Edit: Just realising now that the formatting gets kinda messed up here on ffn which sucks, theres a lot of emphasis I put on thoughts and certain words using italics and underlining that I can't be bothered manually adding for this website, so if you are interested in not struggling to read it feel free to go to AO3 for a better reading experience.
I had quite a lot of fun writing this first chapter in all honesty, its just a fun premise imo. A light chelley in this fic, and slight dehumanisation of Wheatley at first by Chell but he's not too fragile, he bounces :) I might be overdoing it with the emphasis and capitalisation on the word her but I want to distinguish between the two characters so just bear with me.
Even as she's buying the manor, Chell gets the overwhelming suspicion that she hasn't fully paid the price yet. On the market for some 20 years, dirt cheap (they almost paid her for it at that point) and as large a property as it is, one has to wonder what the catch is going to be and how agonising her next five years of university are going to be living in this almost-falling-apart house. She has to remind herself at every side glance of her (it's a stretch to call it this but) new property that this is only temporary and not at all permanent, but perhaps maybe those friends of hers who rejected being her housemates for a while had the right idea. Who knows what's wrong with it: corpses hidden under the cedar wood floorboards, asbestos infested walls, atrocious black mould permeating the pipes, a beehive in the attic, a gap in cell phone service, termites munching on the foundations, an axe murderer squatting in the basement, the souls of the damned and demons guarding their domain-
Chell shook herself out of that quickly spiralling and derailed train of thought, think happy thoughts, as if that's going to help as she stands sentinel to quite possibly the gates of hell. It sure looks like it, she scoffs, reading the cursive script on the giant iron gates, a rubicon dividing her life before and after this very obviously terrible purchasing decision.
Aperture Manor
Hound on premises, keep out
She sure as hell hopes that hound is no longer on premises, although knowing her luck at this point it's probably Cerberus. Fiddling with the rusty old key to the gates in her hand and stalling heavily, she braves what she hopes isn't one last glance at the road behind her leading into the rest of the neighbourhood, and unlocks the bars with great difficulty. Meandering up the winding path to the front door, she scouts the area for said hound just in case, as well as different entry points and possible hidey-holes for intruders or axe wielding maniacs. Her eyes wander back over to the mansion in determination, and frankly awe and terror too, who wouldn't after all. It's perched upon a gentle incline, the highest point in the whole neighbourhood, with intricate mock-gothic architecture with a great willow tree to its right, and its left is smothered in vines, indicating its original owner was particularly fond of being a societal outcast and probably proud of it.
It looks as if it was built sometime during the 19th century, but also who knows how many hands this ornate house was passed down to over the decades. If anyone had gut instincts as accurate or immediate as Chell's, probably quite a few owners, she concludes.
She fumbles more with the keys to the house, picks up the baseball bat she left at the doorstep when she was gathering her possessions from the moving van to the verandah, and cautiously enters her house. She scans each room thoroughly, looking for evidence of squatters, a sacrificial altar, a portal to some alternate realm, wood-eating rat infestation, anything to justify what she now feels like is more than anything an irrational paranoia taking over her thought process. She mentally slaps herself in the face, typically she doesn't let any kind of emotion phase her exterior persona or cloud her judgement; after all, in every horror movie spooky shit only really starts to happen at night, right?
It feels acceptable to her to let herself just move in before she does any further investigation, and luckily being the young university student she is, there isn't much for her to unpack. The previous owners, whichever layer of previous it could just be a matryoshka doll of generations of a family for all she knows, left a lot of furniture in the three story house, and luckily for her it's all in pretty okay condition. Albeit, as Chell notices, a lot of the different assortments of tables, chairs, and leather and plush couches were abandoned mid dusting for some reason she deep down hopes was just time constraints. So after she unpacks her own belongings, she decides to tend to what now could be described as her new belongings, and that means dusting off the thick layers of grime from every flat surface she encounters.
