today i am thinking in particular about vr gordon running into alyx again with benrey in tow
i think she would be a really fun character for them to interact with b/c shes that nice combination of both "down to earth" and "likes to fuck around and crack jokes" and i think she would get along with them like a house on fire
> She absolutely fucking would. Of all of the characters to run across them, she is legitimately the only one I can think of who'd just go with it. Probably be weirded out at first, but I can see her ultimately just going along with whatever so long as it didn't, you know, infringe on the safety of the resistance.
> Hell, honestly I can see her and Benrey getting along. Probably would routinely get weirded out, but because she likes to fuck around, she'd likely get a kick out of just... helping him pick on Gordon.
> Maybe not to the extreme extent, but...
specifically im thinking about like......when u get the gravity gun and fuck around with the roller mine.....having that be one of her first introductions to benreys whole Schtick when gordon blasts it at him for kicks and it knocks him in the chest and hes just like "ow man that hurts" while shes like "oh my god is he okay?" and gordon just laughs it off like "oh no yeah hes just like that. you wanna try it? three points if you get him in in the head" and benrey just stands there muttering "what the hell man?" but still lets her do it
and YEAH EXACTLY
she may not know exactly what the hell benreys deal is, but hes funny, and theyve got that shared interest of Picking On Gordon Freeman, and ive got in my minds eye this image of her crawling up on top of all those platforms and boxes and shit and watching benrey and gordon fuck around and play with DOG and she just kinda raises her eyebrows and smiles b/c, like, huh. its like that between them, huh.
its kind of heartwarming and makes it easier for her to trust benrey (b/c i also cant imagine that any of the rest of the underground is thrilled about this total stranger with baffling habits/abilities following gordon into their secret bunker) when shes seeing gordon freeman laugh with the guy and awkwardly flirt with him........and then the bit shortly after where maybe gordon uses that gravity gun to stack some boxes and get up there with her and they just. get to talking. about the resistance, about benrey, about Everything
gordon being a little confused and weirded out that somebody thats supposed to be an AI is so.....chill, and funny, and just plain nice to him. very few people are nice to him. she seems like a real person, and when he blurts out out that this is all just a game (b/c i feel like he would be convinced that it really was all just a game after coomers endgame speech), and none of this is, like, real, shes both amused and confused and is like "but i am real, doofus. here. cmon. pinch me. itll still hurt"
and gordons like "haha, what? im not-- im not gonna pinch you" and she says "what, cmonnn. here, ill do you first" and just fuckin Does It and hes like laughing incredulously (but man, does she have a grip on her. that shit hurted) and tries to do it back and alyx is like, "ow! see? im plenty real. and so are you, buddy" and he.........really doesnt know what to think after that so he goes back to watching benrey play fetch with a giant robot dog
and then you know the inevitable conversation with him where alyx is like "so. you really like him, dont you" and gordon does a double take and his face does something stupid and hes like "haha, what" but all his performative bluster cant fool her......she saw the way they were playing grab-ass down there. i looove the trope of two people being so fuckin into each other and both being horribly oblivious about it but its so obvious to any outsiders......and i also love gordon freeman getting bullied a little about his feelings.....and alyx elbowing him in the side like "cmon, gordon, youre not very subtle"
IVE BEEN THINKING ABOUT THEM TOO MUCH.......
> IT'S GOOD THOUGHTS.
> Because Alyx, in the hypothetical HL2VRAI situation would be a perfect conduit to get these two talking because that's a very realistic take on how she'd be. She's not easily rattled, she's very go-with-the-flow, and she doesn't really have any qualms telling it like it is. She would absolutely be the type of person to watch these two oblivious dumbasses dance around the subject and very politely slip between them, pull them close, and matter-of-factly say, "So, when are you guys going to actually kiss?"
> And she's very observant of people (she kind of has to be, considering the fact her life is constantly in danger; I'd imagine she'd develop the ability to make sound judgments, since she'd have to decide pretty quick whether to trust people or not), so she'd definitely figure them out in a heartbeat.
> Not only that they weren't a threat (I can see Barney being about as nice to Benrey as he is to Lamarr), but that they're fucking dumbasses who are dancing around something so fucking obvious that it hurts to watch.
i think that she would also be the ideal person for gordon to, like, actually make his first fuckin genuine friend outside of the science crew with......he doesnt have a lot of friends in general, and in my minds eye, the rest of them arent even here except for benrey, b/c benreys an alien god or whatever in the fuck and he can just kind of do what he wants whereas it wouldnt make a whole lot of sense necessarily for the others to show up right away (although i could be wrong about this. i still have to think about it).
and like, after the events of hlvrai, gordons convinced that coomer was right and that ultimately, nothing that happens here really matters that much, b/c its a video game, right? but alyx is his friend, and she feels painfully real to him, more than fucking, coomer or bubby or whatever, and that probably makes him start to think twice about how hes been approaching this whole thing. like, he has no idea if shes got the same kind of plot armor as the rest of them, and one day this starts to make him really really worried that this might not be a game after all and one of his only friends could, like, actually Die. (b/c IMO its not a game and it was never a fucking game and its my life and i can do what i want)
and also i think she makes a nice contrast to his burgeoning, begrudging friendship with benrey/his starting to acknowledge that maybe he actually likes benrey Like That......like, instead of this being some kind of weird, quasi-stockholm syndrome kind of thing where gordon freeman is just desperate for whatever companionship he can get and benreys the only person in the HL2 world who isnt actively trying to kill him (or at least, not all the time LOL), hes got another for-real friend now and he doesnt feel the same way about her at all and that realization keeps him up at night. like, youd think the only woman whos spoken to him in the past, like, 20 yrs or however long hes been in stasis would make him Feel Something, but......it doesnt
> NAH NO I'M LISTENING. I'm more of a Half-Life than a HLVRAI person, so I'm living for this right now. Because these are all super good ideas and asfjkhlsafhj FUCK. I want it to be a thing now.
> Because Alyx would just fit so well and make for such an interesting dynamic in the relationship between Gordon and Benrey, would make an interesting dynamic between VR Gordon and herself, and hell, would be really fun to see befriending Benrey. Which I will always come back to because I just imagine, like, the scene in one of the Episodes where, like, Gordon is crawling through the vents and just FALLS THROUGH in front of Alyx. And she just smirks at him and is like, "Back so soon?"
> Just teasing the shit out of Gordon.
> AND GOD. Her and Benrey would just hit it off.
> Also, it is an interesting thought to have her be a catalyst for making Gordon confront his feelings about Benrey, because I can imagine it would hit him like a slap to the face to realize how close he's getting to her but it's still Not The Same™️. And it would probably be one of those thoughts that keeps him up at night, staring at the ceiling, just being like, "...Wait. No. No, no, no. Are you fucking serious?"
the fucking denial........can u imagine......you spend years of your life at MIT surrounded by the best and brightest and u end up an unironic benrey liker
> The shame that must come with that. The poor man.
> Alyx would give him absolute shit for falling for somebody like Benrey, too, and you know I'm right.
SHE WOULD......
> Benrey says something off-the-wall weird and borderline incomprehensible, and she just looks at Gordon and smiles. She doesn't even have to say anything. He knows what she's thinking.
the fucking Look on her face when gordon busts out laughing harder than shes ever heard him laugh before
also now that i think about it im tempted to have some other members of the science crew show up as cameos......like maybe having gordon be severely fucking weirded out at seeing tommy be like 20 yrs older than the last time they saw each other
him being gmans son i could probably do something with too
but really like since this is purely For Me it would largely be about the incredibly isolating experience that gordon freeman has going thru the events of HL2, almost constantly being pursued and shot down and on the run and having nowhere to rest and no one to turn to......except that benrey is there, too, b/c his life is a living hell and benrey just kind of does what he wants (and lets be real, probably everything else thats been going down in the half-life universe is boring as shit to him. like, these people cant even jerk off or whatever anymore. and PSNs been down for 20 yrs. this shit sucks, man)
and benrey being, well, whatever in the fuck he is, he probably doesnt even age. who knows if hes even experiencing linear time right now
gordon freeman showing up again is probably the best thing thats happened to him in ages. like. can u imagine. you just consign yourself to a lifetime of infinite boredom b/c theres all this complicated, earth domination shit going on that u dont really get, and being an eldritch being or whatever doesnt actually mean that u can affect Literally Any changes that u want to see in the world. honestly theres not even a lot he could realistically do about the combine, given what weve seen him be able to do canonically.
like, sure, hes impervious to physical damage and the laws of physics are more like "suggestions" to him, but could he really stop an alien force from taking over the earth? i dont really think so, and more to the point, im not sure that he would care enough. benrey already has a hard enough time fully grasping what it means to be human......im not sure he would even really pick up on the fact that human suffering is off the scale right now
which is what makes the appeal of him finally having "gordon freeman is a human being and here is everything that entails" beaten into his head so appealing......b/c its about recognizing that gordon is a Real Guy and Serious Things can happen to him, but also, its about giving him a motivation to tag along with gordon beyond the obvious "well, he likes the guy, so why not" thing. like......maybe he can even develop enough to be like "whoa, this shit sucks for earth, actually" and have a more genuine interest in whatever the fuck gordon is doing here (although, since it is benrey, i cant really say that he would go full "savior of humanity" here......but i think the idea of him learning to care, just a little bit, just enough to make a difference, is very appealing)
Its The Mutual Growth Involved In A Long-Term Relationship, Romantic Or Otherwise, Baby!!!!!
