A/N: Firstly, the video up there has the picture from a few chapters ago. It's one of my favorites. Secondly, I believe we're at about 10.7 K reads now??? I seriously
never even dreamed that FMS would get this big, so thank you! Lastly, in regards to this chapter. Well, my fingers slipped and things got a little,well, interesting. If you'll be uncomfortable with some suggestive stuff, skip ahead. Enjoy, my darling corpses!
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The rest of the afternoon was spent in a fairly enjoyable manner, with disgustingly delicious fast food, random conversation that you couldn't be bothered to remember, and Mettaton’s sly (and quite frankly, adorable) way of randomly touching you every so often. It was something that you knew you shouldn't have appreciated as much as you did. You had to keep your little curtain of 'just friends’ up as long as you could. Things had gone too far in the car. You had let yourself actually believe for a moment that there was a possibility there. But you remembered that you couldn't get your hopes up. People like Mettaton don't like people like you. It didn't work that way.

When Sans left, it was just around two in the afternoon, and you were left with an entire rest of the day to kill. Sure, you could actually be productive, oooor you could lie down on your couch reading Pride and Prejudice until Frisk asked for dinner.

You decided that was the best course of action.

At least, it had been, until Mettaton noticed that you were reading on without him and had a freakout.

“I can't believe that you’ve betrayed me like this, darling,” he pouted.

“Chill, Glitterbot, I'll go back if you want,” you offered, still laying across the couch.  

“Marvelous!” He exclaimed, a bright smile consuming his face. It was infectious, and you smiled too, sitting up to allow him a seat cushion. You cleared your throat slightly, found your place, and-

“Aren't you going to lie back down, darling?”

“Um, no? There isn't really room for me,” you answered.

“Of course there is, beautiful! I'm more than willing to accommodate you.” He smirked, gesturing to his lap. Right. That. Well, it couldn't hurt, right? Friends always do this sort of thing.

But friends don't always get this flustered, your mind put in as you lied back down, your torso across Mettaton’s surprisingly comfortable legs and your shoulders against the armrest.

“Happy now?” You asked sarcastically.

“Very.” He gave you another satisfied little smirk, as you found your place again and picked up reading where you had left off with him last night. The same last night that you had run away from this morning. Funny how you couldn't seem to escape it.

You tried desperately to ignore his one hand stroking through your hair while the other rested lazily on your stomach. You really did make an effort, but it was lost when he noticed your awkward shifting and how your cheeks were just a touch more pink than before.

“Is someone a little flustered?” He teased, looking down at you.

“I, I'm, no I'm not,” you struggled to answer defensively.

“I never asked if you were,” he taunted.

You rolled your eyes, “Can I get back to the sto-oh!”

He giggled at your reaction as he lightly dragged his hand down your stomach, leaving a trail of tingles. His hands were cold, but it was nice.

But, nice platonically. You didn't like him. Definitely not.

You tried your best to ignore as he began tracing on you through your clothes. You were certain that it was a pattern of some sort, that much you recognized. His fingers made the same repetitive motion over and over and over, but you couldn't  tell what it was. At the moment, all your focus was being channeled into this marvelous story with an amazing plot and you definitely weren't thinking about the way he was absently smiling or how you actually loved his gentle touch or how you wanted to be closer to him. None of that was crossing your mind at all, nope, no way, and you were enjoying this masterpiece of a book called, um, something. It'll come to you in a bit.

By the time you finished the chapter, your voice was hoarse and cracking, and your eyes were beginning to blur the words together. You held up the book to Mettaton, croaking out, “Here.”

Catching on, he took the offered volume from your hands delicately, as if he was holding a child. You watched the way he focused in on the page, and his eye seemed a shade darker. Less pale pink, more fuschia. Occasionally his tongue would dart out and lick his lips as he read. Why, you didn't know.

And when you gently, almost curiously, ran your fingers along the glass case holding his heart, it made you chuckle to hear his breathing hitch. His fans whirred at high power, and his face went completely still and his voice stopped suddenly. You were briefly frightened that he might combust. Luckily, he didn't.

“I'm glad that I can entertain you, darling,” he said a second later. He leaned his head in his palm, and propped his arm up on the armrest so he could look down at you with an odd little smile.

