Chapter Text
Spamton flourished the end of his signature, but the minute trembling of his hand grated the pen through the thick creamy paper and against Tenna’s finely crafted desk, splattering ink from the nib in an arc and peppering the contract with miniscule flecks of black. Spamton chuckled nervously and Tenna beamed at him, seemingly unbothered that Spamton had made yet another mess all over his hard work. Spamton inhaled deeply through his nose and opened his mouth to-
Rrrring, brrrrrring.
The shrill beckoning demanded his audience immediately.
Rrrring, brrrrring.
Spamton knew exactly why it was calling. The legs of the chair scraped shrilly against the wood floor as he pushed himself away from the desk. Tenna’s face had contorted into a scowl, peeved and slightly jealous of the only other thing in the world that Spamton allowed to summon him. “Spammy, please… you don’t have to answer it anymore! We’re PARTNERS now!! You don’t need that useless old thing!!!”
Spamton laughed around the lump in his throat. “I thought you wanted to learn my secret to being a big shot?”
Tenna’s frown dissipated, lips slightly parted as he openly gaped at Spamton, “I- uh, I thought y- I didn’t think you-” a slow smile spread across his face, “Spamton, I…” He literally beamed at Spamton now, cathode screen glowing brighter than ever as he clapped his hands and jumped to his feet, his whole body grinning with him. “I’d LOVE to!!! What a SURPRISE, folks!!! And not an unpleasant one, either! Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go!!! We’re gonna be BIG SHOTS together, Spammy!”
Spamton had already ambled to Tenna’s office entrance, and dramatically opened the door, waving his free hand and mockingly bowing at Tenna. “Ladies first, Boob Tube,” he smirked at Tenna, who was too elated to notice Spamton’s sardonic smile.
“Such a GENTLEMAN, so sweet to me,” Tenna gushed as he swanned over to his newly appointed doorman, planting a messy smooch on top of Spamton’s previously perfectly coiffed hair. Spamton yelped, frantically smoothing his locks back into place, and Tenna waltzed down the hall towards the incessantly ringing telephone. The door, forgotten in Spamton’s haste to fix his hair, jarred into his elbow. “FUCK, shit, ow…” Spamton cursed under his breath and wriggled out from between the door and frame.
“HEY TENNA! HEY, CATHODE! HOLD UP” Spamton hollered as he jogged after Tenna’s lumbering frame. Tenna giggled like a schoolgirl as Spamton rolled his eyes, huffing not only out of sarcasm but from the great distance he’d just closed in a short amount of time using his equally short fuckin’ legs. The ringing of the phone had not paused. Spamton swallowed, throat tight. The room Tenna had ducked into was dimly lit by his own face.
Rrrring, brrrrrring.
Spamton didn’t take the time to fumble for the light switch, instead he strode directly to the simple table that held the Benefactor’s telephone.
“Alright, Tens. Here’s the plan,” Spamton did not let his voice waver, refused to show fear.
The rotary receiver glinted with malice, reflecting Tenna’s light. Tenna’s CRT head cocked to the right slightly, like it always did when he listened intently to something.
“I’m gonna answer, chat for a bit, then introduce the idea of you two talking. To see if he’s willin’ to help or not.” He clamped his teeth viciously over an instinctive shudder. “Then, if all goes well, you’ll be a big shot right along with me, big guy!”
Tenna’s thousand-watt grin turned up to a million and he cheered “That sounds like a WONDERFUL idea, mailman! Oooooh, this is going to be SO MUCH FUN!!!”
The sour taste of fear in Spamton’s mouth got swallowed down again as he silently gulped. Tenna isn’t just here to cut in on the deal, he reminded himself. He’s here to be a witness if things go south.
Rrrrring, brrrrrring.
