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English
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Published:
2022-07-10
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2,781
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1/1
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168
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Would You Rather

Summary:

In a welcome break from hypersleep, Warren and Gordon kill the time by playing some video games (as mates do). The topic of their friendship arises as Warren asks, between would-you-rathers, what it would take for Gordon to stop being his friend.

Notes:

CW:
Mentions of murder, sexual assault, physical assault, serial killing (all in the theoretical sense)
Discussions of bullying
Discussions of codependency
Reference to implied sexual abuse (Warren's father)

(See the end of the work for more notes.)

Work Text:

“Would you rather grow a devil tail or a pair of horns?”

 

“That’s an easy one, Warren, you’re losing steam. A pair of horns would be cool-as. What would I even do with a tail?”

 

“What if it were prehensile? You could move it around, pick up things.”

 

“I’d still have to cut up all of my trousers. I don’t really need a third hand.”

 

To that, Warren shook his head. “Now you’re just being wasteful. You could do things with a third hand. Could jerk yourself off with a third hand, could carry three cups of tea. What would you do with a pair of horns?” He jerked his chin up towards Gordon’s head. “Couldn’t wear that beanie ever again.”

 

Yeah, but I wouldn’t really care about balding if I had a pair of horns growing out of my head. They’d just look cool.”

 

“Just not practical. I’d get the tail.”

 

“You couldn’t sleep on your back any more. Tail would get in the way.”

 

“Would you believe that I used to be a side-sleeper? Back when I was, y’know,” Warren continued with a distracted wave of his hand. Gordon took every opportunity to combo Ryu directly in the face. "Not fair! Wank. Fake-married. But those cryopods really don’t accommodate for side sleeping.”

 

Gordon could imagine. Though Warren never looked anything but perfectly restful (read: kind of dead) during his sessions, he’d been curious about how stiff Warren was when he woke up. Sometime after he’d hit 30, Gordon’s joints calcified during the night and he woke up stiff as a board. A really shitty superpower.

 

“I wonder if I’d be fine. I’m a stomach sleeper.”

 

Warren was better at this game than him. Gordon hadn’t been a Street Fighter person as a child. Was that because he’d spent most of his time in his room alone being nerdy two decades before it was cool? Maybe. Without missing a beat on the Genesis controller, Warren deadpanned: “You’re legitimately a serial killer, then, good to know.”

 

“Oh, please. I slept-walk as a kid. Like, wander out in the street in the middle of the night sort of sleep-walking? Found out that if I slept on my stomach, wasn’t an issue. Wasn’t the weird kid who had a lock on his bedroom door anymore.”

 

“I bet you were super cool after, yeah.”

 

Right, you.” Though he would’ve loved to make Warren eat his words (was it superiority if he beat Warren at an action game), Gordon knew he was going to lose this round.

 

Didn’t bother him that much, not really. For one thing, he liked spending time with him. Kind of lonely around the facility, otherwise. Not like the others were willing to sit in his room with a box turtle and play an ample variety of games and eat Penguins with him.

 

For another …

 

Warren’s deterioration was getting harder to ignore. They hadn’t re-sized his clothes, and they hung off him like drapes. Dark shadows underneath his eyes despite all the sleep he’d been getting, and Warren’s eyes had been bloodshot since he could remember.

 

Most apparent, though, was the insistent squirming. Warren had been a pretty anxiously active guy as long as Gordon had known him, but even between matches, Warren fiddled with the buttons and constantly re-adjusted how he was sitting. Soft hums, cracking joints, smacking lips. Constant. Gordon didn’t really know what drugs they had him on, but this seemed like a really shit side effect.

 

Everything else going on with him? Gordon was no psychologist.

 

God, they could really use one of those on staff.

 

“You know, it’s funny,” Warren said as the next round started. Maybe Warren wasn’t better at Street Fighter than he was. Maybe it was just a matter of how quickly and how randomly he hit the buttons. “Calling you a serial killer. Probably been a few serial killers in this facility. Maybe their ghosts are in the room right now. Oooooooooo.”

 

Gordon didn’t like where this was going.

 

“Actually, who knows! I could’ve been one. Granted, I figure my face would be plastered on the news if I did anything really, really prolific. I’d get one of those cool nicknames. The Godby … Gobbler.”

 

“That’s for another profession,” Gordon joked, trying to shift the subject along.

 

“Oh! Hang on, I’ve got another.”

 

He sighed in relief.

 

“What crime would it take for you to just sever our friendship, Gordon? Just, nope! No more. Pass on us being friends.”

 

He really didn’t like that question. Gordon’s thumbs pause on the buttons, allowing Warren to take speedy victory against him. Felt like the room had dropped about twenty degrees. “U-uh,” he stumbled out. “I don’t know.”

 

“Come on, don’t tell me you haven’t thought about it. I think about it, all the time, and by and large, I’m conscious way less often than you are.”

 

“Warren,” he enthused.

 

“Breaking and entering.”

 

“I don’t know if I want to talk about this.”

