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The first time Naim holds Ryan's hand, the world tilts.
Ryan is laughing. That unabashed, full sound that comes from the bottom of the belly, and his chest is shaking with it. Naim laughs, too, but it's smaller, curling into him because he doesn't want to hear himself over Ryan's sweet cackle. Doesn't want to choke on the smoke in his mouth.
Frankly, he has no idea what he said that was so funny, but Ryan is rolling onto his side and slapping the dusty shed floor, and all Naim knows is that he wants to keep feeling the warm, grand sense of pride that trickles down between his sore ribs.
Louder, is what he wants to say. Instead, he mutters, "Stop that."
It's empty. They both know it's empty, because Naim can't take a full drag of his (their) cigarette with how hard he's trying to hold back a smile, and Ryan is wheezing now. Gripping Naim's knee for purchase, ringed fingers splayed over his washed out jeans.
Naim's gaze falls, and then pauses.
When his own fingers twitch where they're keeping him propped up on the floor, he tells himself it's an involuntary jerk. Unrelated to how he also suddenly wonders what it would feel like to trace the veins on the back of Ryan's hand. They're thick and blue and right there, waiting, should Naim ever find the courage.
He squeezes his hand into a fist instead, scraping up dust and dirt on the way. No, he definitely shouldn't touch now.
"This is the last cig we have left," Naim says, still staring at Ryan's rings. "If you don't calm down I'm finishing the whole thing myself."
That, at least, is enough to grab Ryan's attention. His laughter mellows out into small chuckles, and Naim finally sucks in a full breath himself.
Until he looks a little higher again, to where Ryan's mouth is stretched into a lazy smile and sweaty curls are falling into his eyes, and then it's crackling again. That press of something in his chest. Naim blames it on the cigarette smoke and laughter.
"Don't be like that," Ryan says, lifting the hand that's not touching Naim and wriggling his fingers in a stupid, 'gimme' kind of motion. "Come on."
Naim scoffs, and then hands him the cigarette.
It would be easy. It would be so, so easy for Ryan to take his hand off Naim's knee and not have to twist himself into the weird mess of limbs he ends up in when he goes to take a drag, but he doesn't. The heat of his palm is still very much blazing through Naim's jeans, flickering in tandem with the stick between Ryan's lips—red, impossible to ignore.
Naim tries anyway.
"We should head back soon."
The sun is coming down, and they've wasted away an afternoon just like this. Talking, sitting in silence, burning through a pack with nothing smarter to do.
Mostly, Naim wants to get up and let gravity do its thing and pull this weird feeling out of him. Wants to stop noticing the way sunlight falls across Ryan's blonde curls all halo-like, turning dust particles into specks of gold. Wants to stop a lot of things.
"Mm, just another minute." Ryan offers the cigarette back, and Naim declines, fearing the moment their hands brush and he doesn't let go. "Suit yourself."
Lifting himself up on his elbow, Ryan exhales a cloud of smoke. It curls up around his head like a sheer veil, but Naim is too distracted by how the change of position makes Ryan's hand shift, until half of his forearm is just hanging over Naim's thigh, fingers dancing, tap, tap, tapping, like he knows.
"How's it been with you mom? She adjusting fine?"
Naim swallows, stares some more.
"Yeah, she's been all over the place. I don't know, I—" he huffs when Ryan's thumb curls over the seam of his jeans, leg twitching, and he asks again, "can you stop that?"
Ryan tilts his head, halo and all. "Stop what?"
For a second, Naim thinks it's a good idea to try and nudge Ryan away. He realises just how wrong he is when it makes Ryan's palm go flat on his thigh, widening the contact surface between them.
"That."
The cigarette hangs from Ryan's mouth and it burns, burns, burns all the way through. Naim has never felt such kinship with a foreign object before, he's pretty certain. Or such jealousy, for the capability of shrinking and falling away when the heat gets too much.
"It's bothering you?"
"Yeah."
"Then I won't."
Ryan gives him The Smirk. The same one he gave him the very first time their eyes met, the one that made Naim wonder how something so douchey could be so rousing all at once. Ryan has mastered that craft in particular, he thinks.
Shaking his head, Naim hums out— "Asshole," and then weaves his hand around Ryan's wrist.
Or at least that is his intention. But he isn't quick enough on the turn, because when his palm flips down Ryan's flips up, and he's caught in the in-between like that, sweaty, warm fingers clasping around his firmly. Holding him close.
Ryan grins, takes the final drag of the cigarette, and then tugs Naim down to blow the smoke all in his face.
"You're so—" Naim grunts, but doesn't turn his face. Doesn't try to squeeze his hand away. "Ugh."
Ugh? Seriously?
He feels fucking stupid. Ryan makes him feel stupid, when he does that thing where he drains Naim's brain of all coherent thought.
It doesn't help that Ryan's fingers are suddenly moving, not holding him anymore, but just…hovering. Pads tickling over knuckles, down to his palm, and then up again. When their sticky palms slot together, it's Ryan's hand that comes up larger. Naim's stomach flips.
