Chapter Text
Things in nature don't fall into neat little categories the way a lot of humans like to pretend they do. Like, people wanna think that everything on Earth is one thing or something else, and they'll maybe let there be another group of things. Benrey hasn't seen a lot of Earth, but that's ringing his Bullshit Alert. Things are things, and you can't sort them away neatly; that takes away the Thingsness of them. It's basic math. There's exceptions to everything, so you can't slap little sticky labels on them and call it all a day, even if you're gonna poke around at things and go, "ohhh actually, we were Wrong the whole time this actually goes in This New Category" because fuck you, now you're just putting a different still wrong little sticky label on it. Fucked up and stupid. But, like, the thing about everything having exceptions is that "you can't put things into categories" has its exceptions, too. Shit's confusing, honestly — too many things.
There are two easily definable sections of Benrey's life: Xenbaby and Earthboy.
Xenbaby was when he was still 83-n and Ben and Benny, and he didn't know how to pretend to be a Human Person. He ate soda cans whole without tasting them, and he bit any of the sciences that came too close that weren't Tommy, and he used his sights instead of his sounds. Xenbaby Benrey was an idiot. Cringe little baby. Dumbass. Benrey's glad he's not that one anymore.
Earthboy was when he was Benry, and now, when he's Benrey. They can be pretty Human when they need to, and they don't taunt scientists unless they can eat them quickly and without anyone noticing. (They've taken bites out of half the people working at Black Mesa, but they've only eaten two of them. Tommy gives him disappointed looks whenever someone mentions those scientists' work, but Dr. Moore shouldn't have been a sucksman if he didn't want to get cronched.) Earthboy Benrey isn't a Regular Person, but he's… y'know. Normal. Normalman Feelsagood. It's why he's got the Gatesman Job. Securing guards, and shit. Black Mesa even lets them have a room with other Normalmen Feelagood, like Gordon's kid who isn't Gordon's kid even though they have the same name that's not actually the same.
Earth's fucking weird. Benrey doesn't think they could keep up if they were a human; there are too many complications that they don't get his Xenly Insight in, and it'd be even more confusing without that.
Benrey's talking to himself, just dimly, saying pinks and blues and orangey-yellows. Josh Freerdon-Reaman pokes them with his foot. Josh FEETdon. Freertdon. R– fuck. How's he moving his leg that far off the top bunk? Benrey's floating again or something; damn, they've got Mad Levitatiory Powers but only on accident. Sick. "Benrey," Josh whispers.
"huh?"
It's lights-out, beddy-bye, and all the human guards are supposed to be sleeping. Josh is a mostly-human guard, so he's breaking the– he's breaking the rules, he can't do that! "Can you be quieter, please? I think my hearing's getting better, and the high pitches kinda hurt." Benrey smacks their lips, turning over in midair and then belly-flopping back down into their mattress.
He says, "just sleep louder, bro," but he says it in quiet words into the fabric, so it's chill. People are chill if you tell them mean shit when you show them you're not ever mean to anyone, and that's a Earth Fact. You're welcome for hearing it. Josh hums as loud as he can, which isn't very because it's sleepy time, like the tea, but it's pitched like green as a pear means we're square, so Benrey hums back. It splatters against his pillow. Fuck. (Josh giggles and Benrey gasps scandalously. Scandalized. One of those. Because Josh Babyman planned this, and he's laughing about it. Nasty baby. Fucked up. Joshcruela.) "go eat some dalmations," Benrey mutters, flipping the pillow over so he doesn't go to sleep soaking in greens like some kind of vegan. Josh muffles his laughter with something fleshy, probably his little baby hand, and Benrey grins to themself.
Josh is still an Earthbaby, so it's Benrey's job as Earthboy to make sure he's alright. Take care of the little man and teach him as much Sweet Voice as his mostly-human self can manage. Raise the kid right since Gordon isn't allowed into the security guard dorms overnight. Basic stuff.
(Benrey's not stupid, alright? He knows that Josh is technically a grownup. But humans grow slower than things like Benrey do, and Benrey's still been Benrey longer than Josh has been alive. He's not human or a baby anymore, but it's one of those categorization things – Josh is grown and a youngling and a hatchling all at once. Benrey doesn't see the point in trying to pick them all out of each other like itty bitty grains of rice when it's all getting cooked the same anyway.)
Benrey confiscated a dead mutant pigeon from one of the interns on her way out, and he's going to give it to Tommy as a gift. Jefferem says you give your girlfriend food to be romantic, and Jefferem knows what he's talking about because he's security chief; being Chief of things means knowing stuff. It's basic math. Dead mutant pigeon isn't people food, and Tommy's not their girlfriend, but romance means kisses, and Benrey's all about those, so it checks out. It gets the… Benrey Seal Of Correct.
