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Foyle takes Paul’s hand from the handrail, gently pulling him forward up the last step and ushering him across the hall into the bedroom. Paul stops a foot or so inside the door and feels Foyle’s fingers twist in his as he reaches back to shut the door.
He’s gotten a slightly better grip on himself now and can take in the room with something less like giddy hysteria.
The space is -- nice. Comfortable. A little worn-in around the edges. There’s a dark carpet that stops just short of the feet of the heavy wooden bedstead. There are two short tables, in dark wood, one on each side of the head of the bed. He recognizes one as the mahogany piece from the estate sale. This holds a small reading lamp which is on, shedding a clear golden light, a closed book with an envelope sticking out about halfway through, and, tucked behind the base of the lamp, a pair of glasses.
The room’s bigger than he thought it would be given the size of Andrew’s: there’s a dressing table against the wall to his left, another lamp glowing on the wall beside it, and then a fair few feet of space in the triangle between table, bed, and the large wardrobe that takes up half of the inner wall. There are blackout curtains drawn tightly over the windows that would look out over the back garden and a large rectangular piece of drapery -- he can’t see the details but it looks as though there’s some kind of flower pattern worked on it -- over those, hiding most of the dully black fabric from view.
‘You approve?’ Foyle is standing beside him, Paul realises, their hands still clasped together.
He nods and swallows against dryness. ‘Yes, I -- it’s -- I --’ He pauses, takes a breath, tries again. ‘I’ve always liked your house.’ It’s a feeble acknowledgement but he doesn’t think that this is the time to go into how this house has started to feel more like his home than any place he remembers after his mother’s house. Those feelings are a little too -- close just yet. Although -- he glances down at where Christopher’s fingers are interwoven with his own. That may be something of a false distinction.
Foyle follows his gaze and clears his throat. He flexes his fingers slightly at the same time, sending a ripple of heat up Paul’s arm from where his fingertips brush against Paul’s palm. ‘I think it’s only fair I--’ He pauses, takes a breath, and steps in front of Paul, putting the hand not holding Paul’s flat on Paul’s chest, just below his shoulder. His lips are moving slightly as though he’s reciting something to himself and he’s clearly trying to work something out; Paul would help him but he has no idea what Foyle’s trying to say.
Foyle takes a deep breath and closes his eyes for a brief moment. He starts to speak again without opening them. ‘I am...very fond of you.’ Foyle’s eyebrows pinch together slightly. ‘It hasn’t --’
‘Christopher, I--’
‘This isn’t recent,’ Foyle speaks over him, opening his eyes and looking up at Paul. The corner of his mouth twists and he reaches out, smoothing his palm against Paul’s cheek. ‘I don’t want you to think I’m doing this lightly.’
‘I don’t think you do anything lightly,’ Paul says, more than a little distracted by the feel of Foyle’s fingertips on his cheekbone. He finds himself leaning ever-so-slightly into the touch, reaching up to press his fingers over Foyle’s knuckles.
Foyle smiles. ‘Not many things.’ He pauses for a second, then adds, ‘And certainly not this.’
They stand like that for a long moment, the room quiet around them until there’s a rush of wind that throws a sharp spatter of rain against the windows. Paul blinks and looks back at Foyle. Foyle is looking at him but clearly not seeing him -- his gaze is focused somewhere through Paul’s shoulder and Paul can’t read the expression on his face.
‘You were going to show me something.’ He hears his own voice with something like surprise and, from the look on Foyle’s face, he’s not the only one a little taken aback.
Foyle looks at him for a painfully long moment. Paul thinks he knows that they’re beyond the tipping point now; wherever this new place is, they’re not going back from it and he doesn’t want to go back from it. But part of him is anxious that Foyle is going to disclaim the whole thing, tell him it was a mistake, too risky, too dangerous, too -- too something and they should just--
Paul’s train of thought breaks apart when Foyle drags the pad of his thumb over his lower lip, then leans in and kisses him again, his hand still on Paul’s chin. ‘I was.’ His voice is a soft huff of breath against Paul’s mouth. ‘You want me to.’
