Wow. You're presentable. That the third sign of the apocalypse or something?
[ Ephemera's twitchy out of armor. Might have slept on the floor with his hand on his pistol. Might have startled awake more often than not. Might have averaged a good four hours of sleep - which, with his track record, is pretty good these days. He's got a sweatshirt on and Felix's knives lined up on the dresser. Sharpened, too.
He's nice like that. And it kept him from vibrating out of his skin. Today's shaping up to be a bad pain day, so.
That's fun.
He rubs at his bad eye, knuckling into the eyepatch. No prosthetic today, either. Yay. ]
C'mon. Wanna take odds on whether the food's actually edible here?
( it takes two seconds for felix to step through the door, palm flat on ephemera's chest, and less than half a second for him to snag his wrist and pull his prodding fingers away from his eyepatch. built-in instinct. his reaction time stays relatively sharp even while fielding a throbbing migraine. also instinct. )
Stop that, asshole. Boots first, food later.
( he is very much barefoot.
the door kicks shut behind him. he squeezes past ephemera and sits at the edge of the bed, working his feet into his boots one at a time and nimbly tying his laces. criss-crossed all the way to the ankle, then wrapped once around the shaft, the extra slack tucked tight into the back of the boot. uniform. more instinct.
he talks while he works. )
Did anyone give you shit last night?
( sometimes that happens when felix starts a scene and ephemera has to bail him out. )
[ The only reason that Ephemera doesn't immediately flinch and punch Felix in the throat is because it's Felix and despite what feels like a goddamn lifetime apart, they still know how to move around each other. Some things bleed true, even out of armor.
The years blur. In some ways, it's like they were never apart.
Ephemera drags a hand through his hair and just flips Felix off. He's tired. The coffee's also for him so he can act semi-functional. ]
Okay, mom.
[ Fuck, he's hurting today. He twitches and drops his hand. What else is new? ]
I handled it. How are you so pretty this goddamn early? It offends me.
( it's strange, looking at ephemera now. twitchier. more tense. broken in brand new ways that didn't exist when gates left and picked up the name felix alongside an indecent barrage of other aliases in his travels. felix was the youngest until ephemera was pulled, baby-faced and still painfully green around the edges, but a quick, sharp learner. still quick, maybe twice as sharp now. that hasn't changed.
still an easy read, too. that hasn't changed either. felix glances at him impassively before he turns his attention back to his boots. )
A very long time ago, back in the olden days before you were born, ( he says this all very casually, as if they aren't a mere three years apart in age ) I damned my soul to an eternity in hell in exchange for a solid 40 years of looking fine as fuck. I've got eight more years of pretty left in me before I put a bullet in my brain and end it all.
( truthfully, he has his mother to thank for fantastic genetics. he's never known another woman who could drink as much as her and still look trim and put-together the next morning, just in time for sunday mass. clear skin, great hair, horrific addiction to liquor. thanks, ma. he learned from the best.
he slaps his knees as he finishes, pushing himself to his feet and pivoting toward the table with his knives. )
[ It's said in a drawl, that self-same banter they used to throw at each other years ago before everything went to shit. And it was a choice, Ephemera knows, it had to be a goddamn choice, but Felix still left. And his name wasn't Felix then but it is now and that's just one of the many sea changes they've had to field. Their little reunion's gone remarkably well, considering.
He doesn't talk about the others much. He hasn't said where they're buried, or what was done to their armor. He hasn't said the captain lost his mind before the end - another name change, another debt that Ephemera's shouldered because he wasn't fucking there. No point in saying any of that. What would it matter?
He hums instead, his remaining eyebrow raised. ]
Maybe. Unlike you, my trashy drunk persona is productive.
[ Half-truth. He used to be a happy drunk. Friends with everyone. Now he's just twitchy and sharp until he's unconscious. ]
( not how i remember you, he almost says, but the past is a gaping crevice between them and felix only knows how to go forward. that's how he survived, year after year. that's how he made it on chorus. that's how he found ephemera when it was all over, when ortez left and the simmies and the fucking freelancers crowned themselves king of the hill. unconscious, helmet off, knocked out with the butt of a rifle, and felix dragged his obscenely heavy ass into the passenger's side of an abandoned warthog.
he dragged him right out of that warthog, too, into his ship in the canyons hidden in a massive cavern under a cascading waterfall. ortez hadn't taken it, miraculously. then they left, one massive failure tucked under his belt. he doesn't look back. he can't.
his fingers trail his knives, lingering on a blade to the far right of the table. different from the others, more ornate, with a handle carved from ivory. a gift, from ortez. he presses his thumb into the blade's tip, smearing the edges in blood. )
Careful, or I'm gonna start thinking you like me or something. ( a soft hum, perfectly neutral. he flips the dagger into the holster on his thigh, then systematically works the remaining knives into their proper places. two in his boot, one tucked into his laces, one on his belt.
he pulls open the bedside drawer next, snagging a neatly bundled wad of cash between two fingers and dragging the bills under his nose. smells like vodka. yep. that's his. )
[ Sometimes it feels like a dream. All the edges filed off, everything just a little off. Sharkface feels like a game he played with strangers - not around his team, not around Felix. Almost politely, they've silently agreed not to talk on it. There's a lot they don't talk about. A lot of things that would break open and rupture if they were given words.
