ofcubesandportals

[ofcubesandportals]

          Chell would normally offer a curt and snappy response, but she can't bring herself to be rude to a child. Adorable faces win the day. She scrawls out an answer in her notebook, bending down on her knees to match Clementine's height, and holds it out.

When you run around as much as I do, you don't get cold.

                    She leaves out the part about having a long-sleeved jumpsuit in case she                     needs it, mostly because it is tacky as hell. 

     ❝Aren’t you cold in just a tank top?❞

[ofcubesandportals]

          Chell gave a firm nod once he confirmed his willingness to at least try. A smile didn’t break out on her face, it didn’t look like sunshine was suddenly breaking through the clouds, but… She looked relieved. What had once been a scowl had softened and remolded itself into more of a neutral expression, and while she still kept her wits about her, tense and ready for anything life threw at her (as always),  it was a far cry from the anger she originally exhibited.

          That done, she turned her attention back to the pillar and began to draw under her original written statement. The first thing to come to mind was food. Any would do, really, she wasn’t picky. Wheatley was a robot, though, and despite all his human tendencies, her faith in his knowledge of the food groups was limited at best. So she drew a picture of something she hoped he would know, if only by way of the methods GLaDOS used as motivation. A picture of a cake. Water was an arguably more pressing matter, but her hope was that wherever food was, beverages would follow.

          Below that, a crude picture of a bed was rendered. While sleeping was yet another entirely human function, Chell knew that he had to know what that was. It was where he’d met her, after all. The faithful Relaxation Chamber. Not that she had any desire to sleep in that particular bed, given the connotations behind it, but a bed in general would be a godsend.

          Once she finished with her drawings, she pointed to them both, turning to stare at Wheatley deliberately. This is what I want. Help me find them. That’s trust.

⊱ Many followers on the other side of the portal

     As he was being tugged around, he realized that Chell’s strength was due to her time in Aperture with the constant testing, running, jumping… Really, she was strong at least though— Most humans would kill for that sort of attribute, right?

     The lack of even a smile on her face only made the one Wheatley was having trouble keeping up disappear completely now— What was he supposed to do to gain back her companionship? If he couldn’t communicate positive things then really there couldn’t be anything else to do; He knew humans ate up positive words from others, but it was clear through her bod language that the woman was not going to have it.

     Once she had come to a halt and let go of his arm the android crossed those limbs over his chest, waiting patiently as she scribbled against the withered surface of what he assumed was once a pearly white pillar. Blue optics scanned the rest of the space to pass the small amount of time as he held his tongue, knowing that (at least) his compliments were useless.

     The glance signaled him to uncross his arms and step forwards, murmuring to himself as he read it.

          “All right, now what do we have here… Uh, you want my trust…”

     Earn it? How? No… How wasn’t the question he should be asking— He couldn’t limit something that he had deemed so important by asking useless questions like that. The android huffed to himself before looking back up at Chell with a small nod.

          “Of course, anything.” 

[ofcubesandportals]

          She pauses in her retreat, slowly turning back around. While the attitude still wasn't appreciated, she may as well get some solid information from this. Chell starts indicating numbers with the amount of fingers she's holding up on her hands, one at a time, hoping her double will get the meaning and stop her once she successfully guesses the number of "clones." 1, 2, 3, 4...

⊱ 2 followers on the other side of the portal

        “ Hey—okay, maybe that was a bit rude of me to say. I’m sorry. ” she lifted her hands in a defensive position.          “ You’re just not the first double of me I’ve seen.. ”

[ofcubesandportals]

          Don’t say anything. That’s one thing Chell could cross off the imaginary checklist. She shot Wheatley a look and jostled his arm a bit, that being the best way she could think of to communicate her sarcasm nonverbally.

          The source of her strength was due to the trials and tribulations Aperture had put her through, as well as her attempts at survival afterwards, so she had her status as a former lab rat to thank for that. She was not grateful in the slightest. Sure, she could endure what life threw at her, but she wouldn’t have had to if it weren’t for the living hell they made her life into to begin with. It was something she remembered each time she lugged her companion cube to a new place, each situation in which her muscles burned from exertion. Compared to that, dragging around Wheatley was a piece of cake, regardless of the body he possessed.

