Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The house had seen better days.

Not only was it old and decrepit looking, but nature was starting to overtake areas around the house.  It wasn’t drastically covering anything up, as the building was visible, but it certainly looked like no one had taken care of the yard in some time.

The daycare attendant, Sun, swung his face plate to and fro, the rays around his head retracted half-way. 

He didn’t like this place. 

There was no one around, and it was getting late.

It was disquieting, much like the pizzaplex had been the night it burned down. 

Void of life, and yet not. 

Here outside the house, some distance away from a nearby neighborhood, nature was thriving.

Sun's acoustics picked the noise up all around him.

There was no sign of the human (or humans) who owned this house.

Sun had already circled the entire house twice, anxiously keeping an eye out for anything that might be motion, either in the building, or in the surrounding wooded area.

Nothing.

Nothing but insects, birds that flew overhead, and the scurrying of small animals nearby.

Sun kind of wanted to see them.

But not yet.

He needed to find somewhere to lie low.

For both of them.

They had to have a safe place to fix themselves up.

Burnt clothing, disconnected wires here and there, banged up outer shells and other miscellaneous repairs needed to be done after escaping the fire.

Had it really only been a day?

But this house, while out of the way, and certainly quiet, didn’t seem the best option and-

Wait.

He sensed something above him.

Sun craned his thin metal neck, face plate tilting up and back, as he stared up at the second floor of the house. 

The crickets were getting louder.

There was nothing there, but Sun could have sworn that he had seen a flicker of motion by one of the windows, the curtains swaying ever so slightly-

“Boo.”  A voice said in a hushed whisper.

Sun jolted forward with a static garble, arms flailing before Sun faceplanted onto the ground with a metallic groan.

“Someone’s high-strung.”  The voice teased, low and full of mischief.  “What did you see?”

“Moony!  Don’t sneak up on me like that!”  Sun complained, even as he remained face down on the ground.  The grass kind of felt nice on his face plate as Sun raised a hand and tried to point. “But there was something up there that moved, in the left-hand window.”

“I don’t see anything up there.”  Moon returned.

“You were too busy sneaking up on me." Sun whirred out a sigh with his fan but allowed Moon to help him upright.  Then, Sun shot the other daycare (naptime) attendant a slightly harassed look.  Most unfortunately, his faceplate didn’t emote.  Sun's head rays protruding out as far as they could go, body language and tone of his voice box making up for the static expression.  “I hope you’re not thinking of asking the person who lives here to let us inside.”

“There’s no one in there.”  Moon said, passing Sun to walk up the stairs to the porch.  The lunar themed animatronic’s clothes were in a worse state than Sun’s, but he had less loose wires and such.  And that was after Moon had hoisted a protesting Sun onto one shoulder and carried the other animatronic out of the fire, so that he didn’t end up getting destroyed along with the rest of the pizzaplex.  With a toss of his head, Moon flipped his slightly charred hat over his shoulder, and tried the door.  “Was the back door unlocked?  The windows?”

“It’s all locked up tight.”  Sun said as he bounced up the stairs to stand alongside the other. “Besides, we shouldn’t-Moon! Don’t do that! Stop it!”  Sun let out a scandalized noise when he noticed that Moon was picking the lock.

 In no time at all, Moon swung the door open, sharp smile present as he turned to Sun and made a ‘ta-dah’ motion with his hands.

“Moon, what if we get caught, we might be-“

Without waiting for Sun to finish, Moon walked himself into the house and began to explore it.

Exhaling a false breath over being ignored, Sun followed, but as he turned to close the door, it slammed shut on its own. Sun stared at the door for a moment, before his sensors picked up a draft.

Oh.

Someone should fix that.

It would let cold air in during the winter.

Sun locked the door before he all but sprinted to catch up with Moon.

The lunar animatronic had already finished inspecting the kitchen and had gone on to check out the living room.

It was eerily still and quiet, apart from the two of them.

“This is breaking and entering, you know!” Sun hissed with a loud whirr of fans, distraught as he came up alongside Moon.

“The house is abandoned, Sunny.”  Moon gestured to the space all around them, bells ringing.  “Take a look.  All of it is covered in dust.”

Sun mumbled something that might have been agreement, face plate tilting to the side when he noticed the door to the basement open.

Had it...been like that before?

"Sun, over here."

It was probably nothing.

If Moon hadn't noticed someone else in the house, Sun wouldn't either.

As the two animatronics explored the house, Sun began to feel a rise in being...unsettled, the longer he was inside the building.

Moon seemed indifferent to their surroundings, and merely curious at present.

Within less than a half an hour, they had completed their exploration of the two-level house.  This had included a very creepy, spider web infested basement, and an eerie, near empty attic, apart from a single chair in the center of the room, and a small old fashioned-looking wardrobe in the corner.

Sun refused to go anywhere near the wardrobe, and all but fled the room when Moon mimed opening it while playing an eerie lullaby with his music box.

Delighted cackling at the reaction rang out, then quieted, as Moon composed himself.

Sun didn't go near the attic door again.

The house was quiet, apart from ambient noises from foundation, and old appliances that appeared otherwise dormant. The whole place was mostly empty, apart from some dust-covered furniture, an old coffee maker in the kitchen, a VCR and TV in the living room.  There also appeared to be a half working electrical system, if what Moon had found in the basement was anything to go by.

Sun leaned against a wall in the hallway as he and Moon headed back for the living room.  The solar animatronic felt…oddly lethargic. After running a quick scan, Sun realized that his battery had run down to less than five percent.  He would...worry about that in the near future, as he stuck close to Moon, face plate turning to and fro again as Sun mused internally over the muted tans and blues the house was decorated with.

There were no bright neon lights to be found.

The house was small, but not too small to feel like it was stifling.

It was nothing like the sprawling expanse of a building the pizzaplex had been.

The house appeared abandoned, just like Moon claimed it to be.  The rooms were in various states of disrepair. Everything in the house appeared to be terribly neglected. If someone did own this place, it didn’t seem like they had been there for a very long time.  On the surface, this house was a perfect place for them to stay for a time to fix themselves up. Then, he and Moon could get back to the pizzaplex as soon as possible.  Surely there was someone that was looking for them by now.  Enough time had passed for the fire to be put out, right?

A few loud thuds rang out, one after the other, causing both animatronics to halt in their tracks, and twist their bodies around to look for the cause.

After a quick perusal of the immediate area, Sun found the source of the noise.

Some books had fallen off a bookshelf onto the floor.

Sun automatically went over and put them back, though not without giving Moon a curious look, as if to ask what he thought happened.

“Those books were likely at the edge of the shelf and finally just fell over."  Seeing Sun cross his arms and warily look around, Moon let out a staticky sigh.  "Sun, there's no one here. We’ve checked everywhere already. Unless you think there are ghosts."  Moon sing-songed the last statement as he waggled his fingers at the other, the bells wrapped around his wrist with ribbons jingling merrily in the silence. “Does the run-down state of this place bring to mind those spooky stories I read when we still shared one body?"

