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The wire in the pizzaplex was a formidable tool. Like wings, metaphorically, and it allowed the Daycare Attendant to traverse quickly and with agility. Harder to detect while up in the ceiling’s rafters, and too quick to dodge when they’re dropping down (whether that be to capture giggling running children, or to scare you when you were just trying to take inventory depended entirely on if the lights were on or not.)
There is no wire in the outside world.
There is nothing to hold them out of reach, a quick way to escape, or a easy way to scare you.
The forgotten hook on the animatronic’s back isn’t too noticeable, that is, until sometimes he bends to reach something for you, or the light hits him just right for you to notice the slight indentation in his shirt, of a hook that will probably never be used again. At least, not in the way that it was designed for. Looking at it gives you pause, and though they’ve never really complained about it before, you’re still caught staring into space lost in thought when Sun turns around to hand you the glassware you asked for.
“Oh! Is this the part where I ask ‘ya like what you see?” Sun’s smile is wide, pushing the bowl into your hands. He strikes a pose, ‘flexing’ his arm ‘muscles’. “Do ya like what you see?”
The thoughts you were housing were somber before, but a amused grin crawls onto your face instead. “Don’t really have a lot of muscles there for a robot, huh?”
“Still strong!” He strikes another pose. “I can lift cars! Remember that one time? If you gave me fireman’s outfit, I’d be a pretty good candidate for one of those sexy pin-up calendars!”
You casually reach for the cereal on the counter and fill your bowl while he continues his mock flex show. “I never thought I’d hear those words come out of your mouth.”
“Technically came out of my voice box!”
“Do you ever miss your wire?” You ask. You don’t look up from pouring the milk so as not to overfill it, so you don’t gauge his reaction. There’s a slight pause though, and the shadow of him looks like he stops his flexing to give you a glance. “I mean, there’s not really a wire in the sky or in my house that can give you the same effect as what you had in the pizzaplex. I imagine it feels...” You search for the correct word, and the corner of your mouth turns downwards after a moment of thinking. “...Limited?”
“Not at all!” Sun’s voice is cheerful, routine. You know he does not lie, but you still raise a brow, and he continues. “Sure we might be a little grounded-” He winks, nudges you for the pun and you don’t know whether to roll your eyes or wink back. “-but just because we can’t fly anymore doesn’t mean we can’t do silly tricks and traverse the way we used to!”
You deadpan at him. “Gramps told me to tell you to stop climbing up to the roof. He’s scared you’ll get struck by lighting or slip and fall down.”
Sun’s rays spin once, and his chuckles. “Heard us up there, did he? Could have sworn we were quiet enough.”
You tut at him while you finish your breakfast. Sun’s response is to flex after every miniscule action, like spreading butter on your bagel. One swipe of the butter knife equals a prominent display of ‘muscles’ until you swipe the bagel from the board, eating it unwiped just so he can gape in offense.
They have fallen into domestic life with you fairly easily, save for a few hiccups here and there. You’re not sure what to make of that. You don’t know what they think of that, or what it’s supposed to mean. Some habits never seem to to leave them, though.
You’re remembering that one day when you’re out for groceries, and a child’s scream is heard within the street.
Sun is with you, as it’s the middle of the afternoon and while it’s unusual, you don’t get any more stares than other people would with their own assistance robots walking about and doing errands, so you don’t stand out too much.
That is, until the conversation you had is cut short by a shrill scream, the screech of tires, and Sun is moving before you even register the sound completely.
By the time you’ve turned around, you see a split second image, like it was straight out of a movie. A car was swerving to avoid hitting the child in the middle of the crosswalk, but not sharp enough. The Daycare Attendant, however, is unbothered by the rapidly approaching death machine and scooping the child up into his arms. He is quick, but not quick enough, and you feel your breathe hitch and a beat pulse in your throat as your friend and the child is directly in the headlights, and you’re going to witness something really bad, losing him-
-Except Sun vaults over the incoming car with all the grace of a gymnastic, fluid and smooth in his motions, landing on both feet as the car struggles to skid to a stop further down the road. It’s all over in a blink of an eye, and by the time you and the rest of the few bystanders who were going about their day realize what’s happened, Sun’s posture straightens, and walks casually to the safe side of the sidewalk as the girl hiccups and starts to bawl.
