Chapter Text
Ebony was not a light sleeper. Nor was she a morning person. Some might call her a night owl, but that had less to do with a preference for the evening and more to do with her admittedly bad habit of drinking coffee late into the afternoon. Sometimes the coffee and the exhaustion from a long day’s work would cancel out nicely and she was unconscious by eleven. Other times, the work was slow or the coffee was late and she would have until about three in the morning to entertain herself with a good book or some easy cleaning. This night was, of course, the second kind of night. With all the commotion of Fleet’s arrival, and the property damage that accompanied it, her afternoon caffeine kicks had all been necessary just to keep herself standing until nine. But by now the shop had been tidied up, the insurance claims had been filed (“You say some kind of villain wrecked your shop? Hmm well your plan only covers badnik-associated damage, but we do have a clause that allows for partial reimbursement if Sonic the Hedgehog was involved. Yes, he's a very reckless kid, it's necessary.”), the main office had been shuffled around and converted into a bedroom for Fleet, and work had returned to normal. It felt like the limiter had been taken off the caffeine for the first time in weeks.
Ebony set her book aside and glanced at the clock. Just after one in the morning and not a single yawn had yet graced her lips. Frustrating, but not unexpected. She sat back in her bed and willed the muted silence of the night to shoo away the last of her alertness. What happened instead was that the heavy blanket of silence was dropped with a whump coming from down the hall. Ebony shot up straight and strained to hear anything else. A muffled yelp cut through the walls. Then, quieter, a voice…
Carefully, she pulled aside the sheets and reached for the bat she kept behind her nightstand. A fool every night but one… she thought sardonically. She slid silently across the floor to her door, hefting the bat in her hands. As she grabbed the doorknob, she prayed that the ageing wood and brass would read the room and keep quiet. Down the hall … It didn’t sound like it was coming from the shop downstairs, definitely staircase or the office. No squeaking of the old-fashioned wood steps, so probably the office. Robbers then, great.
Steeling herself, Ebony slowly turned the doorknob and pulled the door open just enough to slip out, careful not to let the latch click or the lock snap—. At that moment, the door to Pyjamas' room squealed open without any care and the sheepdog bustled out into the hallway.
“Shh!” Ebony reached out with her empty hand to stop Pyjamas and hissed, “Are you senile? They’ll hear you.”
Pyjamas stopped in surprise and looked at Ebony as if she hadn’t bothered to notice her there. “Oh, you’re awake.” She spoke at a normal volume and Ebony felt her braincells begin to pop like corn kernels.
“Shh!”
Pyjamas looked over at the bat held tightly at her side and tsked. “Oh, put that away, will you? Honestly, why do you even keep that thing?” She swatted Ebony’s hand away. “It’s just the boy. I’ll take care of it.” And without any further delay she brushed past Ebony to the third door in the hall, completely unfazed.
Ebony didn’t have time to wonder if she should relax or be even more alert as Pyjamas threw the office door open and flipped on the light. With most of the room obscured by the angle of the doorway, Ebony couldn’t see any intruders, but she did immediately hear Fleet croak out “Hi ‘Jammas.” And that was that. She slipped the bat back into the doorway of her room and stepped over to the office. “Fleet? Is everything okay?”
Pyjamas was helping pull a dazed and hazy-eyed Fleet off the floor. She propped the little hedgehog up back onto his mattress, which aside from the twisted and wadded sheets was the only sign of disarray in the room (well, besides the usual amount of disarray that came with Ebony’s “organization” of the office). Fleet’s head lolled and he blinked against the light as he looked up to the doorway. “Hi’bony,” he slurred, clearly more asleep than awake. “Fell on the floor. Nightmare ‘gain. S’fine.” The mattress creaked as Pyjamas sat down next to him and he immediately slouched over into her side.
Ebony frowned and looked to Pyjamas. “’Nightmare again?’ Do you get a lot of those?”
Fleet nodded, eyes closed, into Pyjamas’ shoulder but didn’t elaborate. His breathing looked ragged, like he’d been sprinting. Or had a nightmare. Pyjamas jostled his shoulder with a hand across his back and he whined as he sat back up straight. He kept his eyes shut though.
