Chapter Text
“THEY ARE [[Puppet Strings]] THAT ARE NOW [[Silly Strings]]!!” Spamton said, “[Eye] CAN CONTROL THEM, [Maybe…] USE THEM AS [Weapons]??”
“Could you explain…I think I am missing some context,” Tenna said, alarmed at the mention of puppet strings and Spamton’s unfamiliarity with the green threads. A sudden, dizzying clarity cut through his panic. Wait. He wasn’t sure how to use them, but the first thing he did was chain himself to my ceiling for a quickie? The sheer, unhinged priority of it—the fact that Spamton’s own mind, in the midst of this chaos, had gone to the exact same possessive, obsessive place Tenna’s had in the cafe—sent a warm, vindicated static buzzing through his circuits.
“THIS [[Workout-Ready Body]] WAS SUPPOSED TO BE FOR YOU!!” The words burst from Spamton, sharp and raw. He took a staticky breath, his bravado struggling to reassert itself over the painful memory. “A VESSEL TO [[Avoid Obsolescence]]!! TO DODGE THAT [[Prophecy]] ABOUT YOU BEING [Cleaved]!!”
His expression twisted, a flicker of the old terror and betrayal. “I TRIED TO [Warn You]. AND FOR THAT, I WAS [[Punished]]. [[Transformed]] INTO A [Small Puppet] JUST FOR [[Telling the Truth]]!!” His voice dropped, shame cutting through the static. “I THOUGHT I NEEDED A [New Body] MORE THAN YOU DID. I WAS ALREADY [Hurt Badly] JUST FROM TALKING… I COULDN’T [[Save You]] ANYMORE. I COULD ONLY [[Save Myself]].”
“THIS BODY WAS A LIGHTNER’S [[Hopes and Dreams]]. A [Feathered Friend] WAS THEIR [Paintbrush]. IT WAS BUILT AND STORED IN [[Queen’s Basement]]. I WAS [[Kicked to the Curb]] FROM THAT [[Mansion Sweet Mansion]]! BUT I KNEW WHAT WAS [Down Below]. I [Tried Everything] TO GET IT BACK!! I EVEN [[Pulled a Fast One]] DRESSED AS THAT [No-Good Butler] BUT I [Failed]!!”
Spamton was admitting many things, providing vastly more detail than the truncated version he'd given when he asked for amnesty from Ralsei after confessing to a murder attempt.
Tenna knew the end result, of course—Spamton was living in the NEO body now, the same form he’d likely used to attack the trio. But now Spamton was confessing to the motives: the selfishness, the cowardice, the greed. He said he wanted to get the NEO body for Tenna, but after being transformed into a puppet, his goal shifted. He wanted it for himself, attempting to steal it from Queen’s Mansion from under Swatch’s nose, usurping a Lightner’s creation.
Tenna was deeply moved that Spamton had once considered the NEO body for him. The thought did count. Yet somehow, amid the storm of emotions, a bubble of unexpected mirth surfaced.
He chuckled, “All those attempts at trying to steal from Queen and you failed. Yet you handily robbed my fanmail the moment you had a chance to!”
Spamton snapped out of his angst spiral, surprised, then laughed too. “Oh, [Cathode], I KNOW THIS PLACE [Inside and Out]!! JONGLER DIDN'T KNOW [What’s Inside] YOUR [[Ultimate Treasure Chest]]. SO WHEN I WALKED BY WITH A [Full Bag] IT JUST LOOKED [Normal] to THEM. JUST THE [Mailman] WITH MAIL...” He paused, his grin sharpening. “TENNA, THIS IS [[Serious Business]].”
Tenna went quiet. So that was it. The offhand comment had just solved the mystery of his stolen fanmail.
“...I COULDN’T [Acquire the Goods] FOR A LONG TIME. UNTIL KRIS CAME. MY [[Loyal Customer]]… THEY [[Downloaded My Data]] AND [[Inserted the Disk]]. FINALLY, I HAD MY [[NEO]] BODY!!” His triumph was palpable, but quickly soured.
