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Going to sleep had never really meant anything for Gordon. He didn’t really go to sleep, he simply kept going along with the bit because then it meant that he had a plausible excuse for why he had to leave the game. Not that he would ever say those words to the AIs faces, obviously. To them, the player quitting the game simply meant that Gordon Freeman would be lying unconscious on the floor for a few hours (days ? months ? he wasn’t sure how the others perceived time within the game).
It was a win-win situation. He’d learned back in Black Mesa that the AI’s seem to only be able to run for approximately 3 hours, so the rest definitely did them some good. For the player’s part, that meant that he had a window to escape and go back to his real life, in the real world.
His very interesting and happy life in the real world.
However, when it happened to be everyone’s in-game bed time, he never quit the game right away. Even after the longer, more exhausting sessions, even when the VR headset was beginning to weight heavy on his face, the player still liked to play along a little longer. Playing Gordon Freeman’s role was a big part of who he was now and, to his AI friends, it was all he was.
So, anytime he’d find himself lying on the floor, feeling the texture of the too hard floor become indiscernible from the sensation of his own real carpet from his real life room, Gordon Freeman would allow himself to stay a little longer.
He’d never fallen asleep with the headset on, no matter how drowsy he’d get from lying on the floor listening to the familiar chaos surrounding him that always occurred before the others decided to inevitably turn in for the night aswell. It was always an odd in-between state, these occurrences.
It wasn’t rare for in-game events to physically affect him. He had a vague memory of his arm being cut off, though he can’t remember the details. In that instance, he’d known that his hand wasn’t really getting cut off, but the pain he felt through what he thought he could only see, admittedly definitely less intense than if he’d faced the attack in real life, it had felt almost too-close to real.
These instance of the game slowly bleeding into his regular perception weren’t getting any scarcer either. Back in the sewers, he’d definitely smelled the surrounding stench, and, although his sickness had been due to external factors, he was still pretty sure that Stain’s “home” had been partially at cause too. At first, he’d simply considered them coincidences, but now he’d come to realise that this game was indeed having a bigger impact on his real life than he’d expected.
Was he just going insane ? Was this a form of psychosis ? Maybe.
Right now though, with his headset feeling as heavy as the suit he was wearing, the lines between Gordon Freeman and the player were blurred enough that he didn’t really care that much about seeing a psychiatrist because of this.
Experiencing physical touch through the game had always felt…different from the other sensations that would translate through the VR experience. Gordon vaguely remembers it. Back in Black Mesa, at the very beginning of his “adventure”, he’d played around with the VR, attempting to physically interact with the other npcs and marvelling at the fact that he could indeed faintly feel solid weight against his hands.
Add this to the list of things that freaked him out at first but that he never bothered to investigate. If he really was a scientist, he would be a terrible one.
As it was, his entirely non-scientific brain reasoned that being able to physically interact with video game characters was cool as fuck.
Finally, it was the absence of ambient screams that took him out of his musings. Instead of instantly taking off the headset that weighted on his face, Gordon raised himself from his position on the floor, supporting his weight on his elbows, to find the rest of the anti-science team pilled up in a corner, soundly asleep.
Xar seems to sleep sitting upright which was…not really that surprising considering everything, Father Grigori laid draped across the alien’s lap, smiling like this was the most comfortable position one could find themselves in, and Christopher sat with his head thrown back against Xar’s right leg, his gun loosely still held in his hand, supposedly for safety purposes.
Logically, the entire scene would be a lot more endearing if it wasn’t for the graphic’s imperfections, limbs clipping here and there, but Gordon had reached a point where he could hardly differentiate bad game graphics with real life.
(Which was its own separate can of worms, one that he wasn’t ready to crack open yet.)
Gordon hadn’t known these guys for a long time, but he still held a certain fondness for them. He could see the similarities between them and what he could remember of his previous team, but they were also so different. All of them outcasts in a world that clearly didn't want them fighting back.
Moving back against the nearest wall, he decided that now may be a good time to long off, lest he ends up dozing off with the game still running. His hands were on each side of the headset, ready to take it off, when, out of the blue, someone’s hushed voice broke the silence.
“Why aren’t you sleeping with the others ?”
Gordon jumped back in surprise, whipping his head around to be met with the face of innocence (aka. Stain) looking back at him, his big eyes staring at him in genuine confusion, unblinking.
Calming down from his near heart attack (once an anxious wreck, always an anxious wreck), Gordon responded, whispering aswell as to not wake up the others.
“W- I should be the one asking that,” Gordon replied, “how come you aren’t sleeping with the others ?”
“Not tired,” was Stain’s simple answer.
“Right,” Gordon said, “ well I was just about to go to sleep, so…”
“Yeah I know,” Stain cut him off, “so why aren’t you with the others ?”
Ah. Well, it wasn’t a crazy thing to wonder per se. Given Stain’s life having mostly been spent as an hermit surrounded by rats, it’d make sense for him to be curious about…seemingly mundane details.
Why didn’t he sleep with the others ? Well, he felt out of place. Even back in Black Mesa, he’d never inserted himself in the science-team’s sleep piles. There was always that lingering feeling of guilt that churned in his gut whenever it got to getting closer to the AIs. It felt like betraying them, to allow himself to get close while knowing that their life was a lie. In the end, he’d failed to distance himself. In the end, he’d gotten attached. In the end, he feared that was what caused Coomer to break down.
And naturally, he could tell none of that to Stain, so he said instead:
“I just- I move a lot when I sleep,” Gordon lied through his fucking teeth while staring straight into the eyes of the most trusting human being to possibly ever exist, “I- I wouldn’t want to, you know, disturb them or anything.”
