Work Text:
You did your research before applying for the job, you know that Fazbear Entertainment has a bad reputation, but if even half of the rumors were true, they’d have been out of business decades ago. And sure, the pay is a little too good for what you’ll be doing, but you’re not in a financial position to question that.
“All you have to do is monitor the daycare attendant,” you’d been told. “Maybe talk to the parents if they get funny about a robot watching their kids, act like you’re helping. You don’t actually have to help, of course. The attendant will have everything under control, all you gotta do is watch out for bugs, that kind of thing.”
They gave you some training videos to watch and told you when to come in for your first shift before you even really processed that you had the job.
* * *
White text on a black screen reads: “WARNING: The following video is property of Freddy Fazbear Entertainment, Inc. External distribution is strictly prohibited.”
After that ominously silent warning, the cheerful jingle and flashy logo of the Pizzaplex catches you off guard.
“Congratulations on your new job working with our wonderful daycare attendant animatronic!” chirps a woman’s voice. The screen shows a promotional image of the two modes of the attendant as the presenter explains its sophisticated duel AI. There’s a slideshow of cute little illustrations showing the sun mode playing and interacting with the kids as the narrator explains more about him, backed by quiet but upbeat music.
“The first mode you’ll meet is Sun! And believe me, he lives up to his name — he lights up the whole room with his playful, friendly attitude! Thanks to the highly advanced AI technology here at Fazbear Entertainment, we have the best of both the human and robot worlds in Sun: he feels genuine love, empathy, and compassion for the children he looks after, but watching him play with them all day without getting tired, you’d never mistake him for a real grown-up,” the presenter says with a laugh. “But don’t just take my word for it! Let’s go say hi to him.”
With a star wipe, the video transitions from the slideshow of illustrations to an actual video of a woman — the presenter, you assume — standing in front of a huge, fanciful double door. The presenter has a big smile on her face as she opens one of the doors and gestures for the camera operator to follow her inside, into a huge, colorful play area.
“Hello? Mr. Sun?” she calls, cupping her hands around her mouth.
A red-and-yellow animatronic bounces into frame and never completely stills. He sways gently as he introduces himself to the camera. “Oh, hi there! I’m Sun! I heard you’re gonna come work with me and Moon! I think that’s just faz-tastic! I’m so so SO excited to meet you! I know you’ll do GREAT, Superstar!” His tone is disarmingly earnest, softening the corporate edge of the script they gave him. He might very well be the first person(?) you’ve seen in your life who could say the word “faz-tastic” and sound like they really mean it. The design of his big, round face is charming, if a little eerie. There’s a nostalgic quality to his appearance that’s hard to pinpoint, as if whoever made him hadn’t been concerned with modern design sensibilities. You’ve seen the Glamrocks, and he looks nothing like them.
As Sun waves to the camera, a clock wipe transitions the video to another slideshow of stylized illustrations, this time depicting the moon mode getting the kids ready for bed, telling stories, and doing quiet, winding-down activities with those who struggle to fall asleep.
“The other mode is Moon! He’s just as sweet as Sun, but much more calm and quiet to help the kiddos wind down for naptime. He’s a master story-teller and has a lovely voice for singing lullabies! Like Sun, he truly cares about the little ones, just like a human would!”
The presenter talks about how Moon’s calming presence helps even the staff relax, about how he knows how to put even the most difficult toddlers down for their naps. She explains that both modes are programmed with a wealth of child-care expertise, able to handle any situation with the emotional sensitivity of a human and the precision of a machine. From handling health emergencies to resolving fights to calming tantrums, the attendant can do it all.
The idea of overseeing this beautiful machine (a work of art, really) and getting to work with him — this job was a last resort for you when you applied, but it’s starting to feel more like a privilege. You’re honored to have been accepted for the position.
The video ends without showing any actual video footage of Moon. You’re excited to meet him in person!
* * *
The closer you get to the daycare, the more apprehensive you feel about the level of noise. By the time you’re at the big, castle-like doors, you can hear how loud it will be in there, but maybe they’re just playing an especially raucous game. Maybe it won’t always be quite that bad! You straighten your uniform shirt one more time before pushing open the doors.
Your first in-person look at the daycare is accented by an earsplitting screech as a little girl gets her braid yanked by another child. The lights are blinding. The colors are hurting your eyes. Everyone is screaming and yelling. A pair of kids are shouting at each other loudly enough that you can pick out a few phrases over the rest of the noise.
“No way! Charizard would win, ‘cause he’s bigger!”
“HE IS NOT! Goku could beat A HUNDRED Charizards!”
“They’d EAT HIM!”
Others are running around like wild animals and climbing and hanging from the play structures in ways that can’t possibly be safe or allowed. A small, lone girl is hiding under one of the structures and bawling her little heart out. You can feel yourself starting to shut down.
