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Chapter Text

The neon glare of the four animatronics illuminates your dismal surroundings in hues of green, orange, and purple.

You feel horridly out of place standing in front of a kid-friendly establishment while dressed in casual clothes that haven't seen the light of day in months, surrounded by adults with an actual reason for being here: their children. On your back is a plain backpack containing nothing but a wallet and a clear folder with relevant documents safe and secure in it. Relevant for what, you might ask? Why, the job offer that brought you to this building in the first place.

It’s a simple job on paper: assist the main daycare attendant in his duties. Hence, the “Daycare Assistant” title in the email you got last weekend. But you had a feeling there was more to it even before opening the email - the copious amounts of “You cannot sue us and we will systematically dismantle your livelihood if you try, bitch” written in lawyer talk doesn’t help - and your instincts were vindicated when your father had sat you down for a chat the week before.

This opportunity isn’t just for your benefit, he had been quick to assure you. He has a friend of an acquaintance who works for a company called Fazbear Corporation. You weren’t familiar with it then (you still aren’t), and he hadn't dived into it much; all you know is that the company is renowned for its advanced animatronics. He’d been sure to emphasize that they’re really, really advanced. Terrifyingly so.

Maybe he means that they know how to formulate sentences more complicated than “Hello”.

That’s not the important part, though. The whole reason your father went out of his way to speak to you: there’s a pizzaplex in the next town over, known as Freddy Fazbear’s Mega Pizzaplex. They have an onsite daycare ( why? ) that has a daycare attendant, but no daycare assistant. They need an assistant urgently, and your father has volunteered someone capable of taking on the position. You .

What?

“Why? Are you kicking me out?” you demand, jumping to your feet. It was lucky for you that you and your father were the only present ones in his office now, since you were too preoccupied by your surging indignation to care about your volume. “What did I do? Did I break something? I can pick up the pace, just tell me-“

“ Stop .”

It wasn’t quite a shout, but it made you jump nevertheless. Your father leveled a stern glare at you, and eventually, you got the message and lowered yourself back into the office chair with a huff. “ Thank you . Let’s get some things straight: I’m not ‘kicking you out’. This has nothing to do with anything you did,” he said matter-of-factly. “So calm down.”

“I am calm.”

Your defiant mutter went without comment. “This is just an opportunity. Or a chance for a… new change in your life, so to speak. You don’t have to accept it,” he added, a little too quickly for your liking. “But I highly suggest that you give it a listen first; you might find it interesting.”

You tried to hold on to your initial apprehension, but it eventually leaked out of your hands like melted butter. “Fine, I’ll listen,” you sighed.

Your father nodded in approval. “As I was saying, an acquaintance of mine has been looking for someone to fill in the assistant position at the…” He paused to squint at his monitor screen. “... Superstar Daycare. Yes, that. They have a Daycare Attendant stationed there, but they’ve been having some trouble securing an assistant for more than a month, at most.”

“And you volunteered me.”

“Not volunteer, suggested . There’s a difference.” You raised an eyebrow at him. “I told her I’d discuss it with you first before we proceed with any decision.”

You felt your shoulders relax a little. That was a little better, at least, but it also opened up a new can of worms. “So why me?”

His lips thinned into a reassuring but strained smile that immediately had you on edge. “That’s the thing: they have trouble keeping a daycare assistant around because the attendant had a number of complaints about every one of them. Things like them slacking off on their work, spending too much time on their phone, being impatient with the children, so on. You know, complaints typically aimed towards teenage part-time workers.”

“ All of them?” you asked, skepticism weighing heavily in your voice.

Your father sighed. “Apparently so. From what she’s told me, this…”

He waved his hand around for a bit to find the right words.

“… Solar? No, Sun, that’s it. It can be a bit nitpicky when it comes to how the daycare runs. Not that I hold it against it; any facilities involving children should be held to the highest standards possible.” He nodded to himself. “But that’s beside the point. Long story short, it deemed every single assistant as inadequate, and my acquaintance is getting worried because the attendant isn’t supposed to be operating without at least one assistant, according to company policies.”

“Why don’t they just fire the attendant?”

It seemed like an obvious solution in your eyes, but with the way your father gaped at you, glasses slipping down his nose, you might as well have suggested a sacrificial ritual with the daycare children. “What? I’m not saying they should , I’m just asking why the multi-million dollar company didn’t take the cheaper option and just hire someone easier to work with,” you said defensively.

“I…” Somehow, your father looked even more pained hearing you talk. “Honey. They can’t fire their own animatronic.”

Animatronic?

“Wait wait wait, are we still talking about the attendant here?” You were half-hoping that you had missed a turn in the conversation earlier, but your father nodded. “Wait, I’m sorry, they put a bloody robot in charge of children? Like, it actually picks them up and plays with them?”

“ Yes . We already went over this just now!”

“You only said that the animatronics sing songs and perform for the kids! How the hell was I supposed to pick up on the fact that people are stupid enough to leave their children with a robot?!”

“That’s their whole gimmick, how did you not know… Anyway, back to the topic-“

“No no no, don’t just move past it like it’s nothing!”

Looking back, that’s not exactly the best conversation you’ve had with your father.

But once you had come to terms with the fact that yes, this animatronic ( ‘Sun,’ your mind supplies) is more than capable of looking after human children so you should stop questioning it, the rest of the discussion had moved on relatively smoothly. You were brought up because this acquaintance, one Melinda Jones, had lamented about the state of this generation’s “work ethic”, asking if he could recommend any of his students to take a part-time position as a daycare assistant while she continued scouting for a more permanent candidate. He had raised her one better: he knew someone perfect for the position and could work full-time as well.

So here you are.

You had raised some doubts back in your father’s office, one of them being about your lack of experience in actual childcare - which your father had brushed off with “She’s not looking for people with experience, just someone willing to learn” - but the biggest problem of all remains nestled deep within in your chest, unwilling to show itself for fear of being mocked to hell and back:

How awful is this Daycare Attendant?

You feel silly for even thinking about it. You’ve already said yes to giving this the good ol’ college try, so what’s it matter? It’s just going to make you look like a coward .

But at the same time, you can’t help but wonder! You aren’t a stranger to hostile coworkers, and yet, you’ve managed to continue working in your father’s school until recently. So what could the Daycare Attendant have done to drive away not one, not two, but five assistants in a row? It had to have been something worse than your own lived experience, right? Imagined scenarios of what could have happened to your predecessors rise unbidden in your mind, each one more outlandish than the last, and you hurriedly suck in a deep breath.

You won’t know what will happen if you don’t step foot inside the building, will you?

Stealing your nerves, you step through the automatic doors. They slide open, releasing an icy blast of air-conditioning that immediately freezes your nerves with much-needed relief. You take a moment to bask in the chill before you properly drink in the scene before.

And by god, is it a scene . Your eyes, so used to polished mahogany desks and beige walls, are temporarily flashbanged by the popping colours of the interior. There’s so much to take in all at once: neon lights, the dense crowd milling in the entrance lobby, the little white robots weaving in and out of the human sea with mops in hand, the massive golden statue of a bipedal bear taking center stage of the lobby… You have to take a moment to close your eyes and take a breath before your brain melts from sheer overstimulation.

That’s not even taking the noise level into account. You can catch raucous laughter from the many children running about helter-skelter, and the mechanical drone of the little robots as they ask for unobstructed pathways from the patrons (which has a fifty percent success rate from what you can see), but everything else melds together into a cacophony that grates against your skull. Even when your ears adjust after the initial few seconds, you still find yourself resisting the urge to cover them.

‘Ugh. I just want this done with.’ Squinting against the bright lights, you scan the lobby floor. ‘ That lady said she’d be waiting by the ticket gate… Ah, there she is.’

A dark-skinned woman with black hair tied in an elaborate bun and a slender figure, dressed in office attire that looks drab next to the garish colours of the pizzaplex, is standing by a confectionery stand stocked with various animatronic-themed foods. Pinned to her jacket is an orange-and-blue name tag that reads “Hi, my name is Melinda!”. She spots you at the same time, greeting you with a polite smile and your name. “Good evening! I hope you had no trouble finding your way here.”

So this is your father’s friend. Acquaintance. Your future supervisor? There’s probably a difference between the terms buried somewhere in your memory, but it doesn’t matter much to you when both can be summed up to “She knows my father and will be judging me as his kid”.

You straighten your posture, forcing your hands by your sides and smoothing your features over into what you hope is a neutral expression. “Hi, ma’am. I didn’t have any trouble getting here. Ma’am.”

You want to slap yourself.

To your surprise though, the lady laughs with no trace of judgment in her voice. “There’s no need to be so formal with me, dear! Just call me Melinda or Miss Jones.”

“Sure, M-Melinda.” Her first name feels odd rolling off your tongue, but you manage it with minimal stammering. You quickly grab your right hand before it can reach up to fiddle with your hair. “So. What’s first on our agenda?”

“Straight to the point, I see! Good, I like that.” She taps a card against the reader, allowing the ticket gate to beep green and let you in. “Has Alex given you the basic rundown of the dilemma I’m facing?”

It takes you a moment to realise she’s referring to your father. “Uh, yeah. Something about him not working well with his assistants,” you say as you step through the gate. The silence hangs for a moment too long before you realise - again - she’s waiting for you to continue. “And that he can’t work without an assistant, and… he’s being a bit of a prick.”

The last bit slips out faster than your brain can catch up, and your expression drops in mortification. Forget slapping yourself, you’re expecting Melinda to smack you instead for insulting the company’s beloved animatronic. Yet, she surprises again by hiding an unladylike snort behind a sleeve. “Sorry, sorry,” she gasps as she fans her face, a light blush dusting her cheeks. “I didn’t mean to do that. It’s just that, you’re not wrong, but please try not to say that in front of the Daycare Attendant. I don’t want you to start off on the wrong foot with him before you start your first day.”

‘Him?’

You flash her a stiff thumbs-up, just glad to be moving away from your blunder.

“Come along then. We don’t have all day, and I want to introduce you to the attendant before he starts his usual clean-up routine.” Melinda tips you a look of well-worn exasperation. “Or else he’ll be filing complaints about his daycare operations being thrown into shambles for a whole week.”

You nod in agreement, although privately, you find yourself commiserating with this mysterious Sun. Being interrupted mid-work is about the most annoying thing you can think of happening.

Melinda gestures for you to follow, and you fall in step behind her as she leads you through the thinning crowd. A handful of patrons are already making their way out of the pizzaplex thanks to its closing hours drawing near, but the crowd is still thick enough that you have to hunch into yourself to avoid brushing shoulders with some irate parent. Sticking close to Melinda helps since her mere presence is enough to create a small bubble of personal space and carve a path through the throngs.

Straining your ears over the hubbub, you barely manage to catch her speaking.

“Starting tomorrow, you’ll be starting your trial week as the daycare assistant. You’ll still be paid for your time even if you quit halfway through, don’t worry about that. The purpose of this trial week is to just see if you’ll be a good fit with the Daycare Attendant. Given how quickly some people up and quit on us, Management decided it would be… simpler to ease potential candidates into the role this way.” The emphasis on “simpler” makes it sound like it’s meant to be “cheaper” without saying it out loud. “So you won’t be given many, if not any, tasks outside of the daycare itself during this week. All you need to worry about is to forge a working relationship with Sun.”

“Mhm.”

Both of you ascend an escalator to the second floor. Melinda leads you down a path to a less packed area, through a set of doors labeled “Superstar Daycare Pick-Up”. Upon your terse reply, she sends you a look of concern over her shoulder. “Is there an issue you have with what I said?”

The question doesn’t sound angry in the slightest, but you still find yourself wincing at yourself for the curt response.

“Um…” You mentally scrabble for a question to toss out. “… I was just wondering about the, um, responsibilities of being a daycare assistant. What I’m actually supposed to do and all that.”

‘Saved it.’

Her concerned expression relaxes at your question. “You don’t have to worry too much about that yet. I know you don’t have much experience in childcare, so please don’t hesitate to come to me - or your other coworkers - if you have any trouble.”

You’re led into another section of the pizzaplex with false palm trees lining the interior and striking murals painted on the walls from top to bottom. The two most interesting paintings, depicting what you can only assume to be the Daycare Attendant, catch your eye: on your left is a depiction of a sun-themed character from the bust up. A head ringed with sun rays smiles up at a candy wrapped in equally bright colours, the wrapper’s ends held up by its disproportionately slender fingers. The word “SUNDROP” is painted below.

The other mural depicts another animatronic whose design clearly parallels the sunny one, but is painted in more muted shades of blues and whites. Instead of a sun-shaped head, its faceplate is modeled to resemble a crescent moon, a tranquil smile carving a line from ear to ear. Its eyes are closed as though fast asleep, its hands cupping a candy near identical to its radiant counterpart, but dressed in more shades of blues with a crescent design on the wrapper. “MOONDROP” cradles the animatronic painting in a gentle curve.

Melinda catches you staring at the murals for a little too long. “Can you guess who that is?” she laughs.

“I think it’s safe to assume which one is Sun,” you say drily as you glance at the Sundrop mural. Is Sundrop his given name? Do animatronics even know the concept of “given names”? “He doesn’t look so bad.”

You nearly miss the nervous tic that spasmed in her right eye.

“That’s a good attitude to have!” Melinda says with forced cheer. “Come along, we don’t have much time to waste!”

That doesn’t help your festering doubts whatsoever.

You still trail after her like a lost puppy as she leads you to an attached room that visually clashes with the rest of the area. “This is the check-in room for parents to drop off their children,” Melinda explains, waving a hand at the room at large. “The children normally take the slide down to the playroom, although sometimes the shyer ones will be dropped off at the other entrance downstairs, so you’ll have to be on the lookout for that.”

Even if Melinda hadn’t told you, you would’ve been able to clock on to the fact that it’s an extension of the daycare yourself, essentially a balcony fashioned into a check-in room to make it easy to gaze at the fun awaiting below. It has that preschooler vibe to it: its walls are painted a pastel blue with plush couches and tiny chairs made to hold only kids scattered across the carpeted floor, littered with a stray wooden block or scribbled artwork here and there. There’s a check-in desk tucked away in the corner, and next to it is the mentioned slide leading down to the lower level. A widescreen TV hangs overhead, displaying an advertisement with the very same sunny animatronic with its odd yellow candy. And the mother of all decorations takes center stage in the middle of the room: a ten-foot-tall statue of both animatronics, one throwing his hands high in the air as if accepting applause and the other crouched at an impossible angle. The place is currently deserted, save for one lone guy manning the desk.

Peals of young laughter waft from below. The empty air around the tube slide is blocked off by netting that stretches from top to bottom, preventing any dumbass from toppling right off the edge like you . The blanket of weaved rope doesn’t seem like it would break under anything but the heaviest of weights, much less your own slight frame, the rational part of your brain points out.

The sight still makes your palm slick with sweat. 

“This is James,” Melinda introduces the person behind the check-in desk; a man who looks like he’s in early forties with short brown hair and dull gray eyes that barely give you a glance down. His uniform is an eye-watering mishmash of reds, yellows, and blues. She introduces you to him as well. “James, this is our new daycare assistant. I hope you’ll help with making her feel comfortable here.”

His brows furrow. “You managed to rope in another sucker?”

“James!"

“ Sorry , I didn’t mean anything by that,” he says in the least apologetic tone possible, raising both hands in surrender. “It’s just that you’re not exactly what I was expecting. Y’know, with how neurotic that freaky robot can get and your… size, you gotta watch your back.”

“James! Watch what you’re saying!”

“It’s fine, it’s fine,” you grunt. It’s not exactly the first jab you’ve gotten about your height. “I already decided I’m doing this, so are we going to see this Sun anytime soon?”

Melinda shoots him a look before saying to you, “Of course! I’ll show you the way down.” Just then, the sound of laughter quiets down. “Oh! The last child must be leaving now. Come on, we can catch him if we hurry a bit.”

Melinda speeds towards the nearest escalator. You jog a bit to catch up to her, all too happy to get away from the dizzying height - but not before you catch a glimpse of James mouthing “good luck” to you.

How reassuring.

You’re led down to a lower level. It’s yet another expansive floor - just how big is this place? - decked out in another flavour of kid-friendly decorations, with beach-like wallpaper and fake palm tree wall decals surrounding what looks to be a waiting area for parents. A handful of tables and chairs cluster against large viewing windows looking into the playroom. In the middle of the area is what can only be the daycare with a set of double doors nearly twice your height. From where you stand, you’re able to see a father carrying a little boy in his arms talking to a figure. 

What the father is talking to, however, is far more interesting.

The figure is partially blocked by the man, but with its insane height, it doesn’t really matter. You can still see its sun rays spinning around its ever-smiling face, eyelids pulled up to form what you think is an anxious expression. Its entire outfit brings an image of court jesters to mind, the kind you’d find in fairytales: especially the red ruffles around its neck and its striped poofy pants. Jingling bells chime incessantly as the figure makes wild gesticulations at the father (who’s discreetly leaning back from it), to which the little boy is giggling and reaching. Even standing among the bright paints of the area, its shades of yellows, oranges and reds make it stand out like a sore thumb.

“Sun!” Melinda calls out, confirming your suspicions. “Can I have a word with you?”

The animatronic’s head snaps up so swiftly that it makes your neck hurt seeing it. As you follow behind Melinda, the father barely throws the two of you a glance before rushing off awfully quick, ignoring the animatronic waving them off. The little boy notices though, and waves a tiny fist back over his father’s shoulder. Once the last patrons vacate the scene, it turns its attention towards you.

Your heart skips a beat.

It doesn’t stop there. Unease trickles down your back like cold water, chasing away any drowsiness that might’ve plagued you until now. Looking at the animatronic is like staring down an empty parking lot, or a vacated shopping mall; it feels uncanny.

Every bounce in its legs, the way it fiddles with the red ribbons wrapped around its wrists, how its grin wavers for a moment when its blank eyes land on Melinda… It’s just like seeing a breathing, living human. However, your brain refuses to compute that fact with the knowledge that it’s a robot. Machinery. It’s not supposed to behave that way.

You know you’d already been warned of this, but there’s a difference between word of mouth and an actual lived experience. ‘Dad really wasn’t kidding when he said their AI is advanced advanced…’

“ Miss Jones! ”

Even its - his - trill sounds more like genuine excitement than an artificial voice. His eyes twitch away from you (you breathe a sigh of relief) to beam down at the woman. “What brings you here? Oh, oh, do you want to have a sleepover? That’s such a lovely, faz- tastic idea, I’d love love love to have you!” Sun flaps his hands frantically as if he’s unable to suppress the sheer joy the idea inspires in him. “The little sunbeams used up a bunch of our craft supplies - will have to ask for restocking soon! - but I’m sure there’s some left-“

Melinda holds up a single hand, cutting his rambling off in a single movement.. His sun rays droop like wilting flower petals.

“Is that a no?” he asks, and although his faceplate doesn’t change much, you can hear the pout in his voice.

“Sun, you know that I’m very busy with my work. I don’t have time to play with you.” The exasperation in her words tells the tale of many previous instances of this exact scenario. “If you would give any of your assistants a chance to settle in, they might make for better playmates…”

He tilts his faceplate upwards as if he’s emulating the motion of sticking his nose in the air. “Hmph! I’d rather give up all of my glitter glue and googly eyes than spend another second with them.”

So, so many human movements. You now kind of understand why the father had scurried off so quickly earlier, although this also makes you wonder how he normally behaves around children. Surely he wouldn’t still be around if the kids, the main demographic of the daycare, were scared of him, right?

‘I guess it’ll be easier to treat him like any other coworker this way.’ Memories of your former colleagues rise unbidden, and you grimace. ‘Scratch that. Treat him like any other human.’

You keep to the sidelines of this conversation, happy to remain a spectator if it means staying out of his bubble of boisterous joy. Unfortunately, that’s quickly ruined when Melinda gestures towards you.

“I came down here because there’s someone I need you to meet.”

His head swivels to face you. You manage to not scramble back as Sun looms over you. Shit! Even when it’s bent nearly at a ninety-degree angle, the top of your head doesn’t clear the the top of his faceplate. The animatronic would tower over even the giant that is your father.

The light in his eyes flashes brighter for a moment.

“Hmm? I don’t recognise her, nope, not at all! Not a lick of her name or face in my database!” His head tilts left. “Are you a parent? You don’t look like one. Oh, maybe a sibling!” His head tilts right. “Or are you a new employee? Moonie’s mentioned they’re looking for a new security guard, are you them?”

Every word tumbling out of his unmoving mouth brings his face inching closer and closer to you, until you can make out individual nicks in the pale yellow paint without squinting. Backing away without saying anything would be rude, you’re socially aware of that much, but the warmth radiating off his mechanical body is making the cold sweat rolling down your temple much worse.

“Um.” You can hear the creak of his joints as he leans closer, anticipation buzzing off his frame. It distracts you enough to forget what you’re about to say. “Uh.”

Evidently deciding to take pity on you, Melinda answers, “She’s your new assistant, Sun. She’ll be starting her first day tomorrow, but I thought you might appreciate it if you got a heads-up on it.”

The temperature drops.

You can see the exact moment the joy freezes in Sun’s face. His eyes dim, and his grin drops into the flattest line physically possible while still maintaining an upward tick in the corners of his mouth. Sun zips back into an upright position so swiftly that you feel a breeze in your hair. “Assistant?” he echoes.

“I know you heard me the first time,” Melinda says, a warning edge already in her voice.

You decide that you should probably speak for yourself before you get buried under the mounting pressure. You raise your hand in greeting. “Hey, Sundrop.”

You vaguely see Melinda shoot you a worried glance, but that’s overshadowed by the sight of Sun narrowing his eyes down at you. He even holds himself a little straighter, putting your line of sight at around his elbow height. 

“My name,” he says with enough acid in his voice to melt you down to the bone, “is Sun.”

“Oh. But-“

“Sundrop is the name of the candy,” Sun continues, enunciating his words slowly and loudly as if he’s explaining a basic concept to you.

“O-oh.” Face flushing, you scratch the back of your neck. “Sorry about that.”

The animatronic makes a considering hum at the back of his “throat”, then snaps his gaze to Melinda at lightning speed.

“I think you must be mistaken, Miss Jones! This can’t be the new daycare assistant.” A giggle bursts from his voice box, teetering on the edge of irritation. “One must be at least eighteen years or above to apply for any job positions in the Fazbear company!”

What.

Did he just make a short joke?

“I’m twenty-five. Not everyone can be blessed with noodle limbs like yours,” you say, too stunned to really express much more than mild surprise. He lets out an affronted gasp, which takes you by surprise. “What?”

“How dare you!” he screeches. “My body is perfectly proportional! You’re the one with short legs!”

Your eyes widen. “Huh? Whoa, whoa, whoa, I wasn’t trying to insult you. I just-“

“Ha! Not only are you rude, you’re a rude little liar . Someone like you has no place in my daycare or the little sunbeams!” You nearly jump out your skin when his hands clap down on your shoulders, his fingers long enough to meet each other between your shoulder blades, and he pushes you back with strength unbefitting of his lithe frame.

You stifle a gasp, your fist raising-

“Sun!”

You’re immediately released. Sun leaps back as though electrified, his eyes widening with a quiet horror. Melinda steps in between you two, shoulders squared and exuding an aura that reminds you, oh yeah, she’s in charge around here. It’s what makes you stuff your clenched fist into your pocket and Sun to back off, twisting his hands anxiously. 

She doesn’t look at you, though. Her full attention is focused solely on the fidgeting animatronic through a single glare, hands planted on her hips.

“Sun. I don’t think I need to remind you of our previous discussions.” 

“I didn’t hurt her!” he bursts out, then his sun rays shrink into his head. “I-I only touched her a little, really!”

“Er, yeah. What he said.” You wave both arms to demonstrate your continued good health. “See? All good.”

You don’t mention the phantom sensation where he had grabbed you or the erratic thumping in your heart. You’ll get over it.

Melinda spares you a brief glance and a small smile. “Are you okay?”

“Yes, yes! It’s not a big deal,” you say, waving off her concern with a slight tinge of red in your ears.

Sufficiently reassured, she turns back to Sun. “You’re very lucky she’s nice enough to let this slide. Do you think any of your previous assistants would have done the same?”

Said animatronic flinches and averts his gaze.

Undeterred, she continues, “Company policy clearly states that the Daycare Attendant requires at least one assistant present during opening hours in order to continue operating. Management already made a concession on my report by discarding the handler role, but they will not budge on this. You know this.”

Sun picks at a loose thread on his wrist ribbons. When he speaks, sulky resentment is dripping from every word. “But they’re unnecessary. We… I don’t need anyone to help me. They’re nothing but trouble, that’s all they are! Nothing but trouble and I get into trouble for it!”

“I have good news for you, then! This young lady,” You jump a little when you’re grabbed by the hand and dragged to the midst of this confrontation, “came to me with high recommendations, and she’s willing to put in the hard work to learn the ins and outs of the daycare! Give her a chance and I’m sure you’ll be blown away by what you see.”

High recommendations? Okay, now you know she’s lying through her teeth; no way would your father talk about anything you do to that degree. All you do is what’s expected of anyone else in your position.

(It still brings a healthy flush to your face.)

“Y-yeah, I’ll, uh, do my best,” you say as stiff as your hand feels in her grasp. ‘Please let go, please let go now, pleeeaaase.’

Despite the ringing endorsement, Sun doesn’t look the least bit convinced as his fidgety movements grow more agitated. “Words are very, very easy to say, you know! Why, I can say that I’m the main star of the pizzaplex and the other animatronics are but my sidekicks, and everyone loves me!” His eyelids pull down to aim a sardonic expression at the two of you. “Doesn’t make it true , does it?”

“We won’t know that until she actually starts working here, will we?” Melinda shoots back, thankfully letting go of you in the process.

Unintelligible grumbling is all you hear from his voice box.

“Sun, it’s been nearly two weeks since your last assistant.” Your eyebrows raise at this. Did Melinda admit to bending the rules for the sake of an animatronic? “I’ve already stalled Management for as long as I possibly can, but sooner or later, they will start prodding into the issue.”

She leans closer with a stern glint in her eyes. “If Management finds out you’ve been deliberately rejecting all of your assistants, they will close this daycare indefinitely and have you sent down to Parts & Services. Do you want that?”

Sun had already been shivering slightly as Melinda dealt out what was clearly a dirty little secret between them, but as soon as the words “Parts & Services” left her lips, the change in demeanor is drastic. His posture turns downright terrified, hunching into himself and tugging on his sun rays so strongly you’re a little worried they might be ripped clean off.

“ NO! No no no, there’s no need for that. No need for that awful, no-good place…” He shakes his head wildly. “We’re not going down there! We… I-I’m operating just fine and dandy! Better than I’ve ever been, in fact!”

“Oh dear, it’s not that bad,” she sighs, as if this is a common topic that comes up with Sun. 

“… Alright! Alright, I’ll give her a chance. But only one!” he adds hastily, jabbing a finger right at your nose. “I’ll be keeping a veeeery close eye on you, human! If I see one little slip-up, the tiniest, itty-bittiest mis take , I’m giving you the boot!”

 He very noticeably avoids the mention of that place, but it’s hardly any of your business. “… Noted.” Your lackluster response earns you a grimacing smile from Sun. You feel yourself falter a little under it. Maybe you should sell yourself a little more? “Um, I promise I’ll work as hard as I can? I’ve done similar work at my previous job, and…” You rack your brain for any examples. “…and I’m really good at keeping things squeaky clean! You like that in a daycare, right?”

His eyes narrow into slits.

“I’m not lying, I…” This is the longest you’ve talked to a stranger and you don’t like the sensation of self-consciousness squeezing your throat close that comes with it. “I-I might not know the ins-and-outs of this daycare yet, but I can pick up things quick! That’s what I did in my last job; I just kept shadowing the senior staff members until I could do what they’re doing. My da- boss even said I could replace the whole janitorial team, heh.”

(For budgeting reasons, but still.)

“So… I won’t get in your way, and I’ll do whatever you say.” There, nice and simple. You even manage to muster a winning smile.

The lights of his eyes flicker into pinpricks, the corners of his smile stretching wider. For a moment, it seems that he actually likes what he’s hearing, then…

“I’ll believe it when I see it!” he screeches with a renewed burst of frustration, startling both you and Melinda. He grabs the edges of the double doors, gripping so tightly that it makes the wood beneath his fingertips creak. “I need to go now! There’s so, so, so much to tidy up and I can’t have any more distractions! Goodbye!”

The door slams shut with a thunderous bam.

Your ears ring even as silence settles around you like a thick layer of dust. You blink at the closed doors in a bit of a daze, still reeling from the last-minute display of hostility. Not that you’re a stranger to it by any means, but normally there’s at least a grace period before people decide they don’t like you.

‘Was it something I said?’

Melinda is looking at you with a mix of embarrassment and pity. “I’m… I’m so sorry for his behaviour. He’s just… Well, the daycare is all he knows, so he can be a bit protective of his, well, not his territory, but…”

You quickly wave it off, the back of your neck growing warm with mortification. “It’s not a big deal. I was expecting worse if anything,” you grunt.

Melinda gapes at you.

“What? I’ve had to work with worse people, Sun doesn’t even rank anywhere close to the top five. ‘Sides, it’s not like he can hurt me.” The moment it leaves your mouth, the possibility hits you like a sack of bricks and you shoot Melinda a wide-eyed look before you can stop yourself. “Right?”

