Dial T for Tenna (PART 8)
Ant Tenna/Reader
PART 1 -- PART 9 -- AO3
Summary: Patch starts realising some things...
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The first thing you noticed was the ceiling.
Still there. Cracked in the corner from the last time your upstairs neighbor tried to mount a TV directly into drywall, but it held. You lay there a bit longer than you should’ve, arm half-draped over your eyes, the blanket tangled awkwardly around your legs like a clingy cat.
The morning sunlight tried to worm its way through the blinds but didn’t quite commit—lazy light, like it couldn’t decide whether to fully wake the world or let it linger in that half-dream state. Just like you, apparently.
You blinked up at the ceiling, watching a tiny shadow creep slowly across one of the cracks. The silence settled in around you, quiet but not empty. You could hear the faint hum of the city outside—somewhere a car was starting, a bird squawked lazily, someone a few floors down was probably already complaining about their morning coffee. None of it mattered. For a moment, the world felt like it had paused just for you.
Then the memory kicked in—soft, stupid, warm.
Tenna’s screen tinged pink at the corners, soft and barely there. The moment in the hallway, that weird, crackly edge to his voice after you told him you weren’t going anywhere. The way his antennas twitched like he was nervous, but not in the usual jittery way. More like he was checking if you were still there, still real, like a broadcast signal you never wanted to lose.
You smiled without really meaning to. The kind of smile that sneaks up on you when you least expect it—quiet, a little embarrassed, but full of something honest.
The blanket shifted as you finally peeled your arm off your face and sat up slowly, legs still tangled. You stared at the window for a moment, watching the light stretch a little further across the floorboards. Another quiet breath in, then out.
You weren’t in any hurry. Not yet.
But the day was waiting.
You swung your legs over the side of the bed, feet touching the cool floor with a soft thud. The world outside was calling, all clatter and noise and the kind of commotion that was somehow comforting when it involved people and purpose.
The routine was the same: throw on clothes that didn’t need much thought, grab a quick bite of breakfast that somehow always tasted better when you weren’t rushing, and head out the door with the familiar weight of anticipation sitting heavy but steady in your chest.
And somewhere in the back of your mind, Tenna was already there—his nervous energy, the soft glow of his screen, the way he looked at you like you were the only thing that made sense in the mess.
You shook your head, trying to push the warmth away before it got too distracting.
Not yet. You had work to do.
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You stepped outside and the city was already stirring. The air smelled faintly of rain and exhaust, a mix you’d come to accept as normal. The streets felt oddly peaceful this early, the usual morning rush still hiding behind closed doors.
The studio wasn’t far, a short walk through streets that had begun to fill with life—people shuffling in little clusters, the distant clang of construction, the occasional honk of a car horn. Your steps fell into the rhythm of the morning as you pushed open the studio doors and stepped in.
Inside was its own kind of controlled commotion: the hum of equipment being checked, the low murmur of voices—familiar faces moving with practiced ease, already caught in their own little orbits. You exchanged greetings with a few of the crew. Lanino gave you a nod, eyes sparkling as always with that quiet kind of passion he carried like a secret. Elnina was nearby, leaning against a table and flipping through some papers, her laugh ringing softly when she caught your eye.
You made your way toward Tenna’s dressing room next—where he was supposed to be this morning, gearing up for the show that was just hours away. The corridor smelled faintly of stale coffee and leather, a quiet contrast to the vibrant energy just beyond the walls.
But when you reached the door, the bodyguard was there, broad and unmoving like a stone statue. He looked up as you approached, eyes narrowing slightly.
“Good morning,” you said, expecting a quick nod or a step aside.
…
“Can i… go in?”
The bodyguard gave you a slow shake of his head.
You blinked, trying to keep your tone neutral. “Is he in there?”
“Yes.”
“…And?”
There was a brief pause, just enough to make you think he was about to elaborate. But all he did was clear his throat, the sound deep and gravelly enough to rattle the hallway walls.
