janitorscloset | [meme] RvB & Halo AU Meme

"Matt," Maine repeats, processing the word. Name. His name. One he hadn't heard in so long that hearing it now felt... very very strange. "Haven't been called that in a while."

The Project never used names, which was probably for the best. There wasn't a real good way to explain away the fact that he didn't have one. A first name and a number. Now he had a state. Neither of them were really him, though, or so he thought. Freelancer wasn't a family like SPARTAN had been, and SPARTAN hadn't kept him because he hadn't been good enough. The welcome, though, almost outweighs the pain of the conversation.

"Expect it should have been longer," he admits as he leans back against a counter, crossing his arms over his chest and tilting his head as he thinks. "Lucky ended up here."

Anywhere else might not have been able to save him, much less his voice. And here he was, talking with Kurt, touched briefly by a man he used to look up to as a team leader. Could have been a friend. "Wonder if I would count as dead."

An inscrutable expression flashed through the other man's eyes when Maine said that. Much like Maine, he'd been given a new name, a new identity when he'd been kidnapped into ONI's black bag. At least they had allowed him to keep the only name he remembered. It had been hard enough to adjust his sense of identity a second time in a non-Spartan environment, he couldn't even imagine what it was like for Matt who'd been retired from the program and swept off to somewhere undisclosed and secretive. "What are they calling you these days? I'll try and remember to call you by the right name if someone sees us."

Kurt said with a self-abashed looking smile, the same smile he'd offered Matt countless times over the years of training back on Reach. He'd been tapped by Mendez almost from the start as potential leadership material nearly from the start. Green Team might not have racked up as many wins as Blue Team did during training but they had certainly given John and his team a run for their money every step of the way.

"Indeed, I'm not sure why our paths crossed again out here in the middle of nowhere but I'm glad it did. I'm really happy to see you and know you're still alive and in the fight." A part of Kurt dispassionately pointed out that what were the chances of him coming across an old Spartan out here in the ass end of the universe? Could this be some test of ONI's set up to test his loyalty to the program? To see if he would let his guard down just because he came across a former brother? It wasn't beyond realm of possibility but that paranoid whisper automatically warred with the knee-jerk inclination to dismiss it as preposterous. Because the Spartan-II program remained crystallized in his memory as something pure and unchangeable like a memory trapped in amber. They were still his brothers and sisters even to this day.

"Like you said, Spartans are hard to kill. Even when they write us off as dead, we somehow manage to find a way of stirring up trouble." Matt may have been washed out of the program but that didn't change the fact that he was still a Spartan in Kurt's eyes.

At least Maine didn't need to worry about this being an elaborate loyalty test. No way the man had the pull for such a thing. Being read in just enough to understand what Maine was meant one thing. The rest of this was luck. And, perhaps, some leftover pull of Halsey that made sure that even her mom-active weapons got the best medical treatment available in an emergency.

His name, though? Maine considered Kurt for a long moment at he request. Would his name be classified information for the project? This had never been addressed. No one could have foreseen him meeting another SPARTAN while with Freelancer. And he had to wonder if whatever ONI thing Kurt had going on would know of Freelancer.

"Maine," he allows after a long moment of looking at Kurt. Apparaising. Wondering. It hadn't taken long in freelancer to learn trust could never be the same there as it was with his brothers and sisters. He had seen from the start that they weren't meant to be a team. Not really.

"Callsign is Maine. Before that was just a rank."

As much use giving him a name as it was giving one to a weapon. He was just a designation and a new test.

"Not another good medpost for my injury anywhere near. Lot of repair work. Might not have a voice if lesser place."

The observation made him scoff. Director needed to keep his pet SPARTAN functional. No one else could handle the physical wear and tear. They were just people. They weren't family, not like Kurt. And not one of them knew what he was or where the scars came from. Though from the looks she shot him, Maine thought Connie had a suspicion. Back when people used to share stories about their pasts, heavily edited no doubt, she had admitted to being posted with a unit that worked, very briefly, with a SPARTAN team. And when armor had been assigned she had given him a look and said he would look good in a darker, more olive tone. A SPARTAN sort of color. He had just returned that he liked green but white would do and never addressed his size in the armor.

