Chapter Text
Well, while he was technically dead, he had some time to think about how this all went down.
Of course he had known. Mike had been an ongoing joke with Spamton, a reference to the big man up the phone line without directly invoking him. It had always been playing with fire, referring to Mike, but when Spamton left, he kept appealing to it, begging Mike to still look down, still have pity on him, please. He could grovel, he could beg, just please send a sign that you're listening. When “Mike” first showed up, he assumed it was some elaborate prank, but was so thrilled by the novelty of it that he played along, even with the expectation that the rug would be pulled out from under him at any moment. He was so low at that point he would have accepted laughter at his expense if it meant people stopped giving him a wide berth everywhere he went.
But “Mike” never dropped the act. Mike kept doing whatever he asked for, whenever he asked for it, far beyond the point of absurdity. Honestly, he had this guy reading him bedtime stories and tucking him in, and he just did it! The only question he asked was what book he wanted read! Someone had figured out the fastest way to Tenna’s heart (figuratively, of course, since he lacked one) and while he swore he wouldn't fall in love again, new Mike was just so, so wonderful that he just…never bothered asking what the deal was.
Then Mike became one of three. The explanation given about him being a shapeshifter but only when dysphoria kicked in was plainly and obviously ridiculous, but it was given with a strange earnestness, like the first of the Mike trio was so desperate for him to believe it, so he shrugged and went with it. One didn’t get this good at acting without knowing the first thing about yes-and, after all. The cowboy was obviously just a Zapper with a hat; they tried their best to do the accent the first Mike had, but clearly weren't very good at it. The cat was clearly a shadowguy, since his purring was really just a low note trill. That meant the first one, who was way smaller than the other two, had to be…
Look, he didn't like Pippins, and they didn't really like him, but it had to be a Pippins, right? Because the idea of a ribbick underneath that obviously repurposed costume was too silly to really consider, and Shuttahs were too tall. He considered Ramb for a moment, but very quickly saw the two of them in a room together, so back to the Pippins theory. He just couldn't imagine one bothering to work this hard. Most of them put in the bare minimum and then skipped out to gamble, but this small Mike had put in an insane amount of hours, vastly cutting into any potential gambling time.
The problem was trying to figure out which of each the three mikes were; everyone looked the damn same around here. Trying to guess which shadowguy was Mike was like trying to name a single drop of water in the ocean, and trying to figure out which Pippins was Mike would be a similar problem with the identical color scheme (he knew that they did it so they could swap out with each other, he wasn't an idiot. It just made them work better when they thought they were getting one up on him, so calling one by the wrong name a few times on purpose, even if he could actually tell who was who, was worth it).
The Zapper was easy, though. They wore matching uniforms, sure, but the plastic that made up their bodies was always slightly different-one would be glossy black, the next a matte dark gray, the next a dark blue, and so on. Once he caught a glimpse of the actual Zapper under the costume (he asked them the time, and they moved to check a watch they were not wearing) he saw it was Jongler, the one who usually watched over the props department. Overall a sweet guy, from what he knew of them, but not the most social of people.
This had technically been Jongler’s fault, anyway. Usually the smallest Mike was the one to help with any internal repairs (he had a sneaking suspicion from the way Mike would always breathe heavier during those that he had been hoping it was some kind of sex thing for Tenna) but tonight was the cowboy, and he had a loose connection that was making one of his arms numb, so he asked them instead.
He had been doing this with the smallest Mike so much that he was used to the more…intimate way it would go with him. He likes to ham it up a little, gasp and moan and shudder at certain touches, because the way Mike would sound like he was speaking through grinding teeth trying to hide his obvious arousal always made Tenna feel wanted, desirable. He kept it up with Jongler, too, both because he knew the Mikes shared information between each other when they switched out, and because…well, they were going to all this trouble, surely they must also like him a little? Maybe they would be more confident in making a move on him than the smaller one was?
They made a move, alright. A move slightly too hard and too fast that ripped the wire for his voicebox from its connection and snapped his stabilizer in half. Oops. Now he was forced to just lay there, unable to move or speak, while Jongler cried into the Mike phone about how they had killed him. Even if he was able to put text on his screen, which he wasn't sure he could do in this state, his head was tilted back over the arm of the couch, facing away from everything else and therefore completely out of Jongler's vision.
