#dr coomer.... well i mean look at the material.

[thereprisesystem]

what is it with the old men from hlvr being some of the healthiest people in this system

[anons-has-hlvrai-aus]

The Metamorphosis of Gordon Freeman [Chapter 2]

Catalyst

Chapter 1 | Next Chapter

Chapter Summary: Gordon has some shit to do, and Benrey seems insistent on being there as well. Where’s he been? Why isn’t the rest of the Science Team concerned? What hell is “imprinting?”

Word Count: 9,884

Ao3 Version Link

Notes: From this Chapter onwards it gonna be at least partially blatant that Gordon…is kinda a jerk to the Science Team? I don’t see it depicted much in the fics I’ve read, but Gordon is kinda a shit person in HLVRAI, so I wanted to try my hand at writing him that way. If you don’t feel comfortable reading a version of Gordon that is kinda controlling and apathetic towards his friends, might wanna just skip out on this fic.

Also I know this is the funny “Gordon Feetman dick slip” fandom but I’m just letting y’all know that this chapter does contain like one joke about sex? It’s more like Gordon mistakenly thinks that’s what’s happening during the “Imprinting” Scene so if you wanna skip that, the bit starts at ‘Gordon tensed up…’ and ends at ‘Neither am I…’. I’ll separate the joke with some “***” just to be extra careful.

By the good graces of some god, or maybe a programmer somewhere, a vehicle pulled into the driveway just before Gordon started to leave to pick up dinner. It was an orange and black minibus that Gordon recognized quite well. The gaudy-looking Volkswagen had been “adopted” by the Science Team about three years ago, during an impromptu investigation into the unassuming remains of the Black Mesa Research Center. The van’s actual owner was one of his neighbors from across the street, and he was pretty sure the only reason she allowed the Science Team to even look at the van after their rocky first encounter was because she found their shenanigans amusing.

Regardless of the reasons, the arrival of the Anomalous Materials Van (AMV) was always a good sign.

Bubby was the first to exit the van, from the driver's seat, of course; he would accept no place less in any vehicle if it could be helped. There had been plenty of times where Bubby was so outraged at the prospect of somebody else driving that he would quite literally drive himself (mind you, the man could apparently turn into a car at will) to wherever the group needed to go, regardless of if he had any passengers or not.

“You’re here early…” Was all Gordon could whisper as he exited his home in sweatpants and an MIT hoodie. The sight of even one living team member made his relief audible.

“I know.” Said Bubby, “I didn’t plan to be here before the food arrived, but Tommy wanted somebody to make sure you weren’t having a fucking heart attack when he found out…” He looked over to where the former security guard was looking out one of the windows. “that was going on. Harold and I seemed the most qualified to handle things until everybody else could make it over.”

Gordon looked over as well to catch Benrey exchanging funny faces with one of his neighbors. From what Gordon could tell, the neighbor in question was wearing a bun in her hair, meaning it might have been Gina, checking to make sure the AMV was still in good condition. He couldn’t tell because the windows there had been tinted, but that was his best guess.

“Where is Dr. Coomer?” He asked.

“Hello, Gordon!!!” Exclaimed a muffled voice inside the AMV. The doors to the rear of the van swung open, and the good doctor himself shot out of the trunk like a spring onto the opposite side of the road. The sound of broken glass matched itself with the humorous manifestation of a Coomer-shaped hole in his neighbors’ window, followed by the gleeful utterance of “Hello, Dr. Cross!”

Bubby looked in the direction of the mess his spouse had created. “I think he earned nine points for style on that one.”

“I don’t think we should be encouraging property destruction.” Gordon said firmly. “I’m pretty sure that’s frowned upon, usually, by most people.”

“Gordon,” Dr. Coomer announced his spontaneous appearance. “We’re not people!”

“Right, yeah, artificial intelligence, yeah, I know. But the least we can do is pretend for a while? If not for our sake than for the sake of my neighbors that have to deal with our bullshit.”

“If you don’t want our bullshit at your house,” Bubby reminded Gordon. “We could alway just host the bullshit at mine and Harold’s instead.”

“I’m not fucking doing that. I am NOT fucking doing that!” Gordon immediately shook his head violently at the suggestion, “Last time we tried that we nearly got Forzen and his weird cousin killed. Not exactly the best way for us to mend bridges with them.”

“If they didn’t want to party Bubby Style, they shouldn’t have agreed to party during Ed Balls Day.”

“What does that-?”

“Why do you think Forzen’s cousin is weird?”

He gawked for a second. “I-wha-? Don’t just dodge the original topic!” Gordon let his arms fall to his sides. “Whatever. I just don’t think we should be, you know, keeping the Xen aliens as pets until they’re somewhat domesticated first? It’s like trying to take care of raccoons or possums, they’re still wild animals and you shouldn’t be encouraging that shit.”

“Technically only one of his pets is from Xen, but I guess I can see where you’re coming from.”

Benrey popped up in the middle of the group, uninvited of course. “You’re playing nice with bootboys now? Laaaame!”

“Not all of them, dear god no. Just the ones that were smart enough to leave.” Bubby explained, “Did nobody tell you that?”

“No.”

“Oh. That’s my bad then. I thought Tommy would have told you at least, since you two are friends. Forzen and a bunch of other soldiers left the US military following some shit involving a ‘double cover-up’ after we left for Xen, and now they’re trying to sue BIG TIME. They’re all sharing an apartment on the other side of town. We’ll have to take you over to visit at some point.”

Gordon turned to Bubby. “Hey, can we go back to the part where you and Dr. Coomer came over to make sure I was okay?”

“Hello, Gordon!”

“Hey, Dr. Coomer.” He waved. “You and Bubby are awfully calm about the fact that Benrey is back. How long have-?”

“Terrible news, Gordon. Tommy and his father are VERY busy this afternoon. I’m afraid Benny showing up when he did has caused a pileup of paperwork on their end.”

“Oh shit.” Gordon and Benrey both muttered. The latter seemed to show a hint of actual distress at the news.

“Now, gentlemen, there’s no need to feel downtrodden. Tommy will show before the movie starts. Let’s get inside before it freezes over out here.”

“Actually-!” Gordon rummaged around his pocket for his keys, “I kinda have to get everybody’s food. I trust you guys to not destroy my house so…”

“Hello, Gordon! Go right ahead. Everybody’s orders except for your own should be on the ‘food list’ that Benrey gave you.

“Oh cool. That certainly saves me a lot of trouble.” Gordon took out and unfolded the list for emphasis.

“Did you get my text?” Asked Bubby.

“Yeah. Sausage melt, mushrooms and tomato on your browns, pecans for Coomer’s waffle.”

The older man lifted his chin up smugly. “Good.”

Gordon folded the paper back up before getting into his car, waiting a moment after he turned on the engine. Normally this was when his mind would go fuzzy and when he came back to reality he would be at the Waffle House ordering food.

He let out a long sigh and turned to look at the back of the car.

“Can uh, can I come too?” Of course it was Benrey.

“I’m not going to steal anything from the fucking Waffle House, dude.”

“Yeah but, I still wanna come with you though, please and thank you?”

He turned back around and silently started driving.

-

Gordon was very, very thankful that Laszlo was working tonight when he went to get food; he was also thankful that Benrey had enough self-control to stay in the car for about fifteen minutes when asked to do so. He would have preferred if Benrey hadn’t gotten out of the car at all, but he wasn’t being disruptive or anything, and he actually seemed insistent on making sure the orders were correct when they came out (you know how it is with ordering out for more than two people) so it was mostly fine. It gave him and Laszlo time to catch up.

Gordon enjoyed talking with Laszlo, the guy had been a freshman in college when the Science Team first moved into Poastgame, and just a few months from now he would be graduating with a Bachelor’s in Philosophy. He supposed the younger man’s enthusiasm for his studies reminded him of himself from when he was still young and not yet broken by the events of Black Mesa, or at least a version of himself that theoretically existed but never did, and that was why he always felt eager to talk with the young man while he waited for the food to be prepared.

Faint smudges of green covered the edges of Gordon’s vision while they talked, and they lingered after he had left the Waffle House and was driving home. It took Benrey trying to talk to Gordon about something that made the color fade away, if only because he now had to focus on something else.

“Sorry man, could you repeat that?” Gordon requested, “I wasn’t listening. I’m not ignoring you on purpose, I'm just, you know, focused on other things right now.”

“Oh yeah, no problem. I said I saw a uhh,” He smacked his lips, “Vonnegut. In the Waffle House. I wanted to shoot it but you weren’t freaking out about it so I didn’t.”

“That was Gary, he’s cool. Most of the Vortigaunts are cool now, actually. I’m surprised you didn’t notice the abundance of Xen life sooner, although I guess you were busy sleeping and playing Heavenly Sword.”

“I noticed. Just didn’t think any of them could do people stuff.”

“Most of them don’t, the Vortigaunts an exception.”

Earth, outside of some notable areas, had actually been handling the Xen wildlife pretty well, all things considered. Gordon was surprised at first, but had accepted it pretty quickly when it became clear there wasn’t going to be an ecological collapse anytime soon. The Post Game had been crafted with peace in mind, but he did recall something about an ‘inevitability’ that would come up ‘within the next 20 or so years,’ so he was on edge about every tiny thing that changed around him, at least until he was certain it wasn’t going to cause a problem.

Benrey was a pretty sizable change in his life, so any kind of small talk with him was making him incredibly nervous right now about that inevitably. Did the rest of the Science Team know about the inevitability? Of course not, they didn’t need to worry about that, this was a problem for Gordon Freeman alone to be nervous about.

Perhaps Benrey could sense his nervousness, because neither of them talked for the remainder of the drive home.

-

Tommy and Darnold had arrived before the food did, and they had ended up bringing the movie for that night. The main menu for the disc played on loop while they all ate, and everybody enjoyed their food. Gordon had to remind Tommy partway through dinner to not drink too much soda, receiving an indiscernible look from the man before he obliged, but other than that there were no issues while they ate.

The rest of movie night also went well, a surprise to Gordon since he was expecting Benrey to cocoon everybody partway through their viewing of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. It would have been thematically appropriate, at least as far as Gordon was concerned.

Something that was bothering him though was how, well, unbothered everybody else was by comparison about Benrey’s presence. The guy had enough time between his PS Plus running out and him getting to Gordon’s house that he got everybody’s orders for the night, which was fine, but that definitely was not enough time for everybody to get the shock of “Holy shit Benrey is back” out of their systems.

So, why was Gordon the only one even marginally concerned? It had been one thing during Black Mesa, he had been annoying at best and traitorous at worst, but after everything that happened he expected…something else? The theater, the heist, none of those were safe from Benrey, and nobody seemed bothered by this except for Gordon.

Like always, Gordon Freeman was wrong until proven right. All he could do now was wait for Benrey to act out so he could have the justification to kill him again.

As the credits rolled, everybody stretched, and said their goodbyes. Coomer and Bubby gestured for Gordon to follow them to the AMV.

“Gordon, we need to talk.” Coomer said once outside.

“A good old yehaw, as Bubby puts it?” He tilted his head.

Bubby nodded. “Yes. It’s a bit late for it now though. Let’s meet up at the same time tomorrow. Depending on how it goes, it might be a long one. The others have already agreed to it.”

“Okay?” Fair enough, I guess.”

“Good.”

And with that, the older men drove off. Tommy and Darnold left not long after, leaving only Benrey to deal with as Gordon came back inside.

Always Benrey.

He sat on the back frame of the couch, his legs wedged between the cushions on the couch’s back while he pressed himself against the wall. It reminded Gordon of a meme Tommy showed him that depicted various incorrect ways to sit on a sofa.

“Yo.”

“You gotta go, man.” Gordon sighed, “It’s almost midnight.”

“Nu-uh.”

“What-?!” He huffed, “Why? What do you need now?”

“You gotta come to my house now. You said you wanted to come but you couldn’t because you were busy with Movie Night stuff.”

Shit. He did say that, didn’t he? He shouldn’t be surprised that the rules you follow for fairies would also apply to Benrey somewhat. “Okay. Well, where’s your house at? How far away is it?”

“S’not that far. I can take you.” Benrey held out his empty palm.

Gordon’s anxiety skyrocketed.

This was it. This was how he was going to die.

At least he watched a good movie and ate some pretty decent waffles before the end.

Gordon didn’t actually die, of course, but he almost wished he had with how disoriented he felt by the time Benrey had finally gotten them where he wanted to be. Gordon had never noclipped before, he was pretty sure nobody except for Benrey and those fucking skeletons could anyways, and he certainly didn’t want to do it again after being dragged along for about five minutes through trees and dirt and stone and possibly somebody’s house, all at an absolutely wretched speed. The sensation of going through an object, to the best of Gordon’s own description, felt like his insides were being tickled with sandpaper. He wasn’t a fan, but he could probably tolerate the trip home if given enough time to mentally prepare himself.

Now that they had reached their destination, though, Gordon couldn’t decide which he dreaded more: the return trip home (if he returned home), or whatever the inside of Benrey’s house looked like.

The outside said ‘house’ wasn’t even a real house. It looked like a decently-sized gardening shed that had been left behind at an old depot and moved into the woods they were currently standing in. The aged quality of the wood was perhaps made up for by the artistry on display; shades of blue and gray were tastefully painted on to make a pretty exterior, but that was somewhat tarnished by the obnoxiously colored fairy lights that decorated every edge of the shed (because of course the alien fairy-man would have fairy lights). There was also a handful of generators behind the house, at least one of them was keeping the lights on.

“Come inside. Come see my house.” Benrey said, his tone sounded friendly, which Gordon was not in any way used to.

Gordon wanted to run, but Benrey had already established that he could go disgustingly fast without even trying, so he wearily accepted the invitation like some reluctant vampire.

The inside was a bit closer to what he expected. The walls were unpainted, there was a plastic grocery bag filled with…something, and the floor was littered with video game cases, cigarette butts and dead leaves. Benrey’s gaming setup was a small flatscreen tv with a long crack running from one corner to the other, a PlayStation console with controllers, and a bizarre collection of wires, meshes, and other stuff that clearly served a purpose. It scared him, it made him want to scream, and yet he was genuinely curious about what exactly it was.

