Work Text:
It starts when March drags him out into Belobog’s freezing winds to take pictures of everyone, everything, and every place before they leave, and this on its own is not particularly unusual.
March 7th, bold enough to name herself anew after the day she was found, is a boundlessly (sometimes frustratingly) cheerful girl who lets nothing contain her enthusiasm nor hamper her goals, just as not even the iciest weather can stop her from wearing a skirt.
Perhaps it’s not the most unusual thing Dan Heng has seen, especially considering her origins sealed in ice and her wielded element, in addition to the fact that the Trailblaze Path grants them all a certain level of environmental resistance— if anything, it’s more of her strangely personal nemesis-sworn vendetta against pants. Mr. Yang and Himeko spared no effort to ensure her comfort after she was first found and taken into the Astral Express, including providing her with an abundance of clothing choices. Any pair of pants March is gifted with is, in all but spoken words, instantaneously followed up with thank you so much, they’re perfect! By the way, does anyone happen to have a pair of scissors?
Dan Heng would know— she started out not-so subtly asking for scissors maybe a day or so later. Now she occasionally walks around the train wielding an arrow like a knife.
(Then again, March had already been doing that since deciding that her bow wasn't cool enough and complaining that she wanted a giant sword made of ice instead. Operation Star Crazing: Glass Greatsword has not yet worked out, and no, Dan Heng was not the one who came up with that name.)
“It’s just for some slight wardrobe adjustments!” she insists, as though that doesn’t reveal the fact that she’s been dismembering any article of bottom wear longer than 40 centimeters. Not that Himeko or Mr. Yang would have a problem with it when they were both kind enough to take in and protect two stragglers with no place to call home in the first place. All in all, he’s not entirely sure March owns a single pair of long pants at this point.
(“Guys,” March had said, addressing them all gravely. “If you ever see me wearing pants, shoot me on sight.”
Himeko had nodded sagely while sipping her coffee and Mr. Yang had cracked a small smile like this was somehow adorable. Dan Heng, pointedly, did not humor her with a response. Stelle, unfortunately, did.
“Noted,” Stelle had said just as seriously, raising a hand as though she had a serious contribution to offer. “So we’re assuming this is in the case of an imposter. What if it’s body possession?”
March crossed her arms. “...I meant what I said.”)
So now the Express has someone who plays along more committedly to March 7th’s comedy bits with an unreadably flat face that reveals absolutely nothing, making it impossible to tell how serious or sarcastic she’s being. That ought to be better for March’s enjoyment at best and mildly more annoying for him at worst, or so he thought until his phone pinged with a message from Stelle shortly after that conversation.
(—do you know if there are any guns in the express or the space station
Dan Heng squinted at the message before answering tentatively.
—No.
He hoped the reply would end the bit there.
—damn. guess ill need to go ask bronya if she has a spare rifle the next time i see her.
—thanks anyway daniel
It did not, in fact, end the bit there; nor did it convince her to stop purposefully pretending she couldn’t figure out how to spell his name despite ‘Dan Heng’ being spelled out in clear DIN family font text on the chat window.)
Even that wouldn’t be enough to actually unnerve him, if only Stelle weren’t adamantly asking for Bronya while deliberately eyeing her rifle the next time they ran into her in Belobog. Dan Heng is justifiably concerned, he thinks.
Stelle, the newest addition to their motley Astral Express crew of six total (including Pom-Pom), with no room to call her own yet aboard the Astral Express, has simply taken over the parlor car as her territory. She has an essence that can only be described as a raccoon in human form, or perhaps inversely the most human-like raccoon one would ever encounter in their life, and he’s concerningly confident he means that for both short and long-life species. You would not find a being more raccoon-like than Stelle no matter how long you lived; Dan Heng certainly hasn’t no matter how much he’s looked through the archives. Unfairly taller and more graceful than a raccoon should have any right to be, but still a raccoon for lack of a more accurate comparison with her strange trash can obsession.
“Appreciation,” Stelle hisses whenever he calls it that, which Dan Heng thinks only really proves his point.
By now, March 7th has adjusted enough to overcome her initial dumbfoundedness, now also insisting upon the term ‘appreciation’ as though she is disgusted by it mildly but respectfully. Himeko and Mr. Yang, having not witnessed Stelle spend entire days digging through dumpsters, fight other actual, literal raccoons down in Jarilo-VI, and occasionally hiss when told to go shower, seem to think the raccoon thing is a joke based on her gray hair, sometimes bedheaded enough to give the impression of fur. Somehow, even if they knew, he can imagine them letting a puppy-dog eyed Stelle go with a mild lecture and nothing else.
