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ddk_mod ([personal profile] ddk_mod) wrote in [community profile] daredevilkink2015-06-22 07:24 pm
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Prompt Post #4

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Re: Matt/Foggy or Matt&Foggy - Medical mishaps fill

(Anonymous) 2015-07-16 04:17 pm (UTC)(link)
So, um, the thought of Matt teaching Foggy to stitch him up like his dad taught him is making me make dying raptor noises over here. This was amazing, anon, I hope there's more.

Re: [FILL] Requiem Æternam [Part 2.2]

(Anonymous) 2015-07-16 04:23 pm (UTC)(link)
I'm glad the creepy body shit was okay with you. :D I was apprehensive about the whole scene at first and nearly cut it - it was NOT meant to be a scene in and of itself, just a blurb! - but ugh, I can't shut up. XD

Matt failing at lying is one of my favourite things in the universe. :D

I love how Foggy’s in Hell and the first thing Matt HAS to do is rub his hands all over Foggy’s body.
--- Ikr? To be fair, Foggy's the one who asked him to - Matt nobly resisted. He just got his hands all up in Foggy's hair while he was out. ;)

Fun fact those are called “angel lust.” FUN FACT.
--- Wait REALLY?!!

WAR BOY DEMONS! YAAAAAAAYYYYY!
--- YUP! WAR BOYS INCOMIIIIING. :D

Oh hell yeah, Devil speak that you can FEEL. YESSSSSSS.
--- My linguistics boner is showing. ;_;

Foggy knew he’d follow Matt anywhere.
To hell and b… oh.
“Okay,” he agreed simply, bumping Matt playfully. “Show me your world. I’m dying to see it.”
Oh gods Foggy, the PUNS. I love you. So does Matt.

--- Yeah, I got a little punny there at the end. ;D

Re: Sequel to Previous Fill - Karen's Death Ends Foggy and Matt's Friendship

(Anonymous) 2015-07-16 05:52 pm (UTC)(link)
Chapter 2 (of 2) has now also been posted: http://archiveofourown.org/works/4281339/chapters/9880979

Re: Another Powers AU

(Anonymous) 2015-07-16 07:11 pm (UTC)(link)
Op: Yay good to know! And ooooo that is awesome! :D

And you totally know that once Matt finds out about that he would totally start determinedly clinging to him on purpose going 'Yes, this I can do!' While also feeling all the guilt about making Foggy feel bad (either through, what he believes are his awful, thoughts and/or knowing Foggy feels bad because it happens), while also revelling in it like he does daredeviling it up... hehehehe the potential...!

Re: Fill: Clear and Honest Communication 5/11(?)

(Anonymous) 2015-07-16 09:33 pm (UTC)(link)
Wow. This story continues to be awesome, but this chapter is my favorite. I think it's because it's so joyous. Matt and Foggy are so together and so not alone...and then the cooking scene!

It just made me so happy when I realized Matt will never be alone. Obviously, with the mind link, he'll always be connected to Foggy, but even more so with Foggy sharing Matt's senses and tasting experiences, he's not alone in his abilities.

Re: [FILL] Requiem Æternam [Part 2.2]

(Anonymous) 2015-07-16 11:19 pm (UTC)(link)
holy moly. The sculpting scene was intense, but what really hit me was the end part, where Matt breathed - being? into Foggy. That was intense and AMAZING. The way the world bloomed into being around Foggy. Wow! I mean, I really love everything I've read for this so far, but this part right here? THIS PART RIGHT HERE WAS SO GOOD! Matt was sell-able as the devil before, but THIS part makes him Satan, ruler of the domain. A++ excellent work!

Re: Fill: Clear and Honest Communication 5/11(?)

(Anonymous) 2015-07-17 01:00 am (UTC)(link)
A comment! A comment! =D

This new ability is useful for knowing thoughts and feelings. Understanding them... not so much.

Matt's trying not to but having someone who understands why chemicals taste so awful would be lovely.

Writing the trope of Matt as a mess of a human being is one of my favourite tropes. Stuffing things like this up is Matt's specialty.

He really is. Defying Gravity is awesome but there's a difference between Defying Gravity sung by professionals and Defying Gravity sung by a drunk law student (who can't sing anyway) at 3am. Matt's heard both and he prefers not to hear the second again.

Sense sharing! I did promise. =)

*blushes* Aww, thank you. As always, I'm glad you like it!

Re: Fill: Clear and Honest Communication 5/11(?)

(Anonymous) 2015-07-17 01:02 am (UTC)(link)
Aww, thank you! I'm glad you liked it. I did have this chapter as joyful as I could... there's still a bit of angst coming up.

That is so true. The one joy that can't be angsted away- this thing is permanent and means these two will never be alone. The drawbacks of that though... coming up.

Re: Fill: Clear and Honest Communication 5/11(?)

(Anonymous) 2015-07-17 02:42 am (UTC)(link)
They are starting tpo experiment with each other "abilities" Matt cn see the world through Foggy and Foggy can see and do what Matt does.
Excellent.

FILL: "Mercy" (1/3)

(Anonymous) 2015-07-17 03:36 am (UTC)(link)

This concept was sort of percolating in my brain for several weeks, combining with a bunch of other observations and thoughts and then it just sort of ran away with me and turned into 3,000+ words of the angstiest angst ever. So. Hope this still scratches your itch.



CW for some pretty strong (assisted) suicide ideation.





Mercy




It must have been twenty years since he last held a gun.



The shape of the pistol was strange in his hand after so long; he had forgotten how small a gun was. But then, perhaps the difference in size was simply because his hand had finally grown into it.



His fingers went through the motions of cleaning and checking the gun by reflex, as though it had been only yesterday that Johnny had walked him through the motions. Stop rushing. Wipe in the direction the bullet moves. For God’s sake, don’t forget to unload it first. Do you want to get yourself killed?



An hour ago, he had let himself into the apartment with the key Matt had given him “for emergencies,” and he had since been turning over every aspect of what he would say—of what needed to be said.



In retrospect, he should have known that he couldn’t run from the Family forever. After the virtual declaration of independence his withdrawal from the training grounds of Landman and Zack had represented, he had been so afraid of reprisal that he never walked alone, always kept one eye cast over his shoulder, slept with his bat within reach of the bed. Months passed, and he heard nothing. Graduation came and went without comment. No untoward messages had found him at the office.



Though his pride was hurt by the knowledge that his defection wasn’t worth even the mildest intervention, he supposed that being disowned was better than being disemboweled.



Things changed after they took down Fisk. The firm was mentioned in the papers; they gave statements to TV news. Their do-gooder MO became common knowledge; Rosalind called him for the first time in five years and asked to talk in person. Foggy could think of a very few things that could mean, and none of them was good. He made sure that his affairs were in order: utilities, rent, will. Evidence of his connection to the mob in plain sight for any investigators who might have cause to visit a recently-vacated apartment.



