#heckbear's

Dealing with customers was fine, on a normal day. But the workers at Heckbear's were not dealing with a normal day. Every single worker on shift was dealing with a different issue.

So when a parent scolded her daughter for not being "good enough," nearly everyone snapped. Naturally, that meant no one should approach the customer, but Cloud never seemed to care about that. She stormed over to the parent.

The woman blinked at her, startled by the fury in Cloud's eyes.

"Maybe she's not good enough for you, but how do you know how hard she was trying? Maybe the game was too difficult, too out of her skill level, but that doesn't mean you blame her. You accept it and move on. How terrible it must be to have a child that gives it her all. That tries so unbearably hard to please you but always comes up short. Personally, I've never seen anyone that close to defeating Michael's record on the leaderboard. So what if she placed second? That's amazing! Commendable! The game is meant to be difficult. Michael only got his score because he knew the man that made the game."

Cloud shook her head. "Hey, kiddo, how would you like a free prize from the Prize Corner?"

The little girl stared up at Cloud with tears in her eyes. Her mouth opened wide, mirroring the expressions of every employee in the room. They were all stunned. The mother was speechless as Cloud led the little girl away to collect a prize.

"Hey! Wait a minute! You can't talk to me that way-"

"Children are our first priority here at Heckbear's. I'm doing my job, Ma'am." Cloud sent a cheerful grin to the mother.

The next time she saw the little girl, she was with her father. And he was cheering her on in her efforts. When the girl finally defeated Michael's high score, Cloud was right there alongside her father, screaming and cheering.

The little girl kept coming back, begging Cloud to lend her those unmistakable rabbit ears. Every single time. Until Cloud relented, lending her the ears for a day. The little girl never introduced herself, and Cloud never learned her name. But she was always around. Cloud's biggest fan.



Notes under the cut

I kinda regret writing this, but it was based on a conversation from Discord, so read at your own risk. It came from the Sewers, if you know what that means.

Cloud checked the list a second time. Michael. They had to be joking. She was not about to spend an entire shift with him. No way. It peeved her to no end that he’d actually gotten the job. With a sigh, Cloud left the breakroom and made her way to the daycare. Maybe there was some way she could convince Eggs to trade shifts for a day or something.

It was naptime in the daycare when Cloud arrived. Her ears only drooped slightly as she looked around. No Eggs in sight, although Fate was sorting through kid profiles at the check-in desk. Cloud tapped their shoulder. The Mini Moon on the desk shushed her. Cloud gave him a questioning look. She hadn’t even said anything. Mini Sun shook his head at her. Exasperated, Cloud walked away from the desk. Maybe Eggs was helping with nap time? But that didn’t usually make much sense considering-

“Boo!” Eggs jumped on Cloud’s back, and she had to suppress her shout of surprise.

She sighed. “Eggs.”

“Did I get you? Did I?”

Cloud shushed the other girl. “Yes, you got me, now let’s try to be more quiet before the animatronics come after us for interrupting naptime.”

Eggs followed Cloud, beaming. “I knew I’d get you one day, Cloud!”

Cloud closed the daycare door and peeked in through the glass to ensure nothing had gone wrong. Nope. The kids were still sleeping.

“Cloud? Did you go into the daycare specifically to find me?”

“Yeah.” One ear flopped over completely, and Cloud adjusted her headband and straightened the ears. “I was wondering if you were-“

“Oh! I’d love to hang out off-shift! Everyone said that you never did that, but I just figured it was a matter of getting to know you better.” Eggs’ smiled did not diminish at all.

“Erm. Well, we can sort that out another time. I was actually going to ask about a shift trade? I cover one of your shifts and you cover mine.”

“Why?” Eggs asked.

“Uh, well.” Cloud adjusted her tie. “I don’t really want to work with Michael-“

“You need to sort out your differences. That’s what Pix always said, and Shooting Star says the same thing. We don’t want dissent in our workers.” Eggs replied solemnly.

“So you won’t cover for me?”

“Customers can recognize when coworkers don’t get along. You two need to sort out your differences.” Eggs elbowed Cloud. “Now, I gotta get back to work.”

Cloud scowled at the door to the daycare and walked off. Maybe Wanda would cover? Or Blayke? Could always ask Yee, Cloud supposed. Wait. She could ask Faith!

Fate yawned while they organized the desk. It had been a long day, and the minis were not in a helping mood. Moon fell off the desk twice in the last hour, and Sun was perfectly content to knock over every stack of paperwork to climb to the top of the desk. Eggs hadn’t seemed to notice anything, cheerfully helping the full-sized version of Sun put away supplies for the day, talking unceasingly about how much fun she had with the kids. Sun cheerfully responded, keeping up an air of happiness. Fate just wanted a hug. Or something. But the work wasn’t done, so they straightened their shirt and continued organizing the desk. Mini Sun fell a short while later, and Fate leaped out of the chair to catch him. Mini Moon stopped scooting to laugh as the chair came down on top of Fate. Right. The chair had wheels.

Moon drifted over. “Need some help?”

“I got this,” Fate replied, setting Mini Sun back on the desk. Moon fixed the chair.

