Ray had spent the last hour and a half diligently watching the chaos that was the Superstar Daycare.
It wasn't the type of chaos where people lunged at each other, tearing at soft flesh, and explosions wracking the world, but he supposed this was close enough.
Children screeching and running around as if on a minefield, toys littered like colourful bodies on the floor, and flying through the air. Sun more than happy to join the fray, enthusiastically leaping from child to child, participating in whatever mayhem they started.
But that wasn't a problem, he would usually just observe as he had the past two days. However, this was. There, staring at him with large watery eyes, stood a 4 year old, clutching onto the bars of the child-height gate entrance of his desk.
The child was smaller than his peers, chocolate eyes, fluffy golden hair and a sprinkle of freckles across his little nose forming the familiar face of Calum Lanon. He knew of all the children in the Daycare, having been given the scheduled children's information as soon as the schedule was made, and the child signed in.
Calum Lanon was a four year old boy and one of the regulars, or at least he was supposed to be, because the child looked more like a two year old. Especially with how small he was.
He stared at said child, before slowly approaching the gate. He opened it, and the child waddled in, he watched as the child buried his face in Ray's pants.
He froze, standing stock still as this small child stained his pants wet with tears. He was not equipped for this, he could hardly understand grown people, what was he to do with a child. A crying child.
He sighed softly, before crouching down and picking the tiny child up, dwarfing the already small boy. Calum buried his tiny face in Ray's chest, tears slowing their descent.
Ray sat on his chair, allowing the child to sit on his lap, face still buried against his chest. He wrapped an arm around the child, stabilising him.
He spared a glance at the chaos that was still in motion, deciding that this was normal and fine, before turning his attention back onto Calum.
After a minute or two, Calum leaned back, face blotchy and red with subsided tears, the child sniffled, and rubbed at his red rimmed eyes with a small fist. Large brown eyes stare up at him, cheeks a rosy red.
Ray blinks at the child, unsure as to what he was meant to do from here. "What's wrong?" He settles on asking, if a bit awkwardly.
Calum blinks at him, before turning his head to the chaos just beyond his desk. The child stays silent, but the glance is enough for him to understand.
Not everyone can be prepared for whatever mayhem was happening with the other children. Crystal orbs meet chocolate brown as Ray stared at Calum, he tilted his head slightly, before coming to a decision.
He gestured to the floor, making a slight movement to remove the child from his person, but Calum once again buried his face into Ray's chest, clutching onto the fabric of his jacket with tiny little fists.
Ray blinked owlishly at the child's clear protest, but did nothing to stop the boy, wrapping an arm loosely around the child, allowing him enough room to move, but not fall off his lap.
They stay like that for a few minutes, eventually Calum turns around in his arms, leaning his small back against Ray's abdomen, his head comfortably on his chest.
The child seemed to have calmed down, brown eyes calmly observing the other children with Ray.
His eyes started to droop after a few minutes, no doubt exhausted from his earlier tears. Ray's lips tug into a small smile as the tiny child finally succumbs to sleep, little head tilting to the side.
Ray carefully manoeuvres the sleeping child to the side, his little head leaning against his chest and little legs almost hanging off the side of his lap. The new position more comfortable for the child, and safer for his little neck.
-x-
Sun had enthusiastically rounded up all the children for snack-time, it had taken a lot longer than any other day, especially with the children running around like animals in the wild. But he had done it nonetheless.
Ray watched as the animatronic had given each child a plate of snacks in roughly a second. Before Sun's head swivelled around almost frantically, as if looking for something.
Sun turned his gaze to Ray, and sped right up to him, "I lost a child-have you seen him? Tiny, blond hair-" He cuts himself off as he reaches the security desk, his pinprick of a pupil shifting from Ray to the sleeping child in his lap, then back again a few times.
Sun presses a palm to his wide grin, as if it would somehow actually stop him from making a sound, Sun lets out a strangled squeal. The bot sways on its feet, pressing his other hand on top of the first.
