Sunday had faced the terrors. Being separated from his sister and home. Then came the Aeon. Then came getting rammed into by the Astral Express. He was prepared for anything on this venture.

None of that taught him how to deal with you when Mara had you in its teeth. (Not literally, rest in peace to those getting eaten by Yaoshi. I would kill to be you.)

You were folded into the Express lounge, your limbs were loose whilst your breaths were shallow and uneven. The blanket you’d curled into made you look smaller, as if someone had taken the edges off of you and left the center fragile. Every so often your hands twitched, and the world tilted in the tilt of your shoulders.

Mara had you in a haze; the rest of the crew gave it space (March had to apologize for cackling when she saw you fall down the stairs because of the Mara), which meant Sunday was the only one circling like a clumsy halo.

He hovered at one polite distance, hands clasped in that ridiculous behind-the-back posture people used when they were trying not to brandish the wrong sort of mercy. He tried mental lists. Comforting phrases? Would you like to hear about our lord and saviour Ena- I mean Xipe I mean Akvili I mean Lan??

Well, each option either required expertise he didn't have or dignity he’d long forfeited.

So he did what he always did when the cosmos refused to make sense: he uh....may or may have not overprepared.

First came the water. He found a glass he wasn’t sure anyone had actually used for drinking and filled it with what the Express pretended was potable. He hovered in the doorway, the glass trembling between fingers. You blinked once, lifted your head up to stare at him, then fell back to sleep.

Next, he procured a blanket. A little soft, not too scratchy. He draped it over your knees and waited, as if a prayer might reduce Mara’s grip.

When silence continued to be unhelpful, Sunday retreated and returned with a paper bag of tea sachets (calming blends he could pronounce because you'll never catch me trying to pronounce zhengshan xiaozhong I'm having a seizure typing this out by the way).

At one point, in a fit of inspiration he could not adequately explain, he produced a stress ball shaped like a little planet and two individually wrapped hard candies. He set them in an increasingly organized line on the armrest like offerings on an altar.

Welt watched from his chair with the kind of patient exasperation that said, He’s trying. Himeko drifted in and out, offering a single, unamused eyebrow. Caelus merely stared whilst sipping a Soulglad ("Is he trying to bag that baddie bro."). No one intervened; this, apparently, was Sunday’s cross to bear. (He's not complaining. I mean...what?)

He tried phrases in his head, but they all collapsed into a small, human chant: what do you do when you can no longer fix the big things, but the small things are what’s here?

He sat down on the floor across from you. Far enough not to crowd, close enough to notice the flutter of your lashes. He fished in his pocket like a man looking for absolution. Inside was a crumpled square of foil he’d picked up at the last stopover because the pharmacist had smiled and used the word “practical.” He unfolded it with the reverence of one opening a relic.

There it lay: a single ibuprofen, modest and ridiculous. He turned it over in his palm the way someone might turn over a key to a locked, private door.

You made a small sound, something between a sigh and a question, and your hand flexed against the blanket.

Sunday’s voice shrunk into something softer, smaller than he intended, almost embarrassed. “Is… is this helpful?”

(No Sunday. No it is not. But...the effort counts! Right?)