He tried to beat Felix to death not long after Chorus. Grabbed his broken helmet and went in swinging, screaming at him. He doesn't remember why he stopped, or why Felix didn't just put him down. It happened and then it ceased, real eye of the storm shit, and in the aftermath they patched each other back up and it settled. It's been settled for a while now. Ephemera keeps his crazy tapped down. He's got somebody at his six, a steadying force, and that's enough to focus on for now.
You survive what's in front of you. Any fight you can walk away from is a good one, the sergeant used to say. ]
One of these days you're going to get rolled by a goddamn civilian and I'm going to laugh my ass off. Also, you owe me cigarettes.
Well, until that day comes knocking, I will continue to be a menace to drunk men everywhere. The straight man's bogeyman.
( he finds his gun in the back of the drawer and snaps the mag back into the cradle, racking the slide. far more armed than necessary, probably, but too much paranoia has never not served him well, and felix has made plenty of enemies over the past several years. they're between jobs, holed up on a lush little moon of a large gas giant, in a bustling city surrounded by jungle on one side and an ocean on the other.
the louder the place, the better. easier to blend in. felix doesn't do quiet well, and he no longer has ortez breathing down the back of his neck to keep him from stepping out of place. that hard line in the sand is gone. there's just ephemera, and ephemera is –
different. high risk, like his profile on the tartarus said.
he stares at his sidearm, flexing his palm over the grip. )
We need to get you an actual alias, T. ( idly, as he holsters his gun and turns back to ephemera. he splits his wad of cash in half, tucking several folded bills into the pocket of ephemera's sweatshirt. ) Buy yourself some ciggies. What do you want for breakfast?
( there's a cute little cafe just under the seedy hotel they're crashing, or a market with food carts down the street. felix isn't picky. )
[ It would be better, Ephemera thinks, if they stuck to places where everybody walks around in armor all the goddamn time. Simpler, cleaner. Fifteen times more violent but at least he'd know how to exist in proximity to it. Here he follows after Felix, mirrors him, sets himself scripts for when he talks to people so he doesn't come off like a complete goddamn psychopath in public. But it's not like they can go strolling around Insurrectionist territory, not with their records and Ephemera's long ass line of burned bridges. Even invoking Carter Boone's name isn't going to net them anything but a quick death.
A mercy, as these things go. But not useful here. Ephemera could name a hundred dead Insurrectionists, each more or less idealistic than Boone, and it wouldn't change a thing. Here they fucking stand. Out of armor and all.
It can't last. Ephemera knows he stands out in a crowd. People remember scars like his. But they aren't dead yet. That's something.
He shrugs. Pulls his hood up. ]
Protein. And a wall I can put my back to.
[ Also, coffee. The important things. ]
Open to suggestions. Why'd you go with Felix, anyway?
( why the name felix. he says nothing for a moment, tightening the strings on ephemera's hood and running his thumb along the seam, fussily tucking it further over his face. ortez picked the name. wasn't even his first one. félix, is how he said it. he liked how it sounded coming from his mouth, buttery smooth. he especially liked the way he said it when he had ortez on top of him, inside him.
felix thinks he's still there. inside him. haunting him. rotting him slowly. )
It rolls off the tongue, ( he says, finally. ) More forgettable than fucking Locus, that's for goddamn sure.
( he pats ephemera's shoulder lightly. locus is another one of those things they don't talk about, a blistering wound too large to patch, and one that ephemera wouldn't understand, like how felix wouldn't understand how ephemera must have felt as he buried their long-dead team alone. when he left, he scrubbed isaac gates from history. died in a bad drop. killed-in-action, his tags mailed to his mother. he hoped for ephemera's sake that they'd never meet again. felix isn't a person the way gates tried so fucking hard to be.
felix appropriates ephemera's jacket from the back of a wooden chair, shrugging it over his shoulders. too big at the shoulders, too long at the sleeves, but it covers his body and array of visible weapons.
then he opens the door, broadly gesturing ephemera into the hallway. )
[ Ephemera tips his head to the side, watching Felix, but lets him fuss. Lets him arrange Ephemera's hood how he wants. Fussy, precise, like it's armor and he's doing a maintenance check. Just like how the sergeant would. The first time Felix tried it, Ephemera flinched away. Hated himself for doing it. Hated himself more in the aftermath, even though it eventually settled. They've got a balance now. Only question is how long it holds.
Breathe, soldier. Don't act like a crazy person.
Ephemera twitches, then forces himself to breathe. He flashes his teeth at Felix, follows it up with a weak smile. A ghost of how they used to sass each other. Like they're both still sane, about to get some grub after a hard drop. Like the old days. ]
You're such a prick. How anyone stands you long enough to fuck you is beyond me. There are things even liquor can't explain.
