Chapter Text
Breathe in, breathe out. Ground yourself, Gordon.
Today was a day like any other for Gordon Freeman.
Nothing much of note had happened. He skimped out on making breakfast again, settling on a bowl of half-stale vegetable/grain/whathaveyou flakes and some juice he found in the back of his fridge.
He had his breakfast on the couch with a heaping side of mind-numbing, B-rate TV drama. If asked what it was about, he honestly wouldn’t be able to say.
Breakfast was followed by remembering to take his T shot, followed by a few hours fiddling around on his computer under the lie of attempting to pull his resume together for the 20th time this month.
The laundry dwindled (He only had the distant impression of a thought he’d have to do it this time around), dust collected on surfaces, and the giant wad of money sitting in his bank account remained. He was still half convinced it was going to disappear, like eve
rything else- (
Stop
)
The resume barely saw the light of day, nor did anything else miraculously get done, time taken up by surfing through youtube videos and random info pages.
Dinner was up next, comprising of a half-heartedly heated up TV dinner which, you guessed it, was taken alongside another round of B-rate TV.
By the end of it he wound up sitting at the edge of his bed (actually having brushed his teeth this time!! The seed of a good feeling that action brought was almost not drowned out by the pressing immediate memory of the rest of the day, and the days before that, and the days before those. . .)
. . .
. . .
Gordon was empty.
He sighed, curling down to put his face in his hands. He breathed in and out. He didn’t know what this was, he didn’t know. . .
Ground yourself, Gordon. He reminded himself, attempting to solidify his expression to encourage his thoughts to do the same.
He just. .
The past few months have been hard. Laid off his first job in his chosen area of expertise, only to be laid off the second almost as fast. Why did he spend so much time, so much effort getting his bachelors in engineering, in his internships, if he was just going to be fired within months of all jobs he touched?
Memories of those nights spent crunching at his grandmother’s house, hearing her chat with Joshua (despite not being in the room he could still clearly picture Joshua in his high chair, chubby face scrunched in thought before speaking in rapidfire babbles, Abuelita responding with patience and amusement-) - and Gordon was in the room adjacent, pressing his notes into his brain as deeply as he could, over and over and over. . . .
Time not spent with his son, not with his Grandmother, with no one else, to. . . He . .
His teeth clenched. He had done it so they could have a better life. So he could support himself and his son, to provide him everything - He wanted to support Abuelita too, the one who had given him stability, who practically raised him when his own childhood fell to shit.
He didn’t do it all to just sit here, half across the country because he convinced himself it was the only way to get his foot in the business, only to get fired again over who knows what while Abuelita watched - more like raised ( too much it was too much like she had to do for HIMSELF- ) - Joshua by herself, waiting for Gordon to get back on his feet, waiting for him to make something of himself, waiting for him to stop being such a pathetic loser, waiting for him to get over-
All too quick he felt the adrenaline rush that thinking about the incident always brought, muscles tensing to run or fight, nerves drenched in the too familiar constant fear he experienced every moment for what had felt like days.
The incident where one moment he was putting on his old VR headset to play a ripped version of a childhood favorite, and the next he was running through the halls of the fictional Black Mesa itself, believing it all real, fighting tooth and nail to survive alongside. . .
He turned his head to the side. He. . . he couldn’t think of the too-real AI he ‘survived’ alongside with. It was. . . it was too confusing.
They had felt so real . Being. . outside. . . outside, Gordon knew, he knew on some level that they didn’t actually exist. That they were just lines of code, they were just. . . just what? The question and any answer eluded him whenever he thought about it.
When he first purchased the game at an old second-hand store, he assumed it was some modded version someone had made in their basement - That didn’t explain how complex they were, though. He had looked briefly into what it would take to craft real, actual AI in college as he was deciding what discipline to pursue; It was complicated . And nothing nowadays reached the apparent level of what- ( he had to stop himself from saying ‘who’ ) he encountered in the. . . the. . . whatever it was.
Whatever it was, whoever made it, it had felt real. And. . .
He brushed his hands together as he fidgeted, freezing when his flesh hand rubbed against metal.
A chill ran down his spine and settled in the pit of his stomach.
His prosthetic.
The prosthetic he had when woke up after the ‘party’, laying on his back on top of his bed, the twilight glow of the city washing in through the window of his 4th story apartment. Three days had passed since he put on the headset, he had twenty three unread texts, five missed calls, the game and VR headset were gone, and he was missing his right arm below the elbow.
Tears pricked his eyes. He. . he knew it couldn’t be real. He knew he couldn’t have actually been inside that hellhole, he knew he couldn’t actually have laughed along side the Science- aside those AI, he knew he couldn’t actually have felt anything about- any of them, he knew he couldn’t have lost his real arm, he knew he couldn’t have been betrayed -
He was shaking, hot tears flowing freely, all the muscles of his left arm straining under his vice grip on the prosthetic in the place where his right arm used to be, where it should be-
He breathed in, he breathed out.
