[He has to be reading this wrong. After all this time... There's no way the man he loves has changed his much after all this time. It's wishful thinking at best, skeevy at worst and he really really needs to stop misreading these signals. It's just discomfort with this level of closeness now that they're both through puberty, is all. That hard-on isn't for him, it's just incidental and he should let the boy deal with it in private.

He's still not letting go, gaze fixed on Noel, almost a little dazed as he convinces himself of this.

Then he processes those words and lets go as if burned.]

Right!! Right, can't say I'm sorry about that when I took you down with me, but hey!