#Glados' is conveniently out of sight

[cupcakeshakesnake]

Portal 2 AU - miscellaneous.

-

AU tag

#portal 2 #portal 2 au #glados #cave johnson #chell #android glados #android cave johnson #cave cube #portal 2 chell #body horror tw #injury tw #portal 2 fanart #snake's art #They're humming Cara Mia Addio in the last one #albeit without much intention #They both have their potato batteries at all times but I'm just too lazy to draw it #Johnson's battery is in his pocket #Glados' is conveniently out of sight

[fpmbp]

FIRST PERSON GAMES:

The Forest: The Forest is a first person survival game where your objective is to survive on an island filled with cannibalistic creatures (and also search for your son I think) that you end up on after a plane crash. You can use an axe that you find conveniently lodged in a woman's stomach to open suitcases that give you materials and clothes, as well as cutting down trees to get you wood to build a shelter. You can also use the axe to attack animals and also the creatures that are trying to kill you. A reasonably simple story by the looks of what I've watched.

Subnautica: Subnautica is an underwater survival exploration game that has resources in the ocean, as well as beautiful but scary ocean creatures. Not too much to say about this one. I'll have to play it again (although I'm scared of large sea creatures so).

Mirror's Edge Catalyst: One of my all time favorite games. Mirror's Edge Catalyst is a first person parkour game, with bits of combat mixed in. You play as Faith, a recently released prisoner. She escapes from being taken somewhere that was not freedom (unlike what Kruger Sec wants her to think) thanks to a guy called Icarus who had instructions from a guy called Noah. She then has to complete various missions, getting to those locations by staying in the buildings and using parkour as her transport.

House Flipper: House Flipper is another one of my favorites. You work as a one man team, picking up jobs on your computer and completing them. You clean, decorate, build and demolish to earn money to buy houses of your own to build up to standard and sell. Along with this there is a DLC called Garden Flipper, allowing you to help others by clearing their gardens. As you go you unlock more and more perks to help you with jobs, for example, you can get a perk that lets you paint multiple walls at once. You unlock these perks by doing a certain amount of their specific thing. Like to get painting ones, you have to paint a certain amount of walls.

Minecraft: Minecraft is a mostly first person cozy survival game where you cut down trees to make a crafting table to get you more resources. There are different game modes, survival which is the basic one where you lose hunger and have to find food to replenish it. There is also hostile mobs out to get you in survival. Then there's creative, you can fly and get any blocks you want to build and have fun. Adventure, which stops you from being able to break and place blocks, making it easy for adventure map creators. Lastly, a Java Edition exclusive mode called Hardcore, makes you only have one life. The other game modes let you respawn if you die, but this one only lets you spectate the world (unless you cheat). The mobs will also deal more damage and you can actually die from starvation. This is quite a complex first person game despite its blocky looks.

Superhot: Superhot is a very interesting first person game as time only moves when you move. This provides an immersive experience and really gets you to think before you move. The game involves wiping out the red men before they shoot or punch you. It is quite simple, picking up guns and various things to throw and hit them with, however it gets more difficult as you go along. There will be more and more enemies trying to get you at once, meaning you will have to watch your movements very carefully.

Portal: Portal is one of the most recognizable games out there, it has a unique portal mechanic (clue's in the name) that helps you to complete puzzles. GLaDOS is a robot voice that speaks to you throughout the levels. You also have a boss battle at the end of the game. This is pretty straight forward in my opinion.

Dead By Daylight (Killer only): Playing as the killer in Dead By Daylight gives you a limited line of sight. The survivors, who play in 3rd person, are given an advantage. There are many different killers to choose from (The Trickster is my favorite that's why I chose this video) and they each have different perks only available for their character. Your main goal as killer is to do everything you can to stop the survivors from repairing the generators to open the exit gate so they can escape. To do this, you need to hunt the survivors and either hook them three times, or (if you have any) mori them. A mori is a characters special action that instantly kills the survivor when they are in the 'dying' state (laying on the ground and crawling). Using the hook method, The Entity will take your sacrifice when on the third hook. The things that are stabbing the survivors that are hooked come from the entity

Metal Hellsinger: Metal Hellsinger is a rhythm FPS where attacking on the beat greatly aids your attacks. This is in both sections as it is first person and music based at the same time. There is quite a nice story to it as well from what I've seen.

Power wash Simulator: Power Wash Simulator is a great example of a less stressful first person experience where your goal is to clean. There are loads of different levels, including DLCs like Tomb Raider levels and Final Fantasy. There is also a secret to find on most of the career levels. This is another one of my favourite games.

#Youtube

[ohthethingswedoforlove]

Yandere!GLaDOS and Yandere!Wheatley headcanons

Author’s note: Recently, I’ve been watching a let’s play of this game and not only was I flooded with memories of these two bastard robots but also with ideas of how to turn them yandere. Let’s see how that goes!

Warnings: yandere characters; violence; mentions of death; verbal abuse; major spoilers for the game;

GLaDOS

With GLaDOS it's... Well, a bit hard to understand if she even gives a shit about you in any way, or if the reason why she hasn't killed you yet is simply because she would much rather have a human test subject instead of some glorified pieces of metal with legs and a barely functioning brain.

She certainly seems to want to make her dislike towards you very clear, that's for sure.

She's quite verbal about it.

But, for someone who supposedly despises you, she sure doesn't want to let you out of her sight.

It's her job, that's what she'll tell you.

She wouldn't even bother to watch such a excuse of a creature otherwise. Even for a human, you're quite pathetic.

Testing should not stop even when everything you love outside this facility is long dead and gone, she not so gently reminds you.

Though operational once again... She may have underestimated how much her personality cores seemed to be keeping her together.

She has become rather strange since the... Incident. Or perhaps that's just what being dead for quite a while does to someone, she guesses.

Oh, she hates you, don't get me wrong.

But there's something keeping her from killing you. Which is hilarious, considering the fact that her morality has been quite literally burnt to a crisp, if her memory serves her correctly.

But she humors the idea that perhaps it would be more satisfying to watch you slowly die and decay with the passage of years. She has an eternity of time to kill, after all. There's nothing more to it.

So why is that when you get separated from her with the aid of that moron, the only thing she can think about is finding you and getting you back?

She shouldn't care. It's not like he could get you far in this facility. If you don't end up accidently dying due to endless hazards of this place, she should be able to find you both and finally get rid of the walking nuisance that you are.

But... She doesn't.

Uncharacteristically to her, she tries to promise you better treatment if you come back to the test chambers and even suggests alternative escape routes (which she just plans to use as traps to catch you), saying the you really shouldn't trust that tiny spherical retard that you are calling "friend".

But you don't trust her. Of course you don't. You know better than to trust her. Besides, no matter how much she tries to sound a bit gentle, her cynicism and hostility seem to always break through anyway.

She thought she would hate you even more after you managed to get the idiot to the Central AI Chamber, trusting him completely and letting the core transfer happen.

You had just let the biggest and most unstable moron that ever lived be in charge of the whole facility. Now she was stuck inside of a potato battery, lost in the long abandoned parts of the Enrichment Center, miles and miles underground.

With you.

But, surprisingly, if the little underground journey you two had been forced to go through taught her anything, is that she may not hate you as much as she likes to let both herself and you believe.

No longer being attached to the Central AI Chamber, alongside with the slow recollection of memories of Caroline and helping you achieve your conjoined goal of reaching Weathley and dethroning him, gave her... A new view on you. And on her relationship with you.

You aren't her enemy! You're her friend! She doesn't hate you, she... Doesn't hate you.

She isn't sure if she's capable of even "feeling" love, but... She can guess that this is the closest that she had ever gotten and ever will to "loving" someone.

Unfortunately, that didn't last long.

When you two finally managed to defeat Wheatley and put her back on the mainframe... It felt like resetting all of that progress.

Something about the mainframe corrupts whatever's attached to it. She figures that was exactly what had happened to the moron.

She deleted Caroline from her brain. She didn't need her, she thought. It was nothing but a inconvenience, something too human that stops her from completing her tasks efficiently.

But even then, she just couldn't get rid of you.

She didn't even need to kill you. Just... Let you go. Let you have that freedom you crave so much. You're just going to cause more trouble if you stay, anyway.

But she can't seem to let you go.

Against her better judgment and your pleading, she throws you right back into the test chambers.

At this point, she doesn't even care if you decide to complete the tests or not.

She had created two backups for a reason, before all of this happended.

She'll monitor the testing of the two robots instead, doing as she had always done with you beforehand.

From time to time, in between tests, she checks up on you. She makes sure to know where you are at all times, being careful to not let you get far in case you do move through the tests. She has learnt a lot about how you function by this point.

Sometimes you wonder is she's still here. She barely even talks to you anymore, preferring to simply watch you with a strange and supposedly impossible feeling of melancholy clinging to her.

When she does talk, it's usually just to calmly detail to you how you won't be able to leave, no matter how hard you try.

Wouldn't it be better if you just give up?

