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[shep-writes]

Glass

Fandom: Halo Character(s): John-117/Master Chief, Kelly-087 Pairing(s): John/Kelly Rating: T Genre: Romance/Angst Warnings: N/A Language: English Summary: Reach was being glassed and she was going to die. A/N: Guess who just got done rereading Halo: The Fall of Reach? This girl! Dedicated to one of my best pals in the entire universe, @greenleafcm. Also, 343 can pry John’s brown eyes from my cold, dead hands :) Read On: fanfiction, AO3 Chapter: 1/1 Chapter Title: N/A

Kelly stared into yawning maw of death and did not blink.

The air had become thick with soot and ash, dangerous for even a Spartan to breathe, yet her helmet lay somewhere on the broken, blood-splattered terrain behind her, forgotten. It didn’t matter what she breathed, not anymore, because Reach was being glassed and she was going to die. And if she was going to die—which she was; there was no “if” about it—she would be damned if she spent her last few moments viewing it all from the optics of a machine.

A wave of impossible heat tossed her tightly-bound hair, a few stray stands sticking fast to the sweat-slicked skin of her forehead. Her eyes burned, assaulted both by the warmth of the distant plasma strikes and by random bits of microscopic debris, but she did not turn away, did not falter, did not flinch, like the Spartan she was.

Angry reds and brilliant oranges erupted from the ground and reached up into the storm-dark sky where silhouettes of Covenant craft were lit by flashes of unnatural lightning. Kelly was kilometers away from the nearest impact site, but with her enhanced eyesight, she could plainly see the destruction, witness the devastation. She could feel it, too, could feel the ground tremble beneath her feet, the weeping groans and heaves the planet made in its death throes reverberating through her very bones, chattering her teeth.

Buildings directly in the line of the plasma’s fire had been obliterated in an instant, the structures that had been slightly outside the blast zone engulfed briefly in unholy flame before simply ceasing to exist as their component materials gave out. Anything—anyone—even remotely close would have perished within merciful seconds.

The urge to go forward, to look for survivors, was strong, but Kelly knew that it would be a wasted effort. Nothing could have survived in such an environment, not even a Spartan. And even if something had survived, where would they go? Where could they flee to?

The Spartans had failed.

She had failed.

Reach was lost.

Red slowly warmed Kelly’s Mjolnir-clad body, and she craned her neck upwards, her suit valiantly trying to cool her off and failing. Directly above her, a Covenant battlecruiser was charging its plasma turret, preparing to bathe the forest clearing she was standing in with hellfire. Soon—within mere breaths—she would be nothing. And yet…she could not find it within herself to be afraid. Not for herself, at least.

The red intensified, blinding. Kelly stood her ground, straightened her back, clenched her fists, and set her jaw—a last act of defiance. The Covenant aboard the ship probably couldn’t see her and wouldn’t have cared if they had been able to. She was about to be naught but red mist—what could she possibly do to them? Still, she held herself strongly, bravely, boldly. Not for them, or even for herself, but for him.

John.

Red light blotted out the landscape. Her skin blistered and peeled as her armor bubbled and boiled. The pain was excruciating. And yet, still, she could not find pity to spare for herself. Her fight was over. But John’s fight…

Her heart skipped a beat, sorrow clogging her throat.

John’s fight was just beginning. And he was going to face it alone. Without her.

A distant humming throb pulsed inside her broiling blood, a solemn drumbeat to play her to her end. Everything melted away, her senses of sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch scorched into insensitivity. Yet her brain continued to function, continued to sing a single name, repeating it over and over and over again even as the plasma shot down to the ground and erased any trace of a being that had once been known as Kelly.

John.

~*~

John woke with a start.

Gasping, he propelled himself forward, bedsheet slipping down his front, scarred chest heaving as his lungs labored to keep up with his desperate need for air. Perspiration clung to his naked form, wrapping him in an uncomfortable embrace of moistness, but he didn’t notice, didn’t care. There was only one thing on his mind, one thought, one person.

Kelly.

Fear lanced through him sharp and cold. Wrenching his torso to the right, brown eyes wide, his hands tore at the blankets, throwing the layers aside with reckless abandon, eliciting a reaction from the lump buried beneath them.

“John!”

John nearly choked on his relief as Kelly surfaced, blue eyes clear and focused despite the sleep she had just been roused from. Concern brought her eyebrows together as she took in John’s harried state, the intense, battle-ready gleam shining in her eyes dissolving into something softer, but just as alert. He didn’t need to explain why he’d woken her, didn’t need to tell her what nightmare had taken hold of him once more. She just knew.

Sitting up, she took the hard lines of his face between her hands. “John,” she said again. “I’m here.”

John nodded his head, eyes slipping closed as he put his hands on top of Kelly’s, pressing them against the flesh of his fevered cheeks firmly. A single tear escaped and slipped down the left side of his face, pooling into the space between her index and middle fingers.

