Chapter Text
It’s a lovely day. You munch on some chips from behind the security desk and watch the 20 or so kids run around and play, the two sun-and-moon themed Daycare Attendants laughing and playing along with them, each doing different things for the children that are either scampering about or those more shy and wanting to color. A lovely, wonderful, and calm day.
A child screaming at the top of their lungs breaks through your thoughts.
Yeah, okay, maybe not calm.
You sigh and get up from your comfy spot behind the security desk (leaving your tasty snack to be finished some other time) and make your way over to the screaming child. You have to make sure you don’t trip over some other little rascals that dart under your feet. These kids, man. You love them but they are so high energy you don’t know how the Daycare Attendants do it, even if there are two of them.
You work as the daycare assistant to the daycare attendants (It confuses almost every first-time parent when dropping off their kids) at the Superstar Daycare at Freddy Fazbear’s Pizzaplex, the “biggest and most impressive pizza place in pizza history!!”, as Fazbear Entertainment says. It really is a big place though, but you’ve been working here long enough to know your way around all the brightly colored floors and barely-lit employee hallways. It’s been… God, five years maybe? The thought of how long you’ve been working here is a bit jarring. Has it really been five years? It sounds about right, since you started working here at about the time you…
Once again the screaming child derails your thoughts. You rub your eyes and get down on your knees (only pausing for a moment once sitting to get rid of the sudden bout of dizziness) to be eye level with the little guy who is sitting/thrashing around on the ground.
“Hey buddy, what’s wrong?” You muster up a half-smile. The children here really are great but there’s just something about today that feels off. You’re… a weird kind of tired, a weird kind of wrong.
“I BROKE MY ELBOWWWWWW” the child wails, holding his elbow and flailing his legs.
“Okay well, let me take a look first, bud.” You wait until his cries calm down and he lets go of his elbow and shoves it forward into your face. There’s a little scrape on his forearm right above his elbow, probably from going down a slide incorrectly. “I’ve got some good news and some bad news. Which do you wanna hear first?”
“Gimme the bad news.” The boy sniffles.
“The bad news is you did hurt your elbow,” You try to keep a very stern and serious face. The boy copies you and frowns heavily.
“Will you hafta ampu.. ampe tat… Cut it off?!?”
“Nope! The good news is that the injury can be cured with a band-aid! Now tell me, what kind do you want?” You whip out three bandages, all with different patterns. One has a yellow and orange sun with a swirl inside it, one has a crescent moon with stars at either side, and one has jellyfish on it. The boy gasps with excitement then points at the jellyfish one with enthusiasm. You chuckle.
“Alright mister jellyfish, you ready to be cured?” You say in the same mock-serious tone as before.
“Yea!!” You unwrap the band-aid, “Wait! No! I’ve already got one of them on…” he suddenly sounds very worried. You tilt your head slightly and give him a confused look.
“Right here! I’ve already got one!” He points to an octopus-themed bandage stuck to the side of his leg.
“Oh, that’s alright. You can never have too many colorful bandaids.” You wiggle your fingers at him, showing off the 5 different bandages, all sun or moon themed, you have stuck to your hands and one around your wrist. “So do you still want the jellyfish?”
The boy’s face lights up and he nods vigorously. With the utmost precision (meaning you close an eye and stick out your tongue, earning a giggle from the boy), you place the band-aid on the scrape. The boy squeals happily and stands up, just about to run off when you do a quiet “tsk tsk” under your breath. He looks confused for a second before gasping loudly, louder than needed.
“THANK YOU FOR HELPING!!! Sorry I was about to run off but imma run off now bye bye!!” He bolts off towards the towers and the slides, most likely where he came from before his little scratch.
“No problem bud! Always happy to help!” You chuckle, more to yourself than the boy as he was already somewhere in the neon mess of the play area.
“Sunspots and solar flares!! That was just so sweet of you, my precious Stormcloud!” A familiar and cheery voice comes from behind you as two yellow arms wrap themselves around you, threatening to even lift you off of the ground.
Even without looking at him, his voice just sounds colorful and brings a warm and wide smile to your face. You turn a little and see Sun rubbing his faceplate against the top of your head. One of the two daycare attendants, Sun is the one tasked with keeping the kids entertained during playtime. Of course, just because it was Sun’s task that didn’t mean his night mode counterpart never helped with games.
“Our little Supernova, helping an injured child all by themself? I’m impressed.” Moon, the other daycare attendant and the one in charge of nap time and the “calming corner” of the room, stands beside Sun.
His voice is softer and more soothing, perfect for the lullabies he sings as the children fall asleep. He tries to act like the “cooler” older brother of the two but you know he’s really just a big softie who loves hugs and physical attention just as much as Sun. He just waits until the daycare is closed before he showers you in affection.