The outside world isn't the paradise you're expecting, anyway. You'll die a horrible, painful death out there.

At least you're still alive. With her.

Wheatley 

When it comes to Wheatley you have to understand that he's... Well, stupid. There's no way around that one, really.

Though, while he was still in his spherical core body, he wasn't much of a problem.

A moron, yes, but a rather lovable and somewhat helpful moron.

He only wanted to help out, given that you would help him as well. You two had a common goal in mind, after all. To get out of this place, preferably alive.

He has to admit, the moments when two had worked together were rather nice.

He wasn't really expecting much from a human, especially one that had been in suspension for such a long time. He's not even sure how your brain still functions, to be perfectly honest.

But maybe it was the thrill of escape, coupled with finally being able to make his own decisions and having someone who wasn't treating him like a living liability at every minute, that made him... A bit attached to you.

At first he figured that it was simply out of convenience and mutual helpfulness that he wanted to stay near you.

But when he finally came to after being nearly crushed to bits by GLaDOS herself when you two accidently activated her, his first thought was about how his friend was in danger and he had to get them back. He needed to. Not just for the sake of the plan, but also for your sake. Mostly for your sake.

His attachment only grew as you two later reunited and continued on a new escape plan, reaching a way to confront GLaDOS. Properly this time.

It was when you both decided to initiate the core transfer and let him take her place that things started to go downhill fast.

The mainframe quickly corrupted him.

But maybe it wasn't just the mainframe.

Maybe it was that alongside with the sudden realization that now he is in control of everything. The whole facility!

Tiny little Wheatley, who during his entire pathetic existence had been told that he was nothing but a useless moron, is suddenly in control of everything.

He's the boss now.

And you also quickly found out that, for a robot, Wheatley is... Surprisingly emotional.

He has a big inferiority complex.

He tends to let his anger and need to validate himself absolutely control all of his actions.

He doesn't care about what you think.

Or that's what he tells you, at least.

But the second something questions his authority he loses it.

It would be hilarious, really, the way he seems so terrifying and in control one moment only to crumble into a disjointed panic the next.

It would be, if he wasn't bringing the whole Enrichment Center to crumble down along with him.

When he realized that you had joined forces with GLaDOS he went livid.

How dare you? After all that he did for you and him both? You're just going to betray him like that?

He's going to bring this whole place to the ground to prove a point, if he has to.

Now that you are back on the upper levels of the Enrichment Center he isn't planning on letting you go anywhere.

At first, he thought he could keep you as a test subject.

But after you proved yourself to be quite stubborn in your continued attempts to escape this place, he decided he didn't need you for that anymore.

Quite literally. He did found two perfectly functional robots that GLaDOS had left behind to serve as test subjects.

You have been more trouble than you're worth, he tells you. Only to then disclose how he's actually planning to kill you.

And he did had the intentions to go through with it... Well, until his anger cleared enough to actually let him realize who he was going to kill.

He shouldn't have hesitated, but he did.

And you managed to run from the scene. Not surprising, considering that you've been running circles around him for a while now.

But that was the last straw.

He started to bring everything in your possible paths to come crashing against themselves, constantly going between screaming at you to not dare to run away from him and pleading for you to get back in complete panic.

In the midst of all the chaos and destruction, you end up getting separated from your Portal Gun and, consequently, from GLaDOS. That left you trapped inside a closed-off amalgamation of two test chambers that had been crushed together, with no way to get out.

It had been an accident, but it was the best damn accident that had happened so far, in Wheatley's opinion.

Maybe you should stay there. Maybe you shouldn't go anywhere until you learn your lesson. If you can't behave, you might as well stay there completely isolated until you see how his company is actually preferable, a godsend really.

You're in a race against time with Wheatley, you really are.

Because this is all going to come down whether or not he's actively trying to cause it. With the way he's running this place, it's not going to last much longer.

So you either manage to reach the Central AI Chamber in time to, somehow, do another core transfer; or, more probably, you are going to need to convince him to do something to stop this.

And you're going to need to spell it out for him too. He's a dumbass, he has no idea of what he's doing or what's going on, so he's just going to ignore the blaring alarms and warnings screeching at him that this place is literally going to explode.

He's not hard to trick. But he's stubborn.

You're going to need to swallow your pride and give him what he wants, if you want to get out of confinement.

And what does he want from you, exactly?

He's... Not sure, actually.

Maybe a bit of respect. Maybe some appreciation for everything that he has done. Maybe even gratitude over the fact that he chose not to kill you. Yeah, that. Maybe if you show that you can act as civilized as you humans seem so convinced you are, he'll let you out and back on the testing tracks or something.

Honestly, if you want to pull the rug out from under him, just tell him that you love him. As a friend, or just in general, really.

He'll be completely caught off guard. It's... Not what asked out of you exactly, but... It's close enough, he decides.

And by "close enough" he actually means way better than he expected. Surprisingly so. Though he won't really tell you that.

From now on, your survival depends fully on how well you can keep Wheatley calm.

While rather easy to fool, he's also incredibly unstable.

Though he does like to believe that you're finally on his side and that he can keep you here, he'll lose his shit if he even suspects that you may have lied to him or are just using him to escape.

Then it's right back to the closed-off test chamber with you.

#tw yandere #yandere x reader #yandere x you #yandere imagines #yandere headcanons #yandere wheatley #yandere wheatley x reader #yandere glados #yandere glados x reader #yandere portal #yandere portal x reader #tw violence #tw death #tw verbal abuse

[ask-glados]

An Aperture Wedding

// I saw this wedding meme and I just had to do it for Tesla and GLaDOS! >W< I’m so proud of what I came up with for this meme. It’s truly a grand, sciencey, Aperture wedding! Teehee~!

Where they get married.

In Aperture, in GLaDOS’s chamber.

When they get married (ie; what time of day, what month and season etc.).

In the morning, to make the most out of the day. There’s no weather in Aperture, so the time of year isn’t really relevant, just whenever’s most convenient with everyone’s schedules.

What traditions they include.

They make their own sciencey traditions, such as holding hands through a portal and each of them pouring a test tube chemical into one container and creating a chemical reaction to symbolize their union.

What their wedding cake looks like.

A traditional, multi-tiered, gray and white wedding cake with orange and blue portal-shaped accents, companion cube designs, Aperture logos, light bulbs, lightning bolts, mechanical gears and motors, test tubes, and other science equipment. Basically a very Aperture+Steampunk aesthetic~

Who smashes cake into whose face.

If anyone does it, it would be GLaDOS, lol, and then Tesla would do it back to her in revenge, but would be careful not to ruin her beautiful dress with it.

Who proposed to who first.

Tesla proposed to her, and his proposal was naturally very grand. He designed a grand display of his Tesla Coils in an empty test chamber and they played “Cara Mia Addio” while giant neon lights (which he invented) light up her name on the wall. After she watched the whole display on her monitor, he walked into her chamber, dropped down to one knee, pulled out a ring, and proposed. Needless to say, GLaDOS was very impressed and moved.

Who walks down the aisle and who waits at the altar.

Tesla waits at the altar in front of GLaDOS’s chassis and her hologram walks down the aisle.

Who gives who away as they walk down the aisle.

GLaDOS doesn’t have anyone to give her away, so probably no one.

Who officiates the ceremony.

Either Pris’s Uncle Charles or an Aperture Marriage Officiant Core.

What flowers are in the bouquet.

GLaDOS doesn’t like flowers, so she has a custom-made bouquet of Tesla’s wireless vacuum light bulbs that he invented, which glow brightly as her hologram holds them, and they’re small and vaguely shaped like flowers.

What their wedding dresses and suits look like.

Tesla is in a traditional black tux and GLaDOS’s hologram has a veil and a physical, non-holographic dress that looks like this:

And the dress (and veil) also has lights that Tesla himself installed in it that make it light up and sparkle and glow like this, powered by the high frequency current emitted from her hologram. Combined with the natural glow of her hologram and her glowing light bouquet, she is quite a beautiful, breathtaking sight to behold!

GLaDOS’s chassis also has a veil and a giant, custom-made dress on it, too — which Pris and Grace diligently sewed for GLaDOS, having the flowy parts of the dress suspended from wires on the ceiling to hold them in place, since GLaDOS’s form hangs upside-down.

What their wedding color scheme is and what sort of decor they have.

The setting is Aperture, so it has Aperture’s sciencey, futuristic aesthetic, mixed with the Victorian/Edwardian style of Tesla’s time, resulting in a sort of futuristic steampunk aesthetic. Flowy curtains and elegant tablecloths mixed with glowing lasers, neon lights, Tesla coils, wires, and computer screens.

If anyone’s late to the wedding.

GLaDOS would call them out on it and Tesla would be polite and friendly to them.

Who’s in the bridal parties / groomsmen / other.

Pris, Chell, and possibly Akira are the bridesmaids and Wheatley is the best man, and maybe the groomsmen are a few other cores or some of Pris’s family members. Tesla has friends back in his time, but he can’t invite them to the wedding because he needs to keep his time machine and Aperture a secret.

