Chapter Text
Gordon was jolted awake by the feeling of about forty pounds of child landing straight on him. He grunted as the breath was knocked out of him.
“Gh—Joshie, jus’ tap me awake next time,” he mumbled as his hand felt around on the nightstand for his glasses. He put them on and blinked his eyes open, focusing on his son bouncing eagerly on the mattress next to him. “Good morning, cowboy.”
“Good morning daddy,” Joshua signed back. “Can we make chocolate chip pancakes please?”
Gordon yawned and picked up his prosthetic to attach. “Mmm… sounds good, but I’m gonna need a kitchen helper.”
“I can help!”
“Great, it’s a deal, then. Gimme a minute and I’ll be right out, okay kiddo?” said Gordon as he pushed the blanket off and sat at the edge of the bed. Joshua ran off out of the room, leaving him alone with the morning sunlight illuminating the motes of dust floating about the room. Today felt like a day where he just wanted to feel… calm. Warm. The weather had been growing steadily colder and the days shorter, but ever since Joshua came back, the house always felt bright. He really had a way of making the days feel special.
And that day did feel special. He and Joshua made a bit of a mess of the kitchen while preparing the chocolate chip pancakes, and Benrey offered to help clean while Gordon got Joshua ready. They took him out to the playground until lunchtime, and Benrey looked completely enamored by the gradients of leaf colors on the trees.
Gordon was starting to wonder just how often they’d ever been outside in their life. He didn’t think the answer would be one he liked. Better to just enjoy the moment until they went home again.
Benrey walked into the living room later that day to the sight of Joshua sitting on the couch and Gordon on the floor in front of him, a pile of colorful hairties, clips, and bows in his lap. Joshua’s hands were busy braiding together a few strands of Gordon’s hair, his tongue stuck out in concentration.
“What’s, uh, going on here?” Benrey asked, looking curiously at the heap of hair accessories. Joshua held out his hand and Gordon placed a butterfly-shaped clip into it, which Joshua then affixed to the end of the braid.
“Joshie wanted to do my hair,” Gordon chuckled. “Said it needed to be decorated.” Benrey snorted in response and sat on the couch next to Joshua.
“Looks pretty. Uh, looks pretty—good—colorful,” they stammered, hoping their throat wasn’t glowing too bright. It certainly felt like it was. “You should be on TV.”
“What, like a runway model?”
“Yeah, or maybe, uh, a nature show about rainbow porcupines.”
Gordon rolled his eyes. “Dude, that wasn’t even good. You gotta up your insult game.”
“Nah, not worth the trouble. You just look silly ‘s all,” Benrey said as they flicked a tuft of hair that was sticking out of what could liberally be described as a bun, but was more like a ponytail twisted on itself and haphazardly clipped together with barrettes. “Ten out of ten clown college Gee Pee Ay.”
“GPA?? That’s not even graded out of ten! It’s out of like, four!”
“Maybe it’s out of ten at college. How would you know?” They leaned onto the arm of the couch, looking down at Gordon with a cheeky smile.
“I literally have a PHD, dude. I went to university for eight years.”
“Well, you didn’t graduate from clown college, didja? Don’t have that Pretty Huge D—” A fierce warning glare from Gordon cut Benrey off before they could say something incredibly stupid in front of Joshua. Shit. They had to finish the word, what’s clown related circus related, shit!
“—Dimmadome,” they sputtered. “Pretty Huge, uh, Dimmsdale Dimmadome.” Nice save.
The near slip-up combined with Benrey’s frantic recovery had Gordon’s glare turning into giggles as he doubled over, knocking out a couple hair clips. Joshua blew a raspberry at them both for interrupting his work, which only made Benrey—and then Joshua himself—join the collective giggle fit.
Joshua looked up at Benrey as their laughing petered out and reached for his tablet.
“Can you help me?” he asked once his hand could reach the screen, then pointed to Gordon’s hair. Benrey blinked.
“Uh, help with what?”
Joshua tugged them over by the sleeve and guided their hand to Gordon’s head, resting it in his hair.
Benrey’s first thought was wow, his hair was nice to touch.
Their second thought was oh shit, was he okay with this?
Their third thought was why hadn’t he pushed them away?
Benrey’s hand was frozen on the spot, held there by Joshua, though they could’ve easily overcome his grip on their hoodie. Shit. Shit. They should—they gotta ask. Right. No touching without asking, that’s an important rule, they broke it all the time in Black Mesa and it did not turn out very well.
