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Busy days at the daycare were never a rarity, but days like today, where you spent every second of the day at max capacity, certainly were. Working on Black Friday was the last thing you wanted to do, but the Pizzaplex was always short staffed and you were guaranteed overtime if you worked this extra day, so you didn’t complain too much. You had to turn away multiple families who wanted to drop their kid(s) off to do some shopping at the nearby malls. It seemed that once a child left, there was always a new one to take their place.
Needless to say, when the end of the day came (about three hours later than normal, as your boss had instructed you to stay open later to accommodate the influx of customers), you were absolutely pooped.
Entertaining nearly seventy kids at a time for that long took everything you had. You were pulled left and right to grab art supplies, play house, and help kids out of the play structures who got too scared to crawl back down on their own. Naptime was your only real break that day, which ended about ten minutes early with how excitable all the kids were. Even during those twenty minutes you got to yourself, you still had to clean up to prepare for the next wave of kids who were sure to come in at the start of the hour.
It was chaos, honestly, but at least you had Sun’s (and occasionally Moon’s) help. The daycare wouldn’t be the same without the joyful animatronic and his more grouchy counterpart wandering around to aid you when you weren’t available. The best part is that, with a few exceptions, the kids love them.
Once the last family walked out of the doors, you locked up and then flopped yourself down onto one of the squishy play mats that lined the floors. Your whole body cracked as you finally got a minute to rest, the feeling releasing so much of the tension that you had built up throughout the day. You felt exhausted and sore from being on your feet all day. Your back was especially killing you from giving a plethora of piggy back rides, as well as from the amount of times you had to reach the highest shelf in the art closet to get something because Sun had put it back on the top shelf, not realizing that he’s the ONLY thing in this whole place tall enough to rea-
“Hey, (Y/N)!” Sunny skipped over to you as he called for you, cutting off your internal rant. You only glanced over in his direction, not having the energy to sit up and properly face him. “Why are you laying on the floor?”
You sighed in slight envy. If there was one thing you disliked about having a robotic coworker, it was that it never shared your sentiment on the concept of ‘being tired.’ His ever present smile was a constant reminder of this fact. He was built to please and will never stop radiating absolute positivity.
Though you knew that wasn’t totally the truth. Sun could feel and understand a wide range of emotions, definitely more than the average AI machine can, but even then fatigue wasn’t really one of them. He’d run out of battery occasionally, which was the closest you’ll ever get to seeing Sunny ‘tired.’ Trying to get the hyperactive animatronic to recharge once that starts happening is always like trying to put a toddler down for a nap- something you have way too much experience with for someone with no kids of their own.
“I was about to pass out where I stood, Sunny. I need like fifteen minutes to rest, okay? We can clean up, hang out, watch a movie- whatever you want- after that. Just let me have this little break.” You turned back to the ceiling once you were done speaking and closed your eyes, fully intent on using your self provided fifteen minutes to rest to the best of your ability. You knew Sun was going to force you to move the second minute fifteen was up, anyway. A little nap wouldn’t hurt.
Sunny stood tall and brought a hand up to his head in a mock salute, “Aye, aye, captain!” He broke off into laughter at his own joke and as his laughter faded you assumed he wandered off to start cleaning or something of the sort, but then you felt the padded mat next to you dip down as a heavy weight joined you on the floor.
You opened your eyes and rolled your head to your right to see Sunnydrop laying next to you, legs stretched out way beyond yours, and his hands resting on his middle. You blinked at him in a bit of confusion.
“Sunny, you don’t have to… ya know, stay here with me. You can go get started if you want.”
Sunnydrop rapidly shook his head side to side, “But… I want to stay here! With you! Is that-” he paused, something dawning on him, “Is that not okay?”
Your heart should not have dropped the way it did at his uncharacteristically quiet tone. It was your turn to quickly shake your head and reply, “Of course it’s okay, I just didn’t think you had any interest in taking a break. You’re always bouncing off the walls.”
