Chapter Text
Benrey stood in front of Gordon’s bedroom door the next morning, trying to psych themself up. Okay. They could do this. Just words. They weren’t even heavy, emotional words this time. Just one question. One question.
They stood motionless there for much longer than they intended to, so lost in thought and preoccupied with repeating the question in their head that they didn’t hear the noise inside the room and the footsteps of Gordon approaching the door.
They did hear when he actually opened it, and jumped about a foot backwards with a startled yell of purple to green sweet voice. Gordon stepped back, equally surprised.
“Benrey, what—were you just standing outside my door?”
“No,” they blurted out before they had processed the question. “Oh. I mean, uh—yeah. Was about to ask you something.”
“You can ask me in the kitchen, I gotta make some coffee,” Gordon said as he walked past Benrey. “What is it?”
Benrey tugged at their chullo strings as they rehearsed the words in their head one last time. Here goes.
“Can I—can you teach me Joshua’s hand things?” Wait, no, not specific enough. “The little—the things he does with his hands. Hand words.”
“Hand words—you want me to teach you ASL? Like, sign language?” Gordon paused, turning away from the open bag of coffee grounds to look at Benrey. They nodded.
“I wanna… know what he’s saying. I know he’s got the little word computer, but he doesn’t always use it, and I kinda… wanna be able to do it, too.” Benrey’s words trailed off into a mumble as they tugged at their hat again. Why did they feel embarrassed about this? Tommy said it was okay to ask for help, but trying to understand that and not feel afraid was still really hard.
“Yeah, okay,” Gordon replied with a shrug as he turned back to the coffee machine and resumed his prior task. Benrey’s head snapped up, grinning.
“Bro, you serious?”
“Sure, why not? I can get a couple of the basics down with you today—yes, no, the alphabet, that kinda stuff. Easy place to start.”
The rumble of the coffee machine as Gordon turned it on was barely audible over the high trill of sweet voice sending orange and yellow balls swirling around the kitchen. Benrey bounced on their feet and their fingers and wrists curled as they sang. He said yes! They were gonna learn the hand language—sign language! The excitement felt like it would explode if they didn’t let it out with sweet voice and movement, but it felt good. Happy and light, like it was all bubbling up in their chest and making them float.
That floating feeling quickly turned to buzzing warmth when they saw Gordon turn around and smile at them. It was that smile—the one that looked so warm and bright that it was almost overwhelming—how were they supposed to not overflow with flustered pinks and yellows? How were they supposed to act like it didn’t mean the world to them?
Faced once again with far too many emotions at once, Benrey covered their mouth and fled from the kitchen to catch their breath. They chose to ignore the quiet laughter from behind them. More important things to be excited about—hand word learning speedrun time.
That afternoon, Gordon called Benrey to the living room, a basic book on ASL in his hands. He spent the next hour teaching them a bit about how ASL worked, the way that facial expressions and context factored into the meanings of different signs, and how it wasn’t a direct one-to-one translation to English.
“Kinda like Black Mesa Sweet Voice,” Benrey mumbled as Gordon started demonstrating tone and facial expressions with a certain sign. He stopped, tilting his head.
“What do you mean?”
“It’s… works different than words. Sweet voice just has the colors and the notes and stuff. Tommy’s rhymes are cool, but it’s not always easy to, uh, make them rhyme,” they explained. “You can’t really talk about things with it, either. Just feelings.”
“So… kind of like if I tried to sign with just facial expressions, instead of using my hands?” asked Gordon, trying to figure out what Benrey meant. Their explanations didn’t always make much sense, but he wanted to know more about it. To his surprise, Benrey nodded.
“I think? If you just smiled right now I can guess you’re happy, but I dunno if it’s because of Joshua or a joke or whatever nerd stuff you think about.” Gordon rolled his eyes at that last comment, but Benrey just grinned and went on. “I can’t say what gross cherries you gotta get with just sweet voice.”
“I already told you, man, it’s groceries.”
“Gross cherries.”
“Anyways,” Gordon interrupted, trying to get the conversation back on topic, “I think I get what you mean. You’re getting the hang of that pretty fast.” He did not overlook the way Benrey’s face lit up. Literally. Their mouth stayed closed, but Gordon was fairly certain that he could see tinges of yellow and blue in their cheeks. He thought they blushed pink and blue—maybe it was just sweet voice, then?
He might be able to ask Tommy about it. For now, he pulled out a sheet with the letters of the alphabet and each of their signs and gave it to Benrey.
“We’ll start with that. Some of the letters have variations, but for the most part, this is a good guideline.” Benrey took the paper and Gordon watched as they started moving their hand according to the shapes on the paper. They were doing well for most of them, but got tripped up on a couple of them.
