One way or another, though, they’re still going find each other.
AO3
Ch. 9... Ch. 11
Ch. 10
Locus resisted the urge to leave for a full week. He searched for any distraction he could find during that time period; Joannes, however, moved faster than he did. She forbade labor of any kind, going as far as to make sure the people Locus went to wouldn’t accept his help.
“Sam, you will shut down if you push yourself any harder than this. You’re clearly not going to give yourself time to recuperate, so I will just have to make sure you get that time whether you like or not.”
Her firm words rattled around in his skull as he paced around the town for what felt like the umpteenth time. Restless energy pooled inside of his limbs like liquid lightning, but there was no outlet for it. Locus attempted to get involved with other parts of the town, but being around so many people – so many strangers – set his teeth on edge. It turned the energy into something sharper and he backed off for their good.
Did you? asked an invasive voice. Did you even try?
He squelched the thought in a mental fist.
Faced with a lack of options, Locus found himself looking more and more outward. Chorus was still rife with pirates and bandits. It was a problem he could solve in a way he couldn’t help here. Civilians built and maintained civilian lives and enterprises. He... didn’t. Couldn’t.
On the seventh night, the temptation grew too strong to resist. Locus slipped away from Wode as the streetlights began to turn on, not looking back once. Each step away from them felt better than the last.
The journey back to A'rynasea was uninterrupted this time. Locus felt tension drain out of him as he left atmo and by the time he was in the stars, his guts no longer felt like they were tied into knots. The presence of other people should be a healing experience, but for him, it was like being a wind-up toy. There was only so much twisting he could take before things broke.
It couldn’t mean anything good, but Locus was too tired to parse why.
∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙
He arrived in Chorus at noon. His landing site was in the middle of a truly atrocious thunderstorm, but Locus couldn’t muster up the necessary fucks to give. He flew through the angry black clouds, landed in a jungle that was being beaten flat by the rain, and suited up without thinking.
The rain was doubly worse outside of the ship. It was as if all of Chorus’ oceans had been picked up by the sky, transported here, and dropped. Visibility was nil. Footing was unsteady despite his armor enhancements. Locus wasn’t entirely sure if a bullet could actually fly through this kind of deluge. He was soaked the moment he stepped out of his ship and the steady beating against his armor felt good, felt right.
When he hefted up his crossbow, its weight didn’t feel sufficient. It felt light in a manner that mismatched his suit. He traded it for the shotgun and finally, finally, the world slotted into place like a puzzle that had found its last piece. He was solid. He was real.
He squeezed the shotgun. Its weight was good in his hands, as heavy and reliable as death.
∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙
There was a camp of people here. They didn’t call themselves bandits, but they were thieves. Murderers too, if the situation called for it.
They weren’t the worst people on the planet, but that was fine. Locus just had to look in the mirror to find the worst.
He tracked them down to a set of caves converted into underground bunkers. It was a pretty decent set-up, actually – these people either had the necessary equipment to set things up, or someone with the know-how for that kind of work. Locus analyzed it, using his HUD to compensate against the rain, and the pieces fell together with perfect clarity.
The cave had a single entrance. It had limited lighting and they likely hadn’t mapped it out beyond what they needed. After all, why should they? No one had bothered them in the years since the war.
He slipped through the jungle like a ghost. The rain fell too hard for anyone to notice a few disturbed leaves and he made it to the mouth of the cave before anyone noticed the intruder. He stopped there, a shade outlined by the grey downpour, and he looked into the warm lighting of the cave and the people inside.
They were alive. They were surviving on this hard, awful planet where so many others hadn’t – and how? By cheating. By killing. By reducing themselves to monsters.
Locus let out a shaky breath. His helmet opened so that he could breathe in the air of the jungle.
Maybe this was what he had to do. It was what he could do.
Trying to help Wode… hiding his scars, his face, what he really was… what had been the point of it? Maybe he could have helped that man if he hadn’t been so late. If he hadn’t hesitated on the killing shot, that man might have been alive. The woman, their second hostage, had gotten away but still. Still.
What happened to them anyway? Locus had not stayed behind to learn. Had the people of Camp 10-B killed them anyway? Could they have even survived after suffering so many wounds and falling in that mud, surrounded by enemies?
The questions tortured him. It was too much. All of it was too much. The kindness of Wode suffocated him, pressed down on him, and it was twist, after twist, after twist, and he was that toy, turning tighter and tighter –
Someone moved in his peripheral vision. Locus didn’t even think as he swung the shotgun up, took aim, and blew their torso into wet chunks.
The shot echoed through the cave, through the rain, through the cavern of his ringing skull. His mouth was dry but his hands were still for the first time in forever, and this… this was it. This was how he paid back each pound of bloody flesh he’d carved out. This was what he was, what he could only be.
Locus. Not Sam.
Just Locus.
∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙
He killed more people in one night than he had for the last few weeks.
Their bodies remained where they fell. In a few hours, their corpses would cool. Their meat would fester. The maggots and flies would fly in from the jungle to devour them. Their names and their lives meant nothing now, because all they were was meat in the jungle.
His vision narrowed down to a single bullet point, to only the sights and sounds that controlled his survival and their deaths. Bang, bang, one after the other, until they were all down, until they were all dead.
Afterwards, Locus sat in the entrance to their cave and huddled in the rain wetly. It was too hot inside his helmet but the effort required to take it off seemed too gargantuan in the moment. He took deep, shuddering breathes, feeling like he was sucking them through a wet blanket each time, his lungs working like abused bellows. He was hurt and bleeding, but the pain was dull and far away, like it belonged to a different body. Joannes would be furious if she knew he’d strained his body again but if she were here, then he would probably choke her dead in the mud.
His fingers twitched uncontrollably. His hands shook. Every noise keyed him up too hard and Locus wanted to peel his skin off and scrape everything out until he felt clean and numb again.
Dimly, he realized that he was taking this too hard. He was over-reacting – or was he? Maybe it wasn’t just that incident between the tents. Maybe it was everything building up together, hovering on the cusp of collapse, and now he was the avalanche, tumbling down the precipice.
What now?
He couldn’t go back to Wode. He couldn’t look at their faces again, take their kindnesses again, and pretend to be something he wasn’t. Going back to Wode would mean he would have to step back into Sam-the-human and suffer his guilt, his terror, and his yawning, unescapable black despair. Being a gun was so much easier, being the tool and the weapon, something to be picked up and put down. A gun was metal and gunpowder, a thing that could not feel bad for what it did. It merely was.
Locus didn’t cry. He was just breathing hard in an animal way, shoulders heaving.
He stood up on legs that felt like cinderblocks. He took his first stumbling step forward, mud squelching under his feet, and then his second, not feeling anything as he walked. He maintained a death grip on his shotgun and he walked away from the cave, never looking back.
Alrighty, time to spread some love to the awesome writers we have in the rvb fandom because they fucking deserve it:
Yet to Come by @griffonfarm (aka erelis)
Locus/Felix
An If-Felix-Had-Lived AU + character growth
What can I say that I haven’t already said about this fic? Erelis has done an A++ job writing Felix and Locus. At no point does she take away what makes Felix the ruthless villain we all know and love, but she adds to it by building up what makes him tick and exploring his fear in relation to Locus. What’s more, she has done an amazing job of expanding on the rvb universe by pulling in more of the official Halo lore. What you get is this amazingly well fleshed out setting and characters than helps the whole thing feel more tangible as you ride along the mercs’ continued story. The whole thing is set from Felix pov and you really get to see him develop due to how he fights against the tumultuous events that change his life and, in turn, affect Locus. If you’re looking for a good story full of action and character growth that you can really sink your teeth into, then I can’t recommend this one enough. Give it a read and leave a review, it’s well worth your time.
Follow You Home by QueSeraAwesome
Maine/Wash
Post-Project Freelancer + domestic fluff
I freaking love QueSera’s writing–they’ve got a great bead on giving their stories this sort of rhythm and it gives this story a nice, succinct snapshot kind of vibe. I’m hard to please when it comes to domestic stories just because sometimes the edge that you love about a character gets taken away, but you don’t see any of that here. I’ve linked to the start of this, but you should check out the additional fics included in this AU about two highly trained military men adapting to civilian life and gardening. They stumble through it with about as much grace as you can image but its heartwarming and wholesome. And don’t forget to drop a review!!
