Prompt Post #6

[ddk_mod]

THIS POST IS CLOSED TO NEW PROMPTS.
HEAD OVER TO PROMPT POST #7.

Keep filling prompts on this post! Make sure to link any new fic on the complete or work in progress fills posts so it doesn't get missed.

Please read the current rules before commenting on this post.



Leave a prompt. Fill a prompt. Everyone wins!
Previous Rounds: Prompt Post #1 | Prompt Post #2 | Prompt Post #3 | Prompt Post #4 | Prompt Post #5

Mod Post | Discussion/Off-Topic Post | Writing Challenges
AO3 Collection | Searchable Prompts on Delicious | Fills: Completed & WIPs

Rules:

• General
  
  1. YKINMKATO. Play nice. If you don't like something, scroll on.
  
  
  2. All comments must be anon. If you would like to be politely banned to avoid anon-failing, leave a logged-in comment on the mod post or pm the mod account.
  
  
  3. Subject lines should only be changed if you're posting a prompt or a fill (indicators like OP or Author!Anon should go in the body of the comment).
  
  
  4. RPF is allowed. Crossovers, characters from the extended Marvel Universe and comics canon are allowed, but must relate to the 2015 TV show in some way.
  
  
  5. Discussion not related to the prompt should be moved to the discussion/off-topic post.
  
  
  6. Drop a comment on the mod post if you have any questions or problems.


• Prompts
  
  1. All types of prompts are welcome.
  
  
  2. Use the subject line for the main idea of your prompt (pairing or characters, keywords, kink).
  
  
  3. Warnings are nice, but not mandatory. Get DW Blocker if there's anything you really don't want to see.
  
  
  4. Reposted prompts are allowed once one round has passed - i.e., prompts from post #2 cannot be reposted until post #4. Please include a link to where it has been previously posted.


• Fills
  
  1. Put [FILL] or something similar in the subject line when posting a fill.
  
  
  2. Announce your fill on either the Completed Fills Post or the WIP Post.
  
  
  3. Long fills can either be posted over multiple comments, or posted on AO3 and linked back here.
  
  
  4. Multiple fills are always okay.
  
  
  5. Fills can be anything! Fic, art, vids are all welcome.
  
  
  6. If it wasn't written specifically for the prompt, it doesn't count as a fill. You are welcome to provide a link to already existing fic that does fit the prompt, in case the prompter hasn't seen it, but it doesn't count as a fill.

Comments

*Foggy,Gen or Ship* Foggy Cannot Be Tortured.

[(Anonymous)]

(When I was watching the Addams Family movie,I took note of Morticia's gleeful reaction to the stretching rack)

So basically,someone has figured out Matt is Daredevil and kidnaps Foggy to get revenge.Matt goes and finds him.

It's a trap.The villain is planning to make Matt watch him kill Foggy and then kill him.The plan backfires however,when Foggy is very enthusiastic about his torture.

+for him giving the torturer advice

Re: *Foggy,Gen or Ship* Foggy Cannot Be Tortured.

[(Anonymous)]

OH GOD. Matt and said villain would probably be freaked out by the whole thing.

"Pfffft. That knife doesn't even have a serrated edge. Amateurs."

Re: *Foggy,Gen or Ship* Foggy Cannot Be Tortured.

[(Anonymous)]

Okay. But is he enthusiastic because he's a masochist and into that sort of thing, or is he enthusiastic because he knows that he can't effectively be used against Matt. As in, he has congenital analgesia and can't feel pain and therefore he can't be tortured?

(I mean, he can, physically, but he won't feel it.)

Re: *Foggy,Gen or Ship* Foggy Cannot Be Tortured.

[(Anonymous)]

Not OP: I was sorta kinda hoping for an actually related to the Addams family Foggy ala these fic:

http://fuckyeahjohnlockfanfic.tumblr.com/post/28182644769/sic-gorgiamus-allos-subjectatos-nunc

Re: *Foggy,Gen or Ship* Foggy Cannot Be Tortured.

[(Anonymous)]

oh man 'Actually Related to the Addams' is like my favorist, actually stemming from that very fic haha

And just. Foggy is relentlessly cheerful for the most part, just like the Addams (morbidly cheerful, but cheerful). And the Addams are so big on healthy relationships! Which is why he takes Matt lying so hard. A rewrite of NvM might be in need, though, as it usually is when Foggy has his own secrets he was keeping.

But like, this guy is planning on torturing Foggy and Foggy's just like "whoa whoa whoa, buddy, we don't know each other well enough for this and you're really not my type and also pliers are really a third date thing, so um"

Re: *Foggy,Gen or Ship* Foggy Cannot Be Tortured.

[(Anonymous)]

I know right! :D He'd fit right in!

Re: *Foggy,Gen or Ship* Foggy Cannot Be Tortured.

