Archive of Our Own

Rayleigh scrubs his hands over his face as he descends the stairs down into the subway station. Fuck, he’s so disappointed. 

He hates to play into all those stereotypes about engineers—namely the one about them having no social skills—but it seems like every time he tries to go on a date, it ends up being fucking awful. It’s not him that’s to blame, though. Seriously. He does have social skills. He knows he does. He has boatloads of friends—friends from high school, from university, and from work. He’s had plenty of girlfriends in the past. But lately, every time he goes out with someone new, it ends up being just a hot steaming pile of dogshit. 

The girl he just went on a date with was insufferable. She talked endlessly about the fucking royal family of all things, for literal hours. All the supposed drama happening between the members of the dynasty (how could she even know any of it was real?), the cheating scandals, the royal kids, shit like that. Rayleigh was bored out of his mind. He’s always been of the opinion that anyone who gives that much of a fuck about celebrities is on about the same intellectual level as a chimpanzee, and he has no desire to associate with them. Maybe he’s being a little harsh, but this obnoxious woman kept him out way too late and bored him to tears and he’s tired and just wants to go the fuck home. Last time he checked his phone, it was eleven, and it takes him forty minutes on the subway to get back to his apartment from here. Ugh. What a waste of his evening.  

He gets to the platform and, to his surprise, finds himself alone. Sure it’s late, but even the last trains usually have a fair number of people on them, especially in tube stations as central as this one. He frowns, but doesn’t think too much of it. 

His mild unease wanes a little when he hears frantic footsteps coming down the stairs behind him. Ah, okay. He’s not alone. For a moment, he almost thought the tube was closing or something. He should check his phone and make sure it really is eleven-ish and not later. 

A man hustles over and joins him on the platform, out of breath. Rayleigh forgoes checking his phone to scrutinize him for a minute. He looks to be about Rayleigh’s age, though he’s much, much bigger. Probably half a head taller, with shoulders like a rugby player. He’s got shaggy, wavy black hair and brown skin. He’s wearing ripped blue jeans and a leather jacket, and he’s got some kind of instrument in a case slung over his shoulder. 

The stranger notices Rayleigh staring and proves himself to be disgustingly friendly by grinning and waving. That alone tells Rayleigh that the guy probably isn’t from the city. He makes it worse by walking even closer.

“Hi! I’m Roger!” the stranger greets. He has an accent, though Rayleigh can’t place it.

“... Hi,” Rayleigh replies, frigid and suspicious. No one fucking greets each other like this in the subway. It’s weird. 

“Are you going home too?” Roger continues, unfazed. 

“Um. Yeah.”

“Cool! Looks like we’re gonna be the only ones, huh? It’s pretty late.”

Rayleigh hums in agreement, and finally slips his phone out of his pocket to check the time. He does a double take when he sees the number on his screen.

“Holy shit!” he yells. 

Roger jumps. “What?! What?!” 

“Jesus Christ, it’s already past midnight!”

“Yeah?” Roger tilts his head in confusion.

Rayleigh starts running back to the stairs. “Hurry up you idiot, or we’ll get locked down here! The subway closes at midnight!” 

“Oh crap!” Roger starts running after him, the instrument case whacking him over and over in the back.

They race up the stairs two at a time and run to the streetside doors. 

“Oh fuck…,” Rayleigh pants. He slows to a stop.  

They’re already closed and locked. Jesus Christ. He must have wandered in here at exactly the wrong time—after the last train, but just before the security guard came. Why the fuck wouldn’t the guy check to make sure the platform was empty of morons like Rayleigh before locking the place up?  

“Uh oh!” Roger scratches his head. “Well, that’s not good. How do we get out?”

“There’s no way out once these doors are shut. We have to wait here until five in the goddamn morning when the first train comes,” Rayleigh groans. He covers his face with his hands and crumples into a squat. “ Fuck my life….”  

“Hey, don’t say that!” Roger pats him on the back. “It’s okay, man! That’s only five hours away!” 

“Exactly….” 

On top of everything, it’s Thursday. Rayleigh has to be at work tomorrow by nine in the morning. Oh, what ancient god did he unknowingly anger to be cursed with such terrible luck today?

12:25 am

The first thing they do is try all of the possible escape routes. They yank on the handles of the streetside doors to make sure they really are locked. They search the area for any other exit doors, but find none. Roger finds an Emergency Call button, but when he jams his thumb into it a couple times, they realize it’s out of order. Eventually, they wander down to the platform and stare longingly at the tracks where they disappear into the tunnel. 

“Maybe we could walk through there to another station?” Roger suggests. 

Rayleigh frowns and tries to remember the map of this particular subway line. If he recalls correctly, the nearest above-ground station is around fifteen stops away. In other words, many miles. It would take hours to get there, and they’d be walking mostly in pitch-blackness. Not to mention a train might come through at any moment and kill them on the spot. 

“No way, it’s just more underground stations up the line. We’d have the same problem there as we do here,” Rayleigh sighs. “No escape.” 

“Dang.” 

They stand there in somber silence for a while, just staring at the tracks, and then Roger heaves a big sigh and throws his hands up. 

