Chapter Text
Part Eighty-Four. The Trip
Claptrap had invited Wheatley to Pandora a few days previous, though that part he hadn't mentioned to GLaDOS. Not because he thought she would stop him from going; he didn't, and was pretty sure she'd be just as amused by that as everything else. But the truth was, even though Wheatley did want to see what Pandora was like, he was too afraid to go. Pandora wasn't safe, and Claptrap had mentioned robots weren't liked too much over there. He would like to see Claptrap's home, but he didn't want to die while he was doing it. They also were used primarily for human labour, which he greatly disliked and wasn’t sure he wanted to be anywhere near.
Claptrap, however, had most likely thought he was avoiding going because of GLaDOS herself and had apparently brought it up with her when Wheatley wasn't around. "You're supposed to go places your friends invite you to, moron," she told him after he'd tried to hedge the question of why he hadn't mentioned it to her. "Pandora isn't completely lawless, you know."
"But you can buy a gun out of a, out of a vending machine!" he protested.
"If it were legal here I'd be doing it myself. Though... now that I think of it, there’s no reason it can’t be legal now…. In any case. Stop being such a chicken and just go."
"I'm not a chicken!" he declared hotly, though he very much was, and GLaDOS just stared at him with the top half of her lens raised until he relented, "Alright, maybe I... maybe I'm not as brave as I could be."
She laughed a little. "Nothing will happen to you. It will probably be boring after the novelty wears off, really. Claptrap doesn't get out all that much. He'll take you to see Dr Z and Moxxi but that will probably be it."
"Oh, he talks 'bout them, sometimes," Wheatley said. "There's also uh, this Sir Hammerlock guy and uh, and the uh... the mechanic."
"Them as well."
"I kind of... would like to go," he said hesitantly, wondering if she really meant it.
"So pick a day and go."
"You're really... you're actually okay with it?"
"Why wouldn't I be?" All of a sudden she laughed and said, "Never mind. I understand now."
"What d'you... what d'you understand?"
"You're afraid to go and you're hoping I'll tell you you can't so you don't have to tell Claptrap you're chickening out," she answered teasingly, tilting her core forward knowingly, and even as he said "That's not true!", he could feel himself blushing in response to her statement. She could hear it as well as he could and it made her laugh again.
"You can blame me if you really want to," she told him, "but it's fine with me."
"There's really no reason to be scared?" he asked, in more of a small voice than he'd meant.
"Really."
"Okay, I... I'll go." God, just saying that was scary.
"Do you want me to tell him? So you can't back out?"
"N-no," Wheatley stammered. "I'll uh, I'll let him know myself.”
He decided to make his exit then, so that he wouldn’t have to think about how scared he was and couldn’t use her to let him back out, and in doing so he crashed into that Core again! ... Meghan, was it?
“Oh,” she said.
“We’ve got to stop uh, stop meeting like this,” Wheatley gasped.
“Yeah,” Meghan said, nodding a little. “We should uh… arrange a meeting, instead.”
Wheatley frowned. “Uh… what d’you mean, arrange.”
She shrugged, not looking at him all of a sudden. “You know… meet up sometime. Instead of… of crashing into each other in the hallway.”
“Ahhhh,” Wheatley said, not really getting it but pretending to anyway. “And… and when were you thinking of… of having this… meeting.”
“Whenever,” she answered, in a decidedly bad nonchalant sort of way. “I’m not busy, um… tomorrow.”
“I think I will be,” Wheatley mused. “I’m about to plan a trip. But tell you what. We’ll uh, we’ll arrange something when I get back. Alright?”
“Sure,” Meghan said, smiling a little too enthusiastically, and then she disappeared.
Wheatley shook his core. What an odd girl.
//
Claptrap, surprisingly, was not overly enthused when Wheatley told him he’d be up to go to Pandora. When Wheatley tried to extract the reason, Claptrap waffled about and provided no answers. When Wheatley tried to figure out why he was doing that, Claptrap got extremely defensive and refused to talk any further.
