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There were many obstacles Gordon had to deal with in his... recent… line of work. He weaved his way through the bowels of Black Mesa with a target on his back. He'd been transported to a border world filled with hostile beings who wanted him dead. With no time to rest, he was spirited into a future unknown to him and was suddenly the leader of a resistance. He ran himself ragged through and around City 17, dodging gunfire and bullet ships. Even after he infiltrated the Citadel, he still had to fight tooth and nail to defend White Forest from the Combine onslaught. And he survived.
Him, idling with a blank look on his face, was a testament to that fact.
Despite everything he’d been through, the door in front of him was one of his more daunting challenges.
The chipped white paint glowed a slight yellow in the fluorescent lights of the hallway. On the door, black numbers glistened, giving the illusion that it had been freshly applied.
An ordinary door. So ordinary that without the number that stuck out like a sore thumb, Gordon might’ve missed it… were it not calling out to him. An invisible force was pulling him in, one he recognized with sweating hands and a knotted throat; that was a refreshing change of pace from mind-numbing adrenaline and mind-rending fear.
As a bonus, he didn’t even need to locate the nearest ventilation shaft to get inside or, alternatively, bash down the door with the crowbar he still kept in his room.
All he had to do was knock.
He raised his hand to do just that. The hair on his arms pricked to attention as a chill ran down his spine.
Behind the door wasn't a Combine ambush. Any grating noises the hinges made weren't going to alert a hoard of zombies. Twisting the knob wouldn't set off a room rigged to explode. His life wasn't in danger, yet he couldn't shake the nervousness that balled in his gut.
Absentmindedly, he unfurled his fingers and tapped a pinky against the black-painted number.
To his surprise, it was cold. Wet . He withdrew his hand and turned his palm up. Black glittered on his skin. Thumb against pinky, he rubbed the fingers together. His hand's clamminess assisted the smudging. Now, it was only a small dark stain shared between the two fingers.
He promptly swallowed the lump in his throat and clenched his hand into a fist. He was wasting time, something he hadn’t allowed himself to do since… well. He wrapped his knuckles against the barrier, focusing on the pressure against his bones.
"One moment," came a muffled voice.
He took in a deep breath.
Footsteps approached the door, and it swung inwards suddenly, giving Gordon no time to fully compose himself.
An old friend stood, head tilted up to meet Gordon's gaze. His eyes widened, a baffled look sweeping across his tired features.
His dark hair was very disheveled and looked slightly wet — he must've taken a shower recently. The shirt he wore was plain. Gordon's attention drew to how sleeves cut off around the middle of his biceps, hugging his muscles.
Gordon diverted his gaze back to the man's face, ignoring how his heart thudded against his ribs. He kept his shoulders square as he signed a name so familiar he could do it in his sleep. "Barney."
"Ah, uh..." Barney seemed stunned to attention. His eyes flicked up from Gordon’s hands with a twitchy smile. "Heya, buddy. I kinda thought you'd be busy with all that savior stuff," he said, hand on his neck — his nervous tick survived the end of the world.
"Made time," Gordon signed. "Wanted..." He set his jaw, finding the word inadequate. "Needed to see you."
Barney’s jittery smile eased, a slight flush to his cheeks. The reddish pink made his scar more obvious. It complimented his complexion.
"Who am I to turn you away?" He stepped aside. "Come in, it's — uh, it's a work in progress."
Gordon crossed the threshold.
The only piece of furniture (besides the “bed” Gordon could see through the bedroom door) was a dull brown loveseat, flush against the farthest wall.
It was so... barren, spartan, sterile — not like Barney at all. The Barney he knew always had clothes scattered about, stacked beer cans and only throw them away when they toppled over, and often used paper plates just so he wouldn’t have to clean the dishes. It was like he didn’t actually live there. Gordon wrung his hands together before turning to his host.
When Barney noticed the attention, he grimaced and said, "It's one of the bigger rooms. If it were up to me I'd just have a cot in a broom closet."
Before Gordon could retort, Barney gestured outwards. "Make yerself at home, Doc."
There wasn't a home to make himself in. Gordon moved to sit down on the couch, and Barney lagged behind him. He plopped down, noted the rough texture against the palms of his hands, then placed them in his lap.
"If I knew you were droppin' by, I'd've cleaned up a little," Barney joked as he joined on the couch, his hair now patted down to look slightly less unkempt. "Or at least I would've put on somethin' more presentable."
