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'The monster isn't sleeping.'
The darkners who inhabited Castletown weren't generally the gossiping type. Or more accurately, not the mean-spirited gossipy type. Ralsei nipped it in the bud by virtue of his kindness lectures being uniquely unbearable - not to mention, his puppy-dog eyes were worse than Kris's. Gossip therefore was relegated to simple topics: who battled who in the Love Dojo, the latest music sensation that challenged Sweet Cap'n Cakes, what trouble Rouxls had gotten up to, whose turn it was to deal with said trouble.
Tenna enjoyed being in on the news. He'd been a showman far too long to give up in this new lifestyle.
And if he kept his ears out specifically or the term 'email,' that was his business, thanks so much.
All in all, the Lightners were a huge source of talk for the Darkners. That Kris wasn't acting like themselves. That Susie was always so hungry. That Ralsei, not quite a Lightner but darling of the town, split his time between desperately trying to protect the Lightners and painstakingly caring for castle town. In the barely-there time between, he was struggling to discover who he really was.
It was no secret how much all these creatures worried over the heroes. The way Ralsei worked himself to the bone. The way Kris got quiet and shut down.
And Susie…
She had a reputation. Tenna wasn't stupid. He knew the gist, if not the specifics. He knew the kind of role a mean girl would play, but he had a hard time reconciling that with his Susie. The one with a foul mouth and a brave heart. The one who weathered a beating in Tenna's showdown, only to tell Tenna afterwards that she knew how he felt, and that she'd make it right for him. No qualifiers, no frustration; nothing in it for her.
And rumor was, she hadn't been sleeping at all. Not since that awful Knight showed up. Not since that adventure in the church that none of the heroes spoke about.
The town worried about their kids. Tenna really, *really* worried about his kids.
Tenna had been doing a decent job pretending he was totally fine and completely unbothered by the Knight and losing his arms and needing a new home. He found himself pretending in the coffee shop with the Shadowguys, who would make saxophone-y laughs at his jokes and politely ignore his twitchiness. All things considered, he was doing great.
And then the doors flew open, and the black-and-white rat creature jumped onto his table.
"OH GREAT HEAVENS!" Tenna screamed, and tumbled out of his chair entirely when it scurried towards him, oh god-
"[Stop, drop, and roll], [Trash Heap]!" it snarled, twitching in place. Tenna was so busy searching for his foam spray that he almost missed it when it growled, "THE [Purple People Eater] GIRL NEEDS [Your very own-!]"
Tenna stopped in his tracks. He felt that instinctive, visceral reaction again, the one that made him lurch to protect the stupid pipis in the first place. But whatever this thing was - (familiar, nasty, painful, weirdly attractive?) - it seemed...worried.
Worried about Susie.
He didn't remember tossing his bills onto the counter, didn't remember growing an extra foot in concern. Just that suddenly, he had a newly-shocked rat thing in his hand - do not think about how familiar this was, and oh god this thing was attractive - and the door flying open.
He couldn't change anything about the last day, or the last few weeks, or the last ten years. He couldn't help the Dreemurrs, or his old business partner. Maybe he couldn't even help himself.
But he could help someone now.
"Where's Susie?"
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If there was a more undignified way to spend his evening than following a tiny creature that insulted him with every other word through the back alleys of Castletown, then tenna had yet to discover it. The only thing more humiliating would be letting it pull him around by the tie - which, for the record, it had tried. Tenna nearly shattered his screen in his haste to hide his pink monitor.
For Susie, he reminded himself. The creature parked outside the door to the Love Dojo, giving Tenna an impatient look, and Tenna grit his fangs. This was for Susie.
The Dojo seemed just as sickeningly sweet as Elnina and Lanino described it. Music pumping something cheerful and sappy, lights dimmed to a romantic degree. It was certainly not Tenna's scene - divorcees had a thing about that lovey-dovey stuff, and he was no exception.
But if the rat was to be believed, that meant Susie was here, somewhere. And this really didn't seem like her kind of place.
"Hey, uh," Tenna said, glancing down and trying not to seem as awkward as he felt. "Are you sure that she's-"
"[You have arrived at your destination]," his companion responded sourly. "THIS IS THE [Fight Club DVD, $9.99]."
