His muscles tense at the arm thrown around his shoulder, but it's not revulsion. It's just — it's so hilariously normal after what they'd just done, like there hadn't just been some irreversible shift in the dynamic of a friendship.

But some things never changed. Temp's as good at reading him as he's always been.

"Really? Now?"

But his heart's not in the exasperation. He sighs.

"Sure you've heard about Emma." He winces as he says her name. "Been rough, trying to get over it."

Yet it's obvious he's not telling the whole story.

It's regret he's feeling, Gavin thinks; he shouldn't have taken advantage of his friend, who'd always been into him, who Gavin has turned away for as long as they've known each other. And Temp shouldn't be so fine with it.

"Aaaaand?" He pushes, brow raised, head tilted, because that was so not the end of it.

Those whispers on the sub had been going on for a while now. While Temp didn't count himself a gossip, he didn't spread rumors typically, he would be deaf to not have heart the juiciest drama from loose lips. Cillian Quinn hadn't ran into his arms and needed his dick sucked then so it was clearly something deeper.

But, Gavin shouldn't feel too bad. If he kept his ear to the ground, gossip about Temp had probably reached the Underboss' ear. Temp was a proud slut, rumored to have bedded down any man that was willing. If anything, the situation could even be skewed in reverse; that Temp had taken advantage of a vulnerable state of a friend to get his rocks off.

Unlike Gavin, no guilt manifests. He knows that if Gavin hadn't wanted it he would have happily backed off. Hell, if Gavin needed to blow a load to feel better, Temp would be happy to be the receptacle or cause if needed. Sex had always been more a mean to an end for him and less some deep bonding experience. So far.

Giving Gavin's shoulder a firm pat and squeeze, he tries to help coax the other man into sitting so he can sit next to him while they chat.

He hates how Temp can read him like a book.

Only... no, that's not entirely true. There's something freeing about having someone that can see past his barriers.

Emma had always understood when something was wrong, but she was as emotionally inept as Gavin and didn't always know how to help. Beckett could deconstruct him from the inside out, but he'd so often chosen the path of least resistance. He'd see what he wanted to, rather than what was there.

Pressure on his shoulder encourages him to sit, and Gavin slides down against the wall without resistance. There's a twinge of anxiety — this was how he'd scared Beckett away, wasn't it? — before he gives in to the primal desire for touch, comfort. He leans against the shoulder of his friend and trembles with hurt.

"There was someone from — before," and there's weight in the way he says it, as if the past is some suffocating force bearing down upon the words. "But they can't be what I need, and it's—" His throat closes around the words and his cheeks flush with embarrassment. He clears his throat. "Rough."

He hates this. This vulnerability, the way his negative emotions rise like the tide to sweep him away and pull him under. Drowning.

"I didn't mean to — take advantage."

He'd just needed so terribly to feel wanted again.

First things first, Temp needed to beat that guilt out of him.

"You really think If I didn't want that I would have let it happen? Your dick was in my mouth, bro. I got teeth."

A wide grin, friendly and all teeth, as he gently shook Cillian Quinn before leaning his weight against him. Kind of like a hug. His own reassuring squeeze, again, his voice softening just a bit.

"That fucking sucks. Having your heart ripped in two like that like... twice? Damn, like so close together... but bro, if they can't give you what you need, would you have really been happy? Or like, in the long run made each other happy? Sounds just like a miserable time, like having to like, walk on eggshells and shit or something."

Temp's vulgar reassurance startles a sharp laugh that contrasts the red of Gavin's cheeks.

"Yeah, you do."

Fingers reach up to brush the marks left by those teeth; if they hadn't opted for voyeurism, there'd still be little doubt as to what they'd been up to. He doesn't mind. Let them see. Let them know he's wanted.

Temp is ineloquent of speech where Gavin is ordinarily careful, calculated, but he's never minded this, either. It's almost endearing.

"No, I don't imagine I would have been happy."

He sighs. It's why he'd given up the chase.

"You know how long it takes for me to trust someone. You were working on me for months." He shoves his weight against Temp's shoulder. The touch helps, the physical pressure of weight against his side. "I still trust him. We just wouldn't work out."

There's a gentle quiver to his voice that he does his best to conceal.

"Ye, that one day I hugged you out of the blue I thought you were going to stab me." He laughs about it, when Temp was still fresh in Rocket and just as overly friendly as he is now. It's light, like something Temp looks back on fondly and not an almost-disaster.

"Hell, though, knowing it would have sucked dirty ass doesn't mean it don't hurt, bro." Another clap on the back. "Wanna go get drunk and tear something up?"

To Temp, expressing your feelings in a visceral way was important. Exercise helped, was part of why he kept up the activities, but sometimes you needed a little bit more. That's where fighting came in but even then sometimes a person just needed more. The sensation of destruction, of pouring all of your raw emotions out, he wanted to help Cillian Quinn do that.

"I was going to," Gavin confirms, lip quirking. "You're lucky I couldn't get my knife out before my brain caught up."

Temp's unexpected hug had pinned his arms enough that his instinctive response to threat and danger had been overpowered by physical force. It had given him just long enough to realise that the friendly idiot was hugging him, not hurting him, and then he'd shoved him off with a look of extreme reproach.

Temp had taken it slower, after that; a fact Gavin appreciates in hindsight.

The clap on his back radiates through muscles sore from fighting, but it's a welcome ache.

"Fuckin' — please."

He gets to his feet, reserved in his eagerness but eyes gleaming.

When Gavin assents, Temp beams. He pushes himself up, too, since the ind seems to want to get moving.

"I know just the spot! Hope you're ready to get wet!"

But first, he needed to get dressed again. This entire time, he had been shirtless, after all.