Archive of Our Own ^beta

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"Call me if you need anything, Benrey, and I mean anything . I know I’m a couple hours out, but I never mind making the drive."

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The sun is just beginning to hug the horizon when Benrey finds their way to their campsite. They had hiked up here with Darnold earlier in the week to leave behind plenty of everything Benrey would need to hold them over for two weeks. It had been a quick trip, though, and Benrey didn't really stop and give themself a chance to take it in.

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Benrey only notices they've been grinning the entire walk back when their cheeks start to hurt. They laugh, rubbing at their own face and thinking back on how their afternoon's gone. This is one of the only leads they’ve ever felt this good about. The Coomers have been cryptozoologists for longer than Benrey's been alive, and not only did they seem to have a real passion for what they did, they had been some of the only people who both listened to their story and took their reasoning seriously. Not only that, but they seemed to genuinely empathize.

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Waking up is a slow process for Benrey, startling upright when they realize they’re not seeing the inside of their own cabin. They scrub a hand down their face, rubbing at their eyes before remembering everything in a rush. The Coomers. The storm. The alien.

Benrey stares down at their own hands like it’s the first time they’re seeing them. They don’t know what emotion is taking precedence. Shock and awe are at the forefront, but beyond that, how they’re processing everything is one massive unknown.

Gordon's not lying next to them, and Benrey finds they’re both disappointed and relieved. They probably would’ve just ceased to be if they woke up and their face was still less than a foot away from his like it was when they fell asleep. Benrey's awake enough now to note a gentle clinking sound and humming; it’s a song they distantly recognize but can't put a name to.

They wish they could lie there a little while longer, maybe try and fall back asleep, to keep enjoying the gentle ambience with the air filled with Gordon's sounds and the scent of coffee, but how often have things gone the way Benrey’s wanted on this trip? They abruptly sneeze hard enough to make their chest flare up with dull sparks of pain, groaning and shoving their face into the pillows beneath them.

“Morning,” Gordon calls out, tone giving way to something amused. “You want coffee?”

“Bean water gross,” Benrey complains through a sniffle. “Got— do you got any more tissues? Guh. Painkillers, too, maybe please. Head's hurting and I'm kinda just… sore everywhere.”

“Yeah, man, of course, gimme a second. Sorry, I wasn't thinking about how shitty you’d be feeling.” They hear the telltale sounds of Gordon rummaging through cupboards and drawers.

“What about cold meds? You're sounding kinda congested. Is there anything you can't take? Wait, that's right— I was thinking about doing tea for you instead. Tea with honey would be a good idea if your throat's sore… anything you're allergic to or don't like?”

Benrey’s picking up on how Gordon falls back on asking a barrage of questions when he's anxious or caught up in his own head. It's such an obvious tell and it’s unbelievably endearing.

“Yes to cold meds, please with cheese.” How dumb they felt saying that is immediately outweighed by the short laugh it gets out of Gordon, so Benrey wins everything forever, actually.

“No, uh... no problem pills. Or— or anything bad. Good for whatever. I'll try anything once. Just— you could just pick one you like. Thanks a ton, man.” They pull the quilt completely over themself, feeling a little pathetic but a lot comfy as they draw their legs close to their chest to fight the chill crawling up and over their shoulders.

A short span of time stretches out between them before Gordon walks their way, house creaking beneath his feet. His footfalls are still softer than Benrey anticipates, like how he moved through the forest the first time they met. He carries himself with a sort of… caution, almost; there's a sense of extended consideration around every action he takes. Benrey feels a sort of muted anger, wondering who made him feel like he had to shrink into himself like that.

Gordon sets a tray down in front of Benrey, and they mentally have to shoo away the thoughts telling them it feels like being served breakfast in bed by a doting boyfriend. Shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up—

The tray is lined with a couple pill bottles, another big mug filled with still-steeping tea, a milk jar with a strawberry pattern, and a plate of toast. The bread looks homemade, baked to a rich brown with oats rolled along its sides. Benrey hopes they’re not drooling as much as they hope they’re not blushing. He’s genuinely like someone’s dream of a warm, homey mountain man that lives in a cozy cabin.

“I went with chai, hope that's good,” Gordon murmurs, sipping his coffee and leaning against the door to his backyard. “How are you feeling?”

“Hurting, 'nd gross. But, y'know, I'll live. Would've been worse if you hadn't found me, so... thanks. Thanks a ton. I owe you one big time.” Benrey takes a massive bite of toast and barely keeps themself from groaning aloud. “Holy shit, this is good. Quit whatever you’re doing now and bake bread forever.”

“I always— I always thought I’d have a bakery when I grew up, actually. Then I ended up studying environmental science.” Gordon takes a seat on the couch and laughs like it’s just something that happens to everybody. “And c’mon, you don't owe me. I didn't help you wanting something back for it. Seriously. There's not some, like... set of balances I'm holding you to.”

Benrey doesn’t know how to respond, so they don’t. Their fingers glide along the raised design of the mug, looking down at the rising steam before glancing outside. The view is a pretty one, now that it's light enough to appreciate it. There are dense clusters of trees on all sides, and in between the ones right outside the window next to the fireplace, there's a thin sliver of the distant lake, surface gleaming in the sun.

The house bustles with quiet activity. A dishwasher rumbles in the kitchen, birdsong and chipmunk chatter skitters in through the open windows, a radio wheels along a cassette tape. It’s playing some soft instrumental music compromised of guitar and percussion. It's peaceful in a way that feels so natural, so easy to fall into, that Benrey regrets the fact that they'll have to get up and moving soon.

“What, uh... shit, what time is it?” They start, wincing at how the words grate on their throat.

“Hm…” Gordon glances over his shoulder to the clock above the kitchen sink. “A little after one.”

“Oh. Damn. Was just fuckin’ comatose on your floor. Sorry, man.”

“You don't need to apologize, or be so apologetic in the first place. You didn't do anything wrong by needing help, Benrey. God knows dad and papa have plenty of stories to share about times they've had to pull me out of some batshit circumstances. Sometimes things just go wrong no matter how careful you are. Besides, you ran into a fucking alien.”

Oh. Right. They did, didn't they? Benrey was honestly still in the process of convincing themself it was a fever dream, even knowing they're not sick enough for that. Wait.

“Shit, it's— I need— bag.”

“Huh?”

“My bag. Backpack. I didn't lose it, did I?”

“Oh, no, it’s just— it was soaked and covered in mud, so I pulled everything out to make sure nothing got ruined. The bag itself's washing with your clothes. I wasn't trying to, like, go through your shit. I really should’ve asked, but I didn’t wanna wake you. Hope that was okay.”

“Bro, you're telling me not to be apologetic, but you keep checking in with me for everything.” Gordon opens his mouth to say something when Benrey cuts him off with a deadpan look.

“You're good. You're doin' me a favor and you're all nervous about it. Gotta quit.”

“Fine,” he relents. “You're right. I'll— I'll work on it. Force of habit.”

There's that dulled anger again, that mental strand of questions Benrey runs through about why he feels that way and about what they could do to reassure him, but they set those aside. Another thing to sift through later.

“You said you took everything out?”

Gordon nods in the direction of the dining room table, where everything of Benrey's has been laid out neatly. A fan gently rustles the pages of their field guide in an attempt at getting it dry. Benrey hides their smile behind their mug.

He's just so considerate— thoughtful in a way Benrey's only really known with Darnold. In fear of getting sappy, they decide not to voice any of that, instead offering him a quick thanks and getting onto their feet. A hand has to fly out and grab at a support beam, eyesight a little spotty as they sway.

“Take it slow, man. Don’t rush it.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, sure thing, you’re gonna— what’re you gonna do next, gonna lay down your coat, have me walk over a puddle because I’ll melt and die if I touch water? Benrey made of glass? Maybe chill out? It’s chill.”

Gordon frowns over at Benrey and refuses to grace any of that with a response, but gets up a second later and follows them anyway.

Benrey yanks their laptop out of the case, grimacing at how it feels in their hands. The outside’s drenched and smells faintly of soap where who knows how much grime has been scrubbed off of it, but it’s done its job.

Their laptop seems to have quite literally weathered the storm as best it could, faint Lichtenbergs at the corners of their screen that they hardly pay mind to. Their leg bounces near frantically while waiting for it to start up.

“You—”

“One sec,” Benrey interrupts, staring intently at the loading animations, unable and unwilling to divert a single ounce of focus anywhere else.

Gordon joins them in watching the screen in silence, and the second it’s up and running— and Benrey only receives a small shock in the process— they click open the captures folder on their desktop. They scroll impatiently to the bottom, starting at the beginning of last night’s footage.

“Can I talk now?”

“Whuh— yeah, I guess, I’m just— mm, nothing here.” Benrey shoots him a look. “Did there— did you think there was anything in that last one?”

“I don’t think so. What are you looking for, exactly?”

“Uuh. Y’know. The alien.” Benrey clicks to the next and waves their arm in front of his face, scarred skin bared on display in front of his eyes.

“Right. Right, sorry, dude— okay, I get it!” Gordon shoves their arm aside. “No, I didn’t see anything. Definitely not a fucking— how did you say it showed up? Green lightning?”

“Yeah, or… something like it. I dunno. Was the best way I could describe it.”

Gordon hums wordlessly as they both return to going through the second video. Nothing. Benrey moves to the third, not realizing they’re all but inches from their screen when they feel Gordon move in close, too. Nothing. They move to the fourth clip. They’re both seemingly starting to forget how to breathe when Gordon abruptly startles and grabs their shoulder.

“Hey, wait— go back.”

Benrey hits the left arrow, rewinding their footage fifteen seconds and following where Gordon’s index presses to their screen.

“Was that you? That doesn’t look like a flashlight to me.”

“Wuh? Hold on, lemme—”

Benrey clicks on the zoom tool, dragging their cursor over the space Gordon pointed to, and nearly jumps out of their seat.

That’s definitely not them, nor anything close to what a flashlight or headlamp looks like when it’s caught on these cameras. It’s closer to firelight than anything, but the way it moves doesn’t make sense. There’s a strange, flickering quality to it, almost shimmering like a mirage. As the video plays out, the light begins to dip in and out of focus without rhythm.

“Whoa,” Benrey gasps. “You— you seeing this?”

“Yeah. This is… I don’t even know what to say,” Gordon breathes, so floored that he doesn’t realize his grip on Benrey’s shoulder tightens. Benrey doesn’t notice, either, enraptured in closely following the pixels on their screen.

Suddenly, the glow intensifies, and something begins to distort the air around it, and—

The footage glitches out, making Benrey jump back in their seat and knock their head into Gordon’s jaw. Both of them wince and cave inwards, groaning and laughing in equal measure. Benrey pauses the clip in between giggles, cracking an eye open to look back at Gordon.

“Shit, sorry,” they apologize, giggling with an anxious tilt. “Jumpscared myself.”

Gordon wheezes, rubbing at what’s definitely going to be a bruise. “You’re fine, man, I did the same. Seriously, though, what was that? Can you go back?”

Benrey drags their mouse along the timeline, clicking it to a stop right where they think they left off. It starts when the light begins to waver, and right as it begins to grow stronger, the feed glitches out extravagantly.

Colors spark up and erode the footage with an array that rivals the off the air screen of an old TV. The pixels take up incomprehensible shapes that hurt to look at, but are almost beginning to coalesce into something resembling a silhouette. Benrey and Gordon have both subconsciously begun leaning again, eyes straining to make out something tangible, when the laptop hisses, crashing and cutting to a bluescreen.

“Shit, shit, no, come on!” Benrey waits until Gordon stands to throw their head back in a huff, pressing their palms hard into their eyes. “Fuck. That may’ve corrupted it. There was— there was something there. You saw it, right?”

“I… I don’t know what I saw, but there was— yeah. Yeah.” Gordon trails off, at a total loss for words. The pair take up the pattern of sitting without words exchanged as Benrey’s computer boots back up, both holding their breath as they mouse over to the captures folder again, both leaning back in as they scroll to the same video.

It opens, which means it’s not corrupted, and Benrey’s about to heave a relieved sigh before their hands are flying up over their ears instead. Their laptop speakers are emitting a single, shrill tone, piercing and deafening, and Gordon recoils and mirrors their position, hands clamped against the sides of his head.

“Fuck! Benrey! Turn it off, turn it off, turn it off!”

Benrey scrambles to hit the spacebar, a frustrated sound torn from their mouth when it doesn’t work. The program’s freezing up. They hit control-alt-delete as fast as they can, lungs straining with frantic breaths in and out. The both of them sigh when the sound finally stops.

“How— the— the clips aren’t supposed to have sound. The trail cams I got don’t… record sound.” Alright. Not what they intended to say, but what ended up leaving their mouth anyway. Benrey tells their computer to restart, not feeling like either they or Gordon are up for dealing with that noise a second longer if they close back out of this screen and it begins again.

“Gordon?” They look back over and feel their chest clench. Shit. Gordon’s hands are still pressed firmly to his ears, shoulders hunched inwards and breaths short and hurried. It’s something Benrey’s intimately familiar with, but more with experiencing it, not seeing it on someone else.

“Oh. Hey, it’s— there something I can do?”

Gordon can only shake his head, and instead balls his hands into fists to hit them against his temples.

“Hey, hey. Don’t do that, please,” Benrey urges, reaching out to grab his wrists but freezing when they realize they don’t know if he’s alright with being touched. Gordon stops himself, sucking in air through his teeth.

“Breathe for a sec and then try— think— think again about if I can help, okay? You just gotta breathe first.”

Benrey’s never been one for being helpful during things like this. They didn’t exactly have a good frame of reference, they think sourly, but Gordon seems to take well to it either way. He nods, slowly unclenching his hands and starting to rock in place.

“Weighted blanket. At the— the end of my bed. Please.”

“Oh. Yeah, bro, we can— uh… bedroom where?”

“S-second door. Right side.”

“Okay. I got you, man. You just hang back and breathe. You already— you’re doing good. Just k-keep… doin’ what you’re doin’.”

Benrey fights the urge to groan aloud at themself as they stand and turn down the hall, finding his room and nearly sending the doorknob through the wall with how fast they throw the door open. They don’t really have the time, but they let themself take a few indulgent glances around.

His bedroom is as cozy and picture perfect as Benrey expected. There’s even more photos here, an even split between Gordon with his fathers and the same man and his dog from the mantel picture. A flannel blanket striped with reds and oranges has been thrown across the mattress in a quick attempt at making the bed, a gray weighted one folded up at the foot. Benrey doesn’t let themself linger and grabs it, hurrying back out but hesitating on their approach. Last thing they want to do is startle him and undo any progress he’s made.

“Am I good? To get— to get closer, I mean. Can get you set up with blanket time.”

Gordon only nods, his next inhale slightly shaky.

“Yeah, there we go, man…” Benrey shuts themself up and steps up to his side, fanning the blanket out and trying to be so cool and strong and definitely not at all struggling with how heavy it is. Makes sense that any weighted blanket he owned would have to be big both in size and how much it’s weighed down, Gordon’s a big guy, but still. The second it settles over his shoulders, Gordon sighs, tension seeping out of his body with it.

“Thanks,” he hums, pulling the blanket around himself tighter. “Sorry about… all of that. I can’t remember the last time I was that close to a panic attack. Guess I was overdue,” he laughs weakly.

“No, hey, you’re— you’re more than good. I’m, um— I deal with it all the time and I’m still— can’t— not good at coping. Managing.”

“Better than a lot of other people would’ve been in your place. You spoke calmly and led me through it. That’s— that’s not nothing, Benrey.”

“Think you’re giving me too much credit.”

“I don’t think you give yourself enough,” Gordon counters right back.

Benrey breathes out in a rush, turning back to their laptop and teeth digging into their bottom lip.

“So, uuh, that’s— don’t even know where to start with… all of that.”

“...yeah,” Gordon says after a pause, staring through the laptop screen. Benrey can practically see the gears churning in his head and knows they probably don’t look much different. They’re so caught up in their own thoughts that it makes them jolt when Gordon speaks up again.

“It’s kinda like it got worse each time.”

“Huh?”

“The video.”

Realizing that explains nothing, Gordon runs a hand through his hair and sits up straighter, gesticulations growing sharper.

“Every time you tried to replay it, it deteriorated. The first time it crashes your computer, and the second time it— I dunno, it fucks up your audio driver? Or something? Whatever the case, to me, it’s looking like whatever… that was, there’s something about it that messes with electronics, or maybe it just can’t be recorded at all. I dunno. There could be more to it than that. I don’t know what that means, but… there’s something going on.”

“...huh. Shit.”

Gordon nods like he was asked a question, dropping his hands to his lap and staring at the ceiling.

“What’re you gonna do now?” he asks.

“What d’ you mean?”

“How are you going to… navigate this, I guess? You don’t think it’s your cryptid—”

“I know it’s not my cryptid.”

“All the same,” Gordon waves his hand through the air before counting points off on his fingers. “It’s not your cryptid, it’s messing with your trail cameras in a way that we don’t understand and could actually be ruining your equipment— and that’s all we know it can do as of right now — and it’s actively fucking hostile. ”

“We don’t know that.”

“You told me it lunged for your head, mouth open and filled with the alien equivalent of blender blades. Tell me again that that’s not hostile.”

“...maybe I just scared it.”

“Benrey.”

“Okay, man, I get it. Just… I dunno. Always hoped if I ever met an alien, it would be chill. Like E.T. Best friends. Just have Gordo as my best friend now, so, y’know. It’s not all bad.”

“E.T. was actually meant to be a horror movie,” Gordon snorts, propping up his glasses higher on his nose. Benrey mentally fist pumps at how he hasn’t corrected the ‘best friends’ part. Fucking score.

“Was it really?”

“Yeah! Like… I gotta wonder if that’s why the alien design’s unsettling for a lot of kids who grew up with it— me included,” Gordon laughs through his words. “Papa and dad would have to sweep through my bedroom and triple-check my closet before I felt comfortable enough to sleep some nights. For the longest time, I was fucking terrified of being E.T.’s friend.”

Benrey cackles, doubling over and tearing up with how hard they make themself laugh.

“Holy— holy shit. Scared of a spaceman? Idiot baby?”

“Oh, come on! Every kid had some weird hyper-specific fear growing up. You did too! What was yours?”

“Wasn’t scared of anything.”

“Please,” Gordon rolls his eyes. Benrey laughs harder. He could be so dramatic at the most unexpected intervals, and since they were already on a tear, it was apparently hilarious to their brain right now.

“You were fucking scared of something . Every kid was.”

“That what you say to feel better about yourself?”

“Shut up,” Gordon sighs, looking up at the curl that’s fallen in front of his eyes and puffing up an exhale to brush it away. “Fine. You don’t have to tell me.”

Ah, shit. He’s getting kind of cagey. Gordon glances out his windows, along his walls, anywhere but Benrey or their computer, fingers moving listlessly over the edges of his weighted blanket.

“Whatever. It’s whatever! It's just— Halloweentown.”

“What?”

“Thing I was scared of growing up. ‘s that one scene in Halloweentown.”

Gordon raises an eyebrow, blanket sliding down his back. “What scene?”

“It’s, uuh… it’s been a while, but there’s— it was like a theater? And the guys who lived in Halloweentown would end up there, get frozen like statues. The dude who showed up on the screen used to scare the shit out of me.”

“Didn’t— didn’t he have a dumb name? I think I remember telling my dads his name sounded like a candy bar.”

“I don’t know? Dude. Gordon.” Benrey puts both hands on his shoulders, dropping their voice to a mock-serious tone. “I haven’t seen this movie since before I knew being anything but straight was a thing you could do. It’s been a fucking while.”

“Okay, okay!” Gordon shoos Benrey away, laughing the entire time. They’re dialed in to the feeling of his shoulders jumping beneath their grip, how strong and clear his laugh is, like a bell ringing out through crisp, clear autumn air.

Their laptop has completed its restart, and Benrey’s hands move away, index hovering indecisively above the trackpad.

“Should I, uh… maybe wait? For this? Or, like— I could go sit on the porch or somethin’.”

“Hold on a sec.”

Gordon heads down the hall, presumably into his room, and steps back out with a pair of headphones on, flashing Benrey a thumbs up. They rasp out a short laugh and open up the captures folder.

“It’s— it's gone.”

Gordon blinks, once, twice, and slides the headphones down.

“What?”

“Gone,” Benrey repeats, more frantically, and turns the laptop to face him. The entire folder is empty. Not just of the footage recorded from last night, but every night previous.

“Oh, shit. Check your recycle bin, maybe?”

“Already doing it,” Benrey mumbles. It’s taking an unusually long time to load when the process normally takes all of half a second, making them hopeful that all the videos are waiting there for them, but Benrey’s hardly been that lucky. Lucky-unlucky streak, a voice singsongs in the back of their head, remembering the entirety of the night before. They slump back in their seat with a groan, wrapping their arms around themself.

“What the fuck is even going on? If it’d just corrupted, it w— it should still be here. It’s never done this... this shouldn’t’ve happened, I don’t— I don’t get it!” Benrey feels so childish, walking along the border of a meltdown like they are, but after everything, they think they’re at least a little bit justified in being upset.

“Benrey, hey…” Gordon tries to console. “Can you remember the name? Or even just part of it? You could try using the search function on your drive, see if it got moved somehow?”

“Yeah… yeah, okay.” They sit up straighter, starting to pull their hair back before realizing they don’t have anything to tie their hair up with.

“Oh, here. You can keep this.” Gordon holds out a hair tie for them— an orange one with a flower-shaped metal clasp connecting both ends of the elastic.

“You sure? This one’s kinda fancy.”

“Fancy?” Gordon cocks an eyebrow with a lopsided smile. Benrey hopes they didn’t suck in their next inhale too sharply and weren’t too obvious when their eyes darted away.

“My friend bought me a ton of these. I don’t, um… I don’t mind you having it.” Gordon still holds his hand out awkwardly, glancing back and forth between Benrey and where his leg bounces. It takes a second for Benrey’s brain to reboot before they can reach their hand out in turn, taking it from his palm with unsure fingers.

“Thank you,” they say softly, moving to pin the tie between their teeth as they pull their hair back up again, tugging the elastic down their wrist and tying their hair back. They almost missed Gordon looking their way from the corner of his eye. Almost. Not knowing how else to break the silence, Benrey clears their throat and drags the laptop close to themself again.

“Search is done.”

“Right. Right! Did it…?”

“Nothing. It’s just gone.”

“Shit. That shouldn’t— I’m sorry, man. Oh, wait: if you’re getting the clips from cameras, maybe you could check your download history and—”

A waterfall of green and black pixels erupting from the top of the screen cuts Gordon off with a startled yelp. The surge of neon colors cascade over the search window, the desktop, swallowing up shortcut icons with a low, droning hum. A second sound accompanies it, something that starts and stops with a noise that could best be described as crunching, like the thing you fed your tickets to at the arcade Benrey spent the majority of their birthdays in.

The monitor is now completely engulfed, flashing between green and black without rhythm and making Benrey’s eyes burn.

“Benrey… Benrey, I don’t like this.”

Benrey isn’t hearing him. They’re transfixed, entranced, staring intently at these two shifting colors like they hold the answers to every question they’ve ever asked. So enraptured that they don’t notice when the green has sprouted outside of the screen.

“Benrey!”

Three things happen in the same instant. The first is that Benrey is tackled backwards, chair clattering forcefully to the floor beside them. The second is that lightning parts the air above the table, and with it, the sharp tang of ozone blooms in putrid clouds. The third is that there’s a distinct zapping sound, a hiss, and then everything falls silent. No birdsong. No chattering of forest fauna. Not their own hearts, beats clipped and quickened. For a moment, sound isn’t reaching them.

Neither of them dare to move any more than the heaving of their chests, the hurried breaths in and out, eyes wide and unblinking and staring into each other’s, as if the other somehow has all the answers. Gordon’s still lying above them, arms still bracketing either side of their head, still not moving, still looking for all the world both terrified and exhilarated, and Benrey knows that their expression mirrors his.

“Are you okay?” Gordon gets out between pants. His hair is an explosion of frizzy, loose curls hanging down around his face, skin dotted with sweat and expression still harboring a frantic, wild look.

“I— yeah. Yeah, but… shit, think I mighta knocked down one of your plants. Sorry.”

“You didn’t— everything looks fine to me.”

“But why’re there leaves on the—” Benrey looks down at the wood flooring beneath their hands, and doesn’t see the ground littered with soil and stems like they expected. They could’ve sworn they had felt the texture, though. They had felt the unmistakable soft drag of flora along their palms, and yet the floor under them is bare.

“Oh. Huh. Uh, never mind. What about you? You good?”

“I think so? Nothing’s—” Gordon sits up a bit straighter and winces, clearly trying to make his reaction less obvious than it was.

“No, you’re not, it’s— where is it?”

“It’s really not a big deal—”

“Then show me.”

Gordon’s eyes flicker between both of theirs before he huffs out an exhale and acquiesces, sliding off of Benrey and turning his back to them. The fabric that stretches over his shoulder is darkened— singed, Benrey realizes.

“Gotta, uh— you cool with pulling your shirt off for me?” The second they finish asking, Benrey swallows audibly. They are three seconds away from standing and charging headfirst into the closest wall. Why did you word it like that, why did your voice have to crack in the middle, why, why, why—

“Can’t see it like— like this. Need a better look. If that’s chill.”

“Yeah. Yeah, okay. Go ahead.” Gordon shifts in place.

Benrey’s hands bump into his as they both reach for the hem of his shirt, and they proceed to awkwardly fumble over the next minute, filled with nothing but anxious laughter and meaningless chatter before Benrey sees it.

He’s been struck, but it’s not quite a mark like theirs. There’s a faint, roving green glow, that much is the same, but instead of that sprawling, tree branch-like pattern on Benrey, the shapes that make up the new marks along Gordon’s skin are wavy and rounded. The area around the burn is practically glowing red, inflamed and angry like dying coals. Between the color and the looping lines, it kind of looks like—

“Whoa. Spaghetti skin.”

“What?!” Gordon cries out, hands flying up over his back. “I-is— is my fucking skin melting off in ribbons, i-i-is it just fucking hanging loose back there? Benrey? Benrey, what the fuck does that mean, you can’t— can’t just say that and then not say anything else, man, it—”

“Whoa, relax. Skin is— everything’s still there, man. Burn’s just all fucked up.”

“Burn?”

“Yeah, like mine. We’re matchies. Sorta. Not really. Yours got wild and wacky with it.”

“That’s not filling me with confidence. You get why it’s not filling me with confidence, right? I swear to god, if you say you don’t get it, I’m going to fucking—” Gordon turns sharply to look at Benrey over his shoulder and makes himself hiss in a pained breath through his teeth.

“Dumbass.”

“Fuck you.”

“Mean. Just hold still, lemme—”

Benrey grabs their phone off the table and opens their camera, taking a picture of Gordon’s shoulder and turning their screen towards him. His nose immediately scrunches up and he looks a little like he wants to be sick.

“Oh, what the fuck.”

“Yeah. Sorry.”

“I mean, it’s not like you did it—” Gordon cuts himself off. “Wait. Wait, no. What if you did?”

“Wh— you think I did that?”

“No! Not, like… directly! Wait, no, that sounds bad— what I’m trying to say is that you didn’t do it— not really. I think… this might sound stupid, but I think your computer is—”

Right in the middle of his sentence, another spark distorts the air right outside the dining room window, and Benrey and Gordon look out just in time to watch Benrey’s laptop fall from the rift. Both of them slowly turn back to each other with mouths hung open. It’s easily a good five minutes of complete silence before Benrey can break it.