[(Anonymous)]

Matt: You got mad about me keeping secrets and you had this huge secret about your family!

Foggy: What secret? You've met most of my imedate family,and I talk about the rest of my family all the time. You laughed when I told you about cousin Wednesday setting fire to her summer camp.

Matt: I thought you were JOKING!

Foggy: *frowns* Why would anybody joke about something like that...

Fake Fill: its not a first date if someone else is cutting your skin

[(Anonymous)]

Fake filling this down here as OP deserves a proper fill. Implied Addams Family and torture as a metaphor/analogue to sex beyond this point! With a side dish of suddenly feeling Things for your best friend.
--

There is a man holding a knife to Foggy's hand. It's pretty clear what he means to do, really. Only - really?

"Really," Foggy asks, plaintively, looking up at the guy who isn't even paying attention to him; Daredevil gets that distinction, standing stock still with his hands fisted so tight that his gloves are creaking. Of course, this isn't about Foggy, is it? "That's the way you're starting this? Chopping off my pinky finger?"

The man takes exception to Foggy's tone, glancing down with a nasty little sneer and digging the blade into the skin of his finger. It's not even a serrated blade, Foggy notes with a tsk. Matt is snarling like the human face was actually meant to be shaped that way, and it's quite an impressive sight. Foggy's seen Matt angry before, but never quite this blatantly. Masks are freeing, he supposes.

"Oh, come on," Foggy groans, looking back at the place where his skin is parting under the edge of the knife. Some silvery and sweet is singing up from the nerves there, something that could be pain if he let it - could be pleasure, too. He's not letting it be either, because - "Look, no offense, but bad boys aren't really my type."

The villain flavor of the week - really, Matt goes through them fairly fast, but they also always get out of prison on a sort of regular rotation like there were cosmic forces invested in the process - snarls at him. It's significantly less impressive than Matt's snarls. Foggy generally likes snarls, too, but this particular one isn't doing anything for him. Flavor Of The Week grabs a handful of Foggy's hair and wrenches his head backwards and then presses down viciously on the knife.

"Hey!" Foggy protests indignantly, "no hair pulling before the first date! And don't lose my finger, man, I need that back before Monday." It's not quite cut off, because Flavor Of The Week is as bad at knowing to do it at the joint as he is at sharpening his stupid knife. This is the worst torture session that Foggy's ever had the misfortune to sit though.

Not that he has a lot of experience, exactly. Actually, he hasn't been tortured since his family brought in a tutor to sit him down and teach him what all the howl is for - so to speak. That had been at the hands of a master, too, so maybe he should lower his standards a bit.

"Let him go," Matt snarls, and he's taken several steps forward but that only makes Flavor Of The Week snap "hu-uh" like Matt's a dog or something and hold the knife to Foggy's throat.

Foggy's loud, bored sigh goes unacknowledged by both of them.

"One more step and I'll skin the fatso's face off," Flavor Of The Week threatens, "cut his cheeks right off, maybe he'd lose some weight."

"Whoa, hey," Foggy says, "is that really necessary? Look, I stopped at 'not my type' and didn't go into your frankly abhorrent personalty or yellow teeth or crooked nose, now did I? Granted, it gives your face a little personality, I mean, we can't all be underwear models and it'd be boring if we were -"

"Shut the fuck up," Flavor Of The Week says, and he curls the knife and his thumb around Foggy's ears like he's going to peel it off like an orange skin.

Foggy's slightly ashamed to admit that it catches his attention - but it does. In his defense, that's new. He's never had someone cut his ear off before and it could be fun. There's always the question if he'd rather experience it as pain or pleasure.

Not, he reminds himself sternly, at the hands of the Flavor Of The Week, though.

Still, the edge of the knife is digging in, and his skin is parting around it with that same silky-cold sensation. That's just rude, isn't it? Cutting virgin skin without even a 'how do you do'?

Matt quivers, and Matt shakes. Matt's red mouth is all white teeth. "If you don't stop, I will leave you only able to wish for death. You will regret that you ever set foot one in Hell's Kitchen, and that you ever heard even one whisper of my name," Matt says, only he doesn't so much say it as the words roll out of him like boiling pitch.

This is going to become very awkward for Foggy here in a moment. He's usually not attracted to Matt much, anymore anyway, but. Well. There's a knife to his skin and Matt's sounding like that. And. Look, it was just going to be awkward here in a moment.

"Shush," Foggy says at Matt because that's the only thing he might have control over. "Down, Devil. I am a-ok over here - you can tell that, right? It's fine -"

Apparently Flavor Of The Week does not agree to that, because that's the knife slicing into the cartilage of his ear and boy, that was going to be a bitch to heal. He's going to need stitches. Hopefully Hottie McBurnerphone isn't easily grossed out, but she's a nurse, right?

