It's a little while before Ned can get a word in; he kisses Ginsberg back with equal intensity, undoing half his buttons, then deciding it's more urgent they relocate to the bedroom first, then undress. With a playful tug at his shirt, Ned breaks away from Ginsberg, leads him down the hall towards his bedroom. It's different than the last time, because there is light filtering in through the curtains, because neither of them are stumbling or tipping over, but Ned thinks it's just as good.

Once they're in the room he starts to pull his clothes off with an obvious enthusiasm that rivals Ginsberg's, and he finally says what he had thought a minute or two earlier.

"I won't let you fuck it up." He knows how it goes, being afraid to ruin something. How terrifying it can be. But he doesn't want Ginsberg frightened. He wants him blissfully, inarticulately happy. "And y'know, practice makes perfect, so..." Ned hooks a finger in Ginsberg's belt loop, draws him close for another kiss, bending him back ever so slightly, the way he'd wanted to do when they were standing there in the museum, "...even if you feel like your first try doesn't go as well as you wanted it to, you've got an incentive to try again."