                    (God, she could go for some cake.)

          Any compliments only served to irritate her, and Chell’s shoulders hunched over as a blatant indication. She wanted out. That was the whole point of this little charade. Not that he had any reason to suspect that yet, other than how barren and abysmal the surroundings were, but the robot would see that soon enough.

          She brought him to a section littered with square pillars from floor to ceiling, the surface of each of them a smooth concrete. Many of them were filled to the brim with drawings, the lines thick and dark and smudgy. The source of the artwork was what Chell picked up when she arrived at the destination, a stick of charcoal she idly bounced in her hand a few times. She glanced back at Wheatley once, chose a neglected pillar with writing room to spare, and gave him a message.

⊱ Many followers on the other side of the portal

     Just as quickly as he had offered himself up to Chell to try and make up for everything he had done wrong, he quickly began to regret it. His mind worked all too fast, making him think through all types of different scenarios that would not end necessarily well for him.

          “Y’know, I actually just realized that maybe— Just maybe, now— It would not be the best to say anything. I have my limits; no birds, first of all, I don’t care what they’re doing, I will not go anywhere near one so long as my name is Wheatley. Which will be always. And further on—”

     The android’s speech was cut off as Chell began to successfully pull him across the surface, a small sound of surprise escaping him. Gosh this woman was strong— He couldn’t even manage to pull himself around without minor issues. It took him a moment to actually start walking on his own, getting a bit caught up in his thoughts again. He took a brief look around, an idea striking him.

          “You know, you have got yourself a beautiful home, really magnificent. Love what you’ve done with it— Really, truly perfect.”

     Kissing up probably wasn’t going to mend anything between him and the woman, but it didn’t stop him from trying anyways.

[ofcubesandportals]

Portal: There You Are - Created by Donksdev

Available as a print from Society6.

[ofcubesandportals]

Chell had almost forgotten how Whealey’s train of thought could be so straight forward and so off track at the same time. His quips did not impede her work, though they did make her idly wonder how long it would take him to catch on. If only she could take bets. Considering it took having the poster shoved right under his metaphorical nose and then some, it was a bet she may well have lost. Still, he got the gist of her meaning eventually, and all she had to do then was hear him out as he explained and… And…

She should have known better.

The hopeful expression that had fitted her face just moments before melted away, the corners of her mouth tugging downwards in disappointment. Of course he didn’t know how it worked. Chell was willing to bet that his knowledge of the workings of that machine extended about as far as his claims of knowing how to hack did. It’s not like he built the thing, anyway. What a waste of time. A waste of paper, too. Maybe she could just take the rest of the posters for supplies and head out to look on her own, after all? She could roll one up, try to use it as a torch, make her own light source—

Or not, okay, maybe this could be salvaged. The room he spoke of below them could still be promising. She hadn’t seen it yet, so there was no reason to rule it out, save for the doubts crawling into her mind like creeping vines. One last look, and then if something salvageable was gleaned, all the better. If not, she would go home. Wherever home was. A perfectly rationale plan.

The resounding boom was enough to jolt the ex-test subject out of her thoughts and into the present. She reached out to grip at the doorframe for security’s sake, and the poster fell from her hands, fluttering carelessly to the floor. The sensation was over quick as a wink, though the paranoia it instilled remained as an afterthought. Power. Power was good. He could be lying, the racket could be the first sign of this decayed version of Aperture caving in on itself, but if it was, she still had her long fall boots. And the portal gun. She’d dealt with far worse.

With a hesitant dip of the head, she let go of the frame, stepping back out into the spacious chamber. Chell arms crossed defiantly when she did so, as if daring him for this to be another empty promise, just to see what would happen.

[ Inter-dimensional Hitchhikers ]

[ofcubesandportals]

Headcanon Asks!

