"The Quiet Ache Of Autumn"
(Five years earlier)
Nick sat on the weathered bench beneath the gnarled jacaranda tree, its curling branches trembling lightly. The courtyard hummed, students passing between lectures, footsteps softened by the carpet of lavender petals scattered over the paving stones. His eyes drifted from the worn spine of the book in his hands to the sun-streaked walkways.
Then came a pause in the light. A shadow, tall and lean, darkened the corner of his page. Nick looked up, already knowing who it was.
"Caleb."
The boy stood there in silence for a breath too long. His hair was curlier it seemed, untamed, his emerald eyes shadowed by something more than the brim of his beanie. He wore a heavy jacket despite the mild afternoon, his bag slung carelessly over one shoulder.
Nick gestured to the empty spot beside him. "Sit."
Caleb lowered himself without a word, legs folding in a loose sprawl. For a while, neither of them spoke. They let the breeze move between them, scattering silence like seeds across a field. Nick turned the page, not really reading.
"I thought I'd see you back last week," he said at last, voice mild. "You've missed a few classes."
Caleb's jaw shifted, as though weighing what to reveal and what to protect. "I've been around."
Nick glanced at him. "Around?"
"It's…" He trailed off, then tried again. "It's a rough time of the year for me. I find that making myself disappear helps. Somewhat."
Nick said nothing, just let the silence lean into them again.
Caleb picked at the seam of his jeans. "I...lost someone," he finally said, barely above a whisper. "A couple of years ago."
Nick kept still.
"The man who raised me," Caleb added, eyes trained on the jacaranda bark.
Nick's empathy sprinted, his words following close by. "I can already tell he meant a lot to you," he said softly.
"He wasn't perfect. Far from it. But he saved me. In every way someone can save another person."
Nick's voice was gentle. "Your father?"
"Yes." Caleb's laugh was soft, hollow. "Among other things," he added with a tamed smile full of truths only he knew.
Nick nodded slowly. "I'm sorry."
"I am too," Caleb said. "Every year, when the air starts to change, I feel it coming. This ache. It just...settles in. And I forget how to speak to people. Or be around them."
Nick closed the book in his lap. "Grief isn't a season, Caleb. It's a second heartbeat."
"I used to think it was," Caleb said. "You know...like that quite ache of autumn, or something. But it's not."
Nick nodded slowly, and his voice dropped an octave. "So you retreat when the water rises," he spoke softly. "Roland Barthes wrote that when his mother died, he didn't want to talk to anyone who hadn't also lost their mother. That grief creates its own class of people. An invisible tribe."
A breeze rustled through the courtyard trees, lifting loose petals into the air.
Then Caleb said, quietly, "He gave himself away. Every piece of him. I don't think I deserved it, but…he didn't care."
Nick's gaze flicked back, something unreadable in his eyes. He threaded lightly, yet fascinated. "Do you think that's love?"
"I do," Caleb said.
Nick looked away, jaw tight. "Some would argue losing yourself for someone else is the easiest path to destruction."
Caleb tilted his head. "Or maybe it's the only honest one."
Nick's voice sharpened, only slightly. "And what if you...become invisible in the process? What if you vanish completely?"
Caleb was quiet, contemplative. "Then maybe that's still love. Tragic, but…love doesn't always need to be...seen. It just needs to be given."
Nick looked at him long and hard. "Even if it hurts?"
Caleb smiled, soft and crooked. "Especially if it hurts."
They sat in silence again, the words lingering like mist.
Caleb looked over, and their eyes met. "I thought you'd be mad I skipped class."
"I'm not your warden," Nick said. "Though I do think you'd have found something in The Unbearable Lightness of Being."
A flicker of something lit in Caleb's expression. "I read it."
Nick's lips curled slightly with a quiet satisfaction. "Of course you did," he said before he arched a brow. "And?"
"It made me angry," Caleb said. "And sad. But mostly, I hated how much I recognized myself in Tomas. That kind of loneliness you can't admit to anyone. That craving for weight and the terror of it at the same time."
Nick smiled faintly. "And what about Tereza?"
Caleb hesitated. "She reminded me of someone I used to want to be. Soft. Believing. Fragile in a beautiful way. But I'm not."
Nick leaned back, studying the veins of the sky between the branches. "Do you think Tomas loved her?"
"I think he wanted to. I think she was the only weight he couldn't throw off."
They sat in that fragile hush, something heavy and luminous suspended between them. In the distance, the bells rang the hour.
Caleb looked at Nick then, with eyes that weren't pleading or lost, only aware. "You ever do that?" he asked. "Disappear for someone?"
Nick's lips curved into something not quite a smile. "I never thought of myself as that person," he said. "But I'm beginning to suspect otherwise."
Caleb chuckled softly. "That sounds like something you'd write on a blackboard and leave us to argue over for a week."
"Guilty."
As the first students filtered into the courtyard, chattering about readings and midterms, Caleb stood. His emerald gaze scanned the courtyard before he turned, locking on Nick.
"Professor Morrisey, you ever think," Caleb said, "that maybe disappearing for someone isn't weakness, but a different kind of presence?"
Nick didn't answer. He just looked up, lips parted, words caught somewhere behind his teeth.
Caleb took a step backward, then another. "Maybe love isn't about being seen. Maybe it's about being the one thing they can't stop feeling, even when you're gone."
And with that, he turned and walked away, his figure dissolving into the movement of students and time.
*
(Present time)
The door to Nick's room shut with the softest click.
He leaned his weight into it, one hand lingering on the brass handle, his eyes adjusting to the dark. The windows were open, letting in the saline hush of the waves. Moonlight poured across the bed in strips through the slatted blinds, painting Adrian's bare chest in pale ribbons.
He was lying back against the pillows, one hand resting on his abdomen, a book forgotten on his lap. He looked up when Nick entered, his expression softened by the vulnerability that always crept in when the night was late and the world outside could no longer be held at bay.
"You were gone a while," Adrian said, his voice low, hoarse from sleep, or wine.
Nick exhaled. "Drove into town."
Adrian studied him for a beat. "And Bobby?"
A pause. Nick moved toward the dresser and poured himself a small glass of water. "He's...around."
"That's not what I asked."
Nick turned, glass in hand, one brow slightly raised. "No," he said, voice calm, deliberately opaque. "It's not."
Adrian looked away, exhaling through his nose. He shifted in bed and tugged the sheets higher. "He's acting weird."
Nick crossed the room and sat at the edge of the bed, his back to Adrian, the glass held between his knees. "Normal for a twenty-one-year-old. Your words, not mine."
"I never said that."
Nick smirked at the floor. "Right."
A long silence hung between them, pierced only by the susurrus of the sea. Adrian sat up slightly, propping himself on one elbow. His eyes traced the line of Nick's spine, the gentle curve of his shoulders.
"I hate when you go quiet like this," Adrian said.
Nick took a slow sip of water, his movements graceful, controlled. "I know."
"You make it hard for me to know what you're thinking."
"That's the idea."
Adrian gave a low, humorless laugh. "You wanna make me beg for it."
Nick turned to him then, at last. His gaze was calm, but there was something more coiled behind it, some quiet verdict not yet delivered. "Well, it's your fault, really. I used to tell you everything."
"I know," Adrian whispered. And then, after a beat, "I miss that."
Nick slid the glass onto the nightstand and lay back beside him, their shoulders barely brushing. He didn't speak for a long moment.
