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Every big, bad, large-and-in-charge boss had A Guy.
It was common knowledge, really. A universal cliché. When a movie or show had a character who was ‘the boss’, there was always the right-hand man. Not a henchman. Henchmen were a dime a dozen and were often there to be goofy and kind of bumbling, in a fond and kind of annoying, endearing way. The right-hand man was serious. You respected the boss’s guy in the same way you respected the boss himself, because in some ways, the guy was an extension of the big boss. The boss could be any sort of boss. A crime lord, a syndicate mafia leader. No matter what kind of boss he was, he had a guy who he went to whenever he needed something done that no one else could do, or when he needed advice nobody else could give.
Or so it was understood to be as such by a, at the time, seven year old Kris Dreemurr.
On the other side of light and dark, in a brightly lit studio built atop a field of endless snow beneath a black sky of icy stars, this understanding had a name: Mike. Michael Phone, if things were serious.
Things were serious at the moment. Tenna sat at the desk with his head in his hands. His fingers curled into claws against his screen, while his cord tail lashed anxiously as he tapped his foot restlessly against the floor.
Next to his side vent, just barely out of view, a soft voice whispered cautiously. “Don’t do it, Boss. It ain’t gonna turn out well for either of ya. I’m tellin’ you, Tens, this is a bad BAD idea.”
“How can you be so sure though, Mike?!” Tenna whipped his head up away from the contract. As he turned his screen towards Mike, the guy-shaped haze of not-light leaned closer.
A hand reached out to cup the side of his screen. A hand that had no features that Tenna could put into words. It was a hand, with a palm and fingers and a wrist, but beyond that, he couldn’t grasp its size, the shade of its color, nor the texture of it where it touched the metal and glass of his body. It was merely a hand: a gentle yet firm one at that.
“I just gotta hunch,” Mike said, “and my hunches ain’t ever led us wrong before, have they?”
“No,” Tenna agreed. He looked back down at the paper. One of his gloved hands came to rest atop the desk beside it. Another featureless hand settled atop of it, in turn. “No, they haven’t, Mike. It’s just…”
Mike knew.
Mike knew damn well what made this contract so important.
Beyond these walls, beyond the snow, past the veil between fantasy and reality, there was a tension in the Dreemurr household. It was quiet, but he could feel it in the air. From his perch in the living room he sensed the stirrings through the sounds of heavy footsteps upstairs. A door slammed.
Mike noticed and inched closer when Tenna flinched. Smaller, lighter footsteps were fast approaching.
“If I can just get him to sign and get him to tell me how to make it big, Mike…” His static crackled. His voice thinned and wobbled.
“There’s other ways to make it big, Boss. There’s other ways to help. We can figure it out without him, I know we can. We can figure something out where nobody has to get hurt.”
But did they have the time to figure out something else? Did Kris have the time? They were here, now, already searching around the couch for the remote. He watched them scramble while they trembled. Meanwhile, upstairs, the shouting was already starting up. Who started it this time? What was it that got them going this time around? Why, why, why? And after the dinnertime show went so well, too-!
“They’re fighting again, Mike.”
“I know. I know. Hey, hey. Look at me. Eyes on me, Boss.”
“Mike. Mike, I can’t. I can’t make it stop.”
“We’ll get through this. It’ll be okay.”
“When? Soon?”
“Sooner than never.” He sounded so certain. His voice, however comforting, was drowned out by the fury that raged and stormed above.
“But- but Kris-! They can’t wait- I can’t make them sit and wait through this, Mike. I can’t. I can’t,” he said. What he felt and thought was, “I can’t sit and wait through this.” And Mike knew. Mike always knew.
Tenna barely registered when he was powered on. Tiny, trembling hands fumbled with the remote. In the Light World, he shifted through the channels, before Kris set the remote on the stand once they found the one that had cartoons going this late at night. Asriel was over at a friend’s house. He’d left hours ago without much beyond a few words to Toriel, shortly before Asgore walked in from his shift.
Lucky, Tenna thought with a tinge of bitterness that frankly horrified him. How dare he, how could he?
