Gordon looks up at Benrey, craning his neck to make out the full span of him. He even makes the floating islands of Xen look small like this. At this size Benrey could easily scoop him up in his hand, just like he did earlier that day. On the battlefield. Showing him a wrecked landscape, with blackened, pitted sand in the distance, and a handful of striders quite a bit closer, legs curled in the air like so many tiny dead spiders. But here, there’s nothing but empty void, dotted with fat chunks of earth. If he were to fall - or to be dropped, Gordon’s mind whispers - who knows how long he’d fall before he hits one. A shiver runs down his spine.
Then Benrey looks down at him and grins, one corner of his mouth rising to expose sharp teeth. “yo. gordon free-mannn. the, uhhh… the man of the hour. big shot.”
“What? Me? No-hoooo way, man. I wasn’t the guy the size of fucking Godzilla out here, you know, I was just— it was like— Jesus, Benrey. How long were you sitting on that?”
At this distance, he feels like there’s no way Benrey should be able to hear him, as small as he is. But Benrey drops down a ways so that he’s got his arms resting on the little island that Gordon’s standing on, folded at the elbows. His head tilts to the side and rests on the crook of his elbow. It’s… bizarrely warm body language on his part. Gordon finds himself swallowing. “huh? oh. i dunno. coulda done it whenever. just didn’t feel like it,” Benrey tells him.
“You just didn’t feel like it? Seriously? I can think of, like, half a dozen times these past few days where that would’ve really come in handy—”
Benrey shrugs, and the earth wobbles under Gordon’s feet, and he yelps as he drops to his knees. “wasn’t funny. didn’t care.”
“That’s not— that’s not any kind of— Is this, like, cartoon logic? Those are some pretty bad fucking motivators!” Gordon stumbles back to his feet, clinging to Benrey’s elbow when he does. His eyes come up just a little past Benrey’s sleeve. That face looms larger-than-life in front of him, giving him a flat-eyed, blank look.
“seems like it’s workin’ out so far. big man’s big ol’ genius brain didn’t get us anywhere nowhere fast.”
“That doesn’t even make sense, Benrey!”
There’s a laugh that rumbles all the way through the heels of his HEV suit. “you don’t make sense. you’re a little… fuckin’… weird lil’ guy. check it,” he says, and then he’s plucking Gordon up by the waist with finger and thumb.
“Hey, hey, hey! Don’t just fucking do that—”
“what? you liked it, didn’tcha? liked bein’ all… all tiny? next to your best friend?”
Gordon flushes, hot and dark. “What the fuck are you talking about, man?” he insists. A less charitable source would describe it as ‘bluffing’. “Don’t say shit like that! That’s, that’s really fucking weird, okay, and this is not the kind of situation where I can handle you being weird!”
“you think i’m dumb, don’tcha. big dumb benrey… but i’m in here, idiot.” Benrey taps the side of his skull with the index finger of his free hand. “i’m just sayin’ what you’re thinkin’. and right now, you’re thinkin’… oh, nice. thinkin’ about me.” He grins wider, a lazy curl of his lips with lidded eyes to match, and runs his tongue over the broad face of a canine.
“Hang on. Is this a—”
“don’t say it, bro. you wanna… wake up or somethin’?”
He squirms a little in Benrey’s grasp and feels those fingers squeeze tighter around him. They’re warm, even through the protective fabric of the suit. Gordon’s breath goes shallow. No. No, he doesn’t. And he shakes his head quickly to say as much. Although, judging from the look on Benrey’s face, he already knows.
“haha, man. look at you. lookin’ like a lil’ mcdonald’s toy,” Benrey smirks at him. That grin quickly veers into ‘irritating’ territory when his free hand starts… prodding. Fumbling at the back of his HEV suit.
“What are you talking about? No, wait, what the hell are you doing?”
“i’m gonna pull your string. make you say somethin’ funny. catchphraaase. ‘3-2-1, gordon sprint!’”
“Oh, c’mon, I don’t say it that often— Whoa, hey, what?” Gordon’s voice pitches up in surprise.
Something tugs at his back, pulling him flat against Benrey’s palm, and he hears a faint clicking. A string, with Benrey’s finger in the loop. Then he feels his jaw moving against his will, making him recite, “3-2-1, Gordon Sprint!”, before he spits out, “What the fuck was that?”
Benrey does it again.
“Gordon hurtin’! Oh, god damnit, knock it off!” he snaps.
He’s regarded flatly, like he’s the one being annoying and not Benrey. “this toy sucks, man. all it does is yell at me, swearing, calls my meat small, not even backwards-compatible—”
“Hey, I’m not saying anything about your meat! I don’t wanna know anything about your meat!” Gordon waves his hands in the air, crossing them over his face.
“bullshit. i saw you… lookin’ at me, in the mud, and the sand… maybe i’ll just look for sumn else to play with. like, uhhh… one of these things,” Benrey says, as he reaches into the sky and plucks a bird - no, some sort of dinosaur-thing, flapping its triangular wings in a panic - from the air. “look. it’s cute. not like… gordon meanman.”
Benrey makes a motion like he’s about to fling Gordon to the wayside, like an action figure carelessly discarded, except that he is definitely still a real fucking guy, thank you. And he squawks at Benrey to prove this point. “Whoa, whoa! Do not fucking drop me, I swear to God! I’ll— I’ll play nice with you, okay, just, fucking— just be careful! I don’t wanna find out what’s at the bottom of this place!”
Those big, dark eyes shift in their sockets to look at Gordon. “what? you wanna— huh. nice. good. cool,” he trails off. That little screeching pterosaur is released as quickly as it came, and Benrey laser-focuses his attention on Gordon again. The intensity of his stare makes a sweat break out on Gordon’s forehead. “say it again.”
“Say what?”
“you want me to play nice with you, don’tcha? c’mon. say it again. didn’t hear you too good.” Benrey smacks his lips.