Fool Me Once by selwyn
Locus/Felix
If-Felix-Had-Lived AU + revenge
So what if Felix survived the fall and wanted to kill Locus for the betrayal? Then you need to read selwyn’s fic, Fool Me Once. They’ve done a great job building up Felix surviving and then crawling his way back to health, but even that’s not without its problems. Meanwhile, Locus is struggling to distance himself from old habits and memories of his partner while cleaning up the mess he made of Chorus. It’s got this great build up between the two of them working against one another and I’m really excited to see where its conclusion is headed. Selwyn has done an amazing job building up the setting, putting some real thought into how the mercs operated but also how the colony planets would as well. Even the minor ocs introduced are believable and interesting. Please, check them out and leave a review!
Your Ex-Lover is Dead by @strangestquiet
Locus/Felix
Locus coping after Felix’s death
Strangestquiet did an amazing job of show post-Chorus Locus and oh man, it fucking hurts, guys. What I really hated loved about this fic was how she managed to impress this feeling of helplessness on a character like Locus. Grief is a weird thing, but I felt like she really took the time and effort to understand how adrift it can leave you feeling–especially when the person you’re grieving leaves you with good and bad memories. It really drives home how despite their reliance on one another, they could never bring themselves to trust. Frame that with Mason and Megan’s relationship, how they’re willing to make sacrifices/changes for the other, and it really hits hard at such a low point that Locus is left with all but nothing for his choices. There’s more to this fic, but I don’t want to spoil it since it’s quite the journey to read. Give it a gander and don’t forget to review and let her know how much it tugged at your heart strings.
There’re more stories I want to add, but I think this post is getting kind of long, so we’ll end it there for now. Again, BIG thank you to these amazing writers–y'all are the real MVP of this fandom.
This is too much, thank you!!! It’s always incredible to have such enthusiastic feedback from the fandom and it’s such a huge motivator every single time. Being a fic writer can be occasionally stressful and some days I feel like tossing my whole ass laptop into the void, but seeing such amazing comments (and from such amazing people!) makes it all doubly worth it.
One way or another, though, they’re still going find each other.
AO3
Ch.8...Ch. 10
Ch. 9
Felix didn’t immediately stalk after Locus, despite his initial instincts. While it was tempting to turn over every leaf and rock on this shitball until he found him, he had to consider things realistically. The Locus he’d seen hadn’t been armored and his weapon had been painfully archaic - but at the end of the day, it was Locus.
Several years at his side taught Felix a thing or two about underestimating a guy who could be calm when the mafia was trying to kill him. He couldn’t go against him while wearing armor held together with spit and prayers, or while using a gun that was old enough to have grandchildren.
He set his eyes on easier prey instead. While Felix doubted that the bandits that lived on Chorus had anything of value, the people that he and Locus brought here were a different story. Sure, most of them died thanks to that fuckwit Doyle, but a few of them were still alive and prowling around.
He tinkered with his helmet radio, listening for the particular buzz of his work frequency. It took him longer than he liked, but his radio spit and crackled before a few familiar voices filtered through the speakers.
“…ello? Hello? Can you hear me?”
“Hey,” Felix said. He rolled his neck leisurely and weighed the suppressor in his hand. Of the few things to survive inside his armor, of course it had to be this little sweetheart. “Took you long enough.”
“Felix?”
“The one and only.”
“We thought you died.” Was it just him, or did the douchebag on the other end sound disappointed?
“There’s nothing on this piece of shit planet that can kill me. Who is this?”
“Blake. Captain Myers died in Armonia, I had to take command –“
“Yeah. Don’t care. Where are you?”
“Why do you need to know?”
“Uh, so I have the few people on this planet who don’t want to kill me around me?” When the radio was suspiciously silent, Felix narrowed his eyes and added, “I’m also your paycheck, jackass.”
“…sending the coordinates to you now, sir.”
“Fucking lovely.” Felix watched his HUD light up with a message notification as he finished screwing the suppressor onto his rifle. “How many of you are there?”
“Only six of us left.”
“Armed?”
“Suited and armed.”
“Great.” Felix took aim at a distant bird. When he squeezed the trigger, there was almost no noise save for the gentle, satisfying click-hiss that echoed in his ears as he watched the bird’s head explode. “This shouldn’t take me long then.”
∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙
It was a good thing the comm tower that the coordinates led to wasn’t far from Armonia. The lack of a Pelican made planetary navigation more than a little tricky otherwise.
His radio crackled. “Sir?”
“Yeah?”
“Is Locus with you?”
Felix scowled under his helmet. “No.”
He wasn’t too far now. Felix blinked sweat out of his eyes, cursing his suit’s malfunctioning environmental controls. Heaving around metal armor became a lot less entertaining when you were walking in an ocean of your own sweat. The humidity was inescapable, unavoidable – if it got any hotter, heatstroke was a dangerous possibility.
But fifteen minutes more and this would be all behind him.
“Where are you now?”
“I’m almost there – shit!” The ground under his feet loosened and Felix flailed before he caught himself. Rocks trickled away as he straightened, adjusting himself and checking that no one was around to catch that.
“Sir?”
“Don’t worry, that was…” An idea occurred to him then. A cruel light lit up in his eyes as Felix smirked slowly. “… actually, no, belay that. I think I sprained my ankle. It’s bad.”
He feigned a few grunts of pain. “Yeah… gonna need one of you guys to come over and help.”
The silence dragged.
“Paycheck,” Felix snapped.
The radio crackled with a long sigh. “…Ezekiel is coming over to pick you up.”
“Tell him –“
“Her.”
“- her to hurry up.”
There was no reply. Felix glared at his radio, daring them to say anything else, but the conversation was over. He sent them his location and then walked into the underbrush, melting into the dappled leaves.
It took Ezekiel a little over fifteen minutes to arrive and she was alone. She didn’t have time to poke around before Felix sunk a bullet into her skull. Ezekiel fell over with a small gurgle, dead before she even hit the ground, and Felix waited for a few minutes to see if anyone else was around, his rifle at the ready.
Two minutes passed and no one came. A bird trilled overhead.
They really sent her alone, Felix thought, shaking his head a little. Idiots.
He walked over to her corpse and kicked her over. She wasn’t wearing Scout armor – a pity – but Recon would have to do. The helmet visor had a neat bullet hole in it, rendering it essentially useless without a replacement. But she was carrying a MK.VI rifle that was leagues better than his current gun. Felix swapped out the suppressors – thank fuck for universal equipment standards in the UNSC – and began to pry his chest plate off.
The internal clamps struggled to come loose thanks to their warped shape, but Felix dug his nails in until his armor popped off. He was pulling on her leg armor when he found the discreet knife holstered to her hip.
Whistling, Felix pulled it out. It was a hunting knife with a blade approximately as long as his hand. He tossed it a few times before holstering it again. That would be useful.
It took him five minutes to get it all assembled and after a moment’s consideration, he pulled on her helmet too.
Ezekiel under the helmet was a woman somewhere in her thirties, with a buzz-cut and a heart-shaped face. Felix didn’t recognize her. He dressed her in his own armor then slung her body over his shoulder.
Her helmet radio crackled. “Ezekiel, did you find him?”
∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙
He arrived at the tower that the remaining five had hunkered down in. A Warthog was parked under the tower and a guy stood sentry at its gun to watch the perimeter. He was the first one to catch sight of Felix.
Felix stumbled and dropped the corpse. He bent over and the exertion wasn’t actually feigned this time. In a sane world, he would be resting, not fucking lugging around corpses for a kilometer and half in a jungle.
“Hey – Ezekiel! What happened?” Someone else – not the guy on the Warthog – trotted over.
Still looking down to hide the crack in his visor, Felix scanned his surroundings. Aside from the guy on the Warthog and this one in front of them, there were four others scattered around the tower. Two of them didn’t have any guns on them, but the other did. Felix pitched his voice for a passing mimicry of a woman. “He just – he fucking went crazy. I had to put him down.”
