Well.
It was time.
Upstairs, there'd been a sound: a bright, definite ping! Systems had clicked and whirred and hissed out blasts of air. She'd heard a low-pitched, rolling "Mmmmm."
And in the elevator, Alphys's heart had practically stopped. She'd sat on the ground, shut her eyes, clapped her claws over her ears, and slowly rocked. She'd felt half of Hotland if not the whole freakin' Underground breathing down her back again, which she'd promised herself she wouldn't until she had Mettaton back up and running. She certainly had done an all-right job shutting out thinking about the envelopes bundled and packages stacked at the door (probably presents and get-well notes for Mettaton, the wild and paranoid "what-if"s in her brain aside, but ohmigod, people, it had only been an hour and the man owned half the P.O. boxes in the Underground, why all of this, why right now, why here, I don't need this right now). She'd definitely done anything she could to avoid picturing what the human and Asgore were probably doing to each other while she worked, no no nooooooo, don't go there.
And she'd accepted she couldn't take back the up-frontness as to what was going on with Mettaton. Mm-mm. Too late. Their public had been told. Not... directly. She hadn't had the stomach for that, but she'd given a message on the way out of the Core. The people, well...
Well...
They had had a right to know that Mettaton might need a teensy little break from performing, right? After a show like that? Ha-ha. And the cameras had cut out when Mettaton had powered down, but they'd still been rolling live when his limbs had gone flying off, she's pretty sure. It had to have been the least good she could do (besides, of course, fixing him) to have an assurance that everything would be fine - straight out of the mouth of the lady who "built him". He'd be ship-shape in... one night, tops! Two, at the very most. She hadn't want to undershoot it after having overestimated... enough. But she was sure it wouldn't take him that long to charge - bless having a lab this close to the Core, that much cheaper to keep the place powered high - and that she could have his limbs replaced in a jiffy.
She'd done that.
She'd thought of the deadline and lowered another set of shutters in her brain. She'd been Dr. Alphys, Royal Scientist, and she'd been performing maintenance on her machine; every machine needed it from time to time. It had taken effort. She'd sweat. Her arms shook as she stuck the end of Mettaton's arm into its socket, and her knees had knocked as she'd stood up on her chair to get a good angle with the soldering gun to start fixing it into place.
But she'd delivered. The rest had been for him to do. And the charger.
And as of now, they'd done it. Panic had passed enough for her to actually look at the gap under the door to look for any sign of pink and listen for heels on the lab tile; the surrealism of dragging those legs over to the table from storage had, briefly, snapped her out of the re-framing she'd done to make it all easier while she'd been working.
Now, in retrospect, she recognized that she hadn't been alone at any point the past couple of days; Mettaton had bonded to his body as soon as the EX form had been installed. The pink core had signaled it, and Mettaton had confirmed it. It really was his body.
She felt dirty about the faked distance now that there was no room to fake it, however. He'd be right upstairs.
She listened to herself breathing. It wasn't hard. One breath out consciously pitched into and "Nnnnnnngggggghhhhh...!"
But no. She could do this.
Alphys opened the door and stepped out into the lab. She pointed her nose up. Her back was bent and clammy under her labcoat. Air from the ventilation crept under her collar and chilled her. It made for a strange bit of weight. There it was; the breath on her back.
She stopped just before the conveyor belt.
He was gonna be ticked.
He wasn't going to show it, no, but... heh. Why wouldn't he be?
But... that's part of what she had to get on up there for.
Her nostrils flared and her lips twitched over her teeth. She stepped on. She braced herself, one foot tapping on metal. I screwed the pooch, I'm sorry, I screwed the pooch, I'm sorry.
She reached the top, and... he was not on the table, no. Her heart threw a wild and flailing punch in her chest. She glanced around.
Please don't have left already, please don't have left already, please don't have left already...
"Alphys!" said a very Mettaton-like voice that knocked her one foot off the ground. "Therrre you are."
Her head snapped to the side and there it was, a pink blur and a pink... glow.
Mettaton was, indeed, up and running.
Her mouth dropped open for a second. "M-morning... Mettaton," she said.
"A good morning to you, too," he said, and started to cross over.
He loomed, even from the other side of the floor. She felt like a shadow was falling in her face. She held fast. Her teeth clacked together, side to side, in her mouth.
