Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Waterfall was a loud place.

Not in terms of volume - no, as Frisk hiked their way over sodden islands of mud paths and sloshed through the clear shining waters of the underground's deeper reaches, the noise was not an all encompassing cacophony.

Rather, orchestral.

The soft hums and whispers of Echo Flowers, the rush of moving water, bubbling rivers and streams and creeks through the stringy dark grasses and clay mud piles, the ever constant undercurrant of notes and shines from the musical magic infused into the very air itself, ringing almost piano like in their ears-

Frisk teetered, one foot before the other, arms out, balancing act on the edge of a slow moving river that pooled into a nearby basin before going river rapid into a steady incline, down down into the dark where even Waterfalls fireflys and magic spores and whisps couldn't illuminate. They've been wandering, exploring through the reeds and flowers, for awhile now, taking their time.

The constant tug, tug along in their chest, in their head and spine, an ever constant push to keep going, keep one foot after the other no matter what - that didn't seem so strong here for some reason. Frisk didn't quite understand why, but it didn't seem like something worth questioning. The soothing air and music of Waterfall was really nice, even with the odd monster encounter here and there, but even those times the monsters were quite polite and apologized for the fight after Frisk SPARED them.

Exploring Waterfall wasn't all that bad really. Yeah, their shoes got soaked, their shorts and even shirt sometimes got wet and stuck to them, mud streaked on their hands and arms as they'd haul themself up out of the water onto ledges, rest a moment as they got their bearings. Sometimes their clothes chafed at them uncomfortably, and if they itched scrapes or little bug bites they knew they could get rashes or hives, and even drying off in the drier places made them feel sticky and gross-

But at least Waterfall sounded nice. Frisk did like the musical ambience, and even if the Royal Guard was still hunting around for them, that last encounter seemed to have lost them and now left some places open and free to explore. Taking the tumble into the Garbage Dump hadn't really left them feeling the best, but this place was just so big and losing that feeling of being watched made them feel like they had all the time in the world to wander.

Frisk slowly stopped their balancing, arms lowering to their sides as they looked this way and that, even going so far as to lean and try to look further than the soft glow of the flowers and whisps gave them. The dark walls of rock, tall piles of trash mulching down with the layers of dirt and muck that have squashed them down into more pathways, more islands and then streams for then rivers and small waterfalls to cut throughout the area, obscured any straight path ahead for them. They knew if they turned around, wandered back towards fresher piles of discarded trash that fell from the high, too high falls of both the surface and the monsters towns and cities, they'd find those houses they had seen in the distance, past where they had their encounter with Mad Dummy earlier.

But…they didn't feel much up for going back just yet. Frisk raised their arms, paused, then flapped and spun around for a moment, stopping just before they got too dizzy and would topple into the water beside them.

The hum in the air was quiet, and nearby Echo Flowers whispered to each other.

They wanted to explore, they decided.

Shoes tamping softly into the mud and dark grass, brushing a hand over some reeds, passing a flower whose soft echo seemed too quiet and odd to decipher to pay much attention to, Frisk tried to avoid stepping into more streams, taking time to find short jumps or big steps across instead. Metal and chunks of plastic made their footsteps a bit louder at times, trying to not trip on old loops of chains or frayed wiring, soft cardboard near entirely decomposed beside flecked rust metal sheets, overgrown with the deep blue black grasses and weeds. Echo Flowers were not as abundant near the fresher trash heaps, but out here where things decayed and technology and handmade things went back into the earth the flowers were a bit more common.

Though, just like the other they had passed, Frisk tilted a head to listen to an echo of some whisper hushed words, weirdly fuzzy and static, enunciated funny and with long spaces in between. Sometimes it almost sounded like someone was spelling words out, one letter at a time, but their voice was just too quiet for the flower to echo back properly.

That, or it was just an old message. Frisk couldn't tell, huffing as they straightened back up, balancing not so cautiously on the lip of another stream, this one small and shallow. Ahead they could see a thrush of reeds, hedges of them cropping up, the broad flash or two of wide plates of old metal and plastic, too warped to tell what they had once been. The walls were becoming more rock and cave like now, though they could still look upwards and see the false star sky high above, glittering and glowing in its ever frozen stillness.

Frisk shook out their arms, ignoring the itchiness a moment before crouching down and dunking their hands into the clear glow of the water. Mud seeped off their skin, along with flecks of torn plants that had gotten caught on them in their hike, and they wiggled their fingers about for a moment.

When they felt a bit better, even with soaked clothes as they had, Frisk straightened back up, hopped over the small stream, and walked their way into the reeds. Their arms held out, pushing the thick stems and watching their feet as their shoes squished into mud, then slid a moment on buried metal, then back to mud. They hardly realized they had entered a corridor like system until their hand brushed against a wall.

Startled a moment, not realizing they had passed from the more open paths, Frisk stalled, one hand on the wall, rock and damp earth against their hand, as they tried to peer ahead.

The glow of water told them there was a pool, or maybe it opened into another riverway, but darkness ahead also seemed to imply it was a room instead of another free path. They remembered their exploration to get the little pink tutu, stored away for now to not get it too dirty, and Frisk hummed, starting off further down the corridor. Maybe there was something nice for them down here in the junk piles? Maybe some more Astronaut Food?

As they entered the room, reeds falling away behind them, Frisk realized that the glow wasn't just from the water, which was just a tiny stream that pooled in from a nearby wall, burbling softly before it seemed to dip away and drain out the other end of the room into another water eroded tunnel. Instead, entrenched in a heap of old garbage that was dark and slick from humid age and time, there was a…

Frisk shuffled through some of the deteriorated trash, some splashing into the water, slimy grass holding most of the ground together. They raised their head, leaned forward a bit, and stared into the soft crackling static of a TV.

It laid there, not quite atop but not quite stuck within, the pile of discards and junk. Its dull gold antennae were crinkled and twisted, raised up in different directions, and there was a crack through the tinted screen from Frisk's right to their left, the bits near to the edge snowflaked out and brighter with missing pieces, but it was hard to really see most of the damage what with the static that waved up and down, side to side in the screen itself.

They could hear a faint, faint hint of warbled noise, almost…garbage noise, but not quite that, no, something softer, different.

As they examined the TV, even going so far as to slosh their shoes into the stream a little bit and stand on tip toe to look at the side that wasn't stuck to the pile of trash, looking at the old dials on the clear side, Frisk wondered how it was even turned on. The static snow was odd, faintest blushes of color rolling through in blobby shapes before disappearing into the haze, and they found themself wondering what it had playing on it. A movie? Or did it have a show?

Frisk idly touched about the plastic casing, though it wasn't as slick with humidity as the rest of the pile of trash looked. They didn't dare poke the glass, just in case those cracks were more fragile than they looked, but they did raise a palm and feel the static fuzz an inch or so away from the glow, slowly waving their hand back and forth. Makes them feel as if they were petting the TVs face, maybe like through soft weird fur, and they flashed a closed mouth smile before raising their hand and patting the top of the casing.

The static lines and bars jittered a moment, wavering in place, before continuing on their merry way, a bit more color blooming to them now, kaleidoscope rainbows. Frisk took a step back, out of the water, and tilted their head before signing

“ Good TV. “

and then turning their attention away to look about the rest of the room.

It wasn't much, crumbling stone, the dark of the ceiling telling them it was more proper cave like without that opening to the underground sky. More piles of trash, and as they wandered about and nudged at old tin cans, rusted metal screws and chipped chunks of plastic, they wondered if there was no treasure for them here this time. Sometimes that was the case, but it never left them disappointed - oftentimes the exploration was treasure enough!

They glanced over at the old TV, worn plastic and busted antennae, and wondered who turned it on. They could climb about it, see if its plug was attached to something, but they worried about its stability, and then those cracks in its screen…

Looking over the trash piles, wondering over some of the smaller hills of the stuff, if they concentrated they could almost say some looked organized, what with the metal nuts and bolts shoved to one side, mud slicked wires tangled and piled into another, gross looking sodden lumps of what might be torn bits of clothing - but nothing they could use, so Frisk huffed a sigh through their nose, hands on their hips as they looked about one more time, before nodding their head and turning to leave.

They did glance over at the TV a last time, gave it a little wave, and started back the way they had come, wet shoes squishing through mud and reeds brushing against them as they went.

The glow of light fizzed on, static and wave like as they left it behind.

It was only as they were just about out of the corridor that they noticed something odd. Frisk paused, reeds all about them, thinning ahead nearer to the water, and tilted their head to better listen.

The soft ambient magic music of Waterfall was…gone.

It was completely silent.

Frisk stiffened, listening hard now, looking about as best as they could. Last time it was like this, the Royal Guard had stalked them, then chased them around with spear bullets, and even sent them off a cliff. They did not want a repeat of that, not at all!

When nothing seemed to change however, Frisk slowly let their shoulders untense, easing out a tight little breath, heart and SOUL pounding in their ears. Maybe it was just the change in rooms? Sometimes places changed their tune when Frisk entered-

A low drag of a noise broke through the silence, a sharp clang scraping out from behind them.

Frisk slowly turned their head, squinting through the reeds, back towards the junk pile chamber.

The soft blue glow of the water was still there, familiar to Waterfall as ever.

The shine of the TV was there too, flickering and twisting from that static still.

But its glow seemed much, much brighter.

And then a waver of motion rippled behind the reeds.

Frisk held their breath, stock still, frozen still.

The reeds shivered again, the light back there moving, shifting almost like water, shadow dipping down before rising again, and Frisk nervously took a step back as that sound of metal against metal scraped out again.

They wavered on whether to run or better to wait, and their hands curled into little fists, uneasy but unsure as the noise came again, this time not quite as loud. It squeaked a bit, a crackle of very audible static, and they bit their lip as they glanced back and away, through the reeds and across the stream and back into Waterfall proper.

They've outran the Royal Knight, so they were pretty sure they could outrun anything that could give chase down here. And anyways if they did end up in a battle, they always found a way to SPARE the one fighting them. It wasn't as if anything truly scary has happened to them yet, even with being surrounded by monsters of every kind they could think of. Even the skeletons were funny, and they were Frisk's friends too!

The metal sounds were more frequent now, but distinctly less loud, in short pauses and starts. The bright glow was definitely getting stronger, an odd tilt to its angle, and the silence wasn't quite silent anymore, so…

Frisk slowly turned their body, facing the corridor and surrounded by thinned reeds, and waited.

Slowly, the bubble of the waters behind them still in their ears, Frisk watched as the light seemed to rise, the glow leaving the reeds behind and making them tilt their head up and up, a bright box of static suddenly cutting through the dark and hanging, lonely, up in the dark of the corridors ceiling.

Its movements were swayed, an ambling gait as it hobbled, stumbled, and Frisk warily took a step back as the box suddenly jolted down to hover near their face, static buzzing audibly now as the monster's form was revealed.

Its arms had shot down to grasp into the mud, scraping and creaking and warping as it dropped into a lopsided kneel, the glow of its…head? And the light of the stream shining off its metallic parts, the plates on its three long jointed arms dull and rusted and almost looking like it was built from multiple different pieces and styles. The fabric sleeves were torn and ripped in innumerable places and exposed the wires looped in messy bundles, some hanging in frayed ends, and one side of its body showed where the missing arm must have been, sleeves tucked and knotted together almost as if done neatly. The frayed, patchwork clothing that hung off its stiff frame was old and worn, but only faintly streaked with mud and grime, a dryness to it that seemed out of place to the junk piles that littered the area. Even though it was missing a fair amount of buttons to its single dull crimson jacket is almost looked comical, as it also had three loose shirts tucked underneath, haphazardly pulled and tugged onto its metal frame in such a way that even more rips and tears were on its surface compared to all the messy sewing work.

Its heavy head was the same exact television as the one in the room, crooked antenna standing up tall, and Frisk stared at it, still a bit tense but not as ready to run as before, little frown tugging on their face.

The static was wobbling back and forth now, the color rippling like waves, in and out, and the white noise was just so quiet, not quite babble but just close enough to make them tilt their head, confused. They've never seen a monster quite like this before, though with some of the weird cameras they've come across they have pondered about it, and some monsters seemed oddly less…animal like? Than they thought they would be, especially here in Waterfall, but this monster looked like a robot from some old sci fi movie, one without all the fancy realistic bits some movies had nowadays, the black and white ones.

Frist squinted up at it, tried really hard to think up a proper comparison, but the only thing they could remember was maybe that one cartoon movie with the boy and the giant robot and the little town, but that didn't seem to fit this monster all the way. It was big, but definitely not that big.

It took a moment but they suddenly realized the monster was moving again; slowly, very, very slowly, as if trying to not startle them, it had been raising one hand up to its head. There was a faint trembling to its arm, an undercurrant jitter that made it seem almost twitchy, the large sleeve of its jacket bunched up and the fabric almost looking caught in some of those joints, and its long fingers were concealed in a patchy dull grayish glove, some of the fingers missing and revealing metallic thick claws.

When it finally reached its head, it drew its hands up in a smooth motion to the side, scraping about the plastic case before finding a jutting out dial, and the static snow of its face suddenly changed with a quiet click!

There was still warping, and bars sometimes flickered, flashed, the areas around the crack in its screen blooming with waves of something almost like dead pixels before forcefully shifting and flowing away, then back again, and Frisk blinked up at the screen as a familiar landscape of a mountain started to pan out.

The hum of noise warped as well, and the screen shifted suddenly as the monster raised another hand, leaning only on its third with a shiver of creaking metal, fingers scraping about the other side of its face before shifting another dial almost frantically up, the screen itself flickering some green bars on the bottom that slowly rose, along with the very warped sound of piano music slipping from its speakers.

