Work Text:
It had been a particularly bad show that day.
If you asked Ramb, he’d say the quality of TV Time had been on a steady downward spiral for years, but this one was bad even for modern standards. Scripts were subpar with even worse improv, cues were missed, sets were unfinished, and just about everyone involved seemed unhappy with the finished product.
His thick costume weighed heavily. He wasn’t exactly Ramb at the moment.
He was Mike, Tenna’s faithful assistant, always there to lend a helping hand, a listening ear, or a word of encouragement. At least, that’s what Battat thought he should be.
If Mike saw Tenna smoking alone on the balcony overlooking the Cold Place, he would go up and talk to him. He’d shower him with praise and flattery until the glooby CRT was too big to fit on the deck safely. Ramb didn’t know if he had that in him. It was really only because his newfound friends had put their faith in him that he even bothered giving it a shot.
Ramb Mike knocked on the doorway leading to the balcony but let himself in anyway.
“That isn’t exactly family friendly, you know.” He chided, reaching into his pocket to pull out a cigarette of his own.
Tenna glanced down at Mike and chuckled dryly. “Hello to you too.” He greeted, and held the tip of his own cigarette up to Mike’s until both were lit.
Mike joined Tenna in leaning over the railing as they smoked. The silence was thick and heavy, and he already regretted this entire arrangement. Maybe he should excuse himself and let Battat take over. He was always better at this sort of thing.
“I hope you know I can tell when you’re staring, even without eyes.”
Tenna flushed, his antennae pointedly turned in the opposite direction. “Ah. Sorry. It’s just… I thought you would have said something by now.”
Mike tilted his head.
“About the show. It was terrible, and everyone knows it.” He sighed. “In this new form of yours, you’re a lot more likely to tell me when I’m doing something wrong, and you haven’t.”
Odd. That wasn’t what Mike had been expecting at all.
“I could, if you want.” He said, after a moment. It would be easy, too. Criticisms of TV Time (and Tenna himself) were practically his bread and butter.
Tenna shook his head. “No, no, I don’t think there’s anything you could say that I haven’t thought already. I’m losing my touch. Everything’s gone downhill since… since he left.”
It was immediately apparent who Tenna was referring to. Everything seemed to tie back to him in some way or another, but no one ever seemed willing to talk about it, least of all Tenna. His existence was almost entirely scrubbed from the records, and only those who knew where to look could find the small traces of him that were left behind.
“You miss him.” Mike stated, plainly.
Tenna looked surprised at that. “I do.”
The silence dragged on for a moment, and Mike thought that would be the end of the conversation, but Tenna continued.
“I was surprised when you started badmouthing him. It was strange. You disappear for ages and suddenly you return and now every time I mention him you go on and on about how he must have been stupid to abandon me. It’s funny. You two were so close. I thought, when I couldn’t find you the day after it happened, that you had left with him.”
Battat’s doing, he thought. Mike hardly blamed the little bugger. He didn’t arrive in TV World until long after their falling out, so there was no way for the Pippins to know enough about their relationship to do anything other than spout platitudes. He doubted Battat even knew his name.
Tenna took a long drag from his cig. “I thought you must have been holding out on me, just pretending to hate him so you could hide how angry you were at me for driving him away.”
Ramb Mike gripped the balcony a little tighter. Suddenly, the snowy wastes looked very interesting.
“He was my best friend.” He said, finally.
“At least, I thought he was, until he left without a word. All those years together, and it was over in a day. Heh.” He was getting dangerously personal, but for some reason, it felt oddly good to get it off his chest. “There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t miss him. That I don’t wish things could go back to how they were before. In the end, though, it was his choice to leave, and my choice to stick around. Nothing anyone can do about it.”
“You should be angry.”
“At who?”
“Me, for not going after him. Or him, for leaving. Or anyone, really. I am. The fact that there’s nothing anyone can do about it is the problem, Mike.” Tenna’s claws pressed against his gloves for a moment, before retracting. He got a little smaller. “I think I…” Tenna hesitated, and if Mike was as well-read on the CRT’s expressions as he thought he was, he’d say he looked pensive. “I think I took it out on that old bartender. Ramb.”
Oh. This was not a conversation he was prepared for. His costume suddenly felt unbearably tight and stuffy, and it took a conscious effort to stop his paws from shaking.
Despite all of his silent prayers to the Angel above, Tenna kept talking. “They were friends before he moved here, I think. And I think I resented that. That he was here and… and Spamton wasn’t. And now? I think I regret it. He’s gone now, though. Probably petrified out in wastes. And I know it’s my fault. Just like it was my fault Spamton left.”
Ramb felt sick to his stomach.
“I just keep thinking. We could have helped each other. Maybe we could have been friends. I just keep pushing everyone away. I guess I’m scared that one day I’ll go too far, and then you’ll leave too.” Tenna finished.
If he were Battat, he’d jump straight to reassurances that he would always be by Tenna’s side, through thick and thin. But Tenna didn’t need to hear that, and Ramb knew that coming from his mouth it would be a lie.
Instead, he let out a puff of smoke and stated, “I don’t doubt that. You’re a real piece of work, I’ll tell you that.”
He held up a finger before Tenna could interject. “But I am, too, and so was Spamton, and so is everyone else. It’s practically a requirement to be employed here. You don’t get to lay down and wallow because you don’t always act like a good person. Nothing would ever get done that way.”
Ramb flicked the butt of his cigarette off the balcony and watched it float away in the wind. “If you really regret the way you treated that bartender, then treat everyone else here the way you wish you had treated him. I know you’re capable of it. You’ve got a good head on your shoulders deep down, and until you’re a snow-covered statue in the wastes, you’ve got no excuse not to use it.” He shrugged. “You do that, and I’ll have no reason to leave.”
Ramb half expected Tenna to grow twice his size and claw straight through him for that sort of remark, but to his surprise, he just smiled. “You know, I wasn’t so sure about it at first, but I think this new form of yours is growing on me.”
Despite everything, Ramb found himself smiling under his mask.