i just looked up the stats and the number of meaningful relationships ive formed [closed]

[inconsequence]

Who: Mettaton and Chara
When: 4/23, afternoon
Where: Outside the supermarket in Kauto R5
What: It's time to have a talk.
Warnings: Chara. Probable discussion of trauma and slavery. Will update if necessary.


And so, Mettaton wants a talk. He wants to disclose, and he will be disclosing. Why the sudden change of heart? Regardless of what the answer may be, they shunt it aside, dismissing it at once. It matters very little what inspired this stroke of diplomatic inspiration. It was something they did, no doubt. Something they said, something they engendered. They have that effect on people, it seems.

He's in luck that they're off-shift. They could have simply left him there to wait. But something - and they hesitate to label it as "curiosity," as that would imply them capable of something of which they are not capable - grants pause, and they concede with crisp reluctance that, in all likelihood, it concerns Asriel. He would be the single shared link between them. The single fulcrum that allows some manner of peaceful interaction, for a certain, very broad definition of "peaceful."

It matters very little, they have already decided.

They stand there, impassive, back ramrod straight, hands folded behind their back. They are still in their security uniform, Knife sheathed at their side. Hair unruffled. Not a stitch out place.

The very picture of control.

Unsurprisingly, they don't have long to wait.

Comments

[inconsequence]

Muzzle. Muzzle. For a heat of a second, for maybe longer than a second, they twist on the spot, and their smile flares up again. They cannot look at him, cannot possibly look at him with his litany of protests and apologies, because Asriel was muzzled and he was chained and he was collared and those people are still out there. Some awful backwater place, right? A spiraling network of numbers they could dial up in the Ingress, couldn't they, provided they asked all the right questions? Never mind that their plans have, historically, never gone well for anyone. Never mind that it would be useless. Never mind any of it, but they are smiling, a cold, clean blaze of something so far removed from humor that they think they might lack a name for it. It blisters at the skin of their knuckles, blanched white, at the bright rosiness of their cheeks, at the tightness to their throat and the way they can't breathe. Asriel. Asriel in that sort of state, in that sort of captivity, and Frisk only ever mentioned it in frantic passing and they never asked because how, how is anyone ever meant to askbeen through? What they put him through, the gauntlet they forced him to endure because of a plan doomed to fail and a grudge against humanity that drowned out a love that should have been all-encompassing?

And you, Chara.

And you.

You turned it all into a sick joke. Made horrible, dancing wordplay about necks and heads and watched the way Mettaton's fingers would twitch in a spasmodic, almost hypnic jerk with an unconscious verve, gleefully overriding Asriel's attempts to redirect, because this is what they're capable of, isn't it? This is what they do to the things they love, to the things they LOVE, because this is the language they speak, isn't it, the cruelty of a joke pushed too far and a blind eye when it comes to something they should have known and noticed a long, long time ago.

Their control, their posture, their careful smile and measured words, have begun to spin out from beneath them. Because they took that pain and levered against everyone else's, burned it into their necks, and felt that this was fine, and this would be grand, and this would be entertaining for everyone.

Since when?

Since when were they ever the one in control, even now, even now?

An acidic cling to the roof of their mouth, and again they have to swallow. Suck in a quiet breath that sounds like a popping vacuum seal to their ears, wondering, waiting for any of the inconsequential passersby to stop and pin them with a quizzical glance.

The external judgment that never comes. Never visibly comes. An important, a vital distinction.

"He has." The words are little more than a dulled rasp in the back of their throat. As though they've gone back to their roots and swallowed a fresh fistful of buttercups.

Perhaps more than he knows.

"Frisk," says Chara, as though they haven't been derailed by that admission alone, as though they are still in control, as though their smile does not sting the edge so their mouth and cut into their cheeks. "Frisk wouldn't say - how bad it was."

[mttbrandlegs]

"Of course...they might not have realized how deeply it runs. I don't think anyone realizes."

For a while, he didn't think anyone cared. If it hadn't have been for Papyrus, Kyoko, and Rinzler, then he and Asriel might have been doomed to remain the playthings of aliens and far-spread humans. Because...haha. Wasn't Asriel's owner a human? That only made it worse. Asriel had found it so hard to trust after that. Mettaton remembers.

He'd been there. He'd grown so close to Asriel that even he realizes that his own well-being is just as tied to the young boss monster than any of his other coping mechanisms are. Only they could talk about this in earnest. How could they depend on anyone else who did not understand?

"Frisk couldn't come because Toriel forbade them. As well she should have. It would only end up with Frisk being enslaved as well," he says quietly. As he speaks, his fingers close around his neck, doing what he insisted wasn't "trying to strangle himself" when deep down...he sometimes considered what it might be like.

"Chara. You know that no one is to blame but those slavers, right? Not Frisk. Certainly not Asriel. Those disgusting traffickers are to blame."

He deliberately leaves himself out of the list of those who aren't to blame. He can't ever believe that he wasn't at least partially responsible for this. If he hadn't been distracted by the fact that he was no longer fused with his body, and if he hadn't been dealing with the increase of a certain number, then maybe he would have been able to ward off the slavers before they had rendered him unconscious for long enough to shackle him and make him their plaything.

Maybe then he wouldn't feel as if the blood seeping through his fingers, into the joints, into his very being had changed him permanently. Maybe it would wash away easier if he hadn't been drenched in so much...

"But we never have to go back. H-haha, that's what I say to Asriel; we're safe here, we will never need to go back."