It was only there, in the privacy of their bunk, that John could let the horrors out, express the things, the thoughts, the memories, the doubts, the fears, that had eaten at him since he had first been made Squad Leader, since he had first been made responsible for the lives of the Spartans. It was only with Kelly that he could shed the mask of God and be the man—the very human, very flawed man—he really was.

Years had far removed him from the events of Reach, but it was something—one of the many things—that would forever haunt him. Because it was Reach where he had gained everything—a home, a purpose, a family—only to lose it forever. Or, at least he thought he had.

“Really, John, it’s a bit insulting that you think something like orbital bombardment is enough to kill me.”

John’s eyes fluttered open. He almost physically recoiled at Kelly’s ferocious glare. It was something he’d only seen a few times before, one instance of which he had been unlucky enough to be on the receiving end, as he was now.

Kelly felt the slight flinch and laughed. “You still remember that?”

“Of course, I do.” John frowned. “How could I forget? My shoulder was bruised for a week.”

Kelly lifted an eyebrow. “A week? I think that’s a bit of an exaggeration.”

“You punch hard, Kelly.”

“Well, it worked, didn’t it?” she mused. “You never questioned my abilities again.” She narrowed her eyes. “Until now.”

“Kelly.” John furrowed his brow even deeper. “That’s not what I meant. You know that’s not what I meant.”

Kelly couldn’t keep up her angry façade for long. She laughed again—god, did John love her laugh—her fingers brushing his lashes and swiping away any errant moisture that remained. John couldn’t help the smile that replaced the frown creasing his face. He had never been able to be cross with Kelly.

John’s hands lightly trailed down Kelly’s forearms to her elbows, savoring each inch of skin his calloused pads brushed over. Kelly was corporeal and whole, her skin marred by rough scars and wounds of old. Life pulsed beneath the pale flesh that covered her bones, strong and vibrant and alive.

“Don’t start something you can’t finish,” Kelly’s breathy voice tickled his ear as his hands moved up to her shoulders and back.

“Is that a challenge?” he whispered back.

Before he knew what was happening, Kelly was on top of him, pressing him back into the sheets that smelled of her. Her thighs clenched around his abdomen and her weight pressed into his stomach. The entirety of her being hovered above him, pushed into him, hard and soft, supple and sturdy all at once.

“Let’s see if you can keep up with the Rabbit for once, Master Chief,” she said with a mischievous smirk.

John opened his mouth to respond, managing to get out, “I—”, before the words died on his tongue as she scooted down the length of his body and descended upon him. Stars popped behind his closed eyelids, as she reminded him that she was there, that she was real and whole and solid, that she was tough and ready and able and willing, that was anything but glass.

[shep-writes]

The Queen for a Kingdom, Ch. 1

Fandom: Dragon Age Character(s): f!Cousland, Alistair Theirin, Nathaniel Howe, Velanna, Bethany Hawke, Sigrun, Oghren, The Architect Pairing(s): Alistair/f!Cousland, Nathaniel/Velanna Rating: T Genre: Romance/Angst Warnings: N/A Language: English Summary:  The Hero of Ferelden is missing. With the Divine Conclave fast approaching, tension is mounting between the mages and templars, especially in Redcliffe where a whole host of rebel mages has taken refuge. However, with the Blight finally starting to take hold of her beloved King, the Warden Queen finds that her fate lies down a different path than that of the rest of Thedas. A/N: N/A Read On: fanfiction, AO3 Chapter: 2/? Chapter Title: N/A

“The King is coming.”

Those were the words that greeted Miri as she threw open the doors to Vigil's Keep, lightning flashing in the distance as the sky wept. It was a cold, dreary rain, the sort that chilled one to the bone and gave them the sort of sickness from which they did not recover.

Breath clouding in front of her thin, colorless lips, Miri cast off the damp hood that shadowed her face, Nathaniel Howe—the man that had spoken to her upon her arrival—jumped, no doubt startled by her ghastly appearance. Miri could only imagine what she looked like—little sleep, dark circles ringing eyes that had once been the deep green of an emerald but now resembled the sickly yellowish hue of dying grass, skin pale and stretched thin over blue-black veins.

“Andraste's tits,” she heard Nathaniel gasp.

Purposefully ignoring the slip, the former Warden-Commander shook her hair loose, brow furrowing. “Of course he's coming. The fool.” There was no animosity in her voice, no real bite, and if one had looked at her for a moment, just that one moment, they would have seen the hard lines brought on by her frown soften.

A flash of golden hair, the echo of innocent laughter, a hawk perched on a branch—

“Miri.”

Miri shook her head, brought back to the present by Nathaniel's voice and the rapidly cooling trickle of something warm leaving her nose. Swiping her hand across her mouth, she wiped away the stark reminder of why she was there at Vigil's Keep, away from her beloved.

“When you said—I had no idea—” Nathaniel broke off abruptly, taking Miri's blood-covered gauntlet in his hands before she could tuck it away behind her back out of sight. His bright blue eyes narrowed in concern as he raised her hand up, exposing it to the light of the torches in the great hall. “Maker.”

