felix has fielded this shit maybe once before from ephemera, immediately after he came at him with his helmet. violence turned inward, directed like a knife at his heart. he wasn't prepared for it the first time, brain muddied and fogged following ortez's betrayal and his crippling failure on chorus, but his reflexes are sharp now. he cuts the distance in a blink and latches onto his bicep, swinging ephemera's weight off the wall toward the ground.
he crouches over him, knee hooked into his side. his hand slides under his skull, pulls away wet and shiny with blood. fucking ephemera. on the street next to them, a passerby stops. felix doesn't hear anything she says. he smoothly draws his sidearm with his free hand, angled toward the trajectory of her voice with an icy keep walking, bitch. )
Stop it. ( his knee moves to ephemera's chest, weighing him down on the concrete. he wasn't there. he knows. ) I know. Terrence. I left you. It's fucked up, and I left you. It wasn't fair. I know.
( ephemera didn't know that gates was long gone before he actually left, mourning a ghost of a person who felix strangled and buried with his own fucking hands. how could he know that? none of them knew. they just saw what gates wanted them to see except in the moments when he slipped, when that vile ugliness peeked through the curtain. overflow. he couldn't hold it all in, burning down a wick to an explosion that would've eviscerated everything in the surrounding area.
a mercy, he thought at the time. i'm doing you a favor, rookie.
he exhales slowly, loosely circling his bloodied hand around ephemera's throat. his thumb presses into his pulse. )
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felix has fielded this shit maybe once before from ephemera, immediately after he came at him with his helmet. violence turned inward, directed like a knife at his heart. he wasn't prepared for it the first time, brain muddied and fogged following ortez's betrayal and his crippling failure on chorus, but his reflexes are sharp now. he cuts the distance in a blink and latches onto his bicep, swinging ephemera's weight off the wall toward the ground.
he crouches over him, knee hooked into his side. his hand slides under his skull, pulls away wet and shiny with blood. fucking ephemera. on the street next to them, a passerby stops. felix doesn't hear anything she says. he smoothly draws his sidearm with his free hand, angled toward the trajectory of her voice with an icy keep walking, bitch. )
Stop it. ( his knee moves to ephemera's chest, weighing him down on the concrete. he wasn't there. he knows. ) I know. Terrence. I left you. It's fucked up, and I left you. It wasn't fair. I know.
( ephemera didn't know that gates was long gone before he actually left, mourning a ghost of a person who felix strangled and buried with his own fucking hands. how could he know that? none of them knew. they just saw what gates wanted them to see except in the moments when he slipped, when that vile ugliness peeked through the curtain. overflow. he couldn't hold it all in, burning down a wick to an explosion that would've eviscerated everything in the surrounding area.
a mercy, he thought at the time. i'm doing you a favor, rookie.
he exhales slowly, loosely circling his bloodied hand around ephemera's throat. his thumb presses into his pulse. )
But I'm here now.