His worry about his appearance was completely unfounded. There was something about the gray hairs that intertwined with the black that just... and how his stubble made him look rugged and mature, which just... well... Gordon had always found Barney aesthetically pleasing, and time hadn't changed that. If anything, the hardness of his face made him softer on the eyes. Not that it mattered to Gordon much. It was Barney. That was reason enough for him.
Gordon’s face warmed as he signed, "You look great."
"I look old," Barney dismissed him without a second thought. "You though, you are…" his voice died as he scanned Gordon closely. With thinly veiled curiosity, he said, “Well, you ain’t look a day older than when I last saw ya, huh Doc?”
"Not much.” There was a story there, and Gordon didn't feel like getting into it. He’d tell Barney eventually — probably within the next hour. But for now, he wanted to pretend that things made sense.
That reality shattered the second Barney murmured, “Twenty years,” as if it had accidentally slipped off his tongue.
There was an insurmountable distance between them. Gordon swallowed thickly, trying to quell the ice that burned in his veins. What was it like to see humanity fall in seven hours? To watch as the Combine drained the earth of life? To get used to living in the shadows, attempting to resist a force that seemed so… infinite? Barney, the same man who’d beg Gordon to do something about the cockroach in the bathroom because he couldn’t stand bugs, now had scars that painted his arms and likely the rest of his body from years of fighting to survive. Barney, who cried when they watched Wrath of Khan, had seen real war, seen others die for a cause, and killed for that same cause. Barney, who…
…took in a deep breath to reel himself in, said, “It’s been…” and trailed off, because there wasn’t a word in any dictionary, alien or otherwise, that fully summarized… everything.
They shared a knowing glance. That was enough.
Not even a week prior, they were in his dorm, watching the shittiest sci-fi movie that Barney could manage to find. Gordon ranted about scientific inaccuracies until his hands cramped and they drank and laughed until they passed out. The next morning would wake them with a blaring alarm clock and pounding headaches, and it hurt like hell but they were happy.
It wouldn't ever be like that again. It couldn't ever be like that again.
"I'm real glad you're alive, Gord." There was something raw in Barney's confession that stabbed at Gordon's chest. He kept it barely above a whisper. "Thought you died... back at Black Mesa. Gave up hope of ever seein' you again, it, ah... hurt less than holdin' on... but then you... you were alive , and I..." His voice fizzled out and he turned away.
Gordon wanted to hold him and tell him that it was alright, that he was here now, and that he wasn't going anywhere. He wanted to take Barney’s face and cradle it with his hands and brush his scar with his thumb and kiss him between the eyes and press their foreheads together and just breathe. But twenty years had passed for Barney. For twenty years, he hadn't been there. He forfeited the right to touch Barney the moment he became a pawn in the cosmic chess game that was unfolding around them.
So, he stayed quiet, eyes glued to the hands wringing together in his lap, ignoring the dull ache in his heart.
Barney cleared his throat, wrenching Gordon free from his trance.
"You really saved our asses, Doc." There was a sad smile on his face. "Havin' the savior of humanity fightin' on your side, well, it's a real morale booster. You showed up at the perfect time."
The perfect time? Gordon cringed and shook his head. Fresh guilt rose bloomed like weeds in his chest. He signed, "I'm sorry."
As soon as Barney processed the sign, his eyebrows shot up. "You're a hero, Doc! I can't think of a single thing you should be apologizin' for."
“Then you aren’t thinking hard enough,” Gordon scowled, the comment more barbed than he realized. "Resonance cascade, went MIA while the world fell apart, and—" His hands hesitated, curling in on themselves as bile and disgust heated his throat. "Leaving you alone for twenty years."
"That's not—" quiet desperation crept into Barney's voice. He breathed, settling into an authoritative persona. "You aren't being fair to yourself. All that... all this" — he gestured vaguely around them — "ain't your fault and you know that!"
"Should have been there," Gordon signed, attention focused on his hands. "Protect you, protect everyone."
The stern look on Barney's face dropped, leaving only a deep sadness. "You're just one man, Gordon. Wrong place, wrong time. There's nothing you could've done that woulda made a difference."
Gordon's eyes widened.