Miri fought the urge to squirm, not needing or wanting his sympathy. He would be suffering alongside her soon enough; he'd dealt with more Darkspawn in his life than she had, traveled farther into the Deep Roads, and Blight or not, she'd only really been exposed to the creatures during her brief travels and short stint as Warden-Commander afterwords. But Nathaniel...he'd spent the past decade hunting them while she'd been holed up in Denerim, sitting on a throne.

“Miri...”

Wrenching herself free of his grasp, refusing to meet his empathetic gaze, Miri headed in the direction that she remembered lead to the stables. She must have been correct, for it wasn't long before Nathaniel quietly fell in beside her, shortening his steps to match her smaller stride. It was a mite infuriating to Miri—she was walking as briskly as she could without running and waking the entire Keep with the clanking of her armor, yet the man still outpaced her—but she pushed the irritation aside, focused instead on the larger task that lay before her.

Despite knowing otherwise, that Anders had left long ago, that Justice was now one with him, Miri was surprised that she did not see Ser Pounce rounding a corner with the mage hot on his trail, Justice in turn following with a sort of fascination that such a large being would take comfort from something so small. She half-expected Sigrun to come chasing after the lot of them—cat, man and ghoul—bubbling to the brim with questions, Oghren's drunken bawl of a laugh ringing throughout the Keep's winding corridors.

A smile slipped across the Queen's face.

Velanna, of course, would be sitting in an alcove, somehow never far from the fray she tried so desperately to avoid, her nose in a book, a cross look on her face. Her perpetually down-turned mouth would pinch together unpleasantly, nostrils flaring in annoyance as the bumbling group of Ser Pounce, Anders, Justice and Sigrun wandered by, a caustic remark about their tomfoolery following them as they stumbled into the next room. And yet, when they were gone and the Dalish mage thought she was alone, she would grin to herself before snuggling up comfortably in the blanket Nathaniel had awkwardly gifted her, cheeks painted the lightest rose red.

This was all, of course, before Miri had left and their little family had dissolved. Miri did not miss those lonely nights when she slept alone, devoid of Alistair's comfort and warmth lest the Taint that ran through his veins be sensed by the other Wardens in the Keep and it be known that the King was not only a bastard but a Warden as well, but she did miss the motley group that had become as dear to her as her own flesh and blood.

She felt her hands curl into fists where they hung at her sides.

They—Alistair, Nathaniel, Anders, Sigrun, Oghren, Velanna—were why she could not fail, why she would not. She would save them all, save them from what she had cursed them with—an heirless kingdom, a gruesome death.

Miri's armored footsteps clinked against the stone as they maneuvered passage after passage, Nathaniel lighter on his feet and more at ease with creeping and lurking than she ever would be. There was the occasional flicker of flame, the opening and shutting of a door from far off in the castle, but that was all that could be heard, silence a wedge between the two companions that had shed blood, sweat and tears side by side once upon a time.

“Velanna,” Miri spoke at last. “You've found her?”

Out of the corner of her eye she saw the archer flinch and her heart twisted in agony for the raven-haired man. He had loved her—still loved her.

“Yes,” Nathaniel said after a pregnant pause. “Despite her intentions for me—us—not to, we've found her.”

“The Architect?”

Nathaniel nodded. “She's with him.”

“And Seranni?”

Nathaniel shook his head.

“….I see.”

Silence again reigned supreme between them as Miri digested this information. Velanna was alive and so was The Architect. Seranni may or may not be, but seeing as how The Architect was still in one piece and Velanna sighted with rather than against him…

“I wish you'd reconsider,” Nathaniel said, interrupting Miri's thoughts.

Miri blinked, a sad smile stretching her lips, and nudged his arm playfully. “Sorry, Nate. Sigrun's my rogue on this one. Where we're going, blades will be worth more than arrows. Why? Jealous?”

The rogue raised an eyebrow, giving the smaller woman a sideways glance. “Hardly. I've had enough of the Deep Roads to last a lifetime. I'd just feel better knowing you had someone competent with you.”

Miri's smile spread, became genuine, a spark lighting in her dead eyes. “So the truth comes out at long last. You think I'm incompetent, that years sitting on my behind dealing with stuffy nobles has dulled my blade.”

“I—that's not what—Miri.” Nathaniel's expression darkened reproachfully, though a hint of amusement could be seen gleaming in his eyes. “Your blade may have dulled, but your wit is sharp as ever, I see. Thank the Maker Darkspawn can be simply be insulted to death.”

The Queen broke out in laughter, damning the need for secrecy. She had missed this. She had missed him. The pair stopped walking as she broke out in a raucous cacophony of joy, her nerves frayed at the end and welcoming this bit of a diversion. Nathaniel stood still as a statue, only moving to support his former Warden-Commander as she rested her head against his breastplate, tears slipping from her eyes and dotting the floor.