Adrian's fingers reached for his, not entwining, just resting beside. "You don't trust me anymore."
Nick closed his eyes. "That's not true." Nick turned his head, their faces inches apart now, his breath warm between them. "Besides, the fact that you're a piece of shit is out in the open now. If anything, I trust you more."
Adrian flinched, just faintly before chuckling. "So…is this how it's going to be now?"
Nick considered the question. "I'm not sure yet."
Adrian nodded slowly, then looked at him, really looked at him. "You know you're the only one who knows how to keep my shit together."
Nick's lips twitched into a tired smile. "That's the problem, Adrian. You need me more than you love me."
Adrian's voice was barely a breath: "And you?"
Nick's eyes stayed open as he whispered, "I'm...still figuring that out."
Adrian tilted his head. "Isn't that what drew you in, once?"
Nick didn't answer right away.
"Maybe. That part of you that takes and doesn't apologize. Even when you pretended to be gentle."
Adrian leaned forward, hand brushing lightly down Nick's spine. "I am gentle. With you."
Nick turned, catching Adrian's wrist in his hand, not harshly, just enough to hold him still.
"No. You're soft with me because you know I see the monster in you, and I let it breathe."
Adrian's lips parted slightly, but he said nothing.
"You think I don't know how much you need me?" Nick's voice was quiet now, almost tender. "Not just to love you, but to hold you down. To be the one thing in your life you haven't completely destroyed."
Adrian pulled his hand back. His eyes glistened in the low light. "I never wanted to hurt you."
Nick turned fully toward him, folding his legs on the bed, facing Adrian now like a mirror slowly coming to life. "But you did. And I let you."
"Because you love me," Adrian said, almost a whisper.
"Because I'm addicted to the ruin we've built together," Nick said.
Adrian looked stricken. And then, vulnerable. The wall cracked for a moment, and there he was, not the man who wielded charm like a knife, but the boy who had never quite stopped begging to be loved.
"I don't want to be like this, Nick."
Nick's eyes softened, just a little.
"I know."
There was no kiss. No embrace. Just a long silence as the air between them shifted.
They sat there, inches apart.
Tethered by their history.
And haunted by their love.
*
(20 years earlier)
The lecture hall was too warm for late September.
Professor Langley stood at the front of the room, his voice droning through a passage on Roland Barthes, misquoting "The Death of the Author" with an almost impressive confidence.
Nick, seated in the middle row, wore a rust-colored cardigan and a look of silent exasperation. His pen hovered, then dropped flat against his notebook. A few beats of stillness passed before he raised his hand.
"Actually," he said, voice steady but not unkind, "Barthes didn't say the author was dead because the reader kills him. He said the author dies the moment the writing begins, that meaning is no longer singular. It's scattered, unstable. A field of signifiers, not dictated intention."
A murmur rose in the room. Some chuckled nervously. Professor Langley blinked behind his glasses and gave a flustered, "Quite right, Mr. Morrisey."
Nick glanced down again, scribbling something in the margins of his notebook, but not before catching the gaze from the back row. A long-legged guy with a devil-may-care slouch, hair still wet from the rain, and a grin that could disarm most defenses.
Adrian.
Nick had heard of him before.
He was watching Nick with interest, amused, yes, but something else too. Intrigue. Recognition.
That night, Nick received a text.
You made Barthes almost sexy today. Drinks at The Pale Horse? Adrian Parker
Nick smiled, his dick hardening inside his pants.
The Pale Horse was a crooked old joint near the edge of campus. The ceiling sloped at odd angles, like the building had once tried to shrug off gravity and failed. Students filled the booths and corners, murmuring over textbooks and half-empty pints, and the music was always just loud enough to give secrets a place to hide.
Nick sat at a back table with a dog-eared copy of Mythologies folded open in front of him, a drink untouched at his elbow. He wore his thoughts like he wore his clothes, neatly, deliberately. Corduroy jacket, collared shirt. Clean edges, muted tones.
Adrian arrived late, as expected, and made no apology. He swept in with the kind of energy that dared the room to ignore him, hair damp from the rain, scarf hanging off one shoulder, leather jacket unzipped like he didn't care whether he stayed or left. He spotted Nick immediately and smiled, sharp and satisfied, like he'd won something.
"Hey," he said, dropping into the seat across from Nick and kicking out his legs as if claiming territory. "That was quite the performance today. I could see Langley's tiny dick shriveling from the back row."
Nick glanced up over the rim of his glasses, unfazed. "It wasn't a performance. It was just correcting him."
Adrian leaned forward, elbows on the table, eyeing him. "Right. You're the truth-teller. The keeper of nuance. Do you always speak like you're writing a monograph?"
Nick closed his book calmly, lifting one brow. "Only when the occasion requires it."
Adrian chuckled, then flagged down the bartender without looking. "Two whiskeys. Neat."
Nick didn't argue. Instead, he watched Adrian with quiet interest, cataloguing him like a passage he hadn't yet annotated. There was something disheveled and theatrical in Adrian's manner, something that didn't quite belong in academic circles, but made perfect sense in that setting.
"So," Adrian said, drumming his fingers on the table. "What made you interrupt Langley? Pet peeve, or a pathological need to be right?"
Nick didn't rise to the bait. "Barthes has been reduced to buzzwords and meme quotes. If we don't correct the misuse, we lose the depth."
"Depth," Adrian repeated, as if tasting the word. "You sound like someone who's terrified of the shallow end."
Nick smiled, finally sipping his drink. "You sound like someone who's never left it."
Adrian laughed, loud and honest, and it startled Nick, how much he liked the sound. "Touché. You're sharper than you look."
"Well," Nick replied coolly, "you're exactly as loud as you appear."
Their eyes locked, and for a moment, something flickered between them, not antagonism, but recognition. Two men too clever for small talk, too different to blend, too drawn to walk away.
Adrian tilted his head. "So what's your story, Nick? Besides being the scourge of misinformed professors and a Barthes purist."
Nick considered. "I read. I write. I learn. I go home."
"That's it?"
"What more do you need?"
Adrian shrugged. "I don't know. Something messier. You seem like the kind of guy who catalogues his thoughts by theme and motif."
Nick leaned back. "And you're the kind who avoids his thoughts altogether."
Another beat. Adrian's smirk softened. "Maybe."
The drinks arrived. Adrian toasted with a flick of his glass. "To meaninglessness."
Nick raised his in return. "To meaning, whether you like it or not."
They drank.
An hour passed like ten minutes. Adrian sprawled further in his seat as the whiskey settled in him. Nick grew looser too, the lines at the corners of his mouth beginning to hint at a grin.
At some point, Adrian said, "You know, when I first saw you in class, I thought, 'that guy is going to make me work for it'."
Nick blinked. "Work for what?"
Adrian smiled slowly. Deliberately slow. "Your attention."
Nick's throat went dry, but he didn't show it. He looked down at his drink. "You have it now. What will you do with it?"
Adrian leaned closer across the table. "That depends. Will you let me in? Or just analyze me from a distance?"
Nick met his eyes, quiet, intense. "Who says I haven't already?"
That stopped Adrian. For once, he had no ready quip, no performative charm. His expression faltered, and something real flickered behind his eyes. It looked almost like fear.
Then Nick stood. "It's late."
Adrian blinked. "That's it?"
Nick put on his coat. "Yeah."
