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Ramb had been working for Mr. “Ant” Tenna for a long time. Long enough to know that, by the speed of shoes clicking on outdated tile, Tenna was in a capital-M Mood. The Moods had become mercifully rare ever since the Lightners had shown up and knocked some sense into that CRT of his, enough for a chunk of his crew to accept a new contract. Most had gone their separate ways, though; not everyone was willing to give him a second chance. Cheers to them, Ramb supposed. Regardless, the veterans of his crew all knew to brace themselves whenever the doors would swing open to Tenna, ten feet tall and absolutely fuming.
“Someone is going to hang unless I get some coffee, Mike,” Tenna said as he stepped into the Green Room. He wasn’t fuming, though; this Mood seemed at least somewhat tempered by a distinct lack of energy, exhaustion from late nights of brainstorming new shows. Still, his shoulders were practically up to his screen, so he wasn’t in the clear yet.
Something whistled from the ceiling before a takeout cup of coffee dropped on a thick wire. Tenna grabbed it and, without even a pause, tilted his head back to chug half of it in one go. “Rough night ahead of us, Tenna?” Ramb asked from his spot behind the concession stand.
Tenna just groaned. “That, too, Ramb. Oh, it’s not even the stress of everything!”
Ramb surreptitiously glanced around. Everyone else had run for the hills when they’d heard Tenna coming—even though his Moods were much less destructive, they could still be pretty nasty, so it was best to make oneself scarce rather than be a target. Ramb could handle it, though, so he’d stuck around to keep sorting out concessions. “Something else’s got you wound up?”
Tenna shrunk a bit to lean against the back of a couch. He was still huge, but much less intimidating now. “Ugh. Kris… Kris found him, Ramb. Spamton.”
Ramb paused. It had been a very, very long time since anyone had dared to utter that name, not since their failed collaboration so many years ago. Of course, it had been a lot more than that, Ramb knew for certain, but not many people privy to that information were around anymore. “Yeah? Still got bad blood?”
“I… don’t know? We’re talking again. Reminiscing, really. Having a few drinks…” Tenna sighed, knocking back another stream of coffee. “But I don’t forgive him, not in a million years. Plus, his face is irritating. And his voice. He calls me ‘trash heap’, Ramb. Trash heap! The nerve! The absolute gall!” Tenna grew another foot in his growing rage. He was entering a proper Mood now, a downright tantrum.
“The absolute gall,” Ramb agreed, offering nothing else. Patience was the key to surviving this kind of thing. That and having thick skin. Across the Green Room, a Pippins snuck through the door, staring between Ramb and Tenna for a long second before dashing to the dressing rooms.
“Agh! He’s still got the charm, Ramb, that’s the worst part of it all.” Tenna drew a hand down his screen. “But this morning I was trying to use him as a sound board, get the show ideas flowing, right? And this idiot looks at me and says ‘Maybe try [Game show host] [GONE WILD]’! And when I asked him what the hell that even means, he just laughed at me! I nearly strangled that little rat-thing right in the cafe.” Ramb just nodded with a noncommittal hum as Tenna dove right into a proper rant. “And! And! He had the nerve to suggest a sweepstakes or something for funding, but last I checked, he’s flat broke, so does he really think I’m going to trust him about that? Ten years ago, maybe, sure! But now it just seems every time we talk, he’s egging me on and we start fighting in the middle of the cafe! It’s embarrassing!”
Listening to his boss ramble about his ex-costar like this was strangely nostalgic. Granted, back then, it had been more of the lovelorn, denial kind of rambling. “I swear, if I didn’t know better, I’d say he was flirting with me,” Tenna had laughed after their first interview together, his screen tinged pink. “Oh! What would people think? It’d be the gossip of the century!” Tenna had bemoaned not even a week later, his legs kicked over the arm of the couch he lay on. “I am nothing but a professional,” he had declared that same night, tipsy enough at the concession bar for his screen to turn staticky. It had been mildly amusing back then, but it was not worth the decade of mourning and pining and utter vitriol that had followed. Even so, it seemed like they were right back to ‘will-they-won’t-they-or-maybe-they-already-have’ again.
