Chapter 8 #2
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 of Vale'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.
The betrayal hits August in a wave. It crashes through him, hot and sick and all-consuming, and he knows it shows on his face because he can't hide it.
He has never been good at hiding the things that actually hurt, and this hurts worse than the corruption, worse than the rift, worse than fourteen years of slowly dying, because he had trusted this man.
He had let Vale into his home. Had let Vale put his hands on him.
Had let himself feel safe for the first time in years, and it had been a lie.
"Knox—" Vale says in a rush, crossing the room, one hand up toward the Templar in the doorway and the other gripping August's arm because he knows August is about to run. "Don't hurt him."
The blonde Templar – who must be Knox – moves his hand off his mace immediately, responding to Vale's command with the automatic compliance of a long built trust, but August barely processes it.
He's staring at Vale, at the hand on his arm, at the face of a man who had held him in a warehouse and promised him safety and then led his comrade straight to his door.
August wrenches free.
He turns to run, and Vale catches him by the sleeve and pulls him back.
Hands grip his biceps through his sweater, and even through the cloth August can feel that warmth, that radiant, healing glow, and it makes him sick.
The same warmth that had felt like salvation ten minutes ago feels like a brand now.
A collar. A leash dressed up as kindness.
"August, wait—"
"I trusted you." The words tear out of him before he can stop them, and he doesn't realize until they're in the air just how true they are.
Despite every instinct. Despite every warning.
Despite the voice in his head that had been screaming since the subway that this was a trap, that no Templar would ever choose him over the Order, that the only person August could rely on was himself.
He had trusted Vale. Had shown him his apartment, his research, his body's ruin.
Had followed him into the warehouse and closed a rift and fallen into his arms. Had put what little life he had left in this man's hands and believed, foolishly, desperately, with the same stubborn optimism that had carried him through the years, that those hands would hold it gently.
Knox glances at the open door, at the hallway beyond, and seems to realize this is all going down where anyone could possibly be witness.
He makes a tactical decision and steps inside and closes the door behind him, which leaves August trapped in his own apartment with two Templars and the only exit sealed.
August tries to break Vale's grip. He knows he can't, since Vale is physically stronger by an order of magnitude, and even gentle, his hold is immovable.
But the instinct to fight overrides the logic, and he pulls against those hands until the futility of it makes something hot and desperate build behind his eyes.
He could cast. Vale's healing has cleared enough corruption that the shadows pooling in the apartment's corners are calling to him, familiar, eager, ready.
He could summon a burst of death magic right now, at this range, and stun Vale long enough to get through the door.
He'd pay for it in veins and years and pain, but he'd be free.
It wouldn't work against two Templars in a sustained fight, but he doesn't need to win. He just needs to run.
The moment comes.
And goes.
The shadows stay where they are.
He doesn't want to hurt Vale. Even now. Even believing the worst. Some traitorous, suicidal part of him would rather be dragged to the Order in chains than raise his hand against this man, and that realization terrifies him more than anything else that's happened in the last three days.
"He's my partner, August." Vale's voice is low, urgent, stripped of its usual composure.
He's normally so controlled, so aloof, so carefully unreadable, that seeing him raw and frayed and visibly afraid of losing something is the thing that makes August stop pulling.
"He can track me. I can track him. It's part of the bond.
He didn't know you were here. He was looking for me. "
August swallows against the nausea rising in his throat.
He looks at Knox, who is standing by the door with his hands clasped in front of him, making no aggressive move, wearing an expression that's less hostile and more resigned.
The particular resignation of a man who has walked in on his partner doing something spectacularly ill-advised and is not remotely surprised.
Trusting Vale had cost August everything he had. Trusting two Templars might cost him everything he has left.
But the alternative is running. Again. Alone.
Again. Back into the dark with his corruption and his maps and his dying body and no one to hold the line while he closes rifts.
Back to being the only person who cares enough to try, and back to dying for it, alone in a subway tunnel or a cemetery or wherever the end finally catches him.
He pulls his attention back to Vale, who is watching him with that unbearable intensity, the same focus he'd had on the couch, as though August is the only thing in the room that matters.
It's too much and not enough and August can feel the panic receding despite himself, draining from his body the way it always does when Vale's warmth seeps through.
He goes still in Vale's grip. Stops fighting. It doesn't quite feel like giving up. It feels like something worse: choosing, consciously, to stay. Deciding that this man, this impossible, infuriating, steady man, is worth the risk.
