A Little Secret

It was the end of the day for the theater attendant. Solar was wiping down the counter in a little hurry. He couldn’t hold it in! Internally he was so excited! Which wasn’t very natural for him. Today he was going to get paid for his job! He spent everything on parts for Jack last month, so it should be okay to buy something for himself! He wanted to get planks to renovate his room a little. He planned to make his bed higher, so he could install a table under it and make bookshelves. So in the end it would be like a bunk bed, but only with the top bunk. He could make more fun stuff up in the bed, so it would be less boring when he had his periods. After he quickly finished, he went in his new claimed room, which was Moon’s until the daycare was blown up. The mechanic sat on his mattress and opened the book that he was reading for a week now. It was about animatronic and robot stuff in general. Even though he already knew about almost everything that was written there, it was interesting to try and learn something new. After about an hour the massage from Fazbear, that he was waiting for, popped in his HUD. He put the book on his lap and opened it excitedly. But, as he read it, his smile faltered. Apparently, there was a big amount of snacks, that went missing this month in the theater, and Solar, as the only attendant there, was responsible for it. So, instead of his usual 700 dollars, he was given only fifty. He sat on his bed, stunned. How could there be that much missing? How didn’t he notice that?! When did that happen?! Who did this?! His non-existent heart sank. Now he couldn’t afford any of the materials he wanted! He was left with practically nothing! He felt slight fuzziness in the back of his faceplate. No. No. He couldn’t do this right now. He took some artificial breaths and stood up, leaving the room and heading to the theater. He quickly turned on the computer and opened the camera footage. He scrolled to the end of the last month and began watching at 5x speed. At first everything was going smoothly, nothing strange happened and no one got to the other side of the counter. However, after around a week of footage, he noticed some movements on the early hours. He stopped the video just in time as he saw Lunar reaching for a bag of chips. What?.. Why?.. Why, Lunar? Why did he do that? Surely it was a one time thing, right?.. Right?! It wasn’t. As Solar went through the footage, he saw Lunar walking in the theater in the early mornings or late nights at least three times a week. He was always taking something like a bag of chips or a candy bar, sometimes both. By the end of the month he ended up taking over twenty bags of chips and about fifteen candy bars. Solar suddenly felt anger bubbling up inside of him. The fuzziness returned, but now it was stronger and didn’t go away as easily. He turned off the computer and stomped his way to his room. He found a plush Moon in his living space and imagined it was Lunar for a bit. He growled at the toy. How could he?! How could Lunar steal so much snacks?! How could he even think of stealing anything?! Solar trusted him and then he did that?! Traitor! He threw the toy in the corner. He felt tears trying to break their way out. It’s all his fault! It’s his fault Solar can’t make his room cooler and funnier! It’s all him! …He will need to apologize to the plushy later. It didn’t deserve him throwing it that hard. Wait, what? No. No no no. He couldn’t do this right now. Not now. But he couldn’t resist the fuzziness. He didn’t notice how he gave in. The next thing he knew, he was saying sorry to that toy and promising to sleep with it tonight. He hugged it and sat it on his mattress for assurance. He won’t break his promises! He’s not bad! But he was still angry! Still fu… frus… ftrust… rated… yeah! He was mad! Lunar is bad! He wanted better room! He wanted a bed high in the air! It’s cool! And Lunar is not! He crawled under the mattress where all his toys were. There weren’t many, but usually it was enough. Now it wasn’t! He didn’t want anything of what he had! All he could think of was the bed in the sky! And he needed to wait at least one more month to get it! Nothing was satisfying right now! Nothing could calm him down! He hated it! Why couldn’t he just calm down?! And then it came to him! He needed paci! It was always working! He didn’t know why, but it was! He started searching. Solar looked practically everywhere! On the old boxes, on