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“And can you pick up some oat milk while you’re there? I just realized I’m out.”
“Man, oat milk freaks me out,” Benrey said, pushing their shopping cart towards the dairy section anyway. “Like, do oats even have, uh. Others?”
“Others?” There was a beat of silence as Gordon attempted to figure out exactly what the hell Benrey was talking about. “You mean udders?”
“Yeah. Cow things.”
“Dude, that’s not how oat milk works.” Gordon’s laugh made Benrey’s cheap phone speakers crackle.
“Then how does it work? Huh? Mister scientician?” Benrey propped the phone between their ear and shoulder as they opened the fridge door to grab the brand of oat milk he knew Gordon liked.
“I don’t fucking know! I’m not a goddamn milk scientist.” Even through a phone call, Benrey could hear the smile on Gordon’s face. “They squeeze juice out of the oats or smush them into a paste or something. I don’t know. Stop making me think about how oat milk works, it’s going to make me not want to drink it anymore.”
“Cool, so I’ll buy milk with extra lactose then.”
“You will not, unless you wanna deal with me laying on the couch complaining all afternoon because my stomach hurts.”
“You do that anyway.”
“Fuck off, man.” Gordon’s tone of voice didn’t carry any bite to it. “Alright, I gotta go, I’m almost at the end of the queue to pick Joshie up. I’ll see you back at home, okay?”
“Mhm. Love you, bye.” Benrey hung up and shoved their phone back in their jacket pocket. They unfolded the shopping list and attempted to decipher the mix of their own chicken scratch, Gordon’s doctor handwriting, and the occasional misspelled request for snacks in Joshua’s six year old handwriting. Okay, they had to get those frozen chicken nuggets Joshua liked, another pack of seltzer, a can of black beans since Gordon was planning to cook dinner tonight-
Thinking about Gordon made them suddenly freeze in place as they realized what they’d just done. Did… Did they just say “love you” on the phone with Gordon?
Aw, fuck.
They’d been living with Gordon for a while now. It hadn’t always been an easy thing for either of them. When they’d been freshly respawned, both of them had been jumpy around each other at best, and at worst, they were at each other’s throats trying to kill each other. It took a long time and a lot of uncomfortable conversations for them to get to the point where they could interact without an unbearable amount of tension. From there, they were able to start rebuilding an actual friendship. Turns out, they got along a lot better when they weren’t in mortal danger. Who knew!
Living with Gordon involved a lot of rules, both spoken and unspoken. They involved stuff like “don’t ask weird questions about Gordon’s feet,” “if one of them gets too angry, walk it off instead of actually fighting,” and “no gross body horror in front of Gordon’s son.” It also involved shit like “please for the love of god don’t put empty juice cartons back in the fridge” and “don’t stain the carpets with Sweet Voice, this is a rental and that security deposit is worth getting back.” So far, Benrey hadn’t had too much trouble following the rules. They had been a security guard, after all; following rules was supposed to be their thing. Besides, they were a low price to pay to get to spend time with Gordon.
One of those early unspoken rules, however, had been “keep the flirting to a minimum.” That one had been a little tricky at first, but it had been necessary, especially back when they still weren’t on the best of terms. Benrey learned that when Gordon was already worked up, blowing a kiss did the opposite of diffusing the situation. This was news to Benrey. Who didn’t love a little kiss from their buddies? Lame.
That had been an early rule, though, and one that had kind of faded into the background over time. The longer they lived together, the more physically affectionate they both got, and a little domesticity is only to be expected when you share a household. It was nice. Comfortable.
And then Benrey had to go and say “I love you” on the phone. What the fuck.
That had to be crossing a line, right? Gordon was fine with some handholding and some cuddling and they’d make dinner together once a week, but this had to be pushing it.
Benrey went through the rote motions of buying the rest of their groceries without really paying attention, too busy panicking. There was only one option. They had to move out. This was fine. This was totally fine. They could just crash on Tommy’s couch until they find a place of their own because there was no way this wasn’t going to make Gordon freak the fuck out. As much as they loved fucking with Gordon, they’d learned there was the fun kind of freaking him out and the bad kind of freaking him out. They were fairly certain this fell into the bad category.
