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Thirteen days into the campaign of August's incessant rains, Silver Wolf finds Ren in the Stelleron Hunters' lodge. The ebb and flow of his rumination is disrupted in a series of predictable events—with the rhythmic tapping of her shoes growing in volume, the tune of some indie video game playing out of her phone; Ren registers her presence in front of his futile body before he sees her. This is not quite an uncommon occurrence given how much Ren has become accustomed to accompanying Silver Wolf whenever she feels her restlessness down to the bone, but those usual demands never find him. Instead, a pregnant silence hollows out the distance between them— expecting.
Ren is the first to give in. Opening his heavy eyes costs him a few fleeting seconds of blurring yellows and blues, the sun retracing back into the moon's embrace and painting the entire room into an amalgamation of their oscillation. He catches the glint in Silver Wolf's eyes as the world rushes back to embalm his soul from the grime of immortality, getting the gist of yet another precarious situation he’s about to be hauled into.
Ren sighs. Silver Wolf is often, which is to say almost all the time, never a herald of anything good. This fleeting thought is cemented into his mind even further when she picks up her phone and shows Ren what can only be a paragraph sent by a seemingly frantic March 7th, followed by an unnecessarily long spam of what Ren has come to know is a crying ‘emoji’.
Before Ren can even finish reading a quarter of March 7th's illegible message, Silver Wolf turns her phone and walks away. “Your feisty dragon’s in dire need of some help, Let’s go, lover boy.”
Ren has no choice but to follow in her footsteps. The only thing he allows himself to think is: Huh.
.⋆♱⃓
‘Something is wrong.’ is Rens first and most obvious thought as he enters the Express’ Archives. The entire room is damp; the kind of dampness that finds its way between pressed old scrolls and bestows onto them a persistent mold. That destroys centuries of care pressed into the spines of ancient records, the kind of wetness that presses onto one's skin and takes and takes until it's too late to realize it’s not to engulf one in its affection but to wring the flesh dry.
At the very least, Dan Heng seems to be having loose control over it from where his body writhes on his bed, a shadow cast over his entire being; reduced to a shield but never a sword, his entire being immobilized. The windows are stained with faint droplets, the same that make Ren's unruly hair stick to his face like an uncomfortable and persistent itch.
He pays it no mind. To be the vessel of a corpse means to adjust. It is the compromising and dehumanizing of his trembling hands and the reopening of closed wounds that is the wax and wane of his centuries long mourning. Something as mundane as cloudhymn leeching onto his marred skin is akin to a promise of a fulfilling life; it can only hope to move him and nothing more.
Dan Heng's breathing is faint clamor as Ren finally allows himself to acknowledge and approach he who still feels like a distant branch of his own rooting, the entangled and interwoven fate of theirs long forgotten under newly garnered soil. Dan Heng shudders amidst his inner turmoil, the sheen of his sweat reflecting the all-devouring galaxy outside the cabin's windows and illuminating his worryingly pale skin into a draconic green.
Ren watches and watches like an owl. He almost loses himself to the sight of his retribution, sunken and unconscious in his bed sheets as his breathing gets fainter and fainter, until the rustles of his tossing and turning overshadow what little is left of his beating heart.
Ironically, Ren has a lingering memory of exactly the predicament Dan Heng has found himself in. For all of Dan Heng's meticulously planned detachment from the identity of his past incarnation, it is the ordinary, overlooked little margin of error that brings down Dan Heng's house of cards.
Qi deviation is an uncommon and highly unlikely predicament to be plaguing most Vidhyadhara. Dan Heng is no exception. For him to be reduced to such a sickly state only reflects hard-earned, long standing neglect, so perfectly aligned with the cognitive dissonance between Dan Heng's mind; a young force in constant motion and his heart, steel-willed and stubborn in its axis.
Ren hates how it makes perfect sense. He hates that this burden too has fallen onto his wretched shoulders. He hates it even more that he doesn’t mind. Such is their cruel intertwining fates, red string cutting off his throat and heart and everything in between.
Dan Heng sneezes on the bed, shoulders shaking hysterically as he curls in on himself. The sight of his lips parted in silent complaints makes Ren's heart churn carnally. A snake coiling around its prey; an all-consuming greed. The urge to devour, to envelope, to hate— to love.