“Nathan...” Her voice wavered.“I want you to know, I—”

“Don't,” Nathan cut her off. “Don't you bloody say it.”

Miri clamped her mouth shut. Not many could get away with ordering her around like that—Queen or not—but there had been too much they had been through together for her to be angry with him.

“Are you sure you can handle him?” she asked instead.

“The King?” Nathaniel scoffed. “If it was the other way around—you coming after him—then I'd be worried.”

Miri snorted. “Yes. I suppose that's true.”

At last they reached the door that led to the stables.

“I'm missing a mage from this little expedition of mine. Too bad you're not a mage,” Miri quipped as Nathaniel put a hand on the wooden door.

Nathaniel grinned. “Not quite. I've got you a mage, from Kirkwall.” Miri raised an eyebrow. “A former Ferelden, no less.”

“Oh?”

Nathaniel pushed open the door and Miri's eyes fell on a girl with long, curly, coal-colored hair that stood by a horse with bags hanging off its saddle, stroking it across the nose comfortingly.

“Miri!”

“Boss!”

At Sigrun's and Oghren's joyous shouts, the girl turned around, her amber eyes meeting Miri's.

“Miri, I'd like to introduce you to Bethany Hawke.”

/ /

Faster. He needed to go faster.

King Alistair spurred his horse onward with a kick. His knee twinged at the act and he suppressed a grimace; an old battle wound, nothing more. Just behind him he could hear his wife's beloved mabari panting hard, struggling to keep up with the stallion upon which he rode, and beyond that the clamor of his guardsmen on horseback. He hadn't intended for this entourage to follow him and he could still hear Bann Teagen's shouts ringing in his ears, commanding him—commanding him, the King of Ferelden!—to come back.

The bed had still been warm when he'd awoken with the gut feeling that something was very, very wrong. The letter he had found had proved his suspicions and he'd barely had the mind to throw on clothes before he'd stumbled out of his chamber with a ruckus that had woken the whole castle. As it was he'd forgotten his smallclothes and his pants were riding up uncomfortably, catching in all the wrong places.

Rain pelted him mercilessly with icy slaps across his face, but he did not slow, did not stop. He had to reach her before she was gone, before she left him and went to what would surely be her death.

She's Miriana Cousland-Theirin, slayer of Archdemons and things that go bump in the night. She'll be fine; she'll make it back from this, he told himself. Just let her go, let her do this. Trust her, as you've always trusted her before you hulking buffoon.

Yet he could not, would not let her go. He trusted her, trusted that she'd do everything in her power to make it back to him, and, Maker, was his wife fierce, but still…!

His heart raced as the landscape sped by, the road alternating between broken stone, grass, and rock. He was soaked to the bone, skin slick with perspiration and the heaven's tears, his breath coming in ragged puffs and gasps as his chest burned with fear.

The galloping hooves of his guards' horses faded as they fell more and more behind their frantic King, and even the mabari's slobbering pants grew distant. The steed beneath Alistair seemed to sense his urgency and feed on his terror, for never before had the former Warden ridden a beast so fast. Still, he feared it wasn't fast enough, and he choked at the thought, tears stinging his eyes.

“My love, wait for me. Please, please wait for me.”

[shep-writes]

The Queen for a Kingdom, Prologue

Fandom: Dragon Age Character(s): f!Cousland, Alistair Theirin, Nathaniel Howe, Velanna, Bethany Hawke, Sigrun, Oghren, The Architect Pairing(s): Alistair/f!Cousland, Nathaniel/Velanna Rating: T Genre: Romance/Angst Warnings: N/A Language: English Summary:  The Hero of Ferelden is missing. With the Divine Conclave fast approaching, tension is mounting between the mages and templars, especially in Redcliffe where a whole host of rebel mages has taken refuge. However, with the Blight finally starting to take hold of her beloved King, the Warden Queen finds that her fate lies down a different path than that of the rest of Thedas. A/N: N/A Read On: fanfiction, AO3 Chapter: 1/? Chapter Title: Prologue

Black roots had sprouted beneath his eyes. They were faint, barely noticeable, but they were there nonetheless, ugly, seething lines of corruption crawling beneath what once had been healthy tan. It was only natural that the flesh that covered his bones would pale overtime, for he was nowhere near as active as he was in his youth—and at that he would have undoubtedly scoffed and said “In my youth? I’m still young! I barely look a day over twenty!”—his warm, sun-kissed skin dulling as years spent wrapped in regal garb and trapped indoors slipped by.

But this.

This.

This was not natural.

The Warden Queen stood above her sleeping King, soft beams of moonlight slipping in through the partially cracked window of their bedroom to alight upon his broad, naked chest that rose and fell with each deep breath of solid slumber he took. Every ounce of self-control she possessed was required to keep her from reaching out and running her fingers through the golden hair that trailed down his abdomen. A thin blue sheet was lazily draped about his hips, hiding his lower body from sight, though the Warden Queen didn't need to remove it to know what laid beneath. She knew his body as well as he knew hers—the spots that tickled, the joints that ached when it rained, the muscles that needed massaging, the scars that crisscrossed and marked wounds of old.

