unlawful | duplicity inbox / cw for nsfw shenanigans.

Skip to Main Content

duplicity inbox / cw for nsfw shenanigans.

TEXT / VOICE / VIDEO / ACTION
NOTE: felix generally responds to everything in text, even voice or video calls. expect 90% of his replies to be text-based regardless of urgency.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

( ephemera lingers close. felix can't see him – not a single indecent detail in the dark – but he can feel him, and the scorching, splintering heat pulled taut as a wire between their bodies, jaggedly connecting them together. fact: they've been drugged. he doesn't need his rig or his hud to know that. another aphrodisiac generously pumped into this cavernous yet unbearably claustrophobic space, far stronger than the dose he received in the elevator on his first fucking day in the city.

dirty, underhanded. there's an outrageously vicious part of felix that distantly appreciates the cleverness of it all: throwing a bunch of relative strangers into total dark and taking advantage of their predictable, animal-like panic by gassing them. quicker breaths means the drug hits the body's nervous system harder and faster.

enter chaos, stage right.

he splays a hand in front of him, braced flat against ephemera's bare chest. every point of contact burns, hot as molten flame, and it burns worse when he touches nothing at all. easier to focus on the rapid rise and fall of ephemera's chest, and a smear of something wet along his collarbone. felix drags his thumb between the tendons in his throat, digging for his pulse.

the smell hits him a second later. rusty-metallic. coppery.

idly: ) You make someone bleed?

( more likely than someone making ephemera bleed. )

[ Again, instinct tells him to end this before it goes further. A quick and dirty ending. Neither of them are in armor and Ephemera's got the weight advantage if not the better leverage right now. He could bash Felix's head into the wall just for the sake of doing it. For the sense of accomplishment that comes from ending a threat before it ends you. But that doesn't get him out of the room and he knows Felix's shape, the span of his hands, even in the goddamn dark. And maybe that's better - somehow - than fielding this with a room full of strangers.

Ephemera hisses out a wordless curse. He doesn't move when Felix touches him. It feels good. It shouldn't.

It really fucking shouldn't. Not when every second in this place feels like a contact burn. ]

They got too close.

[ Someone, somewhere, is fielding a messy bite wound. Ephemera tenses when someone else brushes against him, a hand ghosting over his shoulder and no.

No.

He kicks them. And out there in the dark, someone yelps. ]

You know where the exit is?

( too close, like ephemera isn't boxing him into a wall, like felix isn't – very tellingly, perhaps – letting him.

a hairline twitch, where his hand gently wreathes ephemera's throat. his pulse beats steady and strong under felix's palm, loosely anchoring him to the moment. he'll think about this later like how he thinks about every single fucking moment he's had with ephemera in this godforsaken city, and curse himself to a thousand different hells for not turning it violent. like it would have helped. like it would have made the slightest bit of difference. it never does.

but isn't this familiar, too? the warm pull of ephemera's body, hooking felix into his yawning gravity. he flexes his hand around ephemera's throat, then glides his touch further back, over his nape and implant, into his hair.

he knows his body. he knows him, in wretched and imperfect detail. )

Wouldn't still be here if I did.

( translation: this isn't fun for him either. neurotic control freak first, shameless whore second, always in that order.

he squeezes his hand in ephemera's hair. focuses, for a moment, on the cool, idle expanse of wall at his back over ephemera's roiling heat in front of him. his free hand finds ephemera's arm and skims down the length of his bicep, mapping the curve of his elbow and wrist with his fingertips. then the knife, clenched in his fist. )

You gonna make me bleed?

Edited (SORRY I THOUGHT OF SOMETHING WAY BETTER) 2022-01-04 02:46 (UTC)

[ Not like it's the first time Felix has laid hands on him. They've gone at each other to kill more than once and it's turned each and every time. Like clockwork, like the hand of fucking fate brought down personally to fuck with them. Ephemera hisses, jerking at the feel of Felix's hand in his hair. Hating that he wants it, that he presses closer even as he keeps his free hand braced against the wall. Orienting himself, partially. But also because this way he can use his height to shield Felix like that's something sane to do, like that's something he has any business thinking.

