Chapter Text
A poker game at the TV studio is against the rules at the best of times. All staff had explicitly agreed not to gamble on company time during the latest addendum to their contracts. It doesn't stop them, of course. They just resort to one of two options—a) getting sneakier or b) blatantly disrespecting the rules because they know no one save that busybody Mike or Mr. Tenna himself will stop them. And those two... or three... or four... can only be in so many places at once.
A trio of poker players sits camped out in front of the vending machine, occasionally spending their winnings on a TV Dinner or two. Two Pippins and a Shadowguy in a lopsided circle. A lone Zapper watches with an air of disapproval but does not leave their post at a nearby door.
The slowly accumulating stack of TV Dinners won't do them very much good without a microwave, but it isn't unheard of for TV World denizens to chomp on the cold pucks inside the boxed trays. None of the players have gotten hungry enough to resort to it yet. Their appetites are kept at bay by their desire to keep playing and the appetite-supressing dust and cigarette smoke embedded in the walls around them.
"We should all bet our Christmas bonuses when they come around," one of the Pippinses says with the confidence of someone who had not just lost several rounds of poker in a row (which they had).
They're distinguished from the other Pippins by virtue of being the slightest bit sunbleached—some of the sides of their Light World counterpart had faded to a dull pink after being left out for several days following an abandoned game of yahtzee.
The Pippins sitting opposite them sneers as they start to deal. "Uh, I don't think we're getting a Christmas this year, much less a Christmas bonus."
Distant stomping has them all startle and glance around, arms tensed to gather up the cards (but not chips—they bet with points for efficiency's sake). When Tenna's huge form doesn't appear, they relax.
"♭♫♪♫," comments the lone Shadowguy who they had dragged into their game.
"Yeah, exactly." The dealer sets down the deck and picks up their own hand. "Word from the watercooler is that we probably won't even have a Christmas party."
The pink Pippins glances up from their cards. "What? No way! Mr. Tenna loves that kind of cutesy garbage."
Again, the echo of footsteps, as if the big man himself hears their gossiping.
"Not lately. Have you seen him? He looks kinda..." Their smirk falters and they lower their voice. "...bad."
They play a round in which the pink Pippins loses (again), though they seem more interested in talking than being humiliated by this fact. "He looks the same as he always does."
The Shadowguy agrees with a short, honking note.
The other Pippins scoffs as they deal again. "Maybe on-camera when he's all done up. But whenever that bear gets out of his cave..."
They get immersed enough in the next several rounds of their game that they don't notice even more stomping until the source rounds the corner. The Zapper, Pippinses, and Shadowguy all wind up bounced in the air with the force of their boss' footsteps.
Tenna’s buttoned-up, squeaky-clean, made-for-TV look has been stripped down. The tailcoat, tie, and belt are gone. His top buttons hang loose, sleeves shoved up to his biceps. One twitchy antenna has a kink in it. A deep, dark scowl takes the place of his award-winning smile, cut through now and then by a flickering scanline.
Most noticeable, though, is the way he carries himself. His waist, usually tight and narrow thanks to a girdle and a bit of TV magic, shows how truly soft he's gotten—bloated into a belly that strains against his shirt. No amount of the physical activity he does on or offstage can fight the stress eating and binge drinking that’s taken over during the all-too-frequent times he’s been left turned off, or worse, unplugged, in the Light World.
In a falsetto even higher and more nasal than his usual speaking voice, Tenna says to himself, "'Um, Mr. Tenna, you missed your cue!'" He points down at his imagined crewmember. "Yeah? Well unless you wanna miss your next paycheck, buddy, you won't be so darn critical! Can't they see I'm doing the best I can?"
"Don't worry, Mr. Tenna, we know," the pink Pippins cuts in.
Tenna does a double-take, stops, and stares down at the trio in silence. They stare back, frozen stiffer than the contents of the TV Dinners beside them. He inhales, peels his lips back in a slow, strained smile, then leans over.
Once he's close enough that his screen bathes them in its light, he screeches at top volume, "What are you bozos gawking at? At least pretend to do your jobs!"