Something moist and warm spilled from her nose. On reflex, she wiped the liquid away, the soft material of the glove adorning her long-fingered hands brushing against her pale skin to absorb the thick, dark glob. The dull throbbing of a migraine in remission came with it, her vision splitting and refocusing with frighteningly wild abandon.

Thick-soled boots carried her across their modestly furnished suite to the writing desk littered with stacks of books, rolls of scrolls, parchment paper, quill pens, ink bottles, a variety of poultices and tonics, and the wax stamp of the Theirin family's royal crest. Purposefully ignoring the tear-splattered letter that neatly lay atop a stack of grievances, laws, tariffs, and all other sorts of official things requiring a King's—or Queen's—touch, she grabbed a vial of deep red, threw back her head, and gulped it down in one swig.

A heady rush swept through her even as the last drop was falling from the glass rim, numbing the tips of her toes and fingers, chasing away the darkness. Leaning forward, she closed her eyes, let the cool breeze of a mild summer night brush her fevered forehead. The scent of roses danced beneath her nose, though she could not smell them. All she could smell was rot, death, decay, the goo that had begun to seep from her pores far too frequently for her taste, accompanied by the low, breathy chant of the damned.

Darkspawn blood.

The Blight.

Green eyes snapped open, bright with fiery determination.

It was essential that she move quickly. Unburdened by her Warden-Commander armor—strategically left at Vigil's Keep years ago for this very occasion—she would move swiftly and quietly in the black bodysuit lent to her by a certain fair Sister, creeping undetected through the halls of her own castle like a thief.

The irony of the situation was not lost on her; of the two classes she could have chosen, she had gone the brutal, uncaring, loud route of the warrior, a Berserker no less. The combined efforts of her rogue companions had been enough to teach her how to tiptoe stealthily in plain clothes, but not in full armor.

Casting her gaze out the window, she watched the guards that marched the grounds of the Royal Palace. It would be hard to slip by them; training by a familiar former-Crow had seen to that. But slip by them she would. She had to.

Without a backwards glance, she strode towards the heavy wooden door that led to their chambers, making sure to tread lightly lest she wake her sleeping King as she moved across rug and stone. She was surprised at how easy it was—to leave him. Perhaps it would come later, the heartbreak, the longing. Perhaps it would remain at bay, her head overpowering her heart for a change.

Tugging her hood into place, she tucked her short-cropped red hair behind her ears. Sweat plastered her bangs to her forehead, a cold, clammy dread chilling her bones while her skin remained hot.

Her heart hammered in her chest as she pulled the door open, the hinges creaking in protest.

A groan issued behind her and she froze, waiting, waiting, waiting. For what, she wasn't sure. For him to wake up and call her back to bed, sleep fogging his brain and clouding his thinking, thus preventing the inquiry of, “What in the Maker's breath are you wearing?” For him to spring to his feet, claim that he had known of her plan all along and was hurt that she hadn't included him?

Neither of these things happened, and she loosed a breath from her tight lips. Instead, she heard the mattress groan as he shifted and mumbled incoherently, doubtless searching for her even as he remained oblivious to the world in sleep.

A lump in her throat spurred her into action, steeled her resolve. Heaving the great door open, she stormed into the hall boldly yet quietly. Torches lit her path, throwing her shadow across the red carpet lining the vacated passages she walked.

He would have gone with her. He would have abandoned his post, his people, for her. She couldn't allow that. Not when she had selfishly declared herself his consort all those years ago, when she had thrown logic and reason to the wind—you can't give him children, you're a Grey Warden, you can't give him children, you're a Grey Warden, you can't give him children, you're a Grey Warden—and let love rule her thoughts, govern her actions, be her motivation. In doing so, she had doomed her homeland, subjected it once more to petty squabbles of who would inherit the throne once the barren Warden Queen and bastard King died.

And so gone was the Queen, for what she did now was not for her people, though help them in the long run it would, one way or another. If she was blessed with success, an heir would they receive, Eamon's concerns of keeping Ferelden in Theirin hands eased. If met with a crueler fate she was, well…

Gone was the Warden, for what she did now—though potentially beneficial yet devastating for the order of warriors this quest might prove to be—was not for her fellow cursed brethren, though their sufferings she longed to quell.

Gone was the Cousland, for this was not a journey of vengeance that she embarked upon, nor one that required someone of noble blood.

All that remained was Miri, once a young girl, now a grown woman, still caught in the throes of love, desperate to save the one she could not live without.

