//------------------------------// // Sleep Deprived // Story: Grief is the Price We Pay // by Scyphi //------------------------------// Fly Leaf had prepared pancakes for breakfast that morning, explaining that she had “gotten a hankering” for them, and was eager to share them with her two employees. Spike was likewise eager to eat them, and quickly joined Fly at the dining table to enjoy the tasty meal. They were not, however, joined by Thorax throughout the whole meal. Ever since the incident with the cherry pie, Fly had backed off on trying to get Thorax to eat more, and didn’t take it personally now when she saw Thorax eating sparingly at mealtimes so long as the employee she thought to be a pony was eating enough to stay healthy. And it was clear Thorax was doing this much (Spike hadn’t opted to mention it yet, but he had noticed that the changeling didn’t appear nearly as lean when out on disguise now as when the dragon had first met him). Nonetheless, regardless of how much he did or did not eat at meals, Thorax still habitually joined them for meals, and so his absence of this occasion was quickly noticed by their employer. “So where is Thornton?” Fly finally asked halfway through breakfast after having repeatedly gazed at the empty seat Thorax customarily filled with a concerned frown. Spike rolled his eyes as he worked to empty his mouth long enough to reply. “I’m guessing he’s probably still upstairs, reading that book he checked out last night,” he grumbled. He shook his head. “I’m starting to regret suggesting he start reading it. You know, he stayed up all night reading.” “He what?” Fly asked, glancing at Spike with surprise. “All night? Didn’t he get any sleep?” “Not that I’m aware of, no.” Spike paused to take another bite from the sweet pancakes Fly Leaf had prepared. “I have no idea how he’s going to be awake enough to work today.” He glanced at Thorax’s empty seat himself. “Assuming we can ever get him to put that book down long enough to try it.” Eventually though, Thorax was able to set the book down himself and finally came trotting downstairs at last in time for Fly and Spike to be in the final phases of their preparations to open the shop for the day. He came trotting down the staircase with a pleased grin on his face, but Spike, glancing up from the ledger he had been checking through at the front desk while Fly prepped the cash register beside him and gazing at his friend over the rim of the false glasses he wore, was quick to note that despite now wearing his customary disguise as Thornton, he looked almost comically tired, with the bags under his eyes still appearing quite obvious. A very glassy look in his eyes suggested the changeling was likely operating more in a daze from his lack of sleep than anything, so much so Spike was glad his friend still remembered to put on his disguise at all. Fly also took notice of Thorax’s entrance into the room, and was quick to disapprove. “Nice of you to finally join us Thornton,” she said in a flat tone. “Yes, here I am,” Thorax chirped, entirely missing Fly’s tone. “I see you finally managed to rip your eyes off that book of yours,” Spike noted as he returned to working in the ledger, but watched out of the corner of his eye as Thorax trotted idly up to them. He was moving ever so slightly sluggishly. “I just finished it,” Thorax explained as he stepped right up to Fly. “Where would you like me today, Miss Fly?” Fly, shutting the cash register and turning to face him, took the time to look her employee over with a critical gaze before responding. “Spark tells me you pretty much got no sleep last night,” she said. Setting her rump on the floor, she folded her forehooves. “I can tell he wasn’t exaggerating. So I need to know, Thornton. Are you going to be alert enough to be able to work today?” Thorax gave her a salute with one hoof. “Absolutely,” he said without hesitation. Fly Leaf didn’t seem convinced. Nor was Spike, and both shared a doubting glance briefly. “I’m going to hold you to that then,” she warned Thorax regardless, and stepped aside from the cash register. “That said I’ll put you on the cash register as usual.” As she then walked off, Spike heard her mumble; “Anything more labor intensive than that and I doubt you’d last the hour.” Thorax, fortunately, didn’t seem to hear her and assumed his post while Fly went to unlock the front door for business, wearing a cheery grin that only seemed forced, given how foolishly tired he appeared. Luckily for Thorax, business proved to be unusually and spectacularly slow that day, so much so that by noon, the shop had barely seen