“Oh my, that was really scary, wasn’t it?” You hear his voice comfort her, wiping her tears as he stands and rocks her. You’re rushing to him, ignoring the sudden whispers turning to talk around you, and uncaring if the orange juice in your bag is starting to leak from how fast your running. Sun does not pay heed to the outside world outside of the girl, though his head turns slightly in your direction when you grab onto his arm. He cradles the child, still, a hand patting her back as the girl seems to be crying herself almost to the point of sounding like she was going to puke. “Hush, shhh. You’re alright now. You’re okay.”
“Sun, jesus f-” You fumble with words, and thin your mouth when a quick glance from him spells you not to curse, or raise your voice in front of the girl. “Oh my god. Sun, you just-”
A shrill, crying voice that wasn’t the girl’s interrupts you before you can speak. A woman, older and sporting a cast around her leg, hobbles to you from across the street that’s gone frozen with the act all had just witnessed. Judging by her appearance, she’s the girl’s mother, and from the sound of her, she was in rightful hysterics. “I’m sorry! Oh my god, my baby! My baby-!”
The mother almost ignores Sun completely as the child is lifted from his arms and into her own, something he gives to her greatly, though the girl’s hands catch onto his shirt and ribbons from his wrist in a fit of sobs like he was the only anchor she had. Tiny hands find her mother’s clothes, and the girl sobs into her mother’s neck. The mother cradles her with wet eyes, she mummers thank yours, to anyone or to you and Sun, you can’t tell, but it’s quickly drowned out by the general talking of bystanders.
A voice overtakes a few. “That thing tried to kill her!”
A teenager, trying to pull out a cellphone, yells out. “Are you nuts, man? He saved her!”
Oh, dear.
A quick glance down the road tells you that the driver was okay and ended up coming to a halt in an empty space in the street. Everyone looked alive, and uninjured, if not for the wide eyes and some asking questions. Sun doesn’t appear to care or acknowledge any of the chatter, beaming a wide, comforting smile full of warmth and care towards the mother and daughter duo. Care is written across his face, his body language, and his protocol to comfort and check the child is obvious, offering soft words and reassurances.
You wrap your arm around his arm, and pull him away before the attention gets any livelier. He doesn’t argue, though you know he turns to look back at least once as you drag him to the bus station.
“It wasn’t her fault.” Sun tells you on the ride back. He holds the groceries in his lap. It’s been silent the entire ride, up until now. “The girl wandered off against what she was told, and the mother couldn’t keep up.”
You’re been staring at the back of the seat in front of you for a few minutes now, one hand settled into your lap, the other resting on his arm. You haven’t taken it off since you put it there. “…Sorry, I’m still trying to process the fact that I just fucking watched you jump in front of a moving car.”
“Language.” Sun’s hand comes up, patting against your own. It does not leave yours when it’s done, and there’s a weight that settles there against your skin. “We have done worse things than running into traffic.”
“I’m not-” You blink. You wait for your own mind to settle, and you hope he doesn’t feel the shake in of your fingers tightening around his arm. “It’s just jarring…I’m not scolding you. You saved that girl.”
“Poor thing. I hope she’ll be alright.”
“Yeah...Yeah, me too.” You shift in your seat. The whole last half hour has been oddly enough easy to talk about. As wild as a scene as that was, although not great for your nerves, arguably is not the worst thing you’ve witnessed. Certainly, not the worst thing you’ve witnessed from the Daycare Attendant. Sun’s casualness about the situation is telling of this, and so you think of a different detail. “...You jumped over a car.”
“Yep!”
“A moving car. Just jumped over it like it was skip-rope.”
“Oh, I love that game! Been a while since I’ve been able to play it, though!” Sun hums. His fingers rub against the back of your hand in an unspoken motion. “Wouldn’t be hard to find a cord, though I’d have to do it outside. I’m afraid your place’s ceilings are a bit too low for me to be doing that sort of thing.”
