Chapter Seven: Truth or Dare

"We should play a game," Wheatley announced to the table at large as they were finishing dinner one evening.

Everyone looked at him a little skeptically. If he'd come up with it, then something was sure to go wrong.

"I think that sounds like a great idea," said GLaDOS. Every head in the room turned to stare at her in disbelief. She looked back as if she had no idea why they were staring and spread her hands. "We could all use some time to relax, couldn't we?"

Wheatley was delighted. He'd come up with an idea even She thought was good? It was mad! Unheard of! And that wasn't to mention the looks of surprise and confusion on everyone's faces. Priceless.

Of course, he had to admit it was a little suspicious that She'd actually agreed with him. Normally she just rejected anything he suggested simply on the basis that he was a moron (which he wasn't) and couldn't come up with any decent ideas (which he could). So the fact that she had gone along with the suggestion couldn't mean anything good.

"She's plotting something," Chell muttered to him, hands clenched into fists on the table.

"What is it?" he whispered as they started to clean up.

Chell shook her head. "I don't know," she said. "But you can see on her face that she's got a plan."

Once dinner had been cleared up, everyone headed for the break room, where they all sat on the floor. It seemed like everyone wanted to play a game; even a few turrets were there, as well as a companion cube and, of all things, the Rocket Sentry.

"What game are we gonna play?" asked Curiosity eagerly. "Is it a fun game? Is everyone playing? There's a lot of people!"

"There's a game played by...ordinary humans...which I find to be very interesting, scientifically speaking. It's called...Truth or Dare."

Chell covered a laugh with her hand. "It's a kid's game," she whispered to Wheatley. "It's pretty silly, actually. You answer a question, or do a dare, and if you don't, you get a penalty."

"I'll start," GLaDOS said cheerfully. She was almost more frightening when she was in such an unusually good mood than when she was in her ordinary cool, sarcastic temperament. "Oh, wait, we need a penalty! How about...if you lie, or refuse the dare, you get dropped in the incinerator!"

"That's a little less silly," Chell said softly, looking more serious. Wheatley nodded, feeling like this idea was going to turn out badly for everyone involved, except probably GLaDOS. And, most likely, especially for him.

To his relief, GLaDOS turned to Morality instead of him. "Truth or Dare?" the AI asked sweetly.

"Truth," said Morality quickly.

"Why do you assume everything fun is immoral?"

Morality sighed. "I make no such assumption. That wouldn't be fair. It just happens to be the case with most things you would call 'fun.'"

GLaDOS looked a little sulky. Morality sat back, disapproving.

"What's got into you?" asked Chell. "It's just an innocent game."

"It seems innocent," she said severely, "but I know better, and I suspect you do as well. She would never have agreed to...to Wheatley's idea if she didn't have some larger goal, and I doubt very much that her purpose is innocent in any way."

But as the game went one, neither Chell nor Wheatley had any idea what the plan could be. GLaDOS went through two more turns without giving any indication that she meant to do anything suspicious.

Chell was yawning by the fourth turn, and the second time Wheatley shook her awake, she announced, "Alright, I'm going to bed. Goodnight, everyone."

"Night, luv," Wheatley said, waving at her. She smiled and stepped into the elevator to go to her room. The game continued without her, and as far as Wheatley could tell there was still no hint of suspicious plans.

Until, of course, GLaDOS had her next turn.

She turned to him with a falsely sweet smile and a wicked glint in her eyes, and he knew he was in trouble. "Truth or dare?" she asked him, and her smile broadened to show her white teeth.

No one had been crazy enough to take a dare from her, and with good reason—any dare she gave was sure to be dangerous or impossible or both. But he had the nasty feeling he knew what she would ask if he said truth. This might be a silly kid's game, but here, it was deadly serious; she would know if he lied to her, and he'd be incinerated, but he couldn't answer the question he suspected she was thinking of. If he told the truth, she would have the power in her hands to ruin his life, and it just might destroy him.

"Dare," he said, trying to keep his voice from shaking.