Spamton explained, his words halting, how he’d offered Kris a deal for mutual freedom. He might have even meant it. But when he discovered the NEO body came with puppet strings, he snapped. “THEY [[Pulled a Fast One]]!!” he spat, the memory raw. “[[Freedom]] WAS WITHIN REACH!! I [[Rationalized]]… SEIZING THE [[SOUL]]S… IT WAS THE ONLY WAY TO [[Heaven]].”
Tenna facepalmed. Spamton had admitted to the murder attempt, but omitting this betrayal of his deal with Kris was a staggering new low. He had followed the letter of their agreement—destroying a body could be construed as ‘freeing’, not the person but the SOUL—while utterly violating its spirit. Tenna had willingly married a being capable of such twisted logic, and yet, he felt no regret.
“IT WAS A [[False Advertisement]]!! THE STRINGS WERE THERE!! [[Holding Me Up]]. MAKING ME [Dance] FOR A [Audience of None]!! I WASN’T [[Free Sample]]. I WAS A [Bigger Puppet] ON A [Bigger Stage]!!” The memory of the betrayal was still fresh, his voice cracking with static. “BUT THE [Trio] CUT MY [Strings]. I WOKE UP. [[Still In One Piece]] LOOKING LIKE MY [[Old Model]]. I BECAME [Equipment] [[on the side of the angels]]. THE [Strings] DON’T [Remote Control] ME ANYMORE. THEY’RE JUST… [[Part & Parcel]]. AN [Add-On Feature]!! I CAN’T [Get rid of] THEM, SO I MIGHT AS WELL [[Learn To Use The Tools]]. [[Re-Purpose]] THEM. THIS BODY IS [Integrated Into My System]. IT’S MINE.” He looked down at his own chassis, his voice losing its edge, becoming quiet and strangely lucid. “AND I’M… I’M [[So Sorry For Your Loss]]. IT CAN’T BE YOURS ANYMORE.”
Tenna sighed, immediately regretting his decision to lift the ban on “thank you” and “sorry.” Spamton was apologizing for the one thing that needed no apology—his own survival.
“And I am sorry,” Tenna said, his voice equally quiet. “For throwing you over my shoulder. For kidnapping you from your job. I was… jealous. And overwhelmed. It was wrong of me.” Spamton’s raw reflection on his own failings made Tenna want to face his.
Spamton looked up, his expression unreadable for a moment before it softened into something wry. “I [[Accept]] YOUR [Apology Letter].”
“And I decline your apology,” Tenna said, his voice soft but firm. “It’s unneeded.” He reached out, his fingers gently tracing one of the green strings, his touch a clear, possessive promise. “And this body is still mine.”
Seeing the strings—pliant, green, and intimately connected to the very core of his husband—gave Tenna an idea. A reversal of a cherished past ritual, a new game for their new forms.
“Are the strings sensitive?” Tenna asked, his voice a low hum of static.
“YEAH,” Spamton said, the word bursting from him before he could filter it. A deep blush immediately flashed across his face. Flustered, he reversed the direction of the threads, sending them snapping back to anchor firmly in the ceiling instead of retracting into his body—a silent, eager offering.
Tenna laughed, a warm, crackling sound. He hadn’t even made the offer yet and Spamton already knew, his very body answering for him.
But a concern remained. Tenna’s gaze softened. "Does it hurt?" he asked, his voice low. "When the Lightners... when they snapped them?"
"NO," Spamton said, his own voice quieter, losing some of its static. "IT FELT [Strangely Liberating]. THEY [[Set Me Free]]."
“Can I play with your wires?” Tenna asked.
“YES.”
“Tell me if something feels good, or not good.”
“OKAY.” The agreement was soft, stripped of its usual glitching bravado.
Wanting to make this new exploration as comfortable as possible, Tenna focused his will. The walls of the room shifted to a calming blue, and the hard floor beneath them transformed, becoming a plush, white surface that yielded gently underfoot.