The surprise is melting from you quickly, and the shock of witnessing something that could have been horrific, or an amazing feat of amazement is drowned with the familiarity of memory, and the warmth of a hand over yours. You smile, and lean back against the seat. “Don’t go puncturing holes into my ceiling with those rays of yours.”
He pats the back of your hand. “Of course not.”
There are people in the outside world that do not take to the animatronic’s inhuman ability to just do things differently than how a human would, despite robots being more a commodity nowadays. Though, most robots, free or not, were built for a specific service purpose. Bots who helped with assisted living, robots in medical care, in culinary jobs, some even in childcare.
Actually, you use that one as a quick explanation if any college classmates or some passerby tends to ask ‘what yours is for’, since it’s technically not a lie. They just raise a brow when it’s clear you don’t have kids. Awkward moments, those times. Some people still aren’t used to robots, even if Fazbear Entertainment’s advertisements for them were everywhere.
Robots had advantages some people were uncomfortable with. They didn’t get tired or need to sleep. They didn’t need to eat. They didn’t get cold.
You were really starting to envy that last one.
The wind chill is fuck-who-knows-how-cold and you’re currently standing in line at a game store along with 20-something other humans who are waiting for the same game release as you are, all filed into one singular line and waiting outside the door for the bell to drop. You prepared for the wait and you prepared for the cold, bundling up with a heavy coat, mittens, scarf, and all the other necessary clothing. It’s still cold as fuck.
Moon stands behind you, clad in his usual get-up save for an additional hoodie, and peering down at all the shivering humans in line. A glance around the area, and his eyes fall back on you, where they’ve been resting for the last thirty minutes. “You’re shivering.”
Your teeth chatters when you speak. “Yeah, no shit.”
“Language.”
“Bite me.”
“Not here.” He grins, and you send him a sour look. “Is it worth it?”
The game? Probably not. You could have ordered it online, or even waited until some time after it’s release to get it at a time where you weren’t required to stand outside in wintertime along with a gaggle of sniffling other people who were just as stupid as you were, but the newly released versions come with a poster and a collector’s edition knik-knack in the casing, and you’re a bit of a nerd at that. “We’re already here. I don’t really want to go through all this trouble and leave empty handed just because it got too cold.”
Moon doesn’t look satisfied with your answer, carrying a default smile as his head does a full turn. It clicks at an angle when he speaks again. “Okay.” He shuffles forwards, moving from behind you to beside you. “Step back.”
You send him a look but relent. Someone behind you calls out about the ‘robot cutting in line’ until said animatronic turns his head (still cocked at an uncomfortable, not-upright angle) and gives a rather piecing stare until the line falls back into quiet talk and the taps of people on their phones.
A noise of surprise almost escapes you as you’re forced to step closer, almost touching the brick wall of the building. Moon is standing facing you, tall as ever, and blocking the wind from hitting you directly. He looks oddity standing out of line, and even more so being one of the only two robots there (the other was a bot that looked like it was designed for retail, specifically, so the jester look made him stand out even more so) and he’s close enough that the front of his hoodie brushes up against your side.
You shiver, and your breathe makes a cloud when you joke. “Personal space, much?”
He does not respond, but a hand reaches out and takes your own. Fingers slip to your wrist, underneath past the fabric of your mittens, and the warmth of the robot’s hands ease the chill that’s been plaguing your hands. “Quiet.” Another hand comes to adjust the scarf around your neck, the warmth from his hand feels like relief to your neck and cheeks. “I do not like you shaking.”
You sniffle, and keep your toned voice down to a whisper. “…if we weren’t in public, you’d know what I’d have to say about that.”
“Quiet.” He repeats. Head upright, Moon blocks the cold wind from reaching you, unflinching as it hits him instead.
So you were a little jealous of some abilities that your robot friend turned roommate housed. Sure, who hasn’t thought about how cool it would be to be practically immune to getting sick, getting tired, and all the other ailments that come with the contract of being human.
There’s also the bonus of having the ability to be silly in different ways, that too.
There is a time when you’re not home, leaving the Daycare Attendant behind while you do things you need to do; college classes, shopping, meeting friends, anything really. The animatronic doesn’t mind, and will tag along if wanted, but it’s not unusual for them to remain while you do errands for the day. They’ll see you again, and someone has to keep the little kitten company lest she’ll cry and rip up the curtains because the apartment is empty.