Unfortunately, with the nest of vipers he worked with, such things were not unheard of. Especially since Ackerson had never particularly cared for the Spartan-II program and Kurt wasn’t one hundred percent certain the man even cared about the III’s despite his insistence on spearheading the project. How else could the man sacrifice three hundred brave souls at a time without so much as blinking an eye or questioning the price of their sacrifice? Or the amount of time and resources put into training them for entire classes of Spartan-III’s to be used and discarded like pawns on a chess board.

Kurt tried to avoid thinking about those things because they felt borderline treasonous in his mind but they nibbled at the back of his head at night when he lay in his bunk staring up at the ceiling. Those were the questions that plagued him and robbed him of his sleep at night; questions that drove him to do the most immoral of things in the name of the greater good.

There wasn’t so much as a flicker of recognition on the other II’s face when Maine admitted his callsign. Kurt had never heard of Project Freelancer. But why should he? He spent most of his time sequestered on Onyx, cut off from the war and news of any new magic bullet projects that had been thought up in hopes of ending the war now that Catherine Halsey’s Spartans were nearly spent in numbers.

“That sounds like it should be easy enough to remember. I’m Kurt Ambrose now, the rank is genuine and no, John has no idea a member of Green Team technically outranks him. And sadly, he will never know because I am for all intents and purposes, missing in action.” He trusted that Maine would be able to read between the lines. The new name, the faked death and the fact that he was on this remote, half-emptied med station practically screamed ONI and all manner of gag orders he couldn’t discuss.

“Jeromi runs the finest medical operation I’ve seen in the entire war, you’re definitely in the best of hands. And I’m glad they were able to able to save your voice, Maine.” They both knew that sort of injury could have been career ending otherwise. But what did you do with an ex-Spartan who had been injured so much they could no longer fight on the line? Kurt had heard rumors some of the wash-outs had ended up in ONI as data analysts and strategists.

But he didn't think that was the kind of life Matt would want. Not after he'd had a taste of the real action. Kurt knew that from first-hand experience.

"Always outdoing John in your own ways," Maine chuckles. "Doubt your gut did this."

His voice. Maine's fingers touched the no doubt ugly scarring of his throat. That had been saved. But more importantly, he was given a chance at another moment with a brother. Too bad he didn't have a good excuse to be out there. All that training at strategy and everything that went with it, Maine had passed. All SPARTANS had. Maine hadn't been overly gifted though. Comparatively he was daft when it came to planning. Everyone had their specialties. Linda shot like no one. Kelly was the fastest person alive. And Maine? Even for a SPARTAN he was durable. Perhaps it was that the Director wanted. As for Maine? All he wanted was to live up to the title he never got to properly carry. He hadn't even been in long enough for the armor.

"Correct me if I'm wrong... before you went MIA, did you get a chance at the armor?"

Maine had always been jealous of that. Even with the neural interfaces his side effects had kept him from ever getting that part of the experience. Never got to run a real mission with the team. It was... frustrating. All his hard work and he was just another soldier before the Director.

"Eh, I'd like to claim we're all a bit old for the whole Green team versus Blue team rivalries but it might be nice to one day meet up with the infamous Master Chief and have him salute me. But I also think it would be the single most surreal moment of my life at the same time, you know?"

It would invariably change things between him and his fellow II's. He wouldn't just be another Spartan, he'd be an officer and that always changed the dynamic of a relationship between soldiers. He was just glad he and Maine could still speak freely here despite the trappings of rank or military protocol.

When the other asked him about his MJOLNIR, Kurt couldn't help the smile that broke out on his face. "I did, and it was unlike anything we ever imagined." It broke his heart that he couldn't outfit his III's with that same quality of armor. But they had to make do with the much more inferior SPI armor instead because MJOLNIR cost more than a battleship.

