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Typically, kids were bad gift-givers.
That's just how kids were, in Spamton's humble opinion, from his grand total of zero interactions with any children at all in his entire lifetime of experience. Which meant that no kids frequented his shop, and therefore they must have terrible tastes in gifts, if they didn't intend to purchase his Quality Items.
After the Lightners, however, Spamton found himself reevaluating his assumptions. Because no sooner did he plop into Castletown did the kids offer him the best two gifts of his life.
First was Mr. Ant Tenna. Despite the mess with the Knight and the snow and the [CLEAVED RED BY BLADE] just a few hours ago, Tenna seemed remarkably steady finding his footing in the town proper.
That gift hadn't just been for Spamton, of course. Susie made a promise, and she damn well kept her promises. But judging by Kris's weighty stare, they'd done it, at least in part, with their good pal Spamton in mind.
Still, if it didn't count as a present, the second one surely did.
Because Kris, crazy loveable [$/@.$] they were, also brought back the NEO body.
"It was in the computer room," they mumbled, over Ralsei's scolding and Spamton's incoherent shrieks of joy. The purple girl seemed torn between howling with laughter and threatening Spamton within an inch of his life, so he did what any good salesman did when they closed a deal.
While the getting was good, he got the hell out of dodge.
He had two new presents to play with. It'd be ungrateful of him to let 'em collect dust.
So, with a bit of magical transformation and a new pair of giant wings, Spamton NEO booked it to the TV Studio.
---
As it turns out, the arrival of a giant, neon, winged puppet-monster crashing through the windows of the Studio was enough to send the stage crew into a panic.
Who could have guessed?
"[Pardon me], EVERYBODY!" Spamton NEO cackled. It was amusing to watch the pippins scatter everywhere as he swung his cannon arm. Less so when the Zappers came barreling in to tackle him, but luckily, this new form could go airborn. A few flaps of his wings sent every Zapper and Shadowman hurtling to the ground. "JUST LOOKIN FOR MY [lucky break]! DO YOU [I neeeed it!] ANY NEW [Talent Show, 4 PM] AROUND HERE? HEAHAEHAE!"
Of course, the fun couldn't last forever. As much as he enjoyed terrorizing the masses, he had a destination in mind already.
With one more well-timed swoop to send the darkners flying, Spamton launched into the air and barreled down the hall. Some spoilsport behind him must have sounded an alarm, but it seemed to make everyone evacuate instead of chase him, so Spamton ignored the blaring noise as he threw open the doors.
The layout of the hallway was different than the old studio - oh, he was sure Ant hated that - but it only took him a few minutes of breaking down doors to locate the room he was after.
'Mr. Ant Tenna's Dressing Room'
Bingo. Spamton flung his cannon arm, grinned, and opened fire. The wood splintered in an instant, leaving nothing between Spamton and his sweet, sweet revenge.
"OH [Cathode]!" Spamton sing-songed, prowling inside the darkened room with a predator's grace. His yellow-and-pink eyes cut through the shadows, giving everything an eery glow. "COME OUT, COME OUT, WHEREVER YOU AREEAAAAAAA-"
A few things happened in quick succession. First, the lights burst to life, blindingly bright against his unsuspecting eyes. Second, the set around them collapsed, revealing not an unwitting Ant's dressing room, but the giant TV Time stage.
And lastly, while Spamton was still reeling in pain and shock,
a giant f$&/!ing Gacha Ball closed around him.
Suddenly, the gangly limbs Spamton was only half-used-to were cramped into him. As big as the plastic ball was, he barely had enough space to move the wings squished against his hard metal plating. The cannon scraped the clear plastic as he tried to shift enough to fire, only for Spamton to wobble desperately for balance as the entire thing rolled with his movement.
And in the middle of his growing mortification and rage, came the painfully familiar voice behind him.
"Looks like we've caught our rat, folks!" From the corner of his vision, Spamton could see a bright red figure push aside the curtains he'd hidden in. Even with the stage empty, he still offered an aside to the nonexistent audience. "Though I've never seen a pest quite so big before! We'll have to invest in some jumbo sticky traps!"
Screw it. Throwing caution to the wind, Spamton launched himself at Tenna. It succeeded in whirling his prison around and throwing him completely off balance, but his momentum was cut off by a pair of white gloves slamming the ball to a halt.
"Look pal, we cut the budget on horror movies when the Holiday girls stopped coming by." Tenna huffed, glooby and irritable in the same breath. "So if you're looking for auditions, you're flat outta luck. I don't have time for this today."
Despite his ire, his pristine suit and tie were as sharp as ever, his screen bright, his posture perfect. He was exactly the man Spamton remembered.
