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daredevilkink2015-06-01 05:48 pm
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Prompt Post #3
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[FILL] He Who Fights Monsters 7a/? (Re: Matt/Wesley - Good!Wesley, Undercover)
(Anonymous) 2015-07-29 10:27 am (UTC)(link)-
Honesty isn’t something Wesley is used to. His job, in fact, his entire existence for the past years, had depended on his skill in the art of duplicity and subterfuge. The idea of telling the truth to someone, of willingly handing another person the power to destroy him, sets him on edge. And tonight he is staking his life, and no the life of James Wesley, the Kingpin’s right hand man, but that of the man he had kept buried, his true identity.
The risk is enormous, but it is necessary. If he is ever going to convince Matthew Murdock to trust him he has to respond in kind. Watching Murdock squirm may have been entertaining once upon a time, but the chore of having to justify his behavior at every turn is becoming exhausting.
If they’re going to see through the mission of taking down Fisk’s empire, Murdock’s trust is something Wesley needs. They have to work together, focus their efforts on Fisk, and not on their constant suspicion of one another.
When Murdock steps into Wesley’s apartment, he regards the space with a cautious silence. The vigilante, dressed casually in jeans and a sweater, cocks his head as he enters the hallway, as though to capture and process every new sound and scent he senses.
No sarcastic comments or thinly veiled jabs at his décor, Wesley thinks, feeling slightly more optimistic about the night. It’s strangely adorable sight, Murdock’s face scrunched in concentration, clutching his cane in front of him like a shield. Wesley’s gaze travels along the lines of his body, pictures the tight planes of muscle hidden beneath the fabric of his clothing.
In another life, perhaps.
Wesley steps forward to close the door, his body filled with nervous energy his recovering body can’t quite keep up with. “Living room is this way,” Wesley says, reaching out tentatively to nudge Murdock in the right direction.
The man tenses at the contact, and Wesley makes no comment, leading the way as though nothing had happened. Then, footsteps sound behind him as Murdock begins to follow.
From their last face-to-face meeting in the hospital, it had taken another week before Wesley was finally released. Fisk was there to see him on the day, offering both his company and assistance. Wesley had exited his room on crutches after a humiliating fight for the privilege (he did not need a wheelchair, no matter how much Francis had insisted). He did accept Fisk’s offer for physical support, and moved through the hospital with one arm in a sling and the other one clinging desperately to his employer. Throughout the entire process, Francis trailed anxiously behind him.
Just as he’d feigned a damaged memory, he’d played up his weakness that day, needing Fisk to buy into his image of a traumatized civilian. He’d fallen onto his bed when he went to sit down, placating Fisk with reassurances that he will be okay on his own as a grim-faced Francis ran back and forth, setting up every comfort Wesley may need.
It took an enormous amount of insistence before Wesley had convinced both Fisk and Francis that it would be safe to leave him on his own, complete with promises to check in regularly and call if he needed any assistance. Then, he had needed another two days to work up the strength and mental energy to make the call.
“Pizza?” Murdock comments as they walk through the apartment, and Wesley half turns.
“Is that undesirable?” he asks, “I can order us something else.”
Dinner had been the agreement. Wesley can’t explain not being in his apartment, and a simple social gathering would be the easiest to justify if there ever is the need.
“No,” Murdock replies, “I just… expected something different.”
Wesley smiles to himself, something more upscale than takeaway, perhaps?
“Verci’s is known for serving some of the best pizza in Manhattan, Mr. Murdock. I’m sure you’ll find it satisfactory.”
Wesley’s home is, as appropriate to his image, a penthouse in the Upper West Side, fitted out with a minimalist modern design. It comes with a spectacular view that has impressed many visitors, and, Wesley recognizes, Murdock won’t be able to appreciate.
Yet when they approach the tall floor to ceiling windows, Murdock slows, and then stops, his face pointed at the glass.
Wesley also slows, stopping when he sees his guest no longer had any intention to follow.