The problem is that they can't find Tommy, which is fucking. Mean and rude of the world. Sucks of it. Benreyphobia. Black Mesa officially Xenophobic, more at nine. It takes some effort, but he manages to root around through his categories and rice until he finds the one he built himself off of and tugs at it, sending bass-pluck waves through where the bones are supposed to be. Their chest makes space for the hum, and it tugs toward the Base Component, which Benrey trots along after. Tommy time.
Benrey is very polite and doesn't go through the door that he's getting tugged against right away, tapping the little button that means he's asking for permission first. Consent is important. Also, Black Mesa might put them back in storage if they break into a Lab where Tests are happening again. Probably not. But maybe. It would make Tommy upset, which is Big Mean, so Benrey waits patiently for the button to do its job. Tommy's voice comes through the sprinkles below the button, saying, "Dr. Coolatta; what's– what's up?"
"yo," Benrey says, "you wanna… finch?"
There's a long pause that Benrey's pretty sure means Thinking Is Happening, and then Tommy says, "Not– n, uh, maybe! Later. Put it in a bag, and then put the– the first bag– uh, take a second bag and put ice in it! And then put, the first bag in the second bag and leave it in my locker, please!" Benrey nods to themself. Standard romance procedures; Tommy asks him to do things like this for most of the dead food he finds. Benrey's gonna get so kissed.
Back to the sprinkles, "cool." They reshuffle their categories so that the hum isn't as tuggy and wander off to find some ziploc. Zipped Lock. Gundy probably has some. She's good at having stuff and also at having things.
Gordon Reaman-Freerdon is a dumbass. Scientifically proven. Idiot man. Deadbeat dad. Had to google his son's baby pictures, massively fucked up of him. "Dude," he laughs, and the humming lights hit him way worse than the sunlight did, the one time Benrey got to see that happen, "what are you fucking talking about?" Benrey blinks at him.
"they're in love," they repeat dumbly because they aren't sure what else to say.
“Janeway’s a professional, man! She’s not gonna fall for her second-in-command!”
"heart wants what the heart wants," Benrey tells him wisely.
Gordon laughs again, still holding the crunched-up McDonald's wax paper in his hand, and shakes his head. "You're wrong. You're just wrong! I– I don't even have words to explain to you how wrong you are. They're both consummate professionals, alright? You don’t– they had like a scene where it was implied that there might be some tension. That’s not love!”
Benrey leans against the wall. "it's 'cause they were um. scared. of the aliens." Gordon splutters vaguely, and Benrey asks, "you gonna kiss someone on an alien planet straight away?"
“If I was in love with them, probably!”
Benrey starts planning a way to take Gordon back home and starts planning all of the ways to avoid being home with Gordon, ever, at the same time. Categories are confusing, so Benrey doesn't think about them that hard, but he knows that Gordon and Tommy are in different categories. The overlap is Homies because you gotta kiss the homies, and Benrey's gotta give 'em both kisses, so they've gotta be Homies. Because of how things are. But there are other categories wrapped up around both of his homies that are just Diff Rents. They've known Tommy since always, 'cause Tommy's their Base, so he's based as hell, and Benrey loves him. Red to blue means I love you. But Gordon… they've known him since years ago, and they're Best Friends, and Benrey loves him. It's really the same, but still different because pink to blue means I love you. And Gordon can't know about the pink, not like Tommy can know about the red.
"slut," Benrey says, and Gordon wheezes, the waxpaper crumpling even more.
Kirby falls off the island, and Jefferem snaps his controller in half. "OOOH FUCKED UP," Benrey yells, leaning away so the Chief can't snap theirs, too, asking with his buttons for Wario to please and thank you obliterate Kirby the second he respawns. "FUCKED UP FUCKED UP FUCKED UP—" Jefferem kicks the Wii, and the whole everything shuts off as his foot connects— "NOOOOO! brooooo!! what the fuck?" Jefferem chucks half of the controller at their face, and Benrey ducks it because they've been having game nights since Benrey got Official Security Privileges, and Jefferem fucks up and breaks shit every, always, all the time, so they know how to dodge his baby ragequit. Sore little loser man. Can't keep up with Benrey's epic fuckin skills.
The other half of the controller hits him in the jaw and dislocates it. Ow. "c'mon," Benrey whines, cracking his skull back together, and the Chief's eyes get all crinkly like a human-smile, but Benrey's pretty sure he's doing this one to be mean. Fucked up. Evil old man.
Now that his hands are free (because he murdered a controller, it's fucked up, there's gonna need to be so many geek squads in here), Jefferem fingerspells, "Oops."
