Unraveling

The Thing About A Robot Roomate...

There's a ringing in your head and despite your lack of movement you feel dizzy as if you were falling. your eyes open and are immediatley assaulted by the brightness of your ceiling lights.

The ringing began to fade away and you could hear the babble of your TV. You must've fallen asleep on the couch. You moved to sit up but the dizzyness came back tenfold and your vision and hearing blurred away into nothing for a few moments.

(litterally pulling inspo from that time I passed out at work from low blood sugar lmao)

You closed your eyes and took a deap breathe, waiting until your hearing came back.
Static thrummbed in your eardrums as you focused on metiphorically de-tangling your twisted up stomach.

Once you could hear the tv again you also noticed another sound in the room. the gentle moving of fabric and a mechanical whirr.

You suddenly remembered what happened, Sun showing up at your door and you shot up in your seat to confirm if it was true, your head protested and your vision spun but sure enough there he was, the large yellow jester was awkwardly sitting at your kitchen counter gently finishing the last few stiches you had been doing on the plushie.

Sun noticed your movement and his ever-present grin widened. he turned the plushie for you to see.

"I didn't realise you were a fan!" He teased lightheartedly.

Past all your confusion and shock, his statement made your heart sink with a feeling of guilt as you peered at the plushie.

"It's not mine." you manage to croak out, continuing to stare glassy eyed at the doll clutched in Sun's lanky fingers.
The plushie holds memories of a shared connection, now tinged with loss and longing.

As the silence settles between you and Sun, the air heavy with unspoken emotions, you contemplate how to navigate this unexpected turn of events.

It almost doesn't feel real as your watery gaze raises from the doll to Sun. It felt as if he was a ghost. but sure enough he was there. and there was evidence of the fire all over his charred plastic exoskeleton.

"Oh," Sun's voice sounded hurt. Your dismissal of your ownership of the doll reinforcing the fact to him that he was still a complete stranger to you.

Sun Looked around the house for a moment, his eyes lastly landing on you as his smile continued to seemily deflate.
"S-sorry for barging in, I can leave if you'd like."

You thought for a minute. you weren't really sure if you wanted to keep him around but he clearly didn't have anywhere else to go. and of course it was most likely dangerous for him to be seen outside. he might end up sptripped for parts or handed back to the company to be decommisioned. But what about Moon? he was trying to kill you back in the pizza plex. you could always just keep the lights on. But your power bill would be atrocious.

Sun took your silence as an answer and saddly began to head for your front door.

"No wait Sun, It's alright you can stay." you spoke up.

Sun's head spun right around to face you, asking, "really?" befor ethe rest of his body turned to face you as well.

You heave out a sigh, there realy wasn't any other option.
"Yes really. You can stay. But the lights are staying on." You warned him.

Sun straightens up with a very serious salute, yet his gleeful grin creeps through "Good idea!" he agrees, despite the protests he could feel from Moon.

You chuckle slightly at his antics, he's pretty entertaining, though you suppose that's what he was built to do. You wonder if he's ever had the luxury to be the one being entertained or whether it's just been constant work work work.

You glance over at the TV, the news now having moved on to the weather. you scooch over onto the far end of the couch and pat the free space.
"You ever watched TV?" you ask Sun.

Sun's excitemlent clearly can't be contained as he practically skips over to the couch to join you. he sits on the couch his his legs crossed under him swaying back and forth with energy.

after some deliberation you settled on a show and you two fell into silence as Sun was enraptured by animated entertainment. you however were focused on something else.

When you had put the remote down between the both of you, your eyes once again trailed to the string between you two. it was the shortest you've ever seen it, start to end right there without having to move your eyes at all.

Right, between the initial shock, the murderous Moon and the fire, you never had the chance to really remember what the strings implication was.

Romance. short and simple. The people tied together by their string were always described to be perfect for eachother, life long partners, two halves of a whole.

Though in your context you suppose it's more three thirds of a whole... or is it one half and two quarters? did Sun and Moon share a soul or did they both have one? and if they both had one, are they individually equal to a soul or halved?

