'This is unacceptable', is what he would be insisting on if he wasn't busy panicking. 'This has got to be some sort of crime'.

There's no way Queen rubbed off on Tenna *that* bad. How did he even know about this!?

And Ramb hasn't even been that annoying today! But...

Yeah, somehow, he was getting plugged. Shown complete dominance over. Stripped of free will. Just a toy in the hands of a more powerful being. Which would be okay, because [i]he[/i]'s actually used to it and "Because Plugboys only experience being generally disoriented afterwards", as Tenna helpfully provided right now, ...if not for one small thing.

He was British.

"Tenna, I'm warnin' ya, I'm not-" Piss off. "Tenna, this ain't a normal thing to do-" Go fuck yourself. "Tenna-"

I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Don't hurt me. I'm sorry.

"Tenna, get this bloody- thing away from me!", he growled, pushing it away with all his might, but-

[i]Click.[/i]

It broke through his faceplate with a sickening crunch, in one sudden motion, cracking the plastic and drilling into his very being. Ramb went limp for a moment and then started fighting back with extra vigor. It hurt, [i]Angel[/i] it hurt.

The pain was so agonizing that the only thing he could do was scream... that is, if he wasn't plugged right now. Werewires had no mouths to scream and no minds to think and-

He tried to gasp, but-

He wasn't a werewire. He wasn't transforming. His face was just broken through, static filling his ears and blood pouring down his chin. He wasn't a werewire, he was-

He couldn't breathe.

He couldn't...

"Um, Boss?", he heard Mike's voice cutting through the overwhelming static. "Whatcha...- what's going on?"

[i]Mike[/i].

Fuck, Mike had to save him! He was going to die here!

Ramb growled something not very family-friendly and shouted for Mike. Well, it came out as a muffled "Mmph!!", but...

"Is that... Ramb over there?"

That caught his attention. Good.

He was going to die here. He was going to die, Angel, this really was the end.

[help], he signed. Mike had to be looking. Mike had to notice. [help-me].

...please, he had to notice. [m-i-k-e], if the signs were even intelligible with how hard his hands were shaking, [help].

He could tell Tenna was speaking but couldn't [i]hear[/i] him enough to understand anything. His consciousness was fading, probably from blood loss or maybe from being turned into a Werewire. Was he? Would TV World wires work the same as back home?

His lungs, or whatever he had in there, were starting to hurt even more than his face.

Tenna was getting what he wanted: rid of Ramb, and...-

"You can't just [i]plug[/i] him, Boss, he's not a normal plugboy!"

A pause.

"...he isn't?", Tenna asked uncertainly.

"Wh- [i]no?!?[/i] You're going to kill him, that's what you're doing!"

"Oh."

Thank you.

Ramb gripped the wire, – not to fight back this time, but to steady his weakly dangling body, – and tried really hard to calm down. It's okay. It'll be over soon. You're okay. Nobody's going to hurt you, [i]Swatch kept whispering to him, their wing softly patting his back,[/i] it's fine, you're gonna be fine, you're-

Click.

He fell down on the floor with a thud like a discarded toy that no one wanted anymore, blood splashing onto the carpet along with cracked off bits and pieces of his face. He coughed violently, gasped for air, trying so hard to breathe, [i]c'mon, it's okay, hun, I'm here for you[/i], but their sweet voice in his head wasn't helping when he was drowning in his own-

Everything suddenly grew quiet, not even his deafening heartbeat or cracking static remaining. He tried to take a breath.

And couldn't. But that was okay for now.

@@@

Now he didn't even pretend to like Tenna. Shit, now he didn't even pretend to [i]tolerate[/i] Tenna! Now he was...

...scared. And for what?! That wasn't in his contract! He was supposed to be friendly and obedient, not...

...shrink into himself and jerk away from any touches. Hide his shaking hands whenever Tenna was around.

He also wasn't supposed to be living on the couch in [i]Mike[/i]'s room!

*

"He's... been doing better!", Mike assured him as they walked towards his door. "You really don't have to check up on him, I'm managing just fine."

"You're supposed to be MY assistant, Mike, not... waste time on caring for the sick! That's the Weathers' job."

"Elnina visits him once in a while," Mike prompts, slowing down. He doesn't seem to be planning on letting Tenna into his room. "Says he's healing just fine. So why don't we-"

"Show me."

"...what?"

"Show him to me."

Mike pauses. Stares. Smiles nervously, "There's really no need-"

"Show. Me."

...and folds instantly. "Okay."

They stand in front of the door for longer than necessary, and Mike finally knocks and opens it. (Why would he knock on his own door?)

"Hey, Ramb... it's me."

Ramb is sitting on the couch, one leg over the other, fidgeting with something absolutely random and... blindfolded. Tenna can see the cracks going past the bandages, the blood stains awkwardly wiped away with some cloth (or perhaps clothes) and that stupidly endearing grin of his. He looks... calm and relaxed. Tenna isn't sure he's ever [i]seen[/i] him this comfortable. "[i]«Me»[/i] who, luv? Can't exactly, heh, see ya-"

"And Tenna."