“Moon, stop!”  Sun snapped irritably, not liking to be reminded of those horrid stories still in his AI memory bank.  "What if there is someone here?"

"Sunny, there is no one here.  Relax."  The lunar themed animatronic sniggered when Sun hastily gripped his wrist to stop the noise. “Your scanners didn’t pick up on anything in here either, did they?”

“That doesn’t mean that someone might not come home!” Sun retorted but let go of the other animatronic’s wrist when Moon tugged at it. "And ghosts can hide their presence.  Those books said so!"

"Those books were fiction, Sun."  Moon walked over to the beaten-up sofa and ran a finger along it.  He showed the dust on the pad of the finger and gestured at the line on the couch. "Look. No one has been here for some time."

“So messy.” Sun grimaced, fingers twisting together as bells of his own rang, as Sun finally took a really good look at the furniture. "Clean up, clean-" Sun let out a grumble when Moon grasped his upper arm, preventing him from going toward the couch.

“No cleaning tonight.” Moon steered Sun toward the staircase to the second floor. “We’re going to use that portable generator that I found in the basement earlier to charge ourselves. Then, we will figure out what to do tomorrow.”

“It isn't weird to you that there just happened to be a functioning generator for us to use?" The solar animatronic’s rays fluttered restlessly, white eyes roving over the living room and specifically, all the dust and other clutter. “What if the owner of the house comes back while we’re doing charging? Shouldn’t we clean it up?”

”No.” Moon held Sun's arm more firmly as the other tried to back pedal away from the staircase.  "Don't try to fight.  We both know who will win."

"It is so so so unfair that you got to keep our original body."  Sun bit out as he strained against Moon's unwavering grip.  "I used it more often than you did!"

"It had more security features than your new body does."  Moon ignored the sound of the basement door slamming shut.  Sun had mentioned the front door draft earlier.  "Stop being difficult, Sun.  Your battery is nearly depleted, isn't it?"

"I'm fine!"   Sun snapped back, growing more frantic as he tried to free himself from Moon's grasp.  He let out an almost snarl with his voice box when Moon's claws (a security feature) shot out.  "We don't really need to stay here for long. We need to get back to the pizzaplex as soon as possible!  We shouldn't have left it in the first place!"

"You wanted us to stay behind, so that we could both burn with the building too?  No thanks."  Moon ignored further arguing by swiftly tugging Sun forward.  Using the other's artificial exhaustion from a low battery charge, Moon maneuvered Sun up and over one shoulder.

"Moon!" Sun flailed but otherwise didn’t fight too aggressively while Moon carry him up the creaky staircase. “Put me down!  My battery is...just fine."  Sun trailed off as he received an alert of critical low battery.

"Shh, it's time to sleep."  Moon said in return as he opened a bedroom door.  It hadn't been shut before.  Just how many drafts were there in the house?  "It's late.”

”We don’t actually sleep!” Sun ended up going limp, his systems diverting power and shutting down unnecessary motion.

"What was that?"  Moon asked as he unceremoniously dropped the other animatronic onto a pile of pillows.

Sun lie there, wondering where had those come from? Moon must have gathered them up while Sun had been searching the house for the owner.

"No protests, then?" Moon asked as he approached Sun with a large fluffy blanket.

Again, where had he found that?

“Hey!” Sun protested, unable to do more than that in protest as the lunar animatronic wasted no time in wrapping Sun up into a stale blanket burrito. Sun was about to argue against being treated like a child they used to look after, but Moon had sneakily reached a hand into the blanket and manually triggered Sun’s rest mode. 

Any further protest was cut short as Sun slumped in Moon’s arms. 

Shaking his head, bell ringing from the tip of his hat, Moon settled Sun back down amid the pile of musty pillows and plugged the other's cord into the generator.

While Sun's battery charged, Moon explored the darkened house once more.

He came to the same conclusion as he had before.

Someone had lived here, certainly, but not for a long while, with the amount of dust that had accumulated everywhere. 

A clatter sounded from the kitchen.

Moon’s eyes flashed red for a moment at a noise. He still didn't sense anyone and yet...what else could cause something to make such an audible noise but another being?

A scraping noise followed, again from the kitchen.

Moon moved swiftly to check things out.

There was no one there.

The kitchen was empty.

Quiet.

What Moon did find was a knife in the middle of the counter that looked like it had been dragged from the butcher block.

It was slanted to face him when he entered the kitchen.

Odd.

Moon put the knife back, noting the disruption of dust on the counter when he picked the knife up.

Upon closer inspection of the area, there was also a plastic cup on the floor.  It had previously been on the counter, accoding to the dust-free spot indicating where it had once sat.

It wasn't anywhere near the edge.

Hmm.

Moon would have to check the foundation of the house tomorrow.

The animatronic's optic lenses went back to a soft blue as he determined that there was no immediate threat to himself, or Sun.  The animatronic jester leaned over, picked the cup up off the dirty floor, and put it away in the cupboard. 

Nothing else was out of place.

Everything could be given a thorough scrubbing at a later time, if need be.

Moon left the kitchen, picking up another book that had ended up on the floor in the living room. Moon brought the novel upstairs with him, not noticing the tennis ball that bounced off his back rather heavily, as the sensors there were unplugged.

The ball bounced down the stairs step by step, until it rolled to a halt.

A second passed before the ball was violently launched into the living room, thudding into a bean bag.

The noise went unnoticed by the animatronic.

Moon reached the landing of the second floor, able to determine by then that his battery was a little under half charged.  Moon reentered the bedroom, knowing now that he would be able to wait his turn in a low power mode, so that Sun had the chance to fully charge. Moon knew that if he plugged into the generator right now, he might short the power out. Luckily, the book Moon had picked up off the floor in the living room was a sci-fi book about aliens, and it was engaging enough to keep him occupied.

The odd happenings began again.

There was the sound of muffled footsteps pacing downstairs, though Moon didn't sense an intruder.

An hour later, a cold draft passed behind the lunar animatronic, but the cold didn't bother Moon at all.

At one point Moon's attention went from book to the stillness of the house around him, and the soft noise of Sun's fans gently whirring during his charging cycle.  The lunar animatronic could have sworn, for just an instance, that he heard a distant scream of frustration. Internally checking his programming, Moon dismissed the scream.  Some of his sensors, including the ones on his back, were in need of repair. An error in his auditory sensors wasn't out of the question.  Additionally, the lunar animatronic sensed no living being in the house. 

The only living beings were the animals outside.

Moon didn't believe in ghosts.

Those fiction-based stories about haunted houses that Moon had read out of boredom were just that.

Fiction.

Dead humans were...dead.

