"You're doing well. Oh, extremely well. Keep it up! Yes, yes, that's it—good!— brilliant!"
Wheatley's mouth doesn't move, but he knows that voice is his. It's clearer somehow. Crisp. Close. He can't quite discern where it's coming from, but it's not from within. There's no rumble or gentle thrum underneath his ribs; only a disjointed sense of this shouldn't be and this is.
There is a park. It is a park, isn't it? Or perhaps it's something else? He can't tell. The dream is shifting, weaving, building blocks that sharpen into the bodies of trees and carpets that unfurl out into an expanse of lush, kempt grass.
A tightness fills him as he soaks in the clear skies. He knows this place, he does, but he doesn't.
Wooden mallets tap along the seams of his skull, coaxing him to remember.
There are little humans now, scampering about with colorful knickknacks held in tiny fists. Where they came from, he's not sure. They seem to have sort of… materialized. Out of thin air. Emptiness one minute, diminutive creatures rolling amid the grass the next.
"Well done," he hears.
That's… huh. Does he truly sound like that? No, he does, doesn't he?
"You're doing splendidly," says his voice. It's such a strange thing to hear it from places other than humming within his mouth and ears. "Maybe give us another?"
Wheatley is in a human body, and yet he's not. He recognizes the too-long legs, the slender hands, the jutting wrist bones as the jumble of limbs She put him in, but he's not in control. He's looking out through his eyes, present, there, but no matter how hard he tries, he can't move his hands. They're plastered to a miniature keyboard across his lap on their own accord.
A small, delicate thing sits before him, nestled in the grass: brown eyes, fiery hair, flecks dappling chubby cheeks. She reaches out, the petite structure of her hand craning for his, and he finds himself turning his palm upward, spreading his fingers open for her.
"That was lovely, you know," says his voice. It's somehow higher, an octave raised, laced with praise. "You're absolutely brilliant. And if you keep at it, I'll bet you'll be all big and famous someday, just like your mum. Wouldn't that be great? You'd like that, wouldn't you? Everyone looking at you all, 'Oh, that's her, that's really her,' taking photographs and all that. Giving you some to sign. You'd like that, right?"
She's placed her hand in the center of his palm, engulfed by his sheer size, but he can't feel the pressure, the warmth, the texture. He can see the delight in her smile, but her voice is strangely absent.
His vision pans out across the park, past the playing children, and he catches a glimpse of a grown woman standing by one of the thick conifers nearby. The ends of her pearl-white skirt ruffle in the breeze, and juniper berries and pine needles pool by her sandals. Her hair is much like the little girl's, he notices, but much longer, thicker, wavier. Freckles dot her face, but her eyes are lighter, softer; a quiet hazel. She's different than the child.
The woman approaches in a leisurely gait, a smile creasing the corners of her mouth. He feels like he should know her, too, the both of them, and there's that incessant pattering again in the ticking clockwork of his head, but he can't place it.
It's so close. It's there. He knows it is. Why can't he remember?
The world begins to dissolve.
Peach-fuzz faces melt into metal and the grass shimmers into sheets of pearlescent tile. Desks sprout from the floor, thin metal and heavy wood, and brilliant lights bloom from the paneled ceiling. It happens so fast he can't process the shift; he's spinning, sinking into the ground, drowning.
And then it stops.
Wheatley gathers his bearings. The harsh brilliance of fluorescents makes him squint. He has no control over his body, but from what limited view he has, it seems the park has transmuted itself into what looks to be a furnished laboratory.
"Tell us a bit about yourself," says a formless shape.
They emerge from places he can't see, billowing up from the cold tiles. They're all around him, black as pitch and looming.
What's happening?
"You already know all about me," he finds himself saying. It's a strange noise. It's his, he knows, but it feels somehow submerged, wrong, laced with poisonous fury. "You got all those clipboards and files. You don't need to ask. You've got it all right there in front of you. Why you bothering with this?"
The shapes wobble, spasm, and sprout limbs. The blackness hones in and melds itself into folds of clothing. Hands tucked into pristine lab coats, arms cradling papers and strange ropes of wires and tubing.
"Of course we know," says the foremost, "but this is formal. For our records, you see. It's being filmed. See that up there? There, in the corner?" Newly shaped fingers gesture to a far off area of the room.
Wheatley's vision follows to a white-grey spherical contraption bolted high up on a wall to his right. Its eye is an eerie drop of crimson.
"Say hello," says the man.
Fear settles in, cold and dense upon his chest. It immerses itself beneath his ribs and clamps tight, frighteningly tight, freezing in his veins. Wheatley knows the face of that camera. It's in the employee quarters. It's in every test chamber. It's everywhere, always, and watching.
No. No, no, no, no, he doesn't want to face Her, he can't, She'll kill him, She'll rip him apart, disassemble him, pull him out and crush him into nothing—
"You can't do this," says the voice in Wheatley's mouth. "They'll look for me, you know. They will! I have friends, colleagues, family, someone's going to notice I'm—"
The lens seems to focus on him, swirling, red and mechanical and—
"Tell us about yourself. What you do, what brought you here."
