Chapter Ten
~ S ~
Things… don’t change, really. With the new contract Tenna draws up by the end of the day, they’re still the perfect image of professionalism on stage. It takes a few days after that for the stage crew to relax; apparently, while they were awkwardly avoiding each other, Tenna was being a bit… prickly. “It’s good you two finally talked things out,” Elnina says one night, sipping a drink at the bar.
“We’ve worked with Tenna for a long time,” Lanino adds, sitting between her and Spamton. “And when he’s stressed about something, he tends to take it out on other people.”
Behind the bar, Ramb chuckles drily. “You get used to it after a while.”
Spamton raises his brow at his bar-time companions. “What, you thought we were fighting or something?”
Lanino snorts. “Please. You two have been so frosty the past few days. It was starting to get a bit uncomfortable.”
Spamton looks down at the bar, eyes widening. Oh no. It’s that obvious? He knew they hadn’t exactly been subtle with how much they liked each other, but he’d been hoping people would see it as playful flirting. The way that he’d intended from the get-go, before he’d realized that Tenna was into it. But if Tenna had been moping about it… yeesh. Realizing that the bar had gone quiet, Spamton forces a laugh. “Ah, you [hopefully never know]—know how it is! Every dynamic duo has a spat [Right now!] and then. Butting heads, creative differences, things like that!”
Elnina and Lanino glance at each other. There’s something in their faces that makes Spamton suspicious. “Just… be careful,” Lanino eventually says. “And if he ever gets snippy with you, don’t take it personally. His bark’s worse than his bite.”
Spamton knocks back the rest of his drink, trying to keep his breathing steady. He knows just how bad Tenna’s bite is now; his shoulder still aches a little from the marks his cohost left behind. Of course, that’s not the only place Tenna had sunk his teeth into, but he can’t linger on that thought for too long in polite company.
Speaking of which, he finishes off his drink and bids them a good night before heading back to his dressing room. When he passes Tenna in the hallway, he gives him a cheeky smile and a wink, and Tenna responds by grinning right back. They’re both too busy tonight for anything more than that, but still, Spamton laughs softly to himself once he’s safely in his dressing room.
~ T ~
Every morning, Mr. Ant Tenna looks into his mirror and thinks, ‘I have a secret.’ It’s still mind-blowing to think that the host, producer, and director of TV World is carrying on an illicit affair behind the scenes. An illicit affair with Spamton G. Spamton, of all people.
Okay, it’s not that illicit. There’s no infidelity and, with their new contract, the power imbalance isn’t actually all that imbalanced. In a perfect world, if their relationship ever goes public, there shouldn’t be too much blowback. Still, Tenna would like to keep it under wraps for now. He knows that his crew can be horrible gossipers, and he’d like to spare his new partner too much staring and jeering.
…Although, at the end of the day, they’re people, and people are flawed. Some nights, Tenna can’t resist sneaking into Spamton’s dressing room to go over ‘script edits’. Spamton will invite him to take [A Ride around Town…]—they don’t go to the little cliff outside of Cyber City just for the view anymore. Spamton even dares to pull him down and kiss him furiously ten seconds before they’re due back on stage one night. Tenna teaches him an important lesson on patience once the cameras are off. He’s been the sole face of TV Time for his entire life; while he doesn’t mind sharing the stage now and then, sharing it to this degree… It feels like a dream.
When Spamton asks if he wants to go to dinner, saying “no” doesn’t even cross Tenna’s mind as he grabs his jacket. “Sometimes, you just miss [The Classics You’ve Come to Expect! (c)1997],” Spamton says, leading Tenna down the neon streets of Cyber City. Tenna recognizes this stretch of street; there’s a cyber grill down here that Spamton seems to really like, considering this is the fourth or fifth time they’ve come this way. But just as he’s about to say something else, he stops short, staring ahead into one of the windows.
“Spamton?”
His cohost’s posture seems stiff, and Tenna tries to follow his gaze. It looks busy, but there’s a big table towards the back with… huh. They almost look like Spamton, except more colorful, with their bodies colored and their outfits coordinated, featuring black jackets and green trousers. They seem to be engaged in a passionate conversation. A sharp bark of a laugh draws his attention back to Spamton, who turns on his heel and starts towards a crosswalk. “…Oops! Looks like they’re busy.”
“W-well, I’m sure they could make some room for us—”
“Plan B,” Spamton interrupts. Or maybe he just isn’t listening, since he doesn’t show any recognition towards Tenna. “There’s this karaoke place a bit down [The] way. Only been [Buy one, get one free!], but they have [Private rooms]. Hell, maybe we can bust out some [showtunes].”
Tenna glances back at the grill. And although the karaoke bar is a blast (and it turns out that, while Tenna can barely carry a tune, Spamton has some decent pipes on him), when he powers down for the night, he can’t get Spamton’s face off his mind. In the moment before he’d pivoted them to the karaoke bar, he’d almost looked… heartbroken.
