unlawful | duplicity inbox / cw for nsfw shenanigans.

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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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[ 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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