AN: Welcome back to another exciting chapter of Murphy's Law. This story is going to slowly start getting a cast of special guest stars, starting this chapter. Some will be OCs of mine from other story arcs, other will be beloved canon characters.
So many plot points for this story are coming together over the next few chapters that it's making my head spin. I feel like I'm approaching a sort of climactic point and I'm super excited to see this story maturing.
but for now that's hardly important. We've still got a lot of story left and right now I'm just hoping you enjoy this piece of it.
have fun Spartans.
"You never have fire support in heavy firefight but you always have it on a silent recon mission"
-excerpt from Murphy's laws of combat operations
Location: UNSC Murphy's law, standoff distance from Forerunner installation X50, 08:08 standard military time, January 7th, 2559
Alison tensed with every one of Brandon's touches. Every brush of Brandon's hand over hers, every little reassuring caress was completely foreign territory for her. Her adrenaline spiked and her breathing quickened as she fought to allow herself to acquiesce to his touch. Her whole life she had never let her guard down. Trusting someone like this was a good way to end up with a knife in your back. Even beyond a literal knife, what about a metaphorical one of deception and betrayal? Would she be able to take the emotional hit if Brandon was putting her on?
She looked into his eyes, searching him for any kind of deceit. In his soft, hazel-green eyes she found none. She was a master of dissecting a person's expressions, but what if she was slipping up? What if behind that facade of compassion there was secretly a deadly trap?
But what if there wasn't? What if this new found need to caress him lead to pleasure? What if she didn't have to suffer alone anymore?
She took a chance and reached out to caress his cheek with her knuckle, mimicking his tender touch. She knew she imparted the desired effect when Brandon closed his eyes and smiled. When he opened them, he stared back up at her. He was contemplating something. He was biting his lip and his eyes searched her face. Before she could open her mouth to ask him what he needed to know, and to swear she would tell him anything, he tightened his grip around her shoulders ever so slightly, and leaned toward her.
Her mind went into a panic. What was he doing? She was curious to find out, but shouldn't she jerk away and question him? Ensure he meant her no harm? Threaten him to make sure he wouldn't go back on his promise? Before she could decide it was too late. His face was inches from hers, his head tilted to the side. He gently pressed his lips to hers, and Alison's mind went blank.
Was she worried about something a second ago? Maybe now she should be worried about processing all of the emotions that were surging through her head. As his lips gently caressed hers she felt a jolt of electricity shoot through her body. It was like nothing she felt before. It ignited a primal need inside of her to pull him closer, to feel him next to her, and to make sure he wouldn't leave until he taught her all about this new feeling.
As the kiss became more insistent, her mind began to tug in so many different directions. She didn't know the first thing about affection. She should pull away before she embarrassed herself. She wanted to force his hand, now. She needed to know what it felt like to be kissed. She wanted real, passionate affection, something she was starved of for her entire life. She wanted him to continue just like this. Maybe letting him continue would lead to great pleasure than her impatient body realized.
The gentle brush of his lips against hers slowly increased in intensity as he applied more pressure until Alison finally wrapped her arms around his neck and allowed herself to experience his affection.
After the brief caress Brandon pulled away just far enough that she could speak. He was breathless from the feeling of Alison pressed up against him. Her skin was warm and heating by the second. He wanted to drag his hands over her skin and feel more of that warmth, but he didn't want to risk touching another sensitive spot and scaring her off.
The disproportion in their strength was intimidating, especially as he felt her fingers dig into his shoulder hard enough to bruise. Her presence was powerful as she stood almost at her full height, but her eyes were wide and bordering on frightened
Why was she scared of him? The corded muscle beneath her scarred skin could easily rip any piece of him off that she wanted too.
"It's alright," he whispered to her. "I'm not going to hurt you."
Alison narrowed her eyes at him, like she had heard those words too many times to still believe them.
"I promise…." Said Brandon, his voice solid and certain
Alison held her rigid stance for a moment longer, before easing up just enough to let him lean back in and kiss her. Her doubts were gone. She knew this was where she needed to be.