Somehow, Wheatley still ended up arranging to go to Pandora the following afternoon. He was thoroughly confused about Claptrap’s change in attitude – he’d seemed gung-ho about the idea when he’d first brought it up – but he was terribly curious. And he’d not get an opportunity like this in the future, probably. A trip to another planet? Not until GLaDOS built her extraterrestrial facilities, at least, and that was only if she’d let him go. She probably wouldn’t. She’d worry he’d be kidnapped by aliens or something, all the while going on about how no alien would want to go near him. He smiled a little at that. She was so cute, even when he was imagining her.
“Well, luv, I’m off!” he declared when the requisite time came, stopping dramatically before the doorway, but she didn’t so much as look at him when she returned, “Goodbye.”
He didn’t know what he’d been expecting, really, though you’d think that his fiancée (a fancy German word referring to beautiful supercomputers, or something like that) would have a bit more of a reaction upon the departure of her… whatever he was. Then she tilted her core in consideration, and he perked up a bit. Aah, now she was going to say something!
“Come back in one piece.”
“What?” Wheatley squacked, chassis dropping in shock. “Come back in one piece? You said it was safe!”
“It is safe,” GLaDOS told him, laughing and looking up at him. “I’m just teasing.”
“You’re being an arse, you mean,” Wheatley grumbled.
She shrugged. “I can do that too.”
“Fine. I’m leaving. And, and maybe I’ll have so much fun I won’t come back!” Terribly unlikely, but he was getting annoyed with her flippancy and wanted to get a rise out of her, somehow. She made a disdainful electronic noise.
“I doubt it.”
Wheatley turned around in a huff. Fine. Who cared. He’d go and hang out with Claptrap for a day or two, and she’d miss him and regret what she’d said, but when he came back he wouldn’t go to her, ohhhh no! He’d go find… hm. He could go and find Meghan… it wasn’t very nice, to hang out with her to get back at GLaDOS, but hey, he would do what he had to.
“Wheatley,” she said, in a way that told him he was a bit ridiculous for being so upset about it, “come here.”
And he did, though not entirely happily. He knew she wasn’t so impersonal as to send him off to another planet with a goodbye and a warning, but at the same time… he couldn’t shake the feeling that she actually would.
“Goodbye,” she said, kissing the top of his optic, which of course fixed everything. “Have fun.”
“I’ll miss you,” he told her quietly, kissing her back, and when he’d done that she shook her core and looked at the monitor she’d been studying.
“You’ll be gone two days. You won’t collapse if you forget about me for the both of them.”
“Forget about you?” Wheatley said incredulously.
“I won’t be there. No need to dwell on me.”
“You won’t forget me, will you?” Wheatley asked in a panic, wondering spontaneously if there were Cores hanging about, waiting to swoop in on her while he was gone. She stared at him incredulously.
“You’re being an idiot. Get out before I throw you out.”
“That was… that was silly,” he admitted. “I just… I’ve never left the facility before! On purpose, I mean, obviously I’ve uh, I’ve… been out of it. And I just… I dunno, aren’t I a… a good part of it, there? Will it go on without me?”
“I’ll be taking care of the programs you’re in charge of, yes.”
He had forgotten entirely about that. “Alright, alright,” he said, hoping she didn’t know it’d slipped his mind. “Then… I’ll be off!”
“Goodbye,” she said pointedly, for the third time, and Wheatley decided it was as good a queue as any and made his exit.
“All right, Wheats,” Claptrap said, waving as he got to Claptrap’s teleporter thingy. It had a name, he just could never remember what it was called. “Ready?”
“Yeah…” Wheatley answered, entirely unconvincingly, and Claptrap laughed and reached up to remove him from the management rail.
“Don’t worry, pal. Nothing to be scared of. Except for bullymongs. They’re pretty vicious, and you should probably be scared of them.”
“What… what’s a bullymong?” Wheatley asked, wondering if he wanted to go through with this after all, but Claptrap was holding onto him so there wasn’t really an escape to be had at this point.
“Don’t worry about it,” Claptrap said, waving his free hand dismissively. “We won’t run into any. Probably.”
Maybe he really wouldn’t make it home in one piece…
//
Pandora was a rough place.
Not because there was a lot of violence, or suspiciously shady characters, or just unpleasant people in general. There was some of each of those things, but that wasn't it. IT was... a little hard to explain.