“Of course not!” The woman launches into a spiel about Sun’s programming and his inability to harm staff (without good reason, she had oddly noted), and you’re forced to give your own reassurances that no, you’re not truly worried about being harmed on the worksite, you’re not going to sue the company if that does happen, and you’re more than ready to take on the job. Your mouth has probably gained a few more ulcers by the time you’re done, but on the plus side, it seems to have satisfied Melinda.

“So you’re still willing to take the job?” she presses.

“‘Course. If I let myself get beaten down so easily by some stupid jokes, I would have left my last job years ago.” You’re just stating facts, yet Melinda is staring at you like you’ve just lifted the weight of the world off her shoulders and it’s making your face burn. “So! We still have things to look over, right?” you ask hastily.

“Hm? Ah! Yes, sorry, I got a bit lost in thought there. Come, I’ll show you the staff rooms.” You go along with her gesturing as she leads you to a nearby elevator. The rest of the tour crawls by at snail’s pace, but you only pay half-attention to it in favour of mulling over your future coworker. Sun.

Honestly? You have mixed feelings about the bouncy, irritable, anxious animatronic.

You’re all too aware of the differences between you and him. You can see how his lithe form is useful for wrangling squirrelly children in one fell swoop, and his incredibly bubbly personality for entertaining them for hours on end. You’re nothing like that. Quiet, mopey, easy to blend into the background; you know you belong nowhere near someplace as brilliant as this place. 

But that’s the whole reason you took this job in the first place, isn’t it?

‘Give it a shake, get some new experiences. You can’t stay cooped up in my school forever.’

Your father’s words ring in your head clear as day. You’re not entirely happy about it, but deep inside, you know he’s right. Circumstances change and you have to change with it.

‘Besides, Sun can’t be that bad,’ you tell yourself. ‘Sure he’s got a few pounds and feet on me, but he’s still one guy.’

How bad can he be?

Chapter Text

When you wake up the next morning, every single atom of your body screams at you to not leave the safety of your comforters.

You still do though, because getting fired on your first trial day for being a no-show would be just the most humiliating thing to happen to you.

Kicking your legs free from the blanket, you stumble through your apartment with the gait of a blind zombie, halfheartedly brushing your tangled hair out of your eyes as you go through your morning routine: brush your teeth, take a shower, kick aside half-emptied boxes you hadn’t bothered with since you moved in last week, gulp down a hasty breakfast…

Then the time comes for you to dress for work. After the tour yesterday, you were given three sets of uniform shirts tailored specially for daycare assistants: polo shirts with sleeves up to your wrists, the colour scheme is a vibrant mix of contrasting hues that is split right down in the middle. Oranges and yellows on one side, blues and whites on the other, obviously meant to match with Sun and Moon. Graphics of a sun and a moon are printed just under your collar, and more patterns of stars and clouds litter the sleeves. Maybe they made the daycare uniforms so obnoxiously bright that even toddlers could easily identify the trusted adult of the daycare. Or maybe they made it specifically to fuck with your dry eyes on this particular Saturday morning. You don’t know.

You pat down the uniform sleeves. It feels a little baggy even though you’d been given the smallest size available, but you still manage to slip a plain tee over it. The result of that mixed wardrobe is an explosion of colours flowing out from under your tee’s shorter sleeves. Might draw some eyes to you, but frankly, it beats having to change clothes at the building itself.

You shoulder on your backpack, filled with the essentials this time: wallet, phone, keys, water bottle, and a nifty little watch that you’d been gifted alongside the uniform. A… Faz -watch.

(You hope not every company-owned object has the “Faz” label slapped on it.)

You don’t really get the full explanation Melinda gave you the first time - apparently it’s originally meant to be given to birthday children (for an extra fee, of course) - but the gist of it is that the watch acts as a common link between you and the other employees, being a walkie-talkie and a messaging device all in one. It sounds like an overly complicated way of giving their staff work phones, but hey, you’re not going to be the one to start complaining about free stuff.

With one last look at your dismal living space, you shoulder on your bag and leave for your first day of the trial week.

=0=

You thank your foresight in choosing an apartment closer to the pizzaplex when you reach the ”Staff Only” entrance in record time. Tapping your shiny new employee ID against the card reader, it beeps green and allows you entry into the east break room.

You don’t bother leaving your belongings there. Melinda’s warning still ringing clear in your head - “Don’t bother, the daycare is at the other end of the building. Just bring your things with you and put them behind the security desk.” - you push past another door and step inside the pizzaplex proper.

The first thought to cross your mind is, ‘Dear god, it’s going to take me forever to get to the daycare.’

At least you remember the way to the daycare’s pick-up area. You begin to follow your memory’s footsteps, walking through winding hallways until you enter the lobby entrance, marked by the gigantic golden Glamrock Freddy fountain standing tall and proud as always. That means that straight ahead is… Bingo.

You push past the swinging doors with the “Superstar Daycare Pick-Up” sign, and-

“Take a map.”

Your mind registering an object with a vaguely pointed shape being shoved in your direction is enough to send you flying back with a shout of alarm stuck in your throat, arms flying up to guard your face and legs dropping into a crouch. Unfortunately , blindly backing up when you’re only halfway through a door turns out to be a bad idea, because the back of your head catches the sharp edge of the door frame, and you clutch your head in pain as the yelp finally rips free. “Mother fuck , that hurts-“

“Take a map.”

The “pointed object” turns out to be a map printed on glossy paper, and the person offering you said map is a S.T.A.F.F  bot with a sun hat, wire frames that resemble glasses and a big “i” dotted on its yellow chest. You snatch it up with a heavy blush creeping up your neck, and it rolls off immediately in the opposite direction.

… Wait, doesn’t your Faz-watch already have a digital map?

‘So I’m on the ground, my head hurts, and I have a map that I don’t need.’

The back of your head thumps hard against the door frame as you groan. The groan transforms very quickly into a yelp as the bump on your head throbs anew.

This first day is just going swimmingly .

 =0=

Once the pain has faded considerably, you get back to your feet and continue your way to the daycare. More S.T.A.F.F bots roam the floor with mops in hand, but thankfully none of them try to ambush you with a map. They do watch you as you go by them, though, and the unwavering stares are starting to make your skin prickle. “Um, hey.” You give the closest bot a hesitant wave. “Don’t mind me, I’m just coming in early to get a headstart, so… don’t freak out on me?”

It doesn’t respond. Ah right, didn’t Melinda say that their AIs aren’t as advanced as the main stars’? You’re not sure if they’re even able to speak (aside from that one asshole).

Feeling a little ridiculous now, you simply go on your way again. It doesn’t try to stop you, instead going back to its mopping like nothing happened.

Reaching the wooden doors, you don’t see any staff or animatronic through the huge viewing windows. Just the playground structure and neatly stacked toys. ‘I guess animatronics need to sleep too. Or recharge, whatever,’ you think, reaching down to pull the doors open.

Click. Click.

It’s locked? You try again, then give it a swift kick for good measure, but the doors remain as unyielding as before. “Great, things just keep getting better,” you sigh, stamping out the pain in your poor toes.

You don’t have a staff key of any kind. Not like that matters, because Melinda explicitly told you that the door would be left open for you because the shutters to the reception area aren’t supposed to be raised until opening hours. So that means your only option is…

‘Welp. I hope Sun doesn’t punch me for this.’

You raise a fist and begin raising hell on the door. It rattles on its hinges as you bang with all your might, and you keep one eye on the daycare for a glimpse of moving yellow… There! You see a spiky head poke out from the bottom of a slide, eyes narrowed at you. You wave frantically at him and gesture at the door.

He doesn’t even twitch, much less come out of the slide. His milky white eyes continue eyeballing you from afar, and just as your arms tire from pointing furiously at the locked door, his head finally jerks left, then right.

It takes your brain a moment to process. You blink incredulously at him. “No? What do you mean ‘no’?” you ask, trying to keep the frustration from cracking through your voice. “Do you even understand what I’m saying?”

He doesn’t respond. Right, soundproofed walls. You sigh, scrubbing your dry eyes. “Fine, be that way. I’ll… find another way in, I guess,” you mumble, more to yourself.

As if sensing your defeat. Sun’s head retreats up the slide. Without any other way to get in from here, you’re left with no choice but to head up to the lobby again. You pull out the Faz-watch and slap it on your wrist, squinting at the tiny screen. “Hello? Is someone there?” you say halfheartedly into the walkie-talkie function.

Static.

That’s about what you expected. So no staff and no keys; what else can you do besides lounge around waiting for someone to come and let you into the daycare?

‘I guess I can find something else to do,’ you think, although not with much confidence. ‘Maybe take a look at the backrooms, or-’

“Hello, are you the new daycare assistant?” a baritone voice booms from the other end of the hallway.

A bolt of shock shoots up your spine, making you whirl around with eyes blown wide open, arms raising to fend off the mysterious person. “Who-wha-wh-! …Um.”

Just a few feet away from you, observing you with a look of genuine concern, is an animatronic. The first animatronic you’ve seen besides the horde of S.T.A.F.F. Bots. 

And it just so happens to be the goddamn star celebrity of the building, Glamrock Freddy.

That’s what you’re assuming, at least. The majority of the merchandise sold here seem to depict him in one way or the other, and his name is on the signboard outside, so safe to say that it’s a fair conclusion to make.

Even from this distance, it’s immediately clear that he towers over you. Coloured a bright orange with neon blue lightning-shaped streaks across his eye and chest, his general appearance seems to be modelled after a bear, given the paw-like hands and his little teddy bear ears. A comically tiny hat sits atop his head, which he manages to tip to you with grace despite the clunky look of his paws. Each step he takes produces the hollow thump of metal against ceramic tiles as he walks closer to you .

You subconsciously take a small step back, shoulders hiking up defensively. “Um.”

Quick, say something cool, something witty, anything .

“You’re Glamrock Freddy.”

Fuck.

Surprisingly, that stupid observation doesn’t get you derision or an eye roll, but a little chuckle. “You’re quite correct. And you must be the daycare assistant, I take it?”

“Yeah? Sorry, I just wasn’t… expecting to run into anyone at this hour,” you say a little lamely. “How did you know I work at the daycare?”

His mouth parts quirking up into a smile - strange, he can do it but Sun seemingly can’t - Freddy points at his forearms. Oh right, your uniform sleeves are poking out. “I don’t believe I’ve seen you visit the establishment before. Is this your first day working with us?” he asks, his glowing blue eyes peering at you a bit too closely for your liking.

You nod slowly.

His ears perk up. “Then let me have the first honor of welcoming you to the Fazbear family.” His head dips into a bow to you of all people , the friendly gesture sending your heart into an unfamiliar flip-flop motion, and raises again with what looks like a cheeky glow in his eyes. “I believe I speak for my fellow bandmates when I say that we’re looking forward to working with you, Superstar.”

You suck in a quick inhale to douse the fire in your face. “That’s, um… Y-you do that with all new employees?” you ask with a squeak in your voice. 

“When the opportunity presents itself.” Now you can definitely hear the cheek in his voice. “Plus, it’s been a while since we’ve had a daycare assistant in our midst, so I thought the occasion deserved a bit more fanfare than usual.”

You can’t bring yourself to respond beyond a stilted nod.

“But I do want to ask, why are you here at this hour? The daycare doesn’t open until nine a.m.,” he asks.

“Daycare…? Oh shit, I almost forgot. I’m trying to get in, but the door’s locked and I don’t have permission to open the shutters.”

“Locked?”

You emphatically nod, on the verge of telling him that Sun’s the one responsible for keeping you out when something occurs to you. You could tell him about Sun locking you out and ask Freddy to have a “chat” with him, but at the same time, you don’t feel that Sun will appreciate you snitching on him. You’re at a crossroads: 

Tell Freddy and let him know about Sun’s behaviour at the cost of any possibility of a friendly relationship with the Daycare Attendant

or

Keep your trap shut, and show Sun that you’re willing to work with him no matter what.

Between a bear you just met and the coworker you’re stuck with for the foreseeable future, the choice is obvious. “Yeah, completely locked. Someone probably forgot to unlock it before they left yesterday, and I don’t think Sun’s able to open it on his side either," you lie. "Do you know another way I can get in?”

Freddy looks at you oddly for a moment, but before you can decipher what that expression is supposed to convey, he says, “I believe I do. Shall I show you the way?” and offers a hand. 

You freeze. He’s offering a hand. To you , god only knows why. With an expression of complete genuity. 

Your instinct is to give a hard no and run like your life depends on it. But that would be rude , wouldn’t it? You can already see this hypothetical situation play out in your mind: you refuse Freddy, Freddy gets offended, he tells every living soul in the building about the rude little daycare assistant, and because he’s the beloved main star of the building, everyone will believe him and you’ll find yourself “getting the boot” faster than even Sun can anticipate.

You don’t know what the bear is playing at, but it doesn’t matter. Your only option is to…

“S-sure.” Trying not to shrivel up on the spot, you hesitantly extend your arm. It takes you a few tries before you manage to stick your hand into his paw, and he thankfully takes it without comment. Your eyes stare daggers at a faraway point just over his shoulder. “Lead the way, then.”

You hear a soft laugh, and Freddy tugs you along the pizzaplex grounds. Ridiculously, you feel like a lost child being led to a customer service desk, especially when the bots wearing hats labelled “Security” stop momentarily to stare at you and Freddy before going on their way again, but it’s hard to feel any real indignation towards the bear. Maybe a bit of annoyance, but you’re mostly melting on the inside from the sheer heat in your neck and ears.

Freddy doesn’t try to speak to you as he leads the way, to which you’re grateful for. His attention is solely on navigating through the neon labyrinth, and admittedly, he’s doing a far better job than you would’ve done by yourself. He knows which corners to turn and which door to enter, and you soon find yourself in front of a shutter with painted clouds and suns splashed across it. You glance over at Freddy with uncertainty.

“One moment.” His eyes flash brighter for a few seconds before dimming again, and the shutter rumbles to life. Your expression twists into pleasant surprise.

“I didn’t know you could do that,” you say with awe. “They seriously let you open up locked doors just like that?”

“It comes with being an animatronic. It wouldn’t do us any good if we accidentally got locked in a storeroom or something like that. I’m afraid to say that this privilege doesn’t apply to important areas like Parts & Services. We only have access to basic rooms, although,” He gives you a sheepish grin, leaning closer to you to whisper conspiratorially, “I am technically not allowed to do this except in case of emergencies. So if anyone asks, please don’t mention my part in this, will you?”

“‘Course,” you say immediately. Anything for the guy who just saved you from being stranded outside. “Thanks, Freddy.”

He lets go of your hand - thank god - and you’re about to hurry into the check-in room when Freddy suddenly speaks up.

“If you require any assistance, please don’t hesitate to approach us, Superstar.”

Having yet another (metaphorical) helping hand extended for no reason catches you off guard, and you laugh awkwardly. “I-it’s alright, man. I have things handled.” No reason to make Freddy think you’re some helpless newbie flailing around.

Freddy doesn’t laugh. In fact, his expression subtly shifts into something more serious. “I mean it. The pizzaplex has many policies in place to protect its employees, even from fellow employees, but action can only be taken if you speak to your supervisor about it. I believe you’ve met Melinda Jones already?”

“Even from fellow employees”?

Your eyes widen. You don’t want to voice the question burning in the back of your throat, but the way he worded it, it’s almost like Freddy knows .

A beat passes, and you quickly shake it off. That’s a wild assumption to make. You’re probably thinking too much of it.

“Yeah, I did. She’s the one who showed me around yesterday, actually.” You hope you don’t sound as unsettled as you feel.

The bear nods in approval. “That’s good. She’s a capable worker and a considerate superior, so I have no doubt she will hear out any complaints you might have.”

You force on a crooked smile. He says that, and you can tell he believes every word of it, but there’s still no way in hell you’re crawling to your supervisor for anything less than getting pushed down a flight of stairs.

“I’ll… keep that in mind. Now if you’ll excuse me, I, uh, need to get going,” you say, jabbing a shaking finger in the general direction of the daycare. “Thanks again for opening the shutters.”

He flashes you a warm smile and pats you on the shoulder. It’s so gentle that it doesn’t make your knees buckle despite not seeing it coming. “Take care, Superstar.”

“Y-you too.”

With that, Freddy lumbers off, leaving you alone with a tangle of emotions that you don’t even know how to begin unravelling.

You spend approximately one second standing there before you decide aloud, ”Nope, not thinking about this.”

It’s too early for this.

You hurry on. The check-in room looks the same as yesterday, except for the absence of the parents and kids hopped up on fizzy sodas. That James guy doesn’t seem to be here yet, either. You scan the entire floor, noting that there are barriers set up to lead towards a separate room. But nothing seems to obviously lead down to the daycare other than… the gaping maw of the slide…

Your face pales. ‘Fuck. Fuck , I didn’t think this through.’

Melinda’s words come rushing back to you:

“The children normally take the slide down to the playroom, although sometimes the shyer ones will be dropped off at the other entrance downstairs…”

Several moments pass before realisation hits you like a truck, and the still air of the room is disrupted by the gunshot-like crack of your palms meeting your face. “I should’ve asked him to unlock the downstairs door. Why didn’t I ask him to unlock the downstairs door?” you moan into your hands. “I’m so stupid . Stupid, stupid, stupiiiid .”

And now you’re going to pay for your stupidity.

Reluctance weighing down every step forward, you carefully shuffle towards the slide, keeping your eyes trained on the yawning hole and not the stretch of netting on every side, no matter how much your memory of the high drop tries to drag your gaze over the edge to relive it.

Standing next to the slide doesn’t help calm your nerves much. Not even carrying out little tasks like taking off your shoes and stuffing them into your backpack does much to distract you from the impending drop. Gripping onto the rim of the slide with shaking hands, you perch yourself onto the edge and tuck your knees against your chest. The sight of the colourful abyss awaiting you makes your mouth go dry..

‘It’ll be okay.’ Breathe in. ‘It’s just a slide.’ Breathe out. ‘I won’t get hurt.’ Breath in. ‘I just need to let go.’ Breathe ou-

One twitch in the wrong direction makes your sweat-slicked palms slide off the rim.

You plummet.

The force of the wind pushes your shriek far back into your throat. Unprepared for the sudden descent, every bony part of your body knocks and bangs against the rainbow blur of the tubed slide as you tumble down, your heartbeats rising in tandem with the growing light at the end of the tunnel- 

BAM!

You crash into a solid wall, the clack-clack-clacks of plastic raining down all around you. As if that isn’t embarrassing enough already, the force flips you forward and sends you faceplanting into the ground below.

Except it’s not exactly solid in the traditional sense. The “ground” feels oddly lumpy beneath your throbbing nose, and your feet can’t find their footing when you try to stand upright. A vomit of colours greets you when you crack your eyes open.

Oh . You landed in a ball pit.

Breathing heavily, you push yourself up on shaky arms, slipping a little on the smooth plastic. Your chest feels close to bursting from the sheer force of your racing heart, and your nose hurts like a bitch. The adrenaline culminates into a little hysterical laugh bubbling out of your mouth. “Fuck!” you giggle. “I never want to do that again.”

Man, kids ride these things every day? They’re more fearless than you give them credit for.

You’re about to wade over to the edge of the pit when an elongated, sun-shaped shadow blots out the light above you. Your breath catches in your throat.

Uh-oh.

Two slender hands slip under your armpits and lift you as easily as a feather. Your legs instinctively lash out and find solid metal (much to the chagrin of you and your toes), but your ascent doesn’t slow, not until you are face-to-face with unblinking eyes. All before you can utter a word.

“Hi?” It comes out squeakier than intended.

“ Adults ,” Sun grounds out, “are not allowed on the slide. That’s against the rules .”

“Oh. R-really?” But wouldn’t Freddy have mentioned that? Then again, it’s not like he would know the inner workings of the daycare… Crap, you screwed up. “Shit, sorry, I didn’t-“

“ NO BAD LANGUAGE ALLOWED! ”

The shriek sends your body into a full cringe. “Sorry, sorry, I didn’t know. Really ,” you insist, legs helplessly kicking in the air. At his tallest, he easily holds you a foot above ground; something you try not to dwell on. “The door was locked and I didn’t know any other way in, so…”

His sun rays draw back into his head a little.

“Your heart is beating quite fast, Friend! You’re not, oh I don’t know, lying to me, are you? Because that’s a veeeeery naughty thing of you to do!” He leans in closer until both of you are only inches apart. An erratic giggle bursts from his voice box. “You even got through the shutters when you don’t have the authorisation for it! And it’d be such a pity to have to BAN you on your first day, wouldn’t it?”

Everything seemed to grow louder in your ears: your beating heart, the cold hum of the air-conditioning, the agitated grinding of machinery in Sun’s chest. Fired on the first day for taking the slide? The thought is unthinkably humiliating, and perhaps it’s what kicks the cogs in your brain into high gear, making you blurt out, “I don’t think you’re allowed to lock out employees from their station either.”

Sun doesn’t even attempt to hide his “eep!” as his sun rays retract in surprise.

“Yeah. Yeah , you’re breaking rules too, aren’t you? Yet you’re trying to ride your high horse around me,” you say, narrowing your eyes at him. “Seriously? You promised you’d give me a chance.”

“I never promised anything.”

The petulant mutter nearly makes you roll your eyes. Do all childcare workers share the same mentality as the kids they look after, or is it just Sun?

“Then I guess it’s a good thing you didn’t try to lock me out, right?”

Sun blinks at you, his vexed expression slipping off like melted butter. “Eh?”

“You didn’t lock me out. It just got stuck on its own and couldn’t be opened on either side,” you say slowly and loudly . Enough for any potential surveillance cameras to pick up your words. “Since the door got stuck on its own and you were busy elsewhere, I took the initiative to find another way in. You,” You point a finger at his baffled face, “were nice enough to tell me what I did wrong and I’ll be sure not to make the same mistake again, provided the problem with the doors gets fixed .” You raise both eyebrows at him, silently willing him to understand your unspoken message. “ Does that make sense?”

Sun falls quiet, giving you a scrutinizing stare. You wait, lips pursed to stop any unnecessary comments from falling out, hoping that he’ll accept your own offered hand sooner rather than later so that he can put you down .

Then Sun abruptly twists his torso ninety degrees and dumps you on the thin foam mats. A jolt of pain forces a hiss out of you as your shoulder hits the ground at an awkward angle.

“How cute!” Sun giggles, the derision dripping from his voice suggesting the opposite. “You think you’re funny , hmm? Quite the little comedian you are!”

“I’m not,” you huff. Rolling over, you stagger to your feet with one hand kneading the spot on your chest where your racing heart is. “I just want to work, that’s all. Can’t exactly do that when I’m not in the daycare.”

His rays flick backwards in consternation. You vaguely notice that the motion reminds you of your cat when he’s in a mood.

“You want to work? Oh, okay! Don’t you worry your little head, I have the perfect job for you.”

He grabs you without warning - you flinch back, but his grip doesn’t allow you to squirm away - and he steers you across the daycare grounds. You struggle to match his longer strides, almost tripping on little bumps and holes in the foam mats, but it doesn’t break his march in the slightest. You’re dragged past the playground structure, past the short plastic tables with neatly organised craft supplies, to the back of the daycare where the glaring ceiling lights are partially blocked by plastic slides and ladders. The moment Sun lets you go, you immediately put a few feet between you and him.

“Here you go!”

You squint at the thing he’s presenting with a flourish. “… It’s a door.”

A door painted in pastel gray, to be exact. It blends in with the rest of the daycare’s wall, making it nearly unnoticeable if not for its shining doorknob giving away its position.

There’s a suppressed glee in his voice as if he’s barely holding himself back from spoiling a surprise. He grasps the doorknob and pulls the door open.

A wave of stagnant air hits your face.

Your face reflexively scrunches at the odour. Then it falls slack as you properly register the sight in front of you. “What the… What am I looking at?”

It’s a small closet space behind the door that, to put it bluntly, looks like it was hit by an earthquake and then that mess was hit by a hurricane afterward. Metal shelving lines the walls, the spacing between them barely wide enough to allow an adult to walk through. Cardboard boxes, both opened and unopened, are stacked haphazardly on the shelves and the floor, leaving little space for even a child to squeeze through. An eye-watering layer of dust and grime coats every surface inch of the room in a thick blanket, visible only thanks to the lonely lightbulb flickering overhead. Your sinuses start to itch from the disturbed dust bunnies, and you quickly stuff your face into a hand before a sneezing fit can take over. It’s a good excuse to not have to look at it any longer than you have to anyway; the sight makes your skin itch like a horde of insects are fighting to get under it.

Sun’s smile stretches wider upon seeing your reaction. “This is the storage room, silly! This is where the craft supplies are kept.”

You shoot him a horrified look through your fingers. “You let kids touch this?!”

Sun gasps and splays his hand on his chest in a grand gesture of taking offense. “Of course not! This gross, grimy place? I wouldn’t even wish it on even the worst human. What kind of animatronic do you take me for?!”

“Then what the hel- what happened?”

“Hmph! It’s more like what didn’t happen.” You look at him, confused, and he makes a sniffing noise. “I never use this dinky, gross closet. Far too cramped! I have my own special space to store all the craft supplies I want. Only the best of the best glitter glue and googly eyes for my little sunbeams!” He puffs up with pride for a moment, then swiftly glares down at you as if challenging you to ask where it is.

You keep your silence, only because you’re afraid of erupting into hives the moment you open your mouth.

Sun eyes you a moment longer before continuing, sounding more like he’s rattling off an employee’s handbook, “It’s up to the assigned daycare assistant to keep this space spick and span. It is one of their duties to take inventory everyday and keep it stocked, as well as maintain its cleanliness. Buuuut can you guess what happened?”

“… They didn’t do it?”

“They didn’t do it!” Sun echoes with a sardonic smile. It’s honestly amazing how many expressions he can do with just his eyes. “Always fiddling with their smartphones and other gadgets instead of watching the kids, and even when they do look after the kids, they can’t do that properly! The poor sunbeams cry, the parents get mad, and can you take a guess who gets the blame? You get a cookie if you get it right!”

You already know the answer, but you don’t want to be the one to break the fragile strings holding the corners of his smile up. Plus, you’re pretty sure he’s lying about the cookie.

Sun makes a clicking sound like he’s clicking his tongue. “How slow are you? I get the blame! Poor, lonely Sun gets yelled at for his naughty assistants’ laziness, and nobody cares. Nobody at all! It’s always, always not a big deal to them, because of course it isn’t, it doesn’t affect them .” He spits the last bit out like it’s poison. 

You blink. Slowly, your hand creeps up into the air.

“What.”

“Do you want me to clean the closet or not?”

Sun falters, losing some of his steam in his stance. “Huh?”

“Now look who’s the slow one,” you snort. The animatronic swells up as if ready to fire back, but you don’t give him a chance. “Look, if you want me to clean it, then tell me ‘Go clean this’. I don’t need your whole backstory to pick up a sponge.”

He narrows his eyes at you. “You’ll do it? Really?” he asks suspiciously.

“Yes.”

You ignore the skeptical stare that follows your back as you step forward to inspect the inside of the storage closet. Besides the months of neglect caked on the shelves and the constant dust cloud that stirs up with the slightest breath, it doesn’t look too bad. Certainly leagues better than dealing with the girl’s bathroom.

“I’ll need a trolley to bring all the stuff I need here. Is there anything like that here?” When Sun doesn’t respond, you turn around. He’s still looking at you, partially shadowed by the silhouette cast by the giant play structure, but you don’t get the sense that he’s really looking . “Sun?”

A shudder runs through his frame and his eyes twitch down to meet yours. “You good?” you ask cautiously.

“I don’t have to tell you!” he yells out of the blue, making you jump. “I don’t have to tell you anything!”

You’re so taken aback that it takes you a moment to remember how to talk. “Um… sure? You don’t have to tell me, but it’d go a lot better if you do. You know, because I don’t know this place? At all?”

“That’s right, I don’t have to! I’m tired of holding all of you humans’ hands! I know your head’s teeny, but I’m sure there’s still something knocking around in there to help you think,” he says snidely, rapping his knuckles against your forehead. You duck away from the touch and glare at him. “Get to it! Chop-chop!”

He twirls on his heel and skips off, leaving you alone with a room-sized Petri dish prime to give you a lung infection and your stewing confusion.

‘You know what? Maybe the other guys didn’t leave before they’re shit at their jobs. Maybe they just didn’t want to be around someone that doesn’t know what personal space is.’ You can still feel the aggressive brush of his fingers against different spots on your body, buzzing with an itch you want to scratch off.

You sigh heavily, the hot air curling around your fingers in the air-conditioned environment. ‘Still not as bad as my last job.’

You cast one last glance at the gloomy interior before taking a deep breath ( away from the dust) and walking to the daycare doors, renewed determination powering each stride forward. You pass Sun who says something to you, but it flies over your head. Whatever he says won’t be helpful to you, that much he’s made clear.

(And as much as you don’t like to admit it, Sun’s remark about “handholding” makes you feel far more self-conscious than it should.)

You don’t need anyone’s help to wipe down a measly room. You’ve got two hands, two legs, and a half-functional brain: you can do this yourself. Just like you always have.

=0=

One hour later, you’re starting to think that maybe assigning yourself this job isn’t the smartest move in the world.

This building is huge, gigantic, humongous, whatever other synonym there is to describe the twisted labyrinth of neon colours and shrieking children you’re trudging through now. The map you’re given only prominently marks the main attractions of the pizzplex (you’ve just passed by an area called “Mazercise”?), leaving any place you’d actually be interested in labelled simply as “Staff Only”. Joy.