When she felt him gently run his tongue over her teeth, a shiver of pleasure ran down her spine. Without even thinking she parted her teeth to allow him access to her mouth. She didn't know why she knew this was what he was asking for, but she gave it to him, and he accepted, darting his tongue into her mouth to taste her.
Alison became light headed. She wasn't sure if that was because of this dizzying, newfound form of affection, or because she didn't know how to ask Brandon to come up for air, but it wasn't entirely unpleasant. The whole experience was thrilling. Brandon's tongue gently caressing her mouth, her own gently darting out to feel and taste his, gently probing, searching, and discovering new pleasure.
When Brandon finally came up for air he leaned forward and rested his forehead against hers. She bent over to meet him at his level, but she didn't mind. They said nothing, but nothing needed to be said. Their affection spoke for them.
To him, her affection conveyed, I care for you Brandon, unlike anyone I have met before. Please let me enjoy your presence for whatever time we have together.
From him, she received, I am yours Alison. I care for you and I want to help you. Let me see all of you.
Alison was ready move back in for another kiss, but before she could, she felt Brandon's hands begin to roam on her body. They shifted from her shoulders down to her waist. She tensed reflexively. She wasn't used to the suddenness of the shift of his touch. She didn't like the lack of control over the situation. She knew he wasn't trying to be aggressive, but her violent pull away from him conveyed just how uncomfortable she was.
Brandon looked at her with concern, and then pulled his hands away. He looked frightened. Clearly he thought he did something seriously egregious.
He stumbled over his words before finally spitting out, "Shit, I'm sorry. What did I do?"
Alison frowned. He didn't do anything. It wasn't about him at all. It was about her scars and all the ugliness he might find if his hands wandered to the wrong place. The few people who saw her without her armor were horrified at the scars on her mutilated body. Given that Brandon saw parts of her uncovered while she was recovering, she was surprised he was making such affectionate moves towards her. Did he really want to see what was beneath the shroud of armor she deliberately layered over herself?
"Brandon, it's alright," she said quickly.
She took his hands in hers. She meant it as a comforting gesture. Whether or not he took it that way wasn't something she knew how to recognize. Maybe she wasn't as good with expressions as she thought she was, or at least not these kind.
"I'm sorry, I'm just nervous," she said honestly. "Please, I'd love you to continue, I just..."
Brandon smiled at her and tugged on her hand, gesturing for her to sit down on the bed. She complied and he did the same.
"Alison, it's alright. It's perfectly normal to be nervous.
Alison flashed a brief, sad smile. Brandon was nothing if not courteous.
"Was that the first time you've been kissed?"
Alison flushed bright red. Alison knew Brandon could tell by her awkwardness, but she still wasn't thrilled about having to admit her complete inexperience to him aloud. Truthfully, she never really put much thought to the fact that she never kissed anyone. She often saw Marines stealing a kiss during rare downtime. She knew that this sort of affection between troops was forbidden, but she never could bring herself to report them. Something about the action and the intimacy of it seemed sacred, something she didn't have any business interfering with. To her, it was just another thing that regular soldiers could enjoy that was not for her to experience, and until now that was how it stayed.
"Yes," responded Alison in a cracked voice.
She did a horrible job of masking the strain in her voice. Dammit. Why did this man make her crack like this?
Brandon smoothed her hair affectionately and then completely removed his hands from her, relinquishing control to her. She didn't make any attempt to approach him, but nodded appreciatively.
"Really, someone as pretty as you and no one has ever tried?" He said questioningly.
Alison flushed even redder. Part of her wanted to grab Brandon and figure out how to kiss him for that, and part of him wanted to smack him to the floor for embarrassing him. Seeing the tension in her face, he decided to back down from that line of questioning.
"How was it?" he asked.
He looked her in the eye before caressing her palm with his thumb as he spoke.