“I’m gonna go grab that and put it in whatever room is the farthest away.”

“I made a fucking alien computer is what you’re telling me.”

“No!” Gordon barks out laughter. “No, you’re— do you just intentionally never listen to anything I say?”

Benrey smooths down the bandage along Gordon’s shoulder and pats at his back to let him know he’s done.

“Not always intentionally.”

Gordon groans and scrubs both hands down his face.

“What I’m trying to get at,” he enunciates each word carefully. “Is that there’s something going on with the computer and what’s happening with the… the aliens.” The pause stretches out between them. “The… lightning? The lightning only showed up after you kept trying to play the video, and with whatever you caught on it, it was fucking up your computer worse and worse each time, and then it ends with… all of that. There’s some kinda connection o-or— something.”

“Or something.”

“Look, I know it sounds wild! But none of this makes sense in the first place, dude! I’m trying my best here!”

“I’m not mad at you, man! I’m freaking the fuck out about this shit!” Benrey shuts the first aid kit with a harsh snap, feeling guilty when Gordon jumps but unable to stop themself from continuing. “I never really thought I’d even get to fuckin’... see my cryptid again, that I really did just imagine everything, and not— it— not only do I not find it but find th-that there is more out there, now I’m part of all this! It’s— I just… it’s a lot.”

“I’m in the boat too, man. We’re— we’re both dealing with it now. We’re both fully in this shit.”

They fall into a tense quiet, eyes darting around the walls, the floor, staunchly avoiding each other.

“Should head back to my cabin maybe.”

“No, hang on, don’t feel like you have to leave. I didn’t— I’m sorry,” Gordon mutters, hands listlessly running up and down his own forearms.

“It’s not you. I just— part of it’s wanting to see if the cams are okay, y’know, after all that. Another part’s needing to get back to camp and… dunno, get back out there, I guess. At some point. Think I just need time to deal.”

“Yeah… yeah, of course. You think you can find your way back?”

“Maybe. GPS was fucked before. Gotta— j— gotta give it another shot.”

Benrey looks back over their things laid out over the table, finding and flicking on their GPS. They brace for another shock that doesn’t come, greeted instead by the usual loading screen that prefaces everything clicking on and loading as it should. The only indication anything was ever wrong to begin with is the faintest traces markings burned down the middle of the screen, sprawled out like tree branches.

“Looks like it’s working. I think. If it fucks up and I get lost, you can always just, uuh… magically show up in front of me again,” they say with a dry laugh. Gordon gives them a tight smile.

“Right.”

“Yeah.”

Gordon drums his fingers on the floor, the sound catching Benrey’s attention. It’s different than they anticipated, somehow, in a way they can’t really explain.

They finish packing up the rest of their bag, shouldering it and heading for the front door. Turning back around, Gordon hasn’t moved up from where Benrey had him sit to help with his shoulder. Stormy is really the only word that suits his expression, eyes downcast and expression distant.

“See you when I see you, man.”

If Gordon answered Benrey before they shut the door, they didn’t hear it.

Benrey sighs when their cabin comes into view between the trees, shrugging off their backpack when they get to the front door. It’s unlocked. Pretty careless, but Benrey’s been fucking up all kinds of things lately, they think bitterly. Pushing past the thought, they shut the door behind themself and drop their bag on the window seat. Benrey freezes.

A chair at the kitchen table has been pulled out. The difference is minute, but this is coming from someone who keeps their spaces in a very particular way, without fail. The jacket they draped over the back of it now has one of its sleeves resting on the table when Benrey knows it hadn’t been that way before. Looking around, that’s not all that seems out of place.

Their laptop charger is closer to the wall than it was when they left, like it had been nudged back. The flannel cover on their air mattress is almost balled up now, tangled in on itself much tighter than Benrey knows it had been.

Someone was here, and someone was looking for something.

Chapter Text

The day that follows after Benrey leaves Gordon’s cabin is as uneventful as they come. The first thing they set out to do is check on their cameras like they said they would. They find each and every one doing fine, untouched from their perches and, as far as Benrey can tell, unaffected by any of what’s happened. They head back home, silently chew their way through another packet of ready food, and have a dreamless, fitful night of sleep.

Benrey tosses and turns and wakes up with their head at the foot of their bed. They eventually get up for breakfast when their stomach howls at them long enough, flannel blanket draped around their shoulders.

Benrey’s scrunching their nose up at the fucky texture of a blueberry muffin top, glaring at their laptop charging across the room. They crinkle the wrapper mindlessly and mentally try to talk themself out of laying in bed all day when movement flickers from the corner of their eye. They look and almost choke on the meager mouthful they’d been gnawing on.

It’s Gordon, and— Benrey snorts. And he’s wearing a sweater vest— a dark green one, embroidered with flowers and spiraling stems. Benrey half-hates admitting it to themself, but he looks good. It’s unbelievably dorky and insanely charming all in the same breath. Half of his hair’s been pulled up into a bun while the rest falls over his shoulders. He tugs on a curl as he paces at the foot of the path leading to Benrey’s cabin. He looks like he’s going to wear grooves into the soil if he keeps this up.

“Gordon?” Benrey calls out from the open windows, holding back a laugh when he visibly jumps. “What’s up, dude?”

“Yesterday fucking sucked,” Gordon responds in a rush, stilling his hand. “I don’t— I don’t like the note it left off on. That we left off on. I was gonna come out here to talk, but I found something on the way.” His original nervousness starts to shift to giddy excitement, and damn him, it’s contagious. “Come with me, please? I think you’re gonna be stoked, man.”

“Wuh— uh… yeah, sure. Yeah. Lemme put on my boots.”

Going through the rote motions of lacing up their shoes and double then triple checking everything on their belt and in their bag, Benrey finds themself… anxious? Excited? No, it’s both, it’s definitely both, stirring together in a not entirely unpleasant way. Benrey’s quickly becoming acquainted with this feeling— why does Gordon make them feel like this so often and so easily?

“Benrey?”

Right. They’re supposed to be doing something right now. They can stew on all of this later. Add it to the pile.

“Yeah, good. All good. You— what were you gonna show me?” They pull their hair up into a ponytail while walking down the footpath to Gordon.

“It kinda kills the surprise if I flat out tell you what it is.”

“Never said it was a surprise, though.”

“Wh— I didn’t? Pretty sure I did— didn’t I? I had to’ve implied it.”

“Huh?” Benrey can’t hide the beginnings of a shit-eating grin.

“Oh, fuck you! We’re gonna be here all day and you know that— just let me show you! I think you’re gonna love it.”

“Wanna bet?”

“We are not doing this.”

“I dunno, sounds like you’re not confident in what you’re selling.”

“I’m not selling you anything! There’s no— there’s no product here.”

“That’s exactly what’s— uh. What you’d say. If there was a product. That was being sold. By you. To me.”

“Oh my god,” Gordon groans, pushing his glasses up to his forehead and scrubbing a hand down his face. “Look, if you don’t like it, then I owe you something else. I’m trying here, man, c’mon.”

Benrey pushes past him and picks a direction at random. “Let’s go, please? Wasting so much time being mean to me and starts— starting fights— what’s wrong with you?”

“What’s wrong w— you’re going the wrong way!”

Gordon stops the both of them a short ways from where the land starts to slope after a drawn-out process of Benrey-herding and a full debate’s worth of nonsense arguments.

“Oh, wait, close your eyes.”

“Are you kiddi— there are roots ev-er-y-where. I trip on these even when I’m looking right at ‘em. Don’t wanna fuck up my knees and ankles, thank you.”

“I’m not gonna let you trip. We’re not going far, dude. It’ll be fine.”

There’s an unspoken ‘trust me’ at the end that both of them know is there, and after what the both of them have been through in the last forty-eight hours, it’s with a degree of mild alarm and a frisson of excitement that Benrey can say they do.

“...okay. Know that if this surprise sucks, we’re not gonna be best friends anymore,” Benrey declares, expectantly holding out a hand.

Gordon snorts, taking their hand in his, and oh, they should’ve thought this through. His hand absolutely dwarfs theirs, warm like a campstove, freckled and scarred and— one of the scars looks new.

“Oh, hey, when’d you do this?”

“Benrey, eyes closed! Wh— oh, it’s really not a big deal, man.” Gordon scratches at his beard and looks away, absentmindedly running his thumb back and forth over the back of Benrey’s hand. Benrey comes very close to making an insanely embarrassing noise.

“I’m not even sure how I did that— I just remember it being ‘cause of something stupid.”

“Kinda— kinda bad at figuring out how those hands work, huh? Guess you can’t— shouldn’t— shouldn’t be trusted with ‘em. This’s mine now.” They squeeze his hand tighter, pulling it against their chest.

Gordon blinks down at them and breaks into a wide grin, wheezing out a laugh and easily tugging their joined hands to thud against his chest instead.

“I kinda need this, considering what I’ve got to show you.”

They raise an eyebrow, but relent, closing their eyes and letting Gordon steer the both of them around tree clusters and underbrush.

“Okay, and… open!”

Benrey does, and their eyes instantly grow that much wider.

Blueberry bushes are grouped together in dense, full bunches, and from what they can see, all of the fruit looks ripened and heavy, blinking out from between rich green leaves as they murmur in gentle winds. The grass all around them is dotted with wildflowers, a veritable palette of swaying colors. There’s easily twenty bushes here, probably more, all of them equally weighed down by the deep indigo fruit that’s bloomed in overabundance.

“Holy— holy shit. It’s— this is— wh— Gordon?”

“I know!” Gordon beams. “I couldn’t tell you how long I was standing here staring at ‘em! They’re close to your cabin, too… works out pretty great, huh?”

“I— yeah, bro, i-it’s great, but— holy shit. I’ve never seen this many all in one place! What the hell is— how’d it even wind up like this?”

Gordon shrugs as if they actually expected him to be able to answer that, crouching down and plucking a blueberry, rolling it between his fingers. “Beats me! So, hey, did my surprise check out?”

Benrey kneels down with him, grabbing at his shoulders and shaking him. “Fuck, yeah, man! Could— about t— gonna give you a big messy kiss right now.”

Gordon laughs, waving them off and shoving their face back like he thinks they’re kidding.

“There’s a lot out here, huh?” Gordon raises the leaves up on the bush by his side and starts picking more, dropping them in his basket. “I poked around when I found them— I think all the bushes are full like this. Hey, it was— I was wondering— I mean, I was absolutely gonna let you have all of them if you wanted, but since there’s so much out here— maybe it could— or, I mean, I could—”

“C’mon, man. Tell me what you’re thinking.”

“Pie!” Gordon blurts, then wheels it back a bit. “Sorry. Pie. Uh— my dads surprised me with a cookbook on my last birthday full of family recipes and it’s— I always wanted to know if I have any chance of pulling off my nonna’s pie crust,” he chuckles, scratching at the hair along his jaw. “How’s that sound? Did— did you wanna come over?”

“Bro, you’re offering to make homemade pie with one of my favorites. Are you kidding? Are you actually kidding me— where are the fuckin’— got cameras out here, were on a prank show this whole time and—”

“Quit!” Gordon knocks his shoulder into theirs. “I get it, I get it! So, you wanna?”

“Man, there’s even more than there was that one time I found a thicket— I told you about that, right? Wait, yeah, I did. ‘S no way I could ever eat all these by myself and— I haven’t had homemade pie in more ‘n a decade, I— yeah, god, hell yeah.”

Gordon flashes another brilliant smile that Benrey is very quickly getting attached to. They divert their thoughts from traipsing down a trail they’re not willing to head down yet by kneeling and helping him pick blueberries.

“Glad I was gonna forage on the way over. I dunno how we would’ve gotten all these back!” Gordon swings his basket in between them both.

“Lookin’ kinda… empty there. Still doesn’t know how to use his hands,” Benrey playfully admonishes, tutting to themself.

“Oh my god, shut up! The only mushrooms I found were ones I’ve already got a fuckton of, I wasn’t gonna load up on more!”

“He loves to tell excuses and make lies. Gotta get you back to those hand classes.”

Gordon’s voice chimes out in laughter, and Benrey forgets there’s a life they're meant to get back to once these two weeks are up. Time exists in its own contained infinity. It’s alarming how quickly they’re getting used to this.

The two go back and forth between aimless bickering and jokes forgotten as soon as they’re made, laughter woven between them in either case, on the walk back to Gordon’s cabin. When the conversation lulls, Benrey tenses their shoulders and inhales sharply through their nose before they speak again.

“Can we talk about yesterday? Wanna be able to talk about it ‘nd not feel like we’re just… avoiding it so we don’t piss each other off. Don’t wanna feel like I’m cutting wires on a big cartoon bomb every time I open my mouth.”

Gordon huffs through a short laugh. “Yeah… yeah, that’s— that’s fair. I want it to be different, too. Hey, so, have you turned your laptop back on yet?”

“Not that brave,” Benrey chuckles dryly. “It’s dumb, but… I’m kinda scared to do it on my own.”

“Are you kidding? I was getting ready to yell at you if you had, dude. I wouldn’t’ve even been able to sleep in the same cabin with it, let alone— hey, if you brought it with you, we could maybe try later, if you wanted? Do it together? I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t curious.”

“Yeah, sure. Guess I gotta turn it on eventually. We need— gotta— need pie for strength, though.”

“You’ve made a strong case for yourself,” Gordon wheezes. “Hmm… okay, you’ve swayed me. Pie first,” he agrees after half a second of fake deliberation.

Benrey sucks in a quick, deep pull of air, riding out that wave of bravery, and reaches for his hand.

“Thank you.”

“You are ridiculous.”

“Gotta supervise.”

“You’re not gonna sit there for an hour. You’re not.”

“Recipe said fifty minutes, actually?” Benrey, still keeping their forehead pressed to the oven door, side-eyes where Gordon’s standing above them. “Bad at word. Need a second pair of glasses on top of your first pair. You’re gonna get six eyes and all of ‘em are gonna be so bad at reading.”

“Benrey, please,” Gordon groans. “If I let you try a pumpkin cookie, will you please get off the floor?”

Benrey’s eyebrows reach their hairline and they’re quick to get on their feet. “I’m sure he’ll be fine in there. Everything checks out.”

“He’ll be— do you mean the pie?”

“Yeah?”

Gordon just shakes his head and nudges a jar closer, taking out cookies for the both of them and handing Benrey theirs.

“Wait, so… you got cookies? When’d you make these?”

Gordon stutters in chewing before he swallows. “...this morning.”

“This morni— and you’re gonna bake a pie too? Whuh— is it—”

“I bake when I’m nervous,” Gordon admits, face a little flushed as he laughs.

“Nervous?” Benrey repeats, but they don’t get the time to question him. Gordon’s arm abruptly spasms, knocking down a bag of flour and sending a flurry of it scattering over both of them and the kitchen floor. He holds onto his upper arm with a wince, sucking in air through his teeth.

“Whoa, you good?”

“Aw, fuck me. Sorry, man, that’s—” Gordon groans and drops his head. “God, it’s such a fucking mess. Sorry, Benrey.”

“Don’t be. More worried about how your arm went kinda. Bad. Looked like it hurt.”

“It’s not— don’t worry, it’s— it’s been doing that. Think— I think it’s just, y’know, nerves healing and shit?” He shrugs a shoulder dismissively.

“You sure? That was—”

“It’s fine, man, really,” Gordon cuts them off to insist, and his tone says more than his words do. It’s really not fine, but Benrey considers the position they’re in. Gordon’s been burned by extraterrestrial electricity, patterns flesh shouldn’t be capable of making left behind… that’s a perfect scenario for a men in black visitation at the hospital if ever there was one, and Benrey doesn’t even believe in them. Fully. Entirely. Maybe. They’re still doing research.

“Yeah, okay. You wanna— sit? Outside sit? Day’s… good for that. If you want.”

Gordon rolls his eyes with a fond grin at their wording, looking hesitant for a second before he finishes cleaning up and dusts off his hands.

“Y’know what? Sure thing. Oh, hey— I can show you the swing my dads and I built, if you wanted?” He walks through his screened-in porch and nods ahead for Benrey to follow. “I’m on just enough of a hill out here that you can see the lake when you sit down, and—”

Benrey misses what he says and stops walking once Gordon leads them down the steps to his backyard. A sprawling array of flowerbeds, leaves in all manner of shapes and sizes accompanied by fruits and vegetables spilling over the short walls. Stakes line every bed in kempt rows, the name of what has taken up a home in the soil scrawled in on each one.

“Whoa,” Benrey breathes, robbed of words for the millionth time in the last two days in an entirely good way. “You, uh… gardening fan?” They winch their eyes shut in embarrassment. Smooth as sandpaper.

Gordon pays it no mind, brushing his shoulder past theirs as he walks ahead and kneels at a bed lined with herbs. “I’ve always had a— a thing for plants, I guess. Plus, if there’s anything I can do that’ll make for fewer trips into town, I’ll take it,” he laughs, finger prodding at the soil to test how dry it is.

“I never stop being busy, but… I don’t really mind. It feels good, taking care of them. Feels kinda like taking care of friends.” He looks back behind himself to smile at Benrey, returning his attention to the plants under his hands.

He has to stop doing that, Benrey’s mental dialogue pleads. They just know they’re going to say or do something stupid if he insists on being… like this. Sweet and genuine in so many different and unexpected ways.

“I think that, I mean… if you’re good to plants, they’ll be good to you. Not just for the obvious, you know? Not that ‘you can eat this one’ and ‘this one has leaves that’ll soothe a burn’ but, there’s, like… there’s more than that. I-it’s— it’s weird, putting it into words, and it’s gonna make me sound pretentious, but…”

Gordon laughs to himself, lifting up a branching stem of a basil plant to clear away dead leaves. He gets this look behind his eyes, something contemplative, something that indicates a deeper thread connecting him to what he wants to say that Benrey could ever hope to understand. They can’t make themself look away.

“They’ve been here for— for so much longer than we have, and they’ll be here for so much longer after we’re gone. There’s something, I dunno… comforting about it, maybe? Comfort’s not the right word, but you let me ramble this long, so…” Gordon shakes his head, saying something under his breath that Benrey doesn’t catch.

His hand extends to a rosemary plant beside the basil, but the second he touches its stem, his back goes ramrod straight. That fond, soft look behind his gaze is gone, replaced with something sharper, something that looks almost… afraid.

Gordon’s quick to stand, eyes following something unseen along the treeline. Benrey tries to look along the path his gaze rakes over, but as far as they can tell, there isn’t anything there.

“...Gordon?” They call out, hating how timid their own voice comes out. He doesn’t answer, slowly walking closer before he breaks into a dead run, catching himself with a hand flung out against a tree trunk, like he’s bracing himself.

“You’re kinda scaring me, man,” Benrey tries again, reaching out as if to lay a hand on his shoulder but deciding against it. “Gordon. Please.”

“Someone’s out here,” Gordon starts, voice low and devoid of anything readable. Benrey’s lungs constrict.

“I— huh?”

“Look,” is all he says, and edges closer to something along the ground that just barely catches the light. A length of silver wire, barbed with needle-sharp protrusions, looped and resting between tree roots.

“You— d’ you think it’s the— the same guy? The bear traps?”

“Gotta be. You don’t normally add those— those barbs to a snare, just like how you don’t make a bear trap have a hair trigger. This is—”

Gordon’s quick to fall silent when distant shuffling grows closer, stepping forward in front of Benrey, arm minutely held out as if making himself a shield. He doesn’t seem to realize he’s doing it.

A man in a sort of jumpsuit ambles closer, rifle slung over his shoulder. He tips up the brim of his hat, nodding in acknowledgement at the two of them.

“Thought you were a rabbit,” he laughs dryly. “Hope I didn’t scare you. Didn’t realize I was so close to a campsite.”

Neither of them say anything at first, Benrey following his lead.

“I haven’t seen barbs on a snare like that before,” Gordon cuts into the silence.

“You hunt?”

“When I have to,” Gordon returns curtly.

“Ah, well. Rabbits keep slipping out, so… figured I needed to try something new. Got a good friend who swears by it.”

“Seems risky to set up. Good way to have the skin on your hands torn off if you’re not careful. I’d just switch to body grip traps if they’re really getting out as much as you say.”

The corner of the man’s mouth twitches, an involuntary motion that Benrey can’t get a read on. They look down as the fingers of the hand Gordon’s holding out in front of them subtly flex.

“Heard that around, too. Well, I’ll take this as a sign. Next trip, I’ll look into stocking up on those instead. You folks take care.” He gives them both a two-fingered wave before turning back around to the brush, making his way back where he came from.

“Let’s go,” Gordon urges as soon as he’s out of sight, tugging Benrey along by their sleeve. He doesn’t wait for an answer, steering them by their shoulders towards his cabin.

“I don’t— Gordon?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know,” Gordon utters. “No one’s ever been out this far. No one. You don’t leave snares that big for rabbits. The— the snares, the bear traps, the boot prints— i-it’s all—”

“Boot prints?” Benrey repeats.

As soon as they’ve made it back, Gordon sits on the steps leading to his back door, tugging at his hair in short, sharp bursts.

“After you left yesterday, I started working in the garden, and— and all around the underbrush, right where it leads in the direction of the lake— boot prints. Hunters never come out here, Benrey, I don’t— I don’t know how to stress that enough, I-I never have anyone out this far, no one’s— I don’t—”

“Hang on,” Benrey interrupts, sitting next to him and holding out their hands placidly. “Breathing’s getting all fucky. You wanna copy me? Just take a sec and only think about breathing.”

Gordon nods, letting go of his hair and hand reaching out to clasp at Benrey’s. Their eyes widen before they shift their grasp a second later, palm up so they can squeeze his hand.

“I don’t like it,” Gordon says when he can speak again. “That’s— something’s wrong. With all of this. The guy, the snares, the prints— they didn’t make sense, Benrey. They were deep set, like— like whoever’s they were had just been standing there, looking at my fucking cabin, a-and— and what if they know—” Gordon instantly cuts himself off, visibly pale.

“Gordon?” Benrey gives his hand a few squeezes.

Gordon answers by turning and getting sick off the side of his steps.

Benrey pokes aimlessly at a blueberry on their plate, smearing little violet puddles across the flower pattern. The screened-in porch is a tiny one, just enough room for a small round table and three metal chairs, sculpted with sunflowers and tall grass, and somehow, even more plants— a few potted ones and some that look like saplings.

A soft scuffling makes Benrey perk up, looking over their shoulder in time to watch Gordon shut the door to the kitchen, weighted blanket around his shoulders. He stares at his feet for a second, shuffling closer and sitting. Eventually, he looks up and manages a weak smile.

“Hey. Feeling any better? I, uh… pie was real good. Had another slice. Sorry.”

Gordon waves them off. “I wouldn’t have said to have as much as you want if I didn’t mean it, man. You’re fine. I’m sorry you just had to… sit out here by yourself.”

“Nah, nah, don’t be. You had to have a lie down. Good to lie down. I do it all the time.”

Gordon huffs a silent laugh, tugging at a loose thread.

“But, d— uh… did it help? How’re you feeling?”

“I—” Gordon’s nail scrapes at a rusted part of the table. “Thinking about it too long starts making me nauseous again.”

“Yeah, that’s okay. We don’t have to. I just wanna know if there’s anything I can, like… do, I guess. You didn’t know him, right?”

“No,” Gordon sighs, eyebrows furrowing. He pushes hair off his forehead and keeps his hand held there, pressed to his temple. “That’s another thing. It’s not like I’m living in a— a massive town out here. Five hundred-something, last census count, so not knowing the guy is really, really weird. I know what everyone in town looks like, and I’d bet that if I could show a picture of him to my dads, they wouldn’t recognize him, either. Something really rubs me the wrong way about all of this.”

“What would he even want out here? Why show up now?”

Gordon can’t answer that. His thumb runs back and forth along a seam as he again holds eye contact with Benrey. It’s infamously something they hate, but there’s something that compels them to look back, no matter how uncomfortable being watched sits beneath their skin.

There’s something almost pleading. His eyes are heavy and dark in the way they only get when there’s unspoken questions, maybe unspoken answers, that have so much attached to them or mean too much on their own to be spoken. A second later, he blinks, and the hold on Benrey is broken.

“No,” he answers. “I don’t know what they think they’re gonna find.”

“They’ve gotta be looking for something, right? The— the traps, and all that.”

Gordon jumps hard enough that he knocks his knees into the underside of the table.

“Agh, fuck, I— sorry. Arm again,” he says through a strained laugh. “But, yeah, you’re— that’s, uh— that’s a good point. The aliens, maybe? But— but they’ve only been around here in the last couple days, i-it doesn’t make sense that someone’d be out here already, right?” Gordon rubs at his knees, but the motions of his arms aren’t enough to disguise the fact that Benrey’s almost positive he’s trembling.

“Hey…” Benrey begins quietly. “You doing okay? You’re— you don’t think you’re getting sick, maybe? You cold?” They make sure he can follow their hand as it moves from beside their plate to rest on his shoulder, thumb running in slow, soothing back and forths.

“I don’t think so, it’s— I— I-I don’t know. I don’t know what to think. I don’t know what he wants, why he was outside my cabin— oh, god, what about dad and papa? Wh-what if they’ve been watched too? What if it’s been worse for them this wh-whole time and they didn’t feel like they could tell me?” He grabs their wrist like a lifeline, and Benrey can feel it as much as see how bad he’s shaking now.

“Breathing’s bad again,” Benrey reminds him, as gently as they can. “Gotta stay calm with me. It’s gonna be okay. It’s okay.”

“Benrey…” Gordon trails off, staring closely at Benrey’s hand. He looks back up to them, eyes darting between both of theirs, and he closes the space between them. His arms envelop them tight, air squeezed out of Benrey’s lungs, and they don’t take a beat longer to hug him back. A finger mindlessly plays with the end of one of his curls as Benrey lets their eyes shut and zones entirely into the press of Gordon’s shoulders against theirs, the uneven rising and falling of his chest, his forehead pressed into their collarbone.

“You don’t have to deal with this by yourself. Think we kinda… both need each other. For whatever’s happening. Don’t want us to keep doing the— the back and forth. I don’t wanna run away from you anymore.”

“Yeah,” Gordon gives a shuddering sigh, fingers smoothing down Benrey’s shirt. “Me neither.”

“Okay.” Gordon downs the rest of his wine. “Run me back through the game plan.”

“I’m gonna count down from five, turn it on, and jump behind the couch. If something shows up…” Benrey wordlessly hefts Gordon’s baseball bat over their shoulder. “I whack ‘em if it’s close to me, you whack ‘em if it’s close to you. We good?”

“Yeah… yeah, okay.” He takes both his glass and the bottle back into the kitchen where it’s less likely to be a casualty, hefting his wrench in hand and gripping his weapon of choice with a squeeze. “I’m ready.”

Benrey nods, counts down, and presses the power button of their computer. They come close to eating shit when they dive over the couch, looking up in time to watch Gordon ducking behind the wall, staring at Benrey. Benrey stares back, mouth a firm line like Gordon’s is.

They wait for a moment, hearing nothing but the soft whirring of the laptop fans and some quiet beeps as it boots up. Benrey opens their mouth to call an all clear.

And then the ceiling opens.

The room is overwhelmed by sputtering pulses of neon electricity, and in between strikes, what look like tears have unfolded from the planks above their heads. Shredded remnants of normalcy hanging wispily from the boards, simultaneously appearing as oozing gashes even though Benrey can see that the planks behind— around— interlaced in these fissures are untouched. Improbable cosmic rifts, so incomprehensibly deep that staring up at them makes a headache bloom behind Benrey’s eyes. They wince and grit their teeth through a gasp, pressing a hand to their forehead.