And just as she guessed, he didn't look ticked, which told her nothing. He gave her a small corner-smirk, and then he turned to... the work desk. Which was laden. She stopped for a moment, pulled her glasses off and breathed on them, and then polished them off on her lab coat, fixed 'em back on...
It was covered in the exact same pile that had built up outside the lab door, all neat to one side. Mettaton shifted his weight and looked it up and down, the corner smirk getting wider, hands on his hips.
"Y-you're okay..."
"Verrr-ry much so," he said.
"Wh-when did you...?" She pointed to the stack on the table.
"While you were in the 'bathroom'." Airquotes. "Ooh, I know you too well, Alphys. It, ah..." He looked down at his boots and half-wryly-smiled, half-sneered. "...was a little of a spectacle, but to my profound relief and, might I add, my astonishment, it was all quiet out there. I'll ping the folks up at the resort, let them know I shall be rrright with them. Mm - heads up, Alphys, this level of public response says to me they'll summon the press. Ha... you'd think I'd been shot in the heart on live TV."
He flapped a hand in the air and threw a look up to her on that. She had started to mouth "But" when it hit her. And then she thought something between an oops and a harsh kettle whistle.
Stupid.
The public nervousness might've been her fault, too. She'd said that there was a problem.
Stupid!
She'd called overdramatic attention right to the lab, stupid, stupid, stupid.
"I - so -" Her tongue lapped the inside of her mouth. It apparently didn't have a word on it. Her eyes squinted... "Y-you're gonna leave already?"
Her voice cracked some.
"Everything's fine now, isn't it? Aaand I'm sure you've got, ah, plenty to keep yourself occupied with, so... heh..." He tossed his hair. Let it land back in place. Perfectly. "Let's not slow each other down, darling."
She didn't know if he was being snide. It wasn't impossible. In fact, oh, no, it was very highly possible, but she flat-out couldn't tell, and couldn't tell why; did she plumb not want to try...?
"Mettaton... I-I-I don't just want to save face!" she blurted.
"Neither do I, Alphie."
"Umm, A... 'Alphie'?"
"But the thing is?" He laughed, looking down, corners of his mouth twitching. "There isn't any face to save. It all... worked out for the best, did it not? My..." He paused. His face went blank, mouth half-open. And then he smirked, brow slightly knit and hand running down his side, fingers bouncing a wave as if he was counting the keys on a piano. "Our, ah... public... awaits."
She felt herself flushing (her handiwork, but...) and took a quick look at the wall. "It's easy for you to say."
"Mmmm? Whatever do you mean?"
"It... It wasn't your plan." Were her glasses fogging up? No? "That-that... that went wrong. I, uhh... Mm - I mean..."
Mettaton looked up from watching his own leg swing lightly in the air, biting the inside of his lower lip.
"When... when I opened that door, I-I... Uhh. I mean... after your fight with the human, I was..." She was smiling. She had no idea why. She threw that, too, at the wall. Sticky notes on green. Clear your mind. "...I was... for a second or two, I was really, really scared."
There was a pause, who knew if it was a good or bad one.
"Of?"
Just as unreadable as the pause.
She verbally tripped over herself to keep going. "You... I... that... I-I mean, I-I was ssc... Scared that... you were hurt, you know? Or - no, worse than that. I was..." She wrung her hands. "I was scared that I'd l... that I'd lost you, for good."
Mettaton's face had gone blank.
"A-a-and if I had, then... it'd be all my fault."
There was another pause - it started off cold, and then it warmed, ever-so-slightly, into a chuckle. Just one. "That human's harmless, darling. They don't, ah... have much in the way of killing instinct."
So they and Asgore will be evenly matched crossed Alphys's mind. Not the time to think about it. She shook it away fast and hard.
"Which you should know better than anyone, my dear Alphys," Mettaton continued, "seeing as you've been watching their every action since they took their first step into the forest's snow. Never at any point in your little plan did either of us have anything to fear from them."
"But..." Her turn to bite her lip. She chewed it, gently. Felt the tips of her teeth sticking in, keeping her mouth shut. Then released. "You know, we... Umm. M-maybe it would've been different, though. Could've, I mean. With you. Just because we've been... like - for two years now, we - we've been telling everyone that you're, you know... That you're... just a robot."
And she had said that to the human before they took that last elevator, god help her, her face was suddenly feeling so hot...
"Which has also worked out for you just fine, no? And it's never held me back." He leaned back against the desk and sat himself down, one leg kicking high to rest over the other, holding a hand out to the stack of cards.
