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After weeks of anxiety, watching his texts to Caelus finally swap to Sent is… relieving.
Anything outside Okhema was a deadzone for the World Wound Web, and Dan Heng knew that well from his trips to Castrum Kremnos and the Grove. That didn't mean that sending Caelus on his way to Styxia, dead, didn't leave him a bit worried when his messages didn't go through.
Now they've sent, though. Now, standing in the Vortex of Genesis with the Chrysos Heirs, he knows Caelus is coming back home, and soon.
Weeks ago, Dan Heng had been standing in the broken wreckage of a train car, desperate and pleading with the universe to just wake Caelus back up. Before that rock had knocked him out, he'd resorted to Cloudhymn. Despite knowing he had never been able to heal, that the ability had been stripped from him before birth, he'd dumped every ounce of his power into the body at his knees, pants soaking in blood, begging just for something to happen, for it to work.
Then he'd awoken with Caelus in his face, and for a little bit, Dan Heng had felt… proud, maybe? That wasn't the right word. Satisfied, maybe, or even just happy, that he had done something positive for once. That he had healed Caelus, that his fellow Trailblazer had woken back up at his hands, that he'd actually succeeded for once in his life.
Then, of course, it all came tumbling back down again.
Phainon elbows his arm, as gently as possible with his armor in the way. "You're doing it again," he says quietly. The water in the Basin trembles along with Dan Heng's hands. He focuses hard enough to get the water to stop. His hands are a different story.
Footsteps echo throughout the Vortex, from the entrance behind him, and Dan Heng processes far too quickly that it's only one pair. They would have told him if Castorice had failed. They would have told him. Or would Caelus have texted him when coming back to Okhema, instead of Dan Heng simply getting spammed with a wall of unsents from Styxia?
He swallows, hard. It does nothing to calm him. There is a part of him that doesn't want to face the reality behind him, in case it's the reality he doesn't want.
(Dan Heng is so, so tired of losing.)
There is no way else to do this, though. He turns around, and is greeted by Caelus and Mem.
This means Castorice is gone. Death herself has been left behind beyond the veil, and yet Dan Heng can't find it in himself to be upset right now. He's spent so much time being upset. In this moment, all he wants is something of his own.
"Hey, Dan Heng," says Caelus, smiling. "I'm back."
Before he can stop his own feet, he's closed the distance between the two of them. "Caelus, I…" He trails off. The words freeze themselves in his throat, stick like honey. He makes a noise, frustrated, and for once in his life, flings his arms around Caelus's neck.
It's not a comfortable hug. Initiating contact like this is not something Dan Heng usually, or ever, does. But Caelus is warm, and he clings to that warmth like a moth to a flame. Head buried in Caelus's shoulder, one hand inches up to the artery in his neck, feeling his pulse pounding out a steady rhythm beneath his fingers. Real. Alive. Caelus wraps his arms back around Dan Heng slowly.
Dan Heng could cry. He hasn't cried in decades, not since he was a child.
"You missed me that much, huh?" Caelus asks, teasing. There's an obvious expected answer here, one that would keep up their usual banter easily.
"Yes," he says instead, muffled against the fabric of Caelus's jacket. "I did."
The position isn't quite a comfortable one, though. Dan Heng slowly processes that he's still standing in front of the entire group of Chrysos Heirs, and that electric undercurrent is back to buzzing underneath his skin everywhere he's being touched. Reluctantly, he detangles his arms from Caelus, steps back to take a look at him. He looks alive, in a way that Dan Heng hadn't known he'd been missing earlier. It's something he can't explain, because Caelus had looked alive the entire time he'd been dead as well. Now, though, he's living, and it shows.
(He hadn't failed, not permanently. This time, Caelus had lived.)
"You can tell me the story later," says Dan Heng. "We're all here for a reason."
He knows, deep in his chest the same way he knows to find Cloudhymn magic, that Thanatos's Coreflame is here, successful. Even then, without Castorice present to claim it…
That's an issue for later.
Phainon from behind him starts talking, "Ah, you two are-" before a hiss of Snowy, not now! cuts him off. Mem laughs over Caelus's shoulder. Dan Heng can't help but feel thankful for Tribbie, even without knowing the rest of the sentence. He's not quite in the mood to think right now. It's unfair to Caelus, who has clearly been through much worse in recent days, but… he's been tired for a long, long time.
~~~
They head back to their room once they're sure Thanatos's Coreflame is secured. It's a quick enough trip, since the entrance to the Vortex is right inside the room in the first place. Once inside, Caelus throws himself right down on one of their lounges. "I could sleep for a week after all of that." Mem wordlessly agrees, folding themself into the void with a dramatic yawn.
"Please try not to. Aglaea will likely need us again soon."
"No promises." Caelus covers his eyes with his arms dramatically. "It's calling me. I can hear it in the distance."
There's a part of Dan Heng that doesn't ever want to see Caelus lying still again. There's a part of him that will spend a long, long time seeing a dead body that no longer exists.