Spamton looked around, admiring the change in the room as Tenna divested him of his clothes, settling them into an unlocked chest he had also summoned.
Spamton settled onto his stomach with a sigh. “[[Heavenly Host]],” he murmured, sinking into the give. “THE MOST [Comfortable] GROUND I’VE EVER [Layed Down On]. YOU COULD [Catch Some Z's] ON THIS!!”
The casual comment sent a sharp pang of sadness through Tenna’s circuits—the thought of Spamton sleeping on hard, cold ground a phantom ache in his own chassis. He pushed the feeling aside, focusing on the man before him.
With deliberate care, Tenna began. His primary hands took hold of the green strings. He started gently, tugging on them with a feather-light pressure, sending minute vibrational shivers through Spamton’s frame. He caressed the lengths of them, feeling the thrum of energy within. He bunched them together, then pulled them apart, experimenting with tension and sensation.
A sharp, staticky gasp escaped Spamton. His shoulders tensed, then melted into the soft ground as a low moan followed. “[H-Hey Now]… IT’S… [[Strange & Unusual]]…” Another tug, this one firmer, and his back arched slightly. “...BUT [Good].” The admission was breathless, raw. He had been unfamiliar with this, but Tenna was guiding him through a whole new avenue of pleasure, one he was familiar with himself, because of Spamton, who had played with the wires within Tenna’s body in the past.
The novel sensations—the intimate tugging on the very fibers of his being—proved too much, overwhelming Spamton just as Tenna used to get overwhelmed by his own wires. With a soft, slick sound, Spamton’s length everted once more, pressing against the soft white floor.
“[[Turnabout is Fair Play]],” Spamton managed, his voice ragged. “MY [Turn]. LET ME [[Maintain]] YOUR [Wiring].”
Tenna’s screen flickered with amusement. “And what would you call that, if not ‘marital relations’?”
“[[System Maintenance]],” Spamton declared, his tone the picture of professional sincerity.
Tenna’s tongue flicked out, tracing the edge of his screen. “And while you’re… performing maintenance…” he purred, “could I also take care of your everted ‘package’?”
“YES,” Spamton gasped, the word cracking with static. “AND CAN I [[Sample the Goods]]? HAVE A [Taste Test] OF YOU?”
“Alright,” Tenna agreed, his own systems beginning to whir with anticipation.
“[Standard Procedure],” Spamton announced as he divested Tenna of his clothes, eager to start the “system maintenance."
Instead of hiding, Tenna leaned into the exposure. He spread his legs, revealing his wet, dripping vent, his blunt plug already noticeably enlarged and throbbing.
Then, with a soft click-hiss, Tenna unlatched the main panel on his chest by himself, since Spamton was too busy looking at his lower body to pay attention to the top half.
Tenna opened the panel, exposing the intricate, glowing web of internal wiring within. He would offer matching vulnerability to the man whose heart and strings he’d just touched. “They’re all yours.”
What followed was a synchronized circuit of pleasure. Tenna lay on his back, chest open and wires exposed. Spamton straddled him, the heavy, thick weight of his everted cock pressing into Tenna’s mouth, each pulse releasing a sharp, salty taste. Tenna worked his jaw, taking him deeper, as below, Spamton’s long, bat-like tongue delved down. It laved over the sensitive, enlarged head of Tenna’s dick, the direct contact sending a jolt of pure, white-hot pleasure straight to his core, before the agile muscle pushed further, filling and stretching his wet vent with an exquisite, probing pressure.
All the while, Spamton’s hands, with a familiar and deft precision, traced, plucked, and gently squeezed the sensitive wires inside Tenna’s chest, sending cascading feedback loops of sensation that intertwined with the attention on his prong and vent.