Adrian watched him go, eyes narrowed, that strange half-smile returning. He had chased a lot of people. Played countless games. But this? This didn't feel like a game.
Nick walked out into the cold night. His pulse still raced, but his face was calm.
He'll follow, Nick thought.
And he was right.
He did.
Behind Nick, boots scuffed on gravel. "You always leave people hanging like that?"
Nick didn't turn. "I didn't think you'd care."
Adrian's voice came closer, light with mock indignation. "Of course I care."
Nick finally glanced over his shoulder. Adrian stood there, a stupidly charming grin tugging at the corner of his mouth, curls damp with sweat from the pub's humidity. He had that maddening, unshakable confidence of someone who'd never had to beg for attention.
"I'm going back to my dorm," Nick said, turning again. "Alone."
Adrian caught up in two easy strides. "And miss the opportunity to debate Roland Barthes in the moonlight? Tragic."
Nick smirked, though he tried to hide it. "You're insufferable."
"You wound me," Adrian said, dramatically clutching his chest. "Look, I just wanna walk you home. No, hum...funny business."
"That's somehow less convincing coming from you."
"And yet," Adrian said, stepping closer, "you haven't told me to fuck off."
Nick opened his mouth to respond, but a sudden crack of thunder split the air above them. A second later, rain came down in sheets, like a curtain pulled from the sky. Cold and instant. Nick yelped and bolted, his laughter slipping out despite himself as he ran toward campus.
Adrian was right behind him, shouting something incomprehensible through the rain. They dodged puddles, cutting across courtyards slick with water, soaked to the bone and breathless. By the time they reached the dorm, they were dripping and flushed, hearts pounding. Nick fumbled with his key, cursing under his breath as his fingers slipped.
Adrian leaned close, shivering slightly but grinning like an idiot. "Need help with that, genius?"
Nick got the door open and shoved it inward, ushering them both inside. They ran up the narrow staircase two steps at a time. The hallway was quiet, dark, except for the humming fluorescents. Nick unlocked his door and pushed it open, stepping into the familiar warmth of his room. Books everywhere. The scent of cedar and paper. A worn wool blanket on the bed. His sanctuary.
Adrian stood just inside the doorway, hair plastered to his forehead, jacket hanging off one shoulder. He looked around with a kind of reverent curiosity. "This is...very you."
Nick arched an eyebrow. "That's either a compliment or a weird insult."
Adrian stepped closer, their soaked sleeves brushing. "Definitely a compliment. Quiet, smart, organized, and somehow still intimidating."
Nick huffed. "You're just trying to charm your way into my ass."
Adrian tilted his head. "Is it working?"
Nick didn't answer. His lips quirked, his eyes held Adrian's, steady, searching. And then, before he could overthink it, Adrian leaned in and kissed him. Soft. Confident. The kind of kiss that asked a question but also answered one.
Nick didn't pull away then. He waited, letting his lips sink just long enough into Adrian's to taste them. And they tasted even better than he thought. Then, he pulled away.
"We should...get naked," he whispered, eyes slightly hazy. Adrian's brows lifted slightly. "I mean...I don't want us to get sick," he added most endearingly.
Adrian opened his mouth slightly as if to say something, but Nick pushed his hand against Adrian's chest, halting his attempt. They stared silently into each other's eyes, their breaths syncopated. Nick took his hands down to Adrian's crotch and started unbuckling his belt, opening his zipper, and letting his soaked pants fall to the floor as the stud clumsily yanked off his sneakers. Then without waiting, Nick pulled Adrian's underwear down, unlocking his 11-inch throbbing cock. Adrian's hands pulled at his shirt, peeled it off his chest, and shoved it sideways. He was now completely naked, body disclosed, a soft expression on his face as his cock's tip rubbed against Nick's pelvis.
Nick pulled his shirt off and unzipped his pants, letting them drop gently on the floor. Adrian's eyes ventured, scanning every inch of Nick's naked frame.
"You're fucking gorgeous," he groaned.
And as Nick pulled his underwear down, his cock sprung forth and brushed Adrian's. Nick held both in his right hand and started tugging on them. Adrian's head immediately tilted back as he groaned in pleasure. Nick took his left hand and grasped Adrian's neck, pulling him and locking their mouths in a passionate kiss, still rubbing their dicks with his right hand.
Adrian swathed his muscular arms around Nick's back, his left around the lower back, and his right between his shoulder blades, pulling him in as he pushed his tongue deeper inside his mouth. As their tongues danced together, their tastes fused, and their movements began merging. Adrian's left hand started to explore Nick's back, moving over his skin like a snake, climbing into his neck and sliding his fingers inside his hair. His right hand descended into uncharted territory, grazing gently over Nick's ass. Adrian's fingers started squeezing Nick's cheeks, smacking them vigorously. Meanwhile, his breathing became more nuanced inside Nick's mouth, who moaned, perfectly tuned with every slap.
They unlocked their lips, spit covering them, and Adrian moved to the edge of the bed, his dick rock hard and pointing towards the ceiling, a coat of precum oozing from within his foreskin.
I really...really want you to suck my dick," Adrian stated. Yet, despite his nature, histone wasn't demanding or condescending. It was uncharacteristically restrained.
Nick didn't argue. Without missing a beat, he kneeled between Adrian's legs, leaned forward, and shoved his nose inside his sack, just over the balls, taking a prolonged sniff. Adrian fell back, chuckling, his hands covering his mouth. But soon, that chuckle curved into a vigorous groan as Nick's tongue began sliding along his scrotum, and his mouth started sucking on his balls.
"Damn, genius...you actually know what you're doing," Adrian muttered, his lips stretching into a satisfied grin.
With each new moan evading Adrian's mouth, Nick's nose delved deeper and deeper inside his crack. At times, his tongue would accidentally skim Adrian's sphincter, making his pelvis sprout upwards in small but firm movements.
But Nick's interest was elsewhere. He began gliding his tongue along Adrian's cock, up to the tip, pulling the foreskin back and wiggling his tongue over it. This made Adrian's body quiver, and the more he did, the snappier Nick's tongue moved. Sensing the subtle jolts, Nick slid up the shaft and swallowed it whole, bobbing his head up and down like a pro.
"Fuuuuck," Adrian groaned as he took his hands from his mouth and punched his arms sideways, flat on the bed, his head shaking from side to side. "Nick..." He muttered, his fingers grasping the sheets. Nick just moaned back, signaling Adrian his enjoyment.
By now, it was obvious Nick had mastered the technique of sucking a cock. And not just any cock, but one as big as Adrian's. And a few minutes in, his mouth had complete dominance over Adrian.
Every inch of Adrian's massive shaft belonged to his mouth, throat, and tongue, now as they all worshipped it. Suddenly, Nick felt a spasm inside his mouth. He knew Adrian was close, so he stopped moving and held it inside his jaws, captive, slightly moving his tongue from side to side, stopping every time he felt it twitch again. Under his stretched throat, Nick's lips curved salaciously. After all, he had taken less than ten minutes to push Adrian to the edge. And he hadn't even let him fuck him.
"You're not so tough after all..." Nick whispered as he pulled his mouth back, slapping Adrian's dick over his tongue.
"I don't think that's..." Adrian tried to argue, but Nick's mouth dove right back in, engulfing his cock and cutting his comeback short. "Jesuuuuuss fucking Christ, duuuude," Adrian hollered, grinning with awe at Nick's surprising technique.
