Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It’s raining. 

Of course, it’s raining. The soft ‘pitter-patter’ on the window pane is relaxing for you. It blocks out the world and helps you step back for a while. It’s nice. 

Rather, it would be had you been inside the McDonald’s. Whoopdie-fucking-do.

Your hair is soaked. You’re soaked. Even so, seeing the floppy frog eyes on your hood pulls the ghost of a smile to your face. Above you, fluffy clouds boil around the eye of the storm as it closes in. And when a particular gust of wind sends a torrent of water flying under the awning, you realize you need better shelter. So you take a breath and book it.

Most places are closed now. I mean, it’s almost one in the morning. Why wouldn’t they be? It’s not like anyone would risk getting robbed so some mentally unstable teen could stay dry while they trudge through their first-world problems. It’s a nice thought, though. 

You’re broken out of your thoughts when you fail to lift your foot enough and barely avoid eating cement. Thrashing like a Wacky Waving Inflatable Arm Flailing Tube Man you right yourself and continue running like hell. Even squinting, you can’t see more than a few feet ahead. But you carry on all the same.

There aren’t any cars out right now, but that’s probably a good thing. The last thing you need is someone driving through a small pool too close to the sidewalk. While you certainly won’t be dry any time soon - if the ‘ squelch ’ you hear every time you take a step is anything to go by - you’d rather not get mud on your clothes. 

A glimmer of hope shines like neon lights up ahead, piercing the wall of rain around you. It spurs you on. Your legs burn something fierce as the lights get brighter and more colorful. The colossal silhouette of a building comes into view, and even from here, you know what it is. Freddy Fazbears Mega fucking Pizza-Plex.

The front shutters are already down, with the cartoon Freddy grinning against the rain. You round a corner and sprint along the side wall towards the back of the building. There’s the hint of a dry spot along the lower bricks. You double over with your hands on your knees, half leaning on a stack of unopened crates, trying to catch your breath. Despite the weather, it’s not humid, so the crisp air goes down smoothly. You take a good two minutes to recover.

Once you’re breathing properly, you stretch and heave a sigh, slumping your shoulders in relief. Finally, you’re not getting assaulted by water. And then a ferocious flurry of wind sends a sheet of water your way, and any progress you’d made on drying is lost. Something of a grunt echoes as you try in vain to wring the water out of your hoodie. 

Scanning the area, you must be in some kind of delivery area. A plethora of crates and boxes - even a forklift, are left in the rain. Guess Fazbears doesn’t mind water damage. Keeping as close to the wall as you can, you maneuver around stacks of crates in search of better cover. The first thing to catch your attention is the bright red ‘Exit’ sign over a door that looks significantly out of place compared to the rest of the building. It’s just a worn-down oak door with a broken padlock, and surprise-surprise, it’s open! You hurry inside like you’ve never seen a damn horror movie, and shut the door behind you. 

You shut the door as quietly as possible, and turn to inspect whatever room you just blindly walked in. The first thing that hits you is the smell of fake meat, like a pepperoni pizza Lunchable. It’s not bad, per se, but it’s there. Next, is that this place is a kitchen. The giant sinks look industrial and well-kept, as do the ovens. Dispensers for various pizza ingredients and toppings, however, look sketchy at best, and you can name several ServSafe violations just by glancing at them. Sticky unease churns your stomach when you lock eyes with a Staff Bot. It’s turned off, but that only makes it worse. Its white casing and stiff posture remind you of a mannequin, and you’ve watched more than enough Markiplier videos to fear those things. You know it isn’t going to hurt you, even if it was active, so you’re probably fine to look away.

You do not look away.

You make every effort to keep your eyes on the damn thing while slowly backing out of the room. You don’t even blink until the metal door slides shut. Then you turn around and stare at the checkered tile while you flee, stiff as a board. 

Despite being closed, the plex is still well-lit, what with all the neon lights strung along the ceiling. There’s music over the speakers, a weird remix of the band's theme. (Which sounds far too similar to Van Halen’s ‘ Jump ’ for your tastes.)