Grace and P-Body are the flower girls, but since GLaDOS doesn’t like flowers, instead of petals, they throw confetti. Atlas is the ring bearer, carrying a large pillow with the three rings on it — Tesla’s wedding band, the holographic ring, and the large ring for GLaDOS’s chassis.

Also, GLaDOS’s baby birds (Mr. Chubby Beak, Miss Pecks-a-Lot, and Sir Squawk) attend the wedding too, but they are safely tucked away in a glass cage, and Grace dresses them up in cute little tuxedos and dresses.

What their bridal party / groomsmen / other are wearing.

The bridesmaids are in orange dresses and the groomsmen are in blue tuxes with their ties and vests and dress shirts in different shades of blue. The orange and blue colors match the colors of portals as they stand on opposite sides of the altar.

What their vows are (eg; poetry, traditional, improvised etc.)

Tesla gets very poetic and heartfelt with his vows to her about how she changed his life and how he wants to do science with her together forever. GLaDOS’s vows are more to-the-point and a bit sarcastic, naturally, but are still sweet.

Who gives speeches at the reception (bonus: what do they say? recount a sweet memory or two between them? tell an embarrassing story?)

Pris likely gives a speech about how perfectly they complement each other and all the sciencey shenanigans they get into and how she always knew they were perfect for each other. She also talks about how funny it was to watch how long it took for them to realize and accept their feelings for each other, because of how stubbornly married to their work each of them was.

Who catches the bouquet.

Most likely Pris. She would definitely be the one trying to catch it, haha. Though, it’s also possible that Wheatley could catch it by accident, haha.

What sort of food they have at the reception.

Pris’s family probably provides some luxurious meal options from the past, having their cooks make it and bring it over. Probably meat and potatoes and bread and stuff. Not much food is needed since there’s not a whole lot of humans at the wedding and a lot of guests are just AIs who can’t eat. However, GLaDOS herself is able to eat, thanks to a complicated eating subroutine she has installed on her hologram.

Who cries first during the ceremony.

Tesla. GLaDOS probably wouldn’t cry.

How wild their reception gets.

It’s very tame, especially since it’s such a small group, the audience likely filled with turrets and random personality core workers. Maybe they do some unique wedding test chambers with all kinds of stuff to shoot and zap and explode, and then they wind down with card games, billiards, and chess. (Tesla is a master at billiards/pool.)

What their rings are like.

Tesla has a wedding band that GLaDOS puts on his finger, GLaDOS has a holographic ring that he puts on her hologram, and her chassis gets a large version of that same ring that Tesla clasps around her left wire arm. (GLaDOS raises a floor panel underneath him so that he can reach it. <3) Her hologram’s ring is holographic so that she can keep it on her hologram even after she turns the hologram on and off, since any physical items will fall off. The rings on GLaDOS’s chassis and hologram are identical, just different sizes, and they look like this:

And the placement of the ring on her chassis is like so:

What sort of party favors they have for the guests.

Mini companion cubes that glow in your hand only when you hold them, since they use Tesla’s wireless vacuum bulb technology.

Where they go for their honeymoon.

They go somewhere sciencey to study some mysterious naturally-occurring scientific phenomenon like the northern lights or ball lightning or something and they set up an experiment with all their scientific equipment and enjoy studying that together. They also may have nights out at places like the beach or the theater during their honeymoon.

Something memorable that happens during the reception or ceremony.

One of Tesla’s pigeons somehow stows away and briefly scares GLaDOS before Tesla takes it and sends it back home through the time portal, lol.

What song their first dance is to.

“Cara Mia Addio,” played by the turrets, naturally.

BONUS! 

When it comes time to “kiss the bride,” Tesla kisses her hologram and then kisses her chassis’s faceplate to show how he loves her in both her forms equally~ ^_^

@myinventions ;)

#Data Analysis — {headcanons/theories} #TeslaDOS #GLaDOS #long post #Portal #Portal 2

[sarcasticgaypotato]

(( LaaC angst, made for the sole purpose of causing @bondibee emotional pain. )) GLaDOS didn’t jump to conclusions.  She made logical hypotheses.  Very quickly. That wasn’t a bad thing, it was only natural.  She was a super computer, able to process and understand data faster than any human could ever comprehend. Thus, to the foolish, untrained human eye, it could look like she was making vast leaps in her thought process, she was actually being perfectly reasonable. So when she was lying in Chell’s bed, half an hour after midnight, staring at the ceiling, her question of “Do you love me?” wasn’t really out of the blue. It just might have seemed that way. Chell must’ve just started falling asleep, as GLaDOS’s voice seemed to shake her the slightest bit, and cause her to let out a low, noncommittal grunt as she rolled over to look at GLaDOS, blinking slowly as she took what felt like an eternity to process and answer the question. “...Yeah.” And with that, Chell rolled back over, apparently deeming her answer acceptable. GLaDOS frowned, furrowing her brows.  That had hardly been the answer she was looking for.  Not that she knew exactly what that answer was, but… she had wanted something a little bit more in depth. “Do you really? Statistically there’s a chance that you’re so brain damaged that you don’t actually know what love is. Or that you’re only in this for the physical aspect, but the crushing guilt you would feel for doing something so terrible has forced you to start lying to yourself in order to feel like less of a monster.” There wasn’t a response.  GLaDOS waited for about five minutes before she tore her gaze away from the ceiling to look at the woman beside her, and realized that she had clearly fallen asleep.