"i'm gonna kill you in real life." Jefferem's doing his human-smile when he lunges, and Benrey shouts, ducking under his arms to avoid getting their head crushed like a little beetle. "can't believe you'd do this to me," he adds when the chief snags him by the throat and crushes his windpipe. (It's probably on purpose, too. Rude. Abuse of power. Unworthy of Security Chiefdom; Benrey feels extremely unsecure, thank you?) "jefferem sorey. sore loser. killing things and shit; fucked up." Jefferem's eyes crumple up again as he holds Benrey off the ground and shakes them like a dog with a bone.
Benrey lets it kill them just to spite him.
When he's not dead anymore, Jefferem's sitting on the Gaming Couch with two slightly dented cans of Grape Fanta and waiting very, very politely for him to come back. "didn't even have a funeral?" Benrey asks, offended. Jefferem's eyebrows get all pinchy, and he picks up one of the cans. It dents a little more. "fantaral," Benrey says in understanding, and Jefferem nods, gesturing with the soda. He must squeeze it too hard because it explodes in his hand. "ha." The other Fanta can hits him in the face and also explodes, shooting can shrapnel and carbonated purple all over the place. Jefferem is a homie, but he's also evil? Benrey's just decided: Completely Evil big-boy man.
The Chief draws a little smiley face in front of the bottom of his face and twiddles his fingers a bit in the air above where dimples would be if he had them.
Tommy has the best dorm. Every Black Mesa dorm is really bad and lame, but Tommy's rules because it's his. There's a minifridge just for Benrey, and Tommy doesn't even make him clean it out every time something goes bad! Benrey gets to eat so many rotten molds and slimes and oozes that the cafeteria won't let the public access because the lunch ladies keep it all for themselves. (Tommy does make them clean their mouth between eating from their fridge and giving him kisses, but that's alright. Benrey's not a nasty man, he gets the fucking– clean. Mr. Clean. They brush their hands and wash their teeth and take themself for walks.)
Tommy's dorm also has a Tommy in it, which is the best ever. Benrey starts walking into him the second he opens the door, like a terrible NPC created by Todd Howard, who doesn't know what a collision course is. "hello, excuse me, sir. excuse me, i need to come through here, please? i need to do a routine playstation inspection, please and thank you, sir?" Tommy lets himself be walked at for a second because he's a bro, but then he scoops Benrey up under the arms and sets him down inside on the carpet. Fucked up. They can't believe they just got longcatted by their own Base. "i'm gonna lose all my legs," Benrey complains, slumping to the couch on the legs he's gonna lose because Tommy won't let him use them, and Tommy locks the door behind him and makes a beeline for the big, non-rotty refrigerator.
"You should– I'm not supposed to actually, um, let you in here! So we gotta be... careful." Tommy says, looking thoughtfully at what Benrey knows is the Biggest Collection Of Sodas, before carefully selecting a Pepsi, a Big Red, and a Barq's Rootbeer, then throwing them for Benrey to catch. They do, jumping up and collecting all the cans in their arms, yell heah, 100% run. "Also, I think your... your, uh, your sushi grew an entirely new species in it!" Benrey hums, popping the tab on his Pepsi (it's blue! Like him!! Blue drink for the blue boy, little boy blue gonna have a little blue bubble) and then shakes his head.
Reaching as far as they can to turn on the PS4, "that's how the fish-people get you."
"All fish-people come from gas-station sushi!"
"uhhhhhhh yeah. yep. everybody– everyone knows that. that's how we got. aquaman." Tommy grabs the controllers and sits down next to them, smooching their cheek as he sets the blue controller in their lap. Benrey gasps quietly and says, "bro... you love me? kisses time?" Tommy nods, being so serious, and that means it's Benrey's turn for kisses to try and make him laugh while the PS4 turns on. He says, "smorch," and "kees," and "mwah," between each one — damage multipliers.
Tommy's laughing in no time, batting him away so he can turn on his controller and sign in to PSN, but it's kisses time now. Tommy's sealed his fate.
Benrey doesn't realize why Tommy's grabbing at their hip until he cocks the gun and puts it against their forehead. "Mis– mission failed," Tommy tells him, still half-breathless with laughter, "we'll get 'em next! Next time!" Benrey groans, but he leans back and lets Tommy sign in. And also, they grab their gun back. Gun safety's important; that's the first thing he learned when they let him secure guards. "Mwah," Tommy adds, kissing the side of Benrey's helmet as he boots up COD. Damn. Lotta fishes today. Fishpartment. Fishdorm. Fishdom. Wait, is that what Aquaman's in charge of? Fishdom? Or is that what fishermen use to cast spells? Cast nets. Benrey's cracked the whole code.