The feeling of tepid metal cutting through skin and cartilage isn't exactly pleasant, but he doesn't want it to be. It just feels odd, and there's that same slightly chilled sensation of nerves being stimulated, and a bit of a hot trickle where the blood starts to flow down his neck. Foggy's not very worried about that. Even if this guy does his worst, it's unlikely he'll lose enough that his heart stops. He's tempted to yawn, but provoking Flavor Of The Week while Matt's standing there shaking and gnashing his teeth seems like a bad idea.

Foggy wishes that Matt would just listen to his heart already and realize it's all fine. He doesn't particularly want to get stabbed, but it's an option and a single stab wound would be easier to heal than a bunch of chopped fingers and peeled skin.

"Pesky little lawyer," Flavor Of The Week says disdainfully. Foggy thinks he should be screaming or crying, but he prefers to keep those kinds of performances to the bedroom with partners that ask politely for them, so he kinds of grimaces and looks around the warehouse out of boredom. "Maybe I should cut you lying tongue out, next, hmm?"

"Oh," Foggy says, and he's probably being stupidly transparent at the moment, but - "Oh, no, please don't do that," he says, and is a bit disappointed with his own performance. He's usually a bit more convincing, but - "No, no, please no."

Flavor Of The Week either believes his pathetic performance, or more likely suspects that Foggy's mocking him, because he sneers a bit and grapples with Foggy's face to get at his tongue. Really? Foggy thinks. Really? He's wasted his Saturday night for this? He could be out getting drinks with Karen.

Foggy bites, of course. His teeth might be a bit sharper than they should be, because they cut through the metal of the knife and a bit of Flavor Of The Week so there is blood pouring over his tongue and then Matt is there and he's all over Flavor Of The Week, yanking him back and slamming him brutally to the floor.

Matt might be the slightest bit ticked off, Foggy thinks as he chews the knife into tiny little shreds and swallows them - and the blood - down. Boy, forget a straw - Flavor Of The Week probably won't be able to walk after this and that's not because Matt has broken his legs or anything.

Foggy's normally really, really against mundanes getting hurt, because people like him have to be so careful with them all the time - they break so easily. Even Matt would break easily, but he's made of sterner stuff so the logic follows that he needs to be kind and gentle, too.

But this guy cut virgin skin and pulled Foggy's hair before the first date, and really, who does that? Foggy's never even really met anyone he wants to set a knife to his skin and pull his hair and put on a show of crying and begging about it for -

Well, that's not entirely true, anymore, now is it, he thinks as Matt gets up and stalks over like he's going to pick a fist-fight with Foggy's wounds. He's seen a whole new, exciting side to Matt tonight. It's too bad Matt probably won't want any of the things Foggy's willing to do for him.

"Hey, buddy," he says easily, "it's fine, I'm okay."

"You're okay," Matt echoes in disbelief, and it sounds like he's been chewing glass, like it's got all embedded in his gums and on his tongue, like he can slit a man's throat with words alone. "I can smell your blood."

"Oh, yeah," Foggy agrees, watching Matt hover over him for a second before figuring out how he's been attached to the chair and tearing at the zip ties with angry fingers. "I'm a bit cut up, but I'm okay. Remember when I told you I'm not exactly normal?"

Matt has strength or rage enough to snap the zip ties with his fingers without even bruising Foggy's skin. He's frazzled, Foggy can tell, his rage and worry sputtering without direction. He's kneeling in front of the chair that Foggy's sitting on, and he fumbles up for Foggy's hand, which is bleeding everywhere from a cut that goes to the bone and has chipped it but nothing worse. The confused purse of his lips makes Foggy imagine the wrinkled brow that usually goes with it, even if his helmet is hiding most of his face. "In college?" He finally ventures uncertainly.

"Yeah," Foggy agrees, and is taken aback at the warmth pooling in his chest like he's taken a knife to the heart and it's spilling all over him and staining his shirt for everyone to see. It feels like blood and smoke and silk inside his ribs and over his skin, hot and sticky and metallic. It feels like adoration. Oh no, he thinks faintly. "Yeah, back in college. I tried to tell you about me, but you started freaking out and wouldn't listen."

"Oh," Matt says weakly. "Oh. I. I already knew so much, Foggy - like when you were lying, so -

"Uh huh," he agrees easily, guessing the rest: Matt hadn't wanted to know any more of Foggy's secrets when Matt wouldn't tell him his own. "Well," he says, "this is part of it. I can get hurt really badly but it doesn't actually hurt me. I mean, it can - I can let it, if I want to. But it's just nerves. Electrical impulses, you know?"

