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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. |
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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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.
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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. )
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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?
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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. )
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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? ]
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( 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.
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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.
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( 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. )
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Felix's shoulders twitch. A small thing, on balance.
Fuck, Ephemera thinks, and stays where he is. Things are very quiet right now. Almost dreamlike. He can still taste the ghost of the nicotine. That burning tang.
He tips his head to the side. This would be so much easier if they just went for each other. Made it violent. He thinks they will, sooner than later. They always do. ]
You're the one who closed the distance.
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like felix. )
I kissed you first, too. I do that.
( closes distances. leverages his body and mouth as a weapon, then forces the distance back into place in the roiling aftermath – with violence, if necessary.
his palm flexes over ephemera's chest and presses in firmly, stilling the telltale quivering through his fingertips. ephemera wouldn't stop him if he walked around him and left. then what? they circle back to the same goddamn place eventually? the city brings them together in a new, disastrous way? he has a knife. he won't be able to kill him in a full rig without catching him off guard, but he doesn't need to kill him. just needs to make a point and stop the fucking pendulum.
he'll be swallowed up by sound unless he moves, lost to the noise in his head. his knuckles skim ephemera's chest plate as he lets his hand fall back to his side. make a decision. force it, like in the hallway. in the arena. on that rooftop where ephemera almost bled out.
strange how it gets harder every time. )
Ephemera. ( for once, he doesn't know what to say. the right words. the correct order of words that will make everything stop. fuck. he pinches his fingers over the bridge of his nose, squeezing his eyes shut briefly. ) I can't. You make me fucking nervous.
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I'm not trying to.
[ Strangely, he's not. He would have, a while back. In those days when the threat assessment was simple in its brutality. Any advantage you can take is a good one. That was the sergeant's way. Hunter was the one who tempered that, drew up lines when Chica would have wrecked the world to get it done. She would have killed Felix at the first pass. Ephemera knows that. Cut his head clean off with one of her knives and said fuck it to the consequences. That was her way. And Ephemera thinks this might be his.
This quiet, in the aftermath. ]
What'd you want, Felix?
[ If he even knows. Ephemera doesn't. ]
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Everything, motherfucker. ( the whole universe in his mouth. everything. he wants everything. ) With you, specifically? Fuck if I know. I wanna stab the shit out of you. I wanna kiss you. I want you to make a little goddamn sense. Pick your fucking poison.
( felix thinks he started it, worst of all. in the very beginning, when he didn't put a bullet in his brain when he had ephemera right in front of him, prone and bleeding on his back. what're you gonna fucking do, huh? and felix dropped his sidearm, took off his fucking helmet. another wrong turn in the universe, a butterfly effect rippling through time. he started this, and he can't even end it. pathetic. )
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[ Half true. It would simplify things if they fought. It would go along predictable lines - right up until it didn't and then they'd be back here. Staring at each other in the predawn hours like crazy people wondering where the fuck they went wrong.
Ephemera tips his head to the side. The calm feeling doesn't waver. He wonders if this is what Hunter felt like during the war, the eye of the goddamn storm when everything around them was falling to pieces. The captain was always calm, right up until the very end when he lost his goddamn mind. That's irony for you. ]
And I'm not moving.
[ He was here first. ]
cw past suicide attempt mention
( and this shit will continue to a breaking point, until morale fucking implodes.
his fingers twitch, locking tighter in his sockets. then he drops his hand and looks at ephemera again, eye-to-eye. felix isn't a coward. he's stared ridiculous odds right in the face and said fuck it anyway. beaten the shit out of people. gotten the shit beat out of him. forced his own gun under his chin and dared ephemera to pull the trigger, just because.
but this nameless thing between him and ephemera unnerves him. )
Fine. I'll move.
( he grinds ephemera's lit cigarette into the concrete and stamps out the flickering bud as he brushes past him, elbow knocking ephemera's arm. maybe a little pointed. a petty, wordless fuck you. )
I'll see you when I see you, Terrence.
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He tips his head back. The air's cool right now. Almost calming. ]
Come spar with me.
