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The moment Dan Heng reappeared on the Astral Express, it's as though his soul, his mind, every part of him recognized it– The warm lights, the slightly rustic smell, the grand panes of glass looking out into the vast universe.
It’s no longer the heavy waves of Amphoreous that he’s forced to bend to his will with raised arms that tremble under their resistance and weight to stand against an opponent who seems to embody a flame so strong it refuses to be doused out by any kind of water he can throw at it.
It’s no longer the gilded gleam of the baths or the still-present steam that had still been in the air, making it difficult to discern whether or not his difficulty breathing and the sweat that joined the waters he’s controlling is because of the steam or because he’s at his limits.
It’s security. It’s safety. It’s home.
So he did what anyone else would do in that scenario.
Collapse.
His knees buckled beneath him as a vice-like grip choked the air out of his lungs. A ringing filled his ears, the floor swayed so violently beneath him, Dan Heng deliriously thought that the Astral Express must've turned into a boat rather than a train at some point.
Even as a foggy disconnection happened between his awareness and his body, he still felt it when a metal-hard hand grabbed him by his upper forearm before shifting into a more supportive hold with the addition of an arm- It surprised him, however distantly, because Dan Heng swore that the last time he was aware, Screwllum was a projection and couldn't touch him.
There were exclamations from somewhere but focusing on turning the noise into actual words with meaning felt about as impossible as holding against the Flame Reaver, which, he supposes he did so maybe not that impossible but even then–
It wasn't without Screllum's intervention.
If Screwllum wasn't there–
Another arm looped underneath his other side, interrupting that train of thought before Dan Heng is forced to reflect upon his areas of inadequacy again or to face the awful truth that sometimes, sheer willpower is still not enough when he’s hardly in a place to reflect or face anything at all.
A body pressed against him, hoisting him up in a way that prompted a rather humiliating wheeze from his lungs. The motion disturbs the tentative peace in his muscles that had settled as a result of being back, causing a rippling effect of awful, awful static and noise through his limbs. The very feeling of weakness shudders down his spine, stealing oxygen from the air, stealing his strength, and probably stealing his dignity too.
He must be far past exhausted if even breathing felt like too much effort. He must be far past exhausted if he can’t even muster up the ability to be embarrassed or afraid.
"Dan Heng." A familiar baritone says, barely making it past the ringing. "Hold on."
Dan Heng inhales sharply. Right.
Hold on. That's a familiar sentiment. He can– He can–
Exhaustion rises like the very waves he controlled just moments before, threatening to submerge him, to sink him, to hold him down until he’s unable to do anything else than drown. The world blurs into a smear of random colors as his head lolls forward, his eyes fluttering shut.
He thinks he's moving because the colors are changing but for once in his life, Dan Heng thinks that he might not be able to "hold on" as he's been able to his whole life this time.
"Almost there Dan Heng." That voice says again. It's then that Dan Heng realizes that the supportive presence on his other side is no longer the metal that he recognizes as Screwllum but someone else.
"Mr. Yang." A softer, smoother voice murmurs. "With all due respect..."
"He might have a concussion, or… other injuries that will require consciousness." The first voice, Welt, responds firmly. "Until we’re sure that he'll wake up again, we can't let him go."
A breath of silence. Dan Heng becomes faintly aware of the feeling of his feet dragging along the carpeted floor.
"...Right." The second voice says.
There's a sliding door sound, a rush of cool air and a faint metallic tang in the air– Familiar. Dan Heng stirs, inhaling sharply with a pained undertone to the motion. His tail flicks weakly, reminding him that he's still in his other form.
"That's right." The second voice, the one that's gentler, quiet with insecurity murmurs, but there's little insecurity to be found now as they help with lowering him down to somewhere. "You're home, Dan Heng. You're safe."
Dan Heng almost lets go at that. But then, as he’s gently guided down to lay on his back, he sees ripped black cloth behind his eyelids. He sees a face with golden eyes and gray hair in the nonsensical smears of color that make up the world and he jolts, startling a reaction out of the two that were still present.
“Stelle–” He gasps.
A pained silence.
“We’re working on it.” Welt reassures him, matter-of-fact and solid. “For now, focus on yourself Dan Heng, you’ve done enough.”