It was too much, he had to know.

“Hey.”

“Yo!”

He pointed at the Wire Wad. “What the fuck is that?”

“That’s the internet.”

Gordon looked at the Wad again. “The internet?”

“Yeah. I don’t have money for internet. So I just made my own. It works good. I could teach ya. Never have to pay for internet ever again, you’ll save SO MUCH cash bro.”

He shook his head. “No thanks. Gonna politely decline that for now. Still got plenty from the heist. And also the government.” He was pretty sure Benrey was just leaching off of somebody else’s service provider anyways. Still though, if that thing was actually allowing Benrey to play online games, that was pretty impressive in his eyes. Gordon didn’t know how modems and routers were made, or really even how they worked. Didn’t make Benrey any less of a freak or a threat, though.

“Tommy’s dad gives you free stuff too?”

“No! Nononono, I meant the U.S. government. Does Mister Coolatta actually work for a governmental body? I’ve never asked, he scares me too much to ask.”

Benrey shrugged and turned on the console and the flatscreen, sitting on the floor as he did so. “I saw his office once. It has so much fucking emu in there. Only government people have offices.” He smacked his lips obnoxiously, “But yeah, he probably works for the government.”

Gordon quietly tried to parse what was truth and what was Benrey talking utter nonsense. Because if there was one thing he had to start reminding himself of again, it’s that Benrey was a master of making shit up. He had totally forgotten that fact with their conversation in the yard, and while it seemed like he was mostly telling the truth, he was starting to suspect that Benrey maybe didn’t sleep for 4 years straight, or eat squirrels, among other things. He believed the squirrels more than he did the sleeping. He certainly didn’t lie about the microwave though, there wasn’t a single one in sight.

“Wanna play games?” Benrey asked.

Did he have a choice? He didn’t exactly have any way to get home without Benrey’s help.

“Yeah, sure, fine. Can’t really leave anyways.” Gordon replied in a defeated tone. His skin crawled in discomfort. “Just not for too long, though. I have a doctor’s appointment tomorrow.” He was about to sit next to Benrey, but the man quickly stood upright again. “What-Why are you standing?”

“You should leave.”

“I thought you wanted me to play video games with you.”

“I did.”

“Then why’d you change your mind?”

“You gotta go to the doctor bro. That’s more important than video games.”

“I’m not going right now, it’s an afternoon appointment. I just don’t want to play too late and not have enough time to sleep and get ready in the morning.”

“Oh you’re a naughty little boy.” Benrey’s face morphed into something mischievous. “Staying up past your bedtime.” He took Gordon’s hand, his right hand, to drag him back outside. “We can do video games tomorrow.”

“Don’t-!”

“Let’s goooooo!” And off they went, noclipping back home. He hated this. He HATED this. He HATED THIS so much.

Gordon yanked his hand out of Benrey’s the moment they stopped moving.

“DON’T FUCKING TOUCH ME!!!” He hissed. Orange and red speckles covered his vision as he distanced himself. “Don’t you dare touch me without asking first. Especially not my hand. Especially not THAT hand.” He tucked his right arm around his waist and used the spare one to gesture for emphasis.

Benrey wore that stupid, blank, unreadable expression again. “Oh. Shit.” He looked around at anything in front of him other than Gordon. “I did kinda take without asking that time, huh?”

“Yeah. You did.”

Gordon would have preferred an apology of some sort, but he supposed that Benrey silently ragdolling onto the driveway would have to do instead. He contemplated running him over in the morning, since the man’s body never de-spawned upon death like Coomer’s or Bubby’s, but he had a sneaking suspicion that Benrey didn’t actually die of guilt like Gordon would have hoped, and that running him over would probably make him mad.

He could have thrown him in somebody’s yard. Half of the houses in Gordon’s side of the neighborhood belonged to a former Black Mesa employee, all of whom had come from departments untouched by the Science Team, and all of whom had packed heat to escape in one piece. At least one of those people would know enough about Benrey to shoot some buckshot or a laser-guided rocket at him.

And yet, as the color left the edges of his vision, he couldn’t help but feel some sort of guilt? He shouldn’t have, Benrey was by all means his tormenter.

‘But he’s not hurting you now. He’s never really tried to hurt you on purpose, even the hand was an accident. He sounded rather surprised when it happened. Annoying at best, remember?’

Gordon wished desperately that he could block out that tiny voice that occasionally tried to pull him towards the irrational. It only got this vocal if the irrational thoughts were especially tantalizing.

No, no, no.

He would not feel sympathy, he would not humanize the (not) human incarnation of an internet troll, and he certainly wouldn’t ever talk to the man again (less he felt compelled to have those irrational thoughts again).

Gordon huffed and marched up to his front door.

The knob jiggled, but did not turn.

Gordon always left his keys in the house when he got in, and he always locked the front door when it wasn’t in use.

Benrey had noclipped them to his place when they were inside Gordon’s house, which was where Gordon’s keys were.

The scientist that still somewhat resided in Gordon mumbled to him. ‘Option, what are your options?’

He didn’t have a spare key. He always told himself he’d get one in case of an emergency. And now here he was, without a spare hey.

He couldn’t pick a lock, didn’t know how.

He couldn’t break any windows. After the Science Team had made a habit of breaking his windows, either by accident or on purpose, Gordon specifically hired a guy to install whatever shatter-proof glass they had in Black Mesa. It was probably a fire hazard, but Gordon could always just open the window if he was inside. He had a heat-resistant hand now, after all.

‘Well, time to consider asking for help.’

It was already after midnight (at least that’s what time he felt that it was), so everybody else was probably asleep; Coomer and Bubby because they were old, Darnold and Tommy because they had a job and an internship, respectively, they had to be awake for in the morning. They were all either heavy sleepers or kept their phone silenced when they slept, a new development after Gordon had convinced everybody he wasn’t going to be waking up from any more nightmares.

Forzen and his fraternity of ex-military buddies were probably still up, but they were half an hour away, and Gordon didn’t have his car keys (in the house) on him to drive over or his phone (also in the house) to call them and pick the lock.

No phone meant he couldn’t call anybody from his “Normal Friends” Group to help either.

All of his direct neighbors were people he barely knew, plus his neighbors across the street.

Yeah. No. He was not asking those two.

One of them had direct ties to the Biological Research Department in Black Mesa, and anybody that worked in the department responsible for those accursed prototypes was not to be allowed favors.

He also didn’t think he had the confidence to talk to his more normal neighbors for fear of judgment. How was he supposed to explain to a normal person how he got locked out of the house like this? There’s no way this was a common occurrence. Granted, he had never asked before how common this was, but he certainly wasn’t going to find out like this.

Gordon sighed, hung his head into his palms for a bit, and walked back to Benrey’s limp form to stare at it.

“Yo.” Benrey’s newest vessel walked over from the corner of his vision after a little while. “Thought you were going to bed.”

‘Process of elimination, Freeman.’ His inner scientist said.

“………Can you please noclip me back into my house?”

-

Given that Benrey had saved Gordon from being locked out for the night, he supposed it was only fair that he gave in to the irrational thoughts just this once and let Benrey stay over for a while. Disproportionately nice, maybe, but he honestly couldn’t see that shed lasting longer than another week or so before eventually falling apart. So really, Gordon was giving himself some favors by making sure Benrey didn’t inevitably become homeless.

By the time Gordon had showered to get the feeling of dank forest out of his skin, Benrey was already making noise in the kitchen. He offhandedly gave him permission to do so, knowing that it would be better in the long run to let him get all the snooping over with on night one.

Gordon threw on something only loosely defined as pajamas: some tacky bell bottom pants that he had no recollection of buying (and wouldn’t dare wear in public) and an oversized shirt lovingly gifted by some former coworkers that read ‘I survived the falling portion of HEV training and all I got was this shirt’. The latter was one in a large collection of novelty shirts, almost all of which were related to Black Mesa in some way, shape, or form.

He considered walking over to Benrey wearing the shirt that Forzen’s cousin had printed to say ‘I don’t have enough words to express how sorry I am about the hand thing. I’m not sure what hell happened there or what prompted it, but it was super fucked up’ in a massive wall of text. Gordon figured that it was on-the-nose if he wanted to get an apology out of Benrey, but he was listening to the irrational thoughts right now, and those were telling him to be nice, so he wore a different shirt. It was probably for the better, that shirt itched like hell.

He walked out into the hallway to check on his tormentor.

The man had pulled out the couch cushions and unfolded the blanket to create a fort.

“Please put those back in the morning.”

“Yo! Didn’t see ya man.” Benrey was sitting on the ‘ceiling’ of his fort. “Just testing out the structural stability of Fort Benrey.”

“Cool, alright. Gordon’s going to bed now.”

“Bedtime?”

“Yeah, bedtime. Good night.”

“Good night!”

“Good night, Benrey.”

On the way back to his room, Gordon took a quick detour to the bathroom to brush his teeth and contemplate what the hell he was doing to himself. There must have been something wrong with him if he was actually letting some stupid irrational thought compel him to let Benrey stay with him. Something wrong with his head, perhaps? He supposed it was a good thing he was going to the doctor tomorrow.

Finally, he made his way to the bedroom.

“…Really?”

Benrey sat at the foot of the bed awkwardly.

“Whatever. It’s late, I don’t care.”

He had to move around the smaller man to finally get into bed. Benrey didn’t move until Gordon was already under the covers, upon which he then attempted to tuck Gordon in and turned off the lights.

“Hey, uh,” Benrey spoke softly and with perhaps the most clarity Gordon had ever heard. “So Tommy explained the hand thing to me while you were outside. And I’m, uh. Sorry. About that. I didn’t know They would do that to you. And I didn’t know your hand wouldn’t grow back. Or that the hand thing would fuck up your brain chemicals.”

“What prompted this?” He shifted around to his usual sleeping position.

“I just. I wanna be a friend, ya know? I did kinda do too much with the passport thing. It was a new rule, I wanted to be S-Rank security guard and enforce it properly, but I wasn’t gonna push it, ya know?” Benrey tilted his head. “But you were stressing so fucking bad dude. I thought you were nervous about the test because everybody was talking about how big and important the test was that day. I thought ‘oh shit this guy is super stressed I totally need to un-stress him’. So I-”

“So you asked for my passport?”

“Yeah sorry it was all I could think about, other than Heavenly Sword. I thought it would be funny. You started sorta laughing and I thought it was working, so I followed you around and kept doing it.”

“So what about that fucking Boss Fight?”

A pause. “Tommy says I overdo my jokes sometimes. I thought I was being a silly guy, a funny fella. Thought I was keeping you none-stressed, but I was actually making you big-stressed. And that’s bad. You were getting mad and I didn’t know why, and it made me mad. Making Mad, collectors edition, now with special edition Benrey apology cut! I wanna be a friendly fella, just a funny little guy.” He looked at Gordon with another one of those almost-smiles, “I’m trying to be nice and read, uh, better. So we can be friends. And not be mad anymore.”

Gordon looked at Benrey blankly. “I don’t think I fucking believe you. You’ve said so much shit to me in the week we knew each other that I genuinely don’t know if I can or should believe that story.”

Benrey’s face was unreadable in the dark room, but his eyes definitely conveyed an emotion he didn’t recognize on the man. “Okay.”

“Okay. We done now?”

“Ya-no. Uh. I was gonna ask if I could. Imprint on you.”

“Imprint on me? Like a baby duck? What do you fucking mean by imprint?”

He shrugged. “I dunno man. It just feels important.”

“This isn’t going to kill me or fuck me up in some way?”

“Don’t think so.”

Gordon let out a long sigh. “Okay, yeah, fine. We can do that. I’ve learned by now that there’s no point in arguing with you.”

“I mean, I won’t do it if you don’t want me to. It won’t work if you don’t want me to.”

He huffed, “Do you want to do it or not?”

“I do but I’m not gonna force you.”

Talking with Benrey was like arguing with a cat. Cat says it wants one thing, you give it the thing, and then the cat doesn’t want it anymore. Except with Benrey you could give him what he wants and then he’ll have a stupid loophole to say you didn’t actually give it to him.

Gordon slammed his head into his pillow with an annoyed grumble. “Make up your mind man. Whatever. Good night.”

“Good night.”

-

About four hours later, Gordon sat back up.

He couldn’t sleep. His curiosity had been piqued by the imprinting thing, and the fact that Benrey hadn’t forced that shit onto him only made it even more intriguing. Damn those irrational thoughts that plagued his brain, and damn his inner scientist for being a nosy little bastard.

Benrey hadn’t moved from the foot of the bed, but he had definitely been sleeping because, when Gordon shined his phone’s flashlight at him, his eyes flicked open like a switch.

“Hey, you promise that imprinting thing isn’t gonna turn my skin green or put eggs inside of me?”

“Wha-? Oh, yeah. Pinky prommy.” He extended a balled-up fist and held his pinky out.

“Fine.” He laid both arms out in front of himself, using one to exchange the sacred promise. “Do whatever the fuck it is you need to do. I am giving you my trust and my permission to fucking…imprint on me.”

“Thank you.”

He watched Benrey hover closer to him, landing himself within arm’s length of Gordon. He sat with his legs splayed out like a fawn, which was an interesting sight.

“You can uh, imprint on me back if you want.”

Gordon shook his head. “I don’t know how to do that.”

***

Gordon tensed up as a horrible thought came to mind. “Wait wait wait! Hold on, is this-?”

Benrey, in another rare moment of clarity, realized what this probably looked like and burst into laughter. He coughed up a cloud of pink sweet voice and immediately covered his face. “Bro what the hell? What’s WRONG with you? Noooooooo!”

Gordon, ever vulnerable to Benrey’s seemingly contagious laugh, couldn’t help but join in. His vision turned a similar shade of pink to the Sweet Voice. “I didn’t know! I didn’t-!”

“You should have started with that!”

“I should have! But I didn’t!”

They laughed for another minute, Benrey uncovered his face. “You’re gonna kill me, man. I’m not even into that stuff.”

“Neither am I, I think. I’m not sure. They don’t have a manual for that kind of thing.”

“True, true.”