He only felt worse when Kris pressed their forehead against his screen. Mike noticed and moved to have his hand on his shoulder. Tenna’s claws once again came to his screen. He leaned forward in a vain, stupid attempt to return the gesture, but on Kris’ side of existence, all he did was buzz and crackle. His speakers strained at this volume, but he didn’t care. As long as Kris didn’t have to hear, he didn’t care.
His knees locked together under the desk. His spine went rigid. He trembled and whined into his palms. Stop it, stop it, stop it. Can’t you both wait until tomorrow for all of this? Can’t you let Kris get some sleep? Why do you always do this when it’s just them around? Why are you fighting? Don’t you love each other? Don’t you remember how nice it all used to be?
If he was just more, he could fix it. If he could just get a few new tricks and some inside tips from his partner, he could fix all of it. He’d set the record straight. He’d get the family back together and remind them how silly it was, fighting and aching all the time, when what everyone needed was to sit and bask in his glow and remember how good things were when things were before…
…
…he just needed to learn the secret. The secret to success. How did he do it? Those numbers, those deals, those ‘clicks’. What were clicks? Would clicks help his family? Did Tenna need clicks to make them happy again? If he could figure out this ‘email’ thing his little mailman talked about so much, would that make him big enough to reach out and hold Kris close? Wipe their tears, kiss their head, and carry them back upstairs to their bedroom, where he’d tuck them in before he went to Toriel and Asgore and helped them talk it out, rather than scream?!
“Mike,” Tenna cried meekly, “Mike, Mike, I can’t do it. I- I c- Kris can’t wait for us to figure something else out.” He bolted from the chair and darted towards the door.
Behind him, Mike hollered out frantically, “Boss, Boss! BOSS, DON’T. Boss, I’m telling you, it’s a BAD IDEA! DON’T-!!”
But Tenna didn’t listen. And he didn’t look back.
~~~
Kris was about halfway certain that their Uncle Tenna’s creepy ex was stalking them.
It started out small. They brushed it off at first as their own imagination, or a trick of the twilight. They caught glimpses of movement in the corner of their eyes on the way to school, or sometimes when they were out with Susie and Ralsei, or when they walked home after a day visiting Castle Town. When the sun started to set and the shadows grew long, they swore they saw someone watching them from their periphery. Just out of view. Behind a tree, or around the corner near the side of a house.
The only person they could think of that would do something like that was the mailman. They had to assume that it was him, because it started when they started to visit Tenna not too long after the world ended and the Angel was finally banished.
Did he miss being in their pocket?
So did Lancer, but at least the little spade asked whenever he wanted some pocket time.
The thing that made them doubt it was the mailman was the little…nudges.
One day, they’d been close to running late to school because they couldn’t find their backpack. Then, just as they were about to give up and come up with an excuse to get out of class for the day, they walked back into their bedroom, and there it was. Their backpack was right there on the bed. They had torn that bed up and pulled everything out from beneath it about five times over, yet when they found it there, it sat upright on top of neatly made covers and folded blankets.
Then, not a few days later, in class, they dropped their (okay, it was Noelle’s, but-) pencil.
When they reached down to pick it up…someone passed it to them. They looked down and just barely missed the shadow as it scurried out of view.
Helpful. The mailman was many things. Helpful was not among them.
So who the hell is it?!
They had half a mind to talk to someone about it. The other half of their mind was more annoyed than freaked out, and also didn’t want to risk bothering Tenna. His whole thing with the mailman was really messy and complicated and frankly kind of gross, and the more they thought about it, the less Kris wanted to bring it up. If they ignored him, he’d get bored, and eventually he’d go and stalk someone else, right?
And if it wasn’t the mailman, then whoever it was would get the memo eventually and screw off, right?
They certainly thought so for a while. That was until they awoke one night while staying over at the castle to see a figure standing directly over them.
Oh fuck, they thought.
Kris opened their mouth. To yell? To scream? They really weren’t quite sure themself. They were laying on their back on top of Tenna’s chest. The giant Darkner slept with his hands clasped together over them, meaning that their arms were currently pinned to their sides. Underneath them they heard the steady thrum of static as it coursed through Tenna’s system.