Finally, Nick heard Adrian take a deep breath and couldn't help but chuckle, his mouth still covering his friend's shaft.
"Fuck...I think I'm..." Adrian uttered before his cock pulsated and strings of cum began erupting inside Nick's mouth. Rather than pull away, he plunged his head further down, the tip of Adrian's dick now touching the back of his throat where it remained, ushering the remains of his lust juice while Nick moaned, slowly consuming them. String after delicious string.
He finally pulled away, having milked every ounce of Adrian's batter, releasing a gasp of air as he unlocked from the throbbing prick.
"As I expected," Nick muttered As he swalowed the last thick glob of Adrian's cum still clinging to the back of his throat. "You do taste amazing," he razzed, winking up at Adrian, whose head lifted from the bed, giggling. Then, between heavy breaths.
"What now?" Adrian questioned, looking to Nick for an answer. Nick smiled. He slid over the bed closer to Adrian, raised his leg, and climbed on top of him, his perfect ass sitting on the stud's still hard cock.
"Now you fuck my ass," Nick commanded, with a smirk on his lips as he felt Adrian's dick brushing back and forth between his crack. He could notice Adrian's eyes flare up. "What's the matter, hot shot?" He questioned, grinning.
"You're kinda...intense, dude," Adrian uttered, chuckling as he took his hand to his hair, pulling his locks away from his eyes.
"I thought you liked that?" Nick uttered, his lips curling slightly.
"You done this before?" Adrian provoked, immediately volleying off Nick's energy.
"Not this big, no...but don't worry. I'm a fast learner," Nick teased, tilting his cheeks slightly from side to side, teasing Adrian's shaft as his eyes locked on the stud.
Both men stared at each other, their shared gaze loaded with passion and desire and everything that had been coiled up inside them since the moment they met. It was as if their bodies and minds had been resisting a gravitational pull that had finally caved in.
"But, I suppose... it'll be like my first time," Nick said, a sudden twinkle in his eyes.
Adrian nodded, embarrassed. He pulled up and leaned forward, kissing Nick's lips tenderly.
"I really, really...want you to fuck me," Nick whispered into Adrian's mouth before sliding his tongue slowly inside it.
Adrian groaned softly as his hands slid along Nick's body, landing on his asscheeks. He brought his body up and nestled his head on Nick's torso, grazing his hands along his back.
"You smell amazing," he whispered as his lips kissed Nick's skin. "You taste even better," he added, his warm breathing causing Nick's skin to prickle slightly.
He brought his mouth to Nick's nipples and started nibbling on them, teasing them with his tongue, and sucking on them. He could hear Nick's whines, feeling his fingers inside his hair and his arms gripping his head harder, pulling him into his chest. Adrian stayed there, worshiping his lover, until he began to feel Nick's cock, which had been rubbing against his belly, oozing precum over it. By then, his own dick had been throbbing between Nick's crack, held at bay by its pressing weight. He felt Nick's energy shift slowly, becoming less controlled, more submissive, while his turned dominant. A rush of heat and internal blaze he knew so well marauded through him. His hand grabbed Nick's hair and yanked his head back. He gasped, mouth opened, eyes locked on the ceiling.
Adrian lunged at his neck, biting and licking it, feasting on Nick's taste. He guided his left hand to his mouth, spitting on it, then drove it back to his cock.
"Slide it in," he ordered. Nick's hand held his cock, his fingers fusing with the precum stored under Adrian's foreskin.
Nick pulled it back, giving it a few strokes before tilting his ass up and guiding the tip near his hole. As it touched his sphincter, he rubbed it gently over it, lubricating it. Then gently pressed it in, forcing his ass down on the 11-inch prick, eagerly sliding it all the way. Nick felt one of Adrian's hands grip the skin on his ass while his right hand pulled his neck down into, forcing his mouth, and tongue back inside his. They groaned into each other, and with every subtle movement, Nick could feel Adrian's cock twitch inside his hole.
He had never felt so powerful.
No amount of knowledge or books ever equated to that first feeling.
"Wait, wait, shhh, stay still..." Adrian uttered, chuckling slightly.
Nick's lips curled up, aware that any sudden movement would make Adrian bust his nut. His lust for Nick was so intense the mere sensation of his hole wrapped around Adrian's cock was tipping him over the edge.
Nick held his breath, trying not to clench his sphincter, waiting for Adrian's rush to subside. It must have been seconds, but it felt like hours. Hours of the most indescribable feeling. Like sinking your body into a warm tub. Gazing at the sun as it dips into the horizon, during those precious last moments when it doesn't hurt to look at it anymore. Like that first thump of a song you know by heart, those seconds of recognition before your body finally starts to move.
Nick felt Adrian's dick movr, the tip verging on sliding off before he halted, pushing it in vigorously.
And then, it began.
Adrian fell back on the matress, head arched, his chin pointing up, and started fucking Nick's hole with a purposeful intensity. With such sheer force, Nick's ass started bouncing off Adrian's pelvis, forcing him to place his hands on Adrian's chest to keep his balance.
"Fuck...Adrian...fuck!" Nick moaned.
Adrian clasped Nick's asscheeks tight, fingers digging into his skin, slapping them occasionally, groaning and shaking his head from side to side, utterly lost in rapture.
His muscular ass bounced off the bed, pushing his massibe meat inside Nick's hole. "Genius... you're so fucking tight," Adrian groaned between gritted teeth, jaw clenched like a caged animal.
In an unscripted move, Nick leaned back, pushed his pelvis forward, and clenched his ass, contracting his gap, hugging Adrian's shaft closely. He could feel the tip nudging his prostate, that pleasurable pain riding up his spine. He could now feel every inch of Adrian inside him, the walls of his crevice embracing his lover's perfect dick. That made Adrian's thrusts start to slow down, his body attempting to contain his ardor, holding his orgasm at bay.
Nick was so out of it that his body tumbled sideways, bringing Adrian with him, both rolling over the mattress. They landed there, bodies still laced, with Adrian's cock still shoved deep inside Nick's quivering crevice. Still pumping his insides. Adrian slid his hands under Nick's knees and pulled his legs over his broad shoulders. Nick let out a sounding gasp as the tip of Adrian's dick slapped his prostate. Harder this time. Adrian then swathed Nick's back and pulled him closer, their faces fastened, breaths coating each other's skin.
Nick's eyes were closed as Adrian lay with him, his energy shifting as his thrusts became sluggish in speed, yet brimming with depth and purpose. He waited for Nick to open his eyes again, and when he did, he beamed at his lover. Their mouths were close enough that they could touch, but they didn't. Instead, they lingered there, hostage to the most intimate moment of their lives.
"Nick... I'm close," Adrian stuttered.
Nick's hand held his neck and gripped it tighter. "No..." he muttered, every single fiber of his being begging Adrian not to come. Pleading that he'd make whatever Nick was feeling last longer.
Adrian slowed his thrusts.
And that's when it happened.
That was the moment he realized.
He wasn't fucking Nick anymore.
He was making love to him.
And that was a feeling Adrian was foreign to.
Verging on release, a profoundly daunting thought dawned on Adrian.
What if this was it? What if, like every other person he had gone to bed with, and there had been many, Nick, too, would become a one-off? What if, once he pulled out, Nick would pick Adrian's clothes off the floor and ask him to leave, as others had done? What if, like all the others before Nick, he, too, would eventually see through Adrian's bravado, through his pride, and discover just how fragile he really was under all those walls he had carefully built around him?
