Cw: manhandled and mentions of night terrors
Tears trickled down Whumpee's face as they were carried bridal style to the car by BiBi, who whispered to them how well they did on their first outing.
"I'm so proud of you, buddy. You did really well. This is only a bump in the road and we'll be more prepared next time. Maybe NiNi and Ama can bring their baby to our house! What do you say? Noooo no more crying now, it's ok sweetheart. Shhhhh shh shh."
BiBi sat in the back and held Whumpee instead of strapping them in to avoid any outbursts when they had Whumpee restrained so nicely.
After dinner and a bath, Whumpee was ready for bed. They were put down in their crib and left to sleep.
———— Hours later ————
Crying. Screaming. Genuine fear could be heard from the baby's room. BiBi and ZaZa were up in a flash.
They entered to see Whumpee tossing and turning in their sleep, struggling against unworldly binds.
Shaking them awake through the bars, the Whumpers looked on in horror as their captive was tortured in their sleep.
"Sweetheart, can you hear me? It's BiBi!"
"Heyyyy Buddy, we're here for you, it's just a dream. Wake up! Wake up! Come on, you can do it!"
Startling awake with a shout, Whumpee crawled to a corner trying to keep safe from the monsters who looked down on them. They looked suspiciously familiar. The cage opened and all of a sudden, BiBi was there. Despite their feelings of hatred, a familiar face was a familiar face so they dove into BiBi's waiting arms as they tearfully tried to recount the night terror.
BiBi carried them to the large rocking chair and sat with them as they cried it out. After about 20 minutes of trying to convince Whumpee to go back to sleep, they looked at ZaZa wearily and pointed to a stack of books.
For the next 30 minutes, Whumpee was de-escalated with quiet reading of children's books to put them at ease. With convincing, they were able to coax Whumpee back into bed to go back to sleep for what was left of the night.
As BiBi and ZaZa flopped back into their beds, they could only hope for sleep to take them again before the baby was ready for breakfast. That was rather unexpected and hopefully it doesn't happen again - they both thought separately.
