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If you asked Benrey, the best activity in the world was getting on Gordon's nerves. Not only was it thrilling to get a rise out of the constantly stressed out man, it was also remarkably easy.
A comment about his ugly kid, a joke about his missing arm and other teases like that were enough to get the man to snap at Benrey almost instantly.
Benrey liked that. Even if any interaction he'd have with Gordon seemingly ended up with him being held up at gunpoint, having the man's undivided attention on him was enough to get a spike of something to spark in the guard's chest. A passing warm feeling swelling in his heart. A fleeting joy Benrey would be quick to forget if it wasn't his favorite feeling in the world.
(right next to winning at Mario Kart, that is.)
And if there were other means to get Gordon's eyes on him, Benrey was yet to discover them. For now, he was going to stick with his classical, ragebaiting technique. It was simple and effective, everything Benrey usually wasn't.
The way the day was going for the Science team was as normal as a day you could get in Black Mesa these days, which implies the presence of the remaining members of the US military raining bullets down on the five survivors, of course.
Benrey heavily regretted ever having engaged with those boot boys. They were boring, uptight and cared way too much about Irate Gamer. They also happened to have cut off his best friend's hand, which was major sucks but also kind of funny so Benrey didn't mind it that much. He would just grow it back eventually anyways.
The group of the five survivors was curently attempting to take cover inside the nearest building, slaloming between the bullets raining down on them.
"Gordon, it seems that we are absolutely fucked !" Dr.Coomer yelled out from accross the battlefield.
"Not the best of times to be pessimistic, Coomer." replied Gordon, barely avoiding getting a bullet in his shoulder. The man felt absolutely useless without his right hand, unable to help his friends get accross the field. He figured the best way to help them out would be to not die.
Benrey was busy watching them from afar, his back against some brick wall that somehow hadn't collapsed yet. If all of them struggled so hard against some stupid soldier-npcs, imagine how they would handle a final boss. Losers.
"Hey, Benrey !" The guard snapped his head up to meet eyes with Gordon, who somehow seemed angrier than usual, "Instead of standing there why don't you fucking help us ?!"
Benrey blinked, that genuine confusion plastered on his face, before answering in their signature monotone voice,
"Oh, sure."
And, in a blink, the world around them went brutally quiet. The rest of the team looked around them in confusion, the entire field now devoid of any soldier and the skies free of any helicopters. Benrey then broke the silence,
"There, no more huh-...big bad 'copter, guys. We beat the game. 100% completion status."
The guard then gave a flat "whoop" accompanied by a thumbs up directed at Gordon and this seemed to be enough to get Coomer to let out a loud, somehow over-saturated cheer, followed then by Tommy and a vague "thanks" from Bubby.
Overall, everyone seemed grateful of Benrey's intervention and ready to move on. Everyone except Gordon, of course, who was still staring at the guard with a bewildered look on his face. So, naturally, Benrey seized the opportunity.
"Yo bro, whatcha lookin' at ? You checking me out or something ?" they said with a smirk.
That seemed to break Gordon out of his confusion, enough for him to let out an incredulous laugh which quickly died down, leaving him staring at Benrey as he replied with tightly controlled anger in his voice.
"You-" he struggled to get the first words out, "You could have done-...that, all this time ?!"
The guard simply shrugged. They didn't get what was so hard to understand, simple not-from-this-world mod command, easy.
"You're telling me," Gordon continued, pressing his hands against his eyes in exasperation, "That during the whole fight you just stood there watching us take all the shit when you could have made the helicopters and the soldiers disappear from the beginning ?!"
During his rant, Gordon had walked closer to Benrey, right up in their personal space, probably in an attempt to be intimidating like he often did, while pointing an accusatory finger in the guard's security vest.
"And all the fights we had to endure before ? You could have just saved us the trouble, am I wrong ?"
Benrey looked up at Gordon's face. He was frankly just tuning the scientist out at this point, his angry tirades got really repetitive with time. They found themselves much more interested in staring at Gordon's eyes, strangely captivated by the colour of them. Were human eyes meant to be green ? They could make theirs green too, they could match, that would be cool...
"Hey !" Benrey snapped back to reality, feeling the way their face was definetly warmer than it had been before. That seemed to happen a lot to him when he was around Gordon. Maybe he was allergic.
"Are you even listening to me, asshole ?"
"Huh- whuh ?..." Great wording, genius. Why was talking hard now out of any other time ? "-'m being all nice an' shit. Clearin' the path, getting rid of the big bads and I don't even get a thank you ? Kinda mean."
Gordon blinked slowly then let out an astonished laugh.
"Oh, what ? You want a 'thank you' ?"
