Work Text:
"1 A.M"
Your staff FazWatch dinged, indicating it was time to begin your night shift. You had also worked during the day, as you needed that extra cash to pay your rent. So as you went to grab your flashlight from the main security office, you saw your co-worker just enter the building, Vanessa. Compared to her, you looked like a disaster, your hair a mess, your eye bags from the lack of sleep darkening with each passing night, your will to live getting crushed under problems- you could only wave with what was an attempt at a smile.
"You alright? You look a little... pale?" Vanessa asked as she emptied her bag and put on a black security hat. "How about you take the daycare area for the first half? I'll get the atrium, then we can switch at 3" she added on, understanding just how tired you were.
"Oh me? Yeah yeah, I'm alright, just... a little" you closed your eyes... maybe it wouldn't hurt to rest them for a while...
"Hey hey don't fall asleep, we still got a job to do!" Vanessa snapped her fingers on your face, getting her sassy attitude back and startling you just enough to get back to work.
As the agreement was made, you started to walk towards the daycare, encountering many security bots on your way... geez were multiplying each day or what?? You did your best not to bump into them, continuing on the bright-colored halls and lights. and those guys weren't the only bots you saw on the way, nope! you also encountered Roxy, which you promptly tripped over the tail of, and she told you to piss off (Her voice box needed to be filtered). Chica, who just made a chicken noise which you took as a greeting and waved back, though she did look like she got into the garbage again... you made a mental note to clean her later. You didn't get a chance to talk to Gator, only seeing him scream and crash into basically everything from his room, yikes! And as for the main mascot... Freddy was also in his room, you didn't bother to check up on him at the moment as you remembered Vanessa saying something about him needing some maintenance.
The neon halls blended into softer and warmer colors as you approached the daycare, and you felt a wave of relief wash over you. This place was more of the quieter places, not many bots... it was also rather childlike, ball pit at the bottom with a playpen and drawings children might find interesting. You remember when you first saw this place a week ago, where kids were filling the entire place with parents making last-minute arrangements = to fit their kids into the schedule. You did remember the kids often coming out crying, and some complaints from the parents... but why? That part was a bit harder to rem-
Oh. Right. The attendant.
Your focus shifted to the posters on the wall. SunnyDrop and MoonDrop. They were animatronic in charge of the daycare. They seemed to be a part of one animatronic, with the different halves, but to you, they didn't look very... scary? Maybe because the posters made him look cartoony and cute, or kids' imaginations made them look scarier than he needed to be. Frankly, you've never seen him outside of the actual daycare enclosure, and you remember the Sun-shaped one always happy and excited, showing kids different puppet shows, arts, and crafts... and the kids ignoring him half the time, instead of creating messes all throughout the place. The Moon one, however, you only saw once, when all the kids were supposed to nap. You saw him hanging from the very top, watching the kids like a spider, with red glowing eyes. So maybe that's why the kids were scared of him, interesting.
As you walked around the top of the playpen, your eyes kept wandering into the ball pit... and all the fun little building blocks, goodness, did you wish to be a child right now, to get in there and play with no worries. But alas, you were an adult, and adults aren't allowed to do those things.
With every step you took, you could feel yourself growing even more tired, and at the same time... sadder, as if all the day's agony was catching up to you. You were used to having these small breakdowns here and there, it just came with being an employee... but with the condition your body was, you weren't sure if you would be able to stay awake for much longer. Taking a break wasn't really an option, Vanessa would scold you for that and tell you to go home and rest,(so that wasn't an option, you really couldn't afford to lose this paycheck)... so you looked around, if you could just sit down without being heard for a few minutes, you thought you'd be able to just cry it out without it escalating any worse. But you were at a pretty open space, and if even one bot heard you they'd probably alert the others, ugh, if you could just- Oh? You stared at the playpen, there weren't any bots there... for now...
