Darcy is only half listening to you. JSYK. (halflistening) wrote in incompletedata, @ 2017-09-29 10:34:00 |
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Entry tags: | marvel: mcu: darcy lewis, marvel: mcu: matt murdock |
Who: Matt Murdock and Darcy Lewis
When: Day 5
Where: Cave E Hotsprings
What: A tiny bright spot in the middle of all this dark. Also some tears.
Rating: PG, mentions of nudity and violence
Status: Log, complete
Trigger Warnings: Hunger Games
Ordinarily Matthew would have been much more self-conscious about shedding some of his clothes in the presence of strangers - not that he'd consider Darcy a total stranger by now - but with the arena not really affording much privacy to anyone wanting to stick together, it didn't bother him as much as it normally would have. Darcy had nothing to worry about in front of a blind man either, and the other two gentlemen had left. Though he mostly kept his back to the wall, Matt couldn't completely hide the fact that his toned torso was littered with scars that weren't very befitting of a respectable lawyer. He sank into the hot water wordlessly with a long, contented sigh, trying to resist the urge to slump and just melt away in it. His wet hair was uncharacteristically spiky and water was dripping off his unruly five o'clock shadow that was fast growing out into a beard. "Okay, you were right," Matt conceded when the sound of Darcy splashing about mellowed out into small waves lapping against the edges of the hot spring. His voice was soft enough that it caressed the cave walls without bouncing off them. He couldn't tell if she was too busy enjoying herself, staring at him wondering about his scars, or giving him a smug look. "This is-... this is nice." Marginally nicer than the zombie bunker. If there was a steady source of potable water nearby they could forget about the fallout shelter completely. He rubbed his face tiredly before combing his hair back with calloused fingers. "Do you want to stay here for a while or…?" Given a choice he’d rather she find someone more competent to latch onto. But as the days wore on it was probably becoming slimmer and slimmer pickings, and even the person he trusted the most in the arena… well, her heartbeat wouldn’t even skip a beat when she ripped them to shreds. Darcy sighed as she eased into the warm water, the light of one of her glow sticks filtering through it when she dropped it into the shallower end. It was diffuse enough to not call too much attention to their position, she figured. While Matt might not have had a choice about living in the dark (she assumed, but she didn’t want to press too much about how much vision he’d retained, if any), there was only so much of that pressing blackness she could take. It was the first she’d used of the four that had been present in her backpack and she was saving them, hopefully, for bartering items if they should get really desperate for food. “This is honestly the happiest I’ve been in days.” It was also the warmest she’d been, and the wettest. She knew she wouldn’t kill, not if she could avoid it, but if someone had shampoo? Or maybe some soap? She’d probably consider it to get that shit. At the very least she’d be okay with a maiming. But it wasn’t just her hair and her body that could use a wash… Her clothing could too. And she was awfully tempted to just disrobe completely, scrub the important parts as best she could, and go commando until her underthings could dry as best they could in this environment. But that might be weird for Matt. She’d have to ask him if he’d mind first. “Would it weird you out if I went Full Monty here? Because my skin is itching and this bra band is digging into me. I need to take it off for a while.” “It looks like this is a pretty easily defensible area, actually,” she said, slipping her glasses back on so she could have a look around. “There’s two entrances… One of them is the way we came and the other leads to what looks like another cave. Before this glow stick dies, I can go take a look and see if it looks like that one connects to the rest of the system.” “I-... wouldn’t have noticed if you hadn’t said anything,” he replied with a small, slightly awkward laugh. “You know I- can’t see anything. At all. It’s just-... a whole lot of nothing. You don’t have to- I mean it- just doesn’t have to be awkward. Or anything.” And now he’d made it awkward. Well done, Murdock. Gold star. Matt bit down on his lip and shut up. He felt a bit apprehensive about her going off on her own, but then she’d managed just fine without him for the first- one or two or however many days they’d been out here. She hadn’t gotten herself hurt or killed when she stumbled upon Bail and Poe. With any luck she’d be fine. “Do you want me to come with you?” He’d probably just managed to convince her that he was even more of a burden to her than she’d thought. Still maybe he could be of some use, tagging along. “Not saying something would have been super sketchy, though. Like, in the book and the movies, the Games were filmed and broadcast for everyone not participating to see and if I suddenly just take all my clothes off and don’t say anything, it makes it look like I’m trying something when really I’m just totally sick of those clothes and need to be out of them for a little bit.” Her reasoning might have been flawed, but she was happy with it as she peeled off her bra. She struggled with it a little bit, but was happy to be free. “I do wish we had