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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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[ The really fucked up part is sometimes it does. Art forces things into alignment or at least a bit of sense. It's why he took the time to paint his armor back on Chorus when any old rig would have done. Why he sketches everyone he meets in this place so he knows how he sees them. His memory is faulty. Sometimes, things get lost. And he knows, deep down, that saying that shit - any of that shit - would twist things up, knot the two of them together even more than they already are. They run in parallel tracks. Not all the time, but often enough. It's almost comforting to find someone who understands this shit, who doesn't need it explained.

Almost.

Ephemera chucks his phone at the wall again. This time, he doesn't respond. He's going up to the roof to work on the goddamn mural and chain smoke and forget this conversation ever happened. Like an adult. ]

( the following silence is predictable, especially after felix's goad calling him out on it. what's strange is that felix feels like he owes him this. mercy. a way out. a way back, away from the noose he's tied tight around the both of their throats. don't fucking follow me. there's nothing here but rot.

a good twelve hours later, once he's mostly sober and no longer on the verge of a splitting migraine: )

good boy
see you around terrence

[ He knows better. Or he should. Things settle as much as they’re going to for a while. He paints, he comes back to the center. Leaves his phone where he threw it until he finally runs out of yellow acrylic and has to come back down off the roof. And then, of course - of fucking course - Felix has to have the last word.

Ephemera stares at his phone for a long time, twitching with rage he’s got no outlet for.

No good one, anyway. He exhales through his teeth and then he does something potentially very stupid, and tears one of the sketches out of the pad. Folds it up and tucks it away inside his jacket pocket, and then he heads out to the Down. And then he goes over to Felix’s shitty building and shoves the damn thing under the door. ]

get. fucked

[ It’s one of his older sketches, drawn long before Felix ever showed up in Duplicity. A memory, something he spent the time to detail. It shows Felix and Locus standing shoulder to shoulder, Locus straight backed and serious, Felix’s stance deceptively loose. Both of them in full armor, surveying field reports. He hasn’t cared about them when he was Sharkface but he saw enough. He’s observant when it counts. And it wasn’t hard to clock the way they moved around each other. Training and time will go a long way, but that sort of unit cohesion comes from trust. And even then, even at his craziest, Ephemera had recognized it. His team had been like that.

Unbreakable, until suddenly they weren’t. Until suddenly he was alone. The Felix in the drawing is different from the one he keeps colliding with. That one had a partner.

The drawing is done in ink. Intricately detailed. And unsigned. ]

( felix finds the little slip of paper late, after a long shower where he absolutely 100% uses all the hot water.

it's acknowledged but ignored at first. harding slips him stupid ass notes under his door sometimes, scrawled in pencil, usually detailing some terrible joke or requesting felix's presence in his room for a drink as if texting is a concept beyond him entirely. felix doesn't look at it again until after he's dressed and notices the smudge of ink in the corner. first red flag. harding doesn't write in pen.

he crouches on the floor, hooking the folded paper with his index finger and twisting it toward him. ephemera. again. left for him intentionally this time, and it takes felix all of two seconds to understand why.

ortez, his bulk and towering elegance sketched in sharp, stark lines, and felix leaning archly into his space, like the earth helplessly submitting to the sun's gravitational pull. a memory, drawn from the perspective of an outsider. before everything went to shit on chorus. before ortez left him. before felix lost everything.

the world goes a little fuzzy and cold at the edges. felix sways back on his heels. he can't breathe, like on the roof when he was a single gasp away from hyperventilating on top of a convulsing ephemera, glassily staring at his unfinished mural. panic attack. too much liquor fucking with his senses, overcompensating for all the shit he can't get his hands on to make the quiet that much quieter. he rocks forward again, splaying his hand flat on the floor, and exhales shakily. oh, fuck. fuck. fuck. fuck. think about something else. not reach. not ortez. not chorus.

think about ephemera, then.

he launches to his feet and kills the lights, then eases the door open slowly and peers out into the empty hallway. then back into his room, plucking his knife and phone off the bedstand table on his way to the window. )

you know what ephemera

( he pops the window and silently hitches himself over the sill, landing feet-first on the fire escape. the street below is crowded, people moving shoulder-to-shoulder as one writhing mass illuminated by blinking neon lights and yellow-bulbed street lamps.

felix leans over the railing and scans the swarming sea of faces. fucking asshole's probably long gone. )

i think i get it now
why you kissed me back

[ Yeah. That gets a response, like Ephemera knew it would. The way digging a blade into a wound always gets a response. He ought to feel some brutal satisfaction at the fact, take advantage of the opening - the sergeant would've, she taught him well and she was a fucking monster in the field - but she's gone and he always telegraphed everything. Still does. And this doesn't feel like a victory worth keeping.

It just feels like a wound. Like something he dealt just for the sake of it and now there's blood on the ground. Growing tacky.

