Chapter 10
CHAPTER TEN
ELLIOT
Elliot waited until the barracks cleared before heading to the showers. Timed just before dinner, so he'd have space and wouldn't have to make conversation.
The locker room was empty when he walked in. Parfait!
It’d been a week since that night in the shelter. Seven days of meticulous avoidance. Elliot timed his meals to miss Hale’s. Chose the farthest training station. Kept his eyes forward during formation and never, ever let his gaze drift two spots to the right.
Elliot excelled at avoidance. He'd had years of practice.
What he couldn’t control—what he'd never had to control—was wanting someone more than once.
He'd been with men plenty of times before, anonymous encounters on leave, quick and forgettable. No names, no second meetings, nothing that followed him back to base. Always more than enough.
Elliot never went back to the same guy. But fuck did he want to go back now.
He stripped efficiently, folded his clothes, and wrapped a towel around his waist. When the water ran almost scalding hot, he stepped under the spray.
The details kept replaying. The sound Hale had made when Elliot's mouth first closed around him. An almost painful growl. How his hands shook, reaching for Elliot's belt. His warm tongue. The heat.
Let it go. Hale had made it clear: not gay.
Except his body told a different story. Responded to every touch. Leaned into it. Shattered and wanting more even as he denied it.
Elliot knew what desire looked like. He just wasn't sure Hale did.
Hale had barely glanced in Elliot’s direction this week, and when he had, his expression stayed blank.
It was fine. Better, even. Easier to move on if Hale wanted to pretend it never happened.
As always, the heat of the shower helped. It beat down on his shoulders, washing away the day's tension, the week's careful control. Alone, finally, he could let his guard down. Could stop monitoring every movement, every glance, every—
The door opened.
Elliot stiffened, hand braced against the tile, water running down his back. He didn't turn around. Didn't need to. He knew the rhythm of those footsteps.
Hale came to a stop. Elliot heard a sudden intake of breath. Felt the weight of his stare.
Merde.
Elliot had forgotten.
Hale had seen the tattoos on his forearms that day in medical—noticed them, clearly—but he hadn’t seen the rest. In the shelter, they’d kept their shirts on. Now, under bright fluorescent lights with no clothes to cover up, there was no hiding them.
Intricate patterns flowed from Elliot’s wrists, past his elbows and all the way up over his shoulders. More ink spread across his back, down his spine, complex designs that had taken years and more pain than Elliot cared to remember.
They were beautiful; Elliot knew that objectively. Hidden under uniforms and strategically managed to never show in official settings. They were also deeply, irrevocably personal. Each piece deliberate. A reminder that some parts of himself belonged only to him, not his father, not the military.
And now Hale was staring at all of it.
Elliot turned off the water and faced him slowly, meeting Hale’s eyes across the space between them.
Hale seemed lost. His eyes wide, tracking over Elliot's arms, his shoulders, the visible edge of ink disappearing below his hips. His mouth hung open, breath fast and ragged.
"Hale," Elliot said, voice flat.
He blinked, dragging his gaze up to Elliot's face. "I didn't—I thought you'd be done by now."
"Clearly I’m not."
"Yeah. No. I can see that."
The silence stretched. Hale didn't move. Didn't look away. Just stood there in his PT gear, face flushed, staring at Elliot like he'd never seen him before.
Elliot felt it instantly. The pull. The same reckless want that got him into trouble a week ago.
He needed to maintain some distance between them. "You should go.”
"Yeah." Hale’s voice came out rough. "Probably."
He didn't move.
Elliot reached for a towel and wrapped it around his hips. "Hale—"
"When did you get them? The tattoos."
"Why?"
Hale took a step closer, then seemed to catch himself. "I've never seen anyone with that much ink."
"I didn’t get them for show."
"Right." Hale swallowed. "They're... wow."
Elliot's hands tightened on the towel. He wasn't doing this again. Not here where anyone could walk in. Not when Hale had made his position very clear.
He turned away. "You need to leave."
"Shaw—"
"I mean it. Get out."
Hale hesitated. Elliot heard him take one step, then another. The door opened. Then closed.
Elliot let out a deep breath. Tant mieux. So much the better.
Then he heard the lock click.
Elliot turned around. Hale had his back against the door, chest heaving, looking at Elliot like he wanted to either punch him or kiss him and hadn't decided which yet.
"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.
Elliot grabbed his clothes from the locker, exhausted from all of it. He pulled on his pants and T-shirt, and headed for the door.
"Shaw," Hale said as Elliot's hand tightened around the handle.
He should walk out and let this be done. But something in Hale's voice made him turn around despite his better judgement.
Hale was still leaning against the lockers, one hand scrubbing over his face, frustration written across every line of his body. Like he hated himself for not knowing what he wanted.
"What?" Elliot asked.
Hale met his eyes. "I’m sorry."
"About what?"
"For being a dick about it. For saying I'm not gay and then—" He gestured vaguely between them. "For doing this anyway. I—I don't know what I'm doing.”
This was the closest Hale had come to actually admitting what this was.
"Then don't," Elliot said. "You don't have to figure it out. We can stop."
“Is that what you want?" Hale's voice came out strained.
Elliot stilled. "What I want doesn't matter."
"Bullshit. Is it?"
The question hung there. He could lie. Should lie. But Hale searched his face with those eyes and—
"No," Elliot said. "It's not what I want. But maybe you should take some time. Figure this out. No pressure.”
"Yeah?” Hale's shoulders slumped. "That's probably smart."
They stared at each other until Elliot forced himself to move. He picked up his stuff and gave Hale one last look.
"See you around, Hale."
The night air hit him as he stepped outside, cold enough to clear his head.
As he walked back to the barracks, his mind did what it always did: assessed the situation. If Hale said yes, they'd keep doing this. Eventually someone would notice. Eventually they'd get caught.
They'd both be gone.
Technically not because they were both men—the regulations changed years ago, at least on paper.
But fraternization during training remained explicitly forbidden, and Elliot knew exactly how it would play out.
They'd get written up for breaking protocol, dismissed for "conduct unbecoming," and even if the official report never mentioned sexuality, everyone would know.
The whispers would follow them. The reputation would stick.