Work Text:
It felt like forever since Caelus had dropped by the archives.
Ever since the Express had departed from the Luofu, he'd felt so distant. Every time Dan Heng tried to invite him over to his room, initiate anything, or even just talk to him, he would pull away.
Dan Heng felt... repulsive. He'd scared him away. Did Caelus, too, feel he was the monster his past self had been made out to be?
It made it difficult to work. Dan Heng's chest and shoulders felt like there was a 200 pound weight sitting on it all the time. Facing his predecessor's consequences, being hunted down, and worst of all—he'd lost his light.
Talking to the others was just fine. He did not share these fears with anyone... except Himeko.
“I... suppose it's to be expected.” Dan Heng, sitting in the coach alone with Himeko, bounces his leg anxiously. “And yet, it still pains me. It's like we're strangers. Worse than strangers—like he knows me, and he doesn't like it.”
Himeko slowly runs her fingers through her hair, watching the cosmos passing by through the great big windows. “Are you sure it's hatred?”
“Maybe not hatred, but rather some kind of...petrifying fear of me. Who I am.”
Himeko closes her eyes. “Maybe it isn't fear. Fear implied a perceived danger. Have you considered that maybe Caelus is just...apprehensive?”
Dan Heng huffs a quiet, somewhat cynical laugh. “Apprehensive. Being nervous doesn't make you repulsed by someone.”
“Maybe he's avoiding you because he's in his own head, too. What about you? Have you brought this up to him, or just tried initiating things without addressing the elephant in the room?”
Dan Heng feels a twinge of guilt. “No, I haven't... brought it up directly.”
Himeko smiles kindly at him. “Then start with that. The rest will follow.”
Caelus knocks on Dan Heng's door softly. “Dan Heng? You wanted to see me?”
The door to the archives slides open. Dan Heng is dressed in his sleepclothes. “Yes, I just wanted to talk to you about something. Come in.”
Caelus steps into the archives, slowly walking over to Dan Heng's futon and sinking down onto it. He picks at his nails nervously. “Is everything okay?”
Dan Heng sits beside him. “That's my line. I...”
Caelus blinks, then looks up at him.
Dan Heng takes a deep breath. “..I feel like you've been avoiding me. Rejecting me. And that's... okay, if you don't want it anymore. Me, that is.” His voice is a bit shaky towards the end of his statements, his nerves getting the better of him. “I just want to know why. And if there's anything I can do to help. That's..
what I'm here for, Caelus.”
The gray-haired man looks back down at the swirling blue shapes on the floor, thinking for about a minute, which feels like ten with the palpable tension in the room. Finally, he speaks. “I have. I know.”
He thinks for another second or two. “I'm, um. I—it's not—that I'm not attracted to you. Of course I am. It's just... things feel... different. Like—I guess I feel like you might... feel forced. To be here, on the Express. You can go home, y'know?” He pauses again.
“I feel like you don't...belong here. Ah, wait!” Caelus immediately adds, to Dan Heng's mild amusement, “Not that I'm kicking you out! I mean—like, you deserve to be...free. You can go back home. With Jing Yuan and Bailu and the like—they're all quite fond of you, really. I just... it feels wrong to keep doing things as usual with you when... I feel like we have you caged here.”
Caelus swallows dryly. “Am I making sense?”
Dan Heng, listening intently, speaks up. “You are. I think...your mistake here is thinking I'm not already home.”
Dan Heng reaches out and touches Caelus's hand. Caelus laces their fingers together. His are trembling a little bit. “This is where I feel I belong. With you and March. And Himeko and Welt and Pom-Pom too, of course.
If anything, the Luofu is my cage. I would be stationary, and I would be... alone. Not entirely, of course, but it would feel that way.” Dan Heng slowly lifts their joined hands to his cheek. “I love you, and I love my life as it is right now, in this moment.”
Caelus squeezes his hand, feeling a bit of a lump in his throat. He wraps his arms around him tightly. A thin “I love you too” is all he can muster.
“I'm not going anywhere, Caelus.”
The two remain that way for a long time, Dan Heng rubbing slow circles in his back. Caelus breaks the silence, lifting his head to look Dan Heng in the eyes. “..Prove it?”
Dan Heng blinks. “How?”
Caelus hums, his face flushing a bit as he averts his gaze. He leans in a little, then looks back up at him expectantly.
Dan Heng stares back dumbly and does absolutely nothing.
Caelus bursts into soft, bell-like laughter. “Kiss me!”
“..Oh.” A bit embarrassed, Dan Heng tugs Caelus into his lap and kisses his lips so he doesn't see his sheepish expression.
Caelus is as warm and soft against his mouth as ever. His skin is just a little hotter than it should be, like he has a constant fever. Dan Heng knows now that it's from the Stellaron, though he'd fretted over it when they first met, fearing he was ill.
Dan Heng should make sure, just to be thorough, that his mouth is just the same as it has always been. He nibbles at his lips, and Caelus easily opens them for him.
Dan Heng doesn't know how Caelus could change his whole attitude so quickly, but now he's wrestled Dan Heng down onto the bed, and the dark-haired man certainly isn't complaining.
Soft, warm hands touch Dan Heng's hips and come to hold them, and Dan Heng makes a soft sound. When Caelus pulls away from the kiss, he can see that he's had quite the effect on him. Caelus chuckles teasingly, and Dan Heng huffs, his face red.