Gordon’s heart thumps in his chest, that sweat gathering at the back of his neck. What is this? Is this some kind of game? Why is he playing along, distantly opening his mouth to say, as if Benrey’s pulling that string of his again, “I-I’ll— Do you want to, uh— fucking God— Play nice with Gordon?” His face burns like it’s been blistered, and he tries so hard to avert his gaze, but Benrey’s just, like, right there. Up close and personal. It’s impossible for him to really look away.
And, at this distance, Gordon can make out the way Benrey’s pupils dilate in high definition. They’re wide as saucers, leaving nothing but a thin, grey ring around them.
“cool. yeah. let’s play nice.”
With that, Benrey shifts him, holding Gordon in both hands. One cradling him in his palm, fingers loosely curled around his waist, and the other pressing him flat against it with a thumb. His mind races. It’s so warm, Gordon thinks. It’s not helped by Benrey’s breath fanning over him, hot and humid. That’s… it would be kind of gross, but it just smells vaguely of Sweet Voice, something fruity and indistinct. Gordon spends an embarrassing amount of time trying to puzzle out just what that scent is on his breath before he notices Benrey’s thumb moving. Just a little, in up-and-down motions along the reinforced fabric on his stomach. His breathing goes shallow.
“likin’ the quality on this one. feels solid. nice and heavy… got a nice weave on this fabric.” He clicks the end of the last word, almost like he’s teasing. “yo, is this thing artic— ar-tic-u-la-ble?” Every syllable comes out with that same disdainful click.
To answer his own question, his hand drifts to Gordon’s arm, where he takes it between thumb and forefinger and starts to move it around. Rotating it on its axes. Never enough to hurt, or even to be uncomfortable, really, but enough to test its natural limits of motion.
“Fucking, yes, it’s articulable. Just because I’ve got this string or whatever doesn’t make me a toy! I’m still a real guy!” Gordon tells him.
Benrey ignores him, for the most part. “whoa, real metal on this bad boy. very nice.” He slides his thumb into the hollow of Gordon’s palm, where he nestles it under his fingers and uses the tip to bend them upward. Gordon squeezes on reflex. “jointed fingers. that’s gonna be pricey. think this could run a good two hundo, easy. i, uhhh… better be careful. i don’t have that kinda sandwich money.”
Two hundred dollars? Well, that’s a lot more expensive than a Funko Pop, Gordon knows that much. Butterflies flutter in his stomach. He’s… something expensive? Quality? Not usually what his dreams tell him, but okay.
Something about that puts him at ease, weirdly enough. So Gordon lets Benrey investigate him. For lack of a better word. He lets Benrey twist and turn him in his hands, muttering under his breath about the quality of the paint job. Benrey’s thumb makes its way back to his stomach, and it rubs in small, slow circles. Something about that deliberate motion gets something boiling in the pit of Gordon’s stomach. Adrenaline, maybe, making his kidneys jerk low.
Then Benrey pulls that string taut again. Gordon jerks in his hand.
“Hey! A little warning before you— I’m gonna suck, man, okay!” His voice twists into a whine against his will, and he immediately claps his hands to his mouth afterward, face red.
That’s— that’s not how he said it last time. It was a joke, okay? Gordon wants to insist on this, but he can’t seem to pull his hands away from his face. Benrey’s smile sharpens like a knife. It makes Gordon’s sweat run cold, trickling down his back.
“whoa. kinda, fuckin’, r-rated toy here,” Benrey leers. “weird catchphrase. kinda… kinda weird that gordon would say sumn like that… must say that a lot, huh.” His eyes are so dull and dark up there, shadowed by his helmet, but a single pinprick of light dances fluidly at the edge of his irises.
“I don’t! I don’t know why it’s making me say it like that!” he shouts through his hands.
“lessee. what else can you say?” He tugs, quick and firm. The force of it yanks Gordon flat against his palm until he lets go.
“Touch me, Benrey!” It comes out as a wanton moan, and as it rips out of him, he gasps for air. Heat, bright and prickling, surges down his neck and shoulders. Then Gordon spits out, “I-I didn’t say that! Are you fucking kidding me, I’ve never said that before in my life!”
Benrey smiles even wider, somehow, but it’s not a smile that portends anything good. “i dunno, man. sounds like a technicality to me. i’m in your server, bro, i’m accessing your files, i know exactly what gordon freeman does on company time. i can’t let you do that— hey, look at that. you’re… uhh… you’re blushing,” he says. There’s a low edge to his voice when he mutters, “cute.”
Gordon’s heart thunders. The last thing he needs is this - a fragment of his psyche that looks like Benrey and sounds like Benrey and knows every single sick thought in his head. Including ones like that. “Yeah, okay, well, you know what, so what! Like you wouldn’t if I was—”
He yanks again, harder this time.
“Nnh— fuck! Do it again!” Gordon moans, fingers digging into Benrey’s hand. A shiver runs all the way down his spine, white-hot and so intense that he’s forced to squeeze his eyes shut, and then a deep embarrassment floods into the space it left behind. Gordon can’t bring himself to open his eyes again.
There’s no way this is fucking happening right now, he thinks hysterically. What’s wrong with him? It’s humiliating, having all these— these sounds, these lurid and filthy things yanked out of him, baring his guts and all the slime of his insides for God and everyone to see. Or, you know, just Benrey. But that might as well be the same thing. Worse than that, though, is the fact that he’s shaking in his fucking suit, skin burning all the way down underneath it. He’s the sick fuck that likes this. The same one that feels Benrey’s fingers start to tug at the string as if Benrey was tugging his own hair. Gordon’s eyes fly open, and he gasps sharply before it can even go taut.
“gordon wants me to do it again, huh? he likes it when i’m, uhhh, yankin’ his chain?” Benrey laughs, incredulous. “what’s wrong with you, man?”
“I don’t know,” he groans helplessly, “I think maybe my mom didn’t get enough folic acid when she had me, or something, maybe there was a chemical spill in the backyard, might’ve eaten too many lead chips as a kid or whatever—”
Benrey interrupts him by pulling that loop as far out as it’ll go, yanking Gordon flat against his palm. Then he keeps it there. Choked, high noises spill out of Gordon’s mouth as heat crashes over him in a wave, and his dick throbs under the Kevlar confines of his suit. He’s not choking, but he feels like he can’t breathe, like there’s a tie pulled too tight against his neck, but he did always like that kind of thing, anyway, and his dick won’t stop twitching, like it’s straining to be touched, and then Benrey lets go and Gordon sucks in a desperate, deep breath. Surfacing for air.
