#Coomer Front Face with Beard and Hair

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Coomer - Front Face with Beard and Hair, High Res, White (Template)

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[bellygunnr]

a leader on losing control

"Does anyone have uh- a mirror? No, fuck me, where the hell are we going to get a mirror down here...?"

Gordon shakes his head as he admonishes himself, but regrets the loose motions as soon as pain throbs in his temples in time with his pulse. His hair, long since fallen from its tight ponytail, sticks to his face in sweaty clumps. The unexpected weight causes him to flinch, then flinch again as he struggles to get his bearings.

"No mirror here, Gordon! I don't think now is the time for personal hygiene, anyway," Dr. Coomer helpfully informs him. The old scientist is curled up beside him, his arms extended out from his torso, hands and wrists twisting in familiar stretches. "I may have something for your hair, though."

"That- that'd be nice," Gordon tries to say, but the words wheeze out, his lungs deflating like a pricked balloon. "Can you put it in for me? Can you do that? It's okay, if not. I just- I just really don't want to touch my hair- agh!"

Dr. Coomer used his strength (inhuman) to pull Gordon around, which led to a series of adrenal responses that varied in intensity and ended with Gordon shutting down, his mind withdrawing from his body and promptly outside of it. The HEV suit pinged, but it was faint, muffled, inconsequential. Some part of him knew that this was bad-- that this was his worst panic attack or dissociation or whatever the fuck, but he couldn't bring himself to care. Injuries sustained and repeated, rapid traumas had wore him down over the course of several hours, and this was the result. Men and women had died under his hand-- though he had fired none of the bullets, he was to blame. Any crime his little group committed became his sin to bear, too.

It was his inability to keep a cool head, he had concluded sometime long ago (but the Resonance Cascade was not so long ago). His temper and full body reactions led to a disjointed and chaotic dynamic between he and his-- his teammates. His group. His ragtag band of survivors. He met things he didn't understand with anger and incredulity-- with no space to sort it out, to understand, he grew worse, his mind forced to bend in uncomfortable angles to come to terms with a damnable reality. Perhaps, if he was built of sterner stuff, of better, more tempered mettle, the trek through Black Mesa would not be so horrible. But he wasn't, and this inferno was not reforging him into something better.

At the end of the day, he was only human.

And I can't even do that right, he thinks savagely, harshly reminded of what sent him spiraling in the first place-- gender dysphoria, brought on by his rapidly mounting stress. Between the hair and the strange curves and edges the HEV suit granted him, it had been too much to come to terms with. Rapid clawing and stroking of his beard, which he knew was there, dirty as it was, could not bring him back down from the irrationality because the orange gloves deadened his fine sense of touch. For all he knew, his beard had been razed off, and he was only bruising his face with the force of his desperation.

"Gordon!"

His name cuts through his thoughts like a knife. His vision sways as he tries to swing his eyes around, train on the wrinkled face hovering in front of him, but there's hands on his shoulders and he hates that more than anything. With a lurch, he slams his heavy body back against the wall, snarling when his head clocks cold steel.

It's enough to bring him back to awareness, though.

"I'm fine," he rasps, and that's weird. "Don't-- don't worry about it, man, I just- it's fine, sometimes you just gotta take a nap! I was taking a nap," he forces himself to ramble, throat scratchy, congested. "Yeah, fuck. Thanks for- for helping me with my hair, Dr. Coomer. I really 'precciate it," Gordon slurs.

Dr. Coomer stares at him, silent for once. There's an intelligent twinkling within his eyes, deep and considering, but thankfully nothing more is said. Silence settles down over them like a heavy blanket. It's thick and stifling, woolly, hot, but better than the alternative.

Gordon rests his head between his knees. There's nothing for him outside.