~ S ~
Spamton looks up at the ceiling of his room in Queen’s mansion and thinks that this is the life. Tenna is collapsed next to him, a camellia blooming from his nose as he sighs in satisfaction. Spamton’s getting used to the sounds, the little smiles and laughs of utter joy he takes in their ‘script editing sessions’. This little situation is working out pretty well in both their favor. “I have to admit, partner,” Tenna says dreamily, the camellia disappearing back into his screen as he turns to look over. “It’s… nice. To think about something besides the show.”
Spamton winks, finishing off his cigarette and crushing the butt into the tray on his bedside table. “You live and breathe [TV Time!], Ant. You’ve gotta know when to take a breather. Step back a bit.”
“Mm.” Tenna scoots closer, resting his chin on Spamton’s head. He’s freshly out of the shower, and there’s not much point in gelling his hair down right before bed, so his loose waves are free and a bit unruly. It’s… a little scary, honestly, letting Tenna see him without the careful attention he usually puts into his appearance. Being a [Big Shot] is a lot of work, work that he’s grinded and clawed his way into, and anything that suggests he’s anything more than [#1RatedSalesman1997] is dangerous. “You’re a bad influence.”
“[Guilty].” Spamton lets Tenna cling to him, the gentle whine from his screen humming in his ears. At first, it was a bit grating, that constant whine trailing behind Tenna wherever he went. But now it’s almost comforting, and after a few minutes, it fades away into the background, joining the faint sounds of traffic. Lights from the city peek through his curtains, creating an ocean of color on his walls. Between the comfort of his bed, Tenna’s warmth, and the impromptu light show, a weird feeling starts burning in his chest, just enough for him to notice; he can’t quite figure out what it is. Like… safety. Like—
There’s a quiet, digital ‘ping!’ above them, their only warning before something drops down on Tenna’s head with a hard sound. Tenna’s screen goes staticky in surprise, but as he reaches up to feel what just hit him, it rolls off his head and lands on the pillow above Spamton. Spamton reaches above him to grab it, bringing it up to his face. “The hell?” he mutters, staring at the blue, oblong thing in his hands.
“Oww,” Tenna whines, frantically patting the top of his head to feel for any cracks. “W-what is that? Oh, did it crack anything? How’s my casing look?”
Spamton sits upright, looking his cohost over before determining, “You’re fine.” He turns his attention back to the thing in his hand. It’s almost egg-shaped, but hitting Tenna doesn’t seem to have cracked it at all, so it must be sturdier than that. If he looks really closely, in the glow of Tenna’s screen, he faintly sees some glitchy text above the thing that says… “Pipis?”
Tenna peers at it, nearly resting his head on Spamton’s shoulder, right as the thing chirps, and he rears back again. “Should we be worried? Is this a Cyber City thing? O-or ‘data’ or whatever?”
“Yeah, it’s probably a glitch or something.” The thing—the pipis?—chirps again, rocking gently in Spamton’s hands. This is weird, but he also gets the inkling that it’s relatively harmless. “Probably just wait for it to despawn or something.”
The pipis chirps a couple more times when he sets it on his nightstand, but eventually, it also fades into the background, and they soon fall asleep in a tangle of limbs, that warm feeling still settled in Spamton’s chest.
~ T ~
The pipis is still there in the morning. But the longer Tenna looks at it, the more he can’t help but find it kind of cute. He nestles it carefully on his lap on the drive back to TV World. The weird thing is, over the next few days, even more show up, always in the wake of Spamton’s presence. None of them bean Tenna in the head the way the first one did, but one spawns in under a heavy set piece and cracks open all over the set during pre-show check. When Tenna examines the shattered thing on the floor, he can see... some kind of meat inside. Cooking show knowledge in hand, he determines, “I think it’s… a clam? Or close to it.”
Spamton groans, sliding a hand down his face. “[[Y]]? Like I don’t already have a [Sunday Business] to run, [Right now!] I’ve gotta look out for these things, too?”
“Well, if it’s a clam, it’s probably edible.” Tenna shrugs, snapping for a clean-up crew. “Should be easy to take care of.”
The original one, though… It’s much bigger than the new ones that ‘spawn’ in, as Spamton says. And it’s much noisier, too, chirping and clucking whenever Tenna gets close. So while the other pipises (he and Spamton are currently in a minor argument over whether the plural is ‘pipises’ or ‘pipi’) get used as cheap protein, this one sits in a plush red pillow right on his vanity, one of the few things he’ll share a mirror with.
When he looks at it, pressing his hand against the hard shell, he remembers holding his cohost close, feeling warm and fulfilled and like the luckiest CRT in the world. A little secret memory, just for himself.