By the time that they were walking up to their apartment door, they were already mentally packing up all their things, resigned to their fate. They were so stuck in their own head that Joshua barreling into their legs when they opened the door actually startled them.
“Benny!” Joshua cheered, clinging to their jeans.
“Hey, li’l dude.” Benrey carefully tried to push past the kid without tripping over him on the way to the kitchen. Tragically, that’s where Gordon also happened to be.
“Hey, what took you so long?” Gordon asked, taking some of the grocery bags from them. “I thought you’d gotten lost in Costco again.”
Benrey grunted noncommittally and started putting away groceries instead of answering Gordon. Maybe if they didn’t look at him, they could avoid confronting whatever Gordon’s reaction was. Yeah, definitely, this seemed like a sustainable, reasonable decision to make. Yep.
“Dude.” Gordon’s hand suddenly appeared on their forearm. Benrey stared at it, then looked up at Gordon’s concerned face. “Are you okay?”
“Huh?”
“You’re putting carrots in the utensil drawer.”
Benrey looked down at their hands again. Oh. So they were.
“You’ve been acting weird ever since you got back from the store,” Gordon said, gently taking the carrots away from them. “Did something happen? You wanna talk about it?”
Benrey screwed their mouth up. No, they didn’t want to talk about it, but learning how to talk through things like adults was something they both had agreed to do. That had been a rule introduced by an exasperated Tommy, sick of mediating their bullshit. So, they sighed and looked away while Gordon put the carrots in the vegetable drawer of the fridge. “I was thinking about how I’ve gotta move out.”
“What?” Gordon stood up too fast and smacked his head on the freezer door. He swore loudly, and Benrey reached over to hand him a bag of frozen peas to put on the back of his head. “Thanks. But also, what? Since when are you moving out?”
“Uh, since now?” Benrey said, confused. Shouldn’t it be obvious?
“Why?”
“‘Cause I said I love you on the phone? Dummy? You, uh, a fucking old man got bad brain disease, not remembering things?” They said, defaulting to picking on Gordon to avoid focusing on anything else. Gordon stared blankly at them for a moment, then, against all odds, a grin spread across his face.
“Benrey,” He said, and Benrey decided he didn't like that tone one bit, “Are you embarrassed?”
“Whuh? No.” There was no way they could be embarrassed. That definitely wasn't what was going on here. Nope. Not a bit, “...Maybe.”
“Dude, you don't have to be embarrassed about that.” Gordon laughed. “Do you know how often I've said stupid Freudian slips? I called my sixth grade teacher mom once and wanted to change my name and move to Canada. I've been there.”
“It wasn't, uh… It wasn't too much? Not crossing a line or anything?”
“Nah, man. It was kinda sweet.” Gordon flashed him a smile and finished putting away the last of the groceries.
“Cool.” Benrey relaxed, letting go of the tension that had been building in their shoulders. “That's good ‘cause I was gonna fight you for custody of your Xbox.” Gordon snorted.
“Good fucking luck, you’re too much of a Playstation guy to win that case.”
The evening passed relatively uneventfully from there. Gordon enlisted Benrey’s help in cooking dinner, and Joshua eagerly told them all about the cool dinosaur facts he’d learned in class that day. They went through the easy routine of watching just one episode (which of course always turned into several episodes) of Joshua’s choice of TV, then Benrey helped wash up in the kitchen while Gordon put Josh to bed. Gordon joined them as they finished washing dishes and squeezed Benrey’s shoulder affectionately when they were done.
“Alright, man, I think I’m gonna head to bed early tonight.”
Benrey nodded. “Cool. I’ll be quiet.”
“Don’t worry about it. G’night, dude.”
“Night, Gordon.”
“Oh, and Benrey?” Gordon paused in the doorway of his bedroom and waited until Benrey glanced up at him. Gordon smiled. “Love you too.”
He shut the door before Benrey could respond, leaving Benrey to stare blankly at the door. They let out a groan, careful not to wake Joshua. Oh, Gordon was going to be the death of them.