You're getting off topic again.
The point is you're now looking at Sun knowing the implication that he, a big yellow robotic jester was supposed to be, what? Your boyfriend? Your lover? no matter how hard you stared, which angle you looked at it you couldn't exactly see him in that light.

But that brought a whole new problem. What if you were broken again? Unable to feel anything for the one finally assigned to you by fate itself. 

"Do you not like the show?" Sun suddenly asked.

"Huh? What?" You shook away your raging thoughts and realised you had been staring at Sun this whole time.
"Oh! no, it's fine I like this show actually, I'm just, uhh, still getting used to the sight of you. Here. In my house." You excuse yourself.

Sun seems you accept this answer as he happily goes back to watching the show without another word.

And how were you going to afford being able to keep the lights on? you weren't exactly in finacial stress but you sure as hell would be if you let your electricity bill wrack up.
and with that you pulled out your phone to research the cheapest and most effective type of lightbulb that you could install into some small room somewhere. Where would Sun be staying? The guest room? Does he even need to sleep?  He probab,y needs to charge. Oh no that's even more electricity you can't afford.

"Sun how do you charge yourself?" You asked.

Sun pointed to a sooty dufflebag in the corner of your kitchenette and explained that he'd been using backup battery packs he and Moon had been charging on truck-stop generators.

after some long maths and deliberation you estimated that keeping a light on in the spare room for him at all times plus charging a single 100 volt battery for him daily would only cost you roughly an extra $52 dolars a month on your electricity bill. Thankgod, though that's definitley a significant amount of your spare change that wasn't already going towards bills so it couldn't hurt to pickup that full time position your boss offered you...

After the fifth episode's credit began to roll you let out a big yawn, not failing to notice Sun tense a little in response.

"Are you alright Sun?" you asked.

"Ah, sorry it's just our programming is all, if Moon detects tiredness in a customer he can take control much easier. Being the Naptime assistant and all. That's why I keep everyone happy and energetic! can't have Moon around the kids anymore! no, no, no." Sun shakes his head.

You get a little nervous at that comment.

"So what your saying is if you see me sleeping or yawning he could come out even with the lights on?" You ask.

Sun waves his hands "oh no no no! Sorry for the confusion. signs of tiredness certainly allows him to get 'closer' to taking over and gets him very frustrated, especially if the customer refuses to sleep. But by no means can he ever actually take over while the lights are still on. It was more of a mechanism put in place where his AI is allowed much clearer communication with mine in order to coordinate a swap over back when we did do naptime."

You guess that makes sense.
"So i'm definitely not going to wake up to Moon's claws around my neck right?"

Sun immitates a breathe before he goes to speak when he stops, his grin seemily turning sour as he mumbles "Shut up Moon." under his breathe before promptly going back to his happy smile as if nothing happened, reasuring you you'll be completely safe.

So it does seem Moon is able to communicate with Sun while he's not in charge.

You decide to ponder this another time as you get up and stretch, letting out another yawn without thinking, making Sun tense up again.
"speaking of, I should probably head to bed. the spare room is just down there." You point to a door behind the sofa.
"And I'll be in my room over there." You point past the kitchenette to a room near the front door.
"Feel free to keep wating TV, just keep the volume down. Goodnight!" You wave to Sun, picking up the plush toy on the way to your room.

"Oh uh, Goodnight!" Sun waves back, the pleasnties of 'goodnight' being foreign to him in hindsight. 

And with that you get comfy in bed, ready to drift off into the world of dreams.
however you feel a looming presence in the rrom and peek your eye open.

The plush sits slumped on your bedside table where you had placed it, looking lonley and forgotten.

'right.' you decide. You're still not done mourning.

you gently scoop up the plush toy, it smells of the sterile hospital, and you gently run your finger along the stitched up seam before settling back down into bed with it cradled beside you.

(Working out the cost of running Sun and Moon with the AI was certainly much easier than what they had me calculating in school lmao. I was very surprised at how cheap it was really.)