Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Fandom: Halo
Relationship: John/Kelly
Characters: John-117 | Master Chief, Kelly-087
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.
Link(s): AO3, FF
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.
Rating: General Audiences
Fandom: Halo
Relationship: John/Kelly
Characters: John-117 | Master Chief, Kelly-087, Olympia Vale, Edward Buck
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.
Link(s): AO3, FF
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.
On Monday, the retired four-star general and White House Chief of Staff John Kelly asserted that “the lack of an ability to compromise lead to the Civil War.” This was an incredibly stupid thing to say. Worse, it built on a long tradition of endorsing stupidity in hopes of making Americans stupid about their own history. Stupid enjoys an unfortunate place in the highest ranks of American government these days. And while one cannot immediately affect this fact, one can choose to not hear stupid things and quietly nod along.
