milliways_bar | (no subject)

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Gordon's been out by the lake since sundown, doing his best to walk or run himself into a state of exhaustion advanced enough to let him sleep for once. It didn't really take, so he's come inside, a bit damp from the usual Scottish weather. It's not all that different from the weather he used to slog through at home, a fact which may have inspired an idea or two. He migrates over to the Bar and says, "Excuse me. Do you have back issues of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer in stock?"

A napkin materializes with one word on it: Yes.

"Good. May I please have an issue from..." He drums his fingers on the bartop a moment, thinking. "The first week of September. 1982. I- oh."

After riffling through the Local News section he adds, much more quietly, "Any chance of the WSU alumni newsletter and a pair of scissors?"

That, too, seems to have worked. He looks for a moment as if he might ask for something else; then he goes silent and heads in search of a place to sit. His guns can wait. For now, this is more important.

[Tinytag: Gordon Freeman, Wilbur Whateley, Alyx Vance. Open until it scrolls off the front page.]

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He says nothing.

But the newspaper is down, and the scissors are down, and the crowbar that he always (always!) has with him in one way or another, jammed through his belt or propped against the wall of the shower or shoved under his pillow at night- the crowbar is in his hands.

The tentacle grabs it and tries to pull it out of his hands.

"Naw violence en the bar, remember?"

Wilbur glares at him.

He's not letting go of it for anything less than- well. Certainly not for this.

"Sir."

Gordon's voice is only just audible, the quiet, controlled sound of a man who has focused all of his attention on this moment and this moment alone.

"You are making a mistake of proportions I cannot even begin to describe. You will let go of my crowbar, now. And you will turn around, now, and you will go away."

His gaze is level, unblinking.

"I have nothing to say to you beyond that. Release my crowbar now and leave me alone."

Edited 2008-09-19 05:10 (UTC)

The tentacle lets go and retracts a bit.

Wilbur just sighs and runs a hand through his (rather matted) hair. "Yew started et. I wasn't dewin' naw harm et awll."

"You will turn around, now," Gordon repeats, his voice as quiet and steady as ever, "and you will go away."

He's still not dropping his gaze.

He looks honestly confused. "Why?"

Despite everything, Wilbur is fifteen--and rather socially inept to boot. The idea that giant monsters scare people is lost on him, especially in a place as all-around unusual as Milliway's.

"I have seen enough, and done enough, to know a nightmare when I see it."

His eyes flicker from Wilbur's form for a bare moment, alight on something behind and to one side, and then return. Nevertheless, his voice does not rise even a hair, nor does his grip on the crowbar falter.

"You will remove yourself from my presence at once. I am at the end of my patience."

That thing Gordon was looking at? Would be an olive-skinned human woman pointing what looks like the bastard child of a Glock and an Uzi directly at the small of Wilbur's back.

Alyx doesn't expect a creature this size to go down easily, but her weapon is an automatic machine pistol, and she's prepared to pump as many bullets into the thing's body as it takes to make it stop threatening her ~~boy~~friend.

"Awlright, awlright."

Wilbur walks off, muttering about insensitive idiots, to sit over by the Window. He is now in full teenage sulking mode.

Alyx keeps her gun trained on the retreating behemoth's back for several seconds, until she's fully convinced that he's actually leaving.

Only then does she turn to Gordon.

"...the fucking fuck was that?!"

"I don't know, but it touched my crowbar."

Wilbur is still glaring at them, and will be until further notice.

"Why?"

Jesus Christ, why not stick your bare hand in a Barnacle's mouth while you're at it?

"One of the tentacles poked me," Gordon says. "I drew the crowbar. It seemed to think it could take it away."

He's still using the quiet, even voice.

"Well, now it knows better."

(She's lowered her gun but has made no move to holster it.)

Gordon inclines his head once. "Thank you," he says. "I appreciate the help."

After a moment, he opts to return the crowbar to its makeshift scabbard.

"It interrupted me gathering some pictures of a few of my family, if you wanted to see."

"--oh?" Alyx holsters her gun and steps closer to Gordon, peering over his shoulder.

For answer, Gordon reaches for the newspaper and slides the Local News section out of it. It's open to page B-3. A good portion of the page above the fold is taken up with an article about a particularly stubborn family court judge named Barbara Freeman, including a photograph of her with a caption indicating the dressing-down she's giving to a man two years behind in his child support payments.

"My mother, when I was eight years old."

"She looks like a pretty formidable woman," Alyx murmurs, fingering the ceramic bead on the leather thong around her neck.

Edited 2008-09-19 06:01 (UTC)

"She was." Gordon smiles a little. "Both in court and out of it. My father was hardly ever home, so Mom had to raise my brother and me more or less by herself."

"I didn't know you had a brother..."

"Just the one. He was older than me." He pushes the newspaper away and reaches for the alumni newsletter instead, flipping it to an article on the hiring of a new football coach. The man in the photograph looks not unlike a clean-shaven Gordon with no eyeglasses and much broader shoulders. "That's Jay."

Alyx is silent for a long moment.

"You don't know what happened to them, do you."

It's not a question.

"No."

His hand is still on the newsletter page for a moment.

"... no."

Alyx reaches over to gently lay her own hand on top of his.