Dave pulls away from Heinz, a knot tightening in his chest that he can't quite name—is it anger, desire, or the bitter taste of betrayal taking shape? For a fleeting moment, he feels vulnerable, caught in a web of contradictions where every instinct screams at him to run, to escape this twisted pull threatening to unravel the fragile sense of self he's managed to hold onto. But Heinz just stands there, satisfied, eyes sharp and calculating, like he's just hit the target dead center.
"You think this is going to stop me," Dave says, struggling to steady both his breathing and his will. "That with your words and... this, I'm suddenly going to forget why I came here. Forget that this isn't my world."
Heinz only shrugs, the glimmer of mockery alive in his gaze.
"Maybe that's what scares you. That deep down you know there's nowhere left to go. That in every world, every dimension, you'll still be trapped in your own chains, your own feelings. Even your precious relationship with Axel…" He lets the name linger, his voice dropping to something poisonous, each syllable corrupting the very air between them. "You know it's not what you want it to be."
"Don't talk about him," Dave cuts in, voice low, steady on the outside, but Axel's name now echoes like a crack splitting down the center of his chest. And with each word from Heinz, that crack widens, filling with doubts Dave had fought hard to keep buried until now.
Heinz watches him, head tilted slightly, smile curling wider, like he's savoring the sight of Dave caught between certainty and confusion.
"It's almost funny, the way you keep running from what's right in front of you," Heinz says, taking a step closer, slow and deliberate. "You could open your eyes, see what's here, what you already have, without Axel. Isn't that what you're afraid of? That this... thing between us... is exactly what you've been looking for all along? And maybe the real reason you resist is because you know the price is too high for someone like you."
Dave grits his teeth, muscles tensing beneath his skin. He wants to tell him he's wrong, that none of this makes sense, that it's all some sick game. But each of Heinz's words hits something deep, something hidden, echoing in a part of him he's fought to keep locked away.
"Tell me the truth, Heinz," he finally breathes, no longer with that same sharp defiance, his voice now cracked with the weight of something unspoken. "Why the hell do you care what happens to me? If you really believe all this—this world, this life—why the obsession with helping me find a way back?"
For the first time, Heinz hesitates. His gaze softens, just barely, and he stops right in front of Dave, stretching the tension between them to the breaking point, like he wants Dave to feel the gravity of what's about to come next.
"Maybe... because I want you to choose me," Heinz murmurs, voice lower now, stripped of mockery, leaving only raw intent. "Maybe I believe that if you finally understood that this world is just as real as the one you think you lost... you'd see that we could have something here. Something you'll never have with Axel."
The words hit Dave like a silent blow, invisible and brutal—a torrent of twisted promises and distorted truths tangled in a web he's no longer sure he can untangle. And somewhere deep inside, beneath the storm of denial, there's an echo—a dangerous, traitorous echo—that whispers what if.
But just as Dave draws breath to answer, something shifts in Heinz's gaze. A flicker, dark and sharp, cuts through the vulnerability, and suddenly Dave feels it—that prickle of warning, that instinct screaming that he's walking into a trap of his own making.
"If you think some dramatic confession's going to change everything I believe, you're more deluded than I thought," Dave says at last, forcing a bitter smile that barely covers the tremor underneath. "Axel's all I have. And none of this—you, this world—can replace that. And no matter how hard you try... it'll never be enough."
For a split second, Heinz's face darkens. And in that moment, Dave knows—he's hit something raw, something Heinz was desperately trying to keep hidden behind that perfect, composed smile.
"You say that," Heinz replies quietly, his voice edged with frustration now, "but you don't even know what you could have here. Maybe if you stopped pretending—" He breaks off for a second, and when he speaks again, the sharpness has returned, cutting clean through the softness he tried to offer. "Axel won't give you what you're looking for. He won't, Dave. And you know why? Because even you don't know what the hell you want."
Dave stares back at him, silent, feeling the fracture inside himself grow wider, splitting under the weight of all the things he's been trying not to feel, not to face, not to admit.
And Heinz, seeing that his words have cut deeper than Dave wanted to let on, takes one last step forward. His eyes are darker now, something fierce hiding beneath them, something hungry. When he speaks again, it's barely more than a whisper, thick with desire kept barely under control.
"If it wasn't Axel standing next to you... if it was me... do you really think you'd still want to run? Or is it just easier to keep believing in something better, something you don't even know exists?"
The question lingers between them, a razor held to Dave's throat—and the worst part is, he doesn't know if he wants to move away from the blade. Because deep down, despite all his anger, despite all the stubborn denial, there's a part of him that wants to stay. A part Heinz has already seen, has unlocked, holding him here in this reality that reflects every dark, contradictory thing inside him.
And in that instant—in the silence stretching between them like something unbearable—Dave feels it: his resistance breaking apart, each defense collapsing under the weight of his own doubts.
What if...
What if Heinz was right all along?