You’ve never been inside the Plex. It’s only been up for a few years, and by the time admission prices were within your range, you were considered ‘too old’ for this stuff, their words, not yours. Societal expectations aside, you’re already enjoying the interior design here. Props to the design manager. You huff melodramatically when you pat your pockets, only to find that you left your headphones at home. Jeeze, the one time you forget to grab them. Oh well. 

With nothing else to do but wait for your clothes to air-dry, you explore this monstrosity of a mall. Guided by boredom and unchecked curiosity, you trek down the long, highly saturated hallways in search of something to focus your attention on, taking care to avoid the Staff bots dressed as security.

First things first, find a directory. There’s probably one by the food court.

This thing is fucking useless.

It’s just a giant board with the names and logos of each area plastered in random sports! How is anyone supposed to find anything with this thing? 

You’re too stressed for this shit.

Pinching the bridge of your nose in frustration, you turn and walk around it. Wandering will do you better than looking at that pile of lizard shit. 

So wander you do.

It’s impossible to tell if there’s an actual nightguard here, and if there is, half of you is surprised you haven’t seen them yet. To be fair, the place is massive and has at least three floors. So realistically speaking, it makes sense.

Peaking around a corner, you stare down yet another giant hallway. This one, however, is lined with showrooms. From what you can see, the curtains on two rooms are drawn, and someone’s going ham on a guitar. It’s pretty impressive. Stepping out of your hiding place, you press on, looking up in light awe at the statues of the band members: Freddy, Chica, Roxanne, and… the gator. You can never remember his name. There’s an ad board between Freddy and Roxy. It’s advertising some sort of melatonin candy called a Moondrop. The character behind it looks like something out of a Picasso painting, in a good way. Their face is a crescent moon, and they’ve got a comfy-looking nightcap on. 

The corners of your mouth turn up, and you move to continue walking, only to choke back a scream and almost slip darting behind the board when you see Roxanne fucking Wolf stalking by Freddys’ statue. How you didn’t hear her, you’ll never know. But now that you don’t , you certainly should’ve noticed sooner. 

“Hey, kid!”

Oh hell nah.

Adrenaline shoots through your veins and you leap into action. Dropping down on all fours to prevent slipping, you floor it back the way you came. You grimace at the loud squeaking of your shoes as you run, but the water trail you’re leaving isn’t very subtle either. 

Vaulting over benches and small barriers, you race under neon LEDs, encouraged by the pounding of metal feet behind you. You’re not going to jail, not tonight.

You hope.

You barely notice when your hood flies back with the velocity, you don’t have time to worry about it anyways. You veer left, struggling to gain traction on the now-wet tiles, tearing into the main atrium and righting yourself just too late to avoid nosediving down two flights of stairs. 

A very strained, and very loud string of curses follows you down.

Thankfully, you cage your head in your arms in time, so hopefully, you won’t have to explain any fresh bruises in the morning. Your tumble ends relatively quickly, and you skid a couple of meters on your side. Hey, you got down a lot faster than if you’d just been running.

A sharp hiss pushes the remaining air from your lungs when you try to stand, holy shit you’re in a lot of pain right now. Did you break something? It feels like you broke something. Gritting your teeth, you hold your side with one hand, and push yourself up with the other. Your eyes are screwed shut as you wobble, blindly reaching for something to stabilize yourself on. You catch something and hold tight to it. It’s cold, but that’s to be expected. Fuck your side hurts.

Your clothes squeeze around your back and middle like something’s pushing them down, and you lean against whatever’s keeping you up. Something takes a hold of your wrist and pulls it to lay across something far beyond your height. There’s a voice, but there’s nothing to it but a quiet rumble. Its words are meaningless to your mind. You try to open your eyes, but immediately shut them again when it does nothing to help your dizziness. It’s getting hard to breathe. Your body burns, and everything hurts. 

