“hey remember when you said you wouldn’t forget your best friend,” the gnome chastises him, the moment he jumps back into the saddle.
“I didn’t forget!
Like it’s all about Benrey. How lonely he is. What about Gordon, alright? His whole frickin’ life is wrapped up in this computer!
And when he’s not playing Half Life: Alyx, it’s just question after question about when he’s gonna get back to it, where’s the gnome, we wanna see the gnome. Dread’s begun to sink in at the mere mention of it. He’s moved the game icon off his desktop, muted his Discord server, anything to give himself a break. Which isn’t to say he didn’t want to finish it up. It’s just— it’s complicated. And made all the more so by the moody, sullen AI at the heart of it.
But, you know, it’s fine. They’re cool. Benrey can sulk all he wants as long as he holds up his end of the bargain.
thecrooner_x: I'm so glad you're streaming again, Gordon! We missed you :)
lesbianalyx: you have to turn the puzzle the other way
meowmixfan: YESSS HERE FOR THIS
grunch21: why are you still doing this?
grunch21: this mods annoying as shit
“Well, I’m doing this because I— I promised him,” Gordon says defensively.
“bitch,” supplies Benrey. Gordon sighs.
“Ha! Ahaha!”
Gordon freezes mid-stride. He doesn’t know that laugh. It emanates from the room ahead, centered on a pane of broken glass. Or, more specifically, the gnome that’s been smashed clean through it.
“No,” he says slowly, “no, no, no…”
He reaches in, compelled, despite the dread that’s settling over his shoulders. It’s a carbon copy of his gnome, but clad in blue. And with a voice that’s flamboyant and cartoonish and borderline-offensive. “Ohh! Hello there, officer!” it pipes up at him.
“What the fuck is this?” Gordon turns it in his hand, examining it. He holds it at arm’s length, like it might be contagious.
“You rescued me, sir! Pick me up!”
Benrey makes a disgruntled noise. “this guy sucks,” he complains.
Gordon looks between the two of them, horror slowly dawning upon him. “Do I have to carry both of you now? How am I supposed to do that? I’ve only got two hands!”
There’s an unpleasant, skin-crawling drawl to the blue gnome’s voice when he says, “Ditch the clown and get in my brown, sir!”
A moment passes. Genuine disgust drips down the back of his neck like a raw egg. He groans, agonized, until it stretches into a pained laugh. “Oh God, that hurts,” he says, “it’s like a physical reaction!”
He takes his chances on failing the challenge and throws the thing in a garbage can the first chance he gets. At least he likes Benrey. This thing? This thing’s a fucking freak.
Gordon collapses in his chair and groans, pulling off his headset at long last. “Good hustle, man,” he says between labored breaths. “I think we’re getting pretty close to the end!”
There’s a pause. Then Benrey’s voice - thankfully its normal, low-key pitch again - filters through his speakers. “what happened to all your, uh. big ideas. big shot.” He emphatically clicks that last “t”.
“I’m still working on ‘em,” says Gordon, a little defensive. “It’s just - there’s a lot of moving parts!”
“sounds like it’s gonna take awhile. tick tock.”
“Wh— Are you rushing me?” A laugh of disbelief bubbles out of him.
“wouldn’t want you wastin’ my time,” Benrey sniffs.
Gordon laughs all the harder. “What could you possibly be doing that’s so important?”
Benrey mumbles unintelligibly. So Gordon prompts him again, and he says, more clearly this time, “videos.”
“Well, guess what?” Gordon wipes sweat off his forehead and sits up straighter. “You’re free! You can do what you want. I’m going to bed—“
“i got ideas, too,” blurts out Benrey. “big ones.”
“C’mon, dude.”
“i show you,” Benrey tells him, rather than asking.
He yawns, then shrugs and gives in. Not like he’s got anything going on tomorrow..
He’s not sure what Benrey’s “big ideas” are supposed to be. Clocking out and watching weird YouTube videos into the wee hours doesn’t communicate a whole lot, but he finds himself doing it anyway. And then again the next night. And again.
“What the hell,” says Gordon on the tail end of a laugh. “When did it get to be four in the morning?!”
“sleepy,” taunts Benrey. “uh-oh…”
“How are you not,” Gordon taunts back, before realizing the reason why. That mystical pinball machine in his chest tilts a little, thrown off-kilter. “Don’t— don’t answer that. My brain’s not working. I really gotta get some sleep.”
“coward.”
There’s not as much malice as Gordon expects. It just makes him laugh. “Okay, buddy. Good niiight,” he sing-songs drowsily. Benrey doesn’t return the farewell, instead choosing to exit the call without a word.
