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Sun was laying in his bed, staring at the ceiling of his room.
How long had he been laying like this?
It was hard to tell-
All he knew is that the lights had to be ON.
No darkness…
No no no no-
He blinked and tried to concentrate his gaze on the ceiling again.
Sun didn’t dare to look at the time, fearing that he knew what exact time it was.
He was, in fact, ignoring his inner system clock on purpose.
All of this was due to yesterday.
His fath- Creator. Sun’s Creator had put him through a living nightmare.
His mind was restless and he was sure he could still hear the taunting words and feel the pain in his endoskeleton. Sun held tightly onto his blanket and took a few breaths.
Sweet sweet breaths…
So sweet-
“ Suffocate.”
Sun gasped for air and almost jumped as he sat up, coughing and shaking, looking around for the source of the voice.
Nothing was there.
No one.
Sun was shaking and he could feel the tears coming-
No no no!-
He tried so desperately to hold onto anything good in his mind.
His cats, His family, His friends…
His Creator.
Sun’s mind was playing an awful game with him as more and more of his thoughts were overtaken by that taunting voice. "G-get out…” he sobbed as he weakly tried to shut down his hearing.
He didn’t want this.
None of it!
Shutting off his hearing didn’t help, it made it only worse.
No sounds besides the Creator's voice came through to him, but he didn't dare to turn them on either.
“Oh Sun, did you REALLY think I would stay away? You know what I want. Better get it for me BEFORE I send you back.”
Sun began hyperventilating as he thought to those fleshy walls, the eyes, the bloody sea’s in front and around him.
No, never.
“Never back. Never… never..” Sun curled in slowly on himself, feeling his body shaking and he felt his sobs- he couldn’t hear them but he felt them.
This wasn’t real. It couldn’t be.
Moon had put up a firewall for him-
It was the Creator.
Sun was aware that if anyone would be able to bypass this, it would be him.
So… this was real?
All Sun did was to prepare for the pain that he was about to feel.
What would be broken?- What would vanish?-
His legs, his arms? Would he be blind?
Sun already closed his eyes and just got louder.
He wanted none of this!
How did he deserve this?!
ANY OF THIS?!
His systems got overflooded with different thoughts and he felt so fragile. Something in him broke at that moment and opened back everything he had worked on.
Thoughts that he had pushed away, that he thought he was okay with by now… The pain he felt almost every day when Moon was in control, the abusement his so called brother had put him through-
Eclipse. His mind must’ve been playing tricks on him because he could hear that laugh. He could feel the air vibrate around him as that laugh filled his entire being and threatened to overtake his every thought-
Until it cut off.
“Oh? The Sun man seems in a very bad mood brother!”
“Oh how fun fun fun this could be!”
The two voices that had taunted him for so long were back. He thought he finally was able to handle them but right now they were back. “Get away… GET AWAY!” he screamed, not hearing his own voice as he did. He was crying, sobbing and shaking, trying to somehow pick up a thought.
Everything was going so fast.
Too fast.
He wasn’t smart or strong like Moon or Monty, or as kind and powerful as Earth and Lunar.
He was nothing.
“P-please…” he whimpered and curled into himself even more.
He must've looked so pathetic.
Weak.
He was weak.
All of his limbs just felt like they were about to fully give up on him…
The two continued to talk to themselves and him but he wasn’t even able to pick up on it…
All his mind concentrated on was to spiral down further into everything that he had been through.
Lunar, Earth…- Both deserved a better brother.
Both deserved a brother that didn’t hurt them, that didn't turn into such a wreck.
New M-... Nexus.
His ‘brother’.
“A little bit of Eclipse is still in there, huh?” It had such a familiar tone… One he loved to hear on any other occasion- But right now, it was the worst.
He was the worst-
But Sun stayed silent.
It was true. He had long accepted that… But hearing Nexus say that just hurt so much. Someone he thought of as his brother for an entire year was saying this to him. A person that knew just what kind of things Eclipse was capable of.
He remembered so well how he looked at his brother in that cell, trying to reason with him. His heart had hurt so much as he remembered just how it felt to be in such a small space- How it felt to be locked up by your own brother.
But he had changed-
His brother had changed so much.
The one that he had been for, for the past year was no more at that point,
He tried to not listen to Nexus but it wouldn’t stop.
“Did you EVER think about what I WANTED?! You call yourself a brother but all you ever did was WANT ME TO BE HIM !”
Sun froze on the inside.
It was true- he was so, so, so sorry.
He had forced Nexus to be his brother.
He had caused this…
All of it.
Nexus never asked to be his brother, Sun had just expected it from him. No wonder he called Solar his brother- No wonder in that simulation he barely seemed to care for his death when he compared it to Solar’s.