He's back up on the roof. Again. It's the only place he feels centered in the whole goddamn city. He lights a cigarette and lets the nicotine burn all the way down into his lungs. ]

you're gonna fucking tell me so just get it over with

thought it was some self-flagellation bullshit at first
a way to punish yourself
seems appropriately fucked up enough for you

( there's not a familiar face in the crowd. water hits his lashes, splashing down his cheek. felix thumbs it away and looks up. a leaky pipe, just above. it's oddly grounding, but it doesn't stop his trembling.

his responses come mercilessly quick. )

maybe you got daddy issues, i thought, that'd be super fucking cliche
maybe i'm an enormously misplaced stand-in for all the shit you lost and can't get over
maybe you look at me and see everything you wanna forget because it puts you back in the pod all over again, t-minus ten seconds from a drop
but that's too complicated, isn't it? i'm overthinking it
i do that sometimes

no, i think what fucks you up the absolute most is that you don't fucking know why you kissed me back but you know you liked it and your brain will kill itself cycling around that shit, unable to make sense of it
sometimes shit doesn't make sense but we do it anyway
like you biting my lip and putting your hand on the back of my neck
like you knowing you'd fucking do it again
you fucking pussy

[ At first, he's tempted to laugh it off. Daddy issues, really? Gotta have parents for that, or one of those tragic childhoods he keeps hearing about. Gotta have enough emotional investment to actual give a shit and he doesn't, zero for two on that score. He grew up in foster care and the woman who raised him might've had a fucked up sense of humor when she named him Ephemera, but it wasn't like she beat him or anything. She did her job and he did his and they parted ways the day he turned eighteen and enlisted. No story there. It's just a thing that happened.

But of course, Felix doesn't stop there. That'd be too easy.

Ephemera breathes out. His hands are shaking. He takes another drag on his cigarette, waiting for the nicotine to do its thing and chill him the fuck out.

It doesn't. ]

you kissed me first. after i put a blade into your shoulder. so what's that fucking say about you

[ A weak deflection. The sad part is, he knows why he did part of it. He knows why he put his hand on the back of Felix's neck and that's a real simple answer. Protecting the implant. A reflex, like they gave two shits about each other. Like they're the sort of people who do shit like that.

He turns around and punches the wall. Once, twice.

Three times. ]

says i'm a fucked up masochist you repressed twat

( not the kind of pain he gets off on, but felix has fucked people who have done far worse to him than violently stab him a couple times. that's just foreplay, like he said. an escapist's game, from liquor to valium to violence to sex. no hard feelings until someone dies, and even then it's rarely personal.

it's slightly personal with ephemera. )

this isn't about me
i know who i am and i know why i did it
you were a warm body and i wanted a taste of you, end primitive thought process

( everything about that moment entwined messily. felix straddling ephemera's lap, his hand and gun caught between the unyielding vise of his thighs, pinning him close. his fingers in his hair. the coppery scent of blood. the race of his pulse next to ephemera's infuriating calmness.

he'd never wanted to kill and kiss someone so much at the same time. )

but i bet you wish i did it to fuck with you
that would've been so much easier to write off
try again

Edited 2021-08-31 02:45 (UTC)

[ You could do better, Ephemera thinks viciously. You could go find anyone in this goddamn city, so why me? He's never wanted to kiss someone so soon on the heels of trying to break them in half. He's never wanted to fuck Carolina and he fears, deep down, that the city's going to force them into proximity one of these days and that choice won't really be one. Everything feels raw and brutal. Edging onto something manic.

His hand is bleeding. He barely feels it when he presses the cigarette into his knuckles. ]

okay. you wanna fucking go? you were too fucked up to kill.

[ He bares his teeth at nothing. His skin sizzles. ]

no point in it.

( like fucking clockwork. )

how's that implant treating you, ephemera?
what was it that did you in? the missile strike? the building? something else?

[ Goddamn it. Trap set and baited and he walks into it like a moron. Every goddamn time. ]

covenant booby trap. fun fucking times.

[ Turns out getting hit point blank by an EMP really does a number on a neural implant.

But, because he can't not strike back: ]

your armor still fucked?

they're a bitch, aren't they?
had mine replaced in 48

( the implant is a strength as much as it's a weakness. all it takes is enough butchered up marines to realize that every single human weapon in the unsc's arsenal has an implant, and that shit is massively exploitable.

strange how calm felix feels, after the panic fades into pleasant numbness. )

it's not but it wouldn't matter if it was
you're not getting me in full rig again

[ That means he either found the right gear to do the patch job himself, or he found someone to do it for him. Easiest suspect is Crais. That could turn into a problem later.

