Chapter Text
It’d been a while. Gordon had lost track of time since he and Benrey had. Had. He really can’t admit it to himself in any other terms outside of ‘repaired their relationship’, maybe because of the sheer outrageous nature of the situation, or the fact he can’t really come to terms with anything surrounding the process of their reconciliation, or perhaps that he really did enjoy it and he might be more of a debased freak than previously believed, or some sickening combination of all three of those ideas. It’d been a journey of self-discovery he didn’t sign up for and has no intention of unpacking because, to be honest, he didn’t know how to even start.
And now they’re here. They play games like they used to, they talk like they used to, and neither of them ever acknowledge anything that happened previously. It’s a kind of sickening, mutually assured destruction that mirrors their previous dynamic in a way that causes Gordon’s stomach to churn and his head to spin vaguely in panic if he thinks about it for too long so he just. Doesn’t. The best solution is the easiest one.
There is something else to it, though. That weird staring thing Benrey did was more loaded now and it doesn’t make Gordon nearly as uncomfortable as it should. Gordon, in general, isn’t as uncomfortable as he should be, he thinks. Any other human being would have pulled the plug on this whole thing a long, long time ago. Somewhere between the computer starting to speak to them unbidden and slowly evolving into person like entities, if not then absolutely when one cranked it to them. But he’s rapidly learned he isn’t a normal person.
As much as he tried to avoid thinking about it, the image of Benrey jacking off to him still burrows into his skull late some nights. It’s not as mortifying as it looks in the day though. It’s a lot nicer and makes his head spin with how fast his blood rushes to his brain and a certain other organ. With the mental fog, he’s able to sand down everything surrounding the event into this kind of fuzzy, wonderful imprint of how Benrey had looked and sounded. His voice, his face, his failed attempts to shut himself up, the nearly explosive finale. It’s all better than anything he’s seen, or done, in his life and he hates it then himself when he inevitably gives in and rubs one out about it. How the events of his life have all converged for this to be the reality he lives in, he’s not sure, and attempting to connect the points gives him a migraine so he’s just going with it for now.
-
It’s late, as it always is when he talks to Benrey. His computer case sits open on his desk, he knows cleaning it while still on and plugged in is an exceedingly poor decision. First of all, he’s been on a hot streak with those recently and almost kind of wants to see how far he can go without breaking it. Secondly, he’s had concerns about doing anything with his set up since the Science Team had ‘moved in’ out of fear of what it could do to them. He hadn’t even touched the cord since his first encounter with Benrey. How he’ll change the thermal paste or anything else beyond some dusting remains to be seen but he’s sure he’ll think of something that doesn’t ignite a kind of existential dread within him.
Benrey is playing some weird, terrible looking first person shooter that is allegedly online multiplayer, but the servers he’s lingering in are clearly populated by bots that move in stiff, bumbling ways usually leading them into walls. His ‘camera’ sits in the upper lefthand corner of the monitor
“This game looks like shit, man.” Gordon says, looking at the screen as he takes a can of compressed air from his desk drawer.
“It is the shit, man. Watch this clip.” Benrey replies, easily headshotting another ‘player’ who’s walking into a door frame endlessly. “You wish you were as pro as me.”
“Something like that.” Gordon shakes his head a bit as he carefully spritzes his keyboard, removing any particulate that might be stuck under the keycaps, turning it upside down and shaking it once he’s done.
“What’re you doin’ there?” Benrey asks, reclining back in his chair a bit as the final killcam of the game plays. It’s him shooting ‘someone’ who’s just spinning in circles on top of a crate. Really earned that one.
“Just some light cleaning. I’ve been putting it off for too long.” He sets the keyboard down, pressing some major ones to make sure they still feel alright.
“Gordon Maidman.” Benrey states, chuckling at his own joke. Joke is a loose term here, replacing the ‘Free’ in Freeman is hardly comedy despite what Benrey thinks but it’s just one of those things that’s become part of day to day life for Gordon. He’d sooner die than admit it was kind of growing on him, and sometimes it was maybe, just a tiny bit funny if he was tired enough.
“I swear I will leave you full of dust.” Gordon shakes the can, turning to the case, obviously exposing his threat as empty.
“You wouldn’t do that to me. You like me too much.” Benrey smiles as Gordon gives him a nasty side eye. “We’re best friends.”
“You keep telling yourself that.” He looks into the case, scanning to see where the best starting point would be.
