Hatchetfield.

Tedtalk

Despite being eldritch gods, the Lords in Black still needed sleep. Back when Webby was still part of their little group, she'd explained it as "Yadda yadda recharging our powers blah blah blah energy restoration." Nobody exactly cared about that-it was Webby after all, and she didn't know shit. However, they did occasionally find themselves slipping from consciousness.

Blinky was never good at sleeping.

Being The Watcher, the idea was appalling to him-what if he missed something entertaining? Sure, he could go to Tinky to rewind time a bit, but it was more fun to watch things as they were happening. Unfortunately, sometimes the urge to just shut all thousand of his eyes was too strong to ignore, so he closed them.

And still, nothing.

Blinky didn't really know when he started doing this, but at some point he found a solution-watching something dull enough to bore him into sleeping.

Surprisingly, this was actually quite effective.

So here we are, fifteen minutes into a Tedtalk video about the biology of strange substances found leaking from meteors. Blinky was so, so close to being asleep. Just a few more minutes and...

"Ooooh, whatcha watchin'?"

Blinky groaned, and shoved his face into an eye-shaped pillow Nibbly had gotten him a few decades ago. "Tinks, go the fuck away. Don't you have some Spankoffskis to be torturing?"

Tinky grinned, wide and unnatural, shrugging. His hands never stilled, twisting and pulling at a lemon-colored fidget cube. Where he even got so many cubes? Nobody even knew, but he always had at least four on him at all times. "Thought I'd give them a fifteen minute break-besides, I thought you might have some good ideas for potential games!"

Sighing, Blinky paused his video. "Ask me again tomorrow, I'm busy with this Tedtalk and-"

He couldn't even get through his sentence when Tinky's eyes widened, and he started bouncing on the heels of his feet. "Tedtalk?? You get to watch Ted talk? What's he talking about? Is he lunatic rambling again? Is it about Jenny? Petey-pie? Is he cryi-"

A smaller eye-shaped pillow was promptly thrown at his face.

"No, you dumbass. I don't even think there's any Teds on this show. It's just boring people talking about lame ass shit on a stage and I watch it until I can sleep-which I was trying to do until you barged in." Blinky unpaused the meteor video. Whoever this guy was-Henry, uh...Hutchens? If he could remember right- continued his loony ramblings, and the audience looked a bit concerned for his wellbeing. Blinky snickered. Alright, maybe this one was worth paying attention to.

All of this had given Tinky an idea, though. Talking in front of an audience, huh?

With a gleam in his eyes, he darted back to his domain.

~

Ted Spankoffski found himself on a stage. Lights were shining directly into his eyes from who knows where, giving him the beginnings of a headache. Groaning, he raised a hand to block them out. Where...where the fuck was he?

Glancing around, he saw... absolutely nothing, actually. What the fuck? The only thing surrounding him was shadows, pitch black and creeping up to him.

Not quite dumb enough to call out for help but absolutely dumb enough to try leaving, Ted started to move out of the spotlight's reach and towards the back of the stage. There were usually stairs back there, right?

A laugh cut through the silence-overexcited and slightly cartoony, sending visible shivers down Ted's spine.

"Aw Teddy Bear, do you have stage fright?"