Part 104. The Leak

Synopsis: The more Wheatley learns about Claptrap, the more hopelessly complicated he seems to be.

"Hey kiddo," Claptrap announced as they entered Carrie's room, "your dad's got a question for ya."

"Sure," Carrie said, looking up from her drawing, whatever it was. Wheatley couldn't quite see it from this angle. "What is it, Dad?"

"Um," Wheatley said, suddenly wondering if he should have gone to GLaDOS instead, "Claptrap said I should ask you what a virgin is."

Carrie turned around to stare at Claptrap, who confirmed Wheatley's suspicion when he started laughing. "You're the only one I know who can put my mom to shame," she said, shaking her core.

"And I take great pride in that fact!" Claptrap declared.

"But what's it mean, Carrie?" Wheatley asked, determined to keep this on track.

"It doesn't mean anything," Carrie said quite emphatically in Claptrap's direction, which got him going all over again. "It just means you're inexperienced at something."

"I'm inexperienced at um, at life?" Wheatley asked, no closer to get it than before. How could he possibly not be living properly?

"Yup," said Claptrap. "It's crazy how inexperienced you are."

"Are you sure it hasn't got another meaning?"

"Yes, it has another meaning," Carrie droned. "It means you've never interfaced before."

"But… but I have done it before!" Wheatley protested, now totally frustrated. "Claptrap – you were there! We were both –"

"Dad!" interjected Carrie. "Please! I do not wanna hear about that!"

"But – "

"This is way better than I expected it was gonna be," Claptrap said. Wheatley whirled on him, but before he could say anything, Carrie sighed.

"Look. The joke is that you don't get the joke. Okay?"

No, it was most certainly not okay. "You're so bloody annoying," Wheatley muttered in Claptrap's general direction, and the both of them laughed.

"Finally!" Claptrap announced. "I thought you'd never say it!"

Wheatley was in too much of a huff to care overmuch where Claptrap was going – or even that he left, for that matter – but after about twenty minutes of Carrie refusing to put up with his irritation he realised he did, in fact, sort of wish he knew where the other robot had gone. Hanging about by himself had never been much fun and it was even less so when he had as enthusiastic a friend as Claptrap. Now he knew what he was missing, and all that. Before he really had a chance to look, he was stopped by some bloke who apparently really wanted to talk to him, except he didn't really seem to know what he wanted to talk about. It took a lot longer than Wheatley would have liked to be rid of him, and he noted with some annoyance that Claptrap could now be literally anywhere.

Wheatley found him in GLaDOS's chamber after quite a bit of searching. Though, honestly, that was where he should have looked first. He was merrily banging away on the keyboard of a laptop that was in worse condition than Claptrap himself. The faded yellow case was quite liberally covered in cracks and, now that Wheatley was in a position to see, the screen had fared better but was not free of damage or smudges. A good portion of the keys seemed to be missing as well, though that didn't seem to be slowing Claptrap down a whit. He was typing a great deal of… oh, Wheatley couldn't drum up the enthusiasm to read right now. It was probably either his memoir or his fanfiction, not that there seemed to be a terrible amount of difference between the two, judging from the limited amount Claptrap had told him. The fact that Claptrap was wearing some sort of magnetic monocle and a French-styled hat that was a pink brighter than almost any other colour Wheatley had ever seen were both far more interesting than all those words.

"Why've you got that on?" Wheatley asked, moving 'round to where Claptrap would be able to see him gesturing at the piece of glass. "Have you difficulty um, is it hard to see?"

"Nah," said Claptrap. "Just makes me feel smarter. And more classy! It's all about the class, Wheats."

"And… and the hat? Is that classy as well?"

"Oh, yeah. All the best, classiest artists wear berets. It's, like, a rule."

Well, Wheatley wouldn't argue. His next plan of action was, in fact, bringing some of the old convincing skills to bear because he really wanted to give the hat a go. It would obviously look better on him. He was round, after all, and everyone knew hats belonged on things that were round. And he almost got on that, but then he chanced to look down. Oh, it was happening again. Some mysterious component of Claptrap's was letting its oil escape and he hadn't noticed. He couldn't keep from shuddering a little. How odd must it be, to have a whole lot of fluid running about inside you… "Um… Claptrap," Wheatley began, unsure of how to broach this, "you're um… well, have you… have you taken a look around lately?"

"Why? Is something exciting happening?" he asked, whipping off the monocle and looking pretty much everywhere except where he needed to be.

"Uh… no. No, not quite." How would he want to be told about this, if it were him… "Just… have a look uh, a look down at the floor, there, will you?"

"The floor? Why? There can't possibly be any – ohhhh." His chassis lowered and he dropped the monocle into his storage tray. "Well, this is embarrassing."

"What d'you do about it?" Wheatley asked quickly, not having meant to make him feel bad. Claptrap pushed down the lid of the laptop and put that away as well.

"I know a guy."

Claptrap sure had a lot of contacts for an annoying robot that nobody liked, Wheatley thought. Then again, the simplest way to get him to stop talking was to do as he asked, so perhaps that was all it was. "She can probably take care of it if you um, if you ask her."

"Wheatley," Claptrap said, somehow looking and sounding very serious despite wearing that hat, "I am not asking my girlfriend to inspect my undercarriage while she's working."

"Why not?"

All the answer he got was a stare he couldn't tell the meaning of. Finally Claptrap said, "I'm not going into that with you right now. I'm just gonna go ask my guy. I'll be back."

"Well, I can come along," Wheatley offered, wondering if this leaking thing was more serious than it appeared. Perhaps he was going to Pandora for it because it was something bad and he didn't want to worry GLaDOS! He should definitely have a friend along. Just in case.

"Uh…" Claptrap glanced up at GLaDOS, who had given no sign she was even listening. "I guess."

Ohhhhh yes. It was obviously worse than Claptrap was letting on. But he didn't need to worry! Because Wheatley had figured it out. "We're leaving, Gladys!" he called out.

"Mm," said GLaDOS.

"We're out, babe," Claptrap said, waving at her even though she wasn't looking.

