A New Platform [Intro Post March]

[voidtreckermods]

On the Train

Once again passengers are awoken by the morning announcement.

"Good morning passengers, it is day One of the month of Kazoo. Points have been updated on the system."

They have indeed, and everyone can spend the morning shopping. Those who have been on the train for a while will also be expecting the second announcement that comes a few hours later.

"Shortly arriving into a designated void platform. Exit from void in ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one." A lurch and a jolt and the windows fill with the fog that means they are at a platform. The fog is thick, the air is warm and humid and there are rumbles of thunder, the air heavy with the promise of rain.

As usual the first to leave the train notice nothing as they walk silently, rucksacks on their backs, towards the barriers: Alfredo Martini, Daia, Enna Alchiba, Lord El-Melloi II, Natsuno Yuuki, Nita Callahan, Saku Gyousou, Sakura, V and Wen Qing

But on the platform itself there are new faces. Wearing hoodies in all four colours, in various states of confusion.

For New Passengers

At first all they can see is steam, billowing around them as they come to their senses. As their eyes adjust, they will see they are on a platform, glass and dark stone rising in sturdy arches around them. Behind them is a set of barriers, and in front of them is a single track extending both ways into thick fog.

They are standing, in clothes that are not their own and a style they might not even recognise. They are carrying a rucksack on their back. For a moment it seems to just be them, alone in the white haze; then the steam begins to fade and they realise they aren’t alone.

The platform is not large, and seems smaller with twenty-seven figures scattered around. All facing the tracks, all dressed in cargo trousers and hoodies. To both the left and right, tracks disappear into the mist.

A roaring sound, and out of the fog arrives a train. Jet black with gold writing on the side. The Voidtrecker Express. There is a hiss as the doors slide open and out step a strange assortment of people. Some are human, some are less so. Most are wearing the same hoodie in one of the four colours, red, orange, blue and purple, though some are sporting different clothes in a variety of styles.

The Train

After a short time, the doors hiss open again. Those from the train may encourage those on the platform to board. It’s not like there's anywhere else to go and even if there was, you feel a pull. A need to board, a feeling that staying on the platform would lead to something terrible. If that is not enough, there are plenty of people on the platform now, to encourage them onto the train.

Each ICP shows the same message and next to the screens there are stacks of leaflets written by those on the train, with further information (see
'Publications'). Those not new to the train will note the addition of an eighth sleeper carriage. The store rooms have been restocked with fresh ingredients, it seems the month of Kazoo is defined by the tomato and there are plenty of them.

For passengers that have bought items, these are also scattered around the luggage carriage in various suitcases and bags.

New passengers will find their ticket allows them into their cabins. They may need to negotiate for beds, especially if they want a top bunk!

Room is tight but there are storage cubbies at the head of each bed, beds fold up and the bottom bunks double as benches for the small table. There is storage under those benches full of spare blankets and pillows.

Departure

A second horn sounds to encourage any stragglers as thunder rumbles further and the storm threatens to break. The doors slide shut. Veteran passengers know what will happen next, but they may wish to brief their new companions.

The train sets off, the fog obscuring the view again as it picks up speed.

"Welcome aboard, passengers of the Voidtrecker Express." A female-coded artificial sounding voice echoes throughout the train. "Please take the time to read the passenger information displayed on the Information and Communication points and familiarise yourself with the layout and emergency exits."

The train begins to tilt, leaving the ground and rising up into the fog-filled sky.

"Entrance into Voidspace imminent. New passengers are advised to remain seated. Entry into Voidspace in ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one."

A shudder, a jolt, a lurch to the left. A flash of light, colourful and blinding. As quick as it happens it is done. The train seems to steady itself. The fog from the windows is gone now, replaced with a kaleidoscope of ever-changing colours.

Welcome to the Void!

Comments

[weifinder]

In the months back home since he's last seen Jiang Cheng, Wei Wuxian has had plenty of time to think. Most of it unproductive, when it comes to reflecting on the people he cares most for, and the ones he doesn't know how to say anything that won't just leave them feeling angrier than usual, and not wrongly.

