Not the Memorable Day he Expected

[xue_yang]

Who: Xue Yang and OTA
Where: Dining
When: Day Twenty
What: Today would have been his wedding day so he is a little frustrated, a little sad, and is binge eating all the food that would have been served. Feel free to come and help him eat up all the food and stop him from destroying the entire car or all the dishes.
Warnings: Xue Yang in a bad mood can be a jerk. Other warnings will get added if necessary.


Xue Yang hadn't really thought a wedding was necessary. Never saw the point in following a tradition like this before. Didn't even really expect he would ever have one...and it seems he wasn't wrong in that respect. But this had been the day that Xingchen had chosen. The day where they would have been officially married and celebrating with everyone on the train that would want to do so. And so the fact that the man's name is in gold and he is missing, is weighing heavily on him. Even more then it has the days leading up to this or when he first discovered the man gone.

But there was food and a party had been planned. So instead of waiting around, Xue Yang has decided that he would help himself to what he should have been having anyway. He plops himself down in a car decorated in red. And he even decided to wear the red wedding attire that Xingchen had picked and had made for him. Might as well, right? This was its destined day to be worn so it should be done. He always liked the color red anyway. Perhaps a part of him thought if he actually came and everything was ready that the man might suddenly appear...

So even though he has the expression of someone who doesn't care...everything is meticulous. Perfectly set up and ready to go should the groom decide to walk through the door of the car. But Xue Yang knows that isn't likely. That isn't what he is fated for and no amount of hope is going to change that.

And so he eats. It's his party and he will gorge himself on all the food if he wants to. He sees no reason to let it go to waste. It is for him isn't it? But unfortunately the longer he sits there and eats, and waits...the angrier he becomes. Angry at himself for letting himself think that this was even possible. Angry at the train for taking people away just as easily as they are brought. Angry at Xingchen for broken promises. Just....angry.

Angry enough that an empty plate goes hurtling across the room to smash into the wall beside the door. If someone happens to walk through the door at that moment there won't be any apologies for any broken pieces that might land in their way.

Comments

[so_dark_a_road]

Curufin happens to wander through the door, but he has fast reflexes and ducks, and so doesn't get hit by any dish fragments.

Anger is a thing he understands well, though he doesn't know the specific reason for Xue Yang's upset. He was gone for so long before the last mission, and the mission took up so much of his energy that he hasn't been paying attention to announcements and didn't know about the wedding day.

"What's wrong, Xue Yang?"

[xue_yang]

Xue Yang watches as Curufin ducks from the dish attack. He hadn't really planned to throw it at anyone but the last person he would have done so to would have been Curufin. At least this guy has been pleasant to him since he arrived. Even if he did notice him missing for awhile. But that gives a little spark of hope that he really shouldn't have...because Curufin's name had been gold hadn't it? So that means it is possible for someone to come out gold and back to the train...

"This was supposed to be an important day but the person who set it up is missing."

There is a growl and gruff tone to his voice. Even if there is hope he is still angry.

[so_dark_a_road]

Curufin gives him a sympathetic look. It is true, he has always made a point of being kind to Xue Yang. Curufin has so much dark history of his own that he understands other who also do. And he knows how much such a history can affect one's present emotions and emotional expression.

"What was the important day, and who is the one who set it up? This person is missing? Obviously, it is someone who matters a great deal to you. Is their name in gold on the passenger roster? Because if the name is still in gold, there is hope that they may come back again." Curufin did, after all.

[xue_yang]

"I was supposed to be getting married." He folds his arms in front of his chest. He never understood why people were so set on being married but now that his own wedding day is ruined, he thinks he will just have to be even more apathetic towards such events.

"Daozhang Xingchen...he shouldn't bother to come back. I don't want to see him anymore anyway."

That is a lie. He wants him to come back but his pride and his anger won't let him admit it. But this is now the third time that he has lost Xingchen and he knows if he watches him walk off the next platform, he is not going to handle it very well. He already isn't.

[so_dark_a_road]

"Ah, I know who you mean. I had a converstation with him once. I can see why you'd have been willing to marry him. He was a really sensitive, intelligent guy." And now Xue Yang is deprived of him.

"I don't believe that everybody who leaves the train does it of their own accord. He may have had no say in the matter at all. If he comes back, you might want to talk with him and find out. Maybe even now he is somewhere missing you."

Pride and anger can throw a monkey wrench into a relationship, or even a relationship that is past tense but has some possibility of resurrection. Pride and anger are states Curufin very well understands, having suffered from them in his world, and having lost his son to them.

[xue_yang]

He turns his face away, "He was the first person to actually be nice to me." Everyone else only saw him as a tool or a threat. And even though Xingchen didn't know who he was being nice to at the time, in Xue Yang's mind it still counted. He might have been deceiving the man at the time but that is just how things happened.

