Chapter Text
Gordon groans as he sits up from where he was laying on the floor, the machine in front of him sparking and shooting off radiation beams. He closed his eyes tightly because of the lights, “fuck my head hurts! Why do my teeth, hands and feet hurt? I know why my tail bone hurts at least, it hurts because I fell on my ass” he thought out loud as he went to rub his head but stopped as he opened his eyes and saw his hand, he stares in horror as he turns his hand to look at the back of it and then the palm of it, it still looks somewhat human but only has 4 digits including the thumb. He stares in horror for a good moment before looking at his other hand to see the same thing has happened with his other hand before remembering his teeth hurt, he runs his tongue across his teeth, feeling his canine teeth are much sharper than before, he cautiously feels down his back with his hand before realising his tail bone is now an actual tail, he gulps before looking behind him. The tail he now has is thick and long, it isn’t covered in fur except for the tip which has a large tuft of fur the same colour and texture as his hair, he stares in horror at the tail before he tries to stand, his balance is offset by the tail, he takes a moment to steady himself before trying to walk which he has trouble with, he almost falls over as he ponders what he’ll do to explain to anyone, perhaps it’s a portal mishap? Or some other mishap? He doesn’t know.
He stumbles and falls over as he comes across a scientist, “are you that mother fucker who fucked this whole thing up?!” The scientist spoke with venom, “you think I fucked it up? You think I fucked it up?!” Gordon responded with frustration as he got up, he proceeded to try to explain what happened in there, “you do have your passport though, right?” The scientist asked with suspicion as he mentioned the security guard wanting his passport, Gordon blinks, “no?!” He was about to ask if it was company policy as of today when the scientist's face turns into a scowl, “as intelligent other worldly being, you must have a passport! Just today it was introduced to humans as well, so where is your passport mister alien” the scientist asks with irritation, Gordon blinks “I DIDNT LOOK LIKE THIS BEFORE THE TEST!!” He shouted in frustration, “as if I’d believe that, you think I’d believe a resodence cascade would change someone’s species! That’s impossible! You’re clearly an alien hire! One that gets tested on while working here!” The scientist spoke dismissively. Gordon is about to try and explain when he hears someone walking up behind him, he turns too fast and ends up falling down almost taking the person walking up to him and the scientist down with him because of his massive tail, the scientist and the other person had luckily ducked in time, Gordon groans as he holds his head that is pulsing with pain, “yo…you look…different” the guard from earlier spoke, he looks up to see the guard looking at him, he can’t tell if he’s looking concerned, confused or bored, “Benrey! This alien is trying to tell me he didn’t look like this before the test!” The scientist spoke frustrated about the situation, “uh that’s right he was more…uh…human” the guard now known as Benrey spoke before crouching down and grabbing Gordon’s tail causing Gordon to yelp, grab his own tail and yank is tail away from the guard who blinks at him before asking, “you got a permit for that?” With a blank, emotionless face. Gordon blinks, “a-a permit? For what?! Sudden mutations?!” He shouts as he keeps his tail away from Benrey, “uh..yeah” he spoke yet again, “he wouldn’t have a permit yet Benrey! It just happened meaning once this whole situation is sorted, he’ll have to go get a permit AND a passport from the administrators” the scientist explained, putting emphasis on the ‘and’.
