Archive of Our Own

Sunday has noticed himself relapsing over the last few weeks, of course, but has so far declined to do much of anything about it.

This isn't because he doesn't want to. No, he would love it if he were able to get through his day-to-day life like the average person, but it's not something that's attainable for him. He hasn't done anything because there isn't anything to do that will make any sort of a difference. He's lived in his own mind for long enough to know that resistance is futile, and all he'll end up doing in the end is hurting himself further.

It starts after boarding the Astral Express, which he should have expected from the very beginning.

Sunday is a man who is very opposed to change. He hates it when things are different from how they're supposed to be - hates it when people or things are out of place. So the Express, as large and chaotic and disorganized as it can be, immediately spikes Sunday's anxiety to the point where he ends up with a headache.

There's no sense of routine. He can't get a sense of what's supposed to be happening at any given moment. The Nameless appear to simply do whatever they want to do whenever they please, and it makes him want to tear his hair out.

Not to mention the fact that, given that the crew has been operating with such a small group for such a long time, Sunday finds himself being as useless as a tissue after a swim in the pool.

"Is there anything I can do?" he asks Mr. Yang, on one of his first days aboard the Express.

Mr. Yang just shakes his head. He's assisting Himeko with something, running back and forth between cars with various tools and something black and sooty staining his fingertips. He's rather sweaty, and there is grease in his hair where he's clearly been dragging his hands through it in frustration. Sunday can't figure out what's happening, but he caught enough technical jargon to understand that Himeko is looking to tinker with the Express cooling system in order to make it more efficient, or something along those lines. The veins in Mr. Yang's forehead look like they're going to burst at any moment.

"No, thank you, Sunday," he breathes, eyes fluttering shut for a moment. "Himeko is very particular about how she wants things done. If you're looking for something to do, why don't you go to the Party Car and look for the rest of the crew? I'm sure they'd be happy to put you to work."

But when Sunday goes to the Party Car, all he finds is Stelle and March 7th playing some kind of game on March's phone, heads knocked together as they huddle at the bar, too lost in thought with each other to even notice.

"You should have started with "arise," like I said," Stelle complains. She's clinking her spoon around in her mug absently, steam rising from it to touch her chin. "Everyone knows it's the most efficient starting word. Try using the E here instead."

"I can't change the past," March whines. She leans closer into Stelle, so close that their noses are inches apart. Her eyes are glued to her phone screen, not even paying attention when Stelle reaches over to grab a cookie from the plate in front of her to dunk in her tea. "With what word? I can't think of anything."

Stelle taps something on March's phone, and March turns to meet her eyes with a silent giggle, and Sunday suddenly feels as though he's intruding on something and leaves the way he came.

Dan Heng is of no help either.

"I'm cleaning," he says, when Sunday knocks on the door of the Archives. He has the door opened only a crack, enough for a sliver of his face to be visible. A deep frown is set in his expression, eyebrows furrowed. "Sorry, it's a complete disaster in here right now or I would let you in."

Sunday's not a gambling man by any means, but he's willing to bet that his and Dan Heng's definition of "a complete disaster" are very similar, and that this would also mean that the room is almost entirely clean by any normal person's standards.

He doesn't say this, though. "I was just looking for something to do," he says with a nonchalant shrug. The urge to take his gloves off and tear the skin around his cuticles is growing with every passing second. His jacket weighs heavy around his shoulders. "I fear I've been more of a burden than anything since boarding and I'd like to assist around the place like the rest of you do."

At this, Dan Heng cracks the door enough that his face is fully visible, and the almost spotless interior becomes visible behind him. "You're not any kind of a burden," he says, and he sounds tired, when he says it. Looks it, too. Sunday wonders if he sleeps. "Unfortunately, the archives is organized in a very specific manner that I don't think I could really teach anyone else right now. Why don't you go see March and Stelle? Last I saw them, they were making plans to cook dinner with Pom-Pom."

The idea of a very specific organizational system both excites Sunday and makes him cringe. Maybe it's for the best that Dan Heng won't let him inside. "They're… busy," he says, glancing off down the long, empty hallway to where to the door to the Party Car is. "I imagine they got sidetracked."

Dan Heng exhales, rolling his eyes so quickly Sunday nearly misses it. "Figures," he mutters. "If so, Pom-Pom might need help in the kitchen. You could go ask them. They'll appreciate the offer regardless, I'm certain."

Well, Sunday wouldn't mind earning brownie points from the Conductor, so he makes his way to the kitchen to find them and ask.

Instead of this, however, he finds them having a nap on the couch in the Parlor Car on his way there.

"Huh?" cries Pom-Pom when Sunday gingerly shakes them awake. They blink and stretch their little arms above their head, adjusting their wrinkled outfit as they do so. "I wasn't asleep. What time is it?"

"Six," Sunday tells them gently.

Pom-Pom's eyes bulge out of their head. "Eek!" they yelp, and leap off the couch, stumbling but catching themself. "Where are passengers March and Stelle, huh, they were meant to wake me hours ago! My goodness! Dinner won't be for hours now at the rate I'm going!"

Sunday swallows back a laugh at the Conductor's high pitched despair. "I can assist if you'd like."

But the Conductor is shaking their head before Sunday can even finish speaking. "No can do," they say gravely, already barreling towards the door at the far end of the car. "I'll need one hundred percent of my concentration if I want to pull this off. If you want to help me out, Mr. Sunday, would you mind fetching me those lazy Nameless and telling them to get to the kitchen ASAP? Tell them their dessert is on the line if they don't."

So Sunday heads back to the Party Car to inform the women of the news.

They've moved since he was in there. They're now sprawled out across the couch, March half on Stelle’s lap, both watching something on a laptop screen that March has propped up on her knee. They're sharing a pair of Bluetooth headphones, one in March's right ear, one in Stelle's left.

He clears his throat and feels a flush creep up his face as they both turn to look at him. "Excuse me," he says, waving a hand lamely. "The Conductor would like to see you both in the kitchen? They said dessert is on the line."

March and Stelle's heads snap around to meet each other's eyes before letting out identical screeches of what is presumably remembrance of an earlier promise and tossing the laptop aside to scramble to their feet, tugging on their shoes and tripping over one another as they do so.

"Thanks, Sunday!" March yelps as the two of them tear out of the car at top speeds.

He doesn't even get a chance to say you're welcome before the door swings shut and leaves Sunday alone again.

This is how most of his first days on the Express go.

However, one day, Himeko gets the idea to have him help her and March organize the drinks counter in the Party Car. The women are emptying everything out and restocking it - something about having bought too many Penacony specialities and needing to get rid of the mess in order to make room for it.

He smiles when he sees the packs of Soulglad ready to be put away on the shelves. Himeko notices the look and offers him one, but he quickly declines - he's drank more of the stuff in his lifetime than he'd ever have wanted to, and definitely doesn't need any more.

March offers him a can of something that's written in a language he doesn't know, instead. It's green and has a picture of a fruit that's yellow and red on the front, splashing into a glass of orange liquid. When he cracks it open, it's weirdly spicy, and he coughs a few times after swallowing, eyes prickling with the force of it.

"It's a Xianzhou speciality," March explains cheerfully, eyes twinkling with mischief. "It gets better as you drink, promise. You should see Dan Heng down these things. I've never seen anything like it. He's a total beast."

Sunday cautiously takes another sip, and finds March is correct. It gets sweeter the more he drinks, and tastes kind of like cinnamon.

Taking everything off the shelves takes about twenty minutes. It's when they start restocking, however, that Sunday starts finding the problem.

The problem being that March and Himeko just stack everything completely haphazardly without care for its proper order at all.

"Do you not put things in alphabetical order?" he asks weakly, watching as March tears open a box and leaves it at her feet on the floor. His wings twitch anxiously. "Wouldn't that make it easier to find?"

"Oh, Sunday," March laughs, reaching out to swat his arm playfully. "Around here, we just remember where things are. There's no need for any complex systems at all."

"It might be a good idea," Himeko muses, pinching her chin thoughtfully as she gazes up at the shelves. "Well… we've already started. Nobody's ever had a problem with it before, anyway."

Sunday bites the inside of his cheek and swallows blood.

Dan Heng finds him, at two am the next day, taking everything down and putting it all back in an organized manner, even turning all the bottles and cans so their labels face outwards.

"What are you doing?" he asks, and Sunday jumps twenty feet in the air, letting out an embarrassing noise of shock before belatedly clamping a hand over his mouth.

"I'm not stealing anything," he says quickly. Then he takes in that Dan Heng is dressed in a t-shirt and a pair of tracksuit bottoms, the most casual he's ever seen him. He supposes the Vidyadhara must sleep sometimes, then, too. "I'm… reorganizing."

Dan Heng scrunches up his face and walks around the bar to where Sunday is. He grabs a glass from the cabinet and fills it up with water, taking a long swig and watching Sunday all the while.

"Didn't you, Himeko and March just do that earlier today?"

Sunday’s shoulders shoot to his ears. He feels like a child with their hand caught in the cookie jar. "Yes," he says sheepishly. "It was just - messy. So I'm redoing it, to make it more organized. So it'll be… easier to find things."

Dan Heng stares at him for a long time, so long that Sunday's hands begin to shake and he has to grab another bottle to hide it. "What?" he says, pretending to be focusing on putting it away. "If you have something to say -"

"I don't," Dan Heng interrupts with a nonchalant shrug. He dunks his water in the sink and sets about washing his glass. "I mean, I doubt anyone else will even notice you've done this, so it's fine."

Sunday relaxes minutely, and turns to meet the other man's eyes. There's something sharp in his gaze that makes it hard to look directly at him for too long.

"Why are you even awake?" Sunday asks boldly. "Couldn't sleep?"

"Bad dream," Dan Heng says carelessly, and turns around to put his glass back in the cupboard. A chunk of his hair is sticking straight up at the back. "What about you?"

Well, Sunday couldn't sleep because he was thinking about the disorganized drinks shelves in the Party Car, and if he didn't come fix it he would have been up all night tearing out his feathers. But he doesn't say that.

"Just not tired," he says, and glances away across the room to where Shush is deactivated in the corner, plugged in and humming softly.

Dan Heng snorts, but when Sunday looks back at him, he doesn't detect anything in his expression that gives away what he's thinking at all.

"What?" Sunday says, again. His tone is more pitched than usual.

"Nothing," Dan Heng says, and straightens, stretching with closed eyes. "I'm going back to bed. You should, too. A lack of sleep is no good for the mind, after all."

He exits the bar and leaves the room. Sunday watches him go.

The second he does, he reaches up to clamp his fists over his ears, so hard it hurts, and lets out a low groaning noise to try and distract him from everything going on inside of him.

If he didn't know something was wrong with you before, he definitely does now. He'll tell Miss Himeko and Mr. Yang and March and Stelle and they'll all know exactly what kind of a person you are.

Shut up, Sunday tells himself. They already know what "kind of a person I am." They hit me with a train.

They haven't seen you at your worst yet.

That's very true. Sunday lowers his fists and scratches at the scars under his gloves, the ones lining his wrists that scatter up towards his knuckles, as if a crazed madman had tried to chop his hands off with a blunt knife.

Under the white lighting off the bar, he removes his gloves entirely and tears the skin around his cuticles until it bleeds before rubbing hand sanitizer into his skin so hard that he can't feel anything anymore.

