Work Text:
It’s a pleasantly warm summer day as Beverly Freeman folds some laundry while her son plays in their backyard by the woods.
Now, you might say that letting her 5-year-old boy play unsupervised, in their fenceless backyard, that’s right at the edge of the woods is neglectful, not to mention downright dangerous. But her son is a smart boy, and knows better than to go wandering in the trees. Besides, it's not like there’s anything dangerous living in these particular woods.
Gordon will be just fine.
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Gordon giggles to himself as he carefully pokes around the woods, in the middle of playing a game with his best friend. The game’s kind of like 'Marco Polo,’ only they’re not in a pool and not saying 'Marco' and 'Polo.'
Instead, they’re singing.
“Ahhhh~!” he calls out. His singing isn’t nearly as pretty as his friend’s, but that’s okay. He listens closely for their response, waiting for that pretty high note.
“aaaaaaaa,” rings out clear as a bell. Off to the right! Giggling again, Gordon runs off through the trees, towards the source of the pretty sound.
After running for a bit, he’s about to stop and call again to make sure he’s heading the right way, when he catches sight of something in the air- little floating balls of blue light. Those always happen when his friend sings, which means he was just here!
But, where is he now?
Gordon looks around a bit, scanning for any sign of him. It’s not too surprising that he’s gone already. Gordon’s friend can move REALLY fast. He’s really good at hiding, too, since he can phase through stuff like a ghost (even though he’s not a ghost). But he shouldn’t be doing the ‘hiding inside things’ thing, since Gordon made him agree to not do that ‘cause it’s cheating. Sooooo... where is he?
Just then, the sound of a twig snapping in the tree above gets Gordon’s attention. The boy looks up just in time to see a pale, many-eyed creature grinning down at him with a large mouth full of sharp fangs, before it leaps from the branch it was perched on to pounce on him.
They both collapse onto the soft mossy ground in a pile of laughter.
“Beeennnn!” Gordon laughs more than says as he shoves his monster friend off him, “you cheated!”
“nuh! i wasn’t in the tree, i was on the tree!” Benrey retorts. “not the same.”
“How'd you even get up there?” Gordon asks as he sits back up after Benrey finally gets off him.
“’m good at climbing. like uh,” he smacks his lips, “like squirrels.”
“Can you teach me to climb like squirrels?”
“nuh, you gotta have, uh, gotta have claws t' stick in the wood,” Benrey explains, and bares his clawed hands in example.
“Awwww…” Gordon says, disappointed. “Wish I had claws. You’re so lucky, Ben.”
“i dunno… claws are cool, but i kinda i wish i looked normal,” Benrey says, looking away from Gordon and down at his own dirty bare feet.
“Huh?” Gordon says with a confused look. “But you are normal. You’re normal for you.”
Benrey shakes his head. “i mean, normal like you. with just two eyes an' arms that match n' all that stuff. human. ‘steadda a monster.”
Gordon frowns at that. “But… you wouldn’t be you anymore if you were human? You wouldn’t be able to change your shape, or- or climb like squirrels… or sing colours! Humans can’t sing colours. I love it when you do. Your voice is so so pretty, Ben.”
Benrey’s clustered eyes blink out of sync at Gordon, before he turns his face away again and sings out some balls of bright yellow and pink. Gordon just giggles and grins at him. Benrey sings out a lot of yellow and pink, or pink and blue when Gordon compliments him or tells him how much he likes him. Gordon likes seeing those colours. Nice happy colours. Benrey being happy makes Gordon happy.
When Benrey stops singing, he shakes his head and gives a small huff. “still though. i wish i was better at lookin' human at least. wouldn't have t'hide in the woods all the time, then.”
Gordon does a little hum. “Yeah, I guess so,” he concedes. “Oh! Then you could come in my house, and we could watch cartoons, and play Crash Bandicoot!”
“bimeo games!” Benrey says with an excited grin.
Gordon laughs at him. “Video games!” he corrects.
“uh, that’s what i said,” Benrey says. “blibio games.”
“Video!”
“vibgeo.”
“Video!!”
Their arguing very quickly devolves into big bouts of laughter, the two boys playfully shoving at each other as they laugh themselves silly.
Even if he doesn’t look ‘normal,’ Gordon’s still really glad Benrey is his best friend.
He hopes they’ll be best friends forever.