Just a short and sweet aftermath chapter, plus a bit more on how ghosts work in this au.
It's been a couple of days now, and he still refuses to tell her. There's lots he wants to say, and he's definitely not the best at holding his tongue. Lets just say, there's more than one reason he's trying to give Chell her space after that night.
She, however, wasn't a big fan of the quiet for once in her life. Granted, Chell has no idea what he could do that she'll be comfortable with after recent events, but she finds that quiet Wheatley very much tops the list of the more unnerving things he could be currently. It's completely wrong to her, as if Earth's gravitational force increased by 1 newton, or absolute zero was now lower than zero kelvin, or it was suddenly discovered that entropy can decrease in a closed system. Like many other facts of the universe, 'Wheatley is loud' stays consistent, so why is he stepping on eggshells around her still?
They've been at Aiza's apartment for the last few days, although they know they can't linger forever, Aiza still begged her to stay with them and Fynn together until her leg at least heals enough to be functional on her own again. Yes, she has Wheatley's help, but they all know she'll be refusing that at any chance she gets.
He's sitting on the balcony outside the flat, head resting on his hands pensively– of course, his back facing her. The other two won't be back for a little while longer, so she mulls it over in her head. Whatever's wrong with him, she calculates she has just enough time to pry it out.
It's tough to balance on one leg and shut a sliding door, let alone do it while balancing two crutches under her arms. Wheatley debated going over to lend a hand since both of hers are pretty preoccupied, but in all honesty he couldn't let himself get that close to her. He just stares dead ahead, maybe if he doesn't move she won't get any ideas to approach him, right?
She takes a seat right next to him, and his audible exhale could be taken one of two ways– he's mad at her, or… no that's it, and that's what Chell sticks with. "Is everything alright there? You've been awfully quiet lately."
There was nothing more important in that moment to Wheatley than to just get away from Chell, but he's not in the moment aware how this is all coming across. He retreats to the other corner of the balcony and turns to face the very concerned Chell he can now confirm is having a long distance conversation with him. He at least assumes she's concerned based on her previous sentence, but she hasn't at all broken her moderate expression, her way of passing the ball into his court. He knows he has a perfect opportunity to pass on this question, but sometimes that look she gives him on its own is enough to have him overshare on the spot. "N-nothing, sorry… Well, okay it's not technically nothing, it is something, but I'd rather not ruin things again if I have the chance now."
As he begins to ramble a bit more frantically, she looks him up and down, his shy and withdrawn posture speaking volumes louder than his stammering ever could. "You don't have to tell me anything you don't want to, but I'd like to think we're on really good terms now. Secrets come out eventually, and if I've done something I haven't apologised for I can do it right now… if it helps."
They've spent the last few days leaping from one apology to the next. First from Wheatley for leaving her side in the first place, to Chell admitting she shouldn't have gone inside on her own anyway, then to kicking him out of the house, and finally the whole 'possession' situation which she had to fully probe him on. "Blimey, I don't need you taking the blame for anything, love. I'm a bloody moron, if I had just done my job the first time we–"
"I'm sick of you calling yourself that, you know that right? If you don't want to talk about whatever this is yet, that's fine. But you and I both know you can't keep anything to yourself for very long."
"Please, just… not now," and his voice drops to a whisper on the final two words.
She shakily rises to her feet, if he's determined to keep his distance, she'll let him make that call. Although it hurts her (and she now accepts that fact), she knows that he can't stay quiet for long. She hobbles over to the door, knowing he'll come to her when he's ready. "For your information, I'm not gonna be mad– if that's what you're worried about. Maybe I could even help.. You know, like you do with me."
As she wanders inside and the space between them expands to a more comfortable distance for him, his overcrowded mind clears swiftly. "Won't be mad? That's bollocks," he mutters under his non-existent breath. She's going to be mad, he knows for certain he would be after all. He did something quite bad, without permission no less, and there's no way she even could begin to understand the breach of trust it was. I mean, how do you explain to someone that hijacking their body had the combined side effects of–
Oh, Aiza and Fynn are back he bases solely on the half hurried limp Chell makes towards the door. He keeps his distance as best as he can, but ambles over to the clear glass door to watch the interaction from afar, and far from inconspicuously. He's not a huge fan of the quick point Aiza makes towards him, and the cunning look Chell throws across her shoulder in his direction. It's all making the noise in his head whir into life again. The smirk on Chells face now at their comment is complicating things further. He's beckoned in with a wave of Fynn's arm, and Wheatley swallows thickly.