Ramb pauses. Slowly turns his head towards them both, ears perked up. His lips form a thin line, he presses his feet against the floor and grips the armrests.

He looks tense. That's normal. He looks alarmed. That's okay.

He looks scared.

And Tenna isn't sure he likes that anymore.

"...hey, Mike? What's [b]he[/b] doing here, hun?", Ramb asks, voice strained. He looks ready to bolt. His tail is lashing against the cushions, little sparks of static running across his whole body. "Mike? Why is Tenna here, love?"

"I'm sorry," Mike whispers and clears his throat. "Ahem, well, boss, y'see he's absolutely fine-"

"Ramb."

Ramb shrinks into himself further, gripping the couch to the point of white knuckles like that would somehow save him from the impending doom. "Y-yeah?"

"You..." What would he even say? "I..." an 'I'm sorry'? A 'get well soon?' "You... can, um, have the week off. Paid leave."

"Ok. Okay."

No 'wow, how generous', no snarky remark, no smirk, nothing. He looks so... broken, now.

It was six AM and Jim couldn’t sleep. It was funny; back when he was human there was almost nothing more appreciated than getting to sleep past six. Now that he couldn’t go out in the daylight he couldn’t bring himself to sleep for more than half an hour, and yet the constant ache in his eyes told him that he needed to. He supposed it was more of the long nights spent protecting Arcadia with Blinky, AAARRRGGHH!!!, Toby, and — and the others that kept him from passing out than whatever had been done to his physiology. Maybe he no longer needed to sleep a full eight hours now that he was half troll, but he was exhausted from fighting and then walking. All of the other trolls (or, at least full trolls) were performing various tasks and sleeping in eight-minute-long shifts, but Jim was on an unofficial “guard duty” watching the entrance to the cave they were staying in. More specifically, he was staring at the point where sunlight hit the shadows, only moving away when it started to get too close for comfort. 

Was he really even living? Jim didn’t even know if he could fulfill most of the requirements for counting as a living organism that were in his mom’s old biology textbook. He used energy and would react to stimuli, yes, but he wasn’t sure if he was entirely carbon based, and slightly over a week wasn’t enough time to learn if he could grow and reproduce. It didn’t matter, because Jim didn’t feel alive. He had been living in a constant haze ever since he saw Draal fall and cross his arms over his chest, and it had gotten worse after he had stepped into the bathtub. He had thought that the haze was thick and stifling, like when there had been fires when he was in the first grade and his class wasn’t allowed to go outside for recess because ash was raining down on the playground.

If the haze had been stifling then, it now choked him. He felt like he was constantly oscillating between overwhelming anger, sorrow, and numbness. Could he even oscillate between more than two points? Blinky or, no, Blinky would know. Jim couldn’t bring himself to move his body to go ask him, though.

He didn’t have to because the four-armed troll walked up to him minutes later. “Master Jim, you don’t need to stand guard so close to the entrance. The sun is rising.”

“It’s not fair,” Jim said, wrapping his arms further around himself and tucking his legs closer to his chest.

“What isn’t fair?” Some part of Jim that wasn’t overwhelmed by emotions that could have powered the Shadow Staff (or the irreverent lack of any emotions at all) was thankful that Blinky didn’t immediately assume that he was complaining about his inability to walk in the daylight. It would have been so much easier if the worst of his problems was regret over deciding to halfway change his species.

“Why am I still alive when, when Draal and, and,” Jim struggled to say. Was his armor (armor that still refused to come off) getting tighter around his chest and throat? Why couldn’t he breathe?

Blinky’s gentle touch to his shoulder made Jim explode into too-long limbs and tears that weren’t due to his arm touching sunlight. “I took that hit so you guys could live! When I gave up my humanity, it was so you guys would live. Not so that Claire could go jump into a portal and, and…”

“No matter what you are, I love you.”

 Jim growled at the memory of her voice. He hadn’t told her that he loved her back. Not on the roof, and not during that time while they were waiting for the Eternal Night to fall. Definitely not when he should have, back when they were still human. He should have told her as soon as he had realized he couldn’t bear to live without her, when he had taken hold of the staff as it had threatened to tear her apart in the gyre station.

He had been so afraid that she was going to die back then, even when they had made it to safety and her body rested in AAARRRGGHH!!!’s arms. She wasn’t dead, she was just eternally missing in action. There had been a memorial for Claire before they had left for New Jersey, not a funeral. Or rather, there had been two memorials, but in one of them she was one of the many victims Arcadia Oaks had lost in the tragedy that had been required to introduce them to their underground neighbors, and in the other a sixteen-year-old girl who had achieved nearly perfect grades, saved the world, worn an absurd amount of hair clips, and rocked out to Papa Skull wasn’t lowered into the ground even though her casket was.