He shouldn’t compare deaths… reactions to it- but he did unwillingly.
Ever since he saw that scene, his body laying on the ground and Nexus being shocked just to call his murderer his brother. Caring more for what he had become than what had happened to Sun.
“I’m sorry.. p-please… p-please I… I’m s-so…” he hiccupped and sobbed as he tried to form a sentence, but Nexus was having none of it.
“You’re not sorry. You never are. Out of everyone, YOU deserve to die the most, YET YOU STILL ARE HERE.”
Nexus was right…
Sun did deserve it.
Maybe if he would’ve been nicer to Eclipse- If he would’ve tried more to get him to agree to become friends?-
Sun deep, deep down knew it wouldn’t have worked.
Solar was the example.
He held his Rays, pulling on them to try and ground himself down, instead he just broke them off.
Sun hissed and wanted to continue as Nexus spoke up again.
“A wonder Evelyn doesn’t hate you.”
That hit Sun like a whiplash.
He wanted to scream at Nexus, do anything! But finally the voice of Nexus vanished from his mind.
Sun would’ve been happy about it but-
“Sunny.”
He froze completely.
That voice- that name-
Somehow he was able to get his head up and he looked directly in the eyes of his brother.
It would’ve been a normal moment, but right now he knew that this wasn't his Moon.
Not anymore.
His smile wasn’t kind and caring but excited for a kill.
That Moon in front of him died a year ago but yet looked so intensely at him, it made Sun wanna throw up.
He still couldn't understand how this Moon and the current Moon were the same person.
Moon was so gentle to him nowadays.
He still had his remarks and actions that made Sun unhappy but he never hurt him physically..
He apologized if he thought that he hurt Sun’s feelings and protected him when Dark Sun was shitting on him.
How were they the same?...
The fake Moon crept closer and closer and that look-
That look was one of pure hatred.
This Moon would hurt him.
Worse than anything else had ever hurt.
Sun wanted to die.
Right now!
Anything but this again-
As he felt something touch his shoulder he prepared for a blow- anything. His body was too weak to even show much of a reaction beside flinching ever so slightly.
Nothing came.
Instead he felt someone shake him, his head almost falling forward again-
Sun finally turned his optics on again- when did he even turn them off? He didn’t remember.
In front of him was indeed Moon, but that look he had immediately gave away which one it was.
His brother…
Moon gave so much for him.
Sun’s mind wanted to continue to think about his brother, but he finally saw the red blinking light on his left side.
Oh his power was almost ou-
____________________________
Moon sat in Sun’s room and watched his sleeping brother. Well, Sun wasn’t sleeping, but rather fully shut down. Moon hated doing that, but Sun had been so drained of power when he found him that he was shut down already, and something told Moon that Sun wasn’t gonna rest if he would have enough energy to sleep normally.
Still- the feeling of guilt wasn’t leaving Moon. He knew how much both of them hated full Shutdowns. Their time systems always got slightly messed up and the fight for control…- It wasn’t there anymore.
Never would be.
But the memories and avoidance of Shutdowns remained. The side effect of them not knowing what had happened during their time shut down wasn’t helping the uneasiness.
Moon pushed away these thoughts for later. All of the animatronics concentration was on his brother, slowly charging and laying just as if he would be asleep…
Just that Sun wouldn't wake up unless he said so.
Another reason he hated those full Shutdowns.
Normal ones were already bad but this… if someone wasn't gonna turn them on- Moon didn’t wanna go down that route of thinking. He shook his head and tried to calm down.
“Mhhww…?” A small deer girl peeked into the room and looked at Moon and then at Sun.
“Sun…?” She seemed worried.
Of course she would-
Moon had been called by Dazzle and Jack.
He was still in his lab when he got the call.
Moon shouldn't have worked- Just yesterday his brother went through hell and he-
He was foolish and stupid to think Sun wouldn’t have problems the following night.
But now he was here, and he wouldn’t leave.
Molten could wait, so could any of these shard thingies.
They only made their lives so much worse.
“Will he be okay?...” Dazzle stood in the doorway, her Sun plush in hand.
Moon sighed a little and nodded.
“He will be okay. It will take a long- long time, but he will be okay.”
Were his words even true?
Moon didn’t know.
Sun went through so much by now.
And most if not all was caused because of his selfishness and need to travel dimensions.
“Y’know, he will be faster up again if good little deer girls go to bed now.” Solar’s voice came from the door, and there he stood.
Dazzle gasped and her eyes went bigger.
“So I can help him?!” She seemed excited.
“Yeah. Jack is just waiting in your room for you. Do you need a bedtime story?” Solar had kneeled onto her height and smiled at her a bit.
