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silverstreams · 11 years ago

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Short fic for Cakeybots and Emberwhite beneath the cut.

(By the way, this is a genderbent Doug Rattmann and Cubedroid fic.)

Squeak squeak.

Dorothy twisted the dull silver knob. Water roared to life in the tubes, and a few moments later water plopped into the bed of the tub. Flakes of rust tinged the water, and Dorothy only frowned before increasing the water pressure. She dipped a hand into the cool water, dragging her fingertips along the surface then letting the bits of rust swirl about.

She waited until the water ran clear before pressing down on the plug. It roared as it splattered against the hard plastic—at first sounding like a hose hitting concrete, then shifting into a noise like a waterfall crashing into a river below.

Dorothy pushed her palm flat against the ridged bottom, just listening and feeling the water level rise up her arm. Cube had set off a few minutes ago in search of a towel. Despite raiding the employee shower area, they'd yet to find one.

Finding this place had been a stroke of luck. This place was tucked away with the slowly crumbling ruins of what had been an employee amenities area—and in the back, they'd even found what appeared to be a more luxurious bathroom suite.

Rust and time had made the shower heads crusted-over and unusable, but back here water actually ran from the faucet of the bathtub. It was rusty and it was cold, but it was running water.

When the water hit an acceptable height, Dorothy twisted the knob. The water cut off with one final plop. She tugged at her clothes, glad to peel off her grimy shirt and bra. The pants and underwear came off a moment later, joining the undignified heap of clothing on the floor.

She slipped her hands along the slick white sides of the tub. The smooth and undisturbed surface mirrored back Dorothy's image, rippling slightly as she edged her way in. Water lapped at the tub's sides, threatening to spill out over the edge and onto the tiled flooring.

Aaaahhh.

A wave of goosebumps washed across her skin at the cool water, but she couldn't help but give a sigh of relief. Her arms dipped beneath the surface to join her body. Dorothy leaned her head against the back of her head and closed her eyes.

As the cool water sloshed and stilled, she couldn't help but picture the outside world. She could easily imagine herself at a public pool on a scorching summer day. The only thing missing was, well, the warmth of the sun overhead.

Dorothy couldn't remember the last time she'd properly bathed.

Swirls of grime floated into the clean bathwater with each movement, but she didn't care. Instead Dorothy gave a relieved sigh and slid further into the tub until her chin touched the surface. Her neck craned uncomfortably against the tub's edge. The tips of her hair floated in the water beside her.

She scooted forward and leaned her head back, ears dipping underwater. Water flooded in, immediately cutting off noise from the outside world.

Each breath seemed amplified beneath the surface, accented even more by the steady and pulsing thrum of her heartbeat. Each inhale sounded like a distant plane's takeoff. Her stomach dipped in and out of the water with each breath, but she barely noticed.

She stretched forward and let her spine touch the bed of the tub, knees jutting out into the chilly air. And yet Dorothy couldn't remember the last time she'd ever felt her muscles so fully relax within the facility—this bath calmed her more than a steaming cup of tea.

A warm hand patted her knee, and Dorothy's eyes snapped open. Cube sat on a stool next to the bath tub and gave a slight smile. She didn't move, instead letting her dark hair swirl around her head.

The robot's stool skidded against the tile as he shifted it closer to her. Dorothy rolled her eyes back to look at him, now positioned directly behind her. She pressed a palm against the floor of the tub and propped herself back up, water sliding and dripping down her body.

"Found one," Cube said. He pointed over at a flat pancake of a towel folded beside him.

Dorothy gave a grateful nod, then shifted to slip back to her underwater silence.

"Hey, wait—" said the Cube. He reached out a hand, then drew it back.

Droplets rolled off of her face and plinked into the water. She turned, raising her eyebrows in a silent question.

"Sorry," he said, giving a small laugh. "I know water won't hurt me, but it's still hard to not be scared of it."

Though most of the bots at Aperture were waterproof (including Cube), they all shared the same fear of water. With one loose panel, his wires would be exposed—and an accidental splash of water would fry his systems, leaving him a useless hunk of metal.

He curled his fingers into his palm, then stretched his hand out again.

"Here, try setting your head on the tub's edge," he said.