Sunny nodded at that, avoiding your gaze, “Oh, yes, yes. I tend to uh… do that.”
You giggled, “There’s nothing wrong with that, Sunshine. I was just curious, is all. You can stay with me for my break.” You gave him a warm smile, using your nickname for him to hopefully drive home your reassurance.
He honestly seemed hesitant to accept your now open invitation, even though he had no problem joining you earlier. You gently reached out your hand towards his as your last effort to show him that you were truly okay with his company. After a moment of silent debate, he took your hand in his, and held it gingerly between the two of you.
The warmth his hand provided in contrast to the cooler air of the building didn’t shock you as much as it once did. You had once assumed all of the animatronics would be cool to the touch, considering they were made of many different types of metals and were stored indoors with air conditioning, but it was shocking as much as it was fitting for Sunny to run a bit warmer. How it worked, you had no clue, but after he first held you (you almost fell off of a ladder while trying to grab a child’s toy from the top of a play structure and he had grabbed onto you), you decided it wasn’t worth digging into.
The feeling brought you more comfort than you’d like to admit. As you eventually closed your eyes again, you fell into a peaceful sleep on the ground of the daycare next to Sunnydrop.
Waking up flat on your back was disorienting to say the least. What was even more disorienting was the arm wrapped comfortably tight around your middle. You realized rather quickly that it was Sun’s arm, where he apparently (at some point during your slumber) had grabbed you and pulled you the rest of the way towards him. It was a somewhat awkward position, what with how he was so much larger than you, not to mention the big gap that opened in the play mats where the hooks that held them together had disconnected. You were practically laying on the actual floor at that point.
You tried to move, but found it difficult with Sun holding you so close. He was always very strong- you’ve seen it with how he effortlessly picks you up to reach for things and how he grabs misbehaving children to redirect them to time out- but you never thought you’d find yourself in a situation such as this.
“Sunny, this is cute and all, but you really need to let go,” you started as you fumbled to get your phone out of your pocket. You quickly checked the time and your eyes grew wide once you saw how late it was. Your shift ended three hours ago! Why didn’t Sunny wake you up?
You turned yourself around as much as you could in his grasp to face him with a mock scowl, hoping the look would make Sunny relinquish his hold so you could get up and actually finish your job. When you got a look at his face (way closer than you had expected it to be), you noticed that the lights of his eyes were out.
Oh. His battery died. You let out an annoyed huff.
You should have figured that out from the start. After all, he was being unusually quiet. He must have been more drained than he let on for him to let his battery die like that. You were usually around to remind him to recharge, but you must really have been knocked out if you didn’t hear the Pizzaplex’s booming nighttime closing announcements. There’s no way you could have reminded him if that was the case.
You wished Vanessa would take the initiative to stop by the daycare every now and then. You know she doesn’t work too well with Sun and Moon, but at least if she made a quick check in, she could have woken you up and this could have all been avoided. Now you’re going to have to figure out a way to charge Sunnydrop, clean up all on your own, and explain to your boss why you stayed on the clock for an extra three hours over the three you already stayed for.
You groaned at the idea of having to clean after that amazing nap. You just wanted to go home to your soft bed with even softer sheets and go back to sleep. Just the idea of it was making you yawn.
You didn’t have a chance to get too lost in those thoughts because the lights flashing off reminded you of your first goal: Get Sunny to a charging station.
Part of you hoped that Sun and Moon don't share the same power: the lights go out, Moon takes the lead, takes care of the charging problem. Sadly, once you were left in pitch darkness, nothing changed. You sighed, again, because of course nothing could be that easy. Not at the Pizzaplex. Not with these two.
Your real first problem was going to be trying to remove Sun’s arm from around your waist. It seemed locked into place, as if once his battery died he just froze, so you decided against trying to manually remove it from your body. Your next idea was pretty silly, but it was all you could come up with. It’s not like anyone was watching you, anyway. You hoped.
