Five Meetings And One Goodbye

[churbooseanon]

A belated birthday gift for my Synne. Lolix, of course, and made of pain. WARNING: Character Death. 

 

Five Meetings and One Goodbye

   The first time they meet is fated to be the one that Locus won’t remember. Truth be told it isn’t even entirely his fault.

   The kid that he meets in that moment isn’t like the man he will come to know. Felix is… bright eyed, bushy tailed. Excited. There will be no way for Locus to compare the soldier he will know with the young man sitting next to him. Felix keeps his hair short. This guy has it long and shaggy around his ears, and the tips of it dyed a vibrant and annoying shade of blue that Locus cannot accept. His accent then is thick, something from a colony that Locus had never heard before.

   By the end of the conversation Locus, though that isn’t his name yet, will know more about the place he hadn’t even realized existed then he would ever care to. Knows more about Felix too. Not his name, because for some reason the guy sitting beside him who can’t shut up at all doesn’t say a single thing about himself other than the fact that he wasn’t a draftee. Locus, the young man he was at the time, almost was. Not quite, but it’s a near thing. More of de facto recruited. It’s what happens when you go off planet to visit relatives, thinking yourself safe beyond certain lines that the Covvies didn’t cross, only to find out your planet, your home, pretty much anyone you had ever known had been glassed in a surprise attack.

   What did he have to go back to? What did he have to live for?

   Dressed in his recruit fatigues, pre-training, hair not yet cut, name not yet taken up and freshly grieving, the teen who would be Locus paid no more attention to the blue-brown haired young man’s rambling than he did the shuttle coming in to land. He was here for a reason, and being someone’s bosom buddy because he clearly wasn’t prepared for the military and the cruel realities of war wasn’t something he cared to spend any time thinking on.

   The only thing that sticks with Locus in the long run is a short conversation that he’ll never think to attribute to his partner.

   “How long, do you think, before they put guns in our hands?” the excitable teen next to him asks, and the teen that will become the mercenary Locus frowns as he looks back at the yapping idiot.

   “When we’re ready,” he answers the guy who looks like a kid, but well, he thinks maybe he looks like a kid too so who is he to judge?

   “I’m ready now,” blue-brown says, leaning forward, as if he intended to strain against his harness.

   It sounds like he has a bit of a death wish, and to-be-Locus decides that he wants nothing to do with this recruit. Soldiers are supposed to cover each other, and this one doesn’t sound long for his life. Too much excitement, too little caution.

   “Why?” he finds himself asking the stranger.

   The smile he gets in return is brilliant and maybe a touch crazy, and it leaves not-Locus-yet shuddering at the sight. For years he’ll remember the almost insane edge to the smile and the way it had made his blood run cold.

   “Because I’m better.”

   Felix, on the other hand, remembers it all in detail. Will always remember how Locus had looked in that moment, before he was Locus. The stunning young man who sat beside him on the transport to basic. He remembers the curl of a few stray black hairs hanging down into his golden brown eyes the precise color of brandy in a crystal clear glass with a warm yellow light shone through it. There had been a part of him, just barely restrained, that wanted to reach out and tuck it behind his neighbor’s ear before leaning in to kiss those soft looking lips. Restraint has always been a part of Felix, though, and he managed to hold back and put every bit of his lustful energy instead into talking to the beautiful creature beside him, hoping to leave an impression before they would likely never see each other again.

   The beautiful stranger was clearly going to be cannon fodder. And Felix? He intended to survive.

******

    The second time they meet is the one that Felix doesn’t remember. His defense there is as unimpeachable as Locus’s.