"Oh," Matt says again, a bit slowly. He seems to be emboldened by the words because his fingers curl over and touch gingerly at the edges of the deep wound on Foggy's finger. It's feather light, teasing along the edges, Matt's fingers against his wound and his blood sucking up under his nails and the whorls of his calloused skin, and there is lightening sparking from that point of contact straight up Foggy's arm and into the tangled mess of his chest and - oops.

"Yeah," he says, and clears his throat. "Still, it doesn't heal on its own, you know, so maybe we could make a visit to your cute nurse friend?"

Matt grasps at the offer to action and gets to his feet. He seems bent on treating Foggy like an invalid, pulling him up carefully from the chair and crowding him a bit as they shuffle off toward the exit. Foggy suspects Matt's just still in shock, really. He doesn't know how Matt's going to react after it's finally soaked in that his best friend is a little less destructible than the others.

And - just maybe - if he gets used to the idea, Foggy can find out what Matt's opinions on torture are.
-

Re: Fake Fill: its not a first date if someone else is cutting your skin

[(Anonymous)]

Hee hee, this was great!

Re: Fake Fill: its not a first date if someone else is cutting your skin

[(Anonymous)]

Omg, this was fantastic! I love your Foggy, and everything was hilarious, th descriptions of tje way he feels stuff were beautiful and his fantasies on what he would like to perform in the bedroom absolutely brilliant!

Re: Fake Fill: its not a first date if someone else is cutting your skin

[(Anonymous)]

This is great!

Re: Fake Fill: its not a first date if someone else is cutting your skin

[(Anonymous)]

Yessss. Are we going to find out? :D

Re: Fake Fill: its not a first date if someone else is cutting your skin

[(Anonymous)]

Fill!Anon here! Sorry, I have an unbreakable headcanon for Matt being vanilla af, so Matt's thoughts on torture are "reserved for villains, he does enjoy it but not sexually, and no, Foggy, he don't want to hurt you, what the fuck"

I probably will be writing more for this AU (on ao3, not here) but it won't be torture porn. That said, if someone else has a Matt that can indulge Foggy, please feel free to bring him to this sandbox with my blessings! Foggy and the Anons will thank you for it.

Re: Fake Fill: its not a first date if someone else is cutting your skin

[(Anonymous)]

*sidles up to filler* And where would we find this on Ao3...?

Re: Fake Fill: its not a first date if someone else is cutting your skin

[(Anonymous)]

I've tried twice to write more for this AU and failed miserably, but thanks to this comment, I'm just going to write forward from this scene because it's what's important. I've uploaded the torture scene to AO3, and will be writing more (so that means an appearance by Claire, probably), so feel free to follow there
http://archiveofourown.org/works/4763756/chapters/10892972
That said, have this little bit I wrote when trying to get started on this AU
--

Foggy likes Hell's Kitchen. He likes it quite a lot. He's not exactly sure why all other people do, but it suits him just perfectly. He thinks the others should worry about how people just up and go missing without blood or hair to show for it.

He likes it though. It's the closest thing to home that he's got, a place where the shadows smash against fire and blood and the sirens scream in the night with bright klaxon flashing.

It hadn't always been that way. Or it had, because the history had soaked into board and stone, in the dark places where light has long forgotten how to reach. Things had gotten better, and then Harlem had gotten broken, and some time later, the sky. At that point, all the dark things hiding in the shadows came crawling out.

And Hell's Kitchen is the worst neighborhood in the place, with the darkest shadows and the brights fires and the loudest sirens and Foggy feels right at home.


--

So of course he's going to stay. That's just a given, isn't it? His mom praises him for the decision to go to college, looking slightly relieved, and his dad nods thoughtfully and says 'if you're sure.'

Foggy's sure and so off he goes. It shouldn't be too hard, right? He's not very good at making friends - at least, not any that aren't also related to him. There's no particular reason why - people like him well enough, but somehow it just never quite graduates into anything more involved. He introduces himself as 'Franklin Nelson' and if he happens to like the way someone's hand fits in his, he may add 'But you can call me Foggy.'

It takes a week and an alarm overslept that ends with them out on the sidewalk before Matthew Murdock stops with a stumble and a somewhat desperate glance back towards the dorms. Foggy almost doesn't stop, but he does, and glances back at Matt standing stiff and pale with his knuckles tight around his hastily grabbed bag.

"Um," Matt says, and his head keeps turning like he wants to go back, but they're already late and - "Could you - um." One hand stretches out and grasps toward Foggy. "Guide me?"

Oh, Foggy thinks, finally registering that there's no cane in Matt's hand. And: huh. "Uh, sure," he says, back tracking a bit. He holds out his arm and moves it under Matt's grasping hand, which catches on easily, then adjust and curls around the crook of his elbow.

"Thanks," Matt says, and he smiles a bit. "You're a life saver, Nelson."

"Call me Foggy," his mouth says, which surprises him, because he usually makes that judgement upon the first meeting and Matthew Murdock hadn't struck him as a 'Call me Foggy' person.