But what nagged Adrian the most, beyond every other question scraping at the back of his mind, was: why did he care this time?
Emotion took over, a sudden gush of guilt brewing inside his radiant eyes.
"I'm sorry...I think I'm..." he whispered, sliding his dick in and out of Nick's taint, that rush of blood to the head climbing up his body and coasting on that tight space between his eyes. Nick's mouth remained open, eyes completely transfixed on Adrian, his face signaling every thrust of his lover's shaft.
"I know..." Nick moaned, his gaze narrowing in awe of the pleasure Adrian was offering him.
"Can I...come in your ass?" Adrian asked, the revelation finally striking down like a bolt of lightning.
Nick was different.
"Yes...come in me. I want your load," Nick begged.
And then it happened.
Their bodies froze in a trembling jolt as Adrian began unloading inside Nick's insides. At the same time, Adrian could feel a warm jizz firing over his stomach, shooting from Nick's cock. Adrian's hips started twitching, and their moans fired from their mouths in a poetic, synchronized fashion.
"Fuuuuck," Adrian blurted quietly.
Hearing this, Nick yanked Adrian's neck and kissed him passionately, both suppressing and embracing his lover's release. All you could hear were Adrian's grunts as the last shots of cum drenched and filled Nick's hole before they finally let go of each other. They pulled back, falling to the side, their backs against the mattress, chests heaving while their softening dicks twitched over their abdomens.
They looked at each other, eyes drawn like magnets. And then, they started laughing. A burst of energy at first, then a slow descent into something pure, like two puppies chasing each other's tails. Nick rolled his body over to Adrian, swathing his leg and arm over him, fingers playfully teasing Adrian's softening cock as their laughter slowly wained.
"Do you..." Adrian's voice muttered, unsure. "Do you want me to leave?" he asked, frowning at his own question. There was a brief silence before his chest instinctively rose, but to his surprise, Nick's hand stopped him.
"No," he whispered. "Stay," Nick said.
Adrian's head fell back, hitting the sheets with the softest thud. Slowly, Nick's head crawled into Adrian's chest.
And then, Adrian smiled.
It was the most genuine smile.
*
(Weeks later)
Nick had always liked the old wing of the university library, the kind of place where time felt pinned down by the weight of leather-bound volumes and the soft hush of reverent silence. The wide mahogany tables were mostly empty this late in the evening.
He sat hunched over a textbook, underlining passages with a precise, almost meditative grace. His glasses had slid slightly down his nose. His jaw was set, the muscles taut in quiet focus. He hadn't noticed the footsteps until they stopped directly in front of him.
"You study like you're trying to summon God," Adrian said, voice a low hush of mischief.
Nick didn't look up. "Not summoning. Avoiding interruption."
Adrian grinned and pulled out the chair across from him with an obnoxious scrape. He wore a vintage coat over a faded T-shirt, and his hair looked like it had just survived a windstorm. The air shifted around him.
It always did.
"You're going to kill the fun out of language if you keep dissecting it like that," he said, reaching across the table and flipping a page of Nick's notebook without permission. "Syntax isn't a sacrament."
Nick finally looked at him, unimpressed. "If you're going to linger, at least be quiet."
"Can't do both," Adrian replied, chin in hand, watching him with the kind of attention that felt personal. "I tried silence once. Nearly died."
Nick returned to his reading, but his pulse betrayed him. He could feel Adrian's gaze, his unrelenting energy, like static before a storm.
"You always this rigid?" Adrian asked after a beat.
Nick flipped a page. "Only around distractions."
Adrian grinned. "Good." Before Nick could respond, Adrian stood. "Come on."
"No."
"Come on," Adrian repeated, reaching across and snapping Nick's book shut. "I need to show you something."
Nick sighed. "If this is another one of your experiments in pushing boundaries..."
"It's not," Adrian said. "Well, maybe."
With deep reluctance, Nick followed. Adrian led him between the labyrinthine rows of the philosophy section, past Dewey decimals and spines of old thinkers. Finally, he stopped in a far corner where the light flickered overhead and the silence felt conspiratorial.
Nick opened his mouth to ask what they were doing, but Adrian stepped forward and kissed him.
It wasn't soft. It wasn't slow. It was hungry and unpolished, a collision of want and challenge. Adrian's hand cupped Nick's jaw, fingers curling just under his ear, and Nick's breath caught with a moan he didn't recognize as his own. His hands had risen instinctively, one gripping the edge of the shelf, the other ghosting Adrian's shoulder.
"Adrian..." Nick muttered.
"Shhh...stop talking. I'm trying to kiss you," Adrian groaned back.
The kiss deepened. Nick responded with quiet devastation, as if he'd been bracing for it all along. It was less an answer and more a surrender.
Their tongues tangled, breaths mingling. They had done this before. Countless times. But every time Adrian kissed Nick, it felt better. Deeper. Like that sting halfway through a tattoo. Not yet uncomfortable, slightly pleasurable. A quiet tingling of rapture dangling on the precipice of utter pain.
And then it broke.
Nick stood, breathing unevenly, lips parted. Adrian smirked and leaned against the shelf, victorious and beautiful in the low light.
Nick looked away first.
"I thought you said you hated distractions," Adrian murmured.
"I do," Nick replied. "That doesn't mean they're ineffective."
A low chuckle. "You're so fucking sexy."
Nick smiled, faintly. "And you're reckless."
Adrian stepped closer again, about to say something more, but then his gaze flicked past Nick toward the wider reading room. There, near the help desk, a group of students had gathered. One of them, a broad-shouldered jock in a varsity jacket, laughed at something, his voice booming even at a distance. Adrian's eyes lingered.
Just a second. Just a flicker.
But Nick saw it.
He didn't mention it. Didn't shift. But something inside him quietly curled inward. A knowing, unspoken thing.
When Adrian looked back at him, the usual charm returned like a mask slipping back into place. He leaned in and whispered, "We should celebrate your inevitable A+ after the exam. But in the meantime...what do you say I stop by later and fuck that tight little ass of yours? Sound good?"
Nick's voice was cool again. "Maybe."
Adrian gave a mock salute and vanished down the row like he was fleeing the scene of a minor crime.
Nick stood alone in the quiet.
He lifted his fingers to his lips, still warm from the kiss. Then he glanced back toward the reading room, where the jock had disappeared, and felt, just faintly, the edge of something sharp at the bottom of his chest.
Not jealousy.
Not yet.
Doubt.
*
The Pale Horse wasn't glamorous, but it didn't need to be. On Thursday nights, students flocked there to shed the weight of Nietzsche, Barthelme, and exams and lose themselves in cheap drinks and flashing lights. Posters peeled off the graffiti-ridden walls like molting skin, and the floor vibrated with every bassline.
Adrian had carved out the center of the room as if it belonged to him, his laughter louder than the music, his arms wrapped loosely around shoulders, fingers catching wrists mid-conversation like punctuation marks. He wore black tonight, as usual, tight jeans and a shirt unbuttoned enough to hint at a collarbone carved by ambition and charm. Around him, a circle of their classmates spun in orbit: the philosophy major with kohl-rimmed eyes, the red-haired poet, the economics student who claimed capitalism was erotic.