Like a mantra before she begins her spring cleaning which she definitely should have employed some help for taming, she repeats calm down to herself mentally because it's the only thing keeping her from already spiraling into some form of a fugue state. Donning her n-95 mask (in case she happens across any dust that doesn't mesh well with human lungs) and feather duster, she meticulously sweeps through each room to unveil the deeply neglected furniture. She looks over everything before beginning, keeping track of delicate family heirlooms or useful items she might come back to. What starts to trouble her however, is almost every second pass of the room, she sweeps over each surface which always seems to have just one more fingerprint than she remembers. It's subtle at first, maybe she forgot she touched that coffee table, or ottoman, or mirror, but as she keeps a closer eye on things after sweeping all dust onto the floor to vacuum up after, a few extra, significantly larger than her own, footsteps seem to be materialising as she makes her way back down to the first floor of the house.
It's almost all a big joke to her, especially with how immediate and obvious the disturbances seem to someone as observant as Chell. Having already checked over the whole house, under beds, in closets, barricaded the basement with a stair under the knob and the attic already bolted shut, she knows now she isn't dealing with your standard home invasion scenario. In a mocking train of thoughts she huffs to herself that whichever spirit is haunting this manor is clearly a bit amateur in their attempts to frighten her.
Clearly it's worked on everyone else though, she ponders as she enters the kitchen and opens the taps, checking the pH of the water coming out of each of the taps and staying cautious of any smell she might catch from the streams. As she tests the burners of the stove to see if there's working gas, just in between the clicking of the stove the clink of a displaced item in the living room alerts her hyperactive ears. She peeks in to go check on the pen that now resides on the hardwood floor that most definitely just fell a second ago, and glances around the room for any further activity. Chell has long abandoned the baseball bat after clearly ruling out a flesh-and-blood intruder and knowing it's probably some apparition, and scans the paper on the table and floor beside the pen for any writing or reason the pen must have been moved, either by some draft or unseen force. It hits her suddenly how strange this whole situation has immediately become, as she went from someone who was very much an atheist with no belief in ghosts to now essentially being a ghost hunter in her own house which she's clearly too unfamiliar with to jump to any conclusions about.
As she continues to test each appliance around the house she will definitely need to use in the future, she continues to hear the occasional noise, although she assumes it's perhaps the warping of the wooden foundations or creaky old furniture more than anything. A floorboard groans, a gentle thud on the doorframe just a few minutes after she enters a room, a tap on the windows which is probably the all encompassing vines that swallow a half of the house's facade.
As she makes it back to her new bedroom and unpacks her sheets and duvet to replace the old, slightly worn and yellowed covers, she shakes out the old sheets and checks each corner of the mattress and bed head for bed bugs. She readies herself to throw her sheets over the fitted sheet when she hears a creak of a floorboard behind her, and in a flurry of motion she tosses the sheet behind her and in the direction of said noise. It clings, static, in mid air to some tall figure before falling to the floor after it seemingly stumbled backwards. Fuck. Without a second thought, Chell regains her composure after her slight fright but also amusement as she caught the ghost off guard this time, and contains her smug attitude. She knows better than to mess with whatever being is possessing this house. It is very soon going straight back on the market if she makes it out of there alive.
With all the noise it was making earlier she was hazarding a guess to it being perhaps a poltergeist, meaning knocking ghost in German, after all it seemed to adore making a ton of noise in rapid succession. The more she thinks about it though she hopes it truly isn't, as it's probably a terrible sign if a poltergeist is incredibly active at first encounter. What Chell didn't know however is that her instincts were indeed right, this was a noisy ghost but not in the way she was analysing.
"Gah! Alright, that's on me this time, I thought it would be better to just let new inhabitants settle in a bit before I reveal myself, wasn't expecting you to cotton on almost immediately. Blimey, well that wasn't the introduction I was hoping for and I'm sorry for following you around creepily for quite some time, it wasn't my intention to freak you out or anything, I was trying to avoid it really- wait, you seem far too calm in this interaction. Typically I could joke around with other folks that live here like 'oi mate, you look like you've just seen a ghost!', but you haven't even so much as twitched an eyebrow- have you even blinked?!"
A tall, gangling man stands at the foot of her bed as she steps backwards to the bedside table, installing as much space as she can between what could be a volatile spirit and herself. However, Chell caught the demeanour of this spirit pretty much instantaneously, and almost loses her fiery hot glare just based on the realisation that whatever it is seems more frightened of her than anything.