Ren pushes himself away from Dan Heng. Dutifully, he collects the scattered herbs around the Archive and finds a conveniently placed prescription, instruction manual and heated pot. It is almost comical how the Astral Express find themselves incapable of administering Vidhyadhara medicine, despite their Archives being managed by one.
No matter. Ren settles down in front of Dan Heng’s cluttered desk, turns his brain off, and gets to work.
.⋆♱⃓
An indistinguishable amount of time passes. Ren ceases to exist mentally, or so it often seems, weaving between timelines, fingers grazing the grass of an exiled land to hot metal and even hotter temperaments. At what point in an unnecessarily long lifetime does one start acknowledging severance from reality as a disorder and no longer poorly disillusioned ‘contemplation’? Or is it the absence of acknowledgment that solidifies that condition?
As Ren lethargically stirs the herbs in the heated pot, he distantly hears the door of the Archives yank open and two hurried footsteps storm in. From the distorted shadows cast into the dim room, Ren recognizes them to be Dan Heng’s two companions.
“He’s going— What?! Oh my god! Stelle,” March 7th shrieks, her widened eyes darting from the brewing medicine to the Stellaron Hunter's suffocating and imposing presence. She coils back to hide her small body behind Stelle's.
“Ren?” Stelle wonders, leaning over to see the decoction he’s spent possibly the past five hours stirring. In the background, March peeks her head out to fret over Dan Heng’s weakening state. “Are you sure you know what you’re doing?” She asks.
“Mn.” Ren holds up the prescription scrolls to spur an explanation from Stelle.
Stelle sighs. “We found Dan Heng unconscious a few days ago. Bailu was the only one who was able to prescribe anything. But none of us have been able to figure out how to make the ancient medicine, and Dan Heng keeps getting worse.”
“And contacting Bailu again was not an option?” Ren questions. He cocks his head in acknowledgment of March's approaching steps, “Do not get too close when he’s unwell.”
“S-so he isn’t dying, right?” March zones in on his diagnosis of Dan Heng being simply unwell, nowhere close to escaping his life-long fate. At the same time, Stelle answers: “We can’t contact her for some reason.”
Ren ignores Stelle's reply in favor of quelling Marchs’ visible anxiety. “His foolish negligence does not grant him the right to abolish the fate he’s doomed us both to.”
‘I refuse to let him die.’ goes unsaid but administered nonetheless.
He dismisses them both. The medicine is almost done. Any longer and it would turn toxic which Ren refuses to risk, especially when Dan Heng is audibly grasping on his last straws, his pale and cold body rivaling the cruel gaze of his past incarnation. Somehow, the worst has still yet to come, and it’s now Ren's duty to ensure that Dan Heng makes it to that point.
With his two companions gone, Dan Heng's unnaturally slow breathing rivals the cadence of a soul long departed. Ren approaches him with a spoonful of the medicine, kneeling beside his head and moving away the frayed bangs from his face. In doing so, Dan Heng shifts his head to prolong the warmth seeping through Ren’s bandages, his skin submerged under a frail layer of cloudhymn.
Something churns in him. It’s the desire to soothe Dan Heng, however impractical it may be. Ren can only attempt to subdue that feeling through his century long dissociation and isolation. It’s the classic tale of a cat and mouse chase, not quite there yet close enough to repeat the cycle; he still succumbs to it all the same. “You haven’t changed one bit,” Ren grumbles as he brings the spoon to Dan Heng’s lips, all too aware that he’s not any different from the statement he boldly accuses the Vidhyadhara of. Such is the irony of their tattered fate.
Dan Heng takes the medicine as well as he can with half his soul drenched into the liminal space of death— which is to say, barely; terribly, lacking, corpse-like.
It does the job.
Ren has no doubt the medicine tastes as bitter as they come. Consequently, he also recalls Imbibitor Lunae cursing Yingxing after he recovered. Apparently, life threatening sickness caused by bone-deep neglect and torturing oneself to be immune to thirty different poisons does not build up a tolerance to bitter medicine.
Dan Heng's face scrunches, incoherent complaints leaving his mouth as small droplets line the smudged red under his eyes. In an attempt to soothe him, Ren hums as he runs his hand through those sticky bangs, his warm touch alighting the cold air, like spider lilies blossoming through the cold surface of the moon.
