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.

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[requiemshark]

[ For the first time in a very long time, things go truly quiet. Ephemera lets the nicotine settle in him, curl through his lungs. Most of the time he thinks too hard. Gets caught in loops, going round and round the same thing. Twisting himself into knots with all the rage and fucking grief, trying to contend with it all. It's only when he's painting or very drunk that it ever slows and even then, there are limits.

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

[unlawful]

( that's funny. felix scoffs, soft, and tightens his hand into a fist, touching his curled knuckles to his mouth. )

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. )

[requiemshark]

[ Ephemera can't say he understands. But then, he's never had to leave anyone behind. His family was always at his side, standing shoulder to shoulder with him as the war raged on around them. Whatever he left behind on Eremus faded as the years went on. He was born there and he's never been back. All the friends he had back then are long gone. The woman who raised him might still be alive, but he never wrote to her and as far as he knows, she never wrote to him. Why would she? Her obligations ended the day he turned eighteen - which was, incidentally, the day he shipped off for boot camp.

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.

[unlawful]

( can't fucking leave it, he thinks. and when he can, it's just as bad. maybe worse.

he presses his tongue to the roof of his mouth and swallows tightly, throat bobbing. this whole thing is wrong. ephemera's calmness in the face of an inevitable catastrophe. felix still fucking being here, allowing this tenuous closeness. he drags his knuckles from his mouth, circling his hand around his neck. focuses on the rapid thrum of his pulse pinned under his thumb. )

Maybe, but at least I know what the fuck is going on.

[requiemshark]

[ That makes one of them, Ephemera supposes. He hums to himself, rocking back on his heels. Watching Felix, watching how he shifts to grip his throat. And remember how earlier Felix put his hand over Ephemera's and pressed until he started to squeeze. Could've snapped Felix's neck like that. Crushed his throat. Maybe that was the point. Making it quiet. ]

Do you?

[unlawful]

( maybe he doesn't understand entirely, but he understands enough. seen enough, too. he can feel ephemera's eyes on him, contemplating him, like he's a thing to be understood instead of a thing to be feared or otherwise avoided. you make sense to me. did he make sense when he allowed ephemera to live repeatedly? when he kissed him and begged him to come?

chorus made sense. ortez made sense until he very abruptly didn't. the way of the fucking universe: survive, at all costs. nothing else matters. no one else matters. you're either exploiter or the exploited. )

Yeah.

( the slow-growing realization that he gives a modicum of a shit, spreading through him like dryrot. there aren't words for that. he doesn't know how to stop that. he doesn't know how to flay that feeling from his ribs and silence it. an inevitable catastrophe.

he squeezes his throat and considers making this violent as his pulse kicks beneath his thumb. force it back. make it make sense.

fuck this. fuck ephemera.

his quiet stillness goes rigid in a dizzying flash, tension running his shoulders taut. icily, he says, ) Go home, asshole. Before someone sees you.

( then – before he can respond – he turns on his heel and leaves. )