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Franklin Nelson
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clouded_heart - CW: Non-explicit talk of previous self harm- clouded_heart - The First Night
- clouded_heart - The Hospital CW: Prescribed drug use, gunshot injury
- clouded_heart - Not actually 6I based.
- clouded_heart - Alone
- clouded_heart - Butchery CW: Butchery, imaginary butchery of people
- clouded_heart - Nightmare
- clouded_heart - Unwritten Letter
- clouded_heart - CW: Discussion fo previous self harm
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CW: Non-explicit talk of previous self harm
Date: 2019-01-09 11:45 am (UTC)There were a few, actually, but most of them were promises made to himself, like 'never drinking that again' and 'never leaving the assignment to the last minute'.
This one wasn't like that. This one had come on the heels of tearful confessions late at night, in the wake of stitches and blood and horror.
Despite the cold, he strips off his clothing, until his thigh is bare and he can see the old marks, pale marks on pale skin.
He huddled under the blankets, trying to warm up. But his fingers stroked them, feeling the texture of them, the slight hardness of otherwise too soft skin.
Too soft. It was an old thought that he usually managed to deflect, to embrace. Soft was cuddly, soft was yielding and thus flexible. Soft was approachable. Soft was non-threatening and soft could conceal a tungsten core.
After the fight they'd had, it didn't feel good. He had yielded because he was scared. To make things easy and not risk being pushed away, not so soon after knowing what that felt like.
His gaze went to the bedside table. His toiletries were there, his toothbrush, his comb, his shaving kit.
His shaving kit.
It had never been something he let himself have back home. It was just easier to not have the temptation in the house during dark times.
It was right there. He knew it was there. He knew he would feel relief, that he'd feel a little less awful. For a bit.
He took a deep breath and turned to face the other way.
Not tonight.
The First Night
Date: 2019-01-09 11:53 am (UTC)Matt was alive.
Months of not knowing. Months of knowing, in his heart, Matt was dead, that Matt wanted to be dead with Elektra than alive with them.
Months before that of not seeing Matt. Calls unanswered. Messages unreturned.
Foggy had been losing Matt for a year and him being dead made it almost easier, because it killed all hope. It meant Foggy could stop hoping and just start grieving.
And now Matt was alive and everything was crashing back in. Everything Foggy did wrong, the way he gave up time and time again when it got hard, when Matt was uncommunicative and flaky and Foggy hadn't fought through.
If he had been a better friend, would Matt have wanted to live? If he'd been more selfless, or just less- Less something that wasn't right.
Why wasn't Foggy ever enough for Matt to want to save them? Was it really all Matt, just not being as interested, as invested as Foggy was, like Marci sometimes claimed? Was it just them growing up and apart in ugly ways?
They said that if someone killed themselves, it was on them, not anyone around them. But usually, you didn't hand them to gun loaded and primed and ready to go like Foggy had.
Could Matt just not really love, not after the abuse and trauma? Could he only love in obsessive, frantic and sexual ways that had managed to remain uncorrupted through his upbringing? Was his love just awkward and neglectful because it was what he knew and Elektra was an aberration to that?
Was it just something wrong with Foggy that meant that Matt couldn't love him?
The Hospital CW: Prescribed drug use, gunshot injury
Date: 2019-01-09 11:57 am (UTC)Something had to be going on. There wasn't anything happening in this ward, or even this wing of the hospital, but somewhere else, he was sure he could hear an alarm, or maybe that was just outside, in the depths of Hell's Kitchen.
The city was playing Matt's music. The music of his people. Sirens and screams and gunshots, the siren call to the Devil to come out and play.
Foggy pushed the button again, not sure if it would give him more drugs yet. Still, there was no loss in trying.
He had surgery in the morning. He'd been assured it wasn't serious surgery, except for the bit where all surgery was serious and ran risks of things like loss of function, loss of breathing, brain damage and death like symptoms, but they were all pretty minor.
The doctor said he would probably recover full motion. If the surgery went well. If he didn't have complications. If there was nothing nasty lurking beneath the surface.
He shifted in the bed, trying to get comfortable and looking to the door again, then the clock and back to the door.
Two in the morning.
Well into the Devil's hours.
