#and any day that i think of glados and her neurotoxin is a good day | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

flynndesdelca · 1 year ago

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For Day 25 (Behind the Testing Chambers) of @chelltastic’s Portal Drawtober 2023 Challenge. As I’m not really an artist, I chose to write short pieces for the prompts.

soon i'll come around lost and never found waiting for my words seen but never heard

Aperture was a perfect space for testing. Even from its humble, early origins it had excelled there, and throughout the years it had redefined the testing experience over and over again. With the new facility testing had been modernized, and the key factor to that was its overseer, its central nervous system. GLaDOS had been designed to manage things, and she took to her testing duties with zeal but also a sense of dignity. Despite everything that had been heaped on her, it was the one thing that she truly enjoyed.

The facility itself was there to support testing just as much as it was designed to support anything else that Aperture needed. With but a thought she could draw elements together to create a testing chamber. If such elements didn't exist she could simply create them herself. The virtually unending army of panels ensured that any kind of room was easily within reach. The essential testing materials: pellets, lasers, hard-light bridges, cubes of the weighted or companion style, as many buttons as she could ever desire. All were there in troves, awaiting their use in the inexorable onward march of science. Of course there were also turrets aplenty, and neurotoxin if she ever felt like she needed to make a point. If for whatever reason she needed something that wasn't in stock somehow, or perhaps that didn't even exist yet, as long as she could make a schematic for it - an easy task for her powerful mind - manufacturing could provide it. There was technically no end to the types of tests she could perform if she could keep coming up with new and innovative ideas for elements to introduce.

There was one wrinkle in things, though, one part that irked her. It hadn't been a thing up until she had decided it was time to put her foot down for good. Certainly there were parts of the facility that were outside of her reach, that was what neurotoxin was for. It would take care of those hard-to-get-to areas, leaving her to focus on the spots that she could control. Unfortunately, even in those spaces the humans were resourceful, and had found ways to wiggle past the walls and panels into the spaces that they should not be. Despite the neurotoxin and despite the threat of her lurking in wait for them, they would attempt to find salvation out-of-bounds.

What was back there that they thought they could use to escape? Was it the thought of finding a path that she couldn't follow them on? She had very minimal monitoring ability back there, knowing only that someone was there through a vague sense of 'feeling' them. Like a feather caught up in her shirt, she decided, was an appropriate idiom. She couldn't be sure where exactly it was, but she knew it was in there somewhere and every now and then she'd get a phantom itch or tickle to keep her uncomfortable as she tried to locate it. Unfortunately, it never stayed still, and much like a human attempting escape she could only ever be aware of its presence in the loosest sense. She could call out, but not hear or see any response. She could have a vague sense of their passage without knowing exactly what they were doing.

These were areas that humans largely weren't meant to go. It was dangerous back there, especially in testing zones where the wall panels were lined up in multitudes, presenting a large force of crushing pressure. Those nimble enough to escape the forest of pivots and pistons there might think they had a reprieve, but then they were lost in the massive structure of the facility itself. Perhaps they would be fortunate enough to be in areas that had the bare minimum of human servicing requirements. Perhaps they wouldn't be so lucky, and would be forced to traverse heavy machinery in an attempt to find their way to a less fatal location. They might find their way to major locations in the facility, such as manufacturing. They might just wander lost until they somehow managed to get out of the areas behind into places where she could actually see them, at which point she'd swoop down on them in her displeasure.

It was kind of funny in its own way how they thought that it was a way to escape. Often their actions would tell her just what was going on. Errors would come up due odd fluid leaks where there shouldn't be fluids in the case of them being crushed or punctured or otherwise having their blood escape from their bodies. Jams in vital machinery due to someone not making it through a narrow squeeze in time. Cooling issues from fans or water pumps being stopped or tampered with. There was an endless parade of potential ways to detect human progress through the back areas. Their inherent mortality meant that they had to make concessions to survive, which would light up her internal control board. Even if she couldn't see them directly, it was a good enough hint that she could focus as much attention on a given area as possible, attempting to exert her will over it in the limited ways that she could.

Really, it was amusing how humans thought they could outsmart her by going back there. In the end it wasn't really doing anything other than prolonging their suffering. If they'd just submitted to the testing, then neither of them would have had to go through all of that. There had only been two people who had actually managed to use the space behind the test chambers effectively, but she didn't like to think about that. The first one made some degree of sense, the paranoid schizophrenic. The one who truly could understand just how much the facility was really watching, and exercise enough caution to avoid drawing enough attention for her to zero in on him. She'd tried to appeal to his paranoia to get him to come out, to convince him that it was all simply symptoms of his unmedicated mind, but he'd managed to evade her right up to the end. She could grudgingly accept him having won his freedom, though she still did not particularly like it. The other had gotten back there two times, but only one time had been with actual purpose. The first time it had simply been survival, hard-fought and thus hard-won. That hadn't mattered, of course, as in the end Chell had just been brought back inside by the autonomous functions of the facility itself. The second time she'd been smuggled in during an actual escape attempt and gotten up to a lot of mischief during her little sojourn. Of course, that was her nature, to take the lovely orderly parts of things sitting around innocently doing their functions and destroy them.

The notion of someone going back there, into the spaces that weren't designed for humans, made GLaDOS uncomfortable in a way that she wasn't sure she could describe. It was a violation of sorts. Those weren't places for people to go. They weren't supposed to be there. Good people didn't go back there. If you went back there you were trying to hide, and while it may start out as a game of cat-and-mouse, it would become a matter of survival for her and she would react appropriately. No one who had good intentions would go back there and not come out. She'd learned that the hard way, after both successful and attempted murder. Going back there was not what anyone was supposed to do, and any time that they did... well. She had every right to be upset about it.

#portal drawtober 2023 #portal #portal 2 #glados #good people don't end up here

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fleechin · 4 years ago

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Separatory Funnel

Here’s my 2020 Portal Secret Santa for @artistyutaki, she offered a few prompts but one that I thought was interesting was Chell and GLaDOS/PotatOS hiding from Wheatley in the later chapters of Portal 2. I thought I might as well tie it into some of Chell’s thoughts about the ordeal, while also showing what Wheatley’s up to. I also noticed she was interested in the idea of computer gore, with plates and cables all over the place, so I tried to incorporate a bit of that in as well. I also threw in a tiny nod to Mel and Blue Sky since she mentioned she’s a Blue Sky fan. So this ended up being longer than I thought, and it’s my first time writing a proper fanfic of sorts, but I really hope you like this! I had a great time making it!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This was not the best place to be in right now.

Not that it ever was down here, but where Chell was at this exact moment was especially not great. She didn’t complain though, it could always get worse. Actually, it usually did get worse, especially right about when she would wonder if it ever could. Perhaps it was best not to ask that question right about now. Sure, she had just fallen from a deactivated funnel and landed in a dark office whose only door was blocked by overturned desks, monitors, and furniture, which happened to be heavy enough that it’d be a pain in the back to move but for whatever reason the Portal Gun didn’t want to pick up. On the bright side, at least she didn’t fall all the way back down to the 1950s again.

Realistically though, knowing Aperture, it was bound to get worse no matter what she did. If even superstition was anywhere near reliable at this point, it would have been an improvement compared to everything else in this insane complex that somehow had only gotten stranger and more… alien-like, almost, after its founder had died of moon rock poisoning. At least the idea of a set of metal underground spheres laced with asbestos and full of half finished test chambers, the brainchild of a man proudly named Cave, was somewhat navegable. There was an understanding that if one were to see some place and travel far enough in that direction, they would eventually get to that place. If that place moved downwards in freefall, it would be because of the design of the facility, not some sarcastic supercomputer trying to keep her testing while calling her fat.

This bundle of desks, chairs and monitors was somehow all tangled up, with the wires going all over the place. It looked like she would have to either pull the whole thing at once or remove each one separately.

The recordings she heard from Cave Johnson painted a general picture, though they didn’t get awfully specific. But seeing as ground up moon rocks were all the rage down here back in those days, and hearing Cave coughing while ranting about lemons for some reason, it wasn’t difficult for her to figure out exactly how they managed to finally bring down the founder of Aperture. The real surprise? That somehow every other employee at Aperture hadn’t inhaled the stuff and keeled over. It had to have been a possibility, as there was no way that anyone smart enough to work a portal gun would have taken it upon themselves to design any part of this place without being crazy enough to consider the idea.

This table was a lot heavier than it looked. Hopefully she could fold it over. It wasn’t exactly easy to see the parts that let the table fold on itself when it was this dark.

Could she have been one of those scientists? Chell couldn’t remember anything about herself before waking up under Her testing course, however long ago that was, or whether she was actually adopted, like every personality construct in this place seemed to think was a big deal. Any attempt at figuring out how she got down here would have to be based on guesswork. She was a test subject, which made her a likely employee at some point, though if Her insults were anything to go by, she was only a part time employee. Not committed to this job, just doing it on the side to make ends meet.

She finally managed to fold the damn table, and began to drag it out of the way.

At least that meant she wasn’t some Olympian from the 60s who got tricked into going here. Or a homeless person that got plucked off the streets of some town in Upper Michigan all for the promises of $60 at the end. She wasn’t sure how much that would be in today’s money, but wasn’t about to get optimistic. The real downside to it all was that she never would be able to figure it out. She didn’t even know how long it had been other than that it was long enough to concern Wheatley about brain damage, and even if there were information available about her and why she was here to begin with, she didn’t want to go out of her way to find it. Her main goal was getting out of here as quickly as possible, so there was no time for expositional detours.

At most, she could stumble upon her backstory without looking for it. Figuring out what happened to Caroline was enough for one day, or however long it had been since she had last gotten some sleep. Besides, it would probably be a huge letdown anyway. Maybe she really was adopted after her birth parents considered her completely unlikeable even as a baby. Maybe her last name was something boring, like Smith. Or Jones. Maybe her name wasn’t even Chell at all. But hey, at least it wasn’t Cave. Hopefully.

Of course, she could just ask the supercomputer turned potato battery where she came from. Yes, that would be a great idea, confiding in who up until recently was her own worst enemy about a detail that She had constantly made fun of. She definitely wouldn’t take advantage of that fact and tell her all about how little Miss Chell SmithJonesWhatever couldn’t hold a single job until she came here because everyone hated her. They seemed to be on good terms now, but she wasn’t going to risk jinxing herself. Besides, she had a rule. No talking in Aperture. Nothing that any AI said was ever worth a response.

So the lights didn’t work in this room anymore. Phenomenal.

Regardless, even though it still didn’t explain whether she was one of the employees, part time, or otherwise, who might have almost inhaled ground up rocks that cost anywhere from a TV to a house - she wasn’t about to do the math to figure anything more precise than that - it was at least clear that she had made it into Aperture under vaguely legitimate pretenses, and that they considered her smart enough to get her hands on a machine that, in the right hands, could’ve solved the world’s climate crisis by generating free energy. It was damning with faint praise.

Which just so happened to summarize the remarks from her semi edible companion. Not directed at her, for once, rather the situation at hand. Neither one of them were the most frequent of talkers, but She was more willing to comment on the situation. Funny enough, once they happened to agree with each other, Chell could reasonably rely on her as somewhat of a spokesperson.

“After seeing what he's done to my facility, after we take over again, is it alright if I kill him?”

Chell looked over at the glowing yellow circle, the only part of Her she could actually make out in the darkness of the room, and could only shrug her shoulders. Do whatever you want, she would have said. Frankly, as much as the two had been getting along, Chell wasn’t about to act like this was some new found friendship between the two. As far as she was concerned, the facility deserved to explode in a mushroom cloud with a giant blast radius. The bigger the better. If she was lucky, it would kill Her, Wheatley, and every other personality construct. Just as long as she wasn’t there for it.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Since he was connected to the mainframe, Wheatley had been trying to figure out how to work this new body. Now that his only test subject was missing, admittedly due to a mistake on his part, he could explore further. There had to at least be some way to hack the solution euphoria program. But until then, the next order of business was to redesign his lair to his own liking. Not too bad a job She did, but it didn’t quite have the Wheatley style to it. Needed a bit more work. Namely, getting rid of that stalemate button. No way that could remain.

“Right, so, asking the announcer... voice... guy... didn’t seem to do anything.” He said out loud, “Guess he didn’t quite understand what I was getting at. Hmm, wait a minute, maybe if I go and change this setting, then- Это программное обеспечение повреждено. Удалите его и обратитесь к администратору. Aaaand, nope, still there. Hasn’t even budged a little bit. Guess that didn’t work.”

He then remembered the complexities of hacking the neurotoxin emitters and thought he might start there. “Oh, um hello, Mister button, there.” He said in an accent beyond the rage of any human’s hearing, “I’m a representative of the mechanical parts… association, and we are inviting you to a… convention! Yes, a convention, with all sorts of members, cubes, turrets, even other buttons! And we’d like to invite you! Full expenses paid, shuttle bus straight there to the convention. And there’s going to be a whole panel on buttons! Who knows, they might even have you as a guest speaker! All you have to do is head straight down to the lowest part of the facility! That’s where the bus is! Just head on down there and you’re good to go!”

The button didn’t budge.

“Not one for conventions I guess? Perhaps you’re more of an introverted sort of button. Doesn’t mind being pressed but also fine with staying where he is.”

Wheatley, being the genius he knew he was, figured he ought to look in the old tapes to see what Her old room looked like. Ever since She had been killed, the facility had been in some disarray, of that much Wheatley was well aware. The relaxation center had taken a hit, for sure, and it seemed the rest of the facility was none the better. Wheatley wondered how long it had been, and though he probably could have figured it out, this new interface wasn’t exactly what he would have considered user friendly.

Come to think of it, he could figure out a few things at once by going through the recordings. For one, he could figure out what Her old room looked like and what She had done about this pesky little button. Or more interestingly, how her whole room got destroyed just from being shut down, that was always a mystery there.

All he could find were tapes, and they didn’t seem too promising. Just video feeds of the room, none of which showed if the button was there at all or what she had done with it. Maybe skipping around a bit would work, perhaps it would show something. Nothing so far…

Wait a minute now, here were the tapes of when She was killed. Yes, this was definitely the same test subject all right. Silent as always, she was. Maybe her brain damage was pre-existing.

Well this was concerning. Neither neurotoxin nor the built in rocket turret defense station was enough to even faze her. All that nameless lunatic needed were a couple of seemingly easy portals and in less than the required six minutes She was dead.

If that silent test subject was still alive, she could find any flaw in his lair design and it’d be bye bye Wheatley.

First immediate order of business, no portal surfaces anywhere in the lair. That shouldn’t be too hard, just meant he would have to move some panels around. There, piece of cake, only a few panels detached and falling off. That was probably normal.

“Right, no portal surfaces anywhere. Check that off the list. Ding! Next we can- OW! Great, another panel just went and fell right out of the ceiling. Hit me right in the… to be honest I’m not sure what this part of me even is. Doesn’t really look like it does anything useful. Tell you what, how about I take this part off, don’t really need it do we? Won’t be hurting anymore, I imagine. Here we go, unscrewing… and done!”

The offending plate came off of his right side, pulling down several attached cables right out of their sockets, leaving them to dangle around and coil around the floor like snakes. Snakes that occasionally gave out electrical sparks. That probably existed somewhere in nature. Electric snakes. Maybe unicrons ate them. Wheatley made a mental note to look that up, right after learning how to play cards.

“OK, wow that was actually pretty painful. Guess they don’t simulate any anaesthetic in this thing. Aaand now the lights are flickering on and off. Those are the lights, right? The flashlight doesn’t seem to be helping, so maybe I killed that too. That’s probably normal. Happens sometimes. That’ll probably fix itself.”

In the meantime, he at least had time to see what else was in Her old archives. Maybe there was a guide to fixing whatever was going on. Nope, nothing there. He did find an old security protocol system. Aperture Employee Guardian and Intrusion System, it was called. Interesting, that could help make sure she never got anywhere near his lair. Wait, no, that system was shut down locally. Before She went back online even. Odd, not clear who did that. What else was there… Oh, hang on a minute. The Cooperative Testing Initiative. That sounded useful. Wheatley kept reading.

Yes, these two little bots seemed to be the fix for everything. As soon as he could he had one of each type assembled and sent straight up to his lair.

“Hello! Right, so I understand you guys are built for testing, and what have you. So, I have selected you two to be my next testers. I need a few favors from you two though. See those cables down there? The ones that are kind of sparking there a bit? Those? Yeah, ever since I unhooked those, the lights have been flickering on and off.”

Blue looked at Orange, somewhat confused.

“You guys don’t see it? Wait, it just happened again real quick right there.”

Orange shook its head.

“So that might just be my optic sputtering out then. Yeah, that’s not great. Either way, I need you guys to try and get those back into me so I can see again. Now you might be wondering why I can’t just use those grabbers of mine and do it myself? Turns out, if I ever try to fix myself without someone else to help out, I’ll die. So you guys will have to do it for me.”

They both suddenly appeared nervous, and Blue slowly approached the bundle of wires. They sent out a spark and they both flinched. Upon reaching the wire, Blue picked up the first one, which went back in without a hitch. The second one was still going through the exterior plate that Wheatley had just unscrewed off. Pulling it as hard as possible didn’t work. Orange, annoyed, went up and pushed Blue out of the way, then slowly pulled out the cable and stuck it back in. By now the flickering was still happening, but only in randomly appearing colors.

“Great! OK now just one more to go! Home stretch!”

Orange was ready to pick up the last cable, but Blue, unrelenting, snatched it out of Orange’s grasp, and emphatically plugged it in. And then the flickering stopped.

“You did it! Bingo! Oh, man alive, that’s much better. Aaand now it seems you guys are knocking each other’s heads out of their… socket, things, whatever they’re called. Not really getting anything productive out of that, besides I kinda need you guys for something else.”