"B-but they..." The human could've been different. The human didn't know him. ...She blinked. Blink blink. Her train of thought derailed. "M-Mettaton, are you..." The next word... stuck for a second. Was she reading it wrong...? When it finally came out, it squeaked, absurdly: "...mm... mad? About... about the..."
About the fact that I kind of used you came to mind. An oil-black wave of mortification rushed into her mind and broke down the words and washed back out, leaving everything on the inside dark and scummy.
She shivered.
Meanwhile, Mettaton had begun picking through the mail with the yellow-white lab light catching little specks of dew in his eyes and the look of a child awaiting something sweet. Sadly charming to watch. "Mm, my heart's all but overflowing with the Underground's love tonight," he said. "Come on, sweethearts, there's enough room in here for all of you..."
"A-a-are you mad," she repeated. "You know... at me? Mettaton?"
"Nnnot particularly." Absently singsong.
"The-then why... did you..." Why did he, why did he... She winced for a split second, rearranged her thoughts, think think think, what did he say... She took a breath, cold and fast. "Why did you say that? I - i-in that weird way! You said that... that I... get something out of - out of lying but... but that you don't?"
"I said that?" He'd turned his eyes right back from the fanmail to her, voice hollow and filling in more and to a greater height with air. "Nuh-uh, Alphys. What I said was that it's no hindrance to me. Look at that." He waved his hand up and down the fanmail pile, beaming all the way up into his eyes. Alphys felt a light squeezing where the two halves of her ribcage met. "Heck, look at my show's ratings earlier! They finally broke ten thousand.
"I've got 'soul', and everyone feels it." He flipped an envelope around and propped it up against the base of the pile, giving it a sideways look and a tugging little corner smile. He "patted" it with a couple of fingers, let them linger a second. Then: "People... ha. They love me, Alphys. And I think I owe it to you to keep a little white lie going. I think of it as... being a good partner, to my biggest benefactor. We're in the business together."
A clapper in Alphys's head struck the interior of a thick bell.
The oil was shaken to slow, sick dripping down. "Oh," she said, with it siphoning into her throat.
Mettaton's smile was gone again. "What's wrong?"
Blockage.
She sighed. She turned. Her tail swept the floor.
She came up with a lie to fill in the space.
"M-maybe I'm just - maybe I'm just... jealous of you?" she tried, scanning him.
"You are now what you wanted to be, Alphys," Mettaton said. "You're the Royal Scientist. That was the aim of our lie, was it not?" He bit his lip and tugged one of the corners of his mouth up. It looked mean; Alphys flinched. "To catch the eye of Asgore?"
"Y-yeah, but..." She swallowed. A bit more of the blockage cleared. Her throat came unstuck and open with a quavery little uncontrolled sigh. "...Mmngh. I - I've been feeling stuck, and... I don't know, since getting the job, I... I haven't... really done anything to be proud of." She pulled a weak smile, and felt it shaking on her face. She threw it back over to Mettaton. A couple I'm sorrys ran a lap each around the front zone of her brain. Mettaton's grin was, once again, gone. "And I... The-the one thing I have really... really accomplished, I didn't... it wasn't actually really anything I did. I've been... thinking about that a lot lately. I... I cheated to get where I am now."
"I should think that the proof you've accomplished plenty is sitting right here in front of you, babydoll." The last word was dry and winding-off. Mettaton tapped his finger between himself and the fanmail pile. "You made my dreams come true; by all rights, you've done work that's touched the whole Underground." There was a little note in that, a little lilt - struck a little sour in Alphys's brain. "I will always be grateful for that."
"Yeah," she said, weakly.
Her brain unfocused.
She felt a draft from a fan near the ceiling.
"We've talked about this before, haven't we?" Mettaton said. "Talked and talked about it."
"Y-yeah." She bobbed a couple of nods. "A... a long time ago."
"And, Alphys? It still stands."
She shook her head. The tips of her claws tapped and pricked into the backs of her hands; thoughts started to congeal again into bubbles. "Then - then..."
"Take your time, dahling."
A breath scratched its way out through her nose; her next word squeaked out with it - "That's - " - and she blinked rapidly against the harshness of it; coin against a chalkboard in her ears, shoot... Another breath. Clearer now.
"That's what's bugging me... Mettaton. I just... I mean, why..." She tried to look Mettaton in the face again. He was facing straight forward. The look on his face had gone entirely neutral. A cold tingle buzzed from her skull through her shoulders and to the middle of her back. Her voice started to shrink. "Why did things - you know... have to change?"
