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guardian-of-da-gay · 1 month ago

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Night Guard

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For Whumptober 2024 Prompt 8: Sleep Deprivation

tw for PTSD, insomnia, childhood trauma, mentioned non-consensual drug use

Logically Tom knew that meeting with Knuckles’ therapist wasn’t supposed to feel like going to the principal's office. Doctor Sherman had said when he first met them that he wasn’t there to cast judgment over them, he was there to lead Knuckles’ support team, which included them. Still, there were many times when Tom left the doctor’s office feeling like he was getting a bad grade in parenting.

That’s what it had felt like today.

Maddie and Tom were called in after Knuckles finished his session. Doctor Sherman never told them the specifics of what he and Knuckles talked about, but he would give them a heads up if Knuckles had ‘homework’ that they might notice or need to help with. Sometimes he’d give them homework too. And sometimes he’d reveal that Knuckles wasn’t just ‘weird’, he was legitimately, clinically mentally ill.

Since he first came to live with them, they’d gotten used to Knuckles roaming the halls at strange hours of the night. Sometimes he’d even leave the house. Tom had convinced himself not to worry about it. It wasn’t like with Sonic, where he was running out looking to find trouble. Knuckles was just patrolling. The worst he might find would be wild animals and he could more than handle himself against them… In fact they’d had to have several conversations about hunting licenses and limited freezer space to convince him to stop bringing his nocturnal run-ins home with him.

And while Tom and Maddie had more control over Knuckles now than they used to, it was really just because he liked them enough to allow them to set boundaries. ‘No patrols’ wasn’t a hill they were looking to die on. They’d definitely never worried that it was anything other than what it was. It was just a weird Knuckles habit.

Except apparently it was a Symptom. Specifically ‘hypervigilance’. Because Knuckles had post-traumatic stress disorder.

Which, duh. Hindsight was twenty-twenty. They’d clocked Sonic’s separation anxiety and Tails’ social anxiety because they were so obviously anxious in those situations. Knuckles’ constant training, tendency to attack any stranger near the house, and multiple late-night perimeter patrols didn’t look like anxiety. Not like how the other two showed theirs.

Knuckles insisted he was fine, of course. He wasn’t scared of anything! Head Healer Sherman asked him to continue logging his patrols (this was how Tom found out that Knuckles had been logging them as part of his therapy homework). The healer seemed to think that Knuckles would struggle to reduce his patrols to half the amount–Knuckles would prove him wrong! He would go on no patrols tonight, just to prove how not scared he was!

‘Head Healer’ Sherman said that the most important thing was to push his limits without overextending himself. But that Knuckles should definitely try to get some rest. The way he said it bordered on worried. Which was when Tom realized he didn’t know how much Knuckles slept.

That just added to the feelings of guilt as they left the office.

Still feeling the gnaw of shame, he slept lightly that night. Lightly enough to hear the telltale thump of the attic steps lowering.

Tom had gotten used to hearing Knuckles’ footsteps in the night. The thought had him feeling guilty once more. It seemed so obvious now that that wasn’t normal. He knew that showing you what was and wasn’t healthy was what doctors were for, but he wished he could’ve seen it on his own. Maybe he could have done something earlier.

In the course of one day, Knuckles had broken down a school wall, crushed a kid’s arm, got suspended, and exploded their car. (Their third car demolition in two years.) But the worst part of the day had been when Knuckles had a panic attack. And yeah, Tom knew the one who had the worst of that was Knuckles. But watching his big, tough kid fall to pieces with him powerless to help was its own brand of agony.

Tom would do anything to avoid any of them living that moment over again. Getting out of bed at 3am was a small price.

He left the lights off so he wouldn’t wake Maddie and crept out of the room. The hallway was dark but the floor below was illuminated by moonlight across the floor. He could see Knuckles’ outline standing at the bottom of the stairs.

Tom walked quietly, but Knuckles didn’t seem surprised when he finally turned to look up at him.

“Hey,” Tom said softly as he sat beside his eldest, leaving a little room between them. “Just… hanging out of the stairs tonight?”

“I said that I would not patrol the perimeter tonight,” Knuckles said. “So I will stand watch instead.”

Tom nodded and hummed like he was considering this. Really he was considering how best to convince Knuckles to go back to bed. He remembered how Doctor Sherman had told Knuckles to get some rest. Tom knew the doctor couldn’t tell him everything, but Tom almost wished he could see these patrol logs. Instead he asked:

“When did you last get eight hours of sleep?”

“Eight hours?” Knuckles turned to him and even in the lowlight Tom could make out his confusion.

“Uh… how about six hours?”

“Consecutively?”

Oof. “You know… Doctor Sherman did tell you to go get some rest. Maybe that should be the challenge you tackle tonight.”

Knuckles turned away. “Someone must keep watch.”

“I could keep watch?” He didn’t know if he could actually pull an all-nighter anymore, but Tom was willing to stay up a bit if it meant Knuckles would get some sleep.