Which is to say, be hasn't known what to say to Jiang Cheng. He's sent messages to Gusu, for Lan Zhan, and to Sizhui, and to his nephew... through Lanling and once or twice, Yunmeng. But he's not been able to craft a letter to actually send yet to Jiang Cheng, leaving the starts and ends of many of them to burn in fires heating his temporary rooms along the way.

Seeing him now, Wei Wuxian starts and stares, his free hand pressed up against the side of their soul capturing vessel that bridges the darkness, only one log wide.

"You know, I've asked myself that, and so far the train hasn't seen fit to answer." Wen Qing leaves, and here comes an even more fraught subject: his living martial brother. He moves slowly, pushing off the train and straightening, smile lopsided and eyes searching for an indication of when. When is his brother from? "You, ah, hahaha, Jiang Cheng, what do you... well. Welcome to our shared abduction?"

That is not, he reflects, even remotely what he really ought to say.

[fennu]

There's no way for Jiang Cheng to muster up the right words to speak to Wei Wuxian, not with this situation, not when he's been kidnapped and dragged away from home. All he can think about is his nephew, about his Sect, all the people that have been left behind with him here doing absolutely nothing of worth. The fact that Wen Qing's ghost is now haunting him is enough to leave him even more snappy and on edge than normal.

It certainly doesn't help that Wei Wuxian is... Well, Wei Wuxian, as ever. He's too cheerful, too happy, too content to be here, wandering around with his stupid dizi and his stupid songs, as if nothing's ever been wrong between the two of them. As if he can walk into Jiang Cheng and everything is just going to be okay, as if Jiang Cheng's chest doesn't still feel sore from the wound from Jin Guangyao.

Jin Ling's voice echoes in his mind and he crosses his arms, trying not to let his glower get the better of him. He's never been very good at self-control when it comes to his brother and it's not really happening here either, not when he's already on edge and tense.

"Don't answer me if you're just going to say stupid things," Jiang Cheng replies almost immediately. "'Welcome'? Is that all you have to say? It doesn't matter what happens, you're always going to be an idiot, aren't you?!" He almost stomps his foot. "Why don't you say something useful for a change?"

[weifinder]

He winces, trying to shove Chenqing into his waistband, only to come up short against his cargo pants. There are so many pockets, but no waistband to be a convenient belt of holding, and so he ends up looking like he tried to ineffectually shank himself by dizi.

Firmly putting Chenqing behind his back, he straightens up and tries offering a smaller smile. "I don't know what's going to count as saying anything useful right now, considering. Where do you want me to start? I'm sorry you've been pulled here? There's enough to tell, but I've only been here two weeks, unlike a number of the rest..."

He pauses, then brings his hands both around front, gesturing in a hold, stop, I'm defenseless way.

"About that, will you listen to me listing off who's here without... ah, doing anything just yet?"

[fennu]

At least he hasn't raised a hand to try and punch Wei Wuxian yet, which, in his terms, is something to be proud of. It would be so easy to just let himself fall into his anger and his guilt and not even be able to speak - but he's trying. He remembers the moment of a thumb against the tears on his cheek and he can't quite find the same bite that he was accustomed to.

Still, the fact that Wei Wuxian's mind immediately goes to pain... He can't be shocked at that, can he? Not with the threats to break his legs coming in hot and fast. All he can do is let his eyes drag over him, letting his glare settle into something comfortable and familiar, before he crosses his arms and lifts his head, trying to find the same steely gaze that Madam Yu once had.

It never works with Wei Wuxian.

"I'll listen, but nothing annoying better come out of your mouth." There's no Sandu, at least, and as easy as it would be to whip Wei Wuxian with Zidian... He remembers too much right now with the ghosts of his past literally haunting him. "What do you have to say? Tell me."

[weifinder]

He smiles again, briefly, before his features settle into something more serious, less distracted. "Can't promise that, Jiang Cheng." A wry sort of twist to his lips, and he let his hand holding Chenqing fall to his side. "All I've got to say is going to be some kind of unpleasant."