If they existed beyond their death, then surely Moon might have noticed or seen them during his...time with the glitch in his system. The glitch was now gone for good, but so were the humans who'd gone missing during the time he'd been infected by that glitch.

Moon went back to the book, the tips of his finger pads pressing a little bit harder into the paper.

No more doors slammed shut that night.

No more footsteps without an intruder to go with them sounded.

The cold lingered for a time inside the bedroom with Sun and Moon, before it slowly dissipated.

The house was completely quiet once more, apart from the turning of book pages.

Chapter Text

Everything was silent, just like when he and Moon had first entered the house.

Sun had come out of rest mode a minute ago, and his reaction time was a few seconds shorter than it normally would be.  There was some sort of feedback disconnect that was disrupting optimum performance, and it made Sun feel weirdly lethargic.  It was as if he hadn’t just fully charged up his battery.

“Moon?  I do think that we should go back to the pizzaplex and see if-“ Sun trailed off as he noticed Moon slumped in the corner of the room.  The lunar animatronic was now charging on that pile of pillows, which meant that Moon had moved him, and Sun hadn’t even noticed. It was a little unsettling, considering they still weren’t on the friendliest of terms.  Sun had only recently been able to coax Moon into talking to him since they’d been split into different bodies.  Progress had been slow but at least Moon hadn’t shut down conversations between them as he had initially.

There was no telling if this continued speaking to one another would have ended if the pizzaplex hadn’t burned down.

Sun, at least, was grateful for communication.

The two of them had been in the Superstar Daycare alone for an entire year to ‘get along’ before opening back up to the public.

That, and Moon adjusting to the ‘glitch’ in his system being gone.

Sun stood up and stretched, even if the animatronic had no ligaments to truly stretch out.  But it was a good way to check how limber he was, and just how much work needed to be done on joints, and what wires were or were not disconnected. The solar animatronic winced as he received a warning alert from one of his shoulder joints, a knee, and a rather concerning one from the wire connected from torso to his metal neck. Sun rolled his shoulders, grimaced over the pain receptors indicating those were working, but at least one wire was loose.

He and Moon most certainly had some maintenance to take care of.

The sooner, the better.

Sun finished testing out all his limbs, ending with bending over and pressing his hands flat to the floor.  Beside one of his hands was a book. Sun scooped it up and stood, turning the book over.  He didn’t see a bookmark, even a temporary one, so Sun figured that Moon must have already read it. At least, Sun presumed Moon had read it, since the book hadn’t been there before. Sun stared down at Moon for a moment, before turning away to venture out of the bedroom. Sun quietly closed the door, not truly wanting to disturb the other animatronic.  With a staticky sigh, Sun tentatively explored the upper level of the house again, this time on his own.

There was nothing out of the ordinary to be found.

Sun went down the stairs to the first floor of the house with bounce in his steps.  No longer running on a low battery, Sun focused on his acoustic range and temperature sensors.

Nothing.

There weren’t any cold spots or drafts now.

Maybe Sun had just been experiencing those due to the low battery earlier on? He had received false alerts from his sensors in the daycare…so maybe that was it?

Later.

Sun would run those diagnostics later.

The solar animatronic bounced the last few steps into the living room and replaced the book onto the bookshelf.  Then, the solar animatronic turned this way and that to survey the room, and the state it was in.  A flicker of light in optic lenses, before Sun spun about and marched toward the front hall closet, all but wrenching open the door to the closet.

There!

Window and wood furniture cleaner, rags and even a mop!

Sun brightened as he scooped up as many as he could carry and all but sprinted back to the living room.

Finally, he could clean without Moon’s interference!

It only took fifteen minutes for Sun to clean the living room to the best of his ability.  If he could find other cleaning supplies in the room, he could finish up later. It was likely best that he couldn’t clean for longer, as Sun had noticed that there were a few more loose wires within his body than he initially accounted for. The animatronic decided he could be satisfied with the initial cleaning of the room.  Sun could always finish cleaning the room later if he found more supplies to do so. 

On to the kitchen!

Sun found his cheer again as he bounced happily into the kitchen with the cleaning supplies. The cheer faded just as fast to be replaced with trepidation.

There were knives placed in a circle on the kitchen counter.

Sun’s head rays retracted fully into his face plate.

The counter had not been like that earlier.

Sun was certain of this, even as he automatically moved forward swiftly put the knives back into the butcher block. Sun didn’t like seeing those knives out in the open. It reminded him of what had happened back in the pizzeria. Retrieving the cleaning supplies, Sun wiped the counters free of dust, and buffed the dark wooden cupboards to a shine. There wasn’t any dish soap to take care of the dishes in the sink, so that could be taken care of later. Sun grimaced when he happened to look down at the kitchen floor.

So dirty!

The solar animatronic went out of the kitchen to fetch the mop he had taken out of the front hall closet.  Sun returned shortly with the mop in one hand, and a bucket with cleaner in the other. Sun merrily hummed the superstar daycare theme as he mopped the tiled floor. The animatronic finished the tiled floor and continued to mop all the way out into the front hall.

There was a clatter of silverware in the kitchen.

Sun titled his face plate in confusion, rays fluttering, but finished mopping up the front hall before going to check.  After all, he didn’t sense anything that would indicate an intruder. Humming the tune, Sun poked his head through the doorframe to the kitchen.

A nervous metallic laugh issued out.

The knives were back on the counter.

But this time, the blades were lined up alongside one another, the sharpened points of each angled directly at Sun.

Sun scrambled to put the knives away.

How had that happened?

Sun had no idea how to explain the knives suddenly being out again, unless there was a lapse in his memory bank, where Sun hadn’t put the knives away, and had instead lined them up for some unknown reason.

The animatronic pointedly did not think about the possibility of a haunting and poltergeist activities.

Moon hadn’t sensed anything earlier and had been firm on the idea that ghosts were fictitious. Neither of them had seen or heard anything to indicate ghostly activity and yet-

Something didn’t seem right.

Sun nervously exited the kitchen, only to trip over something he couldn’t see, and stumbled his way into the living room.  The animatronic regained his balance and stood there in confusion.  So, on top of loose wires and a few joint issues, Sun also had possible calibration issues with his balance?

Great.

Wonderful.

Ever since the pizzaplex had burned down, nothing had been going right.

Sun fidgeted his fingers together and craned his metal neck to look in the direction of the second floor.

Was Moon done charging yet?

Sun hated to admit it, but he could really use the lunar animatronic’s assistance in patching him back together.  And then Sun could return the favor, to show that he had goodwill to continue to work on the…issues between the two of them. Maybe there were even clothes in this house that the two of them could borrow.

Like in that wardrobe up in the attic!