Making the quick decision, you went over to the slide. Sure it was a bit silly, but you weren't gonna be in there for more than a couple of minutes, so it wouldn't be a big problem. and if Vanessa saw you inside you would just... have to come up with something then. The slide gently tossed you into the ball pit, the impact making you tear up but also making you chuckle. The inside was pretty wide, it almost seemed endless from where you stood.
Getting up, you tossed the balls back into the pit, looking around to find a quiet and easy to hide spot, feeling a single tear slide down, you knew that was just the beginning. Maybe you could hide behind the wall and position yourself in the ball pit so you couldn't be seen or heard? That way you'd also have some kind of coverage, which might help you calm down. You carefully swam through the ball pit, putting your back against the wall and burying your body inside the fun-colored balls, as much as you could that is. Letting your mind take a break from keeping a smile, you succumbed to the sadness that haunted you all day, letting the tears slowly roll down your cheeks, trying your very best not to make too much noise. You thought you'd be able to go through with it if it was just a couple more minutes, but then-
"Hoo, Hoooo, Hoo!!"
Oh no. You had completely forgotten about the attendant! why was he still activated? You didn't know he was also a free roam robot! He probably heard you drop in, via some sensor or something... ooh this wasn't very good, if they found you they would surely kick you out!--- Your thoughts were cut short by the sound of the balls rumbling as he dived into the pit with a laugh.
Burying yourself deeper, you prayed to the Lord he didn't know where you were, or maybe he'd leave you alone! From the sounds of it, it was the Sun animatronic, and while they might've been great with kids, you had no idea how he was with adults. Of course, it's not like he'd hurt you... since you were a security guard, but he might alert the others... he looked pretty loud.
"HELOOOOO THERE!!" Sun popped up not far from you, his face (mask?) slightly twisting to the side before his actual head followed in a goofy manner and he took a moment to inspect who was in front of him.
You... froze, letting out a little eep sound as you backed up to the wall, even more, sort of hoping you'd go through it and not have to deal with him. His sheer enthusiasm disgusted the adult inside you, making your arms crawl up to your sides with a hug.
"New friend?!" Sundrop got close up in your face, you could only stare, "You're not a new friend! You're the security! What're you doing here??" his voice was very high pitched and buzzy, he sounded like he was always on a hell lotta caffeine.... could robots even drink that? It was hard to tell what he was thinking because of the molded on face, but you could tell he was confused... and maybe even disappointed it was you, an adult, and not a kid.
"Uh- So sorry sir- uh Sun? I'll take my leave! I just accidentally- slid in?..." you tried to remove yourself from the situation, struggling to get up via hanging onto the foam wall behind you. And did you just call him a Sir? yikes- at least your tears seemed to stop momentarily.
But Sundrop wasn't letting you go that easily, nope! Using his comically large and long arms, he grabbed you by the shoulders, the cold metal sending a shiver through your body.
"No one just accidentally slides in here! You must've had a reason! What is it what is it tell me!" He seemed excited, his face twisting and spinning with every head movement, sort of like a pendulum.
You, however, could not share the same excitement, you were more frightened than anything, tears starting to spill again, you didn't like the loud tone, even If it wasn't in a mad manner,
"I-I'm very- sorry- p-please just- let me go-" you could barely speak between a sob, trying so hard to struggle out and wipe your tears away. That seemed to make the animatronic stop his cartoony motions, putting you down immediately.
"You're crying?" You could tell his expression turned somber, "OH that's not good!! No not good at all!!" His movements became jittery as if Sun thought it was his fault for making you cry, "Oh it wasn't me! IT wasn't me right??? I didn't scare you! Why are you crying?" Sundrop refrained from touching you, but it looked like his little freak out triggered a flicker in the lights around the room. Something to do with his other half maybe?
"No- no it's not you" you reassured the freaking out jester as you wiped the tears away with your sleeve, letting out a sigh of relief as you were now free from his grasp.
"Oh, sad children are never good!" They said as if they were repeating that phrase to themselves, then repeating the same question about why you were crying.
