#I am aware I’m being a massive nerd about this. in my defence I Am in fact a massive nerd

[tragedykery]

I love going completely overboard with worldbuilding as soon as I get an idea for an au. will this be mentioned in the fic? probably not. am I doing it anyway? of course

[newtafterdark]

Taste of Metal - Chapter 8: A Lecture on Trespassers

AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26157634/chapters/65517814

Summary: What if the overwhelming VR experience Gordon went through, had a deeper purpose than just being a simple simulation & a freelance debug job for him?

But most importantly- what if Gordon Freeman listens to Metal & used to be in a band? aka. the “Metalhead Gordon AU”

- - -

Gordon had to admit that it had been a while since he organized such a big breakfast. It brought his years at MIT back to mind where he and his roommates somehow collectively managed to keep each other on their feet, food included.

 But his worries over the possible mediocrity of what he, Dr Coomer and Bubby might have created - with him being the only one who had actual physical experience with cooking - went right out the window when he saw the looks of amazement and gratefulness at the table.

 Despite having said that he needed neither sleep nor food, Benrey had stacked his plate with a bit of everything that had been brought on the table. If he had been any other person, Gordon would have been concerned. But it was likely that everyone at the table either hadn’t had a proper meal in quite a while or had never had the chance to have one before.

 So when Benrey was carefully layering a pancake with ham, a fried egg, cheese and peanut butter, Gordon just watched with a soft amused smile. 

 Meanwhile, Tommy was losing his mind over the concept of Nutella-Banana toast.

“I-I can’t believe I missed out on this! They never had anything like this at the Black Mesa cafeteria!”

 Gordon chuckled.

 “Doesn’t surprise me, bud. But now you can have that every day if you want.”, he added with an assuring smile.

 Tommy nodded in excitement, already in the process of making another Nutella-covered toast, exchanging his left-over banana slices for Darnold’s strawberries.

 Darnold added the banana to his honey wheat cereal in thought, then looked up to meet Gordon’s gaze.

 “Apologies in advance for prying, Gordon… but I do have a question, If you don’t mind.”

 Gordon blinked over the edge of his mug, cutting the sip of hot cacao short.

 “Sure, man! What’s up?”

 “Well… I recalled your reaction from last night when Bubby talked about exploring the world outside. You seemed… alarmed. Why?”

 Gordon set his mug down, brows furrowed as he looked at his plate. He figured he’d have to tell the Science Team about the outside world eventually...

 “It isn’t as safe as you’d think, guys.”

 “No place is ‘safe’, Gordon.”, Bubby scoffed while cutting his omelette into bite-sized pieces.

 “I am aware, but this is… simulation levels of ‘not safe’.”, Gordon clarified.

 “What do you mean, Gordon? D-Do you guys had natural disasters recently? We understand! We can deal with stuff like that! No worries-”, Tommy threw in, but Gordon held up his hand. 

 “Let me… go get my laptop. I need you guys to know what’s going on.”

 With that said, Gordon got up and went into his bedroom, missing the confused glances the Science Team exchanged among each other. 

 When he returned, Gordon set up his projector and plugged the connection cable into his laptop. He let out a sigh, then opened a folder on his desktop.

 “Alright, welcome to class 101 of ‘Gordon explains what the fuck has been going on on Earth that shit’s fucked up outside’...”, he said, adjusting his glasses and getting into lecture mode. 

 He watched as the Science Team huddled closer to each other at the table, curiously looking at the projection on the wall… but still keeping at it with the breakfast. Gordon smiled softly before reminding himself of what he was doing. 

 “... August 10th, 2013. San Francisco. We thought it was a 7.1 earthquake at first. Bad enough to begin with… but then the video feeds and photos got to the news...”

 The Science Team watched with high attention as Gordon opened up a video file of a news recording. 

 The Golden Gate bridge was swinging dangerously in clear view- until the camera focused on something else.

 Something huge. 

 Something absolutely massive. 

 What emerged from the waters could only be described as a leviathan of a monster. It tore the bridge down with ease and almost instantly made its way towards the city, dragging itself through the water completely unphased by the military attacking it with comparably small aerial strikes. 

