Felix was feeling a bit out of it, not unusual as of late, but prior to today he almost felt back to his normal self. Being alone was new for him. At least before he had Juniper, his daughter, but lately his house was just so....quiet. It had him spiraling more often than not. Seeking something, anything to pass the time. Naturally, he leaned into his work: the one thing he had that felt stable, but that wasn't exactly helping today.
He decided that getting out of the office might help. Maybe he could finally go donate some of the books he had been holding onto for Junie. They were below her skill level now for sure. At least he assumed. He hadn't heard much from her lately. He called, but Angela tried hard to keep communication to a minimum and Junie wasn't old enough to have a phone of her own yet.
He picked up the box of books that sat behind his desk and headed out the door toward the Booknook. It wasn't far—only a few blocks. When he arrived, he gave the book to the cashier, denying the tax write off voucher they gave out for used book donations before browsing the new arrivals. He spotted someone reading in the corner but couldn't make out the title of the book. "Whatcha got there?" he asked, unusual for him to be so friendly in public. He definitely didn't make eye contact. "Anything interesting?"
SETTING: Prickly Pear
TIMING: Current
PARTIES: Ford and Felix (@recoveringdreamer)
SUMMARY: Ford is trying to help take care of attackers on the farm when Felix's jaguar finds him. Fun times are had.
WARNINGS: Head Trauma tw,
“What the shit?”
One minute Ford was flirting it up with one of the farmhands, the next he was fighting off a shifter going for his throat. The thing kept snapping its jaws as Ford held it back the best he could, sharp teeth digging into his dead skin on occasion. It didn't matter. This thing was as good as dead as soon as he could get his hand down to the hidden dagger in his boot. The zombie had learned years ago that it was always handy to have one hidden somewhere just in case and it hadn’t failed him yet. “Alright, pussy cat, it’s time to stop playing games.”
His usual confident swagger didn’t falter even as the cat swiped a line down his chest. He still pushed as hard he could against the animal, sending it tumbling back to the ground to give him enough time. The dagger was retrieved, the shifter came running at him again, and Ford sunk the blade deep into its chest while using that strength that was starting to build inside of him. If he didn’t get out of here soon he knew he was going to go feral but he couldn’t just leave this place to defend itself. No, Monty needed him and he wasn’t going to let him down if he could help it.
A low growl alerted Ford to something stalking up behind him. He turned, his boots leaving a swirl in the dirt and his eyes taking in the form of a familiar jaguar. He could recognize Felix now, even when shifted, but what he couldn’t comprehend was why the balam was coming after him. They were on the same side. Hell, Ford had made them blush not two hours ago. “Hey buddy…it’s alright, it’s me. You know me. I’m on your side.” The last thing Ford wanted to do was hurt them. Felix was a nice person and incredibly fun to fluster. But he brandished the weapon in hand, ready to use it if he had to. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
Blood dripped from the jaguar’s maw, staining the fur around his mouth with red and black. He’d been on a bloody rampage since the moment he was inadvertently released, the quiet remnant’s of Felix’s fear surging through him and making his rage burn all the hotter. The world around him seemed intent on turning him into prey; already, he had been targeted by several of those who had started the attack on the farm, though the jaguar had no way of telling those people apart from the ones who worked on the farm or attended the party as friends. To him, they were all the same. He had torn through everyone and everything in his path, animal and human alike.
The jaguar wasn’t prey, after all. He was the predator.
He spotted an altercation ahead, trotted towards it with a curious tilt to his head. Another jaguar, he realized — another balam. This one was attacking a human who brandished a knife, and the jaguar watched with some quiet fascination. Arrogant, he found it laughable that the human with the unbeating heart believed a knife could subdue a jaguar. But the blade found a home in the balam’s chest, and it fell still on the ground.
The jaguar was indifferent about the death of the other creature on a personal level. He cared for very few, and he hadn’t seen any of them in some time now. But the idea that this human believed he had some right to kill a balam this way? That made the jaguar all the angrier.
The man spoke to him, trying to placate him with calm tones and promises, but the jaguar wasn’t quite capable of understanding human speech. He carried none of Felix’s recognition towards the man, felt no camaraderie or fondness. All the jaguar ever felt was rage, and that was what drove him forward, claws out and teeth at the ready.
