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.

Comments

[unlawful]

( ortez fixed felix's rig as well as his own, regularly tuning up areas that needed patching or problems in the hud that he couldn't dissect himself. not exactly felix's area of expertise. felix was good with their ship, knew how to make that fucker purr in the frozen vastness of deep space, and that's how they lived their lives for years. trading off. complementing each other's strengths and weaknesses.

their relationship was straightforward. uncomplicated, like felix's knives and shields, until gates rose from a shallow grave and made it fucking complicated. he never told him. ortez said it once and never again, licked into the damp flame of his mouth like a secret or bullet, but felix never said it back.

he wonders if he knew.

why the fuck is he here, staring down at ephemera's arm? getting so goddamn close to him? asking him shit like he cares? the thought spikes through him like ice, blocking up his throat. he wets his bottom lip with his tongue and drops ephemera's arm, too sudden. he smells like steel and napalm up close. more appealing than the oil and gritty dirt. more familiar, too. )

Might wanna give it a try if your problem's localized in the HUD, then.

[requiemshark]

[ And just like that, something shifts. Another line drawn. Ephemera goes still in a way that’s probably telling. As good as flinching, really. But even so, Felix doesn’t go for him. Doesn’t pull Ephemera’s own trick and try to stab a knife into his throat. Pop it in and twist. Never easy going against somebody in a full rig but you can do it. Ephemera has before.

Breathe. You’re fine. ]

Cool.

[ For lack of a better idea. Ephemera exhales through his teeth. He’s getting twitchy. Not good. ]

Crais fix your rig?

[ It’s asked abruptly. Someone did, presumably. Felix isn’t the type to go around when faulty gear. ]

[unlawful]

( that was obvious, wasn't it? )

Yep. ( zero hesitation in his response, at least. he has no loyalty to crais, though he knows crais has loyalty to ephemera and vice-versa. that was fucking obvious, too. what's not so obvious is why he fixed his rig beyond his bullshit response of wanting to keep him docile. ) First guy who responded, actually. How often does your petty mean girl ass fucking gossip about me with other people?

( drake, crais. he wonders if there's more, how many friends ephemera has made since his arrival. two more than felix has made. harding counts a little bit, maybe, but he's not a friend as much as he's a source of entertainment. that's all anyone is to him, in the end. )

[requiemshark]

[ Crais didn’t mention that. No reason to. Not like it’s any of Ephemera’s fucking business what Crais does. Ephemera twitches. Doesn’t bother denying it. He’s come home fucked up to Drake more than once. That needed to be explained. And then after, with Crais -

Hah. An attempt to make sense of it, he supposes. Or some small price of it. ]

My petty mean girl ass has better things to do.

[ Ephemera cocks his head. ]

You were a threat in proximity.

[ Were. A misstep, perhaps. ]

[unlawful]

( hard to miss that.

felix looks at him, silent. then, after a moment: ) Still am, Terrence.

( his delivery is nearly careful, like a warning. he still is. he always will be, as long as they share the same city and space. to ephemera, to crais, to drake, to anyone who crosses him wrong and wants a piece. always expanding, he thinks again. he'll never run out of pieces to give.

he lowers his eyes, stepping around ephemera to circle from behind and examine his rig in full detail. it bothers him. not the sex. he'd have jerked ephemera off in that elevator on the first goddamn day if it meant they got out of there faster. just another role to be played, another job to complete. but ephemera didn't kill him in that fucking hallway, and he stopped felix from tapping out in that fucking arena when it'd have been easier to just let it go.

it was a mistake. everything about every single one of their interactions is a mistake, including this moment, and more than anything felix doesn't understand why. he fucking hates it. he thinks about it until it makes him nauseous, and then he drinks to quiet the chaos. why. )

That day, in the arena, you stopped me. ( his voice is soft, spoken at ephemera's back. ) Why?

[requiemshark]

[ Letting anyone at his back is a mistake. A threat far more immediate and real than anything they’re dancing around now. Felix could fuck him up like this. Go for his spine, the reactor, any number of available weak points. Ephemera tips his head back and doesn’t move. Toggles his HUD to keep track of things, but he doesn’t move even when Felix is directly behind him.