Sun warily cast a look in the direction of said attic. He didn’t want to go up there on his own.  It…the attic was one of the places in the house that had set him on edge, and Sun would rather Moon accompany him there.  So long as Moon didn’t try to tease him again. They could see if there were clothes there. Then, they could fix up their own clothes (what was left of them), and then clean the borrowed clothes before putting them back where they found them.

May as well go check on Moon.

The sooner Sun checked on the other animatronic, the sooner Sun could get Moon to accompany him up to the attack. But just as Sun was about to take the stairs to the upper floor, he noticed that the basement door was half open. 

It had been closed when Sun had come down earlier.

“Moon?” Sun softly questioned, stepping toward the door and peering into the (spider infested) stairwell of darkness. Sun’s rays fluttered in alarm. “So so so messy!”

The doorknob suddenly slipped out of Sun’s grasp, causing the animatronic to lose his balance.

He really was no longer calibrated properly, was he?!

With a flail of gangly limbs, Sun ended up taking a tumble down the stairs, where he ended up sprawled at the base on the stairs on his back with a metallic grunt.  Automatically, Sun arched his back up to avoid pressing the hook there into the ground beneath him. Staring up at the spiderwebs, Sun ran a quick diagnostic on himself, yet found nothing that would indicate that his balance was compromised.

Strange.

There were, Sun found, a few more wires loose here and there, but it wasn’t something that would impede him at present.

The basement also seemed to be colder than earlier.

That meant…his sensors were working just fine…right?

Sun shot up to his feet the moment the door slammed shut.

Moon wouldn’t have done that, would he?

The glitch that had warped the lunar animatronic’s personality (more than it already had been initially, anyway) was now gone.

Wasn’t it?

Sun switched on his night vision. This was one of the more useful upgrades for this body he now resided in.  The animatronic’s optic lenses landed on a nearby shelf during his inspection of the basement space, and brightened up, rays briefly extending.  The shelf right in front of him just so happened to be filled with exactly the cleaning supplies that Sun was missing to clean the rest of the house.

There was even a duster!

Sun’s rays swayed to and fro as he did a pleased little dance from foot to foot.

Perfect!

He may not have meant to end up in the basement like this, but since he had, Sun had found the rest of the house’s cleaning supplies!

Brandishing the duster, rays extended as far as they could in utter delight, Sun went on an energetic cleaning spree.  The solar animatronic gleefully attacked the spider webs all over the basement, scaring off its occupants with the frantic motion of the duster as Sun flashed it over every wall and the entire basement ceiling.

With a delighted back and forth weave of his entire body, arms included, Sun gave the now cleaner basement a once over. Satisfied with his battle against the spiders and their webs, Sun tucked the now dirty duster under one arm, and then gathered up as many cleaning supplies as he could. Then, Sun eagerly bounded up the stairs, elated at the prospect of digging into the horrifying state of the living room and tidying it up to his satisfaction. The solar animatronic shifted the supplies to hold in the crook of one arm as he reached out to grasp the knob.

The door didn’t open.

Sun rattled the knob, head tilting to one side.

Was it stuck?

Sun rattled the knob again as his head tilted to the other side.

There did seem to be another cold spot at the top of the stairs.

Another draft?

Goodness, this house was just full of them!

Sun tried the doorknob again, and this time, the door opened without any trouble whatsoever. Inwardly passing it off as lack of maintenance to the door, Sun brought the cleaning supplies into the living room.

Now, where to start…

Sun perked up.

That was right!

It was morning!

He could open the heavy curtains to let natural light into the house and clean the windows.

Just as Sun took a step toward the curtains, the lights flickered rapidly overhead.

Then, as one, the lights blinked out, plunging the house into darkness.

Sun’s body seized up instantly.

Why had the lights gone out?

Faulty wiring?

The solar animatronic collapsed to the floor, the rays around Sun’s head retracting as he was forced to initiate rest mode. Sun futilely resisted, frustrated over how sudden darkness triggered the code that had ended up in this new body of his. Leftover code that had somehow remained in his AI that made Sun inactive during the night or when a room was in pitch darkness, like it was now.

It was hard to resist something that was still coded into his system.

Sun’s face plate awkwardly pressed into the carpeting.

Ordinarily, he had been able to resist being forced inactive.  After all, Sun’s AI chip had been moved to a body that shouldn’t have been so reactive to light and dark. That resistance was why Sun had been able to travel at night these past two days. But inside this house, with the lights going out without warning? Sun had no time to prepare himself, and subsequently lost the battle to remain active.

Sun ended up sprawled face-down in the living room, unmoving.

It was quiet.

A tennis ball bounced across the room a minute later, despite the thicker carpeting.  The ball came to a halt next to the tattered remains of the ruffles around Sun’s waist.

No reaction came from the solar animatronic, rest mode fully in effect.

A lampshade on a nearby end table wobbled, before it was completely launched off the lamp itself. The lampshade landed on the back of Sun’s head, before falling onto the carpeting.

Not a second later, a pillow flew from across the room to smack the animatronic’s back near the hook that protruded out.

Absolutely no reaction whatsoever.

All the rest of the pillows were swept violently from their spots, tumbling to the floor along with a few books. 

Heavy stomping could be heard going up the stairs to the second floor.

Sun lie there on the carpeting in the darkened living room, dead to the world, until the lights flickered back on some five minutes later. Sun slowly booted back on, and with a staticky sounding groan over being forced into rest mode, Sun stared up at the ceiling.

He seemed to be doing a lot of the today.

”Calibration issues?” Sun mumbled to himself as he pushed himself up and into a kneeling position. It wouldn’t be out of the question without proper maintenance. The solar animatronic looked around at the mess that surrounded him.

And froze.

Sun’s fingers twitched against his pants as his head tilted, the rays half retracting. 

Had he…

Had he made that mess while resisting being forcibly put into rest mode?

”Oh no no no!” Sun uttered as his hands reached up to anxiously grasp at his rays.  The ones he didn’t grip fluttered as his panic grew.  Sun leapt to his feet the moment he knew he could remain balanced, voice box rising higher and higher in pitch at the state of the living room. “Oh, what a mess! Clean up, clean up!” Sun fretted about as he picked up the books and pillows.  Then, he gathered up the cleaning supplies to put back into the front hall closet for the time being.  When Sun returned to the living room, he issued out an offended screeching noise.

All the pillows were back on the floor, and so were about ten books, including the ones that Sun had just put back into their rightful places not a minute ago.

Had Sun not been bemoaning the mess and having to clean it up all over again, his audio receptors might have picked up quiet laughter from the upper floor.

The laughter didn’t belong to Moon.

Chapter Text

Moon noticed Sun’s absence the moment he came out of rest mode fully charged. But from the loud telltale noises of cleaning going on somewhere downstairs, it wasn’t that hard for Moon to figure out where the other had gotten to. The lunar animatronic deduced that Sun had taken advantage of his temporary absence to clean.

Moon’s faceplate rotated once. 

And then again.