"What's so ugh about me?"
"Your stupid, ugly hair," Naim starts, curling his thumb around Ryan's. Ryan hums through a grin. "And your stupid jokes."
Pushing his pointer between two of Naim's fingers, Ryan nods.
"What else?"
Naim willingly takes the bait. "And your stupid, annoying smirk."
Another slot. The barely-there sound of their skin brushing. And then—
"What else?"
"And your stupid, cool rings."
Ryan's mouth curls up, showing off a row of pearly whites. He hums once more.
"And," Naim breathes, and he swears they're closer than they were two seconds ago. "Your stupid, pretty hands that I keep wanting to hold."
Their pinkies push down last, and then their hands are intertwined on Naim's lap, and the force keeps pulling him in, in, in—and it feels warm. Safe. Like he's allowed this stupid moment of bravery.
"If it helps," Ryan says, tongue flicking out to wet his lips. "I think you're very ugh as well."
Naim's head hangs with a short, breathy little laugh. "Shut up."
It's exactly what Ryan does, because it's hard to talk with a busy mouth.
His lips are warm too, open and waiting for Naim to fall into it fully, and when he does Ryan surges up to really kiss him. Slow, steady, tilting his head as the tip of his tongue teases at Naim's bottom lip. And he doesn't know how to kiss, not really, but Ryan makes it easy to just do things. To say fuck it for once and make out with an annoyingly pretty boy in a dirty, empty shed, because nothing else matters anyway.
When Ryan's tongue slides against his, hot and wet and maybe a little filthy, Naim digs his fingernails into the back of Ryan's hand. Holds him tight as it all starts to blur—the dust, the blinding halo around Ryan, the world outside that frankly, if you asked Naim, doesn't even exist anymore.
"Was that—" Ryan chuckles as he pulls away, voice coming out broken up and breathy. Their lips brush when he speaks. "Was that your first kiss?"
Naim can only nod, small, uncertain.
"Was it bad?"
Ryan bumps their noses, the spit on his lips glistening when the light catches them, and he squeezes back. His fingers draw back where they're snug between Naim's, pulling softly, rings sliding against clammy skin until Ryan can grab his wrist and tug him down to the floor with him. Naim goes with a yelp, unable to resist a smile when he ends up half on top of Ryan.
Shaking his head, Ryan tangles their fingers again, and whispers, "Not at all."
It's through a flimsy screen door that Naim learns how cold Ryan's hands can be.
Not Ryan. He knows this. He's known since the moment he showed up at the door, frantic and demanding, something Ryan would never do. Still, it didn't stop Naim from closing the gap, pressing himself as close as humanly possible in this moment, feeling for himself how different this Ryan is.
Maybe it's the chill running down his spine, that makes Naim tilt his head forward, eyelids fluttering weakly. Or maybe the guilt that's been carving a home for itself in his chest, because it is his Ryan, isn't it? He exists because of Naim. For him, and maybe that's why, somehow, it feels good to touch regardless. To feel. To pretend, for a moment, that maybe Ryan feels it too somewhere. Maybe, maybe, maybe—
There have been so many maybes recently. Maybe if Naim wasn't so needy, maybe if his insides weren't tainted with jealousy, maybe if he could just spit things out for once, they wouldn't be like this.
"You won't let me in?"
It's soft. It's so soft Naim can't help but screw his face up. It's not correct.
"I'm sorry," he breathes, and it hurts when he inhales.
Ryan makes this sound, like a soft coo in the back of his throat. His other hand comes up as well, but instead of mirroring Naim's he slides it up and stops just under his jaw, pressing into the screen door until the webbed mesh gives under the weight.
"Don't be sorry now, baby."
It takes everything in him to not flinch away. It's not—right. Ryan doesn't call him that. Ryan doesn't speak so weirdly. He knows, he knows, he knows. And still, Naim shudders and melts deeper into him.
How can he not be sorry? How can he stop the ugly, freezing feeling when he looks up and Ryan's eyes aren't Ryan's? And his hands aren't his, and the warmth between them isn't there. If he just gets close enough…
Even with tears blurring his vision, Naim sees the way Ryan's hand curls. It's miniscule, a twitch of a finger, but when Naim tilts back and bares his neck Ryan does it again. Fingers twisting like they're itching to take, to hold, to choke.
Naim doesn't flinch.
"Doesn't it hurt?" Ryan whispers into the space left between them, a cruel thing, even if it's soft. "Don't you want me closer?"
Ever since he felt the dips between Ryan's fingers, and the way his own fit inside them, Naim hasn't stopped wanting.
To be touched, or held so close he can't breathe, think, doubt, maybe, or to be loved, even, if the world would allow such a greedy thing. If maybe Ryan would just want him and only him. Maybe, maybe, maybe…
Naim shivers, and nods.
It's a foolish leap, a stupid, naive kind of want that drives him when he reaches for the doorknob, twists, and hopes to be loved.