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Spamton and Tenna stumbled into Tenna's dressing room, hands flying and giggles exchanged. Good shows made for good ratings and good ratings made for happy hosts. Spamton grabbed Tenna's tie and Tenna lifted Spamton up by his waist, leading to the two collapsing onto the couch in a messy pile of laughter.
Tenna sat up and leaned over Spamton, nuzzling his hair and running his hands down Spamton's sides. "You were great out there."
"We were great out there." Spamton reached up to hold Tenna's chassis. The two stared lovingly at each other before collapsing into a fit of laughter again, and Tenna started to pepper kisses all over Spamton's face. Spamton guided Tenna to kiss him on the lips. Playful pecks turned more intentional as hands started roaming more and more.
"You're so good at capturing an audience…" Tenna whispered reverently between kisses.
"Well, you're the one who's 15 feet tall and glowing!"
"Mmn, those stage lights make you look like you're glowing, though…"
Tenna's hands slid under Spamton's shirt, and Spamton's hands mapped out Tenna's chest and arms. It didn't take long for Tenna to be on top of him, holding him close, encapsulating his entire form. He leaned down and kissed Spamton on the lips, tongues intertwining. Tenna loved this, loved when it was just the two of them, loved being the center of Spamton's attention. He'd devour Spamton whole if he could.
And then the switch flipped.
This happened sometimes, Tenna knew. Spamton would freeze up, his face would go pale, and he'd make an excuse to leave the room. Tenna felt it more than he saw it. He pulled away and, sure enough, Spamton had that signature look of nervousness on his face.
"Um. I have to go." His voice was thick.
"Why."
"Wh- What do you mean, why?"
"Why do you have to go now."
Tenna didn't budge. Normally Spamton would slip away at the end of shifts or wrap parties or on slow work days, when nobody particularly needed him, but now, when they were just about to have a beautiful night together? Of course Tenna wasn't happy about that.
Spamton started shaking, his face morphing from normal fear to the face someone would make when they're about to throw up. "Tenna, I really, really have to go." He started trying to shove Tenna off of him. As soon as he realized Tenna wouldn't budge, he instead used his size to his advantage and squirmed out from under him.
"L-look, I'll be back in ten minutes, tops. If I'm not back by then, you can make me work overtime, y-you can cut my pay, you can do anything, okay? I-I just really need to go now." He kissed Tenna goodbye and rushed out of the dressing room as fast as possible.
Tenna huffed and checked his watch, deciding to spend the ten minutes thinking up a proper punishment for Spamton. A pay cut was normally a good idea for Zappers and Pippinses, but he knew Spamton had a habit of scrounging up some extra cash from the most mysterious of places, so that wouldn't work. And even though many people thought Spamton was lazy, he was an impressively hard worker, so overtime wasn't much of a punishment for him as he worked overtime nearly every night. The idea of a sexual punishment crossed his mind, but Tenna never dismissed a thought faster in his life. He would never exploit Spamton's trust and vulnerability like that! If Spamton did like it, then it wouldn't be a punishment at all, and if Spamton didn't like it, then it would be a horrible, disgusting thing to do. The fact that he even thought about doing something like that to someone he loved made him feel sick. He felt himself start to shrink.
Tenna tried to remember the coping strategies he'd learned. Ever since Kris's OCD diagnosis, he'd made sure to put more OCD specials on during the educational segments, which might have helped him more than them. He had to stop dwelling on the thought, that's all! He just needed to think about something else.
Air jail would be a proper punishment for Spamton's tardiness, Tenna figured. It wouldn't hurt Spamton physically at all, but it would definitely wound his pride. Plus, it didn't take very long, and Tenna almost thought it was funny how much Spamton hated it. Tenna grew back to his normal size and smiled at the fact that he had properly distracted himself from his thoughts and now had a punishment for Spamton, before remembering that ten minutes had passed and he was supposed to be angry. Why wasn't Spamton back yet? His regular disappearances usually only lasted a few minutes.
Tenna got up and walked down the hall to Spamton's dressing room. He made sure his fangs were showing and his claws were unsheathed. Despite having calmed down by now, he figured it'd still be good to give Spamton a little scare for ignoring him.
Tenna started by knocking, which was met with no response. He pressed his antennae to the door to check if Spamton was on the phone, but there was no sound coming from the room, not even a whisper. Now he started to feel angry again. What was Spamton ignoring him for if it didn't have to do with his stupid benefactor? He grabbed the doorknob and threw it open, and in retrospect, the door being unlocked should have been his first sign that something was very wrong.
