#i’m getting something to fasten it to the wall today but for now the heaviest thing i own is a salt lamp and that’s keeping it in place. and

[treecakes]

he likes his radiator cover. and he likes looking out the window

[virtueangel]

anyways,, what if gordon went back to apologise to benrey and they became best friends?

funny lil idea. 

i would just like to believe that there is a world in which gordon feels bad about what he did to benrey — a world where he apologises, and maybe benrey feels a little bit bad as well. 

headcanon is after “keep reading” — it’s pretty long, sorry lsdkfjslfj

but uh. yeah. here you go :) 

The Apology

Time is relative. It’s a made-up concept — only created to measure and organise. Five months doesn’t seem like very long to someone who is on their deathbed; but it’s a hell of a lot longer to someone who can only seem to fill the space with guilt. Five months is a long time to be drowning for. Unfortunately, Gordon Freeman is the kind of man who fills the space with guilt. He’s had to learn the hard way that five months is, relatively, a long time.

He stands in front of his bathroom mirror, gripping the sink tightly and staring at himself with tired eyes. His skin has gone grey, and his hair has grown out like unmaintained ivy vines. His eyes look heavy without his glasses; like they’re pulling down his whole head with their weight. He wraps his hair into a loose bun, too tired to position it on the top of his head. He runs the faucet and leans over the sink, splashing cool water onto his face with his one hand. He stops the faucet and pats his face with a brown washcloth, frowning at the dark spots under his eyes when he looks at his reflection in the mirror. Five months is a long time to carry guilt in your mouth but never swallow.

Gordon slips his glasses onto his face before turning around to walk back into his bedroom. He makes his way over to his walk-in closet, which is barely half full, and pulls out a variation of the same outfit he wears every day: jeans, some sort of sweater, heavy black boots; all under a white lab coat. He doesn’t get to wear the HEV suit much anymore — or at all, really. There’s no need for it with the work he does now. There’s barely any Black Mesa to work in, for that matter. What was too destroyed to save is just gone; all the employees who died — were killed — never got replaced. The facility is smaller, the staff is smaller, the work is smaller. No more green goo; no more Wikipedia; no more “testing”. Just scientists watching nothing, for ages, trying to decide how to clean up the mess that they’ve made.

This job of cleaning, of course, falls to the people who caused the problem in the first place: the Science Team; Dr. Coomer, Dr. Bubby, Tommy Coolatta, and, well, Gordon Freeman.

Gordon tugs his hair tie to let down his disastrous bun, and instead gathers it into a much more presentable ponytail. Hair this long really shouldn’t be up to regulation at a facility as dangerous as Black Mesa, but it’s not like there are any corrections officers around to stop him — not anymore. Gordon sighs and picks his car keys up from his nightstand, jingling them in his hand before quickly snatching his passport and shoving it into the pocket of his lab coat. He scoffs to himself and rolls his eyes to the ceiling, wondering when bringing identification to work with him will stop feeling like a punishment.

Punishment. Guilt. Same thing.

Gordon drives to work cautiously and parks as far away from the entrance of the building as possible. He knows that the building is OSHA approved — he walked around with the team surveying the facility to make sure it was up to code and that Tommy really had been telling the truth — but a small part of him is still waiting for the entire lab to explode. After what he saw five months ago, Dr. Freeman wouldn’t put anything past the facility.

The walk from his car to the entrance of Black Mesa takes Gordon three minutes. He nods to people he passes, recognising some of them as fellow employees and greeting others just out of politeness. He doesn’t open his mouth to speak any actual words to anyone; he decides they’ll be content with only a little bit of acknowledgement. It’s not like he interacted much with anyone at Black Mesa, even before the accident. The only people he really talks to now are his counterparts of the Science Team, but even then he’s not quite sure what to say to them. They can make small talk all they want, but they’ll never forget what they’ve been through. Avoiding something won’t make it any less real.

Gordon’s first stop when he enters Black Mesa is the break room. He usually tries to avoid this place — or really, anyplace that reeks of memories — but he forgot something at the lab yesterday and this is where the lost and found is located. The room isn’t empty when he enters it, but luckily it is only filled with people Gordon doesn’t mind talking to. Still, he tries to pretend he doesn’t notice any other presences when he bends down to sift through the dark green tub for his wristwatch.