Another question that isn’t a question and, again, there’s only one answer to it. ‘Yes.’
Foyle doesn’t seem immediately inclined to move and appears to be studying where his fingertips touch Paul’s skin on the line of his jaw. Either the touch or the gaze is sending shivers of heat down Paul’s spine and he’s just about to try and frame awkwardness into words when Foyle clears his throat and takes a half-step forward, settling his hands back on Paul’s waist. ‘I’m afraid you’ll have to forgive me for being somewhat out of practice.’
That startles Paul into a laugh that surprises him as much as it does Foyle who blinks at him. ‘Since I don’t have any practice at all, I don’t think I can complain.’
‘Lack of practice wasn’t stopping you before,’ Foyle points out and his fingers are suddenly warm against the skin over Paul’s ribs.
Paul bites the inside of his cheek hard to try and keep himself grounded, keep himself from gasping aloud and, past the rush of sensation, tries desperately to think. He didn’t have an experience he could remember that had felt like this -- he keeps trying to find parallels and equivalencies and patterns and failing.
For one thing, he doesn’t remember being the one to be touched before. He doesn’t feel as though he's being particularly passive but he does feel seen and that’s not something he’s used to. Part of him wants to try and re-assert the familiar pattern but -- Foyle feels completely different under his hands and does that pattern even apply here? can it? what is he supposed to do? He can’t remember feeling overwhelmed like this before and he never would have imagined feeling like this and not minding -- for all the nervousness it brings with it, it also brings a very strong sense of fitness, rightness.
‘Paul.’ Foyle’s voice is soft and followed up by another soft brush of his lips against Paul’s.
‘Christ…’ He doesn’t really mean to say it aloud but it comes out as a rush of breath as he curves his fingers around the angle of Foyle’s jaw and strokes his thumb along the line of Christopher’s cheekbone. The skin under Paul’s hand is smooth, softer than he would have expected with only a faint prickle of stubble against the heel of his hand. ‘I don’t -- I don’t know what I’m doing. I --’ He hesitates. There’s a reassuring swell of warmth in his chest, a feeling of steadiness that he's long learned to trust, but he wants so many things at once he can’t decide which one should come first. ‘--I don’t want to get anything wrong.’
Foyle kisses him again. ‘I never knew you worried so much.’
Before Paul can say anything sensible in reply, Foyle takes one of Paul’s hands off his own cheek and plants it firmly on his own waist.
Paul hadn’t noticed before, but Foyle’s jacket is gone -- probably abandoned down in the kitchen -- and the buttons on his waistcoat are undone. Paul flexes his hand gingerly, aware that Foyle is watching him, and tries to cudgel his brain back into working. If he doesn’t figure this out soon, he’s sure Foyle will start wondering if this was really worth the risk -- or even if Paul wants to be here at all. Those aren’t doubts Paul wants to give any room.
His thumb brushes against the rough texture of braces and, without letting himself think about it too much, aware that his mouth is going slightly dry, he finds the small leather toggle and button on the inside of Foyle’s waistband and flicks it loose. Foyle’s hand is on top of his, helping him shove shirt fabric out of the way.
He’s touched Foyle’s skin before -- if nothing else, they’ve just kissed again and Paul’s a little dizzy with it. But, of course, they’ve also shaken hands, handed mugs of tea back and forth, touched over files, evidence, door handles --
This is not that. He can feel Foyle breathing, the steady rise and fall of his ribs just under Paul’s hand, the flex of muscle under skin and, before he realises he’s made a decision, he’s found the other leather toggle, flipped it free, and undone the first few buttons of Foyle’s shirt -- and Foyle’s laughing at him.
Paul stops. ‘I -- what’s funny?’
