It's never specified, but this is all in Locus's POV. Also, there is one phrase in here that's repeated a few times; "Bacio della morte". That's italian for "Kiss of death'.
You don't do partner missions, most of the time. They slow you down, and yes, you know that's a conceited way of thinking, but it's true.
The name on the page in front of you is Felix McScouty. It sounds fake. Your gut tells you it isn't.
You don't know which one to listen to.
So you don't listen at all.
Bad luck seems to follow you around.
Whenever you plan an objective, you fail, whenever you improvise, things go wrong. It's a miracle you're still alive, really. You've learned to keep your mouth shut by now, to listen and take commands without absolute precision. Some hate you for it.
You don't blame them.
You feel like you know him without having known him at all.
He's easy to understand, because you've seen his type before, all ego and no drive, with absurd amounts ink and metal plastered across his ivory skin.
He catches you staring and has the nerve to wink at you, and you can't hold back the short sigh that falls from your parted lips.
You know how this will go, because it's the same way they all go, a moments hesitation and a gunshot, alone in the darkness with no one around to hear them scream.
You will kill him, when you are told, and you will be told, of that, you are certain. People like him are a hazard, a walking hurricane with the devil on it's heels.
You've stared the demons in the eyes before, and here you are, alive and planning your next encounter, watching the way he twists the knife through his fingers with practiced ease.
You could smile, but you don't, because you are a proffesional, and you are going to act like one.
Until the end, bacio della morte.
You scream his name over the roar of the battelfield, and no, this is not how you planned it, not at all. Your heart pounds in your chest, cold fire burning across your body. It leaves scorch marks on you like the blowtorch does on him, except yours are buried deep beneath the surface, locked away in a place where no one will ever see them.
He's a mercenary, not a martyr, and as you hold his twisted spine in place and pray that someone can hear you over the radio, you realize that you don't want him to die, and you can't let him.
He doesn't die, and somehow you feel a little more alive because of it.
You kiss him, once, alone in a storage bunker beneath an abandonned facility, because you tell him to shut up and he says "Make me", so it's a cliche but you do it anyway. He grins against your lips and you let him take it from there, curiousity interlaced with desire in the back of your mind.
You don't gain anything from it, because by the end, you still don't know how you feel.
He asks you once if you have sinned, and you laugh aloud. Of course you have, this is war, Felix, not another one of your childish games of make believe that you seem to need to accept reality.
He calls you a coward, almost like he knew what you were thinking, and you call him a liar.
And that's just how it is.
He shows you a map of a battlefield and draws lines across it in red sharpie. You tell him his strategy is flawed, so he scoffs at you, and you know he doesn't respect you and won't listen, but you simply shrug and walk away, because it's stopped bothering you somewhere down the road.
You forget to tell him that you'd follow him anywhere.
You belong here, in the army, gun in hand and bleeding from several different places. It's what you were built for.
You were an obedient child, and that's haunted you to this day, because all you can do is keep your head above the tide and follow orders when they are given.
You don't know what that makes you.
And maybe this makes you a coward, but you don't really want to find out.
Are you in love with him? Yes, of course you are, you always have been. How could you not? He's the perfect contrast to who you are, who you've been and who will be, a twisted blend of rythym and strength and darkness.
He's a storm, an unforgiving wave of chaos and destruction. Something beautiful but something bitter, a prisoner finally free from the cages he's built around himself.
He's an animal, a creature of fury but without a concept of mercy or forgiveness.
And for that, you love him, with all your flaws and your anger and sorrow, because you understand him, and he understands you.
And if you shall fall, it must be by his hand, bacio della morte.
A soldier, that is what you are, and you will meet your end here, broken and bloody but without fear, because you will have known you did something right.
Broken and bloody are both things that you can use to describe yourself, but right now, right here, you are more afraid than you have ever been in your life.
So you won't die, not yet, you will take a bullet and continue on because that is who you're supposed to be, and more importantly, that is who you are.
You keep on going, this time.
But you know your time is running out.
Blood pools around your body, a choked laugh escaping your lips. Kiss of death, you think, bacio della morte, because that is exactly what he is, what he turned out to be, in the end.
You trusted him.
You were a fool.
And now here you are, broken and bloody and without fear, because you know this is how it's supposed to end.
He leans down to press his lips to your red-stained cheek, and he whispers something you don't understand. The irony of that is not lost on you, since you never really understood him anyway.
You grin.
Some soldier you turned out to be.
But there is one order you still have yet to follow.
You press the barrel of your gun to his stomach and watch him freeze, dark eyes widening with surprise and realization."Kiss of death." You murmur, in some cross language between english and italian, because that is what you have become now, too, and you pull the trigger.
After all, misery loves company.
And if you're going down, you'll be damned if he's not coming with you.