“Good morning, Mr. Freeman!” Tommy exclaims from his seat across the room, beaming a smile at Gordon.

Gordon stands up straight and takes a deep breath before turning to let Tommy see his face. “Hey, Tommy. How’s it going?” He asks, hoping his tone seems genuine.

“I’ve been here for three hours already,” Tommy replies, not directly answering the question. He holds up a can from the table, his arm wobbling the slightest bit. “This is my fourth soda of the morning!”

“I don’t think that’s very healthy, Tommy,” Dr. Coomer offers from his seat across the table from Tommy. He turns to Gordon now. “Hello, Gordon!”

“Hi, Dr. Coomer,” Gordon responds, trying to sound polite. Small talk, he thinks to himself. That’s all I have to manage right now. Small talk.

“Do you want a soda, Mr. Freeman? I think I have an extra quarter if you want it. I know a soda costs three quarters and I only have one but I think that could still be helpful if you only have two.”

“I’m fine, Tommy, thank you,” Gordon replies, pushing his glasses up on his face nervously. This is starting to feel more like a come and sit down with us, Gordon! kind of morning than a let’s say hello and then go our separate ways kind of morning. He bends over to look through the lost and found bin again, fishes out his watch, and turns to leave before he has the accessory fastened around his wrist. Dr. Freeman doesn’t take more than one step when a third person gets his attention.

“For Christ’s sake, Gordon. You never want to spend any time with us anymore. That makes me a little bit sad,” Dr. Bubby says from his seat next to Tommy, and Gordon freezes.

“I’ve just been… busy,” he excuses, but he can’t meet Bubby’s eye.

Bubby sucks the backs of his teeth, making a tsk sound. “Gordon got a fancy promotion and suddenly he’s too busy for us. You hear that?” He says, looking from Tommy to Dr. Coomer.

Tommy looks away from Gordon, but doesn’t make eye contact with Bubby or Coomer. “Yeah, I think I’ve started to miss him just a little bit,” he admits.

Dr. Freeman frowns to himself. “Tommy,” he starts, apologetically.

“I do think you’ve been avoiding us a little bit, Gordon, and I can’t figure out why,” Dr. Coomer cuts in.

“I’m sorry, Dr. Coomer,” Gordon replies, looking at the floor.

“Well don’t just stand there, Gordon! Come and sit down with us!” Dr. Coomer shifts his seat so he’s sitting closest to the wall. He pats the empty chair next to him, inviting Gordon to sit down. Hesitantly, he crosses the room. I guess one little conversation couldn’t hurt.

“What have you been up to, Mr. Freeman?” Tommy asks, a childish grin hanging on his face as he takes a sip of his soda.

“Just… working,” Gordon replies. The other three go silent, waiting for him to say more, but he doesn’t elaborate. There’s nothing much to say.

“Well, that sounds boring,” Bubby says, earning nods in agreement from Tommy and Dr. Coomer.

“Where have you been working, Mr. Freeman?” Tommy asks, not knowing what to do with the weighted silence.

“The Lambda Lab,” Gordon replies, spitting the words out quickly.

Dr. Coomer nods in approval. “Oh, I do enjoy the Lambda Lab! What are you up to today?”

“I’m, uh, I’m actually not sure,” Gordon says, looking down at his watch. “You know what? I should actually get going or I’m gonna be late for my assignment.”

“You don’t report to anybody, Gordon! You’re a head scientist!” Bubby retorts, but Gordon is already out of his seat and heading for the door.

“Visit us back here for lunch!” Tommy calls, but Gordon doesn’t turn around for that either. He has no intentions of meeting up with them again for more questioning, but he isn’t going to be the one to crush Tommy’s hopes.

Suddenly, Gordon doesn’t want to go to the Lambda Lab anymore. Sure, that’s where he works now — but he isn’t called for another hour and a half. And besides, it’s not like he really reports to anyone anymore. Everyone is too afraid to tell Gordon what to do, considering how… horribly wrong everything went the last time anyone yelled at him. Dr. Freeman scoffs to himself at the thought of it, remembering how he had been in the right and it was really just that security guard who had screwed everything up… That security guard whom Gordon had always treated like he was stupid. I probably owe him an apology for that, Gordon thinks. I owe him an apology for a lot more than that, actually.