Barney's mouth continued moving, but the only noise being emitted was a soft static — except it wasn’t Barney making that sound, it was just… in his ears. It grew into a harsh ringing as if he’d ducked out of the range of an explosive just in time, or he’d shot a Combine but its radio briefly lived on in a monotonous, pitchy wail.
Above the noise was a voice, low, crisp, dry, cold, familiar—
'The right man in the wrong place can make all the difference in the world.'
The phrase echoed through his body as if it were hollow, only a receptacle for instructions.
A violent shiver racked through Gordon and his sweat felt like ice water on his skin.
Barney had stopped talking at some point, brows furrowed and eyes wide. "Gordon? Gordon? What's wrong?" His voice poked through the ringing, dissipating it almost entirely.
Gordon wondered if it was the man in the suit just fucking with him, or if it was his mind bent on self-sabotage.
Steady hands were placed on Gordon's arms, narrowing the gap between them. He flinched at the contact, enough so that Barney also flinched and immediately moved his hands to a hovering position.
"All fine." Gordon's fingers twitched when he signed.
Barney eyed him incredulously, drawing his arms back. "D'ya need anything? Some water, a snack, a blanket, or, uh…” he tapered off, then finished quietly, “...hug?”
A hug. No hazardous environment suit, no Civil Protection gear, just… the two of them. Gordon should say no. He had a terrible few days, but Barney had a terrible few decades. He didn’t deserve a hug, not from anyone, and especially not from Barney.
Limply, he signed, “hug.”
Barney leaned in stiffly. His arms wrapped snugly around Gordon, hands landing just under his shoulder blades.
"I'ma bit outta practice," Barney admitted sheepishly. His chest, flush against Gordon's, rumbled with every word. "As surprising as it might sound, Civil Protection didn't like hugs."
For that moment, he wasn't the One Free Man, the savior of humanity. In Barney's arms, he was just… Gordon. Just Gordon, another doctor who worked at Black Mesa. It had been a long, exhausting, dangerous shift, but he was home now. Warm, safe, and loved.
Loved?
Gordon tapped Barney's side and he pulled back. His hands, callused, moved to rest on Gordon's forearms, light enough so that he could pull away to sign. It was so gentle that Gordon could cry.
A question arose in his mind, and he felt his chest burn. He hadn't had the time to think about it until now. After all the years that passed, after everything that had happened, did Barney still...?
Gordon shifted to speak and Barney leaned back, hands threaded together in his lap.
"Barney," Gordon signed, watching his expression carefully.
Concern flashed over Barney's face. "What's on your mind, Doc?"
His nose scrunched, lifting his glasses as he signed, "Do you still... want us?"
Barney stared at him blankly.
"Relationship," Gordon clarified, arms firmly pressed against his side to keep his hands from shaking.
Realization dawned on Barney. His lips parted, and out came a muttered, "Oh."
Oh?
Gordon's heart dropped.
Oh.
His hands went a mile a minute, apologizing for asking and assuring Barney it was fine if they broke it off — were they still even a thing? Twenty years was a long time to harbor a romantic attraction to someone presumed dead. Gordon understood, he didn't mean to drudge up the past, he was just curious, but he didn't want their current relationship to be awkward, so he—
Barney's hands cupped over his own, stopping his emphatic signing. It startled Gordon out of his fervor.
Apologetically, Barney withdrew, fingers curling like he burnt himself. "I can't read that quick, Gordon," he said, his voice low again. "But I got the gist, I think."
Barney tipped his head back onto the headrest. His adam's apple bobbed as he rolled his pants' drawstring between his fingers.
He turned his head to the side to face Gordon.
After a few false starts, Barney began to speak. "I... I remember seein' you passed out at the desk in our dorm... you were hunched over, real bent outta shape... and your glasses were smushed against your face. Always amazed me how you could sleep like that." He smiled, distant as he reminisced. "Thought then, 'Barney, don't know how you managed to win him over, so don't fuck it up.'"
Calm settled over him as he continued, "Figured you didn't want to drool on your important paperwork, so I scooped you up and carried you to bed, but I guess I jostled you too hard 'cause you looked up at me, all bleary-eyed. And you told me you loved me like you had a thousand times before." His voice started to get rough. "But it was different — it made me realize that I... I wanted to spend the rest of my life with you."
Barney swallowed thickly. "Swore to… to go back to college. Finish it, so that… so that I’d be worth somethin’, ‘n if you weren't sick of me by then, I'd, uh… well, I’d pop the question." He scratched at the prominent flush creeping up his neck. "Never got the chance to do any of that, 'course."