***

Benrey sat on his knees, fully composed once more. To Gordon’s surprise, he pried his helmet off to reveal a head of dark and messy hair. “It uh. Works better without the metal.”

Oh no. It looked…greasy. So horribly greasy. He was sure it would be so soft if Benrey ran shampoo through it several times.

“Gonna have to ask you to hold still.”

He was already doing that, but now he was extra careful about moving. As a scientist, he was obviously observing an alien mannerism in-person, so he obviously wanted to see what happens without accidentally manipulating any variables, that was all. Just a curious scientist wanting to be the control group, obviously.

Benrey leaned forward and gently butted his head into Gordon’s chest; they sat like that for a few seconds. There was a barely noticeable feeling in his heart akin to having a little knot of string tied around your finger, and he was sure that if he didn’t like the feeling he could easily remove it with a mere thought.

He didn’t feel obligated to remove it, though. It took actual effort to notice the feeling at all, and like Benrey promised it wasn’t hurting him in any way. He could easily wake up tomorrow and have forgotten the imprinting had taken place.

Soon, Benrey pulled away from Gordon. “That was it. You wanna try?”

Sure, why not. He didn’t need an irrational thought to humor this guy.

“So I just do what you did, and then what?”

Benrey shrugged, simply watching Gordon. “You just know what to do.”

“Fuck.” Gordon exhaled, bumping his head into the other man’s security vest. He waited, but he didn’t feel any different. He tried visualizing different things: a knot, ducklings, even hand-holding at one point, but nothing seemed to transpire. “I can’t do it man.”

“S’okay.” Benrey said calmly, “Probably don’t trust me yet, we can try again later.” He smirked, “Now go bad to bed, naughty boy. Sleepy boy. Gordon Sleepman.”

“Fuck off.” Gordon tried to say venomously. It came off as more humored than anything. Now that Benrey had mentioned it, Gordon did tend to laugh at Benrey’s nonsense a lot. That was a problem for Future Gordon to worry about, right now Present Gordon needed to sleep.

-

He woke up to a shower of toast, all sorts of toast.

Burger buns, rye bread, sourdough, white bread, any sort of bread Gordon kept in the house had appeared to him in toast form, most of it burnt, some of it nothing more than just a little warm, and occasionally a perfectly light brown slice.

“I made you breakfast.”

“I noticed.” He grumbled and pulled a slice of wheat toast out of his hair.

“You have a lot of bread.”

“I have a lot of visitors and need to do something to keep my hands busy when I talk to them. Some people talk over tea, I talk over a turkey and ham sandwich with melted American cheese.”

“You could probably just use a stim toy but okay.”

Gordon ignored him.

After ‘breakfast’, he got changed and drove to the doctor's office. Like with the Waffle House trip, Benrey was insistent on going with him, to which Gordon had to hurriedly explain to him that going into a medical facility while dressed like a fucking cop was not going to fly. If he wanted to come with, he was going to need some normal clothes.

Benrey stood in the driveway with those sad eyes again, like a lost puppy. Gordon held firm, he was not going to let Benrey win this time, so he drove off.

Benrey had other plans, of course.

It took Gordon looking up from the tablet he was supposed to be checking-in with to realize somebody else in the waiting room was looking over him. Literally.

“Owwwww. That’s my CHIN bro.” Benrey hovered in front of Gordon, rubbing over his stubble. He was dressed in jeans and an old band t-shirt that fit him very loosely.

Gordon had to admit, Benrey cleaned up pretty nicely, even if he had obviously stolen his outfit from his laundry to do so. He wouldn’t have been able to pick him out in a crowd unless he paid attention to the eyes.

The hat was new though, and clearly not meant for New Mexico weather. It was a hand-stitched beanie with a puffball at the top. He decided not to ask where it came from and instead patted at the chair next to him so Benrey didn’t freak out the other patients with his noclipping.

The man was completely quiet after he sat down.

It wasn’t out of politeness, Gordon could tell. His eyes were darting around at all the different people waiting with them, not lazing around emptily like they normally did, although they did occasionally droop enough that he had to pinch the webbing between his hands to force himself into focusing again. He paid special attention when people talked to each other.

What was it that Benrey had said last night about ‘reading better’? This might have been it, Benrey trying to ‘read’ his surroundings and how people acted in a normal setting. It made sense if that was the case, Benrey being ‘Not-Human’ meant he probably wasn’t raised on Earth or given an understanding of Earth culture; Gordon mentally beat himself up for not realizing sooner that, duh, obviously the guy that’s ‘Not-Human’ doesn’t know shit about Earth. It wasn’t an excuse though, he’d been here for a month, he should have spent more time figuring out Earth stuff instead of playing video games.

Gordon would never be that easily distracted if he was an alien, he decided.

After the tedious process of checking in and waiting ten minutes past when his appointment was supposed to be, a nurse called him over. Benrey attempted to tag along and was immediately surprised when he was barred from following Gordon past the waiting room.

“Come on man, big lame.” Benrey gently frowned.

“It’s a matter of privacy, sir.” The nurse said.

There were no further attempts to get inside, but he was obviously unsure what to do with himself.

Gordon sighed, “If it freaks you out so much that you can’t follow, how about you go take a walk around the place? There's like, a food court, and the lobby has lots of plants to look at, and a nursery on the opposite side of the building.”

“What's a nursery?”

“Uh, room where they keep all the babies. I gotta go now,” Gordon pointed at Benrey. “please stay out of trouble.”

Benrey looked like he wanted to ask something, but had little time to do so before Gordon left with the nurse. For the next half-hour, he would be blessed by the sweet and merciful gods of patient confidentiality.

-

Benrey wandered around the hospital, hovering a foot off the ground while he did so. Sure enough, there were plants. Unfortunately, they were fake plants, he could tell because they tasted bad. He was still hungry, despite eating breakfast with Gordon.

His metabolism completely shutting off when he slept meant he hadn’t needed to eat much until a month ago, and even then he hadn't eaten more than maybe once a week. In the past day and a half, Benrey had noclipped over multiple long distances.

He did the math in his head: he could travel 10 miles per minute (10 mi/min), the trek to his house from Gordon’s was about five minutes, then another five back. This morning he traveled two minutes from Gordon’s to Tommy’s to borrow some money, then one more to Bubby’s because Tommy wasn’t home, three minutes to the mall to buy a cool hat so nobody saw his gnarly gamerhair, and then finally eight minutes to find the right doctor’s office since he wasn’t used to tracking Gordon’s new scent. There was also the distance he traveled before he and Gordon met up yesterday, his place to Gordon’s to Tommy’s to Bubby’s to Darnold’s (two minutes) and then back to Gordon’s (two, he and Tommy were neighbors).

If he did the math right, and he usually did, that was about 360 miles in the past two days. No, he wasn’t going to show his work.

Needless to say, Benrey was understandably hungry. His Hunger Meter was only half full.

He should have gone to Black Mesa to grab a food suit while he was out, but Black Mesa was Empty Stomach distance away, and there was a high chance the suits were either gone or out of juice, both edible and electrical. Benrey didn’t want to return to Gordon’s house on an empty stomach, because then he would be tempted to eat ALL of Gordon’s food, and that would make Gordon mad.

Benrey didn’t want to make Gordon mad. There was the food court, but food costs money, and Benrey spent his money on a cool hat, which meant his alternative was to steal food, which would also make Gordon mad. Eating squirrels was an option, but that would make Gordon mad, too.

Lots of Benrey’s options for being Not Hungry would make Gordon mad. Maybe he could talk to Tommy about getting food together.

First, though, Benrey wanted to check out the nursery. That was where the babies were? He hadn’t met a baby before. He’d seen pictures of them, especially Gordon’s ugly-ass baby, but that had probably been a bad picture and was not representative of how all babies looked. Benrey knew how outliers worked.

Maybe Benrey should go introduce himself to a baby.

-

Gordon had a hard time trying to focus on what his doctor was saying. It was obviously nothing bad because he wasn’t being given a serious tone, but he simply couldn’t focus, how could he when he had clearly seen a trail of Sweet Voice appear in the room with him?

There he was, waiting for the doctor to show up, nervous as can be, as he typically was at these appointments. He was practicing some of his self-soothing techniques, mostly the square breathing one, and he had closed his eyes to block out visual distractions. Nothing abnormal, blue taking up the black space until he was ready to open his eyes, and as a silly little goof he decided to half-sing during his final exhale.

He opened his eyes, now calm.

Or he would have been if he hadn’t seen a wobbly trail of blue sweet voice traveling upward.

Even at the fucking doctor, Benrey couldn’t be bothered to give Gordon some privacy. He told him some places to visit, what the hell was his problem?

He silently stewed in his frustration, pretending to listen to his doctor, knowing that if there was anything important or wrong going on with him then he would be completely glued to what the other man was saying.

For some reason, he felt like this appointment had gone by much more quickly than it normally did; actually, everything since Benrey showed up had been going by much more quickly, like he was only really conscious of the more important things going on. He could remember everything he was witnessing in the normal amount of detail, but he didn’t really feel like he was experiencing it all correctly.

Probably the stress, and by ‘the stress’ he meant Benrey. Leave it to his tormentor to destroy Gordon’s sense of time by mere presence. And of course, he was so nervous about his invasion of privacy that he forgot to ask about the irrational thoughts thing, great. Whatever, be could drag Benrey about the privacy thing on the drive home.

God, the drive home. He’s gonna have to actually drive home instead of letting Fast Travel do it for him, again.

He really would prefer to just abandon Benrey here and go home himself, get his number from Tommy and leave a text saying he ‘accidentally’ forgot he was still at the doctor’s office. Alas, Gordon was a responsible adult, and he knew it would be cruel to the normal people of Poastgame to leave Benrey unattended for much longer.

It didn’t take long to find Benrey. Following his inquiry about the nursery, Gordon suspected he would try looking for it, and he had been right! The man stood in front of the massive pane of glass of which one could easily look at all the babies inside. The window was smudged with the imprints of Benrey’s face while the man himself was standing stock still mere inches away from it.

In one hand, Benrey had a small pile of pamphlets, and in the other he had one of his fingers trapped in the mighty grasp of an infant, held tenderly by a young woman that, along with her husband, seemed unbothered by the non-human. The couple was so unbothered, in fact, that they were clearly carrying a conversation to Benrey about something.

Gordon stepped over to get Benrey’s attention, he could see now a vague expression of wonderment in his face while the baby cooed at him.

“Bro.” Benrey whispered, looking at Gordon. “They so small? Can’t even hold a Game & Watch. Too small. Look at their little gamer hands.”

“Dude, they’re babies.” Gordon sighed, “They can’t even roll over until they’re a few months old. Of course they can’t hold a Game & Watch.” He looked at the couple, “I’m sorry about him. He’s a little-”

“Oh, it’s fine.” The man interrupted, “He actually cheered her right up. We couldn’t be more thankful.”

“I’m cool with the kids.” Benrey sounded proud about that.

“That’s great, Benrey. We need to go home now.”

“Okay.” He wiggled his finger free, getting a laugh from the baby. “Byeeee friendddds.”

The couple said their goodbyes as well while Benrey quietly tagged behind Gordon back to the car. He was the first one to break the silence of the car, of course, about halfway through their drive.

“Babies are cool. You said you have a baby, right? Joshua?”

“I did but,” Gordon felt a lump in his throat. “look, it’s a long story. Maybe I’ll explain it later.” He stopped at a red light, letting out a long sigh while orange crept into his vision. Focus, Gordon. “Hey. Why were you in my exam room?”

“What?”

“Why were you in my exam room? Don’t play fucking dumb with me, I saw the fucking Sweet Voice in my room.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, man.”

“Yes you do, YES you DO! Don’t fucking lie to me.”

“Please stop yelling.” Benrey monotonously requested.

“I just want fucking answers!” Gordon glared at Benrey, “I’m letting you stay with me, I don’t know why but I am. I could easily revoke that decision.”

“You’re getting mad at me for no reason. I didn’t DO anything!” He looked out the window, refusing to meet Gordon’s eyes. “You’re being a bad friend.”

“I don’t know what that has to do with anything we’re talking about. You said YOU wanted to be friends. A good place to start is respecting my privacy.”

“I did! I went into the lobby and tried to eat the plants and then I read about babies at the nursery and I met a baby.” Benrey looked at Gordon now, hyperfocused and stern. “I know I make stuff up to be funny, but I’m not this time!”

Benrey spewed blue at Gordon, who swatted it away angrily.

A car behind Gordon honked at him to move. “The light JUST turned green, fuck you!” He glared at Benrey again before slamming on the gas. “Whatever!!!”

They both exchanged quiet swears under their breaths for the remainder of the ride home.

Gordon just wanted to go inside and find a way to distract himself from Benrey.

The smaller man didn’t even bother waiting for Gordon to exit his vehicle when they finally got home, deciding instead he was better off noclipping into the attic. His intentions became clear when Gordon attempted to re-align the couch cushions for when the Science Team arrived, and was swiftly assaulted with the sound of stomping above him.

Benrey told him something, but it was muffled by whatever was between the floor of the attic and the downstairs ceiling.

“Can’t hear you! You fucker.” Gordon growled.

He put on some TV to pass the time, not even bothering to fix lunch for himself. He knew that eating three meals regularly was a necessity, one he found out the hard while spending time with the Science Team early on. He had been pretty good with feeding himself though, and he didn’t want to break his streak because of some shit Benrey pulled, so he shuffled to the kitchen to make himself some cheese toast.

Benrey was dangling through the ceiling and into the boxed goods cabinet, audibly crunching on something he had found like a wild animal. Either he had been hungry, too, or he was trying to get back at Gordon by eating his stuff.

His shirt rode up just a bit from how he was positioned, exposing just enough of his stomach for Gordon to notice he didn’t have a belly button.

‘Probably not a mammal.’ His inner scientist mused.

‘You should poke it.’ Chirped an irrational thought.

He shouldn’t have, but Gordon did, in fact, poke Benrey’s stomach with the handle of a spatula he was using.

Benrey made a noise like a stalling car and pulled himself out of the cabinet.

“Not cool, man.” He mumbled, clipping the rest of the way back into the attic.

