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“You’re bleeding all over the floor.”
Blade stared at the open first aid kit on the table that had been pushed towards him, then up at Dan Heng, who stood across from him with his arms crossed. Blade’s brows furrowed.
Dan Heng sighed impatiently. “Did you trade your murderous impulses for stupidity now? They’re bandages. For that,” he gestured to the nasty gash on Blade’s side that the man had been trying to treat, “so stop leaving blood on the floor.”
“I’m not an idiot,” Blade threw back, “I know what bandages are. I just wanted to know why you’re doing this. I thought you didn’t care. You made that much clear.”
Dan Heng had, in fact, made it abundantly clear. Kafka, Silver Wolf, and Blade had been on the Express for close to two weeks now. Kafka and Himeko had apparently agreed to work together, and the Crew knew nothing except that this was some part of Elio’s plan that Himeko, for reasons she had not been at liberty to disclose, had agreed to. When asked how long the Stellaron Hunters would be around, Himeko had shrugged and said, “‘A while’ is all I was told, but I’m sure it’ll be fine.”
The Crew had trusted Himeko’s judgement and agreed, but the relationship they had with the Stellaron Hunters made for a rocky start to their partnership. The first week had been tense, with the only person seemingly immune to the strained atmosphere being Kafka. However, March and Caelus had slowly warmed up to Silver Wolf over their shared missions. A few days in, Silver Wolf had walked in on the pair close to hysterics over a level in a game they couldn’t clear and promptly guided them through the stage. She had stayed, giving them tips on the stage after that, and the stage after that, and the stage after that…
That had been the turning point, and they were like best friends now. Silver Wolf didn’t even sleep in guest room that they’d set aside for her anymore.
The relationship between Dan Heng and Blade was not as easily mended, unfortunately. Out of respect for Himeko’s wishes and understanding that Blade was no longer out for his head now for reasons yet unknown to him, Dan Heng was coolly cordial in his interactions with the man.
Dan Heng knew that Blade was hurting from his mara, knew that even when he wasn’t losing his mind to it, it caused him chronic pain that sometimes flared up so badly that he couldn’t even get out of bed. Dan Heng knew that Blade had every right to despise Dan Feng for his condition, imposed upon him out of the latter’s stubbornness and selfishness, and to feel betrayed by the man he had once called his lover. Nonetheless, his previous incarnation’s sins against Blade were not Dan Heng’s debt to pay. Dan Heng knew that Blade was sorry, that the man was now aware of how misguided he’d been in trying to make Dan Heng pay for Dan Feng’s crime. Dan Heng might be willing to forgive him, but he needed time.
Dan Heng had told Blade as much on the first day that the three Stellaron Hunters arrived on the Astral Express.
“I… understand,” Blade had said, and that’d been that. Dan Heng had steadfastly ignored the downcast look in Blade’s eyes.
Given the newfound closeness between March, Caelus, and Silver Wolf, the three of them had often chosen to take on missions together. Kafka had always found some reason or other to go off doing solo work, and Himeko and Welt were usually in charge of guarding the Express while the Crew was away. If they could be spared from guard duty, they usually followed Kafka on her share of missions. This left Blade and Dan Heng to pair off.
Despite their tenuous relationship, Blade respected Kafka’s wishes as much as Dan Heng respected Himeko’s, so the pair gritted their teeth and cooperated, always working as efficiently as possible and parting ways the moment they could. Their interactions were distant but amiable enough, but Dan Heng found himself increasingly annoyed by the man as time went by.
They had just returned from a mission today. It had ended well enough considering that the enemies had been much stronger than they predicted. They had been taken by surprise and, fatigued from the drawn-out mission, had sustained some injuries. As a ranged fighter in his newfound Vidyadhara form, Dan Heng had managed to get away with a few minor scrapes, but, Blade, who preferred melee combat, had sustained a rather serious blow to his side. The man had stubbornly insisted he was fine, and Dan Heng didn’t really care enough to ask twice.
Now though, Dan Heng was pissed. The mission had been draining and his body longed for rest, but he’d spent three fruitless hours tossing and turning in bed before falling into a fitful sleep before jolting awake from a nightmare not even an hour in. Deciding to try watching the stars from the parlour car windows to see if that would calm him down enough to fall back asleep, he’d come into the parlour car, only to find Blade leaving drops of blood on the floor, soiling the pristine décor. Not only that, but his plans of galaxy-watching in solitude had been rudely disrupted by Blade’s presence.
So, in the face of Blade’s insinuation that he cared about him, Dan Heng scoffed. “I don’t care. At least, not about you. You’re dripping blood all over the floor and it’s my week to clean and you’re making more work for me. I’m not doing this out of concern, I just don’t want more work. Why are you even here? You have a room. Use it.”
“…I was looking for a first aid kit,” Blade murmured.
“There’s one in your room.”