He presses his back against the door again even after obeying Fynn's order, but keeping himself away doesn't stop them all from approaching him. He musters up all the self control and strength he can summon in that very moment, clearly they all are fine in close proximity to him. And being the monster I am, I haven't even bothered to warn them…
Fynn is the first to announce what they were talking about just moments before, completely oblivious to the fact that Wheatley can barely hear him over the sound of his own nervous internal monologue. He's trying to drown out the feeling, if he can just outlast this conversation, everything will be okay. Something to do with Chell and him going out somewhere for the evening, and that it might be good for them to talk things over alone for a bit together. Whatever gets him out of this panic-stricken stupor, he's on board with, so he wordlessly agrees. The very stuttery nod he rushes through thankfully has the others step away from him, albeit with a confused glint in their eyes, but sincerely nothing matters more right now than his own personal space.
Chell doesn't say a word to him as they leave, she's taken to giving him some breathing room as he seems less agitated that way, but coming up on the flight of stairs leading down to the ground floor has him in a cold sweat. "Hey man, do you mind giving me a hand real quick, just for the stairs?"
His waving hands cast blurry shadows across the apartment hallway wall beside him, in a complete frantic mess to communicate anything of value to her that doesn't just mean 'hobble your own way down, you fiend'. "Please, Wheats?"
She's being really nice lately, smiling at him too, trying everything to make him accept her apology. He's found it kind of hard to stay mad over the past couple of days, he used to be able to hold grudges pretty easily as a living human. He was always an outcast, even in his life, but after decades of people passing by him while he can only linger, being the 'mysterious exile' sort of lost its novelty pretty quickly. There's frankly too much time as a ghost to spend it so spitefully, especially when such a small fraction of said time is spent with company.
He, however as said, is not avoiding her out of spite, or anger, or some murky mix of the two. In fear of accidentally insinuating it to her, he bites hard into his tongue, as if he could feel it hurt anyway, and moves to help her down the staircase. It may as well be a never ending stairwell at this point, or at least to Wheatley's whirling head. He's slowly convincing himself, after every corner they turn has him stifling another pained groan, that it would be quicker if he just scoops her up and scrambles down the stairs himself. That might hurt her further though, so his teeth dig deeper into his tongue. A red line was crossed; this was unbearable.
The stairs end abruptly, and he stumbles away from Chell as if he was the one needing the support for the past four minutes. "Bloody inaccessible, innit? Livid!"
He installs the necessary three and a half meters between the two of them and his cognitive thinking skills slowly return. He can't do more than one thing at once, so he misses Chell's question not just once, or twice, but four times. "Dude, are you listening? Earth to Wheatley…?"
Her gray eyes trace a tight line from his fidgeting hands to his bitten lower lip. If it could split or swell from all his stress, she'd be sure they'd be a chapped and bloody mess at this point. He draws his first inhale for the first time in over five minutes. "S-sorry, not feeling my best today, I guess. What was that, love?"
He glances to his left towards her, her long chestnut brown hair frames her face nicely in the sunlight, shrouding her caramel skin in shade and leaving her hair bathed in the warm evening light. She met his gaze and maintained her stride. "Was just checking in with you, it doesn't matter; nothing new really," and she stops beside the small red manual car. She motions for him to get in the passenger side, and with a heavy thud on the roof of the automobile, he cranes his neck forward and tries to get comfy in the seat as she starts the car. They're a little too close together for his liking, but he can always just lean towards the window and focus heavily on a raindrop dribbling down the glass. "Hold on a minute– can you even drive in your state, love? I'd rather not have us both return as ghosts at the end of the day."
"I'm right footed, Wheatley, I won't even need the left," she says in passing as she chucks her crutches into the backseat. "Are you… would you prefer to sit in the backseat, if that's more bearable?"
He really doesn't need to be told twice, so he swaps into the back, opposite Chell for maximised distance. It helps, even if only slightly. "Okay, I'm going to take us to the other side of town, closer to the lakefront. We'll find a place, nice and open and quiet. Sound like a plan to you, man?"
"Positively thrilling, do as you will."
She has a steady and determined gait stepping out into the terrace of the restaurant, and he exhales out all his built up stress through his clenched teeth. Some breathing space, he's ever so thankful for it, and they settle down on the far end closest to the water. Chell takes a seat opposite the ghost, and carefully studying his face, she shifts the chair forwards slightly. At the furrow of his brow and bobbing of his Adam's apple, she settles on drawing the chair backwards again, and he visibly calms down.