Benrey, annoying as they were, stood their ground,
"Yeah, I should get a thank you kiss, like in Mario 64. The princess kisses the sexy italian, you know ?"
"Oh my fucking god..." Gordon laughed again, Benrey was once again driving him crazy, "So you wanna kiss, huh ?"
"Yup," Benrey thought he had made himself clear by now.
"Alright, fucker," Gordon grabbed Benrey by the collar of his shirt and brought the both of them face to face with barely any space separating them.
"I'll give you a kiss" he whispered against the guard's lips.
And then, before Benrey could retort anything, Gordon slotted their lips together, letting Benrey's words die on his tongue.
It was meant to convey Gordon's hatred and exasperation, obviously. But maybe he ended up using this as a way to let out all the stress he's been accumulating these last few days. Maybe that was the reason Benrey found a certain softness to the kiss. Gordon's lips were warm and it was clear that neither of them had kissed anyone in a long time, their movements awkward and uncoordinated when Benrey decided to reciprocate, but damn, did it feel good.
Gordon let himself relax just a bit as he felt Benrey's arms snake around his shoulder, one of their hands coming up to mess with his ponytail.
God, he needed that. During his whole time in Black Mesa post-resonance cascade, all he had wanted was a goddamn break, just one single occasion to wind down. Of course, he had been denied that simple necessity. All of that because they would always stumble upon some hidden soldiers around a corner, or turrets would fire at them, or Benrey would get on his nerves like the absolute asshole they wer-...
Wait.
That was Benrey he was kissing.
Upon realising this, Gordon pulled back quickly, still leaving very little space between the both of them. He took his hand off of Benrey's shirt but the guard's arms didn't move from their place around Gordon's neck. The guard had a dazed look on their face, their pupils abnormally wide and a somewhat disapointed look on their face.
"Whuh- no, come back here." They practically whined.
"No, no wait, we gotta-" Gordon's brain was working at half its usual speed, still processing the feeling of Benrey's hands messing with his hair, their stupidly wide eyes that made them look like a sad cat,... "We have to catch up with the- the rest of the team."
Now that was a shitty excuse, even for him.
"Come on, one more kiss for your best friend ? Please ? Thank you ?" Benrey pushed, aware of sounding like a five year old.
Gordon was so fucking conflicted. He didn't even have time to reflect on what had just happened and he knew damn well that the rest of the team was probably far ahead by now. They needed to get a move on but he was also not opposed to kissing Benrey again...
No. Nope. Not going down that train of thought. Not now.
With much effort, he stepped back, away from Benrey and his stupidly compelling lips.
"Whatever, we gotta move forward." Gordon finally said, turning on his heels and stomping away far faster than usual.
"We'll still kiss later, right ?" Benrey called from behind him.
That caught him by surprise so badly that Gordon broke into laughter, stopping dead in his tracks to double over during his fit.
God, he was crazy. Maybe he could blame the bloodloss for his insanity.
Eventually, he turned around to look at Benrey who had remained unmoving the whole time, staring at Gordon with a faint smile on his lips.
"Maybe later, sure." Gordon said without really registering it at the moment.
No, fuck bloodloss, that was because of Benrey. Benrey made him behave stupidly.
For some fucked up reason, that didn't make Gordon as mad as it should have.
Whatever, he didn't have time to think about this. He settled for instead running off as far from Benrey and the stupid things he made him feel. Unpacking all of that could wait, he had a military base to escape from.
The reason Benrey had stayed frozen in place was because he genuinely felt like his brain had shut down. Even long after Gordon had walked away, stumbling over his own feet and adorably red in the face, Benrey still stood in the same spot, staring off in the distance. His lips were tingling and he had that weird fluttery feeling going on in his stomach.
Well fuck. Gordon Freeman had just kissed him. And of his own volition, too.
~~~
Gordon had been stuck in a fight or flight state for the past few days, so it was no surprise that his first instinct when faced with danger (kisssing Benrey of his own volition) was to run the fuck away.
Gordon had practically sprinted out (to the best of his ability at least) into the nearest building, distantly hoping to find his friends eventually. However, that wasn't the first thing on his mind at the moment.
No, right now, he was mainly focusing on the ghost of Benrey's lips on his.
Gordon had been rightfully mad at the guy, how could he not be ? The guard was an infuriating prick all the time, constantly getting on Gordon's nerves. So that begged the question: why the hell did he kiss them ?
Ugh, Benrey. Why, out of all people, did it have to be Benrey ?