It was as if the world was spinning, or if they were on a ship during a storm, but Gordon was frozen solid. He didn't remember being carried to bed — which wasn't surprising, it sounded like he was out of it — but he wanted to remember. He wanted so desperately to return to that time, to see the look on Barney's face when... when he...
Barney wanted to marry him?
A future they'd never have flashed through Gordon's mind. Wedding, house, lazy saturdays, homecooked meals... even stuff he never thought about before, like mundane chores, tending a garden, growing old with...
He swallowed the knot in his throat.
"Still not sick of you," Gordon signed hesitantly.
"Yeah, well..." Barney sat up, crossing his arms. "I still haven't finished college."
Much more confidently, Gordon countered, "I have enough college for both of us."
Barney huffed at that, but the smile didn't reach his eyes. It twisted cynically, like he still believed Gordon dead, only an apparition here to woefully remind him how good he once had it.
"I've... changed, y'know?" His eyes narrowed, repulsion clear on his face. "I'm not the same man who tucked you in that night." He glanced at his hands and flexed his fingers, feeling the weight of ghosts against his skin. "I'm not the same man who..." he trailed off.
Oh.
Gordon's hands were as heavy as lead against his lap, but he managed to raise them. "Not the same man who wanted to marry me. I understand."
Before Gordon’s heart could properly shatter, Barney was holding his shoulders.
"Don't go thinking that, Gordon!" He shot out with wide, wary eyes. "Was gonna say I'm not the same man who you loved. I still... I mean, hell, after everything, I still..."
Hope swelled in Gordon's chest, but the whiplash subdued his excitement. "You still want to marry me?"
Barney's hands withdrew, fidgeting together. His smile was forced. It quickly became unbearable and he turned away, frowning with furrowed brows. "I'm a damn fool, I know."
"You are not a fool," Gordon signed sternly. He got a doubtful look in return.
Nervous energy coiled in his core. He fidgetted with his fingers, considering how to proceed. It struck him like a hammer.
Gordon smiled. "I love you."
The sign seemed to burn Barney. He shrunk away, face alight with alarm. "You — you can't mean that," he muttered, a wildness in his voice.
Breath caught in Gordon's throat. His smile fell, pained. "I do mean that," he signed, exaggerating his movements for emphasis.
"I'm, I—" Barney stuttered, eyes wide like a deer in headlights. "I've — I've done bad things to be here. I..."
Gordon shook his head. "You are a good man, Barney."
Barney deflated, utterly lost. He switched tactics and gestured to himself, eyebrows furrowed. "I've — I'm old, Gordon. Washed up, goin' gray from stress, and, and you'd think the damn apocalypse would thin me out a bit, but no, and—"
"I think you look attractive," Gordon signed, a bit more avidly than he intended.
Barney stammered to a complete stop. "I... uh, it's..." He cleared his throat, trying not to look rattled. "Gordon?"
Gordon stared him dead in the eye and fingerspelled, "S-E-X-Y."
A huff came from Barney's lips, which were twisted into a smirk. It seems he had recovered. "You still have terrible taste in men, huh Gord?"
"Horrible," Gordon teased.
To that, Barney's smile turned sad. Gordon worried he took it too far with the joke. He was about to clarify when Barney started to speak.
"I spent... a real long time tellin' myself that if you saw me, what I've become, that you'd, well..." Barney nervously dragged his hands against his thighs. "I don't know, hate me? Or officially dump my sorry ass and move on. When I saw you, after all that time, I was… a mix of a lot of things.” He pursed his lips in a thoughtful frown. "Don't get me wrong! I was, y’know — you, you're the chosen one, One Free Man, savior of humanity, and that... that, that just sounds shallow, don't it? What I meant to say was..." he tapered off into an abashed chuckle. "Sorry, Doc."
Gordon figured he needed some help processing what just happened, so he held out his hand.
Barney looked down at the offer and quirked an eyebrow. "What's with the smudges?" He pointed. “
What? Gordon wiggled his fingers at the memory of cold brushing against his skin.
Grand romantic gesture ruined, he withdrew his hand to sign, "Paint."
Piecing the puzzle together in his head, a smile grew on Barney's face. "Did you... touch the wet paint on my door?"
