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solalunar-eclipse · 2 years ago

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Strings Neither Green Nor Red

Chapter title: Pink Embroidery (Clickon K. Addison)

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Spamton belongs to Toby Fox, all other characters belong to @brightgoat on Tumblr and Twitter.

Click sighed. Vid had left their apartment keycard in their house again, and yet again, it was up to him to bring it to their workplace.

This had been happening more and more recently, and he was getting sick of it. Not only did it put him out of his way, but it cut into his break time, which he needed to be savoring every second of just to hold himself together.

Ever since the rift in their department opened up with Spamton’s disappearance (which had only grown as Vid and Mags became more at odds), Click had been spending as much time avoiding the others as possible. This pattern forced him to do everything but that, making his mouth twist in annoyance as he rounded the corner towards the shop.

Click threw open the door to Vid’s place (a little convenience store, this week), not bothering to grab it before it slammed into the doorstop. “Hey! I got your keys!” he shouted into the silent store.

No reply came, except for the very faint echo of his voice off the tiled floors.

That kind of silence was weird, even for a depressed Video. Warily, he wandered up and down the aisles, unable to even catch sight of anyone at the register. Could Vid have gone out? But then why was the door unlocked? The yellow Addi had lost their apartment card, not the keys to their store.

Click’s ponytail twitched at a quiet noise, and he combed it over his shoulder somewhat shamefully, hoping nobody had seen that.

That was nothing, however, compared to how he reacted when the storeroom door swung open in his peripheral vision.

It was sheer luck that his tail didn’t drop more than anything, but it certainly came close, given that he’d screamed nearly loud and high enough to shatter glass. Instinctively, Click summoned an arrow, pointing it at the figure in the doorway.

“…AH, [$!&*].”

That voice…

The pink Addison’s magic fizzled out as a new kind of terror welled up in the pit of his stomach. “S…Spamton?”

“[[The one and only!]] WHO’S IT LOOK LIKE I AM, [the Fonz]?” he shot back, looking decidedly unimpressed.

Click nearly let out a half-hysterical giggle, but choked it back. “N-no…” he said weakly, unable to muster a better response.

He’d been planning for this moment for years. His apology speech had been perfect—just the right blend of sales pitch and argument, sure to convince Spamton of his guilt and his desire to make it up to him. Now, though, he couldn’t remember a word of it.

Vaguely, he wondered if this was what stage fright felt like.

“You’re alive.” he managed to say, and then immediately winced. Way to point out the obvious, Click.

“WELL, DUH.” Spamton gestured to himself, blatantly unimpressed. “YOU GOT ANY MORE [Logical Deductions] TO POINT OUT, [[Sherlock]]?”

“Listen—Spam—” Click began, but he was rapidly cut off.

“NO. THAT WAS A [Answer Not Provided] QUESTION.” Spamton snapped. “I DON’T WANT TO [Here] ANY MORE OF YOUR [[Rated PG-13 For Foul Language]].”

“But I’m sorry—” he tried again.

Spam laughed harshly. “YOU?! SORRY? HA! AT LEAST [[Video compilation]] WAS BELIEVABLE. HE MIGHT’VE LIKED ME, [Once upon a time, in a galaxy far, far away]. I WAS JUST Y0UR [[Sob story]] [Punching bag]. AND YOU EXP3CT ME<TO [[Return to sender]] BACK T0 TH4T?!”

Click felt like he’d just been hit in the chest. “Wh—I don’t—just let me explain…”

“EXPLAIN WHAT? HOW I’M A [[glitchy little freak]] WHO’S [[going to come running back to us the second you fail]]? NO W4Y. I’M NOT GONNA [Put Up Your Dukes] WITH A [Round 2] OF THAT!!”

The pink Addi felt sick to his stomach. Hearing Spamton spew out his own words as part of his glitching genuinely left him closer to making a mess of the store’s floor than any alcohol could ever have done.

Clutching at his mouth, Click leaned heavily against the shelves, resting his other hand on his knees. All his words were stuck deep in his throat, choked by the impact of his disgusting old speech.

Spam rolled his eyes. “SAME OLD [Drama Queen]. THAT [[Sales Shtick]] AIN’T GONNA WORK ON ME, YOU B[but are you okay?]!”

Click dragged himself back upright, leaning on one of the shelves. “Not really…but I probably deserved that…and more. I mean, I’m guessing you haven’t been okay for a while…”

Spamton seemed a little startled by his last outburst, as though he hadn’t meant to say that. When Click spoke, however, he refocused on the conversation.

“I MEAN, UNLESS YOU COUNT LIVING IN [[the trash like a rat]] AND [Eating the scraps from the table] AS OKAY.” he said, giving the pink Addi an irritated look.