"I might have quietly acquired it when I took up my current post. Not that I can exactly go around kitted up in full MJOLNIR armor, of course. Truthfully, I haven't worn it in close to two decades but I still like to tinker with it and figure out how it works." He didn't mention he took that data and used it to help improve each new generation of SPI armor. Kurt could understand that frustration and the knowledge you weren't serving to your fullest potential. A part of him longed to be out there in the fray with his brothers and sisters but he also knew that he was the best person to train his Spartans and that without him at the helm, who knew what sort of cold-blooded ONI spook Ackerson would dredge up to train his Spartans.

"Call me if it happens. Or take a picture. Green needs the motivation," Maine chuckles. He loves it. The image makes him feel good. Bette than good.

Mjolnir. The very idea made him jealous. What the Freelancers offered... Part of Maine almost wanted to find someone worth following, someone like Kurt. But instead he shakes it off. Service is service and he was made to serve. Not like he knew anything else. Halsey had made sure of that. And in the end fighting the war was all he had. Had been doing it so long now.

"Hope someone gets to making something similar for normal soldiers. Saw too many die before."

Freelancer armor was a poor imitation with how York had been hurt. How he had hurt York.

That drew an honest to god bark of laughter from the other Spartan. Because it was a hilarious mental image and Maine of course was only perpetuating the inter-team rivalry Kurt had claimed they were supposed to be better than. "I'll be sure to work on that. Make sure I have a good comm frequency for you so I can forward all photographic proof your way."

There was more to that statement than was what was at face value. It was more than just a jesting boast, he wanted to have a way of contacting Matt again rather than letting him drift right back out of his life again. It was probably breaking no less than sixteen regulations and opsec but honestly, this one conversation with Matt had him feeling better than he'd felt in months. His morale was instantly boosted with the knowledge that another brother was still alive out there and still carrying on the fight.

"I sincerely hope that myself, Matt. I've seen too many of my soldier's lives wasted because they had inferior gear when it came to fighting toe to toe with the damned Covies. The problem is, no one can match Halsey's quality of tech without a price tag that would make your head spin. I heard rumors people have been trying to come up with their own cheaper versions of the suit but there's no way they're going to be able to reach the same ballpark as MJOLNIR." He'd been speaking about their own attempts to improve the SPI armor but had unknowingly also referenced Freelancer's attempt to clone Catherine Halsey's technology.

Agai. Maine rubs his neck.

"Nothing could compare," Maine admits with another pained utterance. Perhaps the undersuit could be mimicked. But full armor? Hardly. There were just some things that couldn't be done. Director Church did not compare to Halsey. The Counselor was well aware that Maine felt that way too. No reason to compare but the Director seemed to. Maine avoided it. "The Doctor is brilliant. She gave us everything."

A sentiment he once heard Washington echo about the Director. Maine didn't explain how he was wrong.

As for the contact request, Maine was certain it would be forbidden.

"Would if I could, Kurt. Don't have one."

Perhaps that would say all he needed to say about his own presence. Even foot soldiers got to contact home. ONI ops were the ones that were... harder to touch. Except there could be ways, couldn't there?

"Unless..."

Maine smirked to himself. There were ways to piggyback signals, and even out on the Hopeful there would be ways to set up a comm message. Not even remotely real time, but like old fashioned letters. Niner already smuggled everything else for Freelancer. Why not a letter to what family Maine could get at.

"You are up for putting those bar to use. We've rigged more complex things."

“I know, which is unfortunate because if would save a lot of lives if we could mass produce a cheaper version of MJOLNIR. But who knows, there’s probably a dozen different projects working on that very thing right now. Maybe some revolutionary tech is around the corner. I know it’s not a popular sentiment but I’m all for reverse engineering Covenant tech and figuring out how to improve our current gear myself.”

That level of pragmatism had been bred into all the Spartans. The Covenant had a deep religious aversion to using human tech while the Spartans had no such compunctions about stealing and using the generally superior tech for the good of the mission and beyond. Kurt had implemented elements of the Elite’s active camouflage into the III’s SPI armor and it had proven to be one of the best decisions they’d ever made in the program.

Maine’s smirk and the gleam in the other man’s eyes caught Kurt’s attention and he cocked an eyebrow at his ex-squadmate. “What did you have in mind exactly, Maine?”