The ultimatum he received was so much worse than the one he prepared for.



Franklin,” she had greeted, cold and distant as ever behind her desk and her bodyguards. “I had hoped that you were smart enough to correct this situation on your own so that I wouldn’t have to waste my time. Perhaps I would save more time by anticipating disappointment.



Foggy was an adult now, a lawyer trained to dissect and twist words to his own advantage. He now recognized her manipulations for what they were, was entirely capable of seeing through her demeanor. Her disapproval had stung nonetheless.



I’ll be brief. This situation with the Syndicate has made your misguided attempts at going straight impossible to ignore. You’ve clearly shown yourself to be incapable of keeping the Family’s needs in mind when you’re around that Murdock boy,” she said, uttering Matt’s name like an expletive. “He distracts you and confuses your priorities, just like he always has. This situation cannot be allowed to continue.



“I am willing to offer you two options. The first is to take matters into your own hands. If you can convince him to leave the city by the end of the week, then I’ll forget all about little Matthew Murdock, and you can start doing the job we sent you to school for. If he’s still here past Sunday,she continued, the afternoon light glancing off her coal-black eyes,then we’ll have to handle matters ourselves. I can promise you, if you choose the second option, then he’ll never see Tuesday.”



If it were anyone else talking, if any other criminal had said something like that to Foggy, then he would never have hesitated to just tell Matt. He would have warned him of the danger and then stood aside to let him handle himself against the assassins. He would have known that, with enough warning, Daredevil could handle whatever they might throw at him. But Foggy knew that this Family, his Family, had assassins that neither Matt nor Daredevil was prepared to deal with.



He knew because, twenty years ago, he had been one.


Re: FILL: "Mercy" (2/3)

(Anonymous) 2015-07-17 03:42 am (UTC)(link)

He slid the final piece of the reassembled gun into place, breathed in the bracing scents of gunmetal and death. Convince him to leave the city. For most people, the prospect of convincing Matt Murdock, the Daredevil himself, to leave Hell’s Kitchen would seem an insurmountable challenge. But Foggy knew exactly what to say. He had always known, ever since Matt came roaring back into his life that first day in undergrad, precisely what it would take for him to make Matt leave and never come back.



He had rehearsed this conversation a thousand times, a thousand ways, the scenario shifting constantly to reflect the varied entailments of their conjoined lives, but the basic content, the core of the matter, always remained constant. And every scenario, every single one, ended with Matt leaving. Since finding out about Daredevil, Foggy had also begun to have difficulty imagining a scenario in which Matt wouldn’t kill Foggy on his way out. Most nights, that prospect terrified him into sleepless, silent distress.



Tonight? He was planning on it.



The roof-access door opened quietly, and Foggy’s mind slipped into high gear.



Daredevil stalked down the stairs. He was limping slightly, but no more than usual. That was good—Foggy needed him to be all there tonight.



“Foggy?” he asked upon reaching the foot of the stairs. “What’s wrong?” He tilted his head, no doubt scenting the metallic air. “And why do you have a gun?”



“Matt,” Foggy replied, “I haven’t been being entirely honest with you. I think that we should talk.”



Matt hesitated a moment, clearly unnerved. Then he slinked over to the couch opposite Foggy’s chair, sitting down tense on its edge.



Foggy took a deep breath, squared his jaw—and sighed. “For God’s sake, take off that mask. I need to talk to you, Matt, not him.”



Matt apologized and dutifully slipped off his cowl. Uncovered, his face telegraphed his emotions, clear as day in the eerie half-light: unease, confusion, curiosity. Fear.



Maybe it would have been better if he’d kept the mask on.



Foggy breathed in again, and started talking before he could lose his nerve. “I’ve told you before that my mother wanted me to be a butcher. That was the truth. But you’ve never met my mother, so you couldn’t possibly have understood what she actually meant when she said that.” Foggy could already feel cold sweat beading on his back, and this was the least of the things he had to say tonight. He anchored himself on the gun in his hand, squeezing the handle with bruising force, and plunged onwards. “My mother’s name is Rosalind—Rosalind Sharpe.”



Matt inhaled sharply. “You’re—you’re with the Irish? The mob?”



Foggy’s mouth twisted ruefully. “Born and raised. When your mom’s the woman who runs half of the operation, it’s hard to avoid getting sucked into the family business. My older siblings were groomed for management positions, off the street, as safe as you can get in this business. But me? My mom wanted me to be a butcher.” The gun in his hand was warm. “An assassin.”



He heard Matt shift on the couch, but he kept his eyes trained out the window, watching a cherry blossom infinitely travel its looping path down the side of the neighboring building. “They—they have a particular way of training butchers. They always start them young: young enough that they don’t attract attention from the police, and young enough that they don’t know the meaning of what they’re doing.” Foggy turns the gun over in his hands. “I was eight when I shot a gun for the first time. I was nine the first time I killed a man.” And, thank God, the last.



“Oh God, Foggy—“



“I’m not finished,” Foggy interrupted him. He was only halfway there; he couldn’t afford to stop now. “I didn’t understand what he had done—they explained it to me, but all I made out was that he didn’t do what he was told, and that what I was going to do to him was what happened when people don’t do as they’re told. I didn’t need any more than that, really. He never saw it coming until I had the gun in his face. He had just enough time for the fear to come into his eyes. Or maybe he knew it was coming, and the fear had been there long before I was. Either way, that fear was all I saw in his eyes when they closed.” Foggy paused and considered his next words. This was the most important part, the one that would seal his fate and Matt’s: the execution was paramount. “It wasn’t until his kid showed up that I started to realize what I had done. That I had taken away a life. A person.” He swallowed. “Someone’s father.”



“Foggy…” Matt’s voice said, thick with tears.



Foggy could feel tears gathering behind his own eyelids now. “The kid was my age—“



“Foggy, please, don’t—“



“—and blind.”


Re: FILL: "Mercy" (2/3)

(Anonymous) 2015-07-17 03:56 am (UTC)(link)
Oh my god. F@ck you. F@ck you Satan. You horrible, horrible person. Why would you DO THAT?!?

Re: FILL: "Mercy" (3/3)

(Anonymous) 2015-07-17 03:59 am (UTC)(link)

Foggy didn’t need supersenses to hear Matt’s breathing stop. Reflexively, he glanced over at his friend, hunched over and shaking with his hands over his ears, as though he could block out the words, or the heartbeat that confirmed the truth of them.