They look back over to Gordon, finding him mesmerized with the spacial impossibility hanging above them. His mouth hangs open as if he’s awed, but before he can get any more lost in it, he cries out, feverishly pawing at his shoulder.

Benrey calls out to him, but it’s completely lost in the wailing drone erupting from these rips carved through the fabrics of time and reality as white-hot fingers of electricity lick over the walls. Fuck whatever’s happening, fuck their plan, Gordon is hurting and looks terrified and Benrey’s not leaving him over there by himself.

Benrey hypes themself up, shoulders jolting with deep breaths in, and dives for Gordon’s side of the room. Another strike narrowly misses their leg, quick to pull themself fully behind cover. They grasp his shoulders desperately and are barely stop themself from shaking him.

“Gordon, hey, hey, hey, what’s wrong? Say something. Talk to me, please.”

Gordon tries, but bites his tongue to mute a scream instead. He’s hunched over steeply, fingers clawing at his shoulder so desperately that he’s torn the fabric, fibers crowding beneath his nails.

The spasms in his arm haven't gotten anywhere close to being this bad. Whatever rift their laptop’s opened up in Gordon’s living room has to be involved somehow. Benrey doesn’t care— they’ll smash the thing down to circuit boards and sparking wires if it means this stops.

Benrey’s fingers squeak on tacky wood where the grip tape has begun to peel, clambering to their feet and sending every pound of themself flying at their laptop. They’re spitting colorful curses and screams as their bat whistles through the air. It bounces off the laptop ineffectually, splitting the bat right down the middle with a crack that makes their ears ring. They stare down in bewilderment at the smoldering wood.

Their next course of action is slamming on the power button and hurling it through the closest window, but Benrey doesn’t get the chance. A high whining pierces all other sound, emanating from those impossible tears in the ceiling. They look up in time to yelp and scramble away, narrowly dodging the thing that’s dropped down out of space.

It’s dog-like in stature and size, but that’s where comparable traits to anything on earth go to die. Clusters of eyes blink back, dozens of swirling blacks and deep crimsons, every single one trained on Benrey. Their stomach lurches.

Everything else on earth yields as the two of them stare at each other. Neither of them move, waiting for any sign of motion from the other. Staring. Waiting.

The alien breaks the stillness first.

It rears back on its hind leg and shakes as another piercing cry emanates from it, growing louder and louder in pitch. Benrey isn’t afforded the time to think before the sound it makes is released in a visible wave, knocking them back into one of the support beams and sending them to the floor. They land hard on their left elbow, sending fireworks of pain lighting up the entirety of their arm and intently running along their ulna, concentrated fiercely on where the break had been.

Benrey thinks they scream, curling around their left arm and trying to shield their head as the alien’s cloven feet skitter over the hardwood, growing closer.

They want to plead for Gordon to run, but the sentence gets tangled in groans and clipped breaths, incapable of being spoken. They wrench open an eye blurry with tears to watch the alien’s too-many eyes take an interest in him instead. He’s still holding onto his shoulder, face tucked into his own knees. As soon as it realizes he’s alive, the alien jumps into motion, making another one of those horrible, pitching wails.

“Gordon!”

In the second they scream his name, the floorboards yield and splinter to snaking vines and roots, crawling over the floor like veins and fibrous tissue, faintly pulsing. It grabs the alien by its back leg and throws it into the wall, picture frame dropping and shattering over its back. The being tilts its head quickly from side to side with aggravated chirps, rearing back to charge for Gordon again. It doesn’t get more than two steps forward before the vines oozing out over the floors shoot up, ensnaring it in a mass of moving plant matter, coiling and constricting around it tighter the more it struggles.

Benrey stares, awed, as something goes unbelievably right in the middle of everything else going unbelievably wrong.

“Gordon, are— are you seeing this?”

Benrey tears their eyes away right as Gordon falls limp, thudding onto the hardwood. Their heart plummets out of their body and through the floor. They’re scrambling over to him in a fraction of a second.

“No. No, shit. Shit, shit, Gordon?” They struggle to roll him onto his back, and when they manage it, their stomach seizes up in reflexive fear. He doesn’t look well, skin pale and sweat dotting his forehead, making him glint in the flickering lights. His face is contorted with discomfort, mouth hanging open on fast, shallow breaths, chest heaving for its efforts.

Behind them, the vines all coil back in on themselves in unison, slinking away from the same holes they punched through the flooring. Benrey hears the alien drop, followed by the sounds of it panicking and scratching at the walls, trying to get out. Benrey doesn't pay it any attention, unthinking as they shake the limp body in their arms.

“Hey, c’mon, don’t— you have to be okay, please be okay—”

“Mngh, ‘m fine,” he slurs. “D’nt worry, ‘s— ‘s fine.”

“You’re not fine. You’re not fine,” Benrey repeats, shaking him for emphasis. “This isn’t fine, we— we shouldn’t’ve turned it back on, was so stupid, I’m so sorry, sorry, I’m— this shouldn’t’ve happened, I—”

“No, hey, ‘s— it’s… it’s okay,” Gordon wheezes and sluggishly reaches for Benrey’s hand. “I was— I was the one who wanted to try it, y’know? I-it— I’m not mad at you.”

“Maybe you should be,” Benrey insists. They don’t know why but, slowly, they bring their left hand up, pain still zinging up and down their forearm, and drops their hand on his chest. They feel as much as see when Gordon’s next inhale stutters.

“Maybe you should be. Be mad that I— that it hurt you ‘cause of me, mad it’s— that it’s— we could’ve died again, mad that I didn’t stop the thing from getting close to y—”

It’s only when addressing the thing again that Benrey remembers they’re still in the room with it. They freeze, slowly poking their head around the wall. It’s huddled in a corner beneath one of the tables flush with plants, visibly trembling.

“Shit, it’s still here. Wait, no, what the fuck— why is it still here? It got zapped away last time!” Benrey whisper-shouts to no one in particular. “What do we do? We can’t just—”

They’re interrupted by Gordon wobbling onto his feet, slowly shuffling closer to the alien. It whirrs threateningly like it’s readying another cry, leaping away from Gordon with erratic warbling chirps.

“Whoa. Gord— whaaat are you doing? Think he’s pissed, maybe don’t get closer? Please? Maybe no?”

“I’m going to try something,” Gordon says evenly. “If I’m right, it’ll send itself back.”

“Send itself— what’re you talking about? Please, Gordon, don’t.”

“I’ve got this. We’ve got this.” He tries to inject confidence in his voice that Benrey knows is put on as he stands firm, eye contact unbroken as he walks closer, backing it up against a wall.

“Gordon, Gordon, stop! He’s gonna go after you, it’s not worth it, please, we’ll— we’ll figure out something else,” Benrey pleads.

Gordon takes another step forward. The alien leaps away from him instantly, flight instead of fight, and skitters across the room, closer to the laptop, closer still until the speakers erupt into static and discordant sounds. The screen flashes green and black at a speed that makes Benrey’s head pound, fans whirring far too loudly— and it’s gone. In another blinding spark of electricity, the alien vanishes. Benrey’s screen blinks back to the desktop, looking for all the world like none of the last ten minutes happened.

Gordon stares wordlessly at the computer, turning back to Benrey with a cocktail of emotion swirling on his face. He staggers to his couch, collapsing face first onto it with a groan.

“I need a fucking nap.”

Benrey jumps awake, blinking hurriedly, roused from a bad dream that's already been forgotten. The sky’s earlier muted blues have sunken into deep, warm colors, quickly turning black. Looks like they managed to sleep right up until the end of sunset. They rub their eyes and turn to find Gordon still snoring into a throw pillow. His face scrunches up, mumbling something unintelligible as his hand twitches.

He looks exhausted, even in the midst of sleep. The dark circles beneath his eyes are emphasized by the red-gold fading light outside. His hair is sticking up wildly, like he's been tossing and turning and robbed of real rest.

Benrey watches him before reluctantly turning their attention over to the laptop, where it’d been left on while they slept. Definitely unsafe and ill-advised, but nothing else had shown up and killed them, so it all worked out. It's probably fine. As far as they can tell, it’s deciding to behave, nothing having changed other than a low battery pop-up dimming the screen.

They press both hands to their eyes and sigh, sitting upright and turning their torso from side to side until their back pops, standing slowly and edging closer to the center of the room to peer down at the holes the plants punched through the floor. They can see straight through it to the crawlspace, pine needles kicked up by the breeze scraping against each other softly. Benrey laughs to themself when two chipmunks run by underneath them, chasing each other.

They kneel to get a closer look, too nervous to put their face directly above the punctures in the floorboards. There’s no sign that anything had ever happened aside from the damage to the house. No disturbance of earth, or deep gouges in the ground, or any snaking roots. There’s only thick moss enveloping the ground in a blanket, and somehow, against everything Benrey knows about moss, it’s started to bloom. Tiny pale flowers dot the lush mounds of green in an assemblage of sunset colors, pinks and yellows and so many variations of color in between them.

Benrey couldn't explain why, but they cautiously extend a hand towards it. The hole is just wide enough for their arm to fit without it being much of a squeeze. They reach out and have the foreign, bizarre, kind of wonderful experience of the moss reaching out for them in turn. They gasp softly, splaying their fingers out wider as it pushes up into their hand, slotting its blooms in the gaps of their fingers.

The sound of a grunt and abrupt shuffling makes Benrey startle, jumping back and getting to their feet. The moss recedes.

“Wh-what was— oh, hey,” Gordon greets, voice raspy and rough with sleep. He casts a lopsided smile up at Benrey, scratching at the stubble under his chin. “Sorry, weird dream. Uh— how about dinner?”

“Guh— wh— you’re fine, man. And that sounds— sounds good.” They cough and scuff their feet against the flooring, kicking up wood shavings. “Only if you lemme help, though.”

Gordon blinks up at them, grin faltering before it returns wider. “Sounds good,” he echoes. He stands and stretches, barely starting to roll his shoulders when Benrey watches him bite his lip and hunch over, hand clutching onto his right arm.

“Fffuck, forgot,” he hisses, sitting back down with a defeated huff. “Would a— a quick stir fry be okay?” He looks up to Benrey with an attempt at a lighthearted laugh at himself. Benrey feels their mouth straighten into a firm, thin line.

“Yeah, more than okay, but— so, like, I’m not great with food, but I could probably do that much. I think. Maybe. You should sit while I do it.”

“Benrey—”

“Please don’t argue with me. Please. Just— it’s not gonna be great, but I can do it. I wanna do it. For you. For— I mean— it’s gonna be food for both of us, not just for you. For me also. As well. I like… food.” Benrey flusters, turning and rushing into the kitchen.

“Just tell me where everything is, big man.” They find the closest vertical surface— Gordon’s fridge— and bang their forehead against it. Good god. They need to have talking privileges revoked for forever.

Gordon’s quiet for a while after that, and Benrey isn’t anywhere near brave enough to glance around the corner.

“Bottom drawer in the fridge on the right side is all vegetables,” Gordon eventually says. “Pans are in the cupboard under the stove. Can you use the biggest one? I’m fucking starving,” Gordon laughs, and it’s a little bit easier, a little bit less strained, and it relaxes the tension in Benrey’s shoulders they didn’t know they were holding on to.

“Seriously, you could, like… make two full pans and I’d finish ‘em. I genuinely don’t think I’m kiddi— oh, right, sauce. Do you think if I gave you directions you can follow along?”

“No faith. What if I cried so loud and never stopped. What then.”

Gordon makes one of those wheezy half-laughs that instantly has Benrey laughing with him. “I was genuinely asking! It’s not ‘cause I think you can’t do it, I just— I know for me, it’s not easy to do something if I don’t have an example I can look at. You know, with… pictures and shit. Visual learner, I guess.”

Benrey nods before remembering he can’t see them. “Cool. Cool. Okay, uh— I could do it. Maybe. One way to find out.”

“You’re gonna ruin my kitchen,” Gordon laughs again without a drop of sincerity in what he says.

Benrey starts imagining themself learning to cook, and imagines Gordon being the one to teach them. They wonder if he’ll let them cook for him again. They really hope their first time isn’t the last time.

“You’re so mean to me.”

“I just said you burnt them but it wasn’t that bad! I don’t mind it, dude!”

“Don’t gotta point it out, man. Those carrots are shy about being burnt and you’re got— you’re gonna call attention to it? Gordon loves hurting feelings, I’m gonna tell everybody, no friends, I— agh.”

Benrey cuts themself off with a sound that could only be classified as a squawk when Gordon retaliates with a carrot slice aimed for their cheek. He laughs so hard and so abruptly he makes himself snort, hiding his face behind his hands when he can’t make himself stop. It’s that instant, and every moment that led up to it, where Benrey feels a sensation as if the floor dropped out from beneath them. They plummet, and it’s fear, and it’s exhilaration, and they realize that, oh, they really, really like him.

“I’m fucked.”

“What?”

“Huh? Nothing.” Benrey eats a heaping mouthful of stir fry before Gordon can ask them anything else.

Gordon shakes his head at them and sets his plate down on the coffee table, walking to one of the windows overlooking his garden. The blinds on every window are drawn tight, and he slowly separates them with his fingers. His gaze flits nervously along the treeline before he sighs and retreats, sitting back down with his food. He glances at Benrey before he stares down at his plate again, poking mindlessly at a pepper.

“Sorry. I know I keep going back, I just… can’t stop thinking about him being out there.”

“Hey, don’t need to say sorry. Feeling the same way, man. Maine’s got its weirdos too, I guess. Thought we just, um… got ‘em locked down to Rhode Island. Containment breach.”

“Are there regional variants between weirdos?” Gordon chuckles.

Benrey chuckles, drawing swirls in the sauce with their chopsticks. “Yuh— yeah. Rhode guys’re weak to fire.”

Gordon wheezes, all but doubling over and hand shooting out to steady himself, landing on Benrey’s knee. “Well, I’m guarding my secrets. You’re not gonna know any Maine weaknesses.”

“Are you the weirdos? You protecting them? Huh.” Benrey cackles when that earns them a shove to their shoulder. “You’re outta luck by the way. Already did my research.”

“I thought you grew up in Rhode Island, though?”

“Did, but my grandparents had a lake house that me and my cousins went up to every summer, ‘nd I spent most of my time in the water or in the woods. Think the only summer we ever missed was the one right after I broke my arm.”

Gordon’s brows furrow a bit, hand reaching out and gently settling on Benrey’s forearm. Their eyes widen, looking between his face and his hand.

“Hey, it’s okay. Was a long time ago. Scary when it happened, get aches sometimes, but… all in all, I made it out okay. Was lucky. The woods were good to me.” Benrey thinks back on the being that walked out of that forest with a strong note of fondness, curling up like a contented animal in their chest.

“But, uh, I mean— yeah, so, didn’t go up that summer because— man, it was nothing but laying around ‘n physical therapy for a while. Guess it was fine we didn’t go, wasn’t up and movin’ around anyway. Being away from Maine, though— that’s what made it click. That I was just… I wanted to be a part of it. See it, live in it, or— or with it. The lake, the forest, the things that live there. It felt different than back home. Felt like it was somewhere I was supposed to be.”

Gordon casts a smile up at Benrey, something sincere in it that makes their thoughts stutter.

“I get you. I mean, that’s what it felt like for me. It’s why I didn’t wanna leave. I guess it’s also— part of it’s ‘cause I’m attached to my dads,” Gordon laughs sheepishly. “I haven’t seen much of the rest of the country, but I’ve never really felt like I needed to, y’know? I’ve felt safer out here than I ever did anywhere else.”

Gordon’s posture tightens a bit, turning down to where his and Benrey’s plates are empty and sitting away from them on the coffee table. He picks them both up and stands, walking into the kitchen and setting them in the sink. Turning the taps on makes the pipes gently rumble in the walls, and Benrey gives themself a moment to appreciate the stillness. The quiet lull of the forest encircling them, the pattering of water against the metal basin, the clinks of cutlery and plates against each other as Gordon scrubs them clean with soft humming… they woke up from that earlier nap not too long ago, but are already beginning to feel the pull of sleep tugging at them.

“Benrey, I was calling you, are you—” Gordon pauses, sitting beside them on the couch, shoulder pressed to theirs. “Oh, man, you’re seconds from falling asleep on me. You wanna lay down?”

“Mm? No, what? Not tired… just had that nap, ‘s fine. Can keep talking forever ‘bout the house— did you know the lake down from here, it’s— it’s the one the— my grandparents’ lake house backed up to? Was just on the other side than the… the one we’re looking at it from.” Benrey yawns, slowly slumping further into the couch, head thudding onto something solid and warm, but they’re too content to move.

“Loved hearing the loons at night. Can you hear ‘em from here? Love those guys. Thuh— they’re so noisy. Tried to learn to make their sounds so I could talk back. My parents hated that shit,” Benrey laughs dryly.

“Did it anyway though. Grandpa’d watch me while I swam ‘n made loon calls, diving for clams and showing him. He’d make me a bet that if I caught enough, he’d— he’d take me in his boat to the gas station at the foot of the lake and let me pick out as much candy as I wanted. You… you know what? I never stopped loving it here, e-even after… even after I broke my arm out in the woods. Never made me… scared of it.” Benrey slowly trails off, fully sinking against Gordon’s side, too tired to shy away or second-guess themself.

Gordon’s quiet for a long while after that. Benrey almost thinks he’s fallen asleep, too, until they feel him start to shift carefully, turning so he can stand with Benrey in his arms.

The last thing they fully remember is the feeling of flannel, soft and smelling of pine, brushing against their cheek, and the sensation of whatever they were laying on dipping with another weight beside them.

Chapter Text

Benrey wakes up more rested than they’ve felt in months. They burrow their face back into their pillow, hoping they’ll be able to drift right back to sleep and be allowed to bask in this comfort a little longer. The fabric smells like pine needles warmed in the sun, something faint and floral trailing alongside it. It’s the scent that reminds Benrey they’re not in their cabin and what prompts them to start reassembling the evening before like errant puzzle pieces. A weight beside them moves with a soft rumbling sound. Oh, so that must mean—

Benrey nearly knocks their forehead into Gordon’s when they startle themself fully awake, quick to reel back and blink over at him. They’re in Gordon’s room, sunlight weaving its fingers between the gaps in the curtains. One of his hands is draped over Benrey’s forearm, his legs tangled in theirs. The heady feeling bubbling up in their chest is immediately weighed down when they look at him closer. There’s a harsh crease carved between his eyebrows, face flushed and dark circles under his eyes spreading.

They huff out a breath at the leaf tangled in his hair and slowly raise their hand, but as soon as they start tugging at it, Gordon jolts awake.

“D— ow, man! Why were you pulling my hair?”

“Pull— huh? Oh, shit, sorry. Wasn’t trying to. You had somethin’ stuck and we gotta keep you, uh… keep you looking pretty.” Gordon snorts and bats their hand away.

“You feeling okay? You’re looking kinda red.” Benrey raises their hand, back resting against his forehead. “You don’t— you’re not sick, right?”

“Huh? Nah, no, I feel fine.” Gordon punctuates it with a dismissive wave. It’s as obvious a lie as obvious lies get. His hand doesn’t fully cooperate even with that simple motion by itself, and he frowns down at where it rests on the bed beside him.

“How’d you sleep?” he starts, going off on a stint of rambling. “I hope you don’t mind that I moved you in here and that—y’know, that I slept next to you, too. I knew the couch was gonna kill my back. Should w— breakfast! We should do breakfast— fuck, what time is it?”

Benrey puffs their bangs out of their eyes, grumbling under their breath. “Don’t gotta ignore me, man. Tryna help…”

“Holy shit, it’s past two?” Gordon sits up and fumbles for his boots, swearing when he drops his phone. “Damn, I never sleep in this late. I mean, I guess yesterday was— agh! Wh-what the fuck is— oh, shit.”

There’s what sounds like rumbling along the floor and the noises of a box’s contents spilling out and clattering under the bed as Gordon holds his breath. When his lungs kickstart themselves again, his inhales are high and clipped.

“Gordon?” Benrey crawls across the bed to peer over the other side but abruptly stops when a hand flails out in front of them, nearly hitting them in the face.

“No, don’t, it’s fine!” Gordon insists. “You don’t need to— I, ah— I must’ve pushed my boots too far under my bed last night and I knocked something— i-it’s fine! That’s just— that’s just a mess for later.”

“You sure? I can get it for you if you—”

“No, really, it’s—” Gordon cuts himself off with a reedy noise, legs shaky as he tears himself out of bed and rushes into the bathroom, right arm tucked tightly against his chest as the door gets slammed behind him. There’s barely a second between that and an absolute cacophony of noises erupting from the bathroom. It’s an entire orchestra of bottles toppling over, harsh thumping on the laminate, the shower curtain clasps rattling against each other.

Benrey comes close to faceplanting in their hurry to pull themselves out of bed and rap a nervous rhythm against the bathroom door.

“You good in there? It sounds, uh—”

“Fffine, it’s fine!” Gordon answers instantly, cut off with a grunt when what sounds like his back collides with the door.

“Holy shit, what’s going on? Don’t lie to me, man. It’s not fine. What’s happening?”

“Stomach— it’s j-just a bad stomach ache! Trying to find my— whoa, fuck—” The sound of the shower curtain being forcibly ripped from the rungs rings out, followed by the rod itself clamoring with a loud thud into the bathtub. Silence follows after that, dotted by Gordon’s muffled panting.

“D’you need help?”

“...no.”

Benrey groans, thudding their forehead into the doorframe.

“You remember everything you were telling me ‘bout letting myself get helped? Did that only go one way? It only works for me but you’re not— you’re the one exception? Was all that bullshit?”

“Benrey, please ,” Gordon urges. “It wasn’t bullshit, man, I…” he sighs, followed by a soft dragging noise from the other side of the door as his back slides down its surface. He sits on the floor with a protracted breath.

“It’s been me, my dads, and Tommy for… fuck, for decades now. No one’s gotten closer to me than a face I see at the grocery store or drive past around the corner. It’s— I don’t wanna fuck this up.”

Benrey feels their eyes widen, dropping a hand to grip at the hem of their shirt and easing themself down to the floor, their back against the door like Gordon’s is.

“You’re worried you’re gonna mess up with me by… letting me help you clean up your bathroom?”

Gordon groans, head thudding against the wood.

“It’s not that, i-it’s— it’s a smaller part of a bigger part. I don’t know how to make it make sense, I don’t— I’m sorry. I’m gonna work on it. This is something I can’t do yet. Not here. I’m sorry.”

“Hey. Hey. It’s all good. I get it.” Benrey feels like that’s only partly a lie. They don’t get the ‘not here’ part, but Gordon doesn’t need to know that. Their eyes idly follow the pattern of the wood grain. “Not mad. If having me in there would be more hurt than help, I’ll hang back. I’ll be right here.”

Benrey hears Gordon sigh, bracketed by soft shuffling and something quietly dragging against the wall. “Thank you.”

“Yeah, no problem.” Benrey swallows and hopes it wasn’t loud enough to be heard. “Can we do breakfast after this? I know it’s kinda late now, but… man, I want waffles so fucking bad.”

“Waffles sound amazing,” Gordon agrees with a sigh. “Should still have blueberries we could add too, if you’re not sick of ‘em yet.”

“Wh— never,” Benrey says in mock offense, getting a breathy little wheeze out of Gordon. “It’s like— ‘s like asking a possum if it gets sick of eating trash.”

“Wouldn’t you get sick of eating trash all the time?”

“I dunno. They fuckin’ love that shit outside my apartment. My landlord was pissed because he bought these trash cans that were s’posed to be bear-proof and they still found a way in. Guess that’s what happens when you buy them super cheap. Pretty sure the locks showed up broken and they didn’t have that, uuh… that seal on them that shows they actually got bears to try and get into ‘em.” Benrey pauses for a second, staring up at the ceiling as the gears in their brain churn. “...what were we talking about?”

Gordon snorts and shuts his cabinet doors. “Don’t worry about it. Hey, I’m almost done, so if you’re leaning against the door, you’re gonna want to move.”

“What if I wanna fall back ‘n bang my head against the floor?”

“Okay, then stay right there,” Gordon concedes with no real bite behind it, words broken up by laughter. Benrey laughs along and stands themself up, knocking their shoulder into Gordon’s once he steps out.

“You got syrup? Like— the good shit that comes in the fancy bottle with the tiny handle ‘n everything.”

“Fuck yeah,” Gordon cheers, nudging Benrey back and grabbing their hand to pull the both of them into the kitchen. All of Benrey’s thoughts fizzle out with a strangled sound, staring down at their joined hands and missing what Gordon says afterward.

“Huh?”

“I was saying—” Gordon’s words die in his throat, hand going slack and eyes unblinkingly boring holes into his living room. Benrey’s heart immediately leaps into their throat as they turn to look with him.

A new ecosystem has inhabited the living from beneath the floors overnight. Fungi and plants and stalks that have never belonged to earth have sprouted up in the holes punched through the boards, some glowing with faint, pulsing light in blue-greens and bright purples, others seemingly making their own sounds, with low drones and scratchy trills.

“Wh-what the fuck,” Gordon gasps, hand clasped over his mouth.

“Whoa. This is— you think this is what happened after the— the alien plant… thing? Yesterday?”

“No, it can’t—” Gordon cuts himself off, words muffled into his palm. He steps closer slowly, breaths growing shallow and shaky as he stares up at the stems that have grown tall enough to reach the ceiling.

“It’s… kinda pretty,” Benrey murmurs absently, slowly reaching towards a pod that gives off a bioluminescent light. It shies away from their hand, stem rapidly curling down to avoid being touched. Considering all other alien interaction up to this point, maybe touching these plants barehanded is a bad idea, actually, pretty or otherwise. Benrey withdraws and stands at Gordon’s side, wrapping an arm around his and peering down at where the boards have warped and gave way.

The moss from before is all but gone now, rapidly overtaken by these new growths. What remains of it has lost its vibrancy, now a much duller green, color leeched as it begins to die. The blooms still visible are wilted.

“Aw, man. It’s like… eating that moss that was there yesterday,” Benrey murmurs, feeling strangely fond of it. Gordon doesn’t say anything for long enough that Benrey nearly forgets he’s there. When they get off their current train of thought, they look up to find Gordon looking absolutely repulsed. His nose is scrunched up and skin siphoned of color, left hand white-knuckling his shirt while his right hangs limply by his side. His fingers constantly spasm.

“Gordon?” Benrey tries.

“I need to sit down,” Gordon responds flatly, untangling from Benrey and hand reaching out behind himself. He misses the support beam by a near foot, stumbling backwards trying to right himself. His back hits the wall with a thud, dislodging a picture frame, eyes open without seeing.

“Shit, whoa. Okay, can we— here, hands,” Benrey offers, holding out theirs and gesturing for Gordon’s. It takes him a second for their words to click, shakily reaching up and clasping onto their hands tight enough to ache, letting himself be steered out to the porch and lowered into one of the iron chairs.

“Hey. Hey. It’s gonna be okay. We’ll— we’re gonna be fine. You ‘n me can take today and clear out all the plants, and maybe we can fix the floor when they’re gone, a-and, uhh… finish the rest of the pie. And all the pumpkin cookies. And then bake even more after that, and it’s gonna be fine. Right? Gordon?”