Teasingly, you tapped your fingers against the glass, smirking slightly. You were expecting a similar reaction, or maybe he would just ignore you. You didn't even notice when his eye squeezed shut and he quickly pressed his hand to his mouth, covering it, preventing you from hearing his quiet groan. You continued tapping at the glass playfully, blissfully unaware of what you were doing to him, and simply amusing yourself. He tensed up under you, and you heard the book fall from his hand to the cushions and bounce on the floor. He spoke in choked phrases and words so faint and breathy that you could barely understand.

“Oh, darling, I, I don't think that, that, oh ffff-, really y-y-you should, oh goodness, beautiful, p-please, please just, ohhh, stop!”

He nearly shouted the last word, and you froze, the sudden realization of what you had been doing to him crashing down on you. Hesitantly, you glanced up, and saw him, eye closed and his head tossed back against the seat. One hand tangled into his fringe and pressed to his concealed eye, and the other still barely covered his mouth, a delicate  finger ever so slightly pulling down his bottom lip. His fans whirred faster than you had ever heard them before, and he panted rather loudly. The thought crossed your mind that Frisk could come down any moment and see the Mettaton like this, and you on him.

Things had just become a lot more awkward.

You sat up abruptly, moving off of him, noticing how his hand dropped from his mouth and his arm wrapped around his abdomen. He seemed to withdraw into himself, curling up with a small grimace and quiet groan before relaxing once more.  All the while, you sat beside him, silently watching. In your head was the pounding feeling of guilt and embarrassment, and nearly every part of you was screaming to just leave him alone and pretend it never happened at all, that you hadn't just been doing something very wrong to Mettaton, that he hadn't been making the sounds he was making. And most importantly, he hadn't been making them because of you. You struggled to shove the sound of his desperate choked begging away from your thoughts, but the words still crashed inside your brain. It felt as though you'd tear apart with it.

Yet, you couldn't keep your eyes off him. You couldn't help but think of how strangely beautiful he looked. You couldn't ignore the part of you that wanted to hear it again, the part that wished you never stopped. But that didn't mean you liked him. It was normal to admire someone's appearance like that and not care about them. Right? Right.

Maybe.

This reasoning continued to ramble on in your head as you gazed at him, partly concerned, partly regretful and mostly enraptured. His hair was messily tossed about and his face was holding a rather obscene expression, his mouth nearly gaping. The tips of little fangs that you had never noticed before peeked out from behind his upper lip. He was still panting, gasping for air he didn't need.  It was a state of vulnerability that you had never seen him in before. It was gorgeous.

“Um, Mettaton?” You asked, using his real name for the first time in you didn't know long. Probably since you'd met him. It felt foreign on your lips.

He still didn't speak, and you were worried. This was the sort of thing that could ruin your friendship. Dammit, (Y/N), you really screwed up. Forget the whole 'just friends’ curtain, you didn't even have that anymore. Nice going.

Carefully, you scooted closer to him. You didn't want to do anything weird, but you didn't want to completely abandon him. For some reason you couldn't bring yourself to leave him alone.

“Mettaton, I'm sorry,” you apologized awkwardly, unable to look at him.

“No need to be, darling,” he spoke breathily, and you felt tingles along your spine. You wanted to bask in that voice, let it consume you, let it suffocate you.  

“Really, that was so far from okay. I really, that wasn't my intent at all.”

You were cut off quickly by, “It was wonderful, beautiful, just wonderful. But I don't think you'd have appreciated where it was headed.” He finally looked at you, giving you a small wink. But really, his other eye was covered, so he could've simply been blinking.

“Uh, yeah.” You laughed nervously. What you neglected to say was that you honestly might not have minded, so long as you could still hear his breathy words that were barely there, and the quiet groans that he tried to hide. They would haunt you, follow you in your dreams, and holy hell did you want to hear it again.

Platonically, of course. You were just friends.

“So, shall we continue?” He asked.

You were frozen, “What.”

“The book, beautiful. Did you forget already? I'll admit that I can be quite distracting, but still, I thought you'd remember.”

Relief (and disappointment?) flooded you, “Ohh, yeah. The book that we were reading. Um, yeah, go ahead.”

“Would you mind grabbing it for me, darling?” He ran a hand delicately through his hair. “It should be right by you.”

“Hm? Oh, right.” You slid off the couch and picked it up from the ground, handing it to him and sitting at a safe, healthy, and most importantly: friendly distance.  

Because, after all, you were just friends.

Right?