Speaking of which, a fun fact: over 65% of burglaries occur during daytime hours. It’s less risky if the intruder thinks there’s no one home, out for the day rather than sleeping in bed. You don’t hear of break-ins around your area much, at least not the reported ones, as there’s nothing you or your neighbors really have worth stealing. But it happens, especially near the holidays.
You almost trip over a laundry basket when Sun casually tells you that he met a criminal today at your front door. “What?!”
“He was fiddling with your lock! I was wondering what all that noise was, so I came to look.” He talks to casually, still smiling, pulling a warm blanket out of the dryer and throwing it into your arms. “Rude, that one. I don’t think he noticed anyone was home. Just picking away-” He mimics a motion of something thin and small swiping down, like a card being stuck into your lock. “I think it’s about time we replace that lock.”
You blink, processing. You’d ask if he was okay, if he was scared at all, but you know him well enough that the animatronic is much too non-chalant for anything to be worried about, except maybe the health of the burglar. It would not be outside the animatronic’s history to hurt someone who broke the rules. “Did you…call the cops?”
“Nope! Ran off!” Sun tosses wet laundry from the washing machine to the dryer, closing the door and pushing the button. Stepping back, he grabs the end of the blanket you were holding and drawls it out, wrapping it around your arms until the warmth encloses you. “Think I may have given the poor fella a bit of a scare. Whoopsie daisy.”
You’re fearful, just for a moment. “And you…?”
“Infrared vision, remember?” He chuckles, pulling you in by the fabric of the blanket, and tapping the side of his head. He winks. “We could see him through the door, so we simply…waited.”
The scene plays out in your imagination; A poor unsuspecting man opening the door to face a rather tall, and probably unhappy animatronic staring him down. Your mouth thins in indecision of whether to be shocked or to laugh. “Oh my gosh.”
“We sure do make a good guard dog, don’t you think?” He bumps your nose as he passes, onwards to collect the rest of the dirty laundry. “We’ve plenty of experience with security protocol!”
You follow behind him, helping him, and mentally consider the man lucky that it was the Sun he had met and not the Moon, not like he wouldn’t have been in any less danger regardless. One side tends to be more forgiving than the other. You should probably put ‘beware of animatronic’ on your door or something later.
You ask Gramps to show you the security footage of the apartment’s hallway later that week just to see if it was caught on the cameras, and the poor man is stunned to hear such an event happened. He seems amused, however, when the two of you watch the tapes and come to the scene of a man fiddling away at your door lock until it finally opens, swinging open the door to the cut-off image of Sun standing blank faced and stoic on the other side. Funnily enough, he’s holding the kitten.
The footage has no audio, but after a second of shock, the man takes off down the hallway. Sun’s blank stare follows him until he’s down the stairs, pets the kitten, and shuts the door with his foot.
(You show the footage to Sun later, and he makes toon-chasing sound effects at the sight of the man running away.)
Sometimes, you wonder if their safety is in question as a robot in a human dominated world. A robot uprising hasn’t happened yet, not like the movies, but some conspiracist online and skeptic humans spout about the danger of artificial intelligence wiping out the human race. It’s the stuff you see worst case scenario spread everywhere, some harsh looks in the street but nothing more. You hope.
Fazbear cooperation does an excellent job at keeping up appearances, though their legality is questionable. Their robots are well-known, the faces of said robots as well. Freddy and the band-members were the most well-known. Some of the commercial sold robots would sport animal characteristics as well, if not the standard staff-design. Sometimes people would ask you were you got your ‘jester-model’. Depending on your patience, you might give them an earful.
Though they are not as famous as the Glamrocks were, does not mean that they are not recognizable.
You’re at the corner store late at night because you’re sick from the cold and there’s no medicine in the apartment. The Daycare Attendant was more than willing to go out on the errand for you, but the thought of a poor clerk being alone at night and approached by Moon in all his unsettling glory was a bit on the nose, so you’re inside picking out a bag of cough drops while said animatronic waits outside in the dark and the snow. The cold doesn’t bother him, but the fluorescent lights of the store keeps him at bay.
