Work Text:
Here is a list of unrelated fun facts:
1. Tommy needs to use That Good Wifi for helping mod his friend's stream.
2. Benrey needs a wifi for TF2.
3. The Coolatta-Lover wifi fucking sucks, and if one person is using it and someone else thinks an Internet Thought, no one in the whole complex gets wifi for the next three years.
That was a lie. The facts aren't fun and they're definitely related. Tommy's doing Internet Things on the couch by the time Benrey gets out of bed, which sucks because it means there's not a lotta daylight left because Tommy's friends only stream in the afternoon. Sunkist is to blame for all of this, Benrey decides, glowering at her where she's sleeping across his stomach. Making it hard to move. Eventually, though, Benrey groans and shakes her off, picks up his laptop, his Big Headphones, and puts on his Heaviest Jacket. The one with the pockets. (They don't even know how many tic tacs are in this bad boy.) "Gonna go find wifi," they tell Tommy, leaning down and kissing him on the top of the head as they walk past the couch. "Ban anyone who talks about Frogger, please? For me?" Sunkist huffs at him from her new place in front of the couch, lying near Tommy's feet. They nudge her butt with a foot as an apology for uprooting her earlier, and she doesn't accept it, settling her head down on her paws and staring up at him balefully.
Tommy looks up from his phone to grin, dimply and sweet. "No!" There should be a little heart emoji when he says words like that. With sparkles.
"Mean." Benrey heads out down the stairs, pulling their headphones on over their hat and picking out their Walking Playlist. Classic– classic walking tunes, on that one, like uhh. Dogs_Barking.wav and grindingmetal.mp3 and stuff he got off of websites that bricked his phone so bad it took three weeks to use it again. Classics. Benrey doesn't really know where they're going, but the plan is that somewhere, there's gonna be a wifi, and when they get there, they can play TF2. Gonna be Pyro, 'cause they're the best. With the air poof. Fuck yeah. But they gotta find the wifi first, and the, uh. 5G isn't even radiating right, so he can't just walk toward radiation until something starts beeping. Like a wifi Geiger counter. Wifigher counter. Geigfi.
Benrey didn't get a lot of sleep last night.
Y'know, he's like this anyway, but he's probably more Like This 'cause of the… no-sleep.
Wait.
Benrey needs wifi. Benrey needs caffeine. So they need to go somewhere that's got both; he's gonna go to a restaurant. Oh, Benrey's a genius. They're killing so many stones with this bird. There aren't any restaurants in walking distance, so Benrey rifles through their pockets (all Many of them) for a bus pass and starts towards the stop. This is why he's got the Big Headphones and the Heaviest Jacket. For being around People. Benrey loves the public, but he just kinda wishes the people weren't in it? Is the thing? They find a pack of Tropical Flavored Tic Tacs in one of their pockets and pour as much of it into their mouth as will fit, before capping the little plastic box back up and then trying to move their jaw around to hear the clicking inside their mouth. All of the little pebbles make moving noises and clack against his teeth. Nice.
The bus pulls up. Benrey swipes his funny card and goes back to sitting down, except this time he's moving while he sits, which is pretty neat. They switch to their bus playlist. (The first song that comes up is ssssddsdrt66677888.ogg, which they found on a USB stick lying on the ground, and is the most sound of all time. Love a good bus song.) He pulls the cord when he gets bored of sitting and says thank you to the bus driver – not like Fortnite, fuck you – and goes back to walking. His boots are made for walking. So that's just… s'just what they do.
Fuck, Benrey's tired.
They're just. He's gonna switch on autopilot and find where that takes him; it's fine — he'll be, Fine.
Gordon's shift ends in ten minutes, and he is so fucking ready to go home. His feet hurt, his arm's sore, he's missing Darnold's stream, and it's been too fucking busy for a Tuesday afternoon. Too fucking busy means like, maybe ten, eleven people, but it's usually closer to five, okay? He double-checks that everything's ticked off from his End Of Shift checklist, and then leans against the counter to shift his weight off of his heels (which ache like fuck) to the balls of his feet (which also ache like fuck because that's what happens when you stand in one place for six hours) while watching the second's hand on the clock tick tick tick around in circles. Gordon's shift ends in nine minutes and forty-eight seconds. "Hhhhhhh," says Gordon, putting his face directly onto his forearm, crumpling over like some kind of fucked-up gibbon with exhaustion. The wind chimes attached to the door jangle, and he jolts upright. "Howdy! Welcome in!" says Gordon, praying that the asshole who had the nerve to walk into this particular coffee shop on this particular day at this particular time didn't see him lamenting his career choices not two seconds ago.
