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It starts as an unintentional kiss.
Caelus joins Dan Heng in his room under the ruse that he needs help finding a specific archival file. “It’s too much work to look through all of these myself,” he tells Caelus as if he’s never done that before, as if that isn’t his day-to-day life as the resident hermit aboard the Astral Express.
The excuse is flimsy, thin and sparse, but if Caelus notices, he says nothing. He just smiles, dips his head gently, and begins to cycle through file after file.
Shoulders together. Thighs and knees touching. Dan Heng’s pile of blankets and pillows is too poor to be called a bed but Caelus makes himself comfortable nonetheless, warm even through his clothing.
Dan Heng is a solitary man and yet he leans into it, seeking out that subtle heat, desperate to feel it, to taste it, to—
To what? No, no, this is a bad idea. Dan Heng is a shell of a man, prone to loneliness, bouncing around from ship to ship to stay prying eyes and mouths. The Astral Express has humbled him but even it will not be forever. Entertaining the idea of… something is not ideal. And Caelus—
Well, he wouldn’t enjoy a half-formed being who lives in the shadow of someone greater, would he?
“Dan Heng,” says Caelus then, leaning against him slightly. “This file here—it mentions the Xianzhou Luofu. See?” He turns his head just as Den Heng tilts towards him, and their mouths meet awkwardly.
Caelus jerks back, eyes wide. His mouth falls open. Dan Heng stills. The hair on his arms raises, and everything seems slow and sluggish. Anxiety pricks at his being as he hangs there, waiting in the balance, unsure if this should be ignored, or acknowledged, or—
Then Caelus’s tongue darts out to trace his bottom lip.
Dan Heng speaks first. “I should—we should—”
“Wait.” Caelus tugs at his sleeve gently. “That was—” He pauses, his throat bobbing as he swallows. He rubs the back of his neck sheepishly. “I know it was an accident.”
Relief floods Dan Heng’s being. No, he didn’t think that Caelus would take this badly, but he eases the situation by brushing it off.
Until he doesn’t.
“I liked it though. I…”
Everything tilts again like the train has been thrown off its axis. Dan Heng isn’t drowning, he finds that it’s heat rushing through his veins at the small admittance. Caelus’s voice washes over him, a boon, a blessing, a curse—Dan Heng doesn’t know which, he’s never—
Matters of the heart are pesky things and Dan Heng isn’t an unfeeling man. He yearns and he pines the same as anyone else. His gaze lingers on Caelus more as of late, appreciating his form. Caleus’s laughter, and his soft, sweet voice haunt his dreams.
Dan Heng rubs his face, pinching the bridge of his nose.
Caelus takes this as a bad sign, not a moment to catch his thoughts, to figure out where to go from here. “Ah, I see. You can forget about it. I’ll just—” He shifts in those blankets and gathers the screen he was holding, and his discarded jacket.
“Wait.” Dan Heng’s hand moves before he can stop it. Caelus’s wrist is soft underneath the calloused pads of his fingers. He rubs at the bone there in a way that he hopes is comforting, and says, “You’re warm. And soft. And you taste—”
This is going terribly. Dan Heng isn’t a smooth man. The sorts of things that he is well-practiced with are cutting down others, being inconspicuous, and dodging the authorities. People… he is not good with, even those he has an established rapport. And with Caelus, it’s worse because Dan Heng finds himself pulled at, he finds himself leaning into his space, trailing after him like Diting.
“Your lips are chapped,” replies Caelus. An equally stupid thing to say and Dan Heng, considers for a moment, that perhaps they are equally terrible at this. “Because you bite at them. I always see you… er, biting at them.”
Dan Heng laughs at that, unable to stop the soft snort as his hand drops to hide a smile. So, maybe he isn’t so disadvantaged here.
“Do you often find yourself looking at my lips?” It is meant as a tease but Caelus answers without skipping a beat.
“Yes.”
Oh. Dan Heng’s hand falls away from his mouth as he considers this. He’s awkward again, but it’s the good kind that’s equally shared, that settles on one’s bones not because they’ve been caught with their hand in a cookie jar, but because the moment is soft and a little silly.
“I, too, have thought about…” Dan Heng’s gaze flickers back to Caelus’s mouth, lingering on the soft swell and pout of his lips.
“You’re biting at them again,” says Caelus with a smile. He drops his things and leans into Dan Heng’s space, bracing himself on one hand. “When you do that, it just looks—”
“Like what?”
