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From the moment Spamton entered the laboratory, he set himself three rules.
1. Do his job.
2. Do it well.
And 3: Don't think about Tenna.
For the most part, it was easy to follow all three. From the moment he woke up to the second he collapsed in bed, Gaster kept his assistants busy.
Naively, Spamton had assumed he'd be focusing on one thing - the barrier. That was the goal of monsterkind, after all. Everyone craved freedom, didn't they?
(That was the thing that would make Spamton famous, and important, and free. Freer than anyone else.)
Gaster found that laughable. In fact, he explained, there were half a dozen experiments running at any time. Monster dust, magic abilities; heck, even time dilation was on the table. They couldn't afford to put all their eggs in one tree - whatever that meant.
(Spamton tried not to look right at Gaster, during their experiments. There was something about him. About his vacant smile, the darkness where his eyes should have been. Even for Spamton, whose partner couldn't move his face most of the time, it still unnerved him.)
(He didn't let himself think about it.)
So from the wee hours of the morning to late at night, he and Alphys stayed busy. They ran reports, crunched numbers, built machines. Despite what he'd told Susie so long ago, Spamton found himself doing more science than grunt work.
Still, they were making real progress here. Gaster had said as much, commenting on the usefulness of having two assistants. Alphys, though her voice shook like a terrier in an earthquake, complimented his work. Apparently, despite having done this for a few months now, she'd never seen them make so much progress before.
That was just Spamton, for you. When he set his mind to something, he went all in, working and pushing and focused to a fault. Every day, he gave this job his all. It didn't matter how exhausting it was, how impossible the expectations were becoming. If this is what it took to be a Big Shot, he'd pay that cost.
However, during his off hours, he found himself staring at the ceiling of his borrowed room.
And his mind always, always drifted back home.
Just another few weeks, he reminded himself. He'd yet to ask Gaster about it, since he hardly wanted to make a bad early impression. But surely the doctor would allow him a couple days off. Just to check on the shop, and the kids, and...
It had been about a week - it was harder to keep track all the way down here, with no windows and clocks. Every hour felt longer and longer. But already, more than anything, Spamton missed his husband.
His over-the-top stories for the kids. The steady thump of his cord tail against his chair in the mornings. That careful one-armed embrace, pulling Spamton close to his chest to shelter him from the world. Neither of them were much for kisses, but both treasured the closeness.
The lab's threadbare blankets were a poor substitute for the raytube warmth, and it took a long, long time to drift off.
---
The knocking at the door had been bearable twenty minutes ago.
Ignore all distractions, Gaster told him. Don’t let it bother you. Focus on the work. He made it sound so easy, putting everything to the side like he had for this job.
Spamton was getting better at it. He didn't know whether that was a good thing or a bad thing.
But as it went on, getting louder and more persistent, it wore down Spamton’s nerves. It scraped against that specific anxiety in his chest, the one shaped like an old TV set and a girl in a too-big onesie. It grated and grated, until suddenly, Spamton couldn’t stand it anymore.
He finally tore away from his desk, threw open the door to the lab, and froze.
Though it sometimes felt longer, Spamton was only a week and an half into his new job role with Dr. Gaster.
So it caught him unprepared to see Susie, knuckles busted red from hitting the door so long, looking like she hadn't slept in a month. Her face - always with a mischievous grin, always up to something, was twisted in grief and anger.
And in her hands sat a broken antenna.
Oh angel. Spamton's world spun on its’ axis, leaving him suspended in his own terror. His knees buckled, and he barely caught himself on the door frame. Angel, not his husband, please oh heaven, not Tenna, not dead -
“Woah, stop it!” Susie shrieked. Spamton jolted, mouth clicking shut against a truly ear-splitting error noise. She flinched back when he moved, and he refused to let himself think about it.
Thankfully, her flailing arms made an effective distraction. “Mr. Spamton, it’s not… not that. Tenna’s fine!” She glanced down at her hand and winced. “Well, uh, he’s - he’s alive. He’s okay. Um, mostly.”
Not for the first time, Spamton was jealous of his husband. This time, though, it was because he was made entirely of plastic and metal, so thankfully he didn’t have to worry about silly things like blood pressure and stress-induced-strokes.