When Matt finally drew in another shuddering breath, Foggy tore his eyes away and continued. “Normally, these days, you would kill any kids old enough to hold a grudge, especially boys. But things were different back then, and since the kid was blind, nobody thought anything of letting him go.” With the worst of it over, Foggy suddenly began to feel weightless, giddy, like he was in a free-fall. He giggled as a tear slipped down his cheek. “I guess the joke’s on them now, huh?”



Matt’s voice, shaky and gravelly with rage: “You—you told—?”



In his elated state of mind, high on the anticipation of incipient death, Foggy understood what Matt was asking: You told them about Daredevil? Foggy had done nothing of the sort, could never do that to Matt—but anything that could make Matt fear for his safety, that could drive him out of the city, was something worth letting Matt believe. In the months since he found out about Matt’s abilities, Foggy had become adept at circumventing his lie-detecting abilities with half-truths and half-answers. This would be his final test of those skills. “Told what?” he asked, excited, jumping to his feet. “That you’re the masked menace that’s been terrorizing them for months? That you’re the one who’s been singlehandedly dismantling their operation piece by piece?” He laughed. “You should have known better than to mess with us, Matt.”



He was already well past the point of no return; all that was left was to twist the knife until he pushed Matt over that point, too. And for that, he had to be able to watch Matt’s reactions. He focused the full weight of his tear-soaked gaze on the man on the couch in front of him. He had hunched over even further now, curling into himself as his muscles coiled tighter and tighter with the anger that had to be inundating his system. That was good—Foggy could work with that.



“Did—“ Matt began. “Did you—were we—was any of it—was it real?”



Foggy’s heart was pounding faster than he had ever felt it before; the room around him seemed to glow, incandescent in the light of revelation. If he had been any less elated, any less ecstatic, Matt would surely have been able to hear his stomach clench and then drop when that garbled plea finally made sense of itself. Does he really think that I could do something that cruel? That I could fake a friendship like this one just to keep tabs on a potential threat?



Half-truths and half-answers. Let him think anything that might push him over the edge. “I’ve been lying to you for years, Murdock,” Foggy said coldly. “Don’t make me start being honest now.”



Foggy watched the shudder pass through Matt’s spine, saw the instant in which his muscles recoiled, sending him jolting upwards and stumbling for the door. “I—I need to get out—”



“Stop right there!” Foggy said, finally raising the gun he’d brought, cocking it, pointing it right at Matt. “The only way you’re leaving here tonight is over my dead body.”



When he heard the shouted command, Matt froze; when he heard the gun’s safety click off, when he sensed that it was pointed at him, Matt’s face crumbled, his tears collecting in the anguished lines of his face like pools on the face of a cliff. “Foggy, please, you don’t want to do this—“



Provoke him, Foggy’s racing heart screamed at him. You’re so close to ending it. Just push him a little further, and this can all be over. “Come on, Matt. I already killed one Murdock. It’d be nothing for me to take down one more.”



Matt’s eyes closed in anguish, and Foggy braced himself for the storm of fury that he had made of Matthew Murdock. But moments passed—minutes, hours, Foggy was in no place to say—and Matt made no move towards him.



Did he need further prompting? “Just give me a reason, Murdock,” he said. “Come at me, I dare you—“



“You’re bluffing.”



Foggy’s stomach lurched. “What?”



“You’re bluffing. You’re not going to shoot.”



This wasn’t right. “Do I sound like I was fucking lying?” Matt’s jaw clenched. “You’re in denial, Murdock. The truth isn’t always what you wish you could be hearing.”



“I know that!” Matt shouted. “But I know you. I know you. I know that you wouldn’t do this to me. Not unless someone put you up to it.”



Foggy swallowed. “You think you know me? What the fuck do you know about Foggy Nelson?” He checked the sightline of the gun, adjusted his aim. “You do not want to test me, Murdock.”



“But I do,” Matt said. Finally, he started advancing on Foggy, but slowly and with his hands up—nonaggressive. Foggy took a step back, steadied the gun that had begun to shake in his hands. Three feet away from Foggy’s face, not two inches from the barrel of the gun, he came to a stop. “If it’s true—if you never felt anything for me, if what we had was really nothing but a—a game—then go ahead,” he said, placing his hands over Foggy’s on the gun. “Shoot me,” he offered, raising the gun until the barrel rested against his own forehead. “Believe me, at this point, you would be doing me a favor.” He closed his eyes against his flowing tears and waited.



Foggy felt like the air had been knocked out of him. This wasn’t how it was supposed to happen. Foggy was never supposed to get a chance to use the gun: Matt was supposed to knock it out of his hands on the way to claiming the life of his father’s murderer. He wasn’t supposed to call Foggy’s bluff. The truth was that he couldn’t kill Matt any more than he could sit by and let Matt be killed. But if he showed weakness, if he let Matt talk him down, then everything would be wasted.



This wasn’t how it was supposed to happen.



Foggy gritted his teeth. “I killed your father.”



“You didn’t know what you were doing.”



“I’m a murderer!”



“You were a child.”



Foggy’s breath caught in his throat. He tasted tears on his lips. “Fuck,” he said, engaging the safety on the pistol and drawing it away. “This wasn’t how it was supposed to happen.”



Matt opened his eyes as he released his grip on Foggy’s hands and the gun. His gaze shone in the light of the billboard, the depths of his sorrow highlighted by fluorescent white and hazel. “What do you mean? How was—how was this supposed to go?”



“You’re supposed to hate me,” Foggy said, sinking to his knees, letting the barrel of the gun clatter against the floor. “You’re supposed to leave. You’re supposed to punish me.”



Matt’s silent above him, his pain visible in his defeated stance, audible in the uneven patterns of his breathing. “Is that what you want?” he asked. “To be punished?”



Foggy looked up to him. Was he offering? Was there still a chance to salvage it? “Yes. Yes, please. Matt, please,” he said, taking Matt’s hand and slipping the gun into it. “Please,” he said, holding his hands behind his back and lowering his head like a sacrificial victim. “Please,” he said, closing his eyes, “Please, just do it.”



He heard Matt sigh above him, a weary sound that made Foggy’s heard keen. “Okay.”



Foggy crouched, waiting for death. The elation he had felt after revealing his secret hand burned down to ash in his chest, but there were still slivers of that contentment to be found. No more secrets. No more pain. No more disappointment.



He jumped when he heard a metallic click, and looked towards the source of the sound. He saw Matt dismantling the gun, throwing the parts alternately down each end of the alley outside. Foggy swallowed, then returned to his penitential pose. Matt was right: he didn’t deserve a quick death. Matt had the right to kill him whatever way he saw fit, which apparently meant with his bare hands. Foggy’s breathing picked up as he heard Matt approach. God, he hoped that Matt wouldn’t hate himself too much afterwards. He had already suffered enough because of Foggy.