It’s not about trust. But it’s happening, nonetheless.

Fuck.

Ephemera stills at the question. For a moment, he barely breathes. ]

Because I don’t torture people.

[ It comes out soft. Too honest. He knows what it means to be forced onto the ground, to feel yourself lose the thread. And he doesn’t have many lines left, but that’s one. Hunter would’ve wanted it that way, he thinks.

Hunter lost his mind at the end. Ephemera couldn’t do a damn thing about that. But in the arena, he could be calm. So, he was. ]

[unlawful]

( one of ephemera's lines, the limits felix doesn't have. he doesn't torture people. felix thinks of every man and woman he tortured in the years after the war, when all that shit should have stopped because there was no reason for it anymore. nothing to fucking win. no lives at stake. just money on the line.

ortez never had the patience for it. either people told him what he wanted to know, or he killed them, point-blank. felix could ease it out of them, sometimes tender. gentle, like a lover. sometimes cold, hollowing himself so fucking empty he couldn't feel anything no matter how hysterically they screamed and begged for death. he still doesn't know which was crueler of him: making people believe he cared, or never even allowing them the goddamn hope.

he traces his index finger down a seam on ephemera's back, near his spine. idly, he wonders if the reactor is in the same place or if crais switched it up. )

Wouldn't have been on your hands. ( that's why he was going to do the dirty work himself. he's used to it. ) That all it was? Mercy?

[requiemshark]

[ Every instinct Ephemera has is screaming at him to twist around and kill Felix before this turns. You let anyone at your back, you fucking deserve what happens to you. The sergeant screamed that at him once, after he made a mistake in the field and nearly got a plasma blade through his spine. It cut through his armor and it's only a goddamn miracle he didn't end up dead on some nowhere planet. Only reason he didn't was because Rodriguez was there, watching from on high, and covered his stupid ass. Fifty cal to the brainstem and the enemy dropped. Cue the sergeant's furious, screaming lecture.

Even in a full rig, he's vulnerable with anyone at his back. Ephemera slows his breathing down. He ought to swing around and hit Felix in the face. Force distance.

Funny. He doesn't. ]

A line in the sand.

[ It's said softly. ]

That what it was for you? Mercy?

[unlawful]

( wouldn't it have been easy if it was.

his fingers skip between his shoulder blades, hesitating near the base of his skull. his implant, hidden by the armor. good, that he has a way to protect it now, though it won't help his seizures. felix still doesn't know why he's here, or why that's a thought at all. ephemera could just as easily turn around and knock him senseless. kill him, even. freak out with felix at his back, throttle him until his windpipe collapses from the pressure.

it's stupid to let him at his back. they both know it, and yet. )

Me trying to tap out? That was mercy, I guess. A form of it. ( only mercy he knew how to give him in the moment: removing himself from the equation and releasing ephemera from a duty to be fulfilled. stand down, soldier. move on. but then –

but then. shit got all twisted.

felix drops his forehead against ephemera's back, between his shoulders. his armor has absorbed most of the early morning chill, and felix feels the cold across the nape of his neck too, like feathery wisps of ice. grounding. it keeps him in the moment. this is maybe crazier than anything that happened in that goddamn arena. felix thinks he's already lost his mind — before duplicity, before ortez left him. there was never any stopping it.

no salvation for the truly wicked, his mother used to say. on her worst days, she used to think he was possessed. her sweet boy, her only son Исаак, spitting image of her with his father's temperament, taken by the devil in the middle of the night. all that time in church, confessing his fucking sins away to any god that would listen on the small chance that it would cleanse him and she'd be satisfied.

she was right, all this time. just not in the way her drunken delusions told her she was right. no source for his wickedness. no devil or careless god to blame. he just is. )

But when I told you I'd let you? ( he's quiet, at a pitch that ephemera will have to strain to hear over the breeze and organic chirps of the city gradually waking. he rolls his forehead over ephemera's armored plating, exhaling slow. ) That wasn't mercy at all.