Avoiding it, however, is going to leave them both with more troubles than others. He takes a half step forward, pauses, settles in to look back at house lifetime companion with a clear gaze.

"The summoning that brought us here also brought people who should be dead. Some... at least one would make us happy, but... she's had to leave, today. The rest? Xue Yang is here. He's even died on the train, but that's another topic altogether." Another pause. " Meng Yao is here. From before... everything, but he was told what he becomes."

He stops there for now, intently watching Jiang Cheng, brow furrowed just a touch.

[fennu]

Even seeing Wei Wuxian's smile is enough to make him feel as though he's about to cry or start shouting and either one of them seems like a valid option. He wasn't emotionally prepared for seeing Wei Wuxian like this, nor for seeing his martial brother some kind of expert, again.

He doesn't get violently angry when Wei Wuxian steps closer, but he does feel a new tightness in his jaw. He's managing, doesn't he get credit for that?

But then the name Meng Yao comes up and the fizz of Zidian at his side is more than enough of a speaker for his emotions. Meng Yao - Jin Guangyao, the bastard, son of a whore, who had kept Jin Ling and -

He breathes out, trying to restrain himself. It's not like the man is in front of him right now, but...

"From before? What do you mean before?!"

[weifinder]

It's almost a relief, hearing that buzz of electricity. Not because he has much in the way of pleasant memories of it; in fact, he chooses to forget, or at least claim to have forgotten, much of what his body has once known of Zidian. But it speaks of the anger Jiang Cheng holds better than Wei Wuxian. Not because he forgives.

One death is enough, for him. Anger has to have an ending, so that he might move forward into any positive emotion. So that he isn't back in the burial mounds with the screaming pleads of familiar voices, and anger, and desperation, were large parts of what kept him alive.

He takes another half step closer, tentatively reaching out for Jiang Cheng's arm. With his luck, Meng Yao would pop up in this exact moment.

"We don't all come from the same moment in time. The man who's here, this Meng Yao, hasn't left the Nies."

[fennu]

Jiang Cheng has never learned to just say goodbye to his anger, never been taught how to let it go. He was raised by a father who overlooked him and a mother who let her frustration peel off in his direction - and even sixteen years later he doesn't know how to let his feelings for Wei Wuxian settle into something comfortable. He hasn't learned how to deal with this new man.

His life has been a series of errors that haunt him, losses that make him feel chained and burdened, and when he looks at Wei Wuxian, living as though nothing had gone wrong, nothing had changed (at least in his eyes) it feels like another slap in the face. He commits sins, wakes in a new body and simply goes on?

His eyes closer, he breathes out, and he tries to pretend the hand on his arm isn't a comfort, isn't the thing he needs most right now. To have his brother at his side when he feels most weak.

"The Nie - but..." It doesn't make sense. That is more than sixteen years - that is before A-Ling, before Sunshot, before everything. The notion doesn't even make sense to a Jiang Cheng so filled with hurt and rage that he can barely scrape his mind together to understand it. "What did he say? When he found out, what did he do?"

That, surely, will be the judge of his character. Was he surprised by his own actions? Regretful? Angry? Or did it seem sensible, understandable, for a man to go as far as he did?

[weifinder]

Wei Wuxian is terrible, really, at coaxing anyone who isn't a child, and has his own impressions of what Jiang Cheng can handle from him that only changed at the temple, when artifice had been torn down in Jin Guangyao's pointed lashings out at them all. Tearing into the two of them, for the multi-leveled breakdown between them that both had ended up allowing to happen, and still, Wei Wuxian can't blame Jiang Cheng. Blame himself, yes, he knows how to do that, but it's distressing seeing Jiang Cheng in pain, or knowing he'd been the one holding onto Chenqing all those years, that he still, after everything, without resolution or conversation, threw himself in front of him.

The Yungmeng Heroes. There's a tragedy there he doesn't know how to address, so what he does is give a squeeze with his hand, presuming no further. Even hugging his long missing son, discovered alive to Wei Wuxian's shock, had been stilted and awkward. Falling into someone's arms (Lan Zhan, either steady or resigned or simply appreciating an unerring sense of timing in this) is about his easiest form of contact, and that's when he's close to passing out. The sad truth behind Jiang Cheng being the one to initiate is Wei Wuxian's stumbling at addressing anything at all.