It only spirals from there.

Everything he notices has him deteriorating, bit by bit. The towels in the bathrooms aren't stacked right, so he has to take them all out and fold them again, and then repeat himself because he didn't do it good enough the first time. The plates in the cupboards are organized weirdly, so he has to put them in an order that makes sense. Stelle and March left a pack of cards open on the table, so Sunday puts them all away, and then dumps them out again after a moment of thought and places them in order of highest to lowest value, in colour order.

"You're cheating," March exclaims next time he happens to be nearby when they're playing a game. "How do you have four aces? Mr. Yang, Stelle is cheating. Can you believe this? In a simple game of cards with little ol’ me!"

"I would never," Stelle declares. She does look extremely confused, tugging at the ends of her hair as she examines her deck. "Mr. Yang, March is framing me. What would I have to gain from such an obvious cheat? If I was going to cheat at cards, I'd make really small marks on the cards with higher values so I knew when you had them and I'd know not to make risky plays."

"Mr. Yang, Stelle just admitted to cheating!"

Sunday leaves the room very quickly after that.

He knows this is a problem. When he was the Oak Family head, when he was Bronze Melodia, he often found himself too busy to engage in compulsions the way he's doing now. If he happened to wake up one morning with the innate need to tap each of his bedposts seven times for whatever reason, he'd know that he couldn't because he had a meeting with a group of Dreamweavers who had an update on a project that morning. It would itch, and sting, and he'd be lost in his head until the very last moment he possibly could be, but when Sunday had something that he absolutely had to do, he would do it. That was the kind of person he was. His own personal comfort did not matter - all that mattered was the people who needed him and the image of the Family Head that he had to uphold.

If someone had seen Sunday tearing out his feathers and praying under his breath in the halls when he was supposed to be listening to a confession, Mr. Wood might have killed him and he might have deserved it.

But here - here on the Astral Express - there is nothing to keep Sunday from falling victim to his own intrusive thoughts. And they are worse here than they have been for him in years.

Pace the room seven times - recite the prayer seven times - pull your feathers out seven times. If you touch the wall, something bad is going to happen. If you take your gloves off, something bad is going to happen. If you drink out of that glass, something bad is going to happen.

It's always so vague. Something bad. As if anything could ruin Sunday's life further than he did entirely on his own.

But of course, the voice in his head knows exactly how to get to him. All of this happened to you because you didn't do exactly what we told you to, and now you'll never see your sister again.

Logically, it doesn't make any sense. However, there's no sense left in Sunday's disordered brain at this point. There is nothing left but pure anxiety about absolutely everything, and there is nothing that can snap him out of it.

The worst part, he thinks, is that despite the size of the Express, there are only so many places he can go. The train is floating in space, orbiting slowly around Penacony while the final preparations are made for the warp jump to Amphoreus, and Sunday has no way to leave and be alone somewhere where nobody has to risk being hurt by him. There are always people, everywhere he goes. It makes him want to scream.

A constant internal spiral, one that nobody but Sunday himself can see.

So far, nobody else seems to have noticed, at least not that he can see. Thankfully, Dan Heng tells nobody about what he saw that night in the Party Car - maybe he truly did think nothing of it, maybe he truly did think Sunday was just a neat freak who only wanted to be helpful. But regardless, for the time being, he's managed to keep everything to himself.

He's found himself spending time in the Express’ library more than anything.

It's entirely different from the data bank - instead of all the nonfiction novels and diaries and newspapers that Dan Heng keeps tidy in the Archives, there are physical bookshelves full of fiction from all over the galaxy in a tiny room barely bigger than a broom cupboard, alongside a couch and a couple chairs underneath a large window. He spent a good few hours reorganizing all the books in here, too, scratching the itch by putting everything in alphabetical order by title. Then he changes it and puts it in alphabetical order by author. Then he puts them in colour order, then orders them by height just for fun, then back to alphabetical order again.

Since arriving on the Express, it had been made clear to him that there was no bedroom for him to sleep in. This had definitely heavily contributed to Sunday's anxiety originally, although he's not blaming anybody for that - he's just never slept in a room that didn't have walls before. The couches in the Parlor Car aren't necessarily uncomfortable, which is nice. However, the couches are shaped in a curve, which means that Sunday would have to lie on his side in order to sleep there, which he can't do due to his wings and the way they get cramped and ache when he lies on them for a period of time. So he doesn't sleep for his first few days here. That isn't a problem. He's used to operating on very little sleep.

After almost a week of this, he takes the blankets and pillows that March had bestowed on him and sleeps on the couch in the library instead, and wakes with less pain in his sides than usual.

People don't tend to bother him here. It's like his own private corner of the Express. Here, Sunday can be alone, and therefore, whenever he needs to engage in a compulsion that he can't do in front of someone else, he has a place to go.

So the books in the library watch over Sunday as he paces, taps the wall, hums to himself, scratches his hand and plucks so many feathers that his wings start to look threadbare and limp.

He misses Robin more than anything.

He knew this already, of course. But his sister understood him better than anybody else, and therefore was always there for him when she needed him to be. She didn't always know what to do to help him, but then again, nobody did. It was ok. All he needed was her presence. When they were kids, he'd often crawl into her bed and they would lay in each other's arms for hours, and his hands would lay on her back and drag lightly along her skin to help her fall asleep instead of yanking his own hair out in clumps and causing his wings to bleed from plucking feathers.

She used to have him preen her in order to keep his hands busy. If anything, Robin was an expert at that. She always managed to find something for him to do that would keep him from hurting himself, even though she didn't have to. His baby sister.

He should have been looking after her.

Every time he thinks about it, he spirals further, and has to shake his hands out to stop himself from doing anything worse.

So far, he has been fine. Nobody has noticed anything strange going on with him, and he has everything under control, exactly the way he prefers it. Everything is under control.

He will keep it that way if it kills him.

A few days later, the Conductor has an announcement.

"In one week," they declare, extending their arms outwards in a dramatic fashion. "We will finally be departing for Amphoreus!"

Everybody cheers, even Dan Heng. Sunday grins and claps his hands together, relieved that there will finally be some activity very shortly that he'll be able to be involved in. Maybe this is all he needs to get better.

"Thank the Aeons," March laughs, pumping her fists with a smile. Her lips are painted a glittery pink today, Sunday notices. It suits her. "I was getting so freaking bored without any Trailblazing to do."

Sunday bites back an Aeons, me too, because it's unnecessary. He's certainly thinking it, though.

"If even March was getting bored, then it's definitely good we're departing soon," says Himeko. She leans back against the couch and swings one leg over the other, a relaxed sigh leaving her lips. "I've made a few modifications to the Express, but it's nothing any of the rest of you will notice. Dan Heng, if you're interested, I can show you later on and you can take notes for the data bank."

Dan Heng nods seriously. "It would be my pleasure."

"Isn't this so exciting?" Stelle jumps in. Her lips are smudged the exact same colour as March's. "This is going to be Sunday's first Trailblaze."

Sunday jolts at the sound of his name. Suddenly everyone is looking at him.

"Oh, yes!" March cries. Her eyes are wide with joy. "I totally forgot about that. How excited are you, Sunday? You're going to get to see the entire universe with us!"

"Well, not quite straight away," Mr. Yang chuckles. His eyes meet Sunday's over March's head. "But I do hope you'll get a good experience out of this, Sunday. We'll guide you every step of the way if need be."

Sunday is too taken aback to speak, and luckily Stelle immediately asks the Conductor an unrelated question which changes the topic and takes the attention off of him. But the damage has already been done, and the thoughts already planted into Sunday's head. He's really leaving Penacony forever.

He turns around and glances out of the window behind the couch. Far below, he can see it. The Planet of Festivities he grew up in. Somewhere down there is his sister. When the Express departs, she will be gone, and he won't be able to pretend he can just change his mind at any moment and descend back down to his home to throw his arms around Robin's neck and hold her tightly against him.

He tries to think about when the last time he'd hugged her was. It must have been when she caught him falling from the sky, right before he'd been detained by the Bloodhounds - the last time he'd seen her as himself, as Sunday and not a cowardly illusion. Before that… before that he doesn't remember. It must have been so long ago.

His vision blurs, although not with tears. Never with tears. Mr. Wood knocked that out of him years ago. No, he just feels a little faint, is all. In the space beyond the window, Penacony fades into a simple blob of colour, a child's scribble in the vast emptiness of everything.

He gets to his feet without thinking. He hadn't even bothered to tune back into the conversation so that he'd know what was going on before he did so.

"Sunday?" Himeko says. She looks concerned, lips downturned. "Is everything alright?"

Sunday nods. "Yes," he says faintly. "Apologies, I just remembered something I need to attend to. I'll be back in a moment, I won't be gone long."

Vaguely, he hears someone telling him that it's fine as he leaves, but he doesn't pay any attention to it. The second he's out of sight of the crew, he's dashing to the bathroom and locking it behind him, two hands clamped over his mouth in an effort to keep his body under control, but it doesn't work. It's barely ten seconds before he's doubled over and vomiting into the toilet, pulling his own hair back so it doesn't fall in front of his mouth as he does so.

He hates throwing up more than anything. When he'd fallen sick as a child, which was a rare occasion due to how careful Sunday was about avoiding things that could make him so, Robin had used to hold his hair out of the way for him and rub his back, singing to him quietly. He used to joke that she acted more like she was his older sister on such occasions, but she'd pounce on the insecurity in a moment and list all the times he'd been there for her instead. "You're my perfect, wonderful, amazing older brother," she'd say firmly, holding his hands tightly in her own. "This doesn't change anything. There's nothing wrong with being looked after every once in a while, ok, Sunny?"

Sunday does not go back to the Parlor Car. He heads back to the library instead and plucks out his feathers, images of Robin with blood pouring from her neck burned into his brain.

Suddenly, everything is going too quickly.

The Nameless are making their last journeys to Penacony, saying their own final goodbyes to the sweet dream that caused them so much grief. They bring back sweets and souvenirs, smiles on their faces. Sunday wonders if they see his sister.

Only Dan Heng stays with Sunday on the Express. They mostly stay away from one another, or at least, Sunday mostly stays away from Dan Heng. It's partially out of nerves, because Sunday has absolutely no idea how to talk to him and doesn't want to ruin a good thing by saying something stupid. Mostly, it's because Sunday believes if anyone could stare right through him and see into his disgusting, disordered soul, it would be Dan Heng, and he's so terrified of being found out.

He's eating breakfast in the Party Car when Dan Heng comes and sits close by him. He's wearing a dark green hoodie over a button up shirt, and is eating toast with his phone in hand. Sunday spares the most discreet of glances at his screen and sees he's reading a news article, although he can't see what it's about from here.

He goes back to his own meal, only to stare into the bowl of soggy wheat cereal and realize it now looks too unappetizing to eat.

He drops his spoon with disdain and pulls out his own phone. No new messages, of course. Sunday never did have friends of his own who weren't just friends of Robin's that happened to tolerate him. Not a single soul checked up on him after his arrest. Even his messages with Mr. Wood fell silent, and will be so forever, now.

"Are you alright?" comes a voice, and Sunday jumps. It's Dan Heng, of course - of course Mr. Wood didn't just speak to him from the afterlife. His heart is beating like he did, though. Sunday discreetly slides one hand under his jacket and gets a grip on the shaft of a feather, tugging gently to ground himself.

