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

( 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

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only