Dial T for Tenna (Part 3)
PART 1 -- PART 4 -- (Ao3)
'Ant' Tenna/Reader
Summary: After a rough show, Tenna begins to unravel. The reader doesnât fix him â just stays. In the quiet aftermath, they suggest letting the show get messy and real. Tenna doesnât push them away. By the end, something shifts â a small moment of trust.
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The studio felt heavier in the morning light. Not dark, not dramaticâjust quiet in a way that settled under your skin. Yesterdayâs chaos had scrubbed through the space and left it drained. No stagehands yelling over each other, no costume racks rolling across the floors, no soundtrack cues looping too loud from the speakers. Just silence and the low, ambient thrum of equipment left on overnight, humming like it was trying to fill the space left behind.
You were in one of the smaller production rooms, the kind used for early auditions and cast reviews. The overhead lights buzzed faintly. Your tablet sat on the table beside a half-drunk can of soda, its screen scattered with contestant profiles. Most of them were the usual junkâwannabe influencers, college kids trying too hard to be edgy, people clearly just looking to get a clip on the air. But a few looked like they might actually be worth something. One girl listed her only skill as "causing problems on purpose," and for once, that didnât feel like a red flag. At least sheâd match the tone of the show.
You were highlighting her file when the door opened behind you. No knock. Just the slow creak of hinges and the soft scrape of shoes on tile. You didnât have to turn to know it was him.
Tenna stood in the doorway, still. Not posing, not performing. His screen was onâbright, flat whiteâbut dimmer than usual, like someone had turned the contrast down. No flicker, no glitching. Just... dull light.
âAm I canceled?â he asked.
You paused. âWhat?â
He stepped into the room, hands deep in his coat pockets, the way he got when he didnât want to look like he cared too much. âYesterday,â he said. âThe show. I assume it tanked. Viewers hate when something real slips through. They want the act. The flash. Not... whatever that was.â
You set the tablet down slowly. âNo oneâs canceling anything.â
Tenna didnât sit. He leaned against the table near the wall, screen angled toward the screens playing silent cuts of the episode. He watched without really watchingâfamiliar images, half-processed. Static danced faintly across his screen for a second, then cleared. His voice was quiet when he spoke again.
âThey booed. I havenât heard a crowd turn like that since the stunt episode where we dropped a guy into a pit of glitter and he didnât come back up.â
You glanced at him, but his expression didnât change. âThey didnât boo you. They booed the moment. The pacing. Maybe the contestants. But not you.â
âThatâs generous.â
âItâs true.â
He didnât respond. Just watched the looped footage for a while, jaw tense. You could feel the weight pressing on him, the kind that builds when a performer whoâs built their entire world out of a persona starts to doubt the foundation. Tenna wasnât just the host. He was the show, its identity, its tone. And when the crowd turned, when the laughter gave way to discomfortâsomething cracked.
Eventually, he said, âI spent the whole night wondering if I shouldâve just stayed in character. Thrown a chair. Cut to commercial. Screamed at the camera until the lights fried out. Something. Anything.â
âThat wouldnât have fixed it.â
âNo,â he said. âBut it wouldâve been on brand.â
You leaned back in the chair, arms crossed. âYouâre not just a brand, Tenna.â
He scoffed, but it didnât land right. The sarcasm had no heat behind it.
You picked up the tablet and slid it across the table toward him. âI went through the applications this morning. Found a few who might actually work. Not plants. Not polished. Just... strange. Raw.â
Tenna didnât take the tablet, but he glanced down at it. Read a name or two. One eyebrow lifted slightly. âThis one just wrote, âI want to make noise and break things.ââ
You nodded. âSheâs already more honest than half the people weâve put on the floor.â
He was quiet for a moment, then pushed off the table and finally sat down. His posture was slouched, screen still dim, but there was movement againâthought behind the silence. You could see the gears starting to turn, even if they were slow.
âAnd what?â he said. âWe just throw them in and let the show unravel itself?â
âMaybe. Maybe we stop chasing the version of the show that everyone expects. No more fake twists. No more forced drama. Let things actually go wrong. Let the show be real.â
âYou say that like itâs revolutionary.â
âIt kind of is. For this place.â
He tapped the edge of the tablet, not looking at you. âYou think thatâs what they want? The audience? Real?â
âI donât know,â you admitted. âBut I think itâs what you need. And I think people can tell the difference.â
The screen stayed white. Still quiet. But you thoughtâjust barelyâyou could hear the low, rising buzz from within it. Like something rebooting. Not loud. Not fast. Just enough to know that something hadnât broken completely.
