Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“You’ve got mail!”

The high-toned ding of the computer rang across Gordon Freeman’s room, echoing in the emptiness and promptly startling the man from his chair. With a weak curse, he grapples on to the desk to stabilize himself, only slightly falling from his initial slouch. His chair tilts on its wheels for a few dangerous moments, and various sticky notes flutter to the ground in Gordon’s haste to right himself.

He wasn’t dozing, no, not in particular. He was just.. spaced out. And being surprised by an abrupt notification from his computer wasn’t off at all. No, what was strange was that his volume was most definitely not that high. With a frown, his finger jabbed at the sound key.

Gordon had been similarly “out of it” for a while. Well, he was quite aware of when exactly, just that he preferred not to dwell on the high of the past. It’s also embarrassing to admit a game had him so tangled up, one that ended with him eating mediocre pizza at a certain children’s restaurant.

The game was over, the streams were finished. That was it. He didn’t have any drive to replay the game either, which he wouldn’t even if he did. It left him mentally exhausted enough that other games seemed unappealing to him.

Plus, his channel could serve to rest for a while afterwards. The fans were still buzzing online from the aftermath, and he didn’t want to deal with their excitement in the Justin.tv live chat. Right now or ever, actually. He was going to live with their reminders of the game for the rest of his life, wasn’t he?

Gordon chanced a glance at his headset, which had been left on top of the box it came in. He hadn’t moved it since the game ended. He wasn’t in the tidying up mood today either, so he quickly looked away.

He hadn’t been in the mood for anything following the “end.” Mostly the relief of finishing the game had left him avoiding anything else that could be considered a chore. His room definitely suffered as a result, but at least there wasn’t anyone to yell at him for not cleaning up. He may be living like shit, but he was free.

Gordon drew his attention back to his computer. He was pretty sure that he didn’t have AOL installed or that the email sound miraculously changed to include that nostalgic notification voice line. Squinting against the bright screen in his otherwise dark room, he tried to locate where it came from.

He initially suspected it must’ve been a Youtube tab left on auto play, but all he found was a paused video on “Spongebob Squarepants: Skin Theory.” …For some reason. Maybe he did fall asleep.

The only other thing open was a window with Gmail, so he figured he’d take the notification’s advice and investigate whether he had mail. Aside from coupons to Kohl’s and a Quotev discussion about how to get into Harvard with a 2.00 GPA, the only thing that really stood out was an email from himself. 

Did I just sleep-mail myself or some shit? He thought annoyedly, but his mouse still hovered over the (no subject) message with slight curiosity. He didn’t remember sending it, but that could be said about anything within the week he just had. 

Wait. Why was he even hesitating? Gordon opened the email.

1. ur steam library’s  ssssshit.

Gordon stared at the message for a minute before a slightly high laugh escaped him. Was he so sleep deprived he was insulting himself via email? He laughed again, slightly more hysterical this time, and planted his face on his desk with a loud groan. 

I’m going crazy.

“You’ve got mail!”

He shot up again, this time not falling, and stared at his computer. He caught the volume bar visible for a few seconds before fading away. It was put at max again. 

With a frown, he pressed the mute button and began thoroughly investigating his computer. With no leads on the strange sound, he force quit all his windows and restarted his PC. 

Upon logging in, his PC greeted him with a pop-up window: Do you want to allow this app from an unknown publisher to make changes to your device? He denied it without thinking and re-opened an empty tab. 

His cursor loaded for a few seconds before a Gmail window opened. There was another email from himself.

redownload Gmod? Pls?

“What…” He groaned, dragging a hand across his face. “The hell.”

So he deleted G-mod. Temporarily. So what . That didn’t begin to explain the emails, which he must’ve somehow timed while asleep..?

Almost jokingly, though more likely feverishly, he clicked the URL and began typing out his thoughts.

Am i crazy or is my computer talking to me? reddit

As the page loaded, the search query noticeably changed beyond a grammatical correction. He frowned as he read it.

forgot ur best friend already    Wow

Gordon flinched as he read the result. What the fuck? He didn’t download any viruses or something, did he? It wasn’t like he tried his chances with piracy anyway.

Tentatively, he refreshed the page. The message remained unchangingly, almost like it was mocking him. Is my Google search query seriously making me insecure? Get a grip, Gordon.

He tried not to think about how familiar the words sounded as he typed out another search. 

Hello???

It didn’t respond this time, and his message stared back at him no matter how much he refreshed or re-sent the page. This seemed to be enough proof for him, because he promptly closed the tab window and sighed.

I’m just seeing shit from lack of sleep. He rationalized, taking off his glasses and furiously rubbing at them. It’s fine. Obviously, his time in VR was causing him to see things that weren’t really there. 

Gordon stood up from his chair and cracked his back with a grunt. Hallucinations were a new low that somehow motivated him to get real sleep. He fell asleep before he hit the bed.

“You’ve got mail!”