 

“No, that’s right, I started too small. I’d have real concerns if you’d end a friendship over a little B&E. Wait, god, I’m so stupid, you probably have access to my file, don’t you? Mr. Archivist.” Warren jiggled his elbow against Gordon’s side. “So you might know already.”

 

“Wh – I don’t.”

 

“Not a very good archivist, are you?”

 

“I have access to your file,” he tried, a little impatient, “But I – I haven’t read that part. I don’t know, mate. Seems private.”

 

Brilliant! Then the question stands. Assault.”

 

The next match started and Gordon didn’t hit any buttons. Akuma stood still on the screen as Ryu wailed away.

 

“But not, like, proper assault. Not stopping a bloke from going after a woman at a pub assault. Say it was your nan on the street – do you have a nan, Gordon? No? – and I just came up and pow! Right on the jaw. Down she goes.”

 

Warren.”

 

“God, fine, punching nans doesn’t do it for you. Let’s go with murder, then. Plenty of murderers in here. Again, I have to emphasize, not the action film killing all the baddies. And not anything boring and a bit sanitized, like killing a business partner. Something you read about in the papers and go, wooph, that guy –”

 

It was clear that single-minded entreaties wasn’t working. If anything, Warren was getting more spun up. His shoulders were hunched over the controller, he spoke like Gordon might cut him off. So, he did.

 

“I’m not playing this game with you. I don’t know what you want out of me.” It didn’t come off as confident as he sounded – some of Gordon’s upset leeched into his voice.

 

Whoa-ho, even murder doesn’t do it for you? You’re one sick man. Let’s get deeper, then? How about sexual assault? Rape? What if I raped someone, Gordon? I’d hope you’d call it quits there, with me. Can’t see how you’d sit around and play games with an actual, proper rap –”

 

“I don’t know!”

 

That was loud. Yeah. Even Waffles turned her head up to look at him, which wasn’t a good sign. Both men sat in silence for a second, waiting for some rebuke to squawk out over the radio, but nothing came.

 

Fine. Good. Gordon sighed and stabbed the power button on the SEGA. Warren made a sad little noise, which was weird, because Gordon was pretty sure they were having a row, and you didn’t play video games with people you were having a row with.

 

“Look, it’s not about what crime I think is the worst, okay? It’s – it’s -” He groaned in frustration, putting the controller down. “Like, yeah. If I just found out that my mate that I get drinks with at the pub is actually a serial killer, I’d have a few questions. Probably would not get drinks with him again, no.”

 

But?”

 

But, for one thing, you can’t remember what you did! And whatever happened, you’re basically an entirely different person –”

 

Warren actively cracked up at that. Even with the television off, he fiddled with the controller in his hands. “So, what, that makes it okay? Forget this cryonics prison system stuff, let’s just give every murderer a solid whack on the head and be done with it!”

 

“That’s not the point.” Or maybe it was. Maybe Gordon was just kidding himself, desperate for any sort of communication down here. At least Warren was here. Dr. Wood was strictly over the radio, and even then, Gordon had to be covert about things. “We’re both stuck here, Warren.”

 

“Uh-huh. If we fled tomorrow, then, you’re saying you’d just leave me in the dust? Freeze to death up in these mountains.”

 

He didn’t say anything.

 

Warren turned around to face him; Gordon was surprised to see that his usual wound-up tension had dissolved into actual concern. “Would you?” He asked again: not accusatory, not angry, but genuinely surprised.

 

Gordon had to sigh. “Of course I wouldn’t, obviously not. But I –”

 

“You can’t tell me you think I’m a good person.”

 

When did things get so deep? “Maybe not, but in case you hadn’t noticed, I’m pretty sure I’m working for the bad guys now. So.”

 

“Yeah.”

 

The controller finally went down, only so Warren could scrub his hands over his face. “Yeah, you are,” he repeated. “Sorry. Shit question to ask.”

 

“I have thought about it. You’re not wrong there. I just –“ Well. Best to come out with it, as desperate as it seemed. “You are my friend. Given everything that’s going on, that means more to me than some sort of weird moral high ground about the awful thing you did that you can’t remember.”

 

“I get that.” He paused. “And I appreciate it, seriously. I know you didn’t actually have a choice in staying here or not, but it … it does mean a lot, that I’ve got someone here who doesn’t see me as some sort of lab rat.”

 

He wasn’t. Frankly, Gordon wished the others would see Warren in the same way. Just as a guy, instead of some weird golden egg (at best) or some sort of walking corpse (at worst). Maybe it’d improve morale around here. Just a little.

 

Next to him, Warren brought his knees close to his chest and wrapped his arm around them protectively. “Like I said, I thought about it too, a lot.”

 

“What it would take for you to stop being friends with yourself?” Gordon tried a joke. It didn’t land. He gave a weak laugh at it anyway.

 

“I know it’s something terrible. I was sent here, it can’t exactly have been something light. Kind of comforting in its own way. Is that strange to say? I know I did something unforgivable, no matter what the details of it are.”

 

Probably wasn’t doing wonders for Warren’s mental health, Gordon personally suspected, but he could tell when Warren was on a roll.