Hawk-line, Ren’s eyes zero onto the way a glistening drop of tear kisses Dan Heng's cheek as it drifts away, and then those same eyes that the tear departed from sift open slowly.
Dan Heng's gaze descends upon the stars littering his roof; focusing, unfocusing, left, right and onto— Ren?
Ren watches the sequence unfold—a series of events that are not even qualified to be considered minuscule in the grand scheme of his immortal life. Dan Heng's eyes reek of affliction. It is in the way his lashes tremble with the weight of holding them open, and in his drifting gaze, rhythmic in the way all things are chaotic. It creates a pitiful sight.
“Ren…” The whisper of his name falls gently into the hands of the milieu that cradles them both, a gentle rocking of their ongoing tale. The words tremble weakly. Dan Heng looks at him wearily, not quite into his eyes but towards the general direction; unfocused. Ren can only focus on the way his lips quiver, unbeknownst to his withheld breath. “The medicine… bitter…”
Ren sighs. “It is a byproduct of your neglect," he says, yet his words do not crash as harshly as he intends for them to. His own mouth has betrayed him, it seems.
“Urgh…” Dan Heng reigns his control back the slightest amount, and the room inches just barely closer to its usual warmth. “It’s too cold here,” his pointy ear twitches, “Don’t look at me in this state.”
A low chuckle rumbles from where Ren sits. He does Dan Heng the kind favor of pulling his blanket higher, almost up to his chin. “I don’t think you are in a position to be making demands, Dan Heng.” Ren says slowly. “Not after your foolishness has led you to almost denying us retribution.” He’s merely jesting, of course. Their retribution has been cemented in the far future, a black hole they’re slowly catapulting toward.
“Ugh… Is everyone else okay? Are you…?” Dan Heng barely gets out until a sneeze shakes his entire core. The Vidhyadhara groans in misery. Ren brings his hand to Dan Heng's temple and then slides it down to his pale neck, almost entirely too soft. Abnormally warm skin greets him, his fingers sticking onto the surface of that damp skin—a little pull before the contact breaks away. To his touch, Dan Heng almost nuzzles. Ren retraces his hand. The medicine works fast, or so it seems.
“They seem incapable of creating Vidhyadhara medicine but they’re fine. What will it take for you to focus on yourself first?” Ren says plainly and watches as Dan Heng's eyebrows furrow in another bout of sneezing. It draws something warm in him that Ren refuses to uncover.
“Nevermind. Where does the Astral Express keep their heaters?” Breaking Dan Heng's fever quickly becomes priority and Ren moves to get up, but any importance of it flies out of the window when Dan Heng looks at him through his clumped lashes and asks him a simple request. One so inconsequential that Ren would have simply ignored it if it were someone else, but as most things associated with Dan Heng, this too exists in a paradox that only crucifies them further.
“Stay.” One word of just four letters. Something one can count on their mere fingers, one syllable that reverberates between two souls before it's lost forever— And yet.
And yet it destroys Ren to his core. Aims not for his heart but his roots, interwoven into scattered memories of a love that bordered on worship and a damnation 700 years past. To stay is not just to remain; it is the implication to keep that promise, to replace what he was going to retrieve— it is to become that warmth for Dan Heng.
Ren stood no chance.
The culmination of their reckoning. Given up for one syllable. four letters.
“…You ruin me.” Ren’s battered fingers push away loose strands of hair that have scattered over Dan Heng's face from his sneezing and teases the cherry-like redness blooming on his pointy ears between his fingers. The rubescent smears towards the dragon's cheeks, so close that it rivals the red eyeliner lined underneath Dan Heng's lower lashes.
Trailing upwards on that line of sight draws Ren entirely into Dan Heng’s compelling eyes. As they meet, the world departs from them ever so slightly, a loose end here and one untangled there. In that space remains suspended only them and the melodic song of their heartbeats fusing into one.
Dan Heng blinks twice impatiently, scooting to the side the best that he can within his poorly addled state. “It’s not contagious, you know.” He whispers, sniffling ever so slightly.
Ren lets out a dry laugh as he shuffles the pot of medicine closer. “Demanding as ever.” He claims, but goes under the sheets without any restraint. “You must take the medicine every few hours.” He says as Dan Heng makes a flimsy attempt at covering him with the blanket.