“Is something wrong?” he asks, there’s an expression of bewilderment on Murdock’s face, something Wesley would only have expected from his sighted guests.
“It’s… quiet up here,” Murdock murmurs, and Wesley isn’t quite sure if it’s really awe that he hears.
Wesley pauses, listening. So many floors up, the sounds of the city – honking car horns, street chatter, the rush of traffic – are almost completely muted, held at bay by distance and thick glass. All Wesley hears is a pale rushing sound, so faint it feels imagined.
“Yes,” he says eventually, his voice low, “I suppose it is.”
It’s another minute before Murdock is finally pulled from his reverie, and Wesley reconsiders the impact the lack of sound has on the man in from of him as they settle onto the couch. Perhaps, growing up in the middle of Manhattan Island, he had never experienced anything so close to an absence of sound.
Not since before he was blinded, and his senses greatly enhanced.
“I hope you don’t mind using your hands,” Wesley says, opening the two boxes in front of Murdock. Though he had ordered pizza, the ingredients were still, true to his style, gourmet, with juicy Mongolian lamb, fresh ingredients, and home made sauces. Why hold onto your ill-gotten gains when you can spend it on your quality of life?
He hands Murdock a plate, which is hesitantly accepted, and they settle down to eat. Murdock studies his slice of pizza for a moment, before taking a careful bite. By the third mouthful, he is all but devouring the food.
For a moment, they eat in silence, avoiding, for the moment, the real reason for heir meeting. It’s been three weeks, Wesley thinks, since the first time they were in a similar situation.
“I don’t suppose you ate the food I left you, the first time,” he remarks, curiosity getting the better of him.
Murdock pauses, freezing again like a wary deer. “I… did,” he admits with a little reluctance, “I was too hungry to resist.”
Wesley smiles as he takes his next bite, pleased.
“Thank you,” Murdock continues, and Wesley nods.
“I have another name you might be interested in,” Wesley says in between bites, “Claudia Monte, human trafficker, a prospective business partner for Fisk. She’s been kidnapping children and young women all over Manhattan.”
For the past week, Wesley had also been supplying the locations and identities of criminals and suspect individuals to Murdock. Rapists and murderers – people Murdock would have enjoyed bringing to ‘justice’. Each time, he’d allowed Murdock to discover on his own what those people had done to deserve punishment. This time, Wesley completes the profile for the first time.
Murdock pauses, then goes back to eating. “I’ll look into it.”
Silence stretches between them again, and Wesley stares out the window at the city as he chews on his food. When the pizza boxes are nearing empty, it’s Murdock who puts down his plate first, and speaks.
“You wanted to talk?”
[FILL] He Who Fights Monsters 7b/? (Re: Matt/Wesley - Good!Wesley, Undercover)
(Anonymous) 2015-07-29 10:28 am (UTC)(link)“I do,” Wesley replies, putting down his own plate and wiping his fingers with a napkin. He thinks about the power he about to hand to Murdock. “You have doubts, about me, about our arrangement.”
The promise of honesty is a blank check and an olive branch, and Wesley is uncertain as to what Murdock expects from him, if the vigilante will appreciate or even believe what Wesley has to say.
But they’ve gotten this far. Wesley might as well toss himself well and truly over the edge.
Matt sighs, a harsh, angry sound that reveals the full extent of his frustration. “That’s one way to put it.”
Wesley leans back on the sofa, waiting for Matt to make the next move. Perhaps using the term arrangement was a bad idea, but old habits die hard.
“What am I to you?”
Wesley blinks. Murdock’s question sounds like the opening to a couples’ argument. By the way the other man winces he seems to realize too.