Alison sighed. Even that small touch was foreign, pleasureful, and beyond description. How could she possibly describe something so deeply close as a kiss?
"Wonderful," she said, her voice distant. "I've never felt that way. It was foreign, and wonderful, and..." ...and too far beyond my control.
"Brandon, what does a kiss mean?" She wasn't sure whether or not it was a dumb question, or even a valid one. Did it mean anything at all?
Brandon reached out to caress her cheek. Alison tensed, but relaxed when the safe, warm feeling of Brandon's skin against hers set in.
"It means lots of things. It means I like you, it means I want to be close to you, it means I want you to feel pleasure and happiness."
From the shakiness in his tone, Alison couldn't help but feel like he was dancing around another meaning. A deeper meaning that he wasn't willing to commit to the action just yet.
That meaning. It must have a name. What was it?
Brandon brought her hand to his lips to kiss it. A comforting gesture? No, it was something else. She didn't know a word to describe it, but it was pleasant.
"I could go on, but I'd rather just continue with this. Is that alright?"
Alison looked at him reluctantly. She wanted him to kiss her again, it was exhilarating, but perhaps too exhilarating for her. She was new to this. She needed to test the waters, find out what she was up against, develop a plan.
Why does this have to sound like a battle in my head?
Truth be told, she didn't know what she wanted. She felt like she wanted him to take things slower, but would slower really be better? She honestly didn't know.
"Yes," she said confidently.
Although she was still feeling far from confident.
Brandon placed a hand on the back of her neck, threading a few of his fingers into her hair.
She sighed, closed her eyes and let her mouth hang open. The simple action felt surprisingly pleasurable, especially as she felt his fingertips press into her scalp, massaging it gently and then guiding her towards him. She'd never considered that she'd like the feeling of someone touching her hair.
His lips met hers smoothly, and she tried to follow Brandon's lead as they once again built from a slow caress of the lips into a deeper dance of tongues. Slowly she faded back into the whiteness she was in before. All that was left in her memory was Brandon, and the kiss they were sharing. Brandon recognized that she enjoyed his fingers in her hair, so he gently began to run them through it. Alison enjoyed the feeling until his fingers got a little too close to her and grazed her neck.
For a brief second she braced herself against him nervously. If his hand wandered too far it would end up on the neural implant slot that was surgically embedded into her neck. He would probably find it ugly and machine like. She couldn't let him feel it.
She leaned away from him and then crashed her lips back together with his, hoping to move his hand away from the implant.
Brandon mistook her aggressiveness for openness, and began to kiss her a little less tenderly. Once again he ran his hand through her hair, making a line straight down her neck until his fingers caressed the implant.
The small chip slot was an area of great sensitivity for her. Even touching it would sent chills down her spine because if it's proximity to so many bundles of nerves. The moment she felt the cold sensation of shivers down to her core her first reaction was to push away, hard. With her augmented strength, this unfortunately meant Brandon was pushed much further than she intended.
Her uncontrolled motor function sent him flying across the room. He hit a wall hard, and fell to the floor, dazed.
Alison stared at him in horror.
Damn. She didn't mean to do that. She only meant to try and slow him down enough that she could hide the ugly parts of herself before he found them. Now it didn't matter how ugly she was. He was gone. No way he would stay a moment longer after something like that. She took off for the door. She should leave before she made this any worse than she already did.
"Alison, wait," he called after her breathlessly.
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to push you too far. Please tell me what I did wrong."
Alison was astonished. How, after he was thrown across the room by her, could he possibly still think he was the problem? How could he see so many ugly parts of her and still be able to look past her violence, her anger, and her scars?
He deserved someone better than her. A lot better than her. Some who could return the affection he gave her without lashing out in fear.
"It's not your fault Brandon," she said sadly.
She tried to block the sound of Brandon scraping himself off the floor to follow her as she silently walked out the door of her quarters, her face a mask as she shut the door in his face with an airtight hiss.
