Title: oil in the machine

Rating: NC-17, for violence, sex, disturbing themes. The usual, natch.

Summary: This would be the Halo-X-over of doom then. I’m told I should split it up into parts because it’s long, so here goes. If you’re unaware, Halo is a game on X-Box that features aliens declaring war on civilization. Yeah, you don’t really need to know more than that. Thank you, to Pepsicola for the beta, even though by the time I messed around with it to my satisfaction and added in scenes I have no idea what I ended up with, so any mistakes are all mine, not hers.

Hey (I want a soldier)

Well you got it, I'm the hottest around

They'll know it when they see you rollin' Impalas around

(I got a soldier)

When he closes his eyes he sees gunfire, sharp and bright, in various shades of neon. Cyan and pink and yellow. When he opens them he sees blood, blue and green and deep, dark red.

Sometimes he thinks that he’s lost it. That he’ll wake up one day and this ship, this war, the bugs, everything will be just a figment of his imagination, that he’s making all this shit up because he’s insane. He can't quite decide which is worse, realizing he's crazy or watching everything he cares about get destroyed by a bunch of alien religious freaks. That he can't probably means he's a selfish-son-of-a-bitch, just like his Daddy always told him he was. Always thinking of yourself, he'd say, looking down with the face that now stares back at him whenever he looks in the mirror. And Chester would say: But I was just hungry. Or cold. But mostly hungry.

He was seventeen, almost eighteen when he enlisted, almost immediately after they'd lowered the age limit. Right around the time when the war started. He'd watched as they'd increased the Alien Threat Alert Levels, almost daily. Green meant everything was okay. And then it was blue, and then yellow, and orange, and finally red. He didn't know why they didn't just come out and say: We're at war, but he supposed the colors made it easier for people to swallow. Everything is simpler when you break it down into primary colors.

The Alien Threat Levels for today are: Gunmetal fatigue, chased by a tired shade of blue.

1.

When he falls asleep he dreams of a plasma sword, going <i>snick snick snick</i> across unwilling flesh, and blood splattering in a glorious array across his face. He wakes up to the soft hiss of the door opening, fingers automatically searching for a weapon until he realizes it's just Brad.

Brad leans over him and presses his hand over his mouth. "Quiet," he says, and Chester nods his head. Although he needn’t really have bothered. They’ve been doing this for a while now, and no-one ever comes around to this particular storage room. Brad's hand smells like gunpowder and Chester wants to choke but then Brad reaches down with his other hand and it's lost in the soft slide of his belt drawing out of its loop.

He braces himself, and as Brad fucks him he keeps his eyes open and sees the enemy, drowning in a halo of fire. Brad gasps and shudders as he comes, and Chester wraps one arm around him to hold him there. "Chester," he says, but his eyes are glassy and his face is blank. Chester raises his hand and pulls him down by the back of the neck, nestling Brad's face in the crook of his neck. He runs his fingers down his back, soothing him like one would a child, until Brad stops shaking. When he goes, as quietly as he came, he leaves behind a box of Marlboro Lights, the shiny transparent wrapper glittering on the floor. Chester picks it up and makes his way back to his quarters. It’s dark, but he doesn’t need to see to know where he’s going.

He tries to open and shut the door as quietly as he can, but he knows that Farrell would've woken up when the door opened, and just as surely as everyone else he would’ve gone back to sleep when they realized it was just Chester. As if on cue, Farrell stirs and rolls over. Chester looks over at him, but his eyes are closed and his features soft. Fist pressed to his mouth, he looks like a child dreaming of bunnies and sunflower fields, or whatever it is children dream of.

He’s still hard, and he crumples the box of cigarettes in his hands and starts to jerk himself off under the thin olive green blanket. He tries to keep an image of Brad's face in his head as he does, and when that fails he tries to conjure up Sam, but all he remembers of her is soft blonde hair and warm hair and that dances away, replaced by gunfire and someone screaming in the dark.

