Work Text:
“Fantastic work, everyone!” Tenna exclaimed with a clap of his hands. “Phenomenal, even!” Those who hadn’t already looked up when their boss burst through the green room door turned to give him their full attention. He suppressed the sudden urge to preen under their collective gaze.
“First round’s on the studio,” he beamed, sweeping a broad hand in the bar’s general direction.
Everyone cheered. Tenna listened to the celebratory whooping and high fiving and enthusiastic saxophone noises before slowly lowering the outstretched palm.
“But just one!” He held a pointer finger up. “Counting on you to keep track, Ramb. POINTs don’t grow on trees, after all!” Tenna could see Ramb glance down at the glass he was polishing and not even attempt to hide a smirk. The Plugboy had been significantly more outspoken since bringing Spamton on as consultant-cum-ad manager.
Tenna could see why the two were constantly feuding, too proud to notice their similarities.
Better make sure none of the worthless Pippins were thinking about stealing any of the props. Not after how well everything had gone! He’d have to thank Spamton later; his (hopefully soon-to-be-) partner had an eye for ‘uncanny’ visuals.
If ‘things that look almost like them but not’ terrified Lightners, Tenna mused with a faint smile, then what would they think about us? Meeting his beloved audience had been a fantasy of his since the moment Asgore unboxed him in the Light World. Just any Lightner would be enough to make him happy, but one of the Dreemurrs? There was literally nothing better, no matter what Spamton said about becoming a Big Shot. Best not to dwell on the impossible; it had a tendency to make him glooby.
Pushing open the storage area’s door, he sighed, shrinking a few inches and antennas drooping against his casing. What. A. Mess. Maybe I should have been more specific about what ‘put these back in storage’ meant.
At least everything had been technically placed in storage in that they were removed from set and transferred to storage. It was all just... Seemingly tossed through the open door so his staff could rush to the celebration.
He briefly considered calling Mike to deal with it all - the guy was so reliable, an utter ratings-saver with those borderline miracles - but decided his mailman's little helper also deserved a break. Everything had gone better than he could have ever so much as dreamt just a few scant months ago!
‘If you want something done right, you gotta do it yourself,’ Lightners liked to say. Humming various show tunes and commercial jingles to himself, Tenna gathered up massive armfuls of props, growing as large as he comfortably could to reduce the number of trips.
“That should be everything,” Tenna eventually said to himself, screen casting faint illumination across the dimly lit storeroom. Hopefully Spamton hadn't drunk too much of his liquor - as far as he knew, there weren’t any trees of any sort in Cyber City, either, so Tenna’s oak-aged Chardonnay was reserved for only the most special occasions (such as finalizing their Big Shot Contract!) - by the time he got back to their dressing room.
Wait. When had it gotten so dark? Bills were too sensitive to trust his employees with, and Tenna knew he’d paid that one; electricity was the most essential one of all; can’t have Lights! Camera! Action! without those precious electrons.
Definitely just the breakers. Fountain above, how many times did he have to instruct everyone to be careful with what they ran all at once? TV Time - no, the entire studio! - was expanding so fast, the electricians couldn’t keep up with it all! A wry grin split his screen in two: what a ridiculous thing to be complaining about.
So. Flip the breakers first and save the employee re-training for tomorrow, right in the middle of everyone’s hangover. Serves them right for leaving him all this clutter behind.
He strode through one back room after another, sole other light in the area a spotlight on each door. “Ah, thank you, Mike. No need to trouble yourself,” Tenna flashed an award-winning smile, holding his hand up and wiggling his fingers, “I know the layout like the back of my mechanical hand, ha!”
The third - or was it the fourth? - spotlight shone on the next door, but its focus was on some strange cloth-covered lump, some piece of equipment that had been overlooked. “Really, Mike, go and take a load off, you deserve to celebrate just as much as the crew. Little ol’ me can clean this up.” Had to have been a Pippins, too in a rush for their next scam to do the bare minimum; his trusty Zappers were too diligent to just chuck tools wherever, and a Shadowguy would’ve - at worst - hidden it better.
Definitely that short little green one. It looked suspicious, acted suspicious, and even sounded suspicious when it talked - which was often. Trying not to dwell for long on his innumerable grievances against the dice Darkners, Tenna knelt to twitch the fabric aside.