 “We called it “Trespasser” since it was the first of its kind we were forced to face.”, Gordon added, his voice sounding heavy with memories.

 The video ended and Gordon turned back, facing his friends. 

 Tommy had his hands covering his mouth in shock, Darnold was holding Sunkist oh-so-gently with horror in his eyes, Bubby was clawing at the table as he stared with wide eyes and even Dr Coomer sat there with concern in his face. 

 The last person Gordon expected to be shocked by this though, was Benrey, who looked positively mortified. 

 “Dude, w-what the FUCK?”, he managed to stutter out.

 “Y-You say it was the ‘first”? There were m-more?!”, Tommy asked.

 Gordon just nodded at that. 

 “The next one arrived 6 months later in Manila-”

 “Six months… that was barely time to rebuild the other city...”, Dr Coomer mused, more to himself than to the others.

 “Then came another one 4 months later in Cabo San Lucas-”

 “They were arriving faster???”, Bubby exclaimed with horror.

 Gordon nodded, pulling up pictures after pictures, playing videos to put emphasis on the seriousness of the whole ordeal. 

 “It was a disaster… We faced smaller ones than Trespasser occasionally… but the big ones got even bigger over time. We faced several each year until only recently. As you can imagine, Earth is still very much damaged in a lot of places because of this. Some areas are completely uninhabitable because of the acidic and poisonous nature of the Kaiju remains-”

 Benrey almost chocked on a piece of bacon-

 “You guys called them ‘Kaiju’??? Like, uh- Godzilla? Big Lizard???”

 Gordon let out a soft chuckle.

 “Yeah… one of the lead scientists behind the research of these beasts is a massive nerd. At first, he only called them that at work to differentiate the samples he got… then the names actually stuck over time in the official reports.”

 Coomer raised his hand.

 “Gordon, how did humanity fight these beasts? It looks like the military was once again absolutely useless!”

 Gordon clicked through his files, looking positively excited to show off whatever humanity's defence system had been- 

 “So, uhm, before I click play… basically humanity got together and formed the Pan-Pacific Defense Corps or PPDC for short. Within the PPDC was the research division… and that included the scientists and engineers who worked on these-”

 What the team saw next in the projection, made several of them gasp in excitement and astonishment.

 The video showed a dragon-like kaiju getting absolutely wrecked by what could only be described as a massive robot.

 “ARE YOU KIDDING ME???”, Bubby exclaimed.

 “Yooooo, what the fuuuuuuuck, man...”, Benrey added, holding his head in his hands, eyes still glued to the projection.

 “This… h-how-”, stammered Darnold, staring in awe.

 “Oh, that is quite the fine work of robotics, Gordon! Very sturdy by the looks of it!”, Dr Coomer observed, giving an approving nod, “So you used these to defeat the kaiju in one-on-one fights?”

 “Well, if we could, we had more Jaeger facing one Kaiju- and yes, my nerd buddy at the PPDC also named the class of the robots.”, Gordon clarified with a chuckle. 

 Tommy perked up at that.

 “That man is your friend, Gordon? Can we meet him?”

 “Well, I haven’t talked to Newton in quite some time… and not with Hermann either… I could e-mail them and ask where they’re stationed so we could meet and catch up? Heh… yeah, I should do that. Newt especially would love you guys!”

 Meanwhile, Bubby leaned back in his chair, arms crossed and glaring at the images still being projected.

 “So… the reason it’s dangerous outside is that these things could pop up anywhere at any moment?”, he asked.

 Gordon made a so-so motion with his hand. 

 “Not quite. The Breach, that’s what we called the portal to their world, was closed not too long ago… but we still deal with the damages and the toxic kaiju remains...”

 Gordon pulled up a photo of an entire coastline glowing in an unnatural blue in broad daylight. 

 “We call this ‘Kaiju Blue’... the closest comparison I could make is that it’s… like acidic oil-like blood. Basically don’t get near any of this at any point. Compared to it, the Green Sludge back in Black Mesa was just a glow-in-the-dark kiwi slushie.”

 That comment earned Gordon a few chuckles and amused huffs.

