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“So yeah, Chica’s gonna help us now.” Gregory explained to Freddy through his Fazwatch, his Daycare pass clutched in his other hand. “She said she’s also gonna talk to the others about it.” Being completely honest, he wasn’t too keen on having the other two animatronics anywhere near him. Roxanne just seemed too narcissistic for his tastes (people like that were always mean) and if walking by Monty’s room was any indication, he wasn’t the safest either.
“That is great news!” Freddy responded with much more enthusiasm than his charge. “I am glad you had a pleasant encounter with Chica and that the others will hopefully change their minds in the same way.” Gregory wasn’t so sure. “I promise they are a great group to be around once you get to know them!”
Gregory pushed open the doors to the Daycare, freezing at the sight of a golden statue depicting two similar-looking animatronics in the center of the room. One looked to be something of a sun, standing proudly with its arms splayed up at its sides. The other was a hunched-over figure with the face of a moon, wearing a weirdly comical nightcap.
Both looked terrifying.
“I dunno, Freddy.” He continued after a moment’s pause, stepping around the statues and observing the rest of the room. On opposing sides of the room were TVs advertising some kind of. . .candy? “They don’t seem very nice. Especially Roxy. I don’t like her.” The candy looked pretty appetizing though. . .
“She can be a bit. . .much.” Freddy said after a bit of hesitation, as if Roxanne herself were listening in that very moment. “But she can be of enjoyable company when she wants to be. If you can get a word in, that is. . .” He trailed off, another odd thing to note about a robot. What kind of robot didn’t know exactly what to say in any type of situation, no matter how ridiculous or dangerous? In a way, it was almost comforting.
Gregory rolled his eyes despite the animatronic being unable to see him, peering into a colorful-looking slide with the slogan “Slide into Fun!” written above it. Apparently, that was the way in. “Really comforting, Freddy.” He muttered. “You’re gonna meet me outside, right?” If whatever was inside the Daycare was dangerous, he wanted to be able to fall back on someone he trusted. And from the looks of those statues, he was sure neither one was going to be friendly.
“Of course!” Freddy responded immediately. “I will wait for you outside the large door. You cannot miss it.”
Okay, large door. Got it. Not like there weren’t a thousand large doors in this place.
Gregory huffed before putting one leg inside the slide, the other soon joining it. He sat there awkwardly for a minute, then pushed himself forward, a surprised yelp leaving his mouth when he went down much more smoothly than he was expecting. Another embarrassingly loud squeak escaped him when he landed in a pit full of colorful plastic balls that went up to his waist.
Oh yeah, he was having fun alright. Thanks, marketing sign.
He shifted his way through the pit with a few large strides until something that sounded like a. . .laugh(?) sounded from above him, making him look up.
Oh no it was the sun abomination.
Said sun animatronic twirled around a couple times before it rather gracefully swan-dived into the ballpit. The same ballpit Gregory was in.
“Oh no. Nope.” He muttered to himself as he slowly backed up into the slide, wondering if he could crawl back up and meet Freddy somewhere else. All he knew was that he was not looking forward to shark-surviving his way out of a ballpit of all things.
Unfortunately, fate seemed to have other plans and from the pits arose a sun-shaped head and silky-white eyes that held not a thought behind them.
“Helloooooo!” Oh boy. The animatronic let out a small gasp. “New friend!”
Gregory leaned back as they leaned forward, close but never touching.
“Gosh, you’re sure up late, are we having a slumber party?!” The animatronic suddenly stood up, revealing the extra feet they had on him and looming over the brunette child. They then leaned over even more, Gregory fearing the worst with those gnarly looking teeth, only to find they were peering up into the slide. “Where are all your friends, friend?”
“Uh.” What was happening? Why wasn’t he being turned into a sun-branded raisin cereal? “No?” That wasn’t really the right kind of response to a question like that, but what could he say?
“No? No friends?” The sun animatronic asked with. . .surprising sadness. “Well, that’s no good! Hmmm, OH OH OH , I have an idea! I can be your friend! How does that sound?!” And how was he supposed to respond to that?
“Uh, sure?” Gregory said without thinking, regretting his words when he got an earful of animatronic happiness. Though this guy’s happiness was much less tame than Chica’s or Freddy’s.
“Great! That’s great!” The sun animatronic cheered before looking down, then behind them. “You wanna stay in the ballpit? We can swim in here or do some kind of plastic snowball fight-”
“Can we get out actually?” Gregory interrupted, ironically feeling like he was talking to a child. While he thought that would be a nice change of pace compared to everything else, it shockingly wasn’t. He just felt like he was in a playground surrounded by tiny children. “I feel gross in here.”
