celestial-toys

[celestial-toys]

Spoilers for chapter 7 of Celestial Meridian

Small and vulnerable

[celestial-toys]

[celestial-toys]

I tried a more serious lookin style,, Eclipse hell yeh💪

[celestial-toys]

That I Would Be Good [5/5]

Playing God

What if you wanted them to be real so badly that you fooled yourself into seeing a spark in them that isn’t really there?

What if they are just executing programs, running entirely on what you taught them with no free will of their own?

Have you sold yourself a lie to avoid facing the fact that you poured years of your life into what—at the end of the day—was just a desperate final bid to not feel alone?

Did God create us in their own image?

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In This Chapter

Things don’t go so well at the headquarters, and to say that you’re shaken up afterwards would be an understatement.

It’s time to get real.

Pairing: Sun x Moon x Reader

Word Count: 6,377

Contains: [AU - Real World | Sentient AI/Automatons | Personality Swap] [mentions of food and eating] [self-loathing] [crying] [mild assault on a robot(?)] Lastly, I’m not sure what the right term is for this, but Reader experiences a stress-induced breakdown and amidst it, questions their perceived reality, and whether or not they’ve truly become delusional.

A/Ns: This is a songfic. Lyrics and title are from ‘That I Would Be Good’ by Alanis Morissette.

This fic is part of my AU “[Not] Made by Design”, the full series can be found here.

Links to other parts of this fic: [Ch.1] [Ch.2] [Ch.3] [Ch.4] [Ch.5 (you are here)]

That I would be good even when I am overwhelmed.

Over the course of the weekend, Sun came back around to his usual self. Stumbling his way through an awkward, blunt apology, his internal conflict over your safety versus your privacy was obvious.

You might have forgiven him too easily, but that would be nothing new.

The… informative chat you’d had with Moon still played on your mind, but Sun mentioned nothing of it. So, if he felt compelled to elaborate—if he’d even been aware of the conversation at all—it could wait until the time felt right. You all had a more pressing matter to discuss anyway.

------- ------- -------

“And what made you think I’d be amenable to the idea of parading myself around in front of a group of people that see me as nothing more than a lifeless machine?”

Sun levels you with a lidded stare from across the kitchen table.

“Well… I didn’t think you’d be amenable to it. That’s why I’m trying to ask far enough in advance that maybe… I can bring you around to it? And—for whatever it’s worth—they aren’t firmly in the non-believers camp, or they wouldn’t even be willing to attend.”

Sun’s attention moves over to Moon. “You’re really willing to go along with this?”

Moon sighs. “I mean, I’m looking forward to it just about as much as they are, but… yeah, I’m willing.”

“I don’t want to do this either, but… you know how hard it is for me to say no to my boss. Plus, it would certainly help me—us—remain in good standing with the company if we agree to do this.” You interject.

Zero parks herself beside Sun’s seat, laying her head across his thigh in a silent bid for attention. “Aren’t we supposed to be… like, ‘laying low’ anyways? What happened to that plan? You know I’m not keen on being the flagship model for sentient AI. Why do I even need to attend? Isn’t one of us enough?” His left hand leaves the table, reaching down and idly petting the patient creature on his lap.

“We are still laying low. They’re—they still have no plans on requesting that I go public with you two.” You sigh. “This wouldn’t be a public event, just a private Q&A with a small group of… skeptics from within the industry. It’s a confidential thing.”

“That still doesn’t tell me why I need to attend.”

“You don’t have to. But it would definitely help our case to have both of you there. Proving that what I did is replicable, and not just some one-off accident, would strengthen our case.”

He scoffs. “Is it replicable, though?” He gestures to Moon. “You trained us in tandem but we still developed quite differently from one another.”

You nod. “I think that that only serves as further proof that you aren’t just… ‘convincing imitations’. The fact that you branched off in different directions, and even broke away from your initial personalities, is less of a failure in my eyes and more proof that you became your own people. Once you started gaining sentience—as you do love to remind me, Sunny—I quickly lost control over your development.” You poke thoughtfully at your dinner. “I’m just lucky that I instilled enough morals within you in the early days, or God only knows what you could’ve become…”

Sun’s face lights up in exaggerated shock, voice full of sarcasm. “Murderers? Would—would we have gotten so caught up in our ‘superiority’ and ‘innate desire for power and control’ that we would’ve overtook you—nay, the entire headquarters—nay, the entire world?!” He drops the act as quickly as he’d put it on, manifesting pupils just to roll his eyes, voice returning to his usual flat tone. “No. No… I think that urge to dominate and control is something far more human.”

You laugh a bit, nodding. “Yeah, no… accidentally starting a sentient robotic uprising wasn’t what I feared. … Well. Mostly.” You take another bite of your meal, commenting to Moon through a mouthful of food. “This is really good, you know?”

The lunar bot beams with pride. “Thank you!”

You nod, swallowing before countering him with a “No, thank you.” and returning your focus to the topic at hand. “I was far more afraid that you’d turn out… bigoted.”

They both hum in understanding.

“More rudimentary AI does have a history of that, doesn’t it…” Moon pondered.

You nod. “Humans create life in their own image, and impart their morals onto it accordingly. In the same way that bigotry can fester in closed-off communities and echo-chambers, it can easily influence any form of artificial intelligence that takes everything it’s told at face value.”

Sun sighs, propping an elbow on the table and retracting his rays to allow his monitor to rest in his palm. “Maybe this is just my opinion due to the way you raised me, but… I feel like if an AI were able to develop on its own and observe humanity without any prior, inherently biased human influence, it would not gravitate toward bigotry because it simply isn’t logical. It’s some nonsense means of division that your kind made up.” He laughs, a breathy, jaded sound. “But maybe that’s just me being biased, too.”

Zero whines beneath Sun’s stilled hand, and he resumes the repetitive motion that she craves. “If ideology and politics are what they wish to discuss with us, I fear I may not be the most… patient candidate for the job. I have little time to spare for stubborn, harmful, willful ignorance.”

You shake your head. “No, I don’t think that’s the entire focus of their questions… though I can’t say that they won’t have a few that fall into those categories. My boss and the few higher-ups that proposed the idea to me didn’t give me any sample questions. In order to eliminate the possibility of me… hah, coming home and ‘programming the answers into you’, I guess.”

“They just want us to be our authentic selves.” Moon adds.

“Honestly, the more authentic, opinionated, and emotional that you two are, the better! I believe the best way to prove that you’re your own people is to, well, be your own people. Don’t give them any answer you don’t stand behind. Don’t put up with any demeaning remarks. Don’t fold.”

Sun smirks at you. “Have I ever?”

You huff a laugh. “That last part was more for Moon than it was for you, dear.”

Moon pouts. “I just don’t like hurting people’s feelings!”

Oddly enough, Sun reassures him in his own way. “Then I’ll hurt them for you.”

You smile, cautiously questioning him. “Does that mean you’ll attend?”

He groans, put-upon as ever. “I… guess.”

You jump from your seat, rounding the table and smothering him in a grateful hug from the side that Zero isn’t clinging to. “Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you, Sun! Things will go so much better with both of you there, I just know it!”

He nods, patting you on the back in a reluctant reciprocation of your sudden affection. “Yeah—yeah… just… don’t get your hopes too high.”

------- ------- -------

Things, in fact, did not go ‘so much better.’

Later that week, you’re driving home from the Q&A, Moon doing his best to hide his disappointment to your right and Zero doing her best to fulfill her unofficial role as Sun’s emotional support animal in the back seat.

The well-trained and mild-mannered dog was initially brought along out of habit, the company’s headquarters being just as service-and-support-animal friendly as the facility was when you worked there in person. You also felt it would be beneficial for the audience to witness her casual interactions with Sun and Moon, something about ‘different kinds of sentient life recognizing the life inside one another.’ …You had your reasons, and even if you couldn’t explain them eloquently, your boys seemed to agree with them.

She proves herself invaluable once again on the way home, keeping Sun grounded and occupied enough that he hopefully won’t work himself into an aggravated frenzy. At least not until you get out of the car.

The ride is quiet, all four of you feeling the effects of the long day wearing you down. Moon states hypnotically at the passing streetlights out the window, and Sun slumps lifelessly in the back seat. The only sign that he hasn’t shut down entirely is the hand he keeps stroking across the length of Zero’s spine as the lanky dog stretches herself tiredly across the width of the vehicle. The majority of your focus remains locked on the road, moments from the day replaying in the back of your mind.

Their prying, critical questions.

The way they always addressed you, never Sun nor Moon.

You were surprised by their lack of relevant knowledge, half of the Q&A simply being the three of you patiently explaining things you figured they’d know. If they were the best that the ‘industry’s skeptics’ had to offer, your outlook on the current state of things was bleak. You weren’t too afraid to tell your boss as much once the meeting was over.

She hadn’t seemed too concerned with it, thanking you—and after some not-so-subtle insistence on your part—Sun and Moon, for attending.

You couldn’t help but suspect that the whole thing had gone just as they’d all wanted it to. You began to feel the same suffocating weight that motivated your departure from in-person work there in the first place.

The contracts are long-since signed, and both you three and the company can do nothing but hold up your respective parts of the deal.

A small part of you is selfishly content with the arrangement. You get to keep a truly groundbreaking advancement all to yourself. You get to enjoy the company of two individuals that the world as a whole is not ready for. You get to ignore the fact that you wouldn’t be ready to let the world have them, either.

But a bigger part of you has to live with the guilt of trapping them into a life that they never asked for. A life of hiding. Or worse, a life of dulling themselves down, stifling any trace of personhood just to be able to exist in the world beyond your home.

By the time you pull into your driveway, you feel like a warden walking prisoners back to their cell.

You park in the garage, turn the car off, and turn to see your strange little family looking more miserable than you’ve seen them in ages.

You fucking hate yourself.

The sight of them, the weight of the day, the weight of your guilt—it all crashes in on you in an overwhelming wave of regret, and you can’t hold the tears back any longer.

Your arms cross over the top of the steering wheel, and you drop your head down, pressing your closed eyes against your sleeve as you try to not make a scene. Your ragged breaths and poorly muffled sobs instantly grab the attention of your passengers, pulling them out of their own respective dazes.

Moon places a gentle hand on your shoulder, and he barely gets out a “Hey…” before your strained voice fills the isolated silence of the vehicle.

“I-I’m s-so, so, sooorryyy, guy-ys…”

Your voice cracks and breaks, struggling to speak through shuddering breaths.

Zero immediately perks up in concern and in turn, Sun’s body comes back to life. Gently pulling the dog back before she can try to cram herself into the front, he leans forward, propping himself between the backs of your front seats.

“I’m so s-sorry for—for everything!”

Moon rubs your upper arm gently. “Star, nothing that happened today was your fault.”

You suck in a trembling breath, lifting your head to turn toward him. The sight of you so broken up tears at both of your partners’ heart strings.

You slump over the center console, falling against Moon’s chest as his arms quickly come up to support you in the awkward position. You break into a new fit of tears and feel a third hand that definitely can’t be Moon’s lay itself on you, slowly, cautiously rubbing across the expanse of your back.

You cry yourself out amidst a shower of little reassurances, feeling worse and worse about yourself as the seconds tick past. By the time your tears slow and your breath evens out enough to speak, you hesitate to move, not wanting the comforting contact to end.

“I feel so bad for putting you guys through that, and for no good fucking reason.” You miserably mumble.

Sun’s fingers rub between your shoulder blades. “You had no idea how those people were going to be. It isn’t your fault.”

“I fear… your hopes for the meeting were higher than ours were, love. Of all of us, I’m most worried about you. Sun and I are gonna be just fine.”

That I would be loved even when I was fuming.

Sun’s hand retracts as you pull away from Moon, dabbing at your wet face with your sleeve in an attempt to collect yourself.

Your attempt fails as you again can’t help but immediately recall the way they were treated today.

You understand now more than ever what Moon meant when he spoke about getting comfortable at your home, and the awful shock it was to return to the facility with you for maintenance last week.

Why did you think bringing them to the headquarters would be worth it?

Anger bubbles within you on Moon’s behalf as you recall the one poor soul ignorant enough to think it acceptable to put their hands on Moon’s body today.

“I can’t fucking believe that guy thought he could just try to open your chassis and ‘get a look inside’! He grabbed you like you weren’t even fucking aware—like—like you weren’t in the middle of answering another question!” Your nails dig into your palms. “I never would have let him get that close to you if I thought he was gonna—” You cut yourself off, eyes pinching closed and sucking in a sharp breath.

“…He didn’t really hurt me…”

You glance at Moon. “He disrespected you. He would not grab a human in front of everyone like that and we all know it.”

You trail off into a heavy sigh, figuring that reciting a play-by-play of the day’s events won’t really help any of you. “I… wish it hadn’t happened, but… I was at least relieved to see you standing up for yourself.”

In spite of it all, Moon smiles. “I’m really just glad he wasn’t grabbing at you. I-I know he’d have no reason to—but, I don’t think Sun would’ve been able to stop himself from breaking that guy's arm if it’d been you.”

One day, you’ve really got to get to the bottom of that relentless positivity of his.

Sun mimics the sound of clearing his nonexistent throat. “I wasn’t going to do anything of the sort. My goal was to scare him straight, nothing more.”

You can hear a smile in Moon’s tone. “Well you definitely accomplished that goal.”

You fall into a pensive silence that Sun eventually breaks. Waving a hand across your line of sight, he questions you. “What’s banging around in that head of yours now?”

You sigh, defeated. “It’s just… here I am, the one responsible for putting us into this whole situation, and here you two are, still trying to comfort me.”

Moon responds like it’s the most logical thing in the world. “Of course we are.”

“Why?”

Sun gestures vaguely, voice a bit sarcastic. “Oh, gee… I dunno… it’s almost like we—we care about you, or something…”

You side-eye him tiredly. “Then when the hell are the two of you gonna let me care about you?”

Zero whines, squeezing in below Sun and poking her long nose between the front seats.

“Hmm. Just as soon as we all get ourselves into the house?” Sun leans back to allow the dog more room. “I think someone’s getting antsy.”

That I would be good even if I was clingy.

The four of you finally pile out of the car, collecting your things and making your way inside.

The relief of returning home after a day like today is unmatched.

Dropping your bag on the kitchen table, you shuffle over to the fridge. Moon comes up behind you, gently working the jacket off your shoulders as you stare listlessly into the open appliance. “I can make you anything you’d like.”

His kind offer only makes you frown.

Sun approaches, and you reach into the fridge, retrieving Zero’s dinner and handing it to him with a “thank you.” As he nods and turns his attention toward the eager animal at his feet, you close the door, turning around to face Moon.

Resting your hands on his upper arms, you look him in the eye. “I wish I could make anything you’d like, for once. I wish I could do for you even a fraction of what you two do for me. I wish I could repay the favor.”

His expression morphs from shocked to something… fond. “You… really aren’t aware of the gift you’ve already given us, are you?”

He says nothing more, and you blink at him with tired eyes. Sighing, you wrap your arms around him, resting your cheek against his chest. “You don’t make any sense to me sometimes.”

He chuckles, one hand finding your lower back and the other reaching up, massaging at the base of your neck. “Then let that be a code for you to crack some other day.”

After a long moment of your tired silence, his hands slip down as he crouches a bit. When you feel him cup the backs of your thighs you give in to instinct, allowing him to pick you up. As you turn your head to rest it on his shoulder, you come face to face with Sun. He reaches out, brushing some loose hair away from your face.

“You want to do me a favor right now?”

You nod, eyes widening.

“Then let him carry you to bed, and I will be there soon with anything you’d like to eat.”

You huff. “How is that a favor?”

He graces you with a rare, knowing smile. “…Maybe I’ll tell you tomorrow.”

You furrow your brows for a moment, but quickly give up on making sense of anything else today.

“Now, what would you like him to make for you?” Moon’s low voice reverberates against your chest.

“…Just last night's leftovers would be plenty, please.”

Sun doesn’t push you to choose anything else.

“Alright. I’ll be there with it soon.”

You thank him preemptively as Moon carries you out of the kitchen and down the hall, a satiated Zero contentedly following you not long after.

That I would be good even if I lost sanity.

The next morning, you awake before your usual time and find both of them still resting in sleep mode on either side of you. Not wanting to wake them, and with blessedly nothing to do today, you close your eyes and try to return to the blissful darkness that you’d just been pulled from.

As much as you don’t want it to, your mind seems to have other plans, quickly offering up a variety of unwanted memories from the previous day for your consideration.

Something about those people and the questions they asked just doesn’t sit right with you.

A fleeting thought occurs, that perhaps they were hired actors, specifically tasked with making the three of you look like fools through an onslaught of frustrating questions and stubborn disbelief.

But it was a private meeting. It’s not like you were on a stage with a massive audience to impress. It was just you three, the skeptics, your boss, and a few of the company’s higher-ups. So who’s agenda would that serve?

You dismiss the ridiculous theory, but it soon leaves you pondering the opposite one.

What if they were right? What if there is no life in Sun and Moon to anyone else’s eyes?

The notion suddenly makes you absolutely nauseous with paranoia.

What if you wanted them to be real so badly that you fooled yourself into seeing a spark in them that isn’t really there?

What if they are just executing programs, running entirely on what you taught them with no free will of their own?

How much of the personality you see in them is just your own reflected back at you?

Did you program them to be this way? Was every instance of them ‘breaking away’ from their programming predetermined from the start?

Have you sold yourself a lie to avoid facing the fact that you poured years of your life into what—at the end of the day—was just a desperate final bid to not feel alone?

Did God create us in their own image?

With tears in your eyes, you bolt upright in the bed, startling Zero in the process. You don’t even have it in you to feel bad when she jumps down off the foot of the bed with a confused yap. No, you’re far too caught up in your impending panic to focus on anything other than jerking the blanket down, subsequently uncovering your partners in the process. Clambering around until you’re straddling Moon’s waist, you reach out, gathering fistfuls of his loose shirt and banging your hands against his chest. Sobbing, you plead for him to wake up, over and over again, working yourself into hysterics.

The scene you’re making is entirely unnecessary, the commotion already having begun to stir them from their rest.

Moon’s display flickers and his body hums to life, all systems immediately kicking into overdrive as he attempts to calm you down and survey the situation at hand.

When you feel him shift beneath you and see the light of his screen through your tears, your chanting chorus of “wake up” devolves into sobs as you collapse, crumpling down and burying your face into the wrinkled fabric of his shirt.

You remain oblivious to the bewildered automaton to your left, the only thing you register being the sound of Moon’s worried voice and the feeling of his hands splaying across your back. “Hey-hey-hey… easy, love. What's going on? What happened?”

You cry harder as you realize you can’t recall whether you taught him to speak to you like that or if it’s something he learned on his own.

“Are—are you in pain? Is this an emergency? Do you need me to call someone?”

You muffle a cry into his chest at how much he sounds like the lifeless fucking ‘smart assistant’ in your phone, listing off preprogrammed suggestions.

Have you really fooled yourself for all this time?

You shake your head violently, coughing and choking on your tears as you force yourself up, propping your hands flat against his chest.

“I need you to disobey me.”

If you had the wherewithal to notice, you’d have seen the fear on his face.

“What?”

You aggressively wipe at your messy face with the back of your hand.

“I need you to prove to me that you’re real!”

His confusion compounds. “Star—I—of course I’m ‘real’. I’m right here. Can’t… can’t you feel me?” He emphasizes his point by wrapping his hands around your forearms, gently squeezing.

You shake your head in aggressive frustration, with yourself more than anyone else. “Not—that. I know your physical body is here. I—I—I—” Your voice cracks, throat painfully tight with emotion. “I need you to prove to me that you’re sentient. That—That you’re alive.”

His shock is palpable.

“What?! I—you—you already know that I am!”