When things go south. Spamton forced his gaze away from the phone and stared intently at Tenna, committing his face to memory. Tenna was barely containing his exuberance, body shivering with unused enthusiasm as he attempted to condense his large presence into a small room. He was uniquely himself. He was beautiful. He was doomed by the prophecy. He was completely unaware that things could either go very well, or very very badly. Spamton scrunched up his whole face and snorted in a gulp of air, shaking his whole body out on the exhale. His hand did not shake at all as he reached for the quivering receiver. His luminescent fingers firmly grasped the cool black plastic. He revelled in the short silence that lasted for only the moment he raised the phone to his ear. He consciously loosened the hand at his side from a fist into a natural, relaxed position and slid it into the pocket of his pristine slacks. Clearing his throat, he greeted the man who knows the future and once deigned to share it with a lowly, pathetic, down-on-his-luck Addison.
“Hey, Mike! Sorry I took so long to pick up, I was kinda in the middle of some important stuff! But, hah, of course, you probably knew that, so,” Spamton winced internally at his nervous ramble, “why, uh. What’re you calling for?”
The Puppet answers the phone.
“Hey, I told you not to call me that,” Spamton protested weakly, having resigned himself long ago to the demeaning title. He didn’t even like puppets, those fuckers are creepy as hell, all stiff and lifeless until someone else controls them.
The Puppet is afraid of what he knows will come to him.
Spamton’s voice quivered slightly and he hated it. “I’m- fuck off, I’m not scared. And what the hell,” his voice was coming out indignant, he needed to tone it down, “that’s- I mean, way to call a guy out, hah!”
The Puppet is told a Secret.
“You’re gonna- what? What secret?” Spamton adjusted his sweaty grip on the receiver. He needed to bring the conversation to his topic, so he could have more sway over the outcome of the call. He’d done this before, deals and power plays were exactly up his alley.
The Puppet wants to know why The Benefactor calls him such as it does.
Spamton glanced over to Tenna, whose antennae were quirked in confusion and a touch of worry. “I mean, yeah, I guess. But what I really wanted to do is introduce someone to ya, he-”
The Puppet is silent.
And Spamton choked on his next words as his tongue turned to lead, his heart leaped into his throat as his stomach dropped through the floorboards. The command was absolute. “Spammy, is everything okay?” Tenna hesitantly whispered, stepping towards him. It was going very, very badly.
The Puppet is told the Secret.
Spamton doubled over in muted agony, ragged hacks tearing through his throat as Tenna anxiously hovered his hands over his trembling shoulders. “Spammy? Hey, HEY, what’s- Spamton, hey, what’s going on?” Spamton could not answer Tenna and even if he could, to quell his fears would be to lie to his face, and Spamton G. Spamton has never been a goddamn liar. “Spammy, little mailman, are you okay?? Can you breathe??? What’s HAPPENING!?!?”
Nothing is Real.
The world becomes numb and every corner of Spamton’s mind is filled with the absolute truth of the Secret. Tenna’s anxious exclamations blur together as if heard from across a great distance. He cannot feel the hand on his back or the blurry static of the screen pressed to his hair.
Nothing is Real.
This is his punishment, his divine retribution. He should never have signed the contract. What was he thinking, trying to get Tenna involved in this mess? And now he’s going to die, and Tenna will be alone until he’s Cleaved, and he’ll never be saved because-
Nothing is Real.
His eyes were already wide open and shaking in the darkness of the room but now, like a hellish vision, a light brighter than anything he could possibly imagine descends upon his straining mind. Numbly, as if his face were wooden, he can feel the fingers of his previously pocketed hand digging into the lower ridge of his eye socket.
As the Dark Worlds are a lie to Lightners, so is the Light World a lie to the Angels.
The corners of his vision are filled with a blue so nauseatingly bold with such intricately detailed layers that his head spins.
In Heaven they watch the Light World be heedless of the Dark World.
Strange and terrible and beautiful and absolutely alien, sweet swirlings of imaginary wispings of vapor drift across the Blue and he knows that they are called Clouds.
To the Lightners the Darkners are not real.
The Clouds serenely continue on their path unfettered by the will of Heaven and begin to reveal shifting beams of an awesome Light.
