Archive of Our Own ^beta

Almost every single night these days, Ramb finds himself alone in the Green Room, wiping down the bar counter, closing up, and listening to Spamton and Tenna argue. 

Before, before this, before that Addison with the cheap hair dye and too-strong cologne had blown into the studio, the power strip’s days had been a somewhat-pleasant, near-identical loop. Open the bar, monitor the Green Room, serve drinks after the show, compliment or console Tenna, cut him off if he drank too much, close the bar, go home, sit and stare at the wall for a while, then go to bed and do it all again the next day. Occasionally he’d do a puzzle, knit a scarf, listen to records on his beat-up old player, or smoke a joint. But that was about as exciting as things got, for him. Tenna’s mood swings had been trying at times, but manageable, soothed with a few words of affirmation and an unspoken hard-stop after eight drinks. 

But, lately? The studio is unpredictable, almost volatile, as soon as the rest of the crew leaves. The pair certainly knows how to time their arguments so they won’t be overheard by the general staff—usually. Not always.

He’d first known it was going to be bad the night that Tenna had that breakdown. 

The show had gone poorly. Very poorly, and Ramb noticed the CRT had clearly been drinking from his own supply before he even shuffled up to the bar. He’d been a bit of a mess—which had been growing more common in those days, what with Dess leaving, the parents fighting—and Ramb had ended up helping him back to his dressing room and folding out the couch so he could go to sleep, consoling him gently. 

Tenna had been so caught-up in his own mess that he hadn’t heard the footsteps approaching the door—but Ramb had, and he’d known instantly who it was. No other Darkner, no usual Darkner, would dare come back to Tenna’s dressing room without explicit invitation, except for Mike, and he had taken off early that evening. 

Spamton. It had to be Spamton. That Addison, so desperate to seem flippant, had come back to the dressing room to check on Tenna? Yes, it had to have been to check on him, because those footsteps had pattered away a moment after Ramb had spoken, as if mollified by the fact that someone was there—or disappointed by it. 

Ramb knows Spamton’s reputation. He’d heard a bit about him back in Cyber City in his Addison days, back when he made no sales, and most of the whispers of his name were made with pity or unfamiliarity. When things had changed, Ramb had been sure that he’d given something up, compromised something immutable for that recognition. Things like that don’t happen overnight—not without a little bit of help. And Ramb knows that, in Cyber City, that kind of help can come at the cost of a soul.

And, to Ramb, he sure seems soulless now. 

Well, soulless might be a bit of an exaggeration, one magnified by his own personal biases, but it certainly seems like Spamton is cruel and unfeeling. He’s largely flippant, dismissive of Tenna’s feelings, caustic and egotistical. He looks at Ramb with a particular flavor of disgust, an all-too obvious disdain and resentment—one that, as soon as Spamton really had a conversation with (or, more aptly, at) him, he was able to identify the source of. 

The Addison is seethingly, territorially jealous. Yes, despite his lax attitude and apparent imperviousness to feelings, Spamton feels he can assert some kind of claim over Tenna—feels that he’s the only one that should be privy to the CRT’s feelings or mental state, in order to best manipulate them. 

The worst part is, it’s working. When Spamton had left for that week—in what Ramb is sure was some type of power play—Tenna had been a wreck. He’d been depressed, then volatile—then, suddenly, upon Spamton’s return, ecstatic. It’s like the salesman’s presence had flipped on a brilliant light in Tenna’s chest, blowing away all the darkness that had crept in with his absences. And, despite Ramb’s insistent warnings, his evident apprehension, Tenna’s begun to make Spamton his only light. He’s begun to crave him like the spotlight, desperate for that bright, warm beam to turn in his direction, to stay trained on him, only him, basking in its near-blinding glow. 

And when it flickers? That’s when things get dangerous. 

Tonight is the worst fight they’ve had yet. They hardly waited for the crew to file out before they were practically at each other’s throats, Tenna making some offhand remark that got Spamton raising his haunches, and refusing to back down just long enough for the salesman to thoroughly eviscerate his self-confidence. It had been over the quality of the show, as usual, something about a dropped line or missed cue that might have contributed to the night’s poor ratings. But with Spamton—and sometimes Tenna, Ramb admits—things always quickly become a personal attack. 

The shorter man had taken his partner’s arm and practically dragged him into the dressing rooms, and then the shouting had started. 

Tenna’s voice, fiery in that way he gets when he’s wound up about the show, venomous and barbed, filtering through the wall in broken sentences. 

“God forbid I want to—show I built from the ground up—you to say anything about it?! You’re—”

Spamton’s cutting voice, now, simultaneously a shout and a hiss. “PLEASE. I PRACTICALLY [Made and Minted] YOUR LITTLE—VIEWERS WITHOUT ME! DON’T TALK—TO ME, [SWEETHEART]. I PROMISE YOU DON’T WANT—OH, WHAT-THE-FUCK-EVER, DON’T GIVE ME THAT BULLSHIT—”

“Don’t cuss at me, you know I don’t like it when you—”

“LET’S NOT [Put On] THE [Prude] ACT NOW—”

“You always—what have I ever done to—”

The words fade to distant, unintelligible rumbles as the couple begins to descend the stairs to Tenna’s dressing room. Ramb sighs. He knows how it’s going to go. They’ll yell, and Spamton will go too far, and Tenna will start to cry, Spamton rolling his eyes and storming out, or they’ll start fucking and forget about it, both emerging flushed and disheveled thirty minutes later, seeking a drink. It’s become routine, predictable. It happens about every ten days—some blowout fight, then a few days where they’re all over each other, two or three tense days, then another fight. Sometimes they last longer, maybe twenty-four hours, but never more than forty-eight, and it never shows when the cameras are rolling. That’s the way it goes, these days.

The power strip feels a throbbing at his temples. If Spamton storms out tonight, Tenna will be a wreck, and he’ll have to pick him up off the floor, or pass him tissues over the bar. The CRT never means to start a fight, he swears—it just ‘happens’! He ‘makes one comment and then Spamton flies off the handle,’ he sobs, voice thick, screen watery. 

In truth, Tenna probably wants to fight at least thirty percent of the time. He wants the attention, or the sex, or the passion that comes out of Spamton when they do. He’s admitted as much on rare occasions, occasions when Spamton’s managed to sustain an icy silence for more than a couple of hours, and the television has begun to feel deprived. Ramb can’t blame him, though. It’s Tenna’s nature to crave that attention—and he knows Spamton deliberately withholds it for his own benefit. The salesman loves to see Tenna agitated nearly as much as he loves to see him happy—on some days, Ramb’s certain it’s more. 

He knows Tenna, has known him for years, and he’s familiar with the obsessive, controlling, emotional rollercoaster ride that knowing him can be. He’s used to all of its loops and inversions and turns, and he knows when to hold on tight and when to throw his hands up in the air. Tenna is predictably unpredictable. Battat had convinced him to go see one of those head doctors once, when he was having a really awful week, and his report—which Battat had shared with him in confidence, out of costume—was predictable. Tenna had refused treatment, though. He was terrified of how it might affect the show. So, the highs, lows, and in-between had continued to fluctuate, his nature unchecked and untreated, but supported by the cast and crew. 

Spamton is a whole different beast in that regard. Knowing his history doesn’t equal knowing him. Seeing through his facade doesn’t equal understanding precisely what lurks beneath it. There’s this inscrutable layer to him, unknowable and unfamiliar to Ramb, something that lies dormant beneath the smooth, nonchalant surface. Something frightening. Something that is, beyond question, not good for Tenna. And Tenna is his responsibility. Him and Battat’s, anyway. That’s just the way of this world, since its inception. They’re the people who get him through—and suddenly, they’ve been pushed away to arm’s length. They’re being shut out, and not even by Tenna’s conscious choice—at least not yet—but by Spamton’s unspoken, clandestine intent. 