“It’s already empty.” The admission was so soft that Dan Heng almost missed it. He pursed his lips, not knowing what to say to that.
Had Blade been injured so often that he would empty a first aid kit in two weeks? They hadn’t even been on that many missions in that period. Not to say that he cared about the man, no—he was just annoyed because this man was depleting all their supplies. A traitorous part of his brain whispered that they had already had a supply run scheduled in the next week regardless, so that clearly wasn't the reason… Dan Heng banished the thought ruthlessly.
“Well,” Dan Heng cleared his throat, “first aid kit for this room is in the drawer here. Obviously, I already took it out for you,” he gestures at the box lying open on the table, “but I’m just telling you so you have no excuses for not putting it back correctly. Dress that injury properly so you stop dripping blood all over the place and clean up the floor.”
He made to leave.
“Forgive me if I am overstepping,” Blade hedged suddenly, “but are you all right? I’m awake at this godforsaken hour because of my injury, but I couldn’t help but notice you’re awake too.”
“I’m fine,” Dan Heng replied curtly after a short pause. “It’s nothing you need to be concerned about.”
Blade wanted to argue. Dan Heng’s eyes were bloodshot and he knew that the man’s hands were shaking where he clasped them together. But Dan Heng wasn’t comfortable letting him in, understandably so, so Blade simply sighed in defeat. He had expected this much, but still, he had hoped…
“Okay. Thank you for the kit,” Blade said instead.
Dan Heng walked off wordlessly, his footsteps quick despite his fatigue. Blade returned his attention to tending to the wound on his side, letting out a quiet hiss as he pressed a cotton pad soaked in antiseptic to the open wound.
Dan Heng’s hand hesitated on the doorknob. He mentally shook himself and left.
Annoying. The man was annoying.
The next morning, Blade almost gave himself a concussion in addition to the injury on his ribs when he nearly tripped over a box sitting just outside his door. He paused, then picked it up and opened it, finding supplies for him to fully stock his first aid kit inside. He recalled the conversation with Dan Heng the night before.
His heart felt strangely warm. A smile tugged at his lips.
After meticulously replenishing his first aid kit, he made his way to the parlour car and spotted Dan Heng sitting at a table, fiddling with a pen absentmindedly as he considered the page of words in front of him.
Blade walked up to Dan Heng, inclining his head, “Thank you.”
“You don’t need to thank me,” Dan Heng waved off his gratitude, not even needing to ask what Blade was thanking him for. “It was more for myself than anything. I just don’t want another incident like last night, it’s my—”
“—week to clean and you don’t want more work, yes, I am aware,” Blade nodded. “Nevertheless, thank you.”
Dan Heng cleared his throat. “That reminds me. You know the mission we were supposed to go on in a week’s time? Himeko and Welt will take care of it in our stead.”
“What?” Blade looked at Dan Heng, alarmed.
“I told them you got injured yesterday—”
“I don’t need time off, I’m fine—”
“—and you won’t be able to pull your weight. I’m going to have to compensate for you being injured, and while you might have a death wish, I certainly don’t.”
He hadn’t actually told Himeko and Welt that much. When the two had caught him gathering first aid supplies from their storage, he’d only said that Blade had been injured and that his first aid kit was already empty. Himeko had smiled secretively at that and the pair had immediately decided that they would stand in for Dan Heng and Blade on their upcoming mission.
But that was for Dan Heng to know and for Blade to never find out. Dan Heng didn’t want Blade thinking that he went to Himeko and Welt because he was still thinking about how Blade had emptied out a first aid kit in two weeks, and that Dan Heng had been worried about him.
He hadn’t been worried.
Unable to rebut Dan Heng’s argument, Blade’s protests died on his lips.
He nodded. “Very well, I suppose it is unfair to expect you to make up for any… deficits in my performance due to my injury. Thank you for informing me. It might be for the better anyway, since Silver Wolf is due to return from her mission on the day we were supposed to leave. If we’re not going out on that mission, I think I will prepare cookies for her on that day.”
“You’re going to bake? Isn’t that going to aggravate your injury?” Realising how it sounded, Dan Heng quickly added, “Whatever, just don’t make a mess. If you reopen your wound and it gets infected, you’re dealing with it. We don’t have any more antibiotics.” He turned back to the paper in front of him, schooling his features into nonchalance.
Supply run next week, his brain sang, and Dan Heng aggressively flipped the page in front of him.
“I will make sure not to make a mess,” Blade agreed, then silently left the way he came, deciding to return to his room to pass time.
Little did he know, he would be forced to eat his words.
Blade snapped the oven door shut, placing the perfectly golden-brown cookies on the cooling rack. He was grabbing a plate when pain abruptly flared throughout his body and he jerked. The plate in his hands clattered noisily to the ground, shattering. Blade struggled for air, every nerve on fire as he collapsed to the ground. It was all he could do to draw tiny half-breaths and pray that the pain would subside soon. Everything was too much, the spasming of his muscles felt like being repeatedly stabbed with a cattle prod and his skin was so sensitive that even the worn shirt on his back felt like sandpaper on an open wound.