The jaguar wouldn’t relent, Ford realizing now that Felix was definitely not in control. The gentle person he knew wouldn’t have dreamed of swiping at the zombie much less get him right in the face. He felt his jaw crack, the farmhand crying out before a low growl started to sound from deep within his chest. He wasn’t fully gone yet but Ford was sure it was coming in the next few minutes. Did he stay and fight or try to get out of the jaguar’s grasp so he could get away from everyone here in time?
“Felix!” All of his calm demeanor had drained with that last injury, pouring from him the way his blood should have. Shit, it might have been too late to run. Ford’s eyes flashed with his hunger as he swiped back with his blade, not even knowing if he had hit the cat before he ran and tackled it to the ground.
As much as he didn’t want to hurt his friend he was already losing his grip on reality. “Felix, get a hold of your cat before this gets worse.” He was hoping he could get through somehow, maybe jerk the person back from wherever the spirit took them as he did his best to pin the thing to the ground. His grip was slipping, on the cat and himself, and he involuntarily gnashed his teeth in the animal’s direction.
The man called out Felix’s name, but the jaguar cared little for the familiarity. The world around him was on fire, violent and terrifying, and his rage burned just as hot as the flames eating through the farm he knew only from Felix’s perspective. Fear wasn’t a thing the beast enjoyed feeling, and Felix was so full of it at the moment of the shift that it seemed permanently stuck in his chest now. Rage was the only way the jaguar knew to dislodge it, and this man, with his knife and the dead jaguar at his feet, was a good target for it no matter whose name he yelled.
His claws found the man’s head, sending him stumbling in a way that would have taken a normal human down for the count. The jaguar was learning that those who lived on this farm were more resilient than the ones he fought in the ring when Felix let him free entirely. The woman he’d faced off against just after his shift had remained standing until he tore her head from her body entirely; perhaps he’d need to do the same to this man.
Perhaps he’d enjoy it, he thought, the rage burning brighter as the man’s knife slashed a painful line across his chest. The jaguar yowled, fury colored by pain as the man surged forward and wrestled him to the ground. Hands pinned him to the ground, jaws snapped at his throat. But a jaguar was a hard thing to keep down; muscles rippled across his back, powerful legs kicking at the man atop him, claws out and ready.
Ford could feel that strength he dreaded seeping in, his muscles flexing as he held down the cat the best he could. But each slash of the animal's paws sent him spiraling faster and faster to that decline and with one last deep slash across his shoulder he slipped away entirely. His eyes glossed over with a distinct foggy color, narrowing in on the live prey beneath his hold. Surging forward, the zombie tried to sink his teeth into the balam but before he could his body was tossed back by the power of the cat's strong legs. Ford had lost his grip in his desperation and therefore had lost the upper hand.
He slammed into one of the cornhole boards, wooden pieces flying as the thing broke under his weight, but it was as if the zombie didn’t even notice the piece sticking out of his arm as he leapt to his feet. Ford didn’t care that the jaguar was his scared friend, he didn’t care about the desperate calls to get to the animals on the farm, or the screams of those already being attacked, he didn’t even care that a fire was raging close by because his mind was focused on one thing and one thing only; food. A low growl left his lips before he ran towards the cat again, this time aimed to kill rather than subdue.
Something shifted within the man, though the jaguar wasn’t fully capable of recognizing it. To him, it was impossible to distinguish the previous intentions to subdue from the current ones to kill. To a wild animal, everything that wasn’t fleeing was an active threat, and anything that did flee was prey. The man’s teeth snapped at his flesh, and the balam flung him away and watched wood shatter beneath his form. There was a sense of something akin to curiosity as the cat tilted his head to the side, waiting for the man to rise again, waiting to see if the blow had killed him the way it should have.
But rise he did, slowly but surely all the same. He advanced with a growl, jaws snapping. The jaguar moved quickly, though the speed of the man surprised him a little. Rather than latching onto his throat, those jaws found his shoulder, and the animal yowled as the teeth sank in. He bucked, rising up on his hind legs and using his front ones to claw at the man. Shifting into a position that was uncomfortable, but effective, he attempted to lock his own jaws around the man’s throat, intending to pull him loose and shake him.