The asshole who's making Gordon actually do his job blinks at him. "Uh," they say, looking at the sign on the plexiglass between the lobby and the counters where the drink ingredients are kept that says
SHITTY WIFI: FREE.
GOOD WIFI: IT'S SUPPOSED TO BE $5 BUT IT'S FREE WITH LITERALLY ANY PURCHASE IF YOU ASK GORDON FOR THE PASSWORD BECAUSE HE LIKES UNDERMINING THE MANAGEMENT.
and is the bane of Gordon's existence.
(Maybe he'd like undermining the management less if they didn't make signs mocking him, Bubby. Ever think of that? Asshole?)
The customer has a laptop tucked under their arm and a big pair of headphones around their neck, and now they're looking at his nametag and visibly putting two and two together, getting ready to make literally any purchase and then ask Gordon for the wifi password so they can, probably, sit in a corner and work on their screenplay or whatever for the next four hours. "You…" It is physically painful for Gordon to raise his eyebrows like he's listening instead of looking over their shoulder at the clock, but he does it anyway because Gordon Freeman is a model of customer service and deserves to be paid more. The asshole smacks their lips. "You got, um. Tea?"
Usually, food service, as a genre of job, makes Gordon question if a human being can learn to be a perpetually-angry, violent person. But sometimes, some blessed weirdo will come in and be so goddamn stupid that all hope for humanity is restored because Gordon's too busy laughing about them to be exhausted at the state of things.
"We do!" Gordon says cheerfully as he tries not to snort with amusement. "Are you looking for something sweet, or maybe more– earthy?" The customer stares at him, making full, terrible eye contact for long enough that Gordon is reminded of Joshie's four-year-old obsession with staring contests. (Is this guy high? That's the best explanation Gordon can come up with for why anybody would act like this in public.) "What kind of tea would you like, sir?" Gordon finally prompts, which makes them blink exactly once and then look up at the menu behind Gordon's head.
Another, longer pause as this stoned motherfucker zones out and Gordon only barely keeps himself from pulling out his phone to check when the next bus will show up so he can announce tonight's stream. "The," says the stoner eventually, each syllable as though it were a monumental effort from behind a wall of static, "leaf kind."
Gordon laughs, incredulously, and repeats, "Leaf kind. Leaf kind! Okay, that's– all of our teas are the leaf kind, sir. Do you have any ideas about what flavor? Of 'leaf kind' tea that you want?" And this isn't the best empty-headed, polite, and unjudging performance that Gordon has done, but leaf kind. All teas are leaf kinds! Except, like, barley tea, but when it's a drink made with grains, it might as well be beer.
"Uhhhhhhhh," says the stoner, who's staring at Gordon instead of the menu again, "gray. Flavor."
"Gray fl– okay! Gray flavor, sure, I can, uh… do you mean, like. Earl Grey?"
"Huh?"
"Earl Grey tea. Is– is that what you're looking for? Like, maybe a London Fog?"
"…who's London?"
This is when Gordon stops being amused.
[CHAT HAS PAUSED AUTOSCROLL]
GenderFluidicLogic: Forbidden Potions
[MOD] tomfoolery_PhD: Forbidden Potions
GenderFluidicLogic: Hey, guys! What did we miss?
MEATMAN: hi raiders!
RedcaddyBaby: Forbidden Potions
MEATMAN: gordon's talking about work smile
[MOD] tomfoolery_PhD: Did he find out who moved the Raspberry syrup :-o ?
MEATMAN: idk hes been talking abt some asshole for the last twnety minutes
GenderFluidicLogic: Oh, man, that sounds. Bad.
MEATMAN: twenty
[MOD] adrianshaphard: Hi Darnold! Yeah, a customer took 8 minutes to order 1 drink!
GenderFluidicLogic: Oh that is, Extremely cool, yes.