 

“And I’m probably going to end up dying here anyway, so it doesn’t really matter. But there are a few things where – if that was what I did, then I think I’d – I mean – I don’t know, Gordon. I think I’d actually lose my mind. I don’t think I’d want you to be my friend.”

 

Gordon didn’t ask. He didn’t know the nitty gritty details of Warren’s childhood, but he’d been able to paint a broad enough picture. Enough to get it.

 

They didn’t have to hash it out, not right there, not when Gordon wasn’t at all sure that he’d be able to do it right … and especially not when Warren looked at him again, and Gordon could see some tears gathering against his lower eyelids.

 

Hey, hey,” he automatically tried to soothe. Gordon reached out a hand and gave Warren to sympathetic pats on the back – before just keeping his hand on Warren’s prominent shoulder-blade. “Neither of us know. Neither of us are going to know. Whatever you did isn’t going to change what you do tomorrow, because we both have just got to keep going. We haven’t got any other choice.”

 

Warren sniffed hard, breaking eye contact. “I don’t know if that’s meant to be optimistic or not.”

 

“That’s just how things are, okay? But – but as it happens, I am your friend. And we’re going to get through this, and after we get away from Evil Inc in the shadow of Mt. Ballsack, then we can quibble about whatever.”

 

“Y-yeah.” Warren didn’t sound convinced, and that smile he flashed was more pitying than sympathetic.

 

Probably weren’t going to get out of here. Gordon didn’t like thinking about it. That led to a complicated muck of emotions, because he didn’t like Warren being hurt. Also, the cryonic research into long-term prisoner storage was absolutely horrific. Also, the dickheads here were mean.

 

But – for once in his life, Gordon felt like he was exactly where he wanted to be. Right in the center of the action. He didn’t know what that said about him.

 

Just, the idea of going back to his other life? The boring one where he didn’t have anybody? Where he wasn’t even that good at his job? Where he could just disappear and nobody would even notice?

 

Scared him. At least people expected him to report on things here.

 

“Uh, hey, so, usually I don’t say things like this unless I’ve had a drink – or I’m on stronger stuff, these days, but …” Warren shuddered. He stared across the room, eyes fixed at a random point in the wall. “God, I really am glad you’re here with me, Gordon.”

 

“Yeah, mate. Of course.”

 

Sometimes he wished he’d met Warren earlier. Then again, even that particular topic was sticky. Earlier, Warren had been a murderer. Before he’d done the actual murdering, who knew what sort of person Warren had been, what he’d had to live with, get through. There was no guarantee that they’d even have gotten on. Gordon, the conspiracy theorist. Warren, the … guy.

 

Still. From time to time, usually when Warren was deep in hypersleep, Gordon liked to imagine that they would’ve been friends anyway – or that Warren would’ve been the type of guy he’d hit things off with.

 

He’d rather die than admit as much, though. Those thoughts stayed firmly in Gordon’s brain and lived only as idle daydreams. That way he didn’t have to think of the complicated bits, like whether Warren was even interested in men or whether they would’ve worked out or whether Gordon was even interested in him or just desperately pinning all his hopes to the only friend he’d had in years.

 

Jesus, this is ridiculous.” Warren swiping one thumb at his eyes broke Gordon out of his thoughts. “You really do need to learn how to shut me down more, Gordon.”

 

“You’re like a bulldozer when you get started, nobody can stop you. A little scary sometimes,” he added, mostly as a hint of please learn some self-examination, because you’re definitely changing and it’s worrying me.

 

Warren finally shrugged his shoulders. Gordon took that as a message to take his hand away from his back. “Probably just my head slowly getting dissolved by everything they pump in me. Only that.”

 

Yeah. Only that.

 

Nothing to be done about it right then, as much as Gordon wanted to delve further. They got to spend loads of time together when Warren was out of hypersleep, but the fact of the matter was … it was limited time. He’d have to go right back under again, and Gordon wasn’t keen to fill any of that with unnecessary bullshit because he was worried.

 

“Well, if we’re such good mates … best 5 out of 7?”

 

Gordon supposed the look Warren was giving him might’ve been something like smugness, but really, looking how he was, it was just kind of sad. “Oh, yeah. You’re going to get obliterated, there’s no question about it. Street Fighter is not your game, my man.”

 

“Some of us preferred more erudite endeavors. Like RPGs.”

 

Everything was made a little better by the sound of Warren snorting at him. He reached over to boot up the system again.

 

Gordon always had the worst thoughts when Warren was asleep, but Warren was wide-awake right then. He’d enjoy all the time he was given. Important work could be done later. Instead, Gordon just took up his controller and proceeded to character select.

 

“Hey, Warren?”

 

“Hm?”

 

“Would you rather your willy sound like a boiling kettle every time you pissed or every time you came?”

 

Warren burst into hiccuping laughter, all dark thoughts from the previous conversation gone – and it was more than enough for Gordon to secure his first, and only, victory against Warren Godby.

Notes:

catching up on red valley and had a little idea pop into my head!