[It was annoyingly contradictory. Mettaton was still being... himself, which he was very good at, and which remained a source of relative displeasure. How do you deal with someone so completely undaunted by unrelenting negativity? Emet-Selch didn't know; he never had found an effective means of deterring that kind of behavior. Neither now nor in the past.

Even so. Mettaton's nearness was not disagreeable. Even as that laugh irritates him, the rub of his face to his shoulder is pleasant, his closeness something the Ascian wanted to hang onto, rather than push aside. Which would have been the sensible response, the natural one; what was the point of company that couldn't last? A fragmented reassurance? His arm wraps further around the puca, fingers digging in (or trying to; it's more of a scrape across the metal of his back). But there was comfort in being pressed flush against him.]

Always...? I'm almost relieved there's no such thing, even for us.

[Even as his voice is bleak, his touch over rabbit ears is gentle. The Ascian's fingers are careful around the scarring, to focus more on the soft fur, trailing over the shape of long, flopped ears. Once he reaches the tip of one, his hand returns to the back of his head, thumb rubbing slowly at the base of his neck.]

Whether I can do something or not has never entered into it. I have to.

[Be it handling eccentric pucas, or resurrecting a long-dead people, Emet-Selch seems to view it all with a relentless determination.]