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It was Tommy Coolatta’s birthday, and Gordon Freeman was shaking in a Chuck E. Cheese bathroom.
He hadn’t planned to end up there. He hadn’t planned to be in many of the places he’d been in the past… god. Week? Weeks? Month? The realization that he couldn’t remember how long he’d spent trying to escape Black Mesa made him grip the cheap tile of the bathroom countertops and shake even harder.
He’d tried to make it through the party as long as he could, he really had. He’d danced with Bubby and Coomer and tried his hand at the arcade machines and eaten what pizza he could stomach. But it was just… so much. He wasn’t sure how the others could party like that after everything they’d gone through. Everyone coped differently, he supposed.
He should probably go back out there soon, for Tommy’s sake. It was his birthday, after all, and after everything Tommy had done for him, he owed it to him to at least celebrate with him. He just… needed a minute. Maybe none of them had even realized he’d left yet.
“Mr. Freeman?”
Damn.
“Hey, Tommy.” Gordon offered Tommy a weak smile, though he could see in the mirror that it was more of a grimace. “Sorry, man, I’ll be back out there in a second. It was just… a lot.”
Tommy nodded, a sympathetic look on his face. “Do… Is it okay if I join you?”
“What? You don’t have to keep me company dude, it’s your birthday. Don’t stop having fun on my account.” Gordon tried to wave him towards the door, but Tommy was shaking his head before he’d even finished his sentence.
“No, I… It’s a lot for me too. The-” Tommy gestured vaguely as if searching for a word and failing to find it, “All of it.”
“Oh.” Gordon blinked. “Then, yeah, pull up a chair, I guess.”
Tommy gave him a small smile and shut the bathroom door behind him. He leaned his back against it and let out a sigh that Gordon echoed.
They stood there in silence for a while, Gordon doing his best to get his shaking under control. With anyone else, he might have felt awkward, but this was Tommy. Tommy had been the one to practically carry him through countless tunnels and vats of questionable liquid when he was delirious from blood loss. If there was anyone he trusted to not judge him for having a breakdown in the bathroom, it was Tommy.
The metal of the HEV suit clinked against the linoleum of the sink, and suddenly it struck him how much he wanted this thing off .
“Hey, uh,” Gordon spoke up, clearing his throat. Tommy hummed in acknowledgement, “You’ve read a bunch of manuals, right? Did you read the HEV suit manual?”
“Uh, yeah!”
“Think you could get this thing off me?”
Tommy’s eyes widened like he’d only just realized how long Gordon had been wearing the suit. “Oh! Yeah, I can- I think I can do that.”
Tommy approached him slowly, as if approaching a skittish cat, then became more confident in his movements when Gordon gave no sign of flinching away. He began working on the back of Gordon’s chestplate first, slender fingers working deftly on the bolts and buckles that held it together. It was slow work, but with each piece Tommy lifted off him, Gordon felt he could breathe easier. A literal weight was lifted off him, and it only made him more aware of the ache deep in his bones. Every few minutes, there would be a loud noise from the main entertainment area of the Chuck E. Cheese; Gordon would flinch away from the sound, and Tommy would freeze in his movements, but then they would hear Coomer’s loud laughter or a snide, muffled comment from Bubby, and they would relax and resume their work.
After what felt like eons, Tommy finished unclasping the last buckle on Gordon’s boots, stepping back to let him toe them off himself. The HEV suit was a pile of orange rubble surrounding them, and Gordon suddenly felt exposed in nothing but his socks and the dark jumpsuit he’d been wearing under the suit. He felt like he could stand up straight without straining for the first time in weeks, and the feeling of the overpowered Chuck E. Cheese air conditioning seeping through the sleeves of his jumpsuit left him feeling flayed raw.
Tommy was staring at him with an unreadable look on his face, hands flexing and unflexing in a nervous stim. He reached out a hand, hesitated, then laid it on Gordon’s left forearm. Gordon’s skin burned under his touch. When was the last time he’d felt someone else’s body heat?
“Can…” Tommy’s voice was quiet and sounded as fragile as Gordon felt, “Can I hug you?”
Gordon didn’t trust himself to speak around the lump the size of a tennis ball in his throat, so he just nodded. Tommy outstretched long arms, and the two of them fell into each other.
Gordon’s whole body felt like it was buzzing right down to his core. He was lightheaded as everything hit him in that moment. All he had gone through. All he had survived . The fact that he was out , and he was alive . The fact that this was the first time he’d touched someone and felt it on his skin since he’d dropped Joshua off at his mom’s the week of the test. And it was Tommy who got to hold the title of the first person to hug him in far too long. Tommy who had been kind to him even when stress was making them all snappish, and who had made jokes with him when things felt grim. Tommy who had been the only one he trusted when everyone else left him for dead, Tommy who fought by his side so loyally and who removed that horrible suit with such impossible tenderness.
Gordon pressed his face into the shoulder of Tommy’s filthy polo shirt that smelled like sweat and blood but was warm and had probably been soft at some point, and he let out the loudest sob in his life. His voice shattered on the noise, and then he suddenly couldn’t hold it back anymore, sob after sob wrenching its way out of his throat.
He wasn’t sure he’d ever cried like this. Not when he was in labor with Joshua, not at any point during the Resonance Cascade, not even when his arm was being cut off. Nothing compared to these deep sobs that seemed to claw their way out of somewhere deep in his soul to burst out of his chest as everything crashed into him all at once.