The overload—the warm weight in his mouth, the eager tongue filling him, the devastatingly skilled handling of his most internal components—drove Tenna over the edge again and again. He gushed, releasing in slick, shuddering waves that Spamton eagerly drank up, his long tongue lapping and swallowing with a pleased, staticky hum as Tenna’s screen flashed white with each climax. When Spamton finally came with a choked, glitching cry, his release flooding Tenna’s mouth with an intensified, crackling saltiness, he retracted and slowly, tenderly, climbed off.
In a pleasant daze, Spamton reached over and carefully clicked Tenna’s chest panel shut. As Tenna fumbled for his boxers amid a scatter of petals that had bloomed from his nose, Spamton simply curled against him, draping an arm over his chassis. “[Let’s Hit The Snooze],” he murmured, his voice a staticky whisper. “TAKE A [Five Minute Break] BEFORE [[Round Thr33]].”
Tenna’s screen flickered in surprise. Round three? The thought sent a fresh thrill through his circuits. If Spamton everted a third time… Tenna could get his vent properly stuffed. He desperately hoped Spamton would think of a good excuse for why that wouldn’t count as ‘marital relations’. They really needed to discuss voiding that waiver when they got home.
They lay together in a comfortable silence, cuddling on the soft ground.
“Did you have a good time at the Cafe?” Tenna asked. Tenna wanted to hear about Spamton’s day, even if it was still ongoing.
“YES. I LOVED THE [Food and Drink] FROM A CERTAIN [[Host]]!!” Spamton smiled at Tenna and leaned in, pressing a quick kiss to his mouth.
The kiss was much too brief for Tenna’s taste but he understood the reason immediately—Spamton had more to say.
“I’M [[Sorry]] FOR MAKING YOUR [Work Shift] DIFFICULT. I WAS JEALOUS YOU WERE WORKING FOR MY [Enemies]!!”
Tenna leaned in, his long nose nuzzling Spamton’s before he placed a deep and lengthy kiss.
“Apology accepted,” Tenna said, once he finally let Spamton go.
“HEY TENNA,” Spamton said, his tone sly and heated. “DO YOU [Remember] TELLING ME YOUR [Dream]? CUZ I’M GONNA [[Make It Come True]].”
Tenna wracked his memory banks. What dream? And then he understood. Oh. This was Spamton’s excuse to engage in ‘marital relations’ through the loophole of ‘fulfilling a dream’.
“Tell me,” Tenna said, his voice hushed. “What was the dream?”
Spamton described it, hardly needing to do anything to sell the plan to Tenna.
Tenna’s screen flushed a brilliant, incandescent red. Spamton… making me such an offer. It’s impossible that I’d refuse!
The air in the sky-blue room crackled, thick with spent static and fresh anticipation. Spamton’s offer hung between them, a tantalizing promise.
“I want it,” Tenna breathed, his screen still flushed a brilliant red. “But are you sure, Spammy?” The affectionate nickname was a soft, vulnerable thing in the vast space.
Spamton’s grin was a flash of white. “[Absolutely]!! NOW [Get to Work], HUBBY!” The command was a shot of pure, competitive adrenaline, laced with love.
With a thought, Tenna obeyed. The room expanded, the ceiling soaring to a dizzying height. Scattered throughout the space, soft white platforms formed, floating like solid clouds in their artificial sky.
Meanwhile, Spamton encrypted the door, ensuring their privacy.
“I WON’T [[Make It Easy]] FOR YOU,” Spamton warned, his voice echoing. “YOU GOTTA [[Earn It]].”
“I understand,” Tenna said, his competitive spark igniting. He was still shocked by the ferocity of the chase that began.
Spamton launched himself into the air, his green strings suspending him with an effortless grace. He landed on a distant cloud, a smirk on his lips. “WELL? [[What are you waiting for?]]??”
Tenna knew his role. Ants mated during a nuptial flight, where winged males and queens fly from their colonies to reproduce. During this flight, a male mated with a queen, who stored the sperm and used it to fertilize her eggs. But the male had to be fit, as in able to catch the queen in the first place.