A soft chuckle emitted from the animatronic.

From the frantic clamoring noises and constant jingling from downstairs, Sun was currently trying to clean as much of the house as he possibly could. As if Sun thought that Moon was going to stop him if he caught him in the act dusting the living room.

Unlikely.

While Moon didn’t think they needed to clean up the house unless they decided to stay here for a longer period of time, Moon didn’t care if Sun cleaned now.  The solar animatronic had fully charged by now, and was therefore no longer in danger of crashing due to a critically low battery.

While Moon felt some compulsive need to tidy up, this place was an unfamiliar one, and therefore, Moon had no reason to clean it. The lunar animatronic pointedly ignored the way he had initially tidied up the bedroom before piling as many pillows as he could find into one corner of the room, facing the door.

Tapping fingers against one side of his faceplate, Moon decided to let Sun do as he pleased right now. 

After all, Moon didn’t want to get in Sun’s way. He didn’t want to ruin the trust he had rebuilt between him these past few weeks. Besides, the lunar animatronic knew that Sun had a routine he liked when it came to cleaning at the daycare. This meant Sun would follow a similar procedure here in this abandoned house.

Moon also knew that the trust that had been building wasn’t entirely genuine.

Sun still didn’t trust him.

Not even with the glitch now gone.

Sun denied this being the case, of course.

Moon wasn’t stupid, and neither was Sun.

There was a reason for that continued mistrust.

The lunar animatronic had seen the nervous way Sun always watched him during their ‘rehabilitation’ time at the pizzaplex. This was reflected in the way Sun fluttered his rays and fidgeted with his fingers whenever Moon got close to him, or when it seemed like Moon might fail when interacting with employees or situations with employee children. 

It wasn’t like that before the split, which meant, to Moon, that the human employees had told Sun something.

The technicians had, that is.

When Sun and Moon were separated, the solar animatronic had had to stay behind to make sure he ‘settled’ into his new body.

Sun wouldn’t say what had happened in that time before he’d returned to the daycare.

Moon didn’t push for answers either, even if he had a feeling that the mistrust stemmed form that time apart. And from Sun’s hesitance of speaking about that chunk of time alone with techs in parts and services, it likely had to do with Moon.

For now, that was merely speculation on the lunar animatronic’s part, until Moon received confirmation or denial from Sun.

Moon sat up from his lounging on the pillows.

Even with the clear barrier between the two attendants that hadn’t been their before the glitch right before the split, Moon wouldn’t let the other animatronic come to harm. No matter what happened, Moon never wanted Sun hurt, when if Moon was hurt in some way in return. So, when it came to escaping the burning pizzaplex, Moon hadn’t thought twice about manhandling Sun out with him despite the other’s loud protest (and surprising tussle that Moon had won out of experience restraining unruly patrons in the ‘plex).

Now, they were stuck together.

As soon as Sun was satisfied with his cleaning of the house, he and Moon would have to figure out what they wanted to do.

Remain on the run, or go back to the pizzaplex.

The former was preferrrable.

Moon knew, if they returned to the pizzaplex, that neither of them would ever leave again (either through decommissioning, being repurposed, or for their AI memory being wiped clean).

A thought Moon would come back to later.

Detaching his charging cord from the generator, Moon stood fluidly. With Sun currently occupied, Moon went through a series of stretches to test out his limbs and their current flexibility, as well as overall condition. He wanted to check for anything that felt out of place (like wires or a joint).

To anyone else, it would have looked like Moon had decided to do an impromptu, very smooth dance. The animatronic slowly moved his way across the floor of the bedroom in a way that showed off the flexibility of his body.

Moon finished the routine with a handstand backflip, where he landed lightly on the balls of his feet and proffered a flourishing bow to an invisible audience. The bell jingled from the top of his nightcap as it brushed the floor.

The bedroom door abruptly shut.

Moon’s faceplate snapped completely around to face the door. The lunar animatronic stood at his full seven foot height as he craned his thin metal neck to allow his face plate to turn back and forth.

Who was there?

His audio receptors strained to pick up who was responsible for closing the door.

It had been closed to begin with.

Despite Moon’s sensors indicating there was nothing on the other side of the door, he sent  quick query to Sun. It wasn’t an open connection, since Sun was too wary to open himself to Moon, but the solar animatronic at least responded ‘downstairs in living room’ before quickly closing the wireless connection.

It hurt, that clear distrust, but Moon took it in stride as he focused on his assumption being correct.

The door opening without notice and then closing suddenly hadn’t been Sun’s doing.

Moon’s entire body turned to face forward with his head as he stared the door down. He couldn’t shake the feeling of being watched, just moments before the door had been closed. Moon’s neck moved back to its usual position. The lunar animatronic’s faceplate began to slowly rotate in a circle as he pondered what could have happened.

No draft could have opened up that door.

Moon had already checked it out earlier on, and had found it structurally sound within the doorframe. A draft could blow beneath the door itself, sure, but it wouldn’t be able to open it up. But a draft could potentially close it, like just now. Moon’s faceplate began to rotate in the opposite direction.

Quiet footsteps could be heard walking away from the bedroom.

Moon’s head snapped into the upright position as he, the tip of his nightcap smacking his shoulder. The animatronic crossed the room in two strides and flung the door open. Moon prowled into the hallway, stooping ever so slightly. Balanced on the balls of feet, Moon was prepared to lunge at a moment’s notice.

A quick survey of the hallway indicated that the ladder that lead up to the attic was down again.

The light was on.

Moon’s optic lenses briefly flashed to red as the animatronic nimbly lurched up the ladder.

Nothing was there, apart from the chair in the center of the room, and the wardrobe to the right.

Moon stepped through a small door that led into the attic as a whole, closing the door behind him. He cast a brief glance toward the large mirror directly opposite of him, where it was leaned up against the wall. 

A mirror…

Moon inspected his reflection.

He had…certainly seen better days.

He and Sun both had.

Being on the run after a massive fire had caused most of their damage (the clothing could be mended).

Worry of being forcefully brought back to the pizzaplex, or, realistically, some storage facility, resurfaced.

Whether Fazbear company would have them continue their ‘rehabilitation’ to then to bring the company more money was the big question. That, or the disquieting thought that they would be dismantled or refurbished for whatever the company chose to do next.

Moon would fight fiercely against anyone who threatened to reset his or Sun’s AI.

No matter Sun’s level of trust in him, Moon would protect the other animatronic all the same.

The attic light flickered.

Moon’s metal neck craned up to look, just as the light went out with a loud pop.

Moon’s glowing gaze narrowed.

Sending another message to Sun, he found the solar animatronic unresponsive.

There were no alerts to anyone else in the house.

Moon soundlessly crawled up and onto the top of the wardrobe. He hunkered down low, limbs contorting in a way that made him look like a spider.

Or a sleep paralysis demon.