"This is just how it has to be. Clearly he is meant to leave. Doesn't matter where we are." His hand clenches into a fist, tightly gripping the red fabric beneath his fingers. He had never once told the man he loved him. Been saving it for the correct moment. And now he doesn't intend to ever say it. He will destroy all those feelings inside of him.

[so_dark_a_road]

"So it seems," says Curufin. "He was a good person, and he thought you were worth it."

He sits down near Xue Yang and gives him an empathetic look. "He may in fact have been meant to leave, and that must be hard for you, to lose someone you loved. Is there anything I can do? If you want to talk about him, I can listen. Or if you don't want to talk, remember that time we sat and meditated together? We could do that now, if it would help you achieve some calmness and help you even begin deal with your feelings."

The pain of loss is never easy to deal with, and Curufin knows this well, from experience. But sometimes it helps to have a sympathetic friend.

[xue_yang]

"The last thing I want to do is talk about him." There is an angry kick to the leg of the table, needing to let out some of that frustration that just keeps building with each moment.

"I put on this stupid wedding clothing and made sure the room was ready for him to come back to. And he didn't! That's all the time I'm wasting on waiting."

He spent years of his life trying to find a way to bring Xingchen back. Then he died and ended up on a train that felt it was fun to bring the man and take him away twice more. Xue Yang is done spending time, energy and emotion on a man that can't seem to stick around. He clearly isn't the daozhang's soulmate and although he already knew that, there was still a piece of him that hoped soulmates could change and he would find that place in the man's life. But he clearly isn't and never will be that person.

[so_dark_a_road]

"All right, don't talk about him, then." Curufin smiles a little and kicks the table leg as well. BAM!

"I understand your anger," he says, to explain the gesture. "You've done everything you could to make your relationship with Xingchen work, and it will not work because he is gone. You are left with anger and frustration, and no real outlet for them." Not to mention the leftover love that will now never be recieved by the Taoist priest.

[xue_yang]

"Doesn't matter anyway. No one thought he should have been with me. They all get their wish."

Even though Xingchen tried his best to show people he had changed and that he deserved to be loved, no one else seems to think so. He might as well prove them right.

"I'll let my frustrations out on the next mission." It's probably better if most people stayed out of his way until then.

[deadwenwalking]

When the plate comes flying across the room in Wen Ning's direction, he reflexively catches it, twists around on his heels and throws it back. Only after he's done so does he realize who'd thrown it in the first place.

He wishes he could dredge up some more sympathy, but it's hard where this man is involved. Others seem fine with him here but the puppet has been avoiding interaction. If he doesn't talk with him he won't fight with him and that's better for everyone involved.

Well, so much for avoiding conflict.

[xue_yang]

Xue Yang's eyes narrow as Wen Ning walks in, observing as the plate is caught. He growls at not getting the satisfaction of watching it shatter. Instead it comes back towards him but instead of trying to catch it he shifts so that it flies past him. he might not be able to see it break but it does make a satisfying noise as it lands somewhere behind him.

He moves onto the next plate of food. he can't throw this one until he finishes eating the stuff on it. Well...he could but it would be a waste of good food. He'll just have to eat quickly so he can try to aim for Wen Ning's head this time. His former experiment has been so successful in avoiding him somehow which is probably for the best. Lucky for the other man, Xue Yang's desire to fight is slightly tempered by his promises to a man that is currently missing. But that doesn't mean his hand isn't twitching and desiring to reach for the sword that is concealed beneath those wedding robes.

"How nice of you to come and celebrate."

The sarcasm is practically dripping from those words.

[deadwenwalking]

"...There doesn't seem to be much of a celebration happening." Wen Ning takes the opportunity to give the decorations a better look-over. What had been planned here? A wedding? Where were the bride and groom? Where's anyone, really? Surely Xue Yang hadn't been marrying anyone.

Or had he?

Who would marry Xue Yang?

He makes his way slowly down the table toward the angry man. The food is tempting but he keeps his hands away. Whatever had been planned, it doesn't seem like much is happening now. If Xue Yang is ruining anything with his overindulgence here, there's no one showing up to complain about it.

"Do you plan on making yourself sick?"

[xue_yang]

"Someone somewhere is probably celebrating. They were successful is making sure the daozhang didn't make a mistake." Xue Yang keeps his eyes on Wen Ning as he moves around, perhaps not completely trusting that there might be some lingering anger towards him that might prompt some sort of retaliation. Xue Yang wouldn't hesitate to do so, so he finds it interesting when others don't also take that chance.

He finally peels his eyes away to look down at the plate in front of him and along the table at the rest of them, "Might as well. Don't see any reason to not still enjoy the food that was prepared for today."