a dozen customers in total, usually only one at a time and with long gaps of no customers in-between. They found out why from one unicorn stallion who had come in to pick up a box of paperclips, revealing that they weren’t the only place in town so adversely affected. “A major water pipe burst, quite epically, early this morning on main street,” he explained to the small staff of the shop while Thorax wearily rang up his purchase. “It’s flooded the whole street, and they’ve had to close off the block for repairs. As a result, its thrown traffic in town all out of whack, so now one side of town is hopelessly gridlocked while the other side, this side, has been left practically a ghost town. I had to take the long way just to get here myself, but I just had to get more paperclips so I can keep working on my paperclip chain at home.” “Good to know we’re still being of service,” Fly remarked with a sarcastic grin as Thorax gave the stallion back his change, only to take it back real quick when he realized that, with his foggy and sleep-deprived brain, he had accidentally counted out the wrong change. As business continued to be extraordinarily slow as the day progressed, Fly Leaf considered just cutting her losses and closing early, up until she found out that her competition, Letterpress at the Stationery Plaza, had already closed early for the day. So Fly instead chose to remain open on through normal hours, just so she could later claim to Letterpress that weekend she had gotten the greater profit out of today…even if it just amounted to a few pennies worth. That determined, Fly also decided that, since business was so slow, she would head out herself and try and learn just how long she needed to expect the city to be all disrupted like this. While she was out, she left Spike in charge, with specific orders to keep the store open and operating as normal. Perhaps in testament to the state of the situation, she was gone far longer than would be normal for such a task. As noon rolled past though, Thorax was miraculously still awake and working, although he often had to prop his head up with one hoof, and spent long periods of the day while waiting for a customer to ring up staring blankly at nothing at all. The disguised changeling was clearly only fully awake on the outside. Nonetheless, Spike couldn’t help but be a little pleased that his friend had managed to keep himself alert adequately to do passable enough work this long despite how exhausted he clearly was. He should’ve known it wasn’t going to last though, when a pegasus mare came up to the front desk to check out not long after Fly Leaf had left. “Okay, I think I’ve got everything I need,” she remarked as she set out all of the items she intended to purchase on the front desk before Thorax. Thorax however, who presently had his head propped up with one hoof, didn’t respond. “…sir?” the mare asked hesitantly, tentatively poking the unresponsive cashier with one hoof. Thorax responded by letting out a snore suddenly, revealing he had finally dozed off. Spike, who was across the room dusting shelves, heard the snore and whirled around. “Thorax!” he snapped without thinking and hurled his feather duster at his friend’s head. The feathered end of the duster struck the side of Thorax’s face head on, and he jerked awake again with a start. “Whohowwhatwherewhensometimeswhy?!” he blurted out in a rush, eye’s suddenly wide as his hooves scrambled for grips on the edge of the desk before him. His eyes then locked upon the equally startled customer before him, who had pulled back a step at his outburst, and blinked. “Oh!” Thorax said, recollecting himself. “Oh, I’m sorry! I…I had drifted off there for a second because…see, I didn’t get much sleep…” he trailed off, clamped one hoof to his forehead in embarrassment for a second, and then started over. “…how can I help you, miss?” “I’m…ready to check out,” the mare explained innocently, still giving Thorax a cautious look but inched her way back up to the front desk again. “Right, I—” Thorax’s comment was briefly interrupted by a loud mouth-stretching yawn. It was a good thing his magical disguise masked the inside of his mouth as well or else it would’ve been a yawn that displayed his changeling fangs quite prominently to the already uneasy customer. “—I knew that. Let me just ring you up real quick. Sorry about all of this.” “It’s all right,” the mare responded, though she didn’t sound entirely sincere. Fortunately, it didn’t take much effort to ring up the mare’s total. “That’ll be nine—no,” Thorax squinted at the total displayed on the cash register