“Oh hush, you two. You act like I’ve never done that before when it’s basically a daily thing now.” You grab Sun’s arms, still wrapping around your chest, and give them a light squeeze. You look at the ground to try and hide how red you bet your face is considering how warm it feels. Moon notices this and his smile stretches wider. He leans over to the point his head is entirely upside down, millimeters away from yours.
“Is someone embarrassed? About being praised? Why, it couldn’t be our perfect little assistant, could it? They’re always the best at accepting how great they are.” He teases.
It’s sweet, if not insanely annoying, the way that these two have helped you with, well, you. When you first got here you had a… minor problem with accepting compliments which sometimes led to you either trying to show Sun and Moon that you weren’t the “sweetest and smartest” or just flat out arguing with them sometimes over something as simple as them saying you were doing a good job at helping them. That was… not a fun time. You don’t like thinking about it.
Ignoring that, you still have the jumbo babysitting bot up in your face. That’s easy to deal with though, you simply lean forward and boop the middle of Moon’s Faceplate with your nose. He jumps back and lets out what sounds like an electronic fit of giggles as he falls backwards onto the ground, overdramatic as always. This is met with a chorus of children laughing and running over to help Moon up.
Right. There’s going to be kids here. It is a daycare. You don’t care that these two colorful and affectionate caretakers are obviously being very cozy with you. In public. In front of tiny, judging eyes. You don’t care at all.
Another thing Sun and Moon have helped you get over, somewhat, is the fact that you just can not stand physical touch, platonic or otherwise, in public where other people could see you. Sure, when the daycare was closed you didn’t mind if Moon draped himself over you and you had to drag him around if you wanted to go anywhere, you’d even rub his faceplate sometimes when he’d bring you up to the balcony and he’d make a soothing purring noise as the two of you would just lie there together. You were totally fine with Sun making you sit in his lap, playing with your face or hair as you tried to do research on robotics, cheap but experienced doctors, and/or childcare (although on those days Sun would instead answer whatever questions you put in the search bar himself, claiming experience was better than what the mommy-blogs had to offer. You agree with him but it was still fun to see his reactions). For some reason, if Moon was ever clinging to you after closing, Sun left him, and you, alone. The same thing when Sun was spending time with you, Moon would leave you both be. You don’t know how, or why, they had set it up to where if one of them wanted some time holding you, you two would get some alone time. It was surprising but… really nice actually…
It only even started to bother you when they decided to do it when there were hundreds of hypercritical little kids watching your every move, ready to tell the story of whatever they had done at daycare to their parents, who may or may not complain to management about the Daycare Attendants and their assistant snuggling during nap time.
You’re exaggerating. There aren’t hundreds of children. (But there are quite a few. And you’re pretty sure they report the day’s happenings to their parents.)
“You bonked him! And knocked him out! That’s mean!!!” One of the children pouts.
She, and several others, are trying to make Moon sit up by pushing on the back of his head. You open your mouth to say something (you don’t really know what, maybe some sort of weak apology? Maybe blame Moon for starting it, that would’ve been good.) but are interrupted by Sun lifting you off the ground, still holding you in a tight hug, and letting out a pretend evil laugh.
“I must be rubbing off on them! I’ve been wanting to get rid of the ever-impressive Moon and have our dear, darling, sweet and lovely assistant all to myself!! MWAHAHAHA!!!” He lets out another evil laugh, this one starting to sound like a more genuine laugh though. Moon, still lying on the ground, opens his eyes just long enough to roll them and scoff before closing his eyes again because the girl from before gasped and patted his faceplate to see if she could get them to open again.
The kids shriek and giggle at “evil” Sun and how he pretends to run away with you in his arms, really just standing in place and moving his legs in an exaggerated and cartoony motion. You start to laugh along when you begin wheezing instead.
Not the fun, “it’s so hilarious I’m out of breath!’ kind of wheezing. It’s the “dear god I can’t feel my lungs and my mouth feels like a desert” kind of wheezing. The hyperventilation and lightheadedness come next, not to mention the daycare lights seeming suddenly blistering bright to the point where you have to close your eyes. Sun sets you down and you open your eyes again to see both Sun and Moon with matching expressions of worry. Good job to whoever designed their faces, they were almost human in the way they pitied you.
“Sorry Dewdrop, I forgot for a moment there… Why don’t you go sit back down at the desk?” Sun says, his voice lowered in volume to the point you take a moment to realize he even spoke. You take a painful breath in as you nod, rubbing your eyes and holding your head again because the dizziness is back.
You feel yourself being picked up again, this time in a more secure grip, basically bridal style, and only briefly open your eyes to see that it’s Moon carrying you back to the security desk. The chair that was so comfortable only minutes ago feels like you’re sitting on jagged rock as you are gently placed down into it. You wonder, only for a moment, where your snack had gone. The desire for food is quickly drowned out by the pounding headache starting to form. You lay your head down slowly, hiding your face behind your arms. Every movement feels like your brain is gelatin being shaken around in an oddly shaped bowl. The sounds of the rest of the daycare fade as the feeling of nails on a chalkboard that fills your mind makes the world dark. A single weak groan escapes your lips as you slip away from consciousness.