But facts, yes, guesses, yes, things that involve words about other people? Those are familiar. "He states he was shocked, that it wasn't what he wanted, the costs behind it." A touch of a dry smile, his lips hiked up at one side. "I think he regrets the personal costs of what he hasn't done yet. He can't forget what he's been told, but with Zewu-Jun here, no matter which world, he's worth guarding." For the things that an intimate can do, no matter how much pain is involved. Just how the two of them could destroy each other by malicious choice, if it'd been in them; one can never be hurt so much without also having loved as deeply.

"I'm not saying to forgive or forget. But if we don't move forward, if we can't be better men than he ever was, then where are we left?" Another searching look, waiting for the moment he's shaken or shoved off, quite rightfully. "If it helps any, he was asking me to stand guard to kill him if he starts to walk the path he did before."

Wei Wuxian had turned him down wholesale, but he doesn't say that. He's tired of being anyone's elected murderer.

[fennu]

"The costs?!"

That's the thing he regrets? The costs behind it? Jiang Cheng looks about ready to burst from the inside out, as if something inside of him is blowing up and up and about ready to explode. The idea that Meng Yao, slimy and deceitful and as close to evil as Jiang Cheng has ever seen, thinks that the worst of his actions is that it's not what he wanted, that the costs weren't what he wanted... If his sword was with him he would hunt him down, would shove Sandu so far down his throat -

"He doesn't need you to stand guard over him. After what he did to A-Ling, what he did to Zewu-jun, to -" to all of them, each and every single one of them, all the games he played and all the horrible, awful events he was behind? Not just A-Ling, but Jin Zixuan, his sister, even the Wens and his brother, all of them... There's no way he would be able to turn down the chance to be the one to put him down. Revenge hasn't always been the thing that guided Jiang Cheng - guilt and grief was enough on that front - but he can't help the burn of it right now.

"- he doesn't need him. And we don't have to try to be better men! After everything he did we're better by virtue of existence!"

Closing his eyes, Jiang Cheng tries to muster something close to calm. It's never been something he's good at, of course, and it's even harder now, emotions overwhelming him. The fact that he's hearing this from Wei Wuxian of all people is enough to push him over the edge, something like hurt burning behind his eyes. He supposes this is, again, what tears are like; he was trying to limit his emotional breaks, but it seems his brother has more skill at that, too.

"I am not going to be nice to him."

[weifinder]

There's a small sound of frustration, Wei Wuxian visibly twitching at the idea of defending Meng Yao. "Not him, guarding Zewu-Jun." The sheer idea of it!

(Naturally, at some point, he'd have to eat these words, but a future's fool is for the future.)

He has no comment on being better by virtue of existence. For a long time, Wei Wuxian's name was anathema for what everyone else dictated him to be. Some of it true, most of it false, and Wen Qing having walked off this platform is too recent a memory to forget her leaving him prone and incapable of moving as she and the rest of the Wens marched off to try and buy what the cultivation world was never actually selling.

No, there is plenty he doesn't forgive Jin Guangyao, or Jin Guangshan, but that jaded bitterness had fallen away in sixteen years of darkness. All he'd wanted, coming back, was to break away from all that. All he'd been able to do was be drawn inexorably back in.

He does laugh a touch, flashing Jiang Cheng something smaller and more genuine than a number of his smiles. "You don't have to be nice to him, just don't bother with killing him. There's—oh, this is going to be annoying to hear, bear with me." He's keeping his hand on Jiang Cheng's arm until he shoves him away, for now. "Two things to know: the people we recognise here, and some you won't, aren't from the ah... I don't know how to make this make sense. We're from different worlds. I wonder if each one of us isn't, because I sure never heard about any person here going missing, and with the dead being here, alive? Anyway, whatever the case, it's true. There's another Wei Wuxian here, with his, ah. Lan Zhan's here, but he's not... he's not the man we know, exactly."