    It happens a month into training, long after they’ve been separated into their units and set to training with strangers that they learn to know. When they meet Felix sees what amounts to a man, and a serious stick in the mud soldier. The reason is a bit of ‘friendly competition’ between training units, and they’ve been selected to represent their groups in a marksmanship contest. Whether it’s a good idea or not, or a smart idea for morale probably isn’t Felix’s to comment on, but honestly? He remembers a chance to prove himself. Better. Faster. Stronger. Someone who is going to survive, and when he looks at his competition he knows they can’t win. It isn’t that they don’t look confident, or that he knows he’s the best. It’s the nervous energy around all of them.

    Except for Sir Stick-in-the-Mud standing to Felix’s right. Years later he won’t remember how tall the other recruit was, or what training division he was with or even the name stitched to his uniform. Okay, that’s not true, but only because Felix will learn it later, but he won’t know to attach it to this man. The helmet is one of the modified sharpshooter set-ups for snipers, so Felix has to assume he’s shuffled into that specialty, but if Felix knows one thing about those people in the specialized training units it’s that they don’t have the wide spread of talents that Felix has. He’s sparred with them, shot with them, drunk with them, and none of them can touch him. Not once.

    Felix, on the other hand, is loose and open, helmet off, assault rifle with training rounds resting lightly on his shoulder. The victory is already his, that’s what he knows, because even Stick-in-the-Mud can’t touch him.

    By the end of the competition he’s more than mildly impressed. That is what will stick with Felix for years. The fact that he’d come out victor by only two points. One point would be a better story, but it was two, and only because Stick had thrown his knife poorly in the final round. Felix can easily remember being carried off on the shoulders of his squadmates because of the bonus rations he’d won them and the single night of drinking, but he also remembers looking back over his shoulder.

    More than that he remembers sneaking back to the field that night and finding the set of targets that had been used for the knives. His winning throw has long since been recovered and paraded around the barracks as a trophy, festooned with ribbons that he has no clue of the origin of. What remains is the knife of Stick, his only rival in the whole thing, the crack shot that Felix had been impressed by. And he remembers what happened after he pulled it free.

    “I don’t like knives very much.”

    The voice isn’t one that Felix knows, and he jumps almost a foot, slipping immediately into a knife fighter’s crouch the second he’s stable on his feet. What he sees is that same uniform from earlier, in the dark. He can see the division patch even if he can’t pick out exactly what it says. And then the other recruit steps forward and Felix is sure it’s Stick.

    “That your excuse for losing?” Felix asks, straightening and laughing. If anything happens tonight everyone’s going to assume it was his rival at the competition, so he’s safe. Plus he’s pretty sure he can take the guy if he’s not armed.

    “No,” the stranger answers as he walks a careful circle around Felix. He’s smart, Felix will give him that, because he leaves enough space to be cautious and handle any sudden moves from Felix, but not so far away as to mark him as scared. Just… smart. “Just telling you that I don’t like them. And that you’re unlikely to get much use out of them against an Elite.”

    Like that his competitor walks away and Felix is left alone in the night with the knife. With a sigh he lifts it up to inspect for nicks like he always does with his own knives, and has to freeze when he picks up on the small, but important enough bend in the metal. The knife wouldn’t have thrown well, even for him, unless he’d known to look. Which only makes his loss by two points all the more impressive. Too bad it’s too late to get the other recruit’s name.

    Locus remembers the competition as their first meeting. Remembers the feral light in Felix’s eyes and the pure joy in his smile when he’d nailed the bullseye. There had been a beauty to the young man in that moment, such passion and joy, that instead of calling for a replacement knife, he just threw as best he could with the one he had. It was a loss he was willing to take, because the brilliance of his smile had only grown as he realized he had taken the victory, that he was the winner and Locus had fallen before him. And later that night, seeing Felix in the pale light of the two moons of the planet they were on, dangerous and wild and perfect in his form… It’s a moment he’ll never let go. So much since then has changed but it has always been the most beautiful he’s ever been to Locus.

    It was a name he carried in his mind from that day on. And one that he was proud to let engrave itself lightly on his heart. Here, at last, something to fight for. Surely something he’d lose, but better to fight for someone you thought might live than someone already dead.