( he doesn't know what that was. )

[requiemshark]

[ It comes out quiet. The words could get lost so easily if he weren't paying attention, if he weren't so focused on this moment and the weight of having Felix at his fucking back. Ephemera barely breathes, holding perfectly still. Part of him expects a blade to the back of the skull, or drawn right across his throat. Protect yourself, he can hear the sergeant hissing, you stupid motherfucker, protect yourself.

She was brutal, the sergeant. Once, when they were both drunk, she told him she liked killing things with her knives. That whenever she had the chance, she'd do it with a blade and not a gun. Things slot into place, she said - bleary-eyed and solemn - and you know. You know.

Know what? he'd asked, but she'd waved him off. Ruffled his hair and told him to get some rest. And then she sobered up and roared at them all through the next morning's drills, and it became this thing they didn't talk about. Confessions were like that. Half-secrets. Things got lost in the war. But there were supposed to be lines.

Even at the end, there were supposed to be lines. But she told him the answer once, stone cold sober in yet another aftermath. Then you know, little brother.

In the middle, in the scrum, that's when you know what you are.

This would be easier if they fought, Ephemera thinks bleakly. He twitches, uncertain of what he's meant to do now. What he's supposed to be. Felix rests his head against Ephemera's back and Ephemera lets it happen and it just -

Hah.

Ephemera tips his head back. He breathes out. ]

What was it?

[ His voice is soft. ]

[unlawful]

( he doesn't know. he knows a little, portions of it that make sense in the chaos. the solid comfort of ephemera's body on top of him, and his calluses rough on his bare skin, tracking sensitive scars. his tongue in his mouth. his teeth down his throat. in the moment, he wanted it.

and he wanted it later when it was all over, standing in a steaming hot shower after putting his fucking fist into a ceramic tile wall, blood circling the drain.

he turns his head, lightly pressing his cheek to his back. )

Couldn't tell you. Kind of want you a little bit. Kind of hate you a little bit, too.

( half the problem. felix doesn't hate anyone. that requires energy and the ability to give an ounce of a fuck, and he hates ephemera a little bit but only a little bit. not as much as he should or shouldn't. he hates the quiet that comes rushing in alongside him, the swelling tide that sweeps him off his feet. he hates that he didn't goddamn kill him in that hallway or in the arena. he hates that he didn't stop this while there was a chance for the both of them to walk away unscathed.

he hates that he doesn't realize how badly he's fucked himself even now. felix leans away and pats his shoulder amiably, stepping back out of reach. )

One day you're probably gonna put me down. Like, 98% chance. Sort of a looming inevitability at this point. I just want you to know it's all good. I won't hold it against you, or come after Drake in the aftermath. We'll be square. You gotta do what you gotta do, you know? ( as matter-of-fact and monotonous as someone making dinner plans with an old friend, turning on his heel and digging in his pocket for his cigarettes. then, without missing a beat, he continues: ) Strip down your HUD when you get a chance. Might as well see where it gets you.

cw for suicide mention

[requiemshark]

[ And just like earlier when he stepped into range and made it real, Felix is the one who puts distance between them. Not much, but enough to note. Enough that it ought to matter. Ephemera breathes out slow and tries to pull apart the part of him that - strangely, inexplicably - morns the loss.

It's quiet still. Maybe that's all he wanted. Quiet in the midst of all this goddamn chaos.

Ephemera turns on his heel, watching Felix. Wondering how the fuck they got to this place where they can talk about the inevitable outcome where one of them dies. Or even just Felix. It won't last, but then not much does around here. He wonders if that counts as suicide.

Breathe out, soldier. Remember where you are.

Silently, he tugs his helmet off. Breathes unfiltered oxygen. He motions with his hand at the cigarettes. ]

Give me one.

[ What a mess this is. What a brutal, bloody mess. And this time, they haven't even hit each other. ]

I figured you'd kill me on Chorus.

[ It's said simply. No muss, no fuss. A looming inevitability - that's the phrasing Felix used. It fits as well as anything. ]

You or Locus. Figured you'd try, anyway. Just a means to an end, right? I wouldn't have taken it personally. You do what you've gotta do. And you two were just - noise on my comms. Something I had to maneuver around, pretend to be half a person. All I needed was that armor and then I had it.

[ He's fairly certain they regretted taking him on after that, with how he ignored mission briefings and anything not directly related to his means and his ends. What could it matter?