If there is one consolation he has, it is that he knows their dear conductor Pom-Pom would side with him, but knowing their penchant for cleanliness aboard the Express, Dan Heng can’t bear to inflict them with that knowledge. And judging by how Stelle at least attempts to clean herself up before boarding the Express (even if she likes to make a show of throwing a fit over it), she can’t either.
Nobody wins against their fluffy little conductor, especially not when they work so hard to make them piping hot breakfast every morning and get so depressed when they leave.
Still, Stelle shows up when needed as a strong, genuinely dependable ally. Otherwise, she does as she pleases to go about helping strangers with menial tasks out of her own goodwill. Whatever trouble she gets into, she can get herself out with little hassle, so Dan Heng doesn’t need nor ask for much more than that. It is, therefore, not highly concerning when she disappears off on her own for a few days at a time, and strangely very much more concerning when he and March actually encounter her during one of those times.
And so, here they stand in Belobog’s outlying snowfields.
“Why are you lying in the snow curled into a fetal position.”
When March had tripped on a snow pile that turned out to be a person, he was expecting it to be someone he could unleash more frustration upon. Like Sampo, for instance.
Stelle, from her place on the floor half-buried under a mound of snow thick enough to suffocate a person, has no visible injuries and a too-relaxed look to her ever-blank face. Even for the force of nature she is, getting ambushed by monsters in your sleep would be dangerous for anybody. Not to mention that despite the environmental resistance provided by the Trailblaze path, sleeping in the outlying snow plains without any sort of equipment isn’t good for anybody. In fact, it is dumb. He hopes the disappointment in his voice communicates that this is so very dumb.
“I dunno…” Stelle yawns, clearly unaffected by his or anyone else’s opinion. “The snow was soft, and I got sleepy.”
He hears a click at his side and turns to glare.
“What? It was a perfect opportunity for a picture!” March says, camera out unashamedly, though she slowly hides her face behind it the longer he stares. “C’mon, it’s a memory, let me have this…”
“My limbs are kinda numb,” Stelle mutters with zero urgency in her voice. “Oh hey, is it just me or did my fingers turn black—”
Dan Heng immediately digs her out of the snow and hoists her up on his back, arms under her legs. His back protests a bit under her weight and the rapid motion, given that Stelle is unfairly huge, just about as tall as he is.
“—no, wait, those are my gloves, false alarm. Huh. Could’ve sworn these were fingerless.”
He is incredibly tempted to drop her.
“Woah, hey, don’t drop her!” March shouts as his arms apparently decided to act out his unvoiced thoughts. She throws her arms over his, resulting in Dan Heng and March standing awkwardly with Stelle sandwiched between them. Stelle's head meets his shoulder with a thump, cold and unconscious once again, but otherwise seemingly fine. The Express is a closer walk than Natasha’s clinic, so that’s where they head to.
March giggles about something behind him as they walk. “Hey, Dan Heng, guess what we are right now?”
“What?”
“An idiot sandwich!”
“...”
“You’re no fun,” March grumbles, pouting.
Stelle mumbles something unintelligible in her sleep, and apparently having taken something from that, March nods aggressively.
“Thank you, Stelle,” she says pointedly with that dramatic intonation that says she’ll be huffing and turning away and sticking her tongue out at him for the next day or so until she forgets. “At least someone here appreciates it.”
Dan Heng sighs, “Photo.”
“Huh?”
“You don’t want a photo of this, too?”
In the next few seconds of silence that follow, Dan Heng knows he has clearly done something only to his own detriment as March starts giggling again in that way that gets on his nerves a little bit; this time at him instead of Stelle.
“Awwwww, you really care what we think, don’t you?”
“No one said I didn’t.”
“Hehehe, you looooove us. Don’t worry, I’ll ask Himeko or Mr. Yang to take a picture of us as soon as we get back.”
Dan Heng keeps his mouth shut even as March continues on in her sing-songy tone, not sure of whatever she’s so smug about. The sooner March gets her photos, the less he’ll get dragged along.
The next time he and March 7th are in Belobog, they both get a worrying text from Natasha.