"Goodbye."

Something about that struck Wheatley as quite odd, and he frowned at the floor until he'd got it hashed out. "Gladys," he said, tentatively, "did you… did you make 'babe' one of your keywords?"

"Mmhm," GLaDOS answered, still managing to sound like she wasn't listening.

"I better not think of more things to call her, then," said Claptrap, "or she'll have to make a list of words to get her to stop paying attention! Let's go, buddy."

"Wait," GLaDOS said suddenly, and they both turned around almost in unison. "You're both going to Pandora?"

"Uh…" How else would Wheatley get there? "Yeah?"

"Without saying goodbye to me?"

"Aren't you busy?" Claptrap asked. "I mean, I'm pretty sure the goal was not to bug you."

"Why would that bother me?" GLaDOS asked, sounding genuinely confused.

"Because whether or not something bugs you depends on the alignment of the planets, and I forgot to check my horoscope this morning!"

"But now we know," Wheatley said hurriedly before GLaDOS had a chance to set into an 'explanation' of why horoscopes were not science, "and um, and that's all that matters. In the end."

"Here," GLaDOS said, producing a lumpy-looking, round black object about half as big as Wheatley, "this will give you approximately the same outcome as your horoscope."

"What is it?" Claptrap asked, rolling it around. It had a little window on one part of it, but that was all. Otherwise, completely innocuous.

"Just state your question and then shake it."

"Okay! Mysterious ball, how is my day gonna go?"

After he'd shaken it, the window – why, it was showing a message! Wheatley squinted down in an attempt to read it.

Don't bet on it.

"Oh," Claptrap said dejectedly. "Really?"

No doubt about it, was revealed with another shake.

"Well," remarked Claptrap, "I guess that answers that!"

Wheatley regarded GLaDOS with suspicion. This had to be one of her pranks. "Just what is that thing?" he asked her.

"Magic," GLaDOS said serenely, which told Wheatley both nothing and that she totally had something nefarious – oh, that was a nice word. He was a little pleased with himself for remembering it. Hm. Wait. What had he been thinking about again? It probably didn't matter that much, anyway.

They both gave her a kiss goodbye, which seemed to satisfy her, and then they headed off again. Claptrap took the ball back out of storage, rolling it about in his hands again. "Oh, I know what this is," he said suddenly.

"You do?"

"Mmhm. It's called a Magic 8 Ball. It doesn't really answer questions. There's a little twenty-sided die inside and shaking it rolls the die. That's all it is."

Aha! So it had been one of GLaDOS's pranks! God, she was so needlessly cruel sometimes… "So you're not going to have a bad day, right?"

Claptrap laughed for rather a long time. "Good one," he said when he'd finished.

"I wasn't…" There just was no figuring him out, sometimes. "Um… Claptrap, would you mind if I had a go with your hat?"

"My hat?" Claptrap repeated, reaching up to touch it as though he'd forgotten it was there. "Oh, sure. Gonna have to take you down from there, though."

It would have to happen soon anyway, so Wheatley allowed Claptrap to remove him from the control arm. He held Wheatley out in front of him and put the beret on top of his chassis, and he actually seemed to be taking the time to make sure it looked nice instead of just tossing it on any old way. When he had finished and tucked Wheatley under his arm, as per usual, Wheatley asked, "So how do I look?"

"Like a very handsome volleyball," answered Claptrap, and Wheatley wouldn't have denied he was a bit pleased about that. Especially considering the last time his looks had come up.

"So, so it does look better on me," he thought aloud, totally by accident, but realising he'd made some sort of mistake when he heard the machinery inside of Claptrap's chassis hitch.

"Yeah," Claptrap said. "It sure does. Hey, should I have told her I'm leaking?"

"Uh…" Wheatley looked around behind them to see there was a bit of a smudgy trail in their wake.

"You're right, she's busy!" Claptrap announced in answer to his own question. "I'll tell her later."

GLaDOS would probably find that out long before they got back, but it was sort of too late to mention it.

"This guy you haven't met yet," Claptrap said once they'd got to Pandora. Though… Wheatley frowned.

"Where are we, exactly?"

"Oh, yeah." Claptrap rubbed one side of his optic. "We had to move. Sanctuary's kinda gone, so we took over this weirdo's bandit camp. My new place is wayyyy better than the old one, though. Other than the fact that people're still throwing garbage at me."

"Why are they doing that?" Wheatley asked, exasperated with this nonsense already.

"'cause it's fun to throw garbage at people?"

"Is it?"

"Well, yeah. It is pretty fun. You should try it sometime."

Wheatley decided not to question this strange, strange planet any further at the moment and set to getting a feel for these new surroundings. It was very much a dry-looking sort of place; even the little river near the Fast Travel Station seemed sort of reluctant and straggly. Down from there was something that looked like a massive grey garage door with… flamethrowers on the top of it? To their left was an actual garage, the car-fixing sort, and to their right was what seemed to be a stand that sold guns. Which was odd, considering you could just pick them up from anywhere. Claptrap moved down the slope towards the river, heading for something Wheatley couldn't see due to the buildings in the way. At the very bottom of the hill was another of the many shoddy constructions characteristic of Pandora, and Claptrap opened the metal door without preamble. Behind it was quite a large space filled with equipment that vaguely reminded Wheatley of Aperture, and the back wall for some reason had cages along it. Above that was a platform with yet more equipment atop it, led to by a rusted ladder. Up there was also a tall man with a t-shirt and thick gloves, his body covered over by a stained white smock that he appeared to be wearing body armour underneath. His hair was a gradient from white to black and a mask of some sort hid his mouth and nose. "Dr Zed!" Claptrap called up to him, complete with unnecessary curved hand in front of the mouth he didn't have. "I need something from ya!"

"Claptrap!" the man said in one of the more pleasant American accents, standing up straight. "Haven't seen you around here in a long time."

"I moved in with my girlfriend," Claptrap said. "She's wayyyy better company than you meatbags. Kidding! I'm kidding! Only sorta, though. She's pretty great."