It hadn't. Not to him, not in that place. It couldn't. ]

You think you're crazy?

[unlawful]

( felix strikes a match and lights his cigarette, then swallows a long drag and stares at ephemera evenly through a cloud of hazy smoke. he intended to leave, move on. like before, like always, ephemera stops him. insane. no sense in it.

and for some reason, like always, felix stays. jostles another cigarette from his pack, hands it over.

ortez would've killed him if felix failed to do it himself. there was never any doubt about ephemera's ultimate fate, once everything was said and done. they never talked about it because they never needed to. business. loose ends. one more body to be spaced into the frozen dark and left behind, never to be thought of again. ephemera didn't matter then. he shouldn't matter now.

duplicity threw a wrench into all of that. it's a wrongness that can't be righted, a tide shift that should've never happened. felix died on chorus. he never knew ephemera beyond their temporary arrangement. that's how it should've stayed, forever. )

Nope. ( he rubs his thumb along his bottom lip, cigarette poised between two fingers. he's fidgety, uncomfortable in his own skin, with this stillness outside of the violence. ) I think I'm the only thing in this universe that makes any fucking sense.

( but he hooks his cigarette in his mouth and strikes another match anyway, palm hovering near the flame as steps closer – too close, again – and lights ephemera's cigarette. )

I think you're crazy.

cw for suicide mention

[requiemshark]

[ Funny thing is, Ephemera gets that. Because Felix makes sense to him in some brutal, fucked up way. It's more than the war, more than the shit they both survived. He's known soldiers his entire goddamn life and towards the end, barely any of them registered. Felix didn't at the time. Chorus was a blur, a kaleidoscope world where nothing existed but his mission. It's only in the aftermath that he's been able to piece things back together. Step back and see the bigger picture.

He takes the cigarette. Lets Felix light it and then breathes it in. Lets the nicotine burn down, down, down into his lungs. Lets it settle there, settle him

Something has to, eventually. ]

I know I am.

[ It's said simply. Just a fact, inevitable as gravity. Maybe one day he won't be, but Ephemera knows pieces of himself. He knows what they spell. ]

But there are days I don't want to die. You know how fucking strange that is?

[unlawful]

( there's a frailty to this moment that felix doesn't like, that cuts too close to something fleshy and throbbing inside him. he swallows another drag, exhales the smoke through his nose after it burns through his lungs and fills him up like how ephemera filled him up in the arena. )

Not really. You're human.

( built-in instinct, driving him to survive. humans have lines. humans want to live. for thousands and thousands and thousands of years, men and women alike have tirelessly sought the cure to mortality because death is a finality that can't be logically understood or grasped. ephemera is crazy, for being here with felix, for coming at him derigged, for not understanding that felix is a fate worse than fucking death. but he's human.

felix swallows around the taste of nicotine and smoke, pushing his tongue to the roof of his mouth. he stares up into the dark. there's no proper sky in the down. everything is so fucking damp here. )

When I was a kid, my mom used to say I was cursed. Satan has your soul, my little rabbit, all fucking dramatic with the Bible verses and holy water. I think I got my flair for drama from her, honestly.

( and his love of liquor. )

She kind of lost her shit after my dad died. Had her moments when she'd sober up, and everything was good, like how it was supposed to be, but. ( he rubs his thumb over his bottom lip again. the curling smoke from his cigarette disperses as he exhales, disappearing into the clammy air. ) Sometimes shit changes us. The war. Losing people we care about. Love. But sometimes we just are the way we are, and there's no changing it. Written into our DNA. Born fucked, stay fucked. It is what it is. I know what I am.

( another drag, another exhale. felix flicks ash onto the concrete. )

I should go.

[requiemshark]

[ Smoke curls. Ephemera taps the ash away and watches it burn, watches it spiral up and fade to nothing. He didn't smoke before he joined the Helljumpers. Didn't really drink, either. It became one of those habits. Sometimes there's nothing else that will settle him, pull him back from whatever edge he's found and thrown himself against. A small burn to bring him down from the greater damage. Everybody's got their compromises. Sometimes shit changes us.

Yeah, Ephemera thinks bleakly. Yeah, it fucking does.