—Could you two discourage Stelle from being so competitive when playing with the kids? I’ve told her a few times now, but I think she would listen better to you two.
Dan Heng’s not really sure what to make of it since he has no idea what Stelle has been up to for the past three days. Not to mention, Stelle doesn’t really take anyone’s opinion into account once she’s made up her mind, and if she did, she wouldn’t be digging through trash like the epitome of a raccoon that she very much is. But if it’s something Natasha felt the need to contact them about, he’ll at least try earnestly for her sake.
“Oh yeah, we played hide-and-seek with the kids in the Underground once when we were looking for you after you went off with Sampo!” March recalls after reading the message. “I had no idea Stelle’s been playing with them since then, though.” She quickly types out a message in response.
—Don’t worry, we’ll prevent her from becoming a bully ᕙ( •̀ ᗜ •́ )ᕗ
—Oh no, that’s not quite what I’m worried about… actually, does either of you know where Stelle is at the moment?
—No, she goes off on her own the majority of the time and returns on her own. Did she cause trouble?
—...Come pick her up at my clinic and I’ll explain.
…Pick her up?
He looks over at March. She shrugs back at him, evidently just as confused as he is.
They head to the clinic, and the first thing they hear as they walk in is a very loud thump.
Stelle is asleep in bed, under the sheets.
Or at least, half of her is.
As in, her upper body is hanging downwards off the side of the bed, and that thump was probably her face meeting the floor just now.
And she’s still asleep.
Before Dan Heng can process the scene or put his thoughts together, he hears a click from behind him.
“What?” March says, camera in hand. “You can’t tell me it’s not funny.”
“Thank you for coming,” Natasha welcomes them, entirely unruffled. “In case you’re wondering, that’s the third time that’s happened since we put her in bed.”
She hit her head three times and hasn’t woken up yet??
“What happened?” Dan Heng asks, not really sure how concerned he should be.
“She passed out in an abandoned alley while playing hide-and-seek with the kids.”
…?
When Natasha gets no response, she elaborates, “After not eating for three days.”
…???
Even March is cringing beside him despite her happy-go-lucky sense of humor.
Okay. Sure. Stelle does weird things like the weird person she is all the time. Dan Heng has known this about her and resigned himself to it since they’re all living together on the Express anyway. He can suck it up and be mature about this for Natasha’s sake.
“What the fuck.”
March blinks rapidly. “Did I just think out loud?”
He shoots a glance at her. “You were thinking that?”
She whips her head toward him. “You mean that wasn't me?” The seriousness lasts until she processes something apparently more important. “Wait. Dan Heng, did you just swear?”
Natasha, the Belobog Underworld’s communal motherly figure that she is, shoots the two of them a glare for that, which burns a little. When they're sufficiently scolded in her eyes, she continues, “That’s what I was referring to, you see. She seems to love that hiding spot since the kids are too scared to go back there.”
Dan Heng feels his blood pressure rising. “You mean this isn’t the first time this has happened?”
Natasha holds up a handful of photos. Each of them seems to be identical, all depicting Stelle passed out in an alley in the exact same… very strange emergency-exit sign-esque pose, as if she were running sideways.
“Sampo took each of these photos on different occurrences,” she says simply. “Occurrences. Not days."
Seven. There are seven photos.
They’re back on the Express, and Stelle is, frustratingly, still asleep. Or maybe she’s just pretending at this point; Dan Heng honestly can’t tell. It also means he can’t ask an awake Stelle Hey Maybe What The Actual Fuck Is Wrong With You??? But before he can say anything, March grabs his shoulder with a smile.
“I got this,” she says brightly, face turning in a pout when she sees his face turn skeptical. “Seriously, just trust me on this one.”
She leans in to cup her hands just in front of Stelle’s ear. “If you do this again, so help me, I will tell Pom-Pom where you’ve been, what you’ve been tracking into their train, why you've been wasting their carefully-prepared breakfast, and what you’ve been touching their food with, and it will make them cry. And I will hunt you down for making them cry.”
…Dan Heng could point out that March would technically be the one making Pom-Pom cry in that situation.
March turns away, still smiling, now humming to herself as she tucks away the single photo out of seven that Natasha let her keep.
(He does not point it out.)