[ He steps into the hallway, scanning his corners instinctively. He clocked the security cameras earlier, he knows where they are. But paranoia's a good old friend of his and he refuses to be caught stupid. ]
( yeah, yeah. he always buys. he waves ephemera on with a wag of his hand and dramatic roll of his eyes, shutting the door behind them and checking the knob once before he follows at his shoulder. )
Your mistake is thinking I need anyone to be able to stand me in order to fuck me. It's more fun when they don't like me.
( as outrageously brazen as always, spoken like he's making a passing comment on the weather. it has a bit of a different edge years on, but that aspect of felix has remained as unchanged as the rising and setting of the sun. shameless flirting, sex, liquor, bloody bar fights, throwing fists with anyone outside their unit who looked at him or their people wrong, from officers to fellow marines to soft-bellied civs. how gates communicated. how felix communicates now.
trauma coping, is what a psychiatrist called it during a psych eval years ago, as felix chain-smoked in the corner.
he steers them through the door at the end of the corridor, down the steps and out the building into a backstreet alley. the morning sun assaults him almost immediately. felix flinches, digging his sunglasses from his back pocket and pushing the rim over his nose. fuck this hangover. fuck drunk him's decision to guzzle cheap tequila. )
Let's head to the market, I think. Cafe has shit coffee.
( and there's better options at the food carts. felix normally avoids carbs like the plague, but he's doubting his ability to hold anything else down. )
[ You and Rodriguez, Ephemera almost says, have the worst taste. It was true once. How many times did Ephemera or one of the others have to intervene in the middle of a bar fight make sure that nobody actually ended up dead. Rodriguez was the one who got them kicked out of parties but Gates - Felix - always kept it interesting. Sometimes it was fun. Like a game.
Less so now. It's just a habit. And Rodriguez is long dead. So he doesn't say it. He just exhales through his teeth and eyes the alley with practiced suspicion.
He wants his armor back. The sooner they get back to it, the better. ]
( ephemera, really. he has opinions on everything.
but he clocks his tension. almost painful how easy of a read ephemera is out of armor, same shit he used to be called out for repeatedly, same shit that he could never scrub. felix gets it, he does, except they can't be rigged up all the time because that shit just isn't fucking practical on a day-to-day. so, he takes point. he never took point with ortez unless he was baiting a target into the open, but he takes point with ephemera. naturally. doesn't even think about it.
flexible in a multitude of ways, apparently. )
Not strong enough. ( through the alley they go, cutting across a busy road to the other side of the street. ) I like it best when I can feel the acid eating away at my insides. The real gnarly shit you can only get outdoors.
( the market is a short walk away. felix rounds to the nearest food cart, lightly touching ephemera's elbow to check him beside him. crepes and croissants and coffee. carb city. perfect.
two coffees for both him and ephemera and a crossiant in a greasy napkin later, they continue their trek through the market. felix picks at his croissant gingerly, juggling his coffee into the cradle of his elbow. )
Take your pick, dude. Then we'll find your paranoid ass a good solid wall.
[ Ephemera, by contrast, will drink whatever he can get for the caffeine hit but prefers things obnoxiously sweet. The others used to tease him about that one, but Barrows made hot chocolate sometimes and he'd melt real chocolate into it and somehow even the shitty, waxy crap that came with their MREs tasted pretty damn good. He misses Barrows's cooking. Misses how it felt to sit shoulder to shoulder with the others after a drop and hork down greasy, space station noodles because fuck, they were still alive and how else are you supposed to celebrate that?
Don't go there. Just don't.
Ephemera twitches. He doesn't go there.
The coffee helps. A little. It gives him something to focus on, anyway. Ephemera spots a cart selling breakfast sandwiches - something obscenely greasy and packed with thick bacon and possibly even real eggs and not that powdered shit. Dare to dream. He orders and the vendor only startles at his scars for a moment. ]
felix barely makes a dent in his croissant before he gives up, binning it in the nearest trash. ephemera orders his food, and felix steps between him and the cart to pay – and to distract the vendor with a velvet smile, sliding him a few crumpled bills as he sets to work on ephemera's food.
one last stop at another food cart, to wordlessly purchase ephemera a small square of fudge wrapped in wax paper, then felix leads the way through the end of the market. the noise dies off, fewer people milling around aimlessly. they're mostly alone, and felix almost prefers the crowd. higher risk, maybe, but he can field risk easier than he can field the quiet. makes everything so much louder everywhere else.
he stands on the edge of the street as ephemera settles against a wall with his food. )
Can you imagine living here? ( he squints up at the sun through his glasses. talking to talk. with ortez, it was partially to annoy him, partially to ground him. with ephemera, it's more of the latter. ) Muggy as shit. God, I'd expire immediately.
[ Like before, Felix covers Ephemera's blindspot. It's just a thing that happens now. They never discussed it, never had to. Some things have changed - Ephemera's entire fighting style, for one - but unit cohesion like theirs bleeds through. They know how to move around each other, how to control the space. There's no Rodriguez to cover them from a distance, no sergeant and no Crow to charge in and destroy up close, but -
Don't. Just don't.
Ephemera twitches. He puts his back to the wall and he eats his goddamn food and he doesn't say a word about the fudge, whether it's a bribe or a kindness or something else. It's here, they're not getting shot at, so just breathe.