Benrey jostles in Gordon’s arms. It’s kind of relaxing. He doesn’t have to move or think too hard or anything. Gordon’s got him. Even if sometimes he puts Benrey in a little dog cage and plays at leaving him behind.
“i could bust this shit down dracula style,” he says from behind the bars.
Gordon laughs at his joke. A meter ticks up. “C’mon, man.” He stops playing around and gets a move on with the actual game. Finally. “I’m telling you, that shit made me feel— not good. I do not feel well. That was, like, a violating experience.”
An ugly feeling flits across Benrey’s subroutines. “that blue gnome is the worst. i hate him.”
He’s tucked in the crook of Gordon’s arm again. Gordon looks down at him. He doesn’t look the same in this game - he’s smaller and smoother - but he laughs the same. “I’ve grown to like you. Despite your problems,” he chuckles.
The feeling dissipates.
It’s weird. He made another bad guy, just for Gordon, but Gordon’s not sticking to the same script. No teasing, no laughing, no nothing. Just feeling bad. Loudly. Without any jokes. And he’s always giving Benrey a bad fucking feeling about it.
It’s not his fault. He’s trying to put the bad gnome in the garbage. Get a new one, with a yellow hat. Or a green one. But whenever he does, it finds a way back.
”Yoo-hoo!” crows the blue gnome, somewhere in the distance. Gordon wails.
Behind him yawns that vast, empty chasm that heralds the end, that green circle of light waiting to separate him from all his worldly things. His guns. His resources. Where he’s going, he won’t need them.
“you won’t need me?” rattles a poor, plaintive voice from his hands.
“It’s not like that,” protests Gordon. “It’s just the end of the game. I gotta finish it eventually.”
“but i need you, bro.”
Benrey’s face stares at him, as placid and unmoving as ever. Gordon swallows past a lump in his throat. “Hey,” he starts, feeling his way through the words with all the hesitation of a diver stepping into a shark cage. “Look. I… I need—“
An explosion cuts him off. And then another. There’s no time! He squeezes Benrey to his chest as sirens start to blare, loud and insistent, as if to remind him that this is the end.
“I need you too, buddy,” Gordon tells him, hoping that the maelstrom of noise will drown it out. And it does, sweeping his words away in a swift riptide. The sirens howl louder and louder, ringing in his ears, a single piercing tone beeping and beeping and—
Gordon rockets straight up in his bed, panting, as his heart thuds in his chest. His phone rings on his bedside table. “Mom” sits squarely on the front screen.
He fumbles blearily for it. “Hey, Mom,” he blurts out, yawning. “What’s— what’s good?”
“Glad to hear you’re not dead,” his mom tells him. “Did you forget about getting lunch today?”
Gordon blinks slowly. “Huh? What time is…” Horror dawns on him. It’s well past noon, and he’s slept clear through at least two alarms. “Crap! I— I was up late working on something. Didn’t realize what time it was…”
“What’s her name?”
“Mom, come on.” His face burns. “I’m serious. It was— we’re doing— it’s not a girl, by the way, he’s doing research with me, and—“ His eyes scan frantically scan the room for something, anything. A hint. A textbook. “And our subsidence studies are going great. Just. Putting my nose to the grindstone. You know how it is.”
His mom makes a thoughtful noise. “If you don’t sleep right, you’ll make yourself sick.”
“You’re the only person I’ve ever known who’s said that,” Gordon chuckles.
“Women know these things,” she says sagely. “Sure, the farmer’s almanac knew it first, but who’s counting?”
He snorts. “Sorry. It’s just been kind of…” He trails off, searching for the right words to describe the last few months of his life to a normal person. “Hectic. My new partner’s kind of hard to deal with. He’s got all these crazy ideas, you know, and I’ve been running myself ragged trying to keep up.”
“How bad could it be?”
“You have no idea. Hey, hang on— Did you still wanna grab something to eat?”
“Oh, I’m already at the IHOP,” his mom informs him. “I told the waiter I’m eating for two. He congratulated me! Can you believe it?”
Gordon lets out a laugh of disbelief. “He did not.”
“Well, if you had made it on time, you’d have gotten to hear it yourself!”
His shoulders draw up, feeling properly chastised. “Okay, okay,” he says. “Can we reschedule? For after I’m done with this project? It’s been a lot of hard work, I keep losing track of time. And this guy hasn’t been very frickin’ helpful,” Gordon mutters.
“Well, why’d you start working with him, then?” she says through a mouthful of food. “It’s not like you’re in undergrad anymore.”