"did i tell you about the– bro. tommy. have you ever seen a fish?"
Tommy gets his Jokes look on his face. "No! I, I never... I once read that fish have mercury in them, so i-if I ever look at one, the whole planet will crash into Earth and destroy it in a– in, in a fiery blaze!" He reaches over and turns on Benrey's controller for them.
Benrey opens their mouth to ask about fishdom classes but stops with their jaw still hanging. Tommy logs them in. "what?" Benrey asks. Mercury can't crash into Earth because of magnetic fish. Tommy nods again, serious even as his eyes go twinkle twinkle, and Benrey needs to think really, really hard about the planets. "what about the flytrap planet?"
"Venus flytraps are weak to fish, Ben," Tommy says, and fuck.
He's right.
If you smacked a fish with a plant, the fish would win every time. It's like Digimon. "fucked up." Benrey puts a hand on his shoulder so they can push themself up and give him another quick smorch. "thank you for saving us from fish hell," they add, saluting. Tommy nods, saluting back because he's the best, and then they both start laughing. It's nice to hang out with Tommy in a real people dorm and not in the container for bad and nasty alien samples that Tommy had to keep breaking into; they didn't have video games in the container. Not that Benrey only hangs out with Tommy because he plays games with them! Tommy's already the best, but him having video games makes him a little bit bester. Bestest Base. Best Basest. Bastest Best Turkey Baster. Tommy Baster. Tommy, Bass-Boosted.
The terrorists kill Benrey while he's distracted.
Sometimes, video games are bad.
Josh is fidgeting in his bunk. "sleep louder." Josh goes still for a second, and then there are the noises of a little baby man climbing down the ladder and sitting down next to Benrey on the bottom bunk. "that's not sleep," Benrey tells him. Josh frowns. His eyes are red, which is new. Little baby man keeps getting powerups all the time – probably because he's almost done hatching. That's when Benrey's eyes started being there.
Josh says, "I think everyone's going to die tomorrow."
Benrey blinks. Squints. "huh?" Josh hums something like gold means don't be cold, picking up his feet and tucking his knees up to his chest. Okay, Benrey's not saying the right thing. Wuh-oh. "well, um. that sounds. scary." Josh groans, making a sound that slips in and out of even Benrey's ear range, and Benrey sits up. (Two very noisy thoughts are smacking the shit out of each other in Benrey's brain right now. Thought A: Josh is mostly human; even if he weren't, the inhuman bit isn't the same as Benrey, and even if either of those things weren't how they are, Josh is well into the hatchling stage. Thought 2: Benrey is not prepared to be a Base Component. Where the fuck is Gordon "DILF" Freeman, and can he come help grow this child before Benrey has to be a teen mom, please?) Benrey very carefully pat-pats Josh on the shoulder that has a sleep sweater on it.
Josh lets out a snort-laugh. It sounds a little more stressed than snort-laughs are supposed to be. "My base components are my human parents and the 121-a radiation, Benrey; no one's gonna put you in charge of raising a twenty-year-old with a job. Also, aren't you kind of old to be a teen mom?" Benrey sits up harder than before.
Leaning in a bit, they say, "mind powers." Josh tilts his head at them, and they wriggle their hands at him. "mind powers," they repeat, "you read my brain!"
Josh frowns. Benrey thinks really hard at him that he's got super sick mind powers, and he's the coolest baby ever. After a second, Josh shakes his head and says, "I don't think I can do it when– i-if I'm– I don't know! I don't know about any of this, Benrey!" Okay, uh-oh, little man's having a freakout. Benrey sticks his arms out, and Josh settles into them almost immediately, shivering a little when Benrey tries to do the back-rubby comforting thing he saw in a movie that one time. "I keep seeing Dr. Freeman in a big spacesuit," Josh mumbles. "And– and I think I see me? But I'm not anywhere I recognize, and it's– I-I don't know how I get there, or– o-o-or– god, I'm so scared. I'm so scared." Benrey thinks he's supposed to do some warm shushes here, but he also thinks that his shushes come out like dog whistles, so he settles for singing pink to white means you'll be alright. It takes a long time, but after a while, Josh falls asleep, still muttering things about Gatorade pools and sulfur air. The beanfreak boy is a clingy sleeper, but Benrey's gotta be up early tomorrow for Passport Checking, so they float up to the top bunk, kiss Professor X on the forehead, and tuck him in real good. Josh mumbles a little, turning over onto his side, and Benrey drops back down to the floor. It's okay. Little baby man just needs a good nap.
Tomorrow's gonna happen fine, perfectly, and it'll be all good.