“Yeah because ‘s true. BFFs for life, we have slumber parties every night, painting each others toe nails n’ shit, we’re like this ma-” Benrey jumps as Gordon sprays air to clear dust from between some wires, cutting himself off. They look at each other for a second, both equally confused.
“Did…did you…” Gordon looks to the can then back to the window Benrey inhabits.
“That stuff’s cold.” Benrey shudders, curling into himself.
“Holy shit, you did!” Gordon drops the compressed air. Everything since he booted up that terrible, amazing game had made no sense. This, arguably, made the least. Despite what those fucked up brain worms whispered to him late at night in lecherous fantasies, Benrey firmly only exists as lines of code on his computer. Lines of code aren’t supposed to be able to do a lot of things he’d seen the Science Team do, but physically feeling things being done was so far out of scope that it feels like a prank. If Benrey hadn’t looked so stunned and nearly fallen out of his chair, and wasn’t so clearly still shocked, Gordon would be certain he was just fucking with him. “Have you always been able to…fuck, I dunno, feel me touching things?”
“If you cleaned more often maybe I’d be able to tell you. Bet your set up’s all yuck and gross, nasty boy.” He’s clearly trying to play this off, move past it like nothing just happened. They’ve been talking for long enough Gordon’s able to understand this is his way of saying ‘No, I didn’t know this could happen and I’m just as surprised as you are.’ “Sooo are you gonna hop on for the next round or just keep staring at me like an idiot?”
“What? No! Oh my God, Benrey you can- This is insane!” Gordon stares almost star struck at the inner workings of his system, the lights inside now seem to pulse like a heart. “It’s incredible.” He whispers to himself. Not only had genuine artificial life emerged on his computer, it could feel. Physically, actually feel things.
“C’mon. It’s not that big of a deal, don’t cream your pants Freakman.” Benrey pointedly looks off to the side, clearly a little embarrassed by this sudden attention. He nervously adjusts his hat, pulling it down more to fit more firmly on his head.
He’s wrong though. This is kind of the biggest deal of Gordon’s life. Especially as he spends longer looking at all the circuits and wires, just taking things in. A lot of things come to mind, questions without answers. How long was this a possibility before he stumbled upon it? Why can’t any of them seem to feel him through the monitor, or the keyboard and mouse? Would they all be able to feel things, was it just Benrey? How does it even work? One thing keeps clawing its way to the forefront despite his best efforts, though.
Only Gordon Freeman, with his terrible brain, would discover that sentient AI has physical feeling and almost immediately turn to asking himself if this means he could use it for sexual purposes.
He’d been trying to lie to himself about this whole wanting to fuck Benrey idea, everytime it came up he just brushed it off as some kind of weird, perverted version of being flattered that someone would masturbate to the thought of him and that what he did was just a plan to get even so they could just talk again. Though it did always come back. For a computer program he was admittedly nice to look at, with his dark eyes that seemed to emit an eerie glow in the right light and his strong looking arms that one time he’d worn a t-shirt for some reason and it absolutely had not distracted Gordon enough to lose every single round of COD Deathmatch they’d played that night, that other time he actually ‘stood up’ and left the ‘room’ to ‘go get a drink’ and Gordon did actually get to see that his legs are just about what he thought they’d be and it was fantastic.
If he is being purely and completely honest with himself, which he hates doing now-a-days for this exact reason, he was almost devastated that Benrey was a program because it means he can’t sleep with him. It’s terrible for a great deal of reasons but right now, he doesn’t care. Because Benrey, or whatever the hell this is to Benrey, can be touched. Not quite how he’d imagined or hoped, but it can happen.
Of course, when he remembers he’s having a conversation, he tunes back in and the guy is rambling about nothing while sitting on the home screen for that stupid game.
“-can’t even appreciate my sick trickshots because he’s got a fuckin’ starin’ problem like he doesn’t yell at ME when I do it. Just real mean to me even though ’m super cool n’ he’s lame n’ ‘m tryin’ to up his cool levels.” He finishes mumbling to himself, catching that Gordon’s looked back to him. “Ya done? Weirdo.”
“Not yet, I just wanna try something.” Gordon looks to his hand and then the computer. He’s shaking, from fear he’s about to be electrocuted or anticipation isn’t clear to him. As softly as he can he takes a random wire between his index finger and thumb, rolling it gently between them.