his ‘bed’, under it, beside the laptop, in the drawers and it was nowhere to be found! He stood on his mattress and noticed something yellow on the top shelf on the other side of the room. There it was! It was his paci! He ran to the shelves and immediately saw that it was too high for him to reach. He whined. Even if he stood on his tiptoes he was too small! It wasn’t fair, he wanted his paci! It was his! He looked around to try and find something to climb on. He didn’t want to use his toys as a lift, that was mean! He saw so many boxes here! He didn’t know what was in them, but it didn’t matter, that was just the perfect thing! He moved the closest one right under the shelves and stepped on it. The box sagged a little, but that’s fine, he was taller now! He tried to reach to the top one more time and now he actually touched the shelf! Solar stretched a little more and just as he touched his goal, his lift suddenly sagged deeper and he slipped. The next moment he felt sharp pain on his forehead as he bumped hard in the wall and landed on the floor. That, and he didn’t get his paci! He was so close! That hurt. As he sat on his bottom, he couldn’t hold his tears anymore. He cried. *** Earth left the daycare and headed to the theater. Her shift ended and Sun told her, he can deal with the parents himself, so she was going to the balcony. She knew that Solar’s day ended about an hour ago, so she could hang out with him! As she went through the orange corridor she heard a loud noise as if something fell. It was very clear which meant that it was from the room on the other side of the wall. That was Solar’s room. She immediately dashed there, it couldn’t be anything nice. As she walked in the mechanic’s space she saw Solar sitting on the floor, crying quietly. He was looking at the top shelf as he whimpered. On his forehead and on the wall in front of him were cracks. She walked in. “Solar? Are you okay?” She asked. He suddenly flinched as he turned and faced her, his expression showed fear. He hiccuped as he stood up. This wasn’t supposed to happen, no one should’ve found out about his periods! They’ll think he’s crazy! They’ll be mad! He did bad! He was naughty! Tears ran down his cheeks from fear, hurt and frustration. “Solar, it’s okay. It’s just me. Can you tell me what happened?” She started softly. Solar was sobbing and fiddling with his hands. “It’s okay, I won’t judge you. Can I approach? I just want to check on your wound.” He thought a little about it and then hesitantly nodded. Earth slowly walked up to him to not startle him again. She cupped his face gently and touched the crack to which the eclipse animatronic winced. “Sorry!” She quickly responded. “Well, from what I can tell, it’s not that bad. I’ll ask Moon to fix it for you, okay?” He just nodded and stared at the top shelf again. “Did you want something from there?” She pointed at it and he nodded eagerly as he wiped his tears away and made grabby hands at it. His behavior seemed odd to Earth, but she decided not to question it now. She reached to the top and after a minute found something. As she took it down she saw that it was… a yellow pacifier? The moment Solar saw it finally being so close to him, his eyes practically sparkled. He clearly wanted it, but was shy to take it from her, he didn’t want to be mean to her. He whined. It was right here, in front of him, he could easily reach it. Okay, something was going on here. “You want that?” She needed to be sure it was the right thing. Solar stood there a little nervous, but he nodded at last. She handed it to him. He studied her expression as he slowly took it, but when she showed no signs of being upset or angry, he quickly stuffed it in his mouth. Finally! He had his paci! He had what he wanted at last! It was his! Earth helped! She’s not mad! Solar quickly hugged her to say thank you, then ran to his ‘bed’ and crawled under it again. Only when he felt how tight it was there he remembered the reason all of this happened. He slowly went back and just sat on his bottom beside the mattress. Earth didn’t know what to think. His behavior wasn’t usual for normally emotionless Solar. In five minutes she saw more emotions than he showed the whole time he was in this dimension. And he wasn’t that touchy. He usually was being asked for a hug. Now he did it just to thank her. Something was up. He was acting like a literal toddler right now. Wait… toddler. Yeah, that’s it. Could it be-? Her train of