There’s a noise, and he realizes it's Farrell, staring at him in the near dark with his eyes wide open. Chester grins at him, and finds it turning into a leer, but Farrell doesn't respond, just blinks and stares until Chester gets bored and turns away.

The Alien Threat Levels for tonight are: Clear, laced with plum tired.

2.

Chester's helmet is sticky and hot, and he can feel the sweat drip from his head to cool at the dip between his collarbones. Hahn's giving orders, but Chester can't be bothered to pay attention. He's gotten the gist of it anyway. He used to, but Hahn gives out all the necessary information in the first five minutes and the rest of it is always either him repeating so it's drilled into everyone's head or reassurances of victory, and Chester's heard it too many times to bother anymore. None of it really means anything, not against the bugs, and everyone knows that.

Chester checks his rifle one final time as Hahn finishes off. He's not nervous, but his heart is pounding and his ears can't seem to hear anything anymore except for the steady thump thump thump of the blood rushing through his veins. They say he bleeds red, white and blue, but it doesn't quite have the same ring to it nowadays that it used to, now that there are things out there that actually bleed blue.

The Alien Threat Levels for today, or maybe just right this second: Dull black anticipation with a slight hint of fear laced yellow.

3.

The recon doesn't quite go as well as expected. Or well at all. "Ambush," is what someone shouts out, Chester thinks it's Bloom, before he falls under a hail of bright pink fire. And so it is. "Fall back, fall back," and that's Bourdon, riding up in the warthog, shooting an alien that's clinging to the side of the vehicle. Bright orange blood splatters across his face. Bourdon wipes it out of his eyes and spits.

Chester runs backwards as he reloads, shooting everything that moves and isn't skin-toned. He's invincible, he can't lose, everyone else is dying or already lost because he's there to destroy them all.

There's an abandoned brick-laid building they're retreating to. Chester turns back just long enough to jump over a ledge and position himself behind it. Holding, holding. He shoots creatures purple and blue. He's got a Carbine, picked up from the twitching claws of a dead Elite. It punches through the psychedelic shades of their shields like paper. Farrell yells, from another ledge, as he puts a round into a grunt that falls down with soft snick. "I think we got them all," someone says, and it's true, but then the sun is blocked by a huge mass in the shape of a Dropship. Chester shoots futilely at the ship as it races off over his head, then goes back to concentrating on what he can kill while they wait for rescue. It takes an hour to arrive, and by that time Boyd and Wood are dead, and Farrell's bleeding from a wound in his arm.

Squirrelly little fuckers, for freaks searching for salvation they sure fought like they didn’t want to die. Chester switches back to his rifle and zooms in, only to have the grunt almost explode and a boot take its place. A Spartan. Armor shimmering, bright green in the ruins of the dense foliage surrounding him. Dispatching of everything in sight, and Chester remembers the ads he used to watch, the Spartans storming across vast landscapes, the only thing standing between innocent people and horrifying destruction. Genetically engineered to be the best, they never seem quite human to Chester, and he has to force his trigger to relax and shift his rifle away.

"Come on, Bennington, let's go," and Farrell's suddenly there, pulling on his arm and dragging him up. His leg is bandaged and the blood is seeping though, but he doesn't limp as they make their way to the rescue ship.

Back on board, Chester spots but ignores Brad, leaning against a bulkhead and having a conversation with some Staff Sergeant Chester doesn't recognize. Brad jerks up straight suddenly as the Spartan heads in their direction, A few people are talking, in low tired tones, but all Chester hears is Brad's voice, and the way he calls the Chief by his name. "Michael," he says, "Michael," his voice warm with familiarity, and Mike laughs, a low, electronically manufactured tone that’s somehow just as warm. Michael the Spartan. Genetically engineered to be a hero. The tin-can men with their hearts and souls made of steel.

The Alien Threat Levels for today are: Rose-tinged exhaustion and oh, the surprising burst of sour green jealousy.

4.