The moment he couldn't see her any more she broke into a run towards the showers. When she reached them she peeled her readiness gear off and turned on water as cold as the vacuum of space. The droplets trailed over her skin, freezing her burning nerves and heart solid. She slumped to the hard, white polymer floor of the shower and let her head rest in her hands.
Why did she rejected Brandon so harshly? He liked her. He saw her ugliness and still didn't look at her any differently, so why wouldn't she let herself open up to him and feel his gentle affection? She imagined him slowly approaching from behind her now, whispering her name and telling her it was alright. She didn't do anything wrong. She could take control and she could ease into whatever they were beginning at her own pace. She imagined him gently threading a few fingers into her hair and...
Alison grimaced. No. She couldn't think about that. She dug her fingers into her hair and pulled so hard it hurt. She didn't want to remember his tenderness. It just made everything harder.
Alison was glad to be soaked in the freezing cold water. It masked the tears that silently down her cheeks.
She shouldn't be crying. She was a goddamn Spartan. She shouldn't be affected by things like romantic attachment. The mission came first and that was all that mattered. And to a guy like Brandon she was damaged goods. She had too many scars, inside and out, to dare enter a relationship. She would be a burden to him.
Alison fought to clear her mind as the frigid water cascaded over her shoulders.
You were built for war, not attachment. Remember that and it all gets easier.
This wasn't the first time she'd said those words to herself, but believing them wouldn't be easy. It was just as hard as seeing her Spartan brothers and sisters lying in pools of their own blood, and being totally helpless to defend them.
Helpless, just like Petty Officer Ramirez said you were.
Alison didn't move for a long time.
Location: Covenant plasma refinery on former outer colony M235, 09:45 standard military time, January 7th, 2559
Eyes heavy with fatigue, Naomi-010 lay prone in the snow of the icy dwarf planet M235, surveying the area and readying to move in to complete her next objective. As she mentally prepared herself to move forward with the mission, she allowed herself a few, brief moments of respite.
This assignment was much more exhausting than she anticipated.
Then again, she didn't expect it to be this grueling, or drag on for this long. Initially this was a simple assignment she took because she needed a little time to think. Maybe think wasn't so much the right word as process. She had plenty of time to think about things while aboard the Port Stanley, but those things became more and more narrowed when she entered a relationship with Vasily Beloi.
When she told Vasily how she felt about him, and what she did to enable herself to be with him, the hormone therapy she went through to recover her sex drive. Things moved very quickly between the two of them. They both knew what they wanted, so they decided why waste time? They could die any day, and it was better to live and love than die regretting not going far enough.
Initially Naomi couldn't get enough of it. The stolen moments when the other crew members were absent thrilled her beyond belief. Waiting until she knew no one was around so she could sneak up on Vaz and pin him in place with a gentle hand a few forceful kisses made her feel important in a way she never did in her life. She soon found herself sneaking around the ship nearly every night to find her way to Vaz's quarters, and spending hours and hours in his embrace, learning about all of the pleasurable things the Spartan program took from her.
Eventually, however, it all began to become too much for her. She began to become overwhelmed by her thoughts about Vaz. Some were confusing, most were downright irrational, and somehow she loved all of them. That was the part that scared her beyond her ability to rationalize it away.
She begun to realize that her fear of these thoughts began to drive her from Vaz. Their nightly meeting decreased until they became almost nonexistent, and when Vaz finally confronted her about it she honestly didn't have an answer for him. She swore that she didn't intend to push him away, only that she needed space and a little time to process her mind and body's reactions to these completely foreign situations.
When she told Vaz that Osman offered her a two month long assignment in the former outer colonies taking out covenant remnant installations, he was incredibly disappointed. He begged her to stay, promising they could take things slower, but she shook her head.
"I'm not leaving you Vasily," she said kindly, "I'm just not used to any of this. I need a sense of normality for a while to process how I feel, otherwise I might start pushing you away and that's the last thing I want."