He shivers, because the room is suddenly cold; not just mood-wise, but actually, physically cold. Stelle looks somewhere between three to seven shades paler, and Dan Heng prays Mr. Yang and Himeko stay in their rooms until this wears off so he doesn't need to explain why the parlor car is cold and why Pom-Pom may or may not cry in the foreseeable future.
-
“It’s usually well-heated in here,” Pom-Pom mutters much later while shivering. “What happened?”
“I dunno, actually. When did it get so cold?” March says as if she just noticed after it was said aloud, and Dan Heng turns to stare at her for a full ten seconds. “W-why are you looking at me like that?” she says, genuinely confused. “I’ve never touched the Express thermostat, I promise! Or, wait— do trains have those? I don't actually know but I swear it wasn't me.”
…Dan Heng wonders if he can sneak out the newest acquired photo lest it remind her.
The third time March 7th calls him along for Belobog pictures, she then proceeds to ignore the scenery entirely in favor of scouting out the area in search of a certain someone. And so— perhaps predictably, he can't say he didn't see this coming at this point— it becomes less of a Belobog scenery trip and more of a ‘where is Stelle sleeping today’ trip.
Considering the timing, it is possibly also a ‘will they end up having to make Pom-Pom cry today’ trip, but it seems to have slipped March's mind since then, and Dan Heng isn't about to bring that back up.
When they end up in the Underworld once again only to hear Hook counting down with her eyes covered and mumbling just you wait, Big Sis Stelle, I'm definitely gonna find you this time, Dan Heng contemplates probabilities and likelihoods and the structure, diction, and semantics of the explanation he'll have to put together for Mr. Yang and Himeko. It thankfully doesn't matter in the end, because in a place that is neither the alleyway nor Natasha's clinic, they find Stelle.
Well, half of her. Again.
This time it's the other half; just her legs sticking out of a dumpster.
Already knowing Stelle's insatiable curiosity for her environment and penchant for digging through trash, Dan Heng is relieved because this is normal.
He is then suddenly extremely tired at the fact that he feels relieved at the fact that this is normal.
He hears the click of a shutter beside him and decides it isn't worth thinking about.
Or so he tries to tell himself, but the problem-solver in him dies hard.
“Are you narcoleptic?” Dan Heng asks Stelle very seriously, hoping to express a level of genuine concern, because this is becoming very concerning. Stelle's choice of sleeping location and position are one thing, the frequency at which it happens is another.
“Daniel—”
“There’s not even an ‘i’ or ‘l’ in my name…”
“Dan Heng,” Stelle says perfectly normally, making it clear that she does, in fact, know his name but pretends to forget just to screw with him. “I woke up in the space station with, like, barely any memory of anything other than my name. Do I look like I know what that means?”
Dan Heng presses two fingers to his temple. Damn amnesiacs. “Do you get sleep attacks or uncontrollable daytime drowsiness?”
Stelle, unhelpfully, shrugs. “I sleep when I'm sleepy.”
That's all he manages to get out of that conversation.
Once they actually go around Jarilo-VI to say their goodbyes to their friends before heading to their next destination, Dan Heng would check Stelle for signs of drowsiness, none of which would ever appear. Meanwhile, March 7th would be depressed about their ‘where is Stelle sleeping today’ escapade coming to an end.
It would, in fact, not come to an end, because Stelle would then proceed to pass out on a chair in the parlor car later that afternoon with zero warning, and somehow manage to— while still asleep— flip herself upside-down in that same chair in the span of time it took Dan Heng to grab March’s camera from her room when she asked for it.
If March is somehow in on it, then she’s certainly doing a good job of being as genuinely mystified as he is.
Not really sure where else to direct the dying dregs of his genuine concern, he texts Asta asking how normal this is, not really sure what to expect anymore.
—Oh it’s totally nothing to worry about, trust me
—It might have something to do with the Stellaron inside her. The specifics of how this may or may not affect the human body are kind of annoying to explain, but considering her body hasn't exploded by now, she can handle it just fine
—Just think of it as something funny [image attached]
Aforementioned image is of Herta Space Station, with Stelle asleep while sitting upright, which is fairly normal.
Except that she’s on a toilet.
Suppressing a sigh along with his brain cells for his own sanity, he forwards the photo to March 7th, who in return spams him with exclamation points, thank-you emoticons, and hearts.
“Heeey, Dan Heng, you know what would make a great addition to the data bank?” March 7th says out of the blue one day, popping into his room with Stelle in tow, the latter’s ever-calm expression indicating that the former has already gotten her consent.