One of the screaming voices in particular stands out to you above the rest, and you focus on that. “…CRAFT PAPER, CRAFT FOAM, P-POPSICLE STICKS!”
It’s not the voice of a child. You take a few cautious steps closer to the crowd the voice came from, a mass of kids giggling and shrieking with laughter. Finally, as you get dangerously close to the group, you see Sun. The kids are displaying exemplary initiative, teamwork, and cooperation in order to pin the attendant to the floor and cover him in glitter glue. They’ve even unscrewed the tops from the bottles for faster, easier pouring.
“…PAPER PLATES?” Sun offers, his voice cracking, and you realize he’s been listing potential glitter-glue canvases other than himself. The kids seem to find it hilarious. “PAPER CUPS?!” He sounds like he’s about to start crying.
You’d hoped to go straight to the security desk, but you can’t just leave him like this. They made it sound like malfunctions are rare and usually minor, but… maybe that’s what you’re seeing?
“Hello, everyone!” you try, and are roundly ignored by the children. Sun, however, lifts his head to look at you.
“NEW FRIEND!” As you watch in horror, Sun scrambles awkwardly to his feet, struggling against the several kids still laughing and clinging to his arms and legs. More screams as they lose their hold on him and fall gracelessly to the floor. Sun lunges at you, stumbles as he trips over one of the kids he just dropped, and grips your shoulders so hard that you’ll be surprised if it doesn’t bruise. You can’t tell if he’s making sure he has your attention or using you to regain his balance, but either way, he almost knocks you over and doesn’t let go. The child he accidentally kicked has burst into tears.
“You must be the new assistant!” Sun’s voice has changed, eager and cheerful even as a glob of purple glue slides down into his immobile mouth and spreads through the grooves between his teeth. “That’s wonderful! Just remember our MOST IMPORTANT RULE! You MUST keep the lights on or EVERYONE HERE will DIE.”
“What?” There’s a slight disbelieving laugh in your voice.
Sun shakes you, his glue-and-paint-covered face uncomfortably close to yours. “EVERYONE HERE will DIE,” he repeats, yelling over the chaos. Yet another kid starts crying. “ABSOLUTELY EVERYONE. WILL DIE. Keep the lights ON, ON, ON. I’m COUNTING ON YOU, NEW FRIEND!” He pushes down on your shoulders and straightens up to loom over you, his head casting a shadow over your face. “Everyone. Is counting on you,” he adds, his voice quieter but shaking with barely-restrained hysteria.
“I— What—”
Before you can get your bearings and put together a real sentence, Sun leans back out of your personal space and starts up the swaying motion you saw in the video of him. “Easy enough, right?” he chirps. “Don’t you worry about anything else! Just! Don’t turn the lights off!” There’s still a threatening edge to his voice. “Okay?”
“Okay.” There’s a lot of confusion behind that agreement, but Sun seems satisfied anyway.
He lets go of you and merrily skips away to arrange a few drum-shaped noisemakers into a tower. As soon as he’s done, a nearby toddler knocks it over, giggling. Sun re-stacks it. The toddler knocks it over again. Wet glue is oozing down the animatronic’s body, working its way into his joints and dripping onto the floor. He’s muttering something to himself as he re-stacks the tower again, but you can’t make out any actual words over the Charizard-versus-Goku argument that continues to rage in the background. Your head is really starting to hurt.
You turn your attention to the little boy that Sun tripped over. “Hey,” you say, struggling to sound nonthreatening without your voice being completely drowned out. He isn’t crying anymore, so you introduce yourself to him, explaining that you’re the new assistant.
“I’m Jace.” He sniffs and wipes his nose on his sleeve.
“It’s nice to meet you, Jace,” you say, smiling.
“I’m Emma!” calls one of the other children still in the vicinity.
“Nice to meet you, Emma!”
“Well Charizard SUCKS!” says a voice somewhere behind a play structure. You assume that that wasn’t directed at you.
“YOU SUCK,” someone else yells, seemingly through tears.
In the distance, a girl running at a full sprint trips on a knocked-over plastic chair and wipes out spectacularly. She also starts crying.
You glance over at Sun to see if he might be able to help with any of these situations.
He’s re-stacking the noisemakers.
The pay makes sense now. You think you might start crying next.
The toddler knocks the stack over again, full of glee at Sun’s increasingly frantic tidying. Glitter glue is dripping from his face onto the noisemakers. It doesn’t seem like he’s noticed.
Jace and Emma have gotten distracted having a playful fight over a stuffed Chica one of them picked up off the ground. Desperately hoping that it doesn’t escalate into a real fight while you’re not paying attention, you approach Sun and crouch down next to him.
“Sun,” you say.
