Gratuitous sex, her we go man! I have no shame. Happy Halo 5 coming out soon y'all!

Cortana liked running.

She liked any task that provided physical exertion, really. It reminded her that she was real, that she had a body.

John had been tense since he got back from the last mission. So that made her feel stressed.

After a few miles, she stopped and took a swig from her water bottle. She glanced over at the other Navy personnel running about, doing their PT and even playing a few pick-up games of grav-ball.

She couldn't exercise where the Spartans did, it was too awkward and she was an annoyance at best. The Marines were quite exclusionary, and if she went to where they exercised she'd probably get hit on an uncomfortable amount of times. So that left the Navy. She supposed she was Navy, but she couldn't help but feel she didn't really fit anywhere.

"Cortana,"

She turned around and saw Tom Lasky slowing from his jog as he approached her. She smiled at the kind Captain of Infinity.

"Tom," she acknowledged.

"Getting some PT in?"

"You know it," she said sarcastically.

"Where's your better half?"

Cortana blushed a little at how casually he referred to the Chief.

"He's actually catching up on his admin stuff he missed when he was on that mission with the ODSTs, quite a few administrative things to take care of."

She saw a wicked twinkle in Tom's eye and couldn't help but laugh at him.

"It's mean but I have to admit, it's a little amusing to see him handing out letters of reprimand for PT failures or alcohol related incidences–"

Her watch beeped obnoxiously, alerting her to a message from the Chief.

"Speak of the devil," she laughed. Without thinking she tapped and the words projected above the watch.

Don't know how my entire Maintenance group manages to consistently break things while intoxicated. Frustrated. Our room in fifteen? Preferably without clothes.

Cortana frantically tapped her wrist to close the message but not before Lasky managed to read most of it.

She was flushed an embarrassing shade of red and couldn't make eye contact with the Captain.

"Sounds like he's had a rough day," Lasky teased.

Cortana frowned.

"Oh shut up, he doesn't tell me what to do." As if to make her point, she took another leisurely lap around the track. After she awkwardly left the gym without saying a proper goodbye to the Captain.

Kelly normally didn't care what people thought about her. She would even go as far as to say that she was oblivious to what people thought of her, not knowing or caring to know.

Over the past few weeks, it had been abundantly clear what Turner had thought of her.

He didn't talk to her if he could avoid it. Every now and then she could see him glancing at her and then look away.

Frankly, she had no idea what she was supposed to do considering she'd never…

She felt embarrassed at the thought of it. What they'd done.

She didn't regret the actual incident, but she did regret this fallout. What was she supposed to do? She didn't thinks he had been so horrible, she just hadn't drastically changed how she treated him after the fact–she was busy!

But apparently she'd been mistaken, that their night together warranted some sort of change in behavior, and that bothered her. She was clueless. She had no idea what she was supposed to do.

Am I some sort of...freak?

She had never thought upon her childhood and how it may have affected her adult interactions and relationships. There had never been time, and it was simply the way she was, the only normal that she understood, so why question it?

Apparently she was missing something, and it was obvious with how the rest of Olympia reacted that it was quite significant.

Social bonds or lack-thereof didn't really bother her, or at least, she didn't think they did, but this tension in the air did. She felt it difficult to concentrate and perform to the best of her abilities.

Am I supposed to go say something to him?

She heard a knock on her door. She couldn't help but hope that it was John, Linda or Fred, but she hadn't seen any of them in weeks. She missed them.

"Proceed," she said dryly as she looked a diagnostic report from her armor and the damage sustained on her last mission.

Too many hits taken to the chest-

"Hey."

She looked over to her doorway and saw Turner leaning against the frame.

The awkward constricting sensation in her chest was something she hadn't experienced before, and she didn't like it.

"Can we talk?"

"Sure," she said distantly as she reluctantly set aside the statistics report from her armor.

"Look," he crossed his arms in front of him, highlighting his muscles and tattoos that she enjoyed far too much for her own comfort, "I don't like whatever this is between us, can we please stop ignoring each other?"

She frowned.

"I was never ignoring you," she said simply.

"Bullshit, after we hooked up you haven't said a word to me."

"...Hooked up?"

