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It takes the sunlight on his back for Dan Heng to feel whole again.
Still, the chill of the Shackling Prison lingers in his bones, below his skin where he can't reach. He knows, from the first time he left, that it will last quite a while. Maybe it will be less time, this time, but it will still be far longer than he's comfortable with.
Despite the warmth of the sun, he shivers.
"Hey," Caelus says next to him, bumping his arm. "You okay?" The look that crosses his face is filled with instant regret. "No, wait, nevermind, forget I even asked that. Stupid question."
"I'm… okay." The word feels like sandpaper on his tongue. "No need to worry about me."
Caelus frowns in the corner of his eye. Dan Heng is far more focused on the ground, and the water, and the sun above his head. Aeons, he's cold.
"We should go back to the Express," Caelus says. It's a welcome change of topic. There's a part of Dan Heng that longs for the warmth of the Archives, the peace of the files, the blankets on his bed. However…
"They wanted us to have a medical checkup before clearing us to leave," Dan Heng says. "We can't just-"
(Even if the thought of a doctor on the Luofu still makes his skin prickle, he can't risk angering them. Not again.)
"Yes, we can," Caelus says. "What are they going to do, stop us?" He feels more than sees Caelus reach through space to the Space Anchor on the Express, and the world twists below their feet. It makes him feel far more nauseous than he's happy with, but the sheer relief he feels when the ground is replaced with the carpet of the Passenger Car hallway outweighs it enough that he doesn't even care.
"They'll look for us," he protests, but it's feeble. Knowing Bailu, she wouldn't look for very long. Knowing Lingsha (which, honestly, he barely did), she'd go along with that. Knowing Jing Yuan, as the person who gave the orders, he probably already knew and had decided to let them leave.
Then again, he's still a bit surprised they'd actually let him walk back out of the Shackling Prison on his own two feet, so his opinions may not be the most… reliable at the moment, as much as he loathes that admittance.
The carefully-heated air in the Passenger Car still feels cold against his skin. He stifles another shiver. Clearly not enough, he thinks, because Caelus looks back at him immediately afterwards. He doesn't say a word, though. He just reaches towards the door of the Archives and slides it open.
Dan Heng steps back into the only true home he's ever had and wonders why it feels like something has changed. Everything is exactly where he left it right before he set foot back on the Luofu; there are even still a handful of books left resting on his desk, one propped open with a pen between the pages. He'd at least saved his current entry before walking out. Still, though, his room feels different than it had before.
He's not sure what to do, at first. The swirling lights of the artificial water feel entrancing, like he can't tear his eyes away to process how to be a human being. (Not that he is. Not that he ever will be.) He just isn't sure where to start. With anything. At all.
He's still cold.
A hand against his arm shocks him out of his stunned state. There's a look in Caelus's eyes that Dan Heng doesn't like seeing directed at him anywhere but the mirror. He dares not name it.
"Dan Heng," says Caelus, too soft, more than he deserves. "You even feel cold. Cmon, let's go sit down."
Dan Heng is in no state to disagree. He simply lets himself be led over to his own futon by the arm, thinking the whole way about the warmth of the hand on his arm, even through his jacket. How long had it been since he'd just let someone touch him? He finds he doesn't want Caelus to let go.
Having a blanket wrapped around his shoulders does help with the cold, just a little bit. He's long struggled to produce enough body heat to keep himself warm, though, relying on the Archives' built in heater many nights. Whether it was biology or a side effect of his childhood, he's unsure. The result, though, was that the blanket alone didn't, couldn't, feel like enough.
He thinks, briefly, about the feeling of Caelus's arms wrapped around him. They would manage to chase away the chill with ease, his own personal sun on this cloudy day. The blanket would be enough eventually, though. It would just take a much longer time. There's no way he could just ask Caelus to-
"Dan Heng?" His voice sounds worried, and Caelus should not sound like that. Not about Dan Heng, who hadn't even realized he was still talking. "If you wanted me to leave, that's good too, I don't have to stick around if you don't-"
"Stay," he forces out through lips that want nothing more than to stay sealed. "Please."