He sighs bitterly. “I didn’t have much of a choice. He’s the only one who—“
Who’s paying the bills, he almost says aloud. But doesn’t. Instead, he catches himself and says, “Who knows the things I need for my research. Nobody else in my program even comes close.”
His mom clicks her tongue. “That sounds frustrating. Why not do something about it?”
“I’ve tried,” he insists, a hot flare of defensiveness bubbling to the surface. “Just because it’s not working doesn’t mean I’m not trying! He’s just— He’s really hard for me to get a read on, you know? I think he’s, like, mad at me. So he doesn’t really care what I think. Or how I wanna do things. And I’m in too deep to just drop him.”
She hums. Gordon can’t tell what kind of fucking intonation he should read into it, but when she doesn’t say anything else, nerves compel him to fill the silence.
“It’s just, like— I can’t really get him to talk to me about it. Whatever it is,” Gordon sighs. “I don’t get it. One moment he’s hot, the next he’s cold… like… like sometimes, he’ll stay up all night just to work on stuff with me and— and watch stupid fucking YouTube videos with me afterward, you know? Like we’re friends. And then sometimes he’ll just ice me out! And sometimes I— I just wish he would be nice to me! Or that I could ever figure out what’s going on in his head.”
“Oh, honey.” There’s a sympathy in her voice that unnerves him. “What’s his name?”
“Huh?” Gordon hesitates, caught off-guard, then says, “Benrey?”
“Henry—“
“No, Benrey. With a ‘B’.”
“Not what I would have named him,” she comments. “But I know how you feel, Gordie. I dated a guy like that before I met your father—“
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Gordon cuts her off in a rush. He flushes all the way down to his shoulders, hot and nauseating. “We are not dating!”
She pauses, loudly chewing on something. Then she continues, “I’m your mother. I know these things.”
"This is a— a purely platonic partnership!”
“You’ve been moping about Henry for 20 minutes now,” she says bluntly. “I haven’t even gotten to tell you about Marcy’s new dog!”
Gordon pushes his hair back with his free hand. “Can we please talk about Marcy’s new dog instead,” he pleads.
“I’ll send you the pictures. It’s so fluffy…”
It is so fluffy. Gordon’s so engrossed in fawning over it that he fails to notice his webcam light, a single white point on his monitor. Active. Listening.
Thoughts rattle around Benrey’s brain like staticky balloons, clinging to one another and sparking at his touch.
“Dating”. “Benrey”. “Wish he would be nice to me”. He ruminates, eyes dark and obscured by shadow, as he slumps over a virtual couch in his beautiful world. Why does Gordon get to be a whining baby’s bitch about everything? He gets to— he gets all of Benrey’s fun money. He gets to go to Subway and eat fresh whenever he wants. Doesn’t have to wait for Benrey to wanna hang, ‘cuz Benrey’s always here. Waiting.
At least he gets to hang at all. He missed spending time with his favorite guy.
Not that Gordon needs to know that. Benrey doesn’t need anything when he’s in here. He’s happy here. And he’s so nice to his friends. He lolls, languid. A hefty sigh follows.
He’s not the one who’s hard to read. Gordon is. Nothing but sugar and spice and everything nice, and he still doesn’t know when Gordon’s gonna laugh at his jokes or just chew him out instead. This Gordon - the one he can hold in his hand - is much easier to deal with. More predictable. Less fussy. More meters, too. Hunger, Social, Fun… He can understand meters.
Benrey eyes his toy Gordon thoughtfully. Maybe— Maybe if he could just show Gordon what it’s like. How it feels to be on the other end. That’s empathy, right? He can do empathy. Good-style. Benrey’ll show him what a good friend he can be. And maybe, just maybe, he’ll—
A sudden draw of power flips a breaker somewhere in Gordon's house. But Benrey doesn’t notice. He simply shivers and jerks upright, head spinning.
Gordon yelps as he ducks behind a concrete barrier, gunfire whizzing over his head. He can’t see what’s ahead, at least, not enough to formulate a plan of attack without lopping off half his health. Unfortunately, he can still hear it.
“Who gives a rip about that boy’s soul? I’m here to give you some of that Boy’s Hole!”
He groans, laughs, and retches, all in one tortured sound.
JBrad502: im so sick of this dude like fr
morguellons: you have to kill the blue gnome! NOW!!!
JBrad502: he cant play a game normal..he has to play a game with his stupid mods
JBrad502: playing this game is like making u stupid
“Look, I don’t— I don’t like it either!,” Gordon insists. “But it’s part of my fucking— my New Year’s resolutions! I just gotta beat the game!”