Instinctively, Gordon slammed his bedside table to turn off his alarm clock. His hand unsatisfyingly hit the wood and he cursed at the pain.

“You’ve got mail!”

Right, he didn’t even have an alarm clock. He hadn’t had one since college, in fact.

“You’ve got mail!”

He groaned and dragged himself upward, chancing a glance at his phone to check the time. 2 AM. Jesus, his sleep schedule was fucked.

He had a lot less pressing matters than the time, however. Namely, that annoying notification from his computer. Which was turned off. And again, he was sure Gmail hadn’t just decided to add a new feature for fun.

“You’ve got mail!”

“God, shut up,” he mumbled in response, not even bothering to sit down as he grabbed his mouse and rapidly turned his computer on. “What is wrong with you.”

Do you want to allow this app from an unknown publisher to make changes to your device? With which he again responded with no. 

“You’ve got mail!”

His Gmail tab was open again, and there were about a dozen new emails sent to himself. Curiously, he clicked the newest one first, blinking away sleep as he read the message. 

stop nerfing me bro let me sonic.exe ur shit

He couldn’t even begin to fathom what that meant, so he scrolled to the oldest email, which was sent two hours ago, and went down the list.

jk Idiot. cant take a Joke. a troll.do you clap when the plane lands too? take candy from babies? ? ?

canf just go afk bro. gonna . gonna vote kick you off the server. Everyone hates you now. they’re gonna ban you for being afk

tf2 f2p?????????

i’m gna eat all ur important files. they’re Gone now. i ate them dude. gonna bonzi buddy ur computer and shit. got ur IP broo

[CONGRATULATIONS, YOU’VE WON!]

hop on . fuckinf. addicted to sleep call that a sleepyhead. 

me at the zoo is only rewatchable 5 times before i want to bomb your house 1800 tiovivo albuquerque new mexico . i’ve got All ur passwords and leaking on twitter 

“…What the fuck,” Gordon muttered. “Knew I shouldn’t’ve cheaped on the antivirus. How much is this gonna cost?”

“You’ve got mail!”

100000 dollar. Cuz u forgot me. broken my heart too. gotta install the new patch on my heart. my codes are weeping

“What the fuck are you?”

“You’ve got mail!”

best friend duh? ? ? 

Gordon felt a strangely familiar anger returning. He gritted his teeth and clenched his fist as he stared at the message. This had to be a joke or something. A weirdly adaptive AI virus or even a really weird fan. His mouse hovered over the X on the tab.

He felt crazy for even assuming this, but carefully, he said, “…B- Benrey? ”

There was no way, right? Benrey was a strangely aware AI like the rest of them, but in the end, that was a game. A game with weirdly realistic AI and nothing more. That was it. 

“You’ve got mail!”

Gordon inhaled and exhaled slowly before opening the message. He tried to will the anger to creep away, but it didn’t work very well. 

learning ur words now, baby? a… b… buh.. benrey… benrey! good job! can you try c now? cuh . cuh. CIMSTUPID. repeat after me 

“Get off my fucking computer!” He cursed loudly, pointing an accusatory finger as if the AI could see him. Which shouldn’t be possible. But neither should an adaptive AI infiltrating his computer be. “How the fuck did you even do that!?”

“You’ve got mail!”

MRJEJEIDAOFMSPDK! 

“I’m going to Best Buy and deleting your ass.”

“You’ve got— You’ve got mail!”

wait

stop im trolling. don’t do that we’re supposed

to be Friends. best ones bro

“You deleted my files!”

“You’ve got mail!”

“And stop it with that fucking ringtone! Is that what it is? Jesus!”

didn’t empty trash just Playing around. freeman never plays ? has silly fun? 

Gordon minimized the tab and looked at his homescreen, noticing instantly that literally everything was gone except Steam and the trash can. With a groan, he opened up the trash and began restoring everything. In the meantime, he opened his files and deleted the lone .mp3 file. 

“You’re actually unreal,” he mumbled under his breath. 

He checked his email again and watched the messages stack up without any more annoying sounds. That was one problem solved. 

Gordon honestly should’ve shut down his computer the moment he learned it was Benrey. Turned it off and chucked it in a lake so that he’d never deal with him again. It was a miracle he was even entertaining this, but that was probably because it’s the most alive he’s felt since playing the game.

He felt insane, almost as insane as he did when playing the game and talking to strangely advanced AIs. Most of this insanity naturally arose because of Benrey.

Gordon opened the newest email, not bothering to read the other ones, which mostly looked like complaints.

hop on dude. so boring here ur computerss lame and slowww like ur smoothical brain ridges

“I hate you.”

Begrudgingly, Gordon considered his options. He needed to confront Benrey somehow because obviously this weird email-voice exchange wasn’t ideal. Benrey seemed to be ahead already, however, because a window of Garry’s Mod had suddenly appeared. Great. Gordon must’ve reinstalled it somehow, or maybe it was Benrey’s doing. 