Your eyes slowly creep open. Your mouth is sticky and dry. You grumble something as you sit up, popping your neck and stretching your cramped arms. An ice pack (that you don’t remember getting?) tumbles off of your head and makes a splat noise on the ground. Ugh, you hate this feeling. The worst part of your impromptu naps has got to be the crusty feeling you have once you wake up.
No, actually, the worst part is probably the reason you have to have them in the first place. It’s your stupid heart. Not your emotional heart. God, that would be even worse, if you felt terrible every time anyone would show that they genuinely care for you. It’s your real, gross mess-of-muscles kind of heart. The organ that is supposed to pump blood and make you live like a regular functioning human. Something happened with one of your blood vessels getting blocked up because of not enough physical activity as you started getting older, which is not surprising since before this job you usually just sat in your garage working on commissioned robotics pieces, you were pretty good at making the basic jumpscare animatronics needed for haunted house attractions, and apparently building whole robots isn’t enough activity for your blasted heart. (It really wasn’t. The building was the quickest and easiest part, you spent most of your time coding those basic machines to the buyers very specific commands. Not to mention having to test out those jumpscares every time could not have been good for your heart in any way, shape, or form.)
Whatever, it’s not like you went to the doctor and they said they couldn’t do anything about it and you’ll die soon.
Oh wait, they did.
Your useless doctor, and the other few you’ve been to, racked up a big medical bill just for them to say they can’t even do anything. (The first one even told you to try meditation to make the most out of your final years instead of giving you any actual medicine. LOVE how great doctors are!) Currently, you’ve been told that you’ll live anywhere from 2 months to 4 years.
And that was 5 years ago.
So now you’re just here on borrowed time, working at a job you only applied for because it paid well and you didn’t think robots would care if you suddenly died one day. Go figures you’d land one of the only position in the animatronic industry where they actually do care if their tech dies.
Oh yeah, when you first got the job you were just the technician for Sun and Moon. They’d already been separated out of their single body (which seemed like an absolute nightmare even if they do get along pretty well on most days.) so your job has always just been maintenance and making sure they get updates. So far, the biggest things you’ve had to do is install newer, more cartoony face plates with matching full-body shells, give Moon a new voice box, and change out a broken elbow joint on Sun (now that was a REAL broken elbow, the entire forearm had to be replaced). Even your little side project that you’ve been doing recently is harder than your actual job usually is. It was just down the line that you’d also taken the job as “daycare assistant” about 3 years ago. According to Fazbear Entertainment, anyone with a high school diploma and a cleared background check can help with the kids. You’ve got both and decided to help the boys out. Not because they needed your help, god no, they had to teach you everything about being a caretaker and assure you that everything would be alright and you wouldn’t make a child’s entire life miserable just because you forgot their name. (You’d just make their day miserable, which is why you’ve settled on calling kids variations of buddy, little guy, pal, and little miss/mister. Or, you know, just not referring to them with any sort of name). You genuinely being helpful was never the reason, it was more about how sad they seemed after your short daily checkups. They’d come up with excuses to get you to stay, sometimes even just saying point-blank they wouldn’t want you to leave and would hold you hostage just to chat. It was very awkward in the beginning (you’ve never been a chatty, small-talk kind of person) but eventually you warmed up to them.
You sigh happily. You’ve been here so long it feels like you might as well have been here forever. Or at least since it opened. You’ve never tried to pry into what it was like here before you became the daycare tech, but Moon always seemed somewhat grumpy and Sun uneasy the few times you have brought it up so you’ve stopped even trying.
“Happy, dandy, healthy…” You mutter the stupid little mantra the first doctor told you as you lean over to grab the ice pack you’d discarded a moment ago. As you do so your hand knocks into something that rolls off the table. After a confused grunt and picking up the ice pack, you realize the daycare is dark, no kids in sight, and a plastic water bottle is what had fallen off. You uncap it and start chugging. It was still cold and felt amazing to the desert inside of your throat. (Ignoring the fact that you almost choke 2, no, 3 times) you feel perfectly refreshed and set the bottle back onto the desk. Your eyes are finally adjusting to the dark and you notice the amount of papers all over the desk. You swore that it was clean earlier… You pick a paper up and squint at it. Oh, it’s a kid’s drawing. Two stick figures, one short with a jellyfish beside its arm and a tall one with closed eyes and three “Z”s above its head.
Ah. Sun and Moon must’ve asked the kids to draw things to try and cheer you up (or to distract them from the fact you passed out. Probably both to be honest). It is sweet though, the short stick figure looks really happy. There are words along the top but with the darkness coupled with the fact a child wrote it in crayon, you can’t really read it.
“Aren’t they just adorable?” A voice full of honey says.
“They really are.” Another one, smooth as molasses, responds.