"Oh my God."
On the floor laid Spamton's body. Tenna felt panic fill him as he ran to kneel next to Spamton, shaking his shoulder. "Spam? This isn't funny… Spamton?! Hey, wake up!" The body was completely limp, and he felt… cold. That thought almost sent Tenna spiraling. He checked Spamton's chest and face and nearly cried in relief when he found that Spamton was still breathing, but whatever had made him pass out was still keeping him under. Tenna gathered Spamton in his arms and tried to warm him up as he looked around to see what could have caused this.
Spamton's phone. The receiver of his precious phone had been left dangling, as if he had fallen while taking a call. Once again anger flared in Tenna's systems. He didn't think before grabbing the phone, throwing it on the floor, and stomping on it with all the strength he had.
He half-expected doing that would fix everything, like a fairy tale where the spell would be broken and the prince would awake from his slumber, but nothing happened. Spamton was still asleep, curled up in the crook of his arm, and now there was a smashed rotary phone on the floor.
He looked at the body in his arms and his chest ached. With a sigh, he carried Spamton out of the room. All he could do now was make Spamton comfortable, he supposed. Thank goodness all the other employees had gone home by now.
Tenna didn't live very far away from the studio, so he often walked between the two. He remembered that, the few times Spamton had gone to his house, he preferred to drive. Short legs and blistering cold winds made it an unideal walk for him to say the least. The thought of Spamton's body being even colder made Tenna's stomach flip, so he took off his suit jacket and wrapped Spamton in it before leaving the studio.
When he arrived at home, Tenna carefully laid Spamton on his couch and removed his shoes and jacket. He found Spamton a nice blanket and made sure he was tucked in and comfortable before going straight to bed. Normally he would've wanted to make dinner, or clean, or finish up some scripts, but worry for Spamton killed his motivation to do anything else for the night.
Tenna quickly discovered that he couldn't sleep. His mind kept replaying the sight of Spamton in his dressing room. The sight of his limp, cold body on the hard floor. The face he had made before he left to pick up the phone, the shaking and the fear in his eyes. What if he hadn't been breathing? What if he didn't wake up? Tenna tried to assure himself that everything was fine, that Spamton was safe on the couch and would wake up just fine in the morning, but the anxiety twisted his gut and threatened to swallow him whole. He successfully ignored the fear for a few hours before it got the better of him and he had to get up to check on Spamton.
Spamton wasn't on the couch.
Tenna wanted to scream. The thought crossed his mind that Spamton could have left, and he ran to check the door. Still locked. He sighed at the mild relief and returned to his search. So Spamton was somewhere inside the house, at least. He scrambled between room and room, throwing open closets and cabinets as he went. Spamton was small, and Tenna's house was so big, he could be anywhere! He knew Spamton liked tight, dark spaces, so nowhere could go unsearched!
Eventually he checked the bathroom, and the smell of vomit hit him. This must be where Spamton was, or at least, where he had been. He started by checking under the sink and all the cabinets, and when those were clear, he pulled the shower curtain to the side.
Spamton was sitting in the bathtub. His face was so pale it was practically green, his eyes were glossed over, and the front of his shirt and his chin were covered in bloodsoaked vomit.
"Oh, thank God. Spam, are you there?" Tenna knew that Spamton wasn't always all there, occasionally having lapses in lucidity, as he confessed to Tenna once on a particularly vulnerable late night of drinking and feelings, but he'd never actually seen Spamton during one of his episodes. Spamton kept staring straight ahead.
"He's going to come get me." So not lucid. What in the world was Tenna supposed to do? He wracked his mind for any specials he might have presented on hallucinations or psychosis in the past, but nothing came up. He figured the best course of action would be to stay calm and try to talk him through it. What else could he do?
"It's just me here."
"No, no. I can hear him. I can hear the phone ringing. Fuck, fuck, fuck…" Spamton gripped his hair and tugged hard.
Tenna gently grabbed Spamton's wrists and guided his hands away from his hair, rubbing circles on the insides of his wrists in an attempt to ground him. "We're at my house. It's just us." Questions like what the hell happened? and what did they say to you on the phone? remained unsaid. Right now, he had to stay calm for Spamton's sake.
Spamton started trembling, his chest rising with an unholy mix of hyperventilating and dry heaving. He hiccupped and gagged before throwing up again, this time being more blood than bile.
"Oh! Oh my! You'll be okay, just- Here!" Tenna rushed to grab a towel from the cabinet and started to dab at Spamton's sweaty, teary, bloody face. Spamton panted hard as he looked up and finally saw Tenna.