She's watching him, watching, watching, and he can't—
"I'm here because you trapped me!"
For the first time since the dream shifted, since it swallowed him into this mock world of Aperture Science, he can see why he can't move. His wrists and ankles are bound, held fast by metal shackles; he's lying in a chair of some sort, reclined backward, encircled by faceless scientists in coats, ensnared.
What is happening?
"You volunteered," says the man. He tilts his head as though he can't fathom why Wheatley is struggling.
"No," Wheatley hears, welling up from within his throat.
It's rage and wrath and he can feel the manacles dig into the flesh of his arms as he strains forward. There's sharpness and digging and pain and it hurts but he desperately needs to get out of here.
"I came here for the kids. For the test subjects. For all the people you said I'd help."
He's trying to lean forward, trying to break free, but he can't, he's weak; he's trapped and he's weak and he's shoved into this place where he never wanted to be, never, he shouldn't be here, he should be above.
"I'm here for them," he rasps. "Here for them. I'm here because I wanted to help!"
"A noble cause," remarks the man, thumbing the stubble on his chin. "Trust me: this is noble, too. The closer we are to building artificial consciousness, the closer we'll be to bigger and better discoveries."
Artificial consciousness? No, but he's—
"What are you going to do to me?"
There is a tremble in his voice. His voice. This is his voice. Shaking. Panic. Fear. He is afraid, and the creatures know.
"What are we going to do?" The scientist shrugs as he folds his hands into his coat pockets. "Collect and compile information."
The other silhouettes begin to swarm around the edges of Wheatley's vision. Plastic pieces are pressed against his forehead by chilled fingers; wires trickle down the sides of the chair and rope into machines he can't see.
"After that, well…"
A thrum pervades the room. The machinery roars to life, and everything around him shakes with power.
"You won't remember the rest."
He wants to scream, but nothing comes.
Wheatley stirs in the warmth of his bed.
There was a nightmare. He can feel it. All of the details are too far gone to parse, sieving themselves into mottled motes of wispy images, but the unmistakable sense of terror that clings to the undersides of his ribs is as sure a sign as any.
The blankets are thick and heavy over him. Precious heat is trapped in the wraps of the cocoon he's woven in his sleep. Drowsy with his heartbeat in his throat, he ducks beneath the covers and rubs at his eyes with the heels of his palms. The pressure isn't quite enough to lift the weight that sticks to his lids—or relieve the dread.
He blinks into the soft darkness beneath the blankets. He tries to think, to grasp onto what little he remembers, tries to gain a proper handle on things, but it's not quite working.
What happened? There is a sinking knot inside of him—it was something important, something significant, he knows it was—but any lingering images are making themselves scarce.
He wishes he could remember.
Dragging himself back above the covers, he lolls his cheek against the pillow and squints at the clock on the nightstand. The numbers are bleary blots of red against an off white canvas. He could reach out and grab his glasses, but that would require his arm being out in the cold air—which, he decides, is not at all conducive to remaining warm.
No real reason to get out of bed yet, is there?
Wheatley nuzzles into his pillow and closes his eyes. The harshness of the morning sun glitters under the curtains, but his room is still shrouded in a calmer dark. It's one of many comforts that he's come to savor.
Moments pass. Balancing on the edge of consciousness and sleep, he lets his mind wander.
As the remnants of the nightmare slough away under the sunglare, he daydreams of Chell. He knows he probably shouldn't because he always ends up forgetting small things in the midst, like stuffing his laundry in the basket or putting the toothpaste back in its cabinet or properly tying his shoes in that far too complicated looping twist, but he does it anyway. Perhaps it's terrible of him, but he takes pleasure in what his brain conjures: her, her body, her voice.
Her voice. Wheatley can't get enough of her voice.
It's only small notes that stitch together into a quiet, fragile hum that would disintegrate in the warmth of his palm. It's slightly off key and entwined with silly nursery rhymes like Three Blind Mice and London Bridge and Mary Had a Little Lamb, rhymes that might make anyone embarrassed to sing past childhood, but it doesn't matter. It doesn't. None of it. Just hearing her is enough.
Actually, no. No. It's not enough. No, not enough at all. More than enough. It's so enough that he gets lost. The world could be collapsing, splitting apart, fires raging, dismantled by some extraterrestrial force, and he would be so incredibly lost in her that future civilizations would dredge him up from the magma slop beneath the earth's crust and fashion him into crude fuel.
He's numb to everything but her. Her, and her voice, that thread-thin thing she's kept so entrenched in the vault behind her ribs. It's a small sound, so raw, so unrefined; a murmur that's taken—months? Years? How long?—to construct, and that can unravel away into silence within seconds.
He's become so focused on its existence, so lost in her midst and so overwhelmed that his mind constructs intricate fantasies about it. He doesn't know what her words sound like (though he'd like to), but there is a sound. No matter how fragile or small, there is a sound, and from it, he imagines songs, sentences, laughter—everything.