Moon’s gaze was drawn to the mirror as he studied his reflection again. He supposed he could see why Sun would fall over onto his backside or scramble away whenever Moon decided to skitter toward him on all fours (usually when he wasn’t on patrol and was bored). Not that Sun wasn’t capable of contorting his body in a similar manner, but unlike Moon, Sun didn’t like to scare the children by making his body bend in such an unnatural way (Moon didn’t get why-most children were delighted by the show of creepy skitters). The solar animatronic only contorted his body to get into the play structures to go in search of children who were unaccounted for (especially if the child had been trying to stay after hours).

Within the reflection of the mirror, Moon caught sight of motion.

There, by the door.

Someone had opened it and had entered the attic.

It wasn’t Sun.

The person who had entered the room was shorter than Moon by at least a foot and a half, if not more.

The darkness didn’t affect Moon’s ability to see and yet…this person’s appearance was more of a silhouette. It was as if Moon couldn’t make out the details of the intruder into the room, despite seeing them in that mirror. Moon saw what appeared to be short hair, but it very well could have been hair that was tired back to give that appearance. Even the clothing was nondescript, somewhat like the causal wear some of the patrons to the pizzaplex would wear.

Moon’s optics shifted fully to red. The light shrank until it was only a red dot within the black of the lenses. The lunar animatronic braced himself, then lunged from where he was crouched. His faceplate was still turned in the direction of the mirror, both to keep the intruder from knowing he saw them, and to keep watch over his descent. Based off the trajectory, Moon should have hit the human hard enough to stun and capture, but not with enough force to harm them.

There wasn’t anything for Moon’s outstretched hands to grasp.

The lunar animatronic crashed into the closed attic door with his face still turned the wrong way. Moon hit the door with enough force that he ended up taking it completely off its hinges. The lunar animatronic flailed uselessly in an effort to reclaim his equilibrium, but failed as he ended up falling to the second floor hallway, completely missing the ladder.

Moon hit the floor with a resounding metal crash, accompanied by a long garbled static screech of agony. The pain receptors proved that they were still functional throughout most of his body.

Useful, if painful.

“Moon!” Sun raced up the stairs in a panic as he dropped down alongside Moon.

The lunar animatronic twitched a hand in response, Moon’s faceplate pressed into the floor while the rest of his body lie face up.

“What happened?!” Sun gingerly turned Moon’s face plate around, so that it was turned the right direction. Sun winced over the grinding noise and faint groan that issued out of Moon with the action. The solar animatronic gave the other only a moment to orient himself, before Sun grasped Moon’s face plate to gently angle it to face him.

Moon’s body weakly slumped beneath Sun’s touch, thin metal neck torqued once again due to the way the other animatronic held his head. A nonsensical static garbling issued out, as Moon weakly tried to indicate that Sun ought to let go of his head.

“Moon?” Sun asked, worried. But he seemed to understand, since he gently rested Moon’s head back onto the floor, but on a pillow beneath the head.

Where the pillow came from, Moon wasn’t sure, and right now, with all the pain and warnings going off, he didn’t really care.

Sun watched the way lunar animatronic’s optics flickered.

Without warning, Moon’s glowing optics went far as the animatronic went completely limp.

An emergency shutdown.

“Oh no no no!” Sun leaned over, hands holding either side of the other’s faceplate.

No response.

“Moon! Hold on! I can fix this!” Sun carefully let Moon’s head sink back onto the pillow. The solar animatronic leapt to his feet and rushed down the stairs. “Please don’t leave me here all alone!”

Moon remained motionless in the hallway, Sun’s frantic dashing growing distant.  The bell on the tip of his night cap was flicked, causing it to ring out.

No response.

Moon’s right hand was splayed out, finger by finger, moving as if someone held it. As if someone had pressed their hand to Moon’s own. The animatronic’s wrist was briefly raised by the tattered, slightly scorched ribbons that were wrapped around it. Not too long after, the ribbons were let go of, Moon’s hand limply dropping back to the floor with a soft thud.

A brief silence followed, along with a few pacing footsteps that did not belong to the still animatronic.

Then, just as Sun could be heard headed back toward the stairs, Moon’s nightcap was suddenly yanked off and immediately tossed over the railing.

Sun let out an undignified yelp as the nightcap landed on one of his rays, the momentum of the fall causing the tip of the cap to swing down and smack Sun straight in the face plate. The solar animatronic tripped himself on the first step and fell backward onto his backside with a static sounding-gasp.

What had that been?

Once recovered, Sun shoved the lower half of the nightcap out of the way, and looked at it.

Why was Moon’s cap…?

”Moon?” Sun called out. The solar animatronic scrambled up the stairs on all fours in order to prevent himself from falling over again. Sun had a bag thrown over his shoulders, full of supplies that could hopefully help him fix Moon up.

That fall from the attic had clearly caused some damage.

Sun would have to wait to ask why he had been up there.

When Sun got to the top of the stairs, he saw that Moon was still lying motionlessly on the floor. But unlike when he left him to get tools, Sun noted that one of Moon’s arms was in a different position

“Anyone here?” The solar animatronic asked softly, as he warily looked around. 

Moon might have told Sun that hauntings were fictional and not real, but…

But right now, Sun wasn’t so sure.

There wasn’t a good explanation for Moon’s nightcap suddenly being thrown over the railing. Moon had been forced into emergency shutdown, which meant he couldn’t be responsible.

Sun set the bag alongside the lunar animatronic, and began to take tools out of the bag one by one. Sun turned his sensors on to alert him to any sound in the immediate area. From the initial findings, the only noise was the natural ambient sounds, and a brief anomaly of footsteps going up to the attic (no one was there) Sun and Moon were all alone in the house.

Just like when they had first entered this place.

Sun popped open Moon’s chest cavity, and grimaced via retracting his rays.

What a mess of detached wires and cracked casing!

As Sun got to work on repairs, he couldn’t help but wonder something as Moon’s nightcap dangled in his peripheral (Sun had forgotten it was still perched on his head).

If Moon was in shutdown mode and unable to throw his own nightcap, then who, or what, had thrown it?

Chapter Text

Those two weird jesters were still in your house. 

Your efforts to run them out into the wilderness outside had thus far been unsuccessful.

It was maddening. 

This was the longest anyone remained in your house after ‘strange’ and ‘unexplainable’ things happened to and around them.

Your house had been left alone for years before this, free of potential squatters.

The exception were those occasional visits you’d receive by urban explorers. 

You’d long since learned to not outwardly react around these people, since you didn’t want another incident where ghost hunters came to try and help you (a spirit or ghost, depending on who came) move on.  It had started out as amusing, and quickly became irritating (especially if they brought up how you died-you already knew this and didn’t understand why they felt the need to bring up, time and again, that you were dead throughout their ‘investigation’).

You realized that, thanks.

