babyyouwerethere - Tumblr blog

babyyouwerethere · 1 month

Text

Whatever the Fuck Benrey Is: Chapter Sixteen: Appropriate Behavior Between Friends

Chapter One

Previous Chapter

Maybe Gordon really should just go ahead and cut his hair short. Getting it into a pony tail one-handed was possible but a massive pain and it wasn’t a particularly good ponytail, always coming undone far before the day was through, requiring fixing it or just dealing with it. Or maybe he could just let it hang down.

Smoothing it down, he looked in the mirror hung up on his closet door. It looked good but… as soon as he did anything or if it was windy outside, it would become a nuisance. The ponytail was always the easy compromise but with how much of a pain that was now, maybe it wasn’t worth it anymore. Damn, that sucked but what else could he do?

“Want help with your ponytail?”

Gordon turned to look at Benrey standing in the bedroom doorway, looking at him. “Huh?”

“Your ponytail. Want me to do it? ‘Cause you only got one hand so its always super loose and comes undone and stuff.”

A prank? … Maybe. But when they cuddled and Benrey stroked his hands through Gordon’s hair, it always felt rather nice. And it was the exact solution to the problem he’d just been contemplating. So why not give Benrey a chance and if he messed up Gordon’s hair for a prank, it’d seal the deal on him cutting it off. “Sure. Thanks. You know how to do it?”

“Uh… it can’t be that hard, can it? Just give me one of your hair thingies and then sit down somewhere I can reach easy.”

True, a basic ponytail really wasn’t that hard figure out. So he handed Benrey the hair tie he’d already grabbed as he went past him to lead the way into the kitchen. The chairs there were the perfect height.

Before sitting down though he turned Benrey and… no, he might regret it in a few minutes but he trusted him. He was the one who’d brought up the topic of Gordon’s hair last night after all, perhaps as a precursor to whatever prank he was about to try to pull now but maybe not too. “Thanks,” was all he said before turning back around and sitting around.

A moment later Benrey’s hands were going through his hair. As always how cool and smooth they were made it an unique experience, a pleasant one. Benrey was just nice to touch and be touched by in general.

“So uh… if we gotta, when we heading to old Black Mesa facility?” Benrey asked.

“Not until after we’re sure your data hasn’t already been salvaged ‘cause I’m not going back there unless I’m sure we have to.” Or they could wait until the teams already being sent down there found everything and brought it back. It’s not like they were looking at any of it on the spot, just gathering everything they could to be sorted through later. Then again it might be better to not risk Benrey getting found out if they could avoid it. That was something they’d decide on later though.

“Yeah, I know, duh. But how long is that gonna take?”

“I don’t know. A week, maybe two, could be longer. It depends on a lot of stuff. We’ll start looking tomorrow though.” And it wouldn’t even be suspicious because now that they had a few things up and running, it wouldn’t be viewed as odd if Gordon suggested they start going through the experiment data for anything else that could be brought back that might be helpful in Black Mesa’s struggle to get back to its feet. “I’m second in command now,” and still proud of that even if how he’d got that promotion had been less than fun. He’d still earned it though, for all the trauma as well as how strongly he’d pushed himself onto Breen upon returning to help them. “So I can probably make the call on who all looks at that stuff and set just us to it. If I can’t quite get away with that, it’ll take longer. But if you’re anxious about it, I guess we could…”

“Nah, I’m not,” Benrey interrupted, “just bored.” Figures. “But uh… done.” He pulled his hands back. “I do it right?”

Gordon reached back to finger his ponytail. It was a bit higher than he normal set it but not too tight or loose and far more secure than he’d been able to get it since losing his hand. “It’s perfect. Thanks a ton.” This was certainly far easier and faster.

“Awesome. I’ll uh… be in the basement today then. Probably gonna be a while so go hang out with Tommy or Coomer.”

Gordon stood, turning to see him starting in that direction. He followed. “Why?”

Benrey remained silent until reaching the basement door, pausing just outside it before turning back to look at him. “Gonna do some shape shifting. Try to see if I can’t stumble upon a… true form or whatever you called it.”