They're shuffling along as fast as they can with respect to how close they're having to walk and the fact that one of them is blind, but Foggy still sees Matt's head cock back a bit. "Foggy," he says, surprised - catches it between lip and tooth and presses and pins it to the roof of his mouth and then lets it go with a wide, shameless grin.

Foggy braces himself for the usual 'Foggy - like the Hudson?' or 'Foggy - like mornings?' But the only thing that comes out of Matt's mouth is a slightly incredulous: "Where did you get a nickname like that?"

"Shut up," he says, but he's grinning right back; maybe Matt doesn't know what fog even looks like. "Don't ask, it's embarrassing. My family gave it to me when I was a teenager, I haven't been able to shake it off since."

"You introduce yourself that way," Matt points out with a slightly hysterical giggle, which is mostly due to the lack of sleep going on in the dorm because this is the first week of classes and no one is adjusting well.

"Sometimes," he stresses, which is only true.

It's true, so of course he hasn't been able to shrug off the name. He hasn't really been trying. It is embarrassing, but it also means him, it best labels the truth of what he is. He's not sure why he's sharing this with Matt, only that he feels like he should, that it would be good.

And that's that. He somehow makes a friend in Matt, and he's never had one outside his own family before, so that must on some level make Matt family, right? He's pretty certain it does, so that's how he treats Matt and he doesn't pat Matt on his fluffy dark head every time Matt looks bewildered by the whole thing because Foggy's pretty sure people don't like that nearly as much as the dark things do.

Re: Fake Fill: its not a first date if someone else is cutting your skin

[(Anonymous)]

Speaking of which, about halfway through school, Matt nearly becomes one of the statistics. Later, Foggy'll look back at this incident and slap his forehead, but at the time he doesn't think much of it. He knows there's a thing that's living in the storm drains and he knows that it's eating students and anyone else that ventures too close, like it's seen the movie IT and got inspired.

Matt nearly becomes a statistic, and it's only because Foggy happened to be looking for him at the time that he doesn't. Or that's what Foggy thinks at the time - he's honestly still not sure what would happen if Matt got it in his head to try to fight one. He's been around Foggy too long; Foggy knows that Matt tastes a bit too much like him. The dark things don't honestly try to eat him anymore - but that's not for years yet.

At the time, Matt's just disoriented and angry and confused and wet and shaking after Foggy scolds the thing, full of fur and teeth and perhaps more limbs than normal people would think it should have, and sends it off into the darker reaches of the sewers. He bundles Matt up and off home and Matt seems a little shaky and jumpy for days afterwards, and Foggy thinks - maybe -

Matt's family, right?

"Hey, Matt," he says, "you remember Saturday?"

"I'd rather not," Matt says, his cautiously relaxed posture going stiff and slightly hostile.

"Yeah, I get that," Foggy says, "but look, Matt, you gotta be more careful."

He's not sure what Matt's made of his memories of Saturday. Foggy's seen this happen before, though, with people. They dip a little too close, dig a little too deep into the darkness because of people like Foggy. Sometimes just on their own, if they're distantly related but too far to handle it, but usually because they've come too close to the ones that live at the crossroads.

Foggy knows they usually end up in insane asylums (though he's fairly sure that's not an acceptable term for them anymore) and he doesn't want that for Matt - Matt's family. He's supposed to be able to withstand it. Actually, he thinks that Matt's supposed to be playing murder games with him so that they develop the skills they need for adulthood, but aren't they already adults? Foggy's not sure. He never had anyone who'd be able to play those games with him, so he's not very good.

"I am careful," Matt says, all sharp angles, "I've been blind longer than I've had sight, Foggy."

Foggy's slightly thrown by that, so he says, "Well. Yeah? That wasn't -"

"Wasn't it," he demands.

It's hard to explain what's happening inside Foggy at the moment. Foggy's mostly soft edges, cool and forgiving and filling empty spaces like his name - his blood is mixed enough that he's not quite as set in his ways as some of his family. He likes Matt, though, and he really does think of him as family, but. At the moment, Matt looks wiry and dangerous, teeth and claws, and strikingly familiar like something that actually belongs in Foggy's family. Which.

Which is.

"Matt," he says, "I'm not like normal people."

Matt barks out a harsh laugh, sharp and jeering. "Yeah, sure, like I haven't heard that line before. I'm not a kid, I'm not helpless, and I don't need you to take care of me."

"No," he says, "I mean, about Saturday -"

"I don't have to listen to this," Matt says, and he's grabbing his cane and he clearly intends to leave and Foggy doesn't know what to do with that.

"Matt, would you listen to me," he says, desperately, "I mean, really listen to me, I'm trying to talk about me, not you, it has nothing to do with you - or it does, but not the way you think! There's something about that night I need to tell you about, about that night, about me."