‘Wait a minute, wait a minute --’ Foyle’s shrugging out of his waistcoat, tossing it on the bed behind him. He twists forward and reaches behind himself and then lets the braces slither over his shoulders onto the floor. ‘There. Now you can’t tie me in knots by accident.’
Paul glances down at himself. His own shirt is a rumpled, half-unbuttoned mess around his hips but that’s really the worst of it: he doesn’t have a waistcoat or braces to worry about, just a belt and trousers that are rapidly becoming uncomfortable.
The thought -- realizing what would be apparent to the glance should he move -- brings blood to his face and he looks up at Foyle involuntarily, almost guilty, not knowing what should come next. With Jane -- with any of the girls, really -- the moves had seemed clear and there hadn’t been a need for discussion, decisions about what came first, second, third. In fact, he can’t really remember thinking about it -- it had just seemed apparent, obvious to the naked eye, so to speak, and if he had gotten it wrong, none of the girls had ever complained.
Now -- now it isn’t as though he doesn’t know what he wants, but he doesn’t know how to go about it.
Foyle looks at him for a long minute, then smiles, and steps in against him so that their clothes are really the only barrier between them, a few layers of cloth separating skin from skin. Paul gasps and swallows hard against the sudden rush -- and the realization that he can feel Foyle against his hip, a solid swell that isn’t muscle. He doesn’t know what his face looks like but Foyle almost looks as though he wants to laugh again and is biting it back.
‘Paul. I do know how this works.’ Slowly and deliberately, keeping his eyes on Paul’s face, Foyle slides a hand under Paul’s vest and presses it over his navel, his thumb brushing the scatter of hair that starts just below. The feeling is almost ticklish, almost like an electric shock, and Paul pushes forward into it before he thinks.
‘Here.’ Foyle slips their hands together and tugs Paul forward and onto the bed, getting on himself and sliding over so Paul has room to stretch. Paul lets himself be pulled forward and arranged, sinking back onto the pillows and letting the bed take his weight. Foyle stretches out beside him, one hand supporting his head, the other still on Paul’s stomach, teasing his wrinkled shirt upward to reveal pale skin. What’s particularly amazing about this, Paul thinks a little hazily, is how to seems like something they do every day, moving around each other to make space and then coming back together in the center of it.
There’s another rush of wind in the street outside and Foyle’s quiet voice is nearly lost in it. ‘I wasn’t sure -- I wasn’t sure you’d -- want me to do this.’ His hand flattens on the arc of Paul’s hipbone.
‘I do -- I have for -- for a long time.’ Paul twists slightly onto his side -- he can’t roll over because his bad leg will leave him trapped on that side, but he can curl himself towards and around Foyle.
Foyle shifts slightly to accommodate Paul and looks into his face. This close, Paul can see the fine network of wrinkles at the outer corners of his eyes and, because he can, he smoothes a fingertip over the arch of Foyle’s eyebrow, back over his temple, and down the line of his jaw to his throat. Foyle’s eyes flicker shut and he tilts his head back so Paul keeps going, running his finger down to the notch of Foyle’s collarbone, then back up the line of muscle to the soft spot below his ear.
On an impulse, he ducks forward and presses a kiss there. He can hear Foyle’s surprised inhalation, but no protest follows, so he keeps going, dragging a line of kisses over Foyle’s throat to the opening of his collar. He fumbles with the buttons, flicking them open without pulling away from Foyle’s skin, smooth and warm and almost sweet under his mouth.
He doesn’t know if this is the right thing or the allowed thing or what he’s supposed to do but, like the nights in his bed, it feels too good to stop. He pushes a hand under the open front of Foyle’s shirt and feels as well as hears the intake of breath. He lifts his head, keeping his hand where it is. ‘Should I -- is -- is this all right?’
Foyle’s eyes are dark, the pupils wide, and his lower lip looks slick and bitten. Paul knows he didn’t do that so-- The answer presents itself in a sudden rush of heat to his groin and he groans, dropping his forehead against Foyle’s collarbone as he squeezes his eyes shut.