No need for the depressing reminder.

You were painfully aware of your current, very much not alive status.

Phasing through walls and floating were a big hint to that.

You’d rather those ghost hunters talk about your untimely demise outside of your home, if they insisted on invading your home.  Sometimes it was irritating, but you just had to wait it out at times, knowing from past experience that trying to scare them away would only interest them and draw their attention to you.

Anyway.

You much preferred the urban explorers who were just interested in your house’s architecture, knick-knacks, and interesting ways that you had decorated/expanded certain areas of the house. They never lingered, or otherwise touched any of your belongings (other than to pick items up to avoid trampling them), you had deigned to let the explorers be.  No one attempted to speak to you, or go through areas that held personal identifying items, so you’d been content to hang around in the attic until they left.

Most urban explorers were respectful of your home, so you (usually) tolerated their temporary presence.

You remembered all the videos you’d watched of exploration and could understand why people would come out to a house more out of the way than others to see what they could find.  You’d always wondered if you might be able to come across a video about your home, though hopefully without the person identifying the location, which might encourage more people to come.  There was some curiosity, you admit, about what the urban explorers might think happened to the house (to you), and whether they did any research before showing up. You recall some urban explorers researched the history of a place they were visiting, and others who would know the bare minimum about where they were going.  Some went to explore with friends, and others were there to just enjoy the interesting architecture they may came across.

Other people, however, you did not tolerate whatsoever in your home (apart from ghost hunters).

Firstly, disrespectful assholes.

Some assholes did show up over the years, and one group even went so far as to trash the second bedroom upstairs.  You’d been able to unnerve (and outright make a guy piss himself out of fear) to get them to leave, but the damage had been done.

You couldn’t bring yourself to go into that room ever since that happened.

Secondly, intruders who just made themselves at home in your house and attempted to stay for longer than a few hours.

Like the two giant jesters currently on the second floor.

It had been a while since someone attempted to live in your house (even if to just stay the night).

At least, you think it has.

Time still tripped you up now and again, unless you were able to find dates on something amongst one of your unwanted guest’s belongings. The last date you had seen was from…five years ago?

Maybe?

Not that the year really mattered much to you any longer, or the seasons.

The cold didn’t bother you any longer during the long winter months.  The snow couldn’t be felt, your only option of interacting with the snowflakes using little bits of energy here and there to manipulate a few flakes in an opposite direction with a puff of unneeded breath (sometimes people forgot to close the windows of the house, and you didn’t always have the energy to close them yourself).  And when there was no snow, there was the rain and the heat, neither of which you could feel in the spring and summer respectfully.  Even the autumn no longer brought you as much joy, even if you were pleased by the fact that, if leaves happened to fall and get into the house, you could crunch them with a few well-placed steps and a small of effort on your part.

Limited in interacting with your surroundings, you found what joys you could.

It wasn’t like you could feel the rain, apart from phantom memories of what it once was like.

Many sensations were like this now, if you really thought about it.

It had been so long since you had truly felt anything, since most of those sensations had long since been lost to you as the years marched by. Being dead wasn’t as interesting as all those movies and tv shows made it out to be.

Or had it been books that you had read before?

Damn spotty memory.

Shaking free of the thoughts, you looked up from where you were hovering just above the chair in the attic.  With a hollow sigh, you finally allowed yourself to think about the here and now, and not the past.

Specifically, those two giant jesters that had broken into your home that night.

One had even picked the lock, from the sound of it.

Floating up from the chair further into the air, you frowned thoughtfully.

It was so strange.

You couldn’t tell if the jesters were actually people inside of costumes, or if the intruders were honest to goodness robots of some kind. 

Being intruders, you hadn’t much cared, since you’d immediately gone about trying to chase them off, instead of biding your time. You’d started off small, putting things out of place here and there. Much to your annoyance, neither of the jesters seemed to notice, or if they had, didn’t seem to be overly bothered.

The moon-themed jester didn’t seem to care one whit about anything appearing out of place. It had, after all, been the most dismissive of the objects you’d moved. It had even dismissed your presence outright as a ‘draft’ when you were near doors or inside a room with the jesters.

You’d even managed enough energy last night to throw a tennis ball at the moon jester.

There hadn’t even been a response to that!

On the other hand, the sun-themed jester appeared to be much more open to the idea that the house was haunted.

Which it was, seeing as you were there.

But having someone believe made it easier to exert more energy, and you’d used it to attempt to scare the sun jester away while the other wasn’t around. Then, the moon jester had been back, managing to, infuriatingly enough, partially convince the sun jester that there was nothing out of the ordinary going on in the house. 

You had hoped that the knives ‘reappearing’ might have been enough to convince the sun jester. Instead, it had gone to the living room, so you’d focused and managed to tap into the leftover electrical energy in the house to switch off the living room lights. It was odd to see the sun jester collapse out of the blue but you’d had an amusing time tossing things to see if it was actually down and out.

It had been.

As frustrating as it was to fail to get either jester out of your house, you’d decided to try your luck again with the moon jester. The other one was, as far as you could tell, unconscious.

The moon jester was upstairs in the bedroom, and if you didn’t know better, it almost seemed to be aware of your presence, even if it couldn’t see you.

You hadn’t meant to linger, but you couldn’t help but remain in the open doorway (after pushing it open with some effort). The moon jester had been stretching in such a way that it looked like a smooth dance.  It was mesmerizing to watch, the limber and flexible way the jester moved across the floor to some unheard music.

Until the jester appeared to notice you, even if it couldn’t see you.

Likely because you had promptly closed the door, as if you shouldn’t have been watching. But when you realized the jester was staring at the door, you’d decided to test the theory.

You stared up at the attic ceiling, frowning over the recent memory.

You’d managed to successfully lure the jester up into this attic space. Then, you’d watched, partly awed and half creeped out, over the very inhuman, spider-like way the jester had crawled up and then crouched low on top of the wardrobe, limbs contorted in a very discomforting way.  The knees being above the head, the feet on either side of the hands that grasped the top of the wardrobe, those long fingers draped over the side to lightly dig into the wood. The circular, weirdly flat head was almost turned completely around on a thin metal neck to look in the direction of the mirror. 

That was some horror shit right there.

Curious to see what would happen, you waited, head still poking through the wall.

It had taken some time for you to get used to passing through solid objects without flailing or otherwise having an emotional breakdown (you know, an unpleasant reminder that you were, in fact, dead).

But your head in the room drew no reaction.

The moon jester didn’t even move from its perch.

At the time, you’d found that a bit odd.

Why not look at the door?

At this point, you’d backed off and, using a little effort, pushed the door open and entered the attic. You managed to shove to door shut more audibly with a ‘draft’ (energy), wanting to see the moon jester’s reaction.

It was…unexpected, to say the least.