[MOD] adrianshaphard: Sorry that Gordon's too busy yelling to notice yr here. Um. I'm gonna go take a nap :lambdaLowpower:
RedcaddyBaby: Bye Shaphard!! we'll behave :lambdaYeeheart:
GenderFluidicLogic: :lambdaYeeheart: :lambdaYeeheart: :lambdaYeeheart:
[MOD] adrianshaphard: Of course U will!! Tommy shoots to kill o7
MEATMAN: gn shap
[MOD] tomfoolery_PhD: o7 Thank You for your Service! sleep snugger than a bug in a rug :-D
There is an Order that Benrey has to follow when he gets home. They unplug their headphones, they set their laptop on the coffee table, they throw their jacket on top of Tommy, and then they throw their them on top of Tommy. "I'M IN LOVE!" Benrey says helpfully to the roommate underneath him. Sunkist, wagging furiously, barks in agreement and bounds on top of them both, digging at Benrey's ribs until he rolls a little and she settles on the backs of his knees. Tommy is quiet as he tries figuring out how to have lungs again beneath three hundred-ish pounds. "I got– British drink. 'Cause the– 'cause of um, the coffee man at the wifi shop made it for me without the– asking, said he knew I'd like it and he was right and I'm buying engagement rings tomorrow." Tommy frees one arm, uses it to absently scratch Sunkist's ear, and blinks down at Benrey with confusion. Benrey blinks back, batting his eyelashes helpfully.
"You went to a café?" Tommy asks after a second, and Benrey beams, nodding. "Oh! That's pretty, uh, um, that's! Neat! What kind of British drink?"
Benrey thinks about ordering his drink. (Gordon offered him a bunch of different names for drinks and Benrey said no before the bean boy could explain them.) They try to remember any words that got said at the end of it. (Gordon bit his lip so hard it bled and still tried to smile at them even though his eyes said Murder.) "Bean boy's eyes were green," they say.
"I didn't ask that!" Tommy says brightly.
"Yeah."
Tommy stops being bright to frown at them. "You– Benny, were you hitting on someone at their job?"
Benrey scrunches their face up and says, "Wh?? Nah, man, 'm not– I've got morals. Got, fuckin' uhhhh standards. Not gonna do that, c'mon." Tommy sighs, face goin' all slack with relief, and Benrey adds, "I just kept asking about drinks so I could talk to him longer 'cause his face was uhhh. Good." Tommy's face unslacks. Benrey doesn't pay attention, just thinks about the fun shapes Gordon's eyebrows made and grins. "Bean boy off the shits. Got so mad. Dumb… fuckin, mad lil angry-ass." Tommy wriggles, and Benrey rolls a bit the other way so he can free that arm and take out his earbud. Oh, yeah, probably kinda Bad to have to listen to Benrey and his streamer.
"I think," Tommy says, "I think you, uh, should! I, I think you didn't talk to him long enough. I bet if you got a more, com… plicated order, you could! Look! At him, longer!" Benrey looks down at him. Tommy smiles, mist cheevus, and Benrey remembers why they're best friends. Tommy likes mean people because Tommy is also a mean people, just a little, and that means he doesn't usually tell Benrey to stop making other people angry for the bit.
"You're so smart."
"I have two Ph.D.s, Benrey!"
"Genius."
"Mmhm. Do you mind if I– can I have the, uh. The couch back?"
Benrey kisses his forehead for good measure and then goes to collapse into bed, ignoring the betrayed whuffling of Sunkist when he maybe a little bit rolls her onto the floor.
Gordon hates his job. Who doesn't hate their job? Every available position is 'teach an 8 AM class to rowdy 18-year-olds about a subject you hate' or 'fast food worker where you make minimum wage and get spat on for it' or, realistically, 'both' and still hardly making rent. So– Gordon fucking hates his job, but he has to admit that it could be worse. And since he makes enough to keep himself afloat, and since Bubby is, somehow, a decent boss, even if a terrible friend, he sticks with it.
(Honestly, and he will never admit this out loud, but it's a pretty good job. Thirty hours a week is a lot, sure, but most of the customers he interacts with are either socially anxious high schoolers awed by how little pretense the place has, stressed college students who thank and tip him graciously for knowing how to make energy drinks taste less like cat piss, or regulars who don't require him to keep up a façade. He gets paid time off when he needs to pick Joshie up from school or take him to the doctor, and Bubby lets him keep his bottle of painkillers on a shelf in the back, no questions asked and no awkward glances at his prosthetic required. Bubby is a dick, absolutely, but they also care so much that it's the kind of dickishness that Gordon can match. Devyn jokingly calls him 'dad' and Peter has, on multiple occasions, stiltedly offered to babysit Josh if he ever needs it. It's a good place to be.)
