inbox | in the night.

[ultraviolents]

to be prettied up later!

Comments

[catholicisms]

( Matt remembers Nobu all too well. the first gut reaction he has to the name is to point out he's dead. her story is impossible, no matter how distinctly she believes it. and she does; Matt isn't sure if she's fallen into madness or she's gotten so wrapped up in her own deceptions she can't find the truth herself anymore. or the third and decidedly worse option: it's the truth, and somehow he didn't live to see any of it.

he remembers the weapon Stick had coerced him into helping locate. the Black Sky, the ultimate weapon, the thing even his hardass mentor had seemed genuinely terrified by. Matt hadn't believed it at the time, he's still not sure he believes it now. and yet the rhetoric Elektra is ghosting over sounds uncomfortably like the lecture Stick had given him time and time again, trying to convince him to join a war that didn't seem to exist.

in the end Matt simply gets stuck on the last confession. that Elektra had died protecting him, just as she'd risked herself in the woods only a few days ago. it doesn't make any sense with the version of her he's tried to craft in the years she's been gone. cruel, malicious, uncaring. the version of her that had left him because she'd never really loved him in the first place. )

Why? Why would you do that? ( take a blow meant for him. Matt has gone into every fight he's ever had willing to die in it. some might say he'd even welcome it. Elektra knows that, and dying to protect him doesn't fit with the ugly version of her he's tried to convince himself was real ever since she slipped out of his life like a shadow. he's not sure what would be worse, abandoning him because she never cared or staying away, even if she did. )

[ultraviolents]

[ she knows how it must sound to him. it sounds insane even explaining it; if she hadn't lived through it she's not sure if she'd believe it herself. but the scars still mark her body, both from the hand's poison blades and her own sai. they ache now at the memory, at the fact that he doesn't share it with her. it's not that she would want him to suffer, but it hurts that he doesn't know any of it, that his most recent memory of is is her deserting him at his father's murder's mansion.

she thinks she'd even prefer the horror of his realization that he'd killed the boy sent to attack them to this. ]

I didn't want you to die. [ simple as that, but also: ] And they wanted to use me, too.

[catholicisms]

( she's told him so much and much of it seems like madness, and he's a mix of baffled, overwhelmed, and doubtful. it can't be true that she's lived past what he can remember, if he's dead then he couldn't have lived on to be in the way of a blow for Elektra to take in his stead. it doesn't make sense so why can't he hear the lies?

part of him wants to demand she tell him everything, in detail, and the other wants to tell her to leave because it's easier than trying to wrap his head around all of it. )

Use you for what? ( he's never believed Stick's ramblings about the Chaste and a sacred war so it doesn't make it much easier when it's Elektra. it should make it worse, considering he knows how manipulative she can be. ) Everything you're saying sounds impossible. We never saw each other again, I... I died in my sleep after a fight. ( his voice is a little raw, though maybe it'll make Elektra feel better that she's not alone in the uncomfortable confessions. ) Why should I believe you? The last time I trusted you, you made sure I'd regret it. And I loved you too much to think you could be lying to my face, constantly.

( it's amazing how Matt can inject so much anger and frustration into a voice hardly louder than a whisper. he's not supposed to be so damn foolish, now, so why is he entertaining this? why is he begging for a reason to believe? )

[ultraviolents]

Use me as the thing the Chaste taught us to fear. The Black Sky. It's me.

[ her voice is ragged, full of emotion that's only held back because she can tell he needs to fall apart over this more than she does. she's just put a whole lot of history in his lap, history that he can't remember because he hasn't lived it. ]

You should believe me because you can tell it’s the truth. [ and he's right, she's gotten away with lying by omission countless times. but she promised before her death not to hold things back from him anymore. even if he doesn't believe her now, even if he'll never remember her doing it, she wants to keep it. ] I don't expect you to, I know how all of it sounds, but I swear to you, it happened.

[ if he wants her to go into detail, she will. she knows she's only scratching the surface of the details with her explanation, but that already feels like too much to put on him. ]

[catholicisms]

The Black Sky was just a scared little kid locked in a shipment crate. Stick killed him before he had the chance to be anything else.

( Matt's tone is plenty colored with guilt, as he feels there's some blood on his hands after that particular mission, even if he'd had no part of the killing and had done everything possible to avoid it. still, he's heard the moniker from Stick before, he remembers the viciousness his mentor had used in response to it — if Elektra was the Black Sky, it made a certain amount of sense that he'd try to kill her. that's absolutely what happened to the last poor soul that he confused as some mystical figurehead of a shadowy organization. why Stick would train Elektra if she was the exact thing he was fighting against, that made less sense. it's just another of many things stacked against her story.

despite the fact that yes, so far she hasn't told him any lies. Matt doesn't know what to think about that. perhaps she's so deadset on her own delusions, to her they seem the truth. that is a hard concept to buy, however, because for all that Matt knows about Elektra and her dark and jagged edges, he wouldn't call her out of her mind. she wasn't unhinged, so much as playing by her own rules. she doesn't present any signs that she's lost it, and Matt stubbornly thinks he'd know if she had.

what's the alternative? that she's telling the truth, some part of him whispers, but that's too hard to believe at present. it's more likely that Matt has never been able to see a lie in Elektra, and that's how he fell so hard and so deep for her in the first place. )

Do you? I highly doubt that. ( unless she's on the receiving end of a story that no part of her remembers, she is not likely to understand how jarring and uncomfortable it is to be on the receiving end of it. worse, this isn't even the first time this week someone has implied they remember things that Matt himself does not. it wasn't any more fun the first time, though at least it was from someone Matt didn't know to be a manipulator.

he turns away from her, shaking his head. ) I need to think. You should go. ( the only reason the request isn't more biting is the visceral physical memories of how she'd dragged him from the woods. as the weeks and months stretched and it became apparent she wasn't coming back, Matt had always told himself that if she tried he'd turn her away without considering anything she had to say. he's already folded on that point, and this influx of information just makes it worse. he's never going to be able to think clearly with her smell and her heartbeat clamoring in his head, reminding him of things he's for so long tried to forget. )