> Dude, no. Like. That actually all sounds fucking awesome. I'm, like, probably not at my most eloquent right now, but the whole idea of Gordon having to deal with the isolation and having to turn to Benrey for most things is just... a really fucking good idea to play with mentally because it would be this line between him just Not Wanting To Do That (Because Benrey), but the absolute desperation because he's such an anxious mess and being thrust into a messianic position is not going to bowl over well with him. That man is going to need some support or he is going to fucking lose his shit, and I can imagine that--on top of everything else--the realization that this resistance is relying on him for some inexplicable reason is likely going to break him. Especially when you take into consideration that the canonical HL Gordon is told absolutely nothing useful during the entirety of HL2.
> VR Gordon doesn't strike me as the type of guy to just be okay with not having an explanation. Just being dragged off a train, lumped in with Benrey, and sent on his way is going to be shattering. And then all he has to really turn to is Benrey, because Alyx isn't always going to be around. But Benrey?
> Yeah, he probably is.
> I also just really like the whole idea of Benrey being an eldritch abomination who has to gradually learn how to be and think human (well, just eldritch monsters learning to empathize with humanity in general), so the whole gradual realization of just how Deep In The Shit his ~best friend~ is in (and, by extension, the world) is something I would be super psyched to read about. Like, holy fucking shit.
GOD YEAH HONESTLY im glad u brought that up b/c i was just thinking the same fucking thing......the way HL2 treats gordon freeman like a messianic figurehead would Not Fucking Gel with him, and being jerked around by forces outside his control (and frankly, his comprehension) would do a fuckin number on his psyche
> Yeah, you got this dude who--while he's a control freak and talks big--has so much anxiety, pretty low self-esteem, didn't even have any friends before his stasis, and wasn't even that good at his job. Then he wakes up in a future where he's Crowbar Jesus and the fate of the world seems to be resting on his shoulders. People know him wherever he goes and he finally has respect (which is good), but they also are expecting so much from him constantly and are always seeming to withhold information from him (which is bad).
> God, and I've thought about this with HL Gordon, too, but the whole thing rings louder for VR Gordon: The guilt of knowing that this whole invasion was Black Mesa's fault and, because he caused the Resonance Cascade, basically his doing.
god.......that would weigh on him so fucking much and benrey would be basically incapable of helping him deal with it and he would just be SUFFERING........
> There's endless ways to torture Gordon Freeman, and not all of them involve running from his gay thoughts.
hes a scientist by trade and neurotic by nature and all he wants is some fucking answers and literally nobody is capable of giving them to him
i want to give this man a big ugly crying nervous breakdown b/c this time last year he just wanted to be a streamer on justin.tv and now the entire fate of the world rests on his shoulders and everything thats happened to humanity is all his fault
> You could do that. You could live your dream. You could make this man choke on his own snot in a fetal position.
also thinking about just how fucking terrible benrey would be at handling that particular situation and his painfully awkward attempts at getting gordon to not be like that
im just like enamored by any and all thoughts of his fumbling attempts to just, like........be nice......trying and failing to meet the mark
> I can imagine he'd just blue screen at some point, too. Just standing there, wide-eyed and aghast, just drawling, "Uhhhhhhhhhh..." Because it Does Not Compute.
i know there are a number of fics out there where gordons like having a panic attack or whatever and benrey comforts him thru it like hes been plucked right out of a tumblr tutorial of How To Be A Good Person and every time i see them im like......what? huh??? have u seen this guy
> He has no idea what he's doing. He's not human. Human emotions do not register. He would not know how to deal.
> He would be working based off of things that helped previously by chance, or things he gathered from observations of other people, and whatever information that is applicable to himself and whatever species he is, and he'd cobble together something that would be like a live-action performance of a joke WikiHow article.
> And that's if he even REGISTERED something was seriously wrong.
> And only after he realized, "Bro, get up" doesn't work.
EXACTLY.......like literally all he has to go off of emotionally is the surreal, unfamiliar sensation of not liking to see gordon being like this but he wouldnt even be able to articulate why if he was pressed on it. hes so detached from human reality that he would probably end up saying a lot of unhelpful shit
> "Yo, it's just this world you fucked up. Uh, there's... there's probably more."
this only torments gordon with the possibility that maybe he fucked up xen too jesus christ
> I'm just imagining Benrey casually suggesting that humanity can just go colonize Mars now that Gordon broke Earth, like it's no big deal. Then being so confused when Gordon just curls up into a tighter ball.
> Like, it's a planet. It's a solid planet. So why wouldn't it work? They could just all go someplace else. It's not that hard.
Benrey Talks Gordon Freeman Into A Panic Attack ASMR
> But no. Benrey would be the last person Gordon would need to have around when the realization dawns on him that this is all his fault, but luck is not on that man's side.
> It's also kind of neat to toss around the idea of Benrey just being so desperate to make him go back to normal, and becoming uncharacteristically distressed as he realizes he can't undo the thing.
> Gordon's big breakdown becomes Benrey's big realization that shit's got VERY real.
like even back in black mesa, when gordon was panicking, it was never, like, a Big Deal outwardly......he just picked himself up after a few moments of curling into a ball and yelling and moved on
this is probably the worst of what benrey expects......and when its so much worse than that and he doesnt just snap out of it right away, like, thats not normal to him. this is wildly unfamiliar territory
> I don't even know if Benrey would be, like, familiar with just how intense these emotions are getting, either. I know it just may be a me thing because I think of him as so utterly alien, but he just seems to operate very slightly off of a baseline that rests at neutral. It may bounce and bump in one direction or the other, but it never goes too far away from that baseline.
> The sudden intense flood of this uncharacteristic, powerful concern and confusion would probably be pretty crushing.
aaauughhhh im thinking about it and experiencing emotions......like thats largely what i see him operating under too.......and you know benrey initially just liked the guy and was trying to get into his pants. he wasnt ready for whatever in the hell brand new feelings these are and he certainly wasnt ready to feel this fucking bad
> Yessssss.
> God, and that just opens up a whole new door of Benrey slowly figuring out why Gordon acts the way he acts because he just got a taste of that stress and fear. Oh man, there's also the possibility that Benrey somehow ends up worse because he's so unused to these feelings--they're basically brand new--and he wants to do everything in his power to keep from having to experience them again.
> It's like putting your hand to a stove and getting your hand burned. You don't want to do that again because it fucking hurt.
imagining the emotional whiplash between, like, the night where gordons sobbing in a fetal position next to the campfire and first being talked into a panic attack, and then slowly, awkwardly talked out of one, and maybe benrey even clues in enough to figure out that maybe he should, like, put a hand on gordons shoulder or something......and feeling an indescribable melange of emotions when gordon first flinches away, then fucking, buries his face in benreys shoulder and cries it out, b/c this is the first "human" contact hes had in decades, technically, and its so overwhelming and gordons so generally touchy-feely that he just clutches benreys shirt to let it all out without even thinking about it.......and then the next day, somehow, benreys even more detached, and hes moody, too
GOD. i want them to suffer
> I'm just getting stupid excited about this because I actually get a massive kick out of this sort of thing. Making characters confront ugly, horrible things and then grow from it. And just this whole "Benrey learning human emotions" and "Gordon fucking hitting rock bottom at the same velocity as somebody hitting the ground after jumping out of a plane without a parachute" scenario is...
> There's so many possibilities.
> And then there's just the whole idea of, like... I don't know if it's your cup of tea, but if Benrey gets worse than Gordon because he's so jarred by the sudden surge of feelings, Gordon having to suck it up and try to make up for the both of them. Gordon having to fucking fight through his worst fears and do the heavy lifting because Alyx isn't around all the time, Benrey is, and if he doesn't, then shit's going to hit the fan. Messily.
> Because he doesn't have an indestructible eldritch being to hide behind anymore.
> Because Benrey is just not Benrey anymore.