She clears her throat. "So, uh does this have anything to do with… you know."
He tries to meet her where she's at, but that does require knowing what she's referring to. "Um, I guess? Going to go out on a limb and say yes, final answer," and he hopes that's the answer he intends it to be. He truthfully cannot read her mind, no matter how many times he's (shamefully) tried to at moments they've shared. "What is it that you're talking about exactly?"
She scans the empty tables around them, worried at some point that someone just manifested out of thin air to eavesdrop on their conversation. As if anyone would even have enough prior context to derive any meaning out of it, but she double checks nevertheless. "I'm not a fool, Wheatley. You did tell me about the whole possession situation a couple of weeks ago, I don't forget things that quickly."
"Right, never mistaken you as one for a second, love. Look, maybe it is, maybe it isn't. Depends if-if I'm in trouble or not for it."
"This makes you a bit uncomfortable, does it?" She drags her chair towards the table, and in turn Wheatley draws his own backwards.
"So what if it does? Maybe I just want a-a-a bit of space or something. Nothing to do with my…"
"–Itch, right? Listen, Wheats… you used to spend the nights stroking my hair and watching over me, so please do forgive me for not falling for this."
He grows quiet again, so much that if he were a robot she could probably hear the cogs turning in his head, trying to find a way out of his quickly sinking situation. She's the one to now break the silence. "Only question now is, how do we fix it?"
His eyes briefly meet hers, then bounce around the open space. He tilts his head softly to the right. "Well, I mean I could just, uh– just stay away for the most part, maybe then it'll just sort of… you know, fix itself over time. I'll forget what it's like to feel again eventually, so we can just wait for that moment!"
He seems so proud of the conclusion he's come to, but then his bright smile falters. At the same time, Chell's stomach lurches slightly. That won't do at all. "No, that doesn't seem right, just give me some time and we can think something up–"
"No, sorry to interrupt you, love, but it is right. We've clearly taken things a bit far here, and she's noticed too. We can kill two stones with one bird here and it eliminates that other problem too. No more miscommunication or Her driving any wedges anywhere or–"
"Ah yes, as if you could just switch off my l–"
She stops in her tracks for three very distinct reasons, the simplest of which is the incoming waiter. She quickly scans the menu, chooses a plate for them 'to share' in the loosest terms possible, lets him tell the waiter, and goes straight back to her sudden revelations. Firstly, it deeply disturbs her as to how close she just was to verbally confessing. Sure, she was drunk that one night, but he clearly chalked all that up to the geyser of wine that is their cellar.
Her other revelation, however, has completely escaped her now. "Fuck, I had it, what was I going to say?"
Wheatley looks completely confused and oblivious to the inner battle she was waging, and tries to finish her sentence. "Uh… that you love–?"
She doesn't even want to entertain the idea that he already knows (perhaps even before she herself consciously knew) that fact, so she thrusts her pointer finger dramatically in front of his face to silence the ghost. It was on the tip of her tongue, and Wheatley naming random words from their previous conversation in an attempt to help her remember certainly makes it harder to think. It was about possession, something to do with fixing it, and switching–
"That's it, I've got it! There's got to be… some way to alleviate your symptoms, right?"
He furrows his brow, seemingly thinking really hard, surprising since he doesn't often find himself doing such a thing. "Well, uh… the grave stuff felt nice I guess. It's not quite the same, but it helped a bit– you look like you've already made up your mind. One of those rhetorical questions there, wasn't it?"
She did in fact look pretty resolute in what she was about to suggest, but she decided to guide him there, perhaps to soften the impact it might have on the man. "She can do it to me too, if I'm not mistaken?"
He cautiously nods, clearly not a fan of the direction it's going but hopeful still that she can turn it around again and, well, not suggest what he thinks she's insinuating. "So, if that's the case, then isn't it better to… you know, practice in a safer way, before She gets involved in any of it?"
He begins to stammer and string together a mess of vowels and syllables to coax her out of this plan, but she abruptly cuts his vocal mess off. "No, if we're thinking of killing two birds with one stone here, then not only do we solve your discomfort issue, but maybe I can be better equipped when she does swap with me. Think about it, man."
He hates that he really is doing just that.
"Okay, quiet road, we're parked on the side so you don't need to mess with anything. It's going to be fine," Chell informs him. He's already asked a million times whether she's sure she wants this, but what's the matter with one million and one times then? "Are you absolutely, positively sure that this is a good idea? I mean what if a bird flies through that open back window and–"
"Just do it, Wheatley."