Spamton had agreed to take on a feminized role, the elusive prize. Now that he could fly, it was possible to indulge in Tenna’s fantasy of the nuptial flight. As a worker, Tenna had been locked out from both roles—the pursuing drone and the fertile queen. Spamton was granting him the first by acting as the second.
Tenna leaped from his platform, approximating flying, his form a blur of motion. Spamton dodged with a flutter of his bat wings, laughing. Tenna tried again, missing by inches as Spamton zipped to another cloud.
A low growl of frustration rumbled in Tenna’s chassis. With a sharp shink, his claws unsheathed, and his plug tail emerged, lashing for balance. He became a creature of pure instinct, scaling the blue walls with his claws, using his tail to adjust his trajectory in mid-air, leaping and pouncing with single-minded focus.
He’s really not making this easy for me, Tenna thought after he missed yet again, his systems whirring with the exertion and the thrill of the hunt. When I get him…
“YOU HAVE TO [[Work For It]]!” Spamton taunted from above.
Finally, Tenna saw his opening. He didn’t just jump; he used his power. He leaped, clapped his hands together, and did a split. With a sound like a spliced film reel, his “Smash Cut” ability sliced through the air—and through Spamton’s strings.
The strings snapped. Spamton’s eyes went wide with genuine shock before he tumbled out of the air, landing with a soft whump on a cloud platform—directly into Tenna’s waiting, powerful arms.
Tenna seized Spamton and captured his mouth in a fierce, biting kiss—a victor claiming his prize. Spamton melted into it with a shiver. “[[Congratulations You Won]],” he panted when they parted, his voice wrecked. “TOOK YOU [Long Enough].”
Tenna leapt, but before he could lower them to a platform, a fresh set of vibrant green strings shot out from Spamton's body, latching onto the distant, high ceiling with a resonant thwip. They jerked to a sudden halt, suspended in the center of the vast, sky-blue room, swinging gently in the air.
Tenna answered with a possessive growl, his grip tightening. He pressed Spamton back against the supportive web of strings, the green cords wrapping around them both like a harness. With a slick, electric friction, he rubbed his enlarged, throbbing cock against Spamton’s everted cock before pushing in, breaching his cloaca in one smooth, relentless motion. He was so, so wet, dripping all this time.
Spamton arched against the strings, a sharp gasp escaping him. “BIG. [[Bigger]]. C’MON, [[Small Screen]]!!”
Tenna growled and enlarged, the girth of his penis expanding within the tight, hot confines until Spamton let out a choked, satisfied cry.
Tenna paused.
“MOVE! [[Step on the Gas]]!!”
“Small screen?” Tenna echoed, a low, staticky rumble. “You’re not calling the shots here. I’ll move if you say something nice.”
“[[10% Off]] YOU LITTLE [$#^&]!!” Spamton gasped, his voice cracking with frustrated static. “I WAS THE [Headmaster] WHO TAUGHT YOU HOW TO GET A [[Big Head]]!!”
A slow, possessive smile spread across Tenna’s screen. He hadn't moved an inch. “Yeah. Back then, you taught me how, and said it made me too cocky.” This was the very memory he had whispered to Spamton’s heart.
He remembered it all now. He, who could only grow his entire body, had watched Spamton enlarge just his head to shout. Later, he’d learned Spamton could do the same with the “head” of a funnel, adjusting its size to perfectly fill Tenna even as Tenna’s own body shifted larger with pleasure. Spamton had offered to teach him that precise, localized control—to let his prong, the head between his legs, grow large and demanding while the rest of him stayed a size that could be pet everywhere. Tenna had mastered the skill quickly, to Spamton’s chagrin and pleasure both.
Spamton squirmed, the strings above them twitching with his impatience. “YOU [[Lazy Bones]]!!”
“C’mon Spammy. I know you’re capable of it,” Tenna teased. “When you were teaching me how…I distinctly remember you calling me a "hard worker” when I was inside of you like this.”
“THAT’S WHEN YOU WERE [[Put Your Back Into It]]!!” Spamton grumbled, blushing and clearly recalling the exact same memory. “F1NE!!” Spamton glared at Tenna and clenched around him briefly before saying, “I LIKE YOUR BIG [[Hot Rod]]!!!”