“What on Earth—”
Blade startled at the voice. What was Dan Heng doing here?
“I was just passing by and I heard something shatter. The plate, I guess,” Dan Heng responded to his unasked question. “Came in to take a look.”
That he had come over to the kitchen because his bracer had started burning and he had remembered what Blade said about cookies that morning was a secret he would take to his grave.
“Anyway, tell me what’s happening. Um… if you can? Let me see if I can help.”
Blade’s eyes were squeezed shut, breaths still coming in short, pained puffs of air.
“M-mara,” Blade gasped out. “Chronic… pain… s-suddenly—” he let out a cry as a particularly sharp pain ran across his back.
Dan Heng was at a loss. Himeko and Welt had left this morning. There was no one else on the train besides Blade, himself, and Pom Pom, and he was sure that the conductor would be as clueless as he was.
He crouched down. Instinctively, he put a hand on Blade’s upper arm, the most accessible part of his body with the man curled up in a foetal position like that. He closed his eyes, focusing, and his Vidyadhara powers answered his call easily enough, enveloping him in a golden glow. He imagined pushing the power into Blade, imagined it coursing through his body and embalming his nerves, imagined it healing and pushing the mara down.
A gasp had Dan Heng opening his eyes, only to meet Blade’s incredulous ones.
“The pain—It’s… gone.” A quick check and he realised that even the injury he’d sustained yesterday was healed. He regarded Dan Heng with something akin to wonder. “How did you—”
“I… don’t know,” Dan Heng admitted, pulling his hand away from Blade to rest on his knees when he saw that Blade was better. “Instincts?”
The air between them felt weird now that the urgency had faded.
“Dan Feng could do the same thing. That’s why he was our healer,” Blade hummed like it made sense, pushing himself to sit upright.
Dan Heng grimaced. He did not want to get into yet another argument with Blade on why he wasn’t his previous incarnation, and made to stand.
“Wait!” Blade cried, and Dan Heng stilled. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to… I’m sorry. I was just trying to… offer an explanation? Anyway, thank you.” Blade’s words are heartfelt. “That was a bad one, I’m not sure how long it would have lasted without you. So really, thank you.”
How often was it this bad? How did he survive without Dan Heng’s healing? The questions swirled in his mind, but he clamped down on the desire to ask.
“I didn’t know what I was doing, really, but it was nothing. You’re welcome,” Dan Heng replied gruffly. “I assume you’re fine now, so I’m going to leave. Silver Wolf is expected to return with March and Caelus in about ten to fifteen minutes.” He straightened and walked briskly out of the kitchen.
Annoying, Dan Heng thought, willing his heart to stop pounding.
Blade belatedly realised that the man had not said anything about the mess on the floor.
Silver Wolf barrelled through the kitchen door.
“I smell cookies!” she said by way of greeting, spotting the plate on the counter and making a beeline for it. “I thought you had a mission today?”
“Welcome back, Silver Wolf,” Blade greeted, long used to her dramatic entrances. “You smell correctly; I did make cookies. Help yourself, they should have cooled down enough by now. And I did have a mission, but Welt and Himeko decided to go instead.”
Silver Wolf shrugged and didn’t question the change in plans further, preferring to stuff her mouth. Blade staying back meant that she got cookies, so it was a win in her book.
“-ur cookiezh are zhe besht,” Silver Wolf spoke through a mouthful of cookie before swallowing, grinning at the man. “I’ve missed your baking, Blade. It’s delicious as always! I’m going to bring these out to the parlour car to share with Caelus and March! Oh, you should come with so you can see the looks on their faces when they taste this blessing to mankind.”
Silver Wolf barrelled out of the kitchen much like she had barrelled in earlier, this time armed with a plate piled high with cookies that she miraculously managed not to spill. Blade followed her at a more dignified pace, a small, private smile on his lips.
When Blade pushed open the door to the parlour car, Caelus and March had already combined forces with Silver Wolf to demolish more than half of the plate, and they looked like they had no plans of slowing down anytime soon.
“Blade!” Caelus waved in greeting. “These cookies are amazing! I didn’t know you could bake, but you’re more than welcome to keep these things coming. If you need any special ingredients or anything, I can let Himeko know; if we save her a few of these cookies I’m sure she can be convinced!”
Caelus’ unabashed compliment had Blade a little flustered. “I… am glad you like them,” he said lamely.
Blade’s lacklustre response didn’t faze Caelus… or March, it seemed, because the girl bounded right up to him and thrust a cookie in his face.
“Have you had any? You haven’t, right? Here, you should at least have one! It would be a crime if you baked all this and didn’t even get to have one!”