He thinks he's getting through to Matt, because Matt does seem to be listening, and he seems less angry and defensive, but he's suddenly gone spooked.

"No," he says, "no, you really don't. You don't have to tell me anything." He's still making for the door, less like he's storming out and more like he's fleeing, and -

And Matt's family. He's supposed to be able to handle this, to know the truth of the world and the truth about Foggy and not end up having to be looked after because the truth sometimes makes people hurt themselves even if they don't want to. Foggy thinks about his siblings, who can't handle it either, and the one time he tried to insist - and falls silent.

"Okay, Matt," he says, and Matt hesitates for a split second, but still goes out the door.

Foggy doesn't try telling Matt again.

-

Re: Fake Fill: its not a first date if someone else is cutting your skin

[(Anonymous)]

Actually, he thinks that Matt's supposed to be playing murder games with him so that they develop the skills they need for adulthood, but aren't they already adults? Foggy's not sure. He never had anyone who'd be able to play those games with him, so he's not very good.

This line is amazing.

Re: Fake Fill: its not a first date if someone else is cutting your skin

[(Anonymous)]

imagine bb!matt and bb!foggy know eachother and instead of stick, foggy and matt play murder games. like, i imagine that ickle matt might get seriously hurt once or twice but lmao imaGINE

imagine what Daredevil might be like then

Re: Fake Fill: its not a first date if someone else is cutting your skin

[(Anonymous)]

Marci reminds him of home, actually. She's nice and generous and has a smile like razor blades. Foggy thinks she would probably only be too happy to peel the skin off his flesh with a pretty little smile.

He's more or less completely smitten.

Of course, in true razor-blade-smile style, Marci isn't smitten in the least; he's a fun toy to her, and he's fine with that, but she gets bored or needs to focus on school or whatever, and fine, Foggy has his own career to chase at Matt's side.

He's pretty sure he knows what being a lawyer is about. It's fun to do, except the parts where Matt always looks at him a little funny - as much as any blind guy can look at anyone funny - and reminds him that it's not what they're there to do. Maybe Matt isn't, but Foggy signed up to be a lawyer for very specific reasons.

He sighs and sets them aside. Matt's his native guide, really - he knows more about this being normal thing than Foggy, so Foggy lets himself get swept up in Matt's tide - drift wood in an ocean.

(something tickles about that thought. Foggy doesn't follow up on it; what does he know about having family, anyway?)

"We have to set aside our apathy," Matt says, and they're familiar words, and Foggy knows them well enough. He's even read the books.

He's not sure he knows what they mean, though. "Yeah, yeah," he says, "I know all about Thurgood Marshall."

"Come on, Foggy," Matt says, "this isn't a game to me, not like it is to you. I can't just ignore that there are real people out there having real problems."

Foggy knows that - theoretically, maybe. But he also knows that the shadow stretches long, that there is a pattern to it, a cycle. One thing dies so another thing can be born. Here at the crossroads, the younger and weaker monsters come to feed on easy prey too dumb to wander away - cringing and whimpering into the night when something like Foggy comes too close. He's not a thing to be eaten, after all.

He stepped in once, on Matt's behalf. He even tried to break the rules. It's not the oldest or more important rule in the book, but an unholy truth held dear to their hearts: never tell anyone what you are.

Matt's Catholic, too. The dangers seem particularly high.

Unluckily, like the rest of his kind, Foggy has a taste for dangerous things. "Yeah, alright," he sighs, and gets up to get a box.

--

He likes his new apartment. There's a thing down in the basement - no one knows there's a basement down there, it's been sealed up for a long time, but that suits it just fine - and the crossroads are particularly close. Hell's Kitchen isn't the meeting of two interstate highways like the old ancestral home, but it's good enough for Foggy.

Foggy did check out Matt's home, of course. He's a little surprised there isn't something already living there. It seems like the perfect environment, but Matt's block is free and clear and so he doesn't worry much about it.

They meet Karen, who isn't like home at all, not in the least, but she has a kind of charm of her own and Foggy likes her well enough. He thinks he's going to practice that not having apathy toward people thing that Matt seems so big on. Someone around here has to, because Matt's being awful distant lately.

So he tries, right? He even gets Josie to give him the eel, which is technically consumable for Karen but he suspects not nearly as tasty to her as it is to him. He pretends otherwise, of course, because Matt gets alarmed and and Karen will to if he doesn't.

Foggy tries, is the point. It gets him blown up, and four inches of glass stuck into his side that sings sweet and silvery until he pulls it out, but that's just a technicality.