Slowly, you wiggled yourself out of Sun’s grasp by sliding yourself upwards, easily gliding against the smooth material of the play mat. It only took you a minute or so and once you were out you, you finally stood and got a chance to stretch.
You winced as you realized that your back hurt even more than when you had laid down those few hours ago. Maybe laying on the mats longer than your allotted fifteen minutes was a mistake. They were comfortable for a short period of time, but definitely not made for sleeping on. The kids never even napped on them for as long as you did.
“Alright,” you spoke out into the dark as you cracked your knuckles, “Let’s get you charged up, big guy.”
Luckily, a recharge station was located very close by inside the daycare, but now you had to figure out how to move Sunny’s objectively heavy robot body towards it. If you didn’t get moving now, the lights would come back on, which meant that you’d have to wait another fifty or so minutes until the recharge station would be active again, anyway. You wanted to get Sunnydrop charged as soon as possible, mostly so that he could help you clean and you could leave as soon as possible. The daycare was a complete wreck after the day you had today and you could use all the help you could get, even if that meant having to lug a robot who weighs God knows how much across a room to recharge.
With maximum effort, you took hold of Sunny’s hand (noting how significantly it cooled in comparison to earlier) and pulled as hard as you could. You were surprised at your own strength when you felt him budge a bit, but then you yelped in shock when the hand you had grabbed squeezed tightly back.
“Hey, Starlight, it’s only me,” Moon’s voice purred at you from the floor, “No need to get so jumpy.”
“God damn it, Moon! That’s not funny at all.”
“It was kind of funny.” If his face wasn’t stuck in a permanent smile, you knew he would be smirking at you in self satisfaction.
You dropped his hand onto the ground and rolled your eyes. “Why didn’t you show up earlier, huh? Would have saved me a lot of trouble.”
“I just like seeing you suffer.” He laughed loudly at the glare you shot at him, but then responded more seriously, “Sunny here used up all his juice, I was really out of battery, promise!”
You crossed your arms, not really believing his story, “Oh, so you just magically gained more power just in time to scare the shit out of me?”
Moon shrugged to the best of his ability, “Something like that. Could you help me up off the floor here, doll?”
You hated how that nickname flustered you. To stand your ground (and to avoid having to show Moon just how much you enjoyed his stupid teasing), you turned away from him.
“Nope. You’re on your own there, buddy. I got a daycare to clean.”
“Oh, come on, (Y/N),” you could hear a bit of pleading in his voice, something that made your soft spot for him ache, but it was immediately squashed when he continued, “We both know you’d rather spend your time with your precious sunshine.”
Your resolve to help him waned further and further the more that he spoke. Your face heated up and you refused to turn around, instead responding, “Maybe I would spend more time with you instead if you weren’t so insufferable!”
“Maybe,” came his simple reply. You waited for some kind of ‘but’ or teasing remark, but none ever came. After a few seconds, you slowly turned around to see that Moon was no longer there, now replaced by Sun’s unmoving figure. The lights flashed on. You groaned.
It’s going to be a long night.
You decided to get started on cleaning instead of trying to move Sunny anywhere. It was going to take you a while to clean all of the day’s activities on your own, but at least it wasn’t as impossible and strenuous as trying to move an entire animatronic. Another hour passed in boring silence as you cleaned, getting the bulk of your chores done in that amount of time.
The tables were wiped, the ball pit balls were in the sanitizing machine, all of the craft supplies were back in the closet (in the spots where you could actually reach them), and all of the toys that were thrown about were put into their respective organizational bins. All that was left for you to clean out the play structures.
At that point, though, the lights flashed off again. You refused to enter the play structures without proper lighting (in fear of stepping in something… unsavory), so you decided to give yourself a few minutes to organize your own desk while you waited for the lights to return.
Within seconds this time around, Moon was calling out for you.
“Ooh, (Y/N)! Are you still around? You didn’t leave little old me here alone in the dark, did you?”
You finished hanging up the last drawing that one of the children had given you that day and turned to face the rest of the daycare with your hands on your hips. “What is it, Moon?”