"I'm just fine," he says pleasantly, offering the other man a smile. If Sunday can do anything, it's pretend that he's alright when he's anything but. Mr. Wood had once made him attend a meeting when he was burning up with a fever and not a soul had noticed. It's a skill he's wholly familiar with. "Are you? Nervous about travelling at all?"

Dan Heng stares at him with an unimpressed look. "No," he says. "I don't get nervous about it after all this time. But you most certainly are."

Sunday stiffens. The smile on his face only grows. "Not at all," he says, and laughs lightly. "I'm more excited to get to go do something new. From all that I've heard about Amphoreus from Miss Memokeeper, it sounds like it's certainly going to be an interesting journey."

But Dan Heng's face doesn't change, and the longer it doesn't, the more on edge Sunday gets. Is he doing something wrong? Has his acting grown stale? He used to be so good at this. There's no way he's lost his touch so quickly.

"You know," Dan Heng says, sitting up and setting down his phone. Sunday's heart drops. "There's nothing wrong with feeling anxious. You're leaving your home behind. No one is going to blame you for feeling upset about it."

It's like a direct punch in the chest. Sunday actually would have preferred if he had just done that instead.

"I’m -" he starts, then pauses, because he doesn't know how to recover from that. "You don't have to worry about me. I'm just fine, like I said."

Dan Heng looks like he wants to say something else, but Sunday is getting to his feet before he can. He disposes of the remaining mushy cereal and walks to the sink to wash it clean. Without his gloves, his hands look dry and rough, the skin cracked, his nails jagged and picked at. He covers them up again as quickly as possible, mind reeling, head spinning.

Once he's put his dishware away, he glances over at Dan Heng. The man is still looking at him, expression unreadable. Sunday kind of wants to throw up again.

Instead, he smiles and lowers his head respectfully. "I appreciate your concern," he says. "But I've been just fine, and I'll continue to be that way too."

He exits the room in such a rush that he doesn't even notice the indigo feather that he'd yanked from his wing being left on the floor, or Dan Heng coming around the table to pick it up with a thoughtful look on his face.

He has to fix himself before somebody figures him out.

That's his only thought after he leaves Dan Heng behind and heads back to the library, blood pumping through him so fast he feels like he's having a heart attack.

He spent a lot of time alone as a child. His only friend was his sister, and she understood his illness more the older she became, and how to soothe it in turn. He didn't understand until now just how lucky he'd been before, to have somebody like that in his life. To have someone who understood him. Living the way he does is living with the constant terror that when people find out how deeply sick he is, how incurable he is, they will find him repulsive and his relationships will be forever ruined.

He never had that worry with Robin. He misses his fucking sister more than anything.

The second he's back in the library, he's tearing at his hair and pacing the room to keep himself moving. He tries not to take too much of his hair out, generally - it's far more noticeable than a few missing feathers on his wings are, after all, and he covers those up with his jacket, anyway. Nobody needs to see him falling apart except himself.

He spends a while whispering prayers to himself before he decides to go for a shower. He was supposed to do that earlier, but the interaction with Dan Heng had thrown him off so much that he had forgotten. This realization only makes him feel more sick. He hates being off of his routine.

He had told himself that he wouldn't be like this anymore. He knew walking alongside the Nameless would cause chaos in his life. He'd tried his best to be prepared for it.

Sunday just hadn't counted on getting so sick so quickly.

In the bathroom, he sheds his clothes and avoids looking at himself in the mirror. He's been ashamed of what his body looks like since he was old enough to feel shame. There are scars lining his skin, some from the Stellaron that had torn apart the Dreamscape when he was only young, some from so little as a few months ago. Lots of small ones from his fingernails digging so deep into his flesh that he'd drawn blood. Quite a few angry red scratches that he'd put on himself more recently out of pure anxiety. Ones on his wrists, from when he'd had his very first illness induced breakdown as a child and had tried to remove his own hands with a pair of nail scissors. How stupid he'd been to think that would work. It could make him laugh if it didn't still haunt him.

He still remembers Mr. Wood standing over him, such a serious expression on his face as he examined the wounds and asked if he'd been trying to kill himself. Sunday almost wished he had been. The truth was so much more wrong and weird and shameful.

The truth being that there has been something inherently wrong with him, ever since the day he was born. His own mother had called him a nervous soul, and had sung him songs to get him to sleep when he was too wound up and anxious to do so even at only five years old.

No matter how many doctors Mr. Wood had made him talk to, no one could ever tell him exactly what had made him this way, why he had to be the one who was cursed to be the way he was, what he had done wrong in a past life to have this happen to him.

Aeons - he'd rather it was him than Robin, a million lifetimes over and over. He'd suffer every day if it meant she didn't have to.

And yet, he'd still hurt her with his own illness, again and again and again. In that memory with Mr. Wood, calmly asking if he was suicidal, Robin is bawling in the other room, other Family members soothing her as best they could. It was Sunday's own fault. He did that to her.

He scrubs himself clean, and his wings bleed. Bald patches show through the remaining feathers that he hasn't pulled yet. His fingers twitch, and the urge to feel that sharp pain again comes through him like a lightning bolt.

He doesn't actually want to hurt himself, is the thing. Sunday has never wanted to die. He's just unwell. He always has been.

That's what Mr. Wood had told Robin, that day so long ago. Your brother's not well, he'd said. Sunday had heard him saying it through the walls, when they'd thought he was asleep. He needs some time to get better.

He's old enough now to know that he will never get better. He will just be ok sometimes, and then he will be sick again and that's all he will ever be.

The day he'd cut his hands had been a long awaited breaking point. Sunday had been twelve years old.

He remembers it better than almost anything. It's up there with the memory of the moment the Stellaron had taken their mother, the moment Mr. Wood had casually informed him of the stray bullet that had struck Robin's neck, the moment that Charmony Dove hadn't been able to fly. Sunday is a cesspit of terrible memories. Sickness roils under his skin.

All he had wanted to do was make it so that he couldn't hurt himself anymore. He'd been so out of it that he didn't have the capacity to understand what he was doing to himself. He just wanted to stop scaring his sister. He just wanted to feel somewhat normal again.

Sunday is a grown man, now, and he is too old to be acting so stupid. That won't stop his mind from racing with ridiculous thoughts the way it is.

He doesn't even know whether he should hide himself away so no one can see him spiraling like this, or if he should stay as close to the Nameless as he can so he won't be able to do anything to himself.

There are only a couple days before they leave Penacony’s orbit. He just has to survive them.

But it's so tiring.

It's especially tiring avoiding Dan Heng. He doesn't mean to do it - he just knows that if he spends more time around the man, he'll figure him out somehow. Why that scares him so badly, he can't put into words.

March and Stelle, however, seem suddenly determined to hang out with him as much as possible. He's talking to the Conductor in the Parlor Car the morning after the confrontation with Dan Heng when they come up to him and demand he play card games with them, citing that they believe he'd be good at it, whatever "it" actually is. But Sunday agrees, because being around other people is probably what's best for him right now.

They sit him down and explain the rules of the game to him.

"What did you say this was called again?" Sunday says, bemusedly.

""Bullshit,"" both women say in unison, very seriously.

Sunday nods, slowly. "Ok. I don't understand."

March laughs, and it sounds like bells. "It's easy. We'll teach you as we go along."

"But do you get the basic rules?" Stelle probes, reaching out to drum her fingers on the table. It's strange to see her without gloves on. Her short nails are painted a pretty pink and blue pattern. "Like, you get that you can lie about your cards, and you have to increase your card value each time?"

Sunday can't resist a small laugh. "Um, yes, I think so. And if I think another player is lying, I have to say…?"

"Bullshit," March says cheerfully.

He blanches, biting the inside of his lip. "I don't think I can."

"Why not?" Stelle grins. She leans on her elbow, propping her face up in her hands. "Bronze Melodia afraid to curse a little?"

He physically recoils at the blatant reference to the exact reason why he's not sure about this. "Well…"

March reaches over and claps his shoulder. He can't help but flinch, but it doesn't seem like the girl even notices. "It's fine," she chirps, staring right through him. "You can say fuck every once in a while, there's no harm in it. No Aeons are gonna shake their heads all disapprovingly for it, either."

Somehow, this actually relaxes Sunday. He doesn't know why. A few days ago, just being asked this might have sent him straight into a panic attack. He thinks it might be that he's spent all his anxiety on such ridiculous things and now there's none left to even consider Mr. Wood's beady eyes being on him every moment of the day. It might be that the bout of sickness has passed him over entirely.

Slowly, a small grin spreads across his face. "Ok," he says, holding up his hands. "Fine. Who's dealing the cards?"

Both women cheer, and Stelle begins to deal. Sunday recognizes the deck as the same one he'd feverishly organized a couple weeks ago, accidentally ruining Stelle's and March's next game in the process. Under the table, his wings twitch, begging to be plucked at.

For the first time in the past few weeks, he actually manages to avoid this urge, too engrossed in the game to worry about it at all.

And it feels good. It feels normal. Maybe he's finally fixed himself, somehow. Maybe the Aeons are finally blessing him instead of cursing him after all this time.

March starts after the cards are dealt. "One ace," she announces, and smacks a card down in the middle of the table.

"Bullshit," Stelle immediately refutes, and pounds a fist on the table.

"What?" March exclaims, recoiling backwards. "You can't do that! We just started, you ass, give us some time to get a game going!"

Stelle narrows her eyes, but then leans back in her seat with a shrug. "Fine. I revoke my bullshit."

Then she shoots March a look. "But I know you don't have any goddamn aces. I can smell it."

"Stop being weird," March replies with a roll of her eyes. "Play something so Sunday can actually figure out what we're doing."

Sunday, who has been watching this whole exchange with amusement, laughs softly and waves a hand in the air. "No, take your time. It'll take me a while to figure this out anyway, I'm sure."

He glances at his cards. He has exactly seventeen cards, which is kind of irritating and he kind of wants to get rid of three of them immediately so he can have a good, easy fourteen.

"Two twos," says Stelle. "Your turn, Sunday."

Sunday looks at the small pile and frowns. He does actually have threes in his deck. Two of them, in fact. He doesn't even have to lie.

He places them. "Two threes. This is easy."

"Unless you're lying," Stelle hisses with an overexaggerated squint.

March smacks her arms. "Let him play, for goodness sake!"

Sunday flashes them both a smile and they continue playing.

Maybe it's just because he's distracted. Maybe it's because Sunday is finally participating in an activity that isn't triggering any anxiety in him, or maybe he just needed to socialize with somebody. But he actually feels fine, for the first time in weeks.

He just prays it stays that way.

Mr. Yang and Himeko come around to chat while they're playing. The Conductor comes through to ask about their preparations for Amphoreus, seemingly stressed - Sunday imagines they have to be doing the most work out of all of them currently. Even Dan Heng passes by at one point, smiling slightly when he hears Stelle very loudly and very enthusiastically call Sunday out on a lie.

He gets so distracted he doesn't think about a compulsion once after the passing thought about the card count at the start of the game.

"...Two kings," comes March's voice, bringing Sunday out of his thoughts. He glances over at her and sees her with a too-big smile on her face, cheeks flushed, batting her eyelashes innocently.