Your best bet is the small cluster of grayed out rooms nearest to the daycare. Thanks to a stroke of luck, it pays off when you’re greeted by a tiny janitorial closet blocked off by a “Staff Only” sign and nothing else. The door swings open without resistance - and you have to pause for a moment to stare at the open closet in shock. Who the hell leaves a bunch of dangerous chemicals lying around in a building of sticky-fingered children?! All it takes is one curious kid to accidentally close themself in and-

You stop yourself before your imagination can spiral. ‘It’s not my problem,’ you tell yourself, ignoring everything else screaming that it is. ‘I have other things to worry about.’

You take a quick survey of the room. Besides the usual cleaning agents and tools, there’s a lone cart that’s clearly seen better days judging from its bent leg and multiple dents. You’re about to take it anyways, despite its sorry state, but a rogue thought stops your reaching hands from grabbing the handle: what if it’s reserved for the janitor? Whoever that is. You’ve no basis for the kind of person this mystery janitor is, if there even is one, but past experiences have made you well aware that it doesn’t take much to set someone off (especially when it comes to you).

Resigning yourself to multiple trips around the building, you begin your trek back to the daycare with cleaning supplies in hand, keeping to the least crowded corridors as much as humanely possible. You can feel eyes watching you as you pass by patrons of the pizzaplex dressed head to toe in branded merch. You try not to pay them mind.

‘It’s not because there’s something wrong with me, right?’

You shake away the timid whisper slithering into your mind at once. You look fine . Your hair’s tied up into a normal ponytail, you’re wearing your uniform like a normal employee, and you’re simply carrying all these hazardous materials to carry out your normal tasks. All normal, all dandy. And if your pace picks up a little as you get closer to the daycare, no it didn’t.

The first time you return to the daycare, its background music is playing its irritatingly cheery tune and the air is rumbling with giggly shrieks of the first arrivals of the day, reined in only by Sun’s commands delivered in that same sprightly voice of his. You see the children darting in and out of the playground’s numerous nooks and crannies - or rather, flashes of messy mops of hair and brightly-coloured clothing - all the way up to its highest level. Just looking at the little bodies stampeding across swaying net bridges with such reckless abandon makes your stomach queasy, so you tear your gaze away and focus on the closet door on the far end.

As you walk past the desk by the entrance, you hear a small noise by your right. You turn to see a young man sitting behind the desk, staring at you with mild interest. He has a mop of disheveled jet black hair and spotty skin, with brown eyes that are currently pinning you to the spot, and he’s dressed in typical security garb complete with a plain walkie-talkie hanging from his hip. An equally plain name tag with “Edison” scribbled across it is pinned to his right breast pocket. You notice with a bit of jealousy that he doesn’t have to dress in ridiculous colours.

“You’re the new daycare assistant?” he asks.

“Yeah?”

“Cool.”

He returns to staring at his monitor screen, idly tapping the left mouse button at regular intervals. You hover in front of the desk for a moment, unsure if you’re supposed to add to the conversation or not - this isn’t your old workplace, these people don’t actually know who you are - before you discard the idea altogether and resume your walk to the closet. 

You don’t have time to fuss about work relationships, if you even want it at all. There is a fifty-fifty chance of becoming the resident punching bag if you try to make nice with them, but guess what? There’s a secret, tried-and-true technique of yours that guarantees your continued peace one hundred percent, no matter where you are:

“Keep your head down.”

It’s seen success in your father’s school (mostly), and with an environment as hectic and busy as the pizzaplex, you’re even less likely to be picked out in the crowd. Just do what you do best, keep your trap shut and get to work.

In your multiple trips back and forth, eventually you manage to accumulate your own janitorial closet’s worth of cleaning supplies that you stuff into the farthest end of the storage room, where it’s marginally less dusty. You’ve also managed to dig out a face mask for protection, although gloves are a no-go no matter how much you searched the nearby staff rooms. Sucks, but you can’t waste time digging around for it and you don’t want to pester anyone about it. You suppose you can always just wash your hands later.

Rolling up your sleeves to keep them grime-free, you square your shoulders and purse your lips with grim determination. ‘Time to work.’

You tackle the topmost shelves first. That way, any disturbed dust would flake onto the already dirtied floors. It’s just high enough to be out of your reach, so you utilise a little wooden stool you find hidden in a shadowy corner of the closet to gain a few more inches and grab the boxes aside to set them on the ground. Your stomach does somersaults every time you hoist yourself onto the stool, but it’s easy enough to push through the queasiness. Once the boxes are set to the side, you get down to scrubbing out the grime. Your eyes sting, your arms itch like hell, and your sense of balance gets upset any time you lean forward to reach the farthest corner of the top shelf to pick out a cobweb, but seeing the first gleam of polished metal emerge from under the sea of filth makes all those seem like non-issues by comparison.

As you methodically work your way through the closet, bits and pieces of bubbly conversations float through the door you’ve squeaked closed to allow only a tiny crack of light to stream in.

“Jameson! I’ve missed you so, so much!”

“What are you drawing, Ashley? Gasp! Is that me?”

“No biting in the ball pit, Danny, or you’re going into timeout!”

“Lily! Watch your feet, little star, there you go…”

“Sophie, is that a Moon plushie? I’m so jealous!”

“Danny, no biting outside of the ball pit, too!”

Inwardly, you have to admire the animatronic’s dedication to greeting every single kid with the same energy. You can’t fathom having to do this for one hour, forget keeping up the act for the entire day and maintaining the daycare’s general tidiness at the same time. ‘If he’s not being such a twat about it, I’d feel a little bad for him,’ you think, frowning.

Well, you may not feel too much sympathy for the crabby animatronic, but that doesn’t mean you’re not going to match his dedication to his work. As long as you put your back into this and any future tasks thrown at you later down the line, he’ll have nothing to complain about.

The next few hours fly by you in a flash. Every drag of the cleaning rag and sweep of the feather duster across every crevice brings you one step closer to the total annihilation of the dust bunny army that has this tiny closet space in a chokehold. However, there’s only so much a pail of water can clean by itself, so eventually, you find yourself marching out of the daycare - with a bucket of murky liquid that used to be water in hand - to empty it several times in one hour alone. You keep yourself walking close to the wall, as far from Sun as possible lest he starts fussing about the state of your appearance (which, despite your best efforts, has gotten a bit of muck from the spring cleaning). The security guard doesn’t bother you after the first “hello”, which you appreciate, but the same can’t be said about the daycare kids.

You don’t notice it the first time. The second time, you feel a pair of eyes on you but brush it off as Sun keeping tabs on you.

The third time, you only clock on to it by sheer chance. As you walk by the craft tables, you’re struck by a random bout of curiosity and decide to see what game Sun is playing with the children. You look to the floor near the middle of the daycare, where most of the children are happily playing in a ring formation with an explosion of toys in the middle, and you lock eyes with a preschooler.

You freeze like a deer in headlights.

The kid - a little girl in a pink floral dress and wearing twin pigtails - similarly stops, her eyes wide. The three seconds of silent staring feels like three hours instead, your brain unable to come up with a socially appropriate response ( ‘Kid? Never talked to a kid before. Fuck. Fuck, what do I do???’ ), before you break it off first by glancing behind you just to check that, yep, she’s definitely looking at you.

Or she was .

In the split second you broke off eye contact, she’d somehow waddled around the pile of toys towards Sun, her tiny hand grasping for his attention. Oh no, she’s probably going to cry to him about the weird staring lady with a bucket of dirt water and a mean mug.

You see Sun bend down to listen to her, and your brain finally kicks into action. ‘Run!’

You scurry out of the daycare before Sun has a chance to even turn around.

=0=

You take your sweet time emptying and refilling the bucket, even spoiling yourself by washing up in a nearby restroom, but eventually, all good things must come to an end and you’re forced back out into the bustling corridors sooner than you’d like.

Frankly, you’d rather toss yourself down the trash chute. It’d be a better fate than whatever Sun will do to you for making one of his “little sunbeams” cry, that’s for sure. ‘I didn’t even do anything! I just looked at her and she looked all spooked. I’m not that scary, right?’

It’s not like you have prior experience for reference. Except for your niece, but family doesn’t really count.

You tsk loudly, spooking a nearby couple into speed-walking away from you. It sucks, but you know that you can’t hide like a coward until your shift ends… even if it means getting reamed out by an eight-foot-tall giant with enhanced strength.

You try to psych yourself up. ‘It’s not your first time getting scolded. Don’t be a baby,’ you tell yourself sternly. ‘Take a deep breath, steel yourself and march right back in th-‘

“Hey there!”

Shock convulses through your body. A “hyek?!” of surprise escapes your lips before you can stop it, and your face immediately flushes bright red. You turn to the source of the mystery voice, an apology for the embarrassing sight on the tip of your tongue when you catch sight of who said that to you.

“Uh,” you say very intelligently.

A white-and-pink chicken animatronic that’s dressed like she stepped right out of the 80’s - ‘Chica,’ your brain supplies - holds a hand up to her beak in a very girlish gesture as she laughs at you. “Heya! You’re the new daycare assistant, yeah?”

“Ah. Um.” You clear your throat before you can keep making a fool of yourself. “Yep, that’s me. The assistant. You’re Chica?”

“ Glamrock Chica! Don’t you wear the name out,” she chirps, snatching up your hand so suddenly that you nearly drop the bucket on your toes. She gives it a vigorous handshake that you can only follow along with, lest your wrist breaks trying to go against the motion. “But you can just call me Chica! What’s your name?”

You tell her haltingly, almost stumbling over it several times. Her eyes are glowing a cheerful purple. “What a pretty name! I’m so glad there’s a new assistant; now Sun won’t be so lonely anymore, staying cooped in that daycare all by himself… Oh!” Her gaze suddenly flicks downward. “Oh dear, what happened to your arm?”

You follow her gaze and see what’s making her so concerned: angry red welts are raised on your arm, splotching your skin like puddles of rainwater on a sidewalk from elbow to wrist, up to where you had rolled up your sleeves. Both of your arms are covered in these unsightly marks. As soon as you lay eyes on it, the itch buzzing beneath your skin seems to increase tenfold. “This? It’s nothing, Sun asked me to clear out some closet in the daycare and it’s pretty dusty in there. This just happens sometimes.”

Chica makes a clucking noise - as in, her voice box emulates the sound of a tongue clucking, not a literal chicken clucking. “You should get that looked at, chickadee! This looks like a-”

You hastily wave her off before she can finish her sentence, a light blush dusting your cheeks. “ It’s not a big deal, ” you hiss, snatching your arm away and yanking down the sleeves to hide the blemishes. Chica cocks her head, staring at you with concern. “I-I’ll deal with it later. I just need to finish my work first, okay?” The chicken animatronic still looks doubtful. “Um, hey, what was that about Sun being lonely? Don’t you guys hang out after work or something?”

“Oh, we do!” Chica says, her earrings clacking against the sides of her head as she nods. “Well, we are usually super busy with rehearsals and junk when we’re not on stage, but we usually get some free time when the place closes for the day! Well, before we’re supposed to go back to our recharging stations.” Her eyes flick to the side so briefly that you wonder if you imagined it. “Sun’s such a sweetie, but he’s way too obsessed with order and tidiness and blah . He can’t even stop for, like, five minutes without getting a nervous breakdown! But when Freddy tries to bring up anything about a system update, poof! Gone like the wind! Don’t you agree?”

You blink.

‘I wouldn’t know, ma’am, because he’s too busy being an ass to be anxious around me.’

You make a noncommittal noise instead, discreetly scratching your arm through the uniform’s fabric, and she takes it as agreement.

“Yeah! I know he’s got a lot to be nervous about, but still! It wouldn’t kill him to pop out a little and just, I dunno, hang out with us instead of arranging glitter glue bottles for the thousandth time. Moonie’s worse, if you can believe it!”

What?

“He’s so quiet, even from before the huge fire that happened! You’d think his repair would’ve loosened his voice box a little, eh?”

What fire?

“But nope! Actually, I think he got even quieter, if you can believe that! Now he never stops to say hi to any of us, except for Monty, and that’s only to bite each other’s heads off.” Her eyes roll in exaggerated annoyance. “ Boys. ”

… Who the fuck is Monty??

“Oh!” Chica smacks a palm against her forehead. “Oops! I got so caught up talking that I nearly forgot why I’m here.” Chica flashes you a tentatively hopeful look. 

Aaaaand the conversation is swerving back to you now. Well, that distraction didn’t last long.

“How are you getting along with Sunny? He might seem a little annoyed, but that’s just because he’s juggling a lot right now.”

She snickers right after saying that. You don’t know why.

“So don’t take it personally if he gets a little angry, ‘kay? I’m sure he’ll warm right up to you once he sees how hard you’re working. Who knows? He might even have time to come hang with us before lights-out, now that you’re here to share the work.”

You see an opportunity for a way out of this conversation. “Yeah, I get that. Speaking of which, I should really get back to the daycare now! So, um, Sun can hang with you sooner?”

Chica makes an “Oh!” of realisation. Satisfied that she got the hint, you start to walk around her, but you couldn’t have been more wrong. Your arm is suddenly seized by an overly excited hand. You flinch. “I wasn’t just talking about Sun, chickadee! You should come with, too, the others are dying to meet you!”

… Something about that feels like a lie.

You open your mouth to give an excuse, but you’re saved from having to answer by a new voice interrupting, “Chica! What did I say about wandering off?”

Both of you turn your heads simultaneously to see a lady who looks to be in her early thirties with auburn hair tied in an elaborate braid walking over with deliberate strides. Her attire shares Chica’s white-and-pink colour scheme, and you barely manage to see a name tag pinned to the right side of her chest. A fellow coworker you’ve never seen before.

But more importantly, a convenient distraction!

“‘Scuse me,” you mutter, hurrying off before either of them can stop you. You don’t stop until you’ve reached the daycare section, having enough self-awareness to try and look unbothered when you squeeze through the doors, speed past the kids still awaiting pick-up, and into the safety of the cramped, empty closet. You dump the bucket on the floor and finally, you have a chance to breathe .

(Not too much, though. You’re not done getting rid of the dust.)

You vigorously scrub your face, but it doesn’t get rid of the lingering discomfort. Remembering the overwhelming wall of positivity that is Glamrock Chica only serves to stoke the flames in the back of your neck.

‘Don’t think about it. Don’t think about it. Don’t think about it.’

Snatching up a sponge rougher than necessary, you get back to scrubbing away the grime, wishing that you could do the same with your mortification.

=0=

You don’t know how much time passes by the time you’re done with one side of the closet, nor do you care much about it. You’re more concerned about the sea of boxes on the floor now, so clustered by the small space that you’re basically boxed in where you stand.

‘I should deal with this first, then I won’t have to lug everything back on the shelves.’

Bending down to open up the boxes is a bit of a chore - your back does not appreciate your crouching for hours on end - but you push that aside in favour of falling into a familiar rhythm of sorting through untouched craft supplies, sorting out the expired crap until you stumble across a particular box that’s out of place.

It’s stacks of themed notebooks. Typical A5-sized, ringed notebooks that aren’t exactly made with quality in mind. But the illustration of a cartoon Moon splashed across the cover catches your eye, and you pick one up out of curiosity.

“What’s this doing here?” It seems a bit odd given you’ve seen Sun only give plain sheafs of paper to the kids. You should probably set this aside in case he wants it… but then again, it has to have been here for a while, so Sun must not want it that badly.

Maybe he wouldn’t miss one?

You slip it into your bag without a second thought. It’s for a good cause, you assure yourself. You’ve had a work notebook for your last job, meant to list any information you can’t easily retain for more than a day (so all of it). This can be the same. You have a good reason for this.

(and your inner child calls incessantly for it, as faint as the voice is)

Artificial light suddenly floods the closet space from behind. A booming voice startles you into dropping your bag. “Friend! Very naughty of you to be lazing around when you should be working. What would Miss Jones say?” Sun tuts at you.

“I’m done with this set of shelves,” you say, ignoring his words entirely. You wave an arm at the left side. “But I’m tackling the boxes before I get to the other set, or else I’ll be up to my tits in glitter glue.”

Sun’s rays creak in affront.

“That’s not a swear,” you helpfully tack on.

“It’s still inappropriate language! Especially around my little sunbeams!” His hands’ gestures spell out the disbelief in his words. “I’ll have to ban you from the daycare if you continue using those foul, horrid, nasty, rule-breaking-“

You peek around Sun’s legs as he continues to rant. The floor mats are free of tiny stampeding and thrown toys.

“… There’s no kids.”

“Irrelevant!” Sun snaps. He starts to lean to you - your leg muscles tighten, ready to spring to the farthest corner - but he stops just before the threshold between the daycare’s glaring fluorescent bulbs and the closet’s flickering light show. “No. Bad. Language!”

“Alright, alright, I won’t say it in front of you or the kids-“

“ BZZZT! Wrong answer!”

You resist the urge to throw up your hands. “Fine! I won’t say it at all . Now can I get back to work?”

You don’t understand what’s the point of censoring yourself when nobody’s around and Sun doesn’t seem eager to explain himself, but whatever. Not the first time you’ve gone along with arbitrary rules.

“Nnnnope!” His grin grows taut, and he crooks a finger towards himself. “I need you to come out here.”

You pause.

“Um. I don’t like the way you said that,” you say slowly.

Sun creaks forward.

You inch backward.

Then he suddenly lurches to grab you, and you fail to scramble away in time when your hand smashes through an empty cardboard box, throwing off your whole balance. Hands wrap around your waist as easily as grabbing a cup of water, and your world blurs as you’re dragged out into the light kicking and protesting, his eyes glinting red for a moment as the pressure digs into your ribs-

“Let go!” Your legs lash out but don’t make contact with his body; you don’t want to get fired for accidentally damaging him.

The pressure suddenly lightens into a normal hold as the daycare’s lights wash over you and him. Milky white eyes stare down at you, his smile unreadable.

“I have to work ,” you hiss, pushing at his arms with no effect. “Put me down- Oi!”

Sun doesn’t answer. Instead, he carries you like a ragdoll all the way to a corner - with “Sick Corner” spelled out in happy letters over a plain cupboard and a small sink - and sets you down none too gently on a table. You rub your aching ribs disgruntledly as the animatronic skips over to the cupboard.

“What’s your deal?” you grumble under your breath.

His rays squeak left, but he doesn’t otherwise comment as he soaks a hand towel under running water.

With his back turned, you try to silently slide off the table and return to your work. Keyword being try .

The back of your collar is suddenly snagged, and you’re dumped back onto the table. “ Uh uh uh . Sick-slash-injured children are supposed to stay in the Sick Corner until A) they make a full recovery, or B) their parents come to pick them up,” Sun lectures you with a snickery undertone.

Despite your best efforts to wiggle out, the sleeve is easily rolled up to reveal the splotchy skin beneath. You try not to dwell on the fact that the cool air feels fantastic on your bare skin as you scowl up at Sun.

From the way his facial features grow taut at the sight of your arm, it seems he’s trying to scrunch up his face while not being physically capable of the motion.

“If it grosses you out so much, you can let me get back to work,” you suggest.

“Looking like this?” He gives the raised marks a look of disdain, the crunching of his machinery reminiscent of grinding teeth. “Absolutely not! I have standards for my daycare, thank you very much.”

“Why? There’s literally no one here!”

His eyelids slant in an expression of derision. “Oh? Then I must have imagined poor Sally bawling her little eyes out about a ‘scary zombie monster’ coming to eat her.” Your face drops. “I must have also imagined the rest of my sunbeams panicking! Oh, and I mustn’t forget the thirty-eight minutes I’ve spent wiping their tears!” He smacks his forehead with a mocking “D’oh!”. “That must be it. Can’t be your tiny brain being unable to comprehend any other person than itself, nope.”

“… Sorry.”

“Excuse me?”

“‘M sorry,” you grumble, your eyes darting everywhere but his face. “Didn’t mean to dump that all on you. I just… didn’t think it’s a big deal.”

“W-well! That doesn’t mean much to me. Words won’t take back what happened.” Sun still sounds somewhat mollified as he wraps the damp towel around your arm. The lukewarm dampness feels like heaven seeping into your inflamed skin.

He goes to soak a second towel and wrings the excess water out, while you take the initiative to shuck up your other sleeve before he tries to manhandle you like an overgrown toddler again.

“Blegh! Don’t you have medication for this?” he asks when he returns, staring at your red raw skin with thinly veiled disgust. “I can’t believe you’re walking around like that, even a toddler would have enough sense to speak up…”

“What would I need medication for?”

Sun stares at you. Blinks. Stares some more, until you get a niggling feeling that you might have said something wrong. “Yeeees?”

It’s almost impressive how many emotions he can fit into a single, hysterical giggle. “I don’t think I heard you correctly, Friend! Where’s your medication,” He points at your uncovered arm, “for your allergy?”

“I… don’t have an allergy.”

“Don’t have a… Ha. Ahahaha.”

You let out a gasp when your wrist is snatched up without warning. Sun holds your arm up to your face, like he’s showing you something never seen before. “Then what is this, Friend?”

“It’s just itchy, man! It’s not even that bad.” That’s a fucking lie, it feels like you’re housing a hive of angry bees that you have to scratch out. “I don’t have any allergies. ‘S not like I’m dying .”

His fingers twitch, letting your hand slip out without resistance. If you didn’t know any better, it almost looks like your mother when she’s in a particularly bad mood.

“That’s a joke? Of course that’s a joke! Humor! Comedy! Can’t be anything else, nope nope nope,” he giggles to himself, shaking his head. “Baaaad joke, though. Two out of ten. It’s not believable , no one can be this dumb! Not even you!”

The second towel is tossed to you, the dampness making it slap across your face. Spluttering, you peel it off in time to see Sun skipping off. “There’s so, so much left to do for tomorrow and no time to waste on you! You’re a big girl, you can deal with your problems yourself!”

You throw your hands up in exasperation. “That’s what I wanted to do from the start!”

Sun doesn’t turn back to answer you. You’re just fine with that. Huffing, you’re about to chuck the towels back into the sink with a vengeance when you look at your uncovered arm, at the swollen welts wrapped around like a sleeve.

“… I guess it won’t hurt to stay like this for a while more,” you mutter, putting the second towel around your arm. The cold relief it brings almost makes the last hour worth the pain.

‘I can’t stay here for too long. I need to get back to work, before-‘

A shrill beeping pierces the air. It’s your Faz-watch, blinking blue with Melinda’s name on the screen. ‘She’s calling me?’

… Maybe you should put off work a little longer.

=0=

You return to your lonely apartment later that night, physically and mentally exhausted.

You toss your bag aside. It lands next to your bedside table in a sad slump. “Can’t believe she sent me back early…” you grumble. You don’t bother keeping your voice down in the privacy of your home. “I wasn’t even done with the cleaning…”

The call had started normally enough. Your supervisor questioned you about your first day, and you didn’t have anything especially important to report. You were pretty much stuck in the closet the whole time, and you didn’t think mentioning your run-ins with Freddy and Chica would do your work prospects any good, so you left it out.

When you were done recounting, you thought that would have been the end of it. You didn’t expect Melinda to ask you to go home first, a whole hour before your shift was supposed to end. The command had sent you into immediate alarm at first - did you do something wrong? Was this because you were too slow with cleaning the closet? - but it wasn’t that. The reason was the opposite and just as baffling:

“Go home and get an early rest, you’ve earned it!”

“Home?” A glance at the closet. “But I’m not done yet…”

“You wanted to clean out the whole space in one day?” A laugh that’s not unkind, but still has you bristling. “I like your dedication, dear, but it’s been left to collect dust for so long that it will probably take you a month to turn it completely around! I’m amazed you managed to clean that much in one day, if I’m being honest with you.”

“But-”

“Go home. You can pick the rest up tomorrow.”

In the end, you do as Melinda said. As much as it irks you to leave a job half-done, you’d be more irked if you lost your job from annoying your supervisor too much. So you left the daycare, passing by Sun crouched beside the craft tables contemplating the most artistic arrangement of the markers before him. Both of you briefly made eye contact, the corners of his smile curling with a smug glee, but you simply left him with a weary “See you tomorrow” before departing the building. 

Now that you’re in the questionable comforts of your home, you can feel the dread for tomorrow’s shift creeping up your back. The work itself isn’t anything more than back-breaking, but your bigger problem is Sun . An animatronic that very clearly has rules for the daycare that you don’t know about, and won’t know about until you unwittingly break them. You can already see yourself pissing off Sun more and more and more until-

‘Nope! Don’t think like that. If there’s a problem, I’m going to fix it myself, ’ you think to yourself sternly. You can always make another workbook-

The Moon notebook! 

You nearly forgot about that dumb thing. Grabbing your bag, you dump out the contents, including the dark blue notebook that gets buried under your protein bars ( ‘Crap, forgot to eat.’ ). You flip through the pages; all empty, unsurprisingly. “What should I put first?” you wonder aloud.

… Ah, you got it.

“Rules for Not Pissing Off The Twat”

1) Listen to Sun. He knows what’s right and wrong.

2) Hide injuries better. Scares kids and grosses him out.

Chapter Text

Trial Week: 2nd Day

The next morning, you’re awoken at the lovely hour of six a.m. to the shrill ring of your cell phone. Blindly groping for it, your fingers close around a cold rectangular block, and you squint at the screen.

One message from your brother.

One message from your father.

One message from your mother-

Your mother?!

The weight of exhaustion on your bones is scared off in an instant. You bolt upright in bed, tapping at the screen so hastily you nearly drop it as several points, until you manage to unlock your phone. You see not only a deleted message from her, but a missed call- Most likely the source of the ringing in the first place.

Uh-oh.

Your thumb fidgets back and forth over your mother’s profile picture, caught between the desire to pretend you never saw it and the more rational solution of “get it over with”. You can only see the beginning of her message - “I have a…” - and your mind is already concocting increasingly wild notions to finish the rest of the statement, driving the budding anxiety in your tired mind to new heights.

You know you should answer immediately. It’d be stupid not to. You can already envision the disappointment you’d be on the receiving end of if you don’t. You should-

(You pass over her like a coward to open your brother’s text.)

The message is long-winded and takes up nearly your whole screen, which means it’ll take you some time to get through it. Perfect.

Your dry eyes skim over it once, then one more time to make sure you haven't missed anything. It starts with his usual pleasantries, the “How are you”s and “What are you up to”s, followed by his own life update where he waxes poetics about how adorable his daughter, your niece, is when she flips a hundred-piece puzzle she’d spent the better part of the day putting together.

You don’t blame him. She’s an endearing rascal.

It’s only near the end of the text bubble where he asks a question that, unfortunately, you’re obligated to respond to:

🐕Golden Retriever🐕: “I’ve heard you’ve got a new job at that fancy pizzaplex? I’ve never visited myself, but I’ve heard very good things about it. They have a daycare there, don’t they? The one that’s being manned by that sun character. Emmy’s been talking about my ears off all week when she overheard me saying you started working there! I could bring her over for a visit and let her see her favourite auntie :)”

You roll your eyes upon seeing “favourite auntie”, and fire back a text:

You: “i’m her only aunt”

You: “sides she’ll be all over Sun, not me”

You: “you think she’ll be interested in me when there’s a whole dancing robot to play with her? lol”

You’ve barely sent the last text before the red dot next to his name flips to green and the “Typing…” subheading pops up under his name.

… Yeah, it’s going to take him a while. It’s been a full minute and he’s yet to send a new message. While your brother is probably agonizing over his grammar, you mosey along to your father’s message. It’s short and to the point, something you appreciate and are disappointed by at the same time:

Stepladder: “How was your first day?”

Simple enough. You text back:

You: “fine. the robot kinda reminds me of muffin”

You: “really hissy”

Your father is already online before you’ve sent the first message. Not surprising, considering the outrageous demands that come with running a private school usually keeps him glued to his phone.

Stepladder: “It didn’t hurt you?”

You text back:

You: “nah he’s a weeni”

You: “weenie”

The next message you receive is the embodiment of a tired sigh from a man that just wants to hide from everything:

Stepladder: “Don’t insult the robot, honey.”

Stepladder: “But it’s good that you’re getting along. I must admit that I was a little worried about this arrangement, but it seems my doubts were unfounded.”

Stepladder: “Speaking of the cat, do you know when you can bring it to your apartment?”

Muffin! The mention of your precious fluffy buddy brings a rare smile to your face, but as you scan your apartment (messy, half-unpacked, cluttered), it fades just as quickly. Your cat can’t come here when your place looks like this . What if he got stuck behind some boxes?

You: “dunno yet. been busy with work, kinda forgot to finish unpacking”

There’s a moment of hesitation in your thumb before you force it down to press the “Send” button. The seconds that tick by as you see the “Typing” indicator pulsate is nerve-wracking. When his message is finally sent though, some of that anxiety is expelled with a slow exhale through your nose.

Stepladder: “Don’t push yourself too hard. It won’t do you good to make yourself sick and have to take leave in your first week of work.”

Stepladder: “And don’t ignore the other matter. Let me know when you’ll be able to get the cat.”

Stepladder: “Please.”

At least he doesn’t sound mad about your unavailability. If anything, he sounds… desperate?

You: “are you ok?”

His next text is near immediate.

Stepladder: “I’m fine. I’ll be even better if the damn cat stops hissing at me every five minutes. That thing is so damn moody when you’re not around.”

Stepladder: “It only tolerates me when I bring its food out…”

You don’t snort at his anti-Muffin sentiments like you usually do, but it does lighten your mood. You shoot off a brief text assuring him that Muffin does love him, he just shows his love in a different way, before you swap over to your brother’s text conversation. His message pops up just as you bring it up.

