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“H-hey Mettaton! Do… do you wanna see, uh, watch a horror movie? With me?”
It was a long shot, Alphys knew, but she'd barely seen her friend all week and-
“...HORROR?” Mettaton asked, his quick departure from the lab suddenly halted. He shifted his weight back and forth slowly as he considered the offer, singular wheel dutifully following the subtle swaying and preventing him from falling over. Alphys may have made his body, but Mettaton sure did make it his own.
“Yeah! It's a- uh, new one? I-I mean, I found it in the dump um. Like, three?? Days ago???” Alphys explained. Admittedly, the movie looked pretty bad, but it could be fun to watch, right? Right??
Alphys suddenly felt Mettaton’s gloved hands on her shoulders. “WELL WHY DIDN’T YOU TELL ME THEN? THAT SOUNDS LIKE A FABULOUS PLAN! I’VE MISSED OUR MOVIE NIGHTS.”
Alphys blinked. She wasn’t expecting so much enthusiasm, wasn’t he just about to do something else? He had been skipping out on watching movies with her more and more those days. Did Mettaton… Really like horror or something? It kind of made sense, he loved chainsaws and violence and stuff like that, but also Alphys thought she'd… already know if he was into horror? Like, their entire friendship had been built upon talking about what types of movies and shows they liked! Surely it would've come up earlier..?
Well, she'd gotten what she wanted, she wasn't about to question Mettaton’s excitement out loud.
As spontaneous as it often was, movie night had a bit of a routine to it, at least in the minutes before the movie actually started. They’d go up to Alphys’s room, get comfy in front of her TV. Then she’d get up and pop some popcorn, all while Mettaton would stare at it a bit longingly, and then she'd offer to pour some ghost juice on him.
Usually Mettaton found the offer at least a little funny, but when Alphys asked that night, he just sighed.
“...NO, NOT TONIGHT, DARLING. I CAN’T TASTE IT ANYWAYS.”
Well, Alphys knew that, but usually it wasn't a fact that bothered Mettaton too much. She frowned slightly. “...Did- Did something happen today?”
“NOT AT ALL!” Mettaton replied, as if it was a completely silly thing to ask. Alphys couldn't quite tell how much of his response was an act. “WHY DO YOU ASK?”
“You know why.”
Mettaton didn't have any eyes to roll, but he was pretty good at conveying the feeling with his body language. “I HARDLY THINK REFUSING TO ATTEMPT TO CONSUME SOMETHING I CAN NO LONGER EVEN PROPERLY INTERACT WITH IS SOMETHING TO WORRY ABOUT. IF ANYTHING, IT JUST MEANS I’M GETTING OVER IT ALL.”
Alphys would admit that she had a hard time opening up to people. She knew that the ways she dealt with her many, many issues were outrageously flawed. Was she going to fix any of that anytime soon? Probably not. But, despite the hypocrisy, the way Mettaton dealt with (avoided) his issues was the most frustrating thing in the world to her. He knew she'd be able to see past his lies so he lied in a way that made it hard to tell which parts of his words and tone were disingenuous. He'd say things that were probably self degradation in a way that was just ambiguous enough that if Alphys called it out, there was a chance that she was actually completely wrong and that Mettaton would get offended at the implication that what he said was self-deprecating. Which, of course, prevented her from ever calling it out. Because that was just a mess. At least she was just like, pathetically quiet about her shit, instead of hiding the truth in some death labyrinth of implications and well crafted lies. She had her lies of omission… which was… clearly better…
Who was she kidding.
“WELL? ARE WE WATCHING THIS MOVIE?” Mettaton asked impatiently. There was a good chance his impatience meant he was worried he'd cave if Alphys asked him anything else about whatever was bothering him, but if he really didn't want to talk, they wouldn't talk.
Alphys smiled a bit. “Yeah, yeah. I guess we are.” He probably just wanted a distraction. She couldn't possibly judge him for that.
The disk slid into the video player nice and easy. Alphys had checked to see if it still worked when she found it, but she still breathed a sigh of relief when it started showing trailers for other movies they probably would never be able to see.
“...HAUNTED PLAYTHINGS,” Mettaton read in a flat voice as the title finally faded in. “REALLY?”