He waves his free hand, like dismissing this preps them for talking onward. (It doesn't.) "Anyway, about the killing—people don't stay dead. The Voidtrekker resurrects them whole of body. If you did kill him, he'd come back, remembering everything you'd done." Starting off a whole new cycle that Wei Wuxian didn't want to see Jiang Cheng pulled into, let alone the handfuls of others that matter to him here.

[fennu]

None of this is making Jiang Cheng feel any better about the situation he's found himself in; none of this is helping with the tension under his skin or the way that his heart feels as though it's about to come up through his throat. It's almost painful to the point of exhaustion, especially when his body still feels as though he should be aching from the soreness of the events of last week.

The fact that he is even tolerating Wei Wuxian right now is a reference to how out of place he feels, how much he needs something to anchor him before he spirals out of control. If he was anywhere else, anyone else, he would have stormed away screaming now, but he feels bound by something sharp and painful.

It's all too fresh for a Jiang Cheng who has barely slept through all his thoughts and his emotions; he isn't sure how to handle any of this, completely overwhelmed, wanting to say a thousand and one things but not being able to express it. Again, he can hear the voice of Jin Ling scolding him, calling him a coward, a bastard, whatever else - but that doesn't matter. He doesn't care. He can't care.

He can't.

Jiang Cheng can barely wrap his mind around everything that's happening; the weight of his arm barely registers. All he can think about are all the things spiralling and the sharp spark of his weapon on his hand.

"Is that why he's back? He was brought back by this place?!" He's not particularly concerned about Meng Yao remembering him being the one to kill him, not with what he had seen and heard at the Temple. Add that to the fact that there are apparently other versions of his brother and his brother's stupid -- whatever Lan Wangji was...

All he can do is stare at Wei Wuxian, eyes dark and clearly very lost.

"Why should I believe any of what you're saying?" As if Wei Wuxian has a streak of lying - no. His brother has always been honest to the point of agony or danced around things as a joke, but he's never lied. Not intentionally.

[weifinder]

"He wasn't brought back, Jiang Cheng, he's never lived through any of that—wait, when, what..." Wei Wuxian pauses, lifting his free hand up to rub at his temple. "What most recently happened for you, did you already say?"

It's a matter of distraction to not be recalling right now, but he can't help it. All his own discomfort over this, and he'd spare Jiang Cheng from it, just like he wants to spare him so much. What favours has it done?

"Then don't take my word. Talk to Zewu-Jun. Take his, if you can't believe mine." A cracked smile, with eyes that don't smile in the slightest. He doesn't think Jiang Cheng means it, but he also thinks Jiang Cheng needs to hear about these things from someone not him, or not just him. "I know it's too much to bear, Jiang Cheng, but I'm trying not to..."

He gestures with his free hand, as it to encompass something unseen, fingers flexing and spreading, then curling back into his palm. "... Trying not to decide what you can handle for you." It's a quieter statement, and he can't actually look at Jiang Cheng when he says it. He's had time to his thoughts and his donkey alone on those roads he's wandered. There's no perfect way to protect those he loves; he's seen the costs, has witnessed his own failings, and he's still too new to being actively alive to know what to do with it. Run through events no one explained, herded and saved by a man who didn't tell him a word beyond what he had to, attacked again by the world they all grew up in and then exonerated in the bloodthirst that descended disguised in righteousness after Jin Guangyao. Before confirmation, before personal confessions.

The ground beneath his feet is only now starting to feel like it can be solid without depending on Lan Zhan, the one who had, against everything, chosen the narrow path of believing Wei Wuxian over everything else in the world. Who he tried to free of the burden of himself, again, because what is learning? Isn't it easier to walk away? He freely grants that blessing, again and again.

So he lets go of Jiang Cheng's arm, letting his hand fall away, empty, to his side.

"You can trust Zewu-Jun." More than either one of them might trust themselves.