Gordon walks through the wide, abandoned halls of Black Mesa, nervously whipping his head from side to side. He fears that someone might be following him — terrified that someone might see where he’s going. He walks right past the turn in the hallway that will eventually lead him to the Lambda Lab, wincing ever so slightly. Guilt, he thinks. Always the heaviest thing in the air.

Dr. Freeman finds himself in front of a heavy door, the frame lined with red and yellow reflective tape. There’s nothing indicating that it isn’t safe to go in, just probably that you… shouldn’t. Gordon takes a deep breath and pushes the bright red button next to the door, waiting apprehensively as the mechanism slowly whirrs and pulls the doors apart. Gordon taps his foot and tilts his wristwatch upward again, even though he knows he is nothing short on time. The doors seem to take ages to open, when in actuality, he only waits about ten or fifteen seconds. His pulse quickens as he enters the room — a wing of Black Mesa that he has never spent time in before. It’s the part of Black Mesa that everyone views as a dark corner; there are stories about it, but no one has ever actually visited to see if those stories are true or not. Everyone is too afraid.

The room is quiet and spacious, almost… peaceful. Dr. Freeman flips the bulky switch on the wall next to him, and the lab is flooded with light. Gordon takes a deep breath as he scans this unfamiliar territory, knowing exactly what he’s looking for but still unclear on what it’s actually supposed to look like. The question doesn’t remain unanswered for long, because there he spots it, pressed against the back wall of the room: a test tube, filled almost to the brim with gel-like teal fluid. There are about twenty cords plugged into the wall, all of them connected to the tube. Gordon’s stomach lurches when he brings himself to finally look at what’s inside the tube — what’s floating in the teal fluid.

This tube is different from the one Dr. Bubby was grown in. It’s almost cryogenic, but with gel instead of nitrogen. It’s for preservation, but it has only ever been in experimental trials. The tubes were tested with small animals, but never with anything human-sized. Gordon frowns to himself, catching himself feeling bad for a second. What if the tube doesn’t work? What if he’s just been drowning in there for all these months? Dr. Freeman expected to feel emotions if and when he ever visited this room, but he never expected sympathy to be amongst them. He takes a steadying breath, remembering one crucial detail: Benrey isn’t human.

Gordon crosses the room to the control panel, vaguely remembering the day this tube was first introduced. He had been in the room when it was first installed — that was the last time he saw Benrey until, well, now. Dr. Freeman was vaguely briefed on how the tube works, but he never studied it in detail. It was too painful for him. Why try to preserve this life at all?

Nonetheless, Gordon had listened. He presses the big blue button on the control panel, and pushes forward a lever. He turns around to watch the tube as the liquid slowly drains, trying to steady his breathing. One overlying fear leaks into his brain: am I going to regret this? Gordon takes another steadying breath, telling himself that what’s done is done, there’s no going back now. And besides: there’s always a way out. He can simply fill the tube back up again if things with Benrey don’t go as planned, right? There’s more teal gel in Black Mesa somewhere.

Once the gel has been drained, Gordon presses the green button on the opposite side of the control panel to flood the tube with oxygen. “I’ll at least want him breathing…” Gordon mumbles to himself, a touch of sarcasm dancing between his words. He smiles maliciously to himself, about to make a joke, but thinks better of it. He came here to talk to Benrey, not to beat him up. Dr. Freeman has already “killed” Benrey once, — if you could even say that about someone who doesn’t die — he doesn’t need to do it again.

Gordon turns around to watch the thing in the tube, slowly taking steps closer until he could reach out and touch the glass if he wanted to. Little by little, Benrey starts to stand up straighter, open his eyes wider, breathe deeper. Gordon waits, hoping his fearful state doesn’t show on his face. He has nothing to be afraid of. He never had anything to be afraid of. That’s the whole reason why he’s apologising.