You jolt and whip your head to the side and see the two daycare attendants holding up different papers on the desk but looking at you. You let out a deep breath and chuckle.
“Yeah. They’re cute. Thanks for asking the kids to draw these for me, but I can’t really see them without some light. I don’t have specialty robot eyes like you guys do.” You remark, keeping yourself from adding a quiet “not yet anyway”.
What? The advances in technology might make it to where you will be able to see in the dark in the near future. Not what you were really thinking of though.
“Ah yes, sorry Stardust, please forgive us for wanting you to be able to sleep peacefully.” Moon holds his hands over his face, pretending to hide himself away. Sun just rolls his ghostly eyes (you can only tell because of the over-exaggerated way his shoulders move) and claps twice, bringing the lights back to the daycare.
You wished the light would activate when you clapped, but it was something connected to the daycare attendant’s hands. Moon had loved watching you try to turn them on yourself before Sun let you know it would never work.
“Thank you, Sunny. Now I can get back to looking at these masterpieces.” You nod at the daytime animatronic and pick up another drawing. This one has you being held by Sun with Moon “dead” in the corner. The X-eyes drawn over Moon’s face force you to stifle a snicker.
“Don’t say that with such sarcasm, Stormcloud. The children worked really hard on these! Also we did not ask them to draw them, for your information.” A bit of a pout works its way into Sun’s voice as he talks.
“Oh?” You raise an eyebrow.
“It was actually their idea to give you something after you woke up! Though they assumed you’d wake up before closing.” He explained.
“At first they just wanted us to draw something for you. As an apology of sorts. But they also drew things for you as well simply because they wanted to.” Moon chimes in, still holding different drawings.
“An apology? What for?”
“Weeee… kindaaaa…” Sun scratches at his faceplate, an absent-minded habit that started when the new heads came in and had a different texture. He usually does this when embarrassed.
“We told them that we had made you so flustered you had to sleep to get over it.” Moon cuts him off. Your eyebrows scrunch in confusion. Sun stops touching his face and instead grabs Moon by the shoulders and shoves him back a bit.
“Wait so… You said I got so badly embarrassed by being held that I passed out?? And they believed it enough to make you draw an apology..?” Your head tilts to the right. You don’t know if to be annoyed by the attendants’ weak lie or impressed that they got the kids to buy it.
“Waitwaitwait!! That’s not what reeeeally happened! We… said that your heart was… overheating and you needed to… cool down…” Sun trails off and starts scratching his faceplate once again.
“The kids took it as you got flustered though. We thought it was safer to just go along with it, it’s better telling a bunch of innocent minds about a heart disease.” Moon’s face does two full rotations before stopping at the same angle your head is at, like a robotic fun house mirror. You flinch and grip the bottom of your shirt to keep yourself from reaching for your chest.
“Not that there’s anything wrong with your heart!! We love it the way it is!” Sun quickly adds as he elbows Moon, who just now realizes what he’s said. The two animatronics panic for a second, the audible clicking of their gears gives it away. “And the children do too!” He sputters out.
Uncomfortable silence stretches out second after second.
“There is, though…” You say quietly.
“Hm?” The two say in unison.
“There is something wrong with my heart. You can’t just… Say there isn’t! Ignoring it won’t make it go away.” You feel your mouth twist into a grimace after those venom laced words leave your mouth.
Sun lowers his head slightly but Moon responds.
“That’s what you do though, isn’t it?”
You bite the inside of your cheek. Your grip on your shirt tightens and you can feel your fingers through the fabric. The glare directed at the two slowly fades as you feel another rush of tiredness. You plop your head onto the desk with a thunk, making both of the boys flinch and take a step towards you.
“Just… give me your stupid apology already…” You mumble. Moon holds out one of the papers he’s holding to you. You mumble about nothing as you peel it away from his hand. You slap it onto the table, flattening it out. (Looks like someone tried to crumple it up already.)
It’s you, standing between Sun and Moon, holding hands with both of them. The styles on the sides of the paper are different, the side with Sun being somewhat scribbly and there’s a blue sky filled with clouds with smiley faces, yet is still very well drawn. It was like it was purposefully made childish. The side with Moon has a night sky littered with stars and being very smooth and well filled in. You let a soft smile sneak onto your face. Ok, it’s really cute and makes up for how annoying they can be. The smile becomes strained when you realize there’s a giant red cartoon heart scribbled onto your chest and words at the bottom of the page that read “Your heart may be too big for your body, but we’ll still fill it with love!”
You sit up and look at the two daycare animatronics, unamused. They look back at you like two puppies desperately wanting a treat from their owner. You sigh and turn away from the desk.
“C’mere you two dolts.” You chuckle as you hold out your arms as wide as you can. The two immediately dash towards you and lift you out of the chair and into a big hug, holding you as tight as they can without strangling you. They’re getting pretty close though. You cough and the pressure suddenly leaves. Now, instead of being squeezed to death, you’re being held by one arm from Moon and one arm from Sun, together making you feel like a cat when it’s stretched out and dangling in the air.