The sun animatronic didn’t seem deterred at all, happily wading their way to the edge of the ballpit entrance. “Okay, don’t want my new friend feeling yucky and all that!” Once they were on solid, un-ballified ground, they held out their hand for him to presumably take.
Gregory just glared at the hand and heaved himself up, rubbing his arms at the sudden rush of warm air that greeted him upon leaving the freezing ballpit. He immediately began searching for the large door Freddy mentioned, finding it much sooner than he thought. And conveniently, the security desk was right next to it! It was a hit and run!
“So, what do we do next?” The sun animatronic asked from his right, loud and enthusiastic. “We can finger paint, tell stories, drink Fizzy-Faz until our heads exPLODE -” Gregory flinched. “And stay up alllll night! The only rule is to keep the lights on!” What kind of rule was that?
Gregory rolled his eyes. “Can you start by quieting down maybe?” He snapped, stepping towards the security desk only to be blocked by the animatronic.
The sun animatronic paused, their arms falling limp to their sides, before they perked right back up with their strangely ghostly movements. “Okay!” Their voice was. . .surprisingly quieter. It still had that annoying scratchiness to it, but it was less grating on his ears with the lowered volume. “Now what?”
“Um. I kinda can’t stay.” Gregory admitted, inching his way to the side of the animatronic. “I have to get back to Freddy, so I’ll just get the security badge and leave-”
“Leave?” The sun animatronic cut in with what sounded like. . .disappointment? “You’re leaving already? But you just got here!” Their arms gestured wildly with their words as if they weren’t sure how to use them otherwise. “We haven’t even done anything fun yet!”
Why did he feel bad now? Gregory sighed. “Look, I can’t stay. I have to go meet up with Freddy so I can-” He cut himself off, remembering his earlier conversation with Chica. Did he still really want to leave? Yeah, at the moment he did, but how would that work later on? He had admittedly gotten attached to Freddy and Chica was up there with him and thinking back on it, he was kind of reluctant to leave them.
Why was this so hard?
“Frieeeeend? New frieeeend? Hellooooo? You there?” The sun animatronic snapped him out of his stupor by waving an abnormally large hand in front of his face. “Knock knock! Anybody home?”
Gregory frowned and swatted their hand away, ignoring the pang that sprouted momentarily in his own hand from whacking solid metal. “I’m awake! Would you quit getting in my face all the time?!” Even then, the close proximity of that concerningly unsettling face was uncomfortable. What were the designers of this guy thinking?
Surprisingly, the sun animatronic immediately took two steps back and dutifully folded their hands behind them, rocking back and forth on their heels. “Okay!”
Gregory narrowed his eyes and took an experimental step back, relaxing a smidgen when the animatronic did not follow. “Okayyy, so I’m gonna go get that badge and wait for Freddy-” He started to turn around when the sun-themed animatronic spoke up enthusiastically and with an odd waver in their voice.
“Hey hey! I have an idea!” They said with their hand raised as though they were in school asking the teacher a question. “You said you need to wait for your guardian, right?” Gregory decided not to correct them on the wording. “Wellll, how about we do something while we wait? You can grab the badge once they get here and you can leave then! How does that sound?!”
The brunette child thought over it for a minute. He supposed it would be kind of boring sitting around with an energetic animatronic babbling his ears off doing nothing. At least if he was doing something, he could pass the time until Freddy was able to reach him. Plus, the Daycare seemed safer than an area outside it being stamped on by potentially still-hostile animatronics.
“Okay, fine.” He finally relented, turning to see the sun animatronic bouncing excitedly on their feet and clapping their hands rapidly, bells chittering with each clap. “But only until Freddy gets here.” He clarified.
The sun animatronic did a mock-salute. “You got it!” Then they began backing away some whilst eagerly gesturing for him to follow. “Now c’mon, c’mon! I have some paper and colors over here if you wanna draw, clay and Play-Dough if you wanna make sculptures, paint if you wanna finger paint-OH OH, I even have a blank wall back near the ballpit if you wanna do a big painting-”
Gregory rolled his eyes, preparing himself mentally. His eyes sluggishly blinked before he shook his head to get rid of the fogginess of his brain. “Can we just draw or something?” He didn’t know how to sculpt, and he didn’t want to get his fingers all sticky with paint, so drawing it was.
