Chapter Text
The way that Locus came to be in Red Base seemed, at the time, incredibly logical: it’d just seemed like Locus kept running into the Reds and Blues—not intentionally, he swore it was nothing intentional, the Reds and Blues just seemed to attract trouble that way. And over time, he'd realized that A’rynasea was burnt out from hyperspeeding across the galaxy every other day in pursuit of whatever criminal tail he could unearth, and Lopez, as if sensing Locus's mishandling of his ship, sent him an angry email insulting him and his abuelita and his criminal treatment of his ship, demanding that Locus either bring it in for repair and to visit Grif's "lonely carcass" or never show his ugly mug to Lopez’s visual processors again.
So when Lopez demanded that Locus stay planetside until the ship was fixed, and when Lopez went and got himself decapitated again, the Reds and Blues saw, apparently, nothing wrong with accepting a murderer into their home until Lopez could be repaired.
“You saved Wash and all," Tucker tells Locus. "Just stick to the Base rules and we’re chill, and even the Base rules are chill."
Locus is already prepared to stay as far out of the simtroopers’ way as he can. He’ll sustain himself on minimal contact with Lopez and whatever food rations he still has in the glovebox. He is prepared to accept whatever rules they’ve got set up, because he doubts he’ll be in contact with them long enough to ever need to abide by them.
What comes out of Tucker’s mouth is: “Rule number one of hanging out with us simtroopers is that Grif and Simmons are not fucking, and everyone is very, very irritated by this.”
Tucker’s first statement should have told Locus exactly how fast he should have gotten off-planet, Lopez or no Lopez. But he, like the stubborn fool that he is, thought he could survive.
“This doesn’t seem like anyone’s business but theirs,” Locus says, in a carefully neutral voice.
Donut makes a doubtful noise. “Yeah, but, see, when you live in the same space as them, and when you go to all the same events as them, and eat all your meals with them, and sometimes when you sleep next door to them…”
“The sexual tension ,” says Tucker. “Like, fuck .”
“Or the lack of fucking, to be precise!” Donut chirps.
“Been going on for years,” says Tucker.
“Probably ever since Basic,” says Donut. “Or maybe the time they got drunk-married in the Vegas Quadrant?”
“They’re married ?” Locus echoes.
“Probably!” Donut says.
“Don’t get my hopes up with shit about them being married, Donut, damn,” says Tucker.
What the fuck says a tiny voice in Locus’s brain.
“If anyone could ignore their own marriage certificate, it’d be them,” says Donut morosely.
“See?” says Tucker, gesturing to Locus’s face, which is wearing an expression Locus is unsure of because he’s never really felt this level of disbelief before. “Being really salty that Grif and Simmons aren’t fucking is not a hard rule to follow. Wash lasted like, a week before he chucked a TV remote at their door. Carolina would have killed them within a day if she hadn’t been too wrapped up in her shit to know what was happening in anyone else’s life.”
“I HEARD THAT,” comes Carolina’s voice from the next room, followed immediately by a series of Washington’s shoosh-papping noises.
“That’s why it’s the General Simtroopers Rule, instead of a team-specific rule,” says Donut, “like the list of Blue Team rules.”
Locus is ninety-nine percent sure this is nonsense, but the one percent just won’t die. “And what are the Blue Team rules?”
“Rule number one of being on Blue Team is that you have to go to morning training with Wash or he’ll be sad,” says Tucker. “But I guess considering your track record on Chorus, seeing more of Wash sweaty in gym shorts would be fine with y—”
“I’ll stay at Red Base,” says Locus quickly.
“First rule of being on Red Team,” says Sarge—
“I’m not joining your team,” says Locus. “I’m here until you repair your robot, who then repairs my ship.”
“—is that you listen to me no matter what I say! Absolute rank and file! Supreme military might! Complete adoration for myself and my military prowess—”
“First rule of being on Red Team,” Grif interrupts, “is your drama is petty and stupid, your plans and ideas are big and stupid, and everything you say and do is inconsequential, mundane, and stupid.”
“That’s like, five rules,” says Simmons. “Why’s Grif making the rules, now? Isn’t that a violation of rule 3, subsection 7, particle E through G?”
Grif points at Simmons. “A prime example,” says Grif.
“Shut up,” says Simmons, and tries to look irritated and not immensely pleased with Grif’s good-natured teasing. Grif, on the other hand, nudges Simmons with an elbow and leans back and tries to cover his own sappy smile.