“There you are! Are you going to help me this time or are you set on being extra stubborn tonight? Actually, speaking of which, why are you even here still?”
“I’m here because Sun doesn’t know when to charge himself on his own and I ended up napping on the floor. Shouldn’t you know this? I thought the two of you shared memories.”
The red lights in his eyes that mocked some sort of pupils followed you as you walked towards him. “Well, yes, we actually do. Not only memories, though, also thoughts! But only select memories and thoughts. There’s something Sunny boy’s hiding that he didn’t even want me to know! Doesn’t that make you just burst with curiosity?”
You weren’t going to lie, it did make you somewhat curious, but you figured that if it was your business, Sunny would have told you. You weren’t going to entertain Moon’s meddling.
“Well I guess we’ll just have to ask him… when he’s recharged.”
Moon held out his hand towards you, “Knew that would get you on my side.”
You rolled your eyes as you took his hand and helped him stand. Moon leaned on you almost completely, which made it really difficult for you to help him over to the recharge station. You almost froze when you felt his arm come around your waist. You glared at him, but he kept his focus on the bright red tube of the recharge station in front of the two of you. He knew what he was doing.
Before he stepped in, Moon turned to you as if he had something important to say.
“Thanks, sweetheart,” you were about to brush off his thanks and turn a deaf ear to the pet name, but then he continued, “Don’t let Sunny keep you from me for too long. It’s unfair, you know!”
Before you could even ask what he meant by that, Moon had stepped into the recharge station and was quieted as he was set into low power mode to charge. His strange teasing aside, Moon wasn’t the worst, but you really missed Sunny. Cleaning the daycare was so much more tedious and annoying without him. You won't even be able to see him for that long, anyway, since you plan on going straight home once you finished.
You took the next few minutes to wrap up at your desk before the lights came back on. A sigh of relief left you as you realized that you could finally finish your cleaning and then go home. The first thing that you did as you made your way back to the daycare, however, was check the recharge station.
You raised your eyebrow at the thing when you realized that neither Sunny nor Moondrop were inside of it. Did Moon walk off before they could finish charging? Why is he so set on making your life difficult tonight?
Sun’s gentle voice, a nice contrast to Moon’s more gravelly tone, calling your name snapped you out of your thoughts. You spun around on your heel, being met face to chestplate with Sunny.
“Oh-! Sunny! There you are!” Excited to see him again, you threw your arms around him in a quick hug. “You feeling okay? I’m sorry I fell asleep like that, I should have been up to tell you to recharge.”
“No, no, no-! I’m fine, you shouldn’t be the one apologizing, it should be me! Me!” Sunny pointed to himself, head turned down towards the floor, his embarrassment and shame reflecting in his voice and stance.
You stared at him in confusion and worry, not understanding where he was coming from. Apologize for what?
Before you could ask, he looked you in the eyes and quickly bursted out, “I’m so sorry, (Y/N)! I should have started cleaning and I should have woken you up and-” He stuttered on something, pausing for a moment before saying, in more of a whisper, “I shouldn’t have stayed with you… I shouldn’t have held you like that… I’m so, so, stupid…. and so, so, so sorry.”
Oh. Is that why he’s so upset?
It took you a few calls of his name for you to get his attention, as he was so focused on repeating how ‘stupid’ and ‘sorry’ he was to you, but once you reached out with the same gentleness you had yesterday evening and took his hand in yours, he was listening intently.
“Sunshine, you are not stupid and you don’t have to apologize! Remember last night? I told you I was completely fine with you joining me.” You gave his hand a soft, reassuring squeeze before continuing, “And you don’t have to apologize for the hug. It was… a little surprising, honestly, but it wasn’t a bad thing.”
Sunny looked ready to refute, run away, and fold in on himself all the same time. In the end, he settled with one simple question, “You… don’t mind?”
“Of course not! It was just a hug, Sunny. It’s not as scandalous as you’re making it sound.”