“Well, I guess we’re stuck until five, then! I’m gonna sit down and get comfy.” He wanders back to one of the benches and flops down, setting his instrument case delicately on the ground. “C’mere! You can’t just stand there all night—you should sit down too!” 

Rayleigh hesitates for a moment, and then follows. Roger is a bit overly friendly, but it’s better than being totally alone down here. At least with company, the time will probably pass quicker. Rayleigh gingerly takes a seat on the other end of the bench Roger’s sitting on and awkwardly shoves his hands in his pockets. 

“Sooo,” Roger drawls. He throws a leg up on the bench. “What’s your name?”

“Rayleigh.”

“I’m Roger!”

“I know, you said that.” 

“Looks like we were destined to meet, Ray leigh. What were you doing here in the subway so late at night?” 

Rayleigh chuckles. “Going home after a bad date.” 

Roger’s eyes pop. “A bad date? What was bad about it?” 

“She was boring.” 

Roger hums. 

“What about you?” Rayleigh asks. 

“I was coming home from a concert!” 

“Oh, who did you see?” 

“See?” Roger tilts his head in confusion. “I didn’t see anyone. I was performing!” 

“Oh, shit. That’s cool. You’re a musician?”

“Yup!” Roger beams and kicks his foot happily. “What about you? What do you do?”

Rayleigh shrugs. “I’m a mechanical engineer. Nothing glamorous.”

“Sounds pretty glamorous to me. I don’t even know what that is.”

“Want me to explain it to you?” Rayleigh asks.

“No thank you.” 

Rayleigh laughs. “Good answer.” 

“You don’t like your job?” 

Rayleigh shrugs. “I like that it pays my bills. And it kind of… fits with the way my brain naturally works, I suppose. Mechanical engineering is basically, at its core, about finding the most efficient way to complete a task. I’ve always been good at that.” 

“Ooh,” Roger hums in understanding. “That’s nice, man, but it seems like there’s something else you wish you were doing with your life.” 

Rayleigh blinks at him. For someone who appeared at first to be rather airheaded, Roger is surprisingly perceptive. And bold, to be saying something so personal mere minutes after they first met. But Rayleigh kind of likes that he’s not sticking to boring, safe pleasantries like most people would. 

“I can’t argue with that,” Rayleigh concedes. “I’d rather be doing a lot of other things…. Traveling, for one.” 

“Oh!! Me too!” Roger exclaims, clapping his hands. “I wanna see the world!” 

“Right?” Rayleigh can’t help but grin at having a receptive and understanding audience. “I’m so sick of this damn city. I’ve been here my whole life. Just feels so empty and meaningless, you know? I know there’s more out there. There’s great adventures to be had, stuff I probably can’t even imagine, but here I am in this depressing subway….” 

Roger eagerly scoots closer and grabs Rayleigh by the bicep. “I totally get you! I wanna get out there too! I wanna be free!” 

The grabbing of the bicep is a little weird, but Rayleigh doesn’t really mind it as much as he normally would. The glitter in Roger’s eyes, the excitement in his tone, is stoking some mysterious fire in Rayleigh’s chest. Looking at him makes Rayleigh believe, for a crazy, brief moment, that maybe anything is possible. 

“Hey,” Roger says. “You and me—let’s turn the world upside down together! When we get out of here, let’s really get out of here—let’s go on a crazy adventure together! Whaddya say?”

Rayleigh is again reduced to speechless blinking, and then he laughs loudly. 

“You’re out of your mind! I don’t even know you!” 

But the ice is pretty well broken. 

1:10 am

They spend nearly an hour talking about their dreams—all the places they want to visit someday, all the things they want to do. Rayleigh shows Roger all the pictures he’s saved on Instagram of wild, remote places he wants to go camping. Roger shows him pictures of all the tropical islands where he wants to swim. Their tastes are pretty similar, actually—they want to go as far away as possible, to places with as few people as possible, for as long as possible. They both like the outdoors. They both like the idea of backpacking for months in the wilderness. They both despise the idea of cruise ships and hotels and resorts. If they were friends, Rayleigh thinks they’d actually make for good travel buddies. 

Eventually, the conversation fades away, but it leaves Rayleigh feeling much friendlier and warmer than he did an hour ago. He’s still pissed about being trapped down here, but it’s not so bad with Roger around. Roger is pretty cool. 

“Hey, wanna play cards? I keep a deck in my case,” Roger asks after a minute or two, nudging Rayleigh’s shin with his foot. He’s a touchy guy, that much is clear already, but Rayleigh finds that he doesn’t really mind. 

“Sure, why not.”

Roger lights up and starts unzipping one of the pockets on his instrument case. 

“Hell yeah! I’ll teach you a game I bet you don’t know! It’s called Big Two! It’s a kind of poker! My family plays it all the time! It’s the best!” He starts blabbering as he takes out the deck, suddenly very excited. Touchy and excitable. 

Rayleigh isn’t exactly in the headspace for competitive poker—he’s been awake way too long—but there’s nothing else to do, so…. He and Roger relocate to the gross subway floor and Roger drags his instrument case between them to serve as a table.

