Chapter 11
Morning comes soft and grey through the half-open blinds, a thin stripe of winter light cutting across the tangled sheets. Vale wakes slowly, first the warmth, then the weight of another body curled against him, then the devastating realization of where that body is pressed.
August is still asleep, or mostly so. His back is to Vale's chest, legs slotted together with Vale's, one of August's arms tucked under the pillow and the other resting over Vale's forearm where it wraps around his waist. The curve of August's ass fits perfectly against Vale's groin, and Vale's cock, already painfully hard, aching with the kind of need that feels almost violent, is nestled right there, trapped between them, leaking against the small of August's back.
Vale can't breathe properly. The air feels too thick, too hot. Every shallow inhale drags August's scent deeper into his lungs: sweat, sex, the faint trace of holy magic still clinging to his skin. Vale's heart is thudding so hard he's sure August will feel it through his ribs.
He shouldn't move. Shouldn't take more than what was already given so freely last night. Centuries of discipline should have something to say about this, but that discipline lost the argument sometime around the stairwell and haven't recovered since.
But his hand moves anyway.
Fingers skim down August's hip, slow, reverent.
The skin is warm, slightly damp from sleep and everything that happened hours ago.
Vale's palm flattens over the sharp jut of bone, then slides lower, cupping the soft swell of August's ass.
He holds on, tight, possessive, thumb pressing into the crease where thigh meets hip, and rocks forward.
Just once. Just enough to feel the slick heat still lingering between August's cheeks, still open, still ready.
August makes a small, sleepy sound. His breathing changes, goes from slow and even to quick and shallow. Vale freezes, waiting for rejection, for August to tense or pull away.
Instead August shifts. Presses back.
A soft, needy arch of his spine. The movement drags Vale's cock along the cleft of his ass, and Vale's breath punches out of him in a rough exhale.
August does it again, deliberate this time, pushing back until the head of Vale's cock catches, nudges right where he's still loose and wet from the night before.
"Vale," August whispers, voice thick with sleep and want. He doesn't open his eyes. Doesn't need to. His hand reaches back, finds Vale's hip, and pulls.
That's all it takes.
Vale shifts his hips, lines up, and presses forward.
It's obscenely easy. August's body yields, still slick inside, still soft and pliant, still shaped to him from hours ago.
Vale slides in on one long, steady glide, all the way to the root, and the heat of it is blinding.
August's walls flutter around him, a reflexive clench that makes Vale's vision spark.
August gasps, sharp, broken. "Oh, fuck—"
Vale's mouth finds the back of August's neck. He kisses there, open-mouthed, tasting salt and skin while he holds himself still, letting August feel every thick inch buried deep.
"You're still so wet," Vale murmurs against his nape, voice wrecked. "Still open for me."
August shivers. Makes a small, helpless sound that goes straight through Vale's chest and settles somewhere considerably lower.
His hips rock back, tiny little movements that grind Vale deeper, that drag the head of his cock over that perfect spot inside, and the noise August makes when he finds it is quiet and desperate and completely undone.
Vale's hand slides around to August's stomach, fingers splaying wide, holding him close while he starts to move.
Slow rolls at first, deep and measured, pulling almost all the way out before sinking back in.
Every thrust is careful, deliberate, but the restraint is fraying fast. August is already trembling, already whimpering every time Vale bottoms out, already pushing back to meet him.
"Harder," August breathes. "Please, Vale—"
Vale's control snaps.
He tightens his grip on August's hip, hitches August's top leg up just enough to change the angle, and thrusts, harder, deeper, faster.
The sound of skin on skin fills the quiet room, wet and obscene in the grey morning light.
August's moans turn ragged, turn desperate.
His hand leaves Vale's hip to fist in the sheets; the other reaches back to grab at Vale's thigh, nails biting in hard enough to leave marks.
Vale's mouth stays on August's neck, kissing, sucking, teeth grazing without breaking skin.
His free hand slides down, wraps around August's cock, already leaking, already hard, and strokes in time with his thrusts.