He took his glasses off and rubbed at his eyes, sighing as conceded to Benrey’s will. He couldn’t begin to understand why he was even giving the man the time of day; Benrey was single-handedly the most insufferable person he’d ever met. 

(Maybe he should’ve been worried that he was referring to Benrey as a person more than an AI, actually.)

He cast a sideways glance to his VR headset. He already knew he’d give in, however, and didn’t bother fighting himself internally as he grabbed it and blew the dust off the top. 

As it connected and whirred to life, it was dark. After a few minutes of continuous darkness and silence, he suspected something must’ve gone wrong before being blinded by light. It just as quickly died away and he was left spawned in on some empty map. Both of which definitely had to be some way of fucking with him. 

“yoooo.”

He felt the familiar anger somehow bubble within him from that drawl. It instantly brought him back to the week prior, except now he didn’t have a crowbar to bash in Benrey’s brain or a gun-hand to punch him.

Gordon looked at his hands, clenching and unclenching them. He was in the HEV suit again, not surprisingly. He didn’t really expect Benrey to change his model.

Maybe he was pointedly ignoring him by now, but Gordon wanted an insight on his surroundings before he went prodding at his weird AI virus thing. 

“hey.”

Or not. Benrey instantly teleported in front of his face, causing Gordon to flinch in shock. He quickly took a few steps backward, regarding the other with general suspicion. 

“How the hell did you get IN my computer?” Questions. He needed to get to the root of the problem firstly. 

“whuh?” Benrey turned his head to the side but otherwise didn’t move after Gordon. 

“Don’t even—!” He cut himself off and took a couple of deep breaths. “You’re in my computer. How?”

“….i dunno.”

“Okay.” Gordon tried to refrain from sighing. “When did you get.. here? ”

“you uh.. cheated. s’ not fair, you y-know, and you went to the mouse’s place without inviting me. so i left.”

“And when you left you ended up.. on my computer.”

“yup.” He popped the p. Like a child, Gordon thought distantly.

“For a week…?”

“yeah. you’ve been watching straight tekken 8 tournaments, bro. kinda...”

“Don’t say shit.”

“…uh.” He scratched his cheek. Apparently that was exactly what he was going to say.

“Where’s everyone else?” Gordon would’ve been a lot more pleased if Tommy or Dr. Coomer haunted his computer instead, actually. Even Bubby. 

“the mouse.” Great.

“How do I get you to…” He waved his hands. “Leave.”

“whuh— you want to get rid of me? the fuck?”

“That’s—“ Gordon clenched his fist. He definitely did. He didn’t want to deal with Benrey for possibly forever on his computer. He was unpredictable, and he already showed he had power the fuck up his files. That paired with the fact he tried to kill him the last time he met. “Why shouldn’t I!?”

Benrey kicks the floor dejectedly, though his face was still stoic. “cuz we’re best friends, duh.”

“We were never… Ugh, nevermind. Look, you can’t just.. stay on my computer and stalk me for the rest of my life. You’re like a fucked up version of Clippy, dude. But you can’t even give me good advice.”

“so fucking judgemental, ugghhhhh. stop pissing yourself over this; it’s not even a big deal, man.”

“Are you a virus? You seem like you’ve been made specifically to spite me.”

“i’m your pal? buddy ol’ pal benrey. so don’t delete me, puh-lease. thanksies a bunch?” Benrey began walking closer towards Gordon, of which the latter noticed but didn’t move. “‘s not fair.”

“It’s not fair that I have to deal with your ass!” Gordon shouted, pointing an accusatory finger at Benrey. “How do I know you aren’t going to try anything? Last time we met, you tried to kill me.”

“huh?”

“No, don’t you–”

“what are you–”

“I’m fucking warning you now, Benrey, that I have nothing against stuffing you in a USB for the rest of your miserable existence!” Gordon took a couple of heated steps towards him, expression morphing to fully display his temper. “I don’t know why you’re here, or why you’re so fucking obsessed with me, but I’m telling you now, I don’t care. Shut. Up. For one time in your life, can you be quiet? Can you do that?”

He didn’t respond, instead putting his hands up in surrender. Gordon didn’t miss how the corners of his lips tugged into a frown, however. It gave him a strange sort of satisfaction, to see him finally impact the other man in some way. Finally not taken as a joke when it became apparent that Gordon actually did have the power to harm him in some way. The dynamic change was a welcomed one. Maybe now that Benrey could acknowledge he didn’t have the upper hand in things, time spent with him would be a lot easier. And much less excruciating.

“eeeugh...you spit on me.”

Did he? It abruptly broke Gordon from his thoughts, and he focused on Benrey’s face. From this close, he looked immensely pale; much, much different from the original model of Barney in the game. His eyebags and wrinkles pierced deep, enough to slightly be disturbing, and the abnormal shadow across his face was only emphasized by his skin. His eyes were dark and moody, apathetic as usual. While they didn’t shift much, they stared back at him, causing a shiver of unease to ruffle through him.