Roger teaches him the rules of Big Two, which are numerous and extremely complicated. There seems to be lots of lore attached to this game—for instance, when you cut the deck, the other person has to choose where to cut it, or else the game is cursed. Shuffling must be done by the loser of the previous hand. Whoever won the last hand gets to start the next one. Rayleigh can’t remember hardly any of it, but he plays and shit-talks anyways. 

“Stupid bastard,” he says primly when he wins a hand, despite the fact that Roger has won the last seven. 

“Who is?” Roger bites back. “You played two 2’s as a pair last time when you should have played them separately.”

“The likes of you wouldn’t understand my elite strategy.”

“You lost.” 

Rayleigh laughs loudly and Roger does too. 

“Okay, you little bitch. Let’s just see how it goes now that I get to start.”

“Yeah, yeah, let’s see.”

Rayleigh loses. Roger howls with laughter. They play another ten rounds and Rayleigh loses every single one, which just makes Roger laugh even harder. Rayleigh isn’t even mad about it. Despite everything, he’s having fun. There’s something gloriously absurd about it all—two strangers, sleep-deprived and locked up in this desolate subway station, playing cards and pissing their pants laughing. He’s intrigued to find that his anger at being here is steadily dissipating the longer he spends in Roger’s company. 

2:34 am

“Ugh, I’m hungry….” Roger whines. The cards are packed away again and he’s back on the bench, laid out across it with one leg dangling off the side. Rayleigh is sitting on the floor near his head. 

“Hm, I have mint gum in my pocket. Want some?” Rayleigh offers. 

“I can’t eat that!”

“Sure you can. It’ll just stay in your intestines for seven years.”

Roger laughs. “That’s a myth!” 

“Nuh uh.” Rayleigh puts on his best serious face. “It’s been scientifically proven. It takes up to seven years to travel through the gut, and sometimes, it gets stuck there indefinitely. It can attach to the intestinal wall and eventually cause cancer.”

Roger pales and gets a panicked look on his face. Rayleigh manages to keep the facade for a valiant five seconds before he bursts out laughing. Roger punches him in the shoulder. 

“Asshole!”

“You really believed me, dumb-dumb.” 

“I was real worried, ‘cuz I’ve swallowed a lot of gum in my life….” Roger clutches his chest dramatically. 

Rayleigh takes out his pack of gum and wordlessly hands Roger a stick before taking one for himself. “You’ll shit this right out, don’t worry.” 

“Good, ‘cuz I will definitely swallow it.” 

“That’s what she said.”

Roger giggles. 

For a while, there’s a comfortable silence punctuated by the sound of them both chewing. 

“If you could eat anything right now, what would you eat?” Rayleigh eventually asks.

“Hmm…. That’s tough…. I love all kinds of food….” Roger frowns and taps his chin. “My favorite food ever is lamb curry. So good…. I’d probably eat lamb curry.”

“Oh, hell yeah. There’s an Indian restaurant near my apartment that has this amazing Kashmiri lamb dish. The spices are so good. I think it’s lamb cooked in yogurt sauce with like… cloves, and cardamom, and cinnamon.”

Roger groans erotically and rubs his hands over his body. “Yesss! So good!” 

“And the lamb is super tender, and juicy, and—”

Roger groans louder. “Stop, or I’m gonna cum!”

Rayleigh dissolves into giggles. He almost chokes on his gum. 

“What about you?” Roger pokes him on the side of the head. “What’s your favorite food?”

“Hmm…. I don’t really think too hard about that sort of thing. I eat for nutrition and calories; how it tastes is secondary.” 

Roger’s jaw drops and he stares at Rayleigh like he just watched Rayleigh kick a kitten. “WHAT?! You don’t care about taste?! Are you out of your mind?!” 

“I mean, I don’t want it to taste awful, but…. I eat what I have to eat to be healthy. You know, chicken and rice, eggs, soups, vegetables. I think I’m a decent cook, but I don’t add excessive amounts of sugar or butter or salt to stuff just to make it taste better,” Rayleigh tries to explain. “I’m just utilitarian.” 

“You’re nuts, that’s what you are,” Roger sniffs. “Come on, there’s not one food you like more than all the others?” 

“Hmm…. I guess I like fish. Like a nice brown sugar smoked salmon.” 

“Ooo yeah…,” Roger moans. 

“If you’re gonna cum, go do it in the corner over there.” 

Roger laughs. Then he gets a contemplative look on his face. 

“Do you think anyone’s ever jizzed in here before? Like, for real?”

“Oh, definitely. I’ve seen people shamelessly pissing in subway stations, why wouldn’t they crank one out while they’re at it? If you’re gonna do the public indecency thing, might as well go all the way.” 

“What?!” Roger sounds scandalized. “Have you done that?”

“Hell no!” Rayleigh laughs. “What kind of a guy do you think I am? Although I did jerk off in my high school bathroom once…. I was alone though.” 

“Really?! Why?”

“I dunno. I was a teenager. Lots of hormones. I didn’t have a reason really.” 

“I jerked it in the back of the bus when I was sixteen,” Roger says smugly. “I didn’t really have a reason either. I just thought it was fun, I guess!” 