“Eh boss? Uh, code blue? In Ten’s dressing room?” Jongler said into what must have been a headset between the three, but Tenna couldn't hear the other side. “No, sorry, not the weather duo, it's a code…uh…emergency? I think he's dead.”
“WHAT DO YOU MEAN HE'S DEAD?” Tenna heard that part, the shrill voice screaming through the earpiece.
“He, uh, he asked me to fix something in hims and I, I's tried, and now he's not moving?” There were a few beats of silence. “Boss?”
Tenna could hear the door to his dressing room being slammed open, a very out-of-breath ‘boss’ rushing over and immediately he felt those small hands, smaller than usual even, touching in ways he knew had to be small, motormouth Mike.
“Oh thank the knight he isn't dead,” the voice whooshed out like a held breath, gasping to get himself calmed down. “But what did you DO to him?”
“He asked for a shoulder fixin, so I tried to unplug and replug that one-”
“Then how did these two get pulled?? Ugh, and that prong is bent now, and–” then small Mike let out the loudest swear Tenna ever heard, the censors were not going to like that one! “The connector on the stabilizer is pulled off entirely, we need a damn soldering kit STAT. Pluey, find Inigo or Ramb, both of them should have the proper kind of training. Jongler, take this and go get some health items, a couple of everything! Yes, it's a code red! No, not a code crimson! Pluey, this is not the time!!”
Well, that had been a very enlightening thirty seconds. It narrowed down the identity of the shadowguy cat to Pluey, who worked over in the props department, and hearing the voice not doing the mike accent meant one of three Pippins; Tonio, who managed health and safety for stunts, Mippins, who oversaw pyrotechnics, or Battat, backstage manager.
“You needed me, lu-” there was Ramb, entering in, quickly cut off by the small Mike.
“Yes, yes, get in here, we need your soldering skills here, okay? The connection for the stabilizer needs fixing!”
“Oh, and the ever-capable Mike can't fix it?”
“Not the time for your teasing, Ramb!! Ugh, just do it, I'll be back in a bit–” with that, more footsteps out of the room and the door closing again, Tenna felt a touch he hadn't in a long time, Ramb’s soft hands grabbing at his casing.
“Been a while since this, eh luv?” Ramb chuckled. “You’ve gotta stop flirting with whoever is holding your wires, Ten. The mikes are good lads, sure, but surely you know they aren’t mechanics?” He fell silent for a few seconds, working on something that Tenna couldn’t feel. “I can tell you’re up, luv, I can see the light off the wall you’re facing. Should invest in getting those three the training for something like this, y’know. We aren’t getting any younger,” Ramb made a noise of effort in tandem with the noise of something mechanical, “So if I short out or something on ya, where would you be?”
Stuck with Inigo, I guess, Tenna thought, but his thoughts were trapped within his own head for the time being. Though he hated the bitter implication of getting older, Ramb was right; having “Mike” be able to do these repairs properly would be a good investment.
“I gots plenty of health items, boss–oh. I gots plenty of health items, bar guy,” Jongler said as they came back, thumping their way into the dressing room and then clearly just letting everything they were carrying fall onto the floor. “Which do you think he needs?”
“None, it weren’t even that bad,” Ramb scoffed. “Doesn’t need soldering, just needs to get bent back into position. Tell greenie to grab me a pair of pliers.”
“Hey, boss, Ramb says he needs pliers.”
“Pliers are in the third drawer of the dresser, in the emergency kit. You think I wouldn’t be prepared? Mike is always prepared!” the small Mike had returned the moment Jongler called for him. “Ugh, did you just throw all these onto the floor?? Why would you–no, Pluey, thank you, Ramb got here already, we don’t need Inigo. Keep an eye on things out there, don’t let anyone know that Tenna’s down.” A heavy sigh before the voice got closer. “You’re not soldering it.”
“It doesn’t need it, luv. It’s not broken, just bent.”
“Will health items even work on a robot?” Jongler mused aloud.
“They work on you, rubberbrain!”