Handsome.
No! Stop it! He wasn't - they weren't doing this again! They'd learned their lesson ten years ago.
Even if those fangs were still the sexiest things he'd ever seen.
Say something, idiot! Spamton fought for control of his mouth, to do anything beyond gawking.
"N0 [time management skills] FOR [Miitopia]?" he repeated stupidly. His idiocy was rewarded by Tenna's fanged grin, closer to a snarl in shape.
"I've got a minute for fans, a moment for crew, and no time for the likes of a jerk like you," Tenna snapped. His height kicked up another few feet, letting him tower over the trapped NEO. His claws popped through the gloves, scraping along the clear container.
[Hochi Mama].
It should have pissed Spamton off, being dismissed so quickly. Instead, he found it intoxicating that Tenna's catty, snippy self hadn't changed a bit.
"Oh YE@H?" Spamton answered, only a few beats too late to be natural. "W3LL, I KNOW [somebody? anybody?] YOU'LL HAVE [infinity plus one] TIME FOR!!"
At least, he hoped so.
Tenna seemed similarly confused. "What? Who are you talking about?"
Well. Moment of truth, then. The wings flared behind him instinctively, the way his old popup ads once might have, and beat against the curved walls in anticipation.
"WHY. [#1 Rated Salesman 1997] S;PAMT0N G SP&MTON, OF [coarse]!"
Silence. Spamton felt his grin strain, wondering just how badly he'd messed this up-
Quick as a whip, Tenna popped the lid of the ball. He snatched Spamton by the back of the neck and yanked him out, letting him dangle from giant, too-sharp hands. Only then did he lean down and snarl in his face.
"Where. Is. He."
Spamton made a completely dignified noise that did not sound like a dying velociraptor. "WHAT YHE ¥£{¥ ARE YOU [walky talky] ABOUT, [the idiot box is back in style]?!"
"Spamton! You know him!" Tenna barked. Spamton felt his eyes widen as Tenna's expression twisted in grief and anger. "But - but no one in town has seen him!" He was visibly trying to keep up the scary facade, but it was undercut immensely by the tears streaming down his screen. "What did you do with him?! Where is he?!"
What did I - wait, does he really think - ?
"WAIT, WA;IT -"
The hands gripping Spamton's shoulders were steadily shrinking, until they were more clinging desperately than restraining. Spamton could feel his jaw dropping as Tenna worked himself up further. In all their time working together, he'd seen many a Tenna breakdown, but never anything like... this. Not watching him growl and flinch and shake and sob with genuine fear.
It would be easy to break Tenna's hold on him, and maybe shatter that cathode screen to boot.
Instead, he found himself dropping to his knees, just to be closer to him. Those feathery arms closed around Tenna and held tight.
"Please," Tenna said, tiny voice shaking nearly as hard as his body was. "Please don't hurt him. Please - please don't -"
"[Tens place]," Spamton Neo said, and winced at the interruptions. "[Tennis rackets for sale]. T-T-[10% Off]-" His glitches threatened to make a reappearance, and Spamton whacked the side of his head to fight them down. Tenna jumped in response, growing a few inches in alarm.
"Wh- what are you doing?" he asked as he scrubbed at his screen. There was obvious hesitance in his face, but he only gave a half-hearted push to escape the odd pseudo-embrace. Spamton's hands tightened just a little instinctively.
C'mon, concentrate. He just needed that old nickname, just needed to say-
"Tens." It was in his old voice, the exact tone he'd used way back when between shows and after hours.
Tenna froze, his antennas locked in place. Painfully slowly, he tipped his head back until the little black screen came into view.
"Spamton."
"[It's me.]!" Spamton couldn't help his puff of pride - he hardly looked the same anymore, with this new body and his new lease on life.
"Spamton."
A tiny voice whispered a warning, as Tenna stepped away. His screen clicked on, but with no expression at all.
Oh, Spamton realized belatedly. He'd been so busy being angry with Tenna that he hadn't considered-
All at once, Tenna exploded. He shot straight over his usual 15 foot size, fangs bared and claws out, until he nearly filled the stage.
maybe Tenna might be angry, too.
"Spamton!"
Oh [Google Translate: scheisse].
With a very manly, dignified, not-girlish scream of terror, Spamton scrambled away. His wings fluffed out to bat Tenna back, and only barely retrieved them in time to keep from being snatched.
"WHY YOU LITTLE-" Tenna darted after him, right on his heels. "SPAMTON G. SPAMTON, YOU GET BACK HERE!"
His answer was a face-ful of Pipis, fired in a panic. Spamton couldn't even say it was funny, because when he wiped away the goopy clam-remains, for the first time in Spamton's memory, Tenna's screen was tinted bloody, fiery, furious red.