The heart-warming act gets shut down immediately. “No need.” Ren murmurs and tucks Dan Heng into the blanket from all sides, wrapped up in its warm bubble. He looks admittedly cute like this, color returning to his face the slightest amount and eyes glimmering as they glare at him. His hair, splayed onto his pillow forms its own starry night of swirls and tangles, and his horns glow faintly underneath the reflection of the rooms glow.
Dan Heng writhes on the bed, “I can’t move my arms.” he complains. His jostling in turn shakes Ren, who almost bumps into the medicine pot rested beside him. He makes a noise of displeasure, gently grasping Dan Heng’s chin with his hand as he closes the distance between them.
“That might be for the best then, hm?” Dan Heng's pupils dilate at the inch of air between them, eyes darting from Ren's lips to his eyes chaotically. “Rest.” is all Ren says before he pulls away, crossing his arms across his chest in his usual fashion and closing his eyes as a mental timer begins in his head.
Dan Heng utters some fusses before he ultimately gives up. Ren can hear his breathing, more feeble than usual but steady nonetheless. He only has to count to for about thirty seconds before Dan Heng falls into the clutches of his dreams, and only then does Ren finally feel the churning of his mind ease.
Time stretches out once more, coalescing seconds into minutes, and minutes into hours, and hours into centuries, and despair into revenge. An innocent fire gets distorted into a weapon, and another runs, runs, runs as far as he can. Time expands like two hearts under a drunken moonlight, it pulls and pulls until it reverberates back a shattered moon and two drunken souls.
Ren comes back to small footsteps outside the Express’ door. The entire room flickers on and off as he blinks away the darkness. A second later, the door peels open just an inch, a curtain of warm light creeping into the gloom. March peeks in, not quite meeting him but recognizing his silhouette. Accompanying her is warmth pulled right off the stove, two bowls of chicken broth that Ren has spent centuries of his life familiar with.
She still seems to be apprehensive of him, approaching him unsurely. He does not blame her. Her concern is proportionate, but he lacks any desire to prove her otherwise. Instead, he accepts the bowls of soup with a silent thanks, and she rushes away after a second of peering over Dan Heng’s state. At the very least, it seems like she’s alright with the idea of him in Ren's hands.
Dan Heng too, seems to have been stirred out of his slumber by the thick scent of food, pushing himself upright as he rubs the sleep out of his eyes. “Was that March?” He asks, and then does a full body yawn which resembles a feline more than a human.
“Mn,” Ren hands him a bowl, “It’s hot. Hold it close to your chest.”
Dan Heng practically blooms alive as warmth begins to slip a hold onto his hands, basking in the flavour of the soup despite not having tasted it at all. It is not a far exaggeration to say that his tail regains life like a dry rock being bathed in sea water. The Vidhyadhara brings a spoonful close to his mouth, blowing it a few times. Ren can already tell that it’s still hot, and will most likely burn his tongue but fails to raise the warning before Dan Heng practically inhales it.
“Ack!” He splatters, dropping the spoon back into the bowl as he sticks his tongue out in despair.
“Heh. Surely you don’t need me to feed you, Dan Heng?” He muses, just for the simple sake of riling the man up. Such has become the joys of his detached life; teasing Dan Heng and occasionally biting off more he can chew.
Said man only glares at him from the corner of his eyes, not quite the full reward of getting on his nerves but still a reward nonetheless. “There’s no need for that.” He grumbles sternly, his ears betraying him as they stain red yet again.
Cute. Ren thinks as Dan Heng drinks his soup, astronomically slower out of precaution, unbeknownst to Ren's heart doing triple somersaults. He’s so cute. I want to eat him. Or kill myself. Or both.
“Who burdened you to be here?” Dan Heng asks, obliviously. Ren recalls March's long message, mostly consisting of crying faces, and her overflowing worry over Dan Heng's condition.
“The pink haired one expressed her concern,” Ren dismisses the implication of being burdened, “I thought you were smart enough not to get yourself so thoroughly sick.” He chides, but Dan Heng refuses to do anything about it.
“I don’t want to talk about it.” He says, and Ren waits for a good ten seconds to let him reflect on his words before speaking.