“Shit… hey, you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m okay.” Felix adjusted his grip on his gun.
The guy in front of him stepped closer, his hand stretched out. “You sound a little funny.”
One…
“Yeah?” This time, Felix didn’t pretend.
Two…
“Hey, wait…” Confusion filtered into the guy’s voice.
Three.
“I guess you’re right.” Felix darted forward, pulled the knife from his hip, and sunk it hilt-deep into his unarmored side. The guy stiffened with a gasp and Felix used his distraction to spin him around and hold him in place while he lifted his rifle. He aimed at the guy on the Warthog, who didn’t have time to realize what was happening before he was riddled with bullets.
“It’s not Ezekiel!” his meatshield yelled, recovering from his initial shock. “It’s Felix, he’s turning on - !”
Felix shut him up with a few well-placed bullets to the back of the skull. The remaining four scrambled for cover but Felix killed one who’d been too slow to get up and run. Three left.
The two that had been armed opened fire on him but their bullets peppered a corpse, not Felix, and he held him close until he could take cover behind a tree instead. He dropped the guy once he was safe and patted him down. A cluster of grenades was on his hip and he unhooked one.
“Thanks, buddy,” Felix muttered as he pulled its pin loose and tossed it over their barricade. A few seconds later, he heard a dull explosion. He peeked out.
At least one of them was dead to the grenade. Two left.
Felix took aim at the farthest one from him whose cover wasn’t as good as he thought it was. The first shot took out his knee. The second put a bullet through his visor.
One left.
Felix was about to dart for fresh cover when he heard shouting. “Wait! Wait, hold on!”
“Yeah?” He checked his magazine. Everything looked to be in place.
“I – I want a ceasefire!”
Was this guy serious? “Oh yeah?”
“Yes! I don’t want to fight you, Felix! I – I don’t care about these guys, just don’t kill me! You can take the Warthog or the equipment, anything you want, just-”
He slipped away from the tree he had been taking cover behind and crept to another one, one closer to the voice. When the guy kept babbling, this time about not wanting the money, Felix inched closer again.
“ – didn’t think you were alive, everyone thought you were dead, honest –“
Felix pressed his gun to the back of his helmet hard enough to make him lean forward. The chatter stopped immediately.
“Man,” Felix said with a laugh, “I can’t believe Locus wanted to keep losers like you alive.”
“Please,” the guy said, his voice trembling, “I just want to live.”
“Then you should’ve tried harder.”
Felix pulled the trigger.
∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙
He left the bodies where they were and replaced his helmet for a whole one. Scout, this time, much to his pleasure, though it was in the boring grey that Locus’ troops favored so much. Felix looted the bodies for anything worthwhile and ended up with a small armory for himself. Ammo, grenades, guns… it was all there.
Now, all that was left was finding Locus.
Where is the one place that Locus would have definitely gone to?
His HUD lit up and he examined the map it provided. A place where he would have gone to without fail, without compunction, especially when he would need to escape the two armies still after his head…
God, it was so obvious. Locus could be so predictable when it came down to it. Felix punched in the coordinates for A'rynasea’s hangar and got into the Warthog.
∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙
Isaac leaned dangerously far over the railing, his boots off the ground, and felt a steadying hand land on his back before he tumbled over. He glanced back at Sam briefly before staring forward again.
Below them, two red specks did donuts on the runways the planes used. They kicked up dust clouds as they went but nobody went out to complain.
“You see that?” Isaac said, whistling through his teeth in appreciation.
He didn’t need to ask. Sam already saw. The two red sports cars had rolled in this morning, bringing two richly-dressed people that he heard were private mercenaries on the UNSC’s payroll.
“Hard not to,” he said.
Isaac felt the tug on the back of his T-shirt and acquiesced. He landed with a thump. “Those are supposed to be super expensive. Courtney said they weren’t even out on the market yet.”
“Probably.” Sam sounded disinterested, but that was a total sham. Isaac had seen him sneaking looks at the cars too.
“And they’re just doing donuts with it.”
“Money does that.”
“Fuck, I’d give a kidney for a ride like that.” Or both his legs. Who needed legs when you had that to carry you around everywhere?
“It’s not very practical.”
Isaac shot Sam an annoyed look. “Oh, yeah? Then what’s your idea of a nice ride?”
Sam seemed to consider it. He stayed quiet for so long that Isaac almost opened his mouth to pester him. “Something functional,” Sam said after a pause. “Good for all uses. Efficient. Powerful.”
“A muscle car.”
Isaac pictured Sam behind the wheel of a muscle car – a Mustang, maybe, if he was a classics kind of guy, or a Barracuda. He’d drive the same way he shot a gun, probably – eyes on the goal, with the wrinkle he got between his brows when he was concentrating, and making it look easy.
Yeah, Isaac liked that.
“I suppose,” Sam said, his expression briefly thoughtful. “My sister collected posters of them.”
“You could get one after this tour. Considering what they’re expecting us to do, our payroll is, like, stupid high now.”
The UNSC needed all the warm bodies they could get to the front lines, but Isaac wasn’t worried. He was going to be just fine, and fucking rich on top of it.
“Savings are important. Considering the state of our pension right now –“
“Oh my God, live a little, Sam.” Isaac rubbed his hand over the buzzed top of his head, guffawing. “What’s the point of anything if you don’t have a sweet fucking ride?”
∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙
A'rynasea wasn’t in its hangar, but Felix wasn’t too surprised. Locus wasn’t dumb enough to not secure his best ride on the planet right away. It was clear that he thought Felix was dead, however, because he hadn’t changed the codes for anything. Felix could access it all without issue.
Douchebag.
He closed the door so no one could try to be clever and sneak in as well, and explored the dark space with the flashlight of his helmet. The hangar was mostly empty, as its primary purpose had been to house A'rynasea. The computers here had been fried after whatever stunt the sim troopers pulled to mess up the hybrid tech, but Felix wasn’t after that shit.
Instead, he counted the wall panels until he found the one they had hidden their bail-out computer behind.
“Not so smart now, huh?” he whispered as he peeled back the panel and found their – the stash behind it still. Trust Locus to nag, nag, and nag until he went blue in the face, and then forget it when things got hairy.
The fact was that A'rynasea was their ship. And as their ship, it responded to both of them. And right now, Locus didn’t know Felix was alive. Felix pulled out the heavy, briefcase-like computer and sat down on the floor. When he opened it and turned it on, a black command prompt opened for him.
Password> e8P2cP5Dv#}#8a#Y
The prompt blinked a few times before it went black again. The computer didn’t immediately self-destruct so Locus hadn’t even erased his files in the ship’s database. Honestly, what the hell was he even doing?
>C:\Ship\Admin2 > command respond ship:Felix
>Running database checks… complete.
>Performing sys checks… complete.
>Confirming user information… complete.
>Welcome, Felix.
>command no record
>Command running… complete.
>No Record confirmed.
>command locate ship
>Command running… complete.
> Ship: A'rynasea: located. Send coordinates?
His finger hovered over enter. It wasn’t because he had second thoughts or anything, or because he was worried, but rather because this was a good fucking moment to rub into Locus’ face and he couldn’t. Thinking it wasn’t as satisfying. If only something was here for him to just…
There was a shuffle outside of the hangar and a thump.
“Oh, thank fuck,” Felix sighed, standing up. He tracked the noise to be on the opposite side of the hangar door so he could slip outside without being seen without an issue. He stole outside, ears straining for any more noise, and kept his back to the wall.
Careful, careful… “Don’t fucking move, fucker,” Felix barked, spinning around the corner, his rifle up and ready to shoot.
The guy on the ground stared at him, eyes wide. He looked like utter dogshit; he had nothing but a protective vest on with ragged clothes under it, and his face was covered in ugly bruises. He wasn’t armed. “No!” he screamed, throwing up his arm to shield himself.
Felix lowered his gun after a moment’s thought. “Where the fuck did you come from?”
“I… not far from here. There’s a guy around here, I need your help, please. He’ll kill me – he’ll kill both of us. Let me inside, I’ll tell you everything I know.”