As Ramb ponders this, the dressing room door smacks open, and one enraged little Addison stomps through it, hair ruffled, muttering and swearing under his breath, not sparing the bartender a single glance as he beelines for the door. 

“FUCKIN’ PUSSY…CRYING LIKE A [Baby Formula Supplier]…UNBELIEVABLE! …YELLS AT ME, THEN CRIES…” A huff, as he slams out the Green Room door and heads for the parking lot, and Ramb sighs deeply, leaning forward onto the bar and resting his head in his hands. 

Better prepare for a nasty one tonight, he thinks. It’s gonna be a while. 

“Ramb,” Tenna whines, four drinks deep, three feet shorter than usual, and already sloppy, “Do—do you think I’m too much?”

Ramb sighs, wiping down a glass. “What d’ you mean?” It’s starting, now—he’s finished the drinks in rapid succession, and he’s letting the emotions show. Mentally, the power strip buckles in.

“Do I care too much? Do I-I fall too fast? Am I over-the-top? Do I just walk around looking like…like some kind of idiot who just…who’s jus’ too big and in the way, and always needs to correct something, and—”

“Alright,” Ramb chides, cutting off Tenna’s self-deprecating ramble. “Don’t get all caught up, now, luv.” 

He pats Tenna’s gloved hand in comfort, continuing, “I don’t think you’re too much. You come on strong, sure. You’re…passionate. But tha’s a good thing, innit? You’ve got a personality for TV—it’s why people watch—why they love ya so much. If you didn’t want to make sure everything was perfect, if you weren’t so dedicated, the show wouldn’t run, would it? So, I wouldn’t worry about none of that, luv. You’re just who you need to be, I reckon. What’s got you thinkin’ otherwise?” 

He chooses not to comment on the ‘falling too fast’ remark, layering on the compliments in order to distract from this omission. He’s not sure he can spin that one—Tenna’s kind of hit the nail on the head. 

“Oh, nothing,” The CRT lies poorly, antennae twitching. “I just…worry sometimes, you know? I worry that he…that people don’t, uh. Really like me. That it’s just…just for show. That I…bother them, more than anything else. I don’t know.” He waves a hand. 

“Well,” Ramb remarks, “most of the crew have known you for years, and they sure like you! At the very least, they respect you.” 

“Most of the crew,” Tenna mutters, pulling a pack of cigarettes out of his suit jacket pocket. Ramb leans forward to light it, and the CRT nods in thanks.

The power strip drops the facade, a little, sensing Tenna’s dedication to secrecy waning. “He’ll get over it, luv. He always does.” 

As if on cue, as soon as Spamton is directly referenced, Tenna sniffles, wobbily exhaling a mouthful of smoke. “B-but what if he doesn’t?!” the television wails, “Wh-what if this time, he’s really had enough! What if I drove him away! I drive everyone a-away, Ramb!” The tears start to flow. “I d-didn’t mean to—”

“I know,” Ramb sighs. “You never do, luv.”

“B-but I do it anyway! I-I start a fight, I make him mad, a-and then he leaves! He always leaves, if I cry, and I try not to—I try—” Tenna’s breathing starts to pick up, and Ramb feels a genuine pang in his chest. Then, for a moment, a rare flare of hot, genuine anger at Spamton. 

Ramb doesn’t think he’s cut out for love—romantic, sexual, or otherwise. It’s just not really his thing. He’s never been particularly interested. When Kris loved him, the way a child loves their favorite toy, that had been enough. He’s never found himself craving, or particularly understanding, other forms of connection. But he is certain that when you love someone and they’re crying, genuinely upset, hurt by what you’ve said to them, you don’t just walk out and call them a pussy! No, no, there’s certainly something that Spamton is doing unquestionably wrong—wrong to the point that Ramb can’t sit silently, murmur mollifyingly in this moment. 

“He shouldn’t leave like that,” Ramb declares, “He knows you don’t like it, he knows how it affects you—do you think someone who really cared would just let you sit there and cry like that? Would walk out?” He finds an odd strength in his voice, a familial sort of protection over Tenna buzzing in his core. 

But somehow, the CRT only begins to cry louder. 

“N-no,” he sobs, “he cares, he cares, he has t-to care!” The cigarette is stubbed out into the ashtray, spotted with tear-marks and only half-smoked. “I-it can’t just be me. I can’t be the only one w-who feels like this. He has to—he does—” A gasp, as if he’s desperate for air. “I sh-should call him. I should call him and apologize again. He-he’ll forgive me, if I just show him—if I just—” Tenna chugs the remainder of his sixth drink, swaying a bit on his stool. “If I just show him I—we’ll put this behind us. Pretend it never even happened!” His voice is rising to a hysterical pitch now. “I just need to—I was wrong, really! He—he was right, I started it, I made him upset, I just have to stop being so needy, so critical, so—hic—Ramb, lemme use the phone.” 

For a moment, the power strip weighs the pros and cons of saying no. It won’t be any use. Tenna will demand it. He’ll get angry, get more upset, yell or whine or reach over the bar himself to get at the receiver. He’s done it before. He’s never managed not to call, once he gets the idea into his head. 

Spamton always answers the phone. 

The power strip sighs. “Are you sure you—”

“Yes! Yes, I-I’m sure, I can fix this, I can fix h-h—just hand it over!” 

Frowning, Ramb places the landline onto the bartop, then crosses his arms in silent dissent, resisting the urge to blurt out something stupid like grow a spine that will only make the situation ten times worse. 

Drunkenly, desperately, Tenna lunges for the phone, clumsily typing in numbers, clutching the receiver to his ear, listening to it ring once, twice, three times—

Ramb prays he won’t answer. 

Click. A muffled voice on the other end, an apprehensive greeting. 

“Baby,” Tenna gasps, “Spam, Spam, you were right, I-I’m sorry, please just—”

Ramb turns on his heel, and retreats into the back room. He can’t listen to Tenna beg again. 

Besides, Spamton will be back soon enough. He won’t want to see Ramb hanging around.

Spamton hit him back. Ramb’s certain of it. He’s unsure of the circumstances, unsure of the exact order of events, if the mailman started or ended it, but he hit Tenna back, probably with twice as much force and anger. Ramb had heard enough to know how the fight was going to end. He’d seen it written all over Spamton’s face, as he sat in that chair. 

And now, because Ramb let himself get angry, he’s going back in there. He’s not just getting the fuck out like he should be, like he usually does, he’s going to go and make the entire situation worse. 

He shouldn’t have just stood there and poured him a drink. He should have just shut up and not said anything. He should have jumped over the bar and grabbed him by the collar. He should have just gone back and checked on Tenna. He knows it’s bad. It’s been nothing but bad lately. 

Fuck, he is tired. He feels so helpless, so useless. He’s so sick of feeling useless, so sick of just standing by, watching, playing by the rules. What has it gotten him? A life of walking on eggshells, of avoiding difficult subjects, a facade of a quiet retirement, a reality of potent irrelevancy. The way Tenna looks at him, sometimes—like Ramb’s life is his worst nightmare, but he’s desperate not to let that show. The way Spamton looks at him, like that’s the most obvious fact in the world. 

When did he start to resent them both? When did they start to blur together in his mind? When had he cemented them as a duo, just let this train wreck of a relationship practically knock over everything in the studio that wasn’t tied down? When did he let thinking about them start to take over his life? When did his hackles start to raise when the combined sound of their voices rounded the corner? 