There’s a few people still out, walking around, though you’re lucky the store isn’t too populated. People are doing last minute holiday shopping, or returns, so it’s not uncommon to see a few people at this hour. Some look as rough as you do, so you’re not too worried about your sickly appearance.
The corner store has glass walls like a gas station, and you’re checking out your supply at the counter when you turn your head to look outside as the clerk rings you up. Moon is not facing the inside of the store, rather you only see the edge of his hat, and the back of his hoodie. He’s crouched for some reason.
The clerk spares his figure a glance as well, but it leaves their mind as soon as you’re checked out and exit the building. You find Moon crouched as a you though, back facing you, and sniffle as you peer around to try and see what he was doing. “Everything okay?”
His eyes turn to face you, a pale white color shining in them, and the face a small boy is revealed as he pulls back. Furrowing your brows, you watch as Moon stands up to his full height, hand enclosed around the boy’s hand, who makes no movement to pull away, if so just to press further into his pants leg where the wind chill won’t get him. The child leans into the animatronic, and stares up at you with wet, curious eyes.
You blink back. Moon speaks before you can ask. “Lost his brother.” He says, voice soft and firm at once. “We will wait for him.”
You open your mouth to question, then close it. A glance around shows a few shoppers walking by, none of which pay any heed to the two of you and your guest. Just by taking a guess, the sister was around here somewhere, probably shopping, and the boy has wandered off, looking for a safe-looking adult to stay with him until he’s found again.
Or, judging by the look the boy’s face as he plays with Moon’s bells, distracted by the animatronic’s magic trick of pulling one out from behind his ear, he probably saw Moon through one of the shop windows and left his sister to come say hello to the infamous animatronic. So you lean against the wall holding the bags of cough medicine and drops, on the opposite side of the Moon so that the wind does not chill you, and the watch as the animatronic keeps the boy busy and warm.
Less than two minutes pass when your theory is proven correct. A teenage boy holding an armful of shopping bags comes out of the crowd, sighing in relief at the sight of the younger brother.
“I’m sorry for the trouble.” He says, and he can’t be more than 16, tone of voice too mature for a kid himself as he takes his brother and settles him on his hip. “I just turned around and he wasn’t there anymore, I really…Look, I appreciate you looking out for him. He used to go to the daycare, you know? Before it burned down.”
You fight back the flinch that comes with the words, and glance towards the animatronic. Moon is still, face unchanging, polite, just like how the Daycare Attendant was programmed whenever children are being picked up by parents in the daycare. But there is something underneath the smile that you don’t know whether it’s the tension of the memory, or if the sight of the older child in front of him had eyebags that made him uncomfortable.
“That’s sweet.” You speak for him after a moment of silence. “Don’t worry, holidays are hectic. He loses me in crowds all the time.” You jest, patting the animatronic on the shoulder for show. Making yourself the joke works, because the teenager looks a little less stressed, and you just have to ignore the stiffness under your palm as Moon processes your words.
You bid the two goodbye (Much to the younger brother’s charigin, who very much wanted to stay and play with the animatronic.) The walk home is filled with quiet talk and low whispers, Moon’s arm around your shoulders and blocking the chill, careful if you step over ice.
He doesn’t talk about his thoughts, though the exchanged glances you share are enough, and he joins you on the couch that evening with fingers pulling the thread from your sweater, and legs tangled into a mess.
The cons of being a robot is not having the upbringing of a human. Somethings they understand. They are smart. Their brain is practically connected to the internet. They’ll never have to spend months learning a language when they can just download it, or use a paper and pen for complicated math.
But knowledge is not equivalent to experience, and the pizzaplex did a very good job at keeping them away from the world. There are many things that are new to them. There is no wire in the real world to fly above all else, and so they are forcibly grounded.
You come home in the late hours of the afternoon to find your apartment a mess.
