circle7 | ACTION TIME

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ACTION TIME

The two days had come and gone since Locke stayed over at Weiler's. He was tipsy when Weiler had called that night and made their two day check-in rule - not that he forgot, but he couldn't stop the nagging feeling that something was off when he went to bed that night.

On the morning of the third day, he remembered.

The rule was to get out. He tried calling Weiler once, in case he had forgotten his own rule, but Locke was sure by now that it wasn't like him. It was all the sign he needed when the call went straight to voice mail. He headed right out the door of his room, only gathering his pistol and communicator. Through the bustling of the soldiers' morning routines, he managed to keep himself fairly blended in. No one seemed to be looking on him any differently. Locke was on the last stretch of the emergency escape route of Gladsheim's base - for Circle members, that was - when someone called his name.

His real name.

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Vercelli was on the ground again. A featherweight in contrast to Locke, the toss had landed him a good three feet from the door. He caught his fall on his knees and palms, looking like a discombobulated lump of limbs as he tried to gather himself in a stand immediately after. The fall delayed him long enough for Locke to make it through the doorway.

That didn't stop Vercelli from trying to stop him, though. Vercelli charged the door as it was closing, and while he wasn't able to shoulder his way through the gap between the closing doors, he attempted to stop them by way of force by sticking his foot at the base of the cap and prying the doors apart with his fingers. Unfortunately for Vercelli, the door didn't have a safety lock.

"AUUGHHH."

"Idiot," Locke mumbled breathlessly, smashing the lock code into the panel. Vercelli would be stuck there a while. "Hope you don't have plans for the next minute, Captain."

Vercelli had been able to work his fingers out of the vice of the door, and although significantly sore, he was able to ball them into a fist and pound against the sheet of metal separating him from Locke. His toe hadn't been so lucky. It was probably very broken.

"I'LL KILL YOU, BASTARD."

Locke rolled his eyes, heading on his way to the cells. There was a slight limp to his run from the twisting of his leg, and he ached in various places now, but there was no time to accommodate pain. That door would open back up in less than a minute.

At the cells, Locke hid himself behind a corner, cursing that he didn't grab a weapon before getting here. There were two guards to each side of the door, clearly on alert after the alarms went off. (He didn't realize the two were actually on the Circle's side; two agents that managed to slip under the radar of the military's sudden rat sweep.)

Because there was a commotion everywhere, it was nearly impossible for Locke to hear the pair of footsteps running rapidly in his direction until they were almost on him, and even then, they neither slowed down nor made any attempt to fall lighter for the sake of stealth. In fact, the body that bumped full into him was turned such that it was their backs that collided, resulting in an awkward tangle of ankles and feet as whoever it was tried to pry themselves away.

After that, if Locke was expecting a blow or the end of a tazer on par with what he had experienced with Vercelli, he was sorely mistaken, but not by too much. The next thing that collided with him was the end of a gun barrel, pointed but not jabbed into the middle of his chest. It shook a little, like the hands that were holding it were having difficulty stabilizing its weight, maybe because the fingers on one of them looked awkwardly bent and swollen, like someone had grabbed hold of a joint and pressed just a little too far the wrong way.

Gray eyes widened. Weiler sucked in a short breath. "Nic...Locke."

The first thing Locke registered was a gun pointed at him, and he froze, hands up in surrender. The second was familiar blonde hair (thrown out of its usual pristine state) and gray eyes. His shoulders sagged with temporary relief, exhaling.

"Weiler," he said, glancing from his face to his hands, "it'd be nice if you stopped pointing that at me."

Weiler laughed under his breath, more an expulsion of air than anything, and lowered his arms. "Which cell were you in? I didn't see them take you in."

"They didn't," he clarified, easing the both of them to their feet. "How did you- actually, let's get out of here first. Are you injured anywhere else?"

"It's not-" Weiler's eyes narrowed suspiciously. That didn't make sense.

"If you weren't arrested, how come you're here? All Circle members are supposed to make a beeline for an escape pod."

"Got blocked off," Locke said quickly. "Had to improvise. You coming or not?"

The look of suspicion persisted for only a second - perhaps a remnant of an instinct that had all but faded to be vestigial in present company. Weiler sagged a little where he stood, rubbing his cheek with his good hand. "Yeah, I'm'-"

And then he all but fell forward as his knees buckled, going down like a puppet with its strings cut.

Weiler was still conscious, eyes going a little wide as if he were surprised at the sudden motion himself, but the explanation was more than obvious upon closer inspection. There was a blooming red patch near the middle of his back, off to the left just a little, staining his rumpled dress shirt an unappealing pink. Thankfully, he caught himself on Locke's arm before he could plant his face into the unforgiving ground, however.

"Bloody hell," he mumbled, barely catching Weiler in a way that didn't bump against the wound. The man was light, at least, easy to situate again. Locke was growing anxious, though, with their narrowing time and being in the middle of a dead-end hallway.

He didn't wait for permission - Locke carefully, but swiftly, pulled Weiler's arms over his shoulders so he could ease him up onto his back. He hooked his arms under his legs and adjusted him.

"I hope you can aim from up there," Locke said.

"Whoa, easy there, cowboy," Weiler muttered, steadying a hand on Locke's shoulder as he was spontaneously manhandled. Apparently he fell back to archaic terms when either flirting or injured. Nothing seemed to shock him out of his ability to make light of the situation, though. "Didn't ask for a ride, but I suppose I can't complain."