Sunday looks down at the two kings in his own hand and recalls Stelle also calling one of those earlier in the game.

"Somehow," he says. "I don't believe you've just placed two kings."

March giggles, unable to help herself. She kicks her feet under the table. "So what do we say if we don't believe somebody?"

Stelle cackles. "Go on, call her out! Someone has to!"

Sunday considers for a long moment, then points an accusing finger directly at March's smiling face.

"Bullshit," he says, and the women fall into peals of laughter as March accepts defeat and picks up the pile in the middle to add to her deck.

He wakes up feeling worse than ever before.

It's not just physically, although he does have a dull pain in his right wing that's thudding worse than usual through his bones. No, it's the immediate anxiety that hits him upon opening his eyes before he's even had the chance to do anything to trigger it, and the thought - something bad is going to happen to you today.

He sits up, dread growing like weeds in his stomach and chest and spreading up to his throat, lodging into his flesh. He feels like he's going to throw up.

No, he thinks. No, come on, not now.

But it's already started again. Whatever brief reprieve he was given from this yesterday when he was playing card games with the Nameless was exactly that - brief and non lasting. Even as he moves to get off the couch, shaking his blankets off of him and trying to blink himself back into the present, it's there, planting seeds in his brain. He can practically feel it. Without thinking, he reaches up and grabs handfuls of his hair, as if that could possibly do anything to prevent the noise underneath his skull from drilling into him any further.

You didn't do any rituals yesterday. Now Robin's going to die.

And it doesn't make any logical sense. It never has. Sunday is such a rational person, or he tries to be - it's this sickness that makes him think like someone who needs to be locked up for other people's protection. It's this sickness that makes him do insane things like trying to remove his hands with nail scissors. It's this sickness that scares people. Even Robin, as much as she knew how to handle him, was afraid of the thoughts in Sunday's head because they turned her sensible, boring, predictable brother into a crazy person who yanked out his own feathers and scrubbed his hands with bleach until the cracked skin turned pink and bled.

He goes for another shower. He stays in there for almost an hour, trying to clean his wings. Once he's done, he picks up handfuls of indigo feathers from the floor of the bathroom and hides them in his pockets to dispose of later where no one will see. Shame wells in him, hot and pathetic, and leaks out through the blood under the skin of his cuticles.

Part of him wishes that Mr. Wood was still alive so he could run to him, fall to his knees and beg him to fix him. Mr. Wood always knew what to do to fix Sunday's mind, whether it was to use whatever anxiety was sending him mad to perform an actually useful task or to simply assign him something new to do and watch over him while he did it to make sure he wasn't misbehaving. He'd give anything to have him here right now, as much as Sunday hated the man. No - hated was too cruel. Or was it not cruel enough?

If he thinks too much about the death of the man who raised him and his sister, he's only going to spiral further.

He heads back to the library, head spinning. Instantly overwhelmed by the amount of thoughts in his mind. He considers going to the Parlor Car to see if anyone's there, or to the engine room where Himeko is most likely lurking, or even to the goddamn archives to seek out Dan Heng. That's how desperate he is not to break down and shatter right here, on the Express, where everybody will instantly know that something is deeply wrong with him.

He paces the room and touches the wall each time. Once, twice, three times, four times, five, six, seven. And again. Once, twice, three times, four times, five, six, seven.

He can practically see Mr. Wood looking down at him disapprovingly. How many times have we talked about this, Sunday?

He almost laughs. Mr. Wood did always love to choose vessels who were taller than Sunday, no matter how old he got, just so he could act like he was bigger. So he could make Sunday feel smaller. Isn't that funny? And he called Sunday the control freak.

Aeons, he's starting to get a headache.

All he had to do was be normal until they started the journey to Amphoreus. Then he would have plenty to do. Why couldn't whatever this is have waited just a little while? Sunday will never know. He hasn't been in control of his own body or mind since the day he was born.

He never put his gloves back on after showering, so he's free to tear at the skin around his nails while he paces. Once, twice, three times, four times, five, six, seven.

If he just hadn't done any of this in the first place, he could be at home with Robin.

Except that's not true, because in Gopher Wood's version of events, Robin is a sacrificial lamb. He would have to go back far if he wanted to change the events of his life enough to matter. Back to the day their mother passed. Back to the day Mr. Wood took them in. Back to the day they caged that Charmony Dove. Back to the day he was told the secret of the Family, of the Order.

He doesn't know exactly where things went truly wrong. Doesn't know what he could have changed to make this any better.

All he knows is that -

"Sunday?"

He whirls around to see March 7th standing in the doorway.

Sunday knows how he looks right now. Pale and sweaty, ungloved hands bleeding around his nails, hair messy in the places where he grabbed it and tugged. Breaths coming unevenly, eyes wide like a rabid animals. He must look insane. And March, dear March, is just standing there with parted lips, taking him in with uncertainty dancing in her heterochromatic eyes. One hand on the door handle, the other one hanging beside her uselessly. It's clutching her phone and a pair of keys.

"I was wondering if you wanted to come with me and Stelle to get milk tea at the restaurant nearby," she says, uncharacteristically timid. She blinks, long lashes touching her cheeks. "Are you… alright?"

Sunday inhales, then remembers himself and smiles.

"I'm just fine, Miss March," he says, folding his hands behind his back, perhaps too late. "I've just been lost in thought. Thank you for your offer, but I think I'll stay here. It might not be a good idea for me to appear publicly so close to Penacony, even if I can disguise myself."

March nods, and after a long moment, smiles back. However, he can tell she's unnerved - there's none of her usual joy in it whatsoever. "Ok, if you're sure," she says. "Do you want anything? I can send you a picture of their menu if you want -"

"No, thank you," Sunday says, maybe a little too loudly. The urge to clamp his hands over his ears is getting harder to resist. He knows March means well. He doesn't want her to stay here and think badly of him. "I appreciate the offer, though."

March's expression flickers, her smile dipping. "You know," she says, "you really don't look well, Sunday. If something's wrong, I can -"

He's shaking his head before she can finish. Panic building in him as everything starts to crash down at once, and before he knows it, he's practically shouting. "I apologize, Miss March, but I promise you I'm fine and I would really just prefer to be alone right now."

She stands there for a moment longer, unmoving. Sunday takes a breath and holds it, almost too afraid to let it go.

Then March smiles and nods, dropping the door handle to take her keys from her other hand and spin them around lightheartedly. "Ok," she says cheerfully. "I'll see you later then."

She lets the door close behind her as she leaves, and Sunday is left standing alone in the middle of the room.

It doesn't really hit him until about thirty seconds after March is gone.

Oh my goodness. I was just the biggest asshole in the universe.

He just shouted at March. The sweetest Nameless to probably have ever boarded the Express. He shouted at her to leave him alone.

Slowly, his hands rise to clamp over his ears. He squeezes his eyes shut and leans back against one of the bookcases, feeling his body tremble.

His whole life, he's only ever had Robin and Mr. Wood to rely on. Maybe that was for the best, if this is what he's truly like around other people. He honestly feels like throwing up.

Stelle is going to kill him, is his first thought. He shouted at March - for no reason, and all she was trying to do was ask him if he wanted milk tea, bless her heart. There's no logical explanation for his actions, either. He's just the worst and it's as simple as that. He shouldn't have done any of this in the first place.

The version of Sunday who was Bronze Melodia, the Oak Family Head, would never be thinking like this. He wonders if changing has made him weaker. Mr. Wood would have said so, without a doubt.

All he ever wanted to do was make people happy. All he's ever done is hurt them.

Even his own sister.

He's not having logical thoughts anymore. He's way past the point of that. All he can think about is the burning desire to run away, to flee, to go somewhere where he'll never hurt anyone or have to be looked at or perceived. He should go back to Mr. Yang and tell him he isn't cut out for Trailblazing and he needs to go back to Penacony and turn himself into the Family for them to do with him as they wish.

Once, twice, three times, four times, five, six, seven - he doesn't even know when he started pacing again, but he's keeping track. Sunday has gotten good at keeping track of his compulsions over the years. He could keep track of a hundred batches of seven in his sleep.

Again. Once, twice, three times, four times, five, six -

"Excuse me, Sunday?"

You can't be serious.

He turns around to meet Mr. Yang's eyes.

The man's expression is almost entirely unreadable, save for a furrow in his brow. He's leaning on his cane against the open doorway, and he's looking Sunday over as if searching for something. Sunday straightens, making sure to hide his hands - he doesn't remember where he left his gloves, how could he have forgotten that?

"Mr. Yang," he says pleasantly. "What brings you here? If you're looking for something, I can get out of your way."

Really, he knows why Mr. Yang is here. March must have told him what happened, and he's here to ask him why he snapped at her the way he did, and Sunday will not have an answer. He can't see a way out of this conversation. Not only that, but he didn't finish his seventh pace of the room, and Mr. Yang is right there, so he can't. The itch builds up underneath his feathers, in his fingertips, in his cheeks and throat.

Mr. Yang only waves a hand to dismiss Sunday's words. "Not at all. I understand you've been using this room as a sort of private space recently, I wouldn't just kick you out of it."

Sunday cringes. "My apologies, I -"

"No, no apologies needed," Mr. Yang cuts him off. To Sunday's dismay, he fully enters the room, significantly decreasing the amount of free space - it is such a small room, after all. "Really, we should have been able to provide you a room, and we are working on it, I promise."

"I was the one who asked to join you with no warning," Sunday says. One of his hands reaches up to tug on the ends of his hair without his permission. He forces it back down to his side. "It's not your fault at all."

Mr. Yang smiles dryly. "Yes, well, for all we claim that we accept new Nameless whenever they wish to join, we certainly don't have anywhere to put them."

He chuckles at this, and Sunday does too, an expert in knowing when his input is needed in a conversation. As he does this, he realizes how strange he must look, just standing in the middle of the room aimlessly. He can feel beads of sweat forming on his forehead.

Luckily, or perhaps not, Mr. Yang solves that problem quickly. "Sit with me," he says, and goes to sit in one of the armchairs in front of the window. He gestures to the chair beside him nonchalantly, as if there's really no problem at all.

Sunday knows there's a problem. For a moment, he's rooted to his spot on the floor, mind going a billion miles a minute. He still hasn't finished his pacing, but he'll look so weird if he does it now, and he can't let Mr. Yang see him work himself up into a state right now.

Wordlessly, he sits himself down beside the older man with his hands folded in his lap. He tries to subtly pull his sleeves down to cover as much of the skin as possible, and isn't sure how much he succeeds. He's finding it increasingly more difficult to focus on the present moment.

You have to finish pacing and touching the wall or else -

"Sunday," Mr. Yang says, and Sunday jolts upon hearing his name spoken. When he glances over, the man is looking right at him through his thick rimmed glasses. It's such a serious gaze that Sunday can't help but be reminded of Mr. Wood. "How have you been finding it on the Express?"

Sunday opens his mouth, then closes it again without anything to say. If he had to be honest, he'd say he already doesn't remember a lot of the past few weeks because he spent most of it so anxious he was plucking his feathers and trying not to throw up.

"It's been good. Everyone has been very welcoming."

The words are so easy to say. Sunday is so good at saying what other people want to hear.

You need to finish touching the wall.