He looked at her like she had just sprouted a third eye.

"Erm, yeah, hooked up?"

Kelly was confused. What the hell was he talking about?

"...y'know, had sex?"

She furrowed her brow.

"That's a strange euphemism," she said lightly.

"Uh, yeah well, you've been ignoring me since."

"I don't get it, I wasn't ignoring you, how am I supposed to act?"

"Look I didn't expect you to...I dunno, come knocking and calling for me but…" he hesitated and exhaled forcefully through his nostrils, exasperated, "I have to admit you kinda wounded my pride when you wouldn't even give me the time of day."

Pride was something Kelly understood. She had plenty of it, more than another of her brothers and sisters, she had it in spades. Part of her thought it was from losing Sam early on, that every step she took she wanted it to be for him, and every step had to be the best one she could take.

Clearly she'd breached some sort of etiquette and wounded his pride. She hadn't understand in all the weeks why he had seemed so upset and assumed the distance was largely because of the Red Flag exercise.

"I apologize that I've breached some sort of social convention," she said, trying not to sound stiff yet failing, "I've never...hooked up, with someone before."

"Oh," he said glancing down awkwardly, "I thought you were playing hard to get."

"Why would I lie?"

He shrugged.

"I dunno, some girls think it makes them look easy or something like that even though it's kind of dumb."

Easy? What the hell was that?

He looked a little troubled by her silence.

"But, you've had y'know, a boyfriend before, right?" he placed emphasis on the word boyfriend indicating that he meant something else, that there was an implication that went with the word.

"No, I haven't," she said simply.

His eyes widened a bit and he opened and closed his mouth strangely, like he was about to start a sentence but couldn't find words for what he wanted to say.

"So you're telling me that you were a virgin?"

She frowned.

"Is that some sort of problem?"

His face went white.

"Fuck," he hissed, pinching the bridge of his nose, "now I'm the asshole in this situation, what the, how are you...you're like, older than me, and you seemed shy but not like a fucking virgin, and just fuck-"

She watched him ramble incoherently and zoned out a bit, not really paying attention to the words he was saying, it was somewhat pointless.

"Look, I'm sorry for taking advantage of you, I'm sorry for being an asshole and I'll tell the rest of the fireteam to lay off the whole cold shoulder thing–" his eyes widened a fraction, "wait, are you going to report me? I mean, I wouldn't blame you if you did, you were really drunk and–"

"Turner, calm down," she said, finally getting irritated with his nonsensical rambling, "report you for what, exactly?"

"For taking advantage of you, you were a drunk virgin! Was that the first time you'd ever drank too? God I'm a moron."

She snorted, this time finally laughing.

"It may have been my first time doing anything like that, doesn't mean I didn't enjoy it," she said bluntly.

He now looked like she had slapped him across the face he was so startled.

"If you liked it then why the hell didn't you talk to me for a week?!"

"I was not aware that that was part of the deal," she said irritatedly, finally starting to lose her temper, "I don't really make small talk with anyone," she said pointedly, "If you haven't noticed, the ops tempo is pretty high, I'm also on a fireteam different from the one I've been on for my entire career so I'm sorry if I've been more focused on seeing where I fit into our dynamic," she gestured to the diagnostics she had been reviewing that broke down each hit she took, where she took it, how many enemies neutralized along with her top speeds and the amount of effort she exerted, "than I was focused on talking to you after we had sex."

He was a somewhat speechless.

"Do you have anything else to say?" she said absently, getting a little distracted by the concerning amount of effort it had taken her to sprint sixty yards.

He moved quickly and before she could react properly, he had leaned down and kissed her firmly.

When she got over her shock, she wrapped her arms around his neck and laid down on her mattress, pulling him along with her.

He pulled away quickly and sighed, sounding a little frustrated.

"I'm going to do this right," he said lowly against her ear. She couldn't help but shiver at his proximity. She ran her hands over his bare arms, indulging her intermittent admiration of his tattoos and the dusting of black hair that coated his forearms.

"You deserve better than a drunk hook-up, I can do better than that," he said gently biting her earlobe, making her inhale sharply.