“This—this ok?” they stammered, watching carefully for Gordon’s reaction. To their surprise, and delight, he nodded.
“On one condition,” he replied, and Benrey could hear the grin in his voice. “We get to do your hair afterwards.”
Benrey considered their options. On the one hand, they could get to touch Gordon’s hair a whole bunch and then have him touch their hair. On the other, they could have neither of those things happen.
It was a very clear choice.
“Yeah bro, you’re on, bedazzle the heck out of my hair,” said Benrey with a grin. Joshua hummed eagerly as he handed Benrey some hair ties and let them get to work. Shit. Now they had to actually do something, didn’t they? This couldn’t be too hard. They could… braid. Yeah. They remembered how to braid. Tommy had taught them years ago with some threads of yarn he’d brought to the lab in his pocket.
They had made matching bracelets that day. Benrey’s had been discarded. They wondered if Tommy still had his.
They were pulled back to reality by the feeling of Gordon’s hair between their fingers. Right. They were braiding hair, not a bracelet, but it couldn’t be too different, right? Pick three strands, make sure they’re smooth, and just start alternating. The motions were as comforting as they were familiar, despite the added jitteriness of such physical proximity.
When the first little braid was finished, Joshua handed them a flower-shaped clip and Benrey fixed it to the end. They let go and the braid fell back down, lost among the eclectic and colorful assortment of accessories all mixed up in Gordon’s hair.
One down, a few more to go. Benrey brushed aside another section of hair and got right back to braiding.
They did run out of room to decorate eventually, with almost every bit of hair clipped aside or braided or pulled into a ponytail at unusual angles. Joshua tapped Gordon’s shoulder and he pulled himself to his feet again.
“Alright, your turn, Benrey.” He turned around and gave their shoulder a playful nudge. “Unless you’re chickening out?”
Benrey batted his hand away and slid off the couch. “Nah, go ham. Free real estate up there.” They pulled their hat off and held it in their lap, still fidgeting with the strings as they tried not to feel nervous. This would be okay. Gordon and Joshua weren’t going to hurt him or anything.
That didn’t stop them from flinching when they first felt a hand brushing against their head. Gordon pulled his hand back.
“You okay man?” he asked, and the genuine worry in his voice made a lump form in Benrey’s throat. “If you really don’t want us to do it, you don’t have to. It’s just for fun.”
“N-nah, I’m good,” they said, putting their smile back on. “Just startled me. Go ahead and start the epic makeover.” This time, when Benrey felt hands threading through their hair, they didn’t flinch. It was okay. They’d be okay.
As Gordon and Joshua brushed their messy hair smooth, Benrey’s eyes started to slide shut. Peach-pink sweet voice drifted about as they sighed and leaned into the hand currently cradling their head. They didn’t know what it was about this, but the touch just made them feel… safe. Warm, happy, and safe.
It wasn’t hard to just lean back and sink into the gentle movements and tugs, never once being pulled hard enough to hurt or getting poked with the pointy part of a hair clip. Benrey couldn’t even care about the mess their hair must be in—not that appearance had ever been their first priority. They sighed contentedly as a heavy, foggy sensation crowded their head. It felt like they were going to…
Oh. They were going to fall asleep—actually fall asleep, like everyone else did, not just zoning out and laying there with their eyes closed and bored out of their mind. Was this what sleeping was actually supposed to feel like? No wonder humans did it so much, this was great.
Benrey yawned, some light green and blue bubbles mixing among the peach. Their head rested against the edge of the couch cushions as the soft touches lulled them to the first sleep they could remember having.
Joshua was the first to notice that Benrey had, honest-to-goodness, completely fallen asleep. He tapped Gordon’s shoulder and put his finger over his own mouth.
“Quiet, Benny’s asleep,” Joshua signed and pointed to them. Gordon looked down to confirm, and sure enough, his roommate was out like a light, with the only movement being slow, even breaths. It occurred to him that he didn’t think he’d ever seen them sleep.
Benrey’s face looked soft and peaceful in contrast to the colorful chaos their hair was tied up in. Their eyes were shut and their mouth was just slightly open, and it was the most relaxed they’d ever looked to him. It would be kind of a dick move to wake them up now, wouldn’t it?
“How about we make a puzzle and let them take a nap?” Gordon signed, getting a nod from Joshua in reply. “Alright, I’ll be there in just a sec.”