“Okay! Follow me and take a seat and I’ll go get the paper and drawing stuff!” The sun animatronic led him over to a small, chubby-looking table with mini seats stationed around it and then skipped away.
Gregory pushed away one of the tiny chairs with his foot and sat down on the floor, the table only going up to the middle of his stomach. Looking closer at the table, he could see remnants of smaller children that had most likely used some of the plastic pieces of the Daycare to their advantage. Little drawings of creepy depictions of people, animals, and shapes. The most prominent shape he could see was a sun shape.
Before he could look into it, the sun animatronic suddenly appeared next to him, making him jump. They proudly held up a tray-looking thing of sorts. “I got the stuff!” They then set it down in the middle of the table and (thankfully) took a seat across from Gregory, also having pushed a chair aside to sit down in place of it. “Okay, let’s get to drawing! What’re you gonna do?” They asked as they took a piece of paper and a blue crayon.
Gregory hesitantly took his own sheet of paper and, after a moment of deliberation, picked a brown crayon. “I dunno. A cat I guess?” He wasn’t sure if he could draw much else.
“Okay, then I’ll do a doggy!” The sun animatronic declared immediately after, already moving their hand across the page. Gregory reluctantly started on his animal of choice.
Barely a minute passed before the sun animatronic had to metaphorically open their mouth and start talking. “So, new friend, what’s your name? I feel like we should know each other’s names if we’re gonna be drawing buddies!”
“Gregory.” The brunette responded shortly, struggling to make the back legs of his cat not look like their bones were replaced by tree trunks. “What about you?”
“Sun!” They chimed brightly. “Or Mr. Sun if you wanna be fancy.” They did a little show of jazz-hands before returning to their drawing.
“I’ll pass, thanks.” Gregory held up his drawing, twisting his face at the picture he was greeted with. “This sucks. I suck.” He set it down, letting the awful drawing become gawked at by the judges of art at its monstrousness. The cat’s face was all lopsided (it didn’t even look like it was smiling) and its legs were way too stiff to be comfortable. Plus, its tail looked like it was growing out of its back.
Sun peered over their own drawing to look at it. “What are you talking about? I love it!” They dropped their crayon to carefully pick up the drawing and hold it like it was some kind of trophy.
Gregory scoffed, crossing his arms. “You can stop lying, I know it’s bad.”
“No! I really do!” Sun protested. “I’m gonna keep this and hang it on my imaginary fridge! Since I don’t have an actual one! I should invest in a fridge!” They paused. “The cat might get cold though. . . I’ll get a warm fridge!”
And it was such a ridiculous rant that Gregory couldn’t help the small giggle that escaped him, clamping his mouth shut right after. The guy didn’t need encouragement. “And the dog?” He asked, mainly to try and divert their attention.
Sun tilted their head over, making their face spin around (that wasn’t disturbing at all), placing down the cat drawing and holding up their own. “Here! I made it blue!”
Gregory blinked at what was shown to him, before he clamped a hand over his mouth to muffle the giggles that were threatening to spill out.
Sun stared at him, then at their paper, and back again. “Hey, stop laughing! That’s not nice!” They set down their drawing and crossed their own arms, looking oddly pouty if not for the permanent smile etched across their face.
It was that that made Gregory burst into childish laughter. “It looks like it has a nose tumor!” He exclaimed through giggles, snorting occasionally.
“Well, now you’re just hurting the doggy’s feelings!” Sun stated. “Do you wanna hurt the doggy’s feelings?”
Gregory halted his laughter just to look the sun animatronic in the eye and say, “Yes.” as seriously as he could before dissolving back into giggles.
He truly thought in that moment that if Sun could pout, they would be pouting. “Okay, then you draw a doggy and I’ll draw a cat!” They grabbed another blank piece of paper, Gregory doing the same after he got his giggles under control.
Only a few seconds of scribbling filled the room before Gregory got curious and, in a beautiful example of role-reversal, opened his mouth to pose a question. “So why don’t you want the lights off?” To him, it kind of seemed out-of-place, but maybe it was a Daycare thing. If that were the case, then who was he to judge?
Sun froze and Gregory shrunk back, fearing in that moment that he had accidentally triggered an “intruder-protocol” of some kind. However, Sun snapped out of their momentary pause and continued scribbling, not looking up as they spoke. “Ha, it’s just rules. And y’know! Rules are rules! Yep yep yep!” Something was amidst in their voice as they “explained”, their hand moving their blue crayon to scratch idly in the corner of their page. After a bit of keeping the crayon in one spot, they began doodling again.