GOD I WAS JUST THINKING ABOUT SOMETHING SIMILAR.......although my thought was more of like......whats the best way to avoid dealing with feelings? well, avoid them. literally. just have him pop out through a wall like "peace" and he just walks out on his feelings and fucks off to god knows where and gordons like, "okay, very fucking funny. cmon man i dont wanna stay here any longer than i have to. hello? ......benrey?"
gand i mean. gordon got what he wanted, didnt he? he left. benreys finally out of his hair. isnt this what hes been asking for the whole time? why does this suck so bad?
as it turns out, having to navigate this post-apocalyptic hellhole all by yourself when you barely have any idea what youre doing or where youre going and you suddenly dont have a second body around to take fire for you or watch your back......it sucks! it sucks dick! especially when that second body is a guy you thought you were finally getting somewhere with, on an emotional level, somebody who youve only just started to accept having feelings beyond "god, this guy sucks" for, somebody who u were just laughing with and talking to your new friend alyx about for hours while she looked at u with that smug fucking grin on her face like she knew something u didnt........
> Oh my god, I want to keep elaborating but I am so far beyond the ability to think straight. But just... fffff. Thinking about how Benrey would fare being separated and alskjfhsakjfh
> WITH THESE NEW HUMAN FEELS
(steepling my fingers) so.......whenever u have the time......i am still interested to hear ur Thoughts where u left off
> Okay, so, Benrey after he takes off from Gordon. Because the feels are too feelsy and he cannot deal with the new explosion of emotions he's experiencing because Fuck That Noise. He slips off into the ether and leaves Gordon to his own devices, assuming that he can just run from his problems and that it'll all work out okay. No Gordon, no emotional baggage, he can go back to living in his comfort zone... r-right?
> Wrong, bitch! You have opened Pandora's Box and there is no going back from that. Welcome to angst hell, as Benrey begins to realize that his distance from Gordon and his freakouts are actually yanking the lever labeled "anxiety" in his head, because he can't actually see Gordon to make sure he's okay. He just has to live with the frightening new sensation of "Having a Case of the What-Ifs." Where he keeps concocting worse and worse situations in his head and dwelling on them and trying to gauge whether or not he feels worse with or without the neurotic dude who he's always trying to get in with.
> Benrey fucking trying to tell himself that hiding from the situation will help only to realize that's making it worse and becoming gradually more and more aware of just how deep this mental rabbit hole goes.
> Because if I love anything, it's making things worse for fictional characters.
> TL;DR: Let's introduce Benrey to the human experience in the worst possible way.
“because he can't actually see Gordon to make sure he's okay” this. this right here. this got me
like......he spends so much time looking out for gordon in canon......trying to protect him......trying to keep him from the testing chamber, from going further into black mesa, from getting hurt during th final boss fight......OUUGHH
of course he would be stressing out for possibly the first time in his entire life b/c he committed to this course of action and hes too stubborn to double back on it
> Like, I keep thinking about this from a narrative standpoint, too. And I keep thinking of, like, Benrey and how he would handle this newfound realization that he's just basically doing the emotional equivalent of throwing himself down an up escalator. And I'm in agreement that he would be too stubborn to double back on it, which makes me consider how he'd go about hashing things out with himself. Would he even know how?
and like.....with the amount of times in canon that he pretends really hard that he doesnt care when gordons mean to him, or when something bad happens, the thought of him doing the same here and fruitlessly trying to convince himself that he doesnt care.......that hits hard. maybe it works on other people (or at least, he thinks it works, b/c he doesnt have evidence to the contrary), but he would probably find out fairly quickly that rationalizing yourself out of a thought doesnt necessarily make that thought go away.......and honestly im not even sure that he would know how! it makes me tempted to have him go the route of, like, just popping back into one of the resistance hideouts like "yo." and trying to distract himself from it with something like playing fetch with DOG while everybody in there is like what the fuck is going on, how did he get in here, what do we do
he doesnt strike me as the kind of guy who would knowingly seek out companionship and advice on this issue, but maybe subconsciously the thought of being around these people just rings better than the thought of going back to oblivion, or to xen, or whatever in the hell hed been doing to while away the time all these years while he waited for gordon freeman to pop back into existence
like. you know the kind of scene where its like, one guy angrily tossing a ball against a wall and catching it over and over and somebody else slowly approaches them like "hey, whats up, man? whats going on?" (this has to be from something but im too media-illiterate to remember what, exactly.) thats the kind of thing im imagining
except you know with the twist of "jesus christ this dude is not supposed to be here and everybodys a little freaked out that this eldritch being just showed up to do nothing but silently chuck a metaphorical ball against a wall"
i am for some reason a little enamored with him getting on better with DOG than with any of the other humans b/c, like, theyre both not human and he doesnt have to stress out worrying about human social mores
> Especially, like, the minor detail of him relating more to D0G. I can see him maybe getting on better with the Vortigaunts, too, because the Vorts are, like. Equally incomprehensible a lot of the time. They probably think a little bit closer to what he's used to, even if they're better integrated into human civilization and have considerably more ability to empathize.
> But yeah. I don't know if Benrey would even know where to begin with processing his way around this. Though, if he did go back to the resistance hideout (well, A resistance hideout), I wonder if Alyx would be somebody who'd approach him since 1.) D0G is her pet and he's usually wherever she is and 2.) I can very much see her being a lot better at dealing with Benrey than, like, anyone else in the resistance. And again, she doesn't have an issue telling it like it is, so she's matter-of-fact enough to be like, "Dude, get your newly discovered shit together" but in a way that wouldn't be hyperaggressive.
i was thinking it would be really funny for like either dr vance or dr mossman to be one of the first to try to communicate with him, like over an intercom or something, b/c theyre, you know, The Head Scientists and its assumed that they would know best how to handle something out of left field like this, but they have to give up and field it over to somebody who can actually get thru benreys impenetrable demeanor and get him to leave b/c hes scaring off all the others from getting work done......somebody like alyx, who actually gets along with the guy and wanted to be the first to talk to him anyway but they were once again playing the whole, like, seniority, subtle demeaning thing that mossman did to her the first time gordon freeman runs into them. plus you know. dr mossman has her own motives for wanting to establish some degree of control over benrey
and like youre totally right about her being the best at dealing with benrey b/c shes like.....fairly unflappable, shes got a good sense of humor, and shes really not afraid to tell benrey how it is and get him to get his head out of his ass
> Of Eli and Judith, I honestly think Judith would be the one who would refuse to give Alyx the permission to go talk to Benrey because, like you said, ulterior motives but, you know, also because Judith is just like that. She's got a lot of shit buried deep, deep down and a desire to want to prove herself (it should have been HER in the test chamber, after all; she wants to be Gordon SO BAD), so I can see her trying to reason with Benrey as a way of proving to herself that she's got the control. And then failing. And then Alyx takes over and Judith is just SO PISSED.
god yesss i love the fuckin conflict and the ulterior motives
god. and can you fucking imagine. how dr mossman would feel about gordon freeman showing up and being like that
> ABSOFUCKINGLUTELY FURIOUS. Humiliated. Full of spite and more prone to leaning into working with Breen, not just for Eli's sake but just because she wants this dude obliterated. There is no fucking way that the universe can justify the lack of fairness from putting somebody she deems so incompetent in such a heroic role and depriving her of that glory.
> I can see her even trying to force herself to connect with and understand Benrey less out of scientific curiosity and more to assert dominance in some way over Gordon.
> "YOU don't get him, but I do. Because I'm better than you."
> Like, one of the things that kind of shows in regular Half-Life is that Judith eventually comes to respect Gordon because she realizes that he's competent, the Combine is not going to give her what she wants, and she can swallow her pride enough to hand Gordon the grav gun back and say, "You're equipped to deal with this and not me."
> And even then, it's probably so fucking hard, despite being face-to-face with somebody competent.
> VR GORDON. I.
> I CAN SEE JUDITH MAYBE NOT BEING ABLE TO SWALLOW HER PRIDE ABOUT ANYTHING AT ALL.