Joshua hopped off the couch and went to his room while Gordon scooped Benrey up in his arms and laid them down on the couch as gently as he could. He tucked their blanket over them and sighed. There was a brief consideration of giving them a kiss on the forehead, but Gordon pushed the thought—and the blush rising in his cheeks—down. Nope, that was—that was not going to happen right now. Not the time.
He might be oblivious sometimes, but Gordon wasn’t completely stupid. He could tell that his attitude towards Benrey was veering into the unknown, but there was no need to jump to conclusions. Whatever weird feelings were going on, he could deal with them later.
Benrey ended up sleeping through the entire afternoon and into the evening, so Joshua and Gordon ate dinner together and went to bed quietly without waking them up. Gordon normally stayed up way later than this though, so he wasn’t tired enough to sleep yet. At least, that’s what he kept telling himself as time went by.
He was mindlessly scrolling through his phone, half under the blanket and putting off going to sleep, when he heard a strangled shout from the living room. His heart leapt into his throat and he threw the blanket aside to run out the door. Shit. Shit. Joshua—Benrey— what happened?
He got a tentative answer when he saw black and white sweet voice bubbles swarming around the room, their staticky tones not quite loud enough to drown out pained whimpers and sobs coming from behind the couch.
“Benrey?” Gordon’s heart sped up as he stepped around to the other side. “Benrey—shit.” His breath left him with a wince as he saw the state they were in.
Benrey sat with their knees pulled up to their chest, arms and hands curled protectively over their head. More black and white spilled and spread around with every shuddering, shallow breath they took. A closer look revealed that the glow wasn’t just limited to the air around them—their whole chest pulsed with sporadic flashes of light.
This was—this was bad. Even their panic attack on the first night was nothing like this—they hadn’t been sobbing then, they weren’t—fuck—
“Benrey, hey, hey man, it’s okay. Can you hear me?” Gordon whispered as he knelt in front of them. There was no reply to his question. “I’m… I’m gonna come closer now, okay? It’s just me, it’s Gordon, I won’t hurt you. I promise. It’s okay.”
Inch by painstaking inch, he made his way towards Benrey. There still wasn’t any acknowledgement from them—could they not hear him? —and the sweet voice’s noise was only growing harsher and more dissonant the closer he got.
“I’m gonna—I’m going to put my hand on your arm, okay? I won’t hurt you.” He reached out and brushed his palm against Benrey’s arm, bracing himself for a reaction. It was immediate—they slapped his hand away and scrambled back, wheezing breaths coming out as growls. Their pupils were razor-thin slits, tears were smeared across their flushed face, and everything about their expression screamed terror.
It hurt just to look at.
“Benrey, Benrey, it’s me,” Gordon repeated, trying to keep a tremor out of his voice. “You’re here. You’re home. You’re safe.” He kept his hand outstretched, waiting for Benrey to… well, hopefully, to snap out of their blind panic so he could help.
Their eyes darted to the side, down, and then back at him. They blinked. When their mouth opened to say something, though, all that came out was another raspy cry and more black and white sweet voice.
“Hey, it’s okay, you don’t—you don’t have to talk, okay? You’ll be alright. You’re safe. You, uh…” the memory of how Benrey had melted into his touch earlier that day resurfaced. “You want a hug?”
Gordon held his arms open in invitation, watching as Benrey blinked a couple more times before giving a shaky nod. By the time he’d shuffled towards them and his hand touched theirs, Benrey had latched onto him and was clinging to his shirt like a lifeline. Their shoulders shook violently as gasping sobs wracked their body again.
Gordon wrapped his arms around Benrey, holding them tight against his chest as he let them cry it out. Even though his hand rubbing against their back was moving calmly and steadily, his mind was racing. What happened? His first guess was a nightmare, but what on earth had happened to Benrey to provoke this?
There was something painful about the way they gasped for breath in between bouts of tears. Not just an empathetic kind of pain triggered by the rattling sound in their throat. This was a visceral reaction, concern that reared up in all its urgency at the sight of someone he cared about in so much distress, the need to ease their suffering.
“It’s okay,” Gordon whispered, trying to provide some kind of reassurance. “It’s okay, Benrey. It’s okay. I got you. You’re safe. Nothing’s—nothing’s gonna happen to you now. It’s alright.” He kept rubbing circles into their back and murmuring to them as their sobs subsided to shaky breaths and sniffling.
“Hey, I—I’m gonna ask some stuff, and it’s okay if you can’t talk right now. You can tap my back once for yes and twice for no, alright?” he whispered to them. After a few seconds of silence broken only by the sound of Benrey’s breaths, Gordon felt a single tap on his back.