When he opened his mouth to respond, March shoved the cookie into his mouth, completely unthreatened by his death glare. He chewed, swallowing before speaking (because he was not a heathen like Silver Wolf, thank you very much).
“It’s… not bad,” he admitted.
“It’s way better than not bad,” Silver Wolf argued. Blade blinked, because in that short period, the pile of cookies next to them had somehow been reduced to just a lone cookie sitting on the plate.
“Ah…” Blade interjected, and Caelus’ hand paused from where it had been reaching for the last cookie.
“Blade?” Caelus questioned. “Something wrong? Oh, did you want this last one? I’m so sorry! You can have it, I haven’t touched it yet, promise!”
“Ah, no… But I was hoping… Maybe we could leave that one for Dan Heng? He’s also on the Express today, after all.”
And these cookies probably wouldn’t be here without his help earlier, but the young trio in front of him didn’t need to know that.
Silver Wolf looked at him with a glint in her eye that Blade found himself a little wary of. Before he could say anything, however, March exclaimed, “Oh, that’s a good idea! Dan Heng’s in the Archives, probably fiddling with the data bank again. He’ll be cranky if you disturb him while he’s inside, but we can box it and leave it at the door so he won’t miss it when he comes out!”
Caelus jumped up. “I’ll get the box! There’s a bunch of them in the kitchen from the time we were all hooked on meal prepping. I’ll be right back!”
He raced off, leaving Blade to gape after him.
Dan Heng frowned at the box on the floor, rubbing his eyes with one hand and reaching for the box with the other. There was a bright pink sticky note stuck to the lid sporting Caelus’ neat penmanship.
Cookie for you, Dan Heng! Blade made them, and they’re sooo good. Blade We didn’t want you to miss out while you were holed away in there!
The note was signed off with a smiley face. Dan Heng pulled open the container and bit into the cookie, humming in appreciation—it was good. He considered the hastily crossed out ‘Blade’ on the sticky note.
Annoying, he thought, and made his way back to his room—the one that the Crew had prepared for him, which he’d finally accepted, instead of the makeshift bed on the floor of the Archives. He stubbornly ignored the warmth in his chest as he finished the cookie.
“The mara’s quiet around you,” Blade blurted, causing Dan Heng to pause in his motions where he stood in front of the mirror, brush midway down his hair.
Two months had passed since the day Dan Heng found Blade on the kitchen floor, practically paralysed from the pain caused by his mara flaring up; two months since he’d learned that he was capable of healing; two months since he’d received that thank-you cookie from Blade. The pair had been dispatched on their fair share of missions since then, growing… not exactly close, but closer. Dan Heng’s newly-discovered healing prowess meant that they returned from their missions injury-free, to the envy of the younger trio aboard the Express. They had whined, pleaded, and even offered to take on Dan Heng’s chores so that they could steal Dan Heng for their own missions sometimes. Blade’s hackles had risen at the thought of having to pair off with someone else for missions. He had nothing but respect for the combat abilities of the other members of the Astral Express Crew, but he was still wary about trusting them in a life-or-death situation. Moreover, he hadn’t lost his mind to the mara in months since Dan Heng had figured out how to use his abilities, but if Blade was sent on a mission without Dan Heng—
Thankfully, Dan Heng had simply smiled and turned them down. They had pestered Dan Heng for an explanation, of course, but the man just shook his head and declined to respond. Caelus, bless his soul, had sensed that Dan Heng wanted his privacy in this, and managed to peel the other two away from him.
Now, the two were winding down after a long day in what had been their home for the past five days—a cramped but clean motel with slightly dated décor. The mission was expected to end tomorrow; they had accomplished what they had come to do and just needed to tie up a few loose ends.
Dan Heng turned to face Blade, who was lying on the bed, propped up by a pillow. “What are you talking about all of a sudden?”
Blade shrugged. That had been a terrible opener, but in his defence, how did one say please don’t leave me, I feel alive and whole when I’m around you, I’m sorry for mistaking you for my ex-lover-turned-worst-enemy and traumatising you for life without losing every shred of one’s dignity? How did one say I used to want to die but you make me want to live, I want to get to know who you are and not the man you used to be, I never want to be apart from you to a man who simultaneously felt like a stranger and a long-lost lover?
He remembered being Yingxing, watching Dan Feng brush through his hair in a scene not dissimilar to the one he found himself in now. He remembered Yingxing jumping up from the bed and stealing the brush from Dan Feng, laughing at the other man’s yelp, and ushering Dan Feng to sit on the nearby chair so he could brush his hair out for him. He remembered Yingxing smiling as Dan Feng let out a content sigh, and leaning down to peck Dan Feng on the lips when the Vidyadhara tilted his head up to look Yingxing in the eye.
Blade shook himself.