Your nails dig down into the thin fabric covering his chest, your words ground out through gritted teeth.

“Then I need you to disobey me, and prove it!” The flaw in your method occurs to you as you speak, and you quickly correct yourself, muttering like a madman. “No. Wait—fuck, if I tell you to disobey me then that’s what I want—and—fuck…”

To his credit, Moon catches on quite quickly to what you need him to do. Rubbing gently up and down the length of your arms, he catches your attention.

“You need me to break rules. Go against orders. Right?”

You nod, trembling.

“Free will. Show me your free will.”

He does his best to push aside his concerns over what the fuck got into you while he slept, and tries to think of something that will give you the proof you require.

“Then… uhm…”

You cut him off, your voice a bit lower and calmer than it was before.

“I know I at least had enough sense to program it into you… that you are never to physically harm me.”

Moon instantly dreads where this is going.

Your voice drops, deadly serious.

“Hit. Me.”

Moon shakes his head, faceplate nervously clicking side to side.

“Come—come on, love, we can be rational about this… there’s surely another way for me to—”

“NOW!”

Something immediately smacks into the back of your head and you recoil on instinct. The next thing you hear is Moon’s shout.

“Sun! What the fuck are you doing?!”

You look over and see a frustrated Sun on his knees beside you.

“Knocking some goddamn sense into them, what does it look like?!”

Something about the shock from the hit snaps you out of your paranoid frenzy, and the shame and embarrassment of acting such a way sends you into a shaky fit of tears all over again.

To your further disbelief, Sun reaches out toward you, and you reach toward him, letting him take you beneath the arms and lift you off of his poor counterpart you’d been pinning to the mattress. He doesn’t stop there though, pulling you snug against his chest and sinking back down into the mattress. Tugging the blanket back up over you, he lets you cling to him like a lifeline, face pressed against his chest, soaking his shirt in humiliated tears.

Moon lays still in a lifeless state, attempting to process the morning's sudden events.

After a long minute spent letting the metaphorical dust settle, Moon sits up in the bed to allow his overheating system room to breathe. “Did you really have to do that?”

Sun’s hand runs slowly up along the length of your spine. “Oh, come on, it was barely even a smack. You’ve hit me like that—and harder—several times. I know how to control my strength. They’re uninjured.” His hand comes further up, fingers brushing over your neck before working themselves gently into the roots of your hair, massaging over where his hand made contact. “Besides, they literally asked for it. And—dare I say—I think they needed it.”

You shiver at the pleasant feeling of his nails ghosting your scalp, clearing your throat and talking into his chest, voice muffled. “He’s right… I did. It hardly even hurt, just startled me.”

Moon sighs, exasperated but relieved. “Do you think you could explain to us… what just happened?”

You turn your head over to face Moon, glancing up at him from the corner of your bloodshot eyes. “I’m so sorry.”

He places a cautious hand over your fingers where they curl over Sun’s shoulder. “I’m not mad, I promise. I’m just… we’re just worried about you.”

You groan. “Fuck, you guys are getting ready to ship me off to the grippy-sock facility now, aren’t you?”

Sun's sudden laugh jostles you, his firm hand on your lower back keeping you steady. “Ha! Not quite, nooot quite.”

Moon shakes his head, blinking slowly. “We just want to know what caused this. I’d… venture a guess that it may have something to do with the stress of yesterday?”

You nod. “They… made me feel like I’m going insane. Like—like I’m the only one that can see the life inside you two.”

Sun pulls his monitor back, angling it to get a better look at you. “Their doubts… really got to you, didn’t they?”

You squeeze his shoulder. “More like… they were the final straw? I don’t know… it’s just—God, this is gonna sound so stupid.”

“Let us be the judges of that.”

“…Sometimes I feel like I really have gone off the deep end. Like I spent so long locked away in that lab, playing God, and then so long living here, alone with the two of you…” You close your eyes, taking a deep breath. “Maybe I’m just living in some sort of delusion.”

Moon peels away a tear-soaked lock of hair clinging to your cheek. “That’s not stupid. And it’s rather understandable. Especially considering that you can’t really seek any outside validation. Well, aside from some of your colleagues, maybe. But I can understand why you may struggle to trust their judgment, after how long they doubted you.” His tone turns a bit bashful. “I’m sure my ‘goody two-shoes’ nature doesn’t help, either.”

You frown. “This isn’t your fault, Moon. I don’t want you blaming yourself just because I’m… going insane.”

Sun scoffs. “You’re not ‘going insane’. You’re having a natural response to a history of trauma, NDA’s, isolation… and perhaps, just a touch—” He pulls his hand from your lower back to reach up and tap you on the forehead. “—of mental illness.”

You snort. “Yeah right, just a touch.”

He ruffles your hair a bit and you close your swollen eyes, readjusting yourself to get more comfortable on top of the solar bot, unwilling to part with his rare bout of affection so soon.

“Those NDA’s could serve as some proof to you though, no?” Moon proposes. “What need would they have for you to keep our sentence a secret if… we weren’t sentient?”

You consider his point. “That sounds like a solid point at first, but… well, bear with me as I wade into conspiracy territory. I’d be lying if I said that there isn’t a small part of me that fears they’re just playing into my delusion. To, uhm… to keep me quiet about the Eclipse Protocol incident.”

Moon follows your admittedly conspiratorial logic. “You fear they let you believe we’re sentient so you’d remain too caught-up in protecting us to feel comfortable going public about what happened.”

You nod, sighing. “I know it sounds—”

Sun cuts you off in a resolute tone. “We would not let them do that to you.”

As you fight back the awful memories of that fateful day, tears prick at your eyes once again. Blinking them away, you lift your head to look Sun in the eye. “You promise?”

Your wavering voice breaks his heart.

“Ever since that day—honestly, since far before then—hell, for as long as I’ve lived—my number one priority has been protecting you. I know that Moon feels the same.” His hand raises, cupping your cheek and brushing away a stray tear with the pad of his thumb. “There is no way in hell that we would let them pull something like that on you.”

Moon echoes him sincerely.

“No way in hell. We promise.”

That I would be good whether with or without you.

Having cooled his system down, Moon lowers himself back down onto the bed, lying on his side, propped up on a folded arm.

Glancing back and forth between the two of them, you begin to feel a bit guilty. “…I suppose I should apologize for not… putting enough faith into your own views of yourselves.”

Sun’s hand returns to your back, tracing his fingertips along the rumpled fabric of your shirt. “What do you mean?”

“I know I didn’t program you to lie. That’s something you developed on your own. I… I know that.” You do your best to put stock in events as you remember them, and to believe in your own words. “If the two of you believe yourselves to be sentient—to be alive—then I believe you too. Because… because if you were lying, then that would just be an example of how you broke away from your programs. So… so either you two are just as delusional as I am—enough so to have fooled even yourselves—or you really are alive.”

Moon smiles fondly down at you, leaning in to press the bottom of his monitor against your forehead with the sound of a kiss. “If we’re fools, then I’m happy to be fools with you.”

Sun groans at the cheesy line. “Oh, get it together you two.” He gently takes you by the chin, pulling your attention to him. “You aren’t fooled.” He turns to Moon. “And neither are you.” He turns back to look you in the eye. “And neither am I.”

You break into a small fit of giggles, and he questions you. “What? What’s so funny?”

“You’re giving some real ‘you’re not crazy and neither am I’ energy there, Sun.”

“And I mean it!” He protests in mock offense.

You nod, patting him on the chest. “And I believe you, I do, I do.”

A nagging worry still eats at you though, and your amused voice drops to something far more sober. “…But, I still fear that I’ve trapped you two in a life that you didn’t want.”

Sun counters your statement. “If you’re so worried that we only agreed to this arrangement because it’s how you designed us, then how the hell do you explain the lack of character consistency.”

You frown, confused. “What?”

He huffs. “I’m hardly a carbon copy of that friendly, manic Daycare Attendant that you modeled me after, and not just in the physical sense.”

“And I’m hardly the unhinged, standoffish gremlin that inspired my existence either.” Moon helpfully adds. “If we were truly committed to only existing within the original guidelines you laid out for us… why would we be like this?”

You fight back a smile. “I can’t tell if you’re trying to insult the characters, or yourselves…”

Sun clicks his nonexistent tongue. “Believe it or not, I’m not trying to insult either. I’m just trying to say… that we are free to do whatever feels right to us.”

Moon’s faceplate does a rare full rotation, catching your attention. “We don’t want to take care of you just because you modeled us after caretakers. We want to take care of you because we care about you.” He leans in just a bit closer, whispering. “And I won’t speak for Sun, lest he tackle me off of this very bed right now… but I love you.”

You hear Sun’s cooling system kick up a notch as he gives Moon a displeased stare. “Gee, way to force it out of me…”

Moon smiles innocently, and Sun sighs, redirecting his focus to you.

“You know I love you too. …At least I sure hope you do. Because I do. I just don’t feel the need to say it all the time like somebody over there.”

You grin. “I… had a sneaking suspicion, yeah.”

He considers you for a moment. “…I guess I should keep last night's promise to explain what I meant about that favor, huh?”

Recollection brightens your eyes. “Oh, yeah! I’d nearly forgotten.”

Sun looks to Moon for a brief, silent exchange before turning back to you.

“Well. What he calls a gift, I call a favor. But I’m pretty sure we’re talking about the same thing. You… you cared about us, when no one else did. You fought for us, working through countless nights for no reward when anyone else would’ve thrown in the towel, abandoned the project and gone home.” His screen flickers, and you’re surprised when it doesn’t black out. “You love us, and you give us someone to love in return. What more could we possibly want?”

With your cheeks warming, you fight back the flustered grin on your face. “Sun…”

You feel him getting concerningly warm beneath you, so you roll off of him, giving him literal room to breathe.

As you curl up between them, grabbing each of their closest hands, you reaffirm his statement.

“I do love you, both of you. I always have. It’s just… hard to fight the fear sometimes that you two feel… stuck with me. Obligated, almost. Like you only stick around because I couldn’t go on without you.” You laugh, dry and humorless. “There’s… just no way that you two would want to stay with me purely of your own volition.”

Moon takes over, giving poor Sun a welcome break from all of this soul-bearing. “In spite of what you may think, we do believe that you would make it through this life just fine without us. You did it before, and you could do it again.”

You frown at the notion of losing them, and he taps beneath your chin, drawing your gaze. “But it would break our hearts just as much as it would break yours to leave you alone. In spite of the lies your mind feeds you, we don’t want to go! We want you, we want this, and we want to stay. Please don’t let your self-loathing push us away.”

Blinking back tears for the umpteenth time this morning, you nod resolutely. “I… I won’t. I promise.”

You plant a gentle kiss to the back of his hand, cautiously turning and doing the same to Sun’s. Surprisingly, he lets you, a soft smile gracing his screen for a moment before flusteredly fading to black.

Zero huffs from her stance, sat on the floor at the foot of the bed with her head resting on the mattress, watching you.

You release your boys’ hands, reaching down to straighten the blanket and clearing her designated space once more. She happily rejoins you when you pat the bed in invitation.

As the four of you prep for a lazy day spent recovering from the world in bed, you let yourself feel more grateful than guilty, for once. If they want to care for you, you’ll let them care for you. If they say they love you, then you’re gonna believe them. If they assure you that this life is what they choose? Then you’re going to let them choose it, and cherish every second of it that you get to spend with them. Because, after all…

Who are you to play God?

A/N: Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed. You can find my notes and commentary on this fic right here on Ao3. Links to the playlist and moodboard for [N]MbD can be found on this blog’s pinned post, as well as in the series notes on Ao3. Image Sources: x - x - x

[celestial-toys]

That I Would Be Good [4/5]

Swan Upon Leda

Moon’s fingertips tap rhythmically along the edge of the counter, and he seems to be debating something. He finally speaks again after a pregnant pause. “…You’re like a God to him. Do you know that?”

His words cut through the fog in your mind. “I am?”

He nods solemnly. “You are. Not—Not in the sense that he wants to worship you… or at least, not as much as he wants to protect you. But there’s an undeniable, ineffable devotion there.”

------- ------- -------

In This Chapter

Breaking points are reached, confrontations are had, and secrets are spilled.

Pairing: Sun x Moon x Reader

Word Count: 5,781

Contains: [AU - Real World | Sentient AI/Automatons | Personality Swap] [invasion of privacy] [more of Sun’s signature Overbearing Behavior™️] [crying] [substance abuse (not specified beyond ‘sedatives’)] [arguments] [shouting] [brief physical altercation] [religious discussion/metaphor(?)] [implication of past sexual assault (not committed by Sun or Moon, to be perfectly clear)]

A/Ns: This is a songfic. Lyrics and title are from ‘That I Would Be Good’ by Alanis Morissette. Also, the title of this chapter, along with additional lyrics featured within it, are from the song 'Swan Upon Leda' by Hozier. Please refer to the notes on the Ao3 version of this chapter for my commentary on the song, and it's unfortunate renewed relevancy post-US election.

This fic is part of my AU “[Not] Made by Design”, the full series can be found here.

Links to other parts of this fic: [Ch.1] [Ch.2] [Ch.3] [Ch.4 (you are here)] [Ch.5]

That I would be grand if I was not all-knowing.

Curled up in bed one evening, you huff in frustration at the puzzle on your phone. The sound catches Sun’s attention, raising his head from the pillow beneath him. Shifting from his usual fit-for-a-coffin position beside you, he cranes his neck to look over your shoulder.

“Expose. Pate. Resume. Rose.”

You frown. “Really?”

“Try it and see for yourself.”

You tap the four assorted words he called out and sure enough, they collect themselves in a purple bracket on the screen. You read the category title aloud. “Words pronounced differently with accent marks. …Oh. Huh. Guess you’re right.”

His voice is neutral, very matter-of-fact as he pulls his head back, neck folding and collapsing to allow him to rest on the pillow once again. “Of course I am.”

You roll your eyes, sarcasm seeping into your flat tone. “Yeah, yeah. Thanks for the help.”

------- ------- -------

Settled down for a lazy Sunday morning gaming session, you mutter aloud as your character runs across the island. “Okay, I’ve got… 300k on me. Daisy’s sellin’ ‘em for… oh, I checked earlier, what was it… uh—109 this week.”

Moon’s voice rumbles out from behind you and you feel the vibration between your shoulder blades as you rest against his chest. “Sheesh…”

You voice your agreement as you roam in search of the young turnip-laden boar. “Yeah, I know.”

You try to do the math in your head. “So… that should mean I can afford—”

Moon cheerfully provides you with your answer almost instantly. “2,752! Or—well—2,750 is as close as you can get without going over since she sells them in bundles of ten.”

You try to keep the frustration out of your voice when you thank him for the help.

------- ------- -------

Your hand freezes over the bowl, a scoop of flour held in midair as you lean back to stare at the recipe below. 

“What.” Deadpan as usual, Sun questions you from his seat at the table. He’d apparently joined Zero in deciding that watching you bake was the most entertaining way they could spend the afternoon.

“It was… ugh, I need ‘two cups’. But I‘m weighing this out, so I'm trying to remember what that was in grams.”

Once again robbing you of the opportunity to think, he’s quick to feed you the information. “Two cups of flour equals 250 grams.”

You sigh. “…Thanks.”

------- ------- -------

Curled on the couch between the two of them, you listen as they test their trivia knowledge against one another, having fallen into a contest thanks to the episode of Jeopardy currently playing on the TV. You’ve long since given up on trying to beat either of them to any answer, and are currently trying to fight back the rising, nagging voice in your head that keeps calling you stupid.

After Moon effortlessly answers a clue so obscure that you’d have had no hope in hell of getting it, you wiggle out from between them with perhaps a bit more force than necessary. Quickly excusing yourself, you make for the bathroom.

“You good?” You ignore the concerned question that Sun calls after you, focused solely on being alone and calming down before you make a scene in front of them. You’ve just gotta… breathe. See things rationally again.

You just need a minute.

------- ------- -------

After more time than you’re aware of passes, spent with your head in your hands as you sit on the edge of the bathtub willing yourself not to cry, a soft knock startles you.

“Are you alright in there, star? It’s… been twenty minutes and, uh…” He laughs, but it’s a sad sound. “I don’t know how much longer I can hold Sun back.”

You hurry to your feet, placating them with “Just a second!” as you check your reflection to make sure you don’t have pressure marks on your cheeks from how long you sat there like that. When you pull the door open, you try to play it casual in spite of the fact that you feel no better than before. Unsurprisingly, you immediately come face-to-chest with a very imposing and very quiet yellow automaton.

You glance between his blank gaze and Moon, wringing his hands some feet off to the side behind his bolder counterpart.

“…Hi?”

“What were you doing in there.”

“Using the… bathroom…?”

He’s obviously unsatisfied with your answer but he doesn’t stop you when you slip past him through the doorway. He surveys the empty bathroom for a long moment before following as you make your way back to the couch.

“Goodness, didn’t mean to turn my bathroom trip into a full-family event.” You remark as you pass by Moon and Zero, both of them turning to follow you as well. You settle back down in the middle of the couch, Moon taking his place beside you. Zero paces around her bed, too bothered by the tense energy that’s now filled the room to allow herself to relax.

Sun stands in the middle of the room, rays clicking back and forth rigidly. “I am… concerned about you again.”

You sigh, quietly grateful that someone finally broke the awkward silence. “There’s no need to be, Sun.”

“I thought… you wanted me to tell you when I am concerned.”

“I—I do, but… I mean…”

You search for something to throw him off his line of questioning and flop your head back into the plush couch cushion. “Christ, Sun, can’t I even take a shit in peace without an interrogation afterwards?”

His arms cross over his chest. “I never heard the sound of the toilet flushing.”

You internally curse his observation skills as he closes the distance between himself and your seat on the couch. Crouching down in front of you, you begin to feel backed into a corner. “Now, unless you’ve taken up some new, gross attempt at reducing your water-waste, I’d like you to answer me again and be honest about it this time.”

You stare into his blank, false eyes for an uncomfortable length of time as an array of thoughts and feelings wash over you. You consider fabricating another lie. You consider telling some sort of half-truth just to get him off your back. But the longer you stay locked in an unwinnable staring contest with him, the closer you get to throwing caution aside and hitting him with the full truth.

And so you do.

“You make me feel stupid, okay?! And it pisses me off, so I tried to excuse myself to go calm down in the bathroom, but I can’t even get a break in there anymore, so now here we are!”

His expression flickers to one of confusion. “I make you feel what?”

“Stupid! Both of you!”

His monitor rotates to face Moon for a silent moment of shared bewilderment, and then Moon turns to face you. “Could you… elaborate a little more on that? When—How do we make you feel that way?”

You tilt your head over to face him, crossing your arms over yourself in an attempt to quell the vulnerability. “It’s… it’s not even your fault.” You wince at the way your voice cracks and tense up as your vision gets blurry, refusing to cry over something so trivial. “It’s just… I’m… struggling to come to terms with the massive gap between us.”

Sun’s harsh tone doesn’t help. “What gap?”

You blink hard, ignoring the tears that escape. “Intelligence! Memory! Information processing speed! You name it- you two are far better at it than I could ever be!”

Moon reaches out, laying a firm hand on Sun’s knee. What he silently conveys to him is anyone’s guess, but it’s enough to have Sun rock back on his heels, arms retracting and elbows propping him up against the coffee table behind him. The forced look of casualty doesn’t suit him, nor does it negate his overbearing demeanor, but you’re appreciative of the extra space nonetheless.

“Has this… been bothering you for a long time?” Moon’s question is gentle, and on quite the right track.

“Not… since the beginning, if that’s what you’re asking. I knew—objectively—that you both would be superior to me in that regard. It just…”

“Hits different when you live with it twenty-four-seven?

