Dave feels the air between them grow thicker, charged with a tension he's not sure he can hold. Heinz keeps looking at him, those green eyes locked onto his, but there's no coldness now, no resignation—only a kind of intensity that makes Dave glance away, if only for a second.
"What's the matter, Dave?" Heinz murmurs, soft and suggestive, like he's savoring every word as it leaves his mouth. "Is it that hard to look at someone who knows every corner of your darkness?"
Dave lets out a tense laugh, an attempt to shake off the weight of what he's just heard, but his heart is pounding fast, as if it's trying to warn him. Around him, the apartment seems to shrink, every wall pushing them toward the center of that small room, like the universe itself conspiring to trap them in this moment.
"You're not the first to try this, Heinz," Dave fires back with a crooked smile that's supposed to look confident, but betrays the nerves clawing under his skin. "I know the game. You get bored, you come looking for me. Old story, isn't it?"
Heinz chuckles low, but doesn't back off. He steps closer, and Dave can feel his breath, the weight of his gaze—and something inside him trembles.
"Sure, Dave. If this were just a game, don't you think it would've ended a long time ago?"
Dave tries to stay in control, to convince himself he can handle anything, but deep down he knows—there's something about Heinz that disarms him, that forces him to drop his guard in a way he'd never allow with anyone else. Maybe because Heinz had seen him at his worst in that other world, when rage and violence seemed like the only choices left.
"I'm not here to play with you, Heinz. I just want to get back to my world. That… other place, everything that happened there—it stays there." His voice is steady, but he knows the certainty in it is as fragile as the dimension they're trapped in.
Heinz steps even closer, his eyes tracing every line of Dave's face, his expression unreadable, some strange blend of amusement and hunger. The closeness is overwhelming, and Dave feels his body react in ways he can't control—as if standing on the edge of a cliff, knowing one step forward could take him somewhere he won't come back from.
"Maybe that's exactly why you're still here, Dave. Because you keep slamming doors shut before you even see what's on the other side. And that's what's keeping you stuck. Maybe if you weren't so stubborn, you'd find there's something beyond all that… attachment you claim to have for your world. For Axel." He says the name—Axel—with a certain inflection, sharp and deliberate, like he knows exactly how to shake Dave, how to make him falter.
Dave stares at him, his eyes burning with fury—and something else, something he refuses to name. His whole body tenses, instinct screaming to back away, to build the distance again, but his skin is on fire, aching with every inch Heinz closes between them.
"What are you trying to tell me?" Dave whispers, his voice low but burning with the storm inside him.
Heinz smiles, slow and deliberate, lips curling in a way that makes Dave forget, for one dangerous moment, everything that's at stake—all the worlds, all the dimensions. It's as if time itself has folded in on them, trapping them in a bubble where nothing exists but this thin sliver of space between their mouths.
"I'm telling you there are things you'll only find once you stop fighting them," Heinz breathes, his voice barely there, a thread of seduction wrapping around Dave like silk and steel. "There are desires you can't keep pretending don't exist."
And before he can stop himself—before he can think of Axel's name, or the dimensions, or the consequences—Dave crosses that last, impossible distance between them. His mouth crashes against Heinz's in a kiss full of fury and tightly wound need, a kiss that's all teeth and hunger, with no room for subtlety. It's a collision of desire that had been simmering beneath the surface, waiting for just one spark to ignite.
It's brief, intense, a moment of glorious oblivion, a flash of controlled ruin where the two of them fall into something powerful and fleeting. But when Dave finally pulls back, breathing hard, his eyes find Heinz's—and what he sees there leaves him shaken. It's not just desire. It's something else, something deeper. A certainty. An unspoken promise curling between them like smoke and threat.
"This doesn't change anything," Dave mutters, voice rough, like he's trying to convince them both.
But Heinz only smiles, enigmatic, loaded with something Dave knows he'll never be able to fully unravel.
"Sure, Dave. If that's what helps you sleep at night."