“I just thought you should know,” Blade said, repressing the thoughts in his head ruthlessly. “It’s… less painful to breathe when you’re around. I don’t really want to die that much, you know? The mara was just so painful, and there had been no solution to the pain except dying. Not just the chronic pain, but the perpetual fear that I would lose my mind and hurt the people I cared about, that one day the mara would seize control for good. But now… you… I know you don’t like me and probably tolerate me at most. Even if working with me this entire time has been… a chore for you, I… am grateful. Because being alive doesn’t hurt when you’re around.” He cleared his throat. “That’s all I wanted to say. Good night, Dan Heng.”
Blade immediately turned on his side, pulling the blanket all the way up to his ears and squeezing his eyes shut in feigned slumber so he didn’t have to deal with Dan Heng’s reaction. His cheeks were aflame under the blanket.
If Blade had bothered to look, he would have seen Dan Heng’s cheeks coloured similarly and the way his shocked expression melted into a soft gaze as he regarded Blade through the mirror.
Dan Heng flicked off the lights and quietly crawled into his own bed. A beat of silence passed, then two. A quiet exhale.
“I don’t… not like you.”
In the darkness, Blade’s eyes shot open.
What did that mean?
“There’s too many of them!” Dan Heng shouted. He eliminated three enemies with a burst of magic, but five more took their place.
“We need fire. We’re not doing enough damage, these guys are weak to fire and nothing else,” Blade huffed as he made decapitated three enemies of his own. His fatigue dulled his senses, and he was ambushed by a fourth and flung into a nearby tree.
Dan Heng let out an alarmed cry as he watched Blade weakly cough and spit out blood.
“I’m fine,” Blade rasped, wiping the corner of his lips with his sleeve and staggering back upright. “We need… Himeko. She should still be on the Express right? It’s not… far from here. You should run and get her.” Their phones had long been crushed as the fight went on, meaning that they needed to get help the old-fashioned way.
“What are you saying? Are you insane? You’ll—” die.
“I won’t,” Blade assured, guessing what Dan Heng had been about to say; what Dan Heng couldn’t say. “Mara, remember? I can’t die. We’re so close, we’re almost done with the mission, we just need to—” he grunted, pivoting and quickly downing two enemies that had been coming at him from behind, “—get back to the Express. You know we can’t outrun them, there are too many of them and they’re faster than us when we’re like this. Think logically! This is the best way. I don’t know where these guys came from, but if this carries on we’ll be overwhelmed. We need Himeko, Dan Heng. I can’t die, and with your Leaping Dragon technique, you can get there faster than me.”
“What if the mara takes control forever?”
“I trust you,” Blade said. “You’ll get me back.”
“Then at least let me heal you first!”
“Don’t bother,” Blade refuted immediately. “I know you’re nearing your limits. You need to save your energy to get to Himeko. Don’t waste it on me. Even if I die, I’ll just come back to life anyway,” he said wryly. “Now go!”
Dan Heng cursed Blade for being so logical. Leaving a comrade behind went against every moral in his being…
…but Blade was right. It was the best way.
It might even be the only way.
“Annoying,” Dan Heng grumbled, resigned. He activated his technique and met Blade’s eyes in a silent promise. “I’ll be back.”
The time that it took Dan Heng to reach the Express, offer a panicked explanation, and return with Himeko was ranked up there in the top ten most stressful moments of his life. Ironically, it tied with the time he was trying to run from Blade across IPC ships—the very man he was now trying to save.
When Dan Heng and Himeko arrived, they were greeted with carnage. While there were still a considerable number of enemies left, Dan Heng recalled there being distinctly more when he had left. In the middle of the chaos, a bloodstained Blade swung his sword over and over again, not even slowed down by the injuries he was sustaining.
“Mara,” Dan Heng breathed. “Himeko, I—”
“Go,” Himeko said immediately. “I’ll take care of things here.”
Dan Heng sprang into action, sprinting into the fray and colliding with Blade in a full body tackle to get him out of the fight. He dodged the sword that Blade swung at him. Digging deep into his nearly-depleted reserves, he urged healing energy into Blade, a well-practiced manoeuvre by now. Behind him, he heard Himeko drawing the enemies’ attention and he sighed in relief when he felt the enemies turn toward Himeko.
“… Dan Heng?” Blade rasped, blinking back into consciousness, brows furrowing at the gap in his memories. “Mara?” he asked.
Dan Heng made an affirmative sound, and Blade nodded. According to plan, then.
Blade looked down and noticed his unbroken skin under the torn fabric of his clothes. “You healed my injuries too? You idiot! You don’t have enough energy for that! Just the mara would have been more than enough—”
“Annoying,” Dan Heng grunted, interrupting the man’s chiding. “Just… say… thank you…”
Dan Heng’s knees buckled, and Blade hurriedly reached out to intercept his fall, kneeling on the ground and cradling Dan Heng’s unconscious form to his chest.