“Mr. Tenna said not to be distracted,” he said at last. “Said no one goes in.”
That gave you pause. You stared at the closed dressing room door behind him, then back at the man blocking it. Something about the way he stood—arms crossed, planted like a tree with no intention of moving—told you this wasn’t a misunderstanding.
You tilted your head slightly, squinting like maybe the angle of your neck could help the logic come into focus. “I am the person who’s supposed to deal with him being distracted.”
It wasn’t a power trip. It was just… protocol. Emotional liaisons were made for moments like this—moments when he got overwhelmed or weird or cagey. It was part of the deal. You had a job, and Tenna had a habit of needing someone to make sure he didn’t spiral off into some cartoonishly tragic disaster right before showtime.
But the bodyguard didn’t flinch. Didn’t blink. He didn’t even give you the satisfaction of a full sentence.
“He said no one goes in.”
And then he looked away.
Just like that. As if you were one of the lighting crew who got too close to a “Do Not Enter” sign, and not the person specifically assigned to make sure Mr. Tenna didn’t end up accidentally crushing one of the employees out of frustration.
You stared at him for another second or two, waiting for a crack in the wall—some flicker of sympathy, or even just a grunt of understanding. But nothing. Not even a muscle twitch.
The concern started as a small buzz in the back of your head. Not quite panic, not yet. Just a quiet pressure—like a warning signal being ignored.
Something was off.
Tenna had a show coming up. This wasn’t the time to start building walls, especially not between the two of you. You didn’t know what was going on in there, but whatever it was, it wasn’t just about not wanting to be “distracted.”
You rubbed a hand over your face, exhaling through your nose. Fine. You’d wait. Let him come out on his own time, if that’s what this was. But you weren’t leaving.
You turned around without another word and made your way toward the green room, jaw tight, brain spinning just a little faster than it had five minutes ago.
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You pushed open the green room door with your shoulder, still chewing on the tension from the hallway like it was a piece of gristle you couldn’t quite swallow. The room met you with a wash of warm light and soft sound—a slow, lazy sort of energy that contrasted sharply with the tight coil in your chest. It smelled faintly of velvet curtains, brass polish, and someone’s too-early lunch—probably someone’s fish sandwich again.
You took one step inside, letting the door swing gently closed behind you, and immediately spotted them: Lanino and Elnina, tangled together on the soft blue couch like some kind of living romantic sculpture.
Elnina had her hands pressed against Lanino’s cheeks, her fingers feather-light and reverent, like she was afraid he might shatter if she wasn’t gentle enough. Lanino, for his part, had one arm slung around her waist and the other held theatrically over his chest, as if reciting sonnets drained the life directly from his ribcage.
The two of them were locked in some saccharine, syrupy verbal exchange that you quickly identified as poetry—sweet, florid nonsense being whispered not so much into each other’s ears as around them.
“Thy voice,” Lanino breathed, “doth flutter 'cross my heart like a moth to flame—”“And thine eyes,” Elnina sighed, loud enough to rattle a light fixture, “sparkle like starlight in a sky of desire—”You blinked. Okay.
They weren’t exactly trying to keep it private. Anyone with ears—maybe even those without—could make out every word if they strained even a little. But neither of them seemed to care. The whole couch might as well have been an opera stage, and they, the tragic leads in a love story with too many semicolons. You didn’t interrupt, just gave them a nod in passing, one eyebrow raised, and moved further into the room.
Near the far wall, a trio of Shadowmen had gathered in their usual little half-circle, instruments in hand. One had a brass saxophone tucked under his arm, fingers already dancing through warm-up scales while another tapped rhythm lightly against his thigh.
They didn’t talk—Shadowmen rarely did—but they played, and what they played now was a smooth, slow-burn jazz line that curled through the air like smoke. It made everything feel just a little softer. You caught the eye of one of them and offered a small wave. He nodded back once, like the downbeat of a tune you hadn’t heard yet.
