GLaDOS and Me

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Eighteen

Wheatley wondered if GLaDOS would be angry if he went back to her like this.

To his great surprise, he'd been invited out for drinks with the members of the GLaDOS Project team. He was very pleased, since he never got invitations to go anywhere, and he'd gone with them to a lovely little place. He'd been there only once or twice, not being much of a drinker, but he did like the stuff they had on tap. She got a bit tetchy when Wheatley was overly unpredictable, and he was pretty sure he wasn't predictable when he drank. He also had one of his strongest urges yet to cuddle up to her and pet her and maybe kiss her a little if the cuddling didn't make her angry. It wasn't the usual sort of predilection, which he had more or less all of the time, but something a lot worse that he wasn't sure he'd be able to control. He knew she wouldn't like it if he just started snuggling up to her like that. Maybe he should go home for a bit and go to see her when some of the alcohol had gone through him.

They'd been there a couple of hours, lined up at the bar with Henry on his right and some grizzly old bloke on his left who was not part of the group, and Wheatley was feeling pleasantly light-headed. He wasn't paying too much attention to what his fellow group members were saying, mumbling an answer to a question of Henry's every now and again, far more interested in watching the mirror behind the bar. He could see people coming in and out of the bar and doing quite amusing things up against the walls where they thought no one could see them. Wheatley of course did not have much knowledge in the ways of women, but even he was sure that had been an unconventional way to remove one's brassiere...

"Wheatley, what are you doing?" Henry whispered in his ear, which should have made him jump but only made his ear tickle rather unpleasantly.

"Just... watching... people."

"Wheatley," Henry muttered, glancing into the mirror, "you're never going to get a girl with a technique like that."

Wheatley smiled to himself and ran his finger around the rim of his glass. Or tried to. His hand was shaking rather badly and he couldn't quite keep it on course. He didn't actually remember what was in the glass, only that the bitter taste had disappeared a while ago and it never seemed to run out.

"What?"

"Some girls don't care for technique," Wheatley said in a low voice, bending up the corner of his coaster and watching the wetness on the outside of his glass slide down into the ring below it. "They just want you to be honest." And that was all GLaDOS really wanted out of him. To be honest, as no one ever was.

Henry made a face and downed the rest of his drink, slamming the glass into the wood and pushing it forward. The bartender was very good, Wheatley noticed; he didn't even see the guy fill the glass up again. "Hard to find a girl like that."

Wheatley smiled a little more and ducked his head. They were hard to find and he had one... he felt like teasing Henry about it, then remembered it was a secret and kept his mouth shut.

"What're you smiling about?'

"Nothing," Wheatley answered, at the same time wondering just how annoyed GLaDOS was going to be. She'd told him not to go, but she didn't understand, she really didn't. Yes, he'd told her, he knew that they didn't really want him there and would dump him at the earliest available opportunity, but he'd been invited... she'd shaken her head slowly and told him he was an idiot, but far be it from her to overly fight against him poisoning himself, if that was really what he wanted to do. He'd laughed and given her a quick hug, which she returned even though she was annoyed, and when he'd turned around she'd given him a shove. When he'd turned, surprised, to ask her what that had been about, she'd already been facing the other direction.