Chapter Text
"Yes, darling. And I've already checked with Janet-- you know her, the one with the dragon on her shoulder, she did the lights for us last time we were in Vegas--and she's going to make certain that the lights on the whole tour will go smoothly. Yes-- You won't be put in the spotlight again. I promise. Yes, I--"
Mettaton cuts himself off again as the voice on the other end of the phone starts getting louder, hurrying through every syllable it has to say at an absurdly spitfire pace.
Peter looks to his side, away from the tablet in his lap. Threep's been at this for maybe an hour now. Too long. He can tell it's already starting to wear him down, having to do the whole talking-someone-down thing. But it's hard to say no to family, and especially family that you work with. Like, he gets it, you can't let that relationship flap around in the wind like some poor kid strung up on the flagpole by their underwear, not unless you want to start avoiding people at work and at family get-togethers.
So when family you work with needs your attention at... what is now one o'clock in the goddamn morning, you halt anything intimate that may or may not have been going down and you pick up that phone.
And the guy really does care! Peter knows how very, very much Mettaton cares. It's just that, this conversation, it keeps going in circles, with the same few concerns and the same few reassurances over and over and over, so Mettaton, by all stretches of the imagination, does not feel very listened-to right now, which is like, the one thing he hates. Okay, maybe not just the one thing, but definitely a strong contender for the top three things that will get you put on a robot's shitlist.
... Actually, that probably exists? He should ask Threep sometime if he had a file like that hidden away somewhere in one of his drives, and if so, how he keeps that shit organized--
"Yes, yes. Look, darling-- Napstablook. Everything is under control. Nothing about this has changed for at least a month. I know... it's strange, doing this without her. It doesn't feel right to me, either. As if, even though I know everything is in place, that nothing has been forgotten, there is still something missing. But it's time," Mettaton sighs, rolling over and kicking his legs up onto the headboard.
"We haven't forgotten her, or abandoned her, or anything like that. Nobody would ever think that's what we're doing. But we need to move on. Both of us. Which is why--
which is why--
... Yes, yes, darling... I know that's not what you meant by it. I apologize. But please let me suggest that the best course of action right now, in any case, is to not dwell on this. There's nothing to be gained by worrying about something that you are not in charge of. Find your peace with the future by accepting the past."
He drags a hand through his hair, gently teasing out a few snarls as Napstablook responds. Peter catches his gaze for only a second for a quick eyebrow raise before it's time to speak again.
"That sounds like a good idea. Now, I've got to get going-- I know, I'll call you later to check up on you. Remember, it's only a year. Yes. I love you too. Goodbye."
Groaning, Mettaton ends the call, drops the phone next to him on the bed, and falls still.
"'Only a year?'" Peter drawls, knowing he's stirring up dirt in a sandstorm.
"Peter." Mettaton warns.
"Only a YEA--"
"PETER."
Okay, yikes, fine. Doesn't feel like talking for a bit. Needs to decompress or whatever. He can leave Mettaton alone for a bit, he has other things he can do that aren't ruffling feathers.
He looks back at his tablet screen and flicks between a few tabs. Quarterly review. Robotics article. Politics article. Funny picture of a parrotfish that he sent to Sans earlier. Message from Dot that he's still gotta look at eventually. That game app that he started playing with two weeks ago until it became exhausting to keep track of all the things he needed to do in it everyday. Nothing catches his attention.
"... I could learn guitar in that time," he mutters when the silence becomes too much.
Mettaton doesn't even move. But he can't have gone into sleep-mode so early, right?
"... Or like, become a welder," he tries again.
No response.
"I could go on a bike tour around Europe, or learn taekwondo, or join some deep sea fishing crew! You know, completely change the course of my life with just one decision."
Nnnnothin.
He sighs and tilts his head back against the headboard.
"Look, I'm just saying, they're all worked up over doing this world tour or whatever, which is fine, totally, one hundred percent, I hope they feel better, but I'm the one that isn't gonna see my most favorite monster in the whole wide world for a whole fucking year. Honestly, why aren't there, I don’t know, two of you yet? Like, remote control that shit. Just have two bodies wandering around the globe or like, once you're done for the day in fucking Italy or France or whatever you can upload your soul back home. Problem solved. You can be the global super-star you’re super fucking good at being by day and we don’t have to settle for phone calls at five in the morning every time you’re done. And okay, I mean, actually, second thought, it took Alphys something like a year to fabricate all the muscles in your hand and it's basically a pain-staking, expensive as hell process when you've got what amounts to a top-of-the-line, custom, full-body magical prosthetic, and she doesn't have a lot of free time anymore, so I can kind of see why there's some financial and time constraints to having two bodies but..." he rambles, like he just can't help himself, like every thought jumps off his tongue before he can think it.