He steadied his injured hand against Locke's other shoulder, looping his good arm around Locke's neck. This was and felt a bit ridiculous, but this was a better alternative to walking, which would jostle the deep bullet graze on his back a little more than he really needed to. Considering Locke himself didn't seem armed, it was a good compromise as any.

Or so it could be rationalized.

Weiler looked down at the back of Locke's head. "Were you looking for me?"

There was a long silence as he checked around the corner.

"Don't be stupid," Locke said, a little quieter. "It's against emergency protocol."

A heavy sigh followed that, and Weiler fell against Locke more heavily than would suggest he was only doing it out of jest.

"That's disappointing. Dashing all my dreams of being rescued like a fair maiden all at once," Weiler teased, only to have his whining drawl cut short with a muffled hiss as his injured hand pushed a little too hard against Locke's back. It was a problem quickly rectified, but also a quick damper on the situation. His tone was wry when he added, "Either way, I'm pretty lucky. I was in a bit of a...pinch."

Locke relieved one hand temporary, settling it on Weiler's arm. The short, worried rub of his thumb was considerably more fond than his claim just a moment ago.

"Easy," he mumbled. "And we're still in a pinch, really."

"Infinitely better than five minutes ago," Weiler shot back. He seemed quick to recover, considering the bark of laughter following that, thumping his good hand against Locke's shoulder. "And I'll say - I wasn't even the only one in trouble. Herr Cupid, running around an enemy ship with no weapon. How did you even get this far? Your access should have been locked down the moment they came for you."

"I'm clever," he answered, leaving the corner they were tucked away in. "Stole an upper officer's card, who in turn tazed me and stole my gun." (There were two welts on the back of his neck that still burned, probably hidden under his mess of red hair.

Upon making it to another spot where they were slightly undercover, closer to the actual escape path, he added, "It was Vercelli Garamond, actually."

You could almost hear the look of incredulity spread on Weiler's face, the creak of his eyebrows and the click of his mouth as it opened.

"What?" he said, deceptively calm despite the emphasis on the word.

"He's a Captain General under Commander Foster," Locke said. He relented a small laugh at the irony. Both of them with immediate family in the mafia. "I hadn't met him before today, though."

A pause. "He's kind of a jackass."

He hadn't known that, and the fact that he hadn't known something irritated him, but if he rationalized it, Weiler could understand why it hadn't been pertinent information at the time.

Technically, Victor Garamond's personal life wasn't any of their business, and just because the Seventh Circle had information didn't mean they always had to share it. In fact, a great deal of the Seventh's function lay in keeping secrets and withholding information. He had heard rumors of the Boss' eldest son's defection, of course, and if they were true, then technically speaking, Vercelli Garamond was to be treated like any other enemy operative anyway.

"I see," he said slowly, unable to mull over the new information for long. The cut in his back was too fresh and too raw to really provide much opportunity for distraction, especially for someone who wasn't used to such corporeal punishment. Then, there was the ache in his jaw and the sting in his hand to come back to as well, not to mention the churning burn of frustration in his gut at the idea of being found out.

He had, after all, been at his game longer than most undercover informants. He had done it well, too, and Weiler was not above being proud of fitting so seamlessly into his station. Wallabin had been an outright bastard in the confrontation that occurred after the Senator revealed that he was on to his assistant, and honestly, the Gladsheim officials he had been handed off to later had not been kinder by any means, if his injuries were to show for it.

Weiler let his head drop, forehead resting against the back of Locke's head. "I wonder if the Circle has figured out who the mole is yet."

There was a small wince as Weiler's forehead brushed against the welt on his neck. It was minor in comparison to other things, though. Locke himself was disappointed over his failed mission, but it didn't burn in his gut like choked down pride. He never hated a mission more than this one, in fact, but it was a failure for the Circle.

"It has to be someone in a high place to relent as classified information as they did," he said. Locke continued on their path, carefully dodging areas where he heard footsteps. His brow was knotted in thought. It was distracting, Weiler's sunken mood. When they finally made it to the hangar, he stopped behind a pillar. There were quite a few soldiers guarding the ships.

"Weiler," he started, licking his lip, "I... was looking for you." He leaned against the pillar heavily, fatigue starting to catch up. "I didn't want you to pass out before knowing that."

There was a mild flare of alarm when Locke faltered in his step, a hand instinctively raising to the pillar to steady the two of them.

"Now, now, don't say that like I'm about to die on you, Herr Cupid," Weiler laughed, but there was a hitch to the sound of it, as though the idea might have scared him a little more than one would think. He began to fidget in Locke's grip, making up for Locke's faltering strength with a burst of his own as he wriggled out of the soldier's hold and shakily on to the ground. He muttered, "I've got a well-paid retirement plan that I still have to cash out on."

He motioned for Locke to step back with two fingers and then peeked around the pillar at what remained in their way - a gaggle of soldiers, more men than he had bullets, and all of them armed. The only advantage they had was that they hadn't been detected yet, but the number of disadvantages facing them was much more staggering in number, the most important of which was still shooting discomfort up his spine as he leaned against the metal column.

"How fast can you get in for close quarters combat, if I distract enough of them?" Weiler asked with surprising mettle when his neck was on the line.

Locke gave another glance around the corner.

"Fast enough," he confirmed, not without a concerned look at Weiler's back. The red had deepened in color, but the flow of blood was lessening. "If protocol's being followed, there should be someone waiting in the leftmost ship to take us."

Slowly but steadily, Weiler aimed his gun and steadied his injured hand against the pillar. The recoil wouldn't be pleasant on his fingers, but there were more important things at stake here.

God, when he got out of here he was taking a vacation for a month.

"On your count."

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