Breathe, soldier. ]
Been in worse. It's nice seeing the sun.
[ It's said a little wistfully. He grew up on Eremus, where 90% of the population was stuck underground. They had fake skies and all kinds of vitamin D pills so it worked out in the end, but there's something about the real thing. Especially when Felix is hungover and Ephemera gets to rag on him for it.
( sometimes felix catches sparse, fleeting glances of the kid he used to know, years ago. never one to bitch about the sun or the heat even as felix withered away beside him because almost 18 years with tribute's mild climate spoiled him. he's used to the heat now. used to the cold now, too. nothing will ever feel quite as painfully rigid as the exact moment before the brain submits to cryo, or the first few seconds while waking, body flushed with epinephrine to jump-start the heart. the kind of cold you can feel in your bones, that lingers. corpse-cold.
he lifts his coffee to his mouth, blowing lightly over the surface. )
Nah.
( just a pitstop. felix needed to decompress, find his bearings. drink and fuck himself stupid. chorus isn't so far away that they're both not still feeling the emotional resonance of its consequences. locus is still out there. the freelancers are still out there. ephemera eats, and felix watches him from over the rim of his paper cup.
he almost blew him out a fucking airlock. wouldn't have even known until later, when checking the records. a moment to reconcile it, to compartmentalize it, and then he'd have been collateral damage with everything else he's torn to shreds following his fall from grace. another body. another consequence. another reason to drink.
ugly way to meet after years apart. it doesn't phase him anymore. the universe is full of horrors; he's just one of them.
he lowers his lashes and stares at the sunlight reflected in the shimmering surface of his coffee. )
Got us a job, next system over. ( something easy, not complicated. shit to keep them busy, to keep ephemera busy without overloading him. back to basics. ) Tiny little planet glassed back when the Outer Colonies were getting royally fucked, around 2530ish. It's being mined for silicates now, owned by some fucked up corporate family, but they're having a little trouble with another corporation encroaching on their territory. Rat problem, I guess.
[ It's what they used to do back in the day, or one of the things they used to do. There were other words for it, each cleaner and more clinical than the last, but Ephemera knows the score. He knows what it means. All that nightmarish shit that command didn't want to admit they were doing. Clean house, kill 'em all. Didn't matter if they were Covenant or something more human. Line 'em up and run them down. Death from above. All that bullshit, the ODST way. And oh, they were good at it. Only had a few rules. No kids, no torture, no turning on each other. They managed all but one.
It held for a while. Right up until it didn't. When he was younger, he used to try and quantify it. Call it doing a good thing because it was all for the greater good, the war effort. That didn't last. Now, he doesn't care at all.
Ephemera eats his goddamn sandwich. Doesn't matter. Job's a job. Gives him something to focus on. ]
( yeah. unsurprising that that's where ephemera's mind goes first.
if chorus hadn't happened, maybe that's how this would have gone. cleaning house. burn it all to the fucking ground, just like old times, when shit started getting all irreparably twisted. ephemera lost most of that fragile wistfulness somewhere along the way, and gates just became – more. or less. right now they don't have the manpower or the resources to pull off a job like that. it's just the two of them, spiraling through the vast black of space, alone. )
No, ( felix says, almost carefully. he studies ephemera shrewdly. ) These people hold grudges. Real mafia shit. Nasty motherfuckers that make me look like a fucking saint. Their fattest rat made a run for it, back to territory our pleasant little corporate family can't touch. We just gotta run him down and bring him back.
( a pause, then: )
It's just a bounty, T. That's it. Nothing crazy.
( it's not like that, is what he doesn't say. it could be like that so easily, but it's not. )
[ Ephemera twitches, fighting down the urge to snap and ask if Felix is holding back for his sake. Going for a softer job because -
What? What does it fucking matter?
Suddenly, he isn’t hungry anymore. Ephemera twitches again, then wraps his sandwich up. Tucks it away. He drinks his coffee instead. Tries to focus on the taste, the heat of it. Let it settle him.
Just a bounty. Fine. ]
So. No flamethrower?
[ His voice is very even. He doesn’t ask when they’re going after the Freelancers. He’s afraid the answer is never and then what would they fucking do? Split up again?
felix rubs his thumb along the side of his nose, hooking under his glasses to pinch his bridge. fuck. this headache, and ephemera, and everything left unsaid between them. he doesn't know how to do this anymore. it was different with ortez. both simpler and more complicated in so many ways because felix loathed and loved him in equal measure. ephemera and the others tried and failed to find their redemption, and gates left because there was no coming back for him, ever. he knew what he was. he knows what he is.
maybe he should've patched him up, dumped him on a planet somewhere far away from the fucking freelancers, rural enough he couldn't hitch the first ship out of atmosphere and drive himself straight into an early grave. maybe this was a mistake. ephemera isn't his. )
I'll leave the executive decision up to you. ( he keeps his voice light, but there's something sharp and barbed there, writhing restlessly beneath the surface. ) If you have something to say to me, say it. By all means. I wanna fucking hear it.
[ Since they’re fucking going there. Ephemera thumps his head back against the wall. Hard. ]
Fine. Why are we here? Why aren’t we hunting them?
