‘Don't.’
It came out softer than he meant. Ragged at the edges. Rory's expression shifted: surprise first, then recognition.
Neil stepped forward. Rory's back found the wall between the two rooms, where the plaster was cold and smelled faintly of linseed. Neil put his forehead against Rory's jaw and stayed there.
‘I don't know how to do this.’
‘I know.’
‘I'm not walking to the bedroom. I can't make it to the bedroom.’
‘All right.’
‘I'm not going back to the sofa.’
‘All right.’
Rory's hand came up to the back of Neil's neck, just there, not pulling. The steadiness of it undid Neil for three months.
He kissed Rory. The kiss was neither careful nor practised. It came from somewhere else. Rougher at first because he didn't trust the softness, then softer because Rory met him where he was and wouldn't be led away.
The hallway was narrow. Their chests pressed flat. Neil got a hand under Rory's jumper and the skin there was warm in a way that shocked him every time, like he kept forgetting men were warm in the same places he was. Rory made a sound at the back of his throat, low, not quite a word.
‘Kieran's at his mate's,’ Rory said into his mouth. A statement. A reassurance.
‘I know.’
‘Just checking you were going to remember.’
‘I'm remembering.’
Neil got his own belt open one-handed. The other was braced on the wall beside Rory's head. His fingers were unsteady but not like the first time on the sofa. Different unsteady. Different reason. He worked the button on Rory's jeans and felt the breath go shallow against his ear.
‘Neil.’
‘Yeah.’
‘Slower.’
‘No.’
Rory's laugh was a huff more than a sound. ‘God. All right.’
They opened each other. Opened. Jeans pushed down at the hip, boxers shoved aside, Rory's cock already half hard against Neil's wrist, then harder when Neil took him in hand. Neil spit into his palm, ungraceful, necessary, and folded them together, his cock against Rory's, Rory's foreskin dragging against the head of his own, the clumsy friction hitting him somewhere deeper than the first time had.
Rory's hand covered his, not replacing, accompanying. Both their palms around both their cocks. The serpent at Rory's wrist against the tendon of Neil's forearm. Neil pressed his forehead harder into the hollow above Rory's collarbone and breathed through his teeth.
‘Fuck,’ Rory said. Quiet. ‘Fuck, Neil.’
‘I know.’
‘You're...’
‘I know what I'm doing.’
He did. For once. He was doing it badly, rhythm uneven because his hand kept tightening when it shouldn't, becauseRory's breath at his ear kept wrecking his concentration, because standing up was harder than either of them had pretended it would be, and Rory's knee knocked the skirting board and they both laughed, Rory properly, Neil a single exhale, and the laugh didn't stop anything, it just made it theirs.
Rory came first. That was the other inversion.