“Wait, the city bus? Or a school bus?” 

“Er,” Roger clams up. 

“Gross, it was the city bus, wasn’t it. You exhibitionist freak.” Rayleigh elbows him. “You’d definitely be the guy jizzing over there in that corner by the tracks.”

“No I wouldn’t!” Roger laughs. “I swear!” 

“Yeah, yeah….” 

A companionable silence falls. Rayleigh’s cheeks feel strangely warm. When he thinks about it, he realizes he doesn’t usually talk about intimate shit like this with people. It’s kind of weird, but in a good way. 

Suddenly, Roger’s hand is in Rayleigh’s periphery, pinching his blushing cheek.

“Hey. When we get outta here, let’s go to that Indian restaurant you were talking about and get some lamb,” he says. 

Rayleigh snorts. “Alright.” 

He wonders if Roger is serious. 

2:55 am

“How’d you get this?” Roger asks, touching the scar running down Rayleigh’s forehead and over his right eye. They’re side-by-side on the bench again. 

“A fight,” Rayleigh answers. “I was fifteen, I think. I kinda got in trouble a lot back then. I don’t remember why I was beefing with this guy, but we duked it out in the parking lot behind the school. He whipped out a knife on me. The doctor said I was lucky I didn’t lose my eye.” 

“Damn.” 

“I have another one too.” Rayleigh doesn’t even think twice about lifting his shirt up to expose his chest and the long scar running down it. “I got this one in a different fight a year later. Another knife.”

“What the hell? What kind of school did you go to?” Roger murmurs. He traces the scar very gently with a fingertip. 

Rayleigh almost shivers at the delicate touch. 

“It was actually a fancy private school, if you can believe it. Just a bunch of rich kids acting out ‘cuz they hated their parents.” 

“Oh. Is that what you were doing?” 

“Mmm. Pretty much.” 

Roger ruminates on that. He seems strangely… upset by the sight of the scar on Rayleigh’s skin. If they weren’t strangers, Rayleigh would say he looked almost protective. 

“It was a long time ago,” he says quietly, to placate Roger. “No big deal.” 

“Hmm.” 

Roger reluctantly withdraws and Rayleigh pulls his shirt back down. 

“What about you? Got any scars?” Rayleigh asks. 

“Oh! Yeah! Check this one out!” Roger says proudly, lifting his shirt up. There’s a pale, shiny scar running down his side, right between some truly envy-inducing abs and obliques. “It’s from when I got my appendix removed!”  

“Just for fun?” Rayleigh teases. 

“Yeah, I was bored. You know how it is.” 

Roger touched him, so Rayleigh feels it’s only fair—he reaches out and touches the scar. It forms a rather deep valley in his flesh. But you’d never notice it unless Roger pointed it out, just because of the thick mat of body hair coating his pecs and stomach.  

“You’re so hairy. Was your mother a gorilla?” Rayleigh asks.

“Oi!” Roger punches him in the shoulder. “You wish you were as hairy as me! This fur keeps me warm in the winter! Plus it’s extra manly!” 

Roger grabs the hem of Rayleigh’s shirt and yanks it up again to expose him. Rayleigh laughs and tries to push him off, but Roger evades him. 

“See, smooth like a little ten-year-old kid,” Roger says smugly. He runs a finger down the valley between Rayleigh’s pecs, which is, to be fair, pretty smooth. “You’d die of hypothermia in the apocalypse.”

“Nah, I’d just do what Han Solo did to that tauntaun on Hoth and cut you open and hide inside you for warmth.” 

“Dang, I hope this subway station doesn’t get much colder, then. You don’t have a knife right now, do you?” Roger jokes. “Probably not, you seem to just get stabbed with them….” 

Rayleigh laughs and shoves him hard. 

3:30 am

Inevitably, with literally nothing else of interest in the subway, they eventually get on the topic of Roger’s instrument case. 

“It’s a rabab,” Roger says proudly as he unzips the case and takes out the instrument to display it for Rayleigh. 

It looks sort of like a small guitar, or maybe a lute. It’s stringed, and it has tuning pegs shaped like flowers at the top. It’s super wide (deep?), and very slender. There’s a beautiful decorative pattern on the neck. Rayleigh knows nothing about music, but it looks cool to his uncultured eye.

“It’s pretty much the Afghan version of a guitar,” Roger explains. “Actually, it’s much older than the guitar. It’s been around for more than a thousand years. It’s a traditional instrument. I’ve been playing it pretty much my whole life!” 

“Pretty cool.” Rayleigh means it.

“Wanna hear a song?” Roger asks eagerly, already shifting to sit cross-legged and positioning the rabab on his right thigh. 

“Hell yeah.”

“It sounds a lot better with the other instruments accompanying it, but okay! I’ll play you a song I wrote myself!”

Roger proceeds to play the most hauntingly beautiful music Rayleigh’s ever heard. The plucks of the rabab echo in the vast empty underground station, reverberating around the walls, filling the entire space with sound. It sends chills down Rayleigh’s spine and makes all the hair on his arms stand up. It’s hypnotizing to watch Roger as he plays—he closes his eyes in bliss as his fingers dance over the notes. It’s effortless for him. Somehow, this goofy guy pulls the gorgeous music out of the strings like an old maestro. Traditional Afghan music is not something Rayleigh has ever gone out of his way to listen to, but now he thinks he really should. He could listen for hours to Roger. It’s a small tragedy when the song ends after only a few minutes. 