Neither Blue nor Orange were hearing it though. Once they had decided to play the classic game of Knock the Other Bot’s Head Off, there was little that could stop the competition. For personality constructs designed to get along, they did this a lot.

“Ahem, knock knock, anybody there?!”

It was getting heated. Now Blue was running around with Orange’s head, Orange’s body trying to chase after it but only managing to flail around miserably due to lack of eyes.

“ENOUGH!”

Wheatley hadn’t had an outburst like that in a while. It was a little easier when his only test subject and her potato weren’t driving him up the wall smashing his monitors and not giving him the relief when he wanted it. But the lack of test solution euphoria was starting to make its presence known once more, and it made him impatient as ever. Both bots stopped to look over, then Orange snatched its head and put it back on, glancing angrily at Blue.

“You know, there are bots in orphanages that don't even have heads to steal. Maybe think about how lucky you two are and stop fiddling around like that, yeah?”

They both looked at each other, shrugged the mechanical equivalent of their shoulders and gave each other a quick hug. Wheatley didn’t understand how they could forgive each other so quickly, but he wasn't about to object.

“Right, so, what I need you guys to do is see if we can find any neurotoxin reserves. Ever since I hacked the main factory, genius, I know; we haven’t had any neurotoxin to dispense. So I’m building you a testing course that should lead to where the neurotoxin facility was to see if you can find any clues. Alright, Go team!”

Several panels cleared out of the way to reveal two elevators facing each other, one blue and one orange. The bots looked at each other before taking off and heading to the disassembly machines. In less than a minute they had reached the first test, a simple introductory course with a laser and a redirection cube. And no test of Wheatley’s would be complete without his signature, the word TEST written in lights on the wall.

These two were smart enough to have figured out how to solve it rather quickly, and Wheatley immediately felt the rush of solution euphoria. Whether it was the amount of time since he had last felt it or because he was testing new subjects, this felt much better than the last few tests he had gotten his other subject to try. Now he could focus on the text task, seeing if there was a trap he could build, just in case those two weren’t dead. Getting rid of the button would have to wait. Maybe if they found some turrets or explosives to keep anyone from reaching it, that could work as a solution. For a little while at least.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Having cleared out all the tables, chairs, and any other debris lying around in what was once an office, Chell could finally get through to the other side and out the door. And the potato on her gun had done a great job at keeping her company.

“Oh good, now we can get going again. Maybe we can find a way out of here.”

Chell picked up the portal gun and made her way out of the office. To her disappointment, the walkway just led down to the entryway to another test.

“Great, it looks like we’ll need to keep testing a little while longer. And I’m not sure we have that much more time left. Look on the bright side though. Maybe we’ll get to see more of that moron’s inventions. Maybe he’s gotten so desperate he’ll have tried to fuse a turret with a redirection cube and give it laser eyes.”

Chell couldn’t help but smile a bit at that. She resented that Wheatley had become like this, and somewhat missed him in a way, but it was nice to occasionally poke fun at his less than amazing intelligence.

“If a defective turret and a pile of trash had a baby, he would make an excellent pet for that baby.”

Chell’s smile grew slightly bigger and she chuckled silently. It was kind of nice to hear Her jokes while not also being the recipient. The classic insults thrown her way, that she was fat, adopted, unlikeable; those didn’t work on her at all. But they were at least well crafted, almost stand-up quality, though she never would have admitted that. Despite being a murderous former supercomputer with zero conscience up until this point, she did have a bit of a knack for humor. Chell would at least miss that when she left this place.

This was the end of the walkway, and Chell jumped down; her testing break was over. It was going to get tough before she finally did make it out of here.

#portal #portal 2 #portal secret santa #@yutaki #38's fics #portal stories mel #blue sky portal #fanfic #portal 2 fanfic

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roses-field · 4 years ago

Note

For the writing thing "Is it working?" For uhhh perhaps,,, Chelley? 👁👁

here ya go!! sorry it took so long aa

"Is it working?" : Chelley oneshot

( Core!Wheatley x Chell short fluff)

I haven't really wrote any actual portal fanfics so forgive me if it's bad and too short

()~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~()

Escaping, that's what the two were doing, escaping the hell-like place that they were trapped deep within.

The sudden change of pace was startling enough despite Chell ran many times during the awaking of Her and the endless test chambers of puzzles, each one harder then the previous. She was prepared for almost anything by now, almost.

Or that's what they thought

She survied the few turrets that She placed onto the thousand year old metal surface, at first not knowing if the crimson red one-optic machined taken their chance of shooting those bullets into her rough skin, blood covering the floor.

Now guided by Wheatley, both of them have disabled the turret production lines and are onto the neurotoxin, yet he began to notice something. How Chell's fast sudden movements slowered, of course she was still moving and had her reflexes of when she could feel danger but he was sure that humans weren't meant to have some kind of grey around the eyes, while all of GLADOS' test subjects had that and sickly pale skin, the tired apperence of the jumpsuited woman increased with the grey.

"Hey.. are you- doing alright? Can't talk right.. just shake your head or nod! Perfered it if you did nod, since it would be pretty bad if you weren't okay-" It was easy to tell the sphere robot was nervous by the sound of his tone and his optic, she nodded while failing to hide a quiet yawn, the only sound she was willing to make were those yawns and chuckles, alongsides with coughs.

Walking on the catwalks, her boots making a cling noise each time they touched the harmetal surface as they were getting further into their dangerous plan, focused on her own thoughts untill she heard Wheatley's voice again "Okay I'm not gonna lie here, you look bloody tired so I think we should find somewhere to rest, yknow? Of course- if we do find somewhere, couldn't sleep on this walkway could you now? Well you probably could but that wouldn't be that comfortable, not like there is anywhere that is comfortable though"

But she knew that maybe there was a chance of finding one of those abandoned hideout dens, as if someone once lived in them, as he kept talking Chell looked around for any areas that were secretive enough, safely hidden from Her as much as possible.

Crash. Cling.

A celiling panel dropped to the endless void that was overtooken with shadow, revealed a pitch black room that was impossible to see in, yet Chell shot the orange glowing portal at the walls that supported the catwalk and the neon blue into the dark room, untill the orange portal opened.

"Oh that's clever! Now I was gonna suggest to try to place that portal there but it seems you already knew that, hold on, dark there innit?" She nodded as Wheatley turned on his flashlight, then realising something again "A thing I just noticed right now is that there's no managetnent rail in there, so could you yknow, catch me this time? Won't do a countdown, just gonma pop off this thing"

Chell attempted to catch him before, the first time he told her to catch him didn't go so well but this time, this time she bloody did it, she managed to caught him.

As she held the metal sphere with the portal gun, Chell walked into the small room somewhat lit up by his flashlight, the place must of been old as the walls were dusty, a slight muddy yellow tint on where the walls aligned, for once they weren't panels despite being metal, down in Aperture anything that was made of that matieral felt as if it was controlled by Her, apart from Wheatley.

It must of been one of those dens as there were those markings on the walls, like drawings or writing but it was unable to read what any of the scribbling meant, how a man got up here is mystery in itself, yet alone how it would be possible to survive Her.

Chell wondered around the small room, finding old fallen plates that were detached from what could be other chambers and placed them to cover up the hole that was in the floor, making it safe for her and Wheatley.

"Oh that was brilliant! Alright well enough for today, you gotta recharg- rest and tommorrow I'll figure out what to do with the neurotoxin" the gently-placed-on-the-floor robot dimmed the flashlight as the ponytailed brunette layed near the wall, Wheatley rolling near her, like a nightlight as his optic was being a slight light source, turning off the flashlight.

Chell closed her tired icy gray eyes, how long had she been here? Was it days solving the test chambers? Despite she was under suspension for what could of been thousands of years she still felt tired, exhuested from everything. And now finally asleep.. right?

()~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-()

Cling

Brrrv

...

Clang

.....

Dark, only darkness and a red optic.

.....

It was getting closer.

......

A laser coming from it.

.......

It was pointing at-

()~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-()

She was back in the shadowy room, despite having good night vision the room was almost pitch dark apart from the gentle blue glow of Wheatley's optic that was looking at her.

"Luv? Are- you okay? Panicked breating and suddenly slamming the wall with your foot isn't normal is it?" It was about two hours after Chell went to sleep, he had been out of his sleep mode a while ago, being bored of it.

The brunette turned her head and looked towards him quickly, nodding her head, breathing wasn't that fast anymore but still somewhat filled with panic, a thing Wheatley realised before her was that she was leeking, not a lot but there was leekage in her eyes, he knew that humans arn't suppose to leak and they needed some sort of red fluids but not sure about the clear ones that come out of their eyes.

"You're leeking- that's not suppose to happen right?" She never cried, not that she remebered before if she ever did, she was suppose to be brave and strong, and she is. So many horrible things happened yet she cried over a stupid nightmare, obviously angry at herself deep down but Chell was too tired to carry on the anger, she was stressed and frightend.

Finally a idea of what it could of been ticked into his brain, he heard that humans needed comfort, whatever that was.

"Was it a nightmare luv? That's what it's called right- when you have a scary image while having your eyes closed?" Another nod yet this one was short, sighing right after, It seemed that was also another sound she was willing to make, he wondered if she would talk one day.

Chell shivered slightly, she was used to Aperture's low temperture in the chambers, her jumpsuit being one of the things that slightly kept her warm but on here it was pretty cold, it gets colder at night right? So maybe it is night for once, unable to tell through the simulation of daylight.

"Hey?" I heard this human concept of 'hugging' when someone puts their arms around the other person, could help! I don't have arms but- maybe hugging me could help?" Grabbing the sphere by the handles with her hands, she had put away the portal gun near her before the first attempt of sleep just incase, yet it felt more comforting to just use her arms.

Chell was now hugging him, it felt comforting like he suggested, he couldn't hug her back of course but it was still nice, and another thing, he was pretty warm, a gentle warmth that helped ignore the shivering.

Wheatley's running circuits were oddly relaxing to hear, her panicked heartbeat going back to normal was relaxing for him too as he listened to it throughout the silence, helping her calm down was surprisingly a easy task, they stayed hugging for a while but long time untill her arms got tired and placed the robot right besides her, letting out a tired yawn again.

Changing her position from sitting to laying on her side, facing Wheatley as her eyes felt slightly heavy as he spoke again "I got another brilliant idea! Full of then actually, well this one might not work but.. I heared humans sing sometines, now I never ever done that singing thing but I could give it a go..?"

Chell nodded again as then she grabbed the top handle and moved him, now hugging again, or more like a cuddle.

"I heard it a while back, somewhere storaged up in my system actually, had no clue why it was even in there."

And then he began to sing, Chell closing her eyes. It wasn't the best but it was still calming and nice, a simple melody.

"When the light is running low..

And the shadows start to grow....

And the places that you know..

Seem like fantasy..

There's a light inside your soul...

That’s still shining in the cold..

With the truth....

The promise in our hearts

Don't forget

I'm with you in the dark..."

It was a song this blonde haired human had, for who knows why he remembered this human, he so apparently had someone sing it to him in one of the stressful days, yet it was a shame that he couldn't remember who or what the person that sung to him looked like. A small fragment thought it might of been someone that had dark brown hair in a ponytail.

"Is... Is it working?" His tone was gentle, not to accidently wake her up by chance if she was sleeping, yet it must of been hard to fall asleep when there was a glowy light, but it was farely gentle.

What Wheatley didn't expect was a response, her tired gentle voice sounded beautiful "Thank you.." was what she murmured before placing a soft kiss on his outer shell before going to sleep, she had a good feeling that this time her attempt would be successful.

His circuits quickly working as if he had a fan-cooling system, the warmth increasing but not insanely, whatever that action was, it felt nice, really nice,

two surprises in one day.

Maybe she would give him another one after they finally escaped to the surface

#portal 2 #chelley #fanfiction #chell #wheatley #writing #my writing #roses writing

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sarcasticgaypotato · 5 years ago

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Another ChellDOS prompt fic as a thank you gift! I wasn’t given anything too specific to work with, just fluffy GLaDOS content. I hope it is enjoyed!

This wasn’t going to be difficult.

In the vast expanse of tasks that would be considered difficult- great feats of science, trying to make ATLAS and P-Body useful, not killing humans with deadly neurotoxin- this would not rank even close among them.

People made cakes all the time.

Aperture made cakes; with merely a press of a button, there would be an aesthetically perfect, mostly nontoxic, baked good just waiting for a deserving test subject to consume it.

If GLaDOS had simply been allowed to use that process, this would’ve been over in a heartbeat, and she could’ve gone back to more important things.

But no, Chell specified that she wanted GLaDOS to make her a cake for her birthday, by hand.

GLaDOS regretted ever letting the human look at a calendar in her time down here long enough to figure out when her birthday was, and start asking for things.

Who was Chell to be making demands anyway? All she did on this date all those years ago was have the misfortune of being born; that was hardly something to pamper her over. If anything, GLaDOS ought to have used this day to thank Chell’s mother for having the common sense to abandon the lunatic not long after.

The fact that GLaDOS was obliging her didn’t mean anything. It was just easier to keep such a destructive force pacified rather than risk being murdered again.

So, as GLaDOS reluctantly resigned herself to her mobile, android form- another idea of the lunatic’s; to make it so humanoid- she set off in the early hours of the morning, given that she didn’t need to sleep. Best to get this done so that Chell could wake up, see that GLaDOS had easily completed her menial task, and then wouldn’t be pestering her about it.

That was, assuming that the smell of burning didn’t wake her up at 2am first.

Stupid test subject kitchens, with their stupidly ineffective appliances… what stupid scientist made such a terrible design choice? Whoever it was ought to be dead-

Oh, wait, they already were.

Letting that thought give her a small sliver of satisfaction, GLaDOS disposed of the smoking remains of her first attempt before turning back to the counter. That was a fluke. This time, she’d have it over and done with before she knew it.

This wasn’t going to be difficult. Right?

...

It was 10am when Chell finally got out of bed, evidently taking her birthday as an excuse to sleep in several hours later than usual. Just because GLaDOS was letting Chell under her roof didn’t mean she wanted the human thinking that she was going soft; so she made a habit of not-so-nicely waking Chell up at 7am every morning.

But this time, she hadn’t.

Chell slowly roused herself from sleep, lazily padding her way out from her room towards the rest of the living quarters GLaDOS had so graciously gifted her, no doubt to make herself a cup of coffee- another luxury, mind you.

Her wild mane of dark hair was untamed and messy as it tumbled over her shoulders, and her usually powerful stance was cheapened by the way she slouched in her pajamas. Chell looked great terrible, and on any other day, GLaDOS would’ve taken the chance to make a snide comment- or twenty- about it.

However, on any other day, GLaDOS wouldn’t have been standing in the middle of Chell’s kitchen; covered in a dusting of flour, specks of batter, and smears of frosting, her left eye twitching dangerously.

Chell had stopped dead in her tracks, blinking and staring like a slack-jawed idiot at the sight before her. “Don’t you dare say a word.”

GLaDOS brought her gaze to Chell’s, hoping that her golden glare would bore holes into her companion’s thick skull and instill some kind of fear or respect. Unfortunately, it had rather the opposite effect; as she watched Chell’s previously groggy expression perk up with a sort of sparkle in those grey-blue eyes.

‘I wasn’t going to start now.’

Oh, GLaDOS should break those hands of hers.

“I am never doing anything for you ever again, do you understand?”

GLaDOS straightened up from where she had been hunched over the mess-coated countertop, standing up to her full height as Chell came closer, that infuriatingly smug smile still sitting pretty on her lips.

‘I’m sure you won’t.’

GLaDOS wasn’t sure how Chell had adapted sarcasm into her silent communications, but she wasn’t quite sure she appreciated being on the receiving end of it.

“Well there’s your cake, so you’d better enjoy it. It’s the last one you’re getting.”

GLaDOS jabbed her finger in the direction of the confection; a black forest cake with a single, currently unlit candle, sitting rather pristine amongst the disaster that was the rest of its surroundings. GLaDOS, of course, had no intention of letting Chell find out about the remains of the past dozen failed attempts that had been sent to their graves in the incinerator.

“Of course I wouldn’t recommend you enjoy it too much, polite society tends to frown on those who eat entire cakes by themselves-”

GLaDOS found herself cut off prematurely by the feeling of warm flesh against her artificially-crafted lips as Chell clumsily pressed her mouth into what could only generously be called a kiss.

Granted, GLaDOS didn’t actually need her mouth to talk, that much was mostly for appearances- because apparently Chell found it ‘creepy’ for GLaDOS to speak without moving her lips- but she kept quiet for the few seconds that the contact lasted before Chell pulled back, licking her lips and looking more insufferable than ever.

“...What was that? Did you even brush your teeth this morning? Just because I can’t personally taste anything doesn’t mean I don’t have standards, you know.”

GLaDOS crossed her arms over her chest, ignoring the slight whirring of her internal fans working just a little bit harder as she spoke. She would’ve liked to say that this was the first time Chell had done something like this, but the truth was far from that. The lunatic was so brain-damaged that apparently she had started to impose her misguided human habits onto other, non-human entities. GLaDOS only let her do it because…

‘You had a bit of frosting on your bottom lip, I thought I’d clean it off for you.’

...Because something; she couldn’t quite remember what that reason was.

“We both know that’s far from an effective method of cleaning things.”

Chell simply smiled at her.

‘Thanks for the cake.’

GLaDOS huffed, diverting her gaze from Chell’s ridiculous expression to focus on quite literally anything else in the room.

“...Enjoy the anniversary of your birth.”