The pink Pippins and the Shadowguy squawk, leap to their feet, and take off. The Pippins who had been dealing starts to rake their cards into a pile with outspread arms. They startle and draw back when Tenna steps on top of the scattered deck with the toe of one huge, gaudy yellow shoe.
“Leave it. Consider it your punishment for violating your contract. Be glad I'm not doing something worse." He leans forward, sneering. "'Cause believe me, I could think of a looot worse."
"Yes, sir. Sorry, sir." The Pippins smiles shakily and reaches for the stack of TV Dinners.
"Ah-ah-ah. Leave those, too. I'm hungry." Tenna's grin grows even broader, showing off his canines and a bit of gum, and he pats his belly. "Dinner's on you tonight! Thanks oh so much. Now shoo! Skedaddle on out of here (before I get angrier).”
The Pippins takes the hint and flees. Tenna takes some grim satisfaction in scaring off those rogue poker players, but it comes and goes, quickly replaced by fury that they had broken the rules again. His hands go to straighten his tie before he recalls that he isn't wearing one.
The Zapper standing guard nearby has their head craned to one side to watch, though they startle and straighten when he glances at them.
"I don't pay you to gawk, either," Tenna mutters, then waves a hand at the remains of the poker game. "Any reason why you didn't report all... this?"
A sheen of sweat breaks out on the Zapper's face. "U-uh..."
"Guess it doesn't matter now," he sighs, kicking at the deck and sending half of the cards beneath the vending machine. "I'll let you off easy this time. Only a few measly points docked from your pay. Just enough to get me a few more of these." He toes at the TV Dinners.
The Zapper looks chastened, slumping from their upright posture, but they give him what he wants without protest. Tenna purchases three more TV Dinners to add to the poker players' winnings (or, rather, losses, now). The final one gets stuck, wedged against the glass.
Groaning in irritation, Tenna picks the entire vending machine up and gives it a few violent shakes. "Come on, come to papa..!"
With a jolt, the box comes free. Again, the Zapper gawks at him as he sets the machine down and collects his prize.
"Always lift with your knees!" Tenna advises cheerily as he picks up the stack of TV Dinners and tucks them under one arm. "I'm just glad I didn't have to punch the glass! That would've hurt the studio funds more than me! Haha!"
As he retreats to his office/dressing room/living quarters, Tenna drags a hand down his screen, causing his nose to snap back and wobble with the motion. His irritation is compounded by exhaustion.
"Uggghhh, I need a drink."
Even so, he'd rather chew rotten glass than talk to Ramb right now. Hence why he's treating his distress with comfort food instead of going to the bar.
"Mike!" He addresses the rafters. "I need some me time for the rest of the day. If there's an emergency... no there isn't." His tone changes as he enters his living space; the sort of happy that he often can't manage when he performs. “Honey, I’m home!”
The "honey" in this case being not a partner (as much as he wishes that were the case) but rather his darling pipis. He took her out of the cabinet he customarily hid—er, sheltered her in that morning in anticipation of today being a rough one. She rests on his kitchen counter beneath a heat lamp and encircled in a red TV Time brand blanket courtesy of the gift shop.
“Any chirps for Daddy today?” He pauses, giving her the opportunity to respond. “No? That’s okay.”
He picks her up, cooing as he rubs his face and nose against the surface of the egg. She had absorbed a fair amount of warmth.
"I've had a long day. Very... very long. But I know you're a great listener, so you won't mind me talking all about it."
He holds the pipis with a tenderness he reserves for little else. The only other times he had cause to be so cautious was with some especially fragile props and his little mailm—
"Are you hungry?" He turns the pipis side to side in an approximation of a shake of the head. "No? You sure? I've got plenty to share."
He chuckles to himself and sets the pipis back down into the makeshift nest. Whether or not this sort of treatment is actually what an Addison egg needs is frustratingly uncertain. The creator of said egg hadn't stuck around long enough to tell him and his connections to other Addisons in Cyberworld were lost a long time ago. For all he knows, the reason she's never hatched has entirely to do with the fact that he hadn't put her in a nest of spaghetti code or some other equally absurd thing. He's convinced, however, that she isn't a dud. Not rotten. Not like her parent.
