#ds lockne

“Wondering.”

Målingen, where are you?

Challenge accepted. I hope you like it hon. 

Higgs hummed to himself while typing away at the docking station in Mountain Knot where the deliveries from porters were sorted through. He nearly had all the information that was required for the job he undertook. Since surviving his battle with Sam Bridges and Amelie kicking him off the beach, Higgs found employment through hacking information for folks willing to pay. His DOOMs abilities had come in handy for such a task. He could be in and out of several places by jumping. 

“You!” Lockne screeched and Higgs flinched, turning his head to smirk in her direction. 

“Oh lucky me, Thing 1 and Thing 2 have arrived.” Higgs murmurs sarcastically. He could see Lockne’s face grow redder by the minute since using his nickname for both her and Mama. Once Higgs had found out what happened with them, he couldn’t help himself. Higgs could hear Lockne marching and tried to finish up before she could pull a fast one. 

“You… you egotistical, disrespectful, pretentious, pompous, self-centered, cantankerous, untrustworthy, ungrateful, impossible, insufferable — !”

“Heartless, terrorist bastard? Yeah. I’ve been given the schpeel before sweet thing.” Higgs said bluntly with a sigh, then unhooked a small USB device from the machine he was typing on. He tucked it into the pocket of his pants, crossing his arms all the while smirking at Lockne as she got closer. 

“Don’t call me that, fucker.” Lockne said bitterly, glaring at Higgs. “You’re lucky you escaped arrest last time, but that’s not going to happen again.”

“I beg to differ,” Higgs said with a sigh, stretching his arms in a nonchalant fashion. All the while, he grinned mischievously. “You can’t stop me from teleporting my ass outta here. Not even with Casper the Friendly Ghost inside of ya.”

Lockne clenched her fists, wanting nothing more than to deck Higgs at that moment. She would have given anything for the opportunity but had to remind herself of why it was only her confronting Higgs and not security. While composing herself, she could see the gears in Higgs’s mind was turning. He knew something was amiss. 

“You running solo today?” Higgs asked, looking about. He couldn’t see anyone swarming into the area. 

Lockne stood her ground, crossing her arms as her head shook. “Lucky for you, yeah.”

“So all that talk about me being arrested was you pulling that out of your ass?” Higgs scoffed. 

“More like I’m sparing you from being shot to death for stealing information about my people. That was the original plan.”

“Pfft. Could’ve had me fooled.” Higgs chuckled. He raised a brow, tilting his head in a playful fashion while his index finger fiddled with the hairs on his chin briefly. 

“So what’s the catch, you have the hots for me or somethin’?” 

“Don’t flatter yourself,” Lockne growled then let out a deep breath. “Are you taking on any more hacking jobs?”

“Pardon?”

“Do you want a job or not, dumbass?” Lockne yelled. 

Higgs held up his hands in surrender, eyes widening some as he let out a quiet laugh.

“Easy, easy. No need to get hostile on me now darlin’.” He puts his hands down, squinting his eyes suspiciously towards Lockne. “This must be really important if you’re having a guy like me helping ya out.”

“It is. Part of the deal is you don’t ask questions.” Lockne said bluntly.

Higgs rolled his eyes. “Not like I care, but alright. What do I get in return?”

Lockne pointed up towards the ceiling, and rapidly from every nook and cranny within the delivery terminal, Higgs could see tons of automated robots and guns pointing right at him. He took in a deep breath, impressed but also close to shitting himself. Higgs had to hand it to Lockne, she came prepared this time around. He even doubted being able to pull a jump without getting injured with how many scopes were dead centered on him.

“You don’t get turned into a pile of shit. How’s that for starters?” Lockne bluntly states.

Swallowing, Higgs let out a nervous laugh. “Alright, I’ll bite. Who do you want information on?”

“Heartman.” Locke replied. She then tosses a small drive towards Higgs which he promptly catches. Looking down at the rectangular bar, he sighs. 

“Too easy. Done deal. Now, will you take these guns off me?”

“What’s the magic word?” 

“I won’t call you a bitch, how’s that?” Higgs counters.

Letting out a sigh, Lockne shakes her head and points back up. The machines and guns go back to the hiding spots within the facility. Higgs catches his breath, furrowing his brows. 

“How soon do you want the information?” He asks curiously. 

“The next time I catch you in here, you better have it. If not, I’m sending you to the beach.” Lockne says simply and turns around to leave.

“Just like that?” Higgs hollers.

“Just like that!” Lockne shouts back, giving him the bird while at it. 

Higgs sneers but relents from saying anything further. Whoever this Heartman guy was, Higgs had a feeling the guy must’ve been important enough. Maybe an ex-boyfriend? The thought made him chuckle as he took a few steps back and concentrated. Higgs jumped back to his bunker and decided to prepare for his next job. As much as he was excited at the prospect, he couldn’t help but feel something was extremely weird about the situation. Nonetheless, a job was a job. Higgs couldn’t be a porter or terrorist anymore, so he had to bite the bullet. 

Coming up honey @faegrifted

Heartman furrowed his brows, watching as Lockne poured herself another glass of rum. Usually, he was quite good at hypothesizing what kind of spirits people enjoyed, but Lockne’s peculiar taste had taken him aback. She drank from her glass greedily, almost as if the very cup was an oasis in the middle of the desert and she had been parched for weeks on end. Heartman deduced perhaps this was coming from Mama’s end of things, considering the two were now one Ha and one Ka. He seemed to recall that Lockne was more of a wine person before.

“You need to drink more. And no, I don’t mean more alcohol.” Heartman piped up after clearing his throat, earning a knowing look from Lockne as she sighed. Deep down, she knew he was right but didn’t give Heartman the satisfaction of an answer. She was too stressed to care. 