He feels bad for Tenna—honestly, truly, he does. Some days, he feels so bad that he tears himself up inside about staying silent. He tears himself up about serving him drinks, about nodding and smiling and trying to console as best he can without condemning the man that Tenna loves, without getting aggression directed towards him, or nearly losing his job. He consoles him, without actually doing anything. 

Fuck. He is so sick of not doing anything. Ramb flicks the bar lights off. Is this going to be forever? How long can it possibly go on for? Should I say something? Will it even matter, if I do? 

He doesn’t get much sleep that night. 

Tenna looks distracted when he sits down at the bar and orders his usual, but Ramb’s already made up his mind. He knows what he’s going to ask, he knows how he’s going to ask it, and he knows he’s not going to stop until he gets Tenna to recognize the truth. He’s done being useless, powerless, inert. He’s done standing by and watching his boss’s life–his friend’s life–go to hell in a handbasket while he just stands there and does nothing. He’s sick of letting that resentment build. 

I don’t have very many people–it’s basically just him and Mike, nowadays. Surely I can’t just…throw our friendship away over Spamton, of all people. No, no. I’ve gotta try this. I’ve got to try to really talk about it. 

Ramb slides the glass across the table, and figures it’s best to start while Tenna’s sober. “So,” he inquires with a feigned casualness, “what happened last night?” 

“Oh, uh, what?” Tenna’s antennae stick up straight. “Nothing happened last night. Nothing at all! Just, you know, did the show, then had to whip people into shape around here a bit, hah!” He puts on that showman’s voice of his. “You know what they say, Ramb–if you want it done, you’ve got to do it yourself! Hopefully we pulled tonight off better–I sure hope we did, but we’ll see what he–we’ll see what the ratings say, won’t we?”

What Spamton says, more likely. Ramb follows up on his resolution to press. “Come on, Tenna. The crew heard the two of you getting into it. Mike and I had to send everyone home, you know.” He tries to phrase the end of the statement lightheartedly, but the first half is too grim to soften the blow much. 

“Oh, that? It was nothing,” Tenna says breezily, and if Ramb didn’t know just how good of an actor he was, he might think the CRT was being genuine. “Just a little spat, you know. Tensions run high, couples squabble a bit. It’s normal! Nothing to be concerned over, no big deal.” He sips deeply from his drink, then tries to change the subject. “Wow, this is really good, did you get that new shipment of–”

“I’m not–I’m not sure you’re being entirely honest, luv.” The statement comes off as almost apologetic, and Ramb curses his own weak backbone. “You–you don’t have to pretend, you know.”

Tenna’s responding look of disbelief reads plainly. Yes, I do. “Just forget about it, okay, buddy?” His voice is strained, now, tired and tense. “It really wasn’t anything important–end of story.” He stares down into his glass, anxious and irritated. Ramb swallows thickly. 

“Tenna–you can–you can tell me, if he’s h–”

The television snaps, expressly irritated, voice going cold. “No. I told you, Ramb, nothing happened!” A desperate attempt to return to cheery, coming off all wrong, “It’s all good! I don’t know why you’re asking me this question.” Cold again. “Honestly, I don’t see how it’s any of your business.” 

He’s mumbling, now. “I’m only tryin’ ta make sure you’re okay, luv. You look like you’ve been feeling off, the last couple of days–” 

Tenna laughs awkwardly, inappropriately, not matching Ramb’s tone. “I mean, I don’t know, nobody feels great after a show like that–maybe I was just stressed, had the volume dials up too high!” A pained, sad smile. “Rookie mistake, really.”

Ramb summons his confidence, trying to make his voice loud and steady. “Tenna. We all know what we heard, luv. I just want what’s best for you, and maybe–maybe these fights are not what’s best, y’know? Look, last night, I talked with him after the fight. Spamton. He mentioned what happened, and he didn’t seem sorry at all! He hurt you, and he didn’t seem the slightest bit sorry. You can try to make excuses for him, but I know how you are, and–”

A spark flies between Tenna’s antennae, and his screen reddens, bewildered and annoyed. He pushes himself off of his stool a bit. “What’s that supposed to mean? You don’t know him like I do!” The television’s practically shouting. “You weren’t there! I’m certain he didn’t tell you that anything happened, because nothing did! And, frankly, I don’t like how you’re talking about my boyfriend! You don’t know shit about the situation, Ramb! How many times do I have to tell you to stay out of it?!”

“Luv, I’m only trying to help you.” He’s mumbling again, trying to keep his expression firm. “I don’t want you in a bad situation, I just want what’s best for everyone, and I don’t know if the two of you are–”

“Well, I’m not really sure it’s your place to decide that, is it?” Tenna’s voice is venomous, now. “You’re a bartender,” he spits, “not a psychiatrist! I know what’s best for me, and for the studio! So I would appreciate it–” the television tries to calm himself down, “if you didn’t try to meddle in our–”

The door to the dressing room swings open. Immediately, Ramb’s brows furrow as potentially his least favorite person in two Dark Worlds materializes on the other side of it, wearing an appraising expression, one eyebrow lifting cockily as Tenna cuts off his own speech straightaway. Ramb’s face is hot with rage. He was listening, the barman thinks bitterly, he was goddamn listening. Tenna probably knew it, too. Fuck it all. 

“YOU READY TO [Go, Go, Go], [Gorgeous?]”

The power strip tries to school his expression right alongside Tenna, who looks like his heart’s dropped into his stomach, then as if nothing had happened at all. “Yes! Sorry, was just, uh, chatting with Ramb.” A forced cough, then he allows his screen to redden a bit. “You look nice like that, Spam.” It sickens him that the compliment is genuine. It sickens him how much Tenna loves this man that seems to solely feel possession over him in return. 

A wink. “IT’S N0THING. C’MON, LET’S GET [Outta Town].”

Obediently, Tenna hops up from his stool, and as he turns to take Spamton’s hand, he’s smiling as if their whole conversation’s been forgotten. Can this guy do bloody mind-control magic? Holy hell! 

Then, they’re holding hands and proceeding out of the room. Ramb allows his expression to settle back into a scowl, just as Spamton turns his head over his shoulder, and gives him a scathing, hateful look. 

The smile he morphs back into almost seems real. He can’t tell if he’d hate it more if it was. 

“Battat.” Ramb appears in the doorway of the sound booth, red in the face. 

“Gah!” The Pippins jumps, head whirling around, then his shoulders relax. “Oh, Ramb. What is it? I was just about to pack up for the night.” 

The power-strip produces a thin, brown, cigarette-like object. “I need a fucking smoke,” he grumbles, still feeling wound-up. 

“Behind the sound-stage?” Battat asks, jerking his head in that direction. 

“Yeah,” he replies tiredly. 

Before long, they sit out in the cool, silent night air, joint lit up and being passed between them at thirty-second intervals. 

“What’s got you all bothered?” Battat asks, “That short bastard getting to you again?”

“Fuckin’ insufferable, inn’he?” Ramb grumbles, and the diceman nods. 

“Awful. Was a pain in the ass about commercial set stuff today, too. Said I was ‘behind on the light cues.’ Thinks I don’t know how to run my own goddamned booth! It’s ridiculous. Tenna’s a control freak, to be sure–but even he doesn’t give me this much shit.” 

“I hear you,” Ramb takes a long toke. “Though ol’ Tenna gave me a proper chewing-out today,” he adds somberly. “I swear, he doesn’t know what’s good for ‘im.”

“Never has,” Battat agrees. “‘S why we help, I guess–we love him anyway.” A beat. “Well, that or Stockholm Syndrome. What happened?” 

Suddenly, Ramb doesn’t want to talk about it. He feels the weed taking effect, fuzzing up his mind, lowering his eyelids. He knows he ought to consult Battat, but–but he just wants to talk about something else. 