Gordon expected the other to be wiping at his face or something, but was instead quickly faced with that shit-eating grin he’d seen way too often. The same one that etched his features when blocking a doorway or leading him to his arm’s amputation. His smile was a centimeter too wide, and teeth slightly too sharp to be considered human.

“Fuck you.”

“made you look.”

And they were back. Maybe Benrey called his bluff about the whole USB thing. As much as Gordon was tempted to do it, he couldn’t. Whether it was because Benrey was connected to his memories of the game, or something with Benrey himself, he wasn’t sure. Frankly, he wasn’t keen on investigating those feelings either. He just knew that he felt a twinge of something bad in his gut when he thought about killing this entity.

“You’re not like the other AI, right? Are you even an AI?” Gordon questioned, despite himself. There would always be a lingering curiosity about the person in front of him, even if he hated him just as much. “Like Tommy, Bubby, and Dr. Coomer?”

“huh?” Gordon was about ready to punch him, but he went on. “i dunno. i’m no bot, like uh, the aliens. can’t copy and paste this ass.”

Trying to ignore the implications of that, Gordon went on with his probing. “Then what do you... Do? You said you’ve been on my computer for a week. Doing what? ”

“playing steam ‘n stuff… got bored, your shit’s lame. so i started talking to you, whatnot. hearing you get mad is more fun.”

“Not seeing?”

“you covered your camera with tape. like a wuss.”

“Oh… Yeah. I do do that. So you know, people like you don’t watch me.”

“no one wants to watch you, fucking uh narcissist.”

“I— You know what, yeah, sure, whatever.” He wasn’t going to mention his rather successful Justin.tv account or let Benrey know that a big part of his success was because of him. “…Do you, uh, want me to take it off?”

“want me to watch you? that’s a bit—“

“ Forget it . ” He walked right into that one. “You’re so immature, dude.”

“take the tape off,” Benrey quickly amended. He wasn’t grinning as wide now, but the remnants still tugged at his face. “can’t take a joke?”

“It’s really hard to tell when you’re joking.”

A couple of seconds went by, and when it was clear Benrey didn’t plan on responding with some quip or joke, he sighed. He wasn’t exactly sure how to process being stuck with Benrey haunting his computer for the foreseeable future. He was even less sure about how he felt about it being Benrey of all people. An unpredictable line of code that was malicious enough to have actively tried to harm him in the very recent past.

“I’m leaving,” Gordon announced. He expected Benrey’s silence, but not brick walls to squeeze around them the moment after he blinked.

“oh no, looks like we’re. stuck. wow, this sucks.” He said, unconvincingly.

“I’m still leaving.” Gordon moved to grab his headset. 

Benrey abruptly lit on fire. “ow,” he mumbled. “help.”

Gordon would’ve moved away, but the walls behind him kept him in place, beside the man on fire. His suit immediately started beeping something about dangerously high temperatures.

“Stop it.” He actually couldn't care less about him being on fire. “Bye, Benrey.”

“cya.”

Gordon took off his headset and blinked rapidly, adjusting to his dark room. After a couple of moments, he felt minutely better and placed the device on his desk. With his hands free, he clutched his head and sat down.

The sudden headache wasn’t great. Not at all, actually. He pressed his head against the edge of his desk and tried to breathe slowly. Slow.

Focus on anything else, like the whirring of his computer’s fan. Rhythmic and never-ending. He had half a mind to take an advil, but the idea of getting up wasn’t appealing at all. The cool of his desk was nice.

The sound of burning fire was also nice, touched with low-bit video game quality. Gordon sluggishly glanced up and watched the open window of Garry’s Mod, where the sound was coming from.

Benrey was still there, in the same spot. He hadn’t moved an inch, and he was also still on fire. He seemed to be silently observing Gordon’s player-less model.

If he heard Gordon’s breathing, he didn’t comment on it. After a couple minutes of prolonged silence, the game application closed itself. He must’ve left.

Gordon felt somewhat normal after several more minutes. Normal enough to lean back in his chair, anyways, before straightening himself up and looking back at his computer. First, he had to make sure all his files were successfully restored. And afterwards, find wherever Benrey was in said files. So that his threats wouldn’t be too unfounded. 

His camera light flashed on and off. Oh. Right.

Tentatively, Gordon peeled off tape. The light stayed on, but his computer gave no other indications that some weird AI being was holding it hostage. He preferred it that way.

It was suddenly very weird to think about how this would be the first time Benrey actually saw him and not just the character model. He tried not to linger on that thought, or think about why he was lingering on it in the first place.

First: damage control. And… Find a game that’ll distract Benrey from blowing up his computer.

Chapter Text

Gordon would’ve been able to convince himself yesterday was a dream or stress-induced hallucination if it wasn’t for the fact ‘something’ was still very much on his computer. It was like having a ghost, except it chose to only possess his computer and not his walls or some creepy doll.