The relief that washed over him was immediate. Thank fuck. Benrey wasn’t okay, no, but at least they were present. They could hear him. Their mind wasn’t still stuck in… in whatever had scared them so terribly. With that crumb of safety to hold onto, Gordon started talking again.
“Do you want me to keep hugging you?”
Tap.
“Do you want to talk about what happened?”
Tap tap.
“Are you okay?”
Tap tap.
Right, that was probably kind of a dumb question to ask. He had never seen Benrey look less okay. As Gordon brought a hand up to rest on their head, he realized their hair was still full of the miscellaneous clips and ribbons that Joshua had scattered through it.
“Can I take the clips out of your hair?”
Tap.
Gordon nodded and started to tug at one of the elastics to loosen it. When Benrey flinched and froze in his arms, he stilled and moved his hand away. Before he could ask for another go-ahead or if they wanted him to stop, he felt another single tap against his back and Benrey’s face nudging his chest.
He put his hand against their head again and removed the first plastic clip, tossing it aside to the ground. Benrey flinched again at the touch but gave Gordon another tap to keep going. The second clip removed let loose a lock of hair that had become tangled and messy, so Gordon combed his fingers through the strands to smooth it out again. To his surprise, Benrey leaned into his hand instead of away.
“Is this alright?” Gordon whispered. Benrey tapped his back again and he nodded. The elastic at the end of a crooked braid was next to be removed. He rolled the band off with his fingernails until it fell to the floor. This time, Gordon wasn’t as hesitant in untangling Benrey’s hair. They tilted their head into his palm, and he let his hand stay there just a bit longer.
As the minutes went by, the soft, gentle caresses had eased Benrey’s violent shaking to only the occasional shudder. Each time they flinched or winced at the the feeling of a stray hair getting caught in a clip or tangled in a hairtie, Gordon was quick to soothe them with a whisper and a reassuring touch until they gave him a tap to continue.
When the last accessory was finally released, Gordon hugged Benrey a bit tighter and felt them grip his shirt in return. He ran his hand through their hair and spoke again.
“I’m going to move us to the couch, is that alright?”
Tap.
With that confirmation, he scooped them up in his arms and sat on the couch, Benrey cradled in his lap as he kept his arms looped around them. In a different situation, Gordon would probably be second-guessing himself or feeling awkward about it. He’d been hesitant to show outward physical affection to Benrey for fear of provoking more of the jabs and comments they’d pestered him with in Black Mesa.
Seeing how they clung to him now, not a thread of humor in their expression, made Gordon start to question how many of those requests for hugs and kisses actually were jokes. Benrey took a shuddering breath in and Gordon rubbed their shoulder with his thumb.
One of their hands released his shirt and they pulled back a little. Gordon was about to ask if they wanted to be left alone when he noticed they were fingerspelling.
“S-T-A-Y?” Benrey signed, raising their eyebrows to indicate a question just like he’d taught them. Their eyes wouldn’t meet Gordon’s, but the lingering tremble in their shoulders and the tear stains on their cheeks were enough to tell him their request was nothing but sincere.
“Yeah, I can stay,” he whispered and pulled them in again. There was no hesitation on Benrey’s part in wrapping their arms back around him and burying their face in the crook of Gordon’s neck. He smiled and huffed out a fond sigh. Whatever emotional storm had crashed through Benrey, it seemed to have passed. It was over for now. They were going to have to talk in the morning, of course. Figure out what happened, why, and what could be done if it happened again.
A morning-after conversation on how to help. Just like Benrey had initiated when Gordon was on the other end of the breakdown. That feeling of uncertainty, of wondering if this was really even Benrey, surfaced again. He dismissed it. No, this wasn’t some weird fake or anything like that. This was Benrey, through and through, despite how different they were now. And they were different. They’d changed for the better. They had grown.
And he was so proud of them.
The fact that Gordon had voiced that last thought out loud didn’t register with him before he drifted off to the comforting weight and warmth of Benrey in his arms.
“I’m proud of you.”
It had been quiet, but Benrey would swear on their life—on all of their lives, however many they had left—that Gordon had said it. Their uncertainty on whether the praise was earned couldn’t stop them from basking in it.
They still wanted to get better. They wanted to be better, for everyone. To maybe amount to something that would be worth it—worth the trouble, worth the effort, just anything worth this feeling of safety and caring that was enough to overwhelm their memories and lull them back to a true, peaceful sleep.