HES NOT COMPETENT AT ALL and it would be INFURIATING
> Because she cannot wrap her mind around this whinging twenty-something being the one who saves the day. It does not compute. It will never compute. She still FIRMLY BELIEVES she should be the post-apoc messiah.
his whole fucking schtick is getting by on the skin of his teeth b/c he has other people to back him up......and thats the guy who shows up at their doorstep? only alive at this point b/c hes got the backing of an unknowable eldritch entity who keeps talking about fucking playstations or whatever arcane, pre-combine pop-culture shit? maddening. gordon freeman doesnt even understand what hes getting into, let alone the fact that he basically has a god at his beck and call, whether he knows it or not
im like fuckin giddy thinking about her having to put on a stone face and play nice with them for awhile b/c you do get more flies with honey, after all, and shes possibly the only person out of all of them to really understand what they are dealing with when it comes to benrey and she wants that on her side
> THAT IS EXACTLY WHAT I WAS THINKING. Benrey is the only real advantage Gordon ends up having over her because she sure as fuck doesn't have an indestructible eldritch being on her side. It would become a fucking obsession probably, because she's just smiling, biting back the bitterness, trying to figure out the hows and whys of Benrey so she can coax him to play nice with her instead. Help her climb up to the place she feels she deserves.
as much as this would be about, you know, purely self-serving "i want them to make out in the hl2 universe please" stuff, this is the shit that gives it depth
the contrast between hlvrai "benrey is completely out of the control of the powers that be and actively worries them b/c he can just do whatever he wants" and hl2vrai "benrey is completely out of the control of the powers that be......for now, but now hes becoming the one whos fate is being decided by forces outside of his control" is making me vibrate with potential energy
he couldve probably kept hiding away from scrutiny if he had just kept fucking around on earth/xen and not gotten involved with the whole, fucking, resistance thing, but now he is painfully involved b/c hes fucking crazy about gordon freeman and wants to follow him to the ends of the earth......AUUHGHGH
> Benrey just completely fucking himself over because he can't resist siren call of Dat Ass, but then becoming painfully aware of just how complicated dealing with humans can be, how debilitating letting himself feel can be, tackling all of these against his will while the world is actively ending, all while a bitter middle-aged woman with an ace up herself is tenting her fingers together and hissing helpful words from behind clenched teeth and planning on how to either convert him to her side or take him out entirely, just to knock the object of his affection down a peg.
> There's just so much potential in all of this, and that's not even tapping into grabbing Gordon by the hair of his head and then throwing him into the middle of a fucking revolution he inadvertently caused.
all he wanted to do was play games and suck gordon freemans dick and now look at him. hes got anxiety
> Well, both of those things lead you down a very dark path that can only end in panic attacks and the catastrophic near-end of the human race. It's a slippery slope. Starts with Heavenly Sword and a desire to lick dick, ends with being forcibly moved to Bulgaria and having to pay for canned water to survive.
all this time discussing this and we havent mentioned barney once LMFAO
> We should fix that. Maybe. Though I know for a fact that he would be the bitchiest, most distrusting person in the goddamn world when it came to Benrey and it would be such a point of contention between him and Gordon.
> Dude can't even handle a debeaked headcrab without flipping. Benrey is a whole new level of FUCKED.
> Judith wants to steal Benrey. Barney wants to get rid of him entirely. Maybe not be quite as malicious, but he'd go out of his way to undermine any acceptance Benrey is shown because, "Why are we trusting this thing? We don't even know what side he's on. He probably doesn't even know what side he's on!"
> Barney being a snippy little demanding dude would not mesh well with Gordon being so fucking neurotic either. Gordon and him would probably bicker back and forth whenever they're around each other because Barney just needs him to get shit done, and Gordon just needs Barney to stop being such a bitch so he can think.
> Like, Barney ain't a bad dude--he's bitchy but he's not a bad guy--but VR Gordon would bring out the worst in him, I think. And Benrey DEFINITELY would.
and its really nice here too b/c barney isnt a bad guy, he just (rightfully!) doesnt trust what benreys capable of or what his very presence here means for the resistance
but sometimes, even people youre on the same side of will have some very serious beefs with you and what youre doing and the people you hang around with, and thats real shit right there
id like to think that vr gordon and barney are the kind of people who would probably get along better if they werent in the scenario they were in, and if they could just......have a moment to share a beer or something......but as it is, barneys kind of bossy and bitchy out of necessity, and vr gordon is a control freak who really doesnt like the feeling of, like, being demeaned, almost, by being told by somebody considerably older than him that they know whats best for him and he doesnt
i imagine that would stir up some weird feelings for gordon, too. like. why does he feel defensive about benrey when its somebody else being suspicious and distrustful of him? isnt that, like, his whole bag?
he spent almost all of hlvrai thinking "oh my god, this dude sucks, why wont he leave me alone" but now more than ever, hes thrust into a world where he has no real tether to the world he once knew, except for fuckin benrey. for better or worse
> First of all, I just wanna throw out there that it's disappointing that the whole dynamic of "just because somebody doesn't jive with you doesn't mean they're the bad guy" isn't explored enough. Because, in real life, there are people who have no ill will against you who just don't work well with you for one reason or another, and fiction always likes to paint those kinds of situations in pure black-and-white and it drives me absolutely batshit because that's not how it always goes. Some people are horrible, but most people ain't, even if they're not buddy-buddy with you.
> But no, I can see that outside of a stressful situation, Barney and VR Gordon would get along fine. But with the dynamic the resistance would cause, I'd be hard-pressed to see them doing more than having occasional chill exchanges and butting heads a lot. Barney just wants to survive and knows how to navigate this new, horrible world better than VR Gordon does and is trying to force him in the right direction, but yeah. Gordon is a control freak, and having a guy who was technically beneath him on the totem pole at Black Mesa now talking to him about what he should and shouldn't be doing would drive him batty.
> AND I NEVER EVEN THOUGHT OF THAT. Gordon having to face feelings because he's getting so protective of Benrey, and it just springs up instinctively in the moment when Barney is talking shit about the weird not-human that's suddenly been thrown in the resistance's lap, and he doesn't think about it until much, much later.
> Like, he's walking away with Benrey on his tail and he puts a good fifteen minutes of walking between him and the resistance base and it just dawns on him.
> Just. "Waiiiiiiit."
GODDD
i imagine that alongside gordon freemans other neuroses, he might also struggle with knowing that hes been put into this figurehead position when he really doesnt know what the fuck hes doing and hes having to rely so much on other people just to stay alive. and, like, barney knowing this on some level, and trying to do what he thinks is best for everybody (and what would probably ultimately be safer for gordon himself - traveling around with an eldritch entity in tow is a great way to attract unwanted attention when youre trying to lay low and not get your head blown off by combine soldiers) by insisting that benrey shouldnt be trusted and theyd be better off making him fuck off.......
gordon would probably be bristling a lot b/c he knows that barneys right! but he doesnt like that barneys probably right! and he just wants to exert control over one fucking facet of his life, please, so hes going to dig his heels in about this
this is the kind of thing that i also envision working out a lot better story-wise if, like, benrey doesnt show up right away. so the first time gordon runs into barney, theyre on better terms initially b/c there isnt an eldritch being to fight about, and gordon has time to actually start warming up to benreys presence after the initial shock of fighting his way thru a bunch of manhacks and barnacles and combine soliders and then just hearing "yooo freeman" suddenly behind him and being like "oh no. no no no"
also gives gordon some time to actually experience the extreme isolation and constant waves of combat and fighting for his life interspersed with very brief moments where he doesnt have to do anything, theres nothing bad, theres just a puzzle and all hes being required to do is think a little instead of panic-sprinting down a bunch of train tracks
b/c i think that if benrey just like, shows up on the train with gordon at the very start, he and barney would likely be on the same page vis a vis "getting rid of benrey" and then.....where do u even take that LMAO
> Yeah, no. I was kind of thinking of Benrey showing up later, too, because none of the beginning would make much sense if Benrey was just on the train with him. In my head, it's Gordon blindly navigating for a while and Benrey just kind of knowing that Gordon is back somehow, either through some fucked-up alien Spidey-sense or just from the word of mouth of people talking about how ~the Freeman has returned~. Probably the latter, to be honest, because everyone and their grandmother figures out within a day that Gordon is back and the resistance is on the move.
omfg YES that makes perfect sense
> And it would be nice to have that sudden tension just be dropped on Barney and Gordon in the form of Benrey just falling out of the sky in the middle of their lives. Not just because of the fact that Gordon is now having to juggle these fledgling feelings of defensiveness over a guy he maintains he hates, but just the idea of him being both frustrated and crushed that this budding friendship he has with Barney is being eroded and it's nothing he can fault Barney for. He's already, like, one of those people who says he has no friends and he's going to be excited as fuck about Alyx eventually, but then him and Barney are getting along, then they aren't, and he knows that Barney is in the right and he probably should just go with it for his own safety, but he can't because all of these feelings he doesn't want to acknowledge. And he's just stuck in this painful, anxious limbo of emotions.
> I can imagine it weighs pretty heavily on him to know that a prospective friend/ally is growing away from him because he refuses to cave and admit to a perfectly reasonable objection to his perfectly objectionable company.