Oh! Gordon wanted to see that. “Do you think I could…”

“No,” Benrey interrupted, his tone not particularly sharp but it still firm enough to leave no room for trying to convince him to change his mind. “Don’t come down. I’ll see you later.” And with that he back stepped, phasing through the door, leaving Gordon alone in the hall.

Damn it. Gordon could technically sneak down there in like half an hour when Benrey might not be watching for him anymore. Just a peek nothing more. But… Benrey had told him not to and so he shouldn’t. Benrey deserved privacy just in general but also especially so because likely he hadn’t been allowed much of it in the past.

And so, with some effort he turned and headed back into the living room. He could play some games like he had when Benrey had gone on that walk yesterday. But… knowing Benrey was in the house doing something interesting would make it tempting sneak down to peek so he’d head out instead. He could follow through on that promise to replace Tommy’s gooed OSHA manuals. Maybe get the promised PS3 for Benrey too. All the big expenses were taken care of now and they were firmly settled in, so he could easily justify it. And heck, while he was at it, why not go back to the idea of getting Dr. Coomer Super Punch Out and a SNES too and if he could find anything spaced themed to give to Bubby when he returned from his trip to Aperture, he’d get that too.

Pulling out his phone, he brought up his text chat with Tommy. ‘Want to go on a mini-shopping spree with me? You need to tell me where to go to replace your OSHA manuals.’ And which ones needed to be replaced because Gordon didn’t remember.

The reply came blessedly rather quickly. ‘Sure. I’ll walk down. See you soon.’ Awesome, that took care of the loneliness thing that Gordon still needed to get over. That was easier said than done though so… he could give himself a break on this.

***

The hardest part about big changes when shape shifting was the bones. Benrey could change all his soft parts without too much issue but when not hyped up on whatever was in the air on Xen, changing his skeletal structure took time, effort, and energy. Even more now than back at Black Mesa thanks to his general power level being stuck somewhat low.

Perhaps he could try dissolving his bones entirely and just be a mass of flesh and whatever organs he felt like making, if any at all. That would leave him with no structure to his form. It’d be harder to move and would he even be able to speak? The hard mouth parts were important for speech after all. So… he would maybe try that idea later.

For now, because the one thing he did know about himself was that he had a connection to Xen – from there or made from something found there – he would he would try out some Xen forms. Having encountered headcrabs first, that seemed like a good place to start. Not having a headcrab in front of him made it hard; what the heck did their bones do? But he was pretty sure that wouldn’t be his true form anyway. Something along the way to making it or between it and whatever form he tried next might be though and thus it was worth doing.

It took a couple hours but he did eventually have his best approximation of a headcrab. The bone structure was off for sure, it was too big – he could only shrink himself so much – and he added an eye on top between the two arm like appendages because he liked being able to see – presumably the real things had some other kind of sensory organ he didn’t know enough about to be able to replicate – but it was close enough. It was also very much not his true form, nor was any form leading to it. Having no desire to linger in it, he quickly starting shifting again.

Next he shifted into a peeper puppy. Already in a somewhat quadrupedal form, it took less time but long enough that the boredom of doing nothing else still ate at him. He should’ve done this in front of the TV. Gordon would’ve been able to see if he had though and… he didn’t need the distraction of Gordon watching him contort his form and reshape his entire skeletal structure repeatedly as if he were putting on a fun show or science documentary.

He made the eyes last mostly because they were easy but also because upon opening them he was met with a far bigger field of vision than he’d ever had before. Even on Xen when he’d been physically bigger and thus been able to see more at once as a result, it hadn’t felt like this. It was pretty damn cool if a bit disorienting. Maybe he should leave and run around outside like this, really take in the sights. … Later. He had a mission today, one he’d been impatient enough about to not put off until tomorrow. So some other day he’d turn into a peeper puppy again and have Gordon take him for a walk around town.

Next he shifted into one of the acid spitting squid fellows that he couldn’t recall the full name they’d come up with for them. Given that he couldn’t recall that, likely his approximation of one was even less accurate but he was beyond caring about perfection because it and the lead up to it didn’t feel right either. Next was the guys who shot lighting. They were pretty cool with their weird joints. If he’d gone for them first he’d have mussed about and tried to figure out the lightening thing, assuming it wasn’t magic or whatever. But as it was, he wasn’t in the mood.

