"I let you heal me after the warehouse," August says, and he can't keep the frost out of his voice. "I was receptive."
"You let me heal you long enough that you could stand on your own. That's not enough." Vale's tone isn't unkind, but it's immovable. "The corruption rebuilds between sessions even without you casting. Last night you went into the rift with hours of accumulated damage that my healing hadn't reached, and it nearly killed you. If we keep compounding the cost without addressing the foundation, you won't make it through the third rift."
The frustrating thing is that he's right, and August has been painfully aware of it.
Vale's touch in the subway had pulled him from the edge of death. But in the hours since, even without visible darkening on his skin, the corruption had been rebuilding. A slow, insidious pressure in his bones. A heat behind his eyes. By the time he'd entered the warehouse rift, the damage underneath had been significant, and stepping into concentrated death energy had detonated it.
And yes, Vale's healing afterward had been transformative. But August had only been able to stay in his arms for a few minutes before it became too much. Not too much pain. Too much of everything else. The warmth, the intimacy, the terrifying vulnerability of coming apart under someone else's hands. The sounds he couldn't control. The wanting he couldn't afford.
So he'd pulled away before the healing was complete. And they both knew it.
"Okay," August says slowly, shifting on the couch. "What do you have in mind?"
Vale stands and moves down the sofa, sitting back down without the buffer of space that had existed between them. He turns to face August, both of them sideways on the couch now, and even just this close August can feel the radiance he exudes, the low, constant warmth of holy energy that used to make his skin crawl and now makes his pulse quicken for entirely different reasons. His body has decided, without consulting his brain, that this particular warmth is something it wants more of.
"Relax," Vale says softly.
August watches him with the wariness of someone expecting a blow they can feel coming but can't predict. He expects Vale to reach for his shoulders. Maybe his arms, somewhere safely clothed, somewhere clinical.
So he's entirely unprepared when Vale's hands frame his face.
Callused palms against his jawline. Thumbs settling on his cheekbones with a gentleness that has no business belonging to hands this large, this capable of violence. The touch is warm and careful and so unbearably tender that August flinches, a full-body jerk that he can't suppress, that he watches register in Vale's eyes as something that hurts them both.
But he doesn't pull away.
He stays in Vale's hands. Heart slamming. Breath locked in his throat. And feels the warmth begin to seep into him.
There are no corruption veins on his face, Vale cleared those last night, but the healing doesn't limit itself to visible damage. It sinks deeper. Through his skin, into the tissue beneath, chasing the low-grade burn that lives behind his eyes and the prickling beneath his skin that never fully stops. It reaches into the ache in his temples that he's carried so long he'd forgotten it wasn't normal, and it eases.
August's hands hover between them, uncertain, trembling. Then they land on Vale's forearms, and the contact, corded muscle, warm skin, the steady pulse of holy magic beneath,makes him lightheaded in a way that has nothing to do with healing.
Vale's focus is entirely on him. Brown eyes on his face, knees pressing against August's thighs, close enough that August can see the faint scar along his jawline and the way his dark hair falls across his forehead. Close enough to catalog the exact shade of amber in his irises. Close enough that August knows he's flushing down his neck and can do absolutely nothing about it.
The healing spreads from Vale's palms in concentric rings. Down August's neck, across his shoulders, along his spine, whispers of warmth that trail through his body. The ache in his chest softens. The burning in his bones dims. And underneath all of it, threading through the relief, is the devastating awareness of Vale. His closeness, his attention, the weight of his hands, the steadiness of his breathing.
It's a lot. All at once. After years of nothing, the sudden abundance of sensation is difficult to process, and August can't tell whether the brightness of it is wonderful or blinding or both.
Vale's lips part, the beginning of a word, a question, something, and August watches his mouth form around it, close enough to count the seconds between their breaths.
A knock at the front door.
August jerks back as though he's been caught in a crime. His heart lurches sideways in his chest. Vale lowers his hands, resting them on his thighs, but his eyes don't leave August's face, dark and intent, holding something that looks as though it had been about to become something else entirely.
They're still sitting close enough that their knees are touching. When August stands on legs that feel unreliable, he tries not to think of it as fleeing.
It feels like fleeing.
His hands are shaking as he unhooks the chain and opens the door. His mind is still tangled in the ghost-warmth ofVale's palms on his face, which is probably why he's completely unprepared for the Templar standing on his doorstep.
August staggers backward, hand flying to the amulet at his neck.
The Templar, blond ponytail, gray coat, mace at his belt, holy rings glinting on his fingers, stares back at him with eyes that go wide with shock. Neither of them expected the other. Which would give August the element of surprise if his legs would cooperate, if his body would move, but terror is clawing up his throat and freezing him in place.
He turns.
Vale is still on the couch. And the look on August's face must be devastating, because Vale is on his feet in an instant, his expression cracking into something August has never seen on him before.
Panic.