In a last-ditch effort to know what’s going on, you open your eyes again. It’s a struggle, and the floor sways beneath your feet. All you catch are two blue lights above you before the dark impatiently swallows you whole.

Chapter Text

A pitch-colored void swirls around you like a carnival ride. Small flashes of neons and glimpses of shapes pass your senses in a flurry. The only constant is the uncomfortable pressure on the back of your skull.  Nausea grips you like a vice. It’s getting harder to keep your eyes open. It’s getting harder to breathe, it’s-

It’s quiet.

A dull ache seeps into the base of your jaw, and a whine crawls from your throat as you struggle to force your eyes open. Everything is sore. 

It takes a dizzyingly long time for your vision to focus, and it’s blurry at best. A few squeezing blinks fix that problem soon enough. While the rest of your senses return, you look around. You’re in a giant blanket fort, lit by star-shaped fairy lights strung along the upper corners. A blanket too small for you lands in your lap when you push yourself up. It’s dark blue, decorated with yellow stars and a white edge. It’s very soft. 

The piercing ringing in your ears threatens to drown out a quiet music box, but slowly, your hearing clears. The song is vaguely familiar, but you can’t pinpoint where you know it. It’s nice, though. A shuddering breath escapes your lungs and puts the soft chiming in its place. It spreads through your chest and manages to help soothe the tingle in your fingertips. Unconsciously, you knead the blanket with a white-knuckled grip. You need to breathe.

In through the nose. Out through the mouth. In and out. In… and out. 

Sweet, sweet oxygen.

After the few moments you take to right your breathing, you rub your arms. Where’s your hoodie? You can’t remember taking it off. Then again, it’s hard to think with a headache. It’s folded a few feet away, so you don’t dwell on it. You snuggle into the warm fabric with a content sigh. It’s like a safety blanket at this point. Not that you’re complaining. Pulling out your phone, you hold back a wince and check the time: 2:46 am. Guess you weren’t out as long as you thought. That’s good.

You should go home.

Bracing yourself for the oncoming wave of nausea, you rise slowly, careful not to lose your balance. With a deep breath and a grunt, you crouch-walk towards what you assume is the exit flap. The fort is enormous. Not big enough for you to stand, but still impressive. It’s completely dark outside the fort, save for a few small lights and what you think might be a desk lamp. It’s hard to tell from here. But you’re out, and you can stand now. So stand you do.

Only to barely catch yourself on a plastic kiddie chair when the blood drains from your head, leaving you weightless. Your throat squeezes a little more as you swallow the urge to puke. Breathe. Just breathe. 

Taking a long inhale, you straighten and take a blind step forward into the darkness. The only things keeping you from crashing into anything are your hands and the light of the glow-in-the-dark stars pasted on the walls. There’s a light up ahead, and you can see a big, bright screen through the holes in what you assume are jungle gyms. So you push on.

“Where are you going, Little Tadpole?” 

You freeze, torn between snapping around to get it over with, turning slowly out of fear, or bolting. Your now pounding heart is not helping your situation, so you opt for the second option. If only to keep yourself conscious. You can practically hear your neck creaking like an old door. You have to crane your neck to meet his eyes with how high up he is. The light blue seems weirdly familiar, and you immediately recognize this bot. You’ve seen his cartoonish likeness more than a few times tonight. He takes your pause to lower himself to the ground. There’s a ‘ click!’ behind him as something unhooks and rises back to the ceiling.

He’s much taller than you expected. Even leaning down to give your spine some relief, he has a good two or three feet on you. The stars on his nightcap and comically poofy pants glow like the ones on the walls. It gives him a softer look, like a walking nightlight. He raises a brow, unimpressed at your escape attempt. He steps forward. You step back. His face shifts from a look of ire to one of worry when you stumble, trying to grab the tiny seat you used earlier, and he raises his hands to offer his help. Only one palm is out. You notice the other lifts a carry-out box with the Fazbear logo. Catching your gaze, he drops his free hand and holds the food out to you.