Everyone stared at him. Morality, who was sitting next to him now that Chell had gone, covered her mouth with one hand. Across the circle, GLaDOS grinned, her eyes gleaming.

"Come over here and I'll tell you what it is," she said, getting to her feet. Reluctantly, he stood and crossed the circle. GLaDOS stretched up on his toes to put her face right next to his and whispered the dare into his ear.

He stared at her as his heart sank quickly into his stomach. "Why the hell d'you want me to do that?" he asked, his voice rising slightly. "What kind of a dare is that?"

"Because as annoying as your idiocy is, it can be pretty entertaining to watch you flounder around helplessly like a fish out of water," she said. "A really stupid fish."

For a moment he was frozen, unable to think of any course of action, let alone n even moderately intelligent one. Finally he managed, in a small voice, to ask, "Can I...can I have some cake?"

If it were possible for her smile to grow any more evil, it did. "If you do it right, you can have all the cake you want," she said.

"Fine," he sighed, and walked towards the elevator. "I'll do it."

Of course, that meant nothing. He would have done it, cake or no cake, and not just because he didn't have a choice.

Chell was almost asleep when he slipped quietly into her room, but she stirred slightly and opened one eye. "Wheatley...?" she mumbled sleepily, confused.

"Yeah, it's me, luv," he whispered, sitting on the floor beside her bed to look at her face to face.

"What's going on?" she asked, starting to sit up.

"Ah, nothing," he said. "I just—I'm sorry about this-"

With no further introduction, knowing very well that GLaDOS was watching, he took her face in his hands and kissed her.

If he hadn't been so nervous, it would have been wonderful. Her soft lips parted slightly in surprise as their faces met, and he felt her tense up slightly, heard her take a sharp breath. It was funny, he thought vaguely, how detached he felt. Here he was, actually doing what he'd wanted to do since she'd come back, and with a real excuse and everything, but he was so frightened of her potential reactions that he couldn't enjoy it.

Which, when he thought about it, was a terrible way to feel about the situation, because he shouldn't be enjoying this—he shouldn't even be thinking about what he was doing, because he was only doing this at all because if he didn't, he would be incinerated. If that threat wasn't hanging over him, he certainly wouldn't have even considered doing it.

That, of course, was a total lie on his part, but one he wanted to pretend was true.

It was only a second before he pulled away and saw the stunned expression on her face. Her hands twitched, signing something haltingly out in the air, but he didn't know sign language, and she seemed to have lost the use of her vocal cords at the moment.

"Sorry," he said again, trying to save what was left of his dignity. "It was, ah, it was a dare. GLaDOS dared me to. Sorry."

She blinked, unmoving, and her hands moved vaguely again, forming the same shapes repeatedly, but not in order. "I..." she managed, but couldn't say anymore.

"I was promised cake?" he guessed hopefully. She just continued to stare and make uncertain signs. "I guess I'll be going," he said after a moment, and fled her room.

She stared after him, unable to think. Her hands fell limply to her sides, still twitching as she tried to make her mouth work. A long moment passed in which she did nothing at all.

At last, she found her voice. "He was promised cake," she said flatly, still staring at the door. The implications of that registered slowly in the back of her mind, and somewhere in her chest, a spark flared up into anger. "He was promised cake?" she repeated, and got to her feet, suddenly awake. Just a dare, that was one thing. But being bribed with cake was another story, and she was not going to stand for that.

Furious, she stormed out of her room and down the hall to the elevator. Voices carried down the shaft, but they were nearly drowned by the rush of her pulse in her ears. The elevator climbed slowly, too slowly, and a part of her wanted to smash her way out of it and climb up the shaft, because it might not be faster but she would be moving, not just standing here.

The doors opened and she stepped out. Every eye in the room was on her and she didn't care; the only person who interested her in the slightest was Wheatley, who was cowering away as if he knew what was coming.

"Hello," he said nervously when she stopped in front of him.

She grabbed the lapels of his coat and pulled him to his feet. "You were promised cake?" she demanded. "Are you kidding me?"