"Seriously, is all you do stare? Hopefully you can talk too, you didn't even scream, I've had to get used to those since the last owner had a bloody infant that wasn't too fond of me despite how kind I tried to be- anyway, can you say anything for me, anything at all? Say apple. Just a simple word, apple; a-p-p-l-e."
Boy, did he like to talk, but he's going to have to figure out quickly that if anyones in control in this house, it's her, and she isn't going to bend to anyone else's will, whether they're living or dead. If Chell keeps the upper hand in this odd living situation, then maybe she can coexist with this creature for a little longer than she initially calculated.
"Alright, nothing on your end, but that's fine I'm sure you'll come around to it in the meantime… oh, wait or are you brain-damaged? I know that can sometimes cause slight cognitive deterioration in people, but no issues, you won't need to speak a word to me! Just cough, or jump, or something I'm not entirely sure. We'll figure out a system, maybe you know morse code or like a one tap for yes and two for no kind of deal we'll manage, no worries. Oh, I just realised! how rude of me I haven't even introduced myself yet. The name's Wheatley. Now, I've been dead for quite some time, from around the 1950s and I think it's around the early 2020s currently so that's at least 2 years I'm sure. But yeah, that's a little on me, I'm your more interactive spirit here in this house, so if you hear a thud or clank I probably hit my head or dropped something accidentally, so uh, don't worry about that.
What you may have to worry about a little more however is, uh, Her. A nasty piece of work She is, like a proper maniac. She's more of a loose cannon kind of ghost to be around, mostly because she's a demon, not to be prejudiced or anything. I'm sure there's nice demons out there, but the point being she might be a little less welcoming or charming than I am to you, that's for sure. Don't you stress your pretty-little-head though, love, she won't hurt you, I'll make sure of it at the very least. No previous homeowners have died here from Her, apart from myself, so really you can just take it easy and let me do all the work. How does that sound? Ah, I almost forgot to ask, what's your name, love? If you can answer, maybe tap in morse code or something."
She blinks in surprise at the sudden onslaught of noise emanating from the rather animated man on the other side of the room. He clearly doesn't get the memo that she's not in the mood to (nor will she want to) talk, so she grabs the notepad and pen he clearly accidentally dropped earlier from the nightstand behind her and writes the words 'I'm Chell. Not in the mood to chat, I'm busy moving in, maybe later'
She can't help but feel a pang of guilt at the slight falter in his unabashed and previously seemingly unstoppable enthusiasm as his smile drops slightly along with his shoulders. "Oh, right, of course you're busy. No problem, I'll just be here if you need me I guess, although you seem to fare just well on your own, huh Chell? Have a good night if you're over me already. I know I tend to talk a bit too much."
As he disappears around the corner and into the hallway she takes a brief moment to reflect not only on what it, Wheatley, had said to her, but also what it appeared as. She can't bring herself to call it a he yet, knowing some spirits can be deceptive at first impressions so she's not ruling out any chances it's also a demon, but from how he's appeared so far she can pretty comfortably say he seems, for a lack of a better word, benevolent, so far. What's not very ideal for her however, is this other Her he speaks of, who seems clearly a lot more malicious as a presence in the property, but she might just have to wait and see what this means or ask for clarification later. For all she knows there's only one spirit that's pretending to be two or something similar, almost like an angler fish. One entity, both the lure and teeth.
For now though, she can't be bothered to investigate further, just glad to at least get some confirmation that either she's not going crazy or too deep in insanity to be saved without being admitted into a psych ward. Maybe that's just what she needs at this point. She finishes tidying her room up so she can just roll into it later tonight, she leaves the house to get some cheap takeaway to bring back to her house.
