fracturarpg | [mingle] the space (january).

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[mingle] the space (january).

interim mingle

( WELCOME BACK, TRAVELERS. )

There's nothing but the clatter of train tracks, and the odd feeling of almost floating.

When you wake, it's hard to tell exactly what it is that you're missing - only that you are. There are pieces that aren't quite right, even if you're not sure where those pieces would normally be. Pieces of what, exactly....? Well, if you had to put a word to it, it would be - yourself, probably. Or did you get something back recently?

The place you've found yourself in is strange, certainly. It's probably worth exploring a bit. Though it just as easily seems that the only form of welcome or explanation that you have, comes from nothing more than a slab of marble. It might've changed since the last time you saw it.

You might have changed since the last time you saw yourself too - perhaps with a new emblem on your clothes, or a portrait on your skin.

There's no need to fret that much though. You've already gone through the ordeal once, and you might be able to see results from it. Even so, it's best that you don't get too comfortable, because there is still the unshakeable feeling:

There's still much more ahead of you.

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You just shut up. [Don't even pretend to be annoyed! He knows Wei Wuxian is always into some shit! It's always been the case!] You're always playing the hero, remember? You of all people are the first one snooping around where you shouldn't be!

What do you mean, "arrived here a little earlier than me"? Where is here?! Why are we here?!

[HE'S LOSING HIS MIND.]

What did you do in Guanyin Temple for this to happen?!

[HE'D BE LOSING HIS MIND LESS IF HE HAD THE ABILITY TO HOLD ONTO EVEN ONE SINGLE CHILL!! Wow though incredible that he's only like 30 seconds into this conversation and he's already remembering all the reasons he wanted to just become one with the earth, never to speak to Jiang Cheng again.

Also WHY IS EVERYONE ELSE FARTHER AHEAD ON THE TIMELINE... He just sighs, shaking his head.]

So what, then? You think I've created all of this- [THROWING A HAND OUT as if indicating all of Notsco.] -from the ground up, or that I've dragged dozens on dozens of people in for fun? I can tell you now, I haven't, and I can't answer the "where" or "why" in any way you'd be happy with! This is just the space - a place between worlds, and we're here to find the things we've lost. I've only been here a little longer than you, you know! Just a few weeks.

[He knows what Pokemon Go is now, though, and he can play Darude Sandstorm on the kazoo. What else even matters??]

[No chill. Never a single goddamn chill.]

You expect me to... [WHAT?] A place...? A what?! A "place between worlds"?! [Oh my GOD. It's true. It's real. HE'S DEAD! He can't believe he's dead, and he's in the--the what?! The fucking Netherworld with WEI WUXIAN! He should have listened to Xie Lian, his Virgil.

Please come back, Xie Lian, and lead him through this hell.

Meanwhile, Wei Wuxian is pleased with Pokemon Go and kazoo Darude Sandstorm.] How can you say that with such a thick face?! [His nerves.] "Just a few weeks"!! Wei Wuxian! [He absolutely sounds like A-Cheng for a brief moment.] Where the fuck are we?!

[Wow that TONE IS REALLY UNNERVING?? He's absolutely caught off guard by it, even if it doesn't show strongly on his face. What the fck...

Also excuse you if anyone would be great to be stuck in hell with, it's Wei Wuxian?? Come on.]

How else should I say it! It is what it is. [Here he is on the banks of the river Styx, just hanging out, not a care in the world.]

Right now? We're in the store. [HELPFUL.] If you go outside you'll find the void and the train, and if you get on the train you'll find the pillar, the airport, some other things.

So you have no answers, and you're speaking nonsense.

[That's it. HE'S DEAD. His foot kicks some of the spilled junk out of the way without swinging wildly and angrily. He glares at Wei Wuxian, and then he turns to stalk down the aisle. He has a sticky lil eyeball clinging to the back of one shoulder, it's fine.

He really is going to walk off and leave stupid Wei Wuxian behind.]

The "train," [under his breath, ] the "airport."

[FUCKIN CHRIST. For a second he considers just letting Jiang Cheng go because this is the chance to flee that he'd been looking for, but... Well, first of all, this space is stupidly small despite being vast as hell. There's no doubt they would run into each other again sooner or later. Best to get it all out of the way at the start, right?

So with a sigh, he'll chase after Jiang Cheng. He even reaches out almost reflexively to grab the sticky eyeball, but pulls his hand back just shy of touching him.]

What is it you plan on doing then? Wandering around, trying to figure out how electric lights and automatic doors work on your own?

