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lakesandquarries · 3 years

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Baby Shoes - Chapter 3

Bubby has been a doctor at Black Mesa for 20 years, living there for 50. He’s been bouncing around from project to project, working on whatever needs most help. He doesn’t have any opinions on his work or his coworkers or anything like that, preferring to keep to himself.

Then he meets Black Mesa’s newest project.

AKA: Bubby is Benrey’s dad au.

title from “Baby Shoes” by Bad Books.

SIDE NOTE please look at this FANTASTIC art by my friend @8redphoenix8!!!! thank u SO much i love u

also happy seventh night of hanukkah!!!!

AO3 Link

Dr. Elkern is, apparently, dead set on having Bubby continue work on the arm prototypes. But he does allow them to spend most of their time over in Biological Research, only needing to check on the arm project occasionally.

It’s something. He spends most of his time with Dr. Zeki, who has made her dislike of him quite clear. But she does seem to appreciate a new perspective, even if she ignores it most of the time.

He also spends a fair amount of time with Dekkard - whose first name is apparently Derek - as well. He’s new, fresh out of college, the son of a friend of someone high up. He’s quite forthcoming about his complete lack of qualifications, and fully expects to be fired within the next month.

Dekkard is...refreshing, if Bubby is being honest. He lacks the fear the others in Biological Research have of Bubby, willing to speak his mind and joke around and actually listen when Bubby speaks. Currently Dekkard’s little more than a glorified secretary, keeping track of the various projects happening in the Biological Research Department, who’s working on them, and their schedules. He also makes excellent coffee.

“You should quit,” Bubby says by way of greeting as he approaches Dekkard’s desk. Dekkard spins in his chair, smiling at him.

“And lose all these benefits? Hm, not yet.” He slides a disposable cup over to Bubby, who sips it approvingly. It’s dark, bitter, and slightly burnt, just the way he likes it.

Bubby leans on the desk, nudging the ever-present slinky. “Do you know the agenda for today?”

“Dr. Zeki has four meetings, three of which are back to back.”

A slow smile spreads across Bubby’s face. “That’s the best news I’ve heard all week.”

“I’m gonna cover all her stuff in tin foil while she’s busy.”

“Oh, you’ve made it even better.”

“Wanna help?”

It’s tempting. But Zeki being busy means he can see Benrey, actually see them and not just stare wistfully through one way glass.

“Another time, maybe.”

Dekkard nods. “Well. See you around, if I don’t get fired first.”

Bubby nods, tossing his empty cup into the trash. “Good luck with your project.”

He has, somehow, started figuring out his way around Biological Research. The various creatures make good landmarks. Take a left at the carnivorous bees, keep going straight when you see the ice squirrels, and the acid slimes tell you you’re going the right way. The room is blessedly empty, devoid of any scientists besides Bubby himself.

On the other side of the glass is Benrey. Bubby steps closer, placing a hand on the glass, watching them. They’ve barely moved since Bubby first saw them in this cell. The only time they have any sort of reaction is when they’re fed, which happens exactly three times a day. It’s a simple process from the scientist’s end - open door, slide in food, close door - and has given Bubby a very good view of the keypad and the code needed to open it.

He gives a quick glance into the hall before he types the code in. The door opens.

Benrey doesn’t respond to the noise, pale yellow eyes still staring blankly at the floor in front of them. Their skin, already a strangely desaturated shade when Bubby met them before, seems nearly grey now, and the dark smudge around their eyes has darkened like a bruise.

He takes a few steps forward, shoes clacking against the floor. Benrey flinches as much as the chains will allow them to, squeezing their eyes shut tight. Bubby crouches down so he’s roughly eye level with them, a good distance away.

“Benrey,” he whispers.

Their eyes open. Their head shoots up, looking around frantically before realizing where Bubby is. They strain against the chains, trying to move closer, making a faint whining noise when they realize they can’t.

Bubby shuffles closer, reaching a hand out, and Benrey leans into the touch.

“Hello again,” he says softly. “I’m sorry our previous meeting got cut short, and I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to come see you again.”