Frisk watched a moment, brow knitted up as the camera slowly swept over some towns, before settling and starting to zoom in on the mountain in the distance, piano music fading out-

-but before any voice could come through the monster twisted the dial and the screen changed, flipping through static ridden channels for a frantic moment. Its antenna wobbled, then twisted back and forth, stirring about searchingly before the picture solidified out through the static once more.

This time there were monsters on the screen, and a house, and their speech echoed through for a moment as two started to approach each other, one raising a paw up in greeting.

“Hello -”

But then the dial was turned again, a sharp crackling flash of color changing, the video changing to what looked like a tall building surrounded by lights, a red carpet unfurled out front, the dark and still stars up in the sky.

“-there i-”

Another change, this time a view of snow and trees, monsters shuffling through the snow and talking to each other from what looked to be Snowdin. A familiar rabbit and her brother were on screen, but static waves were obscuring whoever they were talking to, the colors leeched suddenly with a sepia that went jagged around the edges of the crack.

“-e kiddo!-”

Then its other hand swiftly twisted the volume down, a pause as the monster shuddered faintly, metal clicking and plastic crackling, and Frisk stared up at it with a concerned frown as static suddenly overcame its screen.

It was only when the silence continued to stretch, broken briefly when the monster pulled a hand away and raised its palm to them, mostly gloved fingers spread, and gave them a little wave, did Frisk realize what it was doing.

Their frown turned into a little smile, still unsure but relaxing a bit more, and they raised their own hand to give a wave back. When they raised both hands to sign, a simple “ Hello! “, the monster hesitated a moment before going back to its dials.

This time, Frisk focused more on the words that fell from its speakers and not so much on what it was showing through its screen.

“My c-”
“-name is-”
“Mr. M-”
“-n ant i-”
“-ntenna w-”

Commercials, sitcoms, a game show and even a shopping channel flashed by, distorted at times by static, warping colored bars, and sometimes entire color changes or freezing, glitching pixel messes of motion.

“But i-”
“-f you-”
“-can b-”
“-e call-”
“-t me!”
“-ntenna a-”

Frisk watched the monster as he shivered through each channel, dial clicking back and forth, adjusting the volume at the same time, and it was obvious this was hard for Tenna, hands trembling harder as his screen warped and wobbled with color and static, the build up worse than when he had first started.

But the monster was stubborn, working through the effort as he leaned, slouched down a little bit more with each channel, antenna slowly but surely starting to droop.

“What t-”
“-e is-”
“-l your-”
“-y name i-”

Tenna jerkily silenced himself again as a rumble of static started to obscure the words, another pause as he shook, metal creaking as he tried to adjust his weight a bit more, knees spread and body folded low as his head dipped slowly down.

Frisk hesitated, then quickly reached over to catch the slowly falling TV head, trying to help as he trembled and shook. Steam eased from the vents of his casing, a low crackling, sparking noise, causing Frisk to frown even deeper, worry tugging on their face as they struggled to hold the heavy monster's head up.

But after a moment a hand came down to gently shoo them away, head lifting as Tenna adjusted a tie that hung limp and half ripped about his neck, a wheeze of hissing steam and hot air that escaped his vents in gusts, his hand waving almost comical in a way to show he was perhaps just a bit overheated.

The monster then fumbled with his volume and channels once more, staring down at Frisk.

“-m sorry!”
“-can't d-”
“-s talk-”

He hesitated again, Frisk wondering if he had finished his sentence, before Tenna swiftly changed through multiple channels in one quick succession.

“-much a-”
“-s long-”
“-f often e-”
“-o quickly-”
“-lmost as good as new!-”

And then his volume silenced, his antenna drooped low over his suddenly static laden cracked screen, and Tenna dipped his head with a very silent, and very heavy, sigh. The clatter of his metal body's trembling made it almost seem to Frisk more like a sob.

To their surprise, his drooping suddenly became more than a slouch, as the creaking of his body squealed metal to metal, the fabric of his clothes suddenly seeming larger on his frame, and Frisk realized Tenna was shrinking.

His entire form lowered, rust flaking off as he seemed to try to curl up, all three hands now raising to press against the sides of his head and against his screen as the static filled with darker pixels than before - and an odd, warping dribble overcame the surface, welling up in static frost liquid rolls before beading up and drip dropping from his face.

When they hit the ground the accidental bullets dissolved into whisps of steam, not even a hiss audible, just the dripping of water that seemed closer to the sounds of Waterfall than a monster crying, and Frisk tried to wave to him to get his attention but he had covered his screen, unable to see them at all.

So instead they went and patted the top of his head, as he had shrunk so small now to be almost their size. They didn't know if it would be any comfort - they've honestly never seen a monster like him before, and he…he looked like he needed some comfort.

Checking their pockets, not noticing that his steady shrinking had slowed to a sudden stop at their contact, Frisk triumphantly pulled out a NiceCream. With a small smile on their face, they tapped the top of the monsters TV head, holding out the treat to him.

Tenna slowly pulled his hands from his screen, the fuzzing of that static dark and dreary, warping oddly about the diagonal crack along his face. Hesitantly, as if unsure, he slowly raised two hands to accept Frisk's gift.

Then the static shifted, lightening up somewhat as colors rainbowed out again before steadily hueing into the deep aqua green tint of the glass, stray pixels here and there drifting by before, suddenly, Frisk saw a face appear in the screen.

It was just a crooked line of a mouth, distorted by the crack, and a wiggly nose that also followed along the split in his screen, but the droplets cleared up and the line wobbled into a sheepish smile as Tenna held the NiceCream close to him, gloved fingers curling about the wrapper delicately.

Frisk patiently tapped him on the shoulder, waited for his attention before signing

“ Hello Mr. Tenna! My name is Frisk. It is nice to meet you.“

The smile became wobbly again, though still a smile and much bigger now, stretching to both sides of his cracked screen, and then Frisk had to take a step back as the monster unexpectedly shot back to his previous height, or maybe even bigger than before, the metal and plastic of his form snapping and screeching against each other in a nasty rush of sound. His clothes filled out once more, larger screen hovering over them with a wide crooked grin pixelating on his screen, before the hand not holding his gift swiftly rose up, scraped about the side of his head for his volume, then reached almost uncomfortably about to the other side and started to quickly turn his other dial.

“Hello!-”
“-fr-”
“-is-”
“-k”

The way the letters sputtered out so choppy from his speakers couldn't help to make Frisk giggle, though they tried to cover their mouth and not show it - they didn't want to offend him, especially since it looked like doing this was hard work!

But Tenna's grin, visible in dark lines overlaid now over the pictures of the channels he was flipping through, just got even bigger. He swiftly stored the NiceCream into one of the pockets of his jacket, the obvious fraying and ripping of his clothes now explained by his rapid increase and decrease in size.

“-nice to-”
“-meet i-”
“-as well!”

His words were definitely more clipped than before, less precise, but Frisk smiled up at him, relieved he hadn't shrunk down, down into…well, however small he might get! Being a robot, they didn't think it would be good for him to try and traverse Waterfall at such a small size.

They wondered, briefly, if he just lived all alone down here. They haven't seen any other monster have such a hard time like this, though they have only been through a few areas so far. This made them remember the bake sale in the Ruins, and all the spiders that had felt trapped there, far away from their families past Snowdin…

Tenna suddenly straightened up, mouth turning into a confused half frown as he comically raised a free hand, tilting his TV head this way and that in an exaggerated gesture.

“-what are you-”
“-s doing-”
“-e down and here h-”

His volume lowered again, a quizzical line at the top of his screen like an upturned eyebrow, though without eyes and only a crooked nose it gave him a seemingly worried expression.

Frisk gave some thought to it, tapping their chin as they squinted their eyes up at him, before offering just a shrug and a quick

“ Just exploring. “

“-dbye-”
“-y self?”

Tenna tilted his head, the worry now more prominent with a thin line of a frown, and Frisk started to wonder just how much he knew about humans and the Royal Guard and everything else. Did he know they were supposed to be captured, for the King of the Monsters?

The monster seemed to misunderstand their unease, waving a hand at them and swiftly changing his expression to somewhat more reassuring.

“-is n-”
“Okay a-”
“-not i-”
“-o in trouble!”
“-explore a great a-”
“-for all ages i-”

Then he tapped his fingers together, looking a little troubled as he looked down at them.

“-s where you're-”
“-r parent or legal guardian.”

He lowered his volume down, just the faintest of static as his face changed to that faintly pixilated aqua green of the glass, and stared down at them expectantly.

Frisk started up at him, weighing their options.

The monster was still kneeled, crouching down even with his height still being so much taller than them, one hand back to the ground for balance and the other two curled in his lap. Even with as big as he was, all the noise he made and how much energy it seemed to take out of him just to talk made Frisk think that he wouldn't be much of an issue to escape. They hadn't once felt the pull of their SOUL into a fight, no hostilities whatsoever from him, and Tenna did seem to care more about their safety than anything else. Maybe he hadn't realized they were human?

His head did look like a pretty old TV, and they hadn't met anyone else down in these depths so far, so maybe no one has told him about them.

It felt a little bit mean, but, well. That was a good thing for Frisk.

“ They are in Snowdin, but I came here with a friend. “

It wasn't really all a lie, since the Monster Kid has been hanging out with them a few times so far.

“ I lost track of where they went, so I am just exploring now. “

The face on his screen somehow got even more worried, antennae drifting back and forth with a bit more speed, so Frisk tried to think up a better excuse.

“ I know where I am, and I know how to go back to Snowdin. “

They hesitated. The silence from before was changing, just the slightest bit, a hum in the air building up at the edges, and Frisk was starting to realize that their SOUL was starting to press heavy in them now. The monster hadn't moved, but his face was gone in pixelated static again, crooked antenna stiff and still.

They took a cautious step back, reeds shifting about them.

“ Actually, I think I should head back now- “

They really didn't want to get into a fight, not with how, uh…tired? The monster looked already? They'd feel bad if they called him broken, even in their head.

But then their signing was interrupted as a large hand suddenly slammed down with a jitter into the mud beside them, the mass of metal and plastic and ragged cloths hulking over their form now as hands scraped haggardly at dials and the screen flashed through channels at a fanatic pace.

“Nonsense, t-”
“-you shouldn't bec-”
“Wandering on and off-”
“-all alone?”

The barest moment of a pause, jerkily lowering his volume before cranking it back up, the shifting and scraping of metal to metal as he shuffled forward on his knees, closer to them, looming now as static flashed and bled from the crack in his screen, a hiss of steam heat from the vents.

“-s no!”
“-h child-”
“-shouldn't t-”
“Alone! O-”
“-with or without-”
“-responsibility i-”
“-o irresponsible-”
“-have a parent or guardian with-”

Frisk stumbled back when a sudden shriek of static shot through his screen, flaring out with a garbled rumble as Tenna frantically tried to dial down his volume. One hand went and tugged almost viciously on his antenna, while the other abandoned his volume and gave the side of his head a hard couple of whacks, jittering his entire frame for a moment as a plume of smoke dislodged from his vents in a synthetic cough of a sound, sparking just the slightest bit.

The noise cut off for a moment, just a hush of static, a pause as both child and monster stared at each other.

Then Tenna slowly lowered his hands back to his dials, the tremble in his arms becoming more noticeable.

“-s I-”
“-t can-”
“-help take the-”
“You!-”
“-t home-”
“-do not c-”
“-so worried!”

Frisk watched as the monster dropped his hands from his dials, screen awash in that blue green tint, leeching dead pixels fluctuating about the crack and icing along the edges of crinkled glass. A wobbly attempt at a face peered down at them, but kept fizzling out in the static snow.

Slowly, almost laboriously, he drew himself up, arms spreading to the rocky walls and half dragging himself to his feet. A brief moment passed where he brushed almost painstakingly at his worn clothes, dusting dirt and mud, flakes of rust off himself in slow, shaky motions, even adjusting his tie and attempting to tidy up how his multiple layers of ripped and worn shirts and jacket held to him, and then finally Tenna was standing.

Frisk looked up, up at him. Even as hunched down and leaned as he was, patchwork trousers and bulky legs trembling ever so slightly under his hefty weight, the monster was really, really tall.

…maybe they could use that one movie robot as a good reference now, Frisk thought.

The threat of a battle had lessened somewhat, but there still seemed to be tension as Tenna slowly offered his third arm out to them, worn gloved palm lowered enough to let them reach comfortably. Steam was still puffing up from the vents in his head, and there was a low audible hint of a synthetic whine, just in the background, but the monster looked down at them with a static laden smile, small and reassuring even with the obvious strain.

Frisk weighed their options, then nodded their head and took his offered hand.

It was a bit awkward, being led out of the corridor and pushing past reeds to where the waters glow was brighter and the undergrounds stars shone now up above, and Frisk had to sort of trail both behind and attempt to help him with balance. His shoes were just as worn as the rest of him, streaked in mud and trouser cuffs caked in dirt, and the strain of metal and plastic, shifting of wires and tubing, was much louder now that he wasn't just seated in a crouch. They even found themself having to be careful of one dragging wire, shifting and slowly swaying just a few inches off the ground as it dragged a lumpy busted bit of a plastic plug. Their steps had to go wide or sidestepped to avoid Tenna's tail, but he was concentrating hard on just walking forward so Frisk decided to not bring it up.

