"You're sitting down," Vale offers against his skin. "Close enough."
August laughs. Or tries to. It comes out as a breathless, shaking thing that dissolves into a gasp when Vale's teeth graze the hinge of his jaw. The sound is sharp, punched out of him, and it's followed by a roll of his hips that is no longer involuntary, no longer subtle. August grinds down against Vale's lap with a slow, deliberate pressure that drags a groan out of Vale before he can stop it, because August's weight is directly on his cock, and Vale has been hard since August's face tucked into his neck, and the friction of August's body shifting against him is enough to make his vision narrow.
August feels it. He would have to be dead not to feel it, and despite the corruption's best efforts, he is very much alive. His hips still for one beat, registering the thick, hard line of Vale through layers of denim, and his breath catches. His hands slide from Vale's chest to his shoulders, fingers digging in, and he lifts his head from Vale's neck to look down at him.
His eyes are storm-dark. Luminous. Heavy-lidded and wanting and so beautiful it makes Vale's teeth ache. His pupils are blown wide, and there's a flush crawling up from his collar, visible even in the grey light, spreading across his throat and jaw. His lips are parted, still damp from where he'd bitten them, and he's breathing in short, shallow pulls that do nothing to hide the state of him.
"If we don't stop," August says, with the careful enunciation of someone holding onto coherence by their fingernails, "we are not going to make it to the subway tonight."
Vale looks up at him. At the flushed skin and the bruised throat and the grey eyes that are asking him to stop and begging him not to. At the man in his lap who had walked into the Cathedral this morning because Vale asked him to, who had stood in front of a Sanctus and told the truth and earned hisright to exist, who has been so brave and so afraid and so stubbornly, infuriatingly alive despite everything the world has done to try to kill him.
"We'll make it," Vale says, and pulls him down into a kiss.
It's messy. Urgent. No preamble left between them, no careful approach, no testing the waters. They've already drowned in each other. This is what comes after. August's lips part on a broken sound and Vale takes the invitation, tongue sliding in, claiming the wet heat of him. August makes a noise into his mouth, low and wrecked, and his hips roll forward in a slow, desperate grind that drags the full length of his cock against Vale's through their clothes.
Vale's hands find August's hips. His fingers dig in with just enough force to guide, not bruise, and he rocks August against him in a deliberate rhythm. Long, dragging rolls that let the hard line of Vale's cock press right up against the cleft of August's ass through layers of fabric. August shudders, thighs flexing as he chases the pressure, and the denim between them is too much and not enough all at once, creating a friction that's maddening in its insufficiency. Vale can feel the heat of August through the cloth, can feel the way his body grinds down seeking more contact, and the sound August makes when Vale's cock catches against him is desperate and needy and goes straight to the base of Vale's spine.
"Fuck," Vale mutters against August's mouth. His hands tighten on August's hips. "Look at you. Already so desperate for it."
August's answer is a gasp, head tipping back again, throat working. His fingers are in Vale's hair now, gripping, and his hips have found their own rhythm, rocking in tight circles that are half deliberate and half instinct. The friction is building, heat pooling heavy and insistent between them, and Vale can feelhow hard August is through the denim, the thick line of his cock straining against the fabric, hot even through the layers.
Vale wants more. Wants skin. Wants to feel August come apart with nothing between them. But the sight of August in his lap, fully clothed, grinding down on Vale's cock with increasingly desperate movements, cheeks flushed, throat bruised, mouth swollen from kissing, is its own kind of devastating. There's something about the clothes. The barrier of fabric making every point of friction more acute. The way August has to work for it, has to press down and grind and roll his hips just right to get the pressure where he needs it, and the sounds that effort produces are obscene.
Vale slides one hand up under August's shirt again, palm flat against the small of his back, holding him steady. His other hand stays on August's hip, thumb digging into the hollow above the bone, guiding his rhythm. He thrusts up to meet each downward grind, slow and filthy, and the layered pressure of cock against ass through denim makes August's mouth fall open on a sound that is barely human.
"I want to see you ride me," Vale says, voice gravel-rough. His mouth is against August's ear now, words low and deliberate, and he feels the full-body shudder that moves through August at the words. "Want to watch you sink down on my cock. Want to see you lose yourself on it. Every inch stretching you open, filling you until you can't think about anything else."
August makes a sound that's close to a sob. His hips jerk hard, grinding down with sudden force, and Vale feels the answering throb of his own cock, trapped and aching, pulsing against the heat of August's body.
"Vale..."
"You'd look so fucking good." Vale's teeth close gently on August's earlobe, and the sound that produces is raw enough to make his own cock jerk. "Legs spread over me. Hands on mychest. Riding me with that look on your face, the one you get when you can't think straight, when you're so full of me you forget to breathe." His hand tightens on August's hip, pulling him into a grind that drags Vale's cock along his cleft with enough pressure that August's thighs spasm. "You'd be so tight. So hot inside. And I'd feel every single sound you make around my cock."