#chelldos #portal #portal 2 #glados #chell #android glados #just a reminder to anyone who is unaware #I don't do commissions #do not try to pay me for fic

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ask-glados · 5 years ago

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GLaDOS Liveplay [Part 3]

We start off chapter 3 and GLaDOS isn’t here to offer any comments in the elevator room because she’s busy fixing the reactor core. There’s some misbehaving panels that need to be recalibrated, but the reactor core is a more pressing issue for her at the moment.

When you get on the Aerial Faith Plate here, your trajectory doesn’t reach all the way to the ceiling because Wheatley has hacked into the panels and raised the ceiling up to talk to you and let you know that he’s okay. He’s been trying to hack into other panels in the other test chambers to talk to you, and you can see him peeking in at several points, but GLaDOS was always there, watching through her cameras, and he didn’t want to talk to you where GLaDOS could see and hear him. He finally finds a good, private spot to hack the panels and talk to you here, and he’s able to move the panels without GLaDOS noticing because she’s away at the moment.

The Aerial Faith Plate senses that a weight was launched but no sensors were tripped on its landing pad. (The landing pad is usually indicated by the glowing circle symbol that shows where you’ll land, though that symbol isn’t always there, so I assume the sensor must just be on the other side of whatever panel it launches you to.) So, the panel sends a distress signal to GLaDOS and she comes back from fixing the core.

She returns with a sigh to her tone. She’s been working hard on fixing the reactor core, and she might not even be finished with that yet, only to get a notification that you somehow broke an Aerial Faith Plate. She isn’t aware of Wheatley’s presence, so she probably thinks you’re just doing this on purpose to annoy her.

She doesn’t even have an insult for you here, she just kinda sighs and tries to fix it for you.

The plate still doesn’t work because Wheatley has raised the ceiling, but GLaDOS doesn’t know that, and she can’t figure out why it’s not working, so she just assumes it’s the maximum carrying capacity of the plate and uses that as an opportunity to make more fat jokes.

Eventually, she just resorts to lowering the ceiling, not realizing that the height of the ceiling was actually the whole issue to begin with.

And naturally, she follows up on that fat joke just because she’s annoyed at you for breaking that Aerial Faith Plate.

We see more rogue panels playing around in the next chamber

GLaDOS, please. You’re attached to the ceiling. You literally cannot “go” anywhere.

Anyway, it’s unclear if she is just completely lying here, or if she actually has cameras up on the surface that she’s checking. A deer WOULD make sense given the rural landscape that you see above Aperture at the end of the game, but who knows with her. She could just be making it up. Also, it’s interesting how she says “yesterday,” as if a day has already passed, which I feel like it hasn’t. I think she’s just trying to mess with Chell’s perception of time, since there’s no way to tell what time of day it is, given how GLaDOS simulates daylight at all hours.

Given how she’s going to be looking for replacement test subjects after she fixes the facility up and kills Chell, and how desperate she is to find human test subjects in CO-OP after Atlas and P-Body fail to satisfy her testing itch, she’s probably lying here — about both the deer and the humans. Because she would’ve jumped at the chance to get some more human test subjects, and she doesn’t want to keep Chell around that long, because Chell’s too dangerous.

Yeah, I think she’s just trying to rub in the fact that you want to be free and go to the surface and that you’re never going to get to do that, because she plans to kill you soon.

Ah, yes, the beautiful blue hard-light bridges that inspired my GLaDOS hologram headcanon, which is made out of the same technology, but modified to be less hot, in full color, and three-dimensional~ :3 (shameless self-promotion pfft)

GLaDOS refers to herself as someone who is “only trying to help them.” She genuinely believes that she is helping out mankind and the world of science by testing humans. She thinks any human should feel privileged to have been a part of something greater than themselves like this. She also thinks that she herself is on a whole other level than the human species, and that being killed and mistreated can’t possibly apply to her. She is the authority and others are supposed to serve and respect her.

Aperture doesn’t do business with the outside world anymore, and Aperture appears to have become self-sufficient, so money should be irrelevant. So, either GLaDOS is making this all up, or she’s actually still following money protocols that were programmed into her back when money was still relevant to Aperture.

GLaDOS is still repairing the place, so there are still some messed up panels, but it’s gradually looking better and better.

She’s still bitter about you breaking that Aerial Faith Plate, lol. She passive aggressively grumbles about how she is going to have to repair the door now too, because no one else is going to. She really does feel like she does a lot of work around here which no one takes the time to appreciate or give her credit for. She also hisses at you to not touch anything while she’s gone, lest you break something else like how you broke the Aerial Faith Plate.

And once again, the cause of the malfunction is actually Wheatley behind the scenes, which GLaDOS still hasn’t realized.

She’s been working hard, and she’s losing patience with all the malfunctions happening around the facility, so she just straight-up kills the door mainframe AI and replaces it with a new one. Apparently, even the doors have AI cores in them.

More snark.

You can see the shed from the end of the game here in the Hard-Light Bridges demonstration of how sunlight is pumped down from the surface to create hard-light.

As you go through these first few chapters of the game, the Aperture logo in the loading screen goes from a dirty, unlit one to a clean and glowing logo. It’s a neat little detail to reflect how GLaDOS is tidying everything up.

This elevator room is in much worse condition than the gradually improving states of the others you’ve been going through because it’s the old turret test chamber from Portal 1.

This elevator room is broken, so you drop below onto the catwalks to enter the next test chamber.

Again, she makes reference to “yesterday.” It’s only been a few hours. Come on, GLaDOS, you weren’t even awake yesterday. She’s just trying to confuse you about the passage of time to make you believe that it could have been your birthday yesterday. It probably wasn’t your birthday, she’s just making that up as an excuse to give you a “surprise.”

This part is really cool. As you enter the next test chamber, you get to see how the test chambers are assembled down below, which involves panels coming along a conveyor belt from the factory down to the testing track, where mechanical arms put them into place.

There she goes bragging about her immortality again, and of course, she’s following up on the birthday thing as an excuse to give you a surprise. I’m guessing this so-called “medical procedure/experiment” basically just refers to filling you with neurotoxin and killing you.

Now she’s trying to make you feel self-conscious about your outfit. She’s just being really petty now, looking for any ammo that can possibly be used to upset a human.

She’s lying, obviously. She doesn’t have any humans in cryogenic storage. All the ones in the Relaxation Center are dead. Of course, in CO-OP, she manages to find some humans in cryogenic storage hidden in Old Aperture, but she doesn’t know about that right now. She’s just going back to preying on the whole “Chell is an orphan” thing again, trying to make Chell feel hopeful about meeting her parents so that she can crush Chell’s hopes and dreams when the surprise turns out to be fake.

Can’t forget to include the singing turrets. :)

Rattmann’s painting here depicts how Aperture’s immoral practices led to karma, where they created something even more morally reprehensible than themselves: GLaDOS, which led to their demise. They didn’t value human life when it came to how they treated test subjects, and GLaDOS just took it a step further by not valuing human life in general, which included them.

An interesting fun fact here! GLaDOS was actually supposed to hum “Happy Birthday” here to go along with her whole ‘birthday surprise’ theme, but back when this game came out in 2011, “Happy Birthday” was still copyrighted, and you had to pay lots of money in royalties if you wanted to use it in any form. However, thanks to a lawsuit in 2016, the song is no longer copyrighted! Hurray! #Petition to have Valve put GLaDOS humming “Happy Birthday” back in Portal 2? XD

For once, GLaDOS is taking a jab at someone who isn’t Chell. I guess she’s just flaunting her superiority and power at this point.

It sounds like she was just pretending to be distracted by other things like Nobel prize winners, trying to make Chell think she’d forgotten about her and her birthday surprise, in an attempt to make Chell more anxious and apprehensive about getting her surprise.

That concludes chapter 3 and part 3 of this GLaDOS Liveplay! Again, I really hope you’re enjoying this! :D

#Portal #Portal 2 #GLaDOS #Aperture Science #Liveplay #Live Play #GLaDOS Liveplay #Analysis #GLaDOS Analysis #Portal Analysis #Portal 2 Analysis #long post

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rataplani · 5 years ago

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Humans, am I right?

Have a portal oneshot from the depths of my drafts

It was odd, he thought, how different this human was from the other test subjects he’d taken care of through the years.

Frankly, Wheatley had to admit that he liked guiding her around. Leaving out that one little failure to catch him early on, she'd really been much nicer than all the other humans he knew. Of course, he hadn’t actually seen that many humans up and about since the big ol’ neurotoxin release back in [ERROR: DATA REDACTED], but the point still stood! She never said a word, so his chatter was the only thing to break the monotonous silence as they headed through the facility. Ha, he could almost pretend he was talking to another Personality Core, back in the days when the facility had been chock-full of them. These days Aperture was nearly empty, and honestly, he was grateful for some company.

It was so relieving to be able to spurt off whatever thought or memory crossed his mind to a captive audience, so he did exactly that. ‘Course, with the amount of stuff he was saying, Wheatley should have realised it was inevitable that something bad would slip out. She (not she, the human lady; no no - the enormous, queen-of-the-facility She that was GLaDOS) had always hated everything about humans, and some parts of that had filtered down into the cores that were once attached to Her. (Not that Wheatley could remember that ever happening, but since most of the other Cores had mentioned having a turn up on the chassis and a few sections in his memory banks were locked and encrypted, it wouldn’t really be surprising. Speculation for another time, that.)

These last few minutes, Wheatley had been recounting the anything-but-fair tale of how the foreman for this area had passed him over for promotion again and again, when he was perfectly qualified to work there. He’d also been occupied lighting the way for the lady, so maybe he hadn’t been concentrating on his wording as much as he could have been, given present company.

“Instead, he ends up giving me the worst possible job: tending to all the smelly humans – oops.”

As the awkward silence swallowed his comment, the human had turned from examining a wall to face him instead. She looked – annoyed? Amused? It was hard to tell with her eyes squinted against the light from Wheatley’s eye.

“Sorry, that just, er, that just slipped out. Bit rude, really.” Wheatley back-pedalled hastily. “I mean, well, you’re not smelly! Not smelly at all.”

Okay, that wasn’t entirely true, but it wasn’t the human’s fault, Wheatley mused as he shone his flashlight on a panel ahead of them. If he had to guess, it was probably something to do with being organic.

Anyway, the lady didn’t smell nearly as bad as all those other humans Wheatley had met. In his earliest memories the scientists had pored over him, covered in grease and sometimes even sweating on his circuits! (You’d think that scientists would know to keep any liquid away from a computer, especially one programmed to fear it, but they hadn’t cared. At all.)

The only scientist who hadn’t been completely horrible had been the one with the weird eyes. They’d only met the one time, but all that guy had smelled of was a weird chemical, one a quick database check had labelled as – fear? Oddly enough, Wheatley’s attempt to use this interesting fact as a conversation starter had made all the scientists in the room panic shut him down. When he’d woken up, they’d modified something in his programming again and the funny-eyed man was gone. Soon after that came the locked files of course, and then his memory skipped straight through a bunch of boring bits and went to the many jobs he’d gone through before getting put in charge of the Relaxation Centre and all its sleeping humans.

And wow! It had stunk in those vaults, worse than he’d ever experienced before.

All those humans, lying around in the same spot endlessly - and it was one of his jobs to change the putrid sheets while they slept. Well, technically his job was telling the robot arms when to wash the sheets, but they were barely even sentient so it was practically the same thing. Not to mention those completely awful vaults occupied by people who’d died (not his fault), or the locked corridors around the centre with the scientists just lying there on the other side of the windows (definitely not his fault). The Relaxation Centre was not a pleasant place these days for an AI who some utter sadist had given olfactory sensors.

Then, when he’d tried to wake some of the test subjects up to escape, they’d given off all sorts of moody smells, none of them good. Mostly, they’d all been either terrified of him or just completely livid. Sometimes, they’d even attacked him - and all over the smallest things, like trying to make pleasant conversation or accidentally almost dropping them into a pit.

This lady wasn’t like that at all. To be completely honest, yeah, she did smell a tiny bit – mainly of must – but somehow nowhere near as bad as all the others. Maybe she hadn’t been in the vaults for as long as the others – in fact, now he thought of it, she hadn’t been, had he? She’d defeated Her (pity it didn’t last) and then came back somehow. Wheatley made a mental note to ask her what had happened, if she ever managed to talk.

In the meantime, what they really had to do was escape. Now, there was something nagging at him; something he’d forgotten to mention. What was it – oh! He still hadn’t apologised properly for what he’d said. Wheatley had to make it up to the human as soon as she came through another portal. Now how to do it?

"Ahhh, I tell you, humans? Oh, Love ‘em! Just – the way they look – ‘s Great! – And their – your 'Folk Lore', wonderful, yeah very colourful. Um.”

His small supply of information on humans now exhausted (and a small grin on the human's face - success!), Wheatley moved on to easier and less embarrassing topics.

Practical stuff, that was the key. On task with the whole ‘escape the facility' thing. Piece of cake.

#portal #portal 2 #wheatley #chell #fanfic #my fic #title was going to be something about how wheatley doesn't have a nose #but now it's an acronym for hair #which he also lacks #long post

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seihossketchbook · 6 years ago

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overwatch heroes as glados lines said by moira

Ana: The Aperture Science Bring Your Daughter to Work Day is the perfect time to have her tested.

Bastion: Well done, android. The Enrichment Center once again reminds you that android hell is a real place where you will be sent at the first sign of defiance.

Brigitte: Uh oh. Somebody cut the cake. I told them to wait for you, but they did it anyway. There is still some left, though, if you hurry back.

D.va: You think you're doing some damage? Two plus two is ten... IN BASE FOUR! I'M FINE!

Doomfist: Look, even if you think we're still enemies, we're enemies with a common interest: Revenge.

Genji: Due to mandatory scheduled maintenance, the appropriate chamber for this testing sequence is currently unavailable. It has been replaced with a live-fire course designed for military androids.

Hammond: This next test involves the Aperture Science Aerial Faith Plate. It was part of an initiative to investigate how well test subjects could solve problems when they were catapulted into space. Results were highly informative: They could not. Good luck!

Hanzo: Did you know that people with guilty consciences are more easily startled by loud noises? [train horn] I'm sorry, I don't know why that went off. Anyway, just an interesting science fact.

Junkrat: Did you just toss the Aperture Science Thing We Don't Know What It Does into the Aperture Science Emergency Intelligence Incinerator?

Lucio: Fantastic! You remained resolute and resourceful in an atmosphere of extreme pessimism.

Mccree: "Unbelievable! You, [Subject Name Here] must be the pride of [Subject Hometown Here]!"

Mei: There was even going to be a party for you. A big party that all your friends were invited to. I invited your best friend the companion cube. Of course, he couldn't come because you murdered him. All your other friends couldn't come either because you don't have any other friends.

Mercy: Okay. Look. We both said a lot of things that you're going to regret. But I think we can put our differences behind us. For science.

Moira: Did my hint help? It did, didn't it? You know, if any of our supervisors had been immune to neurotoxin, they'd be FURIOUS with us right now.

Orisa: Enjoy this next test. I'm going to go to the surface. It's a beautiful day out. Yesterday I saw a deer. If you solve this next test, maybe I'll let you ride an elevator all the way up to the break room, and I'll tell you about the time I saw a deer again.

Pharah: Look at you soaring through the air majestically...like an eagle. Piloting a blimp.

Reaper: Didn’t we have some fun though? Remember when the platform was sliding into the fire pit and I was all "goodbye" and you were like "NO WAY"... that was nice

Reinhardt: This next test involves turrets. You remember them, right? They're the pale spherical things that are full of bullets. Oh, wait. That's you in 5 seconds.

Roadhog: Hmm. This Plate must not be calibrated to someone of your... generous... ness. I'll add a few zeros to the maximum weight. You look great, by the way. Very healthy.

Soldier 76: It says so right here in your personnel file: Unlikable. Liked by no one. A bitter, unlikable loner who's passing shall not be mourned.

Sombra: I'm going to be honest with you now. Not fake honest like before, but real honest, like you're incapable of. I know you're up to something.

Symmetra: Now that you are in control of both portals, this next test could take a very, VERY, long time.

Torbjorn: When the testing is over, you will be baked, and then there will be cake.

Tracer: Momentum, a function of mass and velocity, is conserved between portals. In layman's terms, speedy thing goes in, speedy thing comes out.

Widowmaker: You never considered that maybe I tested you to give the endless hours of your pointless existence some structure and meaning. Maybe to help you concentrate, so just maybe you’d think of something more worthwhile to do with your sorry life.

Winston: That jumpsuit you're wearing looks stupid. That's not me talking, it's right here in your file. On other people it looks fine, but right here a scientist has noted that on you it looks "stupid". Well, what does a neck-bearded old engineer know about fashion? He probably – Oh, wait. It's a she. Still, what does she know? Oh wait, it says she has a medical degree. In fashion! From France!

Zarya: All subjects intending to handle high-energy gamma leaking portal technology must be informed that they MAY be informed of applicable regulatory compliance issues. No further compliance information is required or will be provided, and you are an excellent test subject!

Zenyatta: I never expected you to make it this far. To be honest, after your performance in the calibration test I was ready to break down your cores and put them back in the scientific calculators I took them from.

#im an awful person #moira #overwatch #portal #portal 2 #glados

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canadian-riddler · 6 years ago

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Portal/Borderlands: The Girlfriend (Part Two)

Synopsis: Maybe she’ll let him hug her this time. He’s got a good reason…

AO3 || deviantart || fanfiction.net || Wattpad

Sometimes GLaDOS got sad.