☩ for a bedroom headcanon

✖ for a tattoo headcanon (One they have or one they want)

♖ for a childhood headcanon

♬ for a song that fits them

↹ for a best friend headcanon

☾ for a sleeping headcanon 

✻ for if they are a night or day person

✄ for a drunken headcanon

♘ for a pet headcanon

❀ for their favorite season

☮ for an embarrassing headcanon

✈ for a traveling headcanon

⊗  for a completely random headcanon

[ofcubesandportals]

          Chell looked satisfied enough with that admission of humiliation. Still a bit miffed, but easing off of it gradually, the hard edges of her features softening. She nodded, then thumbed to a new page in the notebook, her writing still hurried and veering straight the point. Lack of speech had taught her not to waste words. She also made a point to not shove the book in Ellie's face as aggressively as she had the time before.

I can't talk. That's it.

          ... I came from far away.

 That's really specific.

           ”Oh. Now I’m embarrassed.”

{ Ellie shook her head and crossed her arms. Great, now she seemed like a bigger fool than she already was. }

[ofcubesandportals]

          Once she'd come to a standing position, she bent down to retrieve the portal gun she'd temporarily abandoned. Her other hand ran through the front her hair after she righted herself, pushing her bangs back as she looked anywhere but at him. What could he do? There was question.

          That was the thing about robots, Chell mused. Their simulations could be as accurate to the human experience as they wanted, but at the end of the day, it was all optional. They could live completely and totally in the present, and why wouldn't they? Reliving the past didn't seem particularly convenient, unnecessary coding.

          Truth be told, she still wouldn't speak to him at this point, even if she could. Even if the glimpse of his face she caught against her better judgement looked sorrowful. She didn't need to fall for that. It would be a waste of paper, too, writing out her intentions. The former lab rat wasn't sure when she would come across any more, so that was being saved for a last resort.

                    But...

                              There was a way she could show him.

          Inspiration struck, and Chell responded to it by roughly grabbing Wheatley's hand to drag him in the direction of her destination, further down the abandoned train station she'd been inhabiting. Sure hope he didn't have trouble walking or anything.

⊱ Many followers on the other side of the portal

     It hadn’t been all too difficult for Wheatley to notice the signs; after all, he had gone through quite a lot with the woman to understand that reading the features of the human face could tell you a whole lot about how they were feeling. At first, she was visibly confused, which was definitely understandable… New body and all.

     But then he felt her fists wrapping around his suit, making it tighter against his skin, and then he looked up again to see that Chell was clearly not as happy as he was to be back together. The grin slowly slid off the android’s face, replaced by a frown. She certainly hadn’t forgotten about what had happened, and how could he blame her?

          “Hey, hey… You got to understand that that wasn’t me! The uh, with the whole situation there, I know you’re thinking about it… I couldn’t help what I did, and I really am truly sorry about it!”

     Wheatley managed to get the rest of his body through the portal and scrambled up to his feet, hands self-consciously picking away at his suit, wringing the material nervously. His eyes had dimmed a significant amount once he had understood that she wasn’t as jubilant to see him as he was her.

          “What can I do? I mean, to make it up to you. There’s got to be something humans like to do when they’ve been upset, yeah? Like me, if someone were to upset me, I’m programmed to ignore it! Now, granted humans can’t do that, but… You get the point.”

[ofcubesandportals]

          Okay, hold up, a clone? That's just rude. Any implication that she was lesser, a          copy of the original, did not fly in her book. She simply did not have the words to          voice this opinion.

                    So Chell responded in a mature fashion by shooting the double a dirty look                     and stalking off in the other direction.

⊱ 2 followers on the other side of the portal

        “ ..oh..great, another clone? ”

[ofcubesandportals]

Chell was not immediately prepared for the thick layer of dust that sprung up to meet her, though a decent leap in deductive reasoning should have made her from the get-go. Even the unwilling tours she received of the oldest sections of Aperture were never this dusty, but they were always more exposed to the elements, had room to breathe. This was a stuffy corner with an actual ceiling to shield away factors that would otherwise dispose of the particles, and in the aftermath she found herself resisting the urge to cough, waving her hand about to clear the air.