Of course, Karen notices, even though he snuck his coat on, and he's supposed to pretend it hurts, so he does. Then they put him on the good drugs. It occurs to him that a lot of people got hurt - a lot of people died. And Matt isn't like him - Matt won't get blown up or stabbed or burned and be okay. He's stronger, though. They've been living together for years now, and Foggy knows that he's changed a little - but not enough.

Foggy might be a bit cross about this whole Devil of Hell's Kitchen thing. He hopes whoever it is gets chewed up by something dark that hides crossroads. Foggy would go out and ask a few to try, but they owe him no loyalty.

--

Re: Fake Fill: its not a first date if someone else is cutting your skin

[(Anonymous)]

It's just as well the dark things owe him no loyalty. The man in the mask, the Devil of Hell's Kitchen is Matt.

Well, that's just fucking fantastic. Matt's bleeding out on the floor. Foggy doesn't know a lot about how normal people work, but he knows they break easily and he's pretty sure Matt's broken. Matt would be dead if he hadn't been born and raised in the crossroads of New York, if Foggy hadn't stuck so close to his side and called him family. Or maybe the fucker was just too damned stubborn to die and Foggy had nothing to do with it, much like most of Matt's secret life.

Foggy calls Claire, just like Matt asks him to before blacking out. Then he moves Matt, and peels him out of the black clothing and mops up the blood before she gets there.

He watches her ply her trade. It's really not all that different from some of the things that he's seen done before, when he was a teenager.

"Listen," she says when she's done, "I can't stay. He's mostly out of the woods, but he's lost a lot of blood."

"Yeah, I know, I mopped most of it up," he says.

She glances up at him, her eyes dark and wary and measuring. "Well," she says. "When he wakes up, you need to get fluids in him. He's going to be in a lot of pain, but I've never managed to get him to take anything for it. Maybe you'll have better luck."

"Uh huh," he says, and she looks at him again sharply again.

After a second, she says, "He's a jackass, and God knows I don't have what it takes to be a part of his life, and I don't know what your history is with him, but the city needs him."

"Well, I'm not going to fucking turn him in," he says, flat and annoyed. Matt was his guide, his compass. "You sure you can't stay? What if he starts dying again?"

"He shouldn't," she says, "but you have my number is he does. I have a job I have to get to."

So Claire leaves and then it's just Foggy and Matt, breathing shallow and straining on the sofa. Foggy comes to sit down across from Matt and look at him, at his deathly pale skin, and the black thread holding his skin together, and more blood had leaked out when Claire had disinfected the wounds and sewn him up.

Foggy sympathized, a bit. There was a trick to not-bleeding when you got cut; his relatives had known it, and they'd tried to teach it to him, but he'd never quite learned how to do it. Whenever he got hurt, it was always just as much of a mess as this.

When the shadows start unfurling out from under the sofa and up toward Matt, Foggy gets up and gives the sofa a kick and shoos them away. Then he goes to the kitchen to get a glass of water for Matt and a beer for himself. Beer actually doesn't do a lot for Foggy, unless he lets himself forget that it doesn't.

Forgetting that isn't on the menu for tonight. He needs to be sober for this, or he might actually get mad at Matt and that - that wouldn't be good.

Matt eventually does wake up, of course, and he's in a lot of pain and his stupid brow is all pinched up into the perfect picture of tragedy. Foggy puts his hand over, and Matt is icy to the touch, which is slightly worrisome, and says, "hey, something to drink."

"Foggy," Matt croaks and looks a little panicked and wriggles on the couch and he needs to stop that absolutely right that moment. Foggy does not need any of those particular instincts triggered right now - Matt's stronger, maybe, than the average person, but he couldn't withstand those kind of games even at the top of his game. "Foggy -"

"Yeah, shut your mouth, Murdock," Foggy says, taking his hand away to get the glass of water. He wishs Matt had straws in his house the way Foggy does, but of course not. They'll have to be careful.

He helps Matt drink the water, then sets the empty glass aside and sighs loudly and puts his elbows on the edge of the sofa, and his chin into his hands, and looks down at his best friend, his native guide, the guy that's supposed to show him how this normal thing goes and really can't because he's a fucking superhero with enhanced senses.

Matt's just wheezing and looking tortured with his head cocked and his sightless eyes staring straight up at the ceiling. Foggy tilts his head up to look at it, just in case, but it's a pretty normal ceiling, no shadows or things with teeth or eyes at all. A pity; it looks homely.

"So," Foggy says, "you're a dirty liar, pants on fire."

Matt's breath creaks, and he says, small and twisted, "yeah, but I had to, Foggy."

"Yeah, I'm sure," he says flatly, leaning his head on one hand so he can poke at Matt's twisted brow some more. "You feel a bit cold. Claire didn't say anything about that. Should I get blankets?"

His face twists and crumples and straightens again, and he shakes his head with the saddest sad orphan face that Foggy's ever seen in real life, and he's seen stay puppies.