“I mean, what is your plan? Not with the Chinese, but with Fisk. You say you want to take him out, that you want to dismantle his criminal empire, but you’re the one who helped him build it, are you not? Send the information you have to the FBI and you can lock him away for life. And for that matter, you’re claiming to be ex-SHIELD, but what does SHIELD want with Fisk? Why would an agency that is supposed to protect people prop up a criminal who is destroying thousands of lives? And if your intentions are as good as you like to claim, why are you staying in your position? SHIELD went down over a year ago. You can’t tell me you couldn’t have figured out an escape strategy in that time, with the resources you have at your disposal.”
Murdock’s breathing is harsh when he finishes, and he sags a little in his seat. Wesley watches, taken aback. These questions must have weighed on him from day one. All at once, the reasons for Murdock’s suspicion and belligerence are thrown into sharp relief.
“That’s a lot of questions,” Wesley remarks, trying to pick apart the rant and find all the questions he has to answer.
“Because you haven’t given me any answers,” Murdock replies, resentment clear in his voice.
The accusation hangs in the air, and Wesley nods once, conceding the point.
“I… can admit I haven’t been forthcoming,” Wesley says. To be precise, he had forgotten the importance of trust, he necessity of it. Intimidation and manipulation had been his weapon of choice for far too long, and it was the same approach he used with Murdock even when trying to convince him he was an ally.
But those tactics are those belonging to villains, to the cheats and criminals. Those were the people Murdock’s instinct is to put down.
“If you expect me to trust you,” Murdock says, “You will need to explain yourself.”
Wesley takes a deep breath, and lets it out slowly. It hurt to remember the truth, his part, his entire identity, now irretrievably lost. But so what? He had to confront it, sooner or later, dig out that part him he had buried so deep and so deliberately.
“Have you ever heard of ‘The Hand’?” Wesley says, his voice low.
“What?”
“From my briefing I was told… uh…” Wesley chuckles, it is so ridiculous, yet part of this world they live in, “They’re a secret criminal order of… I guess you’d call them ninjas.”
His confession is greeted with silence, and Wesley wonders if Matt is remembering his own encounter with Nobu.
“They’re an elusive organization, highly dangerous, and, not unlike Hydra, they covet power above all else. As you’ve probably guessed, Nobu was one of their members.”
Perhaps the memory the memory would help Murdock digest Wesley’s words as fact, and not a far-fetched fairy tale.
“And your mission had something to do with his… order of ninjas?”
Wesley glances at Matt, to find him looking confused, but not incredulous.
“SHEILD had received intelligence that an American named Wilson Fisk had somehow made a connection with this organization. Reports were that the Japanese were actively supporting him in his move to a position of power within the New York underworld. The idea had been for me to go undercover and gain his trust, feeding back anything I possibly could about the Hand and their intentions in the country. SHIELD had hoped that the intelligence I gathered may lead them in the direction of the Hand’s mysterious high ranking members.”
“And how did that go for you?”
He’s still alive, for whatever that’s worth. Wesley’s lips twitch upwards.
“Not too poorly, at least at first. I provided the names and locations of contacts, bases of operation, clues the intelligence analysts would have pieced together with information fed back from others in the field. But you learn to be happy with small victories. Fisk is… smart, and private. Even three years later he won’t tell me anything more about them than that they’re ‘a necessary evil’.”
Remembering those times, dredges up every discomforting thought he’d deliberately left forgotten. Things had been so much simpler than, when he had a firm ideology to stand behind, a hand to steer him if he ever veered off the beaten track. Back then, James Wesley was just another cover, a mask, falsehoods made up to protect the righteous man beneath.
Now, he barely remembers that other life.
He is a tiny vessel left adrift, struggling to stay afloat as he is buffeted on all sides by forces that hope to drag him under. The convictions that had supported him like study, wooden planks of the ship are now almost rotted through, and it will only be a matter of the time before he willingly hurls himself into the sea.
And Matthew Murdock is perhaps his last chance to save what’s left of himself.
Had the members of the team survived? And if they did, had they ever spared a thought for him? For those they’d abandoned in the field to almost certain death?
Wesley had never entertained the hope of retirement, or of a white picket fence and 2.5 children. People like him are fated for violent ends, and a fast, clean death is only rewarded to the luckiest few.
