Niall wasn’t lying to Albi when he told him that he was the only man he had ever allowed himself to love. It’s debatable, but this is how I interpret it:
The question isn’t “Have you ever felt something for a man?” but rather “Have you ever opened yourself up enough to feel something for a man?” And in that sense, the only time Niall genuinely experienced both attraction and falling in love was with Albi — the guy who empathized with him, who saw him for who he really was, and with whom he didn’t have to wear a mask. He gave Niall enough safety to lower his guard, open up, and allow himself to be who he really was.
So what happens with Ruben?
When Ruben asks Niall if he loves him — although, in reality, it doesn’t even sound like a question; he almost seems to be stating it as a fact — Niall looks confused and automatically answers, “Of course I love you. You’re my brother.” And I think that is precisely the answer.
Until that moment, Niall had never really stopped to ask himself what he felt for Ruben, just as he had never really stopped to tell himself that he was gay. If I don’t question it, I don’t explore what I feel, and if I don’t know what I feel, it doesn’t exist. The label of “brothers” functioned as a boundary: he’s my brother, so there can’t be any attraction or romantic love. But at the same time, that same label allowed him to justify and accept the intensity of his feelings for him without having to question them. And this doesn’t necessarily have to be something he is consciously aware of.
So the statement that “Albi is the only man I’ve ever opened myself up enough to love” can still be true, because up until that point, Niall had never stopped to ask himself what he felt for Ruben.
And when he says that “it’s the only thing I’ve ever felt,” I think he is also being honest about what he feels for Ruben — but that doesn’t mean it’s something he wants to feel.
Niall didn’t just spend his whole life repressing his homosexuality; he may also have repressed what he felt for Ruben. He told himself he wasn’t gay even while sleeping with men because he could separate sex from love: he wasn’t in love with them. Albi was the exception because he was the first person with whom Niall allowed himself to acknowledge both things.
And Ruben may be precisely the feeling Niall never allowed himself to look at directly.
Their relationship also didn’t begin in a natural way. They were forced to share a home, and from the very beginning, their bond was shaped by dependency and forced proximity. That makes it even harder for Niall to distinguish between what comes from the bond they have built and what might be something more.
That’s why I think Niall’s feelings for Ruben can be completely genuine without making them healthy or straightforward. They are deeply intertwined with need, control, dependency, and trauma. Niall didn’t choose to feel everything he feels for Ruben, just as Ruben didn’t choose for his father to become the person he had ever felt closest to. Feeling something doesn’t mean you chose it, and certainly doesn’t mean you consent to everything that may come from those feelings.
And I also think it’s important to separate a physical response from desire. Niall’s physical reaction when Ruben overpowers him in bed was involuntary; it doesn’t mean he wanted it or consented to it. The same applies to the loss of his virginity with Mona and with Ruben: Niall was subjected to it; he did not allow it to happen. Those are two completely different things.
That’s precisely why I think the series plays so much with the difference between what Niall feels, what his body does, and what he allows himself to acknowledge. His body can react without there being consent, while emotionally he can spend years refusing even to ask himself the question.
And perhaps that is why Ruben’s question — “Do you love me?” — is so disturbing: for the first time, someone forces Niall to confront something he had previously been able to keep hidden behind one very simple word: “brother.”