duplicity inbox / cw for nsfw shenanigans.

[unlawful]

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.

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[requiemshark]

[ 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.

[unlawful]

( 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.

[requiemshark]

[ 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. ]

[unlawful]

( 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. )

[requiemshark]

[ 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. ]