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His hands were shaking a bit. Gordon wasn’t entirely sure why his hands were shaking this badly, but god, he was tired, his head hurt, and everything was just. A lot. There was a lot going on.
He pushed himself back from his desk slowly, shaking his head a bit as he did. God, he needed to get it together, just a bit. Probably wasn’t going to happen, but still.
He huffed a sigh, picking up his plate, which had been sitting there the entire time he worked, and walking into the kitchen, eyes darting for a moment to the gathered science team on the couch, piled together, all touching in some way, and Gordon continued on, keeping his head down and staring at the crumbs on his plate, watching as he rinsed them off into the sink.
He stood there in near silence for a moment, before making a decision that he refused to be sorry for, he refused it.
Gordon walked back into living room, looking over at them for a moment. He stood, waiting for a moment until Tommy, the first to look over, saw him. “I. am in desperate need of a hug.” He refused to let them get a word in edgewise, wrapping his own arms around his middle. “I feel like I’m about to fall apart, and, maybe, just for a moment, I would like help not doing that? Because I cannot remember the last time someone hugged me properly, which means I might start crying if you do that, but I really, really, would like a hug.”
Coomer was the easiest to untangle from the pile, moving over to Gordon carefully as the others began to untangle their various limbs, and wrapped Gordon up in his arms, holding his weight as Gordon sagged into his embrace, still shaking but differently from before, clinging onto Coomer quietly as he tried to breathe.
They shuffled back without Gordon fully realizing it, until Coomer could turn and lean to push him down onto the couch, drawing back slightly, and Gordon clung tighter, eyes going wide at that, but then Tommy was against one side, Benrey on the other, and Gordon could let it go, let Coomer pull away and sink into the two of them as Coomer and Bubby situated themselves over the three of them, grabbing onto Gordon’s hands, arms, letting him cling to them all.
No one commented on the tears, or the way he shook as they restarted the episode of the show they were watching without question, no one mentioned when he clung just a bit tighter when they moved as if they were going to get up, even for a moment.
As he began to drift off, unwillingly at the very least, he didn’t quite manage to catch the others beginning to talk, plan to avoid this the next time, but he did see the sweet voice beginning to hover around him, settling into his skin and pushing him over the edge into sleep.