Chapter Text
Over the years, there were times when Mr. Ant Tenna thought of what it would be like if he ever saw his flighty former co-host again. What he might say or do to convey just how much the little mailman’s sudden departure had sent Tenna’s world crashing down. Sixteen years apart certainly gave one time to ruminate on such a thing, after all; let the resentment fester and transform into a bitter feeling the aged television couldn’t even name anymore.
Even as he spent the next decade-and-a-half with his focus glued to trying – and failing – to captivate his dwindling audience, Spamton still lived in the back of his mind, like a ghost darting between his capacitors that he just couldn’t catch. Tenna was no fool; he knew that with the eventual absence of the Holiday family in the house, Kris’ withdrawal from the library and their eventual departure from relying on Tenna’s programming as a whole, the chances of that damned laptop showing back up with that little conman hidden somewhere in the gutters of its city were next to none.
It couldn’t stop him from laying awake on the eventual odd night and wondering, though. It’d been years… what kind of scheme would Spamton have been running these days? Tenna hated admitting that he was behind the times, but it was impossible to deny that he hadn’t been sure what would catch the eye of today’s library-goers. As much as he hated that laptop, it was what had kept him somewhat up-to-date on current events, especially once Lightners stopped relying on the traditional news.
No matter – after his monumentally commercial success as Tenna’s co-host, he was sure Spamton would have to do little more than show his face to sell out whatever useless thing he was peddling. Just the thought was enough to kick Tenna’s fans into gear, fury at just how easily he’d been played like a fiddle burning through his circuits.
A petty part of him hoped that the years hadn’t been kind to him visually. Unflattering age creeping across that sketchy smile, grey streaking through his immaculately-kept black hair, that nasty smoking habit of his throwing harsh grit into that upsettingly-smooth salesman voice. It was childish, yes, but it almost started to soothe at the gaping hole Spamton had left behind in his heart.
Tenna wasn’t making the process of closing that hole any easier for himself, though. Each and every day he could feel the cold weight of a forsaken wedding band hidden beneath his glove, but he never could bring himself to yank the thing off. It was almost ironic – years of Spamton insisting he wasn’t scared of commitment, and yet not quite a year into marriage is when he chooses the content of a single phone call over what the two of them had been building together since 1995.
Countless rehearsals had played in Tenna’s mind of how the bitter reunion between co-hosts would go, countless harsh words exchanged to empty rooms as he acted it out, countless visions of exactly how Spamton could have been selfishly profiting from Tenna’s naivete over the years.
Funny, how Tenna had found himself unprepared in every sense of the word when it actually happened.
Tenna himself was in a lot different of a position than he’d ever pictured, to start. The studio gone, his arms torn from his body by the Knight and put back together by Susie, who, for all her spirit, was no mechanic. Hairline cracks in the corner of his screen, antenna haphazardly taped together. Abandoned in the rain by Toriel, the one person he’d expected to have his back in all this. He could safely say that he’d hit what was by far the lowest point in his entire life, aimlessly loitering in Castle Town as he tried to sort out what was next for him.
It was during one of Queen’s parties when it’d happened. Tenna had been invited by the new-age supercomputer multiple times since his arrival, but recovering from the rain aside, it was safe to say that he had more than a few reasons why he hadn’t wanted to make an appearance at first. Not only was he familiar with how out-of-hand her parties used to get back in the day, but after the stunts he’d pulled in TV World the day the Lightners came through, he was pretty certain his former employees didn’t know how to approach him now. Better to not show up at all than linger on the edge of the party awkwardly while everyone avoided him, wishing he could be anywhere else.
Thankfully, his idea of how it would go hadn’t been completely accurate. Sure, he was in fact firmly glued to the edge of the raging partygoers in Queen’s compact room, large speakers blasting loud enough for him to turn down his audio input in response. He wasn’t ignored, though – the moment he’d walked in he was accosted by longer-term Castle Town residents wishing to welcome him, a small handful of former employees that had given him a stilted yet earnest greeting, and the Weather Duo expressing how honestly happy they were to see him out and about, worry prevalent in their eyes. If it weren’t for that, he might have just turned right around and left at the first opportunity.