“I’ll tell you in a mo’, eh? It’s right depressin’. Talk to me about the boyfriends, first, would’ya? How’re they?”

Battat exhales a long plume of smoke. “Pff. Jongler’s drivin’ me crazy,” he says good-naturedly, fondly. “As per fuckin’ usual. Wouldn’t have it any other way, though.” He grins. “Pluey is Pluey. Quiet. Doesn’t make trouble. Decides who wins every damn argument.” He waves the joint in the air. “Curls up under the desk in the booth to get outta work, the charming little fucker. Can’t bring myself to tell him to go back down to the pit, he doesn’t like the crowds.” Battat leans back against the wall. “So, same as ever, really. Banes of my damn existence.” There’s an immeasurable warmth, a contentness behind the words.

Battat’s not the lover-boy type, really, but he is indeed in love. It’s a quiet, dependable kind of love, one Ramb rather admires, on the whole. Nobody else in the studio really knows about the three of them being together. They don’t shove it in people’s faces. Most would just think they’re a group of close friends, but they’ve been dating for years. 

“You gonna pop the question?” Ramb asks lightheartedly.

“Why’s it gotta be me?” Battat asks. “One of those two bastards oughta take the initiative for once. Let Jongler do it!” 

They both laugh at that. Battat continues, “But, I mean, yeah. Eventually. When work’s not so busy, y’know? When we’ve all got less on our plates.” 

“Things mostly seem headed that way,” Ramb sighs. “Or, they did, anyway.” 

“Fuckin’ Spamton,” the Pippins grouses. “Piece of shit.”

“He makes Tenna worse,” Ramb confesses, in a moment of blunt honesty. 

To his surprise, Battat barks out a rough, amused laugh. “You’re just realizing that now? I connected those dots ages ago.” He frowns, suddenly, caught up by something. “ …If only I could figure out who the fuck Mike is, really use this detective brain.” He sighs. 

“You’ll drive yourself batty thinkin’ about it,” Ramb reminds him. 

“I know, I know.” The Pippins waves a hand. “Still. ‘Least he calls you by your real name. What kind of shit’d he give you today?” He stubs out the butt of the joint. 

“Tried to ask ‘im about yesterday,” Ramb starts, and Battat whistles lowly. 

“Shit.”

“I know. Really tried it, too. I know he hit ‘im, Bats. I don’t care who started it!” He feels the irritation begin to creep back in. “I don’t care. I know it ‘appened! I bet he was a wreck—but I couldn’t help. Bastard went back in there.” 

“Nothin’ you can do,” Battat grumbles.

“I had to try. I had to. He flipped, eventually. When I told him everyone heard, that we all knew he hurt him. I mean, it was obvious. Spamton gave me some proper shite, all ‘he hit me, you know’— an’ it’s not like it’d surprise me, with the way he treats ‘im! Tenna’s unbalanced, unstable. He’s bound to snap. ‘S just how he is! Doesn’t the dolt know that?” Ramb puts his hands up. “But Tenna wouldn’ hear it, regardless.”

“He never will,” Battat sighs. “Tried getting him to deal with the balance issues, too–you know how that went. He’s practically been onstage his whole life. Won’t even come out after the shows. He doesn’t know anything else. Natural he’d be afraid to jeopardize it–even if it’s a little stupid. Can’t blame him, really.” A moment’s pause. “He’s in love, Ramb. You’re not gonna be able to cut it off. Spamton’s an unstoppable force. Tenna’s an immovable object. It’s just…inevitable. You should see ‘em on stage together. It’s something else.” Despite everything, there’s a reverent edge to Battat’s tone. 

“Bloody offstage is plenty for me,” Ramb sighs. “It’s bad.” 

“Love isn’t always good,” The Pippins counters. 

“Please. You want ‘em apart as much as I do.” He can’t stop the honesty, now. 

“Never said I didn’t. Just understand the guy, is all. Can’t help matters of the heart. There’s nothing we can do, Ramb. We’ve just got to ride it out. It’s Tenna’s world.” Battat doesn’t seem angry about that last fact–just accepting. 

It irks Ramb, though. “It’s all of our world. We’ve–we’ve all got a place in it, like it or not. Even if nobody seems to see us,” he adds, a touch melancholy. 

Battat reaches out to pat him on the shoulder. “Man. This is really getting to you, huh?” Ramb nods loosely. “Gets to me, too. But I’ve got a place to hide when the show’s over.”

You’ve got people, Ramb thinks, you’ve got family. “I’m tired,” he says, in lieu of his other thoughts. “Wears me ragged, playin’ by the rules.” 

“Then bend ‘em,” Battat says, shrugging. “You make half of ‘em for yourself, anyway, Ramb. You don’t gotta involve yourself. You can just…stay out of it. All the way out. You don’t have to mop up his tears. He says he’s got someone for that?” The sound tech scoffs. “Believe him.” 

“Hypocrite,” Ramb huffs. “You baby him more than I do.” 

Battat chuckles. “Maybe. He’s like family, Ramb. I don’t think I could ever not wanna help ‘im. It’s what I’m here for, Mike or not. I wouldn’t want it any other way, I guess. But–you don’t have to be like that, y’know? You’re from another world. You’ve got a different history. Besides, he’s too hung up on the past to really get rid of you, anyhow. Kris’ favorite toy? As if he’d kick you out. Guy’s obsessed with the good ol’ days. You remind him of ‘em. You’ve got more power than you think. More leeway, at least.” A beat, then, weightily, “He could do to drink a little less.” 

Ramb rests his head back against the brick wall, considering Battat’s words. “Yeah,” he murmurs, after a minute, “I reckon he could.” 

Staying out of it, he finds, is easier said than done.

One more time, he’d told himself when Tenna sat down today. Just take one more crack at getting through to him. Just hear him out, here. Try to reason with him. 

It had ended badly. It could only have ever ended badly. And he’d drawn the line. Drawn it firmly, drawn it in permanent marker. Tenna had uncapped the pen for him, placed it in his hand, really. Still, his chest crackles with frustration. 

Why do I feel so shitty about this? I’m allowed to stand up to him. I’m allowed to let him deal with this bullshit on his own. He doesn’t own me. I know that. I don’t have to get involved. I’m done getting involved! There’s nothing I can do about it! I’m—I’m useless, here! 

Useless, again. Incompatible with the situation. Incompatible with this world. Purposeless. And I’m back to doing nothing. More nothing. It’s. All. Bloody. Nothing. 

He paces the back room of the bar area, feeling unusually cagey, restricted. Why have I even stayed here? What am I even doing here? Tenna’s right—they don’t even like me, except Battat! Kris doesn’t need me anymore. Nobody needs me. They could have just returned me to the library, but no. I’m trapped. I’m trapped because I was their favorite thing, once. Because I’m nostalgic. Because I’m from their childhood. Because I’m the hallmark of an era that everyone around here seems to want to go back to!

I want to go back, too. I want to go back, but we can’t. Kris doesn’t play with me—why would they? They’re a teenager now. The deer girl is gone. Asgore will be gone, soon. We’ll all be forgotten before too terribly long. 

Maybe I want to be forgotten. Maybe I just want to be thrown away. 

He finds himself turning a glass over in his hands. A fleeting impulse to smash it against the wall seizes him, so strong his arm cocks back automatically, but he lowers it, after a moment. 

If he breaks it, he’ll be cleaning it up. He’s responsible for the messes he makes. He’ll have to sweep up his own glass. He’ll patch up the holes he leaves in the wall by himself, he’ll conduct his own repairs, he’ll right what’s knocked over, paint over the scratches, spackle the dents and tiny holes left behind. He’ll sit silently in the aftermath of his own wreckage. There’s nobody else to do it for him. 