"Mmmmm," says the stoned motherfucker who is lucky that no one knows this shop exists because they could hold up a line like nobody's fucking business if there was one, "…coffee."
Gordon hates, let him say that one more time, hates! Hates!! His fucking job. Deep breaths, Gordon, you got this. With only a thin layer of 'vibrating with rage' in it, he asks, "What kind of 'coffee' would you like? Sir?"
The stoned motherfucker stares at the menu some more. He doesn't even need to buy anything, this time. They don't change the wifi password, and it auto-connects! This asshole could have just come in, nodded once at Gordon, and then sat down in the same sorry excuse for a booth that they have and blasted sounds out of the headphones around their neck and played TF2 again, and Gordon would not have said shit. But no! No, that would be too easy; that would mean Gordon doesn't have to suffer, so of course, it's not what happens. "Cold," they finally say, back to terrible eye contact. Their pupils are the size of fucking quarters. (If they're anything stronger than stoned, that's not Gordon's business.)
"Cold," Gordon repeats on an exhale. "Right. Y– you know, uh, iced coffee is usually—" and he means to say, stronger, with more caffeine. Are you sure that's a good idea with anything you may have taken?
"With ice in it," the world's worst customer agrees. Gordon stares. They smack their lips.
Fuck it. Fuck all of it! If they die, they die, and no jury on this earth will convict him. "Great. Iced coffee. With ice in it. Okay. Is there, anything, anything at all, more specific about that order that you want?" Peter put the raspberry syrup back when he was closing last night, so there are finally all of the drink flavors available and lined up on the counter behind him. Gordon is begging for something simple. Actually, no, he's begging for a specific order. He wouldn't even mind if it was three pumps of every syrup, as long as it's something that he can actually make and not something he has to play twenty questions about.
The stoned motherfucker looks back at the menu and says, "Uhhhhh." Gordon could be doing things, right now. He's supposed to clean all the shelves of the mini-fridge in the back. Or he could wipe down the tip pad with the rubbing alcohol mix, just to make sure that it's not smudged with fingerprints or simple syrup or whatever. Gordon likes to keep the place clean when he can, so it'd be nice if he could do that instead of just standing here and waiting for the worst customer's thoughts to load into something resembling an order. "Yeah," he manages, and Gordon would give anything to just stab him, "yeah, I umm. I want it to, um, to taste." Gordon stares at him some more.
The customer stares back. Gordon licks over the still-raw line of his lip where it cracked from dehydrated smiling three days ago and counts to ten. He's not a violent person. He's not! He's usually not even that mad at annoying customers when they don't come in at the end of his shift, so this level of anger at someone at eleven in the afternoon is entirely fucking unprecedented. "Taste?" Gordon asks politely.
"Taste," agrees the customer.
"Taste how?" Gordon asks less politely.
"Taste, um… good."
Gordon considers screaming.
[@everyone
WE’RE LIVE!! it's I Hate My Job Jtuesday and you're all gonna hear about it while I beat STRETCH PANIC on PS2!!!
twitch.tv/lambdaoutlaw]
Benrey doesn't spend a ton of money on non-necessities. They pay rent and bus pass money and like, they split groceries with Tommy or whatever, but they mostly just put it in their bank and don't think about it. No credit card payments, no doctor appointments, no fucking problem. But, now he's using more of that money, now, though. Is the thing. Because he's usually kinda sleepy before work, he needs a caffeine. And Gordon asks so many questions with him to give him the best and tastiest caffeines, and is so fucking mad when he does it and is also really pretty, all the time, but especially when he wants to pick up Benrey like a wasp in a plastic cup and shake him for twenty minutes. Today is especially delicious – it's got pumpkin spice and peppermint and raspberry and pistachio and french vanilla almond milk and unsweetened soy milk, plus hazelnut coffee and espresso with caramel.
With whipped cream on top.
It took twenty minutes to order and eight minutes for Gordon to make and it is so taste.
The door screams on its hinges because nobody can find the WD-40 and his coworker looks up from reading the Shit Discount Game Disc with the flattest face ever. "Yo. You're late."
"Jealous," Benrey says, flopping over the counter to clock in, "aren'tcha. Jealous of my, uhhh. Of the flavor." His elbow knocks over the pile of funko pops. Good.