Ah. That made a lot more sense, actually. That still left him with the small problem, however, of locating her-
"That all you got?!"
Tenna spun on a dime, facing the back of the place. It was kind of dim, but in the sudden sparks of sunlight and moonlight, he recognized a familiar glowing battle axe.
There she was. Fighting, in the middle of the night, alone.
The concern he'd felt earlier ratcheted up to its max and then some.
Elnina and Lanino were working in tandem, attacks bouncing around the Lightner in the middle. Susie, in turn, bobbed and weaved - rather more than she usually preferred, actually. She tended to cross her arms and weather the worst of it without flinching, as though trying to avoid the hits was somehow akin to backing down.
Now, though, she made it a point to keep moving. Her axe swung in equal measures to deal blows and block them, her stance far more fluid that the typical barbarian structure she liked. In fact, every time a bullet got too close, she flinched away, even farther than the TP range suggested.
What had happened, that she was so afraid of being attacked?
Just as quickly as the round started, she drove her axe down in a Rude Buster, crashing between the couple and making them both fall to the floor. Only then did Susie let herself stop, panting in place and leaning heavily on her axe.
It looked like she'd been at this for quite some time. And judging by Elnina and Lanino's hesitance to interrupt her break, watching her with open caution on their faces, it made sense why someone had tried to find help for her.
For all the good he could do here. Angel, Tenna had no idea where to start.
One of the darkners called out to Susie, congratulating her on her victory. The kind of greeting that she normally balked that, as though she had no idea what to do when someone greeted you happily. It always made Tenna's chest hurt for her.
Now Susie's snout wrinkled, the exact way Kris would crinkle their eyes when they got a migraine. She bared her teeth before blinking and visibly swallowing her first response.
"Thanks," she said instead. Everyone in the vicinity winced the sound of it – rough and gritty and nearly lifeless.
Concern sparked through Tenna. When he caught side of her face, it magnified tenfold.
She looked awful.
The bags under her eyes, usually more stylist choice than anything, seem dark enough to bruise. Her eyes were bloodshot, streaked red and glassy. Her outfit, literally magic itself, was disheveled to the point of rags.
His heart broke when she raised a hand to wave, because that hand was shaking.
He stood before he could stop himself and hurried to her side. She tensed automatically, the kind of slow, exhausted reaction that spoke more of defense than distrust.
"Susie, sweetheart," he greeted trying to keep his tone upbeat enough. He may be an actor, but Susie had a startling level of intuition when it came to reading others.
Thankfully – worryingly – she didn't seem to notice anything amiss. It took her too long to blink in recognition. "Tenna," she said at last, breaking into a tiny, tiny smile. "Hey man, what's up?"
"Oh, just enjoying the sights," he said carefully. He edged closer to the monster, shrinking to be more of her height. Or at least, slightly less towering over her. "It's getting into the late, late night shows, though! What are you still doing up?"
With no warning, Susie froze dead in her tracks. Her hand locked on her axe, eyes blown wide, gaze, unseeing.
The patrons near the door visibly clocked, the movement. Hathy gave a very foreboding look, while Swatch from the counter straightened an alarm.
Even more perturbing, her glasses seemed to fizzle, the pink and gold - familiar, dangerously familiar but that didn't make any sense, don't think about it Tenna - brightened considerably. The second tail she wore wrapped around her middle, pressing the way he imagined a weighted blanket might.
He would normally be glad Susie had so many friends, but it suddenly presented the problem with so many overprotective darkners in the same place. Mainly, that none of them really knew how to fix the lightner.
Thankfully, almost as quickly as it started, Susie shook her head rapidly to break away from the thoughts.
"It's nothing," she denied. The handle of the axe creaked audibly when she finally relaxed her grip. "I'm fine now. I can keep training."
"Sure," he agreed, because you didn't argue with the heroes and come out on top. Anyone in Castletown could tell you that much - heck, Tenna's being alive at all went to prove how bull-headed she could be.
Still, every showman had a few tricks up his sleeve.