Nick leaned against the far wall of their booth, half-in, half-out of the social gravity. He sipped his gin and tonic with that quiet poise that made people want to know what he was thinking. He watched Adrian perform, his mind cataloguing every gesture, every glance, every smirk.
"You're not dancing," Adrian said, appearing at his side like smoke. He tossed a lime into Nick's drink with flair. "I find that suspicious."
"I don't perform well without a script," Nick answered.
"That's the point," Adrian grinned, tapping the glass with his own before spinning away again, swallowed by the crowd.
Nick let the ice settle in his glass before heading to the bar for another. The bartender, a girl with piercings and a disinterested snarl, nodded toward him.
"Another gin?"
Nick nodded, already slipping a bill across the counter.
While he waited, a voice spoke behind him.
"I remember you."
Nick turned.
The young man was tall, lean, with a shock of golden curls and cheekbones sharp enough to make a statement. His smile was confident, but not cocky. "You're the one who corrected Dr. Mendelson in that seminar last month," the guy said.
Nick blinked, mildly surprised. "I didn't think anyone noticed."
The boy stepped closer. "Oh, I did. I think half the class did. You were right, by the way."
Nick gave a polite smile. "Well, he was quoting from memory. Slips happen."
"Still," the boy said, "it was hot." Nick chuckled under his breath. "Wanna dance?" the boy invited, bolder now.
Nick hesitated. He glanced toward the dance floor, drink in hand. "I'm...with someone."
The boy's lips curved into a knowing smirk. "Another time then."
Nick turned to return to the booth, but froze. There, across the room, in the violet haze of the strobes, Adrian leaned in too close to another guy. It was the kind of lean that meant something. A mouth close to an ear. A hand on a waist. A whisper that didn't need to be heard to be understood. Nick felt the ice in his drink burn against his palm.
He turned sharply. Found the golden-haired student still lingering nearby. "Actually," he said, "I've changed my mind."
The boy lit up. "Yeah?"
Nick gestured toward the floor. "C'mon."
They slipped into the crowd, the music folding around them like velvet. Nick moved with unexpected grace, less wild than those around him, more intentional. The boy danced close, clearly thrilled, but Nick wasn't really watching him. His eyes found Adrian's through the crowd.
Adrian had noticed.
He froze mid-laugh, gaze locking on Nick with a flicker of something unreadable, surprise, maybe. Maybe more.
Nick held it. Held him, in that unbroken stare. Not a challenge. Not jealousy.
The music pounded on.
The guy pressed closer, and Nick let him. Not out of desire, not even curiosity, but with something darker. Something strategic. His fingers trailed along the curve of the boy's lower back, settling just above the waist of his jeans. He tilted his head in mock attentiveness as the blonde curled stud said something flirtatious near his ear, words drowned by the beat. Nick didn't care to hear them.
What he did care about, what burned in his mind like a brand, was the look Adrian had worn just moments ago. The stillness. The sheer alertness. Nick had always known Adrian thrived on attention. On possession. On being desired. But being outmatched? Being disregarded? That was something else.
Nick moved his hands with calculated ease, across a chest, down an arm, then up again. The blonde stud responded eagerly, pressing closer. But Nick's eyes were fixed on one place in the room.
Adrian.
Their gazes locked again.
Adrian didn't smile. He didn't scowl.
He just moved.
It happened quickly, like a storm front crashing inland, unannounced, unruly, seething. One moment, Nick was dancing with a guy whose name he might never remember. The next, Adrian's hand collided with the guy's shoulder, yanking him back. The blonde stumbled, startled.
"Back off," Adrian growled, voice raw, ragged with something more than just jealousy. It was possession masked as rage.
The boy straightened, offended. "What the fuck is your problem?"
"You are," Adrian snapped. "Touch him again and see what happens."
The boy shoved him. Adrian shoved back.
It happened fast, fists, shouts, the crowd splitting like water. Chairs overturned, a glass shattered. Adrian's friends, David, Lila, that older lit major whose name Nick always forgot, rushed in, pulling them apart, yelling over the music.
Nick stood still. He didn't move. He didn't try to stop them. He didn't step in. He just watched. Watched Adrian writhe in fury, his knuckles split, his chest heaving. Watched the golden-haired guy's expression turn from anger to disbelief.
And that's the moment, somewhere beneath Nick's ribs, something stirred, something not entirely noble. A quiet, eerie satisfaction threaded through his body like smoke. There you are, he thought, staring at Adrian, whose eyes sought him through the mayhem like a man drowning. You finally see what it feels like to want something you can't control.
Nick stepped back, letting the room close between them, the chaos sealing the space like a wound. In the dark, he could still feel Adrian's hunger. It reached for him. And part of him, God help him, liked it.
He turned, drink still in hand, ice now melted, and made his way out of the circle of friends, strangers, and broken glass. His pulse still thrummed with the music. But under that, like an aftershock beneath the surface, was the realization: he'd touched something inside Adrian tonight, pressed a nerve. And the man who always acted like nothing could undo him had just been undone.
By him.
And the scariest part was: it made Nick feel powerful. Not good. Not kind. But powerful.
Nick punched the club's door open, the night breeze biting on his skin, the muffled chaos still vibrating behind the walls. His fingers trembled slightly, though whether from adrenaline or restraint, he didn't know. He didn't even have a jacket. He barely noticed. He walked toward the curb, eyes already fishing for a cab.
"Nick!"
The voice was ragged, fraying at the edges.
Nick didn't turn around. He didn't need to. He heard the uneven breath, the crunch of hurried footsteps, the desperation threading its way into the night. A hand caught his arm.
Nick turned slowly. "Don't."
Adrian's chest was rising and falling like he'd run a mile. His eyes were wild, but beneath that madness, something burned. Possession, pain, fear.
"You were touching him."
Nick arched a brow. "And?"
"I don't want anyone touching you," Adrian snapped. It came out louder than he meant. His eyes darted toward a couple exiting the club before settling back on Nick with fire in them.
Nick tilted his head, his expression maddeningly calm. "And yet you do what you want, whenever you want, with whoever you want."
There was a pause. Not quite a confrontation. Not quite a retreat either. The words hung, jagged and sharp, but Nick didn't push. Not tonight.
Adrian didn't answer. His fists clenched at his sides. "It's...different."
"Of course it is," Nick murmured. "Because when you do it, it doesn't count."
Adrian stepped forward. "You're not..." He stopped, exhaled hard. "You're mine, Nick."
Nick didn't flinch, didn't blink. But something behind his eyes flickered, some small, terrible part of him responding to the claim. A part that thrilled at it, sick and low in his gut. It horrified him. But not enough to make him walk away.
"I'm not your property, Adrian," he said, voice steady. "I'm not a territory you get to piss on just because you're scared."
Adrian's hands reached out, then stopped midway. "You're not... that's not what I meant," he muttered, softer now. "You're...for fuck sake, Nick! You're the only thing that's..."
"Don't." Nick's voice was gentle but firm.
He turned back toward the street, arm lifted to flag down a taxi. But Adrian moved faster. Before Nick could call the cab, Adrian grabbed his wrist, not harshly, not roughly, but enough. Enough to redirect him, to spin him toward the narrow alley just beside the club. The lights were dimmer here. The sounds from the Pale Horse more distant.
And then Adrian was kissing him. It wasn't polite. It wasn't planned. It was hunger. It was heat. It was fury and grief and need compressed into the brutal intimacy of lips and breath and tongue. Nick didn't respond at first. He stood frozen against the alley wall, heart pounding in his throat, pulse rioting in his veins. But then something in him gave in.
