When Vale drops the blessing circle and the undead come pouring out, not the shambling corpses of the earlier rifts but something harder, older, things that have been stewing in concentrated death energy for two weeks and have calcified into something vicious, August doesn't flinch. The ones that had responded to his reasoning at the subway are too far gone here, too deeply bound by the rift's influence to hear him, so he doesn't waste time trying to talk them down. Instead, he fights.
And the amount of power he's capable of would terrify Vale if he didn't know the man behind it.
Shadows detonate from August's hands in controlled bursts that shred the undead before they can close distance. He worksat range, precise and devastating, picking off threats in Vale's blind spots before they materialize. When a cluster of skeletal warriors surges past Vale's guard, August redirects them with a wall of darkness that sends them staggering back into his blade's reach. When a wraith flanks them from the left, August combusts it with a pulse of death magic so focused it doesn't even disturb the air around it.
Vale has fought alongside other warriors for centuries, but having August at his back, covering his weaknesses, anticipating his movements, is something he didn't know he was missing until he had it. It takes someone at your shoulder to realize you needed someone at your shoulder.
They tear through the gymnasium's undead in half the time the subway had taken. It's not even close.
When the last bones fall, August walks into the breach.
The anchoring points take longer to break this time, since the rift is stronger, older, more deeply rooted. But the hours of sustained healing have given August a reserve he didn't have before. He moves through the green haze of the underworld with a steadiness that eases the knot in Vale's chest, his hands tracing the precise patterns that dismantle the anchoring structures, and he doesn't falter at the first point. Doesn't stagger at the second. The corruption spreads, it always does in there, but it's slower this time, more manageable, and by the time the third anchor shatters and the rift collapses and deposits him back in the gymnasium, August is still on his feet.
Barely. The corruption has wrapped up his arms and throat, dark veins webbing his skin, but not as dark as they've been. He's breathing hard but not gasping. Hurting but not breaking.
He could weather through it alone. He's suffered through worse just in the time Vale has known him.
But he doesn't try.
He exits the rift and he reaches for Vale.
And Vale…
Vale is trying his damnedest not to make this more complicated than it already is.
He's a Templar aiding a necromancer. An offense that carries consequences ranging from suspension to expulsion to, if Cael decides Vale has been corrupted, execution. The last thing they need is for an emotional dimension to develop within a connection that has no rational basis for existing.
Beyond that, and this is the part Vale turns over in the quieter moments, the part that cuts deepest, he has survived centuries by not forming attachments to mortals. Even with Vale's ability to ease the corruption, it doesn't erase it. August's time is finite, and it's just a question of how long Vale can extend it before the healing stops being enough. Even if August weren't a necromancer. Even if it weren't treason. He is, fundamentally, an impossibility Vale doesn't need.
Oh, but he wants.
August's skin warms under his hands, holy magic chasing the remnants of death that cling to him. And August, gods help them both, has become so unguardedly pliant in Vale's arms that it's dismantling every defense Vale has built.
Vale places his hand on August's neck and August tilts his head to give him access, a gesture of trust so instinctive it probably isn't conscious. Vale runs his palms up August's bare arms, chasing the fading veins, and August sighs, a shuddering, breathless sound that Vale feels deep in his core. August leans into him, forehead dipping against the curve of Vale's jaw, his lips resting against the skin of Vale's throat. Not kissing. Not moving. Just there. Present. A warmth and a weight and a closeness that August is offering voluntarily, without prompting, without crisis forcing his hand.
Vale's self-control is a finite resource, and August is spending it recklessly.
He wants more. Wants August's mouth open under his. Wants to smooth his hands across the veins he hasn't yet reached, the ones he knows are hiding beneath August's shirt, wrapped around his ribs and spreading across the plane of his stomach. August's skin is addictive, smooth and pale and responsive, warming under Vale's touch, and now that August has given permission, the wanting is all Vale can think about.
He wants to make August forget he's ever felt anything but the warmth of Vale's hands, steady and reverent and safe.
He doesn't act on any of it. August deserves better than to have his dependence mistaken for desire, and Vale will not be the person who blurs that line.
But he holds him. For longer than is strictly necessary, for longer than the healing requires, because August's breathing has gone slow and even against his throat and his fingers have curled into Vale's shirt as though he's afraid to let go.
And Vale finds he's in no hurry to make him.
***
They don't return to August's apartment after the gymnasium. There's too much they don't know and too little time to find it through conventional channels. If they're going to anticipate Voss's next move, understand his endgame beyond the vault, identify which artifacts he's after, and determine what he plans to do with them, they need access to knowledge that's been restricted from both of them.
Vale has used his credentials at the University of Haven's restricted library section exactly three times in three centuries.
The first, he'd been hunting a demon that had possessed a linguistics professor. The second, he'd needed information on a blood cult operating out of the philosophy department. The thirdhad been purely personal curiosity about a reference he'd found in the Order's archives, and he still feels slightly guilty about that one.
This is the fourth. The necromancer beside him makes it definitively unsanctioned.
"This has bad idea written all over it," August says quietly. They're standing in the shadows across from the library's main entrance, watching the last students filter out as closing time approaches. "If we're caught—"