“Oops, I messed up a note halfway through. Sorry!” Roger comments as he shakes out his strumming hand. 

“Whoa. Dude. You’re amazing,” Rayleigh breathes. He didn’t even notice any fucked up notes. 

Roger beams like the goddamn sun. “Really?”

“Really. That’s crazy. How did you get so good?” 

“A lot of practice! And also, well, ‘cuz of my huge penis.”

Rayleigh bursts out laughing. “Oh, of course…. But how come I’m not musically gifted, then? Hmm?” 

“Well, maybe you’re not as big as you think you are…,” Roger directs a pointed glance at Rayleigh’s crotch. 

“Oi.” 

Rayleigh kicks him and Roger just giggles and starts strumming another song. 

4:05 am

“Fuck, is it getting colder in here?” Rayleigh grumbles. He yanks his denim jacket tighter around himself, as if that’s gonna make a difference. 

“Ha, now you wish you had chest hair like mine,” Roger says smugly. 

Rayleigh grins and elbows him. Roger bumps their shoulders together, grinning too. There’s a moment of silence, and then—

“C’mere,” Roger murmurs. He puts his arm around Rayleigh’s shoulders and pulls him close. “I’m kinda cold too.” 

Rayleigh blushes and his heart picks up speed. It’s a bit of a romantic gesture. He knows Roger is just being friendly, it’s just… a little intimate. But he really is cold, and so he’s not about to put up a fight. Roger is quite warm, and it feels good to be crushed against him. Really good…. Rayleigh turns his torso towards Roger to get closer, and throws a leg over one of his for good measure. In response, Roger rubs the outside of his arm vigorously like he’s sandpapering a wall. Rayleigh also feels Roger resting his cheek on top of his head. Jesus, it really is intimate. Especially for strangers. But there’s no one here to see them or question them, so does it really matter? 

They stay like that for a while. There’s no need for words. Just Rayleigh occasionally burrowing closer and Roger squeezing his shoulder. Mmm. 

Now that they’re close like this, Rayleigh starts noticing things about Roger that he hadn’t noticed earlier—namely, that the guy smells insanely good. It’s not a cologne smell, but rather a natural musk sort of thing. He smells warm, if warmth was a smell. Slightly spicy, mixed with some kind of herbal shampoo and some natural male body odor. Rayleigh is surprised by how much he likes it. The smell is saturated into Roger’s clothes, and Rayleigh finds himself pressing his nose into Roger’s jacket just to quietly huff more of it. 

“You smell good,” Roger says abruptly. 

Damn, they’re on the same wavelength. 

“You do too.” The admission makes Rayleigh’s heart pound. 

The ensuing silence is thick with a nameless tension. Rayleigh feels weird and squirmy inside. He can’t believe he was cold just a little bit ago—he’s sweating now. 

Suddenly, Roger leans back and stares down at him. When Rayleigh meets his eyes, he finds that Roger’s entire demeanor has changed. He’s quiet, uncharacteristically serious, and his breathing has picked up a little. He’s staring intently at Rayleigh’s face. Sometimes, his gaze flicks down to Rayleigh’s lips. Rayleigh is no stranger to romance—he’s pretty sure he knows what that means, what Roger is thinking. 

Huh. Wow. He wouldn’t have guessed Roger was gay. 

He also wouldn’t have guessed that he himself would be so open to the idea of… that. Maybe it’s just because he’s extremely sleep-deprived, maybe it’s because the rest of the world feels so far away, maybe it’s because everything about tonight is so surreal. Maybe it’s just because of their chemistry. Whatever it is, Rayleigh finds that he’s… kind of down for this.  

It’s not really a surprise when Roger suddenly leans in. Rayleigh doesn’t protest, doesn’t push him away. He lets Roger kiss him. It’s a fairly chaste, closed-mouthed kiss, and Roger withdraws right away to gauge Rayleigh’s reaction. He must be encouraged by what he sees, because he smiles, leans in, and kisses him again. 

“Mm,” Rayleigh hums against his lips. 

“Mmmmm,” Roger answers in vehement agreement. 

Rayleigh’s head spins as Roger tackles him off the bench and onto his back on the gross subway floor. Roger follows him every inch of the way, doesn’t break away for a second. When Rayleigh’s head hits the ground, Roger is already on top of him, pressing him down harder. His kisses grow sloppy—harsh, eager breaths gusting out of his nose, tongue all over Rayleigh, way too aggressive. 

“Christ, man!” Rayleigh laughs, escaping by turning his head to the side. “Who taught you how to kiss?”

“No one,” Roger pants. “Do I suck?” 

Rayleigh’s head whips back around so that he can blink in surprise at him. 

“You’ve never kissed anyone before? Are you fucking with me?” 

“No?” Roger tilts his head in confusion like a puppy. “Why would I lie about that?” 