“Dan Heng? Dan Heng! Hey, you’re joking… right? This isn’t funny… Dan Heng?” Blade patted the man’s cheeks frantically but he remained limp.
Panic and despair warred within Blade. Why now? Why would fate be so cruel as to have Dan Heng survive all the times Blade tried to kill him, only for him to die now, when Blade no longer wanted him dead?
He startled when Himeko squatted down in front of him, not having noticed her approach. The charred corpses behind her let Blade know that the battle was over. Himeko laid two fingers on Dan Heng’s neck, over his carotid artery, and waited a few moments.
“He’s going to be fine. He’s just overexerted himself, I think. Happens more often than you think with this one. We should get him back Express—can you walk with him?” she asked, straightening.
Blade nodded, standing with Dan Heng in a bridal carry.
Himeko looked at him and decided that he looked stable enough.
“All right then, let’s go.”
Thankfully, Himeko had been right. Three days in the infirmary and Dan Heng was just about fully recovered.
“You’re all set,” Himeko nodded in satisfaction, discarding the last of the used bandages. “I have to admit, I’m kind of jealous of your healing factor. Must be nice to recover from a cracked rib in three days without even using your abilities.”
“If you get hurt, I would be more than happy to help,” Dan Heng offered genuinely, earning himself a ruffle on the head and a laugh from Himeko.
“I’ll hold you to it,” she said. “By the way, there’s a certain Stellaron Hunter who would probably benefit from a visit from you,” she divulged, learning closer conspiratorially. “Silver Wolf has apparently complained to Caelus and March, who complained to me, that the person in question has been moping around and is being a ‘grumpy ass’. If you ask me, it sounds a lot like a certain member of Astral Express Crew, who once accidentally hit Welt in the cheek because he was startled, then proceeded to shut himself in his room and refused to—”
“Okay! Okay, I get it already, stop,” Dan Heng groused at Himeko’s teasing, ears turning red. “I’ll see if I can help Blade, you don’t need to convince me further.”
Dan Heng ignored Himeko’s soft laughter as he walked out of the infirmary and down the corridor of the Express, stopping outside Blade’s door. He knocked thrice.
“Blade? It’s Dan Heng, can I come in?”
There was a long silence, and Dan Heng almost considered leaving, but then there was a quiet noise of acquiescence. Dan Heng tried the door and found it unlocked, so he opened it and slid in unobtrusively. Blade was hunched over at his table, legs pulled to his chest.
“Hey, how are you holding up?” Dan Heng asked, walking over to face the man.
It was… awkward, to say the least. The last mission had turned their dynamic on its head. Himeko had told Dan Heng (with a suspicious grin) that Blade had been “very worried” about him when he’d collapsed and had watched them like a hawk as they nursed him back to health, only leaving when he was satisfied that Dan Heng would make a full recovery. Combined with the weird emotional spiel Blade had dumped on him in the motel room and Dan Heng’s own admission that he didn’t not like Blade (which, in hindsight, was such a mortifying thing to say), Dan Heng didn’t know where they stood with each other.
“Blade…? Blade—what the—”
The room was dim, but Dan Heng could still clearly make out the blood trickling down Blade’s upper arms from the jagged tears in his skin. Blade’s fingers were bloody and Dan Heng quickly put two and two together.
“Blade, look at me,” Dan Heng ordered, willing his voice not to shake. He sat on his heels to bring himself down to Blade’s eye level and put a finger under his chin to nudge his head towards him.
Blade flinched at the skin contact and Dan Heng quickly withdrew.
“All right, all right, I won’t touch you,” Dan Heng assured gently, “but you need to let me help, okay? Can you tell me what’s wrong?”
“…Hurts,” Blade finally mumbles.
“What hurts? Is it the pain from the mara again?”
A shaky nod.
“Okay, okay.” This is fixable, Dan Heng calmed himself. He could fix this. “I can help you with that, but I’ll need to touch you. I just need one hand. Will you let me?”
Slowly, Blade released his death grip on one of his arms and extended a hand out. Dan Heng exhaled, gripping the offered hand, ignoring the blood staining his skin and the way it trembled. For the second time in four days, Dan Heng tapped on his abilities and forced the mara down, feeling Blade’s tense muscles relax. He persisted until the fresh wounds on Blade’s arms healed over before stopping. Even after he stopped, Blade made no move to take his hand back, and Dan Heng didn’t release his grip.
“There. That’s better now, isn’t it?” Dan Heng asked. The surge of adrenaline from finding Blade bleeding had him feeling shaky.
Blade nodded again.
“That’s good,” Dan Heng offered a smile. “I’m sorry, the mara must have flared up because I was stuck in the infirmary, right?”
“Don’t be sorry,” Blade spoke, his voice was hoarse from disuse. “My condition is not your responsibility. And…” he looked away, “it was my fault you were in there, anyway.”
And thus, they had arrived at the reason why Dan Heng had even come here to begin with.