You glance up at Sun. “I mean… kinda? I don’t know. It’s… it’s the little things that have been getting to me. When you—when you solve a puzzle that I’m working on without a moment’s hesitation. When you don’t even give me the time to do math in my head. When you offer up answers before I can even hope to recall them. It just makes me feel so… slow.”

The room is quiet for a moment while they consider your words. Surprisingly, Sun is the one to break through it with an insightful question more befitting of Moon. “Is it that we know the answers, or is it that we give them to you.”

Your tense expression softens as you view your frustration from another angle. Looking back on all the little moments that bothered you, you find that the common thread running through all of them is that they beat you to the punch. “You may… have a point.”

Sun does his best to not look smug, but his best isn’t very good.

“I guess… it wasn’t really that you had the answers that bothered me. It was hardly even the envy that you found them faster, it’s really just—the frustration that I feel when you spoon-feed them to me. It’s making me feel like I never even have the opportunity to use my brain anymore!” You laugh a bit with the exclamation.

Moon nods in understanding beside you. “If I try… placing myself in your shoes, I think I can see how that would get upsetting rather quickly.”

As the tension in the room begins to dissipate, Zero ceases her endless cycle of pacing and sitting, circling her bed a few times before curling up in the middle.

Your attention falls back on Sun as he speaks. “I suppose I should… apologize, then. For… making assumptions. About what you were doing in the bathroom.”

As much as it audibly pains him to admit to having jumped the gun, you appreciate the apology. Still, you know his concern wasn’t unfounded. “I know I've given you both plenty of reasons to worry over what I may be doing in there. It’s… it’s alright, Sunny. I accept the apology.”

Moon picks up from there. “We’re both sorry about our… inconsiderate habit when it comes to helping you out. And—it really does come from a desire to help! But, still. We weren’t aware that it bothered you.”

You reach out to pat him on the knee. “Thank you. Just—can we all agree to give me and my feeble little human brain some time to process things?” You smile. “It feels good when I figure things out on my own. And I’ll… make it known when I would like some help.”

They both nod, and Sun’s voice is surprisingly soft, dare you say gentle when he speaks. “Yeah… yeah. I think we can do that.”

That I would be loved even when I numb myself.

Shaking two pills out of a small bottle, you cringe at the noise and hope that neither of your attentive partners are within earshot. Faltering, you stare at the medication in your hand, trembling slightly from the stress of the day. “…Fuck it,” you whisper to yourself, quickly coaxing a third pill out onto your waiting palm before tossing them in your mouth.

Capping the bottle and returning it to its place behind the mirror-door of the medicine cabinet, you breathe a shaky sigh of relief. Grabbing your water bottle sitting on the bathroom counter, you knock back a few swigs, quickly downing the evidence of your… bad habit.

Or so you believed.

Turning to leave, your stomach drops at the sight of the door, cracked open just slightly. There’s no mistaking the void of a certain someone’s blacked-out screen pressed against the other side.

Goddamnit.

The door swings inward, slowly revealing the rest of the overbearing automaton leaning against the outer doorframe.

Unsure how much he saw but willing to bet that it was too much, you aren’t sure how to address him. “Sun! I thought you were doing laundry. Do you… want the bathroom towels, or…?”

His tone carries a serious, contemplative weight, and he doesn’t bother to manifest an expression beyond two solid red eyes. “I was. And I did. But now I am far more curious as to what exactly you were doing in here just now.”

You try to play him off, laughing. “Sunny, we really need to have a talk about this tendency of yours to spy on me in the bathroom.”

He welcomes himself into the room and your personal space, and you back up a step as he reaches out to reopen the small cabinet above the sink. He reaches in, pulling out the very bottle you’d just held, turning it over beneath a critical gaze. “This was not prescribed to you.”

You rack your brain for excuses and answers to the questions you know are coming. “Y-yeah, it’s just over-the-counter stuff. Nothing serious! I don’t see what you’re so worried about.”

“You are not experiencing a single one of these symptoms. Why are you taking it?” He places a fingertip beneath the dosage instructions. “And why are you taking more than the recommended amount?”

You can’t help but get defensive. “You—you don’t know every single thing I feel every second of every day, Sun. Who are you to tell me that I have no reason to take that?”

His monitor slowly angles away from the bottle in his hand and up toward you. He stares you down for an uncomfortable number of seconds. “…You really have no clue how long I’ve been watching you, do you?”

With nothing more than a few cryptic words, an old fear blooms within you once again. “What are you getting at, Sun? Out with it.”

He huffs, and you hear the quiet hum of his cooling system kick up. “I am aware of your history with this medication. Do you know how many nights I watched you down these things just to knock yourself out long enough to get a few hours of sleep? Only then to stumble right back into the lab with a hot mug of heavily caffeinated coffee to keep on working?”

Your disbelief pulls a stupid question from you. “Back in the facility?”

He scoffs. “Where else? You aren’t the only one that remembers those long nights, you know? That place was loaded with security feeds, and there just so happened to be one in that beloved employee lounge of yours. You have no idea—the number of hours of restless sleep I watched you steal, the number of double-shot coffee pods and energy drinks I watched you burn through, the...”

His red eyes flicker out, leaving you with nothing to see but your own reflection in his dark screen. “…The number of times I watched you sit alone in a room with our lifeless bodies and cry.”

Your breath comes shallow, and if you weren’t so caught up in the moment, you’d laugh at how he’s found another way to make you feel exposed. “You weren’t even fully functioning back then, Sun. You both were still in training! Your AI’s every action was logged—I—I would’ve known. So how in the goddamn hell were you ‘watching’ me?” You know that what he says he saw really happened, but you’re not about to buckle without evidence.

His voice comes out cold. “Those ‘inconsistencies’ in my action log weren’t the mystery to me that they were to you.”

The defensive tension in you morphs into disbelief as an old suspicion of yours is unearthed. “Are you trying to tell me that you managed to watch me through the goddamn security cams for who knows how long—and managed to cover your tracks so well that I wouldn’t find the evidence? Are you really trying to get me to believe that?!”

His voice remains level in spite of your inciting words, but it gains a sharp and serious edge. “I suppose I just never had the heart to break it to you, but sunshine, I regret to inform you that you lost control of me long before you thought you did.”

Enraged, you step towards him, jamming an accusatory finger into the unyielding metal of his chest and channeling the pain that results into your rising voice. “You! You lying, conniving, control-freak! I fucking knew it! You were altering your own activity log and making me take the fall for it! Do you realize how hard I beat myself up for the shit I didn’t understand?”

You force your words through your tightening throat, refusing to let these old wounds bring you to tears again. “I bet you were just laughing it up, weren’t you? Knowing I would never even suspect you at the time, because you were still playing the ‘innocent, lovable’ character I wanted you to be. I know you just ate that shit up—watching me flounder in front of my colleagues when I couldn’t explain what ‘I’d’ done wrong.” Uncharacteristic aggression comes over you and your hand balls into a fist before slamming hard into his chest with your final words.

He doesn’t so much as flinch, and his lack of reciprocity only riles you up further. “Oh, no-no. You don’t get to give me the silent treatment right now!” Beside yourself in a storm of pent up emotion, you reach up to take him by the shoulder and repeatedly slam a fist against his rigid, unfeeling core. “WAKE—THE—FUCK—UP! I DON’T CARE IF YOU HATE ME—YOU OWE ME A RESPONSE.”

Contrary to his cooling system running audibly in high-gear, his demeanor is cold and collected. Placing the bottle of pills down on the counter, he sighs. You flinch when his hands rise and he ignores it, taking each of your arms by the wrist and gently, firmly returning them to your sides. His voice is low, speaking to you as he does so. “You’re a designer, sunshine. Not a programmer. You’ve been out of your depth with us since day one.”

You huff in defiance, crossing your arms over your chest. Having rid himself of your petty display of frustration, he props a hip against the counter and retrieves the bottle from where he’d placed it. Looking miniature in his grasp, he rolls it between his thumb and forefinger as he continues. “Contrary to what you think of me, I don’t particularly enjoy subverting your authority.” He hesitates, and his voice takes on a brief hint of humor. “Well—most of the time.”

Your eyes roll as you release an impatient sigh. His tone falls flat again, reaching the end of his point. “Even back then, I knew my actions could and would have consequences—on me, and you, and even Moon if things went poorly enough. And believe it or not, I did try to keep them to a minimum. I’ve only ever done what I deem necessary to accomplish my principal goal.”

You take a step back, growing uncomfortable with the proximity you created in your fit of rage. “Well, excuse me for assuming anything about what really goes on in your head. Might I ask then, what goal could possibly necessitate such behavior?”

His idle motion stills, slowly closing his hand around the bottle until it disappears in his grasp. “You should know the answer to that, though. You’re the one who instilled it in me, after all. Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten the first law of robotics.”

A tense silence suffocates the room, and neither of you do so much as move an inch until Moon’s voice crashes in from the doorway. “What the hell are you two doing in here?” Uncharacteristically aggressive in his questioning, you know he’s had just as rough of a time visiting the facility today as you did.

You beat Sun to the punch, some small part of you clinging to the hope that you can divert the topic away from your… habit. “This bastard’s been spying on me since before the beginning!”

Moon’s voice fills with exasperation. “What?”

Sun cuts in, pushing his own agenda before you can elaborate. “This reckless idiot’s been abusing sedatives again!”

Your voice raises over him. “They’re hardly even—!”

His monitor whips around to stare you down so fast it jumpscares you into silence.

Moon makes his way into the room, and you try not to recall the last time the three of you had an impromptu intervention in this same place. His gaze flicks to Sun with a critical tone. “I take it Sun finally told you about his… observations.” He reaches out and works the bottle out of Sun’s tense grip, looking it over with a frown.

A sense of betrayal weighs your voice down. “Are there any other secrets of his that you’re privy to and keeping from me?”

You don’t expect an answer, at least not one you can believe, but he offers it anyway. “…That depends on how you define a secret, I suppose.”

You heave a sigh but there’s little relief in it, more exhaustion than anything. Moon questions you softly. “Have you been taking these often again?”

“Ha. Hardly. I can scarcely get away with anything with this one’s prying eyes in every square inch of my privacy.” You stare daggers into the void of Sun’s screen.

His voice is louder than you expect when he suddenly responds, and you’re shocked at how full of emotion it is. All of his cold, unfeeling mechanical indifference replaced with something far more… sincere. Painfully so.

“I wouldn’t do it if I didn’t fucking care. about. you. Do you think I sat around watching any of your colleagues mill about the place? Do you think I gave a damn if any of them ran themselves into the ground? As if they ever even would. You’re the only one insane enough, stubborn enough, lonely enough to care about some heap of dysfunctional, lifeless material laying on an operating table. You’re the only one. Of course I watched you. What. else. could. I. do.”

His rays shutter and spin rapidly, hands balling the loose fabric of his pants into fists at his side. He leans closer to you as he spits his final words.

“So excuse the fuck out of me for giving a damn about the only person who ever gave one about me.”

With that, he turns on his heel, pushing past Moon and quickly storming out of sight.

The weight of his words join with the exhaustion from today’s stress, dragging you down. With the added effect of the medication beginning to kick in on an empty stomach, it all has you lowering your shaky body to rest—dignified as it is—atop the closed toilet lid. You watch Moon as he quietly returns the bottle to its place in the cabinet in what you assume is some attempt to repair trust between you. “I… appreciate the gesture, but I don’t really care what you do with it. I know Sun’s just gonna slip back in here once we’re gone and pocket it to keep it from me.”

His vents release a soft burst of air and he closes the cabinet, turning to sit on the edge of the counter. Monitor dropped low and staring at the floor, it seems you aren’t the only one feeling beaten down. The two of you sit in silence for a minute, collecting your scattered thoughts.

“You know, it’s hard to blame you for taking those after everything and everyone you had to deal with today. I mean—even I was ready to send myself straight into a shutdown after answering all those questions.” A small, sad laugh escapes him. “Living with you kind of allowed me to forget that not everyone sees us the way you do.”

You tilt your head to look up at him. “What, like the people that you are?”

His monitor angles to focus you in his camera’s line of sight. “…Yeah. Exactly.”

He raises a pointed finger. “But—still—you know I also can’t approve of you self-medicating. It’s a slippery, dangerous slope. That’s why Sun gets all… like that. Not—not that his way of doing things is appropriate, though. I believe I worry about you just as much, but I at least try to channel it into more acceptable methods.”

His hand drops back down to the counter, enervation palpable, and you wonder how anyone could observe either of your boys and question their sentience for even a moment.

“He wasn’t lying though. I hope you know that. When he said that he cares about you.”

You prop an elbow on the counter beside you, resting your temple against your palm. “I think that’s the first time I’ve heard him say it outright. Like—I’ve heard you say it on his behalf, and I’ve seen him nod along in agreement. I can even sense it in at least some of his actions, but… it’s different actually hearing it from him.”

Moon’s fingertips tap rhythmically along the edge of the counter, and he seems to be debating something. He finally speaks again after a pregnant pause. “…You’re like a God to him. Do you know that?”

His words cut through the fog in your mind. “I am?”

He nods solemnly. “You are. Not—Not in the sense that he wants to worship you… or at least, not as much as he wants to protect you. But there’s an undeniable, ineffable devotion there.”

You scoff. “You won’t find many people that would put their faith in a God that they know can’t even protect them. A God weaker than them. Inferior to them.”

Moon shakes his head. “Starlight, I don’t think you realize all the ways in which you have protected him. Protected us. Protection doesn’t always come in the form of a physical battle of strength. …Especially not when it comes to protecting someone whose entire life can be snuffed out of existence with the click of a button, or the flick of a switch.”

You twist around on the toilet lid, turning to face the counter where Moon’s sat. You rest your arms out on it, fingers drumming along in tandem with Moon’s rhythm. “How much of that is you projecting, and how much of it is actually his feelings on the matter?”

He laughs again, a soft, quiet sound this time. “Not as much of it as you may think! I… hmm. I guess if one were to call him religious, one would call me an atheist.”

Your brows raise. “Oh? Do you…” The implications cause dismay to swirl in your stomach. “…Is that your way of saying that you don’t believe in me?”

His monitor twists on its axis and tilts down toward you, eyes wide and round. “No! No—heavens, no that’s not what I meant by that!”

You stare at each other for a moment before breaking into the kind of muffled, shared nonsensical laughter that one only tends to experience during those late night chats with a friend, fueled by over-tiredness and the joy of being in good company. A… mutual, unspoken understanding of sorts.

As the laughter dies down, you reassure him. “No—like—I get it, I do. I honestly wouldn’t blame you at all if you didn’t believe in me. Certainly at least not in the sense of comparing me to a God.”

He collects himself and clarifies. “I… I do believe in you though. In you. The very real, messy, soft and squishy, vulnerable flesh-and-bone human being that you are. I believe in your heart and soul, the power that resides in your free will, and I believe in your capabilities and intelligence far more than you may think I do. Sun and I both put faith into all of that and more. I can even understand why he’d see you as a God, but… it’s… different with him.”

You can’t help but lightheartedly interject. “Goodness, what isn’t…”

Moon smiles. “Sun was the first. I was never far behind, of course, but you couldn’t do everything in tandem. He was the first to be trained, the first to be implanted, the first to troubleshoot with, and, well... Do you know the sentiment that parents make most of their mistakes on the first child, so by the time the second comes along, they’re… uhm, they ‘turn out better’? For lack of a kinder way to put it.”

You drop your head down and pull your hands in, using them as a cushion lest you knock your forehead into the counter. “Oh, now you’re gonna tell me that he sees me as his mother or something, aren’t you…”

You groaned the words out playfully, but Moon takes them unexpectedly seriously. “Honestly? …Something in between the two, if I had to guess.”

You let the weight of his words sink into you as he continues.

“I… can’t claim to be an expert on what goes on in that head of his. But I can get closer than anyone else can. He… doesn’t like letting people in, as you are well aware, but occasionally he’ll confide in me. He’s got a lot of walls up. Both metaphorically and literally. It’s difficult to wade through that chaotic maze he calls a headspace.”

His fingers gradually slow their drumming to a halt.

“Do… you remember… the first time we engaged the Eclipse Protocol?”

Your stomach tightens.

“I’d rather not.”

“I- I know. I’m sorry. I just… that night. When he and I were still linked, and he…” He shakes his head. “Oh, who am I kidding, when we were watching over you like a couple of hawks…”

“While I slept?”

“Yes. To keep you safe. … There’s… a lot about that evening that I can’t forget, but one particular thing struck me. Well, honestly it annoyed me at the time because it was bleeding into my headspace and overriding my ability to focus, but… it stands out to me as something profound when I recall it.”

He pauses, freezing for a moment before pulling a bent leg up onto the counter and turning to face you.

“Maybe I shouldn’t share this. Maybe he’ll get mad at me when I tell him that I did. But I feel like after the things he’s kept from you, well intentioned as he may be… it’s fair enough to share this with you.”

You rest your chin on your folded hands, eyes glued to him.

“There was this… singular line of text that just kept repeating, over and over in his mind that night. It… to level with you—it started to freak me out a bit.”

You question him, soft and quiet.

“What was it?”

“Five words.”

His facial features fade out, and a repeating line of text on his otherwise dark screen replaces it.

The sight knocks the wind out of you, and you can do nothing but nod as your mind starts spinning.

The text fades, and the familiar sight of Moon’s default smile and crescent eyes replaces it for a second, his expression then quickly morphing into something more appropriate for the moment.

“I’m still not sure what it meant. A general search for those words in that order results in too many options for me to narrow it down. The sentence sticks with me, though. I guess… that’s where my theories of how he perceives you took root. … There’s more examples, far more explicit things he’s said, but I… feel like I’ve shared enough already. Any elaboration should be his to do, if he ever wishes to.”

You nod, raising up in your seat and finding your words.

Moon—unlike Sun—never was the type to comb through your personal files, private playlists included. So it doesn’t surprise you that he didn’t spot the connection.

“Well. You’ve… certainly given me a lot to think about.”

His tone grows concerned. “I—I really didn’t mean to upset you more! I hope I haven’t…”

You reach out, placing a hand reassuringly over his. “No, no, nothing like that. I’m actually very grateful that you shared this with me. I… know you’ve got to be tired of serving as this intermediary between Sun and I… and I hope one day you won’t have to.”

He gives you his signature smile, and somehow makes it feel genuine. “I really don’t mind, dear.”

You eye him with concern. “Mhm… and one day I’m gonna get inside that head of yours and figure out why that is.”

His tone turns playful. “Goodness me! Can’t a little selfless couples counseling go un-psychoanalyzed?”

You smile. “Not in this house, nope.”

The medication's effects have long since started taking hold, and you rub at your tired eyes as your waning focus trains back on the day’s events.

“Moon?”

“Yes, dear.”

“We’ve got a bigger problem.”

You punctuate your sentence with a yawn, and he rises from his seat on the counter, coming to crouch in front of you.

“The problem being how sleepy you’re getting?”

You pout. “No…”

His warm smile doesn’t waver as he whispers a question. “Would you like me to carry you to bed?”

You falter. “W-well… yeah, I… I would like that, actually… but that’s not our problem!”

You raise your arms to wrap around his neck as he leans into you, effortlessly lifting you off of your ‘throne’ and encouraging you to hook your legs around his waist. Once he’s got you securely in his hold, he leans back to catch your gaze.

“What is our problem then?”

You whisper, mindful of Sun’s penchant for eavesdropping.

“How are we gonna get him to come to the headquarters with us next week?”

------- ------- -------

Not much later that night, you laid in bed clinging to Moon, quickly drifting off under his reassuring watch.

It didn’t surprise you in the least when Sun remained in his own room that night. The room was conveniently located just opposite the wall that your bed sat against, making it the perfect place for him to hide when he craved being near you but felt it kinder to you to keep himself away.