Dan Heng tenses, his jaw clenching with stubborn determination. He feels his pulse hasten in his chest, a different kind of fear than the one that kept him alive against the Flame Reaver rearing its ugly head as that moment replays in his head again: Leaving Amphoreous, leaving her, leaving her in that hellscape where the sky is red and monsters were present in every nook and cranny.
Even as some part of his mind recalls the necessity of his action, a big part, a primal part of his mind screams at him to get up, return, he’s a fool, a coward, even after all this time he still can’t–
“Stell–” He tries to say again, only to be cut off by a violent cough.
Then another. Then another.
Until he’s gasping for air that won’t enter his lungs.
He hears someone curse. An arm wraps under his shoulders, propping him up against a chest that’s familiar in its faintly coffee, bookish smell. Instinctively, he turns into it, pressing his face into the soft fabrics of gray, white. His tail wraps around a leg as tremors wrack his body, shuddering down his back and into his limbs.
“It’s okay.” The hand of the arm around him cups his shoulder, pulling him closer. Another arm reaches for his legs until he’s basically being cradled. “Slow down. It’s okay.”
A hand comes to rest on his back, tentative and hesitant until his tail automatically unlatches from its previous leg to wrap around a waist instead. He hears a startled intake of breath before that hand presses against his back with more confidence, moving to smooth up and down against his spine.
He shudders again at the contact but he relishes in it against all odds, his tail coiling tighter around the other– Sunday probably, now that Dan Heng thinks about it– as he buries his head in Welt and just… gasps.
His ears are ringing again and it feels like he’s actually dying, like the Flame Reaver actually got him. But if he was, there wouldn’t be soothing reassurances all around him, nor the warm contact of safety, family, and home.
So slowly, inch by inch, tension leaks out of his form as the panic bleeds out of him like how infection is purged from a wound. Air returns without much fanfare until Dan Heng is able to go completely limp against Welt’s chest, with his breaths ragged but slower, his tail no longer a vice grip around Sunday’s waist and more like a limp noodle on the floor around it.
“Good.” Welt murmurs. “You’re safe, Dan Heng. You’re home.”
Sluggishly, he nods, even as his mind still buzzes with concern for Stelle.
“We’re doing what we can for Mx. Stelle.” Sunday says, somehow sensing his lingering unease. “You can help but only once you’re recovered.”
Dan Heng pauses at that added condition but he nods again nonetheless.
Recover. He doesn’t think he has much of a choice either way.
At the sound of the sliding door, Dan Heng jumps, his heart rate kickstarting but a soft hush and a smooth pass-through of the hand on his back quickly and easily settles him again.
There’s a pause.
“Oh Dan Heng.” He hears a warm, motherly voice say in a heartbroken manner before there’s the sound of clacking heels and a hand smoothing back his bangs to feel his forehead.
“It’d be best to first check to see if he can sleep, first.” Welt murmurs as those hands flutter from his forehead to the rest of him, even as he remains cradled in Welt’s arms like he’s just a child. Underneath his ear, Dan Heng hears a hastened heartbeat.
“Of course.” Lithe fingers gently poke and prod at various parts of his scalp. “So far, I don’t think he has any injuries.”
“There is a lack of blood for the most part.” Sunday agrees quietly.
“Hm.” Those fingers poke at a few other parts of him before they’re gone. “Let him sleep. I think he’s just tired beyond belief.”
The heartbeat beneath Dan Heng’s ear slows just ever so slightly with Welt’s long exhalation of breath. “That’s great. I thought so too but it’s… always good to have a second opinion.”
Sunday’s hand gently pats Dan Heng’s back to get his attention.
“Did you hear that?” He asks. “You can sleep now.”
But even before Sunday had finished speaking, Dan Heng had already slipped off entirely into unconsciousness, easily sinking into the depths that had yet to stop calling him ever since halfway through the fight with the Flame Reaver.
He’s not awake to feel the way the fingers from before– Himeko– brush through his bangs before gently scratching down the back of his head.
“Goodness.” She whispers as she gives voice to the thought that’s in both Welt and Sunday’s mind. “What could’ve possibly happened on Amphoreous?”
~~~
When Dan Heng wakes, it’s a slow, tedious affair.
First, the drag back into distant consciousness, into that hazy awareness of the static behind one’s eyelids. Then it’s becoming aware of the softness of the covers, the unnatural comfort of a bed whenever it’s time to get up. Then–
The awareness that he’s alone. So Dan Heng reacts normally.