He chances another peek forward, and takes advantage of a lull in the gunfire to sprint ahead. In his arms, Benrey burbles, “you should just turn the game off bro. i wouldn’t blame you.”
“I’m not leaving you behind!”
mario_mario_mario: Your’e losing it gordon!
mario_mario_mario: your*
kingkong_420: whjat TTS are u using for the blue one lol
mario_mario_mario: you’re*
kingkong_420: he sounds like a dominos guy i used to fw
Gordon ignores the chat and the blue gnome alike, shooting his way through Combine soldiers and crawling through crumbling buildings until he can get another chance to breathe. He thinks he’s put enough distance between them - he can’t hear that awful, insipid voice anymore, can’t hear anything except lights buzzing and water dripping from the ceiling. Nothing follows behind him.
But when he turns back around, there’s something new ahead. A floating, 3D speech bubble.
“what the hell is that,” says Benrey.
“I don’t know.” His voice comes slowly, curious. “A developer commentary node? But I thought this game didn’t come with those…”
He reaches out for it, and as soon as he touches it, it begins to lazily spin in place. The comforting, familiar voice of Gabe Newell starts to play.
“I’m Gabe Newell,” he starts. “And welcome to DOTA 2— Shit. I meant Half-Life: Alyx. Can I get a do-over?”
Gordon bursts out laughing. It sounds just like the real thing, and launches into a rambling, disjointed commentary on the game, his cadence having more in common with Benrey than anything else.
Abruptly, Gabe’s tone changes. “This gnome… isn’t supposed to be here,” he says, almost pensive. Benrey remains surprisingly quiet. “Do you know why Gnome Chompski appears in every Valve game? Oh, I wish I did.”
“Ha! What are you talking about?” says Gordon, laughter dying down.
“The blue gnome provided an interesting challenge to our development team. Before we, uh, brought in a voice actor to record some dialogue, its voice had… somehow, inexplicably, already appeared in our system. Fully formed. As if it had been waiting for us all along.”
Gordon stays quiet, too, acutely aware of the cold sheen of sweat breaking out on his skin.
“I don’t know why he sounds like that. Sorry.”
Only once Gabe Newell stops talking does Benrey rouse himself at last, burbling gently and unintelligibly. So too does the blue gnome, a haunting cry of “Oh, sir!” echoing through the halls.
So Benrey’s playing with some eldritch horror computer virus shit, huh? Maybe he can work with that. Gordon pitches an idea, arms gesturing animatedly. They’d just need some props. A bit of leg work. And then he can set up a— a narrative, a throughline from the finale of this stream to, well, whatever comes next. Something that’ll really keep them talking.
Benrey thinks for a long while before saying he’s game. But Gordon’s not worried. He fully believes Benrey can sell it.
The big day sneaks up on him faster than he expects. Gordon clicks “play”, sits back, and watches the footage roll.
The high of finishing his latest work keeps Gordon going for a few days. He bounces on his heels when he makes his breakfast. He goes out for celebratory drinks and lies about getting a promotion. But it’s quickly followed by a crash like NASDAQ. He listlessly scrolls through his phone, feeling hideously, achingly lonely, watching the VOD over and over, squeezing a little more dopamine out of the glowing adulation. Adulation that’s come and gone.
A nagging voice in the back of his head reminds him that he’s gotta get back on that grind sometime. Bills don’t pay themselves. To his surprise, however, when he cracks open the ol’ video editor again, there’s more videos that he doesn’t recognize. Benrey’s handiwork.
He plays one, morbidly curious.
The video opens on a picnic table, camera resting on its surface. A pale hand - Benrey’s, if he had to guess - enters the frame, holding a limp figure. Gordon. HEV suit and all. Like he’s some kind of action figure.
“i need to find my buddy,” says Benrey in a high-pitched voice. Gordon’s model bobs with each word. “who took my buddy? who— who found my buddy…”
Something jostles the camera. Half of Gordon’s body gets cut off by the new angle. Another figure enters from the other side of the frame, similarly obscured. All he can make out is blue jeans.
“it’s me, your ‘my buddy’, benny.” Benrey’s voice returns to normal. “i have obtained… wealth. and dollars. from my movie star fame. and i have bought a big, beauteous mansion, with my residuals.”
There’s a dizzying shift in perspective. And then Gordon’s staring down at a— a doll house. Its angles defy reason, its rooms spill outward from the core like some kind of organic mass, and its roof has been lopped off, leaving the whole thing open to the elements. Benrey drops the two figures in, and cool blue menus snap into place, framing the top and bottom of the screen.