As it was, he was more than happy to watch the chaos unfold before him; a sentiment that the Tenna from just a few days ago would have been utterly mortified at. For now, gone were the days of vying for the center of attention when it was easy to see where that had gotten him. Oddly enough, the new perspective he got on both the people he knew and those whom he was just meeting for the first time was refreshing, the position of a silent observer one he’d never really approached with excitement before.
He was just starting to feel like he could enjoy himself when it happened. He could see Queen raise her arms up, already naturally towering over everyone else, as she held up… the terrible rat that had infested his studio?!
He had half a mind to reach for his foam spray just as he had earlier, but Queen laughed haughtily, holding it tight as it struggled scrappily against her grip, stubby and misshapen legs swinging as if they could provide any leverage and glitchy soundbytes intermittently escaping it.
She turned toward a soccer goal against the right wall, and just barely over the din of music and animated chatter, he heard her say “Okay Who Wants To See Me Punt The Mail Guy For A Three Pointer LMAO”
A roar of cheers swelled forward in response, but Tenna could hardly hear it – and not because of any volume issues or adjustments. Shocked still, he watched as the creature started to struggle harder, a mangled seam at the shoulder of its raggedy black jacket splitting open from the effort, and the longer Tenna looked, the more he could see flashes of once well-kept black hair, a bone structure that vaguely resembled a face he knew like the back of his hand. The peculiar pink-and-yellow shades firmly affixed over his eyes were ones Tenna had only seen every once in a while, but he was sure they were the same ones he’d always seemed to have on his person.
Tenna’s heart might as well have stopped right then and there. It was hard to see from where he was, but Spamton looked… bad. Not bad in the petty way he’d pictured, but bad in the way of genuine dire straits; and right now, he was trying to fight his way out of Queen’s stainless-steel grasp while she lined up her shot.
Tenna was weaving through the packed room before he fully processed what was happening, but he wasn’t fast enough to stop Queen from dropping him from the air and landing a sharp kick in the center of his chest. A grating, garbled static sound he’d never heard his former co-host make before poured from him as he tumbled along the ground and hit the wall in the center of the goal with a sickeningly hard clack. Idly, the back of Tenna’s mind commented that he certainly didn’t remember Spamton being made of any kind of inorganic material that could make that sound, but right now that was neither here nor there.
Queen quickly noticed his rushed approach, looking up at him with an unfazed smile. “Oh Hello Retro Technology, Did You Want A Turn?” she asked, gesturing to Spamton as he struggled to push himself off the ground with trembling arms – all as if it were a casual game instead of an act of cruelty.
Memories of this side of Queen were yet another reason he’d been hesitant to show up, but tonight, he was glad he did; rage boiled through him and he could tell it was showing in his display by how his screen darkened in the reflection of her visor with a short burst of static, but he managed to sound some semblance of calm as he asked, “Does Ralsei know about this, uh, pastime of yours?”
The question clearly took her aback, a series of question marks flashing across her visor for a short moment before she planted a hand on her hip. She likely would have looked more intimidating in this pose to most any other Darkner as she looked down upon them, but as it was it only made her look like a petulant child to Tenna; so far, he’d yet to see a single person in Castle Town who was taller than her, other than himself. “What The Prince Doesn’t Know Won’t Hurt Him,” she responded after a few beats of silence. “For That Matter I Think I Am Doing Him A Great Service, Giving Him The Gift Of Something He Does Not Know For Once.”
It took more energy than it probably should have for Tenna to keep his expression to only a thinly-veiled grimace. His fingers were already starting to elongate into claws, poking sharply into the white fabric of his undershirt as he crossed them to hide it. “Uh-huh,” he stiffly said. “Maybe you should find a different activity for tonight.”