Chester smokes one of Brad's cigarettes and waits, but he knows that the door won't open tonight. The smoke is a hazy gray swirling cloud that hides no secrets, or at least none that Chester can tell. After an hour he gives up and trudges his way back to his quarters. Somehow he ends up stumbling and hurting his foot, and by the time he returns he’s pissed as all hell, anger a drug firing up through his blood in brilliant shades of red. "Smoking here is against regs, you know," Farrell says from his bunk, when Chester flops down onto his own, letting his cigarette hang loosely from his arm.

"Want one," Chester asks, holding out the packet to him. Farrell shakes his head no and sits up carefully, wincing a little. "How's your leg," Chester asks.

"I’ll live."

Chester stubs his cigarette out on the side of his locker and moves over to Farrell's bunk. "Here, let me see."

"What, the bandage?"

"Yeah." Farrell raises his leg, and Chester runs his fingers along the plain white gauze running around his leg, right above his knee. The material is rough under his touch, held together with silver metal staples.

“You're lucky," Chester says. "You could've hit an artery, bled out while we were waiting for rescue.” Chester glances up, and Dave's eyes are squeezed shut, the sheets crumpled under his clenched fists. "Sorry," Chester says. "Bet it hurts."

"No, you think?" Dave says, but when Chester glares at him he just smiles.

“Come on. Follow me.”

“What?” Farrell says. Chester drags him up and lays a finger on his lips. “Not a word.” he says. Farrell nods his head and Chester leads him out, closing the door as silently as he can behind him. Down a corridor he just went up, his leg still aches where he stumbled but the rest of him feels fine. Farrell asks, “Where are we,” when Chester pulls him into the room, but Chester ignores him and lights a cigarette, settling himself in a cold corner of the room.

Farrell sits down next to him and draws his knees up towards his chest, picking at a frayed edge of his bandage. “So I,” he says hesitantly. “You and the Captain.”

“What about it?” Chester watches the red embers of his cig turn gray and fall to the floor.

“It’s kind of…against the regs, isn’t it? I mean. If you got caught.”

And Chester laughs. And laughs some more. “You’re cute,” he says, and Farrell flushes defensively.

“I just meant-“

"Fuck, Farell. Do you think it matters? That anyone really gives a fuck anymore?"

"They should. In times like these, all we have is-"

"Times like what? There's never been times like these. There’ll never be times like these again."

"We're...we'll pull through. We won't lose."

And Chester puts out his cigarette, and then he says, kindly, because some people still want to believe, "Farell...Farrell. We've already lost."

The Alien Alert Levels for tonight: The pale yellow tinge of weariness.

5.

He has a headache. Two hours of working out followed by a bad lunch and now he desperately needs a cigarette but he's all out and Brad says that they're running a little low so it might take a while. He ducks into the galley to bum one from the cook, but the sight of food makes him nauseous and he has to leave before Chino even realizes he's there. Somehow he ends up at the mess, drawn by the sound of Farrell laughing as the door opens to let someone out. The room is hot and stuffy, and smells like stale socks and cigarette smoke. It smells like home. He wanders in just in time to get dragged into a game of poker. Half an hour later, he's thinking he should've just decided to watch the video feeds instead, although his headache is gone and he doesn't crave a cigarette all that badly anymore. Farrell smirks and puts down another hand.

"Two pairs," he says.

"Fuck," Chester throws the cards down in disgust.

Bourdon glowers, but Farrell only smiles and says. "I promise to let you win the next round, Bourdon. It is your birthday tomorrow after all."

Bourdon mutters a sullen, "Don't do me any favors," and scratches absently at his beard. It's a against the regs, but no-one seems to have mentioned it to him. Maybe because he doesn't look so much like a deer caught in the headlights now.

Chester says, "Sweet sixteen, Bourdon. You must be so excited."

Farrell cuts in with a, "Sweet sixteen and never been kissed, I'll bet."

"Oh, I can change that I'm sure." Chester stands up dramatically and Bourdon shies away, overturning his chair in his haste to get away.