“Oh, yo, it’s you,” Benrey says once he regains full consciousness.

Gordon crosses his arms over his chest, realises that this stance seems too dominant, and relaxes his arms at his sides. That feels weird, though, and not guarded enough. He goes on fidgeting with his hands for about thirty seconds before realising how stupid he looks. He’s relieved that Benrey hasn’t commented on it yet.

Gordon takes a good look at Benrey now, allowing himself to really look at the entity for the first time since, well… this might be the first time ever. He’d somehow managed to never take in Benrey’s appearance, despite all the time they’d spent together. Benrey is still wearing his Black Mesa security uniform, but it is now out-of-date. The security chief at the facility decided to instate a new dress code, simply so the guards wouldn’t look like Benrey anymore. He’s wearing black lace-up boots, but they aren’t nearly as chunky as the ones Gordon is wearing. They have a little bit of a platform, but only for the tread. He’s also wearing navy blue pants, with a matching navy blue long-sleeve shirt under his security vest. The only thing missing from his outfit is his helmet. Without it, his hair is revealed; it’s black and fluffy, and Dr. Freeman smiles to himself because he can’t imagine how Benrey ever managed to keep all of that under his helmet in the first place.

“Bro, I’m talking to you. Can you please answer me?”

Gordon is transported back into reality. “What?”

Benrey sighs, uninterested. “I was sleeping so peacefully and you came in here and woke me up. I wanna know why.”

“Wait, you were alive? Like, you could function and shit?” Gordon asks.

Benrey shrugs. “I could see and hear shit. I was like, alive, but not conscious. I couldn’t process anything. It was kinda dumb, but whatever.”

Gordon looks taken aback, making a mental note of that. Alive, but not conscious. Got it. I don’t think that’s what’s supposed to happen. “I actually came here for a reason, believe it or not.”

Benrey makes an exaggerated yawning sound. “So get it over with.”

Dr. Freeman glares. “Can you be nice? I’m trying to be nice right now but I think you’re going to ruin that for both of us.”

Benrey scoffs. “Oh, so you’re going to be nice now like you were nice when you shot me even though I wasn’t even shooting back?”

“You have to understand that you were a threat, Benrey. Do you even know how big you were?”

Benrey laughs. “Yeah, of course I know. I did that on purpose. I thought it was funny.”

Gordon shakes his head. “It wasn’t funny. You terrified me.”

Benrey shrugs. “You hurt me first.”

Gordon goes silent, searching for the right words. Is that true? He wonders. Did I hurt him first? And then, Was it on purpose? “How did I hurt you?”

“You never listened to me when I spoke,” Benrey starts. “All I wanted was your passport, bro! I was just trying to keep Black Mesa safe and somehow that made me the enemy!”

“I didn’t know there was a rule about having ID,” Dr. Freeman replies, but he knows it’s a weak excuse. He closes his mouth, willing Benrey to continue.

“Well, I guess it must’ve been instated that morning or something because I was definitely told that all employees needed an ID to enter any facility, not just the high security ones. And I was just doing my job, you know? I wasn’t trying to… harass you, or whatever. I just needed to know that you weren’t dangerous.”

“I’m not dangerous…”

“I didn’t know that, man! I kinda started to figure it out as we spent more time together, but I didn’t know it in the beginning and I guess I was scared that I was going to get in trouble or something if I just decided that you weren’t dangerous without having any proof of it.”

Gordon sighs, formulating a response.

“Can I get out of this tube? It’s really cramped in here.”

Dr. Freeman mulls over this request, thinking about the pros and cons to each side. It would probably be easier to have this difficult conversation if Benrey weren’t on the other side of the glass. It does seem a bit cramped in the tube — and it’s kind of Gordon’s fault Benrey is in there in the first place. Gordon nods and makes his way back across the room to the control panel, flipping a switch and watching as the tube door slowly flips open. Benrey steps down to the tile floor delicately, wobbling a little bit from the movement.

“You okay there, buddy?” Gordon asks, offering a hand for support.

Benrey takes Gordon’s hand and nods. “Yeah. Thanks.”

“No problem.”