Gordon moves his head in an indeterminable gesture, neither nodding or shaking, leg bouncing as he stares out into the garden. His left hand is pressed against his cheek, heel positioned in front of his mouth for him to dig his teeth into. The furrow of his eyebrows makes his eyes look inky, an almost hazy look sitting behind them. It takes several minutes of silence before he finds his voice again.

“I need to call my dads.”

“Oh, uh… I mean, if you’re sure—”

“They know about the— the alien shit. I called them when you left last time. I-it— they don’t know about this, though,” Gordon throws an emphatic hand in the direction of his living room. “I need to call them.”

“Yeah. Yeah, sure, so— yeah. You do you.”

Gordon just nods, getting to his feet and stumbling for the phone in the kitchen, hurriedly inputting a number and again bouncing his leg while he waits. He’s not waiting long as the line connects with an audible click.

“Gordon! I just picked up the phone to call you,” Benrey hears Bubby shout. Gordon casts Benrey a look as he pulls the phone away from his ear and presses the speakerphone button.

“There’s something happening out our way. I think it might be part of what you said happened the other day. Benrey— are they with you?”

“Here,” Benrey answers, their nails scraping against the rough skin along their thumbnails.

“Something happened again yesterday,” Gordon begins. “I was too— too shocked, maybe, to think to call, but— there was this fucking… dog… alien? And— and now— th-there’s plants sprouting from the center of my living room. It’s a fucking sci-fi movie in here, papa,” Gordon laughs, somewhat hysterically. Benrey squeezes his shoulder.

“It’s happening out here, too!” Harold pipes up. “They’ve begun overtaking the path up to ours, climbing up the trees… from the looks of things, we believe they are, in a sense, eating the other flora.” Something somber creeps into Harold’s tone then. Benrey’s stomach churns. “Please, promise me you’ll be careful.”

Gordon takes a sharp inhale that leaves in a whimper, shaky legs depositing him on the floor beside the counter. He clicks off the speaker button, holding the phone to his chest.

“Benrey, I need to talk to them alone. Do you mind waiting outside? Just… don’t go far.”

“Wh— yeah, man, of course. I’ll be in the garden, ‘kay? Take as long as you need.”

Gordon nods, numbly raising the phone back up to his ear and beginning to say something that Benrey doesn’t hear as they open and shut the porch door behind themself.

They put distance between themself and the house, carefully plodding through the rows of flowerbeds and admiring each one. That care and love Gordon extends to everything is at its best here. Neat, pristine rows, no wilted or bug-bitten leaves, markers written in careful print for every single plant. Ripened tomatoes hang heavily on the vine, the eggplants draped beside them a rich purple, their surfaces catching the afternoon sun.

Benrey’s not sure how long they wander, but eventually find themself in front of the back door again. They lower themself onto the steps, palms running back and forth over the fabric along their upper arms, enjoying the soft weave of Gordon’s shirt. They try and keep themself tuned out to the conversation happening just inside, the walls of the cabin not thick enough to fully mask them, but their ears involuntarily perk up at the sound of their own name.

“...if Benrey wasn’t here… I don’t know. I don’t know what would’ve happened, so I feel like— I want to— I-I want to. I just don’t know how. Maybe— do you still have that one—”

Benrey shakes their head and forces themself to tune out, intent on not listening in when they were asked not to. They’re not waiting long before the screen door creaks open.

“Hey, Ben. You’re good to come back inside. Dad had something to tell you, actually,” Gordon gives a wobbly grin, nodding his head over his shoulder.

Benrey cocks an eyebrow and follows him back into the kitchen, phone waiting with the speakerphone icon lit up.

“Ah, Benrey! It sounds like you’ve both had quite the strenuous couple of days,” Harold trails off, voice lapsing into something worryingly distant, and that’s when Benrey picks up on a feeling hanging in the air.

There’s this unspoken something they’re not in the know on, permeating and obscuring the remaining warmth of Gordon’s cabin like a thick fog. Benrey hears faint words spoken in the background of the call before Harold hums to himself and continues.

“I believe we’ve found something matching the description of your cryptid! It’s only one account, I’m afraid, but I’m sure that’s better than nothing, right?”

“Yeah. Yeah, ‘course. Uh— think we were gonna eat and then I can head out. Be there in an hour and a half, maybe. Shouldn’t be long.” They look over to Gordon and find him already staring back, eyebrows turned down as he forces a tight-lipped smile.

“We’ll see you then,” Bubby replies. “Take care, Benrey.”

“I will,” they return without missing a beat, squeezing the hem of Gordon’s borrowed shirt in their hand. Benrey returns the phone to the receiver when the line clicks off, swiping a hand down their face.

“Waffle chef Benrey now? I’m gonna make a waffle so good you’ll— you’ll never wanna eat anything else. Waffle life forever. Starting now.”

Gordon snorts, and gets that look on his face where Benrey knows he’s already cooked up a retort, but is interrupted by the phone ringing. He seems confused, hesitating for a beat before picking it up.

“Hello?” The other voice answers, and Gordon’s expression instantly brightens. “Oh my god, it’s so good to hear from you! I missed you!” Benrey hears a deep bark, loud enough to be heard over the receiver, and joins Gordon in laughing.

“Hi, Sunkist! Good girl— y’know, I still have those dog biscuits I made last time you were both over, but… now that I think about it, I don’t know if they’re still good… I’ll just have to make more next time you—” Gordon pauses as the voice replies. “Wait, really? Yeah! Yeah, that’d be— fuck yeah, ‘course you can stay with me! It’s been way too long, man. You would not believe the week we’ve had.”

Gordon looks up at Benrey with an exhausted, exasperated little smile, and Benrey can’t stop themself from physically clutching above their heart. The expression on Gordon’s face shifts to something Benrey can’t decipher when he looks back at them, something that makes their throat catch, something that makes them want to close the few lingering inches of space between them and do something catastrophically stupid. Benrey faintly hears the voice on the other end call Gordon’s name, and the spell is broken.

“Huh? Yeah, sorry. I might be getting sick, kinda spacing out. Oh, uh— yeah, we! It’s actually the guy renting out your cabin— Benrey— they’ve been hanging around since they got here! That’s… kinda part of everything that’s been happening. I don’t even know where to start. I’ll have to tell you when you get here,” Gordon heaves a weary sigh. “So tonight, yeah? Okay. Yeah, that works. Just know it’s… kind of a mess right now. You’ll see what I mean. Talk to you then! Love you, too. Bye.”

Gordon hangs up and sighs, still looking worn down but expression noticeably lighter when he faces Benrey. “So, Tommy’s got a break and she’s coming up to see me! I talked about her earlier— so, like— oh man, we were best friends from second grade. You couldn’t get us to do anything without each other unless you dragged us apart,” Gordon laughs, rustling in the cupboards above the stove until he fumbles the waffle maker free. Benrey catches a pitcher and Gordon gives their shoulder a grateful squeeze.

“And then— being friends kinda turned into its own thing, after a while. It wasn’t, y’know— it was its own kind of closeness. He’s just— sorry, I’m just gushing now.” Gordon flaps a hand and laughs to himself again. “I think you’re gonna like him. It’s pretty hard not to. But, uh— breakfast?”

Benrey grins, riding on the same high Gordon is. “Fuck yeah. Gonna hone my waffling skills before Tommy gets here. Score an instant best friend pass.”

The laughter that nets them from Gordon makes things start to feel right again.

They both wave each other off on Gordon’s doorstep and head their own ways, Gordon vowing to try and tidy up as best he can and think of how to explain everything to Tommy while Benrey heads to the cryptozoological society and to one of the markers with cell service to give Darnold a call. The hug Gordon left them with sits like a blanket tumbled in the dryer around Benrey’s shoulders.

They spare glances down at their GPS, absently thumbing over the Lichtenbergs when something makes them freeze. Voices. What sounds like several. The walls of Benrey’s lungs seize up. They inch closer, carefully minding their footfalls, until they find a clearing that hadn’t been formed naturally.

It’s a campsite, sprawling to every inch of the clearing and not a single space left unoccupied. A wall of monitors beeps beneath a canopy of pop-up tents, while something that looks like a seismograph steadily rolls out data into a waiting tray already filled with many more sheets just like it. The source of the sounds Benrey heard, though, are dozens of men making themselves busy. Some are hauling expensive-looking equipment to other parts of the camp, some are unloading supply trucks that steadily pump out thick smoke from their exhausts, others are talking over opened books and maps while they eat.

Benrey’s heart thrums in their ears when they notice the rifle slung over one of their backs. They physically feel themself pale, hands slick with sweat. Looking closer, there’s the gleam of dog tags catching in the sun, pins decorating the fronts of what look like armored vests, crates practically overflowing with ammunition. Benrey knows they need to leave. Their legs won’t cooperate.

“Hey!”

Benrey swears their heart physically stops as a firm hand squeezes their shoulder and spins them around, forcing their back into a pine and knocking the air out of their lungs. A hand fists itself in their shirt, fabric stretched in a white-knuckled grip.

“What are you doing here? Give us a name.”

“Wh— I don’t—”

“Name. Now,” a different man repeats.

“Why should I? Why are you here?” That earlier panic is washed out in a spike of rage. “Was looking for service and now you— now ’m getting pushed around? Get off me.”

Benrey shoves the man back by the chest, and he doesn’t think twice before rearing back and punching them. Benrey goes down hard, head crashing into the standing roots as blood spurts from their nose. Two other men approach, tugging the one who punched Benrey back to the campsite with jeers and laughter. They’re laughing. Benrey would be pissed if they had any energy to spend on not throwing up or blacking out.

They watch the man who punched them shaking his hand. Benrey foggily hopes their teeth cut his knuckles, spitting out a mouthful of blood onto the pine needles grating their palms. Hands grip their shoulders, heaving Benrey onto their feet. Their vision swims and they’re sure they’re about to pass out.

“You have until morning to be packed up and out of the area. Don’t approach our site again. Don’t share our presence here with anyone else. Take your leave.”

“It was one of you. From outside my friend’s cabin. Right?” Benrey woozily swipes under their nose, smearing blood across the back of their hand. “Bet you went through my stuff, too. You’re not— we know you were there.”

The man stares through Benrey, corner of his mouth twitching. He says nothing, squares his shoulders, and returns to their campsite.

Benrey needs a minute to stand before they can do it without swaying, flicking their GPS back on and rushing as fast as they can down the path to the Coomers. Their pulse pounds in the back of their skull, a bitter feeling sitting on their tongue, but there’s something different altogether stewing at the base of their spine. It travels along their nerves, relaying signals back and forth with their brain. Not a physical sensation. A sense of knowing.

Something has been slowly assembling itself in Benrey’s thoughts. Pieces linking up and settling into place. Inklings that were previously unclear if they meant anything at all coalescing and forming into a single, identifiable thought. One that, as time passes, seems more and more likely. It has something to do with Gordon. They know it does. They wouldn’t be able to put into words how they know, but all these different somethings are pinning themselves to a mental corkboard, and the red string is untangling itself, and clear paths are being linked from piece to piece. How Gordon knows things he shouldn’t. The way electricity burns his skin. Those plants that erupted from the floor.

The stretch of time between the campsite and getting to their cottage is both excruciatingly long and dizzyingly short. Benrey hammers on the door, breathing racking up until they’re certain they’re two inhales away from a full-on panic attack.

“Benrey? You’re late, I— oh, dear, your nose! What happened?”

“We can’t,” Benrey rasps out, nearly falling forward into Harold. “We gotta— we need to leave. Gotta get Gordon, and I should— I need to call Darnold, a-and— and— tell— need t—”

“You need to slow down,” Bubby insists, moving up behind his husband to set a steadying hand on Benrey’s shoulder. “Come in and sit. We can’t figure anything out like this.”

“N-no, we can’t— I can’t— Gordon is—”

“We’ll call him,” Harold insists, tugging Benrey into the house by their wrist. “Bubby, keep them seated at the table while I find our first aid kit. Call Gordon’s cell and the landline, dear.”

Bubby nods wordlessly, jaw clenched as he steers Benrey to sit next to him at the table after tugging the phone off the wall hanger. He punches in Gordon’s number with firm presses. It rings, and rings, and rings, before it clicks on.

“Gordon, I—” Bubby frowns, phone lowering to his chest. “Voicemail.” He bites his thumbnail and picks it back up, waiting for the beep.

“Gordon, call us back the second you can. Don’t do anything stupid. We love you.” Bubby’s voice quavers, phone hanging limply from his hand. Benrey looks at his face the same time his lower lip begins to tremble. Bubby shakes himself out of it and punches in a second number, what Benrey guesses is Gordon’s cell. This one doesn’t ring once before it goes straight to voicemail.

“Gordon, come home. Your dad and I are going to look for you. Stay at ours if you’re here before we get back. Please, please call us.”

Bubby stands and hangs the phone back on the hook, his hand pressed to the wall next to it. His sigh leaves in a tremble, forehead thudding against the plastic casing. Benrey’s thoughts piece themselves together enough for them to stand next to him, catching his eye. Bubby’s eyebrows are turned down, and for a moment, Benrey’s afraid they’re going to get punched again, but they know this anger isn’t directed at them.

“Sit back down,” Bubby insists hoarsely, pushing at their shoulders until Benrey listens. While they sit, Bubby runs a washcloth beneath the tap, gazing out the bay windows behind the table. Benrey follows his gaze to a cluster of fruit trees, leaves swaying as the wind moves through their branches. Fruit trees don’t all flower and bear fruit at the same time, do they? Shouldn’t they all need different climates to thrive? But no matter how many times Benrey clears their eyes, the sight stays the same. Branches cradle bunches of ripe, healthy fruits— apples, pears, peaches, oranges— the roots of these trees blanketed by tangles of the blackberry and blueberry bushes that hug the sides of the cottage.

Bubby slumps back down in the chair next to Benrey’s, gently grasping at their chin to hold them steady while he cleans the viscous blood beneath their nose.

“What hasn’t he been telling us?” Bubby begins, suddenly enough to where Benrey startles. Bubby stops and apologizes under his breath, fixing his eyes on theirs with a deathly serious gaze.

“Did— did he tell you about the boots? Boot prints? Outside his garden?”

Bubby’s head turns down, his eyes boring holes through the floor.

“No, he didn’t. That explains why he kept asking us if we felt safe.”

“So… he didn’t tell you about the hunter, then.”

Bubby forces himself to look back up at Benrey and keep working the towel over their face, intensely focusing so his hands and thoughts stay occupied.

“Was a guy outside his cabin. Big dude. Set up snare traps, but not, like… not the kind you’d think of. It was one that was way bigger, with these— these super long barbs, and…” Benrey trails off. The raw horror behind Bubby’s eyes makes their nausea flare up in time with their pulse.

There’s something Benrey’s not being told. There’s something more sitting just beneath the surface that Benrey’s not seeing in full yet. All those isolated moments don’t feel so isolated anymore. There’s so many things they want to ask Gordon’s dads, but right now, nothing but knowing Gordon’s safe matters.

Harold hurries back to the table with the first aid kit, joining his husband in fussing over Benrey, who laughs when Bubby pulls out a gallon bag of frozen peapods for them to hold under their eye. They get the cuts along their jaw and cheek bandaged up, thankful to rule out a broken nose and get through quick tests for a concussion without cause for concern. That homey feeling of the cottage feels tainted, somehow. The glass of the picture frames holding family photos now reflects three steeply worried faces, exchanging silent, furtive glances. 

“We— we gotta find him,” Benrey finds their words, dropping the peas on the table. “I don’t wanna wait ‘til something happens. I know you both don’t, either. If I get my laptop charged, I can look for him through the— with the cameras. Lemme do what I can. I can help.”

Harold and Bubby turn to each other and share an entire conversation without needing to say a thing before Harold leans forward and clasps Benrey’s hand.

“You have to promise us you’ll be careful, Benrey.”

Benrey rests their other hand on top of his. “Promise.”

Harold and Bubby share another look and sigh in unison. Bubby stands and turns down their hallway while Harold packs up the kit and moves to rummage through a cabinet. He withdraws a hunting knife snugly secured in a weathered leather thigh holster, sombrely sliding it across the table.

“I… Benrey, I don’t know what’s about to happen. I can’t say for certain what this group wants, or what they would be willing to do to ensure they get what they’re after. Would you consider taking this with you? Bubby and I would both feel better knowing you have it.”

Benrey swallows and nods, not trusting their voice, fanning out a shaky hand to grab the knife and begin to buckle it around their thigh. Harold pats them on the back a bit too firmly, standing them both up and joining Bubby at the door.

“Dear, I think we should try and cover more ground. You could check that old ranger lookout Gordon used to play at while I look down the beach he frequents along the lake. We’ll try to meet back up at the midway point between the two, alright? It shouldn’t take me any longer than half an hour at the latest.” Harold stands on tiptoe and kisses his cheek, tilting his face down by his jaw and kissing him again. Bubby huffs an amused breath when they part, tugging Harold closer by his wrist and kissing across his knuckles.

“Be safe. Please. I know you can handle yourself, I just— I can’t…” Bubby trails off.

“I know,” Harold answers in kind. “I know.”

Bubby presses a parting kiss to Harold’s palm, turning to look at Benrey like he’d forgotten they were there.

“You too, alright? Take care of yourself, Benrey. I mean it.” Bubby reaches up and squeezes their shoulder, but Harold’s not content with that, dragging the both of them into a hug that makes Benrey and Bubby equal parts laugh and wheeze, and they branch off their separate ways.

Above the overwhelming torrent washing through their brain, one thought is inexplicably louder than the rest.

How is Harold going to make it to the lake and back in half an hour on foot?

Benrey tears a new trail back to the rental cabin, only dimly noting that the door is wide open, that their air mattress is popped, that dirt has been tracked over the floorboards and their blanket in boot patterns that distinctly aren’t theirs. They drag their laptop charger to the window seat, plugging it in and bouncing their leg viciously while they wait for it to take on a charge.

The indicator lights finally flicker, and Benrey immediately jams their thumb on the power button, unblinkingly watching the starting animations until they’re looking at their login screen. Their hands shake so bad it takes three tries to type in their PIN, clicking frantically on their captures folder and waiting for their laptop to talk to their cameras and begin downloading video.

The cameras don’t have live feeds, instead sharing snippets of video over cell signals whenever it detects movement. Benrey opens each camera’s folder and scans intently for every relevant window of time, teeth digging into their lip until Benrey tastes blood. They forgo blinking, watching every single frame with a frightening intensity, waiting, searching, pleading for any sign of Gordon.

It’s a torturous, unknown swath of time before they finally see him.

After close to forty videos of nothing, he finally, finally stumbles into frame. The pixelated quality leaves clips hard to make out, but not even that can disguise how fucking awful he looks. It’s clear he’s only barely managing to keep himself on his feet, dragging himself forward blindly. When they can see all of him, the air circulating through Benrey’s lungs falls frigid and still.

Where Gordon’s right arm should be, there’s a monstrous tangle of vegetation, earthen and alien, swarming and coiling around its own mass, struggling and writhing, tearing itself apart and reforming itself in the same instance. It catches on roots and trunks, and Gordon will have to stop to pull it free, struggling to catch his breath and keep himself moving.

When one of the trailing plants uproots a slab of earth, Gordon straightens, eyes following an invisible path, and looks right up into the lens. Benrey hears themself wheeze.

He keeps staring, fear contorting his expression as he stares helplessly at the camera. As he stares directly at Benrey. He makes himself turn down to look at the ground ahead of him, laggardly pressing forward, fighting for stability after every step.

Benrey hurriedly compares the camera numbers to the correlating blips on their GPS, tearing their map in their hurry to open it and make sure it’s the right camera. They look back up to their screen, ready to close their laptop, and—

Movement flickers from one of the corners.

Easily half a dozen people are surging forward in a tight array, meticulously moving through the forest in a way Benrey knows is meant to minimize noise. They’re following him. Benrey’s gut lurches.

They slam their laptop shut, thinking about where it can be left where it won’t be found, and remembers. The fireplace. The section that’s detached from the wall. Benrey tries, and it’s just wide enough to fit, promptly shoved back as far as it can go.

They tear for the door, dead limbs and brittle growths splintering explosively beneath their feet as Benrey sprints to camera six.

Chapter Text

Benrey tears through the trees, limbs scratching their cheeks, brambles clawing down their legs, heartbeat hammering so, so loudly in their own ears, desperately gulping down breaths into their burning lungs. All they can hear beyond themself is the plants crackling and crunching beneath their feet.

They’re here. They’re finally at camera six, but Gordon isn’t. Where do they go now? He started walking right from the camera’s vantage point, didn’t he? Benrey’s legs are so shaky beneath them, but they force themself to keep running.

They keep replaying those forty seconds of video over and over and over. They weren’t fixated on the mass of curling roots his right arm was made of. It was the look on his face they couldn’t get over, the look behind his eyes. Like he was pleading with Benrey. Like he hoped or knew they’d be watching. Maybe he did.

Where did he go? Benrey thinks about calling out for him, but remembers the grainy pixels of those six figures following closely behind, and their voice dies in their throat. As they careen through another thicket, something catches their eye.

Bright red leaves. A flicker of autumn in the middle of late spring. The new branches tangle and overgrow the white ashes, a path forcing its way between them, parting the trunks to form a trail. Benrey’s breath catches. They scramble to follow it. They squeeze themself through the brush, wincing as they tug their hair free, pleading with anyone and anything that they’re almost there.

A shout rings out, unintelligible yet fearful. Benrey can’t stop themself from whimpering, stomach roiling and aching, frigid pangs chittering down their spine. They clamp a hand over their mouth and keep moving as fast as they can, and… oh, fuck.

All those disconnected pieces make sense now.

Gordon isn’t human.

Five wavering, twisted tendrils unfurl from his hair alongside horns curling out in waves from the top of his head and jutting from his jaw. Writhing roots lead up to calves spotted with tree rings, long claws the color and texture of branches swiping dangerously close to one of the soldiers in warning. A tail thrashes behind himself in agitation, rounded spikes at its end kicking up leaf litter. His left hand returns to grip his own shoulder, claws threatening to puncture the leather.

“Get the fuck back,” Gordon snaps. “I can’t stop it! I don’t know what’s gonna happen to you if you don’t leave! Look— I don’t know what this is, either!”

One of the soldiers in the circle behind him steps in when he’s distracted, ramming the butt of his rifle into Gordon’s back. Gordon grunts and barely budges, turning with a low sound and a feral look over his shoulder that overflows with so much unfiltered anger that the other man physically shrinks back. Gordon goes to speak and groans, stumbling as his hand tightens around his right shoulder.

“S-seriously, fuck off! I can’t—” His right arm, now entirely, thoroughly interwoven with many of the same plants that erupted from his living room floors, writhe in a way that looks painful. Gordon sucks in a gasp as they lash out, striking one man in the chest and pitching him backwards. He lands on the ground with a hollow thud and takes an extended moment to prop himself up on his elbows. The others withdraw and aim their guns on Gordon in response. Shards of frozen-over blood scrape down Benrey’s veins.

“Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, stop!” Gordon shrills, arms held up defensively. “I didn’t mean t— it’s not me! I’m trying to tell you I’m not doing this on purpose! Stop pointing the fucking guns at me and get out of here!”

The circle of men around Gordon tightens, each one of their sights trained on his chest and head. Benrey’s legs won’t cooperate, trembling violently as their heart tries to beat out from between their ribs. Benrey attempts to talk themself into getting closer when a shrill whirring sound erupts, interspersed with crackling, scraping sounds as that same nauseatingly familiar neon green lightning begins carving itself out from nothing. They all jump back and direct their sights to stay fixed on the jittering sparks of electricity. Gordon’s arm begins to spasm and writhe, bringing him to his knees with a scream, and Benrey screams for him, lost in the myriad sounds.

Something new steps through the displaced space. Multiple somethings. They’re bipedal, each one of the three possessing a single unblinking eye, bright red-yellow irises moving through maroon sclera, widening when it lands on the other living things that inhabit this space. Their hands are curled inwards towards their own chests, hooved feet plodding across the ground uncertainly. They don’t get far as one of the men raises his MP5 towards the canopy above them to fire off a warning round. The aliens freeze mid-step, shrinking back on themselves before the bands around their hands and necks almost seem to undulate, pulsing with a faint roving light. Benrey subconsciously raises a hand to their own throat. The red iris of its eye grows deeper, darker, more distant, and more of that lightning is generated between each of the three’s hands, circling around each finger, down to its claws, until it’s all released in three blinding, ear-splitting bursts.

One narrowly misses, one’s dodged at the last second, and the third strikes the man behind Gordon dead-on, launching him several yards back until the slopes of the landscape finally allow him to come to a stop. Two men rush and kneel at his side— it’s the same guy that punched Benrey, they think, his knuckles cracked and dried blood still flaking off of them. They can tell he’s still alive by the way his chest weakly jolts up and down, if only just barely. Another shock of lightning sparks up between each being’s palms, and absolute, mind-melting chaos erupts.

Shots ring out overwhelmingly loud through the clearing, echoing off the maples and cedars. Inhuman warbles and cries pierce every millisecond not already occupied by gunfire. Heavy footsteps thunder over soil, bursting acorn caps and dislodged bark beneath their soles. Words are screamed back and forth until they lose all meaning, devolving into an unintelligible mess. When Benrey can refocus and settle their racing heart just enough to tune back in, they immediately look for Gordon.

He’s between one of the aliens and two of the men, his right arm unfurling with large elephant’s ears leaves held out like a shield against the strikes and wayward bullets, wilting and blooming again in constant cycles too fast for Benrey to follow. Gordon grits his teeth and gasps for breath, talking at the two over his shoulder, guns still trained on him.

“Worry about the fucking aliens! I’m not the threat here!”

“Send those things back or call them off. Then we’ll talk.”

“Send th— you think I fucking brought them here? I didn’t! This isn’t what this is, if you would just fucking listen to me, I— agh!” Gordon cries, trembling legs dropping him to his knees. The leaves die and fall away to thrashing, pulsing alien tendrils, striking out at the soldiers in blindingly fast thrashes. One spike is driven through the calf of one while the other fumbles his gun and unloads a clip’s worth of bullets into it. Gordon screams, and even with the distance, Benrey can see the tear tracks running down his cheeks. It’s like the closing of a circuit. That’s finally what gets them to move.

Benrey pulls their knife from its sheath, rushing out into the fray and making a wall of themself between the two and Gordon, both hands trembling as they white-knuckle the blade’s handle.

“Stop! Shooting the plants is— you’re shooting him, too! There has to be another way to do this. Leave him the fuck alone!” 

“Benrey!” Gordon cries, and they aren’t able to fully turn around before their shoulder is shoved down and they’re lying on their stomach, chin scraped open on the rocks. Another strike hits the trunk of a tree directly next to them, air filled with the scent of ozone and burning hair. Gordon yelps and clutches at his arm, blood oozing laggardly onto the leaf litter and loose rocks beneath his boots. One of the electric pulses has just carved a path up his forearm, beginning at his elbow and ending just past his wrist.

“Oh fuck, Gordon!” they wail. Gordon isn’t hearing them. Instead, there’s a look of intense concentration on his face as his arms begin to unspool.

They change from a single, unbroken form to several vine-like appendages, wavering through the air and snaking along the ground. One of them hovers above Benrey, a spongy spider web of plant matter dropping down like a curtain around them. Its limbs thicken until there’s barely a handful of slim gaps to see out of. Benrey cups both hands around one, trying to make any sense of the flurry of colors and movement just beyond.

It’s okay. You’re gonna be fine in there. Don’t freak out, okay?

“Gordon? What— how am I hearing you?”