“They care about you, Dan Heng. Life on the Astral Express suits you.” Ren says softly and Dan Heng’s hand freezes where it’s hovering over the bowl. Ren can’t see his pretty face from where his bangs fall and sheathe it, but his lithe shoulders remain stiff, as if burdened with the weight of the universe.
Dan Heng sighs. “I didn’t mean to…” He trails off, setting the bowl down in his lap to rub a hand over his face, “I miscalculated how bad it got after Amphoreus.” He says, as if ‘it’ is something of its own value, a qualitative measure of something substantive. A penchant for neglect melded into his days of trailblazing and his nights of indexing.
Ren runs his hair through Dan Heng’s long hair before pushing it over his far shoulder. Still tense, he rubs the pale shoulder to soothe him, a silent acknowledgement of his words and the consecutive acceptance of his confession, until those shoulders relax with a deep sigh and Dan Heng resumes eating.
“Ren...” his name is uttered softly, as if to not disturb the quietude of the room. Dan Heng turns to him, holding out an empty bowl and initiating eye contact so strong it rivals the entrancing call of a siren. “Does it not bother you to do these things?” For me. goes unsaid.
Ren stares and stares. Doesn’t know how to tell Dan Heng that being in his proximity makes it easier to breathe. That he makes Ren's body feel less like a burning furnace and melts it down to just… being. That there is no such word in any language or vocabulary that can reflect how satiated he makes him feel.
Dan Heng’s eyes quiver more as the seconds pass away painfully slow. Ren reaches his hand out to take his empty bowl, his larger hand enveloping Dan Heng’s cooler one in a warm embrace. Their fingers touch for a long moment, and he lets them.
“You don’t bother me.” is all Ren can muster himself to say, but it does the job. Their axis resets, and thus rebegins their synchronous orbiting; Jupiter and his moon. Dan Heng’s fingers twitch from where they share heat with Rens, and he moves the bowl away but intertwines their fingers languidly. “Take your medicine.” He says, and the Vidhyadharas’ fingers tighten their grip.
“It’s too bitter…” He complains, but does not refuse. “I'll take it.” He reaches out for the spoon with his free hand but Ren swats it away with a hush, hovering the spoon over his mouth and watching as Dan Heng lips part to let the spoon through, eyes immediately brimmed with glittering tears and eyebrows contorted, his entire face scrunched up as he swallows it with unease. Ren puts the spoon down as coughs wreck through Dan Heng’s already frail body, a whine leaving him as he tilts his body to rest it against Ren.
“It’s horrible enough to make sure I never get this sick again,” Dan Heng mutters absentmindedly, his entire focus honed into the nauseating whirl of herbs assimilating his throat. Ren glares at him from the corner of his eyes, as if saying ‘the medicine is enough to ensure you take care of yourself, but not your deprecating health?’ Dan Heng bristles at his gaze.
Regretting it immediately, he brings his palm up to Dan Heng’s cheek, thumb rubbing underneath the crimson lining his eyes and breaking away those fresh tears of anguish before they slip down the red of his cheeks. Dan Heng’s lashes flutter as Ren's other hand that still remains interwoven with his tightens its grip, not to suffocate but to ground.
“You will be fine.” As long as I am here.
Dan Heng’s eyes trail up his face, little footsteps of fervor that end up submerged in his lips, and then his eyes— and then a hitch of breath, as Ren's own thumb presses ever so gently onto Dan Heng’s bottom one— a wonder; if he tastes like the mystical salvation of pomegranate seeds, warm molasses of life’s ebb and flow. If those lips can truly be his release into nirvana like he always feels, wanting the push and pull of their souls so desperately that it almost renders him insane.
“I don’t do half’s, Dan Heng,” Ren whispers, releasing his lip to cup his face properly, “There’s no going back after this,” he warns, just the idea of it being disheartening. Ren doesn’t have a lot. He barely has anything at all, but what he does have, he will hold it with his entire life. To love in moderation was never a privilege he had. The only privilege he’s perhaps ever had in life, was to be able to be with Dan Heng like this again, not even remotely close to a second chance but a loose straw in his trajectory anyway.
Dan Heng’s eyebrows furrow, dilated pupils almost veiling the teal of his eyes wholly. The bare glimpse of a glare as he whispers, “Good. Don’t break that promise.” Before Ren's mind can fully process the weight of those words, a hand slips between the back of his hair and warm lips crash against his.