He leaned forward, rested his elbows on his knees, and let out a breath. âAlright. Letâs see if we can make a mess worth watching.â
You didnât say anything. Just watched him. Something about the line sat in your ribs a little longer than you expected â not deep or profound, just⊠tired, in a way you recognized. Like someone who knew the show must go on but had stopped caring whether anyone clapped. That made it easier to breathe, strangely. You leaned back a little, hands still loosely knotted in your lap, and let the quiet stretch out.
Eventually, you shifted. âMess is already halfway made,â you muttered, more to yourself than him. âMight as well try to steer it somewhere.â
He didnât answer. Didnât laugh. But there was a small twitch â shoulder or head, you werenât sure â like maybe heâd heard you and didnât completely hate the sound of your voice. Youâd take that. You werenât expecting trust. You barely expected conversation at this point. But the lights were still on, the static hadnât come back, and he wasnât sending you out of the room with some manufactured PR smirk. It was the quiet kind of progress. The kind nobody clapped for.
The silence wasnât as tense as before. It sat between you like an old coat thrown over a chair. There, but not pressing. You exhaled and let your posture go a little slack. You werenât here to fix him. You couldnât. That wasnât the job. Or maybe it was â it was hard to tell. Nobody had given you a real definition for âemotional liaison,â and frankly, the people who coined the term probably didnât know either. They just needed someone who wouldnât crumble the second Tenna glitched out on them. Someone who wouldnât run. You werenât sure if that meant you were brave or just too stubborn to leave.
Tenna stood up eventually, slow and deliberate. The screen stayed white â not glowing, not dead, just... there. He didnât look at you. Not directly. But he hovered a second longer than you thought he would before heading to the door. Hand on the frame, head turned just slightly.
âIf they sent you to keep me from falling apart,â he said, âthey shouldâve started a lot sooner.â
You swallowed a response. Not because you didnât have one, but because most of what came to mind wouldâve sounded either too soft or too smug. Instead, you stood too, brushing off the back of your pants out of habit.
âThey didnât send me for that,â you said. âThey sent me because they donât know what else to do with you.â
A pause. A small one. Then a low sound â not quite a laugh. Not quite static either.
He left the office, and for the first time all day, it didnât feel like you were being shut out.
You didnât go straight back to your desk. You wandered the halls for a while instead, giving the building time to settle. Tenna moved fast when he was onstage, but off it, everything felt like waiting. Like the whole place held its breath until he made the next move. Even now, it felt like the walls were listening.
You ended up in one of the green rooms â not the fancy ones meant for guests, but one of the half-forgotten corners where unused props went to die. Beige walls. Stained couch. A coffee table that looked like it had seen things. You dropped into the cushions without grace, legs stretched out, and pulled your badge off your neck. It hit the floor with a soft plastic clack.
You didnât want to think about what just happened. Not in a big dramatic way â just in the way your brain starts poking holes when itâs too quiet. Youâd shown up here thinking maybe youâd sit Tenna down, talk him through whatever spirals he kept trying to mask with ratings and glitter and half-scripted rants. Help him âstabilize.â That was the word theyâd used. As if he were a tower with a crack in the middle. But he wasnât a structure. He wasnât even something you could brace. He was sharp edges and ancient tape reels and burnout with a spotlight baked into his bones. And honestly, you werenât sure you were any more stable than he was.
Still. You were here.
You didnât see him again until the next day.
He didnât acknowledge you when you walked into the studio. Not right away. He was already pacing the main set, notes in hand â except you were pretty sure they werenât even real notes. Just a prop clipboard. Some days he liked pretending things were organized. Maybe that was part of the act. You didnât interrupt. Just leaned against the wall off-stage and watched as the crew moved like background noise around him. Most of them didnât talk to him, just took their marks and waited. You saw one of the interns flinch when he walked by, even though he hadnât said a word.
You sighed, then pushed yourself off the wall. Stepped out toward him.
âNew suit,â you said, nodding the⊠different shade of red suit. âGoing for hostile game show host or vaguely threatening bank manager?â
Tenna didnât look at you. But he paused, the barest hitch in his steps.
âFigured Iâd try competence for once,â he said. âYou should try it sometime.â
You almost smiled. âIâm more of a chaos intern, personally.â
Another beat of silence. Then, barely audible over the hum of equipment, came the sound of him exhaling through his nose. Not a laugh. But not nothing.
