"We should—" August starts, and doesn't know how to finish.
"Yeah," Vale says roughly. "We should."
***
They barely make it out of the station.
Afterward, August won't be able to recall the details clearly: the climb back up through the maintenance tunnel, the emergence into cold night air, the walk through the rail yard. What he'll remember is the electricity between them, the unbearable awareness of every inch of space separating their bodies, the way his mouth still tastes of Vale and his skin still burns where those hands had been.
They move quickly through the streets. Not running, but not walking either, something urgent and barely controlled, two people trying to maintain the appearance of composure while every cell in their bodies is pulling them toward each other. Vale's hand is on August's lower back, a point of contact that sends warmth radiating through him in waves, and August can feel the Templar's pulse through the touch, racing, rapid, nothing like the steady man he pretends to be.
August's apartment is fifteen minutes away. It feels like a hundred years.
They make it to his building. Through the front door. Into the stairwell, where the lighting is dim and the air smells of old wood and the world outside contracts to the narrow space between the walls.
They make it up four steps.
Then Vale's hand tightens on his back, and August turns, and whatever Vale sees on his face is apparently the end of his restraint.
Vale crowds him against the wall.
The brick is cold against August's back and Vale is hot against his front, his body a solid wall of warmth, his hands finding August's hips, his mouth finding August's mouth. It's harder than the first kiss, more desperate, three hundred years of self-denial collapsing into a single point of contact. Vale kisses him with the accumulated urgency of every healing touch and every careful boundary and every moment of restraint, and August makes a sound against Vale's mouth that he'll never admit to later, something between a gasp and a plea, and it undoes something in Vale that August can feel physically. A shudder that runs through the Templar's entire body, his hands tightening on August's hips, a low sound against August's lips that's more growl than groan. Vale presses him harder into the wall and August goes willingly, his back arching off the brick, his hands dragging up Vale's chest and into his hair.
"Vale—" His voice breaks on the name. He can't breathe. He can't think. Vale's mouth moves to his jaw, his throat, the place where corruption used to crawl and now there's nothing but warm, sensitive skin that's never been touched like this. August's head falls back against the brick and the sound he makes echoes in the stairwell and he does not care.
Vale's hands slide from his hips to his thighs. And then August is off the ground, lifted with an ease that makes his stomach drop, and his legs wrap around Vale's waist on instinct, ankles locking at the small of his back. Vale's hands grip the backs of his thighs, holding him up, and August is pressed between the wall and Vale's body with his fingers in Vale's hair and his heart hammering so hard he can feel it in his teeth.
Vale kisses him again, deep and thorough and devastating, and then pulls him away from the wall and carries him up the stairs. August clings to him, mouth against Vale's mouth, against his jaw, against the scar along his jawline that he's been wanting to trace with his lips since the kitchen. He's making sounds he'll be embarrassed about later, breathless, needy, completely beyond his control, and every single one draws a response from Vale that he feels in the tightening of those hands on his thighs, in the roughness of his breathing, in the way he takes the stairs two at a time.
Third floor. Hallway. Door.
The door swings inward and Vale carries him through it, kicking it shut behind them with a force that rattles the hinges.
The apartment is dark. August doesn't care. Vale doesn't stop. He carries August through the living room, past the couch where they've sat reviewing research, past the kitchen table where they've shared tea, past the map on the coffee table that charts the destruction of a rogue Templar who, right now, feels very far away, and into the bedroom.
Vale lowers him onto the bed, and August pulls him down with him, and the weight of Vale above him, solid, warm, alive,his, is the most overwhelming thing August has ever felt. More overwhelming than the corruption. More overwhelming than the healing. More overwhelming than five words spoken in a library that had cracked them both open and left them bare.
Vale's forehead rests against August's. They're both breathing hard, chests heaving, the air between them charged and close. Vale's hand finds his face, thumb against his cheekbone, and August turns into it, pressing his mouth against Vale's palm. He kisses the center of it, then the heel, then the inside of Vale's wrist where his pulse is hammering, and he feels the Templar's breath stutter against his mouth.
"August," Vale says. Just his name. The way August had said Vale's in the warehouse, when one word had been enough to bring him running.
Vale says his name as though it's the only word he knows. The only one that matters. As though three hundred years of vocabulary have been rendered irrelevant by two syllables.
August answers by kissing him, slow this time, deliberate, learning the shape of Vale's mouth by heart. Their lips slide together, softer than before but no less hungry, and August lets himself sink into it, lets himself feel without flinching, lets himself want without apologizing for it. He opens his mouth and Vale's tongue finds his, and the taste of him is warm and faintly sweet and addictive in a way that makes August's hips roll up involuntarily, seeking friction, seeking more.
August's hands move under Vale's coat, pushing it off broad shoulders until it falls forgotten to the floor. Vale lets him, lets August peel away layers with trembling fingers, the coat, the shirt, until there's warm skin under his palms and the faint tremor of centuries-old muscle finally, finally bared. August runs his hands over Vale's chest, his shoulders, the architecture of him. The man is built for strength and endurance, worn smooth by time, carrying the weight of centuries in every line. August traces the dip between his pectorals, the ridge of his collarbone, the trail of dark hair that leads downward from his navel, and Vale's stomach contracts under his touch.
Vale's hands are just as reverent. He works August's jacket open, slides it down his arms, then tugs his shirt up and off in one smooth motion. The moment the fabric clears August's head, Vale is there again, mouth on his collarbone, then lower, kissing the places the corruption used to live. Each press of lips feels like absolution, rewriting the map of August's body one kiss at a time, replacing every memory of pain with something warmer. Vale's tongue traces the line of August's sternum, theplace where the corruption had been thickest, and the skin there is new and sensitive, and August gasps and arches into it, his fingers threading through Vale's hair.
They shed the rest slowly, almost carefully, as though rushing might shatter the moment. August's hands find Vale's belt and work it open, and the sound of the buckle is loud in the quiet room. He pushes Vale's trousers down over his hips and Vale kicks them off, and then August's jeans follow, and the boots, and everything else, all of it ending up on the floor in a careless trail that neither of them looks at because they can't stop looking at each other.
When there's nothing left between them, Vale pauses. Just looks.
His gaze travels over August: the lean lines of his ribs, the dip of his waist, the faint freckles scattered across his shoulders that August didn't know anyone would ever care enough to notice. Lower, to the sharp cut of his hipbones, to the dark hair between his legs, to the hard, flushed length of him, and August watches Vale's throat work on a swallow.
August feels exposed in a way that has nothing to do with nakedness. He reaches up, cups Vale's jaw, thumb brushing that faint scar he's wanted to touch for days.
"You're beautiful," Vale says quietly. The words land with a weight that August doesn't know how to hold, too large for his hands, too heavy for the fragile thing his heart has become. No one has ever said it to him and meant it. Not while looking at the body that's been killing him for years as though it's something worth preserving.