[fennu]

All of this makes Jiang Cheng pause, frowning as he thinks to himself. It's all fine for Wei Wuxian to say 'trust Zewu-jun', but it's hard to forget just who believed in Jin Guangyao the most in the end. He can trust Lan Xichen for many things, that will never stop, but Jiang Cheng doesn't think he can trust the other man to be fair or reliable when it comes to his once honoured brother. No, it might be better to not even broach the topic of it, to just talk about other things, ignoring the things they should talk about.

They could discuss rabbits. That would be safe.

Wei Wuxian's hand falls away and Jiang Cheng sighs, gritting his teeth and trying not to give in to the emotional exhaustion already suffocating him. He wants to scream and shout but he doesn't have the heart for it, not when his eyes are still darting around the platform chasing ghosts when a live one has crashed into him and made him think about things that he was trying so hard to forget. He's about to say it all too when the rest of Wei Wuxian's words register to him and he has to bite his tongue - literally, this time, to stop the tears from coming back.

"Good. You shouldn't think of me as someone so weak. Because I can handle all this! I've been Sect leader for years now! I can handle anything!" Or almost anything, really. As long as it's not a fresh reminder of wounds that have never really healed. He crosses his arms as soon as they're free to do so, hands still clenched even as his voice is tight and filled with the pain he's trying to swallow. He's trying to remember what Wei Wuxian had said, that they came from different times - obviously if Jin Guangyao is so young, not even given his courtesy name from his father yet.

It's a common thought that comes to him now: I wish a-Jie was here.

"It was a week ago that we were at Guanyin Temple." He admits finally, almost too much emotion in his voice. He wishes it was all simply anger, but there's sadness there too, hurt and pain. "I've been working in Yunmeng to clean everything up and prepare things for a-Ling." Since he was to be Sect leader next, of course, and if anyone said otherwise Jiang Cheng would likely rip their heads off - in the most literal of senses.

His voice is very quiet as he looks out over the platform again, wishing that someone was here to make all of this easier for him.

"I'm not delicate. I'm not weak. I don't need you to protect me." Just like Wei Wuxian had said to him when he had broken his promise once and for all; he doesn't need that, even if he might want it.

[weifinder]

Having words revisit him from the past isn't unusual, not these days, but it doesn't reduce an earned sting, which he smiles at, eyes falling away for a moment. It's not really a laugh, but something smaller than that, before he looks back up to Jiang Cheng, expression somewhere between sad and understanding.

"We all need someone to stand by us, Jiang Cheng. It has nothing to do with being delicate or weak. As much as we want to protect others, why is it so hard to realise that means people want to protect us in turn?"

It's not a rhetorical question. The awkwardness of his expression, then the wry twist to his lips as he rubs at the back of his neck, glancing away again. Jiang Cheng is upset, has so many reasons to be, and Wei Wuxian doesn't want to be upset, but he can't say he isn't. If he ignores it hard enough—

"It's been months for me since then. You never went missing. I'd have heard," he says, looking up to Jiang Cheng's face, hand dropping away from the back of his neck. "I make sure to know what I can of what's going on for the clans, no matter where I am."

I keep track of you, even though we're not talking.

The rest comes slower, pulled out of him as he considers: what does he need to say, what should he say, what does he owe this brother of his? So much more than he knows how to give. He's struggling as it is with figuring out how to pay back Lan Zhan's loyalty, his mourning and searching of sixteen years. With Chenqing back in hand because of Jiang Cheng, how is he supposed to pay off this debt, too? This anger and grief, the fractured hearts between them?

Wen Qing's walked off the platform today, and brings to mind another sister, a more traumatic ghost, someone else who has sacrificed for him when it wasn't worth it, it's never worth their lives, but they'd wanted to protect him too. He swallows, blinks back tears from heated eyes.

"I'm sorry I told you to stop trying to protect me just because I wanted to protect you. I was wrong."

Because pushing people away, trying to take it all on himself, not once has it worked out. Not once has it truly, fully, completely stopped anyone's pain, just shifted the trajectory of it.