He grits his teeth. He wonders if Felix will go for the knife. He wonders if that matters. And then he just leans forward and presses their foreheads together, breath coming out in a sharp hiss. People keep touching him. It hurts like being burned. He doesn't remember the tower, not really, but that wasn't the first time. Nothing at first and then that flash of blinding hurt. Only it's worse, because there's a part of him that wants it too. That wants to step forward and drag it out. Put his hand on Felix's hip and just -

Fuck. ]

Probably.

[ It out rough. He doesn't want to. But what he wants is insane. And so is the way he reverses his grip and presses the hilt of the blade into Felix's hand. ]

( the last time they met, it was on a rooftop, ephemera's back to a chainlink fence and felix stitched into his space, licking into the inviting warmth of his mouth. they haven't talked about it because they don't talk about most things that occur between them. easier to shove it down, bottle it up, move the fuck on, and agonize over it in private later, in a steamy bathroom, in bed, in the middle of goddamn breakfast during a particularly nasty hangover.

he thinks they won't talk about this later, too. he thinks ephemera doesn't know how much, and how fucking violently, he cycles through his head, every thought inside him a budding weed he can't uproot fast enough. he thinks he's been fucked for a long time.

he thinks if he wasn't fucked before, he'd be fucked now, as ephemera – thoughtlessly, easily – presses his knife into his hand.

even in the dark, felix knows the weight of a blade intimately. he flips the grip in his palm, not quite easing it from the clench of ephemera's callused fingers. instead, his hand unwinds from his hair and circles his wrist; he guides ephemera to felix's chest, where he can feel him angle the blade against the center of his clavicle, just under his throat. )

I'd let you. ( a soft, faraway echo of a single moment in a dusty arena, when he had the full brunt of ephemera's weight pinning him to the ground. he presses into the blade, razor-sharp tip indenting his skin just short of puncturing, and tilts his chin, ghosting his breath across his mouth. i'd let you, make him bleed. kiss him. touch him. rut him up against this fucking wall. anything to settle this maddening feeling inside him, anything to stop his nerves from shredding his insides like molten shrapnel, anything to get him out of his fucking head.

his grip on ephemera's wrist tightens sharply, grinding bone beneath his thumb. )

[ It's not the first time they've done this to each other. Ephemera takes a shaky breath and remembers the weight of Felix's gun in his hand, Felix urging him on. And how he'd thought, why the fuck not? Easiest thing in the world to just end it right then and there. Blood on the ground. A body dropped and bloody. How many had he ended just the same?

He doesn't know. He never kept score. And now his blade is in Felix's hand, pressed against Felix's chest.

Easiest thing in the world to just press. End it there while the dark breathes around them and people moan and fuck and forget themselves. Maybe it even feels good.

Ephemera feels like he's burning. He wants to. And then Felix tightens his grip.

This would have been simple, once.

Ephemera keeps the blade steady, but the kiss he presses to Felix's mouth is wild and sharp. He bites down. He thinks he draws blood but that doesn't matter because he wants more, this, anything but this room. Anything that isn't strangers touching him and isn't it insane, isn't it fucking insane, that this feels even remotely like stability? ]

( ephemera's mouth tastes like blood – a stranger's blood, felix's blood, sharp and tangy where his teeth clamp down on the swell of his bottom lip. his next exhale shivers into his mouth, a tremulous betrayal. he loosens his viselike grip on his wrist and snags him by the forearm instead, anchoring ephemera closer, away from the pulsing, living mass surrounding them in a chokehold.

even closer, into felix's space, knees knocking knees, until the knife at his throat quivers dangerously. ephemera could kill him like this, squeeze his hand over the back of felix's hand and push forward. wouldn't even be a thought. shouldn't be a thought, for either of them. it's just what they fucking do.

