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Neal sees it the moment he steps out of the bathroom. He doesn't need any of his powers of observation because Peter's just left it there.
He stops drying his hair and lets his feet take him over to the table.
It's too tempting. Neal's never been very good with temptation. It's gotten him into trouble over and over, and yet he can never quite resist the opportunity to put his fingers on things he probably has no business playing with.
He's worn a lot of costumes in his life. It's been something of a necessity. But he won't pretend that he doesn’t take pride in how good he is at it. There's something about the way you can change how the world sees you with a different jacket, a smile, a hat. The right clothes and the right expression of authority, combined with the absolute belief that you were meant to be wherever you were - well, that was almost magic. From construction worker, to artist, to doctor, to captain of industry and once, memorably, even a geisha.
But this is new. This is curious and tempting in a way Neal recognises might get him in trouble. This is one of those rare and delicious situations where there's nothing to be gained, no one to be fooled. This is something indulgent and personal.
The shoulder holster is a dark collection of straps on the table, left to fall there in messy curves, like it doesn't matter at all. Peter has two, slightly different and for some reason he'd changed out of the first and into the second this morning. Neal throws the towel he's still holding over the back of a chair and picks it up.
He's worn more complicated things, and he's watched Peter put it on. It's not difficult to slip the straps over his arms. The leather's cold against his bare skin, hard and soft at the same time where it presses flat into his back and shoulders. It pinches tight in curves when he adjusts the straps, pressing and digging when he flexes his arms. It doesn't feel like something that should carry a gun, too sharp, too unyielding. Neal's not sure he could ever get used to the shift and slide of it. The inelegant, utilitarian brutality of it.
He catches his reflection in the mirror on the wall. All black leather and pale skin, wet hair an untidy slant across his forehead. His bare shoulders and back overlaid with leather, don't match his face, the empty holster almost an accusation. It's a pointed reminder that he doesn't belong in this. It's a familiar feeling, but one which rarely leaves him breathing through a half open mouth and admitting that there may, possibly, be more here than curiosity.
Standing in the middle of the airy space in his boxer shorts and an empty shoulder holster is not, by far, the strangest start to a morning. But Neal's never seen himself look like this before, some strange mix of naked and threatening.
There's something about its lack of style or grace. It's a brutal efficient collection of straps and clips designed to do one thing. Carry a gun underneath a jacket. Neal's always appreciated elegance, he's always appreciated a sense of structured perfection. This thing is perfect in its own way. It has its own stark elegance. Sharp and heavy and new enough to still smell faintly of leather every time he turns his head.
There's a faint scuffing slide of shoes behind him and Neal swivels away from his own reflection. Peter's a foot inside, door creaking where it's been left to swing and half shut behind him. Because Peter's not paying attention to it, bag dropped just to the side, and he's close in five steps, expression a shaken mixture of surprise and intensity.
Peter shoves his fingers under the straps, steering Neal back into the wall until he hits it with a thud.
"Peter -" he starts. But he never gets to finish.
There's nothing careful about the way Peter kisses him, knuckles digging into his chest when his fingers tighten, holding him right there with bruising force and shoving his mouth all the way open. It's nothing like the way Peter's kissed him before. Which has always been frustrated, reluctant and often close to irritated exasperation. It's always been a flavour of helpless that Neal has become attached to.
This is a kiss that wants to own him. Neal is slightly astonished to find how little he objects to it.
It's aggressive and messy and honest in a way that leaves Neal trying to drag him in closer, when he already has his fingers dug in tight enough that Peter has to feel them through his shirt. He's bending into him like all sorts of permission he probably shouldn't give.
When Peter pulls back Neal makes a quick, breathless noise of loss.
They do nothing but stare at each other for a second.
"I forgot my jacket," Peter says eventually and he sounds rattled. Neal very rarely hears him sound like that.
Neal can't do anything but breathe into his open mouth and try and drag something in the way of words up past the tightness in his throat.
"I may have tried on your shoulder holster," he says carefully.
"I noticed," Peter says stiffly. There's a growl somewhere underneath, a greediness that's a bright and unexpected shard in Neal's mental picture of Peter.
He thinks he approves.
No, he knows he approves.