“Wonderful!” Tenna grinned, deeply satisfied. “The mail has submitted! My sweet love letter,” Tenna purred, giving a nickname in return. “So open for me.” Enveloping him.
A deep blush flashed across Spamton’s face, his expression becoming provoked and challenging at the mention of submission, but he yielded, closed his eyes and showed his trust, moaning as Tenna finally started to move. “OKAY TENS…TAKE CARE OF ME.”
Tenna thrust, setting a deep, frantic rhythm. Their suspended bodies swung with the force of it, the strings creaking softly, transmitting every movement into a gentle, swaying dance. Their moans and the wet sounds of their intercourse filled the open space.
“ENJOYING MY [[C U Next Tuesday]]??” Spamton gasped, his own everted flesh trapped between their bodies, leaking pre-release with every jarring movement.
“YES, God, yes!!” Tenna groaned, his voice thick with static.
Spamton grinned widely, delighted. “I LIKE BEING CALLED [God].”
The pace became punishing. Tenna could feel the pressure coiling at the base of his dick, an inevitable surge. “I’m close,” he warned, his thrusts becoming erratic. He licked a stripe up Spamton’s neck.
“GO AHEAD,” Spamton gasped, “[[Bite Me]]. LIKE YOU [Used To].”
“I’m going to give you my sperm,” Tenna growled, the ghost of Spamton’s words—like you used to—echoing in his mind. He bit down on Spamton’s neck, leaving marking teeth imprints on the chassis. Spamton’s composure shattered; a sharp, staticky moan tore from his throat, a mix of pain and pure pleasure.
“YES, ANT. PLEASE,” Spamton begged. “I NEED IT TO [[Fertilize My Eggs]]!!!”
The words unlocked a deep, primal possessiveness in Tenna. After a final, shuddering thrust that sent them spinning on the strings, he positioned himself and came, drenching Spamton’s cloaca with a hot, crackling rush of static-charged release.
As the last pulses faded, the strings retracted, lowering them gently until they landed with a soft whump on a nearby cloud platform. For a moment, they lay tangled, panting. Then, Tenna shifted. Spamton was still everted, hard and wanting. Tenna hovered his own wet, dripping vent above him.
“Normally the male ant would be dead at this point,” Tenna said, startling Spamton. Drones died after mating. “But, I’m still here, so it's my turn. Let’s turn that frown upside down!” Tenna smiled, his voice wrecked. He was alive. He should have been cleaved and dead at the Knight’s hands, but he was not. He was here, and he could ride Spamton. “You touched my wires after I touched your wires… so shouldn’t I take your length after you took mine?”
Spamton answered in the affirmative, thrusting upward, teasing Tenna’s entrance.
Tenna lowered himself, sheathing Spamton inside himself in one slow, exquisite glide, relishing the fullness and the sounds Spamton made as Tenna surrounded him.
Tenna began to move, riding him with a desperate, rolling rhythm, eager to get Spamton’s release.
Except Spamton’s expression looked like he was pushing himself to last longer.
“You can finish,” Tenna said encouragingly.
“WELL, YOU LOOK LIKE YOU’RE [[Having a Blast]] ON THIS [Ride],” Spamton teased, his hands gripping Tenna’s hips, squeezing his ass, his own thrusts measured, trying to prolong the moment.
“You can practice lasting longer later,” Tenna insisted, clenching around him tightly.
The squeeze, and the promise of a later—of more, of a future together filled with this—was the final trigger. Spamton’s control shattered. With a glitched, broken cry, he came, his shimmering, iridescent release filling Tenna’s vent.
They collapsed together, a tangled mess of limbs and cooling metal, onto the blessedly soft platform. The fantasy was spent, the roles shed. They were just Tenna and Spamton again—two broken things who had, against every prophecy and odds, chosen to live, and in living, chosen each other. Again.