Mr. Yang nods seriously at his words, leaning back in his chair. His cane is propped up between his knees. "That's good to hear," he says. Mr. Yang has a certain way of speaking that Sunday doesn't know how to feel about - he speaks slowly, taking small pauses in places where it often doesn't fit in. "Of course, I know your sleeping situation isn't ideal, but has everything else been alright for you so far?"

Sunday thinks he's going to throw up. He really hopes he's not going to. Just the thought of it is enough to make panic strike him, his face buzzing and fingertips going numb.

"Is this because I shouted at Miss March?" he blurts out, before he can stop himself.

Aeons, what a stupid thing to say. He should have waited until he found out why Mr. Yang was here before making assumptions. This is further proven when he sees the older man blink, a wrinkle of confusion appearing in his forehead as he processes Sunday's words.

"You... yelled at March?" Mr. Yang questions, bewildered.

Sunday wants to bash his head against a wall. "I -"

You need to finish touching the wall.

"I didn't... mean to," he finishes lamely. His hands are trembling, like he's a child again, getting into trouble. He really is out of it right now. "Is she upset with me? I'm planning to apologize already, I truly didn't intend to cause any issues and I'm terribly sorry if I've upset anyone."

Mr. Yang waits until he's finished his anxious ramble to speak again. "Sunday, March didn't mention anything about you shouting at her."

Sunday stares straight ahead, eyes fixed on a particular book on the shelf that sits sideways in the centre of the room.

"She said you looked unwell and asked if there was a bug going around and if any of us had it," Mr. Yang continues. "Once she'd left, Dan Heng asked if I would check up on you. He said you'd seemed very off as of late, and wanted to make sure you were ok."

Of course he did. He would have to have been blind not to notice.

Sunday doesn't reply. He doesn't think he can.

You need to finish touching the wall.

He feels the older man's gaze on him even without looking over to see him. The back of his neck is hot.

"Are you unwell, Sunday?" Mr. Yang finally asks.

Well, he is, but not in the traditional sense. Sunday wants to laugh and cry at the same time.

"I'm fine," he says weakly. He then remembers to look up and meet Mr. Yang's eyes, likely a little too late. "Truly, I just didn't sleep very much last night."

Mr. Yang nods. "I understand," he says. His expression hasn't changed. "While the situation isn't currently ideal, you can always come to me or Himeko and we'll be happy to assist you however necessary."

Sunday flexes his hands. The itch in his wings only gets more difficult to resist. "I've been alright," he murmurs. "There's no need for you to worry about me."

"Are you sure?" Mr. Yang replies. His eyebrows are knitted together in a frown. "If there did happen to be anything that you needed -"

You need to finish touching the -

"My apologies," Sunday blurts, and practically leaps out of his seat. Before he even has time to think about his own actions, he heads over to the wall and taps it with one finger. Then he paces to the other one and touches it too, neatly completing the cycle of seven.

He's relieved for all of a moment before the utter embarrassment hits him - the humiliation of letting someone else see him in a state like this, much less someone he barely knows. There isn't a single logical explanation for doing this. Why couldn't he have waited until Mr. Yang left? He doesn't even know the answer.

Sunday stands there, facing the wall and blinking hard to fight to stay present. It would be much easier to just close his eyes and pretend this isn't happening. If he were still a child, if he still had a sister by his side to keep him safe, he might have done just that.

And then comes the dreaded noise - you took too long. You have to do it again.

He thinks he might just faint.

Without warning, or at least no warning that Sunday can hear, there is a hand on his shoulder and he leaps out of his skin. "I apologize," comes a voice - Mr. Yang's, of course, because Gopher Wood is dead. Sunday watched it happen. "You’ve gone terribly pale, Sunday. It might be a good idea to come sit down again."

"I can't," Sunday says hollowly, the dread setting in as he realizes how much he really can't. "I have to - I - I can't."

He's not even making any sense anymore. He's been pulled so far apart that his strings are snapping. I have to touch the wall again.

Mr. Yang's voice is full of gentle concern when he speaks again. Suddenly so different from Mr. Wood that the ache in Sunday's chest tightens and tightens until his lungs can't hold air.

"Why can't you sit down?" the older man asks. Blasé as anything, like they're discussing the weather.

Sunday's hands creep upwards to clutch at his hair. It doesn't matter now that Mr. Yang can see his scratched up hands. It's far too late to pretend there's no problem here. "I can't," is all he's capable of saying. "I can't - I have to - y-you’ll have give me a moment, I'm so sorry, I just have to - I have to -"

He moves around Mr. Yang and begins pacing the room again. Far too late to hide it. Far too late to pull himself together. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven.

Each lap goes by in total silence. Sunday doesn't dare look at Mr. Yang once. His head is spinning, and he finds himself wishing that he could just do this forever and never have to stop and explain himself. He'll beat a path in the floorboards before he has to sit back down and try to vocalize what's going on inside his brain. Something hot burns behind his eyes and makes him dizzy.

Then, eventually, he slows. His blood runs cold in his veins, pure humiliation chilling him from the inside. He must look like ridiculous right now. He must look like an insane person. Truly, Sunday wants nothing more right now than for the floor to open up and swallow him whole. For the Stellaron in Stelle's chest to suddenly explode and prevent him from having to explain himself.

Shivers go through him, cold shocks ringing in his ears. Truly, this is the lowest of the low. There is nothing that could possibly make this moment worse.

He turns, shaking badly, and sees Mr. Yang standing behind him. Sees the lapels on his jacket, dark grey and solid, and his hands hanging loosely by his sides. Sunday's breathing turns ragged, his mind drifting farther and farther away.

"Alright," he hears Mr. Yang say, softly, gently, distantly. "I'm going to touch your shoulder again, and I'm going to take you back across the room to sit down, because you look like you might faint if you don't. Is that alright, Sunday?"

Sunday doesn't know what else to do, so he nods dumbly and allows Mr. Yang to do as he'd said he would and help him sit. His eyes sting, and he realizes with complete and utter terror that it's tears that are pricking them so. Anything but this. Please, anything but this. This is a nightmare and you just need to wake up.

He can feel Mr. Yang's hands on his shoulder and his arm, running along his sleeve in an awkward, soothing motion. Sunday lets out a sigh that could also easily be a sob and leans forward over his knees, clutching at his his upper arms in a makeshift hug. Everything feels as if he's falling apart.

Then he hears a sharp inhale from Mr. Yang, and dares to look up with blurry vision at him to see what he's looking at. The man's dark eyes are lowered, fixed on something below Sunday's face. He's wearing a startled expression, which it seems like he attempts to sort out into a look of neutrality as quickly as possible. He glances up to meet Sunday's gaze, and fear spikes through him as he realizes what he must have been looking at, what he must have just seen. Sunday's jacket has fallen open, revealing his folded indigo wings beneath it, plucked and balding and rubbed red raw.

Sunday yanks it closed, far too late. He's suddenly overcome with such a primal urge to run that it takes over every single rational part of his brain immediately. He has to get out of here. He has to go somewhere else, anywhere else, even though he knows deep down inside of him that the place he called home is no longer a safe place for him and his family is no longer there to welcome him back.

As if sensing this urge come up in him, Mr. Yang takes his hands in his own. He must feel how rough and awful Sunday's skin is beneath his own, but he doesn't show it or say anything.

"Breathe," he says. "You're alright. Nothing's going to happen to you."

It's precisely these words that makes Sunday explode. "You don't know that," he blurts loudly, squeezing his eyes shut tightly. "You don't know what's going to happen. I don't - I don't even understand why you allowed me to come with you. I'm dangerous. Don't you care about how dangerous I am?"

Calm as ever, Mr. Yang replies. "I don't believe you are dangerous, Sunday," he tells him. "Why do you think you are?"

He struggles to explain, to come up with the words that will sum everything up and make him understand. "Bad things happen," he tries, fumbling over his words, his tongue feeling too large and heavy in his mouth. "I make bad things happen - I do bad things. Worse than what you've seen from me before. I - I don't know how to - I apologize, I understand I'm b-behaving erratically - truly, I -"

"It's ok," Mr. Yang insists, his grip on Sunday's hands tightening just slightly. His eyes swim with worry, forehead wrinkled with the force of it. "Sunday, what do you mean by making bad things happen?"

Sunday's breath catches, rendering him unable to speak properly. "I - I just - I can't explain. I'm sorry. It doesn't make sense."

Mr. Yang lets out a soft sigh, staring right through him as if reading his mind. Sunday has never felt so exposed. This feels like the moment Mr. Wood discovered him cutting his hands in the bathroom that fatefully day - his persona peeled back to reveal the repulsiveness underneath, his ugly interior on display for all to see.

"I think," Mr. Yang says quietly, "that I might understand. Correct me if I'm wrong, Sunday, but is this belief that you're a dangerous person at all connected to those wounds on your hands and wings?"

Sunday inhales, and Mr. Yang hums at the unintentional confirmation. "Alright," he murmurs, running his thumb along the back of Sunday's hand soothingly. It's a familiar gesture, gentle and relaxing. "I thought this was maybe the case, but I wasn't planning to ask unless it came up."

"You knew?" Sunday asks weakly. He's still shaking, but the confusion of the moment has overwhelmed his terror from before. "You already knew what I've been...?"

"Not exactly," Mr. Yang replies. He sits back, shifting his cane aside and resting his hand back on Sunday's casually. "I do believe, however, that I can guess, based on your behaviours and what your sister told us about you."

Sunday's heart plummets. "Robin said -"

"She never directly told us anything," the older man quickly reassures him. "Just that you were easily worried, that you had always wanted to stay in control of things. Back on my homeland, I became familiar with the concept of a certain disorder that might make one think this way. I wasn't entirely sure if that was what you were dealing with, but I did think it sounded somewhat like you fit the bill."

Shakily, Sunday nods his head. It's far too late to pretend now. "Mr. Wood had me diagnosed in my younger years," he mumbles, dropping his gaze with shame. "It's called obsessive-compulsive disorder."

He hates the name of it more than anything, even though it sums up what it is perfectly. It's a name for the ridiculous thoughts that plague him that sounds just as insane as it makes him feel.

At his admission, Mr. Yang nods, looking unsurprised. "I thought so," he says, and finally pulls away from Sunday's hands, as if now confident that he won't hurt himself. "Why didn't you tell us this earlier? Everyone would have been perfectly understanding of it."

Sunday could seriously cry. He blinks his eyes harshly and shakes his head. "I prefer that people don't know," he admits in a small voice, clenching his fists in his lap. "It doesn't make me sound very reliable or even sane, and I prefer people don't think of me that way."

"I guarantee no one around here would," Mr. Yang reassures him. He turns his gaze away from Sunday, probably having figured out that his intense gaze isn't helping. "All of us here have gone through a lot to get to where we are. It hasn't left us without scars. You know, you aren't alone in feeling the way you do. Dan Heng has frequent nightmares, March often spaces out and experiences gaps in her memory which upsets her quite a bit, and Himeko is an insomniac who gets rather irritable when she's exhausted. Even I myself sometimes find myself engaging in somewhat peculiar behaviours as a reaction to things I find unpleasant or upsetting. These are things that all of us are open about and aware of about each other, because we help each other with our issues and struggles."

The thought of Himeko or March acting grumpy or upset is odd. It does help, hearing Mr. Yang admit that his behaviour isn't completely out of place on the Astral Express. Even if he's sure that whatever he has going on is weird to an extent that even they might not have seen before.