When they finally left the rocky walls, opening into the streams and reeds and scattered few flowers, heaps of decomposing trash in dark piles with the bubbling of the water calm and slow, the monster swayed to a creaking stop. Frisk peered up at the huffed clouds of steam rising from him, his posture falling into a lean as one hand continued to clutch to the stone wall while the other halfheartedly scraped up to his dials, switching from volume to channel as a static sigh exhaled into the quiet.

“-sorry a-”
“-can't f-”
“Talking all-”

Then he shook his lowering head, waved his hand in an idle gesture, before forcefully raising himself back up and looked over his shoulder back at them. His arm gently guided them forward, ahead of him, and Frisk went along with it before he finally let them go.

“-s might have-”
“-ust bit too rough-”
“-s to myself n-”

When they looked up at him in concern the monster waved his hand about again, other on his dials and now visibly leaning heavily against the wall, though the steam from his head had withered down to just the humming of his vents and the drooping of his antenna.

“-been out there-”
“-s too long n-”
“-ne without him-”

Then he turned his volume back down again, quickly, channel ticked to random static, and a heavy frown tugged on his face, concern there too but not this time seeming to be directed to them.

For a moment, it was quiet. The static hum had lowered significantly, and Frisk could now almost hear the musical ambience of Waterfall again.

They watched as Tenna shook his head, rippling static waves on his screen before his face came back into focus, and he clapped two hands together, the other rising back to his dials as he looked down upon them.

“-s no matter-”
“-w accompany you out of s-”
“-nd back-”
“-home again home again, jiggity jig~!”

Giving them a small reassuring smile as a staticky little tune eased out of his speakers, crooked antenna swinging back upwards, Tenna rose up from leaning against the wall, straightened to his near full height, and took a step forward.

Frisk flinched at a sudden loud blare of sound, back a step as the tinted green screen jolted into a kaleidoscope of color bars, a sharp snapping pop of electricity that even sparked visibly between his antenna as his entire frame tensed, and then suddenly the monster toppled over in a clanking crashing heap of metal, wires, and plastic.

They hurriedly ran to his side, or at least to where his large boxy head had thunked to the muddy ground, thankfully not face first against the cracked glass screen, and their hands hovered over him as that alarm blaring continued to play out, the sound warping and choking with static snow in odd bursts and gusts. There were more sparks about his head, singeing the collars of his shirts, and Frisk backed away as the zaps bolted out into the humid air.

Waterfall was really not the place for electric attacks, and the static was making them nervous.

But so was how Tenna didn't make any movement after that, stiff and still and stuck in that alarm of colored bars, and Frisk hovered nervously, trying to think of what to do. Quickly looking around revealed no one, just like before when they had been exploring, and their heart was pounding in their chest a bit harder now, worry making them suddenly very nauseous.

Wringing their hands, squeezing their fingers and turning about in a circle as they tried to ignore the noise, Frisk wished they could at least pat his arm and tell him where they were going, but they felt that if they got zapped it wouldn't go well for them at all, so instead they quickly signed to his screen, hoping maybe he could at least see them or understand them, before swinging around and sprinting back towards the more populated edges of the Garbage Dumps.

There had to be someone there who might know him and could help, right?

Chapter Text

Mud squelched under their sodden shoes, splashing through streams that they failed to hop over, and Frisk hurried on, trying to follow any familiar sights. They knew Blook Acres was nearby, as they had been heading that way before deciding to explore after their encounter with Mad Dummy, but honestly they were just keeping their eyes open for anybody.

Someone had to be able to help Tenna! If he lived down here, someone had to know him, had to know how to help. Frisk had no idea what had gone wrong, but with how tired he seemed after just focusing on talking to them it was pretty obvious he must have overstrained himself. Looking as old as he did, all worn and alone too, he must not have a lot of extra energy - just making his speech precise for each word in a sentence had taken a lot out of him.

He honestly didn't seem like a normal monster! Frisk has not met anyone like him yet, so they had nothing to go off of with how he acted. The fact that he almost seemed to want to pull them into a fight just as they were about ready to leave but stopped when they had decided to let him have his way - it didn't mean he was a safe monster by any means, but unlike a lot of others he hadn't jumped them either. In the back of their mind, Frisk wondered why he had hid himself from them when they had first stumbled into that room.

They splashed into a slight river, an incline before panning into sloshing through water nearly knee high, looming piles of garbage and ahead a familiar rusted out looking bike. Blook Acres was just ahead, all they had to do was just find someone-

A rushing series of splashes was their only warning as someone near bowled them over, Frisk stumbling and tripping as a loud voice suddenly squawked a barrage of curses in rapid fire speak-

Before both them and whoever had run into them tumbled into the water with heavy splashes.

Their clothes soaked now, the sluggish motion of the currant tugging at them as they swiped water from their face, Frisk had to catch their breath from racing through the streams, staring at this new monster that was currently floundering about in the river.

They almost had the look of the Mad Dummy, the musical vibe that had crashed into Frisk's ears seeming weirdly similar but also distinctly different from the tune of that battle, but when the monster had swiped up both heavy laden bag and smaller backpack from sinking into the water, straightening up with a series of odd click clack sounds, Frisk found themself staring at a rather eerie looking visage.

Its pale face bore a much too wide, much too toothy grin, almost comically long with a tapered thin nose jutting out like a weird beak, but the jaw itself was just hanging there loosely, swinging faintly as tiny dark pinprick eyes behind gray and white tinted, thick rimmed and thick armed glasses, darted about the water for one last check before finally landing on them.

The clack click sounds were evidently from it now, snapping its chunky teeth together as the monster jerkily tensed up and pointed at them, little eyes narrowed into near nothing as its grin almost became a sneer.

“YO U!” The monster shouted, voice pitched oddly, not super deep but not very high either, a reverb to it that glinted weirdly with how its hanging jaw wagged and something fainter and reflected, almost as if another, second toothy jaw sat hidden in the darkness of its maw, was talking instead. “HUM4N CHiLD!”

Frisk scrambled back as the monster advanced, still too tense from their worries and hurries to let the almost genuine shocked anger in that voice get to them - as well as the fact that, with each word out of that obnoxious set of teeth, every single letter spoken was spat up with a flutter of sound as if printing paper, a bullet of monster magic cut into straight, bold lines of variety colors and textures for each word that sputtered out and drifted down atop the surface of the river. Frisk stared at them, confused and trying to gauge if these were real bullets aimed at them but remarkably poorly, watching as each letter piled flimsy atop the other before sinking below the water - their SOUL wasn't reacting to the odd atrack.

“WHAT THE [$!$$]? ? ARE?? YOU DOING HERE, LITTLE S P O N G E ?? ?”

Every syllable, every letter was spat out, pausing and enunciating weirdly, the monster jabbing its hand at them, completely ignoring the bullets with each bit of sound and coughing them right up, and the noise, the weirdest of noises, of a mumble blurb of chatter, was just so odd and eerie. Its eyes darted about nervously, visibly shaken yet maddened by Frisk's very presence - so much like Mad Dummy that it could have made them giggle if they weren't coming over here in such an emergency.

“DON'T YO U KN0W HOW D AN G E R O U S IT CaN BE IN A G4RBAGE DUMP, K iD?” The monster's eyes kept moving, tense and obviously on edge, stiff white hands clutching tightly to both packs. Water dripped from the hat atop its head, damp dark hair slicked to weirdly rough looking pale skin, and odd, almost dusty patches shifted about its face, softening and smearing its features in shallow, shifting motes. It almost looked as if it was trembling, trying to avoid looking at them but still giving them an almost scared glare.

When Frisk looked the monster in the eye, it finally stilling its fanatic searches for a completely silent moment, it almost felt as if hidden behind the irrational anger there was a rising panic in the pitch of its voice.

But they didn't have time for that, or any of this weird monster's shenanigans!

“ Please help! “ they signed, ignoring the water on their hands and arms, their shirt soaked and feeling a shiver and goosebumps start up from their tumble. “ There is a monster who has fallen over and I don't know how to help him!”

Their hands were shaking, face pinched in worry, and the monster before them paused, tilted its head ever so slightly, almost like a little birds, tiny eyes in the glass lenses narrowed nearly to slits as it examined Frisk, jaw hung empty and swinging as if it was just held together by a single thread.

Then it suddenly snapped closed, grinding teeth together with a stomach curdling noise, a plume of the odd dust rippling about the side of its face before suddenly disappearing altogether - then straightened back up and grabbed at the bags that hung from its shoulders for a second. Pressing the grayed out hat on its head down tight with a heavy hand, the monster's eyes were set in steely, sharp focus to glare down its needle-like nose at them.

“WHERE.”

***

Tenna was where they had left him, though there was now more smoke rising from his TV head, billowing up with the faint amount of sparks that kept leaping off his metal framework and exposed bundled wires.

A curse croaked out of the monster behind them, bullets dropping from its hanging mouth before it shoved past them, leaping out of the water that had reached up to its waist and scrambling onto the muddy bank. Frisk hung back as it flung its bags down, hurriedly circling the still monster, wringing its hands, before dropping down to its knees behind Tenna's large head. The blaring alarm was much quieter now, the colored bar lines hazy with static and fading in and out behind the cracked tinted glass, and with a jerky motion the monster behind him reached a hand out and patted the side of his head heavily and with a click clack of its jaw.

“EASY THERE C A T H O D E, SPAMToN IS H3R E.”

The letter bullets bounced harmlessly off the other monster, fizzling out into whisps of papery dust as the now identified Spamton swiftly turned and dragged over one of his bags.

As Frisk clambered up the bank, hesitant with anxiety drawing on their face now, watching Tenna's stiff form and worrying, worrying, the other monster dragged out a twist of random objects, shoving everything about himself.

Then, with a jerky twitch and another passing cloud of that powdery haze, he swiftly unbuttoned his navy blue patchwork jacket. Shoving it down to the ground, his beady eyes suddenly leered over at Frisk.

“LITTLE HEL P HERE, K1D.” He snapped his fingers, muffled as they realized he had slipped on some very old looking rubber gloves, and gestured at them to come closer to Tenna's front.

They hesitated only a moment before hurrying over, staring down at the still monster and the silence that came from him, only broken by the odd spark and infrequent hum fizzle of electricity. Then they jerked back into focus as Spamton directed them to (carefully!) help him pull the monster's head back. He lifted a bit, teeth grinding together in an unpleasant strain as Frisk struggled under the heavy weight of the old TV, before finally setting Tenna's head back down, this time laying atop the jacket.

All focus on the fallen monster, Spamton slowly started to push at his back and shoulder, one hand clinging to his head. Frisk jumped in to help once they recognized what he was doing, though their face was pinched in confusion as Tenna was guided into being face down, the slightest crinkle of glass making both human and monster flinch before the robotic body settled.

This actually caused a reaction this time, the silent stillness broken as one of Tenna's arms shifted, fingers curling into the mud as a wheeze of a static whine popped up through frazzled speakers, wire tail dragging in a sluggish sweep through the mud.

“I K NOW, I KN0W.” Spamton was instantly pressing a hand to the monster's back, firmly rubbing in an attempt at comfort as he absently waved Frisk back. “JUST HOLD OUT A B1T LONGER, I KNOW YOU YU U HAT3 THIS.”

The whine hissed back into being nearly silent, the twitching hand raised in a limp wave before falling still once again - but Tenna's antenna, crooked and stiff earlier in a tense knotted spiral, seemed to relax ever so slightly.

Relief flooded Frisk, realizing he hadn't…well, died. They've heard, or at least read, of what happened to a monster then, but haven't yet experienced it and definitely did not want to.

They hovered, watching nervously as the other monster shuffled through his bag once more before procuring what looked like a twisted hunk of metal and rubber that might have once been either a screwdriver or a tiny crowbar - then flinched back as Spamton started to pop off the plastic casing of Tenna's head, pausing to unscrew screws and dropping them into his pockets as quickly as he could.

Their distress, and shaky hand signals, were ignored as Spamton cursed again, letter bullets dropping lamely all about as he fumbled the cover before finally setting it aside.

All of Tenna's hands were now curled into fists in the mud, though not a tremor raced through him as the inside of his head became exposed, a weird wire mess surrounding a piece of metal that was shaped like an odd funnel. Bits and pieces of machinery were stuck about it, odds and ends that Frisk had no clue of understanding, but Spamton seemed to know what he was doing.

Pocketing his tool, one arm tucked behind his back and feet planted to the ground, his head suddenly jerked as his narrowed eyes pinned onto them.

“BACK UP P, LIL S P O N G E. DON'T W4NT TO [-astirfryforthewholefamily-] YOURSeLF, DO YOU?”

The word bullets printed out like usual, a mismatch of tangled letters at one point - but the sound that came out of the monsters rictus grin in replacement of those words was so nightmareish that Frisk stumbled back a good few feet away, shoulders drawn and arms curled about themself as they stared at him.

Their confusion at his oddities waved away, Spamton then turned his attention back to Tenna. He completely ignored the human now, hunching over the wires and faint smoke and sparks, the nose curling stench of charred acid.

Frisk watched, and waited. They flinched whenever a spark or pop of electricity broke the silence, scattered bits and smatterings of lightning attacks in accidental arcs about the other monster's arm, sometimes traveling up and down his body as well, but Spamton seemed relatively unfazed. Even when a whirl of char, tiny and bruised like, followed after a nasty burst of some attacks when he brushed a hand, by accident surely, against some of the more volatile and scary bits of exposed metal - his eyes did narrow, and Spamton seemed to cringe at times, loose jaw grinding side to side as he'd tense up, but then he shook it off and kept working.

