It's raining. Rain in the underground was odd. Water would seep through hairline cracks high above. It was strange. Uneven. How was rain on the surface? Where did it come from? The sky, probably. That was odd. Not to humans, probably. To them, it was a common occurrence. Normal. Nothing in the underground was ever normal.
Mettaton did not like the rain. Water could be damaging to his new form in large quantities. Alphys had reassured him that rain would be harmless. Still, he wanted to be careful. He didn't always feel this way. When he fought the young human, he was reckless. Idiotic. He could only see this now, after Alphys had fixed (and lectured) him. He understood a lot of things about himself better now. He wanted to be less self-absorbed. Less egocentric. He was still working on it.
Mettaton still didn't like the rain. It was unsettling, in a way. He couldn't quite describe it. Regardless, he was walking in the rain because he could not put this off, not any longer.
It was time to come home.
At first he hadn't returned to his old home because he was too obsessed with reaching stardom, too obsessed with rising above his humble beginnings and too obsessed with leaving the suffocating underground to be one with the human stars. Obsession is a powerful thing. If that wasn't enough, the guilt began to set in.
You abandoned your cousin when they needed you most. You promised. You promised you would never leave them, and then you left and never came back. You selfish, ignorant, pathetic excuse for a monster. You don't deserve your body. You don't deserve your success. You don't deserve anything.
He continued putting it off because he didn't know what he would say. What did you say to the cousin who meant the world to you after you left them for several years just because of your foolish dreams? Would they even recognize him?
Mettaton tried to shove these thoughts away. Thinking too hard about unpleasant things could make his systems overheat. Alphys hated it when he overheated. She never complained about repairing him when he broke, but now he could see how much it worried her.
He was approaching it now. His old home. Right next to Napstablook's. Mettaton had hardly even been outside of Hotland since he left this place. It was all quite peaceful, and oddly familiar. That's wasn't too surprising, on second thought. Not much ever changed in the underground.
The two houses came into view. Mettaton stopped and observed them, brushing the fringe out of his face for a better look. His old house looked like it hadn't been tended to in some time. Once again understandable. A raindrop landed on his head. He shuddered slightly, and brushed his hair back into place. There, still fabulous. Nothing can change that, right? The door to Napstablook's house opened. Mettaton felt his wiring quiver slightly, in both excitement and nervousness.
~000~
It's raining. Napstablook felt a few raindrops past through their ghostly form as they drifted outside. The feeling was quite odd, and as such, they typically avoided going outside in the rain. But the desperate loneliness that always nagged at them had become more overwhelming than usual, and they felt that they needed encouragement, and they needed it now.
There was a large group of echo flowers that grew outside their house. They liked to whisper messages to the flowers, in order to cheer themself up when the loneliness set in. It wasn't the same as it was before, when the house next to theirs was occupied, but it was the next best thing.
"Oh…" they murmured, drifting towards the flowers. "You… You can do it… Blooky…" They remembered their cousin saying the same thing to them nearly every day. You can do it Blooky!
Feeling a little better, the ghost drifted back into their house without a second thought.
~000~
Mettaton walked behind Napstablook's house. So many echo flowers… Had Napstablook planted more? He could hear them, their whispered encouragements. "Oh… You… You can do it… Blooky…" Mettaton closed his eyes, feeling the drops of rain on his form. How many times had Napstablook come out here to listen to the flowers' encouragement? The encouragement that the ghost had to give themself because there was nobody else to make them feel wanted?
Mettaton opened his eyes and knelt down on the ground. He cupped one of the flowers in his hand and leaned in close, whispering softly.
~000~
The next morning, Napstablook awoke and drifted outside. It was still raining, and much harder than the previous day, but they barely noticed. They floated behind their house, and there were the echo flowers. Hey flowers, could you cheer me up? They thought quietly. The little ghost expected the same whispered encouragement that they had said the previous day, but they were unprepared for what followed.
"I love your songs."
"You're very talented."
"The only true compliments I ever felt were from your words."
"You're important."
"You matter."
"Don't let the bad days get you down, Blooky darling."
"You're my best friend."
"I love you dearly."
And then, quieter: "I'm sorry."
Napstablook suddenly found that they couldn't distinguish raindrops from their tears. Could it be? They turned around when they heard someone walking up behind them. A very familiar robot stood there, getting soaked by the rain. Napstablook tried to control their tears. "M-mettaton? What are you-"
"It's me, Blooky." he whispered. He walked closer and knelt down in front of the little ghost. "You probably don't recognize me, but that's mostly my fault." He laughed sadly.
At that moment, Napstablook finally understood. The tears came again, but this time, their cousin was there to hug them and whisper that it was going to be okay.
The two cousins then proceeded to go inside and get out of the rain. They watched raindrops fall from inside, as they lay on the floor next to each other and felt like garbage together for the first time in years.