“Oh, god…” Click groaned, as the true force of exactly what his words at the Cyber Grill had done hit him for the first time. “Oh, god, what did I do? I mean, at least you’re not dead, r—no, never mind, that sounds so messed up.”

“YOU GOT THAT ONE [Right as rain].” Spamton muttered.

“How am I supposed to fix that?” he asked (mostly to himself), feeling weak. “How the hell do I—make this all go back to normal?”

“YOU DON’T. [U] CAN’T. [Default settings] AREN’T EVER COMING BACK, [[Clickbait]].”

“But I have to!” he cried, his speech fully off the rails by this point. “I need to, it’s eating me alive! Don’t you understand?! I can’t live like this!”

“Maybe I can help with that!” a voice said from behind him.

“Vid!” Click gasped, never more relieved to see the yellow Addi than now. “Wait, actually, hold on—do you know why Spam’s in your store??”

Video sighed, giving him a half smile. “We started talking a few weeks ago. Now I’m working on making things up to him. Slowly.”

“And you didn’t tell anyone?! …never mind. That makes sense.” he sighed, still a little stung.

“But…how can you help?” Click asked, desperate.

“Okay, so listen, Click. This isn’t the kind of thing you can one-and-done. You’ve gotta prove, over and over again, that you’re not gonna treat him like you used to. Heck, he might never forgive you…I don’t even know if he’s fully forgiven me yet.” Vid said, surprisingly serious for once.

“That’s not helpful!” the pink Addi snapped.

Vid raised an eyebrow. “Aaand that’s the first thing you’ve gotta work on, right there.”

“What?” Click was bewildered.

“Your anger issues! Thing is, man…anyone who you don’t like, you yell at until you scare them the heck away.” Video explained. “‘S what ya did with Spam, right? Though for the life of me I can’t figure out what you hated about him so much.”

“I didn’t hate him.” Click scoffed, rolling his eyes. “I was just…annoyed.”

“Wow. How long’ve you been telling yourself that one?” Vid shot back. “You legit said the words ‘I hate Spamton’ out loud. More than once. And you insulted him, like, all the time! Since when have you ever not hated him? …no offense, Spam.”

“SOME TAKEN. FROM [[Cotton Candy Half Off]], NOT YOU.”

“W-wait, but that’s not what I meant—!” Click cried. “I…”

“YOU KNOW HE’S [Right on the money!], DONTCHA.” Spam sighed.

“But, it didn’t mean anything, did it? It was just…what we did! I mean, how else was I supposed to act when—”

Click cut himself off, unwilling to say the rest of the sentence out loud.

—when you were such a total failure?

“When what.” Spamton snarled, all glitching gone.

“No, it’s nothing! Really! I didn’t mean it!” Click yelped. “Dammit, I’m not messing this up again!”

“Aren’t you?” Vid asked, very little sympathy present.

The pink Addi turned several shades paler.

“Listen, man. I’m gonna give ya one last bit of free advice.” Video continued. “If you’d spent one damn minute actually hearing out Spam’s feelings way back when—geez, even just listening to one of his pitches—maybe you wouldn’t’ve made so much fun of him! Can you even imagine how hard it is to mess up sale after sale and then come home to your resident Pink making fun of you nonstop? And to put up with that for literal years? Don’t you get just how much that takes?”

Click felt a mounting realization building inside him. “Oh, god.”

“Yeah. Just, like, think for maybe five seconds about how the person on the other end feels, okay? Even if Spam never forgives you, at least you’ll know you won’t make the same mistake again.” Vid finished.

“DAMN, VID! WHEN DID YOU [Becomed] THE [[Mom Friend]]?” Spam called from behind Click.

Meanwhile, the pink Addi was having a crisis. “I thought you didn’t care! Are you saying I’ve been kicking you while you were down this whole time?” he asked, stunned.

“UH, YEAH??” Spamton said, like that should be obvious.

“…but, wait—does that mean I’m like the other Pinks?!” he cried.

“Did—did you think you weren’t?” Vid wheezed. “What planet have you been living on?”

“I thought I was better than them!” Click shrieked, defensive.

“TECHNICALLY, YOU’RE THE [#1] THOUGHTFUL [[Magenta]] IN OUR DISTRICT…BUT THAT’S A [How Low Can You Go?] BAR, PAL.” Spamton explained.

“So what you’re saying is, ‘better than Joyston’ is still pretty damn terrible.” Click muttered. “…actually, that sounds really obvious when I say it out loud.”

“[TBH], YOUR ONLY REDEEMING [[Quality Product]] IS THAT YOU’RE A TOTAL DORK AROUND POPPUPS.” Spam said.

Click opened his mouth, ready to snarl some insult right back. He could feel a million appear instantly in his head, ready to fire for maximum impact.

And then, he saw Spamton brace himself.

Instantly, he felt sick all over again. He really hadn’t changed, had he? Honestly, he deserved way worse than being made fun of for his love of poppups. Spam should be beating the life out of him right now, not patiently explaining where he’d gone wrong!