Most of all, he imagines her saying his name.
It would be gentle and whispery soft. She would stand in front of him, a shy yet proud smile pulling at the corners of her mouth. She would have her arms hooked around the small of his back, pressing tight. She would be close, she would be warm, and she would stare up at him, this small little lady who's finally discovered herself, and whisper the sound of his name, welling up from her vocal cords.
He knows it's silly. He knows it's ridiculous. Wishful thinking, really. Still, the idea twists tight thrill within his heart. He won't lie to himself: he very much wants to hear his name in her voice.
And it's this precious, sequestered thing that she's allowed him to hear. Him. Him of all people! God, he can scarcely believe it; him, the moron, the idiot, the ex-artificial intelligence that had tried to end her as a quiet smear on the facility floor. It's him, it's Wheatley, it's him that's composed of all of these terrible things, a book of failures and stupid decisions, and it's him that's helped her achieve this feat—and no one else.
Just him. Him and his tangle of words shoved into a fleshy mansuit that he's only just learned how to maneuver without flailing about.
And he doesn't deserve it. He's a selfish individual and he doesn't deserve this sense of accomplishment after all that's happened. And that's really what it is, isn't it? If you cut away the gristle and scrape down to the very bone of it all.
He gets the thrill of triumph over an impossible obstacle. It's excitement, admiration; it's her being as magnificent as she's always been and conquering everything one step at a time, and it's him being by her side, soaking it in.
He's become so transfixed with this secondhand high off of a drug he can't even name, and he's not even doing all the work. He's just sort of… leading along, guiding with this somehow acquired knowledge he didn't even know he had, flying by the seat of his pants.
It's ridiculous. He has no idea what he's doing. He shouldn't feel like this. He shouldn't have this swelling pride pressing against his insides. She's the one that deserves all these good feelings, all these pleasurable thoughts.
Not him.
Her.
And she's… she's so incredible.
Wheatley nuzzles against the softness of his pillow at the thought of her and wishes he were of the clever sort. He wishes he had access to all the data he once had. If knew all the words to describe her, he'd use them. He'd scour the English language and snatch them up with greedy fingers, and he'd paint a portrait of her with their letters, fingers coated in inky syllables. He doesn't know what it would look like—a strange concept, a letter portrait—but he knows it would be beautiful. There's no way it wouldn't be because she is.
His toes curl and he nestles into the blankets, a strange pressure swelling within his chest. Well, he thinks, there it is, out in the open, being honest with himself: Chell is beautiful. God, she really is.
It tugs at his heartstrings in a peculiar way because he never would have used a word like that to describe a human before. Sure, they were interesting; they accomplished all sorts of things. They built robots, after all. They allowed him to exist! Still, beautiful was not something he thought to call one. His inner workings just didn't tick that way. Something changed.
Wheatley spent lifetimes in that facility. He never thought about the aesthetic of the human body or dwelled on the personalities of those he came across. And yet here he is, all this time later, coming to terms with the fact that this is now something that's cracked its way into his skull, entwining so closely with his thoughts.
She's beautiful.
And it's so strange, because it's these kinds of thoughts that have all but consumed him over the course of the week. Whether he's at the shop stocking boxes of reeds or at the flat alone on his days off, his mind always drifts in her direction. There's no stopping it, either. He makes a conscious, diligent effort to stay on task, but he's fighting something far too powerful, something too potent, fighting sleep. No matter how much he tries, it always claims him, and then he's slipping deeper and mind-painted pictures well up in the darkness to meet him.
On top of it, his defective body only seems to be getting worse. Sweaty palms, dry throat, palpitating heart; things that make him think he's going on the blink. There is a definite pattern, he's noticed: it's around her. Always. And he doesn't know why.
That's not to say he hasn't tried to figure it out. He has devoted time to examining himself in the mirror and noting his body's reactions. He's watched other humans on his walks, searching for signs of the things he's experienced. He's broken down the events in his mind's eye and analyzed them for anything that could clue him in on what's happening.
Wheatley's only conclusion, however, is that there's no way any of it can be a good thing. He enjoys being with Chell, he really does; she's done so much for him, more than he could ever thank her for, and the thought of being with her excites him like nothing else.
But if his body is going to malfunction when she's around, well… honestly, he has no idea what that means.
It's not something that's supposed to happen. He's pretty sure. All evidence seems to support that, at least. And it would comfort him if his worldview weren't so limited. He can only use what he's gathered from living as a human thus far, and unfortunately, that's not much. There's sparse information on social cues, some groundwork on basic functions and needs that was laid quite some time ago from his core days, and maybe some additional pockets of knowledge surrounding this therapy idea. Not particularly helpful when it comes to this.
So, buoyant in this malleable place between wakefulness and slumber, Wheatley decides that he is very much in need of a second opinion.
Of course, his very first thought is to ask Chell. That's always been a thought. He's positive she would know; she's so clever, so brilliant, so smart, and if there's anyone would know about this sort of thing, it would be her. She's here this whole time, guiding him and caring for him and ensuring his survival, and… well, she has the most experience with humanity between the two of them, if he's honest.
