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He knows Felix is dead.
The sword turned on moments after he vanished from sight. There is no room for doubt. And Locus—is he still Locus? Locus was a suit of armor, and he can't pretend that's what he is any more—thinks he should be relieved. Glad, even.
It's not going to make up for his crimes—he doesn't think he can ever make up for that, can never make things truly right even if he tries, retribution will not bring back the dead that litter Chorus, it will not rebuild Armonia, will not remove the bullets from the civilians he murdered in the war. But allowing Felix to die was a step forward to preventing even more death.
Still, he is not glad or relieved. And he doesn't know why he goes to find the body.
He finds his ex-partner at the bottom of the tower, a mess of blood and broken bones. Locus would guess that the way his neck had twisted had done the job.
Locus unclasps Felix's helmet, revealing the face underneath. Felix's face, even in death, still has traces of the twisted expression of fear and rage that he must have been wearing as he fought. As he fell. His eyes are dull and lifeless, and Locus remembers how lively his eyes would be as he laughed and sharpened his knives and talked about how he'd have so much money after this job that he could buy himself a moon.
The lack of light in his eyes is what confirms his death more than any piece of alien tech could.
Locus removes his own helmet, too. Unclasps the piece of equipment that had been his face, his name, his identity, for so long. He throws it aside carelessly, and it landed in the dust with a hollow thunk.
He knows it had to happen. He knows he made it happen, if only through inaction. But regret and grief floods him anyway.
Regret that he allowed it, even if it was right. Regret that he couldn't—or wouldn't—talk Felix out of it, even though he knows it never would have worked. Grief for a man who'd twisted him, touched his shoulder whenever Locus started to waver and directed him back towards their mission—no, slaughter, he had to call it what it was. For a man who'd told him that if someone required rescue that they didn't deserve it, and then fallen victim to his own belief when Locus had thrown his weapon at Felix's feet and said 'no more.'
He'd always known Felix was a monster, and it had almost been a reassurance. Because he was not like Felix, and if he wasn't like Felix, that meant he couldn't be a monster. He'd lived in comfortable lies, stared only at their superficial differences to stop him from facing the truth that he was exactly the same, but without the bravery to admit it. He'd known Felix wasn't a soldier. He just hadn't wanted to think about what that made him.
Locus half-sat, half-fell next to Felix. He shifted over and dragged the body into his lap. He did nothing else except sit there for a while, blankly cradling the corpse and staring at those dead eyes.
It was easy to see the puppet strings that Felix tied to others to make them dance, but he was so focused on those strings that he never saw the ones attached to his own arms. Or maybe he did, and ignored them because it was easier to live with himself that way. He could have broken out of it, if he'd been willing to untangle himself from the web of comfort that was giving up his agency, the web that Felix slowly added to with words both gentle and harsh.
So maybe he didn't grief for Felix at all, simply for the comfort that he provided, even if that comfort had come at the cost of lives. Maybe he grieved for having a person at his back who, despite bitter words and mockery, never judged him because what room did Felix have to judge when he was just as bad? No matter what came in the future, Locus would never have that again, and deservedly so. Or maybe he really did grieve for a partner who had once been so full of life even as he took life away from others, no matter how irrational it was to care. Maybe he only grieved because change was a terrifying thing, and Felix had been a constant for so long.
He knew he should feel only hatred or disgust, especially now that he couldn't ignore Felix's manipulations.
He remembered the past with clear eyes now, saw Felix turning up at the apartment that Locus had retreated to once the war was done. He remembered that Felix had new scars. One along the side of his face. Bullet wounds elsewhere. More than he'd picked up while they were together in the army.
He remembered Felix offering him a job, remembered saying no because he just… he didn't know why he'd said no at first. It hadn't been like Chorus. It had been a legitimate mission.
He hadn't been doing anything in his apartment. He'd been stuck in a grey haze. He hadn't had food in the fridge. He remembered Felix leaving and returning with food, muttering disparaging things under his breath. He remembered that he was always tired but he never wanted to sleep. He remembered Felix shoving a glass of water and sleeping pills into his hands, and bitter words when the gentle—well, gentle for Felix—words hadn't made him take the pills and go to sleep.
He remembered the war much clearer than those days.
But he remembered that Felix left after he rejected the job, stayed away for weeks or months, then turned up again. It repeated. Locus remembered that it was all that seemed to stick out during those hazy months. He remembered off-hand comments about the war and about their mutual past. About how difficult civilian life was. Drawing parallels while always keeping them distant enough or mixing in enough of his usual arrogance or disdain to avoid making them too similar.
Locus had once told him to ask someone else. But Felix had said, “We just work so well together.” He'd said it like a joke, but Felix said everything like a joke.
It hadn't taken much. Locus had wanted an excuse to not think about what he'd done. He saw Felix holding the puppet strings out, waiting for Locus to hold out his arms so Felix could bind them together.
Every time he visited, Felix offered him a different job. It was the fourth job that Locus finally agreed to help him on, and then they were partners for good. Even when the jobs slowly got into murkier territories, Locus never questioned it. Whenever his attention wandered too close, Felix would touch his shoulder in between the plates of armor and say something to steer him back on course.
Hindsight was an interesting thing.
Locus breathed in the air around him. He couldn't remember the last time he'd had his helmet off in the open. It was fresh here, but he could smell the tinge of copper coming from the blood leaking out of Felix's suit.
He didn't know precisely what would come next. He knew he wanted to try and fix what he'd done, even though it was a futile effort. Even though it would be much harder than the state of comfortable denial that he'd lived in for years. Even though no-one would thank him, he wouldn't deserve it even if they did, and he was likely to end this journey in a jail cell or facing a firing squad.
He would try to make things right, nonetheless. That was all he could do. That was all he wanted to do. But for the moment?
The man who'd pretended at being nothing but a suit of armor for so long pressed his forehead to Felix's and he let it all overwhelm him. He indulged in the human emotions he'd neglected to acknowledge for so long. And despite everything Felix had been, everything he'd done, everything they'd both done… he cried.
He would grieve. If only for this moment.