Gordon didn’t care, he had a cheese toast to make. A few slices of white bread, generously topped with grated cheese, were slid into the toaster oven, and a few minutes later Gordon had procured and eaten his delicate cuisine in a fraction of the time it took to make. A low maintenance meal, but filling enough to tie him over until he and His Boys got together to have that talk.

It did make him weary, though. The rest of the Science Team never planned anything ahead without Gordon. Given the timing between Benrey’s return and this spontaneously-planned talk, Gordon could only suspect that they were connected.

As if on-cue, there was a rapping at the door, followed by a ring of the doorbell.

“Cut it out!” Benrey phased through the ceiling to shout at Gordon.

Their eyes met, and Gordon quietly swung open the door.

“Oh. Hi Bubby.”

“Hello.” The pyromaniacal man strutted inside, “Why do I smell toast?”

“I made toast.”

“Ah, yes.”

“Hello, Gordon! Hello, Blobby!” Coomer bounced in.

“Hey Dr. Coomer.” Gordon laughed, “Come in, come in. We’re waiting for Tommy and Darnold again?”

“It’s only fair, Gordon. This concerns them just as much as it concerns the rest of us!”

“Of course, of course.” Gordon locked the door behind Coomer.

Immediately, he got another knock.

“That sounds like Tommy, let me-”

The door opened on its own, a man donned in an inexpensive suit on the other side, the outside he stood in covered with a familiar ethereal blackness. Gordon almost thought it was Mister Coolatta, but upon the visitor walking into normal lighting he was happy to see it was just Tommy dressed up like father.

“Tommy! Oh my god, you had me scared for a second.”

“Sorry Mister Freeman.” Tommy blushed, “I thought that this was a conversation that required a serious outfit.”

“Oh, really?”

“Yeah!” Tommy stepped through the doorway, the door closing on its own.

Gordon opened it back up curiously…nothing but a normal neighborhood on the other side. The sound of rocket boots came from behind the house and settled down when Darnold planted his feet firmly before the front door.

“Dr. Freeman, it’s good to see you again so soon.”

“Yeah, man. Come on in, always happy to have you around.”

“Thank you.” Darnold tilted his head left and right, “I do hope you still feel that way after we get this meeting over with.”

“I don’t see why it would?” Gordon’s inflection came off a bit more unsure than he had intended, “I mean, it’s one conversation.”

The seating arrangement around the TV had a sofa across from the screen, a loveseat to the right, and a recliner to the left. Coomer and Bubby usually took the loveseat, and Gordon usually took the recliner since it was his own house. That left enough room on the couch for Tommy, Darnold, and at least one more person (or a very large dog) to all sit together. So, of course, Benrey sat in the middle.

Gordon looked around at everybody, each of them passing awkward glances at each other, aside from Benrey who was just looking directly at the ceiling.

“Hey, so, what’s up?” Gordon asked, “What’s the talk about?”

“Well uhhhhhhh, it’s a bit complicated.” Bubby spoke first.

“So it’s about Benrey, got it.”

“Yo!”

“What?” The older man looked at him quizzically. “No? Of course it’s not about Benrey, we already know he’s back. Nothing much to be done about that.”

“Yeah Mister Freeman, Benrey is a functioning member of society.”

Gordon gestured vaguely at Benrey. “This guy? A fucking-a FUNCTIONING member of society? Benrey?”

“I don’t see why he wouldn’t be!” Darnold exclaimed, “He was very polite last night, he even got all our orders for dinner.”

“Yeah, well, clearly you weren’t there when he plotted to get my fucking arm cut off.”

“Now Gordon,” interjected Dr. Coomer, “I think you’re forgetting that Dr. Bubby was also involved with the ambush that took your hand.”

“I didn’t tell them to do that!” Bubby growled, “Benrey can attest to that. He didn’t tell them to do that either, they just-!”

“Whatever, it doesn’t matter.” Gordon deliberately interrupted Bubby. “You know he snuck into my doctor’s appointment today, right? Started spewing Sweet Voice into the examination room before my doctor showed up.”

“I DIDN’T FUCKING-!” Benrey got up, huffing out orange balls of light with every breath.

Tommy pulled Benrey back to his seat, the latter man looked at the floor in frustration.

“Mister Freeman, Benrey would never invade someone's privacy that way.” Tommy frowned.

Gordon audibly growled. “This guy literally harassed me when I went to use the bathroom at the movie theater!”

“No, I waited for you to finish first.” Benrey argued, “I’m not gonna look at your junk on purpose.”

Gordon got up and paced around his living room, violently ruffling his hair around to avoid getting physically violent.

“He’s not going to look at your junk on purpose, Gordon.” Bubby reiterated unhelpfully.

“This is the same guy who’s day was apparently ruined by a slip in my suit! I don’t get why you guys are defending this fucker!”

“Because you’re being a fucking dick!”

“I’m not being a dick!”

Coomer spoke up, “You kinda are being a dick, Gordon.”

“Dr. Coomer?! What the hell?!”

“Dr. Freeman, I think you should calm down before we finish this conversation.” Suggested Darnold.

Benrey seemed to feel that now was a good time to butt-in, “Yeah, you uh, you should calm down.”

“No! I don’t WANT to calm down! I want to get mad!”

“You shouldn’t though.”

“Why not-!”

“Because bad things happen when you get mad.”

“What-?”

Gordon’s vision went blurry before he could say more, he hunched over a shelf to steady his suddenly weak knees.

This wasn't the kind of blurry where he skipped long drives or conversations where he already knew the outcome, and this wasn't the kind of blurry that had frequently plagued him immediately after the Resonance Cascade where his mind muddled all reasoning with resurfaced memories of Black Mesa. He felt a tightness, no, an obstruction in his throat.

This was choking.

He was choking.

He could faintly hear Tommy and Dr. Coomer, talking to him, could barely see them getting up to help him.

Yellow and orange filled his vision, and just as quickly vanished. The color seemed to flush itself into his throat while he coughed and hacked, his arms giving out as he fell on his side in agony and distress.

His eyes drew themselves over to Benrey, who's face now wore an expression that looked so foreign on him. He only barely hid it while covering his mouth to try and keep yellow and red orbs of Sweet Voice from spilling out.

Fear.

Benrey was afraid.

Gordon felt nauseous.

What could be so bad, so wrong with what Gordon was experiencing, that Benrey was afraid?

What did Benrey know that he didn’t?

Gordon tried to scream.

The more he tried to scream, the more his head began to thump, louder and louder, and the more it felt like he was coughing up a gobstopper the size of a mule, until finally the pressure became so unbearable that all the fear and anger swelled out of him in a hundred brilliant shades and hues. The colors dulled into confusion, and then wonder and then fear once more while his throat continued to provide discordant screaming noises.

The chorus of people screaming around him did nothing to relieve Gordon's overwhelming terror.

Eventually, however, the screaming died down. His throat had become too raw to continue, and the colorful lights that accompanied it lessened into a perpetual trickle.

Almost everybody in the room was mumbling to themselves or to a neighbor about the situation, equally confused and scared as Gordon, except for Tommy.

The young man looked at Benrey, who’s face had shifted from fear to a sort of dawning combination of embarrassment and guilt. He looked at Gordon, allowing a thin stream of alternating pink and cyan Sweet Voice to fall from his lips in what Gordon must have assumed to be an attempt of mutual understanding.

Finally, Tommy looked back at Gordon. The guilt on his face was much more palpable compared to Benrey’s “Mister Freeman, you must be feeling a lot of emotions right now.”

“Oh, oh god... I think... I think I'm gonna be sick.”

[hlvraik]

well i think we know what darnolds coven would be hfhdkhch

but yeah i love stuff like this so much!! so obv i just googled the coven system immediately to play in the space lol and i was honestly stumped with bubby a lil bit but i figure maybe he could be the kind of guy to dabble in wild magic right? but also when i watch the show i just keep going "raine totally looks like bubby lmao" but i dont think hed be bard material right cmon (unless? *recalls the dr feelgood bit*)

Tommyyyy i wanna sayyyyy i mean beast keeping is an obvious suggestion but like. emperors coven? what if 👀 i dunno

sb put coomer in construction in the comments already and thats a good pick i think but alternatively id give him abominations cause it could totally act as limb extensions hoohoo

Afsgsggdhs- yeah, Darnold's coven was pretty obvious! This idea just popped into my head randomly, and I just knew I needed to do it! (I'm definitely not the first person to think of this mashup, but it's fun nonetheless!!)

For some reason, I was thinking of Bubby as an illusionist (because of its colors being rather similar to theirs and them being rather michevious lol) or maybe abomination because of them being created in a tube and suposedly being made out of goop themselves. However, I can totally see Bubby being wild as it totally fits their character!! (Maybe they also hide the fact that they're wild from higher-ups?) They're rather independent and definitely do not want to be told what to do. Plus, I think they'll find the whole coven system rather stupid. (Also, Bubby being a bard PLEASE IT'S BEAUTIFUL-)

I was thinking of beast keeping for Tommy too! I immediately thought of Sunkist and I was like, this is TOO perfect!!! (Also, Tommy just looks like a person who would love to care for different creatures, no matter their species!)  However, emperor's coven Tommy works just as well, with G-Man being their dad and all.

I agree with SB's idea of Coomer being in the construction coven, but I also love your idea of him being in the abomination coven and his use of limb extensions. So, why not both?! Maybe he's multitrack!! (Pretty sure G won't mind, or Tommy talked to them about it.)

I also agree with SB with Benrey being in the illusionist coven, but I could definitely see them dabbling in wild magic too!!

And as for Gordon, I'm rather stuck on him being in the potions/ abomination/emperor's coven lol

[pinnithin-writes]

Good Jokes

Chapter 3

Gordon had become increasingly protective of Tommy as the day went on, which would be sweet if it wasn’t ridiculously unnecessary.

The team reached an area equipped with automated defenses, steel paneled rooms studded with turrets that fired off rounds indiscriminately. Apparently Black Mesa’s heat seeking technology wasn’t refined enough to differentiate between friend and foe. Or maybe no living soul was allowed in this part of the facility regardless of planar origin.

Either way, they were all getting shot at.

They took cover, shielding themselves from the popcorn of gunfire. Tommy tucked himself behind a wooden crate, content to wait it out, when he heard hollering from the other side of the room.

“Tommy!” It was Gordon, lying flat on his belly around a corner. He was panting, curly hair plastered to his forehead with sweat, adrenaline making his dark eyes wild. “Get out of the open!”

Tommy tried his best to make the short sprint across the room not look like a stroll. Once he was out of firing range, he stood against the wall and tucked his hands in the pockets of his lab coat. Gordon was still prone, popping the occasional stray alien with the pistol in his hand. He passed Tommy an incredulous look, and Tommy was only able to stare back mildly.

It wasn’t that Tommy was hiding the fact that bullets had no effect on him, exactly. He just figured Gordon was already dealing with enough already without Tommy adding, “hey, by the way, my dad is a god and I inherited his power,” on top of it. Didn’t want to break the guy’s brain any more than it already was today.

Lamely, he tried lightening the mood. “It’s okay, the turrets can’t hurt you,” Tommy said, gunfire crackling around them. “It's part of our… turret-ing test.”

Nailed it. Puns were good sometimes, right? Gordon had been chuckling at his silly rhymes a few minutes earlier. Maybe a pun would land.

“I don’t know what you just said to me!” Gordon shouted over the noise, twisting to fire off a round at an advancing creature.

Tommy sighed and casually jammed the turret with a subtle wave of his hand. This afternoon was way too loud. He needed a break. Five minutes of silence. Please. The gunshots died.

When the coast was clear, Gordon clambered to his feet and the rest of the group emerged from their respective positions of shelter. They gathered in the room together, casting wary glances at the automatic rifle bolted to the wall.

Gordon flicked a questioning look to Bubby, who had so far shown the most initiative in their endeavors aside from Gordon himself. “Did you deactivate it?” he asked.

The other scientist just shrugged and made a noncommittal sound before excusing himself to investigate the surrounding area with Dr. Coomer. Tommy, seeing the concern on Gordon’s face, tried once again to reassure him that they were safe. Give him a little peace of mind while still keeping it vague. He wanted to iron that troubled wrinkle out of his forehead.

“It can’t hurt you if you’re smart,” Tommy told him, the words falling out of his mouth without a real plan. “That’s… why we’re all scientists…”

Oh, no. Too vague. Gordon, apparently misinterpreting his nonchalance for ignorance, turned his anxious stare on Tommy. And then he was raising a gloved hand toward Tommy’s face. And then, oh god, he was cupping Tommy’s cheek, locking eyes with him intently.

“Buddy, buddy, buddy, buddy,” Gordon told him. “That’s not how that works. That’s not how that works.”

Tommy’s pulse was running a marathon under his skin. He couldn’t look away. Gordon’s eyelashes were… so long. He and Gordon both were flecked with blood and alien guts, surrounded on all sides by enemies, and all Tommy could do was stare. Why was he fixated on this, why was he like this? He could cruise through a room riddled with crossfire no problem but he froze when the new guy touched him?

Gordon dropped his hand to Tommy’s shoulder, gripping him firmly, still pinning him in place with those dark, fervent eyes. “I need you to preserve yourself,” he went on seriously. “I need you to keep yourself safe, so that you don’t-”

Tommy frantically interrupted Gordon before any more words could come marching out to shock his brain. “This is the Turing test room,” he blurted, reiterating his earlier pun. “The turret ing test room.”

The record in Gordon’s head skipped for a second before he caught the joke and began snickering. He released Tommy to cover his hand with his mouth as he shook his head. Tommy relaxed an infinitesimal amount. Crisis averted.

Bubby, who had returned and was hovering nearby, sent Tommy a cool look before turning his attention to Gordon. “I found a present for you,” he said, beckoning him toward an adjacent room.

Gordon’s head snapped up. “The gun?”

He followed the old man out of the sector with the turret, and Tommy, red-faced, had to take a second alone to calm his racing heart. That was… a lot. It made sense; Gordon himself was a lot. But Tommy hadn’t expected to be so utterly blindsided by the exchange. He drew in a deep breath, let it out slow.