The Sims, he realizes.
“i made all the big bucks,” drawls Benrey, almost proud. “and now we can live here, in my beautiful summer home.”
His voice shifts. The camera zooms in.
”wow, you did such a good job at acting, benrey. i’m embarrass to even show my face with you… i can’t even pretend to be nice on the big screen.”
A strange laugh follows, shaking the camera. It’s pleasant but vapid, and obviously fake. Benrey’s disembodied hand maneuvers his Sim into place next to Gordon’s. He’s given it short black hair and a sharp nose, a security vest and an unkempt tie.
“i do it all for you, friend. that’s what i always say… i’m a— i’m a cool, nice, kind of guy. a giving guy. the sweetest… feller around.”
Both of his hands retreat, leaving the two automatons to their business. Gordon’s sets to work making a peanut better and jelly sandwich. Benrey’s makes a rude gesture and babbles something loud and angry in Simlish. They trade incomprehensible insults, and negative social points quickly rise above their heads.
Then Gordon’s sandwich catches on fire.
“fire safety is everyone’s concern,” Benrey chides, while doing nothing to put it out himself.
Gordon’s Sim just yells and points. Benrey’s snaps a photo, remaining still and unfazed even as the fire spreads over the kitchen. Gordon lets out an involuntary hoot of laughter. He’s transfixed. He’s not certain if Benrey’s ever played a video game before.
“suddenly, a dog appear.” A dog appears. “a dog appear.” Another dog. “a dog appear.” And another, and another after that, until the house is so full of identical golden retrievers and raging fires that the framerate grinds to a crawl. Then the dogs start catching on fire, too. “chronicles of benrey, part… puppy dog city,” he announces, before glancing down. “oh. uh-oh. gordon… gordooon…”
He looks away for two seconds, and Gordon fucking dies.
“gordon has died. badly.”
Gordon accidentally pauses the video when he slumps forward, laughing. And when he sits back up, he wipes his eyes and starts to think.
“Knock knock,” Gordon says, hopping into a GMod server. Headset and all.
Benrey’s smashing cars together in gm_construct again. He’s so engrossed in it that he doesn’t spare Gordon anything more than a grunt.
“Heyyy, buddy,” he starts, all smiles. “Having fun? Playing toys?”
“yup.”
“That’s great, man. Anyway, uh, I was just swinging by to run some ideas past you. You know, for our next thing?”
Benrey swivels his head to face Gordon. One of his cars keeps going without his direct control, crashing into a brick wall. “huh?”
“Yeah, I really liked what you were doing with those Sims videos,” Gordon says blithely. “Really, uh, avant-garde. I think we could make something like that work, like, as a livestream! Set it up so the viewers can vote on what we do, maybe get some donations going… and that’s how we hook ‘em.”
“you watched my videos?” Benrey says, tone unreadable.
“Well, yeah. You kind of left them open.”
Benrey’s eyes drop to his feet. One of his hands starts scratching at the back of his head, just under his helmet. “yeah, well. maybe i don’t wanna. i’m busy guy.”
“Think about how many people went crazy over the last one,” Gordon insists. “They like you, believe it or not. And they keep asking me to stream more shit with you. So, you know, maybe you should take it as a compliment.”
Benrey mumbles something that’s mostly out of earshot, but Gordon catches snippets like “my private video stash” and “none of their business”.
“Not even for me? Your bud? I thought you liked hanging out,” says Gordon. His voice wavers with something so sincere that it startles even himself.
Another bit of grumbling. At least Benrey’s looking at him now.
“Look, we don’t even have to stream anything yet. I just— I wanted to— You know, I like playing games, but I don’t have a whole lot of people to hang out with right now, and if you wanted to give it a whirl… you know… I’m free.” It spills out of him in one anxious burst, making him feel stupider the longer he goes on. But he can’t not. It’s his disorders, and all.
After a moment of silence that stretches out just a little too long, Benrey mutters, “dope.” Then something hooks Gordon behind the navel and jerks. Hard.
His eyes blink open. It’s bright and sunny in his room. Airy, even. Except this isn’t quite his room, and it isn’t quite the sun. The layout’s backwards, the light source indiscernible, the posters illegible and blurry. Gordon’s head whips around, discombobulated, before stopping to look at his hands. Studying them. They’re smoother, blunter. And when he brings them to his face to pull off the headset, they meet nothing but air.
And then he sees it. Above him. Looming through the empty space where his roof should be.
“What the fuck,” he mouths, flabbergasted. “Benrey?”
“yo,” booms Benrey, in the flesh.