Forzen, the prime stacker of funko pops and nerd idiot supreme, picks up the Gordon Special Just For Benrey and squints at all the tastes. "That's disgusting, man." Benrey grumbles myeh myeh myeh under their breath and Forzen rolls his eyes like he heard it except he didn't because Benrey's so quiet.
His ribs are getting pushed up by the edge of the counter. He shuffles a bit so it pushes into his liver instead. "Wanna… try?"
"No."
"So jealous," Benrey mumbles, stretching his arm as far as he can manage so it'll hit the enter button, except it isn't far enough, so it doesn't hit anything except Forzen's forearm. (Forarm's forezen.) They're supposed to go around the back of the counter and sign in like that, but it's less fun that way, so they push themself up on their toes and wriggle their stomach over the edge of the counter to try and clock in. Forzen hits the enter button like the fucking loser that he is. "Aw, broooo, I was gonna… bro, c'mon."
"I gotta go," Forzen says. "Price the trade-in I got earlier." And off he goes, clocking out, chucking the uniform shirt at Benrey's head, and grabbing his jacket to leave the whole building. Coward. Baby loserman. Ruining their, ruining everything, all the time, for always. Fuckin' sucks. Forzen never puts prices on the old games they get, even though it's his job, so Benrey just slaps the weed number on them. Nobody's noticed yet.
The good news though is that nobody comes in here, ever, at all. So Benrey gets paid to stand around and look helpful while he's actually thinking about… froot loops. Or Heavenly Sword. Or– this one's what's rattling around 80% of his brain, these days, like a thumbtack in a coke bottle– Gordon. And ring sizes. They start to restack the funko pops because they're not allowed to be on their phone while they're At Work, and if they don't have something to do with their hands while their brain gets pulled around by thoughts, they won't turn into taffy. They'll just um. Benrey muses over what happens to saltwater taffy that isn't pulled into saltwater taffy while he pulls the uniform down over his head, leaving him temporarily blindfolded by the beanie brim. He'll plop. Sad chunk of saltwater. His nametag is still lying on top of the register where he slaps an unseeing hand down, so he starts to pin that onto his beanie and only kind of stabs himself in the eyelid with it. Hm. It should go on his shirt like usual, maybe.
Ugh. Shirt needs a wash. It's been a week since last time– oh, shit, today's the fifth day he's worked in a row, so he's not working again until Tuesday! Full week, baby! They pull their hat up so they can see again. Hell yes. Benrey's going to reorganize the whole fucking store. The way it's laid out is not to company standard, thank you, but every time he tries to tell the managers or anybody else about it they get all blah blah but it's symmetry blah and mnyeh things are easier to reach and see for stocking mnyeh mnyeh so nothing gets done. But today, Benrey's got seven hours to make sure everything goes where it's supposed to according to the code, and hey, today's great, actually. He finishes stacking the funko pops after about ten minutes and then, rolling his shoulders out to get rid of all the cracks in them, starts on the rest of the store.
After about two hours of nobody to stop them from fixing Josh's shit layout, the door squeaks (horrible) as customers (more horrible; he's not even done fronting the Switch-exclusive games yet, c'mon) walk in, heralded by a grownup laughing at a kid's joke that wasn't actually funny.
There's a lot of kinds of laughs that happen here, Benrey thinks as they stand on their tippest toes and strain to reach the dust-covered box of mungus, offering a vague, "Hey, good afternoon." There's a fabric rustle and then the parent finishes laughing to say something or whatever, and Benrey squints at the Deluxe Amongus Box Set. It sits there, dusty and mocking him and his short little arms. There are kinds of laughs like a kid told a funny joke their parent didn't get, a kid told an unfunny joke their parent didn't get, kid said something funny on accident, a kid said a swear on purpose, and that's not even close to all of 'em. Maybe they should make a list of all the laughs and organize that in their brain whenever they're done with the rest of the organizing. He probably ought to save some of it for when the customers aren't in the building, though, so Benrey clambers down from the wobbling under-desk shelf and turns around to start adjusting the funko pile again.