"T-Tenna…?" His voice was thick and sour. He jolted and backed up as far as he could into the corner of the tub, wrapping his arms around himself protectively. "Nonono, y-you can't be here."
"But I live here-"
If Spamton was trembling before, he was shaking like a leaf in a storm now. He gripped his hair and stood up on barely-stable legs. "I need to go. I need to go home." He stepped out of the bathtub and sped out of the room.
"HEY!" Tenna ran to catch up with him, but he had already reached the front door and fumbled with the lock to get it open. He ran out the door and Tenna chased after him.
Of course, Spamton didn't get far. The piles of snow on the ground reached his waist, and the jolt of adrenaline that allowed him to stand up and run in the first place wasn't doing him any favors now. Tenna found him collapsed in the snow only a few yards away from the house, shivering and choking on dry sobs. "That's no place to lie down!" The joke didn't land at all. Spamton scrambled to make space between them.
"D-don't touch me. Don't even look at me. Go away…"
"Spam, I'm really worried about you." Tenna leaned down to be closer, which made him flinch. "Come back inside. It's cold out here."
The look of pure fear and terror on Spamton's face cemented itself in Tenna's memory. Spamton was many things—anxious, sweaty, and quiet sometimes—but scared? Sure, sometimes before he spoke to his benefactor he'd look nervous, but not like this. Never like this.
Spamton whipped his head around to look behind him before squeezing his eyes shut and smacking his hands over his ears. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to! Please stop! It hurts!" Tenna dropped to his knees in front of Spamton, gently pulling his hands away from his head with one hand and wiping at his tears with the other. It occurred to him that he had never even seen Spamton cry before. Are all his episodes like this? Had he been going through this without help his whole life?
"You're hallucinating."
"No, no, no! Stop it, stop it!"
"I broke your phone."
"-H-huh?"
"It was hurting you! Whoever it is on the other end, your benefactor, they're not trying to help you. I just don't want to see you hurt like that ever again! I love you!"
Spamton wanted to respond. He wanted to scream or swear or talk or hit Tenna or run away or do anything, but it felt like his voice had been stolen. All he could get out were miserable gasps before he threw up again. His head was spinning and the shrill ringtone and incomprehensible whispers in the back of his mind made him feel sick. He could barely comprehend anything in his panic, and he was far past the point of fighting as the world revolved around him and his vision faded to black.
By the time Spamton's swimmy consciousness returned to him again, he found that he had been cleaned up, changed into fresh clothes, and wrapped up in a warm blanket, lying on Tenna's couch. A large hand patted his head.
"Do you feel better now?"
Spamton's mouth felt like it had been sewn shut. He refused to sit up or look at Tenna.
"…Please don't be mad because I broke your phone. You scared the heck outta me when I found you passed out! I just can't stand to see you get hurt! You know it's because I love you. Please don't be mad…"
When Spamton finally looked up, he saw that Tenna had shrunk down with his antennae pinned back, reminiscent of an apologetic dog, as he twiddled his fingers nervously. Honestly, he should have been mad, but at this point he was too emotionally worn down to start screaming at Tenna. His head was still spinning and the ringing that wasn't coming from anywhere in particular refused to stop.
"…He's going to find me. He'll find out what happened and he'll find me. And what he'll do to me then…" All he could think to do was clasp his hands together over his chest and start muttering prayers in a language Tenna couldn't understand.
"I mean, what's the worst he can do?"
"…What."
"I've seen the bar fights you've gotten into, you can really pack a punch! You'd probably win in a fight if it came down to it!"
Spamton slowly sat up. "You're crazy."
"Think about it, I'm on your side too! Two versus one!" Tenna pretended to punch the air and, somehow, despite the circumstances, the absurdity of the situation almost made Spamton laugh. Tenna sat down next to him and put an arm around him. "Everything will be okay! Just, don't keep me in the dark if you're in trouble. You know I love you and I'll help you whenever I can."
Spamton wanted to say something. He wanted to tell Tenna that he was being a fucking idiot, that this wasn't a problem fists could solve. That him being more vulnerable and open would just make everything worse. But… the whole past day had already been so messy, and he was so exhausted. Yelling and fighting seemed like the last thing he wanted to do now, he just wanted to lie down with his partner and pretend like nothing was wrong. "…Yeah, okay. You're still crazy, though." Tenna smiled and hugged him properly.
The ringing, that horrible ringtone he'd been hearing since that awful call, finally went silent.