Not to Adrian, but to the inevitability of them.
His mouth opened, and he kissed back. The kind of kiss that devours. That doesn't ask permission. Their bodies collided, chests flush, hands fisting in jackets and hair. Nick's mind screamed at him to stop, to not reward Adrian, his violence, his jealousy, his contradiction, but his body betrayed him. His body had already chosen. Had always chosen. And in that breathless tangle of sweat and desire, he hated how much he needed this. Hated how alive it made him feel.
When they finally broke apart, Adrian's breath ghosted over Nick's cheek. "I'll... I'll fucking kill anyone who touches you," Adrian whispered.
Nick didn't smile. Didn't recoil either. He looked into Adrian's eyes, that messy kaleidoscope of want and ruin.
And it was in that moment that Nick knew.
He loved Adrian.
"Let go of me," he pleaded, shoving his lover's chest, his voice coming out weak, struggling. He stepped away, leaving Adrian stunned in the alley, lips swollen, heart wrecked.
Nick didn't look back.
But his hands wouldn't stop shaking as he got into the cab.
Ten minutes later, he was entering his dorm, his collar rumpled, his chest still rising too fast beneath his shirt. The hallway was quiet. A door closed down the corridor, someone else returning from the night, someone else carrying a secret. Nick's room was on the second floor, tucked between a communal shower and a vending machine that groaned whenever someone bought instant ramen. He unlocked the door and stepped inside, flicking on the desk lamp instead of the overhead light. The soft yellow glow pooled across his books, his half-made bed, the sweater draped over the back of the chair. He stood there for a long moment, the door clicking shut behind him.
Adrian's kiss still burned on his lips.
But it wasn't just the kiss, it was the way Adrian looked at him, like Nick was a fuse, a trigger, a holy thing. It was the violence, the jealousy, the way Adrian had ripped another man from his arms like Nick was something sacred and forbidden.
And God help him, he liked it.
Nick sat down at the desk. The silence pressed in. On the open notebook, half a page of notes stared back at him, scribbled with lines of Roland Barthes, Judith Butler, and Foucault. The margins were filled with his own thoughts, tidy, incisive, clinical. But nothing in those margins could explain what had happened tonight.
He reached for his pen, fingers still trembling faintly.
"The pleasure of the text is that moment when my body pursues its own ideas, for my body does not have the same ideas I do."
He read the quote, then underlined it slowly. A bitter laugh rose from his throat, low and mirthless. Because that was it, wasn't it? His mind knew better. His mind catalogued every cruelty, every glance Adrian cast at someone else, every lie, every touch that didn't belong to Nick.
But his body.
His body wanted only one thing.
Adrian.
*
(A few days later)
The storm had swallowed the campus whole.
Rain hammered the slate rooftops and turned the cobblestone paths into black rivers of runoff. It was the kind of rain that made people stay inside, press their foreheads to the windowpanes, and feel lucky to be dry.
But not Adrian.
He was soaked to the bone, sprinting across the green with water pouring from his curls, shirt clinging to his skin like punishment. His breath came ragged, his shoes slapping through puddles. Behind him, voices called out in warning, some shouting his name, others just gawking at the spectacle of the golden boy ruined by rain.
Nick was ahead of him, a blur of motion vanishing into the dormitory.
"Nick!" Adrian's voice tore through the storm, harsh and breaking. "Nick, wait!"
But Nick didn't wait.
He crashed through the dorm's front door, water pooling beneath his shoes as he took the stairs two at a time, fury carrying him forward like a wave. Adrian followed seconds later, the door swinging open behind him as thunder cracked in the distance. By the time Adrian reached the top floor, Nick had just thrown open the door to his room.
Adrian lunged and grabbed his wrist. "Nick, listen to me..."
Nick turned, soaked and shaking, his eyes wide with disbelief and rage. "Get your hand off me."
Adrian did. Slowly. But he didn't step back. "It wasn't like that."
"Oh, wasn't it?" Nick's voice dripped venom. "Because what I saw was you, naked, shoving your dick inside a woman's pussy."
Adrian flinched, rainwater dripping from his eyelashes. "She meant nothing. I was drunk. You weren't answering your phone. I..."
"That's your excuse? That I didn't pick up?" Nick laughed, hollow and bitter. "I was writing your fucking thesis, Adrian. I was doing your work while you were out screwing someone who isn't even in the same hemisphere of what we are."
Adrian looked away, jaw clenched. "You're overreacting."
That did it. Nick shoved him. Hard. Adrian stumbled back into the wall, his soaked jacket slapping wetly against the plaster.
"Get out." Nick's voice was loud now. Uncharacteristically so. "Get the fuck out of my space!"
"Nick..."
"I said out!" Nick slammed the door in Adrian's face, the sound echoing down the hall like a gunshot.
Inside, Nick stood frozen for a moment, heart racing in his chest like a caged animal. The hallway beyond the door exploded with noise, Adrian pounding his fists, shouting slurred apologies, curses, declarations.
"I fucked up! I know I fucked up! But you can't just...Nick...please... don't... don't shut me out."
Silence. Followed by Adrian's steps rushing down the stairs. Then, murmurs. Nick turned toward the window. Half the dorm was watching. Their faces pressed to the glass, phones in hand, mouths open in scandal and awe. Adrian looked up at them from the lawn below, his eyes burning, hair plastered to his forehead. He looked like a man unraveling.
"What the fuck are you all looking at?" Adrian roared, spinning toward the onlookers. "Go back to your fucking lives!"
He stormed off, disappearing into the dark like a cursed myth dissolving into the forest.
Nick stood in the center of his room, shaking. Every part of him was soaked, hair, socks, the hem of his shirt clinging to his waist. The rain outside howled like grief. Then, without ceremony, he climbed onto his bed, lay down in his clothes, and curled toward the wall. His fingers gripped the pillow as his body began to quake, not from cold, but from the sheer weight of it all. The betrayal. The shame. The ache of loving someone who kept cutting him open just to watch him bleed.
He didn't sob.
He didn't scream.
He just cried.
Quietly, endlessly.
And eventually, Nick fell asleep like that, mouth parted slightly, tears still drying on his cheeks, the storm still rattling the windows like the ghosts of everything they could have been.
*
(One week later)
The desk was a perfect still life of Nick's interior world, books stacked like miniature skyscrapers, a half-empty mug of cold tea, notes scribbled in ink with an elegance only true obsession could foster. The light above his head was soft and warm, pooling across the pages of Judith Butler's The Psychic Life of Power, his current rabbit hole. Every few seconds, he paused his reading to underline a line, note a contradiction, or stare off and reconstruct an argument in his head before returning to the text.
This was where he thrived.
Not in rooms filled with smoke and noise and flashing lights. Not in love's turmoil, not in Adrian's arms or Adrian's fury. But here. Among ideas. The pure geometry of thought. The quiet labor of constructing understanding, brick by brick, with no audience and no applause.
And yet, even that sanctuary had its seams.
It started faintly. Chattering. Footsteps racing down the hallway. Snorts of laughter. The high, slightly unhinged giggle of someone either tipsy or trying too hard. Then came the voice. Adrian's voice. Loud. Booming. Slurred and crackling with an energy that made Nick's stomach tighten.