for a second with his tired eyes. “—six and a half bits.” The mare paid him then gathered her things and turned to leave. “Thank you,” she said. “I…hope you get some sleep soon, Mr. Thorax.” Thorax blinked sleepily at her a few times as she slipped out the front door. He then squeezed them shut in embarrassment. “Did you refer to me by my actual name just then, Spike?” he asked aloud, while inwardly hoping they either never saw that mare again or she quickly forgot the name she had learned and who to associate it with. “Yeah, I did,” Spike said, admitting to his own error as he grumpily trotted over to retrieve the feather duster he had thrown. “See what trouble your lack of sleep is causing?” Thorax merely groaned, rubbing at his tired eyes with his hooves. The shop remained empty of customers for a while after the mare left, during which Spike would glance every now and then at Thorax, to check on his status. It was quickly clear that Thorax’s weariness had finally reach a critical point; the changeling was struggling to keep himself awake, reaching a point where he would start to doze off, only to snap back awake with a jerk. Spike doubted he would be able to keep awake for much longer and started to wonder what could be done about it. Finally another customer, a unicorn mare younger and more timid than the pegasus mare that was in before her, bashfully stepped into the store. Seeing Thorax sitting at the cash register with his head once more propped up by one hoof was the closest, she approached the front desk. “Um…excuse me?” she asked the changeling shyly, but then tilted her head in puzzlement at him. Spike, who noticed, turned from dusting shelves and, even though he couldn’t see his friend’s disguised face from here, quickly figured out that the changeling had fallen asleep once again and sighed. “Thornton!” he cried, careful this time to use the right alias, and again hurled the feather duster at his sleeping coworker. It bounced off Thorax’s head like before, but this time Thorax barely stirred, letting out a snore but not waking in the slightest. Spike sighed yet again and trotted over to the front desk while the timid mare watched curiously. The dragon poked his friend in the foreleg a few times, trying to get Thorax to stir, but it was clear the changeling had dozed off more deeply this time, enough that it might take more effort to wake him than before. Deciding then to focus on that more in a moment, Spike opted to prioritize the needs of the customer first. “Welcome to Fly Leaf’s Books and Stationery, how can I help you?” Spike asked the mare brightly. “Oh, yes, um, I’m looking for a particular type of pen,” she explained, glancing at Spike but keeping most of her attention on the sleeping Thorax. “Is…he all right?” “Yeah, yeah, he’s fine, I apologize about that, but never mind him,” Spike said, luring the mare’s attention more fully on him. “What sort of pen are you looking for?” “I’m not quite sure,” the mare admitted as she focused her gaze on the dragon. “My friend has one and said I could get one here, but I’m not quite sure what type of pen you’d call it.” “Well…what sort of things do you want to do with it?” “A kind of…fancy writing thing that my friend’s going to teach me how to do.” “Sounds like a calligraphy pen to me then,” Spike reasoned, scratching his chin before pointing at a set of shelves sitting towards the back of the room, near the staircase that led upstairs. “You’ll find those on the shelves towards the back there.” “Oh, thank you,” the mare said and trotted towards the shelves in question. While she was looking, Spike turned his attention back to Thorax, trying to lure the changeling to wake back up again. “Hey bud, I need you to wake back up, please,” he said, poking the changeling’s left forehoof resting on the tabletop of the front desk while the other hoof was occupied propping up Thorax’s head. He didn’t get any reaction from Thorax, but his attention was instantly brought off that when the claw Spike was using to poke the hoof suddenly went on through the hoof. He looked down in time to see a small cyan flash of magic as Spike’s claw unexpectedly tore through Thorax’s magical disguise, leaving a gap right over one of the holes in Thorax’s natural changeling hoof, now in view for all to see. And the gap, ringed by flickering cyan energy, was gradually growing bigger from there. Spike’s eyes went wide as he abruptly recalled something Thorax had told him; “If I go to sleep with a disguise on, I’ll eventually relax too much and let the disguise drop anyway.” Spike gulped as he realized the implications of