Through the plants. I can’t make it make sense. Can’t talk anymore. Gotta focus.

“Wait, wait! I can help! Lemme help, please— you can’t do this by yourself!”

Outside the pod, Benrey hears a gunshot that’s far, far too close, and Gordon howls, something thudding hard onto the ground to their right. It’s Gordon, wheezing for breath and struggling to pull himself up onto his elbows, coughing dirt out of his mouth while blood gushes from his shoulder.

“No! Fuck, fuck, Gordon, let me out!” Benrey ineffectually bangs their hands against the woven stems, trying to pry their fingers between the gaps and pull them apart, too scared to put force behind it that could hurt him. This is still his fucking arm, somehow.

Before they can start panicking about what to do, part of the pod begins to pulse. Benrey yelps and pushes themself against the opposite side as something that begins as oyster mushrooms blackens and falls away to strange, glowing growths lined with barbs, thrashing wildly. There’s not enough room to distance themself far away enough for Benrey to avoid their wrist getting scratched. In the same second, their fingers grow numb, prickling like static down to their elbow, and their hand drops. They can’t move it.

“Shit. Shit, shit, shit—”

A slash is recklessly cut through the vines right beside Benrey, grazing their shoulder on the way down. A hand reaches in and drags them out, shoving them away. Benrey drops to their hands and knees, coaxing themself to take full lungfuls of air.

“What was it doing to you in there?” A voice above them demands, kicking the pod and slashing through the vines that have started to take root.

“He wasn’t doing anything! That’s not him!” Benrey yells, standing and pushing the other’s arm aside. “You have to stop! This is still part of it— of his arm!”

The man sneers at Benrey, offering no verbal reply as he readies his gun down at the roots trailing back to Gordon’s legs. Frustration, no, rage, burns hot and heavy, settling across their shoulders with heat to rival how sunlight bakes down on asphalt. Benrey makes a fearful, furious noise they’ve never made before, picking their knife back up and slashing at his hands in a frenzy.

“Leave him the fuck alone!”

The other man backs up for all of a second as his expression falls. He racks his gun and points it at Benrey’s chest without a word. In a moment of bravery they never would’ve expected from themself, they surge forward and use their weight to knock it clean from his hands, kicking it behind themself and feeding it to the tangles of fungi. The sickening smell of corroding metal fills the clear as acid eats away at the submachine gun.

“I said stop! I don’t know what’s going on, but doing this isn’t gonna fix it! He shouldn’t have to be hurt or— or worse, all 'cause of a fucked up situation he’s just as stuck in as you!”

The other man stares down Benrey with a face void of any emotion, withdrawing a pistol from its holster and pressing the barrel into their chest.

“Benrey!” Gordon yells, anguished and throaty, and time seems to slow down for the few milliseconds Benrey gets to take in his expression, just long enough to see horror completely eclipsing his face, pale and speckled with his own blood. A blinding burst of motion explodes out from Gordon with a shriek it takes Benrey doesn't realize is his.

Both of Gordon’s arms completely unravel like threads of a tapestry, all the way up to his shoulders. Tendrils snake around each of the three aliens, around Benrey, around all of the men, keeping them held suspended and apart from each other. Shoots grow up through the microscopic segments of their guns, sprouting further and further until the metal yields, bursting open and breaking apart, one after another. The aliens are cocooned in the same type of plant webbing Benrey was, though much thicker, no amount of electricity or force from their claws enough to pierce it for more than a fraction of a second before it mends itself again.

The men struggle, but with their arms pinned to their sides and their guns unusable, there’s not much they can do for themselves. The vine holding Benrey keeps them carefully held aloft, further away from everything else. Gordon limps over to them, a sleeve of his flannel torn off so it can be firmly pressed to his shoulder instead.

“Hey… you okay?” he pants, shooting them a crooked smile.

“You’re an idiot,” Benrey says in a shuddering breath. “You’re an idiot, I hate you so much. So, so much, forever, you’re so stupid.”

Gordon rumbles out a laugh. He doesn’t finish taking another step forward before he starts rapidly blinking, wobbling and body trying to compensate to keep him on his feet. His eyes roll back in his head as he collapses in a heap.

“Oh, shit! Gordon— can you hear me? Answer me, man, please! Please get up!”

It’s not the same as before. When he fainted in his living room, the plants shrunk back right afterwards. But they’re not receding.

Instead, the grip on Benrey turns painful, constricting around them until they wheeze before slamming them back into a cedar, branches splintering beneath their back. They choke out a gasp, blinking out the black creeping up the edges of their eyesight. The other men are in the same position, plant life clinging tightly to them, completely blanketing them from the neck down. Gordon’s left arm has fallen slack, foliage slowly loosening around the aliens until it withdraws back into an almost human arm, dropping limply next to his face. But his right arm keeps coiling tighter around them.

Benrey refuses to let their mind devolve into panic like theirs has. This is still Gordon. Whatever’s happening may not be completely in his control, but it’s still him. They trust he wouldn’t let them be hurt, consciously or otherwise.

They force their muscles to relax, and the vines slowly begin to unwind their chokehold. A heartbeat kept as steady as it can be proves to the sentient flora that Benrey’s in control here, that they’re unfazed and sure of themself even if, in reality, that’s the farthest thing from the truth.

The semi-sentient growths start to devote all their focus on the more active prey. Benrey’s dropped, sending jolts of electricity up their legs, painful currents circling around their knees. They rush to Gordon on numb legs, resting his head on their lap and turning him on his side to avoid having horns cut into their thighs. Horns. He’s not human. He’s not human, and that fact keeps hitting Benrey like floods of cold water, receding and swelling on repeat.

They set those thoughts aside, holding the flannel firmly against his shoulder. A reedy, pitiful sound escapes their throat when they realize it’s already starting to soak through.

“C’mon, Gordon, talk to me.” They pat his cheek, hoping that those eyes will open and look into theirs, that those lips will part and speak and reaffirm that everything is fine, please, give them something, anything.

Benrey forgets they’re not alone. Three sets of footsteps plod their way closer. On autopilot, they curl protectively over Gordon, arms wrapped tightly around his torso.

“Don’t hurt him. D-don’t,” they stutter, sure that they’re seconds away from having thousands of volts pumped through every cell in their body, but that never comes. Instead, one of the aliens clasps its hands together, not to charge another shock of lightning, but almost… wringing them. As if it were nervous. Those hands are free of those metallic bands, and Benrey watches another start working on pulling their own free from their wrists, material now warped and pliant. Gordon’s tendrils must have done that— forced them to yield to the overwhelming pressure the same way the guns had. Their mouth hangs open as one kneels next to them, examining and gingerly prodding at where Gordon’s right arm connects to his shoulder.

“Can you understand me?” Benrey asks, and finds themself without fear when that cyclopean eye blinks back at them. It speaks in a language they can’t understand, but somehow, they know it’s a reply. Benrey doesn’t know what was said, but it feels like reassurance. The alien turns Gordon’s arm back and forth as the other two join it, still apprehensive about Benrey’s presence but approaching slowly nonetheless.

“Do you know what’s happening? To him?”

Another answer, spoken from a different alien than the one that replied to them first, still with words that Benrey doesn’t know but can still get a sense of its tone. The three talk amongst each other, seemingly realizing they’re not being understood, and the third kneels with them. It points at Gordon’s arm, where his arm and shoulder connect, and draws a line through the dirt right next to it.

“I don’t understand,” Benrey laments, fighting not to shut down as total sensory overload creeps in. The shouting from the marines, the words being spoken to them that fray the edges of their mind, stretching it as they attempt to make sense of everything, the blood soaking into their palms.

The sputtering behind them turns feral, and Benrey turns just in time to watch one free a combat knife from his belt, slashing and stabbing wildly into the vines keeping him held aloft. Beneath them, Gordon sucks in an inhale that leaves in a hoarse wail, left hand’s claws scrabbling at the silty soil.

“Oh fuck— stop! Stop, stop, that’s his arm! That’s still his arm!”

Their pleading changes nothing. The marine screams wordlessly as the pods and spiked leaves and lashing roots all turn their attention to him. Limbs curl into points and hurl themselves down on top of him, bioluminescent bulbs encircle and swell around his legs, barbed stems shoot their quills out and lodge firmly into his skin.

It only takes a second.

The other men are quick to use the opening and wrangle themselves free. They uproot entire strands of plantlike veins, holding one end down under their feet and tearing them apart from each other, crushing pods and bursting them into explosions of slimy viscera, slashing deep gouges into stems and trunks that shriek when they’re cut into.

Gordon screams, haunting and nauseating, back arching off the ground. He jolts and hacks up bright red foam, running down from the corners of his mouth, legs kicking out as his nerves light up with pain signals.

“Stop!” Benrey wails, clawing their way back onto their feet. They see red, throwing themself bodily between the men and Gordon’s arm. It earns them a slash to their stomach, one the adrenaline hardly lets them feel.

“Fucking stop! The plants were protecting themselves! You have to stop— you’re gonna kill him!” Benrey’s throat is raw, their last words petering out in a half-sob. They’re pleading with every cell in their body, shaky arms fanning out as they stand both in surrender and defense, a wall of themself between blade meeting stems.

For a second, it all lulls, and Benrey thinks that they’re being heard, that they’ve changed things, that it’s going to be okay.

A pair of arms lock around them from behind.

Benrey thrashes and screams, blindly swinging their knife. It grazes the back of his hand, which only succeeds in pissing him off worse. An arm tightens around their throat that Benrey claws at, rattling out breathless curses as their knife is wrenched out of their hands and thrown to the ground. They kick their leg back as hard as they can and know they made contact with something from the give beneath their boot and the sharp yelp next to their ear. Their knees are kicked out from under them, and Benrey cries out as their hair is fisted in hand and used to keep them firmly held in place, blade pressed to the back of their neck in warning.

They watch helplessly as the other four keep slashing through the tendrils as Gordon keeps convulsing and gasping out horrible sounds.

“Please!” Benrey begs, tears spilling over. “Stop, stop, please, stop! Gordon!” Their hair is wrenched up tighter, blade nicking the nape of their neck and choking off their words in a whimper.

It’s a horrible feedback loop. The men flail and lash out whenever the alien flora gets too close, painting bright red targets on themselves. The plants close in around them, and they cut themselves free, again cementing themselves as the biggest threat to its survival, and the cycle repeats.

The soldier’s grip on Benrey doesn’t relent as they fight to free themself, uncaring of the bruises that their skin absorbs, uncaring of their own blood coagulating on their skin, fighting and fighting until finally, something gives.

Their boot catches on a tree root, giving them enough leverage to buck up, startling the man and giving themself an opening. They push their head into the knife held against their neck, the new leverage cutting into their scalp and more importantly, their hair. Benrey rocks themself back and forth until they’ve cut their ponytail free, hair falling in a frizzy mess above their shoulders. They crawl forward, hand thrown out for their knife until they feel its hilt.

They turn around and drive the blade into the man’s thigh with a raspy cry, yanking it back out with a protesting squelch of punctured muscle. They almost lose their grip on their stomach, forcing themself to swallow and breathe through it. He moves as if he’s going to wrestle Benrey back to the ground, but they don’t give him the chance. Operating entirely on fear, they reel back and punch him as hard as they can, hand aching and throbbing with pain, knuckles bleeding, sobbing as they bring the knife down a final time into his shoulder, pleading with him to stay down.

Their fight has inevitably drawn the attention of the others, two breaking off from slaughtering the flora to close in on Benrey, fishing out their own knives. Benrey swears their heart is going to give out, it’ll explode and they’ll die and Gordon will, too, and his dads will never know what happened to him, and— and Benrey can’t let that happen. They refuse to let that happen.

They bounce on the balls of their feet, adrenaline spiking, sniffling and smearing blood over their wrist when they swipe at their chin. It seems like a different lifetime entirely that Benrey’s grandpa was teaching them to throw knives after Benrey found him practicing. It seems like it was someone else’s hands that learned how to hold a blade with confidence, how to use it when it mattered. For a second, they’re back to being that socially othered girl just coming out of elementary school, trying to be brave enough to look people in the eye. But that’s not Benrey anymore.

Gritting their teeth hard enough to where they feel they could crack, Benrey stands their ground, refusing to shrink away, refusing to make themself smaller, refusing to say sorry.

One staggers closer despite his partner urging him back, jabbing the knife outwards. Benrey keeps a wide berth, body lined up behind their knife. He might have a leg up on them as far as experience goes, but he’s exhausted, right calf pierced and pant leg soaked in blood. If Benrey can play defense, they stand a chance.

He makes another wide swing. Benrey knocks his arm away. Steps back. Keeps their eyes forward. If they can draw him back closer to the treeline…

Benrey’s distracted long enough for a jab that gets too close to their gut to make them trip over a root, dirt clouding up around them. They cough, squeeze a handful of it in their fist, and throw it into his face. He sputters and has to clear his eyes, buying Benrey the time to get back on their feet and out of the way of a blind slash that takes a stray wisp of their hair with it. 

They weave around one of the trees as he tries to box them in, relying on the hope that he’s watching their knife and not their hands. They make a weak jab like they’re going for his hands, and like they’d thought, his focus is on the blade not getting too close to his skin. It’s a slim window, but Benrey leaps through it. Their other arm wraps around the tree, fists his hair in their hand, and slams his face into the trunk.

His nose dribbles steady floods of blood, knife fumbled and dropped. Benrey dives in and takes it in hand, pointing it down at the soldier. He answers by slowly raising his hands up in surrender. Benrey pants, hair plastered to their forehead with sweat, and looks up at the other marine. She knows that Benrey isn’t completely defenseless now.

“We don’t have to,” Benrey starts. “Don’t have to do this. I just want you to leave him alone. We’re— we’re kinda all stuck here. With this. Just… leave him be.”

She doesn’t answer, seeming to size Benrey up, weighing her options, visibly gritting her teeth. She slides her knife back into its holster. Benrey breathes out for what feels like the first time in years.

Keeping her in the corner of their eyes, Benrey flings the combat knife into the tangles of corrosive plants and slides their own back into place, kneeling down next to Gordon. His right arm is thoroughly tattered, scraps of oozing flora hanging limply from his shoulder’s socket. Blood seeps thickly into the leaf litter, continuing its slow sprawl. Everything below his elbow is gone , what’s left reduced to scraps of flesh and wooden splinters. He’s deathly pale, the warm tones of his skin now drained and sallow. Heart behind their teeth, Benrey lowers their ear in front of his mouth. He’s still breathing, even if his breaths are shallow and labored.

Benrey forgets to breathe themself, pulse pounding in their ears like an approaching thunderstorm as they unbutton Gordon’s flannel and shred it, inhaling in a shudder as they try to remember that first aid course they took back as a Girl Scout, snorting and half-sobbing at the memory. They rack their brain for buried memories of tying a tourniquet around a dummy’s arm, chewing on their bottom lip and trying to swallow past the taste of blood.

Benrey sees white.

A knee was just rammed into their temple.

They flail for their knife, unable to pull it from the holster before they’re shoved onto their back and two hands are closed tightly around their neck. They hadn’t been watching the man they’d fought close enough after they’d disarmed him.

Benrey gives a wet gasp, clawing their nails down the other man’s hands as hard as they can, throat clicking as they try to pull air into their lungs again. They turn to watch the other marine approach Gordon, knife withdrawn from their belt. Benrey doesn’t have the air to scream.

I need you to close your eyes. Keep them closed.

A voice. There’s a voice in their head that isn’t their own. They thought it took much longer to strangle someone to death, so this couldn’t be some dying dream, could it? They listen regardless, squeezing their eyes shut as their attempts to wrestle themself free slowly begin to peter off and the sounds get more and more distant.

All at once, there’s light and warmth as if it’s a late summer afternoon. Even with their eyes shut as tightly as possible, it’s still overwhelmingly bright, bright enough to somehow occupy all five senses, so impossibly warm and yet it doesn’t scorch them. Benrey’s entire body feels mere millimeters from a dancing flame without ever crossing into it. There’s shrill whistling sounds, and screams of confusion and terror, and it’s all so loud, Benrey wants to clamp their hands over their ears, they want to hide, they want— they want to look—

And then it’s over. Benrey’s eyes fly open and they roll onto their side, hacking and gasping for air as they curl into themself, pleading with the world to stop spinning. A hand rests on their shoulder.

“Are you okay? That was— that looked awful. Can you speak?”

Blearily, Benrey turns their head up to meet gently illumined eyes staring back. They’re quick to recognize him as the man from Gordon’s mantel photos, soft glow casting lights over his cheeks and a deeply worried expression. He’s even accompanied by the huge golden retriever he was with in every photo Benrey saw of him. Pieces start to connect.

“You— you’ve got to be Tommy, right?”

The other man tilts her head, eyes narrowing as she stares down Benrey before recognition colors her face.

“Oh, yes! You’re Benrey! I— you were helping him, weren’t you? Thank you, I-I don’t— I don’t want to think about what could’ve— would’ve happened if you hadn’t...” Tommy trails off, raising a hand to her mouth while her dog— Sunkist, Benrey remembers— bumps into her thigh until she leans down to pet him.

“Oh, god, Gordon,” she gasps, sprinting and kneeling down beside Gordon, two fingers firmly pressed to his wrist. Her expression is this awful blend of nausea, fury, fear, and yet underneath it all, resolution.

“His pulse is too slow. We need t— we have to get him somewhere safe, he—”

“Wait,” Benrey shakes their head. “Where did— the soldiers? The aliens—”

They look out over the clearing, just now realizing that they’re alone. Where each of them had been positioned, there’s now smoldering, scorched earth, the dirt blackened and chalky like charcoal.

Tommy turns and blinks down at them before refocusing on Gordon, unbuttoning and shredding his flannel into strips. “There weren't any... aliens? Any o-of— of those when I got here. And I know how it looks, but it’s not— they’re fine. They’re just… not here right now.”

“In the forest?”

“On earth.”

Benrey’s face must say everything, because Tommy’s rhythm in bandaging his arm stutters. “We’re— I’m not human either. You probably… learned that about Gordon tonight, right? Just now? I mean, it took him almost a decade to tell me…” Tommy stares down at Gordon, a look both saccharine sweet and steeply pained, firmly looping the makeshift bandages tighter around what’s left of his arm.

“Y-yeah. But it’s— I don’t care. I’m not gonna say anything, I just… I just want him okay.” Benrey raises their arms up and hugs themself, rocking back and forth and using every ounce of control to keep themself from sobbing. They don’t notice Tommy pat Sunkist’s back and point at Benrey, but they do notice when a snout presses into their arm, waiting for them to untangle themself. Benrey takes a shuddering breath as Sunkist rests his head in their lap, barking out a series of woofs that are almost musical. Benrey begins running fingers through his fur at the same time lights gently sway and weave through the air above them, like small, isolated pillars of an aurora borealis.

Benrey gasps, lost in the shifting shades of deep blue and indigo moving into bright teal. They wince as something prickles along their forehead, raising a hand to feel that the cut that had nicked their eyebrow was healed over, scarred skin rough against the pad of their thumb. The scrapes across their jaw and hands were much the same, faded and closed up.

Tommy answers Benrey’s questioning glance with a short laugh. “I’ve— I don’t call him the perfect dog without reason.” She pulls the bandages taut with a sharp tug, kneeling and pulling Gordon up into her arms as if he doesn’t have a near head of height on her.

“We need to leave now. Gordon’s— Harold and Bubby have to be looking for him, but we don’t have time to get— to find them. If we’re caught, they’ll kill him. But… Gordon trusted you, and I’ve got to— I'm going to do the same. Do you know anyone we could go to? Anyone who can help?”

Benrey looks at each of Tommy’s eyes separately, head pounding at the constant flood of thought and feeling rushing through them, turning over each word in their brain until they fully digest them.

“I think I do. How’re we gonna get to him, though?”

Benrey flinches and swears when there’s distant shouts from multiple voices. It’s not either of the Coomers.

Tommy frees up a hand to encircle one of Benrey’s wrists, shutting her eyes and eyebrows angled down harshly in intense focus.

“Okay… okay, that should work. But I just sent those six to— and I haven’t— I don’t know if I can do this,” Tommy admits, looking terrified and determined all in the same breath. “I’m going to try. I have to.”

He forces himself to take a deep breath in, and when Tommy exhales, it’s like a puff of a nebula, a cloud of space dust and flickering starlight. He winces, clutching at his own forehead, but he refuses to let his concentration waver. Sunkist tugs at Benrey’s sleeve until they follow, pulled up to Tommy’s right. Sunkist sits at his left, angling his head up to brush against her arm, intently watching the crawling ink of space sprawl further and further from the three of them.

Benrey wrenches their eyes shut when those voices grow closer, shouting over each other in a frenzy. They clamp their hands over their ears and count up to ten and down from ten over and over until the emptiness around them distorts. It warps and bends like melted plastic and when they can will themself to open their eyes, a perfectly rectangular rift waits like an open maw a yard in front of them.

“You need to go first— oh, fuck,” Tommy startles, branches and detritus behind them snapping under several boots. “Go, go!” he screams, shoving Benrey forward until they’re all but falling through the portal.

It’s like carefully being taken apart, the same way Benrey would constantly unscrew and piecemeal their click pen in the library waiting for Darnold at lunch, laying the barrel, spring, ink chamber out side by side, until they eventually, methodically, began to put it all back together, and when their pieces are clicked into place, they’re nearly stumbling face first into Darnold’s front door. They barely catch Sunkist and Tommy rushing through it after them, Gordon squeezed tight to her chest, and the dimensional doorway swallowing itself up behind her.

Steered by something feral, Benrey bangs their fist on the oak, catching themself at the start of a rattling sob, gut turning on itself and tearing itself apart until their hand almost collides with a familiar face.

“Benrey?” Darnold asks haltingly, shocked beyond further questions as he takes in the sight of the three people on his doorstep, the blood seeping into their clothes, the half dead man in Tommy’s arms steadily dripping blood onto the porch. Benrey shambles forward, hands trembling violently as they reach up and grab fiercely at his shoulders, tears streaming down their cheeks.

“Help.”

Chapter Text

The windows are cracked open just wide enough to let wind circulate through Darnold’s cabin, but not enough to let rain find its way inside. Droplets bead up and slowly drip down the screens, collecting in small pools on the sills. The smell of rain-dampened pines trails through the windows in varied little increments, tethering Benrey to the present.

They feel like they both haven’t slept enough and have slept too much. They were out for close to thirteen hours from the second they crashed on the couch opposite the one with its bed pulled out for Gordon. After Benrey was up, they haven’t let themself fall back asleep since, no matter how much Darnold urges them to.

A rumble of thunder makes Benrey flinch, swearing under their breath when their mostly-empty mug fumbles out of their hands and rolls across the floor. They wince, looking back up slowly.

Gordon’s still asleep. He hasn’t been lucid for more than a few fleeting moments that Benrey had been asleep for. From how Tommy and Darnold described it, he had only slurred out disconnected sounds that weren’t quite words, his eyes drooping shut as soon as they were spoken.

House plants stand in a loose circle around his bedside, monstera, philodendron, snake plants— and those were only the ones Benrey knew the names of. Tommy had been insistent on going out and buying as many as they could fit in the bed of Darnold’s truck. The last two days have been a blur, so Benrey only remembers the broad strokes of how she described it.

Tommy remembered aloud the first time Gordon ever scraped his knees when they played growing up. He sniffled and dusted himself off, pulling Tommy away by the hand and sitting them both down in a bed of clovers apart from the other kids at recess. His roots had parted the earth and sunk into the ground, and Tommy was able to watch his wounds stitch themselves back together in real time. He did this dozens of times over the course of them knowing each other, whether it was cutting his thumb while cooking or scraping up his legs on a hike. He would immerse himself in the plant life around him; his favorites had either been napping in his dads’ garden or hiking deeper into the forest where the trees were at their thickest. Tommy smiled when she spoke, melancholic and strained.

She wasn’t sure how it worked herself, just that there was a silent conversation along their root systems, exchanged through chemicals and electric pulses, that they both benefitted each other in ways she or they could never understand, a connection that had no parallel to any human relationship.

The roots Gordon’s legs end in have sprawled out further on their own, each branching sprig nestling themselves in the potting soil. The roots gently twitch and curl as the plants visibly sway to their own rhythms, like fast forward video of leaves caught in soft winds. When they first found blooming moss had begun to grow at the base of the plant’s stems, the relief that washed over Tommy’s face was palpable. He’d said, with no uncertainty, that Gordon was going to pull through. Benrey wanted to believe him— had to believe him.

Even with the reassurances, Gordon hardly looks any better. The warm brown tones of his skin are washed out and pale, speckled with sweat that glints in the low lamplight. He bled through a full roll of gauze from Darnold’s first aid kit, old strips sticking to the sides of the trash can sitting at the foot of the pull-out couch.

Sometimes, they notice faint flickers of movement behind his eyelids. They can only hope, against everything else, that his dreams are somehow pleasant.

Benrey scrubs a hand down their face, scratching above the band-aids on their chin and finally relenting to getting up and refilling their coffee. They still hate how it tastes. They need to stay awake.

Tommy and Darnold are sitting out on the screened-in porch with small plates of coffee cake, talking quietly between each other, staring out at the tree line and watching birds preening themselves in the birdbath whenever they lapse into silence.

The only times Benrey’s seen Tommy’s expression change is when she tells a story about Gordon or shares something about Sunkist, but then her face falls again, back into that stony, distant expression. She keeps staring down at her hands with a look stewing in discomfort and repulsion. Benrey wishes she didn’t blame herself. She was the only one who could do it. The plants could only do so much. They wouldn’t have closed the wound before he bled out. They didn’t have another choice.

Unwillingly, snippets of the day before come back to mind. When Tommy had asked Benrey and Darnold to hold Gordon down as she raised a hand to the stump of his shoulder, glowing like molten metal. The way Gordon screamed, entirely on instinct, not even fully conscious, muffled by the towel they had him bite down on. How Tommy wept on and off for the rest of the night— Benrey shakes their head as if they can physically dislodge the memory.

Darnold hasn’t stopped fidgeting. Every time Benrey sees him, some part of him is moving. Right now, his thumb keeps rubbing up and down the handle of his mug, spinning a half and half cap with his other hand. His leg bounces incessantly, floorboard creaking quietly underfoot.

“Hey,” Darnold calls out. “You wanna join us? Is that— wait, how many cups has that been?”

“Doesn’t matter,” Benrey shrugs, chewing on one of their hoodie strings.

“Ben…”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s alright. Promise,” Darnold reassures. He roves the pads of his fingers over the mug’s raised design. “You know, you could’ve called out and I would’ve gotten up for you. You shouldn’t be on your feet if you can help it. How’re you doing?”

“Fine. It’s… fine.” They mentally try to justify how that’s not a complete lie. They are feeling better, even if a good portion of their body is bandaged up and their bruised ribs ache every time they sigh. Sunkist has been intermittently barking those teal-green lights into the air around them, leaving the cuts along their face and hands reduced to fading scars and the scratches on their back scabbed over.

Darnold frowns at them, but doesn’t push. “Sorry,” he takes his turn to apologize. “Dumb question. I’m just worried about you.”

“I know.”

“You— you went through so much, you saw so much, and you aren’t taking care of yourself. You won’t talk to me.”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

“No, I—” Darnold inhales sharply, nail catching on a chip along the mug’s rim. “You don’t have to be sorry. I feel… stuck, I think. I want to do more, but what can I do for you? There’s— there’s no fixing what happened, and even if there was, i-it’s nothing I can do, and—”

“Hey. Hey,” Benrey stops him, stepping out onto the porch and resting a hand on the back of Darnold’s, gently but insistently pulling it away from where it’s scratching at his own forearm. “You did a lot for me by letting us in. By taking care of Gordon ‘n patching us up. Both of us. Quality, um, stitches. Stitchwork.” Benrey pats above their stomach and winces. “Ow.”