Sarge grunts and sighs. Donut gives Locus a knowing look from under his glitter mascara and rolls his eyes.
Locus feels Simtrooper Rule Number One punch him straight in the gut.
He wasn’t prepared.
He hadn’t known.
This level of denial of sexual tension shouldn’t be physically possible.
In the following weeks, Locus regrets every moment he’s ever spent thinking that Simtrooper Rule Number One was a joke, because it’s real. Grif and Simmons are, in Tucker’s words, not fucking , and it is irritating, and painful, and makes Locus feel twenty kinds of sexually-repressed just by association, and because Locus can’t bring himself to go to Blue Base, it’s in his face every single day .
Especially since “in Locus’s face” is where Grif lately prefers to reside.
“—and I was super worried that we’d never see each other again!” says Grif. “You’re always doing that thing where you’re, staring directly into the camera and giving this incredible impression of being like ‘you’re never going to see me again because fuck you’ and I’m like, NO, C’MON, who else am I supposed to talk to like this—”
“Good to see you too,” says Locus.
“But you’ve only just got back! We have so much to catch up on! Oh, oh, I have huge news, because yesterday Simmons wore mismatched socks for like the first time I’d ever seen in maybe sixteen years and it was the best ? One was maroon and the other one was pink and I wasn’t even jealous that pink is Donut’s color because did I say jealous? That’d be weird, why would I be jealous? Anyway he’s always so snickety about being really neat all the time, it was such an out of body experience to see him with mismatched socks like he’d woken up groggy and forgot to care about the color of his socks, especially since usually when he’s groggy in the morning he’s too tired to get snippy and it’s really nice? Honestly when it comes to him being chill about his wardrobe, I don’t think I’ve ever seen him in sweats ever , which is really such a shame—”
“I've been well, thank you,” says Locus.
“—because if you ask me, sweats are really hot in the sense that when you see someone wearing sweats you can feel how relaxed they’re being, you know? You know that hey, this person is being good to themselves, treating themselves right by having a day of relaxation. And if anyone needs to be more relaxed, it’s Simmons! And when I said that sweats are hot I mean temperature hot, right, you know what I mean, has nothing to do with the fact that Simmons has these really really long legs—”
Locus eventually slinks away to find Lopez, where they can gossip safely behind the protection of their personal language barrier.
Locus finds Lopez in the clutches of Private Richard Simmons himself.
“And sometimes he’ll say things and I don’t know what they mean?” Simmons says to Lopez’s disembodied head, puttering a bowl of grains and various almond milks around the kitchen. “Like one time Grif was like, hey Simmons do you wanna go out, and I was like do I what ? And he was like obviously I meant go out to the beach, I think Sarge is having a cook-off with Carolina on the grill, and I’m like. Yes, right, obviously, of course that’s what you meant! But Lopez, I just—is it just me? Am I losing my mind? C’mon, Lopez, I know you probably have some secret Hispanic wisdom locked up in there. What does he mean when he says ‘let’s go out’? Is it a code ? Pig latin? Oh, christ, do I have to learn Spanish? Is that it? Is he speaking Spanish and ‘let’s go out’ is just a bunch of Spanish words that mean something entirely different in English—”
“Ayuadame (Help me),” says Lopez.
Simmons turns around to put the almond milk in the fridge. Locus snatches Lopez’s head from the kitchen table and books it.
Locus returns to the hallway. Grif is there.
“Locus so the other day I asked Simmons to go out with me but I didn’t mean it in a gay way but the way he looked at me was—”
“Mierda ( Shit ),” says Lopez. “¡Retirada! ( Retreat! )”
Locus can run, but he can’t hide. Red Base is only so big. Grif and Simmons are everywhere, and they never stop: round and round and round each other, like planets in orbit, locked in permanent rotation and never to collide.
“Si la Base Roja es tan mala, ve a Base Azul ( If Red Base is so bad, go to Blue Base ),” Lopez says sourly. “Tienes piernas, ¿verdad? ( You’ve got legs, don’t you? )”
Locus thinks about Private Tucker saying You have to go to morning training with Wash or he’ll be sad. “I can’t,” says Locus.
“Eres tan patético como el resto de nosotros ( You’re as pathetic as the rest of us ),” says Lopez.
Locus looks at him.
“Oh Dios, por favor no me mates ( Oh god please don’t kill me ),” says Lopez.