Matt kneeled in front of him, putting himself at the same height as Foggy. Foggy tensed as he felt Matt’s arms reaching towards his neck, and then started when he found himself pulled up against Matt’s chest. “Matt, what are you—“



“You don’t need to be punished, Foggy,” Matt said, his voice thick with emotion. “Nothing I could do would be worse than what you’ve already done to yourself.”



Foggy began to struggle against Matt’s hold, but Matt only adjusted his grip and pulled him closer. “Goddamn it! What the fuck are you doing, then?”



Foggy felt it more than saw it, the pained half-smile that Matt pressed against his ear. “I’m forgiving you.”



Foggy sobbed. “No. No!” he said, pushing against Matt’s grip, knowing all the while that it was hopeless. “Fuck you, you bastard! You fucking coward! Let me go!”



But Matt didn’t let him go, no matter how hard he struggled, no matter how much he shouted. Finally he gave in and collapsed, weeping, into his friend’s arms. He listened to the sounds of their heartbeats, felt Matt’s arm drawing soothing patterns over his back, and heard to the quiet whisper of Matt’s stuttering, tearstained voice:



“Our Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed by Thy name…”



This was the third time in his life that Foggy Nelson was saved by Matthew Murdock.



“Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on Earth as it is in Heaven…”



The first time, Foggy watched a lost little kid crying over his father and swore that he would never be the cause of something like that ever again.



“Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses as we for—forgive those who t-trespass against us…”



The second time, Foggy let an idealistic law student pull him away from his Family’s side of the law and towards the path of justice and righteousness.



“And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from Evil.”



The third time, Foggy began to be forgiven.



“Amen.”


Re: Fill: Foggy is going blind, 6/7

(Anonymous) 2015-07-17 04:27 am (UTC)(link)
I'm sorry this part has been taking so long! I got stuck, but I finally have it written out longhand--just need to type it up, which I will do after work tomorrow! - authoranon

Re: Fill: Clear and Honest Communication 5/11(?)

(Anonymous) 2015-07-17 04:41 am (UTC)(link)
They are indeed. =) Exactly, yes. Matt still can't see through his eyes and Foggy's senses aren't anywhere near Matt's but when they're together, it's hardly going to matter.

Thank you.

Re: FILL: "Mercy" (3/3)

(Anonymous) 2015-07-17 06:54 am (UTC)(link)
Whoa, that was powerful! Nice twist on the "my mother wanted me to be a butcher" line! And yeah, having somebody forgive you is sometimes so much more painful than torture or death. I really liked the three times that Foggy was saved by Matt. Well done!

Re: [FILL] Requiem Æternam [Part 2.2]

(Anonymous) 2015-07-17 07:06 am (UTC)(link)
(Author here!) :DDD THANK YOU so much! <333

Re: Fill: Franklin Nelson, former spy Pt 3 (ao3 link)

(Anonymous) 2015-07-17 05:53 pm (UTC)(link)
http://archiveofourown.org/works/4279443/chapters/9898178

Re: Daredevil/Criminal Minds Crossover

(Anonymous) 2015-07-18 02:32 am (UTC)(link)
BUT WHAT ABOUT HOTCH, THO. HOTCH WHO WAS A PROSECUTOR BEFORE HE WAS AN FBI AGENT.

I'm sorry, I have a lot of feelings about Hotch.

Re: [FILL] Requiem Æternam [Part 2.2]

(Anonymous) 2015-07-18 04:18 am (UTC)(link)
(Prompter here)

I'm glad the creepy body shit was okay with you. :D I was apprehensive about the whole scene at first and nearly cut it - it was NOT meant to be a scene in and of itself, just a blurb! - but ugh, I can't shut up. XD
I loved it!
Please keep rambling, it's so much fun. All the details are exquisite.

Matt failing at lying is one of my favourite things in the universe. :D
It's one of mine too.

--- Ikr? To be fair, Foggy's the one who asked him to - Matt nobly resisted. He just got his hands all up in Foggy's hair while he was out. ;)
I can't blame him, that golden hair is lovely. I love men with long hair when they maintain it.

--- Wait REALLY?!!
Yes. Angel lust. I am full of weird inappropriate facts.

--- YUP! WAR BOYS INCOMIIIIING. :D
YAAAAAAAAAAY! WITNESS! WITNESS!

--- My linguistics boner is showing. ;_;
I'm fine with it. : D

--- Yeah, I got a little punny there at the end. ;D
Combating stress with humor makes sense to me.

Fill: Foggy is going blind, 7a/7

(Anonymous) 2015-07-18 04:34 am (UTC)(link)
The scare that sent him to Philadelphia on a tear wakes Foggy up in other ways, too. He finally begins to understand how much he has been treading water, acting as though everything is fine, like the Good Days haven't been thinning out, stretching fewer and farther between until he has to redefine what a Good Day looks like. He thought he'd been preparing, watching Matt and practicing with the cane and memorizing routes through his home, but he'd only been shoving everything to the back of his mind. So, as soon as he wakes up the morning after his evening in "Paris," he calls Matt's doctor, the specialist, and makes an appointment, which he actually attends. The doctor is brusque and professional and helps Foggy find resources for living with vision loss; "Blind Lessons," as Foggy calls them in his head. He looks into getting a seeing-eye dog because dogs are awesome, not matter what Matt says. Karen even helps him do some research on therapists who work with recently blinded people, and Foggy buys her cookies from her favourite bakery to thank her.

He thinks he's doing quite well.

Of course, absolutely none of this prepares him for the morning he wakes up and his world has gone finally, permanently black.

At first he thinks he is maybe still dreaming, so he buries his head in his pillow and hits "Snooze" on his alarm without opening his eyes. Nine minutes later, his alarm rings again, jolting him from his doze, and when he opens his eyes, he finally realizes what has happened, and the panic consumes him like a flash fire until he can't hear anything but the dull roar of rushing blood in his hears. He's dimly aware that he has begun to hyperventilate as his head jerks around like some grotesque marionette impersonation, uselessly searching for any corner or flame of light he might be able to focus on. His fingers clench and unclench around his sheets (are they my sheets? he thinks as the panic ratchets up another notch, am i even in my own apartment?); he squeezes his eyes closed against the truth and buries his face in his pillow. Wails once, twice into the tear-soaked fabric--the sound of a child abandoned in the wilderness. He finds himself curled in the fetal position without remembering quite how he got there, legs folded tight into his chest. High, whining sobs replace the wailing and, though he'll never be able to confirm it visually, some remote part of his brain informs him that he looks absolutely ridiculous.