At least now he’ll stick to his own messes, even if he never makes them. Even if cleaning things up and waiting for them to break again is all he really knows how to do. 

So, he thinks, you’re staying out of it. What now?

For the next few weeks, Ramb is back to doing nothing. He’s zoned-out, silent, inattentive to the bar, to his daily tasks, to coworkers that come up requesting drinks, to Battat trying to share some story about his partners to cheer his friend up. He feels half-present, slow, sluggish, and distracted. Still, though, he comes into work every day, and stands behind the bar. 

Everything is normal again, he tells himself, it’s all back to how it was. Just go about your life. Don’t worry about them. Just let it be.

But something feels…hollow, painful. It’s like the world has gone a little grayer, a little colder. It’s like the half-pleasant daily monotony that had made up his retirement has become a trapping, inescapable loop. When he drags himself home in the evenings, he finds himself just staring at his puzzles and crosswords and sweaters, leaving them half-finished and abandoned, sitting in his small, overstuffed armchair and nursing a glass of something strong and room-temperature. He tosses and turns in his sleep, uncomfortable, and, more than ever, he finds himself caught up thinking about the past—at first it’s Kris’ childhood, their elaborate games of pretend. The eccentric, slightly morbid scenarios they’d all act out for the children’s amusement, ridiculous, exciting tales that always ended with everyone living happily ever after—Asriel used to make sure of it, despite his sibling’s inclination towards the dark or absurd. He’d create something, wrap it all up in a neat little bow. No matter how much Kris and Dess complained, it had always made Noelle smile, made her look at ease. 

Then, he reflects on his early days in the studio, when he was a younger, fresher face. When TV World was bright and shiny and new, when there was always an audience and they’d never known the feeling of being unplugged, even just for that one day. When Tenna was more sprightly, more excited, filled with new ideas and spurred on by youthful laughter. When he’d have a drink—just one drink—after the show, and tell Ramb all about how he’d made the kids smile that day. It would brighten his afternoon, make it easier to contend with his time as a plaything being over, help him understand that the children were still happy, that they’d just moved on to something new—that it was simply the way of the world. That television was brand-new, thrilling, and he was lucky to be a part of something bigger. 

More than anything else, he tries not to focus on right now. He tries not to focus on the way the TV Darkners stroll past him without even a word, as if he doesn’t exist. He tries to ignore the way Battat’s smile wavers when he doesn’t engage with him the way he used to. He dismisses the judgemental stares, the pitiful glances, the awkward, forced smiles, and lets it all skim across the top of whatever body of water he’s already mentally submerged in, soundless and undisturbed, other people making only faint ripples far above his head. 

He pretends he doesn’t see Tenna or Spamton, whether they’re all over each other or at odds, just passing by or huddled in the corner of the Green Room, gossiping in hushed voices about one person or another. He pretends Tenna is another indistinguishable face, when he briskly orders his drinks and walks away, and that Spamton’s face is void of a smug sense of victory when he comes to collect them. 

Most of all, though, he pretends nobody is walking through the Green Room, that one morning, when the Addison comes in, drenched in sweat and tugging at his wild, mussed-up hair. He acts like he can’t hear him mumbling to himself about the phone—no doubt the same one Tenna had been suspicious of—about Heaven and how he can’t mess something up, that he has to listen to someone. Ramb acts like he doesn’t hear it, because there’s nothing he can do. There’s nobody he can warn that will truly hear him. 

There’s nobody he can warn during the week that follows that morning’s incident, where Spamton is cold and angry, then doting and obsessive, practically flipping between them every hour. He can’t warn anyone when Spamton hurls insult after insult at Tenna, then snaps at him when he returns from the bathroom, face visibly tear-streaked. He can’t comfort anyone when, after thirty minutes of saccharine, obscene flattery and borderline crazed sexual advances, Spamton says something so putrid that Tenna just screams, then runs out of the room, as if clinging to his own sanity. Ramb can’t ask him why he’s not fighting back, anymore. Ramb can’t ask him why he’s stopped defending himself, or why he’s still letting this go on, or why his neck is covered in barely-concealed bruises. And he can’t stop his boss when he orders twelve drinks in ninety minutes practically every night. He can’t even let his face betray his horror, mounting each day, behind that glass barrier that sits, three inches thick, between him and his own emotions.

Then, finally, the day comes and the dam breaks. 

He doesn’t see Spamton come in that day, but in retrospect he knows he must have just slipped past him unobserved. After they wrap, Tenna orders a few drinks, and Ramb’s only muted internal observation is that he looks tired. He pushes away CRT-related thoughts beyond that. But then, ten minutes later, it happens. 

Spamton comes sprinting out of the dressing rooms, the door slamming open, then crashing shut behind him with a clatter. He’s wild and unkempt-looking—disheveled, really, and he so rarely is—as he dashes through the room, but what really gives Ramb pause are his eyes. They’re wide and red-rimmed, glassy and manic-looking. There are tears streaming from them, messy, free-flowing ones. His chest is rising and falling rapidly, and he’s making this strange, uncharacteristic sound that the power strip realizes belatedly is sobbing. 

His gut barely has time to sink to his feet before the Addison is gone, footsteps thundering down the hallway to the parking lot. There’s no time to react, to call out. He’s not sure he even would have, had he been afforded a moment to. Spamton hadn’t even looked at him. 

Crying, Ramb thinks, he was crying. It seems impossible. It seems written in the laws of the universe that Spamton cannot cry. Especially not like that—not like his entire world was falling down around him, disassembling to molecules. 

Something is deeply, terribly, wrong. 

A door slams in the distance, and, after a frozen moment, Ramb is moving on instinct, without thinking, stepping out from behind the bar and pushing into the dressing rooms. A distant yell. He picks up his pace, hurrying through the backstage area and down the steps to Tenna’s dressing room. Another yell, louder. A curse. Then, a deathly silence. 

Ramb finds himself standing behind the door, stopped in his tracks. Don’t get involved, a part of him screams, and another shoots back, I have to, I have to. His hand is frozen halfway to the handle when he hears a loud, unmistakable thunk. A heavy body collapsing to the floor. Blood rushes in the power strip’s ears, heart thudding all of a sudden.

No. No, no what if he—he can’t have—

Suspecting the worst, his hand jerks at the handle, swinging the door open—

And seeing Tenna, lying on the floor, blue-screened. 

He lets out a sigh of relief. He passed out. He just passed out. He didn’t try to—he didn’t do anything stupid. He just got overwhelmed. 

Stepping inside the room, he cursorily inspects the CRT for any obvious wounds, and, seeing none, nods in satisfaction. Then, the reality of the situation hits him all over again.

He passed out. From a panic attack, probably. Or something else. It was so bad that he passed out, and Spamton actually cried. 

One of them ended it, Ramb thinks, feeling sure of the fact, one of them broke it off for good. 

He looks around the room. The drinks he’d made sit untouched, condensation dripping onto the couch end tables. There’s a thick packet of papers beside one of them—some contract Tenna had been reviewing, maybe. Then, his eyes skitter over to the center of the room, and fall on the black rotary phone by the desk, hanging loose from its receiver. A sort of dial-tone white noise buzzes from it, too distant to make out clearly. Huh. Ramb remembers him and Tenna’s conversation about the phone. ‘I’ve never actually seen him talk to the person on the other end of the line, though…he’s really quiet, like he’s scared someone’s listening…’

Huh. So maybe he finally answered when Tenna was around, then? Or maybe—

Suddenly, he cuts off his own thoughts, a wave of frustration washing over him as he takes the room in again, stares at the television passed-out on the floor. Why am I getting involved in this?! Why am I making it my problem? Why am I trying to pick up the pieces!? He doesn’t care, Tenna doesn’t care about me, he couldn’t care less! I said I wasn’t going to involve myself anymore. I said I was done. I told him I was done. I won’t let him see me here. I won’t give him that satisfaction. 

