Savrou IC Inbox

[pleasereset]

"Hello, this is Asriel! Leave a message and I'll get back to you as soon as I can!"

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[mttbrandlegs]

[Mettaton doesn't keep talking. He doesn't want to talk anymore, and when Asriel enters his home unbidden, he doesn't even move to rise from his couch, where he is slumped with one leg drawn up, leveling his TAB upwards so that he could reach the holographic keyboard. The last message he had partially written is displayed in reverse, but it's easy enough to read once Asriel happens upon him.]

why are you doing this?

[He glances at Asriel with a mild smile on his face.]

I told you that you shouldn't.

[He sounds...disconnected. Not electronically, which surely he was. No.

He personally doesn't sound as if everything's working as intended...in his head.]

[pleasereset]

[Seeing Mettaton like this is... eerie. He didn't just sound disconnected, he sounded almost... brainwashed or something weird like that. Asriel approaches him carefully.]

Mettaton, what's wrong? Please tell me.

[mttbrandlegs]

I wasn't here.

I don't even know when he left, you know that? Because I wasn't here. I was in the Runoff and I should have been here but instead I got to hurt so many people. I nearly killed you, and that is why all of this is happening.

[Mettaton leans his head on his raised knee, wrapping one arm around it while the other reaches up to toy with the sharp, twisted edges of the gash on his neck. It doesn't hurt. Even if it did, the pain of everything else was much worse.

He felt sick, but that was well-deserved as well.]

I wonder what someone would see if they performed a *CHECK on me. How horrifying! What a terrible monster!!

[pleasereset]

Mettaton, you don't deserve to lose someone just because you went to the Outpost. You couldn't have known...

[Asriel's hesitant, but he climbs up where Mettaton is seated. There's nothing he can say to help him. God, what could he even say? Inconvenient timing or not, it would be easy to interpret losing someone as some kind of punishment for being on the Outpost.

He reaches up a hand, carefully, to place on top of Mettaton's. Hoping it'll get him to stop picking at his neck.]

[mttbrandlegs]

[Mettaton gently pushes Asriel's hand away from his. It could be interpreted as him swatting Asriel away from him out of anger, but for the words that follow.]

It's sharp. Don't cut yourself. Please...

[For a moment, he sounds like himself. But then he switches back to that hollow tone. He's at least got the good conscience not to smile anymore.]

I got close enough to get hurt. I need to stop making that mistake...haha...hnnn...

[Mettaton averts his gaze, and that sick feeling welling within him threatens to overtake. He hates it. He's not human anymore...why does he feel this extremely human physical feeling which had been the most horrible part of his one-week experience?

...Maybe it's not human. Maybe it just felt human at the time.]

I'm tired, Asriel. I'm so tired.

[pleasereset]

[Asriel pulls his hand back slightly. He doesn't know what comforting thing he could possibly say to having all your friends leave. Mettaton just lost a friend before, didn't he?]

... It's not a "mistake". These were people you cared about, right?

...

Mettaton, do you think... would crying help?

[He did it before, right? When they came back from the Outpost the first time. Asriel doesn't know if he'll want to, but he'll be someone to cry on if that's what Mettaton needs.]

[mttbrandlegs]

Crying won't bring anyone back.

[Mettaton sounded like someone who had already been crying. And he had, long before he texted anyone about this.

He didn't want to cry anymore because no matter how hard he cried and no matter how many tears stained the floor, he wasn't going to be able to will Bucky back into this city.]

The least that could have been done...is if someone's going to leave, if they care about me at all, then they can take me too.

[pleasereset]

It won't, but...

[Asriel's chest tightens as Mettaton continues talking. "If they care about me at all, then they can take me too."]

Do you want to leave?

[mttbrandlegs]

Of course I do. Don't you?

[Mettaton shakes his head, and it's all he can do to stop himself from laughing at the fact that Asriel would think any different.]

Everyone's going to leave. Through the Ingress, or through their own doing. They'll always leave. And I...I'm going to end up alone. Haha.