Eventually, the panic levels off and slowly releases its grip on Foggy, and he can hear his own ragged gasps still pressed into his pillow, now waterlogged. His first coherent thought is to call Karen and tell her he won't be in to work. He reaches for his phone, feeling around for a moment before finding it; then, he completely blanks. He can't see it. It's a damned touch screen. Everything he's been practicing for, the accessibility controls, the voice commands, have flown entirely out of his head. Even in these past few weeks he's been using the accessibility functions almost exclusively as his vision deteriorated, but the panic starts to creep in again as he stares in the direction of his hands, and he can't think of the next damn step.

"No," Foggy commands himself out loud. "Stop." His own voice rings loud in his ears; strangely, it's what finally grounds him enough to sit up and completely catch his breath. Dizziness swamps him as he moves to vertical and he cannot stop blinking, trying to clear the vision he no longer has. His brain stutters, tries to adjust to the contradiction of having his eyes wide blown-open and seeing only blackness.

His phone alarm goes off for the third time. Seven sixteen a.m. His phone was the last thing he looked at before falling asleep the night before, he remembers. Not a sky salted with stars, or the red Manhattan sunset, or the faces of his friends or anything worth remembering. Just a fuzzy dim impression of his phone's lock screen with its boring stock photo background, setting his stupid alarm and turning the screen off with a click.

This time when he cries, muffling the sobs with his hands, his whole body heaves with despair instead of panic, an awful, sucking feeling that tears through his chest and leaves him hollow.

--

"Karen?" he croaks into the phone, an hour later.

"Foggy, hey!" she says. Her voice is bright, but there's a hint of concern lurking there as well. "Where are you?"

His grip tightens on the blanket covering his knees. He's managed to make it to the living room, his progression embarrassingly slow, hands stretched out tremblingly until they hit the piece of furniture nearest to his bedroom, his old sofa, and he sat down gratefully. Logically, somewhere beyond the low-buzzing panic and the dizziness, he's marveling at himself, at how unsteady he feels without his eyes, even in his own home. Matt was right, he thinks, grudgingly. This is nothing like practicing with my eyes closed.

"I'm not going to be in today," he says as steadily as he can. He's honestly not sure he could even make it to the bottom floor of his apartment building without another panic attack. "It's... It happened. I'm blind."

"Oh, Foggy," Karen says quietly. Suddenly he hears Matt in the background, making questioning noises. Then it's Matt's voice speaking into the phone.

"You're sure?" Matt asks into the phone, brisk and clipped.

"Pretty damn sure, yeah," Foggy snaps back.

"Karen, close up, please," Matt orders. His voice softens a little and he turns back into the phone. "We'll be over as soon as we can, Foggy."

"No, Matt, you don't--" But Matt has already hung up Karen's phone, and Foggy doesn't bother calling back.

They make it to his apartment in fifteen minutes flat, which has to be some kind of record considering the amount of annoyed honking he can hear outside. When he finally shuffles to the door and opens it, he tries to smile at them. He can feel it wobbling on his face.

Karen reacts first, coming in for a hug, and Foggy flinches hard at the unexpected contact, her touch jarring his already jangling senses.

"Sorry, I'm sorry," she apologizes when she pulls away. "I didn't mean to startle you."

"It's fine. You didn't have to come."

"Have you called your doctor yet?" Matt asks, his voice moving past Foggy and into Foggy's entry way. Foggy tries to listen to his footsteps and turns in his general direction, but of course he has no idea how accurate he is.

"No," he throws out into the black. Then he freezes in momentary panic--he turned so fast, so instinctively, to face Matt, that he forgot to ground his sense of direction by grabbing a wall or doorframe, and now he's not sure which direction he's actually facing. He reaches behind him, searching for the wall, and finds only air. Suddenly dizzy, he leans back too far and stumbles over his own feet.

"Um... Karen?" He determinedly manages to keep his voice light and joking and steady, does not, does not let the hot shame bleed through, even a little. "Mind helping a brother out over here?"

"Yeah," comes the little whisper from somewhere in front of him, and then her voice is closer, and he can smell her shampoo. "On your right," she says as she takes his elbow and leads him, hesitant but trying to trust her, to the couch. He sits back down and resolutely does not sigh with relief.

"That will get better quickly," Matt says, somewhere on Foggy's left. The armchair, Foggy thinks. "The disorientation, I mean. Especially in familiar spaces."

"Oh, good," Foggy says. "I've only been awake for an hour and I'm already sick of not knowing where my own bathroom is." There's an awkward silence, and Foggy sighs. "Kidding, guys. I know where the damn bathroom is."

"You should call the doctor," Matt says. "Let him know it's progressed."

"I know," Foggy replies, running a hand over his face. He's still blinking too much, still trying to find light where there is none. "I will."

"How are you feeling?" Karen asks, beside him. Their knees are touching, and she's fidgeting a little.

He doesn't mean to be cruel; it's an innocent question, and Karen doesn't pity him, she just wants to know how he feels, and he knows this, but he bristles anyway and his words come out in angry, sarcastic bites. "Other than being fucking blind, I'm spectacular. How's life treating you?"

"Foggy," Matt snaps.

Foggy's logical half is telling him to cool it, that they care about him, that there is absolutely no reason to explode but the anger bubbles up so fast, so rough and and violent that he has to clench his fists to keep from hitting something. "What, am I not allowed to be angry about this? I'm sure you were a perfect darling after your accident, but we can't all be Saint Matthew." It's a name he's only ever used gently and jokingly and the past; now he throws it like a javelin, intending to hurt. He can't see the wince, but by the silence that follows, he's pretty sure he hit his mark.

He's suddenly itching, the horrible irrational fury crawling under his skin, so he pushes himself up and walks, hands out, to his kitchen. He finds the fridge fairly quickly and feels around inside until he finally grabs the neck of a beer bottle. He hears footsteps walking toward him, heavier, indicating Matt. They stop nearby.

"Foggy," Matt murmurs. He takes a halting breath, like he wants to say something else, but instead he moves forward and wraps his arms around Foggy's shoulders. This time Foggy manages not to flinch, but it's a close call. The anger still festers in Foggy's chest, but he forces himself to stay, to not pull away. Trying to take the comfort Matt wants to give him, he rests a hand on Matt's back, the soft fabric of his jacket sliding under his fingers.

"Sorry," he mutters into Matt's shoulder.

"Get some sleep." Matt presses the words into Foggy's hair, so gentle it almost tears Foggy in half, and breaks the embrace. Foggy nods, knowing Matt can sense it.

When Matt and Karen leave, the door closed with a soft click behind them, Foggy opens his beer and takes a long, long drink.