Creaking, groaning parts against parts rumbled up at times as Tenna shook at random. Frisk wished they could communicate with him, offer reassurance as the monster slowly, sluggishly folded his first pair of arms under his chest, raised to his exposed neck in a hesitant, careful way, but Spamton's endless chatter, usually hushed even with the words spelling themselves out in his spilled speech, seemed to do the trick at keeping him calm.

At one point Tenna's third arm rose up, trembling fitfully before laying his hand upon Spamton's gloved hand. The other monster paused his work, tool held tight, beady eyes peering down at the touch.

“....CAN'T DISCH ARGE YOU, ANTT. YOU WOULDN'T BEE ABLE TO G3T BACK HOME IF II I DID THA T.”

He gently patted the other monster's hand with his occupied own, then brushed the grip off, back to work as Tenna seemed to exhale a silent, trembling sigh.

Frisk stared when the monster's gaze swept up to meet theirs, and though his weird sounding voice didn't seem malicious there was a hint of a knife in there, still.

“YOU Y YOU STAY THERE, LITTLE [-slime-]. DON'T THINK YOU COULD TAkE ON A CURRANT OF THI IS CALI BRE, EVEN FROM AN OLD C A T H O D E R4Y LIKe HIM.”

The noise this time sounded more like it was a sound effect in a kids show, but not a bit recorded or edited in at all.

It sounded like Spamton just…tried to make the sound a glob of slime would make.

Another arc of shock attacks erupted from the mass of wires and metal that was Tenna's head, causing the other monster to tense up again and even squint his eyes closed, before narrowing them open and doubling his efforts. Pulling wires, twisting and turning metal, leaning down low to peer at many angles at a glass tube, hesitant as he ground his teeth and clacked his loose jaw a couple of times, almost a whistle of sound as he examined a part of the funnel that had a wire sticking to it, round rubber bit keeping it together - his mutterings rose and fell as he dipped down for random tools, “NEeDS SOLDER I NG, I DON'T [$!X$]ING HAVE THAT ON HAND, AANT, THAT'Ss BACK AT H OME-”, and, over time as he worked, the shocks and arcs seemed to lessen, scattering off his rubber gloves weakly.

At some point, however, the monster paused his work, heaved a heavy sigh and soft curse, bullet letters and jumbled noise leaving his mouth, before glancing back over to Frisk.

“OI, KID.”

He leaned back from Tenna's exposed head, hand free of anything for once, before quickly pulling a glove off and gesturing to them to circle around and come over next to him.

The monster seemed…displeased, as Frisk approached, or at the very least as if he didn't want them to get closer - the hazy patches had started obscuring parts of his face again, eyes hidden at some odd reflection that overtook his glasses - but Spamton waited patiently, jaw set tight, and shoulders tense.

Then he stuck out his gloveless hand, gurgle of a laugh croaking out of him with a disjointed, almost unwanted feel to it.

“EAHAHAHA - CAN'T A LITTLE S P O N G E LIK3 YOU U GIVE ME & ANTT H3RE A LIL [-genorisity-] ?” That sound was weird, indescribable and somehow…twinkling, if a voice could be described as such. His other hand swiped suddenly at his face, slapping away the dusting effect as his eyes cleared, then narrowed suspiciously up at them. “. . .[-pressf1for-]HELP.”

Frisk stared at him, both confused and maybe a bit frightened. That noise didn't sound right, sort of crawled into their ears and made their head hurt a bit, but Spamton was staring at them expectantly so Frisk tried to sign a question back-

But the monster jerked his head side to side, a weird motion of a shake. Silence stretched between them for a second, staring hesitantly at each other.

When Tenna broke the silence with another of those static squeaking whines, uneven and high pitched, Spamton twisted his head about and patted his back once more, muttered letter bullets falling from his mouth before, with a stuttered sigh, he turned right back round to Frisk and outstretched his hand once more.

“. . .P PR P[-pressf1for-]HE LP.”

This time he lowered his hand jerkily to his face, letting letter bullets bounce off the segmented, pale wooden like look of his palm, before his fingers clawed and caught a mass tumble. This he rose back to Frisk, offering with a serious, taunt pull of his stiff grinning face.

Frisk peered at the offering, then blinked silently at the soft glow of green that was coming from some of the letters, the ‘f1’ in particular. They had no idea what it meant, but having fought a fair amount of monsters so far they did recognize this!

Only hesitating a moment, Frisk reached out a hand and gingerly tapped a finger on the bullet letters.

Before they could even register the odd crawling pins and needles sensation that usually only happened when they just barely grazed by a monsters attack, Spamton curled his hands about the letters and turned back to the other monster, jerking his hand towards the mass of wires and the metal funnel in another plain, rather odd offering.

The letters were gone, and Frisk watched as a hazy, dust shading little copy of the monster before them rose up on tiny wings, a wire from its back rising a little halo above its head. With a little flutter, and gust of dust falling from its body, the bullet fluttered from Spamton's hand and, with a little loopty loop, drifted to Tenna's exposed inner workings, raised a dusty hand, and tapped him with a gesture that looked like a silent giggle.

Then disappeared in a burst of bright sparkling green, leftover healing magic that glittered with the dust that had fallen onto metal and wires.

Silence, for a moment.

And then a rumbled whine of electronic noise burst up with static, before Tenna scraped a hand about, jerking back when he brushed over his own wires before finally finding the bits of engineering that would be his dials had his casing been on. Adjusting his volume lower, the TV monster seemed to unwind a bit, the stiff and still posture relaxing into exhaustion.

“-e you finally finished up-”
“-t back here, and maybe-”
“-oose your SPAM. (Now there are three~)-”

Spamton patted the other monster on the back, then wasted no time in grabbing the plastic casing and working on setting it back on. Frisk ended up helping this time, not so worried now with how the electric shocks were no longer a danger, and the two of them made quick work in getting screws back in. They did notice that many seemed to have been missing, but Spamton spread out what screws he had and the back of Tenna's head looked as it had before, no worse for wear.

Slowly, carefully, Tenna started to stand himself up, the other monster doing what he could to help, even with his much shorter stature. At one point Frisk watched as Spamton grabbed Tenna's third hand and acted as counterbalance, letters spilling from his mouth as he struggled to get the much larger monster to his feet while avoiding the dragging tail that had coiled limply in the mud.

“TTA TA TAKE IT EAsY THERE, BIG FE1LA. NIC3 AND S L O W.”

Frisk found themself helping as well, another counterbalance as the monster swayed unevenly, the smell of burnt fabric and rusted metal and acidic smoke coming off Tenna as he gingerly swept his only free hand down and tried to get leftover mud off him. While Spamton instantly went to help him, one hand still kept in a tight grasp, Frisk let go of their own as Tenna gently shook them off. They glanced around and then quickly tried to pick up all the things left scattered on the ground, tool and gloves and extra wires and things, shoving them back into the bag. When they spotted the jacket still on the ground, Frisk hurriedly picked it up and tried to clean it off too, shaking it out.

“YO Y U HAD ME WOR RIE D, ANT. N0T @ HOME WHEN I GOT BACK, N0 N0TE, NO N0T H ING.” The shorter monster was grumbling, his bullet letters tumbling to the muddy ground and dissolving into little puffs of dust, but he had situated himself at the taller's hip, offering support for his third arm and giving Tenna some balance back. “AN AND LOOK AT HOW I FO U ND U. WH3RE IS YOUR DaMN C A N E?”

The taller monster didn't speak for a few moments, hands hesitantly hovering over his dials as his screen noticeably dimmed, the face inside fading into the static instead.

“-d on I go, before I tripped and-”
“-s morning is such a-”
“-gone and lost it, didn't yo-”

His volume, rising at first, was shakily lowered and lowered as his channels switched, his hands falling to his sides before curling into tight fists. Spamton gazed at them a moment, the haze easing to his features once more before he shook it off with a cackle of a laugh, clicking his teeth together a few times.

“I I CAN ALW4YS FIND YOU AN O THER, C A T H O D E, NO BIG DEA LL.”

“...SPAM h-”
“-I might-"
“-d have lost-"

“N0.” Spamton slapped a hand at the others side, interrupting the focus Tenna was using to vocalize precisely. “NO OVERDOING IT, [-boobtube-]. LON GER MAK3S EASiER, R3MEMBE R?”

A hiss of static, maybe an exasperated sigh, or a relieved one, erupted out of the TV monsters speakers, mouth a snaggletoothed line as eyebrows pinched up on his cracked screen, before Tenna pat the smaller monster's head, just barely avoiding knocking his hat off.

“-ld or hot. . . SPAM hits the spo-”
“-s trying to find it all by myself-”
“-s not all broken to pieces y-”
“-...but I think that's a-”
“-s thanks to you-”

Spamton had raised a hand, laying over the other's as he listened, before he squinted his eyes closed, huffed out what might have been a hushed chuckle with a slight twitchy shake of his head, and then brushed off the touch.

“FI NE, FINE, B3 THAT W A Y. STILL G0T TO GET YO YOU HOM E.”

It was as he straightened up, Tenna swaying ever so slightly but tightly keeping him close, that Frisk approached and offered up the (slightly more tidy) jacket to the monster. While Tenna's static cleared to the edges and unfurled a wide, crooked grin down at them, just the slightest sheen of exhaustion glinting off his screen, Spamton instead eyed them warily.

But his eyes did scan over his jacket, narrow and tense, before he seemed to come to some sort of conclusion and a sigh whistled in as asterisk bullets through his teeth. With a nod of his head, untangling one hand and reaching out to take the offering, Spamton's face finally seemed to lose its tense nervous energy at the sight of them and was let go, easing into a watchful, if exhausted, reluctance as he slid it back to his shoulders.

“...THAN KS, KIDD0.” When he glanced at the two packs on the ground, tools cleared away and half hidden by muddy camouflage and the reeds, the monster closed his eyes and clacked his teeth again. “AN AN AN D JUST L3AVE TH OSE, I'LL GET TH EM L4TER.”

“-s how its d-”
“-t are you going to-”
“-s been holding up good-”
“-s all the kid's stuff t-” blurted out Tenna, hands moving quickly over his dials, before his face screwed up over the flickering blurry shapes of channels and he focused again, swaying heavier side to side. “-fr-" “-is-” “-k-” -

Spotting the sudden wash of reflective dust cover the smaller monster's glasses, hands fisting up as he struggled with the taller's weight and jaw parting in an obvious scolding, Frisk hurriedly signed back up at him their own name, slow and steady and firm.

Tenna quieted, hesitant as his screen washed that green blue light over them again, before with a creaking and scraping of metal to metal the monster rose his two free hands and, sluggishly and with some minor difficulty, followed along their instruction.

For all his age, Tenna was a quick enough learner and he had Frisk's name down in no time, grinning widely down at them, wire tail having risen lazily up and swaying side to side as he presented his practice.

They tried not to pout, sorely wishing they had been able to show him something more than the alphabetical letters of their name but acknowledging that this was not the time. Spamton hadn't yelled about the situation, but it was getting more and more obvious that Tenna wouldn't stay standing for long.

“ I can help get you home? “

“-Oh dear, down that go-”
“-y of course it's all in the-”
“-t just that I believe-”
“-d knows all that's there-”
“-w that it's very heavy and going to take some time -”

They had to pause to figure out what exactly he was saying, especially with the longer, less precise, sentences, but when Frisk did they darted to his other side, letting a large gloved hand lay, then clasp firm atop their head. They could tell he wasn't trying to put much weight on them, but the instant Spamton started to walk them all forward Frisk had to stiffen their shoulders as he started to sway and lean in unsteady, sluggish steps. Quickly enough they followed the other monster's lead and took Tenna's hand, becoming a much better crutch as their pace continued to fumble along.

“GOT T TA CLE4N YOU UP BETTER A A @ HOME, C A T H O D E.” Spamton's words were panted out a bit, but he didn't stop them from walking, the only signs of strain on him being how he grit and ground his teeth, letter bullets spat out and left in the mud. “GET AL L THAT D U S T AND CRuDE OUT OF THAT CLunKY HEAD OF Y Y YO URS.”

Frisk watched, struggling to keep Tenna from falling over on their side, as the shorter monster tilted his head and squinted his eyes, baring his grin up at the taller's lowered down cracked screen.

“M AY BE GIV3 THAT A N O D E C4P OF Y Y URS A GO0D DISCH4RGE JUS T INCAS3-”

He was interrupted by Tenna slapping a hand atop his head, bullets dropping down as Spamton giggled out some laughter and fussed with his hat as best as he could. The display had been halfhearted, and Frisk looked up to see the TV monster's cracked screen glowing a faint tint of pink, wobbly grin tugged crooked.

“-h shush you-”
“-can’t be doin’ that all around-”
“-g those kids s-”

Tenna turned his head down to Frisk, metal frame body creaking and screeching together in the motion as his expression turned into a reassuring smile, one hand gesturing lamely at Spamton.

“-s no need to listen-”
“-s inappropriate for th-”
“-uch an irresponsible man-”

Spamton cackled another laugh, this one much lighter, less tense than the others, and even with the scoldings the grin on his face as he looked up at Tenna was somehow softer, less rictus eerie and more…happy, almost.

Their slow pace had them sloshing through streams, Tenna's static sighs and low warped mumble of snowed channels rising each time he had to dip his worn shoes and even more worn and ragged trouser cuffs into the water. Spamton encouraged him, bullets falling and then taken away by the currants, and Frisk tried to aid as best they could, helpfully pushing at the tall monsters back and shoving his side as he'd lean and tip on his uneven balance.