Benrey makes a rumbling noise, almost - no, exactly like a purr. Bubby has never seen a cat, but he’s seen videos, heard them described, and he’s fairly certain the noise and vibrating are the same. Benrey opens their mouth, those coloured bubbles Bubby saw previously tumbling out, this time a bright yellow. Sweet Voice, Benrey had called it. He reaches out for one, feeling it dissolve in his hand with a wave of pure joy.

Happiness, then. Yellow...a happy fellow?

It astounds him how Benrey can express happiness like this while still chained up, barely able to move.

“I’ve been reassigned,” Bubby says quietly, moving closer and running his hand through Benrey’s hair. “I work here now. Mostly. I’ve been talking to the other scientists, I’m hoping I can...improve things here, at least a bit.”

He gets the impression Benrey isn’t really listening, focused more on the feeling of Bubby’s hand in their hair. Well, that’s fine with him. He moves closer again, close enough to gather Benrey onto his lap, letting them bury their face in his shoulder.

They’re so small.

He spends a few minutes just sitting there, petting Benrey’s hair, the room silent aside from their purring. It’s the closest thing Bubby has had to peace in a very long time.

Eventually, though, he does need to speak again. Zeki may be busy for most of the day, but time is a limited resource here in Black Mesa.

“I had a few questions for you,” Bubby says softly. He doesn’t move his hand away from Benrey’s hair. “How long have you been here?”

They tense up. “Forever.”

“Forever?”

He can feel Benrey nod against his chest. “Basically forever. I’m from somewhere else but I don’t really remember it.”

“Xen?”

Another nod. “The sky was pretty there. Lots of colours.”

Bubby’s only seen the sky in brief glimpses. He’d managed an almost-successful escape attempt once, in his teens, that had him outside in the middle of the night. The sky has been nearly black, but the moon was bright and full and the stars were one of the most incredible things he’d ever seen.

“I think you’ll like the sky here. I won’t - I can’t promise you anything. But perhaps at some point we’ll go see it together.”

It’s a silly daydream, Bubby knows, but it’s one he’s been clinging to over the last few days. As a child he’d dreamt of escaping, going somewhere far away from Black Mesa, living as a regular human being with no tubes or tests. He still dreams of the same thing, but lately, in his daydreams, his home has an additional occupant.

He doesn’t share any of this with Benrey. It’s nothing more than a pipedream, a small fragment of hope, and it’ll do nothing to help them if he makes a promise he’s doomed to break.

“I want to try and make things easier for you here,” he says. “As I said, I can’t make any promises, but I’m going to try. ”

Benrey nuzzles their face into his shoulder with a soft hiccuping sound. “You’re nice,” they mumble.

Bubby huffs. No one has ever called him nice before. He’s capable of being polite, yes, but his temper is well-known amongst Black Mesa staff. His pyrokinesis and accidental habit of setting things on fire when annoyed cemented his reputation. Dekkard is about the only employee that isn’t working on a project with him willing to be around him for more than ten minutes.

Of course, Benrey’s quite different from any of the scientists.

They pull away from his shoulder suddenly, yawning. Bubby is not an expert on teeth, but he’s fairly sure there’s not supposed to be that many.

“Are you tired? Do you need to sleep?”

“I’m, uh -” they bite their lip, face scrunched up with the effort of remembering something. “I don’t need much sleep. Don’t like it.”

“I can stay here while you rest. I’ll need to leave in a bit, but I have…” he pulls his pager out of his pocket, glancing at the time. “At least a few hours. If you’d like to nap.”

“You’ll stay?”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

Benrey leans forward again, resting their head on Bubby’s shoulder. “Mmm,” they mumble, more of the sweet voice slipping out, this time a pale, icy blue. When Bubby touches it he’s overwhelmed by the feeling of exhaustion.

It takes Benrey a moment to relax, but eventually they go limp, making small noises in their sleep. It’s - well. If Bubby were the type of person to describe things as cute he would say it was absolutely adorable.

