Portal: Love as a Construct

Part Twelve. The Gesture

Part Twelve. The Gesture

Wheatley rather loved his life.

GLaDOS continued to sleep in for the next little while, though not as long as that first day, and Wheatley would stay beside her as long as he could. It was never more than an hour or two because after that he simply had to get going, but when he was able to sit still he loved just sitting there in the darkness, listening to all the tiny little noises she made and watching the light from her optic flare every now and then against the floor. Now and again he would catch a bit of a dream. After a week and a half or two weeks - Wheatley wasn't sure which - she was back to normal, and he would have been lying if he hadn't said he was disappointed. Now she'd gone back to wanting to work, and not just play games and chat as she'd been doing all this time. Still, GLaDOS was GLaDOS, and if he was nice about it he thought she might do as he asked. He really liked having all of her attention and it was very flattering, really, to look up from the board to remind her for the millionth time to take her turn and see that she wasn't taking it because she was staring at him, for whatever reason she was doing that. He hadn't quite screwed up the courage to ask, but the idea of being able to hold her attention for any period of time excited him. He wasn't sure why. It just did.

He'd decided he was going to get her to let him lay rail in her chamber, though come to think of it he should've done it when she'd been so easygoing, but oh well. He thought of things when he thought of them. And besides. Just because she wasn't feeling casual anymore didn't mean she wouldn't listen. She might. No. Probably not. Ha! He'd almost forgotten who he was dealing with, there. GLaDOS would take nothing less than infallible logic and deft word choices, and Wheatley was just the Sphere for the job.

"So," Wheatley remarked, in as casual a way as possible, trying very hard not to swing back and forth on the end of the rail, "when're you going to let me uh, let me lay rail in here?"

GLaDOS glanced at him. "Why would I let you do that?"

Or... maybe not.

"Because I'd like to know what the, what the other side of the room looks like?"

"You already know what the other side of the room looks like. It looks exactly the same as the side you're on."

Okay, so that wasn't the most convincing reason. "Okay, new question: why won't you let me?"

"I don't have to let you do everything. And here I take the opportunity to remind you that I do, in fact, allow you to do almost everything."

"Please? Please, will you let me?" He tried to look as though she should do as he asked. He didn't know how one should look when they asked for something, but he did his best.

She looked at him for a long moment, finally sighing and looking away. "All right. Go ahead."

His chassis clenched in victory, and he fought the urge to cry out in triumph. That really wouldn't be polite. "Thanks, luv!" he said instead, and immediately went over to her. He'd actually meant to just go down on the control arm beside her and maybe look over her shoulder plate at what she was going to that turret down there, but he found himself circling the base of her chassis, never having seen it up close before. It was utterly fascinating, it was: there were even wires as thick around as he was, and when he looked up to see what was making all the racket he saw that there were spinning discs over top of her. He jumped up and down excitedly. "Oi GLaDOS, what're, what're these disc things for?"

"Those are my hard drives."

His optic widened in surprise. "But... they're so big. Mine's not, not anywhere near that size."