Releasing the faux limb he forced his body to untense. Slowly, as if he would break otherwise, he eased himself into bed, rubbing his eyes.
Tomorrow he’d fix up his resume, he’d look up some jobs willing to take in a twice-fired engineering noob, and he’d move on like he should.
Like he had to.
----------------
Today had been a day like any other. It made sense the night would be the same.
He ended up in bed later than one would think, but still at about the time one would expect. Glasses and prosthetic on the bedside table, and a small bit of self-care in the form of getting up to secure a glass of water to leave beside said glasses and prosthetic.
All in all nothing out of the ordinary, everything was as expected.
That’s why when there was a single, odd tap on the window of his 4th story apartment, Gordon Freeman was roused from his sleep.
What was that? Gordon took in the sight of his dimly-lit bedroom, blinking the sleep from his eyes. In the fog of half one’s brain being inexplicably awoken and the other still dragging through the process of booting up, he tried to process exactly what it was he just heard and what the fuck he was going to do about it.
It couldn’t be a person, he’s on the 4th floor and the fire escape has been rusted to hell since the 80’s. He’d be hearing footsteps like the time his upstairs neighbor attempted to (unsuccessfully) sneak back into his apartment drunk, probably trying to sneak past his boyfriend waiting at the door (the argument had been loud that night, and the ceiling-floor thin as always).
He reached for his glasses. Can’t be a bird, either. If it was it would have been much louder (more events he wished he hadn’t experienced). And the small glimpse of the weather he saw in the corner of the local news channel said tonight was supposed to be clear.
Momentarily running a hand through his curls he turned his left ear to the slightly open door, straining to hear anything else.
There was nothing. Just the white noise of trying to hear something that isn’t there. That’s. . . that’s actually kinda weird - usually even this late he could hear the sounds of the city humming into the night. . .
Then there was the telltale sign of something solid moving in front of the sliver of light coming through the crack of his door.
SHIT. Throwing off his covers he reached for his prosthetic without thinking, the machine clicking into place in the dock at the end of the stump of his right arm.
Gordon was across his room and at his door, yanking it open before he even registered his adrenaline and- there was someone he’d never seen before
He barely had time to register the woman before him, hair tied back in a tight ponytail and wearing a tight dark combat suit before she came at him, something in her hand-
He jerked backwards, instinctually blocking with his right arm.
The needle ( NEEDLE!?! ) in her grip clanked off metal, slipping downwards as their momentum carried the both of then backwards. What the FUCK-
Miraculously Gordon just barely managed to keep his footing as the assailant surged forward again, teeth gritted. He spun with a yelp, shoving her out of the way as he ran for the door-
There was another one.
The second assailant in even more body gear than the first made to tackle him, and it was all Gordon could do to duck (he didn’t know what the fuck kind of instincts these were, but he thanked any and every god for them) and throw his body against the wall to dodge the buffer man.
A glance towards his bedroom as he righted himself revealed the woman shoving the man out of her way, her eyes trained on him.
He booked it.
He could barely hear his own footsteps pound against the carpet, let alone the sound of his assailant, but he knew she was gaining-
As he burst out of the hallway and into the living room he grabbed the table lamp on the island table he bought recently and turned, smashing it against the side of the assailant’s head.
It shattered upon impact, blood splattering across the wall and the floor and his hand- he let the momentum turn him back forward as he ran for his door (The window was open, the window was open and someone else was coming IN ) - the seconds it took to unlock the chain and doorknob were punctuated with pulse-pounding fear and his own blood rushing in his inner ears.
He could just barely hear the muffled sounds of talking and yelling as he yanked open his front door and tore down the carpeted hallway.
Without a thought he threw open the fire escape and started taking the stairs down two three at a time. Some part of him registered this wasn’t fast enough, however, and in a swift motion he hopped the railing, gritting his teeth as his feet hit the concrete hard. It didn’t stop him from doing so the rest of the way down; Run, jump, land, repeat.
With a heave he shoved open the fire escape and threw himself into the alleyway, gasping in the cold night air.
Then he felt something weird, as if he were passing through a thin wall of. . not-wet mist.
Suddenly, everything around him came to life again through sound - the distant hum of traffic on the freeway, the sounds of a few TVs on in the apartment building next door, the bar down the street, his own heaving breaths. . .
What the fuck is happening. . What the FUCK is going on. . .
Keep running the panic in him said, and he started again down the alleyway, socked feet slapping against concrete. If he can just get to the street, to the sidewalk, someone will see him, someone will be able to call someone and then-
A car engine revved into auditory range, closing in fast.
Gordon watched as. . . a white Cadillac?? sped by the alley he was in, only for the sidewalk to light up red as it reversed (the engine being pushed harder than it should), the car screeching to a halt in front of the alleyway. . .
“Hello, Gordon!”