When they signed up a question about why he didn't shrink himself as they had seen earlier, the shorter monster shot them a disappointed look and croaked out letters to words that asked them pointedly if they thought they could exert that much energy to change their own size after going through a fit like that.

Then Tenna shoved a hand into his face and answered Frisk himself, sentences all over the place and much too hard to understand for a stranger who hardly knew him. They didn't interrupt though, and nodded their head along as he switched between channels, his words growing quiter and meandering as he let the channels stick around for longer and longer, till finally they fell into a dull, rhythmic pulsing of static waves and snow. By then they were all tired, Tenna hardly kept standing by the combined efforts of two very short beings, but the Garbage Dump and rocky cave walls had opened up a bit, fallen away until finally the three of them stood before a large, almost building like pile of junk.

It was a massive avalanche of trash and garbage, piled up against the bottom of a rocky cliff that reached high into the undergrounds dim lit sky. The thundering of a nearby waterfall was ever constant, a rumbling that crashed through all other sound and made Tenna's little static gusts of noise completely inaudible, and water pooled and sluggishly tugged about the trios feet, an uneven muddy wash of a marsh that they sloshed slowly but surely through. Here and there clumps of reeds grew up, rarely a small Echo Flower hidden away in caught flashes of bright blue. The humid air, chilled just a bit by no doubt the winds that came in from Snowdin, did not help with the smell - Frisk curled their nose, though the two monsters seemed to have no issue with the scent of water and damp and cloying rot, old decaying metal and musty warped plastic, all streaked with a slimy mix match of mud and algae and slime molds. At the very least nothing looked or smelled stagnant, and there were no flies or buzzing insects.

Where they were headed rose from up the sunken mire, mud caked trash deteriorated and mulched down after ages and ages and ages, down into a semblance of a sinking island. Inset to the solidified side was a crooked leaning door, along with what looked like an attempt at a stall and a large, rusted metal plated window that blocked the inside from the out. Both were slanted, set up on uneven ground and slowly sinking from the weight of the garbage barring down, and messy thin clumps of dark grasses had even cropped up in the cracks, growing where nothing should grow. Scraggily reeds rose up from the edges, thin and stunted compared to others but there nonetheless. There was even a faint inset glow of blue, firefly like in parts of the pile, revealing where stones that contained splintered parts of the undergrounds stars had been shoved in and made into border lights - this also included a small, buzzing lantern that rose over the door, light dull and flickering compared to the rest of Waterfall's ever constant blue tinted light.

Even with the crashing of the nearby waterfall, Frisk could just faintly hear the background magical music that threaded this place, just a hint of it that lent to the leitmotifs of both monsters' ambient magical auras.

Both Tenna and Spamton uttered sighs of relief, static and asterisk spat bullets, and Frisk had a small smile on their face as the group finally arrived at their destination.

“-g. Home again, home again, j-”

“-J JIGGI TY J1G!”

Laughter bubbled into static waves, and Spamton shook his head as he directed them all to the door, digging into his pockets before pulling out a ring of random keys, nearly all different sizes. He fiddled with them for a second, having to let go of Tenna as he ground his teeth, and the larger monster eased his weight off Frisk and instead placed his hands to the garbage pile up, leaning heavily as his screen shone static snow down to allow Spamton some light.

“-as we would do normally-”
“-s not like they wouldn't let-”
“-a customer's always ri-”
“-n enter there in the first place-”
“-normally we'd all be going, but-” And here the TV monster rose up a free hand and startled Frisk by patting them lightly on the head, screen still turned away from them as he leaned heavily forward, antenna twisting limply and wire plug tail giving a halfhearted wag behind him. “-s always welcome to be here.”

His heavy head leaned against the piled wall, static sigh and whistle of hot air from his vents gusting out, before Spamton clacked his jaw suddenly and the keys jangled about as he finally found the one and unlocked the door.

“M1ND Y Y UR HEAD, ANTT T.” He hesitated when he looked over at Frisk, who shuffled to the side to let Tenna, metal screeching loudly, slowly lean down and tuck himself inside, all three arms grasping at the doorway and hunching in slow and steady. But the expression on the short monster's face wasn't as guarded as before, or at least seemed somewhat more relaxed though it was hard to say with that stiff face, and Spamton waved the kid on in. “YO YO U TOO, LiL S P O N G EE.”

And with that, Frisk entered into the Garbage Dumps one and only Shop.

Chapter Text

The thundering of the nearby falls was muffled in here, under layers and layers of piled up garbage. Besides the faint drip drop pattering of seeping in water into empty tin buckets, the hole in the wall that constituted as both shop and home could almost be called comfortable.

‘Course, that was if one had half a mind to forget they were standing in the middle of the entirety of monsterkinds garbage dump.

Spamton could, at the very, very, very least be thankful that he couldn't smell jack [$!$$] anymore.

That couldn't be said for the human, but as if he'd give them hell for it. The way their face crinkled up in an attempt to not look so put off did look a fair bit silly - a part of him supposed he could now understand just the teeniest of tiny bits just why Tenna was still so fond of his old days' memories. Human children made some funky faces.

He now idled, sat back on crooked, sagging hinged stool of a chair and pretending that he wasn't nearly sliding off every few seconds - the kid continued to browse his wares, giving each wire broken basket and its contents a good looking through. Behind him, humming static at a low warble of a volume, his husband was still busy with cleaning himself up, attempting to swipe mud and clods of caught weeds from his joints and bundled wires, scrubbing a futile effort against well worn shirts and silt caked trouser cuffs, the jacket having already been hung up near the near ever on box fans - ventilation was hard to come by in a pile of trash, and the ol’ CRT can sure make this small space stuff as hell.

When they had first all piled into their shared humble little abode, the Boss Monster's single minded focus on fixing up his self image was a bit grating on Spamton's already overtaxed irritation, but…it did soften his stiff grin seeing Tenna so eager for something, for once. The tall monster had slowly bumbled around, familiar with where he could lean and what walls to use for support, arms raised near to the ceiling and scraping about the narrow fit of the walls, before finally finding the shelf he was looking for and diving upon the box of glass with a static yip of success. When he had turned back to the kid, Spamton already scooted out of the way and thus already at work with assembling his storefront to be more angled to the inside than out, Tenna had a full grin on his cracked up face, now sporting the shatter glass arts and craftsy look of his pointed nose.

Spamton hadn't lent much of an ear to their conversation after that, besides barking up a warning whenever Tenna would start shortening his sentences, shorter and shorter till his vents gusted hot air and his screen shone with the exertion of forcing himself to utter the highly specific words he wished to speak - he got some glares for his efforts, but slowly Tenna relaxed and let his words flow, easing up just the slightest bit.

Otherwise, catching sight of the kid signing something about how “ cozy “ their home was and Tenna thanking them profusely before checking that he was signing their name correctly, Spamton's eyes had stayed on the prize - money was money, and they sure as [$!$$] needed some right about now.

Some stray dust had numbed up the side of his face then, took out an eye as he had glared at the crates and wire boxes of [-garbagepiles-] he had to offer - in the corner of his clear eye he might have caught the flinch the human made, still unused to his usual noises, though Tenna had waved their attention back to him, then continued to wave past their signed questions and concerns - and Spamton had ground his teeth together, creaking drag of strained noise as his jaw burned, ever so slightly.

Then he had been up and yanking things around, shoving them aside before rearranging in a frantic flurry of garbled rambling that spat bullets up over the table - dust, dust, so much damn dust in their house, no matter how much Tenna attempted to sweep it out, no matter how much Spamton told him to forget about it, as if there'd ever be an end to the dust this damn trash heap of a pitiful [$!$$] [$!X$]ing excuse of a house could acclimate-

And then Spamton had jolted, a heavy hand on his shoulder, and the dust that had been obscuring his vision receded back to the edges. He had glanced up, looked past the pointed nose into the tinted screen, worried furrow of eyebrow and thin lined frown staring down at him.

Conversation had been stopped for a while, besides the drip drop of water into pails, the rumble of the fans, and the ever constant slight hum of electricity that emanated from Tenna himself.

…Spamton had realized, belatedly, that he still hadn't quite been up for having an uninvited guest be so invited into their home. He'd much rather them be outside the shop, looking in over the bar in such a manner that he could slam down the sliding window if they so much as looked at Tenna funny-

His hands had been curled into tight fists, and he had quickly loosened up and untensed his shoulders. He had waved the other monster away from him as he straightened up with a few clicking clacks of his jaw, hands on his hips, then adjusting his own navy blue jacket and hat as he peered a last time at his wares with false bravado and even falser pride.

One man's trash, another's treasure, as the saying went?

With that Spamton had spun around, hands waving and arms outstretched, finally ready to welcome this valued customer into the arms of his stunningly well held together business home.

“HH EY EVeRY !!
IT'S ME AAND & MY BES T OF PARTNeRS!
EV3RY BUDDY ‘S FAVORITE SALESMEN 0F THE UNdERGR OU ND! !!”

He had even done that stupid dancing flourish, the one Tenna had then immediately followed suit, not quite in tandem what with his size and sluggish efforts, but he could still hear the words Tenna kept flashing channels around to, volume near silent as he followed along.

“SPAMTT [-tiredofspammailfillingyourbox?contactusat-] SPAMTON G. SPAMTON!!”

“-and that's not all folks~-”
“-e is what we'd call an ant-”
“-t twist the ‘tenna around a bit, gotta be a good signal somewh-”

“A AND WE'VE G0T SOME DEaLS HERE, JUST FOR Y Y U!”

Spamton had then leaned over, hand tilted at his mouth in a little performative whisper.

“I AM A LSO C0MPETENT A A @ DELIVERY A AND MaILI NG S E R V I C E S OF ANY P4YING KIND AND A HIGH LY RESP SPECT4BLE M E C H A N I C TO BO0T! H3LL, ANY JOB ATT ANY PR1CE! I'LL DO ANYTHING FOR S0ME OF TH@ [-greengold-]!!”

A fizzle from Tenna that would have been the canned laughter once upon a time, but it was an enduring sound, familiar, and Spamton's tense smile had eased up once more - more so when Tenna had slapped hands over his face, spouted off something about “-s a no good self respecting man would ever-”, before tugging his head up again to tap noses together with a smug grin on his screen. If they hadn't had a customer Spamton would've snagged that loose tie right down to him and wiped that goofy smile off his face, perhaps make it a bit goofier, flower and all, but eh. There would be time later.

So, now, Spamton sat, and listened to his husband clean and polish at the few bits of nonrusted metal he had left, static hums and half broken tunes from old channels, as the human child sifted through his wares and weighed their options of what to buy.

A part of him still irked at having a customer inside the house, but Spamton had comforted himself by giving everything a nice pricemark up. Thank the [-angel-] that Tenna hadn't given the price tags a good once over, or he'd be having hell about it - the CRT had [$!$$] vision these days anyway.

The human looked over at him, head tilted and face drawn in thought, before their hands rose and they tried to confirm that the frayed, water stained bowtie in their hand was really 100 gold pieces.

Spamton nodded his head, giving them a jerky thumbs up as his jaw clacked together a few times in the motion.

“WH4T YYOU HAVE THE R E IN UR HANDS IS ONE OF THE B E S T PI3CES OF ATTI RE OUR HUMBLE STORE PO CESSES!” He pointed at the object from his stool, wobbling a bit. It looked as if it was wilting with every word he said about it, but that didn't stop his train. “A L1L PIECE OF HI ST OR YY, AN O N E OF A KIN DD TOO BOOT! I FFO R (1) AM SURE IT W0LD LOOK PERF3CT ON THAT ROUND H4IRY H E A D OF Y Y YOURS.”

The human gave him a grin, small and uncertain but with effort, and that tight strung coil in him loosened once again, just a bit. Every time they moved, looked around and observed him or Tenna, Spamton could feel the pressure in his limbs, the burn of his joints and the nausea rise up his gullet - he hated that Tenna had run into them, alone.

Hated that he hadn't been there. To protect him, just…just incase.

But, all's well that ends well - the human walked over and handed him 100 gold pieces, obviously reluctant but unwilling to reject his store's wares. The bow was, after all, the lowest price available.

Grinding his jaw, a guttural “PLEA SUR E D0ING BUISN E S S WItH U, KID. DELICIOUS [-kromer~-].” easing out as he turned and set the bag onto the counter, ready to count the haul, and Spamton nearly slipped one gold coin into his maw but stopped himself just barely in time with a clacking grimace.

Having money to pay for actual needed things was more important than a small snack for an aching stomach.

“-is, oh, just let me-”
“-s the kind of thing you'll need help with-”

Tenna's voice made him glance back, watch as the monster bumped along to reach the humans side, third arm raised and hand hovering as the kid tried to attach the bow to their hair. The CRT leaned heavily on the narrow condensed walls of metal and plastic and dried out earth flecked with garbage leftovers, swaying with each wobbly step but keeping his balance by a mixture of both sheer willpower and the small shrunken aspect of their home's walls.

Hardly a living room, with something that more closely suited a pantry than a bedroom attached to the back (just enough space for a bed, that's all!). But for all its flaws and the claustrophobia, Spamton did appreciate the fact that it let his husband move to and fro with ease, leaning and bumping and using his hands to explore his environment without the constant hand holding. Changing sizes took too much energy these days, and the Garbage Dump only had so many somewhat working generators and car batteries available - charging came at a cost, a cost he always, always tried to pay, because they never really had enough to spend on the amount of food needed to keep the old Boss Monster full anyway.