Above them, the figure stared. In the room’s hazy shadows, Kris couldn’t make out the details. There was a head and a neck that led down to a pair of shoulders, but beyond that, all they could be certain of was that this was a person of sorts…or maybe it was a person-shaped shadow? But not a Shadowguy. Shadowguys weren’t this quiet.
It also didn’t have a nose.
This was not the mailman.
When they opened their mouth, whatever it was, it raised a hand to press a finger to its lips. Their brow furrowed.
“You left this in class,” a voice said hushly. A hand appeared. Kris knew it was a hand, because it had fingers and an outstretched palm. But they looked and they looked and they looked, and still, all they could be certain of was that it was a hand. But whose? It was too hazy to be sure.
It held out a shiny plastic ring. Kris blinked when they recognized it as the purple one Susie had gifted them the other day. It was a bit too big for their slender human fingers, so it slipped off sometimes if they weren’t paying attention.
Kris lifted their eyes from the person’s palm to stare back up at their face. Eyes…nose…mouth…but the details were garbled. It was like their brain refused to piece it all together.
“I’ll leave it over here on the nightstand. Didn’t mean to wake ya, kid. My bad.”
As they turned, Kris sensed the impression of a smile. The figure laughed warmly. “Hehe, oh, you probably think you’re dreaming, huh? That’s fine…for the best, really!”
Kris wasn’t sure what exactly it was that they were staring at, but they were pretty damn certain that they were wide, wide awake.
“Who…who’re you…?” They rasped quietly.
“No one important. Go back to bed, hon.”
Okay. Now they were annoyed. Who was this, and why did they have a face that didn’t make sense?
Kris shook their head. “What’s your name?” Their voice cracked. They coughed, and felt Tenna shift slightly underneath them. His fingers twitched while something within his system thrummed at a higher register, before it slowly fell back into a low, rhythmic hum.
“Ah-haaa, hey. Can I get ya some water? For your throat, I mean…?”
“N…name…?” They coughed again. Their throat was dry, but they were kind of more focused on the weird person-shaped thing that was dodging their questions. “Wh…who…?”
“Ssssh, ssssh, kid. It’s alright. Just keep your voice down, yeah, while we get that frog in your throat sorted. Don’t wanna wake the boss uh, eh? That would be-”
Boss. Tenna?
…wait…
Kris slowly, slowly turned their head over to look at the figure directly. They- he- stood hunched over the nightstand. The ring now rested on top near a shaded lamp. The shadowed creature stared back with eyes that lacked any and all features beyond being, simply, eyes. Though despite this lack of form, Kris knew damn well that those eyes were wide, wide, wide with growing terror.
“...M…Mi-”
He started to shake his head. “No, no. Back to bed, c’mon, work with me here-”
He waved his hands in front of him in a frantic, pleading motion. He leaned back, as though to make an escape.
Kris inhaled. And then, they screamed. It wasn’t a real scream. It was more of a really high-pitched, thin, airy whispery whistle. Like steam coming out of a kettle, but much, much quieter.
It was more than enough to get Tenna up, though! The moment the TV bolted to sit upright, the lamp flicked on along with the white glow of his screen. As Kris was bundled tightly against his chest with one talon, the other lunged forward in a white-red blur towards the shadowy figure. They heard the voice yelp. Tenna’s static sputtered darkly.
“Who the hell do you think you a-”
He froze with a record scratch-punctuated twitch of one of his antennas.
“...Mike…?”
“Eh…heh…hey, Tens…long time no see, ey?” Kris felt eyes land on them. They shrugged under the weight of the weary, worn stare. “Oh, kiddo…” In the light, they saw, or rather tried to see, Mike as the rough estimate of what he was: a mass of arms and helpful hands. His head poked out from the top of Tenna's now loosened fist. He stared up at the cathode, who stared back with his mouth wide, wide agape.
Kris just shrugged. Mike rolled eyes that made no sense.