🐕Golden Retriever🐕: “Don’t say that! You might be her only aunt, but she does really like playing with you. You need more confidence in yourself! Putting yourself down like this is a bad habit :(. There’s so many good things about you, you can’t…”

You nope out of the text conversation at that moment. Dear god, this goes on for nearly the whole length of your phone. You appreciate the sentiment - really, you do - but it’s hard to take it seriously when it’s coming from a guy that can compliment even a garbage can and be genuine about it. It’s all just words.

You fiddle with your phone aimlessly for a minute longer, then sigh into your bedding. You can’t put this off anymore.

You press the dial button.

Each ring makes your chest grow a little tighter, and you snuggle into your plush comforter for comfort as you stew in your own apprehension-

The call is picked up.

It just occurs to you that you hadn’t thought it what to say.

“Hello?”

Your mouth is glued shut.

“Hello?”  

The one word, filled to the brim with impatience, has the cat on your tongue leaping away in fear. “H-hi!” you blurt out, practically flattening the phone against your skull. “Hi… Ma.”

You hear a sharp click of a tongue on the other side. The sound is accompanied by a burst of static that has you wincing. “What took you so long to call?” a familiar voice asks curtly.

“Sorry, I was asleep…”

“I’m sorry, were you in a week-long coma?”

“Huh?” It escapes you before you can stop it, and you wince. You can already imagine the immediate crease between her brows at your unrefined noise. “I-I mean, what do you mean?”

“I’m saying, if you’ve been sleeping all this time,” she says, each word deliberate and pointed, “and that’s why you’ve never bothered calling me.”

You blink. Then it clicks in your head in the next second, and your eyes are blown wide open by a sudden rush of mortification. “No!” you immediately squeak out.

You hear an impatient sigh. “Then what is it? It must surely be a good reason if you’ve gone silent for a whole week.”

“I…” Your next words have a sour undertone that makes your face screw up, because you know it’s not an acceptable answer but you can’t think of anything else to say this early. “I didn’t mean to. I f-forgot.”

Silence drops on the other end like a glass vase slipping out of your hands.

It shatters into a million shards when your mother says with a bite in her voice, “Did you not mean to do it, or did you forget? Throwing out two excuses at once isn’t going to help your case.”

“I-I… I forgot, but I didn’t mean to.” Fuck, that doesn’t sound any better, and your mother seems to agree.

“You forgot .” She spits out the word like it’s acid. “Why?”

“I…” You rack your brain in search of an explanation. But your brain feels too much like mush to formulate anything . “I, um…”

“‘I’ and ‘um’ aren’t answers! I don’t have time to sit around all morning!”

“I-“

“Answer. Now.”

“I don’t know!” you blurt out, fingers digging into your comforters. “I don’t know, okay? I’m sorry! I won’t do it again!”

The phone is silent.

‘… Shit.’ You feel yourself shrivel up in the heat of the red-hot, all-encompassing embarrassment flooding your insides. ‘Shit, I shouldn’t have shouted. I shouldn’t have said that.’

Your mother calls your name. Bracing yourself, you (squeak) hesitantly answer, “Yes, Ma?”

“That’s all I wanted to hear. Was that so hard?”

You blink and stare at the phone screen like it would make what you heard make any sense. “I’m sorry?”

“The first time was enough, thank you,” she says flatly. “And I can do without the attitude next time. I already get enough cheek from my colleagues seven days in a week, when they can’t even string together a coherent argument for my points! I don’t need this nonsense from my own daughter.”

You nod at the phone, before you realise how stupid you look. “Yes, Ma… Sorry.”

You can feel the frustration expelled in the drawn-out sigh she makes. Then all at once, she snaps back to her usual brisk manner. “I called earlier to ask you for a favour. If you had picked up earlier, you would have known that already, but that’s in the past.”

The last bit makes you purse your lips, but you don’t point it out. “What is it?” you gently prod.

“I have a package for your stepbrother,” she says. Your pursed lips go thinner. “When can you come down to collect it?”

“I can…” You clear your dry throat.

“I have a package for your stepbrother,” she says. Your pursed lips go thinner. “When can you come down to collect it?”

“I can…” You clear your dry throat. “After my shift?”

She makes a discontented noise.

“Before my shift,” you quickly correct.

“Better,” she huffs. “At least try to make an effort to remember other people’s schedules next time. Nobody likes to repeat themselves over and over again.”

She is referring to her own, packed to the brim with grading, lectures and other academic matters that often drag your mother into the deep recesses of night. You already know about this, but your sleep-addled brain must have lost that little fact between “Half-baked ideas to make Sun tolerate you” and “Still need to clean that stupid dusty closet”. A dumb mistake on your part.

“Yes. Sorry, Ma,” you mutter.

“… Hmf. I need to return to my work now, so make sure you do the same. I don’t want to hear about any trouble coming from you, do you understand?”

“Huh? O-oh, yeah. Yes,” you correct yourself before she has a chance to comment on your lax speech.

“Good. I’ll see you on Friday.”

With that, you hear the merciful click of a dropped call.

You stare blankly at your phone long after it has returned to its sparse home screen. Why did she mention “trouble”? Did you make any trouble? You don’t remember, but that alone doesn’t mean much when you could have easily forgotten it. But who else could have told her anything about you?

As if on cue, your phone pings with a new message from your father.

Opening it, it seems he’s sent a photo of your precious Himalayan cat. Not just a photo; there’s text edited in Comic Sans below Muffin’s blank stare to scream “I MISS YOU!”.

Stepladder:

… Did he just send an advice animal? It’s not even a good one.

It would normally draw a reluctant giggle out of you, but the picture gives you a sour taste in your mouth instead. Not because of your dear baby, you would never. It’s just that…

Your father doesn’t normally go out of his way to do this sort of gesture. He’s never been touchy-feely, not at all, and this is sounding the tiniest alarm in your head. 

It could be nothing. It could be an innocent way of asking you to take Muffin.

But it could also be an innocent way of apologising for snitching any forgotten misdeeds you’ve committed to your mother.

You don’t know and it makes your insides squirm.

Another message from your father pings.

Stepladder: Let me know if you are facing any problems.

… This doesn’t make you feel better.

You send a vague message in response and quickly turn your phone off. You don’t want to think about your family anymore, or it’s going to haunt your mind for the rest of the day. The last thing you need is a distraction tripping you up at work.

Work…

That’s right, you have more important things to worry about. Taking a deep breath, you push every single message besides the arranged meetup to a dusty, unlit corner in the back of your mind. Deep, deeeeep back there. And if you just so happen to forget about them entirely, well, you’re not going to complain about it.

For now, you have far more important things to contend with.

One hasty breakfast later, you find yourself in the pizzeria once more in the wee hours of morning. You figure that’d be alright since no one complained about it the day before. The notebook weighs heavily in your bag. 

For all the time you’ve spent in the closet, you’re at least aware enough that only Sun had been out entertaining the children for the entire day. Not once have you seen a lick of Moon anywhere. Should you bring it up with someone…?

‘Nah. Like I need another animatronic hounding my ass.’ You make a face at the thought. Slipping past the door to the staff break room, you’re back in the familiar pop coloured hallway. ‘Sun’s already a handful on his own, I don’t need his buddy ganging up on me.’

You recall the various statues, figures and cartoon depictions of Moon everywhere in the daycare as you make your way through the building. What will the real thing be like? Just like Sun? Nicer? Worse? Is it even any of your business? It’s not like Melinda bothered to explain his existence beyond an offhand mention about the discontinuation of “nap time” in daycare.

“Whatever,” you huff to yourself. “S’not like meeting him’s gonna to help me do my job better.”

You turn around a corner that will take you down a flight of stairs leading to the (SAFER) daycare entrance, and you nearly run into another S.T.A.F.F Bot. This one is wearing a cap boldly labelled “SECURITY”, and it’s holding a torchlight that’s thankfully pointed at the ground.

It stares.

“Hi. Uh, I don’t think you’re the same one I saw yesterday. Are you? I, well, I don’t think you care.” You jab a thumb over its head. “Just here to get started on work early. I already did it yesterday, so you know I’m not up to anything weird. Yeah?”

It stares.

“… Good talk.” You gingerly step around it. “See ya.”

It eyes your movements for a while more before swivelling back around to continue its preprogrammed route. This time, it’s you who sticks around for a moment to watch it roll off into the distance. ‘If they could blink, they’d be a hell lot cuter,’ you muse. It’s a wonder how a simple human action (one you’ve taken for granted until now) can change the vibes of a person so readily.

You turn to continue your trek to the daycare… and nearly break your nose running into a broad orange chest. “Fuck!” you yelp, stumbling back.

“Oh dear, my apologies!”

… Fuck.

There’s only one person you know who would be that happy to see you. You crack your watering eyes open to see Freddy reaching out for you as if wanting to check you for injuries, his teddy ears flicking with concern. You quickly back out of his reach. “No no no, I’m fine!” you yelp, one hand massaging your throbbing nose. “Sorry, sorry, should’ve looked where I was going…”

“Are you sure? That sounded quite painful,” he says uncertainly. “If you’d like, I can take a look at it. Us Glamrocks are programmed with basic first aid training in cases like this.”

First aid? You’re not really sure how that works with paws as bulky as his, but who knows? You won’t be surprised if he turns out to be better at it than you.

Still, you wave him off. “It’s fine. Worst that’ll happen is some bruising, it’s not a big deal.” You remove your hand from your face. “See?”

“… Very well, if you say so.” Freddy still looks itching to pull you closer, but he holds himself back, much to your relief.

“Anyway, I need to get going to the daycare.” You try to shuffle around him like you had done with the Security Bot. “Sorry to bother you.”

However, instead of going on his way like the rest of the Security Bots, Freddy falls in step next to you. You stifle a frustrated groan. “Don’t you have… stuff to do?” It only just occurs to you that you don’t know what the animatronics do during closing time. Sun is easy enough to figure out - someone has to keep the daycare intact, after all - but Freddy and Chica? You can’t exactly picture either of them picking up a mop. 

“I do have band rehearsals with the other Glamrocks, but sometimes it’s nice to take a morning stroll by yourself. I’ve heard that it clears your mind, and I’m pleased to report that it works like a charm!”

His jaunty answer earns a side-eye from you. ‘Like my dad…’

“Pardon?”

Damn it! You snap your jaw shut, but it doesn’t take back your little slip-of-the-tongue. Freddy looks down at you with polite confusion, and it makes a dull blush burn the tip of yours ears red. “I didn’t, um… Shit. Shoot!” you correct yourself, shooting the bear a worried look. God, you can’t stop fucking up this morning, can you? “Sorry, sorry, didn’t mean to Sorry, that’s, um… Force of habit.”

A low laugh rumbles from deep within Freddy, his ears clicking back and forth from the force. You furrow your brows at him. “Don’t sweat it, Superstar! Believe it or not, I don’t just entertain children. I’ve had to contend with boisterous teenagers and parents alike. Why, some of the language I’ve heard from them would make even Monty blush!” Freddy guffaws. You manage an uneasy smile. “I don’t mind you saying it in my presence, just be sure to mind your language around the customers.”

“… Yeah.” Your fingernails dig hard into the skin just under the cuff of your sleeves where Freddy can’t see, just to offset the swelling discomfort straining against your chest.

Silence falls once again as you follow him through a hallway leading to the brighter, customer-friendly sections of the pizzaplex. You want to desperately hide behind it, but unfortunately, you can’t exactly use an intangible concept with the constitution of wet tissue paper as a shield.

“So you were saying about your father?”

Your face twists into a grimace. You don’t want to blow him off like you’d do with anyone else, you really don’t, but does he have to be so damn chatty?

“… Nothing much. Just that he likes to walk around the school before starting work.” You give a half-hearted shrug. “‘Cause the kids stress him out, I guess.”

“Oh! He works as a teacher?”

“Something like that.” If you can call the headmaster of a private school a “teacher”.

Your curt answers don’t seem to dissuade Freddy. If anything, the glow in his electric blue eyes seems to suggest that he’s genuinely interested in what you have to say. Why? You can only shrug at yourself.

“I take it that you’ve gotten your early bird tendencies from him, then?” he asks with mirth in his voice. He ascends stairs leading to the atrium, his wide strides easily taking two steps at a time, and you follow him up with considerably more caution.

“Eh?”

“You’ve been coming to work hours before your shift is slated to start, haven’t you?” He points at your Faz-watch, which has the current time displayed loud and proud on its screen.

“Well, yeah, but it’s different! He’s actually busy with running the school, I’m just… cleaning a closet. It’s not even a big closet.” Your tone pitches high with frustration for a split second and you quickly clear your throat. It’s still enough to warrant a curious look from Freddy, though.

“I’m not complaining about the work, if that’s what you’re worried about,” you hastily say. “I don’t care ‘bout that! I love it, can’t get enough of it. Just… I think I can’t really compare with Sun’s speed, y’know? I’m stuck on this one stupid closet when I should be out there helping Sun, and it’s not like he’s going to help me with it. In fact, I’m pretty sure he chucked me there because-“

‘Because he wants me out of the way,’ you manage to hold back just in time.

“I’m just. Probably not doing as much as I should be,” you finish lamely. Now you’re picking at the tiny crescent indents marked on your wrist. “And he might be… a little annoyed because of that.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t worry about that.”

You’re taken aback; not by his words, but by the surety behind them. “R-really?”

A small grin carves the corners of his mouth, and Freddy pats your back so suddenly you don’t have time to duck away. “The Daycare Attendants have always been quite particular with how the daycare is run, so they’ve never quite taken to outside help, but that might change now,” he says reassuringly. “I’ve caught glimpses of your activities yesterday, and if you keep up the hard work, I’m sure they’ll come around to your presence sooner than later.”

You don’t think you’ve doing anything particularly special, but who are you to speak against the band leader’s word?

“Ah, speaking of which. It seems that we have arrived at the daycare.”

You’re startled back into awareness, noticing for the first time that the environment has turned to the cheery beach decor that surrounds the lower entrance to the daycare. 

Wait.

“Freddy? I thought we were going up the other way, the one with the slide?” you ask hesitantly. As much as you hate the balcony, you fancy the idea of starting a fight between Freddy and Sun over a petty locked door even less. You try to catch up to the bear, but his strides are too long and too determined in their march towards the door. “Freddy?!”

“Don’t worry, superstar,” he says far too casually, as if he can’t see you very pointedly waving him to stop. “I’m quite confident that our little sticky lock issue has been adequately resolved.”

“That’s-“

He puts his paw to the door. It… swings open. Easily, in fact.

You skid to a halt next to him, trying not to gape at the feat you had thought impossible. “Oh. Uh. Ha ha, so it is. Ah…” You’re too flustered to even attempt to hide your embarrassment. Freddy’s amused side-eye isn’t helping either! “… Sorry,” you mutter in the end, averting your gaze.

Whatever Freddy might have to say is interrupted by a pokey head poking out of the doorway. There’s a beat of silence as bear and sun stare at each other, a weird intangible tension hovering between them, but it passes so quickly you wonder if you had imagined it.

“Freddy! he trills, eyes squinting happily at him. A black cable detaches from his back and retreats to the ceiling. “How bear-y good to see you! I didn’t think it was paws-ible with how busy the amazing Glamrocks are, but I’m so, so glad you managed to find a paws in your packed schedule!”

Any normal person would have probably perished on the spot from the onslaught of awful puns.

You’re not normal. You snort out a laugh, quickly hiding your face behind a sleeve.

Sun’s gaze swivels onto you, his smile falling ever so slightly, but Freddy’s timely interjection manages to turn the icy gaze off you momentarily. “And a good morning to you too, Sun,” he chortles, accepting the hug. Sun whips his head back, all grins again. “I hope everything has been going well?”

“Of course! The little sunbeams do a great job at keeping me on my toes, oh yes, but I wouldn’t wish for anything else! Why, they’re all so absolutely adorable that I could just eat them up!” His rays perform a delighted spin around his head as he clasps his hands together.

Freddy nods in agreement, chuckling. “I understand that very well, Sun. But don’t forget to take it easy every now and then! Now that you have such a capable and hardworking assistant, I’m sure that you’ll appreciate sharing the work with another pair of hands.”

... God damnit , Freddy was doing such a good job at keeping you out of the limelight until he decided to toss you back under the bus.

Left with no way to discreetly worm out of the Daycare Attendant’s judging gaze, you try to give him a reassuring smile. It comes out as a crooked grimace instead.

“Oho, we can’t be too sure about that yet!” Even you can hear the strain in his voice, and you try not to flinch when he bops you playfully (hard) on the head. “She still has a lot of spring cleaning to do before we have any talks about sharing anything!”

It never occurred to you that Freddy is capable of any expression other than “proud dad attending his child’s graduation”, so when his brows dip into a look of quiet disappointment, you feel your own gut twist with a nonsensical sense of guilt even though it’s not directed at you.

“ Sun ,” he says with a specific kind of sigh that you’ve heard out of your own father’s mouth way too many times and just like that, you’re shuffling around Sun to the safety of the closet far away from this brewing mess. “Ah, wait-“

“ Sorrygottagothanksfreddybye !”

You don’t stop until you’ve kicked the closet door shut behind you. The sudden silence that befalls you only amplifies the sound of your racing heart. 

You don’t hear anything else from outside, although that could just be the sheer width of the daycare cancelling most sounds travelling to the other end. You blow out a slow breath as you lean against the wall, eyes closing for a moment. “Jeeez…”

You could have made a more graceful exit, you know that, but past experiences tell you that nothing good can come out of staying in the midst of an argument on the verge of eruption. In fact, your presence is usually a catalyst for said argument, so you’re better off here! Here cleaning this closet with the… zero cleaning tools you have…

Shit.

In your haste to escape the uncomfortable situation, you’ve managed to land yourself in another uncomfortable situation! Yay.

You take a moment to mentally facepalm before sighing, scanning the half-tidied space you’re in. “Might as well start packing this crap away, I guess,” you mutter to yourself.

That’s what you spend the next few minutes doing, shaking out any expired bottles and stowing away ones that can still be used. Does it even matter if Sun has his own stash to supply the kids with? Probably not, but it never hurts to go the extra mile.

You’re in the middle of stowing a cardboard box on the shelf when the door creaks open.  The curtain of strong light washes over the closet’s single flickering light bulb, a Sun-shaped shadow carved into it, and you still.

You don’t speak.

Sun doesn’t say anything.

The silence between you two stretches like a rubber band, growing tauter by the second, threatening to snap if nobody says anything soon.

You’re the first one to crack under the pressure.

“Thank you for last night.”

You see the shadow perk up.

“My… not allergy, my sensitivities to dust that you helped with. Kinda.” Although it was mostly a good night’s sleep that helped your arms heal back to normal, you don’t say that out loud. “You didn’t have to do that but you did, so… thanks.”

“… You’re right, I didn’t have to do that! I’m already super-duper busy with the sunbeams, I don’t have time to hold your hand, too!” He harrumphs and the shape of his shadows bobs left and right. “Look at this! I helped you one time and you’re already waiting for me to help you again!”

… What? You rack your memory, but no such instance pops up in your mind. Finally, you raise your head to give Sun - grinning, clasped hands intertwined tightly, the whole width of his body blocking the doorway - a wary look. “What are you talking about?” you ask warily.

“You ran into your little closet to work, but what’s this?” Sun makes a show of scouting the tiny interior of the closet, and he lets out a mock gasp and puts a hand to his chest. “No rags! No disinfectants! No mops! Nothing but lies and dust in this place with you!”

“ So? ”

He wags a finger at you. “ You know where the janitorial closet is, and I know you know where the janitorial closet is!” he says chidingly. “Yet here you are, janitorial-less. Why is that, hmmm?”

God, he’s not going to leave you alone, is he? Ears turning red, you blow out a breath through your nose and say through gritted teeth, “I never said that. I was waiting for you to stop fighting with Freddy before I go get the cr- stuff .”

The admission takes a bit of your soul out of your body. What are you, five?

Sun stares. He stares, and unlike the S.T.A.F.F. Bots that don’t have any inner thoughts to speak of, you know there’s something stewing in that flat head of his, but you can’t discern anything from that empty grin on his face and it puts you on edge.

“… Ha.”

The quiet huff of laughter makes you twitch in surprise.

Then it grows larger, and livelier, and unkind, until Sun is holding a hand to his unmoving mouth to hide his giggling. “ Friend! I didn’t know you’re such a scaredy-cat!”

“… I’m sorry?”

“You think that was fighting? Oh, Friend ,” he sighs with faux pity, the kind that makes you bristle automatically. “How presumptuous! Did no one teach you that it’s rude to assume? That was just a perfectly normal lil’ conversation between two friends! Although I suppose it’s understandable that you wouldn’t know what that’s like.”

“I…” Damnit, you can’t exactly refute that. And judging from the widening grin on his face, it’s probably obvious on your face. 

“And even if we were fighting, let’s go along with your silly thoughts,” His head cocks at you with slitted eyes, rays spinning a cycle, “what makes you think that running is what a good daycare worker does? No good, absolutely not a good look for my- ah, the daycare assistant to skedaddle the moment someone raises their voice! What would the little sunbeams think? You’ll make me look like a terrible pal to them, and that won’t do, nope!” He’s creaking ever so closer. His feet remain planted so it’s not like he’s actually moving closer to you, but…

“Then what makes a good assistant, huh?!” you snap.

“Eh?”

Sun draws back. His smile falls a little, losing some of its smugness.

You take advantage of his momentary surprise, glaring up at him in hopes that he can’t hear your racing heart in the closet’s silence. “Yeah, what makes a good assistant to you?” you shoot back. “You’ve been yapping on and on and on and you never once said how to be a good daycare assistant! You got something useful to say?”

The animatronic stares in seemingly stunned silence. His expression is the flattest it can be while still bearing the right to call itself a smile.

In a moment of reckless fury, you step forward to square up against his torso, the highest part of him your head reaches. “You know what? I’ll give you a starting point! Why don’t you tell me about your previous assistants and-!”

(His eyes blink red.)

A cable descends and hooks onto Sun, yanking him skyward without warning. You scramble back before his pointed shoes could smack you in the face.

“-Oi!”

He doesn’t return despite your shouts. You can only watch in frustration, stuck on the ground, as Sun swings up onto the balcony of the castle prop and disappears from view. “You!”

A single shout ejects from your lips with the force of a gunshot, the brewing cocktail of frustration and exhaustion expelled from your being. The result? You feeling like an empty husk that’s pressing her forehead against the metallic edge of the shelves, its steely coolness a relief against her heated face. Why are you getting so worked up, anyway? This is what you want in the first place: him getting out of the way. So why…?

‘Forget it, you have work to do,’ you scold yourself. Pushing your remaining doubts deep down, you hurry out of the daycare to fetch the cleaning stuff before the children start being checked in.

You can’t find the gloves today either.

Granted, you don’t spend too much time looking for it. You had been… talking to Sun for so long that you barely had time to gather everything to the closet before the telltale signs of ball pit diving began. Today, you’re extra-motivated to get this stupid closet clean before you become a permanent fixture in it, and finally move on to helping out in the daycare proper. Oh, you’ll show that stupid robot just how good of an assistant you can be…

You have an energy bar clenched between your teeth as you scrub down the right side of the closet, sweat dripping down your temples. It’s hard work, and you can’t help but feel a surge of pride as the storage space gradually emerges from the months-old dust caked on it, bit by bit and all by your hand. 

A head pokes itself around the ajar door. Sun, of course. He’s scanning the cramped space with a consternated noise (you’d almost call it a scoff) as you quickly roll down your sleeves over your itchy arms. For a moment, you think he’s going to comment on it anyway, but it soon becomes clear Sun isn’t going to speak up about it. Or at all.

“Do you need something?” you ask.

“… You’re done cleaning?”

“Yuh-huh,” you say with self-satisfaction. “I got a little more to do, but I can finish it by today.”

“Today?!”

You flinch back from the sudden shout of… fright? What? “Yeeees? It’s what you wanted, right?”

“I…!” A whine of honest frustration builds up at the back of his voice box. So honest that it’s starting to concern you a little. “I, I…” His eyes dim for a moment and he cocks his head as if listening to something. You don’t get to ask what the hell he’s doing before he snaps back to attention. “Th-this isn’t clean! Yes! I mean, no! This isn’t nearly good enough for my tastes, I feel like I can get an infection in my poor wires just looking at this! Won’t you think of the children?”

Listening to that makes you want to whine yourself. But you don’t, because you’re getting too tired for this. “Yes, Sun, I am thinking of the children,” you say slowly, as if you’re explaining what “5x5” is to an adult. “That’s why we shouldn’t focus on this stu- this closet too much and instead start on me learning the ropes of this job as quickly as possible-“

A single hand suddenly wrapped around your waist. 

“-Hey!”

Panic consumes all your senses in an instant. Mind drowning in static, your body twists and kicks madly as you’re hauled into the air, eyes only able to see that your feet aren’t on the ground when they should be on the ground.

“Nope! Unauthorised overtime is not allowed without prior notice!” he chirps like he’s reading a line right out of an employee manual, sounding anything but sad as he dumps you. You barely manage to stop your knees from buckling. “You have to leave now, Friend!”

You want to argue. You probably should argue. But the rush of adrenaline still pumps through your veins, infusing a mild tremble in your limbs and an erratic beat to your racing heart, and it leaves you wanting for nothing but a bed to collapse onto.

“ Fine ,” you mutter, snatching up your backpack.

However, it seems that Sun is not content with just letting you exit on your own accord. A hand presses against your lower back, the muscles instinctively tightening with tension, and Sun begins ushering you out of the door. “Hey! Stop- touching-!”

“Good bye!” With one final push that sends you stumbling forward, the daycare doors slam shut behind you. You quickly scratch away the buzz of his touch until your skin burns sore.

… Looks like you’re finishing tomorrow, then.

“Rules for Not Pissing Off The Twat”

1) Listen to Sun. He knows what’s right and wrong.

2) Hide injuries better. Scares kids and grosses him out.

3) Overtime not allowed.

Trial Week: 3rd Day

You try not to pay attention to the aching knots in your back as you jog into the pizzaplex.

You’re so close to being able to abandon that stupid closet (and dear god, are you getting tired of that word)! Just a little longer and you can do some real work.

Glamrock Freddy lumbers around the corner just as you’re hurrying to Kid’s Cove. Upon seeing you, his expression brightens. “Oh, good morning!” he greets, casually pressing a hand against his stomach. “How have you been-“

“‘M good! Gotta go!” 

You don’t pause to see Freddy’s polite befuddlement. Your eagerness takes you all the way to the daycare’s doors and to the back where you have to-

You throw the closet door open.

… to…

Your hand falls limply to your side. Disbelief makes your jaw go slack as you struggle to comprehend the scene unfolded before you.

You remember the closet’s state of neglect a few days ago. This isn’t that.

This is a deliberate disaster.

A sickening kaleidoscope of colours coat the shelves in hardened puddles, with the white parts looking like spilt, goopy milk and the coloured bits glittering in the sporadic bursts of light. Broken bits of colourful debris litter the ground, which you figure out to be crayons and markers absolutely mauled to tiny, unusable pieces when you pick one up. Nearly every box has been torn to shreds, including the one holding the Moon notebooks (which seem to have been torn with particular malice. The thought makes the one in your backpack weigh heavy). Drying puddles of paint are splattered across the walls like some mad artist decided to use the walls as a canvas for his incoherent art. Cracked bottles sit sadly on the ground.

‘... I spent two days on this…’

Your first thought goes to an unknown coworker being the culprit. It certainly won’t be the first time. But as you wade through the wreck, it soon disintegrates when your gaze falls on particular dents in the steel shelves. Dents that look suspiciously like finger imprints…

Jingling bells announce Sun’s presence as he skips up to the doorway. He seems awfully pleased with himself, something you can’t help but notice while taking calming breaths. “Goood morning, Friend! Oh me oh my, whatever could have happened here?” he gasps, leaning for a closer look as if he’s seeing it for the first time.

“I wonder.” Your voice sounds far away to your ears.

You can feel his gaze burning into the back of your neck. Waiting, maybe even hoping for you to yell, or scream, or throw a punch his way-

Breathe in. Breathe out.

This… isn’t a big deal. This is not a big deal. It’s fine. It’s not your first time. If you get a mop… get a trash bag to dump the broken things in… yeah, yeah, this is fixable. You can fix this before anyone finds out. Not the end of the world. Not worth losing your cool and risking your job. All you have to do is put a little more pep in your step to speed up the cleaning… Maybe skip lunch…

“What a pity, what a shame, looks like you’ll have to clean it all over again!” Sun makes a clicking sound, then tilts his head in thought. “... Hrm. That almost rhymed! I’d best brush up my rhyming skills…”

You’re not paying attention to his ramblings. “‘Scuse me,” you mutter, brushing past Sun in your haste to the janitorial closet. So absorbed by the multitude of steps to rid yourself of the mess, you don’t notice his gaze of quiet consideration following you out of the daycare.

It has taken all day and every drop of your energy, but you’ve done it.

Panting and stretching out your aching arms, you take a second to admire the once more spotless interior. 

Well.

Okay, “spotless” might be a bit of an exaggeration. But it’s a huge turnover from looking like a tornado had passed by. Every reachable inch of the walls have been scrubbed free of what turned out to be glue splatters (you still feel the mild sticky residue between your fingers), and the shelves have been similarly scoured, covered in superficial scratch marks from vigorous scrubbing. Unfortunately, you weren’t able to save most of the craft supplies and were forced to toss them out, leaving the storage closet a barren wasteland with haunted lighting.

You sigh tiredly, sitting your butt against the edge of the middle shelving. ‘I finished it in one day… but at what cost?’ You wince as you feel a burning pain in your upper arms, the muscles cramping from the abuse they went under each drag of the gum scraper. Your stomach chooses this moment to growl loudly as if it feels left out. ‘Ah. At the cost of my lunch.’