[ It's said abruptly. ]
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halfway across the lot, felix stops. he doesn't turn around. he digs his cigarettes from his pocket and lights another one, realizes he's shaking as he brings it to his mouth. hairline tremor, from the tips of his fingers down to his wrist. he exhales a puff of smoke around his cigarette and flexes his fingers. two names stare back up at him, cemented on his skin.
finally, after a long silence: )
Here? Like this?
( he doesn't have his rig. wouldn't be much of a spar. )
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Ephemera watches him for a moment. ]
Not right now.
[ Maybe when they're both armored up. Or unarmored. Whichever. ]
But sure. Here. Why the fuck not.
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( he pivots to face him, half-obscured behind tendrils of smoke. easier to study him with some measure of distance between them, when felix isn't at risk of crossing lines like touching his lips with his tongue and blowing smoke into his goddamn mouth. he looks at the cut of ephemera in his rig, the tangle of his dark hair. he'd called him pretty in the arena. heat of the moment, thinking with his dick. you're pretty like this, on top of me, under me. pretty like this, scars and all.
he taps ash from his cigarette, almost thoughtful. )
All right. Next time.
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Could have. There were openings, clear as day. And yet, they held back every time.
Ephemera breathes out slow. He's calm. It won't last, it never does. But right now, he's steady as stone. ]
All right.
[ Exhale, soldier. ]
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silently, he extends his hand, dangling his lit cigarette between his fingers for ephemera to take. )
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Probably not. Hunter was a good tactician. Never took a bet unless he was sure it would net him something worth keeping.
Ephemera takes the cigarette. Presses it between his teeth and inhales. Lets the nicotine burn down, down, down. He doesn't say anything, can't think of the right words to break the silence. He just exhales, blowing smoke, and passes it back. ]
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has he always been this fucking tired? never noticed it because he never stops? he's tired, he thinks.
he passes the remainder of the cigarette to ephemera, allowing him the last drag, then stares down at his hand again. still shaking, but less. he loosely curls his fingers into his palm and hooks out his pinky, tilted toward a yellow stream of nearby lamplight. his mother's name, inked in neat letters on the side of his finger, a little faded with time. tatiana. )
My ma. Tat'yana. Got it right after I enlisted. When I showed her on a vidcall, she cried and didn't talk to me for six months.
( soft, even with all her fanatical delusions, even at her absolute worst, when she frightened felix more than anything. she cried when he enlisted, too, and clung to him the day he shipped out, begged anyone who would listen not to take him away. too young, she said, teary-eyed, lashes clumped in mascara. still a baby. her little rabbit. her imperfect boy. damned to hell, but he was hers. )
I was seventeen. Thirty-two now. Haven't seen her in a decade.
( not directly, anyway. he's seen her from afar, across crowded streets, in the market as she picked out apples and sweet cherries, through the window of her small two bedroom cottage. she lives in the country now, far away from any ocean. sometimes she looks happy. )
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Now, it's quiet.
Ephemera tips his head back, taking one last drag. He holds it for a moment, then exhales. Watches it spiral up, then drops the butt and grinds it down under his armored boot. Tatiana.
Yeah. They know things about each other now, don't they?
He flexes his fingers, idly. Thinking of the rings tattooed around his own fingers. One for each of his team and one, finally, for Connie and everything she might have been. He wanted to carry them. Rings, instead of their names. He never knew Connie's real name, anyway. ]
Did she know you were still alive?
cw self-harm mention
I died on Reach. Twenty-seven. She has my tags.
( the only remaining evidence that her son actually existed, aside from old photographs and vids. anything she didn't burn or destroy in a fit of mania when he left her alone to fend for herself on tribute.
ortez's name came later, years down the line. it feels like a curse now, a promise broken. more than once he's taken a knife to his ring finger in the suffocating dark of his apartment in the down and drunkenly considered flaying the skin to the bone. or cutting it off entirely. )
I don't know how to stop this.
( whatever this is. all of it. )
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It happened. It ended. What came next mattered more. That was the family that he'd wanted. That was the grief that killed him. He resurrected himself imperfectly. There are pieces he'll never get back.
He knows he's crazy now. It comes and goes. But it's settled in him. Coiled in deep.
Ephemera tips his head to the side, watching Felix. Funny thing is, he makes that gesture, too. Touches his knuckles to his mouth. He does it when he's anxious. Trying to calm himself. ]
You're in your head too much.
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