He seemed hesitant to accept your words, so you added for good measure, “You have to trust me, Sunshine. It’s okay. You didn’t do anything wrong and I’m not mad.”
Sunny started to calm down after a few minutes, thumb rubbing absentmindedly over the back of your hand. Not before long, though, he added another apology, “I’m also sorry for anything Moon may have said or done… I don’t remember much from when he was out, I think he blocked off his thoughts from me…”
“Oh, come on now, Sunshine. Don’t apologize on Moon’s behalf. It’s alright, though, if it makes you feel any better I’ll let you know that he didn’t say anything too brazen. He did tell me…” You trailed off for a moment to make sure you could catch his eye and were only slightly shocked when you noticed you had his rapt attention, “that you were hiding things from him. Is everything okay?”
Sunny froze, the silicone pads of his fingers nervously squeezing your hand a bit tighter. You quickly backtracked, “You don’t have to tell me if you’re not ready or don’t want to. Don’t worry about it, Sunshine, alright?”
“N-no…” his voice was shaky, but he pressed on, “No, I want to tell you.”
You nodded, trying your best to be the listening ear he needed right now. He quietly asked if the two of you could sit, so you obliged by guiding him to the set of small, brightly colored chairs obviously meant for young children. The chairs were pushed so close together that your legs were up against his, but you quieted that silly observation down in favor of putting all of your focus on Sunnydrop so that you could listen to him.
He wavered when he noticed that he had your attention, but you showed him your support by keeping one of his hands in yours and mirroring his inadvertently soft gesture from earlier.
“I… wanted you to stay,” Sun spoke slowly and quietly, so quietly that you could hear the crackling of his voice box. He continued while avoiding your gaze, “I didn’t wake you up because… I wanted you to stay. My battery dying was an accident, though- I promise! I didn’t mean for that to happen, and I’m sorry for any inconvenience that may have caused, but… I really wanted you to stay.”
You nodded as he finished up, feeling like you finally understood, but wanting him to finish on his own. His other hand came to clasp yours that he was already holding, surprising you. He squeezed almost desperately, but not too tight that it would hurt you.
“I always miss you when you leave! We spend all day playing with the kids, and they’re lovely, of course! But it all means nothing because at the end of the day, you go home, and I’m here alone. It’s not fair! I just wanted you to stay just this once… but it’s not fair to you, either. I’m so selfish, aren’t I?”
The self deprecating tone he was taking was truly breaking your heart. You reached out with your free hand to take his face and make him fully face you. Small, almost unseen tears dance in your eyes as you respond.
“It’s okay to be selfish sometimes, Sunshine. I promise you that. You didn’t have to go through the trouble, though, I would have stayed if you just asked.”
Sunny perked up at that, equally surprised and relieved to hear it. “Y-you would? Really!?”
You chuckled at the excited lilt to his voice, “Yes. If I knew my favorite bot needed me to stay with him? I’d cancel all my plans and be here for you all night if you needed. That goes for Moon, too, if he’s listening.”
“He might not show it, but he appreciates it.”
You chuckle, “I’m glad,” before throwing all caution to the wind and leaning forward with a newfound level of confidence. You press a quick peck of a kiss to the side of Sunny’s face with a big smile on yours. Sunny practically melted at your touch, rays fluttering in excitement at the attention and a sigh of sorts crackling out of his voice box.
“You’re amazing, (Y/N), you know that?”
You giggled, pressing another kiss to the other side of his face, “No, but thank you for reminding me.” Sunny joined you in the fit of giggles you were thrown in afterwards as you held onto him.
When the two of you calmed down, he leaned down and gently nudged his faceplate against your forehead in an attempt to kiss you back, but right as he did so, the lights flashed off.
Moon’s voice came out low right near your ear, causing a shiver to run down your spine, “You’d do all of that for me~?”
“Maybe.” You said flatly, before cracking a smile and pulling him in to press a sweet kiss to his cheek, too.