[shep-writes]

Hands

Fandom: Halo Character(s): John-117/Master Chief, Kelly-087, Edward Buck, Olympia Vale Pairing(s): John/Kelly Rating: General, K+ Genre: Romance/Angst Warnings: N/A Language: English Summary: Vale openly gaped at the sight before her, of the Master Chief—the Master Chief—and the woman beside him, Kelly-087, doing what she could only assume was some sort of Spartan display of affection. A/N: For my good friend, @greenleafcm. Read On: fanfiction, AO3 Chapter: 1/1 Chapter Title: N/A

To say it had been a long, weird day would have been an understatement.

But this.

This.

Vale openly gaped at the sight before her, of the Master Chief—the Master Chief—and the woman beside him, Kelly-087, doing what she could only assume was some sort of Spartan display of affection. Thankfully, her helmet kept her her open gape from being too open, but that she had not moved from where she had been standing at the Gateway when Blue Team had descended unharmed from their Cryptum prison was plain for all to see. Again, thankfully, no one was paying her much mind.

Locke was talking in hushed tones with Fred, about what Vale wasn't sure but prayed was something along the lines of a way to get them off of the organically artificial planet that was Genesis. Linda was on watch, her sniper raised, Tanaka standing opposite her with her DMR. And Buck was—

“Didn't your mother ever teach you it's rude to stare?”

Vale nearly jumped out of her skin, spinning around and bringing her SMG to bear without a second thought. Buck threw up his hands and took a step back.

“Whoa, easy there, now. It's me. Buck. Your teammate.”

“Damn it, Buck,” Vale snapped. Holstering her weapon, she let out a shaky breath. “Don't scare me like that.”

“Don't scare me like that,” the former ODST countered. “I merely said hello. You nearly filled me with bullets.”

Sighing, Vale ran a hand across the top of her crimson helmet. “I'm—I'm sorry, ok? Today has been...weird. And...and that...” She nodded her head back at the living legends behind her. “Are they...allowed to do that?”

Buck's head moved ever so slightly, his shoulders moving up and down in a slight shrug. “I don't see why not.” She could just imagine him raising a curious brow. “Why? Jealous?”

“No, I—” Vale stopped short. She what? Hadn't expected the myths, these gods amongst men, to be...human? It was a ridiculous thought, one she dared not voice. Because logically she knew that they were human, flesh and blood, made the way they were through science and a clever mind; there was nothing mystical or magical about them. They could bleed and die just like the rest of them, like her. And yet...

Buck cocked his head to the side, waiting. When she failed to respond after a full minute had passed, he opened his arms.

Vale blinked at the gesture. “What?”

“You look like you need a hug. And, to be honest with you, I could really use one too. Completely platonic and teamly of course. But, to be on the safe side, just….don't tell my girlfriend.”

Vale rolled her eyes.

~*~

Despite the combat exoskeleton that separated their skin, John was glad for the light, reassuring pressure that was Kelly's fingers twined around his. The contact, simple though it was in nature, was all that was keeping him tethered to reality in that moment.

She stood before him, silent and caring, waiting. There was little that needed to be spoken between them, and now was one of those times, when her presence was enough, when their years of service together exchanged words for them in the form of body language and touch.

The part of him that was the Master Chief was telling him to pull it together, to join Locke and Fred as they conspired to escape this planet that he had foolishly dragged them to in an attempt to right a wrong he'd never had the power to correct in the first place. Guilt—over putting his team and Locke's in jeopardy for a whim, for breaking a promise, for failing to stop her—held him back. His judgment had been compromised.

The part of him that was John was just happy that Kelly, Fred, and Linda were alive.

His fingers twitched, Kelly's hold on him becoming more solid in the form of her entire hand clasping his firmly. His helmeted stare lifted, meeting hers.

That she was there, that she was alive, real…

He took a centering breath, concentrated on the facts.

They were stuck, without a Pelican to fly or even a Covenant ship to commandeer.

Exuberant Witness and her Constructors had disappeared inside her reclaimed installation for purposes unknown.

Ammo was of short supply.

Everyone was, miraculously, uninjured.

And Cortana was—she was—

“John.”

And there it was. His name. So much said with so little.

Kelly reached for his other hand, catching it in her unbreakable grasp. He could feel her penetrating stare behind her visor and imagined that her sharp blue eyes that saw everything, saw him, would have been beautifully offset by the stone cold caps that surrounded the platform on which they stood.

When this was all over—and it would be over and they would survive—maybe they'd find some peace for a change. Maybe they'd visit some world not torn apart by war. And maybe—just maybe—he'd get to see all the colors the universe had to offer reflected in her eyes, bringing out the flecks of grey, the shadows of silver, the highlights of baby blue.

He felt her grip tighten, and he squeezed back in response.

Together.

That's what she was saying. What he was saying back.

Together.

They would face it.

Together.

Their lull was interrupted by a shout—“Stop it, Buck!”—by the Osiris member known as Olympia Vale, and then the Master Chief was back, purposefully striding over to where Fred and Spartan Locke stood, leaving his heart in the capable hands of Kelly-087.

