you don’t kiss dan heng first.
surprising, because dan heng—cautious, hesitant, wary of risking anything he loves—is the kind of guy that would weather an event of cosmic proportions before he even considers anything beyond companionship. there are too many factors at play, too many risks, too many people that want his heart on a platter (in more ways than one). he’d say you already put yourself in enough danger as is, and dan heng wouldn’t risk making you collateral damage unless the world was ending.
and maybe that’s it. because, well, once he got over that hurdle—
“took you long enough—mmph!”
—the trailblaze’s “all or nothing” spirit makes itself evident.
march shrieks. phainon drops dawnmaker with a clatter. balance coins jingle as they change hands—hey, that’s your job!—but the insult dissipates once you finally realize what’s happening.
dan heng is kissing you. dan heng. and he’s doing it with the kind of desperation that commits eon-old taboos.
your hands scramble to find an anchor. heat sinks beneath your skin, a claim. the world blurs to nothing but two, and for the first time in your life, you know what falling must feel like—endless, dizzying, and unsteadying enough to cut fate’s puppets from their strings.
his lips stay soft even as he steals your air and your kiss, as greedy hands pull you flush to his chest like it could keep your wild heart from running free. your hands find their way to his shoulders, his neck, his face, and you would think he’s unlearned shame from the way his tail wraps behind you. he’s taller than before you left and frantically relieved in a way that makes your heart stutter. you taste deliberation unraveled, caution cast aside, and love that has waited millenia to be received.
a soft noise escapes, one that he swallows without question, taking the chance to tilt his head and fall further into you. you're hardly given a chance to breathe. when you try to, he nips at your lip and hums—pleased, the bastard—when you melt back into him.
“dan heng,” you try, the name muffled between your mouths.
the slightest tap against his cheek, and you two break apart with a little gasp. dazed, you allow him to litter apologetic pecks—slower, less frantic—against your throat as you try to catch your breath.
“h—wow, okay—ah, not—that i’m against this, but“—a few more slow kisses pressed to your face, into the soft of your cheeks and the crown of your head—“is this a new way of saying i miss you?”
“i missed you,” he confirms. “aeons above, you have no idea.” your name follows with the utmost tenderness, as though he’s finally found home.
the laugh that escapes you is breathless, staggered with a smile on your face. “oh, you’re bold now. where did sir silent-and-stoic go?”
“learned his lesson,” dan heng says simply, muffled against your temple.
“gasp, i didn’t know you liked me so much! for how long?”
but tragically, before he can answer—(and maybe continue with his affections)—stelle leaps at the two of you with march and sunday in tow and turns the junior express crew into a pile on the ground. you can’t help but laugh with them, joy incandescent.
and dan heng, your hand still in his, looks at you with the kind of devotion that undoes you from the inside out, that rages in the face of loss and thinks about again and again and never again.
it echoes through you as dawn breaks after an eternal night. when light falls on the world, dan heng looks at you like you’re his.