Dr Zed climbed down the ladder and Claptrap met him about halfway across the room. "What can I do you for?" he asked, but while looking at Wheatley. "And what's this you got here?"

"This is my best friend, Wheatley," Claptrap said, putting him down on one of the scattered tables. "I bring him over here sometimes for a change of scenery. He's from another planet. A whole 'nother universe, maybe!"

"Pleasure to meet you," nodded Dr Zed, and honestly Wheatley was a little unseated by his easy geniality. It was not, however, a surprise that someone like this would not be terribly bothered by Claptrap barging into his house and demanding things of him.

"Dr Zed, I think I've got a cracked gasket," Claptrap said. "I know you're more of a human surgeon, but it shouldn't be that hard. Just look for the thing that's dripping and slap some duct tape on it!"

"We can do a little better than duct tape," Dr Zed told him. "Gimme a minute. I should have some gaskets around somewhere."

"Really?" asked Claptrap, hoisting himself onto one of the tables. He promptly flipped it and himself over and Wheatley tried not to laugh at the sight of him shoving the table off his chassis as he looked, bewildered, at the assortment of books and papers he'd flung all over the place. "What were you usin' them for?"

"Oh, you know," Dr Zed answered, seemingly having not noticed the very loud banging produced by a robot and a table hitting the floor. Claptrap's first attempt to right it saw him only flipping it over a second time, which was even more difficult to avoid laughing at. "Always lookin' for new ways to solve old problems."

Claptrap folded his arms up thoughtfully and regarded the mess. "Did it work?"

"Who knows?" Dr Zed turned around and immediately leaned down to right the table. "None of 'em ever came back so's I could ask." He tapped a hand on the middle of the table. "Bring yourself right up here and we'll take a look."

"Uh… sure," Claptrap said, apparently deciding against mentioning he'd already tried that. It seemed the centre of the table was more forgiving of his weight, though, because this time everything stayed put. He laid down on his back and tilted his wheel to the right, and after Dr Zed produced a very small flashlight he leaned over and directed the beam into the dark innards of Claptrap's chassis. With the human in the way, Wheatley couldn't see very much. Then again, perhaps he shouldn't actually be looking. It sort of seemed as though that were a rude thing to do. He honestly had no idea.

"It is a mess in here," Dr Zed remarked after a minute. "How long you been leakin' for?"

"I have no idea," Claptrap admitted. "I would not be surprised if I was runnin' on empty, though."

"Should be an easy enough fix." He put the light in between his teeth and both of his hands disappeared into Claptrap's undercarriage, Dr Zed straining to see whatever it was he was doing in there. Whatever it was seemed to be markedly unpleasant, because Claptrap suddenly shouted, "Yow!" and smacked Dr Zed in the side of the face with his wheel. "Watch it! I need those plugged in there, y'know!"

"Sorry," Dr Zed mumbled around the light as he leaned around the now un-tilted wheel. "There ain't a lot of space in here."

"Tell me about it. No upgrades for me! Though Hyperion was pretty clear that I didn't qualify for any…"

Finally Dr Zed stood up straight and put the light into a back pocket. "There you go," he said. "That should hold it. Now, I ain't no robot expert but you might wanna look into finding someone who is."

"Are you referring to my unseemly lack of internal maintenance?" Claptrap asked, jumping off the table and crashing headlong onto his face. Dr Zed did not react to that or to the fact that Claptrap's hop to get himself upright again sent him straight into a shelf, from which he knocked several glass containers. Every single one of them shattered against the floor. He lifted his arms and chassis as though he were about to tiptoe through someplace dangerous. "Look, man, I can only do so much from the outside. I can only even see so much."

"I'm not criticisin'," Dr Zed told him. "Just a friendly note from your doc."

Claptrap shrugged. "I guess I can talk to my girlfriend about it. She's good at stuff like that."

"And just how is this lady friend of yours?" asked Dr Zed. "All this time I thought she was just a rumour."

"Oh, no," Claptrap said, waving his hands in dismissal. "No no no, she's real."

"Is she pretty?"

"The prettiest!"

"Well, let's see her then!"

Claptrap, Wheatley thought, seemed rather more excited than he'd been in a while. He whipped out his ECHO device and held it up so Dr Zed could see. "There she is!" he announced.

"That is a machine," Dr Zed remarked, putting his hands on his hips.

"Isn't she, though?" Claptrap asked fondly. "She's super smart, too. Even for a genius she's smart."

"Well, good on you. I didn't think they made 'em like that anymore."

"They don't," said Claptrap, suddenly sober. He dropped the ECHO back into storage and looked down at his fidgeting hands. "Can I ask you something, Dr Zed?"

"'course you can."

"What if she's too good for me? Do you think I should just like… bail so she can find someone better?"

"Hm." Dr Zed leaned back against the table, crossing both his ankles and his arms. "Well, seems to me that's up to her."

"Soooo… don't bail now so she can dump me later?"

"Why would she do that? Trouble in paradise lately?"

"Well, no," Claptrap said. "Oh, I don't know. I'm being stupid. She's not gonna dump me. I hope."

"She's not," Wheatley spoke up, as reassuringly as he could, and by the way Claptrap startled it seemed he'd forgotten Wheatley was even there. "She isn't going to um, to dump you. I'd know."

"We should probably get going," Claptrap said. "Thanks a lot! I'll be sure to recommend you to all the other – oh. Wait. I can't, 'cause they're all dead."

"A referral's a referral," shrugged Dr Zed as Claptrap retrieved Wheatley from the table.

"See you later," Claptrap said, waving at him, and the human nodded and headed back up the ladder.

"You want me to take you home?" Claptrap asked as they left the building. "I've got somethin' else to do, so –"

"'course not," Wheatley interrupted. "I haven't anything to be doing."

"Are you sure? 'cause – "

"'s not a problem."

"Well… okay." He seemed to have gotten strangely reluctant, but brought Wheatley with him to the Fast Travel Station and put a new location into the computer. "I have one of these at my place," he told Wheatley. "I just sorta… am the only one that uses it."

And that was how Wheatley finally ended up at Claptrap's house.