Dorothy regarded him with a quiet and curious look, then leaned her neck against the tub.

"When's the last time you combed your hair?"

Dorothy didn't respond, instead letting her arms slide back into the water.

She felt the Cube's hands slip behind her neck—still avoiding the water's surface—and then gather up her damp hair. He pulled it out of the water and draped it over the edge, letting droplets of water snake down and splash against the floor.

Her hair was matted and tangled beyond belief, like an unraveled ball of yarn that had been hastily re-wound. Had she been able to find some scissors, she would have hacked off the greasy, impossible mess ages ago.

Cube gave her gathered hair a squeeze, wringing out stray water. He fanned out her hair and the began to comb his fingers through it. Dorothy closed her eyes again let her shoulders relax. He began at the roots and edged his way down, gently pulling at some of the larger knots.

His fingers stuck, but instead of pulling he reached down and pulled out a brush.

He held her damp hair with one hand, gently working at the tangled clumps. With more gentleness and carefulness than a mother he brushed at the knots, working and pulling and combing until her messy mop of hair unraveled itself.

Eventually her black hair cascaded outside of the white tub, long and smooth and straight. As she reached back to run a dripping hand through her hair, she couldn't help but notice that it was longer than she remembered.

She clamped her hands around the edge of the tub and moving to rise out of it. Chills shot through her body, and she considered lowering herself back into the tub.

Cube stretched out a hand for her to grab as she stepped out of the tub. He couldn't have her slip and fall and hit her head, after all. Not after all they'd been through.

Dorothy stood there for a moment, hunched and shivering. But Cube had already grabbed her towel, and threw it open and held it out for her.

She wrapped it tight around her shoulders and slipped closer to him. The threadbare towel provided little warmth against the constant chill of Aperture, and was far too short for her. Not to mention it was just a cheap, plain towel. The company couldn't be bothered to buy luxurious ones, after all.

Cube wrapped his arms around Dorothy in a tight hug and rested his chin on her head. She leaned into his welcome warmth, and he stretched a hand back to absently comb through her damp, tangle-free hair.

And for a moment, she felt human again— warm and clean and happier than she'd been in a long time.

"Thank you," she murmured.

#cubemann #stupid babies #cakeybots #emberwhite #ss writes

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silverstreams · 11 years ago

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This is a small gift for Cakeybots to repay her for this beautiful piece of art. This story goes alongside it :3

(Musical inspiration)

She knew without looking that he was beside her.

Tiles shift beneath her—morphing into a pristine patchwork of science, panels flipping and cascading and reshaping to form a puzzle she can never quite solve.

But he gradual shift from decrepit, disintegrating structures to clean, perfect angles left Dorothy Rattmann with no doubt that she had ventured into Her domain.

She tore around a corner, legs pumping beneath her as she zigzagged across the Enrichment Center in search of an exit. She'd been getting close for a long time now. Lights dashed and flickered above her, creating such a haze of lights and shifting walls that she didn't even know if she was going the right way. Insistent warning tones blare across the facility's speakers—not for GLaDOS's sake so much as to provide a distraction.

Dorothy could barely think on her own, much less with alarm bells screaming at her.

But with every step and every leap she knew her companion moved by her side. He shouted encouragement and yelled directions, but as they flip the final corner Dorothy felt cold hands connect with her back and shove her into a run.

He yelled out once—telling her to run, to GO, to not worry about leaving him behind because he was never destined to leave this place anyways.

And even though her chest heaved and her sides spiked with pain and spots flickered across her vision, Dorothy kept running. Her white coat curled around her as she threw open the final door.

Hot sunlight flooded in.

Dorothy gave a heavy, relieved sigh as she slipped into the beautiful and glowing world outside. But as her feet shifted from concrete to crumbling dirt, Dorothy turned on her heels to stare back into Aperture.

He wasn't beside her.

A sickening unease gripped her, and Dorothy clenched her hands together and wrung them back and forth. She peered back through the dim corridors. A hand raised to her brow, she squinted. A soft pink glow radiated from the close end of the hallway, growing increasingly closer and brighter as he sprinted toward her.

He waved his arms, thrashing and shouting and screaming for her to get out and get away.