Felix considered just shooting him and going back inside. After enough time passed to make the moment suitably tense, he lowered his rifle. “Talk first.”
“There’s this guy,” he immediately said, “he’s been sneaking around here for fucking ages and he just kills everyone he runs into. He doesn’t want anything, doesn’t ask for anything, he just kills everyone he sees. He – he can turn invisible, and I swear I saw it happen –“
“Hold up.” Felix held his hand up. “Invisible?”
“It’s true,” he insisted. “It’s like those spy things you see in the movies. Invisible, just like that.”
“Yeah, sounds crazy alright. Tell you what,” Felix said, “tell me your name and I’ll bring you inside. Deal?”
“Yeah! I’m Julio. You?”
“You can just call me Felix, buddy. Come on, I’ll help you up.”
∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙
Julio, as it turned out, was a pretty damn good listener.
“…he spent so much time thinking about how clever he was, but clearly he wasn’t smart enough to make sure I was dead before running off. And now I’m back. I’m back and I am ready to make sure he regrets ever trying to turn on me. I mean – you should have heard him. ‘We’re both monsters’, like we were in some kind of play. It could have been so easy for him to just kill everyone there but no, he had to have his stupid little revelation while everything was going on, all after I saved his life dragging him from wreckage –“
“I don’t really see how this has anything to do with the invisible guy,” Julio said weakly.
Felix spun around, gesturing with his rifle. “It has everything to do with your invisible guy,” he said. “Don’t you get it, Julio? That guy is Locus. The guy who’s been running around this stupid planet, shooting and killing everyone he sees, is Locus. It just goes to show that he’s still the same. Whatever thing was going through his head is just bullshit. He doesn’t get that he’s a killer and that he’s always been one, and I’m the only one who actually sees that –“
“He is?” Julio cut in again. “Then – then we need to tell someone, warn them about this lunatic –“
Felix pointed at Julio sharply.
“No, no, don’t interrupt me, man. I’m not fucking done. I’ve had to fucking fall off a stupid alien tower, drag myself to some assfuck nowhere camp in the jungle, and get treated by a guy with more than a few problems in the head for this. Shut up for a few seconds.”
Julio opened his mouth to protest. Felix aimed his rifle at him. Julio closed his mouth.
“So, as I was saying,” Felix continued, “Locus. Locus, Locus, Locus. You spend over a decade next to a guy and you think you start understanding him, right? You see him at his best, at his worst, you see all the things he can and can’t do. So, obviously, you start adjusting things so they work. You play to your strengths. And Locus’ strength? It’s killing. I know that and I know for a fact that he knows that too, except he just won’t admit it to himself. The fact that he thinks he can blame me for what happened? Like I’m the one who’s holding his hand to the trigger? What a fucking joke.”
Felix shook his head and laughed humorlessly. “You get what I’m saying, right, Julio? C’mon, you have to agree with me here.”
He saw the animal fear lurking behind Julio’s eyes. He saw the way he leaned away, like he dearly wanted to run but didn’t dare to. Felix saw it, relished it, and tilted his head to side. “You can talk, man.”
“Uh, yeah,” Julio said quickly. “I agree with you.”
“Speak freely,” Felix said, waving his hand. “Just tell me – Locus killed your friends, right?”
“He didn’t… kill directly,” Julio said cautiously. “He never did that. You’d find people who died from bleeding out, or from falling, or because a wild animal attacked them while they were down.”
“Still killing in the end.”
“…yeah,” Julio said reluctantly. “It’s just a slower death.”
“Glad we can agree on that.” Felix felt sated. He’d gotten out everything he wanted to say, so Julio’s purpose here was pretty much used up. He could go. “So, dude, you said you wanted to find other people, right?”
Hope flared in Julio’s eyes. “Yeah,” he said, straightening.
“You can try,” Felix said, gesturing at the hangar door. “C’mon, get up. I’ll be right after you, buddy.”
“Really?”
“Absolutely. Unless you’re getting second thoughts? We could stay here, if that’s what you –“
“No, that’s fine!” Julio scrambled up, though it was hard when he was still so uncoordinated. He stumbled a few steps towards the hangar door. “Are – are you coming with?”
“Yeah, don’t worry about it. I’ll be behind you.”
“Okay, yeah. Sure.”
Felix watched him walk towards the door. Just as Julio reached the doorknob, however, Felix lifted his rifle and fired. Julio screamed abortively as he fell forward against the door, smearing the blood spatter there.
“Just kidding,” Felix said. “Thanks for the talk.”
Now that he had the monologue he deserved and loose ends were tied up, Felix could press enter without any issue. Felix smiled as the long string of coordinates appeared on the screen. Once that was done, he connected his helmet to the computer to download its contents. There. Now he had both Locus’ current location and a way to keep himself constantly updated in real-time.
He smashed the computer as soon as he got everything inside. There was no need to leave potential leaks around, after all. When it was time to leave, Felix thoughtfully stepped over Julio’s body and waved at his outstretched hand before slamming the hangar door in his face.
There was a click as the hangar locked itself again. On the other side of the door, Felix heard scratching.
When he walked back to the Warthog, there was a skip in his step.
This is something I have always thought: Carolina would have been a much, much better foil for Locus when he was having his midlife crisis than Wash was. Do you have any thoughts about that?
I think in some ways, yeah, that’s definitely true. I also think it could’ve been done better with Wash with some changes to the writing.
If you really want to emphasize the “perfect soldier” angle, Carolina is the staggeringly obvious choice; of our two surviving Freelancers, only one of them is a brutal perfectionist and it isn’t Wash. The regrets about “following orders” works for Carolina too, for the faith she placed in the program and in her own father.
Similarly, with Wash, I think the “just following orders” bit works much better if you put the emphasis on what Wash saw and ignored during Project Freelancer (because we actually have a lot more onscreen evidence of Wash seeing things that were off about the Project and ignoring those things than Carolina). The parallel to Wash shooting Donut and Lopez doesn’t work at all, because that wasn’t an order, and that wouldn’t be such a problem if the framing allowed us to see that as Locus projecting onto Wash rather than setting up the parallel in Wash’s own fever dream.
Really, that applies in both cases–the parallel works better if it’s framed from Locus’ POV rather than the Freelancers. It could work better for Wash than it did, but I think overall Carolina was the better choice.
It also worked a lot better as a personality foil between hero and obvious villain, before we had Locus onscreen comparing himself to the Freelancers to justify why he deserves a second chance, because regardless of where they may be similar in personality, nothing the Freelancers have done, knowingly or unknowingly, is even remotely comparable to what Locus did knowingly and willingly.
I have this idea brewing in my head about PFL Locus that I wanna write after I finish Fool Me Once and while I’m a diehard lolix fan, I have no clue if I’ll include Felix in it (I mean, probably, but I don’t know if he’ll be a focus)
I do know, however, that I want to write the Locus/Carolina foil that we all deserve because y’all damn well know the Locus/Wash parallels make no sense under close scrutiny
I haven’t gotten all my thoughts in place yet and I will need to rewatch PFL for this but
Carolina and Locus sparring
Carolina totally kicking the shit out of Locus
more focus on female Freelancers
I’m not kidding, CT and South are criminally underused for such powerful characters wtf
CT held her own against both Carolina and Tex, aka she’s basically the Terminator and she gets ignored? No way, Jose
finally, a PFL-centric fic that isn’t Wash-centric
like I used to like Wash but the fandom is so over-saturated with him that he gives me hives now
I have this idea brewing in my head about PFL Locus that I wanna write after I finish Fool Me Once and while I’m a diehard lolix fan, I have no clue if I’ll include Felix in it (I mean, probably, but I don’t know if he’ll be a focus)
I do know, however, that I want to write the Locus/Carolina foil that we all deserve because y’all damn well know the Locus/Wash parallels make no sense under close scrutiny
I haven’t gotten all my thoughts in place yet and I will need to rewatch PFL for this but
Carolina and Locus sparring
Carolina totally kicking the shit out of Locus
more focus on female Freelancers
I’m not kidding, CT and South are criminally underused for such powerful characters wtf
CT held her own against both Carolina and Tex, aka she’s basically the Terminator and she gets ignored? No way, Jose
finally, a PFL-centric fic that isn’t Wash-centric
like I used to like Wash but the fandom is so over-saturated with him that he gives me hives now
Ok, not gonna lie, this was one of my favorite requests of the donation drive since it was a test to make them look recognizable but still different. @hokuton-punch asked for pre-face-scar Locus in fatigues and I felt like this NEEDED Felix in it as well.
anemoiarts replied to your post “Fool Me Once - Ch. 8”
Oh, SO worth the wait!! I adore these little pieces of humanity you give these characters. It all flows to well and perfectly aligns with who they are!! I’ve always, always loved Locus, but you have only strengthened my love for him. I feel for the guy so hard. You make him so endearing and interesting that I can’t look away. Excellent work. As always. That flashback with Felix and Locus was heart-racing!! I could barely breathe!!! AMAZING!!!
one of the things i look forward to the most after posting a chapter is seeing you drop in my activity page with another heartwarming comment.