And there, behind the bar, stood Ramb.
“Well now,” he said as you approached, accent clipped and warm. “You’ve got that look about you again—like someone swapped your coffee for existential dread.”
You chuckled under your breath and slid onto the barstool. “That obvious, huh?”
He set the glass down gently, then reached for something behind the counter. “You’re not the first to wear it, luv. Not here. Not when he’s got a show coming up.” He poured something light into a small glass—nonalcoholic, sharp with citrus, the kind of drink that jolted your tongue awake without making promises it couldn’t keep.
You took it with a quiet nod, fingers curling around the cool glass. “Thanks, Ramb.”
“Anytime, hon.” he said, then leaned in slightly, his tone dipping just enough to feel like a secret. “He’s in one of his moods, I take it?”
You didn’t answer right away. Just sipped and let the taste ground you a little.
“…Yeah,” you murmured finally. “He told the guard not to let anyone in. Even me.”
Ramb made a small, thoughtful noise in the back of his throat, then turned back to polishing another glass. “Well. Some wardrobes have more skeletons than clothes. Give him a minute.”
You nodded, staring into the drink for a beat longer, the music from the Shadowmen filling the space behind your thoughts. You were trying not to worry. But it was Tenna. And when he locked the door, it usually meant something inside had already broken.
You stayed at the bar longer than you meant to. Ramb was easy to talk to—had one of those faces that made you want to spill your guts without really noticing until the words were already halfway out. He leaned on the counter with both elbows, listening with the practiced attentiveness of someone who’d heard every brand of personal crisis and never once made it weird.
You didn’t even tell him much—just vague frustrations, little sighs, a few glances toward the hallway where Tenna’s dressing room sat with its door closed and an unmoving ‘wall’ standing in front of it. Still, Ramb nodded along like he understood the whole story anyway. Maybe he did.
He slid another drink across the bar. Something fizzy, pale gold, with a wedge of orange on the rim. The bubbles fizzed against your lip as you took a sip, and the sharp citrus cut through the last remnants of the morning fog in your head.
“A bit of sparkle for a dull day,” Ramb said with a wink, wiping his hands on a white cloth. “If it doesn’t brighten your mood, it’ll at least confuse your tastebuds.”
You let out a small laugh, shoulders loosening. For a second, it felt like maybe the morning would level out. Maybe Tenna just needed some space, and everything would be back to normal in ten minutes. He’d strut out of his dressing room with a new suit and a dumb joke, and you’d roll your eyes and pretend like you weren’t relieved.
Then you heard it.
A thud.
No—a crash. Something heavy, sharp, sudden. The kind of noise that didn’t just happen. It came from somewhere down the hall—his hallway. The sound cut clean through the background jazz and dropped like a stone into your stomach.
You were on your feet before your brain even finished piecing it together. The barstool clattered lightly as you shoved it back, the drink forgotten.
“Hey—!” Ramb started, but you were already halfway across the room. You pushed past the couch—Lanino and Elnina briefly looking up from their poetic trance—and stormed back into the corridor where the bodyguard still stood, stiff and silent, right in front of Tenna’s door like a fridge with opinions.
“I heard something,” you said, breath catching up to your voice. “Something fell. Something loud. Let me in.”
He blinked at you slowly.
“I heard it,” you said again, voice firmer now. “I’m going in.”
The bodyguard didn’t respond right away. Just stared at you. His face didn’t change. No sigh, no frown. You couldn’t tell if he was assessing the situation or waiting to be told what to think about it.
“I have to check on him,” you pushed. “This is literally my job. Emotional. Liaison. Ring a bell?” You tapped your temple. “If something happened in there—if he’s upset, or hurt, or melting down—I need to be with him.”
A pause.
The bodyguard’s expression didn’t soften, but he moved. One slow step to the side. Then another. He settled beside the door and put both hands behind his back, posture like a soldier guarding a castle that just got permission to fall.
He said nothing. Didn’t have to.