"Maybe."
Barney cackled. In one swift movement, Gordon was hauled to the other side of the couch.
Once again, Gordon was held in strong arms, their bodies pressed together. Only this time, it didn't send him back to Black Mesa. He was still at White Forest, in Barney's lonely dorm. Except it wasn't lonely anymore. Cradled, his eyes fondly wandered to the cracks in the walls and the inky corners the lights didn't reach. It wasn't home — not yet, at least. It still needed to be moved into.
Against him, Barney, breathing steadily, here, alive .
Warm, safe, and loved.
“Y’know,” Barney started, softly muttering into Gordon’s ear. “The old Gordon woulda washed his hands immediately.”
In response, Gordon wiped his hand on Barney’s shirt.
“Hey!” Barney pushed Gordon off of him with a laugh. “Bastard! These are my only clean clothes!”
“I’ve changed too,” signed Gordon with a shit-eating grin. Maybe not as drastically as others, but he’d seen and heard and felt enough in the past few days for a lifetime. He could handle a little dirt under his fingernails…
…sometimes.
“Clearly.” Barney smiled brighter than any fluorescent bulb in the whole base, and Gordon had to turn away, flex his fingers, and grin so hard it felt like his face was going to fall off.
Once he regained control of his hands, Gordon signed excitedly, “I want to kiss you.”
Barney's shoulder's tensed. "Oh, I'm... I'm a bit rusty. Civil Protection didn't really like kissing neither."
Gordon took a breath to calm himself, then nodded. “No kiss. I understand.”
"Wait, I — I didn't say that , exactly," Barney blustered, his face growing increasingly red.
Gordon suppressed a smirk at Barney's logic. He opted to shake his head before signing, "You set the pace. I respect your boundaries."
"I set the pace, huh?" Barney tilted his head.
Gordon nodded.
"Alrighty."
Barney brought up a hand to cup Gordon's face. It hesitated, hovering over his skin before he steeled his nerves. Contact was made. Rough calluses from years of toil felt incredibly soft. His thumb ran across his cheek in slow, calculated movements, taking everything in.
The sober expression Barney wore cracked. It was as if he snapped out of a trance. His eyes watered, his voice crumbling as he spoke, "Oh darlin', I missed you."
Barney gently drew him in. Their lips pressed together. One of Gordon's arms coiled around his back, while the other reached for his hair. Barney's hands had done something similar, one gently cupping the nape of his neck, the other splayed against the small of his back.
Gordon could feel the lonely years Barney endured, his desperation to reclaim the past. It broke him to think about all that he had missed, and the spike was driven in further when he realized he couldn’t give him that past. He couldn’t give him drunken movie nights and pizza fridays and stargazing on the hood of the car that was confiscated for “important guard business.” No more races in the vents, or stories swapped during their mandated break at the vending machine, or late-night rendezvous when either was working the graveyard shift.
Barney pulled back, breathless with rosy cheeks and disheveled hair. His gaze explored Gordon, wandering languidly about, then stopped when their eyes met.
"I love you," Barney professed like he had done so a thousand times prior. The arm around Gordon's back tightened. "I love you, and I'm not going to lose you again."
That was… everything. Gordon’s worries were swept away in the riptide that was Barney Calhoun — he didn’t want the past. Sure, those times were sweet, but they were gone. Barney had likely made peace with that by now. He’d had years to accept the world that Gordon had just been exposed to. Gordon couldn’t give Barney the simple days of Black Mesa, and Barney didn’t want that; he just wanted Gordon — Gordon, who lived in the delicate present and offered a tentative future.
And, well… Gordon could manage that.
Life wasn't a guarantee. He was no longer just a theoretical physicist, dressed in a stuffy suit and lab coat, working on large whiteboards to answer questions that no one asked. He traded pencils for projectiles and the question was now whether he was going to survive to see the next sunrise.
Knowing that, Gordon still wanted to spend the rest of his life, that tentative future, with Barney — whether that meant a week, a month, a year, a decade, it didn't matter.
Resolve washed over him.
How did one procure a ring in the apocalypse? Better question, was marriage still even a thing? Were there new methods of proposal, adapted to meet the standards of their new, broken world?
They both needed time to adjust, and Gordon had twenty years to catch up on. Once they had settled, and if Barney hadn't gotten sick of him, well...
"I love you too," Gordon signed.