Knowingly having Benrey on his computer was.. weird, to say the least. Gordon still wasn’t sure how to refer to him at this point, because he quite obviously wasn’t a NPC, but chalking it up to AI didn’t feel right either. Scratch that, whatever Benrey was felt like an insult to computer technology as a whole. Because whatever he was, he definitely didn’t belong.

At first, Gordon assumed he must’ve been an extension of Garry’s Mod, but he quickly realized that the game didn’t need to be open for Benrey to be active. Though he stemmed from it, he seemed to be his own independent.. program? Maybe? But upon opening Task Manager, Gordon didn’t find anything running either. If anything, he more closely resembled a browser extension. 

And then there were the limits with Benrey’s control. While he could apparently trash stuff, he didn’t seem able to actually delete anything. The same went for editing his settings or accessing passwords. It made Gordon feel marginally safer, but he was still concerned over the idea of Benrey overloading his computer to the point it repeatedly crashed, essentially ‘exploding’ it. It would probably be the perfect way to infuriate Gordon and seemed very on brand, so this was more of an ‘waiting for the inevitable’ situation. 

He’d already tried discreetly transferring his more sensitive information and files to a USB, but the other — probably thinking about Gordon’s previous threats — promptly downloaded over thirty thousand awful 2010 memes to fill the flash drive. It actually physically pained Gordon to look through the first ten, so he quickly ejected it and threw it out. 

From what he could discern, Benrey had some minor physical control, too? Like, the camera light should’ve been a sign already, but he could fuck with the DVD disc tray. Which very quickly got annoying. Like, right now.

👥 New Chat

johnwicklover1994

is awaiting your response

That was Benrey’s new form of communication, by the way. Steam chat notifications. For some reason, he felt compelled to make his own Steam account and just library share their accounts. Extremely annoying, for one, because it meant Gordon had to constantly re-sign into his own account. It was somehow more inconvenient than their messaging through Gmail.

Initially, he put off entertaining his poking, but eventually resolved himself to seeing this through and checked the message.

yo fuel me?

Gordon didn’t bother typing out a reply. “…Excuse me?”

While the browser logged out of Gordon’s account into Benrey’s to type another message, his DVD disc tray rattled open and closed.

in the cookie tray

“T-That isn’t for.. That’s for discs, dude, like, games and movies and shit. I’m not putting a fucking cookie in my PC.”

sugar coikie or,,,,,, juice. thanks . the mountain 

“No— I don’t, I don’t even drink Mountain Dew? I’ve only got like milk and diet Coke— Can you even eat, or drink?”

uhm Yeah. duh. fuckifn i idiot, do you drink? Hydrophobic looking ass. didn’t expect that level of discrimination from you those people have families You know. wives kids husbands etc etc. Dr. Hateman over here hates children

“What?!” He laughs despite himself and pointedly smushes a finger on his camera, abruptly stopping Benrey’s hydrophobia tirade. “You can not be talking, have you looked in a mirror?”

all the time

“No, No… I doubt that.”

xry sboiut ut 

Gordon doesn’t expect the X button to work, but he still makes repeated attempts to close the steam window to make his point. “You know what, I don’t care. I’m keeping my peace. Being the bigger person and shit.”

rageqyitting. you’re getting timed out for tjis u little Naughty boy 

He visibly cringes. “Do not call me that…” 

The insults continue until Gordon force quits steam, which his computer complains about by loudly whirring the cooling fans. He doesn’t think it’s Benrey doing that, but at this point it probably could be. Again, he’s unsure of the limits of his control, and he seriously doubts Benrey would ever be honest about it either.

His camera light flashes on and off until he removes his finger. He distantly wonders if it could be morse code, but he also doesn’t care enough to learn. If Benrey wanted him to know something he could find some other inconvenient way to tell him. 

And he has a life outside of his computer, believe it or not, like keeping himself alive. Which he can admit he’s done a shit job of, but somehow spite towards Benrey motivated him to get his ass up and eat something. Maybe it was also because Benrey couldn’t eat that he suddenly felt like doing so.

Petty payback was probably insane to do to a thing on his computer, but so was Benrey’s mere existence. So who cares if Gordon eats an almost-stale bowl of sugary cereal, regrets it, then pours himself another. And if the cereal was Fruit Loops, no one had to know. Certainly not Benrey.

Gordon absently tapped his fingers on the table. He should.. do something, but he wasn’t exactly sure what. There were the logical answers like going outside, buying groceries, shit, even looking for a real job instead of this precarious streamer shtick. But not only were none of those appealing to him, but worse, he felt drawn to his computer again. His curiosity was trying to get the better of him, trying to convince him to poke and prod until he figured out what exactly was going on. To bicker and argue, because the distraction of Benrey was unfortunately a lot better than his empty apartment. 

