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there is little sweeter than an apology.
a well deserved sorry - genuine, whole. the kind that feels like being handed a basket of freshly baked cookies, the kind with extra chocolate chips. the fluffy ones that melt on your tongue.
gordon is very sure he will never get it. not from anyone, besides tommy, who offered his apologies the night of the party. sitting there, at a table in the back, sipping half-flat soda and watching coomer and bubby fight for who gets to play skeeball next - tommy hands him a cake pop over lighthearted chitchat. a sorry.
it is genuine. tommy is genuine, and the taste sticks to the inside of his mouth. gordon knows tommy means it the second he says it, because tommy hasn’t lied to him about anything serious before. tommy’s been there since the beginning, had his back.
it’s birthday cake, and it’s sweet, and it makes him feel a little lighter on his feet as he trudges back home.
he gets his one apology. he is fine with this.
he is fine with it, but another shows up on his doorstep regardless. coomer, who did not know where his home was located, had managed to find his way there in the heavy and unusual new mexico rain. he brings a box of chocolate donuts into gordon’s home, sits him down at the table, and offers them all to him.
they taste like chemicals, in a way, but it is sweet all the same. sweet enough for him to pick them up, one by one, and inhale them. apologies, over his kitchen table, while joshua naps on the couch.
apologies for the torment, the clones, the misleading. for the times in which he did not take his side. for his pointed obfuscation of truth.
chocolate dipped, rainbow sprinkles. gordon accepts it, after a few moments of reflection, and coomer promises to call.
when joshua is awake, he finds no evidence of sweets - but he does find his dad looking a little less troubled, and that’s comparable, in a way.
so, gordon gets two apologies, two more than he expected.
he makes plans for dinner at coomer’s home that weekend, and he plans on going. he has to, for his own sake. he can’t stay in his house after everything. and coomer had been so kind as to extend a hand to gordon, an olive branch, show of goodwill. it’s only fair he reach back.
he finds bubby opening the door. the most casual gordon has ever seen him, no doubt. he’d only ever seen him in the work-appropriate lab coat, and the whiplash of seeing him in sweatpants and an oversized t-shirt is nearly too much to process, but he manages.
he manages because he remembers that this is bubby’s home, too. the old men were together, of course they were together. something he’d remembered, then forgot, then remembered, then forgot in the rush of gunfire and in the rush of finding someone to babysit so he didn’t have to bring joshua to meet the science team - not yet. not here. on his own terms, in his own home. someday.
coomer is in the kitchen, whistling happily, and bubby says nothing. he watches gordon hover behind the sofa, then beside it. gordon is eternally questioning if he’s allowed to exist here, same as anywhere, before he sees that bubby is gesturing - you can sit. that’s what he means, but he doesn’t say it.
they sit on the couch together, awkward, nothing to say. tv off, listening to coomer sing half-remembered words to a song on the radio - and then bubby turns and hands him a cinnamon roll.
store bought, slightly stale. but it means something to gordon the instant it happens - bubby does not apologize to people. he’s too shocked to respond, so bubby hands him another, and another, each one marginally sweeter than the last. softer, more real, homemade. carefully put together, and gordon finally says to stop. and bubby does.
and gordon blinks back tears and laughs, and he takes the rest of the tray, and he tells bubby thank you. and he relaxes. and coomer starts singing again, and gordon is reminded less of black mesa and more of his parents.
three apologies is bordering on unrealistic, but he has them. he has them, and they are real, and he can remember them when he’s afraid that people hate him, want to hurt him. he feels better about it all, some nights.
some nights it is benrey, and it overrides the sweets - it is cold, menthol and water. it is biting into a lemon. it is expired milk and aspic. it’s fruit and mayo. it’s wrong.
it’s wrong, and, months later, it is still wrong. it is wrong when benrey comes back. it is wrong when benrey knocks on his door. it is wrong when gordon lets him in, because benrey is quiet.
it is wrong when benrey is quiet, because it means he has something to say.
and he stands just inside the doorway, standing there, arm’s length away - just in case. and benrey opens his terrible mouth, and closes it, and opens it, and clenches his fists.
they are there for a second. and then two, and then 30, and when gordon begins to ask him why he’s here, benrey holds out his hand. and in his hand is one of those little candies, the chalk-y ones, the ones gordon’s always hated.
when gordon turns it down, he pulls more out of his pockets, drops them on the floor when gordon says no. candy bars gordon’s hated since childhood, jawbreakers and tootsie rolls, candy corn and cherry licorice. he turns it down, but benrey keeps going, and it’s tiring. and it’s tiring because it’s tearing him to pieces to listen to it.
because it is genuine, but he’s so afraid to unwrap one of these gross little pieces of candy and try it again. candies he hasn’t had since he was a kid, when he used to hate peanut butter cookies. when he used to hate apple pie. his tastes used to be different, and he’s afraid it’s different now. he’s afraid he wants to accept it.
enough metaphors, he’s afraid of what’s happening here. he’s afraid that he wants to accept benrey’s apologies. abundant and sweet and real, genuine. he’s afraid he wants to listen. he’s afraid to meet him halfway, here, because there’s safety in cutting this off.
but if benrey is bringing him this, through everything, he can listen. he can listen, and put the candy in his pockets, put it in the drawers, in the cupboards, away. away, but not forgotten, because, because, it’s not something he can do now. he is afraid. but he can, when the nights are tough to sleep through, he reaches under his pillow, unwraps a bubblegum lollipop, and finds the dreams hurt a little less afterwards.