[inconsequence]

That little comment swells up beneath their skin like a boil, prompting the swiveling back around to level a look at him, darkened and steely, at the sheer expectation that they would blame Frisk, that they would blame Asriel, that they would even blame him. They know precisely whose fault it is. They know precisely who will have to pay. Who will pay.

Are they not a security risk? Are they not a potential threat, should they ever come here? Are they not a danger to the lives of those on Thisavrou, an affront to any policies of self-liberation that may be, that probably are set in place?

"You think that I would?" They issue the words in an icy, streamlined hiss, gauging him from beneath lowered brows as he runs his fingers along the metallic grooves of his neck. Reminding himself that he isn't merely property. Reminding himself that he possesses an agency that was once denied to him. Funny, how one only comes to appreciate that sort of freedom once it has been stripped from them. Funny, how one could potentially live and grow with the idea that no one is ever born deserving something as personal as agency stuck fast in their throat.

He would have never posited it if he felt it was not necessary. Would he.

No.

The words, when they come, may as well be gloved in iron.

"You think that I would find him guilty of his own enslavement."

[mttbrandlegs]

"No, I don't. But...I...don't know what to expect from anyone anymore."

Probably surprisingly, Mettaton doesn't press the issue as he usually would, but he does look legitimately regretful for having made Chara feel in any way that they presented themselves as someone who would blame the affected.

Maybe they can understand, or maybe they can't, but Mettaton has found himself lacking the courage to engage in most social situations, because he's terrified of making someone misinterpret him. Like now.

"I'm sorry. I should not have said it. It is beyond rude of me to think that you'd ever believe it's their faults. No one asks to be abused."

[inconsequence]

No one asks to be -

Well, golly! Guess he would know, wouldn't he? No one asks for it, except when they so clearly, obviously, cleanly do! No one asks for it, but it's different where a little hellion is concerned, is it not? He bares that vulnerability to them, halting, as though anticipating - what? Sympathy? Understanding?

"That's what they all say," says Chara, curtly. Vague platitudes seldom cover the true depths of that evisceration, nor would it enable anyone's patience or sickening pity. As long as they are here now, as long as they are the horrible thing they are, as long as they are a hellion, inexcusable, and as long as they will not seek to subluxate him emotionally with his own vices and impulses again - they may as well seek what they can find. They may as well glean what they can, while they still can.

"This Outpost," they add, after a silence. "It is still out there."

It is not a question either. That Outpost is still out there and, conceivably, within Ingress reach.

Is it not.

[mttbrandlegs]

"Don't believe me then. That's fine."

Mettaton doesn't think too hard about the fact that Chara's shunting him off again. He'd said his part. He was probably going to abscond from this conversation very soon, because he couldn't take much more of dealing with them. Not because he didn't want to eventually tolerate them better.

But they don't want to tolerate him. And he's got his own mental state to worry about.

"But yes. It is out there. I could not imagine anyone going there of their own will at this point."

Which is his way of suggesting that Chara does not. But they won't listen to him regardless. Still, he wouldn't wish this fate upon them.

[inconsequence]

It is still out there. It is still out there, and those that did this to him, to Asriel, have gone, to their knowledge - unpunished. They have likely faced no consequences for their actions. They have likely continued on as they will and as they always have; reaping people, monsters, children from planets and ships and using them to their own ends, the lowest smear of organic life possible across their hideous shape of a planet.

One hand condenses into a fist, knuckles drawing tight, and then flexes out again in a bracing pull of fingers and whitening muscle.

"I see," says Chara. Even, dispassionate, impartial. With perfect control of their facial expression and all related facilities. Inscrutable. As it should be.

Look Mettaton dead in the face. Empty. Devoid of expression. Tone clipped and hollow and emotionless, the sealing of an unspoken contract.

"Was there anything else you wished to discuss, sir?"

[mttbrandlegs]

"No. That was it."

Even Chara would be able to see how empty Mettaton looked. He didn't want their sympathy, but he'd at least hoped that for one moment they would stop treating him as inconsequential. Like a stinking pile of offal kept too close to the civilized people, when it should have long since been disposed of. No one wants to see that kind of thing. It's...disgusting. He's disgusting.

"Just bear it in mind next time you want to make a joke."

He closes his eye, turning away from Chara and moving to retreat. They wouldn't care. They'd probably find some way to fault him for that as well.

"Goodbye, Chara. Thank you for listening."

[inconsequence]

He does not want their pity, and he will not get it. That is the ultimate insult, and now, after this, after everything - he has not earned that. Perhaps he never will.

Revulsion coils slickly in the pit of their stomach, tightening like a noose, contracting their heart in a painful pulse of a reminder. A reminder that, despite everything, despite the image of stability and the appearance of a settling life, they still are and always will be - this. This thing that does nothing but reignite a wire-work of unwanted memories, blazing a cold trail around someone's neck, garroting a loop tight about everything they wished to ignore.

A thorn in everyone's side. Now and forever.

A thorn in his.

Bear it in mind, Chara. Observe, if you will, the way he thanks you, a veil of politeness over what must be a patronizing slant to the words, condescending them for their reckless, ruthless excoriation of the history he and Asriel both have been desperately straining to avoid. Bear it in mind, Chara, next time you want to make a joke. Bear it in mind, next time you prey upon someone's inability to contain the twitch in their fingertips, the pull of a hand about their neck. Bear it in mind, because you - you did this.

You did this.

They bid him no goodbyes.

They watch him leave, ensure that he has exited the scene, and they turn on their heel and depart.