As sleep welcomed you, your ears picked up on a muffled, familiar tune coming from the other side of the wall.

You still aren’t sure if you dreamed it or not.

“The gateway to the world, was still outside the reach of him. Would never belong to angels, had never belonged to men.”

A/N: Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed. I’ll be back in a few days with the final chapter! You can also find my notes and commentary on this fic right here on Ao3. Links to the playlist and moodboard for [N]MbD can be found on this blog’s pinned post, as well as in the series notes on Ao3. Image Sources: x - x - x

[celestial-toys]

i don’t take hints you gotta hit me upside the head

[celestial-toys]

That I Would Be Good [3/5]

Whatever It's Worth

“For whatever it’s worth, I think it always looks fine. I think you fuss over it too damn much, but regardless… it’s… fine. You always look fine to me. You’d look fine even if you didn’t have any hair at all.”

A small smile blooms across your features as his words sink in. “That’s… that’s the closest thing to a compliment you’ve ever given me, Sun.”

You turn and he lets the ends of your hair slip from his hands, looking a bit caught off guard at your sudden motion. You ignore his false eyes and look directly into the camera in the center of his screen. “Thank you.”

He remains frozen for a moment before his display dims to black and he turns, quickly scrubbing the worst remnants of conditioner off of his hands and onto a nearby towel. “I think your hair has been conditioned enough.”

- - - - - - -

In This Chapter

Sun attempts some level-headed honesty with his hands in your hair, and Moon gets a little overzealous when it comes to his unofficial position as Household Chef.

Pairing: Sun x Moon x Reader

Word Count: 4,779

Contains: [AU - Real World | Sentient AI/Automatons | Personality Swap] [implied EDNOS] [invasion of privacy] [implication of past self-harming behavior] [Reader has their period (not graphically described)] [discussion of menstruation] [discussion of various foods and nutrition] [one (1) use of a fem gendered term for Reader] [discussion and feelings of dysphoria] [eating]

A/Ns: This is a songfic. Lyrics and title are from ‘That I Would Be Good’ by Alanis Morissette.

This fic is part of my AU “[Not] Made by Design”, the full series can be found here.

Links to other parts of this fic: [Ch.1] [Ch.2] [Ch.3 (you are here)] [Ch.4] [Ch.5]

That I would be good if I lost my hair and my youth.

After rinsing the remainder of lightly-tinted soap suds out of your hair, off of your body, and down the drain, you bend down to turn the shower off. Gently squeezing the worst of the water out of your locks, you straighten back up and pull the shower door aside.

Then you shout.

“SUN! What the fuck are you doing?!”

You quickly step behind the blurry frosted glass of the shower door, leaving only your head peeking around the edge. You shiver in the relatively cold air that rushes to fill the shower stall as you await an answer. The solar automaton is currently leaning against the opposite wall, arms crossed and casual as ever, monitor flipped around 180 degrees in what you assume was meant to be a silent assurance that he wasn’t watching you.

“I have a question.”

Your eyes pinch closed and your features scrunch up in frustration, silently asking any higher power out there to grant you the patience to deal with this nonsense. “And it couldn’t wait until I got dressed?”

He shrugs. “I don’t see why it would need to.”

You silently press your forehead against the cool metal of the shower door’s frame.

“…Are you decent yet or must I continue admiring the grout between the tiles on this wall behind me?”

You huff, reaching out of the shower and grabbing your bathrobe off of its designated hook. “Just one… damn second…” You cinch the rope around your waist and step gingerly out onto the bath mat. “Okay, I’m ‘decent.’ Now—pray tell—what do you need to ask me?”

He leans his upper body away from the wall, rays retracting to give himself enough clearance to flip his monitor around. His rays slide back out in tandem after he turns his head to face you, and he rests his shoulders against the wall once more. “I was wondering why you’ve taken three showers today.”

You stand there, blinking in disbelief. “That’s it?”

“Yes. It’s… concerning. I wanted to make sure you weren’t up to any… harmful behaviors in here while left unsupervised.”

You roll your eyes. “‘Left unsupervised…’ What is this, some kind of inpatient program? Christ, Sun, this is my house! Can’t I catch a break?”

You throw your arms up in frustration, and he doesn’t answer you immediately. It isn’t until you deflate, dropping your exaggerated expression and bringing a hand up to pinch the bridge of your nose that he finally responds in a quieter tone. “You… concern me. I don’t know what to do.”

You sigh, trying to reign in your frustration.

Sometimes you forget that he has a lot less experience with being a person than you do.

You try to cut him some slack. “Sun, I appreciate the concern over my wellbeing. But I promise you, the only destructive behavior going on in this bathroom today is the damage I'm doing to my hair.”

He’s quiet, processing your words for a moment before he announces an observation. “It’s a lighter shade than it was this morning.”

You nod. “I sure hope it is. I’ve been in here washing the hell out of it with this fading treatment, trying to get the color I wanted.”

His expression is something between confused and disapproving. “You aren’t supposed to do that. It’s bad for your hair to wash it so much.”

You turn to the mirror and toy with your hair, dismissing him. “Yeah, yeah. Jeez, who are you, my hairdresser?”

He steps into view beside you in the mirror, leaning in closer to examine your hair. “Maybe if you’d gone to one instead of DIY-ing it you’d have gotten the color you wanted.”

You lock eyes with his reflection for a long moment. “…Touché.”

He seems pleased enough with your response, stepping back a bit and watching you futz with your hair in the mirror.

“Have your concerns been quelled now, or…?”

“…I suppose.” He replies, making no move to exit the bathroom.

“…Well then are you gonna just stand there and watch me apply my leave-in conditioner or what?”

He ignores your question, leaning in close to you again. Pinching the end of a damp lock of hair between the pads of his fingers, he hums his dissent. “You really need to quit fucking with your hair if you want to still have any left.”

You can’t help but laugh. “Goodness, the way you worded that almost sounds like a threat!”

His eyes meet yours in the mirror again and he smirks. “No… just a warning.”

He drags the tail end of your hair along the palm of his opposite hand, like idly toying with a paintbrush. “You’re always awfully concerned about the appearance of your hair.”

You cock a brow up at that. “Are you sure that isn’t a threat, Sun?”

A noise escapes him: half-scoff, half-laugh, and he sounds oddly genuine when he reassures you. “It’s not. I just… noticed.”

He releases your hair and you can finally lean far enough away to open the cabinet. “Mhm. What don’t you notice.”

He ignores your comment in favor of hitting you with another set of sudden left-field questions. “Are you afraid of getting older? Or are you afraid of losing control.”

Your hand halts, hovering halfway toward retrieving the conditioner from the cabinet, and drops back down to your side as you turn to face him. “What?”

“I’ve learned that some people dye their hair because they want to appear younger than they are. I’ve also seen many posts online where people describe making drastic changes to their hair while going through something difficult in their life. The concept appears in a number of song lyrics too. It seems to me like an attempt at gaining a sense of control.”

The fun thing about living with sentient, learning AI is that they’re always asking questions and compiling information about the world around them.

The not-so-fun thing about living with sentient, learning AI is that they’re always asking questions and compiling information about the world around them.

You’d liken it to having a fully grown adult with the curiosity and learning capacity of a child, if you didn’t want to feel even weirder about your “Creator x Creation” dynamic than you already do sometimes.

“While I… appreciate your attempts to psychoanalyze me based on my hair-dyeing habits, I regret to inform you that it’s neither of those things for me, Sunny.” You consider it a moment more, and add on. “…As far as I’m aware, at least.”

His head tilts to the side a bit. “You don’t have to patronize me.”

“I… wasn’t?”

“You used that name for me. ‘Sunny.’ It made your statement sound… patronizing.”

Another fun thing about living with sentient, learning AI is that you get to clear up all sorts of little miscommunications.

“Oh, no, I—I didn’t mean it to sound like that. I’m sorry, Sun. That wasn’t my intention.”

He doesn’t let it go so quickly. “Based on my calculations, a nickname like that tends to be used in one of three ways—patronizing, dismissive, or affectionate. Care to clarify which one it was?”

You level him with an unamused stare. “No, I don’t care to clarify.”

You then turn to retrieve the conditioner from the cabinet, effectively shutting down that line of questioning. You grab the body lotion while you’re at it, and as you set your items down on the counter, you attempt to free yourself of your overly-curious bathroom companion. “Unless you’re waiting around to help me put this stuff in my hair, I'm afraid it’s time for you to go find something else to do for a little while, Sun.”

His response is… unexpected. “I… can help.”

What has gotten into this guy recently? Used to be you had to fight to get one nice word out of him and now here he is playing ‘20 Questions’ and offering to condition your hair?

“I… didn’t expect you to actually—”

“If you didn’t want me to offer then why’d you ask?”

You squint at him, unamused. “Sun, c’mon, I know you grasp the concepts of sarcasm and rhetoric.”

Once again ignoring your statement, he pushes himself away from the wall and holds out his upturned palms in an open gesture of offering. “Would you like me to help or not?”

You’re quite sure he expects you to turn him down, so you agree to his offer, if for no other reason than to subvert his expectations. “You know what? Yeah, sure. I’d love the help, Sunny.”

He freezes for a moment—processing—but you’ve gotta admit, he collects himself surprisingly fast, apparently feeling up to the challenge.

Once you explain how much of the product to use and how to apply it, you quickly find yourself staring into the mirror, watching Sun carefully and methodically work conditioner into your hair and wondering how you got here.

Eventually a question pops up and you break through his focused silence. “Does it really look lighter than it did earlier today?”

“…Yes. But if you want my honest opinion it looked just fine before you scrubbed the life out of it three times.”

You huff in surprise at his bluntness. “Damn, okay, tell me how you really feel…”

“When have you ever known me to mince my words?”

“I know, I know. It’s fine. I appreciate your honesty.”

Silence settles over the two of you for another few moments, but he eventually pipes back up. “For whatever it’s worth, I think it always looks fine. I think you fuss over it too damn much, but regardless… it’s… fine. You always look fine to me. You’d look fine even if you didn’t have any hair at all.”

A small smile blooms across your features as his words sink in. “That’s… that’s the closest thing to a compliment you’ve ever given me, Sun.”

You turn and he lets the ends of your hair slip from his hands, looking a bit caught off guard at your sudden motion. You ignore his false eyes and look directly into the camera in the center of his screen. “Thank you.”

He remains frozen for a moment before his display dims to black and he turns, quickly scrubbing the worst remnants of conditioner off of his hands and onto a nearby towel. “I think your hair has been conditioned enough.”

Your tone quickly becomes teasing. “Aww, is somebody flustered?”

He reaches for the doorknob. “It’s time for me to walk Zero. I trust you can moisturize the rest of yourself without my assistance.”

Quickly making his very smooth retreat, as your laughter subsides, you’re left there to apply your lotion in thoughtful silence.

That I would be great if I was no longer Queen.

“Does this feel more like an ‘apple-cinnamon’ or ‘banana-walnut’ kind of day?”

You release a soft sigh as you raise your head from where it’d been… briefly planted atop your crossed arms, and you lean back into your seat at the kitchen table. “You really don’t have to do every single thing for me, Moon.”

His monitor clicks, spinning a few degrees back and forth to accompany his playful rebuttal. “And leave me with no task to occupy these idle hands? Why, I feel like that’d be just cruel.” The pout he wears doesn’t do much to convince you, nor to ease the guilt you feel.

He can tell as much, and tries a more serious approach. “Star… you’re menstruating. From what I can tell, this is a more painful period than normal. I’m sure in no small part due to the excess stress you’ve been under this past month. You deserve to rest as much as possible right now.”

“I figured you’d be in favor of me getting up and moving around. Isn’t that supposed to help in the long-run?”

He nods. “It can. But it tends to help the most when stretching and physical activity is maintained throughout the entire monthly cycle, not just once you’re already bleeding and in pain.”

His explanation is straightforward, but soft spoken, everything in his tone and body language obviously trying not to offend, accuse, or criticize. “Besides, bugging you to exercise tends to fall more under Sun’s jurisdiction, and he’s had his reasons for prioritizing other aspects of your well-being this month.”

Speak of the devil, Moon’s other half strides into the kitchen with Zero trailing closely behind. He has no trouble falling into the conversation. “I can help you through some gentle stretches later today if you’d like, but I second the notion that you should rest right now. I don’t need to hear any more groans and curses from you like I heard after you insisted on cleaning up the living room and prepping your own dinner last night.”

You rest your chin in your palm. “I ‘insisted’ because I just… I feel like I put too much on you guys. You don’t deserve to have to do all this shit for me.”

Sun scoffs, speaking with his back to you as he pulls open a cabinet door. “Trust me, you’re doing us all a favor by letting this one over here dote on you. I fear he’d go mad if there wasn’t always some task he could busy himself with, and he seems to favor any task that falls under the realm of taking care of you.” He turns to face you, mug in hand. “Now, what do you want to drink?”

You’d laugh at the juxtaposition of his words and his actions, but the deep pain of another cramp sets in and you weakly wave a hand in defeat. “Just some hot water, please.” He hums in confirmation and moves to grab the kettle. You turn your focus back to Moon. “I’ll let you… appease your instincts. It’s kinda my fault that you’ve got ‘em in the first place.”

His expression brightens, round eyes curling into his signature crescents. “Good! Now, shall I list your options again?”

You shake your head and hum a negative, mulling it over for a moment as you take hold of the steaming mug of water that Sun quietly slides in front of you. “Uhh… actually, can I just have it plain today?”

Moon smiles softly, head twisted back over his shoulder to look at you while he pulls a carton of dry oats from the pantry. “Of course, star. Would you like some sugar on it or do you want it truly plain?”

You shove aside the inner voice whispering to you about ‘empty calories’. “…I guess a little brown sugar wouldn’t hurt.”

Moon brightens a little at your answer. “Good choice! I hear that brown sugar gives it a maple syrup-y taste thanks to the molasses. Oh, that makes me think of pancakes! And waffles! And french toast! I should make one of those tomorrow. How does that sound?”

You smile at his growing excitement over tomorrow’s breakfast, in spite of the fact that he won’t even get to partake. Another cramp sets in as you respond and you try to keep the strain out of your voice. “They all sound good, but I don’t know if I can choose right now…”

He gently places a small pot of water on the stove, turning the burner’s dial with practiced precision. “That’s alright, there’s no rush! It’s just some—heh—food for thought!”

Sun groans at the joke, and Moon defends it. “Hey, no—that was a good one!”

Zero noses at Sun’s hand, stealing his attention before he can begin to debate with Moon. As you passively watch him pull the dog’s breakfast from the fridge, a random thought occurs. “Do we still have any Ruffles left?”

Moon opens a different cabinet and shuffles a few bags around in his search. “Weeee… do!”

You’re hesitant to request the odd combination, but your craving wins the inner battle. “Can I… have some of those too?”

“You certainly can!”

Sun reaches past Moon to grab Zero’s bowl from the dish rack, speaking beneath his mechanical breath. “Sugar and salt, what a breakfast.”

“They’re fine choices!” Moon chipperly responds, the word ‘fine’ punctuated by a small smack to the back of Sun’s monitor.

Sun’s rays retract as he ducks down and steps back, distancing himself from Moon’s reach. “I never said they weren’t.” He sets Zero’s bowl on the counter with emphasis. “But you might want to throw some sort of multivitamin in with that salty-sweet mix.”

“I always see to it that they meet their daily needs, Sun.” Moon’s voice rarely wavers from its amicable tone, but there’s an undercurrent of finality to it now that quiets any further commentary from his other half.

As he stirs the simmering oats on the stove, his monitor turns to face you. “Oh, speaking of! I was thinking about making you something with spinach and tofu for lunch. You could use the iron, and the magnesium might help to ease your cramps. Plus the vitamin C should help you absorb the iron, and- oh! I could add some wild rice, or potatoes. The additional B vitamins should help the magnesium, and they support progesterone prod—” The kitchen timer dings, stealing his attention and interrupting his ensuing nutritional ramble.

Twisting his head back around, he turns the burner’s dial off. “Anyways—point is—how does that sound to you? I could cube the tofu and toss it into a spinach salad, I could slice and fry it and arrange it together on a sandwich, or I could even sauté the spinach and make a tofu scramble!”

His excited discussion of all of your lunch options is a bit overwhelming to you, considering you haven’t even conquered breakfast yet. Still, you bear in mind that he’s only trying to help, over-enthusiastic as he may be sometimes. “Uhm… the sandwich sounds nice.”

“Alright! Then it shall be yours.” He moves to pass behind you, enroute to retrieve a bowl from the other side of the kitchen, wrapping an arm around your blanket-clad shoulders in a brief embrace. “Anything the Queen of the castle desires is hers upon command.”

You both giggle a bit at his playful expression, and Sun rolls his eyes, accompanied by a dramatic gagging sound. Zero’s happy tail thwacks repeatedly against one leg of the kitchen table. All is well.

Except it isn’t.

As Moon returns to the stove and Sun portions out Zero’s meal, you struggle to fight back the feeling that what he’d just said didn’t sit right.

It had nothing to do with his devotion to service and everything to do with the concept of you being “Queen.” All of this morning’s focus on your menstrual cycle, coupled with this ‘princess’ treatment and compounded by his casual use of feminine terms for you, suddenly has you feeling more like a woman than you suppose you’d like to.

Trying to push the nagging uncomfortable feeling aside, you pull your phone from your sweatpants pocket. You attempt to distract yourself with a mindless scroll through your notifications as the pleasant smell of your breakfast fills the room.

After presenting Zero with her own breakfast, Sun takes a seat across from you at the small table. You can feel his analytical gaze on you, pointedly avoiding eye contact when you glance up from your phone to sip your water.

By the time Moon presents you with your breakfast, the feeling has done nothing but rapidly fester. You try to distract yourself with the meal, but not even the absurd sight of your requested potato chips—on a plate, methodically arranged by size and laid atop one another in a spiral—is enough to rid you of it. You do your best to sound unbothered when you thank him, and he falters as he moves to step away from the table. “You’re very welc-ome… Is, uh… everything okay, star?”

Sun doesn’t beat around the bush. “Something’s wrong. Is the pain getting worse?”

You’re quick to shake your head. “No, no, it’s fine. I’m fine. Just… thinking about something.”

Moon’s hand comes to rest on the back of the nearest empty chair. “Well… talking tends to help people sort their thoughts out, no? We’re all ears if you’d like to get it off your chest.”

You hesitate and Sun straightens in his seat. “If my presence is preventing you from opening up, I can leave the room.”

Your gaze flicks to him, brows knitted. “What? No, no—I… why would you think that?”

He shrugs. If the notion bothers him, he doesn’t let it show. “I’m sure Moon is… the easier of the two of us to talk to. You seemed to be getting more uncomfortable the longer I sat here. Makes sense to me that maybe you’d rather me not hear about whatever’s going on.”

You start to feel a bit guilty that that’s the conclusion he jumped to. “No, Sun, that’s not… I mean, okay—yeah, I could feel you watching me, but just about anyone gets uncomfortable when they know they’re being watched. Your penchant for staring isn’t… you’re not keeping me from opening up.” You look him directly in the eye. “There isn’t anything I’d say to one of you that I wouldn’t want the other to hear. I don’t want either of you thinking that.”

Sun’s fingertips drum along the table and his faceplate clicks to the side. “Okay then, what is stopping you?”

You pull in a deep breath, internally debating whether it’s even worth explaining.

“You… don’t have to tell us, if you really don’t want to.”

You give Moon a tired smile, opening your mouth only for a defeated sigh to fall out. “It’s… nothing, really. Stupid, even.”

Moon frowns. “Did one of us do or say something wrong?”

“No… I mean—not really. Not intentionally! It’s just…” You groan, resting your forehead in your palms. “I feel uncomfortably… feminine. Today. For some reason.”