He does, however, wish he’d brought a book.

#hlvrai #half life vr but the ai is self aware #bubby hlvrai #benrey hlvrai #benrey #bubby #cora writes #bbs #baby shoes au

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mymeandering-blog · 5 years

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NEW ZEALAND DAY 1/2 - Exploring Auckland

DAY 1 - Seeing the Sights

As soon as we landed in Auckland around 7:20 AM local time, we hit the ground running. We made our way through customs and secured our rental car in about an hour. As soon as we got to the car though, we realized that our free 2G data speed (thanks T-Mobile!) was far too slow to load any sort of GPS navigation so my mom ran back and bought a SIM card for her phone. It took my dad a second to get used to driving on the left side of the road and everything being backwards. He accidentally turned on the windshield wipers instead of the turn signal for a while at the start, and we still had to yell “Get in the left lane!” and fear for our lives a couple of times.

The very first thing we did in Auckland was get food because we were starving, and the flat, desaturated looking eggs I had for breakfast on the plane were not cutting it for me. Luckily, I was saved by breakfast gods and had the most delicious avocado toast I’ve ever tasted in my life at a little place called “Ralph’s.” Here is photo evidence of it’s beauty (bottom plate) before I devoured the whole thing in a number of minutes.

After filling up on breakfast and coffee we headed up to Mount Eden, where you can get a 360 degree view of the city of Auckland. It was a nice welcome to the city (minus the lady that told us to take all our valuables with us when we parked because there had recently been a break in right in the same spot we had pulled into). After a short but steep hike up the hill we got a great view of the city center!

Because we had some time to kill before checking into our apartment, we took a stroll around the harbor and looked at all the boats and buildings there were to see. The water just in the harbor was a crazy turquoise color.

We also walked through a Maritime History Museum that was conveniently located right next to our apartment. My dad is really into boats and sailing so we mainly did this for him but it was pretty cool to see and learn about the history and culture around sailing in New Zealand, especially since Auckland is known as the ‘city of sails.’

That night we really took advantage of the local cuisine and ate some American food at a pub (this was sarcasm, if you couldn’t tell, sometimes it doesn’t come across in typing). I had popcorn fried chicken and sweet potato fries. We headed back to the apartment and got an early bedtime since we were all pretty tired from the traveling we’d been doing for the past day.

DAY 2 - Snorkeling and A Stubbed Toe

An hour and a half north of Auckland is one of the most beautiful stretches of beaches you may ever encounter. We stopped at a small dive shop and bought ourselves some snorkel masks to take with us further up the coast. The lady who worked there gave us a labeled map of the best places to snorkel and sent us off on our merry way. The place we initially went to snorkel was fun, but I didn’t get too lucky and only saw around 15 fish, but the ones I did see were big and swimming up pretty close to us! I was a little worried that I would have to get in a confrontation with one of them when his little beady eyes stared right at me.

After our dip in the water we drove out to another potential snorkel spot, but the waves were too rough and we moved on to drive through a bird sanctuary that led to another breathtaking beach.

We spent a while here, laying under the shade of a large tree, enjoying the sounds of the waves crashing against the shore and the loud cries of the locusts all around us. A trail behind our resting spot lead up to an incredible vista point where you could see the beach from above. It was truly paradise.

...It was truly paradise until I stubbed my toe on the way back from the beach on a seemingly harmless log in the sand. At first I thought nothing of it but then I thought “Hm, that really hurt more than usual…” so I looked down to see a solid chunk of my big toe just hanging on by a thread and blood starting to ooze out of the wound. What better place to cut open your toe than on a beach where all the minuscule grains of sand can embed themselves into your injury? Am I right?? I hobbled back to the car and we rinsed off my toe with some of our drinking water and threw a band aid on it for the time being until we made it back to our apartment in Auckland. I knew I wouldn’t be able to get through this vacation without a myriad of challenges being hurled at me, but I wasn’t going to let my little crippled toe have an impact on my vacation experience, at least for the most part.

#travel blog #new zealand #blog post

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