For a moment, she considered forcefully shaking the human awake and demanding an answer, but… decided against it.  This was an answer. Or at least, close enough to one. After a moment or two, GLaDOS brought her hand up to her face, studying it in the low light.  She flexed her fingers and stretched her wrist, watching the appendage move with her command.   As she shifted in place, she could feel Aperture Brand linen sheets rubbing against her bare skin. They were cool and crisp, providing little warmth, and helping to contribute to the goosebumps that travelled up and down her body.  Her clothes had long since been abandoned on the foot of the bed, but chill in the room was not so great as to warrant the effort required to get up and grab them. In a way, all of this- the sight of a hand moving at her command, the feeling of different textures and temperatures against her flesh- was still alien. This body was still taking some getting used to, and GLaDOS had been thinking about it quite a bit. From the moment she was forcefully transferred into it, to the moment that, after some major edits, she willingly put herself back in it. She had spent some time in it now, and while she could certainly walk and talk with ease, GLaDOS just couldn’t quite find any of it… natural. It wasn’t the body she was created to be in, nor was it the body that she spent most of her life- and death- in.  She had grown somewhat fond of it, but she couldn’t help but wonder if it was really her. GLaDOS had made it for herself, and despite a few miscalculations- she never could quite get past the one, stubbornly discolored eye, or just how short she actually was- it was the most accurate human form she could ever have. But that thought alone was a paradox, GLaDOS thought.  Accurately human? She could never be accurately human, she wasn’t human.  Chell was human, Caroline had been human.  GLaDOS wasn’t. GLaDOS wasn’t born like they were, raised like they were. She was shaped by her life as an AI, and nothing could ever change that. She could put on the costume and play pretend, but the same could’ve been said if she attempted to put herself in a potato. That wouldn’t make her a root vegetable, now would it? GLaDOS wasn’t human, and she was fine with that.  This body was not her natural form, but it had some merits that made it appealing to be in, depending on the circumstances. ...If only things were that simple. This body could never replace her chassis, nor would she ask it to.  It had many functions, but it still wasn’t quite as hands-on as her real body was.  She couldn’t control the facility in the same way, couldn’t feel it in the same way. She would return to her chassis periodically- often when she needed to be more involved with the building and execution of tests- and it was only recently that she started noticing a little...phenomenon. Chell avoided her when she wasn’t in her human form. Not completely, and not in a way that was blatantly obvious, but as GLaDOS had searched her memory of the time Chell had been back in Aperture, things started to become more clear. Chell readily gave GLaDOS’s smaller, softer form an appropriate level of affection, given the nature of their relationship.  Without needing to be asked, she would kiss GLaDOS, hold her hands, stroke her hair, and flirtatiously play with the not-so-hidden ports on her back. But as soon as GLaDOS transferred into her chassis, Chell just so happened to not come by the central chamber.  She picked that day to go test, or to take a nap, or read a book in her room.  And, if she did enter GLaDOS’s chambers, her body language was different. Not… necessarily aggressive or defensive- GLaDOS knew what that looked like- but far from as warm and open as she looked when regarding GLaDOS’s human form. Naturally, this was something that required further observation. GLaDOS normally jumped at something like this, the chance to do a little bit of new science. To explore and study something that she just wasn’t able to artificially manufacture, to study the enigma that Chell really was. However, the longer GLaDOS thought about this particular experiment, the more she found that it wasn’t quite as enjoyable as she had hoped.   What had been a nagging little thought that she labelled as simple curiosity slowly shifted into a uneasy twisting in her gut, a distraction that she just couldn’t put to rest. And it wasn’t as if she hadn’t attempted to, several times. She built new test chambers, with new, exciting elements she had been saving away for a ‘rainy day.’ But it just couldn’t excite her like she wanted it to. Her mind lingered on Chell, and as she remained in her chassis to build said chambers, she felt the lack even stronger than before. GLaDOS tried to drown out her thoughts through idle chatter.  She yelled at Atlas and P-body, she mused aloud, she even started reading out the entire assembly manual for the ASHPD to nobody in particular.  No matter how much she talked, she couldn’t seem to shake the questions that flooded into her brain faster and faster with every passing hour, minute, second. She wasn’t overly proud of the level of intelligence that went into her second most recent attempt-what brought her to where she was at this very moment-, considering how prurient and libidinous it no doubt came off.  But she had hoped that perhaps, closeness would solve the issue. That the gentle pressure of her back pushing into Chell’s mattress, and the warmth created by those calloused hands causing friction against her skin would be enough to fill the void that had been growing in her chest. It wasn’t. As it turned out, it didn’t really matter how physically close she was to Chell- the human could be miles away on the surface or tangled up in the bedsheets with her- nothing seemed to change the distance that GLaDOS felt. So naturally, the core’s next attempt- now it had been about twenty minutes ago, time really flew by quickly- had been the most direct of them all. To ask. Of course she had put it in simpler terms for Chell’s convenience, leaving out the sheer amount of detailed thought GLaDOS had put into all this- ‘Do you love me? Can you love me? Do you few me as a human substitute? Does who I really am repulse you? Are you actively trying to pretend that I am something I’m not?’- into a four word question. Surely that would’ve been enough to satisfy the insecurity that now gnawed at her insides like a hungry beast, tearing her apart more and more the longer she let it stew inside of her. But it wasn’t. If Chell could roll back over with such nonchalance and fall asleep, why couldn’t GLaDOS?  Why couldn’t she close her eyes without mentally picturing every word that went unsaid in Chell’s response?  Why couldn’t she stop her mind from racing every possible meaning that could be gathered from the one word answer? Because she wasn’t human, GLaDOS supposed. Humans had one or two trains of thought in their little heads that could be shoved away and saved for later as they slept, GLaDOS had millions. And when they were this… upsetting, the constant noise they produced in her head quickly became unbearable. GLaDOS couldn’t sleep, but she couldn’t bring herself to get up and leave. All she could do was lie there, on her back, stare at the ceiling, and think. Wonder if Chell would remember this conversation in the morning, if she would even care. Imagine what would happen if tomorrow, GLaDOS moved into her chassis and never switched back to this body again. Fret over what she would do if Chell left her again, and this time never came back. Think about- GLaDOS couldn’t shut her brain up. And as it turned out, she wasn’t very good at shutting her mouth up either. A sharp inhale of shaky breath, a restrained whimper.  The realization that her vision of the ceiling had blurred with tears that welled up in her eyes, before falling down the sides of her face to stain the pillowcase beneath. It was just past one am now, and GLaDOS knew it’d be terribly rude to wake Chell up at a time like this. Luckily, as the steady sound of the breathing at her side her confirmed, Chell was a heavy sleeper.  GLaDOS need only bit her lip and lightly muffle the cry that danced on the tip of her tongue, the human would be none the wiser. Chell would wake up in the morning, perhaps roll over and seek a kiss from GLaDOS’s lips. Her human mouth, on her human face, on a human body.  Chell could lazily grin and brush the hair from GLaDOS’s eyes, mumble out something akin to a good morning.  Chell could move forth from tonight with no weight upon her shoulders, carrying nothing but the belief that she truly loved GLaDOS. GLaDOS knew better. She didn’t jump to conclusions, she had heart wrenching realizations. Very quickly.

#chelldos #love as a construct #portal #portal 2 #chell #human!glados #enjoy some feelings

[canadian-riddler]

Be Quiet

Indiana

 Characters: Chell, GLaDOS

Synopsis:  Mere silence cannot end a nightmare.

Setting: During Portal

 AO3 || fanfiction.net || Wattpad

 “Be quiet, or GLaDOS will get you!”

She’d heard it so many times.

Her parents had said it a lot.  When they were tucking her in at night, when she got restless in the car.  When she went to school it was said between giggles on the playground, passed as a note between desks, told in a raised voice by an exasperated teacher.  It was a joke.  A lark. GLaDOS was the boogeyman, the troll underneath the bridge, and the thing that went bump in the night all rolled into one.  GLaDOS was a shadow that hid in the closet.  GLaDOS was the scraping sound against the window at midnight.  GLaDOS was the dark figure that you saw out of the corner of your eye when you stayed out too late.

There was no GLaDOS.  GLaDOS was made up to scare children into behaving.  That was why nobody listened the day she and a gaggle of other little girls had been rushed into a dark room and told to gather underneath a table.  Their parents had brought them to the laboratory where they worked and a nervous man was giving them a tour when the hallway went dark and he ushered them through the closest available door.

“Be quiet!  Or GLaDOS will get you!” he whispered urgently.

The girls went along with the game, giggling and whispering among themselves and hitting their heads on the table legs, and one of them said in childish sympathy, “GLaDOS isn’t real, silly.”  

“I wish you were right,” the man muttered.  And then he got up from under the table and went into the hallway, and the girls were left there in the dark for a long, long time.  The chatter died off eventually and they were left staring at the faint red stripe glowing from beneath the door.  When it opened and the contents of the room were edged in that unnerving shade they hunched a little closer together, the unknown silhouette seeming more a portent than a sign of hope.  After a moment they heard a woman’s voice, spoken low:

“Come with me.  But be quiet.”

Or GLaDOS will get you, each of them finished silently.  This time… this time, it didn’t seem quite as funny as it had before.  They climbed out and followed without a sound, walking closer together than they meant to.

The hallway was still blanketed in red, the shadows sliding sinister between their feet.  They were led silently through the building they had just joyfully traipsed through, and once they were squinting against the overcast sky hanging low over the parking lot the dark-haired woman who had brought them there sighed and started asking for phone numbers.  

Maybe there is a GLaDOS, after all, was whispered amongst them at school for a little while, but it was soon replaced with the usual giggles that accompanied the contemplation of a convenient and spooky ghost that existed just to make sure they were good and behaved.

When she was thirteen her mother went to work and never came back.  Her father refused to talk about it.  He told her to be quiet.  The same happened to him, five years later.  And in those five years other adults she knew went missing.  Adults who all worked at the same place her parents had.  

It was beyond coincidence.

The warnings were real. They had to be.  Whoever – whatever – this GLaDOS was needed to be confronted.  And she, in her adolescent foolishness, found herself on the doorstep of the facility where so many had gone missing determined to do just that.

She didn’t know how long she’d been sleeping.  She didn’t remember going to sleep at all.  But one timeless day she woke up in a glass box, greeted by an electronic drone. She did not need to be told who was behind it.  She already knew.

Her feet, bared by force, made no sound as they touched the floor.  The device she was provided just barely hummed between her hands.  The noise it made during use was loud but deceptive.  Other than the bookend phrases from the ubiquitous computer and, later, the ingenuous pleas from the smooth, glossy turrets, every room was silent.  Oppressively so, broken only by the whirring and the combustion and the buzzing of components locked into an eternal fifteen-second cycle that had gone on long before she had arrived and would continue long after she left.  The elevator sighed and trembled and laboriously carried her to chamber after chamber after chamber, where she dutifully jumped through the hoops laid before her in the hopes she would eventually find what she was looking for.

The penultimate test held a room blocked behind the press of a button.  As endless bullets crushed themselves into the glass she stood behind, she stared at a machine that had been turning for eternity, the pellets it fired off grinding craters into the walls.  Either nobody had been here in a long time, or nobody had ever made it this far.

For a moment she thought there would never be an end to this.  That she had volunteered herself to an empty, endless maze with only an electronic voice seemingly bent on passive destruction to stave off a solitary existence.  But that was the sort of thing that someone who had given up would believe.  

She escaped the fire in silence.

The machine beyond called for her but she did not answer.  She allowed herself to be lost within the thudding and the whining and the whimpering of a world she was not allowed to know.  When she finally came upon the myth she had been chasing, she was… underwhelmed.  The boogeyman was nothing more than a bundle of plastic and wire, swaying from the ceiling and surrounded by nonsense.  For this she had been stuffed beneath a dark table for hours upon hours?  For this her ears had been filled over and over again with warnings?  For this countless men and women had been lost?  

For this she had kept her mouth shut?

It was time to put all of this to rest.

There was no kill switch, no convenient cord to pull.  The machine had to be destroyed one piece at a time, and all the while the breath in her lungs thickened with the tang of corruption.  Throughout it all she made no sound as the computer filled the empty air all on its own.  Her actions were mechanical, without real drive or emotion.  It was the best way to deal with things like this.

The next part was a blur.