Gordon scans the room, looking for somewhere to sit. He does a full rotation with his head, before landing again on the test tube. He panics for a second, wondering where Benrey went, but all he needs to do is tilt his head down to see the entity sitting on the floor in front of him. Gordon sinks down as well, and they sit cross-legged on the tile.

“So you came to talk to me, huh?” Benrey asks, staring Gordon right in the eye.

Gordon looks away, uncomfortable. “Yeah, uh, I guess so…”

Benrey blinks, waiting for Gordon to go on. When he doesn’t, Benrey says, “So get on with it.”

Gordon sighs, willing up the courage to continue. “I wanted to… apologise, actually. I wanted to apologise… to you,” he says finally, avoiding eye contact.

“Okay,” Benrey replies, unimpressed. “What for?”

Gordon rolls his eyes, embarrassed to have even come here in the first place. Maybe it was a mistake. Maybe he should just seal Benrey back in the tube, fill it up with the teal fluid again, and leave. He could easily pretend not to know what’s in this room at all. He could go back to the break room, sit down with the rest of the Science Team, and act like Benrey is nothing to them anymore. As far as the rest of the team are concerned, he isn’t.

But Dr. Freeman came here for a reason, and he’s going to see it through. “For… everything, I guess. For being rude to you when you didn’t deserve it. For not giving you a chance,” he pauses, looking up at the ceiling. There is a weird tingling in his nose that he desperately wants to get rid of. “For… seeing you as a threat when you weren’t one.”

“I’m Black Mesa security, Gordon. I’m the best of the best. Of course I’m not a threat,” Benrey scoffs.

Gordon freezes, eyes focused intently on the thing sitting in front of him. Human never felt like the right term. But monster is just plain vile. “That is the second time I have ever heard you address me by name.”

Benrey shrugs nonchalantly. He doesn’t look directly at Dr. Freeman. “I’m taking this conversation seriously. And besides — I want it to last as long as possible. I know you’re just gonna seal me back in that tube when it’s over with.”

Gordon opens his mouth to protest, but Benrey cuts him off.

“It’s okay. I don’t mind the tube, actually. It’s better than being dead, I guess. But I’d rather be alive. Have control over my life. It’s shit to have to wait for someone to make decisions for me.”

Gordon fidgets with his ponytail, winding it around his finger and letting it go. “I guess I let my ego get ahead of me,” he says finally.

This seems to catch Benrey’s attention, for he turns back to Gordon and leans forward, suddenly interested in the conversation once again. “You think?”

Gordon is about to groan, when he remembers that arguing is not at all the goal of this conversation. “I was a bit of an asshole, I’ll admit, but I don’t deserve this,” he gestures at Benrey with his right arm — the one with a gun where a hand is supposed to be.

Benrey frowns. “No, I guess you didn’t deserve that.”

The two sit in silence for a minute or so, avoiding each other’s faces, looking anywhere but in front of them. Finally, Benrey breaks the silence with a question.

“Why do you hate me so much?”

Gordon hesitates, choosing his words carefully. “I don’t hate you, Benrey. That’s the whole thing.”

“I told you not to shoot,” he retorts, almost too quickly. “I said to stop shooting, because if you shoot me I’ll have to shoot you and I didn’t want to do that. I didn’t want violence, you bastard! I just wanted you to listen. But you don’t fucking listen because you think you’re better than everyone else. Look at you!” He gestures to Gordon’s attire. “You’re a head fucking scientist! I don’t know what you did to deserve that title, but it has definitely inflated your ego a good bit. You’re an asshole, you know that?”

Gordon frowns, but doesn’t defend himself. He knows he deserves every word of Benrey’s harshness. He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, planning out a response in his head. “I know that I’m an asshole, Benrey, and I’m sorry.”

Benrey perks up, not expecting an admission. Hell, he’d been expecting an argument. He stays silent, willing Gordon to go on, suspicious of the man’s motives.

“That’s why I’m here, actually. It was fucked up, what we did — what I did.” He looks up at Benrey now, cautiously meeting his gaze. Neither of them look away.