“Benrey, please,” Gordon begs, voice hoarse, “please, don’t stop!” He pants to catch his breath, but it’s so, so hard to meter his breathing. It’s not helped by his suit’s secondary functions starting to kick in - there’s a mild but insistent suction whirring to life around his groin, and he can’t help the moan that escapes him this time. That one’s all on him. Gordon gives up a little bit and buries his head in his arms, resting it against Benrey’s hand.
He intends to stay like that, hiding from scrutiny, until he feels one of Benrey’s hands retreating. Then he glances up at last, and there’s Benrey, right there, eyes wild, wiping the corner of his mouth and leaving a smear of faint pink behind. Drool. Still dripping off his teeth. Gordon’s heart kick-starts again, fast as a hummingbird’s.
“shit.” Benrey’s voice is quiet and breathy. “you make a nice lil’ toy, don’tcha. but i dunno how many catchphrases this thing has… shit gets boring if it’s just, like, three. let’s find out.”
Suddenly, Benrey turns him in his hands, laying him flat on his stomach. Gordon cranes his neck behind him in an attempt to see what he’s doing, but it’s so hard to see. He hears, louder than life, the plastic click of Benrey’s fingernail slipping into the loop of the string, and he takes a shaky breath. “H-Huh?”
“we don’t got all fuckin’ day,” Benrey says, almost sing-song. Gordon whimpers before he can even draw the string out. The sheer anticipation’s starting to get to him - the gravid lull between knowing and doing, waiting for Benrey to crack him open like an egg. Then he’s pulling, and pulling, and—
“3-2-1—”
“heard it.” Benrey tugs the string again, harder.
“Ah— Touch me—”
“heard it.” Again. Faster. Impatient.
“Ah! F-Fuck me, Benrey!” Gordon shudders against Benrey’s palm. His hips arch subconsciously into it, that warmth and pressure; his hands shake where they’re clutched tightly against Benrey’s. He’s hot, it’s so hot in this fucking suit, when are those secondary fans gonna kick on? When is he going to—
“niiice,” Benrey says. His voice is low and loaded and so, so close.
Gordon squeezes his eyes shut. Hot shame and desperation trickle down from his scalp. “Benrey, c’monnn,” he groans, bleeding into a whine. He doesn’t even— he doesn’t even know what he’s asking for. “I’m trying so hard not to make this weird—”
“let’s get weird, friend.” Again.
“Do it a—”
“next.” Again!
“Oh God—” Again! “Benrey—” Again! “Ah— f—” Again— he gasps, frantically sucking in air— And again—
and again—
And Gordon’s voice stutters on the words, again, and his voice ratchets up higher, again, and he doesn’t know when one pull begins or ends, he’s not stopping, Benrey’s tugging over and over like a bored and petulant child, again—
There’s no words coming out of him, not anymore, just high, broken sounds as it crashes over him in waves, whatever it is - something big, something dangerous, that little motor in him about to burn out in a blaze of fury if Benrey just doesn’t—
“—stop, don’t stop— hah— don’t stop—”
“huh. sounds like this thing’s stuck. boring.” Benrey stops abruptly, releasing the string.
The sound that punches out of Gordon is ugly and pathetic. He can’t even lift himself upright, he’s just slumped over Benrey’s hand, eyes shut tight and chest heaving. Sweat trails down his forehead. God, why? He was so close to— To what? Whatever, Gordon’s too far gone to deny it. He’s so worked up that he can feel his rapid heartbeat between his legs, where it throbs insistently against the hot, damp skin of Benrey’s palm. All he can do is lie there. Limp. Panting.
Until Benrey flips him around, that is. He holds Gordon belly-up in his hand, arms pinned against his sides by Benrey’s fingers. Gordon’s legs fall open, gravity doing the dirty work for him, and Benrey’s eyes twitch toward the motion.
Gordon turns his head, trying to avoid meeting those big, dark eyes. His dick’s just right fucking out there, the rigid outline of it tenting the dark fabric of the HEV suit. He can feel it. What can he even say to that? Other than, “Fuck— oh my God, quit looking at me like that—”
“like what?”
“Like you’re gonna fucking eat me, man!” Gordon yelps. There’s something almost lizard-like about the way Benrey’s gaze flickers, eyeballs jerking in abrupt motions in their sockets. “Was that the game plan all along? Playing with your food or— or whatever? I knew that’s what you wanted to do back in Black Mesa, I could see it in your eyes— which, by the way, are fucking huge… uhh… whoa, teeth.”
He blinks up at Benrey’s smile, distressingly close. Teeth don’t usually come this sharp in a normal guy. Or this big, their pointed tips glistening in the low reddish light. God, Benrey could just chomp him right in half, Gordon thinks, dizzied. His blood tries to surge in two directions at once.
“what, do you want me to?” Benrey raises his eyebrows.
Gordon’s chest heaves like he’s just run a marathon. And he’s all hot and sweaty to match. “J-Jesus, what?”
“kiiinda looks like you want me to. kinda… weird, gordon,” Benrey teases, gums peeking out at the corners of that ugly smirk. “didn’t even have to yank your chain. you’re a… you’re a nasty lil’ boy, huh?”
He laughs in utter disbelief. With a touch of hysteria. “Why in the fuck would I want that?”
“you’re the one who brought it up, man.”
“No, no, okay, whatever you’re thinking, it’s not funny! Do not fucking eat me!” Gordon crosses his arms in front of his face again. It doesn’t matter that the sight of Benrey’s teeth moving with each word isn’t exactly killing his boner, okay, that’s a step too fucking far.
Of course, Benrey takes this as an invitation to lift Gordon high into the air, dangling his legs precariously over Benrey’s face. More specifically, his mouth. Gordon’s stomach flips. “i dunno, i’m kinda likin’ the view from down here,” Benrey says.
