What was the worst it got? How long did Fox go without sleep? What happened, and did that lead Wolffe to do anything about it?

Maybe you're already planning something, but thought I'd ask!

ah fire escape conversations. that's a fun one and I'm excited to post more of it as time goes on.

So, a little backstory for this one! My partner has insomnia and I did some (heavy on the some) research into insomnia for Fox's character so I have a whole little section of his character sheet dedicated to his insomnia because it informs a lot about his irritability, the times he goes completely silent, and, later on, another major plot point in his story.

With his insomnia it's pretty typical he sleeps a little bit each day, even if he doesn't remember falling asleep, but there are times it's as little as 1-3 hours. It's why he downs energy drinks like they are water. All the stress of dealing with his father and those years prior to him leaving just made him so anxious that his body literally couldn't calm down enough to sleep and it all just snowballed until it got really bad. At the worst of it Fox has gone 48 straight hours without sleep which is a lot. He was still in high school and just could not get his brain to shut off and he was just getting out of bed and watching tv or playing a video game which wasn't helping him get to sleep.

The last straw was when he nodded off in the middle of trying to take a shower and his brain just shut off for less than a minute but he still ended up on the floor of the bathroom regardless. He was 15 and it was right before their father left which was one of the hardest periods of living with the man. Luckily, their father wasn't home, but Wolffe was and he found his brother on the bathroom floor after hearing the crash. Wolffe picked him up off the floor, concerned he had hit his head, and was scared to death even after Fox opened his eyes. That should've been when their father took Fox to see a doctor. Should've happened well before that but I digress. Their father refused, saying he wasn't spending all that money just because the kid refused to sleep right (idiot). Instead, Wolffe did everything he could to help Fox sleep. It was also scary enough that Wolffe couldn't leave his side, especially at night. Wolffe laying in the bed next to him in the spot closest to the door was the first time Fox slept in two days.

Since then they developed tricks to get him to sleep. One of his brothers in the room with him helped, but not always. If he can't sleep he's learned to get out of bed and do something boring or low impact. That's hard for him because his go to when he can't sleep is to do something to occupy his mind which just does not help. The periods of stress are the biggest deciding factor but he will try any trick to get some sleep. They also learned not to wake Fox if he's managed to fall asleep, even if it's in a weird place like the living room floor. If he's managed to get some shut eye they don't wake him, even if the position might be hell for his neck.

For so long everyone just thought he was being bratty and not sleeping because he was a teenager who couldn't stop staying up late but it's not that, it never was. Lack of sleep can do so much damage to your mental and physical well being. It didn't really get taken seriously for a long time.

After their dad leaves he gets more comfortable in the house and during the night. He gets a few hours of sleep at night and tends to only have a bad night where he can't sleep at all every so often. Still not great but better and when it comes to his insomnia he'll take better. It really helps that he shares a room with Wolffe. It sucked at first because changing his environment meant he'd have a backslide and sleep worse for awhile but having Wolffe there, knowing it was just his brothers in the house, helped him de-stress which helped tremendously. As time goes on and he starts to heal from their father's abuse he sleeps better and better, though the insomnia never really goes away. He still has bad days. He still sits up sometimes and wishes his brain would turn off. But it isn't every single night like it was for a while and there are nights he gets so much sleep he's kind of shocked by it.

I don't currently have a fic planned about his insomnia, mainly because a lot of his major struggles with it happen prior to the opening of the series, but one day I might. Especially if I go back and do some of the fics from before their father left them. (I do have something planned for that time period that is Wolffe-centric and... oof... but! that's a project for next year at the earliest)

😭 I love them more than anything I can’t deal with it

THIIIISSSSSS.

Sorry btw I started responding to this and it got long so it took me some time lol.

This is for sure going to happen when I introduce the twins to the picture and Rex becoming a parent. Wolffe forgets sometimes that he raised Rex for the majority of his life and their father wasn’t even really present as Rex’s parent when he was around those first five years. Wolffe remembers what it was like being raised by their father, a man he never wants to become while raising his brothers, but Rex only sees Wolffe, a man he very much would like to emulate and mirror with his kids. There’s a line that Cody says in an upcoming fic that will be a poignant beginning to this arc of this series that I’m dropping here:

That’s what makes you a better man than our father ever could be. He means nothing now. Not to me, not to any of us. When I think about what kind of man I want to be I don’t think of our father, I haven’t in a long time. I think of you. I know what being a good man is about because of you, Wolffe.

This series is really centered about the wounds left by neglectful and abusive parents but also about how that doesn’t have to define you. These boys aren’t only trying to be better men than their father, but they’re actually succeeding. They fuck up sometimes. They were so young when all of this happened that they’re bound to, but they are better.

Sometimes Wolffe doesn’t think he is, that’s the worst of it, and there will be times in the development arcs of both him and Rex that highlights just how wrong he is. An angry man used to live in their house and it left its mark on all of them but Wolffe was the start of repairing the damage done. From the moment Jango left Wolffe set to work doing damage control and giving them a safe and happy life. He made sure he didn’t treat them the way Jango did and as time goes on he wonders how his father could ever consider acting the way he did. Wolffe never once considered screaming at them or laying a hand on them. It baffles him that Jango did.

When the twins come into the picture I’m excited to show just how much of an influence Wolffe is in Rex’s parenting. How he prioritizes not making his kids afraid of him ever but also comfortable telling him things when they screw up. He’s tough but fair and playful and kind and when he has moments when he doesn’t know what to do or how to respond he thinks about how Wolffe would.

Wolffe - has a ton of tattoos. gets them the second he has any sort of extra money and isn't anxious about using it to take care of his brothers. He isn't really a 'this tattoo means something deep and important to me' person but he does have a tattoo for each of his brothers that he got before any of the other ones. He has a crown that wraps around his bicep for Rex, in the place his brother tends to hold when he's scared or sad, a lion for Cody because even after all this time that little stuffed lion is still Cody's in his brain and it's all he can think about when he thinks of the animal itself, and for Fox he got a small dagger. partially because he thought Fox would think it was cool but also because they have protected each other since day one.

Cody - followed in his brothers footsteps of getting tattoos but is far more selective about it. he has a sun tattooed on his hip (that matches one of Rex's), a tattoo of saturn on his arm that he will periodically add space imagery around, and one on his upper thigh he got in college that says 'eat me' because he thought it was funny and also very indicative of the person he is. Sunshine, kind, idealistic, but also a snarky son of a bitch.

Fox - has miscellaneous tattoos that he gets every so often, usually in tandem with someone else getting a tattoo who either is afraid to get it done or wants to match with him. He has one that he got when Rex got his first tattoo that is a tiny frog because he had no idea what to get because he wasn't prepared so Fox let Rex pick it and that was a mistake. Boy thought it would be fun and silly and, to be honest, Fox wanted to be annoyed but Rex looked so pleased with himself that he just embraced tiny frog. It's his favorite tattoo now.

Rex - has a tattoo over his heart that is a bundle of stars that represents each of his brothers. he thought it matched the moon he has on his arm that matches Cody's sun. He is selective and has a theme but is also indecisive so he wants it to be the perfect match before he commits. Most of the time he designs the rest of their tattoos so they have his artwork permanently on their bodies and he, of course, insists on signing his name under them sometimes when he is reminded that, hey! you have my art on you!