"Well, this is rather embarassing," he started. A solid setup - Susie zoned into the potential of teasing like a bloodhound, and he didn't have to work too hard at all to sound frazzled. "But it seems I'm rather far away from my rooms in the castle. And the little fellow who guided me here has...well, up and vanished!" He leaned sideways, cupping a hand against his mouth, deftly hiding the pair of glasses in his palm. "Not the first time I've had a date run out on me!" The laugh track played, reliable as ever, and even Susie couldn't help an exhausted grin. Bingo.
"Alright, fiiiine, I got you," she said. "I guess I can take a break." Like a wave around them, Tenna watched the Darkners relax. Even Elnina and Lanino seemed to fold in relief, settling against their table to watch.
"Excellent!" he said. Before he could psyche himself out of it, he swept her up and set her carefully on his shoulders. She made a startled noise, hands scrabbling at the metal casing of his television, but he couldn't help his grin when she laughed.
"Dude, what the heck?"
"I thought it might help for my navigator to have the best view!" he said, ducking low out the door. "Don't you know that TV can show you the world?"
Susie giggled again, only a little loopier than normal, and he marked it as a success. Tenna hooked the glasses to his coat and let himself feel the pride of a good performance.
He still had it.
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Tenna hadn't exactly been consulted on what to bring to Castletown - he was a little out of commission at the time- but his crew had been extremely thoughtful when they packed for him. Memorabilia, thanks to Mike, and merch, thanks to the crew.
And that special box of souvineers from the past. Oddly enough, he thought he'd need to thank Ramb for that one. Wasn't that just a weird thought.
Thankfully, Ralsei had kept the Susiezilla onesie. Even though Tenna adamantly refused to call it anything but a professionally styled costume, he had to admit that it seemed to make a comfy pajama set when she settled in.
"Thanks for this, dude," she said, scrubbing at her eyes. Tenna tried not to flinch at how carelessly she treated herself. "I haven't had a movie marathon in forever. Can't believe we fell asleep to Blood Crushers before...ya know, the fountain and everything."
"I'm glad to help," he said, settling into his arm chair. He queued up the first three and the bonus features afterwards, just to be safe. "
She watched the screen, attention as rapt as Noelle and Kris had all those years ago. She laughed at all the right parts and groaned at the romantic scenes and gasped at the jumpscares. It was the best he'd felt in...years, honestly.
"Susie," he said slowly, when the commercial break started. "You know I'm looking for a good home, but you make a lovely audience. Would you want a TV, by chance?"
Susie barked a laugh, but it wasn't her cruel laughter. It was...melancholy. Just as bleak as when she'd confessed being abandoned to him. "Dude, I wish," she said. "I'd love to see your shows. Kris could come over and play games, and we could hang out..."
She shook her head at last, rueful. "But you gotta have electricity for that, right? Wouldn't work at my place. I know how much you hate being unplugged."
Abruptly, Tenna was grateful that the show overlaid his real expression.
Why can't the world be kind to this girl, he wondered. One of his kids, hurting in a way he couldn't fix, again.
What good was he? What good were any of the darkners? They made a nice distraction, a place to play pretend. When it was all over, she'd go back to her dark bedroom, and she'd be alone. And he could do nothing, nothing at all to help her.
A yawn cut through his spiral, and he refocused in time to see Susie curl under the blanket. "I'm sorry," she said between another yawn. "It's not you, your shows are freaking awesome. Just... just kinda tired."
Tenna dimmed his screen automatically, the glow gentle against her drooping eyes.
Oh. Maybe he could…
"It's no problem Susie," he said. He was an actor, and by the angel, it showed. He sounded calm as anything, even when his heart raced in his chest. "I take no offense at all. After all, I enjoy helping the family wind down at night."
"I'm still watching," she mumbled, cheek smashed against the pillow. Tenna swore he saw the glasses brush her hair back, the metal tail flick the blanket firm around her shoulders. She was so out of it that she didn't seem to notice. "Don't turn off, please, I... I don't like the dark."
"I won't," he promised quietly, as her eyes drifted closed. When her snores finally, finally echoed around him, he wondered if that warm feeling in his chest was truly just a darkner fulfilling their purpose.
It felt too far too large for that.
"I'm not going anywhere, Susiezilla."