Alphys smacked herself. How did she forget the movie was about ghosts? How did she forget that Mettaton was a ghost?? How many times had she heard Mettaton complaining about people thinking he was dead because of the general lack of knowledge about ghosts as a subspecies of monster? She could’ve picked out just about any other movie to watch… and yet.
“Sorry…” Alphys muttered. “I- I kinda forgot what the movie was about?”
Mettaton looked at her for a good few seconds of confusion before speaking. “OH! NO, SORRY DARLING. I JUST THINK THE NAME IS STUPID. IF I DIDN’T WANT TO WATCH THINGS WITH INCORRECT PORTRAYAL OF MONSTERS, I WOULD’VE RUN OUT OF HUMAN MEDIA YEARS AGO.”
Oh. Right. It was kind of a relief that he wasn’t offended… but also kind of embarrassing that she thought he was. Could she ever escape the endless mortification of her life?
“R-right, yeah. Of course.” She circled back to the comment about the movie’s title, hoping to rid herself of any more embarrassment. “Uh, it looks a bit trashy from what I’ve seen, to b-be honest. But also pretty fun??”
Mettaton nodded, or. Well. He nodded as much as he could. “WELL, YOU KNOW WHAT I SAY! NOTHING BETTER TO INSPIRE SOMETHING GREAT!”
He did say that, a lot. To the point where Alphys wondered if he just said it to avoid the clashes that often arrived from their incredibly different tastes.
At Alphy’s lack of response, Mettaton continued. “...AND SERIOUSLY, ALPHYS. I APPRECIATE THAT YOU’RE LOOKING OUT FOR ME, EVEN WHEN IT ENDS UP BEING UNNECESSARY.”
He did sound like he was trying to be genuine, so Alphys nodded, even if she felt like the sentiment was a bit hollow.
“WELL! NO MORE STALLING! LETS SEE HOW WELL THIS HOLDS UP!”
Alphys nodded again, starting the movie. As expected, it was pretty trashy, but that’s the most one could expect from stuff found in the dump most of the time. There was a sort of charm to it, at least in Alphys’s opinion, and she knew Mettaton was probably at least appreciating the generous use of practical effects… Even if a lot of it was just fake blood that shot out of injuries with a force and excess Alphys was almost sure was unrealistic. The story was also a pretty standard haunted house story; a family moves into a house rumored to be haunted, it’s haunted, they’re tortured relentlessly by the resident ghost, etc. etc. There was a strange emphasis on the fact that the ghost had been a young little girl in life, as if her youth was some sort of subversion. Even without access to many other human horror films… Alphys knew it wasn’t one.
As the credits rolled, Alphys spoke up. “W-well? What did you think?”
Mettaton took a few moments to reply. “...I’M. WOW. A BIT SPEECHLESS, I SUPPOSE. I DON’T THINK I’VE EVER SEEN SUCH A LARGE MISSED OPPORTUNITY.”
Alphys perked up a bit, she’d been expecting a ‘WELL THE EFFECTS WERE FUN’ at most, but he seemed... genuinely worked up about it? It wasn’t a positive response, but she hadn’t really been expecting one. It looked like, for once, he had more to say about something she’d introduced to him than she did.
“THEY TEASED THE FALLEN SPIRIT’S BACKSTORY THROUGHOUT THE ENTIRE FILM… AND FOR WHAT?” Mettaton began to rant, not even giving Alphys the chance to urge him to continue. “IT BARELY GAVE ANY INSIGHT TO HOW SHE INTERACTED WITH THE FAMILY, HOW SHE FELT ABOUT THEM LIVING IN HER HOUSE. THE FACT THAT SHE WAS YOUNG WAS FRAMED LIKE IT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE SOME SORT OF TWIST? AS IF IT WASN’T GIVEN AWAY BY THE TITLE ALONE. IT’S ALMOST INSULTING! WHERE IS THE EXPLORATION OF DEATH? OF THE PASSAGE OF TIME? OF BEING ROBBED OF A CHILDHOOD? WHY TEASE THE AUDIENCE WITH THE TINIEST HINTS OF DEPTH WHEN YOU’RE JUST GOING TO HAVE IT PLAY OUT LIKE ANY OTHER ONE OF THESE MOVIES? YOU CAN FOCUS ON THE HORROR ALL YOU WANT, BUT IF THE HORROR CONSISTS MOSTLY OF CHEAP JUMPSCARES AND AN EXCESSIVE AMOUNT OF FAKE BLOOD, I’M NOT INTERESTED! THERE WERE PLENTY OF THEMES THAT COULD’VE BEEN EXPLORED IN A WAY THAT COULD GENUINELY CAUSE LINGERING, POWERFUL FEAR IN THE AUDIENCE, AND YET THEY REFUSED TO!”
