Hi! It's me.
But this time I have something other than the commentary I thought up on the way to a school field trip.
I've been trying to write a good Chelley (Wheatley/Chell) fanfic, but it just hasn't come to me. I've also been trying to get a good Wheatley backstory going. Also: very sorry to Epic Ninja Chan- I've put Spider on a hiatus for a while, until I finish with My Immortal. To all my lovely readers of Spider, I apologize thouroughly- if you've been following me, you'll know I was working on a commentary of the infamous fic My Immortal, and I have trouble working on more than one fic at a time. Especially since I've been hitting the books for my Chinese, since that's one of the few languages that I can't get.
So, I hope you like it!
Lilac Ravenclaw proudly presents:
Wheatley's story
Wheatley was an average man (well, really the average man doesn't like science as much as he does, but that doesn't matter). He had a home (really, it was a little flat [he'd gotten odd looks from his neighbors, he hadn't told them he was British in origin yet], but it was nice and homey, so he called it a home, and it fit with the place better than flat), and he had a pet (the cat's name was Buckwheat, inspired by Wheatley's own name [it was a lovely name, he thought, even though the lovely old couple that invited him over for tea and coffee every week {his neighbors, you see- the family was overseas back in Britain} had sniggered the first time they'd heard it] and his lovely sandy pelt [Wheatley was never a fan of sand, it got all over, even in his mouth, which was quite a vulgar taste, but Buckwheat seemed to like his pelt, so it was alright with Wheatley] which Wheatley liked to pet as it was very soft) and a nice car (the car was a hand-me-down of sorts [not like you could hand down a car, but Wheatley's cousins were the sort to keep a car when it ran nicely and modify it to run even better] but it ran quite well, and it was in almost mint condition [even better, actually- the original model couldn't even DREAM of some of the fixtures his cousins had spruced the Cooper with] and he liked its coziness, thank you very much) and a good job (though his boss was slightly a wackjob [ever heard of Cave Johnson? Yes, that's the one, with the secretary as his wife] and the job was always a bit odd [the Portal testing sometimes meshed with the military shower curtains {and boy, was it odd when THAT happened} and his boss had the oddest "genius ideas"] but he was a good old-fashioned scientist and Wheatley appreciated that [and Wheatley's wallet appreciated the military funding] though the job was weird). But the one thing Wheatley was missing (and Buckwheat, too, but Wheatley will tell you that Buckwheat is just fine with Wheatley's bachelorness [though if Buckwheat could talk, he'd say that "bachelorness" wasn't a real word, and no, he was not fine with it one bit] thank you very much) was a proper girlfriend (or a wife, Wheatley wasn't very picky about terminology [though he certainly didn't want to rush it, no siree], but a female companion [and no, he certainly DOES NOT appreciate that yell in the background that maybe he's looking in the wrong gender, he IS straight, thank you VERY much] nonetheless and Buckwheat very much liked when the old lady next door came over to visit with the old man and she gave him treats Wheatley had in the cabinent just for her, but honestly Buckwheat would have liked his own lady that was a companion for Wheatley [the man got awfully lonely sometimes and Buckwheat's fur would only be smooth for so long] because his person deserved a mate) and while he wasn't looking for one (his job was very demanding, as he was part of the Portal workforce) he certainly did want a girlfriend.
