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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.

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If you actually come to me I'll provide tequila and limes - and refrain from saying anything meaningful until you're halfway through the tequila.

you vile temptress
i cannot resist the siren call of free liquor
to the rocky crag i go then

( but first: )

your wannabe canadian dom isn't there, right?

He's not here right now and I'll make sure we don't get interrupted.

nice

( he finds cyram's resemblance to ephemera mildly disconcerting, so. )

i'll hit you up in a bit
need to shower first
i had a lil adventure last night

Tell me about it after you get here so I'm not left with deeper concern than I need to be. The door's unlocked. I'll be in the living room.

( walking from the down to the up turns out to be a more arduous task than initially anticipated. felix hurts in a variety of creative places, in ways he's only accustomed to hurting after a nasty fight with ephemera, except this time it wasn't ephemera divvying out the damage. this time he took a ( more than likely ) well-deserved beating from ephemera's soft-edged man.

not so soft, in the end. his bad.

he's a patchwork of mottled bruising when he walks into crais' apartment, tentatively checking corners on his way through the door. the damage: split knuckles on both hands, the skin pulled bloomy red and taut over bone, and a busted lip. twin marks on his birdlike wrists, where drake gripped him in one firm, shackling hand and pinned him flush beneath his weight.

the latter serves as an especially uncomfortable reminder, visible every time he lifts his arms and his sleeves slide neatly down his wrists. he glides through crais' living room as if he feels none of it, and only winces once as he sinks gingerly onto his couch. )

Before you say anything: you should see the other guy.

[ Crais is very, very, rarely rendered speechless but the slight of Felix accomplishes the task very effectively.

Before he says anything is all the way to Felix making it to the couch and sitting and longer and he just stares.]

I'm getting you the tequila. [ Is what he comes out with. ] Have you treated any of this?

( he snorts, indignant, and slants a withering glance in crais' direction. )

What kind of sloppy bitch do you take me for?

( there may not be an ortez around to patch up his injuries and chastise him throughout the entire process, but felix knows how to take care of himself, more or less. his remedy generally involves one generous swallow of whiskey, followed by a generous splash of that same whiskey on whatever bloodied body part needs the attention. he spent two hours last night wheezing over his bathroom sink, spitting blood onto shiny white porcelain and watching, glassy-eyed, as it swiveled down the drain.

he flexes one hand in front of him. a disjointed railway of dried blood speckles his skin from his knuckles to his fingertips, blotting out the sam in the samuel inked in faded black on his index finger.

softly, ) I took care of it.

( nothing broken, as far as he can tell. really nothing to do but wait for the bruises and scrapes to heal. )

The kind of sloppy bitches who got off on me choking them nearly to death and keeps stabbing or being stabbed.

[ He comes back with the tequila bottle, and opens it before passing it to Felix.
No glass, no pouring.]

And who still has dried blood on them.

You scare the hell out of me.

( good, he thinks, and swallows a mouthful of tequila, bitterly savoring the sour burn and sharp sting to his bottom lip. the whole universe should be afraid of him, every man and god and deity and planet-devouring alien. he wants to burst into blistering flames like a meteor passing straight through fucking mesosphere. he wants to leave craters and divots that time can't erode. good. good. good.

slowly, he unfolds his long legs and stretches leisurely, cradling the bottle of tequila against his chest. )

I fucked Ephemera's man. ( bluntly, zero pretense. drake fucked him, more accurately. ) After he beat the shit out of me. It was a wild night. Sorry you missed it.

Edited (minor lil fussy edit) 2022-02-14 05:57 (UTC)

[ He sits with his back against the sofa's arm, one knee pulled up and pressed into the back, the other foot on the floor. Stays there looking flatly unimpressed and lets out a bark of (unamused) laughter. ]

Congratulations! I'm glad to know that you're continuing to prove to yourself that you can be stupider than you already were. Call me in advance next time and I'll bring a bottle along so we can celebrate your similarities to an angry fish fighting a mirror in the moment instead of after the fact.

[ He's not afraid of you, at all. He's afraid for you. ]

( same difference. afraid of what he'll do, afraid of what'll become or devolve into, afraid of what he'll take out in the meteoric process. felix goes momentarily rigid, eyeing crais with another glacial stare, like he isn't sure if he's offended by the comparison. betta fish, notoriously flashy and temperamental with company.

he quirks a single eyebrow and shrugs, lifting the bottle to his mouth again. fair enough. no worse than being called feral. )

I'm down a fucking brain cell. ( has been, since his arrival. ) I'm still breathing, obviously, so simmer down, Crais.

( going 1v1 with drake hadn't exactly been his choice, anyway. it just happened, like most things in this goddamn city. everything that came after the fighting, however, had been a very direct choice on felix's part, from wedging drake's hips between his thighs to writhing right down on his dick. maybe not a choice drake ever saw coming, or predicted for himself.

but for felix it was just a fucking tuesday. same shit, different dick. )

I didn't kill him, either.

( could have. easily. he didn't. )

Edited 2022-02-14 18:53 (UTC)

[ He snorts, albeit softly. ]

I'm more proud of you than angry with you.