[It's fine. The sticky, googly, bloodshot eyeball seems to be perpetually staring in Wei Wuxian's direction. It'll keep looking the entire time they're walking, as karma for not removing it from Sandu Shensasquatch.]

I wish for once in your, in my life, you would start making a solitary bit of sense!

[Wei Wuxian gets a glare over a shoulder before Jiang Cheng... well, he has nowhere to go specifically, so he rounds the corner to the next aisle.]

Go back and clean up your mess. Why are you following me? [He stops and turns around suddenly, quick enough Wei Wuxian will have to slam the brakes before bowling into him.] If the store owner returns, I'm not taking up for you.

[STOP STARING AT HIM, JUDGMENTAL JELLY EYE!! He doesn't want to touch Jiang Cheng in case he ends up with his wrist snapped in two.

Except for the part where he absolutely doesn't slam the brakes fast enough and ends up crashing into him the next aisle over anyway... At least it probably dislodges the eye. After reclaiming his SAFE DISTANCE:]

—First of all, there is no store owner. [He can leave all the messes he wants behind and NO ONE CAN STOP HIM!! No cops are here to arrest him! Perish.] Second, I'm trying to explain to you how this place works so you don't end up running off with your bad temper to ruin someone's day.

[The last thing we need is to scare the other new arrivals, drifts a very honest thought, fulfilling what's surely a nightmare scenario of Jiang Cheng being stuck hearing Wei Wuxian's voice in his head.]

[OOF. Dammit, Wei Wuxian! WATCH WHERE YOU'RE GOING! As if he didn't just stop and about-face without any sort of warning. He does, though, give Wei Wuxian a small push to restore the Divine Distance of Safety.]

No store owner? Why would there be a shop with no owner?! [Ugh! He's going to lose it.] I'm not--you just shut up. I'm not going to listen to someone who left us. Don't act like you care about what I do.

[He turns around to keep going. What do you know, the eyeball is gone--nope, there it is, moved somewhat down Jiang Cheng's back. Still staring judgmentally at Wei Wuxian. The words, however... stop him in his tracks. He twists back, face as sour as if he'd eaten a lemon.]

Don't do that again. What game are you playing?

[DON'T FCKIN PUSH HIM HE WAS STEPPING BACK ANYWAY STOP THAT. He makes a little irritated sound!! Goddamn. There's a lot he wants to say and a lot he can't say, because the sting of someone who left us is something he knows he deserves. Likewise, he doesn't deserve to shove his concern in Jiang Cheng's face at this point in either of their lives! Bad.

The eye is judging him and at this point he really is tempted to just let Jiang Cheng mosey on off into the distance because some kind soul will take pity on him sooner or later and explain things, but then he's being given a sour lemons face?? Why.]

Do what? [FIGHT HIM.] I don't know why you think I'm doing anything when I haven't done a single thing yet! Are you just looking for a fight to pick?

[Wow they're really going to fight at Costco.]

You know what, don't play like an idiot, Wei Wuxian!

[He's going to start windmilling his arms in two seconds, and they are going to destroy Not Costco with their horrendous sibling fight.] You and everyone else--and me! It's--in my head! I can hear you! Stay out of it! Do you want to die? [Trauma is in there. My tw1st3d mind DO NOT ENTER!! LEAVE!!]

Nothing in this place makes any sense! [Trains, and guns, and automatic doors (which scared him, by the way), and lights, the lil sprinklers in the produce section that makes it rain inside.] It's... a dream! Or... I'm dead! What were you doing inside the temple for me to open the doors and die?!

[He doesn't have to play like an idiot if he is an idiot!!!!! Also wow yeah they really are, this is why brothers shouldn't be allowed anywhere. Look at the stupid siblings we have, we have chaos Kumou twins and Yunmeng dipshits.

Anyway that's enough to clue him in on what's happening and he's just WAVING A HAND.]

I didn't do that on purpose! It just happens sometimes. [But he doesn't even bother trying to explain since Jiang Cheng hasn't appreciated any of his other bad explanations so far!!]

It's not a dream and you're not dead. I don't know what I was doing in there either, since that hasn't even happened for me yet! I can guarantee that whatever it is wouldn't lead to this, though.

[How fuckin powerful does Jiang Cheng think he is, damn.]

[STOP. He doesn’t think Wei Wuxian is powerful at all!! (A small lie; Wei Wuxian has always been better than him at everything. Why wouldn’t Wei Wuxian be capable of this? Why wouldn’t he be able to move time and space?) He thinks Wei Wuxian is full of unbridled chaos! That alone can bring about this kind of fate.]