“I really am a terrible person.” he said instead, his shoulders slumping.

“I don’t know about terrible, but you’re…really good at hurting people.” Vid said, and Click winced. “But, that doesn’t mean you can’t change that! It’s pretty hard for Addis to change, but I sure have.”

“Yeah, you’re being weirdly rational right now.” Click said. “Why?”

Vid sighed. “Back before…everything, things never went wrong for me. Sure, I might’ve lost a sale here or there, but nothing, like, apocalyptic ever happened. But having your whole life turned upside down kinda changes your outlook…I still wanna live life to the fullest, but now I’m a lil’ more careful to keep an eye on how other people are feeling, too.”

“HEY, HANG ON, [[Video player]]! YOUR [life turned upside down] AND YOU DIDN’T EVEN GET TO GO TO [[Bel-Air]]? ROUGH.” Spam said, suddenly smirking.

“Wh—HA!” Video cackled. “Did I really say that?”

“YEP.”

Click’s first instinct was to roll his eyes again at such a (frankly) lame joke. But then, he noticed how Vid was genuinely laughing for the first time in years. And Spamton—Spamton was grinning. For real.

Faintly, ever so faintly, Click felt his expression relax into the lightest of smiles. His shoulders dropped, and he leaned a little more into the shelf.

“Guess that wasn’t half bad, Spam.” he hummed.

Both of the other people in the store did double takes. “SERIOUSLY?” Spamton asked, startled.

Vid just beamed.

Blushing, Click looked away, feeling tense again. “Hey, I have to start somewhere, right?!”

“YOU GUYS ARE [[Full of surprises]].” Spam said, smiling wryly.

“Having the element of surprise isn’t just for fighting tactics!” Video cheered.

Click smiled again, briefly. It was getting easier already, when he allowed himself to be infected by Vid’s energy instead of pushing it away.

“MY [20XX—20XX planner]’S GONNA BE FULL IF I START SPENDING [[Time is money!]] WITH BOTH OF YOU, YOU KNOW.” Spamton said, but not in a way that suggested this was necessarily an issue for him.

“Sounds like a good problem to me.” Click replied, after a moment of thought. It wasn’t too difficult for him to not be annoyed by Spam’s presence, given how long he’d been hoping for exactly this. Responding to him genuinely was still weird, though…it took actual effort for him to think of something that wasn’t a snappy retort.

“...OKAY, THIS IS ACTUALLY [[Stranger Than Fiction!]]. WHO ARE YOU, AND WHAT DID YOU DO WITH [Clickbait]?” Spam asked, a faint smirk on his face.

“Is that your new nickname for me?” Click said, raising a brow. “I’ll have you know my businesses are all perfectly respectable!” He stuck his nose in the air, only a little bit serious.

“SURE, SURE…WHATEVER YOU SAY.”

It took all of Click’s strength not to slice back at Spamton. Instead, he rolled his shoulders, sighed, and asked, “What are you going to do now?”

Spam’s look of surprise when the pink Addi spoke, however, made all his effort worth it.

Once he’d recovered, though, he asked, “WANNA GET SOME [[Sweet treats]]? I [Seeing Is Believing!] A COTTON CANDY STAND THIS MORNING!”

Click’s eyes lit up, and unbeknownst to him, his ponytail began to swish excitedly. “Really? Where?!”

“DOWN BY THE [[Carnival in town]]! …BUT YOU’RE PAYING.” Spam said, smirking.

The pink Addi winced, but even that wasn’t enough to deter him from the prospect of his favorite food. “I’ll take that deal.”

Spamton beamed from ear to ear, stunning Click into silence. “HEY HEY HEY, WHADDAYA KNOW! LOOKS LIKE I CAN STILL [[Salesman Never Sleeps]] AFTER ALL!”

Click groaned softly, but without malice. “Dammit, it’s not fair! You know my weak spot, don’t take advantage of me like this!”

“HAEHEAHAHA! A GUY’S [Gotta Do What He’s Gotta Do!]!!!”

“Yeah, yeah. You coming or not?” the pink Addi asked, pushing himself off the shelf and heading for the door.

“JUST TRY TO KEEP UP!” Spam exclaimed, already right beside him.

It was only once they’d left, the bell on the door long since finished ringing as it swung shut, that Vid remembered they hadn’t even gotten their apartment card back.

#deltarune #spamton #spamton g spamton #deltarune addisons #pink addison #yellow addison #clickon k addison #videon e addison #i hope spamton's ad-speak is reading okay!#i'm still working out how to write him well so any advice would be much appreciated :)#as for click #he's pretty tough to write just because his pre- and post- big shot era characterizations are so wildly different #so that's been interesting #as always thank you for reading!#and i hope you're doing well wherever you are!

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