“I”m fine, I’m fine.” You wheeze. The two give you concerned looks as they set you back down, yet not letting go. With your feet finally planted on the ground, you pull them back into the hug and grip them as tight as you can. You know it’s not nearly as tight as how they held you, but you still try. They’re so warm, Fazbear animatronics so perfectly designed with kids in mind. The way they hugged you felt like a blanket wrapping you up with love.
Not that they love-love you. You just helped them daily. And they liked having you around. And would be so sad when you left to go home for the day. And called you silly nicknames that they had come up with (Moon’s explanation for his favorite nickname being “You’re a supernova because you get so angry you blow up sometimes, but even when you explode you’re still beautiful and powerful.” and when Sun said “Stormcloud is perfect! Because you look so soft, sweet as cotton candy, and hold-able! But you’re also easy to aggravate. But the storms you bring have positive results! The kids always get along and play nice after you break up fights.”)
God, your eyes sting. Your face feels so wet, it’s terrible. You fail to choke back a sob and feel both Sun and Moon try to let go but you just hold them tighter. You hear the clicking of machinery again.
“I… I am really glad I found this job. I’m really glad I found you two.” You sniffle, “I just… want you guys to know how special you are to me. Even if I don’t show it. I know I’m not as touchy as you two are but please, please know that these years, all this time we’ve spent together, have been the best years of my life.”
After you finish, Moon breaks out of the hug and stares you down, squinting and holding his chin. Sun squeezes you once more before letting go, he looks at you as if you’ve taken his most precious thing away from him and broken it to pieces.
“What?” You wipe the tears and snot from your face.
“It’s just that this… sounds an awful lot like a goodbye.” Moon’s voice is hushed, faltering despite how he still looks like he’s teasing.
“You… you aren’t leaving us, are you?” Sun says, his voice as quiet as his night-themed companion.
“Well I’ve gotta go home today,” You sniffle some more. Gotta calm down. You haven’t cried in front of Sun and Moon since you started working here. Five years ago. Way too long ago. “But I hope I’ll be coming back tomorrow.”
“…You hope?” Moon stops squinting and the facade of joking falls away. He’s as nervous as Sun, maybe even more so.
“You’ve done nothing to warrant being fired… and your heart isn’t… that bad…” Sun murmurs, fiddling with his fingers and looking at them instead of you. The willful ignorance makes something inside you snap.
“No, Sun, it is that bad.” You click your tongue and take a step back.
“I was supposed to die a year ago, a whole year!”
Your voice gets caught in your throat after you say that. Oh god no, the tears are coming back. Both the daycare attendants stare at you in confusion and shock.
“What do- What do you mean by that?” Sun barely manages to squeak out words. For being so impossibly tall, he sure seems small right now. Moon’s fingers just twitch at his sides as he watches you, wordlessly a waiting a response.
“You know damn well what I mean by that.” The attendants wince, it’s been a long time since they’ve heard you swear, “I was only supposed to live for four years at most since I first learned about my… my- my shitty heart! Every day I’m alive is a FUCKING MIRACLE! And I don’t want to leave you two but God knows when I’ll fall down dead! Today has been a fucking”
You cough and wheeze in-between your words.
“NIGHTMARE because I wasn’t sure I was going to wake up!! GOD. Don’t you get it? I know I haven’t told you directly but I! AM! DYING! And you two are so important to me, I’ve been trying to make something that I’m not even sure is legal, much less ethical, just so I have the CHANCE of surviving!” You shriek and hold up your bandaged hands. “Don’t tell me you didn’t notice this!”
Sun starts to reach towards you. You glare at him, he just puts his hand back down and stares at the floor.
“Ok, yeah, fine, we did notice.” Moon says with an edge to his voice, “What’s a few scrapes got to do with your heart? Has it made you discoordinated? Can you not properly do your job anymore?”
“Oh, I’m sooo glad you care soooo much about my employment” you laugh, in a horribly sad and painful way as your chest heaves, “It’s from working on a broken robot, just so neither of us are alone.”
“You’re replacing us?!? I thought you liked us!!” Sun yelps, grabbing two of his sun rays in disdain.
“NO! I mean yes I like- Ugghhh, just listen! When I am dead and gone I want you two to forget about me!! Leave me decaying in the dirt and move on! I could never live with myself if I was the reason you two got depressed… or whatever…! Wait- not… not live with myself… rest in… peace with… myself… oh my God…” You start sobbing too heavily to say anything else.
The daycare attendants start rushing towards you but you hold up a hand and they stop. Your eyes are too blurred by tears to see their reactions. That’s fine, it doesn’t matter. They’ll hate you now anyway. That wasn’t your intention but after you show them what you’ve been working on everything will be okay. How did this crash and burn so quickly? You were going to tell them eventually, just not like this.