“I thought you’d be hungry. Eat.” He slowly sets it in your hands, placing a pack of utensils on top and backing away. Carefully, you lower into the child-sized chair, not trusting your bruised legs to hold up much longer. 

Flipping the lid open, revealing what looks like a sloppy joe. The bun is dyed like a crescent moon, and the meat looks like it just came out of Sonic’s asshole. Weird colors aside, it seems alright, it’s still warm, too. The smell hits your nose, and you’re casually reminded that you haven’t eaten since lunch, so when your stomach growls, it churns too. You grimace at the feeling, taking a moment to recover. You almost choke on air when you look to see the bot staring at you. 

“You should eat something, Little Tadpole. Your body failed you for a reason.”   While you’re more willing to associate your fainting with falling down two flights of stairs , it’s hard to argue his point. So pulling your legs up to sit criss-cross-applesauce, you place the food on the tiny table and take a tentative bite. 

Yup. That’s a sloppy joe.

It’s nothing remarkable, but you’d buy it off a menu.

Though you’ve calmed down significantly, you eat slowly just in case. Food will do you good, but you’d rather not risk puking everywhere. 

The bot across from you decides to break the silence. “Is it good?” It’s an awkward attempt at conversation, especially while your mouth is full. But he seems satisfied when you nod, and continues, “They’re called Moon Poppers. Would not have been my first choice for a name, but it’s better than some others.” That, you can agree with. One of your coworkers has little cousins that come here, and she couldn’t stop laughing at the Chica’s Cream froyo flavor she tried. You think she said it tasted like cotton candy? You have trouble believing that naming and white froyo Chica’s Cream was an accident. If it was a mistake, it’s a damn funny one. 

Scratch what you said earlier, this is a damn good sloppy joe.

You finish relatively quickly, and while you’re better off with some food in your stomach, it’ll still take a while for your body to stop benign a cunt. Throwing the box in the trash bin, you pull one knee to your chest and wrap your arms around it. The fading pulse of the bruises on your arms and side makes getting comfy difficult. Yeah, you’ll be wearing long sleeves for a week or so.

“How are you feeling?”

How were you feeling? Tonight’s been a mess and a half from every angle, but you aren’t sure you’ve processed it yet. So you shrug.

“I’m fine? ‘M still in a lot of pain - for obvious reasons. And I’m a bit woozy, but emotionally, I feel better than when I got here?” You trail off, your voice getting quieter as you try to assess your physical and mental state. It sounds unsure to your ears, and you can’t make eye contact. He kneels in front of you and reaches a hand up. You flinch back and his eyes widen slightly, “I won’t hurt you, Little Tadpole.” His voice is soft like he’s talking to a cornered animal, and given the situation, that isn’t far off. Once you give a nod, he lays the back of his hand on your forehead. Then he brings up another to place both against your cheeks. His eyebrows furrow in focus, and he tuts. “Take the hoodie off.”

What.

When you fail to respond, he simply picks you up like a handful of grapes. Naturally, you flail., attempting to keep yourself grounded while you’re handled. “WoAH WOAH! Hold on! The hell are y- put me down, please!” He simply sits you on the edge of the table and pulls your jacket up. You smack his hands away like they’re burning. “AYE, I can do that myself, dude! I’m not a toddler.” He mutters an apology and backs off. Pulling it over your head, taking care to keep the zipper on the hood from catching. Now, with it off, you realize just how warm you were. Damn, he’s good. 

You sigh, trying not to glare at the purple and yellow blotches already scattered on your forearms. “There.” he hums, and you catch a flicker of red in his eyes when he inspects you. He nods and straightens his posture, momentarily glancing at a light in the distance. He rises and holds a hand out for you, “Come. Rest.” Confused, you opt to wave it off and stand on your own. He merely shrugs and guides you back to the blanket fort, poking his head out when you don’t follow. “Is something wrong, Tadpole?” The look on his face forces your eyes away. Your words tumble off your tongue, “Look man, I appreciate it, but I really need to get home before anyone notices I’m gone. If they find out I snuck out at 2 am, I’m fucked five ways from Friday…” the last part is more to yourself than to him, but you hear him mutter “Language.” under his breath. While you can’t deny that you’re exhausted, and a nap does sound really nice, you know you’re screwed if you’re caught. Speaking of being caught, why haven’t you been arrested yet? So far this guy’s just been… taking care of you. It’s weird, to say the least. 