He takes another drag. Lets it burn through him. Settle in his lungs. ]

Don't.

[ It comes out soft. Just - stay. Let it settle, just for a moment. ]

I don't remember my mother. Not really. I think she was a soldier, though. I remember her uniform, how it felt when I grabbed her collar. And I think she spoke Mandarin to me, but I don't know what she said.

[ He never learned to speak it. Or maybe he knew it once, and forgot. He doesn't know. ]

I know she wasn't the one who named me Ephemera, though. That was later. A joke. It's funny, you know?

[ He tips his head back. Breathes out. ]

Means temporary. Only I'm always the last man standing.

[unlawful]

( there were a lot of kids just like ephemera looking for a home in all the wrong places, during the war. one in his unit. quiet guy, too serious, until someone or several someones got him drunk and then he was all sorts of friendly and affectionate. ephemera reminds him of him sometimes.

he hums softly. )

Lost my entire unit within a few hours when shit got really bad in New Alexandria. ( he drags his thumb from his mouth to the corner of his jaw, lightly touching the edges of the black ink that curves around the back of his ear. august 23rd, 2552. his sacrament of penance. his last confession. ) It was just me and Locus left, at the end.

( then his entire company, wiped out like animals when reach was finally glassed. a common thread binding him to ephemera, except the paths they took were drastically different. end result was the same, though. both dead. both rotting in the ground on chorus.

felix inhales one last slow, deep drag, smoke curling in his lungs. he flits his cigarette to his feet, crushed under his heel, and turns into ephemera, sliding his hand over his bicep. should've let me leave, he thinks. should've just left, jesus christ, isaac. ephemera is solid, bulky in rig, and felix leans into him, angling his fist into his hair and pulling him closer, down to him.

he hovers, lashes shuttered, then touches his tongue to his bottom lip and exhales smoke into his mouth. the touch buzzes through him like gasoline. too much. he sighs against him, loosening his hand in his hair. )

I don't know how to do anything but take, Ephemera.

[requiemshark]

[ Sometimes Ephemera wonders if his team would have stuck together as long as they had if Hunter hadn't fought so goddamn hard to keep them all alive. If they'd lost someone and fragmented, if maybe - in some fucked up way - that wouldn't have been better in the long run. Because then at least the others might have lived. They might have gone to ground instead of fighting to the bitter end. Maybe if he'd died first instead of surviving, maybe then the others would have found a way to move on.

Maybe. But he always survives, doesn't he? Until one day he didn't and then he ended up screaming at Carolina and gunned down in the street like -

Well. Like something insane.

Ephemera watches Felix silently, trying to think of something to say. That sort of loss sinks in deep. Sometimes it heals wrong, goes sour under the surface. Sometimes it just wrecks everything in proximity. Ephemera takes another drag and tries to focus on the burn because that he knows how to deal with. And then Felix steps into distance again, coming in close, and -

Oh, Ephemera thinks stupidly, as several things happen very quickly. He lowers his cigarette, then lets it drop. Felix's grip tightens in his hair, smoke exhaled, and then it loosens.

He could break the hold. Hit him. Probably should.

Fuck, Ephemera thinks, and just breathes out. He presses their foreheads together instead. ]

You know the fucked up thing? You make sense to me.

[unlawful]

( ephemera drops his head, pressed close. he can feel the strangely lulling rise and fall of his chest through his rig, cool steel bleeding into the thin material of felix's t-shirt. the chill is barely noticeable next to the warmth of ephemera's mouth so close.

he stays. he lets the moment settle, his hand in ephemera's hair, foreheads slanted together like they're telling secrets. )

Yeah, that's pretty fucked up. ( insane, again. ) Locus tried to make sense of me. He had this whole thing with wanting to understand how people worked. Drove me fucking crazy, especially on Chorus when he got all puppy dog-eyed and fixated on that stupid motherfucking Freelancer. But I don't think he ever really got it.

