Wachowski Family ONE-SHOTS (Sonic the Hedgehog SCU)

Nightmares

Tom and Maddie were not unaccustomed to having a child who suffered nightmares.

Sonic had been through more trauma than most thirteen-year-old boys had, so more often than not they had found themselves running upstairs in the middle of the night upon hearing a scream of terror. Either it was reliving Longclaw's death, or seeing Robotnik doing things far worse than he had in real life, or something else. Those nights were never easy; sometimes they had to try and calm him down from afar because he was enveloped in lightning from his own fear. Other times, they ended up spending the night up with him, with blankets and pillows camped out around his bed— after a solid hour of sitting close to him, rubbing his back, letting him cry and calm down.

After the craziness of Robotnik's return (and hopefully death), as well as the excitement of taking in two more alien children who had all but followed Sonic home, both Tom and Maddie were hoping for a bit of calm after the storm. Which they got, to some degree. Knuckles and Tails grew to know them and relax around them. They even took to calling them "Mom" and "Dad" (or "Mother" and "Father," in Knuckles' case) because of how Sonic had begun calling them that around the same time they arrived. Sonic had mentioned once or twice that they felt like brothers to him. Maddie had gotten out a few books on parenting adopted children to get a better handle on what she and Tom were doing. The house had been repaired. They'd done many things as a family together to learn more about each other. Things had calmed down for a few days.

Then the nightmares had come back with a vengeance, and with some surprises.

As it turned out, Sonic wasn't the only one who got nightmares.

First it was Tails. They hadn't actually heard him, but Sonic had come banging at their door at 2 a.m., desperately asking them to come upstairs and calm down his little brother because he didn't know how to do it.

Maddie could hear the fox kit's heartbreaking whimpers as she scrambled up the attic steps behind Tom. It was thundering that night, and occasional flashes of lightning lit up the whole room.

Tails was bundled up tightly in his blankets, crying to himself and jumping at every crack of thunder. Sonic paced back and forth by his own bed anxiously, wringing his ungloved hands and muttering to himself, "Don't know what to do, don't know what to do, what did Longclaw do, don't know what to do . . . !"

With Tails' appearance, Sonic had learned a lot more about taking responsibility. He'd looked after Tails in Siberia, encouraged him during their dance-fight, tucked him in at night, and taken him to Maddie when he'd been knocked out by Robotnik's two bombs. But that last experience had scared the life out of him.

Tails hadn't woken up no matter what Sonic did. He'd shaken him a few times, pleaded with him, said his name countless times, and absolutely nothing had happened. He'd felt so helpless. And now, he felt a little of that same helplessness, even though he knew Tails wasn't physically hurt. Again, Tails wasn't responding to him. Except this time, he was watching the little fox cry and couldn't do anything about it.

While Tom started gently nudging Tails awake, Maddie walked over to where Sonic stood frozen and knelt in front of him. "He's okay, Sonic," she reassured him. "We've got it."

Tom had finally gotten Tails awake and pulled the little fox into his lap, where he hugged him close and whispered soothing things in his ear. The embrace and words seemed to calm him down, as the cloudiness began to fade from his eyes and he relaxed, clinging to Tom's arms.

"Nightmares can be disorienting, and scary," Maddie reminded her middle child, and he nodded, his forest-green eyes still locked on the huddled form of his younger brother. She knew this wasn't new knowledge to Sonic; he'd experienced them all the time. But this was the first time he'd found himself on the other side of the situation: watching someone younger than him suffer from them and being the one who was supposed to give comfort.