“I mean no offense Tom, but I am not only physically stronger, but have better vision, hearing, and sense of smell than you. Also I am beginning to suspect you cannot sense electricity.”

Tom turned to stare at Knuckles’ profile. “You can sense electricity?” Was this an echidna thing or… a mental illness thing?

“I can sense that you left the light on in the garage,” Knuckles said by way of response. His nose scrunched as he spoke, though he didn’t look angry.

“Seriously?”

“Yes,” he rubbed his nose with one big mitt. “The twitchy one over the door.”

“You mean the flickery one?”

“To me it feels twitchy.” His nose twitched as though to emphasize.

Tom still wasn’t sure if this was a real thing or not. But Knuckles had never had delusions. Maybe his superpowered alien echidna son could sense electricity. Stranger things had happened.

“Does it bother you?” Tom asked.

“The twitching?”

“The electricity.”

Knuckles merely shrugged. “It is not as bad as some of the other places I’ve been. There it felt like the pins and the needles. Here it is like… the crickets. They make noise, but it’s not terrible.”

Silence fell between them and Tom noticed that he could hear the crickets. Crickets and frogs and night birds and all sorts of creatures. He’d long gotten used to the sounds of the forest. The ‘twitching’ electricity probably didn’t bother Knuckles that much. But still…

Tom stood. “I’m gonna go turn the light off.” The ‘twitching’ probably wasn’t all that was keeping Knuckles up, but if it would help at all, then Tom would try it.

He flicked on the porch light and let himself out.

Knuckles followed. “I will go with you,” he said. “But this does not count as patrolling the perimeter.”

Tom frowned. This sounded like another loophole. Was Knuckles going with him just another instance of hypervigilance?

The two of them walked down the front steps to the driveway, then headed around the side of the house to where the garage sat. Tom kept eyeing Knuckles as they went. He was used to Knuckles scanning around himself, looking for danger. But now it wasn’t a ‘quirk’.

Tom had always heard the phrase that ‘crazy people don’t know they’re crazy’ but nobody said anything about the sane people around them also not being able to tell they were crazy. Everything Knuckles did made perfect sense to him, so Tom hadn’t questioned it. He cringed to think of how, in Knuckles’ very first appointment, he’d tried to tell the therapist that Knuckles ‘wasn’t a threat to others! Well, not unless he thinks they’re a threat to him…. Which is almost everyone. But we’re working on it!’ Like Knuckles was on par with Ozzie, barking at the mailman.

Now he watched the way Knuckles kept looking around, like there were invisible threats around every corner, and felt like he’d let his kid down.

“What do you think will happen if you weren’t on guard?” Tom asked. How did Knuckles’ mind work?

Knuckles’ eyes and quills flared red and Tom stopped, shocked. The echidna banged his fists together, sending red sparks flying. “Back off!” He barked so loud that Tom jumped.

Was he having another panic attack?!

Knuckles bolted toward the garage and then suddenly stopped. Tom got a second surprise: a huge black shadow peeled away from the garage and loped away into the trees. Knuckles’ quills stopped glowing. Tom could still see Knuckles’ silhouette burned into the back of his lids.

His oldest turned to him, looking quite unimpressed. “If I were not on guard, you would have been eaten by a bear.”

Right. Fair. But also: “I probably wouldn’t get eaten by a black bear,” he said. “Probably not even a brown bear. Bears aren’t that big of a concern…” They usually ran away from people, Tom and Knuckles must have just surprised this one. “I think you could rest easy inside, knowing the bears are outside. No need to stay up standing guard, you know?”

That said, Tom’s head was definitely on a swivel now. Which was ironic because Knuckles was actually laser-focused on the spot where the bear disappeared.

“Anything can happen when you are asleep,” Knuckles said. “I have avoided it whenever possible for most of my life. I am not sure I could force myself to sleep even if I wanted to.”

Tom let himself in through the garage’s side door. Sure enough, the light was on inside. It flickered once before he hit the switch and the room went dark. “Maybe Doc–Head Healer Sherman–could give you—” what did Knuckles call meds? “--a remedy? To help you sleep.”

“I do not want to sleep though,” Knuckles said as he followed Tom back toward the house.

“I know, but you need to. And if you can’t–”

“I must be able to wake up when I need to,” Knuckles said firmly. “I have to be in fighting condition in a moment’s notice or else I could wake up captured by an enemy. Or worse.”

Tom was about to asked what was worse than waking up imprisoned, but Knuckles answered first:

“I was sleep poisoned the first time I killed someone.”

Oh. Tom sometimes forgot–or liked to forget–that Knuckles had a body count. But them ignoring this stuff and acting like Knuckles was a weird, but otherwise normal kid, was probably another stone on the path to Knuckles having his breakdown so… he engaged: “How did sleep meds cause you to kill someone?”

They rounded the house and started up the front steps.

“I was under attack, but my mind was clouded and my body did not act as I commanded. I defended myself, but used too much strength.”