Gordon Freeman was a passionate, caring guy who would have insisted any idiot running through a sheet of bullets should keep themself safe. And he was so wired on stress, maybe he would have clutched at anyone’s face to drive his point home. Tommy had a feeling that wasn’t the case, though, and it scared him as much as it thrilled him.

He composed himself and rejoined the group. Benrey, lounging unhelpfully on a crate in the corner, caught his eye when he entered the room. He sneered and made a jerking off motion. Classy.

---

Things got easier for Tommy once they gave him a Glock.

He hadn’t used one of these in a while, but he remembered the rudimentary training they gave him when he took his position in the Anomalous Materials department. Bullets paled in comparison to spontaneous combustion in terms of alien elimination, but they got the job done. Pulling the trigger and feeling the kick in his hand was incredibly satisfying.

It also felt good to charge ahead at the front of the group, firing off rounds at blinding speeds. Punching bullets through the monsters that lurched toward them was an excellent way to burn off some of the pent up anxiety he had been collecting. He watched sickly green gore spatter the wall as he picked off another one. Cheaper than therapy, he thought wryly. They were… all going to need therapy after this.

Tommy had to admit the admiration his marksmanship drew from Gordon was equal parts gratifying and hilarious. He might as well have been playing hopscotch in the middle of an air raid. Tommy could snap his fingers and immolate these beings instantly if he really wanted to. Freeze the blood solid in their veins. But he wasn’t a showoff, so he accepted the man’s compliments by chalking it up to instinct, keeping his head down and playing the mortal game with a mortal weapon.

At one point, he peeled off from the group to neutralize one of the lumbering beasts they were being accosted by, leaving his colleagues high up on a catwalk and out of danger. It should have been an easy shot for Tommy, but Gordon’s protective streak was apparently a mile long, and he scrambled down to his level to attack the creature with the crowbar. Tommy watched him, bemused, as he took out the alien on his behalf. So brave. So utterly pointless.

He flicked his wrist and winked Gordon out of there, carefully depositing him back up on the catwalk. Faintly, he heard Bubby utter a bewildered, “how did you do that?” to an equally puzzled Gordon and let out a private chuckle to himself.

They eventually reached a cafe of sorts, and after they cleared the room of monsters, Tommy set to brewing up drinks from the machine on the wall. Coffee was good. He always felt he operated at a little slower pace than the steady sprint of time, and caffeine tended to catch him up with everyone else. The other scientists, thoroughly wiped, settled down on the floor to catch their breaths and slow their racing hearts.

Sitting in a circle, mugs in hand, they talked. Grounded themselves in some normalcy. Got to know each other a bit. Benrey was nowhere to be seen, off somewhere doing whatever it was that shithead entities did, which made the flow of conversation infinitely smoother. Tommy sipped the house blend, listening to Gordon as he led the discussion, prompting the team with questions about their homes, their families.

His mouth really never stopped, did it? Gordon had been pelleting them with words ceaselessly almost the entire day; one would think he’d need a break eventually. It was nice that he was curious about his colleagues, though. The fact that the group consisted of a lab experiment, a clone, and a demigod made conversation a little tricky, but Gordon’s genuine interest and concern for each of their lives was lovely.

Tommy learned that Bubby did, in fact, possess a sense of humor, catching Gordon with a zinger about friendship that was as touching as it was mean. Dr. Coomer had his own jokes, too, and Tommy just about snorted into his coffee when he declared, “I had a wife, but they took her in the divorce.” These guys weren’t bad, Tommy decided. Just a little unhinged.

And then Gordon’s attention was on him. “How ‘bout you, Tommy? Where are you from?”

He was from here, of course. Well, technically, he was from all over. His father had made sure Tommy took in a wide range of experiences as he grew up, but he always returned to Black Mesa like a homing pigeon in the end. While the facility had its flaws, the New Mexico wilderness that surrounded it was beautiful. Tommy loved the desert, and he liked to think the desert loved him back.

How did Tommy put something like that into words? How did he explain to Gordon that his only family was an ageless, supernatural being with the ability to bend time and space to his will, and a golden retriever? Coffee steamed in his face as his brain disconnected from his mouth.

“I don’t know, I’m an orphan,” he answered, haltingly. Then, because that was a fucking depressing lie, he cheerfully added, “but I have a dog!”

Gordon, caught off guard, let out a startled laugh. God, those dimples were just stunning. “What’s your dog’s name?” he asked.

“Sunkist,” Tommy answered fondly.

He had no reservations about sharing his dog with the man sitting across from him. He loved Sunkist, and he imagined Sunkist would like Gordon if they ever met. He could already picture the guy’s cheerful smile as he patted the retriever’s head. Good dog. Best friend.

“You named your dog after a soda?” Gordon asked, still grinning outright. “You really like soda, huh, bud?”

He briefly squeezed a hand on Tommy’s knee, and his stomach did a funny swoop like it was on the end of a yo-yo. Tommy blankly held Gordon’s expectant stare for a while and then realized he hadn’t answered.

“Yeah,” was all he could come up with in response.

He sure did like soda. Helped him see faster. That was a thing he had said today. Tommy had said a lot of things today. He was usually a man of few words, but Gordon got him talking, pulled the dialogue right out of him, whether it made sense or not.

And hell, he wanted to keep talking, which was a new feeling for Tommy. He wanted to keep sitting here on this grimy tiled floor and drink coffee and shoot the breeze with this little ragtag team all afternoon. When it was time to move on, he was reluctant to get going.

The apocalypse, however, waits for no one. So he went.

---

Further along in their road trip through hell, Tommy’s father made an appearance. His haunting visage materialized down a hallway, the air shimmering and warping around him like a desert mirage. Nobody really noticed he was there, but Tommy saw him. He always did.

It was later than he expected; Tommy had hoped his father would have found him hours ago to fill him in on what was happening, but that, apparently, was not his plan. His swirling eyes met Tommy’s from where he stood a few yards away. The crimson security lights made him look ghoulish. He didn’t say anything.

Tommy wordlessly jerked his thumb toward the team of scientists he had been tagging along with. Raised an eyebrow. These guys have anything to do with it? his motions asked.

His father tipped his chin back and passed a glance to the distracted team, then back to Tommy. He gave a solitary nod.

Tommy pointed to himself. And me?

He smiled like a bobcat on a moonless night. You are exactly where you need to be.

Tommy sighed. His dad was playing chess again. Odds were he knew far more about the Resonance Cascade than he let on, and was choosing to leave Tommy in the dark to further whatever ends he had in mind. Tommy didn’t exactly resent him for it - possessing cosmic knowledge would probably make anyone’s parenting style a little strange - but he’d appreciate at least a hint about what was happening.

Gordon suddenly pulled up beside him, shining his flashlight directly into his father’s face. The man just eyed him back silently, unaffected by the harsh beam of light. Tommy watched Gordon’s gaze focus disbelievingly on the mirage in front of him.

“Who’s this?” he asked.

“What?” Bubby called distantly. He was working on an exit door further down the hall, trying in vain to bust it open while Coomer hooked his fists at the deadbolt.

“The guy in the suit,” Gordon clarified. He gave a concerned look to Tommy. “You see that, right?”

Still clutching his flashlight, he was glancing back and forth between Tommy and his father, grasping at a shred of assurance that he wasn’t completely losing it. Tommy looked back at him pityingly. He wanted desperately to explain things to Gordon, to tell him that there was a plan, to offer his hand in an act of trust.

But his father was staring at both of them wolfishly, and he bit down on his words. Later, perhaps. When Tommy himself felt he had a firm enough grasp on the situation to relay it to Gordon accurately.

Tommy shook his head. It felt like he was slapping Gordon across the face.

Bubby, impatient, scoffed, “What are you talking about? Open the door.”

Gordon ripped his attention away from the shimmering man in front of him. “It’s locked, bro,” he called, and he left Tommy’s side to do damage control. “You can’t - stop. Don’t shoot it open.”

The fact that Tommy’s father had revealed himself willingly to Gordon indicated that he was a person of interest to him. Knowing how he operated, Tommy deduced that this could either be very good or very, very bad. He gave the man a tight-lipped smile. Good to see you, dad.

His father winked. Keep him safe.

I was already doing that, Tommy wanted to argue, but his father was warping out of the room, leaving him to handle the consequences of a dimensional rift on his own. Tommy rubbed his temples with his fingertips. Back to the chessboard.

Chapter 2 <-----> Chapter 4

[confusedunit]

Universe of Unreality - Chapter 15

Chapter 15 -  "Oh no...what happened?" The aftermath of the ambush. Darnold makes a choice. Dr. Coomer recieves an accidental gift. Forzen finds a hiding spot. Bubby is alone. Tommy breaks down. Benrey finally gets that talk he's been wanting.

[Content Warning: Bubby is very defeatist in his section.]

When Darnold awoke, it was to a soreness he was familiar with. A classic ache, that one. The 'I was so invested in my work that I refused to sleep, but had to take a quick sit down, and oops I fell asleep on the floor, again' ache. But he could manage that, easy.

He slowly pushed himself up to sit, being careful to avoid hitting his head on the table above him as he did so. He'd done that far too many times, and didn't want to add another number to that tally if he was coherent enough to avoid it.

He stood, looking over his work with a smile. On the table were many small bottles of health draughts, as well as a few hookups for the HEV suit's Health Disbursement System. He'd also gathered up all the medical supplies he'd been able to find in his lab and packed them into easily transportable health kits, and even had managed to scrounge up enough materials to get a fully charged HEV suit battery put together. All and all, he was proud of what he'd been able to get ready for their arrival.

He moved back over to his computer, stretching out his shoulders and arms as he walked. He sat down, content, and woke his computer up from sleep to check on the progress the group was making. Last he'd seen, they'd seemingly taken a break the night before. Or at least, what he was pretty sure was night. He hadn't seen the sky in weeks, he had no idea what time of day it ever was anymore. He wasn't really convinced that his computer had the right time either. But did time really matter? Not really, he was pretty sure.

His rambling thoughts cut off with a halt as he looked at the tracking data he had been following. He blinked quickly, rubbing at his eyes before checking it again. Because that couldn't be right.

There, plain as day, the screen read: G.Freeman. Status: N/A  Stability: N/A  Location: N/A  Communications: N/A Last Known Location: Vehicle Storage Bay 3  

"...That...can't be right." His hands flew across the keyboard, as he searched for any possible data he could find about what might have happened. The Black Mesa intranet was lit up with panicked messages between coworkers, many of them unresponded to, most of them having ceased over the two days prior. He tried to not let that haunt him. But there were a few that had been discussing tracking G.Freeman, and that small corner of the intranet had blown up into stressed searching and a loss of hope.

But there was one thing that they had brought up, that Darnold latched onto. According to them, one of the only untrackable places in the facility was the Biological Research department. Or, intentional untrackable places, at least. The military had set up a few stations that had hampered tracking, but not to this extent. Which meant if there was any place that he could be found, it would be there. But none of the people on the intranet knew how to get there, or had a safe way to get there if they did know.

Darnold looked down at his rocket boots, thinking for a moment. If they needed help that badly...he might be the only one who could get to them. He knew where that department was. He had the means of travel. All he had to do, was...get through all the military and alien forces to get to them.

He took a shaky breath, as he quickly packed up all his things. His laptop, his notes and data, his research. His medical supplies he'd prepared. Everything, he gathered up into his bags and got situated for flight. If he was really going to do this...there might be no coming back. He couldn't afford to leave anything behind.

With one last pause, he slipped his tools into his coat pocket, staring up the elevator shaft. He knew of the traps that had been placed above, he heard the military discussing it as they did so. All he had to do was avoid that.

He took one more breath, to steady himself, before he nodded once. He was determined. He would get to them. They would get out. And the world would know the truth.

Darnold leaned back for a moment, before he hopped into the air, boots igniting as he flew upwards.

-

When Harold opened his eyes, he felt strangely light. As if an unknown weight had been lifted from him. And yet, a lingering uncertainty hovered over him as he glanced around the room. It was a sterile lab room, looking similar to the ones he'd spent far too much time in in the Biological Research department. And as he looked down at himself, and the light patient gown he was wearing, he was even more sure that that was where he was. But how had he gotten there?

Last thing he remembered was getting slammed against the wall by some of Black Mesa's insufferable bootboys, and now he was back in the Biological Research medical wing.

How the hell had that happened?

He blinked slowly, looking down at his hands. …How had he remembered that the HECU were actually Black Mesa's goons? …And on that train of thought, how had he remembered they were called the HECU? He hadn't...been able to remember that in years.

"Sixteen." He mumbled to himself, stilling as the word sunk in. Sixteen years. It'd been sixteen years since he could remember. And he remembered that it had been that long.

He quickly rolled off of the bed, landing on his feet. His legs shook with the strain, but it was a familiar feeling, one that for once filled him with elation other than dread. He needed to know. He needed to confirm for himself.

He staggered across the room, to a mirror, staring at his face. He scrutinized himself for a while, before his eyes flew wide open. They were the wrong shade of green. It was faint, but he could tell. Bubby had taught him the difference. These were the wrong eyes.

Which meant...

He stumbled over to the horizontal pod that was near the door, rubbing at the glass to look through. And, sure enough, within the pod was a resting Dr. Coomer, deep in sleep. Unmoving.

Harold looked over the data that scrolled through the glass, as a frantic smile broke over his face. The fucking bootboys, they were idiots. Idiots! Idiots that had just guaranteed their downfall, if the group got back together.

He stumbled backwards, landing on the floor as hysterical laughter fell from his lips. He couldn't stop shaking. He couldn't stop laughing. He didn't want to stop.

He was back in his old cloning room, in this version of Black Mesa. The place they made the three hundred clones, to distract him. Where they'd weaved his consciousness between three hundred bodies to make him stop asking questions. To make him forget. To make him be useful, instead of hampering their progress. Where they'd put something into his head to force him to stop asking the right questions, to stop him from being able to remember what they'd done.

There had always been a rule the scientists had had, even before he was in this version of Black Mesa. You don't clone him unless he's conscious. They didn't want to find out what happened if you shared your consciousness with a being that was asleep when it happened.