But there is a problem. A very real problem.
He can't make himself force the question.
And he's tried. He's really, really tried. No matter what, it always ends with him sputtering a lot of half formed syllables and incoherent gibberish. He malfunctions on the spot, and he can't say a bloody thing about it because he's too focused on the glimmer in her eyes, the smile at the corners of her mouth, the color in her cheeks.
Ah, and there is yet another problem. A problem he hadn't anticipated.
Wheatley risks upsetting her.
He risks reminding her of the place they ran from. Reminding her of the place she never wants to see again. The place she sees every night under her eyelids, the place that swells under the casing of her skull and soaks into every footprint she leaves—all because of something She might be behind.
He's already a walking, talking reminder. He's living proof that what happened actually happened, and Chell has let him stay here out of kindness. If She truly tampered with his body, if She's the only one who has the ability to repair him, if he must Return—
There is the feeling of something sharp sliding between his ribs. Prickles sluice down the length of his spine, and Wheatley twists among the sheets in dread.
No. No, he…
He won't do that. No.
He refuses.
He won't put her through that. Not after all she's done.
But he has to know. He has to know. He can't continue like this for much longer because the worry will eat at him, just like The Itch, crawling under him and pulling out the wires and gnawing into the circuitry of his motherboard, reprogramming, repurposing, tripping the switches of his inner clockwork to a different rhythm until it consumes him from the inside out.
No, he won't ask her. He won't.
But there must be someone out there who knows. Someone he can ask. Anyone. Someone that can tell him if he's normal, if this is human.
There must be. There must.
Wheatley rolls over and pulls the covers up to his chin. It should be time to get up soon, he thinks, and though a part of him looks forward to it (she's already up, he knows it), the rest wants nothing to do with the world outside of bed. The floor is shockingly cold this early, and his room always seems to hold colder temperatures than the rest of the flat. Bitter cold is not something he's particularly fond of, and the comforting warmth of his blanket cocoon is doing well in dissuading him from getting up.
She's awake, though. He's sure of it. And probably working on breakfast.
Wheatley grins into his pillow. His imagination paints her wearing pastel bedclothes. Brushstrokes of dark hair sweep down her face and kiss her collarbone. The pools of her eyes are soft, gentle, as is the slope of her face, contrasting deeply with the sharp lines that shape her dexterous hands. The scene is a Jackson Pollock masterpiece, speckled in bacon grease and flecks of pepper from the stove.
He wants to see her. The pleasure—that's what it is, it's got to be, nothing else feels so good—of being in the same room is so very nice. And now that he really thinks about it, the cold isn't so bad, is it? Easily combatable. He's wearing trousers and a long sleeved shirt, after all. Maybe he'll grab some socks. He could go for toasty socks. He's not sure if he can reach the dresser from the bed, though. Maybe if he stretches?
A gentle knock on his door pervades the quiet. There is a white crash of oh god it's her behind his eyelids, and his muscles spasm awake. With a jaw cracking yawn, he arches off the mattress in a stretch and curls into a sit.
"I'm up, I'm up," he says, wrapping the blankets tighter around his lanky body. His heartbeat escalates and the heat entrapped in his cocoon suddenly seems far too hot.
The door opens, and Chell pokes her head in.
Wheatley doesn't have his glasses on, but he doesn't need them. He knows what she looks like through the haze. It's not because he's stolen so many glances at her throughout the week (that's a ridiculous assumption, really now), but he can see the curve of her face, her jaws, the jut of her nose, the color of her lips, all brilliant crystal with the help of memory.
She greets him with a wave. It's blurry; the spaces between her fingers seep with the white of the wall and the gentle caramel of her skin. The fringe of her hair frames her temples, and even without glasses, he can tell it's already combed and drawn into its customary ponytail.
"Morning," he says. "Up and about bright and early, as usual. Well, at least I think it's early. It feels like it. Can't really see the clock. Anyway, hope you slept well. I know I did." The ends of his mouth coax into a smile, though he doesn't mean for it to happen. "I'll be out in a minute. Have to find socks. Don't know if you've noticed—probably have, actually, since it's a bit hard not to notice—but the floor is bloody cold first thing in the morning."
In reply, she pops a leg in the door, wiggling her toes. Black socks—or things that looks like black socks—cover her feet. Wheatley thinks she gives him a grin (he sucks in this fluttery breath like she does), but he can't be sure. He really should have grabbed his glasses.
Chell pulls out of his frame of vision and shuts the door. It's faint, but he can hear the purposeful padding of her footsteps as she makes her way across the living room and toward the kitchen. The distance doesn't make his body malfunction any less.
After a moment of steeping in the warmth she leaves behind (he's not even sure how that's possible, if he's honest), Wheatley unwraps an arm from his swath of covers and reaches out for his glasses on the bedside table. Pushing the frames up his long nose, the soft blur of the world hones into sharp edges, and he can see properly once again.