[fennu]

It's difficult for Jiang Cheng to be around Wei Wuxian like this, with some kind of honesty burning inside of both of them. He's still reeling from everything that he learned, still adjusting to what was happening to him, to the truth of his heart and what was inside him. Knowing that his Golden Core didn't belong to him, that it came from his brother, that Wei Wuxian had been with him for all the years that the two of them had been separated by death... It made him happier and sadder than he had ever been in his life.

He wants to say that he doesn't need to be protected, that he doesn't need Wei Wuxian to be taking care of him like he had been before, when they were so much younger. Jiang Cheng is a Sect Leader now, has been ruling Yunmeng, has been raising his nephew, had been doing so many things that Wei Wuxian doesn't know and might never know, but he can't find the words to say it. It's too painful to try and be friendly to someone who broke his heart so thoroughly.

The idea that, even now, with everything that happened, Wei Wuxian is still watching out for him... He can't stand it.

Lifting his head, Jiang Cheng tries to muster himself, breathing out and closing his eyes. It's got to the point where even looking at Wei Wuxian feels like too much, like he's doing something he shouldn't be, betraying his past self and the broken promises by accepting this mirage. But Wei Wuxian is real, Wei Wuxian is here, being honest and kind and as gentle as he ever was with his family.

He hadn't wanted the apology back in the temple but he supposed he needed it to begin to move on. After almost twenty years of dwelling on his thoughts and wondering what was going on he finally understands - and so does his brother. Wei Wuxian realises why Jiang Cheng was so upset, so angry, and he can understand why his brother kept his secrets. Hadn't their lives been too mixed up with responsibility and owing people? Maybe it was easier not to owe anyone.

All he can think about is rain, the sound of A-Jie shifting in her bed and the shouts of Wen clansmen.

"I don't need your apologies. Didn't I tell you that?" His head bows, just a little, years of exhaustion weighing down on his shoulders and making him feel small. "You just needed to understand." Hand clenched, he tries to stand straighter. "I had enough time that it didn't matter anyway."

Liar.

[weifinder]

There's a balance neither one of them knows, not fully, when it comes to each other. The explanations that Wei Wuxian spills like water to the people he cares about for each other, how he tries, repeatedly, to make apologies for Jiang Cheng that Jiang Cheng will never hear. Or has heard, in part, in passing; but can he know just how sincere that is?

None of them were raised in any kindness beyond Jiang Yanli's strength of heart, and the softened attempts Jiang Fengmian made, but always favoured, always looking toward what he thought he could indulge at the cost of the rest of those he loved. Pain was so wrapped up in how they knew to love anyone, pain inflicted both ways, pain of the heart and pain of the body, and it doesn't occur to Wei Wuxian at least that pain isn't a normal part of every transaction. Right now, it's the heart; Zidian snaps, and it may well be body and soul again, no complaint made except in whining, jesting distress.

Zidian's always had a taste for him. He doesn't mind, really, because blood is blood, bruises heal, bodies either fail or they don't, and so far his hasn't failed even when he's given it no reason not to.

So he lets go. He lets go, hands at his sides, empty.

Time isn't the balm, really. Time is the distance for perspective, and focus is the aim of one's preoccupations. He reflects more these days than he did when younger. Once one has hit rock bottom, perspectives shift. He can't get any lower than when he'd wanted to die and acted on it.

"Please bear with me being like this, wanting to apologise even when you don't need it. And... thank you, Jiang Cheng." Glancing up, meeting the gaze of someone who's been his brother for longer to him than he's not been. For things he doesn't know how to say, and for the ones he could, if his tongue didn't feel as heavy. "I, ah... when the train opens up again, make sure to get on. I was told if you're stubborn enough to stay behind it kills you, then revives you on train. It's not something I recommend any of us testing." A pause. "Or at least, none of the people I care about."

Meng Yao and Xue Yang are welcome to try it as many times as they like.

He takes this as his own not so graceful exit, or at least offers it as a way forward for them both. He feels aching and hollow and also light headed, not so much grounded as newly tired in an ill-defined manner. Maybe he'll go lay down. Or run laps. Or do anything other than be right here, failing to handle his (little brother) (shidi) (leader of his former sect) Jiang Cheng.