OOORRGHHH GOD......my heart hurts in the best way thinking about this b/c its so real
> I KNOW THIS IS KIND OF PAINFUL
> WHICH MEANS IT'S GOOD
the good thing is that we can eventually remedy this.....fix this.....thinking about the point in the considerably farther future where A) gordon and benrey have worked out some of their shit and are unexpectedly close, and B) the truth comes out about what exactly dr mossman is up to and what that means for barney and benreys alignments toward each other
maybe barney still isnt all that fucking jazzed about the guy, but like......at some point barneys gotta see that, like, benreys becoming closer to a real person than he first thought......and not only that, but its better to have a guy like that on their side (especially when gordons, like, painfully happy to be around him at this point) than to shunt him into the ether and hope that the combine dont get their hands on him
and maybe this process is helped along by alyx knocking some sense into him
> God, Alyx is really the glue the glue that holds everything together. I bet she's just very done with every last one of them, lol.
> Story ends and she just throws up her hands and sighs and is like, "Okay, I'm done for a bit. Hope you can figure your own shit out for a week." LOL.
somebody PLEASE buy this woman a beer she has been through so much b/c of these idiots
> But seriously, like. That eventual resolution of things would be so fucking satisfying. Not only Benrey and Gordon figuring out themselves (if only a bit; something tells me navigating their feelings is gonna be a complicated fucking affair), but just the whole tying together of everyone who doubted Benrey and Gordon's faith in Benrey because they realize the FUCKING MONSTER is actually the good guy, and a woman who's been smiling and "helping" the whole time is the real villain.
> And no. Barney doesn't strike me as the type to just be 100% hunky-dory with Benrey (not only is he an unexplainable alien god, he's NOT GOOD AT LISTENING and Barney NEEDS HIM TO LISTEN), but just the softening up and coming to terms with his presence. I'd also imagine that, despite the fact Benrey isn't exactly the savior type and would not be the hero Gordon would probably end up being (because, well, he's CROWBAR JESUS), he'd be one hell of an invigorating presence.
> Going into battle knowing you literally have a reality-bending, indestructible presence on your side is something a resistance could rally behind.
> Even if said presence spends most of his time going, "Uh... well, uh, this sucks."
god you know thats a really good point
and i kind of love the flavor of like.....both of them initially being wholly unsuited to the roles theyve been thrust into, and growing into them and embracing them and becoming them
also not gonna lie i really like the thought of like. fucking. 40-ft tall benrey showing up on the battlefield and shocking the unholy hell out of all of them, including gordon, who didnt even know he could do that outside of xen
> OOOOOH MY GOD
> BENREY VERSUS A STRIDER
> All this emotional stuff and then it's like, "But he can get big and punch thing???" and I immediately turn into a tapdancing dog.
LMFAO I MEAN.....REAL
i think the surprise of it works so well for a character like benrey......like.....why didnt he ever do it before? he just didnt feel like it, man
> OH MY GOD HE FUCKING WOULD. Just like. The big strider fight or whatever. Or one of the gunship fights. And he just EMBIGGENS. And it's like, Gordon sitting there like, "What the FUCK, man? This is the THIRD gunship we've fought and you JUST NOW decided to do that?!"
> And Benrey's just like. "Uh, yeah."
> Also, my brain just popped up the thought of, "Everyone thinks Gordon is Crowbar Jesus. Judith wants to be Crowbar Jesus. But what if the real Crowbar Jesus ends up being the fifty-foot tall man picking his nose in the middle of a crater at the end of the game?"
the inner pervert inside of me do be thinkin tho......like.....can you imagine. the forceful rewiring of associations inside of gordons head. for so long hes associated benrey being Huge with being terrified, with being stuck inside an alien world that he cant comprehend, with being in danger for his life......but now, alongside the exasperation he feels when he learns that benrey just never did it earlier b/c he didnt feel like it, theres.......awe. reassurance.
when benrey just slaps a fuckin gunship out of the air, the sheer power on display - and the knowledge that benreys doing it for them, doing it for him - making gordons heart skip a beat.......and the adrenaline + the giddy fuckin delight when they come out of it alive, theyre all alive, and he looks up at this massive fucking guy who he knows wants to suck his dick (even if they havent really gotten to that point or fully addressed any of their feelings about it, who knows).......im just saying. im just saying, maybe gordon freeman would be feeling something at this moment
> Okay. Okay, let's be frank, though. He is completely warranted in feeling something after just watching somebody punch a Combine gunship into the ground. But, no. No. I can imagine that would be one of the things to knock the biggest crack in the dam holding back his gay feelings.
> The big gay dam is already leaking and just his jaw-dropping display of power from somebody who's been very forward about wanting him? That's gonna be a thought he's going to sit with alone a lot, sweating and red-faced.
> Just, if there were scant dirty thoughts before, they're gonna just be living in his head rent free from then on.
> Fucking. What if that is the final straw that makes him address his feelings? Just the fact he got a half-chub on a fucking battlefield watching kaiju boyfriend fight a fucking alien battleship.
> That would be shameful. All of this emotional progress and the whole thing ends up working out because he popped a boner in a gunfight.
god. it would be so mortifying for him but i kind of love it LMAO
> UGH. And the fact he'd be craving to touch that giant dude, but it's not like he can get much privacy when Benrey is like that. He's just craving that big-ass boy but there's nowhere to hide a man who is six stories tall for a quickie.
> Just the CRAVING.
FOR REAL like what can u even do about those gay thoughts besides Yearn and ruminate hardcore over what a tremendously fucked up person you must be
> Gordon is the type to be muddled by his sudden and inexplicable kink discovery in the middle of a rebellion.
if we ever do make this a reality its going to be so fucking funny to me. like. these poor readers getting tens of thousands of words into a severely emotional hl2 AU fic and then bam.......macro/micro time bitches
[talking about whether or not benrey should look like barney. idea: benrey looks very similar to a younger barney, and the resemblance is striking enough that it startles gordon, even though barney looks about 20 yrs older and 80 lbs lighter. let’s say that barney *was* a considerably bigger guy before the seven hour war, and rationing has made him considerably skinnier.]
> The Combine aren't exactly keen on keeping humans hearty and healthy, so Barney losing considerable amounts of weight after the Seven Hour War is actually... yeah, that tracks.
> God, that would make it kind of weirder for Gordon to meet Barney because he'd not only be looking at a guy who resembles Benrey, but at a guy who looks like a lesser and more defeated version of Benrey.
> Like, Barney just ends up looking to Gordon like an older, struggling, hurting Benrey and he's just struck by how much that gets him despite how much he insists he can't stand the dude. Just a starved, weaker Benrey. Would probably help hammer home how grim the whole situation is on a personal level, too.
> Gonna make this dude feel all the negative emotions all at once.
> AND THEN WHEN HE STARTS HAVING A FALLING OUT WITH BARNEY, THAT'S GONNA MAKE IT HURT WORSE. Because it's not just losing a prospective friend, it's almost like he's fighting with Benrey at his weakest and worst. Imagine arguing with somebody wearing the face of a person you secretly admired if they'd been starved for twenty years.
i also like this in part b/c like......you know. most of the time when ppl are comparing, like, before and after pics of ppl, its usually in the context of losing weight being a good thing, a healthy thing, an attractive thing
> And now it's a representation of just how wrong things are.
yeah......in this case its very much the opposite of that and i like the idea of gordon like......figuring out that A) benrey is attractive to him underneath all the body armor, but also B) that hes more attractive to gordon as he is than barney is in the present day specifically b/c of that. he just looks more alive somehow......and definitely a lot fuckin stronger and healthier
> YEAH. I didn't even think of that kind of angle with it, but I most certainly like it. Not just because of the fact that I, like, think pudge is better, but because in a Combine-ruled world, think of how rare people Benrey's size are. And the implications of him being large and well-fed. He'd look so capable compared to everyone else, and I bet Gordon would feel safer in the company of a fucking bull of a man instead of... well, some skinny and haggard John Freeman who only has bulk because of how thick his clothes are.
> Even if he wouldn't want to initially admit it.
this is making me feel a powerful fuckin emotion. just. god. the re-association of benrey with safety
> Oh man. And think of how satisfied Benrey would be when he realizes Gordon feels that way, too. Can't figure out if that would happen before his anxiety breakdown (and therefore is one of the points Alyx uses to try to convince him to go back to Gordon and stop being a mopey bitch), or if it would be a gradual realization once their relationship starts improving.