--

The next several days are a study in the nine levels of hell. Foggy gains more bruises and scrapes than he's had since he was a child playing carelessly in the streets of Hell's Kitchen. His parents visit on that first day, a few hours after Matt and Karen leave, clearly expecting him to break down into tears and let them hold him, but the dull fury still churning it's ugly way through his system keeps him stone-faced, at arm's length. His good humor and usual jokes only fly when they have harp barbs attached, meant to wound. His parents leave bewildered and sad, promising to call, and he hates their pity.

Slowly, agonizingly, he works outward in a rough spiral to expand his comfort zone inch by inch; the bedroom-bathroom-living room-kitchen circle gains the hallway closet, the storage area, the hallways around the building, and eventually the lobby. He manages to call the doctor on the second day, but he's booked completely up and can't see Foggy for another week and a half.

Matt and Karen both call him and text him every day, though they don't come over uninvited again. Foggy doesn't pick up their calls, only listlessly listens to his phone read out their text messages. He knows they're worried when he doesn't answer; he can hear it in the spaces between their words, the way they don't talk about It, only keeping him informed on how their cases are going and telling him inane silly stories about their day. One morning, as Foggy walks by his front door, he trips over something flat and hefty; when he picks it up, he discovers that it's a file folder filled with research on their latest case, typed up in Braille, and, presumably, slipped under his door.

Once, in college, Foggy had given in to the curiosity and, when Matt was at the library studying one night, he'd tied a handkerchief over his eyes and walked around their dorm room. It had been unexpectedly awful; each time his foot or shoulder caught the edge of something, a wall or a piece of furniture, he'd gotten angrier and angrier until he had ripped the handkerchief off and threw it as hard as he could, his heart racing to beat the band.

That same fitful, helpless rage simmers in him now, multiplied tenfold now that there's no handkerchief to rip away. It finally boils over three days After, when he miscalculates where the end table is for approximately the thousandth time, and stubs his pinky toe on the wooden leg. The leash breaks and he screams, something wordless and horrible. He drives his foot into the end table over and over until the heavy wood rattles. He sweeps his arm around until he finds the lamp perched on top of the table, some ugly green monstrosity that he would give anything to be able to see again, and throws it as hard as he can. It lands somewhere to his front-left with an immensely satisfying crash. The table upends, finally, with a thud and he kicks at it one last time; but this time he misses, kicking only empty air, and the momentum knocks him to his knees. His kicking foot throbs, wet with what he assumes is his blood; his knees sing from where they hit the floor. He screams again, and it feels like he's exorcising some demon that's had its hold on him ever since his world went dark.

Eventually his screams are just echoes bouncing around his apartment, and he's empty, gasping, his entire body left feeling bruised and mottled, a wasteland of color he can't see. The demon is gone, nothing but despair left in its wake. He stays on the floor for a long time, past the point of his knees aching against the hard wood, past the point of his back going stiff like an old man's. His apartment has gone cold by the time he gets up, the pathetic warmth of the late autumn sun leeched away with the turning of the earth, and begins the slow process of blindly cleaning up his mess.

Fill: Foggy is going blind, 7b/7 COMPLETE!

(Anonymous) 2015-07-18 04:35 am (UTC)(link)
He still dreams in color, in bright, happy scenes. His waking hours are the nightmare; when he's asleep, he can see again, the faces of his friends and family perfectly sharp and clear. Matt, his teeth shining as he smiles, knuckles clear of bruises, no new stab wounds to speak of. Karen, all her golden hair hung over one shoulder in soft glossy curls, her shoulders weightless and free of burden. His parents, pushing him on some swingset in Brooklyn. His sisters, their braids flying, chasing him around the house.

Waking up is agony. There are a few days after he breaks the lamp when he just checks completely out of linear awareness; he unplugs his new talking clock, silences his phone alarm. He eats when he's hungry, so he doesn't eat; he sleeps when he's tired, so he's almost constantly in bed. The days and nights bleed and blend together so easily that it's almost hard to believe there was ever a reason for the distinction. Sometimes he wakes up with tears on his face; sometimes he makes it halfway to the kitchen for a glass of water before forgetting what he was doing and going back to bed; sometimes he doesn't open his eyes for hours, making bargains with himself that if he just waits another few minutes he'll be able to see again once he does open them.

Some time later, he wakes up from a dream in which Matt was chasing him across the Columbia campus dressed in his Daredevil suit, both of them laughing crazily, and he feels somehow, infinitesimally better. He orders his phone to read out the date and time for him: "Sunday, November third, 5:35 p.m." says the toneless voice. Four days. He's been checked out mentally, despair drowning him and starving him, for four days. He runs one hand down his face, tiredly, listens to his furnace kicking on, his refrigerator running, the tv murmuring still from when he turned it on some two or three days ago so that he wouldn't drown in the dark. He blinks a few times, still searching for a light, but just like before, he doesn't find one.

He sighs and gets out of bed. Plugs his clock back in, corrects the time. Sets his alarm for Monday morning. Turns off the tv. Sits on his couch, feels around for the folder Matt or Karen had slipped under his door. Finds the first Braille bumps with his fingers and begins to read.

--

He goes back to work the next day, still limping ever so slightly from destroying his end table. He takes a taxi, still not trusting his sense of direction anywhere other than his apartment building, and clutches his cane as he tentatively steps out onto the sidewalk, into the brisk November air.

"Door's right in front of ya, 'bout ten feet," the taxi driver says helpfully.

"Thanks," Foggy says, and he means it. He makes it to their second floor office door without incident, and, with a deep breath, pushes it open.

--

It's not easy. It's the hardest thing he's ever done, getting up every day and going back to work, asking for help with things he never used to even think about. More than once he finds himself snapping at Karen, punching a wall so he doesn't aim for Matt, breaking down into frustrated tears. He goes to therapy and starts taking antidepressants and anti-anxiety meds. Some days it seems impossible to take one more step without wrapping a rope around his neck and kicking a chair out from underneath him.

But Karen is patient, and Matt is understanding. When he cries, they hold him; when the trips or runs into things, they patch him up with gentle fingers; when he apologizes for yelling at them, they forgive him, easy as a breeze. The days he can't get out of bed begin to dissipate, grow fewer and farther between, until they're mostly a distant memory.

One day, several months after his eyes fail, he's laughing at something Matt said, and his chest feels lighter than it has in a long while. After a moment, he realizes that Karen has gone abruptly silent, and he turns in her direction.

"Karen?" he asks. "Everything okay?"

"Yeah," she says softly. There's a grin creeping at the edges of her voice. "It's just... I think that's the first time I've seen you really smile since October."

It's the first of many.




(A/N had to split this into two because I hit the character limit, wow. was not expecting that! anyway. it's finished! hope you like!!)

Re: Fill: Foggy is going blind, 7b/7 COMPLETE!

(Anonymous) 2015-07-18 05:17 am (UTC)(link)
Loved it

Re: Fill: Foggy is going blind, 7b/7 COMPLETE!