“Are. . .you scared of the dark or something?” Gregory ventured, figuring that if an animatronic could have their own self-esteem, they could have fears and phobias. “Uh, I’m scared of foxes.” He couldn’t look at realistic-looking foxes anymore after one stole his two-day stash of food and left him with a nasty bite on his hand for trying to take it back, especially if the fox had its mouth open. He remembered stabbing one in the leg with a stray metal piece and leaving it to get caught in a wire-fence. He remembered seeing its dead body being pecked at by a bunch of crows until there was nothing left but bones. He had hoped the birds had a good meal.
Sun stopped scribbling, bringing the end of the crayon to their chin (or, the equivalent of it) and tapping it. “Huh, maybe. I just. . .don’t like the lights being off. When that happens, I get all sleepy and then I don’t know what happened while I was asleep! It’s scary. And what makes it worse is that it happens while I’m playing with all the kids, which is-is-is just bad! ” Their hand returned to the page, though they didn’t seem to be paying much attention to it this time around.
Gregory hummed, slowly bringing the crayon across the page in an attempt to make his lines neater. It didn’t work. “What if you had someone watching you while you slept? Would that make you feel better?” He would personally hate to be watched over while he was sleeping. He would just find an inaccessible place and sleep there rather than trust someone not to stab him while he was unaware.
“I’ve never tried that!” Sun admitted, then looked down at their paper. “Oh, that’s funny.” They picked up their paper and turned it to the side, peering closer as if there was something wrong with it. “That’s not supposed to happen!” They set it down, flipped it around, then slid it over to Gregory.
The brunette child gaped at the drawing greeting his visual pathway. The top of the page had a cat similar to the dog the animatronic had drawn before, uneven and messy lines and all. But somewhere attached to one of the hind legs was a trailing line that traveled down to wind itself into a shockingly realistic-looking cat head. How did they manage that with just CRAYONS?!
Now he just felt inferior.
“Sorry, new friend! I must’ve gotten distracted!” Sun sounded as though they had committed a terrible crime of some kind, frantically waving their hands apologetically, accompanied by a chorus of bells. “Lemme just-uh, can I have that back now?”
Gregory tilted his head but gave it back with some reluctance. He blinked when the animatronic crumpled up the paper and carefully placed it next to the rest of the crayons. “Why did you do that? It was good! Why didn’t you do that before with the dog?”
Sun seemed to brush it off and slid another paper onto the table. “I’m not really supposed to be good at drawing. It only happens when I’m distracted, y’know? It’s all good, friend! Yep yep!”
Gregory opened his mouth to argue, only to be cut off by a large yawn. That simple, involuntary action seemed to serve as a reminder to his brain that he needed to be tired. Because of course his brain decided it was a good idea to stop pumping adrenaline into his veins just because he wasn’t currently being chased.
“Oh! You’re sleepy!” Sun suddenly exclaimed, turning their head in the direction of the security desk. “ Ohhhhhh, you’re sleepyyyyy. . . ” They repeated much more quietly to themselves. “The lights need to be off during naptimmmme. . .”
Gregory could tell they were nervous (they were very obvious) and scrambled to jerk himself awake. “No no, it’s okay! I’m too old for a nap anyways! Plus, I still need to meet up with Freddy soon.” He wondered if Freddy had been waiting for him the entire time he had been having a drawing session with a children’s playtime robot. But since he had gotten no alert on his Fazwatch, he assumed he was fine.
Sun was already shaking their head. “No no no! If you’re sleepy, that means playtime is over and you need a nap!” Even as they spoke, they sounded like they were dreading every word. “And that means we need to turn the lights off. . .”
Gregory couldn’t really help the sluggish feeling his limbs were starting to acquire, or the more frequent his yawns were getting. “What if I sleep by you? That way you’ll be able to wake up if you hear something.” He honestly just wanted to sleep now.
Sun nodded slowly, unfolding themselves slowly and holding out a hand to the brunette child, who took it with some reluctance, rubbing his eyes tiredly. “Okay, okay. . .I’ll go get a sleeping bag!” With that, they skipped off to somewhere behind one of the play structures.
Gregory decided to head over to the security desk, since that was what Sun seemed to be eyeing before. Looking right next to the large door, there was a small button next to it. Maybe a light switch?
Bells chimed cheerfully behind him, and he turned around to see Sun standing a little ways away, clutching a salmon-colored sleeping bag. They set it down on the floor and laid it out, gesturing to it with a bow. “For you, sir.”