But before he passed into the sunlight, a claw jutted out from the wall. Strong metal pinchers clamped around his waist and yanked him like a ragdoll. The Cube gave a pained cry—surprisingly scared and fearful as the claw pulled. He reached out to Dorothy, arm stretching and eyes pleading.

But in her mind, she heard his clear voice.

"Go."

Dorothy Rattmann gave a ragged inhale, snapping out of her nightmare. She sucked in air in panicked gulps, as if no matter how hard she tried she felt like she couldn't breathe.

Red glowing numbers on her alarm clock suggest a ridiculous hour in the morning, and darkness enveloped her bedroom. It took her a moment to remember that this room wasn't Aperture. It was her own place—a tiny little house with beautiful windows overlooking a picture-worthy landscape.

Her fingertips stretched out, only meeting a thick, weighted comforter.

After years of going without beds, even a simple blanket felt strange and foreign.

She shoved away blankets and jerked. She searched the pitch-black room for a familiar pink glow, struggling to find light where none existed.

And like every other awakening, Dorothy remembered she was alone.

Her faithful companion wasn't here, and would never be.

She gave a heaving shudder, leaning over and flipping on her bedside lamp. The switch gave an audible click, and a warm yellow flooded her plain and undecorated bedroom.

Dorothy pressed her palms into her forehead, squeezing her eyes shut for a brief moment. She wanted to just rip out her hair—tear away the memories, the pain—to get it out of there. But instead she clutched at blankets, pulling close their warmth and false comfort.

The lamp cast a pill-bottle shaped shadow across her end table, and with one look the memories flooded back.

Sanitary paper crinkled beneath her as she waited in the doctor's office.

Science had changed.

In the years of her absence—both in stasis and wandering the facility—the world found itself at war with the Combine. The subsequent apocalypse and war plummeted the world into decay, but upon their defeat the world carefully picked up its shattered pieces and built from there.

The world rebuilt.

Cities sprung up; science and medicine leaped forward with unprecedented progress.

Among the first things developed, though, was a pill.

Through many brain-scans and help from advanced computing systems, this pill became the most effective method of helping both ordinary citizens and soldiers alike come to terms with the horrors of the war they'd faced.

Certain points in their life could be pinpointed—and with one carefully-engineered pill, their memories from before that set point would disappear. Knowledge gained through experience remained, of course—but individual memories and moments vanished.

Dorothy cycled through doctors like a traffic light through colors—constantly shifting between the same doctors, one after another.

Eventually they came to the consensus that Dorothy be prescribed this pill for the good of her state of mind.

They scanned through her past and chose a more recent date—a time after she'd already gone through months of therapy, and after she'd already settled into her house. They might as well put aside and forget all of that fear and confusion of her abrupt adjustment to a new world.

She chose a specific date.

More brain-scans and medical procedures later, enough background information existed to create a pill specialized to her. All it would take was one dose, and her memories before that date would vanish.

She would be left with a vague sense of her past—a feeling like recalling a dream from days before, or waking up from suspension after an extended period of time.

She hadn't wanted to do it.

As the doctor handed her a clipboard to sign, she simply stared at the flat words on the page. Forgetting what happened in Aperture would be a godsend—but Dorothy wasn't sure if she could forget all of it. The cube's face flashed in her mind, along with fleeting memories of the two of them, together—each one the other's support as they twisted their way through the facility.

"Every part?" she said. Dorothy swallowed the lump in her throat.

"All of it."

"Even the happy things?"

"I'm sorry," said the doctor, giving a small, sullen nod. She gave the frail woman a comforting pat on the shoulder. "Science has advanced, but we still haven't figured out how to separate out memories."

Dorothy pulled an arm around her front and wrapped it around her side.

"You don't have to make this decision now," she said. "It's an extremely personal choice, and one you might not be ready to make for a long time. But we can get it ready, just in case it becomes too much."

Dorothy glanced down, shifting and rubbing her arms absently.

"It's hard, I know," said the doctor. "But think of it as a fresh start—a chance to rediscover life for the beautiful thing it is."

Dorothy rolled the bottle of pills in her hand.

She couldn't take it anymore.