Mr. Yang stares out at the bookshelves across the room, drumming his fingers on his knees. "If you're struggling right now," he continues. "Any one of us would be happy to help and support you. I know you have an unpleasant history with us, and you might find it awkward, but believe me when I say we're happy that you're interested in changing and becoming better and want our help to do it. If you need anything from us, we're all here for you. The duty of the Nameless is to help people."

Every word he says makes it harder to fight back tears, and by the end of his speech, Sunday is covering his face with his hands and his wings and quivering with upset. "I don't believe I'm worth so much effort," he chokes out, and laughs shortly, no humour in it. "The Nameless of the Astral Express are heroes of the cosmos. All I've done is bring people pain."

I couldn't even save my own sister from her suffering, he doesn't say. Her whole life, I only ever made her miserable - my last act for her caused her hurt, made a mess for her to clean up all alone. Why would I ever deserve a second chance, a fresh start, after all I've done?

Pom-Pom's announcement about their incoming departure had just made the reality set in completely - that he is running away from the ruins he left behind, that he is leaving the person he loves the most to fix everything he broke. Sunday was born wrong. Sunday has always been wrong. If anyone deserves to go somewhere else, to leave the struggles of life behind and start anew, it's Robin.

It's no wonder so many of his intrusive thoughts revolve around her. It's the easiest way to get to him, his biggest weakness and the source of everything good in his life, all in one. Sunday has always worried about her. Sunday has only ever wanted what was best for her.

Even after she left Penacony, he always had the promise of seeing her again to keep him going. What does he have now, that he's ruined everything? He's only ever done this to himself.

Robin is by no means whatsoever the source of his sickness. However, he would be lying if he said worrying about her all his life, especially after Mr. Wood revealed the truth about the Family's connection to the Order, hadn't worsened it. He wonders sometimes if, the roles were reversed, she would resent him.

That doesn't matter now. "What-ifs" are a waste of time. Sunday could spend weeks feverishly coming up with hypotheticals and drawing up timelines, but it would do no one any good. In this very moment, after all he's done, the best thing he can do for Robin is leave her life.

At the least, Stelle is still in contact with her. That's something, and it brings him some slight amount of comfort. No matter what happens, he'll never be so far away from her that he won't know whether she's ok or not.

And now, as Mr. Yang had proclaimed, he has more than one person to rely on now. That's new to Sunday. He shivers, tugging his sleeves over his bare hands. Underneath his coat, his wings twitch, aching with disuse.

Mr. Yang is silent for a moment before he replies. Out the window, stars blink brightly in the distance, the Planet of Festivities glittering just out of reach. Somewhere out there is his sister. Sunday wonders what she's doing right now. Wonders if she's still singing.

"Everyone is worth the effort it takes to be saved," he hears, after a long pause. He turns his head, and finds Mr. Yang is looking at him. There's a soft, tired smile on his usually so serious face, gentle in a way that Mr. Wood never looked, never once, no matter what face he wore. "If you're willing to make the effort, and if you're willing to let us help you, then it would be our pleasure to join you on that journey."

Sunday can't help it. His vision blurs, and before he can even do anything to prevent it, the tears spill over and down his cheeks. He scrubs them away as fast as he can, a frustrated sob wrenching itself out from his chest, but as more and more fall, he gives up and just hides his face with his arms, embarrassed by acting so childish in front of one of the most mature, senior Nameless on the Express.

However, Mr. Yang doesn't seem to judge him. "You're alright," he tells him softly, and brings a hand down flat against his back. He lets it remain there for a moment before running it up and down. He's surprisingly good at comforting people, which shouldn't really be surprising, but given how much Sunday has accidentally compared him to Mr. Wood, it is. "You'll feel better after this. I'm sure of it."

He doesn't make any other movements, just runs his hand across Sunday's back, and he's honestly glad, because he thinks more physical contact in this moment would be too overwhelming. He doesn't say anything more, either. Just lets Sunday get it all out, staying by his side, waiting for him to be calm again. The company is nice. Nicer than Sunday had thought it would be.

It's been so long since he's cried like this that he thinks the last time must have been when Robin was shot. Even Mr. Wood's looming presence hadn't been enough to stop him then, not when he didn't know if she was ok, not when she'd been hurt in such a gruesome manner. It feels strange, now, to be bawling over something so trivial. He hadn't even cried over Robin's recent apparent death in the Dreamscape. Maybe it is a good thing that he's getting all of this out now - he's been fairly emotionally repressed for a long time, a fact he's been long aware of but never cared to do anything about. Mr. Wood wouldn't have thought that way.

By the time he's calmed down again and the tears have stopped flowing, he had another headache.

"I'll bring you some water," Mr. Yang says. He gets to his feet, leaning heavily on his cane. "I would recommend unfurling your wings for a while. I imagine I would be correct if I said you'd been keeping them tucked away since you arrived here?"

Sunday cringes and nods, shoulders rising towards his ears. "Mostly..."

"I also imagine that's not good for your health," Mr. Yang adds. This part sounds less like a question, but Sunday nods anyway.

"They're... I mean, I..." Sunday tries, but can't manage to find the words. Mr. Yang had caught a glimpse of them before, enough to see that they were in a sorry state, but he doesn't know how exactly much he'd seen. "They don't look... very pleasant right now."

"I understand," Mr. Yang nods. "Nobody else will come in here anytime soon. March and Stelle are out getting drinks at that floating restaurant, and Dan Heng's been busy cataloging all the new Express features with Himeko. There's no need to worry about what I'll think about them, either, if that's a concern for you. I'm not here to judge you, only to help you get better."

Then he leaves the room. He must be confident that Sunday's not going to continue hurting himself, or at least projecting the image that he's confident of this - and it's exactly that that prevents Sunday from returning to actioning his compulsions the second he's alone. Weirdly, he doesn't even have the urge to pace anymore, and his mind has fallen silent of intrusive thoughts. Maybe being caught has shaken him back to his senses.

It's slightly relieving, the fact that Mr. Yang knows. His unbelievable gentleness in the face of Sunday's ridiculous behaviour was like a heavy weight off of his shoulders. It's not as though he'd expected Mr. Yang to treat him the same way as Mr. Wood would have, but he certainly hadn't been prepared for such pure kindness. Just thinking about it makes his eyes damp again.

He shrugs off his jacket, realizing how hot he actually is, and winces at the pain as he unfurls his wings. He's only done this a few times since arriving, and mostly for showers, which becomes painfully obvious in every sense of the word. His muscles ache so painfully he nearly gasps aloud as he lets the appendages spread out, taking up the entire seat and then some. This is precisely why Halovians tend to keep them folded neatly by their sides when in public. Sunday hates taking up space. Mr. Wood has always hated him taking up space as well.

When Mr. Yang comes back just a minute or so later with a glass of water, Sunday has stretched his wings all the way out and is inspecting the damage he's done to them over the past few weeks.

"You've been pulling out the feathers, correct?" Mr. Yang asks, silently handing Sunday the water. He takes it with shaking hands, murmuring his thanks. Mr. Yang nods solemnly, leaning on his cane as he looks down at him. "Dan Heng found some purple feathers on the ground the other day. He was concerned that something might be wrong with you for you to be shedding them. I was planning to speak to you directly before today, but... you can be a difficult man to find, Sunday, and I didn't want to scare you off."

Sunday lets out a soft laugh, rubbing the back of his neck nervously. "I - I didn't realize, I apologize. I never intended to cause so much trouble for the lot of you. Even after you've accepted me onto the Express and allowed me the graciousness of traveling with you until I reach a suitable destination..."

"You're no trouble whatsoever," Mr. Yang interrupts. He meets Sunday's eyes, watching intently while he gulps down water and nearly spills it down his front in his eagerness. "We would be terrible hosts if you were to have an unpleasant stay with us. Besides, you know we wouldn't have allowed you aboard the Express if we had any qualms about your presence here, right? You being here means we all agreed. All of us."

Sunday understands. It's not as though he hasn't thought about this a lot since boarding the Express. That moment when Stelle had welcomed him aboard after Himeko allowed her the final decision had been like being able to breathe again after having his chest crushed for weeks on end. He hadn't expected her to agree, much less for the rest of the crew to go along with it. That has to count for something, even if this did occur before Sunday's relapse in behaviour. It doesn't necessarily mean that they're interested in becoming fast friends or anything. Sunday won't get his hopes up for that, not at all. However...

...Yes, it's silly to expect anything more than that. Sunday will depart as soon as possible, on Amphoreus even, if need be. A future as a Nameless is unattainable and ridiculous for somebody like himself, even if they're extending their hospitality so kindly for now.

Mr. Yang studies him closely, and Sunday jolts with the realization that he hasn't sat down again because Sunday is taking up the space he was sitting in with his wings. "Oh, I apologize," he says quickly, and tries to fold them back up again. Pain shoots through his wings, and he barely avoids physically wincing or making a sound. Even when he was struggling to take care of himself on Penacony, his wings were always well maintained.

"Don't worry, I'm perfectly fine," Mr. Yang jumps in. He holds out a hand to signal for Sunday to stop, and sighs at the sight of him. He must look terribly pathetic to be earning such a look right now. "I think it's more important that you look after those right now. Like I said, nobody else will come round here for a while. If you'd like to be left alone, I'll make sure nobody bothers you."

Sunday hesitates, breath catching in his throat. "I don't understand," he admits softly, voice wavering. "I know you said that the job of the Nameless is to help people, but you have no obligation to take care of me after all I've done. Shouldn't you be angrier at me?"

After all, that's what Sunday's used to. Anger, resentment, cold looks and sharp words. Mr. Yang's kindness is entirely foreign to him. It's jarring, and he can't help but get the feeling that he's being tricked, somehow. That if he continues to let his guard down, something bad is going to happen. That's what those cruel inner thoughts that drive Sunday's illness always tell him - something bad is going to happen.

Mr. Yang frowns, face pinched, and then he takes a step closer to him. Sunday flinches, instinct taking over, but the older man doesn't touch him yet. Sunday feels his wings flutter nervously, revealing his emotions against his will.

"Sunday," Mr. Yang says, soft, gentle, kind. "There's no need to worry about anyone getting angry at you anymore."

It's been such an emotional whirlwind of a day that it takes very little to push him over the edge again. This time, when he bursts into tears, Mr. Yang reaches out to pull him closer to him in what's not exactly a hug and is instead an awkward hold that allows Sunday to hide his face against his side. He appreciates it. Positive attention like this is rare, so he'll take what he can get for as long as he can hold onto it.

It's nerve wracking, going into the Party Car to talk to March. He finds her sitting at a booth by the window, on her phone next to the glass with pink earbuds in her ears. Sunday saunters closer anxiously, wringing his hands within his gloves.

"Miss March," he says, in a small, meek tone. "Erm, Miss March?"

He taps her shoulder gently, and she jumps and whirls around, revealing her phone screen for just long enough to show that she was watching a video of some oddly shaped cats stack atop one another. Her eyes are blown wide for the briefest moment, and then she registers who she's looking at and relaxes again. Her shoulders droop back down, breathing slowing again.

"Sunday," she says, pulling her lips upwards in a smile. "You scared me. Sorry if you were trying to get my attention, I was so caught up in this video."