"All right," he says, stifling another yawn with his palm across his mouth. "All right, up and at 'em."
Swinging his legs over the side of the bed, Wheatley tentatively touches the floor with a single toe. It's cold, but he decides that it's nothing he can't survive. On tiptoes, he makes his way to the dresser and fishes through the drawers. After acquiring socks (a nice wooly pair she bought) he shimmies them on and emerges from his room.
The door opens, and he's greeted with the heady aroma of pancake batter. It's a thick, sweet smell; one that dregs up the memory of the second time he awoke as a human. It's somewhat embarrassing to think about now, but visceral needs were new developments for him at the start, and so Wheatley was under the impression that the pangs of hunger meant death. To placate him, Chell made him pancakes as his first proper breakfast.
Wheatley feels his face grow hot. In his defense, it was a very real problem at the time.
When he enters the kitchen, the first thing he notices is that she's already dressed for work: long sleeved lavender blouse, smart slacks in a charcoal gray. She sits at the table, fork in hand, hidden away by a short-stack swathed in syrup.
"Smells good," he remarks, headed toward the stove.
A plate and silverware have already been set out for him, he notices, and so he snatches them and slides a few pancakes onto his plate. The syrup bottle is a cold glass, halfway full, and wrapped in a fancy label. He twists the cap off before tilting it upside down and slathering his breakfast in the stuff.
When Wheatley joins her at the table, he takes a moment to watch the movements of her hand, calculating how she holds the fork between her fingers. He mimics her, using the side of one of the prongs to sidle into the pancakes and separate pieces small enough to fit into his mouth. He mops each one about the puddle of syrup pooling in his plate before placing it onto his tongue.
He can't help but note her smile when he makes a noise in approval.
"You know, I shouldn't be," he says, poking at another pancake, "but I'm always surprised at how good all the stuff you make is."
Chell grins and says nothing. And he knows he shouldn't, but he desperately wishes it were different.
"Had another dream," says Wheatley, chewing the mouthful he's speared with his fork. He meets her gaze, and there is a definite jump in his chest. He tries his best to ignore the rhythmic hammering inside his ribcage. "I don't really remember what it was. I think it was a bad one, though. Was all weird when I woke up. You know. Darker stuff. Nightmares." He gestures to her with the end of his fork. "Like… well, like yours. But maybe not. I mean, I don't—well, no, I suppose I can guess what you dream of, but I don't think mine was like that. Not really."
She's resting her jaw in one hand, staring at him across the table with a much more muted expression than what she previously had. Her forehead knits, concern pinching between her eyebrows.
"Sorry," he amends. "Didn't mean anything by it. Wasn't mean to be offensive, if it was. I don't mean to say your dreams are like mine, because I'm sure they're not. Probably a lot worse, come to think of it. I mean, really, last week was proof enough now, wasn't it? With you coming in and all, unable to sleep, sort of anxious, and I—I … oh."
Chell has turned away. Her blue eyes are focused at this peculiar stretch of space between the tabletop and the windowpane, her fingers toying absently with the fork. She won't look at him.
"Sorry, did I say something wrong?" Something inside of him has coiled up in contrition. He wants to reach out across the table and touch the plane of her hand, but he doesn't. "I did, didn't I?"
She shakes her head.
It's true that Wheatley has gotten moderately better at reading her body language over the course of their tentative relationship. And actually, come to think of it, he rather has a knack for this sort of thing. He's not quite sure how or why, but he's picked up on it without any trouble. Gestures, expressions, and overall countenance give him a fairly good idea of what's trying to be conveyed.
Still, this is something he's unsure about.
"Hey," he says, craning his neck to peer at her from across the table. He notices that a slight flush colors her cheeks, but he doesn't know why—it's certainly not that cold in here. "Look, I didn't mean it. Whatever it was. Didn't mean to go about, you know, one-upping you on the dream front."
Chell shakes her head again, and brandishes her fork as if to say no or to shoo him away. Her mouth is thin, her jaw is set, and she brings her palm against her forehead.
Wheatley stares. Two plates of syrup-drizzled pancakes and a single glass of milk fill the distance between them. He's absently poking at his breakfast with the prongs of his fork, but he doesn't bother to eat any.
"I don't—sorry, I don't know what's happening," he manages, leaning forward. "Could you clue me in? Not that it's mandatory or anything, but I'm just saying it would… well, it would be helpful. You know. For someone who has absolutely no idea what's going on. Which would be me."
Chell's gaze flicks to him, and then back to the interesting place along the table and windowpane. Her throat moves as though she's working her muscles to speak. The morning sun from beyond the panes of glass catches the sheen in her hair, and it somehow reminds him of the shimmering paths of hard light that she once traversed, portal gun in hand.
He can feel his heart fluttering beside his lungs. He swears that one way or another, it's going to leave his body. He just knows it.
"A-Are you—"
Lightning quick, the pad of her finger presses against his lips, pushing his question back behind his teeth. Her skin is soft, warm, and it feels as though she's seeping into him and he can't muster a response because his words are snagged on canines and bicuspids, shoved between his molars.