He felt no pain as the jaguar swiped at him again, those teeth clamped down on the animal’s shoulder and not letting go even as claws dug into his back. Shirt torn to pieces, blood dripping down his charged body, Ford paid no mind to any of it while he did his best to not lose his grip on the flesh he so desperately wanted to tear loose. His own fingers clawed at the animal in and attempt to tear the arm from its body but the jaguar’s jaws bit down on his neck making it harder for him to keep his own teeth dug.
It didn’t stop his mindless ass from trying.
Even as teeth dug into his jugular he was chomping down on the jaguar. Blood filled his mouth with one more swipe of his jaw, Ford tearing away a small amount of flesh. A fraction of satisfaction filled him, spurring him forward even more to try and fill the void in his stomach that was only getting worse by the second. One hand came up to dig his fingers into the wound and pull to make it wider, tearing a larger chunk of the animal's body off to bring it to his mouth.
Teeth tore flesh away from his body, and the jaguar yowled in pained rage. Fingers tore at the wound, trying to pry more flesh away. There was no more time for games, no more playing with his food; the jaguar needed to finish the job, or risk falling the way the dead balam he’d come upon the man killing had before him. He snapped his jaw down on the hand as it moved to the man’s mouth, teeth tearing through flesh and bone as he moved to remove the offending limb from the body.
The man tasted like rot. The blood that found his tongue wasn’t sweet, the way it was meant to be. It was a bitter sludge, something that only served to make the jaguar angrier. With the man’s hand still trapped in his jaws, he flung his head to the side and released, throwing the man away from him. Before he could rise once more, the jaguar pounced, teeth going for his skull this time.
A snarl left Ford’s lips as the jaguar’s teeth dug into his hand, the zombie not having gotten the flesh he had craved so badly. He was trying to yank it back out, his skin tearing with each pull of his arm, but it didn’t matter. All that mattered was tasting the jaguar again. The feral cry didn’t ring out until Ford was thrown onto his back, closed hand that caged the jaguar’s flesh hanging from his wrist by only a few tendons. He wasn’t even paying attention to the cat, his other hand desperately prying fingers open to go for the pound of flesh still within them.
He’d just gotten another taste of his meal when the weight of the jaguar was on him again but Ford didn’t have time to react before those ferocious teeth dug into his temples. He tried to wrench himself from the hold, good hand once again reaching for the bleeding exposed muscle of the animal, but it was no use. His body stilled as the jaws clamped down tighter, the sound of his own skull cracking filling his ears before his eyes dimmed. Ford’s mouth kept going, moving slowly, still trying to bite the cat that had a hold on his friend but the rest of his fight was gone.
It was over the moment the jaguar got his jaws around the man’s head. The hand not barely hanging to its wrist continued clawing at his flesh, the mouth snapped uselessly where it hung, but there were few things that could escape a grip as strong as the one boasted in the jaguar’s jaws. Sharp teeth were built to destroy, strong jaws built to crush. Working together, they would do exactly that.
The jaguar tightened his jaw, pressing down, down, down as the skull creaked and cracked. It shattered all at once, a satisfying pop sounding as the jaguar’s jaw closed completely around it, teeth coming together with a snap. More of that bitter sludge coated his tongue, joined now by a gelatinous substance that tasted fatty and faintly sweet, albeit still a bit off from the usual experience. Like his blood, the man’s brain matter wasn’t quite what it should have been. The jaguar released his jaws, allowing the body with its ruined head fall at his feet. The man was unrecognizable now; his head was crushed past the point of looking much like a head at all, his hand still barely hanging on the end of his arm.
None of this mattered much to the jaguar, of course; the cat didn’t recognize the man, even when there was more there to recognize. He cared little for the gruesome husk of something that had once been Felix’s friend. The chaos unfolding around him was far more important. The fire was still raging, and more and more of the people who worked on the farm were beginning to look as the man had — feral and desperate. Now injured, the jaguar knew he needed to get to safety.