Casting a cursory glance over toward Spamton, he hadn’t quite made it back onto his feet yet, struggling almost oddly to do so, but he’d paused his efforts when he registered that Tenna was there. Just this quick closer glance at how he looked was enough to send a shiver through Tenna; his face almost seemed hardened and unyielding, eyes not visible past his lenses and smile creepily twisted into place as if it were stuck there. The expression forced numerous strain lines along his pale face, and his mouth hung open slightly in a way that almost made it seem as if his jaw were only attached to his face by a hinge. It was clear that he was completely blindsided by the fact that Tenna was standing up for him.
…To be fair, so was Tenna. Of all the ways he’d pictured their first meeting since the phone call going, this was the last thing he ever would have pictured. Still, he was already here – he might as well see it through.
Queen, too, laughed incredulously. “Come On Old Timer, You Never Used To Care About What Goes On At My Parties! You Would Usually Be So Wasted By Now,” she reminded him with an amused titter. “Besides – You Were Cheated By This Vermin Just The Same As I. Probability Of Lingering Resentment: One Hundred And One Percent.”
Her comment sent a steely cool clarity through Tenna’s circuits. So, he tried to swindle her next after leaving him behind, eh? Typical. It reminded him why he was so angry at Spamton in the first place, but despite that negative whirlwind of emotion surrounding him… Tenna couldn’t leave him to be battered and abused by Queen all night. Maybe that made him soft, but it just wasn’t right.
Even without her Dark World, completely stripped of what political power she once had, Tenna knew there was no reasoning with her. Turning away, he approached Spamton, who quickly flinched at Tenna’s approach as if he were expecting an impact. That hurt Tenna more than the idea of physically hurting Spamton ever could – just what had happened to his mailman that had decimated the once-towering confidence that used to carry him through a room?
He brushed it aside for now, his more pertinent goal being to get Spamton somewhere safer. Gently scooping him up into his hands, Tenna rose back to his feet and began to leave without saying another word. He couldn’t help but notice how cold Spamton’s body was, an artificial hardness to his limbs as if he were holding something more doll than living being. He’d been a small Darkner back in the day, much to his own chagrin – measuring just under Tenna’s knees when the TV was at his standard height – but now there was very distinctly even less of him, a hollow lightness that sent a horror through Tenna’s wires.
He didn’t miss how Queen’s visor flashed LAME at him as he passed, but he’d deal with her later. Quite frankly, he had half a mind to think she was lucky that Ralsei and the Lightners would be very upset to hear that he’d dismantled her, if it’d happened.
He very graciously chose to ignore how Spamton’s form twitched and trembled against him as they exited Queen’s room and moved down the hallway to his own.
It was eerily silent at first, as Tenna had set Spamton down on the couch in his room. They could both still hear Queen’s music blasting through the wall at a quieter, muffled volume; an unfortunate side effect of being neighbors. Neither former business partner wanted to look at the other, and at least on Tenna’s end, he had so many things he wanted to say – so many things he’d practically rehearsed saying – that they were all jumbling up into a ball before they left his mouth.
He wasn’t sure if he spent minutes or hours awkwardly ambling about his own room, looking around at the barren, still-mostly-packed space. Some deep part of him felt like a bad host for bringing someone inside when it was this dreadfully messy, but in the wake of his abandonment and physical recovery he hadn’t exactly had the heart to unpack. It had felt like settling into the space would mean giving up on finding a new home, a new purpose.
“YOUR [Check out these cool new threads!!]”
Tenna started slightly, turning back around to see that Spamton was looking at him now – or, well, making vague eye contact for a few seconds at most and then looking away, repeating the cycle intermittently.
The CRT’s brow creased, not quite able to parse what Spamton meant. Sure, he used to blurt out the occasional advertisement when he was nervous or flustered, but it’d never been so bad Tenna couldn’t understand him. “Sorry?”
Spamton huffed, but it seemed as if it was less so frustration at Tenna and more toward himself. “[Join Threads to share ideas]…!” he shook his head. “YOU HAVE NEW [Catch the latest trends at Fashion Week 199–]” Growling, he smacked the side of his head a few times, Tenna so surprised at the display that he didn’t even think to stop him until Spamton had already moved on.