Wheatley doesn't have any reference for this. There is no groundwork, architecture, or social structure in his head. There's a rush of this feels good and what is happening and it feels like his mind has been blanched blank, as if a sudden leak has poured out all of the thoughts and images and resources he's come to rely on. He's sitting across from her, following the taut rope of her arm as it stretches over the plates and silverware and the solitary glass of milk to her face, to the shapes of her eyes, to the unmistakable glow of her skin, and he is equal parts enraptured and lost.
His adam's apple bobs in a hard swallow. There is a moment of silent static in his mind's eye. A headache begins to form somewhere between his temples, and as it swells, he thinks he can hear some sort of distant hum—something he can't quite place.
Wheatley is not sure if it's impulse or memories or malfunction or something else, but he finds himself enfolding her hand with his. It's slow, gradual, like he's groggy and it's past midnight and she's somehow turned up at the foot of his bed, the entire room shrouded in cloaks of darkness, but she's there, burning bright, a lighthouse across the ocean.
He pulls her fingers away from his mouth and presses them against his cheek.
"Sorry," he murmurs.
The headache blossoms. It's uncomfortable, but he tries his best to ignore it. He knows he must look very strange with a pained scowl coupled with her hand in his grasp, but he peers at her anyway behind bony fingers and smudged lenses.
"I'm not one hundred percent on what's happening here, if I'm honest." He clears his throat, making an effort to regain his composure. "And I mean all around, not just… you know, the dream. Thing."
Chell is openly staring at him across the table, nonplussed. A gentle pink has cropped up around her face, and he can't help but notice the column of her neck and the feathery wisps of dark hair that have pulled out of her ponytail. His heartbeat pulses in his neck.
God, she's beautiful.
"Right," he says, following her gaze down to her outstretched hand. "Right, well, I suppose you want this back. Can't be very comfortable going 'cross the table like that, yeah?"
Wheatley lets go with a nervous laugh.
For a moment, Chell doesn't move. It's light, but he can feel the tips of her fingers trace down the line of his jaw. Something plants itself firmly at the base of his spine and spirals up his vertebrae, honing in to gnaw at his heart. His palms have grown slick; his headache seems worse; he can't focus.
Before he can do anything, before he can think, she pulls away.
There is a smile that pinches the corners of her mouth, slight and coy, and Wheatley feels stunned as she draws back into her usual posture and resumes eating her breakfast. He struggles to find the dexterity to use his fork with trembling fingers, and so he ends up dropping it on the table with a loud clatter.
Wheatley takes a deep breath.
Yeah.
Yeah, he needs to see someone about this malfunctioning stuff.
The trek down to the music shop is very bitter and very cold.
Wheatley has his mouth buried into the collar of his coat. With the thick material between his nose and the air, it feels slightly less like ice is fissuring into his lungs when he breathes. The top of his head is warm thanks to his hat, but his face is exposed; the chill nips at his nose and cheekbones with sharp, frosty teeth.
As he strides down the sidewalk and approaches the shop, he notices something remarkably different.
Glittering strings of silver and gold line the inner doorframe of the store. Reds, greens, and blues garnish the once plain display window; stars, holey circles, and little jagged-shaped somethings that look to be made out of colored paper have been pasted upon glass from the inside. Tucked amongst the metronome and musical merchandise, there is a miniature tree draped in a spiral of white-gold lights.
Well, he thinks, That definitely wasn't there yesterday.
Wheatley draws up to the window and peers through the glass and various shapes at the small tree. The lights are blinking, he notes; through the fog of his breath on the glossy surface of the window, he watches as they switch on and off in alternating patterns.
It's not that Wheatley unfamiliar with these kinds of decorations. He's seen similar things strewn about other shop-fronts and lampposts on his walks. In fact, the lights and colors make him feel sort of fuzzy on the inside. They're a somehow comforting presence. Still, he's a bit thrown off—he didn't think the old clerk did this kind of thing.
Wheatley shuffles his way in with the soft ding of the bell chiming over his ears. He shuts the door with the end of his elbow, puffing hot air between his cupped hands. The lenses of his glasses mist over from the heat; the world becomes an unintelligible fog.
"Hello?" he calls, nudging the frames down his nose. Everything is blurry, but at least there are shapes—albeit fuzzy ones.
"Wheatley?"
Despite his (lack of) height, Thomas cranes his neck (Wheatley thinks; he's not entirely positive) in an effort to look over the various shelves from the front desk. He digs into his breast pocket with a free hand and slides his glasses on.
"What are you doing here?" he asks. "You know, I could've sworn I told you that you didn't have to come in today."
"You did," says Wheatley. He rubs his palms together in hopes of speeding up the warming process, but it doesn't work quite as well as he likes. "Just thought I'd, you know, pop in for a while. See what's happening."
"Well," says Thomas, bushy eyebrow raised, "nice to see you haven't frozen, at least. Cold enough for you?"