Stop! [They are never going to get through the store because Jiang Cheng keeps walking two feet before wheeling around on Wei Wuxian.] What are saying?!

You were there! You and Lan Wangji! It wasn’t difficult to track you with Fairy.

[Well, he is full of unbridled chaos, that's true... But damn if his abilities were that vast, he wouldn't have fucked up his first life so bad!!

Why is he LIKE THIS though. Wei Wuxian holds both hands up, this time keeping a safe distance so he doesn't go crashing into Jiang Cheng and his jelly eyeball. How does one pierce through a skull thicker than cement, that's the real question.]

Jiang Cheng... On my life, nothing I've said to you is untrue. [Put him back in the dirt otherwise, hot damn.] Ask me anything at all! For me, I had just left the discussion hall after maidens Sisi and Bicao spoke to us. I wanted to visit the vendors and took Hanguang-jun along.

[LIKE, MOSTLY TRUE but he ain't telling Jiang Cheng the specifics even if he probably ALREADY KNOWS. Strangely, for some weird reason he feels like he already knows what would happen if he were to talk about falling from the tree or his plans to visit the family memorial? Hm.]

You should be able to tell just by looking at the people around us, right? The things, even! Who or whatever is responsible for this has brought us in from across worlds and times. I'm no less in the dark than you.

[The maidens? Damn! How is... Wei Wuxian lagging so far behind, it makes zero sense. Like everything else in his god forsaken life. But even if Wei Wuxian leaves out the other parts, Jiang Cheng remembers that, of all things.

And it makes him mad all over again.]

Stop! [In a lower voice:] Stop. [He turns around like he plans to walk again, but he doesn't do anything except stand in one place with white-knuckled fists. Hm. The eye is gone? Where did it go?]

You're a disgrace. [There is a surprising lack of venom behind this, strangely enough. It sounds more--very hopeless. A very young Jiang Cheng hopelessness when Wei Wuxian got them into so much trouble all the time.] I'm not staying here.

If I can't get back, Mom, Dad, and A-Li...

[FIRST OF ALL WHERE THE FUCK IS THAT EYE thinks Wei Wuxian not at all, being thoroughly distracted because haha. Ohhh no. Oh, no.

It's the combination of what Jiang Cheng says and the way he says it and what he's said up to now, along with his working knowledge of this place, that immediately throws up every single red flag. Wei Wuxian is not normally the type to wear unguarded emotions on his face, but the shock manifests as a strange sort of softness.

He stares at Jiang Cheng's (eyeless) back, hands lowering back to his sides. His fingers flex, jittery with anxious energy.]

—What is it that you think will happen if you can't get back?

Why do you care? You left us.

[The fists loosen, not relaxing, a stretching that turns into fists again afterward.] They'll worry. [They can't be stuck here, he thinks. They just can't.] I don't trust whatever is written on that pillar. I can't not exist there anymore.

That damn Zixuan would do something stupid for Sis, and I'll skin him alive if he makes her shed a single tear.

[OOOH GRACE. OOOOOH GRACE!!!! THIS IS THE WORST DAY OF HIS LIFE IN RECENT HISTORY. The misplaced softness immediately gives way to frigid shock, and the single stray thought: They wouldn't have.

"They" as in who or whatever was responsible for breaking their souls to bits in the first place, and "wouldn't have" as in wouldn't have taken such cruel pieces away. What kind of horrible misfortune is this? How is it that he's managed to get away with so little, comparatively, when he's done nothing at all to earn that kind of mercy?

Involuntarily, he takes a step back.]

That's... [Hm. A rare, singular moment in The History Of Wei Wuxian where his endless stream of words fails him. He closes his mouth, opens it. Tries again.]

--Why did I leave? When did I leave, and how long was I gone?

[He's already got an idea of what he's working with here, but he needs to know more and he needs to know before he loses his entire mind in a fit of panic LORD.]

[The hesitation is a surprise, and it gets Jiang Cheng to twist and look back. He's a bit surprised by Wei Wuxian's surprise, but then he looks angry by the questions. It's as if... It's as if Wei Wuxian just doesn't care?]

"When" did you leave? "When did you leave"?! Are you an idiot, or are you just playing games with me?! Wei Wuxian!!

[Anger blooms over his face. He pounces Wei Wuxian without any warning, tangling his fist into Wei Wuxian's closes and hauling one arm back to try to sock Wei Wuxian one good time in the face.]

Did you just forget so easily?! You left us because you chose those fucking Wens over us! After the things they were trying to do to everyone! Walking your awful path was almost better than you standing up for them like it was any of your business!

[THEY ARE FIGHTING IN COSTCO 2020.