There’s papers and books solved off the shelves. The coffee table was flipped over in the living room, the contents that you left on it earlier scattered across the carpet. Sofa pillows were tossed, one of which ended up in the kitchen, which the kitten was sleeping soundly on like the room around here wasn’t covered in misplaced pots and pans and a single broken plate. A curtain rod was screwed and broken, hanging at an angle with the screen door open to the balcony, where the curtain blows out slightly in the wind.
You don’t blink twice before shutting the door behind you, lock it, and hang up your keys before going to turn the coffee table upright, grabbing the few scattered pens and items on the way to set on the counter as you pass.
This does not happen often, but it is not new to you.
The table is turned upright, the items back into place, broken plate swept up, and the cushions replaced saved for the one the kitten is using as a bed, which you dutifully decide you’ll put back later once it’s woken from it’s nap. Taking off your shoes, you change into pajamas, coming back out to find the screen door still open, and a breeze coming through. You’ll go say hello, then.
The curtain brushes against you as you step onto the balcony, wind pushes against your hair. The sun setting is a really beautiful picture, but you look farther upwards than the horizon, towards the rooftop.
It sits there on the edge, watching you, and probably has been through the glass when you weren’t looking for the past few minutes.
You smile. “Hi, Eclipse.”
“Love.” One of the four arms come down, outstretched, and it is not a request. “Come up.”
You used to refuse before, fear and human preservation dictated it. Now you’re standing up on one of the balcony chairs to reach it’s hand better. “You know how I feel about heights, right?”
You do not receive a worded answer, but it’s smile is accompanied by a low chuckle, something you hear lowly at nights, and eyes with pupils as bright as the sun. You are pulled upwards onto the tile, all the way back further from the edge. Arms encircle your midsection, your arms, well kept in his lap. You wouldn’t be able to fall even if you tried to take a dive.
“You broke a plate.” You tut once your comfortable, shifting a bit so that you could view the sunset. You know it wasn’t because of the time of day or the pretty sight in front of you that Eclipse has made it’s appearance, the state of your apartment tells you as much. So you poke fun at him, and feel a hand come around to lay a palm against your head, your ear, fingers threading and pulling through small strands of your hair. “We should probably invest in some plasticware instead of glass stuff, right? Between you and the cat, I’m gonna be eating off paper plates-”
“Still have a fever.” Eclipse’s voice is close to your head. It’s full of static, choppy cuts at the end of his words and all the care in his tone as his hands cup you cheek, your sides, pressing fingers harder into your skin. “Eyebags. Your stomach is growling. You haven’t had lunch, you haven’t been listening-” Sharp teeth turned downwards into a frown, he turns your jaw with his hands and you let him. “Naughty, naughty, been out in the cold for too long-”
“I was waiting until I was home to eat, thank you very much. And I took cold medicine this morning!” You slap his half away, which is a futile attempt as animatronic makes a noise that sounds alike a disapproving growl and it finds itself hooked to the front of your shirt again. You resist rolling your eyes. “Scolding me for being sick isn’t going to stop me from asking why you’re on the roof this time.”
“Quiet.” Eclipse hisses, and it has no malice. You stick your tongue out at him, and he pushes it back in with his thumb. “It’s nice up here.”
“My living room looked like a mess, Eclipse.” You speak casually, uncaring if the sharp look given to you would have terrified you months ago. These arms that hold you can rip and tear and break, but they keep you safe and warm atop the rooftop tiles, and you’re not scared if you make him a little annoyed. “Wanna talk about it?”
Again, you do not receive a verbal response. Black eyes and bright pupils glower down at you, unhappy. Uncomfortable conversations were never pleasant, but you weren’t uncomfortable. He was, and that was fine with you, even if caused the grip in your shirt to feel like pinpricks as fingers and claws prod through the fabric and start to press against your skin.
The wind blows, but the hunched figure holding it blocks the chill. Sun rays speak out like a hovering awning above you, and the bell from Moon’s hat swings in the breeze until it taps your face while mid-staring context.
You sigh, closing your eyes, and letting your body go slack against the animatronic. “Alright.”
No pushing it, at least not right now, when it’s still fresh. You already know the answer, anyway, if the death grip around your body had anything to say about it.
You were not the only one who had nightmares.
Robots don’t sleep though. They relive theirs awake.