"Oh, no, not at all. No, I'm totally fine. Just a walking ice cube. Not that that's a problem or anything. Could use a bit more cold, actually." Wheatley takes off his knit cap and rubs his face with the fabric. His nose and cheeks almost feel like the prickling sort of numb that he gets when his arm falls asleep. "Don't suppose we write an order for that?"
"Ha! Probably." Thomas continues scribbling on the papers at the desk. "I'm telling you, spring can't come soon enough. Been up here for a long while, so it's not like I'm not used to the cold, but sometimes you get sick of waking up to negative five every morning."
"Bloody freezing," says Wheatley, pushing his glasses back up his nose.
"Below bloody freezing," Thomas agrees.
Wheatley stuffs his hat into his coat pocket and pads up to the desk, still rubbing at his reddened knuckles. His face is burning raw from the wind. It would be an understatement to say he's extremely thankful for heating.
"So you said you've been up here a while," says Wheatley. "Exactly how long's a 'long while'?"
Thomas pauses to rub at the white-grey stubble on his chin. Dark brushstrokes of grey sweep beneath his eyes; his crow's-feet and the worry lines that pinch by his mouth somehow seem deeper than before.
"Oh, some forty-odd years, I think," he says. "But that was after I came back from overseas. Probably longer then. I grew up around this area. Well, not this area—bit further out."
"Forty years?" says Wheatley. He assumed Thomas had been around, but he hadn't been expecting that. "That's an awful long while, then."
"I know, I know, I'm old," says the clerk. "No need to go reminding me."
Thomas places his pen upon the desk and moves out from behind the paper-strewn bulk of wood. As he draws closer, Wheatley's eyes dart to a small folded paper tucked between the old man's fingers.
"Here," says Thomas, offering the slip in an open palm. "Your pay. I subtracted the cost of the metronome from the total, but there's still a decent amount left. Good for groceries or something, I imagine."
Wheatley accepts it, and with a knobby thumb, he flips the paper open. Bits of text are printed across the surface, strings of numbers, Thomas's full name (Thomas Zachary Key), and something that looks to be a street address, but he can't be sure. Among the crisp serif font are words scribbled in black pen, curling in a wild, delicate script. Thomas's signature is at the bottom; a collection of ink-carved loops and swirling lines.
"Uh, thank you," says Wheatley. "So I'll be able to use this? For money, that is."
"Well, yes, but you'll have to cash it first."
"I… cash it? I'm sorry?" Wheatley squints down at the paper. "That's not really something I'm familiar with, if I'm honest."
"Really?" Thomas rubs his forehead with his thumb and forefinger. "Well. That's a little inconvenient. All right, how about this: I'll leave a touch early today, take you to the bank down the street. We'll cash it there. I'd offer to have you get an account, but something tells me you don't have all the proper paperwork."
Wheatley arches an eyebrow. "Paperwork? For what?"
"Identification, social security, green card, I—no, you know what? Never mind. Not important." Thomas scratches at the side of his nose with his thumbnail and makes a scratchy noise somewhere in his throat. "We'll get things taken care of. Don't worry about it."
"As long as this will help her out," says Wheatley, slipping the precious piece of paper into one of his coat pockets. "S'all I'm worried about, really. Figure if I can… well, you know, contribute somehow, I might not be so bloody useless."
"I'm sorry? Useless?"
"Well, I mean, overall I'm not really much use. Can't really… fit in, I guess. Do the proper stuff everyone's supposed to do." Wheatley bites at his lower lip. He focuses on the patterns of skin and faint hairs that wrap around his knuckles, and he finds himself wishing he were shorter. At least he could tuck himself behind a shelf. "I used to be useful. I think. At one point. Everything's sort of muddled about, so I'm not entirely sure on that, but I like to think I was."
Thomas has stepped behind the desk once more, turning his attention to the various stacks of papers that are scattered about its surface. He runs a craggy hand through his white hair and picks up his pen with his other hand.
"You're plenty useful," he says, pressing it to paper. His mouth is a thin line, but his eyes are kind. "It's frustrating, sure, but putting yourself down won't do any good."
"Don't know about that. I certainly don't feel very useful." Wheatley glances over to the clerk, noting the blue plaid dress shirt that pokes out from beneath his chestnut blazer. He approves of Thomas's taste.
"Listen," says Wheatley. "I know it's a weird question—probably very weird, actually, now that I think about it—but you're one of the only blokes I know, and I'm honestly starting to run out of options, so… you wouldn't happen to know anything about abnormalities, would you?"
Thomas's face contorts into a puzzled frown. He pauses, looking up from his paperwork. "Abnormalities?"
"Abnormalities," Wheatley affirms.
"Did you… want to expand on that?"
"Well," says Wheatley, "it's—it's complicated."
Thomas shrugs. "Everything's complicated."
Wheatley doesn't have a response for that.
"Right," he says. "Right, well, I don't know really what it is. To sum it up, I think something's wrong with me."
"This is aside from the memory loss?"