He didn’t make mention of the fact that technically, as ranking officer on Onyx, he had access to some of the most high tech communications gear available in the UNSC including a Slipspace Beacon of which there were only a handful in the entire galaxy. Why did Onyx have one? He honestly had no idea because that fell into the murky, secretive Zone 67. “I think between the two of us, we can figure something out.”

"Stranded here until whatever you are here for let's up enough for my CO to send my ride," Maine shrugs. "Why not have fun?"

Freelancer fun could be drinking or destruction. Not a SPARTAN idea of a good time. He wanted to have fun that was productive. Which would mean the less than legitimate requisition of some means to stay in touch. And surely Kurt, who was always so much less serious than Matt had been, would appreciate the moment for letting loose. Kurt had been the one who often told Matt to loosen up.

"Or rank make you serious?"

They were serious because they were old. Old and supposedly dead or useless or something else.

He needs something. A good memory. Something to make him feel young again before he has to go and lose this last connection.

Kurt had the grace to look slightly chagrined at that. “Ah, well, we’ll be shipping out by 0300 so things will return to normal here soon enough.” It was probably more than he should have offered up but honestly, if Matt wanted to figure out what was going on, short of him drugging him or locking him up somewhere, he was obviously capable of getting around their security measures.

So long as he didn’t see Gamma though, opsec was still being maintained as far as Kurt was concerned and there was no reason to feed the information of the breach up the chain of command just yet. He just needed to keep his brother out of trouble for the next nine hours or so. “I suppose it depends on what your idea of ‘fun’ entails these days. You’ve been hanging out with the rank and file, should I be worried about you having picked up any bad habits, Matt?”

Like Kurt had any room to talk? He’d been infamous for being friendly with their DI’s and the enlisted personnel back on the base during training. He’s nearly been caught a few times breaking curfew because he’d been hanging out in the enlisted barracks as well.

Of course, as base commander, these days Kurt couldn’t be seen hanging out with the enlisted playing poker or getting into mischief. So yes, in a lot of ways, rank had forced him to become more serious.

“I’m sure we can figure out something to pass the time without endangering both our military careers."

Bad habits? The very idea of bad habits makes Maine chuckle. Kurt had not been like the other SPARTANS when they were young, but looking back Matt knew he wasn't either. In a way Kurt had been unlucky. Too social by half lumped in with two of the least communicative SPARTANS in the program. Matt had never been interested in much past the training, and now...

Freelancers were about their down time. Maine had taken up playing poker so he wouldn't get forced into strip poker. The latter meant too much showing off of his augmentation scars and he had gotten enough prying from normal enlisted men to deal with the far nosier Freelancers. He had worked to make sure his shower schedule didn't line up with anyone else. There was also the spree of pranks played by his coworkers and the ever insane list of bets that Florida maintained.

Maine had been forced to adapt, and perhaps learn to have fun.

"Not worried about mine," Matt shrugs. The Director had a use for him. "But if you don't want to make sure we can stay in touch, can we at least find some playing cards."

Probably shouldn't get an officer in trouble.

He wasn’t sure what exactly had happened to Matt once he’d been transferred out of the program but it was obvious he’d matriculated into some branch of the military. And honestly, that was about as good as any of them could hope for. At least he was still whole enough to serve on the line unlike poor Musa or some of the others. He’d heard rumors that Serin had found her way into ONI though that was all they were…rumors. And with ONI, you couldn’t take anything at face value.

Kurt had always suspected the reason they put him on Green team was because he was so very different from Linda and Matt in both personality-wise and how they approached a situation. Linda had been the sniper, the one who could provide overwatch with deadly accuracy while Matt and he had been better suited for direct combat. Kurt had been good at mid-range versus Matt who’d been more oriented towards closed quarters and other short-ranged attacks so at the end of the day, the three of them could cover three different targeted areas of attack.

The fact that he had been more gregarious and intent on bonding with the two infamous loner-type Spartans was probably another reason for their unusual team composition. But at the end of the day, with Kurt leading Green and his ability to puzzle out traps and the composition of a battle plan at an almost preternatural speed meant they had continually scored near the top in most every team competition. Sure, they might not have won out against John and Blue Team, but they had definitely given him a run for his money.

