Chapter Text
“Stelle,” a voice hisses, “you have to stop picking up strays!”
Sunday blinks to consciousness blearily, and it aches. The space around him swims in painful, artificial light. Voices, too many at once, argue like a choir. He floats in and out of it, as weightless as a corpse at sea, and his bones feel too heavy to move.
The night is short, and the dream is over. Dim and weary, Sunday wonders why he is still here.
“I mean, have you seen him?” another voice, Miss Trailblazer, presumably, says. “I feel bad. He looks, like, half-dead. Who knows what the IPC did to him?”
The IPC. The assumption itself makes Sunday want to laugh, however oxymoronic it feels. A scatter of greedy, moronic fools, chewing through the galaxy like their own banquet. And now they have the Penacony too. Beautiful, glittering Penacony, home of revelry infested with noise. What he hoped for whatever reason he could turn into a paradise, but doomed to be next on the corporate plate. Sunday's failure gnaws at him like a cloud of vultures.
He did this to himself. And now it's over, so Sunday may as well be too.
He simply doesn't care, and that's such a strange notion.
“Look at him, he's completely unresponsive. Hey, Sunday, Sunday! ”
Or, perhaps, he does care, cares so much he bleeds until there is none of him left. Perhaps, Sunday has been forged for it; to do nothing but care and feel and carry it, until he forgets where he ends and the world begins. Perhaps, there was an error in his assemblage, a sort of incorrigible flaw, and that is why the very thing he was created for - to carry the world on his shoulders towards a better future - is the one thing he failed so spectacularly at.
It's a pervasive thought, that maybe to some degree he is incomplete. Though that matters not because the things he'd done were all on his own volition.
The bird is at fault for crashing not because of its broken wing but because of its attempt to fly despite it.
“See what I mean? Sunday! ”
Sunday flinches. He has had a voice raised at him before; Father’s patience was not infinite, and Sunday has… had many responsibilities. Father never had time for his particularities, and Sunday simply grew out of them, if a little roughly. But he never heard Miss Stellaron sound like this. There is an edge to it he can't quite place. It couldn't possibly be concern - Sunday is well aware of what polite concern sounds like.
“I believe Mr Sunday is in the state of severe dissociation,” another voice says, low, smooth, assured.
Sunday blinks through the thick, viscous fog, eyelids full of lead. He has heard that word before. It clumps strangely in his mouth, like a weight on his clumsy tongue. It means something, surely, if only Sunday could summon the will to remember what. In truth, he feels alone in the cosmos, the vacuum of space slowly dragging him under. They are speaking about him, correct?
Sunday finally tugs himself back to the ground, a floating ship getting led by an anchor, attempting to assemble himself back into his prime state.
There are four people, or is it five? A few of them stand aside, and Miss Stellaron is leaning over him, steel-coloured hair hanging limply over her shoulders. Sunday blinks again, slowly. Where are his hands? He should keep them in check - he still feels the sting of a ruler across the length of his palm. He isn't standing correctly. Is he standing? Sunday attempts to move and his head swims, the running lights of the Astral Express carpet spraying in the edge of his vision like stars.
“Easy,” the same low, older voice says. Sunday shuts his eyes harshly and opens them again. He is leaning far too closely in the man's space, Mr Yang, his memory finally supplies him. “You are right, Stelle. Mr Sunday is in no condition to be anywhere but at rest. Whatever qualms there are to be had with him can wait until he is in clear mind.”
A bright, painful on Sunday's eyes shape of red, wrapped in layers of light fabric moves towards him, and Sunday steps back instinctively. He also removes himself from the supportive hold of Mr Yang. His halo rings grey static. He should stay at least several feet away at all times.
As the head of Oak family, he found it advantageous to be able to pull apart people's minds. Not anymore. Sunday wants to know nothing about what these people think of him.
None of it is incorrect either.
“I'm sure there is a spare bedroom on the Express,” an older, female voice says, gentle as a mother's lullaby. The tone makes him ill with trepidation.
“He literally tried to trap us all in a dream recently!” a young, agitated voice says, and that tone is disdain. Sunday is highly familiar with what it sounds like. “Are we just all suddenly okay with that?”
“Miss March,” Mr Yang says sternly, in a way that makes Sunday want to straighten his spine, to put his hands where they're meant to be, “no one can rationally hold accountability for their actions while they aren't completely present. Guilty or not, every person deserves basic care.”
Care. Sunday's eyes flutter back shut. He has had enough of that to fill a lifetime. The Astral Express will do what they must - and Sunday finds himself too hollow to resist it. He isn't sure what there is to it when it's all over - if the dream succeeded, it would never come, and they'd all bask in the glory of joy, untethered, unconditional. Now, Sunday isn't so sure what he will be looking at. Is there a place for the good and bad people to go, or is it all simply an endless stretch that leads everyone to Nihility?
And if there are two different paths… are his crimes unforgivable enough that he will go somewhere his mother and Robin wouldn't follow?
“We're losing him again,” Miss Stellaron exclaims, and the voice is loud enough to bring piercing pain to the sides of his skull. “Sunday, can you hear me?”
He can. Unfortunately.
Sunday's lips are moving. “Yes.”