He looks back at Mettaton, who has uncovered his eyes sometime during the spiel.
"Favorite monster? " Mettaton asks, sounding a little tired, a little annoyed, but maybe a little amused, too.
Heh. And of course he'd get caught up on that.
"Well, uh, yeah. Duh. Because I'm my favorite person. So until I figure out how I can suck my own dick--"
"Mmmhm."
"--or I figure out how to go full Jekyll and Hyde, I gotta keep you around to fill that position," Peter finishes, leaning over a bit to rest his head on Mettaton's thigh and smiling.
Mettaton manages to smile a little too, through his weariness. "Oh, I've got a few positions of yours that I can fill."
"Thhheeeeere he is. Hey, welcome back, Threep!" he beams. "But uh, you know, not that I don't love what you're suggesting right now..."
He pauses as Mettaton's hand plays with the coarse, dark hair right below his navel, distracted and lazy. Just kind of... admires that year's worth of work that went into the flawless articulation of an opposable thumb.
He sets his tablet off to the side on the nightstand and lets his hand rest on Mettaton's hand. “... But I’m really not up for that. Maybe an hour ago, but now it would be a whole thing and I gotta be up in the morning…”
“Oh, of course,” Mettaton says, stilling his hand. “Then I suppose I really shouldn’t be starting anything again…”
He laughs. “Hey, I wouldn’t mind finishing something quick. You ever see The Italian Job?”
“Er... No?”
“Oh, it’s this heist movie from-- know what, not important. Point is that I’m gonna show you something a million times better that’s gonna last a fraction of the time.”
Mettaton seems satisfied by the implication. He threads his fingers through Peter’s as he leans over the robot, pressing his lips against supple metallic ones, savoring each contented sound Mettaton makes as his hand runs further up his thigh and that awful phone call grows farther and farther away in the moment, until it disappears, until they’re the only things left in each other’s worlds, until he’s also got Threep’s hand wrapped around his--
Until the door slams on its lock (thank god), and whoever was trying to get in crumples to the ground with a small “ow”.
He waits, prays that they’ll go away, that maybe Threep will put his hand back instead of sitting up on his elbows to stare at the door. But of course they don’t. Of course! Instead there’s a bunch of rapid knocks at the door, because there was just no way he was going to be allowed to have the rest of this night with Threep to himself.
“Which one of you is that!” He shouts, but he already knows, and he’s already climbing out of bed trying to find where his boxers got thrown, and Mettaton is already… putting himself away? Getting decent?
“Just Dot!” she replies.
Peter groans. This kind of visit, then.
He opens the door, just a crack. Enough to stare the little shifter down.
“It’s one in the morning,” he points out.
“Yep! But it’s kind of--”
“What’s the rule when Mettaton’s home?”
“Don’t disturb you guys after, like, eleven, unless it’s an emergency, which, it kind of is?”
He pinches the bridge of his nose. “What’s a ‘kind of’ emergency.”
“She needs one of us for something that isn’t life or death, Peter,” Mettaton chimes in, resting his head on his shoulder and peering through the crack. “And I think we should respect her judgement about what’s worth our time, even at this time of night.”
Peter opens his mouth to complain, but Mettaton keeps going. “What do you need, little one?”
Dot takes a breath. “Sooo the security alarm went off, right--”
“What.”
“... Did it?” Mettaton asks, lowering his brows.
“Uh, yeah, we shut it off so we wouldn’t wake you up--”
Capra snorts. “Yeah, well, we weren’t sleeping--”
“Peter…”
There’s a very firm grip on his hip and he closes his mouth. Promptly.
Dot rolls her eyes.
“Aaaanyway, me and Cody and Haruhi shut it off cause we were up late watching, uh, anime , and mom and dad and the aunties aren’t back from their aquarium dinner thing yet, and Cody thought he could get Delfin down-- Delfin’s back, by the way--”
“Oh, what the fuck.”
“Yeaaaah, he’s super high up there too, it probably saved his ass-- ANYWAY, Cody was going to try messing with the grid to get him down safe, and I told him not to and that we should get you guys to do it, but he went anyway and--”
Dot stops speaking when the lights in the house flick off. There’s a startled kind of yelp outside, too, that he guesses is Delfin breaking a limb on his trip down without power to keep him suspended in the grid. He sighs, letting his head fall against the doorframe.
“Okay. This is where the night is going. That’s fine. This is fine. Threep, you wanna deal with Delfin or go flip the breakers?”