But it would have been too easy if he’d simply died at the end of Karen Page’s stolen gun.
Exhaustion weighs both his limbs and his heart. Wesley stares out the window, and says nothing more. He lets Murdock process each of Wesley’s revelations, weigh and assess each word and decide if he finds them satisfactory. The city is a pretty sight at night, each pocket of light a window into someone else’s existence. As much as he hates this city, as much as he hates his situation, Wesley can’t deny it’s nice to look at, sometimes.
[FILL] He Who Fights Monsters 7c/? (Re: Matt/Wesley - Good!Wesley, Undercover)
(Anonymous) 2015-07-29 10:29 am (UTC)(link)Matt hadn’t known what to expect when he had walked through Wesley’s door earlier that evening. Answers, yes, but now that he has them, he doesn’t know what to do with any of it.
Wesley’s heartbeat had been fast, but steady throughout his entire confession. Not a single hint of deception, and Matt finds himself also inclined to believe Wesley’s story.
All Wesley had done is confirm his story. Yet the ideas of SHIELD, of some mystical organization named ‘the Hand’, still feels as though it belongs in another world. In that world, good and evil has distinct lines, and heroes like the Avengers always saved the day. Even if Matt bought into his words, that he really had – had – been someone with good intentions, it doesn’t change the crimes that the man has committed, and continues to commit every day.
“And then SHIELD collapsed?” Matt prompts, hoping to get more out of the man in front of him, needing more reasons to justify this… whatever this is… that is happening between them.
Wesley smiles again, and when he speaks, there’s an undertone of bitterness in his voice.
“Yes, it did. I wiped away any mention of my mission and identity from the public record at first opportunity. And… I’ve been here ever since, with no orders, no extraction plan.”
“Why don’t you leave?” The question had been on Matt’s mind since day one. Wesley’s original answer had played with the idea of incarceration, but both of them know that it is not the only possible outcome. “Send the evidence to the Feds, get a new identity and go to Rio. You have the resources, you have the opportunity.”
Of every one of Wesley’s outlandish claims, this has been one thing Matt had not been able to reconcile. Why would Wesley stay in this position, when he has such a clear way out? The only answers that Matt can come up with are not ones that paint the man in any positive light. They say power corrupts, and Matt imagines even an ex-SHIELD agent would be no exception, no matter what lies they choose to tell themselves.
Wesley doesn’t answer right away, and Matt’s mind supplies him with condemnations, thinks that he’s caught the man out in something he cannot explain or justify.
“I couldn’t leave,” Wesley says softly, and his heartbeat tells Matt he believes it.
“What are you talking about?”
“Where I am right now, I can exert influence,” Wesley says, his voice picking up volume and speed as he continues, “I can control the way Fisk handles his responsibilities, I can implement strategies that minimize collateral damage, impose discipline on the streets to ensure innocent lives are kept out of danger. I can even tip off the police, tip off people like you, if the situation demands it. But if I leave, then there is no accounting for the person will fill my spot. And they are unlikely to have the same standards that I do.”
“What, so you see yourself as some sort of double agent? New York City’s secret guardian? You rob and murder innocent people!”
“I make threats, Murdock, it usually gets Fisk the things he wants.”
“And the times it doesn’t?” Matt answers, furious, incredulous that someone can be so misguided in their beliefs. “Do you send out thugs to murder innocent old ladies and tell yourself that it’s Fisk’s responsibility and not your own?”
“I don’t claim to be a moral man, Mr. Murdock, but I am a practical one. So no, I will not risk disobedience and my own life to save one life when by staying in my position I can continue saving dozens. For every life we have taken, I assure you that I have solved a dozen similar problems with everyone walking away. I do not claim to be guiltless for those deaths, Mr. Murdock, but I am only one man, and my power is not limitless.”