“Oh, I’m not too worried about that. But so long as we’re not trying to shanghai a Pelican, I doubt old Jeromi will find any reason to make any complaints. Though I am curious about your plan to accomplish this on a medical station.” Though Kurt suspected he could probably figure out a way to establish a fairly incognito method of communication between them if given enough time, he didn’t know if they could manage that before Gamma was scheduled to ship out later tonight.

"Never flew well," Maine dismisses the idea. And Kurt might have to shoot him down.

His desires are far simpler. "Datapad. Encrypted. Have a friend that could clear it for me, use it as a system to receive messages from you. Another friend can get it places to pick up messages. She owes me a favor."

Actually getting him here alive might make them even. Not that he cares. The man looks away. This... isn't his style. Caring. But he does, and so soon after nearly dying, he wanted to get something back from his past. After all the loss in this program... he was supposed to be getting further enhanced strength mods, the Director clearly intending to push his armor closer to Mjolnir capabilities. Except who knew what that would do to him.

"You're family, Kurt. Don't get to see any of you. Don't get to fight the way I would want to."

“I suspect we’ll be safe from court-martial then.” Kurt said with a fleetingly wicked looking smile that had dimples briefly flashing. Honestly, a Spartan with dimples. Not that they’d had a lot of reason for laughter and smiling back during basic training. Mendez and their DI’s had kept them in a near constant state of exhaustion those first few years as their built up their bodies and endurance.

But just as Kurt had teased Matt about picking up some bad habits from the so-called rank and file, it had been twenty years since he’d been amongst the stifling confines of the Spartan-II program and he’d lost a lot of the rigidness they’d tried to instill in them. Kurt-051 had always been adaptable though and had never let the strenuous conditioning completely stamp out his innate friendly nature.

“Ah, that’s much easier to attain than a Pelican. I know exactly where we can get one.” He had one in his assigned quarters right now that they could use. It had the latest ONI encryption installed as well as a few backdoors he’d put in so that he could communicate with Mendez on less than official channels. Kurt had picked up a few useful tricks over the years thanks to his experiences dealing with the UNSC spook branch and now, it felt like he could put that information to good use for something positive.

Maine’s words really struck a cord with the other man and there was a wealth of emotion in the brunette’s hazel eyes when he reached out and grabbed the other man by the shoulder once again. It was as close as a Spartan was normally going to get to something as demonstrative as a hug. Usually, they just relied upon the hand signals and sign language they’d worked out as a class all those years ago in training.

“You’re the first brother I’ve seen in years, I’m not gonna let you drift back out of my life again, Matt. Even if it’s just us sending messages via a data pad, we’ll find a way of keeping in touch from here on out.”

Keep in touch? Not likely. Eventually his CO would find the connection and sever it. Just what he's got, what he's got to deal with. But that hand on his shoulder? Meant more than he'd allow to show normally. Normally, though, he had a helmet to hide the tiny little lift in the corner of his lips.

"You have dimples," Maine points out, shaking his head. "SPARTANs don't get to have dimples. Especially when he's got a job. Which means getting me a datapad. And maybe cards. I've got to wait until your work here is done and if you can be spared to distract me, then let's do that."

Drift back out? This is a war, Kurt. They won't drift apart. They will go hurtling apart, driven that way. But damn if this wasn't a fight he'd give himself to for a while.

Spartans were infamous for doing the impossible and now they had a mission; one that would land the both of them in a whole heap of trouble if the truth came out. But in more than twenty years of service to Ackerson, this was perhaps the first truly selfish thing Kurt had been tempted to do.

Yes, he’d sought to protect the truly gifted Spartans from each class and transferred them out from underneath his superiors’ noses rather than seeing their potential being wasted but even that had been driven by pragmatism. This though, he had no excuse for his selfish desire not to be separated from his brother yet again.

The observation drew a snort from the dark-haired man. “I guess I don’t really get to call myself a Spartan then these days.” There was an edge of truth in his self-deprecating humor and with one final squeeze to that beefy shoulder, Kurt let his hand drop as he pulled back.