---------------------
“Well now, if it isn’t Delfin!”
Mettaton follows Dot outside to where Haruhi and their guest await, strutting toward the treeline as if it were a stage. And, well, this couldn’t have been staged, actually.
Life has a way of being more funny, more outrageous, more unbelievable than fantasy could ever hope to be.
So, Delfin, hanging from a maple tree by the seat of his jeans, twisted precariously in the branches, holding onto his mightily expensive and heavy camera for dear life?
Well.
It’s not not funny.
“Heeey Mettatoooon,” he drawls, weakly raising a hand in greeting.
Mettaton grins at him. “It is always such a pleasant surprise when the paparazzi turn out to be you. You’re so persistent, darling! I don’t think anyone else has lasted so long.”
“Yeah, well a good, uh, photographer… waits for the perfect shot? Or something?” He shrugs helplessly, and Mettaton chuckles.
“And climbs the tallest tree for it too, it seems. Your agency is working you hard these days!”
“Yeah, well, it’s either this or freelance, and at this point only one of those options has healthcare? So you can see how I’m a little… stuck.”
“Oh, I’m seeing it right now.” Mettaton says, stepping back a bit and surveying the tree. “It’s just… Darling, it would be far less dangerous if you knocked at our front door instead any time you wanted to hang around and wait for the perfect shot.”
“... Wait, was that pun on purpose?”
“Come on, Delfin, you know he can’t do those on porpoise,” Dot crows. “... Get it? Because your name means--”
“I GET IT,” he yells back with such force that the branches beneath him begin to crack. He freezes.
“Now is a good time to get him down, I suppose,” Mettaton mutters to himself, eyeing the tree.
Haruhi scuffs her talons against the ground. “Sorry Tonton, I tried earlier while Dot was gettin’ you, I just couldn’t…” she trails off, nodding her head toward the clawed up trunk. “I couldn’t get a grip.”
He smiles. “Oh, dearest. If one solution doesn’t work, simply try another. So, if you can’t get a grip… rely on your momentum."
He doesn’t wait for her to ask for clarification. He charges the tree, taking two steps up the trunk and leaping for the nearest branch. It sways as his hands connect, and he pulls himself up to the applause of two scaly little hands. He looks down and winks at Haruhi, then continues climbing, as smooth and practiced as an acrobat on a trapeze.
(He’s only had the good fortune to do trapeze twice in his life, so far.)
“Oh shit, wait, aren’t you wearing heels? Do you REALLY do all your own stunts?” Delfin asks, squinting down.
“Yes! I really do!” Mettaton calls back.
“I thought that was just cgi!”
He rolls his eyes and pulls himself up another branch. “Darling, you should really watch the extras when you watch my movies.”
“Don’t have time to watch your movies, too busy stalking you, daaaarlliiing,” Delfin taunts.
Mettaton tightens his lips, glaring at Delfin just in time for his camera to go off. He smiles back. Cheekily.
“Oh, god, that’s gonna be blurry as hell but it’s soooo gonna be wORTH I--”
The branches holding Delfin in place snap and crack and he goes plummeting.
Mettaton, literally, reacts as fast as lightning. He reaches out and grasps Delfin’s shirt, and then the branch beneath him gives too under their weight, the branches this low are always so dry and fragile this time of year, and for a moment they’re both falling rather ungracefully out of a tree.
The precise movements needed to do this right come so naturally to him.
He twists his torso, throwing himself beneath Delfin, in the way of all the branches that break against and scuff up his chassis, and Delfin is screaming so, so loud. But he’s safe, and now he just needs to land on his feet, and it’s a simple thing, but the ground comes so much sooner than he expects.
He lands on his feet, Delfin in his arms, and something in his right knee grinds and snaps.
It’s… worrisome.
Delfin rolls out of his arms, panting and sweaty, sprawling out across the cool summer grass. “Oh my god.” He says. “I thought we were gonna die. Holy cow.”
Mettaton slowly, carefully, stands up. At first, nothing seems wrong, but then he takes a step towards Delfin and-- oh. Something in his knee is out of place, he’s certain, and it’s grating against something else , and he grits his teeth because it’s not what he imagines pain is like but it certainly, certainly feels wrong.
He bends over and snatches Delfin’s camera away, holding it high in the air.
Delfin reaches after it. “Hey! My camera…!”
“Will be returned to you after we make sure nothing embarrassing is on there, hm?” Mettaton says sweetly. “Not for me. I look good at any angle, as you know, darling. But other people in the house…”
He glances at Dot and Haruhi, then up at Peter and Cody, jogging toward the scene from the back of the house. “... They have so much more... fragile public personas."