After a few moments of Sun seeming to have some sort of mental breakdown while internally squealing, and Ray staring up at the bot silently, Sun finally removes his hands, pressing them to either side of his cheeks.
"I'll bring you two some snacks!" Sun whisper-shouts happily, Turning and sprinting to the kitchen, and back in almost 2 seconds flat, holding two baggies with tiny carrots and cookies. He holds them out to Ray, who takes them carefully with a hand, trying not to jostle the sleeping child.
Sun skips back to the other children, turning to look back at them every other second, then going back to what he was doing with more enthusiasm than before.
-x-
Calum hadn't left Ray's side the whole day, Ray had needed to pick the boy up, sneak past the other children with Calum held against his side, and snag a few colouring in pictures, blank paper and a few markers, before sneaking right back to his desk.
Going completely unnoticed within the chaos.
For the duration of his time, he sat with a clingy child in his lap, splitting his attention between the chaos that was the Superstar Daycare, and Calum, who thankfully was content to colour and draw.
As long as he was attached to Ray, he would cling even tighter if the man tried to remove him, and wide chocolate eyes would go glassy.
Ray would immediately put the child back, and said child would go right back to colouring.
Ray could easily remove the boy anyway, but that would cause the boy to cry, and he couldn't deal with that. So he resigned himself to being a pseudo teddy and chair.
Luckily, the boy had fallen asleep before his break, so he carefully brought the boy to a secluded corner at the nap time area, then he promptly left for his break.
-x-
The break consisted of him spending time with the Mini's and their dad. Of corse, they hadn't directly told him that's what they were, but he was sure. The Little things often went on excursions, either exploring, or pranking people. But they always came back to the DJ, and in turn, the DJ always took care of them.
The DJ wasn't very expressive, but Ray could tell he cared immensely for them. It was in his actions, the DJ would fidget slightly, it was almost impossible to see, but Ray noticed.
He would worry about his Eighth Notes, and whenever they were with him, he would shift closer, always keeping an eye on them.
So Ray was sure that the DJ was their parent.
Just then, Red sauntered lazily into his lap, flopping backwards against his thigh, then he stopped moving at all, looking dead to the world. Orange poked Red a few times, but the Mini didn't budge.
Ray watched the interaction, Blue dropping onto his shoulder, Purple climbing to his other. His lips twitched up softly, he supposed the Mini's were a little bit of his too.
-x-
As ray entered the daycare, he was greeted with the sight of a crying eight year old. She was screaming and slamming her fists onto the ground. Another boy was held by Sun, watery eyes turned to the screaming girl.
It was close to hometime, and hardly a minute past nap-time. How had this happened in such short time?
Dismissing his thoughts, he decided to leave Sun to his job as Daycare attendant, and the only person in the room who knew how to interact with children, to deal with whatever was happening there.
He turned his attention to the other children, who were all staring at the spectacle. But he was quick to round the children up, and let them walk out as the desk girl called out names.
Children were quick to be taken by parents, and the desk girl (Lila) was gone with the wind.
He was ready to leave, when he noticed an older woman march up to Sun, a little girl clutching onto the woman's shirt, trailing after her. The same girl who was having a tantrum, the older woman probably her mother.
The woman marched right up to Sun and started to shout. She didn't even bother to talk, just shout right at the bot. The panicking bot.
It wasn't obvious, but Sun curled in on himself slightly, and he could see that sun would try to get a word in, but the woman would shout right over him.
Ray walked right over to them, stepping in between the two. The woman stopped, glaring right at him, face red with an ugly sneer aimed at him.
"What is the problem here?" He asked politely, eyes scanning over the little girl, a smug little smirk on her face as she glared triumphantly at the Daycare attendant. Then aiming her own glare at him, the mirror of her mother.
He kept his gaze evenly on the older woman, who seemed to grow even redder with anger, but she huffed, and spoke. Her voice accusing "Your Stupid robot made my little girl cry." she gestured a hand sharply to the girl at her side, who suddenly had watery eyes, a sad expression on her face.