Locus leaves him be and returns to brooding, dreading the moment he walks around another corner and inevitably runs into Grif. This is it, Locus thinks. In all of Locus’s years of waltzing around with Felix and aspiring to become a walking assault rifle, he’s finally found the true descent into madness.
Why. Aren’t. They. Fucking .
By the time Locus reaches the end of the first week, Washington personally congratulates him on not having killed either Grif or Simmons. He offers it in his level, neutral voice, the one without ego, the sort of voice Locus had once mistaken for emotionless. It’s very soothing, which is what makes it so awful.
“Not, um, sarcastically,” Washington is saying. “I know that watching those two can be, er…”
Locus is convinced that the less words he speaks in Washington’s presence, the less of a fool of himself he’ll make. He grumbles in lieu the many, many uncharitable word suggestions he could offer.
Washington, like he’d heard them all, finishes with amusement: “I know it can be an experience.”
Locus glares at his own tea mug like it’s been gaslighting him over his PTSD for the better part of a decade, or maybe was responsible for getting Locus in a cramped kitchen with Agent Washington for more than three seconds. They feel comparable, at the moment.
“Okay, that’s a thinking face,” says Washington. “...Probably.”
Locus stands up and leaves.
Not because he’s avoiding Washington, that time. He gets up and leaves because he's decided: he’s going to put an end to this nonsense between Grif and Simmons.
He's not avoiding Washington. He isn't.
The next time Locus sees Grif, Grif is bouncing a volleyball on his knees. The sight of it is a relief: the tangible reminder that Locus did, once, have an extended conversation with Grif on A’rynasea will make this conversation easier.
“Grif,” Locus says.
“Huh?” says Grif, and looks up. “Oh, hey, Locus! Hey! What a surprise, fancy meeting you here, what’s up—”
“You need to stop talking,” Locus says, very clearly, “and make out with Simmons.”
Oh, christ, Locus thinks to himself, the instant he says it. This is why Felix was the people person.
“What,” says Grif.
“Do it,” says Locus, because maybe he can fix it if he just... keeps going?
“W-w-wait a minute,” Grif stammers, “that’s not—”
“Yes, it is,” says Locus.
“What makes you think I’d even want to—”
“Everything,” says Locus.
“But I’ve never even thought of—”
“You have,” says Locus.
“Don’t do that!” Grif cries. “It’s scary when you read my mind!”
“I’m not ,” says Locus. “You’re broadcasting your crush on Private Simmons from your pores .”
“Uh, ew, dude,” says Grif. “Also, no, I don’t have a crush, I don’t know what you’re talking about, and nobody calls it a crush because we’re not middle school girls.”
“You’re broadcasting your fervent and palpable ongoing unconsummated but not unrequited love affai—”
“THIS IS WORSE,” Grif says.
“What would you call it?” Locus says, with an affronted huff.
“NOT. THAT,” says Grif. “Nobody uses words like ‘unconsummated’ and ‘not unrequited’—which, by the way, it totally isn’t—”
“I’m highly doubtful that you two have consummated anything.”
“I meant the requited part!” Grif interrupts.
Locus’s eyebrows shoot upwards.
“What,” says Grif.
Locus’s eyebrows remain exactly where they are.
“ What ,” says Grif.
“You think,” Locus says, “he doesn’t feel the same way.”
Grif’s face begins to twitch. “I—no, I—I don’t think anything, because I don’t have a—a—a crush, I…”
Locus waits.
“I don’t…” Grif tries again, just before his face crumples.
Locus waits.
Grif, too, says nothing for a long moment, before he looks over his shoulder—nobody there, of course—and points a finger up at Locus’s face. “You take this to your grave,” he says.
He means it, Locus knows. Not, of course, that Grif has any means of enforcing this threat, and the threat is especially amusing considering Locus’s six-foot-four versus Grif’s five-foot-five frame, but Locus appreciates the earnestness. Likes it, even, if Locus were in the habit of using such sentimental phrases.
“Swear it,” Grif says.
“Everyone knows, Grif,” Locus says.
“Swear it anyway!”
“I swear,” says Locus, because this is just one of those things that would soothe a soul to hear.
Grif relaxes, just a bit. Does another glance around and ducks his head. “Okay, yeah,” he says, lowly. “Fine. I’ve got a… a crush. Or whatever you call it. But it’s not gonna go anywhere, because Simmons is obviously straight as an arrow, so it’s not the kind of thing you hope for. Okay? Now let’s just leave it alone and forget this conversation ever happened.”