I’ve been re-reading Fool Me Once (and I just realized that my phone autocorrected the story to Fool Me Twice on my last present - oops!), and I thought I’d try and draw Locus, too, seeing as he’s your favorite. :) I realized about halfway through that I bit off a bit more than my computer could chew, but he’s finished nonetheless. Sorry for the wait!
Hopefully I got all of his details right. I went through your chapters and drew up what came to mind. You captured him so flawlessly that I hope I can do your work a bit of justice. :) Again, I’m not that great at digital art, but I thought I’d surprise you again. :)
Oh, and I digitally redid my first Felix, too! :) With added battery, this time. Hope you like them! Surprise again! You’re amazing and I am head over heels for you and your work!! Can’t wait for the rest. :) If it’s anything as good as the previous chapters, I think I’m gonna scream!! :D I’m so excited!
*This is dedicated to @hylian-reptile, who destroyed my soul with her request, and @anemoiarts, who offers endless support despite my inactivity.
**I edited a small detail that slipped my mind when writing Ch.2. The planet Melody has lower oxygen content in its air, making it non-breathable for humans. Locus has to use a mask that converts the excess CO2 in the air into O2 for him to move around. This detail was edited in Ch. 2 and I go into more detail here. You don’t really need to reread, the change was minor.
Felix survives the fall. Locus leaves Chorus.
One way or another, though, they’re still going find each other.
AO3
CH.7... Ch.9
Ch. 8
I didn’t make it in time.
Locus curled up in his seat, feeling light-headed. He touched his face and it felt like his hands were touching someone else – like he wasn’t really in his body. He felt as if he was doing everything a half-step behind – leaving the camp, finding A'rynasea, climbing in, sitting down… there was a lag between his body’s choices and his brain.
His hands felt so cold.
Should have moved faster.
Locus tallied down the day’s events. He had been at the tea stand. He asked questioned. Then he looked for someone else – the woman, the UNSC veteran Ayesha Hailey – and she told him to look in the temporary residential section. He’d gone there and –
Hadn’t made it in time.
The woman – she had been Park – shot a man. Locus didn’t know his name. The man with her – Chan, that had been Chan – took the hostage. And the last one – Sydney – held the crowd back.
If he had been quicker on the uptake, then that could have been avoided.
Locus breathed in. Then he exhaled, feeling as if his entire body would rattle apart.
Maybe he should have asked about the dead man. Was that was normal people did? They felt bad about messing up like that. They asked about him, offered their condolences, and tried to amend the situation. They got shaken up by the fact he died, not by the fact that they failed.
“It has been fifteen minutes since you entered the ship. We have not moved.”
The computer’s soft voice jolted Locus into reality. “Yes?” he said dumbly.
“Do you want to input coordinates?”
“Yes,” Locus said again, then he shook himself. “Take us back to Melody. Usual coordinates.”
“Affirmative.”
A'rynasea sailed up from the jungle. Locus leaned back and closed his eyes. The hunt had ended anticlimactically – there had been no fight this time, not even the smallest struggle – but his heart hammered like he’d run a marathon. He was tired, so tired, but he couldn’t sleep.
“A'rynasea.”
“Yes?”
“Play white noise. Set One A.”
“Affirmative.”
The sound of rain filled the bridge. It overcame the blood pounding in his ears and Locus was lulled back to a comfortable and familiar numbness. He pulled his crossbow to his lap and wiped it down.
∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙
“You are such a douche!”
The door to their hotel room slammed open with a bang. Felix stomped in, threw off the duffle on his shoulder, and kicked the door shut behind him. The duffle fell with the heavy metal clatter of guns.
Locus didn’t look up from his book. Jane had just met Mr Rochester and he intended to finish the chapter before he stopped.
“Are you even listening to me?!”
“No,” he replied succinctly. Felix made an aggravated noise and kicked something. It went flying but didn’t come near Locus or the bed. It struck the wall adjacent instead and he looked up to check what it was before continuing to read.
That ottoman had been an eyesore anyway.
“Locus, don’t you fucking ignore me! You fucking set me up, you knew what was going to happen!”
He licked his thumb, turned the page, and imagined that Felix’s shrill voice was what Jane must’ve sounded like. It livened up the experience. “I told you what I expected to happen,” he said neutrally, “you just ignored me.”
“Bullshit!”
Something else went flying. It broke the mirror and shards tumbled onto the carpet. Locus frowned briefly – the room deposit was coming out of their joint account. But he continued to read. Felix would work himself through eventually.
“You’re such a piece of shit partner! I fucking needed you there and you left me high and dry, you fucking psycho!”
Locus went cold.
Even through the depths of his anger, Felix seemed to realize what he’d said. He took a half-step back as Locus met his gaze over the top of his book, but his expression quickly hardened. “Yeah, you heard me,” he snapped, “fucking psycho. Crazy! Insane, demented, lunatic –“
Locus surged off the bed before he could even think about it. His entire body felt cold, but his blood pounded in his ears like a hot, wet beat. He was on Felix before he could jerk away and he wrapped his hands around his neck and slammed him back against the wall.
Felix kicked at him, but Locus pressed his body against his and gave him no leverage. Felix tried to push off against the wall instead, but Locus squeezed until an ugly flush crawled up his thin cheeks. Felix tried to sputter something but Locus choked that out of him too.
Aside from the occasional thumps of Felix’s shoes meeting the wall, the entire confrontation was silent. Locus didn’t say anything. He just breathed heavily, staring Felix down, until he stopped trying to pry Locus’ fingers off his neck.
After a few more seconds, Locus dropped him.
Felix fell to his hands and knees and hunched over, gasping and coughing. He touched his neck, now covered in red handprints. By tomorrow, they’d be a deep purple.
Locus turned away and sat back down. Picked up his book. This time, however, Jane’s emotional melodrama no longer seized his attention. He stared at the flowery words unseeingly, trying to read until he realized he’d been staring at one sentence for over a minute. Disgusted, Locus dog-eared the page and set it down.
“Are you done?” he asked, crossing his arms.
“Fuck… you…” Felix gasped from the floor. It lacked the usual vitriol, though, and Locus knew he was done fighting. For now. “Fuck, did you have to squeeze so fucking hard?”
“Maybe you’ll remember it better next time,” Locus said, watching him pick himself up from the floor, straighten his rumpled shirt, and attempt to look dignified with a purpling ring around his neck. “What happened?”
“…there were more people than expected,” Felix admitted sulkily. He avoided Locus’ gaze and slunk into the bathroom. “You should have been there.”
“I warned you,” Locus replied, unforgiving. “You did things your own way and look where it got you.”
“Well, maybe if you weren’t so fucking stubborn –“
“I told you there were too many people for us to effectively handle and that we were better off waiting for a few days.”
“I’m fucking sick of this place. I don’t want to wait two more days!”
“That doesn’t matter.”
Felix emerged from the bathroom, expression rebellious. “Aren’t you fucking bothered?” he demanded. He tore his gloves off and threw them at the duffle. He worked at his tie next and snarled as his impatient fingers failed to untie it. “This fucking place – this fucking, stinking city!”