Foggy looked at the ceiling again. It was still there.
At least something was.
Not actually 6I based.
Date: 2019-01-09 12:02 pm (UTC)There were a lot of things going through his mind. He was trying not to think about why he was there, because when he did, his shoulder started to throb all over again in a way that couldn't be numbed by the pain killers.
He had nearly not renewed his insurance last month, but then the Castle case happened and it seemed like an idea to make sure that he was covered in case it all went sideways.
Laughing to himself in a hospital room was probably a good way to convince the staff he had had a bit too much of the good stuff, but he really didn't care. Better that than the truth, which was that if he didn't laugh, he was going to cry and he didn't want to cry until he was home and in a shower and away from the world.
He didn't think crying was for pussies or girls. He just hated letting those cracks be seen, because people asked why and he couldn't tell them, because so much of it wasn't his to tell.
Nelson & Murdock was over. Ten years of work and dreaming and laughing and stressing with his best friend in the world-
Foggy squeezed his eyes shut as another throb pulsed from his shoulder out. The sharp pain of stitches pulling on his temple helped focus him.
Hogarth wanted to talk to him. Marci would tell him to stop freaking out and she'd probably straighten his tie and tell him he's better off with a job that has the insurance to cope with him being shot by irate clients and assistants and matching desks and electricity all the time where he wasn't paid in pies and stroganoff and-
No Matt Murdock, begging him to take this one case, because it mattered.
No Matt sitting at his desk, listening to recordings while his fingers worked over the pages of braille, or bitching about Karen's admittedly terrible clothing, or sauntering in late because he'd stayed out far too late.
He would have Karen, who had ridden in the ambulance with him. He would get coffee with her and talk about her investigations and who in his office wore the worst clothes. He would have his family, his Mom and Pop, his brother and his nieces and nephews and everyone else in the Nelson clan who had promised to descend on the hospital like a plague in the morning.
He would have Marci, who had come in and fussed at him with her scolding and her teddy bear for him and made sure that he was recovering. He might even have the chance to stay a couple of days with her while he recovered, because he couldn't face that long with the overload of caring from his parents. He'd ask her, when she came tomorrow.
A year ago, he wouldn't have been sitting here alone, in hospital. He would have been listening to Matt rant and demand and bully until he was allowed to come and sit with Foggy because visiting hours were for other people. He would've known that when he got out, Matt would drag him back to his place, or come and stay with him until he was feeling better.
His breath hiccupped. He swallowed it down and looked to the window again. It was sealed, he knew it didn't open, but part of him had hoped anyway.
Nelson and Murdock was over.
Apparently, Matty and Foggy were too.
Alone
Date: 2019-01-09 12:06 pm (UTC)It wasn't about romance. Or about sex. Both of those were on offer and he knew it. And it wasn't about knowing people, because there were people here, people he knew. Hell, some of his closest friends were here.
And yet, he had never felt so alone.
Maybe it was the fact he was missing his family. And he was. He missed them with a deep aching in his soul, an awareness that he had never been so long with no contact with them, that he dropped by or called or had coffee with someone from the family at least once a week or so.
Part of it was definitely missing Marci. Marci had been in and out of his life for years and he'd been in and out of her bed for a good number of those years. It had never lasted before and maybe it wouldn't have again, but they'd become closer this time. Matt being gone left space in his life that Marci had been happy to claim for herself.
It was missing New York and missing his neighbours and missing his crazy clients and his friends and the barista he got his coffee from in the morning and his family, he missed his family so much.
He missed Matt less when he was dead and gone. It had been more painful, but less lonely. This was like the dissolution of the firm, except not, because he saw Matt nearly every day, still helped out, still did things for him.
But there was a gap that left him feeling like he was more alone with Matt than he ever was when he was alone.
Butchery CW: Butchery, imaginary butchery of people
Date: 2019-01-10 01:54 am (UTC)Bobo was out the back doing the truly messy stuff, hanging and gutting and sorting organs and washing them. Foggy was immensely grateful to be spared having to do that, but it didn't really make this job any more enjoyable.
The joint finally gave way and Foggy could change to a finer knife, cutting away clinging muscle and sinew. He finished cutting through to the bench and tossed the chunk to the side to clean up after.