"We should always strive for excellence–" she arched her back as he grabbed her breast through her t-shirt and couldn't help but let out a moan as he pressed up against her with his hips, making her feel that particular need she had felt those weeks ago.

She'd theorized about why she was capable of these feelings, this longing for physical contact when she'd gone without for so many years, and had concluded that her thyroid implant had surely stopped working. When she went to the doctor, she'd confirmed that hypothesis and started her on hormone replacement therapy to make sure that she would be able to control her mood, appetite and sleep patterns more easily. Replacing the implant would've been not only dangerous but quite pointless considering she'd gained everything she had needed from it.

That left her with what was affectionately described as "an adult springtime" where she experienced a lot of the impulse driven, hormone laden decisions adolescents often experienced.

It was apparently very common for the few Spartan–IIs that had lived this long. Chief and Linda hadn't had any issues, but both Naomi and Fred had started taking the replacement therapy because Fred hadn't been able to sleep ever due to the hormonal imbalance and Naomi had mentioned to her in passing overwhelming moments of despair. Though Kelly hadn't experienced any of those symptoms, she had figured that preventative medicine was the best medicine.

She hadn't expected this side effect though. She was good at focusing on the mission still, but with him, in her room grinding up against her in a way that made her toes curl she couldn't resist.

She reached for the bottom of his shirt and couldn't suppress the shiver of delight that coursed through her when she ran her hands over his now bare chest and shoulders.

He took her shirt off carefully, very clearly making eye contact with her as if to say is this okay? She found it a little comical. She'd never really had someone so afraid of making her do something she didn't want to do.

She reached around her back and unclipped her bra and shrugged it off with no hesitation. She saw his eyes widen a fraction but then he smirked, clearly pleased by her lack of pretense. He was quick, kissing down her throat and then to her breasts.

"Ah, that feels, good," she gasped, arching her back and clenching her fists in her bedding. He chuckled low in his throat as he swirled his tongue on her nipple.

She felt him move and start kissing down her sternum and ribs, taking time near her navel. She felt him slide a finger in her waistband and slowly tug her shorts down down to her ankles and off her feet.

He took time, pressing open mouthed kisses from her ankle, to the inside of her knee and slowly up the inside of her thigh.

He used his teeth gently in a way that made her tremble and he got to where her underwear started and she gasped.

"Are you, what–"

"Trust me?" he questioned.

She glanced down at him and his short black hair between her thighs.

She swallowed nervously and nodded.

He smirked "you won't regret it, promise," he said as he pulled down her underwear, leaving her feeling very vulnerable.

She could feel his warm breath against her and it sent a shiver up her spine. Before she could fully process the fact that he was looking at her she felt his tongue was on her and she let out a gasp.

What in the-

She felt him slowly move his tongue in circles, again and again and she bit her bottom lip so hard she was sure it would bruise.

It felt better than anything she could've even imagined, she didn't even have the sense to feel embarrassed because it just felt so, so, good.

Her chest was aching with the breath she was holding, she'd somehow forgotten how to breath, and finally when she felt his lips in just the right spot it came out in a shuddering moan.

It was like electricity and she reflexively clamped her legs shut at the shock of pleasure, but with his free hand resting on the inside of her knee he firmly held her legs apart.

She could just make out the sounds of his lips and tongue moving through her arousal over the sounds of her own embarrassing pants and whimpers, and for some reason she definitely didn't understand it drove her to a fevered, almost pathetic neediness.

"Oh," she breathed, her hips gyrating involuntarily against his face,. "I...oh, oh."

It was torrential and almost violent when she came. She shouted and slammed her fist against the wall behind her, unintentionally making quite the large dent in the metal wall as her back bowed off of the bed.

She was completely reduced to whimpers and incoherent nothings until he was kissing her insistently, his tongue merciless in her mouth, his teeth pulling at her bottom lip and his hand fisted in her hair roughly.

She felt his cock nudging against her and purely on instinct she grabbed his shoulders and flipped him so he was beneath her.

The stunned look on his face filled her with an absurd amount of pride.

She didn't know exactly what she was doing, but she lowered herself onto him regardless. She rocked her hips back and forth, this time enjoying how he was the one reduced to moaning incoherencies.