Tail swishing behind him, the jaguar made a beeline towards the woods. There was little left for him here now, if there had ever been anything at all.
danny: so i know you had mixed feelings about our wall in the living room being painted all different colours. but how would you feel about some splashes of colour on our floor too.
danny: not that i think you have much choice atm, but how would that make you feel.
okay, so she had questions. questions she’d convinced herself not to put words to the last couple times she’d spoken to felix. yet the thing, she’d found, about suppressing each of them was that when they came back, they came back stronger. more adamant, demanding attention. they’d filled up so much of her head space since they’d all left camp laurel that sometimes she felt as though she were drowning from the inside out. so there ellie was, once again standing on the opposite side of his door, a bit blown back by how different she felt each time she came to it. she figured she shouldn’t have felt so nervous, but then again nervous seemed to be her natural state lately. it was a bit unfamiliar for someone who banked a majority of her personality on being laid back—on being happy, and okay—but she was handling it. treading water, at least. and it’d get better—if not at first, if not now, then in time. it had to.
as soon as she approached his door, her knuckles rose to meet it. once, twice, three times. ellie then leaned against the frame, her denim jacket clad shoulder meeting the wood as the door swung open. the little gust of wind it prompted blew some hair into her vision. “hey,” she smiled, tucking the strands behind her ear. “sorry to drop by out of nowhere—” did that sound stupid? a short, abrupt pause followed the words, ellie’s thumb suddenly pointing over her shoulder. “if you’re not busy, would you want to maybe get out of the house? go on a walk, maybe grab some food... try not to get chased down by any ducks or geese that’ve wondered away from beckett lake?” a quiet laugh like bells floated close to her lips. @felixlcsser
the sun had fully set over the nevada sky and saf was feeling good. the whole western destination and theme hadn’t been particularly appealing to her at first, preferring the certain grime and dirtiness that came with the underground scene of the city over that of saloons, kicking up dirt, and mechanical bulls, but looking at her now i’d be hard to tell that that was in fact case the case. what had dropped her on such a euphoric cloud, however, wasn’t as poetic as the setting sun or croon of a country singer. it was likely just the oxy she’d chewed up and swallowed about an hour prior. the girl now stood not at the bar inside the saloon, but on top of it. and she wasn’t quite standing either—she’d gone full coyote ugly after she’d convinced the barkeep to get someone to switch up the music. by the looks of things, the people around had been in desperate need of a break from the wholesome yeehaw tunes and who was she to keep still when are you gonna be my girl blared over the speakers? red hair swinging from one shoulder to the next, saffie coolly strode her way across the bar, using a bottle she’d picked up from behind it as a makeshift microphone. with the poise of a veteran performer, she avoided kicking over anyone’s drinks on her way to the opposite side, where a familiar face came into view. “lesser!” she called over the music, bending down and extending an arm. “let’s hope you’re a better dancer than you are a walker!” it wasn’t a question, the rare gleam in her eyes more so just expecting him to jump in. from what she could gather off the top of her head, he seemed like the type that just might go out on such a limb without fear of being embarrassed. @felixlcsser
PERHAPS SHE has reached her end; here on a bench in the middle of central park lies felix genesis, a heart broken hazard. olive eyes watch her hand engulf in flames, a slow breath escaping. the heat of the flames only tickles, really. and she’s sure no one is watching.
who: Felix & Nathan @monstersunderurbed
where: Wandering Atlas after hours
what: Help Me With Some Boxes?
· · ───────────── ·✶· ───────────── · ·
It wasn't rare that Felix was at Wandering Atlas well into the evening, but lately it was feeling easier and easier now that the sun wasn't going down until well past 8pm. They still had a couple hours before it even got close, which meant Felix could keep most of the "big lights" off and save on electricity and allow the oversized windows shed light on the modern features.
Felix normally wouldn't have asked Nate for help. Unfortunately, he had a hard time asking for help with most people, but for some reason it always felt harder asking Nate. Lately things felt a little easier. Him knowing about Claire felt like he could finally see the light at the end of the tunnel. No more big secrets, mostly just the truth. There would always been some things unspoken, but weren't all families like that?
He had placed the pizza order and put a bottle of white wine, probably from some gift basket at some point, in the kitchenette fridge to chill as he finished up a few things around the office as he waited for Nate to show. As usual for Felix, just as he began making strides in his work, the front door swung open. "In here!" he called out from his office, through the open door.
@babyitsmagic sent ☠️ from serena || send ☠ to find my muse beaten and bloody after they’ve been missing for a week (accepting)
“how upset is everyone?” he can barely stand and he should definitely be asking for help before he gets into any of this, but felix isn’t exactly thinking straight. but before he can even worry about himself, he needs to know that the courts haven’t fall into chaos. that things are still okay. maybe, hopefully neva’s managed to keep this from his family.