“Every other night or so. Sometimes twice in a row,” Pyjamas supplied. “You sleep like the dead but he makes so much noise every time, it always wakes me up.” She dropped her hand from Fleet’s shoulder and patted the bed next to him.
Feeling like she was very much intruding, Ebony slowly moved to sit down next to the boy. His bright golden quills stuck up worse now than during the day, but she found a gap between them to slide her arm around his shoulders. Two shoulder-hugs were of course better than one.
The touch seemed to zap Fleet. He jolted up straighter for a moment and began speaking in a rush, “Not always. You missed last night. But s’okay. Wasn’t too bad.” His eyes squinted open and he took a deep breath in and out. It wavered in both directions, which Ebony hoped was just a sign of exhaustion. His shaking and clenched hands were less likely to be. She took one in her free hand and was surprised by how hard he was able to squeeze when he could barely sit up straight.
Pyjamas grunted at his statement and Ebony cleared her throat. “Is it… Are your dreams usually bad?”
Fleet nodded wearily but didn’t elaborate.
Pyjamas nudged him. “Why don’t you start telling me about tonight, dear? And last night if you want to be rid of it.”
“Mmh.” Fleet wavered between the two of them, as if unsure of which shoulder to lean on. He decided not to decide. “Was in a big chamber. Like a big cylinder. Big coffee cup. And I was an ant in the bottom of the cup. But not the bottom, there was more of a drop behind me. Water down there, or goo. Or just a big hole. It kept changing.” He struggled to hold onto a thought for the seconds required to form complex sentences. His hoarse voice slurred through sleep but his grip betrayed the energy vibrating through his veins. “I had to do a puzzle. Like one of those colored cubes, but it was on a big machine. Tails was there. And… someone else. I’m not sure. And I had to do the puzzle in a time limit I think. Or I had to do it a lot of times. Kept changing. And I was so—” Ebony felt him tense up from his shoulders to the tips of his fingers “—mad! I couldn’t do it! And every time I tried to turn around and tell someone, I fell through the floor.”
His gaze steadied and his mind seemed to clear into alertness as he continued. “And when I fell it would change to be from the top of the cup down into the hole. But at the last second I’d get pulled out of the way and put back in front of the machine. And I just kept getting angrier every time because no one was explaining the puzzle to me and they kept ignoring me and talking away from me and it just—” he took a deep breath, not much steadier than before “—it kept getting worse. The clock was ticking down and I kept falling farther into the hole and I. Well I kept getting angrier. And it made me scared. I would fall and get mad and I knew if it got too bad I…” He gave an uncomfortably stiff shrug and didn’t continue.
Ebony wasn’t sure what to think. Or rather, what to do. She was pretty new to this “raising a kid” thing and apparently even newer to “helping said kid with his chronic nightmares.” Pyjamas, at least, seemed to know what happened next. She lifted her arm off Fleet’s shoulders to brush back his mussed quills and he leaned into the touch, his gaze sticking firmly to the floor. “Anything else?” She asked, her voice quiet but strangely matter-of-fact.
Fleet didn’t respond immediately, then he lifted his free hand and gestured to the side. “There was a big eye watching me. I don’t know what it was attached to. Maybe a monster. I think it was the thing that dropped me when I tried to talk. Or it was the thing that wanted the puzzle done. I don’t know. It was just there.” He sounded tired, not sleepy though. His grip on Ebony’s hand had loosened and his breathing sounded much more even. She stroked her thumb against the back of his hand reassuringly and watched him cautiously.
Pyjamas was still smoothing down his quills. “And the other one? You want that gone too?”
Fleet gave a halfhearted shrug. “On an island. Something huge chasing me, blowing everything up. I could run and be really slow, too slow, or I could try hiding in the sea. Every time I ran, I almost got caught. Every time I went in the water I almost drowned.” He drew a lazy circle with his index finger. “Just kept repeating like that. It started to get more annoying than scary.” He exhaled a small laugh. “That’s it. Told you it wasn’t too bad.” He leaned his full weight into Pyjamas’ side, except the hand he kept stretched away on Ebony’s lap.