what could happen if he couldn’t get Thorax to wake soon. Uh-oh. “Hey, um, I’m not finding them,” the young mare spoke as she suddenly stepped up to Spike, startling the dragon. “Where did you say they were again?” Spike spun around to face her, bodily moving himself to block her view of Thorax’s hoof. Double uh-oh! “Uh, on the bookcase towards the back,” he repeated quickly while forcing a grin, pointing with one claw. “Next to the stairs there, about two bookcases back from here, and should be the third shelf down.” The mare turned to look in the direction Spike pointed and grinned slightly. “Oh, okay!” she said, and trotted back towards the shelves in question. As she did so, she unknowingly treaded upon the pale blue hairs of Thorax’s tail disguise, the weight of her hoof breaking the magic holding the disguise together and the tail abruptly vanished in a flash of cyan flames, revealing the changeling’s tail-like fin, the new gap in the disguise rapidly inching it’s way on up Thorax’s dock and onto his rump from there. Fortunately their sole customer didn’t even notice, but Spike had to suppress a squeak at the sight. Thorax’s disguise was thinning rapidly it seemed, and for all Spike knew, it could give away entirely at any moment. Glancing over at the mare to make sure she wasn’t looking in their direction, Spike took Thorax by the foreleg and started to shake him, trying to rouse the sleeping changeling. “C’mon Thorax,” he urged through clenched teeth, “time to wake up!” All he succeeded in doing however was to cause Thorax to overbalance slightly, resulting in the sleeping changeling instinctively shifting his position to compensate, banging one of his back legs into the inside interior of the front desk and causing the magical disguise around it to promptly collapse as well, revealing Thorax’s natural leg underneath. Spike stopped, realizing all he was managing to do thus far was make things worse, and urgently sought a new plan. Meanwhile Thorax blissfully slept on, unaware of the danger he had put himself in. The changeling yawned again, and Spike couldn’t help but notice that his friend’s changeling fangs had become completely visible this time. Meanwhile, the mare had found the shelf Spike had directed her to, which she was looking over with a frown. “I’m not seeing quite the type of pen I’m looking for,” she said aloud to Spike, looking back in his direction. “Are these all the pens you have?” Spike quickly moved to stand between Thorax and the mare’s line of vision, wearing his forced grin again. “Not entirely,” he admitted. “But if it’s not one of those, I’m not sure what it might be…can you describe this pen to me?” The mare’s eyes rolled upwards as she pictured the pen she was looking for in her head. “Well, it has this metal tip at the end that comes to a really fine point and isn’t very wide…you can use it to draw really thin lines…” “Okay, you’re probably looking for one of our drawing pens then,” Spike reasoned quickly, and pointed at the staircase. “Those are upstairs on the second floor, on the bookshelf next to the restroom. You should find everything you need there.” “Oh okay, thank you again!” the mare said and turned to trot up the staircase. Once she was gone Spike turned back to his situation with Thorax and quickly saw things were only getting worse there. The gaps in the changeling’s disguise were only getting increasingly bigger as the disguise continued to wear thin. Thorax’s rump and most of his hind legs were now undisguised and visible, and the gap that Spike had accidentally poked in Thorax’s left hoof had grown to the point that most of that hoof was now undisguised as well. Feeling the sense of urgency to wake Thorax increase, Spike fidgeted nervously as he sought a new solution, but knew ultimately that what he needed to do was find some surefire way to wake Thorax. Now. He quickly stepped around the soon-to-be-undisguised changeling and took his friend’s head in his claws. “Sorry about this bud,” he apologized in advance as he lined up his claws, “but I really need you to wake up now and I’m out of ideas.” He then slapped Thorax across the snout as hard as he could. But not only did this not wake up the deeply asleep Thorax, getting little more than a snort as the changeling’s head swayed about from the impact, it also tore a new gap in the fading disguise right over the left side of Thorax’s face, creating yet another growing crack in the mask that was keeping Thorax—and by extension Spike—from being discovered for who they truly were. “I found the pen I was looking for!” the unicorn mare softly but happily