White Blue Silver Strokes
What was he to do? Poor ol' Wheatley wasn't designed to be a problem solver, or at least not when he was under the constraints of being a core. Personally, he was under an internal dilemma. And maybe, and by maybe he meant most likely, she had noticed.
The passing events of his progressing life had been a dull blur, and then in the next moment a vibrant rush, and then a painfully throb that had left the pit of his chest burning and raw. He really didn't understand how quickly things became this way. Once a miserable ball floating in space, now 240 pounds of human body sprawled comfortably atop a swing cot. Not a care in the world. Oh, well never mind. There was a care; one really big one. The more he actually thought, the more it eroded his other second by second ramblings.
The slightly creaking chains holding the cot smooth sweeps above the floor clicked, and clinked. Weight shifted as he turned up slightly to make more room for her. He sighed deeply and tried to ignore the dryness in his mouth. That always annoyed him. It was an unconventional notification, if you asked him, from his body that he needed to be watered. He had first been appalled. Not only did a human need to consume that deadly stuff (he was quite new mind you), but ironically humans would die without it. Including him since that was exactly what he was.
But, he had to remind himself. He no longer had electrical circuits, or a battery, or other parts that would set on fire from water induced sparks.
He sighed again with conversation itching at the back of his throat. She settled in more crossing her legs leisurely causing the cot to sway again. Old patchy ceiling panels and beams groaned a woody metal groan in protest. With his cheek now propped against her thigh he gives her a pouting look. She's got poppy bread in her mouth and in her hands, and he wants some.
"No," she mumbles with her eyes, mouth pressed around bread in a tight line. She places a small, worn, hatch box at her other side. She takes generous pieces of her home made treat from a tin tray.
He pouts more. "You never share with me. You know that? Is it, is it because you're still mad bout last time? Listen I didn't mean to well, you know what happened. You should label things. Yeah, that would help loads! Then I'd know what to eat. What not to eat. What's yours? What's not mine? Come on, love, you can't hold a grudge over lost snacks. You really ought to warn me, which you know, brings me back to the labels and all. I can read you kn—"
She flicks the side of his skull with her middle finger (Owie!), rolls her eyes, and stuffs a piece in his mouth. Her eyebrows twitch up above her magnetic grey eyes. "Shut up. Happy now?" they say.
He chews it quite happily as it relieves some of the dry bitterness in his mouth. He liked her poppy bread. All light, and salty, and crisp. Really, he liked anything that tasted good. For the most part it was a good sense.
"Mm, oh okay. Ah, Thanks..." He said muffled through his smacking.
She shook her head, sat the tray under the off-white light of the side table night lamp, and picked up the box again.
This little thing that they did, mostly she, was some sort of a ritual. Three long, break back, hard work years had past since their run away. Cold and vibrating with artificial eccentrics, the Aperture catwalks were left far far behind. Wheatley winced. He could feel Her seething when he first ran to the horizon of day light.
He still hears Her sometimes whether in his dreams or when he's been thinking too hard.
"Your idiotic little opinion is invalid...because I hate you."
He mentally shivered and attempted to refocus his waning attention back on Chell's box. That's right. He settled again. "Got your, uh, box of painting colors again. White today, right?"
She nodded opening the box, and shifted through the clear glass-ish vials inside.
Chell wasn't particularly a feminine person. She didn't do feminine things because she just didn't have the time, or interest. He noticed that, never directly said anything about it, but it wasn't all that big of an issue. Though, after a long time of her own mental and physical reassurance, she started small little womanly habits. He didn't understand, and simply guessed on observation (and more rambling) that there were things that female humans did. They didn't require too much of an explanation. Colouring nails was one of them. She did it just because, or maybe it was one of the ways she made herself a little more… normal.
She opened one carefully spreading her palms and fingers out on her other thigh. The colour was white. A shiny white like a shiny white turret. White like panel walls, or Aperture lab coats. He couldn't think of anything else that related to the color. It was the same for the other two polishes that she stored in her modest box. It was a precise pattern. A good one, too. He could tell what day and month it was just by what colour she sat down and used.
You start with blue. Bright like repulsion gel, but it won't flee from her human skeleton. The blue was much lighter, too. Light like sea water lapping at the edges of sand that kiss the corners of the miles upon miles of wheat fields.
Maybe blue like his eyes, but his blue was much much brighter, no unnatural because he was unnatural. He was fine with that more or less. But, it bothered him because almost everything reminded him that he was some unnatural thing from a more than unnatural place with unnatural stories to tell. Science. Heh, that was also ironic.
Next, next next was, ah, silver. Silver like metal. Always metal, and wires, and weapons, and doors, and dark low lit places. The colour Chell had, but wasn't using, was softer like powdered iron and ground rock. Maybe sea pebbles? Those were fun to toss and look at for little imprints of passed little creatures.
Which brought him back to white like shiny sugar voiced deadly, shooting turrets.
White...
...
He remembered and it pained him. Testing was white. Euphoria was white. Conversion gel was white. And if you stared long enough, optic wide open, sometimes the moon looked white.
His mouth went dry again. The drifting smell of polish filled his nostrils. "Kinda smells like that stingy fluid you applied to some of my flesh wounds,"
Chell hummed half way done with one hand. "Hmm?"
She had scars, but he had earned a few himself. Falling out of twenty foot trees, getting caught in jagged tide, and well just being unavoidably clumsy as he worked.
"Ah, what's it called? Stung like bloody hell whatever it was. Looked like water, but it wasn't. Don't actually see how it could have helped. Really, felt like it just made things worse. But, it's got a pungent little smell just like that there," he tilted his chin. One eye closed against the little bit of fat in her leg.
He continued to watch her in burning silence. The polish fumes settled until it was barely noticeable. Chell finished with long clean, purposeful white strokes, twisted back on the brush cap, and blew lightly on her finger nails to make sure they were dry. She hated it when they smudged.
She gave him a lopsided smile and they sat and stared for several moments. The echo of dripping water from the bathroom filed the silence. Her brows knitted thoughtfully and she tapped his pointed nose with the pad of her index finger. This was the most quiet he has ever been.
He sneezed. She smiled a little wider.
He smiled half back letting his eye lids droop. Things went by in white blue silver strokes blurred together and made him remember things he would rather forget.