Chapter Text
Gordon spent the rest of that day keeping an eye on Benrey when he could, tidying up the house, and asking Tommy for everything he knew about sweet voice. If his roommate—they were roommates now, weren’t they?—had made the effort to apologize, he figured he could repay that olive branch by trying to understand how they communicated.
He may have underestimated the complexity of the strange color and tone language. Clearly, there was way more than first met the eye. He could remember a few—calm down blue, teal means need meal, teal green healing beam—but trying to understand the underlying meaning behind every possible color and pitch combination felt like an impossible task.
At least, impossible to learn in a few minutes, communicated over hurried text messages.
After some more trial and error, Gordon decided to just ask for a few specific meanings. Namely, the dirty, muddy colors he saw Benrey singing last night.
He wasn’t sure how to feel about the translations Tommy gave.
Dark green to jet means deep regret. Did Benrey regret their actions in Black Mesa?
Brown like silt means I’m full of guilt. That probably meant their apology was genuine, right?
Tan to black is a panic attack. He didn’t need to understand sweet voice to figure out that’s what was going on this morning.
White like chalk means I can’t talk. Again, he had figured that part out. Helped to know it was just… a thing that happened to Benrey sometimes.
At least he was pretty sure now that Benrey was genuinely sorry about what happened to his arm, and that they weren’t going to attack him again. It didn’t do much to stop him flinching when he caught them staring from around the corner, but it did mean that he could keep his cool and calm himself back down.
When hunger finally forced him to make lunch to make up for the forgotten breakfast, he realized two things as he opened the fridge.
One, he really needed to get groceries.
Two, he wasn’t sure if Benrey… needed to eat. He’d seen them drink plenty of soda, and they drank the water he gave them, but they were also Not Human, and he had no idea how they worked.
Clearly, he was going to need a little more help on this. Again.
Hey tommy, he wrote in a quick text, sry for bugging you again but I had aonther question abt benrey
Another*
Hard to type sry
He watched the Tommy’s typing bubble pop up for a moment before the reply was received.
Sure thing, Mr. Freeman! :) What is it?
Does benrey need to eat? Gordon asked. When Tommy didn’t respond immediately, anxiety took over and he hurried to explain himself. I’m not asking bc I don’t want to give him food, I just genuinely don’t know
It’s okay! said the reassuring reply. They don’t, normally, but after that regeneration, things might have changed. Why don’t you ask them?
Gordon groaned. He was hoping he wouldn’t have to do that.
Sure thing. Thanks.
Say hi to them for me :)
Ok :-)
With a sigh, he returned the phone to his pocket. Alright. Step one, make food. Step two, ask Benrey if they wanted any. Step… uh, three? Tell Benrey that Tommy says hi. Simple, easy plan.
He really had to stop telling himself that plans were simple when he ended up burning the grilled cheese sandwiches he was trying to make. Nothing was going to go right today, was it?
Fuck it. He tossed the grilled charcoal sandwiches into the trash as Benrey poked their head into the kitchen.
“Smells like burning,” they said, wrinkling their nose. Gordon sighed.
“Yeah, I know, I burned lunch.”
“Gonna have to, uh, gonna have to charge you for that. Attempted arson. You don’t have credentials for it.” He could hear suppressed laughter in their voice as they teased him, and when Gordon turned to look, their faint smile confirmed the lighthearted nature of their words.
“Yeah, yeah. Can I serve my sentence in pizza?” he said, rolling his eyes.
“Whuh?”
“Pizza, man. Cooking isn’t working, so I’m just gonna order delivery. What kind do you want?” He took out his phone to write their order, but only received a blank stare in response.
“Pizza?” he repeated. “You, uh—do you know what you want to order?”
Benrey shook their head. Right. Alien who hadn’t needed to eat. Okay.
“Uh, I’ll… I’ll just order a few and you can pick from that,” he suggested and placed the order. “And Tommy says hi, by the way.”
The discovery was made that Benrey did, in fact, need to eat, and that they were absurdly hungry by the time the pizza arrived. Gordon watched in amazement as they inhaled five slices within a minute.
Right. Still an alien. But at least an alien he was starting to get to know more.
There was a lot of “getting to know” that Gordon had to do with Benrey. He kept taking notes on their sweet voice, when they did and didn’t talk, and all their other quirks. It made him reflect on their time in Black Mesa with a different perspective, too.