( felix never gave him the chance. maybe he would've left sooner if he had. maybe he would've stayed, if he knew how felix felt. maybe that would've been worse. felix's love was an ugly, ruinous thing. it destroyed him. it would've destroyed locus, too. )

[requiemshark]

[ Ephemera keeps one hand loose on his helmet. A bludgeoning weapon, if he needs one. If they fight - and they always do, in the end - then he'll need whatever advantage he can think to take. This time he's geared up and Felix isn't. But that doesn't always swing the numbers quite how it should. The whole moment feels strange, off balance.

Breathe, soldier. Settle. And for a moment, he can almost hear Hunter's voice. That calmness, drawing him away from the crazy. Keeping him centered in the scrum.

Almost. ]

No?

[ Like before, his voice is soft. He keeps one hand on his helmet. And with the other, he puts his hand on the back of Felix's neck. An old reflex from a different life. Shielding the implant. He's careful, with his gauntlets. He remembers that part, too. ]

Why not?

[unlawful]

( felix doesn't let people touch the back of his neck. he warned crais off it, flinched from sam like he'd been hit when he brushed it lightly, on accident. but he lets ephemera do it. repeatedly. over and over, still as stone as his palm settles across his nape, protecting his implant. that'd be a fucked up way to go, he thinks idly.

his heart is in his ears, pounding rhythmically. drowning everything out. )

He couldn't. I'm good at what I do, and I didn't want him to see me.

( for the best. for his own good, to protect him. ortez had his back. ortez was his eyes from up high. he let him have that: control, and felix's mouth, and felix's body, and everything still whole left inside him, but he couldn't have all of him, not without fracturing and splitting into fragments. not without burning himself alive. he wishes he'd killed him. it's a bitter, vicious thought. better than leaving him like this. he misses him, like a phantom limb, like a heartbeat. he wishes he'd killed him.

he leans into the pressure of ephemera's hand and curls his fingers around his wrist, guiding him to his neck. his fingers flex down to his hand, forking ephemera's thumb against the mark on his throat. the one he'd left with his teeth. )

You should go.

( not i anymore. this time it's a warning. leave. )

[requiemshark]

[ That makes sense, too. Slots into place like a key into a lock. Before, Ephemera thinks he would have hated knowing this about Felix. Knowing anything about Felix. But he understands what it means to play a role, put on a mask. They approached it from different angles. He thinks Felix is better at it, in the end. But he understands what it means. The weight of it when things finally fall and you're stripped down to nothing but your bones and your own goddamn brutality. He knows.

He lets Felix guide his hand. He goes easy. And then, strangely, he's calm. He traces his thumb along the edge of the mark. Remembers making it. Remembers wanting to kill him then. To do it with his teeth, like an animal.

It's healed up well enough. It'll probably scar, though.

Ephemera watches Felix for a long moment. ]

Gonna kill me?

[ Gonna try? ]

[unlawful]

You still don't get it, do you?

( even after everything.

ephemera watches him, and felix stares right back, unblinking, tilting his head and pressing into the pressure of ephemera's hand. his throat jumps under his thumb, tracing the mark so close to his pulse. i don't know how to do anything but take, he said. i'll ruin your life, he said. i'll burn that shit to the ground. i'm never happy. if you knew that, you'd stop answering me. you're just collateral damage.

you've seen too fucking much. )

Worse.

[requiemshark]

[ Ephemera tips his head to the side. He's got gauntlets on now. If he wanted, he could crush Felix's throat. Even by accident. It wouldn't be hard at all.

He doesn't. That isn't the point of this. And like before, he feels strangely calm. ]

Worse thing that's happened to me's already been done.

[unlawful]

I thought that once too.

( turns out he had more to lose. chorus taught him that lesson well, at least.

ephemera has newfound stability. drake. crais, though felix doesn't understand the full extent of their relationship. some semblance of a life away from the chaos. normalcy. long-term quiet. felix squeezes his fingers over ephemera's hand, forcibly tightening his grip on his throat close to bruising. always more to lose. always further you can fall. rock bottom doesn't exist.

his shoulders shake as he exhales. should just stab him. put an end to this goddamn insanity. when will it fucking end, otherwise? they're caught in the event horizon of fate, circling the heavy gravity of a black hole. this is how it goes. just fucking force it, felix. force it to an end.

he drops ephemera's hand and spreads his palm flat on his chest, coaxing him back. )