declared as she suddenly trotted back downstairs, the pen she sought carried aloft with her in her aura of magic. Spike yelped and slammed Thorax’s head down onto the top of the front desk to try and hide the unhidden half of his friend’s face. “Great!” Spike declared with forced enthusiasm as he again moved so his body blocked the mare’s view of Thorax’s rapidly-undisguising body, brushing Thorax’s now fully revealed left hoof off the desk and out of immediate sight. “And I’ll bet you’re ready to check out so you can head out now, right?” “Oh yes, how very prompt of you!” the mare said as she stepped back up to the front desk. She gave Thorax a curious glance considering he was now in an entirely different position, but she remained none the wiser about the true situation regarding him. She set the pen down on the desk as Spike quickly worked to ring it up on the cash register. “Thank you again for all your good assistance with this.” “No trouble at all!” Spike said falsely, glancing at Thorax as he worked with the register, noting with alarm that the lower half of Thorax’s body was now totally undisguised, the gap in the disguise proceeding to inch up the changeling’s back. Spike could see the tips of Thorax’s gossamer wings beginning to poke into sight, thankfully still low enough to keep hidden by the front desk itself…but not for much longer. “That’ll be eight bits even, please.” “Just a second,” the mare said as she pulled out her coin purse and started to root through it. While she did so, Spike noticed Thorax’s curved changeling horn become visible with a flicker of cyan and quickly grabbed Thorax’s right hoof and pulled it over the horn to hide it while the mare was looking away. “Here you go,” she said, handing over the golden coins. Spike quickly counted them to make sure it was correct then dumped them into the drawer on the register. “That’ll do it then,” he said before adding out of habit and without thinking, “anything else you need?” He then inwardly winced and thought to himself, Please say no. The mare thought for a second as she picked up her new pen with her magic again. “Um, no, not that I can think of,” she said before grinning and turning for the door. “Thanks again, though.” Almost immediately after she had turned her back to Spike, he saw another flicker of cyan out of the corner of his eye as both of Thorax’s changeling wings suddenly sprang free from the decaying disguise and unfolded themselves, one of them slapping Spike in his face. The dragon pushed the wing out of his eye as he watched the mare open the door and start to step out. Just a few more steps… “Oh wait!” the mare suddenly declared, stopping and beginning to turn around. In desperation to keep him out of sight, Spike quickly gave Thorax a shove, pushing the changeling under the front desk entirely before the mare’s eyes could land on him again. “Do you sell hoofpaints? You know, for foals.” “Uh, no actually,” Spike admitted. It was actually something Fly Leaf had long been trying to rectify, but hadn’t managed to strike a good enough of a deal with a distributer to be able to sell it yet, to his boss’s continued annoyance. But naturally this was the least of Spike’s concerns at the moment, more eager to just be rid of the mare. “I recommend you try that paint store on the next street over from here.” “I will, thank you again!” the mare said with a nod and finally stepped out of the shop, the door closing behind her. Spike leaned over to one side as he watched her stroll off through the shop’s front window. He then let out a sigh of relief and turned his attention back to Thorax. The changeling laid on the floor of the shop, still completely asleep of course. Either it had collapsed entirely when his body hit the floor or it had finished wearing off during the space of time Spike had his eyes off him, but Thorax’s disguise was now completely gone, leaving the natural changeling underneath fully exposed. Spike frowned at his sleeping friend, having given up trying to wake him now and deciding it would be better to just get him out of sight. He first went to the front door and flipped the sign hanging it over to CLOSED and pulled the blinds down over it. He didn’t lock the door as well due to Fly using a complicated magic-based anti-robbery lock that Spike hadn’t had much luck figuring out for himself to date and feared messing with it now would only end in him accidentally setting off the alarm. So he instead hoped the CLOSED sign in the window would be enough to deter any new customers from entering for now. That done, he then turned his attention to moving