By the time he was done – or more like close enough because there was no way he go the leg bones right, he couldn’t walk on them – he was almost ready to call it quits. It wasn’t working and he was bored and tired and hungry even though he’d slept last night and ate like two days ago. But this was more exhausting than he ever would’ve thought.

Groaning, he slumped into the awful cold concrete wall. This was so lame! Why did he decide to try this? Who cared if he even had a true form or what it was if so. … But he’d already committed and had only one more alien he was familiar with the shape of. Except no because there was also the little floating guys with the big brains. Ugh! But still he was close so…

With another groan, still leaning face first into the horrible wall, he started shifting again. The guys that shot the bugs weren’t too different from the lighting guys anyway so… might as well complete this just for the sake of it. So he could say he did and then next time he could try other forms, whatever came to mind… assuming there was a next time anyway because so far this was proving to be lame.

As expected, despite looking for it, no ‘right’ feeling came to him as he shifted into his best exhausted go at one of the bug shooting guys. Same with the brain guy. But finally he was done! … But actually no because he didn’t want to go out like this, couldn’t if he tried because these things obviously couldn’t walk so he hadn’t bothered to try to make leg bones that could work well. And his hands were even worse, little more than nubs because trying on them had been too much work.

And so after rolling onto his back to stare up at the now dreadful basement ceiling with it single stupid light bulb that was too damn bright hanging down with a long pull cord to turn it on and off, he started shifting again. At least for this he knew what the human skeleton looked like – there’d been models of it in several rooms in the old facility – meaning it took less mussing around until he found the right shapes. The hardest as always were the hands and feet because for some god forsaken reason they were filled with so many little bones. Getting it perfect wasn’t necessary but the hands in particular were important to get more right than not because if they were wrong it’d be harder to hold things such as game controllers. And so as always, despite how tired he was, he took extra when forming his hands.

By the time he was finally done with that and reforming his old human shape in general, he was about ready to roll over and take a nap right here on the floor. The only thing stopping him was how cold it was down here. So instead he stood and put his clothes back on.

Upon finishing he felt more right than he had since starting this wretched exercise. Maybe this was his true form after all? … Nah, he was just used to this. It was the best form for his purposes most of the time so he used it a lot and thus it felt normal and ‘right’ compared to all the shapes he’d just taken for the first time. Meaning if he had a true form, he’d still likely default to this and thus would it be worth it to continue to try and find it? Maybe not but having already put in so much time and effort failing to figure anything out made the question more annoying. It’d of course be easiest to just wait patiently until he had his records but… he wanted to know now. It wasn’t happening today no matter what though.

And so he slogged back up the stairs and through the cling-wrap still covering the doorway and the door itself. Normally phasing through things didn’t take much effort but right now… it did. Ugh. He hadn’t felt this bad since being killed on Xen. Upon waking up though, the energy boost from Xen’s air had restored him fairly well though before he’d jumped through the last portal before it could finish closing. Here though he didn’t have that, leaving him to just feel crappy for however long it would last. Ugh.

In the hall now, the TV could be heard coming from the gamer pad, its door opened Benrey crept that way, peeking his head in. Gordon and Tommy sat on the couch. On the TV was… Melee. Cool, they were playing games together. Benrey could join them… or just sit and watch.

First though, he pulled back and made his way to the kitchen. Gordon had made a point once about him trying different foods and seeing what he liked. Well it was time to do that. He opened the fridge and opened the carton of eggs. There were six left inside. A normal amount to eat? Maybe. Having experience with trying to eat pigeon eggs in the past – the gooey mess inside was kind of yucky – he went straight to swallowing these whole. Next he ate the carton.

How cold it all was, was rather unpleasant, especially after how cold the basement had been. Used to be he never thought about it or let it bother him much but now after being encouraged and allowed to bask in warmth more often, the cold felt worse by comparison. So closing the fridge, he switched to the pantry. Lots more cardboard stuff in here which was good because he liked cardboard. He settled on eating one of the two boxes of protein bars, the inside of which wasn’t to dissimilar in flavor to cardboard. The wrappers were a bit annoying but he’d survived eating far worse. To finish off his meal he went under the sink for one of his soap bars. Too tired to bother putting it in the microwave, he ate it as was.