******

    Both of them can agree that the third meeting is the second, for all that numbers ever really matter beyond ‘one.’ It comes the night before they are to deploy to the front.

    Someone tells to-be-Locus that it’s tradition, hell it’s damn near a right for members of the UNSC to head out and drink to celebrate their pending deployment. It strikes him as stupid, and only later when he really thinks about it as morbid. The reason? He’s pretty sure the man who sent him out was a cook. Someone who kept them fed, who had put months into getting them into the best condition through their work. Someone who cares enough to see that they get one night of drunken stupidity before their deaths.

    Still Locus goes out, and when he does it he sits at the bar as other soldiers take up every table, every bit of counter, every stretch of wall in the place. He drinks alone, contemplating his new uniform with his name on it and the new division patch on the sleeve. He’s being deployed with a normal infantry division, to some important base on a planet near the front, if not actually on it by the time Locus and the rest of the new recruits arrive.

    What he remembers is that some point during the night someone joins him. They’re both silent at first, but when he turns he finds the smiling young man from the competition. There’s a smile on his lips that seems almost slurred in a strange way, and a drink that is way too blue and has too many little umbrellas to belong in the hands of a soldier. Especially one that, from the patch on his arm, will be deployed with you. This is the kind of soldier you’re expected to trust your life to, is it?

    The introductions come sometime into his third blue drink and your second nursed beer. Felix, he tells you his name is, and you want to judge him for his hair already getting a bit longer than regulation. Only after a lot of needling do your give yours, and he laughs at it. As well call yourself by your armor he laughs, because your name is so generic. Asshole. Where you come from it was different. Unique. But, does that matter when the place is dead? But he’s confident, he’s personable, and even you start to give in to the warmth and energy of the conversation.

    He remembers laughter, warm and compelling. When Felix laughs he can’t help but smile. When the knife throwing idiot tucks a tiny yellow umbrella behind his ear, Locus even chuckles. And when Locus leaves, it’s with Felix’s arm draped over his shoulders to keep him steady.

    It’s the tattoo parlor that sticks with him. He sits through the grinning, drunken man getting their unit logo tattooed on his shoulder, and he lets himself be egged on.

    “You’ve gotta get one too,” Felix insists, his voice a soft slurring that Locus loves the sound of. It’s hot like the alcohol in his stomach, still sloshing around.

    “Don’t like needles,” to-be-Locus responds, just as terse now as he’d started, even though he finds this man so… amazingly compelling. Was before and is now with his easy smile

    “Do it,” Felix coos, reaching up for Locus’s arm and stroking it. “Come on, man, live a little. Gotta know what you fight for. Why you’re surviving. Who you fight for and with.”

    Him. For those beautiful eyes and with tat amazing aim. and against everything that had stole his life from him.

    He remembers the next words, and they leave their mark on him forever. A mistake.

    “Okay. You’re paying, right?”

    What Felix will remember as the most important moment is how Locus’s lips would taste hours later as they find time in a storage closet near Locus’s barracks. How warm Locus’s hands, and how gentle they were near the edge of the gauze covering the fresh ink. The fascination the man had in the older tattoos, kissing and sucking and nipping lightly. The way sweat had tasted on expanses of skin and the pressure of Locus’s lips and the way he’d had to silence the pleasure, as much as he wanted to give it voice.

    More than that, he will remember the importance of doing this again. And in the morning when they’re armored up and together riding off toward their fate, he remembers standing at Locus’s side and thinking his helmet was ridiculous.

******

    The fourth time might not even be properly called a meeting, but to Felix it matters more than all the rest. Because the fourth is the affirmation, an improbability. Life.

    It isn’t a memory Felix wants to carry. Yes, the violence was nice. Yes the victory was empowering. But he remembers that the fight was insane. Time stopped having meaning when he was fighting for his very survival. The values of lives of those beside you slips when they die like fucking canon fodder. They die around him in droves, falling to lucky shots and good ones and the only reason Felix can keep moving is because he’s better, faster, stronger, alive. His point is only survival, and it comes at a cost.