God, that sounds weird. Gordon drags a hand through his tangled hair in annoyance, before properly tying it up with a hair tie on his wrist. Whatever. He didn’t have to be bothered with Benrey, if he just.. kept it cool, acted normal. He was a minor inconvenience at worst, but in the end, he was still powerless. Gordon had the upper hand, unlike in the game. And if he was really annoyed, he could just power off his computer. Like a kid getting cyber bullied, his mind unhelpfully supplied.

Jesus, he needed a hobby. Something that wasn’t playing video games on his PC. Like helping old people cross the street or hiking. Not sitting around and speedrunning the most obscure game he can emulate.

He can live without his computer for a couple hours. Slightly more motivated, Gordon gets up and heads to the restroom to brush his teeth and shower. He can be normal. He’s not so chronically online that he gets withdrawals when he’s away from a screen.

After a much needed twenty minutes, he’s walking into his room with a towel around his waist and combing out his hair. Life suddenly feels a lot more worth living when he’s not physically feeling gross. He’s not going to dwell on that thought.

He’s halfway through pulling up one of his last remaining pairs of clean sweatpants when he hears something like.. a dog bark? But before he can ponder that neither him nor his neighbors even have dogs, he’s startled by a comical whistle. Gordon whips his head around as it fades into silence, though quickly followed by five more. Each whistle interrupts the other one, and it takes him about a second to realize what is going on.

“Jesus, are you fucking catcalling me via soundboard?!” Gordon shouts, gesturing wildly to no one. “Really?”

An almost indignant array of sound effects follows as Gordon approaches his computer, and he immensely regrets his oversight regarding Benrey. God forbid a guy tries to get dressed in the privacy of his own home. Obviously, this is all his fault, and not the weird, antagonistic entity haunting his fucking life.

“You are so…” Gordon clenches his teeth as he stops in front of his monitor. He was about to say immature, but Benrey’s annoyances abruptly stopped completely. He glares at the dimmed screen and shakes his mouse. “What. What now.”

A harsh blue greets him, and, squinting, he grabs his glasses to read the white text on the screen. 

:(

Your PC ran into a problem into a problem into a problem into a problem and needs to

hot

“What is your problem now,” he deadpans, shaking his cursor again to no effect. “This is a cheap cop out.”

After a few minutes of radio silence, Gordon relents that this may be a computer issue and not a Benrey-issue. He restarts his computer, and, for good measure, puts the tape back on his camera. Yeah. Taking it off was a bad idea.

The fans are loud in his otherwise silent room. They sound bad. Maybe Benrey’s presence is physically overwhelming his PC. Should I buy some better parts…?

No, that was doing way too much. 

He sits down in his chair and spins around a bit, waiting for his screen to turn on. He still couldn’t decide whether the blue screen should be worrying or not, but that also raised the question of why he even cared. If the blue screen of death was enough to kill Benrey because Gordon was half-naked in his room, then great. An actually okay trade off.

Unfortunately, it seemed Benrey’s immortality persisted even in the digitized world, because he bounced back almost immediately after the computer powered on.

👥 New Chat

johnwicklover1994

is awaiting your response

And back to steam chat. Gordon made sure to quickly exit and block out the tab with the soundboard, which somehow remained despite the reset. 

hey w 

whats ur problem you taped my eyes

Gordon sputtered, “You. You are the problem, Benrey.”

well hhhh cover those things up next time? 

moobs jumpscare warning at timestamp 2:35 watch out? 

“I can’t tell if you’re trying to piss me off or not. Actually, I don’t even know why I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt. You definitely are.”

w what No. checkin out ur best friend That’s normal. whistle sound effect x4. nice cock bro and stuff

Wow. He must be really dense if he didn’t recognize Gordon’s very obvious top surgery scars, but that was also a conversation he was never going to have with his computer.

“Sure, whatever.” Because he’s honestly not sure how to respond to that. “I’m still taking your camera privileges, though.”

No? just because ur blind doesn’t mean i gotta be too? plz?

gordon cruelman gouging my eyes out. Leaving me alone on the cold hard cement. sopping wet cat.jif

“I don’t care. At all, really. You seem to forget I’ve watched you die several times.” And thank God the graphics were so low-quality, because any higher-definition and he might’ve actually felt bad. “Like right now. Did that count as dying?”

uhhhmmm……..

bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb

“Bye.”

waitbuypostal2itsonsale

He squints as he tries to read the amalgamation of words Benrey just typed out. “Wh… Of course you’d want the game where you can piss on people. Why am I surprised?”

merry hanukkahween gift please?

“What?”

huh?

“Hanukkahween?” A weak laugh escapes him. “…Seriously?”

someone doesn’t frequent wikipedia

“I thought we destroyed that.” He knows that wasn’t real, but he’s willing to play along with the idea. He cracks a smile at the memory, half exasperated.

tell that to the all dogs go to heaven 2 page with your death in it? 

“Yeah, right, you didn’t actually…” Gordon falls silent as Benrey loads up the page. “Are you serious?”

now Ur calling me a liar. my Nose is perectly normal lengthed thank you. No fires

“WHAT?!”

