Work Text:
You knew you shouldn’t have come to work today.
You could tell when you woke up that you should’ve called in sick and stayed in bed. The pain rippled from your gut to your back, and down your legs. It made you so nauseous you couldn’t even bring yourself to eat breakfast this morning, just took your pain meds, slapped on the TENS device that helped take the edge off the pain, and headed to do your shift at the daycare. You’ve worked during pain flares before, it wasn’t fun but you could manage, and calling in sick for your period felt like a bigger blow to your pride than standing a little weird during your shift.
You arrived at the plex and got settled at the desk in the daycare, Sun yelled an excited “Hello friend!” when you walked in, like always. You did your best to grit your teeth and give a smile, he’d have plenty to worry about once the kids started arriving, you didn’t wanna add to his stress.
You mainly handled administrative work in the daycare, paperwork, making sure kids arrived and left with the correct parents, etc. Sometimes you would help Sun on the floor if the kids were particularly rowdy, or come to the rescue with an ice pack when a kid bumped his head in the play structures. But usually you had plenty to do behind the desk; something you were grateful for today.
You turned the TENS unit up as high as you could tolerate, the vibrating pads on your stomach distracted your brain from the pain just enough to allow you to function. And you started working through papers to make sure everything was in order. Soon parents started arriving and you helped them get their kids signed in. Sunny happily welcomed in each new playmate and soon enough a game of tag had started in the play area.
You were filing away the last bit of sign in papers when you heard a thud from somewhere in the play area. Followed by one of the kids crying.
“Y/N! Jack bonked his head on the slide!” Sunny called. You grabbed the first aid kit tucked under the desk and headed over. One of the boys was sitting at the base of one of the slides, holding his head and sniffling. You quickly soothed the kid, and asked if you could take a look at his head, he nodded and you gently pushed his hair away from the bump to make sure he wasn’t bleeding. Sure enough he wasn’t, just a bruise. You cracked one of the disposable ice packs in the first aid kit to activate it, wrapped it in a paper towel, and gently pressed it to the bump.
“Just a little bump, you’ll be okay. The ice pack should help.” You assured him. You gave Sun a nod to let him know all was well, and he and the kids went back to playing. Jack sat in your lap for a few minutes while he calmed down, and you sang little nursery rhymes to distract him while you held the cold pack to his head. After a bit he said he was ready to play again, so you handed him the ice pack so he could keep using it if needed. You both stood up, and he hugged your knees before running off to join whatever game was being played now.
You started walking back to your desk when your cramps surged. You crouched down on the floor in pain, one hand gripping the side of the play structure next to you to try and keep from falling over. Goddamn flares. You bunched up the front of your shirt with your free hand and tried to breathe. Out of the corner of your eye you thought you saw Sunny looking your way, but you couldn’t focus on anything enough to be sure. After a minute the pain subsided enough for you to stand again, and you made your way back to your desk. You sat down, took some more pain meds from your purse, and tried in vain to focus back on your work.
“Aren’t you gonna eat any lunch?” You jumped up with a start, when did Sun walk over to your desk? Sure enough all the kids were sat down at tables eating their lunches. Some had packed lunches from home, others had pizza provided by the daycare. Some of the kids with packed lunches seemed a little jealous of the kids with pizza.
“Uh, no. I had a big breakfast this morning, I’m okay.” you lied through your teeth. Even if you had remembered to pack a lunch, you were far too nauseated to eat anything anyways.
“Well you gotta eat something, Sunshine! Here, I’ll go grab you some crackers from the snack pantry!” Before you could protest the robot was off, and he returned shortly with a large bowl of animal crackers, and a handful of string cheese sticks. “Here you go buddy! You’ve gotta eat just as much as the kids do, you know!” The colorful bot ruffled your hair and looked at you like he was waiting for something.
“Thank you Sunny, I’ll eat some once I finish this paperwo-”
“No no! No excuses sunshine! You have to eat! The papers will still be there once your tummy’s full!” In one quick motion Sun snatched the papers you were working on with one hand, and held one of the animal crackers up towards your face with the other. His face tilted to one side with a smirk. For a clown he sure was cocky.
You sighed in defeat and took the cracker from his hand and ate it. He gave a contented hum and walked off, still holding your papers.
“Sun! My papers!”
“I’ll give them back when lunchtime is over!” He yelled back as he pranced towards the kids. You huffed and sat down in your chair. Normally you’d argue, but you didn’t have the energy today. And even if you tried, he was a 9 ft tall robot, he could hold those papers out of your reach for as long as he wanted. Eventually you nibbled at some of the crackers. You couldn’t bring yourself to eat much, but you figured it was better than nothing.
Soon enough the lights in the daycare dimmed and Moon came out to get everyone settled for naptime. You were glad for the quiet at least, and hoped Moon would be reasonable and return your papers. Once all the kids were tucked in he turned towards you. Was he angry? He kept staring at you the entire way over to your desk, you knew he wouldn’t hurt a fly and cared about you and the kids in the daycare, but he could still be intimidating.