> But I can imagine he'd be a self-satisfied little bastard when he realizes just how secure Gordon feels with a big dude standing between him and the Combine.
thinking about the sheer demoralizing effect seeing such a big dude would have on the combine, too. hes the size of a fuckin bull and he doesnt even flinch when hes shot at and he could just walk up and smash their fuckin skulls if he felt like it
god. and now im thinking about the look on gordons face when he sees benrey just clean knock somebody out cold for the first time. AUGHHH
> JUST THE MIX OF HORROR AND AWE
> Like, Benrey is capable of being that vicious (odd, considering how passive he was in Black Mesa) and he's just so... unstoppable. It'd probably make him also realize just how fucking much Benrey went easy on him in Xen. Realizing Benrey had to have let him win because, now that he's putting in effort, he's just mopping the floor with the Combine.
maybe it would actually make gordon think about how fucking easy he had it in that final boss fight
make him realize that, like, jeez. if benrey had really wanted to hurt him, he could have. easily. but he went so far out of his way not to
before, benrey just shot everything b/c it was convenient (and like you said, he was fairly passive about all the killing he ended up doing), but now there are humanoids to deal with that could potentially catch him by surprise and a fist to the face is a lot simpler at that range than trying to wrangle a gun with a combine soldier punching u
before, gordon never really had to contend with the fact that benrey was strong
> And there's a two-fold revelation there.
> One: Benrey had to have been taking it easy on him for a reason. The reason is not one Gordon wants to think about despite the fact it's very obvious, about as obvious as the fact that Benrey was essentially fucking with him during the "boss fight" and never really was putting in effort because he didn't necessarily want to win (for fuck's sake, he just held out his passport for the science team to destroy).
> Two: I am just thinking of Gordon trying to tell himself he'll survive the rebellion because he had proved himself by getting out of Black Mesa and taking Benrey down, then having to accept that he doesn't really have that to fall back on, because it's not an accomplishment to beat a guy who was fully intending to take the fall in the end. Cue doubts.
> Just, Gordon having all of these nagging doubts about whether he'll live (because what if, by this point, he realizes it's not a game!), or if he'll even make a dent in the Combine, or why people expect so much of him, because his one crowning achievement was basically the equivalent of kicking a sleeping dog. He thought he was strong in a way, he thought he had something to back up his words--hell, he thought he had control over Benrey because he'd already asserted his dominance over him by "killing" him--and now he's just had the rug ripped out from beneath him.
> Benrey let him win. He isn't as tough as he thinks. In all honesty, he's beginning to wonder if Benrey was rigging the game in his favor every time he disappeared because he certainly is capable and Black Mesa, looking back on it, should have killed a fucking MIT graduate with no firearm or survival experience.
> Doesn't mean Benrey did those things (THOUGH I ALWAYS LAUGH AT THE IDEA HE KILLED THE NIHILANTH), but Gordon now has those nagging doubts. Those "what ifs."
god we WILL ruin this man
all of these nagging thoughts + the one that makes him feel fucking weird to think about: benreys still.....like......doing it. hes still tagging along with gordon. letting gordon have his way. acquiescing. hes still rolling over for gordon more than he strictly has to (and "how much he has to" is a solid "not at all, ever", because again......gordons just some guy. hes frighteningly average. compared to an eldritch demigod kind of guy, he is as close to nothing as it gets. but.....benreys still hanging around him like hes something.) and realizing that he has that control b/c benrey is willingly giving it to him, even if he never really "earned" it........that would be disorienting for gordon, i think
the fact of the matter is that benrey could really, deeply fuck with him and ruin his life and make him miserable if he chose to. hell, he could even kill gordon, if he was well and truly an amoral fuckbeast with zero interest in the human condition.......but at most hes just annoying. yes, he likes fucking with gordon, but its practically playful in comparison to just how bad he Could Be
and isnt that fuckin crazy, gordon. you got one of the new worlds most dangerous creatures on a short leash, and the worst he does is tug at it before rolling over and letting you rub his belly. metaphorically speaking.
this is something he doesnt see right away, but other actors Most Definitely Do, i think.
> Especially Judith, I bet. She's just over there chainsmoking, polishing off her boxed wine, glaring. LOL.
> But, in all seriousness, that would definitely turn Gordon's whole perspective of anything and everything on his head. He isn't really in control of anything, he's basically got a demigod with a crush playing nice with him because the planets aligned correctly and he must have done something to earn its attention. I can see the fact he doesn't know the why being absolute disorienting and troubling, the source of a lot of fear and stress, because if it was something he did to earn Benrey's compliance, and he doesn't know what it is, then how can he continue doing the thing? Would he one day stop be appealing and a switch would flip?
> In the same vein, though, imagine the power you'd feel if something that removed from humanity and that strong just decided to... do what you say. It chose you. It's catering to you. It's protecting you, because somehow you're different or superior or something enough to warrant its attention.
> I can see Gordon's brain being a whole lot of white noise of conflicting emotions that just bounce between terror, arrogance, and genuine admiration of Benrey when it dawns on him.
> God, like. The fear of "what if I do something to make him turn on me" gradually becoming "you can't touch me because I have a fucking beast on my side."
GOD.......ESPECIALLY AFTER HE GETS HUGE, TOO
> GORDON FEARS NOTHING. HE HAS A KAIJU BOYFRIEND.
and benrey absolutely plays into it b/c it makes gordon cocky
>And that's what Benrey's Thing™ is.
>Let the man feel like he has control. Let him feel like he has a say. He's cute when he thinks he's the boss, lol.
> Also, sidenote: You know, it's gotta put the whole "missing hand" thing into perspective when Gordon realizes that Benrey could have done so much worse himself instead of arranging him to get snagged by the military and a limb lopped off (which I fully believe Benrey didn't expect to happen).
im loving the angle of, like, this not needing to be an actual argument gordon has out loud with benrey, but something that he pieces together himself
them being in one-on-one situations for so long letting gordon see aspects of benrey that he previously wouldve written off or ignored......having the nature of their relationship develop and change just by getting to know each other better under tense circumstances......
> This is the content the world fucking deserves.
> Because, not a narrative idea but just a thing I like is... you know, characters having to learn indirectly about other characters. People being shoved into rough situations where they just gotta learn to get over themselves and figure out the other. Picking up on little observations and quirks and progressing naturally because, like, that's kind of how real life relationships work. My friends haven't told me every single detail about themselves, after all. A lot of what you learn about other people is through observations and going through hardships together.
growing not just into the roles theyve been given.......but into each other, too.......
“and isnt that fuckin crazy, gordon. you got one of the new worlds most dangerous creatures on a short leash, and the worst he does is tug at it before rolling over and letting you rub his belly. metaphorically speaking.” also i really want to have dr mossman saying something like this directly to gordon and making his face burn with anger and embarrassment and confusion
> YESSSSSSSSSSSs
> Because she fucking would. Like, Judith isn't exactly the most vicious of people (she's pretty damn polite, even when she's doing horrible things), but that burning anger about everything Gordon has that she doesn't, right down to what could be the most powerful alien critter she's ever seen, would bring out the absolute bitch in her.
> Because he has everything she wants and he's squandering it. So she'd go straight for the throat.
> And fuuuuck. Imagine Gordon being called out by her in front of the whole barnyard gang. Benrey included.
it wouldnt even be seething, just cold and pointed, b/c maybe gordons done or said something that makes it clear that he doesnt understand how good he has it. and lets be real: he deserves to be called out a little for it
> He absolutely does. Because he is squandering a lot of it. He basically has the admiration of an entire rebellion, he has some weird messianic status, people respect him now despite the fact he hasn't done anything to warrant being respected, he literally has a pet demigod, and all he does is whinge about his problems and run away from his bad thoughts. He doesn't even really know how to utilize everything he's given, and the world is ending, and he's still so focused on the "me, me, me."
> He thinks he's focused on the task at hand, but let's be honest. For a huge chunk of it, he's just thinking about himself and his problems, which are all pretty petty when humanity is being driven to extinction. And it makes sense to him because, well, he fell asleep and woke up in an alien apocalypse. Yesterday, it was normal to gripe about dumb things and he never had the weird savior clout he has after the Seven Hour War.
> But now he's surrounded by people who have two decades of experience choking down their own feelings and wants just to survive and they probably all get pretty sick of his shit.
> I can see Judith calling him out in front of everyone before she's even revealed as a villainous sort, and nobody really defends him because, like. Dude, she has a point.
she really fucking does. like, as much as i love gordon freeman hlvrai, he is self-absorbed as all hell
> Some might react more awkwardly to witnessing it than others, but everyone is just like, "Fair. Fair call."
> HE REALLY IS.
> And that wouldn't fly when everyone is fucking dying on a global scale.
even alyx is just standing there with her arms folded and her eyebrows raised like "Heartbreaking: The Worst Person You Know Just Made A Great Point"
> WONDERFUL. And that would gut Gordon because Alyx is, like, his one friend. And even she's just letting this happen. A big fucking slap to the face.