Gregory let out a delirious giggle, taking off his shoes and slipping inside. It was. . . really warm, a little unexpected for a sleeping bag. But it was nice. “Thank you.”
Sun nodded with a little nervous hop, turning their attention to the button next to the large door. “Okay. . .okay, okay.” They seemed to psych themselves up a bit before pressing a hand against the button. “Goodnight, Gregory.”
And for a moment, Gregory felt safe. “‘Night, Sun.”
The lights switched off.
Gregory decided to stay awake for a bit longer just to make sure Sun was alright before he actually slept.
The animatronic slid down the wall next to the button, something that sounded like a yawn (Gregory continued to be surprised by these animatronics) escaping them before their sunrays retracted and their. . .eyes rolled back? Wait, were those pupils?! Did they gain pupils only when they slept?
Then something strange happened to their clothes (at least from what Gregory could see in the poor lighting). Their color seemed to fade from yellow to. . .blue? Small, glowing stars began dotting their pants and even their face seemed to change color. The bright yellowish-orange side of their face faded to a dark purple and the lighter, cream-colored part of their face became almost white .
Wait, that. . .seemed familiar.
Suddenly, the animatronic came to life and something like a night. . .cap was placed on their head.
Oh. Oh the statues weren’t two separate animatronics. Oh no, there was only ONE.
Just as Gregory finished the thought with wide eyes, the animatronic’s head snapped over to him, eyes gray and. . . red?!
He quickly turned over on his other side, facing away from the moon-themed animatronic and squeezing his eyes shut, hoping maybe he seemed asleep. Those efforts proved to be futile though as he heard the animatronic stand up and only the faintest of bells coming nearer.
“You are. . .not asleep.” The quiet, whispery voice made his eyelids stretch open.
Risking it, Gregory slowly turned himself over to meet the eyes of the animatronic, said eyes no longer glowing red but having the faintest glow like that of a nightlight. “Um, Sun?” He questioned hesitantly.
The moon-themed animatronic appeared confused by this, tilting their head over once. “Sun? No, little star, I am a moon. Moon. That is also my name. I am a moon. Not a sun.” This guy sounded like they needed more reassurance than he did.
“Okay, okay.” Gregory surrendered; they were a moon, got it. Geez. “Then where’s Sun?” He didn’t know how they would fit two completely different personalities in one animatronic, but then again, Freddy and Chica were sapient in ways he never thought robots could be.
Moon once again looked confused. “I. . .do not know who you are talking about. There is no one named Sun here, to my knowledge.” What?! That-that didn’t make sense! “In any case, it is far past your bedtime. Sleep now.”
Gregory just continued to gape like a fish out of water. “I-where’s Sun?” Was he really just going crazy? “I wanna know where they are!” This animatronic was obviously Sun, but also. . .not Sun? Then again, he did see their little sunrays retract into their head before. . .
Without thinking, he reached up to the head of the animatronic crouched down next to him and felt around the edge of their face for some kind of slot for the rays to go into. He retreated his hand when the animatronic reached up their own hand to intercept his while. . . giggling?
“Lihihtle star, it is not playtime, it is bedtime. You can play when you wake up.” Moon chided gently, softly grabbing his hand and placing it back onto the sleeping bag. When they received a glare in retaliation, they sighed. “If I promise your, erm, ‘Sun’ friend will be here when you wake up, will you please sleep?”
Gregory crossed his arms but shifted himself deeper into the sleeping bag. “Okay, but they better be here when I wake up or I’ll shock you with a taser!” He didn’t know where he was going to get a taser, but he would get one if it meant getting Sun back!
Moon simply hummed. “Okay. Now, would you like something to help you sleep? A bedtime story, lullabye, music box?” They were kind of like Sun in a way. Just. . .a lot less eccentric.
Gregory moved to shake his head, then thought for a minute. “Music box?” While the whispery voice was a lot less grating on his ears, he wasn’t sure if he would be comfortable going to sleep with that. And he didn’t like bedtime stories. They reminded him of stuff that made him feel icky.
Moon nodded and almost immediately, something began thrumming at a steady pace from their chest, soon becoming soft notes that flowed their way onto harp strings, molded into clouds that rained a light drizzle onto damp and fertile land. It was nice. “Sleep now, little star. Goodnight.”
Gregory yawned once more before letting his eyes blink shut, sending him with well-regards to dreamland.