“What’s wrong?” He loomed over you from the other side of the desk. Dammit, Sun wasn’t buying your lies, was he?
“I’m fine, Moony, I promise. Can I have those papers Sunny took, please?” You held out your hand for the papers, but Moon just continued to stare at you. His eyes glanced over to the snacks next to you on the desk, you’d barely made a dent in the crackers, and hadn’t touched the cheese sticks.
“You haven’t eaten. Are you sick? You know you shouldn’t be working if you're sick, you’ll make yourself worse, and the kids could catch it.”
You groaned and plopped your head on the desk with a quiet thunk. You really didn’t wanna explain to a robot that you were on your period and had a condition that may as well have turned your uterus into an angry ball of barbed wire. “I’m fine, Moon, I’m not contagious or anything, I’m just-” You tried to think of something to say that would satisfy him without causing any concern “...I just woke up on the wrong side of the bed is all. I’ll be fine.” You looked up from the desk and Moon was still staring at you, clearly not satisfied with your answer.
“Then what’s this for?” He reached out with one hand and poked the small TENS unit you had clipped to the waist of your pants. “Those are for pain, aren’t they? Did you injure yourself? No more lying, starlight, come on. Sunny noticed it when you walked in but he didn’t wanna say anything. And he saw when you crouched over like you were going to throw up. What’s wrong? You’ve got us worried.” And with that your resolve crumbled. You started crying, you’d been holding back the tears all day. Moon startled and hurried around the desk, pulling you into his arms, and began gently rubbing your back.
Between quiet sobs you explained; that you were on your period, that it always hurt, a lot, that you were finally diagnosed with endometriosis after years of trying to get doctor after doctor to take you seriously. You told him how you didn’t wanna worry him or Sun, that there was nothing to fix this, your body was just broken like this. He listened and continued to run his hands up and down your back, soothing you and waiting until you caught your breath.
“Okay, hold onto me for a second, alright?” You were about to question him with you both were lifted up by his cable, whisked away to his and Sun’s private room. He set you down on a pile of pillows and lifted a blanket up to cover you. “Sun and I will handle the rest of today. You just rest, you clearly need it.” You started to protest, you were used to this, you could still work, you didn’t wanna be a burden. He cut you off with a finger to your lips and a shush. “Even if you’re used to it, your pain still matters. And working through it certainly won’t help. You remember that Sunny and I are designed for this, right?”
You huffed, “You’re designed to take care of kids, I’m an adult.”
“Sweetheart, adults are nothing more than slightly bigger children. Now rest, we’ll be back once the daycare closes.” And with that, he was off to continue supervising the kids’ naptime. You snuggled into the blanket and pillows and tried to make yourself comfortable.
You watched from above as the rest of the day went by, Sunny returned with the lights and played with the kids some more, until one by one they were all picked up by their parents. Usually you handled that part, but the boys had all the parent files in their system, they were more than able to make sure everything went as it should. You cried a little bit more into the pillows, partly from the pain and partly because you hated feeling so useless.
Eventually you heard the door behind you open, Sunny always preferred to walk up the back staircase rather than use the cable, though you weren’t sure why. He walked over to the side of the “bed” you were in, and nervously fiddled with his hand.
“Sunshine, is there anything I can do to help? I can bring up some snacks, or… you have medicine in your bag, right? I could go grab that. Or…” He fiddled with his hands some more. “I was looking things up, you said it was endometriosis,right? I know heat can help with that kind of pain, I don’t have any heating pad, b-but I can warm up my hands I-If you’re okay with that.” You finally looked up at him, and he must’ve seen the tears on your face. He quickly knelt down in front of you, and started wiping the tears from your eyes.
You hated this, you hated feeling so helpless, so useless. You were supposed to be in charge of the robot, damnit! Part of your job was doing minor repairs if a kid pulled some screw loose or something. You were supposed to monitor him and make sure nothing was going wrong with his systems. You started crying all over again, and Sunny pulled you into a tight hug. You started muttering your thoughts out loud, you didn’t mean for him to hear. “So stupid… I’ve dealt with this for years and I can’t even get through one shift … worthless, god I just give everyone more things to worry about”
“Hey now, stop that!” Sun scolded you and pulled your shoulders away so you’d look him in the eye. “You’re not a burden. You never have been and never will be! Moon and I care about you! You already have to deal with the pain, the least we can do is try to make it a little bit easier. You matter to us, okay?”
You sniffled and quietly nodded. You couldn’t exactly argue with him about that. You looked down, almost ashamed that Sun had to scold you from insulting yourself. “Heat does help, if you’re okay doing that. … Maybe we could cuddle?” Sunny nodded and pulled you under the blanket with him. Before you knew it you were spooning, with one of his hands holding your stomach, and the other tucked against your lower back, soothing heat radiating from the. It wasn’t as hot as you made your heating pads at home, you figured he was making sure they weren’t hot enough to burn you. Your eyes grew heavy, and soon you fell asleep in Sun’s arms, safe and comforted.