"That's ok," Sunday replies, nodding a little too quickly. The nervousness flows through him, making him jittery. He folds his hands behind his back. "I... wanted to apologize for the way I spoke to you the other day."

March blinks, smile wavering, and then lets out a soft, bell-like laugh. "Oh, that was nothing, Sunday," she tells him, eyes glittering. "Seriously, I was the one invading your personal space. I didn't think anything of it except that I should maybe be worried about you. How are you, by the way? Mr. Yang said you were fine, but that I should ask you directly for more details."

Sunday winces. Mr. Yang had asked him if he wanted him to tell the rest of the crew about his struggles, but he'd declined. This is something he'd prefer to do himself, more than anything. The last thing he wants is for everybody to suddenly be weird around him because Mr. Yang told everybody else just how weird he really is while he wasn't around to explain himself. Even if it does mean having to face this horrendously awkward conversation, he still wouldn't want someone else to do this for him.

"I... am just fine," he says slowly, then makes a face, laughing nervously. "Well, ah, somewhat. I mean, mostly. It's rather - hard to explain, but still - I don't want you to forgive me just because you believe I might have been unwell or something, Miss March."

"Forgive you for what?" he hears, and jumps twenty feet in the air at the sound of Stelle's harsh tones. Where she'd come from, Sunday has no idea - the car had been empty apart from him and March just moments ago - but now the Trailblazer is marching towards them, arms crossed over her chest and an unimpressed look on her face. "You better not be bullying my girlfriend, Sunday, or I'll have to kick your ass again. You know damn well I'll do it. They don't call me the Galactic Baseballer because I'm good at baseball."

Sunday swallows, but thankfully, March laughs and rushes to his rescue before he gets his skull bashed in with a weapon of Destruction. "Ste-lle, you're so silly!" she giggles, grabbing Stelle's hands and linking their fingers. "Sunday's just being dramatic, he didn't do anything to me at all. Did you find that stuff Himeko was looking for? Your bag feels so light!"

For all Stelle proclaims to be tough as nails and impossible to defeat, she softens at March's touch and gentle tones. "Fortunately not," she grimaces, and glances up at Sunday before her, who she's clearly decided to immediately back down from now that March has declared him innocent. "Himeko wanted some Penacony coffee before she left, but she's too busy planning a route with the Conductor to go down herself. So sadly, I couldn't seem to find any at all. Oh, well."

Sunday blinks, the woman's sudden shift in tone throwing him. "I happen to know a few places one could find good coffee," he offers. If there's anything he knows well, it's Penacony, like the back of his hand. "If you wanted, I could show you -"

"Absolutely not," March interrupts, shaking her head with a horrified look. "You should know, Sunday, Himeko's coffee is disgusting. Don't tell her we said that, but everyone knows it! Isn't that right, Stelle?"

"Yeah, it's pretty bad," Stelle agrees. She shrugs off her jacket and plops down beside March, legs open but crossed at the ankle. "If you ever find an unattended cup filled with something vaguely coffee scented, do not touch. The same rules apply that they would if you thought something was a bomb."

Sunday chuckles, and without warning, Stelle seems to zero in on him with narrowed eyes. "So what's up?" she asks, and Sunday's heart drops. "You're being weird. Sit down, at least, you're too tall when you're standing and we're not. What happened with you two, then? Spill, I'm nosy and I want to know."

"Stelle," March whines, but Sunday's already preparing himself. He takes a breath, then does as Stelle asked and sits, leaving a small gap between him and Stelle so as not to make her uncomfortable. His jacket feels tight and heavy around his shoulders. It usually does, but he can usually ignore it. Today, however, he doesn't want to.

"I was just in a strange mood the other day," he confesses, staring at his gloved hands on his knees and refusing to look to his left where the Nameless are. "And... have been for a few weeks. I do apologize if any of my behaviour has seemed off, or if I have caused any problems for the lot of you."

Stelle lets out a noise of confusion, shifting slightly in her seat. "Uh... I hadn't noticed anything. Not any problems that you could have caused, at least."

Sunday thinks about hers and March's ruined game of cards and cringes. "I suppose that's - that's fine, then," he continues, slightly quieter. This is the part that's difficult, but he knows it needs to be done. "Since I am going to be traveling with you, I suppose I should explain, somewhat... that I occasionally engage in some unusual behaviours that might come across as strange or unpleasant to witness. It's rather difficult to explain to you why this is, but it may be... good information for you to be aware of. To answer your question, Miss Stelle, I was in one of these very phases when Miss March approached me and I was rather... disagreeable. I just wanted to apologize for that, and - and make the two of you aware that I never intend to upset, truly, and I occasionally struggle to change my behaviour at times."

He takes a deep breath. Stelle and March are so silent that Sunday could hear a feather drop. He doesn't dare turn, just in case he sees an unpleasant expression on either of their faces -

"Cool, so you're a bit weird, is what I'm hearing," Stelle says. Sunday looks up so quickly it nearly gives him whiplash, startled by the easy dismissal. Stelle is leaning back against March's side, nonchalant as ever, like it doesn't even matter. "Everybody here is. Even Dan Heng sometimes. You'll fit right in, as long as your "unusual behaviours" or whatever the hell don't involve trapping us all in a sweet dream or turning into a terrifying boss fight for us to take down."

"Uh... she phrased it a bit casually, but Stelle's right," March offers slowly, leaning forward so Sunday can see her face. She smiles, gentle and warm. "I mean, if you think you're weird, I'm definitely way weirder. I don't know how much any of the rest of them have told you, but I often get super weird memory gaps and find myself doing things I don't think I ever would have done. Everyone says I act like a different person sometimes and I don't even remember. Like I'm being possessed or something. I feel like that has to take the weird cake, right?"

It certainly does sound odd, although whether it's worse than Sunday's behaviours is up for debate. He's not going to argue about it, though. He's so relieved he feels faint, his shoulders drooping as the realization that they've accepted him still fully sinks into his mind. Of course, they haven't actually seen these behaviours of his that he described, so there's still a chance of them rejecting him in the future - there always is, really, for more reasons than one. However, for now, they're fine with him. They aren't even asking him to elaborate before deciding it's ok. Sunday is not having to justify himself the way he always did with Mr. Wood, and is simply being told that it's fine, after an entire lifetime of being told it's not.

It's like a breath of fresh air. Sunday exhales and slumps back in his seat.

Beside him, Stelle laughs. "Wow, you were really holding all that in, huh, Sunny?" she says with a grin. She nudges him with her elbow. "No need to stress with us. I like to think we're not judgemental people, or at least not judgmental of our allies, that's for sure."

March laughs. Sunday lets out a breathy laugh as well, feeling much calmer already. However, Stelle just barely missing the top of his wings with her nudge has reminded him of what Mr. Yang had said. As the two women turn to one another, with March having asked Stelle a question and Stelle leaning over to glance at her phone, Sunday discreetly unbuttons his jacket and unfolds it, preparing to shrug it off with a quickly beating heart within his chest.

"Woah," he hears, and finds that Stelle has turned back to see him doing this with wide golden eyes. "We haven't seen your wings in forever. I totally forgot you even had them."

Sunday offers a smile, somewhat awkwardly. "Yes, I believe it would do me good not to keep them cooped up underneath my jacket all of the time. Would the two of you mind -?"

"No, no way," March jumps in, eyes sparkling as she stares unabashedly at them, seemingly delighted. "I've never seen your wings out before! Can't Halovian wings get super big? Do you need us to move?"

"Uh -" Sunday starts, but Stelle and March are already scrambling off the couch to stand before him, watching excitedly. It's strange to have this kind of attention, especially given the fact that Halovians who have wings tend to keep them folded away and thus, generally aren't seen by those who aren't family or close acquaintances. Sunday tries not to think about that as he sheds his jacket and slowly unfolds his wings, tearing gasps from Stelle and March's lips as they look at them. He can't help but grin nervously, although he hopes it comes across more confidently than he feels. He used to be so good at pretending.

"Woah," March says in an impressed tone. Her hands twitch before her, as if wanting to reach out and touch, but thankfully thinking better of it. "They're so cool, Sunday. Robin has ones like these too, right? I saw some performances she did where she sang with them out. I wasn't sure if they were real, though, because I know some Halovians don't have them."

"They're real," Sunday confirms, folding his hands in his lap awkwardly as two pairs of pink and gold eyes scan him up and down with childish intrigue. "Both mine and Robin's. They can be kind of a pain to deal with due to their size, hence why I've been keeping them tucked away. I don't wish to take up too much space."

"You could never take up too much space!" March exclaims, looking aghast. "There's no such thing! Don't think things like that about yourself, we don't talk bad about ourselves here on the Express. Isn't that right, Stelle?"

"Yeah, and your wings look awesome to boot," Stelle adds. She crosses her arms over her chest. "Even if you're balding."

Sunday blinks, and March's hand flies to her mouth. "Stelle!" she whisper-yells. "I wasn't going to say anything about that!"

"Right, sorry," Stelle says, grimacing dramatically. "What I meant was, the balding makes them look even cooler."

"Stelle!"

"It's fine," Sunday laughs, actually relieved more than anything. "I understand they might look strange because of it, I can't fault you for commenting. It's... part of my strange behaviours, in a way. You needn't worry about it."

Despite him saying this, both Stelle and March do look mildly concerned about this statement, but neither say anything about it. "Sure," Stelle comments, and then flashes a grin. "Sunday, can me and March do that thing that birds do with other bird's wings?"

Sunday opens his mouth, then closes it again, trying to narrow down what they could possibly mean. "What, preening them...?" he asks uncertainly. Stelle snaps her fingers and nods.

"That's the bitch," she says triumphantly. "Halovians do that, right? Can we preen them for you? Look at March's face, Sunny, she wants to touch your wings so bad, you can tell."

"Ste-elle," March groans, but she doesn't deny it. She widens her eyes, clasping her hands in front of her. "I can't say I would mind doing it, though... I mean, if you were fine with it! Come on, Sunday, Dan Heng never lets us touch his horns and it's so sad!"

Sunday's sure that Dan Heng doesn't let the two boisterous women touch his horns for a reason, but nevertheless, he's already crumbling. He and Robin always preened each other's wings, and it's such a hassle, doing his own. Since Stelle and March seem so eager, it surely couldn't be so bad to say yes, could it?

He hesitates, and March seems to recognize his uncertainty straight away. "You don't have to let us right now, we can wait for an answer," she says cheerfully, clapping her hands. "Anyway, do you wanna watch a movie with us? You might have seen it, it's an old movie, but it's one of my favourites. We can watch it, Stelle, right?"

"Oh, Aeons, not that one again," Stelle whines, but relents the very second Match turns those pleading eyes on her. "Ok, I still have it on my laptop... You wanna chill with us, then, Sunday? This is probably the last chance we'll get to relax before the jump tomorrow, so we might as well take it."

"Yeah, it'll be a good bonding opportunity!" March adds, bouncing on the balls of her heels with excitement at the prospect. "We can get Dan Heng to join us too, he likes this movie even if he won't admit it. I'll text him right now!"