Then again, sometimes this Benrey seemed so different to the one that antagonized him back then that Gordon wasn’t sure if it was even the same person.
And then they would ask Gordon for his driver’s license to play Mario Kart and all doubt would be erased that this was, indeed, the very same Benrey. The same Benrey that would say the most ridiculous, nonsensical shit and make Gordon wheeze with laughter as his train of thought was completely derailed each time.
Maybe it was the fact that they had apologized. Maybe it was the fact they looked so much smaller and less threatening than before. Maybe it was just that they were both at home, safe, instead of in the labyrinthine halls and eerie landscapes of Black Mesa and Xen. But whatever it was, there was something different that made all Benrey’s quips and teasing a lot less irritating to Gordon.
It was actually starting to become strangely endearing by the time Benrey had been there for a couple days. Gordon could make out a pattern to it, and sometimes respond in turn, starting a volley of playful jabs and banter that would go on until one or both of them cracked up.
Benrey’s laugh was just as strange as it always had been. A loud, harsh, fake-sounding cackle that echoed and bounced around the room, sometimes punctuated with bright orange and yellow bubbles. Didn’t take much to tell it was genuine laughter, though. The way their eyes lit up every time Gordon said something that managed to catch them off-guard for once was proof enough of that.
It didn’t occur to Gordon that he was paying much closer attention to Benrey’s expressions and emotions than he did with the rest of the science team. He just shrugged it off as trying to understand someone so different to him. It didn’t mean anything more than that.
Benrey was sitting on the couch playing Animal Crossing, alone in the apartment with their thoughts. And Blathers, but they couldn’t really talk to Blathers much about anything other than fish and fossils, and their mind was occupied with other subjects.
Gordon, mostly. For some reason. They weren’t sure what to make of this whole situation. He had let them stay, which was pretty epic. They even got to keep this blanket, which was probably fair because they did rip some holes in it. You buy it, you break it, as they say.
Nobody ever specified who “they” in “as they say” ever was. Benrey would like to meet the “them.” It would probably help explain a lot of weird human things that Gordon did and said. Like the counting and breathing thing.
That scene hadn’t left Benrey’s mind since it happened. It wasn’t the first time they’d experienced total panic like that, but it was one of the first times someone had actually helped him out of it. The first time since Tommy did it, back when they were a lot younger. They wouldn’t have expected it from Gordon.
They wouldn’t have expected a lot of things from Gordon, and yet, here they were—sitting on his couch, making a house on his Animal Crossing island, roommates with the guy whose hand they got cut off.
Don’t think about it.
Benrey abruptly veered his train of thought in another direction, putting the gory scene and memory out of his mind. Nope. None of that. Not now. Think about… other things. Yeah. They were here, not in Black Mesa, here alone in Feetman’s apartment while he went out to buy gross cherries. At least, that’s what they think he said. It wouldn’t make much sense to go out and buy gross cherries instead of regular tasty cherries, but Feetman didn’t make much sense.
Benrey’s train of thought was abruptly derailed once again as they missed the butterfly they’d been trying to catch, hitting their favorite villager with the net instead.
“Oh shit, sorry man,” they said aloud to the screen as Tabby the cat looked around in confusion and irritation. It didn’t occur to them that they had apologized as a reflex to a video game character who couldn’t hear them.
Apologizing was just the thing to do, wasn’t it? Yeah. It was an automatic thing now. Redemption arc level up! Whoop!
They kept playing, occasionally speaking aloud to the empty room, until the sound of Gordon’s keys jingling outside the door knocked them out of their video-game induced trance. Oh shit. He was back. They saved their game, turned the TV off, and got up from the couch just as the door opened and Gordon walked in, arms full of stuff.
“Yoooo, you got the gross cherries.”
Gordon snorted, almost dropping one of the bags he was carrying.
“The what?”
“Gross cherries! You said you were gonna go, uh, gross cherry shopping.”
“Dude,” he said through suppressed laughter, “I said groceries. Not—not gross cherries. Grocery shopping.”
“…Ohhhhh.” Benrey nodded. Yeah. That made a lot more sense than gross cherries, now that they thought about it. “Ingredience for epic home-cooked gamer meals?”
“Yep, ingredience,” Gordon affirmed as he handed Benrey a couple bags. “Hey, can you take these to the kitchen for me? I gotta go get the rest from the car.”
Benrey gave a single affirmative beep of orange sweet voice as they picked up the groceries and took them to the kitchen. By the time Gordon came back with the rest, Benrey was already unloading the bags and placing the items on the countertop one by one.