The show host was taken aback by the grisly sight; no way would he have ever approved something so gruesome, not when little Noelle was watching. Toriel would have been so upset, how could he meet her eyes after such an offense?
It was pretty realistic, so bloody and mangled that what it was supposed to originally be was left up to viewer imagination. Kris. Now, this was Kris’ style. “Mike, remind me to give our prop department a raise, would you?” Silence. No reaction.
A brief pang twisted at his mechanical heart, before Tenna reminded himself he'd told the wonderful person to go and have fun.
... He hoped that was why, at least. Definitely. Probably. It made the most sense. His attention was drawn back to the ‘forgotten’ prop. Was it his imagination, or did it just... move?
Tarp slipped through slack fingers, more dripping than falling to the floor, as Tenna stared in slack-jawed horror at the slowly unfolding shape. It kept growing and growing, but not in the perfectly sensible fashion of the boss monster - a simple readjustment of scale - but unfolding more and more and more of itself, surface roiling like a kettle of bloody pitch.
“Ahaha ha, good one, Mike. Fantastic eye for detail. But uh, Halloween's over. No need to go all out,” he cupped a hand to the side of his mouth, leaning over to address an imaginary audience, “can't have you upstaging the star talent!”
Distorted mocking laughter crashed against his speakers and Tenna winced.
“Mike?” It creaked and cackled, the object’s shadow cracking open in an eerie too-wide grin, crosshatched with teeth impossibly bright for such darkness. Two gleaming circles followed, one blinding yellow, the other incandescent magenta.
“Mike's not here. Gone, bailed, peaced out, ‘took a powder’.”
No. He wouldn't, couldn't! Nobody could replace Mike, same as Spamton!
Snickering as if it could read the thoughts whirring between the television’s transistors, it said confidentially, “He got sick of your crap. Such a good guy,” One circle fluttered into a crescent, winking at him, “even after all your moody bullshit, he did you one last favor, a parting gift.”
Tenna opened his mouth to reply, lips twisting into a grimace. This thing was lying! “Why,” he rasped, resetting his output with a quick cough. “Ratings are better than ever! Studio is flourishing, raises across the board; nobody could ask for a better job!”
The thing grew, detaching from the wall with a wet slorp, ballooning until it loomed over him, making Tenna feel smaller than even a blasted Pippins.
It sneered, not once losing that sharp smile, “You think you can buy friendship? Oh, Tenna, Tenna, Tenna.”
He recognized that tone and bristled at the implication - authority figure condescendingly reprimanding a foolish and naive child. Not even Carol spoke to her daughters that way.
“They only pay attention to novelty, and your little Addison is rapidly wearing out his welcome.” What passed for its ‘head’ tilted. “How about I give you a little preview of your precious ratings cratering?”
It surged, taller than the ceiling, deranged laughter rattling every last diode, before the unnerving pillars of its legs collapsed.
He flung his hands in front of his face, nose disappearing as Tenna hoped the inevitable cracked glass wouldn't be too much of a recovery time.
Arms trembled, bracing for impact as the formless shadow bore down upon him...
...only for metal tendons to smack dead center of his lower casing.
He sat up, screen degaussing once, twice, surroundings not making sense: in his penthouse bedroom, on the oversized mattress barely large enough for the host’s onstage height, in the dim glow of pre-dawn.
What day was it? November 1st? Had he simply drank too much at the party? Did someones find their boss passed out in the back rooms after that- That-
Everything was so vivid, like display burn-in, except for the figure. The image was already fading, yet feeling as familiar as an old departed friend.
Tenna frowned and quickly flipped through the channels. Nothing out of the ordinary: children’s cartoons, talks shows, boring weather reports - as if any Lightner could hope to match Elnina’s and Lanino’s chemistry, hah! - until he finally, thankfully, found a station on commercial break.
The Christmas jingle was a bit worrying - ‘his’ kids, the darling four of them, would say otherwise - but then it cut to a sale of featured costumes! It was only October 2nd.
He shook his head as he got up to get dressed, tsking at the tape Dess had brought over, a classic horror flick with a two word title and vague silhouette of a person on the label. If Toriel found out there’d be hell to pay for sure. Still in the player, too, he noticed. I’ll eject it when one of the kids walks past. Selfish, maybe, but being noticed by a single one of his Lightners, even just an offhand glance spared his way, could outshine all but the worst news from his staff.