Dan Heng hummed. “Tell me why you think it’s your fault?”
“Because you overexerted yourself for me,” Blade regarded him incredulously, as though Dan Heng was stupid for needing to be told this. “If I hadn’t been overcome by mara—”
“Then you would have died,” Dan Heng cut off. “And I would take three days in the infirmary over that any day.”
“You could have just left me once you and Himeko cleared out the enemies—I would have come out of it sooner or later.”
“We don’t know that,” was Dan Heng’s swift rebuttal. “I know that on the Luofu, it got so bad that Kafka had to use her Spirit Whisper to keep you under. The mara had been in control for nearly a week back then, hadn’t it? And you said yourself that you’re afraid that one day you might never come back up. That’s not a risk I’m willing to take. I subdued the mara and recovered in less than the average time than it would have taken the mara to subside naturally, anyway. Think logically.” He threw Blade’s words from the battle back at him.
Blade grumbled unintelligibly under his breath. Then, louder, “I hate logic.”
“I did too, during the fight,” Dan Heng admitted, then blinked hard to clear his head of the memories. “So, we’re even now, right? I’ve gotten through to you and you’re going to stop moping and being a grumpy ass?”
Blade squinted at Dan Heng. “What do you mean a grumpy—hey!”
He was forced to cut himself off as he was pulled to his feet and herded to the attached bathroom. He watched as Dan Heng wet a washcloth and brought it to his arms, carefully wiping them down and getting rid of the blood that had dried there.
“Hey… Blade? Can I ask you something?” Dan Heng’s voice was hesitant, a complete change from the way he’d confidently uprooted him from his chair and pulled him into the bathroom just minutes earlier.
Blade made a noise of assent.
“That… self-injury thing from earlier… Why do you do it?” Dan Heng finished rinsing the cloth and hung it up to dry.
Blade let his head fall backwards against the wall with a muffled thump. “It helps, I guess,” he said. “Chronic pain is one of the ways my mara affects me, you know this. When it gets bad, like just now, I learned that when I have physical pain it helps me… ground myself. It hurts so much on the inside, like my nerves and muscles are just all over the place. It builds and swells it’s just… a lot. Too much.” He closes his eyes and doesn’t pull away when Dan Heng tentatively wraps one of his hands between two of his smaller ones. “If there’s a physical pain, it helps to relieve some of the pressure, like when you release the pressure valve on something close to bursting.”
Dan Heng remembered wondering how on Earth Blade managed to clean out a first aid kit in two weeks. He remembered wondering how Blade survived bad episodes of mara-induced pain without Dan Heng’s healing previously.
Well, he had his answer.
“So… this is a mara thing, right? It’s not like…” Dan Heng trailed off, unsure how to phrase his question.
Fortunately, Blade understood where he was coming from. “It’s a ‘mara thing’, don’t worry,” he confirmed. “I… What you were asking about, that’s not something I struggle with.”
Dan Heng’s relief was visible and he nodded.
The silence stretched on, getting thinner, thinner—
“Listen—”
“I—”
They looked at each other, and Dan Heng indicated for Blade to go first.
“That night in the motel…” Blade looked conflicted for a moment before taking a deep breath. “You said you didn’t not like me. What did you mean?”
“You heard that?” Dan Heng yelped, then buried his face in his hands.
Blade waited for Dan Heng to collect himself, a little amused at the red spreading across his ears and neck. He couldn’t see his face, but he would bet it was equally red.
“I don’t really know either,” Dan Heng confessed, once he’d wrestled his embarrassment under control. “I just… I know I always say you’re annoying. And you are! But it’s not annoying in a way that makes me mad. At least, now you don’t? In the parlour car that night with the first aid kit, when I saw you on the kitchen floor that day when you were baking cookies, when you left me that cookie at my door—yes, I know you were behind it, I just… I’m annoyed that you make me feel this way! I didn’t know else to express myself! I don’t even know what I’m feeling,” he whined. “Then you said all those things that night at the motel, and I realised… I feel the same way. Obviously not the part about wanting to die, but like… I… enjoy having you, um, around.”
Blade’s heart was about to burst out of his chest from sheer joy when Dan Heng admitted to reciprocating his feelings. “And you decided to express this by saying ‘I don’t not like you’?” he asked dryly.
“Stop... Don’t tease me,” Dan Heng groaned.
I’ve never felt this way about anyone before, Dan Heng wanted to say, but realised that wasn’t entirely true, because in his mind's eye—
Dan Feng’s heart, warming in the same way when looking at Yingxing as Dan Heng’s had when he received that cookie from Blade.
Dan Feng’s heart, dropping in the same way when seeing Yingxing hurt as Dan Heng’s had when Blade had been writhing from pain inflicted by his mara, had been flung into that tree, had split his skin open trying to escape his pain.