Obviously, it’s not hard to edit a wikipedia. But it’s also pretty jarring to read: ‘The film is best known for its final scene, in which the character Gordon Freeman is revealed to be deceased.’ on the wikipedia for fucking All Dogs Go to Heaven 2.

“I’m NOT dead! That’s— I’ve never even seen the movie!” Gordon scrolls down to the bottom of the page. He laughs incredulously. “You edited this a week ago? And not a single mod has changed it. Great. Well it’s good I’ve never donated to Wikipedia.”

it doesn’t lie

U tho..

“Whatever, I’ll just report this. It should be fine.” 

ur gonna get us ip banned ughhhhhggg

“I don’t care. Why would I ever need to edit this page again?”

ur so boringgggggghgg

can’t take a joke Goddddddddddd

“No, I’m just—“ He uses a hand to cover a muffled laugh-exhale. “This is insane.”

There’s a long moment of silence from both of them. Mostly, it’s Gordon wondering about what other atrocities against Wikipedia Benrey may have committed, like editing the blue-gold dress to say it’s actually green. Or turning all the external links into Rick Rolls. Oh god, maybe he shouldn’t dwell on this. The possibilities scare him the longer he goes on, and frankly, he wouldn’t put it past Benrey to somehow figure out how to delete the entirety of Wikipedia.

Benrey is similarly unresponsive, though it wasn’t like Gordon gave him much to bounce off of. He really only felt inclined to talk when he could make fun of or annoy Gordon, which were both equally infuriating reasons. The silence was probably preferable. Probably? It was preferable. 

“…I’ll buy that game, Postal 2, right? Just don’t.. steal my credit card information or something.” Suddenly that seems very plausible, so he simply prays Benrey doesn’t even attempt it. He doesn't have the money to be splurging on $60 games Benrey would inevitably want. 

Gordon doesn’t bother switching accounts as he clicks out of the steam chat and types the game in the search. “Great that the game page comes with a viewer discretion and everything. And all the reviews are about piss.”

Truth be told he’d never played any of the Postal series, but he’d heard enough of it online to get the gist of it. It was hard to ignore when it was rampantly popular for being edgy and banned in loads of countries. You also can’t exactly stream games like this either unless you want to get banned within the millisecond.

Considering there was a bundle with the whole series for ridiculously cheap, Gordon ended up buying all the games for Benrey. If anything, it would keep him occupied longer. And who knows, maybe Gordon could take a liking to it, too. Though he somehow doubts he and Benrey have much game overlap aside from Tekken and Street Fighter. Possibly Minecraft? But Gordon can’t say he plays that much either.

Could they play multiplayer games together if Benrey was on his computer? He hadn’t really thought of it before. They could run G-Mod fine, but that was G-Mod. It was also Benrey’s birth game? If that was even a thing? That just begged the question whether Benrey is his computer, wearing it, or just, stuck in the code or something. All ideas were equally strange and didn’t get him any closer to answering his initial question. He supposed he could ask, but Benrey was never known for being straightforward either.

Gordon opens the chat back up, to where there’s a few messages from Benrey he’d missed. 

hell yeah u Whaling on me n shit, Sugar Daddying it out no more f2p Brokie over here. i knew U had a secret stash. got the irl cheatss..

motherlode 

motherlode

motherlode 

“I— What? That’s not, no, I don’t have cheats on. You can’t use cheats in real life, and like, go Godmode or whatever. There’s no dev consoles.”

What?

“No, no… I’m not getting into this. Just, like, focus on the game.” Gordon slides a hand down his face. It’s not like Benrey can see it, but the dramatics do make him feel better. The cool of his palm is also strangely calming against his taunts. It was really annoying how quickly he could be angered by the other. “Play your damn game.”

Curiously, Gordon watches Benrey over the course of a few minutes. He seemed to go along quite willingly now that he’d bought the game, and he hadn’t yet complained or taunted Gordon over anything of significance. He just… played the game. It was similar to watching a no-commentary gameplay. Since he couldn’t exactly hear Benrey, he simply looked on as he ran around, pissed on people, and got (threatened) the very same people to sign his petitions. Again, strange, and it reminded Gordon why he never bothered playing Postal. It definitely seemed right up Benrey’s alley though. 

Eventually, he got bored of watching Benrey lighting things on fire and opened a new window. Either he didn’t notice or care, as nothing happened and the game was still running, so Gordon began the lengthy process of editing his VODs. Normally, he opted for just slapping the whole thing on Youtube while cutting out any copyright bits, but he quickly realized that a three hour edited video gained more traction than an entire five hour stream. And, to hell with it, he’d add subtitles too. That was his initial thought process, at least, but editing VODs took a seriously.. long amount of time. 