So Wheatley set out one day (it was a very odd day, as Buckwheat had already demonstrated by jumping off the bed and racing to the door as if someone had shot a gun [and Buckwheat did NOT like the outside, thank you very much {Wheatley surmised that his other owners, as Wheatley had adopted the then shivering cat, had put him outside and forgotten about him} but today he would try for the nice old lady, since he'd heard that she wasn't feeling well {even though Wheatley had said it was a cold, the cat was very protective of his only female} and he was determined to make her better] inside the house) and to his surprise, the hooligan who rented out the flat (Wheatley was still getting used to the American terms for everything [in the beggining he'd sworn a lot about the "bloody Yanks", but a pan to the head from his neighbor was enough to get him jumpstarted] and still used Queen's English for some things) had been kicked out by the landlord (Wheatley surmised that the scoundrel had been kicked out for not paying his rent on time [their landlord was very lax, allowing pets and taking late payments as long as he was notified ahead of time] and indeed, he had, as well as been arrested for disturbance of the peace in the wee hours of the morning [Wheatley's father was Irish] while Wheatley was sleeping) and a new face was collecting the paper. Her name was Chell, as the new doortag proudly pronounced (Wheatley found it odd that it wasn't MIchelle, or Shell [he'd had plenty of experiences with those types] but shrugged it off. It was none of his business, after all), and her deep blue cotton robe reminded Wheatley of the Portal tests (it was also his favorite color, too [the wispy blue portal was always his favorite, and he tended to grade higher if the tester finished with blue], but this Chell lady would have gotten orange for his answer if she'd turned around and asked him, because she would have looked much better in it) and he stopped to stare at the new tenant before he REALLY did have to go to work or he'd really be late (of course, Cave didn't really care whether they were late or not, just the amount of work they did nowadays [though Wheatley did see some late-to-work people in the testing chambers] with his being near death and all) and Caroline (Cave's secretary [now SHE was the warden of the whole place, though Cave and the military paid the bills] who was one of his few friends in the place) would be displeased with him. Though the lady couldn't be mad at a friend if she tried, her fury was unmet by even Wheatley's grandmother (who was Scottish and VERY scary when she was angry [which Wheatley thinks made his dad the God fearing man he was] but certainly not as bad as Caroline) when she met someone she didn't like or someone made her cross.
Rattmann, on the other hand, was extremely quiet (Wheatley wondered why this was [usually, he'd make an estimation based off of facts, but he didn't have too many regarding the elusive Rattmann] and vowed to investigate) and almost never spoke up, even when it was obvious that someone was trying to spur him on. Wheatley or Caroline usually stood up for him (the schizophrenic man usually got picked on more often than most of the staff [though Wheatley had noticed a decrease in staff other than the GLaDOS project and the Portal project {the Take a Wish foundation had been put down, and Wheatley remembers that day with particular fondness} and the teasing had almost come to a halting grind, as most of the Portal and GLaDOS staff respected Rattmann for his knowledge about science in general] and Wheatley was a bit frustrated at his co-workers for picking on the ragged man) even though Rattmann usually dismissed them afterwards.
He thought about Chell again (in his car on the way to work [she was a very pretty girl, and he swore he'd seen her face somewhere.] while driving the orange Cooper, and he sort of kind of wanted to get to know his new neighbor. The old tenant had been bloody unpleasant, and Wheatley was ecstatic when he'd found out that the bloody imbecile was gone [but mind you, he was not one to "pick up" girls, bloody yanks always creating vulgar slang] and he actually did have a chance to socialize with someone his age) and when he got to work, he noticed a car that was certainly not there the day before (and of course it could have been an inspector [which Cave had always warned them of-Wheatley didn't know why, he thought they were a respectable establishment other than the Take-A-Wish foundation], but Wheatley was fairly certain government officials did not drive anything close to what he saw parked next to his normal spot- a deep blue Dodge Charger) which he immediatley noticed was inhabited by his new next door neighbor.
I hope I captured that lovable Wheatley character. I haven't decided yet if Chell can speak or not, but I'm leaning towards CAN rather than CAN'T. I'm a big ol' sucker for this kind of romance (Neville x Luna, stuff like that). I honestly really like it, and Wheatley's a lovely character to write for, especially his off-topic stamerring (kind of like a combo of Neville and Luna, if you ask me) that I found really cute. I was honestly really sad when I had to defeat him and send him into space. While the creators of Portal at Valve did make the feeling real, I don't think that they should have sent him into SPACE of all places. Why couldn't we have brought him back?
Anyways, I was planning on putting this on the pivotal 'Bring Your Daughter to Work Day'. Then I would continue to when Wheatley turned into that lovable metal hull, and go on to when he betrayed Chell, and then actually bring him back from space.
I thought the idea was a nice touch to the Chelley plot.
So, um, read, and if you like, review! I mean, if you have some critisisms on how I structured the plot and the timeline and everything (I tried to make it as accurate as possible, while also expressing my theory on the woman behind Cave and Caroline), obviously those are welcome, but generally, no flamers, because I do have a softball bat, and I do know how to use it. As a weapon, of course.
Now I sound like Wheatley. Anyways, read and review! Anons are always welcome.
Signing off,
Lilac Ravenclaw