She predicted what was up ahead as clear as a wall up ahead. She pictured Mettaton pausing, his mouth opening just a tad (she knew him, and she knew how that face moved even better than he did), him being the one to break eye contact. She braced for impact.
And Mettaton said, "I guess... it's because we were destined for such different paths?"
The pause hadn't happened, and he had gone back to smiling. Thinly, but smiling. He hadn't broken eye contact - there it was, still pinned on her. Pinning her right in place as the tension in her dissolved out and around her into cold, cold void space.
So easy for him.
"You're... You're right," she said. "We've... we've both changed, a... a lot, huh."
She hadn't.
"As people do." Super-drawled, super-thick, super-sweet, super-sticky. Diluted: "But, ha... Is that really so terrible?"
"Well..." Yeah, she thought. "N-no, I mean... I'm... I-I-I've been happy for you, you know?" Tense grin and a noiseless laugh. She checked in with her body. Somewhere, her hand had wound up on the back of her head. "I-it's been... it's felt really good. Watching you succeed..."
"...And, let me guess, watching hasn't been enough for you? Is that what's been boiling up that... spurred you into concocting our latest song-and-dance?"
"N-no!" Was it, though - Alphys shook her head as if she was shaking a bee away from her eardrum. "N-no, it's... I-i-it's not even about that, Mettaton; it's not about my career, or... your career, o-o-or any of that. It's about... well..."
She had the words right in her throat. She could say them. The sentence dropped off, regardless, because she hoped he'd be able to fill in the rest.
Silence.
Mettaton stared her down. No movement but leaning back on the table on his arms, tilting his head back and quirking his brow.
Her voice dragged at the end of an anchor tie. "...I-it's about... you and me," she said. "It's about our friendship."
"Ah." Mettaton's eyes flicked into a corner. "I... should have guessed that was what you were getting at."
"Mettaton, are we still... are we still friends?"
"I -"
There was a knock at the lab door. The both of them jumped with huge eyes, looked down the conveyor belt.
"Rude," said Mettaton.
Alphys laughed, much too harsh and much too loud. Something... darkened? In Mettaton's face, and she mouthed I'm sorry! Heard it super high-pitched in her head.
But... he laughed into the next phrase, and something in her head told her that she knew he would. She blushed. She could tell she was blushing, ohh geez oh geez oh geez.
Two sides of a circuit connected in her. They sparked yellow.
"I value you, Alphys. I'm fully aware I wouldn't be who I am today if I hadn't met you. I'll tell you that as much as you want." His eyes fell half-lidded. He flashed his teeth. "It's the truth, all right?"
"Tha... that - doesn't really answer my q-"
"I owe you more than anyone." He winked. "But of course, don't let my fans, or my staff, or... anyone else who might get a tad bit jealous know that."
"M-Mettaton..."
He still hadn't answered the question.
She could feel it. She was thoroughly flushed, and she had no idea which feeling to attribute that to.
"In fact, I'll tell you what." He snapped and pointed. His top leg kicked high off the other one to uncross. He pushed himself off the table and straight onto his boots. He swayed once, arms outflung. Alphys yelped between her teeth and hopped forward a step, grabbing him at the sides.
His hands steadily stopped drawing circles in the air.
And in the absence of motion, she noticed her heart palpitating. Ha, god dammit, who did she think she was...
"Ha..." He swallowed. "In fact... I'll... tell you what."
"Um. ...Yeah?"
"Could you, ah... escort me to the door, Alphys?" He was grinning an ever-so-wry grin. Nose wrinkled. Peeking out from under those bangs.
"I... Why? What's - what's wrong?"
"Ha ha... Nothing. I just... think I'll need to break these replacement legs in."
"S... Sure."
He held his hand out between them, facing upward.
She balked for a moment.
And then she clapped her hand down on top of it like it was a dance partner's.
The circuit lit. There was a dancing loop of wire in her head that shone fluorescent yellow against gray, all the way along, and she felt it burn as she shuffled to keep up pace with his ill-advised strut to the conveyor belt and to the door.
They reached the lab door. She pressed the button for the lock.
Fire-red and orange Hotland light and noise came in. The circuit fizzled and sparked out.
On the cliff in front of the lab were swarms of monsters. Some camera-slingers and mic-toters at the front. A big ol' set of headlights in the face of a four-eyed deer.
