Prompt 018: "Wheatley warm-up where he encounters snow for the first time?"
It's a few days before Christmas when Wheatley wakes up to a world swathed in white.
He tucks the curtains of his bedroom window aside and light pours into his room, bright and brilliant and blinding. He squints and gazes out into the street—or what used to be the street—and sees people plodding about in boots, hats, and scarves, wielding things like shovels and bags of salt. Drops of white flutter down from the sky, he notices, swirling in gusts toward the blanketed ground.
Entrenched in panic and bewilderment, Wheatley scrambles from the bedroom. Her door is open, the den is empty except for the small tree laced with lights, and he inhales the familiar scent of oil and meat. Wheatley heads for the kitchen.
Chell is by the stove, frying eggs, clothed in baggy lilac pajamas. Bacon is already drying on a floral patterned plate on the counter.
"Have you seen what's happened outside?" he says, grasping her shoulders. "It's covered in white! Wasn't like that yesterday! I mean, look! You can't tell me you haven't noticed!"
Chell's brow arches and she grins at him with laughing eyes as if to say, "You're a goofball; you know that, right?"
"Oh, don't give me that." He draws up to the kitchen window and settles his hands on the flat of the sill. As he leans against the glass, cold seeps through the wood into the tips of his fingers. No matter where he looks, there's more and more powdery white. "That's not rain. I know what rain is, and it's nothing like it. Not at all. And everyone's outside in the stuff! People don't do that when it's raining. Well, some do, I guess, but most don't." He peers over his shoulder at her. "It's safe, isn't it?"
She's still smiling, but she rolls her eyes (he can practically hear her thoughts) and gives him a nod.
Reassured, he turns back to the world outside. Curiosity gets the best of him and he manages to pry the window open after a moment or two of struggle. Frigid air bursts in, pure white flakes sailing to the floor. Gooseflesh crawls up his skin and the thin hairs on his forearms stand on end.
"Bloody hell," he says, succumbing to a shiver. "That's cold."
A white blot floats in and lands on his shirt. Tentatively, he nudges it with his fingertip. It's just as cold as it is outside; perhaps colder. How strange. It breaks apart into smaller bits of white and the nerves in his skin beneath it begin to numb.
"It's… it's wet," he says, brow furrowing with puzzlement. "Oh. It's melting, actually. It's water. Frozen water. Well, I suppose that would make sense, wouldn't it? Ice. Put the stuff in drinks all the time. Doesn't look like ice, though. Ice is transparent. This has color. Well, not that white is really a color. I mean, let's be honest: there are much better colors out there. Why not have it blue?"
Chell has dished breakfast onto two plates. She joins him at the table and pokes him in the shoulder, motioning for him to close the window and sit down.
"I want to go outside," he says.
She jerks her hands in a downward motion: "Close the window. Now."
"Right, right, closing. Sorry." With a grunt, he shuts it in a single fluid motion. In spite of the food on the table and the savory scent permeating the room, he presses his cheek against the glass and watches the people below shovel out their sidewalks and vehicles. His breath manifests as fog against the chilled surface and more flakes flurry about the air beyond. "But after breakfast, we can go outside?"
Chell nods in reply, chewing on a piece of bacon. She tugs on his wrist to make him sit, and he does so, albeit reluctantly.
Wheatley has never eaten so fast in his life.
Once the last bit of bacon has been devoured, he jumps up from the table, charges into his room, and dons himself with appropriate winter battlegear: two pairs of socks, thick jeans, long-sleeved shirt and undershirt, knit cap, gloves, and scarf. The finishing touches are his blue coat and lace-up boots. After he's satisfied that he's properly prepared, he bolts out of the apartment with Chell trailing just behind.
"Come on!" His voice echoes up the apartment's main stairwell. He grabs her purple-mittened hand and tugs her down the flights of stairs. "Come on now, let's go! I want to see!"
When he opens the complex's door, he's awestruck.
It's so much better than looking through a window. Everything is submerged in white. No road, no sidewalks, no porches or front door steps; pure, cold blankets of the stuff as far as he can possibly see. Icicles hang like frozen fingers from the trees that line the complex, glittering as crystal in sunlight, and footprints of all kinds mark where the sidewalks used to be.
"Amazing," he murmurs. He leans down and sinks his hand into it, finding it to be as cold and damp as in the flat. It's soft, malleable, but falls apart if not packed together. "What is this, anyway? Too different for ice."
Chell bends down. She takes a finger and runs it through the white, parting it.
"Snow," she writes in the—well, snow.
"Brilliant," says Wheatley.
He absorbs the bite of the air and the soft kisses of the feathery flakes against his red-flushed cheeks. His breath curls up in columns of smoky vapor and he's so incredibly astounded at how beautiful everything's become overnight.
He's about to head out into the winter wonderland when feels something bop him in the shoulder.
"Hey, what was—" Snow splits apart upon his coat and crumbles to the ground. When he looks up, he notices her laughing behind a violet mitten. "Oi, you threw that at me, didn't you?"
Chell shakes her head, a devious grin curving her mouth, and she darts off the stoop and into the snow, leaving tiny footprints behind.
"Get back here!" he shouts, scrambling after her. Snow is much harder to move in, however—he hadn't really accounted for that; poor planning on his part—and so he sort of tumbles into her and knocks her into a pile of snow instead.
She's pressed beneath him, long hair splayed across soft, glistening white, her knit cap covered in snow. His breaths are heavy, a burst of adrenaline pumping through him, and he can feel her move with each inhale. He's now acutely aware of how close they are, of how she feels, of the rich pink that's coloring in her face, of how gorgeous her smile is.
"Got you," he breathes.
She hooks her arms around his neck, leans toward him, and kisses the tip of his nose. Her lips are warm and he finds himself stunned, speechless, wrapped up in the vibrant blue of her eyes and in the rapid rhythm in his chest.
Chell pats his shoulders with her mittens. It's a signal for him to move. He manages to clamber to his feet and help her up with shaky hands, but he's still enraptured and can't seem to make himself budge from his spot.
Wheatley decides that he likes snow, unlike its unfrozen counterpart.
Chell beckons him to follow her with a contagious grin.
Yes. He likes it very, very much.