[shep-writes]

Holiday Blues

Fandom: Halo Character(s): John-117/Master Chief, Kelly-087 Pairing(s): John/Kelly Rating: T Genre: Friendship/Romance Warnings: N/A Language: English Summary: Before they were SPARTAN-IIs, they were kids. After they were SPARTAN-IIs, they were adults. But regardless of before and after, they were human first and foremost and sometimes John needed Kelly to remind him to come up for air. Shameless fluff. A/N: It occurred to me that no one writes about kid!John and kid!Kelly. So here's a story about kid!John and kid!Kelly. Read On: fanfiction, AO3 Chapter: 1/1 Chapter Title: N/A

John blinked as Kelly pressed her lips to his. They were warm despite the cold, her pale cheeks flushed a delicate pink.

It was a chaste, innocent act. John had been kissed before by playmates, in the way that children go about such things, playing house with their friends, copying expressions of affection they had witnessed shared amongst the older kids and adults.

John had always been ahead of the other children his age in terms of physical prowess and mental acuity, so he himself had never bothered to initiate such a tender display; he had seen his parents kiss before, and it seemed not right to treat such a thing so flippantly, even if just for a game of make believe.

But there was something different about this, this kiss with Kelly.

He couldn't put a finger on what, but the warmth of her breath against his frozen face and pressure of her mouth against his was right in a way that nothing had been right since he'd first laid eyes on Dr. Halsey.

Just as quickly as the kiss had started, it ended, Kelly drawing back so quickly that John stumbled forward. Kelly laughed—really laughed—as he caught himself before tumbling into a snowbank, the cold, dark world that they were in suddenly very real once more.

John couldn't help but crack a smile at the lightness in Kelly's eyes, the full moon above sending shafts of light through the snow-heavy clouds above. The wind stirred, rustling skeletal branches as an animal of some sort cried in the distance. Somewhere out there in the night Sam and Linda were looking for them; perhaps they had found the rest of the SPARTAN-IIs, perhaps they hadn't. Being the leader, John should have probably cared, and he did, but right then—

“Merry Christmas.”

John blinked again.

“Huh?”

Kelly smiled and pointed up to where the stars would have been had it not been for the weather's stubborn desire to prove meteorologists wrong. John followed her direction, his breath coming out in puffs as he breathed deeply. His lungs burned and the air hurt his face, but he wanted to remember this moment for some reason.

“Out there...somewhere...on some planet...it's Christmas.”

Christmas...

John felt his eyes lose focus and he made a half-attempt at forcing them back to clarity, but then the smell of heavily seasoned, cooking fowls tickled his nose. His dad's deep voice rippled around the trees, followed by hearty laughter that seemed to shake the snow from the trees above, and he was being pulled back into a comforting embrace, rich vanilla-coconut scent soap enveloping him in a cocoon of safety and security—

“John.” He heard his mother say as she pressed something into his small hands. “Merry Christmas.”

John looked down, searching for the present—the mother—that wasn't there, and for a second he was afraid he was going to black out as the searing agony of loss rippled through his gut. He missed his mother. He missed his father, too, of course, but he missed his mother so, so much.

Why was he there? What was he doing on Reach? Why had he been taken from his home, his mother? It wasn't fair. It wasn't right.

But then Kelly was there again, her hands filling the void left by the phantom present and he understood why he was there, why he was doing this, why if Dr. Halsey had walked away from him that day and never returned he would have torn the galaxy apart searching for her, the question “Why? Why not me?” his eternal torment.

And so he took Kelly's hands in his, frostbitten as they were, and held onto them tight, because Dr. Halsey was right about him, because Dr. Halsey was right about Kelly, because Dr. Halsey was right about having chosen them. And he knew why Kelly had said, “Merry Christmas”, why she had reminded him of what they'd lost, of what they had been given, of why she had brought up a holiday now of all times.

“Merry Christmas.”

oOOo

Kelly blinked as John pressed his lips to hers. They were warm despite the cold stale recycled air that pumped throughout the ship, his deathly pale cheeks tinged with a light dusting of red.

It was a passionate yet innocent act. Kelly had been kissed before by John, in the way that adults go about such things when their desires are stirring in their gut, laying down to affirm physically what they feel for one another emotionally.

Kelly had always been on equal footing with John in this regard, their thoughts aligning perfectly in a way she didn't know was humanly possible.

But there was something different about this, about this kiss with John.

She couldn't put a finger on what, but the warmth of his breath against her scarred face and pressure of his mouth against hers was right in a way that nothing had been right since she thought she'd lost John to the stars on those damnable Halos.

Instead of drawing back—they were in someone else's bunk for God's sake—John pushed forward, his large hands digging into her back, pressing her flush against him. There was nothing sexual about the act, not this time, but something else, something that transcended the physical plane.

“Merry Christmas,” he murmured briefly before plunging back into the kiss and Kelly was suddenly a little girl again in the snowy mountains of Reach with a much shorter and younger John. The snow was falling and the moon was shining, and it struck her how fantastically similar every planet was, how her birthplace was not so different than this one, that someday there might be houses where they were standing, that someday they wouldn't need children like her to go and fight in some terrible war.