But now he had that data. Because the HECU hadn't cared, they'd just started the process again. As they'd been told to, if the scientists couldn't do it themselves. It only made sense, he realized. If there were no scientists left, then just make more of him, and he'll follow whatever orders they need.

Tears ran down his eyes as he kept laughing, squeezing his arms around his torso as if it would stop the shaking before he could fall apart. His body was alive, in the cloning pod. But because he'd been asleep, he was here, in only the clone's mind. He'd had a similar experience a few times, when clones had 'malfunctioned', getting shunted out of their head before anything could get any worse. And now that had happened here, into a new body.

One that didn't have that device they'd put into his head.

One that could remember everything.

He fell backwards, head bumping the floor as his laughter got even louder and more erratic. They didn't realize just how much they'd fucked up. But he'd make sure they knew. He'd find Bubby, and they'd get that stupid device out of his head. And then they'd find the others, and get out of there, and return to the rest of their Science Team. And they'd make sure that all of Black Mesa paid for their sins.

-

Forzen had really chosen a bad time to try to slip unnoticed around the department.

He'd had to duck from room to room, as a huge group of other soldiers had dragged in three 'apprehended targets' and taken them to different parts of the area. They'd also dragged in a ton of...previously living soldiers, and he'd absolutely wanted to be nowhere near any of that.

Which had led to the worst cat and mouse game of his life for the past many hours, as he'd tried to search for a room that they were avoiding. And he'd finally found one. He'd waited for the hall to be clear, before he made a break for it, sprinting across and slamming his back against the wall as soon as the door shut. He tapped at the console, only relaxing once the light had turned from green to red.

Once he was alone, he finally let himself take a look around the room. It was dark, for one, a small lab room with no windows. The main light that was currently in the room was from a single table lamp on a desk, and a faintly glowing pod at the back corner of the room.

He blinked slowly, feeling his curiosity rising. He couldn't help it. Regardless of what was going on around him, he was still a curious eighteen year old kid. And whatever was in a room that the soldiers seemed to be avoiding was as good as any other defense he could have.

He avoided the large wooden chest that was near the pod, as he moved closer. It looked kinda like the pod he'd woken up in himself, except this one was horizontal. The glass was also entirely opaque due to the glowing light of the glass itself. It was like it was some kind of computer screen, that blocked out anything that could have been behind it. It seemed like whatever was inside was...decent though? He had no idea what half of the data meant that scrolled along as if it was helping someone, but he could read enough to tell that whatever was inside was hurt, but alive.

Probably some alien, he realized. There was no name on the pod, just some kind of 'subject number', and in his rushing around he'd seen plenty of aliens in tubes and on tables and in cages and basically. Just everywhere.

Maybe it was a scary alien, and that's why the other soldiers were avoiding this room like the plague. Maybe he could befriend it, and it would protect him, and help him find his best friend.

Or maybe he would just hide in this room for a long while, and finally take a nap somewhere he felt safe.

…Yeah, he liked that plan.

-

Bubby was awake for a long time before he opened his eyes.

He didn't want to. Didn't want to bother opening his eyes when he could already tell where he was. He recognized the fabric of the wetsuit against his skin, the liquid in his lungs. He was back in his goddamn tube. And this time they'd actually filled it up.

He was both thankful and disgusted that they'd filled his tube. He knew the liquid would help heal his injuries, especially the one that he'd sustained in his leg that the fight with the military had made worse again. But he also knew that that meant they still wanted him for something, to invest into his long term health like this.

They'd fought so hard...and for what? To be punished again? Was this the experiment that Black Mesa was running? To see how many times one would attempt something before giving up?

He would have slumped against the tube, had he not been floating weightlessly in the middle of the liquid. This was nothing like the last time. Who knew if anyone else was even coming, if they were okay? Last time, they'd escaped, and he'd been captured. But this time, they hadn't even had that.

What were they going to do? How could they ever reconvene? Was it even worth it to keep fighting? It was a losing battle from the start. Maybe they needed to just...give up. The fight in him, the spark, was burned low. He was tired, and he hurt, and he'd fought against the scientists for so long, and it had been for nothing. Years, it had been, all to end up locked back in his tube again.

He was spiraling, it was easy for him to tell. But in that moment, it was hard for him to give a shit.

He hated his emotions. They were a weakness, a disgusting reminder of how human he was. Disgusting because he knew no matter what traits he had, he'd never be human in the ways that mattered. He'd always be a science experiment to his fellow scientists. Never a person.

…Except with the few people he trusted. And look what had happened to them.

He wrapped his arms around himself, a poor facsimile of a hug that he so badly wanted to ask for. He would just have to wait. See what happened.

He was never good at being patient. But this time, he had no choice.

-

Tommy gasped awake, on the floor in a room full of toxic waste, and he felt so relieved. He knew this place, this was where he'd found Gordon last time. That was perfect. It'd give him a bit more time to recover, before he'd be found, and they'd go find the others, and everything would be okay.

Everything would be okay.

He sat up, playing with his hat in his hands as he rocked himself side to side. He'd protected his friends, and now they'd just go about their business. Gordon would show up, and then they'd travel through the facility, and they'd find Dr. Coomer, and then they'd find Bubby, and Bubby would apologize, and it would be okay.

…Except Bubby had nothing to apologize for, this time. The thought hit him with a bit of wariness. He...knew that, right?

He shook his head. Unimportant, he'd decided! He'd wait, and that would be what would happen. No matter what!

A concern started to bubble up at the back of his mind, but he pointedly paid it no heed. Everything would be fine! All he had to do was believe that! And it would all be okay!!

He was tired. Physically, he was tired. Mentally, he was drained. Emotionally, he'd somehow forced himself into obnoxious positivity. No time to think about any of that! Time only for waiting and spinning this hat!

He waited for five minutes. And then five minutes became ten. Ten became twenty, and twenty became an hour, and the longer that time passed the harder it was to ignore the concern that dug its way into the back of his throat.

It shouldn't be taking this long. Gordon didn't take this long the last time, and that was without an arm! This should be breakneck pace, compared to that!

But that was Gordon, his brain supplied, not Dr. Freeman.

And suddenly his fear hit him like a freight train.

He scrambled to his feet, holding out his hand as he leapt up, warping through the pipe above him, landing out in the desert around the Residue Processing plant. There was no sign that Dr. Freeman had even walked through this area, the silo behind him still full of water, and he took off running through the sand. "Mr. Freeman!" He shouted as he sprinted, splashing through a puddle and ignoring the headcrab that dug itself out of the sand. It wandered off, as he skid to a halt below the exit chute for the garbage compactor. It hadn't finished crushing things yet, if it wasn't open, and that was a good sign in and of itself.

He held out his hand again, warping up to the control room and staggering a bit. He was far too weak to be doing so much warping, but he didn't have a choice. Not here. Not when an anxiety still pulled at his mind. He turned the machine off, moving out of the room to look down at the compactor itself. It was full of broken items, but at a glance he didn't see Dr. Freeman. He hopped down, digging through the rubble.

To his relief, he didn't find an HEV suit within. And he didn't find a person, either. But he did find a beat down crowbar, a magnum with a B etched into the handle, and the pistol that he himself had been using. He pocketed the two guns, taking note of the fact that they were both empty, and held the crowbar in his hands as he warped back up again.

Okay, so Dr. Freeman wasn't there. That was good, wasn't it? It meant he wasn't in danger. Everything would be fine, even if he just had to go searching for them the hard way.

This was fine.

He sat on the floor just outside the control room, and set the crowbar on the ground next to him. He took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and held both his hands out in front of him. He focused on the hidden cords, checking on them, and relaxed when he could tell that they were intact. That alone took some of the stress off of him. They were okay. They had to be.

…Though...why were the cords so dim? Was it because he had to visualize them, instead of look at them physically? He was far too weak to drop his form again. This would just have to do. He let his hands fall, moving one to rest against his chest as he focused on where his friends could be.

His breath caught in his throat when he felt nothing.

His eyes flew open, and he stared down at his hand. How could he feel nothing? As long as he had been traveling with them, he'd been able to track them. …Except for the last time, when the betrayal had happened, but that had been more a lack of focus. How could he not find them now?

It felt like earlier, when he'd tried to locate Forzen when he was out of place, but had found no trace of him. Like how he hadn't been able to find Dr. Freeman, for years. It was like they were...gone.

He gasped, pressing both his hands to his chest. He couldn't find them. They were hidden from him. Someone specifically knew how he tracked them, and they'd put something to block him from doing so. He couldn't sense their presences, couldn't feel their tugs on his life. He felt nothing.

He'd never felt so powerless.

He slumped forward, digging his fingers into the concrete, and he screamed. He couldn't do this, he couldn't handle this, he didn't know what to do. There was nothing to do. He was hopeless, his friends were gone, and he'd never get them out of there, he'd broken his promise, he'd never see his dad again-

For a second time, his breath caught in his throat. His dad! His dad would know what to do! But with such a block in place, there was no way his dad would be able to find him...without Tommy finding him first. The world flashed yellow around him, and he focused on trying to locate his dad, searching for the light blue energy that he was so familiar with. It took him far longer than he liked to break through the barrier, get his signal out, but it was enough.

His dad was in his tram space, and the door could work as a portal. That would have to do. He opened the door, squeezing his eyes shut. "Dad!" He hiccupped, caught off guard by the hot tears that poured down his face. "Dad!! H-help- please-"

He couldn't keep the portal open very long, but it was enough. He crumpled towards the ground, but a pair of arms caught him before he could hit the concrete. He was pulled close, into a hug.

"Oh, Tommy..." His father held him, gently, as if he was afraid he'd hurt him.

He broke into tears, clinging onto his dad, finally able to physically hug him for the first time in years. He shook, and cried, and told him everything.

In a flash the world went blue, instead of yellow, and glowing wings of blue, woven full with glowing yellow cord, wrapped around Tommy, shielding him from the world.

-

Benrey stalked through the facility, bones clacking against the tile as he went. He didn't feel much, when he was reduced to his skeleton form. It was meant as an easy way to get back up on his feet when the moment required it, it wasn't meant to be a long term transformation. It didn't need to feel, or hurt.

But he did feel a bit, and hurt a bit, as he walked. He'd lost track of everyone after he'd woken up, still in the same room they'd all been attacked in. At the very least, he knew exactly how many soldiers they'd taken out to try to stop the attack.

Sure, it wasn't enough, but they'd all given more than a 'college try'.

And now he couldn't find anyone. His tracking wasn't as good as Tommy's, not by a long shot, so he wasn't exactly surprised he couldn't find them. But that didn't mean he had to like it. It had already taken far too long to escape from the military controlled area of Black Mesa, and then he was stuck clipping through walls every once and a while trying to locate anything he could recognize.

Eventually, though, as he clipped through a wall, he felt the world around him shudder. He would have blinked if he could have, as he slowly processed the change in color tone to yellow. He perked up, focusing on where he felt the shudder come from, hurrying along after it. That had to be Tommy, and if he found Tommy, they could find the others. Easy peasy.

He stumbled when the world shuddered again, this time going blue. Oh. That meant He was there. About time he showed up. The guard had needed to talk to him for days, and he'd finally get his chance. Hell yeah. Two for one deal.

He clipped up through the floor, landing on the concrete with a soft click. He glanced down at the figure of Mr. Coolatta, sitting on the ground in his suit, glowing wings like a blue and yellow sun wrapped in front of him.

The glowing blue eyes locked with his sockets. The eyes narrowed slightly. "...You."

"H-huh?" Tommy struggled to speak at all, and was quickly shushed.

"hey."

The two continued staring, blue eyes full of distrust, empty sockets showing no information.

"What, do you...want?" Mr. Coolatta was even more tense than usual. That wasn't the greatest sign for discussion, but it wasn't like he really had a choice.

"gotta ask you for a favor. you owe me one."

His eyes flared red for the briefest of moments, before they settled back to their icy blue. "I don't, owe you, anything."

"you asked me to look out for him."

"And you failed, that. Miserably."

"uhh, no i didn't? been keeping him safe like, this whole time."

His wings twitched. "And yet, here I...find, myself, holding my son, as he...cries, alone. Where, exactly, were...you?"

"dead. and coming back." He really wished he could roll his eyes, he was so tired. "didn't you just hear him say that?"

The man paused, obviously not wanting to admit he was wrong. Benrey knew why. Tommy was the one who told him that his species held grudges harder than any other he'd encountered. Benrey had forgiven. Mr. Coolatta, despite his attempts, had not. Not his fault, really. Just something else to manage.

"look." He tried to shove his hands into his pockets, forgetting for a moment that he had none. He settled for resting his hands on his hips. "we're still gonna get to lambda. we're gonna find the whole party, whole squad, and fast travel to the main quest, yeah? so like, i gotta ask you a favor."

"What. Do you. Want." Mr. Coolatta's voice was strained through clenched teeth.

"xen. we need to go to xen."

He looked faintly confused for a moment, before his eyes narrowed. "You have, Xen."

"not the one that matters, and you know it." God, talking to Mr. Gregory Man Coolatta was always such a pain in the ass.

"You, told me. Under absolute,ly, zero circumstances...was Black Mesa, ever, again...allowed, to, visit Xen."

"yeah, but this isn't black mesa, man." He huffed, a rapid rainbow of Sweet Voice falling from his jaw. "i need to go there. they all need to go there."

"Why?"

That question, out of any that could have been asked, made him mad. He stomped his foot, clenching his fists as all the angry colors that Sweet Voice could take bubbled up from where his throat used to be. "because they're all hurt, bro! freeman's dying slowly with some hurt that the medkits can't fix, bubby's leg is fucked in a way i can't fix, coomer's hurt in a way that i don't know if can be fixed at all. and im hurt, man, been disconnected from home for what, years? i know years don't mean shit to you, but it fuckin, it hurts, man."

"...I..."

"i said to give them a shitty one because they're shitty people and can't be trusted. and i was right, black mesa can't, can't be fuckin trusted man. but these guys can, and they need help, and the only place i know that can help them is the real one, not the fake broken one you gave for experiments."

Mr. Coolatta looked down at his son in his arms, before looking back up at Benrey.  "...You are, sure, that they are...alive?"