She blinked, adjusting to the filter of smudgy glass and dust clouds and how it affected her light source, in turn. A few seconds were allowed to sharpen her senses, and then she trudged onwards, a watchful eye scanning for details. The handprint embedded in the glass and the scattered posters drew her to the conclusion that this contraption was man-made, at least originally. That was a start. That meant there could be some semblance of instructions or an explanation somewhere or other, if the creators had the sense to write it down, if only to brag. Unless they were all digital. In which case, she was screwed.

The woman even nodded towards Wheatley’s blatant attempts to impress, for once, indulgent but truthful. She was interested. It was why she had stuck around, after all, why she was poking her nose where it likely did not belong. If only the damn power wasn’t out. It made exploring that much harder, and meant that she had to turn to him for answers, unsure on how to even go about asking them. Her notebook was small, and Wheatley was up high, and the lighting was not ideal. Not favorable conditions for communicating.

Then her gaze fell on the yellowed posters again.

‘... Time to get creative.’

Chell ripped one right off the wall with no regard whatsoever for any damage it might do and flipped it over, pressing it up against the glass for a hard writing surface. (Better the poster than parts of the machine, on the damage front.) She took the pen out of her pocket and put it to paper. To make sure they were visible, the letters were drawn as huge as the poster margins would allow, a good deal of pressure applied to the pen to ensure dark strokes, and multiple lines were scrawled on the side of each letter to increase visibility further.

It was only word, but she would make it count.

Moving to stand in the doorway of the room afterwards, she gestured once to the machine, and finally pointed to her revised version of the poster that she held in front of her chest upon completion.

[ Inter-dimensional Hitchhikers ]

[ofcubesandportals]

                    " . . . "

          Chell made no attempt to hide her irritation, and huffed audibly as she went to grab a notebook from her back pocket. She scrawled out her words quickly, tearing off the page and thrusting it into Ellie's face once she was done, expression entirely unimpressed.

I can understand English.

          “Perfect. A language barrier.”

{ Ellie blinked and pointed to herself.}

          “El-lie. Ellie.”

[ofcubesandportals]

          This was definitely Weird, with a capital W. In the mere moments that had passed since he poked his head through unceremoniously, the android (???) had managed to confirm everything she would ever possibly need to know to prove his identity. Same behavior, same series of events, same old song and dance. Different body. It was almost infuriating, how human he looked. How he acted. The voice had always thrown her for a loop enough on it's own, not synthesized like a turret or Her but with a British accent, for God's sake, and now he had a body that imitated human behavior, too, right down to the facial expressions.

          Then she hoisted him through, trying to get a good look, and he just smiled, cheery as can be. Like there was nothing wrong. Like he hadn't betrayed her, tested her, tried to kill her. They say time can heal all wounds, but when that time has been muddled by erased memories, the wounds feel that much more fresh. It would take more than a half-baked afterthought of an apology to make this right.

          Chell squeezed her eyes shut, tightening her fists in the fabric of his jacket so hard her knuckles turned white, and then let go entirely. She scrambled to stand up, finding her breathing more labored than it should be by all accounts. She couldn't afford to look weak, not in front of him. Not in front of a robot. The new body just... Caught her off guard, that's all.

     (He'd already been drug halfway through the portal by the time she let go, so      hopefully he had enough leverage to not slip through the portal from that action      alone.)

⊱ Many followers on the other side of the portal

     Wheatley barely had the time to notice the girl’s inquisitive look or all that much time to consider the fact that maybe it wasn’t the best move to simply make himself known. After everything that had happened after all… But the android didn’t think, merely rambled on and on.

          “Oh— Look at you. You look good, look good… Healthy. And, I’m being truthfully honest right now, you really do look significantly better since the last time I saw you. Last time I saw you—” A pause as the memories came flooding back from when he had lost control of himself and nearly killed her. He chuckled nervously, a hand moving to rub the back of his neck sheepishly.

          “Last time I saw you I suppose I left things on a bit of a bad finish— Speaking of that, the uh, the bad finish; I’d like to formally apologize fo— Wh… What are you doing.”