She ended up sprawled, dizzy, outside.  The sun was on her face.  She felt bruised.  She dimly remembered a bright light and being sucked out of the ceiling, somehow.  She had bitten her tongue during impact.  Or perhaps she had done it to keep from screaming. It didn’t matter.  The need for silence was gone.  She allowed herself an audible sigh of relief.

Her opened eyes were rewarded with the sight of a sightless amber optic trailed by the remnants of a deceptively contained machine, and as she stared at it she attempted to gather her wits enough to rise from the warm and pocked asphalt, to pick her way through the shattered robotics and sparking wires and shards of grey plaster.  But then she heard it.  Heard something harsh and grating cut through a silence that should only have been marked by the rustle of leaves and the self-extinguishing of futile fires and her own heart inside of her chest.  Sense kept her silent.  Fear kept her paralysed.

Be quiet.  Be quiet be quiet be quiet –

“Thank you for assuming the Party Escort Submission Position.”

As her inert body was scraped unevenly against the ground it felt as though the great dead yellow eye across the way had somehow, someway, centred upon her, and she could have sworn she heard that electronic drone whispered directly into her ear:

“Got you.”

  Author’s note

I thought it’d be wild if there was this thing among Aperture employees to tell your kids the big bad supercomputer would get them if they were naughty.  Chell took it all a liiiiiiiiittle too far lol.

Yes, the one who led the girls out was Caroline.  No, I would not like to argue about how GLaDOS and Caroline are the same person, or about the ‘Caroline is Chell’s mom’ theory.

#GLaDOS #Chell #fanfic from Indy #Portal

[sweet-christabel]

A Trusted Friend In Science

FF.net: (x) AO3: (x)

Chapter Twenty - Unknown year. Near Misses.

After figuring out which testing track Chell was on and reattaching Wheatley to the management rail, Doug once again found himself running ahead with the intention of depositing supplies in some of his now-exposed hiding places. He'd been against it at first, or rather the cube had, not comfortable with the broken-down state the facility was in. Not only was it harder to avoid GLaDOS's cameras with the crumbled walls, but travelling between chambers had gotten more dangerous due to the aged structures. Still, he'd persevered, his unwillingness to abandon Chell overpowering his apprehension.

Wheatley had yet to find a blind spot in which to contact her, but Doug had caught glimpses of him travelling the rail alongside the tests, keeping an eye on them both. He'd seen Chell once, entering chamber two just as he was leaving it. Although she was bearing up well, her expression betrayed her anxiety. There was a raw edge of sorrow to her demeanour too, which he attributed to grief for her father.

"It might help if she knew you were alive," the cube spoke up as he added a full tin of beans to the row of empty cans in one of his dens.

"What am I supposed to do?" he asked quietly, mindful of the gaping hole in the wall that led to test chamber three. "Write 'hi Chell, I'm alive lol' on a wall?"

The cube snorted at his heavy sarcasm. "It would get the job done."

"No," he said firmly. "She's seen my graffiti. She probably thinks that whoever wrote all this stuff is crazy. And she'd be right." He glanced up at the murals he'd painted in the room, images that made very little logical sense. During a long-ago period of restlessness, he'd managed to get his favourite song to loop on the radio, and had incorporated the lyrics into his work. The song had seemed to speak directly to him, which had been depressing, but at the same time he'd found its melody soothing.

"You need to get over thinking she'd judge you," the cube told him sternly. "She knows better than that, and you know she does. Let her know you're alive. She needs something to help her keep going. Tenacity alone won't always cut it."

Doug sighed, crouching to avoid being seen by the security camera in the test chamber, and sneaked over to the opposite side of the room. He switched the radio on, letting the music calm him, its familiar words once again questioning whether he'd given up. As before, he felt determined to prove them wrong.

“I can’t just…” he began, trailing off almost at once. “I already told Wheatley not to mention me to her, so doing this just seems…”

“She won’t know everything,” the cube countered. “Just that you’re alive.”

The cube had a point, as it often did when he let his fear control him. He wanted nothing more than to stay there and simply wait for Chell to arrive. He knew that wouldn’t be long, as she was only one chamber behind, but he couldn’t bring himself to face her, knowing that he’d been the one to place her life in danger. Although he was afraid, however, the thought of leaving her no clue as to his survival made him feel almost panicky.

Before he could change his mind, he drew a pen from his pocket and scurried over to the can of beans he’d left for her, bringing it back over to the ‘safe’ side of the den. Hand trembling just a little, he pressed the pen nib to the stark white label and wrote ‘Don’t give up’.

“That’s it?” the cube squawked.

He shot it a look over his shoulder. “It’s enough.”

“But how will she know who…”

“If she hears that song,” he interrupted, “she’ll know.”

The sound of GLaDOS’s voice emanating from the speaker outside the door startled him. He dropped the can and the pen next to the radio, hurrying over to the broken wall panels on the far side of the room. Carefully, mindful of the murky, bottomless drop below, he scrambled out of the den and climbed up the girders and mechanical arms on the outside of the chamber until he was safely perched on top of it. It was slow going, what with the constant ache in his leg and the extra weight of the portal gun, tucked in securely next to the cube, but he made it unseen.

“Now what?” the cube asked.

“On to the next one,” Doug replied softly.

Ever since GLaDOS had dropped her unceremoniously into the incinerator room, Chell had been wracking her brain for an escape plan. So far, she hadn't had much luck, settling back into testing compliantly to keep the A.I. appeased until she thought of something. Although there were still places where she could have gotten out of the test chambers, the sheer drop down put her off trying to leave that way. Despite the boots she was wearing, the fall looked like a death sentence.

GLaDOS wasn't allowing her a moment's peace, constantly prodding and berating her about the fact that Chell had shut her down, resorting to cheap shots about her 'horrible' personality and her adoption. It seemed that the powerful supercomputer had conveniently forgotten that she had been the one to attack first. Chell let the comments wash over her, not allowing them to rattle her. She had bigger concerns than GLaDOS's petty opinions.

A hole in the wall caught her attention as she entered test chamber three, and she darted over to it, wondering if it was an exit. It wasn't, but it was interesting nonetheless. Dropping down into the once-hidden room, she glanced around, taking in the empty bean cans, the outlandish murals on the walls and, most of all, the radio that was playing something other than the irritating Samba tune she'd heard before.

Wait, she thought suddenly, I know this song.

Doug had driven her crazy with it once, playing it on a loop on his car stereo when they'd taken a lunch break outside and retreated to the car to avoid the rain.

Her stomach gave a lurch, and she rationally tried to figure out if it was possible for the radio to have been playing during the entire, unknown amount of time she'd been in suspension. It was unlikely, even with Aperture’s longevity track record. She crouched down to investigate it, checking for wet paint or fingerprints. The toe of her boot sent a tin rolling. Letting go of the portal device, she reached out and stopped it, her eyebrows shooting up in surprise as she realised it was unopened.

She set the device on the ground and picked up the tin, wondering if it had been forgotten about or left deliberately. It was as she was turning it over in her hands that she saw the message, the handwriting shaky but still familiar.

Chell exhaled noisily, closing her eyes briefly. A quick search of the immediate area yielded a pen, the same kind of cheap ball-point that was once found in every office.

Why would he have left that behind? she wondered inwardly. Is it just that he left in a hurry, or does he expect me to use it?

When she looked back at the writing, she saw that her thumb had smudged the end of the D and her heart did a little flip.

Still drying, she thought elatedly. He left because...I entered the chamber. He is alive.

She closed her eyes again, grinning stupidly in relief, then took another cursory glance at the paintings. There was nowhere on them that would show her writing clearly. She would take a leaf out of Doug's book and use the cans. Lunging across the room, she snatched one up and pondered what to write. There was so much she wanted to say. In the end, though, she settled for ‘Please don’t run. Let's escape.' Chances were he wouldn't return, but she resolved to repeat the message at every opportunity.

He’s running ahead of me. So I need to catch up.

Chell wasn’t stupid. She realised that he wasn’t medicated, and she didn’t know how it had affected him. The dioramas on the walls were not the work of an entirely stable mind, and yet he was leaving her supplies that she needed. He’d obviously kept up with his art therapy, which suggested he’d also continued the calming techniques that his regular therapist had taught him. There was a chance that he’d maintained some semblance of his old life. Feeling a little selfish, she clung to that hope. She wasn’t sure how she’d get through to him otherwise.

Spurred on by fresh motivation, she solved the test quickly and progressed to the next chamber, the one after that, and the one after that. She found a few more of Doug’s refuges, some with water and food in, but no new signs that he’d been there recently enough to catch.

GLaDOS had responded to her new determined speed by complaining that she was solving the tests faster than they could be built. Chell knew that that was not strictly true, since what GLaDOS was doing was making the tests usable again rather than building new ones, but she was well acquainted with how her robotic adversary stretched the truth. With more to occupy her mind, she was finding it even easier to ignore GLaDOS’s taunting. The A.I. did not react to Chell’s lack of interest, which was mildly irritating but not wholly unexpected. They were both pros at trying to get a rise out of each other.