Gordon squirms in his grip - oh God, that’s stupid, he doesn’t want to fall, but he can’t help it. Then he groans, “Oh, come on, don’t do this shit!”
“don’t wiggle those, uhh, lil’ peepers at me like that. gonna activate my lizard brainnn. gonna snap you up.” His mouth pops on the end of the last word. And he follows it with a quick snap of his teeth, playful but entirely too fucking close, in Gordon’s opinion.
“Hey! No!” He’s desperate, sure, but it comes out more like he’s yelling at a dog to drop something. “We do not eat Gordon Freeman! I wouldn’t even taste good, okay, and I got all this metal shit on me—”
“huh? oh, yeah.” Something like understanding lights up in Benrey’s face. But why? He brings Gordon back down to eye level, mouth leveling out to an intent, flat line. “wonder if this thing comes off. they sculpted his head kinda shit… what’s the rest of gordon freeman look like under here?” Benrey mumbles, spreading out Gordon’s limbs with his thumbs. His voice sounds far-off, like he’s not even talking to Gordon right now. Maybe he isn’t.
Gordon follows those thumbs with his eyes. He swallows, mouth suddenly dry, as they press against his thighs. He’s thinking something stupid. So stupid. And then he’s saying it out loud, where he can’t take it back, “Do you, uh. Do you wanna… find out?” Nerves creep into it, making his voice crack.
He doesn’t wanna see that, dipshit, you’re just some kinda plaything for him right now. He’s here to play Cowboys and Indians with you, like you’re some kind of G.I. Joe. Wait, isn’t that kind of racist? Jesus, man, get ahold of yourself! This is why people can’t stand white guys. You’re sitting here thinking about Benrey peeling this suit off of you and popping you in his mouth like a fucking Tic-Tac and you can’t stop being racist for like, 5 seconds?
He is not fucking thinking about that, actually! Gordon snaps back to the present, and now, he’s thinking about the way Benrey’s started to breathe harder, so much more audible and visible when he’s at this scale. Benrey’s irises twitch minutely from left to right. When he blinks, it’s slow. Almost dazed.
“what? oh, uh. yeah. gonna, uhhh… gonna find out. for science or whatever.” His fingers dance along the outside of the armor on Gordon’s thigh, fumbling for the latches with hands much too big for the job.
Unaware that he’s even doing it, Gordon spreads his legs apart a fraction wider. Almost like an invitation.
“good shit,” Benrey mutters absently. Then his thumbnail finds a catch in the outer leg and flicks upward, releasing it. There’s another on that side, then two more on the inner thigh, and Benrey’s fingers are so, so clumsy where they’re spreading Gordon’s legs wide and pressing between them in an effort to unlatch the armor.
Gordon hisses, “Oh, fuck.”
He’s manhandled like it’s nothing, big fingers with black nails (and chipped paint) brushing against his body with a clinical disinterest. As if he’s trying to pry the armor off any other figure, and isn’t particularly worried about his doll being a living, breathing guy with the most confusing boner of his life. Gordon’s breath comes harder and faster through his nose as Benrey pops the armor off piece by piece, boots stacked upright next to disparate orange shells on the ground. There’s a positive feedback loop at work, arousal and embarrassment and tension feeding into one other and making him broil, because he can’t say it, okay, he’s already humiliated himself enough. His dignity’s the only thing he’s got left.
Gordon’s not gonna give Benrey anything more to laugh at by begging the guy to touch his dick. No matter how hard he has to bite his lip when Benrey flips him over and presses him flat against his palm with a thumb, sandwiching Gordon’s dick tightly between himself and Benrey’s hand. The back half of the chest piece pops off with a satisfying click. Now he’s really fucked. He could take a bullet or ten with that HEV suit on, and now he’s the idiot that let his frenemy - best frenemy, his mind reminds him obnoxiously - strip him down for parts.
“Adios,” he mumbles, delirious, “Gordon out. Not really how I thought I’d go… oh well. I had a good run! Went to college… made it to the front page of Reddit… saved the world or whatever…”
“what?” Benrey turns him back around to finish the job, not really paying attention.
In short order, Gordon’s clad only in that tight black bodysuit underneath, all vulnerable and exposed. The last piece of armor gets tucked next to the rest in a disorganized pile. Benrey clicks his tongue and looks at Gordon properly. His hair’s a mess. Gordon can feel it. Sweat’s matted strands of it to his forehead, and more are escaping his ponytail by the… minute? Has this been a “minutes” kind of timescale? It feels like it’s been hours of Benrey jerking him around. Fucking with him, like a big, mangy cat playing with its food. And the guy’s got teeth to match.
His blood runs cold when Benrey’s eyes fixate on him again. And yet, against all reason, when Benrey swipes the hair out of his eyes with a fingertip, Gordon lets out a quiet little “oh” of surprise. Then an indignant “hey!” when that fingertip prods his stomach.
“hay is for horses.”
“Very funny. Why’d you do that?”
Benrey hums thoughtfully. “they made this figure pretty nice underneath all the armor. got some nice give to it,” he says, prodding Gordon again. “very convincing. gordon freeman gettin’ kinda soft in his old age.”
“Hey, man, I got all, like, depressed and stuff after Black Mesa, all right? It was traumatic! And I’m not old! I’m 27!” Gordon crosses his arms over his chest, ears burning with embarrassment.
“it’s cute. i like this, uhhh… new direction they’re going with.” His finger runs up the length of Gordon’s torso before tucking up under his chin, angling it upwards.
Gordon swallows, hard. He’s forced to look right up at Benrey and that irritating smile, smug like he's just gotten into the cream. That kind of teasing shouldn’t be doing… whatever it’s doing to him. Making his heart pound. Making him blush and laugh, high and nervous. Like he’s some kind of fucking schoolgirl with a crush. Oh, come on. You might as well be. Look at the way he’s looking at you and tell me you don’t have a crush, dumbass. All that attention, laser-focused on Gordon Freeman… Who are you kidding?