He hated Benrey, Benrey hated him too. Their relationship had been built on a weird back and forth, a cat and mouse game that consisted in Benrey annoying Gordon and Gordon desperatly wanting to blow their brains out. That was a dynamic that prevented Gordon from falling into a weird routine of fighting for his life, running around the facility and going to sleep. Benrey broke that potential monotony. The other members of the team were great but they weren't really...No, there's no way to word that in a way that didn't sound horribly mean.
What mattered was that he didn't know why he had kissed Benrey. Truly, there was no logical reasoning behind that action. He wanted it to communicate all of his hatred to the other in a way thay he would understand but it just didn't make sense to do it like that ??
Blood loss. It was the blood loss, nothing else. It was because he had been woozy all day that he had allowed himself to get lost in the feeling of Benrey's lips against his own, it was just because he had been in a panicked state for almost a week that he had allowed Benrey to hold him close while he reciprocated the kiss that Gordon had initiated...
See, Gordon was pissed at himself. He had already been feeling utterly pathetic the whole day not being able to help the rest of the team to fight off the soldiers that had been attacking them, his lack of arm and foggy mind had been making him feel helpless all this time. How much more pathetic could he get ? By kissing the guy he swore he hated with his guts, of course.
Benrey, Benrey, Benrey, it was always that asshole. Always antagonising Gordon and now making him feel things that were way too complex to unpack in his current state of mind.
Whatever, he'd just bottle up all of his complicated feelings and ignore them forever, that's what he usually did.
Right now, all he had to focus on was to find the rest of his friends. While he doubted they would have great feeling advices (if Gordon even brought up the kiss, which was unlikely), they would at least allow him to forget about the guard for, hopefully, a few hours.
As he rounded the corner, still lost in thought, he was taken out of his reverie by a familiar voice.
"Mister Freeman ! We thought you- that you had gotten lost."
As he looked up, he was met with the sight of Tommy's bright smile and relieved look upon seeing Gordon was okay, and Coomer and Bubby behind him, seemingly fighting to get a door opened.
Gordon was about to ask about said door but Tommy spoke up before he could.
"Where were you ? And where is Benrey too ? I was worried about leaving you alone with them..." Tommy added the last part with a guilty look on his face.
"It's fine, don't worry about it, Tommy." Gordon reassured him, "They'll probably catch up to us eventually anyways."
Bubby then decided to take part in the conversation, pausing xir assault on the door for a second.
"What took you so long anyways ?"
"We were just-" (Gordon's lips still felt warm) "-talking."
Bubby gave him a look through xir glasses that told Gordon that xe knew something else was going on, but xe eventually went back to the door problem, probably deeming Gordon's secrets not important enough for such a superior being like xir.
"Well, I hope Benrey gets here soon," Tommy said, "because we might need help with the door..."
Gordon sighed
"Yeah, I hope he gets here quick," he said to himself.
~~~
Benrey did, in fact, not get here quickly. Coomer had resorted to absolutely beating the shit out of door in order to allow them to pass through. No, Benrey had instead decided to magically appear the moment Gordon had suggested that the team take a break.
While the rest of the team settled for sleeping on the concret floor of the small storage room, Benrey had taken perch on a wooden crate in the far off corner and Gordon was slumped against the wall, refusing to let his head rest against the cold hard floor.
He couldn't catch an ounce of comfort when sleeping in Black Mesa anyways, but he'd rather not add neck pain to the list of already broken things in his body.
Unfortunately, as expected, it was pretty much impossible for Gordon to go to sleep with the pain of his severed arm not dulling whatsoever. While he could hear the rest of his friends peacefully snoring, he was still shifting against his wall, biting back whines of pain and trying to find a comfortable sleeping position.
He didn't even notice when Benrey popped up next to him out of seemingly nowhere.
"'Sup ?" They said, peering down at him.
"Jesus-!" Gordon jumped back, almost hitting his head on the wall behind him, "don't sneak up on me like that, man !"
"You huh- you're making a buncha noise." they continued, "you're gonna wake everyone up, dude."
Gordon took a glance at the rest of the team, the three of them sleeping peacefully on the floor. The guy was just fucking with him, and that sure as hell wasn't the time for that.
"First of all, if you cared so much about their sleeping peace, you would be fucking whispering." Gordon said, "second, now's really not the time to fuck with me. I'm too fucking tired for your bullshit."
"You're tired ?" Benrey asked, Gordon couldn't tell if they were actually asking at this point, "why don't you go to sleep then ?"
Gordon blankly stared at the guard before silently pointing at his missing arm. When it seemed that Benrey still wasn't catching on, Gordon spoke up, exasperated.
"I can't sleep when my arm hurts like that, dumbass."
Benrey blinked, silently processing the information, before letting out a small "oh".