The cracked screen glinted from the dim lamp light of their home, reflections dissolving in the fuzzy channels Tenna flipped through as he spoke to the child, shaky gloved hands coming down to help adjust the bow in their hair. Spamton reminded himself that he'd need to tend to that later, and he drummed his fingers against his wide grinning teeth, eyes narrowed in thought. They'd have to set up by the bed, and he'd need some tools to clean up the loosening solder work, and of course Tenna needed to be discharged before he could safely crack into his head, not to mention some of the rattling within his barrel chest and the ragged wear and tear to the various wires and metal plated armor about his body-

A gargle of sound hissed out of his unhinged jaw, eyes closed as he lifted up his hat and scrubbed a hand haggardly through the oily thinning strands of hair he had left up there, plume of dust nagging numb up his jaw and across his cheek in a cloudy spread - he heard Tenna pause in his channel speak, before focusing back on the kid, metal frame scraping and groaning as he hyped them up about their new getup - and then Spamton twisted about his [$!$$]y chair and dug about under the bar, looking through crooked and dinged up boxes before sliding one out that had the goods (but not the best! That lil baggy of [-heaven-] stayed in the bedroom tucked under the bed - Tenna hated seeing it around, best keep it out of sight-).

They hardly had any left, but he fumbled a cig to his teeth, manually adjusted his jaw to keep it from falling, and [$!$$]ed around with the lighter before the damn thing finally lit and he got some smoke going.

Then a static jag of an alarm bugled out at him from his oh so understanding husband, and Spamton squinted at the monster as Tenna straightened up from the human and stalked over to glare down at him.

“-nd here I thought I w-”
“-e told you all about th-”
“-p! Don't smoke that st-”
“-e all sorts of problems, house fires not included th-” Tenna, one hand raised for support against the ceiling, one on his hip as he leaned heavy against the side of the bar, and other raised to his dials, took a moment to wiggle his antenna down at him, crooked lined face going stern and hard as Spamton flippantly blew smoke up at him. “-o mention with all these new customers-”

He paused, swiveled his head to glance warily over at the child - who gave them both one of those famously human neutral looks and a tilt of the head - before snapping back to Spamton, leaning down further into his face.

“-that with children nearby no less, but-”
“-n with no shame to his name?”

Spamton side eyed him, briefly glancing to the human, who had turned their attention back to browsing, no doubt not giving much of a care to this anyhow, and then back to Tenna, whose frown was wobbly and whose cracked screen glimmered with the static from behind, the usual tremble of his body more visible now with proximity.

Then he let out a little chuckle, bullets slipping lazily from the openings of his stiff jaw and past the smoking cigarette before dusting away in the printing of paper, and raised a hand to pat the CRTs thinly clothed chest.

“YY YOU BAKC UP A LiL BIT AND I II I'LL OP3N UP THE H O U SE, K’ ?”

Tenna buzzed a static huff at him, clearly miffed as he leaned and wobbled a step back, free hand dusting off his clothes and adjusting the loose tie about his neck, and Spamton swiftly turned, scrambled up his chair, and tugged down at the chains to the left of the big window. It clattered as it opened, listed heavily to one side, but up it went and the sweet, garbagey smell of Garbage Dump mixed with chill water, rot, and mold flooded into the stuffy space. The humidity knocked straight up, the chill seeped in, and Spamton settled back down as Tenna's shoulders scraped down and his face started to filter back to humming static and billowing color blooms.

It took less than a minute, Tenna straightening ever so slightly and looking down upon the human, then back at him, before he finally leaned down, elbow for support against the bar top, and lowered his volume a bit to rumble in Spamton's ear.

“-k if you've got an extra one there for me, friend?”

The shorter monster's garbled laugh didn't get far from their abode, thunderous waterfall taking that echoing trophy, but Spamton did flip up a stick to his husband, watching as he swung a hand down from dials to catch and then almost elegantly set it to his crooked static mouth.

The used magic left the air feeling more muggy than usual, but then Tenna leaned down, face wonderfully blank besides cracked glass nose and dead pixels and those familiar lines of a crooked face, and Spamton tilted his head to let the monster light his cig with his own.

Then Tenna straightened back up, hand to his static crackling lips, and when he breathed out smoke fumed from the vents at the sides of his head in great curling furl clouds, creakingly aged, elegantly boxy body tilted and leaned for awkward wall support, dull, twisted copper antenna lowing low in his calm, and his slowly rotting apart body finally, finally, finally settled into a peacefully relaxed state with a heavy static sigh.

Spamton stared up at him, eyes aglaze behind the monochrome shine of his lenses, idling away at his own smoke - he couldn't help himself, lovestruck deaf and blind and, of course, damn well dumb.

Every single day of his lackluster existence, he found himself wondering what the monster ever even saw in him. What possibly could warrant wasting what little time Tenna had left to sit and just…smoke, with him.

Then the human caught his attention again, hands waving before raising one of the many worn envelopes that were stuffed away about the house, expression curved into one of mild confusion, heftier curiosity, the obvious want of a customer ready to buy.

And Spamton guttered out a hum of a sound, bullets slipping out from his teeth as he turned his head, exhaled smoke out the window into Waterfall's atmosphere, and then slipped down from his chair to properly tend to his guest.

He had to get his head into the game - the kid was willing to spend money, time to butter them up and squeeze out what he could from their pockets. If they were feeling charitable, maybe later he'd be able to slip his way to Grillby's and splurge for dinner while he was out gathering his bags back. He still had mail to take there, though with the state of the usual mailbox he was sure the owner would hardly care for a missed delivery-

But, for all of today, he'd rather treat Tenna than make the day drag longer.

He'd not grill his husband about the whys of walking so far out from safety (so far away from him-), not even tomorrow morning, nor after that. The fact that Tenna's third hand was missing its ring was answer enough - Spamton will just find another. He won't blame him for losing [$!$$], not with the state the both of them were in, not in the place they lived in, and both ring and cane were finds aplenty in a swampy junk yard.

If they ever made it [-big-] (fat chance at this point anyway) then he might cause a scene, but he didn't have the energy for it and neither did the old Boss Monster. Best take the shots he was dealt, and water off a ducks back. It wasn't the end of their world.

…Spamton tried not to shiver, dust there and then gone as he hid it and hid it well, as the human spun too close, specifically showing off their ribbon to him as Tenna puffed smoke out in a wheezy static whine of a laugh behind him, a rumbled “-f we would act so badly at influencing th-” easing in his lax amusement.

…it wasn't the end of their world.

Either way, customer first, other job second, then other, other, far more important job third. Tenna deserved some good mechanical (and a lil intimate) attention after today, and, well, maybe Spamton wanted some tonight too.

Might help with those nightmares, if he was lucky.

Chapter Text

The human was leaving now.

Tenna had tried to not let it show on his face, crackling static warbling in waves while he had leaned over them, the glow of his screen pitching bright then dark in the glow. Little Frisk had given him a smile, small and polite, and they did look so adorable with the bow, even if it wasn't as bright and clean as he vaguely could remember it being, once upon a time. His little mailman had worn it, way back then, before the color had been drained from him - a bright spot of red, trimmed yellow.

And now it had faded brown and was near worn all away, but the child wore it and had smiled up at him and maybe it was for the best, that it went on to a new home.

He tried to not let it show, curdling in his wire strewn chest, that he knew it would be tossed away the first chance the kid got. Frisk was polite, but even Tenna wasn't interested in keeping such junk around-

Well no, that was a lie, but still. He knew better.

It did light up his screen, however, when the child shuffled up to him and gave him a hug. It was awkward, what with his size, and he knew even with the layers of thin cloths he had been trying to clean up he was absolutely not the most pleasant to touch (Spamton meant well but he was certainly a liar about this-) but Frisk clung to his looming frame and Tenna had sparked out a weary chuckle of a sigh, static magic bullets dripping from his screen to fall harmlessly to the dusty floor. He gingerly returned the hug, silent because saying something would probably make him burst into even more tears, and when Frisk pulled back they raised their hands and signed up at him.

“ I am glad you are okay now. It was nice meeting you and your partner. Thank you for letting me visit. “

His wobbly grin spread wide, crooked and tugging fitfully in pinpricks of discomfort behind his screen, and Tenna had clasped his hands together, third going to his dials.

“-ng to be such a pleasure to-”
“-t to get there to the meeting f-”
“-and now that you are here-” And Tenna signed the name they had given him, face wobbling in static snow at the corners as his arms shook and trembled even with his careful attention to his movements, gloved fingers spasming a bit with threads of aching pressure running up his metal frame. “-s all thanks to viewers like you-”
“-s been a great help as of-”
“-but that's not much to worry about t-”
“-t help but feel right as rain!”

He couldn't tell by their classically neutral human face, but he knew he was hard to understand. It frustrated him to no end, has been for decades now, but the flicker of anger dulled instantly as his shoulders locked and his body creaked and scraped embarrassingly loud in the muffled stuffy air. Spamton had closed the window awhile ago, once their smokes had been put out, and even with the box fans his vents still poured out gushes of hot air into this confined space, heating it up significantly.

Frisk gave him a thumbs up, and a wider, gap toothed grin, a genuine one, and his screen glowed anew at the response. He couldn't help it - no matter how down, how glooby he felt, a child's smile was just what was needed to brighten his day.

…He hasn't been able to make a kid happy in a very, very long time. Nowadays they ran from him screaming, terrified by this heap of metal and wires and sputtering static that'd reach out from the reeds to introduce himself.

Tenna tried not to do that much anymore.

So, now, after Tenna had given them that heartfelt little goodbye, a last little wave of his creaking hand, he found himself slouched haphazardly on the only stool they had in their storefront slash house. It had made some concerning sounds underneath him, but he was too exhausted to find it inside himself to care.

The thundering of the waterfalls was muffled, but it echoed in from the crack of the front door, not quite closed all the way what with how Spamton had ushered the human outside earlier, mind obviously still elsewhere as he took them aside to talk.

Tenna’s crooked antenna waved, slow and scraping in the sliding of the metal plated, busted poles, and his screen darkened as the sounds, the motions of the two SOULS outside faintly reached him.

Spamton was talking quietly, hesitantly too - the little magic he had was cautious, but with a curious lilt to it.

The human, so different and yet so, so, so terribly familiar, just…listened.

“...IFF Y0U…..HUM4N, TH3N….A FF FAV O UR….YO U BAcK K.”

A pause, and Tenna idly stretched his antenna, taking in the familiar magic sense feel of Spamton going tense again, skittish and sharp - but determined.

“G3T ME…..G0OD O N E. 4NN…KN0W Y YU H4VE…TH3 NET…1T AL L…PL4CE PRAC TI C A LLY THR0WInG…R0YAL FISSSH B3 DA MN3D.”

He honestly shouldn't be listening in like this - it was rude, bad manners, not something becoming of his…his profession. The thought made his shoulders scrape down, a twinge of discomfort, or more likely the burning numbness of a wire not quite staying in its socket, and his head fuzzed silent static as he jerkily turned his volume all the way down.

But he still listened.

“-S4Y WW WE WE ‘RE EVeN…H4P P EN ED EA RLY I E R…G0NE FROM M 3 M O RY…3VEN AC C EPT…F4uLT TH AT HE…N0TH IN G 2 DO…G1VE M3 A…”

Tenna heaved a silent whine of a sigh, this time audible not through his speakers but by his insides, his head creaking and his chest splinting with pain that curved through his limbs. The aches were heavy, deep inside, and he listed a moment before shakily raising his hands to grab at the counter, at the walls, at anything to keep his balance.

The voice outside was quieter, hushed, and Tenna hoped Spamton was not doing that stupid trick with his eyes to Frisk. He didn't enjoy the thought of his husband scaring such a small child, especially since said child had bought from their store! It may have been ages since they've had any such steady amount of customers, but customer service was still highly important and Spamton should know better than to scare away prospective future sales!

…not to mention the thought of maliciousness being directed to Frisk made him agitated. Anything hostile, towards any human child, made his already tired circuits clinch up and the pinching ache doubled down on him as his hands tightened, digging with too much strength into the garbage walls and gouging visible dents.

Tenna adjusted his hands, shook some of the debris off his gloves, out of the holes in the fabric, a halfhearted attempt to loosen anything that had gotten stuck into his joints.

His fingers ached.

He couldn't hear anything now, but his antenna had drooped down his face and he didn't have it in him to focus on where anything, anyone was, energy and magic and presence. The house was warm with his exhaled airflow, humid still, too humid, and it was small and confined and a part of him wanted to dig into the rubbish and curl up and just lay there, surrounded by all the junk and trash and garbage that he was very much a part of-

Lingering experience made sure he didn't do that. And the fact that the instant he had hauled himself back up into a stand there was a rush of static noise pressure in his head, shutting off his screen in a pinching pop of static and a shudder of metal scraping to metal as he clung to the walls and ceiling, legs half buckled underneath him.

Slowly, he could feel a drain within him, pain riveting out with each dusty exhale of vented hot air, systems overworked as a faint smell of burning eased out of his head.

Spamton's little healing magic had ended, and he desperately wanted to lay down now.

Tenna's hands dragged over the dirty walls, rough and old and junky but with enough texture to grip onto and simple enough architecture to lead him along. He leaned as he went, hips bumping and pressing against things, keeping his balance as he waved out his third arm and tried to make sure he didn't step on anything - but the way was clear, as always thanks to Spamton's efforts to keep the hall empty (but not clean! His shoes still scuffed against dust, no matter how much cleaning was done, and at this point Tenna couldn't even tell who was shedding it more, him or Spamton), and he shuffled through the extremely short hall and into the space that made up their bedroom.