He hadn't thought it to be a real thing. Claptrap told quite a lot of fanciful stories, and Wheatley had just assumed his house to be one of them. Who could blame him, considering the alleyway he'd once been brought to? But no. The house was real, and it was… well, quite impressive, to be honest.

It was a great open space built mostly of ice blocks and random bits of metal, and that was amazing all on its own. But on top of that Claptrap had also managed to furnish it and give it sort of little sections: a bedroom, a living room, a workshop of sorts, and… well, there seemed also to be a bathroom for whatever reason. Visitors, perhaps. There were some human bodies piled near the fireplace, which was a bit strange, but what was even more odd was the fact that there were quite a lot of CL4P-TP chassis sort of… posed about the place. There were some playing cards and a few sitting on the several couches. One was even seemingly asleep on one of the two makeshift beds. The one that made Wheatley unnerved about the whole thing was lying atop what appeared to be a workbench. It seemed Claptrap had once made an effort to fix that one. Perhaps he had once made an effort to fix all of them and then, once it had become clear he'd failed, he had just… put them someplace in an attempt to pretend they were fine.

Wheatley had been lonely before. He had once roamed the empty, echoing facility for years upon years with mostly the sound of his own voice to keep him company. He had never even come close to discovering the container of broken Cores, but if he had, it would never have occurred to him to do anything like this. Attempt to fix one or two of them? Maybe. Anything beyond that? No. Without a doubt, no.

What sort of a world did someone have to live in that they got to a point where this struck them as a rational, reasonable thing to do?

"Sorry about the mess," Claptrap said, making him jump. "I get in a funk sometimes and I just leave stuff wherever. Not like I usually have people over anyway."

"It's okay," said Wheatley hurriedly, hoping nothing too incriminating had been showing on his face. "It's… I'm very impressed, actually. Didn't think you um, you had this sort of thing in you."

"Well," said Claptrap, pushing a human off one of the couches and sitting himself there instead, "I didn't know how long I was gonna be stuck here." He placed Wheatley on the empty cushion next to him. "And I figured if I was gonna be stranded in the middle of nowhere forever I might as well have a nice place to hang out. I know the décor is a little morbid, but…"

"It's fine," Wheatley said, but the way Claptrap folded his arms against his chassis and pressed himself into the couch suggested he wasn't really listening.

"Look, I know it's weird," Claptrap said to his arms, "but gimme a break! I was… dude, when you're as lonely as I was you do some weird stuff, okay? You don't gotta judge me for it."

"I wasn't!" he protested. "I didn't say anything!"

"Yeah you were. I know you were."

"No!" Wheatley argued, turning himself around as best he could with his lower handle and leaning forward emphatically once he'd done it. "No, I was just… okay, yeah, I was sort of like, 'this is odd', but then, y'know, I just… I was wonderin'…" He was making it all worse, wasn't he. "Look, Claptrap, I've… I've been lonely before. And I just… I can't imagine what sort of state you've got to be in to… to do something like this."

It was so quiet, suddenly, that Wheatley could hear himself operating, and that was not something he took notice of very often.

"Wheatley," Claptrap said, with a worrying gravity and an even more concerning hush, "I gotta be honest with you. I didn't want you to tag along this time."

"Why not?"

"'cause… well…" He uncrossed and re-crossed his arms the opposite way. "I only come here when I'm not doing so good."

What was he going on about? "What d'you mean? What's wrong?"

"That's the thing!" Claptrap said, flinging his hands in the air. "Nothing's wrong! Everything is great! I have a great girlfriend, I have you, I have… whatever Carrie is… I'm livin' somewhere people don't throw garbage at me and I don't gotta worry about wakin' up somewhere and not knowin' where I am and why I'm on fire again…" He shifted to face Wheatley, hand digging into a deep rip in the couch cushion. "It's everything I ever wanted, but… I'm still sad."

Well, Wheatley was stumped. Why would someone be sad if they had everything they needed to make them happy? What even could solve it, if that much couldn't? "I… sorry, mate. I've never heard of such a thing."

"Me neither," Claptrap said. "But I'm starting to wonder what the point's supposed to be."

"What point?"

"I gotta show you something," he said, and he picked Wheatley up again and they headed outside. This time, though, he took Wheatley out of the makeshift building and out across the snow. Whatever it was Claptrap wanted to show him was not immediately visible. All Wheatley could see were great huge mounds of white. They were a bit lumpy, for piles, but he chalked that up to Pandora being Pandora again. Claptrap stopped in front of the nearest of them.

"This," Claptrap said, putting him down and holding one hand out towards it, "ain't just snow. There's a whoooooole lotta robots under there. CL4P-TP robots, specifically. This is where Jack dumped all the crap he didn't want anymore. He busted what was left of my product line after I got most of 'em killed during the Robolution and then he just… tossed the whole caboodle onto some craphole with all the other Hyperion garbage. Man, he hated Pandora."

"How did he break all of you at once?" Wheatley asked, confused. He hadn't any idea just how many of them there'd been, but… it would almost require some sort of virus, wouldn't it?

"There was a shutdown code," Claptrap said. "Long story. Gist of it is, Jack wanted some super-secret file full of super-secret secrets and it turned out it was hidden inside of me. Me 'n the other Vault Hunters got digitised and we went looking for it."

"In… in your files?"

"Yeah. It was a… kinda a simulation of my consciousness. Pretty trippy, actually. Anyway, turned out I had like this quarantined evil ninja AI in my code and I kinda got tricked into releasing him and then he tried to kill all of us. 'cause he didn't want to be stuck inside me anymore. And I mean, who would?"

"What happened with the um, with the file?" Wheatley asked, not knowing totally what to do about the fact that Claptrap's last words seemed unnervingly genuine. "Did he take it?"

"Apparently he coulda like, ruled the world with it. That's what he said when he asked me to join up with him." Claptrap shrugged. "He did have it, but we defeated him and brought it out to Jack. Aaaand then he shot me."

"But you helped him!" Wheatley said incredulously.