The idea that Simmons is straight is so laughable that Locus almost does laugh, but Locus also knows that the instant Grif realizes Locus has a sense of humor, he’ll never let it go. Locus, instead, crosses his arms. “Giving up before you try is bad form.”
“Yeah, well, that’s me,” says Grif, “the king of bad form.”
“I don’t understand,” Locus begins, “how you can’t see that Simmons is just as interested—”
“I don’t know what I see! Okay?!” Grif hisses. Locus, vaguely, acknowledges that the rapid change in personality and aggression would be alarming, if he’d known Grif better and for longer and wasn’t so entirely unthreatened by a single one of the simtroopers. “I know I’m fucking—I’m fucking balls off the walls in love with the shithead! The runty nerdy kiss-ass! Alright?! So I know, because I can be real with myself, that any signals I think I see from Simmons are just be wishful thinking. I’m not gonna let myself play myself. It’d just be sad, and depressing, and awkward for everyone. I’m not gonna do that to us when we’ve got a good thing going.”
This is the sort of distrust in one’s own reality that gets everyone in trouble, Locus thinks—or or perhaps this is the ugly related cousin, which is the absolute conviction that reality is always the worst and most hopeless version of itself because of a fear of vulnerability. The sort of distrust that breeds wild insecurity, in both hope and in oneself. He’s acquainted with it.
But because he knows it, he also knows this is the sort of distrust that can only be disproved with the firmest of evidences. Uncertainty must be eliminated beyond a shadow of a doubt.
“What,” says Grif, nervously, when Locus’s silence stretches into long, awkward staring.
“I’m going to go ask Private Simmons what he thinks,” says Locus, and turns to leave.
“NO THE FUCK YOU ARE NOT,” Grif snaps.
“What would you like to do, then?” Locus demands. “Sit here in stalemate for another fifteen years?”
“Yes! Absolutely! It’s worked wonders for us so far!”
They must have very different definitions of “worked wonders,” then. Locus says instead: “Even though I, and several of your peers, can attest to the fact that there is a significant chance that your feelings are not unrequited?”
Grif hesitates.
Locus waits.
“I don’t believe you,” Grif says quietly.
Of course he doesn’t. Locus sighs and laces his fingers together and closes his eyes.
“Don’t make that face,” says Grif. “How do you think I feel? Like, I’d… I’d be up for it, I’d be…”
Another hesitation.
Grif’s voice is barely audible: “I’d jump at a chance to take the plunge,” Grif mumbles. “But without proof that it won’t just fuck everything up? No way. Absolutely no damn way, dude.”
Locus, without sound, sighs.
Locus is no stranger to this: the waiting game, the paralysis, the desperate determination to survive a seemingly-intolerable situation. Can’t fight, can’t go forward, can’t go back; can only hold, suspended, for as long as you can stand. Stasis is the worst sort of death. At least in the coffin, you can change to earth and ash in peace. Fear and paralysis were Locus’s company for nearly a decade, and made Felix, of all people, preferable.
What Locus means is that he sympathizes, in the most abstract sense, with the crumpled-up, exhausted despair in the corners of Grif's eyes.
And in the interest of learning from his past mistakes and relieving others of potentially making the same, what he does is, with the least amount of hesitation he can manage, put a hand on Grif’s back: the first kind, voluntary physical touch he’d done since… since Felix still went by Gates? It hits him like a shock. The solid skin beneath Grif’s T-shirt is poisonously warm against Locus’s dry palm.
Touch without intent to kill still feels wrong, but one of his first mistakes had been thinking that that meant he should learn to tolerate Felix's fingers.
“Aw, shit, dude,” says Grif, looking down, and sighs. Locus can feel breath inside Grif’s body. “Thanks.”
Locus doesn’t even know how to begin to respond. There’s only so many words in the English language, and no sentence could start with untangling the entirety of how ineffective a touch and a thank you could be to the uselessness of Locus, who’s wrecked hundreds of thousands of lives, expressing a kind sentiment to a singular person, let alone the uselessness of wishing Locus could stop thoroughly liking having nonsensical, irreversible, endless, impossible missions hanging over his head.
So he doesn’t say anything. He stands there, doing nothing at all, feeling Grif pull himself together under Locus’s hand. The gesture might be worth something to Grif, at the very least. And that’s not all bad.
Within two hours, everyone in the base thinks Grif and Locus are fucking.