Tom pretended to scan the side yard for bears but really he was just trying to hide his expression. He’d seen Knuckles crush stone with ease. It was easy to forget when he was giving you a joint-cracking handshake, but that was Knuckles being gentle! What could he do to a person if he didn’t control that strength? And then Tom wondered: how was Doctor Sherman going to help Knuckles get over his hyper vigilance when Knuckles had to be vigilant every time he touched something more fragile than stone?

He realized he’d been quiet too long. “I’m sorry,” he said, both for the long pause and for what happened. “That sounds… traumatic.”

“…It is not my best memory. But not my worst either.”

Tom let Knuckles enter the house before him, once again hiding his expression. If that wasn’t Knuckles’ worst memory, he wasn’t sure he wanted to know what was. Knuckles didn’t volunteer it and Tom didn’t pry. He wanted to get Knuckles to share more with him, but he’d already gotten him to share more than Tom bargained for.

Maybe he should ask Doctor Sherman how he should react when Knuckles dropped these little trauma bombs?

Knuckles turned at the bottom of the steps. He faced the front door and crossed his arms. It looked almost like a parade rest. Tom realized his eldest didn’t intend to go back to bed now.

“Maybe you could try to get some sleep,” Tom suggested.

“I think you should get some sleep,” Knuckles said. “I can withstand far greater sleep deprivation than you.”

Tom shook his head. “How about this? I’ll go to bed when you do.”

Tom couldn’t see in the dark as well as their resident echidna warrior, but he could sense Knuckles’ frown. “I will not be going to sleep for a while, yet,” he said. “I am not tired.”

Tom was, but he sat down on the steps beside Knuckles anyway.

They sat for a long time in silence. Knuckles didn’t move an inch the whole time. Tom meanwhile was wondering if sitting had been the best choice. Seeing the bear had given him a hit of adrenaline, but now his body was hungry for rest. How could he get Knuckles to feel like going to bed? He wished he’d asked Doctor Sherman. That was the kind of question a dad who wasn’t getting an F in parenting would ask.

Maybe Knuckles needed to forget about the bad stuff that Tom had unknowingly dredged up.

“What’s the best sleep you ever had?” Tom asked.

“What?” Knuckles finally moved to look at him.

Tom shrugged sleepily and readjusted, resting his arms on his knees and leaning against the railing. “Just curious. What’s a time when you slept really well? For me it was after the first time we battled Robotnik. Sonic and I went on a pretty long journey together and I wasn’t used to all that danger. I passed out hard. Woke up feeling great.” Even though his house had been destroyed. It was almost a yearly event at this point. “How about you?”

Knuckles tipped his head to the side, contemplating. And contemplating… And contemplating.

Tom actually thought he wasn’t going to answer. His eyelids were getting heavier and heavier and his tired brain was running out of excuses to keep them open.

Then Knuckles started talking. The words came haltingly at first, but grew more confident the longer he spoke. “Once… When I was very, very small. I had been ill. I was nearly well again, but they made me stay at the healer’s hut one more night.”

He paused a long moment, gathering his words, or trying to remember, Tom didn’t know. “It was raining… There were pots around the hut to catch water leaking through the roof.” He spoke as though he’d only just remembered.

Tom smiled to himself. His eyes had gone and shut themselves without his permission. “That sounds cozy,” he mumbled.

“The healer was making medicine,” Knuckles continued. “She had water boiling over the fire and she was crushing herbs together. The whole room smelled like tea.”

Tom’s chin dipped and he jerked up, then sagged back down. Oh dear, he was going to lose this fight, wasn’t he? Was Knuckles sleepy at least?

Knuckles yawned as if in answer. “Father was with me. He worried after me… Not unlike you do now…” He said this last part so quietly that Tom wasn’t sure it wasn’t a dozy dream. “I slept in his arms. It was the first true sleep I had had in days.”

Tom remembered that feeling. Falling asleep and being carried to bed by his dad. Having a nightmare and sleeping between his parents. He wished they could give that to Knuckles too. Make him feel that safe in their home.

A gentle hand found his shoulder and Tom startled awake. It was brighter than he expected and he scrunched his eyes closed immediately.

“Hey,” Maddie said softly. “You okay?”

“M’fine,” Tom said, squinting his eyes open. Oh.

It was morning.

He looked up at Maddie who couldn’t seem to decide if she was amused or not. “Were you down here all night?” She asked.

Tom rubbed his eyes. “I came to check on Knuckles… Guess I fell asleep instead.” Darn it. He looked beside him to see Knuckles sitting on the step.

“Knuckles?” Maddie asked. “Did you get any sleep last night?”

Knuckles stared down at his shoes. He seemed almost ashamed. “No,” he said.

Tom’s shoulders sagged. He and Maddie shared a look. He didn’t want to say that Knuckles’ first night of no patrolling had been a failure, but it definitely hadn’t been a success.

Maybe Doctor Sherman wouldn’t pass judgment on Tom, but Tom would pass it on himself. Somehow, someway, he had to figure out how to make one of the strongest people on the planet feel safe.

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