"Bennington you fag you stay away from me." He throws the cards in his hands as Chester reaches for him.

"Now, now, children, settle down," Farrell says. He wraps his arms around Bourdon from behind, and before he can move away, kisses him softly on the cheek. "There, now you've been kissed."

Bourdon shoves him away and ruffles his hair. "You're all fags," he says. "Don't come near me again." Then he makes a big show of wiping Farrell's spit off his cheek, but when everyone in the room starts crowding around to kiss him, he starts giggling and can't seem to stop.

Chester bends down and picks up Bourdon's cards from the deck. Bourdon never even came close to winning.

6.

The officers lunch in the mess sometimes, because their wardroom went up in a fire a long time ago and there aren’t enough resources anymore for fixing non-essential items.

Chester sits with Farrell and watches Brad talking to the Master Chief. Mike Mike Michael 112, the perfect genetic specimen, is surprisingly slight.

Farrell leans closer and says, "I thought he'd be -"

"Taller? Yeah, so did I." Brad's gaze lands on Chester, but Chester turns away to talk to Farrell instead.

Farrell grimaces “All these frankentubes. They freak me out a little. When I first got here, they told me the captain was a Spartan, and I thought he’d be this huge motherfucking scary beast. But then it’s just Brad, and I figured at first that that everyone was pulling a fast one on me. I saw him train though, once. And he’s really something else.”

“Yeah,” Chester says, steadily not paying attention to the other side of the room at all. “He’s that all-right.” He saw Brad lose his temper once and punch his fist right through a bulkhead. Next to his head, because he was angry because they lost another Outer Colony and that became anger at everyone in general and Chester thought, for a moment: This is it, and they’d do what they did and he’d end up dead or Brad would. Mostly likely him. But then Brad just breathed and held up his hand and said, “Ow.” and that was that, but later Chester examined him and he didn’t have a scratch, and Chester hadn’t known that humans could beat metal until then.

“Why 112,” he asked once. “Is it a serial number, are you the hundred and twelfth person off the line, what?”

And Brad said, “That’s how many times it took for them to get me right,” and he smiled, but it was hollow and empty and Chester didn’t ask him questions about the Spartans anymore.

Brad told him once, "We’re still human, just enhanced,” and his eyes were bright with belief. Brad's dress uniform shone just as bright, the one time Chester had seen him in it, at one inauguration or another on the ship.

Later on, Brad had fucked him against the desk of some admiral, scattering paper all around that they had to sort through and rearrange afterwards. Brad's uniform never stained, never crumpled, even as Chester grabbed it in his sweat-slick fists and tugged, as hard as he could.

Chester goes back to eating his food and doesn't look at Brad again, although he can still hear him. Not talking to Mike anymore, but his voice is still annoying as hell. He finishes the last spoonful of powdered eggs and gets up from the table. Farrell makes to follow him but Chester says, "I'm just going to go for a walk. I'll come and find you later."

Farrell waves his hand impatiently and says, "I'm not your puppy, Bennington. I just want to get another drink." Chester sighs and leaves. He wanders up and down hallways that always seem to narrow to him and filled with too many people all being too happy for a race that's at war. He keeps to the side, head down so no one will notice him and hand trailing against the bulkheads. The metal seems warm and alive under his skin, humming softly, and he wonders if Michael's armor feels like that or if it'd be cold and hard to the touch. He almost fights back when he’s grabbed by the wrist and dragged into an alcove, but he knows who it is. Brad presses him up against the wall, and now the metal seems burning hot, capable of melting his skin off to stick to the bulkhead. Brad's fingers are still encircled around his wrist, almost hard enough to bruise. "You're hurting me, sir," Chester says.

"Am I, <i>private</i>," Brad says, but he loosens his grip. "I came over, last night."

"Oh," Chester says. "I didn't see you."

"Yeah, I figured. You were kind of busy. I didn't want to disturb you."