     The only thing Wheatley could manage to do was assist in pulling him through the portal just a bit, worried that even someone like her wouldn’t be able to handle his weight. And then bright blue eyes met the darker brown and he couldn’t help the rather goofy grin that popped up onto his face.

          “Hello!”

[ofcubesandportals]

          Chell pursed her lips, then, tilting her head. There were way too many questions running through her mind, and her vocal chords did not afford her any of them.  She settled for mouthing 'how?', raising both arms up with fingers splayed. This was still a very, very new experience for her. She felt like her entire body may as well be the shape of a question mark, for how confused she was.

⊱ 2 followers on the other side of the portal

She quickly understood (Of course she did, they were the same person after all. Despite being different variations) what the other was miming. This wasn’t the first time she’d run into herself oddly enough. Chell shook her head ‘no’, the other wasn’t crazy. The situation was.

[ofcubesandportals]

Chell was secretly relieved that he seemed intent to follow her, even if it meant dealing with his jabbering along the way. His flashlight, spotty as it was, provided more light than the faint glowing of her portal gun’s core ever could. Not to mention the whole… Being the occupant of his own universe thing. If anyone was likely to have a working knowledge of the place, it was him. He was not only the most likely candidate—He was the only candidate.

Wheatley’s attempts to dissuade her, as he was apt to notice on his own, did nothing to weaken her resolve. If anything, they only strengthened it. Discussing the power outage and how dangerous the facility may or may not be as a result did not interest her. Investigating did. It wasn’t about what she couldn’t do, in her mind. It was about what she could do. The former test subject had spent long enough waiting. The time for action was nigh, and she would be damned if she let a little power outage stop her.

… Not that there was much to investigate, as it turned out. The catwalk looped back around itself in a circle. The one escape route—okay, calm down, not an escape route, not yet, just a door— did not seem optimally built for the robotic companion. The hanging bit of twisted metal that was supposed to be fully attached to the management rail attested to that. There was something else that managed to spark Chell’s interest for the briefest of moments when she inspected the shadowed corners further, though, a walled off section with reflective glass that looked like an operating booth. However, given the complete and utter darkness enveloping everything, the chances of finding out anything useful from it seemed slim.

Ultimately, she decided to pick the easier option. The booth meant avoiding, or at least prolonging, a one-sided conversation about how dangerous it would be to detach from the rail, and how the core doubted she could catch him, because look how last time turned out, yeah? What a track record. And sure, maybe history wouldn’t repeat itself, but she’d rather put off finding out.

Offering him a vague glance, some way to communicate that she was listening to his warnings, she just didn’t particularly care, Chell veered her path towards the metal stairway. The steps didn’t look very sturdy, decayed as everything else. Then again, as long as they could hold her weight for a few measly seconds, they were good enough for her. She could be quick.

[ Inter-dimensional Hitchhikers ]

[ofcubesandportals]

⋆

⋆ :  Minor personality flaw or quirk

Chell’s “survival instincts” actually bleed into her day-to-day life, and it does not make things easy. Sure, they’re helpful when she’s running away from a power hungry AI, but it doesn’t transition well to situations that aren’t life threatening. She could be doing something as simple as grocery shopping, and if she hears an unexpected noise behind her, she’ll drop the two boxes of cereal she’s trying to decide between in her hands and whip around in a defensive posture, action ready.

Long story short, she’s really jumpy, and just a little traumatized. Relaxing? What’s that?

[ofcubesandportals]

⋆ Detailed Headcanon Prompter! ⋆

⋆ : Minor personality flaw or quirk

✢ : Physical advantage

✣ : Physical disability/disadvantage

✦ : Fatal flaw

✧ : Mental or emotional strength

❋ : Belief they have

✩ : Belief they've questioned/struggled with

✪ : Critique they have about others

✫ : Pet peeve

✬ : Something minor they enjoy

✭ : An obscure interest

✮ : A moral standard

✯ : Way they could see themselves dying

✰ : Weird thing they want to try or have tried

★ : A socially unacceptable thought they've had

✱ : Someone or something who or that has played a part in a fantasy or daydream

✲ : Something or someone they down right hate