"Okay, okay! But before I do, just–" he adjusts his black framed glasses "–there's a reason I avoid doing this, and it's more than just how unbearable it makes the itch afterwards. God please don't be mad, but… there's another side effect."
Chell squints her eyes at this new information. She doesn't remember feeling any adverse side effects the last time. Maybe it's dependent on other factors like time or place or host…? "There can be– how do I put this?– residual emotions and thoughts when a ghost hijacks a body, so oftentimes there isn't much you can hide from them. It's the closest we can get to mind reading, but maybe if you just, I'm not sure, think very hard about something else you can bypass that?"
Ah, so he probably does know my little not-so-secret secret, doesn't he? She lays her hand on the steering wheel lazily. "No point trying to hide anything you probably already know. Go for it."
And that weird intangibility returns full swing. It coats her skin and seeps to her bones, almost like an icy chill only it has no chill whatsoever. A numbness sweeps over her form like it switches off every nerve ending. Every synapse decided to close up shop in her body, and at this point she's really struggling to get used to the lack of stimuli once again. She won't admit it aloud, but it's terrifying to her, especially with how quiet he's being now. It's eerie, but she takes a moment to gather herself, and steps through the centre console and into the passenger seat, turning towards her own body. It, now occupied by him, sits deathly quiet and still, in fact so still that her chest is barely moving at all.
"Woah, hey snap out of it man! Remember to breathe. Wheatley?!"
It's strange to her that the sound emanating from her incorporeal form is so much deeper than usual, even stranger than the crumpled stance she needs to make just to fit in the car without phasing through the ceiling. She waves a gangly pale limb, his limb mere moments ago, in front of the vessel's dark gray eyes, and it blinks. Then inhales strongly, followed by a slow exhale. He must be getting used to the overwhelming experience it is to just feel again, maybe even sorting her thoughts so his head feels less crowded, and he finally responds. "I shouldn't have done this."
It's her own voice, and whilst it throws her off tremendously to hear her voice with the same accent and enunciation as Wheatley, she's concerned now what's making him back down so quickly. They were only just getting started! "Why? I thought you were going to give me some guidance to get used to your form?"
His voice softens to a whisper. "It's wrong. All of this is wrong, you're me and I'm you. I shouldn't be allowed to even read your thoughts like this…"
What was she thinking of before they swapped? Probably nothing too major or traumatising, she concludes, so whatever's distressing him is something on his end. He needs a bit of confirmation that it's okay, no matter what kind of breach of privacy it ends up being. "Hey, Wheatley I agreed to do this, whatever you're experiencing and picking up from my own thoughts is fine, I'm okay with you doing this. Now, a little help here please?"
He twists his head over to look at her now, and she can't recall her face ever having made such a stunned, wide-eyed expression quite like this. "Right, um– well there's already something I'm not quite familiar with. You seem to be able to, um, well… phase through quite a few things there."
It's true, she was indeed playing some three dimensional twister just to keep the limbs within the vehicle. Only problem now is she just can't figure out how to fix that. One thing at a time. "Okay, well I guess that's going to stay for now until I figure it out. Does that mean I have the same capabilities as you, or are they all different?"
"No idea, love. I'm not you; maybe it'll just come to you naturally or something. At least, it used to for me so I'm not sure… but it might be a thing that'll come with time."
He's holding the body's hand up to the throat, feeling the vibrations through his digits and ripple down the skin, leading to a wave of goosebumps. As Chell's spectre now turns to check in on him, he seems to be struggling a bit. Sure, he's breathing, and he was just talking fine and can now move, but very similar to herself and her understimulated experience, he looks majorly overwhelmed. Tears are freely rolling down his cheeks, and he's trying to blink them away, forgetting that his hands are there to wipe the streaks off. The body's voice is choked up as he mournfully adds, "I can't remember the last time I even cried, Chell. This is– blimey I'm not even sure I can–"
He rambles on the best he can with a lump in his throat and a shaky, now feminine alto voice. Of course, he couldn't cry in his ghostly form. Seeing him, although using her own body as a puppet, in such a state almost elicits her voice to waver and choke up. Whether it be out of joy that he can finally feel this again, or fear at how foreign the sensations now are, she feels obligated to help him through it. If it distracts her from her own surreal situation, she'll welcome that with open arms. At least with her, she'll be going back to a body that, at the end of the day, will be just the right amount of perception for her mind to be at ease. He, however, may never get that comfort again.