Chester flushes.

Brad presses his body closer, as close as he can. If Chester listens hard enough, he can hear his heart beat, slow and steady. He always listens hard enough. The pounding of dark red blood through a patch network of veins and arteries and capillaries all leading back to a muscle no larger than that fist that Brad holds so tight. There’s a rhythm to it, and it makes him want to tap his fingers across pale skin, makes him want to make Brad dance. His fingers dig into Chester's shoulders and Chester slides down to his knees. In this dark corner, they could almost be alone.

The Alien Threat Levels for today are: Shame is the color of love

7.

Farrell shows him pictures of his family. He has a brother, just turned twelve, a smaller, sullen version of him. His mother is a tired bleached blonde with hard eyes. “My Dad died when I was young, right around the time Jeff was born,” Farrell tells him. “I don’t have a picture, although my mom says I look just like him.” He starts going on about how his brother is always getting lost, and some drama about how he wandered into a mine shaft once but Chester snaps, "Is this fascinating tale going to end before I turn nineteen?" and Farrell rolls his eyes.

"Yeah, I forgot you're Mr. Sensitive and Jaded and everything's about you."

"Bite me, Farell," Chester says, and turns away.

Farrell sighs and finally shuts up, or at least he does long enough for him to think to ask about Chester’s own family. Chester evades answering, and eventually he stops.

He glances curiously at the picture of Sam Chester has pinned up above his bunk, but never mentions it. It doesn’t matter. Chester won’t talk about Sam, ever. He writes letters to her sometimes, that he has no-where to send, and hides them under the mattress in his bunk. Mostly those letters say that he loves her. And that he’s sorry. He’s <i>sorry</i>. Sam was the only good thing that he remembered about home.

He met her when she was twenty-five and he was seventeen. They had sex on their first date, a hot sticky afternoon that almost ended in disaster because he'd had the bright idea to make a picnic during bee season. The insects had swarmed, lured by, Chester imagined, wine and hot bread, and they'd barely made it back to the car, driving off as the insects buzzed angrily around them until they finally gave up and fell behind. He'd thought he was screwed, but she just laughed and said, "That's the first time I've ever almost died on a date. I'm allergic, you know."

"No, I didn't know. Were you stung?"

"I'm not entirely sure. They might've gotten under my clothes. We should check." She swung a sideways glance at him. He stopped the car, slamming on the breaks spectacularly, and she swatted him on his arm. "We're in the middle of the road, silly."

"What, sorry. I can't hear or see anything now. Give me an hour for my heart to restart." They ended up driving for half an hour before finding a secluded spot on a hill overlooking the town. Sam crawled into the backseat and he followed. He discovered that she hadn't been bitten, but she did have a tiny birthmark in the shape of a leaf high on the inside of her thigh. She was so tiny, and as she arched her back and he drove into her, he knew that he'd marry her someday.

Afterwards, he found a blanket and wrapped it around both of them. From here, they could see the moon, bright silver and appearing near enough to touch. "My dad used to talk about how this colony promised them a future," Chester said.

"Yeah," Sam said. "Isn't it funny, that the universe is exactly the same no matter where you go."

The Alien Threat Level for today is: Golden-hued nostalgia.

Chester folds the picture of her and tucks it into his front pocket. It's his good luck charm, although like all good luck charms, he keeps waiting for the luck to dry out.

8.

Brad tells him to meet him at his quarters, but when Chester shows up Michael is there too, leaning back comfortably in a chair with a drink in his hand. Chester stands at the doorway awkwardly, but Brad just grabs him by the hand and pulls him in. His eyes are wide and the color on his cheeks high, and he shoves a glass of deep green liquid into Chester's hand. "Here," he says. "Have a drink. Sit down." Chester chooses a chair cautiously and sips his drink. It tastes like poison. Expensive poison. He gulps the rest of it down and gasps when it burns and his eyes water. Brad laughs and slumps down next to Michael. "We're just talking, Chester."