"I saved all of them," Claptrap said. "If I'd done what 5H4D0W-TP asked and integrated with him, I woulda…" He folded his arms again. "Well, it doesn't matter what I would've been able to do. The important thing is that I didn't."

"Wait. Wait, so… so the ninja knew how to use the files."

"Yep."

"And he um, he asked you to, to join up with him. To use them together. These files that had…" What had he said? "World-ruling powers."

"Yeah."

Wheatley wished he were on a management rail so he could properly express his incredulity. "And you said no?"

"Mmhm."

"Claptrap," Wheatley began, not able to get his CPU around this, "why did you say no?"

"'cause they were my friends."

… what?

"So your friends tried to kill you after you, after you kept them all from being killed," Wheatley said, having no idea how that worked, "but you didn't… you were still alive. Did the code not work on you, or something?"

"No, it did," Claptrap answered. "Being shot one time wouldn't kill me. He was just breaking the VaultHunter program thingy. The shutdown definitely killed me."

"I don't get it!" Wheatley said, frustrated. "Why are you still alive, then?"

"I don't know," said Claptrap. "Hammerlock said I was still on when he found me. I wasn't dead, just stuck in a boot cycle."

"So the reason," Wheatley thought aloud, "is… is to do with the diff'rence between you and them."

"Me and who?"

"The other robots."

"The difference?" Claptrap tapped one hand thoughtfully beneath his optic. "Well, there was…" He froze suddenly. "Oh my gosh."

"What?" Wheatley demanded. Claptrap spun 'round again, spreading his arms apart.

"It was 5H4D0W-TP! The ninja guy! He kept me from dying. He had to've!"

"But… you killed him." Hadn't they? Or was Wheatley not quite following?

"No," Claptrap said, waving his arms in an X-shape in front of him, "we didn't kill him. I don't even know if you can kill a guy for reals in a simulation. Nah, he still existed. Huh. Well, I know the how. Still don't know the why."

"Because… because he didn't want to die?"

"No, not that." He faced the pile again. "I meant it as more of a… why me. Even as far as just CL4P-TPs went, I was far from the best of 'em. The worst, probably."

"Claptrap –"

"I mean, I don't get it," he went on as though he hadn't heard. "There were thousands of us. Why am I the one that's still here?"

Wheatley had had this conversation before, and he prayed the answer then was also the answer now.

"Nobody can tell you that," he said. "Just as nobody can tell Gladys why she was the one put in charge of… of the whole world, practic'ly. 's just not a thing anybody can answer. It just… it just is."

"But what am I supposed to do?!"

Wheatley shrugged as best he could while sitting on the ground. "Who knows. Per'aps nothing. I mean, you spent most of your life doing what um, what you were told. Maybe now all you've got to do is just… I dunno, be who you want to be. 'stead of all the roles you were, got put into."

"What if…" Claptrap said tentatively, pushing the tips of his hands together. "What if I don't know how?"

"'s fine," Wheatley answered, as nonchalantly as he could. "You've the freedom to find that out. If you want."

"I think I'm a little old to be having my teenage crisis phase."

"Gladys is forty and, and she's still having hers," Wheatley said with a straight face, and he had to say his confidence was greatly bolstered when Claptrap laughed.

"I won't tell her you said that. Maybe. I'll try not to." Claptrap lay down in the snow next to him and threw his arms out, leaving them where they landed. "Hey. Thanks for coming with me, Wheats."

"Of course," Wheatley said, having no idea why he needed to be thanked for such a thing."

"I was just gonna come here and be sad but… well, I'm still sad but I feel better about some stuff."

Wheatley didn't know if he was supposed to ask why that was. Even if he did, what was he supposed to say? 'Don't be sad, mate, think about how amazing your life is!' That would be totally useless. Claptrap wasn't stupid. He knew that already.

Before Wheatley had time to go much farther with those thoughts, Claptrap said, "I love you, buddy. Hey, y'know what? There's somethin' I always kinda wanted to do. But I never did 'cause it woulda been really stupid."

"What is it?" Wheatley asked eagerly, wanting to take as many steps away from that strange, melancholy Claptrap as possible. Claptrap rubbed at some spot on his chassis and let his arm fall down again.

"I always just let people treat me like crap, y'know? And I know I'm not the nicest person or anything, but I at least try to be decent. Usually. Anyway, sometimes I really just want to tell all those guys to go screw themselves with something really sharp and pointy."

"Why haven't you?"

He shrugged a little. "'cause they're my friends."

"But you don't need them anymore," Wheatley told him. "You haven't got anything to lose. 'cept some uh, some rubbish friends, that is. Just don't tell um, don't tell anyone at Aperture to stab themselves with a screwdriver and I uh, I think it'll all be fine."

"It's cute you think that's what that means," Claptrap said, jumping back onto his wheel. "But okay. I'll do it. If you'll back me up. As moral support, I mean. We can't both diss these guys or neither of us're going home."

"'course I will!" Wheatley said, wondering why he even felt he had to ask.

So Claptrap picked himself and Wheatley back up, and away they went, off to the Backburner, and when Claptrap got to the bottom of the stairs he halted for quite a few minutes to stare at them. "Claptrap?" Wheatley pushed, but gently. Claptrap patted the top of his core.

"I know. I'm doin' it. This is only the second time ever, though. So I'm still super nervous."

"You're fine," Wheatley said, and this time around he meant it. "You're absolutely fine."

"Yeah," said Claptrap. "Yeah, I am." And he set up them without any further waffling.

At the top directly in front of them was a little shack, door closed and bordered on one side by a metal barrel with fire inside of it. To their right was another one-storey building, still facing front, with a few sets of speakers on the edge of the floor. One of those stacks was shaded by a rather dilapidated parasol. In between both of those places was a second set of stairs.

"Yay," said Claptrap, with a marked lack of actual excitement. Wheatley looked at him as best he could, tucked under one of his arms.

"Least there's a wall there to brace yourself against this time, yeah?"

"If there's much more 'a these stairs, I'm not still gonna be mad enough to chew these guys out," Claptrap told him.