Pyjamas nodded curtly and finished brushing out his quills. “Okay kid, sit up straight.” He groaned but did as he was told and took his hand away from Ebony to set back politely in his lap. Pyjamas braced herself against the mattress and, with several grunts and groans about her joints, moved down to crouch on one knee in front of the boy.
Ebony looked between them. “What’s going on? What’re you—”
“Relax, Ebony.” Pyjamas waved her off. “I’m just going to take the memories of the dreams away for him.” Fleet hummed in agreement.
Ebony sat forward. “You’re what? Is that safe?”
“Of course! We’ve been doing this every other night while you get your beauty sleep.” Ebony felt her cheeks burn beneath her dark fur. “Kid’s got horrible wake-up-screaming nightmares—”
“Or falling,” Fleet interjected.
“Or falling—and he doesn’t get a lick of sleep unless I clean them out.” Pyjamas spread her hands out in front of her in lieu of saying “what more do you want” out loud.
For the first time since Ebony sat down, Fleet actually turned to look at her, eyes clear and reassuring. “I’m sleeping a lot better here than I did before. The dreams were different without my memories, but they still felt awful, and I almost never actually got back to sleep after, even when I was staying with Madge and Arthur.” He smiled and patted her hand. “It’s okay, Ebony, really. I tell Pyjamas my dreams so she knows exactly what to erase and it works just great!”
Ebony glanced between the two again. She supposed that after Pyjamas’ trick with the mind link before, she was practiced at moving around the boy’s head. Even still… things hadn’t exactly gone swimmingly the first time they’d tried that trick. If anything, this was more dangerous for the older of the two. She narrowed her eyes at Pyjamas, who gestured to Fleet expectantly. His was still looking up at Ebony pleadingly.
“Well, if that’s what helps you, Fleet,” she gave him a small smile and pulled her arm away from his back to rub a thumb over his ear. He wrinkled his nose in embarrassment and his ear flicked her away. “Anything that keeps you happy and healthy is good in my book.” Fleet’s face lit up and he reached over to pull her into a quick hug. Oh, she was doing such a good job at raising this kid, heck yeah.
Pyjamas snorted and waited for Fleet to pull himself back into his polite little pose. He gave her a nod and she delicately placed the pads of her fingers over his temples. The two of them closed their eyes and Ebony felt the soft hum of psychic power course from Pyjamas into the boy. The older woman controlled her breathing and sat statue-still in her concentration for almost a full minute before releasing a particularly strained breath and lifting her hands away. “That should do it. How you feel, kid?”
Fleet looked up and hummed in thought, then smiled. “Better. A lot better. Thanks, Pyjamas.” He slipped off the side of the bed and leaned into her waiting arms. When he pulled away, his grip slid with practiced ease to her elbows and hands to help steady her as she stood.
Pyjamas leaned back and cracked her spine. “Okay, kiddo. I’ll let Ebony get you tucked in—” Fleet halfheartedly grumbled something about not being a baby, but Pyjamas ignored him “—while I head back to bed. No more nightmares tonight or I won’t get any sleep.” She gave Fleet a teasing smile, patted him on the head, and waved goodnight to Ebony before shuffling back out to her room.
As soon as Pyjamas was out of the room, Ebony and Fleet began fixing up the bed. She felt something in her heart move when he needed her help to reach the far corners of the mattress, but she tried to remind herself that just because he was short and only thirteen didn’t mean she had to baby him. But she did kind of want to baby him… Once he’d crawled back into the bed (technically a twin-sized mattress resting on a coffee table), shimmied into place, and punched his pillows into place, he looked back up at her with a snaggletooth grin.
“Pyjamas told me before you’re a really heavy sleeper. I’m surprised you actually woke up this time; I wasn’t even screaming.”