Well, you have a chance to eat now, don’t you? It’s already close to the end of your shift and you don’t really want to face Sun just yet. ‘No harm in having a bite now,’ you decide, dipping into your bag to fetch an energy bar.

The door suddenly flies open, startling you into dropping your bag.

“Friend! Lazing around on the clock is a big no-no, and right after the nasty mess you left in here! Unthinkable!” the familiarly shrill voice scolds as its owner stands just outside the doorway, hands on his hips. “What will Miss Jones say about your… behaviour…?”

He finally seems to register the state of the closet, free from the mess he left, and his voice trails off in shock.

You raise your eyebrows. “What, surprised?” you snap back. “‘Cause it sounds a lot like you didn’t expect me to do the job.”

C’mon, you just crammed a two-day job into nine hours. You deserve a pinch of bitterness here.

“W-well! What else am I supposed to think after y- you left that horrible mess yesterday? An-anyways, you’re not done here, missy!” Sun blusters. He can’t even keep a straight gaze while accusing you, his glare pointing somewhere above your right shoulder, and for some reason, it’s grating on you more than usual. “There’s still loads of work to do, like… like inventory . Yes, yes!” He nods all congratulatory-like to himself. “We can’t have this little closet empty or you’ll get into trouble!”

“So you want me to stock up the closet just so you can wreck it again, is that it?” you scoff, and Sun makes an overly offended gasp, even taking a step back as if he doesn’t know what you’re talking about.

“I would never !”

It feels like his shrill pitch is sawing away your fraying threads holding your patience together. You try your best to blink away the budding headache, but it’s already taking root in the back of your head and-

“False accusations also warrant a report to your supervisor, I hope you know that! It’d be such a shame if I told her about your naughty behaviour-”

-aaaaaand you’ve just hit your limit.

“ Shut up!”

You don’t realise you’re the one shouting until the words leave your lips. The bellow echoes loudly in the dinky closet, surprising both you and Sun. Your eyes widen. “I… I didn’t…” You want to explain that you just lost grip on your self-control and didn’t mean to shout like that, but a second, stronger pulse of head ache kills the desire. You dig the heel of your palm against your forehead with a wince. “… Bloody hell, I don’t care.”

Muttering under your breath, you walk around Sun and out of the closet. You don’t feel bile rising in your throat at the sudden motion, and you certainly don’t feel a stumble in your step. Certainly not enough to get embarrassed by it and snap over your shoulder, “Try this crap again tomorrow and see what happens when I tell Miss Jones on you , fucker!” as a cover.

The fact that the animatronic didn’t immediately deck you for your smart mouth is astounding. Sure, Sun doesn’t seem to be the violent type, but then again, you’ve always been able to inspire the worst in others, so…

You still bolt out of the daycare before he has enough time to react, nearly clipping your head against the doorframe on your way out.

“Rules for Not Pissing Off The Twat”

1) Listen to Sun. He knows what’s right and wrong.

2) Hide injuries better. Scares kids and grosses him out.

3) Overtime not allowed.

4) hate hate hate hate hate that stupid sun 

Trial Week: 4th Day

Your head is killing you today.

Granted, it’s at its worst right as you blurrily drift back into the land of the waking. A wretched pain is pounding, stabbing, clawing at your brain, and it takes several deep breaths to force the nausea back down.

‘Christ, I regret everything.’

It’s hard enough getting through your morning with your limbs filling like sludge compressed to form vaguely operational appendages. But when you remember the parting words you’ve left Sun the day before, sludge transforms into leaden dread that anchors you to the spot. “Aw man. Oh god, did I really say all that to him? Oh god .”

You’re in so much trouble. For both mouthing off at someone above you job-wise (even if he’s not human) and making a baseless accusation against said someone. It doesn’t matter if you know Sun did it if you can’t back it up with actual evidence!

( ‘Sides, no one’s ever going to believe you. )

“Bloody hell, what do I do now?” you mumble to yourself, running your fingers through your tangled hair in repetitive motions. The little bursts of stinging helps ground you somewhat. “Damn it, calm down! Breathe…”

Breathe in. Breathe out.

You’re not a stranger to work issues. The thing is though, you’ve had a valuable asset by your side that no one had: your father, the headmaster. Head honcho of the school you started attending at the age of fourteen. As long as you didn’t do anything too outlandish, he’d be more than happy to… pull some strings for you. Admittedly, you don’t like it when he he butts in, but it does come in handy sometimes.

( like when you’re stuck on a roof, in a closet, in a toilet stall, in a- )

But here? His influence only stretches to getting you a job, and now it’s up to you to deal with this.

‘Maybe I should ignore the problem? Pretend it never happened?’ You ponder over it for a moment. ‘I guess he’s kind of like a bully? You’re supposed to ignore bullies and they’ll get bored, right?’

You suppose you can give it a try. Yeah, it shouldn’t be too hard to pretend Sun doesn’t exist, as long as he doesn’t block you with his much-bigger-than-you body or… shout shrilly in your ear…

(You have a bad feeling about this.)

You don’t see Freddy when you arrive at the pizzaplex.

A glance at your phone clock tells you why: you’ve arrived significantly later than usual. Not so late that the building is already open for business, but Freddy seems like the type to stick to a strict schedule for his leisurely activities, like your fath- ( ‘NO.’ ). You must have missed him.

‘Doesn’t matter,’ you tell yourself firmly, ignoring the pang of disappointment in your chest. ‘Just need to work.’

Besides, you tell yourself, it’s probably a good thing that he’s not here to see you if you look as exhausted as you feel. You don’t think you can bear the worried looks or mollycoddling Freddy might do, like your father does when he finds out you- ( ‘SHUT UP.’ ).

Good thing you can’t count on Sun to give a damn about your well-being, eh?

You shoulder your way into the daycare. Stifling a yawn behind one hand, you squint around your surroundings through watering eyes. The playground is as immaculate as ever (you’re starting to think Sun does nothing but deep clean this place every single night), but you don’t see the hyperactive ball of yellow limbs and orange rays anywhere. Come to think of it, where do the animatronics hang out after closing? Do they have their own rooms to “rest”? Do they “rest”?

A whirlwind of questions swirls in your mind, dragging you down to the epicentre. You’re so blinded by a potentially day-ruining rabbit hole that you nearly walk face-first into the closet door. “Crap, that was close.”

“ Language! ”

You throw up your hands in exasperation. ‘Of course.’

Sun descends from skyward in the visage of the most ornery angel in existence, arms full of papers and foam sheets, but not from a place you’d expect him to emerge. He’s hopped off a platform attached to the massive castle prop attached to the wall of the daycare, which has a simple door in place of a window cutout that you’ve… never noticed before. Huh. Is that Sun’s personal space?

You don’t get the chance to dwell on it, though. Sun executes a neat landing before you, leg joints audibly creaking as he straightens to his regular towering height.

“I didn’t know ‘crap’ is a swear now,” you say carefully.

“ Puh -lease! You’re the last human I’d look to for what does or doesn’t constitute a swear!” Sun huffs, doing something with his face that you think is rolling his eyes.

You open your mouth to shoot back that a glitter-loving tin can would know even less about it, then pause. Right, you’re supposed to ignore him.

“Sorry, got better things to do.” Turning your back to what’s surely an offended smile, you fling the door open ready to come face-to-face with another disaster to clean-

Except. It’s still spotless, unchanged from how you left it the day before. You unintentionally make a confused noise, poking your head further in to see if you’ve missed something. But nope, no hidden puddles of glue or scattered glitter. ‘I thought he would’ve bombed this place after what I said last night…’

Well. There goes the “Ignore Sun” plan sailing out of the window.

Slamming the door shut, you whirl around to give Sun a sheepish smile. “Um, change of plans? Looks like I’ll be helping you after all.”

“Oho? I thought you had better things to do?” Sun asks sing-songedly.

‘Damn it. Is it too late to go back to ignoring?’

“I thought I did, but guess I was wrong-“

“Not surprised!”

“-so I want to help you out in the daycare.” You unclench your teeth and force yourself to take a calming breath. “Well, I should be helping you in the daycare since it’s my job, but I got sidetracked with the closet.” ‘And that didn’t even matter in the end.’ “So. Yeah. I’m all ears to any instructions you can give me.“

“Oh, I wouldn’t be too sure about that!”

You don’t like that response. You like the following cackle even less. “What are you talking about?” you slowly ask.

The answer comes half an hour later, when your Faz-watch buzzes with an incoming call. It’s your supervisor, Melinda, and the reason she gives for the call is…

“The gift shop?”

“Yes, that’s right.” The receiver sounds surprisingly good for a tiny device. “You’ll have to restock the daycare’s gift shop for the next few days. The section of the backrooms holding the supplies should be marked on your digital map, so you won’t have any trouble finding the place.”

“Um?”

“Is something the matter?” Melinda asks with some concern in her voice. “It’s not too difficult for you, is it?”

“No! Nonono, that’s not it.” Sun would probably say otherwise, but you keep that little fun fact to yourself. “I was just wondering why.”

“… Why I’m asking you to do this, you mean?”

“Why you’re asking me to do this now and not any other days before,” you clarify.

“Ah, I see. Normally, it’s the S.T.A.F.F. Bots that take care of transporting stock to and from the backrooms, and human employees will step in only when they get stuck or malfunction, which doesn’t happen often. I believe you should have seen at least one roaming about?”

You don’t recall such an instance, but honestly? If you’ve seen one, you’ve seen all of them. “ Yep ,” you cough.

“That’s good. Unfortunately, the automation responsible for restocking the daycare’s gift shop was, ah, how do I say this… put out of commission last night,” she sighs, a lot of weight accompanying those four words. “Not just that one robot; a handful of them were damaged over the night and we don’t have any to spare for the daycare, so I need you to cover for the gift shop until we can get one up and running again.”

Damaged?  

A horrible idea takes hold of your mind when Sun’s words ring back to you. You can’t believe it- no, you don’t want to believe it, but it’s too much of a coincidence that Sun says you’re not going to be in the daycare and this happens. An image forms in your mind, as vivid as it is terrifying, of a maniacally grinning Sun towering over a pile of dismembered bots, bits of tattered wiring clinging to his fingers, his gaze creaking around to stare you down, lifting you up kicking and screaming to rip-

“-about this, the other Daycare Attendant has a tendency to attack some of the S.T.A.F.F. Bots-“

“Huh?!”

The yelp catches you at the wrong moment, and you double over hacking your lungs out. “Are you alright?” you can barely hear Melinda’s alarmed voice over your coughing fit.

“Y-yeah!” No way you’re going to tell her that you got jumpscared by her while being scared breathless by your own imagination. Clearing your throat, you stammer out with burning cheeks, “S-sorry ‘bout that, what were you saying?”

“I was saying that Moon tends to attack the other Security Bots. I thought that stopped after both of their big upgrades… Well, I suppose it has been a while since he’s dismantled one of them,” Melinda sighs again. “It’s unfortunate it had to be the shelf stockers he attacked.”

You blink at the Faz-watch. “ Moon . Not Sun?”

“Oh, did you think Sun damaged the S.T.A.F.F. Bots?”

You can’t bring yourself to answer, but your blushy-eared silence is telling enough.

Melinda is quick to give out assurances. “I can promise you that he’s never done that sort of thing, believe me. Sun is nothing but smiles and sunshine for the Janitor Bots that occasionally go into the daycare, and besides, he’s not allowed out of the daycare’s premises,” she says, “so it’s not possible for him to so much as touch one of them.”

She then pauses.

“Unless… is there a reason why you’re worried about this?” Melinda asks, a touch gentler than before. “Did the Daycare Attendant…?”

You hear the unspoken question loud and clear. “Nah, nothing like that.” You shove your free hand into a pocket before you can start tugging on your hair to stave off the budding guilt. “Buuuut if I were to present a hypothetical of, say, one of the Daycare Attendants wrecking a room. Which would you say is the more likely culprit?”

“… Pardon?”

“I’m not saying that happened, because it didn’t. I just… I’m curious is all.”

“… I would say Moon is the more likely candidate,” she says slowly, confirming your own suspicions. “No matter how angry Sun can get, he’ll hate messes more, and Moon had a penchant for being the more aggressive half… Not that he’s that way any longer! Our talented engineers made sure to get rid of that little bug very thoroughly.”

“Right.” That’s a lot of words, but the gist you got is “Sun did not do it and you’re a moron for assuming”. “Th-thanks, and sorry for the questions.”

“Don’t be! It’s understandable you wouldn’t be familiar with Moon since your schedule doesn’t let you meet him. Unless you try to sneak onto the premises after hours.” A self-indulgent laugh crackles the receiver.

Once she’s done laughing, you hesitantly ask, “Why not? He’s the other attendant, right?”

“He was ,” Melinda corrects. “But circumstances changed and we were forced to… reassign him to security detail instead. You don’t have to worry about it as you won’t cross paths with him anyway, considering he activates only when lights are off.”

“Oh.”

“Do you think you can handle it by yourself? You’re free to ask another coworker for help, but be warned that they may not be able to leave their stations at certain times.”

You start to wave off her concern before realising how stupid that would look. “It’s fine! I’m fine, I can take care of it myself,” you say instead.

Melinda seems pleased with your response, and hangs up after some parting words of wisdom like “Take the staff elevator when you’re carting the goods around lest you want to attract rabid customers to the unprotected merchandise”. You pinch the bridge of your nose to squash the blossoming headache between your eyes.

Christ on a bike, no wonder Sun hates your guts. You’d hate your guts too if you were forced away from your work partner to be paired with some shoddy newbie. And you’re pretty sure blaming him for a mess his partner did doesn’t help.

‘Maybe they… orchestrated this together! Yeah, that must be it.’ But trying to justify it only makes you feel worse. ‘Gah. Damn it, I should probably apologise, huh?’

Sun will more than likely be insufferable about the whole affair, but even you know that’s not an excuse. So you’ve made up your mind about approaching Sun…

After you’re done stocking the gift shop.

“Sun?”

The daycare feels painfully glaring when you enter it for the second time that day. Is it brighter? Or is it a figment of your imagination to your brain, worn down by the monotony of restocking the gift shop, pushing the trolley through the employee tunnel, restocking, pushing the trolley, restocking, pushing, restocking pushing restocking pushing restockingpushing -

‘Ergh.’ You quickly shake yourself out of your daze with a shudder. You might be losing it a little; you’d better quickly speak with Sun before you start losing it out loud.

You spy the animatronic hunched over the craft tables, shuffling a stack of paper while humming a happy tune under his “breath”. When you call out though, the little ditty comes to an abrupt stop.

“Friend!” Sun greets, waggling his fingers at you with a smug grin. “Did you have a super faz -tastic day? Because it sure looks like you did!”

The corner of your eye spasms with an annoyed tic.

Breathe in. Breathe out.

“Yeah, whatever. I got something to say to you,” you try to say cordially, but it comes out gruff instead. You wince at yourself. “I…”

You take just a second too long to continue, and Sun drums his fingers on the table impatiently. “Hurry up if you have something to say! I haven’t got all day, you know! Unlike you , I have lots to clean and tidy around here.”

“I’m sorry, okay?!” Oops, that definitely came out way too aggressive. Sun’s glaring at you now. You hastily clear your throat. “I mean. I’m sorry for what I said yesterday, I shouldn’t have said all that. Yeah.”

That’s a decent apology, right?

He tilts his head. “Sorry for what, exactly? You said a looot of not-so-nice things, I can’t keep track of them all!” he snarks.

… Maybe not.

“The things I said about you, you know, the whole thing about you messing up the closet? Yeah, I kinda heard from Melinda that someone else might have been responsible for that, and I realised I might have, uh, jumped the gun a little by accusing you,” you stammer, scratching the back of your neck. Already losing steam in your speech, you start to regret not planning this beforehand. “I shouldn’t have done that-“

“That’s right, you shouldn’t have! Saying ‘sorry’ doesn’t fix what you did,” And aren’t those words a familiar friend? “buuut I suppose it’s something.” He wags a finger at you. “That doesn’t mean you can weasel out of your gift shop duties, Friend!”

‘When did I say anything about that?’ you think sourly.

However, you just give a noncommittal grunt aloud. The animatronic seems to give you an odd look- or maybe it’s just an expression of smarm, god only knows. It’s getting harder to tell his expressions apart for some reason… Maybe you need some rest…?

A finger suddenly pokes your collarbone and you’re startled out of your daze. Sun is still wearing that odd look as he says, “Yoo-hoo! As much as I like you better with your head up in the clouds, you should scoot your butt back home and rest . I’m not picking you up if you trip on your own feet stumbling around like that!”

Your face automatically twitches into a frown. 

Suddenly the idea doesn’t sound nearly as appealing.

“Rules for Not Pissing Off The Twat”

1) Listen to Sun. He knows what’s right and wrong.

2) Hide injuries better. Scares kids and grosses him out.

3) Overtime not allowed.

4) hate hate hate hate hate that stupid sun 

think before i speak 

remember to eat idiot 

wanna bite sun 

need to 

i hate it here

Trial Week: 5th Day

Opening your eyes the next morning is a Herculean task all on its own.

Everything seems to be going wrong in your body: knees are wobbly, hands are trembling, vision is slightly cross-eyed no matter how much you blink, and your head constantly feels like it’s being stabbed by an ice pick.

It’s days like these that you sorely wish caffeine works on you like with most normal people. Unfortunately, you can’t have a cup of joe without your heart imploding on you, which would suck, so you make do with a lone banana in your fridge and protein bars.

The travel to work is a hazy one, and the pizzaplex’s air-conditioning only minimally rouses you. You hear high-pitched beeping (if you didn’t know any better, you’d say it sounded like concern), and you squint your achey eyes at the Security Bot- no, Security Bots staring at you. “What?”

They beep, and one tilts its head at you.

“‘M fine, I…” You frown, tapping a finger against your muddled head. “I… Uh… Never mind, can’t really think right now.”

You wave them off before continuing on your way. You only manage to walk a few steps before another beep drags your attention around, and you see the bots are following behind. You take a few steps forward to be certain, and sure enough, they wheel and stop at the same time you do.

“Are you guys following me?”

Beep .

“I thought you guys have… dunno, pre-programming or whatever? I don’t think you’re allowed to do this.”

Beep .

“You really don’t have to do this.”

They beep again, but don’t go. You sigh. You don’t think there’s anything outside of tech wizardry that can make these bots do anything they don’t want to, and it’s not like they’re actually being a nuisance, so…

“Sure, why not?” You continue your trek, and they also start to trail behind you.

The rest of your journey is spent in silence. You acknowledge in your mind that this must be an odd scene to anyone else: a peaky-looking daycare assistant walking down in a vaguely straight line while two Security Bots trail after them like lost puppies. But you can’t say that you mind it much. Having a quiet presence that doesn’t make your headache worse is a nice change of pace.

When you reach the daycare doors, the two bots give a parting beep before rolling away. “Bye,” you say to their backs. “Um, I’m sorry about your buddies the other day?”

They don’t give a reaction to that, although you can’t tell if that’s because they don’t care or if it’s a limitation to their coding.

You enter the daycare, Sun’s name about to leave your lips when something gives you pause. It takes you a while to figure out what: you don’t see Sun anywhere. Not at ground level fussing over untidy toys, not up the scarily tall playground, not up at his terrifyingly high-up hidey-hole in the castle prop.

“Sun?” Even talking in a raised voice makes your head throb, and you rub your eyes furiously. “C’mon, don’t tell me you’re hiding from me…“

Your foot suddenly catches a corner of a stack of cylindrical blocks. They tumble to the ground with unexpectedly loud thumps . “Oops.”

But as it turns out in the next second, your blunder is a blessing in disguise.

A distressed screech makes you jump out of your skin. You see Sun scramble out of his hiding place from one of the twisty tube tunnels in the playground, looking as frantic as it can look with a perpetual grin plastered on his face. “ Rule-breaker! Rule-breaker! I just tidied that, and you made it a mess again! Oh, it’s all out of order! ”

“Whoa!” You scramble back before you can get bowled over by Sun, the abrupt movement making your vision lurch unhappily. He doesn’t even pause to glare at you. “Crap, sorry.”

He doesn’t look at you. He’s solely focused on the toys, an endless stream of mutters filling the dead air as he fretted over whether the red goes on top or not, and you notice the smallest cylinder gently bumping against your socked foot.

You blame your next actions on your non-functioning brain. 

Before Sun notices, you snatch up the toy in one deft swipe and back out of his arms’ reach. His eyes widen a little when he sees you. “Wh-what’re you doing?! You’re not supposed to be playing with that!”

You grit your teeth, mostly to force yourself to think of something to say. “I… W-we can’t keep doing this.”

“I don’t speak ‘nonsense’, Friend!” Sun giggles, but his wary eyes tracking your every movement doesn’t match the energy of his words. “So why don’t you just drop that and march your little self out to the gift shop before someone sees you?”

Perhaps a little irrationally, that upsets you more than anything. 

“No!”

Your sudden bellow makes him flinch, rays shrinking into his head a little.

“I-I’m not- I don’t wanna keep doing this! This, this dumb ‘dancing around each other’ when I’m supposed to work with you! The whole reason I even took this stupid job is to keep your butt in the daycare and you won’t let me do that and I dunno why!” It’s hard to stop the waterfall of words from spilling out once it starts. Your vision wavers for a moment, but you’re still able to see him lurch forward, hands extending to snatch your hostage.

Eyes glow bright, and his voice turns a touch more panicked. “ Friend! I really think you should sit down for a moment!”

“No! I’m done with this stupid game of chicken!” Everything was growing warm. Your hands tremble. “I know I’m not as good as you, but you won’t even let me learn!”

The world starts to list a little. “If you’d just talk to me, then we wouldn’t be in… in…”

Your knees buckle.

The padded floor rushes up to meet you.

It’s like your soul’s been detached from your physical form. Everything sounds muffled and the lights above blend together in one searing mass that burns your retinas. The only reprieve is the plush material smushing your cheek, but it’s not much comfort against the nausea that’s scrambling your brain now.

Through your squinted view, you barely register the pair of pointy shoes plodding towards you. You definitely notice the hand that grabs the back of your collar. “H-hey-!” you choke out.

The toy is ripped from your hands before you realise it. The ground turns into a blur of primary colours as Sun hauls you to someplace unknown, lasting for several head-spinning seconds before you’re unceremoniously dumped back down butt-first, back against a wall.

Something heavy drops onto your lap with no warning. You nearly buck it off only to realise it’s a water bottle. Wait. It’s your water bottle.

Right on cue, your bag is dropped on your lap, and your head snaps up in time to see Sun skipping off without a backward glance. “Wait! Come back!”

Unfortunately, your body immediately makes it clear that it’s not ready to move via a psychic attack (nausea) to your brain. You collapse back against the wall. ‘Ow… Maybe I shouldn’t move for a while…’

You nearly knock out a tooth jamming the neck of your bottle to your mouth, taking sulky sips of water. The fact that it actually staves off a bit of the sickness you feel clinging to your mind only infuriates you more.

‘What am I doing wrong?!’ You haven’t the foggiest idea. Surely you have to be making some kind of mistake for Sun to pussyfoot around you for so many days because, well, why else would he avoid you so? Not even you can begrudge your worst enemy if they’re working well at their job. So…

You groan loudly into your bottle, nose mashed against the hard plastic.

‘What else can I do to convince him?’

A million-dollar question with no answer, sadly.

As if your day can’t get any worse, Melinda somehow catches wind of your collapse and tries to send you home for the day. Frankly, you have no idea how you managed to convince her to let you keep working and that whoever made the report was exaggerating, but you did.

‘It was Sun who told on me, wasn’t it.’

It’s not even a question at this point. The desire to chew him out over it is strong, but you have to put it aside, because…

‘Tomorrow’s Friday. Ma said she wanted to see me tomorrow, didn’t she.’

You can’t go home now. You’ll be all alone, and alone is bad. You’ll just stew endlessly in the oppressive silence of your apartment, working yourself to the point that you’ll fold inwards like a house of cards before midnight rolls around. You need to distract yourself. You need to feel the burn in your legs as you trod along in the employee tunnels, to focus on arranging the Sun-themed snow globes and not think about it until you're forced to. Nothing good happens when you start worrying.

‘Everything will be fine. Just don’t think about it.’

(you want to cry)

Chapter Text

The grandiose two-story house stands tall and proud in its isolation from other suburban structures. Floral shrubs ring around the base of the house, the stark red of the roses standing out like a sore thumb among them. There is no nameplate, no house number, no personal effect that would give away the owner’s identity.

You wave off the taxi driver who brought you here, and he leaves in a cloud of dust.

You look up. The house looms over you, its shadow washing away any sense of security your adulthood might have given you, and a shiver runs down your spine. Even after years since moving out of this place, you still feel so impossibly small here.

You don’t see any hint of activity in the spotless windows. So she’s not in the kitchen, nor is she upstairs. That must mean she’s already in the living room. The realisation makes your heart skip a beat.

‘I already know she’s waiting for me! There’s no reason to be like this, so stop,’ you tell yourself sternly. However, it doesn’t make your heart slow any more as you reach up for the doorbell.

You press. A pleasant jingle rings in the air, and you try not to fidget as you wait.

The doorknob rattles.

The door swings open.

A familiar woman greets you on the other side.

Your body tenses.

“Good morning, dear. How have you been?”

You blink. Her voice holds no traces of vexation, or any inkling that she remembers your less-than-stellar conversation on that morning. “I’ve been fine, Mama,” you answer belatedly, and her conserved smile grows a smidge warmer. She seems to be in a genuinely good mood today. Maybe she did forget about that conversation.

“Come in, come in.” She doesn’t wait for you to move, instead taking your wrist and pulling you through the living room and into the kitchen area, towards the polished dining table. She pushes you into an empty chair. “Wait here and I’ll pour us some tea.”

“Thank you, Mama.”

You sit yourself down and place your bag at the foot of the table. Your mother bustles around the countertops, her back to you. The ambient sounds of rushing water filling up an empty kettle, followed by the tick-tick-tick of a gas stove being lit up fills you with nostalgia. How long has it been since you’ve been in this position?

(eleven long years)

Your mother hasn’t changed a bit since the last time you saw her. Even in the early morning in her night clothes, she doesn’t have a hair out of place. She holds herself with an air of grace, able to pluck two tea bags with pinched fingers without disturbing the whole box and setting down two mugs on the marble countertop without making so much as a clang. Not like you, who can’t walk through your own apartment without stubbing a toe against your still-unpacked moving boxes.

‘Thank god she hasn’t asked to visit yet.’ You shudder at how she’d react to the haphazard stacks in your bedroom and living room.

A shrill whistling pierces the air. You hear her pour the boiling water, pause, and then pour for the second cup. A fragrant scent fills the air moments later.

You stay quiet. She never likes it when you try to talk to her while her hands are busy.

You keep your hands tightly clasped together to stop yourself from fidgeting as she brings over two steaming mugs of green tea. Your mother deftly slides your mug in front of you and sits herself across from where you are.

You wait for your mother to bring up the topic at hand. However, she seems perfectly content taking slow, dainty sips from her mug and nothing else. You shift in your chair, feeling your own anticipation nipping at your ankles. Should you say something? You normally wouldn’t entertain the idea, but her appearance is so outwardly peaceful that it might be safe enough to-

“What is it?”

You jump in your chair. Your mother stares at you with a light crease between her brows, all signs of serenity gone. Crap, you were too obvious. “Um-“

A searing pain suddenly wraps around your hand and you hiss in pain. You had accidentally jostled your mug in your brief fright and some of the steeping tea spilled, splashing the stretch of skin between your thumb and index. It burns your skin red raw and tender. You shoot your mother a wary glance. She’s still waiting for you with an impatient look.

“What are you staring at me for?” she bites out. “Do I have to hold your hand for everything?”

You take the hint and hastily wipe off the spilled tea after giving a mumbled apology.

Your hand smarts, but it doesn’t burn nearly as much as the stare she pins you down with. It’s searching, boring into your own gaze, making discomfort swell up and strain against your chest until sweat starts dripping down your face-

“So how’ve you been doing?” you blurt out.

The intense gaze relaxes by a fraction. You let yourself breathe; it seems you’ve said the right thing (for once).

“I can do without the slurring.” She lets your wince go without comment. “But I’ve been doing quite well, thank you for asking. I had quite an interesting topic for my class about the human mind; you won’t be able to understand much of it, so I’ll try to explain it briefly…”

Seeing your mother slip into the flow of retailing stories of her line of work is like meeting an old friend. Not that you know what that’s like. But it brings you back to a more comforting time in your life when you didn’t have to worry about “earning your keep” in everyone’s eyes. Your mother only ever wanted a listening ear, and you were all too eager to lend one if it meant getting precious glimpses into other people’s colourful lives you’d never be able to see otherwise.

Today feels like an echo of that oblivious time.

Her features gradually slip into pure engrossment as she regales stories about her fellow professors, students, the study of psychology, and so on, making reserved gestures at certain points, and you do your part in interjecting with questions about her work whenever there is a lull in her flow. It’s sometimes a challenge to ask good questions (especially when the jargon starts to sound like auto-generated captcha), but the glimmer of genuine happiness in her eyes every time makes the impromptu mental exercise worth it.

(It’s the happiest you’ve seen her.)

“All of your students sound really dedicated,” you say when she pauses to sip her tea. “I don’t think you ever made me write ten whole pages for one essay.”

“And not a single word is wasted,” she tacks on with a note of pride. “It’s not a universal experience, of course-“

You blink in surprise. Is that an accidental pun you hear?

