Chapter Text
Tommy kills the bullsquid (innate knowledge now, what things are called) in the water below before Gordon can reach for a weapon. He insists on going in front. So long as he doesn't block Gordon's way forward, that's perfectly alright.
He flicks the levers of the puzzle around properly, briefly recalls a speedrun he'd watched once where the player had jumped over the fence here- But he's already back in the room with the button to pause the machinery, so why bother with anything else? He proceeds, and Tommy does his best to do the same.
They ride the conveyors for some time. Gordon knows the cycle of the presses perfectly, of course, and smoothly descends to the bottom of the room and ascends shortly afterwards as needed. Tommy chooses to fall down instead, and lands with what for all the world sounds like a loud cymbal crash.
It's distantly funny that this is the first time he hasn't gotten lost in this room. Distantly, morbidly funny. He's not quite sure why it's morbid, but it does get a smile out of him.
Tommy jumps down yet again shoots something on the floor, somehow rises back up, and runs right through the tripmines ahead of Gordon. Once again, before he can even bother to take care of them. Dedicated to that going first thing, huh?
They proceed to a crusher and a couple headcrabs fall from above- Gordon stumbles away from them as Tommy jumps down and crushes one underfoot, shooting the other.
"Thanks, man..." He mutters.
"No problem, Mr. Freeman!" Tommy beams. "It was kind of- I was worrying about you for a bit, you were really quiet!"
They've kept moving. Gordon doesn't remember when he started progressing again. "Mhm..."
"Mr. Freeman?"
"I'm okay, Tommy. Let's keep going."
Gordon tunes Tommy out easily enough after that. He's nice and all, but really a bit too much for all this. The world shivers slightly as he goes through a high-radiation hallway. He comes up underneath a grate and reaches for a weapon to break it open.
"Uh, Tommy?"
"Yeah?"
"Can we, like, talk? Or something?"
"On the ladder?"
Gordon looks anxiously up at the grate. He reaches for a weapon- "Yeah. On the ladder."
"Okay!" Tommy shuffles a bit on the rungs he's on. Gordon braces himself on a rung to put as little effort into hanging there as possible.
"I'm-" He trails off instantly. "I'm not-" Why can't he..? Uh. He looks up at the grate. Reaches for a weapon. "I'm not feeling too great right now. I think the blood loss is gettin' to me." Yeah, just improvise.
"I'm sorry Mr. Freeman, that sounds really bad."
"Yeah," Gordon wheezes, laughing a bit despite himself. "It sucks."
Tommy nods up at him. "Can we keep moving now?"
"Yeah, sure." It's inevitable. Tommy shoots the grate and Gordon flings himself up and into a room full of houndeyes. Tommy all but flies up the ladder right afterwards, and shoots the things as Gordon hides in a corner and quietly enjoys the ability to panic.
The panic fades as the electrified fence swings open and shows a medbox that isn't the grey of a used one. He sticks his stump in there and waits for his health to go up. Oh, he's got a HUD still! That's kind of interesting, and might even be exciting if it weren't for the circumstances.
In a couple seconds, the medbox dings empty. Gordon stares at it and moves on. Tommy stubbornly races ahead. They enter a room that Gordon knows is meant to have an alien grunt in a tube and a button to open the path forward.
Instead, when he walks up to the button to smash it open and promptly glitches back entirely to himself, it's Bubby's voice that he hears behind him.
"Gordon! Gordon, you have to let me out, they put me back in my tube!"
Gordon stares at him, completely exhausted. "Hey."
Bubby barrels on at the non-response. "Gordon, I just want you to know, I didn't betray you. I never told them to do that." He gestures towards Gordon's arm.
A bit vindictively, Gordon places the end of the stump right on the glass and watches the blood slide down it. He ignores Bubby's apologies for the moment, looking back at the switch. He goes for a weapon and shudders slightly.
"T-they told me you were the reason we hadn't gotten out of here, so-"
"You believed them."
"Yes, I... But when I did what they asked they knocked me over the head and shoved me back in my tube!"
In some ways, this is all Bubby and Benrey's fault. They got his arm cut off, or his model's arm cut off, and that let Dr. Coomer... Trade places with him. But maybe Coomer would've been able to do that anyways, and the arm was just a convenient entry point. It being gone is the only reason he's got any freedom at all. There's mixed feelings about the whole thing.
Sighing deeply, Gordon nods. "I don't have the energy to deal with any of this. I don't care. Tommy, could you..." He gestures vaguely at the control panel.
"Sure thing, Mr. Freeman!" Tommy shoots the button, the glass in Bubby's tube shatters, and the door forward opens.
Gordon kind of hopes there's a fight to be had up ahead. He knows there will be soon, some room full of computers and whatnot, he just really wants to be himself for another minute without the stress of conversation.
Bubby stands a bit too close for comfort. "Thank you for getting me out of there, but how did you know that button was the release?"
"Mmngh." Gordon blearily and intelligently responds."
"That's not an answer. That isn't even a word."
"Mleh." He tries to joke. It's rapidly losing appeal.
"That isn't either! You know, I really do think-"
Bubby continues, but Gordon doesn't care anymore. The next room is a cage full of young headcrabs, and suddenly Gordon does care.
"Hold up, guys."
"What's going on?" Tommy asks.
Just shaking his head, Gordon reaches into the cage with his intact arm and pulls out the smallest headcrab in the cage. Nestling it between his chest and arm, with the claws all facing outward, he nods once, firmly.
"You are so fucking weird sometimes, Gordon."
"Yeah." Only one way to know if it'll work. Trepidatious, he leaves the room behind and stands slightly out of sight of any of the headcrabs in there. He rests against the wall for a moment, right next to a medbox. There is a headcrab. Right next to him. He tries to calm down.
He stays calm for all of thirty seconds before he finally tries to pull a weapon on the thing he's holding and snaps back to himself far faster. Okay. It works.
"Let's take a minute, okay?" He asks his companions.
"I'm not going to sit around just so you can indulge your new pet! I just got out of my tube! Let me stretch my legs!"
Tommy nods. "I kind of want to keep moving too. Let's go!"
Gordon sighs. "Yeah, alright." At least he's got something with him to keep him sane, now. As sane as he'll get in here. He thinks of Lamarr, in Half Life 2, and giggles a bit. Pet headcrabs are the future.