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Alone with Barney, Gordon changed beyond recognition. The coldness, detachment, and bitterness vanished from his features, as well as the platinum gleam from his tired eyes; his angular shoulders relaxed. Calhoun stroked the silky hair at the back of his neck, biting the inside of his cheek and forcing himself to begin crushing his nascent hopes for a better life.
"All people change in one way or another when they become Combine. We undergo an initiation. The Shu'ulathoi look deep into each of us, touch our genetic code, and it changes us forever."
"I voluntarily joined the Civil Protection. I thought I would change a lot, help save many lives by serving the Combine. Of course, I was naive, but even my position, as you can see, can be used to the benefit of the Resistance.”
Barney fell silent. He shuddered as he recalled the bloated, wired creature invading his mind. Moments of his life flashed through his mind: from the moment he puked oatmeal on the table at daycare to the scolding from Otis at work. From the purchase of his first Sony PlayStation to the collapse of that damned elevator and the corpses at Black Mesa.
From failing college exams to his and Gordon's mutual fondles in the residential area.
Revealing these memories to the monster was especially painful. It rewinded them back and forth, like a tape on a pencil. Gordon showing Barney his calculations, letting him be the only one to clean his glasses, microwaving cheese sandwiches for a belated lunch. Freeman kissing him for the first time, looking at him with a slight tilt of his head, his green eyes sparkling. Clutching his damp thighs in his hands, pressing him close, taking Barney quickly, slowly, on the bed, on the table, in the moldy-smelling shower.
The creature delved into these episodes of his life especially thoroughly, tarnishing them with its presence. The greasy body of the larva twitched, its head swung from side to side, its sticky tongue entangled the man’s neck more tightly, and Calhoun could physically sense its displeasure; the Advisor's emotions-images screamed in his head, cutting his thoughts into cubes.
...Barney sees and feels himself tumbling into a damaged portal, everything spinning, he's being thrown around Black Mesa and Xen. During one of these transitions, he spots an unconscious, badly beaten Gordon, being dragged somewhere by Marines. And then he's missing. Pain floods his consciousness, not as a result of the creature's manipulations, but his own, previously muffled, now pouring into his brain like a stream from a broken barrel of cytotoxins. He experienced genuine agony — Gordon could probably still have been saved, but he lost his nerve, fled with Dr. Rosenberg, deciding that searching for him in monster-infested Black Mesa was a lost cause. A couple of hours later, an explosion of unprecedented force rocked the canyon, leaving Freeman no chance.
Having sensed his suffering, the creature calmed down. It was once again convinced that the man who had brought the Empire into this world was dead, and that Barney, deprived of both purpose and home, had nowhere else to go. The creature released his neck and allowed him to kneel. Then, with loathsome grace, it departed, hovering in the air like a bobber.
They brought him his uniform and weapon. The machine gun in his hand came to life and ejected its bullet chamber, acknowledging its new owner.
The genetic transformation was complete.
"...And no one knows why the Advisors choose this or that mutation," Barney concluded. "Perhaps it's all part of some grand experiment..."
Gordon stared at him, his eyes wide, scanning his uniformed body for any oddities.
"I still don't understand what they did to you."
Calhoun closed his eyes and mentally counted to five. Saying it out loud was excruciating.
"I became a woman. Partially."
Gordon frowned.
"Oh, come on. Are you kidding me?"
"That's not funny at all, Gordon."
Calhoun's voice rang with a metallic note, but Freeman shrugged.
"I thought it would be something more... exotic.”
Barney sincerely believed he'd already come to terms with his new identity, having to think about it only during menstruation and bathroom breaks. But Gordon's calm, almost indifferent demeanor angered him. He needed a look of contempt on his face, for the man he still loved unconditionally to consider him a creep, a freak of nature, to curse him out loud, or even hit him. Perhaps that would help ease his guilt, at least a little, after all, Barney had let Gordon down so many times! He'd fought with him over trivial things just before the Incident, abandoned him at Black Mesa, and now he'd tainted himself by collaborating with the Combine... His hands were stained with the blood of innocents, but he!...
Gordon calmly watched his friend's mental anguish. Barney clenched his fists, trying to swallow the huge lump in his throat:
"Just tell me to fuck off already and get this over with."
"No.”
He tried to pull away, but Freeman pulled him close, gently running his hand over his uniform pants.
"That's unusual. But not disgusting at all, Barney. What the hell difference does it make to me what kind of genitals you have? I love you no matter what."
Calhoun's insides were even more confused. Self-loathing and guilt ate away at him, pushing Freeman's words from his consciousness.
"I don't find you disgusting, Barney," Gordon repeated, syllable by syllable, peering inquisitively into his tormented gray eyes. "Stop torturing yourself over things you can't change. And I'm not just talking about your body structure."
Barney hunched his shoulders, shivering like a puppy in the cold. Large tears streamed down his face.
"Can I touch you?"
The lump in Barney's throat made it hard to answer, hard to breathe. Gordon looked at him with that warm, sunbeam-like gaze, and everything went to hell. Calhoun nodded, slowly, as if in a dream, taking Freeman's hand and placing it on his crotch. The sound of his fly being unzipped made him flinch, like from the sound of the shot.
The touch of cold fingers on his groin hair was electrifying. No one had ever touched his new organ, or even seen it. Only Gordon was worthy of such trust, only Gordon and no one else in this or any other world.
"Thank you," Freeman smiled softly. "Will you let me caress you?”