It was just a bed in a hole of a wall room, a walk in pantry, but little shelves that were more dug in than built littered the walls, single drawers and boxes stuffed with whatever Spamton was inclined to hide away shoved under the broken bed frame and helping keep the mattress up.

He had to take his time to lay himself down, screen flickering with pained irritation, third hand scrabbling limply at his dials to at the very least express himself as he attempted to prevent the bedding from hooking and catching onto him, layered clothes hardly helping at all-

“-n it all to high heaven and high he-”
“-t keep things clean? What you need is a-”
“-s such a piece of utter ███████ ███!”

The censor blared out, Tenna swearing in long notes of unpleasant sound as he had to pause, hissing static as his hand caught into frayed blanket fabric strings - but it only took a moment of silent fuming fumbling to pinch his joints open and get it to release him, and by then he was sitting atop the mattress, antenna lowered as to not brush against the ceiling and wire tail curled to loosely hang off the edge and lay on the floor, before finally laying himself back into a collapse atop the bed.

For all his flashing anger, he brushed one hand up and down the fabric feel of the thick comforter and still wished he could properly lay under it without accidently ripping the darn thing to shreds. Even now his fingers lingered, drifting atop some of the knotted sew work that had already been done to hide previous rips. His metal frame was so damaged now, so sharp and unwelded and jostled on, so hastily thrown together with whatever was laying around that the days of ever snuggling into a bed without a care were now long gone by - and Tenna hated that.

…Even after all this time, the thoughts still made his screen heavy, blur and smudge his already shaky vision of the ceiling. His low volume huffed out static, and he shakily brushed a hand over the cracks of his screen, scrubbed at his nose with a zapping sniffle. He felt like such an idiot, being angry at something as inconsequential as the bed he lay on. He should be more grateful he had one to begin with, and not be stuck outside in the humid chill of Waterfall, unprotected, uncared for, lost and forgotten.

The thought brought back what had happened earlier in the day, and Tenna idly rubbed his trembling hands together, a little too tight and a little too tense. He fiddled with the edges of his gloves, frayed and loose and still quite dirty, and his wobbled cracked face pulled into an even deeper, wobblier frown as he strung his stiff fingers together, ignoring the ache that came with doing so.

He hadn't meant to lose the ring. He hadn't meant to lose the cane either, but that was a molehill to the mountain of a problem Tenna had stupidly fallen into.

He wrung his hands, clinging a little too tightly to where said ring should have been, where it should still be.

It had just been a little walk, just something to do to loosen up his joints - they haven't had a customer in days, no one was going to show up while he was gone, and Spamton was going to be out all day anyway so why wouldn't he have taken some time to take a little walk, relax, try to enjoy the sights, get some fresh air, something, anything to give him a decent distraction-

And not even 10 minutes later his knee had seized and he had stumbled, tripped, and crumbled down into a messy heap, censor curses blaring out of him as he went. By the time he had been able to haul himself up, already on the verge of tears as his stupid limbs trembled and the heavy pressure pain in his head matched beat for aching pulsing beat in his chest, muddy and chilled and jittering in the shakes, Tenna hadn't realized just how close he had been to taking a tumble into one of the deeper, swifter rivers.

When he realized his cane and his ring were gone, as well as some plating of loose metal and even looser screws about his arms and neck and head, Tenna had been close to bursting into frustrated tears.

…Well, maybe he had already been sobbing by then, because he hadn't fallen like that in so long and his sense of balance had been something he took pride in, he had been good at keeping upright - but, that was back then, back under a different light than Waterfalls stars and blue wisp glow, back when he had a job and he had attention and he had purpose.

His already crooked antenna had gotten banged up in the process, sore and bruised and in deeply shaking agony, but the fact that he had lost two of the most important objects he's ever had ended up spurring him on, kept him from retreating back home and to instead pull it together and go find what he had lost.

Spamton had given him both, for different specific reasons but the fact remained that his husband had given him those gifts and Tenna would damn well try to get them back.

Which was why he had that little run in with the human child.

Now, after everything, he was back home with nothing to show for his stupid excuse for fresh air besides not having the little bit of aid he had to get around, and his promise to his little mailman.

He had lost them! He knew he shouldn't have put his ring on the finger with a damaged glove! But he had liked looking at it too much to not! Be! Careful!

Tenna pressed his hands to his screen, forcing himself to not cry. The pressure crinkled ugly against his glass, sharp little pinpricks, numbing pins and needles that spread in dead pixels up and down the slanted sliced crack of his face…and it grounded him just the slightest bit. When he pulled his hands away, let his arms fall limp to the bedding, over the side, the shivery imprint of pain flashed faint static on his face and made his next exhale shuddering and sharp, hot and forceful through his vents.

He wanted to scream, but then he'd have to adjust his volume and find the right channel, and finding one that matched exactly how he felt would be impossible, wouldn't it? He was too tired to even try, and his arms ached too much to move.

Laying here, staring up at the blurry ceiling, feeling his inner workings scrape together with every single breath, Tenna darkened his screen. With the darkness came just the internal (and external!) noises of his body, every creak and grind and drag, drill and slip and numb electric chill, the flow of current, direct and alternate, through the wires and tubings of his very system of being. The thrumming in his head quieted, mixed with the hum of the fans, the low rumble of the outside waterfalls, and for a blessed little while Tenna's focus blurred and his mind drifted into the background.

He imagined, or dreamed, himself to be…somewhere else. A garden, flowers not yet yellow, a grand tree - sunlight from the surface seeping in from far above, the air dry and warm. There was static, in his throat, the sound of a voice that he no longer felt familiarity with nor even quite possessed anymore, what would still hurt him if he tried hard enough to remember - the muffled laughter of children, the deep rumbling chuckles of the Queen and the King, the playful grin of a familiar SOUL side by side as the monster chatted Tenna up over drinks-

Yet, even in these half fuzzy memories that played in the static of his now brightened screen, still lingering even as the color started to seep away and all was black and white and…and dark, shadowy, those suddenly crystal clear whispers still sent an ice cold shudder up his twisted metal spine to mesh with the eternal falling snow in his head.

“ Have you ever thought about a world where everything is exactly the same…

Except you don't exist? “

And then Tenna jolted awake, aware with a shuddering hiss of bursting static, and Spamton's eternally stuck grin leaned into view, a guilty tilt to half hanging jaw and beady eyes.

“SS ORRY TH3RE, C A T H O D E. DDID N'T MEAN TTO W4KE Y Y YU.”

Tenna swept his focus about, antenna swerving as he jerkily half hoisted himself up on his aching elbows, giving his husband an exhausted look over.

“-sounds a lil like “Mmmmm” when-”
“-e doing all fine now I'm sure-” He scrubbed a hand over his screen, crinkling glass as his nose, with a bit of encouragement, began to reform back together again. “-y, that I haven't exactly been doing th-”
“-just means only a lil nap will suffice-”

Slowly he sat himself up, fatigue weighting in on his stiff shoulders, only half trying to not hook against the bedding now. He stretched his arms, his third giving some warning creaks and the popping of the joints sliding and clipping against each other, head hanging low with a static exhale of a sigh.

Little bits and shards of glass glinted as they drifted from his screen, bright flickers of light falling to his lap, dusting him, and Tenna's hands tightened for a moment before shakily relaxing.

Spamton was messing about with shelves and boxes, his hat now missing, probably set aside near the front door, as he focused entirely upon searching through the mess of their bedroom. His little mutters and mumblings eased out from the clacking of his jaw, and Tenna leaned, rested his casing to his third hand, head tilted and stiff shoulders relaxing with the scraping shudder of metal grinding against metal. His tail swung idly side to side from the bed, curling in lazy loops and coiling curls as his mind grew a bit more foggy, drowsy once more with the familiar noises and sounds of his husband about their home.

The dimming of his screen must have caught Spamton's attention, or perhaps he had just found what he was looking for, because Tenna had to pull himself back awake as he was suddenly given undivided, unnervingly staring attention.

“I II I TO0K SO LONG ‘C4USE OF TTHE K I D, NE3DE D TO O SET S0 ME TH I NG S [-tothestraightandnarrow-].” He dumped a few tools and objects onto the bed beside Tenna, rummaging through one last moment before his hands instead turned their attention to laying palms to his casing, coaxing Tenna to lean down. The harmless bullets, spilling from his maw with every expelled word, dusted apart near instantly the moment they brushed up against him. “BUT N0W TH @ I AMM DONE W1TH T HAT…”

Tenna let him tilt his head, stiff wooden hands carefully drawing against some leftover glass, leftover dust that has caught in the edges. A thumb brushed gently against his screen, pausing at the fluff of the static soft texture before carefully hovering over the less damaged parts of his face. One of his own hands found wrist, then pressed his palm to wooden knuckles, and all he could offer in answer was a tired dull static of a hum.

He wished he could get some better rest, but sleep was hard to find these last few months and dreams did nothing for him, no matter how some days he wished for nothing more than to go back to those simpler times and just exist.

Spamton clacked his jaw at him, dark eyes squinted, following along each crack, each scratch, from start to finish and examining them closely. Sometimes his fingers brushed up close, made Tenna force himself not to flinch at the raw unfiltered touch and what his static radiation couldn't soften in the process.

At some point he couldn't help but twine his tail up against his partners side, curling loose and flimsy with the navy jacket sides, then wiggling underneath, warped plug catching against baggy shirt instead-

“I SH0ULDA FIXX E D THIS E4RLIE R, AA ANT. SO ME OF F TTH3 G L U EE HAS MELtED O F F.” And here Spamton leaned back, hand going to pinch at the bridge of his own nose, briefly jostling his glasses with a closed eye sigh. “I'L LL L RE 4P[-applyjuicetoforehead-] AN’ AN' AND THEN YU U U N E E ED TO RE$T.”

For all the seriousness in Spamton's focused tone, Tenna couldn't help but duck his head, press against the hand on his face and static whine out a little giggle. While the words and letters printed in bullets as clear as day, hearing Spamton gurgle and spit up the weirdest choppy sounds always made him feel just the slightest bit hysterical.

Spamton was giving him a look, his dark eyes hung over with exhaustion and his edges going fuzzy with hints of that odd dusting effect - but maybe there was something softer, fonder in there too, and Tenna's tail dutifully slipped away to lay limp on the ground, his head lowering and adjusting his arms to keep a stable perch on the bed.

A hand presented to the middle of his face, palm open, and Tenna gave it a pouted glance before a heavy exhale of hot air huffed from his vents and he tended to his nose, scraping magic and glass very, very carefully as he separated this little part of himself. His husband, for his part, grit his jaw in a thankful smile, beady eyes squinted, and even went as far as to grasp Tenna's hand and press his blocky stiff teeth to gloved fingers, a moment of affection before the monster let go and spun away to tuck the spent glass back into its box.

Tenna's screen flickered, tinted pale and pink at the flutter in his circuits, the lines of his face going wobbly and fond - before he calmed himself, deep gusting inhale of a breath to go steady and ever the good patient.

He stayed still, mindful as his husband then went about and grabbed the makeshift tools, metal bits and plates that had been welded together, and then a tube of “glue”. Whatever it actually was was lost on Tenna - he vaguely remembered Spamton mentioning working on automobiles at some point in the past, however long ago that could have possibly even been - and for the most part the feeling of the resin pressing into the cracks and scratches of his screen wasn't entirely an unpleasant affair. The scraping of the tools Spamton welded was less so, smoothing and packing it in, and he had to fight every flinch that strung up his spine with each rough, practiced motion. His head was tilted, directed around in angles to allow Spamton better access, and the constant stream of mumbling and muttering was a comfort, kept his mind distracted from how fingers brushed and pressed against him, the give of some of the cracks that made his face flicker with the bubble of pressure, heavy and swollen in the casing of his entire head.

It made him a little woozy, fuzzy, and his vision blurred even more, the static numbing parts of his sight before easing into smears that he could barely see through - but his antenna would then dip down and brush against hair, forehead, face, and then a hand when Spamton chattered up a sigh and finally set aside the tube and tools to grant him some MERCY.

By that point it seemed the work was done, his screen oddly tingly and static thick, and Tenna brushed his antenna about the face of his husband, sensing him more thoroughly - his tense hanging jaw with its stringing joint connections, his thinning sparse hair greasy and thin to the touch, painted wooden texture the slightest bit damp with the airs inherent humidity and own sweat. Tenna's tail had coiled up around the other monsters leg, and all three of his hands were clawed tight to the bedding, leaning, almost looming, and he hummed out a thin whine of static, wanting very much to pull his little mailman, his personal little mechanic, up to him, closer to him.

His volume slipped low, a syrupy static quality to it in a purr of channel feedback, the glow tinted faintly pink through the static.

“-s what I wouldn't have wa-”
“-a do what you gotta do, yeah-”
“-yes, right here, right now!”

And then Spamton laughed, a barking cackle that gurgled in his throat, and his hand pat Tenna atop his head.

“EAHAHAHA, GG LAD TO B3 oF ASS IS TANCE, C A T H O D E!”

Then to top it all off he wiggled out of the grip Tenna's tail had him in, easily brushed away Tenna's slow, still shaky hands that had started reaching for him, and, after shoving his jaw up into place with an audible crackle of noise, Spamton gave him a knowing grin.

“Y Y YU YOU NE3D TO TAKE A BrEAK, ANTT T, RE S T AN & P ULL YOUR SE LF B4cK TOGET HER.” He turned and picked up the tools, grabbing for a random cubby box and stuffing them away, before dragging something else out and leaving Tenna to flick his tail in mild offense and try to not visibly pout. When Spamton finished messing around with its cords and digging around the walls, he then set up the lamp, the colored light sharp and at odds with their house's usual lantern lights. “N33D TO GET U SoME R4YS, [-implosionhazard-].”