Finally he felt a bit better; less like he was immediately going to fall over but still rather tired and worn. If he tried hard he could probably hide it but… why bother? It didn’t matter if Gordon and Tommy knew he was exhausted, right? So, dragging his feet a little, he made he way back down the hall to the gamer pad. It was getting dark out, the main source of light quickly becoming the TV. He hit the light switch as he walked in, drawing Tommy and Gordon’s gazes to him.

“Oh, hey Benrey,” Tommy said with a smile.

Benrey started for the couch. “Hey Tommy.”

“Any luck with your uh… thing?” Gordon asked.

“No.” Benrey sat next to him, right next to him. Before he could respond to that, Benrey took his arm – the right one so he wasn’t using that hand for anything anyway – and draped it around himself, allowing him pull his legs up and to press into Gordon’s side. He was warm and soft and it didn’t matter that Tommy was right there on Benrey’s other side because Tommy was cool and thus shouldn’t care that Benrey and Gordon liked to cuddle.

“Uh… okay.” Gordon was tense but shifted his arm around Benrey to hold him a bit more securely regardless. “First of all, you’re fucking freezing.”

“Mm-hmm.” That’s certainly how Benrey would describe it.

“Second, are you… shorter?”

“Maybe.” Probably. He hadn’t exactly been focused on reforming to the same exact size and shape. And thus since the last form he’d tried had been only a bit bigger than as small as he could go, he likely hadn’t made himself the same height as before. That was fine though. Being tall was good for intimidating people but being short was good for being annoying. The latter was more fun most of the time, certainly with Gordon, which was why he’d defaulted to being shorter than him pretty earlier on. Being even shorter now would maybe make him more annoying.

“And uh… are you okay? This isn’t like you.”

“Just tired and cold.” And frustrated over having spent almost the entire day doing something that proved to have not only been a stupid waste of time but was also exhausting.

“All right then.” Gordon didn’t sound too sure but he relaxed a little more anyway.

“You guys have um… grown awfully close, huh?” Tommy said.

“I guess so, yeah,” Gordon replied. “Maybe don’t uh… tell the others. Not that it’s bad or… or shameful or anything like that, just… you know how Bubby is sometimes and Dr. Coomer’s uh… he can be kinda weird too.”

“I won’t tell, promise. But it’s nice to see you’ve become good friends now even if uh… you’re a bit closer than I’d thought. That’s nice too though.”

It was nice, very nice. Nice enough that if Tommy weren’t there, Benrey might have just crawled into Gordon’s lap at this point before purring himself the rest of the way to sleep against his chest. But there were limits to what he was willing to do even with Tommy as the only witness and that crossed them, especially the purring. He’d tried several times in the past to get rid of whatever inside him made the purring noise but it just seemed to be something his body could do in any form he had that breathed which was all of them because it was too uncomfortable not to for longer than an hour or two.

“Anyway, Benrey,” Gordon nudged him slightly, “remember how I promised I’d get a Play Station 3? Well I finally did it. Got your Heavenly Sword game too.”

That was about the only thing that could rouse Benrey from his exhausted slump. “Really?”

“Yeah, really.”

“We even set it up,” Tommy added, “it’s got internet and everything.”

“Play Station Plus?”

“Of course.”

Benrey had to hold back the urge to burst into purring after all. “Ooh you’re the best. Tommy you too, you’re the second best. I wanna play it.”

“We’re not particularly attached to this match so sure, go for it.” Gordon moved his arm, allowing Benrey to get up easier. Leaving his warmth sucked but it was Play Station and Heavenly Sword, finally.

***

Not long after Tommy eventually left due to how late it was getting, Benrey shifted from just leaning into Gordon’s side with his arm around him to sitting in his lap. He didn’t pause his game for even a second or two during the switch either, impressive. With how he only ever seemed to weigh half of what he should, it was a non-issue, especially being noticeably a little shorter. How much would be hard to say until they stood next to each other again but it was almost certainly a thing.