August arches, head tipping back against Vale's shoulder, throat exposed, and Vale kisses there too, open-mouthed and reverent, tasting the pulse that hammers beneath the skin.
They move together as though they've done this a thousand times instead of once. As though their bodies learned a language overnight that their minds are still catching up to.
August comes first, sudden, violent, a choked cry tearing out of him as he spills over Vale's fist, clenching tight around Vale's cock.
The pulse of it, the rhythmic squeeze of August's body around him, drags Vale right to the edge.
He buries himself deep, hips stuttering, and comes with a low, broken groan against August's shoulder, hot pulses that fill August again, that make him shudder and clench even tighter and gasp something that might be Vale's name or might just be a sound beyond language.
They stay that way for long minutes, Vale still inside him, softening slowly, both of them breathing hard. Vale's arm is locked around August's waist; August's hand is still tangled in Vale's hair. Neither of them moves to pull away.
Eventually Vale presses a kiss to the nape of August's neck, soft, lingering.
"Morning," he murmurs, voice hoarse.
August lets out a shaky laugh. "Morning."
Afterward, they lie tangled together in the sheets while the grey light brightens toward true morning.
August is tucked against Vale's side, his head on Vale's shoulder, one hand resting on Vale's chest where it rises and falls with his breathing.
The position is artlessly comfortable, the kind of arrangement two bodies find when they fit together naturally, without negotiation.
Vale's hand traces idle patterns on August's back, following the lines of his tattoos.
The skin is warm beneath his fingertips.
The corruption is barely perceptible, the faintest grey tracing.
Whatever happened between them last night, and again this morning, has pushed it back further than Vale thought possible.
Not gone. Maybe never fully gone. But diminished to something that looks more manageable than terminal, and Vale will take that.
He'll take anything that keeps this man breathing.
He doesn't know how long it will hold. Doesn't know if it requires sustained contact to maintain, or if the deeper fusion of their magic has accomplished something lasting.
Doesn't know, in truth, anything about what's happening between them beyond the empirical observation that it works and the private, selfish hope that it continues.
"We should get up," August says, without moving.
"We should," Vale agrees, without moving.
"There's a rogue Templar trying to crack open a vault full of doomsday relics."
"There is."
"He's probably not taking a morning off."
"Probably not."
August's hand curls slightly against Vale's chest, fingers gathering a loose fold of the sheet. "Five more minutes."
"Five more minutes," Vale concedes, and feels August's mouth curve into a smile against his shoulder.
They take fifteen.
***
August showers first while Vale makes tea.
He's learned the kitchen by now, knows where August keeps the loose-leaf (top shelf, left of the stove), which cups he prefers (the heavy ceramic ones with the chipped rims), how he takes it (strong, slightly bitter, no sugar).
There's a domesticity to the routine that should feel strange and doesn't. Vale has lived in barracks and Order housing and a series of impersonal apartments for a long time.
He has never made tea in someone else's kitchen and felt as though he belonged there.
He belongs here.
The thought arrives without permission and settles in with no intention of leaving.
August emerges from the bathroom in clean clothes: dark jeans, a charcoal henley pushed to his elbows, his hair damp and falling across his forehead.
The corruption on his forearms is visible in the daylight as faint grey tracing, and the warding tattoos stand out in sharp, clean lines that have been obscured for months.
He looks, and this is not a clinical observation, this is not Vale assessing a tactical asset, he looks beautiful.
Rested. Alive in a way that transforms his sharp features from striking to devastating.
He also has bruises on his neck. Three of them, along the column of his throat and below his jaw, unmistakable in origin and placement.
Vale probably should have thought about that. He did not think about that. He was, at the time, thinking about other things.
August catches him looking and raises an eyebrow. "Problem?"
"You might want a higher collar before Knox arrives."
August glances at the hallway mirror, sees the marks, and his expression does something complicated that lands on a flush creeping up from the collar in question.
His hand drifts to his throat, fingers brushing the darkest bruise, and the look he gives Vale over his shoulder is equal parts accusing and, unless Vale is reading it wrong, which he doesn't think he is, quietly pleased.
"These are your fault," August points out.
"I don't recall you objecting."