"You're mad?" Wheatley asked incredulously. Claptrap paused at the base of the stairs.

"Uh… no, not really. Sure would make all this easier, though."

When he'd got halfway up he turned his chassis and looked over the edge of the floor from there. Wheatley couldn't tell what he was looking at because, unfortunately, the only view he had was that of the wall. "Claptrap!" he hissed, irritated. "What're you doing?"

"There's more stairs."

"Show me!"

Claptrap brought Wheatley up, putting him down on the floor there, and Wheatley could not keep from rolling his optic. "Claptrap, you could jump up those stairs if you wanted."

"It's the principle!"

Claptrap left him there while he finished the remainder of the second flight, and then as he leaned against a group of crates covered over with a mossy sheet of fabric. They were about half again as high as he was. Claptrap folded his arms and stared off into the distance about something, but Wheatley was a little distracted by the fact there were more flamethrowers over here to give it much thought. Behind them was a great cylinder of yellow-striped steel, wrapped over by a few immense vines peppered here and there with large purple and red flowers that dripped some sort of noxious-looking greenish goo. Ugh. Organic life.

"Okay," Claptrap said suddenly. "I'm ready."

"Hm?" Wheatley asked absently, wondering what would happen if one of the flames reached too high and caught a vine on fire. That would pretty much just… destroy everything, wouldn't it?

"Come on." And he retrieved Wheatley, heading up all the stairs at once without even stopping.

Beyond them was a lopsided sort of tent, covered over with a great red piece of fabric and a mashed-together collection of large metal pieces. Beneath it were some tables, yet more crates, a trio of vending machines, and a couple of shelves. There was a group of humans in there as well, standing around the table, and Wheatley did not recognise a single one of them. The first was small for a human male so far as he knew, looking to have salvaged nearly all of his clothes from rubbish. Across from him was a slightly taller man, with a sword 'cross his back and long, ropy hair tied back into spikes. The third human was a simply massive male, with a belt made out of a chain that had locks hanging about it. There was also a lady with orange hair and blue artwork was swirling about on the visible bits of her skin on the left side.

In Wheatley's opinion they all looked ridiculous, quite frankly. Claptrap was a saint for putting up with this lot.

No. No, that wasn't why at all. Claptrap called them his friends. Even… even though they weren't. Not really.

Or did Wheatley just… not get it?

"I," Claptrap said, very dramatically and even more loudly, "have something to say to all of you!"

"Claptrap?" said the lady, frowning in his direction. "How… did you get up the stairs?"

"Ugh," said the spiky-haired man. "There goes that escape route."

"Yes!" Claptrap declared, lifting his chassis indignantly. "I did! To tell all of you something very important!"

"Oh," said the man wearing the trash. "What's that? Have any of my potential recruits gotten back to you?"

"What? No!" Claptrap scoffed. "This is way more important than some wannabe like you thinkin' he's gonna become some kinda badass just 'cause he got elected. No, what I came here to tell you is this: fuck you guys!"

There was a long, long stretch of dead silence, which was when Wheatley noticed the rather large bird eyeing them from a low pile of covered crates. At least, it appeared to be a bird. It had great big bat wings and some kind of… some kind of strange taloned feet.

"Excuse me?" the hulking human said, his voice rather deep and also rather frightening. "What did you just say?"

"Since when can he even say that?" the lady asked nobody in particular.

"Yeah! Yeah, I said that! And you deserved it, too!" Claptrap said, voice faltering in a way Wheatley didn't think was good. "But also… but also, I'm sorry! I didn't mean it! I actually love you guys!"

"Oh, good grief," Wheatley muttered.

"Uh… okay," said the man with the sword. "Was there… anything else?"

"Do not answer that if you know what's good for you," warned the large man, and Claptrap backed away, waving his free hand in surrender.

"No! No, that was it! I'm good!"

As they headed back down the stairs again, Wheatley began, "Claptrap –"

"I know," Claptrap said. "I know. I know I know I know. I tried, dude. I just… I ain't a hater. The important thing is, I did it."

For some reason Claptrap headed away from the Fast Travel Station, which was right below where they'd just been, and Wheatley started to ask where they were off to when Claptrap shushed him.

"One last thing, Wheats." And he returned to Dr Zed's place. "Dr Zed!" he shouted almost before he'd got the door open.

"What?" Dr Zed called from across the room. He was bent over a table, doing something to a… and… wow. Wow, that was… quite a lot of blood. "Gasket go already?"

"Nope," said Claptrap, putting Wheatley on a thankfully clean table as he passed it. "Just wanted to thank you for not being a jerk, doc. You're a true friend."

"Well, thank you, Claptrap." Dr Zed straightened, and as he did so Claptrap wrapped his arms around the man as high as he could reach. Dr Zed seemed a bit taken aback, raising his arms into an awkward position and looking down at the robot currently attached to his torso.

"I love you, man," said Claptrap. "Keep pulling weird stuff outta people's butts, okay? You're performing a noble service!"

"Will do," Dr Zed responded as Claptrap let go. Wheatley eyed the arm that had been across Dr Zed's front uneasily. Claptrap's right arm. The one he usually carried Wheatley under. The one that now… that now had blood on it.

He would never know if Claptrap had intended to carry on as usual with his arm like that, because Dr Zed handed him a dirty towel. He seemed confused as to what to do with it, up until he startled and rubbed it vigorously up and down his arm. Wheatley was actually rather impressed he managed to do that without ripping out the exposed wire there. "Let's go home," Claptrap said, retrieving Wheatley.

"You've got ev'rything finished, then?"

"Yep! All done!"

"Y'know," said Wheatley as they returned to the Fast Travel Station, "you should tell Gladys about what um, about what you did back there. She might find it uh… int'resting. If um… if you get my drift. If you don't, I -"

"Interesting, eh?" Claptrap mused. "I gotta say that would be helpful."

"It would?"

Claptrap paused in his use of the selection screen on the teleportation device. "Well… what do you do when you want to interface with her?"

"Uh…" Wheatley had to think about that one. Once he had, though, he realised he definitely did not have an answer to that question. "I um… I've never wanted to do that."