"Foggy! Come give me a hand!"
He set down the knife and headed for the back area, wiping his hands on his apron. "Yeah?"
Bobo had a carcass on the slab, skinned and emptied but the rib cage still intact. "I need extra hands. I've got it cracked and cut, but it's not splitting. I need you to grab the left ribs there and keep pressure going, so I can cut up between the ribs and sternum."
"Right." The marrow was valuable, the bone could be used... every part of a carcass needed to be harvested. "Just hold and keep pulling?"
"Yep. Nice and steady." Bobo spun the knife in his fingers and gripped it again.
Foggy got a firm grip and put his weight behind holding the carcass. Bobo used his arm to push while he started cutting, thin blade flickering in and out of sight.
It wasn't the sight that got to him.
The first cracks were loud and wet, fat and tendon squelching and tearing. Foggy stared off elsewhere, trying to think of music, of the sound of his family's voices, of anything but his own imagination...
Bones breaking. The wet squelch of flesh, the way it would sound wetter with blood, burbling and shifting with breathing and heartbeat and-
He pulled away, grabbing a bucket and heaving into it.
He could feel Bobo's confused stare. They'd done this before, he'd been raised in a family doing something like this but he'd never had the horror of Matt's death in his imagination before.
He heard Bobo's footsteps approach him and then there was a cup with water being held out to him. "What happened?"
Foggy shook his head and closed his eyes, heaving again and then taking the water when he was sure he was done. "Just, off colour, I guess."
"Uh-huh." Bobo didn't seem to believe him, but he also didn't push. "You need to head off home?"
"No. Just, give me a few minutes." He could control it. With his stomach empty, he was sure he could control it. "I'll be there in a moment. I'm fine."
It sounded as hollow as when Matt said it to him, but unlike Matt, he was fine. It was just his imagination.
Just his imagination.
Nightmare
Date: 2019-01-10 01:57 am (UTC)He patted the bed, trying to feel Marci's warmth, only to find his hands slipping and his balance nearly going, before he managed to right himself on the bed.
The single bed, in a cold room. He wriggled down into the blankets again, wishing he could just flick on a bedside lamp and reassure himself that he wasn't in his nightmare, holding onto Matt's wrist and trying to haul his body back up over the lip of the hole in the police station's wall.
He rolled onto his side, tugging his blankets around his neck tighter, briefly wishing for his longer hair to help warm his ears and nape.
Or maybe, he just wished to be that guy again. The one with long hair, and no worries beyond his student debt. Who had a best friend, and hopes that one day they'd take on the world with the law, do good and make plenty of money while they did it.
Logically, he'd never wish Marci here. But he missed her right now, the smell of her, the warmth and softness, the comfort of having someone to talk to, to remove the horrific memory of cold, dead skin under his hand. Of the dead weight of Matt's body dragging him towards the edge and being unwilling or unable to let go and let him fall, even know he was already dead.
He thought being here, knowing Matt was alive, he thought it would help the nightmares. Quiet them, even help them vanish.
It hadn't been meant to add a new dimension to them. To add Elektra, hanging onto Matt's other arm and grinning at him with bared teeth as she pulled Matt further and further away.
Foggy really didn't want to dwell on exactly what his subconscious was telling him there. About his own culpability in making Matt's life more difficult with his attitude to Elektra.
He lay on his side and watched the window and waited for dawn or sleep. Sooner or later, one would come.
Unwritten Letter
Date: 2019-01-10 02:13 am (UTC)I won't. I'm too relieved to find you alive to do anything that will have you withdrawing again, shoving me and ignoring me until I can't take it anymore. I don't know that I can lose you a third time when the first two felt like the worst kind of slow death.
But if I write them down, you can't ever know. Even if you find it, you'll never know what's on here.
You broke my heart.
There's no need for the 'no homo' routine. I'm not in love with you. I love you, I've always considered you my platonic soul mate, the brother from a different mother, whatever you call it. You're my best friend and the most important person in my life.
I thought the same was true of you for me.
Until the Castle case.