But were you honestly ever going to tell them before it was too late?
You use your arm to rub the tears from your eyes and grab Sun and Moon’s “apology” drawing off of the desk and storm away from them. You yank the door open (pretending to ignore them calling out for you) and stomp your way through the pizzaplex.
The whole place is closed and the only people still wandering around are STAFF bots and the glamrock animatronics doing security patrols. Oh, and Moon too. God, you hope you don’t see any of them tonight. Only robots do patrols as Fazbear Entertainment finds it cheaper to only pay their human workers, like techs and animatronic handlers, during the day. Fazbear Entertainment does everything it can to pay its employees as little as possible, and that’s not even mentioning the people who run the different attractions. Usually, they quit (or are fired) after they get denied a raise for the 45th time and get replaced as quickly as they leave.
You finally reach your destination (after a close call with Roxy and Chica, thankfully they were too busy talking to each other to notice you). It’s a worn down door with STAFF ONLY on the front. You fumble with your keycard and keep yourself from cursing as you drop it before it properly scans.
It has been… so long since you swore, like really swore. You feel guilt ripping through your heart. You didn’t really mean what you said, about them forgetting you and all. But… They’ll understand when you’re done. They have to. They need to.
You finally get the door open and sniff sharply, trying to get rid of the last remnants of your tears. It’s been forever since you’ve broken down like that. You grip the drawing from Sun and Moon. It’s so crumpled now, but it’s still beautiful. You really hope they understand.
You don’t clock out that night. In fact, you don’t leave the Pizzaplex.
Moon patrols until daybreak. Sun keeps checking with the other animatronics if they’ve seen you through “Channel 3”, the shared radio channel that’s basically a walkie-talkie into all of the robot’s brains. Nobody has seen the daycare assistant since they stormed out of the daycare (Roxy and Chica did notice you, but didn’t want to bother you. Your face was red and stained with tears so really they were just trying to be polite).
Nobody sees you the next day either and the daycare has to stay open. Sun and Moon do an almost flawless job of acting like nothing is wrong, only slipping up during nap time when the little girl who accused you of knocking out Moon brings up their missing attendant.
“Mister Moon… Where is your guyses helper person? If they got mad and left because I said they were mean I can say sorry.” She mumbles through her yawns. Moon finishes tucking her in and tries his best to keep his voice calm.
“Don’t worry Kate, they aren’t mad at you. They just needed to sleep some more.” He says in his butter-smooth voice. The girl blinks up at him, trying her hardest to keep her eyes open.
“Did they wake up yesterday? Did they like my drawing?” She asks.
“Yes and yes, they complimented all of the drawings and enjoyed them.” He has to force the words out of his voice box.
“What about… you and Mister Sun’s… drawing…” Kate drifts off to dreamland as Moon stands above her, unmoving. Sun, from across the room, had heard the whole conversation and started pacing as quietly as he could.
“Moon?”
“Shh, the kids.”
“Sorry, sorry…”
The two attendants stand in silence for a moment before Moon hears a static-y click and Sun’s voice bursts into his brain.
“But Moon, what if our sweetheart isn’t here because of our drawing? We shouldn’t have even mentioned their heart we already knew that it was a tough thing for them but also theynevertoldusaboutthepredicteddeaththing-”
“Think. Quieter.” Moon glares at Sun soundlessly.
“Is it our fault though??”
“Did you forget everything else they said? They’re making a robot, probably just got caught up with that.”
“…They didn’t clock out…”
“…maybe they just left without bothering too.”
“They said that the robot wasn’t going to replace us right? Do you think… They’re trying to replace…”
Sun’s sentence goes unfinished. Moon doesn’t stir as the static click plays again.
The muffled noises of playful laughter and retro music from outside the daycare are the only noises that try to break the suffocating silence.
The kids wake up a few minutes later and everything is all happy smiles and infinite playtime again. The day goes by and the daycare closes (A couple parents mention the lack of a human caretaker during pick-up. They don’t get an explanation.). Sun gets Freddy to ask all the human employees to search in the STAFF ONLY rooms, some of them halfheartedly do but not every room gets checked. Not the worn-down one at least.
The next day goes by the same. As well as the next day. Only on the third day after your “disappearance” does the worn down STAFF ONLY door get checked after a customer complained about the smell. It happens during nap time, not that it really matters to anyone not working in the daycare.
“Why do I always get the crummy jobs about smells…” A new employee named Emerson (But she really would just rather have people call her Emi) mumbles to herself as she goes to check out the room. She groans when she notices the lock and pulls out her security card, holding back her long strawberry-colored hair so she can see long enough to scan the card. The door pops open and Emi gags at the stench. She grumbles something under her breath about the job not paying enough when she goes into the room. She stops grumbling though, when she sees the source of the smell. The previously missing daycare assistant slumped over in a chair. Dead.
She responds to this visual by shrieking and pulling out her walkie-talkie.