Milk. Eggs. Shredded cheese. Bread. Hat. Sliced turkey. Butter.
Wait. Hat?
Benrey looked at the countertop, taking inventory of what they had removed from the bags. One of these was distinctly not edible-looking. They picked up the hat, knitted with blue and gray patterns, and turned it over in their hands.
“Oh hey, you found the chullo,” said Gordon as he turned around and saw them holding it. “I didn’t remember which bag I put it in.”
“The huh?” Benrey asked. “This isn’t a grocery, you—didja steal it? Gordon Thiefman?”
“No, man, I paid for it. It’s for you.”
“Whuh?” They couldn’t have heard him right. New Thing? Gift for Benrey? Free sweet headgear?
“It’s—” Gordon set down the grocery bags he was holding. “It’s a hat. For you. I figured the helmet couldn’t be that comfortable, and the weather’s starting to get kinda chilly, so…”
Benrey didn’t wait for Gordon to finish his sentence before they ran out of the room, letting the sweet voice in their mouth spill out as soon as they were out of sight. They took the helmet off and tried on the hat, a trill in their throat.
This was the comfiest thing they had ever experienced.
“Benrey? H-hey, wait—!” Gordon sputtered as Benrey zoomed out of the kitchen in a blur. Shit, did he say something wrong? He followed them out, mind already buzzing with panic.
What he saw in the living room was enough to make that panic melt away.
Benrey was standing there with the chullo pulled over their head, clutching the strings that hung from the ear flaps, their pupils obscuring all but a thin ring of yellow from their eyes. Their mouth hung open and a beautiful gradient of orange, yellow, and pink spilled forth and filled the room. When they turned around to face Gordon, their whole body was aglow with more joy than he’d ever seen from them—wide eyes, sharp toothy grin, a pale blue dusting their cheeks, bouncing on the balls of their feet, and utterly surrounded by dazzling lights that he knew could only mean good things.
He couldn’t help the smile that crept onto his face as he watched.
“You like it?” he asked, and Benrey nodded eagerly in response. “Good, I was hoping you would. It suits you.”
He did not miss the beep of bright pink and yellow that escaped them before they could cover their mouth with a hand. Gordon just laughed.
“Alright, you have fun with that, I’m gonna finish putting the groceries away,” he said as he returned to the kitchen. As soon as he was in there, he pulled his phone out and texted Tommy.
I gave them a hat and now the living room is full of orange and pink and yellow
That’s not bad right?
It was a little while before he got a reply, and he hurried to close the freezer and read the text.
:D That means they’re really happy, Mr. Freeman!
He sighed in relief.
Good, that’s what I figured
They were smiling a lot, it was cute
The second his thumb pressed “send,” Gordon felt his stomach drop to his shoes. Shit. Wait. Not like that. He couldn’t get an explanation in before Tommy’d already replied.
That’s good to hear :)
There was something ominous about that smile, Gordon thought as he frantically typed a response.
I didn’t mean it like that
Whatever youre thinking cut it out
There was only one more response from Tommy before he stopped typing.
:)
Gordon groaned and put his phone down, cheeks burning.
Fuck.
Benrey awoke the next morning to a very, very rude sound. First thing he knew, the whole living room was filled with an earsplitting roar that sent them tumbling off the couch.
“BBBBBBBB,” they yelled, sitting up from the floor with their hat askew. The strings on their chullo smacked them in the face as they turned to the source of the noise.
Gordon was stood there, holding… something and whatever that something was, it was loud as FUCK. Benrey shot stormy gray sweet voice at them both and Gordon pressed a button that finally quieted it down.
“Sorry, forgot how loud this thing got,” he said as he pulled the headphones off his ears. “Uh, you ok?”
“Bro whathhe fuck was that,” mumbled Benrey as they put their hat back on straight. “Loud rude… robot shit.”
“It’s a vacuum cleaner,” he explained. “The floor’s dirty in here so I’m cleaning it up. You, uh, wanna borrow some earplugs?”
Benrey nodded. Less bad noise please and thank you. Now they were hungry and weren’t getting back to sleep, but at least the foam earplugs Gordon gave them were helping the vacuum not rattle their skull with its volume. Still unpleasant, though. Buh.
Breakfast time. They poured themselves a bowl of lucky charms and a glass of milk, taking both to the table and taking sips of milk in between handfuls of dry cereal.