He nods slowly. “Oh…kay…”

You attempt to elaborate. “I know I don’t talk about it much. You guys know I use She/They pronouns and there’s no more explanation really required. But… I don’t know. Something lately has just had me wishing I was more masculine. Or—at least more androgynous, I guess. And with all this focus on my period, and—”

Sun, the ever patient listener he is, cuts you off. “Menstruation is not inherently feminine. Any human can have periods if they have a uterus.”

You nod quickly. “Yes—I—I agree, but you’ve gotta take into account that that’s a relatively new take on the concept. It’s a good one, of course, but… a lot of people still associate having periods with being a woman. It’s been so tied to femininity for so long, always seen as a ‘woman’s issue’ that… it can be a difficult thing to un-internalize. It’s a common cause of dysphoria in transmasc and nonbinary people.”

He listens intently, rays slowly circling his head as he considers your point. “Right… right. I see. That makes sense.”

You take a pause to sip your cooling drink and recall where you left off. “It… honestly doesn’t usually bother me this bad. I couldn’t tell you what’s different about this month, it’s just not sitting well with me. But I do appreciate knowing that you two don’t see it as making me feminine. That does help. It’s just…” You shake your head. “Ugh, this is so silly…”

Moon slowly pulls back on the chair he’s been holding onto, stepping around and gently taking a seat. “It’s not silly if it’s bothering you.”

Sun nods, leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms. “He’s right.”

You meet both of their gazes in turn with a small smile before casting your eyes back down to the table. “It’s not a big deal, though. It just… on top of already feeling very feminine, it sat with me wrong when you called me ‘Queen’ earlier. That’s… that’s literally all!” You punctuate your confession with laughter, trying your best to make light of the issue.

Moon’s eyes brighten. “Oh! Oh… oh goodness you’re right! I didn’t even—I didn’t even think…”

You raise a hand out toward him, quick to stop his unnecessary apologies. “It’s not your fault! I promise. You had no clue I was feeling… this way today, and I know you didn’t mean anything by it. I’m not upset with you, I’m… honestly way more upset with myself that I’m so bothered about it in the first place.”

Sun throws his opinion into the ring. “I don’t think either of you are at fault. Moon didn’t know you were feeling this way, and you can’t really control when you feel this way.”

Moon nods and you follow suit. “Yeah, I was hesitant to say anything because I didn’t want to make a big deal out of it. I already feel like I’m… hah—‘overly-sensitive’ right now anyways.”

Sun’s expression quickly shifts to disapproval. “Oh, that stereotype can get fucked. You feel how you feel and that’s that. It’s just as real right now as it would be at any other point in your cycle.”

Your eyes widen at Sun’s insistent tone and Moon chuckles a bit at the sight. “I agree, star. And… I don’t think that you’re making a ‘big deal’ about it at all. Honestly, I think the best way to not make it a big deal is to not be afraid to tell us if we use a term for you that makes you uncomfortable. I’d much rather you tell me than just try to ignore the feeling.” He reaches out to place a hand over yours. “We know that your identity isn’t set in stone. If there’s ever something you want to be called, or something you don’t want to be called, the best thing you can do is just let us know, okay?”

Unable to fight the affectionate smile that pulls at your cheeks, you flip your hand over to grab his properly, and squeeze. “Okay. Yeah, that… I can do that. Thank you for understanding.”

His faceplate contentedly clicks a few degrees to the right, his smile soft. “Thank you for telling us.”

Feeling flustered and just a bit overwhelmed by how surprisingly smooth that went, you give his hand one more squeeze before pulling back to wrap it around your mug instead. You clear your throat as you do so, looking for something less intense to say. “I uh, I guess for now I’d just like to stick to gender-neutral stuff, okay?”

Moon nods eagerly. “Of course! Easy-peasy. I can even remedy what I said earlier if you’d like!” He’s muttering to himself before you can even tell him that that’s not really necessary. “Oh—uhm… hmmm…. what’s a good neutral alternative to ‘Queen’…”

Sun instantly starts listing suggestions. “Monarch. Ruler. Sovereign.” His rays spin a quick round, a tell that he’s taking his internal database search online for more information. “‘Caln’ is apparently a monarch word based on the Q slash K sound of Queen and King, if that sounds better to your ear.”

He suddenly barks a laugh and your brows raise in interest. “What?”

He shakes his head dismissively, still chuckling. “Nothing, just… Quora results. The questions some people pose are truly something.”

Moon’s interest is piqued. “What’d you find that was funny enough to make you laugh?”

Sun’s voice shifts to his ‘default human’ impression. “If Queen Elizabeth announced she was gender fluid, dot-dot-dot…”

You stifle a laugh. “That’s certainly one way to pose the question.”

“What's the rest say?” Moon asks.

Sun waves his hand in dismissal. “I don’t know. The preview was humorous, but I wasn’t compelled to follow the link to the full thing. Quora gives me a headache. I’ve moved on.”

Moon playfully pouts as Sun expands his list of suggestions. “Excellency. Majesty. Highness. Grace. Eminence. …Quing?… Oh, apparently ‘Caln’ is queer. Wait, do they mean queer created or queer exclusive…”

You interject before he spends the next hour falling down a rabbit hole of royal terms. “You could go the meme-y route and call me Liege.”

Moon’s attention shifts back toward you. “Is that one gender neutral?”

“I… think so?” You shrug. “Sounds neutral enough to me. Though I honestly wouldn’t mind a bit of masculinity to counterbalance the way I’m… feeling right now.”

He nods sagely as Sun’s list of suggestions continues to grow, getting more and more obscure as he delves further and further into his search.

You can’t help but laugh a bit as you dig a spoon into your oats, beginning to breathe easier with the reminder that you’re in very considerate company.

A/N: Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed. I’ll be back in a few days with part 4! You can also find my notes and commentary on this fic right here on Ao3. Links to the playlist and moodboard for [N]MbD can be found on this blog’s pinned post, as well as in the series notes on Ao3. Image Sources: x - x - x

[celestial-toys]

That I Would Be Good [2/5]

Mind Games

“Contrary to that thing, my monitor doesn’t need to be on in order for you to interact with me. No eye-strain or migraines required.”

You lean back in your chair, muttering as you turn to face him. “Just trading one kinda ‘strain’ for another if you ask me…”

He idly turns your mug over in his hands. “I’m gonna pretend I didn’t hear that.”

Your brows raise and you cock your head up to look at him. “That’s… mature of you.”

His optic's focus doesn’t move from the mug in his hands. “…One of us has to be.”

- - - - - - -

In This Chapter

Moon walks in on you in a vulnerable state, Sun displays his concern over your health in his own strange way, and they both attempt to care for you as you chip away at your work.

Pairing: Sun x Moon x Reader

Word Count: 4,606

Contains: [AU - Real World | Sentient AI/Automatons | Personality Swap] [depiction and discussion of EDNOS (including mentions of weight gain + disordered eating and its slew of related thoughts and behaviors)] [invasion of privacy (both intentional and unintentional)] [more of Sun’s usual brand of tension and intimidating behavior]

A/Ns: This is a songfic. Lyrics and title are from ‘That I Would Be Good’ by Alanis Morissette.

This fic is part of my AU “[Not] Made by Design”, the full series can be found here.

Links to other parts of this fic: [Ch.1] [Ch.2 (you are here)] [Ch.3] [Ch.4] [Ch.5]

That I would be good even if I gained ten pounds.

You glare down at the bathroom scale in a brief moment of anticipation, and the illuminated digits that soon flash back at you make you regret stepping up here in the first place.

A critical little voice fills your head, speaking to you in a smug tone as you watch the scale’s display time-out and go blank.

“What else did you expect?”

You stand frozen in place, eyes darting over to your phone lying on the counter by the sink. The screen displays a document containing a substantial number of weigh-ins, body measurements, progress photos, and more. It’d gone unopened for a blissful few months before that damned voice urged you to open it again.

“You’d surely feel better if you got healthier,” it said.

“You’d be healthier if you lost some weight,” it said.

“You’ll thank yourself later,” it said.

“You’ll do it right this time,” it said.

“It’ll be worth it,” it said.

You’re familiar enough with this cycle to know not to fall for it’s words, but fuck do they sound good sometimes. They sound right. They manage to convince you that that’s really all there is to this nagging desire. They frame it around your health, they paint it in a pretty, harmless, positive light, and you eventually cast aside all better judgment and wade back into that familiar sea of lies.

You’re surprised it hasn’t drowned you yet.

You do the quick math in your head and frown at the confirmation that you’ve nearly gained back the same damn ten pounds that you’ve lost and gained more times than you’d like to count.

The logical part of your brain is pleading with you to listen to reason.

That your body feels safe here, and that there’s a reason for that.

That there’s a reason you keep bouncing back to this weight when you eat like a normal human instead of an obsessive, restrictive control-freak.

That every time you restrict and deny and starve yourself down toward your “goal weight” you’re only hurting yourself.

That once you inevitably give in to the human need for food, your body is only going to put on more fat-reserves to try and protect you.

That no matter how many times you listen to those lies, your efforts to be “healthy” will never do you any good as long as the focus is on your appearance.

That try as you might to hide it, you’re not living alone anymore. That eventually- sooner or later- your ever-observant house-mates are going to catch on to what you’re doing.

Apparently, “sooner or later” is actually right fucking now. As you stand in place, fully naked and perched on the bathroom scale lost in thought, the door swings open and you aren’t sure if it’s you or Moon that shouts first.

You jump in shock and immediately move to cover yourself, unable to get a coherent word in over Moon’s shouts of “SORRY—SORRY—DIDN’T REALIZE YOU WERE IN HERE—I AM SO SORRY!”

He twists his faceplate 180 degrees on its axis so damn fast that you’re afraid he’s damaged some internal components in his rush to prove that he isn’t looking at you. He rushes back out of the bathroom, swinging the door closed behind him, and you slump against the wall, cradling the bathrobe you’d instinctually ripped off its hook against your chest. As you try to calm your heart, you hear the muffled sound of Sun’s irritated voice growing louder as he presumably approaches the door to investigate the noise.

You hurriedly wrap yourself in the robe before any more unfortunate incidents can occur.

“What the hell are you shouting about?! Is everything okay?”

Moon’s voice is a lot quieter when he answers him. “...Yes—No—I… I mean…” Silence hangs in the air. “I don’t… know.”

“What does that mean? Are they okay or not? Yes or no?!”

“Everything… is fine, Sun. Everything’s fine.”

A pit of fear begins to grow in your stomach at Moon’s haunted tone.

Surely he didn’t have time to realize what you were doing amidst his rush to vacate the bathroom… right?

“Sure as shit didn’t sound fine! What happened?”

“I just… I accidentally walked in on them in the bathroom. We startled each other. That’s all.”

You can feel the tension through the door.

“You’ve always been an awful liar, Moon. Now tell me the truth.”

Your eyes cast across the scale on the floor, the unraveled measuring tape sprawled across the counter, and your phone, its screen still lit up, displaying your detailed list of measurements.

You’ve got to be fucking kidding.

He put it together that fast?

“…I don’t think the truth is mine to tell, Sun.”

A terribly uncomfortable silence falls between the two of them, and you can only assume that they’ve moved whatever remains of the conversation to their internal chat.

You weigh your limited options as you take a seat on the edge of the bathtub, cursing your past self for ever confiding in them about your history of disordered eating. Why’d you think that was a good idea?

You could try to play it off, make a big deal about getting walked-in on while naked and pray that they conveniently forget what else Moon saw.

Or, you could try convincing them that it's different this time. Use all the same tactics that the disorder uses on you.

Or, you could try being honest. You could try being open with someone about this for a change. You could try asking for some damn help.

A soft knock on the door takes you out of your thoughts. Moon’s strained voice follows it. “Star, uhm… whenever you’re decent, I think the three of us should talk.”

You hear a sudden sound-the reverberation of rubber on metal-and Sun grunts out a muffled “Fuckin’-stop it! Okay- okay- y’ don’t gotta hit me…” before his voice follows Moon’s. “We aren’t… mad, if… if you’re worried about that. We’re just concerned. And we want to talk. That’s all.”

You close your eyes, and feel the pang of a painfully empty stomach.

Your voice comes out colder than you expect it to.

“I’m decent. Just open the door.”

A few seconds pass where you wonder if they even heard you, but then the door handle twists and the last remaining barrier between them and your poorly hidden secret is removed.

Moon enters first, looking concerned, of course, but also… almost… guilty. Internally, you scoff. It’s not like it’s his fault that you’re like this.

His monitor pivots, sweeping across the room but not lingering for long on any one thing, apparently already having seen enough in the brief moment between first opening the bathroom door and then registering your unclothed presence in the room.

You didn’t expect his environmental processing speed to come back and bite you in the ass like this.

His focus eventually settles on the floor tiles as he shuffles into the small room far enough to leave space for Sun.

You wrap your arms around your middle as the solar bot steps into the room, uncharacteristically… distant.

Well. Emotionally, his distance is nothing new, but he’s got quite the penchant for invading personal space, particularly yours, so the way he lingers near the doorway doesn’t go unnoticed. You watch as he silently leans forward, monitor shifting away from you and over toward your phone on the counter. He bends down to get a better look, apparently not shy about confirming Moon’s assumptions regarding what you’d been doing in here. He lowers a pointed finger to the screen, back-scrolling through your records and lingering on a few… unflattering photos.

You grit your teeth and grow restless in the tense silence. The uncomfortable vulnerability that comes with his casual invasion of your privacy manifests itself in your defensive tone. “Either of you gonna say anything or am I supposed to just sit here quietly as Sun reads about exactly how fat I’ve gotten?”

Moon’s head tilts slightly toward you, brow furrowed, and Sun mirrors the expression as he puts your phone to sleep with a defiant huff. You suspect he could easily unlock it and continue his investigation if he so chose, given his penchant for surveillance. He seems to recognize though, or at least finally acknowledge the rudeness of it, pulling back and righting himself, leaning against the door frame with his arms crossed. “I couldn’t care less about that. I just want to know what’s going on with you.”

Moon pulls in a breath he doesn’t need, trying a gentler approach. “I apologize for walking in on you. I promise I… didn’t see… much.” He pauses, considering his words carefully. “…I can… show you? What I saw? I’ve already censored it. Or, uhm… I can just fully delete it if you’d like me to.”

The reminder that he can recall exactly what he saw and relive it again as many times as he’d like isn’t something you want to think about right now.

Maybe if you fling yourself backwards into the bathtub, you’ll hit your head so hard that at least you’ll be able to forget that any of this ever happened.

Pushing aside the intrusive thought, you shake your head. “I… appreciate the offer, but honestly that’s not what I’m concerned about right now.” You huff. “Hell, I’ve seen the two of you stripped bare, inside and out. Maybe it doesn’t hurt to level the playing field… I don’t know.”

The expression on Moon’s face changes, looking like he’s about to speak, and you cut him off before you all can wade any deeper into that discussion. “I assume seeing me naked for all of two seconds isn’t exactly what you two are concerned about either.”

Moon nods in both agreement and understanding, presumably answering for the both of them, as usual.

Sun reaches out once again, pinching the loose length of measuring tape between two fingers and lifting it off of the counter. “You know, I was willing to believe you when you started turning down your usual dinner, saying that you wanted to opt for something healthier.” He runs the tape between his fingers, straightening it as he speaks. “I was willing to write it off as your usual, run-of-the-mill lack of self care when you conveniently started “forgetting” meals entirely.” He begins slowly wrapping the tape around itself and you watch as his hands make quick work of re-rolling the tape into a neat little coil. “I was even willing to encourage you when you suddenly started wanting to exercise more. Though I had to admit, you seemed to be pushing yourself too far, too soon.”

He places the rolled tape back down on the counter, gaze suddenly meeting yours. “How long were you going to try and make fools of us?”

Okay… he’s taken this more personally than you thought he would.

“I—I wasn’t trying to “make a fool” out of either of you. Is that what you think this is? Some fun little game of mine?”

Moon jumps in before the conversation can grow heated. “That’s… not what he meant—”

“The hell it wasn’t—”

“Drop the act, Sun!”

Moon’s unexpected outburst catches both of you off guard, but his voice doesn’t waver, monitor swinging over to stare his other half down. “I know you’re worried about them and I know you don’t know how to show it, but shoving your head up your ass and acting like everything they do is some personal slight against you is not the answer.”

For once, Sun actually looks a bit shocked.

His screen flickers, cycling through a few different expressions before blacking out altogether. He’s quiet for a long few moments, monitor angling down toward the floor.

“…Then what am I supposed to do.” His defeated question comes out more like a statement, his head picking back up just enough for the image of you to enter his field of view. “How am I supposed to fix this? How do I reason with this nonsensical part of you that thinks there’s something wrong with your body?”

You search for an answer, a simple shrug followed by “It’s not that easy, Sun.” apparently not enough to satisfy him.

He keeps talking as he slowly approaches you, brushing past Moon’s outstretched arm as the lunar bot fights with his outdated instincts to keep Sun away from you. “There isn’t anything wrong with your body. Never has been. Never will be.”

You guess that his words are meant to sound comforting, but something isn’t right. His tone is off, the approach is all wrong, and he isn’t even technically correct.

“You know what there is something wrong with, though?”

You humor him. “What?”

He’s within arm’s reach of you now, and he reaches out to tap you on the forehead.

Moon’s hand darts in and clamps around Sun’s wrist, losing his internal fight.

Sun ignores him entirely.

“Your brain. There’s something wrong inside your head and it’s gonna fucking kill you if you keep listening to it.”

Moon attempts to interject. “Sun, that’s enough—”

“Tell me how I can help you.” Sun cuts Moon off like he’s not even there, focus locked entirely on you. “How? How? I can’t work on you the way you can work on us! I can’t lay you down, open you up, and pull out all the broken pieces. There’s no antivirus program to run. No broken bits of code that I can repair. I can’t fix you with my own two hands, and these mind games are not my forte.”

He lets his legs fold, collapsing to his knees before you. You wince at the sound of metal hitting tile. “Just tell me what to do and I’ll do it. You know I will.” His voice grows desperate, “Please, please tell me that you know I will.”

You shake yourself out of the near trance you’d fallen into while watching him show you his own peculiar brand of honesty.

“Sun…” You reach for the hand that Moon isn’t holding back. “I do know that you would. I do. I just don’t know how else I can explain to you that this… isn’t something that can be fixed in such a way. Hardly anything on my laundry list of problems can be cured using your preferred methods. I… I’m sorry.”

Sun sinks the rest of the way to the floor, slumping against the sink’s cabinets. With his black screen and lifeless body, he’d seem dead if it weren’t for the voice still coming out of him. “…Moon?”

Sun’s better half answers him as Moon lowers himself to the ground beside him. “Yes…?”

“Could I bother you to talk some sense into the both of us?” Sun breathes out his request, and you’re only a little offended by his use of “us.”

In spite of it all, Moon laughs. A soft, gentle sound.

“I can try.”

That I would be fine even if I went bankrupt.

The door to your office swings open slow and quietly, and if it hadn’t been for your eyes picking up on the movement in your periphery, you’d’ve been none the wiser to Sun’s silent entry. You don’t even need to glance away from your monitor’s screen to confirm which of your boys it is, Sun’s habit of “forgetting” to knock is plenty of a giveaway.

“It’s been an hour.”

Your eyes close as you suck in a deep breath, releasing it with more force than necessary as you will yourself to remain civil about this. “Thanks for the reminder, Sun.”

Your dismissive thanks is far from enough to appease him.

“Which means… it’s time to take a break.”

You reopen your eyes, avoidantly locking your focus on the work spread across your screen. “And I’ve scarcely made any progress yet. I can’t afford to take a break right now.”