“It’s ten p.m. You know what Cloud would say-“

“Yeah, well, Cloud clocked out hours ago. She doesn’t know. And what she doesn’t know won’t kill her.”

“Hmmmm.” Moon considered that point. “It’ll probably get me decommissioned though. You know how upset she gets if I don’t hound you.”

“Well, you’re certainly doing that right now.” Fate locked the cabinet. “Can’t you go pester Eggs? She’ll be wound up and won’t sleep if you leave her with Sun for too long.”

“She’ll be wound regardless. You on the other hand…”

“I’m fine.” Fate yawned again. He scooped up the minis and plopped them into Moon’s hands. “Just worry about them for a second. I’m almost done.”

The door to the daycare opened. “Faaaaate.” Wanda called. Fate groaned.

“Yes, Wanda?”

“New animatronic alert.”

“A new-“ Fate pinched their nose. “I thought we agreed no more new ones. Especially after the Spring Trap incident-“

“Okay, but this one’s different. Owner selected it.”

“Reassuring.” Fate crossed his arms, organization forgotten. “Why?”

“Well, I bet you’d hate it if someone asked why you were born, Administrator Fate!” The new animatronic popped into the daycare.

Moon dropped the minis. “Another daycare attendant?”

“Oh, I’m not just for the daycare! Although, I will be around often. No, my duty is to make sure our human staff are taking good care of themselves. Administrator Fate, it’s past your bedtime.”

“Just let me finish-“

They yelped as the animatronic picked them up and carried them over to the naptime corner. “No. Sleep now. Work later.”

Moon laughed. “What are you? An animatronic version of Cloud?”

“No. I’m an animatronic version of Pix. I go by Shooting Star.” Her grin was as ominous as Sun or Moon’s. “Plus, Eggs needs sleep too. I’m not just going to enforce the rules on our administration!”

Moon lurched away. “Now now-“

“EGGS! BEDTIME!”

Eggs stopped helping to look over at Shooting Star. Moon gave some sort of hand signal, and she started running.

“Now, why’d you have to go and do that?” Shooting Star sprinted after her, picking her up and placing her next to Fate. “Bedtime. Both of you. There is a curfew, you know.”

“Since when?” Fate asked yawing and rubbing their eyes. “You know what? I don’t even care.” They took off their shoes and flopped.

“They work here…” Sun’s rays popped in and out.

Eggs got up and booked it back to Sun and Moon. Shooting Star simply responded by curling into a ball and mumbling, “My babie.”

Wanda laughed. “Well, I’m going to get back to work. You have fun now!”

Eggs called out. “Wait! How are we supposed to get work done if the animatronic just makes us sleep all the time?”

“I don’t know! You figure it out!”

Shooting Star sat up and patted Fate’s head. “You better get some sleep now.”

Fate mumbled. “I need a moon plush.”

Blayke poked his head into the daycare. “Is everything taken care of for the night?”

Shooting Star and Eggs both replied at the same time. “Yes!” “No!”

“That’s… okay…” Blayke stepped into the daycare. “What exactly still needs to be done?” He looked around. “Seems like everything’s taken care of. And Fate’s already preparing to sleep so…”

“I need a moon plush.” Fate mumbled again, eyelids fluttering as they started falling asleep.

“Well, I think we should start a fund to buy Fate a moon plush then.” Blayke grinned as Shooting Star patted Fate’s head.

“All the spare money’s already going somewhere important,” Fate replied, opening their eyes again.

“Well, I’ll just buy you one then.” Blayke shrugged.

Fate smiled. “I’m going to go to sleep now.”

“As you should,” Shooting Star replied.

Fate snuggled in and fell asleep.

“Eggs, respect the curfew.” Shooting Star rose and picked up Eggs yet again.

Eggs pouted and reached for Sun and Moon. Shooting Star sighed and plopped her down in the timeout corner. “Sleep.”

“That’s not how this works.”

“If you don’t go to sleep, you won’t wake up as early.”

Eggs considered that. “So if I go to sleep, you’ll leave me alone?”

“If you go to sleep, I can go to a recharging station and get rest for myself.”

“Alright.” Eggs curled up in the corner and closed her eyes.

"Here's a thought," Tober inhaled slightly, leaning forward to say their opinion. "What if -and I only say this because Cloud's off shift until Monday- What if we convince Blayke to hire Michael?"

Eggs snorted into her drink. "Run it by Pix. I'm sure they'd be welcoming to a new assistant."

Tober pushed the chair back. "Brilliant. Cloud wouldn't blame Pix for hiring new help."

Yee raised the cheap cup she was drinking out of. "Good. We needed an excuse to keep him around anyway."

Tober walked quickly down the hallway to Party Room 4, where Pix kept the ballpit. He stirred at the balls, hoping to wake Pix if she was in there. Sure enough, Pix's head popped out of the ballpit. "Hi Tober! Did you need something?"

"Oh, I was just thinking. Faith said that Michael wanted to work here."

"She did?" Pix blinked. "Ah, shoot. How did nobody tell me?"

"Well, actually, Blayke said he never found an application. So, you probably should check with him."

Pix considered that. "I'll check with Michael. If he wants a job, he's welcome to it, but if not that's fine too."

Tober nodded, walking out to get back to work.