn’t move away. He stays there, on his side, breathing into Naim’s ear, and thinks,
I could be happy like this. Here with him.
I could be happy.
“Ryan?”
He hums, the cool metal of his chain tickling his collarbone.
“Come here.”
Ryan scoots closer, blindly searching in the dark for a glimpse of Naim’s face. He places his pointer finger beneath Naim’s chin so that they’re face to face, kissing him, softer than he’s used to.
He could be a better person for Naim, he reckons. He wants to be.
He doesn’t think he’ll have the chance.
Ryan feels Naim’s stubble as his lips ghost over his jaw. Naim’s fingers have moved to Ryan’s shoulders, his back, exploring.
Ryan rolls, planting his hands on either side of Naim’s head. The bed creaks, groaning beneath the added weight of another body atop Naim’s.
Ryan leans down again, bridging the gap between them. Naim’s lips part to welcome his tongue. His hand slips beneath Ryan’s tee, finding the soft lines of his stomach. His fingers brush against the dusting of hair at his navel.
A question hangs between them. As Ryan pulls his lips from Naim’s, he struggles to catch his breath. He shivers at the feel of fingernails scratching against his skin.
“You’re the only thing I like about this shitty town.”
He knocks his forehead against Naim’s. His lips are swollen and kiss bitten and there’s a string of spit hanging between them.
“Have you ever?”
Naim shakes his head. Ryan wants to see him, so he leans over and flicks on the bedside lamp. It illuminates the room in a soft orange glow.
Naim is as beautiful as ever. As open, as willing.
“Do you want to?”
Naim nods, and Ryan’s lips are on his again. Naim’s arms come up around his back, his blunt fingernails scratching at the nape of Ryan’s neck. The slight burn from the scratch has Ryan groaning into the kiss.
He pulls back, pulling off his washed out tee, chucking it somewhere behind him. His chain gets caught in his lips. Naim reaches up and fixes it for him, and Ryan’s throat feels tight.
He stares down at Naim, splayed in his bed, and commits the sight to memory. Knows he’ll be thinking about this moment forever.
He sits back on his haunches, nodding as Naim makes room between his legs for Ryan.
Naim holds his stare as he pushes his pants and boxers down his thighs. Ryan’s eyes follow the movement greedily, his fingers twitching against his own thighs. Naim opens his mouth, spits into his palm and takes himself into his hand. Ryan’s inhale is sharp as he watches.
It’s hypnotising, beautiful, and Ryan feels his own cock harden. His fingers flex with the urge to touch himself. Thinks he’ll go insane if he doesn’t get his hands on Naim as-well.
Naim nods up at him, wispy breaths escaping. Ryan doesn’t wait another second before pulling his cock out, moving between Naim’s spread legs, and spits between them. The saliva lands between them, messy, disgusting, biblical.
“Oh fuck-“ Naim gasps, coating himself in Ryan’s spit. The blond above him is panting, eyes focused on the sight. He can’t look away. Wouldn’t even if he could.
“You’re beautiful,” Ryan is breathless and it’s too much, it’s entirely too fucking much and not enough all at once.
“Ryan-“ Naim gasps, reaches for him with his free hand, and Ryan is going, swatting Naim’s hand away and taking them both into his fist, uncaring that the mattress is squeaking wildly, uncaring that they might die, that this has to end eventually, uncaring that they’re destined for some sort of hell.
They exist here and now, in this impossible moment, and that’s enough for Ryan.
Ryan spits again, smearing it onto their cockheads, jerking them off together. He can’t look away from Naim even as the other boy’s eyes close, even as his name falls from Naim’s lips, and a familiar warmth coats his hand, his stomach, his chest.
Ryan can’t look away as he paints Naim’s soft skin with his cum. He moans into his fist, leaving teeth marks behind on his knuckles.
When he catches his breath, wetting his lips, he looks down and laughs. Naim’s cross necklace is splattered in white. Definitely biblical.