“Mhhh- No! I wanna help as fast as I can!” she said excitedly and ran off with her plush.
Solar sighed and looked at Moon as he got up again.
“So what exactly happened?” he had been working with Moon when they got the call.
Moon just stormed out and said how ‘Sun needed help’.
“Remember how I told you about Sun’s… ‘dream’ yesterday?” Moon looked from Solar to Sun.
“The hijack? I thought you put a firewall up. We even contacted Sven.”
Moon’s optics dimmed a bit as he thought about yesterday.
“I did. There was no hijack today. I can only assume that it was his mind.”
“Oh.” That’s all that the other gave out.
Solar knew that Sun had a history with hallucinations- hell almost all Moon’s, Eclipse’s and Sun’s probably had- at least in this dimension.
“He held so tightly onto his face plate, I thought he would break it off by accident. Some of his rays broke off too…” Moon’s tone sounded calculated and distant but everything else gave away how the animatronic felt.
He tried to stay cool headed so he could help his brother. Panicking because he couldn’t get hallucinations away, wouldn’t help.
Solar wasn’t entirely sure how he could help either- But he didn’t want to just leave Sun like this.
Both of the geniuses just stood there, lost in their thoughts.
A little beep made clear that Sun was charged enough to do a day's work again.
The two other animatronics looked at each other, unsure if they should turn him back on.
“I don’t know in what state he will be in.” Moon admitted finally.
“... I can only assume a not so good one. For him this will have been less than a moment.” Solar looked at Sun.
He was never particularly close with this Sun- They just never had the time.
But Solar liked Sun.
This one and his dimensions..- his past dimensions, Sun.
He wanted to get closer with him, now that he was given a second chance. (He really should call it a third chance, huh?)
“I can get some stuff. Food or I dunno-” Solar was a bit unsure.
“Sun… Had a liking for a Moon plush back when I was around back then. He never allowed me to even see it but I bet it’s still here somewhere.” Moon said after thinking for a while.
It was one of many things that Sun tried to hide from him, but failed badly at.
The cats were just another example.
“Mhm..” Solar nodded and analyzed the room.
After a quick search he did find an old looking Moon plush and prepared that.
The two took a few moments and then Moon finally turned Sun back on.
The animatronic immediately shot up and looked terrified around, his eyes searching the room for whatever he must have seen earlier.
Instead he just found his brother and Solar.
This helped bring down the tension ever so slightly, his mind becoming a bit more clear.
His hearing was still shut off and as he saw his brother try to talk to him he just shook his head and curled up.
Moon looked a bit helpless.
He had helped Sun through many panic attacks but this one was BAD.
And this was Sun already at his calmest right now-
Moon thought back to the past…
He sighed and made sure Sun wasn’t gonna jump as he touched him.
So he showed his hands in front of Sun’s eyes and then slowly took his brother's hand.
The Sun themed animatronic followed with his eyes and squeezed Moon’s hand weakly.
Moon put some pressure on it too and just sat there, holding his sobbing brother's hand.
“He disabled his hearing?-” Solar took notice of it of course.
“It helps reduce the amount of impressions on the system. Less to concentrate on.” Moon said while he motioned his brother to move a bit over.
Sun just looked at him confused until he understood and moved to the side, letting Moon into his bed.
It felt almost illegal to even watch this all go down for Solar.
He still held the Moon plush close to his chest and just watched the two.
Moon let his brother curl up around him and hug him tightly.
“Can I get the plush?” Moon looked at Solar again.
“Uh- Sure, should I- uh…” Solar gave it to him and motioned at the door.
Moon just nodded.
“Thanks for the help.”
“...Gladly.” Solar just waved and left.
Now it was just Sun and Moon.
It almost felt nostalgic to just sit with his brother like this.
He went over the few Rays that his brother hadn’t destroyed and put the Plushy beside Sun.
Sun peeked out as he saw that something new was put in front of him and noticeably got tense before just taking it and relaxing again.
After a while where Sun’s sobs slowly grew more quiet and less frequent, he moved slightly and spoke up.
“Y-You… you d-don’t have to be here…” His voice came out so small and in pain, it broke Moon’s heart even more.
“I want to be here though.”
Moon wasn’t sure if Sun could hear him, but the slight hum that came from his brother was enough for him to continue.
“You don’t have to go through this alone, Sun. Whatever you saw, It’s not here right now.
I will not let you go through such things alone anymore.
Not tonight, tomorrow, or any other day in the future. I will always come to help you.”
Sun stayed quiet for a few minutes and then he finally hummed again and spoke up, his voice sounding so exhausted-
“I… don’t know if I can do this anymore.”
He hadn’t admitted it to himself or anyone else before, but Moon wasn’t too surprised.