[ Felix voluntarily came over, knowing that Crais was going to give him shit of some stripe. Doesn't mean he isn't still simmered up, but it's not really an anger thing and there is some pride in there, somewhere. ]

Come over here. Back against my chest, please.

( rapid-fire, with every word hollowed out around the glass lip of a tequila bottle: )

That is a batshit insane request to ask of me, and you know it.

( but he's not telling him to fuck off, despite his incredulity.

maybe he's too tired to argue. maybe none of this shit matters. he throws back two suspiciously deep swallows of tequila before he heaves himself off the cushions and saunters over to crais' side of the couch. the hand that isn't currently fisting the bottle of tequila by the neck slides gently into crais' silky hair and knuckles into a tight fist near his nape, angling his head toward him.

he leans close. kisses him, chastely. ) Just this once.

( his hand slips away after a brief squeeze. he drops unceremoniously onto the couch, back to crais' chest, and stretches his legs out in front of him, securely wedging the tequila bottle between his thighs, for safekeeping. )

[ He is aware 'turn your back on me' is a batshit thing to request of Felix and yet he is absolutely not surprised he got it.

Also not surprised he got it after a hand pulling at his hair and a kiss that tastes like tequila. ]

I don't have any idea what you're talking about.

[ He starts to reach for himself, then changes his mind. ]

There are antiseptic wipes shoved between the cushions and back of the sofa. Get one for me, please. Then we'll get back to me talking while you drink.

( not many people get his back at this distance, back home or here in duplicity. part learned instinct drilled into him since basic, and part reflex. protect the reactor in your rig, always. without your reactor you're dead, gates. watch your goddamn six. you're gonna get yourself killed.

beyond that: too many areas to protect, too many vulnerabilities he has permanently etched into him – the implant scar at his nape, just under his hairline, and the tattoo scrawled in thick, bold print behind his right ear, impossible to miss at this angle. LII.VIII.XXIII., a date he had printed on him six months after he bailed from reach. the same date he uses as a username for duplicity's network for shits and giggles, like the memory of it hasn't fucking haunted him for the past five years. a final fuck you, to isaac gates and samuel ortez, long-dead on a bombed out planet.

it can't touch him if he doesn't let it. nothing can.

he shifts against crais and tucks his hand between the cushions, groping blindly for the packet of wipes. once he finds it, he snags a wipe between two fingers and impatiently waves it over his shoulder for crais to take. )

You think I'm crazy.

( he's starting to think he's a little crazy, too. )

[ Crais would never have pushed Ephemera to put Crais at his back, not even verbally or as much as he had Felix. He might (but probably won't) examine the reasons for that, later. Because he doesn't really care why, and also he's not actually thinking about Ephemera in this exact moment.

The cryptic (to him) tattoo, he is thinking about. Felix, in general, he's thinking about.

He takes the packet when it's offered, and uses one hand and his teeth to tear it open, and fishes the wipe out of the foil lined wrapper.]

I don't think you're crazy; I know you are. I spent too long out of my mind not to recognize it when I see it.

[ he slides his hand down Felix's arm to the wrist then closes his fingers very loosely around the delicate bones, and starts cleaning up Felix's knuckles with his other hand and the wipe. Some kind of gentle, but not flinching or light with it. Direct and matter of fact and not trying to mitigate the sting at all.]

What's the tattoo mean?

( aside from a small, shivering twitch through his shoulders, felix sits eerily still as crais mops up his bloodied knuckles. )

It's a date. August 23rd, 2552.

( a bargain he made with the unsettled dead, when he left reach behind to burn to fucking glass. it was a miserable failure. turns out the dead don't much care for dewy-eyed mementos. he still sees their faces in his dreams, still hears the moaning screams of whole cities plasma-bombed to bits beyond the cacophonous warning call of klaxons, nightly visits only kept at bay with a handful of pills and a splash of whiskey.

and now he carries their corpses with him, butchered and chained into a digestible, palatable memory neatly inked behind his ear. as if it could hold them. as if anything could hold them. as if all the liquor in the world would ever be enough to forget.

the wipe snags on crusted blood. carefully, felix flexes his hand until it flakes off between bony tendons. )

Sentimental bullshit. I was young and stupid. ( then, before crais has the chance to correct him: ) More stupid than I am now.

( he doesn't care. he's done so much worse since he left reach, transformed himself into a nightmare worthy of the covenant's wrath. something to fear. something to hate. something not human. felix, not gates. )

Edited 2022-02-23 19:43 (UTC)

[ Crais is going more by feel and smell than sight, to know when he's finished. He is looking from behind Felix's shoulder. That limits visibility, and that's fine. Lack of further snagging and most of the smell of blood being gone is a clue that it's time to discard that wipe, get a new one and repeat the process on Felix's other hand. ]

There are better and worse kinds of stupidity - and insanity. I'll show you my back when we're finished here. If you're drunk enough to be able to sit still.

[ There's nothing wrong with some sentimentality, Felix. Also: ] What happened on that date?

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