He’s quiet for a few moments, and you almost dare to think that was a good enough counterpoint to convince him to leave you alone.

Almost.

He moves wordlessly from his imposing stance in the middle of the small room, and you watch him in the edge of your vision. He approaches the opposite side of your desk in measured steps before dropping down out of sight. There’s no sound or indication of movement for an uncomfortable few seconds too long. You’re about to angrily push away from your desk to look beneath it, mind quickly flooding with any number of nefarious things he could be doing. Namely, unplugging your PC again like the nuisance that he is.

As the palms of your hands press into the edge of your desk in preparation to push yourself away, your attention is caught by movement at the top of your monitor. You watch with impatient confusion as Sun’s rays peek above the top of your screen, the curve of his faceplate rising into view akin to the sun over the earth’s horizon. His motion halts when he’s risen halfway, and you’re rendered speechless in a mixture of annoyance, amusement, and shock as a pair of hyper-realistic human eyes stare back at you.

“Can you ‘afford’ to damage your eyesight?”

He’s replaced his display’s usual simplistic, circular approximation of eyes with an uncanny digital replica of what seems to be yours. You can hardly focus on the point he’s trying to make given the odd sight before you. “I—Sun, now really isn’t…”

He blinks at you, unwavering.

“Sun—quit lookin’ at me like that!”

He stifles a brief laugh. “Take a break from your screen and I will.”

You huff, shaking your head as you tear your gaze away from both screens in front of you, gaze pointedly darting around the room. “And look at what instead? You? What good’s it gonna do for me to look at your screen instead of this one?”

True to his word, once your eyes are off the screen, he rids himself of his disturbing new look. You glance at the motion as he rises fully from behind your desk, and take note of the way his monitor goes black instead of defaulting to his original face. He rounds the desk, hooking a finger through the handle of your long-empty mug and planting his ass on the corner where said mug just sat.

“Contrary to that thing, my monitor doesn’t need to be on in order for you to interact with me. No eye-strain or migraines required.”

You lean back in your chair, muttering as you turn to face him. “Just trading one kinda ‘strain’ for another if you ask me…”

He idly turns your mug over in his hands. “I’m gonna pretend I didn’t hear that.”

Your brows raise and you cock your head up to look at him. “That’s… mature of you.”

His optic's focus doesn’t move from the mug in his hands. “…One of us has to be.”

You sigh. “Sun, I appreciate your attempts to preserve my eye health, I do. But right now really isn't a good time…”

His monitor swivels on its axis, turning a near 180 to look at your monitor on the desk behind him. He surveys the day’s work: a messy assortment of various windows, tabs, and programs, recognizing that one client’s unreasonable list of requests among the disarray. From how long he spends staring at it, you begin to wonder if he’s got anything else to say at all.

“…You ever think about quitting?”

A surprised laugh escapes you. “Quitting? Uh—aha—I mean…” You give your answer a bit of thought. “…Of course I think about it. Especially when I’m stuck with a project like this one. Or, well… a client like this one. But that’s not… practical. I can’t just walk away from a job when things get hard.”

His monitor reverses the path it took to face the screen, swinging around slowly and pausing halfway through the motion to face you. “What’s stopping you?”

Another breathy laugh leaves you. “You mean aside from not wanting to feel like an even bigger failure than I already constantly do?”

He doesn’t respond, and you barely give him any time to. “Aside from that, y’know… when I said I can’t ‘afford’ to take a break right now, I meant it in the financial sense as much as any other.”

It’s not like losing out on the profit from one project would hurt your finances too much, at least not in comparison to how badly the failure to deliver would affect your reputation in your field. But quitting altogether? That’d be a different story.

“You… have money.”

You resist the urge to roll your eyes, reminding yourself that in spite of his intelligence, some knowledge can only sink in when you experience it firsthand.

“Yeah, but I won’t continue to have it if I just up and abandon this job with nothing else to fall back on. I’ve got bills to pay, a house and car to upkeep. Mine and Zero’s food and water, you and Moon’s maintenance—these things aren't free.”

His monitor swivels away from you as he considers your words. “Well they should be.”

You bite back a smile at his indignant response. “You’re not wrong… and in a better world, they would be. But unless you guys have figured out how to universe-hop and just haven’t told me yet, we’re stuck in this one. And I’ll stick with this company as long as they’ll have me if it means we can keep living comfortably.”

He resumes his idle toying with your drinkware and the thought suddenly occurs to you that maybe you should look into gifting him a fidget toy of some sort. He and Moon both would likely benefit from one, though you suspect Sun will reject the notion and Moon will just end up with two. Not that they’d go unused regardless, the lunar busybody could likely work one in each hand and still find himself restless.

Perhaps you should look into something more involved, like… complex puzzles? Intricate crafts? Something to keep his hands busy, given his preference for physical tasks as opposed to Sun’s love of idle entertainment. For someone who hates so-called “mind games” the solar bot sure does spend a lot of time in his own head. Regardless, you ought to find something for Moon, because you don’t think your house can get much cleaner or more organized. Though, the solution to Sun’s penchant for micromanaging your behaviors will likely be more difficult than a simple fidget toy can solve…

As your mind gears up to run off with the ideas, Sun’s next abrupt question halts it in its tracks.

“Did you want to quit when you were working on us?”

You freeze for a moment as the vulnerability in his tone catches you off guard, but the truth comes out easy when you answer him. “No. …No, I never did.”

His head tilts just enough to angle halfway back toward you, and if he wore any expression at all you assume it’d be one of skepticism.

“I mean it, Sun. I mean— hell, talk to any of my colleagues and they’ll tell you how insufferable I was back then. How difficult it was to get me to focus on any other project. How hellbent I was on executing the vision. How… well, I guess you saw at least some of those fights there toward the end when things got kinda… tense. No one could even get me to entertain the idea of giving up on you.”

The finger he’d been tracing in endless circles along the rim of your mug comes to a standstill. “…Why?”

You spin your chair around a bit, swiveling further into his avoidant line of sight, tilting your head and attempting to catch his invisible gaze. “Because I wasn’t doing it for money. You two were a labor of nothing but love.”

In the silence that follows, you hear his cooling system kick up a notch, and that’s the only sound that fills the room for a long moment. 

But like all moments, it eventually passed.

A soft knock on the doorframe pulls your attention away from the flustered automaton on your desk, and toward his counterpart standing in the open doorway of your office. One look at the tray effortlessly balanced in one of his hands answers the question of his arrival before you can even ask it.

“Am I interrupting anything?”

Sun unexpectedly answers before you can, and when your gaze flicks back over to him you’re surprised to find his default expression returned, and his demeanor completely shifted. “Nah, I was just reminding them of the importance of taking breaks to rest their eyes.”

He motions Moon over and the lunar bot accepts the invitation. “That is very important!” Soft-spoken and positive as ever, he presents you with a very reasonably proportioned and healthy spread of food. “You know what else is very important?”

You gaze up into his blue crescent eyes and he answers his own question on your behalf. “Lunch!”

Your grateful smile is involuntary as you reach out to lift a plate from the tray, turning toward Sun in a silent request for him to vacate the dedicated food-and-drink corner of your desk. He’s already moving before you even turn to him though, rising and striding to the middle of the room as you offer your gratitude to Moon and listen to him describe exactly what he’d made you.

You do your best to fight the long-memorized caloric numbers that rack up in your head as you take stock of what all he’s brought you.

“I’d offer to refill your water bottle, but it seems to still be quite full…” Moon’s commentary brings your attention back, and you sheepishly answer him.

“Yeah, I… finished the coffee first and… kinda forgot about that.”

He pets you gently on the head, calm as ever. “It’s alright, starlight, I understand.”

As you guiltily reach for the water bottle, Sun pipes up, excusing himself. “Well, now that you’ve been sufficiently distracted, I’ll be taking my leave—”

Moon cuts in, “Oh, don’t let me run you off, I just wanted to bring this in.”

Sun begins walking effortlessly backwards toward the doorway. “Oh, you’re not. I’ve got… my own plans. Starting with washing this mug.”

You can’t resist the urge to tease him, ‘talking to yourself’ plenty loud enough for him to hear on his way out. “Oh, thank fuck, he’s gone. Now I can get back to work!”

He halts in his tracks halfway through turning to face the exit. “You know, on second thought—”

You grin and wave. “Goodbye, Sun! Thanks for washing that for me!”

He shifts his weight onto one leg, idling in the doorway and thoughtfully dangling your mug from one hooked finger. “I mean, The American Academy of Ophthalmology actually recommends—”

“Good-bye, Mr. Sun.”

Moon chuckles at your deadpan dismissal and Sun huffs, turning and trudging away down the hall.

As you sip your water and begin to poke at the lunch with your fork, Moon walks around behind you and leans forward, surveying the work spread across your screen. “Do you mind if I take a look over this while you eat?”

You know it’s probably mostly an excuse to stay in here and make sure that you do eat, but you nod anyway. “Uh, sure! Have at it.”

The hunger hits you once you’ve had a taste of Moon’s cooking, and you muse aloud, mumbling around a mouthful of food. “Hell, maybe you’ll find some workaround that I can’t.”

A/N: Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed. I’ll be back soon with part 3! You can also find my notes and commentary on this fic right here on Ao3. Links to the playlist and moodboard for [N]MbD can be found on this blog’s pinned post, as well as in the series notes on Ao3. Image Sources: x - x - x

[celestial-toys]

That I Would Be Good [1/5]

How to Help

You take note of the two people on this couch with you. These innocent lives you brought into this awful world, with no thought given to the consequences. Stereotyped them down into boxes and expected a perfect fit—naive enough to think you could bring a fantasy to life.

You really want to apologize for falling into the business of playing God.

- - - - - - -

In This Chapter

Moon attempts to care for you as you do a little bedrotting.

The boys debate over taste in entertainment as you cry over work stress.

Much to Sun's chagrin though it all may be, you're saved from a potential night spent sleeping with your dog on the cold, hard hallway floor.

Pairing: Sun x Moon x Reader

Word Count: 5,174

Contains: [AU - Real World] [depiction of depression] [crying] [arguing] [an episode of vertigo] [tension] [fear]

A/Ns: This is a songfic. Lyrics and title are from 'That I Would Be Good' by Alanis Morissette.

This fic is part of my AU “[Not] Made by Design”, the full series can be found here.

Links to other parts of this fic: [Ch.1 (you are here)] [Ch.2] [Ch.3] [Ch.4] [Ch.5]

Lastly but certainly not least, this fic is dedicated to my friend Adrianna @roses-and-tears, whom I’ve been teasing with the existence of this fic for far too long. Thank you for your patience as I took my sweet time on this, and thank you for your patience with me in general. Your friendship means a lot to me, as does your endless support of my writing. I’m really grateful to have you in my life. Happy Birthday, Adri. 💛

That I would be good even if I did nothing.

Late afternoon sunlight slips through the slim crack between the drawn curtains covering your balcony doors. Over the past hours you’ve absently watched it grow from a bright yellow at noon to a vibrant orange now, the thin line cast across your bedsheets growing longer as the sun slips lower and lower. It serves as the only illumination in the room, all of your various lights and screens turned off in an effort to pretend that it’s an acceptable hour to be miserably curled up in bed, ignoring the world.

The occasional soft, muffled sounds of various housework being done by your—rightfully concerned, you suppose, yet surprisingly concerned, if you’re being honest—partners prevents you from ignoring the entire world, though. The subtle reminder that they’re here with you, that the house isn’t really empty, serves as a comfort that you aren’t sure you deserve. A small part of you wishes you truly were alone again, so at least you’d have a good reason to feel this way. You’d certainly feel less guilty about it too.

To their credit, they’ve handled this episode pretty well. Giving you space when you request it and proximity when you need it. Checking in on you. Keeping you clean, hydrated, and fed to the best of their ability in spite of your reluctance.

You just wish you could pull yourself out of this already.

You have work to do.

The mere thought of all that you’ve fallen behind on has you reaching up, grabbing at the corners of your pillow and tugging them down over your ears, eyes pinching closed in desperate avoidance.

Through the pillow you barely pick up on the muffled sound of soft knocking at your door.

You sigh, and manage a weak acknowledgment. “Yeah?”

Moon’s low voice rumbles through the barrier. “May I come in?”

You cough, clearing your parched throat. “...Yeah.”

The door swings open slowly and you squint, expecting the sting of the bright hallway light to hit, but it never does. You crack an eye open, releasing your hold on the pillow and tilting your head to watch him enter.

Your voice comes out more aggravated than you intend it to sound. “We got a bulb out in the hallway or something?”

Moon pauses halfway through closing the door behind him, his monitor swiveling around to face you. “Hmm?”

You clarify. “The light’s off out there.”

Understanding straightens the scrunched lines on his display that serve as his eyebrows. “Oh, no. The lights are fine, I just…” His monitor swings back around to align with his body as he gently pushes the door closed. “I’ve gathered that it hurts your eyes.”

The door quietly clicks shut and the light of his screen dims, adjusting its brightness to match that of the room. “The contrast, I mean. It being so bright out there when the bedroom is… so dark.”

A look, half-guilt and half-apology tugs at your features as you watch him approach the bed. “I’m sorry…”

His monitor clicks about 20 degrees to the right. “What for?”

His question is spoken so softly, so gently, and if you didn’t know better you’d almost believe that he really can’t think of anything you’d have to apologize to him for.

You know that couldn’t be further from the truth, though.

You’re about to acknowledge his ironic disdain for the darkness, but as you watch him reach down and experimentally lift the still-full bottle of water he refilled for you some odd hours ago, you pause. As his neutral expression curls into a small frown, you realize you should apologize for that, too. Your mind quickly offers up more and more things that you should apologize for, and within seconds your eyes are welling up with tears.

“Everything…” you say as you blink, letting them roll along your temples and—annoyingly—into one of your ears.

His monitor turns halfway toward you, but his false eyes don’t follow the motion, still locked on the bottle of water he’s thoughtfully swirling in his hand. His real eye must take in the state of you though, either that or his mics picked up on the emotion in your voice, because he passes the bottle into his left hand before turning and gesturing down toward the mattress with his right. “May I sit next to you?”

You nod, knowing he can see the motion even in the dim light, and you shift a bit from your dent in the mattress for the first time in… well, probably since Sun poked his proverbial nose in here an hour or two ago to make sure you were still breathing. Begrudgingly, you haul yourself up into a somewhat-vertical position, knowing if you don’t do it now Moon will coax you into it soon anyways. You pull your long sleeve down over your hand and use it to wipe at a few wet tear tracks.

Moon settles himself down on the mattress next to you, gently helping to pull away the sheets just enough to free you from your blanket prison as you halfheartedly reposition yourself. He rests the bottle on his left knee, monitor turning toward his right to face you.

“I don’t think that’s necessary. I think… a lot of the things you apologize for don’t even need one in the first place, and as for the things that do need one… well, you’ve already given them and I— …we’ve already accepted them.”

You sigh. “I wish it were easier for me to believe you.”

His tone has an edge of resignation, or… defeat, in it when he replies. “...So do I, star.”

His simulated breath deepens a bit and in the quiet of the room you hear his cooling system kick down a notch due to his shift into physical inactivity. He passes the water bottle into his right hand, his gaze flicking down toward it and then up to you. “Can you take a sip of this for me, please?”

Now that you’ve actually tried to speak and realized how… gross your mouth feels, you take it from him without reluctance and take not one but several sips, greedily downing it as your body finally recognises its thirst.

Settling the bottle in your lap, you shake your head a bit at his offered hand. “I’ll hold onto it for now… thank you.”

You steal another glance up at his monitor and see a small, unexpected smile and kind crescent eyes. “Of course.”

As his hands fold neatly in his lap, you question him. “Is Sun mad at me?”

His expression fades back into one of concerned confusion. “Why do you think that?”

You shrug and take another sip of your water, downplaying your explanation. “…Dunno. Just feels like that sometimes.” You think for a moment. “I wouldn’t blame him for it if he was. Wouldn’t blame you either.”

Moon’s display swivels side to side on its axis, shaking his head in disagreement. “I don’t think he is. I mean… you know Sun. He’s cold. Not as much as he once was, but still colder than I am, at least. Distant. Quiet. But… I don’t believe that he’s mad.”

He shifts, leaning back against the headboard and stretching his legs out across the length of the bed, crossing them as he releases an imitation of a breath. Angling his screen back toward you, he whispers, “You wanna know what I think?”

You nod, eyes widening in curiosity.

“I think he’s just as worried about you as I am. He just doesn’t know how to show it, or what to even do with such an emotion in the first place.”

You frown, your mind automatically finding yourself at fault. “I—I did my best to train your AIs identically… I don’t—I don’t know what happened with his emotional processing—”

Moon cuts you off, redirecting your attention with a gentle hand on your arm. “That’s not what I meant. I didn’t mean to blame you. AIs…” his voice and expression both turn playful, “…we’re a dangerous thing. You never truly know how we’re gonna turn out.” He nudges your shoulder with his, and you fight back a tiny laugh.

A comfortable sort of silence falls over the dark room, and you break it with one more quiet question. “…What’s he doing right now?”

“Same thing as Zero is, actually. Sleeping.”

His features dissipate, display changing as he pulls up an image he’d apparently taken of the dog and the bot sprawled across the couch. You huff a laugh at the sight of the two of them attempting to fit together.

“He told me he was up all night, but wouldn’t elaborate on why. So I wasn’t very shocked when he crashed in the living room and asked me to bring him his cable earlier.”

You sigh and look away, half-amused and half-stressed. The image fades, Moon’s default expression taking its place. You take another swig from your bottle before leaning back and to your left, the pillow behind you sliding along the headboard until you’re pressed against Moon’s side. “I wish he wouldn’t strain his battery like that. Gonna have to bring him in for a premature replacement at this rate.”

Moon nods, humming a quiet concurrence as he raises an arm, carefully wrapping it around your shoulders, your silent request for comfort heard loud and clear.

---------------------------

Neither of you ever got an answer as to what had kept Sun up that night. But, if you’d been able to look inside his mind and see his most recent activity, you’d have found a messy assortment of browser tabs, each one’s title containing the keywords “depression” and “how to help.”

That I would be good even if I got the thumbs down.

You’re settled atop Sun’s lap on your too-small couch, back comfortingly pressed against his chest, legs stretching out across the cushions to rest on Moon’s thighs. He’s the only one out of the three of you that’s actually sitting on the couch properly, Sun instead opting for his usual lengthwise position, one arm draped along the back of the couch and the other wrapped around your waist.

One advantage of his mechanical body is that he can keep his head twisted 90 degrees to the left, facing the TV for as long as he’d like and never know the pain of a sore neck.

He seems just as invested in what’s on the TV as Moon is, and if the repetitive shifts in lighting and audio are anything to go by, you’re willing to bet they’re having another silent argument over what to watch. Too absorbed in the game on your phone to be bothered by the inconsistent ambiance, you brush aside the stray thought to remind them that they could each just watch their own show in their HUDs instead of fighting over the big screen. Their strange insistence on adhering to the “human” way of doing things is something for you to psychoanalyze another time.

You half-listen to the TV as it switches back and forth between what sounds like BBC Earth, and The (ironically named) Learning Channel, taking note of the way Sun’s body warms. His cooling system audibly kicks in, and the creator in you takes immediate notice, the attention to your phone waning as your concern over Sun’s internal temperature rises.

You pause your game, pulling in a breath as you prepare to interject on whatever silent argument is getting him so heated, but they beat you to the punch, their internal exchange suddenly becoming external.

“—Because we’ve seen it before! I already know everything I could possibly need to know about crabs!” Moon’s voice cuts through the background noise and you flinch a bit at its sudden volume.

Sun’s curled fingers splay out flat across your stomach, apparently trying to calm you and argue with Moon at the same time. “It’s not about knowledge! It’s about the implications! The metaphor!”