No, Wesley will not get away that easily. “You can give evidence to put Fisk and his cronies in prison, and there wouldn’t be anyone left to-“
“Do you truly, honestly believe that?” Wesley snaps, incredulous.
“I…” Matt falters, surprised by the ferocity of Wesley’s reaction.
“Do you know how many rivals we’re currently keeping at bay? Powerful people who would not hesitate to step in snap up Fisk’s territory and his contracts if we showed weakness? Drugs, trafficking, prostitution, it is the demand, the money that keeps these markets alive, poverty and systemic injustice that forces people onto these paths. Do you honestly think that there won’t be someone else taking Fisk’s place in a heartbeat?”
“It doesn’t mean Fisk should be allowed to continue, what he’s doing is wrong, and I would fight anyone else who tries to take his place.”
“And you would die, Mr. Murdock,” Wesley returns, voice cold, “How many times have you come close to that already? Fighting the Russians, fighting Nobu? The people you are trying to defeat don’t play by your rules of honor and justice. You cannot tell me you don’t understand that.”
“So what then?” Matt yells, “We let him keep hurting innocent people? Let him go on destroying lives with drugs and kidnapping?
For some reason, his reaction makes Wesley’s breathing slow.
“We take him down, but with calculated attacks,“ Wesley says, his words measured, slipping too easily back into a mask control, “Take him down in one dramatic gesture and all that will be left is blood. There are partners, lieutenants, people in his employ who are just as capable as I am and far better positioned to cover their involvement. The police will miss them. You know that. And you know what happens next? These sharks will tear each other apart until someone ruthless enough emerges to take that vacant throne.”
Wesley’s heart is racing within his chest in a staccato beat. There’s something dark in his voice, like grief, like drowning, like the monster in the night.
This is the real Wesley, Matt realizes with sudden clarity. A man so used to walking among vampires he’s chosen to take the darkness into his own heart to survive, so broken and twisted by his own experience that he cannot see any solution to his problems but cold, measured, violence.
In that moment Matthew sees himself, reflected in Wesley’s words of icy intent, of stubborn determination.
‘The lone man,’ Fisk had said, ‘Who thinks he can make a difference.’
‘That’s what makes you dangerous.’
“But if we take out those in the middle first,” Wesley continues, his voice taking a soft, almost sensuous timbre, each word punctuated with confidence, “If we take apart Fisk’s support structure, then there will be no one of any consequence left in the aftermath. Then, we might have a chance at lasting peace.”
And his words make sense, Matt thinks, furious, helpless. He had begun his crusade with little more than frustration, anger and the determination to do the right thing. Yet that line between what is right and wrong is becoming more blurred with each day that passes. Wesley’s words wrap around his consciousness, a snake’s whisper that tells him yes, yes this what he’s been looking for, this is better thing to do, the right choice.
“What about the people who get in the crossfire? Karen Page? Elena Cardenas? The innocent people caught in those explosions? What are their lives worth to you?”
Wesley’s breath stutters, and the silence that follows tells Matt a tale of shame.
“Collateral damage,” Wesley replies, his voice quiet, “You should understand that.”
Matt opens his mouth to retort, but then he grasps Wesley’s meaning.
“The people I’ve hurt are criminals, killers.”
“And you think those criminals and killers don’t deserve a right to a fair hearing, to due process?” Wesley says, in a soft murmur, “That they’re somehow less than human because of the choices they’ve made, the people they’ve hurt? Do you think that the men you’ve thrown from rooftops, put into comas, left crippled for life, don’t have families? Don’t have children? Loved ones they’d die to protect?”
Wesley’s tone is careful, gentle, yet his words are as sharp as knives, and they slide straight through Matt’s defenses, drawing blood. Matt falls silent, reeling from his unveiled accusations.
“You have to forgive me, Mr. Murdock, if I find your stance hypocritical.”