 “But yes… this is the main reason I want you all to be careful when we go outside. The PPDC still studies what the fuck this stuff can do to a human body… and I don’t want to find out what it might do to you guys. Just… no slurping the toxic alien juice, please?”, Gordon pleaded.

 To his surprise, the team gave him assuring nods.

 “Gordon, normally I would say that you’d be a party pooper… but since we’re all new to this terrifying information, be assured that we will listen. After all, you’re now the specialist!”, Dr Coomer said with a smile.

 Gordon’s tense shoulders relaxed at the reassurance. This was a welcome change from what he had been used to from the Science Team in the simulation.

 “Thanks, guys. I… I know this is a lot to take in- and please take your time to process it! - but I just… I needed you guys to be aware.”

 “Oh, it’s alright, Gordon! I-I think it will slowly sink in over a few days, right guys?”, Tommy asked, turning to the others at the table.

 “I’m already done processing… but we need your laptop for more research, Gordon. I want to know more details on that whole disaster before I take even one step outside.”, Bubby muttered before sipping on his now cold coffee.

 “Of course! And don’t be afraid to ask me about anything, related or unrelated to all this! Honestly, the more I can help with you guys being prepared for the outside world, the better I feel about our whole situation.”

 Gordon turned off the projector for the time being and sat back down at the table.

 “And, uh… thank you all for listening and letting me explain? I’m not used to that from you guys… but yeah, thanks.”, he said with a weak but grateful smile.

 Darnold reached over, putting a hand on his shoulder, while his other hand was still gently petting Sunkist. 

 “Hey, know that we’ll always listen to you from now on. The simulation was one thing… but this is reality. I think I speak for everyone when I say that while bantering with you is álways fun, we won’t push your buttons to a frustrating level anymore. Especially while you’re still recovering.”

 Gordon simply nodded at that, playing with the rim of his shirt. 

 Suddenly, he stood up once more, startling Darnold slightly.

 “Gordon, a-are you okay?”, the mixologist asked.

 Gordon nodded, looking quite serious all of the sudden.

 “I… I want you guys to meet someone.”

 Benrey visibly perked up.

 “Oh shit!- is it son time? Haven’t seen him around so… uh… road trip to go see Gordon Jr?”

 “I can’t wait to meet your son, Gordon!”, Dr Coomer chimed in.

 “W-Well, we don’t need to go anywhere to meet him… uhm… give me a second, I just need to go get my closet key-”

 “CLOSET KEY???”, gasped Tommy in shock.

 “TOMMY, DON’T LOOK AT ME LIKE THAT IT WILL MAKE SENSE IN A SECOND I SWEAR!”, Gordon yelled back while he was scrambling to find his keys.

 The entire team watched in a mix of judgement, curiosity and excitement as Gordon unlocked the storage closet that Benrey had sat on top of earlier that morning. 

 They saw his anxious expression completely melt away to make way for a loving gaze as he pulled out something orb-shaped from within the closet depths.

 A sleepy chirp-like sound suddenly emerged from what Gordon was holding.

 “Hey… ‘morning, bud. Dad’s finally back home...”, Gordon said with the most gentle voice any of the Science Team members had ever heard him speak with.

 Another chirp, this time a bit louder-

 “....dad? DAD! YOU’RE BACK!!!!”

 Suddenly the orb-shaped object launched itself out of Gordon’s arms and flew in rapid circles around him, making the man laugh. He reached out and pulled the orb out of the air, hugging it close. 

 “I am! Hey, uhm… dad brought some friends over. They are really excited to meet you. Do you want to go say hello to them?”, he asked gently. 

 The Science Team watched in anticipation as Gordon walked back to the table, arms wrapped protectively around something that was as big as volley-ball.

 Tommy gasped softly as he leaned over to get a better look.

 A small screen on the orb slowly came into view, displaying a curious little face consisting of numbers and symbols. 

 Two appendages, seemingly constructed in part out of computer mice, pulled the small being further up as it looked warily over Gordon’s arm at the Science Team.

 Gordon smiled proudly at the display of mutual curiosity. 

 “Everyone… meet Joshua.”