“-but the average student has at least shown their capacity to learn. Although that also means longer hours for me with how many well-written essays I have to carefully pick through.” She sends an exasperatedly fond look your way. “Thank goodness you never gave me such trouble.”

You feel your brain freeze. Is that supposed to be a compliment? Or an insult? How are you supposed to react to that?

“It is a shame that you never took to the teacher role. You could have done well by my side… Well, if you ever learn to clean up a bit better.” Her voice gains the slightest edge to it. She suddenly reaches forward and flicks the bags hanging under your eyes with a sharp manicured fingernail. You flinch instinctively. “Honestly, what is this? It’s a wonder they let you be in front of customers when you look like a disheveled panda. And stop squirming away. We’ve talked about this, you’re not a child anymore.”

It’s hard to fight off the urge to crawl into the deepest hole when you feel and look like the Sasquatch next to your mother, but you manage to straighten your posture into a somewhat more confident stance.

“I just… I-it’s just that you’re so good at what you do that I’d probably be more of a hindrance.” You hope the laugh you force out is passable enough.

She doesn’t say anything to that, but you do notice a slight preening at your words. Heartened by the sight, you push on.

“Anyways, I… I know I don’t really look good now, s-sorry. I’ve just been pretty swamped at my new job lately and it’s been getting to me, I guess.” You lift a shoulder in a half-shrug.

“Swamped,” your mother echoes flatly. “Dear, you work in a daycare.”

“It’s a huge daycare!” you defend.

She raises her eyes heavenward, in the familiar “Here we go again” manner. “Alright, so what are your responsibilities in this huge daycare?”

Hackles rising at her dismissive tone, you say, “I’m working with this animatronic, his name is Sun, and-“

“You’re a technician?” your mother cuts in.

“N-no?”

“Are you a handler?”

“No, I already said I’m an assist-“

“Then I don’t want to hear about the animatronic. I asked about you, didn’t I?” she snaps, then mutters under her breath, “Honestly, never listens to me…”

Ignoring the sting of embarrassment, you quickly swerve the conversation away from Sun. Instead, you delve into all you’ve done for the past few days, starting from your first trial day. You do your best to skip over the bits about Sun being less than cooperative, which leaves you languishing in the memories of closet cleaning, restocking… meeting two of the four Glamrocks… and…

‘Oh wow, I really didn’t do much this week.’

Judging from the dull look she’s giving you, it seems your mother is in agreement.

“You let yourself look like a slob because you have to carry things around and run a little?” Her eyes sweep up and down you critically, and even though half your body is hidden beneath the table, you still feel yourself hunching over to hide yourself.

“It’s not- I’m not lying!”

“Did I say you were lying?” your mother shoots back with equal annoyance.

You grit your teeth, desperately trying to keep your mounting frustration out of your voice. “No, I’m not saying that, I-“

“Then what are you saying?”

Deep breath in, deep breath out. With the slightest waver in your voice, you say, “I’m… just saying that it’s a big facility, and it takes some time to walk to and fro. It’s physically draining, and I’ve been having trouble with… other things, so it’s been a bit much. That’s all.”

You're careful to keep Sun’s name out of it, lest you want another diatribe about not being able to bargain with a robot.

The curl of her lip lessens a little, but it’s not enough to stop the scoff that she gives. “Draining? You don’t know anything about draining yet. Come back to me when you’ve stayed up all nights for months on end working on earning your PhD.”

The mention of a PhD sends a jolt of guilt through your heart. You remember that period of your life all too well. It’d be hard not to when it was the most miserable three months of your life, all spent in a cramped apartment that boxed you in with a woman so high-strung, that she nearly snapped like a violin string pulled too taut.

And yet. Your mother managed to claw both her and you out of that miserable, humid apartment all by herself, and she managed it without looking like a homeless person running purely on caffeine and adrenaline.

The thought makes your irritation turn inwards, and you find yourself unable to refute anything she said.

Your mother takes a lengthy draught of her tea, satisfaction curling the corner of her lips as if able to sense your defeat.

You try to copy her and sip from your own mug. The lukewarm liquid curdles in your gut, the previously comforting warmth creeping up the back of your neck, forming a bead of sweat that rolls down your temple and drips onto your lap, darkening the light blue denim. The air feels electric, too charged with tension, making the thought of breathing normally a distant memory. The enormous house suddenly feels too cramped, and you want out .

“‘think ah shoul’ g’,” you mumble into your tea.

“What did I say about the slurring?”

You reluctantly withdraw from your mug, eyes trained on the grainy wood of the table as you say, “I think I should go. Need to get to work.”

“Go then.”

The curt answer makes you shift nervously. Her words clearly state you’re free to go, but her expression is anything but cheery. “Wh-what about the package?”

“What package?”

Your brain takes a while to process the question. A seedling of doubt takes root in you, like a bad omen hanging over your head that you can’t see, but you still push it. “The package. The one you said you have for my brother. We talked about it a… a few days ago?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She peers at you with a crease in her brows. “ I remember taking the initiative to call you here because you didn’t bother coming by to see your own mother after you got a fancy new job. Is that a crime now?”

“I- O-of course not.”

Her response, her stance, her voice, they’re all so guilelessly annoyed as if she genuinely did call you here for a nice chat, but you know better! That’s not what happened! You know you were called here for a supposed package! But it’s so hard to enunciate your side when her words are goading your own guilt into tearing away your train of thought, and you find yourself struggling to formulate anything coherent.

Your mother suddenly gets to her feet, her chair screeching against the wooden floor. The motion makes you flinch back, breath catching in your throat and arms half-raised in defense, but she doesn’t make a move toward you. Quite the opposite.

“I see how it is.” The timbre of her voice is deceptively flat, like a murky lake with unknown horrors lurking beneath. Her gaze is rapidly icing over, and it freezes you on the spot. “So that’s how you think of me. I spend all my life taking care of you, feeding you, keeping a roof over your head, teaching you, and you’re all too happy to suck up to me. But when I want to spend some time with you,” Her volume ups a notch, “you suddenly want to play the adult and leave me to rot! And you can’t even do that right!”

Her nails pinch your chin, the sharpened edges digging painfully into your skin. Your head is roughly jerked to the right, where you are forced to see yourself in a silver-rimmed mirror hanging on the kitchen wall. “Look at yourself.”

You do.

The person you see looks, to put it as kindly as possible, like absolute shit . Your bottom eyelids are bruised so starkly that they stand out that much more against your pale skin, which looks like they hadn’t seen a lick of sunlight for weeks. Your hair has always been an unruly mess, but against your hunched figure, it spills over your shoulders and arms like a fraying cape becoming undone by the threads. There’s a glint of haggardness hiding in the shock reflected in your wide eyes.

Have you really been walking around the daycare looking like this?

‘Ugh. Can’t believe I let myself get this awful-looking… No wonder Sun keeps running from me.’

Your mother finally lets go. The crescent indents left behind smart fiercely, but you don’t dare reach up to rub it out.

“But by all means, go out and bask in your newfound freedom from me.” Sarcasm drips thickly from her voice. “Let’s see how long you last with that attitude.”

Daintily brushing her sweatpants free of unseen dust, your mother walks around the table and brushes past you on her way out of the kitchen. You’re still frozen, staring at your reflection. Each lock of uncombed hair, every streak of red in your bloodshot eyes, they’re fuelling the hot shame roiling in the pit of your stomach. 

She’s not wrong, is she. This is your first real job outside of your family’s shadow, and you’re already struggling to the point of looking like this in your first week. You took this job because it meant being able to flourish on your own (and your father can be free from the headaches that came with your constant squabbles with the faculty staff), but what’s the point if you’re so absorbed in it that you neglect your family? Your mother had to resort to lying to get you here, for god’s sake.

Your mother is in the living room now, reaching the flight of stairs that leads to the upstairs bedrooms. The front door is just a few feet away from it.

You can leave now if you want. You have the pathway and the permission.

But after the long string of failures you’ve had this week, you’re done with walking away from your troubles.

You need to have at least one success under your belt.

“Mama! Hold on!” Your own chair screeches and nearly clatters onto the floor in your haste to get up, only stopped by a hand clutching its back. You shove it back haphazardly and hurry after her retreating back, half-finished tea left abandoned on the tabletop. Step by step up the stairs, you try to catch up to her, although seeing your ascension out of the corner of your eye hinders your feet somewhat.

“Can we talk about this?” you plea.

“Why? You wanted to go, so I’m letting you go now.”

“It’s not like that! It’s not that I didn’t want to come see you, I was just really busy.” You’re halfway up the stairs now, and your mother has just set foot on the landing. “I’m sorry, okay? I’ll visit more!”

She twists around, her expression shaping into a contemptuous frown. “With that attitude? You can save it.” A slender finger jabs overhead, down at the door. The gesture makes every inch of your body shudder, wanting to obey out of sheer habit but is stopped by your hand’s death grip on the railing. “Get out. I don’t need your useless platitudes.”

You take a step up. Then another, and another, each further step gaining an extra notch of hesitance, but you’re closer to her and that’s all that matters. The irritation is even more deeply etched in the creases on her forehead and pinched lips.

“I just wanted to say that, I’ll make more effort to come see you. It’s just been really… hectic at work and I got swept up in it. I didn’t not want to see you, I swear.” You try to keep your words steady, but it’s difficult to tell when you can barely hear yourself over your increasingly booming heart. You see your mother still, her face gaining something that looks like contemplation, and your heart rises with hope for a moment. Your hand reaches out for a reconciliatory touch-

-and your wrist is seized suddenly in a tight grip. You let out a surprised yip and try to pull away, but she squeezes your wrist so hard that she pinches the skin.

“Nothing but excuses! Busy, tired, work, it’s always something with you! I thought I taught you better than this, but no. ” She shakes your captured wrist like she’s brandishing damning evidence, your hand snapping back and forth painfully from the force. “You. Never. Listen . When I ask you to listen, you want to run off to more interesting. When I ask you to leave, you want to stay and pester me even more!”

Your foot raises to the landing in mid-step. “I-“

“I suggest you get out of my house and make up your mind on what you want from me. Now for the last time, don’t touch me and get out .” With those terse parting words, your mother throws back your hand.

Now, you don’t think she meant to push that hard. With how waspish her mood is, she probably meant to nudge you to the front door as encouragement and misjudged her own strength. She might have even forgotten where exactly the both of you are standing.

You think that, because it is most unfortunate that your mother pushes you back just as you’re about to go up a step, pushing your unbalanced far, far back.

Your world jerks forward. A gasp catches in your throat, and your arms instinctively snap back to curl around the back of your head for protection before the realisation hits you much too late: you’d been holding onto the railing. Without that, there’s nothing to save your body from rolling, tumbling, falling down the flight of stairs, pain blossoming wherever the unforgiving wooden edges of the steps slam against your flesh. Beige, wood, flowery wallpaper, your mother’s face, and starbursts of agony flash across your vision in bits and pieces, the violent motions rattling your brain and bones, and you don’t even have the wherewithal to wish for the nauseating experience to end until your back finally slams against the ground at the bottom of the stairs.

All the wind is knocked out of your lungs. Deep numbness pulses in your back and legs, concentrated mostly in your spine in a single, bone-deep point, although your quick thinking in shielding the back of your head has thankfully saved you from an additional cracked skull. However, it doesn’t stop the impact from rattling your brain and vision, leaving you unable to comprehend much beyond the blurry mass of tawny wood and dainty floral patterns in front of your eyes.

Your body tries to draw breath before your brain can think to do so. The inside of your throat feels dry and clogged, but otherwise doesn’t obstruct your airflow. The much-needed air clears the haze in your mind. You try to stand, but it’s like your equilibrium has snapped in half by your tumble; the most you can muster is a vague wiggle of your hips.

You hear a steady series of creaks coming towards you. Your eyes blink one after another, your brain blanking out on what the source could be. Two fluffy slippers with legs attached to them come into view, close enough to tickle your nose. Then the legs bend forward, and your chin is grasped once more (in a much kinder grasp), tilting your head this way and that as your mother’s two faces peer down at you in scrutiny. Wait, two?

You blink rapidly, and the double faces blip back into one whole face, just in time to see her lips move. You realise she’s calling your name.

“Are you okay?” she asks. She sounds neither furious nor fretful; something you’re eternally grateful for.

You croak out an affirmative. Some feeling is flooding back to your arms, and you flex your fingers two at a time until they don’t feel glued at the joints. You brace your palms against the grainy floor in preparation to push yourself up, but to your surprise, a third hand places itself against your back and gives you a boost up. The pressure brings a dull pang of pain muffled by the numbness (probably brought on by adrenaline), but it’s hard to care when you’re finally upright again.

Your legs are still splayed out over the steps. You quickly tuck them in a criss-cross position, taking deep, stuttering breaths to calm your racing heart. You can feel a hand ( your mother ) rubbing slow circles into your back; despite your tender skin protesting against the contact, it brings a much-needed comfort that has you subconsciously leaning back into it.

Out of your peripheral vision, you see your mother regarding you with a carefully reserved expression. The hand on your back stills. “I… suppose our little quarrel went out of hand,” she says. Her tone is as restrained as her appearance. “And there might have been some fault on both sides.”

Her words don’t mash well with your current level of cognition. You’re vaguely aware that she’d just assigned blame to you, but your brain is clinging on to a much more unbelievable fact: she just assigned a part of the blame to herself. 

This is a nigh impossible concession coming from her.

“Y-yeah. I’m sorry,” you murmur, throat aching from the expended effort. You cautiously lean against her crouched form, muscles coiling in half-anticipation for rejection. However, a thrill of delight loosens your defenses when she wraps both arms around your shoulders.

Though you can’t help the hiss of pain that leaves you involuntarily when it sends pain stabbing the shoulder you had landed on.

Her exasperated huff tickles your earlobe. “See, this is why I worry about you,” she sighs, giving your shoulder a pat that definitely feels more admonishing than comforting. You swallow back your squeak of pain this time. “You need to watch your feet better in the future, do you understand?”

You still for a moment. Something about that statement strikes an erroneous chord in you, but it’s overshadowed by a small voice in your mind, ‘Don’t push it. She’s in a charitable mood now, don’t muck it up.’

In the end, you relent.

“Okay,” you whisper back.

Your mother pulls back with a perfectly tranquil look painted across her features. As if nothing in the past hour had happened. She unfurls with grace from her crouched position while you shakily clamber to your feet, knees wobbling a little. “Wait outside for me. I will drive you to work.”

Your mouths part a little in incredulity.

“Close your mouth, you’re going to catch flies.” The look she shoots you is closer to the standard, but you can’t really bring yourself to care about that over the fact that she had just offered you a ride instead of letting you find your own way there . “I assume you can remember the path to the driveway?”

“Y-yes, Mama.”

You hang there for a second longer, half-expecting it to be a joke, but your mother ascends the staircase without another word (presumably to change out of her night clothes). As her back disappears into the master bedroom, you let yourself lean against a section of the wall not covered in modern art and just… catch your breath.

Your spine. Your shoulder. Your neck. You experimentally rotate each limb that took the brunt of your fall- tumble . Took the brunt of your tumble. You can feel muscles being pulled in ways that you dislike, that’s for sure, but… miraculously, you don’t feel any broken bones. The worst is most undoubtedly your arms when you had shielded yourself, particularly your right forearm that you had around your head. The onset of an ugly bruise is already visible on your marked skin.

‘That’s no big deal. All I do now is push around a cart anyway.’

You hear the door of the master bedroom creak open, and you hastily beat it to the driveway before she can get on your case again.

The drive to Freddy Fazbear’s Mega Pizzaplex is filled with a thick tenor that you can’t quite call tension, but it certainly feels close to it.

Your mother hums along with the classical tunes flowing the the car’s radio. Her grip on the steering wheel is relaxed, navigating through the near-empty roads with no hesitation. Her eyes are trained forward, so she doesn’t give you a single glance as she reads the directions on her propped-up phone.

You sit in the passenger’s seat next to hers, hugging your bag to your chest and trying not to wince every time the car hits a bump in the road. The adrenaline has long since worn off, leaving you very aware of the various bumps and bangs decorating your back, and the cold puffs of air from the little vents on the dashboard don’t help.

But your mother prefers this chilly temperature, and you would rather not restart anything in an enclosed metal box by making a fuss, so you simply huddle behind your tiny bag for warmth.

The car makes one more turn, and it finally lurches to a halt. Ignoring the pulse of pain in the nape of your neck, you raise your head enough to see out of the window, and you’ve never been more relieved to see the glaring neon lights that decorate the pizzaplex’s exterior.

The door locks click open in a silent invitation. You take it, trying not to look like you’re scrambling away as you alight the car. As you (run) casually walk around the car towards the staff door, the driver’s tinted window rolls down to let your mother lean her head out. She calls your name.

Reluctantly, you turn around.

Your mother looks at you with an unreadable expression. Then she raises a hand and gestures for you to come forward. You bend forward with no small amount of hesitance, but you relax when you realise it’s just another half-hug. The pressure makes the ache flare back to life, but you manage to bite back a groan as you return the hug.

“Do be more mindful of your surroundings,” she whispers in your ear, mildly chastising. “You’re no use to anyone if you keep tripping over your own feet.”

You mumble an affirmative, because your neck is too stiff with pain to manage a nod.

The arm around your shoulder gives one last (painful) squeeze before you’re released, and the window rolls up again as the car speeds off into the swelling morning traffic. As you watch her go, the rectangular shape of your cellphone weighs heavier in your pocket in a silent cry for your curiosity to be satiated. It’s right there, all it will take is one call to confirm if your mother truly just wanted a simple chat.

The idea lingers in a corner of your mind for a moment. However, you quickly shake it off.

There’s hardly anything in it for you if you pursue the matter. Sure, you’ll find out the truth, but for what? Your own satisfaction? Because that will be the only good thing to savour before yet another situation descends on your head, and everything from this morning happens all over again.

‘Not worth it.’

You stuff your phone into the deepest part of your backpack where you won’t see it until late into the night, when your mind and body are numb from exhaustion.

With no eyes on you in the empty parking lot, you don’t bother hiding your limp as you hobble towards the staff door. It’s still seven in the morning, which means you’ll only have to avoid the Glamrocks if you want to get through the facility unquestioned. The pain is concentrated mostly in your right shoulder and arm anyway, so as long as you keep a stiff upper body on your way, you’ll get through the day, no problem. 

Prepping yourself to speed walk to the daycare as sneakily as possible, you push open the door only to nearly trip over a Security Bot standing right on the other side.

You barely manage to catch yourself before you accidentally kick the poor thing over, wincing as your bruised back protests against the jarring movement. The bot turns its blank eyes up to you, giving zero indications it cares a whit about the near miss. “Hi?” you greet tentatively. “Do you need something?”

You don’t know if it’s one of the bots that accompanied you the other day or if it’s a new one entirely, but it beeps and turns around immediately, wheeling away. It stops a few feet ahead and turns its head to look back at you.

“Oh. You want me to follow you?”

It beeps again. It’s a one-note sound that’s impossible to discern any emotion from. You take a few experimental steps towards it, letting the door slam shut behind you, and stop. The bot starts and stops at the same time you do. “I guess that’s a yes.”

You figure there’s no harm in helping it for a while - maybe something dropped in an area it doesn’t have access to - so you begin to follow the Security Bot. It’s speeding along at a pace you can’t comfortably keep up with, but it compensates by stopping and looking back at you as you do your best to catch up quickly. It’s almost like it’s… impatient?

‘Is that even possible?’ you think, unnerved. The Glamrocks and Sun (and maybe Moon?) have an advanced AI that’s capable of expressing human-like speech patterns and thought processes, sure, whatever. But you’d thought that the S.T.A.F.F. Bots didn’t have such a privilege. ‘Am I just imagining things?’

Your confusion doesn’t stop when you realise where the Security Bot is leading you: the daycare. Not only that, but there is another Security Bot holding onto a ladder and waiting just outside of the daycare doors. An absurdly tall ladder, you notice with a bit of worry. Hopefully whatever “help” they need won’t send you too high up in the air.

“What’re you doing there, buddy? You need help?” you ask it, looking around to see if there’s something stuck on the ceiling. But no dice. 

Its head swivels to stare at the daycare entrance. “You need help in there?” You frown lightly. “Why don’t you ask Sun? He’s the one with the height and the magic  wire.”

Both bots immediately shook their heads, like the thought of setting foot (or wheel) into the daycare is a death sentence.

Well.

On second thought, considering the high possibility Moon hangs around in the same place Sun does, that’s not an entirely ludicrous assumption.

“Alright, alright, I’ll help you.” The Security Bot hands over the ladder - holy shit it’s over twice your height - and you try not to imagine yourself on it too vividly as you slip your good arm through the rungs, hoisting it vertically against your hip. It’s heavy, but not so much that you’re not able to carry it a short distance forward. You use the base of the ladder to nudge the wooden doors open.

“Honestly, I didn’t think Sun would go this far trying to ice me out,” you say aloud to the bots. They’re backing up ever so slowly, but you don’t pay it much mind as you lug the whole length of the ladder through the doors. “He doesn’t want to help me, sure, whatever. But not helping you guys? That feels a little too mean, you know? I can talk to him if you wa-“

The daycare comes into view, and what you see nearly makes you drop the ladder on your toes.

“What the fuck?”

“Language!” came the shrill, offended voice of the Daycare Attendant’s tangled figure hanging high above you. 

Your bruised neck aches badly from how far you’re craning it to gawk at the astonishing sight above: Sun being utterly, hopelessly wrapped up in his own wires. His arms and legs are bent in angles that would be agony to the average human - one knee pressed against his chest piece, one arm wrapped halfway around his torso like a sash - but from the way he’s squirming and trying to tug his limbs free, he looks more like someone trying to wriggle their phone out of a too-tight pocket. His constant struggling sends him in a gentle swaying motion, not unlike a pendulum, and just watching him rock back and forth while suspended ten feet in the air makes you feel like retching.

You look away, taking several deep breaths to force the nausea down. Multiple questions race through your brain at breakneck speed, cramming in your throat, rendering you unable to utter anything more than a strangled “How?”. 

Sun makes a noise of affront. His rays, free from the wiry trap he’s encased in, flick back in consternation. “J-just so you know, this isn’t an accident! Nope! Not at all! I… I meant to be up here! That’s right, I wanted to hang out, so there’s no need for your help! Nope, none whatsoever!”

“… Uh huh.” Ignoring that sad attempt of a lie (even to you), you heave the ladder into an upright position, kicking it open just under Sun’s form.

“I’m serious! Hey! Listen to when your superiors are talking to you!” Sun squawks. His voice takes on a frenzied note even before you had set foot on the ladder’s rung. “I don’t need your help! Just step outside and get one of the S.T.A.F.F. Bots to turn off the lights, and I’ll be out lickety-split!”

You glance back at said bots. Even through the ajar doors, you can see from how they’re rolling backward and away from the daycare like scared animals that the idea’s a no-go for them. Which means it’s up to you to free Sun before the daycare opens.

“Sorry, can't do that.”

"Why not?!"

"'cause I'm the daycare assistant, aren't I? It's my job." As you talk to him, you jerk the ladder one, two times, and it holds just as steady. “Just hold still and you won’t have to deal with my icky human hands for too long, ‘kay?”

“Ugh! You, you…! You little lying pipsqueak! What happened to listening to whatever I said?! Was that a joke? ‘Cause I’m not laughing at all, Friend! ”

As distracting as the waterfall of insults is, it doesn’t help much to quell the sudden stutter your heart does when you stare up at the looming ladder rungs. In fact, his voice grows muffled as the sheer height properly registers in your brain. Blood roars against your eardrums, the individual glaring lights swimming together in your wavering vision. An oncoming dizzy spell pulses under your temple and your fingers clench onto a rung in a white-knuckled grip to quell the shaking.

“You’ll be fine,” you mutter to yourself through gritted teeth. “Don’t be a baby.”

However, “baby” is exactly how you feel as you set your first foot on the ladder; tiny, insignificant, and on the constant verge of toppling over at any moment.

With what feels like glue clogging the joints of your kneecaps, you begin your torturous ascent up to the squalling mass of metal and indignation. You do your utmost best to keep your line of sight trained on each raised ridge on the rungs and tiny nick on the aluminium coating, to ignore the rapidly shrinking desk and toys beneath you. Your palms are slick against the metal ladder with accumulated sweat. Dizziness worms into your brain as if the air is thinning all around you (or your throat is too constricted by fear to properly take in air).

The only thing keeping you on the ascent is the continuous volley of grief hurled down at you.

“It’s going to be the end of the week by the time you get up here! I’ll be nothing but spare parts, rusting away in this eternal trap, all because you took your sweet time! The tears of a thousand little sunbeams will be on your hands, mark my words!”

Ironically, his caterwauling succeeds in bringing you out of your silent panic, enough to grit out, “I thought you could get yourself out?”

“O-only with the lights off! And with you outside the daycare!”

“What. The hell do lights have to do with your problem.” Another step up, another step closer to Sun.

“Duh, so that Moon can come out and help me! Do I have to explain everything?!”

Sun’s voice box peaks with sheer stress. The deafening crackle gives you a moment of clarity to mull over his words. Moon? Is he suggesting that Moon can only come out when it’s dark? You suppose that explains why nobody stopped the destruction of those poor S.T.A.F.F. Bots if he can just do it under the cover of night, but… why? What’s with this unnecessary restriction? You can almost feel this mysterious Moon’s glare upon you from the castle’s hidden room on the other side of the daycare, where he’s kept separated from his other half by dinky ceiling light bulbs.

But your curiosity fades quickly. You move up another step, your stomach lurching alongside you. How long have you been up here? Ten minutes? An hour? Are you even close to reaching Sun?

“Oh, but what’s the point?” Sun wails, sounding surprisingly within a stone’s throw away. “You’re just like the other rude, nasty assistants! Always barging where you don’t belong! Never listening to me! Acting like you know better than me! Then, oh, when something goes wrong, it always always always does, they looove to blame it on-!”

You finally catch sight of yellow-and-red-striped knees, then orange rays spinning so erratically fast you can feel a slight breeze pushed your way, and attached in the middle of those rays is a permanent grin with dismay etched in the lines between its false teeth.

“You… done…?” you huff through clenched teeth.

Sun makes a noise that suggests he would be raising an eyebrow at you if he had any. “Out of breath already? Gah, you're useless! You can’t even climb a ladder without losing a lung!”

You’re out of breath, that much is true. But it’s not because of the physical exertion of climbing a dozen steps up. It’s the fear ingrained into every fiber of your being, every crevice of your muscles, causing them to tightly coil in anticipation of a fall that never comes, that makes a knot of pain in your injured shoulder pull uncomfortably. And, as you spy the shrunken daycare grounds beneath meld into a sickeningly colourful conglomerate in your swimming vision, you force yourself to focus on Sun and nothing else before your knees grow too weak.

‘Assess the problem.’

Your mind at least manages to muster that much. Your eyes rake over the wiggling animatronic, noting every loop of thick cable snaking around his long limbs. You can’t even tell how Sun could have managed to twist his limbs to this extent- his left foot is pinned next to his neck, for god’s sake! If you didn’t know any better, you would’ve thought Sun put himself in this position on purpose…

There isn’t an obvious point of origin where this happened, but judging by the tension in the wire itself, it seems you can shimmy Sun out part by part if you’re careful to keep both feet on the ladder-

‘don’t look down don’t look down don’t look down don’t look down.’

You suck in a shaky breath to quell the sudden burst of fear. You’re mildly successful.

“Alright.” You brace yourself. “Alright. Sun, come here.”

You reach out with both arms, your left fully extended while your right only half out to avoid aggravating your shoulder. It’s not even that grand of a gesture - you’re trying to go as slow as humanely possible - but Sun recoils from you as if you have a bucket of acid to douse him with. “D-don’t!”

“Trust me, I don’t want to be up here either,” The reminder of your position makes your throat squeeze, and the rest of your words come out as a frightened wheeze,”b-but you have to get down somehow!”

“Get out and ask the S.T.A.F.F. Bots to turn the lights off!”

“No! Shut up and let me help!” You take a daring lurch forward and grab the nearest part of him, which happens to be his sun rays.

Sun lets out a startled yelp and tries to wiggle away. “Stop! He doesn’t want-!”

You don’t get to hear the rest of his sentence.

The lights overhead flicker blindingly, forcing you to squint against the epileptic flashing. This isn’t a cause for concern. You’ve seen the same thing happen in a couple of storerooms during your restock runs (the company probably didn’t want to waste money on faulty lights unless absolutely necessary), although seeing it happen in a location as enormous as the daycare makes your stomach do a swoop of fright. Your fingers instinctively grip tighter on Sun, and you crouch as low as possible to the ladder, cold sweat rolling down your temple.

Sun, however, is an entirely different cause for alarm.

His voice is abruptly cut off by a deafening fizzle of static. You can’t see much through squinted eyes and flashing lights, but you certainly feel him as his rays swivel and slide about erratically, the ones in your grip ripped away despite your best efforts. Stinging pain slices across your palm, sending a jolt of shock that rocks your whole body. Unfortunately, it also sends a terrifying, metallic rattle through the ladder, and you’re stuck on a teetering structure with a scream stuck in your throat, heart stopping, hearing the whinings of gears fighting against each other but unable to see what’s happening to Sun.

You catch a glimpse of Sun’s glowing eyes flitting between white and a deep, bleeding r e d.

Cobalt-tipped fingers shoot out and wrap around your right wrist in chaos. You reflexively try to twist away, but his strength is as unyielding as steel handcuffs. Sun pulls you forward-

The flickering stops. Glorious light floods the daycare once more.