The room erupts into motion. The voices are overlapping with one another, chaotic, imperfect, improper. He struggles to process even one person speaking directly to him, and now it's a cacophony of speech, jagged and painful, and Sunday's temples ache with their thoughts outscreaming each other. He floats away again, the mayhem of the Astral Express only a faint echo in the background.
It would be so easy to allow himself to be gone. Sunday is quite tired of this body.
The thought of dissolving into nothingness turns bitter as it brings memories of another face, a rough, imperfect shape of it, like a glaring hole in Sunday’s intestines. The ache triples in volume, expanding in his limbs through the bones, and he makes the decision to not think at all, as if that would quell it.
“You're right,” March 7th murmurs, as everything suddenly falls silent. “He does look really bad.”
Sunday stutters in his own internal dialogue. He shouldn't look disordered in front of others, it's inappropriate. Is his hair out of place? Oh, perhaps his clothes weren't ironed correctly? Or, no, it must be the wings, he always had to put additional effort into keeping them in place, unmoving. Sunday mindlessly looks over himself, attempting to fix the disarray.
“My apologies,” he murmurs half-heartedly. “I do believe I'm somewhat out of shape.”
It's such a nonsensical thing to apologise for in this context, but the words roll smoothly out of his mouth like well-oiled cogs. At the very least, some of the teachings he was given didn't fail him in the end.
“She's talking about your mental state, Sunday,” Miss Stellaron huffs. Ah, perhaps not, then. “You could probably use a nap. Or several, actually.”
There is a distinct choking noise in the background. “Sorry,” March 7th wheezes, “just… offering Sunday to sleep is unintentionally hilarious!”
“Well, what do we do with him?”
“We need to let him recover at his own pace,” the woman says gently, Himeko, Sunday remembers.
There is a hand on Sunday's shoulder that he craves to flinch away from but instead he tenses and stills, skin and bone temporarily hardening into metal. He'll take it. He must. The hand, however, pauses and retracts.
“Sorry, Sunday, I didn't mean to startle,” Himeko says, and it's the same soft, careful tome that Sunday has no idea how to interpret. “Should I not touch you again?”
No, Sunday wants to say, you shouldn't, please don't, it hurts. Instead, his jaw is still clenched tight, no noise leaving his throat. Platonic touch is common in polite society, don't be rude, he chastises himself, though he can't quite decide if the voice that says is his or Father's. So he just remains silent as a monument, which is decidedly impolite of him.
“Alright, no touching then,” she says, completely unbothered, and it's heavy in Sunday's stomach. “Would you like to be shown your bedroom?”
What Sunday wants is to disappear, to leave , to not have to look these people in the eyes after he'd failed them. He is well aware he might as well be a prisoner on death row, or at the very least, his public image is, and it's almost worse to be spared some basic courtesy than none at all. Mercy in the face of deserved judgement is nearly as potent as physical pain, if not worse. What he deserves is a punishment; whether it be for his failure or for what he was trying to achieve in the first place or for letting himself become this, a hollow shell without any semblance of meaning.
At the very least, the pain of being the sole woken being in the universe served a purpose. Now, Sunday just aches , and it's just as pointless as if he didn't.
“I can't seem to keep him grounded,” Himeko sighs, and Sunday startles, dropped back into the present. “I'll just show him the room. And then he can rest.”
There is nothing else to say or do for Sunday in this place. Or, truth be told, anywhere, really. So he just lets it happen - why would he waste energy on resistance? A bedroom is as good as a prison cell by his standards. And maybe if he manages to fall asleep, he'll dream. It won't be as sweet as the familiar lights of Penacony, but it will be better still than remaining on his own with his thoughts. And at the end of the corridor, Himeko opens the door.
“Sleep well, Sunday,” she says. Sunday thinks he is supposed to respond with a ‘thank you’ as it's polite, but words betray him.
He nods half-heartedly and lets the door shut.
It's a simple bedroom. Sunday barely had the time or will to sleep in Penacony, but thankfully, there was no need for it in the Dreamscape. Wasn't that the delight of it? No need for your body to rest or be nourished, every hour of every day dedicated to finding pleasure without being brought down by inconsequential physical matters. And Sunday feels it in his bones, what it's like to be awake for almost decades without interruptions, and to grow into the knowledge that soon he will be the only one to remain in solitary awareness for the rest of time.
A selfish part of him feels relieved that he doesn't have to carry out that duty. Sunday has to quell the rising nausea of disgust at himself.
What an appalling thought; dreading a sacrifice that could've brought so many people happiness and peace? Perhaps, he wouldn't be one of them but…
Sunday slowly curls onto himself in the covers, wishing for the walls to swallow him whole.
His only job was to make this sacrifice. A minor, insignificant offering that would make a realm without pain, death or sorrow. And not only has he failed at the mission he was entrusted with, he will now have to live with its aftermath. He will never see Robin again.
Robin, magnificent, intelligent, beautiful Robin that Sunday can't help but be so proud of. It aches him to admit that she will be alright, and she'll find her way among the stars in the night sky even without his assistance.
The path to peace that Sunday doesn't get to follow.
He stirs in the sheets, damp with sweat and weary, staring at the ceiling until his eyelids droop. Somewhere outside this room through the glass, there are stars racing past them, taking him away from the holding cells, away from the people he’d hurt trying so hard to save, away from everything he at least thought he could pretend to call home.
Grief rises and rises and rises in his throat, until the choked noise of his own mourning lulls him to sleep.