[ It’s a mistake. He knows it as soon as the words are out. There’s too much they have not, cannot, say out loud. And the moment the words are out in the air is the moment everything goes sharp, the noise of the distant crowd suddenly much louder, and Ephemera has the urge to just turn around and slam his head into the wall until it just goes quiet again.
He doesn’t. Because that would be fucking insane. ]
Because you're gonna get yourself fucking killed over people that aren't even goddamn here anymore.
( out of his mouth like shrapnel from a bullet, just as quick and molten-sharp. felix hisses through his teeth, dumping his coffee in the street and crumpling the cup in his hand as he chucks it aside. bad place to lay shit out. would've been worse in space. silver linings. )
You know what I thought when you stopped responding on comms? ( the worst. slow, trickling terror, something he hasn't felt in a long time. ortez felt it move through him like an aftershock, told him to focus. ) You think Ortez and I didn't try to fucking put her down? Double-teamed her ass. Didn't make a bit of difference. We weren't just fiddling with our fucking dicks out the whole goddamn time, Ephemera.
( fuck. he forks his thumbs into his eyes, pressing deep in the sockets. his head is going to explode. )
[ It comes out sharp, too loud. Too fucking loud. Ephemera rocks back on his heels, digging his nails into the flimsy, disposable coffee cup. He’s twitching. People are going to notice. ]
She killed me years ago, with all our people, and you weren’t fucking there!
[ He’s shaking. He drops the cup and doesn’t hear it spill. Doesn’t hear anything but his pulse pounding in his hears and the voice in his head that’s screaming at him to kill them all. Wreck the world, make them burn.
Ephemera screws his good eye closed. And then he does slam his head back. Just cracks it back into the wall like he’s going against an enemy.
The world goes white. And for a moment, there’s blissful fucking quiet. ]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
[ Ephemera's twitchy out of armor. Might have slept on the floor with his hand on his pistol. Might have startled awake more often than not. Might have averaged a good four hours of sleep - which, with his track record, is pretty good these days. He's got a sweatshirt on and Felix's knives lined up on the dresser. Sharpened, too.
He's nice like that. And it kept him from vibrating out of his skin. Today's shaping up to be a bad pain day, so.
That's fun.
He rubs at his bad eye, knuckling into the eyepatch. No prosthetic today, either. Yay. ]
C'mon. Wanna take odds on whether the food's actually edible here?
no subject
Stop that, asshole. Boots first, food later.
( he is very much barefoot.
the door kicks shut behind him. he squeezes past ephemera and sits at the edge of the bed, working his feet into his boots one at a time and nimbly tying his laces. criss-crossed all the way to the ankle, then wrapped once around the shaft, the extra slack tucked tight into the back of the boot. uniform. more instinct.
he talks while he works. )
Did anyone give you shit last night?
( sometimes that happens when felix starts a scene and ephemera has to bail him out. )
no subject
The years blur. In some ways, it's like they were never apart.
Ephemera drags a hand through his hair and just flips Felix off. He's tired. The coffee's also for him so he can act semi-functional. ]
Okay, mom.
[ Fuck, he's hurting today. He twitches and drops his hand. What else is new? ]
I handled it. How are you so pretty this goddamn early? It offends me.
no subject
still an easy read, too. that hasn't changed either. felix glances at him impassively before he turns his attention back to his boots. )
A very long time ago, back in the olden days before you were born, ( he says this all very casually, as if they aren't a mere three years apart in age ) I damned my soul to an eternity in hell in exchange for a solid 40 years of looking fine as fuck. I've got eight more years of pretty left in me before I put a bullet in my brain and end it all.
( truthfully, he has his mother to thank for fantastic genetics. he's never known another woman who could drink as much as her and still look trim and put-together the next morning, just in time for sunday mass. clear skin, great hair, horrific addiction to liquor. thanks, ma. he learned from the best.
he slaps his knees as he finishes, pushing himself to his feet and pivoting toward the table with his knives. )
Are these sharpened?
no subject
[ It's said in a drawl, that self-same banter they used to throw at each other years ago before everything went to shit. And it was a choice, Ephemera knows, it had to be a goddamn choice, but Felix still left. And his name wasn't Felix then but it is now and that's just one of the many sea changes they've had to field. Their little reunion's gone remarkably well, considering.
He doesn't talk about the others much. He hasn't said where they're buried, or what was done to their armor. He hasn't said the captain lost his mind before the end - another name change, another debt that Ephemera's shouldered because he wasn't fucking there. No point in saying any of that. What would it matter?
He hums instead, his remaining eyebrow raised. ]
Maybe. Unlike you, my trashy drunk persona is productive.