[FILL] He Who Fights Monsters 7d/? (Re: Matt/Wesley - Good!Wesley, Undercover)
(Anonymous) 2015-07-29 10:29 am (UTC)(link)“They are criminals,” Matt says, finding a lifeline in an argument and holding onto it for dear life, “Like you said, these people don’t play by the rules, they understand the stakes.”
“And where do you place yourself, Mr. Murdock, in that paradigm?”
Wesley doesn’t try to justify himself, and Matt wonders if this counts as a victory.
“I am not called the Saint of Hell’s Kitchen.”
Wesley’s lips curve with a smirk. “So you mingle with those you detest, embrace their tactics, and use it against them.”
Matt bears his teeth, knowing exactly what Wesley is trying to do.
“Unlike you, I don’t benefit from my crimes.”
“So you don’t feel any sort of rush, each time you emerge victorious? Don’t feel that reassuring warmth of having rid the world of one more villain each time you put down a criminal? Relief and affirmation when a victim thanks you for your timely intervention?”
Matt grits his teeth, “I also feel guilt for those things.”
“You think I don’t?” Wesley admits the fact with such ease it takes Matt by surprise.
“I can’t say I don’t have my doubts,” Matt says, realizing that his is no a battle he can win, “But I’m not going to help you hurt innocent people, Wesley.”
“I’m not asking you to, Matthew,” Wesley says with a soft exhale, “We have a common cause, and by doing what you’ve always done – taking out criminals – we can work together, to take down Fisk.”
“I won’t step back and do nothing if you do anything like Elena, like those bombings again,” Matt says, stubbornly holding his ground, onto the center of his convictions, the principle he had held from the start.
“And you don’t have to, ” Wesley replies, taking that one step back, acknowledging that Matt’s ideology of is worth, “But I need you to trust me, Matthew. A partnership. It’s all I ask.”
Matt waits, but all the riling, raucous parts inside of him have fallen silent.
“Fine.”
The word falls, and Wesley lets out a breath. Matt focuses on his breathing, on holding onto this calm, accepting this strange new arrangement. Blackmail is not a word he can hold onto anymore, not knowing what Wesley has told him, not when he has been given this new power to destroy the man.
Then this is a partnership, a temporary truce that has led to the creation of an alliance. He sinks a little deeper into he couch, hearing the subtle squeak of leather as Wesley too, relaxes in his seat.
Matt is exhausted, yet it feels like a heavy weight has been removed from his shoulders, and for the first time in weeks, he feels like he can breathe.
“Don’t do this alone anymore, Matt.”
Silence stretches between them, this time, it is companionable. The only thing that stands out in the tranquil night is the steady beat of Wesley’s heart. The scent of pizza sauce and grease still lingers in the air, mingling strangely with something distinctly Wesley beyond the cinnamon and sandalwood of his cologne – something sharp, crisp, and cold as a knife’s edge.
“Tell me something, Wesley,” Matt says.
Wesley’s head turns toward him. “What is it?”
“Why me?”
Wesley hesitates, and his Matt hangs onto he moment, the calm before yet another revelation.
Footsteps sound outside the front door. There are three soft knocks, punctuated with the sound of a turning key.
-
There are two people beside himself with keys to his apartment. The first is Fisk, who would be with Vanessa at this hour, the second-
“Mr. Wesley?”
Francis’s voice echoes from the entrance, and Wesley curses internally at the intrusion. He can’t attempt anything when it comes to Matthew Murdock without someone walking in at the wrong moment.
Re: [FILL] He Who Fights Monsters 7d/? (Re: Matt/Wesley - Good!Wesley, Undercover)
(Anonymous) 2015-07-29 06:31 pm (UTC)(link)Re: [FILL] He Who Fights Monsters 7d/? (Re: Matt/Wesley - Good!Wesley, Undercover)
(Anonymous) 2015-09-08 07:02 am (UTC)(link)I honestly had not expected you to update so soon, otherwise I would have been on this much faster than this! Anyway…
… the chore of having to justify his behavior at every turn is becoming exhausting. I happen to think that it’s just the novelty of having to explain common sense that’s exhausting Wesley. And Matt. He’s just a genuinely exhausting person, sometimes. But something about greater rewards and somesuch comes to mind.