It was clear that whatever was impeding Spamton’s speech wasn’t something he was going to get around easily, so Tenna waited patiently until Spamton eventually clutched at his own oversized black suit jacket, so worn and torn up that it might have been more accurate to call it a jacket-shaped pile of thread, and shook the lapel toward Tenna. “[Try our All-New–]!” He then pointed toward Tenna himself.
Finally his intention seemed to dawn on Tenna, and idly one of his hands came up to pick at the buttons of his vest. One of them was a little too small, a different color, a quick replacement for the single button he’d lost in all the chaos. “My clothes?” he tentatively asked.
Spamton nodded. “I’VE [You’ll never take me alive!] SEEN YOU IN A [By the power vested in me,].”
Tenna’s expression was bittersweet as he looked away, fingers picking at the golden stitching along the shoulder of the red fabric – needlework done by Ralsei’s expert hand, or so he was told. “Yeah. It wouldn’t be my first choice, to be fair.” A half-hearted chuckle. “It was out of necessity, though.” He tried to stifle his shiver at the memory of the Knight cleaving through his arms as if they were nothing but butter, watching them fall to the ground before he did, the suffocating cold forcing him to power down. “It’s a long story.”
The arms of his tailcoat were lost with the TV World – everyone was more concerned with making sure the actual arms inside them were intact and able to be reattached – but Ralsei had very graciously turned in the frayed fabric from the arm holes and stitched a nice golden pattern around each one to turn his tailcoat into a vest. He’d since managed to find an intact white button-up in what few belongings his employees were able to salvage for him, and that became his new normal.
Shaking his head lightly, he clasped his hands together in a hopeless effort to stop their light tremors – an unfortunate side effect of how patch-and-go reattaching his arms had been – and turned his gaze back to Spamton. “I could say the same about you.”
‘New clothes’ was far too big of an understatement for the changes Spamton had gone through since they’d last seen one another, and they both knew it. The changes already observed to his face aside, Tenna could now closely see how long his hair had gotten, longer and more wild than Spamton ever would have permitted back in the day. There were in fact a few scattered shocks of bright white in his hair, but rather than a sign of age, it almost seemed as if they were unnatural streaks or patterning. To Tenna’s complete horror, it did seem as if there were literal hinges to his jaw, nailed into his unmoving face, and as he looked down he could see that Spamton’s hands and fingers were segmented like a ball-jointed doll. A dull plastic sheen reflected off them when the low light of the room hit just right, and Tenna could see numerous scuffs and scratches along his palms. His fingers almost seemed as if they were slightly different sizes, misshapen, and it didn’t seem as if Spamton could move them very well.
It was almost like some sick someone had taken his once-warm, living, breathing husband and turned him into what felt more like a puppet.
By far the most prominent change to his body, though, was his legs. They too shone in that heavily-scratched-and-pockmarked plastic sheen, but they abruptly cut off at the knee joint, leaving them to point straight in front of him as he sat. That would explain why he was having trouble getting to his feet on his own earlier; without an effective knee, Spamton couldn’t bend his legs past the waist at all. What was left of the knee joint seemed to have been worn down over the years into flat platforms – ‘feet’ that he could stand and walk on, though likely not without a considerable amount of pain or effort.
Spamton G. Spamton was most certainly not the man he used to be.
Tenna had so, so many questions, but he had no idea where to start. The silence hanging between them was almost deafening as he tried to get at least some of his thoughts in order. Should he comfort and reassure from Queen’s earlier altercation, or take a peek into the endless abyss that contained sixteen years of anger and resentment?
Eventually, he sighed, the same part of him that insisted on hoarding his wedding ring winning over first. “Did she hurt you too badly?”
Spamton almost seemed taken aback by the question, but it was hard to tell when Tenna couldn’t see his eyes, and his face didn’t seem to be able to move very much in the first place. After a few moments of silence, though, the small Darkner looked away and idly rubbed at his wrists. “NO MORE THAN [Business as Usual [A-Ah!! Stop, STOP–IT BURNS–!!!]]”