It takes him a minute to realise Foyle is talking to him. ‘...Paul -- Paul?’ It’s the brush of fingers through his hair that finally does it and his gut response is to relax against Foyle like a cat in front of a hot stove. Foyle’s hand hesitates for a minute, then the tips of his fingers press against the base of Paul’s skull, pushing forward against the grain of his hair and he sighs, stretching himself involuntarily so he’s almost cradled against Foyle’s shoulder.
He hears Foyle’s chuckle and feels it as a vibration against his cheek. ‘I suppose you’re all right, then.’
Paul shakes his head, relishing the brush of his cheek against the skin of Foyle’s shoulder. He feels slightly tipsy, overwhelmed on touch, taste, and scent and he still wants more. ‘I’m fine. Why shouldn’t I be?’ He musters up the coordination to raise his head slightly and squints to focus Foyle’s face. Foyle’s hand doesn’t move from the back of his neck.
‘I just wanted to be sure. You looked…’ Foyle pauses for a minute, then tries, ‘...startled?’
Paul blinks at him, then drops his forehead again. It might be a little foolish given their respective positions, but he can’t look Foyle in the face and say this at the same time. ‘I didn’t… I never...thought about what...what it would be like if you--’ He stops. What he wants to say is that it had never entered into his fantasies, into all his carefully vague imaginings, that he would be able to see Foyle’s pleasure -- see his eyes change or his color rise. He feels Foyle laugh again and looks up. ‘What?’
Foyle shakes his head, dropping his free hand over his eyes and Paul would be worried if Foyle showed the slightest sign of tensing up. As it is, he looks like he’s remembered some foolish joke that had suddenly struck him as funny. After a minute he shakes his head again and moves his hand, sliding it down onto Paul’s shoulder under his shirt, under his vest until Foyle’s hand is a warm weight over his ribs.
‘Did you think I was doing this solely for your enjoyment?’
‘I...I hadn’t thought about it at all,’ Paul is forced to admit and Foyle’s hand tightens slightly against his shoulder, pulling him back up into the pool of light on the pillows.
‘You think about everything, Paul.’ Foyle smiles as he says it and traces his thumb over Paul’s lower lip again. He seems to be getting fond of the gesture and Paul feels no inclination to stop him. ‘That’s one of the reasons we get on so well.’
‘I didn’t -- I mean, I did think -- about--’ Paul can feel himself blushing and curses his pale skin heartily. ‘--but I -- I didn’t know...what to think about. What...what to picture.’
Foyle makes a small hmming noise that might be agreement or argument, Paul isn’t sure, and leans forward on his elbow. ‘But you liked what you thought?’
Paul keeps his gaze straight with an effort and nods. He doesn’t dare let himself say anything. It’s only starting to sink in that perhaps -- if Foyle keeps looking at him like this, keeps touching him like this -- he-- they can have some of those things he doesn’t know the words for and didn’t let himself imagine fully. Before tonight he hadn’t been sure if that possibility brought more fear or more desire with it; now he’s sure, and he’s going to have to find some way to express that so Foyle will know, too. For right now, those words are out of reach. But Foyle’s gaze is both sharp and kind and Paul hopes he knows anyway.
Foyle smiles again and his hand slides around the back of Paul’s neck, tugging him forward. ‘Good.’
Paul lets himself get pulled down and forward, following Christopher’s mouth, the momentum of his body down onto the pillows. What little lingering sense of strangeness he had felt about the unfamiliar contours of a male body is vanishing fast and he pushes the folds of Foyle’s shirt aside. To his surprise, Foyle sits up immediately and shoves the shirt the rest of the way off, tossing it towards the foot of the bed; his vest follows and Foyle looks at him with an expression that, from anyone else, Paul would call a dare.