Vale seems to sense that he's not going to bolt any longer and releases him slowly. The warmth withdraws, and the low ache reasserts itself immediately.
August reaches for him.
He catches Vale's wrist. Wraps his fingers around it, feeling the pulse beneath the skin, steady and strong and alive, and the contact sends warmth flooding up his arm and into his chest. The ache quiets. The burn dims. The world steadies.
Vale goes very still.
This is the first time August has initiated contact. The first time he's reached for Vale rather than being caught. August can feel the weight of it in the silence between them, the shift in gravity, the admission of trust he's making with his hand that he isn't willing to make with his mouth.
He doesn't look at Vale. He can't.
"So," Knox says from the door, with the tone of a man who has just watched something very private and is handling it with admirable grace. "I see you found your necromancer."
August opens his mouth to object, because he's not Vale's necromancer, he's no one's necromancer, but Vale answers first.
"Look, it's complicated, okay?" Vale turns toward Knox, and as he does, he shifts his wrist in August's grip. Rotates it smoothly, deliberately, until it's not his wrist August is holding but his hand, all five fingers threaded between August's, interlocked, warm.
August's heart stops. Restarts. Trips over itself.
He adjusts his position to keep their hands together without making Vale stretch, and he's acutely aware of how it looks, standing at Vale's side, fingers intertwined. As though this is something they do. As though this is something they are.
Knox's eyes drop to their joined hands. Rise back to Vale's face. He crosses his arms.
"I'd ask if the Sanctus knows about this, but I'm guessing I already know the answer." His voice is dry enough to sand wood. "How long have you been harboring a necromancer?"
"We're working together," Vale says, which sounds considerably better than the truth: that he's been sneaking a necromancer around the city, collaborating on rift research using what the Order would call forbidden methods, and regularly putting his hands on said necromancer in ways that the church would find distasteful. "We closed a rift last night."
Knox's eyebrows shoot up. "That was you? The Cathedral's been in an uproar. The Templars on watch went to check on the warehouse rift and it was completely gone. Not even a trace of death magic in the air."
Vale pulls August forward by their joined hands, placing him in a spotlight he wants no part of. "It wasn't me. It was him. Knox, this is August, the Speaker. August, Knox."
Knox's attention settles on August. He's shorter than August, an observation August files away as one of the few comforting things about this encounter, and despite the holy rings and the mace at his belt, his expression isn't the hard-eyed assessment August expects.
It softens. Turns warm. The long-suffering exasperation he'd directed at Vale is replaced by something that looks, improbably, like kindness.
"August," Knox says, inclining his head. "We've heard a lot about you."
"That's not comforting to know." August casts a flat look at Vale, who appears unbothered. "Your partner is nicer than you."
Knox ducks his head to hide a smile. Vale rolls his eyes.
"Niceness isn't a prerequisite to join the Order," Vale tells them both.
"Clearly," Knox and August say at the same time, and then look at each other with matching expressions of surprise.
Vale stares at both of them. He looks displeased.
Knox's mouth twitches, but he steers back to business with the practiced ease of someone who has been managing his partner's messes for decades.
"Why was I looking for you? Because a rift closed itself overnight and the Sanctus wants answers.
But you obviously knew that." He pauses, glancing at August. "Word from the Cathedral is that closing rifts will intensify the remaining ones.
Energy has to go somewhere. If you're planning to close more, that's something to factor in. "
"We're closing another tonight," Vale says. "And there's a new one opening at the railway station tomorrow. If you want to be useful, keep the Order's attention away from both locations for the next twenty-four hours."
"Only because you asked so nicely," Knox says, with the particular sigh of a man who has been following his partner into terrible decisions for four decades and has no intention of stopping now.
His gaze drops to their joined hands one more time.
He opens his mouth, closes it, seems to weigh several questions and decide against all of them.
August knows what he's not asking. Why can a Templar touch a necromancer without harm?
Why does August look healthy instead of corrupted?
What exactly has been happening in this apartment?
Knox doesn't ask. And the relief August feels at not having to answer is matched only by the quiet terror of knowing that, eventually, he'll have to answer those questions for himself.
Vale's thumb moves against the back of his hand, a small, absent motion, probably unconscious, and August's breath catches so softly that only someone standing very close would hear it.
Vale is standing very close.
August doesn't let go.