Unsure where else to put his arms now, Gordon wrapped them around Benrey. And even more intimate position but not really new except for the fact that they were doing it on the couch. Also new to the couch was… Benrey starting to purr. Which erased the lingering awkwardness that perhaps Gordon was the only one who’d even felt. If they cuddled in bed why couldn’t they cuddle on the couch sometimes too?

Just two friends cuddling, nothing weird about that. … Okay maybe it was a little weird but only because of what society defined as appropriate behavior between friends being so needlessly strict. They were just friends, nothing more going on here. Even if the sound and feel of Benrey purring kinda made Gordon wish he could purr too so he could express how good this felt without having to say the words. Words were hard and weird.

As pleasant as it was though, Benrey’s game play was flagging. It had been for a while, getting worse and worse as his evident exhaustion continued to drag at him once the rush of his excitement had started to wear off. His head was lolling too, he had to jerk it back up every few seconds.

“You’re tired.” Gordon kept his voice low but Benrey still seemed to almost flinch a little at it.

“A bit, yeah, but I’m fine. I can keep playing.” Even his voice sounded sleepy. It was late so that made sense but… he’d been asleep when Gordon woke this morning, meaning he shouldn’t be tired. But even on nights he did need sleep, he’d never seemed this tired.

“Shape shifting took a lot out of you, huh?”

Benrey’s purring stuttered but didn’t stop. “Yeah.”

Maybe that was why he hadn’t wanted Gordon to watch. Part of it anyway. Likely it was also more of that not wanting to be put in a metaphorical glass box and made to perform thing. It would be nice to know more. Like what kind of approach he was taking to finding his true form, what all shapes did he try so far, why exactly it had taken most of the day and left him so exhausted. Now wasn’t a good time to ask and perhaps never would be. If he wanted to share he had to know by now Gordon would be interested in hearing so asking would just be nosy. So instead…

“Probably time to head to bed.” It was still only a bit less than an hour earlier than their normal usually Benrey impose bed time, but Gordon was feeling rather sleepy. Probably due to Benrey’s purring. It was more soothing than a cat’s purring and that was saying something.

“Nah, I can play a bit longer. I’ve been waiting for this for so long.”

“You’ve already played for hours though and it’ll still be here tomorrow. So it’s finally my turn to insist on bedtime. You don’t get to say ‘no’ ‘cause you never let me say ‘no’.”

“Yeah, ‘cause you could die if you don’t sleep, I can’t. … Or don’t think I can. But even if I can uh… I’ll come back.”

Instead of pointing out that just because he could come back from the dead didn’t mean that that death wouldn’t suck or that he deserved rest even if only because being tired was unpleasant, Gordon shifted his hold on him and stood, transferring him into a bridal carry. He let out a small yelp, his purring cutting out. A shame but it had to be done. “You can play more tomorrow, I promise. It’ll give you something to do while I’m at work looking for your stuff.”

“But… I don’t wanna.”

As much as Gordon liked the idea of carrying Benrey to bed and dropping him on it just because he could, Benrey still held the controller, the console and TV needed to be turned off and Gordon needed to get ready for bed. None of which he could do with only one real hand and his arms full of Benrey so he gently lowered to him his feet instead. He was indeed shorter. Where before he’d come up to Gordon’s shoulder he was now only up to mid-chest height. It was… cute; he was cute. No need to say that out loud though even if the temptation to had hit with the thought. Thank goodness he’d thought before speaking.

“I know but I’m going to bed so… you know,” he said instead. “You really do help a lot.” He wasn’t entirely nightmare free but even on the now rare instance in which he did have one, Benrey was always right nearby to make it better and help him fall back asleep.

“Damn it, fine. Bedtime. Only ‘cause I like you.”

“Thanks. I like you too.” It was true but for some reason saying it out loud felt… weird. Like the words were heavier than he’d intended. Thankfully Benrey didn’t seem to notice as he turned away to look at the TV again, allowing him to navigate to the ‘save and quit’ button in the menu. Shaking it off, Gordon turned and headed to get ready for bed. Probably it had felt weird because he was tired.

Next Chapter

15 notes · View notes