“You don't usually get worked up so easy. It's cute.” Caelus kisses along his jawline, and Dan Heng slides his hands up the back of his shirt to feel his skin.
“I can't help it. It's been a long time,” Dan Heng mumbles.
“Pent up?” He slowly slides a hand up his thigh. “Is this okay?”
Dan Heng exhales, nodding near frantically. “Please.”
Dan Heng closes his eyes, and oh, Caelus is touching it. His hand is groping him through his shorts again like he used to, and it feels good and he's here and he loves him, he loves him and he isn't going away and—
Dan Heng cries out, his hips suddenly bucking upwards. He quickly covers his mouth. Caelus doesn't think he's ever seen Dan Heng so red, and he smiles, equally flushed. “Did you just cum?”
Dan Heng nods without removing his hands. Caelus slides his shorts off to look, and indeed, there's a string of white seeping out from his dark green boxers. Caelus finds it cute. Dan Heng finds it absolutely humiliating, and Caelus realizes he's genuinely a little upset, so he moves to hold him.
“You okay? It's alright; I don't care. I just wanted to see you feel good, Dan Heng,” he reassures. “It happens to everyone. Remember our first time?”
Dan Heng just clears his throat. “I—Yes, it's fine. I'm fine. Just embarrassed. I feel...immature. You didn't even get to finish yet.”
Caelus chuckles. “That's fine. But...by the by...” he gives Dan Heng a waggish look.
“...think you handle more?”
Dan Heng has Caelus trapped.
Caelus is entirely docile and malleable with his beloved Dan Heng. Whatever his lover wants, he can have. Dan Heng has him pinned with his knees pushed up against his chest, albeit a bit uncomfortably, but Caelus is way too excited to care.
Dan Heng's tip is positioned, slotted perfectly into the divet where Caelus's hole is. The golden ball of light illuminating Caelus's chest is glowing bright, brighter than usual. Dan Heng's eyes glow with a beautiful aquamarine light that reminds Caelus of the swirling floor beneath the futon. In his human form, his eyes are usually dull, but not now. With Caelus under him, they are far from dim.
Glowing. The two of them are glowing.
Dan Heng slots his hands under his knees. “Ready?”
“Mhm.”
“Deep breath.”
Caelus complies, then exhales sharply as Dan Heng's cock begins to stretch him. “Oh fuck,” Dan Heng swears under his breath, sinking inside that heat—hot, it feels almost like a burn—and then he's right up against his hips. He remains there for a while. Caelus can faintly feel him throbbing inside him to his heartbeat.
“Move?” Caelus's voice is pleading, and Dan Heng answers by beginning to piston his hips.
The dark-haired man takes it slow, still cautious from his last incident about 30 minutes ago. Caelus knows this won't do, squeezing his arms promptingly after about 5 minutes of this. “Dan Heng.”
“Yes?”
Caelus pulls on his arms and brings him down, his head now caged in by Dan Heng's elbows.
“Fuck me.”
Dan Heng is all too eager to oblige, and his hips quicken. He can see the way Caelus's body bounces on the futon, how his chest and eyes glow, watches his mouth fall open with soft "ah, ah, ah"s punctuating each of his thrusts, sees his neglected dick making a mess on his tummy. Dan Heng thinks he could die like this. How beautiful he was, taken apart. Dan Heng moans lowly into his ear, licking over the shell of it.
“Don't stop, don't stop,” Caelus pleads. “Stay, stay here—I'm all yours; you can have me as long as you don't leave.”
Dan Heng kisses his temple tenderly despite the speed with which their hips come together, soft clapping sounds that get louder as they hurdle towards that edge together. “I'm not going anywhere, Caelus, ah—I love you; I'm all yours and I'm right here,” he murmurs. He pulls back to look him in the eyes.
Caelus is struck in that moment with the feeling that he is entirely encapsulated by Dan Heng's presence. Being fucked rough on sheets that smell like him, feeling his warm skin, hearing his voice, his breaths, looking into his eyes. It doesn't feel all-encompassing, as that would be an invasion. Caelus feels as if it is a welcome sensation, one that Caelus invites and coaxes into his mind, like inhaling a pleasant scent.
Caelus closes his eyes when Dan Heng leans down and bites down into the junction between his neck and shoulders. “I'm gonna cum,” he mumbles. “I want you to cum inside, okay? When you cum, please—ah—please, fill me,” he stutters, his head permeated with fog. Dan Heng just groans and nods in affirmation.
Caelus wraps his legs around his hips, his moans turning into whimpers and whines until finally he calls Dan Heng's name repeatedly, and the way he tightens around him tells Dan Heng he's cumming just before he feels a hot liquid paint the little space there is between them.
It only takes a few more thrusts before Dan Heng groans in his ear, sinks all the way inside once more, and lets go for the second time that night. This time feels much more fulfilling, feeling his own semen fill Caelus's warm insides around him. He remains here for a minute, catching his breath, before slowly pulling out and flopping onto the futon beside him.
Caelus immediately rolls over and clings to him like he'd die if he was separated from him for more than an instant. Dan Heng reciprocates his neediness, tangling their legs together. Caelus smells like sweat and himself. Dan Heng quite likes that.
“I love you,” Caelus murmurs, and he presses one more soft kiss to his lips. Dan Heng tangles his fingers in his hair.
“I love you too, Caelus. For as long as you'll have me.”