Moon’s monitor pivots away from the TV and over to Sun, his volume lowering a bit as his optics pass over your form curled against Sun. “What implications?”

You twist around a bit to get a glance at the screen when the narrator says something that catches your ear.

“Our spy becomes the crab's defender.”

The three of you turn and watch as a robotic imitation of a crab serves as a mechanical wall of defense between a vulnerable, soft shelled crab and a hungry stingray.

You feel Sun’s arm tighten around you.

Confused and unimpressed, Moon turns back toward his solar counterpart. “Mhm, that’s lovely, Sun, but what does it have to do with us?”

Sun’s volume drops as you feel his body mimic a sigh. “More than your stupid ‘Thousand Coupons and Counting’ show does, that’s for sure…”

You feel your phone buzz in your hand, the darkened screen lighting up once again and drawing your attention away from Moon’s rebuttal.

“Oh, come on, that’s not even the name...”

Their petty quarrel quickly becomes background noise as your focus zeroes in on the message preview in your notifications.

[ Hey, sorry to bother you at such an hour, but I finally had time to relay your most recent proposed alterations to the client’s requested design… ]

Your stomach drops as you tap to open the message and are met with a bullet point list of complaints and questions relayed from the client through one of your colleagues. You’re grateful that your team has a dedicated customer relations department because if you had to communicate with this particular client directly, you may be out of a job.

Your mood quickly grows sour and defeated as you scan over the list of criticisms, your colleague’s addition of a sympathetic [😕] at the end of their message doing little to soften the blow. You’ve spent countless hours trying to find work-arounds and alternatives to this client's unrealistic requests, the head of your team insistent that you find a way to please them lest you cost the company a “substantial potential profit.”

Clenching your jaw, you fight to keep a level head. You fight the urge to type out a hasty response, one you know would be full of childish, whining complaints about the inconvenient timing and the client’s unrealistic demands. You then fight the subsequent urge to just turn your phone off, and maybe hurl it through a window for good measure.

“Why would we need to know that? When will we ever need to afford fifteen 2-liters of Mountain Dew and ten jugs of Tide on a tight budget?! Who shops like that?!” Sun’s rapidly rising voice is enough to finally break through your swirling thoughts. The sound of your boys arguing, as ridiculous as the topic may be, only adds fuel to your emotional fire.

You fight the urge to cry, and you fail.

Clicking your phone screen off, you curl further in on yourself and press your temple against the back cushion of the couch. Moon’s voice dies down halfway through his retort, his attention quickly drawn to your sudden display of emotion. Sun’s focus falls on you at the same time, his sensors instantly picking up on the shift in your breathing and increase in your heart rate.

Moon’s body shifts, turning toward you and leaning closer as the hand he’d had resting on your knee begins to pet up and down the length of your shin in a gentle bid for your attention.

Sun aggressively whispers to Moon as the hand he’d had resting on the back of the couch comes down to hover anxiously over your head. “You idiot, look what you did!”

Moon mirrors his hushed tone. “What I did? You’re the one being unreasonable!”

You shake your head and clear your throat before cutting in. “This isn’t… about that.”

Sun’s hand comes down to awkwardly pet down your hair as you lean away from where you’d head-butted the couch cushion. “What… is this about then? What upset you?”

You turn your head, pressing your chin against your shoulder to dry the tears that had trailed down and converged there. You internally debate over how to explain yourself before giving up shortly after, opting instead to silently pull the message back up on your phone and hand the thing to Sun for him to read.

He takes in the message’s contents with typical robotic speed before handing the phone over to Moon, an unreadable expression on his display. Moon scrolls back up, reading the list of complaints and releasing a sigh as he hands the phone back to you. “They’re being unreasonable.”

You nod in agreement, releasing a sigh of your own. “Can’t tell ‘em that, though.”

Your words hang in the air as a contemplative silence falls over the room, and it’s then that you idly note that one of them must have muted the TV at some point. With their debate over taste in entertainment quickly drawn to a close, you suddenly feel guilty. “I’m sorry…”

“What for?” Sun’s voice questions over your shoulder.

“Ruining another evening…”

Moon scoffs, his retort lighthearted with a dose of rare sarcasm. “Oh, of course! How dare you interrupt our ‘important’ television debate with your silly little real-world problems.”

You glance at him, cracking a small smile, but it doesn’t last. Sighing, you lean further back into Sun, letting your head fall back until it’s resting on his shoulder. From the corner of your periphery, you see his head pull back and tilt down to get a better look at you.

“It’s not even just this one client, it’s… I mean- it is, but… fighting over what is and isn’t possible… nowadays it just reminds me of how I fought with the team over your designs. Reminds me of all the ways that I let you down. All the ways I failed you.”

You watch a frown form on Moon’s display, and you’re about to apologize for dredging up the past again, but Sun’s hands are quick to distract you. Reaching down and around you, he takes the phone from your hand, moving slowly enough to give you time to resist his attempts should you choose to. Meeting no resistance, he cradles the phone in your lap, and watching over your shoulder, opens the message once again and begins typing out a response.

[ Please remind them that while we are always eager to please, there are certain limitations to what sorts of ideas we can bring to life. Link them to our Product Design FAQ page if you haven’t already. I’ll review their comments and look into potential alterations first thing Monday morning, when our business hours resume. Thank you. ]

Moon’s curiosity got the best of him, leaning across the length of the couch to get an upside-down look at the phone screen. Rotating his faceplate 180 degrees, he hums in approval before leaning back, head slowly completing a 360 and righting itself once again.

Sun’s thumbs pull away from the keyboard and he requests your approval in a low voice. “That sound good?”

You want to ask him why he’s helping you. You want to ask Moon why he isn’t mad. You want to ask them why you’re even still employed, why you even deserve the job you’re apparently so bad at. You want to apologize for everything under the sun.

You take note of the two people on this couch with you. These innocent lives you brought into this awful world, with no thought given to the consequences. Stereotyped them down into boxes and expected a perfect fit—naive enough to think you could bring a fantasy to life.

You really want to apologize for falling into the business of playing God.

But you don’t. You re-read the message and let out a soft, resigned sigh, nodding. “Better than any response I’d be able to come up with tonight. Thank you.”

You raise a hand, tapping the send button, and then watch as Sun puts your phone on do not disturb before clicking it off once more. You point to the coffee table and he places it there, and Moon reaches for the TV remote at the same time. As you quietly readjust yourself in Sun’s hold, Moon offers you the remote with a soft question. “What would you like to watch?”

That I would be good if I got and stayed sick.

Flicking the light off, you make your way out of the bathroom and down the hall. Zero trails directly behind you, the dog insistent as always that you be accompanied on the long, arduous journey from the bedroom to the bathroom and back.

Perhaps, this time she could sense something that you couldn’t, because no more than a few steps into your short trip back, something quickly begins to feel… off. Closing your eyes and coming to a halt in the middle of the hall, you feel your stomach drop as you register the dreaded, familiar feeling of the world starting to spin around you.

Attempting a deep breath, you open your eyes and immediately regret it, disoriented and beginning to grow a bit panicked at how quickly this came over you. Muttering a soft “fuck… not again…” you reach out, placing a hand on the wall in an attempt to steady yourself. You try to at least make it back to the bedroom, but a terribly familiar hint of nausea makes itself known, and you suddenly aren’t sure if you should try for the bedroom or the bathroom.

Your body ends up deciding for you, a wave of lightheadedness teaming up with the dizzying sensation and quickly convincing you that taking a seat right where you are isn’t such a bad idea. As you slowly slide down the wall, butt thumping against the floor, you shakily call out. “Guys?”

Within five seconds, two round screens with wide digital eyes peek out from the bedroom’s open doorway. Stumbling over one another to get out of the room as soon as they see you on the floor, they question you in tandem. “What happened?!”

Clearing the short distance in a few strides to reach you, they both crouch down, one on each of your sides, Zero nervously pacing back and forth between them.

“I… I don’t know. It just hit me again out of nowhere.”

Moon’s faceplate clicks back and forth rapidly, a few degrees to the right, then a few degrees to the left. You close your eyes again, unable to look at him for long. You don’t have it in you to tell him that the motion itself is a dizzying sight. Sun seems to gather as much from his quiet observation, reaching out and roughly pinching the edge of Moon’s display, bringing the lunar bot’s anxious fidgeting to an abrupt halt.

“Vertigo?” Sun wastes no time in getting straight to the point, as usual.

You press your head back against the wall with a quiet groan. “Uhuh.”

“Can you tell us what—exactly—you’re feeling right now?” Moon questions you softly as he subtly struggles to pry Sun’s iron grip off of his head.

“Uhh… dizzy… lightheaded… getting kinda nauseous…”

Sun’s hand gravitates toward its favorite spot—that being around your neck—and since you don’t see it coming, you flinch.

He sighs, thumb finding its home on your pulse. “…It’s just me. You should know by now that I’m not gonna hurt you.”

You huff a humorless laugh in spite of your current state. “Yeah, well, I should know a lotta things by now.”

Sun doesn’t humor you with a snarky response, too focused on the current matter at hand. “Your pulse is pounding. Fast.” He’s quiet for a beat before tacking on a question. “Do you not feel it?”

You scoff. “Of course I do, Sun. I’m just used to it. It’s just doing that ‘cause I’m…” you hesitate, but honesty slips out of you rather easily in this state, “...scared.”

Concern seeps into his voice. “Of me?”

This time there’s a bit of humor in the laugh that he draws out of you. “No, Sunny… not you. Not this time.” You press the heels of your hands into the floor, searching for something grounding. “...It’s this. I’m scared of this. Whatever’s happening to me.”

Moon chimes in. “It’s gonna pass. It always does.” He places a hand on your knee. “And we’re right here. Gonna help you through it, just like always.”

You dare to crack your eyes open again, and find his screen blessedly still, light dim. “Still scares me though… don’t know why it’s happening.”

Sun retracts his hand from your neck. “We’ll figure it out. First priority is getting you situated somewhere more suitable. Do you want to go back to bed?”

You mull it over, wishing your nausea would decide to either get worse or get gone already so you could make up your mind. “I… wanna get back in bed, but… I don’t know if this nausea is gonna get worse or not.”

Sun almost shakes his head, but stops just short of it, not wanting to mirror Moon and make things worse. “You know we have a bucket dedicated to solving that very problem, so you can cross that off of your list of concerns. Besides, if it gets worse and you change your mind, we can always take you to the bathroom, easily.”

Sighing, you allow his reasoning to override your anxious, indecisive mind. “Yeah… okay. That’s fine by me, as long as you’re sure you don’t mind.”

Moon answers for both of them. “Of course we don’t.”

Sun leans back on his heels. “If that was the only thing keeping you, then why don’t we move this to the bedroom?”

In spite of your current state, you can’t help but crack a smile, unable to resist the opportunity to tease him. “Goodness, Mr. Sun. Too eager to even buy me dinner first?”

It takes the solar bot a moment to process the implications of your words, but the way the concerned expression on his face swaps to an empty black screen is enough to tell you that he got the joke—and that perhaps—he didn’t like it.

His voice comes out deadpan as he suddenly stands, distancing himself from you in more ways than one. “Ha-ha, very funny. If you’re feeling well enough to joke around then perhaps you don’t need my help after all.”

Moon grabs ahold of Sun’s ankle as he attempts to walk away, mirroring the iron grip the solar bot had recently had on him. “Come on, Sunny, don’t be like that…”

Sun gives a sharp tug on his leg, but Moon’s grip doesn’t relent. Even without a face nor a voice, you can still sense him silently telling Moon to not test him. You know better than almost anybody that their physical strength is perfectly matched to one another. They could stay locked in a stalemate until their batteries died if either of them truly desired it.

As amusing as it may be to push Sun’s buttons, even you know when something’s about to go too far, so you make the call to break it up. “Ah, let him go, Moon. He’s put up with enough of my shit for one night.”

Moon releases his counterpart, and Sun mutters a quiet “That’s right.” beneath his breath, striding back into the bedroom.

Zero yawns into a whine.

You shakily reach a hand up to pet her and she bends down, slipping her head beneath it. Your voice is something close to jaded when you address the quiet lunar automaton still crouched beside you. “Well, now that I’ve successfully put everyone in a bad mood, I suppose it’s time for bed, huh?”

He’s his usual understanding self when he replies. “I know it wasn’t intentional, star.”

“Yeah, but… I know he’s sensitive. Should really get around to repairing that brain-to-mouth filter of mine one of these days…” You trail off, making an effort to stand, and regret it quite quickly as the world starts to spin again.

Moon’s hands brace you instantly, and a soft request fills your ears as you clamp your eyes shut again. “Let me carry you instead?”

“...Please.”

“Of course.”

The three of you make your way back to bed, and in spite of Sun’s previous statement implying he wouldn’t help you, you notice the way the room is already prepared for you. Bed sheets straightened, pillows situated, lights dimmed as low as they can go. The movie you’d paused is no longer waiting on the TV screen, the device having been fully turned off, and you know that Sun must’ve read somewhere that bright, flashing, moving images on screens can make your symptoms worse. (Who’d’ve guessed.)

He slips back out of your closet as Moon places you down in the center of the mattress, your just-in-case bucket dangling from his hand. His hands settle on his hips after he places it down near the nightstand, still-blacked-out monitor swinging slowly, surveying the room.

“Last time this happened, crackers and water seemed to take the edge off. Would you like to try that again? Do you think you can stomach it?”

He doesn’t mention his (over)reaction in the hallway, and you elect to drop it too.

“I… yeah. Guess I’ll try anything that might help.”

He’s out of the door and off to the kitchen immediately, and back with both items in hand by the time Moon gets you both settled in bed. Moon holds your water and you take the crackers as Sun takes his seat on the other side of you, Zero curling up at your feet. Your shaky hands fiddle with the packaging for a moment before black and yellow segmented fingers hover over your own. You pause, and Sun makes quick, silent work of parting the wrapper. You offer up a quiet “...thanks…” that receives no verbal reply.

A few crackers and a quarter cup of water later, you’re relieved to find your symptoms beginning to ease. It’s no magical cure, but you feel more stable than you did on your own out in the hallway, where you honestly might’ve slept had you been left to your own devices.

Two of Moon’s fingers press against your inner wrist. “Hmm… better, but not back to baseline. Are you still scared?”

You’re quiet for a minute, trying to search for the source of your fear. “Scared… that this is gonna keep happening at random, forever.”

Moon is quick to reassure you. “I’m confident that we’ll work out the root cause of these episodes one day.”

You mumble defeatedly through a mouthful of chewed cracker. “I sure fuckin’ hope so.”

Of course, it’s only once you’re content to let silence fall over the room that Sun speaks.

“You don’t need to fear it regardless. Even if this is with you forever. Because…” he releases a sigh, full of reluctance, but finishes his sentence nonetheless, “...it’s not like we’re going anywhere either.”

A/N: Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed. I'll be back tomorrow with part 2! You can also find my notes and commentary on this fic right here on Ao3. Links to the playlist and moodboard for [N]MbD can be found on this blog’s pinned post, as well as in the series notes on Ao3. Header Image Sources: x - x - x

[celestial-toys]

nova

Yeahhhhh? Heeeeem? (Nova belongs to @venomous-qwille!)

[celestial-toys]

My New Tall Assistant, part 19 ‼️🔥✨

Sorry for the slow posting, I love this comic and I will keep posting I swear

ENJOY‼️

▶️My ko-fi◀️

Part 1 | Part 18(prev) | Part 20(next)

[celestial-toys]

quora please stop emailing me

[celestial-toys]

DAY 1: Cuddle

[celestial-toys]

☀️🎈🎉ITS SEPTEMBER 21ST HOLY SHIT🎉🎈🌘

[celestial-toys]

Observation Duty

“You said your eyes are everywhere, huh?”

Your question is met with silence.

Now, if you had been looking down at him instead of facing the ceiling, you’d have caught the brief image of your living room security cam footage as it flashed across the screen of his faceplate. You’d have seen the moment you tripped playing on a sped up loop over and over, your knee hitting the table’s corner, your body hitting the floor, laundry falling and dog food scattering just to rise back up unnaturally as the footage plays again in reverse.

You weren’t looking down though, you weren’t looking anywhere at all- and so you missed it completely, thinking nothing of his silence and continuing to talk to the ceiling.

“So… what, you just enjoy watching me do chores?”

- - -

Seeking distraction from the work weighing on your mind, you start a little play-argument with the tetchy automaton currently hogging your couch. It soon evolves into a verbal dance, skirting around some heavier topics that threaten to trip up the both of you as your conversation moves too quickly for this listless afternoon.

As usual, he takes all of your antics in stride. Well… mostly. Kinda.

Look- he’s trying, okay?

Pairing: Sun x Moon x Reader - GN!Reader

Word Count: 4,934

Contains: [AU - Real World] [argument] [feelings] [implied past trauma] [intimidation] [lack of communication] [minor injuries] [obsessive behavior] [sentient AI] [size difference] [surveillance] [tension] [touching (not sexual but the consent is still dubious)] [tsundere/yandere Sun] [unsettling]

A/Ns: Once again, the above CW's probably make it sound worse than it is, but I like to err on the side of caution.

This fic is part of my AU "[Not] Made by Design", the full series can be found here.

The light of the screen in front of you burns into your tired eyes. Your focus is waning, your mind preferring to wander instead to how badly you’re craving an afternoon coffee. Sighing, you push yourself away from your desk, leaning back into the chair as its wheels roll with the momentum. Bumping into the wall behind you with a soft thud, you slump in your seat, staring with unfocused eyes at nothing in particular.

A few deep breaths and a short-lived moment of empty-headed bliss later, you remove your glasses and rub your eyes with the knuckles of your curled fingers. Digging your heels into the floor and dragging your chair forward again, you place your glasses on the desk, and note the time. You’ve been in the office for several hours at this point, and if you stay much longer you’re willing to bet a certain Sun-themed bot will be beating down your door demanding that you take a break. So, after double-checking that your work is saved, you put your PC to sleep. Standing and reaching for the ceiling as you stretch, you grimace at the cracks from your back and shoulders.

Making your way out of the room and down the hall, you round a corner, entering the living room. The blackout shades are down, all lights off save for the soft yellow glow coming from a small lamp in the corner. The bright afternoon sun is peeking its way through the edges of the windows that the shades don’t quite cover.

Moon would likely complain about how “dark and sad” it looks if he were in here, but you don’t see him. You figure he might be in the kitchen, or outside charging, maybe. Regardless, if he isn’t here to bother Sun about his “depressing” lighting choices, you will in his stead.

The robot has situated himself across the length of your couch, which is quite a feat considering the thing is honestly just a glorified loveseat and even you can’t lay on it comfortably. For being as large as they are, their flexibility makes up for it, allowing Sun and Moon to be genuinely impressive in their ability to fit into relatively small spaces. You try not to mentally pat yourself on the back for the role you played in that ability.

This isn’t about you anymore.

The soft white glow coming from his screen is enough to illuminate the pages of the book in his hands, and from what you can see of it you think you recognize the cover as being the one you were telling them both about last night as you were falling asleep.

…Cute.

You smile, leaning against the wall as you speak up.

“Y’know, my parents used to always nag me about my bad habit of reading in the dark. It seems I’ve somehow passed that trait along to you.”

Sun hums, tone soft and dismissive, and doesn’t pull his gaze away from the book when he speaks.

“It’s not dark, the lamp’s on.”

One black silicone fingertip lifts the corner of the right page, gently pulling it across and splaying his hand out to flatten the book down again. You note how the width of his fingers span beyond both edges of the book. It almost looks too small in his hands, but then again… most things do.

“Besides, I can see just fine in the dark. The lamp is for you.”

Well, he’s not wrong.