“THERE IS A CODE SCARLET IN THE RANDOM ROOM THAT HAD THE NASTY SMELL!! I REPEAT, CODE SCARLET!!”
Cody (the young man with frosted tips whose job is to watch over the Roxy’s Raceway track) scratches his neck as he responds to his radio. “I don’t really remember what the color codes mean so can you like, just say what the problem is? Is it a possum? I bet it’s a possum.”
“IT MEANS THERE’S A DEAD BODY YOU FU-”
Noel, a middle aged man with square glasses and wrinkles befitting someone much older than him, turns off his walkie-talkie and chuckles awkwardly to the family trying to get a picture with Monty Gator, the animatronic he’s the handler for.
“Heyyyyy guys! Stop doing your funny pranks over the work-provided two-way radios where some of our guests can hear you! Change to channel 2 for off-topic speaking, remember?” He says through gritted teeth once he finally gets the chance to.
“Sure thing boss” Cody says dismissively as he switches over to channel 2. Emi clicks around with her walkie-talkie and, still not used to it, switches over to channel 3.
“Heya, new girl? What was that about a dead something in that broom closet we sent you after?” Cody asks. He waits a bit and after getting no response he flips to channel 3, just to test it out. “New girl?”
“Oh good!” Emi says with a sigh, “I was worried you’d just leave me here alone. Anyway, So you know how the broom room nobody uses was stinking up the place?”
“Yup.”
“Yeah, so turns out someone DIED in there!! They aren’t bloody or anything, they’re just dead!”
Cody doesn’t respond for a hot minute and Emi starts to freak out a little.
“Uh, hello? Hello?? You there?”
“It’s not that one daycare person with health problems, is it?” He finally responds.
“I mean…” Emi holds one hand over her nose and steps over by the body, “they have a name tag…” She reads out your name, stuttering slightly. “And it says daycare on it. So… probably?”
At that moment both of their walkie-talkies scream with painful and mournful static. Emi holds her walkie-talkie as far away from her as she can and Cody decides that it’s a great time to take his lunch break and leave the radio at his spot by the Roxy’s Raceway track.
"WHAT was THAT???” Emi shouts through the radio.
“Dear human employees,” A warm, friendly (and honestly very dad-like) voice answers, “You happen to have somehow started using channel 3 to talk about this… unfortunate accident.”
“Uhhh… What’s wrong with using this channel?”
“Nothing is wrong with using the channel exactly, it just goes directly into the radio installed into each animatronic’s head. And that means that you have informed both of the daycare attendants of what has happened to their assistant, who you probably know is very important to them.” The familiar voice of Freddy Fazbear says.
"Ah.” The newest Fazbear employee turns off her walkie-talkie. Can’t do any more damage that way.
Because this conversation happened during nap time, which is important to anyone working inside of the daycare, it means Sun and Moon got to hear everything that was said in channel 3 without interruption or distraction. They did a less-than-stellar job at pretending everything was okay.
Superstar Daycare closed early that day.
Freddy Fazbear, despite supposed to be doing walk around photos with families, is knocking on the door to the daycare and telling the Daycare Attendants where the “random broom closet” which held their “dearest, sweetest, and most helpful” companion.
Sun and Moon storm out of the daycare ignoring the fact that the rest of the pizzaplex is still open and basically break down the worn-down STAFF ONLY door. Inside is a big room (bigger than one would expect at least) with a desk, chair, and an entire wall covered in different boxes. The three humans (Emi, Cody, and Noel) already in the room look at the brightly-colored giant robots with various levels of surprise (Noel being absolutely done with this job and not even flinching to Emi physically trembling). Monty, the animatronic Noel is supposed to be watching, is surprisingly absent.
“Where’s the big green gator?” Moon spins his faceplate some as he gestures halfheartedly at Freddy.
“With Danni, Freddy’s handler.” Noel responds with a sigh, “Freddy wanted to be here, Monty didn’t. Easy swap because I’m not going to let these two idiots deal with this whole thing by themselves.”
Before Emi could even open her mouth to voice an offended response, Sun wails so extreme that his voice box clips in and out of static. Freddy finally enters the room (after having been left in the dust) with a very worried expression for a robot. His shoulders droop when he realizes what the noise was all about.
It was you.
I mean, of course it was you. Your heart had failed you while you were still in the pizzaplex, but thankfully only after you had finished your secret project (the one that was brought up in your final conversation-slash-argument with the boys). You were slumped over with your head dropping down, looking down at your lap, but still sitting up in an office chair behind a desk. In your lap was the drawing the Daycare Attendants had given you right before you disappeared. On the desk to your right was a piece of paper with words scrawled on it in big letters, it said “Please get Sun and Moon after daycare closes. They open the computer. Please” and a soft scribble that just trails off of the paper. To the left was a sort of dingy laptop.