“If the mission requires we –“
“Fuck that!” Felix tore the tie off and threw it after his gloves. “I know you fucking hate this place as much as I do!”
“And I just told you – that doesn’t matter.”
“Oh yeah? Is that why you’re reading Jane Eyre again?”
Locus covered the book protectively. “That has nothing to do with this.”
“You always fucking read the most boring shit when you’re on edge. I want us out of here. I want to leave this piece of shit city. I’m fucking done with this bullshit and I am fucking done with looking at that fucking statue outside!”
Locus glanced at the windows. They had their curtains drawn no matter the time of day. Behind it, he knew they’d get a full view of the centerpiece of the Ritz-Darling hotel’s lawn; the Harvest Battles Memorial.
“Ignore it.”
“Oh yeah, just ignore the fucking thing that reminds us every day of the war. Great idea, Locus, I hadn’t thought of that! What’s your next brilliant suggestion, wise guy? Should we get out our medals? The badges? Maybe we can fucking plan a day trip and look at all the names of our dead squad mates for the shits and giggles!”
Felix looked like a trapped animal searching for a way out. His eyes flicked from corner to corner and he was bristling, begging for a fight, for something to sink his claws and teeth into. His entire body trembled with energy that’d built up after days of ignoring the memorial.
Locus took a deep breath. Hitting Felix was only as satisfying as the brief moment it lasted. After that, there would be days of healing, bitching, and reduced efficiency from him. It wasn’t worth it. It. Wasn’t. Worth it.
“I’m not doing this,” he said, pulling his book closer.
Felix just about tore his hair out. “No – no! You don’t get to do that, Locus! You don’t get to space out and go into your head and leave me here! You think I can’t tell when you’re doing that?”
“I can tell when you’re trying to goad me,” Locus said flatly. “It won’t work.”
“It’s better than you going fucking catatonic in there, asshole! Wake up, Locus! No – Sam! Sam Ortez, that’s your fucking name, wake up! – wake up! –
wake up
wake up
“Wake up.”
Locus lurched forward as he snapped out of sleep so quickly that he disoriented himself. His head spun painfully for a hot second as he blinked, seeing two. Eventually, the room settled down and he realized where he was.
A'rynasea. The bridge. His crossbow was still in his lap. He must have drifted off. No matter how hard he tried though, Locus couldn’t remember when.
“Are you well?”
A'rynasea’s cool voice made him look up. “Fine,” he croaked, feeling the furthest thing from it. “Location?”
“We have arrived on the planet Melody.”
“Oh.” Locus put the crossbow on the console and straightened. He immediately regretted it when his back flared with intense pain. Nothing felt wet, so the stitches must still be holding, but he didn’t feel too hot either.
Everything just… ached.
His screwed his eyes shut for a moment and the bridge lights played behind his eyelids like supernovas writ small. Snatches of Felix’s face and voice played in his head, brought to the surface by a dream he couldn’t clearly recall.
Locus rubbed his eyes with the heel of his palm until they felt raw. Not even his sleep was peaceful anymore.
A'rynasea slipped into its cavern. Locus stashed away his weapons and armor, taking only the crossbow with him, put on his oxygen mask, and swung out of the ship. His back flared again, punishing him for his careful ignorance of his body’s malfunctions. As Locus watched, his ship delicately flew up into its usual nook and cloaked, effectively hidden from the world until he needed it again.
He puttered around the cave for a few more minutes anyway. He walked around the cave’s perimeter to check for people who weren’t there and searched for bugs that didn’t exist. The only footsteps that disturbed the interior of the cave were his, belonging to the previous times he stalked the darkness despite knowing that it was an exercise in futility.
A'rynasea beeped as he passed under it for the third time. For a ship computer that had no personality matrix, it managed to pull off impatience very well. Locus slunk away for good that time.
He automatically set down the path for Wode. It was a ten kilometer hike down a mountain and it was night time. A sensible man might have turned around and taken shelter in his ship until the sun was up.
Instead, Locus set down the mountain under the pale moonlight. Melody was a gentler planet than Chorus was in a lot of ways. Sweet had explained it to him once, when Locus was still new and not yet sure of what he could do to help. It was an older planet and older things, as a general rule, tended to be more worn down. Its mountains were less jagged. Its jungles were thinner, its temperature was milder, and the people who settled down on it seemed to reflect that.
Really, Melody should have been the planet that was colonized, if it weren’t for the fact that it didn’t have enough oxygen in its atmosphere for the air to be breathable.
Sweat trickled down his temple. Locus pulled off his flannel since there was no one else around to see his injuries. He tied it around his waist, leaving only his thin cotton tank top, but even that felt like a wool blanket in the humidity. There wasn’t even rain to make up for the heat. For a moment, Locus thought about going back and donning his armor – it was environmentally controlled, he would be comfortably room temperature the entire time – but that was wishful thinking. It would only invite disaster if the people of Wode saw it.
And, he would begrudgingly admit, that he wore it too often.
More sweat gathered, this time on the back of his neck. His tank top clung to him unpleasantly, feeling like a damp second skin, and he considered just pulling it off too.
Exposing injuries to unsanitary environments, he reminded himself dully, is how you get infections.
But damn if it wasn’t tempting.
The night air was rife with noise. Insects buzzed at each other busily and the trees shook as nocturnal monkeys swung from branch to branch. The moon became the brief backdrop for two quarreling birds that swooped around each other, chattering angrily, until they took their argument into the dark depths of the jungle. Locus was barely a blip in the landscape as he entered the thick foliage at the foot of the mountain and ghosted through the heavy growths, avoiding animals when he could.
The rest of the walk was mindless. Focusing on his surroundings and cataloguing the noises – the soft growl of a jaguar, the brush of a tree snake, the inquisitive hoot of a monkey, all the myriad sounds that the wild made – let him avoid other, less welcome thoughts. It was a tried-and-true method for ignoring the worst of his head’s dark corners, and Locus had too many corners to avoid.
He reached one of the groves he liked to hunt deer in and paused. He touched his crossbow and examined the clearing, wondering.
He had been away from Melody for just over three days – a half day to go to Chorus, another day spent finding his targets and eliminating them, then another to find the stragglers. Another half day to come back.
It was the longest he spent away from Wode. He hadn’t dared to take long trips when he had been so hurt. Now, though…
Locus reached up to push a vine out of the way and paid for it when his shoulder screamed at the motion. He winced and lifted his other arm instead, but the deed was done. He spent a few silent moments curled in pain on the jungle floor, regretting his choice to forego anesthesia, until the agony receded enough for his limbs to work.
Breathing a little harder this time, Locus set his jaw and forged on. He could bag a deer, but taking it back to camp would exacerbate his wounds and possibly even open his stitches again. That was more trouble than it was worth. He would just have to make up for his lack of contributions with something else.
If he was this close to a grove, then Wode had to be only a few kilometers away now. That fact, and the pounding pain, distracted Locus enough that he didn’t pay as much attention to the jungle as he should have.
His only warning was the creak of dead leaves.
Turn around, his instincts screamed at him but Locus was a split-second too slow on the uptake. He didn’t manage to turn fully before a heavy weight dropped out of the treetops on him, knocking him off his feet.
Exhaustion disappeared and was replaced by a spike of adrenaline so sharp that it felt like he had a bolt of ice lodged inside of his chest. The air grew still, sound dulled down to an indistinct roar, and Locus thrust his arm out, stopping the snapping teeth of the jaguar inches from his throat. It was half the weight of a man but it was all concentrated on his chest, squeezing the air out of his lungs, and it was all muscle under the fur. The cat whipped to the side, lightning fast, and Locus pulled his crossbow up.
The cat recovered from its failed ambush. It was nothing but a liquid black shadow in the darkness and it leapt at him again. It didn’t go for his neck this time.
A different sort of pain bloomed as it sank its teeth into the meat of his forearm. He could feel it pulling already, aiming to take him off his feet again, but Locus took advantage of the closeness.
He shoved the crossbow into the closest part of it and released the bolt. The jaguar yowled and let him go immediately. Locus retreated as soon as it did, cradling his arm to his chest, and hefted his crossbow closer. He couldn’t reload it, not without taking his attention of the beast, but it was heavy and solid. A good swing from it would crack anyone’s skull.