Your vision goes blindingly white for a moment before it adjusts to the new lighting. Knees knocking together, you lean against the metal steps to regain some semblance of normal breathing, before you take yet another tumble… Wait. You were on the verge of falling just now, weren’t you? What happened to that?

As it turns out, two things happened: 

The Security Bots are holding down the ladder’s base, practically hugging it with how hard they’re trying to hold it steady. You don’t know when they had barged into the daycare, but you’re too occupied with gratitude towards them to care much.

The second thing is the hand that still has your hand hostage. You can feel silicone fingers digging into your skin with bruising force, refusing to release you even when you try to tug away. It hurts, but… it also saved you from becoming a splat on the foam mats. Sun saved you.

After he struggled so much to push you away.

You don’t… You don’t know what he wants.

Your eye twitches. Gratitude and vexation war for dominance in your chest. Your previous fright is fighting for its life in the cacophony, trying to drag your eyes downwards and whispering thoughts of a weightless descent whistling in your ears. Ironically enough, it’s the crushing grip around your arm that helps keep your senses grounded. “Th-thanks, Sun…”

You’re released without fanfare.

Rubbing your tender wrist (your right one, why is it always your right arm? ), you give him a once-over. He’s still stuck tied up like a bedazzled rotisserie chicken, but he’s thankfully no longer being a twitchy, malfunctioning bundle of contradictions. Wait, was his earlier freak-out a malfunction? Oh god, you don’t know.

“Oi, Sun.” The animatronic in question flinches. “What’s up with you? You, uh, good?”

His attitude has taken a complete 180 from a few minutes ago. Now he’s eerily still, no longer trying to squirm away and avoiding your gaze. Even his smile has fallen a little. His sun rays are all fully out and… oh. One of them has a thin streak of red coating its sharp edge. That must be the one you had been clinging to so hard.

Your cut palm prickles anew at the reminder, but you’re more concerned about the visible blood on his head. There’s no way you’re letting that stay on a childcare robot. Who knows what rumors it’ll start? “If you’re not gonna talk, then I’ll just…”

You reach out with your unscathed hand, prepared to scrub the gunk off with a sleeve, but a garbled shriek makes you jump back (before you remember you’re on a ladder and scramble to cling onto it like a koala).

“I’msorrydidn’tmeantopleasedon’tsendustopartsandservices!”

The string of nonsense simply bounces off your brain, too drained and full of emotions to even start deciphering it. You rake your hair, damp with cold sweat, back in short, irritable strokes. “Can you say that again? Slower .”

Sun cowers as if you had lashed out at him. “I-I didn’t mean to h-hurt you, I promise! Moon didn’t, either, so don’t send us to Parts & Services! Please,” he adds meekly.

This Moon guy again? Your eyes flick to your right wrist, and you ease up the cuff of your sleeve. There are already hints of bruises forming, long and shaped like Sun’s fingers, but hadn’t you seen blue instead of yellow…?

… No. You shake off the thought. That’s impossible. Even if Moon can come out in sparse spurts of darkness, there’s no chance he can swing by, grab your arm and swing back again without you noticing a whole other being. But then, why would Sun bring him up at all?

Now you’re a little worried that his episode might have damaged something in him after all if he’s starting to hallucinate his buddy. Best to just ignore it.

“Okay. Okay, one thing at a time,” you say slowly, waving for him to calm down. “You’re talking about this, right?”

You hold up your right wrist. The sight of the purpling skin draws a whimper out of him, which you’ll take as confirmation (ignoring the twinge in your heart). “Sun, this was an accident . I’m not gonna hold it against you for saving my skin, who do you take me for?”

Sun snaps his gaze up at breakneck speed, disbelief plain in his flat smile. “Save?” he whispers.

“Yes. Save, as in you caught me before I turned into mashed potatoes. When you grabbed me. Remember?”

Why Sun looks so utterly flabbergasted at your dumbed-down explanation, you’ll never know. But his rays twitch as though a thought hit him then, and he nods so fast that it sends vibrations up the cable. “Yes! Yes, that’s right.” He doesn’t lose the fear in his voice yet, but you do detect a hint of cautious optimism.

Your own spirits begin to rise in tandem.

“Glad we got that out of the way,” you say. “Now, what’s this ‘Parts & Services’ thing? Mind telling me what’s so bad about it? Is it a dungeon, gulags, or what?”

Sun lets out a startled giggle as if he hadn’t expected your words.

“Well?” you prompt.

His glee quickly dies down. You see his hands twitch under a particularly tight stretch of cable, as if he wants to clench them but can’t. “… It’s where we get sent for repairs and maintenance.” Sun ducks his head after spitting those words out. 

A beat passes.

“Um. What’s wrong with that?”

The LED lights of his eyes shrink into pinpricks immediately. You must have hit a sore spot. “We can’t go back down there! Not after l-last time! Management is sick of us, the parents find us creepy, n-not even the Glamrocks come by anymore! All because of that stupid v-v- virus!” The last word peters off into a wordless wail of frustration. His sun rays are pressed as far back against his faceplate as the rigid material will allow. “It’s all gone, Madison made sure of it, it’s. All. Gone! But they still won’t give us back Naptime, and I’m next on the chopping block! We’ll be considered too much trouble, we’ll be replaced by humans! One mistake, one slip-up, and I’ll be dismantled for spare parts! I’ll never see the kids again!”

Last time? Virus? Naptime?

Your brain hurts from the overload of new information. You frown, mouth opening for a moment before you reconsider and shut it back. You can’t stay up here forever; the daycare is going to open soon and you haven’t even begun to untie Sun from his prison. The animatronic is muttering to himself and averting his gaze from you; if you want to get back to sweet, solid ground any time soon, you’re going to have to calm him down.

“Sun?”

“-nonono, we can’t , Moonie, we can’t do that! Not even Melinda will overlook that, we’ll be in hot soup, piping hot! I-“

“Sun!”

“-never want to step foot near that horrid place. Never ever, or we’ll be put down for a nap and never wake up again -“

Your voice isn’t reaching him, but there’s one other thing you can try. Fighting off a brief bout of hesitation, you carefully lean forward ( ‘you’re not going to fall don’t think about the ground just look at Sun’ ) and wrap your arms around him. It’s an ungainly process trying to figure out how to maneuver around his horizontally-bound position, but you eventually manage to envelop him in a hug (it’s warmer than you expect). An awkward hug that has you straining muscles in your bruised back, but a hug nevertheless.

This is how you comfort people, right?

It at least stuns Sun’s rapid-fire muttering into silence. You try not to flinch when he swivels his head around, his absurdly sharp rays nearly taking your eye out. “Wh-what are you doing?”

“Hugging you?” You clear your throat. “You, um, looked like you needed it.”

You hear a whirr of fans that you can’t decipher the meaning of, but since he doesn’t try to shake you off, you take it as a positive. “You sounded like you really needed to get that off your chest,” you say. “Look, I get it, this Parts & Services thing sucks,” You don’t, but you’re not going to press on it for now, “but why do you think I’m going to send you there? I didn’t even know it existed until now.”

“… Because I hurt you. W-we’re not supposed to injure staff .” A pathetic whimper reaches your ears.

You snort. “What, this little nick?” Keeping your left arm tightly wound around his shoulders, you lean back enough to dangle your cut palm in front of his eyes. “It’s not that bad. Believe me, you’re not the first to ‘hurt me’, and you didn’t even mean to. If I went after every single person that’s given me so much as a bruise, there won’t be enough prisons in the world to hold ‘em all.” You meant that as a comfort, but Sun’s horrified expression makes you think that might have been a mistake.

“Um. H-hey, I said it’s not that bad,” you say awkwardly, withdrawing from the hug to hide your right hand behind your back. “I’m not gonna send you to that place over this stupid cut. Or the bruise. Or ever .”

“R-really?”

“ Yes. Is this what got your panties in a twist this whole time? You thought I was that much of an asshole to get you in trouble on purpose?”

Sun narrows his eyes at you, sputtering, “ Well! What am I supposed to think?! You’re always wearing a frown, and you, you talk so meanly ! Your face scares the little ones, too!”

Your face?

Your first instinct is to protest that, but a moment spent recalling the days leading up until today is enough to make you relent.

“That’s… fair. I know I’m not good with kids,” you say. The admission twists your face into a grimace, and you pick at your sleeve cuffs. “But I can learn quick, and I want to learn from you .”

His sun rays trembled. “You… you still want to stay here?”

“Yeah.” 

“A-and you won’t report this to Miss Jones?”

“ No , jeez.” When was the last time you’ve even seen your supervisor’s face? You swear, you’ve spent more time with the merch cart than anything else. “Now can I help you, or do you wanna stay up here for the whole day? We need to get to work.”

Sun stays quiet. You rest your hand on his leg as a test, and when he still doesn’t protest, you take it as cooperation from his end and begin to work on untangling him. Compared to your near accident earlier, this is miles easier; starting from his arms and legs, you carefully ease each length of cable loose enough for Sun to wriggle the rest out. His arms are first to come free, then his legs unfurled with creaks and pops (which is concerning, to say the least). He doesn’t show outward signs of pain though, so you let it go without comment.

After a grueling ten minutes, the cable has been successfully untangled and Sun is fully upright once again, kicking his feet happily in the air. You sink against the ladder’s steps, forehead pressed against the cool metal and sucking in trembling breaths.

“Thank you so much! It’s absolutely no fun being tied up like a kitten in yarn, let me tell you, all of my wires practically fell asleep!” he says, the cheer in his voice sounding somewhat forced.

“Good for you,” you mumble into the ladder. Sun makes a questioning sound, and the bots likewise beep up at you, but you don’t face any of them. Now that he’s free, here comes the most difficult challenge you’ll face in this trial - the descent.

Gripping the sides so tightly it makes the shallow cut on your palm burn anew, you lower your foot-

-and miss the step entirely, sending you smacking face-first into a sharp corner. Pain lances through your head and you yelp.

Without warning, appendages wrap around your midsection and yank you up, ripping you away the only solid ground you have. Primal fear seizes every fiber of your being as you’re airborne, sending your limbs flailing everywhere as your throat tears itself apart with your shrieks. “Fuck! FUCK! NO! DON’T WANT-!”

You barely register the panicked whispering in your ear. Silicone-cased legs stretch around and trap your own between them, hands forcing your terrified gaze away from the sight of the vast, vast ground beneath. You don’t resist, stuffing your face against a humming chest.

(Wait, humming?)

You grit your teeth to stop another scream as wind whistles in your ears, the unpleasant swooping sensation churning in your stomach, keeping your eyes squeezed shut tight until the world lurches in a sickening stop.

You feel yourself gently lowered. The moment your butt touches ground - sweet, beloved, solid ground - it’s like you have been cut free from your strings as most of your instinctual fear is dispelled, leaving your heart pumping with nothing but adrenaline, and you collapse into a trembling heap. You barely manage to recognise the surface beneath you as the same table Sun had carried you to the day before.

A yellow face leans over you, eyes flashing bright for a few moments. “I take it you’re not a fan of heights?” Sun asks quietly.

“Hrm.”

“I’ll take that as a yes. Stay there and catch your breath, Friend! I have a looooot of tidying to catch up on!” he says jauntily while he scrubs down his chestplate with a rag. Oh. That’s the spot where you had been mashing your sweaty forehead. Oops.

He skips off to a further part of the daycare. This time, you’re all too happy to stay put, watching with bleary eyes as the two Security Bots work together to gather up the ladder and cart it away. The nearer one gives you an approximation of a thumbs-up, which you manage to return. You think.

It takes a bit for the adrenaline to run its course, but it eventually seeps out of your bones, replaced by a sort of exhaustion that’s as thick as syrup, clogging your joints and making it hard to move. Infuriatingly though, it doesn’t help numb the throbbing pain stretching across your back.

You don’t know how long you’ve been lying there until jingling bells herald the return of Sun. You see your backpack in his hand, the straps looking like bracelets against his fingers, and you ease yourself into a sitting position with trembling arms.

“Make sure to stay hydrated! We don’t want you falling all over the place now, do we? Goodness no, that’s not allowed at all.” He drops the bag onto your lap.

Mumbling an affirmative, you unzip your bag and push aside the Moon notebook to pull out your water bottle. It takes several false starts before you manage to uncap it.

As you take refreshing sips of water, Sun straightens and crosses his arms, eyes narrowing down at you. The expression he wears… you can’t exactly call it friendly. The uncertainty that weighs down the corners of his smile is still palpable, but frankly, you’ll take anything over being banished to the bloody closet again.

“Sooooo,” he drawls once you’ve inhaled half of the bottle, “you’re serious about wanting to work with me?”

“Yeah?”

His rays click left, right. Then he suddenly shoves his face close to yours, until your nose is an inch away from his not-nose. You stifle a yelp. “ Really? Are you really sure? You’ll listen to everything I say? Every instruction? Every word? Hm? ”

“Christ, yes. What else do you want from me, a blood oath?”

“Hmm… Nope! Too unhygienic, and a violation of daycare policies!” He draws away from you, thankfully.

You can’t tell if he’s joking or not.

Sun jabs a slender finger at you, right between your eyes to make his point. “Alright, I’ll… I’ll believe you! Only for now, though!” he hastily adds. “You have a long, long, looong way to go if you want to show me you’re fit for the daycare!”

“Like?”

“Oh! Oh, I have plenty of lessons just for your itty-bitty self!” The way he says that brings up a vivid memory of your mother before she slams you (metaphorically) with a massive stack of textbooks. “But that will have to wait until I have a little chat with Moon.”

You don’t bother holding back a groan. This Moon guy again. “I swear to god, if you’re still stalling…”

“No sirree! I would never dream of that! In fact,” You nearly jump when he reaches down to poke your cheek, “here’s a suggestion for you while I talk to him. Why don’t you learn how to…”

He pauses for effect.

“...learn how to turn that frown upside down!” he finishes with a flourish of his hands.

“What.”

Sun tuts at you. “I already said that you scare the kids, didn’t I? If you want to work by my side, that won’t do at all! You need to greet every sunbeam with a big, bright smile!”

“But-“

Sun cocks his head with silent challenge gleaming in his eyes.

Your feeble protests die quickly, and you blow out a breath. “ Fine. You talk to Moon, I’ll… work on looking friendlier, I guess.”

If you’re trusting him to really work this out with his other half, then it’s only fair that you validate his trust in you to be serious about this job, right?

“Faz-tastic! I’m so glad we’re past that. Now, let’s deal with that nasty cut.” Sun plucks up your wrist with surprisingly delicate precision, although given earlier circumstances, it’s still hard not to flinch.

“I can do it myself, I’m not stupid,” you grumble.

A thin shadow is cast over you as Sun reaches over your head for the medicine cabinet, easily plucking out a medkit. He sets it next to you. “Ohoho, really? That’s quite hard to believe, Friend, since you humans usually have the common sense to avoid things that scare them witless.” He tugs you closer to a tiny sink nearby and sticks your palm under cold running water. The initial sting makes you hiss, and Sun gives you a side-eye. “Yet there you were, bumbling up a ladder all by your lonesome! You didn’t even think to get anyone to hold the ladder steady for you, did you?”

“I was fine.”

“Fine! Fine? You call this-“

He dangles your own palm in front of you, the angry red streak throbbing.

“-this-“

He flicks your forehead, right on the spot where you fell on the ladder.

“-and this -“

He touches your right shoulder.

“-fine?”

You don’t speak. You can’t speak. 

How does he know about that? You never mentioned it once! Right?

Sun continues on with disinfecting and cleaning your hand, finishing up with a strip of clean bandage wound tightly around your hand. The moment he’s done, you snatch it back and cradle it close to your chest.

“I fell, that’s all,” you blurt out.

Sun makes an inquisitive “Oho?”. “You got all that from one little fall?”

The teasing edge in his voice ticks you off. “Yeah, I did. I’m a clumsy fuck, got a problem with that?” you snap.

Just as you’d predicted, Sun lets out an offended gasp, hand to his chest as if he’s clutching his heart. “ Language! Goodness, you have such a filthy mouth,” he sighs to himself, shaking his head. “I have my work cut out for me, but I can’t let that distract me from the kiddies, no no no…”

He falls into a storm of mutters, most of it flies over your head entirely. At least he’s dropped the matter about your other injuries?

“Sun? Are you gonna talk to Moon now, or…?”

His gaze snaps down at lightning speed. “Moon? Oh, oh, him. That’s right. He’s… not feeling up for much of a chat right now. I’ll have to try again later tonight, but I promise I’ll be ready to talk by tomorrow morning.” He extends a hand to you.

You still have your doubts, but there’s not much else you can do at this point besides putting your faith in his words. “I’ll hold you to that,” you say, accepting the offered hand. His hand closes around more than half of your forearm, and the two of you exchange a firm handshake.

“Well then! Now that’s over with, someone needs to get back out there and start refilling the gift shop very soon! If they’re up to it, that is.” His eyes narrow at you.

“I’m fine, jeez.” To prove it, you hop off the table with your usual gusto. Your knees wobble a little, but you manage to stick the landing just fine and you shoot Sun a satisfied look.

A deadpan smile is the response you get. “ Congratulations, I see that you can stand all by yourself!”

“Stuff it. I can work, so don’t snitch to Melinda again.”

Sun makes a little unhappy hum as he crosses his arms, fingers tapping the length of his arm at a rapid pace. But in the end, he doesn’t seem to have much else to say just like you. “I’m not saving you if you drop again! I have better things to do, much much better…”

He prances away for good this time, sweeping up the last bits of papers to keep away. You make your own exit out of the daycare, heading towards the nearest restroom to wash up before any pizzaplex guest can see you like this.

You can hold out for one more day. You’re so close to working things out with Sun; all that’s left is to figure out who the hell Moon is. That starts with actually seeing the guy.

Later that night, you get your wish.

You’ve long since returned to your apartment, ready to sleep off the aches when you hear a ping. It's not the default ringtone from your phone, which means it's from...

You glance over at your bedside table where your Faz-watch sits, its screen beeping bright in your dark room.

Odd. That can’t be Melinda; she rarely calls you except to explain some aspect of your job (literally anything that doesn’t include Sun, you’re starting to realise), and interactions with your other coworkers is about as non-existent as the rest of your social life.

Curious, you peer down at the glowing screen, and you see…

"Moon"

Come to the daycare.

Chapter Text

‘Am I finally losing it?’

You scrub your weary eyes, and even pinch yourself just in case. But nothing changes; the four-lettered name is still boldly displayed onscreen like a lure, beckoning you out of your apartment and back to the daycare’s doors. 

You can’t even begin to understand how the watch works outside of the complex or how an animatronic could communicate on the servers. You’re busier wrestling with the unwanted hope rising in your chest, trying to cut it down with more rational possibilities. Maybe it could be a coworker playing a prank on you?

‘At midnight, though?’ Not even your most dedicated hater would stay up this late just to mess with you… and if you’re being honest with yourself, you might have also forgotten you had any human coworkers in the first place.

What about a glitch? Perhaps someone else is trying to contact you and it’s showing up as “Moon” for some reason?

‘... Yeah, no.’ Even your technologically illiterate ass knows that’s not likely.

The only other reason you can think of is… it is Moon, and he is calling you to the daycare. Why, though?

‘Sun did say he’d talk to Moon, right?’

You chew your bottom lip in deep thought. On one hand, you are all too aware of the many ways this could go wrong: get stuck behind a locked door until morning, get found out by management and get fired for it, get snitched on by one of the animatronics… Not to mention the bruises that still dot your back, which pulse with a renewed ache the moment you remember them. You’ve sucked up the pain long enough to get through your work shift, so the idea of walking back in the middle of the night like this doesn’t appeal to you.

… Buuuut on the other hand…

If this is legitimate, that must mean Sun made good on his promise to talk to him, right? Despite your misgivings, you feel yourself relaxing at the idea, even daring to smile a little. It’s not much, but a baby step forward is still progress and progress is good . If this keeps up, you might even be able to start getting along with Sun…?

‘… Nah, don’t get ahead of yourself.’

Mind made up, you dress back into your work clothes in record time and rush back out. You just manage to catch the last bus of the day, and it drops you off outside the pizzaplex, armed with nothing but your employee ID. You try the front doors half-heartedly, expecting to find resistance to your push… so imagine your surprise when it easily gives way.

“Huh. Did they forget to lock the door?”

Worrying, but not your problem. It’s the opposite of a problem, in fact. You’re able to slip past the ticket gantry and step into the entrance lobby area unimpeded. The vast, empty… cavernous… lobby…

You pause mid-step.

‘Maybe this isn’t a good idea.’

That thought flits across your mind, and like an annoying gnat, it persistently buzzes in the back of your mind no matter how much you try to squash it. Despite the neon lights on the walls and various machinery, it doesn’t erase the pressure of loneliness surrounding you, pressing into you. It’s a sharp contrast from the rambunctious energy permeating the pizzaplex during the daytime, yet just as awful, and you realise you’re already half-curling into a defensive ball to get away from it.

You hastily straighten up. ‘Stop that! It’s just an empty building, there’s nothing to be scared of!’

Willing your stiff legs to move, you force yourself to march past your misgivings and across the tiled floor, your footsteps echoing with a metallic thunk when you climb the unmoving escalators.

‘Everything’s fine…’

You manage to loosen the death grip you have on your own arms to push open the door to Superstar Daycare.

‘See? Nothing bad’s happening.’  

The door swings open and you’re immediately assaulted by the glare of a thousand suns. You nearly slip on the slick floor scrambling back in shock. “Ah! Bad!”

The light dips to the floor to reveal a Security Bot. It stares unblinkingly at you as you take in several deep breaths, trying to quell the fire of adrenaline in your veins.

“ Bloody hell… You scared the shit out of me,” you wheeze out, one hand clutching your chest. It keeps staring. “N-not that you did anything wrong! You’re supposed to be here and I’m… not. Um.”

A new worry settles in your mind the moment the words leave your mind. “Heeeey. I’m not sneaking in to steal, if that’s what you’re worried about? Moon called me- Okay, he texted me- Well, I think he texted me, might not be him, but me and Sun kinda have a thing going on and this might be really important, so…”

The bot stares for a moment longer. Then it swivels a quarter to the left and putters around you like you’re not there to begin with. You watch dumbly for a moment before realising what it’s doing. “Thanks,” you whisper.

But your heart doesn’t slow down after the initial scare. 

Doing your best to shake it off, you turn towards the daycare again. But something in the air has changed. You don’t know what; only just that seeing the dimly lit area makes the dread in your chest spread its parasitic vines just a little more.

You don’t know why . You know this area better than anywhere else in the pizzaplex! Hell, you’ve seen the daycare be just as desolate when you come into work hours before opening time. 

However, there’s something incredibly unnerving about the knowledge that it’s night now. The kind of unnerving that forces a stuttered jolt to your heart with each step you take closer to the daycare’s doors. Most of the lights have been flipped off due to the lack of guests, leaving just the emergency lighting to cast a polka-dotted glow to illuminate your way down the stairs to the daycare’s double doors. The air-conditioning seems colder in the all-encompassing emptiness, sending shivers dancing under your daycare uniform, and the meagre lights are barely holding back the darkness seeping from every corner of your surroundings. You feel the burn of unseen eyes boring into the back of your head no matter where you turn, and not from the occasional Security Bot puttering around.

‘It’s just my imagination.’ The atmosphere seems to weigh heavier, and you grip tighter on your upper arm to distract yourself. ‘Just my imagination. Get yourself together.’

You peer into the large window panes looking into the daycare. You can barely see anything beyond the security desk; the entire area has been doused in inky darkness. The only true spot of brightness is the false castle, with a glow-in-the-dark moon hanging in the place of the sun and clouds. Your throat goes dry at the sight.

‘If Moon can’t come out in light, the opposite has to be true for Sun, right?’ You press your face up against the window, your breath fogging up the glass. But no matter how much you strain your eyes, you don’t see any sign of life shuffling in the darkness. That means you have to go… in…

Your nails dig into your palms. The fear that seeps into the crevices of your muscles feels different from before. It doesn’t constrict; but rather it sets fire to every nerve in your body, making you flinch at every little bump and scrape that reaches your ears. You suck in a deep breath to quell the prickling heat in the back of your neck.

It’s just a daycare. What on earth can happen here?

Reluctantly, you peel yourself away from the window and make your way to the door. You push against the doors, your sweaty palms sticking uncomfortably to the grainy wood, and the stagnant air brushes past your face as you step foot inside the daycare.

A blanket of darkness covers your vision.

You nearly turn on your heel to run, but what little bit of courage you have left gets you to stand your ground. It pays off; your eyes soon adjust to the dark, and you begin to make out murky structures standing in the place where you remember the playground and craft tables being. You cautiously inch forward, sorely wishing that you had asked the bot for its flashlight as you squint all around yourself.

ssshhh

Your clenched fist squeezes so tight that circulation is cut off.

ssshhh

“Moon?” The word leaves your lips as a breathy squeak. You try to call out again, but your next attempt at speaking is even worse. It’s like the fear is gradually consuming your bodily functions bit by bit, starting with your vocal chords.

ssssshhhhh

The third time you hear that odd hissing sound, you’re convinced it’s not just a figment of your terrified imagination. Something is moving in the darkness. Something you can’t see.

What the hell is that? Where’s Moon? You whip your head left and right, backing up on unsteady legs until your back hits the edge of the security table, trying to discern where the sound is coming from. Unfortunately, it’s next to impossible when your eyes refuse to stop conjuring hallucinations of twisted limbs and leering eyes from the gloomy darkness.

You squeeze your eyes shut. You try to remember the reason you’re even here. If you can cling to the slightest bit of reality to fend off the irrational thoughts clouding your mind-

rustle

The tiny, sudden sound shatters your concentration like glass. Your gasp catches badly in your throat and you double over, a cough irritating your desert-dry throat. The little bit of resolve you have has been blown out like candlelight in a storm.

‘I need light!’

Your mind, heart and body pivot their attention to the one thing that will give you comfort: a sturdy flashlight with a good beam of light. You’d like floodlights better, but a flashlight will have to do for now. You’re about to bolt to the ajar door-

A fleeting movement in the corner of your eye.

A sliver of silver to your right.

The movement sends a bolt of panic that has you blindly scrambling back, not realising in the moment that you’re moving the opposite direction from your freedom. “Who’s there?! This isn’t fucking funny!” Your voice cracks under the force of your shout.

A hiss crackles above your head. It’s not like before, when it sounded more like fabric dragging across foam - this sounds more like a cat’s hissing. No, someone imitating a cat’s hissing. Far, far closer than you’re expecting.

Icy fingers brush against the nape of your neck, curling under your uniform’s collar.

It tugs.

Your feet leave the ground.

Blind, unadulterated panic seizes you.

You rip yourself away from the unwanted touch, the sound of tearing fabric barely registering to you. You don’t scream. You don’t run. You can’t , it’s as if your body is being piloted by pure instinct and nothing else. You just twist around sharply, hand curling into a fist, driving it forward with a strength you could only have mustered with the adrenaline pumping through your veins now. 

You feel it before you see it. 

Your fist connects with something ungiving, the reverberations of something cracking apart convulsing through the whole length of your right arm. The thing you strike makes a mechanical shriek that pierces your eardrums as it topples off the security desk, leaving you frozen in your defensive stance.

It takes you a second to process what you just did.

“What the fuck? ” you breathe out.

You feel a wet trickle roll down your right hand. Glancing down, you see the skin of your knuckles is split clean open, rivulets of blood shining bright red in the little bit of light streaming in through the ajar door. Your middle finger is bent a little oddly, and none of your fingers move correctly when you try to flex them, but there’s no agony to be felt that would match the grisly sight in front of you. The most that can be felt is a mild buzzing under your skin.

Your stupefied brain doesn’t care too much about your hand, anyway. It’s occupied with the shifting mass sitting at the desk’s base. You can’t tear your gaze away as it jerks, untwists, straightens from a puddle of fabric and limbs into a bipedal figure that towers over you.

‘Oh god, I punched someone.’

Twin pinpricks of light flare to life, as red as the blood staining your fingers, and they pin you down with a silent fury. Oh. They’re eyes.

‘Oh god, I punched an animatronic.’

It lumbers towards you.

Heart in your mouth, you raise your uninjured hand in surrender. “I-I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to…”

A swift flash of movement sends you tripping over your own feet trying to get away. Clawing fingers barely miss the torn collar of your uniform. Your back hits the ground hard, knocking all of the wind out of you, and you scramble backwards in a flurry of flailing limbs and panic towards the sliver of light.

You feel a hiss of machinery right next to your ear just as you bash the doors open with your shoulder.

Glorious light washes over you. A snarl erupts from the animatronic as it leaps away, granting you a path to freedom that you sprint towards with reckless abandon, your injured hand swinging uselessly by your side.

When you’re a good distance away from the daycare, you risk a glance behind.

The stranger stands at its true height at the daycare entrance, its curly-tipped shoes toeing the spot of light cast from above. It has a figure similar to Sun’s, decked in darker shades of blues and whites with a crescent-marked face, and it wears familiarly poofy, star-speckled pants. A nightcap adorns the top of its otherwise bare head. A small bell weighs the end of its cap down, swaying gently. Red pinpricks stare daggers through you. Maroon ribbons tie bells to its wrists, jingling as its fingers dig into the frame of the doors-

Wait.

Wait.

“Oh my god I’m stupid. You’re Moon.” The dawning realisation numbs the throb in your hand for a few moments. You look at it- him with renewed horror, noticing for the first time that you can see a smear of blood near the bottom of his faceplate. Your blood, left when you had punched him.