Still, being an Addison meant he didn't bleed. So despite how his body felt, he couldn’t actually pop a blood vessel. That did not stop him from trying, when he reached out to snatch away the antenna.
"Attention: Susie
Then kindly explain this. NOW.
-Spamton G Spamton"
In an instant, the dragon's expression shifted straight back to anger. He could admit that he probably deserved that.
“Oh yeah? You want me to explain, huh?” She stalked forward and jabbed a claw into his chest. Angel, had she always been taller than Spamton? It made her rage that much more intimidating.
Spamton could just barely see himself reflected in her wide, reddened eyes. She bared her teeth, the same way she had in the dump nearly a year ago, facing down the threat to her family, and growled out, “I. Can’t. Fix. Him.”
Fix him?
"What? He's- he's hurt?" The anxiety came back full force, choking Spamton not even a handful of sentences into his letter. "What - what did he- ?"
The antenna in his hands felt like a weight, dragging him down. He tried to keep calm - she'd just said he was fine, that he was alive, -
"He's hurting so bad," Susie said, wringing her hands. "A bunch of little things, but he's... Something's wrong. We... I need your help. Please come back?"
For a long moment, Spamton really, really wanted to.
Because he missed them. It hadn't even been two full weeks yet, and it already felt so long. He hadn't even gotten to say a proper goodbye to them - either of them.
He felt that pull to leave. To go back. To apologize to Ant, and make do with what they had.
And then the moment faded.
He recognized the bit of antenna in his hand. Part of Tenna's faulty one, a piece they'd considered replacing half a dozen times now. Tenna held onto it as long as he could, taping it and welding and tying it on. The only reason it hadn't been taken off sooner was his sentimental attachment, not pure necessity.
A thread of annoyance and through him. He knew Tenna wouldn't take their separation well. Hell, the whole reason Spamton snuck out that night was to avoid the inevitable waterworks meltdown.
(The real reason was much more selfish. If Tenna had looked him in the eyes and asked, Spamton would have stayed. So he took the coward's way out.)
But this? This was too much, even for Tenna's dramatics. Yes, tune-ups were harder to do with just one hand, but it wasn't like he'd completely fallen apart in less than ten days. He needed major repairs about once a month - Tenna would be fine until then. He had to be.
Gentle but firm, Spamton pressed the metal wire back into Susie's hand.
"The repair kit is in the dresser, just like I told him. He knows how to do the minor repairs, and I'll do the rest of it when I come back." Spamton kept his tone as clipped and reassuring as he could. "He's tough, Susie. You both are. You'll be okay without me."
Susie stopped. The antenna in her hand squeaked as she gripped it tighter.
"Oh," she said. It sounded like a noise of revelation, but she didn't do anything but step back away. "Oh."
Her face was guarded, watching Spamton the way she watched every other adult in the Underground. It hurt more than he expected it to.
Still, automatically, Spamton pulled the door closed. It was inconvenient timing, just a distraction, and he needed to get back to work -
“Tenna told me not to come here,” she said. Her voice was dull, lifeless, in a way that made his spotty feathers stand on end. She sounded so dejected, like a last chance she didn’t believe in but had to try.
Spamton’s hand spasmed on the doorknob. He remained silent.
“He said… he said you made it big.” She laughed bitterly. “That you didn’t need us - didn’t need him anymore. Not to bother you if you were happy.”
A small thunk. He imagined her knuckles against the door, a smear of blood on the metal. Nausea rolled in his gut.
Silence. Long enough that he wondered if maybe she fell asleep, or passed out, or… His mind whirled in a million directions at once. Maybe he could sneak out, just for a bit. Maybe he could take a sabbatical, long enough to fix Tenna. Even just long enough to carry Susie home, to heal her hands -
“I’m gonna tell Tenna I got lost on the way here.” The door creaked, the weight easing off it from the other side. “He… I don’t want him to know.” She stepped away. The footprints crunched against the gravel, in perfect time to Spamton’s heartbeat. “That way, he can still love you. And he can… he can think you still love him, too.”
When Spamton threw open the door again, Susie was gone.