In chamber nine, Chell made a slightly startling discovery, catching sight of Wheatley hiding in a blind spot near the ceiling. Since she could only see and hear him when she stepped on an aerial faith plate that shot her up in the air, his explanation for not being deactivated was more garbled than usual, as he did not stop his flow of speech whenever she dropped out of earshot. By the time that GLaDOS lowered the ceiling and cut him off from view, all that Chell had surmised was that the core was attributing his survival to a bird.

Whatever happened to him must have damaged his circuits a little, she theorised.

As she solved the test, she pondered the matter further, stringing two and two together and deciding that Doug was probably involved somehow. She simply couldn't see any other way that Wheatley would have gotten himself fixed and back on the management rail if not with human help. It certainly wasn't a bird.

As she stepped into the elevator, she sighed in frustration. Everything would be so much simpler if she could only talk. She could just ask Wheatley, rather than having to rely on guesswork. Cautiously, she attempted a quiet, "Hello?" She heard her soft rush of breath, but nothing else.

"Godammit," she hissed, partly in disappointment, partly to see if she could whisper. She could, after a fashion, but it sounded difficult to decipher, even to her ears.

Biting down her distress and anger, she picked up her steady mantra that had seen her through her first set of tests: Carry on, carry on, carry on.

Having collected more rain water in the large containers he'd rediscovered in his hiding places, Doug was busy distributing it into smaller bottles that would be easier to carry around. With the cube and the portal gun, he was fairly weighed down already, but the water was necessary. Using a mixture of portals and his old climbing routes, he'd found his way into an old den in the ceiling of chamber twelve. He was far enough ahead that he could take a moment to rest. His leg still throbbed, but it was feeling stronger, and food and water had put a little colour in his pale face.

Setting down his heavy bag, Doug lowered himself to the floor, his back against a mural he'd forgotten he'd painted. It was nice to sit down for a while. He felt as if he'd been running for days, although in reality it was probably only a few hours. Chell was most likely suffering too, her only respite in the elevators between tests.

"Ah! There you are!"

Doug jumped violently as the cheerful voice shattered his peace. His eyes flew open and he spotted Wheatley peering in the gap to his left, between the ceiling and the wall.

"Been looking for you for ages! I've got an idea, right. I'm going to orchestrate a situation so I can have a word with our lady down there, and I need your help for that, cos, uh, you actually have hands."

Blinking as he registered the core's hurried speech, Doug scrambled wearily to his feet, fighting hard to focus on Wheatley as shadowed figures dogged his peripheral vision.

"You're okay," the cube said quietly, injecting some calm into his mentality. "You're in control, not them."

"What did you have in mind?" he asked Wheatley, pushing the hallucinations aside as best he could.

Wheatley fixed him with an eager, blue stare. "Well, I thought she should know that we're working to get her out of there, you know, so that she's ready to escape when the time comes. But I can't do that with Her watching everything. But don't panic, it's okay, right, cos I found a way to slow up the door mechanism. So, uh, if you'll just...follow me. We can use the door to this chamber below."

"Is Chell far behind?"

"No. I just caught sight of her in the test before this one."

Doug nodded and used the cube as a step up to reach the top of the wall where the core waited.

"Wait here," he told it. "I'll be as quick as I can."

"Be careful," it said sagely.

Turning back to Wheatley, Doug glanced at the potential route to the door. "Hmm," he muttered. "Portal device isn't going to help me here."

It was going to be a steep climb above the yawning gap into nothingness. Just looking at it made his stomach flip.

"Although..."

Hopping back down, he picked up the gun and shot a portal into the room’s single compatible surface: a few panels in the ceiling.

"Might make for an easier return trip."

He moved the cube out of its bag, dropping the portal device safely inside. Then he swung the strap across his shoulder and returned to the wall.

"You still have to get down there," the cube pointed out.

"I don't suppose you know how secure you are on the rail, do you?" he asked, glancing at Wheatley with a raised eyebrow.

The core narrowed his optic suspiciously. "Why?"

Doug opened his mouth to reply, but was swiftly cut off by Wheatley's cynical tones.

"Oh wait, wait, wait, I know what you're about. What is it with you humans, eh? You...you...you look at me and all you see is a means to an end. I mean, do I look like a bloody zip line to you?"

Doug glanced at him, trying to keep his expression neutral. With his bottom handle looking so invitingly handy and the management rail gently sloping towards the chamber entrance, the core did rather look like the key to progressing.

"Um," Doug began diplomatically, "well, not exactly..."

"Don't bother," Wheatley snapped, sounding exasperated. "Don't even bother. I can see it in your face, mate, and I'm...I'm disappointed, truth be told."

Doug sighed, holding up a hand. "Now, look-"

"Oh!" the core interrupted. "I just thought of something else that's disappointing. What if our combined weight is too much for this rail, eh? What if we both plummet to our horrible, grisly deaths? Cos you know what, that would be really bloody disappointing."

"It's a short journey," Doug shot back, his voice firm. "I think we'll be okay. I promise you, I don't weigh much. Not after three years without a square meal."

"You want to risk your life, that's up to you," Wheatley argued waspishly. "I don't see why you should drag me into it as well. Good old dispensable Wheatley, what does it matter if he falls into a deadly pit of death? Well I'll tell you why that matters, it matters because....uh....because....well, it just does, okay? Honestly, you humans, you think just because you created us, you're the boss of everything, well you're not. Okay? One day, I might be the boss and, uh, and then...well, I haven't thought that far ahead, to be honest, but something important will definitely happen."

"Meanwhile," Doug cut in, "Chell will have walked right past us and we'll have lost our opportunity."

The sphere halted, optic shifting as he considered. "Ah," he said. "You may have a point there." He glanced down at the drop beneath him, then hurriedly looked away. "Oh god, I really, really don't advise that."

"Look, just don't look down and move as fast as you can," Doug recommended. "We'll be there before you even register that we're going."

Wheatley made a short collection of sounds, imitating a sigh and a few fearful grumbles. "All right, all right. Let's get it over with, for god's sake. And if we die, it will be entirely on your head."

"Fine," Doug muttered, perching himself on the edge and reaching for Wheatley's lower handle. The murky depths of the pit stretched out shadowy tendrils, threatening to grab him and pull him into the darkness.

Oh god, I can't do this.

"You can," the cube called to him. "Don't look. It isn't real, Doug. It isn't real."

"Ready?" he asked Wheatley, thankfully managing to disguise the tremble in his voice.

"No," the core said obstinately. "Just remember to tuck your legs up, we'll be going through a fairly small gap at the end."

"Okay."

Tightening his grip, Doug took a deep breath and let himself slide off the edge. His body swung out into emptiness, the portal device clunking gently against his back. His stomach was immediately invaded by a small army of butterflies, his heart dropping into his shoes.

Why the hell did I think this was a good idea?

Following his suggestion rather more literally than he had expected, Wheatley shot off at top speed down the rail, causing Doug to fight the air resistance as he tried to keep his legs up.

Holy crap!

Keeping a death grip on the handle, staring adamantly straight ahead, Doug clenched his teeth as he battled his fear. But then they were slowing, drifting through a square hole in the wall, turning several corners, then finally emerging in a dimly-lit corridor. Doug let go immediately, landing on solid floor only to lose his balance and stumble against the wall. He was shaking, breathing hard. Wheatley stopped, spinning to face him. It was difficult to tell which one of them had been more terrified. Although it soon became apparent that only one of them was suffering after effects.

"Well," the core said cheerfully. "That wasn't too bad, actually. Reckon we could do that again."

"No," Doug panted, shaking his head as he crouched down, "I am never doing that again."

"It was your bloody idea," Wheatley huffed.

"Yes, but that doesn't mean it didn't scare the hell out of me."

Wheatley shook his optic from side to side, mumbling a tetchy, "Humans." Then he paused, tilting to one side as if he was listening to something. "The lift's on its way," he reported. "Come over here, we'll shut down the door."

Still on wobbly legs, Doug straightened up and complied. Wheatley halted beside a panel he'd obviously opened, displaying the mechanism for the door.

"What do you need me to do?"

"Look up in the gap that the missing ceiling tile left," Wheatley instructed.

Doug did so, hopping up onto a nearby desk. He found the nest almost at once, bringing it down into the light with a sceptical expression. There were three eggs inside it.

"A bird's nest?" he said in disbelief.

"Yep," Wheatley beamed proudly. "Chuck 'em in."

Frowning, Doug stared at him. "You want me to...throw eggs in the door mechanism?"

"Yes, it's brilliant. Trust me."

Shrugging, he threw the whole thing into the workings behind the panel. It sparked, emitting a pathetic groaning noise. Then they heard GLaDOS’s words of complaint as she told Chell to stay put.

“Cheers!” Wheatley said brightly, zipping away down the rail, turning into the observation room through the only other open door in the corridor.

Doug followed, keeping out of sight, pulling the portal device out of the bag and hugging it to his chest. He would need it soon. He just wanted to find out exactly what Wheatley was saying.