Brad tells him to meet him at his quarters, but when Chester shows up Michael is there too, leaning back comfortably in a chair with a drink in his hand. Chester stands at the doorway awkwardly, but Brad just grabs him by the hand and pulls him in. His eyes are wide and the color on his cheeks high, and he shoves a glass of deep green liquid into Chester's hand. "Here," he says. "Have a drink. Sit down." Chester chooses a chair cautiously and sips his drink. It tastes like poison. Expensive poison. He gulps the rest of it down and gasps when it burns and his eyes water. Brad laughs and slumps down next to Michael. "We're just talking, Chester."

"Yeah. Okay."

“I was telling him Miranda is threatening to kick his ass if he doesn’t come back to Earth in time for their wedding,” Mike says.

Brad grimaces and slides a look in Chester’s direction. “Let’s not talk about my impending nuptials, shall we? I’m sure Chester doesn’t want to hear about it.”

Mike only smiles, and pours Chester another drink from a crystal tumbler and says, "After a few more of these, everything will be fine."

Chester sips his drink and stares longingly at the door as Mike and Brad start discussing something, obviously continuing the conversation they were having before. Strategies and operations and costs, he's not entirely sure that he should be hearing any of this, but he supposes they figure he won't understand any of it anyway so it doesn't matter. And he doesn't. They might as well be speaking Greek, for all he gets. He gulps down another glass, and then another, and after that, everything is fine. After that, he's not bored anymore and the whole room glows with bright, shimmery color. Brad's laughing now, at a comment Michael made that Chester didn't catch, and his teeth are straight and even and too white. Chester wants, suddenly, to run his tongue along them, to see if they felt as pure as they looked. So he does, before his brain has even processed it properly. Brad gasps in surprise, but doesn't pull away. Instead he grabs Chester by the belt and pulls him into his lap. Chester straddles him and rubs their crotches together. Brad drops his head back, moaning quietly when Chester licks up his throat and along his jawline.

On impulse, he turns to Michael, who's just sitting there, eyes heavy lidded with amusement. Chester kisses him hard, burying one hand in thick black hair so he can pull him in. He tastes of bitter alcohol and sweet licorice, the rare kind that you can't get nowadays. Chester pushes him back violently then, pleased to see that his cheeks are flushed and he's breathing heavily. Not so unflappable after all, not this perfect killing machine. "Chester," Brad says, and he takes Chester's head in both his hands and forces his head down to kiss him. Chester's so hard, and he can barely think, and he can barely breathe, and maybe it's just Michael but mostly it's Brad, Brad shuddering under his touch, Brad sliding his hands under his shirt. And then he's tugged away.

Mike, with a fistful of silver in his hand, pulling on his tags until he has to stand up. Mike, shoving him back, back until his knees hit the back of the bed and he falls down in an ungainly, awkward position. Mike, tugging on his pants, removing them neatly and efficiently, he's bred to be efficient after all, and Chester wants to move, but he gets on his elbows and tumbles back down again on liquid muscles, and it's Mike, spreading his legs apart and then fucking him, on and on and on. His face red and sweat slick bright, his palm flat on Chester's chest, his body a perfect, relentless line. And Chester's head hits the wall everytime Mike slams in but his head doesn't hurt and then he's coming, and screaming, and Mike's hand clamps over his mouth and he whispers urgently, "Shhh..." and then his other hand is clamped over Chester's throat and it hurts and Chester can't breathe anymore.

And then it's over. And then Mike's slumped bonelessly over him, a heaving, sticky mess. Chester lies there, cooling down, letting his heartrate return to normal. Cooling. He wonders where Brad is, suddenly, and as if on cue, Brad's leaning down. He's saying something that Chester can't quite catch, but then he brushes his thumb gently across Chester's lips. Chester nods his head wearily and yawns.

When he finally makes it back to his quarters his whole body aches, especially his head. Mostly his head. He collapses onto his bunk and when he crashes out, for the first time he doesn't dream.