If he'd had to start somewhere, though, it would have been with the grittiness of the place. It felt as though Pandora had a fine layer of dirt on it no one had bothered to clear off. He FELT it as soon as he got there, felt like he had been enveloped in the pervading grime, and he soon realised he'd never been truly dirty before. Been rolled around in the dirt, yes, but nothing like this. It felt like it had taken every inch of him for itself, and he had a sudden homesickness for the sterility of Aperture. Pandora was so different it just felt wrong.
"Well," Claptrap said, waving one hand, "home sweet home. I'll show you my place first, but that's not gonna take very long."
Claptrap did live in a literal alley, and seeing it made Wheatley very sad. No AI should be stuck in a place like that. Even though Wheatley was, as usual, clamped to the top of his chassis and unable to see him, Claptrap still seemed to know what he was thinking. "I know it's not very much," he told Wheatley, "but... it's all I got."
It looked like nobody on Pandora had very much. Most of the buildings were run down, and the humans here were barely better outfitted than the ones back at Aperture. Everyone had a gun. What for if the planet wasn't dangerous, Wheatley didn't know, and when he asked, Claptrap shrugged and said: "We like to be prepared here. Handsome Jack's long gone, but no one wants to be caught off guard ever again."
Moxxi's was clean at least, mostly. It was a dark establishment with a neon sign upfront, with a smattering of tables and what Wheatley supposed was the bar. He knew about that from Carrie, what a bar was. A place where humans drank odd liquids in order to muddy up their brains. A bizarre pursuit, in Wheatley’s opinion, but humans were weird overall. The humans that were in there glanced at Wheatley with studied disinterest, possibly because he was with Claptrap.
Claptrap hoisted himself onto one of the cracked leather stools in front of the bar and placed Wheatley on the one next to him. A human woman who Wheatley was guessing was Moxxi herself, seeing as she was behind the counter and no one else was. "Hey Moxxi!" Claptrap called out, waving one hand in the air. "Look! I told you I have friends!"
"Apparently you do," Moxxi answered in what was immediately reminiscent of GLaDOS when she was... in a very good mood. "What're you called, sugar?"
Seeing as she already knew Claptrap's name, Wheatley supposed she was asking him and said, "Wheatley."
Moxxi raised on eyebrow. "Never heard of a robot with a real name before."
"Really?" Wheatley asked, dumbfounded.
"Where you from?" she went on, leaning with her arms crossed over the counter. He struggled not to focus on the question of why she was wearing a hat that didn't seem to fit and answered,
"I'm from uh, from Aperture."
She frowned. "Where's that? Never heard of it."
"A looooong way from here, Mox," Claptrap cut in.
"You had to scour the galaxy to find a friend, huh?" Moxxi said, smiling at Claptrap and straightening. "At least he's not imaginary this time."
"Yeah," said Claptrap in a bit of a resigned sigh. "At least."
After Moxxi headed off, Claptrap folded his hands into each other as best he could and stared at the counter in silence for a long time. Wheatley didn't know what to do. He'd never seen Claptrap... quiet before.
"Sorry for bringing you here," he said finally.
Wheatley frowned. "Why're you apologising?"
"I didn't even mean for you to come here," Claptrap went on. "I don't know, I got excited one day and... you should've stayed home."
"Claptrap - "
"You're so lucky, you know," Claptrap interrupted quietly. "I wish I'd tried harder to... to keep her."
"Claptrap, you c'n stay there, if you want," Wheatley said. "We don't mind. Look, I can... we already discussed it. You and me, we can both uh, we can both have her. It -"
"No," Claptrap cut in yet again. "I can't."
“Why not?” Wheatley asked, confused.
Claptrap looked in the direction of the bar.
“I can’t share her,” he answered finally. “I know. It sounds dumb. But I’ve been trying, Wheats. And I just… you guys are the best – well, the only friends I ever had. So I don’t want to seem like a jerk! But I can’t share her. I can’t do it.”
Wheatley didn’t know what to say. He didn’t want to see Claptrap unhappy, but… he wasn’t going to give up GLaDOS for him, even if GLaDOS would agree to such a thing. Which he really hoped she wouldn’t.
“You guys are great. You really are,” Claptrap continued. “But… I don’t have much, and what I do have… I gotta have it all to myself. I… I love her. I do. But I can’t… I can’t compete with you. I’m not gonna win and it’s gonna screw everything up.”