‘You might as well see what you’re getting,’ is all Foyle says and Paul stares at him for a minute. Foyle looks -- almost defensive, as though he’s expecting some sort of negative reaction and Paul can’t imagine why. He pushes himself a little bit closer on the bed, the bedclothes rucking up a little under his hip, and puts his hand on Foyle’s shoulder where it had been before. Foyle doesn’t move, just watches him, and Paul can’t figure out where the sudden odd wariness is coming from. He looks at his hand, slightly browner than the skin of Foyle’s chest, and strokes his thumb gently along the line of Foyle’s breastbone. There’s a faint scar an inch or so below the notch of his collarbone and Paul presses his palm over it.
He wants to ask what it’s from, but he’s distracted by the curl of chest hair under his hand, the roughness and spring of it, and the way it seems to lead his hand directly down the center of Foyle’s chest and the slight rise of his belly where Paul can feel his breathing again. He glances back up and the wary look has faded -- Foyle looks almost as if he wants to smile again -- and, if he thinks about it for another few minutes, Paul is sure he can come up with the answer for the wariness in the first place. But, honestly in the here and now, he doesn’t even try to find words. Instead, he leans forward and kisses the notch of Foyle’s collarbone. He hadn’t quite gotten to it, before, in their previous round of kissing, and it seems the reasonable place to start now.
He shifts forward without thinking about it, letting his hand run over Foyle’s side to the soft spot just above the sharp angle of his hipbone. Foyle is silent, still under his hand, but Paul doesn’t stop, kissing a line down the center of his breastbone, noting the unfamiliar tickle of chest hair against the tip of his nose but not bothering to worry about it. He’ll get used to it.
That thought, in and of itself, brings a little burst of what feels like joy in his chest: he’ll get used to it.
He flattens his palm over Foyle’s abdomen, stretching his fingertips as far as they’ll go, and slides his hand upwards, revelling in the distinct sensations of smooth warm skin, slightly coarse curling hair, and the odd freckle. He can feel Foyle’s breathing under his hand, the quickened rise and fall and then Foyle has slipped down beside him and is kissing him again.
Paul lets his hand keep moving and only realises after hearing a sharp inhalation in his ear that he’s brushed over Christopher’s nipple. He pauses and slips his hand back down, pressing a little harder over the small nub that tightens under his palm. He pulls back a little and looks at his hand. ‘I…’
Foyle mirrors the gesture on Paul’s own chest, a sudden warm pressure that he’s pushing against before he can make a conscious decision about it. ‘I always found it pleasant. If you don’t--’
Paul grips Foyle’s wrist and holds his hand where it is, squeezing his eyes shut for a minute. ‘I -- it -- I don’t know what it feels like.’ He isn’t quite sure what anything feels like at the minute. His entire body is oversensitized in the most pleasant of ways, tingling against the slightest drag or pull of his remaining clothing, the lightest touch of Christopher’s fingers.
Foyle leans forward to kiss the side of Paul’s throat, mimicking what Paul had done to him earlier and now Paul understands the bitten lip. He’s biting the inside of his own cheek to stop himself from groaning aloud and it’s taking a distinct effort to keep his hips still. Foyle mumbles something against the skin of his breastbone and, before Paul can ask, there’s the firm press of Foyle’s thigh against his groin and he couldn’t stop himself from moving if his life depended on it.
He gasps, pushing his shoulders back down against the pillows. ‘Christopher! I--’
He can hear Foyle smiling. ‘I knew I’d get you to use my name one way or another.’ There’s a soft metallic sound and then the sssh of fabric and--
‘Fuck!’ Christopher’s fingers are a sudden lick of fire and Paul jerks up, against Foyle’s hand and the weight of his leg and it’s almost all too much and almost all over -- except for Foyle easing him back down, stretching out beside him, his hand still cupped over Paul’s cock, holding it carefully against the hollow of Paul’s hip as though this is just something they do.
The touch of fingers, a man’s fingers, Christopher's fingers on his prick is almost more strange in not being very strange at all. He’s only barely gotten used to his own touch again -- seeing Foyle’s thumb move gently down his length from root to tip would be surreal if it didn’t feel like something he wanted to go on for hours. Paul gasps slightly, eyes closing in spite of himself. ‘I...’
