Portal/Borderlands: The Girlfriend

Part 5

The answer, of course, was that she wasn't doing anything. He just loved her so much that every single thing about her was perfect, even when some stuff should have been annoying or stupid or downright sadistically cruel. And Claptrap was no stranger to that. He'd loved worse people, and lots of 'em. And without ever making a secret of it.

Except this time.

It was weird for him to hang around someone for this long and not tell them he loved them. Usually he'd said it three or four times by now. At least. But he hadn't said it to her even once, even though he'd wanted to like a kajillion times. He did. He loved her a lot and he knew that for sure. It was just... how the love felt that was scaring him.

It was something different than before. Something better, but also much, much worse. He could get by just fine without his friends. He'd be really sad about it, but he'd be okay. With her, though? He couldn't. He couldn't get by without her. He had to be with her, forever, or else he was just gonna get so sad and lonely he would probably just die. Probably.

But it was stupid.

He'd done a lot of stupid things in his life. He'd do about thirty more stupid things before today ended. But the absolute stupidest thing he'd ever done was fall in love with a girl who could do so much better than him.

If she were on Pandora, people would have been falling over themselves to have her. She would've had all the choices in the world. Every robot, human, and corporation in the six galaxies would want a piece of her and she could have or do whatever she wanted. But she didn't know any of that. He should have told her a while ago, but he couldn't. Because if she knew then he couldn't have her, and it was selfish and wrong but why couldn't he have something nice, damn it? Why couldn't he have a smart, hot girlfriend who laughed at all his jokes and didn't tell him he was gross when he talked about how much he wanted to bang her? He deserved nice things too, right? Right?

"You know," he said conversationally, fervently wishing he could kick himself even while he was saying it, "as the smartest, most beautiful girl in the universe, you know you could do a hell of a lot better than me, right?"

"Obviously," GLaDOS said, tilting the panel so that he slid back onto his wheel. "But you're here and none of those undoubtedly incredibly superior people are. So there is that."

Ooh. A little loophole of his own! "But what if one of them showed up?"

She managed to shrug even though she didn't have shoulders. "Then it's first come, first served I suppose."

"But... but I was first."

"With stunning observations like that you're sure to always head the line," said GLaDOS, shaking her core. "What grade oil do you take again?"

"Doesn't matter. Any kind."

He looked down at the container she handed him and then back up at her in surprise. "Uh... you gave me the nice one. That was probably a mistake, so..."

"I don't make mistakes," said GLaDOS in a way that was both very serene and very sexy.

So... so she thought he deserved nice things.

It was the good stuff, too. In fact, it was so nice he wasn't sure Pandora even had it. He hadn't dumped all his oil on the floor, so he put the container away for now. He'd top off with something else later. Oil that nice needed to be saved for special occasions. "I'm pretty sure you made at least one," he said, even though he really should have just shut up. She narrowed her optic in that way he'd learned meant she was frowning.