"Well—what?" Wheatley shakes his head. "No, no, this doesn't have anything to do with memory loss. Or… maybe it does. I don't know. Like I said, it's complicated. You know, complex stuff. Details."
Thomas flips a page. "All right. Out with it, then."
Wheatley folds his hands together, watching as his fingers bend and lace amongst themselves. There is a knot in his throat, and he's not sure how it got there.
"It's like everything inside me gets all twisted up." He shifts, squeezing his hands. "My heart's just… it feels like it's beating too fast, you know? Like it's trying to get out. I get all hot and uncomfortable, and it—it feels like there's something wrong. Something not normal. Something that shouldn't be happening because none of it happens anywhere else."
He finds himself sinking his fingernails into the flesh of his palms. Not enough to hurt, but enough to feel like he has a grip on things.
"And what's worse is I can't tell her about it. When I try, my words get all buttery and I can't talk straight, and then I've lost track of things and somehow I'm waffling about bloody toast for god's sake. Toast, or… or the weather, or whatever else pops into my head."
It's not funny, but he laughs. Air flows through his lungs and his diaphragm shakes with the force and anxiety is trickling down the structure of his spine.
"I mean, really, who talks about those kinds of things? Like toast. And you know, come to think of it, I don't think I've ever had a serious conversation about the weather before. What are you supposed to say? 'Oh, it's raining again, isn't it?' 'Yes, it does look that way.' Just, really, what kind of exchange is that?"
Wheatley draws in a jagged breath and runs his fingers through his hair. He can feel the electric pull of some of the strands as they stand on end. He pauses to look at Thomas, who is still busy scribbling on the forms with his pen.
"There is something wrong with me, isn't there?" he asks.
Thomas glances up, raising his bushy brows, but continues to write. "From the sound of it, I would say so."
"Oh, god," says Wheatley, engulfing his forehead with his hand. "What is it? Is it fatal? Do you know? You do know, don't you? I mean, you healed people. You said that. You did, I remember. Can it be fixed? Whatever's wrong with me. I'm not going to die, am I?"
The old clerk licks his thumb and flips through the pages. "Hard to say, really. But the good news is that it's a common ailment—if it's what I think it is."
"That doesn't make me feel much better," says Wheatley.
"Why not? A good number of folks suffer through the same thing. It's not a unique occurrence."
"What do you mean?"
Thomas rolls the pen between his thick fingers and curls his rat's tail about his thumb. "Well, if I'm not mistaken—which I could be, so take this with a grain of salt—it's a light case of infatuation, which isn't much of a big deal."
A moment passes where Wheatley tries to process what is being said. If he still had access to hundreds of databases chock full of terabytes of information—he wishes he did, god does he ever wish he did—he would be sifting through them vigorously.
It's like someone ripped off a door he's been struggling to open. Just like that, incredibly quick, a finger-snap, and there are now things pouring into his head, out of his head, swallowing and overflowing. His headache returns in full force, and he suddenly feels very dizzy.
"Oh, god."
Infatuation.
With the flood bursting through his mind, his awareness has sharpened. He knows what this means, he knows; there's no way he couldn't. Simple and complex, wonderful and terrible, it's something on a much deeper level than he ever could have grasped. And all this time, he never thought to apply the word to his situation.
He never thought of it. It never occurred to him. Not once.
It just wasn't in his programming.
Why?
"Oh, don't look so serious," says Thomas, chuckling. "It was a joke. It is very normal, though. Happens to almost everyone. Nothing abnormal about it, so you can quit your worrying."
Wheatley doesn't reply. He is concentrating on keeping himself balanced, standing, calm. Staring at his hands, his mind flashes to this morning, to how she touched his face, his mouth, his fingers, how she smiled, and panic takes root underneath his ribcage and climbs up the space between his lungs.
"Oh, god," he murmurs, voice cracking.
He doesn't see Thomas, but he can sense his presence somewhere around the edges of his vision. "Are you all right?" he hears. "What's wrong?"
"I don't know," he rasps. There's wetness forming in the corners of his eyes, and then the world turns into a bleary mess. "I don't know."
Everything that happened—everything he put her through, all that happened There, everything, everything—is worse.
It's so much worse.
"Wheatley?"
He doesn't know how the floor managed to fly up and meet him, but he's staring at it now, sleek and white, his temples throbbing. His knees have somehow begun to hurt and his stomach feels as though it's being wrenched about.
Wheatley should be relieved. He really should. He knows this isn't Her doing now. This is fine, this is normal; this isn't something She plagued him with. He should be rejoicing. He should be relieved. He should.
But he's not.
"Wheatley?" Thomas's voice is somewhere beside him, quick and urgent. He feels the pressure of a hand between his shoulder blades, but he doesn't move. "What's wrong? What happened?"
He doesn't know. He doesn't know why his head hurts. He doesn't know why some space in his mind opened up its maw and attached all of these meanings to everything. He doesn't know why he's reeling and he doesn't know why he's on the floor.
Wheatley knows only one thing:
He is head over heels for Chell.