She reaches out to wipe his cheeks for him as he sits not so still anymore. Every instinctual convulsion and hiccough wracking the body makes him tremble under her thumbs, which they both now realise are firmly indenting the skin. Their breaths hitch simultaneously at the discovery.
"Alrighty then, I think that's enough experimentation for the night, love."
Even summer nights can get awfully chilly in Michigan, although this is of little importance to Wheatley in his current state. He hates that it's the case, but it's been water under the bridge for so long to him so he learnt to tune it out. Distract himself with the next insignificant thought that crosses his mind, that was his deep and insightful plan. He wasn't always the scatter brained and constantly waffling bloke he is now, or at least for the most part. In a weird act of self preservation for what he suspects to be his identity, he took up this fumbling and painfully optimistic persona. As a spectre of your own body, with no sensations or bodily requirements or personal interactions, many ghosts apparently just… drift. That's what She told him at least, if you let the days flow into months and then decades have passed without so much as a change in scenery, the gap between real-world-you and ghost-you are further separated. The crack turns into a chasm, and in a blink of a ghostly eye, you're different, somehow.
He had found a way to distract himself, granted it distracts everything in a ten metre range too, but enough of a method to stop time from slipping through his fingers unannounced. It's not the hardest thing to do, especially with Her help, although to call Her harassment and wrath help is definitely a stretch. The point is that he has preserved himself enough to delay the frightening nature of being a ghost. Whether it be loss of one's identity, temporal confusion, or a slew of other quirks and urges of this body, he was definitely one of the lucky ones, albeit in an unlucky position too.
Many start out, for a lack of a better word, as very human ghosts. It is, after all, a very human phenomena to have unmet desires left on Earth, and most ghosts have an inkling of what it is they're lingering for. Vengeance, their true love, families they left behind, there's something for which they stick around. To this ghost though, he feels as though he's just floating through his afterlife, a pestering question rattling around in the back of his noggin. He assumes he's back to help others avoid his own mistakes, and sure he'd like to think he was compassionate enough for that to be true, but deep down he knows it's not. It sits, pooling in the depths of his stomach like a sunken stone in a lake, and every now and then he worries.
Wheatley has no idea how long he's been sitting on the balcony, he only hopes it was the same night since he last started his mile-a-minute internal monologue. He peels his eyes away from the darkened street corner and towards the painfully slowly squeaking roller door. Chell's trying so hard to be quiet, bless her heart, as she cracks open the door exactly wide enough for her to slip through, then just as gently, drags it shut once more. She pulls a chair out from the table and sits right up close to him, essentially rubbing shoulders at that point. "Good evening, love," he murmurs softly to the drowsy woman.
"I beg to differ… and good morning, you probably mean."
He's avoiding her gaze to the best of his ability, so she does the next best thing she can and tilts her head against his arm. He doesn't shy away at the contact though, unlike earlier– despite the confronting experience for him in the car, he seems to be doing better on that front. Sure, he was nervous when leading up to the moment, and the itch was tauntingly in its force, but really he never expected to react so viscerally to all the sensations. It had only been a few days after all, and he didn't cry that time. Admittedly, he didn't have the time or brain power to simultaneously focus on his own shock of possessing someone for the first time as well as saving her from a psychotic demon wearing his skin as a costume, but he was glad to have had the chance to purge those feelings in the safety of the isolated and stationary vehicle.
They sat there for a while in silence, Chell momentarily shivering at the soft breeze disturbing her body's internal temperature balance. "What's brought you out here with me to shiver in nothing but your bedclothes, love?"
She chuckles silently into his upper arm, clearly he's avoiding her eyes for a specific reason, the period he lived in clearly telling him this was taboo. She's warmed by his presence and voice alone though, although she's still struggling to admit that even to herself. She can acknowledge she likes him without accepting the insane extent to which she's already fallen. Her voice comes out as a soft slur from the residual sleep in her voice and a little something else he can't quite place. "You usually watch me sleep, you don't need to stare a hole into the roof. We cohabit so knock it off, you've seen me in pyjamas before. And speaking of watching me sleep… you over that now or something?"
Chell smirks at his cheeks and nose which are washed with a soft shade of red. It's even funnier to her that he has no blood whatsoever, no physical matter making him up (she doesn't exactly know if he's composed of anything, but that's something she might be able to conduct some experiments on later), and yet his incorporeal form knows exactly when he's embarrassed enough to mix a bit of red into his milky white skin.
She continues after his tongue-tied mess of a response. "Anyway, do you think it's possible that, um… are Her nightmares possible outside of the house?"
At this peculiar question he shoots a glance down at her puffy red eyes.