[ Half-truth. He used to be a happy drunk. Friends with everyone. Now he's just twitchy and sharp until he's unconscious. ]
no subject
he dragged him right out of that warthog, too, into his ship in the canyons hidden in a massive cavern under a cascading waterfall. ortez hadn't taken it, miraculously. then they left, one massive failure tucked under his belt. he doesn't look back. he can't.
his fingers trail his knives, lingering on a blade to the far right of the table. different from the others, more ornate, with a handle carved from ivory. a gift, from ortez. he presses his thumb into the blade's tip, smearing the edges in blood. )
Careful, or I'm gonna start thinking you like me or something. ( a soft hum, perfectly neutral. he flips the dagger into the holster on his thigh, then systematically works the remaining knives into their proper places. two in his boot, one tucked into his laces, one on his belt.
he pulls open the bedside drawer next, snagging a neatly bundled wad of cash between two fingers and dragging the bills under his nose. smells like vodka. yep. that's his. )
no subject
[ Sometimes it feels like a dream. All the edges filed off, everything just a little off. Sharkface feels like a game he played with strangers - not around his team, not around Felix. Almost politely, they've silently agreed not to talk on it. There's a lot they don't talk about. A lot of things that would break open and rupture if they were given words.
He tried to beat Felix to death not long after Chorus. Grabbed his broken helmet and went in swinging, screaming at him. He doesn't remember why he stopped, or why Felix didn't just put him down. It happened and then it ceased, real eye of the storm shit, and in the aftermath they patched each other back up and it settled. It's been settled for a while now. Ephemera keeps his crazy tapped down. He's got somebody at his six, a steadying force, and that's enough to focus on for now.
You survive what's in front of you. Any fight you can walk away from is a good one, the sergeant used to say. ]
One of these days you're going to get rolled by a goddamn civilian and I'm going to laugh my ass off. Also, you owe me cigarettes.
no subject
( he finds his gun in the back of the drawer and snaps the mag back into the cradle, racking the slide. far more armed than necessary, probably, but too much paranoia has never not served him well, and felix has made plenty of enemies over the past several years. they're between jobs, holed up on a lush little moon of a large gas giant, in a bustling city surrounded by jungle on one side and an ocean on the other.
the louder the place, the better. easier to blend in. felix doesn't do quiet well, and he no longer has ortez breathing down the back of his neck to keep him from stepping out of place. that hard line in the sand is gone. there's just ephemera, and ephemera is –
different. high risk, like his profile on the tartarus said.
he stares at his sidearm, flexing his palm over the grip. )
We need to get you an actual alias, T. ( idly, as he holsters his gun and turns back to ephemera. he splits his wad of cash in half, tucking several folded bills into the pocket of ephemera's sweatshirt. ) Buy yourself some ciggies. What do you want for breakfast?
( there's a cute little cafe just under the seedy hotel they're crashing, or a market with food carts down the street. felix isn't picky. )
no subject
A mercy, as these things go. But not useful here. Ephemera could name a hundred dead Insurrectionists, each more or less idealistic than Boone, and it wouldn't change a thing. Here they fucking stand. Out of armor and all.
It can't last. Ephemera knows he stands out in a crowd. People remember scars like his. But they aren't dead yet. That's something.
He shrugs. Pulls his hood up. ]
Protein. And a wall I can put my back to.
[ Also, coffee. The important things. ]
Open to suggestions. Why'd you go with Felix, anyway?
no subject
felix thinks he's still there. inside him. haunting him. rotting him slowly. )
It rolls off the tongue, ( he says, finally. ) More forgettable than fucking Locus, that's for goddamn sure.
( he pats ephemera's shoulder lightly. locus is another one of those things they don't talk about, a blistering wound too large to patch, and one that ephemera wouldn't understand, like how felix wouldn't understand how ephemera must have felt as he buried their long-dead team alone. when he left, he scrubbed isaac gates from history. died in a bad drop. killed-in-action, his tags mailed to his mother. he hoped for ephemera's sake that they'd never meet again. felix isn't a person the way gates tried so fucking hard to be.
felix appropriates ephemera's jacket from the back of a wooden chair, shrugging it over his shoulders. too big at the shoulders, too long at the sleeves, but it covers his body and array of visible weapons.
then he opens the door, broadly gesturing ephemera into the hallway. )
Ladies first.
no subject
Breathe, soldier. Don't act like a crazy person.
Ephemera twitches, then forces himself to breathe. He flashes his teeth at Felix, follows it up with a weak smile. A ghost of how they used to sass each other. Like they're both still sane, about to get some grub after a hard drop. Like the old days. ]
You're such a prick. How anyone stands you long enough to fuck you is beyond me. There are things even liquor can't explain.
[ He steps into the hallway, scanning his corners instinctively. He clocked the security cameras earlier, he knows where they are. But paranoia's a good old friend of his and he refuses to be caught stupid. ]
And you're buying.
no subject
Your mistake is thinking I need anyone to be able to stand me in order to fuck me. It's more fun when they don't like me.
( as outrageously brazen as always, spoken like he's making a passing comment on the weather. it has a bit of a different edge years on, but that aspect of felix has remained as unchanged as the rising and setting of the sun. shameless flirting, sex, liquor, bloody bar fights, throwing fists with anyone outside their unit who looked at him or their people wrong, from officers to fellow marines to soft-bellied civs. how gates communicated. how felix communicates now.
trauma coping, is what a psychiatrist called it during a psych eval years ago, as felix chain-smoked in the corner.
he steers them through the door at the end of the corridor, down the steps and out the building into a backstreet alley. the morning sun assaults him almost immediately. felix flinches, digging his sunglasses from his back pocket and pushing the rim over his nose. fuck this hangover. fuck drunk him's decision to guzzle cheap tequila. )
Let's head to the market, I think. Cafe has shit coffee.