"It's just- adult stuff- adult problems, I was just looking for a place to wait for my breakdown to be over" you replied, sitting back down on the floor as you could feel your legs giving out. "Please don't alert the others..."
"Alert? No no! It's my- my responsibility to take care of sad children!" You tried to interfere saying you were indeed, not a child, "So what? Sure I only make kids smile, but you, you can be a special case! Now come, come!" He picked you up again, a bit gentler this time. His cartoony movements returned, and he was his cheerful bubbly self again.
"Where are we- going exactly?" You felt yourself being pulled close to Sundrop, your face inches from him once again, he didn't know what personal space was, did they?
"To arts and crafts corner of course! We can make finger paintings of each other, Oh or we can mess with glitter glue!! Whatever you want!!" he said eagerly, then their volume dropped low, "Just make sure you keep the lights ON! on... gooot it?" he warned, which you promptly nodded to. you knew very well the consequences of that. You weren't sure... why you just let him grab you, but something inside told you they wouldn't let you go until they saw you smile.
After stepping over blocks and plastic balls, Sundrop managed to carry you to a small round table with colorful child-sized chairs all around it. They gently set you in one of the chairs, quickly cleaning out whatever was on the table previously with a swoop and then turning around to the drawers full of craft materials.
"So what do want? Glitter Glue, paints ooor we can make puppets!!" they rummaged through the drawers and boxes as they waited for an answer. You realized a small detail, they used very basic language skills, easy to understand by children.
"I-I suppose glitter glue?" you replied, having to shift to fit in the small kid's chair, you didn't wanna make him sad by sitting him on the floor, he was really sensitive for an animatronic...
You decided to look around the place as the Daycare attendant asked you more questions, usually asked little kids. This area of the enclosure was rather nice... with drawings hung up by the net walls, and crayons as well as markers neatly packed away on top of drawers, it was quite tidy for a place buzzing with little gremlins. And SunDrop seemed to care about them, as you saw in the drawings with little kids drawing themselves with him.
You were snapped back into reality when the jester approached you again, setting many colors of glitter glue, googly eyes, and some paper down, the paper conveniently cut into circles so the kids wouldn't get papercuts easily.
"Alright! let's pick our favorite colors and start!!" Sun said as he conveniently picked up the yellow glitter glue, a few googly eyes, and a piece of paper.
You followed their move, picking up your favorite color of glue, some googly eyes, and a paper, "Now what?..." you hadn't even toucher glitter or glue for the past... 15 years?
"Create whatever you want! LET YOUR IMAGINATION RUN WILD!!" He suddenly got up, twirled, and leaned to the side in a very animated way, striking a fun little pose. They were a character huh.
"Oookay..." You tried your very best to "let your imagination run wild" by dumping a small amount of glue onto your paper, and pressing a single googly eye on it, "eeeh? is this..? right?"
Sun got close to the paper, twisting his head side to side as if he was inspecting it very closely before they- broke into a laugh!, "Ahaha There is no right way! You just have to let loose! Don't be afraid to use too much glue, or too much anything!" They shifted their position to behind you, grabbing your hand from the back, as if to lead it, and positioned both your hands over the paper, giving a good squeeze to the glue bottle.
"And then you just draw a shape! Anything is fine" With the help of Sun, you managed to draw a very proportional sun symbol on the paper, but this time you felt like it was alright for it to be imperfect. "Seee? Now you try!" He encouraged, letting go of your hand and sitting back down in their place, getting to work on their little artwork.
You looked at the paper, and... smiled, letting yourself loose of all the stress just for a bit, and starting to draw shapes on the paper like a little kid. First a star, then a smiley face... then a heart, you didn't even realize it was messy anymore, to you it was perfect. Humming a small nursery rhyme, you added some googly eyes, of all different sizes, to your masterpiece.
"How is this?" you lifted the semi glue-soaked paper onto the air, showing it off proudly.
Sun raised their head, giving a big happy clap in return, "It- It looks amazing! See you could do it!!" he threw his arms to the air in excitement.