“Oh,” Stain replied, no intonation apparent in his voice, until he perked up, his eyes shining, “it’s okay then, I’ll sleep with you !”
“You’re going to wh-“ Gordon blurted out, slightly too loud for a guy talking in a room of sleeping people.
“Gorgon,” Xar’s harsh whisper reprimanded him from the other side of the room, startling Gordon “we are trying to sleep here. Lower your talking volume.”
“Shit- did I wake you up ? Sorry, my bad” Gordon hastily apologized.
“Dude, shut the fuck up !” Christopher then piped up.
“Okay, fine !” Gordon hissed, “I’ll shut up, whatever, just go back to sleep.”
“I only take orders from the lord, brother !” Grigori helpfully pointed out. Gordon wasn’t even surprised at this point.
Gordon had to muster up all his willpower to not scream in anguish right here and there, opting instead to hide his face in his hands and let out a muffled groan.
Then, faintly, he felt Stain’s shoulder tentatively pressing against his own. Through the veil of reality and the heavy metal suit he was in, the touch wasn’t that perceivable but it was still there.
Gordon looked up at Stain, who had that expression of the people who have an idea in mind and who won’t let it go unachieved.
“Why do you care so much if I sleep on my own anyway ?” Gordon asked, leaning his head back against the wall, the weight of the headset on it feeling as if it was increasing by the second.
“I never slept alone back at home,” Stain explained. “I had my, uh…customers with me. And my clothes. And the trash…I had like a nest I think.”
Stain’s reasonings hardly ever made any sense, but Gordon was apparently used to constant streams of bullshit (must have picked that up in Black Mesa somehow…). From what Stain said, the intend was…actually kind of sweet.
“Alright, fine,” Gordon resigned with a soft sigh, “I guess I can share my part of the cold hard floor with you.”
“Nice,” Stain said with the brightest of smiles on his face.
Gordon then slid down the wall, fully laying down and, after a half-successful attempt at finding a comfortable position, he was joined by Stain who slotted himself right under Gordon’s arm, face resting against the crook of his neck like he just belonged here, and proceeded to wrap his arms around Gordon’s waist.
“Hm, you’re bigger than a rat,” Stain pointed out casually. Like that was a normal thing to say.
Like cuddling with a guy on the floor was a normal thing to do.
“Uh. Yeah I guess,” was Gordon’s eloquent response. Simply because he didn’t know how to react.
How do you react when you, as a gamer who hardly leaves his house for anything more than grocery shopping, whose only real friends were AIs from a fucked up copy of an almost 30 years old game, who calling “touch-deprived” would be the ultimate understatement ? You freeze, and maybe you decide that you’ve had enough of unreality for today and turn off the game, like a normal person.
What Gordon absolutely did not do, by the way.
Instead, he found himself relaxing in Stain’s hold. Like physical touch was something he needed. Like it was something he deserved.
What was he ? An outer-dimensional being coming down in an alternate dimension to take advantage of the feelings of the very much conscious other living beings that live in his computer, inserting himself in their carefully coded lives because he was feeling lonely ? How messed up was that ?
It was an overly dramatic way to express the situation, but could you blame him ? Gordon wasn’t the type to consciously push away people who tried to get close to him but…it was like Coomer had said, anyone would have a crisis if they were to realise that their entire existence was a lie, and Gordon was beginning to feel like he might eventually end up causing all of his friends the inevitable realisation that they’ve been living a lie.
He remembered how it had broken Coomer.
He couldn’t bear it happening to the others. Especially not Stain.
Subconsciously, he found himself hugging Stain back in a tight embrace, which resulted in him snuggling impossibly closer to Gordon.
It wasn’t real but he swore he could feel the other’s soft breaths against his skin.
"Thank you for being nice to me," Stain whispered.
"I mean, it's normal, I guess," Gordon replied. "You're new to the world or something, it'd be unfair to be a dick to you."
"Maybe," he said, "I was lucky, though. I could have been found by a...by really mean guys, you know ? 'm happy it was you instead."
I’m sorry for how this is going to end, I really am Gordon wanted to say.
Of course, he didn’t. He was never good with words.
He shouldn't let himself enjoy this. Getting emotionally invested was dangerous, for both him and his friends. Was this really a price he was willing to pay ?
Would a happy life in a fake world be better than a sad, lonely life, in the real world ? Were either options better or worse than the other ? Did it matter ?
Too much lonely musings. That wasn't good for his moral. He needed to get out of here and leave the game on the side for another month or so. Getting too close, that was a risk for everyone involved.
Taking off the headset felt like ripping off a part of himself, but Gordon didn’t exactly have a choice. He’d complain about the state of the in-world game, he’d whine about the pain inflicted by the bullets that kept raining down on them, about how loud his friends were being, but in the end, he felt at home here, more than in the real world, at least.
An annoyingly familiar voice was calling him an incel in the back of his mind. Whatever the fuck that meant.
With a deep breath and closed eyes, he ripped the headset clean off his head like a band aid. It landed with a dull thud on the floor, just above his head.
With his eyes still closed, he swore he could still feel Stain’s warmth radiating off him.
He didn’t want to let go. He didn’t want to face the harsh, cold reality of his lonely, too small appartment.
Then, releasing his breath, the player opens his eyes.
And, as they adjust to the cool darkness of his room, only lit up by the soft buzzing light of his computer, he feels completely, truly, fully alone.
“Good night,” he whispers defeatedly to the empty room.
And, oh, if only someone, anyone, could’ve answered him.