“Why don’t you get us some cards and other things we might need as a distraction while I concentrate on getting us that datapad. We’ll meet back say here?”

This solitary location halfway between the occupied medical bays that Maine had escaped from and the empty part of the ship where the Spartan-III’s were being cordoned off in would give them some much needed privacy.

Well there was clearly an implication of 'this isn't a place you could go' to Maine. Matt. He hadn't thought of himself in terms of that name in years, but it was nice. The unspoken connection to other people that came with it meant more than he had expected. Here he'd thought he'd grown attached to his Freelancer companions, but apparently the SPARTAN bond ran deeper.

"Meet here," Matt agrees, pushing off of the bed he leaned against. "I'll hold up a nurse or something for it. And probably have medication I should take."

Maybe even a checkup. Not that he wanted to see them. Any moment with medical staff was a moment that wasn't being spent with Kurt. Which, of course, was not acceptable.

With the instruction provided he gives Kurt another salute, this one far looser, clearly casual and perhaps even a bit teasing at the difference in rank between them. His unspoken but clearly still voiced jibe between them, he slipped from the room. There were other things he intended to acquire as well. Namely food. He didn't think he'd find anything much better than ration bars but given the fact that he had to consume something and presumably he was good to eat slid food since no one had told him otherwise, he set out for his part of their little operation. Part of him also cried out to find his armor, he'd been too long in it to like being out of it, but like Kurt he had his own secrets to keep, and the armor would only raise questions.

Getting the cards, it turned out, was the easier part of his mission. He found some orderlies in a nursing station playing cards, and all he had to do was loom there in the doorway, looking pointedly at the cards before they offered to lend him the deck. Even heard some mumbling when he was leaving about how soldiers never respected them. Right now Maine couldn't care less. He gathered the cards and then slipped off again, gone more quietly than he was used to, and not minding it at all. It had been a while since anyone had expected him to be sneaky. Maybe he should practice it back on the MoI for personal amusement. As he thought of that he slipped back into his own hospital room. It didn't take long to decode the doctor's writing on the datapad hanging just inside his door. Upside, prognosis was good. Downside, apparently solid foods were a no go. Which would clearly mean more difficulty for procuring food. Or it would have if he wasn't lucky enough, moments after leaving his room, to walk by a meal cart, loaded with meals for patients. Finding one marked with his room number was simple. Lifting a second that looked likely for Kurt was just as easy. With food and cards in hand, and carefully balanced, he turned and headed back to where he had come from, happy to find Kurt and pass a few hours.

Kurt regretted the fact that he had to leave Matt behind even for this short jaunt but honestly, it was for the best. The last thing either of them wanted was some of the Hopeful’s medical staff to spot him in the Spartan wing…or worse yet, one of his people. Tom and Lucy were about and underfoot and he needed to find a way of convincing his two closest aides that he needed some time to himself.

Once upon a time, he’d saved them from an unspeakable hell. Lucy had been on the verge of being marked as unfit for duty and being shuffled off to some ONI scientific lab to no doubt be poked and prodded while Tom had almost gotten whisked out from underneath him by Ackerson who’d wanted a pet Spartan of his own. Kurt wasn’t the kind of man who threw his weight around but for Tom and Lucy, he had fought tooth and nail for them and to keep them safely at his side. He’d argued who better to train Spartans but other Spartans?

Thankfully, the higher ups had seen it his way and in doing so, he knew he’d bought their undying loyalty. So when he shot off a quick message to his attaché’s requesting that he not be disturbed except for the anything short of massive catastrophe or attack on the station, he knew the order would puzzle them, but they would follow it without question.

He returned to his quarters and fetched the datapad he’d been using the past few months and fetched it. Thanks to the communiqué he’d received from Deep Winter, he knew no one would bat an eyelash when he told them he’d destroyed the datapad rather than risk there being any chance of latent code from Onyx’s doomed smart AI on his datapad.

With his part of the mission accomplished, he made his way back through the tangle of hallways in a round-about way back to the room they’d chosen to make their own. This part of the station was under strict blackout conditions so he knew none of the cameras were monitoring him but some habits were automatic and on the off chance someone else spotted him roaming the halls, he didn’t want to lead them directly back to Maine.

