Work Text:
A week had past since John woke up from his “dream”. He still had no idea if it was real or not.
But, then he had to start his first day of school. His mom and dad prepared him for it, and John was nervous.
“Don’t worry John, you’ll make lots of friends.” His mother told him.
His father gave him some advice, “Just don’t get into any fights, promise me that.”
John nodded, “I promise.”
His parents guided him to the school bus and waved goodbye, John smiled and waved back. He went to the back of the bus and sat down, he didn’t think that he would make any friends.
Surprisingly, someone sat next to him.
“You like Spartans right?” The kid said.
Right, the cartoon that shaped his “dream”. John did watch a lot of episodes over the week, mostly to keep the illusion of being a kid.
John replied, “Yeah, how did you know?”
“Your lunchbox, anyway my name’s Tom.”
John knew a Tom in his “dream”, but this kid looked nothing like him.
“I’m John.”
They then spoke about the show on the bus, mostly what they think would happen in the next episode.
Tom theorized, “I think that Master Chief is gonna defeat that Arbiter guy.”
“No, Chief’s probably gonna befriend him somehow.” John replied.
Tom looked confused, “How would he befriend him? He’s evil!”
If this Thel was like the one in his “dream”, Guilty Spark would tell him about what Halo actually does. In the show, it would make everyone angry towards each other.
“At least he doesn’t have to deal with the flood.” John whispered to himself.
“What?” Tom asked.
“Nothing.” John quickly answered.
The flood wasn’t in the show, how would you even make that work for kids?
The bus then stopped at the school, everyone hopped off with Tom and John being together.
Throughout the day, John listened to the teachers, they discussed topics he already knew a very long time ago.
That made him realize something, can it really be a dream if you learned so much in it? The dream theory was crumbling in John’s head.
He took notes and solved some really basic math problems, he took it slow though. He didn’t want to be caught as a “genius”.
John’s handwriting was perfectly bad, it still looked like a child’s. But his handwriting had always been like that, thank god for that.
The bell then rang, indicating recess.
John handed his paper to his teacher, and she smiled at him.
John headed outside and headed towards the Grav Ball courts, there were kids running, laughing and playing around.
He looked around for Tom, but a tiny crowd of kids caught his eye.
John went over and asked, “What’s going on?”
“We found this cool old Earth coin near the playground, we’re flipping it and guessing what side it lands on. Want to try?” One kid asked.
John declined, “No, I’m good.”
He never wanted to test his luck again, especially not on a playground.
He turned around and stopped.
Speak of the devil.
There was a man and a woman walking together, looking around at the children. They looked somewhat like Halsey and Captain Keyes.
John was about to hide in the playground, but the man and the woman approached a child, the child hugged the woman and started talking to her.
John breathed a sigh of relief, it was just family visiting.
The day then went along as normal and when school was over, he was dropped off at home.
John ran to his mom and dad and hugged them.
“I made a friend!” He said to maintain the illusion.
His mom was proud, “You did! What’s their name?”
“His name is Tom and he likes Spartans too.” John answered.
His dad smiled, “I’m glad you’re finally making friends, keep it up.”
John nodded and then went up to his room and laid down on his bed.
He then sighed, “School’s gonna be a slog.”
He already knew everything, now he had to pretend he was learning it again.
But at least he had plenty of free time to continue his drawings, he grabbed his notebook, a pencil and a Spartan action figure.
He posed the figure into an action pose and used it as a reference for his drawings.
Maybe he could get used to this.