God, he’s sick of talking to himself like this! Why is his mind so goddamn mean to him? (Because he needs therapy, probably.)
A thumb presses back down on his stomach, making Gordon keenly aware of that nice give to it, and the finger under his chin starts rubbing around his neck. Gordon has no fucking idea what to make of that until Benrey tugs fruitlessly at the neck of that woven undersuit, mouth pursed. He must be looking for a seam, or a zipper, or something. That realization makes Gordon’s stomach flip. Oh, God. Benrey really is trying to peel him out of this thing, huh. Worse than that is the distressing realization that he's all too keen to help, but he doesn’t have the faintest clue how to get out of the suit on his own. He wasn’t exactly the one responsible for getting himself into it.
So he waits, that pink tinge to his skin darkening and reddening the longer Benrey probes the Kevlar for a zipper. Under the cast shadow of his helmet, Benrey’s eyebrows furrow.
“What’s the matter, big guy? Can’t figure it out?” Gordon taunts with unwarranted confidence, considering that he’s currently held in the palm of a guy who was just threatening to eat him not a few minutes before. “It’s not rocket science, dude. It’s just a jumpsuit.”
“what? shut up, man,” says Benrey after a pause, distracted. “it’s fuckin’… too little. zippers.” As if to prove his point, the nails of his thumb and index finger scrape against the front of the undersuit without much success. Gordon’s breath catches in his throat, and Benrey starts to mutter, “stupid. why’d they make this thing so complicated,” and other assorted complaints as that tugging gets rougher. More frustrated.
Gordon glances down at himself. Seams run down his front and his sides, but bear no obvious points of entry, so he mimics Benrey and tugs at them himself. “You know, I’d probably be able to figure this out for you if you’d just put me down for a second—”
He’s interrupted by Benrey’s hand whipping out to grab his arm, quick as lightning. Faster than somebody so big ought to be able to move.
“whatcha doin’, huh? bud? friend? you’re not doin’ too hot at this whole, uhhh, doll thing, bro.” Benrey leans in close, voice dropping from its playful lilt to something serious and cold when he continues, “dolls don’t move.”
His eyes widen. His mouth hangs open, useless. And heat pulses between his legs, that throbbing angry and insistent against the tight black fabric. Gordon can’t find it in himself to say anything other than a weak, “Uh, okay,” licking his lips as he acquiesces to the game again.
The game. It’s all about the fucking game. They can’t just be fucking normal, right, or at least Gordon can’t, if his poor, battered psyche is any indication. He can’t just open his mouth and tell Benrey to touch him, please, touch him, he’s as open to it as he’ll ever be, okay? It’s gotta be couched in the fucking game. The doll thing. The string… thing. When it’s Benrey pulling all those words out of Gordon like so many teeth, there’s at least a hint of plausible deniability to it. Like, maybe Benrey’s responsible yet again for every stupid, shitty thing that befalls him. Maybe he’s not the weird guy who’s been idly wondering about this kind of thing since the very first time he saw Benrey as big as this.
“oh, you are,” Benrey interrupts. “like 100%. i know you're a big ol' freak in the sheets… this is all on you, man. but it’s cool. it’s chill. i like playin’ games with you, gordo.” That serious face of his eases back into a smile, but thankfully, it’s one that’s a little less threatening than before. If Gordon were feeling charitable, he might even call it genuine.
“Quit poking around in my head! You’re— You’re ruining my immersion!”
“hmm… okay. let’s get all… immersed. first person mode. letcha slap those VR goggles back on.” With that, Benrey pulls at his string again.
“Oh God— Get this fucking thing off of me!” Gordon whines, the words helpfully yanked out of him. He’s… he’s not the only one playing along, is he. Benrey’s playing along for him. Thinking about it makes embarrassment crawl along Gordon’s skin, hot and ugly.
Benrey eyes him, a thought sluggishly ticking in his mind. It’s made evident by a curious glint in his eye, his tongue running across his upper teeth. Then he brings Gordon closer. And closer still. Too close, his mouth parting to reveal a glistening, blue-tinged tongue and far too many pointed teeth, long canines slick with spit and shining like the edge of a knife.
“Did I say ‘pop me in your mouth like a goddamn Tic-Tac, Benrey’?” Gordon says sharply, slapping Benrey’s index finger where it curls around him. “You said you weren’t gonna eat me, man, you said! Do not! Bad dog, bad fucking dog, stop putting me so close to your fucking mouth—”
“’m not gonna eat you, idiot. i know what you said.”
“For some reason, I have a hard time believing you,” Gordon counters.
“c’mon, man. i just wanna play. what’s the fun in eating gordon freeman… betcha wouldn’t even taste good.” Okay, Gordon knows Benrey’s just parroting what he said earlier, but he still takes offense to it and crosses his arms in a huff. “just, like… trust me, bro. i got you.”
A strange earnestness radiates from Benrey, a floodlight aimed right at Gordon. For some reason, that, more than anything, gets Gordon’s face to burn so badly he swears he can see his glasses fog up. Trust him? Okay, well, under ordinary circumstances, Gordon would trust him about as far as he could throw him. But Benrey’s tossed and turned him and twisted him so hard he swore he would snap, and yet… he hasn’t. He could crush Gordon like a bug in his massive palms, and he hasn’t. That has to count for something.
So, despite the many, many misgivings he knows he should have, Gordon opens his stupid mouth and squeaks out, “Okay. I-I trust you, Benrey.”
His face brightens. “nice. check it. call me donkey kong… ‘cuz i’m gonna peel you like a banana,” Benrey says.
Gordon sputters, choking back laughter because, really, it wasn’t that funny. Then that laughter dies abruptly when Benrey brings him back up to eye level. God, those teeth. He can’t stop the frisson of pure, unadulterated fear at the sight of them so close, but, but, he trusts Benrey, right? Benrey wouldn’t hurt him. Not for real, anyway. (He’s not going to bring up the arm thing. It’s complicated.)