He could feel Tommy’s fist balled in the back of his jumpsuit, and he could feel and hear Tommy weeping quietly into where he’d pressed his face into Gordon’s hair, and the raw sensations of it all only made him sob harder.
They stood there, clinging to each other until Gordon’s knees couldn’t hold him up any longer, and then they both sank to the ground, still holding onto each other like they were each other’s life lines. Maybe they were.
Eventually, Gordon simply couldn’t cry anymore, his tear ducts emptied, leaving him with a dehydration headache and a sore throat. He didn’t extricate himself from Tommy’s hold, though, and Tommy didn’t seem like he was going to let go any time soon either. He’d cried himself empty sooner than Gordon had, and now he was just stroking his fingers through Gordon’s knotted curls. Gordon didn’t want to think about how nasty his hair must be right now, caked in blood and sweat and god knows what else, but Tommy’s hand in his hair felt more soothing than aloe on a sunburn.
He snorted quietly when the simile occurred to him. He’d maybe been spending too much time with Tommy. He then immediately shoved that thought away and squeezed Tommy tighter. No, he had not spent nearly enough time with Tommy. Now that they were out, he could let himself think about spending time with Tommy when they weren’t in mortal danger. He couldn’t wait to watch Tommy’s favorite shows and listen to him infodump about them, or walk Sunkist in the sunshine, or take Tommy to his favorite restaurants, or introduce him to Joshua-
Fuck. God, he really liked this guy, huh.
Tommy pulled back ever so slightly, though he didn’t go far. Just enough to be able to look down at Gordon with those kind, intelligent eyes, and Gordon thought he might pass out. He moved his hand from Gordon’s messy ponytail to cup his cheek, and Gordon was certain he was going to pass out.
“Are you okay?” Tommy asked. Gordon laughed despite himself.
“No,” Gordon said, tilting his head to better fit against Tommy’s hand and giving Tommy the tiniest smile, “I don’t think I am.”
Tommy gave him his own sad smile. “That’s okay. I… I don’t think any of us are.”
Gordon snorted. “That’s for damn sure.”
Tommy was still staring down at him with more tenderness than Gordon was prepared to deal with, “Do…” He paused, licking his lips. Gordon wasn’t embarrassed to say he stared at the motion, “I think I’m done with the party. Do you want to go home?”
“Yeah,” Gordon sighed with more exhaustion than a man his age should feel, “I would love that, bud.”
It took some maneuvering to get them both off the floor without tripping over the chunks of HEV suit on the floor, but neither of them seemed willing to let go of each other more than necessary. Eventually, they made it out of the bathroom, Tommy’s hand warm and solid in Gordon’s own. Dr. Coomer looked up from where he’d been punching apart an arcade machine when they entered the room.
“Ah, hello, Gordon!” He said cheerfully. “You appear to have been peeled!”
“Uh, yeah, Dr. Coomer.” Gordon huffed out a laugh, relieved that that was what Dr. Coomer was pointing out opposed to the fact that his face was definitely puffy and tearstained. “Tommy helped me get the suit off.”
“You look very sporting in your jumpsuit, Gordon!” Dr. Coomer said, returning to his destruction of Chuck E. Cheese property. Tommy smiled down at Gordon, and he was suddenly struck by the realization that the HEV suit had given him a couple inches of height because wow, Tommy was tall. Tommy squeezed his hand and looked up to flag down Gman.
“Hello, son. Dr… Freeman.” Gman greeted them both. Gordon nodded at him. The dude still gave him the creeps, but he could appreciate the parental fondness he’d seen him demonstrate for Tommy over the course of the afternoon.
“Hey, dad.” Tommy gave him a slight wave with his free hand, the other still holding Gordon’s. “I- um, this was a really nice party!”
“I’m… glad to, hear it. I, pulled out all the stops.”
“I can- I can see that! But, uh. I’m pretty tired. I-... Can you open a portal to Mr. Freeman’s apartment?”
If Gman thought there was anything strange about Tommy asking to go to Gordon’s home and not his own, he didn’t say anything of it. “Of… course. I, will begin to… wrap things up here before, our, friends can cause too much… property damage.”
He gestured to the nearest wall with very little flourish to show them the glowing green portal that hadn’t been there a minute earlier. Tommy gently tugged Gordon in its direction. Behind them, he heard Coomer call out “goodbye, Gordon!” and then in a flash, they were standing in his living room.
Were this any other situation, Gordon would’ve been embarrassed to show someone the messy state of his apartment without tidying beforehand, but he simply didn’t have it in him to care when his bed was within reach for the first time in weeks. It was his turn to tug Tommy up the narrow stairs and down the hall to his bedroom. They both collapsed on his bed, neither bothering to change out of their bloodstained clothes, which Gordon was sure they’d regret in the morning, but considering he could barely summon the energy to pull the sheets over their shoulders, he decided that was a problem for future Gordon.
Tommy pulled him into his arms like it was the most natural thing in the world, like this wasn’t the first time he’d ever been in Gordon’s apartment, like they hadn’t met less than an hour before the worst disaster of their lives. Gordon felt the soft flannel of his sheets brush against his skin, and he felt the softness of his pillow under his head, and he felt Tommy’s warm body all around him, and he fell asleep solidly for the first time in weeks.