Heartman once more fell into silence, watching her quietly. He was about to take his leave, wanting to give her some space until Lockne began to speak. Her soft voice filling the air as Heartman listened. 

“It’s not easy--having people look up to you. Ever since the Chiral Network has been connected, the UCA being one now, everything is so--stressful. I didn’t expect this much responsibility. I mean, it was already hard enough with being the overseer of Mountain Knot, but now it’s taken on a whole other life of its own. Even with my sister here with me, I feel so alone in all this. People are judging me all the time even for things outside of my control.” Lockne’s tone was solemn as she looked up, her eyes peering at Heartman as she could see the sympathy in his gaze. 

“I wish I had words of encouragement to give besides to keep on keeping on.” Heartman chuckled, nonetheless his features expressed a certain sadness for her. 

“When I lost my family,” Heartman started, taking in a deep breath as he adjusted his glasses. “I lost sight of everything. The only thing that helped me move forward, was trying to understand the how’s and why’s. To do that though, I had to take it one day at a time or I would have gone crazy. I guess what I’m trying to say is don’t let the bastards get you down.” 

Lockne’s lips quirked into a sincere smile. Although it didn’t do much to help in the grand scheme of things, Heartman’s words were enough to give her some kind of peace. Suddenly the taste of the rum wasn’t so sweet anymore. 

Okay, probably not my best work but I hope you enjoy :D!

The first person that Fragile visited after all was said and done with Sam Bridges was Lockne. Given how Lockne went out of her way to assist Fragile when she was weak from jumping, Fragile felt a strong connection to her. When she arrived at Lockne’s residence, the two hit it off and started talking about what had happened during both their journeys. They shared just about everything: the highs and the lows, each of them relating to the other despite not going through the experience themselves. 

When it came time to talk about what happened to Higgs and Sam, things got tense on Fragile’s end. Lockne could see how the energy around the businesswoman began to change and offered to make Fragile something to drink. A half-hour later, she came back with two teas, figuring the last either of them needed to be drinking was caffeine despite how good it was. 

“So, Sam didn’t kill him?” Lockne asked, surprised as Fragile nodded. 

“No, he left him to me. It was part of our agreement. I’d handle Higgs in the end.” Fragile said, her eyes holding remorse in them. Despite the bitterness she held for her former business partner, Fragile pitied Higgs. In her eyes, he was a poor delusional bastard that got suckered into being a pawn. It was sad given how talented Higgs was. He could have made something great of himself had he not bowed down to his temptations and tried to heal from his traumas. 

“So, that’s it then. You’re just gonna leave Higgs on the beach for eternity or until he offs himself?” Lockne asked Fragile as she nodded, taking a sip of tea that Lockne had provided for her. 

“There’s no saving this sweet piece of ass. I didn’t see the point in hastening the inevitable.” Fragile said bluntly as Lockne nearly spat her tea out mid-laugh. 

“Wait, Higgs had a sweet ass?” 

Fragile chuckled as Lockne had a fit, both women trying to compose themselves as Fragile shook her head in disbelief. 

“I didn’t mean it like that,” Fragile said as Lockne wiped her mouth. 

“But you still said it.” Lockne countered as Fragile shrugged. 

“To his credit, Higgs was attractive until he let himself go.”

“That’s fair. Poor guy could have had a harem. I liked it when he delivered to our terminal. Sometimes I’d just request him personally so I could look at him as he’d saunter off.”

“Lockne!” Fragile exclaimed, feeling her pulse jump into her throat. 

“What? Don’t tell me you never did it!” 

One order of cute coming right up :D!

Between the two, Mama was the emotional one. She always knew the right words to say to make people feel better. Lockne was more practical. She could give the facts, the right advice to help others move on, but that didn’t seem to be what Sam needed after his recent altercation. He had spent years trying to avoid killing people on delivery runs, knowing perfectly well the consequences of such actions, but since the BT’s left the world of the living along with Amelie, things were back to normal. That didn’t take away the MULEs and other misfits of humankind, however. 

Sam kept replaying the scenario in his head. How one moment he had the MULE locked in place and the next, he was driving a knife right through the man’s eye socket. The squishing sounds of brain matter meeting rock when the corpse fell made Sam shudder. He knew it was either the MULE or Louise, the poor thing having been the precious cargo the MULE attempted to hijack from the ex porter.

Lockne furrowed her brows as she watched Sam sorrowfully look at the ground, keeping his gaze fixated on his shoes. It was at this moment Lockne wished she had more of Mama’s emotional intelligence. Even though the two were technically one again, Lockne was very much her own person. There was no changing that. She tried to think of something that Mama would do, and settled upon a memory she had of Mama trying to comfort her after Lockne had hurt herself, tumbling down a cliff and damaging her leg as a child. 

Lockne approached Sam with caution. He looked up at her neutrally as her lips quirked into a smile. Lockne then put on the goofiest face she could muster. The action took Sam aback as he jumped then started to chuckle. Lockne decided to add more to it, exaggerating her hand movements and making her face more contorted. Sam was practically grinning from ear to ear, his laughter becoming more infectious as Lockne had to stop and join him. 

Sam wasn’t sure why Lockne’s behavior was humorous, but some part of him knew this is what he needed. For a brief moment in between laughs, he swore he could see Mama in Lockne’s features. Right there by his side, right in the moment. Sam didn’t realize how much he missed her until he was embracing Lockne, holding her tightly to him as he murmured. 

“Thanks.” 

“Don’t mention it. You’re not a horrible guy, you know?” Lockne replied back, returning the hug in earnest.