Or rather Jiang Cheng is punching Wei Wuxian in Costco 2020, because he just gets fuckin decked. He's too busy being the math lady meme to block or dodge and honestly? He probably wouldn't have even if he was focusing properly, because it's the least he can do for the. Uh. Exceedingly unpleasant ride Jiang Cheng is about to have. A little preemptive stress relief, maybe.

His head snaps to the side with the force of the blow and within seconds, red blooms where he'd been hit, but he doesn't pay it mind. He locks his fingers around Jiang Cheng's wrists instead, his grip abnormally tight. So much for not touching Jiang Cheng so his arms don't get snapped in two!]

I haven't forgotten anything! I wouldn't forget - I would never forget! [Even if it sure would be nice if he could sometimes, haha!] What about the attack on the pier? Qiongqi path? Jin Ling's one-month celebration? Any of that—?

[What is happening. Wen Ning's forgotten his sister, he's forgotten a few things, but he hasn't heard of anyone forgetting so much. How far back do the deviations go? Just what kind of history does Jiang Cheng remember if he's forgotten all of these deaths?]

[For a moment, he wrestles with Wei Wuxian's grip like he's scalded, but then he slows to a stop. He's still angry, though the glare holds some glistening confusion, too. His head hurts. Right through from one temple to the next, and he winces.]

What are you talking about? Attack on the pier? Lotus Pier? There hasn't been any attack! Has this place made you into a lunatic for real? [Again, briefly, he jostles Wei Wuxian's hands.] Qiongqi? You mean when you decided to create your own "Ghost General"?! Or maybe when you took out a few Jins?!

I don't know a Jin Ling! Why would I know a child?

[And that makes his head? hurt worse?]

[He doesn't know.

One single, clear thought. He doesn't know. He doesn't know that Lotus Pier burned to the ground. That he hadn't even seen his parents ashes. That Wei Wuxian didn't leave without taking Jiang Yanli and her husband with him to the other world. He doesn't know Jin Ling, the nephew he had to raise on his own, who loved him in his sour way and called for his jiujiu any time he needed help.

He doesn't know anything.

Wei Wuxian very abruptly feels quite ill. He pulls his hands from Jiang Cheng's wrists and takes a few steps back, visibly paling.]

You don't remember. [And there's nothing he can do to help him recall what he's forgotten, given what he knows from trying to tell Wen Ning.

(A terrible part of himself wonders, would you, even if you could?)

He shakes his head, taking another couple of steps back before turning on his heel NOW IT'S HIS TURN TO LEAVE.]

[??

It's very bizarre for Wei Wuxian to not only be speechless, but to turn and run away. Jiang Cheng is left looking increasingly more bewildered the more steps Wei Wuxian takes back.]

What?

[Wen Ning he said, what? "We're all missing things, even memories"? But that's just stupid. He's not... missing anything? He's not missing any memories! Nothing feels different at all! Wei Wuxian is the one missing memories, he's sure of it.] Where are you going, Wei Wuxian?! Maybe you don't remember! [But it hurts. It hurts his pride as much as it hurts his head, and he doesn't try to chase after Wei Wuxian. What if he doesn't remember...? Should he know? An attack on his home? Something in Qiongqi pass? A Jin child?

The last is a little better than the rest. A Jin child... But God does his head hurt. And then he realizes, no, it's not his head that hurts so badly.

It's his heart?]

[He'll have to deal with this eventually. He'll have to deal with it and he knows it, because Jiang Cheng will regain these missing fragments and this place is vast but too, too small. "If we both exist in this world, then of course we'll meet." He'd said that to Lan Wangji what feels like days and years ago; it had been true in the familiarity of home, and it's still true here. He will have to deal with this.

But he can't do that if he can barely wrangle the complex knot of emotion well enough to keep his pace even-keeled as he leaves, instead of breaking into a run. He can't look his little brother in the eye and see the soft edges of his youth, back when he was just A-Cheng and not Sect Leader Jiang, and their older sister spoiled them with extra shares of meat in their broth instead of lying cold in a casket he'd never even seen. He can't, with an unburdened conscience, talk to a Jiang Cheng who doesn't know - and can't yet learn of - the multitudes of crimes he's committed. How could he even consider it?

He will have to deal with this, but he can't just yet. Most of the ugly feelings and upset thoughts tiding through him are nameless and difficult to transmit even intentionally, so at least Jiang Cheng is spared from having to deal with everything there.

Everything but a gentle, drifting I'm sorry as he turns the corner and walks away from his brother again.]

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[mingle] the space (january).

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