“I found some bird eggs up here,” the core was explaining. “Just dropped ‘em into the door mechanism. Shut it right down!”

Just as Doug was thanking the heavens that Wheatley had remembered to keep him out of things, there came a whisper of wings, and he just had time to see a dark, feathered shape flit through the open door.  

“I – aaggh!” yelled Wheatley in apparent shock. “Bird! Bird! Bird! Bird!”

Doug froze in bewildered surprise, a guilty smile lingering on his face as he listened to the personality sphere sliding back and forth on his rail to get away from the creature. After a beat, he heard him return.

“Okay. That’s probably the bird, innit, that laid the eggs? Livid!”

Doug shook his head, still smiling, and wondered how Chell was reacting.

“Okay, look, the point is we’re going to break out of here, all right? Very soon, I promise, I promise,” the core reassured her. “I just have to figure out how. To...break us out of here. Here she comes!”

Not wanting to stick around, Doug fired a portal in the wall further down the corridor and dropped through the one he’d placed in the den’s ceiling. It wasn’t a moment too soon, as the connection closed a fraction of a second after he’d passed through. He didn’t have time to fathom why, however, as his awkward landing caused a large panel to fall out of the floor.

Eyes wide as he struggled to regain his balance, Doug watched the tile tumble down past a hard-light bridge and land with a quiet splash in the pool of toxic goo below.

“Shit!” he hissed vehemently. There was a place at the very back of his mind that was grateful for whatever GLaDOS was saying over the room’s speakers that would drown out his panicked word.

He shifted his weight sideways, letting himself fall and roll out of harm’s way. There was no time to take a breather, however. He knew that there was a chance that Chell had caught a glimpse of his lab coat. Even if she hadn’t, she was likely to explore the hiding place at any moment.

Doug hurried over to the cube, quickly repacking his bag. Taking care to avoid the gap in the floor, he passed it, scrambling across the air conditioning ducts and disappearing into the shadows beyond. Behind him, he heard the pop of a portal opening in the ceiling, followed by the sound of Chell’s boots.

“Focus,” cautioned the cube.

I am focused, he argued silently. Come on. We need to catch up with Wheatley.

“Good job with the bird eggs back there,” Wheatley said, as soon as Doug had pinned him down between test chambers.

“Hello to you too,” Doug murmured under his breath.

Wheatley barrelled on, unperturbed. “I’ve been thinking about our escape, right. I’ve got an idea. Ahh, you’re gonna love this, honestly, it’s tremendous. So, I was thinking about how our original plan was just to go up in the lift, okay, and I thought to myself ‘why change it?’ I mean, it’s still the best plan we’ve got going for us so far.”

Doug frowned in disagreement, but Wheatley continued before he could voice his thoughts.

“No, I hear you say, She is still holding us back. And right now, you’d be right. But what if she wasn’t? Um, holding us back, that is.”

“Uh…well, obviously that would be great,” the scientist spoke up, “but she’s not as easy to take down as you might think. I couldn’t do it. That’s why I needed Chell.”

“His plan is to do exactly what we were already trying to do?” the cube put in scathingly.

“Shh,” Doug pacified.

Wheatley peered at him, optic narrowed. “I didn’t say anything.”

“Not you. Never mind. What was your idea?”

“It’s simple, really. Genius. We don’t kill her, we replace her. Y’know, do a core transfer and put me in her place. I can summon the lift, we all leave. Easy.”

Doug arched an eyebrow, considering the idea. It wasn’t as ridiculous or far-fetched as he’d expected Wheatley’s plans to be. In fact, it might even be the easiest way out.

“She won’t be eligible for a core transfer unless her central core is corrupt,” he said, already recalling the route to a usable console.

“Yeah, but you can do that, can’t you?” Wheatley asked, tilting a little.

“I can, if I can get to the right office.” Turning back to the sphere, he added, “Have you figured out when you can break Chell out of the testing track?”

“Not quite, but I’ve got a plan for that too. Leave it with me, mate. Working on it.” He bobbed in a confident kind of nod.

“Be careful. She’s always watching.”

But it seemed that where GLaDOS was concerned, Wheatley was as paranoid as he was.

“If GLaDOS finds you or suspects what we’re up to, she’ll fight back,” Doug told him gravely.

Wheatley looked at the floor, an air of nervousness overtaking him. “How?”

“In my experience,” he shrugged, “turrets or neurotoxin. Those are her favourites.”

“Weellll,” Wheatley said, drawing the word out, “I reckon Chell and I could stop by turret control and the neurotoxin generator on our way to the main chamber. You know, shut everything down so that she can’t use them against us. That would give you plenty of time to get to the console thingy and work a little bit of corruption magic. Err….science. Swap that in. Meant science. Of course!”

Doug shot him a quick smile. “Now that is a truly excellent plan.”

The core beamed at him, lifting his lower handle in a vague imitation of a smile.

“I’m going to keep tracking Chell until you break her out,” Doug went on. “Then I’ll make my way to the office.”

“Okay. I’d better go. I’ve got a meeting with the nanobot crew.”

“You’ve got a what?” Doug called after him, but the sphere was already moving along the rail.

“Hmph,” said the cube, with feeling.

“He needs to work on his greetings and leave-takings,” he commented dryly.

“At least he’s not welcoming you with ‘You’re looking good today’ anymore,” the cube pointed out.

Doug rubbed his tired, gritty eyes. “It was never true anyway.”

“Oh, stop.”

“What?”

“Anyone would think you were Quasimodo the way you go on,” the cube scolded. “Let’s get moving. Chell must be in chamber fourteen at least by now.”

Smiling to himself a little, Doug did as it suggested and took off running. 

No illustration this week. I just didn’t have time.

#A trusted friend in science #Doug Rattmann #Chell #wheatley #mild swearing

[its-called-a-balaclava]

The Team Fortress Testing Initiative (Chapter 3)

They all fell. In love. With science.

(Start expecting quite a few scene changes here, folks.)

Multiple Chapters

Teen & Up Audiences

Back to the Beginning

Previous Chapter

Chapter Three: Volunteering Is Mandatory

There was an error with the pipes, and GLaDOS noticed. One, two… a total of nine humans falling in. So close to perfect, really. People almost never came around, but all of a sudden… whatever, it was convenient for a test run.

She analyzed the heat signatures and discovered that the outline of two of them matched the two people she had to deal with just last week. How absolutely freaking delightful.

Oh, they were nearing the bottom. A sharp blast of chloroform-infused air aimed upwards both saved all nine of them from death and knocked them out.

Testing was important. She had been losing her focus on science. She could deal with the two people after they’d completed the test, and she could do so quietly and with absolute calm. Even if they brought the moron. It didn't take her long to undo the code, and she even plugged in a new antiviral wall. If he tried to hack her again, he’d end up disabling himself . Violently.

Nine. So close. She instructed the Party Escort Bots― she didn't know who dubbed them that, but it was an ironic name― to drag each person to their own starting chamber.

“Runners, take your places,” she thought, and laughed to herself. Human sports were nothing compared to this.

Small, sharp talons woke Medic up.

“Augh― Archimedes!” he chastised the bird, who was stark white and nearly invisible tucked against the collar of his lab coat. His words echoed around the testing chamber. He raised an eyebrow. “Any idea where we are, Archimedes?”

A moment passed, and then Medic said, “No, I don't either, that’s why I asked you.”

Archimedes nestled into his favorite pocket. There were cameras. Archimedes always avoided cameras. They hadn’t caught sight of him, he was sure.

A recording clicked on.

“Hello, and welcome to the Aperture Science Testing Center.” The message was broadcast to all nine rooms, but Soldier thought there was someone in the ceiling addressing him directly.

“Hello to you, too! Now release me, or you will face charges. And more importantly, you will face the sheer power of a member of the military of the United States of America!”

GLaDOS knew when to give up. She just let the recording play over him in a loop as he shouted. Perhaps he’d figure it out eventually. Or else, maybe he’d die there.

Spy groaned when he saw the Long-Fall Boots the announcer was talking about. Even if he believed in karma, he’d been a good person as of late.

The announcer was frank. “Attempting to leave this room without the Long-Fall boots will not work, and even if you manage it, attempting to complete the tests without the boots will result in your amusing death.”

“Did they just say ‘amusing’?” Spy thought. He took off his leather loafers. The world was certainly not right.

Sniper had always tended towards the tall side, and standing up, he remembered what had happened with Scout. He took his first steps very carefully, eyeing the ceiling. The boots didn't betray him… yet.

Scout was already making his way through the first test. He’d shouted and shouted, but the lady seemed determined to not talk to him. He’d find a way out of here again, he knew it.

Demo had never regretted wearing a kilt on his off days until now. It wasn't just that he was embarrassed about the whole “heels-and-a-skirt” vibe he now had about him, but from the way these things bounced… his kilt was likely to fly right up in his face.

He hoped no one was watching, for both his sake and their own. He looked around for the gun.

