Portal: Love as a Construct

Part 104. The Leak

Part 104. The Leak

Synopsis: The more Wheatley learns about Claptrap, the more hopelessly complicated he seems to be.

"Hey kiddo," Claptrap announced as they entered Carrie's room, "your dad's got a question for ya."

"Sure," Carrie said, looking up from her drawing, whatever it was. Wheatley couldn't quite see it from this angle. "What is it, Dad?"

"Um," Wheatley said, suddenly wondering if he should have gone to GLaDOS instead, "Claptrap said I should ask you what a virgin is."

Carrie turned around to stare at Claptrap, who confirmed Wheatley's suspicion when he started laughing. "You're the only one I know who can put my mom to shame," she said, shaking her core.

"And I take great pride in that fact!" Claptrap declared.

"But what's it mean, Carrie?" Wheatley asked, determined to keep this on track.

"It doesn't mean anything," Carrie said quite emphatically in Claptrap's direction, which got him going all over again. "It just means you're inexperienced at something."

"I'm inexperienced at um, at life?" Wheatley asked, no closer to get it than before. How could he possibly not be living properly?

"Yup," said Claptrap. "It's crazy how inexperienced you are."

"Are you sure it hasn't got another meaning?"

"Yes, it has another meaning," Carrie droned. "It means you've never interfaced before."

"But... but I have done it before!" Wheatley protested, now totally frustrated. "Claptrap – you were there! We were both –"

"Dad!" interjected Carrie. "Please! I do not wanna hear about that!"

"But – "

"This is way better than I expected it was gonna be," Claptrap said. Wheatley whirled on him, but before he could say anything, Carrie sighed.

"Look. The joke is that you don't get the joke. Okay?"

No, it was most certainly not okay. "You're so bloody annoying," Wheatley muttered in Claptrap's general direction, and the both of them laughed.

"Finally!" Claptrap announced. "I thought you'd never say it!"

Wheatley was in too much of a huff to care overmuch where Claptrap was going – or even that he left, for that matter – but after about twenty minutes of Carrie refusing to put up with his irritation he realised he did, in fact, sort of wish he knew where the other robot had gone. Hanging about by himself had never been much fun and it was even less so when he had as enthusiastic a friend as Claptrap. Now he knew what he was missing, and all that. Before he really had a chance to look, he was stopped by some bloke who apparently really wanted to talk to him, except he didn't really seem to know what he wanted to talk about. It took a lot longer than Wheatley would have liked to be rid of him, and he noted with some annoyance that Claptrap could now be literally anywhere.

Wheatley found him in GLaDOS's chamber after quite a bit of searching. Though, honestly, that was where he should have looked first. He was merrily banging away on the keyboard of a laptop that was in worse condition than Claptrap himself. The faded yellow case was quite liberally covered in cracks and, now that Wheatley was in a position to see, the screen had fared better but was not free of damage or smudges. A good portion of the keys seemed to be missing as well, though that didn't seem to be slowing Claptrap down a whit. He was typing a great deal of... oh, Wheatley couldn't drum up the enthusiasm to read right now. It was probably either his memoir or his fanfiction, not that there seemed to be a terrible amount of difference between the two, judging from the limited amount Claptrap had told him. The fact that Claptrap was wearing some sort of magnetic monocle and a French-styled hat that was a pink brighter than almost any other colour Wheatley had ever seen were both far more interesting than all those words.