( some shit is innate, he'd told crais once. )

somehow, despite this, the knife never pierces his skin beyond a shallow cut parallel to his collar bone. felix arches from the wall, coiling into the impossibly warm length of ephemera's familiar body. he knows him like he knew the weight of a blade even in the dark, all relentless bulk to felix's svelte leanness, a steady haven in the storm. it feels obscenely good. it feels equal parts wrong and unfathomably right. he slots his knee between the clutch of ephemera's thighs and hooks their bodies together by the hip, straddling his leg. tilts his chin again, strains to make up for the few inches difference and coax his tongue deeper into his mouth, greedily lick the taste of metal from his teeth. )

[ He isn't shaking anymore, Ephemera realizes vaguely. Earlier, he was watching and sharp in the worst possible way. On the very edge of losing himself to that ugly, coiled madness that still catches him sometimes - that rage that's not nearly strong enough to swallow the grief. He doesn't like feeling out of control, like he's going to whip around and kill someone just for moving into proximity or scream for the sake of the noise. To break the surface tension.

It's insane that Felix, of all goddamn people, is the thing that feels closest to steady right now.

Ephemera's grip stays steady on the blade. He knows how to handle a weapon, at least. And there was a time he knew how to handle another person, really kiss them until they both went breathless. Part of him still remembers. Felix kisses him, kisses him back, and Ephemera presses into him and lets it happen. Gives it back just the same, one hand still braced against the wall and the other on the blade. Holding steady, despite everything. Felix is smaller, faster, but he doesn't move to dodge away, to lose Ephemera in the dark.

This is happening.

Fuck.

Someone touches him again. Runs their fingers across his shoulders, long nails catching against a scar.

And then, just like that, it shifts. Not much. But enough that Ephemera pulls the knife away from Felix's neck and prepares to shift his grip again. If people keep touching him -

Breathe.

He exhales with a hiss and grinds their foreheads together. Grinds against Felix. He's hard. That's happening, too. Good and bad, pleasure and wrenching tension. The taste of blood in his mouth. ]

Felix -

[ Goddamn it all. ]

Just take the goddamn knife.

( the volatile wave of ephemera's emotions, the up-down riptide, is a current felix has learned – against his will, through time spent in intimate proximity – how to navigate. he knows this tension, the way it uncoils through his body like a wire stretched dangerously taut. a red-lit warning before the inevitable nuclear meltdown, to felix, to anyone in the vicinity that keeps putting their hands on him uninvited.

some sharp, keen part of him that still exists under the boiling madness recognizes the strangeness in this solitary fact: ephemera doesn't flinch from him. he's never flinched from him. he pulls the knife from felix's bare throat and readily ruts his cock against his hip, but he doesn't flinch.

felix feels out of his goddamn mind. in the dark, everything is detached and distant, floating weightlessly through an endless void with ephemera as the only anchor. the urge to press into the blade and bleed himself for the fucking thrill of it is visceral. he turns his wrist, tightening his grip on the knife and smoothly angling it from ephemera's hand. he presses close, draping his arm over his shoulder. strokes the tip of the blade beneath ephemera's chin, light as a caress. )

I trust you. ( softly, none of his normal venom, none of his icy, carefully curated indifference. unyielding honesty, the kind he can't take back, the kind he can't blame on the fucking drugs. he exhales over ephemera's mouth and flips the blade away from his neck, dropping it to the ground. kicks it away, out of reach. his hand curls into ephemera's hair, pulling his head back to expose his throat for his wandering teeth and tongue. )

I want you.

( relentlessly, so much it drives him batshit crazy sometimes. he has no explanation for it, or for how natural it feels to move his hand between them and work blindly at ephemera's belt, unzipping his fly with a press of his thumb. he trusts him. he wants him. he's going to strangle himself in front of a fucking mirror later. penance, for this betrayal. )

I think about the way you'd feel on top of me all the fucking time.

Edited 2022-01-07 01:43 (UTC)

[ He might as well be fully blind for all he can see in this goddamn dark. Nothing but the faint flash of Felix's eyes, maybe, the scrape of the blade against Ephemera's chin. The hollow sound it makes and how easy it would be for Felix to kill him then. Punch the blade into his jugular, into his good eye, bleed him out in the dark and be done with that. Would anyone even notice, out here? Would it even matter?

But he doesn't. The knife clatters away. And Felix puts his hand in Ephemera's hair, his mouth on Ephemera's throat and -

I'm crazy, Ephemera almost says. You know that, right? Because he feels insane then. Drifting from one thought to the next and just waiting for it to go poisonous on him. For everything to fragment like it always does because even in armor he's always been brittle. Or maybe not always but ever since he woke up alone, and burned, and his family was gone.

