Confidence is bred immediately from the touch of Kotetsu's lips to his own, and although Barnaby has never shared a kiss of quite the same kind as the one Kotetsu gives to him now, once the door is opened, Barnaby doesn't bother to be tentative. He presses their mouths together, swallowing the tight noise of some release of emotion welling up from the back of his throat.

His hands find Kotetsu's shoulders, fingers skating across hot skin, before finding the edge of the straps on Kotetsu's tank. They stop, just where they are, teasing beneath the fabric. Between them, they smell like alcohol, and stale cologne, and the sour sweat of nervousness, but it's a smell that clenches in the depths of his belly. Barnaby doesn't dislike it. Nor does he dislike the way that it will be what reminds him of this, seared onto his memory. The smell of Kotetsu. The wetness of his mouth.

He pulls away for breath, worry, but no regret, in the green of his eyes His hands stay where they are.

"You were married," he says. "You had a wife." And in Barnaby's mind, the two are difficult to separate. It's a clever mind, he isn't stupid, but without any other experience, it's a mind that clings to a childish view of other people. Black and white. Yes and no. Trust or no trust. How could a man who'd started a family with a woman want the same from Barnaby?