No one- No machine or human- was meant to experience so much agony in their life.
He had watched what had happened in his absence and a clip came to his mind again.
Sun as he blasted Eclipse into the portal-
He put himself in danger to save his family.
Just like Moon had done before him.
Sun seemed so determined in the moment-
It was nothing like the Sun he had met when they gained sentience.
The animatronic that was terrified of him and kept the lights on as much as he could to avoid the pain- not thinking about the other consciousness in his head.
Nothing like the animatronic that had gone mad because of the pain that Eclipse and Bloodmoon had caused him.
The animatronic that Moon had fought with and… and the last version he had seen of his brother before his death.
That reminded Moon that ever since his death, Sun had to take the role of the oldest and the leader.
Yes Nexus had taken it after a while again officially, but Sun never stopped with that role.
He always was the one people came to-
He was the one that watched their deaths, one after another.
He was the one that gave advice, no matter how unwell he was himself or said he wasn’t good with advice.
Sun was the one that Ruin used to manipulate Nexus MULTIPLE times-
Moon held his brother a bit more tightly at the thought about that.
Sun had been used so much for others gains… No matter if as a lab rat- he still hated himself for that- as a bargaining chip or if as an overall helper.
He didn’t deserve all this.
He held his brother tightly and in that moment he just stopped holding back.
“I’m so sorry Sun… I’m sorry that I left you alone for an entire year… That I was such an ass and I’m sorry that I can’t make it all go away.” he held his brother and actually cried.
Moon wasn’t the type to cry but this was one of the few times he did.
Sun was shaking and Moon knew what would come next if he didn’t continue.
Sun would blame himself for everything- hell probably even just existing.
“I’m glad to have you brother. I wouldn’t want it any other way. You’re not at fault for anything that has happened. I’m sorry that I was such an awful person to you.” Sun seemed to take in these words and he just mumbled “I’m glad… to have you too..” They both fell silent after this, just holding each other as the time passed.
There was a lot left unsaid between the two, things that Moon wished he could just talk to his brother about- but now wasn’t the time to open up old wounds.
Moon got a message from Solar after a bit.
“ Is everything going well? Should I get some food delivered or just leave you two be?”
Moon looked down at Sun.
His brother wouldn’t sleep tonight, he could tell that much.
“Sun, do you want any food? Solar thought about letting some food get delivered.”
He knew how Sun usually wouldn’t wanna eat when upset or even talk to others but he wanted to try anyway.
“We could call Earth and Monty over. Have a family night.”
Sun was a bit silent and Moon began already writing to Solar that Sun wasn’t in the mood for food, he heard Sun say something unexpected.
“Sure. But only if we get Pizza.” he sounded so tired but chuckled a little bit.
“Urwh… Y’know I cannot say yes to that Sun.” Moon played into his brother’s bit and Sun almost giggled at that.
“Mhm… How about Lasagna then?”
“Sounds perfect. Let me text Monty and Earth. They’re probably still awake. And Lunar is definitely still up.”
Moon chuckled and so did Sun.
________________________
They all sat down on the Couch, just talking and having fun.
Everyone was there.
Earth, Lunar, Monty, Dazzle, Jack, Solar and of course Moon.
Sun sat directly beside his brother, just holding onto his Moon plush.
When Lunar and Dazzle had seen it, they had run off and gotten Spigot and ‘Mr. Sun’ as Dazzle called her plush.
Jack had gotten a plush too, one of Solar, that he had made himself.
Safe to say, Solar was a bit blown away by that and didn’t really know how to react.
They had played a bit with the plushies getting Sun in a better mood already.
He still was obviously shaken and tired, but no one walked on eggshells around him.
They all were definitely aware that SOMETHING had happened, but no one acted differently around him.
Sun smiled slightly.
He bickered with Earth and Monty as Monty just teased him about his ‘muscles’ again.
It felt different tho, this time around.
Like they were part of the family.
They were.
This was Sun’s family.
He couldn’t wish for a better one.
They all played a couple of games, Dazzle yawning and soon enough being tucked into bed by Sun and Lunar.
As he did that he thought back to earlier that night…
Sun knew this wouldn't be the last time he would have such a panic attack, but he knew that he had people that cared for him.
Even if he might think he wasn’t enough for them, they would make sure he knew that he was enough.
As he went down the stairs to meet up with the others again, he saw Bloodmoon again..
The hallucination tried to talk to him but Sun just walked past him.
Not tonight.
“I’m back, Dazzle is now sleeping. Lunar decided to head to bed as well.” he explained and sat down across from Moon.
While they continued to play and talk after that, Sun looked at Moon.
One more unsaid thing fell between them.
‘You’re not alone, Sun. We all love you and care about you.’