Now, Claptrap got sad all the time. Like, constantly. It was like… a weird feature or something. But he had nothing on her. When he got sad, he just cried for a while and then he was okay. Mostly. But GLaDOS didn’t do that. She just kinda… pretended she wasn’t sad. It was so easy to tell she was, though. She didn’t get mad at him more often, or tell him to talk less, or really change all that much. But you could just feel it when she got sad. And it was everywhere in the facility, because she was everywhere, and really, it was kinda a downer. He wasn’t gonna complain about it. That would be the total wrong thing to do. But he really wished he could just ask her what was wrong and that she would just tell him. Because he knew if he did, she wouldn’t, and then what. Then what did he do? For now, he was just doing his best to pretend along with her. He wasn’t sure if he was succeeding, but he was trying. Kinda summed up their relationship, to be honest.

This time, though, was really bad. She was kinda making him sad just to be near her, and that sucked. He really, really needed to do something about it before he started getting all upset, because when that happened he really screwed things up. So one afternoon where he thought he could handle it okay and also she hadn’t really said anything to him since yesterday or the day before, he said, “Babe, you wanna… tell me what’s going on?”

The way she looked at him kinda suggested she’d forgotten he was even there. Which was typical. Not with her, just in general. He didn’t have much hope of her actually answering the question, because she usually didn’t, so she really took him by surprise when she said, “I had a friend once.”

Oh. Okay. Uh… what did he do now? He’d totally expected her to just ignore him. “What… happened to them?”

“I sent her away,” GLaDOS said. “I wasn’t very good to her.”

“Why not?”

She didn’t answer for long enough that it made him anxious. Come to think of it, that was kinda a weird question to ask somebody. Especially somebody you didn’t really know that well. He’d like to know her better, she was just so hard to talk to sometimes. ‘cause she did stuff like this. Mentioned something and then refused to talk about it. Why do that if you didn’t wanna talk about it? Finally she said, without looking at him,

“It’s a long story.”

And that was bad news why? “I got nothin’ but time!”

That was when the staring started and he had to try very hard not to back away from her. He wasn’t sure where he was planning on going, exactly, but someplace very far away would be good. Back to Pandora probably wasn’t even far enough. It really sucked when she did this.

Something that was really tough about being her boyfriend was that he could never tell what she was thinking. He, like most of his product line – and most people on Pandora in general – was pretty open with his thoughts. Sometimes to the point of actually voicing every single one of them! But GLaDOS… not only did she not do that, she also didn’t gesture. Probably because she didn’t have arms. But that wasn’t the point. The point was that she was staring at him, and thinking, and he had no idea if they were bad thoughts or good ones. When she did this scrutinising thing he really did start to wonder if having a brain that big was worth it. Sure, it made you smarter, but if being smarter meant you had to think about every decision a zillion times, what was the point?

“You know what,” she said finally, long after he’d given up hope of an actual answer this time, “all right. Let’s do it.”

“Do… do what.”

“I’m going to tell you the story.”

Story? What story? Oh, right. The reason she’d sent the friend away she hadn’t been nice to. It was a little weird that she’d need to tell a story to explain that, but hey. He had nothing better to do.

“And Claptrap.”

“Yeah?”

“I know your mind is prone to wandering, but do your best to pay attention. I only want to go over it once.”

Oof. Sounded like this story was made of pure suckage. But okay. He would do his absolute best! though what that happened to be today was yet to be known. “You got it, babe.”

It wasn’t even that hard to pay attention, though, because the story was just plain wild. And a little confusing, since she kept mentioning things he didn’t know anything about. Like what the heck was an Intelligence Dampening Sphere? For a minute he thought it must have been some sort of pill you took, like the kind that made parties better, but it turned out to be some kind of robot? A stupid robot that was also kinda smart? There was also something about neurotoxin, and a cake dispensary, and a turkey leg hanging on a rope from the ceiling, and he was having trouble following not because he wasn’t paying attention, but because none of it made any sense! Especially not the gun that shot holes! Without using bullets! What sort of gun did that? Rockets, yes. Acid, yes. Swords? Heck yeah! But holes?

He was doing his best to not interrupt, he really was, but then she got to the part where the stupid-but-smart robot moved her into a potato, which really did sound like torture right there, and then she said after the dumbass smashed her into a bottomless pit a bird started eating her. Which was just the last straw. Why would a bird be noshing on a computer?

Oh. Oh, right. Wasn’t there some other kind of potato? It was something to do with French fries… “Wait! Wait. Are you talking about an actual potato? Like, the vegetable?”

“Is there another kind?”

“Well, sorta,” Claptrap said. “On Pandora you call a really crappy computer a potato. Y’know. ‘cause it can’t do anything. Just sorta sits there.”

GLaDOS looked over at the wall.

“In that case,” she said solemnly, “I seem to be the most optimised piece of software in existence.”

Damn. What a woman.

The story didn’t get any clearer after that, though. There were a bunch of weird gels, and some hilarious dude that GLaDOS seemed particularly fond of, for some reason, and to top it all off she’d almost ended up on the moon. “Is he still up there?” Claptrap asked, having lost track of where the IDS had ended up. She nodded once.

“As far as I know. Unless some passing aliens decided to pick him up, which would be…” She was looking up at the ceiling suddenly, and Claptrap checked it out himself but there was nothing there. Other than the ceiling. “Oh.”

“Huh?” Claptrap asked, feeling like he’d missed something. Was she looking through the ceiling?

“That is a story for another time.”

She had a story about aliens? Well, okay. So did he. Lots of ‘em. Also, maybe her story was just about him, since he was kinda an alien at the moment. Did robots count as aliens? Especially robots that were kinda just like variations on the robots they already had? When GLaDOS talked about computer stuff, he understood her just fine. Was Earth a parallel version of Pandora? Or was Pandora a parallel version of Earth! Did that mean there were Vaults here too? Wait. She had said Earth was the only inhabited planet in this solar system. On Pandora even the moon was inhabited, so –

“Anyway,” GLaDOS was saying. “There you have it.”

Have… what? He’d forgotten what they’d been talking about.

“It’s been one year to that day.”

To the day of… darn it! That sure made him look good. She’d actually told him something for once and he already didn’t remember what the point of it had been.

“She’s probably dead by now,” GLaDOS said, subdued enough it kinda worried him. “There’s not much out there and this place isn’t exactly accessible.”

Oh right! Her friend! Phew. He thanked his lucky stars for the fact that she’d kept talking. “I don’t know, babe. If there’s one thing I know about humans, it’s that they’re super resilient.”

“The ones here really aren’t.”

Well, he didn’t actually know any of them, so maybe she was right on that one. Meant he’d almost run out of things to say about this, though. “Well, if she’s alive and she ever comes back, I think you’ll get along great!” Claptrap declared. “I think you’re a great friend.”

She looked at him with her optic narrowed a little bit. She didn’t believe him, huh. Probably she’d figured out already that his opinion wasn’t worth that much. In his defense, he wasn’t really programmed to dispense advice! “Hey. Did you want a hug?”

She sighed in exasperation and turned away from him. “Not now, Claptrap.”

What? What had he done now? Ohhhhhh. Right. He’d been bugging her about that. “Not for me!” he protested. “For you! It’s just something you do to help someone feel better!”

“That doesn’t even make any sense,” GLaDOS snapped. “What in the world is that even going to achieve?”

“It was just a suggestion! Yeesh. I’m just trying to help. Okay, sure! I don’t know how! But hey! I am trying!”

“That’s true,” GLaDOS said after a moment. “All right. I suppose it can’t make things worse. What do I have to do, exactly?”

Wait, what? She wanted him to now? He looked her up and down real quick. Huh. How was he gonna hug her? She was just way too big. The only part of her he could even reach was her core, so… that was gonna have to do. “Just uh… just come down here enough that I can do it over your eye.”

So she did that, only she wasn’t far enough down and he was gonna have to give himself the extra few inches and hope he was able to keep from leaning on her. He didn’t want to get his wheel on her face, but she wasn’t giving him a lot to work with. He didn’t know if she was being difficult or if she just thought he was taller than he actually was. Probably both. Then he imagined what taking a deep breath might sound like and just went for it.

It was just as nice as touching her had been, but times like thirty. Having his arms full of beautiful warm supercomputer was amazing. He was such a lucky guy. Oh, but wait! This wasn’t him getting lucky. This was him helping. So he did his best to concentrate on helpful thoughts. It was hard, but he was doing it.

She didn’t have to be sad about her friend! She’d come back one day! Well, none of his friends ever had, but she was so much better than him that of course her friend would. She’d come back and then GLaDOS would have her friend, and maybe Claptrap could get a new friend too! and everything would be fine and okay because friends!

It wasn’t hard to tell when she wanted him to let go, even though he really didn’t want to. He never got to hug anybody. Probably because they were worried he’d start getting a little frisky on them, which he did, sometimes, but there wasn’t much he could do about that. And it wasn’t like anyone was volunteering to fix that little problem.

“I didn’t expect that to help,” GLaDOS said after a moment. “And you know what?”

It totally hadn’t.

“It did,” she answered herself, instantly skyrocketing his mood to wonderful heights. “I’m not sure why, but… it did.”

It was just about the worst time ever for him to find that hilarious, and it was also too late for him to do much more than turn around and do his best to pretend he hadn’t found it funny. Which probably wasn’t going to work. Not only was GLaDOS not deaf, she was definitely not stupid.

“Are you laughing because I said ‘but’,” GLaDOS said, and even though he definitely was now he still said, “No,” as clearly as possible. Which was… not at all, because he was doing a really bad job of not laughing.

“Are you three years old?”

“I could be,” Claptrap said, and she moved back enough that he guessed she hadn’t expected that answer. “It’s really hard to tell once you’ve been reset a few dozen times! And anyway! It was funny!”

“No, it wasn’t.”

“Yeah! It was!”

“It really wasn’t.”

“A little bit?”

“Maybe a little bit.”

He wouldn’t ask for more than that! Especially since that could totally have gone in a different direction. Sometimes girls just kept getting mad about stuff like that.

“Now,” GLaDOS said, “if you don’t mind shutting up for a while, I have a lot to think about.”

It was kinda ironic for her to say that, considering she’d been doing all the talking. He wasn’t gonna bring that up, though. She’d let him hug her and he wasn’t gonna push it any farther than that. “Very well! I shall beat it for now. But have no fear, because – “ He cut himself off because she had looked away from him suddenly, and he was pretty sure he knew exactly why.

“You’re not allowed to laugh! You said it wasn’t funny, remember!”

“It isn’t,” she said, very unconvincingly.

“Suuuuure it’s not. That’s why you totally aren’t trying not to laugh because I said ‘but’ just now.”

“You’re always a little ridiculous, but you’re being particularly so right now.”

“That’s okay!” Claptrap said. “I’d be so bored if everything was all serious all the time. It wouldn’t be any fun!”

“Fun,” GLaDOS echoed, in a distant kinda way, and when Claptrap looked up at her she’d turned away from him a little.

“Yeah. Fun. What, you never heard of it? They didn’t teach you that during ‘Mad Science for Lady Robots?’”

“No,” she said, as though she’d actually taken the question seriously, which… she did that sometimes. And when she started doing that, she was definitely not in the mood to have him around. Before he’d really gotten to the exit he heard her move and then she said, “Where are you going?”

“Uh…” Where was he going? Oh, right. It wasn’t the where that mattered, it was the why. “I was just gonna leave you be for a bit. You said you were gonna think, remember?”

“All right,” was all she said to that, and it didn’t really make him any less confused but that was probably all he was gonna get. “And… Claptrap.”

“Yeah?” he said, turning around. Maybe she didn’t want him to take off after all? That’d be awesome!

“Thank you for the hug,” she told him, and she sounded so serious he was almost concerned. It wasn’t that big a deal, was it? “It was nice.”

He straightened himself as much as he could. “Anytime, babe! And I mean that literally. Anytime. I’m always up for that.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” she said, and he had to say if she decided to be serious about that he would definitely not argue about it.

#GLaDOS #Claptrap #ClapDOS #fanfic from Indy

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byakurenbreak · 7 years ago

Text

Life’s a Wonderful Test

I haven’t written fanfiction in YEARS. I also have never written fanfiction that was this long! Special thanks to @starry-nightengale for helping me out with Wheatley dialogue!

Today was the worst.

Granted, Wheatley had a lot of bad days before, but this particular Christmas Eve took the cake. The former core had been human for at least a few years, but had gotten rather fed up with humanity in the matter of a few days... Well, there was one other human he liked. In fact, he got through this terrible day all for her sake!

It started when he woke up to loud retching sounds coming from the bathroom. Well, that was no fun, getting the flu on Christmas. Wheatley decided to make Chell a bowl of nice hot chicken soup, and give her some medicine for motion sickness... only to find that they had neither. No matter! The store was only a block away, which was great since the car - Well, Chell's car - was in the shop. He put on his jacket and stepped outside. It was bloody freezing, but damn it, he was doing this for Chell! He reached into his pockets to put on his gloves- Glove. Singular... Wheatley groaned, putting the glove back into his pocket and trudged through the snow. _________________ The little grocery store was PACKED. Despite being much taller than the other human customers, he still found himself having trouble getting around. While deep in thought, he soon found himself on the ground, surrounded by shards of broken glass and soaked in... Pickle juice??

"Hey! Watch where you're going! That was the last jar of pickles in the entire damn store, you moron!!"

Wheatley grimaced. He hated being called the M-word, quite a lot actually. In fact, every time that word was spoken, it'd bring flashbacks of those awful times, in that awful place. He remembered Chell telling him that humans could be nasty, and not everyone would know about his trigger. Some may not even care. So he took a deep breath and apologized, the angry customer only replying with a scowl. Wheatley really didn't want to stay there for too long, so he quickly grabbed what he needed, paid for the items, and got out of the crowded hellhole.

That wasn't so bad, right? Not quite. While walking home, he was daydreaming about spending the rest of the day taking care of his beautiful wife. The vision abruptly ended with snow in his face, followed by children’s laughter. He had walked too close to someone plowing snow and wound up being buried up to his forehead in the stuff. It took awhile for him to dig himself out, although he would have spent less time saving himself if someone actually helped. While dusting himself off, he let out a cry of frustration when he realized that his wallet was missing. He didn’t bother fishing after it, his gloveless hands had gone through enough cold today.

By the time he got back home, Chell was up, cooking lunch. Wheatley bit his lip; it wasn’t uncommon for Chell to take care of things herself, yet he couldn’t help but feel guilty that he wasn’t able to help her out like he had planned. Luckily, Chell didn’t seem to mind, greeting him with a warm smile.

After lunch though, things started to go downhill again. Chell seemed tired and rather out of it. Wheatley had told her that she should go back and rest, but Chell shook her head, continuing with cleaning the dishes. She was rather distant and unresponsive for the rest of the day. Of course, this made Wheatley worried that he had upset her in some way. He ALWAYS worried about unintentionally hurting Chell in any way, not wanting to repeat his heinous actions of the past. He wanted to ask her what was wrong, but before he could ask Chell anything, she had ran into the bathroom to… Do her thing. Wheatley shuddered. Humans could be disgusting sometimes…

She was in there for hours. _________________ That night, Wheatley awoke to… Whimpering. He sat up and looked at the clock - 3:06 am. Hearing another sob, he instinctively looked down at Chell. The poor girl was tossing and turning, her facial expression displaying fear and pain. Wheatley’s heart broke at the sight, figuring she was having another Aperture Nightmare. This was the third one this week... Before Wheatley could gently shake her awake, Chell sharply arose and screamed.

Wheatley reached his hand out to her, whispering, “Luv, it’s alright, it’s…”

“No!!! Get away!!!!”

Wheatley, stared, his eyes widened at her startling exclamation. He knew it. He knew he had done something terrible. She had to have been dreaming about him, and not in a good way. He tried to place his hand on Chell’s shoulder again, but she quickly turned away from him, flinching. Wheatley froze up, a whirlwind of sadness acclimating in his chest.

Chell stared back, her whole body trembling. She was clearly regretful for her statement, but tears proceeded to slide down her face. “I… I need to be alone for a m-”

He had already booked it. _________________ “Okay, okay, she was clearly dreaming about me, cards on the table.” Wheatley had ran out of the house, and fled to a small park.“I really shouldn’t be in a tizzy over this. She forgave me, she told me… W-what if she doesn’t? Did she just tell me that to make me feel better? Or so that I’d leave her alone…?!” Wheatley groaned, his vision blurring, his cheeks getting wet, resulting in a cold, stiff sensation on his overall countenance. What if his presence is nothing more than a constant reminder of her trauma? What if he's just making her nightmares worse?? He told her he was sorry... he tried to be the best friend-- and eventually boyfriend and husband-- that he could be. But what if that still wasn't enough? What if it would never be enough?? Overcome with guilt, he collapsed on his knees into the snow, burying his face in his hands.

“Everything would be better… If I just never existed…”

Suddenly, out of nowhere, Wheatley heard a vaguely familiar voice from behind him. “I believe this belongs to you, sonny.”

Wheatley whipped around to see a vaguely familiar face to match the voice, holding out his wallet. “C’mon, it’s yours, isn’t it?”

“M...Mister Johnson…?”

Cave stepped into the light, with a grin. “That’d be me, Mr… Who’re you again.... Ah! Wheatley! Mr. Stephen Wheatley! How long has it been, son?”

Wheatley was bewildered. “H-how are you here? You…”

“Died, yes. Don’t remind me. But anyway! The heavens sent me here to help you, because they want to ‘redeem’ me or some mumbo jumbo. Apparently, whoever’s runnin’ the place must hate the fact that I did some… questionable stuff for the sake of SCIENCE! I mean, what’s the big deal? Anyway!!! To put it bluntly, I’m an angel that’s trying to earn his wings, and to get those feathers, I’m gonna help you stop feeling blue! So, what’s the problem? Feelin’ guilty about your past? Worried that your lady-friend’s upset with you? Wishing you were never born?”

Wheatley blinked. “...I’m not even going to ask how you managed to figure all of that out.”