“I never meant for it all to get so… grotesquely out of hand,” Gordon continues. “I was blinded by the shiny objects, I suppose. I had a job to do. I had a responsibility — a reputation — to uphold. I was ready to gun down any and everything in my path to get to where I needed to be. I had all these lost and broken people standing behind me, looking to me to make a move. I couldn’t let them down. I had to save them, get them out of Black Mesa. And I guess I was willing to destroy everything just to get them to their destination.”

After a few seconds of silence, Benrey says, “But it wasn’t to get them to their destination, was it?”

Gordon shakes his head. “No. It was for the glory. For the gold star you get when you finish a game.”

“You know gold stars hold no actual weight, right? It’s a fake trophy. Motivation comes in forms of fabrication. You’re smart enough to know that, I think.”

Dr. Freeman nods, breaking eye contact with Benrey. He brushes a strand of hair out of his face and fidgets with his ponytail once again. “I am smart enough to know that. But that doesn’t mean I wasn’t naïve.”

There is a moment of silence before Benrey says, “It’s almost admirable.”

Gordon looks up. “Almost?”

Benrey shrugs. “I don’t know. That you were willing to go that whole way. Even if it was for a gold star, you were still doing something good for the rest of them.” He pauses before adding, “But you are in no way a saint. You didn’t have to push me down the fucking ladder to get your happy ending. I could’ve been part of your happy ending.”

“You were getting on my nerves.”

“Weak excuse.”

Gordon nods. He knows that already.

“Is this you saying you’re sorry because you actually feel bad, or just so you can alleviate guilt?”

Alleviate guilt, he thinks to himself, realising the truth. But he doesn’t want it to be the truth. He continues. “Look, the point is getting away from me.”

Benrey scoffs. “Yeah.”

“I’m sorry about… everything. You’re not a threat. I know that you were just trying to do your job. I got angry when I shouldn’t have. You didn’t deserve me lashing out at you…” He trails off, his eyes landing on the tube behind Benrey. He gestures at it with a nod of his chin. “You don’t deserve that, either. You’re not dangerous. You don’t deserve to be locked in a cell.

Benrey smiles. “I don’t mind the tube, but I miss Black Mesa. I miss,” he stops, looking down at the tile floor between his crossed legs. He begins tracing a circle with his fingernail. “I miss the Science Team, a little bit. Even though I know I wasn’t technically part of it. I miss Tommy, and Bubby. And sometimes even Dr. Coomer,” he smiles. He hopes he’s doing a good job of hiding it, but Gordon can still see the corners of his lips turned up ever so slightly.

“You could come back, I suppose,” Dr. Freeman replies in a cautious tone.

Benrey’s head snaps up, and his cheeks flush. He can’t hide his excitement anymore. “You mean it?”

Gordon shrugs. “As you said, I’m a head scientist. I don’t report to anyone. No one can tell me to put you back in the tube.”

“I don’t wanna go back in the tube.”

Dr. Freeman shakes his head, smiling to himself now as well. “You don’t have to go back in the tube. And besides, I’m not actually sure I could fill it back up anyway.”

Benrey laughs, just a little bit, before the tone turns serious again.

“I really am sorry, Benrey.” Gordon opens his mouth like he’s going to add more, but only the same words come out. “I’m sorry.”

Benrey shakes his head, looking down at the floor again. “I forgive you.”

The two sit in silence, smiling, not sure of what to say. Eventually, Gordon stands up. Benrey watches as he bends his arm at the elbow, offering it to Benrey. Benrey stands up and links his arm through Gordon’s, and together they walk through the metal doors and out into the hallway. They don’t say much, but they smile, and it is the first time Gordon has been able to breathe in months.

__________________________________________

“Can I shoot the gun?”

“No, you may not shoot the gun!” Gordon protests, trying to pry Benrey’s hand off of his arm.

“I’m going to shoot the gun.”

Gordon watches in horror as Benrey somehow manages to make his gun-arm shoot at the floor, creating an explosion of tile pieces and smoke. The aftermath is a hole in the floor, threatening to crumble into a bigger sinkhole and take this hallway down to the level below it.

“Bro, why’d you do that?” Benrey exclaims, letting go of Gordon and moving as far away from him as possible.

Through gritted teeth, Gordon mumbles, “You piece of shit.”