After all, she lets out the occasional round of staticky chirps. Mike's startled expression upon hearing her once confirmed it wasn't just Tenna's imagination.
He adjusts her to lay just so in the blankets, then turns his attention to the TV Dinners. No Deluxes in this batch, which is frustrating, but he supposes he can deal with the standard stuff for at least one night.
He goes through the familiar steps—open the box, open the plastic to let it vent, then pop it in the microwave for a few minutes. He could use the oven for a better texture for some of the ingredients, but there's no way he has the patience for that right now. He leans against the counter and begins to salivate as the savory smells of the cooked food fills the space.
As the microwave hums, Tenna chats with the pipis. He’s interrupted from regaling her with the tale of how Mike had forgotten to get him the proper prosthetic nose for the day–Mike, of all people! His right-hand microphone!—when he is interrupted by the ding of the microwave.
His dinner's delicious scents fill the air before he even sees the final product. The smell of the fake steak in particular has him forced to swallow a whole mouthful of drool. The veggies' pungency is almost eclipsed by the "meat." And alongside that, of course, is the sweet scent of that "secret" ingredient that he had been able to slip in to cut down on food costs.
His eyes are drawn to the ground up pipis in the corner of the tray when he opens up the microwave. It's the exact same shade of blue as his darling thanks to the bits of edible shell along with the blue yolk inside all of the copies of the pipis.
It will taste delicious, he knows, and that almost makes it worse. If only the reminder of Spamton wasn't so pleasant. He can still remember how horrified he had been when he first enticed him to eat one.
"Come on, big guy, it won't hurt you," Spamton laughed, holding the pipis out to him in a manner not unlike a child on the playground with a worm.
"But it—it came out of you!" Tenna shook his head and flapped his hands. "It feels weird. Kinda icky. No offense."
"It's part of a nutritious breakfast, lunch, and dinner," he said, lapsing into the voice he used to pitch products. "And every bit is delicious. Watch."
So saying, Spamton popped the egg, whole, into his mouth. Tenna gaped as he crunched through it. A single blue blobule of liquid slipped out from the corner of his lips, which he swiped up in an instant with his tongue. Once he swallowed, he smiled broadly at Tenna.
Suddenly Tenna very much wanted a taste. Not just of the pipis, but of Spamton's smug, smiling little mouth.
And so Tenna was convinced to eat one of the sweet eggs.
Presently, his fork gravitates to the ground-up pipis first. He enjoys the soft texture of the hot goo broken up with the occasional bits of shell not unlike sprinkles on ice cream. After he scrapes out every bit he can with his fork, he sticks the tip of his massive tongue into the divot and cleans out the rest.
The rest of the meal he dumps unceremoniously in his mouth in one bite. The TV Dinners have portions for Darkners a fraction Tenna's size. Hence why he wants—needs—so many of them.
He devours the next TV dinner cold, saving the secret ingredient for last instead of starting with it. The frozen mush melts on his tongue, and he sighs with pleasure. Hot or cold, it’s still perfect.
A mechanical rhythm takes over. Open, vent, microwave, enjoy. Open, vent, microwave, enjoy. Open, vent, microwave… enjoy a little less. Eat another cold one. Open, vent, microwave, feel a flicker of nausea… keep going. Keep going. There’s more—
After more boxes than he can bother counting, Tenna is stuffed to the point of pain. His belly sags heavier than before, swollen, stretched tight. He lets out a loud belch; his antennae snap upright and a gloved hand presses to his mouth.
"Whoa. 'Scuse me."
When he pulls the glove away, it’s smeared blue. How had he gotten so messy? A sharp pang of nausea shoots through him as he lowers the hand to see the still-whole pipis on the counter.
"You don’t have to worry, darling," he says, smiling despite himself, wondering if his teeth are stained with the gore of her sort-of-siblings. "I won’t ever mix you into one of these by accident. That would be… very, very bad."
He probably should call it quits, but only a few boxes remain. Mr. Tenna is many things, but a quitter isn’t one of them. He can handle it.
Sure, maybe he’s starting to doze while standing, shoveling in another bite—but at least the consequences here can’t possibly be worse than if he’d drunk himself under the bar. Right? Right.