Oh, my god.
She heard the clikclikclik of Mettaton turning his dial.
"Beeee-eauties and gentlebeauties!" Blasting into her right ear. "I hope you've all held in there while eeee-yours truly was in recovery!"
There were voices. So many monster voices. Most of them faded into "Eeeeeee"; the rest were variants in groupings. "Mettaton, rad new look!" "Mettaton, that last show was really something!" "Mettaton, are you oh-kaaaayyyy?!"
They didn't see her. That was right. That was fair.
The shaking in her legs didn't stop, but it didn't worsen.
"Ohhhh, I'm just dandy, cupcakes." Alphys threw a double-taking glance into the upper corner of her vision. Mettaton was grinning wide, head thrown back, looking down at the crowd from an upward angle. "I am peachy as well as creamy." Alphys swallowed back an impulse that might've manifested itself as either a laugh or a choke. Her nose was full of mucus. She sniffed in hard. Gahhh... "I am peaches and cream."
There was a pull on her arm. She looked to the side again.
He was holding her hand up. Oh, my god.
Oh, my god!
No!
She waved her free hand, palm-forward, cut it out, gritting her teeth together hard...!
"My dear Dr. Alphys has seen to that!" said Mettaton. His eyes flicked down toward her. His arm lowered and extended. He was pulling her forward. He let go. "Dr. Alphys, my dear, would you please make your statement?"
She was floating. She scanned the crowd one way in a fraction of a second and the other way in another fraction. Cue cue cue cue.
"L-l-luh..."
"Ladies and gentlemen," Mettaton whispered.
"LADIES AND GENTLEMEN!" She had screeched it; it had hurt enough to cause her cheek and eye to twitch. She hypertuned to every face in the crowd at once and saw nothing. She could feel her head pounding, her mouth going dry... She swallowed. "...I-I-I hope you all en... enjoyed the premier of Mettaton's new... new, uh..."
Body. Just say body. The crowd dipped in noise, what the hell was she doing...
"Mettaton's new EX mode!"
There was an echoing "Ooooooooh" from the crowd. It filled in and expanded through the distance between the cliff and the walls and the lava. She shuddered.
"I... th-this has been in progress for a while... I - and I'm really happy with... umm - the result you're all s - seeing here!"
Cameras flashed.
"M-my main inspiration... f-for the design was... was, uh... the-the..."
Mad Journey, the anime. And also a video game called Prodigal 1.
She bit down on her tongue hard.
"W-well, i-it came after the - the Mm - the Mettaton design that you all, al - all already know and... and love, so I... I based it on the way his A.I. developed!"
It was partly true, euphemistically-speaking. She tried not to estimate how true it was on the spot. It could've outweighed the pop culture inspirations; it could've been backseat influence. She tried not to weigh it.
And it hadn't actually been built before Mettaton's first body. Apart from the A.I. bit, it wasn't a lie.
Cameras flashed some more. News titles were penned on the sidelines, and the phrase "Reclusive Royal Scientist emerges" was written.
"In other words, it was made to fit, my dears," said Mettaton. "And what a fit it is! Everyone, blow my beloved creator a kiss."
Adrenaline had her shaking.
Mettaton started to golfclap. "After all, even I as one lone machine can't express my gratitude for the great service she's done for you, MTT fans, all by myself!"
She stepped back. She was woozy.
Mettaton didn't look back.
She took another step back.
Mettaton still didn't look back. Cameras continued to flash. He pressed a hand to his mouth, and in an ever-extending wave out in front of them, the crowd mimicked him.
Oh my god. Ohmygod ohmygod OHMYGOD.
Another step back. She put her weight into it. Her tail lashed. It brushed metal. She flung a hand out behind her to feel for the door.
And Mettaton caught her arm, and raised it into the air once again.
Bright yellow flaring light. It spun in her head. Kissing sounds went off like fireworks, and the light popped in a million places and fizzed and sparked.
Her knees buckled. They bent inward.
She smiled and waved, feeling the heat in her cheeks and in her head rise, take her higher on a cloud of steam.
"Very good, darlings! Thank you! Give it up for the truly brilliant Dr. Alphys!"
She couldn't tell if he was showboating.
Perhaps they weren't friends. Not at the moment.
They were, indeed, on two such different paths. One was a liar; the other was an actor.
And despite it, right now they trusted each other.
One bridge was coming mended.
Cross-posted to AO3.