Chapter Text
Gordon groaned, peeling his face away from the dirty concrete floor as he slowly regained consciousness. You’d think after a few nights of sleeping on the ground that you’d get used to it, but you in fact didn’t. Every night he spent on the filthy Black Mesa floor equally sucked ass.
He smacked his lips a few times, wincing at the terrible taste the night left behind. A lot of things down here sucked--the fact that he was being trailed by a couple of murderous lunatics, and that the military was trying to kill him, and that aliens were running amok--but they’d been here long enough that Gordon was starting to really miss every-day smaller things. Like brushing his teeth, for example. What he would do for even some fucking mouthwash…
“Rise and shine!” Bubby shouted in alarming proximity to Gordon’s ear, making him jump in surprise.
“Jesus,” Gordon grumbled, pushing himself up to sit cross-legged and rub his eyes open. “Good morning to you, too.”
“Wakey wakey, eggs and--Hello Gordon!” Coomer piped up from the corner where he sat next to Tommy.
“Hi,” Gordon halfheartedly replied. “Hi, Dr. Coomer. What, uh, what time is it?”
“I’d say we have approximately 2 hours until we reach the Lambda Lab!”
“Not what I asked, but I like that estimate.” Gordon took in one last deep breath before hoisting himself off of the floor to stand up and stretch out his back. “Assuming Dr. Coomer is actually just saying bullshit, we probably have a few more days of travel, so. Let’s get a move on, huh?”
“We were all waiting for you,” Bubby spat, absently bouncing a gun between each of his hands. “We’ve been up for hours!”
“Why didn’t you wake me up??”
“We figured Gordon Babyman needed his, uh, his beauty sleep. His baby sleep,” someone mumbled from the corner. Gordon sighed, turning around to face Benrey. He was perched up on a box, his legs politely crossed and his hands rested on his knee.
“Hi, Benrey,” Gordon lazily greeted. “Where the fuck have you been, huh? You disappeared for, like, hours yesterday.”
“You were all grumpy. Grumpyman. Wanted to wait until you got your grumpy baby sleep so you’d be less, uh… less Gordon.”
“Less Gordon,” Gordon repeated, dryly laughing and nodding his head. “Right. ‘Cause you’d just love if I were anyone else, huh?”
“I don’t even know who you are,” Benrey shrugged, innocently swinging his feet. “Not like you have a passport to, like, show me. Could be anyone. You could be a, uh, a terrorist for all I know.”
“After everything that’s happened? Honestly, I probably am. At least the military seems to think so.”
“Exactly.”
Gordon sighed for what felt like the millionth time since he woke up less than five minutes ago, turning back to the rest of the group.
“Okay, let’s just go. We have a lot, and I mean a lot, of ground to cover.”
“Finally,” Bubby grumbled, eagerly gripping his firearm and skipping on ahead. Tommy didn’t say anything, but he passed Gordon a worried glance before following Bubby out of the room.
“Alright,” Gordon whispered to himself, pulling out his crowbar. “Let’s do this. You got a long day ahead of you, but--”
“Can you put that away, please?” Benrey interrupted.
“What?” Gordon took an almost comical double-take, looking over his shoulder at Benrey. “My-My crowbar?”
“Yeah,” he shrugged like it was obvious. “Don’t go, just, swinging that thing around. Take someone’s eye out.”
“Take someone’s--Bubby was just juggling a fucking gun!”
“Didn’t see--I didn’t see that.”
“Well, he was. Either way, we have to be armed, man. There’s aliens! Danger at every turn!”
“Only danger--you’re the dangerous one here, bro. I’m just looking after the group.”
“Wh--?”
“They’re scared of you, man. You scare people.”
“I scare people. With my crowbar.”
“Yes.”
“Are you--You’re saying you’re scared of me right now?”
“Well I’m not.” Benrey rolled his eyes, leaning back on his hands. “I’m the guard. Gotta be--I’m tough as nails. Tough as a crowbar.”
“Then who is scared? Can you tell me, because I’d love to know.”
“Y’know, the…. the masses.”
“I scare. I scare the--who is the masses? There’s, like, five of us, man! There are no masses--the masses were fucking murdered!”
“Yeah, by you. Gordon Murderman.”
“YOU KILLED!!! SO MANY INNOCENT--you know what, fuck this. I-I don’t need to argue with you! I’m going.”
“Not with that crowbar out, you aren’t. I’ll have to, like, stop you or something.”
Gordon let out a frustrated shout, shoving the crowbar back into his side belt. “Fine!! Fuck!! There you go, the stupid--the crowbar is away!”