As she waits by the counter of the local Vietnamese restaurant for her order to be prepared, her thoughts keep wandering back to her unlikely housemate. She knows there's no point in actually trusting the spirit, it could turn on her whenever it wants and then lull her back into a state of security, and she can't have that happening. Getting attached, calling it a he and humanising it, hell even god forbid trusting the thing just spells out disaster to her, but for the time being, Chell concludes that if that version's chill around her, then she will reciprocate to keep on its good side. In that room, standing right next to it, Wheatley seemed almost two entire feet taller than her, granted she's very much on the shorter end of the height spectrum, but it stood at around 6"7 give or take. No wonder it keeps banging its head on all the doorframes, I guess it'll be an easy one to track around the house while I'm there given the path of destruction and noise it dissipates. With strikingly blue eyes, fair skin, an unusual accent, and honey blonde hair, the spirit certainly didn't stick out to her as being threatening besides the stature. Its features were more masculine than anything, but also slightly rounded about the edges, giving Wheatley a sort of friendly, but also pretty appearance to Chell. No matter how she spins it, she certainly can't deny he, no it, is quite striking and disarming at a first glance.
She mulls it over in her head, growing more and more anxious with the realisation overtime that her instincts probably are correct about the young looking ghost. If she really thinks about it, it's quite smart. It looks just a couple years older than herself, clearly well put together albeit clumsy, friendly and well-meaning. A real siren of a dead roommate! As she unlocks her door again and heads inside, she wonders how many different forms it must take depending on how to reel in some fresh meat.
She almost stumbles as she notices Wheatley sitting at the dining table waiting for her, beaming a one-hundred-watt grin at her as she sets the boxed food on the complete, diametrically opposed seat from him at the table. If she's going to have company in this house, she's at least going to have to acknowledge it and make the most of the good company before it tries to steal her bones in her sleep. "Hey, love! I'm surprised you came back at all to be honest, let alone to eat. Most inhabitants usually spend their first few nights just at friends houses and most of their time out of this house. I'm just glad you've come back, clearly little old Wheatley isn't as scary as people make him out to be huh? What have you got there for supper?"
She retrieves her pen and notepad from her pocket as she needed it to order from the restaurant, just expecting to need to respond to him (it) at some point during her meal. It's not that Chell can't speak per se, she can talk to close friends and family just fine but a little quiet, it's just that she only speaks to people she definitely trusts. It's safe to say Wheatley won't be getting any special treatment now that she's figured out his whole plan. She smirks into her bowl slightly as she polishes off the rest of her phở bowl. And just as she's going to put her fried rice away in the fridge and clean up after herself, Wheatley pipes up again.
"I just thought, before you go to sleep, I can get to know you a bit better, and you to know me too of course. As well as answer some of your more burning questions, either about what to expect around here or life after death, really whatever you want, just to make you a bit more comfortable around here since you seem a bit more on edge after returning is all- not that I was watching you all that intently or anything, anyway you get what I mean. What do you think?"
She looks up from cleaning her bowl and nods to him in a gesture to clearly mean go on, and he almost looks like an over excited puppy at the slightly affirmative gesture. "Oh, man alive, okay so you do wanna talk! Great, well firstly I guess I'll let you know what you might want to look out for around here, especially with Her, her name was Caroline I think in the past, but I assume that's a pretty pressing issue on your mind given I've painted a pretty grim picture of your chances here. She mostly comes out at night, but occasionally in the day near the basement and attic, good idea blocking those off by the way, not too shabby at all! You seem like you'd be a real fighter and will do just fine really, I hope."
He takes a slight pause in his long winded speech as she makes her way back up the rickety stairs to her bathroom, him following a little too close behind. She starts to brush her teeth, and he continues.
"Right, so sometimes she likes to wake people from their dreams, sort of keep them in a liminal space between states of being, sleep paralysis I think you humans call it, but during these she can't actually hurt you. I always try to help out where I can with these, but sometimes it's a bit out of my control too, I regret to inform you."
He chuckles a bit uncomfortably at this remark, but nevertheless, ploughs on as she finishes plaiting her hair and makes her way to her bedroom. "Anyway, can I know more about you maybe? You know, just to get some information, some data on those living here. Another tick to add to my 'people who've lived here who I've saved' ghost plot I keep stored, obviously. What are you like?"