The cat backed away a little, panting. In the dappled moonlight that illuminated the ground, he thought he saw his bolt stuck in the meat of its right thigh.
They circled each other warily. Locus didn’t want to kill it – the fight wasn’t worth the meat or the pelt – and it seemed to weigh its options.
Go, he thought at it, as if it would make it retreat. I don’t care about you.
The cat stopped. Locus hoped that it decided its wounds were too grievous to keep fighting, but instead it sprang at him again.
He sidestepped it, grabbed the base of his crossbow with both hands despite the flare of pain, and swung it straight at the vulnerable column of its extended neck.
There was a dull crunch.
The slim body of the jaguar fell down limply, its head at an unnatural angle. Locus pulled his crossbow free before its weight could pull it out of his hands and considered the corpse at his feet.
He hadn’t wanted to kill it. He would have been happy to let it disappear back into the foliage, but it had attacked him. Why? Why would it decide that its injury was unimportant enough that it would risk another charge? He’d encountered the other predators of Melody before and they usually avoided attacking adult humans.
What had been wrong with this one, then?
Locus touched its ribs. It wasn’t starving, so hunger couldn’t have driven it.
He considered leaving it behind for the scavengers, but it felt too pitiful for him. Against his better judgement, Locus carefully maneuvered it onto his uninjured shoulder and took it with him instead.
The remaining hike back to Wode was considerably hazier. Locus tore off the sleeve of his flannel and wrapped his arm with it, stemming the bleeding, but it was a poor replacement for biofoam and stitches. But he didn’t have any biofoam on him – it was too questionable – and he wasn’t about to turn around, find his ship, and attempt to stitch himself again.
Without any other option, he pushed towards the town. Approximately an hour passed when Locus reached its outskirts and the gates, usually open during the day, were closed to keep the predators out. He tapped it twice – one long and one short – and a small slot in the gates opened.
“Who is it?” someone asked from the other side. Locus recognized him.
“Delaney,” he said, voice rough, “it’s Sam.”
“Sam? Oh, hey, you were gone for a bit – hold on. I’ll get the door.”
The slot closed. A door opened instead and Locus trudged inside the booth that was attached to the interior of the walls that protected Wode and formed the border for the environmental shields.
Delaney flicked on another set of lights. He was a young man – a boy, to be frank – in his late teens and still had the smattering of acne to prove it. Dressed in jeans, a soft sweater, and armed with only a radio, he was part of Wode’s regular night watch. If he was telling the truth, he had been since he was fifteen years old.
When he saw Locus in proper light, his eyes widened. “Oh my God,” he breathed, “dude – what happened? Do you need a doctor? I can radio one now, shit –“
“It’s fine,” Locus grunted, shifting the jaguar a little. “I got into a small fight, but it was handled.”
“A small -?” His eyes flicked between the cat and his face. “Dude.”
“Is Doctor Joannes here?”
“Dude!”
“Is that a yes?” Locus frowned.
“Do not tell me you killed a fucking jaguar with your bare hands.” Delaney clutched his radio to his chest, eyes wide. “Holy shit.”
“I didn’t. I killed with my crossbow.”
“That’s still badass – shit. Did you get hurt?”
“That’s why I asked for Doctor Joannes,” Locus said, thinking about the blood slowly seeping through his flannel sleeve.
“Oh – right! Yeah, okay, I’m on that right now – uh, Joannes is still here, yeah. Look, man, Sam, my dude, you have to tell me this story when you can. You just walked outta here for, like, three days and you come back looking like fucking Batman –“
“Batman?”
“- with a jaguar on your shoulders like that’s a thing that happens –“
Locus cast his eyes around the booth. Most places he had been with guard booths like this kept them featureless. Not this one, though. Delaney had decorated the walls with dozens of colorful posters from movies and bands, while the single desk he manned for hours was covered in little figurines, candy wrappers, and a dinosaur of a computer. Aside from the secondary lights he turned on for Locus, there also were the soft fairy lights that he’d taped to the walls to provide illumination.
He remembered asking why they were up. Delaney had told him that they were softer on the eyes.
His examination of the booth, however, found him something else. It was an oxygen mask hanging from a hook, seemingly untouched. Locus narrowed his eyes. “Delaney,” he said, cutting through his chatter, “where is your mask?”
“My – what?” Delaney touched his bare face, a touch of guilt flittering across his young face. “Oh. Um.”
Locus’ gaze pointedly dragged to the mask again. “You opened the slot without your mask on.”
It wasn’t a question.
Delaney fidgeted. “It was only for a quick question,” he tried to weakly explain, but stopped when Locus gave him a withering look.
“You should always have it on,” he said. Delaney never wore his mask, even though he was only a door away from the oxygen-starved world beyond Wode. It was a combination of laziness and a sense of invincibility and no matter how much Locus pointed it out, he never seemed to grasp it.
“Yeah, I know,” he said, scratching the back of his head. “I just… yeah. You know what? Joannes is in – not the hospital, try her place. You should go see her.”
He gestured at the door, ducking his head. Locus thought he saw the tips of his ears go bright red, but he was too tired to think about what it meant. His point made, he nodded and shuffled towards the door that led into the town. It was unlocked and he stepped out, still carrying his unwanted prize.
He thought he heard a soft “thanks” from the booth, but the door was heavy and he just let it close behind him instead.
Wode rarely kept its lights on past sundown. Even though it’d moved past its early days of barely scraping together enough energy to keep life support and other vitals on, years of living life as efficiently as possible had left its mark. Everything was conserved.
Locus navigated by the street lights that Wode kept lit. They were few in number, spaced far apart and used stored solar energy from the day, which was probably why the town was comfortable with letting them run at night. He visited the mess and dropped the body in the overnight cooler that was kept out for any stragglers with contributions they couldn’t get in during the day.
His shoulder ached anew without his burden and Locus slunk towards where Joannes lived. Her status as the leading medical expert of the town technically meant she could live wherever she pleased, but she was humble enough to stay in the shared townhouses with the rest of her medical staff. The townhouses themselves were hastily-erected blocks of three floors without much in the way of design and architecture. Each floor rarely had any actual walls to divide sections off – it saved precious building material that way.
He moved quietly so as to not disturb the other residents, and gently rapped the frame of her sliding door. A light turned on and he saw a form move through the opaque paper screen.
The door slid open a crack and Joannes’ sleepy face appeared. “Wuh… Sam?” she said softly.
“I’m sorry for coming so late,” he said, tone pitched low, “but I have a mild medical problem.”
“Can’t… can’t it wait until tomorrow?”
He unwrapped the flannel sleeve. “It’s your decision,” Locus said, “if you think it can wait, I will come in tomorrow.”
Joannes blinked at him. Then she looked down to where his arm was illuminated by the soft yellow light of her bedside lamp. Her hand flew to her mouth.
“Oh, dear lord – Sam! What happened to you?” Joannes kept her voice quiet but it was more intense now, a hiss more than a whisper, and she pushed her door open further. “Don’t just stand there – come in. This isn’t a mild medical problem. A mild problem is a rash or a cough, not an open wound!”
“The bleeding’s mostly handled,” Locus pointed out as he stepped over the threshold of her room. Joannes’ living space was minimal, as he expected, and didn’t have much more than a small bed, a dresser with a lamp, a second larger lamp in the corner, and a large closet. There was also a standing bookshelf next to her bed that was practically choked with books. Locus peered at their spines as he followed Joannes.
They were mostly medical texts but he thought he saw a couple classics hidden among them. Joannes rattling around distracted him from further survey.
She knelt next to her bed and pulled out a hidden drawer under it. Locus blinked when she pulled out a giant kit from it.
“Really?”
“You never know when it’s necessary,” Joannes said. “Never mind that – just how did you get that? And turn on the light over there.”
“I had a small debacle on my way here,” Locus said. He followed her pointed finger and turned on the second lamp in the corner, flooding the room with light. “A jaguar.”