There's another part of him that replies, "Wear earplugs, then."
"You're so mean!" complains Caelus, and Dan Heng ignores the smile curling at the edges of his lips.
"How about instead you tell me what happened while you were gone?" Dan Heng suggests. Caelus hadn't even reported properly to Aglaea yet. They knew about Castorice's departure, that much was for sure, but the details of Styxia and how Caelus was here safe and sound, heart beating in his chest again, were still lost.
And Caelus does. He describes a city of the dead, flooded waist deep along major roads by the River of Souls. He talks about figuring out how to twine Time just right between his fingers, pulling the past into the present long enough to wade through the waters. The dragon skeleton makes something in Dan Heng twist, not painfully but not nicely either, and its revival as Castorice's dragon Pollux feels similar.
"It sounds beautiful," Dan Heng finally says. "I wish I could have seen it for myself."
"Yeah," says Caelus. "It would have been nice. I think you would have hated it this time."
Dan Heng looks Caelus in the eyes, holds it as long as he can stand. Yes, he thinks. I would have. But I would have been with you.
The helplessness while he was left behind in Okhema was a feeling he did not enjoy. After a fruitless Grove search, he was once again left empty handed. There was nothing Dan Heng hated more than the inability to help. It was, of course, his whole purpose as the guard and archivist of the Express: if someone needed help in battle, he was there to defend, and if someone needed help with information, he was there as well. Not being able to help felt like watching with his hands tied behind his back, and if something went wrong it would be his fault for not being there.
It was his fault this time. If he had been faster—
"No," says Caelus. "I can see it. Don't."
"What?"
"You're blaming yourself again. Stop."
The toes of Caelus's shoes suddenly seem interesting. Even as averted as his eyes can go, there always seems to be a bit of him within view, like Dan Heng's eyes couldn't bear the idea of leaving Caelus for a second; like if he looked too far away it would all disappear again, like he'd be alone on Amphoreus without a single other outworlder.
(There's another part of him that objects to it being specifically Caelus, and he's not quite sure why.)
He's been trying desperately to be more open though. "It does still feel like my fault."
"If anything, it was Nikador's. Are you going to go blame Mydei?"
"If I had just noticed sooner on the train, or—"
"Nope. Still not doing this. Not your fault, at all."
If he looks at the wrong angle he can still see the blood under his fingernails. How could it not be his fault? He keeps his mouth shut, though. Caelus, of all people, will not hear it.
Instead, he makes a simple gesture: he reaches out for Caelus's wrist, and Caelus lets him take it. Two fingers press down on his skin, hunting for the pulse beneath and finding it. Shakily, he breathes out.
"You keep doing that," Caelus says quietly. "Checking my pulse whenever you can."
When Dan Heng removes his hand and lets Caelus's wrist drop, he mourns the lack of warmth. It becomes nebulous again, like if he looks away for too long he'll be alone in the room again. Still, he can't bring himself to look back.
"It's a reminder," he says, matching the volume. "That you succeeded where I couldn't. That you succeeded at all."
(He is so, so tired.)
Hands settle on his shoulders, jarring, and he looks back up into sharp golden eyes. "Dan Heng," says Caelus. "I know I'm not going to convince you, but this was not your fault. None of it was."
Dan Heng breathes out, shaky. The hands on his shoulders feel so warm they might be burning him.
"Listen to my breathing," continues Caelus. "Listen to my heartbeat. It's here. It isn't an illusion. You can keep checking until you've convinced yourself."
It makes him feel even more guilty that Caelus is the one having to comfort him. He'd just come back from death itself, Dan Heng should be the one there for him instead.
And yet… there's a part of him that relishes the attention, that craves it like warm sunlight after the cold. It's the same piece of him that sometimes longs just to be held. Giving in would impact his ability to take care of the others, because he could take care of himself and protecting them was his duty.
His thumb rubs circles on the inside of his palm. "If you actually wanted to sleep, please feel free. Don't stay awake on my behalf." It's a way out and Dan Heng knows it, but he needs time. Everything is still far too fresh to reopen the wound. Running is the selfish choice, but—
Caelus breathes out and Dan Heng watches his shoulders slump with the movement. If weeks of simply waiting have taken this effect on Dan Heng, he cannot even imagine how Caelus must feel. Tired down to the bones, most likely, stripped clean like the skeleton draped over the walls of Styxia and reanimated in a matter of minutes. He can understand the feeling.
"Sleep, Caelus," he says gently. "I'll be here when you wake up."
Dan Heng busies himself with archival work while Caelus settles on the lounge, and by the time he's gathered everything his fellow Trailblazer brought back from his trip, Caelus is already asleep with one arm over his eyes to block out the sun. He settles on the lounge opposite, spreading some of the documents out on the table in between.
If Caelus is finally here, alive, Dan Heng's going to need a bit to let that settle back in. If that means keeping him in sight for a while until the knot in his chest loosens up, then so be it.