"like, one hundred percent. one hundred ten percent, even. fuckin, uh, overachiever right here. just, fuck." He pressed his hands to his skull, trying to get the Sweet Voice to stop. "please. let me do my fuckin job."

Mr. Coolatta watched him for a moment longer, before he looked away. "...I will...make the, preparations. …" He looked back down at Tommy. "...Later."

Benrey nodded, sitting down on the concrete, still trying to get himself under control. They needed time to recuperate, that was fine. He'd sit here, and do what he was supposed to do. Be a guard. Protect people.

Protect his people.

[pinnithin-writes]

Good Jokes

Chapter 4

Later that day, Tommy did two things to make Gordon’s life a little easier.

Item one: he did end up trapping Benrey under a fire door. It was an accident. Totally. Tommy knew it wasn’t a permanent fix, but it would at least get the entity out of their hair for a few hours while he regenerated a body. In the meantime, they could make their way through the facility much quicker.

Item two: he stopped calling Gordon by his first name.

Dr. Coomer had been firing off a cheerful, “Hello, Gordon!” every few minutes and it was driving the new guy nuts. He was sick to death of his own name. Tommy realized he had subconsciously discarded the word ‘Gordon’ to spare his sanity and now found himself casting around for a replacement.

‘Freeman’ felt blasé. Lazy. Like something Benrey would call him, if he ever bothered to call anyone anything. ‘Dr. Freeman’ made Tommy feel the same way ‘Dr. Coolatta’ did. It was ostentatious. Distinguished. Not at all a fit for Gordon - Tommy had a feeling he knew how to misbehave.

...Mister? Mr. Freeman? That made him sound like a high school history teacher. It was… hilarious, honestly. He couldn’t picture this maniac with a crowbar lecturing at the front of a classroom if he tried. And Gordon didn’t strike Tommy as someone pretentious enough to correct him on the title. He was sharp enough to appreciate the joke. Provided he wasn’t too stressed out to catch it.

The first time he called him that, Gordon accepted it without comment, did a double take, and gave Tommy a questioning, brows-raised look. Mister? He mouthed. But, as predicted, he didn’t correct him. Tommy could not keep the shit-eating grin off his face. The name stuck.

The military showed up, with their artillery and their uniforms and their brief stint of hope, but they were just as bloodthirsty as the aliens, gunning the researchers in Black Mesa down like prey animals. Were these three men he ran with the only people Tommy could trust? No, not even that, the only people who didn’t outright want him dead? It sure was starting to seem like that. He steeled his nerves for further violence as they pushed on.

Reaching the surface was a short-lived victory. Tommy caught a fleeting glimpse of the red canyon walls, the searing blue sky, before government ordered ammunition rained down on them and forced them below ground again like rats. His heart ached. He wanted to taste the sun on his face. Feel the desert sand radiating its latent heat. Following his team into the cold metal belly of Black Mesa once more was probably the hardest thing he’d done that day.

Benrey didn’t stay gone for long, materializing in the form of a skeleton while his flesh was piecing itself together particle by particle in another dimension. He was practically haunting the group, revealing himself only to Gordon and slowly driving him insane. Tommy could see him, as well, but he ignored the entity. If he was this desperate for attention, he would have to try a little harder to gain any from him.

He later got the attention he craved via dozens of slugs of lead. Bubby and Coomer quickly took out the skeleton as soon as it visibly approached them, and Gordon had promptly passed out seconds later. Tommy rested his hands on his waist, surveying the mess and shaking his head. They were too close to the military threat right now to justify resting here.

God, he was bone tired, though. They had been running hard for at least a day now. It was honestly a miracle Gordon hadn’t lost consciousness sooner. He drew in a deep breath, casting a cursory look at his remaining companions.

“Do you think we can get him out of here?” he asked.

Bubby wiped a spatter of blood from his jaw and shrugged. “I’m not carrying him,” he grumbled.

“We could roll him like a barrel,” Dr. Coomer suggested blithely.

As funny as that would be, it was probably best not to give Gordon any more blunt force trauma than he had already taken today. Falling down a staircase because your coworkers pushed you would be a pretty idiotic way to die, especially after everything Gordon had survived already. Tommy removed his lab coat and passed it off to Bubby, who passed it off to Coomer.

After he neatly rolled up his sleeves, picking up Gordon wasn’t hard for Tommy to do. It was just a matter of nudging the rules of weight and mass a little to his advantage. Tommy never broke reality; he just leaned on it occasionally until it gave enough ground for him to do what he wanted. Gordon’s limp head lolled against his chest as he hefted him in his arms. He did his best not to pay attention to that.

“Fine lifting, Tommy!” Dr. Coomer exclaimed.

Tommy nodded in thanks, grateful that the old boxer didn’t get hung up on the details of the implausible. Bubby, however, had a question on his face, studying Tommy carefully as he stood there carrying a man who had fifty pounds on him, at least. But he didn’t ask, so Tommy didn’t answer.

He cast one last look at the pile of Benrey bones on the floor. He’d catch up later.

“Let’s go,” he said.

They pressed on wearily in search of a sheltered place. Tommy carried Gordon like the precious cargo he was, fully appreciating that the other man wasn’t conscious for this. Otherwise he’d surely hear how loudly his heart was pounding against his ribs.

I’ve got you, Tommy thought. You’re safe.

---

A new sense of normalcy elbowed into their lives. The following day, the team worked its way in a wide arc through an unexplored section of Black Mesa, dodging aliens and soldiers alike as they went. It had only taken 24 hours for the reality of fighting for their lives to settle in, and while they were all still pretty haggard from the previous day’s events, everyone seemed to be handling themselves a little better after a night’s rest and some time to process.

Gordon had improved more than anyone. After dealing with the shock of the Resonance Cascade and watching his world turn on its ear, he had concluded that the only way out was through, and he would be the one to get them there. His words were still a rapid-fire tangle of his unfiltered thoughts, but Tommy could see his decisions growing more critical, his actions more confident as they worked their way toward freedom.

Good thing, too. Tommy was beginning to sense a strangeness in the air the deeper they explored Black Mesa. A warping of the space around them, a stretching of the threads of time. Someone, somewhere, had grabbed a towline and yanked, and Tommy could sense it yanking him, too. It felt…bad. It felt wrong.

He tried to explain as much to the team, now that their soundness of mind was relatively more stable than it was yesterday. But it was hard to verbalize the concept of reality shifting like a tectonic plate to people whose top priorities were not getting eaten or shot. “I think time might be expanding and contracting,” was what Tommy said. “I think you might be having a caffeine overdose,” was Gordon’s troubled reply.

Alright. If nobody wanted to believe him, Tommy wasn’t going to waste his energy making them. He trailed behind the group, as was his habit, and quietly did his best to keep his companions alive.

On the upside, with Gordon feeling more normal, Tommy’s jokes were starting to land again. As they uncovered more and more horrifying secrets hidden in the intestines of Black Mesa, Tommy could feel his own sarcasm reaching astronomical levels just to cope.

What the hell were they doing down here? Tommy had been aware of the planar research the facility was conducting, but seriously? A freezer full of human flesh? Ethically questionable cybernetic experiments? Vats of toxic waste, just out there in the open? The absurdity of it all would almost strike him as funny if their circumstances weren’t so dire.

Bubby met it all with grim acceptance and Dr. Coomer seemed wholly oblivious. Only Gordon was reeling with the same amount of consternation that Tommy was experiencing, exchanging glances with him that asked, What the fuck? What the actual fuck?

Dr. Coomer, who was rapidly gaining Tommy’s respect by going toe to toe with their enemies boxing style, kept worrying about his ‘green goop’ allergy anytime they were near the nuclear waste. Tommy honestly wasn’t sure if he was serious or not, and he fought down a snicker whenever it was mentioned. In a way, everyone was allergic to nuclear waste. If you really thought about it.

Gordon eventually raised a concern about their exposure to radiation. Little late there, bud, Tommy wanted to say, but Bubby beat him to the punch with an acidic, “It’s just brain cancer, you can live with that.”

“I don’t thi - hm,” Gordon said.

“I don’t think you can live with that,” Coomer agreed.

Gordon paused, then reconsidered. “I mean, you guys have shown me you - your superhuman potential, so maybe you can,” he said. “Maybe you can. I’m willing to believe… quite about anything right now, so.”

Tommy rolled his eyes as he hopped easily up to the pipeline they had been following. Anything except time being altered, apparently. He tried not to hold it against him. Baby steps. Tommy gazed down at Gordon and jerked his chin for him to follow.

“The cybernetics department was very well funded, Gordon,” Dr. Coomer informed him brightly as he clambered up the pipe.

Well funded? Tommy couldn’t keep the snark out of his voice. “Yeah,” he agreed dryly, “they even gave us these flashlights.”

Gordon, after clearing a gap, turned to give Tommy a puzzled look.

He smirked and indicated his perfectly ordinary flashlight. “They’re Weather Channel brand, you just kinda turn a crank and they go.”

Gordon’s laugh, genuine and sweet, rang through the chamber, and Tommy was surprised at the relief that washed over him when he heard it. If Gordon was feeling well enough to take a joke, they were on the right track. They were doing okay. He smiled and kept moving forward, hope fluttering in his chest.

The nuclear reactor that was actively leaking waste was so mind-numbingly ridiculous, so pointlessly and blatantly dangerous, that Tommy barked out a short “ha!” of a laugh when he rounded the corner. The sheer amount of radiation exposure this facility possessed was unheard of. It was a miracle they didn’t all have massive brain damage. Okay, well. Maybe that was up for debate.

“This place is huge,” Gordon remarked.

“Yup!” Tommy proclaimed, eyeing the acid green sludge with a mystified grin. “And it’s all built to code. The U.S. lets us do this. This is all to regulation.” He raised his arm in a dramatic, sweeping gesture, unable to contain his mirth. “Everything.”

Gordon began chuckling. “I mean, I’m not too worried about the government right now,” he reasoned, before his attention was stolen away by the animals that were swimming in the murk. He popped a few rounds off with his handgun, marveling at the beasts’ ability to survive in such a toxic environment.

Tommy was too pleased with himself to even bother acting like they were a threat. “Those creatures aren’t from the - from the incident,” he continued. “Those were here. That’s also to regulation. You’re allowed… five percent.”

He was barely keeping his tone even and Gordon was doing an amused little exhale through his nose as he tried to hold in his laughter.

“We’ve been breeding them for twenty years to eat radioactive waste,” Dr. Coomer added, eyes twinkling with mischief as he played along.

Tommy had never wanted to high five another person so badly in his life.

Dr. Coomer didn’t even manage to ruin the mood by dying, twice, in rapid succession. He miraculously reappeared only seconds later, when they had all regrouped on a catwalk about three stories above the pit of waste. Tommy arched a quizzical eyebrow at the old man. Coomer simply shrugged. Huh. He sure wasn’t kidding about the cybernetics department being well funded.

Gordon, who was already questioning his own sanity, didn’t even ask about it. Benrey was back, of course. Hovering around the group like the disembodied fuck he was. Tommy let his gaze slide away from him like water anytime he was in his line of sight, but Gordon couldn’t shake the spectre from his mind as it floated only paces behind them. He had been doing a well enough job of pretending the entity wasn’t there until Benrey fired a nine millimeter round at him.

“Okay,” Gordon declared, finally snapping. “There is something fucked up going on.” He cast a nervous eye in the skeleton’s direction.

Bubby and Coomer looked perplexed, while Tommy just folded his arms. He was ignoring Benrey for everyone’s sake - the more attention he got the more powerful he became - but a small part of him was just being petty. Oh, Gordon wanted everyone to believe something unlikely was happening? But nobody took his word for it? Wonder what that felt like.

Gordon kept talking as he pointed at Benrey. “There is an invisible assailant. I want you guys to believe me - I need you guys to believe me.” His tone took on a pleading edge, and it was too much for Tommy to leave him hanging anymore. “There’s - okay - th-”

“I mean, aside from the extra creatures,” Tommy interrupted him, “I’m just seeing normal nuclear power plant stuff, Mr. Freeman. You’re starting to concern me.”

Gordon’s nervous words stuttered into a chuckle. While he turned aside to contain himself, Tommy sliced a chilly stare toward the simpering skull a few yards away. Shoot at him again and see what happens.

Benrey’s returning gaze was icy. But he hung back.

The group assured Gordon that he was not, in fact, losing his mind (“Could just be the radiation,” Bubby offered), and kept going until they reached a door with a label so weathered it was almost unreadable. Gordon, with newfound confidence, gave Tommy a roguish grin as soon as he saw it.

“What does this say?” He asked, even teeth flashing prettily. “This is another one of those fucked up things like the break room. I can't read this.”

Tommy let out a quiet, surprised breath. The fact that Gordon was referencing the moment they met at a time like this made him feel amused and touched in equal measure. Heat rose from his collarbones to his cheeks as he returned his smile. Wait, he had asked him a question, hadn’t he? He squinted at the door and realized he could actually decipher it.

“This says-”

“Prolapse?” Gordon guessed cheekily, and Tommy almost choked on his own laughter.

“Pro Lab Engine Testing,” he managed to gasp out, right before the door opened and a ghoulish creature lunged at them.

Dr. Coomer was on the thing in a blink, knocking it out with a heavy-knuckled blow to the cranium before it could even touch anyone. They all gave the old scientist an impressed look before stepping around the corpse and through the entrance.

“I’ve never been in here,” Tommy commented as he ducked under the doorway. “They only let me into the Scrub Lab.”

Gordon laughed like a bell tower. It rang straight through his heart.

Tommy was never one for drugs, but Gordon Freeman’s sunshine smile made him understand why some people were. Every time he saw it he wanted more, and hearing Gordon’s laughter was quickly becoming addicting.

Awfully inconvenient of Armageddon to happen right when he was getting to know the guy. He should be asking him for his number, not checking to see how many bullets he’d taken. Well, Tommy thought with resolve, all the more reason to get him out of here alive.

Chapter 3 <-----> Chapter 5

[confusedunit]

Universe of Unreality - Chapter 9

Chapter 9 -  "We're in this together."

Dr. Freeman dreams. The Science Team make a plan. Bubby talks with Tommy. Gordon doesn't say goodbye.