> Also, a giant neon sign flashing, "GET YOUR SHIT TOGETHER."
gordon learns a valuable lesson that day: a good friend isnt necessarily somebody who will defend u against any and all slights to your person. sometimes theyll let u take the heat u desperately deserve b/c you need to grow and be a better person
although i imagine it would probably take awhile for him to actually learn that lesson. in the here-and-now he probably has his feelings very hurt
> Well, yeah. That's a very callous way to be called out, even if it made sense to everyone and even if it is a lesson he needs to learn. Given how even people without Gordon's neuroses act when faced with that kind of scrutiny, it's likely he'd just stomp off like a toddler and beat himself up about it. He doesn't get why everyone is being so mean, and you know what? Fair, actually. He didn't grow up in a world this strict, and his self-serving attitude was pretty normal before the Black Mesa incident. Didn't win him many friends, but he was hardly the world person in the room at any given time.
> Just the culture shock of what is and isn't acceptable in a dying world would make it feel just as cruel. And, let's be honest. Courtesy of Alyx, he probably doesn't have the highest opinion of Judith in the first place and he'd probably try to handwave it away as, "She's just a bitch."
also in the vein of making him suffer in a different way, i think it would be really neat if he managed to latch onto the completely wrong thing about what was said to him: all the leash and dog commentary
am i thinking about sprinkling thoughts of petplay into this? oh, absolutely. im deranged
> I was like, "You're talking serious stuff, but we said 'guard dog Benrey' and I just want this motherfucker on a chain."
> Think of him trying to justify actually leashing Benrey, though. Not wanting to admit it's a kink thing. Trying to pull every reason out of his ass to just keep him tethered.
> "Well, you already ran away once. I just want to make sure you don't wander off again. You know."
thinking about things like......the two of them trying to get some sleep in some abandoned building, and gordon sees benrey roll over in his sleep (b/c, you know what, why shouldnt he sleep. i can do what i want) and stretch a little so that hes belly up with his arms akimbo and those specific words spring to gordons mind, unbidden, and he has to fuckin shake himself suddenly
i also have the vivid imagery in my mind of
like. okay. i dont know if ill actually write this. but like. gordon seeing the bottom of benreys shirt ride up when hes belly-up in his sleep......and thinking, like, dogs roll over like that b/c they want to be pet, right? what if he just.......tried it. like. just leaned into that sudden temptation without thinking, b/c as soon as dr mossmans words sprang into his head, he started dissociating a little and his minds hovering somewhere 3 feet above his skull and hes not feeling as smart as he normally would. and that temptations all well and good until hes actually doing it - actually sliding a hand just under benreys shirt to feel the fur there, and god, hes so warm and hes breathing - and then he looks up and theres a bright yellow eye cracked open and staring right at him in the darkness
> And Benrey just catching him. Like, takes him a second to realize what's going on because he just woke up, but when he sees what Gordon's doing, he just cracks a smile and makes a sound that perfectly conveys the sentiment of, "Well, damn. If that's where this is going, sign me up."
i, i was thinking about this scene for a little while. actually. but felt a little embarrassed about it b/c its so........its so nakedly Just For Me and contributes fuck all to the story
> Shhh. It's fine. If you're going to be writing something so long, you deserve some indulgence. And, uh. Sure. Maybe it does contribute to the story. Yadda, yadda. You gotta show their relationship progressing. Physical intimacy. Something something JUST LET THE MAN RUB HIS BELLY.
LMFAO i guess that is fair
and.........i guess, in a loose sense, it does contribute something to their relationship. because
specifically what i had in mind for this was. basically like what you said - a smile, a noise, the deliberate exposure of more of his stomach. a concession. like a dog. and gordon looks at him, his mouth dry, and he thinks about what judith said. he thinks about all those times hes worried about what would happen if he pushed too far and benrey got sick of his shit and turned on him. so gordon pushes a little.......and tells benrey, real quiet-like, "keep your hands by your head." just to see if hell do it. and......he does it. and he just lets gordon rub his stomach slowly without saying a fucking word.
and its one of the most sexually tense things gordon freeman has ever experienced, but thats.....thats it. he just rubs benreys belly like hes a fucking dog and then slowly draws his hand back, feeling dizzy as all hell, and sits back down opposite from benrey and tries to pretend like hes not looking at the tent in benreys slacks right now
> See. It's kink for the sake of character growth. It's okay. Though probably immensely frustrating for Benrey.
> Poor dude thinks he's gonna get some and then Gordon just pulls away and he's like, "Well... fuck."
cue the furious jerkoff session later in the night that gordon also has to pretend he doesnt hear
am i tempted to have gordons voice break a little bit as whispers "good-- good boy" while hes drawing his hand back? yes i fucking am. am i ever going to be brave enough to put this in the actual fic? well. jurys out on that
> It's safe to say there is gonna be fucking in it eventually. And petplay elements may play a part (I don't know if you just don't want to include that scene, or if you just want to keep it as unkinked as possible for the sake of the narrative).
> IF THERE IS THE LEASH. Consider. Guard Dog Benrey following Gordon on a chain through the streets while the rest of the resistance watches in confusion. They raise questions. Gordon tells them it's so he doesn't wander off. He only ever lets him off when he needs him to fucking knock heads.
GOD...........what a fucking figure they would cut. the savior of the free world leading this beast of a man around on a leash like its nothing
> LOL. It's like ancient kings who kept lions for pets. It's almost a status symbol.
> The resistance thinks it's just an intimidation tactic, Gordon's way of asserting himself as being more powerful than this guy who can fucking crack open Combine skulls with his fist. They're in awe of his might. They are struck by just how brazen of a display this is, a massive middle finger to the fucking Combine and Breen. Gordon commands enough respect that the strongest of men bows to him.
> What's really going on is Gordon is rubbing Benrey's belly and fuckin' him hard when nobody is looking. But, sure. It's, uh. It's a status thing. Just keep telling yourself that.
god. and i could use that idea of gordon fashioning a collar for him out of a combine soldiers belt too if i decided to take this route
like. okay. i went and brushed my teeth real quick and. thoughts. happening
thinking about. gordon freeman hlvrai cutting his hair.
its something i want to have happen eventually b/c its symbolic, right? not just b/c of how it represents a change in him - a departure from old ways, so to speak - but also b/c it would mark him actually growing into his role as gordon freeman. not just the guy fresh out of MIT with a shitty ponytail and an anxiety disorder, but The One Free Man. becoming more like the gordon freeman we are all familiar with from the actual game itself, and looking more like him as a result
with the metaphor perhaps being even more pointed if he first tries to cut his hair himself and it looks like shit until somebody else touches it up for him
part of me is also tempted to give him some kind of distinctive major bodily injury b/c i do like making him suffer, and also i feel like at this point he would need something to distinguish him from the actual HL gordon freeman
i mostly say this b/c i think it would be cool to give him an eyepatch but then i run the risk of people thinking im pulling a freemans mind ripoff or something
> Like, there's other bodily injuries that could distinguish him. All manner of scars, be they from punctures or cuts or burns. Maybe lose his hand again for good this time, and you could borrow from the Posthuman Gordon idea that was in some leaked concept art. Maybe just lose a finger or something. There's so many things that could be dooooone.
> I also really like the idea of him cutting off his hair to try to sever ties to his past, and if you go that route, I think you should absolutely have him try it himself and need someone else to touch it up for him. Like, Alyx or Benrey or somebody who he's dependent on. Ideally, Benrey for symbolism's sake (THEY'RE GROWING TOGETHERRRRR), but I... don't know... how good he'd be at fixing somebody's hair.
i was thinking the same thing LOL like benrey would not be good at it in the least but probably somebody whos spent the last 20 yrs under combine rule and had to get good at cutting their own hair would be a much bigger help
maybe its a multi-step process. gordon cuts off the ponytail by himself but quickly realizes that hes gonna look like shit that way and he cant see what hes doing at all, so he enlists benrey for help......who does a terrible job that gordon has to live with until they meet back up with members of the resistance who try to communicate as tactfully as possible that his hair looks like shit
the symbolism. benrey can try to help but he cant do all the fixing of gordon freeman on his own
> I am kind of giggling to myself over the idea of, like, Alyx sidling up next to Gordon. Chuckling. Grabbing him by the shoulders and just steering him off like, "Okay, so the Combine isn't the worst that could happen to you, I suppose."
> Her idea of "tact."
> Benrey defending his work. He looks great. Benrey did such a good job. It's artistic. You just, uh, you just don't get it.
he tried ok they aint gotta be all fuckin mean about it
this makes me think of a very self-serving scene where gordon not only gets his hair touched up by alyx or whoever, but he also gets a well-deserved bath for the first time in god knows how long......and when he comes back out and sees benrey again, benreys, like, utterly disarmed by just how nice he looks
one of the very few times - and possibly, one of the only times - benreys seen him outside of the HEV suit and free of all the dirt and blood hes accrued and lookin like straight up HL:A gordon freeman out here
> OH GOD IF HE LOOKS LIKE HL:A GORDON WELL.