Tenna stilled at that last soundbyte, a cold horror coursing through him. The scratchiness and crackling of his damaged voicebox aside, that had sounded like Spamton himself – the way he used to sound, back in the day. Such a suspicion was made clear by the fact that Spamton had pressed his hands to his mouth, clearly not keen on that particular sound having been forced out of him. That raised a lot of questions and concerns on Tenna’s end; just what in darkness could get Spamton to scream in agony like that? Did he want to know?
Based on the way Spamton’s brow was furrowed, though, it was clear that Tenna wouldn’t be getting any answers about that from him, and since it didn’t seem like there were any current and apparent injuries, he reluctantly let it be for now as silence hung over them once again.
Eventually, Spamton seemed to recollect himself and made eye contact with Tenna once again. “WHY DID YO U [File saved.] ME FROM [GOOOOOAAAALLLL!!!]?”
Tenna idly shifted from foot to foot, not quite sure of the answer himself. Luckily, though, what Spamton said next gave him a reason not to think too hard about it.
“AFTER YOU [Left me for the Slime] I DIDN’T THINK [you better come back here!!] FOR ME.”
What little buds of goodwill left in Tenna started to shrivel at that remark, the rose-tinted glasses coming off – and perhaps it was a good thing for Spamton’s true colors to come out so soon.
An utterly perplexed, irked smile crept along his darkened display. “…I left you? I – are you serious right now?”
Spamton’s hands clenched around one another, the sound of plastic creaking completely unsettling as his brows furrowed deeper. “[Right as Rain]! I STAYED [Closed] TO THE [Ring] [Ring] [Ring] [FreezeRing] [ThornRi–]” He smacked his head again with a frustrated growl. “AND NO [You’ve got Mail!] [Please leave a message at the tone.] FOR GOOD OL’ [Number One Rated Salesman 1997]!” The angrier he got, the harder it became to understand him.
There was that deep, pent-up feeling that had long gone past resentment; it just needed a little kick to get started. Now this was starting to shape up like the reunion Tenna had pictured. He clenched his fists. “And what was I supposed to think?! My husband gets a call on the phone and looks at me like I betrayed him before running off! Sixteen YEARS of wondering what I could have done wrong, and you think I left YOU?!”
“THEN WHY DIDN’T YOU [You have a collect call from–]?!” With a grunt Spamton wrestled himself to his feet on the couch cushions, seeking any kind of height advantage he could get. “[Millenia] OF [Praise the Angel!] FOR [H E A V E N] BECAUSE [Why you little–!] NEVER [It’s 10 PM. Do you know where–] FOR ME!!”
“I DID!!” Tenna yelled, the boom of his announcer voice coming through in his fury as he fell to his knees, arms landing on either side of Spamton on the couch. Spamton, having been toppled over onto the cushion by the force of Tenna’s slam, only looked on in stunned silence. A sort of messy static was starting to coalesce in the lenses of his shades, but Tenna wasn’t sure if it was something the shades did or if his own display was snowing up in the reflection. The fight was quickly leaving him, being replaced with desperation as he unconsciously shrunk a handful of inches.
“…YOU [Just Do It]?”
Tenna’s grip sharpened in the couch, gritting his teeth bitterly. “Of course I did,” he murmured. “For weeks after you left, I called you almost every single day.” He now had to look up just a little to meet Spamton’s gaze atop the couch. “First, they went to voicemail. Soon enough, the phone stopped ringing at all. I even tried to go to Cyber City to look for you once, but you know I’m no good with all that new technology. I got turned around and scammed in the heart of the city. Almost didn’t make it back to TV World before the laptop was sent back to the library.” Suddenly conscious of the fact that his claws were threatening to puncture the couch cushions, he took a breath, willing them to shorten back into fingers. “The last time I called was about four weeks after you left. It said your number was disconnected. I smashed the phone to pieces that day and tried to move on like everything was all hunky-doody again, but…” A waterlogged chuckle as his efforts to hold back the tears he’d been feeling come on were quickly becoming all for naught. “Clearly that didn’t work out. That’s about when everything started going down the drain.”