Alphys blinked. She was shocked, honestly. Mettaton always had opinions and thoughts about the things they watched, he was definitely more critical about things than she ever was, but he hadn’t gone on a rant like that since… Well, it was when he admitted how much he disliked Mew Mew Kissy Cutie in a rant where he went off on a very long tangent about how Tom from Tom and Jerry was a much better cartoon cat than Mew Mew. To which she pointed out that Mew Mew was an anime cat, not a cartoon cat, which then prompted him to question why animated media was so firmly divided based on country of origin in the first place. Which… okay. Maybe Mettaton ranted more often than Alphys gave him credit for, but she wasn’t expecting so much from a random B list horror movie.
It didn’t take long for Mettaton to notice Alphys’s shocked and confused and kind of impressed expression. “AH, I’M SORRY DEAR. I DON’T KNOW WHY I GOT SO WORKED UP ABOUT THAT. IT WAS TRASHY, JUST LIKE YOU’D SAY IT’D BE.”
Alphys laughed at that, despite herself. “You’re apologizing to me for ranting about a movie you didn’t like? I-I mean I kind of agree! Like I didn’t… notice a lot of that, but it.... m-makes sense. I just didn’t know you? Had so many… Opinions? A-about horror? I would’ve thought it’d uh, come up a bit before now!”
Mettaton shrugged, “YOU’D THINK THAT.” Apparently he didn’t find the situation as absurd as Alphys did.
“S-seriously, are you okay?” Alphys urged. Mettaton didn’t usually apologize for… well, honestly a lot of things he probably should apologize for, but also he definitely never apologized for talking too much.
“OH, OF COURSE. HOW COULD MY LIFE EVER BE ANYTHING BUT PERFECT? IT’S SIMPLY IMPOSSIBLE.” he replied with so much sarcasm that Alphys wanted to just start shaking him. That would’ve been unproductive though, so she just stared at him with as much unamused disappointment as she could muster, which was a lot.
Mettaton sighed again, which made Alphys want to try fixing his voicebank a bit so that the noise didn’t just sound like bitcrushed static. “...I RAN INTO THEM TODAY.”
Alphys hummed. She didn’t have to ask who. Napstablook was, of course, at the center of all of Mettaton’s regrets, and she’d known that from the beginning.
“I’m assuming you didn’t say anything,” Alphys said, trying and failing to keep the disappointment out of her voice. She knew it wasn’t that easy, she knew she was absolutely not one to judge… But also it just seemed so much more simple than what she was avoiding telling people. All a matter of perspective, she supposed.
“THEY DIDN’T REALLY GIVE ME A CHANCE,” Mettaton replied, sounding a bit defensive and more than a bit sad. “I KNOW THEY’RE SCARED OFF BY JUST ABOUT EVERYONE, BUT THEY’VE NEVER BEEN SCARED OFF BY ME… I DON’T KNOW WHAT I EXPECTED, REALLY, I SHOULDN’T’VE BEEN SURPRISED. BUT I WAS.”
Alphys nodded quietly.
“I COULD’VE FOLLOWED. I KNOW EXACTLY WHERE THEY GO OFF TO. I COULD’VE JUST DECIDED THAT IT WAS THE TIME TO LEAVE THEM A NOTE. SOMETHING.” He paused. “BUT I DIDN’T. THOUGHT UP SOME EXCUSES LIKE NOT WANTING TO SCARE THEM MORE, NOT WANTING THE SECRET GETTING OUT, WHATEVER. THE USUAL.”
“...You- You know I’m okay with you telling them, right?”
“OH I KNOW.” Mettaton replied flatly. “AND YOU KNOW THE REAL REASON WHY I DON’T.”
She did. He didn’t want to see how Napstablook reacted, didn’t want to deal with explaining anything. And he especially wanted to keep away the guilt of leaving as long as he could. Clearly, it wasn’t working. But what could she ever hope to say about it? And so the cycle continued.