“There’s no need to compete,” Wheatley told him, wondering how to salvage the situation. “We’re not like… like the same person, y’know, looking for a space that can only hold, can only take one of us. She needs both of us for diff’rent reasons, and it, it’s not… not a contest.”
“She doesn’t need me,” Claptrap said morosely, pushing his hands together. “Nobody does.”
“’course we do.” Wheatley didn’t know exactly what was going on, here, but he was going to do his best to fix it. “You’re our friend. You, you give us a view of what, what it’s like to be a robot outside of, of our little bubble. And that’s important, it is, because, well, you… you can teach us things. God, you led a rebellion, Claptrap, and yeah, it failed, but… d’you have any idea of the number of robots ‘round Aperture, back in the day? D’you have an idea how many of us hated everything about our lives, but couldn’t pluck up the… the motivation, the courage, any of that, we just kept hating ev’rything and wond’ring why it never got better. Even… even Gladys only took over the facility because the humans were driving her crazy. She didn’t do it to make things better for ev’ryone else, like you did. What you did… it was brave. And it was… for something. Wasn’t just to help yourself, it was to help ev’ryone like you. That’s… it’s a good example of a good person.”
“I guess so,” Claptrap muttered. “But whatever the reason I did it for… they’re all dead now. I killed all of them. I screwed up big-time and there’s nothing that can be done to fix that. All of them are gone, because of me. What kind of example is that? All it tells you is that I’m an idiot.”
“It doesn’t mean anything,” Wheatley answered. “Just means… that you didn’t quite make it. They all followed you. That means something.”
Claptrap slapped his hand on the bar and looked at Wheatley. “It doesn’t mean anything, Wheats. Except that people believe I’m someone I’m not, and can’t be. Just like you’re going on about. I fall through. There’s no point in believing in me. And that means it’s better this way.”
“What… what is,” Wheatley asked. He had a sinking feeling he was not going to be able to fix this, and that he’d made a terrible mistake by coming here in the first place.
“Even if I could share her,” Claptrap went on, turning back to face the bar again, “I’d fail her too. I’d screw up everything, like I did before.”
“It wasn’t totally your fault,” Wheatley argued. “Both of you failed the other. It wasn’t, wasn’t totally to do with you. She told me about it, about what happened, and what she was, was thinking at the time, and it just… it wasn’t your fault. Neither of you were ready. That’s all it was.”
“Wheatley,” Claptrap said seriously, “you’re a good guy. And I get it. You want to fix this all up so I can go back to Aperture with you and live happily ever after. But that’s not something I can do. You guys… you guys helped yourselves out. Whatever issues you had in the beginning, you don’t have them anymore. You’re different. But me? I’m the same guy I’ve been for years. I’m not gonna change.”
“We didn’t fix ourselves.” What did he have to say to make Claptrap understand? “We helped each other. Claptrap, you can’t… you can’t just fix yourself. You’ve gotta, you’ve gotta get your friends to help you! You can’t always see where you’re going wrong, or going right, really, and you need help! And it’s okay to ask for it, and, and to get it, doesn’t mean you’re a failure or any of that, it’s – “
“I don’t wanna talk about this anymore,” Claptrap said, sliding off the stool. “C’mon, I’ll show you something else.”
“But – “
“Maybe Scooter’s around,” Claptrap interrupted, ignoring him. “He might have gone to see his sister. I don’t know what he’s up to these days!”
And Wheatley let Claptrap attach him to the top of his chassis, not that he really had a choice, and they went and had a chat with a scrungy mechanic with a very lazy accent – not that Wheatley’s was any better, honestly – and all the while Wheatley was a bit distracted with trying to think of a way to convince Claptrap to come back to Aperture with him, and to let himself and GLaDOS help him. But every time he tried to bring it up, Claptrap would change the subject. So eventually Wheatley let it drop. It put a dampener on the trip, because he really wanted to help the other robot, but… how did he get someone who didn’t want help to accept it? How was he supposed to do that? Even with GLaDOS, the most stubborn supercomputer to ever exist, it had not been so difficult. Because she had been willing to help herself, was that it? She had believed change would be good for her? That was the only difference Wheatley could see. Any desire to help himself Claptrap had had was long gone, and Wheatley didn’t know how to revive it.
And he was afraid that Claptrap would not allow him to try.