Dave feels the air between them grow heavier, thick with a tension he's not sure he can bear. Heinz keeps staring at him, those green eyes fixed on his, but there's no longer coldness or resignation in them; there's something sharper now, an intensity that makes Dave look away—if only for a second.
"What's wrong, Dave?" Heinz murmurs, suggestive and soft, as if savoring every syllable. "Is it so hard to look at someone who knows every shadow inside you?"
Dave lets out a tight laugh, a half-hearted attempt to lighten the weight of those words, but his heart races—warning him. Around them, the apartment seems to shrink, each corner nudging them closer to the center of that small room, like the universe itself was conspiring to trap them in this moment.
"You're not the first to try this, Heinz," Dave replies with a crooked smile meant to look confident, though it does little to hide the nerves underneath. "I know the game. You get bored, you come find me. It's an old story, isn't it?"
Heinz chuckles under his breath, but doesn't move back. He steps closer, and Dave can feel the warmth of his breath, the weight of his gaze, and something inside him trembles.
"Sure, Dave. If it were just a game… it would've ended long ago, don't you think?"
Dave tries to stay in control, convincing himself he can handle this—but deep down, he knows there's something about Heinz that disarms him. Something that forces him to drop his guard in ways he never would with anyone else. Maybe it's because Heinz has seen him at his worst, in that other world, when hate and violence seemed like the only choices left.
"I'm not here to play with you, Heinz. I want to go back to my world, and that's it. What happened back there, in that… other dimension, stays there."
His voice is firm, though he knows that certainty is as unstable as the dimension they're trapped in.
Heinz steps in closer, his eyes tracing every line of Dave's face, his expression unreadable—part mockery, part desire. The closeness is overwhelming, and Dave feels his body react in ways he can't control; it's like standing on the edge of a cliff, knowing a single step will take him somewhere he can't return from.
"Maybe that's why we're here, Dave. Because you keep shutting doors before walking through them. And that's what keeps you stuck. Maybe if you weren't so damn stubborn, you'd discover something beyond that 'loyalty' you claim to have for your world… for Axel."
Heinz says the name—Axel—with a tone that's almost a challenge, like he knows exactly what it'll do to Dave.
Dave glares at him, fury sparking in his eyes—and something else. Something unnamed. His body tenses, his instincts scream at him to pull away, to keep the distance. But his skin burns with every inch that separates them.
"What are you trying to tell me?" he whispers, the question thick with emotion, the weight of everything unsaid.
Heinz smiles slowly, captivatingly. His lips curl in a way that makes Dave forget, just for a second, what's at stake—worlds, dimensions, consequences. Time seems to freeze, trapping them in a bubble where only that tiny space between them matters.
"I'm telling you there are things you only find when you stop resisting," Heinz whispers, his voice a seductive thread in the air. "Desires you can't keep ignoring."
And before he can stop himself—before he can think of Axel, of home, of right and wrong—Dave closes the distance between them.
Their lips crash in a kiss laced with fury and long-suppressed need. There's nothing gentle in it. It's fierce, hungry, the release of something that's been coiled tight in the dark, waiting for a spark.
The moment is brief, but it devours everything. An instant of reckless surrender, where they both fall into something too powerful to name.
But when Dave pulls back, breathless, his eyes meet Heinz's—and what he sees there unsettles him. It isn't just desire. It's something more—something certain. A silent promise that wraps around him like fog.
"Don't think this changes anything," Dave murmurs, voice rough—more to convince himself than Heinz.
But Heinz just smiles, an enigmatic curve of his lips that Dave knows he'll never be able to fully decipher.
"Of course, Dave. If that's what you need to keep moving."