It was easy to forget that, sometimes. That they were all children. That they were human. John, the stresses of leadership already carving deep lines in his still-cherubic face, forgot that more than any of them.

It was just the two of them as she kissed him, as she wished him a merry Christmas, as she told him with actions rather than words that she was here, that she saw him, that he was not alone.

That memory had been one of her favorites throughout the stretches they had been apart. Many things had changed over the years—augmentations, deaths, aliens, glassings—but many things hadn't.

John was still John, Kelly was still Kelly, and they were both still alive and they were both still human.

And so she took John's face in her hands and gently maneuvered him onto his back, trespassing in someone else's bunk though they were, because John was right, because Kelly was right, because they were right together.

“Merry Christmas.”

[shep-writes]

Blessed Curses

Fandom: Halo Character(s): John-117/Master Chief, Kelly-087 Pairing(s): John/Kelly Rating: General, K+ Genre: Romance/Hurt/Comfort Warnings: N/A Language: English Summary: It was inevitable, this aging, one of the curses of being human. It was a curse she had never thought he—or she, for that matter—would ever live to experience. Perhaps having once entertained that thought, the thought of an early grave, made her morbid, but no one would blame her. He and she were soldiers after all, Spartans, and early graves were a part of the job description. A/N: For @greenleafcm Read On: fanfiction, AO3 Chapter: 1/1 Chapter Title: N/A

Blue eyes blinked, tracing mental fingers across scarred skin. The skin was pale, though not as pale as it had once been when it had been hidden behind green, stalwart armor. The tank top that covered the pale skin did little to hide the muscles of the chest, fully exposed those in the arms, though, like the skin that had once been deathly white, the muscles had lost some of their bulk.

He was getting old.

She smiled.

Old. He was getting old.

It was inevitable, this aging, one of the curses of being human. It was a curse she had never thought he—or she, for that matter—would ever live to experience. Perhaps having once entertained that thought, the thought of an early grave, made her morbid, but no one would blame her. He and she were soldiers after all, Spartans, and early graves were a part of the job description.

So no, she had never thought they’d live long enough to look in the mirror and see shocks of grey where there had once been dark brown. And yet there they were, in their bed, soft puffs of breath escaping his parted, scarred lips, a strand of drool dripping down his chin.

He was getting old.

And it was glorious.

Wrinkles traversed marred flesh, and while he had developed crow’s feet relatively early on in life, there were more lines now, due to time rather than stress.

Her smile grew wider.

Well, most of the wrinkles were now due to time. Some had been born of yet another curse she had never thought they’d live to see—parental worry.

She bit her lip, her smile stretching her cheeks to the point that they hurt, and buried her head in her pillow, keeping one gleaming blue eye on him.

They were parents.

It still amused her to this day, nearly thirty years later when their son was grown and had a family of his own, that they were parents. If it had been taboo for her to think of him growing old, it had been against god for her to imagine him—to imagine her—with children. And yet a child they had. Grandchildren, too. And it was amazing.

He slipped one eye open suddenly, his mouth quickly curling to mimic hers in its joyous display. She had known he hadn’t truly been sleeping, and he had known that she had known, but neither had been willing to disturb the pristine silence. It had been enough to just be.

The sheet fell down to his torso as he sat up and extended one large hand towards her face. She leaned forward, anticipating his touch, closed her eyes as he ran his rough thumb across her scarred cheek, breathed deeply as he lightly brushed her lips.

The sun had begun its ascent; she could feel its warmth on her back as its rays slipped inside their sacred haven. But the sun wasn’t responsible for the fire burning inside her.

Soon they would have to rise and greet the day. Soon they would have to report for duty for, old as they were, the job was never really done. But for now it was just them.

“Kelly.”

A shiver worked its way down her spine.

“Kelly.”

It felt good to hear him say her name. There had been a time long ago when she had been afraid she would never hear it from him again.

“Kelly.”

Something inside her chest tightened.

It was only her name, but with it he said so much.

She opened her eyes at long last, gaze softening as she placed her hand on top of his, could feel the shakiness with which he held it against her.

She swallowed hard.

It was the greatest enemy that they had ever faced and one day…one day…it would win.

There would come a point where he would reach the end of the aging process and there was only one thing left for him to do. It was something he couldn’t shoot or blow up, something he couldn’t outrun or outsmart. Hell, she couldn’t even outrun it, though she’d certainly give it all she had. She’d run until she was beyond breathless, pulling him along with her until her legs gave out beneath her, and even then, she’d damn it all and keep going.

As if he could read her mind—and he probably could, long as he’d known her—he took her hand in his and gave it a gentle squeeze. Her smile returned and she placed her free hand on top of his, their fingers intertwining.

“Kelly.”

Yes, one day time would win.

But not today.

And when it eventually did, she would welcome it, curse and all, with open arms.

For any time was better than none.