You exhaled through your nose and grabbed the handle. The metal was warm beneath your palm. Your heartbeat ticked up.
And then you opened the door.
“Tenna? You alri—”
You didn’t get to finish the sentence.
The moment the door creaked open, the air shifted. Like stepping into a room mid-argument, or walking in right after something had broken—literally and otherwise. Your foot barely cleared the threshold when you spotted the mess: a wardrobe tipped fully onto its side, one door hanging off its hinge like a jaw that had given up.
The floor around it looked like a storm had passed through. Hangers were everywhere—some bent, some snapped, some still clinging stubbornly to empty jackets that had been halfway pulled down and never made it back up.
Fabric was draped over the arms of chairs, puddled around the vanity, crumpled in limp little heaps that definitely didn’t look “pre-show ready.” Half a necktie dangled from the overhead light like it had tried to escape and gotten stuck.
And in the middle of it all, breathing just a little too fast, was Tenna.
His back was to you at first, shoulders hunched like a kid caught cheating on a test. You heard the wheeze before you even saw him—sharp, static-filled, like his breath couldn’t decide whether to come out as air or white noise. He flinched slightly at the sound of your voice and turned halfway, his antennae flicking up like he’d only just realized the door was open.
“Oh—uh. Hey!” His voice crackled unnaturally bright, like someone slapping a smile onto a voicemail after they already started recording. “HEY! How are you?”
He turned fully now, moving fast—too fast. One foot subtly nudged a hanger out of the way behind him. Then another shuffled awkwardly over a heap of crushed velvet pants, trying to angle his frame just enough to block out the worst of the mess. Which was hilarious, really, because the mess was everywhere. There wasn’t a single direction you could look that wasn’t covered in wrinkled suits, shiny shoes, spare bowties, and at least one top hat that looked like it had been stepped on and then politely re-fluffed.
You stood there in the doorway for a beat, not moving. Just taking it all in. Your gaze ping-ponged from the heap of clothes, to the sideways wardrobe, to Tenna’s twitchy body language, and then back to him. He was still trying to shift his feet like he could... maybe herd the mess away from your line of sight. One hanger caught on the rubber of his foot and dragged along with him. He didn’t notice.
“…What happened?” you asked finally, brows drawing in. “Are you alright? I heard a crash—was it the wardrobe falling down?”
Tenna paused. Screen flickering faintly, maybe from static, maybe from thought. His mouth opened slightly, and you watched his whole system seem to buffer.
“The wardrobe?” he echoed, too casually. “Um. Yeah! Yeah, it just... fell down! Out of nowhere! Boom! You know how wardrobes are. Always... sneaking up on you and doing that.”
You blinked.
He blinked too, or—well, he would’ve if he had eyes. Instead, one of his antennae twitched sharply and then dropped a little.
Silence hung between you, heavy and wrinkled like the jacket currently crumpled on the nearest lampshade.
He was lying. You could see it in the way his antennae twitched again—too sharp, too high-strung — His mouth wobbled nervously, curling into a shaky grin that didn’t reach his screen. There was no way the wardrobe had just decided to fling itself sideways at eight in the morning for no reason. You didn’t even bother pretending to buy it.
You stepped fully into the room, nudging the door closed behind you, and gave him that look—the one you’d honed over the last few weeks working with him. The one that said cut the act, Tenna, I’m not some intern you can flimflam with excuses. You folded your arms and waited. He stared back for a second, then glanced to the side. Then the other side. Then down.
You tilted your head. “You gonna tell me the truth now, or do I need to get the polygraph from props?”
You didn’t even know if it would work on him, but it was worth a try.
He let out a mechanical wheeze and slumped just enough to admit defeat.
“I—okay, okay, fine!” His voice glitched mid-word, jumping an octave before flattening out again. He swept one of his gangly arms toward the wreckage like he was introducing a game show prize. “I was trying to find a suit. The suit. For the show. And everything was too—too wrong, or weird, or creased, and then the wardrobe caught on one of the hinges and I pulled and—and it—!” He threw both arms up like gravity had personally attacked him. “It collapsed. It attacked me. The wardrobe betrayed me!”