"Well, I'm gonna get you blankets," Foggy says, "Since there's not a lot of point in listening to the words that come out of your mouth." He ignores the way Matt's face twists at that and gets up, wandering off into Matt's bedroom. Matt doesn't really have much in the way of blankets, relying on the central air or perhaps just suffering, but he gathers what he can find, and some of Matt's soft, warm sweats.

"What was I suppose to say," Matt says pathetically when Foggy comes back. He's getting angry, which just won't cut it.

"Dunno," Foggy says, "Not my secrets, Matt. I just thought that I knew you better than this, and I don't, and it's a lot to take in. Okay, believing that you're the Devil of Hell's Kitchen is hard enough, but could be done. Believing that you would have done that and not told me, though?"

"Foggy, please," Matt says, the anger leaking out like so much blood.

"Shut up, and put these on," Foggy says, which is kind of dumb because Matt isn't really strong enough to sit up on his own yet. He tries, and his wounds start to bleed again, and Foggy sighs and comes over to help.

Matt's cold all over, and shaking with it or pain or shock or something. Foggy's not sure if that's just how the human body is, or if there's something wrong with Matt, or if he should call Claire or what. He can't ask Matt - Matt obviously won't tell him.

"What if," Foggy says, quiet, "I hadn't shown up when I did, Matt? You're barely alive now. What if you died on this floor, bleeding out and cold, and when you wouldn't pick up your phone, Karen or I came over and found your body, huh?"

Matt made a thready, sad noise. It hurt to move, obviously, even if it was just to get dressed. Foggy slung the thin, threadbare flannel blanket around Matt's shoulders over the hoodie that he'd found for him.

"You're not invulnerable, even if it feels that way sometimes, Matt," he says quietly. "Claire's good - at least you have her, but you should have told someone else. If not me then someone, Matt. Even if you can't trust me, you gotta stay alive."

"I do trust you, Foggy," Matt protests, slightly strangled.

"No, you don't," he says. "We've known each other for years, and you never even tried."

Matt breathes like existing hurt and doesn't seem to have anything to say to that.

Eventually, Foggy decides that he's had his fill of watching Matt turn himself inside out with fingernails and teeth like every good, Catholic boy does, and puts away the 'I'm not mad, just disappointed' game. Foggy's not a particularly good person, just because he prefers to kill with kindness.

He pulls the truth from Matt's mouth like stubborn, slick teeth, like the pliers he picked up aren't suitable for the job at all. Not that it matters - Foggy's been taught how to make all sorts of plier work. It hurts Matt, he can see that, but he also knows it could hurt Matt worse. Matt's the Devil of Hell's Kitchen - his mouth twists over the words, like he likes and hates it in equal measure, much like he likes and hates himself - and he has enhanced senses, and can -

"Wait," Foggy says, mystified, "you can hear heartbeats?"

"If I'm close enough," Matt says cautiously. "I can." And apparently he uses it like a polygraph, which is particularly interesting and pretty - pretty impressive.

"You ever listen to my heartbeat?"

Matt's lashes flicker as his eyelids twitch, and he licks his lip. "Sometimes," he admits cautiously. "I can't really - not. Listen. I try not to."

Foggy imagines that his heart is probably pounding at the moment. He doesn't really feel it, not like most people do, not unless he remembers to feel it. "Huh," he says, and waits a moment, but Matt doesn't say anything else. Doesn't say whether or not he listens to Foggy's other organs, doesn't mention if they sound different from anyone elses. Maybe they don't, and isn't that interesting?

He gets some more fluids in Matt because the deathly cast is pretty, but not Matt's standard color and Foggy needs Matt to be his standard colors and warm and not shaking again.

"Look, Matt," Foggy says, "I don't know if it matters to you, but this - this hasn't done you and me a lot of good. Not telling me about a girlfriend is one thing, but not telling me about this?"

"It matters," Matt protests, looking small and hurt again. "Foggy, it matters."

"Yeah, well, again, lies, so you're going to have to actually prove that, Murdock," he says.

Matt still seems a bit upset, but he says, "Okay," so apparently he's invested in their friendship enough to at least pretend to try to work on repairing it. That's something. That's enough of a basis for Foggy to start with, anyway. He needs his native guide.

"Well, alright," he says, "on that note, I have things that I had planned for today that don't include watching over my stupid, suicidal vigilante best friend, so I'm going to leave. I'll - call, or whatever, to check in if you need something, okay?"

When he actually does, later that day, Matt sounds like he hadn't believed that Foggy would, which - right well. They have a lot of things to work on.

-

Re: Fake Fill: its not a first date if someone else is cutting your skin

[(Anonymous)]

This just made my life. This is perfect!

Re: Fake Fill: its not a first date if someone else is cutting your skin

[(Anonymous)]

I just want to curl up in this and die.