“Jesus Christ,” Joannes muttered under her breath. She pulled out a bottle of disinfect, cotton rounds, bandages, antibiotic ointment, and tweezers, and set them all on her bed. Then she snapped on a pair of latex gloves. “Alright, c’mere.”
There was nowhere to actually sit. After a small moment of hesitation, he gingerly sat on her bed with an apologetic glance. Joannes waved it off immediately, gesturing for his arm instead. He held it out.
“You’re lucky this isn’t worse,” she said after examining it. “It’s on the deep side, but it didn’t touch the bone or any important veins. If you don’t mess it up, this should heal pretty cleanly.”
“Hence, mild.”
“Oh, shut it.” Joannes picked up a cotton round with tweezers and dipped it in the disinfect. Then she cleaned off the dried blood around the puncture wounds. “So, where were you?”
The non-sequitur caught him off-guard. “I was busy with personal business,” he said vaguely. “Nothing too heavy,” he said, catching her searching expression. “Though I do need you to look at my stitches again.”
Her expression quickly became suspicious. “You did not,” Joannes said crossly.
“Not what?” he replied innocently.
“You tore your stitches,” she accused.
He avoided her eyes. “It was unavoidable,” he finally said, a little prim.
“How bad is it?” she demanded immediately.
“Not too bad, it was only a mild problem. I fixed most of it.”
Joannes dropped his arm. “You what?” she asked, aghast.
“I repaired the issue,” he said.
“No. No. Don’t tell me you not only tore your stitches, but redid them yourself.”
“I had a guide,” Locus said, thinking about Silly Sewing: The Sucker’s Steps towards Solving Stitches. “It was very informative.”
“A guide, he says,” Joannes said, closing her eyes as if suffering deeply. “He used a guide. Let me see.”
“It’s not as bad as you think.” Locus said, debating if she really needed to look. “Really.”
“Let me see.”
“It was –“
“Sam, if you say this was mild one more time, I swear to God –“
He turned obligingly before Joannes could continue. She bit her tongue just barely, gave him a glower, and pulled down the strap of his tank top.
A stunned silence commenced.
Locus shifted. “Doctor?”
Joannes didn’t reply. When he turned to look at her, he saw her face torn between fascination and hopeless exasperation.
“Doctor?” he repeated.
“Sam,” she said, her voice delicate, “please, oh, please, tell me you didn’t do this left-handed.”
He wisely didn’t answer. His silence was confirmation enough.
“Jesus. Christ.”
∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙
Once his injuries were handled, Locus slunk away from Joannes’ place with her warnings echoing in his head. Exhaustion dragged his eyelids down and he reluctantly made for the other townhouses that were down the street. Joannes lived in Housing A – he had been given space in one in Housing D but he’d rarely made use of it. It felt invasive to sleep in there, knowing what he was and what he could do.
He encountered a few more members of the night watch as he walked. They waved to him as he passed by and Locus waved back. He appeared in the streets in the nighttime as often as he did in the day, and they had gotten so accustomed to it that they stopped questioning why.
Sometimes, that fact bothered him for the same reason that sleeping in the townhouses did.
The further down he went, the less complete the townhouses became. Housing C and D weren’t finished, unlike their two neighbors, A and B. Instead, they were ramshackle mixtures of tents, half-built buildings, and open areas only covered by tarp roofs. They would be finished slowly over time, but the town’s resources were tight and they were still working on setting up production lines.
Locus pushed aside the heavy wool blanket that covered the doorway for Housing D. The guard on rotation, Indranil, relaxed once he recognized him. He wasn’t as talkative as Delaney – he grunted, waved his hand, and went back to the crossword he was doing.
Locus nodded and walked on. He counted the halls as he walked past them, turned on the twelfth and last one, and then counted the doors until he reached the eleventh doorway. The tin door creaked as he pushed it open and Locus lowered it shut so it didn’t bang.
The five others he shared the room with didn’t seem to be here. Privately relieved, Locus slipped towards his cot. It had no bedding – he’d given it to a family who had a child on the way – but he’d slept on worse before. He closed the plastic privacy curtain around his cot to give himself the illusion of solitude.
His back protested when he laid down. Laying on his front wasn’t a reprieve either – his bruised ribs creaked sadly and the cot’s metal frame dug into his stomach. Locus compromised by laying down on his less-injured side, crossbow still in hand, and tried to find some sleep.
Instead, he heard the door open again.
Ignore it, he told himself. Despite that, his ears pricked to listen.
The person who’d entered stepped lightly and carefully. They moved around – and then a cot creaked. It was the one next to his.
“Ammar?” they inquired softly.
There were only them in here. “No,” Locus whispered, “Sam.”
“Oh. Sam – it’s Sweet. I was looking for Ammar, have you seen him?”
“No. I only got here tonight.”
“Huh.” The cot creaked again. “You were gone for a while.”
“Had business.”
Sweet was tactful enough to not ask what. Instead, he said, “Are you okay?”
“I…” He meant to say I’m fine but it was a bold-faced lie. He was so – “…tired.”
“Yeah. You sound like it. Do you want to talk about it?”
Talk about it?
What would he say? How could he say it? How did you explain years of intense trauma and the resulting years of increasingly poor choices, or how it felt to miss someone you knew was bad for you? How did you say I hurt people and I don’t think I can stop without sounding insane?
“…sorry,” Sweet said, breaking Locus from his reverie, and he realized he’d been quiet for too long.
“It’s alright,” Locus sighed. “I was just thinking about some old… stuff. Regrets.”
“Regrets, huh?” Sweet sounded a little rueful. “I think we’ve all got our fair share of those. You know how Wode came around, right?”
“I heard. You left because of the war.”
“Yeah. It was… it was bad. Melody doesn’t have the war but it’s not really… home. We’re trying our best but stuff’s not easy.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. It’s not your fault.”
Locus closed his eyes bitterly. He thought of Chorus again – its suffocating rainforests, the soft, damp earth, and the jagged canyons that hid in the undergrowth. He thought about the cities that he would occasionally find. Many of them were broken by bombs and artillery, but many more had simply been emptied out as their people fled deeper into the jungle to escape the guns and the soldiers who carried them. How many had been important? How many more had been precious homes? What was it like to lose that?
He wished he could understand.
“Where on Chorus are you from?” he asked quietly.
“…Edis,” Sweet said, “but that’s the registered name. Towazi is its real name. I’m from Situ in south-east Towazi.”
Edis… “It was destroyed,” Locus said.
Sweet sighed sadly. “Yeah, it was. Chorus’ superpower to a crater, just like that. I lost family. Um. My brother – Nuru – was working in Kilumu when the bombs dropped. It’s the same story for everyone, to be honest. We’ve all lost family. You?”
“Me?”
“Have you lost anyone?”
Locus couldn’t answer. How long had it been since he last saw his family? It would be nearly decades now. After he lost contact with them in the war, he just… hadn’t picked up the habit again. He couldn’t remember their faces anymore. It had been only him and Felix for so long that…
He crushed the thought before it could continue.
“Don’t really have anyone,” he answered. “It happens.”
Sweet made a melancholy noise. “I suppose it does,” he said, almost wistful. A brief silence fell between them before the cot creaked and Sweet stood up. “Well, I still have to find Ammar. So I’ll just leave you, Sam. Sleep well.”
“Good night,” Locus said automatically. He listened to Sweet leave the room and continue down the hall until the tapping of his steps could no longer be heard. Despite his departure, his words lingered.
A family… a family… what family did he have? His father was dead, but his mother was alive – is? He didn’t know. He had two siblings, a brother and a sister, both older than him. His mother and sister were both career soldiers. He had three uncles and two aunts, and so many cousins that he couldn’t remember them all. He had a huge family, but it was a family of ghosts and forgotten memories. The only thing that tethered them to him was blood.
As for a home… he had grown up on Earth. He had been born in Mexico City, had spent his childhood in a UNSC base in South Korea, his teenage years in another UNSC base in Greece, and then left Earth to join the military he’d grown up around his entire life.
Yet these memories were distant, as if he were viewing them from behind dirty glass. They belonged to a different lifetime, a different person. They belonged to Samuel Ortez, not Locus.