“Do you miss the wire?” You ask, quiet, if just to fill the air with something.
“No.” A voice that overlaps with itself. Claws draw thin lines against your skin in a fashion that reminds you that the glitch was never truly removed. “It was restraining.”
Huh.
That’s the…opposite of what answer you were expecting.
Eclipse has fallen into silent mode, and you follow. You’ve become so comfortable, you have started to doze off. Hands still hold you, his head rests in your hair. The sky turns darker behind your eyelids and in-between blinks. Stars are starting to appear in the folds of blue and purple that melt into the oranges yellows and shine of sun peeking over the horizon.
You raise a hand and pat at his face, lifting it from your head. “You’re missing the sunset.”
Eclipse’s head lifts. His face a darker color, settled hue against the sky in your vision.
“Sunsets and sunrises?” You ask again, nudging. “I thought you loved those?”
Glowing pupils never leave you. “I do.”
“Well,” You glance to side, just in time to see the last few rays of sunlight dip below the horizon and disappear from view. The sky taking over a cooler hue and the air feeling colder than what it was before. Stars peak out from behind trees, lights start to appear in the windows of apartments similar to your own, and you barely register the curtain from the broken rod still bellowing out of the opens screen door, probably letting all the cold air into your apartment. You sigh. “Might be a little late. It’s about to get really cold here, soon. I can’t be out here for much longer.”
Turning back, Eclipse is still staring. You’re used to that behavior by now, even if you didn’t understand it. You give him another pat. “Ready to go inside?”
The animatronic’s eyes linger, until they brighten. The grip around you tightens and suddenly the world is shifting, too quickly for you to keep up with, you’re being moved and the space around you is shifting too fast that you don’t even get half of a yelp out as the animatronic holds you tight and jumps down to the balcony. Your nerves shoot up from calm to alert in a millisecond, even as the tall robot holds you solidly and steps through the screen door.
“Warn me next time!” You push at his faceplate. There’s no true anger, but you’re a little jolted. “The heights! The heights, Eclipse-!”
Eclipse is grinning, and it looks wild. “Whoops.”
You are uncermmounsly dropped (which gives you yet another millisecond scare because hey, Eclipse was a pretty tall robot, and that’s at least a two second fall) down to the couch which you land on with an ‘oof’. By the time you scramble to sitting position, Eclipse is already down the hallway, crawling (that’s right, crawling) on the walls with all limbs extended so he looks like an absolute horror descending down your hallway and disappearing into your bathroom.
You can hear the sounds of a crash and the hinges of the medicine cabinet being thrown open as you stand. “Don’t break anything-!” Small glass breaking, a cough medicine rolls out from the bathroom’s open doorway and bumps comically into the opposite wall in the hallway. You sigh. “…Important. Don’t break anything important.”
Whatever. You sit back down on the sofa, grabbing the pillow that happened not to be missing and setting it up proper to lean against, reaching for the TV remote and turning the volume high. The TV is on a news station when you first turn it on, wrapping up an interview with one of the representatives with Fazbear Co., previous statements running along in small texts along the bottom of the screen.
Ah. Well, there’s a clue. You change the channel before Eclipse comes back into the room, flipping to something less...that. It lands on reality TV, which really isn’t your style, but you’ll leave it on for the background noise.
Eclipse appears again, though quiet, and you only know his presence thanks to the large shadow it casts across you sitting on the couch. You tilt your head backwards, and are greeted with a plastic bottle of cold medicine dropping onto your forehead, bouncing and landing on the couch. “Ow. Thanks.”
The animatronic stares down at you, then turns and makes for the broken curtain rod. The screen door is shut, and the rod is torn from nails holding it up in the door pane. It’s dropped to the floor, curtain and all, and left there as Daycare Attendant crawls on all limbs to the couch. He takes up most of the space by limbs and weighing down the sofa alone, and with him sitting like how frogs do, you don’t have a choice but to toss your legs over his lap and get comfortable.
You flip through channels non-chalantly, too casual for someone who has a mechanical horror glitched up on their sofa and digging holes into your pajama pants with restless claws. Said being looks out of place on your sofa as well, but the routine is all too comfortable.