Gordon is still stumbling and trying to get a hang of his tail when they finally get to Tommy and Dr.Coomer, “oh hello Bubby, Benrey and…Gordon?” Dr.Coomer stopped usual NPC like response when he saw Gordon who just tripped and fell over his new tail, “mister Freeman! What happened to you?” Tommy asked as he rushed over to check on Gordon, before Gordon could explain the scientist, who was probably called Bubby, spoke, “ah he got turned into an alien of sorts by the resodence cascade, now he needs permits, a passport and needs to learn to control that unwieldy tail of his, it has almost knocked me over twice now!” He complained, “yo…don’t be mean about his tail…it’d be a good roast” Benrey spoke as he crouched down to grab his tail again, Gordon was quicker and grabbed his tail and yanked it away from Benrey who looked at him with an unknown look, “a roast? Don’t be ridiculous Benrey!” Bubby spoke with disdain, Gordon was about to thank Bubby for not suggesting they eat his tail, “it’d be much better in a stew!” Bubby continued, “NO ONE IS CUTTING MY TAIL OFF AND EATING IT!!” He shouted with a cat like hiss, he wasn’t expecting the hiss to come out so he flushed a bit in embarrassment, “Gordon is right! We shouldn’t cut off and eat his tail! He might need it for balancing!” Dr.Coomer spoke cheerfully going to help Gordon up off of the ground that he was still laying on,
“mister-mister Freeman, it will take a while for you to get used to your tail but I agree with Dr.Coomer that it’s a balance thing! So Benrey- Benrey and Dr.Bubby, please don’t cut it off and eat it, please, it would be just as bad as cutting someone’s arm off and eating it!” Tommy explained and pleaded to the two who were talking about eating Gordon’s tail, “ok- what ever” Benrey spoke, still eyeing Gordon’s tail that he is still holding close. Gordon curses as he notices it’s impossible to stand up while he’s holding his tail and glares at Benrey and Bubby as he lets it go, as if to tell them that he barely trusts them.
Gordon groans as he finally sits down to sleep, he thinks back on the day, about how it played out, how the others had ransacked a vending machine, the ropes, Benrey using his sweet voice to try and get Gordon to show his passport with green apple flavoured sweet voice? About how Benrey had managed to hold up a fire door, how the soldiers turned out to want them dead and how Benrey had just randomly walked up to a living skeleton and started communicating to it with the sweet voice. He shakes his head a bit before looking down at his hands again, still wrong, still not his regular hands, he soon feels someone sit next to him, it’s Benrey and he’s just staring at his hands too, “uh…” Gordon vocalises before being interrupted by Benrey, “yo…think your feet are like that too? Gordon feetman?” Benrey spoke with a mischievous expression, not quite a smile but still mischievous, “uh…no- no, why- why is that the first thing you ask?” Gordon asked, thoroughly freaked out, “mister Freeman I- I think Benrey meant to ask for you to try and see if no- no shoes will make balancing easier?” Tommy spoke from nearby, he and Dr.Coomer both some how have sleeping caps on and pyjamas on, Gordon doesn’t even question it, “I think Benrey is being a little freak and wanting to see weird feet” Bubby spoke as he plays with a lighter that apparently was in his pocket. Gordon thinks a bit out loud, “Tommy might be right though…what if whatever I was turned into is meant to go barefoot or at least not meant to wear heavy duty foot wear…” he thinks with a hum but soon yelps and pulls his tail away from Benrey who had grabbed it again, “why to keep grabbing my tail man?!” He asks in annoyance and anger, Benrey just smiles an odd smile, “mmm, squishy tail, sign of good ma-“ “BENREY! No one needs to hear about that!” Bubby interrupted Benrey by grabbing Gordon by the back of the HEV suit and somehow dragging him to sit next to Dr.Coomer and Tommy, Benrey just stared at Bubby before audibly growling at Bubby and storming out of the room and sitting just outside the door.