“Oh yea. Here, I’ll gives him a revivemint-”
“No, wai–” The smallest Mike tried, but Jongler was already hopping over, shoving a mint at Tenna’s screen. Tenna did not have a mouth, and was not in their party, so the mint just smacked against his glass for a second.
“How, exactly, have you three managed to keep this place running so long?” Ramb laughed, and then finally the last bit of whatever had been messed up was fixed. Tenna sat up incredibly fast, face taking a second to load in with a loud degauss sound.
“What happened?” He asked, doing his best to sound drowsy as a signal to Ramb directly, a ‘please don’t let them know I heard all that’ signal.
“Oh, sorry boss, I’s pulled the wrong wire. Got Ramb to come fix youse.”
“Ah, thank you, Mike! We should probably get you trained on some of my internals, too, just so this doesn’t happen agai–” he pretended to just notice the pippins, knowing that he was the small Mike, but taking a second to tilt his head to one side. Honestly, if he had to pick which of the ones the voice reminded him of earlier, Battat would have been last; he was a great backstage manager, but not super into socializing, and never would look at Tenna for more than a passing glance at most. Tenna just assumed he didn’t really like people that much, which made the fact that he was the small Mike even more confusing.
“Oh, Battat, was I out so long I’m cutting into the evening schedule??”
“N-no, boss!” Battat had rushed into his Mike voice, having to stop and clear his throat to reset from the accent. “I just, I, uh, I heard the commotion and wanted to come help if I could.”
“I asked him to come help,” Jongler the cowboy Mike said at the same time.
“Right, I mean, they asked–HE asked, he asked me, to, uh, come help.”
“Yeah, he brought the healing stuff.” The two of them nodded at each other and then looked back to Tenna, and with the new knowledge in mind Tenna could see the way that Battat was clenching every muscle hoping that this lie would work.
“Ah, I see! Thank you, Battat, and of course thank YOU, Mike!”
“Isn’t there someone you’re forgetting, luv?”
Tenna sighed, dramatically shaking his head before answering a dull “thank you, Ramb.”
“Wow. Sounded like it hurt to even say.”
“Thank you, my wonderful knight in shining armor, Ramb the ever so merciful and handsome! I don’t know where I’d be without you!” Tenna said in his most dramatic and over-the-top voice, deliberately pretending to swoon before forcing a flower through his nose. “For you, my most beloved of employees!”
“Careful, you’ll make Mike jealous,” Ramb joked, taking the flower. “These are his favorite, as you obviously know.”
“Give me a minute and I’ll have one for you, Mike, but enough of this! We have work to get back to, all of us, come on now!” With that, Tenna rose up, dumping Ramb to the floor before launching himself into show-host mode.
---
Over the next week, that random comment of Ramb’s kept echoing in his head, bouncing around his thoughts like the dvd logo. “These are his favorite, as you obviously know.” It kept itching at him, because the statement was just patently false. He knew about the mikes, and would say he knew quite a bit about them; he knew the tallest one did better with one task at a time but the cat one did better if given multiple things to do at once, the cowboy one was better at coming up with game show ideas but the small one was better for any other script-related things, the cat one didn’t like psychological horror, and the small Mike lived off coffee while the cowboy Mike preferred tea. He knew things only relating to their roles as Mikes; what if they were completely different people outside their ruse? He’d only just figured out which were which, after all! Knowing their names wasn’t enough to really know them, especially not more than anyone else!
With the itch, the little doubt crawled back in. What if this whole thing was just a way to get at him, to find dirt on him or to set him up to fail? Why did they do this? Why pretend to be his assistant, his…friend? Oh, no, he couldn’t even call them his friends, could he? Friends knew things about each other, and he didn’t even know which flowers were their–
“There’s no call for cloudy weather, Tenna dear,” Lanino pulled him out of the spiral he hadn’t realized he was hurtling himself toward, and Tenna resized himself to normal and fixed his tie. When had he even come in?
“Lanino! Lost in thought, my apologies. Did you need something?”
“I only came in to give you the leave form for Elnina and I’s vacation in two months, but you were looking at if you were rained on and then kicked! Want to talk about it?”