No Alphys. No Papyrus. No Lucio. No Bucky.

[His voice breaks on the final name, because it's still fresh, still painful.]

Soon...there won't be any you either.

Just me. Because I cannot be freed. I don't deserve to be. Murderer. Hypocrite. My poor family...can't even depend on me.

[pleasereset]

[Of course he does. But where would he even go? Where could any of them go?]

Of course I do.

[But there's no place for monsters like us, is what wants to say. But that his own, inner, ugly thoughts and he knows it won't help Mettaton.]

But I'm not going anywhere. We're not going anywhere. If we're stuck... then we're stuck together.

No one else is going to disappear.

cw self harm

[mttbrandlegs]

[Mettaton thinks to say something cruel. He considers telling Asriel that this is not the first time he has heard such things, and that it doesn't pay to be so disingenuous about the entire thing. He thinks to tell Asriel that nothing will improve, and that what they'd just all gone through had all but proved it.

He wanted to tell Asriel how much it truly destroyed any of his improvement to have the collar around his neck again and stealing his sense of individuality. Or that the gaping slash across his throat wasn't from anyone else; he had done it to himself.

Instead, he just goes quiet, nods faintly before leaning back on his sofa and closing his eye.]

I'm sorry.

[pleasereset]

[Even as Asriel says it, he knows he can't make Mettaton believe it. Not when he doesn't really believe it himself. All he can say are just empty words, empty promises... the true reality of this world, it was always kill or be killed.

Chara shouldn't have gone, because now Chara realizes what the Outpost truly was. And they were taken from him by the Savrii, and when they came back... something had hurt them. Mettaton shouldn't have gone, because now he had to live that hell all over again. Frisk shouldn't have gone, because Asriel can see them barely holding themselves together after attacking each slaver without any mercy.

Asriel shouldn't have gone, because now all he can think about is the dark. The feeling of a rope around his snout, pulling his jaw tight never goes away. And he confronted his nightmares... only to find out that it didn't make a difference at all. That they only thing that changed was that he became worse. That he became broken and disgusting...

That he was never a person at all. Maybe he didn't even need to be collared and muzzled to realize that, but it was the truth.

Asriel goes silent as Mettaton apologizes. He can't think of any more empty words, anything else to offer because there was no comfort to give.

He wordlessly slumps against Mettaton, just staying there for a few long moments. He wants to cry, but he probably shouldn't.]

Mettaton...

I'm sorry too. I'm sorry for everything. I just can't... I can't pretend that it any of this was okay. I'm not even good at pretending that things are going to be okay.

[mttbrandlegs]

So don't. Let's...not do this today. I haven't the energy to lie.

[In that, at least, Mettaton was brutally honest. He'd just lost someone close to him. Even closer than Lucio had been. He can't pretend that it's fine, or that the situation will improve over time.

Still, his arm slowly pulls the young boss monster closer. Only just, though.]

[pleasereset]

[Asriel squeezes himself closer, no longer bothering with empty promises that everything's going to be all right.

He's not cut out for being an optimist, after all.]

Hey... let's make a dumb promise.

If or when the time comes that one of us has gotta leave, we'll come get the other, okay? And we'll take my transporter, and go as far as it can possibly go until we find a planet that's just for us. We'll take Frisk and Chara along too.

And... it'll be a nice planet, where we'll find all the people we miss. And we'll just... live there instead. And it'll have everything we could ever want on it.

[No such planet exists, and the both of them know it. It's a childish fantasy, but after everything that's happened... was it really that bad to just indulge in a some make-believe planet?]

[mttbrandlegs]

[Mettaton struggles with that kind of thought. He's hardly keeping himself together at this point, with his SOUL hurting so much...]

Mmh...I would...not leave you behind if I could help it.

If we could do things that way, it would be nice.

[He doesn't believe it will ever work like that though. He's just not going to pretend that he does for Asriel's sake though. Because if one of them could be satisfied, then that would be enough.]