[post deaging] what if your hinges all are rusting

[mettaton_rex]

Everything's back to normal.

The hallways are as run-down as ever, the decorations and the music all gone. Mettaton wanders through them, not clear on where he's headed, only knowing he can't bear to keep still. His mind catches up with him, if he tries.

He's himself again. Why doesn't he feel like it?

He made it back to his room last night, after coming to himself again where he'd been stargazing out in the gardens, and after the ensuing bout of hysterical cackling finally wore itself out. At least he's dressed now, ruffled shirt hiding the cracks in his core. More or less - it's buttoned up wrong, letting little glimpses of pink show through. His crown isn't on straight either (the new one, the diamond-studded circlet he found abandoned in a dusty bedroom, not the one he gave up for lost in the library months ago). He's aware of all this. He doesn't plan to fix it.

A door looks familiar. He opens it, and finds himself stepping into the ballroom. There it is, same as ever - grand and empty, tables piled high with confections. Mettaton pauses by one of them, looking up at the massive tiered cake in its centre. And then further up, to a dusty spiderweb hanging from a corner of the ceiling.

"Not so young and beautiful yourself, now, are you?" he hisses, to the room, to the whole awful castle, something hot and vicious boiling up inside him. He raises a leg, braces his foot against the edge of the table. "Nobody wants you any more, darling! Nobody wants to be here! Nobody cares!"

His voice rises to a shout as he kicks, hard, flipping the table over. Cakes and pastries smash against the floor, plates shattering. Mettaton strides into the wreckage, grinding his heel into anything he sees left intact. There's frosting all over his boots. It doesn't matter.

None of it matters now.

Comments

[itstheend]

Their teeth grind, but of course it would be that easy, would it? Not if that's not the outcome he wants.

He's goading them, and it's working and some small calm part of them wonders if he can feel the killing intent radiating off them like Doggo could - their face is starting to hurt under the stretching of their smile, again.

It's genuinely difficult to speak, and the words come out in short, clipped monotones.

"Don't tell me. You expect me to. Be what you want? After what you have done. I want you to suffer. I am not going to be the sword you fall on."

They refuse to leave, themself, refuse to show their back to him even leaving aside the stubborn matter of pride. Chara is sparing you, asshole. The fight is over.

[mettaton_rex]

He can feel killing intent in that smile, if nothing else. Strange how they share the same tendency. Smile when you're angry. Laugh when everything goes wrong.

Like he's starting to right now, yet again. He seems to do it all the time these days, so overdone, so tedious, but he can't help himself this time. What they just said...

"Y-you want to see me suffer? Darling, you - you d-didn't - you-" He wipes at his eyes, shakes his head, tries to pull himself together long enough to get the punchline out before they change their mind and bring that stake down on his head for this. "You d- you didn’t have to go to all this trouble!"

See, it's funny because the castle is a nightmare not even death can spare him from. Hilarious. It must be - isn't he laughing about it? Is he? Is that the noise he's making?

[itstheend]

*Trouble?

Frisk's puzzlement is diluted in Chara's contempt. Their voice is sweet as anything.

"I can assure you, the pleasure was mine."

He laughs, and they know that type of laughter and their back teeth grind to hear it. They shake their sleeve further down their arm and fastidioustly pick at that - they're not the only one who preens to distract. Too many similarities for their liking.

"Kindly take your breakdown elsewhere."

They wonder if it's possible to shatter the jar and take the soul - is it a soul? For all they know they do come in pink - and crush it. They take a step back, and then another, and then sit on the edge of the upturned table, head pointedly looking out the window, the motion-sensitive area of peripheral vision focused on him. They're sure they can move quick enough if he tries anything, again.

[mettaton_rex]

He looks up at them, smiles with gritted teeth. "Oh, am I dismissed, your highness?"

They won't even look at him now? He gets to his feet, swaying a little as he stands. No more kneeling before them, what was he thinking? Obnoxious, insufferable child. The idea of letting them finish him off has completely lost its appeal anyway - it's not as though he'd get to appreciate the rest. Just wake up three days later, feeling like trash. Again.

"Weren't you enjoying the show?" A step, away from them, and he has to steady himself against the fallen table. "Why don't you leave? You got what you came for."

...the glaring flaw in that assumption hasn't caught up with him yet, no. Give him a moment.

[itstheend]

Your highness. Chara snorts despite themself, even if the words have been used as weapons against them before. Little do they know there's royalty with more claim than Mettaton here. (Little do they know, but there is a shadow of suspicion. Frisk keeps smacking it away with a broom before it can fully form.)

Because Chara is incapable of shutting up, even when they're trying to give the cold silent shoulder treatment, they hold out an arm and make a thumbs down, still not looking at him. "Two out of ten," they review, slightly misinterpreting what Mettaton meant by show. "About as exciting as a moldsmal. I have fought better." Obnoxious and insufferable is definitely something they'd agree with, why thank you. They're worked hard to be this much of a jerk.

The last question has their eyes sliding towards him in spite of their internal vow, and that polite-but-anything-but smile returns. "Excuse me? You came in here and picked a fight." Even if it was more an attempt at suicide-by-Chara than a true fight, in their estimation. "Yet I should be the one to leave?"

What they came in here for was some bloody peace and quiet and also chocolate cupcakes. Mettaton has actively interfered with both these goals.

*He thought you were gonna attack him, I think.

Although Frisk doesn't know why Mettaton thought that was why Chara was here, either. Chara is not exactly the 'lie in wait' sort unless a battle has already started, and they'd have no way of knowing when he'd come in (if he even would, do magic robots need to eat?).

[mettaton_rex]

...and the obvious finally dawns on him, right around excuse me? Even he didn't know he was going to come in here. Chara couldn't have. He isn't even sure himself, now, why he thought they were waiting for him.

(Really, it's just that in the mood he's in, of course the whole world must be out to get him. Self-absorbed creature that he is.)

The look on his face is, very briefly, utterly mortified, before he manages to twist it towards indignation. "I didn't know you were down there!" Okay, sure, they weren't here to fight. Okay, maybe reaching for the stake was a reasonable response right after he barged in and kicked over their table fort or whatever. And okay, maybe he goaded them into attacking him. But technically they still attacked first.

[itstheend]

That brief mortified look gives Chara an equally brief 'cat surrounded by canary feathers' satisfaction before it goes and takes that with it, especially with what he says next. They prop their head on their hand.

"And that is my fault how? Shall I keep you updated with my whereabouts every second of the day?"

Not hecking likely, says their tone, and there being no phones here is not the strongest reason why. Normally they wouldn't put such a strong defense of their actions forward (they did physically attack first, theirself being an unthinking menace again), but their contrarian streak is raising it's head and joining forces with the fact they don't like him at all.