There's a guy right at the desk already, staring at Benrey's tits. C'mon, man. Their eyes are up here. "Benrey," reads the customer off of their tit-aligned nametag, and. Hm. Hang on. The synapses are firing, okay, Benrey's having a Jimmy Neutron brain blast, and he looks at the customer in the face, and oh. Oh, uh oh. Oh, fuck. Oh fuck no, fuck no, no no no, uh oh, no, fuck. "Is that really your name?" Gordon asks, raising an eyebrow, and Benrey is going to eat all of the mungus cartridges so they can legally never work at a GameStop again and also never see Gordon in the face in their life ever after. The end. (Did Benrey mention uh, fuck, uh oh, fucking oh no?)
Benrey says, "Uhhhhhhhhhhhhh." Gordon raises his other eyebrow, his face somewhere between expectant and smug, and what the fuck, what in the fuck, why is he hot? Who let that… huh? "Nnnnah," Benrey's brain blast finally spits up, "I'm, um. Stong." He's going to eat every cartridge in the store. What the fuck is wrong with them. But instead of his face going all strained and plastic-dentist-y, Gordon laughs at them, and Benrey had forgotten how pretty his laugh-at-Benrey's-brain-stopping was. They only got to see it twice, the first time they ever found his restaurant, and it wasn't as blatant as it is now.
Very, by the way.
It's very pretty.
About halfway through his actual sentence, Benrey remembers to be listening to what people are saying when they talk. "—Redemption 2, but he's been watching a lot of old Death Stranding speedruns, so it's a toss-up. But hey, I might as well get something for myself while I'm here, right? So what– y'know, like, what can you recommend?" There's a clatter of CDs falling off of a shelf, and then the guilty sounds of a baby trying to put them all back.
Time for their least favorite part of people interaction: cobbling together what they missed and still being helpful about it. "Uhh. What are you… looking for?" Benrey asks since that's usually a good start to fill in the blanks.
Gordon's smile is wide and crooked. "Oh, you know," he drawls. Benrey's actually never seen him smile this genuinely for this much time before. It's kind of making their stomach dizzy? Just a little? Sort of having an impact in their chest? A bit? "A game."
Hm. There's lots of those. "What kinda game?" Benrey asks, and then Gordon leans forward over the counter, hi, hey, wow, he's really. Not far away. Got a. Um. Smug look on the face that's very close to Benrey's, now, huh?
"One with graphics," he says with his grin.
[@everyone
HEY, we're having a SURPRISE STREAM tomorrow. I've bested the bastard in Prime Annoying Combat, and as a victory prize, was gifted…… KANE & LYNCH 2: DOG DAYS. turns out, a compatible-with-my-pc version of the world's best game was only $6.99 at gamestop. nice. 5 pm utc be there or be square.]
Benrey announces, "WE'RE GONNA HAVE A SUMMER WEDDING," immediately before throwing their them onto the couch, their head landing on and bouncing against Tommy's shins.
Tommy looks down at them with the same fond, maybe-a-bit-confused smile that only gets used for when Benrey's talking about Gordon. "Did he– was, was today's drink good?"
Benrey shakes his head, even though the drink was good (so fucking taste, he can't stress enough how taste it was) because this blows everything outta the fucking water: "He flirted with me during my shift." Tommy, who's the best, loses his mind laughing because of how excited he is to be a bridesmaid at the wedding. "No, bro, it's umm– no 'cause he was, he leaned in, big time, and he– there was a– we played Questions for what game he wanted, okay? And I, uh, 'cause some fuckin' loser tried to sell this old-ass Bad game, sequel, even, and I– so I gave it. To him. And bean boy bought it, with his money, 69, nice, and everything, and I'm gonna have the fattest wedding dress you've ever seen. Gettin… tull."
"That's– it's actually 'tulle,' Benny."
"I'm getting tool after the wedding."
Tommy barks a laugh, which means Benrey can't help his own snort of laughter, and they spend about a minute giggling back and forth before Tommy slides a flat hand down in front of his face to wipe off all of the giggles and replace them with Serious. "What, um, what nasty game did, did you– inflict! On him?"
Benrey tries with all of their might to remember what the fuck the game was called. "Florence and the machine," they say.
Tommy asks, "Like– Dog Days?" as the Serious goes away in favor of a smile. Claws clack down the hallway from Tommy's room as Sunkist hears dog and decides she should be involved.
There was definitely Dog Days in the title, and Benrey tilts a bit to stare wonderingly up at his roommate, who guessed that wayyyy easier than most people would've. "You're so smart," he tells him.