You realized how messy you two had gotten, you had googly eyes on your arms and glitter glue dried on your face, and they were no off any better, with googly eyes all over their arms... though that looked pretty intentional, maybe even animatronics could get caught up in the fun.
This went on for maybe another hour. You made 2 or 3 more artworks, one containing a younger version of yourself holding hands with Sun to symbolize friendship. "My younger self would've loved you" you'd said to them. "Haha, all kids love me! I think! I hope!" he replied with a mischievous giggle.
Then you and Sundrop started to stick googly eyes all over each other, that was fun too! Since you almost fell into the ball bit laughing at a SunDrop who had googly eyes over their actual ones.
At one point you asked him, why does he let the kids- or you in this case - be messy, since he's gonna have to clean it all up by themselves. SunDrop had responded with "Mess is a small price to see someone sad smile again!" which was a bit deep for a jester.
He had even offered you a FizzFaz, however, you turned it down just because you knew how sugary they were... yeeah that wasn't the smartest move you've made.
"3 A.M"
Your watch dinged again at exactly 3 A.M, had the time gone by that fast? You had to leave, but ugh you really didn't want to! You hadn't even gotten to- oh god, you were complaining like a kid. With a heavy sigh,
"Hey SunDrop, I really enjoyed this whole... activity, but I think I have to head back, I sometimes forget I'm still a security guard" you laughed weakly, trying to use the table as an assist to help you stand back up. It was either your legs had fallen asleep, you were extremely tired and it was finally catching up... or both. Because you were just a second late to realize your legs just didn't want to walk right now, making your entire body fall back first into the ball pit, at least it was a soft landing!
"Right right!! Whoa, Be careful!" They watched you fall, and quickly pulled you out using their arms, "You look tired, are you tired? Oh, how did I not realize it before?? You look like a ghost!"
"I'm... fine really! I was just so excited- to be happy that I used all my energy! hah! I think I'll be alright, just put me down and-" you were interrupted by SunDrop carrying you yet again, "H-hey i need to go!" you struggled again, but to no avail"
"I won't hear it! You need to sleep! nap! At least for an hour! That's the recommended minimum time" He went inside the play construction, leading you through tunnels and blocks until you were brought to a semi open area, just enough for you to fit.
"Nooo, SunDrop please- If Vanessa catches me sleeping ill be fired and-" you lazily opposed, but there wasn't much fight left in you, seems like that kid energy took a lot out of you.
"Doont worry about the Security" You raised a brow, you were about to ask what he meant by that, only to notice the lights were dimming, oh... no. "You stay here, rest alrighty?" SunDrop said as his body jerked in a glitchy form, portions of their body shifting like two sides of a wall, His bright painted on outfits switching rapidly for more pajama-looking ones. Sundrop did let out an agonizing groan, jumping back on the roof of the play constructions... before he was no more.
"I will take care of her" His counterpart said, MoonDrop. Wow yes now they were scary, however, you could tell they didn't have any intention of hurting you. "Night Night" was the only thing you heard as you start to pass out under a ceiling full of stars, but at least you were happy and peaceful... hmm yes it was rather a soft place...
"Ugh, that security guard" Vanessa shook her flashlight around the daycare area, "I don't have time for this... I swear if they left-" she felt a presence behind her, turning around,
"They went to the stage~," MoonDrop said with a scratchy record player voice, pointing towards where Vanessa came from.
"Well, they better have! The things I have to deal with... and you, why are you still in the daycare area? don't you have some intruders or on-loose animatronics to look out for?" She scolded Moondrop, what a brave woman!
"Yes of course, just stay faaar away from my little domain~ You know I don't like... alive, or awake intruders ehehe.." MoonDrop let out a low-pitched gremlin laugh as they shot a last look at Vanessa with their red eyes.
Sure you were SunDrops friend, but maybe MoonDrop could sympathize with you just for today... just because even they thought you deserved some sweet slumber and relaxation.