“Wait, Benrey, you sign the letter E like this,” Gordon said as he held his hand up in the right shape. Benrey mirrored him, but their hand was in a fist instead of with the thumb below the fingers.
“Nah, it looks like this, right?”
“No dude, that’s S. Here, you gotta move your thumb.” He reached forward and gently shifted the fingers of their hand into the right positions. They didn’t resist or pull away, but they did have to hold back some kind of sweet voice as their cheeks puffed out like a frog, lit up in peachy shades of pink. Gordon pulled back again, worried. Did he do something wrong? What did those colors mean?
“Uh, you okay?”
“Wh—” Benrey clamped their mouth shut until the glow subsided. “Yeah bro I’m good, let’s—gimme more letters. These ones are easy, I can do the rest now.”
Right. Yeah. that definitely meant something, but Gordon was fine with leaving it be for now. Besides, if Benrey was this excited about learning ASL, who was he to stop them? It was nice to see them so happy.
If he could go back and tell his past self, still trapped in Black Mesa, that he would be happy teaching Benrey the ASL alphabet so they could communicate with his son, he’d have never believed it.
Funny, how much things could change in unexpected ways.
A B C D E F G, G O R D O N, B E N R E Y, J O S H U A, H I J K L M N O P, T O M M Y, S U N K I S T, Q R S T U V W X Y Z, T O M N O O K.
Benrey was sitting on the armrest of the couch, idly fingerspelling to themselves as Gordon was busy helping Joshua read a story. They tried to spell what Gordon was saying as he talked, but he was way too fast for them. It was easier to sign along while Joshua sounded out words one by one.
They were starting to get better at it, though. The more their hand moved through the letters’ shapes, the more fluid it felt, like wearing new shoes until they were finally comfortable. G O R D O N F E E T M A N. Nice. F R E E M A N. B E N R E Y. Cycling through, feeling more and more like they were saying things and not just moving their hands. Whenever they could, their hand was off to the side trying to spell along as they spoke, as they read, as they listened.
It was nerve-wracking the first time Benrey decided to try signing something as actual communication. They hadn’t planned for it. It all kind of happened at once. They were playing Animal Crossing on the couch when Joshua walked up to them, tablet in hand.
“Can we play a game please?” he asked, bouncing on the balls of his feet. Benrey was about to suggest one of Joshua’s favorites, but they stopped themselves before they spoke. Instead, they raised their hand.
One letter at a time, Benrey signed it out to Joshua—C-H-U-T-E-S A-N-D L-A-D-D-E-R-S. Joshua squinted at their hands as they spelled, but once he put it together, he lit up. The tablet was dropped on the couch as Joshua ran off and came back with the game box: Chutes and Ladders.
Benrey grinned, yellow and blue bubbles swirling around them. They did it. They did it. They said something with their hands. Sure, it was nothing as fancy as all the complicated signs Gordon and Joshua did to each other, but it worked and Joshie understood them and maybe they could start understanding him, too.
The game itself was fun. Benrey made slide whistle noises every time either of them hit a chute or a ladder, just to make Joshua laugh. He tried signing something at Benrey, but it was in full words that they didn’t understand yet.
“Uh, sorry kiddo, I don’t know all the big cool hand words yet. Gotta use letters.” They lifted their hand up to start spelling again. “L-I-K-E T-H-I-S”
Joshua nodded and switched to fingerspelling instead of signs. “I L-I-K-E Y-O-U-R F-U-N-N-Y N-O-I-S-E-S,” he spelled out one letter at a time. Benrey had to watch carefully to catch the different shapes in his tiny little hand, but they understood it. They understood it. They laughed giddily as more blue and sandy yellow sweet voice and high-pitched happy trilling filled the room. Joshua flapped and jumped up to catch the glowing orbs as they floated around.
“H-A-P-P-Y,” he spelled with his right hand, still flapping with his left. Benrey smiled as they looked up at him from where they sat on the floor.
“Yeah, lil’ guy. I’m happy too.”
Neither of them noticed Gordon surreptitiously snapping a picture on his phone of the two of them from the doorway to the living room. He set it as his home screen, taking some time to just look at it for a moment.
He’d caught Joshua mid-jump, hands outstretched and stimming so fast they were a blur. The golden glow of Benrey’s sweet voice was reflected in his hair and eyes, lighting up the whole room. Benrey was sitting on the floor and leaning against the couch, their eyes gleaming and half-squinted by their grin. The glow lit them up just as bright, with their dark hair and lashes awash in gold.
It was the first time, Gordon thought, that he would ever have considered describing Benrey as beautiful.