Adrenaline floods his veins as his eyes snap open. If he’d been capable of it, he’d probably have shot straight up out of bed.
Then, as if the encounter is preordained, the door slides open.
Dan Heng snaps his head to one side to see the small, fluffy frame of Pom-Pom standing in the doorway to the archives. Their eyes widen and they jump.
“Eep!” Pom-Pom exclaims before they quickly recover, throwing their tiny arms back with anger. “What kind of wake up is that, Dan Heng? You scared me!”
Dan Heng stares, dumbfounded.
“I’ll forgive you this one time but don’t you forget it!” Pom-Pom huffs before they’re retrieving something and waddling forwards to be beside his nest of a bed. There, they plop something down into his lap. “Here!”
Dan Heng stares at Pom-Pom for a moment. Then, slowly, he drags his eyes down to his lap.
There’s just… a lump of napkins.
“Not just napkins!” Pom-Pom retorts with an angry stomp. He must’ve said that out loud then. “Unwrap it!”
Automatically, both out of muscle habit to avoid the conductor’s wrath and because he doesn’t know what else to do, Dan Heng does. Unwrapping the napkins reveals a simple round bread with a crust that has a faint grid pattern on top.
Pineapple bread.
“We ordered your and Stelle’s favorite snacks while you were away.” Pom-Pom explains when Dan Heng looks at them with wide eyes.
“You…” Dan Heng’s voice is hoarse. “You did?”
“Of course!” Pom-Pom smiles brightly, placing their paws on their hips. “Aren’t I just the best conductor? Shower me with praise!”
Dan Heng stares at Pom-Pom for a moment. Then, it’s like something breaks.
A smile cracks along the edges of his mouth as a disbelieving huff of laughter escales past his teeth. His inhale is shaky but his exhale is yet another laugh and before he knew it, Dan Heng finds himself pressing a hand to his mouth as he practically doubles over laughing.
“Hey!” He hears Pom-Pom yell over the sound of his near-hysterical laughter but he can’t stop. Something in his chest has cracked open, leaving his heart to spill onto the blankets before him, leaving him exposed and vulnerable for harm, for judgment, and he might’ve been afraid once but he’s not afraid now because he’s back on the Express, he’s back here, back where it’s safe and secure–
Back where it’s–
It’s entirely impulsive, something Dan Heng would never do, but for reasons unknown he reaches out and wraps his arms around Pom-Pom.
“Hey!” Pom-Pom yells again. “Pom-Pom is not a plush!”
But then his laughter is strangling itself into sobs and he can feel Pom-Pom somber beneath his arms as he buries his face into their tiny shoulder, his own hitching and shaking with the force of his silent cries.
He doesn’t know what happens to the pineapple bread Pom-Pom so kindly brought for him but he finds it hard to care when they’re patting his arms as best as they can or when he hears the door to the archives slide open.
There’s a soft gasp, a call down the hallway, then rapid footsteps before arms that can better encompass him are wrapping around him.
“Oh.” Dan Heng hears Himeko whisper. He inhales sharply, letting go of Pom-Pom to turn into her instead, burying his face against the rosy scent of her white dress the same way he did with Welt the, presumable, night before. There’s an arm around his shoulder, a hand in his hair. “Oh, Dan Heng.”
There’s more footsteps and another gasp.
“He’s awake.” Sunday’s voice says before he, too, is hurrying over in a flutter of cloth that Dan Heng can somehow hear over the sound of his hitching breath. There’s another set of footsteps with Sunday, one that’s accompanied by the thumping of a cane before that cane is lowered to the ground.
He thinks it’s Sunday again with a hand on his back and it’s Welt when a second pair of arms wrap around him securely. There’s a soft, soothing humming that’s definitely humming and Dan Heng almost feels as though he can stop, that he’s done purging his body of the stresses and agony of the last who-knows-how-long when–
“Dan Heng.” Welt murmurs. “Welcome home.”
Dan Heng’s breath catches, stuttering in his throat. But he swallows thickly and exhales, long and trembling as he relaxes into the shared embrace of the three individuals here.
Somewhere in the back of his mind, he still worries, he still fears– For Stelle, for the fact that he hasn’t seen March yet even though he’s sure that she would’ve absolutely tackled him to the ground regardless of how ill she is but–
Impossibly enough, Dan Heng feels as though it’s okay. It’ll be okay.
Because he’s home now.