While Dr. Freeman sleeps, he dreams of falling.

Over and over again, he falls, before returning to where he was just standing. He's somewhere that's vividly familiar, but indistinct, blurry as if he lost his glasses. It's bright, he thinks, reaching out to things he cannot touch, hands just missing as he tries.

He's trying to move somewhere else, somewhere that's almost within reach, if he can just make a few jumps. He hears the sound of splashing water, grass blowing in the wind. The ground squishes under his shoes like mud. He needs to get over there. He's not supposed to be here.

"Help!" He cries out, as he leaps and falls again. He stumbles as he returns to his previous spot. "Someone, please!"

A musical sound plays from over the nearby mountain, and as he turns he sees a large figure slowly loom over both the mountain and himself. The song gets louder, and something large and bright heads right for him-

...

Dr. Freeman startled awake, as the song from his dream kept ringing in his ears. Where was he? He glanced around quickly, relaxing as some things came back to him. He was in Black Mesa. There had been an accident. He had his team, his Science Team, by his side.

Quite literally, in that moment. At some point during the night, Bubby and Tommy had joined Dr. Coomer and himself in the corner of the room, turning their resting huddle into a cuddle pile. Bubby was pressed up against Dr. Coomer's right side, head on his shoulder, both his arms tightly wrapped around his one. Meanwhile Tommy had leaned against the wall next to Dr. Freeman, sides lightly touching each other.

He realized slowly that the song was still ringing in his ears because it was still being sung, by the alien pretending to read across the room. Benry flipped through the pages of his paperback, but wasn't even really looking at the words. It looked more like he was zoned out, flipping the pages out of habit as bubble-like orbs poured from his lips. They were all shades of blue, and felt comforting even just to watch and hear.

Benry blinked once, looking over to Dr. Freeman. "oh. sleepman's awake. it's like...4am bro. gotta get that snooze cruise goin back to sea."

"You're singing." The words are slurred with sleep, but they fall out of his mouth before his brain decides to think.

"...yeah and?"

"It's beautiful."

"...." Benry glanced away for a moment. "...thanks." He quickly looked back. "...let benry help you please?"

"Sure." He smiled sluggishly. "How...how d'you wanna...?"

Benry closed the book, and quietly made his way across the room to sit right in front of him. "song, uh...helps. can i help you? please?"

He nodded. "...Yeah. Thanks, Benry."

Benry shifted from side to side, before he closed his eyes and started to sing.

The first orbs that came were that same blue, and as they circled and bumped against Dr. Freeman he felt himself relax, let go of tension he didn't even know he was holding. Next came the gradient bubbles, some sort of blueish color to a green. He remembered that the colors meant something, but in that moment he couldn't remember any translations. "...Blue..."

The singing stopped. "blue, uh...tommy'd translate it as, uhm. 'blue like at dawn, means feel calm'. it's...not quite right, but translating colors to lame human language doesn't work so smooth."

He laughed. "And the...bluegreen? ...Teal. Teal to green?"

"healing beam. that one works clear." The singing started again.

He slowly blinked. "...You're healing me?"

He nodded.

"...Thank you."

The singing didn't stop this time, but he did smile, a single bubble of yellow floating up from his mouth.

He closed his eyes again, letting the song carry him back to sleep.

...

When Dr. Freeman woke up a few hours later, his head felt the clearest it had in days. He could think, focus, he didn't feel like he was pushing through a fog anymore. He still hurt, and he imagined that would remain, but to have his mind back in crystal clarity...that alone set him more at ease.

He looked around, smiling as he saw the rest of his group up and moving about. He cleared his throat. "Can, uh...we have a Team meeting?" He smiled wider. "Benry included. You're part of the Science Team now, bud."

The others returned, sitting in a circle on the floor.

"Good morning, G- Dr. Freeman! You seem to be in good spirits!" Dr. Coomer grinned, knee bouncing until Bubby rested his hand on it.

"I am. I feel a lot better now, actually. Which kinda brings me to why we need to have a meeting." He took off his glasses, trying to clean the dust off of them.

"Here, Mr. Freeman! I'll do it!"

"Thank you, Tommy." He handed the glasses over. "So...everything's gone to hell here. Sector C is in trouble, and who knows the state of the other sectors. So." He ran a hand through his hair. "...What's the plan?"

"We need to get to Biological Research." Bubby spoke, adjusting his own glasses. "There's information there that is vital for Dr. Coomer and I to obtain, before we leave this goddamn place."

"Okay, Biological Research department. Where is that?"

"It's...on the other side of the facility."

"But!" Dr. Coomer grinned again. "If we can make it topside, maybe we could travel above ground to get there! That would shave off hours of time!"

"Alright!" He pumped his fist in the air. "That sounds like the start of a plan to me. Any other stops we need to make?"

"U-uhm," Tommy held out the glasses. "My dad needs us to- to get to-

"we gotta get to lambda, bro." Benry spoke up. He looked antsy. "it's important. gotta go. mandatory field trip."

Tommy gave the other alien a look, eyes glowing lightly as they flipped through a few colors.

Benry sang out a few colored orbs in response.

The other three sort of looked between each other, not knowing if it was a good idea to interrupt.

Tommy finally sighed, eyes returning to their non-glowing yellow. "We're- we're talking about this, later."

"yeah. sure. whatever, bro." Benry shoved his hands into his pockets. "whatever."

"...So...is that a yes, on the-"

"Yeah, Mr. Freeman. We gotta- gotta go to the Lambda Complex!"

"Okay. In that case, I have a question."

"Go for it, Dr. Freeman. We're all ears!" Dr. Coomer nodded.

"Does anyone know where we can find a non broken laptop?" He pushed on before the others confusion could grow too much. "I've got, well...okay, this sounds crazy as hell, but trust me, okay? I think I know how to shut down the anti-mass spectrometer, but I need a laptop to be able to do it. It needs to have two consoles in the main room, and...and the bottom one is busted. So we need a laptop that we can hook up where the console was."

Bubby's eyebrows raised. "You want to shut it down?"

"I mean, we gotta, right? That should stop all the hostile creatures from teleporting in, and should stop the place from shaking itself apart. Then, hopefully...more people can get out of here. We can all evacuate and get the hell out of dodge."

"But- but Lambda is all the way across, even further than Biological Research!" Tommy wrung his hands. "How...how are we gonna get back?"

He thought for a moment, before it hit him. He grinned. "The tram! I remember reading on the walls, the tram map. There's a tram line that runs directly from Lambda to Sector C! I always wondered why the hell the reactor complex had a direct link to Anomalous Materials," He noticed Tommy's flinch, but didn't say anything. "but now that just works in our favor!"

"And if the trams are still out, genius?"

He looked over. "Then we'll adjust the plan accordingly. Right now, this is what we've got, Bubby."

"Darnold has a laptop." Dr. Coomer spoke up, his tone lower than usual. "He may be able to assist."

"Darnold? Who's Darnold?"

"He's, uh- a friend, Mr. Freeman! He's in the- the old Cybernetics lab, right by Lambda!"

He clapped his hands together. "Perfect! Then we'll make our way topside to get to Biological Research, cover ground on foot to get to Cybernetics, head through the facility to the Lambda Complex, and then catch the tram back to Sector C and fight our way back to Anomalous Materials to stop the apocalypse!"

"You make it sound so easy. You know it's going to be hell out there, right?"

"Yeah, Bubby, I know. But this is what we can do." He gave a nervous smile. "...If you're all down for that?"

"Oh fuck yeah, I'm not leaving you behind."

"We can do this together, Dr. Freeman!"

"Nothing- nothing will stop us, working together!"

"sounds like a plan, bro."

Dr. Freeman smiled, slowly pushing himself to his feet. "Then let's get the hell out of here."

-

Tommy sighed, rubbing at his temples. Progress had been so good...until the personnel tram that almost threw Dr. Freeman into the toxic waste, and encountering more toxic waste, which had led to finding the entrance to the reactor, and...

"We're not fucking going in there! Dr. Coomer, listen to me- I have a hazard suit, right? Even if I had my damn helmet, if I went in there? I'd die! Radiation would cook me to crisp! Let alone you all, who don't have any protection!"

"i don't know if that's what rads do, man."

"Dr. Freeman, I literally cannot explain to you why, but we really do need to get into that elevator and go up."

"Well, Dr. Coomer, I like you guys too much to fry you to death!"

God, he was so tired, and they'd just started. He'd moved back away from the others, to try to get some distance from the yelling. He knew he could just convince Dr. Freeman that it was fine, but he really just wanted to sit down. He needed-

"Here. Looks like you need it."

He looked up, surprised to see Bubby standing in front of him, holding out a can of Sprite. He gladly took it, cracking it open and taking a sip. "...Thanks."

"Don't mention it." He sat down in front of him. "I'm well aware of the symptoms of caffeine withdrawal, though yours seems more severe of a dependency, to already be hitting you."

"Alien genetics." He shrugged. "Curse humans and their...their addictive substances, right?"

He laughed. "Yeah. Humans fucking suck." He smiled a bit. "Coffee's still good though."

"Always preferred soda. Coffee's so- so bitter."

"Yeah, I get that."

They sat quietly for a while, as the other three talked in the distance.

"...Tommy."

He knew this was coming. "Hey, Bubby."

"I'm not...I'm not gonna ask about tests. It doesn't really matter, and I know you'll probably tell us later. So..." He looked up at him. "...What's the plan at Lambda?"

"...Well, you remember the portal, last time?"

"Yeah. How can I forget?"

"Well, my- my dad said he should have a way to get us out of here by the time we...we reach Lambda. Or at least, have an idea."

His eyes widened. "So we need to get to Lambda to meet up with your dad."

"Basically? I think? I don't...entirely know his plan." He finished the soda, setting the can next to him. "My turn."

"Oh shit."

"Why do you need to get to Biological Research?"

Bubby looked away, before taking off his glasses to rub at his eyes. "...They did something to Harold. He can't...when he tries to remember certain things, it causes him pain. I want to find his records, and figure out what the hell they did to him. And figure out a way to undo it."

Tommy's eyes widened. "That's why he- he can't..."

"Process what we're saying about reality, yeah. I think so, at least. Not one hundred percent sure, but...it lines up at the moment."

"So why Bio?"

"That's where they did the cloning work. That's why I got to see him so much."

Tommy nodded. "...Okay. I'll do whatever I can to help Dr. Coomer be okay again.”

Bubby slid his glasses back into place. "And in return, I'll do whatever I need to once we meet up with your dad."

The two smiled at each other, before a yell echoed through the hall.

"Benrey!! I swear to god if you jump in that shit- BENREY!"

They scrambled to their feet, running back down the hall.

-

Gordon woke slowly, feeling groggy, as he often did when he fell asleep on the couch during a movie. He smiled though, as he looked down at Joshua, who was curled up on his chest fast asleep.

Joshua was always clingy, that was sort of something Gordon had gotten used to by then. Even at a young age, Joshie would cry and panic if Gordon was running late from class, if he took too long to come home. Separation anxiety, his doctor had called it. It was why he'd stayed with Gordon, when their dad had moved.

It was also a bit part of why he hadn't been over to see his mother in months. Joshua hadn't had a flareup like that since Gordon lost his arm, but out of nowhere a nightmare had hit the young kid, and he'd been petrified for the rest of the day. It ended up working out, as that was the day that friend of a friend had come to Gordon's house to give him the laptop and the game disk, even if it had taken him weeks to finally get to playing around with it. Joshua had taken priority. He always did, in Gordon's life.

He sighed quietly, before gently nudging him. "Hey, Joshie. Gotta wake up, bud."

Joshua whined, but woke up, sliding off the couch as he yawned. "Sleepy..."

"I know. Go get teeth brushed and dressed, okay? I think your mom's gonna take you out for breakfast." He slowly sat up, wincing as he rubbed at his right arm. He'd forgotten to take off the prosthetic that night, and it ached.

"...Will you come to breakfast?"

"I'm sorry, buddy, I can't. It's a mom and you breakfast, like when you usually see her." He gently ruffled his hair. "But I'll give you a big hug before you go."

They parted ways to get dressed, and after Gordon was ready he set a coffee to brew. As Joshua came out of his room, the doorbell rang.

"I'll get it!" Joshua called, scampering down the hall to open the door. He laughed. "Mama!"

"Oh, Josh, look at how big you've grown!" She lifted him into her arms, laughing as well. "My baby boy..."

Internally, Gordon winced. He was glad that Joshua could have interactions with his mom, he just wished...well, he wished for a lot of things. He walked over. "Hey, Cassie."

"Oh, hello Mr. Dyson." She gave him a look.

He didn't rise to the bait. "Gordon."

"Right, Gordon. Of course." She immediately returned to ignoring him, setting Joshua down. "You ready to go, Josh?"

"I...yeah." He picked up his backpack, his old stuffed dog poking out of the top of it. The fur was orange, except for one leg, which had been torn years ago and was now replaced with a green limb instead. He called it his 'Gordie', and always felt more comfortable when he had to be away if he could have the plushie with him. Gordon took gentle care when repairing it, always.

"Hey, Joshie." He smiled, as the young boy turned. "Here, gimme a hug."

Joshua ran up, hugging him tightly.

He hugged him back just as tight. "It'll just be a week until you see me, okay? But I hope you have fun with Cassie." He gently set him down. "Ready to go, partner?"

He shook his head hard. "No-"

"Josh, we do need to get going...we're going to have a nice breakfast, and go out today!" Cassie grinned, though to Gordon it felt harsh.

"Hey, Joshie, look at me." He held out his hands, smiling as his brother took them. "You're gonna be fine. And I'm gonna be fine too. I hope you have a lot of fun, and I'll see you next week."

"...Okay..."

"Joshua?" He smiled a bit more. "I'm not saying goodbye. I'm just saying 'see you soon'."

Joshua relaxed a bit, at the familiar phrase. "Not saying goodbye, just 'see you soon'."

"Have fun, buddy." He stood up. "And you can tell me all about it when you get home!"

"Okay! See you soon!" He waved, as he walked out of the house.

"See you soon, Joshua." He waved, before slowly shutting the door.