Work Text:
Barney Calhoun was tired.
He couldn’t remember the last time he’d woken up feeling anything other than already tired.
Maybe his tiredness was the reason he barely noticed the familiar face passing through the train station of City 17, why he barely managed to slam the button to shut the gate that would let the person through to the train to Nova Prospekt. He quickly went to tug them into the interrogation room, trying desperately to ignore how confused and terrified they look.
He just had to wait for the cameras to be off, and for the two of them to be alone in the interrogation room, and he could reassure them. Try to help soothe that fear.
——
Gordon Freeman was disoriented.
They had no idea where they were, why they had been on a train, or why they’re currently being dragged to a room in the rundown station by a masked...guard. They weren’t sure what role the masked people served, either.
They had just been on an alien planet, fighting for their life, and then a man had spoken to them. He had shown them more of that horrific alien planet, the consequences of the resonance cascade. He had talked about his employers, and battles they had no chance of winning.
They didn’t know what any of it meant.
When the man reappeared and went rambling on about something else, they didn’t know how to feel. Had they been sleeping? Was the resonance cascade some kind of fucked up fever dream? They weren’t entirely sure at this point.
They took a closer look at their surroundings. There was blood on the floor, right in front of a chair. It was a horrific mixture of fresh and dried blood. They carefully stepped over the blood.
Their gaze fell back upon the guard who had dragged them there. He was turned around, facing the board of buttons and and screens.
“Now,” the guard spoke, turning around and taking his mask off “about that beer I owed ya! It’s me Gordon, Barney, from Black Mesa.”
Gordon couldn’t be more relieved
——
Barney was nervous, he hadn’t seen Gordon in two decades. He wasn’t even sure they would recognize him, but when Gordon practically tackled him with a hug, that doubt dissolved instantly.
He hugged Gordon tightly, hesitating to let them go even when they had been hugging for an uncomfortable amount of time. He didn’t want to let them go, didn’t want them to disappear for another two decades without so much as a goodbye.
He knew they needed to go. People would get suspicious if he left the cameras off any longer, so for now the hug would have to serve as their goodbye if he never found them again, or if they never found him.