It made sense not to touch anyone in the aftermath. To put on his armor and go out into the world like no one would ever know him as a person again.

No one did. Not until he died.

Felix goes for his belt. For a moment, Ephemera doesn't move. Doesn't jerk away, but doesn't go with it, either.

Then he exhales in a rough hiss and drags his free hand down Felix's chest, over his stomach. And then lower, cupping him over those ridiculous fucking pants. I trust you. And somehow, deep down, he knows it isn't a lie. Because only a crazy person would say that. Only a crazy person could stand in proximity when Ephemera's like this, when he can't hold himself together long enough to pretend, and do this shit.

And only a crazy person would like it. Ephemera likes it, he realizes bleakly. And he so rarely likes sex these days. ]

Thought about it too.

[ His voice comes out rough. Smoke inhalation. Yet another scar. ]

Wanna paint you.

[ He wants to paint on him, Ephemera realizes. Against the skin. The thought burns like a fever dream. He twitches and presses forward, fighting against the grip Felix has on his hair until it goes sharp, until it makes his good eye water from the sting, and puts his mouth on Felix's neck. Just below the jaw, to return the favor and suck a mark there with his teeth. ]

( maybe later felix will reflect on the strange, highly suspicious fact that he went straight for ephemera's dick. zero hesitation. right to the point, like this is a completely natural chain of events. he pops his fly and nimbly slides his hand inside, curving a firm grip around his cock. what's worse: that he's riding a fucking fever high, drugged out of his goddamn mind, or that it'd feel insanely, deliciously good even while stone-cold sober? that he wants it, regardless? that he's wanted it at all?

a warm hand slots between his thighs. felix's chest hitches on a tight, throaty sound, pulse hammering wildly beneath ephemera's tongue. he arches into the press of his palm, chasing the contact. )

Fuck.

( in contrast to the roughness in ephemera's voice, felix sounds dangerously soft; a budding whine, fractured at the edges. he snakes his hand from his trousers and spits into the cup of his palm. back to his cock again, squeezing him roughly in his fist, friction made slick and hot. he wants to paint him. even to a mindlessly wild felix, that means something. shouldn't be something he gives a fuck about, either. more strings to delicately pluck, more weaknesses to exploit. you're forgetting, gates. this man isn't your fucking friend.

( then, quieter: this man isn't who you want him to be. )

he exhales through his nose, swallowing roughly. considers, for a brief, insane second, picking up ephemera's discarded knife and stabbing him in the goddamn heart, to set the world and universe right again. this is wrong. felix doesn't let anyone back him into a fucking wall. ephemera doesn't stand over him, cocooning him from the outside world with his bulk and height, like he's someone to be protected. felix doesn't think about terrence fucking ephemera at all, not him on top of him, not his scars or his tattoos or his cock inside him. this is wrong. this shit should've ended on chorus. this is wrong.

his chest hitches again. tension ripples through him like a hairline crack on an icy pond, dragging his spine taut. he eases his grip in ephemera's hair and curves his body into tight alignment with ephemera's body, hiking ephemera's thigh higher between his legs. )

Tell me you want me, too.

( ridiculously, he needs to hear it. )

[ They're too close like this, drawn tight to proximity and Ephemera imagines he can hear the klaxons screaming in warning - or maybe just his own pulse hammering in his ears. Drowning out the world. They're too close, on top of each other, practically inside each other, and it feels like a contact burn and like a balm all at once. Felix's hand on him, Felix pressed against him, rocking into it. That sound he makes. The way that Ephemera feels himself getting harder. The way he's been hard since this started. The way he flinches whenever someone brushes against him but still holds his ground.

It's hard to focus. None of this feels real except for Felix and that -

That's fucking insane.

Ephemera closes his good eye. They're tangled up in each other now but he can still rub his hand against Felix's cock. Chase that sound, try to coax it out of him again. He wants to. So why the fuck not? ]

Want you.

[ Like before, it comes out rough. Muffled against Felix's throat. ]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only