“Lanino…remind me, who does new hire orientation?”
“Uh, Polaroid I think. Do we have a new hire? We haven’t had one of those for a while, that’s good news! Oh, what type of darkener are they?”
Tenna hadn’t thought this plan through even a little bit, but his best ideas were made on the spot anyway, so he could roll with this. An easy way to meet the Mikes for real, learn what they were like outside of their personas, without the boss-employee dynamic. How he would juggle doing his job and the job of a newbie, he didn’t know, but if the mikes could do their jobs and also all the ones he asked of them, surely he could too?
“A…pippins.” No, no! Why had he gone with that, pippins were the worst!! They had too many of those around here anyway!! Well, he would get to keep the red color scheme though, that was a plus. Oh, and he’d get to have visible eyes that way! He’d never had those before, that would be fun!
“Ah, that’s what has you clouded up. I know you aren’t as big a fan of them, but surely any new crew is good, right?” Oh, gosh, was it really that obvious that even Lanino knew it? Tenna didn’t pretend to love pippins, but he didn’t really hate them, just found them slightly annoying. “Shall I illuminate Polaroid for you, save you the trouble?”
“Yes, please, thank you Lanino. I’ll stop with the glooby thoughts, too.”
“It happens to us all, darling.” With that, Lanino left the office, and Tenna was left with the terrible reality that he had, in fact, just started some bizarre scheme and given it a pippin face. Well, if he was going to go through with this, he had to go all in; he could be in two places at once, sure, but doing that for too long made his head hurt something awful, and he anticipated this taking a while. Mr. Ant Tenna would have to go on a little vacation, that’s all!
A ‘little vacation’ turned into a different, perfect opportunity when, during one of the quick commercial breaks for the nothing news of the morning (normally he would be sulking about Toriel using him as background noise, but right now this was perfect), the idea struck him like a lightbulb burning so bright it broke itself. Practically vibrating with excitement, he waited for the moment where he saw Toriel raise the remote to turn him off, doing his typical flourish of a sign off, and then cut himself off midway, keeping his body frozen in place in total silence for a few moments.
“Is he okay??” Elnina asked after a moment, and Tenna (with a bit of effort, as he usually snapped to activate his magic) flickered the lights before shutting them all off, only bringing them back up after a few shocked gasps and mutters.
“Tenna?? What just happened?” Alright, time for his oscar winning performance.
“I…I’ve been unplugged.” He added a slight waver to his voice, as if he was trying to keep himself calm, posture slowly beginning to waver from holding one single pose for a while. “She…Toriel just…”
The tension was so thick he could sense it from everyone around him without having to even turn around. After several moments of fearful silence, a familiar set of rushed footsteps came in, right as Tenna predicted they would.
“Hey, hey, boss, it’s okay, Mike’s here, okay?” The smallest Mike placed a small gloved hand on the back of his shin, rubbing it slightly before turning to give orders to the crew. Pretending he was too shocked to be anything else, Tenna let him puppet him around back to his dressing room without resistance, making sure to occasionally mutter some monosyllabic bit about Toriel or being unplugged. Mike piloted him directly to his fainting couch, gently pushing to signal to Tenna to fall back and sit on it while the smaller man climbed up on the side.
“It’s all okay, okay? Probably just a little thing while she vacuums the living room or something, you remember that she has to switch either you or the lamp out ever since the juice incident with Ramb? It’s been a rainy week, she just needs that extra light for the sections on the sides, and then you’ll be back in business, boss!” Letting Mike go full motormouth was, as it always was, incredibly soothing, which made him feel momentarily worse about the whole ruse.
“You’re right, as usual…just a little while. I think I’ll just rest for a bit, Mike, you can go.”
“You sure, boss?”
“Yeah, go take some time to relax, I’ll let you know when we are back up and running. I just…need a little me-time, I think.”
For a moment, he was certain Mike saw right through his flimsy excuse, but the smallest of the Mikes chose not to call him out on it, and just reiterated four times on his way out that if he needed anything, Mike would come running. Tenna listlessly nodded, pretending to stare off into space until he heard the door close, and waited another moment to hear those little feet start walking away before springing back up and getting to work.