( and there's better options at the food carts. felix normally avoids carbs like the plague, but he's doubting his ability to hold anything else down. )
no subject
Less so now. It's just a habit. And Rodriguez is long dead. So he doesn't say it. He just exhales through his teeth and eyes the alley with practiced suspicion.
He wants his armor back. The sooner they get back to it, the better. ]
You have opinions on coffee?
[ It comes out in a drawl. ]
Enlighten me.
no subject
but he clocks his tension. almost painful how easy of a read ephemera is out of armor, same shit he used to be called out for repeatedly, same shit that he could never scrub. felix gets it, he does, except they can't be rigged up all the time because that shit just isn't fucking practical on a day-to-day. so, he takes point. he never took point with ortez unless he was baiting a target into the open, but he takes point with ephemera. naturally. doesn't even think about it.
flexible in a multitude of ways, apparently. )
Not strong enough. ( through the alley they go, cutting across a busy road to the other side of the street. ) I like it best when I can feel the acid eating away at my insides. The real gnarly shit you can only get outdoors.
( the market is a short walk away. felix rounds to the nearest food cart, lightly touching ephemera's elbow to check him beside him. crepes and croissants and coffee. carb city. perfect.
two coffees for both him and ephemera and a crossiant in a greasy napkin later, they continue their trek through the market. felix picks at his croissant gingerly, juggling his coffee into the cradle of his elbow. )
Take your pick, dude. Then we'll find your paranoid ass a good solid wall.
no subject
[ Ephemera, by contrast, will drink whatever he can get for the caffeine hit but prefers things obnoxiously sweet. The others used to tease him about that one, but Barrows made hot chocolate sometimes and he'd melt real chocolate into it and somehow even the shitty, waxy crap that came with their MREs tasted pretty damn good. He misses Barrows's cooking. Misses how it felt to sit shoulder to shoulder with the others after a drop and hork down greasy, space station noodles because fuck, they were still alive and how else are you supposed to celebrate that?
Don't go there. Just don't.
Ephemera twitches. He doesn't go there.
The coffee helps. A little. It gives him something to focus on, anyway. Ephemera spots a cart selling breakfast sandwiches - something obscenely greasy and packed with thick bacon and possibly even real eggs and not that powdered shit. Dare to dream. He orders and the vendor only startles at his scars for a moment. ]
Not paranoia if it's true.
no subject
felix barely makes a dent in his croissant before he gives up, binning it in the nearest trash. ephemera orders his food, and felix steps between him and the cart to pay – and to distract the vendor with a velvet smile, sliding him a few crumpled bills as he sets to work on ephemera's food.
one last stop at another food cart, to wordlessly purchase ephemera a small square of fudge wrapped in wax paper, then felix leads the way through the end of the market. the noise dies off, fewer people milling around aimlessly. they're mostly alone, and felix almost prefers the crowd. higher risk, maybe, but he can field risk easier than he can field the quiet. makes everything so much louder everywhere else.
he stands on the edge of the street as ephemera settles against a wall with his food. )
Can you imagine living here? ( he squints up at the sun through his glasses. talking to talk. with ortez, it was partially to annoy him, partially to ground him. with ephemera, it's more of the latter. ) Muggy as shit. God, I'd expire immediately.
no subject
Don't. Just don't.
Ephemera twitches. He puts his back to the wall and he eats his goddamn food and he doesn't say a word about the fudge, whether it's a bribe or a kindness or something else. It's here, they're not getting shot at, so just breathe.
Breathe, soldier. ]
Been in worse. It's nice seeing the sun.
[ It's said a little wistfully. He grew up on Eremus, where 90% of the population was stuck underground. They had fake skies and all kinds of vitamin D pills so it worked out in the end, but there's something about the real thing. Especially when Felix is hungover and Ephemera gets to rag on him for it.
But also - ]
We're not staying, right?
no subject
he lifts his coffee to his mouth, blowing lightly over the surface. )
Nah.
( just a pitstop. felix needed to decompress, find his bearings. drink and fuck himself stupid. chorus isn't so far away that they're both not still feeling the emotional resonance of its consequences. locus is still out there. the freelancers are still out there. ephemera eats, and felix watches him from over the rim of his paper cup.
he almost blew him out a fucking airlock. wouldn't have even known until later, when checking the records. a moment to reconcile it, to compartmentalize it, and then he'd have been collateral damage with everything else he's torn to shreds following his fall from grace. another body. another consequence. another reason to drink.
ugly way to meet after years apart. it doesn't phase him anymore. the universe is full of horrors; he's just one of them.
he lowers his lashes and stares at the sunlight reflected in the shimmering surface of his coffee. )
Got us a job, next system over. ( something easy, not complicated. shit to keep them busy, to keep ephemera busy without overloading him. back to basics. ) Tiny little planet glassed back when the Outer Colonies were getting royally fucked, around 2530ish. It's being mined for silicates now, owned by some fucked up corporate family, but they're having a little trouble with another corporation encroaching on their territory. Rat problem, I guess.
no subject
[ His voice goes flat. ]
We cleaning house?