Which.. admittedly, Gordon had. But that wasn’t the point. No one really likes relistening to their own voice on repeat for hours on end. No matter how conceited you are. Which Gordon could argue he was the opposite of, but the point was, editing was a pain. He couldn’t just hire editors either because.. that’s pricey. And in the end, he’ll choose being cheap and suffering versus wasting money on something he could do.

The problem is the last VODs he had are.. well. The ones in the Half-Life VR gameplay. And what he’d failed to ever explain to his viewers was that it was real time. He couldn’t pause the game after four or five hours, no matter how much he actually wanted to, thank you very much. The world just kept going, and he wasn’t going to back out after seeing the reception the series quickly garnered. He just had to.. brave it out for fifteen to sixteen hours a day… No biggie at all.

(It was, actually. Probably the worst week of his life.)

The donations and subscriptions were numerous, at least. Obviously, twenty-four hour streams were a thing, but no other streamer had consistently played from waking to sleep every day for a week. He wouldn’t recommend it at all. No matter how high the bills are, his state of constant fatigue and recurrent headaches were not worth it. Fuck, maybe he should’ve gone to a doctor. But it’s hard to outright say, ‘I’ve been doing nothing but playing and acting in a VR game for complete days while streaming myself for everyone on the internet to see. You’ve got a pill for that?’ Yeah, it’s called anti-psychotics, Gordon, Jesus Christ.

He never wanted to wear a VR headset again. He’s probably got a permanent indent in his head from the damn thing. After a few long hours it was like he was actually in the game, at Black Mesa, and actually fighting to survive. Which, in some essence, he was. He couldn’t die. It would break the illusion of the AI in some way, or end the game, or something equally as bad, and he’d lose everything. He just needed to power through.

…Fuck. Now that he’s thinking about it, that sounds really bad. He probably definitely needs help. And a week’s worth of sleep. He leans forward towards his computer, scrunching his eyes and trying to focus on the small words. Gordon’s likely not doing either.

He’s still got to edit those VODs, after all. Those.. fifteen to sixteen hour VODs… Yeah. Fun! Gordon Freeman’s descent to insanity, a documentary. He can work with that. He sits straighter, breathing shallowly and pushing a hand up to his desk to support himself.

He opens the first VOD into an editing program and immediately wants to die. What kind of torture is editing seven days worth of footage? What the hell? Filmmakers have less to work with.

…It can wait until tomorrow. Suddenly, watching Benrey seems a lot more interesting. He slouches almost instantly and holds his head in his hands. He didn’t want to even look at the footage because he’d be reminded of how much of a hell he put himself in just for money. And also, because he’d have to relive the taunts from the Science Team the entire time while he did.

Hearing Benrey talk about passports again also might make him genuinely crash out. Thank god he hadn’t started with that shit yet. Hopefully never.

Gordon’s eyes flicker back to Benrey’s gameplay. He’s killing police officers now, which Gordon doesn’t bother to tell him aren’t the US Military. ACAB or whatever. 

He laughs, slightly. It’s sort of funny to see Benrey walk around the map doing who-knows-what, brandishing a gun and the dangerous mechanic of pee. Not exactly the game itself, but the small habits of Benrey’s gameplay style, like jumping while he walks or constantly equipping and unequipping weapons to pass the time. If Benrey could talk, he’d tell him to start his own streaming account and start helping pay the bills.

The talking thing was another unanswered question. Was it only G-Mod, or…? But wouldn’t leaving the G-Mod window open while doing other things allow him to speak freely then? So weird. It would help if he understood what exactly Benrey was and where he was. He doubts technology repair stores can help with this one.

Absent-mindedly, Gordon toys with his mouse as he watches. It’s strangely.. nice. Mundane and relaxing. Much less stressful than being in the game, so much so he can almost hope to forget the week long fatigue that plagued him.

Playing video games was a stress reliever, but now whenever he stared at one for too long, he’d get really annoying headaches. Mindlessly scrolling on his phone usually worked, but it didn’t feel great to constantly go back and forth while nursing it. He also just didn’t feel the pull to at all. There didn’t seem to be a point. I think I’ve gamed enough for a lifetime. His total played hours in G-Mod probably revealed enough. 

He stares at Benrey’s game again and yawns. The low poly renders of the map and NPCs reminded him of older games he played years ago, like Tomb Raider and Doom. Huh, Benrey might actually like those. In general, he just seemed like the type of guy to be really into inconvenient older titles. The ones you either have to emulate or jump through hoops to find because they’ve been forgotten to time. 

I should probably just ask him. He mentioned Heavenly Sword that one time, right? Should I start there?

Benrey was starting to feel like a Tomodatchi pet he had to keep feeding. But instead of feeding, it was keeping him entertained with different video games. Lest he get bored and start eating his computer internals instead, or something.

God… Why do I even care? He can’t place his finger on that one, but he does know that it’s suddenly really fucking entertaining to watch Benrey fuck shit up in Postal 2 instead of listening to his thoughts.

Gordon’s eyes are closing before he even realizes that he was tired.