Caelus lowers himself from kneeling next to Dan Heng to sitting properly on the blankets. He shift tugs at the blanket over Dan Heng's shoulders, and he curls his fingers tighter into the edges to make sure it stays put. He's tired of giving things up.
(There are a lot of things Dan Heng is tired of, not that he'd ever allow them to change enough to free himself.)
"You're still shivering," Caelus points out, and briefly the thought of ducking under the blanket enough to hide himself passes through Dan Heng's head. "Anything else I can help with? Like, do you have a sneaky lizard guy heat lamp hidden somewhere in here, or…"
The thought tears a strangled laugh from his throat. Dan Heng, curled up under a heat lamp, basking in its light without a care in the world… he's not sure he could ever be that person. Whenever he wishes he could, he just thinks about those four walls he grew up between, and thinks about how much worse it could be. His present is fine. He does not need more.
It still doesn't stop him from wanting, though.
"No. I am… alright." He tugs the blanket tighter around his shoulders, like the motion will make him feel warmer. It would work for anyone normal, but he's well aware he's anything but.
Maybe he should have just stayed on the Luofu. Even the artificial sun would have banished this chill by now. He's not even sure if he's still really cold or if the memory has sunk into his bones, bit into him with teeth sharper than the borisin inside. He would have survived the scrutiny and the medical checkup and the increased guards; they would claim it was for his safety, but he always knew the truth.
(The Astral Express has no sun, not even an artificial replica, but he finds it warmer regardless.)
Dan Heng expects Caelus to leave. The other Trailblazer has his own bedroom now; he can go relax on his own now that their mission is over, before they're inevitably called back in to report back. What he doesn't expect is this: Caelus comes to join him on his bed, sitting down next to him on top of the very edges of his blanket, scooting it out of the way so it isn't trapped under his crossed legs. Dan Heng blinks owlishly back at him, a question unspoken.
Caelus shrugged. "It's nice in here. You don't mind, right?"
Usually he would mind. The Archives are a public place, he always says, then locks the door the moment he wants a moment to himself. Right now, though, he itches to reach out and take Caelus's hand, and he's not even quite sure why.
Caelus isn't done talking, though. "Look. I kinda want to try something. Tell me to fuck off if you want, I won't mind, but-"
Arms wrap around Dan Heng's shoulders, over the blanket, and he holds back a shiver he tells himself was just the cold. Caelus doesn't hold him tightly, doesn't make him feel trapped. He just holds him.
It's just as warm as his hand was.
Dan Heng had spent a very long time with a very strange relationship to physical touch. It made his skin crawl, made him want more, made him want to run. It reminded him of the chains in the Shackling Prison and of the sunlight when he stepped outside for the first time in his life. It was, to say the least, complicated.
This time, though, he finds himself wanting more, nearly craving it. Caelus chases the cold away like that was the reason for his creation. It's not just because of the cold, though; he wants it because it's Caelus.
Aeons, this was a bad time for a realization.
It's then that he realizes how awkward this position is for Caelus; half sitting, half kneeling, arms looped around Dan Heng's shoulders like he wished he could hold him more tightly. His knees were probably going to end up hurting soon. Quietly, carefully, he reaches up to wrap his arms back around Caelus and slowly shifts him back to a seated position.
(He's never been on this end of a hug before; the one where he's actually in a position to hug back. It feels strange. He never wants to let go.)
"I'll take that as It's fine, Caelus," Caelus whispers into his ear, mouth so close Dan Heng can feel his breath. "I'm glad. I didn't want to just leave you in the cold."
Whatever response Dan Heng had planned in his head fails to leave his mouth as more than a incoherent noise. He lets go just long enough to grab the corners of the blanket and wrap it around Caelus's shoulders, held together by his arms, nestling the pair of them together in the bed. It might be the warmest Dan Heng has ever felt.
He wants this. He wants more of this, so, so badly. He's not used to wanting things.
"Caelus," he says, quiet. "Stay."
"You got it," Caelus says back, just as quietly. "I'm not going anywhere."