it was a quick little brush, born on the back of a burgeoning of affection he couldn't quite keep to himself. the stellaron is unable to muffle his adoration - not when dan heng is so near, not when after belobog their bond had only seemed to grow stronger. they'd all been relaxing in the parlor car - march prattling to welt about something she'd seen on the icy planet, and the vidyadhara likely curled up with a book. caelus is only passing by - making his way to the kitchen area to make a snack, but something... possesses him as he stands from his spot (seated next to the other, as always). he doesn't even think - doesn't even stop as the stellaron leans down to flutter his lips so sweetly across the corner of dan heng's cheek, in front of everyone. the train car goes silent - but he pays it no mind - meandering off to the dining car to prepare himself a snack.
it's around half an hour later that the trailblazer makes his way down the corridor, a bowl of ice cream in hand. his room is near the archives - but caelus doesn't even think to look in the shadowy alcove between the two, too bent on licking chocolate chips from the cusp of the spoon as he rounds the corner. sweet, he thinks, like dan heng's skin had been. the door to the archives whooshes open behind him, and caelus turns to look over his shoulder, a chirped: " oh hi, dan heng. " his only words as he continues on - as if he hadn't just gently kissed him in front of their entire team.
to be friends with a living stellaron like caelus was to be subject to a tactile friendship ; high fives, shoulder claps, and hugs were the simple norm. since becoming friends with march he thought he’d become used to a touchy friendship, but there was something about the way he interacted with caelus, from both exasperated endearisms to the unequivocal trust caelus put in dan heng ( and it was a relatively new thing for the archivist, to the be trusted so wholly, to be treasured with such unrelenting devotion without having to prove himself worthy of it ) that prompted an emotion he hadn’t quite experienced before. maybe he had known it once - in fleeting memories lifetimes before - but to the vidyadhara this was something new and bright, and it made his chest ache but … in a good way, like adrenaline, like trying new food for the first time, like leaping off a very high perch and believing for just a second he could touch the stars.
i would love to touch a star.
dan heng didn’t respond at first, shocked into stillness. he simply blinked, brain and body frozen while it tried to combat the heat spreading from where caelus had brushed lips against him. it was march in the end that caught his attention, brought out of his stupor by her manic grinning and only then did dan heng’s eyes widen, blush erupting over his cheeks with a resplendent vigor while he fumbles with the book in hand, nearly dropping it in shock. he knew that welt, himeko, and pompom were in the parlor too but he daren’t look at them right now processing caelus’ action with an embarrassing lack of grace. to save himself any more embarrassment the archivist quietly rose to excuse himself, walking at a much faster pace back to the privacy of the archives.
compartmentalising the new data from jarilo-vi was becoming an arduous task while his mind kept returning to caelus, to how soft his lips had felt against his cheek, how if dan heng had not frozen, startled, he might have suppressed the urge to kiss him back. but, did it mean the same coming from dan heng ? caelus had kissed him so easily. did he run circles around the decision beforehand like the archivist was now ? did caelus know what this emotion was, and did he feel it as well ? to feel as if there was a star imploding within, lighting up his skin with constant encroaching heat ? to crave it in a way dan heng had never understood before ? he had known needs like hunger, and air, but a want like this one – it was an entirely new experience. he was sure this curiosity would be his undoing.
he wasn’t entirely sure what did it, from his own fraying sanity to caelus’ carefree greeting, but his own self control snapped. shooting out like a snake, he grabbed onto caelus and dragged him into the archives with little care for the state of his ice cream. there he pressed the stellaron to the back of the archives door, caging him in with his arms until they were barely a hairs breadth apart. the vidyadhara was lost for a moment in the gilded hue of caelus’ eyes, grey – green eyes going from slits to dilating with desire, almost hungry draconic gaze following the slope of almost avian nose to rest on lips, no doubt sweet from the desert that lingered there. he spent an eon there, throat bobbing, nerves wracked, before he withdrew slowly. roseate hue remained on dan heng’s cheeks, as he retreated a suitable distance, one of his arms rising to cup the side of his own neck, as if to temper the way heat rushed through him like a steaming fissure.
‘ sorry, caelus, i … ’ so unused to the way caelus made his heartbeat thrum in his ears. ‘ … you make it really hard for me to think sometimes. ’