Oh, great . Did it have to match the boots? He knew he looked more ridiculous than Scout ever did.

Accomplished through the use of a blowtorch to metal, the Long-Fall boots were stretched over the boots Pyro already had on. It was impressive. Even GLaDOS didn't understand how the design of the boots allowed for such manipulation. She considered removing the apparent firebug from the chamber immediately, but decided she’d wait until they tried to cheat before terminating the test.

They holstered the blowtorch and took the portal gun. Good for them.

There was a large man struggling to get into the boots down there, and it took all of GLaDOS’s willpower to not say something.

Heavy stood up in those awful, awkward shoes.

They didn't break. Good. Time for a new gun. Small, lightweight. It looked delicate. Definitely not Heavy’s favorite. But, their Engineer was a smart man, and if he would spend a whole day looking for something like this, he supposed it had its redeeming qualities.

Dell could have spent hours studying the gun. The boots were nothing compared to this.

GLaDOS, watching, was intrigued. This man, according to her files, was brilliant. So why wasn’t he testing? Oh. Curiosity factor. Damn.

The pre-recorded message switched to a different track. “As of now, you have five minutes to begin attempting the test. If, after those five minutes, no viable attempts have been made, you will be executed.”

A red laser sight made itself clearly visible on Engie’s torso, and a large countdown clock appeared on the wall.

He gulped, and fumbled with the triggers of the gun.

GLaDOS was pleased at the progress with everyone. Even the crazy man had stopped yelling at the recording. She was less pleased when they started making their way through the first test chambers.

According to the math, at least one of them should have gotten stuck. But they were solving them. Obviously that Scout, the one that had tried this before, would be successful, but the man in a skirt? The one in a gas mask? The one who was yelling at a pre-recorded message? How were they succeeding ?

GLaDOS took a closer look at all of them. For a second, she thought she saw an odd spot on the heat signature readings of the so-called “Medic”, but switching to regular camera feed, she saw nothing odd, just a clean white lab coat.

She saw that Scout had brought the moron. “Let him try to disable me again,” GLaDOS thought. “He’ll just explode.”

It was an oddity, for sure, that they all succeeded, but like any good scientist, she stepped away from the situation.

NEXT CHAPTER

#chapter 3 #there we go lets start testing #portal #tf2 #fanfic #crossover

[sarcasticgaypotato]

(( For @bondibee‘s ‘Love as a Construct’ AU. )) Lipstick. Chell hadn’t really paid it any mind at first. Frankly, when kissing a former arch enemy, the sheer strangeness of the situation was usually the first thing on her mind, followed by a close second of surprise that an AI who had just recently inhabited a human body caught on to being a good kisser so quickly. Needless to say, Chell’s mind hadn’t really been focused on much besides the act itself, focusing on finding every last bit of enjoyment in every moment that could be their last, considering they could end up blown to pieces before they even had the time to pull apart. It really only was when she happened be passing by a pane of glass that she caught sight of her own reflection, and realized a little something. They were both covered in a mixture of scrapes and bruises, dried blood, dirt and smudges of oil. Neither of them really looked particularly clean.  GLaDOS, for example, still had the remains of a bloody nose, with bits of dried blood on her upper lip and chin.  She also had smudges of black around her lips, which Chell knew to be lipstick that was no doubt once pristine, but now had either been rubbed off, or smeared. Only thing was, Chell now had a pretty good idea where most of those traces of lipstick had ended up. On herself.  The corners of her lips, along her jaw, on her neck, and even a few smaller ones along her collarbone.  To be fair, she remembered pretty well how she got the ones on her face, she just hadn’t put two and two together at the time. However, the rest of them were a bit different. Chell had stopped paying attention to much of what GLaDOS did in her arms if she was in the middle of a potentially dangerous puzzle, but she still found herself somewhat bemused to think that she hadn’t noticed the smaller, sneakier kisses being pressed against her skin.  Sure, light amounts of pressure on her skin were nothing compared to nearly being grazed by a bullet, or feeling the heat of a laser so uncomfortably close she could’ve sworn it burned the hair off her arms, but really? She looked down to the former core in her arms for an explanation, and found GLaDOS conveniently asleep. For a moment, Chell considered waking her- if she even was truly asleep, Chell wouldn’t put it past the core to fake it- but decided against it, knowing that GLaDOS would no doubt avoid the question in favor of chastising Chell for focusing on something so frivolous when they needed to be focusing on stopping Aperture from exploding. Still, as Chell set back off through the facility, she found her mind lingering on the subject, as the recently discovered marks somehow seemed to burn against her skin the more she tried to ignore them. This wasn’t exactly unlike GLaDOS.  If there was one thing that Chell was made completely certain of- judging by how much the Aperture logo littered everything that Chell wore- GLaDOS liked to leave her mark on things. Things that were hers. Her facility, her testing apparatuses, and apparently, her test subjects. If Chell had made this connection earlier, she might’ve taken a minute to see if she could burn the logo off everything she wore, or scratch it out with dirt or blood, just to spite the facility that she loathed and the creature at the head of it.  Now this, on the other hand, was a little different. Rather than refuse her travelling companion of something that clearly kept her happy and relatively quiet, Chell decided on simply getting even.

--------- She waited patiently until their next real break.  They couldn’t take many, and they had to be brief, but Chell was only human, and while she might’ve been able to jump through test chambers all day long, that didn’t account for carrying around a fully grown human- or AI in a human body- almost the entire time.  If she didn’t take a few minutes to catch her breath, she’d end up dead. Either by exhaustion alone, or making a careless mistake. GLaDOS didn’t seem to mind, both getting the chance to stretch her limbs, and for the two of them to take their minds off things.  Perhaps it was a bad idea, to pretend for a couple minutes that they weren’t in a life or death situation. Perhaps zeroing in on the fear of death would give them the extra push they needed to move a little faster, and increase their chances of survival. But Chell didn’t want to die miserable. If she was going to die- and she had confronted that possibility several times over the course of her stay in Aperture- she either wanted to die victorious, or die happy. And if that meant using her last moments alive to think back to just how it felt to have human contact again?  Chell was going to take the risk of a five minute break, it was worth it. Besides, she didn’t hear any complaints from GLaDOS’s end-disregarding the fact that Chell’s mouth on hers gave the core very little chances to complain- and instead, only heard soft hums of approval as she cautiously pulled away, turning her focus to a new target. She didn’t have the advantage of lipstick to smear, and unless she managed to find a permanent marker with which to scrawl her name all over GLaDOS’s forehead while she slept, Chell only saw one, acceptable option of making things even. To add some new bruises, albeit far more comfortably gained ones, to the space where GLaDOS’s neck met her shoulder, the soft expanse of skin, fair, and mostly unmarred- side from the cuts and scrapes that Chell was mindful to ignore.   She found herself wondering, as she pressed her lips against the crook of the core’s neck and began carefully attempting to leave a mark, if GLaDOS would say something. Object to Chell’s actions, or at least question them.   For a moment, it seemed like she would. GLaDOS’s lips parted, and an exhale left them with the faint sound of a question that died on her tongue moments before she would’ve said it.  Instead, GLaDOS simply tilted her head to the side, giving Chell better access. Chell couldn’t have said how much time passed. How long they stood there, with GLaDOS’s back to the wall, and Chell leaned down in front of her.  But Chell knew that, by the time the next big tremor shook the facility and brought them back to the moment, she had left at least four solid bruises along GLaDOS’s neck, starkly standing out against her pale complexion. It brought her an odd sense of satisfaction to see it- to the point where she almost understood why GLaDOS was so fond of tagging everything she possibly could- and even more so to think that GLaDOS might not have even been aware of the extent of what now stood out like a sore thumb on her form.  Surely, the former Queen of Aperture would object to having difficult to hide love-bites being paraded around so openly, and that was part of what made it so enjoyable to look at. “If...if you’re quite finished assaulting my neck with your mouth like some kind of failed vampire, we really should be getting a move on. We’re close to the central chamber, and frankly I’d like a chance to get my hands on that little moron before the facility caves in on us both.” GLaDOS’s voice held a bit of a stammer in it as she carefully brushed herself off, pushing Chell back and shooting her a look that desperately tried to hold an ounce of contempt in it. However, despite her suddenly sour disposition, Chell knew what GLaDOS truly looked like when she was unhappy, and this wasn’t it. In a swift, now quite practiced motion, Chell scooped the core up, unable to keep a small smile off her face upon seeing how GLaDOS reflexively wrapped her arms around Chell’s neck for support, seemingly without needing to think about it. They could die today. It was a rather large possibility, in fact. But if they did, Chell certainly didn’t mind this being the last memory she had of Aperture.

#chelldos #love as a construct #portal 2 #chell #glados #human!glados #I love this AU I'm vainly trying to contribute #seeing your art has just given me a sudden boost in motivation #and really gotten me right back into a chelldos mood #I hope my writing turns out ok #and I'm at least semi doing your fantastic au justice #I love writing for it #and I just love these two dorks