He would probably just be unhappy if she pointed out how upsetting his attempt at a joke was, so Ebony just tried to ignore it. “I was already awake. Pyjamas is right, almost nothing can wake me up. That’s why I got stuck with the room closest to the stairs.” She winked, then thought to amend her statement. “Well, before you got here, I guess.”
Fleet let out a small laugh, then frowned. “Something keeping you up?”
“Just coffee. But I think that’s worn off by now.” She didn’t mention that the adrenaline kick from earlier had picked up the slack. “So now we can all get a good night’s sleep, huh? Or, what’s left of one.” She glanced up at the analog wall clock with the hour hand now past two. “Maybe we’ll all sleep in. The café opens late tomorrow anyway.”
Fleet hummed and closed his eyes, curling up into sleep. “Sounds good,” he mumbled.
Ebony smiled to herself. “G’night kiddo. Sweet dreams this time.” He hummed a chuckle and she leaned over to kiss him on the forehead goodnight. She got a tired grumble in response and a muffled “Night,” as he curled up into his pillow. He would survive a little babying.
Quietly Ebony stood to turn off the light and carefully close the door. As the wood quietly thudded against the frame, she heard the squeak of Pyjamas’ door and looked over to see her waiting expectantly. Ebony closed the distance down the hall and leaned over to speak quietly.
“I thought last time you looked into Fleet’s head all the… All the other stuff was too upsetting to handle.”
Pyjamas stared down the hall at the office door. “Luckily I don’t need a full mind link to pick out a few specific memories. But the vaguer he is with his descriptions the more I have to look around…” She spoke quietly but Ebony began to worry that the deep tenor of her voice would carry farther than her own. “It’s still not as bad as fully connecting. I just find what he asks and destroy it. Easy enough and it helps the kid a ton. Tonight wasn’t even close to the worst so far. Second time this happened poor thing was shaking like a leaf and couldn’t talk for at least ten minutes before I pulled the memory out. Had to have him write down what he could remember when he could barely hold the pen!” She grimaced and Ebony felt a cold stone drop into her stomach.
“Do you…” Ebony looked back at the door. “Do you think this is because of the demon or…? Well, Sonic has probably been in quite a few dangerous situations while he’s off saving the world…” She fiddled with one of the buttonholes on her nightshirt. The matching button had fallen out sometime in the last year and the strange way it lay from the rest of the shirt made an easy distraction when she needed it.
Pyjamas sighed. “Who knows. I’m sure that chaos energy is part of it, but I’m no psychoanalyst.” She glanced sideways at Ebony. “The only thing I’m really taking from this is that I might be able to just wipe his memory if he gets out of hand. Could be a good trump card.” Ebony stiffened beside her and she quickly clarified, “Not the whole thing, of course. But I’m thinking… with all this practice I’m getting, if he succumbs to that… power inside him, I might be able to just clear out whatever recent memories he gains in that state. Sort of a soft reset I suppose.”
That still sounded so… extreme to Ebony. But she did relax a touch. It would be good to have a plan for the worst-case scenario after all. But, she reminded herself, Fleet was a good kid. He was a sweet kid who really didn’t want to hurt anyone anymore. She couldn’t imagine him going back on his determined promise to never use his powers again, for the risk of the consequences. She straightened up. Yes, Fleet was a kid, her kid now, not a monster, not a demon, and not a threat. Pyjamas could make all the plans she wanted, but Ebony was confident they would all be moot. Fleet wasn’t going to put anyone in danger anymore.
She gave Pyjamas a decisive nod. “Thank you, Pyjamas. For helping him with this. I’m sure it’ll pay off.”
If Pyjamas sensed the deliberateness of Ebony’s words, and she always did, she didn’t show any objection. She simply nodded in return and stifled a yawn. “Alright. I’m not built for this late-night stuff like you are Ebony. It’s time for me to hit the hay.” She stepped back into her room and Ebony sighed some words of agreement.
“Goodnight, Pyjamas.”
“Night, kiddo.”
When Ebony collapsed back into her bed, merciful sleep rolled over her in waves and took her out in an instant. Between falling asleep and groggily dragging herself to the coffee machine in the morning, she dreamt of drowning and falling.