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Benrey had never been able to die. At least not permanently— sure, it’d take him awhile to get back up, some wounds took longer to heal, but he’d never been able to die.
Until he did.
On Xen he was powerful, the most powerful he’d ever felt. He wasn’t from there, no, but the alien energies of Xen still affected him all the same. Therefore, powerful. Unstoppable.
But the Science Team had always been immovable, and Gordon Freeman was unshakable.
Benrey had never been able to die, but even with his new power, he knew. It was the end of his run.
He never wanted to be bad. He wanted to be friends, to joke and to play around with the team— with Gordon. It always went back to Gordon.
His ways of getting the scientist’s attention were bad, he could admit that, but god, Benrey had never felt anything like it before. Human emotions were confusing, that was for certain, and for a while Benrey thought he was sick— but he realized what he felt for Gordon was something he never wanted to let go.
So of course, he chased that feeling as much as he could. Benrey pestered him, made him laugh, happy, exasperated, angry— practically every single emotion under the sun he tried and he tried and he tried.
And with each one Gordon never ceased to look as beautiful as he always did.
And then he hurt him, genuinely hurt him. And like that the bliss was over. Guilt flooded his brain, pulling him under its waves and keeping him locked under the storm.
He drowned in it.
It felt like death, aching and piercing his skin. But it never stopped. There was no healing from this. And the closer they got to lambda lab the closer he came to realizing that it was almost time.
Benrey had never been able to die, but he’d allow himself to. To absolve himself of the sin for daring to block the sun and still have the gall to bathe in its light.
It was the least he could do.