“Is… this the computer they were referring to?” Moon asks with a shaky voice, pointing with suspicion to the grimy piece of tech. (Sun is too busy muttering to himself about ‘sleeping’ to even look at the note and laptop.)
“Dunno. We haven’t opened it.” Cody shrugs, “wanted to respect the dead’s wishes and all.” Emi elbows him. “What? They are dead. Nothing we can do about it.”
Moon has already tuned out the argument forming behind him and opened the laptop. He taps Sun on the shoulder, causing a rather aggressive head turn from the yellow animatronic, and points towards the computer screen. It unlocked without even needing a password and a paused video was opened.
It showed you, sitting in the exact chair you’re currently in with a tear-stained face with a soft smile spread across it. Sun immediately shoved his face into the screen, Moon having to yank him backwards away from it, and a small slap fight ensued between the two. Someone’s hand must have tapped the keyboard because the video started playing.
"Hey guys, it’s me. Hopefully it’s the Daycare attendants watching this… I uh… I’m sorry about what just happened…” the you in the recording sighs and runs their fingers through their hair, “I didn’t mean what I said about wanting you to forget and and whatever… It’s just… It’s just hard. For me. I don’t know if it’s hard for you because you’re just so friendly to everyone but you two are just… So special to me. It’s a weird feeling I don’t know how to describe… Ugh I’m rambling too much, god I’m tired.”
You rub your face with your hands. “Forget whatever sappy thing I was just saying. I can tell you it face to face because I, hopefully, can be un-dead! Wait, no, not like- I phrased that wrong- But, like, not a zombie but… UGH what I’m saying is I made a robot! You two know this, I just told you, and I’ll kind of be inside the robot! Brain-wise I mean… Kinda… Memory wi- forget the explanation. In this room is a STAFF bot upgraded by yours truly, using discarded parts and only buying things out of my own pocket money, ‘cuz no way do I trust Fazbear people to approve of this. On this computer there is, hopefully, a fully finished program that’ll put all of my memories into the bot so I can continue being the daycare assistant! And I’ll be able to help even more with some of the upgrades I’ll be giving to myself. So if all goes right you just need to press the blue button that says start… And… About the fight from today-”
Moon suddenly clicks around on the computer and closes out the video.
"HEY! We need to finish that!” Sun hisses, trying to pull Moon’s hands away from the keyboard.
“But if we can just bring them back sooner they can explain everything themself!” Moon slaps his day-themed companion’s hands away and continues messing around on the computer, clicking the folder titled “HEY SUN! MOON! OPEN THIS!”. It brings up a coding program with a square button.
“They might’ve had more instructions!!! And maybe not everything is ready! And they might explainthatweirdfeelingsoLETMEDOIT!!” Sun’s words tumble out of his voice box so fast they start mixing together. He and Moon fight over the computer by once again starting a slap fight, this time both clicking around on the computer as they hit each other.
“Guys, y’all need to chill.” Noel groans, “Just slow down, watch the whole video, then try the zombie robot.”
“I agree with Noel. It is not a good idea to try new things while still unprepared.” Freddy chimes in.
“CAN IT!” Both attendants shout as they slam their hands onto the laptop. They flinch as it makes a loud beep and the screen goes dark. Everyone in the room stands in silence for what feels like hours, time ticking by at an unnaturally slow pace. Sun and Moon don’t move, they don’t even twitch, for the entire time.
"..s…so…” Emi, ever the awkward ambivert, tries to start the conversation back up. Unfortunately, the second she makes a noise, the wall of boxes shudders, shakes and tumbles down.
The boxes fall with thuds, cracks, and squelches as the things they contain are scattered across the floor. Behind where the wall had once stood was a STAFF bot, or, more properly, one that had been tinkered with.
Only the top half really looked anything like a STAFF bot, the base of one having been used, but the head was changed. The bottom of the face had been replaced with a screen, same as the eyes, which currently showed a bright blue light with small white dots rotating in a circle. A loading screen. There was one in each eye and one where the mouth would be. The hands had also been changed from 3 fingers to four, an extra pinky finger being all that was added. The bottom of the robot though, was entirely different from any STAFF bot. Instead of wheels it had two legs, almost built like metal trunks, with balls at the back of the knees so it could have proper movement. It had separated feet as well, but they were more like bricks cut into wide triangles than what one would ever call a foot. The metal had been painted roughly to be different shades of red. There was a coating of silicone around the entire shell and the coat of paint, which gave it a squishy look and feel.
The animatronic started to wiggle its fingers. Then it’s wrists and elbows. It tested every joint, including its neck, while still having blue screens on its face. It started heating up but stopped getting warm when it reached about 98 degrees Fahrenheit, about the normal temperature for a human body. The eyes finally loaded, blinking a few times with cartoony exaggeration, before the jaw loaded in, only a simple straight line on a soft red background in the middle of the face. The line moved, mimicking the movements a real mouth would make.
“Uhhh… Hello?” It spoke in an awfully familiar voice.