The shoot that day was rough â the crowd was flat, the guest was worse, and the writers clearly hadnât slept. Tenna handled it like he always did: sharp, fast, aggressive enough to keep things from collapsing completely. You stayed off to the side, not jumping in unless you had to. That felt like the deal now. You werenât there to smooth things over or take over the controls. You were just there. An extra presence in his field of view. Something he could bounce off if he wanted. Or ignore. It was a weird job, but weird felt normal now.
When the lights finally went down, he stayed in place for a few seconds. Not dramatic. Just... unwilling to move. Like if he kept still long enough, maybe he wouldnât have to go back to being whoever he was when the cameras stopped rolling.
You crossed over without saying anything. Handed him a bottle of water youâd swiped from catering. He took it, didnât thank you â just cracked the seal and drank like someone trying to fill the silence in his chest.
Then, softly, almost like he was testing the shape of the words in his mouth:
âYouâre still here.â
You looked at him, not smiling, not smug. âShould I leave?â
A pause. His screen flickered â faint static, like a single breath caught in the wires.
âNo.â
Not a command. Not a plea. Just a simple, honest refusal. It was enough to crack the armor he usually kept wrapped tight around that flickering head of his.
You stayed quiet for a moment, letting that word hang between you. It wasnât much, but it was somethingâless a promise, more a truce. The kind you make with someone whoâs not quite ready to give up but isnât quite sure they want company either. You could see it in the way his screen settled back into that dull white glow, the static fading like a slow exhale. It wasnât victory or defeat. It was just... presence. And maybe, for the first time, that was enough.
You shifted on your feet, feeling the weight of the day settle deeper into your bones. This wasnât a story about quick fixes or pep talks. There was no magic phrase, no brilliant plan that could stitch up whatever was fraying inside him. You both knew that. You werenât here to patch a broken machineâyou were here to stick around while it sputtered and, maybe, figured itself out. That was your job now. And while you still didnât know what it really meant to be an âemotional liaison,â you were starting to understand it was less about fixing and more about showing up.
He finally looked over, just a flicker of motion, but enough to catch your gaze. âYouâre not going anywhere,â he said. Not a question, not a statement of fact, but something softer, almost vulnerable. Like admitting it felt less like a sentence and more like relief. You met his screen with a steady look. âNo plans to.â You wanted to say moreâsomething about sticking through the mess, through the noiseâbut the words felt too big, too forced. So you let the silence say what you couldnât.
For a long while, you both just sat there, two figures caught in the quiet after the storm. Outside, the studio was waking up again, lights flicking on and the distant murmur of footsteps and voices. But in this small room, time stretched differentlyâslower, deeper. You werenât sure where this fragile truce would lead, or how long it would last, but for now, it was enough to break the silence without filling it with empty noise. Sometimes that was the hardest part: just being there, steady and unyielding, while everything else spun out of control. And somehow, sitting there with Tenna, watching his screen settle into something less hostile, you felt a flicker of something close to hope. Not the kind they sell on TV. Just the quiet kind that holds, even when the signalâs weak.
He stayed quiet for a long moment, the faint buzz inside his screen the only sound between you. Then, like a crack in the static, he finally said, âYouâre... my Patch.â The words came out almost like a confession, and you caught that slight hesitation in his tone, like he was saying something he didnât quite mean to admit. âMy Patch.â He repeated it, slower this time, as if tasting the weight of the nickname, the unexpected warmth it brought despite the usual coldness he wore like armor.
You blinked, caught off guard. âYourâŠPatch?â You raised an eyebrow, a smirk creeping onto your lips. âWell, isnât that cute.â
His screen flickeredâjust a little, a subtle blush in digital formâand for a second, he looked almost flustered, like he wasnât used to letting something so... human slip through. He shifted on his feet, then muttered, voice low and reluctant, âI-Itâs because youâre⊠the fix. The patch that keeps me from cr â Donât make it weird.â
You grinned, standing up to meet him halfway. âToo late for that. But hey, Iâll take it.â
He shifted again, like the weight of the day was still there but somehow lighter now. âGo home and rest,â he said quietly, the words almost an order but soft at the edges. The flicker in his screen felt like a small, shy smile.
You gave him a cheeky look, pushing off the wall as you headed for the door. âCanât rest without watching some TV first.â The grin stayed on your face long after you left the room, and you thought maybeâjust maybeâTenna wasnât so alone in the quiet after all.
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