You hurt me before then. But, that happens with love. Sometimes you hurt each other with the best intentions, or just thoughtless ones. I don't like you being Daredevil, because I don't like you being carved up and beat down. It hurts me how much you don't care what they do to you.
But I get why you do it. If I could do what you do... Maybe I'd do the same. Maybe I should have demanded you start training me and gone out with you.
But then we had the Castle case.
I knew I wasn't the top priority in your life. Daredevil is. I thought I made the top five, even after the lies, I thought I mattered to you.
Until the Castle case.
I understand it was important. Whatever you were doing. Doing it with Elektra. Working with or against your old mentor, I'm not clear on that point. I'm not really clear on any of it.
But, in being more important, you showed me something else. You didn't call me. You didn't tell me. You actively lied to me when I asked.
If you'd said you were doing Daredevil work with Elektra, yeah, I would've been hurt and upset. You two were together for... ten weeks? Twelve? And she left you a wreck, a total wreck and I did my best for you then.
And now... I don't hate Elektra. I don't like how she treated you. But most of what I dislike about 'Elektra' is who you are with her. The person I love just vanishes, the kind, funny, caring and reliable guy I've known for years and years. And there's someone else, who you tell me is the real you, the you that only Elektra can accept and understand. Someone who does what he wants, who doesn't really think about others as people, just this vague notion that should be generally protected from the vague notion of 'bad types.
You say that's the real you and I can't understand. But you've never really tried to explain for me to understand. I don't know what I did to make you think you could never reveal any of yourself to me.
I don't know why the you I know isn't real.
I just know that in the end, everything else mattered more than me. Even than our friendship. In a purely mercenary sense, I thought our friendship meant more, because I made a really good cover for you. I had for years without knowing it, and I would've kept doing it, even knowing it was just you using me to help hide. I would've, because I love you and doing things for people you love is just... what you do.
You didn't even come to the hospital, Matt. The next day, when the immediate danger was over and I was still in hospital and still waiting to find out if I needed surgery, if I was going to get full movement back, I wanted you there. I *needed* you. And you never came.
Fuck knows I don't ask for much from you. I know that emotionally, you don't have a lot you can give, not after what you've survived. Maybe you don't know how to love without hurting because love always hurt you. Maybe you just keep pushing and neglecting because it's all you know but I'm not selfless and sacrificing. I can't keep hanging on to the friendship, to the relationship, when you're actively hurting me.
That's not love. That sort of clinging on is abusive.
I still ask myself constantly what I did wrong. How I fucked it up. Why you could love and care about other people, faceless, nameless people more than you do me?
I don't know why. I don't think you do either. And if I said a word, you'd make it about you suffering to save me, about your guilt and regret at hurting me and I don't want any of that.
I want you to hear me. Listen what I'm saying. I want you to understand and I want you say 'I am sorry I hurt you".
I want lots of things that I don't get. What's one more?
CW: Discussion fo previous self harm
Date: 2019-01-13 10:13 am (UTC)Marci continued to slowly swirl the wine in her glass. "Because it gave you ideas."
"Not ideas. The ideas were already there. It's not like it's anything new." Foggy continued his slow massage of Marci's foot, thumbs working the arches of her toes. "But it made me realise that I could do it and not risk needing medical intervention."
"I really don't like that you had that thought," she told him.
"I know." He met her gaze.
"I'm really glad that you can talk about it with me, though."
Her words were enough for Foggy to turn his attention back to her foot.
"I know you haven't shared it with anyone else."
"No. I haven't." He didn't look up this time, but he could almost feel the emotions that his statement evoked.
Marci sipped at her wine.
Foggy moved onto the next toe, stretching it out carefully. "Not even him. It's not like he ever had a reason to find the scars."
"I did wonder. I know, I know, I've known for a while, but you can't blame a girl for wondering. Sharing you with Matt always felt like being the Other Woman."
"Do you think you would've given us another go if he had-" He cut off the words.
"You know I don't do hypotheticals, Foggy-Bear. I don't know what I would've done." She pulled her foot back, shifting her weight and crawling up to him, scented water splashing around them. "I know what I'm going to do now though..."
"Oh." Foggy wrapped his arms around Marci with a grin. "Well, I await your proposal with baited breath, Counsellor Stahl."