Barney was pierced by surprise, but he nodded again, allowing himself to go with the flow. Freeman's love had shattered his passion for suffering and self-flagellation, leaving behind a strange, aching emptiness, like the aftermath of a rotten tooth extraction. Working his way between his labia, his gentle fingers slid over the hood of his clit. Something in Barney's stomach tightened sweetly, and his breath caught.
"What's happening to me?" Calhoun was taken by surprise by the sensations. Never before had they been so intense and profound. He flushed, and a strange, clear moisture oozing from his body made his gentle strokes more and more pleasurable.
"What do you feel?" Freeman tilted his head curiously, in that same manner that always made Barney's knees buckle.
"That it's w-wet and hot," Calhoun mumbled awkwardly.
"You're just aroused," Gordon informed him cheerfully. "You know what I think?"
"What?" Barney was terrified.
Gordon moved closer, purring in his ear:
"You have the most gorgeous, big, hairy pussy I've ever seen. And I've seen a lot."
"Oh, shut up!" Barney laughed, feeling quite relieved by his words. "Don't make me jealous, you fucking gigolo."
"I haven't had anyone else since we met," Gordon's voice dropped to an intimate whisper that sent shivers down Calhoun's spine. "You're my one and only.”
His fingertips traced the petals of flesh framing the entrance to his vagina, causing a slight, pleasurable shudder. A hiss of air escaped Barney — a pathetic parody of a moan.
"I want to taste you," Gordon breathed excitedly. "Can I?"
"What?!" Calhoun, unfamiliar with such pleasures, was taken aback, but his body had already responded: it was growing very, very wet between his thighs.
"I want to smell you. Kiss you. Lick you." Gordon's fingers pressed harder against his swollen vulva, making Calhoun gasp as if he'd just run a race in full suit.
"Well, that's beyond right and wrong, Gordon," Calhoun still hesitated. But Freeman's gaze, full of genuine desire and admiration, cast over his half-naked body, erased any hint of resistance.
"Oh, do whatever you want with it," Barney replied gruffly, trying to hide his bashful anticipation.
He allowed himself to be stripped of his pants and underwear and laid down on his back. The reverence and tenderness on Gordon's face as he leaned over him caused such a sharp pain in Calhoun's chest that his eyes stinged again. He sobbed at the first weightless kiss just below his navel. The second, even lower, tentative but palpable. The third at the edge of the tangled, wiry black hair. The fourth, where his upper lips were just beginning to part. And the fifth, the most sensual, on the glossy flesh.
Calhoun was overcome by the sensation. Not even the most amazing blowjob could compare to this.
"Stop!" he screamed in panic.
Gordon pulled away obediently, breathing heavily. Drops of his juices glistened on his parted lips.
"Did I hurt you?" he asked anxiously.
"Too intense, too... Unusual," Barney muttered guiltily.
"I'll be very gentle," Gordon promised. "You deserve it."
There we go again! Again, tears trickled treacherously down his face. But at the same time, they brought Barney peace and release. He'd spent so many years ashamed, hiding, seeking redemption, that like a drug demanded ever greater doses to mend the growing hole in his soul that had appeared after Calhoun dared to lose Gordon. Barney, blinded by grief and guilt, drowned himself in self-hatred, tormented night after night by nightmares of his beloved dying, spitting out the bitter word "coward" with contempt as his last words. Calhoun threw himself into the thick of things, hoping to die a hero, but fate, mockingly, spared him.
And here was Gordon, in the flesh, not a drop of judgment in his eyes, only love and desire. And Barney decided to give himself over to them wholeheartedly.
"Kiss me again," he cried out pitifully. "Fuck!"
Lips greedily glided over his skin. Calhoun moaned desperately as they wrapped around his clit and gently caressed it. He finally stopped analyzing his feelings and simply lost himself in them. Gordon buried his nose in his pussy, his mouth pressed just below, and his tongue got inside, tracing the walls of his vagina. Incredible sensations. His legs spread wider, his muscles relaxed, allowing Freeman to penetrate even deeper. Barney wasn't sure if he had a hymen, but to his delight, its presence or absence didn't stop Gordon from giving him incredible pleasure. Sucking at his clenching hole, deftly wriggling his tongue inside. Forward, back, tickle. Calhoun's moans become higher and louder, and he begins to gasp for air.
"You're so beautiful," Freeman whispers, licking his lips, and his next touch makes Barney explode, not like before, when the impulse pushed his hips forward, bursting out of his body, but instead, deep, inside, into his very core.
"Are you alive?" Gordon smiled broadly, seeing Calhoun spread across the sleeping bag after his release.
"I think so," Barney said, the corners of his lips lifting slightly. "Don't ask me to satisfy you, I'm done."
"Sometime," Freeman lay down next to him. After waiting for his lover to put his pants back on, he embraced him. "And only after I bring you to multiple orgasms."
Calhoun blushed, peering into the mischievous slits of his emerald eyes.
"Sounds... Intriguing."
For the first time in his new life, Barney wondered what would happen if and when the Resistance reached the Birth Suppression Field and disabled it. Was there a chance for him and Gordon to create a new life? Barney's chest tightened with these thoughts, and when he risked sharing them with Freeman, he replied, "I'd be happy, Barney."
Calhoun's heart pounded, bruising the inside of his ribs. He couldn't sleep. The prospects opening before him were as terrifying as they were hopeful.
With wide eyes, he watched Gordon fall asleep with a smile on his lips. For the third time that evening, tears welled in Barney's eyes — he hadn't cried so much in his entire life.