He swallowed, raising both hands in the air. "Ah, well, is there something the matter with cake?"

Without thinking, without even really knowing she was going to do it, she slapped him across the face as hard as she could. He yelped in pain and staggered back a few steps.

"What did I do?" he asked weakly, but she had already stormed off, back to the elevator. The doors closed, and she was gone.

Wheatley wasn't sure which was worse: her violent reaction, or not knowing what had caused it. Miserable, he slunk off to the lobby, where it was dark and quiet and no one was staring at him when they thought he wouldn't notice.

The door opened a moment later, and Fact came in to lean on the back of the chair, examining his fingers. "There is a ninety-nine point three three three three percent chance that Chell hates you now," he commented after a moment.

"Really?" Wheatley said sarcastically. "You mean there's two-thirds percent of a chance that she doesn't hate me? Because that's incredible. Unbelievable, actually."

Fact ignored him, or seemed to, at any rate. "There is a sixty-three point two five percent chance that she will hate you...forever."

He sighed and slumped down farther in the chair. "Yeah, thanks for that, mate. Definitely needed to hear that."

"Fact: You screwed up."

He sat up so that he could glare at Fact. "You know what? Shut up. Just—stop talking, alright? Yeah, I screwed up. I've got it. Can we drop it now?"

Fact turned his nose up in the air and stepped into the elevator to go downstairs to bed, leaving Wheatley alone in the darkness of the lobby, even more dejected than he had been when he'd come in.

Chell returned to her room and pulled off her pajamas to change back into her clothes. She should never have come back here. She should have just stayed away the first time. Why had she come back in the first place? There was nothing for her here. She tried to remember, but she couldn't recall what had really brought her back.

The door opened and Curiosity looked around the frame. "Can I come in?" she asked in a small voice.

Chell shrugged and started pulling things out of her dresser, throwing everything she'd brought here onto the floor around her.

Curiosity came in and sat on the edge of the bed. "What are you doing?" she asked. "Are you packing? Why are you doing that? You're not leaving, are you?"

Chell nodded and dug out her backpack.

"Why are you leaving?" Curiosity asked, distressed. "Are you allowed to do that? Won't GLaDOS be upset?"

"I'm not staying here for her benefit," Chell said shortly.

"Then whose benefit are you staying for?" Curiosity asked.

She paused, halfway through the act of putting a pair of jeans into the backpack. "My own," she said at last, and returned to the task at hand.

"Why are you angry?" Curiosity asked. "Why did you hit Wheatley? What did he do?"

"Didn't you see it on the screen?" Chell asked, laughing harshly. "Didn't GLaDOS show you the camera feed?"

Curiosity nodded. "But—all he did was kiss you. Why is that so bad?"

There was a moment of silence before Chell sighed and hung her head. "It wasn't because he kissed me I'm angry," she said, feeling defeated. "It's the reason he did it."

Curiosity frowned sweetly, confused. "Why was that?"

Chell only shook her head. "I don't want to talk about it," she said, and pulled the zipper on her backpack shut. Curiosity watched with huge eyes as she swung the backpack over her shoulder and turned to leave.

"Chell?" she said suddenly as Chell reached the door.

She paused and looked back over her shoulder.

Curiosity looked worried. "Are you leaving forever?" she asked in a voice barely above a whisper, her amber eyes bright with tears.

"I don't know," Chell sighed. "I just—I need some time to cool off. To think."

With that, she left and stepped into the elevator going right to the surface, without stopping in the lobby to say goodbye to the others.

A/N: Oooooh! DRAMADRAMADRAMA! :D And YES, I AM ending a chapter there, with Wheatley miserable and Chell angry and GLaDOS surely laughing to herself at how Wheatley manages to mess everything up. :)
Next chapter will in fact be a break from the drama and just have some random silly things happening. For the ones who aren't fans of the fluff, you'll be happy. For the ones who ARE and want to see all this drama resolved...sorry! XDD

And with that, I am gone. DG out!