His clacking impression of an explosion noise did put a smile on Tenna's face, though the static buzzing up in recognition of the constant danger he possessed by just existing chased it away pretty quickly.

With the light jammed into the wall at the bed and tilted directly to the pillows, Tenna got the idea and heaved a heavy static sigh, face wobbling with cracked exaggeration - the tingling felt even weirder with the motion, prickling hot cold all across the inside of his glass - and slowly, carefully laid himself back down. The light on his face wasn't the most pleasant, and he was pretty sure it wasn't exactly healthy either, but Spamton insisted on UV exposure for the process so Tenna would just opt to shut his screen off later.

He did jolt when a hand cupped the sensor of an antenna, Spamton right beside him and the bed now. Stiff fingers dragged down metal, extremely unfair with how quiet he was being, and Tenna folded his three arms atop his chest with a static huff.

“-d so that's where I think you'll-”
“-going off to who knows where-”
“-s it? That's going to trap me here and-”
“-give or take so many hours, you know how it is-” He paused, let the channel linger with near silent volume - the static on the edges of his screen made the tingling smooth into a barely there burning sensation. It was familiar, but not one he especially liked - which was saying something, what with all the maintenance he goes through all the time and just how uncomfortable some of it ended up feeling. “-t that's unless there's a change in the-”
“-you'll tell me if we get those-”
“-s if I make great company, then sure?”

Spamton clacked his jaw a few times till there was an audible clink, let it hang loose for a moment as it sagged, before jamming it back up again with his free hand. His other had drifted down Tenna's antenna and was now fidgeting with the connecting framework, tracing the edges and pressing in swirls about the tiny screws.

“I…I'vE G0T SO ME WOR RK L3FT 2 DO SS T I L L.” His hand drew down to the side of Tenna's head, just lay there a moment before Tenna rose his third arm up and entwined his hand with his husbands, antenna twisting just the slightest bit. “GOT S0ME DE LI VER IESS, SoME TH ING S TO P1CK UPP. SO ME TH1NgS I NE3D TO F IN D TO0.”

Oh. Right.

Tenna had forgotten about all…all that, hadn't he?

His hand tightened, before hurriedly letting go and setting his palm back to his chest, screen going dim. Here he was, basking in the attention of the one viewer he had, he'll ever have really, even expecting more from him - and there was the hanging dark cloud of mistakes, coming right back around because the reason he had to have attention right now was because he had taken a fall today.

Taken two falls. That other one, in front of the kid no less, was inexcusable - he knew better than to push himself like that, damn it all he knew what would happen if he didn't take his time and really think out a game plan, call himself professional and yet he couldn't stick to the same script that he should know by heart by now, and he did, he did know, pretty hard not to when his own fucking body didn't want to work with him if he didn't jump through some stupid hoops each and every time-

The scraping of metal shrieking against metal, nor the pinching of snagged wires and clinched tubing broke his internal spiraling - a firm thump atop his head however, did.

Tenna's screen flickered with static, the burn not triggering any pressure but making his next inhale, exhale puffed and strained, vents creaking at the exchange, and his blurry vision focused onto the face staring down at him.

…Spamton seemed to have grown a fair bit taller since he last glanced at him, his hand now gently rubbing the top of Tenna's head, scraping wood to plastic.

Tenna's antenna curled low, hovered over his own screen as he raised his hands and tried to hide his face, third hand slapping at his dials for a disorienting moment before spitting up the channels.

“-s all ‘sorry, sorry’, always ‘sorry’ with you-”
“-t like you need to worry about th-”
“I've got to hand it to ya, bud, that-”
“-k that everything is under control-”

His joints were stinging, jolts of sharp pain that nailed into the constant aching, his tail coiling in on itself on the floor because he couldn't raise it back up to the bed, the shuddering of the frame matching his own clicking, clacking metal form as he trembled. His very wires were bristling with static discomfort, prickling in how tightly wound up he had gotten as he had shrunk - even his face stung, the burn now less tolerable and crinkling up at the edges as his screen grew heavy with unfocused magic, condensation that bubbled tears and pain stress unheeded.

His hands scrubbed at them, shaking and trying to not scrape at his glass, trying to not ruin the work that had been done on him already, and the pressure in his head was billowing up again, muggy, fuzzy in the static feedback that had clogged up his speakers and overlaid the voices-

“-st ask them to please give up on-”
“-s if I can ignore this and everything else that's going on-”
“-o need all the space, and then-”
“-t you want is top of the line, tip top shape, perfection in every detail-”
“-w, everything changes in no time at all, r-”

He shuttered in an inhale, gusting hot air from his vents as his frame shook, trying and failing to will himself to not cry, not burst into tears at the fact that his actions had consequences.

“-n't believe it but it got lost and I-”
“-start with SPAM for a s-”
“-a ring for our dearly beloved-”
“-s not like I mean't to, I-”
“-st didn't want all that came with-”
“-w it's gone and lost because-”
“-w it's just a ███████ mess I-”
“-d now I-”
“-nd I-”
“-and it's just-”
“-nd I can't-”

Hands took his own, cupped them gently, nudged at his third but didn't force him, and Tenna's speakers spat up a distorted little sob of static noise, garbage noise that made Spamton flinch, his face flicker with that dusty cloud, wave in and out like a tide before the monster snapped himself out of it with a quick shake of his head.

“OI, D0N'T BE GETtING YOUR WW1RES IN TTO A TWI S T. YYOU NE3D UR R E S T.” His hands squeezed Tenna's, firm in their stiff, grainy grip, the fabric of the gloves pinching between wooden joint sockets. “D0N'T BE W0RR ING AB OUT A L L THAT. DON'T. WORRY. IT IS 4LL. OKaY. I'LL H4NDLE IT.”

He clacked his jaw, the glow of Tenna's screen faintly lighting the hints of inner mandible in his maw, flash of bone white before the bullet words obscured them, dripping from his mouth with a dusty exhale when he suddenly leaned in.

“W0N'T N33D TO W A I T FOr M3 LONG E1THER, AANT. R3MEM B ER, REMeMB3R H0W I II KEEP TE LL ING YU AB0UT SCH EDULInG T1ME 4 MAIN TENAN CE BUT W3 NE VeR D0?” His voice was as loud as ever even in the tone of a hush, each bullet bursting in harmless, soundless pops, Tenna's hands twitching slightly as Spamton brushed stiff teeth to frayed gloved fingers. His eyes had hooded, sly and tired, looking up through his enclosed glasses, up at Tenna's static ridden, crooked and cracked and very much glooby face.

“W3LL ANTT T, LO0KS LIKE Y YOUR EQU1PM3NT SCHEdUL3D 4 MEEE SPECIF ICAlaLLY~”

And then Spamton flicked one of his antennae, the ball bearing creaking and wobbling as the monster chuckled out a mildly unhinged sound, pressed so close that his long pale nose nearly brushed up against Tenna's screen. His face glowed brighter pink, flushed offense as he halfheartedly shoved his partner off him, arms folded and face curved into a deep stern frown that definitely didn't twitch and curl at the ends with an ill hidden smile, a pinch of relaxed pain as his perspective corrected, whine of metal scraped to metal as he inadvertently regrew his previous size - his own weak bullet tears dribbled away, just a static sniffle and a last few trembling huffs as Spamton pat the side of his head fondly.

He should have known, really. With the state that he was in, he really should've known that Spamton would…would take care of it. While a part of him prickled with the irritation of not being able to handle his own problems, his own consequences, the other, stronger part of him preened with the knowledge that Spamton would handle it, was going to handle it - was going to take care of it, and him, no matter what it was.

It…it made him feel like he needed to circle around the other monster and never let him go, encage him close to, inside his very chest, SOULs forever conjoined and never, ever splitting apart.

N-not as if he ever could do that, what with how degraded he was - and definitely as if he ever would do so either! That…that would be a little much, Tenna decided, even for him.

His husband did continue to laugh though, chuckles in sporadic exhaled waves, shaking his head as if trying to dismiss the innuendo but not quite able to let it go. He raised a hand to give no signs of offense taken, a little wave and stiff unfurling of fingers, a cheeky scissor motion that made Tenna fume out a gust of hot vented air as his screen darkened in pixelated scarlet pink streaks that distorted oddly with the cracks.

“-t with an ‘oh!’ in front of the cameras-”
“-l that's a big going away gift, with you in-”
“-n that pesky little bugger, that little rat!”

That just made Spamton laugh harder, a last cheeky pat on Tenna's head that Tenna jerkily waved away, volume lowered and forcing static up to hide his blush. The monster backed off, fiddled and adjusted the angle of the UV light one last time, before suddenly bending down and scooping up Tenna's unattended tail.

The way he stroked the cable wire and fingered the plug certainly did not endear him to Tenna, who would've lashed out of his grip had he not known what Spamton was going to do. His cracked face phased through the static in a fanged leer, still unfortunately tinted pink and unable to suppress the glow nor the flutter in his circuits that made his tail coil about fingers and wrist instead.

“-d now selling this limited edition SPAM - with real bacon!”
“-d you just stop messing around and-”
“-do what needs to be done already, how about th-”

“EAHAHA HA! G0T IT, G OT IT! DD ON'T G3T URSELF ALL IN A TIzZY!” Spamton cackled, took even more time with a firm grasp of his hand and an even firmer slide of his palm as he unwound Tenna's coiling tail, before crouching down and digging about underneath the bed. He dragged out a dark chunk of a block, wires twisted about two knobs at the top that connected with a slightly cracked adaptor port of sorts, a haphazard and brute force strung together and welded thing that looked more dangerous than it really was - if one just ignored some of the warped tinted charring that ghosted its exposed copper parts.

After a quick once over, idly fiddling with Tenna's own plug all the while as Tenna folded his arms and stared as stoically as he could up at the ceiling and the UV lights rays, Spamton gave him a light tug and plugged him in.

Old battery charge wasn't exactly equivalent to a complete meal, empty calories and all, but it certainly was something for the emptiness in his wire and tube gut region and Tenna relaxed ever so slightly, circuits flushing with the easy energy. The feeling of being full was a bit hard to come by lately, but as his husband straightened back up with a series of creaking and groaning pops, worn wood ball joints and stiff posture, Tenna reached out a shaky hand and brushed the monsters painted cheek, gloved thumb rubbing against the dull red swirl and surrounding faded pale white.

A hand went and pressed against his knuckles, Spamton tilting his head into the touch and closing his eyes with a sigh, letter bullets slipping and dissolving from his loose jaw as the both of them went silent and still for a few moments.

Then Spamton gently pulled away, Tenna laying his hand back to his chest, static rising and falling in a distorted and heavy heaved sigh - he was exhausted.

It was quiet, listening to the other monster adjust and check up on a few last things, but when Spamton lingered at the crooked excuse of a doorway his attempt at a quiet voice broke through the dimming of Tenna's screen.

“...[-pressf1for-]HELP?” Spamton was looking at him with a soft expression, his stiff motions more hesitant as he caught the spat up bullets in one hand. He seemed just about ready to walk over and offer the faint glowing green to Tenna, jaw wagging in afterthought clacking. “FF0R, FoR AN Y LEFT OV ER P P4IN.”

Tenna raised his hand, palm out, fingers spread in a dismissive wave. His screen rolled with static, waves and bars, before he sluggishly adjusted his dial, channels flashing in static snow melt, pixelated and blobby with his lack of focus - his audio, however, kept stable besides the slight rise and fall of clear quality.

“-t you head out there all alone and without backup-”
“-you've got to really save that for emergencies, you know that r-”

He twisted the dial, stubborn for a moment as he focused-

“-Spam-”

With that he lowered his volume, let the channel fade into obscurity - his husband was quiet, jaw grit up together now, hand still curled about his bullet words.

Then Spamton heaved a sigh, more bullets spilling out, before curling his hand into a tight fist and then shaking off the leftover dust.

Normally Tenna would take up the offering, but…he felt rather at peace at the moment. He wasn't the one going out at such a late, or possibly really early, hour - there usually wasn't much to be wary of out there, but better safe than sorry.

He'd rather Spamton safe over his own mild discomforts, always.

“I I'LL B3 BACK IN A B1T TH EN. SE3 YA, C A T H O D E.”

Tenna gave him a lackluster wave, a static rumble of noise that might have once been an inherent sound of an audience clapping and cheering, and with that Spamton disappeared into the front room, no doubt gathered up his hat and whatever else he wanted to bring, before the scraping clunk of the front door closing announced his departure.

Tenna dulled his screen, before clicking it off with a clunk and light zap of sound in his head, fluctuation of pressure before easing off. He let himself relax, untense as best as he could with stiff cumbersome limbs and the pulsing ache of deep framework pain - feeding off the charge of the battery made him feel a bit better, a lot less strung tight even if it did little to nothing for him otherwise.

He'll be seeing Spamton again in a few hours. His exhaustion dulled the flicker of panic at being left alone, the hefty worry he felt for both of their sakes - but he forced himself to not dwell, forced the shadowy thoughts back and even under the surface once more.

It took some willpower to do so, to distract himself - to distract was his purpose, always his purpose, the entire encompassing sense of his very being in the underground after those terrible wars had trapped them all - but he still had it in him and his electric thoughts slowed, calmed with mock food in his belly and some of his screen pains and worries taken well care of.

So Tenna powered off for the next few hours, and his static dreams were of yellow flowers and bright white and a familiar wooden hand entwined with his as distant sunlight dipped into a warm sunset, so very far, far away.