In another life, perhaps. If not this life, what other life do you speak of, I ask you? And just how Wesley checks out Matt but quite easily turning back to business. Guh! Although, I suspect that’s a lot of miscommunication waiting to happen—Matt having difficulty reading Wesley.
Ooh! Matt likes Wesley’s apartment…hmm…I wonder what manufactured reasons Matt, not Daredevil (I think even his parkour skills will be less than sufficient), will have to visit? Or will Wesley go out of his way to meet with Matt so that he has the comfort of the constant noise of the city?
Oh, poor Wesley. Being pleased that Matt ate the food left for him as a last resort. Well, I guess he’s an optimist.
Wesley had also been supplying the locations and identities of criminals and suspect individuals to Murdock. Ah, Wesley + calculating competence is my jam! But Wesley supplying names that he knows Matt would have no problem bringing to justice—which leads me to think that he’s probably withholding the names of the white collar criminals that he knows of.
And I don’t necessarily think that it’s “directness” that Matt’s terrible at. As was witnessed in an earlier chapter with the accountant, Matt does not know or understand the definition of subtlety. I am also curious as to how Matt is to deal with women, though. With Gao he just ineffectively menaced her, expecting her to cooperate with him until she beat him handily. Literally. :-P
He is a tiny vessel left adrift, struggling to stay afloat as he is buffeted on all sides by forces that hope to drag him under. Guh… I love your imagery! Your metaphors remind me of how Wesley speaks on the show—smoke in a room, a city clinging to skin, just…his whole speech pattern. I love that you seem to be carrying that through your writing!
Wesley’s words make sense to Matt, and he doesn’t know if he’s more angry or relieved for the fact. It really should. Matt’s a lawyer—he’s aware of the justice system having its failures, otherwise he wouldn’t be a vigilante in the first place. But the concept of offering a plea or wiring up the dealer to get the supplier should not be a foreign concept to him. And yet…I can’t help but wonder about how well he really did in school on the show.
… furious, incredulous that someone can be so misguided in their beliefs… I like this statement because my mind supplied adages like ‘pot to kettle’ and mirrors darkly.
Matty, Matty, Matty… So naïve and it seems he’s hit Wesley’s breaking point...
These sharks will tear each other apart until someone ruthless enough emerges to take that vacant throne. Guh…I mentioned your use of imagery, right? Beautiful. I love you.
I also love the almost adversarial tone their interactions have with one another. But more than that, I love how it seems like Wesley knows exactly what he is, what he’s become, and what he once was. He isn’t deluded—he knows that he’s not a “moral man,” but a “practical one.” And his practicality can see not only the big picture, but the details that comprise it. Matt on the other hand…he’s only starting to get that they are fairly similar (though Wesley is more effective, in my opinion) and well…okay, I will cut him some slack. It is a rather steep learning curve and Matt…he’s cute, but stubborn (and just a little bit dumb).
You have to forgive me, Mr. Murdock, if I find your stance hypocritical. At least Wesley’s asking for forgiveness. I’m not—I’m sure you’ve noticed how overly critical I tend to be of Matt’s…logic? I guess that’s what it is.
Uh-oh! Francis. Oh, poor Wesley. Matt really is nothing but trouble for him. I do wonder how Wesley can extricate himself from this situation. Have the blind man hide in the closet?
And I’m sorry. I think this has turned less into a review and more a rehash of your chapter, even if I am gushing in between. I don’t think I’ll stop, but I just thought I’d tell you that I am cognizant of what I am doing. :-D
Anyway, as I’ve said, this was wonderful. I do hope you continue updating this fill. You write beautifully and I love this so much. I love that you also see that Matt is a very flawed character and you not only address it, but you use it! Thank you again!
I wait with bated breath for the continuation! Cheers!