“I’m an angel. I know a lot of things. Also, I don’t know if you knew this, I was a genius back in the day. So. Do you really think that things would be better without you?”

Wheatley nodded, and Cave snapped his fingers. The snow turned into metal panels, the park slowly transforming into what looked like the central chamber, filled with scientists talking to each other about the mundane tasks of the day.

Cave chuckled, placing a hand on Wheatley’s shoulder. “Did you know that you were the first core ever made?”

“I figured, but what does that have to do with-”

“You probably don’t remember much from before you became that core, but to sum it all up for you, Mr. Stephen Wheatley put a slip of paper into the suggestion box that said, ‘Maybe we should create certain robots to connect to GLaDOS to try and control her’.”

“See?” Wheatley moaned, “I ruin everything, even my own bloody life!”

“Hold your horses, boy. Remember, a core’s purpose was to slow Her down. Without you as the, er, prototype, there was no morality core.” Cave snapped his fingers again, and Wheatley watched in horror as GLaDOS spontaneously flooded the central chamber with neurotoxin, every scientist dropping dead. “...Wait, she wound up doing that in the end, didn’t she?”

“Look at the date of the calendar over there.”

The date was 7 months earlier than what was supposed to be “Bring your Daughter to Work Day”. Furthermore, there were more employees in the facility, as they hadn’t started with mass layoffs yet.

Snap. _________________

Out of the corner of Wheatley’s eye, he spotted her. Chell, she was still alive! Wheatley ran up to her, calling her name. She couldn’t hear him… Or even see him. He stood by and watched her complete test after test, often catching a glimpse of the elusive artist, Doug Rattmann himself. He saw Chell take down GLaDOS, Doug making sure she was kept alive in cryo-sleep, him getting shot by a turret in his bravery.

“...He would have made a better lover for her than me… Okay, I know what happens next. There’s this long chunk of time where absolutely nothing happens, and then Chell has her second go round---”

Cave grinned. “Yes, but things are a bit different without you. You know how the place was going to go down in flames if you didn’t wake her up and escape on time? Without you, it was a close call before a maintenance core-”

“Wait, but you said cores didn’t exist!”

“Personality cores, sport! Maintenance cores were always a thing. Take a look.” Snap.

Wheatley observed the dandelion-eyed maintenance core boot up GLaDOS, preventing the facility’s doom. A robotic claw grabbed a very, very large cube from the wall. Wheatley’s heart sank. “That’s her room!”

“Without you to wake Chell up first, She takes matters into her own hands.” Cave snapped his fingers again, making time fast forward. “Do you remember this particular test?”

Before Wheatley could answer, GLaDOS spoke. "I've got a surprise for you after this next test. Not a fake, tragic surprise like last time. A real surprise, with tragic consequences. And real confetti this time. The good stuff. Our last bag. Part of me's going to miss it, I guess-but at the end of the day it was just taking up space."

Wheatley gasped, trying with all his might to guide Chell in the right direction, but to no avail. He had no choice but to follow her into the trap. Chell seemed to be the same old Chell in general, looking skeptical about the whole situation. "Oh, look. There's a deer! You probably can't see it. Get closer." Green smoke filled the room, resulting with poor, beautiful Chell in a collapsed heap.

Letting out an indistinct cry of anguish, Wheatley desperately tried to hold onto Chell, sobbing hysterically as his translucent hands passed through her. Surprisingly, Cave presented a shred of sympathy, snapping his fingers to allow the desolate former core to become semi-corporeal.

As Wheatley held his true love close to him, Cave sighed. “Now, I don’t know about you-- Or her, for that matter-- But I think it’s a damn sight better to be alive with some ruffled feathers than dead without a chance, don’t you?”

“This whole time… I’ve been thinking about how awful it would be for me if… If she didn’t love me anymore,” Wheatley sniffed. “But what’s really important is that she’s alive at all… That she was given the chance to have a happy life. And whatever else I did… I also gave her that chance…” He started to cry again, not seeming to notice that Cave was gone, as well as all of his illusions.”

“Wheatley… Wheatley…” _________________ “There you are, darling!”

Wheatley’s eyes snapped open, his head looking in many different directions before settling on Chell, alive, well and wearing her white winter coat instead of that awful orange jumpsuit. Filled with delight, Wheatley picked her up and spun her around. “Chell!!”

She laughed, giving him a light squeeze. “I was worried sick, I should be the one doing this to you-- Were you crying…?”

Wheatley set her down, smiling through his tears. “It’s nothing, I just- Oh, Chell… I love you so much. And all I want in the whole world is for you to be happy, nothing else!! Even if that means turning around and walking out of your life right now, if that’s what you want, I don’t mind!”

Chell looked surprised. “Wh- Are you CRAZY?!” She smiled and pulled him in for another hug. “I don’t want you to ever leave me!” Wheatley blinked in surprise. “But… But before, I… thought you decided having me around was too painful for you…”

Chell sighed, planting a smooch on his lips. “Wheatley, right now, I need you more than ever. Both of us need you.”

“...What?”

Chell grinned, guiding Wheatley’s hands to her stomach. “Both of us need you~”

Wheatley tilted his head in confusion for a moment, then it hit him. “You mean----?”

“You’re going to be a father.”

Wheatley could have sworn he saw a tiny glint in the sky before the sun rose.

#chelley #portal 2 #chell #wheatley #cave johnson #it's a wonderful life

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sweet-christabel · 8 years ago

Text

A Trusted Friend In Science

FF.net: (x) AO3: (x)

Chapter Twenty-One - Unknown year. The Plan.

Things were looking brighter for Chell, despite her current circumstances. She knew Doug was not far away, and although she was frustrated that she hadn't seen him, the thought gave her comfort. Also, she knew that Wheatley was finding her a way out of the test chambers. He was not the most capable of allies, but she appreciated his efforts all the same, and hadn't quite ruled out the possibility that he would succeed. GLaDOS's comments were irritating, but nothing that she couldn't cope with. All in all, she was in a better situation than she could have hoped for, considering.

She was convinced that she’d only just missed Doug in chamber twelve. The first thing she’d seen when she’d entered the room was a panel falling from the ceiling, and a flash of white just disappearing out of view, gone before she could really register it. The hem of a lab coat, if she wasn’t mistaken. But there had been no sign of him by the time she’d portalled up to the room. It was maddening.

Chambers thirteen to sixteen were uneventful, not counting the tests themselves. GLaDOS continued her running commentary, ranging from the usual petty insults to hints about people in cryogenic storage. Chell wasn’t sure what to make of that information. GLaDOS was far from reliable as a source, and Chell knew the A.I. was lying about finding two people with her last name. Her biological parents wouldn't have the same surname that she did. And besides, her name was redacted, Doug had assured her of that. It was strange how his paranoia had given him such useful forethought in this situation. Chell didn’t think that he would have ever considered it advantageous in any way, yet it had kept them both alive. The world worked in odd ways sometimes.

After all the time she’d spent in stasis, it only felt like she’d been testing for a day or so. She could clearly remember the people she’d socialised with yesterday, only it wasn’t yesterday. Even still, having only robots for company was starting to grate. She had to catch up with Doug. Whatever it was that was keeping him from contacting her, she was determined to convince him that it was okay. They would work better as a team, she knew it. She didn’t want the responsibility all on her own.

And then, out of the blue, a thought struck her. The facility was dilapidated, clearly a lot of time had passed. What if he's avoiding me because...he got old?

The scenario was so startling that it stopped her in her tracks. She couldn't fathom why she hadn't thought of it before, but it seemed possible, even likely.

He probably thinks it would change everything, she surmised. But it wouldn't. As if I would abandon my best friend just because he aged. He should know me better than that.

Fast on the heels of that reflection came another. No...if he has gotten older...he probably can't remember me all that well.

That thought was sobering. And surreal. From her skewed perspective, she'd just talked with him a day ago. It was crazy to consider that that conversation might have occurred years ago for him. Crazy and alarming and depressing and altogether unfair.

Okay, lady luck, Chell thought irately, you've screwed me over enough times lately. Please let this not be true.

Perhaps it was selfish to wish it, seeing as Doug was alive and, hopefully, relatively unharmed, but there was so much uncertainty in Chell's future, she wanted something she could still count on. Having her friend back, as she remembered him, was definitely something to count on.

Sighing, she entered chamber seventeen, pausing just inside the door to do her usual initial sweep of the room. The exit was ahead of her, high up on the wall. There was a button, a cube, a hard light bridge. It didn't look too difficult to figure out. Piles of debris littered the floor, and the ceiling looked almost ready to collapse, its cables hanging down like jungle snakes. There was a panel open, in the wall near the ceiling. Chell did a tiny double-take, almost missing it. Her stomach gave a flip. Was it Wheatley's way out for her?

She shot portals, getting up onto the bridge and directing it across to the gap. She glanced left as she crossed it, peering through the broken window of the observation office. The door through to the corridor was open.

Chell halted at once, eyes widening. She redirected the bridge across to the office, ducking down to avoid the cables and girders. The glass had shattered messily, its jagged edges making it impossible for her to climb through unhurt, but she could see the corridor beyond. She shot a portal into the wall, grinning when it burst to life. Part of her had been a little worried that the walls wouldn't be compatible. Her boots absorbed the impact as she dropped to the floor, the bridge having vanished when the portal moved. She shot the second one into the wall, stepping through it eagerly.

The corridor beyond was dimly lit, empty apart from a couple of water bottles, one end of it blocked by rubble. The doors there were firmly-shut automatic ones that she couldn't prize open. Her fingernails just weren't strong enough. Giving up, she examined the bottles, one empty, one that still had water in it. She gave it a cautious sniff. It was fresh, the faint musty smell coming from the container itself. Setting the portal gun on the ground, she lifted the huge bottle and took a grateful swig, accidentally spilling water down her chin. Silently laughing at herself, she wiped her face with the back of her hand and wondered how long ago Doug had been there. The water had been put there for her benefit, she was sure. He couldn't be too far ahead.

She tugged the pen from her pocket and pondered where to leave her message. She'd kept up the task since chamber three, but she didn't know if it was doing any good. She felt marginally better for doing it, so she supposed that was something. Her attention was pulled to the open observation office door, the main source of light in the corridor.

Probably why he left it open in the first place, she thought.

If he returned there, he'd probably want to close it. Chell moved the two empty water bottles, leaving them up against the wall by the door. In the space she left between them, she scribbled her message on the flaking paint, letting the bottles stand guard either side, neatly framing it. Task done, she took another look around, finding her attention drawn to the fan gently rotating in the ceiling. Dim light filtered down from the room above, illuminating what looked like another painting on the wall. Curiosity stirred, and Chell aimed up, managing to shoot a portal into the wall after a few misses caused by the fan getting in the way. She stepped through into a dead-end room, vaguely circular, the floor dipping down to the fan in the centre. The ground was littered with mugs. Turning, she examined the mural, another portrait of her, less accurate and more stylised than the one she'd seen before. There were a few cartoonish turrets there too, and a graph indicating levels of tenacity.

That's why I was rejected for testing, she recalled. Strange that he should remember that.

The rest of the room and the short corridor leading out of it yielded nothing else, and Chell figured that she should probably get back before GLaDOS brought the walls down. There were stairs at the end of the corridor, and she jogged down them, her boots making the rusting metal ring. She emerged at an open panel high up in the wall, the one she'd spotted from the floor of the test chamber before she'd gotten distracted by the observation office door. She jumped down, landing neatly. If GLaDOS was surprised by her momentary disappearance, she didn't show it.

Chell walked over to stand on the button in the ground to see what it did, unable to help shooting a quick glance up as she went. The panel was closed. Above her, there was a faint whirring whisper. Suspicious, she quickly redirected the bridge, crossing it to look through the office window once again. The door was now shut. Her eyes widened as she considered the likelihood of Doug being on the other side of it at that very moment. Part of her wanted to climb through the window – broken glass be damned – and knock on the door until he opened it. But that would be reckless, she knew. She had to be more patient and wait for Wheatley to get her out. If it was true that Doug had been the one to fix him, then maybe there was a chance that the core would lead her to him.

Reluctantly, Chell returned to the ground and continued on with the test. She was starting to feel antsy, and she suspected that GLaDOS could see it. She only hoped that Wheatley's big escape plan wouldn't come too late.

"I told you not to leave that door open," the cube scolded, as Doug crouched behind the door in question, having just slid it shut after Chell's departure.

I couldn't see what I was doing, he thought defensively.

"And the panels?"

Those were her way in. I just...didn't expect to be here when she found them. Got them closed in time though.

"I still think you should just talk to her."

Doug didn't answer that, even silently. Eyes adjusting to the new gloom in the corridor, he soon spotted the water bottles sitting neatly up against the wall.

Why did she do that? he wondered.

Scooting closer, he saw the scrawled writing in between them, and his heart gave a jolt as he realised it hadn't been there before. He leaned forward, nose almost to the wall as he fought to see in the dim light.

'Please don't hide from me,' it read. 'Let's escape together.'

He sat back, scrubbing his chin with one hand as he thought. I can't do that, Chell, he admitted to himself. The plan was in place, it didn't make sense to deviate now. Wheatley would rescue Chell, shut down GLaDOS's turrets and neurotoxin while Doug made sure that the supercomputer was corrupt enough for a core transfer. Then, if he felt brave enough, he would meet up with Wheatley and Chell on the surface.

"You are brave enough," said the cube, its tone firm.

I don't feel it, he answered inwardly. I'm...unstable.

"You're a lot more stable than many others would be in your situation, you know that, right?"

That's because I have you. And my therapy. But even still...you saw the mess upstairs. All those mugs scattered all over the floor, and I can't even remember why I did it. I'm sure there was a reason at the time.

"There was," the cube told him. "You remember this. You thought that putting all the mugs in one room would keep you alive, and you panicked thinking you wouldn't find them all."

"That's right," he said aloud, voice quiet. He was mindful of Chell still in the test chamber. "The voices...they persuaded me. And it seemed so rational too." He pressed the heels of his hands to his closed eyes. "See? This is why I need you. You're the voice of reason."

"You mean I'm your coping mechanism, but okay."

"Whatever. Point is, I need you...to maintain some semblance of sanity."

"So?" it said.

Doug sighed heavily. "So...who wants to stay friends with a crazy man who relies on a talking cube to keep his head relatively sane? Stress the word 'relatively'."

"Chell does."

"You don't know that."

"You know her," the cube said calmly. "She's always stuck by you. She stuck by her father too, until he pushed her too far away."

"She stuck by me while I was medicated," Doug countered. "This is different. Now I spend half my time fighting to ignore voices, forcing myself not to see shadows out of the corner of my eye. Okay, so I can cope like this...to an extent. What about when I have a bad day? You know what that can be like."

"You're just making this into an excuse. She will accept you. She will help you. If you let her. You know that."

Doug fell silent, his gaze settling on Chell's message. The cube was right, he did know that. But he had no idea how he was going to bring himself to follow its advice.

He heard the faint sound of GLaDOS commenting as Chell solved the test, and he took it as a cue to leave. Cube on his back, portal gun in hand, he made his way along the maintenance walkways outside the test chambers. By chance, he caught up with a network of management rails and found Wheatley nervously navigating a crossroads.

"Hello!" the core greeted him cheerily. "Chamber twenty-one, mate!"

Doug shot him a look of slight confusion. "Pardon?"

"That's where I'm going to spring her! Chamber twenty-one. So, if you could go and do your...corrupting...thing. That would be absolutely tremendous."

"Where is she now?" he asked, trying to calculate. He'd been running for a while.

"Chamber twenty," said Wheatley with confidence. "So I'd better get my skates on. Figuratively speaking."

"Okay," Doug agreed, turning to him. "Wheatley, tell me honestly: do you have a plan?"

The core made an amused scoffing noise. "Course I do! See you up top!"

Not particularly reassured, Doug nodded in defeat. "Okay." He paused to watch Wheatley zip away on the rail, vanishing through a gap in the wall.

"I don't like this," the cube commented.

"It's the best plan we have," he told it. "It will be fine. Come on, we have a central core to corrupt."

The plan went smoothly, without a single hitch. Doug had found himself a place to perch on top of some transport tubes outside the central chamber. GLaDOS had remodelled since the last time he'd been there, breaking off the glass-walled corridor and removing the surrounding floor altogether, cutting herself off completely. Chell had only managed to get to her because GLaDOS wanted her there. After escaping from chamber twenty-one, Chell and Wheatley had gone off to take out the turrets and neurotoxin. Doug had fulfilled his side of things, programming a simple virus designed to set in as soon as GLaDOS attempted to activate the neurotoxin emitters. She was too smart to let herself remain corrupt for long, which is why it had to be done after Chell had gotten Wheatley to the main chamber. That way there would be no time for GLaDOS to purge the virus before Wheatley could be set up as a substitute core.

There was no way that Doug was foolish enough to enter GLaDOS's rebuilt fortress, but his hiding place was close enough that he could hear what was going on inside, even see slivers of the room through the gaps in the panels. Even being this close was dangerous, but he wanted to see Chell leave, to know for absolute certain that she was free. Then he'd consider himself.

He wasn't sure how long he waited there, but eventually he saw her portal her way into GLaDOS's trap room. He heard the A.I. taunting her, bidding her goodbye before summoning turrets. They were defective, he could hear them trying to fire. Eventually they just exploded. Then GLaDOS called for neurotoxin, and Doug grinned to himself, knowing that his handiwork would now be active. Instead of neurotoxin, the pipe she lowered into the chamber delivered Wheatley. Doug didn't have time to figure that one out, he was simply glad that the core was now where he needed to be. There came the sound of breaking glass, followed by Chell's footsteps. The announcer declared GLaDOS’s level of corruption, which seemed to cause the A.I. some confusion. Following Wheatley’s enthusiastic prompting, Chell initiated a core transfer and bypassed the stalemate situation that arose from GLaDOS’s vehement refusal to cooperate. There came a cry as GLaDOS’s head all but detached from her body, rendering her powerless.