He ought to clean up his own mess for once. 

Before the broken man before him can haul himself up off the floor, Ramb turns on his heel, blinking the moisture from his eyes and pushing the guilt down in his stomach, and leaves the room, closing the door inaudibly behind him. 

Things go to hell after that. It takes under an hour for the yelling to start up, ringing through the studio, loud enough for the employees who remain to hear it take it as a clear sign to get the hell out of there. Not Ramb. He stands passively behind the bar, eyes glazed over, staring off into space and trying not to listen. Objects smash so hard into walls that the whole building shakes. He watches the glasses rattle on shelves, threatening to come crashing to the ground. 

Tenna sounds like he’s dying. Ramb’s never heard anything like it in his life. He’s thinking it can’t get any worse—and that’s when the sobbing starts. It’s quieter, but that’s relative. He can still hear it, loud and clear, from his stock-still place in the Green Room. He can hear the animal keening, the awful, wretched sound ringing through the studio’s dead air, a mourning cry, a soul-wrenching scream. 

It’s almost more disturbing when the place goes silent. 

When it does, Ramb hears the rapid pitter-patter of feet heading towards the Green Room door, and before long Battat’s barged in, looking panicked and worried. 

“The hell’s going on?!” He exclaims, distressed. “What happened?” 

“He left him,” Ramb replies simply, voice toneless and flat. “Spamton ran out late this afternoon. Seems like he’s gone for good.”

“Fuck,” the Pippins breathes, going pale, “Fuck, fuck, fuck. I-Is he okay? Well, that’s a stupid question—I mean, is he—do you think he might try and—shouldn’t someone check on him?!” 

On instinct, Ramb shakes his head. “He needs some time to process it, I think. He blue-screened for a pretty long while, after it happened. Saw him on the floor of his office, and…figured I’d let him work through it before he talks to anyone. I don’t recommend going back there. Might get your head bitten off.”

“He—he blue-screened?” Battat wrings his hands. “And you didn’t—you didn’t try to wake him up?”

“None of my business,” Ramb replies gruffly, looking away. “I’m staying out of it.”

The Pippins stares at him, appraising his reaction. “This is going to be bad, you know. For all of us. This isn’t going to be a normal Tenna thing, where it’s over in a day or so. We could all lose our jobs here, if he’s too unstable. We could get unplugged.”

So what? Would it really make a difference to me? I’m practically a ghost around here already. “I’m just following your advice, here. It’s not my problem. It’s not yours either.” He lifts his shoulders in feigned indifference, cursing himself in his head when Battat’s face falls, but not bothering to amend his statement. 

“B-but this is different! This is serious! You’re really just going to stand around and do nothing?!” Battat’s fidgeting anxiously with his tie, rocking back on his heels. 

“He doesn’t want me,” Ramb replies. “He said so himself. So, let him figure it out on his own.” He turns around, and begins to walk back into the back area of the bar, paying no mind to the frustrated, exasperated little noise Battat makes, nor to the sound of his shoes clicking out of the Green Room and back towards the soundstage.

He’s cleaning glasses for a while, then just rests his elbows on the bar countertop, cradling his head in his hands and staring off into space, when he hears another set of shoes, emerging from the dressing rooms this time. His stomach drops, a pit of guilt in his gut writhing like a pack of snakes when he sees Tenna emerge. His boss looks like a complete wreck. His suit is disheveled, his screen’s got burn-in tear-tracks lining it, his antennae droop miserably, and he’s so small that he’s struggling to pull himself up onto the barstool. 

His voice is torn-up, raspy, when he leans forward, not looking at Ramb, and says, “I need two bottles of coolant.”

His first instinct is to say no. To say I won’t let you just drink this away. To turn on his heel and walk away, refusing and doubling down on his earlier statement: don’t come to me when you get broken. 

The man before him is broken beyond all question.

Ramb finds himself replying simply, lowly, “It won’t fix it.” 

The wrecked, hollow, tearful expression on Tenna’s face communicates his answer, clear as day: “I know,” he murmurs, “I know.” He offers no retraction of his request. Ramb sighs.

Feeling some strange, agonizing mix of pity, disappointment and intense frustration, he wordlessly goes to fetch the dusty bottles. Begrudgingly, he slides them across the bar, and the CRT accepts them wordlessly. They’re both open before he even reaches the dressing room door. 

The show doesn’t go on the next day. Or the day after that. 

The crew creeps around the studio, nobody daring to question where the boss is, why he hasn’t come out to go on stage or coordinate things or at least give a reason why he’s not performing. Ramb suspects that Battat has given them a bare-bones explanation—and, from the way the crew has been looking at him, mentioned the power-strip’s critical moment of inaction. Ramb doubts he’s said anything explicitly condemning him—the crew already doesn’t care for him on their best day—but he might be thinking about it, because Jongler passes by the bar and gives him an uncharacteristic glare. He turns his head away, cheeks burning with shame. 

The week crawls by at a snail’s pace. Without the show, a slow, at-times-boring life has become an insufferable, blank, empty one. The only times he sees Tenna are when he’s silently requesting more bottles of booze, or surreptitiously sneaking out the back door, presumably to secure it directly from the source—or perhaps, Ramb suspects, for something stronger. He pretends not to see, responds to requests without a word, but the guilt is starting to creep over him like a persistent winter chill. His frustration with Tenna feels distant, when he sees him, only trickling back in when he’s been holed up in the dressing room for days. 

Halfway through the second week of the show-drought, Tenna emerges from his office at the time he usually goes on air. The crew’s continued to prep for the show daily, readying reruns and old cartoons, and it’s been long enough now that their jaws collectively drop at his re-emergence. Battat’s got his Mike-suit on, speaking in that slightly affected tone within minutes, echoing through the studio. Tenna’s voice is slurred and unsteady, hardly audible through the Green Room walls, but Ramb hears multiple voices asking tentative questions, as if ensuring the CRT is in an appropriate state to be on stage. Apparently, these concerns are dismissed, because before long, the bright green “On-Air” sign is lit, and the show is in motion. 

Only, it flicks off hours before it usually would, and in the early afternoon, the studio goes from buzzing to silent. He suspects it before it happens: sobs start to ring out across the studio, loud and heaving, and murmured voices kick up in a small chorus, comforting tones, words inaudible. Ramb sighs, and shuffles into the back room to hold his head in his hands. 

What the hell are they going to do? More importantly, what will the Lightners do? The host can’t host, and the viewers can’t view! And with everything going on in that house, too, Ramb thinks. They need us. Now more than ever, they need us. 

Well, maybe not me. They need Tenna. Kris needs Tenna.

Kris. Ramb finds his eyes growing uncharacteristically moist. Fuck. Poor Kris.

A commotion out in the Green Room, a shuffling through the door to the dressing rooms, then a voice calls out for him. 

“Ramb!” Battat barks, still using the Mike-affect. “Bring four bottles up here, would’ja?!” 

I should say no, Ramb thinks, he was visibly drunk before noon. But his body’s moving, and he’s not thinking, and he’s up at the counter with the requested coolant before he can stop himself. He’s so rarely given even the smallest task these days. 

Still, his expression is hesitant as he hands them over, and Battat must pick up on this. 