She jots some notes down on the spiral bound pad quickly, leaves it on the edge of the bed, and walks into the walk-in closet to change into her bed clothes. She noted down a few things about her she felt the need to communicate or that he'd ask about at some point soon. She's a 20 year old immigrant from Brazil, a university student who's studying mathematics with a scholarship so it's all paid for hence she could afford the house on money saved from when she used to work, she enjoys romantic era music, classic books, and says she's not brain damaged but mute, full stop. She also prods further for information out of Wheatley, mainly just a story on how he died, if he even ever lived to begin with that is.
As she emerges back out from the closet in her pyjamas, he avoids her question pretty bluntly. "Well, interesting information about yourself, thanks love, but maybe let's not get into my story just yet, it's not particularly my favourite to tell I'm sure you could guess why. Anyway, sweet dreams, ghostly fingers crossed they're undisturbed, and just let me know if you need anything. Knock on the table maybe, I'm not sure. Too-da-loo!"
With that exit, he switches the lights off and vanishes behind the curtain in the corner of her room, clearly either keeping guard or watching over his prey as she sleeps. Wait, since when did he become a he in my brain? She scolds herself at this slip up, but is frankly too exhausted and kind of terrified to care. She's not going to lie to herself, although she knows that any demon probably thrives off of the fear they instill in their victims, she can't help but be incredibly anxious to fall asleep, almost to the point of shivering. Chell tries not to let her emotionless facade falter, but it gets harder by the second with her stomach turning in fear and her nerves making her all jittery, feeling the beginning of a panic attack forming as tears prickle the corner of her eyes. She can barely blink, afraid even a microsecond of looking away from that one corner he vanished into will let him transform into the nightmare she knows he is.
The curtains stir and he emerges again, this time slightly opaque (which reminds her even more that he is in fact not human), as he switches the light back on for her. "Oh, love, I can tell you're a bit on edge, I really didn't mean to scare you this badly, in all honesty I thought you were just pure undiluted stoicism, but it's alright to be afraid or even cry, honestly, it's the correct response to being told all the quite awful things I've had to say so far."
He gently kneels down beside her, his crystal blue eyes clouded with concern and empathy, but she shies away from his touch. Yeah, make me let my guard down, I bet you'd enjoy seeing me cry. His eyes are downcast, "sorry, I wish I could do more to comfort you, honestly I do. Me being a ghost and all probably doesn't help too much I know, but I was just like you before, you know? Only difference is, this time around, I want to be the friendly face I needed to see at the time I went through this. I'll leave that light on for you when you're ready, and I'll fully leave the room this time so you can actually rest."
He ambles over to the doorway, turns around and stammers, "you're not on your own with any of this, alright? I'll be honest, I'm a bit frightened of her too and I'm immortal so don't feel bad. Just rest up and tomorrow's another day."
Chell wakes to the unusual feeling of her arms being pinned to her sides, the outside world still pitch dark behind the curtains, and a tall-ish woman with a short light grey bob is standing at the end of her bed, unwavering and unnaturally still. Panic seeps through from her paralysed limbs right to her core, but before she feels like she might just pass out again from stress, the woman speaks. "So I see you've already spoken to that moron, or better put he's rambled at you, as always. I've never seen anyone else just flat out reject his whole 'I'm a friendly spirit' deal. What you do manage to have backwards, however, is that he is the least of your worries, believe me."
Her cold, borderline robotic voice, emphasises those harsh few words, punctuating them with disgust and loathing. Her next few sentences take a twist for the more saccharine. "You don't have to worry though, I know what you're thinking, he doesn't but I do. I'm not him, and he's not me; thank goodness. To be a pathetic little parasite like he is is to live an afterlife of misery, really. Tending and helping those who are still alive is arduous work, and he just loves to get in the way when I have my own little science experiments to do. You're a science major, so you'd understand my plight I'm sure."
She looks over her shoulder to the door frame again, then rolls her amber eyes. "Oh, the little idiot's on his way. No, I shouldn't call him that, he's just intellectually alternative, I can be nice, see? Anyway, I can see you'll probably be in it for the long run with how repulsively tenacious you are, so I can't wait to have more fun with you in the very near future."