"Yeah," Tommy agrees. Big fucking head on this guy. Benrey reaches up to flick him so it'll shrink a little, but Tommy pushes their hand away because sometimes, being smart means knowing Benrey's brain well enough to avoid danger. Rude of him, kind of. Sort of, um, a little bit mean to deny them affectionate violence. But then Tommy shrugs, a little sheepish, and says, "Well– it's just that, uh, one of the– somebody that I, that, who I mod for is… he's streaming that game! Tomorrow. I guess I just have it on– I'm just, thinking about Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days already." A wetcold nose pokes Benrey in the calf, and they don't get to make fun of Tommy's morals about helping someone play video games on the internet because they're a little busy yelping and jerking their skin away from Sunkist's perfect attack.
Hot Doctor Pepper
Tommy.
bahama coolatta
Darnold :)
Hot Doctor Pepper
Why is Mr. Lover in Gordon's chat spamming your follower emotes instead of doing horrible things to my fine,
UNMODDED.
matches, the way they usually are when I have the misfortune of seeing them?
bahama coolatta
So
Funny story!
You know the horrible customer who's super spaced out and orders things that make Gordon physically ill just by making them?
Hot Doctor Pepper
…tell me you're not going with this where I think you're going with this
bahama coolatta
You know how Benrey expresses affection by being as annoying as they can manage?
Hot Doctor Pepper
oh dear god
Tommy, for the past month and a half, I've had to mute vc to avoid hearing about "the hot bean man"
and tune in Very Carefully to avoid hearing about "The Bastard"
and you
are telling me
that I know both of them.
And that YOU are FRIENDS WITH BOTH OF THEM
bahama coolatta
Yeah :)
Hot Doctor Pepper
Tommy you have to be a hundred percent honest with me here
Was Benrey telling the truth when he said he didn't have a twitch account?
bahama coolatta
Yeah :)
They made one just for Gordon, it's sweet :'D
Hot Doctor Pepper
I'll never understand how you're friends with these people
They're the one who gave him this horrible game, aren't they?
bahama coolatta
Uh-huh!
Hot Doctor Pepper
They deserve each other.
bahama coolatta
Benrey has something wrong with them <3
Hot Doctor Pepper
this is TOO MUCH
it is SO MUCH, TOMFOOLERY
bahama coolatta
:lambdaWeh:
It's a little funny though, right?
Hot Doctor Pepper
Oh, this is fucking hilarious
But I don't want to touch it with a ten-foot pole
Devyn's only in for an hour of his shift, but business only really picks up for the first forty-five minutes of the two of them sharing behind-the-counter space, so Gordon's not complaining. His throat's a little hoarse from all of the yelling last night— it had been Joshie's last night over for the week before he went back to his other dad's house, and somehow that turned into three hours of dramatic play-chasing around the apartment, complete with narration and "ahh! oh, argh, I've been shot! Nooo, I'm dying! Bleghhh, I'm dead, I'm totally dead, oh noooo"s that were probably a bit too loud— so Gordon's making the drinks while Devyn takes orders. It's not a perfect system, but there are only a few people left in line, so they can keep it up for now.
Or, y'know. So Gordon thinks they can until he hears an all-too-familiar, "Yyyyyeah, uhhhhh." He almost crushes a half-full plastic cup in his hand, and he only restrains himself because he's a professional. But– fucking, really, man? He's only got twenty minutes left of his shift, and Devyn's never had to put up with Benrey's shit before, and there are other customers! Literally any other time would be better than now. Fuck, Gordon had been hoping that after giving the asshole a taste of his own medicine at the GameStop two weeks ago, there wouldn't be any more of these fucking visits! It had been a really good two weeks. A whole goddamn fortnight of letting himself hope that it wouldn't ever happen again. But no, of course not! That's too good to be true, so now, Benrey's back, and he's going to drag Devyn into this shit. "A, uhh. Small cold brew. With half n' half, please and you're welcome." Gordon pops the lid down on the cup, hands it to the smiling undergrad, and then turns to outright stare at the stoned motherfucker currently ordering.
They look the same as they always do, with the massive headphones, the laptop, and the blown-out eyes, but they're staring at the menu instead of at him. Devyn inputs everything and asks, "Anything else?" And Gordon cringes involuntarily, waiting for ten minutes of silence and then a bleary huh? or something like that—
"You got… muffins?"
"Yep! Chocolate chip or blueberry?"
"Uh, blue kind. Thanks."