August's rhythm breaks. His hips stutter, losing their measured cadence, devolving into something more desperate. He's panting against Vale's neck now, open-mouthed, teeth grazing skin, and the wet heat of his breath is doing things to Vale's self-control that should not be possible from someone's mouth on his neck. August's hands are fisted in his hair, pulling with an urgency that borders on painful, and his entire body is trembling, the fine, continuous vibration of a man who is very close to the edge and fighting it.
"I can feel how close you are," Vale murmurs, and rolls his hips up in a slow, grinding thrust that presses his cock hard against August's ass. "You're going to come like this, aren't you. In your clothes. In my lap. Just from grinding on my cock."
August whimpers. The sound is small and wrecked and comes from somewhere that has nothing to do with pride, and it goes through Vale with a force that nearly finishes him on the spot. He tightens his grip and pulls August down one last time, grinding up into him with purpose, both hands on his hips now, holding him in place while he thrusts. The fabric drags, friction building in a hot, rough rush, and Vale can feel August's cock pulsing against his stomach through the denim, can feel the wetness where he's been leaking, can feel the exact moment when August's body reaches its limit.
August comes first.
He buries his face in Vale's neck. A choked "fuck, Vale" muffled against skin, the words vibrating against his throat, andthen his whole body locks up. His thighs clamp around Vale's hips, his hands go rigid in Vale's hair, and his hips jerk in uneven, helpless pulses as he spills. Vale feels the hot, wet rush of him soaking through denim, a spreading warmth against his stomach that is filthy and perfect. August shudders through it, grinding down in short, sharp little thrusts, chasing the last of it, and the sounds he makes against Vale's throat are broken and breathless and wrecked beyond repair.
The sight of it, the sound of it, the feel of August coming apart in his lap, sends Vale over the edge a heartbeat later. He thrusts up once, twice, hard enough that August bounces in his lap, and then he's spilling too, pulsing hard against the heat of August's body, flooding his own trousers in thick, messy waves that soak through the fabric and press wet against the cleft of August's ass. He groans low in his throat, the sound rough and unguarded, and his fingers dig into August's hips hard enough to leave marks, holding him there, holding him close, while they ride it out together.
The orgasm rolls through him in slow, punishing waves. It's not the shattering intensity of last night, when the fusion of their magic had turned the world white. It's something deeper. Quieter. The steady, bone-deep release of a man who has spent three hundred years in rigid control and is, in the arms of a dying necromancer in a cluttered Old City apartment, learning how to let go.
They stay locked together for long seconds. August trembling in his lap, Vale's arms banded around him, both of them breathing hard. The apartment is quiet except for the sound of their breathing and the faint tick of the kitchen clock. The room smells of sex and sweat and the particular warmth that exists only between two bodies that have been pressed together. The grey afternoon light hasn't changed. The research on the coffee table hasn't moved. The world outside the window continues,indifferent to the fact that inside this apartment, two people who should be enemies are sitting on a couch in come-soaked clothes, holding each other with a tenderness that neither of them has vocabulary for.
Eventually August makes a small, wrecked sound and slumps fully forward, forehead dropping to Vale's shoulder. His arms loop loosely around Vale's neck, body gone liquid and heavy. His breathing is still uneven, still catching on the aftershocks, and Vale can feel the way his heart is hammering, fast and hard, gradually slowing toward something steadier.
Vale presses a slow, open-mouthed kiss to the side of August's throat, right over one of the bruises he left last night. August shivers at the contact, a residual tremor, his body still oversensitive, still tuned to every point where they touch. He turns his face into Vale's neck and breathes there, slow and warm, and the intimacy of it, the quiet animal comfort of being held and holding, is more disarming than anything that preceded it.
This is the part Vale didn't expect. Not the sex, not the heat, not the desperate physicality of two people who have been orbiting each other for days and have finally given in to the gravity. He expected all of that. What he didn't expect was this. The after. The way August goes soft and still in his arms when the urgency has passed. The way his fingers trace absent patterns on the back of Vale's neck. The way he breathes, slow and deep and even, as though Vale's shoulder is the safest place in the world, and for the first time in fourteen years, he has somewhere to rest.
Vale tightens his arms around him. His hand settles on the back of August's neck, thumb moving in slow strokes through the short hair at his nape, and August makes a sound that's barely audible. A hum. Quiet and content and so far removedfrom the sharp, guarded man Vale had chased through the Old City a week ago that it seems impossible they're the same person.
They're not, Vale thinks. Not entirely. The man in his arms is someone August is becoming. Someone who exists only in this space, in the warmth between them, in the unprecedented safety of being held by the one person in the world whose touch doesn't hurt. Vale is watching August become himself, and the privilege of it, the weight of it, is not something he takes lightly.