To Heaven the Lightners are not Real.
The Light spears through the impossible nothing of the Blue and Clouds and spins in an unknowable pattern as the core of this terrible corona is uncovered and it is so so Bright and it is called Sun.
The Lightners are but characters in a game to the Angels.
And the Sun and the Clouds and the Blue are called the Sky and it is so so Bright but not the Lightner’s bright that destroys the Dark it is Heaven and Heaven is unattainable and Real.
And Darkners are but characters in a game to the Angels.
Heaven cannot be reached because it is Real and Real hurts to Know or to Understand because the Dark is not Real and was never meant to be and the Puppet is of the Dark
And The Puppet and The Lord of Screens and The Pointy-Headed One and The Cage and The Girl and The Prince from The Dark are but characters in a game to the Angels.
Heaven cannot be reached because it is Real and neither the Light nor the Dark are Real because it is all just a Game for the Angels to play
And the Game is set on its Path.
Heaven is unattainable because the World is not Real because it is a story to be told by an Angel to Angels in Heaven and
The Story will be told.
heaven is unattainable because nothing is Real and
The Puppet will be strung along for the Story.
heaven is unattainable
The Puppet cannot escape the Story
because nothing is Real.
The Puppet cannot escape its Strings
Nothing is Real.
The Puppet opened its eyes, unaware that they had been shut. It saw swimming voices and heard murky darkness and felt the strumming of strings as its feet pounded against the ground. But how could it feel? Nothing was Real. The Puppet choked on ichor but it didn’t matter because nothing was Real. The Puppet felt, regardless, and despised it despite rationality fleeing and circling back because it was afraid of the Ringing that nips and bites and the awful secrets and Secrets that the Benefactor shared, sometimes, to puppets who were good and followed the Story. The Puppet was abruptly slammed into a door and it remembered the last time that had happened to him, just this morning, actually, when he had gone after the Lord of Screens who had gone after the Phone. Because it was ringing. And that started after he had signed the contract with Tenna to make them both big shots. But, Spamton thought wryly to himself, being a big shot doesn’t matter as much anymore when nothing is Real.
Spamton breathed in of his own volition for what felt like the first time in his life. With the musty air came clarity. He breathed out harshly through his nose and stood, bracing his shaking limbs against the door that had wronged him. He took a moment to glance at his surroundings as he ran his fingers through his definitely fucked up hair. Spamton was in… his room? The azure of the walls was broken up by portraits of Queen in poses reminiscent of the classics, and the plush red armchair that hid port stains like no other affirmed that Spamton was, indeed, in his place at the Queen’s mansion. How in the world- Spamton had no memory whatsoever of making his way between Dark Worlds or winding through the perilous halls full of fire-breathing paintings towards his room. He needed a smoke. Or three. Or eight, actually, that sounded fabulous.
Spamton took a few shaky steps towards the glass doors that led out to the balcony. Every movement he made felt… far away. As if he were moving through… well, he’d never tried moving through molasses before and actually that sounds fucking nasty and awful. Spamton shuddered in disgust and wrenched open the balcony door. The glass slid smoothly to the side and a cool breeze kissed his face as he shuffled outside to the familiar sight. Neon lights twinkled cheerily against the lime-laced darkness, the dome of Cyber City’s false sky a nostalgic comfort. Spamton sighed shakily and patted at the pockets of his red suit jacket for a cigarette and a lighter.
He flipped the gold cap of his lighter up and sparked the flame to life, gazing at it for a moment with an unidentifiable emotion welling within him. The lighter was a gift from Tenna. Lovely, larger-than-life, Tenna. All Spamton’s but also not, because he was doomed by the narrative to die horribly in the murky future. Fuck that, actually. If nothing is Real then the Prophecy is a Story and is subject to change. All he needs to do is… Is to change the mind of the Author. And since the Author is an Angel, they must be in Heaven. Which means… Spamton gripped the lighter in a white-knuckled grip.
…Which means he had to get to Heaven.