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"Alyx."
"Gordon-"
"You’re hurt."
"I’m fine, please, let’s just-"
"Alyx."
Gordon’s tone was stern but full of worry. Despite the furrowing of his brow, his eyes did not show anger, but fear. She understood.
"God, really," she said, keeping the conversation light as she sunk down onto the floor, resting her back against the wall. Her legs sprawled out in front of her and she winced in pain; though she was usually exceptional at dodging fire, a stray Combine bullet had grazed her calf and left a red streak in its wake. "It’s like you’ve never seen me get hurt before."
Maybe it was the wrong thing to say, because while he searched for a first-aid kit, his eyes visibly glazed over. They didn’t talk much about the mines. Somehow they had come to that agreement on their own.
"Ah." Gordon’s shuffle through the supplies on the shelves of this old hideout ended as he found a box with an all-familiar red cross. He quickly made his way back to where Alyx sat on the ground and knelt next to her.
She reached for the leg of her jeans and he made a noise to stop her. "Here," he said, thumbing under the hem, "Let me do that."
"I‘m pretty sure-" she interrupted herself with a hiss, "that my arms still work, Gordon."
"Yes, but I’m here, and mine are perfectly functional, too."
Alyx stared as he worked. Quickly, he ripped open a package of sterile gauze and began to blot at the wound, which burned like hell. An unopened alcohol wipe lay by his knee in waiting. He was calculated, and deep in concentration. Over a flesh wound.
"Gordon."
His eyes flashed up to hers before returning immediately to her leg. "Alyx, seriously, I’m just trying-"
"Hey." Her tone was gentle. "Look at me." Sighing softly, he did, and she continued. "I’m okay. This has happened to me a hundred times by now. You don’t have to worry."
"Of course I have to worry," he rebutted. "That’s kind of my job."
Raising an eyebrow, she smirked. "I never asked you to."
"Well, wedding vows are basically a contract. So, technically, you did." He went back to working on the gash, but not before making a smug gotcha face.
"I’m being serious. You knowI’m okay, right…?"
Gordon let go of a deep sigh, making a moment to close his eyes before he dared to meet her gaze again. "I know," he said.
She reached a beckoning hand to him and he obeyed it, scooting closer and allowing her to stroke his cheek. "I'll let you clean it and put some green stuff on it, but after that you're not allowed to worry anymore."
While she spoke he had almost imperceptibly leaned into her palm, as though it was a magnet pulling him in. Fading adrenaline blotted out most of Alyx's thoughts besides their mission, but that strange way they'd been entangled since the mines grasped onto his affection for her, and the love she felt in return—which sometimes felt like the same thing wrapped into one. It's hard not to get lost in his evergreen eyes.
"I suppose that's fair."
"Oh, you suppose," she teased.
"Yes, I do," he replied, laughing under his breath. "I do suppose."
He went back to her calf and reached for that sterile wipe. Alyx clamped down on her jaw the moment the alcohol hit her open skin.
"Jesus," she said through her teeth, "I've been getting shot at my whole life and I'm still a baby about this."
"Did I ever…" Gordon started to ask a question and then paused to shake his head in shame. "Did I ever tell you about the time I got stung by a jellyfish?"
She knew this was his way of distracting her, but she'd take it. "No?"
"So my family went to the beach pretty much every weekend during the summer." The wound was still bleeding a little, so he switched from the wipe to a new wad of gauze. "I didn't do too much swimming—I usually preferred to be on the beach making castles. But when I did swim, my mom made me take off my glasses so I wouldn't lose them in the ocean."
"Oh, no," Alyx murmured. "I can tell where this is going."
Gordon chuckled. "You know how blind I am without them."
"Yes, I do."
"It wasn't quite as serious when I was younger, but it was still bad enough that I could barely see. So, I'm out there, on my boogie board I think, and I get tired and decide to come back to the beach because my mom has packed a picnic."
She winces as he continues, not because of the alcohol wipes this time, but because then he said, "And I stepped right on a beached jellyfish."
"Oooh…" Alyx commentated, half painfully and half laughing. She had never seen a jellyfish herself, but she'd been shocked plenty.
Gordon himself began to really laugh. "I'm on the ground freaking out because I have no idea what just happened, and my brother and dad come running over to me, and they see the jellyfish."
He stopped for a few seconds, overcome by how humorous it seemed to be for him. Alyx was slightly appalled at how he could be amused by this.
"My dad has no idea what to do and he goes to flag down a lifeguard, and, and while h…he's gone…" Another interjection to grab his composure, but it didn't work very well. "John gets the great idea that only a…a little brother could get… and he decides to pee on my foot…"
She gasped, finally understanding the hilarity, and she began to laugh along with him.
"But the- the thing is, the thing is—he was probably seven or eight, and even though—hhhah— even though he was old enough to know better, he just—I guess he freaked out, too, because he pulled his swim trunks all the way down and—"
This sent Alyx into hysterics. She put her hand to her stomach and let out a full guffaw, which didn't do Gordon any favors while trying to finish his tale. They were reduced to sitting there in a heap for a few long moments.
Finally, Gordon took in a deep breath and finished the story. "Dad came back with the lifeguard and I don't think I'd ever seen such- such disappointment in his eyes, looking at his two idiot sons. I think in that moment he wished he had daughters."
"Ohh, god," she breathed—finally able to catch her breath. "I wish I could've met John."
He focused back on her leg, obviously somewhat upset by the mention of his family in past-tense, but he still kept a reminiscent grin on his face. "Yeah. I wish you could have, too."
Gordon made quick work of coating the Antlion salve on her wound, then pulled out a final strip of gauze to finish the job.
"This looks good. It should get you back to camp, at the very least."
"My knight in orange armor," she joked, getting a hearty eye-roll in return as he helped her up.
When it's clear that she's steady on her feet, she moved to grab her pistol off the ground, but Gordon stopped her for just a second. He pulled her in and kissed her on the forehead. "I love you."
Alyx's body shivered. "I love you, too."
He waited for her to gather her equipment, ran one more mental test of her leg's capability, and then they headed down the corridor together. Alyx resisted the urge to thank Gordon for choosing not to pee on her.