“Be careful,” Darnold huffs, fondly scolding. “And thank you.”

Benrey leans over the back of his chair, draping their arms around Darnold’s shoulders in an awkward standing-sitting hug that makes them both laugh.

“They— Benrey’s right,” Tommy chimes in, setting his mug down and pushing it away from himself. “I don’t know where we’d be without you. Thank you.”

“O-oh, you’re— you’re welcome,” Darnold flusters. “I couldn’t imagine turning him away when he was… well. And then seeing the look on your face, and Benrey’s? I knew they’d found their cryptid.”

Tommy raises an eyebrow, looking between Darnold and Benrey and waiting for an explanation.

“So, uh… I’ve met him before,” they start uncertainly. “I was eleven, broke my arm playing. No one would’ve found me out there, but… Gordon did. Got me back to my house, kept me safe. He did a ton for me, by being there and being him. A lot of things changed for the better after I met him. He’s why I got out of the house, started hiking, why I— why I did lots of things, really. I’d always wanted a chance to thank them. To thank my cryptid.” They look up through the window that sees into the living room. “Never thought I’d get the chance. I just wish it could’ve been different. Can’t stop thinking ‘bout what I coulda done. If I hadn’t met him…” Benrey trails off, throat dry and scratchy.

Tommy shakes her head. “You can’t think that way. You can’t— Gordon wouldn’t want you to. With how, um… with how careful we have to be, trust is— it doesn’t come easy. We have to keep ourselves safe first, and we can’t do that by letting just anyone in. He did, though. He welcomed you and wanted you there… I don’t know i-if— if you know how big a deal that is for him.”

Tommy’s fingers lightly skim over the wood grain in tiny figure eights. “I know you blaming yourself would hurt him, if he was hearing it. He wouldn’t— I know he’d say that meeting you wasn’t a mistake, no matter how it happened.”

Benrey swallows uselessly around a lump that won’t budge, the hand not curled into a ball smoothing back and forth over the wrinkles in the fabric on their thigh as they bite back the tremble in their bottom lip.

“I know what— I know why you do it. Blaming yourself, I mean. I keep wondering how it would’ve gone if I— if my trip had happened a day sooner. If I could’ve been here when all of this… happened.” Tommy wrings her hands together, again looking out over Darnold’s backyard. “I still don’t understand it. The— I kn-know my dad’s trying to figure out what this rift is, what we can do to close it—”

“Your dad?” Benrey can’t help themself from interrupting. “Oh, uh, sorry, just—”

“My dad’s like me,” Tommy says simply. “He could feel someone on earth who was comp— who was similar enough to what he was. He adopted me the second he found me. He didn’t want me to grow up figuring everything out on my own. Wh-whatever we are, we came from stars— from space.” Tommy steeples his fingers, straightening them out and relaxing them in a pattern.

“These creatures— aliens showing up, they’ve been… displaced. Space is thinned out so that jumping between their planet and ours is as easy as— as playing hopscotch.” Tommy picks up her fork and cuts her piece of coffee cake down the middle.

“Time moves differently for them, these aliens suddenly being on earth is— it’s nothing good. My dad’s out there trying to find where this wh-whole thing started. I wish… I wish Gordon hadn’t been caught up in this. I wish I’d known.” Tommy sighs, petting Sunkist when he nudges his nose against her hip. Thunder rumbles, making the metal signs on the porch walls quietly rattle.

“What happens when space thins out?” Darnold speaks up softly. “Do you think it’s what… did that? To Gordon’s arm?”

“No. No, I don’t think so. Not that by itself.” Tommy’s tone becomes contemplative, words spaced out to make room for the thoughts in between them. “I don’t know why it happened, but I feel like I should. If anyone here should— would be able to figure it out, i-it should be me, but…”

“The arm that he couldn’t control anymore was— it was the same shoulder he got hit,” Benrey begins when Tommy trails off. “Suh— something happened with my laptop, aliens showing up whenever it got turned on, ‘s a whole thing. Still don’t really get it. Gordon got me out of the way one time. Stopped one from coming through, I think.”

Tommy’s eyebrows nearly reach his hairline. “Those two don’t— have to be connected, but… I still don’t understand what happened.”

“Y’know… Gordon’s dads said that the alien plants were spreading out by their cabin, too. Growing far enough to crawl over the path.” Benrey hunches in on themself subconsciously. “They totally filled his living room overnight after another strike. So they grow fast and can act kinda aggressive, or at least have defense mechanicals— mechanisms.”

“They’re invasive,” Darnold puts a word to it. “If they’re that easy to spread, they have to have multiple ways of germinating. The quickest way of doing that would be… spores.”

Realization hits each of them one at a time.

“Spores,” Tommy repeats, creeping horror clouding her face. “It’s not e-entirely out of the realm of poss— it’s not impossible to think that these aliens brought some of their air— their atmosphere— with them every time. And for someone whose body is mostly made of plant cells—” She cuts herself off, hand pressed to her mouth and knees drawn up to her chest. Sunkist whines, propping himself up on the edge of her chair to kiss her hands. She laughs hoarsely, looking down at him with glassy eyes, scratching behind his ears. Benrey’s chest aches. Silence trickles in again.

“His arm… it wouldn’t have made it through this anyway,” Tommy eventually rasps. “They— it— the alien flora would’ve eaten it until there wasn’t anything left, and then… then they would’ve kept going.” She shudders, firmly staring out into Darnold’s backyard, rocking in place. “He still sh— shouldn’t have had to go through that. He didn’t deserve any of this. I-it was—”

“Tommy, wait,” Darnold interrupts. “It’s— it’s okay. I mean, no, it isn’t, it really isn't, but… it already happened. I know you don’t just stop feeling awful because it’s passed, but you can’t keep hurting yourself over what you can’t change. Or, at least… you’ve got to try not to.”

The tension in Tommy’s shoulders slowly relaxes in its stranglehold, enough for him to nod shakily in place of a verbal answer. He leans down to lay his head on top of Sunkist’s and sighs slowly, drumming his fingers against his fur to the rhythm of rain pelting the birdbath. Benrey looks from him to Darnold, corner of his mouth quirking up in a weak smile that Darnold returns.

They slump back in their chair, staring up at the ceiling, trying not to imagine all the ways it could have been different.

“Gonna go back and sit with him,” Benrey finds themself saying before they realize what words are on their lips. “You, uh— you need anything?”

They both kindly wave Benrey off, telling them they’ll be in soon, and Sunkist woofs a flicker of color Benrey’s come to recognize as both hello and goodbye. They huff out a soft laugh and wave behind them, mug forgotten on the counter as they shuffle back into the living room. Instead of crawling into the armchair to stare out the window and rock themself into a mindless haze, they find themself sitting at the foot of his bed, its supports creaking beneath them.

Gordon mumbles something in his sleep, horns catching on the pillowcase as his head turns minutely. The buds interwoven with his hair have started to open, petals colored in oranges, pinks, and yellows, their soft sunset colors a pretty contrast to the returning warmth of his skin. His eyelashes flutter, movement behind his eyelids startling Benrey out of their staring.

Gordon slowly opens his eyes, blinking laggardly as he struggles to focus. His head lolls onto his shoulder, mouth working around silent sounds until he swallows and tries again.

“Ben… rey?”

“Oh fh-fuck,” they stutter, squeezing the hem of their shirt hard enough for their knuckles to turn white. They stand up enough to see Darnold through the window looking out to the porch, waving at him until they get his attention and he and Tommy are hurrying out, footsteps bracketed by Sunkist’s claws tapping quickly over the hardwood.

“Gordon,” Tommy gasps, dropping to her knees at the side of his bed, kissing his forehead and cautiously draping an arm over his chest to squeeze him in a half-hug. “Oh my god. God— you’re okay. You’re okay. We’re at Benrey’s friend’s house, alright? It’s all— you’re going to be fine. We’ve got you. You’re okay,” Tommy repeats, running a shaky hand through his hair. Idly, Benrey wonders who the comforts are for.

Gordon slurs out something none of them understand, shifting beneath the blankets. The collar of his shirt slides further down his neck, baring the moss that’s begun to crawl over where he’d been shot, rhizoids anchoring themselves in the gauze.

Benrey watches the stump of his shoulder move beneath the bandages as he angles himself to face Tommy. His face scrunches up, confused and pained, and even as Tommy tries to get him to lie down, he sits himself up enough to turn down and look at his shoulder, and where his upper arm now comes to an end a few inches past.

Benrey can’t make out the expression on his face, cycling through dozens of emotions they couldn’t try to name. A minute passes of stillness, of Gordon staring unblinkingly at the stump, of eyes carrying heavy bags flicking over it, taking it in. Slowly, his surviving hand fights to raise up from the mattress, reaching out for Tommy. She holds onto him instantly, giving his hand a burst of small squeezes.

“Benrey and I got you out,” she murmurs. Sunkist gently rests his head on Gordon’s stomach with a whine. “You’re safe. You can sleep.”

Gordon opens his mouth to speak before it breaks off into a rattling cough, wincing at the strain put on a ruined throat.

“Benrey’s— Benrey’s where?”

“Right here,” Benrey speaks up, moving back into his line of sight and kneeling next to Tommy. “Right here, Gordon.” They inhale in a shudder, mindlessly brushing a curl out of his eyes. “How’re you feeling?”

“Tired,” Gordon croaks, trying to sound amused, somehow managing a wobbly smile up at them. His head again lolls back onto his shoulder with a frustrated grunt, rasping something under his breath none of them catch.

“I bet,” Benrey tries to smile back, swallowing around their tightening throat. “You can close your eyes, man. We all got you.”

“Mh, but—” Gordon shakes his head and blinks rapidly up at them. “Wait, what happened— are you okay? Hey, wasn’t it—”

“I’m fine.” Benrey squeezes the shoulder that isn’t wrapped in thick gauze. “I’m okay. Promise. You can’t— you shouldn’t be worried about me right now—”

“Dad and papa,” Gordon’s voice drops and Benrey’s stomach follows. “They— oh, g-god, they’re still— they’re still out there— Benrey, I can’t—”

All of them react with panicky protests when Gordon fully sits himself up in bed. He sucks in a gasp that leaves in a loud groan, clutching his shoulder with trembling fingers.

“Whoa, whoa, hey! Hey, you can’t— Gordon, you can’t— lay back down. Here, c’mon, lemme help—”

“They’re gonna kill them,” his voice drops to a snivel, turning up to face Benrey with wild, glassy eyes. It makes them falter, hands hovering above him and veins constricting in a vice grip around their lungs. “I-if they know— if they found out who my dads— they’ll kill them.” Gordon lets go of himself to grab desperately at Benrey instead. “I have to go back. I need to find them, I won’t— I can’t leave them—”

“I’ll go,” Benrey cuts him off. “I’ll go back to their cottage ‘n find them. You need to stay here until— you just gotta stay here. Okay? I’ll go and bring ‘em back. You need to be lying down. I’ve got it.”

“It’ll be easier with the both of us,” Darnold speaks up, sitting at the foot of the bed. “I’ll go with them. We’ll figure it out. We’ll manage.”

“You need to rest,” Tommy joins in softly, pressing a light kiss to Gordon’s temple and carefully urging at his shoulder until he gives in and slumps back onto the mountain of pillows. He tries to say something, but no sound follows.

“What?” Benrey asks, leaning over him.

“Please be careful,” Gordon mumbles, hand clumsily grasping at their arm and trailing up until it finds their jaw, cupping their cheek.

Benrey’s heart threatens to give out, mouth dry and uncooperative as they get out a weak, “I will be.”

Gordon hums wordlessly, letting Tommy rearrange the pillows behind him, eyes already halfway closed again. He reaches out for her, babbling something in syllables that don’t form full words. She only takes his hand, leaning over and kissing him as she pulls the blankets back up to his shoulders. Gordon finally begins to settle, not able to keep fighting the way his eyelids droop. He manages to mumble one more plea for them to be safe, and he’s out, shoulders slumping as he fully relaxes back into the mattress.

Tommy gives a shuddering sigh, standing and smoothing Gordon’s hair down. The look she gives him has palpable weight. Benrey feels like they’ll be crushed under it. She turns her hand over and rests it against his forehead.

“He’s burning up,” she frets, Benrey watching as the words make her tense up. “Darnold, would you mind— could you get him a cold towel?”

Darnold tears his eyes away from Gordon and nods, hurrying for the laundry room. Tommy turns to Benrey.

“You’re really going back?”

“I have to. I want to. His dads are— it’s not— can’t leave ‘em out there on their own. Not with… all that. The soldiers.”

Tommy nods, not saying anything for a while. Benrey doesn’t speak, either, as the rain slowly eases up, its sounds growing fainter as the reality of what they’re about to do grows louder. They’re going back in. They’re willingly walking into a nexus of soldier activity and alien portals ripped through time and space. How are they going to do this?

Their starting spiral into panic is interrupted by a soft dragging sound. They look down at its source and find Gordon’s tail twitching and curling in his sleep, the bulbs at its end thudding quietly over the carpet. Tommy huffs out a silent laugh when he notices, quieting Gordon with soothing nonsense sounds until he relaxes again. Even though this is all entirely new, Benrey can’t help but be charmed by all the different parts of what makes him inhuman. They wonder if they had just been too panicked to notice them on the camera, or if Gordon was—

Benrey’s stomach nearly upends itself.

“Are you okay?” Tommy notices when they lurch forward.

“Shit,” Benrey chokes out. “The trail cams. The cams I put up. There’s video— there’s a video of Gordon. With his arm all l-like— it’s still on my laptop. In my cabin.”

Tommy bolts upright, standing and immediately starting to pace. “Fuck. This is— this is bad. If they have that, they’ll—rec— they’d be able to recognize him. With enough time, they could put a name to a face. They’d have something concrete to keep… going after him. They would never leave him alone.” Tommy folds his arms across his chest, bent over himself as he continues to walk back and forth.

“I didn’t— I shouldn’t’ve— I-I’m so sorry. I’m sorry.” Benrey stares wide-eyed down at the floor, gut twisting and curling itself into incomprehensible knots. “I’m gonna fix it. I’m gonna go back for Gordon’s dads and— and break that fucking laptop over my knee the second I get it back. No one’s coming after him. Not gonna let ‘em.”

Tommy stares down at Benrey, and for a moment, they swear they’ve never felt smaller, but the creases along her forehead lighten, expression lifting as she nods.

“Right. Right. Okay. I’d go— I would go with you, but I can’t leave him alone. If they found him, I’m the only one who could keep him safe right now. I’m sorry, but—”

“My mess. I’ll fix it,” Benrey interrupts.

“This— this whole thing wasn’t your fault. You couldn’t have known it would be like… this.” Tommy wrings her hands together. “This is going to be— it’s going to be a lot. I don’t know what you’re going to find, I can’t…” Tommy's eyes grow unfocused, wrinkles at their corners growing sharper as she shakes her head. “I can’t see. With space being, um— being flayed like this, I can’t tell how many more aliens are there, but the number isn’t— it’s not zero. There's something out there, too. Something different. And big.

“As soon as I can be sure Gordon’s safe, I’ll come and find you. Oh, but I’ll need— here, this should make it easier for me to know where you are.” Tommy slides a ring off one of his fingers, waiting for Benrey to open their palm. It’s a silver spinner ring, engraved with paw prints on the outside and a slightly faded Congratulations! on the inside.

“I’m, um… really attached to it, so— I kn-know it’s not the priority here, but it’s— it was from Gordon, and I just—”

“I’ll keep it safe. Gonna bring it back with Gordon’s dads and a pile of laptop-shaped scrap metal.”

Tommy huffs out an almost-laugh, looking down at Gordon when he makes another quiet sound.

“Please, be safe. Gordon’s— he really likes you. He—” Tommy cuts herself off when Darnold walks back in with the washcloth, handing it off to Tommy. She thanks him, folding it in half and draping it over his forehead, sinking down to sit beside him in time with his soft, relieved sigh. Her hand fidgets restlessly with her necklace, palm pressed to her chest as she stares.

“Thank you. For everything,” Tommy says, briefly glancing at Darnold before focusing her gaze back on Gordon. “You’ve done so much, it’s— I don’t know how I could ever say thank you enough. You’re…” he trails off, thumb smoothing back and forth over the blanket.

“Just glad I could be here,” Darnold reassures, turning and shifting through the closet underneath his stairs. He tucks a can of bear spray into the backpack slung over his shoulders, meeting Benrey’s eyes with a slight shrug. “I don’t really got much when it comes to self-defense. I’m hopin’ I won’t have to use it.” Darnold frowns, sitting and pulling on his boots. Benrey does the same, then catches sight of the knife and its holster laid side by side on the coffee table. With hands they try to convince themself aren’t shaking, they loop it back around their thigh, buckling it into place, sliding the knife home.

“Are you both ready?”

“No,” Benrey laughs weakly. “Do it anyway.”

The hand still laying over Tommy’s chest squeezes her shirt in hand, and the exhale she takes next puffs out in a rush of starlight and cosmos. Sunkist presses his head into the hand hanging down at her other side, staring up at her as Tommy focuses on opening a doorway, warm light blooming in Darnold’s living room.

“I’m letting you both out right at the start— where the trail starts. Message me when you’ve found them and I’ll come get you. Okay?”

“Okay… okay.” Benrey straightens, taking a deep breath, reaching down and squeezing Darnold’s hand, and steps through first.

Chapter Text

“What the fuck.”

“Yeah.”

“It’s— that’s not— what the fuck.”

“Yeah, it’s… new.”

Darnold fumbles the bear spray as he pulls it free from his bag, turning on his heel and staring down Benrey with wide eyes.

“What do you mean it’s new?” he whisper-shouts.

“I mean I haven’t seen this one before. It’s not the— the ones I told you about. The ones Gordon helped. All the others’ve been, uh. Real bad. Fight and they don’t… flight. Go after you as soon as they see you.”

From the clearing they’re overlooking, the alien with tendrils circling its mouth perks up, feelers dropping an upturned log to writhe in the open air. Both of them snap silent. Darnold claps a hand over his mouth with a strangled squeak.

They both breathe out a long sigh of relief when it finally ambles away, distracted by sounds further into the forest.

“It’s not like I thought you were lying, but that… really was an alien. That was an— an alien,” Darnold intones, dragging a hand down his face and rocking backwards until he drops from crouching to sitting down.

“Do you… need a sec?”

“No, I’m— I’m fine. As fine as I can be right now, it’s all just— I’m processing. I think.”

Benrey nods, reaching up like they’re going to tie their hair back before remembering it hangs just above their shoulders now. Darnold notices, corners of his mouth quirking up in a reassuring smile.

“It’ll grow back before you know it. And hey, I bet Gordon’ll think it looks good on you.” He grins when Benrey flusters and shoves his shoulder, both of them devolving into silent laughter. Darnold stands and hefts his backpack higher up on his shoulders, offering Benrey a hand. “You ready to keep goin’?”

Benrey inhales sharply through their nose, mouth drawn in a tight line, and pulls themself up.

Closer and closer to the cabin, as the trees grow denser, unnatural light seeps throughout the dimming forest from the alien flora now crawling up trunks and overtaking root systems. Benrey clutches their stomach when they recognize some of the ones that had invaded the matter of Gordon’s arm.

“Benrey?” Darnold calls back from further ahead, and it’s only then that Benrey realizes they stopped walking. “We can stop for a few, if you—”

“No,” Benrey interrupts, swallowing back the tremble in their voice. “I want— I gotta keep going. If I stop, then I won’t be able to move. Again. Can’t do that.”

Darnold gives a tight-lipped smile, dimples creasing at the corners of his lips and eyebrows turned up in worried understanding.

“I know. But you’re doing it. We’re doing it together. We’re not going to stop.” He reaches out to squeeze their hand and nods ahead of them on the path. Benrey’s chest tightens, forcing a smile as they nod along. They walk to the front and gently tug Darnold after them, other hand resting above their knife’s sheath as they move to take the lead.

“Can’t be too far now— huh? Uh.” Benrey and Darnold’s joined hands drop when they see… well. It. Benrey’s not sure either of them would ever really be able to put words to it. The best they’ve got is calling it a fleshy protrusion. It stands amongst birches and cedars like it’s always been there, gently twitching and swaying in a nonexistent breeze.

“Wh-what is—” Darnold looks over at Benrey’s widened eyes, shadowed by the downturn of their eyebrows. “Right. Okay. You don’t know. Sorry. Um… do we just… pass it?”

Benrey can’t even try to stumble over an answer before a rabbit is startled out of the underbrush. It scurries under and over roots, its path passing directly under the spongy mass. Darnold barely succeeds in biting back a shocked shout when the awful flesh tree spears itself down in a flurry, narrowly missing the rabbit as it turns and bolts the other way.

“What the fuck,” Benrey hisses under their breath. “It just keeps getting worse.”

“Going t— you’re gonna j-jinx it,” Darnold stutters when he can speak again, hands on his knees as he wills himself to breathe calmly. “So… avoid those. We know that now.”

Benrey nods dumbly and fumbles for Darnold’s hand. They lead them along without another word.

“There’s at least eight,” Benrey relays to Darnold, dropping their borrowed binoculars. “Could be more in the cabin.”

“Do you think we should split up? I find his dads while you get the laptop?”

“With every— all the things out there now? Bad. Bad idea. Can’t leave you alone.”

“Come on, I could— well, I don’t know if I can do this, but I have to try! The longer we take out here, the more likely we’re gonna get caught, right? If we split up—”

“I know you can do it!” Benrey interrupts in a rush. “I mean… I don’t know. I don’t know if I could do it alone. Without you.”

“Benrey, I didn’t mean—”

Darnold is cut off a second time when an unbelievably loud groan tears through the air, leaving them clapping hands over their ears. The men outside the cabin quickly arrange themselves in a tight cluster, guns torn free from holsters and swung off their backs, commands relayed between each other in panicked shouts. Another branch of their group tears out of the treeline, coated with blood both theirs and otherwise.

They seem to quickly fall into an argument that would’ve been hard enough to parse even without being able to hear what they’re saying, gesticulating wildly between each other. From what Benrey and Darnold can glean, the half of their group that got back wants out, even if it means going against whatever they were sent out here for. What appears to be the leader of the main group insists they head back in. The longer it goes on, the fewer marines seem inclined to agree.

“Do you know what made that sound?” Darnold whisper-shouts. “Please tell me you know what that is and it makes itself sound bigger than it is and everything’s good and fine.” The answering grimace from Benrey is all the answer he needs. “Aw, hell.”

While the majority of the marines frantically claw their way back onto the main trail, the leader racks her rifle and squares her shoulders. She’s recognizable even through smudged lenses. It’s the same soldier from the clearing— the one who’d decided to back off when Benrey talked her down.

“Guess dimensional timeout’s over.”

“What?”

“Don’t worry about it.”

The rest gather up their equipment and trudge after their captain. Benrey and Darnold only dare to move when all sounds of their movement are completely gone.

“C’mon! Not gonna get another chance!” Benrey crows, sucking in a sharp breath as they dart forward. Darnold yelps and hurries after them when they hop over the short outcropping and slide down the hill backing up to the cabin. They tumble right at the end and absolutely eat shit and they’re laughing, tension snapping like a rubber band, terrified and exhilarated all in the same breath.

“Jesus, Benrey!” Darnold whines, stepping down carefully to turn them over and dab the end of his sleeve at the bloody scrape on their forehead, but he’s huffing out quiet laughter despite himself. He shakes his head fondly and helps them up, hurrying into the cabin and drawing the curtains shut once they’re in.

Benrey feels along the siding of the fireplace, finding that barely-there split and following it down until their fingers catch the rounded corner of their laptop. They sigh louder than they’ve ever heard from themself before, withdrawing and staring down at it with exasperated disbelief.

“Fuck. It’s still here.” They practically deflate, shaky legs leaving their back sliding down the wall until they thud onto the hardwood. After another beat of silence, Darnold joins them.

“You’re gonna break it?”

“Can get another laptop. Can’t get another Gordon,” Benrey mumbles, a fond smile breaking out over their lips. “Just deleting it— I can’t trust that’d be enough. There’re probably ways to get it back if they tried, right? And, like— still not sure it’s safe, after everything. What it did to him— I don’t want it to do that again, to him or anyone else. Won’t let it. So gotta— wanna break it open and make sure no part of it’s ever gonna work again. You, uh— you ready?”

Darnold stands and offers them a hand that they use to pull themself up with, giving them a wide berth. “Do it.”

Benrey raises the laptop above their head and hurdles it down into the cabin flooring with a sharp sound. The screen splinters, border cracking and scattering into dozens of pieces. The pent-up anger they’ve been harboring and letting fester for days now tears through their lungs. Benrey rips the monitor off of the laptop’s body from the few wires it was hanging on by, throwing the main housing back down and slamming the heel of their boot into it, over and over and over without pause, until it bursts open to reveal electric guts.

They sift through the busted components until they find the hard drive. They yank it apart from the rest of the laptop and draw out one of the pikers from beside the fireplace, ready to spear through it at the same second the front door is slammed open.

Neither of them get a second to react before two men wrestle Darnold’s hands behind his back and three more swarm Benrey.

Darnold panics and thrashes, pleas falling on deaf ears. The metal bottle clipped to his carabiner inadvertently gets flung out, striking one in the jaw. It’s the window he needs to flip open his side pocket and yank out the bear spray, hand trembling as he holds down the nozzle.

Both men scream and flail, colliding into each other and scrubbing furiously at their eyes. Darnold shakes so bad he drops the bottle, face painted with a terribly nauseous expression. He can only cast a seconds-long glance at Benrey before the noise of their struggle draws half a dozen more marines into the cabin.

“Stop, let me— Benrey!” Darnold fights to reach out for them, fingers splayed out and arm trembling as tears prick the corners of his eyes. Benrey reaches back, their fingertips barely grazing his before Darnold’s hand is wrenched hard behind his back, making him yelp and beg for them to stop. Benrey wants to scream out apologies to Darnold, swear at themself up and down for not being more careful, rattle off vulgar shit in the faces of the soldiers leading them outside and forcing them both to their knees in the dirt, but they can’t. Every single sentence erodes down to nothing in their throat before it ever leaves their mouth.

Their heart jumps up behind their teeth when they see one’s picked up the hard drive, turning it back and forth in their hands. One man wrenches Benrey’s face up by their hair to make them look at him dead-on. Darnold’s cries of confusion and pleads to be let go are interrupted when a gun digs into his back.

“If you knew where to find this… you must’ve been the one here before,” the man staring them down says slowly. His face is littered with poorly tended to gashes and welts. There’s blood between his teeth. “You’re not the one who controls the aliens. That one’s missing an arm.”

Benrey makes a furious sound, kicking against the soil like they’re going to bolt up and charge him. Another soldier has to rush in and join the other three to keep them held down.

“He doesn’t control the aliens, you fucking—” Benrey’s cut off with a hiss when the hand twisted in their hair tightens.

“Where is it?”

“Go fuck yourself.”

“Where is it?”

“Not telling you where he is!” Benrey spits, rage swelling to where it feels larger than their body can contain. “He’s not— he hasn’t— he wasn’t part of any of this and you almost fucking killed him anyway!”

The man’s frown deepens. “It’s not human.”