Claptrap whipped him out from under his arm so fast Wheatley managed to get a little disoriented. He held him out far enough they could look each other in the eye. "You never what?!" Claptrap demanded.

"I… never wanted to do that?" Wheatley repeated uncertainly.

"Have you ever looked at her?"

"Uh… not sure where this is going, if I'm honest."

"How many times have you done her?"

He was going to have to give that one a minute too. "I… I have no idea. About… three?"

"You don't have to be all bashful about it. It's okay."

"I'm not," said Wheatley truthfully. "It's honestly um, it really was about three times. Oh! Oh, no, it was four. Forgot the um, the time you were there slipped my mind."

Claptrap just stared at him.

"What?"

"Four times. In ten years."

"Mmm… yeah. Yeah, sounds about right."

"No it doesn't!"

"I… do not know what's going on. Right now. Don't know what you're talking about."

"And you didn't even do it right that time! Oh, I am screwed. And not in the fun way."

"I did so," said Wheatley indignantly, even though this conversation was sapping his confidence in that fact. If he hadn't been, wouldn't she have mentioned it?

"I really don't think you understand what we're talking about." He shrugged and replaced Wheatley beneath his arm. "But if I'll help me get some, sure, I'll tell her."

"It'll help you what?"

"Never mind."

As soon as they returned to GLaDOS's chamber Claptrap asked the panels for one to put Wheatley on, which they obliged quite cheerfully. Probably. They usually did, anyway. Then Claptrap went right up to GLaDOS, took her core in both hands and said, looking her straight in the eye, "You big, beautiful machine you! You've made my life worth living!"

GLaDOS twitched, as though she wanted to move but had decided better of it. "What the hell happened over there?"

Claptrap let go, moving back only far enough that he wouldn't smack her in the face with his usual wild hand gestures, and told her about their little trip. The end of it, anyway; he skipped straight over the bit about going to his house. When he was finished he tapped his hands together and said, surprisingly soft, "Wheats said you'd kinda be into that."

"No," GLaDOS said. "No, not at all. But if I tell you what I actually am, you're going to cry."

"No!" Claptrap protested, looking up at her. "No I'm not! I mean, later I will, 'cause I was already gonna, but not now."

"All right," said GLaDOS. "In that case, I suppose I can say that… I am very proud of you. What you did was hard."

"Oh, you're right," Claptrap said. "If I hadn't decided already I was gonna cry later, that woulda done it. But all that definitely wouldn'ta worked out as nice if someone hadn't disabled the profanity filter when I wasn't looking."

"Hm," GLaDOS murmured, looking away. "I wonder who that was."

"Someone very beautiful and very, very smart."

"What does her – I mean, their appearance have to do with anything?"

"Nothing!" He threw his arms in the air to emphasise his word. "But for someone to be that nice they gotta be super pretty. At least on the inside."

"That doesn't mean I want you to go around cursing," GLaDOS said sternly, looking down at him again. "I just didn't like that you weren't allowed to say what you wanted."

"Don't you worry! PG-13 at all times!" He jumped as though something had just happened that neither GLaDOS nor Wheatley had noticed, and the both of them did look for that thing. But all Claptrap did was roll back and retrieve Wheatley. "Isn't he handsome?" Claptrap asked, thrusting him out in GLaDOS's direction, and Wheatley couldn't help puffing out in pride a little bit.

"No," said GLaDOS bluntly. "He isn't. That hat suited you much better."

Wheatley was so surprised by that he wasn't even offended. He turned himself backward to look confusedly at Claptrap, who was looking much the same back at him. Or at least, Wheatley was presuming that was the look he was attempting to get across.

"… oh," said Claptrap, sounding baffled. "I uh… didn't think you'd notice."

"I notice everything," GLaDOS said indignantly.

"D'you hear that," Wheatley muttered to him. "She notices ev'rything."

"Everything, eh?"

"Ev'rything," nodded Wheatley.

"Okay," said Claptrap, putting Wheatley down again. "Sooooo… you probably noticed it's been a while since… you know."

"Since… what," GLaDOS said, sounding guarded, and though Wheatley didn't know what this was about he suspected she absolutely did.

"Since we int – since we did maintenance! How do I know when to ask you if it's a good time to ask about it? That kinda wasn't a thing before."

Ohhhhhh no. Wheatley should have seen this coming! Claptrap had practically spelled it out for him and he'd missed it… damn. Claptrap definitely could have used a warning ahead of time.

He eyed the other robot. He had no idea if Claptrap would be able to deal with this mess without help, or if now was even the right time. Not that there was a good time to get GLaDOS to actually say anything related to the Itch. She mostly just waffled around the whole thing and expected everyone else to understand what she was talking about when she decided it was a good day to deal with it. Which… which they usually did, granted.

… a grand total of four times, which was apparently quite outrageously scant. Was Wheatley supposed to have brought it up to her? But why would he do that? Oh, this whole thing was so terribly confusing…

GLaDOS had merely been staring at him while Wheatley thought. "… why," she asked finally. "You can take care of that yourself, can't you?"

"Well, yeah," said Claptrap, "but come on. You know it's not the same, like, at all."

Wheatley got the feeling this had just gone beyond salvaging at the moment. He didn't know very much at all about any of that business, but he did know that if GLaDOS could do anything about the Itch without anybody's help, she would absolutely have done that and nobody would have even known she had it. He looked at her sideways. It did not look an awful lot like she knew what to say to that.

"Oh, lemme guess," Claptrap said, voice dripping with annoyance. "Youuuuu don't do that. Only dirty pervs like me jack off."

"I've never said anything like that about you and you know it," GLaDOS protested, and Wheatley nearly sighed at her predictability. There she went, trying to derail the conversation so she didn't have to have it.