You blinked. “You’ve been doing this for thirty minutes?”
“Thirty-seven, technically.” He straightened up and dusted off his screen with the corner of a nearby tie. “But time is subjective when you're having an artistic crisis!”
You scanned the room again. All of the suits did sort of look the same—mostly dark colors, glitzy lapels, a few pops of red or gold, but otherwise... distinctly Tenna-shaped. Still, you’d never seen him like this before a show. Frazzled, sure. Needy, obviously. But wreck-the-room panicked? That was new.
You crouched and picked up a fallen blazer, brushing it off with your hand. “This one looks fine. What’s wrong with it?”
He turned sharply toward you, static flaring across his screen. “Look at the lapel!” he shrieked. “There’s a stain! Right there—just under the edge!”
You squinted. “...Where?”
“There!”
“Where?”
He stomped over and pointed furiously at a spot so tiny you weren’t sure it even qualified as a stain. It looked more like a speck of lint. Maybe.
“It’s barely visible, Tenna.”
He recoiled like you’d just told him his entire personality was built on a lie. “It’s a blemish, Patch! And it’s going to ruin the whole performance. People notice these things!”
You stood up slowly, brushing your hands on your pants. “Tenna. C’mon. We talked about this, remember?” You stepped closer, keeping your voice steady. “The show doesn’t have to be perfect. The show being imperfect makes it better. That’s the whole point. That’s you. The mess is part of the charm.”
He made a low, electronic sputter in response, crossing his arms and looking away like a scolded child.
“And even if some people don’t enjoy it?” you added gently, “Let them not enjoy it. They’re fake fans anyway. They’re watching for the wrong reasons.”
A pause.
You looked at him for a long second, taking in the still glow of his screen, the faint tilt of his body as he tried to hold himself upright under the pressure of his own expectations. Your hand moved before you could second-guess it.
You rested it lightly on his forearm.
“You’ll still have a dozen people who’ll enjoy watching you,” you said, voice a little quieter now. “Me included.”
Another long pause.
He didn’t say anything at first. Just stared ahead at nothing, as if processing was taking up too much of his CPU to respond out loud.
Another long pause.
He let out a sound somewhere between a dial-up screech and a wheeze, static fuzzing like dust in a CRT corner. His antennae jittered slightly before both drooped down in a stiff diagonal line—and looked away. Not dramatically, not like he was offended or embarrassed in the classic sense. More like someone who had just short-circuited in real time and was trying very hard to pretend it wasn’t happening.
His screen, already flickering with soft static, pulsed once—then slowly glowed a faint pink behind the haze. Not enough to be glaring. Not enough to be unmistakable. But there. Definitely there. You caught it in your peripheral vision, and something inside your ribcage did a slow, awkward somersault.
You immediately looked away, pulling your hand back like it had been hovering over a stovetop and you’d just realized how close you were to heat. You stuffed it into your pocket like it was safer there, like maybe the fabric would absorb the tension you were suddenly too aware of.
The silence hung between you both for a second too long, thick enough to stretch like taffy, and you found yourself desperately pretending to be invested in a very crooked tie that had fallen near your foot.
He cleared his throat. Then he busied himself scooping up a hanger like nothing had happened. Like you hadn’t touched him. Like his screen wasn’t still ever-so-slightly pink.
You swallowed, trying to push the warm flush out of your face, but your body had already made up its mind. Your cheeks were burning, and you were not going to win this one. You stared at the floor and tried to will your thoughts into submission.
This is fine. This is normal. You’re his liaison, you’re supposed to comfort him, this is part of the job. Touching his arm? Not weird. Definitely not weird. YOU’RE making it weird. It’s not a thing. It’s not—
(Ughhh. Feelings.)
This was still platonic. This was definitely still platonic.
...Right?
Right???
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