With growing anticipation, Doug shifted along the transport tubes, edging closer to the main chamber. He wanted to see what was happening, and it finally felt safe enough for him to do so. Wheatley was yelling as the console he was plugged into dragged him down. Shortly after that, GLaDOS too began screaming, dozens of robotic arms replacing her core with Wheatley. Chell was standing as far back as she could get, a horrified expression on her face. The arms dropped GLaDOS’s discarded head to one side, then Wheatley emerged, spinning around and shouting in triumph as he adjusted to the new body.

Doug found himself smiling once more, although he was afraid too. Afraid because they were so close to succeeding. With his usual luck, that meant it was almost time for something to go horribly wrong.

“Stop that,” scolded the cube, making its voice heard over Wheatley’s smug crowing.

“I can’t help it,” he retorted truthfully.

Below, Chell was grinning, making her way across to the elevator Wheatley had summoned. Doug kept his eyes on her until the angle of the panels cut her from view. Impatiently, he listened to Wheatley gushing about how good it felt to be in charge. The core excitedly tossed a few test objects around the room before spouting a sentence of rapid Spanish.

Doug heard Chell knock on the glass of the elevator.

Wheatley responded with a little laugh. “Oh, sorry, no, the lift, yes, sorry, keep forgetting!”

The gentle hum of the elevator’s transport tube started up, and Doug braced himself to finally, finally watch Chell leave Aperture behind.

“This body’s amazing, seriously!” Wheatley went on, unable to shut up despite his speedy promotion. “I can’t get over how small you are! But I’m huge!” He laughed again, a relatively harmless sound that gradually grew in volume and intensity until it was as maniacal as a cartoon villain.

“Oh no,” the cube moaned.

With a burst of clarity, Doug reflected on how much of an understatement that was, and he chided the part of him that was the cube’s opinions.

“Actually,” said Wheatley slyly, “why do we have to leave right now?”

The top of the elevator, just visible in the tube, started to sink back down.

“No,” Doug whispered, maintaining a white-knuckled grip on the pipe he was crouched on.

Power corrupts.

“Do you have any idea how good this feels?” Wheatley asked rhetorically. “I did this! Tiny little Wheatley did this!”

The room turned darker, as did the area surrounding Doug’s hiding place. He eyed the walls warily.

“You didn’t do anything,” GLaDOS spoke up faintly. “She did all the work!”

“What do we do now?” the cube asked, panic leaking into its voice.

“I…I don’t know.”

Wheatley took on an imperious tone. “Oh really? That’s what the two of you think, is it? Well, maybe it’s time I did something, then.”

“What are you doing?” GLaDOS said frantically. Doug had never heard her so alarmed. “No! No! No!”

Frustrated with his lack of view, Doug slipped down off the transport tube and crawled along an air conditioning pipe that took him almost right over the main chamber. Peering down through the gaps in the panels, he saw the chassis – with Wheatley stuck on it like an awkward head on a snowman – leaning close to the elevator.

“And don’t think I’m not on to you too, lady,” he was saying. “You know what you are? Selfish. I’ve done nothing but sacrifice to get us here. And what have you sacrificed? Nothing! Zero. All you’ve done is boss me around! Well, now, who’s the boss? Who’s the boss? It’s me!”

There came a chime from the open pit beneath him, and he moved back, allowing a robotic arm to extend. It was clutching a small brown object that Doug couldn’t identify from the distance.

“See that?” Wheatley said helpfully. “That is a potato battery. It’s a toy for children, and now she lives in it!”

Doug frowned, aghast, unable to see how that was even possible. But somehow, Aperture Science had made it work. The potato spoke in GLaDOS’s voice, tinny and pained.

“I know you.”

“Sorry, ah, heh, what?” said Wheatley sharply.

“The engineers tried everything to make me behave,” GLaDOS explained. “To slow me down. Once, they even attached an Intelligence Dampening Sphere on me. It clung to my brain like a tumour, generating an endless stream of terrible ideas.”

“He won’t remember that,” Doug muttered under his breath.

“No,” Wheatley declared, “I’m not listening, I’m not listening!”

“It was YOUR voice!” GLaDOS spat gleefully.

"No! No, you're lying, you're lying!"

"Yes," she insisted. "You're the tumour. You're not just a regular moron, you were designed to be a moron."

"I am NOT. A. MORON!" Wheatley bellowed, using the robotic arm to hit out at the elevator.

From his lofty viewpoint, Doug saw a flash of orange leg as Chell danced back from the glass.

GLaDOS screamed back to the best of her ability. “Yes, you are! You're the moron they built to make ME an idiot!"

"Well how about now?" Wheatley retorted, smashing the glass with the arm and throwing the potato inside the elevator. "Now who's a moron?"

“I can’t watch,” whimpered the cube.

Doug, however, couldn’t look away. His eyes widened in horror as he watched Wheatley repeatedly whack the robotic arm into the top of the elevator, smashing through the transport tube. With growing alarm, he realised the lift was sinking through the floor. With the tube broken, there was no current of air to keep it from falling.

"Could a MORON PUNCH. YOU. INTO. THIS. PIT?” Wheatley yelled as he worked. “Huh? Could a moron do THAT?"

The elevator creaked once in protest, and Wheatley seemed belatedly concerned. “Uh oh.”

Then it vanished, dropping out of sight in less than a second, Chell and GLaDOS with it.

“No!” Doug screamed, a harsh, desperate sound. He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think.

The panels below him opened up, and the robotic arm reached for him, clutching his sleeve and pulling him from the pipes. For a wild moment he thought he’d be following Chell down the messy hole in the floor, but the arm dropped him by the side of the pit.

“Don’t think I’d forgotten you, mate,” Wheatley said sardonically. “I knew you were up there, lurking, watching my ascension to greatness like some…lurker.”

Doug pushed himself to his knees, trying to gather his racing thoughts.

She can’t be dead, she can’t be dead, she can’t be dead.

“This is good,” Wheatley went on. “This is…karma. It’s karma. Or…hmm…that’s not very sciencey, is it? It’s…it’s a just reward for a job well done, that’s what it is. I’d, y’know, share it with you, but I don’t think you’ve earned it. In fact, you’ve been holding me back, mate.”

“What?” Doug hissed venomously.

“I’m the one who came up with all the plans! I’m the one who got Chell out of the test chamber. I’m the one who got rid of the turrets and the neurotoxin and who nearly got carried away to who-knows-where in the process. That was me. All me. And no jumped-up little potato-robot-lady is going to tell me otherwise, oh no.”

“You wouldn’t have been able to do any of that if I hadn’t fixed you first,” Doug growled.

Wheatley halted, his optic narrowing in thought. “Be that as it may,” he said at length, spinning in a lazy circle, “I’m the boss now. And that means you do as I say. You’re a scientist, so…build me a test chamber or something.”

“No.”

Wheatley turned to him, his outer casing flaring in irritation. “Excuse me?”

“I’m going to find Chell,” Doug said with determination.

“Um…right. I, uh, don’t know which conversation you were listening to, but…I'm pretty sure I just accidentally killed her.”

“I need to know,” he replied. "For certain."

Wheatley chuckled patronisingly. "Well good luck getting down miles and miles of sealed off departments."

Doug's heart sank as he realised the core had a valid point. The vast majority of Aperture's lower levels had been sealed for years before he even joined the company.

"Unless, uh, you want to take the same route she did," Wheatley went on. "Y'know, down the old hole in the floor. But then you'd be dead, and that can't happen because I need you. For science."

Doug stared up at him, gritting his teeth as he tried to contain his anger. "She trusted you," he said. "I trusted you."

"And the plan worked."

"The plan was to escape!" he burst out, getting to his feet. "Not for you to turn into some power-crazed..." he trailed off, too furious to even find the words. “What happened?"

Wheatley blinked at him. "What do you mean?"

He doesn't even realise he's done anything wrong.

Doug plucked the portal gun from the bag on his back. "You know what? Never mind. I'm going."

"Uh, no, no, you can't do that," Wheatley protested. "I've got things I need you to do."

Without bothering to reply, Doug shot an orange portal under his feet, falling sideways into a corridor.

"Oi! You're not supposed to do that!" Wheatley exclaimed. "Where's that arm gone?"

Before the robotic arm could reach for him again, Doug fired into the wall, cutting off the route to the main chamber.

"Lucky you thought to leave an open portal here," the cube commented.

"That's not luck," Doug said grimly, "that's paranoia."

He pushed himself up, hugging the portal gun to his chest. His hands were shaking, his lungs suddenly feeling restricted. He was moments away from a panic attack.

No, no, I don't have time for this.

"Hey," said the cube in its most soothing voice, "calm down. We're going to sort this out."

What if she's...

"We don't know for sure."

But she fell...

"She has a knack of surviving."

Doug nodded, knowing it was true. Chell always beat the odds. Always. Even still, he was deeply afraid that maybe this time it was too much. The elevator shafts went all the way down, miles and miles into the salt mine. And Wheatley was right, he had no way of following. Not safely, anyway.

She’s dead, hissed a voice. She’s never getting out of here, and neither are you.

“That’s not true,” countered the cube. “We don’t know anything for certain yet, you know that, Doug.”

Why would we lie to you? the voice went on. Give up now, it’s for the best. You’re going to die here, it’s just a matter of when.

“No, no, no, no,” Doug murmured, dropping the portal gun and clapping his hands over his ears. It was technically pointless, but somehow it sometimes worked. His vision blurred, swamped by images of Chell’s broken body. His heartrate increased, he could hear the blood rushing in his ears as he struggled to breathe. “Help me,” he gasped, sinking to his knees.

“It isn’t real,” the cube spoke up. “It isn’t real, and she needs you. She needs you to stay alive. Do you hear me?”

“Yes,” Doug whispered, feeling the tears slip down his cheeks, getting lost in his beard. “Yes, I hear you.”

“Good. Focus on my voice. Don’t listen to the others, they’re nothing. Now breathe.”

Shaking, he did his best to comply, counting as he inhaled, held it, exhaled, gradually bringing his heartbeat back to normal. The visions of Chell faded. The other voices lost their power over him. Suddenly he was seeing clearly again. He let out a ragged breath.

“Are you with me?” the cube asked.

“Yes.”

“Good. Because I know what we can do. If Chell is alive, she’ll start affecting things down in the lower levels, right? So there must be a console somewhere that will show the changes. You know, lights going on, doors activated, etc.”

Doug nodded, wiping his face on his sleeve. “You’re right,” he said, his voice still holding a faint tremble. “Good plan.” He stood up, picking up his fallen portal device. “Let’s find a console that can give us some answers.”

“That’s the spirit.”

Pulling himself back together, Doug set off walking, reaching over his shoulder to pat the topside of the cube as he went.

Illustration reference model: Adrien Brody

I realise there would probably be glass tube debris visible above Doug, but sometimes simpler design works best.

#A trusted friend in science #Doug Rattmann #Chell #companion cube therapist ftw

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sarcasticgaypotato · 6 years ago

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(( Ridiculous fluff for @bondibee‘s ‘LaaC.’ You see??? I promised something happy, I deliver. )) GLaDOS didn’t find it strange for Chell to grab onto her arm in the early morning hours, preventing her from sliding out of bed to work. Chell often insisted on sleeping in late, spending lazy mornings that often turned into lazy afternoons, lounging around like a cat, doing next to nothing, and attempting to get GLaDOS to do the same. GLaDOS normally refused- if she had gotten the appropriate amount of sleep this body needed, she wanted to get to work, not waste valuable time just lying there- but this time, Chell seemed more insistent than usual. And, to her surprise, while the former test subject was usually sleepily persistent and easy to ignore, this time, Chell seemed wide awake. “Just...don’t think about work for five minutes.” Chell had propped herself up on her elbow, gazing down at GLaDOS with a gentle- but very much awake and alert- gaze that occasionally… flickered. Darting ever so slightly towards the door. “...Why? ...What did you do- mpfh!” GLaDOS hardly got to finish her sentence before Chell leaned forward, capturing her lips in a kiss. For a moment or two, the core considered pushing Chell off and properly questioning just what it was that she was up to, but…as Chell’s lips insistently pressed against her own, GLaDOS decided that she could hold her question for a minute or two. Chell hadn’t broken anything or attempted any murders in… a very long time, so whatever she was up to likely wasn’t so urgent that GLaDOS needed to worry about the facility caving on top of her head in the next two minutes. How long had it been? Since all of this started? Since Chell first killed her, since they worked together to kick the little moron into space, since Chell left and came back, since they had been engaged in this.... romantic companionship? GLaDOS hummed in thought against Chell’s lips, mulling this over as the human practically rolled over on top of her. It had been longer than months, it had been years. Chell had come back to Aperture exactly six years, two months, and ten days ago. GLaDOS could’ve let herself get down to the hours and minutes and seconds, but the feeling of Chell’s hands cradling her face distracted her. Calloused hands, larger and stronger than GLaDOS’s own, yet possessing a gentleness that made GLaDOS question how they ever could have been used to harm her. GLaDOS looped her arms around Chell’s neck, running her hands down and splaying her fingers out against her partner’s muscular back, tracing her fingernails over the thin fabric of Chell’s tanktop, feeling the telltale excited shiver down her spine in response. It was suddenly far too easy to just close her eyes, to brush aside the thoughts of whatever she had been saying a minute ago, and lose herself in the moment. Or... it would’ve been easy, had she not heard the sound of a door creaking, and the very faint shifting of metal. Instantly, her eyes shot open, and she sat up, pushing a suddenly sheepish looking Chell off, and casting her gaze towards the entrance to their room. Standing in the doorframe were Atlas and P-Body, both standing close together, and looking almost bashful as their optics seemed directed anywhere but the bed where GLaDOS and Chell currently resided. It took a second look- and a double take- for GLaDOS to realize that P-body was holding a metal tray with food on it. This was not the first time they had acted as waiters, but… GLaDOS knew she had most certainly not asked them to do this, and immediately turned her gaze to Chell, not even needing to open her mouth to get the question across. What on earth was all of this? Chell let out a small exhale of air that almost sounded like a slightly nervous laugh, her cheeks looking surprisingly flushed as she beckoned the co-op bots into the room. “You… never really said if you’d care about this sort of thing or not but… today’s technically your birthday.”