What the fuck. That's– it's the same kind of fucked-up phrasing that Gordon hates that he recognizes, but… delivered in a timely fucking manner. Huh. Did he actually get through to them? Gordon huffs an incredulous laugh and gets back to work, finishing up and handing out drinks until he finally gets to Benrey's, and– look, old habits die hard. He isn't nearly as pissed off, this time, but he still sets it down on the counter a little harder than he usually does, a little closer to the edge so Benrey won't have any excuses to lean in. "Here." Then, because he's never managed to let anything go ever in his life: "See how easy it can be to get your drinks, man?"
Benrey blinks at him slowly, and then he smiles a little. (Has… has Gordon ever seen him smile before?) "Yeah," he says, and– oh. Huh. This is, like, a new leaf getting turned over, or something! That's nice to see! Maybe he doesn't have to completely hate this guy's guts forever; it'd be great to not want to strangle a regular customer. Benrey takes his drink– his blessedly easy drink— and Gordon doesn't quite let it go in time, so there's a bit of awkward pushback against his prosthetic fingers where their hands meet. And then Benrey says, "I like your cowboy emotes."
And then Gordon punches him in the face.
He doesn't mean to, and he regrets it as soon as he wrangles his brain back from its stupid oh shit somebody in real life knows I'm a twitch streamer fight-or-flight reaction, but he still very much just punched a man in the face. (And god, how did this asshole manage to stumble into the one scenario in which Gordon feels bad about decking him?) "Oh my god," Gordon manages, vanilla cold brew spilled all over his prosthetic and blood on his other hand, "oh, Jesus– I'm so sorry, holy f– I—" nobody is asking him why in the hell he just punched a guy in the nose, but the way that there are three sets of shocked eyes on him, they did not miss the commotion— "Devyn, I'm gonna take him into the back real quick!" It all runs together into a quick string of high-pitched panic, but she must parse it somehow because, despite how taken aback she looks, Devyn shoots him a concerned thumbs up before smiling apologetically at the customer in front of her as Gordon all but sprints around the front of the counter. Benrey blinks down at the splatter that used to be his drink and then holds a coffee-soaked hand up to his face, blood sluggishly dripping down over his mouth.
Benrey mumbles, "Ow." Gordon takes them by the shoulders and steers them through the kitchen so he can grab the first aid kit before pulling open the employee bathroom door. The motion-sensor lights take a second, but the yellow incandescent lightbulbs flicker to life, humming furiously as Gordon pushes Benrey down onto the toilet lid, kneeling on the floor that he cleaned… hopefully recently enough that it's fine to kneel on. Nobody could have splashed piss on it in just forty minutes, right? Probably? Probably. It's fine. God, Gordon hopes it's fine. "Did you just hit me?"
He winces. "I didn't– I wasn't trying— I mean, yeah, but it– it, like, it wasn't an accident, I was…" Benrey stares at him. Gordon sighs, squeezing his eyes shut in an expression that hopefully registers as an apology and not just guilt over fucking up so bad. "Yeah," he finally says, "sorry, man. Uh, let me– is there any blood in your mouth?" Benrey opens his mouth wide and swipes his tongue around to check, which is just bizarre enough that it startles Gordon into a laugh.
They go back to staring at him, so he clears his throat and mutters another apology before opening up the kit. Finding absolutely nothing helpful for this particular situation, he just leans across Benrey and grabs some toilet paper to wipe off the blood already dripping down their chin. "Here," as he tilts their head forward a bit, "can you pinch your nose shut?" They do what he says, miraculously, and Gordon stands up to grab some paper towels, still babbling. "I'm… fuck, man, I really didn't mean to do that. Are you– like, I mean you're not okay—" he squeezes the hot water out and turns the tap off, kneeling back down at Benrey's side and dabbing gently at some of the more prominent red smears on their upper lip— "but, y'know, aside from the, uh. Aside from the nosebleed, do you– I didn't hit you too hard, did I?"
Benrey– it's hard to describe what exactly they do, but it's sort of like somebody had put them on pause until just now. Now, though, now that Gordon's asked, their eyes dart around the bathroom for a second and they sit up, taking everything in. "Wow," he says, smacking his lips, "you should um, probably wait. For the– shouldn't, shouldn't uh, take me to the… Piss Cave 'til the. Third. Third of dates. Kinda– kinda forward, arent'cha?"
Gordon snaps his fucking neck, and then Bubby helps him hide the body. The end.