The air still hung thick with apologies. I was starting to think it would never stop.

But I got used to the feel of artificial fingers holding mine. Holding me. Artificial arms wrapped around my midsection. Soft artificial kisses along my nose. My cheekbones. Every time I would blush and try to hold it back and end up grinding my teeth together and breathe out heavily through my nose. Especially in dark movie theaters when the lights were so low nobody could see my face but it still felt dangerously hot. But there was a hand draped over my shoulder, fingers lightly brushing across my shoulderblade, creeping up to my collarbone.

I didn't shudder at the touch anymore. I leaned into his artificial shoulder. He smelled like latex and lavender. And he was braver than I remembered. Something so big and terrible that his little brain couldn't understand it leached into his cerebrum and changed him. His stutter was all but gone. He was more conscious now, of when his words made me blush, what he could do to get his way. When I was around him I felt drained, slowly sickened, like I was being used up until I was empty and then I was going to be dropped. He was different. He was so subtly different I didn't notice until it was too late. Sometimes I forgot, and I'd say something, and he would take it in a way that was different, so wrong, different from the Wheatley I knew. But then he would make me laugh and the feeling would vanish.

It made me question if I ever really knew him in the first place. I was preaching and preaching the virtues of Old Wheatley, but that was the one that had grinned and me from the Chassis and used me up and toyed with me until I had nothing left for him but contempt and anger, blinding hot anger that burned in me for six years and ate me up from the inside out.

But lately I felt consumed anyway. It was an alternative to being numb and filing taxes, but what would happen when I had nothing left?

Last time that happened he tried to kill me.

If I lost my only friend right now I don't think he would even have to lift a finger to kill me.

The loneliness might do it for him.

But then he leaned into my ear, whispered something. Heat prickled down my spine as hot breath rushed past my cheek.

"Who's that?" He was hopelessly lost. I didn't lift my eyes from the big screen in front of me, feeling the prick of pain behind my eyelids as the light whittled its way into my nerves.

"He's been the antagonist for the last forty minutes of the movie." I rolled my eyes. My lips were dry. I was painfully aware of the hand lightly squeezing my shoulder.

"Why does his face look like that?"

"Were you paying attention at all?" I groaned.

"Yeah. That maid stole pearls. That old guy wears a cape. He's Manbat or something."

"That was twenty minutes ago." I deadpanned, staring at the mindless action spinning on-screen. Blood flashed before my eyes, spinning into a blur, mushed into a paste by his words that came rolling in one ear and out the other.

My eyes fluttered closed. My lips were dryer than before, and the hand on my shoulder felt painfully heavy and hot. I was stuck with the feeling of being uncomfortable in my own skin, horribly self-aware to the point where I wasn't real, floating up and away from my body. It was a coping mechanism, plain and simple. It was better than biting my lip until it bled or concentrating on the stones in the pathways or counting the graffiti on the walls. It was better to just pretend I wasn't real for a while. Maybe if I wished, hoped, pretended enough I could just dissipate through my skin, leaving behind the bag of bones and fat and skin that dragged me so far down. My weight limit was reached and surpassed and I couldn't use the Aerial Faithplate.

I wanted to fly with Long Fall Boots, soar through the air, feel the swish and sting of my hair on my cheeks, only to land a few seconds later. I wanted to have hollow bones and a hollow body and a hollow soul so the wind could whistle through my core and into my head and swallow me up.

And for a second, I was.

But then sticky latex fingers dragged along my shoulder, and we were leaving, and I was walking dead, eyes staring ahead, into blue oceans and orange sunsets that were contained in rifts and tears and holes in reality.

What if I just…

My fingers started to rip and tear at the air or the dusty street corner, the moonlight shimmering on the tips of my long nails, but I couldn't tear through space like I could Back There. My long nails scraped at my chest, my shoulders, my arms, raking lines of blood. I scrabbled at my chest, trying to pop my ribs open and let me out, but cool fingers wrapped themselves around mine and long arms cradled mine and there was hot breath whispering down my neck.

I let my breath howl out my lips and my nails rake down my chest, scrambling, ripping, trying to open up wide and leave behind everything I so, so hated. And the man (Robot? Monster? Like it mattered) I hated most was cradling me and rocking me with long fingers wrapped tight around my wrists to the point of breaking my bones and cooing in my ear like he knew me-

I knew how fake and insignificant words were now. But they still hurt worse than nails. I curled up and closed my eyes and soaked up the mean words and the hurt.

"Chell? Chell. Wake up. Get up. Please. Come on." He was just saying anything and nothing, I could disregard his words like I always did.

"Chell. Chell. Please. Are you okay? Say something." There was actual pain in his contrived voice. I realized I was shivering violently. I dragged my heavy body upwards, leaning on his offered shoulder as we tottered away. The air smelled of blood and latex. He didn't stop supporting me with an arm wrapped sturdily around my waist.

He tucked me into bed and placed a kiss on my forehead. It left a burning hot mark that lingered while I drifted to sleep.