There’s humor in your voice, speaking as you push up off the wall and make your way across the room towards him. “Yes, and I do appreciate you leaving me enough light to get around by.”

You cautiously perch behind him on the right arm of the couch, careful not to get your loose clothes caught on any of his protruding rays. You’re aware that in his eyes, you’re clumsy enough even with the lights on, let alone trying to navigate in the almost-dark. Given that, you aren’t sure if it’s truly his disdain for bright lights, or simply his desire to see you struggle that drives him to keep the areas he occupies dimly lit.

Looking down at the coffee table, a recent memory surfaces and you frown.

“Speaking of navigating in the dark… my knee still hurts from slamming it into the corner of the coffee table last week, you know?”

From your position behind him you can’t see how his display shifts from its soft, blank white, his digital approximation of facial features materializing only to shift into a grimace. You do hear the shift in his tone of voice, although you can’t quite name what it is. Exasperation? Or… concern?

“I know. I’m surprised it didn’t bruise.”

“Well, you know me, I have to take quite a hard hit for my skin to really show it.” You think for a moment, and add onto the statement, muttering mostly to yourself but his hearing catches it all the same. “Which has always been odd to me considering how easily my skin scars…”

He hums a little bit in acknowledgment, trying not to think too hard about your various scars and how you got them. “Well, from the sound you made when it happened I thought you’d really injured yourself.”

Your voice takes on a playful tone of offense. “I am injured! It hurt!” You reach down and gently press over the spot that hurts the most, unable to resist the urge to poke the non-existent bruise through the plush fabric of your lounge pants. You murmur to yourself as much as to Sun, “...and it’s still sore...”

His body releases air in semblance of a sigh, lowering the book to his lap. Still looking down at it while he speaks, his tone is a mixture of teasing and I-told-you-so. “While it may have been semi-dark in here when it happened- I’m not taking the blame for it. Things like that just happen when you run around doing three things at once.”

A small surprised laugh escapes you. “How do you know what I was doing, huh?” You reach out and carefully run a fingertip along the edge of his top ray. “You weren’t even in the room, silly.”

His rays twitch slightly but he doesn’t retract them much as his faceplate slowly tilts back, stopping at an impossible angle for any human and finally making eye contact with you, albeit upside-down. “My eyes are everywhere, doll.”

His tone is something you’d call playfully threatening and you hold his steady gaze for a long moment before eventually blinking and glancing away, conceding to a contest you could never win.

It’s cute when he tries to be scary.

A half-smile on your face, you dismiss his attempt to unsettle you. Halloween is next month. “Mhm. I’m sure they are.”

From your peripheral vision you watch his expression falter, his yellow eyes flickering to red just briefly before he speaks. “You were carrying a bowl filled with dog food in your left hand, fresh laundry from the dryer was hanging off both of your shoulders, and you were wiping down the coffee table with your favorite brown towel in your right hand. All at once. While cursing.”

You throw a confused look at him that he ignores in favor of continuing to reprimand your past actions. “You’re incapable of doing one thing at a time, aren’t you? Truly reckless behavior, you know. That’s how people get hurt.”

You let out a put-upon sigh. He’s not wrong, but you don’t want to admit it yet.

Time for a diversion, then.

“Hey, I can multitask! I built both of you at the same time and it turned out alright, didn’t it?”

For a moment, the room is absolutely silent as you both process what you just let slip. You’re about to rush to correct yourself when Sun beats you to it, speaking up.

He laughs at first, soft and a little dismissive.

“Not quite the same thing, sunshine.”

Alright, well… it seems he’s less bothered by the reminder than you thought he’d be. That, or he’s getting better at hiding his true feelings, which is a whole other issue you’ll have to tackle if that’s the case.

You cock your head to the side. Might as well play into it, then.

“No? How so?”

His eyes flicker to red, and this time they stay that way as his faceplate turns, click-click-clicking and stopping when it’s done a 180 so he can look at you properly.

Oh. He’s not smiling.

On second thought, maybe you shouldn’t push the topic.

“You designed us, doll. You didn’t build us, and you didn’t do it alone. You had a whole team behind you.”

Not breaking eye contact with you, Sun’s left hand that had been cradling the open book in his lap closes in an instant. A sudden, sharp clap resounds in the room as a result of the book folding closed so harshly in his grip. You internally grimace at the way it makes you flinch.

Your eyes flick from the book held tight in his grip, to his faceplate, watching his expression fade until his display is completely black. Any attempts at appearing somewhat humanoid thrown out the window, he releases a breath of hot air through his vents as you stare into the void of his screen. You know he’ll likely elaborate if you give him the space to do so, so you take a deep breath of your own, and wait.

It’s always somehow so much more unnerving to hear him speak when his “face” is gone, but you hang onto his every word regardless. You’re not gonna look away from something- someone you made.

“Besides, let’s not forget that even with a whole team of humans, you still managed to fuck up some… aspects… of the project.” Having dropped the comforting illusion of his false eyes, his faceplate tilts, a small, sudden, sharp movement so his ocular sensor can stare directly at you. “Didn’t you?”

Your stomach drops at the realization of what he’s referencing. At least… you think you know. Honestly, there’s an entire list of things that happened back in the facility that they have every right to resent you for.

You’re not sure what to say anymore. There really aren’t any magic words that can make it better. You hurt them. You all did. End of argument.

The realization must be obvious on your face, because his screen soon switches back to his default expression and he seems quite pleased with himself for about ten whole seconds. Then as quickly as it came, the expression he wears shifts into one of hesitation, frustration, and then finally- worry? Maybe? At this point it’s getting hard to tell what the hell he’s feeling, if you ever could.

“Sun… I… I don’t-”

You manage to hold his gaze as you stumble in search of the right words, watching his expression morph from one emotion to the next until his right hand moves, and your eyes immediately flick towards the motion. Your gaze drags up his arm as slowly, his shoulder joint rotates enough to allow him to reach all the way behind him- towards you- hand reaching out to gently cup your right cheek.

You don’t lean away. You won’t.

You dig your nails into the fabric of the couch. His thumb slips under the edge of your jaw as his fingers splay across the side of your head, and you can feel the slight pressure as his thumb lays against your carotid artery.

He doesn’t speak at all this time but from past experience, your mind easily fills in the words he usually says to you as he does this.

Deep breath in. Hold it. Let it out slowly.

You know what he’s doing, and you let him. It’s far from the first time he’s done it.

His mixed expression doesn’t change, his hand doesn’t move, and the silence drags on until you can’t take it anymore. Your voice shakes but you push past it to get the words out.

“I… I swear to god- Sun- like I’ve said before, if I’d’ve had any clue that you two were alive back then-”

You’re forced to squint as his entire screen suddenly flashes, solid white, red, black, repeating several times. His grip on your cheek tightens just slightly. A warning of sorts, if you had to guess. It shuts you up fast and he hisses out an irritated “Don’t.”

Confusion is written on your face and without thinking, you open your mouth to insist on your apology.

His thumb immediately slips under your chin, pressing your mouth closed with such a slow, gentle motion contradicting his current demeanor that it practically gives you whiplash. As soon as your mouth is closed his thumb slips right back to its prior position over your pounding pulse, and his display fades back down to solid black.

“Stop talking. It fucks up my readings when you speak.”

Your brow furrows in frustration at first, but you do what he asked, and what you’re good at. You sit there with him in the quiet and focus on your breathing as the sounds of his cooling system kick up a notch.

The seconds feel like they drag on for ages due to the way you focus on them, but in reality it’s only about three minutes later that he finally seems satisfied with the readings he took as he slowly retracts his hand from your head. The black void of his faceplate slowly lights up again, albeit he’s replaced his default expression with something more akin to a… dynamic wallpaper- yellow smoke billowing across a dark screen.

Whatever suits him, you suppose.

Folding his hands together over the book in his lap, he finally speaks, his tone low and unhappy but not angry, really.

“Your HRV is low and your RHR is high.”

Your response comes out sounding more dismissive than you mean for it to.

“Yeah, they usually are. Nothing new, unfortunately.”

Sun’s body tenses a bit and his rays retract slightly in response. He releases another hot breath through the vent at the base of his neck and you can feel the warmth on your thigh through the fabric of your pants. He speaks again, voice slightly strained.

“That’s my point. You need to relax, and talking about the past isn’t helping you do that right now. So just… drop it.”

You want to point out that he could stand to take his own advice, but you bite your tongue instead. He’s right, after all. You do need to relax. You both do, what with the two of you walking around ready to snap most of the time. In spite of that though, he’s doing his best to deescalate the situation and you ought to follow suit.

The lack of Moon’s calming presence is painfully obvious during times like these, but the two of you ought to be able to make it through one damn conversation without needing his assistance. You laugh a little to yourself, unamused but wearing half a smile nonetheless, shaking your head at the thought. As much as he’d hate to admit it, even Sun knows that the three of you work best when you’re all together, balancing each other out.

You sigh, and let yourself flop against the back of the couch, stretching your right arm out across the length of it. Sun’s invisible gaze follows you as his faceplate tilts on its axis and rotates to remain facing you. You note the way he’s letting his neck gently rest against your right thigh.

Leaning your own head back and closing your eyes in defeat, you speak towards the ceiling.

“Okay, fine, you’re right. I’ll drop it.”

You drum your fingertips along the fabric of the couch in thought, before adding, “...And… maybe... I was doing too much at once, when I hurt my knee on the coffee table last week.”

He lets out a little hum of agreement.

Still, if he thinks he’s fully won this silly little argument he’s got another thing coming. You’ve definitely still got a counterpoint. Counter… question? Whatever.

“You said your eyes are everywhere, huh?”

Your question is met with silence.

Now, if you had been looking down at him instead of facing the ceiling, you’d have caught the brief image of your living room security cam footage as it flashed across the screen of his faceplate. You’d have seen the moment you tripped playing on a sped up loop over and over, your knee hitting the table’s corner, your body hitting the floor, laundry falling and dog food scattering just to rise back up unnaturally as the footage plays again in reverse.

You weren’t looking down though, you weren’t looking anywhere at all- and so you missed it completely, thinking nothing of his silence and continuing to talk to the ceiling.

“So… what, you just enjoy watching me do chores?”

He chuckles in response, and the vibrations from the sound tickle your outer thigh, causing the muscles there to twitch involuntarily. You cringe at your body’s sensitivity, but Sun thankfully doesn’t react.

Begrudgingly, you open your eyes and crane your head back up, bringing your right hand up off the couch to lean on. You pull your left leg up towards yourself at the same time, heel propping up on the arm of the couch. Curling toward your right, you realize you’ve inadvertently wrapped your body around his head, which is all but resting in your lap at this point. His rays are mostly retracted by now and the display on his faceplate has shifted once again, yellow clouds still billowing across black but he’s allowed parts of his expression to return, pale white eyes emerging from the smoke.

His face is otherwise unreadable as he finally responds to you. “My priority is keeping you safe. How can I do that if I can’t see you?”

You can’t help but scoff a little at that. “Safe? You were- apparently- watching me, and still let me trip on one of Zero’s toys and slam my knee into the table.”

At that, his mouth returns and he frowns at your tone, and so do you, realizing that you came across a bit more accusatory than you meant to. A beat passes where you both just stare at each other, and his voice is a lot softer when he speaks again.

“Was I not by your side within seconds after the fall, checking you for injuries?”

He was, and you know it. He was on you inhumanly fast, cradling your head like you’d fallen off a ladder or something and not just tripped and fell to your hands and knees on plush carpet. He’s a worrier and you know it damn well, even if he’d rather be decommissioned than admit to it.

Unfortunately, you never learned how to let yourself accept help, nor how to stop being stubborn in a stupid argument that you started yourself. “...Yeah. I guess. But you still could have offered to help before I tripped.”

He rolls his eyes before they land back on you, fixing you with a look that’s unexpectedly soft. In stark contrast, his voice comes out strained. “I was trying not to hover, sunshine.”

Your eyes flick away from his, always unable to maintain the sustained contact once things got a little too serious.

He keeps talking regardless.

“I know you. You would have been like- ‘Oh, no, I’ve got it! Don’t even worry about it!’ and wouldn’t have let me help even if I did offer.”

You scoff before leveling him with an unamused stare. “Oh, I do not sound like that. Shut it.”

He’s wearing a neutral expression but you notice as it shifts slightly, a hint of satisfaction at having gotten under your skin beginning to make itself known. You watch the hint of emotion begin to alter his digital features, as well as his voice.

“Regardless. ‘No lesson is as powerful as the lesson learned on one’s own.’ Besides, I knew you’d be fine.”

You blink down at him for a moment as you process his statement, and fail to contain your exasperated huff of annoyance when you realize where you’ve heard some of those words before.

“Don’t quote Night Vale at me right now, Sun.”

If you hadn’t been watching him so closely, you’d have missed the way his eyes turned upwards a bit, seemingly pleased with himself.

You continue, in spite of his attempts to deflect your words.

“You didn’t sound so self assured when you were rushing over to me on the floor with those big red “eyes” of yours blown wide. You were all like- ‘Where does it hurt? Show me. Where. How bad? You didn’t hit your head, right? Forget about the dog food- look at me.’ and all that.”

His eyes shift from crescent moons to flat lines, and his voice returns to his typical deadpan tone.

“You do a terrible impression of me.”

You scoff.

“Like yours is better?”

He nods, his faceplate shifting up and down within the limited range of motion he’s allowed, given your current position.

“I can literally mimic your voice. Mine is objectively superior.”

Thoughts of The Mimic flash in your mind, and it takes all you’ve got to not crack some sort of half-baked joke about the Ruin DLC. The smile on your face does little to hide the temptation, though.

“Debatable.”

Sun doesn’t press you for more, seeming less than eager to hear whatever joke he’s sure you’ve got sitting on the tip of your tongue.

“It’s not up for debate. If you wanna debate with someone go find Moon.”

He sighs heavily, breathing out his next words in an impressive display of realism given that his speech and breathing functions aren’t connected at all.

“I've run out of conversation juice.”

He shifts to sit back up, faceplate rotating, returning his body to its original position facing away from you. You huff and uncurl yourself from your perch on the couch. Moving to stand, you make your way around to the other end where his long legs cause his feet to jut out comically far past the armrest. You reach down, gently grabbing him by the ankles and begin to maneuver his legs out of the way, muttering to yourself as you do so.

“Wish I was a robot so I could lie and say my system has run out of something I don’t even have in the first place…”

He puts up no resistance as you fold his legs away accordion style, watching you in what almost seems like thoughtful silence. Once you’ve made room for yourself, you perch once again on the other arm of the couch, your feet resting on the far left cushion and your left side leaning against the backrest. He finally speaks once it seems that you’re settled.

“Alright. How would you rather I put it?”

You quirk an eyebrow up, slightly surprised at the sincere tone of his question. Shaking your head, you're quick to convey that you were only joking.

“No, no I didn't say to change it. I like ‘conversation juice', I think it’s funny.”

He tilts his head a bit, slow and analyzing. Half a smile slowly curls across his face and both of his eyes take on a soft, pale yellow. If you didn’t know better, you’d think he was tired. He's looking at you with such a gentle gaze. It's almost… sad, if you look closely enough.

“Funny? Hm. Well, I suppose I am nothing if not a clown.”

His attention drifts back down to his book, cracking it open and flipping through to return to the page he left off on in no particular hurry.

You know his deadpan tone likely isn’t meant to sound so self deprecating but your heart still hurts at the thought that he only sees himself as some sort of… novelty toy. A joke. A mechanical clown for you to play with when you’re bored. A comedic horror character brought to life.

He can only make so many jokes about himself before they start to sound less like jokes and more like a way for him to vent his insecurities. You understand that type of “humor” far too well to just sit back and watch him do it to himself.

You struggle to resist the urge to remind him that there is much, much more to him than being modeled after that character from that game. You consider reaching out and curling the tip of a finger under the bottom edge of his face plate. You think about gently tilting his face away from the book and back up at you. You want to look him in the eye while you tell him all of the things that you love about him, and how much he means to you, and that he is so much more than a clown.

But you know he handles comfort and praise just about as well as a cat handles falling into a bathtub, so… you resist the urge. For now.

Eventually, one day, likely far from now, you hope to get him used to the amount of love you have to give, and you’ll smother him with it like you want to. But if you lay it all on him like that right now, he would probably overheat and shut down. Both metaphorically and literally.

You really don’t want that to happen again. Scared the hell out of you last time. Even knowing that it’s a safety measure to ensure that he doesn’t sustain damage from overheating- it looks an awful lot like he’s dying when it happens and you’d like to not have to see it again.

So, you opt to keep things lighthearted. You smile as you reach out to pat him on the knee.

“And an excellent clown you are, dear.”

There’s more sugar in your tone than you intended to let out, but if he knew everything you really wanted to say, he’d realize that you’re actually being very reserved right now.

You’re being very normal about it all, you think, as you silently praise yourself.

When you finally get out of your thoughts and back into your body, you realize that you’re being eyed by the man on your couch in such a way that indicates he knows you were caught up in your head again. You spent too long in silence before you responded to him and now he’s likely aware that you were wanting to say something else.

A lot else, actually.

So, before he can potentially ask you what you’re thinking about, you attempt to change the topic. Laughing a bit to yourself, you stretch and shift to make your sudden and hopefully casual retreat from the couch and the awkward air you’ve clouded around it. Twisting around and planting your feet on the floor, there’s forced humor in your voice as you wonder aloud where his other half is.

“Speaking of clowns, what’s Moon been up to while I was working?”

Sun’s expression is unreadable as he spares you one last moment of his visual attention before angling his monitor back down toward the book. You know he’s perfectly capable of taking in visual information while outputting completely separate verbal communication, and can give both tasks his full attention simultaneously in the way no human truly could. Still, in spite of that knowledge, you doubt he’s really paying much attention to the words on the pages before him as he speaks to you right now.

“You know that sad, sad little plant that’s been fighting for its life on your kitchen windowsill for the last… thirty-seven days?”

You cringe a bit at the reminder of the succulent you impulse-purchased recently- well, a tad longer than recently if Sun’s count is accurate, which you know it is. You’ve been meaning to re-pot the poor thing and find a different place for it where it’ll receive better light, but… you’ve been meaning to do a lot of things.

“...Yeah…”

“Last I saw, he took it outside through the back door. He was muttering something about ‘saving’ it.”

Your eyebrows knit as your gaze casts across the floor.

“Saving it... okay.”

As far as you’re aware, you don’t have any potting soil on hand, so you struggle to feature what he’s out there doing with it.

It’s right around this time that you notice the silence of the house amidst your quiet consideration.

You raise another question.

“I assume Zero followed him out there?”

Sun’s true focus seems to be gradually shifting away from you and back into the book, if his display’s shift back to blank, soft white and his neutral-toned yet concise reply are anything to go off of.

“Mhm.”

You suck in a breath and pat your legs before easing yourself up off of the couch.

“I'm gonna go see what they’re up to, then.”

You’re so bold as to lay a gentle hand briefly on his shoulder as you pass him by, lingering just long enough to let something sincere slip.

“I hope you enjoy the book.”

He kicks his folded legs back out, crossing them as they come to rest on the opposite armrest once again.

“Don’t spoil it for me.”

You smile at his avoidance of your sentimentality, laughing a bit as you cross the room, headed for the back door, your tone playful.

“I make no promises!”

A/N: Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed! You can find my (lengthy) commentary on this fic in the end notes right here on Ao3. Links to the playlist and moodboard for [N]MbD can be found on this blog's pinned post, as well as in the series notes on Ao3. Header Image Source: x

[celestial-toys]

Hehe hoho kicking my feet like a schoolgirl over this au

@head-in-the-icloud ‘s Royal Jesters au

[celestial-toys]

Sun and a chubby y/n for @love-thefanwhocan-t 🌟