Rayleigh is flabbergasted. All he can do is blink and gape like a fish. 

“What’s wrong?” Roger presses. 

“Wh— Why not? There’s no way people wouldn’t want to make out with you! Look at you! You’re gorgeous!” Rayleigh exclaims. It’s no exaggeration—he knows so many guys who would do almost anything to look like Roger. He knows girls who would do anything to have Roger. 

But Roger just shrugs. “I never met anyone I wanted to kiss before.” 

“… Until me?” 

“Yeah!” Roger grins. 

Wow. That’s… very flattering. Rayleigh is stunned silent for so long that Roger grows bored and just leans in for more. 

“Mmph,” Rayleigh grunts between kisses. “Slow, gentle…. Plenty of time…. No one’s gonna snatch me away….” 

It gets Roger to calm down, but only a tiny bit. He’s still very forceful and passionate, fisting his hand in Rayleigh’s hair, biting Rayleigh’s lips, squirming on top of him like an excited snake. But at least the actual kissing is more like kissing and less like devouring. Rayleigh winds his arms around Roger’s shoulders and cups the back of his head, encouraging him. 

They make out for a long time. It’s really, really good. Roger smells good, and he’s so heavy and warm, and his hair is so thick and soft, and Rayleigh just… really, really likes it. All of it. He likes how crazy this is—kissing some stranger in an empty subway station at four in the morning. In a weird way, it feels like this is what he’s been missing all this time. 

“Ahh,” Roger pants when he pulls away a little. “I really, really like you a lot…. I feel like I’m going crazy…. I really want….” He trails off. 

“Mmm? What do you want?” Rayleigh teases him, skimming his nails across Roger’s broad back. He’s horny too; he knows damn well what Roger wants. 

Roger mashes their mouths together again instead of answering. He squirms some more on top of Rayleigh, and Rayleigh realizes he’s trying to nudge his thighs apart. Amused, Rayleigh obediently spreads his legs and wraps them around Roger’s waist. 

“Mmmrrgh,” Roger groans against his mouth at the feeling of it. He reaches down and squeezes Rayleigh’s ass through his jeans. 

Not to be outdone, Rayleigh squeezes Roger’s ass right back. 

“Guh.” Roger breaks the kiss again. “You’re so handsome….”

“ You’re handsome,” Rayleigh pants. He almost laughs—they must look so goofy, both of them grabbing each other’s butts and telling the other guy how hot he is. 

There’s another flurry of furious kissing, hands sliding all over each other, rubbing their bodies together as if friction will eventually erode their clothes off of them. It does make both of their shirts ride up, which causes their bare stomachs to press together, and the feeling of Roger’s happy trail scratching against his skin turns Rayleigh on like crazy. But he wants more. On impulse, he starts scrabbling at Roger’s belt and fly, which leads to them both stripping the pants off each other in a frenzy. Rayleigh yanks Roger’s jeans down to mid-thigh, and Roger yanks his jeans off of one leg and leaves them hanging from Rayleigh’s other ankle. Their mad kissing pauses for a moment as the gravity of what they’ve done sinks in—and they see each other’s junk for the first time. 

“Oh my god….” Roger whimpers like he’s in pain. He stares unwaveringly with half-lidded eyes at Rayleigh’s dick. “Sooo hot….” 

Rayleigh is surprised by his own reaction to Roger. Roger is gorgeous. Rayleigh drinks in the sight of him—his chiseled v-line plunging down towards a truly magnificent cock, big and thick and dark, jutting out of a dense thicket of black curls. He’s the perfect shape, like someone horny carved him out of marble to display in a museum. Christ, it’s not fucking fair. He’s flawless. 

In a trance, Roger lays back down on top of him and presses their dicks together. He starts rolling his hips experimentally, trying to rub them together in a way that feels good. 

“ Ah…,” Rayleigh moans. It’s not that it feels particularly orgasmic, but it’s the thought of it that hits him like a punch to the gut. The memory of when he first met Roger a few hours ago in contrast to what they’re doing now…. Fuck…. A few hours ago, he was irritated and wondering why this stranger was saying hello to him, and now they’re rubbing their cocks together. It’s crazy, it’s deranged. He loves it. 

Roger clearly loves it too. He cups Rayleigh’s face with both hands and presses their foreheads together, panting heavily as he works his hips. The desperate desire in his eyes is almost feral. Rayleigh grabs his ass again and pulls Roger against him harder, digging his fingers into the squishy muscle. Fuck yeah, it feels good.

The question of his own sexuality feels strangely distant and irrelevant right now. He’s never been with a guy like this, never wanted to, but for some reason, that doesn’t feel important. All Rayleigh knows right now is that he is… really enjoying the feeling of being on his back with his legs spread. Roger gasping against his lips, the feeling of him between Rayleigh’s thighs, the heavy weight of his cock against Rayleigh’s…. Rayleigh likes the idea of what they must look like together—him letting Roger pin him, Roger taking him. Roger getting worked up over him. He wants… even more. 

Could they do more? 

They’d need some kind of lube, right? 

Rayleigh racks his lust-addled brain. Something slippery… slippery…. It’s hard to think with Roger humping him, jostling him around…. 