“Oh god. I’m so s-sorry, I didn’t know it was you…”

Moon cocks his head, shown by the slant of his eyes. Then the glimmering eyes vanish into the darkness of the daycare.

“Moon?” you call out, not daring to go beyond a shaky whisper. “Where did you go?”

Silence.

He must have left. Who wouldn’t after being so thoroughly decked in the face? You hold your injured hand a little closer to your chest, only to hiss when a jolt of pain seizes it. “Fffuuu… Ow.”

The adrenaline is trickling out of your system, letting exhaustion pool in its place, but that’s not what you need now. Far from it. You need to… to…

Find Moon?

Apologize?

Run?

Pain pulses through your crooked fingers like a clock ticking down to your demise. ‘Doctor,’ you think numbly. ‘I need to see a doctor.’

Cradling your hand to stop the trickling blood from staining the tiled floor, you turn to run up the stairs, back to the daycare reception room. Until-

Everything plunges into darkness. The powerful whine of powered-down machinery resonates in your ears, shutting down the lights and your sense of security in one fell swoop.

As if compelled by an unseen force, your eyes are pulled up to meet a glowing pair perched high on the ceiling, shifting to dive down-

In a split second, you remember Melinda telling you about Moon ripping apart a bunch of S.T.A.F.F. Bots that resulted in your increased workload. Bots that are made of material much tougher than the fleshy meat you have.

Shit . 

You immediately bolt in a random direction at the same moment a shadowed blob rapidly descends upon you, the sound of unwinding cable filling the air as you shoot off towards the closest stairs. Up the stairs, accidentally kicking aside plastic chairs in your mad dash through the reception room, you burst into the less constricted space of the entrance lobby. That’s right, the front entrance! You take a sharp swerve to jump down the stairs-

‘Toohighwilltrip!’

Your whole body freezes to a halt. Then you realise your mistake, but only a second too late when the shadow of Moon flies overhead during your moment of fear. He lands at the bottom of the escalator in a low crouch, a grin full of hungry glee stretching from end to end. Even your frazzled mind is able to see that no matter which way you descend, Moon can easily intercept you.

Left with no choice, you’re forced to run deeper into the pizzaplex to escape him.

You try to find the nearest attraction in the hopes that Glamrock Freddy or Chica could help you. But it’s like Moon has a sixth sense catered to making your life difficult; every time you get close to something resembling an attraction, he’s there waiting like a demented spider perched on the rafters, swiping at you until you’re forced to run down yet another random corridor.

You even try to duck into a photo booth in the top level of the entrance lobby, praying he’d get bored and give you enough time to run the rest of the way. The bright lighting will surely keep him at bay. And it does… until it doesn’t. You hear the loud thump of his feet on the roof of the booth, and everything lurches left. You’re thrown out on your ass unceremoniously, and as you scramble away again, you glimpse the hulking figure of Moon perched on the booth, tipping it as easily as an empty tin can.

“I thought Sun talked to you?!” you choke out. “We had an agreement!”

You don’t expect a response. But he still gives one, in a voice deeper and a thousand times more bone-chilling than Sun’s. “Squirmy little rule-breaker went behind my back… Talked to Sun, told him your sweet little lies …” A raspy laugh makes the hair on your arms stand on end. “Naughty tricks like that are against the rules. Rule-breakers must be punished .”

… Oh, he’s insane . 

He doesn’t elaborate after that bombshell, seemingly finding it more fun to pounce after you again and again as you do all you can to stay out of his reach. It’s a cycle of misery: you’ll run towards a possible safe haven, only to have Moon lunge down with his hands reaching for your neck. You’ll duck away in the nick of time, scrambling away as you feel the burn of his eyes searing into your back. A chuckle that promises bad things for you, the hiss of cables pulling him up the rafters, rinse and repeat. Rinse and repeat. Rinse, repeat. Rinse repeat rinse repeat rinserepeat -

‘I can’t keep doing this!’  

Your leg muscles are turning into jelly the longer you’re chased, and your gait is slowly but surely swaying into an unsteady, faltering jog. Your old injuries are flaring back to life, threatening to cripple you at any moment. Your hand is screaming in agony from the constant jostling, despite your best attempts to keep it steady. Sooner or later, you’re going to collapse in a lightless room, right into his open arms and he’ll… he’ll…

What’s Moon planning to do to you?

A million scenarios - all ending with your demise, blood soaking the fuzzy carpet - haunt your mind. It inspires a final burst of adrenaline to push your legs into overdrive, suppressing the throbbing pain to the farthest corner of your brain as you fly through an atrium-like floor, legs carrying you to a familiar corridor with the comforting scent of harsh cleaning agents lingering in the air. If you can lock yourself into a closet with a first aid kit and last through the night, then…

You chance a glance behind. Miraculously, you don’t see crimson eyes anywhere around you- or is that just because your vision is starting to cloud from pain? You push forward, exhaustion nipping at your heels as you stagger through the closest door, the side of your head clipping against the frame. The dimness is a welcome change after what feels like hours of running past streaks of blinding neon lights. Your knees quiver a little… and the ground rushes to meet your nose.

‘Shit, no! I need to get up!’

But the intangible dread of Moon finding you is overshadowed by the very real stitch in your side, cramping so excruciatingly that it digs into your ribs and steals all of your ability to move. It pulses in beat with your gasping breaths as you fight to fill your lungs, but you can’t . It’s like your throat is obstructed with cotton balls; you can’t inhale more than a tiny sliver of air at a time. Your mind is sinking under the weight of stressfearpain youwanttogohome-

A heavy thud touches down on the ground.

Your heart lurches.

Thump . Thump . Thump . Footsteps pace from somewhere beyond the door, creeping closer slowly but surely until they stop right outside your hiding place. The door! You have to brace yourself against the door even if it’s just your exhausted body slumped against it, that’s the only way to keep him out!

But you can’t move. You can’t even breathe right. You’re just a useless lump on the dirty janitorial floor.

Something shatters outside. The sliver of light seeping under the door extinguishes, and you can barely make out the shadowy silhouette of feet landing just behind the door with the loud boom only a four-hundred-pound animatronic can make. ‘He’s not even trying to hide anymore,’ you think in quiet horror. Neither are you, with your desperate gasps for air echoing sharply in the janitorial closet.

(he’s not hiding anymore just because he can)

(you’re not hiding anymore because you can’t)

The door creaks , its rusty hinges announcing their lack of maintenance to you as if you care. You grit your teeth to stop the scream threatening to spill out, wide eyes watering as the tip of cobalt fingers curling around the door’s edge-

“Moon! What are you doing?”

A voice you’ve never heard before scares the outstretched fingers off the door’s edge. Loud, brash, authoritative- it’s so unlike the demeanour of your other female coworkers and it’s directed at Moon instead of you, but you don’t dare to let yourself hope yet. You need to get up…

( legs wracked with tremors, chest tight with pain, hand slick with blood )

… but to your frustration, your body doesn’t obey. A hoarse squeak slips past your lips that may have been a “ Fuck! ” if you had any voice left.

The harsh female voice is joined by the low rasp you’ve come to be acquainted with tonight. To your ears, it’s nothing but a jumble of furious mouth noise. It doesn’t matter what they’re saying anyway; you need to fix your hand and in order to do that, you need to get up .

Forcing your jellied muscles to move is an arduous task. But through gritted teeth and bracing your good hand against the stained ground, you successfully plant one foot on a flat surface, then the other. Your knees creak in protest, but you blow past it in one big push against the ground, shoving your body into an approximation of an upright position. It feels like gravity has you in its crushing embrace, but you’re standing and that’s good enough for finding first aid.

You stagger to the back of the closet, where you know you’ve seen a first aid kit shoved to the far end of a shelf. Sure enough, there’s one sitting right there, stained and seemingly hasn’t seen the light of day in a decade. You reach out to take it…

… but it falls out of your trembling fingers.

The resulting crash freezes your heart and the outside conversation dead. Even as it cracks open and spills out its meagre contents, you remain stiff with abject fear. 

The door flies open with a tremendous bang. A harsh beam of light slices through the dark, blinding you in its glow. A figure stands in the doorway, her fierce scowl and glittering green eyes illuminated in the dim lighting.

“Don’t move!” she barks, pointing the business end of what looks like a taser at you. “Hands in the air!”

‘A security guard,’ your mind supplies in a feeble whisper. Not only did you somehow piss off Moon, you also managed to make enough of a ruckus to alert human security.

You’re not escaping this building with your job intact.

Swallowing drily, you are about to comply when a flash of red peeks under the top of the door frame. Moon. His body contorts and twists over the frame in impossible ways as he crawls into the closet, the dangling bell of his nightcap skimming over the security guard’s cap. His grin is pulled wide with a silent taunt. Slowly, deliberately , he raises a hand and gives you a little wave.

All at once, every emotion that’s been bubbling in the pit of your guts erupts all at once.

Face screwing up with a renewed flare of anger wreathed in your pent-up fear, you scream . 

“WILL YOU FUCK OFF ALREADY!”

The security guard flinches back. Her grip on the taser noticeably tightens. “Kid, I need you to calm down right no-“

“Shut up! Shut! Up ! I’m so sick of everyone and their fucking mother getting pissed at me when I’m just doing what I’m told!” Your vision is tunneling toward the animatronic as you spit and snarl. So much so that you don’t notice the security guard inching towards you. “I try to apologise, I get thrown down the stairs! I try to save someone’s dumb ass from their own cable, they start freaking the fuck out on me! And you!” Your hands, unscathed and broken alike, whip around to jab at Moon’s face. He hisses lowly. 

“I, I don’t know where to fucking begin with you! I thought you wanted friendly fucking dialogue when you called me here, but no! You chased me around this whole bloody place! For what?! Did that asshole put you up to this?! Swear to god-!”

Two hands suddenly seize your shoulders. The renewed throbbing in your right side breaks through the red haze in your vision. Your rant is cut off with a cry of pain, and you see for the first time the guard right next to you, her lips moving.

“-ey, hey, cool it! Kid, I need you to calm. Down. Come with me for a sec, okay?”

Calm down? Fuck that. Fuck that.

You flinch away from her touch, pointing at Moon desperately, trying to make her understand your dire situation. “No! I’m not going out there, he’s going to-to-!”

You feel your throat close up. You can’t even bring yourself to voice it out.

The security guard whips her head back and forth between you and Moon, her taser-holding hand hovering indecisively in the air. “He’s not going to do anything to you, I promise. But you need to come with me now . We can’t stay here.”

“She can’t stay here.” Every muscle in your body locks up at the mere sound of his voice. Moon descends from the ceiling with jerky movements in his limbs, the tick-tick-tick of his rotating faceplate sounding too much like cracking bones in your racing imagination. “Rule-breakers are to be removed from Fazbear premises as swiftly as possible, riiiight? Let me deal with her.”

“Stay the fuck away from me!” you shriek, sounding more terrified than terror-inducing. “I knocked you on your ass once, I’ll do it again!”

A new fervour in his smile, Moon takes a step closer and your uninjured hand curls into a fist-

“Everyone, shut the hell up!”

The bellow nearly shatters your eardrums. It also halts Moon in his tracks, the red glow of his eyes narrowed into slits. The security guard stands between you two with absolutely no trace of fear in her stance, aiming the taser at… Moon?

“Back up now,” she barks. “I need a coherent answer out of her and you’re not helping matters.”

A noise of displeasure rumbles in his circuitry. “No need for answers. Nothing worth listening to. Not from a little liar,” he hisses. “Rule-breakers should be banned immediately.”

“We just fucking met, asshole-!”

The guard quickly slaps a hand over your mouth. Fingernails dig warningly into your cheeks. “I can handle it, Moon. Don’t forget who the head guard is around here. You can get your metal can back to patrolling for any more surprises while I,” She spares you a searching glance, “deal with the kid.”

Is she protecting you?

As most of your hysterics dies down rather anticlimactically, Moon’s expression twists, but he can’t seem to quite get rid of the grin on his face even with the targeted anger in his eyes. Looks like he has something in common with Sun.

He seems to teeter on his tiptoes for a moment as if considering snatching you up anyway. You hold your breath, heart pulsing in erratic tandem with your injuries. The guard twitches the taser up by a fraction (like a human taser would do anything to a big guy like him).

“Moon, go . Now.”

He twists on his heel and stomps out of the closet, but you don’t relax even as the cable pulls him up to the ceiling. The thought of having your head grabbed and twisted off feels far too real to risk.

The guard’s face enters your vision, blocking the view of the yawning door frame. “You need to breathe, kid.”

It’s only then you realise you’ve been holding your breath all this time. Taking in a sharp inhale brings a cold shock that douses the last bit of anger, and all you feel now is every bit of energy being sapped away by the second and… and…

“Ooow.”

Your next inhale is sharper and accompanied by a whine of pain. You squint down through watering eyes, and you see a hand attached to your arm that’s supposed to be there, but it’s not supposed to be bent that way. It’s not supposed to be covered in crusting, flaking blood, it-it’s not supposed to hurt this much when you try to move just a finger-

“I broke my hand,” you whimper.

“You just noticed?” the guard snaps, although you think you hear a tiny bit of concern under the exasperation. She takes your elbow, and you’re too tired to even try to pull away. “Come with me.”

You would’ve been happy to sit down right there and then, but it seems that the guard has someplace else in mind. The guard pulls you out of the room, her torchlight cutting through the darkness. 

It’s all you can do to cling onto her sleeve with your good hand, shoulders hunched into yourself as much as physically possible. You don’t dare look up to see her face now. As far as you know, you are royally screwed.

You’re soon led into what looks like a security room, better lit than the rest of the building combined. The guard picks up a first aid kit and pushes you towards a tiny sink, snatching up your wrist.

Now that you can see everything in crystal clear detail, you can count the individual locks of her blonde hair slipping out of her ponytail and each crease in her furrowed brows. “Christ, what the hell did you do?” she asks while carefully examining your hand, although she doesn’t try to touch it. 

“Why does it matter? You’re going to report me, aren’t you?” you mumble, somehow sounding more pathetic than you feel right now.

Her green eyes flick to you for a split second. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m still going to get answers out of you,” she says sternly. “But right now, you needed to go to the hospital yesterday . I’ll help you clean this up and call you a cab.”

You feel a twinge of surprise in your numbing mind. She’s going that far for someone who screwed up this much?

The security guard nudges the tap on and, despite her brusque demeanour, gently guides your aching knuckles under the running water. The initial shock makes you yell and instinctively try to rip your hand away; it’s only thanks to the guard’s firm grip on you that you don’t get anywhere.

“Hold still.” Her words are snappy, but you don’t hear any real animosity in them. You bite your bottom lip and do your best to bear the pain.

“S’rry…”

Her gaze snaps to you. Up this close, you can see the dark circles hanging under her eyes, and now you feel even more horrible being here. “What?”

Clearing your throat feels like you’re gargling glass shards. Turns out screaming at the top of your lungs for a whole minute has dire consequences. “Sorry. For all th-this, I mean.” You wave your good hand around you vaguely.

The blonde lady lets out an unladylike snort that catches you off guard. “Why are you apologising to me?”

“Won’t you get in trouble for… um, just now?”

Her gaze is fixed on the last bit of dark red flakes washing off your skin. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. All I know is that I caught a guest who accidentally got locked in the building after closing hours and sent them off with a warning,” she says levelly. “A minor incident that doesn’t require a report to anyone.”

It takes you a moment to understand what she’s implying. Your mouth falls open in an “O” of surprise. 

“What I want to know is how that guest ended up here in the first place,” the lady continues, arching an eyebrow at you. She picks up a cotton ball using a pair of tweezers and begins dabbing your hand dry.

Some of your amazement gives way to apprehension. The way she’s wording that, is she asking you to come up with a cover story of your own to play along with the charade? You’d be more than happy to do that, but you’ve always been awful at improv even under pressure. Especially under pressure! What if you accidentally say something incriminating? What if-

The security guard catches a glimpse of your expression and breathes out a long-suffering sigh. “I meant that I want answers from you after you get that hand looked at, you idiot.”

Oh. “Right, um.” Your face flushes. “I can tell you now! Th-this can wait for a few minutes.”

The blonde lady stares at your right hand pointedly. “Your hand. Is broken.”

“I know, I know! But it’s not that bad, it looks worse than it feels, trust m-”

She reaches down and gives your crooked finger a solid poke.

Pain seizes you in an electric-like flash. It lasts for several, agonising seconds that have you hunching over, eyes squeezed shut and mouth agape in a silent scream.

You suck in a stuttering breath. “Why?” you whisper in a breathy squeak.

“To prove a point,” the guard says breezily, tossing the soiled cotton into a nearby trash bin. When you glare at her through watering eyes, you find her murmuring into a cell phone. She bids the unknown party farewell and hangs up, turning back to you. “I just called a cab for you. Do you think you can walk yourself into the hospital?”

You quickly nod. You can’t imagine how pitiful you already look after running around in circles for so long, the last thing you want is to be walked around like a helpless child.

“Good, because I’m already falling behind on my patrols. I can’t put it off any longer or I’ll get questions from the higher-ups, which won’t turn out well.” 

“For either of us” goes unspoken between you two.

The security lady urges you to follow her with a jerk of her chin. Being mindful of your broken hand, you force yourself to move. You can feel the burn in your legs from your impromptu game of tag, muscles tugging painfully as you follow behind the security lady with a wobble in every other step. You can’t help glancing over your shoulder for a red glow waiting to dive for your neck-

“He won’t hurt you.”

“Huh?”

The guard is looking back at you. “Moon. He won’t hurt you. All of the animatronics are programmed to never harm employees,” she says dismissively as if the last half hour hadn’t occurred.

Programmed…? Oh, robot stuff. You’re so used to thinking of them as regular people that the idea that a mere line of code can stop them from doing something is… disconcerting, to say the least.

“But he’s security, right? If there were any intruders, h-he’s supposed to…” Your sore throat hurts from how hard you gulp. “You know?”

“‘Security’ doesn’t get to pick a fight with any intruder breaking into the pizzaplex.” You can practically hear the eye roll in her words. “It doesn’t matter if it’s a robber or some dumb teenager breaking in for a dare; we’re supposed to de -escalate the situation, not make it worse.”

That’s nice to know… if you were guilty of a break-in. Which you’re not . You didn’t even think about breaking in! You were explicitly invited for a… a…

‘I don’t know,’ you suddenly realise. Moon… That bastard had asked you to come to the daycare, but he never said what for. You had been so caught up in your eagerness that your mind leaped to the first assumption to pop up and… well, everything else happened. Why had he even contacted you in the first place?! Surely it can’t be just because he wanted something to chase, right?

‘Sun said he’d talk to him.’

You quickly shake off the cold trickle of doubt. Sun just wanted to talk to Moon about your place in the daycare, he said so.

‘ But he looked pretty reluctant when he said it.’

That’s just because you made him save you from falling off the ladder and cracking your skull open. Who would be happy after being forced to pick up someone else’s mess?

‘What if Sun was lying about giving you a chance?’

Shut up , brain-

‘What if Sun planned this with Moon to get you fired?’

The realisation brings forth a horrible clarity, like icy water pouring down your neck.

“ Hey .” The sharp call and snapping fingers under your nose snaps you out of your thoughts. You realise with a jolt that both you and the security lady are already standing in a desolate parking lot outside the building, a cool night breeze raising goosebumps on the back of your neck. Were you that sucked into your brewing worries that the whole journey flew by you unnoticed? “Get your head out of the clouds already…  Are you alright?”

Your voice is nothing more than a shaky wisp as you mutter a confused “Huh?”.

“I asked if you’re alright, kid. You’re looking pretty pale.” She squints at you. “Are you sure you can walk yourself into the waiting room? Because it looks like a stiff breeze can knock you right over.”

“I-I’m fine, I…’

‘Don’t say anything about that, don’t think about it, don’t-’

“... was just wondering why you keep calling me ‘kid’,” you say haltingly, hoping she doesn’t try to pry.

At least it seems to work, if the look of consternation is anything to go by. “Kid, teenager, whatever, they’re all the same,” she says with a dismissive wave. “They all pull stupid stunts until they’re thrown into the adult world, where they proceed to pull more stupid stunts but in bigger bodies.”

“But I’m twenty-five…?”

“What?!”

You instantly regret opening your mouth when the security lady rounds on you, fury blazing anew in her green eyes, and you immediately half-curl yourself around your injured hand. “You’re twenty- goddamn -five and you thought it was a good idea to waltz in?! I-!”

The lady cuts herself off - probably before she falls for the temptation to slap the stupid out of you - and inhales a very deep breath, running a hand down her face.

When she speaks again, her tone is calm… in the way a volcano is before it erupts. “We’re having a discussion soon, believe you me, because it’s painfully obvious nobody explained anything to you.” She jabs a finger into your chest. “You get yourself fixed up as soon as possible so that you can explain every bit of your stupidity from tonight to me.”

“O-or…?”

“I might have to change my mind on withholding that report,” she says without hesitation. “Why should I risk my neck for no reason?”

‘That’s fair,’ you think glumly. You still don’t have to like it, though.

A curt honk shatters the silence of the night. “Ah, right on time,” the security lady says as a yellow taxi rolls up beside you two. She opens the door for you. “In.”

Your climb inside the vehicle is as awkward as can be, and you nearly fall flat on your face before righting yourself in time. The security lady props an arm against the roof of the car and leans down. “Save your money for the doctor. I already paid for the trip there, but you’ll need to find your own way back home.”

Your jaw drops. “Oh. Th-thank you, um…?”

“Name’s Vanessa. No, don’t bother telling me your name, I already know who you are.” Her quick glance at your uniform answers the question of “How did you know?”. “I’ll be in contact with you soon.”

She slams the cab door in your face before you can process that concerning parting line. 

The cab pulls from the parking lot. Through the tinted glass, you see Vanessa retreat back into the pizzaplex. She seems… nice. A little snappy, but given the circumstances you’ve met her in, she could have been much worse.

The cab driver asks something about your destination, and you mumble an affirmative. He tries to strike up a conversation with you, but when you don’t give much other than a tired “Mhm…”, it drops off into a comfortable silence as the cab sails through empty streets.

Your body practically deflates into the leather cushions, but even though it yearns for sleep, it doesn’t come to you. The constant ache pulsing in your right side is an anchor keeping you in the land of the waking, and you’re trapped in this weird state in-between wide-eyed awareness and leaden exhaustion.

‘Sun… Moon…’

You bite your lip to stop a muttered swear from slipping. Here you were, so sure that things were going in the right direction and Sun would be willing to be cooperative, and yet-

‘Don’t think about it. Don’t think about it.’

You feel a phantom hand, outsizing yours by a mile, wrapping around yours with uncharacteristic tenderness.

‘Don’t think about it!’

You squeeze your eyes shut.

You… just want to sleep.

The hospital trip itself is a blur.

You remember exactly one other time you’ve landed yourself in the hospital for a broken bone. You were ten, went on your childhood home’s balcony and got locked out. The actual memory is too fuzzy to remember in full. Still, you vaguely recall an intense fear that drove you to take a leap of faith, and then… nothing much besides the dark cloud of your mother’s irritation that hung around the house for the whole recovery period, and you never understood why.

Until now.

“A- abuse?” you stammer, wrapping your arms around yourself self-consciously.

The nurse who proposed the ridiculous idea in the first place gives you a gentle smile. “It’s nothing to be ashamed of,” she soothes, seemingly blind to your head-shaking. “Whatever you say here won’t leave this room. We have places for you to go if you don’t feel safe now-”

Your face flushes with mind-numbing shame. You already feel like crap, your hand bound in a sterile white cast and your brain overloaded with care tips for the bruises on your back, this is just… this is humiliating . You’re not some damsel, you’re not some kid getting beat behind closed doors, you’re not…!

“ I’m fine, ” you say, harsher than you mean to. However, your words seem to have the opposite effect and soften the nurse’s expression into open sympathy.

“Ma’am, I understand this might be hard to hear, but-“

“No buts! I don’t… I live alone and I, I’m not being abused. Jeez .” Your hand twinges in pain when you instinctually try to use it to card through your hair, and you hastily set it down amidst the nurse’s own attempts to force it down herself. You gesture at yourself with your other hand instead. “Listen, I’m not lying to cover anyone up, okay? I broke my hand from punching someone,” Technically true, even if that “someone” isn’t human, “and I slipped down the stairs.” Also technically true, even if your slipping resulted from an unfortunate push at the unfortunate time your heel was pressed against the stairs step at an unfortunate angle, “That’s. It. Nothing else happened, I swear .”

You stare up at the nurse beseechingly. She visibly hesitates for a moment before nodding. “If you’re certain. Ah, but before you leave…”

After receiving a whirlwind of information that leaves your head spinning, you find yourself standing outside the hospital with painkillers, instructions on caring for your bruises, a hefty hospital bill, and pamphlets on domestic violence and what to do when you’re a victim- yeah that’s going in the trash.

Good news: the fracture isn’t as bad as you had feared. The worst of it is in your middle finger and your split knuckles, so all you have to do is keep it dry and not use your casted hand as an improvised weapon.

Bad news: How are you going to keep this away from your family?

It’s a worry that plagues you throughout the cab ride home, all the way up to your doorstep. You don’t want them to know about this, especially your father. What is he going to say when he finds out you somehow managed to break your hand in your first week of work? You can already picture the disbelieving rage on his face as he grills you: “Who did this to you”, “Go to the police”, “I’ll pay for your hospital bill”, “Whoever hurt you won’t live to regret it”, blah blah blah .

He fusses way too much. You don’t need help. You’re an adult now! This whole mess was your fault to begin with and you don’t need someone else to clean up your mess, if your mom caught wind of this, then-

You shake your head. No use worrying about it if you can just hide it until your hand heals.

But…

There’s no way you can go into “hermit isolated from society” mode for six weeks straight- Well, you can , but it’s going to raise eyebrows. What if they try to spring a surprise house visit on you? Or worse, they’ll pop by the daycare to see you at work- Oh god the daycare. Sun . Another can of worms threatening to burst at the seams.

You take your anger out on the door. It ricochets off the wall with a societally inappropriate bang, but you can’t bring yourself to care.

‘I’ll start caring when I get some sleep,’ you think numbly. The digital clock on your bedside table reads “3:38”. Three hours of sleep should do you some good. Three and a half if you skip a shower. Yeah, no showers sound good. Mhm.

You have just enough sense to clobber together a soft cushion for your cast on the nearest flat surface before crawling into bed and shoving your hand onto it. The moment your head hits the pillow is pure bliss…

… but your dreams are tainted by red eyes stalking you in the darkness and a relentless chase deep into the void…

Your alarm beeps an annoying tune.

It’s instantly killed by your hand. Your eyes creak open, feeling as though they had never been closed to begin with. “Shtupid n’ghtm’res,” you moan into your pillow.

You can practically feel bones creak and groan as you slowly sit up in bed. Your arm is still stiff from being laid out on a cushion on your bedside table like a plank of wood- Wait, bedside table? 

You stare at the shoddy set-up in disbelief and mild disgust. Jeez, how out of it were you?

You feel a dull ache beneath the cast. Right, pain meds.

You also feel a dull ache in your guts. Right, food .

‘Eat food, then pain meds. Eat food with pain meds.’ You run a hand through your hair. It feels greasy between your fingers, and you grimace. ‘Shower, then eat food. With pain meds.’

Hell yeah, look at you being an adult.

Shimmying out of bed turns out to be the hardest challenge in your morning routine. You shamble around your apartment in a daze, carrying out your usual activities with a new element of clumsiness thanks to not being used to having your left hand as the dominant appendage. You even manage to slip your cast through a blue-and-white speckled sleeve without much difficulty-

You pause.

Right, work . A thing that people tend to avoid when they get broken bones.

A sliver of temptation to slip back under the covers worms into your mind, but you shake it off irritably. You’re fine . It’s just a hand; you can still do a bunch of things with only one good hand! Besides, you can’t stand the thought of going weeks before (punting that little shit) (STRIKETHROUGH) getting an answer out of Sun.

The memory of his grinning, lying face spurs renewed determination within you. You yank on your uniform - pausing for a moment to regret it when your hand protests - and shoulder on your backpack, marching out of your apartment with one goal in mind.

You stand before the daycare.

Your journey there had been weirdly… uneasy. It’s not like anyone tried to stop you; if anything, the Security Bots and Janitor Bots seemed to go out of their way to let you pass unimpeded. But the way they stared after you as you plod your way to the daycare sector, it’s almost like they’re… judging you? Or is that just you projecting your family’s potential feelings onto the otherwise inanimate robots?

‘Shut UP, brain.’ Sucking in a deep breath, you brace a palm against the door. ‘Save the energy for Sun.’

The door swings open.

Seeing the daycare washed in gloriously bright lights, banishing the creeping shadows that had it in its grasp mere hours ago, puts you at ease just a little bit.

A lean figure slinks out of a tube slide and extends to his full height, a spray bottle in one hand and a rag in the other. He must have been disinfecting the playground interior. You watch him fuss over something staining the yellow plastic of the slide with a stream of worried mutters, hands fluttering over it like an anxious butterfly, and for a brief moment, you falter.

As ornery as Sun had been until now, he hasn’t done anything on this level before. Maybe you’re jumping to conclusions here…?

Maybe Sun had meant every word and Moon had acted on his own accord. 

Maybe, just maybe, Sun doesn’t know anything that happened last night-

His head swivels and you lock eyes with optics. Sun visibly startles, dropping the cleaning rag. “You came back?” he gasps in disbelief.

… Never mind, he knew. That fucker knew.