“He’s been drunk for days,” the dice-man says, lowering his voice. “Had a complete breakdown during a commercial break, a real scene. Lucky the audience didn’t see it; we never cut back to the show. Had to hustle the contestants out real quick, though only one wasn’t from in-house. Hasn’t been any sense bringing many people in when we haven’t been airing. But it was a fuckin’ disaster. Weather duo’s shaken up, the whole crew is, really.” A sharp sigh. “It’s bad, Ramb. Worse than even I expected. He’s a goddamn wreck. I feel awful. I mean, Angel, I hated Spamton, but I can’t help but think it might be easier if he—” Battat shakes his head, dismissing the thought. “Had Jongler and Pluey help him back to his office, see if Plue couldn’t cheer him up a bit. But I can’t help but think that serving him this shit isn’t doing anyone any good. We ought to cut him off, but…I’m worried that might be worse, if you catch my drift. He said some… kinda scary shit out there.” The Pippins shuffles his feet. 

Ramb does his best to keep his face cool and impassive, but his chest burns. He nods. “Yeah. Sorry you had to see that, mate. Sounds rough.” 

“I’m not worried about me,” Battat sighs. “How long do you think we can just stand here and do nothing? I feel useless!” He exclaims.

Welcome to my world, Ramb thinks. In response, though, he just shrugs. “I don’t know. I’m worried about the Lightners. I’m worried about the crew. I just—I just don’t know if we should interfere. It’s not our place.” He feels like shit even as he says it, his voice monotone. 

Battat looks frustrated. “Fuck, Ramb! Aren’t you worried about him? Don’t you even care? What the hell has been going on with you recently?! Normally, you’d be all over this! I get, like, not helping when they were fighting, but all of our lives are affected by this now. All of our jobs hang in the balance! Can’t you goddamn wake up?!”

“All of us,” Ramb scoffs, suddenly, “Like anyone around here really cares about me. Like I have a life to unbalance.” You all care because you have a reason to. You all care because you’ve got a purpose. I’m worthless here—a foreign outlet in a broken home. Tenna was right. He jerks a thumb back at the dressing room door. “He made sure to remind me of that.”

Battat’s face is furious, now. “I care about you, jackass! Jongler and Pluey cared about you, before you started acting stone-cold all the time! Before you acted like you couldn’t give a damn about Tenna or any of our lives because he bitched you out one night! And you’re just gonna—just gonna write him off when the cause of that meltdown just blew up and wrecked his entire life?! If you really don’t have anything going on in your life beyond what I see, then you should at least have some space for that!” The Pippins pauses, expression growing more serious. “And if not for him, maybe for Kris, huh? They care about you. You were special to them. And now they might lose one of the only bright spots in their life. The bright spot you’re a part of now! So—so how about you think about that!” 

Agitated, Battat slams out of the Green Room and towards the sound booth, presumably to wrangle up more help. 

Ramb’s shoulders slump. Fuck. Am I just being petty? Or am I really protecting myself? My life hasn’t gotten any better, since I stopped caring. I haven’t gotten any more fulfilled. And I’m hurting Kris, by not helping. Poor Kris. I—I have to do something for them, right?

Do they even remember me?

In the end, it takes another week for him to come around, and a few more days to gather everyone together and come to a consensus. 

It’s not just Battat that convinces him, in the end. Each day that passes, Tenna’s getting worse. The rate at which he’s drinking is rising as quickly as his effort to hide it is dropping, and there’s been multiple audible incidents in which Tenna’s begun to scream randomly in the middle of the day, or sob so loudly Ramb can’t block it out, or curse Spamton out until his voice is glitchy and hoarse, slurred from the drink. Objects smash against the dressing room walls—but, more often than not, and almost worse, it’s as silent as a tomb. The crew tiptoe around, looking nervous, and Battat’s worked himself into a frenzy, Jongler and Pluey having to practically force him to leave the studio at night, his worry and paranoia rearing its head. 

Nobody, even those who move regularly between the dark worlds, has heard even a whisper about Spamton. 

He’s tired of this motionless existence, of doing nothing, saying nothing, being a part of a big world of nothing. He misses the way life was before, he misses when Tenna’s moods were varying but manageable—he misses talking to people. He goes days without speaking even a word. His body feels stiff and achey from a lack of real movement. He barely sleeps, hardly eats. 

He’d meant to take himself out of his specific position in Tenna’s life—but, he realizes, he’s taken himself out of everyone’s life, out of his own life, almost entirely. He’s a spectre, floating in place. 

And he spends hours thinking about Kris. They’re what convinces him, in the end. The idea of them, spending time alone in that house with their warring parents and brother soon heading off to college, is harrowing. They’ll have nothing to take their mind off their troubles—hell, they can’t even play video games with Asriel for the few months he’s still around! And Ramb could do something about it. He could make it better. He could bring life back to TV. He could stop his boss from killing himself, from drinking himself to death, from pouring alcohol straight into his broken, bloody heart. 

Pushing down his own empathy has nearly drained the life from him. He can’t do it anymore. 

“You were right,” he croaks one night, standing in the doorway to the light booth. “We have to do something. We’ve got to get involved.” The words lift a great, stony weight from his shoulders, and Battat slowly moves to look at him, his face looking relieved too. 

“That’s the Ramb I know,” the Pippins replies assuredly. “So, what’s the plan?” 

So, they decide to stage their intervention, and to convince Tenna to come back to the show. They draw up a final outline—get the entire studio to stop allowing Tenna to drink alcohol. He ought to dry out, and stay that way until further notice. It’s been a problem for too long. They also want to make the return a gentle one, and encourage the staff to be positive and complimentary as they return to business as usual. Finally, there is to be no discussion of the mailman. Hard stop. Ramb and Battat go back and forth on this one—Ramb feels like they’re burying the issue, and that the gossip will go on in private regardless, but Battat thinks it’ll spare Tenna’s feelings, and he’s had more good ideas than Ramb has over the past couple of weeks, so he allows it. 

His frustration doesn’t entirely disappear, as he and Battat wrangle the crew and inform them of the new rules, but it’s co-existing with empathy now, co-existing with the knowledge that this world needs Tenna active in order to function, in order to achieve Ramb’s ultimate goal: giving Kris the best life he can manage. 

So, within a couple of days, the crew is all on the same page, the dissenters have been persuaded, and Battat and Ramb have an idea of what they’re going to say. 

It’s time to go into Tenna’s office. 

Within a few days of their conversation, the show is back on the air. Tenna’s a bit of a nightmare when he’s drying out—emotional, moody and irritable, on edge constantly—but he learns quickly it's better to have something to do than just sitting around, not-drinking. So, he channels all of those emotions into the show. 

It’s…not exactly what it was, but it’s on-air, and that’s what’s important. Ramb finds it sort of comforting, at first, for something approximating the old status quo to have returned. It’s just how his days used to look, except he’s no longer serving Tenna, and they haven’t exactly returned to being friends—more like allies. Ramb nods at him kindly when Tenna walks past the bar, and occasionally they chat briefly about how he’s doing, or how the show’s going. They never mention Spamton. It’s just about Tenna. The CRT shares with him hesitantly, at first, and one day he even apologizes for his outburst that day their friendship had fallen apart, for the cruel things that he had said. Ramb brushes it aside–’it’s no problem, mate–’ but it does mean something to him. It means that Tenna’s coming back into himself. There’s some kind of solace, in that, despite the more volatile, snappish, quick-to-anger version of him that’s been created in the aftermath. 

Ramb finds himself generally spared, though the crew seems a bit more on-edge than they used to be. They talk more secretly, now, complain about their boss around the bar, and create subversive little activities that pass easily under Tenna’s nose. The Pippins gamble and gossip more than ever, the Shadowguys pass off sloppy paperwork and throw post-show parties, and the Zappers are generally straight-edged, but even some of them break the rules–or align with those who’ve been punished for doing so. As their free time and mobility is restricted through the paper fist of their new contracts, they find ways to keep doing what they enjoy–to blow off some much-needed steam. The power strip happily turns a blind eye, and Battat, Jongler, and Pluey are far too busy to notice. 