Maybe he has a bad habit of pushing Gordon a little too far, but a dark voice in the back of Gordon’s mind points out that he hasn’t called the game just yet, has he. He likes being pushed, doesn’t he. His dick isn’t responding the right way to that surge of trepidation, the one that swells beyond its banks as Benrey’s teeth come closer, and closer still, until they’re grazing against his skin and tentatively worming their way into that woven black fabric and Gordon can feel Benrey’s hot breath puffing around him in waves.
Oh. Shit. A sound escapes him, unexpected and embarrassingly high-pitched.
Then Benrey yanks, and Gordon jerks back in his palm with a yelp as the force of it tears the last of the HEV suit off him like so much tissue paper. No resistance. Just a tattered length of what used to be his jumpsuit hanging from those teeth. Cool air hits Gordon’s skin for the first time, bared from his chest all the way down to— Oh, God. Now Benrey can see exactly how badly Gordon wants— wants this, wants him, wants whatever those half-formed images in his mind are suggesting. Gordon shivers as goosebumps start to pebble his exposed skin.
When Gordon stops looking down at himself and glances up at Benrey’s eyes instead, they’re wide as dinner plates. Shocked, almost. Pupils ballooning out into black nothingness. And they’re looking straight at his hard-on, where it lies hot and heavy against the crease of its hip. It twitches.
“whoa.” That scrap of carbon fiber and Kevlar flutters away into the void.
“I thought you said that was expensive,” Gordon starts. He wants to kick himself shortly after.
“what? i don’t care.” Benrey’s mouth hangs open on a heavy breath, tongue darting out to lick his lips. He attempts to peel the rest of it off of Gordon with the same precision and care as the armor, but his fingers shake, and it’s a struggle for him to get a solid hold.
Gordon’s never seen Benrey so… affected. By anything. Least of all himself. It’s bizarre, honestly. What’s so special about some pasty, hairy white dude with a build that’s a little too soft for his liking and a statistically-average dick? (He’s checked. Did you know that the average penis length of an American male is 5.6 inches, fully erect? It’s nothing to be ashamed of.) But Benrey’s looking at him the way a cartoon character looks at a juicy T-bone steak, and that shouldn’t be doing, well, anything that it’s doing to him right now. Making his breath go shallow. His skin bead with sweat.
But here he is, and that’s - oh - that’s Benrey’s index finger, surprisingly warm against the side of his jaw, and there it is, trailing back down his chest and stomach, ruffling the hair on his stomach before dipping lower, and—
“Oh my God,” Gordon whimpers through his palms, where he’s clamped them to his mouth.
Benrey strokes down Gordon’s length in a firm, deliberate motion, then back up again, pressing his dick against his skin. He opens his legs wider to accommodate the hand between them, and tries his damnedest not to humiliate himself by bucking his hips up into Benrey’s fingertip.
“this thing’s fully functional, huh,” Benrey says, more to himself than anything. He doesn’t stop dragging his finger up and down Gordon’s dick while he talks. Slow strokes. Pausing to circle the head, and grinning down at Gordon when he sucks in a rattling gasp. “sounds like i mighta broke it, though. makin’ all… fucked up noises. some kinda furby shit. lessee…”
He trails off as his hand drifts away to parts unknown. Gordon tries to crane his head to follow it, but he doesn’t have to. The hairs on the back of his neck prickle, some kind of sixth sense, before Benrey can even thread his finger through the loop on Gordon’s back. Then an electric shiver works its way up his spine as that thread draws tight, and whatever little mechanism lies inside of him ticks and ticks.
Strangely enough, Gordon’s struck by a sense of relief. Benrey’s not gonna make him ask, even if he is, technically, about to make him ask. Thank fucking God, he thinks, in that brief flash of time before Benrey lets go.
“Keep touching me!” he demands. Muffled as it is by his hands, it still comes out ragged and throaty.
And, naturally, Benrey just fucking laughs at him. “no ‘please’? no ‘thank you’? this is a real authentic, uhhh, gordon freeman experience.”
“Shut up, shut up, Jesus, don’t fucking talk to me like that when you’re the one who— oh— God, fucking—” His train of thought’s cut short by Benrey touching him again, this time with his thumb pressed between Gordon’s legs and rubbing and forcing a moan out of him.
“you’re really bad at this, huh.” Gordon swears at that. That shouldn’t be getting him hot, either. It’s— it’s demeaning. “thought i told you… dolls don’t move, bro. you’re ruining my immersion,” Benrey continues. To that end, he pulls Gordon’s hands away from his face.
And Gordon lets him. Not that he could do much else. Benrey moves him around like it’s nothing, so much stronger than he is, and the ease of it dizzies him.
“Oh no. No, no, you don’t get to turn that one back around on me— fuck, Benrey— okay, God, can you just, pull the fucking string again or something, dude!” This time, the whine in his voice is all him. He can’t help it, it’s that pressure, okay?
“bossy, aren’tcha.” His thumb moves faster.
Gordon winches his eyes shut in an effort to tamp down a noise, but it doesn’t work out very well for him. Don’t move, he’s gonna stop again if you move, he reminds himself furiously. Keep quiet, don’t move, don’t let your hips jerk up and maybe he’ll pull your string again and let you say what you’re too much of a little bitch to admit out loud—
Benrey says something that gets lost in his inner monologue, then he pulls the string again, and Gordon doesn’t know how he’s doing it because he’s pretty sure Benrey shouldn’t have this many hands but it’s a little hard to focus when Benrey’s jerking him off like this and holding it taut so he can barely breathe and he’s waiting and waiting and finally Benrey lets go and his eyes fly open and—
“Please,” Gordon whines, bedraggled and filthy, “more, please? Thank you?”
God, he sounds like Benrey right now. That’s a whole can of worms he’s not about to dig into. Thankfully, Benrey lets that go, but he latches onto something else instead. “more? why don’t you, uhhh, be more specific,” Benrey says, clicking the last syllable disdainfully.
Yank, yank. “I want— oh, fuck— Benrey, I want—”
“better speak up, friend.”
Gordon’s voice pitches up with each successive pull, his entire body pulsing with heat. Oh, God, he’s doing it again, “Don’t stop— ah— please—” he chokes out, caught between the hand behind him and the thumb in front of him, a torturous back and forth that culminates when Benrey lets go one last time and lets him say aloud, “Put me in your mouth, Benrey!”