Dan Feng's heart, pounding against the cage of his ribs as he presented Yingxing with one half of a matching pair of bracers and told him that he completed him and asked to court him, the same way that Dan Heng's was now, saying all these things to Blade.
Oh.
“Blade…” Dan Heng began uncertainly. “I think—”
“Can I kiss you?” Blade whispered gently.
March shot to her feet, immediately noticing Blade and Dan Heng’s intertwined hands when they entered the parlour car.
“Hah! I win! You owe me a hundred credits, Caelus!”
Dan Heng’s jaw dropped. “You bet on me?”
“We bet on you both, to be specific,” Caelus clarified, grudgingly handing the credits over to a gloating March. “I bet you’d get together end of next month. March bet end of this week.”
Dan Heng was still in shock.
“You guys were dancing around each other like lovesick puppies,” Silver Wolf added, deadpan. “It wasn’t that hard to guess. When Blade suggested leaving you that cookie, I knew it was only a matter of time.”
The man in question turned an impressive shade of scarlet.
“I see that congratulations are in order,” Himeko said, smiling and setting her coffee down and rising from the coffee table to stand closer to them. “I already told Kafka, she should be here soon.”
Welt had also made his way over in the commotion and nodded in agreement with Himeko. “Congratulations, you two.”
Just then, Kafka entered the room, eyes immediately drawn to the crowd around Blade and Dan Heng, and then to the couple’s hands. She grinned and clapped her hands together once.
“Well then, mission accomplished. It’s time for us to go, Stellaron Hunters,” she announced.
Silver Wolf had clearly been informed of this beforehand, because she joined Kafka’s side without hesitation or question. Blade, however, had very much not been informed of this beforehand. He felt bile creep up his throat. He opened his mouth to protest, but Kafka held up a hand.
“Not you, Bladie. You’re staying here.”
Dread was slowly replaced by confusion. “What do you mean I’m staying here?”
“You’re not coming back with us. You belong here, with him. With Dan Heng. Himeko and Welt have already agreed.”
The pieces were still not connecting.
“This was Elio’s plan all along when he sent us here,” Kafka elaborated. “The outcome you desired, Bladie. You always thought it was death, but this is better, isn’t it? The two of you are what Elio referred to as kindred, a fated pair. In every lifetime, you would have found each other. It’s destiny.”
“But…” The Stellaron Hunters were his family. It was cruel, tearing him away from them so suddenly. He loved Dan Heng, yes, but he loved the Stellaron Hunters too. Just because it was a different kind of love didn’t mean he loved them any less.
Sensing Blade’s conflict, Kafka looked at him warmly, in stark contrast to her usual cold and aloof demeanour. “Don’t worry, Bladie,” She stepped forward to cup Blade’s cheek, running a thumb under his eye. “We’ll still be dropping by often. I think Silver Wolf has already made plans to return in three days for the launch of some new game she wants to play with March and Caelus.”
“You won’t get rid of us that easily!” Silver Wolf assured, grinning.
Blade nodded, blinking back the tears that had sprung to his eyes at the thought of having to part ways from the Stellaron Hunters forever.
Kafka stepped back to Silver Wolf’s side once she saw that Blade had calmed down. “I’ll see you in three days, Bladie.”
A trembling smile. “See you in three days.”
“Ow, ow, ow!” Dan Heng hissed, pulling his hand away to inspect the cut he’d just given himself and giving the knife a dirty look.
“For all your book smarts and your combat prowess, you’re actually completely hopeless in the kitchen, aren’t you?” Blade let out a long-suffering sigh and gestured for Dan Heng’s hand. “Let me see.”
Dan Heng had insisted on making a meal for Blade to commemorate him joining the Astral Express Crew. When March and Caelus found out about their dinner plans, they had given Blade pitying looks and promised to save both of them a portion of dinner. Blade had been confused then, but it all made sense now. They had been here for thirty minutes and Dan Heng had managed to crack two eggs into a bowl (barely) and chop a single carrot. Worse still, Dan Heng had insisted that he would do everything and Blade just had to “sit there and look pretty”, banning the latter from helping out.
Blade would have strangled him if he didn’t love him.
“How hard is it to use a knife? Would it be better if I brought Cloud Piercer over for you to slice these potatoes?” Blade teased once he was satisfied that Dan Heng hadn’t somehow managed to slice off a finger. He turned to retrieve their first aid kit from its cabinet. He knew that it was just a clean slice across his palm that would heal over in barely an hour with Dan Heng's healing factor, but he was a mother hen. Sue him.
“Blade…” Dan Heng turned puppy eyes on the man. “I’m trying!”
Blade rolled his eyes, but his tone was affectionate.
“Ren,” he said, “call me Ren.”
“What—”
A package of gauze landed in front of Dan Heng, and he looked up to see Blade—no, Ren—smiling gently at him.
“You’re bleeding all over the floor.”