Spamton’s small hands slowly lowered, letting go of each other as he processed this information. The static was definitely coming from his shades, now almost completely overtaking the color on both. “SALES GONE DOWN THE [Drain] [Drain]?”
Tenna nodded. “Without you, no one was taking care of the mail, so it stopped coming. No more sponsorships, no more investors. All that with all the glooby stuff going on in the Light World, and… I lost my audience. I eventually did some pretty messed up things to try and get it back.” A trembling hand came up to rub at his own shoulder, barely able to feel the lumpy soldering work from Susie’s patch job beneath the fabric.
“[The Lord of Screens.]” Spamton blurted, hands tightening on the bottom of his jacket. “[Cleaved red by blade.]”
That gave Tenna pause, hand lowering as he looked on in confusion. “How do you know about that?”
The static started clearing up slowly, but Spamton looked no less disturbed. “[Multiple choice answer!]. YOU WANT THE [Easy Mode] OR THE [Merciless Mode]?”
“Uh… both?”
Spamton huffed, but if Tenna was reading his limited expressions right, this one was more out of a resigned amusement than anything before he reluctantly looked up at Tenna.
“[We haven’t gotten any mail, it’s fine. It’s fine, we don’t need a mail guy.]”
Tenna’s eyes widened. That was his own voice coming from Spamton this time. When had he said that…?
It hit him like a ton of bricks as a vivid memory of herding the Lightners through the first game board just a few days ago crossed his mind.
It took a few moments before he was able to organize his thoughts well enough to speak. “You… you were there. I almost forgot.” He grimaced. “I’m sorry about the foam spray, by the way…”
“[We have our winner!]” Idly Spamton’s fingers traced around his own segmented joints, the movements slightly clumsy and uncoordinated. “WAS THERE AS [+5 DF +5 MAGIC].” He tapped his shades, and Tenna seemed to understand – maybe he’d managed to attain his own Light World equivalent item independent of the laptop through the shades?
Spamton took a small breath, as if admitting what came next was difficult. “LIGHT neRs<< TRIED TO [H-Help!! Help me, PLEASE, IT HURTS–!!!] BY [Safety Scissors, only $4.99!] MY [I’ve got no Strings] [Strings] [Strings] [Strings] [Strings–]” Another deft smack to the head.
Tenna wanted to stop him, but he wasn’t sure how else to get him to stop looping like that, so all he did was tighten his fingers in the fabric of his pants worriedly. “You don’t have to tell me if it hurts to talk about it.”
A garbled, corrupted laugh track clearly stolen from TV Time escaped from his voicebox, but it was clear from his expression that it was more of a tired remark than anything. “EVERYTHING [Side effects include pain, nausea–] [Kids these days…], [TRASH HEAP].”
Spamton seemed to start at the last outburst, a hand idly pressing to his frozen smile as he looked away in concern. With what seemed like a swallow, he opened his mouth once more. “[TRASH HEAP].” His brow creased in worry, breath quickening just a little. “T… T–[10, 11, 12].” He winced in pain. “TE–[Top Ten Movie Twists That Will–]… TT T T TEN–[% Off!] [Worker Ants are–] [TRASH HEAP] [TRASH HEAP].”
Tenna’s heart sank. Was Spamton trying to say his name?
Spamton was trying his hardest to stay turned away now, but Tenna could just barely see the start of tears emerging from those shades of his – and if he hadn’t been worried already, those tears were unnaturally dark, a deep shade that fell concerningly close to blood.
Quickly Tenna angled Spamton’s face toward his own, shrinking small enough in his fear that he wasn’t much taller than Spamton now, and tried to wipe the tears away hurriedly. His pristine white gloves were coming away such a dark red that it could almost be considered black, sending a bolt of panic through his wires. “S-Spam, you’re bleeding…! We should get you a healer, a-and take these damn things off–!”