That’s— that’s not what he wanted to say. Jesus Christ, it’s not even close, why did he— Gordon slaps his hands over his mouth again, as if it’ll shield him from Benrey’s sudden, intense scrutiny. Every goddamn inch of him feels like it must be glowing a bright red.
“damn, okay,” Benrey says at last. His eyebrows raise up and out of sight. Then, after a moment of deliberation, he licks the pad of his thumb, where it had been pressed against the leaking head of Gordon’s dick. Benrey hums, mouth working back and forth, and continues, “huh. doesn’t taste half-bad. i’ll have to get a more, uhhh, in-depth look, though. can’t let down my viewers. gordon freeman mukbang.”
“What? Jesus, man, for the 800th fucking time—”
“yeah, yeah, ‘wah wah don’t eat me, benrey, i’m just a little guy’. calm down maybe. i’m not gonna do it if you’re gonna be such a… fuckin’, fussy baby bitch about it.”
“Wait, do what? I need, just, like, 20% more clarity from you here, okay? This is a sensitive subject!” Gordon insists.
Benrey doesn’t respond to that. Instead, he lifts Gordon up to his face, cupped in both hands, and Gordon doesn’t get a lot of warning before Benrey licks him from his thighs to his chest in one fell swoop.
An ugly noise punches its way out of him. Benrey’s tongue’s so big, and hot, and moist, and it moves like nothing else against him, a winding, sinuous coil of wet-hot muscle, and God, it’s big, did he mention that? It also leaves Gordon cold and sticky afterward, matting his body hair with pink-tinged saliva. It’s Sweet Voice of some kind, he knows that much, and though he can’t place the specific shade, the meaning seems obvious. It’s not like it has to fucking rhyme.
“Aw, gross,” he bitches, flinging spit off his fingers.
“you’re the one who asked, idiot. this is nothin’. if it’s so bad i’ll just… go back to playing my playstation or sumn,” says Benrey flatly.
Gordon wisely keeps his mouth shut for once.
“that’s what i thought. chill the fuck out for two seconds, gordon.”
Okay. Yeah. He can be chill. He’s so chill right now, he tells himself, and his heart rate is an average, healthy 100 beats per minute and not the riotous heavy metal tempo he feels threatening to burst out of his chest. What’s not relaxing about your best frenemy’s tongue slipping between your thighs? Especially when it’s, like, the size of a mattress? Gordon lets out a perfectly calm gasp when the tip of it licks into the crease between his thigh and his groin, like it’s probing him. And then a reasonable, moderated moan when the broad side flattens against his entire lower body. Including his dick.
That moist heat drags up, up, up, his tongue clearing the length of Gordon’s body before pulling off of him with a cheeky flick.
“shit, gordon… you taste good,” Benrey rumbles. His eyelids drop to half-mast. “real good.”
Gordon stifles a whimper when Benrey comes back for more, licking him like a lollipop, the press of his tongue growing firmer and more insistent each time. He tastes Gordon in places he’s never let anyone else taste before - his soles, his armpits, the soft insides of his knees. Each horrifying new location Benrey worms his tongue into makes Gordon squirm in Benrey’s grip.
“Oh, God, c’mon, man, that’s wei-iiird, fuck!” Gordon thrashes, a gasp bleeding into a hysterical giggle as the tip grazes his ribs exactly the wrong way.
Benrey draws back to breathe out, “fuuuuck,” all low and hungry. “so fuckin’ cute, bro. you wanna… wanna be cute for me?”
He doesn’t give Gordon the chance to respond before he pulls Gordon’s string for him, and suddenly there’s laughter, peals of it bursting unbidden from Gordon’s mouth. “Wh— ha— ah ha ha— Wha-ha-haaat the fuck,” he wheezes, frantically trying to catch his breath. “What’s— ha ha, fuck— why are you— ah! Ha! Stop, stop, I can’t fucking— hahaha— can’t breathe—”
Benrey pulls again, taking pity on him.
Gordon can’t stop the residual giggling, but at least he can suck in a deep breath before he’s compelled to ask, “Gordon’s cute?” And isn’t that mortifying. He flushes so badly that it almost nauseates him.
“why you askin’ stupid questions? didn’t you go to MIT or whatever?” He pokes Gordon on the forehead. Then he cuts off Gordon’s pissed-off retort by licking a broad stripe up his middle, chuckling so closely that Gordon can feel it rumble through his whole body.
There’s a shift. A change in pressure. Now that tongue rolls and undulates between Gordon’s thighs, a far cry from Benrey’s previous taste test. Gordon’s fingers scramble for purchase on Benrey’s as a strangled cry gets caught in his throat. And— and Benrey groans against him as he does, eyes shut tight for the first time. It’s not like any blowjob he’s ever gotten - it’s too all-encompassing, wet muscle rolling against his dick and his thighs and his belly all at once, and he’s never felt so small and vulnerable like this before.
Is this… what girls feel like? It’s a ludicrous thought, but it takes purchase in Gordon’s mind anyway. When they’ve got their fingers twisted in his sheets, and their legs clamped around his head, and he’s got their thighs held open with strong, broad hands? (He says this to himself like it’s a common occurrence. It isn’t.) He’s not a fucking girl, okay, he knows a thing or two about “gender” and he’s comfortable in his own skin, but the size difference is twisting a lot of weird wires in his head. When the guy trying to suck your dick is that much bigger than you, all the sexual dimorphism tends to get lost in the wash.
“Pull,” Gordon says, hoarse and raw, “pull it, fucking pull it,” he’s sick of thinking about this, he just wants Benrey to pull something else out of him, redirect his embarrassment to something else, please.
And he does, immediately, and he doesn’t even make a fuss or bitch Gordon out about it—
“Please, Benrey,” he moans helplessly—
Again—
“Keep going, I’m gonna—”
Benrey pulls back to gasp, “yeah? fuck?”, and Gordon nearly roars from frustration.