The haunting memories, the vivid hallucinations—every night she went to bed terrified of what she might dream, and every night she woke up screaming or crying out in terror. She had seen countless terrors in Aperture—but she wasn't quite sure if she could let go of everything.The Cube meant so much to her—and she didn't want to forget him and the sacrifice he'd made to get her out of there alive.

But these nightmares, these memories—she could barely live with herself. She couldn't take it anymore.

With a tiny squeak Dorothy twisted the yellow cap and rolled a dual-colored pill into the palm of her hand. Her head tipped back, and she pulled over a glass of stagnant water and downed the pill in one swallow.

There. Done.

Of course, she felt no different. Not immediately.

Drowsiness slipped back in, and Dorothy slipped back beneath her heavy blankets. She pulled an extra pillow close and curled her body around it, pressing her cheek into plush surface as if it were her cube.

And as she drifted off, she imagined hearing that lulling hum of dormant machinery that had given her comfort so many times before at Aperture.

She buried her face in the far-too-soft pillow, blinking back tears.

Dawn crept into her room, subtle and gentle like an undisturbed lake.

Soft hints of blues and greens streamed in, and Dorothy woke with a slight shifting of blankets. Years of living in Aperture—under artificial, relentless lighting— rendered her sensitive to the slightest changes in daylight. As soon as dawn broke, she awoke.

Her world moved with a muted sort of silence as she pushed away her blankets and rose from the warmth her bed. Cool and crisp air swirled around her, and as she rubbed at her shoulders she couldn't help but feel as though it reminded her of something—a place she'd visited long ago, perhaps.

Today, Dorothy felt different.

The feeling ebbed at her as she squeaked open the closet doors.

Perhaps it was the calm, sleepiness of morning; perhaps it was the strange, at-peace feeling emanating from her heart. She hadn't felt this relaxed or this relieved in a long time.

She pulled out a clean white blouse, lying it out on her bed then turning back. Her fingers brushed past the fabric of pants, but instead Dorothy pulled out a brown skirt.

She never wore it—in fact, she couldn't remember the last time she'd worn something to simply feel pretty and feminine.

But today, she would wear a skirt.

Dorothy slipped out of her pajamas. She tugged on her clothes, twisting the skirt's waist and then rolling up her blouse sleeves. Simple socks slid on easily, followed by plain black shoes. Her movements had a certain grace to them as she slipped into the main area of her home.

The coffee maker sputtered to life, gently hissing as it automatically began the day's brew. Dorothy reached up on her tiptoes to retrieve a light-colored mug from a half-empty cabinet.

She poured herself a cup of the dark, steaming liquid and slipped her palm through the handle and gave a hesitant half-smile. The largest window in her house stretched above her kitchen table, bathing it in light.

She cupped her hands around her mug, savoring the warmth. It was calming and almost pleasant in a way, like holding the hand of someone she loved.

Not that she had anyone like that—no, the heat of this mug was enough comfort.

She shifted to face the window, crossing her legs and gingerly resting her wrist on the table. The sun crossed the horizon, shifting the light from a dull glow to bright beams that lit up the beautiful field just beyond the glass of her window.

This view never failed to strike her with a mystical sense as awe. Looking out, she felt as if she were gazing into a lush painting rather than nature.

Painting.

Dorothy rested a hand beneath her chin as she stared out at the muted colors of dawn.

She'd never tried painting before. But staring out at the breathtaking landscape, that beautiful sunrise, and she couldn't help but feel as though simply looking wasn't enough. She needed a brush in her hands; she needed to try to capture this image, this feeling, even if she didn't quite know how.

Perhaps she'd go to the store later and buy herself some brushes. Today was a new day, after all— a new beginning, a restart more than anything else.

She paused, digging out a crumpled note she'd found tucked neatly beneath her empty pill bottle. Perhaps she'd scrawled it in the middle of the night; perhaps it was some phrase pulled from a nightmare.

She smoothed it out with the side of her hand, reading the smooth letters.

He loved you. The sun rose higher and higher, drenching the land in vibrant shades of gold and blue.

A vague sense of melancholy gripped her as she gazed out at the sunrise—not from the sun itself, but from the soft shades of pink stained across the sky.

#ss writes #cakeybots #cubemann #it is 4am I hope you like this #emberwhite

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