Sunday's heart rate spikes at the idea of hanging around Dan Heng - even though he's already revealed himself as being a mentally unwell control freak, Sunday still doesn't know how to feel about how intense Dan Heng's gaze is or how it makes his chest tight. However, the idea of just relaxing and watching a movie sounds... nice. Sunday's been calmer since yesterday, and his mind has mostly been silent of any unpleasant intrusive thoughts. He knows tomorrow is going to be stressful, and everything will probably come rushing back full force, but he thinks, while he can, he wouldn't mind not having to worry for a little while.

However... "I can move," Sunday offers, pulling his wings in sheepishly. "I apologize, I'm not leaving you much space."

"No, no, it's fine!" March proclaims, holding out her hands. "We can just situate ourselves around them, right? It's too bad we didn't know we were gonna have someone with wings as a passenger, otherwise we could have found chairs that you could sit in comfortably somewhere and brought them on the Express!"

"I'll suggest that to Pom-Pom," Stelle says, snapping her fingers thoughtfully. "I'm sure they'd be more than happy. Hey, maybe we'll find something on Amphoreus. It could be possible that people have wings there."

Sunday doesn't know what to say. The Nameless are so stupidly considerate that it makes his head spin. He flexes his hands in his lap as Stelle and March sit down beside him with Stelle in the middle, fingers flying across her phone screen. She's texting Dan Heng, Sunday can see when he glances over discreetly. The Express groans, a sound Sunday has started to grow used to after all the time spent here already, and weirdly, he finds himself relaxing even further.

Dan Heng enters the car a few minutes later, Stelle's laptop underneath his arm. "Yes, yes," he drawls when she thanks him profusely for bringing it. His eyes fall on Sunday, and his breath catches at the serious gaze. Really, Dan Heng shouldn't be so intimidating, but there's something about him that just makes Sunday so exponentially nervous. Even more so when Dan Heng makes the silent decision to sit down beside Sunday, untying his shoes and settling comfortably without even saying a word about Sunday's wings. Sunday holds his breath.

Stelle slides the laptop half onto his lap, leaving the two of them in the centre. "So everyone can see," she proclaims, and grins, gold eyes sparkling. Sunday almost can't believe this same person hit him with a baseball bat and broke him in a form where he was almost godlike. "Have you ever seen this one, Sunny?"

"No, I haven't," he replies weakly, having long given up on asking her not to call him that. It's kind of endearing, anyway. "But don't tell me what it's about, I'd prefer to find out through watching."

"Ha, you're just like Dan Heng!" March giggles. She's fully leaning on Stelle's shoulder, taking up half the couch with her legs. "He thinks descriptions of movie plots are "spoilers." He won't even watch trailers with us!"

"There are too many directors that include major spoilers in their trailers," Dan Heng replies coolly, sparing her a nonchalant glance. "Why would I watch a movie if I already know that the main characters get together, their home base blows up and the main villain kills the side character I was rooting for?"

"He's salty," March whispers to Sunday behind her hands. "Ultra, uber-salty, over this one specific movie series we were watching a while back. You should have seen it, Stelle, he was so mad about it for weeks afterwards!"

Dan Heng rolls his eyes, and Sunday can't help but laugh. Right now, he feels more relaxed than he has in weeks. Maybe even in months, given how stressed he'd been in the leadup to the Charmony Festival. His mind is empty of cruel thoughts, his hands content with resting on his lap. So he finds himself thinking scary, dangerous things, like I could get used to this. He doesn't know how to feel about that. It's not as if the Nameless would allow him to travel with them forever.

For now, at least, surrounded by his allies who relax around his wings and fall into silence to watch the movie with smiles on their faces, it's enough.

"Is everything ready?" Himeko asks, again, for the hundredth time today. She rushes from car to car, holding her hair back with her hands but having no hair tie to tie it back with. "Stelle! Where is Stelle? Dan Heng, March, have you seen her?"

"She was talking to the Conductor," March calls, poking her head around the doorway. "I don't know why, she just said she wanted to check something out!"

Dan Heng starts to rush by, then stops in his tracks as he notices March. "What are you wearing? I don't believe I've seen you wear it."

Sunday, from his position awkwardly dithering in the middle of the room, peeks over to see what Dan Heng is talking about. March, who's just stepped around the doorway to reveal herself, is wearing a sweet purple and blue dress with high white socks, simple heels tied tight around her ankles. Sunday hasn't seen her wear this before, either. It looks lovely. He doesn't say anything aloud, though, lest he be chastised for eavesdropping.

"Oh, this?" March says, gesturing towards herself with faux nonchalance, although her eyes are sparkling. "Black Swan read my fortune, and from what she said, I think this is the perfect outfit to wear to start our journey on Amphoreus! Isn't it adorable? Tell me how adorable I am, Dan Heng!"

"Very adorable," Dan Heng relents, the corners of his lips twitching fondly in the faintest ghost of a smile. "Are you ready? Is Stelle ready, also? I'm concerned she might have procrastinated packing her bags."

March frowns, perfectly painted lips turning downwards. "I don't know, I'm her girlfriend, not her keeper! Bu-ut, if I had to guess... she's probably procrastinated. I'll go find her, I have to show her that I found this outfit again, I totally lost it after I wore it in Belobog!"

She darts away, and Dan Heng quickly follows. It's likely neither of them even noticed Sunday was here. He has exactly zero items to pack, and exactly zero familiarity with the Express, so he has nothing to do and no procedures to assist with until the jump in an hour or so. He's sort of just been waiting until somebody speaks to him or asks him to do something - is silently begging someone to ask him to do something, really. A bored mind is a wandering mind, and a wandering mind can be nothing but trouble for Sunday right now. His conversation with Welt and casual hangout with the younger Express members in the past couple days has relaxed him, and he doesn't need to stress himself out again to the point of another spiral now of all times, not when his leaving Penacony and the beginning of his new life is so close.

...Thinking about it like that is anxiety inducing. Sunday is really about to leave his home forever. Robin will be further away than she's ever been in his life. He's not worried about her fate, nothing like that, he knows she's capable and level headed enough to take care of herself on her own. No, he just hates the idea of being too far away from her to get to her should anything happen. Mr. Wood's casual relay of the information about her near death experience so long ago comes to mind.

He's already chosen his path, of course, and it is far too late to back out now. Even if he wanted to go home, he destroyed that option for himself. The Express will be his home until further notice. It's certainly not the end of the world.

He leaves the Parlor Car and meanders along the other cars, searching for nothing in particular, lost in thought. It would do him good to have a distraction until they're all called back for the warp jump. Just thinking about that makes him queasy for unrelated reasons. Sunday's always had a sensitive stomach. He hopes he doesn't throw up.

"Ah, passenger Sunday!"

He startles and turns around. Behind him is none other than the Conductor, who he certainly hadn't expected to see. They look somewhat frazzled as they come to a stop in front of him, small enough that they have to crane their neck to meet Sunday's eyes even at his shorter stature. He blinks, watching as they check a watch on their wrist. A sigh escapes them before they look back up at his face.

"Good morning, Conductor," Sunday greets them politely. He's rather uncertain what they're doing here, now of all times. "Do you require my assistance? I imagine you must be busy."

"I am," Pom-Pom admits heavily, crossing their arms over their chest. "But we've been working towards this for such a while that it's much less work now than it was for the last couple weeks. I wanted to speak to you before we jumped, anyway, since I've not had enough time before now. How have you been, passenger Sunday?"

Sunday hesitates, unsure how to answer. The Conductor's appearance here is so unexpected that he doesn't know what to say. "I have... been alright," he confirms eventually, hands flexing at his sides with the urge to tug at his wings, back to being folded neatly away. "Why do you ask now of all times, Conductor? I would imagine it would be less of an inconvenience to you to wait until we've jumped."

Pom-Pom purses their lips, ears twitching. "You're no inconvenience. Passenger Sunday, I won't beat around the bush. It's rare for us to acquire new passengers, and even rarer for us to acquire new Nameless. Don't say anything, Pom-Pom knows you said you're only traveling temporarily! However, as the Conductor, it is my sworn duty to make sure the Astral Express is completely up to par with the passengers expectations. Has everything been to your liking, then, passenger Sunday?"

Sunday manages to relax at this, realizing this is just a routine checkup from the Conductor. "Yes, of course," he says, nodding vigorously. "Everyone has been terribly pleasant, and I've felt very welcomed. You do good work here on the Express, Conductor."

A flush appears on their fuzzy cheeks. "Aw, well isn't that nice!" they smile, beaming wide. However, their expression quickly turns serious again. "Passenger Sunday, before we jumped, I wanted to make sure that you were truly ok with leaving Penacony. I don't want to deal with any last minute changes of heart like I've had to in the past, and Pom-Pom understands that this will be difficult for you. Welt informed Pom-Pom that you might have difficulties. If you have anything you want to do or say, now would be the best time to get it all out."

Really, Sunday should have known this wouldn't be such a simple interaction. He folds his hands behind his back and pinches his wrist to keep himself grounded, the urge to shuffle around like a nervous child overcoming him. He manages to hold back, however, Pom-Pom's words taking over his mind.

It makes sense that they might worry that he'd want to leave. Knowing what they must know about the kind of person he is, the kind of person he's trying to leave behind, he understands. However, for the first time in weeks, there is no doubt in Sunday's mind what he wants to do. He's never been more certain about his own intentions in his life.

"Conductor," he says, and smiles, a real, genuine smile. "I wish to stay for as long as I will be allowed, and I won't cause any problems while I do so. I swear it."

Pom-Pom looks almost surprised by this. Then they laugh, one short, sharp laugh, ears flopping as they shake their head. "You remind me of someone," they sigh, but don't elaborate. "Alright, then, we'll have no further issues. I hope I haven't offended you, passenger Sunday. Pom-Pom always likes to check up on new passengers before their first jump, and coming from where you have, I had to make sure you would be alright. I think you're going to get along with us very well, though. As long as you do as you've promised and don't cause problems."

"I wouldn't dream of it," Sunday swears, and the Conductor laughs again, although this time, Sunday quickly picks up on what about the wording he'd just used was so funny. "I mean - I wouldn't do it at all, in dreams or reality. Once I've found somewhere safe for me, I'll disembark and stop troubling you immediately. You needn't worry about a thing."

There's a pause, and Pom-Pom looks up at him again. There is a look in their eyes that Sunday doesn't recognize. It's alarming, because he's usually so good at reading people, but he doesn't know what to make of the emotions he sees flickering across the Conductor's face. It's an almost wistful expression, fleetingly so, before they return back to their resting face and smile lightly up at him. Kind and welcoming, just like everybody else has been, ever since he boarded.

"Stay as long as you like," Pom-Pom tells him softly. "No matter who you are or what you've done, the Nameless will always accept those who are lost with open arms."

At this, they turn to leave, short legs carrying them out of the car and away from Sunday's line of sight. Even after they're gone, his heart races, thumping rapidly against his ribs like he's just run a race. One hand makes its way up to his chest and rests against the centre of it, feeling his own blood pump through his body. Feeling the cool air against his face, the short carpet under his shoes, the aura of the cosmos waiting for him.

And he thinks, even after he returns to the Parlor Car and sits between Stelle and Dang Heng while the Conductor announces over staticky speakers that the Express is about to jump, even after a paper bag is pressed into his hands and he turns around to catch one last glimpse of his home before squeezing his eyes shut and saying a silent goodbye to all he knows, that maybe, somewhere along the way, he'd made the right choice after all.