When that goes ignored — or maybe just unheard entirely — you touch your fingertips to his arm the next time he moves to pick up a noisemaker. He goes perfectly still the instant you make contact, in a way you don’t think an organic person would be capable of.
“Yes, new friend?” He sounds as frazzled as you feel. “WHAT is it?”
His outer plastic shell is somehow both greasy and sticky to the touch, and you have to force yourself not to pull away. “Will you help me calm everyone down, please? We can clean up later. I’ll help you. Okay?”
His eyes are solid white, but they’re dinged up enough for you to see that they’re darting around the room. The toddler is trying to bring Sun’s attention back to their ‘game’ by bumping him with one of the noisemakers, and starts to fuss when that doesn’t work.
“Maybe you could get everyone involved in an activity?” you suggest, gently squeezing his arm. Your fingers slip unpleasantly against the surface with the slightest pressure.
Working together with Sun, you manage to get a game of tag started. Not everyone joins in at first, and some of the smaller kids have a hard time keeping up, but the chaos becomes a little more organized. While Sun is “it,” you make eye contact (or at least, you think you do) and try to gesture that you’re going to go check under the play structure. Sun gives no indication that he understands what you meant. He’s still covered in wet glue.
It takes a little searching, but you find the girl who’d been wailing under the structure earlier. She looks exhausted, her eyes red and puffy and her face still damp with tears. Things are very slightly quieter now, so you manage to introduce yourself to her. She seems overwhelmed, and, not sure what else to do, you take her to a quiet corner and give her some sliced apples you’d brought as part of your own lunch. When she seems calm enough, you lead her to the craft area, where the two of you are eventually joined by some of the other kids who’ve worn themselves out. You introduce yourself to them as well, and for a moment, you’re all drawing together and everything is as peaceful as an overcrowded daycare can get. Maybe this job won’t be as bad as you thought.
“NO!” Sun shouts from elsewhere in the room. “NO, NO, NO! Y-YOU- YOU’RE NOT SUPPOSED TO BE BACK THERE!”
You whip your head around to see Sun fretting over a kid hiding behind the security desk. Sun is reaching over the desk, but not moving past it. It appears that he's “it” again, and the other remaining participants in the game of tag quickly catch on to the idea that the desk is a safe zone.
“LIGHTS ON, LIGHTS ON!” Sun is clutching his faceplate in distress, rays retracting where they need to make room for his hands.
You excuse yourself from the craft area. One of the kids behind the desk apparently makes the decision that Sun’s panic is funny rather than alarming, and the others follow, dissolving into laughter. A few of them have started poking around.
You finally sit down in the chair. “Hey, you can hang out back here with me if you want,” you offer, ignoring Sun frantically shaking his head in your peripheral vision, “but it’s really, really boring. You can’t play back here, and you have to be quiet and sit still. It’s my job to sit here, and that’s all I get to do unless Sun needs my help.”
“Your job is sitting in a chair?” laughs one of the kids.
“That’s right! Someone has to do it.”
Sun simulates the sound of taking a breath as if to speak, and you shake your head at him. You make a “tone it down” gesture, which doesn’t seem to click with him, but he doesn’t say anything and that’s really all you were going for.
The rest of the day passes in a similar way, with you and Sun working together, trying and usually failing to get things under control. You didn’t lie about the nature of your job, it just happens to be the case that Sun needs your help all the time. There comes a point when some of the kids, especially the really young ones, clearly need a nap, and you try to approach him about it.
“Sun,” you say, “Some of the little kids are getting pretty cranky. They’re probably tired. Shouldn’t they—“
Sun clamps his hand over your mouth. “LIGHTS. ON,” he growls.
You raise your hands in surrender, and when he releases you, you wipe your mouth off on your sleeve. It’s still fresh in your mind that you could feel the layer of grime on his arm.
“Sorry!” Sun yelps, wringing his hands and shrinking away from you. “Sorry, sorry! I didn’t mean to grab! That was very very rude of me and against the rules, there’s no touching without permission allowed in the daycare except in absolute emergencies, no touching without permission no grabbing no hurting—”
Before he gives you a chance to respond, the braid girl gets her hair pulled again, and Emma yells that she’s stuck and needs help. Looking over, you see her eight feet off the ground, clinging to the outside of one of the grid sections of the play structure. You exchange a glance with Sun and give him a small nod before going to tell off the hair-puller while Sun gets Emma down. What Sun actually does is follow you until you verbally tell him that you want him to help Emma. Once he understands the mission, he carries it out in a complete panic.
While you try to explain to the hair-puller that it’s not nice to pull hair, you see Sun in the corner of your eye, hopping from foot to foot with nervous energy as he tries to coax Emma down into his hands.
A warm feeling throbs in your chest. He’s nothing like what you were told to expect, but it’s obviously not for lack of trying.