"What are you doing?" Elliot asked, voice low.
"I don't know." Hale let out a breath. "I don't fucking know."
"Then deal with it somewhere else."
"I can't."
"Why not?"
"Because I keep thinking about it, okay?" Hale’s hands flexed at his sides. "I keep thinking about you. About what we did. And I don't—I don't know what to do about it."
Elliot let out a ragged breath. He wanted to close the distance between them. Grab Hale and make him stop thinking, stop questioning, stop pretending this wasn't exactly what they both wanted. But that would be so unlike him that he didn’t. Of course he didn't.
Neither of them said anything. Elliot watched Hale war with himself—desire and denial fighting for control. He knew the feeling.
"This is a bad idea," Hale said, already moving forward.
"Terrible idea," Elliot agreed.
Hale closed the distance between them in three strides. His hand came up to Elliot's jaw, rough and uncertain, and Elliot let him. Let Hale tilt his face up and hesitate for one last second before?—
The kiss was nothing like the first time. It was slower. More deliberate. Like Hale was figuring stuff out, trying to prove something to himself.
Elliot let him lead and set the pace, until Hale made a frustrated sound against his mouth.
Then Elliot took over.
He backed Hale against the lockers, the metal rattling, and kissed him harder. Hale groaned and kissed back as fiercely, hands sliding into Elliot's wet hair.
This was stupid. He knew that. But Hale tasted like need and frustration and something dangerously close to surrender, and Elliot wanted more.
Hale’s hands slid down to his shoulders, tracing the lines of the tattoos, and Elliot shivered.
"Fuck," Hale breathed against his mouth.
"We need to stop," Elliot murmured.
"Yeah." Hale’s hands tightened in his hair. "We really do."
Neither of them did.
The door rattled as someone tried to get in. They broke apart fast, Hale stumbling back, gasping. Elliot grabbed his towel and held it firmly in place, trying to hide his obvious hard on.
"Occupied!" Hale called out, voice rough, his eyes never leaving Elliot’s.
"Sorry!" came a muffled reply. Footsteps retreated.
They stared at each other across the space.
Hale’s face was flushed, lips swollen, eyes dark with want he was still trying to deny. "We can't keep doing this," he said.
Elliot clenched his fists. The familiar walls slammed back into place, that old instinct to shut down before anything could hurt him. This was why he kept things anonymous. Why he never went back for seconds. Because the moment you let someone in, even just physically, they could do this—make you want something and then take it away.
"Right," he said, voice devoid of any emotion.
Hale’s mouth opened, then closed. Elliot didn't want to hear it— the excuses or the explanations or whatever Hale was working up to. He wasn't going to stand here half-naked in a locker room and listen to Hale tell him all the reasons this was a mistake.
He already knew it was.