Ephemera grits his teeth. The burn on his hand throbs. ]

you make it easy and i'll snap your fucking neck

sometimes i wonder if you think killing me will make it stop
reset everything back to zero, a fresh start

( it won't change anything. that ephemera hates him, but not enough to sever himself from him. that felix, in all his fucked up and twisted enormity, wanted to kiss him, so he did it, and he'd do it again, slow and thorough, chase his pulse with his tongue and hold it between his teeth.

that he wants him at all, in the only way a viciously broken man can want anything. ravenously. ruinously. something went wrong along the way. he went wrong along the way. he's always been wrong.

that motherfucker should've killed him before felix had the chance to kiss him. staunch the wound while he could. now they're both bleeding out. )

i told you i'd drag you down with me and there's no bottom like rock bottom
promise i'll make it quiet for you ephemera

( and if he bitches out, he'll slit his throat. that sentiment goes both ways. )

[ For a moment, all Ephemera wants to do is scream. Throw himself at the nearest possible enemy and tear them to pieces. Force the world into some semblance of alignment because none of this tracks, none of this fits how it ought to. And it's too dark to paint up here, not unless he goes out and buys himself some work lights.

He flexes his hand again. Watches the burn flex, shiny and raw. He barely feels it. Disengage, soldier. Or attack. Either way, commit. ]

you can't.

[ Too raw. An obvious opening. ]

it's too fucking loud.

yeah i know

( felix knows how this ends. in the elevator, when they were two seconds away from killing each other, and here, where the future seems so tentatively uncertain and mercurial. anyone else, his brain pleaded in a panic, half a second before he kissed him. he changed the trajectory of everything, fucked the rules and any boundaries that would've made sense, and ephemera should've fucking killed him.

back in his room, felix closes the window and sets his knife on a table, running his fingertip down the blade's edge. recently cleaned, after his brutal but short-lived fight with ephemera on the roof. his blood still stains the grip.

too loud, and the shit that makes it quiet is the shit that'll destroy you in the end. )

we can be done terrence but you've gotta fuck off first
it's that fucking easy

[ We can be done, he says, like it's that easy. And maybe it would be in a different world, if they were different people. Or maybe if there was a mission to follow through on. Something brutal and simple instead of this goddamn mess of a city and all its complications, all the lines that end up trampled.

He should disengage. It'd be the smart move. ]

i'm too sober for this shit

( yeah, that was entirely expected. is it really a mercy when he knows ephemera won't take it? )

then drink yourself into a coma like the fucking rest of us and pretend this never happened like i know you will or stab me in the goddamn face
that's how this goes
you don't get a third option

and i'm keeping the sketch

( in the drawer next to the photo of his mother. )

[ What does he even say to that? Ephemera flexes his hands, the burn shiny on his knuckles, and really wishes he knew. He used to be better at this part, he thinks. Knowing how to react to other people, how to be a person out of his armor. Now, everything feels complicated and strange. Foreign to him. He was good at this part, once - wasn't he? Or maybe he was just around people he trusted, who made sense.

Sad part is, Felix makes sense to him. That's the really fucked up bit. ]

shouldve kicked your door in and bashed your head into the wall.

[ Should've. Didn't. And now here they are. ]

do what you're gonna do

i never do anything less than that

you got him right btw

( locus' steadfast presence, the weighty anchor grounding felix to a rocky seabed. an immovable object to felix's unstoppable force. he's going to kill him, violently and brutally, that's already been decided, but he fucking misses him like he'd miss a limb, like he'd miss his heartbeat. there's no gravity here. there's nothing left to hold him down, and everyone, ephemera especially, will suffer for it.

yeah. felix is too sober for this too. )

anyway fuck you
don't respond or i'll kick your ass

[ There's a part of Ephemera - distant, twitchy, entirely too sober - that wants to ask what Locus looks like without his helmet. There's a person underneath the armor. Always is. That's the trouble. But that's not for him to know, is it? He didn't hate Locus but Ephemera didn't know him either. He was just there, a looming presence in the field. Like a force of nature with how often the others whispered about him.

Crazy, too. Apparently.

He exhales through his teeth, then tears a strip out of his shirt to bandage his hand before he gives into the impulse to dig into the wound and really make it scar. He doesn't ask. Felix might actually tell him the truth, and then what would they do?

And then, because there's something sharp and pulsing inside of his skull tonight: ]

get fucked

[ He really ought to let it lie. Move on.

Should.

Doesn't. ]

( this ornery bitch. )

jesus christ dude
you do realize telling me to get fucked is not the insulting suggestion you think it is, right?
i would gladly get fucked to spite you

if you want me to fuck you up just say so
i'm not gonna play footsie with you all fucking night

[ The problem - or one of them - is that Ephemera doesn't know what he wants. He ought to. It ought to be simple. Bash Felix's head against the wall and make him shut the fuck up. Sure, okay. Why the fuck not? It'd be textbook, clockwork, the expected thing. Even now, Ephemera can't say why he held back. Why he left the sketch and not more violence in his wake. It wouldn't have lasted even if they did manage to kill each other but it would have made sense.

This doesn't. ]

then fuck off.

[ He's going to get drunk. That bottle of tequila from work is about to become his new best friend. ]

( like the most annoying bird in his ear: )

k
sleep tight, t

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