Thorax, who proved heavier than Spike expected, so instead he resorted to dragging the changeling by the hooves across the floor and upstairs to their room, grumbling to himself about the situation the whole way. Once he had gotten Thorax laid down in his sleeping nest though, the changeling immediately sensed where he was and snuggled down into the soft cloths making up the nest and kept sleeping. It would’ve been a very sweet sight if it wasn’t for the fact Spike was exhausted from dragging the zonked changeling to the nest and stressed out from the trouble his dozing off had caused for the dragon. By the time he got back downstairs, he found Fly Leaf had just returned and was looking for both of them. She immediately locked eyes on Spike when she noticed the dragon coming down the stairs and looked truly disappointed for the first time Spike had known her. She jabbed a hoof at the sign in the front door, which Spike noticed she had already flipped back to OPEN. “Why did you flip the sign to closed, Spark?” she asked firmly. Spike sighed and leaned wearily on the railing of the staircase. “Thornton finally dozed off and is so far gone I couldn’t wake him back up,” he explained truthfully. “I flipped it to closed so there wouldn’t be any customers coming in and waiting to be helped while I dragged him upstairs to bed.” Fly Leaf sighed and rolled her eyes, but her gaze softened. “All right, that makes sense,” she conceded, not blaming Spike further. But her next comment made it clear the blame was only being shifted onto Thorax. “I’m going to have to have a talk to him about all of this.” “Might want to wait until he’s awake enough for it first,” Spike advised simply as he went back to work. While Fly had been out, she had learned that the city was still working up at cleaning up the flooding the burst water main had caused to disrupt traffic in Vanhoover so much today, but were nearly done by the time Fly had left to come back here. Fixing the water main itself was going to take longer, but with the flooding out of the way, it would enable most of that city block to be reopened for use again and it was expected that would allow traffic to resume as normal in most of the city again. Regardless, business remained extremely skim for the remainder of the day, leaving the shop fairly quiet. Fly was still satisfied enough with the profits she was able to make from the slow day though, enough to have bragging rights against Letterpress at any rate, so it all still worked out. They had closed the shop for the evening and were in the process of cleaning up for the night when a notably more awake Thorax, properly disguised once again, sheepishly came back downstairs, seeking pardon with his employer he knew was rightfully unhappy with him. “Thornton,” Fly greeted flatly, making her disappointment clear as the changeling approached her. “I take it you’re a bit more awake now?” “Yes,” Thorax responded with a wince, and bowed his head in shame. “I’m sorry, Miss Fly.” “I’m not the only one you need to apologize to,” Fly pointed out and nodded her head in the direction of Spike. Thorax glanced over at his friend. “I’m sorry for all of this, Spark,” he said. “You were right.” Spike sighed, but then nodded his head. “Apology accepted,” he said with a small grin. “But you did cause a bit of trouble for us today, bud.” “Spark’s not wrong,” Fly agreed, drawing Thorax’s attention back to her. “You’re lucky today was such a slow business day or else I would’ve had to crack down on you sooner, and I probably should’ve done it sooner than I did regardless.” Thorax’s ears drooped and kept his head bowed in submission. “I’ll accept whatever punishment you feel is best for my actions today, Miss Fly,” he stated, accepting his fate. But Fly shook her head. “I’m just going to let you off with a firm warning this time, Thornton,” she said. “But I have to ask you not make a habit of doing this again in the future. Am I clear?” “As crystal,” Thorax responded, raising his gaze again, looking a mixture of relieved and surprised at Fly’s mercy. Fly then grinned and ruffled the disguised changeling’s pale blue mane with one hoof. “Well then,” she said, addressing both of her employees. “I think I’m ready to call it a night and put this…irregular…day behind us. How about you two?” “I know I could use a good night’s sleep,” Spike agreed. He glanced at Thorax. “You in agreement this time, Thornton?” “Oh yes.” Thorax yawned, proving he was not yet entirely caught up on his sleep yet. “I think I know that now better than anybody after the day I’ve had,” he admitted with a sheepish grin.