And it's not like anyone will care if he stuffs himself so full he ends up in the sick car.

[deadwenwalking]

The doazhang? He'd been the one getting married? Had he been getting married... to Xue Yang? The mental gymnastics Wen Ning has to go through to even try computing this are ridiculous and leave him standing there with a confused frown on his face for a good long moment.

Why would Xiao Xingchen marry the man who caused him so much grief? Why would anyone marry Xue yang, for that matter? The man is completely unmarryable, as far as Wen Ning is concerned. Not fit for any being of any sort. Surely that is why the train would have sent the other man home, and he can't argue with its logic.

How did you convince him? he wants to ask, but holds his tongue. Instead he says "Less would go to waste if you let others know it was here."

[xue_yang]

Xue Yang also doesn't particularly see himself as the marrying kind. But Xingchen had wanted it and so he had agreed. But now that he is being left at the alter in a way, he feels frustrated. Why did he even agree to this in the first place if the man was just going to leave before it happened? Perhaps this had all been one cruel joke just to see if Xue Yang would actually go through with it. He has already run though a hundred different scenarios about how this came to happen but none of them can be really confirmed.

He waves his hand dismissively towards it. "People will wander in eventually anyway. You did."

It's not like this is a private car. If people so happen to stubble upon this sad little party they then are welcome to take whatever they want. Xue Yang certainly isn't going to clean up after it so the food is likely to sit out until someone discovers it. At least the food that he doesn't shove into his mouth in an attempt to eat it all out of spite.

"And any that were actually told about the event will probably come and see if the food is here." It was a small list but still...people might come looking for the food they were promised.

[weifinder]

Wei Wuxian wouldn't expect apologies from Xue Yang even on a good day, let alone one he has not yet learned is as particularly bad as this one. The shattering of a plate as he steps in merits a blink; he'd come by to ask when they wanted to do the tea ceremony, only he's left with shattered pottery and his eyebrows hiking higher when he looks across to the man dressed in red.

Singular. Not two, and he has to wonder: really, is marriage a curse here? Sheesh.

He tempers his first response as he heads inside and comes to sit down near Xue Yang, reflecting that this could be some weird momentary setback. Xiao Xingchen could walk in, right? Or walk out, he supposed, but it wasn't to his martial uncle's character to leave things unaddressed, and he'd been talking about wanting so many things with a wedding that Wei Wuxian won't pretend he fully understands. He wouldn't want the publicity of it for himself; his sister's wedding, the one he never saw himself, is the only grand affair he'd be stirred to. Perhaps for Jiang Cheng, too, but he thinks Jiang Cheng is as private in this as he is, where it'd matter between the two people, and no need for more than the quite ceremonies requiring no public outcry.

Ignoring the fact Jiang Cheng was a sect leader, and back home, the only quiet unions were the ones that invited whispers for a man in his position. Damned either way, he supposed.

Anyway, here was Xue Yang, and here wasn't Xiao Xingchen, and Wei Wuxian tapped a finger on the table.

"... This train sucks, huh?"

Very comforting words.

[xue_yang]

Xue Yang had always been content with leaving things the way they were. The wedding more Xingchen's desires and so he had gone along with it. If it was what the man wanted that he would do it. He would do anything that Xingchen wanted. But what was the point of any of it?

When he notices Wei Wuxian walk in, he turns his face away slightly. The one person whom he had always held in high respect, thinking that he could somehow bring Xingchen back on their own world. Following him in the path of demonic cultivation. He knows that the man might not like him, but he has always held him in high regard for many reasons. For him...this is at least a tolerable presence considering who could have walked through that door.

There is a visible drooping of the shoulders at what the other man says though and a small scoffing sound.

"Yes it does. It's a shame that I can't hate it completely given this is my only chance to live. But at the moment I still would like to tear it apart."

And he has..or did...when he was trying to find the daozhang upon noticing his name was gold.

[weifinder]

"You could still hate it," Wei Wuxian points out, resting his elbows on the table. His body posture is more relaxed than he feels, feet tucking up under the chair he sits in. On the bench? He's not thinking hard about it, either way. "Extreme as you are, there's some glimmer of normal emotions in there. Hating things for taking away what you care about, especially when you're the one who made it end in the first place, that's ah... normal."

He sighs, turning his gaze sideways to watch Xue Yang from the periphery.

"Might as well make the most of it. This train's about saving worlds, right?" He doesn't wait for an answer, only cradling his head on one upturned palm. "Tell it that's what you want out of it at the end. A world where you save him from the worst of yourself, instead of condemn his soul."

[xue_yang]

"I don't care about saving worlds." Xue Yang's only enjoyment out of visiting them is something less boring then being on the train, a chance to get outside and being able to fight a plethora of enemies that always seem to try and stop them from their tasks. The actual saving part he will leave for others to care about.

