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You cannot recall how long you have been sitting in the Daycare. It’s the only area in the smack dab middle of the night in the Pizzaplex with appropriate lighting—maybe too much so—but counts nonetheless. The music is faint in your ears. It seemingly echoes across the play area as you wonder how you haven’t gone insane yet after taking night guard duty. Sure, it’s big pay, but losing your precious sleep didn’t seem worth it.
You exhale with a large sigh, zoning back in to the orange animatronic who is sitting beside you. They are sitting crisscross, one robotic leg over another. In other words, what most would call “crisscross applesauce.” Their left hand is full of colorful markers and pens, their right holding a ragged purple marker that looks like it has seen better days. A focused gaze is settled on the sun, eyes staring at your bare forearm. The purple marker is dangerously close to your arm, the sun’s hand and the marker itself slightly shaking. You raise an eyebrow.
“Don’t. Move.” They hiss. “I got this.” They begin to draw on your skin. The feeling of the marker is strange, cold, and makes you gasp softly. They look up for a second, tilting their head like a confused puppy before putting all attention back to your arm. They seem to be doodling nonsensical animals and faces. They’re wonky and crooked; a toddler could do better, but watching them try is awfully cute. You snort out of amusement, which causes your arm to jerk.
“Hey hey HEY. Look what you made me do!” They tsk, shaking their head disapprovingly. They point at the drawing of what seems to be a giraffe, however its leg is unfinished. A long purple line has now skyrocketed to the side of your forearm, leaving the sad giraffe with only three legs. They sigh, grumbling to themselves about messing up and having to fix it. They grab your arm, the foam that decorates their palms and fingertips doing an awful job at hiding the hurtful grasp. You wince at the small sting of pain but shake it off and look at the sight beside of you.
They begin doodling on the line they accidentally created, turning it into what looks like a vine decorated with flowers. You smile, looking up at the sun.
“What’cha drawing there?” You ask.
“Hmmm... You.” They respond, shaking their head up and down in a silent confirmation.
“What do you mean?”
“Pretty,” they say, finishing the vine with a few flowers here and there. “Pretty like flowers. Flowers make me think of you.”
“Thank you,” you say, raising the palms of your hands to rest on the sides of their face. You kiss both cheeks, watching their expression go from calm to absolutely ecstatic. They giggle like a school kid who just received a kiss from their first crush before withdrawing their sun spikes and throwing their head into the crook of your neck, resting there. You bring their body closer to yours, wrapping your arms around their metallic body.
“Don’t leave,” they say abruptly, muffled by your shirt. “Don’t leave... ever.”
“Don’t plan on it,” you respond, getting comfortable on the rainbow mat. Laying there you find yourself slipping away into slumber, the mat pressing into every joint of your bones just the right way.
Perhaps this job really was worth it.