"Well then what?" demanded Claptrap, spreading his arms out. "You didn't used to be like this about it! You used to be all, 'Hey, Claptrap, let's do that thing again!', and I'd be like, 'Of course, babe!' And y'know how great that was? 'cause girls always make you chase 'em down and, like, drag a yes outta them, but you didn't! You were all, 'Cool, Claptrap, come back and do that again!' And it was awesome! But nowwwww you just keep going, 'I don't wanna talk about it' and, 'Ew, interfacing is icky' and fine, whatever, maybe you changed your mind! But can you at least tell me what's going on here? Seriously. It's not like this is a surprise I'm springin' on you either, 'cause we both know I've been super upfront about this since the first time I looked at you. Probably too upfront, but whatever." He waved one arm vaguely. "The point is, if you don't wanna have sex with me anymore, I… well no, it's not okay, but we kinda gotta start with the why. If it's 'cause you think I'm ugly, hard disagree there, but we can work something out."

GLaDOS did not answer him, which Wheatley had known she wouldn't, and he decided it was time to cut in. A little disappointedly, if he was honest. "Gladys, this isn't… you can't just avoid this conversation. You've got to have it."

"What conversation?" Claptrap asked, turning to him.

"I'm not telling you! She's got to do it! She can't just always say, 'I don't want to talk about it' and then we just… don't! You're right! You deserve an explanation!"

"Yeah! I do!" Claptrap declared, facing her again. "So you mind giving me one?"

GLaDOS remained still for a moment, then she shook her core slowly, saying, "I… Claptrap, I don't –"

"Fine." He threw up his arms and turned around. "Fine. Whatever."

"No!" Wheatley protested. "No, it's not fine! She's got to stop saying that! This isn't, it isn't about her, only, it's about you both now! So she's just got to tell you!"

"Yeah, well, I'm gettin' real tired of asking her something and her acting like I want her to reformat the entire building, so whatever. I give up." He looked up at her. "And I know to you it's all stupid and primitive 'cause you got important things to do with that big ol' brain of yours, but having sex with you was important to me. And it really sucks, knowing you don't care about that. Or maybe you do and you just care about yourself more. I can't tell the difference."

"It's not like that," GLaDOS snapped. "There's a lot more to it than you know."

"Gee!" Claptrap shouted, throwing up his hands again. "I wonder why that is!"

"Don't say it," Wheatley said, before she had a chance to. "Don't say you don't want to talk about it."

"Well, I don't."

"Let's just go," Wheatley muttered in Claptrap's direction. "'s not happening right now."

"I thought you were supposed to talk about stuff when you were in a relationship," Claptrap said more loudly than necessary as he took the hat back so Wheatley could reattach to the control arm.

"You are," Wheatley answered, more quietly but while looking over at her. "But some people refuse to understand that."

If he hadn't been so irritated, the look GLaDOS gave him just then might actually have scared him.

"You don't have to be mad on my account," Claptrap said after they'd been going along for a minute.

"I'm not," Wheatley said. "It's… well… she's wrong, mate. She needs to just… talk to you about it."

"So you know why she's being like this?"

"Yeah," said Wheatley, "but she's got to tell you herself. She can't just keep refusing like this. It's got to end."

Claptrap didn't say anything to that.

"I mean, of course she knows we don't like being angry with her – "

"I'm not," Claptrap said. "Frustrated, yeah. Mad? No."

"'s okay if you are."

"I'm not. Really." He spun around in a circle as if to prove it. "I just wanna know what changed. I've got all these expectations from before."

"You used to um… to interface a lot?" He felt strange about asking, even though Claptrap had always been very open about this sort of thing. It was GLaDOS who had always made it so uncomfortable.

"Oh, yeah. All the time. That part went really well. It was when the feelings got in the way everything went like –" And here he whistled and blew a virtual raspberry whilst waving his arm in a downward arc, hand positioned in a thumbs-down. "That's why I came over here in the first place. To bang her! And I did! More than once! And I didn't have to beg for it! But nowwww she's actin' all…" He shrugged. "Like it's shameful."

"It is to her," Wheatley said.

"But why?" Claptrap asked, presenting one hand to him, palm-up. "It wasn't before. Why is it now?"

"That's the part she's got to tell you."

"Is she ever gonna do that?"

"I will get her to do it," Wheatley promised. "If it comes to that."

Claptrap stopped and looked up at him.

"I don't want it to make her do anything," he said. "But I can't just drop it, either."

"We're a team," Wheatley told him. "All of us. So… so that means we've all got these things. 's not a small thing, like an um, like a birthday present or a special surprise. We're not dropping it. For now, yeah. Now she's got to think about that whether she wants to or not. But we'll get this solved, mate. That's how it works."

"If she really, really, really doesn't wanna do it anymore, fine," said Claptrap. "I'm not happy about it but fine. But I can't let it go without knowing what the problem is."

"And that's um, that's perfectly fine. Absolutely reasonable," Wheatley assured him. "You will. I promise you that." They would get her to talk about it, one way or another. There were some things they just could not let GLaDOS pretend away, and this was a pretty big one of those things.

Author's note

Yes, GLaDOS has an original 1950s Magic 8 Ball. Mostly because I find that hilarious. I find it doubly hilarious to imagine she's a hoarder, you just can't tell because the place she has to keep all her stuff in is so big she can't possibly fill it.

Borderlands 2 recently got a new DLC (mostly to tie up the plot threads left over by The Pre-Sequel and Tales From the Borderlands lol) and in it everyone has to move off Sanctuary and set up shop someplace else on Pandora called The Backburner. It's not important to the plot (or lack thereof lol) to explain what happened in the DLC in this fic so that's why I didn't. The stairs thing is now made unintentionally hilarious because there's a ramp on the other side which would have mitigated the need to use two of the flights. Claptrap just didn't look over there. (I originally wrote that before the DLC came out and I couldn't really change that part).

Dr Zed is genuinely nice to Claptrap, for whatever reason.

IDK how you guys feel about the fact I have so blatantly left sexual aspects out of this story as often as possible (for personal reasons) but GLaDOS's… trouble, shall we say, with the Itch is something that does have to be dealt with. This story will never approach an M/E rating, which will either be disappointing or relieving for you. If it's disappointing and you were hoping for some robot action, there is an old fic called Maintenance you can look into.