> WELL. GOOD LUCK RESISTING THAT, BENREY. You lucky motherfucker.
> But I like that. It's almost representative of him just getting rid of the entirety of the old him and becoming something new and better. Clean slate, fresh start. He's the Gordon Freeman the resistance wants and deserves.
> Also, just Benrey just wide-eyed. Like, "Damn, son."
jesus like especially if his facial hairs starting to get all scraggly out there too and gordon gets to touch it up for the first time in awhile
> UGH WE TEAR THIS GUY DOWN AND THEN GIVE HIM AN APOLOGY MAKEOVER AT THE END
GOD and benreys just staring at him baldly and gordons a little too caught up in the euphoria of being fresh and clean for the first time in ages and getting a bunch of nice comments from other members of the resistance about how sharp he looks to notice......but not everybody is as oblivious as he is
> Oh, you know Alyx would notice. She's a given. For some reason, I can see Barney seeing it, too. Just, catching a glimpse of it and being like, "Oh, yeah. This thing really likes Gordon, huh?" Hammering home his eventual epiphany that Benrey may not be a Bad Thing.
alyx elbowing gordon and grinning like "looks like youre pretty eye-catching right now, gordon" and he jumps a little and says "huh, what? oh, haha, i guess so. its kind of embarrassing." b/c he doesnt get it. until barney chimes in "yeah, youre really catchin some eyes from that corner in particular" which gets gordon to look at that corner in particular, where benreys hanging back from the (admittedly small) crowd and just. staring at him. mouth parted a little. cheeks a little pink. and it makes gordons face burn like nobodys business
> BREAKING NEWS: Gordon Freeman is an Oblivious Bastard. More at 11.
> I just love how unashamed Benrey is about pretty much everything regarding making his intentions perfectly clear. He doesn't even try to filter, and so it's almost funny how much Gordon tries to reason his way around it. Because you really can't. What you see if what you get.
> But Gordon. He's either oblivious in the end or explaining it away at the beginning and it's like, "Dude, it's not that deep."
> I'm now thinking of how excited Benrey would be to have a shiny "new" Gordon, haha.
> Like. God. Benrey gets a shiny new Gordon and Gordon has his new fucking life ahead of him and it's basically like they get to start over but on better footing. And after all the fucking pain we've put these dudes through, it feels well deserved.
IT DOES......if theres one thing i love about post-apocalyptic media its those brief interludes where they get to relax, to get cleaned up, to eat their fill, whatever the case may be
part of me is sorely tempted to have this be the bit where they finally, actually confront their feelings a little and make out for the first time.....like. theyre freshly cleaned, decently-fed, theyve got an actual mattress to sleep on for the first time in god knows how long......its the perfect set up IMO.......but also i have no idea where/when i want that to actually happen its all a bit nebulous
b/c i am also a sucker for the "desperate, spur of the moment, adrenaline-fueled kiss after almost dying" kind of thing
theres just so many ways it could go im really not sure where to put it until i get there and it feels right
> Well, you could have both. Desperate, spur of the moment, adrenaline-fueled kiss that haunts Benrey and Gordon refuses to acknowledge until they're hashing out their feelings in the comfort of a safe space.
GOD..........YOURE RIGHT THO.............I COULD..........
conversely i am also thinking about., gordon freeman seeing whats under benreys body armor for the first time
like. gordon never makes any indication that he thinks benreys attractive in canon. and i have a hard time thinking that hes the kind of guy that looks directly at any given man and thinks "oh yeah i would fuck him" right off the top of his head. he feels a little too closeted for that
which is why im such a sucker for the scenario of him only being smacked with the realization that he thinks benreys hot once he sees benrey outside of his uniform
because lets be real. that bulky vest doesnt do him a lot of favors. makes him look.....square and a little formless. and work pants arent typically super flattering
> ... No, they're not. Work pants are the least flattering pants in the world. But, like.
> No, I love it too because it's kind of like... a slow reveal? Kind of like opening a present almost. One you didn't know you wanted.
> And Gordon just slowly seeing bits and pieces of the real Benrey, even if it's just him taking his helmet off, and just... the realization washes over him like a tidal wave. A tidal wave he's trying to pretend isn't happening.
YESSS.......like......starting slow with benrey first taking off the helmet and the vest to sleep
and gordons hit with the realization that, like, Oh. theres a Person under there. and.....and maybe his hair doesnt look half bad, you know. its flattering, even after being tucked in the helmet all day. and with that vest off, his forms a little more obvious......the curves of him. the muscles. the cords in the back of his neck. gordon doesnt let himself look too close - never has, if hes real worried about looking straight - but he does start to notice
and then maybe benrey rolls his sleeves up at some point. cleaning guns, or something. shits oily, and even an alien god thing isnt super jazzed about getting gun oil all over his shirt. and gordon gets to peek at those forearms, considerably muscled and dusted with dark hair and with veins that stand out in sharp relief as they trail down to his hands. big hands. square. nice tendons. careful and precise as they take apart each gun piece by piece and wipe them clean. if hes looking too close, well, he was just looking at the guns, actually. hes an MIT bitch, hes never had to do this kind of thing before. but benrey clearly has
> GOD. And you know that after he gets his first taste of what Benrey looks like under his uniform, he starts craving more. Just, like, this shameful curiosity he doesn't want to own up to, where he's looking for opportunities to see a bit more. All these little actions that nobody else would notice--taking off his vest, rolling up his sleeves, stretching so that his shirt raises just enough to see a bit of belly--are suddenly things Gordon is hyperfocused on.
> And he ~Just Has to Live With That~
god and like the stomach thing would absolutely drive him the most insane b/c thats like......by far the most intimate out of all these things and he gets pissed off at himself for wondering just where all that hair leads to. gordons convinced that hes just going stir-crazy b/c benreys the only real person he can talk to and interact with for, like, days on end
hes so very deep in denial that he doesnt even think about the fact that alyx walks around all the time in a crop top and it makes him feel absolutely nothing when he looks at it
sometimes you just have a little gay awakening b/c it turns out the guy you have a burgeoning crush on is a muscle bear underneath all those layers
> Burgeoning crush is now raging.
> But, like. Yeah, I really like the whole playing with the dichotomy of Alyx and Benrey in Gordon's mind, and I bet once he finally has to sit down and acknowledge that, you know, there's so many inconsistencies in how he views them that he's going to just... kind of have A Moment™️.
> God, would he be one of those guys who tries to force himself to find her attractive, because I can totally see her being like, "Gordon. No. We know this isn't what you're really looking for."
> AND JUST... THAT HITS HIM LIKE A TRUCK BECAUSE EVEN SHE KNOWS.
the compulsory heterosexuality.......i froth
i honestly think that works out really well b/c like. look. we all know that valve intends you, the player, gordon freeman, to want alyx to be your girlfriend, b/c the assumption is that the person playing is a straight white cis male nerd living out his power fantasy
so i think its a very fun little meta thing to have hlvrai gordon try to force himself into that role, b/c its like hes trying (and failing) to fill the shoes of the canonical gordon freeman
> He tries to live up to Valve's expectations, and he fails miserably by falling for the hairy alien man.
> Which, side-note, I always hated how awkwardly they tried to push Alyx on you. Like, okay. We get it. You want them to bang, Valve. She is cute. But can you... not...? It's so inorganic. It's very stilted and forced. It's... weird.
> Much rather the Alyx who is like, "Thank you, but no. Go chase your dreams, Gordon." Even if that dream is, again, a hairy alien man.
in truth all of this is just build up to another deeply self-serving scene where benreys stripping out of his clothes for whatever reason (maybe this bitch wants a bath! let benrey have a bath, for gods sake) and gordons utterly taken aback at the sight of all that muscle
like, yeah, okay. all the "knocking people out cold" stuff suddenly makes horrifying sense.
> Benrey Bath Rights.
> But, like, Yeah. He'd probably need to strip down and do some clean-up considering it's already been established he does a lot of the fighting up-close in most situations. Gordon just ogling at him would make sense, because I don't think Benrey 100% understands the concept of shame.
> Just like, "I'm gross. Hold up." Shirt is removed.
and gordons just like "whoa whoa whoa what the Fuck are you doing" and benrey blankly says "im takin a bath bro" and he says it so dismissively, like he doesnt even know that gordons desperately trying not to check him out and i SWEAR u plucked those thoughts from my brain as i was typing them
it doesnt even occur to him that gordon freeman is trying to repress gay thoughts b/c, again, no concept of shame, and i figure by this point benrey just takes it as a given that gordon doesnt look at him like that
they are both oblivious IMO
> Absolutely oblivious and yearning in different ways. It's absolutely fucking delicious.