“...THEY PROBABLY KNOW IT’S ME ALREADY,” Mettaton continued. “THEY GAVE ME A LOOK BEFORE THEY DISAPPEARED. LIKE THEY WERE LOOKING FOR SOMETHING. SOMEONE. IT’S AT LEAST A POSSIBILITY IN THEIR MIND.” He paused, voice becoming contemplative. “I WONDER WHAT THEY THINK ABOUT THAT, I BET THEY THINK I JUST DON’T WANT TO ASSOCIATE WITH THEM ANYMORE. THAT WOULDN’T BE ENTIRELY OFF.”
Alphys huffed. “You- Clearly you do. I don’t. I mean, we wouldn’t even be having this conversation if you didn’t.”
“I PROBABLY WOULD BE WITH THEM NOW IF I DID.”
“I-It… Nothing’s ever that simple, Mettaton.”
“BUT WHAT IF IT WAS..?”
Alphys rubbed her forehead. She was getting absolutely nowhere with this.
“...HORROR WAS OUR THING, THAT’S WHY I'VE NEVER BROUGHT IT UP BEFORE.” Mettaton said, seemingly just as done with the previous line of conversation as Alphys was. “BLOOKY AND I, THAT IS. ALWAYS HAS BEEN.”
Alphys looked up in surprise. She hadn't ever interacted with Napstablook for any expected amount of time, but from what she'd seen, they seemed to be pretty jumpy. Mettaton's tastes were as vast as they were critical, the surprise Alphys had when he revealed his interest in horror simply came from the fact that he had previously avoided talking about it. Napstablook, though… it was just really hard to see, at least from Alphys’s perspective.
“N-Napstablook is a- they like horror??”
Mettaton laughed, a sound clearly marred by his regret. “...SAYING THEY LIKE IT WOULD BE AN UNDERSTATEMENT, DEAR. MUSIC MAY BE THEIR MAIN HOBBY NOWADAYS, BUT THEY WOULD’VE NEVER GOTTEN INTO IT WITHOUT FIRST DABBLING IN HORROR-INSPIRED SOUND DESIGN. YOU SHOULD’VE SEEN US AT THE HEIGHT OF IT! ...OR MAYBE NOT. IT’S PROBABLY GOOD WE MET LATER.”
Alphys raised a brow. “Oh Yeah? Why's that?”
“I WOULDN’T WANT MY EX BODY TO BE STUCK IN MY OLD GOTH PHASE!”
“You know, changing anything- any of the aesthetics of it would be a LOT easier than… P-pretty much everything else,” Alphys replied, snickering. It was pretty funny imagining goth Mettaton. Especially alongside the EX plans.
Mettaton sighed dramatically, shaking his head. “MY DEAR, DARLING ALPHYS. CLEARLY YOU DON’T KNOW A THING ABOUT BRAND CONSISTENCY. I COULDN’T JUST FLIP ON A DIME LIKE THAT!”
“Says the guy whose show is a-always so random it makes people question if they should call variety shows, um. Something else?”
“CONSISTENTLY! NEVER A BORING EPISODE, THAT’S MY BRAND!”
Alphys chuckled, looking up at the powered off TV screen. Maybe they hadn’t gotten anywhere in terms of Mettaton’s issues, but they actually talked about it. They watched a movie together.
“Thanks for uh, watching this with me… It's b-been a while.”
“WELL I NEEDED IT, CLEARLY.” Mettaton replied. “...AND IT HAS BEEN TOO LONG. BUT YOU KNOW ME, ALWAYS BUSY.”
“R-right,” Alphys replied quietly. He was always busy. “I'll head to bed, I guess. S-see you tomorrow?”
“IF MY SCHEDULE ALLOWS IT!” Mettaton said, hopping off the couch.
Alphys deflated a bit. They might've lived in the same lab, but Mettaton always got up early and Alphys was usually tucked away working (or watching anime) by the time he got back. Moments of interaction between them were really up to chance, and every week seemed to get lonelier.
“...I’LL MAKE SURE MY SCHEDULE ALLOWS IT,” Mettaton amended.
Alphys blinked. “A-are you sure?” As much as she missed him, she really didn't want to get in the way of anything important.
“OF COURSE! OF COURSE. NOW GO OFF TO YOUR FANCY CUBE BED, WE BOTH NEED SOME SHUTEYE!”
Alphys smiled and nodded. Mettaton was still one of her best friends, even as she began to see him less. She had to remember that. She had to.