Benrey slams his hands down on his desk hard enough it shakes the camera. He’s breathing hard and fast like he’s winded, his eyes are wide with shock. He keeps looking at Gordon then to his hands then somewhere else in the room like he’s seeking some kind of answer.
“What was that?” He asks, his voice rough.
“Me. You felt that? Like actually felt that?” Benrey opens his mouth to say something in response, but shuts it to swallow thickly and nods instead. “Did it feel gggg…alright?”
Gordon can’t actually bring himself to ask that. It’ll remove this kind of barrier he has between reality and what’s going on right now, he just knows it will and he can’t do it because he knows if he does everything will settle in and he’ll freak out and ruin this and probably never get the courage to try again which means he’ll spend the rest of his days kicking himself for not seeing this through to the end. There’s something whispering in his ear, call it intuition or misguidance, saying this is going to be great in ways his fantasies cannot capture, he needs to see it to even begin to think of how good this is going to be. For the love of everything do not fuck this up.
Benrey hasn’t responded, instead still seems to be processing things. His eyes are wild and unreadable.
“Benrey? Are you okay?” Gordon lets go of the wire, fearing he has in fact fucked this up. Benrey breathing returns to normal after a sound that sound like he’s deflating, though he does move to lay face down on his desk. “Shit, I’m sorry, that was dumb, I don’t know why I-”
“Shut up.” Benrey rasps from out of camera view. “You don’t know nothin’ about nothin’. Just…just gimme a second.” It is the longest second in the world. He’s ruined it before it even began.
Nice job with boundaries, Freeman, you find out someone who’s never experienced touch before can experience and immediately just go right in without asking or anything. He’s probably going to give him a verbal lashing then never talk to him again and he wouldn’t blame him because what the hell was that? He’s never listening to his dumbass horny brain again. Benrey unknowingly takes mercy on him by speaking again.
“I. Uh. Wow.” He laughs a bit, still out of view. His tone is familiar in a way that warms Gordon’s stomach. He sits up, his face is flushed and his hat is gone showing his messy hair and it is wonderful to see. “You wanna try it again? You wanna get into this? Please?”
“Yes.” Gordon squeaks embarrassingly fast. All the air escaped his lungs and he couldn’t get it back in time in order to properly state that yes, he really really wants to get into this super badly. His previous vow against the exact action he is taking is disregarded almost concerningly quick. He grabs the wire again, just as gentle, keeping his eyes on the monitor. Benrey seems to keep himself more composed, though a shiver seems to crawl up his body and the image of him gets a bit fuzzy around the edges for a moment. He’s still holding onto his desk. “Are you okay?”
“Yyyeah it just feels…” He sounds out of breath, inhaling deeply before speaking again. “Weird. Keep goin’.”
Gordon was more so hoping for some direction, maybe. He’s never done this before. Then again, he guesses Benrey hasn’t either. He moves his fingers up the wire, taking a chance and squeezing it slightly.
The reaction is what he’d hoped for, Benrey jolts again and makes a strangled noise that he bites his lip against, hanging his head forward.
“You don’t have to try to be quiet. I wanna hear you.” It slips from his mouth before he can filter it out. Benrey looks up slightly through his eyelashes which has no right to look as good as it does. Truth be told he’d wanted to hear it since that first night. Not in his imagination or what he could piece together from what noises he did hear, he wants all of it so bad it almost hurts. “It lets me know I’m doing a good job.”
Nice save. Before Benrey can say anything he tugs at the wire just a little bit. Benrey gasps, throwing his head all the way back. He does it again, a bit harder this time.
“Shit!” Benrey’s voice breaks in the middle, nearly causing Gordon to jump. He’s loud. Really, really loud. He’s also blurring a bit, the image briefly receiving some kind of visual interference for a moment. It’s all causing Gordon’s brain to work overtime as blood quickly leaves it in favor of rushing to his dick. He runs a nail, lightly, along the length of the wire. Benrey huffs into the open air of the room, blush creeping down his neck. He still holds onto the edge of his desk, he has to be, if he wasn’t he would’ve fallen over by now. Gordon squeezes the wire a bit tighter, growing a bit more confident as he rolls it firmer this time. “Oh my God, Gordon, holy shit-”
He nearly screams as Gordon pulls again, harder. If the computer fans weren’t blasting on his face, he could really believe this was real. How warm it’d gotten inside the case, it was almost like another body. If he really thought about it he could see Benrey, splayed out on his bed barely clothed as he writhes and squirms, nails digging into his sheets as he leans down to lick the sweat from his neck. He actually hadn’t even noticed he’d gone from two fingers wrapped around one wire to his hand grabbing the bundle, carefully moving from top to bottom and gently stroking across all of them with his thumb.
