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When one thinks of ghosts, they think of whisper-smoke figures at the end of dim and decrepit halls, shadows in the corners of the eyes, the unexplainable sensation of a hand on a shoulder, a breath, a low voice from just behind the ear. Structures and places full of history- conversations and love and loss that had once occurred, now unknowable and forgotten. The sun would rise and set and they would still linger, perhaps unaware that the world had left them here.
Gordon Freeman was very, very aware that the world had moved on.
He didn’t remember much of the incident- a shout (maybe his own?), flashes of light, and then one very long light that glowed so green it seemed to press in on his eyes. He’d felt himself compact under the collapsing room but had felt no pain, had no thoughts, and then he stood in the rubble staring at the bloodied remnants of what had once been his body.
The memory made him flinch. He wished he could forget. Instead, to pull his mind from things, he busied himself with running his hands over Barney’s sleeping face. The other couldn’t feel a thing, but perhaps it was for the best. It wouldn’t do him any good to lose more sleep to the thought of a dead man than he already had.
Ghosts clung to places, maybe, because they were home. Because they were familiar. What would he do when his home was gone? The sheets stayed still underneath him as Gordon snuggled in close, letting his head rest against the warm rising and falling of the soft chest of his home. His throat burned as he tried- and failed- to keep himself from crying.
The truth of the matter was that Barney was getting old. It had been twenty years, and he’d watched as the love of his life and death had changed. He smiled often- at a book, at his banjo, at the cakes his elderly neighbors would bring by. The crows feet at the corners of his eyes made Gordon ache every time he would kiss them. It was bittersweet, seeing him find happiness in the little things, seeing how he still kept Gordon’s photo beside his bed, how on the days when it got to be too much Barney would sit on the edge of his worn mattress and hold the photo in shaking hands while sobbing and talking to him.
He wasn’t sure at what point he’d started sobbing, but his shoulders shook silently, Barney kept his steady breathing rhythm, and the world kept rotating on its axis while he grieved. If it was better for Barney to move on, then what was good for him? What was his closure? He’d rather stay here and watch Barney live and die in front of him, and then he’d wander, alone, watching everything crumble to dust in silent agony.
The alarm shocked him out of his thoughts, and Barney stirred, brow furrowing as he rolled over. He stared at the ceiling for a moment, sleepily, before he slowly slipped out of bed with a groan. The dim morning light filtering in through the blinds made the white in his hair glow, highlighting the soft hints of where wrinkles would soon make their home, the shadows under his eyes and the 5 o’clock shadow on his chin, his lips. He’d never stopped being as beautiful as the first day they’d laid eyes on each other, as beautiful as he was when they shared their first (and many subsequent) kisses and intimate moments.
Gordon sat up, too. Barney’s life was too short for him to spend grieving for the future. He wiped his eyes on the back of his arm and smiled tearfully, while blissfully unaware, Barney yawned. “G’mornin’, Gordon,” he murmured to the blurry photograph on the nightstand.
[Good morning, love.]