It also gave him time to make sure he wiped all traces of incriminating information about Onyx from the datapad until he was relatively certain it had been pretty much wiped back to near factory defaults.

Once he reached the room, Kurt slipped inside brandishing the pad with a smile. “Got it.”

In the time it took Kurt to get back, Maine had already set the area up for himself. The trays of food had been placed on a cart in easy reach of the bed and he'd even had some of the soup they'd set on his tray. It was far from pleasant, but he understood obeying orders from doctors. Always made sense to him.

In addition to the food he had already shuffled up the 'borrowed' deck a few times as he settled himself onto the floor. Sure he could trust the bed enough to hold up his own weight, but he wasn't going to bet that the thing would be as amenable to two adult SPARTANs who had clearly kept themselves fighting fit.

"Got food. Sit and relax."

Hopefully the world won't look to end with them playing cards. They could have something, right?

Kurt raised an eyebrow when he found Matt sitting there on the linoleum floor instead of seated on the bed like a good patient. “I’m pretty sure your doctors would skin me alive if they saw you like this, Matt. I figured I’d pull up a chair and you take the bed so we can at least pretend like we’re acknowledging the fact that technically you are one of the walking wounded here who just suffered some pretty traumatic injuries.”

He said it with a healthy dose of good humor in his voice but there was unmistakably a note of authority there as well. Some things remained the same and Kurt had spent years leading Matt and Green team and that authority had only a more comfortable mantle to wear over the past two decades. The datapad was tossed onto the foot of the bed and he held out a hand to his brother in a silent offer to help him both to his feet off the potentially space germ riddled flooring.

“I should have thought to grab some pudding cups while I was out. Was it you or Linda who was mad for chocolate pudding, I can’t recall?” It felt like those memories were a million years ago back when excelling at training was the biggest care in their worlds. These days, they had much bigger concerns facing them every day. Or at least Kurt did and he imagined it was much the same for Matt no matter where he ended up landing. Which appeared to be in some kind of place where code names were being used. Not that a Spartan-II had claim to a real name since they’d all simply been known by their given names and a numbered tag for decades. It had taken him years to become comfortable with the idea of his assumed name.

"Me," Maine admits as he looks up at that hand. Really he would prefer to be on even footing but he supposed that had never been a thing between them anyway. So he takes the hand and lets himself be pulled up. Grits his teeth through the pain, he hadn't even known his shoulder was hurt.

"Have a friend who steals them for me now."

Wash was good for that. Maine gave over his jello cups in return. Couldn't trust the jiggly stuff.

On his feet he moves to the bed and starts to deal out the cards. "Find a chair, Sir."

"I'll keep that in mind for next time." Assuming there would be a next time? That was Kurt for you, the eternal optimist. Or maybe he was already scheming and trying to think up a way he could see Matt again once he was released from the Hopeful.

Not that it was easy considering he almost always either on Onyx under communications blackout or he was being shuffled from one ONI cruiser to the next for various secretive briefings that couldn't even be trusted to take place over the UNSC communication networks. It wasn't like he got the luxury of shore leave like regular UNSC personnel did.

"I'm glad to hear it. I thought with the throat injury they might have you on a liquid or semi-solid diet for a while." He accepted Maine's jello cup and the barely veiled look of disgust on the man's face with a repressed smile and moved to draw up a chair. "Hospital food, huh? Always a delightful treat."

The brunette murmured laconically as he poked at the contents of his purloined tray. It looked about as under-seasoned and bland as hospital food generally was the universe over. Apparently doctor's had an aversion to spice or taste in general because they were afraid their patients would upchuck their cookies at a moment's notice.

"As good as food back with my group," Maine shrugs. Unless Florida was cooking they had little hope. Director had to cut corners elsewhere. Apparently healthcare wasn't one. Except for with York's injury. Apparently a pet SPARTAN was more valuable.

He starts to play out cards quickly in front of them. Better than think about what was going on with cards than think about what would happen when he went back to the Project.

"Don't wanna think about going back, thanks."

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