‘Tell me if...if I get this wrong,’ Foyle says softly and Paul get his eyes open in time to see Foyle watching his own hand, fingers starting to shine slightly with moisture. He slips a thumb gently over the head of Paul’s cock, easing the foreskin back and a slick thread follows his fingers.
‘...sorry, I--’
Foyle looks up at him sharply, hand stilling, and Paul would laugh but he hasn’t the breath. He gestures feebly at himself. ‘Jane -- never liked when -- when I--’
Foyle’s eyes darken for a minute and his mouth draws flat.
‘No, she -- she just -- I think she didn’t --’ Paul huffs out a breath that’s almost a nervous giggle and shakes his head. ‘I don’t know what she didn’t like. The mess, maybe.’
‘But you know she didn’t like it.’
Paul shrugs, feeling slightly lightheaded. He doesn’t know quite what he means except that Jane had never seemed very interested in his body. It hadn’t occurred to him as being odd at the time: after all, what was there to be interested by? ‘It always seemed easy. For me. I mean--’ He waves his free hand at himself, at them, curled together half-naked on the bed. ‘--it’s harder to tell if a woman is -- enjoying herself. I didn’t -- think about myself. A lot.’
Foyle nods thoughtfully and looks back down at his wet hand, running the pad of his thumb lightly around the crown of Paul’s cock, the touch almost enough to make his eyes roll back in his head. ‘In that case, you’ll have to be very careful to tell me what you like.’ He tightens his grip slightly, pumping along Paul’s length once, twice, almost as if in the spirit of experiment.
‘Oh, Jesus…’ Paul falls back against the pillows, dropping a hand over his eyes. ‘I -- I can’t...I…’ He gestures feebly with his other hand. ‘You. I...like you.’ He peers out from between his fingers. ‘Is that -- will that do or--’
Foyle’s smiling at him, almost laughing and Paul tugs on his arm, pulling him down so he can kiss the smile, mutter stupid, impossible, daft things against Foyle’s skin, taste the faint tang of sweat rising along his throat. Foyle mumbles back, his hand still busy teasing pleasure into a tight, hot knot in Paul’s gut: ‘...you have to tell me if...if I…’
‘You’re not getting it wrong…you’re, you...’ Paul can barely find breath to get the words out and gives up on speech in favor of digging his fingers into Foyle’s hair, pulling their mouths together as he gives up on trying to keep still and shoves his hips up against Foyle’s hand.
Foyle moans against his cheek, an unexpected, gut-deep, wrenched sound and his slick, warm hand tightens around Paul’s cock and Paul feels himself go for a split second before it actually happens: a blissful, agonizing, endless, already ended moment that pushes him against Foyle, hanging on to him as if the world were suddenly unsteady.
‘Paul...Paul, God…’
Christopher’s voice is the first thing Paul hears when he comes a little back to himself and can take a full breath. He burrows against Foyle's shoulder for a moment, breathing in the scent of skin and sex and warmth and, for the first time in a very long time, comfort. The first thing he thinks coherently is that he wants to feel Christopher through that burst of pleasure, too, and he fumbles his hand under Foyle’s waistband.
Foyle makes a feeble, half-hearted sound as though he’s going to protest, but Paul gets his fly open before he can actually say anything and whatever words might have been about to come out are lost in a long groan when Paul palms his cock, smoothing over its length, discovering contour with his fingertips.
‘I don’t -- I haven’t -- is this--’ Paul mutters the questions as he tries to copy what Foyle did; Foyle’s drier than he is, slightly thicker, a little shorter and it’s a sudden rush to realise that, if he were to sit up, he could see as well as feel. But Christopher is hanging on to his shoulders, fumbling to kiss him, hips jerking as Paul’s hand moves and Paul doesn’t want to do anything but stay where he is and feel the hot spill over his fingers.