“What does it matter? Him not being human means you stop treating him like a person? He thinks like I do, he feels, he wants— you saw it too! I know you were there! So tell me— look at me and tell me what makes it okay to do this to him now! What’s your bullshit excuse now?” Benrey’s boots dig into the ground, eyes boring holes into his.

The marine opens his mouth to speak when a droning buzz reverberates through the clearing, empty space rippling and neatly folding itself up like an origami crane to make room for a dimensional doorway, yawning open wide for Tommy and Gordon. They both rush through, standing firmly in between them.

“You’re— we need to talk,” Tommy starts, addressing the group. “And you’re all going to listen to me.”

They realize right away that they’re in no position to argue and do as they’re told, each of their eyes closely watching the flickering heat radiating from Tommy’s palms as they drop their rifles at her feet. Gordon stalks over to the ones still restraining Benrey and Darnold, arm unspooling into roots and jittering vines, lashing out like whips on the forest floor.

“Move.” It’s a single word, a single motion, and it’s all that’s needed to send the men scrambling to listen. They let the two of them go and back up until Tommy catches sight of them, quick to herd them into a single flock she can keep her eyes on.

“Gordon, why are you here?” Benrey urges, despairing and relieved all in the same breath. “How are you on your feet right now? You shouldn’t—”

Gordon drops to his knees and pulls them into a hug, crushing their chests so tightly together that Benrey’s breathing stalls. All they can do is tangle their fingers in his bloodied tanktop and bury their face in his shoulder. A vine reaches out for Darnold and pulls him in with the both of them, making him laugh as he joins the tangle of limbs the two of them have become.

“You’re okay,” Gordon breathes, face pressed into their neck. “Fuck, we got here and— you’re okay . I shouldn’t have put that on you, making the both of you come out here alone. What if we didn’t get here? Before they…”

“Hey, it’s… fine though, right? We’re fine. I know what you’re gonna say, but you did. You got here. And now I got you, and you got me.”

Gordon sighs shakily into the junction of their neck and shoulder, fingers curled into the fabric stretched across their back slowly releasing as he reluctantly starts to pry himself apart from them both. His hand winds up resting against the side of Benrey’s neck, thumb smoothing back and forth between their freckles. Benrey’s sure he felt it when they swallowed. Gordon gets a single syllable of what he wanted to say out only for a resounding thud to take its turn first, making the ground shudder underfoot. Everyone falls still and silent. Waiting.

Another one, louder, closer.

Another right behind it, falling into a rhythm.

The horror visibly dawns on each of them, one by one, that those are footsteps.

The armed men clutch their guns firmly to their sides, scrambling into a scattered, messy array, a mockery of order and control. Each barrel falls in line, trained on the sounds of wood splitting and cracking like fireworks as trees yield to whatever being steadily thunders closer.

The single warning they get is two others from their group wildly tearing free from the treeline, spattered heavily in blood and grime and sprays of acidic yellow who scream for everyone to, “Fucking run!”

A gargantuan alien splinters trees and uproots them with talons the size of cars, shrieking out a terrible cry as its single elongated eye fixes on them. Smoke jets out from between armored plates of its body as it hefts the cedar it’s torn from the ground in its pincers, rearing its arm back and giving Benrey all of half a second to realize what it’s about to do.

“It’s gonna throw it!”

“Tommy!”

“I got it! Give me a way up, Gordon!”

The tendrils of Gordon’s left arm wind outward in an audible rush, elephant’s ears fanning out from the stems and leaves thickening to where Tommy can scale them like steps. She sprints up and leaps off the last, arm outstretched towards the tree’s middle. Her fingers graze it, and that’s enough for entire segments of the trunk to outright vanish in flurries of sparks and warping space that makes Benrey’s eyes burn. Their texture changes, shuddering into different forms of matter, different materials, flickering in and out before they disappear entirely. The surviving fragments of the tree lose their momentum and fall in dull thuds away from everyone on the ground.

Tommy goes down hard. He misses the crisscrossed plants Gordon had tried to catch him with. He rolls further away even as his fingers plunge into soil, frantic to find their hold. He lands halfway down a steep embankment, scrabbling to stop himself from plummeting to the bottom.

“Fuck, Tommy!”

“I’m fine!” he shouts back, left eye squeezed shut before blood can run into it. “Worry about you! It’s not looking at me!”

Gordon draws his branches back in, halfway reformed in the vague shape of an arm. He firms up his shoulders, makes a wall of himself between the looming alien and Darnold and Benrey. Even then, Benrey can tell the tendrils of his fingers are trembling.

They whine and hike their shoulders over their ears when gunfire tears through the air, several clips unloaded into its carapace in an instant. It doesn’t make a dent— it doesn’t so much as flinch. It only makes it furious. The alien cranes its neck over to the sound’s source, warbling out an awful bay that makes each of their bones feel like they’re rattling in their sockets. Its pincers click apart with nauseating noises, baring a center that looks crystalline. There’s clicking, sparks kicked up around the center— and jets of flame lick out over the clearing. Everyone panics and bolts for cover, but Gordon’s hardly thinking of himself first.

One tendril of his arm unthreads itself from the rest, curling around both Darnold’s and Benrey’s waists and hauling them with him over a cliff face. Neither of them get a second to scream, his claws instantly finding a hold and anchoring themselves in the clay, keeping the three of them held aloft from the rocky bottom.

It’s been obvious from the moment they met up again that he’s trying so hard to keep moving, to tamp down his reactions so he can pretend like they’re not there, but Benrey sees it. Benrey sees Gordon’s teeth cutting into his bottom lip, the way his eyes scrunch shut, the gasp he swallows down as he forces himself to take steady breaths.

“Man, you gotta be careful! I know we don’t got time to plan, but it’s— you almost fucking died.” Their voice drops into something hollow. “Last time I saw you, you weren’t okay enough to even look at me. Don’t want you throwing yourself back in. Not after that, please. Please.”

Gordon’s eyes soften, a tendril budding with tiny flowers gently curling around Benrey’s wrist. “I hear you, and I’m sorry. I’ll try to be careful.”

Benrey sharply breathes in through their nose as their other hand drifts to the vine encircling their hand, squeezing it and finding themself held in place under his eyes. Eyes that are blown much wider with a sharp bark of pain.

They all yelp and scrabble for something to hold onto when Gordon’s grip falters, but nothing stops them from plummeting, skidding down the steep sides until their backs collide hard with the stones.

Benrey blinks the roving black circles away from the corners of their eyes and props themself up on their elbows with a groan, scanning for the shapes of Darnold and Gordon, throat too dry and ruined to scream their names.

Their panic starts to die down when Darnold stirs someplace behind them, turning to watch him cough up dirt and smudge blood across his forehead when he swipes at the new cut splitting his eyebrow down the middle. He clears his eyes and immediately breathes out in relief when they land on Benrey.

“Shit, you okay?”

“Was about to ask you, man, I’m fine. Scuffed up my hands ‘n all, but it’s— here, hold on.” Benrey fumbles open the velcro on one of their thigh pockets, returning with a handful of bandaids. They pluck one from the rest and rip off its backing with their teeth.

“D’you know why we fell?”

“I was gonna ask you,” Darnold frowns. “Gordon kinda looked like he—” He flinches when Benrey presses cloth to the gash.

“Shhhit, sorry. Should’ve said something.”

“You’re fine. We’re fine.” They nod wordlessly, focused on cleaning him up and smoothing bandaids into place. Darnold gives them a weak smile as they help each other stand, chiding Benrey for not taking care of the scrapes on their own hands first. He doesn’t make it to full standing height before wincing and needing to latch onto Benrey to keep from dropping back down.

“Whoa— Darnold? Hey, what’re— what’s— please, don’t—”

“It’s not a big deal! Shit, Benrey, breathe for a sec. I must’ve rolled my ankle— we’re still good.”

“Fucking… god. You scared me so bad.” Benrey’s head drops down between their shoulders with a groan, feeling lightheaded and beyond strung out and more eager for therapy than ever. “Thought you— nah, no, nevermind. So we’re gonna… move your arm like this.” They guide one of Darnold’s arms over his shoulders, gesturing for Darnold to lead with his right when Benrey leads with their left. Just as they’ve started figuring out how to walk in tandem, Gordon explodes out of a thicket and scoops them both right back up.

“Wh— Gordon, shit! What’re you—”

“Nope, nope, nope, can’t talk, we gotta—” he yelps when their path leads them right into one of those same aliens with the wriggling mouths, kicking at the ground as it shrieks out a spray of acid. Gordon narrowly dodges, ducking down and hunkered protectively around Darnold and Benrey. He picks himself back up right as the rest of the pack closes in, acid dripping from each wriggling maw.

“Fffuck,” Gordon groans, standing up and flaring his tail out with a spin. The rounded end takes out two of them, sending them sailing. Benrey and Darnold whoop and cheer him on, making Gordon glance back with a snort, but the other six aliens aren’t waiting. They methodically pace in circles, rounding the three of them up like cattle. Benrey watches Gordon’s throat bob, watches the look on his face turn dark, gears visibly churning behind his eyes as he thinks of how they’re getting out of this.

Right as he opens his mouth, an overpoweringly bright bolt of electricity crackles through the clearing, lancing through each alien and lighting them up down to each spotted marking across their backs. For the ones that can still move, that scares them plenty, turning tail and uprooting anything in their way as they scatter. One alien is hefted up in hand— a hand that flickers in and out of a visible spectrum of light, translucent flesh jolting with errant electricity, and the too-long arm leads back to a stunned but familiar face. Harold’s eyebrows are turned steeply upward, pupils dilated to pinpricks, but he looks unbelievably relieved.

“Oh, Gordon,” he cries, tossing the alien far from their group and rushing to his son. Gordon untangles his arm from Darnold and Benrey, tripping over himself in the scramble to squeeze around his dad instead, crashing his face into his shoulder and muffling a high, wet laugh as he hugs him as tight as he can. Harold hugs back with equal ardor, lifting Gordon off the ground as Bubby catches up and surges in to join them. He pockets a— was that a revolver?— to run hands over Gordon’s hair, pressing a kiss to the crown of his head and admonishing him but with words that completely lose their bite through the tears streaming down his face. Darnold tears up in turn, bumping his shoulder against Benrey’s and squeezing their hand.

“I was so— I thought— I didn’t know if they were going to kill you, I didn’t know if you were still alive. But you’re here. You’re here,” Gordon whimpers, laughing weakly when Bubby thumbs at the corners of his eyes. “I wanna go home.”

“I know you do.” Bubby threads fingers through Gordon’s hair to cup the back of his head, keeping Gordon held tightly to him. “We will.”

“We can’t,” Gordon sighs, reluctantly separating just far enough to speak. “Not yet, I mean. It’ll catch up. We can’t go anywhere until we figure out what to do about—”

That hulking mass drops down over the cliffside, feet touching down so heavily that they’re all briefly lifted into the air. There’s handprints and craters glowing red like molten metal scattered all across its carapace, but that clearly hasn’t slowed it down. It screams and charges their group. Tommy makes a panicky sound, darting out in front of the five of them, his hands raised. Space kneels, bending as it crackles and yields and warps them deeper into the treeline.

Tommy doesn’t land smoothly like the others do, knocked onto her knees. She struggles to breathe, panting and heaving, half-sobbing and arms shaking in her fight to keep herself propped up. Gordon grabs her shoulder, tendril pushing sweaty hair off her forehead.

“God, Tommy! Fuck, you’re pushing yourself way too hard, you can’t—”

“If I didn’t, it would’ve— Gordon, I can’t— what am I supposed to do?” She shivers badly enough to make his leaves tremble. “This can’t— I don’t want it to be your fight anymore. I-it never should’ve been. You’ve lost so much already, I can’t— I can’t hang back and watch anything else happen to you, I can’t.”

“No, don’t— it’s okay,” Gordon soothes, pulling Tommy in until her forehead knocks into his chest. Her skin drags along the gauze wrapped around his torso, and she whines. “I know. I know you had to do it, it’s— I’m scared for you too, you know? I don’t want this,” he chokes, voice feeble and small. Everyone around him huddles closer, hands rubbing over his back, cupping his cheek, untangling twigs from his hair. He swallows audibly and leans into it, and they lean into him, finding an unbroken moment of peace in a tumultuous, chaotic mess.

“We need to figure this out and what we’re gonna do about… that.” He gestures in the vague direction of furious stomping and sporadic gunfire.

“Going at it with anything… physical… it won’t do anything. The outside of its body’s too armored for that, I think, and from the sound of how long they’ve been at it, I’m right,” Darnold chimes in, the arm not around Benrey’s shoulders waving in a nonsensical gesture.

“Y-you’re— you’re definitely right. Heat does— I think it’s doing something to it,” Tommy starts unsurely. “But it would take me a long time to m-make any real, um… headway, on my own. Still t— it’s not like I can really keep it still to attack the same part, anyway, so…”

“Maybe we would have similar luck with electricity!” Harold flexes his arms, sparks dancing in a showy display that makes his husband chuckle. “If alternative methods of dealing damage is what we’re after, I believe we may be in luck! The question now is whether it will be enough between the both of us.”

“I think— I think it… could be,” Gordon gets out in pieces. “I think we could make yours stronger, dad, but… you’re not gonna like how I’d try to do it.”

What Gordon means dawns on Bubby before anyone else, teeth bared in a grimace and eyebrows turned down furiously. “Absolutely not! We won’t fucking do that, do you understand me? I don’t even want you thinking it!”

“It’s going to kill us if I don’t! It’s going to kill you!” Gordon shrills. “What else am I gonna do?”

“You’re going to not use yourself as a conductor, Gordon!” Bubby shouts over him, hands reaching out and squeezing hard around his forearm. “Do you really think I’d be fine sending my son out for that? Is that what you think?” Gordon turns away, face scrunched up as tears quietly drip down his cheeks.

“I just don’t see another choice,” Gordon snivels hoarsely, chin tucked to his chest. “It’s not like there’s a lot we can even do here, papa, and I don’t…” His voice cracks and his throat clicks uselessly until he can speak again. “I don’t want to make it out of this if everyone isn’t with me.”

Bubby frowns, folding up his glasses and hanging them off his shirt to swipe at his eyes. He tugs Gordon back into a hug, and starts to gently rock himself from foot to foot, making his son sway with him. Even with more than a full head of height on him, Gordon looks so small being wrapped up like he is. Benrey’s throat tightens.

“We’ll figure it out,” Harold asserts, too firm for anyone to argue even if they wanted to. “And we’ll figure it out without using you to do it. Just because you can doesn’t mean you have to. We can’t let you, Gordon.”

Gordon hiccups over a sob. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean— of course you wouldn’t just let me do that, I did—” He buries his face in hand and shudders his way through more apologies that his dads are quick to comfort him through. Tommy slumps back against the cliff face, looking completely drained,  like he’s seconds away from passing out. That leaves Benrey and Darnold to wonder aloud to each other.

“It got sent away before… or did it itself,” Benrey puzzles, nails scraping along the raised scars on their hands. “The aliens, I mean. The dog-looking one. Back in his cabin, Gordon scared it off. It was—” they pause, struggling and failing to find the words. “I still don’t know. Gordo, how’d you know it was gonna zap back out?”

“Because that’s what happened the first time,” he answers, scrubbing at his eyes. “You remember? We started looking at what your cameras picked up, and— fuck, don’t make me say it.” Gordon blanches, hand subconsciously raising to his right shoulder. “Something tried to come through. That’s why I knocked you to the ground. But I think it wasn’t expecting anything to be on the other side, let alone the two of us, so it sent itself back before it was even all the way through. That was the working idea I’ve been sitting on, at least.” He tries to tuck loose strands of hair back into his ponytail, huffing with a strained smile when his dads step in to help him. “Then I got the chance to test it with the fucking… dog… thing? Once it felt like it didn’t have any other way out, it did the last thing it could do and sent itself back, just like what I thought happened the first time.”

“So it goes right back to… wherever… when it feels threatened enough. Whenever it’s convinced it’s picking a fight it can’t win,” Darnold begins uncertainly. “What if… what if we could give it that fight? What if we can get the big guy to send itself back?”

Tommy and Gordon exchange steeply skeptical looks, the former being the one to speak up for them.

“That… would be an idea, but— but how? The damage I could— that I’ve been able to do hasn’t done anything.”

“But the damage stayed,” Darnold affirms, eyes wide and excited. “We can’t even tell if bullets sank in or just bounced right off, but we can see where your hands were! Whatever you’re doing, it’s having an effect here! If we can do this together, try to find ways of boosting each other up, I think we have a chance. So now, we don’t need to kill it— we just gotta scare it off.”

Benrey turns back to everyone else to find them staring between each other, staring off into space in thought, staring down at their own hands, wondering and hoping and pleading all in the same breath. Gordon’s arm unfurls into flora in full bloom, chest heaving with a deep breath in.

“Then let’s try it. I’ve got an idea. Tommy, do you think you can find where the soldiers made camp? Don’t do it if it’s gonna hurt you.”

“I won’t,” Tommy reassures, eyes sliding shut and brows scrunched in concentration. “It’s— yeah, I see it.”

“I need all of you to go out there and turn everything on, get it all lined up in a circle as best you can.”

“Turn— huh? Why would y— turn what on?”

Gordon gets a glint behind his eyes. “Anything that’s got wires. If it beeps, blinks, can be plugged in— any and all of it.”

“Oh, Gordon, that’s brilliant!” Harold’s mustache bends up in a smile, chuckling. “Did a certain afternoon where I fried our home phone play any part in this revelation?”

Gordon snorts and bursts into laughter. “Who knows! Maybe.” Harold chuckles and lightly punches his son’s shoulder, squeezing him against his side as he looks back up to Tommy.

“Tommy, I know you remember that thing Sunkist learned to do.”

Tommy tilts her head, eyes darting over the ground as she thinks before turning back up to Gordon with an incredulous expression.

“You can’t really mean— Gordon, suh— something like that could— no, would definitely make some kinda rift, I couldn’t let him just… do that! What if it doesn’t— would it even help?”

“There’s already a rift open. Tons of them. You can help him keep it stable, right? You made him! I know you— I know both of you! I know you could help each other. I know you could make it work! We need this, Tommy. Everything we can get.” He clears the ground between them to grasp his shoulder, eyes shifting between both of his.

Tommy looks between each of his eyes separately before she sighs, easing Gordon’s hand off her shoulder and giving it a squeeze as she drops it. “I’ll think about it.”

Gordon gives her a wordless nod, stepping back from everyone else as his eyes now fixate on his arm. Benrey and Bubby are both in the middle of asking him what he’s doing when recognizable plant life blossoms and overgrows into otherworldly shapes that aren’t of earth’s design. They all break into varying stages of panic that Gordon’s quick to soothe.

“Hey, hey, it’s fine! I’m fine! I’m the one growing them this time. Watch.” He flexes, and the plants gently wilt and regrow with spiked snake plant leaves and birds of paradise blooms. “I remember what it felt like— what the plants felt like, so it’s like— like muscle memory, like I can still…” Gordon trails off and demonstrates again, watching them move and ensuring he’s fully in control. “We can use ‘em. I know we can. If we’re all doing this together… I think we got a shot. Can you all get behind that?”

Everyone glances between one another, finding those same hardened, determined looks mirrored on each of their faces as everyone thinks it through. They talk amongst each other in scattered groups as they get back onto a main path, going over everything a second time, a third, repeating and confirming plans, reassuring each other of safety. Benrey finds themself hovering near Gordon the entire time. They hadn’t realized they were speaking until the words had already left their mouth. dredging up new ideas, reassuring one another of safety.

“Wish you didn’t have to be here,” they find themself saying. “I wish they hadn’t hurt you. I wish I’d been more careful, or better, or— why does it have to be you?” they plaint, tucking their hands under their arms and squeezing themself.

“Benrey. Look at me?” Gordon waits until they do, casting them a small, stiff smile. “I wouldn’t have wanted a ‘better’ you. I like the you I got. You’re pretty fuckin’ incredible. Have I ever told you that?” Benrey swallows, eyes wide and wild and glassy, staring so deeply into his, as if blinking will take them out of this moment completely. “And— look, Tommy’s exhausted. She’s not gonna be able to keep herself safe enough to get it all the way back here. Dad has to go with the rest of you to make sure everything can get hooked up and working like I’m hoping it will. I promise, I’m gonna make it back to you.”

Benrey shuffles their weight from foot to foot, eyes flickering across his shoulders, over old and new scars, lingering there before they find his eyes again. They’re drawn in close to him, magnetized, and come so close to that big something that’s been hanging over their head for days now but they don’t want what they say or do to be done in desperation. They’re all making it out of this alive, and then, Benrey will find a time to carve out their peace. Together.

“We got you. We got this.”

Benrey grunts and hefts the clunky radio they’re carrying into a firmer grip, feet slipping on the leaf litter underneath them.

“You alright?” Bubby comes up on their left, lugging a part of that seismograph-looking machine they’d seen before.

“Y-yeah,” they wheeze, squaring their shoulders and picking up the pace. Gordon’s out there leading a twenty foot tall alien here by himself days after he lost an arm. They’re not about to complain about it being hard to breathe.

“Hey, now. I didn’t ask you how you were doing as some backhanded dig. I asked because I’m worried for you, dumbass,” Bubby snarks back, nothing but fondness in his voice as he shoots them a small smile. Benrey returns it, huffing at themself.

“Hurts— breathing. I mmmaybe opened my stitches back up, but— we need to do this. We… we need this— Gordon needs this. I’m not about to just— y’know. Can’t slow down.”

“I get it,” Bubby begins. “I swear to you I do. That was… not the smartest idea on my part, asking you that when I already knew the answer.” His frown makes the wrinkles around his mouth crease deeper. “I know we don’t have a choice right now, but… I’ve been made aware that not thinking about yourself is something you’re very familiar with.”

Benrey makes an indeterminate noise in the back of their throat and resolutely stares at the ground beneath their feet.

“I’m not saying this to shame you. I’m saying it so you see what I see. I see a very self-sacrificing, self-doubting man. I also see someone my son has grown very fond of very quickly— someone who he clearly wants the best for. You— or anyone else— can’t give yourself the best if you’re constantly creating reasons why you don’t deserve it.”

Benrey’s stunned out of speech. Even if they didn’t already struggle with verbalizing how they felt, what are they even meant to say to something like that? They open their mouth with the idea of squeaking out some form of thanks only for their throat to give out on the first word, dropping their radio into place with hands that feel unsteady for an entirely new reason. Bubby only pats their back and straightens up to pop his back.

“Is this it?” Tommy calls out from the other side of camp. “I-is there something else we should do?”

“I think we’ve done it,” Harold asserts, shoulders squared resolutely. Benrey wipes their forehead against the back of their arm, scaling the short hill behind them to get a better look at the camp. Wires crisscross the ground in an electronic nightmare, no order to their chaotic spread, plaguing the leaf litter like an invasive ivy. Every single piece of technology lining the perimeter is now interconnected through power strips and extension cords, and they all lead back to a handful of plugs, bundled and waiting at Harold’s feet.

“Can you tell if Gordon’s close?” Bubby shouts to Tommy.

Tommy leans into Sunkist— Benrey doesn’t remember when he got here— and gets that look of concentration over her face again. The wrinkles on her forehead and the bags beneath her eyes look that much deeper under the shift in moonlight.

“He is! They’re getting… very close. If Gordon keeps it moving—”

A loud crackle of exploding wood bursts through the air. Benrey yelps and squeezes their eyes shut, shifting to cover their head as bark and splintered branches shower the campsite. Something skids into the clearing. The tent it crashes into slows its sprawl as does getting tangled in the ruined spider’s web of wires. Benrey can physically feel the color drain from their face, knees locking and chest bursting with pain when they realize what it is. Who it is.

His dads both scream Gordon’s name at the same time, their entire group abandoning their spots out of sight to rush to his side. It’s Harold that reaches out for him first, bundles Gordon in his arms and cradles his head in the crook of his arm, eyes frantically flitting over his face. Gordon’s breathing and flushed in the way that follows strenuous activity, chest jolting in hurried gasps. Everyone else remembers to breathe when his eyes blink open.

“It’s fine, it’s— I’m good,” he croaks.

Bubby and Harold all but crush him between them both, fussing over new bruises and burns, holding onto him so tightly their hands tremble. Tommy sighs out a thin noise and drops her head, hands fluttering above him as she rambles over half-hearted reprimands and panicky nonsense words. Darnold reaches out and squeezes his knee, cocking his head with a small smile when Gordon catches his eye. Benrey isn’t aware of their hand reaching out and cupping his cheek until the warmth of his skin is resting in their palm. One of Gordon’s tendrils rises and curls around their wrist, gently burying his face firmer against their hand, eyes sliding shut with a soft sigh. The rest of the world fades to a background blur in a good way this time.

Another painful roar rips through the treeline, steering everyone to help each other back onto their feet, with Gordon’s arm slung over Tommy’s shoulder and his dads steadying him behind his back. Benrey’s hand seeks out the sheathed knife, their other arm held out in front of Gordon.

All other sounds of the forest have died. Nothing else remains but clipped breathing from six pairs of lungs and unbelievably deep, resounding footsteps. Thudding closer. Pounding faster.

“We’ve got it now,” Harold murmurs softly, pulling a blood-slicked strand of hair free from Gordon’s cheek. “You can rest. You don’t need to keep fighting. We have it now.” Gordon makes a small sound as his body starts to untense, letting himself droop in their arms. Their lapse of peace is shredded in a millisecond.

It’s an impossible, apocalyptic cacophony of sight and sound.

Birds screech and burst free from old homes, trunks of countless trees creaking ominously, roots shaking themselves free of the ground like they’re trying to flee. A cluster of birches are crushed underfoot as the alien’s entire planetary size rears itself up from its own destruction, screeching out a cry that makes their teeth ache down to their roots, ringing in their ears so badly that it eclipses their pulse.

Impossibly, Gordon’s done a number on it. Moss infests its joints, rhizoids engaged in gentle destruction as they persistently digest unarmored flesh. Crawling roots have anchored themselves all along its body like a system of veins, pulsing in their work to constrict and burrow deeper. Thin cracks and chips now line the armored plates of its carapace.

“Get ready!”

Everyone falls into place.

Bubby drags Gordon with him behind a dug-out trench, Benrey and Darnold standing their ground in front of them as Harold bares the sparking, hulking mass of his arms. Tommy and Sunkist leap back, standing at the foot of the hill.

“Sunkist,” he calls the attention of his best friend. “...do you wanna have a playdate?”

Sunkist does a play bow, tail wagging insanely fast and barking excitedly before he blinks out of existence in a flurry of space dust and specks of starlight. He reappears in the exact same instance, chasing the tail of— another Sunkist. Then another blips into reality, beckoning for the other two to play. Another. A fifth. Sixth. Seventh.

Dozens of perfect dogs are now yipping in aurora borealis. Their hackles all raise with the shift in focus, teeth bared as they growl in streaks of red that strains Benrey’s eyes, coordinated as they encircle and ensnare the towering threat. Sunkist has already leapt out of the way before it can try to charge him, barking up lances of red light that sears its armored body like a brand. An enraged howl makes the trees sway dangerously, continually throwing its arms out trying to slam its claws down on the pack of dogs running literal laps around it.