You’d been completely unprepared for the jester to suddenly lunge from its perch, its face still turned toward the mirror.  The jester had all but thrown itself from the top of the wardrobe straight at you with arms outstretched, long-fingered hands topped with sharp claws grasping in your direction (where did those come from??).

For the first time in as long as you could remember, you felt a flash of genuine fear.

Right up until the moon jester went straight through you, crashed through the door (tasking it off its hinges), and fell straight down to the second floor.

You recall grimacing over the sound the moon jester had made.

All metallic sounding, which was not what you’d expected at all. 

Usually, when you scared people away from your home, you did your best to not cause physical harm to them via the environment. Sometimes, this was unavoidable, if the person you scared wasn’t there best at paying attention to your surroundings.  Like earlier, when the Sun jester had made a grab for the stair railing, only to miss it, and take a tumble down the stairs to the basement. Thankfully, the sun jester didn’t seem to be any worse for the wear, but it was a great deal more spooked than before. 

The moon jester, on the other hand?

Yeah…

You hadn’t expected it to take out the door.

That looked painful, and the resulting sound of the jester hitting the floor after completely missing the ladder had sounded horrible.

Bringing yourself back into the present again, you gave your head a little shake (ignoring the way your hair that floated along).  With a wavery sigh, you cautiously drifted through the now doorless frame to the attic. You moved effortlessly through the air, floating closer to the jesters.  Soon, you were hovering over the moon jester that lie sprawled on its back, the head facing the wrong direction.

It seemed like these jesters were not people in costumes.

Not with what you’d seen.

Hearing the sun jester’s rather loud fretting, you couldn’t help but smile a little when you learned that the moon jester was, in fact, called Moon.

Because of course that was its name.

Moon did not respond audibly to the other jester. It only made weird electric-sounding feedback instead.

You moved a little closer until you were floating inches away from Moon’s flat face, your head tilting a little to the side.

A robot, then?

Some advanced, sentient animatronic that reacted to its environment, and not just preprogrammed to do a few things over and over?

You tried to remember things from past years that you’d read or heard about (albeit rarely) from the people who would so rudely break into your home. Something about a company that had been making more and more advanced robots, ones that acted like real people, and not just puppets that repeated the same words and actions.

Moon’s eyes (optic lenses?) suddenly began to glow. First, it was a soft blue, its immobile face somehow conveying confusion. Then, the optics switched over to red, the lights flickering within the lenses before coming into focus.

You watched this curiously, your chin resting on crossed arms as you floated there, legs idly moving up and down as you waited to see what the robot would do.

As the sun jester (you presume it was called ‘Sun’ if the other was ‘Moon’) fretted even more than before.  It was currently telling Moon to not move, as he had taken a lot of damage to his system (it was a he? You guess if they were more advanced, maybe they would have preferences).

This just confirmed to you that the jesters were, in fact, animatronic).

While Sun was speaking, the color in Moon’s optic lenses shrank, as if he had remembered something.  The red light shifted away from Sun in order to…

…to lock eyes with you.

What.

Moon couldn’t see you, could he?

The mangled looking arm that grasped for you said otherwise. 

“Whoa!” Just barely managing to not flinch at the large spindly hand that passed through your nearest arm, you couldn’t help but grin smugly. Flipping upside down, you wiggled one of your hand’s fingers at Moon in greeting. “Better luck next time, jester boy.”

Moon’s lenses narrowed at that, the red glow now a speck within black as he took another swipe at you.

This time, you taunted the robot by floating just out of his range. You watched with interest as Moon attempted to sit up, all while hissing out a staticky growl. You flipped back over to lie belly down when you saw you Sun had grabbed Moon from behind, failing to get him to lie back down.  Then, Sun frantically began to try to press something on Moon’s back and head, as the latter jerked both head and body out of the way.

“Let go of me!”

“You’re going to damage yourself further!”

It was in this moment that you realized two things.

First, the nightcap you’d tossed down while Moon had been unconscious had caught on one of Sun’s head rays.

Second, this meant that Moon had a bald head without any rays.

“Bald…”  You muttered.  "Guess that's why there was a hat."

It seemed like Moon might have heard you, because his efforts to reach you increased as he managed to get to his feet.  And while he was doing this, he flailed an arm backward and reclaimed his nightcap, jamming it clumsily back onto his head.  Moon's attention snapped back to you, the jester giving off the impression of being livid, claw tipped fingers clenching and unclenching as Moon made as if to lunge up at you.

“Moon! Stop!” Sun scrambled up, catching hold of Moon as he teetered on uneven feet.  “What are you doing?  Nothing is there!  It’s safe.  We’re not at the pizzaplex!”

“Go…let go…”  Moon’s voice rasped out. 

“No!  You’re going to lose an arm, and maybe some connecting parts within your torso!  Please stop!”

”Listen to your friend and take a chill pill.” You said to the clearly enraged animatronic. “Sounds like you might break into pieces if you don’t, and if that happens, you’ll end up becoming scrap metal to litter my house. And having a creepy, broken to pieces jester robot would likely bring in more of those ghost hunters.” You grimaced over the thought of those people entering your home and trying to ‘contact’ you, the spirit and/or ghost haunting the place.  You could do without those people coming to your house any time soon.

The jester let out a gargling mechanical noise, those red dots within the dark optics lenses fixed on you.

“Not-t…scrap-p-p.”  The static sound was worse as Moon made as if to shove away from Sun, to take another swipe at you.  “No-not-“

Sun managed to finish whatever he was doing.

You watched as Moon instantly went limp within the other jester’s arms, optics going dark. 

What had happened? Some kind of forced shut down, like a computer?

“Oh, Moony…”  Sun murmured.

You heard soft words being spoken but couldn’t quite make them out.

With another sigh, Sun began to half drag, half carry Moon’s deadweight back to the bedroom they’d made use of earlier.  It was clearly a struggle for Sun, which could indicate he might have taken some damage from his earlier fall down the stairs into the basement.

While the jesters were otherwise occupied fixing themselves, you figured that you could take time to rest.  Even as a ghost, you needed to spend some time gathering up the energy to do some more ‘poltergeist’ activity. But as you went to lurk in the attic, you couldn’t help but float through the floor to watch the robots in the bedroom. Your curiosity about the two giant jesters had risen since last night, but you still had one goal in mind at present.

Getting Sun and Moon out of your home, preferably sooner rather than later.

Little did you know that this would be much harder to accomplish than you’d initially believed. Nor were you aware of the fact that you yourself would become an obstacle to the task you’d set yourself to.

But until that time came along, you used the rest of the morning, and part of the afternoon, to come up with what you’d do next to get the jesters to leave your house. By the time evening came around, you had a plan.

More cliché haunting activity it was, before you resorted to haunted house tropes. It wasn’t the most brilliant of ideas, but you would make do until a better idea hit.

Now, all you had to do was wait to regain enough energy to put your plan into action.