"Where is he?"
Nick didn't move at first. He just pressed the tip of his pen to the margin and listened, dread blooming quietly in his chest like ink in water.
"Nick!" Adrian called out, his voice closer now. "Come out, come out, wherever the fuck you are."
Someone laughed nervously in the hallway. Another muttered, "Oh shit."
Nick rose slowly and walked to the window. The courtyard below was glowing with the scattered light of dorm rooms switched on in curious panic. There he was. Adrian. In the middle of the quad, shirt open, eyes glassy, a bottle dangling from one hand like an afterthought.
"Come down, Nick," Adrian shouted. "Come tell me again how morally superior you are. Tell me about Roland fucking Barthes again!"
Nick opened the window. The autumn air hit him like a slap, cool and sharp. "Go home, Adrian," he said, voice clear but calm.
Adrian turned up to him, swaying slightly, his face alight with something wild, dangerous, and heartbreakingly beautiful. "I can't go home. You are home."
Nick didn't answer. His hands were steady on the windowsill, but inside, he felt like a tower tilting. It was all too familiar. Too cruel in its pattern.
"I'll break the door down," Adrian warned.
Nick closed the window.
Moments later, a loud shattering of glass echoed through the corridor. Shouts. A girl's scream. The unmistakable sound of a chair or decorative frame being upturned.
Then, bam, bam, bam, pounding on his dorm door.
Nick waited a beat. Then another. His breath was perfectly even as he turned the knob and opened it. There he was.
Adrian. That reckless stud. His curls dripping with rain or sweat, his lip bleeding slightly where he must have stumbled, his pupils dilated, shirt torn at the seam. He smelled like whiskey and cigarettes and heartbreak. A mess. And yet, somehow, utterly captivating.
Nick said nothing. He simply looked at him. And Adrian, disheveled and trembling with rage or love or something in between, looked right back. The corridor was silent now. Behind doors, ears were pressed to walls. Lights still glowed. The whole building seemed to hold its breath.
And still, they said nothing.
Nick finally stepped aside, gesturing to the room with an open palm.
"Come in," he said flatly. The door shut behind them with a soft click.
Nick moved with precision, crossing the room and standing by his desk, arms folded over his chest like armor. "This has to stop."
Adrian blinked, drunk but sobering. "What does?"
"You. This. Us." Nick said, exhaling deeply. Not from relief. But from a profound sense of loss. "It's over," he stated.
That's when Adrian laughed, bitterly at first, then with a hollow edge of disbelief. "You don't get to say that," he replied. "Nah." His voice was loud at first, defensive, shaped by every wall he'd ever built around himself. "Look... I'm not good with words. You know that. I say dumb shit. I mess things up. I break stuff, Nick. It's like...some reflex...touch, ruin, repeat."
Nick said nothing, and so Adrian kept speaking. Because silence from Nick was never neutral. It was thought. Invasion. Or worse: truth. He turned toward Nick's desk, the neatly made bed, the tower of color-coded books. The signs of Nick's ordered, solitary world.
"I remember that day in lecture," he said. "You, sitting there with your little notebook, correcting that limp dick about Barthes like it was life or death. I thought...who the fuck is this guy? But then...I don't know...something stuck."
His mouth quirked up in a crooked smile, not quite sheepish, not quite confident. Somewhere in between, like everything else about Adrian in this room.
"You scare me," he admitted, more softly now. "You see me. Not the loud, laughing, reckless asshole. Me. And...you still want that guy. And that...scares the shit out of me."
He was pacing now, fingers tangling in his hair, his movements an orchestra of nervous energy. "I cheat. I lie. I flirt with people I don't even like. I get bored. I laugh at shit that isn't funny. I drink too much. And I fucking know you deserve better, Nick. I know it."
Nick still didn't speak.
And then Adrian pulled something from his pocket. A folded scrap of paper, water-damaged and softened with time. He opened it, smoothing it with care. Nick recognized the passage immediately, Woolf, The Waves. His favorite.
"You read this to me once. We'd just had sex," Adrian said. "You didn't think I was listening, but I was. I always listen to you. Even when I pretend not to."
His voice dropped as he read the line aloud.
"I am made and remade continually. Different people draw different words from me."
Adrian lifted his gaze. His expression was quiet now, stripped bare. All the usual deflections, gone.
"You remake me, Nick," he said. "And I'm scared shitless that if you leave...if you disappear from my life... I'll just go back to being someone I..." Adrian stumbled then, his eyes shivering.
A silence fell, thick and aching.
"I don't," he said at last. "I don't know how to do this. But I swear to God... I've never meant anything more in my life."
And that's when Nick's voice finally spoke. "What are you trying to say?" he questioned, his voice soft as petals.
Adrian chuckled, a gasp of air fleeing his lungs. Something between fear and courage. "Jesus Christ, genius..." he muttered, letting his head fall. But his eyes. His eyes stayed locked on Nick's. "I'm trying to say I love you."
Silence fell like snow. Adrian stood there, waiting. Exposed. Defenseless for once.
No charm.
No drunken swagger.
No games.
Just love.
And that's when Nick stepped forward, embracing him in his arms.
"Do you hate me?" Adrian whispered into Nick, his head diving inside his lover's chest.
"No," Nick whispered back. "I just hate how much I want to believe you."
*
(Present time)
The room was still, cocooned in the hush of deep night. Outside the window, the world had quieted, wind rustling against the shutters, the occasional groan of old wood settling. Inside, time had slowed.
Nick lay on his side, one arm folded beneath his head, the other resting near the curve of Adrian's bare shoulder. He turned his head slowly, his gaze falling on Adrian.
He was asleep.
Soft, mouth slightly parted, brow smooth in a way it never was when he was awake. In sleep, Adrian looked unguarded. Quiet. Beautiful in the kind of way that hurt to look at. Nick watched him. Studied the line of his jaw, the faint scar above his brow, the inked whisper of a small tattoo just beneath his collarbone.
This man had loved him like a storm, consuming, beautiful, catastrophic. And Nick had loved him back just the same.
Adrian stirred.
A subtle shift at first, a twitch of his shoulder, the smallest crease in his brow. Then, slowly, as if drawn by some unconscious tether, Adrian moved. His arm reached blindly across the sheets. His body shifted, pressing closer. He was seeking warmth, seeking Nick. And when he found him, Adrian let out a soft, instinctive exhale, a sound like release, like relief.
He curled into Nick's chest, head beneath his chin, fingers twitching as they came to rest against Nick's ribs. He swatted Nick gently in the process, like a half-woken child grumbling in a dream. Then he stilled again. As if, even in sleep, Adrian couldn't help but return to him. Nick's throat tightened. He lifted a hand and let his fingers thread through Adrian's thick, tousled hair, stroking it slowly, reverently.
He could feel Adrian's heartbeat against his chest. Steady. Familiar.
His.
Nick closed his eyes for a moment, breathing him in. The scent of him, skin, sleep, the faintest trace of wet wood. It was everything he had loved. Everything he had survived. He leaned in. Pressed his lips to Adrian's forehead with aching care.
"I'm sorry," Nick whispered, the slightest change taking hold of his eyes. An almost unnoticeable darkness. "But it's for your own good..."
He stayed there a moment longer, his lips still against Adrian's skin, feeling the shape of the man who had once been his entire world.
"I love you," his voice professed.
(To be continued...)
Casual Wanderer © 2025
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