(If asked, Ramb, who could read Tenna like a book, would put money on ‘they already have’, judging by the disheveled state of Tenna’s clothes and his scattered state of mind some mornings before the fallout.)
Ramb waited until Tenna ran out of steam a full two minutes later, grabbing a commemorative ‘MARVELOUS MYSTERY BOARD GRAND REVIVAL’ mug as he said, “Might make a suggestion, Tenna. If I can speak freely, yeah?”
Tenna sighed, his shoulders slouching. “Go ahead.”
“Quite frankly, seems like you’re only fighting ‘cause the stress. You’re tense. And it’s been a long time between you.” Ramb shrugged his shoulders. “Could be that you two just need some, ah… quality time, yeah?”
“…Quality time.”
The Pippins, who had made their way behind the stand to shove some little Tenna figures into their pockets, peeked their head over the counter and clarified, “Think he’s saying you two need to bone.”
Now, Ramb liked to think of himself as unflappable, but even he couldn’t help but grimace. Tenna’s antennae shot straight up as he said, somewhat high-pitched, “What.”
The Pippins winked cheekily at Ramb, who sighed. “…Not quite the way I’d say it, but…”
“How… dare you, Ramb! Do you forget who pays you?!” Tenna stood upright, his voice rising to a furious crescendo. “I am your boss! That you’d think I’d even consider that! With him!” The Pippins had frozen next to Ramb, all of their humor gone in the face of what seemed to be the tantrum of the century. “And even if I did ‘bone’ him, what happens in my dressing room is none of your business! Augh, just thinking about that word makes me want to dunk my head into a bathtub!” From the corner of his eye, Ramb could see a door crack open, curious eyes peering into the Green Room to catch what in the world had led Tenna to scream like a banshee.
And through it all, Ramb just kept polishing mugs. Because between ‘So we got a little handsy in his dressing room after a few drinks, is that so wrong?!’ and screeched repeating of the word ‘BONE?!’, there wasn’t much he really needed to say.
Tenna’s voice was strained by the time he finally settled down, shoulders heaving as he gasped for air. Ramb checked his watch; he’d gone on for almost ten minutes straight. Tenna clapped his hands in front of his face and, with one last heavy sigh, said, “This conversation never happened, Ramb, you hear me? And tell that horrible dice creature never to speak to me that way again.” With that, he turned on his heel and stalked out of the room.
The silence was deafening as Ramb finally put down the last mug. “Geez,” the Pippins said beside him.
“Well. Was trying to get there gently, but that worked, too,” Ramb replied, grabbing his keys to start locking up. “Boss is pent up. Seems like he knows it now. Show’s over, everyone.” Quietly, the doors closed again, and Ramb turned out the lights, the Pippins scampering back out where they came from.
The next morning, there was a distinct lack of Mood behind Tenna’s footsteps as he entered the studio. “Morning, boss,” a Plugboy greeted cautiously. Talk of Tenna’s rant from the previous night had spread around like wildfire; Ramb knew you could always trust the stage crew to gossip like nobody’s business. So of course, everyone was on edge. They hadn’t learned the intricacies of Tenna’s footsteps yet.
“Goooood morning!” Tenna chirped, reaching up. His tie was slightly crooked and his shirt seemed a bit too wrinkly than it should have been—all things that Ramb noticed. “Mike? Coffee?”
A cup of coffee lowered from the ceiling again as the rest of the crew looked at each other uncertainly. Ramb took it upon himself to break the ice. “Seems you’re in a better mood today, Tenna.”
Tenna sighed, nodding down to him as he grabbed the coffee cup. “Yeah, sorry about that. Guess all this brainstorming and funding was doing more of a number on me than I thought. Last night really helped clear my head, though! We’ll get there when we get there. For now, keep up the good work, ladies and germs!” His smile was dazzling as he snapped his fingers and headed off into the deeper sets of TV World.
“Uh… what was that about?” The Plugboy finally asked after a long moment of silence.
Ramb shook his head. “Looks like he got that quality time I suggested.”
“Quality time…?”
The Pippins chimed in again, “Means he got laid, Plugboy!”
Ramb sighed, retreating to the Green Room amidst the eruption of disgusted chatter.