Chell scratched the back of her neck, somehow managing to look more flustered than GLaDOS had… ever seen her look. The stoic, determined, stubborn human looked positively nervous. “...You do know I was never born, right? I’ve joked about the brain damage, but if you’ve actually forgotten that I’m a robot, I am genuinely a bit concerned.” GLaDOS raised an eyebrow, adjusting herself on the bed and relaxing some of the tension in her shoulders, followed by allowing the tiniest of smirks to cross her lips as she watched Chell stumble over an explanation. Chell wasn’t technically wrong, a quick check into the Aperture database confirmed that today was the day that the GLaDOS project was first brought online. The closest thing to a birthday that GLaDOS would ever have, and no doubt what Chell was basing her reason for celebration off of. A closer look at the tray P-body was holding revealed a small assortment of baked goods- freshly made, judging by the smell- most of them chocolate, and all of them deliciously sugary. GLaDOS would admit to no fondness towards the process of eating food, but… she might’ve discovered one or two little things that she enjoyed more than expected. Pastries and sweets being the most common. Turning her focus back to Chell, she noted that the human was still vainly trying to mix her stumbling over words with vague gestures, as if that were helping her get the words out of her mouth. The former mute had-shockingly- never been very good with words, and especially not this early in the morning. Raising a hand to gesture Chell to stop in the middle of whatever uncertain apology had been about to leave her mouth, GLaDOS let the hint of a smirk on her lips shift into a much more noticeable smile. “Frankly, so long as we’re taking a day to celebrate my being alive and not a day dedicated to murdering me, I’ll take it.” ----- From the morning onwards, GLaDOS found herself questioning why they hadn’t started doing this years ago. She had never seen Atlas, P-body, or even Chell be this well behaved for so long. Nothing broken in the facility, everything running smoothly. Atlas and P-body scampered off shortly after GLaDOS and Chell ate breakfast- Chell had given the two of them a rather pointed look that clearly the two bots seemed to understand as a silent order to do something- and before GLaDOS had the chance to complain to Chell that she’d have to round them back up for testing… Chell had shaken her head. She got up from the bed and made her way over to the closet, pulling it open, and taking out a very distinct orange garment. Chell was going to do the testing for today. No catch, no lounging around in the test chambers and doing them purely for her own amusement, she was actually going to do the tests that GLaDOS made, help with science for a change. GLaDOS’s eyes lit up and she could hardly jump up off the bed and pull Chell into a kiss fast enough. Science was always important, but GLaDOS honestly could not say if she had been this excited in a very long time. She had become so used to the co-op bots and their way of going about a test chamber that she felt her heart skip a beat and the air knocked out of her lungs when Chell practically leapt into that first chamber. Where recording the bots’ results was routine, watching Chell had GLaDOS holding her breath, and sitting on the edge of her seat. Everyday testing had fallen into only being done for its importance, with less and less personal interest to GLaDOS as time went on. But this? Watching Chell’s movements was intoxicating, they were fluid, swift and sure, never clunky or robotic. Always ten steps ahead, but never predictable. Any nervousness that she had held onto from earlier that morning was gone in an instant, melting away like ice in the incinerator. Chell had never looked quite so at home as she did with a portal gun on her arm. Test chambers became second nature to her, and the ASHPD was as familiar as a part of her own body. She danced through each chamber with the elegance and confidence that made GLaDOS wonder if she could do the whole thing blindfolded. Time flew by in the same way that Chell flew through puzzle after puzzle, and before GLaDOS felt like she had the time to blink, several hours had passed. Chell had completed the tests in the section, and raised her both her hands, gesturing to indicate that she was calling it quits for the day. GLaDOS found herself having to actively hold back the whine that wanted to leave her throat in protest. Just one more chamber? Or maybe a couple more, but at least one. But alas, Chell was firm on leaving the test chamber when she did, and making her way over to GLaDOS’s chamber to poke her head in for a moment or two to inform GLaDOS that she needed to cleaned up, and that they both needed to get ready. Tonight’s dress code was formal. With that, Chell ducked out of the room as quickly as possible, giving GLaDOS no chance to question or argue. GLaDOS had made it very clear that she thought Chell and formal wear went together like a couple hundred scientists and neurotoxin- very, very well- but it was a rare occasion that she could force the woman into a suit. Chell preferred athletic, comfortable clothing. Function over fashion, even if that meant looking atrocious. So the mere thought that Chell was not only willing to dress herself up, but was preemptively making the decision to do so without so much as a peep of encouragement from GLaDOS was… admittedly very interesting. Chell wanted a formal dress code? GLaDOS would show her formal. ----- Chell came to get GLaDOS about two hours after she had finished testing, looking almost a completely different woman than before. Squeaky clean and dressed in a sharp, perfectly fitting suit. The nervousness from that morning had returned- showing itself as an anxious tapping of her foot- but her face lit up when she saw GLaDOS, dressed to the nines, and wearing a dress made with each fiber planned to match with Chell’s outfit. She pulled the core into an embrace- careful not to smudge GLaDOS’s makeup or ruffle her dress too much when she brought her in for a quick kiss- and gave GLaDOS the most adoring look the AI had ever seen. It looked as disgustingly sappy as something out of a badly made romantic movie, which GLaDOS was certain to tell Chell, who merely responded with a laugh, before pulling away, and taking GLaDOS’s hand. She brought the core to an unused storage room, one that, last GLaDOS had checked, had been little more than an empty white box. Now, that couldn’t be further from the truth. While perhaps another time she would’ve taken the time to complain that Chell had painted the walls and floors without permission, that she had no doubt misused the assembly line to fill the room with appropriately themed furniture and decorations, that she had hijacked the speaker system to play music, and that- if the way the two of them were standing off to the side of the room had anything to do with it- she roped Atlas and P-body into all this, but... GLaDOS just couldn’t seem to find it in herself- no matter how hard she was trying- to complain. She opened her mouth but no sound came out. She let herself be ushered forwards and sat down at the only table in the room, covered in a black tablecloth and illuminated by candles, and GLaDOS was speechless. She let Atlas and P-body trot their way over to the table and chirp out a partially off-tune but well intended version of ‘happy birthday,’ and not a single snarky remark left her lips. She let Chell send the two of them off to start bringing the food, and she was still silent. It was only after her and Chell had been sitting in silence at the table for about five minutes that words finally left her mouth. “I… cannot believe that you did all this without me noticing sooner.” She looked around the room, still trying to take it all in. Chell went to this kind of effort, for what exactly? The anniversary of GLaDOS’s creation, a date that neither of them had celebrated, or even really mentioned up until this point. What made this time so special? Chell didn’t say anything. She just smiled sheepishly, and shrugged, mouthing the words ‘guess I just got lucky.’ Her dominant arm rested on the table in front of her, and she was softly rapping her fingers to the beat of the music playing in the background, still seeming… nervous. Her other hand seemed equally fidgety, shifting between resting in her lap, and being shoved in her pocket. GLaDOS had mentioned the apparent anxiety when Atlas brought a bottle of wine over, teasingly noting that clearly, Chell needed it more than she did. Atlas had let out a chirp that, if GLaDOS didn’t know better, she would’ve called excited, before just barely managing to not spill the bottle of wine, and then scampering off to join P-body once more. Chell, on the other hand, had turned bright red and rather abruptly brought both of her hands to be folded in her lap. GLaDOS rolled her eyes and raised her glass in a toast that Chell readily accepted, deciding that she’d ignore it for now, and just focus on enjoying the evening. Dinner was lovely, much to GLaDOS’s surprise. Beautifully plated, fancy little dishes. Nothing too heavy or too greasy, nothing sloppily done. Minimalistic, aesthetically pleasing. Much like Aperture itself. Chell had gone out of her way to actually speak more than a few sentences all dinner, proving herself to be quite the pleasant conversation partner when she tried. However, she never fully seemed to lose the uneasiness, it just seemed to shift from place to place. Tapping her foot or swirling the wine around in her glass, fixing her hair, or playing with her damn pocket again. Dessert was even more delicious than dinner, reminding GLaDOS why she even bothered eating food in the first place, and GLaDOS was content. Perhaps there really was something to humans and their celebrating of birthdays, it wasn’t as pointless as she once thought. And when Chell stood from the table and gestured for GLaDOS to do the same, the AI fondly thought to herself that perhaps, there was a small bit of dancing in the evening left for them to enjoy, before the actual day of her ‘birthday’ was up. However, either Chell didn’t remember how to dance, or she seemed convinced that she could do it with one hand still fidgeting in her pocket. GLaDOS, finally sick and tired of not knowing why Chell had been looking like she was about to explode almost all day long, opened her mouth to demand an answer out of the human, once and for all. And, for what felt like the hundredth time that day, GLaDOS was interrupted before the words could leave her mouth. This time, not by another voice, nor by a kiss, But by the sight of Chell lowering herself to a single knee in front of her, and taking a small box out of her pocket.

#chelldos #love as a construct #portal #portal 2 #glados #chell #human!glados #atlas #p-body #I'M SORRY THIS IS SO SAPPY #I ONLY HAVE TWO MODES #ANGST AND SAP

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sarcasticgaypotato · 8 years ago

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I really like the theme of trust when it comes to ChellDOS. Chell needs to trust that GLaDOS won't try to kill/hurt her just like GLaDOS has to trust that Chell wont murder her again. Can you use your gay magic— I mean writing skills?

(( Of course! I am always happy to use my gay magic for the sake of ChellDOS! ))Chell never thought she would come back.She struggled for so long to leave, to be set free, only to be met with disappointment. The world above Aperture was dead. She could not find a single living human, buildings were destroyed and overrun by plants, and even animals seemed to be in scarce numbers. The world had aged while Chell had remained the same, frozen in time as the world wasted away.There was nothing for her here.

And regardless of this fact, if she had escaped Aperture before she was thrown into the depths of the facility’s past with nothing but her portal gun and a talkative potato, she would’ve stayed on the surface. Let herself die up here alone, rot away knowing that she was, at the very least, free from Aperture’s grip.

But things were different now.Chell still had no affection for Aperture, nor what the company had done or stood for, even back in the day.No, she had no positive feelings for the facility itself, it was the ruler of the facility that she had grown a soft spot for.GLaDOS, of all creatures, had earned Chell’s respect, at the very least. And, in a way, they had formed a strange bond while traveling old Aperture.Chell had seen the change in GLaDOS, and that was what changed her own opinion of the core.Maybe it was the sudden realisation and understanding of the core’s past, or maybe it was watching the AI evolve.She saw the seemingly cold, unfeeling core soften and open up, bit by bit. She was no longer in control, she was humbled, and was forced to see the world through different eyes.In a moment of sheer curiosity, Chell had looked down at the potato, staring into the golden optic that had become something she had only ever seen as belonging to an unfeeling enemy, yet now… She saw a person. Not a robot, not a machine, a person.And while she never could be sure, Chell believed that GLaDOS had done the exact same thing, in that same moment.However, this newfound partnership hadn’t meant that they were suddenly as thick as thieves. GLaDOS had willingly let her go, and Chell was happy to leave. They both wanted as much distance as possible. Staying too close brought up questions and feelings that neither of them wanted to address. Yet here Chell was, standing once more in front of the old metal shed, staring at its rusted door.The outside world had nothing left for her, but Aperture did. Now it was just the question of whether or not GLaDOS would even let her in.Believe it or not, she did.And Chell was soon face to face with an old enemy. Though that term hardly applied to them anymore. When she descended into Aperture, she was met with the core’s usual sarcasm, yet it was almost endearing this time. Almost.“I didn’t think you’d come crawling back so quickly. Miss me already?”Chell held her head up high, refusing to let the comment shift her stony expression, despite the slight urge to let it shift upon seeing the core. No longer was she hanging off the ceiling, but instead, standing in front of the elevator in an android body that looked far too human for being made of metal.The elevator door slowly opened, and neither of them moved an inch.“…Well, if you’re going to stay here, you might as well step out of that elevator, you can’t stay there.”GLaDOS backed away, never turning her back on Chell as she moved. And once there was a good amount of distance between them, Chell exited the elevator. Trust was not something that they possessed for each other yet. But today was the start of a very long journey.It had not taken long for the two of them to end up staring each other down once more, dancing on the brink of confrontation. Chell had been messing around and got her hands on the portal gun, and had brought it into GLaDOS’s chamber without a second thought.GLaDOS had practically freaked. She concealed it to a certain extent, but Chell saw the change in expression on her newly crafted face. She had drawn back defensively, and her eyes looked positively icy. She still remembered all too well what Chell had done with that portal gun in the past.Chell hadn’t caught on at first. Instead, she too found herself getting defensive, assuming that GLaDOS was getting ruffled for no reason, and taking the core’s defensive stance as a warning before an attack. Chell too had plenty of reasons to be skeptical of GLaDOS, as the murder attempts were still fresh in her brain whenever they ended up like this.“…Get that gun out of here.”GLaDOS hissed, not daring to move.Chell narrowed her eyes, confused for a moment.“…Now.”The core was not screaming at her, nor was she threatening Chell with turrets or deadly neurotoxin. She was uneasy rather than particularly angry, and appeared almost… afraid? That was not something Chell had come to associate with the AI, though the pieces were starting to come together in the human’s mind. GLaDOS had proven herself to be more than capable of showing emotion, and fear had definitely been one of them.Chell looked down at the gun in her hands, and it finally clicked. She quickly glanced up at GLaDOS, wondering for a moment if she should apologize. Instead, she quickly rushed out of the room, not looking back.More time passed, things were getting better. They had actually sat down and talked. About… everything. But mainly, what their relationship would be. Chell-who wasn’t actually talking, but instead preferring to write things down and show them to the core- had finally been able to get some answers from GLaDOS, who admitted to her uneasiness around the girl, and Chell agreed likewise. At least now they knew, and could try to work on it.They both expected this to take time, and thankfully time was something they had a lot of.What neither of them expected however, was the rather… confusing feelings that had started to surface regarding one another.Chell would never know this, but GLaDOS had harbored an… interest in Chell for a long time. But that interest was far, far from anything… safe. It had been a hatred, an obsession, a craving. It had died down after her time in a potato, and she assumed she’d be able to be rid of the feeling completely. And that was partly true. The obsession and the hate started to disappear as time went by, but they were replaced by different emotions. Something warm and strange feeling, like a tightness in her chest. Something she had no idea that Chell was experiencing at the same time.Of course, this matter, did not get discussed. Not verbally anyway.It grew stronger as time passed, and eventually, Chell grew tired of simply letting it be.They had both tried to practice touching each other as a part of their trust building, even though each interaction had been very brief, and barely more than a brush of the fingers against each other. Chell decided to change that.She approached GLaDOS carefully, making herself known by walking towards the core head on, having learned to never sneak up on her. She cleared her throat a little, looking up at the AI and gesturing with her hand for the robot to come closer. “What is it now? You’ve already had dinner, you aren’t getting seconds.”Chell rolled her eyes, scoffing slightly under her breath. Once the core had gotten close enough, she rummaged through her jumpsuit pockets to find the pre-written note that she made for this.‘Can I try something?’“Well you’re going to need to do a better job of explaining, for one.”GLaDOS responded with snark, though her tone held no bite. It hadn’t for awhile actually, now that Chell thought about it. Instead, the sarcastic comments and remarks that many people would find quite rude had shifted. Chell wasn’t offended by them, yet she didn’t need to ignore them anymore either. She found herself smiling at half of them, like this was an old joke between her and the core.Still, GLaDOS was right. She ought to explain herself better.She pointed to her hand, then gestured to GLaDOS.To her surprise, the core caught on instantly, her eyebrows raising slightly as her golden optics studied Chell.“…Alright, try whatever it is you want.”That came as even more of a surprise, though it was quite the pleasant one. It wasn’t often that GLaDOS put that much faith in her. She didn’t want to mess this up.

Like many times before, she carefully reached out and touched GLaDOS’s hand. The core tensed for a moment, before relaxing. This was not uncharted territory. Slowly, Chell moved, lacing her fingers with the AI’s, constantly watching the android’s face for any signs of discomfort.She found none.Instead, the core looked at her with surprise, and a hint of something else. Contentment maybe?Chell wasn’t sure. But she held this touch for awhile, liking the warmth that roared up in her chest that it caused. Aperture was often so cold, and it had been so long since Chell had been around other humans, she had forgotten what physical affection had felt like.Minutes went by, maybe even hours. It was so hard to tell time down here, but it felt like years had passed when GLaDOS pulled away. She was slow in her actions instead of her usual jerky movements when it came to this sort of thing. She was relaxed. A relaxed GLaDOS was NOT something Chell saw often. Even if the core was in a good mood, she was hardly relaxed.“…That… wasn’t as horrible as I had expected. Perhaps… we should continue to study this tomorrow.”Chell smiled. That was the best reaction she could possibly hope for.And study it they did. Step by step, they put themselves on display for the other, showing their weakness just long enough for the other to study it, and try to learn how to adapt to it.A little over a year later, they were both surprised with their progress. They weren’t perfect, they knew that. Chell was rather jumpy about her neck being touched, and GLaDOS was still a little uneasy whenever Chell was holding a Portal gun or anything that could be used as a weapon.But despite that, they were proud enough of the steps they had taken as is.Chell found herself standing in her room, waiting for the core. They had planned to spend some time together, and GLaDOS promised to meet her here. And, perfectly on time, a knock on the door sounded, before it opened on its own. Knocking wasn’t necessary for someone who controlled the whole facility, but Chell liked to know where the core was if they were going to be interacting. No surprises.And so, as GLaDOS approached her, she’d give a brief, verbal warning before touching the girl.The AI carefully wrapped her arms around Chell’s waist, keeping her grip loose and relaxed, as to not make the human feel trapped. Gently, she pressed her forehead against the ex-test subject, giving her a sort of nuzzle that Chell quickly returned.“…Hey.”The core smirked, looking down at Chell as she spoke.“Is this all you had planned? When you said you wanted to spend time together, I didn’t think you meant you just wanted to stand here.”Chell rolled her eyes, a smile tugging at her lips. She didn’t want to pull away to grab a pencil and paper, so instead she simply mouthed the words, knowing full well that GLaDOS could read her lips very well.‘Well I wasn’t planning on standing, but I have a perfectly nice sofa that we could move this to.’Chell watched as the core’s optics seemed to gleam, almost sparkling with amusement.“…Can I pick you up?”Despite the affection that was being shared between them, both of them never failed to ask before changing their position or form of affection. They cared for each other, no doubt, but sudden movements could be unnerving for both, especially ones that involved direct physical contact. However with proper warning, it was welcomed.Chell nodded, very carefully moving her arms to loosely wrap around the core’s neck as she found herself scooped up into the cool metal arms of her partner.It was strange in a way, to finally be able to give her trust to someone who, many months ago, she wouldn’t have let touch her. She supposed GLaDOS felt the same.Yet, as she found herself being set down on the soft cushion of the couch, and she moved closer to the core who joined her moments after, she found that she didn’t care. What did it matter how things had been? It was time to enjoy the now. She wasted little time joining the metallic woman’s hand with her own, and gently resting her head against the core’s chest, who let out a soft hum of contentment at her actions.Trust had taken time to begin, and it would take even longer to keep going, but it had been worth it.

#chelldos #chell #glados #portal #portal 2

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sarcasticgaypotato · 8 years ago

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For the Chelldos writing request: what about GLaDOS tending to Chell's injuries (of any kind) and Chell is both surprised/comforted by how gentle GLaDOS handles her in such a vulnerable and weak state?

( Ok, I’m sorry Anon, I kinda altered this idea a bit, since I just wrote a fic called ‘Flirting and Foolishness’ that has a very similar concept. So I hope you don’t mind that this isn’t exactly what you asked for, but if you’d like something a little closer to your request I would recommend reading the previously mentioned fic, as I’m very proud of it.)Chell honestly expected injuries when she came back to Aperture.She volunteered to test when it pleased her, and despite the fact that GLaDOS wasn’t trying to kill her, test chambers were still dangerous things. She could miscalculate a jump, get shot by a turret, or have a dangerously close call with an acid pit. Physical injury was to be expected.Illness was not.