They’ve combined into a sort of collective entity, a Mike-conglomerate, taking over a lot of Tenna’s personal duties, running the lights and sounds, and shepherding their boss from place to place–even helping him get to sleep at night. They bicker–but that’s sort of their way. It’s an internal competition, a bit, but since they’re all the same person, it doesn’t really tear them apart. In fact, on good days, they’re more in sync than Ramb’s ever seen them. Battat seems tired, though, overwhelmed–and that conspiratorial, paranoid side of him jumps out when he’s overworked. His partners keep him in check, but he spends his free time driving himself crazy over stuff Ramb just doesn’t get–’Mike,’ cats, shadows, and long-buried secrets. He doesn’t see the point in any of it–but he’s sort of found an obsession of his own, his own secret to uncover. 

See, Battat’s words have stuck with him, a bit. He’s too hung up on the past to really get rid of you. You’ve got more power than you think. More leeway, at least. In a new era of T.V. Time, when he’s serving fewer customers and having fewer conversations, Ramb finds this to be more true than ever. 

One day, he’s digging through a back room, searching for dish rags or spare glasses or something—and he uncovers an old game cartridge. It’s scratched-up, with deep gauges that look claw-like and intentional–but the game’s name is still readable. Mantle. It’s restorable, he thinks. Some gaps need to be filled in, some code re-done–it’s strange, seeming pointless and circuitous, but…but for some reason, it’s more fun than the original. It’s weirder than the original. And it’s violent enough that he sees why Tenna modified it–or swapped it out for a more-safe edition. 

But, Ramb thinks, Kris would like it. Kris likes the strange, the unconventional, the type of things that appear useless on the outside, but could create something special, if employed properly. He was one of those things, after all. Kris gave him a purpose—and, he thinks distantly, if he restored this game for them, maybe he could have purpose again, if only for a little while. Maybe, if he just managed to bypass Tenna for a little while, he could show them something made for them. Help them have some real fun, again. Just like the two of them used to. 

When he starts work on the game, his invisibility becomes a superpower. He slips away for long periods, extracting the data from the cartridge, making it playable. His nights slide by, with hours in front of an old, dusty computer, patching up holes in the code, trying to return this corrupted game-file into the experience it used to be. It looks like Tenna’s game, on a base level, but it’s something deeper. Something…strange. And he becomes desperate to understand exactly what that is. 

That’s when they get unplugged for the first real time. 

Unconsciousness. That’s what it feels like. It’s a floaty unconsciousness, and there’s no sense of time or space. Time passes by as if they’re all asleep–fast and slow simultaneously, a non-existence, a void of thought. 

It might be a kind of torture, for someone who had something real to return to. Ramb finds that he rather enjoys it. He’s not alive enough to recognize his boredom, his nothingness, not quite dead enough to recognize nothing at all. It’s a suspended place, a place between, a place he finds he might not mind slipping to the other side of completely. There’s no unfulfillment, for him, nothing he misses all too much—except for his game. Except for Kris. It manifests as this sort of hollow spot in his emptiness, a vague, distant yearning, one final unchecked box on his list of life. 

And, for the brief periods they return, when the studio is in a panicked, rushing frenzy to entertain, when Tenna is disturbed and existential, when the Mikes are running around, getting everything in order, obsessing over every detail to maintain their grip on consciousness, he finds himself calmly returning to his work on Mantle, like no time at all has passed—as if he’s been left completely unaffected by what has psychologically disturbed nearly every single Darkner he knows. 

Vaguely, he knows he shouldn’t feel that way. He should want to live–but why? What does he have, beyond this? Why is he truly here, anymore? He’s incompatible with this world. He’s incompatible with anything anyone might use him for. He’s nothing. 

Maybe Battat would disagree. Maybe even Tenna would disagree. But, for some reason, something never came back from that period of sustained emptiness, after their fallout. He never fully loaded back in–the drive to continue going, even without a purpose, never returned. And…he’s okay with that. 

So, each time they go—which becomes more and more frequently–he goes peacefully. He’s experienced death time and time again. He’s become friends with it. It’s a welcome guest, for Ramb. A respite. 

Just before the last time T.V. World is unplugged from the wall, Ramb finishes Mantle. 

As he floats, half-present, his final task becomes clear. He has to get Kris to play. If he can just get them to play, he’ll be done. He won’t need anything more. Just a bit of fun, for his favorite kid in the world. One final game. One final use. Then, he can retire, for good. 

So, when they get plugged in again, and his opportunity presents itself, his answer comes to him automatically. 

“Ramb,” Tenna says, smiling widely, manically, three feet over his usual size, “Ramb, I need your help! I have a very, very important task for you!”

Kris is coming to the Dark World, he learns. Kris is going to make a fountain. But, there's one tiny problem–Toriel will be there, too. And she can’t see any of what they’re going to do. In fact–she can’t even know it’s happening at all. 

“We can keep her asleep,” Tenna explains, “Kris can make that happen with their will, when they make the fountain–but we have to keep her that way. You have to help me keep her that way. Just…just check in on her every so often, okay? It’s nothing bad! It’s not like we’re hurting her! We’re not hurting anyone! We’re just…keeping her out of the way! Keeping her safe and sound, sleeping and dreaming pleasantly. We’ll store her in one of the gotchy balls! We’ll play classical music! She’ll be totally and completely fine, and we’ll have an audience again! We’ll have the Lightners–for as long as we want them!! For forever! That’s what the Knight said! That’s what Kris told me, okay?! Don’t you want that? Won’t you help me?” Tenna stares into Ramb’s eyes, expression pleading. “Come on, Ramb. You’re the only one I can ask.”

All Ramb is thinking, in the face of his boss’ desperation, is they’re finally going to play my game. I can finally have Kris play Mantle. I can be useful again. I can be useful one last time. 

He pretends to think about it. He pretends he’d really have to follow through on it, that he won’t tap out as soon as the game is done. He pretends to judge Tenna a bit, to seem rational and grounded–to seem like the Ramb he knew, the one that never really returned, or was never really there at all. 

As if he’s resolving to minimize the damage, he sighs. “Okay, mate. Okay, I’ll look after Toriel.” 

This is what Kris wants, right? They want to open the fountain. They want some real fun. Surely, this is why they’re doing it, right? This is why they’re helping the Knight. 

By the time the games are over—by the time his body feels stiff, seized by the stone-shell of purposelessness, when he’s seen the shaken, terrified expression of the child he holds dearest in his heart, by the time they’ve played all three rounds, and he’s informed Tenna that he’s quitting, that he’s done forever, that it’s over for him—he’s just not so sure, anymore. 

It all feels wrong, as he stands and waits for the stone to encase him completely, feels the deep chill in his limbs. It feels wrong to have uncovered that game, to have restored it and had Kris play it. It feels wrong to have kept Toriel locked up, it feels wrong to have lied to Tenna, to have gone behind his back and set this thing up. It feels wrong to have scared Kris. 

It feels wrong that this fountain was ever made in the first place. It feels wrong that he had accepted death so easily, without really giving life a chance. It feels wrong to do this to Battat, to his partners. It feels wrong to do this at all. 

He realizes, in his final thoughts before death, that people might not even notice he’s gone. That he’s thrown away something that could have been good. That his last interaction with Kris was seeing them not joyful, but afraid. He thinks that some things should maybe just be left buried.  

He’ll be forgotten, he thinks somberly, as he embraces nothingness one final time. 

No-one will shed a tear for him. 

It’s not as peaceful as he thought it would be, not at all. Nothing’s quite terrifying, really, when it’s all you have. When it’s forever.