“Gordon!” He nearly sobs. His chest rises and falls in rapid, unsteady ways that would most certainly be worrying in a person. The outline of his body is unstable in shaking waves, like your old television has a channel but the connection is fading. He seemingly can’t decide between having his jaw clenched or slack, his hands have moved to grab his hair in an attempt to ground himself. “Oh fuck, I can’t- it’s not- please!”
“This is insane.” Gordon’s voice is hoarse and cracking. He didn’t mean to say it, he’s just so goddamn dizzy right now he can’t control both himself and this scorching feeling that’s clawing its way through his veins. “I don’t know what I’m doing, I’ve never, I don’t, holy shit.” He’s laughing a bit now, high and nervous in the back of his throat. “What?”
It’s not just that this is new to him, he needs to know. This sick part of him yearned to know since that first night and he hated and loved it and now is the perfect time to find out. He actually would give his hand in this moment for such a golden piece of information he can latch onto. Benrey whines, it almost sounds like mic feedback over something human.
“More! Please, Gordon, it’s so good, please!” He begs. How could anyone say no to that? Gordon’s not sure what ‘more’ is within this context, so he just slips his middle and index finger between the wires. Benrey yells, high pitched and so fucking loud. Gordon should be worried that his neighbors can hear but he can’t find the will to be concerned right now. Not when his dick is tenting his sweatpants and all of those wonderful things he’d imagined at night are coming to life in front of him. He spreads his fingers, parting the heap, pushing some of it further into his palm. “Fuckin’ hell!”
It really is like they’re physically in the same room. That thought of Benrey on the bed comes back. He’s naked now, splayed open around Gordon’s fingers as his dick stands hard against his stomach. He’s panting, eyes shut tightly, that weird cool toned blush all the way down to his shoulders. The light is catching his inhuman teeth that are tinged a slight red, he’s covered in bite marks that will surely turn into bruises. Gordon is too, though those are swollen and might have been bleeding but have been licked clean by the man beneath him who’s making all these filthy desperate noises and occasionally managing to choke out his name among them.
Benrey pulls him from the fantasy with a broken cry, he hadn’t realized he’d been squeezing harder, almost white knuckling the wires as he thought. He loosens his grip, removing his fingers from the center of the mass. He needs to get his head in the game, he loathes to think what he missed while his hand was tightening because he’s moved. His face is now visible, head resting on his shoulder. His eyes are shut, his mouth hangs open in breathy pants as drool runs down his chin, his brows are pinched together. His hands are no longer in his hair, rather he’s grabbing at the armrests on his chair.
“Open your eyes. Look at me.” Gordon can hardly recognize himself as he says it. Who was this person, doing all these things? It can’t be him, he’s never acted like this in his entire life. Nothing has ever driven him to be like this or want to do half the rotten shit he’s been doing tonight. It’s not him, but it is, but it isn’t. There’s a wet spot of precum on his pants, he can feel his dick twitching. Benrey does open his eyes, though not all the way like his eyelids are too heavy to manage such a feat. It’s enough to tell that his pupils are huge and foggy. Gordon grabs the wires tightly again and tugs almost hard enough to pull them from the computer. Benrey’s eyes go wide, suddenly, his body is blurring again.
“Gordon!” His voice is breaking in a different way from before. It’s choppy and full of static. “Just like that- Fuck! I’m- I can’t keep it together, I’m gonna break!”
Gordon pulls again, using his unoccupied right hand to steady the outside of the case so the thing doesn’t topple over from the force. He really should be worried about breaking his very expensive set up but he can’t no matter how hard he tries. Not when the metal of the case is hot to the touch and the fans sound like they’re about to come apart and Benrey is arching his back into his chair so hard that it should be squeaking but all he can hear from him are these heaving wails that bleed out into that almost breath like static.
“Go ahead, then.” He snarls, squeezing the wires as hard as he can before pulling again. “Show me.”