Oh! He has a small tube of hand lotion in his jacket pocket! That could work, right? 

… Could he take something up his ass, though? He had a girlfriend once who sometimes liked sticking her finger up his butt during sex…. He’s not completely inexperienced…. 

Ugh…. Who cares if he doesn’t know what he’s doing! He wants it. Really badly. 

He lets go of Roger’s ass to wind his arms around his shoulders instead, kissing his neck and then putting his lips up against Roger’s ear.

“Wanna fuck me?” he pants impulsively. 

“Hnn!” Roger whines desperately just at the idea. His hips jerk harder. “ Yes! Yes yes yes!” 

“Mm, yeah?”

“Yes! Please! Please please please let me!” Roger reels back to look down at Rayleigh. “How? How do we do it? In your butt?”

Rayleigh grins and makes a lewd gesture with his hands in which he thrusts his right pointer finger a few times into a ring made by his left pointer finger and thumb. Roger groans and bites his bottom lip, squirming madly, eagerly. Rayleigh has never had someone be this excited to have sex with him. He kind of loves it. 

“Okay, okay, we can try using this.” He fishes the lotion out of his pocket. “You gotta be gentle though. You weren’t kidding about having a big dick….” 

“I’ll be so gentle, I promise.” Roger kisses him. “I won’t hurt you….” 

As Roger is showering his face in kisses, Rayleigh hurriedly unscrews the cap and flings it somewhere. He hears it skitter across the subway platform as he squeezes the entire tube out onto his palm. He tosses the tube too. 

As soon as he touches Roger’s cock with his lotion-y hand, Roger slumps onto him and starts sloppily mouthing at his jaw and neck, so it’s kind of hard to see what he’s doing. But he sure can feel—and fuck, Roger is so hard. Holy shit. His dick feels like a block of solid marble in Rayleigh’s hand, blood-warm with not one single iota of give. It’s kind of awe-inspiring. He really is an ideal specimen of masculinity. He gets Roger as slick as he can, coats him from tip to base. 

“Okay, let me just….” Rayleigh squirms to line things up, hiking his legs up higher around Roger’s waist and curving his back to lift his hips off the floor just a bit. He rubs the head of Roger’s cock against his own asshole. Shit. He grits his teeth. This might hurt a little. 

“Oh god…,” Roger groans as he stares down between their bodies. “There’s no way! Your butthole is so tiny! It won’t fit!”

“It will,” Rayleigh says firmly. Actually, he has no fucking clue if it will or not. His ex-girlfriend’s finger doesn’t even hold a candle to Roger’s thick cock. “Just push.” 

As concerned as Roger seems, he’s still an overeager, extremely horny young man, so he obeys without any more protest. He starts sinking in. And, somehow, Rayleigh’s body stretches to accommodate him. 

“ Oh, fuck…,” Rayleigh groans as Roger slides deeper, head tipping back and colliding with the concrete. It’s like… sitting on a lamppost. 

Eventually, Roger’s balls touch Rayleigh’s ass. He’s all the way in. Rayleigh can barely move. He’s afraid that if he shifts even the slightest bit, Roger’s dick will puncture some internal organ. But, overall, it doesn’t hurt. It’s just intense. The head of Roger’s dick is touching places that have never been touched before. 

“What now?” Roger pants. His eyes are hazy, bronze skin flushed and sweaty. 

“Fuck me until we both come,” Rayleigh says breathlessly. He grabs his own dick to start jerking it and kicks Roger lightly in the ass with the heel of his foot. Roger needs no other cajoling. 

It starts off gentle, like Roger promised. Shallow thrusts, nice and easy. Little pumps of his hips. It allows Rayleigh to get used to the feeling. 

But then, Roger changes the angle of his thrusts and jabs into the upper wall of Rayleigh’s ass and holy fuck. Stars explode behind his eyelids and his dick instantly gets rock-hard. 

“ Ah, shit!” he cries. 

“Mmm, like that?” Roger pants eagerly. “Yeah?”

“Yeah!”

Things very rapidly get rough after that. 

Roger shifts into a crouch and starts thrusting harder, driving Rayleigh into the concrete. 

“ Oh!! Fuck yes!” Rayleigh moans loudly, his voice echoing off the walls. God, it feels good, fuck! He’s suddenly so aroused that waves of heat are pulsing under his skin, and he’s probably flushed as red as a tomato, but he doesn’t care. Fuck, he should have tried this years ago! 

“Mmm, does my dick feel good?” Roger pants, delirious. 

“ Yes!” Rayleigh breathes. 

He grabs two handfuls of Roger’s leather jacket just for something to hold onto as he throws his hips into Roger’s thrusts, meeting him halfway. Roger moans at his eagerness and pumps his hips even harder. The increasing ferocity of their fucking starts causing a squelching sound between their bodies where they’re joined. That echoes off the walls, too. 

“ Augh! Can’t believe we’re doing this!” Roger gasps. “I can’t believe I’m fucking you!”

“I know!” 

“This feels so good!”

“Yeah!” 