    The bodies of the dead don’t know names. Don’t really merit them. Their gear is pointless for them to have. Felix has no qualms in grabbing Janychek’s favorite rifle that he sleeps with as he rolls over the body and turns, bringing the gun up to take down a pair of Elites who thought he was easy pray. A survivor is what he is, one with no sense of time. It could be ten minutes, it could be five hours. It could be days.

    What he knows in the moment and remembers for years is that in the end, he isn’t alone. Not someone against him, though there is a lot of that. No, this is someone on his side. There are moments when he isn’t fast enough, when he isn’t strong enough, when he isn’t better. And in those moments where he can almost see his death coming there is the crack of a sniper rifle, or the blast of a shotgun, or a well timed grenade. The chances when he can look to find the source are rare, but when he spares half a second to look it’s always him. Always the strange helmet. Always Locus.

    In the end he remembers standing together, three shots left in his pistol, none in the last assault rifle he’s put his hands on, and the sun is rising slowly over the carnage around them. Lighting the grim reality of their struggle. Setting glowing bodies of humans and aliens alike. Felix pants and leans back against a solid weight, a solid support, the only man that is always there for him, met once more and yet anew in the field of battle. In their survival. In this powerful moment.

    “So…” he remembers saying, his voice a whisper because of how dry his throat is, and he’s actually embarrassed by how weak it is. “You come here often.”

    There’s a chuckle, equally dry, and then something’s banging on his shoulder. When he looks it’s a container of water, covered in blood. Doesn’t matter to Felix, because they’re alive, for the moment. He takes the bottle, pops the tab and lifts his helmet just long enough to take a few, hearty gulps. Then the helmet is back on and locked down, the water passed back.

    “You’re an idiot,” Locus observes softly, and Felix can hear the pride in his lover’s voice. “Don’t know how you made it.”

    “Some asshole decided it was important to save me. A number of times.”

    “How could I have survived without a competent fighter at my side?”

    Doesn’t matter what he says, or how he says it, you know what he really means, Felix. It’s the closes Locus has ever come to saying it. That either of you have. That is what really matters.

    “What a sunrise,” Felix observes as he checks his gun. Best be ready for the next wave.

    “To bad I have to share it with you.”

    Felix remembers laughing until his sides hurt.

    What Locus will always carry with him is the panic of almost losing his partner, almost losing everything he had to fight for again. In the end, when the shuttle comes with reinforcements that are needless at this point. They’re all dead. Felix isn’t, and for Locus that’s everything. In the end, on their trip back to Earth they’re given a room together, kicking an officer out of his bunk. Locus refuses to be away from his partner, or talk to other people about what happened.

    He’ll always remember the way they come together that first night of peace. Felix’s hands, always everywhere on his body, never touch his left shoulder. Never touch the tattoo and the symbol of what had brought them together. What still holds them together for this moment.

    Locus wishes he could have that back.

******

    The fifth is one they arrange, and instead of embracing or kissing, or just shedding armor and second-skin and being together, being undeniably together, they have guns trained on each other.

    Control is a hard task master, but Locus knows they can handle it. Still, the moment he sees the spot of gray and orange across the field of battle, he knows who it is. Doesn’t matter that he has to take a shot at the other man’s feet, he wants him. Wants to be close, want to feel alive. It’s been a year since they’ve seen each other because of the way this works out. Because of the way the story has to play. Rivals, former partners, not lovers aiming to bring it all down around their heads.

    The way Felix moves is with utmost grace, a predator among mindless prey. Sheep soon to slaughter.