(Anonymous) 2015-07-18 08:18 am (UTC)(link)
OP here. This was absolutely amazing, so much better than I was hoping for when I posted the prompt! Thanks so much for writing it!

I'm glad you decided to finish on a happy note :)

The Devil's Due Part 2.2

(Anonymous) 2015-07-18 02:49 pm (UTC)(link)
Foggy made it nearly a quarter of the way to his old church before surrendering. The streets were dark and there was a chill bite in the air that pierced right through his jacket- or at least those were the excuses he used to justify it. In truth, the echo of his own footsteps made him jumpy, every alley suddenly seemed the perfect place for an ambush, the audible buzz of a streetlight reminded him that electricity had not been his friend lately, and the night itself was smothering him in an unbreakable and entirely imagined grip.

He knew he was not well, and he knew why. Worse yet, he didn’t regret it. One first required genuine repentance to ask forgiveness, therefore he could not in good conscience confess and beg forgiveness, so what use the church? It all sounded very reasonable in his own thoughts, but self-delusion was a skill Foggy knew he had been practicing for an entire lifetime. Just now, he wanted to deceive himself into thinking he was going to get home safe, that he would sleep like an infant, and when he woke the clocks would not be flashing. He clung to that secure belief every time he passed another loner on the street, jacket pulled tight around their faces and noses buried deep.

There was no need for worry, anyone that took too much of an interest in the well-dressed man wandering such unsavory streets found their thoughts diverted, old sins replaying before their eyes in perfect clarity, long-forgotten fears plaguing their every movement. At the moment he was the safest man in Hell’s Kitchen, but to Foggy’s mind these streets could never be safe again, not with the amount of bloodshed he had seen these past weeks. There were forces moving in the city he knew he did not comprehend, and half-knowledge was proving every bit as dangerous as blissful ignorance.

“If ignorance is bliss, it is folly to be wise.” The words slipped from his lips on a heavy sigh, carried through the night air to ears listening for just such words.

His mother had taught him that one, back when he was fresh out of undergrad and full of his own importance. He had held forth over supper about the injustices rampant in their town, all the things that needed to be fixed and the people best-suited to carrying them out. It hadn’t made for a scintillating conversation, but he had been so full of the fire of his conviction that when his Dad had quietly asked him not to ruin the meal and drag down everyone’s mood, Foggy had smugly quoted “Ignorance is bliss.”

Only to have his mother snap back the rejoinder. It was his first, and heaven knew far from last, lesson in humility.

“I should’ve listened, but I am a freaking moron.” He tilted his head back, appealing to the sky. He was terrified of speaking with the God of his childhood, worried that anything divine would no longer want to sully its hands with him. He had made his choice, and he was managing it in the best way he knew- alone, without involving anyone else that could be hurt by it.

That feeling of being watched that had pressed at his shoulder blades for weeks now grew more oppressive than ever, the hum of the streetlights turning to that crackle that always set his teeth on edge-

The shrill ring of his cell phone nearly sent him to his knees, instinctive tears gathering at the corner of his eyes as his body kicked into a fight or flight response. His hand was shaking badly enough that it took two tries to hit the answer button, and when he did Foggy half-wished he hadn’t succeeded.

“Yellow?”

“Dammit, Foggy, he’s dead. Your perp is dead.” Brett’s voice came through the line as an angry whisper, so soft Foggy had to press a free finger to his ear to block out the ambient noise of the neighborhood.

“What?” His bloodless lips almost refused to shape the word.

“Hung himself. That’s what I’ve been told to say, but he couldn’t have done it and I don’t fucking know if it was one of ours or-” Brett cut off, the sound of running feet coming from a distance. He resumed again, quieter still and more intense, “One of ours or someone outside. I thought you said he would live?”

“I didn’t ask for him to die, I wanted to put him away. I wanted…We had him, Brett. What the hell, we had him.”

“Where are you? Are you home?”

“Out.”

“Get home and stay there. Shit is hitting the fan. Do you have any-”

“No. Fuck no, No firearms, no weapons, keep them out of my apartment.”

“Fucking stubborn.” Brett growled, but there was no heat in the words. He had known what the answer would be before he ever asked and respected it too much to press. “Guess it doesn’t matter though, considering who you’re dealing with.”

“I need to go. Keep me posted, all right?” He was going to hurl, it was no longer a question of ‘if’ but ‘when’.

“I’ll do what I can. Tomorrow. Get some sleep. Enough for both of us.” The line went dead before Foggy could think of a cavalier rejoinder. He couldn’t remember ever having felt so terrible, so ill that even taking the next step felt like it should be beyond him.

He had honored his half of the deal, had been so careful with his wording and intentions. How had the Devil slipped by him? The Father of Lies, appearing as an angel of light- no, no it didn’t make sense. The Devil of Hell’s Kitchen was no fallen angel, for all the face he wore now could have come from one. And if he was not strictly aboveboard in his dealings, he had a reputation for painstakingly fair dealing when it came to honoring his bargains. He lengthened his strides, making for the false safety of his home, reviewing memories he knew were flawed.

How many times had he questioned a witness that earnestly maintained their story was true despite all evidence to the contrary? Some of them believed it, he could read it in their eyes and see it in their open, vulnerable gestures. The image on camera could not lie, but every one of them claimed their eyes could not have deceived them. Memory was fickle, too colored by perception. Had he been as careful as he thought or could this death be laid at his door? Did he dare to seek out the Devil again, to confront him?

Yes. Foggy knew he wouldn’t rest well until he knew what his part in this had been. The thought of facing down the smiling man again was not half so frightening as the thought of dying with another man’s blood on his hands all unaware.

Besides, he comforted himself, there was no guarantee the Devil had any further use for him, and if he didn’t then there could be no danger.

Somehow though he knew it might make him feel better to speak the words aloud, Foggy couldn’t quite bring himself to. No one knew how the Devil found his debtors, but personally he had always suspected that no less than the Devil himself was behind all those cautions about the power of words that could not be recalled. He kept his fears and doubts locked tightly behind his lips, hands clenched tightly in his pockets, and eyes wide open.



The darkness fled at Foggy’s entrance, retreating to Matt’s side, gathering at his back with the equivalent of an offended hiss; it sought his protection, desperately preserving its own existence from Nelson’s vicious determination to eradicate it wherever it was found. Tonight, as he had done every night since first he had met him, Matt waited. He tolerated it when Foggy instinctively threw on every light in his home, trying to chase away the last vestige of the Devil’s sanctuary. It was never wholly effective. There were always shreds and tatters to be found that Matt drew about himself as easily as the folds of a familiar coat.