“No,” Dan Heng says instantly.
March puffs her cheeks out at him as she plops herself down on the floor. “You didn’t even let me finish.”
“I know what your idea is and I’m saying no.”
“You’ve already archived everything about the people we know,” Stelle points out. “The groups we’ve encountered, the enemies we’ve fought, the relics we find, and the light cones which are literally memories compressed into slates, which, by the way, is so interesting to me—”
March chimes in, “All of which nobody looks at—”
“I look at them.” Dan Heng thinks at the same moment Stelle says it out loud, and in a moment of confusion, he then tries to process what just happened. Did he just think out loud?
“No, but you are now.” March laughs at him, and clearly Dan Heng has been spending too much time with these two. “Anyways, as I was saying— all of which nobody looks at during reasonable hours.”
Dan Heng looks away as he recalls that time Pom-Pom reprimanded him for staying up late reading everything in the archives before promptly leading him to the passenger car to greet him with a warm breakfast.
“...That was before you were found and taken into the Express,” Dan Heng says, feeling a little betrayed by the only one who could have told March that story. “Did Pom-Pom tell you?”
March blinks and stares at him for a second. “No, but you just did. I was talking about Stelle.”
“She has a photo of me asleep on the desk at four in the morning with my face mashed into the screen, which is where she got the idea to archive it.”
Dan Heng puts his head in his hands.
“Pom-Pom did tell me that story, though,” Stelle offers with a shrug, and somehow that’s even worse. “Himeko and Mr. Yang both talk very generally about you since I’m still relatively new here. I have to get stories about you from somewhere when your archive entry is completely empty.”
This conversation is suddenly taking a turn Dan Heng isn’t very comfortable with.
Before he can say anything, March barrels on through. “And that’s kind of sad but fine, okay, whatever, only tell us whatever you're ready to tell us and all that,” she takes a deep breath and thrusts her camera in his face, “but please let me have these in the archive so I can have an excuse to be in here too, because everything you guys look at in here is boring and I’m getting left out.”
That… wasn't the continuation he expected, but it was their original goal, and if it might keep the other two from causing trouble anywhere else, Dan Heng supposes going along with that is for the better. No, it has nothing to do with the fact that March and Stelle are both making puppy-dog eyes at him.
“Fine,” he sighs and relents, turning to the computer to add a new category to the data bank.
As it would turn out, they would come to discover another fascinating thing to add to Stelle's sleeping quirks, and he does mean another. She’s had supernatural dreams and normal dreams and conversed with voices in her sleep, all of which they already knew.
Her sleeping positions and locations become less relevant as well, since there are only so many ways it can go before absurdity itself becomes normal. Standing up by the phonograph? Check. Slumped over the bathroom sink? Check. Face stuck in a plant pot? Check. Hanging off the whale light in the center of the parlor room's ceiling?
…Admittedly, he’s still not sure how she managed that one, especially when there are no surfaces to climb in the Express.
March 7th keeps that photo on the wall by her bed with a bunch of star stickers pasted over it— she treasures all her photos, but that one took the top prize, apparently.
Anyway, said interesting quirk is the way she controls her sleep willfully, which is as weird as it sounds.
Stelle is not impossible to wake, is the thing. She’s up on her feet the instant anyone warns of genuine danger, her bat already in hand with a ready stance. She gets up instantly with frighteningly accurate perception if she senses someone else needs comfort or help, strangely attuned to other people’s emotions despite her choices to often play dumb on purpose. She shoots up like a dart upon the ping of her mobile gacha games, sometimes seconds before the actual noise if she’s particularly excited about an update.
But Stelle, raccoon that she is, is moody and fickle, and can go from the most reliable helper to the most uncooperative little shit in the span of seconds. What this has to do with her state of sleep is that whenever she doesn’t want to be woken, she does Not. Wake. Up.
She weaponizes this as she pleases, particularly whenever it’s her turn on the chore cycle.
Stelle being sweet means she’ll wake up instantly like a bird rising with the sun and do things on time, and help other people out without being asked.
Stelle being a brat means she has decided to abandon her job in favor of doing whatever new yoga pose she wants to try in her sleep, and absolutely nobody can do anything about it; not even Pom-Pom.
