Portal/Borderlands: The Girlfriend

Part 5

Part Five.

Synopsis: It was just about the only thing he'd ever said he didn't regret.

One of the things he liked best about her - other than everything - was that she got more fun as time went on. He actually kinda liked it better this way. It sorta felt like he was earning the fun, and it was a lot more rewarding than he'd thought any kind of work was ever going to be.

One of her favourite things to do was scare the bejeesus out of him. She was really, really good at it. Whenever she did it he would usually jump up and fall over and maybe scream a little (okay, definitely scream a lot), and then she would laugh and he would wonder why that made him feel so gosh darn lucky. Seriously. He should have been mad that she loved doing that so much, but... he wasn't.

This last time, though, she'd scared him so bad his oil pressure had spiked enough to blow a gasket, which had been super embarrassing. He couldn't really do anything about it, either, other than helplessly watch the fluid drain out of him, but as with every other time something in his chassis had busted she just shook her core and said something about inferior construction and told him to lie down - but not there! Why did she have to tell him not to lie in the puddle? Seriously - and got to work fixing it.

Before GLaDOS, there were a lot of things he hadn't realised a girlfriend could do. She could beat him at video games, display action figures like nobody's business, and appreciate the dirtiest dubstep the ECHONet had to offer. About the only flaw he could think of was that she hated romcoms, which he was going to have to work on. He really needed his cheesy, predictable, but oh-so-heartwarming movie fix. But other than that? Man. She was pretty great.

One of the many, many other things she was great at – besides being herself, which pretty much covered it all – was fixing stuff. Including him. Not only did she love fixing stuff, she was super good at it. And when she did it to him, it made him feel a way. What way, he wasn't sure. It was almost kinda... like he felt better about himself, a little bit. 'Cause when she did repairs on him she was always really meticulous and used really good parts, and she wouldn't do that if she didn't think he was worth it, right?

It was also kinda pleasant when she did it. There was no yanking or pinching or weird crunching noises. And she would sometimes hum to herself, which was awesome because she had the voice of a robot angel. While she did all that he'd usually start thinking about all the stuff he'd like to do to her (but never would because he was too scared of her to ask about any of it) but occasionally he would just think about cuddling her for a very, very long time. Of all his fantasies, that was the one he'd probably get. He was working on it. She would let him while they were watching TV or playing video games, which she agreed to two or three times a week. He was trying to nudge that up to three or four. He had to be super careful about that kinda thing because when she thought he didn't take her job seriously, she got mad at him and gave him a lecture about responsibility. And then refused to talk to him for a really, really long time. Like four hours.

"Babe," he said after a minute, realising she was in a good mood so it was the best time to ask, "you wanna - um - you got time to watch TV after this?" He always got a better result when he asked that instead of if she wanted to. It had something to do with her feeling like her time was being respected. Or something. She probably just didn't want to admit wanting to do something that wasn't work and that gave her a loophole. Whatever worked!

"Yes," said GLaDOS. "I'll be a few more minutes."

Oh. Well, that had been easy. Er than usual. She was usually a lot trickier than that. Which, for some reason, he really loved about her. It was kinda satisfying to work out the right combination of stuff to get her to agree with him. But he also loved it when she didn't make him work for it. 'Cause who would want to do that? Other than him, sometimes. Man. How did she do this to him?