Vaz wasn't happy with her response, but he accepted it. They spent one last night together before she left, and although it was just as passionate as the others, there was an air of tension between the two of them. Neither of them knew what was going on in the others head, or even in their own, only that they needed each other too much to let it get in the way.
When the morning came when she expected Vaz to beg her to stay, but instead he embraced her tightly, and kissed her deeply and slowly, letting his hands rest on her sides for possibly the last time.
"Take care," was all he managed to say before he let her go, and then a strangled, "I love you."
She closed the door behind herself.
Now that she was lay face down in the freezing cold tundra, readying herself to assault the Covenant plasma refinery below, she regretted not staying. She regretted letting her nerves get the better of her. She regretted leaving Vaz feeling even more cold than she did right now. He didn't deserve it.
With a renewed grip on her DMR she sighted down the scope until the refinery appeared in the crosshairs. She assessed the perimeter, noting the many guards stationed around it. Her armor was repainted white for this mission, so she decided given her new found camouflage, running up and planting the C12 explosive charges strapped to her back was more viable than taking on a hundred plus covenant.
She took a deep breath and prepared to run. The sooner I get this over with the sooner I go back.
Then in one, swift motion, like an Olympic runner leaping from the starting blocks, she exploded forward. Even at the rate she was moving, the blinding snowstorm camouflaged her as howling wind impacted her from all directions.
She counted down how long it would take her to reach the perimeter, where she intended to vault through one of the gaps left in the laser fence with.
Five, four, three, two... She counted.
Just before she reached one, however, she stopped dead. Behind her she heard the distinctive sound of approaching UNSC air to ground missiles. She hit the ground just as she began to see the contrails fly over her head and begin to impact the refinery's buildings causing brilliant explosions of blue and white. Her visor polarized to its darkest setting to protect her eyes as plasma that was ejected into the air in all directions and returned flaming to the ground.
She heard the UNSC aircraft, AV-49 Wasp ultralight ground support aircraft—by the sound of it, circle the base and begin to unload on the covies with their cannons, firing thirty millimeter rounds at an incredible pace. They took serious anti aircraft fire, and Naomi swore she heard one of them go down, then another, then another. That was the reason she was made to assault this place in the first place, so they wouldn't lose anyone to AA.
Dammit, she swore in frustration.
Naomi took off as fast as she could towards where the first crash sight appeared on her radar. He was probably dead, but if there was any chance he was alive she would take it. She leapt through falling plasma and puddles of boiling snow melt as she dashed for the wreckage of one of the Wasp aircraft. It took a dive face first into the snow.
Through the blinding snow storm, Naomi's enhanced vision could just make out the form of the pilot who was thrown from the aircraft. He ejected too low for his emergency thrust pack to engage, and landed in the snow face down. His flight suit wouldn't do much to protect him from the cold of this place, and if Naomi didn't get to him soon he would freeze to death.
She reached him in a matter of seconds and lifted him up out of the snow, turning him over to face her. His helmet had cracked, and his face was bright red and no doubt stinging from the cold. He was too cold and freezing to talk, In shock and too badly injured to stand. Naomi watched helplessly as the cold seeped into his bones, slowly killing him.
Naomi searched for any source of heat she could find other than the flaming hot plasma, which would only give him arcburn or worse. Seeing no other option, she activated her distress beacon, gathered the airman into her arms and set him down near the flaming wreckage of his aircraft. She tore open the blowout medkit on his thigh and removed a Mylar blanket, wrapped him in it, and hoped it would be enough.
As he began to thaw his expression became more and more worried. No doubt he was in shock. Knowing ONI and their practices he was probably told not to expect any antiaircraft fire. His eyes were wide with fear as he fought to keep them open against his exhaustion. He babbled incoherently. Naomi could only pick out a few words. Something about his men and his family.
She wanted him to feel like he would survive. Unluckily for him, 1500 pounds of armor was only reassuring to the wearer, not to the man dying in their arms.
Naomi wanted to help him desperately, and after a minute or two she sighed and removed her helmet. This man needed to know that there was a living, breathing human being by his side as he suffered through this.