Spamton grabbed Tenna’s wrist as he tried to pull the shades away from his eyes and assess the damage, but the CRT was dumbfounded to find that they stayed firmly affixed to where they were – almost like they were melded with his stiff face.
“[It’s no use!!]” Spamton’s other hand came to join the first, tugging lightly until Tenna finally let go. “[Sweet deals!] [We’re attached at the hip!] [Until you LIKE IT.] In his panicked state, he seemed to have little to no control over what came out of his mouth at all, but Tenna thought he might be able to tell what he meant.
He knew it was making a mess of both his own gloves and Spamton’s pale face, but he resumed wiping tears anyway. “You… can’t take them off?”
Spamton shook his head. “[Slayer_Rain_of_Blood_mp3] [Status: Normal].” He grabbed Tenna’s wrists again, but this time it felt like more of a touchstone than a signal to stop. “[Multiple choice answer!].”
Tenna stopped trying to wipe tears away, instead settling a hand on either side of Spamton’s face and letting his already-ruined gloves do the work. “It’s normal for a few reasons?”
It felt like his heart was going to break when Spamton nodded, trying desperately to calm down so he might be able to talk in some kind of controlled manner. “[I wish for a–] [Alright, alright, I’ll talk!!]… B-BUT [my lips are–] [ZIP File].”
He wanted to talk about it, but… he couldn’t? Tenna hated that answer, but if this happened often enough that it was normal for him… at least it meant that it wasn’t dangerous.
All was silent for a little while as Tenna waited for Spamton to collect himself – and, selfishly, so he might have a moment to process. From what he could gather, something had happened to Spamton – something terrible enough to destroy him not only physically, but mentally – and it didn’t seem like he wanted to talk about most of it.
Despite everything, Tenna couldn’t help but feel pity for him. All the terrible things they'd put one another through didn't erase the fact that they'd once been so intertwined it became difficult to define where one ended and the other began. They had still been business partners, friends, lovers. They were still technically married, for that matter – TV World didn’t exactly have any divorce lawyers on hand, and even if they had, if Spamton was going through something this terrible, Tenna doubted he would’ve been able to get ahold of him for long enough to go through with it.
It was that damned part of him that couldn’t let go, striking again. Sometimes Tenna hated that part of himself.
“I TRIED TO [We’re sorry, the number you dialed–] TOO.”
Tenna started, pulled out of his swarming thoughts to hear that Spamton’s breathing had slowly evened out, head over his shoulder as his currently-equal-in-size form was wrapped tightly in Tenna’s arms – wait, when had Tenna done that?!
A smattering of pink was probably dusted along his screen as he slowly let go of Spamton, growing a handful of inches once again as if he were physically trying to distance himself from what happened. Spamton didn’t seem to take it personally, so he let it be swept into the back of his mind for now.
“You tried to call me?” Tenna asked quietly. He certainly would have remembered such a call. “When?”
“STAYING AT [Royal Flush!] [MTV Cribs],” he said. “WAS THERE FOR [You’ve won a six-week all expenses paid–] AFTER I [50K Marathon].” Back to holding Tenna’s wrists, his grip tightened just a little, plastic scraping against metal. “[Long ago,] STORY. I WAS [[Hyperlink Blocked]] AFTER [[Hyperlink Blocked]]–” He paused, frustration creeping back into his expression. “I HAD TO [50K Marathon] BECAUSE OF [[Hyperlink Blocked]]… [[Hyperlink Blocked]].”
He huffed once again, grip tightening even further until he locked his gaze with Tenna’s screen, effort coursing through him. “I. CALLED. EVERY. DAY.” He paused between each word, clearly trying to hold back each little outburst by waiting it out. “EVERYTHING. WAS. WRONG. I. NEEDED. HELP.” A few stray pixels started to separate themselves from his form, as if trying to keep his sentences straight was taking every fiber of his being. “CALLS. KEPT. DROPPING. I. WAS. [D Y I N G] [Fix those cracks fast with–] [Take a ride around town in our brand new Specil–] [[Hyperlink Blocked]]–” Spamton quickly gave up, head falling low as his grip was tight enough on Tenna’s wrists now for the plastic ball joints to creak in warning, breathing slightly labored. “[my lips are–] [ZIP File].”