When Chell regains control of her movements, she blinks and lunges at the spot the woman just a split second ago occupied, enraged as her sleep was so rudely interrupted for such snarky commentary, remarkably mostly aimed at Wheatley of all things too. Wheatley stumbles into the room, knocking his head on the ceiling once for good measure, before tumbling to the ground in front of Chell who's half crouched on the end of the bed, tears threatening to fall as she blinks them away.
"Love, are you alright? Okay, yeah silly question considering what just happened, but also, I kind of have to straighten something out here, just make sure I'm understanding this properly. I happened to maybe have been eavesdropping- yeah I know I was listening, I have really good hearing alright? But I can't help but to have overheard that she said you think She and I are the same… or did I mishear?"
Chell nods meekly, either her cover on her plan of getting on his good side to avoid her wrath has been blown, or she can get some much needed comfort over finally knowing she's safe in his presence and that her knee jerk instinct wasn't true. It will only do her harm hiding it if they're the same spirit, anyway. "Ah, aha, shucks. I actually haven't ever had this question pop up before, so forgive me if I don't have sufficient proof yet, but even if it's not enough, go talk to some of the previous owners I've saved. It's almost like there's ten thousand of them with how quickly this house is hit around like a tennis ball. Either way, follow me, love, maybe this might help you believe me a bit better."
He leads Chell back into the ensuite bathroom that's connected to her room, pausing in front of the oval mirror and flicking the lights on. She catches a glimpse of her puffy and red eyes, she's clearly been crying throughout the night for some reason she can't remember, and Wheatley gives her a soft, understanding smile. "Read the word above the mirror there," and he jerks his head in the direction of the top of the frame.
In a neat, cursive font is the name 'Wheatley' engraved in the ornate bronze-gold frame of the mirror. "Not a very common name if I were to guess, at least not anymore and especially not here in America. My uncle used to design and sell picture and mirror frames, he designed this one especially for me as a bit of a going away present when I first left for the US."
He gestured her out of the bathroom and back into the bedroom, to the dresser beside the walk-in closet she was in just a couple of hours prior. He cleanly and swiftly opens the top drawer, but before she can freak herself out as to how dexterous and probably strong he could be when he wants to be, he fishes out a couple of small, worn and faded pictures from the drawer. "I never go back in here, it's just a horrible reminder, I'm sure you understand, but if you really need it to trust that I really did exist, then here you go."
She flips through them slowly, piecing together the scene of each still shot, capturing a memory of the man in front of her fiddling anxiously and darting his eyes around the room. Some had this man significantly younger, with some older siblings ruffing up his blonde curls in front of his birthday cake, others were him graduating through each stage of his education, ranging from around 11-12 to possibly 24 or so, just a few years younger than he currently looks. There's photos and memories of him with friends; cooking, or going to the cinemas, or travelling, or just eating and chatting together. In any other circumstance, Chell would see these photos perched on a grave stone, memories of a life well spent, but in the context of the very distressed ghost in front of her she's tried so hard to deny personhood, she can't help but feel tears well up in her eyes yet again. The last few photos of him are of this house, him outside with what seemed to be his faithful german shepherd with silly pink socks on its paws and a postage stamp in the corner to send to his family, and finally one of his well treated garden, the dog laying calmly in the shade of the willow tree she saw out front earlier that day.
He stammers yet again, unable to meet her gaze as usual. "So yeah, I'm not sure if that's all the information you need or not to trust me yet, but that's enough that will let you know that I did exist, at least."
He glances down at his hands, giving a rather humourless and dismal smile, but a smile nonetheless, and he continues with a slight crack in his voice and happy-go-lucky demeanour. "Anyway, you should probably get back to bed, love. You've had one hell of a night, I'd imagine, so do please rest well, alright?"
To hell with it, Chell smiles back, and his eyes light up in a literal blink of an eye. He half chuckles at the realisation that this is the first expression other than distress or a dark glare he's gotten out of her, and he hopes there's more of those where that came from. She rests a warm hand on his very cool shoulder, she shudders as he leeches her warmth, but content that it's brightened up his mood yet again, and his beaming smile is back full force.