He could tell it was fake, she was much too young and inexperienced to hide the glee from her eyes, and the smugness she radiated. He spared the girl a glance, before simply dismissing her, and turning his attention to the woman once again.
"I appologise for the inconvenience." He offered, "But, the animatronics here at Freddy Fazbears Mega PizzaPlex are made to interact with people, and children especially. They wouldn't hurt a child." He explained calmly.
The woman's scowl deepens, "This Thing didn't hurt my child. It made her cry!" The woman screeches
He tilted his head confusedly "Then why are you here?"
She seems to pause at that, her scowl deepening as his question registered, showing her teeth in an ugly and ineffective display of intimidation.
"What do you mean, he made her cry!" She shouted, as if he were an idiot.
He glanced at the child, then at the mother, "Yes." He said, "What do you want me to do about it?"
She huffed, then crossed her arms, "I want compensation, just get rid of the stupid thing. It's just scrap metal." She demanded.
Ray could hear Sun flinch from behind him. But he kept his gaze firmly on the woman, "I apologise, but we can not scrap an animatronic over one person. Of course, not everyone will enjoy the entertainment here, or the animatronics. But that is why people are not forced to be here. If you dislike it here so much, then don't come." He explained to her.
His voice didn't change or fluctuate, he spoke calmly and clearly for the woman to hear. He looked down to the woman, who stared at him with a slightly dropped jaw. But she soon found her voice, her round face turning red with anger as her expression morphed into an ugly snarl.
"How dare you!" She swung her purse at him, the purse was large, and looked full, no doubt heavy and with the way she was swining it, it could cause a lot of damage to a person, especially if it was aimed for the face.
Which it was, if it landed, it would give him a concussion at worse, and a broken nose at best. Ray moved to the side, easily avoiding the bag that could cause him a lot of damage. The woman huffed angrily, swinging once again, and just as before, he moved out of the way.
His hand shot out and grabbed the woman by her wrist, The woman tried to pull her arm away, but it didn't budge an inch. She tried to slap him with her other hand, but he moved his head back just enough for her to miss, then took her wrist with his other hand, dragging her wrists together so he could hold her with just his left hand.
She started to scream and screech at him, trying in vain to pull herself away, he glanced at the little girl, who glared at him, but she held on to her screaming mother silently.
He used his right hand to slip the walkie-talkie from his belt, then held it to his mouth. "Requesting security at Superstar Daycare, I have detained a hostile woman." he said into it calmly.
Soon after, two men entered the daycare, being faced with the sight of a screeching woman thrashing wildly trying to yank her hands away, and an androgenous man that stood calmly, as if this was just another day.
The two said nothing as they detained the woman, but one did give Ray an amused grin before dragging the woman away, her child trailing after them.
Ray sighd once the people are gone, he wasn't used to talking that much, it was uncomfortable, and now he wanted to go home.
He turned to the large animatronic standing behind him, Sun was looking at him, pupils blown wider in a show of shock. He tilted his head slightly.
"M-Mr Ray! Sorry for the trouble, some parent's don't really like me all that much. But it's okay!." Sun's said, his hand coming up to rub at the back of his head in a display of sheepishness.
It was false though, Ray could hear the quaver in the bot's voice, and how he drooped inperceptively. Sun was putting up a cheery front, and Ray wondered how often the animatronic had to deal with things like this for him to be such a good actor.
Ray raised a hand and softly patted the bot's arm, before retracting his hand quickly, unused to contact and still uncomfortable from needing to physically interact with the woman before.
"It's fine." he said softly, he wasn't good at the whole interacting thing, so it would be obvious that he was just as bad at the whole comforting thing. "Ignore her, it doesn't matter what any random person says if they don't know you." He tried, shifting uncomfortably on his feet.
Sun perked up, "Y-yeah! Thanks Officer Ray! It's clean up time, time for me to Clean Clean Clean!" He sang as he hopped away.
Ray wasn't sure if his attempt at comforting the bot did what it was meant to, but he turned to leave the daycare. More than ready to leave, his emotional and non existent social skills spent for the next decade.