Everything I draw ends up wearing a bow-tie

There once was a bird, and a grand bird was he
all covered with plumes of pink,
and all round the town his footsteps were found
some in lead and some of them ink.
For this grand little bird, oh this fine young chap
had feet of a different kind;
for one was a pencil, which never would snap
and the other a pen most refined.
Through the day and the night he would write and would write
all manner of things where he strode:
sometimes long, sometimes short, or excessively trite
on pavements and walls and on roads.
The people cried out ‘what a terrible lout!
to scrawl on our chimneys and buildings!’
But for all that those people did holler and shout
and threw at him shoes and chased him about
only more and more words from the pen did spill out
and the pencil and plumes, for all they were stout
said and did more and held so much more clout
than the people around who were always without
the feet of a different kind.

“There’s no sherry in this trifle!” The first voice complained.

“Well that’s no fault of mine,” its companion replied, “you used the last of it to polish your boots.”

“How was I to know that was the last bottle? You should have bought more when you were in January.”

“Oh yes, and have to carry it all the way through March? I don’t think.” The second voice concluded his argument with a sound that might have been meant as contemptuous, but sounded more like a hiccough.

It struck Ethel, as she listened, that she hadn’t ever heard voices like these before- they were more like a collection of scratches and gurgling than words. In fact, the more she thought about it, the more it occurred to her that it didn’t sound like English at all. They must be speaking in another language, she thought.

Of course, most sensible people would follow this thought up with; ‘how, then, can I understand them?’ But the thing about Ethel was she wasn’t greatly inclined to think about such things. When she had known her way to the postoffice on their holiday in Corfe, even though she had never been there before, or looked at a map of it, she had thought nothing of it. It wasn’t an inconvenience, so, why bother troubling it? These sorts of things were quite helpful without her interference- it would surely seem rude if she started voicing complaints about it now.

What did occur to her, however, was that she was no longer cold. Opening her eyes (which took a surprising amount of effort), Ethel blinked the sparks and green out of her retinas to see a churning amber glow lying a few feet away from her. It was a fire. Not one of those rickety white plastic things with the set of glowing wires, which you mustn’t touch even if the shade of red they turn is ever so appealing: but a real, smokey, spitting embers and ash fire. It was laid on something that looked like a piece of slate, except that it was green, and moved occasionally. The three of them- she, and her two voices- were arranged around the fire on a fine grey sand. At least, it appeared grey in the firelight; the pervading darkness around them declaring it to be nighttime in this wherever it was.

“Ah, so you’re with us then.” Said the first voice.

———–

The rest is over here on my new writing blog so I’m not constantly text dumping you chaps on tumblr, but I’ll let you know when I upload a new chapter. Thanks to everyone for being so encouraging, this is actually kind of new for me, so, uhm, yay.

It was a big door.

Very big, in fact. It was the sort of big, sleek, white door that might have looked more at home on the side of a jumbo jet; simply because it needed something about that size to excuse it for being so very, very big. As it was the cold metallic runway haphazardly smelted to the front of it looked a laughably frail and superfluous detail- like a bent paper clip glued to the face of a Siberian tiger.

Chell stopped in front of the big door. It was hard to tell if she felt anything like any other person might in the same position; small, vulnerable, impossibly insignificant and wondering at this unfathomable construction that looked far too out of place and important to be shunted back in this disused corridor of an extensive, forgotten, underground laboratory. What Chell thought was not to be known by man or beast, but she looked at it, and she waited. She knew she was supposed to be here, knew that it was supposed to be here, and she knew that it was a door. Chell also knew one other thing; that doors open.

The big door opened.

“OoOOoh-godthatfeelsterribnhk.”

The shivering, thin slice of life that had just melted out of the overly expansive doorway and into the hard steel floor before her feet made a damp, thudding sound as the wandering speech was impeded by the metal grid work.

A glance back up at the gaping maw of the freezer bespoke of either some colossal miscalculation or practical joke. Carved out of the center like the first scrape of a knife in a tub of margarine was the small, coffin-like space that the object had been contained within. The remainder of the machine appeared to be there simply for the sake of looking as if it was supposed to be doing something.

In comparison the ribbon of flesh and colourlessly blue overalls on the floor was trying to do something, but it didn’t seem to have the necessary equipment to do so. In its defense it was doing a fine job of making a constant stream of noise while ineffectually moving the parts that it could- namely the wrists, elbows and finger joints- which appeared to have no inclination to function in their set hierarchies or, indeed, with any united purpose the possessor may have had in mind.

“Lmm'ejus-izzabit-trickyt'get-allthebits-t'gethr…”

It spoke in a static, buzzing sort of way; like a radio with a poor signal striving to remember all the words of the song it was playing. Chell frowned at the familiarity in the intonation, crouching down to see the better, but not reaching out. Not drawing closer to the mass of dullish blond hair, steel-stifled mumbling and canvas white skin. One blue-veined wrist had clawed in front of the other, and with the cooperation of what might have, at one point, been functioning scapulae and deltoids, buckled and shook and craned the precarious construction of jagged cheek bones and cartilage up to look at her.