“Dude, what—” Gordon laughed as he sat down across from them, finally done with vacuuming. “You’re just eating dry cereal and milk separately?”
“Yuh,” they replied, crunching a balloon-shaped marshmallow. “What, do you eat em with water or something?”
“No, man, you’re supposed to put the cereal and the milk in a bowl, like—hold on.”
They watched him get up and get his own bowl, pouring in cereal and milk and eating it with a spoon to demonstrate.
“Like this,” he said, gesturing with said spoon. Benrey blinked.
“Weird, bro,” they mumbled through a mouthful of cereal. “You’re eating it wrong.”
“Literally everyone eats cereal like this, what are you talking about?” Gordon snorted. Hell yeah, that was the good shit. The good Freeman laugh. Benrey grinned and decided to keep heckling.
“Nah, that’s—that’s level 1 cereal, you’re eating it like a n00b,” they went on. “This is the pro-mode cereal. Level, uh, level… sevennnnnteen.”
Gordon’s laughter started to dissolve into incomprehensible giggling as the spoon fell into his bowl with a splash.
“Dude, what—what the fuck?” he sputtered, hand on his face. “Level seventeen is the pro-mode? What’s—what’s the highest level then?”
“…Twelve.”
“How— f—” Gordon wheezed, dragging Benrey along with him in the giggle fit. They spat some orange sweet voice out at his face and he waved them off, hand coming off his face and revealing the bright grin.
It froze Benrey to the spot as they stared, mouth still hanging half-open.
Had they… never seen Gordon smile before? No, they definitely had sometimes, in Black Mesa and a couple times since they showed up here, but not like this. This was just soft and bright, because the game was over, the boss fight was done, this was just chill friend time, and they were making him smile and laugh and that felt so much better than making him angry.
They didn’t realize how long they’d been staring until they saw Gordon wave a hand in front of their face, startling them out of the reverie.
“Wh huh what?” sputtered Benrey, blinking their eyes back into focus.
“You okay, man?” Gordon asked, eyebrows quirked. “You were really spaced out there.”
“Whuh yeah bro I’m good. Just chill and thinking.”
“Oh yeah? Thinking about what?”
…There was no way they could tell him the truth. Fuck. Think of something think of something think of something—
“Frogs,” they blurted, sending Gordon into another wheezing fit with the absurdity of the answer.
Benrey smiled as they watched. Fuck yeah. Giggly Feetman part 2.
Telling Benrey that Joshua was coming to live here again went better than Gordon had expected it to. Didn’t mean he wasn’t nervous. His ex had already arranged the pickup spot, and Joshua would be living with him again full-time like before. It had taken a lot of explaining, a lot of avoidance, and a lot of assurances that everything would be fine before the date could finally be arranged.
The days leading up to it were spent in a flurry of cleaning. Gordon picked up all the trash from around the house, dusted, put away miscellaneous bric-a-brac, and vacuumed.
The vacuuming was… a bit of a problem for Benrey, as Gordon noticed. Even with the earplugs, it was clear to see that it was overwhelming. He wanted to avoid another panic attack, and he’d meant to bring them clothes shopping but never had the time…
Hm. There could be a way to address both problems at once. Gordon turned off the vacuum and took his phone out, dialing a number. It only took a couple rings before the other end picked up.
“Mr. Freeman?”
“Tommy!” said Gordon, smiling. “Hey man, how’s it going?”
“Oh! It’s—I’m doing well, thank you! How are you?”
“I’m good, I just kinda needed a favor.” He walked around his bedroom, fidgeting with the hem of his shirt. “So, I gotta get the house ready for Joshua, and I think Benrey’s not a… huge fan of the vacuum cleaner.”
“Oh, yeah, vacuums are—they’re loud :( I can see why they wouldn’t like them. Did you give them earph—uh, headphones or earplugs?” Tommy asked, somehow managing to get across a frowny face in his voice. Gordon still couldn’t figure out how the hell he did that, but that was a question for another day.
“Yeah, but I don’t think it’s enough,” he replied. “And I—I’ve been meaning to get them some new clothes, they’re still wearing that uniform, but I haven’t had the time, so… think you can take them?”
There was an excited noise from the other end.
“Of—sure, Mr. Freeman! I’ve been, uh, I’ve been meaning to come say hello :D” said Tommy with an audible grin. “I can pick them and—pick them up in half an hour?”
“Sounds good, man. See you then.”
“Bye! :)”