Both of Vale's eyebrows rise. "You sound certain."
"I am certain."
He can see Vale processing that, recalculating, reassessing. A necromancer powerful enough to close every active rift in the city is a necromancer powerful enough to open them too, and they both know it. But Vale doesn't reach for his sword. Doesn't tense or pull back. He just looks at August with that focused, unreadable expression, and August can't tell if what's behind it is respect or wariness or something else entirely.
"All right," Vale says. Then, with an abruptness that catches August off guard, he reaches across the table and touches August's hand.
August flinches. Jerks back. The reaction is involuntary and immediate, years of survival instinct firing before his conscious mind can intervene. His chair scrapes against the floor and his heart slams against his ribs and his hands are already gathering shadow before he registers what happened.
But even from that split-second of contact, he feels it. The warmth from before. Not pain, not burning, just a careful hum of energy that sinks into him.
He stares across the table at Vale's hand, still resting where August's had been, and then lifts his eyes to meet Vale's gaze.
"Come here," Vale says quietly.
For a moment, August can't move. His heart is hammering. Every instinct he has is screaming at him to run, to put the table between them, to put the room between them, to get out. But his rational mind knows that this man held him all night and did not harm him. Carried him home and did not turn him in. Sat in his kitchen for hours and did not reach for his weapon. Made him tea and waited for him to wake up and looked at his research as though it mattered.
He doesn't have to listen. He doesn't owe Vale anything.
He finds himself standing anyway.
He steps around the table to where Vale has turned in his chair to face him. One step away, August stops. If he were any closer, his knees would brush Vale's. That feels like too much. A line he's not ready to cross.
Vale, apparently, disagrees.
He reaches out, takes August's wrist, his fingers closing around it with a gentleness that has no business belonging to a hand that wields a broadsword, and pulls him forward. One smooth, unhurried motion, and August is standing in the V of Vale's spread thighs, close enough that his legs press against the inside of Vale's knees.
August forgets to breathe.
Vale's hand is impossibly warm around his wrist. Even from that single point of contact, August's body responds, immediately and viscerally, in ways he can't hide. The pressure that has been building behind his eyes softens. The sensation of glass caught beneath his skin settles, replaced by a slow rush of warmth that sinks into his muscles and his bones and chases out the cold he's never truly rid of. It moves through him in waves, chest, stomach, lower, and August has to lock his jaw to keep from making a sound.
The grey veins on his hand pale in the afternoon light. Not vanishing, but fading to near-invisibility. He can still feel thecorruption deeper in, still lacing through his arms, still wrapped around his lungs, but the ache lessens to a degree that makes his head swim. For the first time in years, his body feels like something that belongs to him rather than something that's consuming him.
"This is what I need to understand," Vale says. His voice is low, steady, but August is close enough now to see the way Vale's pupils have dilated slightly. Close enough to feel the heat radiating off his body. "How is this possible?"
August can't look away from Vale's hand on his wrist. His body hasn't been without pain in so long that the sudden absence of it feels almost like pleasure, and the source of that absence is the man sitting between his hips with his thumb resting against August's pulse point.
He takes a shuddering breath. "Have you ever touched a necromancer before? Maybe your effect is different from other Templars."
Vale gives him a flat look. "I've seared my palm into plenty of them. None of them reacted like this."
The pad of Vale's thumb shifts, barely, just a fraction of movement against the thin skin over August's pulse, and August can't suppress the shiver that runs through him. He knows Vale feels it. They're too close for him to have missed it. The silence that follows is charged and heavy, and August watches something flicker behind Vale's amber eyes that looks like awareness. The Templar has just registered exactly what this proximity is doing, and he is choosing, very deliberately, not to acknowledge it.
August wishes he had that kind of self-control. He does not.
"There must be a reason," Vale says.
August swallows. His mouth is dry. "Maybe it's because I don't use necromancy aggressively. I'm not raising the deador binding spirits. Maybe your magic recognizes the difference, that I'm not a threat."
"Templar magic doesn't work that way. It doesn't distinguish between intentions. It recognizes death magic and it counters it." Vale releases August's wrist and looks at his own hand, flexing his fingers slightly. The veins on August's skin stay pale, holding. "How long before it's a problem again?"
The loss of direct contact is immediate, a withdrawal that makes August's chest ache with something embarrassingly close to want. But he's still standing between Vale's legs, his thighs still pressed against the inside of Vale's knees, and even through the layers of their clothing he can feel the warmth seeping into him. Not enough to silence the pain entirely, but enough to keep it manageable. Enough to make him aware of every inch of space between their bodies and how little of it there is.
Enough to make him aware that Vale's hands are resting on his own thighs now, palms down, fingers slightly spread, and that August is close enough that it would take almost nothing for those hands to settle on his hips instead.
The thought burns through him, and he shuts it down hard. Or tries to. It doesn't shut down so much as it dims, smoldering, waiting.
"It'll come back when I start casting again," August manages, and his voice sounds steadier than he feels. "But right now it's bearable."