[ It's what they used to do back in the day, or one of the things they used to do. There were other words for it, each cleaner and more clinical than the last, but Ephemera knows the score. He knows what it means. All that nightmarish shit that command didn't want to admit they were doing. Clean house, kill 'em all. Didn't matter if they were Covenant or something more human. Line 'em up and run them down. Death from above. All that bullshit, the ODST way. And oh, they were good at it. Only had a few rules. No kids, no torture, no turning on each other. They managed all but one.
It held for a while. Right up until it didn't. When he was younger, he used to try and quantify it. Call it doing a good thing because it was all for the greater good, the war effort. That didn't last. Now, he doesn't care at all.
Ephemera eats his goddamn sandwich. Doesn't matter. Job's a job. Gives him something to focus on. ]
no subject
if chorus hadn't happened, maybe that's how this would have gone. cleaning house. burn it all to the fucking ground, just like old times, when shit started getting all irreparably twisted. ephemera lost most of that fragile wistfulness somewhere along the way, and gates just became – more. or less. right now they don't have the manpower or the resources to pull off a job like that. it's just the two of them, spiraling through the vast black of space, alone. )
No, ( felix says, almost carefully. he studies ephemera shrewdly. ) These people hold grudges. Real mafia shit. Nasty motherfuckers that make me look like a fucking saint. Their fattest rat made a run for it, back to territory our pleasant little corporate family can't touch. We just gotta run him down and bring him back.
( a pause, then: )
It's just a bounty, T. That's it. Nothing crazy.
( it's not like that, is what he doesn't say. it could be like that so easily, but it's not. )
no subject
What? What does it fucking matter?
Suddenly, he isn’t hungry anymore. Ephemera twitches again, then wraps his sandwich up. Tucks it away. He drinks his coffee instead. Tries to focus on the taste, the heat of it. Let it settle him.
Just a bounty. Fine. ]
So. No flamethrower?
[ His voice is very even. He doesn’t ask when they’re going after the Freelancers. He’s afraid the answer is never and then what would they fucking do? Split up again?
No. There’s no one else left. There’s just -
This. ]
no subject
felix rubs his thumb along the side of his nose, hooking under his glasses to pinch his bridge. fuck. this headache, and ephemera, and everything left unsaid between them. he doesn't know how to do this anymore. it was different with ortez. both simpler and more complicated in so many ways because felix loathed and loved him in equal measure. ephemera and the others tried and failed to find their redemption, and gates left because there was no coming back for him, ever. he knew what he was. he knows what he is.
maybe he should've patched him up, dumped him on a planet somewhere far away from the fucking freelancers, rural enough he couldn't hitch the first ship out of atmosphere and drive himself straight into an early grave. maybe this was a mistake. ephemera isn't his. )
I'll leave the executive decision up to you. ( he keeps his voice light, but there's something sharp and barbed there, writhing restlessly beneath the surface. ) If you have something to say to me, say it. By all means. I wanna fucking hear it.
no subject
[ Since they’re fucking going there. Ephemera thumps his head back against the wall. Hard. ]
Fine. Why are we here? Why aren’t we hunting them?
[ It’s a mistake. He knows it as soon as the words are out. There’s too much they have not, cannot, say out loud. And the moment the words are out in the air is the moment everything goes sharp, the noise of the distant crowd suddenly much louder, and Ephemera has the urge to just turn around and slam his head into the wall until it just goes quiet again.
He doesn’t. Because that would be fucking insane. ]
no subject
( out of his mouth like shrapnel from a bullet, just as quick and molten-sharp. felix hisses through his teeth, dumping his coffee in the street and crumpling the cup in his hand as he chucks it aside. bad place to lay shit out. would've been worse in space. silver linings. )
You know what I thought when you stopped responding on comms? ( the worst. slow, trickling terror, something he hasn't felt in a long time. ortez felt it move through him like an aftershock, told him to focus. ) You think Ortez and I didn't try to fucking put her down? Double-teamed her ass. Didn't make a bit of difference. We weren't just fiddling with our fucking dicks out the whole goddamn time, Ephemera.
( fuck. he forks his thumbs into his eyes, pressing deep in the sockets. his head is going to explode. )
I thought she killed you.
Cw for self harm
[ It comes out sharp, too loud. Too fucking loud. Ephemera rocks back on his heels, digging his nails into the flimsy, disposable coffee cup. He’s twitching. People are going to notice. ]
She killed me years ago, with all our people, and you weren’t fucking there!
[ He’s shaking. He drops the cup and doesn’t hear it spill. Doesn’t hear anything but his pulse pounding in his hears and the voice in his head that’s screaming at him to kill them all. Wreck the world, make them burn.
Ephemera screws his good eye closed. And then he does slam his head back. Just cracks it back into the wall like he’s going against an enemy.
The world goes white. And for a moment, there’s blissful fucking quiet. ]
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)