"I only want to save him but I can't even do that. Why would the train care what I want? When he was here he was given that chance. Now that chance is gone again. Clearly the train doesn't care about anything except these games where it brings people and then tears them away again."

[weifinder]

He clucks his tongue, reaching out to poke at Xue Yang's shoulder. A good, firm prod, not bothering to hide the implied roll of his eyes.

"Where's that obsessive energy to do whatever you had to get his soul knit back together? Look, I didn't say you had to care about the worlds you save. Don't be ridiculous, I don't think you know how to care like that. No, what I'm saying is... Put your energy into it, like you have been. Because if there's any payoff, and I suspect there is should you manage to stick this demonic voyage out to the end, then you get to name your price. That second chance you want, and a life not trapped in an undying haze."

Giving him a hard glance, and a tired one, understanding on some level from the perspective of the young woman that Xue Yang murdered, the one who in another world's form is on this voyage with them. "You really want to save him from what you drove him to?"

[xue_yang]

He doesn't like being reminded that it is his fault that Xingchen ended his life. But he also still feels that same regret knowing that it is. His hand clenches into a fist, more sure of one thing then he has ever been in his life.

"Yes. I want to save him no matter what." It is all he has ever wanted. On their world and on this train. He wants Xingchen's soul to be in one piece. For him to be whole and alive or at least as close to it as is capable.

And if it means searching every world for that chance, for some clue as to how to do that then he will tear every world apart in his search. He wants to have an answer so that he can walk alongside the man again. He has already helped this train and the worlds they have been to enough to deserve something worthwhile. If he has to save a hundred more worlds to save Xingchen then he will do it.

"I still would do anything to bring him back and if it means continuing on this train then that is what I will do."

But does he really have that choice? He knows the train could decide he isn't worth that chance and send him back at any time. And if he goes back then that is it. His journey to save Xingchen ends as his life is also gone.

[weifinder]

Wei Wuxian, on the other hand, is ruthless in his reminding. People with lacking moral compasses are those he knows can slide into justifying anything, including the worst of themselves, if so inclined. The only promising part of Xue Yang's particular madness was his desperation in bringing Xiao Xingchen back. In seeing A-Qing's memories, he at least knew some of the whys, and the grotesque enigma Xue Yang made of their fragile lives together, unable to keep himself from a grand jest that was no jest at all: just manipulation, just self-elected blinding with no donating cause, and himself unable to stand the consequences when they came home to roost and he laughed happily as they landed.

"Then point yourself toward that, and don't look away. It has nothing to do with kindness to others, though if you appreciate any of my shishu's character, you could stand to learn more casual kindness yourself. It's what he lived by." Even here, on train, it was the underwritten meaning to so much of his frankly absurd requests. Xiao Xingchen needed to believe in a bettering world, and not the one he'd shattered under, being played for a fool by one he trusted, not questioning his sword when seeking blood, and not qualifying if he should seek out evil at all, instead of ask for insight from the friend he'd left behind. The one he'd stabbed, years later, on Xue Yang's jealousy, unknown to Xiao Xingchen.

"But you know your personal mission. Mourn him, grieve him, and remember you are why you're doing that in the first place. I said it to A-Yao before, I know I did, but be better, you fool. There's no person who can't find a way to something more sensible than the grudges you once chose to live bound by."

[xue_yang]

Xue Yang grits his teeth at the thought that he should learn kindness. What would kindness ever gain him? His attempts at being better have ended the same way that being himself did. With Xingchen gone. Clearly neither option works for him. It is easier to just go back to behaving the way he used to. And it would be so easy to do if there wasn't already a target on his back for murdering A-Qing once and then the bad guy on one of the worlds they visited. If he kills again, who knows the punishment they will dole out. It's frustrating and part of why he is driven to be more well behaved.

But any kindness that maybe have even started to bud in him has just been squashed like a bug under a boot...and the train is the boot. The one person on the train who had seen good in him is gone.

"It's not in my nature to be better or kind." It's practically a growl but there is a pout in the words as well. "And the person who would and has tried to show me how is gone."

[weifinder]

"No, it's in your nature to dig pits and then trip into them, but if none of us were giving you a chance to find a way not to pit yourself, we wouldn't be having this conversation."

Not that Wei Wuxian believes that people change without the will and chance for it alike. Xue Yang is a harder sell for him than most, but giving a chance... he won't issue blank slates, he can't, weighing one's past to inform one's present and future is what he does to himself every day.

"Xiao Xingchen isn't the only person you can learn from, he's just the only one you care about. Why not actually try proving he was right after you're done feeling sorry for yourself? You already know what ending you had, and you didn't die without regrets. So what will you do with them, living now?"