Oh – Spamton physically couldn’t talk about what had happened. He clearly wanted to, but… whatever had been done to him was preventing him from doing so. All that provided Tenna with was more questions than answers, and he couldn’t deny that he was concerned on so many levels, but it was more than clear that getting those answers would be next to impossible, let alone downright cruel to ask of Spamton when it definitely seemed to hurt him to try and defy whatever was keeping his mouth shut.
All of this was a problem for Future Tenna to help Spamton solve. Right now? All he saw was a weary soul that needed some long-deserved rest. What had happened to him, what had happened between them and the complicated feelings attached to that, or what they were now that they were together again could wait.
“Do you have a safe place to sleep?” Tenna asked, fearing the answer.
Spamton shook his head, empty expression especially eerie with leftover blood smeared across his cheeks as some semblance of calmness entered him once more. “[Out of Stock] ROOM. I USUALLY STAY WITH [Purple People Eater], BUT [Nothing beats a Jet2 Holiday!].”
Tenna’s brow furrowed in confusion. “Purple... huh?”
“LIGHT neR. [Godzilla: Tokyo S.O.S. (2003)]. [Purple People Eater].”
“…Susie? You said you were living as some kind of armor earlier… do you protect her in battle?”
He nodded stiffly. “HOW [What else?] DO YOU [Thinking Time!] SHE [Need a mechanic? Just call–]?”
Realization slowly washed over Tenna as he idly brushed over his soldering scars once more. Sure, Susie had a lot of passion and an unwavering will to save his life, but… he had to admit, she didn’t look like the type to know much about electronics. The soldering was something she could have done well enough; Tenna was pretty sure open flames and sparks were some of her favorite things. But knowing which wire went where and how to reconnect each and every one, all on her own?
“You?” He softly asked. “You helped her fix me?”
“[But nobody came.] KNOWS MORE THAN [Me! Me! Me!] WHEN IT COMES [2] [Exclusive behind the scenes!] [HOCHI MAMA–]”
Spamton quickly clasped a hand over his mouth in another futile attempt at shutting it, but this time Tenna was so caught off-guard by the outburst in a good way that he laughed incredulously.
“[We’re sorry],” Spamton said, clearly a little flustered. “I [NO] IT’S [Touchscreen] AND [GO!] AROUND THAT [Buy our stuff!] RIGHT [Present Day].”
Tenna flushed just a little, looking away with a bittersweet tilt to his smile. “It’s okay, Spam,” he said. “Can’t say we never had a history, after all.”
With a sigh, Tenna slowly grew to his standard size once more and rose to his feet. Spamton was silent, but Tenna could feel his piercing gaze on his back as he dug through one of the various boxes scattered about and eventually found a pillow and a small throw blanket. Both would absolutely dwarf Spamton, but they were better than nothing, so he discarded his ruined gloves before touching either one and brought them back to the couch.
“It’s not the height of luxury,” he murmured, “but it should do for now. Get comfortable–!”
As Tenna had been placing the pillow and draping the blanket over Spamton once he was in place atop it, a small, ball-jointed hand had grabbed his left palm, catching it briefly. Tenna paused in confusion, but stilled when he saw Spamton’s fingers brushing against the now-exposed wedding band he’d forgotten he still had on. Spamton’s expression was unreadable as his eyes locked onto it.
“[TRASH HEAP]. YOU KEPT IT.” He looked up into Tenna’s display. “YOU REALLY DO CARE.”
It was an exposing moment of clarity from Spamton that made Tenna feel a whirlwind of emotions he wasn’t ready for. For now, he smiled weakly as he let that hand gently card through Spamton’s wild hair for a moment, made sure he was firmly tucked in and started meandering off to his adjoined closet to change for bed himself.
“Good night, Spamton. Sleep well.”