“Come on!” The way he digs his fingernails into Benrey’s skin would probably hurt a lot more if the guy wasn’t the size of a skyscraper.
“gettin’ mad? gettin’ all butthurt about it?” Gordon nods angrily and says as much. The words themselves aren’t too coherent, but the point gets across, because Benrey glances down at Gordon’s dick where it’s angry-red and painfully hard and mumbles, “maybe i oughta play a lil’ nicer. do somethin’ nice for best friend gordon.”
Somehow, despite him quite literally asking for it, Gordon doesn’t expect it in the least when Benrey pushes Gordon up to his lips and then keeps pushing, mouth parting wide around him, tongue winding around his legs as he sinks deeper into Benrey’s mouth. Wet heat surrounds Gordon’s lower body, and a sluggish panic finally sinks its claws into Gordon as he feels faint, sharp pinpricks from Benrey’s teeth at his back.
He slaps the side of Benrey’s hand. “Hey, stop, stop, stop! No more! I’m— I’m fucking serious, man!”
Part of him also doesn’t expect Benrey to actually stop when he’s told to. Relief crashes over him in a tumultuous wave. Then it recedes just as fast as it came as Gordon realizes that he’s got huge teeth surrounding him on all sides, their points digging into his soft middle just enough to remind him that Benrey could close his jaw at any moment and, chomp, there goes Gordon Freeman. Clean in half. What a way to go.
But Benrey mumbles something unintelligible around him and inadvertently crushes Gordon to the soft palate of his mouth and it’s so fucking agonizing, the electricity that rockets up his spine and makes his hips jerk - yes, God, he wanted this, okay, he doesn’t know how long he’s been thinking about it or where in the world he picked up this particular fantasy from, but fear and arousal mingle into a heady fog and he’s never wanted anything so fucking badly in his life. He trusts Benrey, he’s got to, or else he’s going to have a goddamn panic attack. Gordon’s brain repeats that thought on a loop, trying to convince himself as much as anything.
Then Benrey’s tongue starts rolling against his dick again, oscillating and curling and enveloping everything below the waist, and Gordon wails. So good. It’s so good.
“Fucking— God, Benrey!”
He pants like a dog, mouth hanging open. Benrey moans in turn, a call and response. Gordon’s very bones tremble with it. As distant as the guy’s been acting the whole time, even he can’t hide that dusty pink flush crawling up his face, and Gordon’s got a fucking IMAX view from here. Benrey… Benrey wants this just as much as he does, doesn’t he. He’s getting off on this. His arm’s shuffling in jerky motions at Gordon’s left, all the more evidence.
That’s the thing that makes the last of Gordon’s mental barriers crumble to dust. He ruts against the broad side of Benrey’s tongue, and words spill out of him without prompting, “Don’t stop, please, I can’t fucking— Just— I’m so fucking close—”
This time, Benrey doesn’t stop. He keeps going. Anticipation curls in Gordon’s belly, a hot coil winding tighter and tighter. He’s playing nice for the first time since Gordon woke up here, and it hits all the sweeter for it.
“Don’t stop,” Gordon babbles mindlessly, over and over, begging him, “please, Benrey, don’t stop,” and he’s gotta sound so stupid, his mouth running on autopilot, but he’s gonna come and Benrey’s not stopping, just grunting in affirmation, working his tongue faster and faster, panting in turn—
Faster—
Gordon lets out a string of high, desperate noises, each bleeding into the next, and he grabs at his own ponytail out of a blind urge to grab something. Anything. He rocks his hips in time with Benrey’s tongue, chasing that slick heat. His mind races - he learned about this in undergrad, something about superposition, constructive interference, amplitudes of waves adding together, and it all boils down to this, Gordon Freeman caught between Benrey’s teeth and timing his thrusts for maximum pressure and friction and he’s going to—
He’s going to—
He’s going to wrench his eyes shut, and open them again, and when he does, there’s nothing but darkness. Cool and dry. Gordon blinks, eyelids heavy and stuck together a little, as he subconsciously continues to rut against something underneath him. His boxers. A mattress.
No. You’ve got to be fucking kidding. He buries a long, frustrated groan into his pillow. He was almost there! Couldn’t he have held out for just a minute more? Thirty seconds? Figures that his useless, neurotic brain wouldn’t even let him have this. Gordon squeezes his eyes tightly shut, and the fog of sleep is heavy enough on his brain still that he tries to sink back into the fantasy. Just long enough to… there. That’s it. He rocks his hips with more purpose this time, grinding his dick into the plush surface that, at this point in his mattress’ life span, is anything but.
Not ideal. But close enough. Enough that his breath fogs up the tight space between his face and the bed, hot and humid and suffocating. That’s better. Gordon moves faster, hips working in tight little circles, and stifles a noise. If he imagines it hard enough, he can still feel Benrey’s tongue spreading him apart. Benrey. God, why did it have to be Benrey?
Gordon curses the guy out in the same breath that he repeats his name. A hushed thing, muffled into his pillow. God, he feels like a fucking teenager, humping his mattress in lieu of anything better. Warmer. Softer. Less springy.
He would, wouldn’t he? If Gordon just asked? He’d pin Gordon down to the ground, maybe, arms and legs held in place with thick fingers, spread-eagle with his stupid boner plain as day. And he’d laugh, and call him a nasty lil’ boy, or something equally demeaning, but he’d do it, because he’s wanted to fuck Gordon since the moment they’d met. If he could just ask.
But he can’t, he can’t, he can open his mouth all he wants but the words won’t come out, it’s embarrassing, humiliating— he can’t want that, it’s too much, it’s too fucking weird—
Gordon comes abruptly, a whine whistling through his nose.
Cool. Great. He’s going to bury all of this right where it belongs: in a metaphorical shoe box, shoved into the back of a closet, locked away and shuttered in a dusty corner of his mind that he is going to steadfastly ignore until it dies with him. The same place he shoves all his other weird, improbable fantasies. Like the werewolf thing. And the bathroom thing. And then he is going to ignore the wet spot growing cold in his underwear and fall back asleep.
Good thing none of those have never come back to haunt him.