Wheatley looked at her.

“Oh. Hallo.”

Huh. Funny. Exactly the same as before. Still her up there, him down here. Well, of course, he had been up there most of the time before, but there had been that time, that bit, right at the start. Pity she hadn’t quite managed to catch him, but you know- humans. They came with all those extra bits, and she was probably feeling a bit off, what with the, well, the brain damage, and that, not to mention all those extra things they had to worry about, arms into the bargain, and the jumping business…

Still, looking up at that big, competent, monster-destroying face with its tumble-down locks and noble, Amazon nose and olive grey eyes that knew everything and know everything and see everything and see, at the moment, now, him; just, small, cold and not very noble at all him, he remembers, for once, what he was going to say.

“… I’m sorry.”

Because people kept asking me about it, and because it is blatantly obvious I will never have the time/mental tenacity to write up a Portal 2 fic about this guy; here’s ‘my’ Wheatley’s back-story for those of you who are still mad enough to remember himholy shit I’m sorry what happened to my drawing this kid.

TL:DR central begins now.

Born and raised in Bristol, Wheatley grew up a natural entertainer. With his comical proportions and gift for absurdity he was always the funny man, always the kid with a sharp come back and the grace to laugh at himself. He’d been penned down as a man for the vaudeville circuit from childhood, but when the first two-reelers came to England, it was all too clear what his course was; watching Fatty Arbuckle and Charlie Chaplin lighting up the screens at fairs and movies, it wasn’t long before he found himself traveling to the fabled streets of Hollywood to land in the film circuit.

If his distinct, lanky-limbed self wasn’t enough to draw attention to him, he had a natural gift for comedic writing. He became a 'gag man’, and one of the best; working on ideas and prop mechanics for the earliest stars of the silver screen. He earned a good reputation and reasonable living- never the star of the show, but always welcome to brain storming sessions, and as good a laugh socializing backstage as working there. He had his quirks- notably a small twitch that became increasingly distinct, and his troubles with sleeping- but otherwise the Englishman led a happy and creative existence in the wild atmosphere of early cinema.

Towards the end of the twenties, however, things began to slide. Having moved onto the Keaton pictures, it was partway through the filming of Steamboat Bill Jr that the team were told the company was to be closed down, Keaton himself having already had most of his creative rights already removed from the perceived failure of his masterpiece The General. Knowing that he would have to make a move before this fate befell him he consulted with his agent, who suggested he move to the Walt Disney studios, which had now become a solid, enterprising company which was constantly looking for fresh talent and ideas. Seeing no reason to look this gift horse in the mouth he applied, and to his relief was taken on as an assistant to Disney’s finest 'story-men’.

He spent a hectic few years in this business, and whilst some of the spontaneity of his former employment had been lost, he still made a good name for himself and enjoyed the work- which was rare and valued in these days of depression. His habitual twitch had been growing more pronounced, however, and he suffered an increasing severity and frequency of headaches. After one viewing of a film in the 'sweatbox’ (a small viewing room for the early stages of the cartoon to be reviewed) he suffered a minor epileptic fit; initially supposed to have been brought on by the close quarters and flashing light of the projector, a doctor’s investigation brought a much more troubling reason to light. Wheatley had a brain tumor.

Treatment for such an ailment was risky and very new- the illness still very much a comparatively recent discovery. Although a valued commodity, Wheatley was neither rich nor essential to the company; it looked unlikely that treatment would be willingly paid for, let alone successful. Remarkably, Walt himself got wind of the plight, but his response was completely unexpected; he requested that Wheatley be brought to him and his own private medical team immediately.

Bewildered, and not a little bit suspecting, Wheatley met the great man face to face… and after that would remember very little else.

Rumours about Walt’s cryogenic freezing would flicker through history long after it had been proven the man had died and been buried in a regular fashion, but what steps he had taken to investigate the matter and methods of this mad science would be much less thoroughly investigated, or available for study. When Cave Johnson’s corporate empire took shares in Disney’s own, nobody thought it more than a shrewd business maneuver. That a rudimentary preservation cell should be included in one of the most secluded clauses of the deal was hardly an item of notice.

Years later, these mysteries and ordeals long lost to the annals of time, a very different dilemma was occurring in the laboratories of Aperture Science. Artificial intelligence was blunt and incomplete. When the cores were developed it was a matter of debate as to how intelligent or complete a personality had to be to control or inhibit a ravingly psychotic machine which was fueled by what had been a real human mind. Obviously, the next thought the scientists turned to was how to use another in retaliation. The first preserved specimens to be investigated were, naturally, the ones which were thought the least likely to have survived the process, and who would ever expect a consciousness frozen in the mid nineteen thirties to have survived?

Perhaps it was not entirely intact, but survived it had.

((If you want me to write up more of my deluded story- like how Wheaters ends up getting back to earth and re-humanized, I can try but 'tis the season to be sociable and write up a resume instead of crazy fanfic, so idk when I’ll be able to. Also sorry for the massive text dump. Oi.))