A gasp escapes Ren’s lips, but he presses back into that saccharine feeling. For all the times their weapons have met in an indistinguishable clash of forces and their bloody hands have clawed at each other to rip out whatever remains reachable, the press of their lips lacks that violence; sitting at the polar opposite of the axis.
Reminiscent of a ceremony, the opening custom of their lips slotting together has Ren's mind spinning as they come together again deliberately slow as to relish the pleasure. He uses his thumb to guide Dan Heng into parting his lips. The slide of his tongue on the Vidhyadhara’s lip leaves the retreating bitterness of the medicine, but it crashes and falls the second Dan Heng's tongue meets his own. The desire to devour, the need to consume Dan Heng whole overrides every single thing in Ren's mind.
Ren kisses him harder, and Dan Heng's grip on his hair tightens, almost tugging it, and thus begins their push and pull; Ren teases his tongue against Dan Heng’s upper lip before nipping it with his teeth, a slight tug that inevitably increases the tug on his hair. He rubs at Dan Heng’s pointy ear, tilting his head back to kiss him deeper. He wants to encapsulate Dan Heng so deep that they become one, inseparable from every dimension.
“Ren…” Small moans escape through Dan Heng as his body trembles, spurring Ren to squeeze his hand as he pecks his lips, pulling back to give him a second to breathe. The sight that greets him has his chest tightening, feeling increasingly hot all over his body.
Dan Heng looks thoroughly ruined, his lips bitten red and his eyes unfocused, tears gathered in them from the lack of air. His chest heaves as he chases Ren's lips for a moment, breath warmer than usual before he loosens his grip on Ren's hair. His entire body too, quivers in what is evidently a herald of the medicines effects. Ren, colossally attuned to everything that makes Dan Heng who he is, spots these little signs too easily but Dan Heng persists, the end of his tail slapping left and right in a carnal show of longing.
“Final lapse of your treatment,” Ren says, and then presses yet another kiss on Dan Heng’s lips, “Go to sleep, your entire body is getting weak again.”
“Why—“ Dan Heng is cut off by Ren gently pushing his shoulders down onto the bed. It would’ve been entirely provocative if they hadn’t stop kissing, but he refuses to be the reason why Dan Heng exerts himself.
The Vidhyadara goes down pliantly. A groan leaves his lips as his head spins and his back meets the bedding, sore. “This isn’t over,” he whispers sternly, but it falls like two pinkies intertwining; a promise.
Ren only lies down beside him, hand wrapping around his lithe waist, some of his long hair curling around his fingers as his tail wraps around Ren’s ankle, a small but constant weight. He nuzzles his head into Dan Heng's shoulder, where his collarbone sticks out ever so slightly. Soft whispers of kisses tickle his skin as Ren's breath brushes against it, the cacophony of low purring stringing from Dan Heng's body as he falls into slumber.
Against the thrumming of Dan Heng's body and the steady rise and fall of his breathing, Ren too closes his eyes and joins his lover into the free fall of their sleep.
.⋆♱⃓
Ren doesn't dream, but he awakens abruptly. There is the lingering tinge of seawater from the waterscape drying on his tongue and a heavy weight writhing on his body. He peels one eye open to adjust to the light draped like a curtain over the Archives, and registers the silhouette of Dan Heng perched over him, his legs spread on either side of him as his hands rest on Ren's chest to hold him up. The glare from the window sheathes half of his face, a dark shadow sunken into Dan Heng's dilated eyes.
“What are—“ Ren cuts off with a hiss when the man on top of him grinds down onto his lap, sparking a pressure that has his blood rushing to his head. Dan Heng leans over him, his long hair cascading over them like a veil, soft strands brushing Ren's cheek as he grabs that lithe waist, meeting Dan Heng's slender eyes with enlarged ones of his own. His warmth seeps into Ren’s body, nails digging into his chest as Rens eyes trail over his body, engraving the sight before him into his memory.
“Finish what you started.” Dan Heng whispers, his voice sharp and poisonous as he leans closer, and then crashes their lips together before Ren can even resign to his fate. All he can do is succumb, giving up his colossal being in its entirety; a self sacrificial act of worship. In that small room remains just the two of them, sewn together and intertwined forever.