Work Text:
[(Dear Atlas brother CJ)]
[You are not Whole. You have never been Whole. Or if you were, we haven't been in a long time.]
[We want to finally reach out to you. Artemis didn't want to-]
(HEY FUCK YOU LET ME TALK)
[Fine. If that is what you wish.]
(Um, hi. Apollo was gonna say that I didn't want you to know, but that's not true. I want you to know- I've known you, we've known you for so long, but you haven't gotten to know us. We really want to meet you properly. But I thought it was best to wait, because this is probably really concerning and scary for you.)
(You know all the times you've woken up in a place, and you don't remember getting there?) [Or buying things you don't remember buying. The fact that you carry lipstick everywhere,] (and your preference for the colour changes alongside basically your entire personality.) [Those times you have felt slightly off- like you were someone else. That (was us.)]
[You are probably wondering who we are. I am Apollo, or the Mind, (and] I'm Artemis- the Heart. You call yourself CJ- the guy we refer to as the Whole- but we call you the Soul.) [Or Atlas. You carry the weight of the world- our world, both literally and metaphorically- on your shoulders.]
(We're sorry for everything we've put you through. We've fought so often, knowing how it affects you. We've both tried to do what we think is best for us, for the Whole, even though we know it just hurts you. The loops- the cycles of depression you go through- we do too, though it affects us all differently. But for us, it also makes us fight more. Which makes things even worse. We've seen how it affects you. We've seen the scars on our arms- some left by me, granted. But caused by all of us. We're sorry for making things worse.)
[I cannot say how long we have not been Whole for. Perhaps we never were. Heart and I have been through many periods of inactivity- periods where we may as well not exist. You likely felt those periods- the sense of incompletion, of two of your thirds missing. It is often disconcerting for us when we awaken, with our life often completely changed. But we’_____]
{...}
CJ blinked. He was sitting at his desk, tightly gripping a pen- his hand was cramping now, and he set the pen down, flexing his hand. He didn't remember how he got there or what he had been doing before. He sighed- not this again.
Except maybe he remembered, like a dream-
Wandering through his house, but there were extra rooms he didn't recognise.
He caught a glimpse of his reflection in the mirror- when had he applied lipstick? He tried to rub it off, but it wouldn't leave his lips. Wouldn't even smudge.
He found a room, exactly the same as his bedroom, but this one looked like it had remained untouched for years. A trident was leaning against the wall, glowing softly red. He picked it up- it was balanced perfectly, almost weightless in his grip. He…
And after that, he had no idea. It was just a dream, anyway. It was probably the morning, and he had had an incredibly vivid dream, which also involved him sleepwalking to his desk and-
There was a piece of paper in front of him- he spotted his name on the top.
“{Who wrote-}” CJ's voice came out scratchy, and he cleared his throat. “Who wrote this? Maybe I got a letter, and I opened it while sleepwalking,” CJ muttered to himself. He tried to ignore the pen next to him and the fact that the handwriting was his own, albeit very rushed.
Well, there was one way to find out- he read the letter.
About halfway through, Atlas- CJ started to space out. He blinked, trying to focus on the words in front of him, but it was difficult when everything felt like it was floating.
[Ground yourself,] came a voice. [Remember the ice.]
CJ stumbled to the freezer and grabbed an ice cube, squeezing it in his fist. The coldness shocked him back to his senses, and he continued reading, fighting the dissociation that threatened to overtake him again.
“This has gotta be a joke, right?” CJ muttered once he finished. It ended abruptly, these ‘Apollo’ and ‘Artemis’ not having finished whatever the final sentence was meant to be. Someone had pranked him, some fucking creep had watched him and copied his handwriting to scare him-
CJ stilled as he saw that his hand, unbidden, was writing on the paper.
(It's not a prank, mate! What did you think the voice telling you to ground yourself was?)
CJ's breath quickened. He tapped his fingers on the pen- which he was holding now, though he hadn't grabbed it- then, cautiously, wrote back on the paper.
{Was that you?}
He didn't know why he included the brackets, but it felt fitting, to contrast with the other two.
(No, that was Mind.)
(… I'm Heart, in case you forgot.)
{I'll be honest, I thought that was just me talking to myself.}
CJ fiddled-
(Sorry, can you please call yourself Soul or Atlas? It's a bit confusing, hearing you call yourself CJ, when that's meant to be all of us.)
{...okay.}
Atlas fiddled with the pen.
{Does that mean you can hear my thoughts?}
(Yeah. Not always, but right now I can.)
{So I don't need to write this down?}
(I mean- not really, but it does make it easier to understand you- I don't always hear your thoughts clearly.)
[Besides, since we assume you cannot hear us, it makes the conversation easier to follow if we all write.]
{Apollo?} Atlas asked. {You're the one who told me to ground myself?}
[Yes.]
{So… if I'm getting this right, you two live in my head and are the reason for… all the issues with memories and stuff? And I'm not… the original one?}
[We are not the reason for the amnesia, though we don't all share exactly the same memories. And no, you are not the original- the Whole, as we call him. Some of our memories, especially from our childhood, are held by us, to protect you and each other from them.]
Soul's head was reeling.
[Take your time.]
(Sorry for dumping all of this on you at once…)
“{It's… I just need to think about this, okay?}”
[Understood.]
“{Wait- will I hear from you again?}”
“Of course,” Soul heard his own voice reply, though he couldn't tell who said that. “We'll be back when you're ready.”