thought was interrupted by soft sobs. She looked at her cousin. He was sitting on the floor and crying quietly. “Hey, hey, Solar, what’s wrong?” She approached him. “Lunar bad!” He hiccuped. “Why is he bad? Did he do something?” She received a nod. “What did he do?” “Lunar ‘teal!” The forwarded massage from popped in her HUD. Solar sent it to her. She took some time to read it and her frown deepened. “Lunar fault! He bad!” “I’m sorry to hear that. We’ll need to talk to Lunar about that. I’m sure he’ll explain everything to us.” She rubbed his rays to try and calm him down. “Did you want to spend that money on something?” He looked at her as more tears formed in his eyes. “Bed!” He whimpered as he gestured at the old mattress. “Oh. You wanted to buy a new bed and now you can’t do that?” He sobbed as he nodded. She hugged him as she resumed petting his rays. “Shhh… shh… it’s okay… Lunar will pay that money to you, I’m sure…” “I wan’ high bed…” He whined. “Shhh… I know… I know… can I ask you a question, Solar?” He glanced at her as if showing that he’s listening. “Do you feel small right now?” He hesitated, but nodded eventually. “Do you feel like that often?” Another nod. “Is there a reason you didn’t tell anyone?” Solar took his pacifier out of his mouth and looked at it. “Didn’ wan’ you mad…” he rubbed the pacifier with his thumb, clearly avoiding looking at her. “Bubba Moony said I bad… broken… h’rt me…” Earth’s expression showed a mix of sadness, frustration and pity. Solar was scared of coming to them and asking for help just because his Moon took advantage of his state of mind. Of course he was afraid! Who wouldn’t be?! “Solar, look at me please?” She gently lifted his faceplate by its bottom to face her. It was streaked with tears that she began wiping the moment she saw them. “I’m sure that Sun, Moon and Lunar will all understand your situation. We will help if you’ll ask for it. It’s not bad to regress. It’s nothing to be ashamed of. It just means that you’re special. And that’s perfectly fine.” She saw his lip wobbling as he glanced at his pacifier again. He clearly remembered something. “Bubba…” he sobbed. As Earth moved her gaze on the pacifier, she noticed that it wasn’t just a random one. It was named. With beautiful, as if calligraphic, handwriting. Eclipse It was similar to Solar’s own handwriting, but now quite. Solar’s was more lined up and straight, this one was simpler as if it’s not even written, but drawn. “Bubba!..” he wailed and gazed on Earth. “Your Sun gave it to you?” She guessed and was clearly right, because Solar hugged her and whimpered in her chest. She embraced him and started rubbing circles on his back to soothe him. That helped like a charm, so she decided to change the topic for Solar’s sake. “Do you have toys? Maybe we can play.” Solar’s face lightened up and soon his pacifier was in his mouth again and he was under the mattress. After a minute or so Earth could see his little collection of plushies. That’s really all he had. Only plushies. There were Sun and Moon from the gift shop, a cat that Solar made on their knitting sessions, but now it had a little sweater that wasn’t here before. Solar probably knitted it after. And… that was pretty much it. He had only three toys. But Solar seemed to regress further and further young with time passing. Right now he was just babbling like a baby. “Why don’t you have something like a rattle?” Earth questioned. She received an eager shake of head from Solar and his finger went to his mouth in a shushing motion. Earth sighed. “Solar, we need to tell everyone about this. It’s hard to go through this alone and I doubt that they’ll be mad at you.” Solar shook his head with a whine. He was clearly scared. “Okay, I’ll give you a choice. Either you’ll tell them when you’ll be big again, or I’ll call everyone right now and tell them myself. So, you’re telling them yourself?” Solar shook his head and buried it in her chest. “I’m telling them?” Hesitantly, but he nodded. “Okay, just so you know, I’m calling only Sun, Moon and Lunar.” Earth quickly messaged everyone and they waited as they went to the main room. Solar sat in Earth’s lap the whole time, still hiding his face. His fear didn’t go away. Earth was patting his rays to calm him down a little. The family was at the balcony in ten minutes. “Hello!” Earth beamed at them. “Hi, sister!” Lunar answered as happy. “Hi again, Earth!” Sun said in his usual nervous tone. “Hi.” Moon greeted shortly, but