"Yeah, no shit." Gordon sneered, leaning against the hard wall.
After a few more seconds of silence and a few useless adjustement on Gordon's part, Benrey decided to slide down next to him and sit crisscross on the cold concrete floor.
"You're not even going to leave me alone, are you ?" Gordon said.
"I can huh...I can't fix your arm but I can make it not hurt anymore." Benrey said, quieter than before, "Won't be permanent, but you know ? 'Least you'll get to catch some sleep time."
That did sound tempting. Frankly, Gordon imagined he would accept anything if it meant not feeling his arm hurting so much. But still...
"How do I know I can trust you ?"
Benrey seemed to think it over for a second, before replying, "I'm your best friend bro."
Gordon sighed. "No, no you're not."
"Then huh, I dunno. You probably don't wanna trust me anyway."
In reality, there was nothing that Benrey could have done that would have made Gordon put even a sliver of his trust into the hands of the guard. But sometimes, desperation is stronger than fear.
"Whatever, fuck this." Gordon said before raising his butchered arm towards Benrey, "Do whatever the hell you want with it. As long as you don't make it worse I don't give a shit."
Benrey seemed to brighten as he took Gordon's arm in his hands, more careful than Gordon would have expected him to be. The guard drew in a long breath before letting out a low-pitched note, accompanied by teal-green sweet voice pouring out of his mouth. It wrapped around his bloodied limb, numbing the pain and bringing with it a nice cold feeling.
Benrey stopped after a few seconds, licking their lips and smiling brightly at Gordon, showing off their sharp teeth with it.
"How does it feel, bro ?" they asked him.
It felt...significantly better than before. Hell, he could move his arm around without it sending a jolt of pain throughout his entire body now. Sure, Gordon knew that it wouldn't last, but any relief from his pain was more than welcome.
"It feels...not terrible." Gordon eventually replied.
"Hell yeah," Benrey cheered, "still got the hang of it."
Benrey being helpful was very much unexpected. Benrey being nice in general was actually a rare enough occurrence that the whole thing felt surreal to Gordon. Maybe he had died and this was heaven. Maybe in heaven, Benrey wasn't an absolute asshole who tried to kill him any chance he'd get. That would be nice.
Maybe in heaven, Gordon would actually get a chance to get closer to them...
The exhaustion seemed to catch up to Gordon now that his body didn't feel in immediate danger from the possibility of dying in his sleep. That was the only reason that caused him to lean forward to rest his head against Benrey's shoulder, who tensed up at the action.
Shit, that was stupid of him.
As Gordon shuffled to get away from Benrey's personal space however, the guard stopped him with a hand on his shoulder.
"Hey- no you can- you can sleep here dude." they said, looking slightly bashful, "I promise I'm a ten out of ten pillow bro. Way better than the floor."
Frankly at this point it wouldn't have taken much to convince Gordon of anything. Of course, he couldn't let Benrey know that. The most stubborn part of him still seethed at the thought of having been vulnerable in front of Benrey of all people.
"I still hate you." Gordon mumbled as he let Benrey lower him on their lap.
"Huh-uh, yeah bro, me too." They said, sounding ever so slightly sarcastic.
"I mean it." Gordon insisted, letting his left arm loosely wrap around Benrey's waist.
"Just go to sleep, idiot." Benrey said, as if they were talking to a child. "You need to chill out."
With that, Gordon let himself relax for the first time in days, relishing in the feeling of Benrey's fingers threading through his hair.
"You still owe me a kiss by the way." Benrey said, almost sounding like they were talking to themselves.
Gordon closed his eyes. Maybe kissing Benrey again wouldn't be so bad actually. Maybe it could act as a way to thank them for the temporary bandage on his arm.
"Tomorrow mornin'..." he slurred, too exhausted to continue the conversation.
Benrey seemed to get the hint. As Gordon fell asleep, he heard the guard sing a slow melody and he could see behind his closed eyes the familiar blue colour of calming sweet voice.
The melody was familiar though, it was nagging at Gordon's mind. After a few moments of thinking it over, he finally found a name to the song and burst into an incredulous laughter, trying his best to stay quiet despite everything, for the sake of the rest of the team.
He turned to Benrey, opening his eyes to look at them, the shit-eating grin on their face telling him that they knew what they were doing.
"Is that fucking Never gonna give you up ?!" he whisper-yelled at them.
And at that, they joined in on his laughter. Miraculously, the both of them didn't even seem to make the rest of the team stir in their sleep.
(Even though Tommy will claim the following morning to definetly have heard something during the night, none of them will say anything about their little late night talk.)
(maybe it was better that way.)