Notably, the only people she’s consistently sweet with are Himeko and Mr. Yang; Meanwhile, she teases Pom-Pom only once in a while, and March will be soothed as long as she gets more photos, leaving Dan Heng with arguably the shortest end of the stick.
And it’s annoying, but it’s— routine. A comfortable sort of routine with a natural sort of annoyance.
Waking up and greeting Himeko and Mr. Yang, each with a cup of tea and a newspaper respectively in hand, every morning, without fail.
Watching March and Stelle take photos and play games like background noise and writing this down in his notebook while Pom-Pom shouts at them all to eat breakfast.
Thanking Pom-Pom for the meal and checking who’s on dish duty; observing to see if Stelle is feeling helpful today, and if she can motivate March to help out too.
Waiting for the chores to cycle back to Stelle and trying to anticipate whether she’ll be helpful or pass out on the spot, and wondering just how March can make a smile so bright at every single new memory.
Except—
Except that routine is short-lived, because the voice of Stellaron Hunter Kafka rings throughout the Express, through the passenger cabin door, to announce their next destination for them— the Xianzhou Luofu.
It’s in that instant, hearing those words, that Dan Heng suddenly feels a little like this carefully carved-out safe space isn’t so safe anymore because of him.
Momentarily glad he wasn’t there for anyone else to witness the look on his face, he must not hide it very well in the end, because March rushes over to him while reassuring him that she’ll veto it at all costs, and Stelle’s gaze zeroes in on him like she burns to know, but his comfort is more important.
And suddenly, it feels a little like he’s been taking all these small things for granted.
It’s never quite been something he feared. He always knew it would happen eventually, and had spent those oh-so quiet moments preparing himself for the inevitable. But— still.
Still.
He hates that running from planet to planet to planet still wasn’t enough.
He hates that finding people who would protect him with their lives wasn’t enough.
He hates that he’s dragging those kind people down with him because he wasn’t enough.
Mr. Yang, March 7th, and Stelle board the Xianzhou Luofu, leaving just him, Himeko, and Pom-Pom on the Express. Himeko and Pom-Pom have always been the more behind-the-scenes members of their little crew, taking care of the Express in companionable, silent concentration to keep it in top condition at all times.
Only then, sitting there, does he realize how quiet it is.
It’s not that their company isn’t enough, but rather that the silence that should be companionable feels suffocating today in particular. It gives him too much time to get lost in his own head thinking about what he gained over the past few years and what he lost in mere seconds.
Learning interesting things about others and thinking about the mundane.
Taking note of whatever new coffee blend Himeko is making, hearing about Mr. Yang’s newest animation idea.
Analyzing how March and Stelle feed off each other’s energy in the most chaotic ways, sometimes completely in sync and sometimes staring at each other wordlessly.
And sometimes, he thinks about how he fits into all of this.
How Dan Heng had nothing to offer them but trouble when they first found him.
How Himeko smiled softly and offered him a sense of duty in the archives, like she knew it was the only kind of excuse that would convince him to stay.
How Mr. Yang would laugh as if he were the world’s most boring old man and then tell him that he would never let anyone harm him again.
How the two of them and Pom-Pom took him in with shelter and warm meals he could never repay as if it were no big deal.
How March 7th makes him sigh a lot, and probably makes him smile a lot more too.
How Stelle is wild, unpredictable and uncontrollable, and for all the hassle it causes him, it makes him feel like maybe he can break free from fated things too.
How everything with all of them combined was dysfunctional and ridiculous, but also felt a little bit like his first true taste of both family and life.
“You’re worried about them, aren’t you?” Himeko laughs suddenly, breaking the silence.
Dan Heng doesn’t think any answer he could offer in words would sound right.
…He leaves the train.
He doesn't like anything about this place.
He doesn’t like the gazes of people who recognize him, he doesn’t like the weapons they so readily point at him, and he doesn’t like the statue of a person with a face identical to his own.
He doesn’t like the corrupt elders fussing over power and politics while dragging poor, young Bailu into their mess, he doesn’t like that being a Vidyadhara means paying for sins he didn’t commit, and he doesn’t like that knowing his life is long gives him dark thoughts of the people he’ll outlive.
He doesn’t like Blade who has hunted him down over closure he’ll never be able to give, he doesn’t like Jing Yuan who understands him and lets it all go with a smile, and he doesn’t like that this isn’t his fault, but it still really is.