    It doesn’t make the fact that Locus has to shoot him in the shoulder any better. He winces at the way Felix stumbles back, and then turns his gun on the soldiers on either side of him. They are nothing. They will not survive, they are not needed. Such are their orders and orders are the way they got through that battle until it was in their hands alone. Orders are what guide him, what make the complications and pains of war easier.

    What they are being ordered to do is wrong. Locus knows that. ON every level. Thing is? He doesn’t care. The joy on Felix’s face when the job had been presented had been more than enough to get him on board. And now he shoots his partner. At least, he tells himself, it’s in the shoulder. He can remember that Felix hates that shoulder, hates the tattoo. Wants to burn it off. Locus accepts it.

    And, even injured, he remembers Felix gets up and takes down a good number of additional men. When the battle is over the it’s a close one, and while they aren’t the only ones to get out, it’s a near thing.

    “Think this is going to piss off your employer?” Felix asks over their comm later, and Locus remembers the exact amount of amusement in his voice. Pleasure. He knows that voice, and knows that there’s a chance, with the panting, that Felix is getting off right now to the thought of it.

    “General Kirrat doesn’t want me losing too many men,” Locus responds. “Control thinks she’s going to be a problem.”

    “Then we’ll take her out,” Felix chuckles. “Just like mine. And…”

    The moan makes Locus shudder, mostly in frustrated need. He can’t fulfill himself right now, and Locus frowns when someone’s hand touches him on the shoulder. Locus can still hear the cry of pain from the solder when he punches the man.

    And the laughter in his ears as his lover listened and got off was…

    Perfect.

    Felix will always remember the way the rebel doctor had winced when she got his armor off and looked at the wound in his shoulder. Her whistle of appreciation had been for the fact that Locus hadn’t hit anything vital. He can remember the smile he let himself indulge in when he thought how good his lover was. Sure, he’s smarter, he’s faster, he’s even stronger in some ways, but in the end, he knows Locus matters too. Locus is fast and strong and better. They’ll live. The two of them will survive.

    That’s what matters. Nothing in the world could possibly stop them.

******

    It all happens so fast.

    No, that isn’t right. Truth be told it’s been going sideways for a while, starting with when the damn simulation troopers showed up with their fucking Freelancers. Everything goes downhill from there. It all falls apart because their fucking boss has a fucking grudge and he’s never let to do the things he needs to do, the things he wants to do, the things he should do. Put them all down like the fucking vermin they are.

    Rats and cockroaches always find a way to survive.

    So here they are, standing in the middle of the final fight of their lives.

    Felix remembers so many things in that moment. The first time they met on the shuttle on the way to basic. The bar. The battle. Chorus.

    When the guns come up Felix moves. It’s stupid, but he moves. Because he remembers so much, remembers them, remembers and.

    His body moves without him, grabs Locus and pulls him down. His arm goes up and the shield with it. And then there is pain. So much pain. Screaming through his body. Pain that darkens his vision.

    “Felix you idiot.” He can feel the voice snarl, knows it belongs to Locus. He can hear the concern.

    Concern, from Locus? It doesn’t make very much sense. In fact, it’s almost problematic. This isn’t him. Locus doesn’t worry.

    “Take ‘em out, partner,” he hears himself say. Which makes him curious. He knows he can do it. Why ask for help?

    “Felix, you can’t… please, don’t… idiot,” Locus’s voice calls out again, and Felix finds himself pushed aside. He lands on his back and calls out in pain. It’s only as he feels a hand press against his gut, sending screaming pain through his body, that he opens his eyes. That’s why it got dark apparently.

    “We had a good run,” he says. And he knows they didn’t. They failed. Locus is going to hate him for that. Fuck.

    What Locus will remember until the joined armies of Chorus put him in front of the firing squad is that he doesn’t shed any tears. That he doesn’t take any of them down because his arms were around his dying lover. That remembering doesn’t really matter anymore when he doesn’t have anyone to remember. He’s lost what matters, once again, and this time he won’t bounce back.

    In the end, he regrets never even saying goodbye.