The cold stung her face as she peeled off her helmet and let her braided hair fall free, but it wouldn't kill her like it would this man. Her body was augmented and built for these kinds of extremes. Even so, she couldn't have imagined her doing this for someone before she met Vaz. Face to face interaction never was something she saw as beneficial, and definitely not reassuring. To her, any conversation that could be done with her helmet off could he done just as well with it on. Now she came to embrace the more human qualities of it.
She forced a smile at the airman as he huddled closer to her, shivered for warmth, and stared at her newly revealed face like she was some sort of grey-eyed angel.
"Hey," she said gently, "I'm Naomi. Everything... It's all gonna be ok."
She hoped the man wouldn't notice her stumble. She still wasn't particularly good at this whole comforting thing. Hell, she wouldn't have even known how to a few months ago. Vaz changed that. Usually ODSTs and emotional intelligence were mutually exclusive quantities, but Vaz was so much different.
He tried to reach out to touch her face, but Naomi restrained him. He didn't need to lose a hand to the cold because he was delirious.
"Are you an angel?" He said, his voice strained.
Before she could answer, he shivered and stared at her one last time until he eventually closed his eyes. If he didn't keep shivering Naomi would have been seriously worried.
Was she an angel? Certainly not. She just hoped what little she could do for this man would help him pull through until evac arrived.
She heard the whine of a pelican transport aircraft's engine. She put her helmet back on, flicked on her infrared detection system and scanned the air until she found the aircraft, then lifted the airman, still wrapped in Mylar, bridal style and carried him quickly towards where it was going to land. She allowed her adrenaline to drain away as she attempted to process her new UNSC rescue. Who the hell authorized a strike like that without so much as a warning? Who put lives at risk for something that could have waited a day or two?
She guessed she was getting closer to an answer as the pelican approached. It circled for a moment, scanning for her, before landing directly in front of her. Its bay door opened and a man in a UNSC Air Force flight suit walked out. His emblems identified him as a captain with the 435th expeditionary unit, a unit ONI preferred to do its dirty work due to its highly mobile nature.
"Are you Spartan 010?" He called out to her through the snow.
She paused for a moment before responding. "It's Naomi," she shot back. She figured she might as well get used to people using her real name, because if she ever got back to Vaz she was going to be hearing it a lot, and she didn't want to have to stop hearing it if she could help it.
"Right," said the man without regard.
"Sorry for the interruption ma'am, but you need to come with us for retasking. You've been reassigned to the UNSC Murphy's Law on direct order form CINCONI. You're to be loaded onto the next slipspace capable transport we can find."
As soon as she heard those words, hope shot through her. She never thought she'd be happy to hear from Osman again, even if they trained together, but that wasn't what really got her. Naomi knew that Osman would never leave Mal, Dev, and Vaz behind if she was on an assignment important enough to warrant blowing up something so spectacularly, and potentially losing valuable aircraft, and even more valuable pilots.
Naomi rushed towards the aircraft and boarded without hesitation. This wasn't the time to be having second thoughts. She was going to get back, and sort this all out with Vaz.
A medic pulled a stretcher from its rack on the pelican's forward bulkhead and placed it on one of the ship's bench seats, allowing Naomi to lay the hypothermic airman onto it. She raised his legs and arms to stave off further shock and waited for him him to warm up.
As Naomi waited next to the man, she left her helmet off, hoping the sight of a human face would be more pleasant to wake up to than an armored tank. That simple action left many of the pelican's crew members shocked and staring at her. Most of them wore ONI patches on their shoulders, and were probably all responsible for transporting or escorting Spartans at some point. All of them knew how odd it was to see one without their helmet on.
It made her uncomfortable to have so many sets of eyes on her, and she almost put her helmet on to avoid them. Although she was warming to the idea of leaving the protection of armor, the privacy and secrecy it afforded were still things she appreciated. She ignored the stares, however, and left it off. It was better to be uncomfortable and alive than safe and suffocated.