A tap on your shoulder pulls you back to reality, and you barely register the tug on your wrist. You send a questioning look, though it’s more ‘ what’s happening again? ’ than anything. He smiles and picks up your hoodie, laying it over his forearm, “I’ll walk you out. Can’t have any Big Bad Wolves getting you hmm?” You nod. Roxanne’s a lot faster than you thought. You’re just surprised she didn’t catch you earlier. Your shoes were pretty loud. 

The bot leads you through what you can only assume is a daycare. It’s hard to tell with the lights off. The giant jungle gyms are hard to miss. You pass a security desk and catch yourself staring at the monitor behind it. The character looks a lot like the bot you’re with, but he has more of a solar motif, than a lunar one. Maybe they’re brothers? You don’t know much about this place. 

Oh shit, you never asked for this guy’s name.

Well, this is awkward. Better late than never, I guess.

He pushes the giant double doors open with ease and ushers you through. It takes an embarrassingly long time to get up the stairs, but your legs aren’t in the best shape right now, and you don’t want to burden him more than you already have. 

You finally meet him up top, and that’s where you get your confirmation that this is, in fact, a daycare. You make out a check-in desk, a giant statue showcasing him, and that sunny-looking guy from the screen. The statue looks worse for wear than the others you’ve seen, but that’s a topic for another time. 

“Hey, what’s your name?” The question catches him off guard if the way his eyes snap to your face is any indication. “Sorry I didn’t ask earlier, guess that’s kinda rude of me. You did save my ass from Roxy after all.” The shame creeps up with the realization. He probably carried you here too. You didn’t even glimpse anything mentioning a daycare aside from the Moondrop ads, so how far were you? Damn, now you feel bad.

He squeezes your wrist to break you out of your thoughts. He seems relieved when you meet his eyes before he returns his gaze forward. “My name is Moon. I am a Daycare Attendant. You are?” You give him your name, but with how he’s simply been calling you “Tadpole” this whole time, you doubt he’ll ever use it.

Did you just consider coming back here? Breaking in again?

Yes. Yes, you did.

Little more is said during the walk to the kitchen. You’re both tired, you certainly don’t have the energy for conversation, much less with someone you just met. 

The door slides open automatically as Moon approaches, and you turn your eyes to the side to avoid looking at the unpowered Staffbot by the door. No need to give yourself nightmares. Moon stops a few feet away from the door you came in, and drops your hand. He holds out your hoodie, and you grab it, slipping it on. 

Ten seconds becomes a minute, one minute becomes two, and you realize you need to go before this gets more uncomfortable. You raise a hand for a fist bump, “See ya later, big man?” You’re asking permission. He knew how you got in, so he’d likely keep an eye on that door in the future.

He stares at your hand for a moment, but returns the gesture soon enough, despite the glaring difference between your hand sizes. “Sleep well, Little Tadpole.”

The rain stopped a while ago, so the walk home is quiet, save for the droplets falling from light posts and awnings. It's nice. There's a light breeze that blows away the residual stickiness of your night and leaves you feeling refreshed with every breath. You still can't see the sky, but there's a faint outline of the full moon between the clouds as it watches over you. 

There's something so comforting about night walks, the dark offers a rare kind of peace that's impossible when the sun shines. It may not last forever, but any respite is better than none.

You're careful when crawling back into your bedroom, this building is old, and the wood floors scream with every shift of your body weight. The disappointment twists in your gut when you finally realize you're home now. But it's far more bearable than before. Your bones, though aching, feel that much lighter. You wish a quiet goodnight to the moon and crawl into bed.

Yeah, you’re definitely going back sometime.