[Foxtrot, Uniform, Charlie, Kilo].
---
By the time their Looney-Tunes-esque chase sequence ended, there wasn't much left of the grand stage. The floorboards were pried up, the curtains were shredded. Even the two actors had collapsed in panting, exhausted heaps.
And if those heaps were close enough to bump shoulders, well - Spamton was too stubborn to move away first, that was all. Nobody made Spamton G Spamton budge over if he didn't want to.
No matter how many times their hands brushed together.
Between picking out star projectiles from his metal body - they didn't do much damage, actually, but Angel did he look like a pincushion - Spamton snuck glances at Tenna.
Tenna, who hadn't changed a bit since his days on air. Unlike Spamton, who'd gone through at least three bodies in the last ten years.
Tenna's screen was dim with his drained battery, and his bright red suit was now a dull, sopping purple from all the exploding pipis, no matter how many times he kept trying to wipe it off. His tail had gotten loose sometime during the chase, and both it and his antennas were dragged down with that same tiredness.
But still, when he risked a look at Spamton and their gazes met, he didn't back down.
So they stared at each other. In their wreckage of the studio and their partnership and their lives, they waited.
"Spamton," Tenna said at last. The tone was scarily similar to the blank one from earlier. There was a terrifying, exhilarating moment where Spamton wondered if they were about to go for Round Two, before Tenna sighed and added, "Gosh. You haven't changed a bit."
"EX[squeeze] ME?!" Spamton said, with great offense. He gestured to himself wildly. "WHAT DO YOU [Better Call S-] TH;S THEN?! MY [Battle Ready Bod]? MY [puppet strings]? IVE CHANGED, [beaver dam] IT!"
It took him a few extra seconds of fuming to realize that Tenna had turned away. But he could see the others shoulders hitching, a hand over his mouth. Was he... crying? But then his tail wagged, and oh my god-
"LAUGHING?!" Spamton shrieked, outraged. "YOURE [laugh it up]?! AT ME?!"
"I can't help it!" Tenna said. He faced Spamton again, grinning full-force now, and Spamton's thoughts of lunging at him took an entirely different twist at the light pink dusting on his screen. "You're just... you! Even when you're scaring my employees and sneaking around backstage and being an absolute pain in the rump, you're still the same man I knew."
His head tilted, framing that smile with a glow that had always been so heavenly. "I missed you, Spamton."
Honestly, Spamton wasn't quite sure what possessed him to do it. He'd stormed the building earlier with the loose goal of making the CRT pay, and Tenna had clearly intended some sort of revenge of his own.
But then again, Spamton had never been one of following plans, had he?
So really? It shouldn't have been a shock to either of them when Spamton snagged Tenna by the tie and yanked him in for a kiss.
The best advantage to the NEO body was definitely the height. Never before had he been able to simply hold Tenna, to stroke his antennas, to meet him in every way so easily. When Tenna pulled away, flushed red, Spamton only had to lean forward to chase his lips again.
It was perfect. Even more than moving to Castletown, even more than getting the NEO body back, even more than crashing the studio -
Kissing Tenna felt like coming home.
A few hours into their reunion - Spamton was hardly keeping track - Tenna sat bolt upright.
"Spammy, as much as I love the stage, maybe we can take this somewhere more... private," Tenna said, unusually shy. "I, uh, doubt we want an audience for this performance."
Just the thought had Spamton's hackles rising. His wings snapped open and flush around them both, pulling Tenna impossibly closer and blocking them from view.
No one else would get to see his cathode like this. That was a specil deal for Spamton G Spamton only, thank you very much, and he knew for a fact that the Neo body could handle some bodily harm to keep it that way.
"Lucky for us, someone scared off the crew." Tenna's wandering hands were, of course, as distracting as ever. It was all Spamton could do to try focusing on the words coming out of his mouth rather than the trails of goosebumps down his abdomen. "And the kids called to warn me about the 'NEO monster' coming to the studio, so they know to stay away."
Ah. Smart kids, and also sellouts. He'd have to give them a gift of his own the next time they crossed paths.
Which, judging by Tenna's grip on his waist - and the steady, low chant of 'mine mine Mine MINE' building in the back of Spamton's head - wouldn't be for a few days, at least.
So he was free to stand, heft Tenna into his arms, and march his way back where they came from.
"THIS TIME," Spamton started, unable to ignore the hearts in his eyes, reflected back on Tenna's screen, "YOU'D BETTER [show me the goods!] YOUR REAL DRESSING ROOM."
Tenna's answering laughter echoed all the way down the hall.