still softly. As they all lowered on the floor, Earth began speaking. “Okay, everyone, I called you all here to tell you something important.” That phrase immediately made brothers nervous, so Earth was quick to reassure them. “It’s nothing bad! It’s just something that you all need to know.” She continued after a short pause. “Today, just after my shift, I found Solar age regressed in his room.” At that Solar tried to make himself smaller as he whined and buried his face further in Earth’s chest. “He was intentionally hiding it because he was scared that we’ll be mad at him. So I hope that you all will understand his situation and that we all will be able to help him in the future.” It was quiet as everyone took the information. Finally, Lunar raised a hand. “To what age did he regress?” He asked. “Well, when I first found him, he was around three-four years old, but now I think he’s practically a toddler. Hey, Solar?” She whispered the last sentence as she poked his cheek. “Gonna come out to the world? No one is mad at you.” Solar shook his head, Earth sighed. “Wait, I know!” Sun exclaimed. He went to one of the boxes and opened it, searching for something. After a minute he found it and took it out. It was a rattle. “It’s old, but it’s still working.” He said as he approached. “Can I?” Sun glanced at Earth questioningly, she nodded. He moved his look on hiding Solar. “Hey, Solar.” He said quietly, but loud enough for Solar to hear. “Look what I have!” Sun shook the rattle lightly. The sound immediately drew Solar’s attention and he slowly turned his head to Sun, curiously studying the object in the attendant’s hand. Sun smiled at how cute Solar looked with that expression and the pacifier in his mouth was making him even more adorable. Solar’s eyes darted at Sun’s face, then the rattle, Sun again, the rattle. “Come on, take it!” Sun encouraged him as he shook it again. Solar was still hesitating, but then he very slowly crawled from Earth’s lap. On all fours he carefully got closer to Sun and stopped just in front of him. Sun stretched out his hand and Solar wearily took the rattle, still studying his face. When he didn’t show any signs of anger, Solar shook the toy. It made a loud noise and Solar’s eyes practically sparkled. It was so long since he last held that kind of toy. He forgot how much he liked noisemakers in this state of mind. He stared at Sun in awe and the attendant chuckled. “You can take it. It’s yours.” Solar gazed at the rattle, shook it again and giggled in delight. Then he crawled closer to Sun and hugged him, which took him by surprise, but he embraced the regressed animatronic. When Solar pulled back, he quickly crawled back to Earth to show her his new toy. He shook it excitedly as Earth praised and patted him. Moon and Lunar were taking photos this whole time and by that moment had a hundred each. Soon the happy noise of the rattle quietened, Solar’s movements became more sluggish, his eyelids drooping, babyish babbling turned into barely audible mumbling. Earth must’ve noticed that, because she gently scooped him closer, so he could use her as a pillow. “Someone’s tired it seems. Let’s go to bed, okay, Solar?” She whispered softly. As he leaned his head on her chest, the rattle fell out of his hand. He was falling asleep very quickly. Earth picked him up and carried him to his room. As she laid him down on the bed, she resumed patting his rays. Solar cracked open one eye to search for something just in time Sun came in and placed the rattle nearby. “Are you looking for something, buddy?” The attendant asked. “Moo…” He whined. “Moo?.. Oh, you mean Moon? Uh…” he found the plush version of his twin on the floor and picked it up. “This one?” Solar nodded groggily. “Okay, there you go.” Sun smiled as he gave Solar the plush and the regressed animatronic hugged it, closing his eyes once again. The rubbing on his rays lulled him into a slumber and soon he was quietly snoring as Earth plugged him in. “Can you call Lunar here please? I need to discuss something with him.” Earth asked. “Got it.” Sun said as he left the room, Lunar walked in after a couple of seconds. “Whatcha need, Earth?” He whispered as he gazed at sleeping Solar. “Lunar, Solar should’ve been paid today, but Fazbear reduced his payment because someone stole a lot of stuff. Do you know something about this?” She asked, dead serious. “Uhh… no?” He tried, but his tone was uncertain. “Lunar. Solar said that it was you. I