The Devil stirred in him, remembering times before when the streets had not been bathed in such unforgiving brightness and the moon had provided her subjects with all the cover needed for their dealings. They had been many then, but from the first day man learned to strike fire their number had begun to diminish. Men took light and iron, silver and prayers with them wherever they went, everywhere they went, hardly remembering why. Their fear was no more than a lingering impression bequeathed by ancestors and old stories. The spirit resented that more deeply than even Matt’s vengeful nature could appreciate.

Nelson was agitated. Matt forced himself to notice it, wresting back his own memories with a vicious twist of concentration it had taken him the better part of a decade to master. From tomorrow onward he would need to be Matt Murdock in truth, and he was woefully out of practice. He never had been certain of who he might have been without the spirit’s intervention, too young and malleable to have an impression of self beyond what his only family meant to him.

The sour vinegar stench of cheap wine assaulted his nose, but Nelson didn’t bother with a glass. He rarely did these days; only a sip or two, only enough that he believed it would loosen his violin-string tight muscles and slow his wildly racing heart. Tonight the wine mingled with another scent- the salt of unshed tears and a tang of stress hormones in sweat.

Ah. He had heard then.

“Are you there?” Nelson murmured, unnaturally still, ready to flee but forcing himself to stand his ground. “The lights are out every morning, I barely sleep. Is that you or me?” He swallowed hard, stripping the tie from his neck as though it were a noose strangling the life from him. “You know what, forget I asked. I don’t want to know. Forget all of this, I’m sorry I ever talked to you and it’s not happening again.” A sharp clack of his teeth punctuated the statement. Foggy knew he was a good attorney, and half of being a good attorney was knowing when to speak and when to wait.

Nelson was wrong though, if he thought they were not speaking again. Matt Murdock had a nine-thirty appointment, and once he was in it would take nothing short of a literal miracle to force him out.

He followed Foggy to the smaller bedroom, reveling in its peculiar silence. Everywhere else in the apartment they could hear neighbors conversing, rough-housing, cleaning, living and even for Foggy it grew overwhelming. But though he had no care for it, the void protected Foggy here. It deadened the noise until even Matt felt more at ease, chased away the cold that always managed to seep through the walls in early winter and sought out any shelter near him. He drew the darkness naturally, in the same way Matt had when he was young, but where in one it had sought a kindred spirit, from the other it craved only warmth.

Nothingness was always cold. The mere thought was enough to shake Matt’s concentration, leading to another desperate yet contained struggle with the spirit within, another fumbling attempt to keep his ephemeral shield firmly in place between his own plane and the Human one. He could feel Foggy’s eyes lingering on the place where he would have been, could hear the catch in his breathing when he thought he might have seen something, the relieved sigh when he decided it was no more than a trick of the light.



True to his word, Foggy did not speak. He choked on every attempted prayer, eyes still fixed on that corner that had been not quite right for all of a second. There were so many questions tumbling around in his head, so much guilt weighing him down and already he was so weary…

It felt like a betrayal when sleep took him at last, mercifully deep and dreamless. No sooner had it claimed him than the lights flashed once, swallowed up by an eager darkness.

From the corner of the room the Devil stepped out, taking up his silent vigil at Nelson’s bedside. Come tomorrow there would be no more need for this, Foggy would turn to him each day and Matt could guide him in the way he needed to go, hopefully well enough that it would save both their souls. If not, then at least one of them would be saved. Matt still had not decided who. Seeing the way Foggy’s soul flickered and burned he knew who it ought to be, but he had been too long the Devil’s companion to ever deal justly.

The tables turned in Foggy’s favor nights like tonight, reminding Matt that he had made his deal for a cause greater than himself. The child he had been would have been ashamed he even contemplated saving himself at the expense of another.

Beside him, Foggy began to twist and writhe, alternately grabbing for his blankets and pushing them away, heartbeat far above what it should have been even awake. Nightmares, and no wonder.

Wesley had taken matters into his own hands again, eliminating the threat where it was found. Matt delighted in it even as he knew it would make any future negotiations with Nelson far more difficult. He had abided by their terms in the strictest sense- Foggy had his first day in court, had thrown the man into a cell he likely never would have left once the case was through. It was none of his doing that the man was dead. Nelson hadn’t made the deal for his life, that would not have come half so cheaply.

They would discuss it in the morning as the first order of business.

He stayed for hours, listening again to the few memories the apartment held, basking in the feeling of security that blanketed all the rooms. Even now he did not feel he was in danger; Matt was no longer sure whether it was confidence or arrogance on his part to think he could best the Devil.

But he did, a little. Nelson was convinced it would all come out right in the end with the sort of determined optimism Matt and the Devil concurred should be reserved for children. It was infectious, but not so much that Matt would ever fall prey to it. So he kept watch, stayed near, wove nightmares and dreams in equal measure and tasted what little he could of Nelson’s hope and spirit.





The Devil wore pinstripes. Foggy knew because that was exactly who greeted him as he strode into his office at nine-thirty on the dot to meet with one Matthew Murdock. He looked different in the daylight, smaller and less threatening, his unsettling shadows banished to wherever they went when they were not with him. Foggy was not fooled.

“What the hell are you doing here?” He kept his voice low, still hoarse with the morning cold and lack of sleep. Karen was in the next room, all unaware of who she had admitted by their front door. Until he knew why the creature was here he wasn’t going to alert her to it. Safer for both of them that way.

“Did you not want me?” That curious tilt to his head, the one he had given Foggy when he proffered the hank of hair. The same smile, mild as milk but filled with teeth.

Foggy didn’t want to see it, not now and not with this… man, but he was beautiful. It was more an attitude than any particular feature, there in the arrogant set of his shoulders, the mischievous tilt to his chin, just the right tinge of challenge in it to make his opponent respond. His movements were preternaturally graceful when he took the chair before Foggy’s desk, folding a musician’s slender hands about his cane, crossing his legs nonchalantly for all the world as though he was welcome here.

Like every word that came from his mouth it was all deceit, Foggy thought uncharitably. There was no warmth in his smile, the mute challenge calculated to provoke his prey into action, those seemingly gentle hands were covered in scars that caught the sunlight just so, lines of silver and faded pink about the knuckles. Foggy fixated on that. His scars made him seem human, wrote a story in his skin Foggy would have given his soul to know. The dimple at the corner of the Devil’s mouth said he knew as much, suggested it might be a deal he was willing to make.

“I don’t want you here. I don’t want you anywhere near me.” All true.

“Were you in the prison last night too?” Foggy growled, yanking his chair out with suppressed violence and leaning across the desk in an attitude of attack. He jumped when the Devil swarmed across the desk to meet him halfway, their hands so close they nearly touched. Sparks of awareness raced across his skin, compounded by pure adrenaline. He wanted to pull away, but that would be giving ground.