Benrey seems to open his mouth in what surely would’ve been an almost earth shattering moan, but all that comes is that loud static Gordon had been hoping to hear again. It’s the last discernible image of him he can see as the command window explodes out into broken boxes of color that engulf the entire monitor. The outlet sparks again as the fans crescendo then give out, he has to pull his hands away as the connection points follow the power cord’s lead and spit more sparks again. His speakers strain against the noise, almost shaking a bit. The lamp on his night stand he’d had lit goes out as his computer goes dark, ending the kaleidoscope of digital colors that had overtaken the screen.
It takes a moment that has Gordon worried something truly had broken and it wasn’t actually just dirty talk before the lamp’s light returns and his system powers on again. He quickly logs in as soon as the page boots.
“Benrey?!” He yells, embarrassingly worried now that all was said and done. It looked like it hurt, though. “Are you alright?!”
The command window opens again, though Benrey’s image doesn’t occupy it. It’s rather the same black nothingness like the first time he appeared, and that same slow typing text appears.
‘Calm down. You care me or something?’
Gordon lets go of breath he didn’t know he was even holding.
“Christ, man. What happened to you?”
‘Nut too good.’ He snorts despite how stupid that was. ‘Need some time to pull myself together, I’ll be fine. Now quit hollering or you’ll wake up the whole team.’
“Please, if they were going to you would’ve done that already.” He scoffs, though he’s smiling at both the fact Benrey is seemingly okay and the fact he just rocked his world so hard he can no longer hold his human visage. That victory is short lived though as he realizes how stupid it is to claim that as a feat when that was the first time Benrey had done something like that.
Holy shit, that was the first time Benrey had done something like that. It hits Gordon like a truck. Was he just Benrey’s first? He had to be, unless someone was breaking in and fondling his circuit board at night. He’s an adult, this shouldn’t matter, but it feels like it does kind of. Does the fact that it feels like it matters matter? Should he have been gentler? Eased into it more? Dread eats at the corners of this great memory, leave it to Freeman’s fucked mind to ruin this for himself. Just don’t care, it’s clear Benrey doesn’t. But he can’t just not care because for as much as there’s a pit opening in his stomach there’s this kind of nice feeling in the center like some contradictory black hole that’s swallowing him up.
‘Hey. Science boy. What are you thinking about?’ The words catch Gordon’s attention, pulling him out of the death spiral he’d entered.
“Oh, uh, just. Did…did that hurt? It looked pretty, I dunno, painful.” He lies. “I’m also not actually a scientist, you know that right?”
‘Of course I know that, idiot. No one’s giving your dumbass a degree.’ He must look offended for a moment, he can almost hear Benrey laughing as he stops typing for a moment. ‘No, it didn’t. Kinda stolen valor to play a scientist then ask a stupid question like that.’
“Hey! I never claimed to be one.” He lies, again, knowing full well he’d claimed to be one multiple times when he was playing the game. This is nice, it’s sealing up that well of terrible thoughts and feelings that was manifesting within him and will absolutely not come back later when he has to get to bed. He looks at the time. 5:39. Looks like it’d be sooner than he thought. “Whatever. Take your pull yourself together time now, I’m beat. Goodnight, Benrey.”
‘Oh, come on Freeman. I didn’t mean it, I’ll give you a PhD if you ask really nicely-’
“Goodnight, Benrey!” Gordon repeats, laughing, covering the screen with his hands until he can make out that the sentence has been deleted between his fingers.
‘C’mon, let your best friend take care of you. You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours? Please?’ Appears when he takes his hands away. He laughs, a bit higher and more nervous this time.
“Alright, man.” He’s admittedly amused at the thought. Despite everything that just happened, Benrey is still just a computer. How he would ‘take care’ of Gordon is beyond him. “Later, okay? I really am tired. It’s late.”
‘Promise?’
“I promise.”
‘Pinky swear?’
“Yes, Benrey.” Gordon sighs, rolling his eyes. The fans pick up a bit again. He laughs, unable to continue being annoyed at how easy he is to read.
‘Yessss.’ He can almost hear how he’d hiss it out. Maybe they’d been spending too much time together. ‘Okay, go to bed now Sleepman. It’s past your bed time or whatever. Goodnight.’
“Goodnight.” Gordon replies, sighing again, this time out of relief he’s not pushing this any further as the window closes without crashing his computer this time. He’s also kind of relieved to find all that worry had killed his hard on because he actually is tired and doesn’t want to have to deal with it.
He stands up, pushing away from the desk and flopping onto his bed to fall into a thankfully dreamless sleep.