Roger collapses onto him and hugs him tight as he pounds him. Rayleigh digs his nails into Roger’s back, damn near ready to cry from the pleasure. His dick is so hard, and he’s gushing pre everywhere, and this crazy sensation blooms inside him every time Roger thrusts at a certain angle, and he’s never felt anything like this, and Jesus Christ it’s good! Fuck! 

He lets out a hysterical little bark of laughter when he thinks about what a security guard would think if he walked into the subway station right now. If some dude rolled up to work only to find Rayleigh on his back on the disgusting subway floor with his pants around one ankle, legs around Roger’s waist, as Roger fucks him passionately. By all accounts, this is the lowest of the low, mating like animals in the most heinous place they could possibly choose, too horny to wait or find somewhere else. But it feels so damn good. This is so ridiculous—he’s having the best sex of his whole goddamn life on the floor of a subway station with a stranger. A male stranger after having a disastrous date with a woman. Who is he?

The orgasm that Roger rips from him is so intense that he actually screams. It has his thighs shaking, has every muscle in his body tensed up so tight he can’t even breathe. The waves of it wash over him like a tsunami, he jizzes everywhere, and he almost blacks out. He barely registers the sound and sensation of Roger coming too, deep inside him. For endless moments, they cling to each other, gritting their teeth, twitching and trembling and sweating like crazy. 

“Wow,” Roger breathes when it’s finally over. He’s laying sprawled on top of Rayleigh, still inside him. 

“Yeah,” Rayleigh agrees wholeheartedly. 

He slides his hands under Roger’s jacket and shirt and up his back, just to feel his damp skin and heaving breaths. Roger kisses him affectionately on the side of the neck. 

“You felt so good…,” Roger murmurs. “It’s so warm and tight inside you….”

“Oi,” Rayleigh laughs. “Don’t say anything dirty. Don’t get me riled up again. We don’t have any more lotion.” 

Roger laughs too.

It’s not just the lotion, though—it’s probably getting close to five a.m now. They don’t have time to go again, not unless they want to be walked in on by the early morning crowd. 

Rayleigh heaves a big sigh and pats Roger on the back. 

“Come on, big guy. We better put our clothes back on,” he says reluctantly. 

Roger is unresponsive for a long moment, a hint of stubbornness shining through. But then he gives Rayleigh one more kiss on the neck and starts to pull out with a sigh of his own. 

4:50 am

They get themselves cleaned and straightened up and then they return to the bench. They sit side-by-side again, squished together shoulder to hip. Roger puts his arm around Rayleigh, and Rayleigh has no qualms about laying his head on Roger’s shoulder. He yawns. He’s suddenly very sleepy. And sore.

“What time is it?” Roger asks. The words get murmured into Rayleigh’s hair. 

Rayleigh checks his phone. 4:50. He wordlessly shows the screen to Roger. 

“The train’s coming soon….”

“Mhm.” 

Rayleigh presses his face into Roger’s jacket and closes his eyes. He inhales Roger’s scent, lets it settle inside him. He can feel Roger doing the same thing with his hair. All of the lust between them has suddenly been replaced by a strange melancholy, and Rayleigh finds himself placing his hand on Roger’s tummy. Just for one more point of contact. Just to feel Roger’s breath. He swallows around a lump in his throat. 

    “Lately it feels like I can’t connect with anyone,” Rayleigh eventually murmurs. “Just never click with other people, you know? It’s always so blah—we kinda just talk about our jobs, or the weather, or the royal family, boring shit like that. This is the first time in a long time that I’ve felt… like this.”

    Roger’s arm tightens around him. “Yeah, me too.”

    “Really? You seem like you’d get along with anyone.”

    “Yeah, I do, but…. This is the first time it’s been like this. With other people, I have fun with them, and then we go our separate ways and it’s not a big deal. I just let ‘em go. ‘Cuz if we’re meant to see each other again, we will, and if not, we won’t. And it’s all good. But with you, I feel… different.”

    “Mm? Different how?” As sleepy as he is, Rayleigh’s heart is suddenly beating pretty fast.

    “I don’t wanna let you go,” Roger murmurs. 

    Rayleigh swallows. Sheesh, his heart is pounding. That’s an intimate admission to make to a guy you just met five hours ago, even if you fucked him. 

“Me neither,” he finds himself whispering. 

He finds that the thought is actually painful to him—the idea of them getting on this train, and Roger getting off at a different stop, and not seeing him again. Being separated. They could exchange numbers and meet up again, but…. Rayleigh doesn’t want this spell to be broken. It doesn’t make sense, but he feels like if he lets go of this thread he’s holding onto, he’ll never get it back. He digs his fingers into Roger’s tummy a little. 

“Why don’t you just come home with me?” Rayleigh blurts out. “There’s no way I’m going to work today anyways.” 

Both of Roger’s arms are suddenly around him and he’s being hugged tight. 

“Yeah,” Roger answers quietly. “Let’s go home together.” 

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

Rayleigh hugs him back, burying his face in Roger’s shoulder. They stay like that even when they hear the streetside doors open and the sound of a crowd of approaching footsteps. 

Five a.m, finally. 

Rayleigh finds that he doesn’t care at all anymore. If they had to wait another hour, or two, or three… he wouldn’t mind too much.