don’t think that he would blame you for no reason. You know how much he cares about you.” She frowned. And then Lunar exploded. “I’m sorry! I didn’t know it would be paid from his wallet! I thought Fazbear didn’t care about it and wouldn’t even notice! I’m so so sorry!” “Shh! Quiet, Lunar!” Earth whisper-shouted. Solar stirred and groaned, but didn’t wake up and remained slumbering, hugging his plush. Both siblings relaxed. “Sorry.” Lunar whispered. “It’s okay. I think it’ll be only fair if you paid him for everything you apparently stole.” Earth said. Lunar nodded. “How much?” “650 dollars.” “What?!” Lunar nearly shouted again. “Almost seven hundred bucks?!” “Yeah… it’s Fazbear.” “Fair. Well, it’s my fault. You know what? I’ll give him more, because he clearly was stressed about it.” He said, glancing around the room to find toys spread on the floor, the sagged box beside the crack on the wall, when Lunar gazed at Solar again, he noticed the same wound on his forehead. He gently touched it and earned a slight flinch and a hiss from his cousin. “He clearly stressed a lot.” “That’s kind of you, Lunar.” Earth smiled. “I think we should leave him now. Let him rest.” As they crawled back into the main room, the twins’ optics were on them, both looked with a tint of concern. “Is everything alright?” Moon asked quietly. “Yes, Solar is asleep and charging.” Earth whispered. “I think it would be better if someone stayed here for the night. I assume Solar slept alone in this state of mind a lot, but it’s better safe than sorry.” Sun proposed. “I’ll stay.” Their sister stated. “Okay.” Sun sighed. “But call us if something happens.” “I will.” *** Next morning, when Solar wakes up, he finds himself spooning a plush of Moon, with the pacifier in his mouth. He sat up, unplugged himself from the charger and took the pacifier out. Only then he noticed his internal clock showing that it was almost 10 AM. After that he jolted awake, jumped off the bed and started running around the room and shoving his toys under the bed. Only when he was placing his pacifier in one of the drawers he saw the rattle that hasn’t been there before. He took it and inspected. That’s strange. He had never seen this one. He never had one since… the separation. Rattles are loud and he didn’t need others to know that he regresses. So where did it… Then the memories of the past day flooded his mind. Earth. She found him. And told everyone in the family. Sun gave him this rattle and said it’s his now. They didn’t hate him or implied that he was weird. Though maybe it was because Earth was there. Maybe it’s better to act normal and everyone would forget about yesterday’s events. Solar gently hugged the rattle, put it beside the pacifier and closed the drawer. He took a deep simulated breath and walked out of the room. Earth was sitting in the beanbag in the main room and immediately noticed him coming out. “Good morning, Solar! Did you sleep well?” She asked, her tone light and happy. “Uh, hey, Earth. Yeah, I did.” His answer was uncertain. “Oh, by the way, did you look in your wallet?” Earth was clearly excited. “No, why?” Solar, on the other hand, was confused. “Check it out.” She simply replied. “O… kay?..” Solar opened his bank account in his HUD and his eyes widened in a moment. There was a notification of Lunar sending him 750 dollars with only one word: “sorry :3”. “W-wait! Wait wait wait! Wh-what?! What is this?! Why did he- what is- what?!” He was stuttering. He didn’t understand! Why did Lunar send him so much money?! “Hey, hey, Solar. It’s okay. Lunar did steal all that food from the theater. And he saw that you were stressed over it, so he figured he’d return the debt and pay you more for the difficulties.” She explained. “Also, I wanted to discuss something with you, Solar, if you don’t mind?” “Uh, sure?” “It’s about yesterday.” Solar froze. “I just want you to know that it’s okay to regress and we are always here to help you, okay? Can you promise you’ll be pinging us when it’ll happen?” Earth looked concerned, almost desperate. She knew how stubborn Solar can be. “I…” Solar saw her expression and he just couldn’t say no to her, Earth always hits his weak spot. “Okay, I promise.” He sighed and Earth smiled at him and he couldn’t help but smile back. “Also, you’ll need to go to Moon, so he could fix that crack on your forehead.” “But I can do it myself, it’s okay, Earth!” “No buts! Moon wants to help, so you’ll go to him.” Solar sighed. “Fine…”