Gordon blinks in confusion, “my my, it seems it’s that time of season for Benrey” Dr.Coomer spoke cheerfully, “again? Didn’t he just have it?” Tommy asked confused and worried, “I’m sorry what do you mean by ‘that time of season’?” Gordon asked thoroughly confused, “I don’t think it’s that time of season, if it was he’d be desperately trying to-“ “dear Bubby, why don’t you get dressed in your pyjamas” Dr.Coomer spoke cheerfully cutting Bubby off, Bubby just huffs a bit and goes behind an upturned desk, “mister Freeman, how about you take your shoes off and try walking around with out them” Tommy suggests. Gordon nods and proceeds to take the HEV boots off, ridiculous that the boots can come off but the rest of the HEV suit can’t. Gordon stares at his feet which had also been reduced to only 4 toes rather than the normal 5, he wiggles his toes noticing that he can move his toes individually, kinda like fingers, he is quite as he gets to his feet and is pleasantly surprised that his balance has greatly improved, “hey look! It worked, taking the boots off made my balance improve!” He spoke as he walked semi normally, “that’s- that is amazing mister freeman!” Tommy happily clapped his hands, he heard a whistle from the door, not a wolf whistle thankfully, he turned to Benrey who is still somewhat sulking at the door looking at him, “nice feet, feetman, those lil piggies gonna go to the market?” Benrey spoke in what seems to be a mocking tone. Gordon goes red in the face from embarrassment at Benrey talking about his feet and just goes and sits down in the corner of the room, grabs his own tail and maneuvers the unwieldy tail to hide his feet from Benrey’s sight, he glares at Benrey from the corner before falling asleep.
Gordon woke up with a yelp as Benrey had tried lifting up his tail, clearly to look at his feet, “Benrey! What the fuck man!?” Gordon shouts, Benrey is about to explain himself when Gordon’s tail unexpectedly jerked slapping Benrey in the face making the blueish skinned man jerk back and cover his face as it hit him in the face, “oh shit- fuck- uh I did not mean for that to happen man-” Gordon spoke trying to explain it before Dr.Coomer walked over, “now Benrey! What have we learned?” He spoke cheerfully but slightly patronizingly to Benrey, Benrey growled a bit and Bubby came over, “don’t mess with tails that are filled with muscles and much bigger than your own” Bubby spoke very patronisingly. “No- it’s not his fault really, I mean I- I didn’t like that he touched it or tried to look at my feet but like- it was my tail that did that, and wait Benrey doesn’t have a tail??” Gordon spoke trying to calm down a potential fight while confused since Benrey doesn’t have a tail, he sees Benrey peeking out from behind his hands, he doesn’t know the look in his eyes but he feels a bit…scared by the look, “we should get going- going! I really need to get home to feed Sunkist!” Tommy spoke from the doorway, Gordon sighs as he feels the tension lessen, thank goodness for Tommy.
From the moment he touched Gordon’s tail he couldn’t help but try to touch it again and again and again, it was soft but muscular, definitely used for balance, it’s nothing like anything back at Xen, must be from a different place, he watched as Gordon walks, no longer stumbling because those cursed boots are off, Benrey wishes he could take off his own boots but he’d need permission to do so, he is only allowing Gordon to do so because he likes watching them grip on to things, like the railing Gordon is currently balancing on while Bubby argues with Dr.Coomer nearby, something about soda and which is the best or something like that. Benrey had noticed that slowly Gordon’s tail had become more animated, now swaying, perhaps for balance? Or perhaps to show emotions?
“Mister Freeman, your- your tail, it sways like a cats tail! Or maybe even a dogs tail!” Tommy spoke up nearby him as he watches Bubby and Dr.Coomer argue about soda, he turns to him, “really?” He looks behind himself to see that, yes, his tail is swaying, “thank god I can move it! I was starting to think it was dead weight” he spoke before noticing Benrey looking at him, “don’t tell me you’re staring at my feet” Gordon asked with a groan, “huh, wuh?” Benrey responds, clearly he wasn’t paying attention, he just hopes he was spaced out and not staring at his feet. “Hello Gordon! We should get going!” Dr.Coomer spoke cheerfully as he walks over, “sounds like a good idea Dr.Coomer” Gordon spoke as he got off the railing he was perched on before following Dr.Coomer and Bubby who seem to have resolved their dispute, Tommy rushes a head of Gordon but Gordon can hear Benrey walking behind him, he hopes it isn’t to grab his tail.