“Thank you,” Benrey politely nodded, hopping down from the box. “Now we can go. Bubby’s probably--he’s pissed at you, man. For sleeping all night.”
“Well, sorry some of us are actually human and need to sleep,” Gordon sarcastically spat.
“Yeah, you should really get that looked at.”
“What, being human?”
Instead of gracing Gordon with another cryptic answer, Benrey whistled to himself as he speed-walked ahead to catch up with Bubby and Tommy. Gordon clenched his fist and grinded his teeth, a high pitched noise of frustration leaking out between his teeth.
He was fuming. Why the hell didn’t Benrey pick on anyone else?
Gordon took a few extra seconds to calm himself down as Benrey disappeared up ahead before pulling out his crowbar again.
“Ah, young love!”
Gordon flinched at Coomer’s voice, glancing over to where he sat. The rest of the group had moved ahead, but Coomer still sat where he was when Gordon first woke up.
Gordon cleared his throat and looked around, almost convinced he imagined whatever it was Coomer had said.
“What?”
“It’s always nice to see today’s youth fall in love. Even if their way of showing it is quite unconventional!”
At a loss for words, Gordon took a few moments to go over what Coomer was saying to him.
“Is this... just another one of your nonsense monologues? What are you talking about?” Gordon closed his eyes for a moment. “Actually, nevermind. I don’t even know why I try to decipher what you’re talking about, sometimes.”
“Benrey is quite infatuated with you.”
Okay, so this wasn’t nonsense. Dr. Coomer was actually starting a dialogue. That was new.
Gordon might be more amazed if he wasn’t trying so hard to fight the heat that was quickly rising to his cheeks.
“What?” Gordon awkwardly chuckled, not even knowing how to begin to reply to that.
“And by the looks of it, you feel the same, Gordon.”
Gordon couldn’t help the laugh that was startled out of him.
“What???” Coomer patiently waited for Gordon to stop panickedly sputtering to himself and actually find proper words. “I-I have no idea--What are you talking about?? I-I--I mean, the guy hates me! Everything he does is-is to annoy me. He never stops asking about my stupid fucking passport, telling me to not do things that-that he did not even seconds ago--I mean, the guy is borderline unbearable to be around!” As he spoke, Gordon wildly threw his hands in all which directions, hoping the movement would distract from how red his face was.
When Coomer didn’t reply and only flashed Gordon a smug grin, that somehow made him start to panic even more.
“I hate the guy!” Gordon continued. “C--In fact, I c-can’t fucking stand him! I feel like every little tiny thing he does is part of this huge fucking joke where, guess what, I’m the damn punchline! I swear to god that sometimes he-he’ll even do things he doesn’t want to do just because he doesn’t want to fucking agree with me! That’s how much he hates me! The guy is literally just out to get me! And I-I don’t even know why! N-Not because of--” Gordon choked on his words, pausing to take a moment to catch his breath.
Before he could continue, Coomer let out a pleasant sigh.
“I love love.”
Gordon clenched his fists, sucking in a breath.
“No. No, whatever this is, I-I’m not falling for it. This is probably just your way of-of getting in my head! That’s sick, man. Sick!”
“Ahhh, loooveeee…”
“I swear to--you people are going to drive me insane.”
“Love makes people do crazy things, Gordon. And judging by how low your sanity has been as of late, I’d say you are deep in love!”
The heat from his face was quickly traveling all across Gordon’s body, leaving him sweaty and uncomfortable in his stupid, clunky HEV suit. He sputtered the start of a few more sentences, but was interrupted when Coomer stood up and pulled out a gun.
“Onward, Gordon! I’d say we only have about 5 days left until we reach the Lambda Lab!”
And as if nothing even happened, Coomer cheerily skipped ahead out of the room to join the others.
Gordon stared at the spot that Coomer was previously sitting, at a complete loss of words.
That whole talk had caught him off guard. Not only was Coomer actually having a full conversation, but he was accusing Gordon off… being in love with Benrey??? Gordon couldn’t help but laugh at the idea. It was easier to think now that Coomer wasn’t shooting him that accusatory look.
How ridiculous. Dr. Coomer's just a crazy old man with an overactive imagination. What he said probably didn’t even mean anything! Just more nonsense.
Holding on tight to that thought, Gordon was able to get his feet working again and head on out of the room.
Bubby and Benrey would no doubt yell at him for lagging behind, but Gordon found himself okay with that. Maybe then the feeling of frustration and anger would override the deep embarrassment that flooded his whole body.