After a few minutes of leisurely thrusting into him, she got frustrated. She wanted to unravel him, she wanted to win, she wanted to be even, so she leaned down and pressed her hands onto his chest and moved faster.

How he said her name when he came made her see stars behind her closed eyes.

She rolled off of him and caught her breath-she was surprised at how much effort sex required, it took quite a bit to exert her.

They both stared bonelessly at the ceiling.

After a few minutes of silence she heard him start to chuckle.

"What?" she asked.

"Are you sure you were a virgin? You sure as hell don't fuck like one."

She smirked and propped herself upon her elbow and looked down at him.

"I endeavor to be excellent at everything I do," she quipped, she leaned down so her lips were close to his, brushing against his as she spoke, "it helps that I find you very attractive."

He traced his hands up and down her back, his fingers running over her spine.

"Really now, I couldn't tell," he said sarcastically, "anything in particular?"

"I like your arms," she said quickly, running her hand up his bicep, her fingertip tracing the outline of his tattoo.

He kissed her again, gentler than before but still just as insistent.

They broke apart and laid there for a little bit longer until she heard his stomach growl.

"Go get food with me?"

"Sure," she said. She got up and sprung out of bed with all the athleticism of the Spartan she was.

He stared unabashedly at the rippling muscles of her back and the curvature of her ass.

"Christ," he said under his breath.

"Hmm?" she asked pulling her shorts on.

"Nothing, you just have the best ass I've ever seen," he answered honestly, pulling his shirt over his head.

Something about how blunt he was and how downright vulgar his language could be was exciting. She didn't curse much, only on occasion but she'd never thought obscenities could be so attractive.

By the time they were dressed, he was kissing her again and she had gripped his shirt in her hands. She wanted this, she loved how simple the whole thing was. She did what felt good and that was that. Simple.

He broke away from her, breathing slightly labored.

"We need to eat."

"If you say so," she shrugged.

Before they left the room, he glanced over at the sizeable dent she'd made on the wall.

"Damn, next time I go down on you we have got to give your hands something else to do."

So that's what it's called. She filed this knowledge away.

She shrugged.

"It'll be fine, better than the time I crashed a Pelican into a water tower on Reach."

He laughed genuinely as he tapped on her door to open it.

He didn't know much about her or her past, but he knew that as a Spartan he should probably take a chance on anything good that ended up coming his way–you never know when it's all over and done.

He gripped her hips as he desperately thrust into her from behind, their backs pressed flush against one another.

John was frustrated. He hadn't been in a firefight in weeks and he was swimming in admin work. He felt like everything he said needed to be calculated and that everything people around him said was loaded with nuance and double meanings.

He knew Cortana was stressed, that she found work frustrating for different reasons, and by the needy, fevered, throaty moans she was making she needed this just as badly as he did.

He watched as she reached down and started touching herself and the whole thing was entirely too erotic. The sensual part of her lips, her shoulder blades pressed into his chest, her backside perfect for him to look at as he attempted to lose himself in her warmth was everything he never knew he had wanted until the past few months.

She started panting and moving her hand faster as she coaxed her own pleasure and cried out his name. He felt her contract around him and lost it. When he closed his eyes and growled as his pleasure took him, he continued pushing into her until he was left completely limp, his chest pressed against her back, both of their breathing shaky.

After a quick moment, he rolled off of her and closed his eyes. His body was always hypersensitive afterward, so the cool sheets sent goosebumps up his arms and a shiver down his spine.

She wiped sweat from her brow and sighed.

"I liked that, we should do it that way a bit more often," she said lightly.

He smirked.

"I like you, so it doesn't matter to me either way," he said shortly.

The fact of the matter was he couldn't go a day without wanting her, without thinking about her. She was a disease to him, a disease that he fully and happily surrendered to.

His work didn't suffer for it either, no, if anything he felt like he was far more productive when he sought his comfort with her.

"How are you handling the disbanding of Blue Team," she asked after a few moments.

He sighed.

"It's...different."

"You've still got me," she smiled softly.

He nodded. She truly was the only team that he needed. He loved Blue Team, but people came and went.

Not Cortana.

She was his only constant in this messed up excuse for a world.

And he was fine with that.