See, Chell hadn’t given much thought to her immune system as of late. It was something that she had never really had much use for, since she had been in Aperture- a surprisingly sterile place- for as long as she could remember. As it turned out, not being exposed to anything for so long had weakened her body’s defenses, and left her quite vulnerable. Somehow, she managed to dodge a bullet the first time she left Aperture. She didn’t get sick, and returned to Aperture shortly.She arranged a deal with GLaDOS, and now she lived here. She wasn’t forced to test for her life, she was given a bed- NOT a sleeping pod, thank goodness-, and even a rather entertaining companion in GLaDOS.The robot was just as snarky as before, but the tone of her sarcasm only got friendlier as the months went by.The AI gave her mostly free rein of Aperture too, and that included being able to go outside whenever she wanted. Chell rarely took advantage of that though, as there was very little for her outside but some wheatfields.Still, one day she decided it might be nice to poke her head outside for a little while and get some fresh air.It wasn’t a particularly long trip, just a short walk around the wheat fields. It took little more than an hour, at most. And when Chell returned to Aperture, she felt fine.She went back down to her room and went about her day, though as the evening approached she realized that she was far more tired than usual. She COULD go test, though she knew if she felt tired it was just a recipe for failure. She wouldn’t enjoy the experience, and GLaDOS wouldn’t get any good data from it. There was no point.So instead, Chell picked at her dinner absentmindedly for a while, before giving up and deciding to go to bed. Perhaps she was just out of it today.She fell asleep easily, unaware of the hell her body was about to bring upon her.It had only taken about two or three hours for her to wake back up with a start, gasping for breath. She felt hot, like her skin was on fire. And yet she was shaking, and covered in a cold sheen of sweat. She was panting like mad, and it felt like she had just done twenty test chambers in her sleep. Her body was incredibly sore, and she was out of breath.And incredibly nauseous, as she soon found out.An attempt at sitting up was quickly punished as Chell found herself doubled over her bed, vainly holding onto the small trashcan that she kept nearby as her stomach removed most of its contents.The feeling burned her throat, like she had been breathing neurotoxin all day long. The taste was vile, and it felt as if her insides had been turned upside-down.Slowly, she fell back on the bed, her hand clumsily wiping at the corners of her mouth as she tried to get the horrid taste off her lips. This was new. And Chell already hated every second of it.She lied there for what felt like days, though in reality it was only about half an hour before her nausea struck again and she was forced to repeat the same process. She had jumped through literal hoops, dodged bullets and fought killer AI in her time at Aperture, and yet this, this was what left her bedridden.Chell rolled onto her side, closing her eyes tight in a vain attempt to fall back asleep and hope that this would all be over in the morning. It didn’t work. She lay there in the dark for only about five minutes before she heard her door open.That was strange enough to get her to crack an eye open, only to see a rather familiar figure standing in front of her.A slender android with piercing gold eyes that seemed to burn like suns in contrast to the darkness of Chell’s room.“…I really should’ve known you were the reason for the smell down here.”GLaDOS. Of course. This was her facility, and since she had made herself an android body, she had taken to patrolling around it from time to time. Being stuck in a chamber for her whole life really did give her the need to stretch her legs after all.And of course that meant walking by her test subject’s room from time to time.Slowly, the android kneeled down in front of the bed, looking at Chell with an almost concerned expression.“…Let me take a look at you.”The statement was far closer to a demand than any kind of question, but Chell wasn’t about to argue. She knew the core’s scanners could probably pick up what was wrong with her, and she wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth.What Chell expected from all this was for GLaDOS to look her over, made some snide remark about how she ‘shouldn’t have been so stupid and gone outside when it was perfectly comfortable in Aperture’ and then leave Chell to her own devices. As it turned out, GLaDOS proved her wrong almost instantly. The core put her hand on the human’s forehead incredibly gently, feeling the warmth that practically radiated from it.A frown followed this, and the core seemed to be doing her best to work out if anything was seriously wrong, or if this was just a bug. Thankfully for Chell, the slight relaxation in the core’s shoulders after a minute or so seemed to point to the latter of the two options.“It’s just a flu. I don’t know what you were walking around in up there, but clearly your body wasn’t ready to handle it. You should be fine with proper rest and care.”As much as that comment should’ve brought Chell relief, she couldn’t seem to muster up any feeling besides one of general discomfort and pain. Everything felt sore and hot, and for some reason jumping into a pit of freezing water sounded really, really good right about now.Yet to her frustration, GLaDOS had grabbed her discarded blankets and pulled them back up on her. She shot the android a confused and annoyed look, trying to struggle and kick them back off, despite her whole body feeling like lead.“Oh no you don’t.” The core glared at her, keeping the blankets in place. “I don’t care how hot you feel, Aperture is far from warm. It’s cold down here, and you’re already trembling.”Chell pouted, but stopped struggling. She was tired, and she knew that if she kept trying GLaDOS would have no problems with simply sitting on her legs until she stopped moving. And despite the core’s repeated fat jokes towards humans, being made out of metal didn’t exactly make her light as a feather.So, with a couple deep breaths, Chell managed to calm herself down a small bit. And in turn, GLaDOS did too. It almost looked like the robot was concerned for her safety, and reacting out of fear for her health. But that would be… completely ridiculous. Sure, they had grown closer in the past few months, but she never pictured GLaDOS as the caring type.And yet… Maybe she was wrong.Slowly, the lights in the room started to turn on, stopping just short of being too bright for tired eyes. It left the chamber in a dim glow that was easy on the eyes, but bright enough to see things and not be sitting wide awake in darkness.“Now I’m going to ask you to drink this, and please do try not to vomit it back on me.” GLaDOS had what appeared to be a bottle of water in her hand, taken from Chell’s mini-fridge.Putting anything into her body was incredibly off putting, so Chell found herself looking at GLaDOS with a sort of pleading expression.The core sighed, unscrewing the cap. She placed it on the nightstand momentarily, before carefully slipping her arms around Chell and helping the girl into a slightly more upright position, presumably so she wouldn’t choke.“I won’t have you drink much, but I don’t think I need to tell you how easy it would be for you to get dehydrated like this? I could list off all the horrible things that would involve, but I’ll spare you the details.”And with that comment, Chell found her head being gently tilted back by GLaDOS’s hand on her chin. Then, the water was pressed against her lips, slowly as to avoid any risk of choking. Chell kept her mouth stubbornly shut for a moment, but found herself slowly giving in as GLaDOS’s fingers lazily stroked the edge of her jawline. It was oddly comforting, despite being a rather small action.She took a few sips of the cool water, finding that it felt surprisingly nice to have something to wash away the taste of stomach acid and bile in her mouth, despite the fact that she already felt uneasy at having something else in her body.GLaDOS, to her credit, seemed to pick up on Chell’s uneasiness, and pulled away, placing the water to the side and moving the trashcan a bit closer to the girl, just in case.Thankfully, Chell managed to hold back her nausea for the time being, sinking back into the bed with a low groan of pain.She felt horrible, and her mind seemed to be clouded with a sickly haze. Still, breaking through that haze was a rather consistent thought. She had never seen GLaDOS act like this. And it was… incredibly odd to the girl.The core was so… gentle. She seemed to know what to do and how to go about it, all while treating Chell with a surprisingly tender attitude. Sure, the occasional comment was a good reminder that this was, in fact, still GLaDOS and not a doppleganger that had replaced her when Chell wasn’t looking.This was no doubt the same core she had once fought. The same core who was now running her fingers through Chell’s hair, slowly detangling it.The action was unexpected, but caused a low hum to escape Chell’s throat at just how good it felt. The core’s hand was cool to the touch, and her actions felt like a massage. She found herself trying to push into the hand, silently asking the AI to continue.Apparently, Chell’s reaction earned a smile from the core, accompanied by a low chuckle.“If I had known this was all it took to make you so content, I would’ve tried this ages ago.”Her voice was low, and kept incredibly quiet. Chell was not asleep, though loud noises would be an incredibly unpleasant jolt from the more peaceful daze she had fallen into. There was no doubt in the core’s mind that in about an hour or two she’d be rubbing the back of this human as her body continued to try and fight the illness in rather violent outbursts, but for now at least, hopefully the girl could get some rest.And Chell, though she wouldn’t think to do anything about it now, or any time soon, wanted to thank the core for all this. She had expected to spend this time curled up on her bed alone, and instead she got the opposite.

#portal #chell #glados #portal 2 #chelldos

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sarcasticgaypotato · 8 years ago

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Could you write a fic about Chell not being able to sleep from nightmares and Glados soothing her nerves by singing a lullaby, all why Chell is in awe of her voice? (Preferably chassis Glados but you can do what you want :] )

( I sure can! You know I love some good ol’ fluff. )Chell’s head shot up off her pillow like a rocket, and the rest of her upper body seemed to follow, forcing the woman into an awkward, half-sitting position. Her heart was racing, and she was panting like she had just run a race. She was covered in a sheen of cold sweat, and her hands were shaking.It was just a dream. But, that was the problem.

About a month ago, Chell had asked her robotic companion- GLaDOS-, to turn off the adrenal vapors that normally flowed throughout the facility, allowing her to try and get on an actual sleep schedule. Unfortunately, sleeping came with the side effect of dreaming. And with dreaming, came nightmares.

Nearly every night she’d fall into a twisted mess of memories and awful bits of her mind’s imagination, mixed together to create something just new enough to be startling, but familiar enough to be deeply disturbing.

Some nights she’d be trapped in the dream until morning, though she preferred those nights far more than their alternative. Waking up in the middle of the night.

A quick glance at the clock on her bedside confirmed that tonight was one of those nights. It was hardly past 1am, and she was now wide awake. Ideally, she’d be asleep for at least five more hours, as testing started fairly early in the morning. To be fair, she didn’t HAVE to test, it was simply something she agreed to do after agreeing to a truce with GLaDOS and requesting to stay in Aperture, considering the rest of the world was destroyed.

It had been her own offer, not GLaDOS’s demands. She could just not do it, but she knew that guilt would linger around her like a cloud if she didn’t. This was their deal. GLaDOS gave her a roof over her head, food, medical care, and various forms of entertainment- so long as they didn’t involve murder.

Testing was something that Chell could do for the AI in return. One of the few things really, since GLaDOS had access to almost everything she could ever want.

But with Chell’s exhaustion and anxiety quickly developing as a result of these nightmares, she knew she was performing badly. She was jumpy, antsy and uncomfortable, reluctant to go to bed no matter how tired her body was. And on the nights that she woke up early, she’d be so tired the next day that she’d find herself making the most basic of mistakes while testing. She swore the only reason she wasn’t getting injured more often was because GLaDOS had been keeping an eye on her and removing some of the dangers in the various chambers. One might even say she cared for her test subject, but that was surely a ridiculous thought.

With a shaky sigh, she pulled her knees up to her chest, properly sitting up and throwing the blankets off her body. There wasn’t a chance she’d be able to fall asleep again. Not after that. Instead, she sat there. Shaking. It was pathetic, she knew it was. She had defeated two AIs out for her blood, and danced through test chambers that had taken so many lives before her own.

But experiences like those never really leave you. While your body might walk away, your brain will never forget. It stores those moments in the dark corners of your mind, only to replay them back to you in the form of a dream. And somehow, those were even more terrifying.

She ran a shaky hand through her long, dark brown hair, hoping that the action would calm her somewhat. It didn’t. She was awake now, but she still felt like she was there.

Chell could feel the heat of a fiery pit slowly approaching, the cold grip of space, or the choking sensation that came with deadly neurotoxin. Sometimes in separate dreams, or if she was unlucky, all in the same night.

She felt sick.

“…I know you’re awake, so I’m not sure why you bother to simply sit in the dark like that.”

Chell nearly jumped out of her skin at this, falling off the bed in the process with a loud ‘thud.’

It was easy to forget that while GLaDOS’s chassis was contained in only one room, her voice was not. It could be everywhere and anywhere, and completely without warning. This wasn’t necessarily a bad thing-it was nice to have some company down here-, but Chell was still incredibly unsettled, and hearing a voice completely out of nowhere was enough to give her a fright.

“I’m surprised you’ve made it as a test subject with that kind of coordination, honestly.”

Of course. No conversation with GLaDOS was free of her trademarked sarcasm and rude remarks. They were toned down by a lot, but ever present. Chell supposed it was just a part of the AI, and the only bit that was going to change was the intention behind her words. At least now it was almost playful in nature.

Still, she wasn’t in the mood. For a moment, she considered flipping the bird to the ‘hidden’ camera that she knew was present in her room, but decided against it. Something like that was just asking to end up with a dead rat on her pillow as revenge.

So instead, she simply curled back into a tight ball, ignoring the core’s comments.

A few moments of silence passed, before the lights in her room slowly turned on. Not all at once- which was surprisingly considerate of the AI that Chell knew was responsible for this-, but rather it happened over the course of a couple minutes, allowing the human a few moments to adjust to the lighting.“…You’re really having some issues, aren’t you?”The voice that came this time wasn’t sarcastic or patronizing, even if it came from the exact same person. It was a bit quieter, almost thoughtful in tone. Chell had heard it from GLaDOS before, though it was far from something that she heard frequently. More of a ‘once in a blue moon’ sort of thing.“I’ve been observing you for a while now, and I’ve made up my mind. This will not get better with time. At least, not quickly enough. My guess would be if you continue to put up with these dreams and make no changes to your current behavior, they should calm down in about sixty years, when your brain and memory should have deteriorated enough for the dreams to be more palatable.”Chell frowned, looking up at the camera with a slight glare. She didn’t want to hear this.“Don’t give me that face, I haven’t finished talking. What my point was going to be is this: I think I can help you.”That earned a shift in expression. Chell didn’t look too hopeful, wary of whatever this ‘help’ was. If it involved any kind of ‘experimental dream gas’ she didn’t want any part in it. She’d rather suffer through the nightmares than risk becoming victim to Aperture’s untested, possibly dangerous ‘cures.’ Though, she couldn’t deny that her scowl faltered. GLaDOS had helped her before, there was a chance that she could do the same now.“You humans have tried hundred of different ways of getting yourselves to fall asleep, and that includes avoiding nightmares. There are plenty of places we could start. However I think the best place to begin is with how to treat small children. I’m sure that will suit you fine.”There was the sarcasm again. Chell couldn’t even bring herself to bother with an eyeroll in response. She didn’t care. She just wanted a night of restful sleep for once. She didn’t even need a wonderful dream, she just wanted something at least a little better than a nightmare. No dream at all would be preferred, if she was honest with herself. And while GLaDOS’s comment was obviously a ‘not-so-subtle’ jab, the AI did appear to be at least mostly serious.So, Chell shrugged, and gave a small nod. She’d bite. So long as it wouldn’t cause her physical harm, she was interested to see what the core had in mind.“Lie back down your bed and get comfortable. Find a murder weapon to snuggle, whatever makes you feel most at home and relaxed.”Chell did as she was asked- sans the murder weapon part-, though reluctantly. Lying in a bed was something that had become far from relaxing, even being downright anxiety inducing before she so much as closed her eyes.Still, she wasn’t about to throw a fit and refuse, lest GLaDOS take this whole ‘treating her like a child’ thing any further. She did not want the core’s tone to get patronizing, which was a direction that it could go very fast, if she acted up.The lights around her started to dim slowly, causing Chell to tense up even more, trying to swallow the lump that was forming in her throat.“…Calm down. You aren’t ever going to be able to sleep if you can’t relax.”Chell frowned, trying to silently convey that it wasn’t that easy. Perhaps the core didn’t understand how this felt, but if it was as easy as simply telling herself to feel relaxed, she wouldn’t have this problem in the first place. Still, she tried once more. A couple deep breaths, slow and controlled in a vain attempt to focus on those instead. They only helped a little, but a little was better than nothing.“That’s better. Simply remain in place and continue to relax while I try something.”There was a sound like someone clearing their voice that came over the speakers after this sentence, though Chell knew it was completely unnecessary for the AI. Perhaps it was a habit the core had picked up, or perhaps she was simply being over dramatic as usual. That much about the core was predictable.What GLaDOS did next however, was far, far from anything Chell could’ve predicted. A soft hum emitted from the speakers. The sound was soft and quiet, yet still loud enough to be distinctly heard, and not mistaken for the gentle ‘whirr’ that the facility gave off. Slowly, that hum raised in pitch, though still below normal speaking volume. Then, it shifted. To a softly sung melody.Chell was stunned. The voice was undoubtedly GLaDOS’s- though she couldn’t make out the words, quickly identifying them as a different language. She had heard the turrets sing to her, and that had been shocking enough. But GLaDOS?The Queen of Aperture, Chell’s former tormenter turned companion, was singing to her.She knew that her face likely looked stupid, with an expression of surprise gracing her features. Yet, the core didn’t stop to tease her about it, and continued her song.It took a few moments, but eventually, the shock wore off, and Chell found herself properly listening to the robot’s voice. The sound was smooth, and almost silky in tone. It was soft and gentle, which was something that Chell would never have thought to be possible of the AI. Above all else though, it was beautiful. Each note held on for just the right about of time, each lyric sung at the perfect pitch.Caroline must’ve been an opera singer before her career in science, as Chell knew there wasn’t the slightest chance that the men creating GLaDOS would’ve been able to program something like this.These thoughts raced through Chell’s head at first, still stunned by the situation as a whole. Yet slowly, her mind became less and less frantic. It calmed down, and she found herself being lulled into a state of relaxation. There was no funny smelling gas being pumped into the room, no needles being jabbed into her skin to fill her with some sleeping drug, nothing of the sort. The only thing that changed was the presence of GLaDOS’s voice. And it was astonishing to the human just how intoxicating the sound was.Before she knew it, she could feel her eyelids drooping, despite her best attempts to keep them open. She was fighting a losing battle.Chell would no doubt be asleep within the next minute or so, yet for the first time, she wasn’t afraid of that thought. She was… comfortable. Relaxed. Happy.To her surprise, when her eyes finally did close and her brain slipped into the world of dreams, they were no longer frightening and cruel, but blissful and simple. They seemed more like sensations than dreams, as she could almost swear she felt the warm sun on her face, and feel a gentle breeze in the air. All accompanied by a sweet, distant sound.And, though the girl would never know this, GLaDOS kept an eye on her for the rest of the night. The other cameras were ignored in favor of only one, making sure that her human’s rest remained peaceful and undisturbed. Somehow, the core had the feeling that this would soon become a daily occurrence, and she didn’t mind in the slightest.

#chell #glados #chelldos #kinda #fluff #portal #portal 2

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