“Nice? I’m… admittedly out of my depth here. I don’t go around kissing people and if I have before I wouldn’t…” Caelus trails off with a shake of his head. “It doesn’t matter. This is about you. And me.”
“You and me and what?”
This close, Dan Heng can see all the fine details of Caelus’s face. A smattering of freckles, the slight creases around his eyes and mouth, a mole near where his jaw meets his throat on the left side; Dan Heng wants to explore each of them with his fingers and mouth; with soft and teasing caresses that would raise gooseflesh in their wake, that would have Caelus melting against him and the touch.
Easier said than done, right? But Caelus then smiles, a serene tug of his lips that makes all of this seem so simple.
“I want to kiss you. Can I kiss you?”
Dan Heng is the one to cross the space, to overstep that line that he drew in the sand ages ago with the pointed tip of Cloud Piercer. He cups Caelus’s face, tracing his thumb over the rise of his cheekbone. His calluses catch against smooth skin—and then there’s the gooseflesh and a soft sigh against his mouth as Caelus tilts his face for a better angle.
He has never kissed another before. Has never wanted to, nor needed to. It is a fumbling thing, and Caelus laughs against his mouth, lips parting ever so slightly.
“Like this,” he says, guiding Dan Heng slowly, sweetly. How to enjoy the heat of his mouth, or swallow those sounds. The drag of his tongue over slightly cracked lips, the taste of Caelus on his tongue.
When they part, Dan Heng is breathing heavily. Caelus presses his fingers against his mouth, feeling the way that they’re chapped.
“So?” asks Caelus, tugging at the lip, thumb pulling over the length of it.
Dan Heng thinks, he really thinks, weighing every possibility, every pro and con, committing the feel of Caelus against him to memory just in case. He’s prone to losing those—his memories—with every rebirth, and this is one that he’d rather keep close and relive.
The first press of their lips. Caelus laughing against his mouth, showing him what to do, what he likes, how to respond— Yes, yes.
“That look,” says Caelus, his expression fond. “Why so serious?”
“I’m just thinking.” Familiar words. How often do they have this exchange? Only this time it’s lighthearted, and Caelus invades his space. Dan Heng licks his lips. “It was nice. Caelus, I want… more.”
It’s a loaded request because he doesn’t mean just the kiss. Dan Heng wants to explore this, whatever this is.
“That must’ve hurt,” teases Caelus, reaching out to boop the tip of Den Heng’s nose.
“Complimenting you?”
“Making a selfish choice. Doing something for yourself, for once.”
Dan Heng is, admittedly, bad at that.
“Hey,” says Caelus, grabbing Dan Heng by the chin. “There’s that look you get.”
“What look?” Dan Heng’s question comes as a whisper because Caelus is close, his mouth just a breath away.
“The one you get when you worry too much. A line, right here—” He drags his finger down the spot between Dan Hang’s eyebrows. “One of the deepest furrows I’ve ever seen, and then the frown—”
“I don’t frown.”
“It’s cute, you know. You’re cute.”
Dan Heng’s cheeks flare, burning pink, he just knows it. His chest burns too, heavy with these feelings, with the weight of reciprocation. It may be too much, take too much of him. But this is Caelus, Dan Heng remembers, and Caelus is easy to be around, and kind, and patient.
“I didn’t invite you in here to look for a file,” blurts Dan Heng, thinking that it might be romantic.
It probably isn’t. But Caelus smiles, lighting up the room, and oh, that’s exactly the problem.
“Yeah, I know.”
And that’s a problem too—or maybe it's a good thing. Either way, this not-date is panning out differently than Dan Heng expected. He’d just wanted some time spent in shared air, knocking elbows and knees as they perused the archives.
“You know what would turn that frown upside down?”
“I think you’ve been listening to March a little too much,” comes Dan Heng’s dry reply.
Caelus tugs at his face and Dan Heng goes. This kiss is that same lazy sort of pace as the other, Caelus’s hand curled around the back of his neck as he coaxes Dan Heng’s mouth open.
“Relax,” he tells him, an absurd request because Dan Heng never relaxes, strung far too tight, like a marionette on a string.
But he does, here, at this moment, giving in to the kiss, into the way that Caelus eases onto his back in his sheets, yanking Dan Heng down with him. And Dan Heng goes, and goes and goes—and it is good.\