(Wheatley x Reader) Reunited

Part 12 {Melting}

"Love?" Was all Wheatley could say in response. He could hear the clicking and whirring, the hum and sigh of his own mechanical heart. Something that couldn't feel. He couldn't feel. Of course he was programmed to react to touch and pain. He was wired to express emotions in the appropriate event but in the end, he was a robot. He had no comprehension or capacity to feel or even understand emotion. Love most of all. It eluded him.

"Yes..." However you knew, you knew that this was not the truly robotic, static in time Wheatley. His fabricated breathing, his falling smile, the sound of his artificial heart. It was part of something real. It felt as if he were a person, that the program he was given had been long casted away in favor of something real and human.

"Love is when," the world melted away, you watched his luminous blue eyes warily, they peered into your soul, "you fly before preparing to fall."

"That doesn't make sense, why fall when you could fly?"

"Because the fall is the most exciting part. It's like feeling the wind in your hair, it's the trust of knowing someone will catch you. It will hurt at some points, maybe you'll fall into a tree or briar, maybe even hit concrete but you get up and fly and plummet again. It is what freedom feels like."

"That sounds rather nice, I guess... Lovely even." He chuckled at his own joke and once again, you saw that human in him.

"How am I like him?"

"Well, you both are goofy, a little dense, you both have the same smile."

"Maybe that's because you made this body for me. Wouldn't it be pretty funny if you somehow made me after-"

"Him? Maybe I did."

You sigh and look to the side, a little exhausted from this conversation, "After the accident, Wheatley, I went into a coma. Not many survived. I was afraid I'd never see you or any of our other creations again. You were my joy, my life, my ideas and dreams. That was where I was meant to be. Life before Aperture was bland, but when all my tasks had been hastily thrown at me... It all fell into place. The one thing I do regret is never bothering to put in the work to remember the days after recovery or during. Before you had fallen into my backyard, I worked on an Android because I kept seeing a face in my dreams. I guess it really was him. Isn't that cruel?"

He took in all the details after several long moments of silence. His mouth opened, as if to spit out a piece of knowledge to help but it snapped shut. Above all else Wheatley had learned while in your care, he'd learned sympathy and some semblance of empathy. All he could do for now is what you did to him, hold your hand and squeeze it tight. You sighed and looked down.

"It's funny... You would have never done this, never listened, you weren't made to do that. It's like reality is melting."

He frowned but... Indeed it is.