“Let’s wrap this up, gentlemen!” The sleeves of Harold’s shirt ignite, shredded fabric and ash falling away from the rapidly increasing length of his electrified limbs, scuffing out sparks trying to light up the detritus under his feet. His arms coil out from his body in incomprehensible shapes, using its distraction to circle around its legs, right above the damage Tommy’s managed to inflict. In a millisecond, overpowering light zaps up from shoulder to hand, bolts lancing away and licking over the ground. The outcry is distinctly one of pain this time— it’s working, Benrey’s chest lightens with the realization. It’s working.

“Get it into the center of camp!” Bubby shouts over the noise. “We have to keep it still long enough for everything to light up!”

“How do we do that?” Tommy shrills, teleporting a few paces away when a jet of flame gets too close for comfort. 

Bubby cups his hands around his mouth to reply, instead faltering when a staggering weight bumps into his side. “What— Gordon, you should be sitti—”

“We do it by making the camp clearing a better place to stand!” Gordon shouts through a raspy throat. He needs to lean into Bubby as he lets his roots sink into the earth, soil displaced as they snake farther and farther out from him. There’s a palpable tang to the air— a harsh smell of ozone spiking, and Gordon plants a preternatural garden.

Swaying pods of light suspended at the ends of tendrils peek out from the ground, surrounded by bulbous low growths in speckled blues and greens. Leafy eruptions in deep reds joined by fleshy spears. Just as before, sensing proximity, it stabs its pointed end down at the offending closeness. Even stamped underfoot, Gordon regrows new ones to take their places. Quickly realizing it’s a losing battle, the alien starts to submit.

“That’s it, you’ve got it! We just need to keep it still!”

“I’ve got it! Get out!”

Gordon’s face hardens in a grimace once everyone’s out of the way, eyes dark and dangerous. Resolved. He plants his feet firmer, knees buckling under his weight until he can’t hold out, doubling over with a shout.

“Gordon, stop!” Bubby cries over the noise. “Stop it right now! You’re hurting yourself!”

“I can do it! This— we can’t wait! This is the only chance we’re getting!”

Gordon grits his teeth and swallows down a scream. New growths rip themselves free from his root systems. Spiked pods exceed their natural sizes to impossible proportions, climbing higher to rival the groves standing tall all around them. The bulb shudders, sways, and opens up like a horrid flower. Its spiked center ejects, barbs lodged in the spaces between the segmented chitin. 

The alien warbles out a new, despairing sound as paralysis begins to overtake its body, staggering back and beginning to cave under its own weight.

“Now! You have to do it now!”

Harold answers the second Gordon cries out. Both of his hands clasp the bouquet of plugs and wires, muscles of his arms contracting. Electricity ripples through them like a devastating tidal wave, a total eclipse, abrupt and inescapable. The clearing lights up, sparks shooting high above the canopy of trees like fireworks, burnt-out husks of terminals and radios flung far from the blast. The last light that fades is a massive tear of electric green, and when the smoke starts to clear, they’re the only ones left.

“We fucking did it!” Bubby hollers, bolting up and squeezing his husband in a hug that lifts his feet off the ground, cackling maniacally as he spins them around. Tommy and Darnold lean on each other with relieved sighs, devolving into laughter as they’re swarmed by a horde of good boys. Benrey breathes out in a rush, hurrying to envelop Gordon and cradle him to their chest as he starts to come back around, eyelids fluttering to focus and blink up at them.

“It worked. It worked,”  they repeat, gasping out a disbelieving laugh. “You— holy shit, you did it.”

Gordon hums, bumping his forehead into the hollow of their throat. “We did it— it’s gone?”

“It’s gone. We’re done.”

Gordon sighs and sinks into their lap, again looking so small for someone that has a near two heads of height on them. They try to bundle him up in both arms like they’d ever have a chance of holding all of him.

“Wanna go home. You— you’re coming back, right?”

“Wh— ‘course I am,” Benrey snorts, hiding their face in his hair. They can’t catch a breath out fast enough before it turns into a soft sob, arms looping around Gordon tight enough that they’d be worried it’s starting to hurt, but Gordon only angles himself in closer.

“Hey, when we get back, you think we could do—”

Benrey’s interrupted by Harold abruptly parting from Bubby, an arm held out in a universal sign of wait, eyes fixed on the forest above them on the hill. Benrey is a single minor inconvenience from breaking down, they swear, waiting for another massive alien or an entire swarm of them to skitter through the trees, but the actual threat feels so much smaller by comparison that Benrey finds themself more annoyed than scared.

It’s a ragtag assemblage of soldiers, filing down the hill and trying desperately to salvage order, pointing their guns at the six of them. Gordon’s dad has to be of the exact same mindset Benrey is.

“Can you fuck off?” Bubby groans. “We just did all the work— you’re very welcome— and this is what we’re welcomed with?”

“The one who controls the aliens— send him out.”

“Fucking— how many times do I gotta say it?” Benrey snaps, protectively hunched over Gordon. They feel almost feral, baring their teeth as they speak. “He. Wasn’t. Part of this. Why would he hurt himself this bad to send back something he brought here? How does that check out to you?” 

“I would… think it best that I intervene now.”

The marines startle, rushing to train their sights on the new voice. It’s a government man, casually scaling down a steep incline without a single falter in his step even though he’s wearing dress shoes, pace measured like a metronome. He’s unnaturally and impossibly pristine for someone this far into the woods, yet he makes a motion to dust off his lapel anyway, fixing his tie with one hand while his fingers flex in a practiced flourish around the handle of his briefcase. The soldier Benrey recognizes drops her rifle, quickly muttering something to the rest that makes them do the same. The man flashes a badge when he nears, and they all hurry to straighten and rattle off acknowledgements. Benrey can’t help but snort, earning them dirty looks that just make them grin wider.

The government man easily herds the soldiers aside, deftly weaving through a conversation that results in incredulous expressions and protests cut short with single sentence responses. As the marines begin to protest and talk over each other for answers, the man sighs, turning his back to them in the same instance time trickles to a close and freezes over. It stays unchanged for the six of them, allowing him to walk over as he again straightens his tie.

“Much better.”

“It’s so good to see you,” Tommy sighs, giving Sunkist a parting head pat to clear the space between himself and the government man, the lanky length of his arms winding tightly around him. The man rasps out a thin breath of laughter, his briefcase left to drift at his side as he returns the embrace.

“I cannot… begin to tell you how proud… of you… I am. You have done remarkably well. I knew… from the second this debacle… began… that you would succeed.”

Tommy chokes over a note of laughter, hugging his dad hard enough to lift him off the ground. He sets him back down with a sheepish apology that the government man soothes, stepping across the clearing to the rest of their group.

“Hey, Gianni,” Gordon grins, standing with Benrey’s help to tug Tommy’s dad in for another hug. Benrey would have anticipated the man would be disgruntled, the type uncomfortable with physical contact, but the government man— Gianni— leans into it readily.

“I am… relieved, beyond words, to see you al-right. Or… as much as you can be…” His fingers regretfully hover above the end of Gordon’s shoulder. “I only wish… I could have done more.”

“Think— I think, uh… everyone’s feeling like that, too,” Benrey abruptly speaks up, kicking themself for just injecting themself into their conversation.

Gianni nods with an answering hum. “That is all… true enough.  We have not had the… chance at introductions, but I… believe… you have gathered who I am by now, Ben-rey.”

Benrey would almost be put off by him knowing their name if the last week of their life hadn’t been the most unbelievable shit anyone’s ever lived through. As it is, it just makes them breathe out a laugh through their nose.

“I kinda know. Uh— a little. I mean— I know you’re Tommy’s dad, I know you’re not human— ‘s about all I know. Everything else is…” they mime a fast motion of their hand over their head. “I don’t get it.”

“Ah. Well, I suppose some amount of… explanation… might soothe some of those curiosities. I will do my best to assist you in making sense of it.” Gianni slowly begins to pace, nothing beneath his feet disturbed in this injected stillness.

“I am… connected to earth… to some degree. But I am also, just as well… connected to places, that of which are far from here. Far from… comprehension. Travel between such places is… how should I say it… precarious. It involves carving out a path to traverse thousands t-turned millions of lightyears of distance, all in a matter of seconds. With my last… excursion… a rift was torn open. Small, at first. Inconsequential. I thought it would, perhaps, mend itself, and I decided to… observe.” Gianni stops his pacing in order to face Benrey fully, expression somehow both remaining stoic and betraying something regretful and heavy.

“With every instance of this rift opening, I… injected… myself there, in small part, to watch, and to wait. Your lap-top, too, was its own observer. You had… in-ad-vertently… recorded my exit through a rift. I did not know at the time… that this planet running parallel… to ours… was aware of my presence, and that it would send out its own… inhabitants, to seek out the perceived threat. The threat I had made of myself.”

Things begin to make sense, if only just barely. The strange lights bleeding into that startlingly human silhouette. How every time their laptop was switched on, it was an immediate beacon. Benrey had caught the eye of another world.

“So they— it— the aliens… used it— my computer? To get here?”

“They were already on their… way, Ben-rey. They simply… took a path that felt… familiar. Where they… convened from, there had already existed physical fixtures, to transport themselves across the vast scape they occupied. A new… waypoint, of sorts, was a clear… first choice, one that your lap-top had become. I could never have… a-anticipated… that it would culminate in such a way. My deepest apologies. To you, and to everyone else present.”

That’s… a lot to take in. A lot that Benrey’s not sure they’d be able to ever fully wrap their head around, or something they’d ever be able to accept an apology for. The others seem to be of a similar mindset, their silence on top of the stillness leaving Benrey’s ears ringing.

“I really just… wanna go home,” Benrey tries to laugh, sound cleaved by a hoarse sob. Gordon’s fingers trail down their arm to find and squeeze their hand. “Don’t think I’m ever gonna get it. Just happy we’re alive. Can— we can do that, right? We can go home?”

Gianni gives them a small smile. “I believe… that is something I can manage.” A thin strip of white cuts through the open air, folding outwards into an open doorway. “I have to… ‘wrap things up’ here,” Tommy snorts and gives his dad a thumbs up. “But, please… rest… and enjoy the quiet. You have most certainly… earned it. I will be seeing you all again very soon. Until then.”

Gordon gives Benrey’s hand another burst of squeezes, bumping into their side and wordlessly looking up to them before he starts to tug them forwards. Benrey follows him without thinking twice.

They end up house hopping. They start at Gordon’s, now almost entirely overtaken with alien flora. There’s just enough of his house left unoccupied to get some of his things out. Gordon admitted he was kind of glad, in a way. After everything that happened, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to be comfortable in that cabin again. So, when Gianni comes back, they use one of his doorways to take everything of Gordon’s back to the Coomers’, stuffed in his childhood bedroom to sort through later. Bubby puts on a pot of tea, and Harold shares stories of all the ‘cryptids’ that have come through their home, seeking out guidance and friendship in equal parts. The night stretches on, but none of them find themselves tired. Darnold ends up inviting everyone back to his home— a cabin that sits on the lake and has an extra room for Gordon and Benrey to crash in. Neither of them fight the assumption he makes that they’d share a space. Something warm and cloyingly sweet winds around Benrey’s ribs and stays there for the rest of the night.

It turns into a sort of party. Darnold breaks out his favorites from his vinyl collection and stirs together a drink mix he’d had pushed to the back of his shelf. There was laughter, commiseration, emotion that scaled peaks and plummeted into valleys, and Benrey loved every minute of it.

Things are starting to wind down. Darnold falls asleep in the armchair, Tommy and Sunkist curled up against each other on the beanbag, Bubby trying and failing not to doze. Benrey follows Gordon not long after he steps out. They’d wanted to give him space, but being honest with themself, him being alone makes them anxious. They find him sitting out on the dock, tendrils of his legs dipping into the water. He looks so peaceful, his eyes following the paths of fireflies as they putter through the treeline, leading him up to Benrey. The smile that crosses across his face makes Benrey feel like they’re glowing, too.

They kick their shoes off and climb the short set of stairs to the dock, beaming down at Gordon when he scoots over to make room for them. Gordon leans into their side the moment they settle, dipping their feet in the water next to his as both of them turn to look out over the water. The pinpricks of light from houses on the other side of the lake parallel the hundreds of stars above them.

“You doin’ okay?” Benrey murmurs, head dropping to rest on his shoulder.

“Yeah… I think so. Just wanted to step out for a sec. Wanted to see if I could hear any loons.” Benrey breathes out a laugh, cozying up closer. Gordon readjusts his weight so he’s not leaning on his arm, slinging it around their shoulders instead. “How about you? How’re you holding up?”

“I don’t know,” Benrey answers him honestly. “Still not sure what to feel.”

“I mean, there’s no one right way to be. It’s okay to not have an answer.” Benrey hums in reply, feeling for all the world like they could drift off like this, while simultaneously, their brain runs nonstop, thoughts winding through their mouth like a cassette reel.

“So it was you,” they blurt. “You were the one who found me and got me back home after I broke my arm. You knew before I did, right? When did— when did you put it together?”

“It took me a while. I’d thought about it once, when you first told me about your arm, but it wasn’t ‘til you told me about your grandparents’ house being on the other side of the lake that it all clicked for me.”

“Huh. Wait, so— whatever I saw the first night I was there— was that you, too? How’d you make yourself look all… different and shit?”

“It— yeah, it was me,” Gordon huffs at himself. “I was trying to scare you off. Used roots and leaves to make it look like my head was changing shape each time. Didn’t think I was gonna be asked out for dinner.”

Benrey barks out a laugh, hiding their face in his shoulder. “Shut uuup.” Gordon laughs with them, shaking the both of them with it. The silence lapses as comfortably as the water does around their ankles.

“It makes sense— trying to make me bolt, I mean. You were just trying to keep yourself safe. Keep your dads safe. It— man, I’m gonna sound so dumb, but it’s— I— I’m just so fucking happy it was you. I’m so happy I found you again.”

Gordon sits up when they start speaking, turning so he can watch their face as they do. The little smile splayed across his lips is softer than anything they’d ever think would get to be theirs.

“I know the way everything turned out sucked so, so bad, and I wish it could’ve been better, I wish I coulda done more, been more, but it’s— I would let it all happen to me again i-if it meant you were on the other end of it, and that sounds so—”

Benrey’s rambling is cut off in a thin gasp through their teeth when Gordon bumps his forehead into theirs, hand rising to cup their jaw, thumb roving back and forth across a thin scar on their cheek.

“I wanna kiss you,” he murmurs softly, unsure, like there’s any timeline where Benrey would ever say no, and it makes them ache with fondness. “Can I?”

“Please.”

Gordon only has to tilt his head and close the inch of space between them to press his lips to theirs, and Benrey swears he’s using his plant powers on them, because they absolutely feel like they bloom. Their world is colored by vibrant bursts of petals, lush and full with feelings that transcend them, overgrowing past their own body, roots anchoring them so deeply to this exact moment that it feels like they’ll never be anywhere but here.

When they part, they both wordlessly recognize and agree it wasn’t nearly long enough, and they find each other again a second time, a third, a fourth, this time kept short as they both get so giddy they start to laugh, breathless and lungs strained as they fall back onto their sides on the dock. They’re tangled in each other, a mess of limbs, faces centimeters apart and having just enough light to see each other by. Benrey breathes him in with every breath in, finding so easily that their breathing falls to match his.

“There’s so much I wanna show you,” they say like a sigh. “I wanna take you to the beach at the foot of the lake. We could go clam hunting, get ice cream afterwards… gotta show you this little island where the loons nest, too. Think we could take a boat? I’ll row us out there ‘n make a day out of it, take you to dinner at the corner store when we’re done. Anything you want.”

Gordon’s eyes gleam in the low light, flickering across every part of their face like he’s committing them to memory.

“I’d really like that. Anywhere you want to take me.”

Chapter Text

Benrey wakes soft and slow, dialed in to each sense one at a time starting with the soft wind trailing in through open windows, carrying scents of firs and moss. It’s a welcome contrast to the night before. Almost five years to the day, and unpleasant dreams still won’t leave them be. A cold nose presses against their arm followed by a barrage of kisses.

“Cider! ‘m up, I’m up!” Benrey wheezes, nudging her snout away until she relents, head thudding onto their chest and tail wagging quickly behind her. Those rougher nights aren’t as bad as they used to be, Benrey returns to the thought— however rose-tinted that view might be right now— with Gordon and Cider there for them when they wake.

They rub their eyes, stretching their arms out across the breadth of the bed. They don’t hear squawks of protest and laughter. Head softly shifting against the pillowcase, they find it’s because Gordon’s not there. Clementine’s not laying in his spot to keep it warm, either, so more than likely, he’s been awake for a while. It’s special, so singularly wonderful, just how quickly both their service animals have become such a pivotal part of their lives. Clementine and Cider have become a measure of time, an indicator of each other’s low points, another member of their support systems. They’ll have to send Tommy pictures of the dogs sometime today. Benrey thinks she’d appreciate it.

Gordon’s prosthetic still rests on top of his dresser. If he hadn’t woken up Benrey to help fasten it into place, that probably means he’s still at home. Though, that’s begun to change. Bit by bit, Gordon’s grown more comfortable leaving the house without it. They think of past conversations, where he talks about how, for him, his prosthetic doesn’t provide that same sense of comfort as wearing it did when he first had it made, and that he thinks he wants to try and leave without it, sometimes, take that first step slowly and see how he feels. Benrey’s chest swells remembering it. They’re so proud of him.

Benrey sits up in no real hurry, letting themself indulge in a slow, sleepy start to their day, back arching and arms raised above their head until their joints pop. Cider gets up with them, claws tiptapping over the floor as she stretches in downward dog in time with them. Benrey snorts and reaches down to scratch through her fur. Their fingers blindly feel for the hairties they keep twisted around the handle of their end table drawer, pulling off an orange one with a flower-shaped metal clasp. They tug their hair into a messy ponytail, swinging their legs off the side of the bed and stepping into their slippers. They tug a throw blanket over their shoulders right as Gordon’s phone quietly buzzes on the nightstand. Oh, so he’s definitely still here, then. Everyone that was part of the whole rift situation all have so much anxiety about not keeping in touch with each other that Gordon never goes far without his phone. None of them do.

They leave it where it lies. They check their own phone, finding a message from Darnold about the party they’re throwing for Harold in a couple weeks and another from Tommy about taking Gianni’s boat out on the lake tomorrow. They send off short replies to both and set their phone beside Gordon’s, slippers softly scuffing the floors as they shuffle down the stairs and into the living room. Not here, either, but Benrey hears a bark and a distant laugh that puts any lingering anxieties to rest. Their lips bend up in a soft smile, fingers finding and curling around Cider’s collar as she leads them forward.

The living and dining rooms aren’t really split up save for a short dividing wall, and crossing the threshold into it, Benrey finds the table is partially set. A fork and knife rest on a flower-patterned napkin beside a plate. There’s a note propped up against its side. Good morning! There’s waffles being kept warm in the oven, if you want them. Put on mitts to take the tray out— it’s still going to be hot! I’m outside in the garden or on the porch. Love you.

Benrey sighs, feeling like their head and heart float apart from their body. It’s all still so dreamlike, just like their first date did, just like the first time Gordon called Benrey his partner, just like it did when they decided to move in together.

Breakfast can wait a little bit longer. They push open the sliding door onto the porch, letting Cider go so she can investigate first. She sniffs around, checking behind the fridge and under the table and around the towers of stacked flowerpots before letting Benrey follow her. They like to think they’re doing better than they had been when they first got her, but they’ll never turn down the time spent to make them feel safe. Benrey kicks off their slippers at the screen door in favor of their slip-ons, draping their blanket over the back of a porch chair. They scratch the top of Cider’s head and weave fingers through her fur as they both squeeze through the door at the same time, and Benrey laughs, feeling overwhelmingly fond. They love how excitable she can be, how eager she is for even the most routine things, like walks through the garden or trips down to the corner store. It makes them look forward to those same things, too. Makes all those mundane things feel brand new.

Their eye is drawn away from the sprawling gardens once they stand at the top of the steps. Instead, Benrey gazes down at the rolling fields that trail up to the treeline behind their cabin, hills dotted with hundreds of wildflowers. A stick is launched out from someplace in the tall grass, and Benrey watches with a grin as Clementine bounds after it, borealis barks in happy shades of yellow and orange dotting the air above her. The second Benrey tells her it’s okay to go play, Cider barrels straight to Clementine, trying to beat her to the stick first. Their face starts to hurt from smiling, shaking their head with a laugh.

They weave through the grass, trying to avoid stepping on the flowers as they find themself humming the song Gordon’s been fixated on recently until they find him. God, he’s perfect.

Gordon’s lying on his back, glasses folded up and resting on his chest. His eyes are closed, lashes casting little shadows over his cheeks. His freckles are their own wildflowers dotting the fields of his skin, slightly washed out in the warm glow of the sun. A small smile turns his lips up at the corners, the grass beneath his palm sprouting up between his fingers. The tips of his horns anchor themselves in the ground as do the roots his legs unravel into, tail softly flicking back and forth. He shifts and blinks up at Benrey, smile broadening.

“Hey, baby. Good morning.”

“G’morning,” Benrey murmurs, stumbling over themself as they move to lay down with him. Gordon chuckles.

“You sure you didn’t wanna sleep a little longer? You look like you’re still half asleep.” He cups their face, thumb running across their cheek.

“Feels like I am. ‘s like I’m dreaming,” they say, nestling themself as close as they can get. Gordon hums in answer with that soft, fond look on his face that makes Benrey melt, the two of them cozying up to each other to cloud watch.

It’s a serene silence that they slip me into. There’s birdsong and the distant playful barking of the dogs, the soft rushes of wind shaking free pine needles from their branches, sends leaves and blades of grass drifting through the air, lifts up forest scents from their homes and lets them drift over them both.

“I started thinking,” Gordon begins. “About that story you told the other night.”

“Yeah?” Benrey turns their head to look at him as he speaks.

“Yeah. The one when you went to Joshua Tree?”

“My story ‘bout burning a hole in my tent with a s’more stick with you that much?” Benrey huffs, feigned exasperation.

Gordon laughs, that remarkable little sound Benrey still can’t get enough of. “It wasn’t ‘cause of that! It just got me wondering about… shit, there’s so many places I haven’t been to, so many things I’ve wanted to try.” Gordon shifts a bit, unfolding his glasses and setting them back on his face, pushing them up the bridge of his nose. His lips are pursed, something troubling his expression Benrey can’t name on the outside. There’s more to this than they could understand, they know just from the look sitting behind his eyes. They reach over to squeeze his knee, making a pleased answering noise as a root from his legs reaches up to wrap itself around their wrist.

“It’s not all bad. Just— it’s just kinda like—” He pushes hair off his forehead before he starts talking with his hand, using these broad, emphatic gestures Benrey’s unbelievably endeared by.

“I spent so long thinking the worst was always gonna happen if I wasn’t the smartest, the most careful, the most— a-and I missed out on so much, man. The one time I take a chance in years and I got to know you— yeah, it was a complete fuckin’ mess, but in between the awful shit, it was the happiest I’d been in forever. I gotta keep trying, keep doing, or else I’m gonna stall and drop right back down into that shitty placid pit of nothing.”

“So you wanna… do things? Go where— go somewhere?”

Gordon’s laughter rumbles through his chest, a gleam in his eye as he nudges his glasses back up when they slip. “Yeah… yeah, I think I do. I went to Acadia once, freshman year of college. Bar Harbor, all that. I miss it— you think we could do that?”

“Oh, hell yeah, I know Bar Harbor. Gimme another one, Gord. What else you wanna do?”

Gordon lets the tendrils of his arm unravel, the end of one finding and brushing up and down Benrey’s forearm. “Mmm… the beach.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Been to Perkins Cove tons of times, but I haven’t seen any outside of Maine. I wanna see how they’re different. We could go south, or maybe even, like… west coast, if we wanted! Fuck it, we could go to another country!” His frizzy curls subtly shift to accommodate the flowers gently taking root and slowly unfurling, stems winding through his hair in those sunset colors that Benrey likes to paint their nails with, to feel like they’re carrying a little reminder of Gordon anywhere they go. They adore it when he gets like this. Their smile broadens in time with his.

“Anything you want. Anywhere you wanna be.”

Gordon’s eyes drop from staring skyward to them, widened in their enthusiasm and sparkling with active thought, so many different branching, spiraling, curling pathways Benrey knows he’s running through.

“I think— think anything I’d see would automatically be better if I’m seeing it with you,” his voice drops in volume, the both of them close enough for Benrey to hear. Benrey’s heart falls out of rhythm. “We don’t have to go far to make it special. I heard South Carolina’s got gorgeous beaches, haven’t been that far down before. And I’m constantly thinking about when you were telling me all about the insane number of stars you can see out in the desert in New Mexico. Could follow the Appalachian, y’know? Drive out through the mountain ranges. It— it’s all places I’d heard about before, places people say are good getaways after your wedding and all that.”

Benrey nods along happily, trying to visualize each place in their head when he lists them, and trying to remember if anyone’s ever talked about honeymoon vacations before, but they don’t think—

“What w— huh?” Benrey sits up on their elbows, blindsided and dazed as their body moves itself into sitting up entirely. “Y— wait, wait, wait, wait, the— that last part?”

Gordon gets up with them, tenderly reaching out to hold their hand in his. His hand is as warm and welcoming as the rest of him always has been. “I think any of those would be— they could be nice places to honeymoon. They’re all supposed to be beautiful, have lots to do… I mean— I wouldn’t know! Never been! We’d just have to see together, I guess.”

“Toget— you mean like—”

Gordon stirs and gets up onto his knees, making Benrey’s throat tighten and their sight falls blurry when he shifts to kneel on one.

“I wanna marry you. I don’t have the ring on me— it’s still sitting on the top shelf of our closet where you wouldn’t’ve been able to see. That spot’s worked out so far! Even when you came so close to it whenever you went to pull an extra blanket down.” Benrey barks out a tight laugh, strained with tears. “I’ve been taking it with me every time we go out, and I’d sneak it right back up there as soon as you were asleep. It’s been… shit, about a month a half now. It’s— I just never found that perfect time to ask. I didn’t think it’d be here.” 

Benrey thinks it could have only ever been here. Their voice peters out into a high sob, scrubbing the collar of their shirt at their eyes and fixing Gordon with a wobbly grin. They have to sniffle through the ruined starts of several sentences before they can finally, finally get out what they’ve wanted to say from the second they understood his question. “Yes. Yes, yes, holy shit, yes, I c-couldn’t— can’t say yes enough, yes!”

Gordon’s hair erupts in full bloom, not shy on any nameable color, a bouquet so full it spills over. Dozens of genera all spring up at once, winding between each curl as he stands in a rush, Benrey springing to their feet with him, and he lifts them with a single arm. Their chest is pressed so tightly to his that they can’t draw in a full breath, laughing and crying dizzily as he spins them around, and he’s sobbing through his own laughter with them, unfiltered and unfettered, overjoyed and overwhelmed as he keeps spinning the two of them in lopsided circles. Flowers burst up beneath his feet, stems swaying with his momentum, knockout roses and hydrangeas and morning glories, bushes rising in height to frame them in their own floral archway.

When Gordon reels too much to keep whirling them around, he stops and steadies Benrey against himself, makes himself sturdy, a solid foundation, just like he always has, and weaves fingers through the hair at the nape of their neck to tilt their head back for a kiss, soft and slow and sweet.

Petals drift down from Gordon’s hair, a few landing in theirs, deep warm eyes studying their own so thoroughly, and Benrey is overcome with a lasting, permeating sense of calm, silently thanking everything that happened that allowed them to have this. Their eyes don’t leave each other for the rest of the day, fingers woven together at every possible second, faces starting to ache from constant smiling. They can’t wait to see where they’ll go next.