He doesn’t like that after all this place has done to him, he still wants to help because they deserve it, and because he cares.
“Whether our destination lies before us or behind us, the decision is ours to make.” Mr. Yang says calmly, “Here, as on the Express, every vote counts."
March and Stelle step forward and extend their hands like they’ve been waiting, and only in the eyes of three people can he truly be Dan Heng even on the Xianzhou; only around a handful of people can he truly be free.
He hates that they trust him with their lives, and he hates that he trusts them with his, too.
(And maybe, speaking without the guilt, he could be honest and say he liked that more than anything else in the world.)
After a long, arduous battle for all of them, Dan Heng rushes back to the Express as soon as possible while the other two explore the Xianzhou a bit longer.
When they get back, March is unusually quiet while Stelle’s gaze is unreadable as always, but for some reason, today in particular, it makes him feel a bit lonely.
“By the way, remind me what that dragon form of yours is called again?” Stelle says suddenly, breaking the silence.
Dan Heng blinks. “Imbibitor Lunae.”
“Right, that— this means you were wrong, actually.”
“...About what?” he asks, not really sure what direction this is going.
“Your name does have ‘i’ and ‘l’ in it.”
“...”
March splutters, doubling over to laugh at him, and Dan Heng puts his face in his hands and sits down on the parlor couch. It’s stupid and so Stelle-like and begrudgingly still so much more welcome over the silence. It’s just also a huge reminder just how annoying people are so incredibly annoying.
“So, Daniel—” March says, unashamed of jumping on the bandwagon late as she plops herself down on his left side.
“Do not call me that.”
Stelle positions herself to his right while kneeling on the couch for some reason, but before he can ask, she leans in like she’s about to share a funny joke.
“I’m feeling kinda sleepy right now.”
Dan Heng looks at her, whose whole running joke has been doing this without warning. “Don’t you dare.”
“See you in eight hours,” Stelle says, holding up a peace sign before promptly crumpling over his lap in a fashion concerningly not dissimilar to that of a corpse. A heavy one, at that. Dan Heng can only compare the sequence of events to the instantaneous milliseconds after making eye (or lack thereof, he supposes) contact with a warp trotter, except that rather than adrenaline, what he feels is betrayal.
March laughs even louder, clearly finding this too funny to care about the fact that she is also pinned under Stelle’s body. She leans her head on his shoulder, still laughing to the point of tears, and normally, he would scold her about being loud, but for some reason he doesn’t mind it.
Mr. Yang looks around for a blanket, Himeko turns off the lights, and Pom-Pom lowers the volume of the phonograph music, so clearly no one is going to side with him on this anyway.
It feels warmer than he’s used to, he thinks tiredly as his eyes start to slip shut. But knowing these two, he’ll just need to get used to it whether he likes it or not.
It's not as though Dan Heng has never tried to add to his own archive entry, because he has. Maybe spared it a thought once or twice when it was just Himeko, Mr. Yang, and himself, and especially began putting in more effort after March 7th was taken in.
Lines scribbled in notebooks about the people he met, the sights he’d seen. Nothing about himself, because there was just nothing to write other than his name, and even that alone was difficult on bad days.
He'd read over every other entry he wrote, about every other person he knew, breaking it down into structures and ideas. Name, birthday, affiliation. Description, personality, likes and dislikes. Anything at all that makes a person. Things that should’ve made it easier, yet still never seemed to work when it came to his own entry.
He'd just… stare at the blank space, wondering if this was supposed to come naturally. Writing a fragment and erasing it, and writing and erasing until it felt pointless to try in the first place.
Absent-mindedly, he pulls up the data bank only to notice that a certain name has been replaced with ‘Daniel.’ It then dawns on him that both March and Stelle rushed into the archives earlier this morning, claiming to have a new contribution to their collection of Stelle’s Sleeping Shenanigans. No, he did not come up with that name.
Then he clicks on his entry to change his name back, only to find that it’s no longer empty.
—dragons r cool
The top reads ‘last updated three hours ago’, and Dan Heng belatedly wonders if he should start locking the door to the archives. He deletes the text only for the scroll bar to alert him that there's more than he thought. He scrolls down, text spaced out of the visible window now coming into view.
—A cold and reserved young man who is reticent about his past. To avoid his kin, he decided to travel with the Astral Express.
…He leaves it as is, starting a new line beneath it.
And he starts typing.