Written for the March 2018 Angst War on Tumblr. Prompt- Locus trying to piece Wash and Carolina back together after saving them.

As soon as Locus disengages her armour lock, Carolina crumbles to the ground like a cut puppet. The sound of metal crashing on concrete reverberates.

She groans, and he awkwardly pulls her by the armpits to lean against the wall. When he clicks the cyan helmet from her head (her red hair is longer than it was on Chorus, and spills out like a cascade of blood) there are dark circles under her eyes, and she is crying, from pain or sheer, unadulterated relief at being rescued, he can't be sure.

He purposefully turns away as she wipes limply at the tears, and shakes, and gasps.

With Washington he prepares better, and catches him before the legs give out. Wash mumbles how Locus is quite strong for a hallucination and how he's forgotten about the X across his helmet and the green shade of his armour, and goes on about the character Big Bird from Sesame Street (a show Locus hasn't thought about for decades). The man's eyes are clouded and unfocused, his lips dry and cracking. He oozes mad desperation.

Locus notes he has grown a beard in the months since Chorus, but files that fact away as low priority.

He pulls the canteen from his belt and steadies Wash by the neck to pour water down his throat. Carolina insists on doing it herself, yet spills half the bottle on the floor with a thunk and gurgle.

Locus knows better than to try to help.

"Who were they?" he asks, and gestures behind. His HUD shows no other life signs from the other suits in the room, and he is curious.

"Friends," Wash yells.

"Freelancers," Carolina grits.

Locus blinks. It makes logical sense, to find Freelancers among Freelancers- but in another, far less reasonable way, it makes no sense at all.

It is surreal. They'd been super soldiers with advanced training and technology far above the average soldier, and a prerogative to end the War by any means necessary. He'd fought against them and briefly beside them on Chorus, and witnessed the result of Project Freelancer first hand (with the added strength of friendship and kindness, elements of humanity Locus and Felix had lethally underestimated.)

And yet all that strength and cunning and resourcefulness had them led here, to this room on a secret base beneath an ocean- either reduced to statues, their decayed flesh probably partly preserved by the pressure seal on their suits, or flailing weakly like newborn birds on the floor.

There is something strange in seeing them so much less, something he can't put into words. Empathy has never been a strong suit of his, but he feels it now- to let someone wallow in their own filth, atrophying while trapped inside armour designed to keep them alive (only prolonging suffering), so reduced by the deprivation of food, water and movement seems beyond inhuman.

It's a wholly undignified fate.

Locus isn't stupid- he does know that despite their training and the luck they'd had on Chorus, Washington, Carolina and their peers are not infallible. They are human- they bleed and break and die same as anyone. The evidence is right before his eyes.

(Not that Locus can boast a moral high ground with his past, but he has never killed in such a cowardly way.)

He is silent as he snaps off pieces of ration bars, and feeds them to Wash and Carolina as though they are children. He is careful not to give them more than their tortured stomachs can handle, and careful that they swallow correctly down their dry throats. There is no point in surviving hell just to choke on recovery.

A bare spark of light returns to each of their eyes.

"We need to go," he says.

What slithers through the filters on his helmet reeks of the too familiar smells of death and prolonged decay. Both Agent Washington and Agent Carolina emanate sweat, excrement and rot. They need to find Grif, Lopez, and the rest of the Reds and Blues. They need to bring down whoever has done this.

But before all else, they need to leave this cursed Freelancer tomb.

Carolina nods vigorously, and grabs for her helmet. Washington tries to do the same with wide unfocused eyes, and misses with a clunk. Locus does it for him.

He throws Wash over his shoulder fireman style and pulls Carolina along his free arm slung around her middle. They lumber out the door like some strange many-legged, stinking creature.

Locus pulls them down corridors and up stairs, as quickly and quietly as a mumbling delusional man, a stoic, yet stumbling woman and a paranoid ex-mercenary clutching a gun and waiting for an attack around every corner can be.

Locus looks ahead; he has no other choice. He thinks Wash and Carolina will be alright, hopefully with no lasting consequences. He thinks Grif and Lopez have found the others by now, and escape and justice should be soon at hand.

The room of death behind stays in his mind, though- it sticks like mud or a burrowing parasite. The universe has once again proven its cruelty.

I'm a little ehh on this. I cut a lot of ideas and rushed a lil to meet the deadline. But also I really like the present tense and emphasis on sound I ended up going with. Let me know what you guys think. :)