taken those blankets from the shelter. They’d have made decent towels. But then someone else staying there wouldn’t have had them and I’d feel bad about that.” She threw the wet piece of clothing off toward one of the taller rocks surrounding the spring so it could start to dry a little and sunk deeper into the water, holding her splinted arm aloft. Water wouldn’t do that contraption any favors. “Oh, sweet baby Jesus, that feels so much better.” “You can totally come if you want. I don’t know how much exploring I’ll do, but you can always come.” "The book and the movies? What're you talking about?" Matthew had missed the memo about this being the Hunger Games, and even if he did get the memo, the series became popular after he'd outgrown the target demographic for it. More importantly - they were being filmed? Someone was filming them trying to survive, turning on each other, killing each other? The thought of it was so abhorrent that he struggled to find words. He'd completely lost track of what they were talking about that when she pulled him out of his thoughts and said something he misconstrued, what with the nakedness and everything, he went bright red and completely froze, one of his hands still in his hair. "Uh- no- I'm- I'm fine. Sitting here. Thank you. I don't- I mean I- you seem really nice, but I- there's this- I don't really-" Well, she didn’t know what being nice had to do with exploring that other cave, but she wasn’t going to argue with Matt if he didn’t want to go. It was probably a good idea for someone to stay there and guard their stuff anyway. Not that they had much. “Okay,” she said easily, shrugging off his stammering. “The water is great and I don’t blame you for not wanting to leave it, like, at all. I wouldn’t. I usually stay until I’m super pruny when I get a chance to take a bubble bath.” She dipped her head backward to get her hair nice and soaked, hoping to scrub some of the oil and itch away from her scalp with the fingertips of her good hand. “But this is totally the Hunger Games. The set up, the cornucopia, everything. The books weren’t bad, so if you get a chance and can handle first person tense, you should totally read them.” Then a thought hit her and she moved closer to Matt. If she was going to let her bra air dry, she might as well do the same thing to her underwear. It wouldn’t be the first time she’d gone commando and after several days of wear, they could use a wash. “Hey, can I use you for balance so I don’t get my splint all wet?” "They put us in a fictional setting?" Was this why Helena had called it a game? But this wasn't a game - they really were going to die out here. "Wha- What happens in it?" Did he really want to know? He supposed knowing something was better than nothing, even if the cold hard truth was that everyone was going to die. Probably at the hands of each other. Or you know, he might just drown himself in the hot spring, because he felt the water move and heard her voice get closer and he wanted to scream. "Uh- nh-... okay. I didn't- you- did you break a bone or something?" “Yeah, my wrist. But the splint is made up of backpack, waterproof paper, and copper wire. I don’t think soaking it in a hot springs is a good idea.” She didn’t get too close to him, remembering how he flinched when she touched him when they caught up with Bail and Poe. She only got close enough to rest her splinted wrist against his shoulder so she could shimmy out of the rest of her clothes. Darcy didn’t know if this was a fictional setting or anything. She didn’t think that was something she was supposed to know, like it was some sort of fucked up double blind thing. “This doesn’t feel fictional… but what do I know? I swear I saw Margaery Tyrell on the tablet and she’s from Game of Thrones. Maybe we’re all fictional in some universe or other.” She definitely didn’t think too hard about that, because she didn’t need either of them having an existential crisis in this cave. "Marjory who?" Matt held completely still as Darcy did- whatever it was she was doing, swallowing hard and silently apologising profusely to the heavens even though God had probably already forsaken him. Matt of course didn't want to believe that he was just some piece of fiction. It wasn't the kind of life story that happened to everyone, but to be put through all that suffering he'd undergone just for someone's else's cheap entertainment was too painful of a thought to bear. "Do you think we're... not real?" It might explain how some of the people like the wrong Natasha and Clint and 'Captain Marvel' knew him. Maybe none of this was real. "I mean I know Han Solo isn't real but he's down the hall. I don't- I can't-... why would anyone do this to us?" “Margaery Tyrell. She’s fantastic, but her grandmother Olenna is, like... My queen. I know I can’t pull it off, but I want to be as ruthless as she is when I grow up.” She moved away once she had everything off, adding the undies to the rock where her bra lay once she squeezed out some water. Darcy sighed, though, propping her injured wrist up on a rock. “I… think that the multiverse is ultimately unfathomable. But is it possible that we- all of us- are fictional? Sure. Will most of us ever know it? Probably not. I can’t even say I would want to know if I was. I feel real and that’s all that matters to me, you know? It’s like that thing that that one French dude said. ‘I think, therefore I am.’” "René Descartes. Dubito, ergo cogito, ergo sum." But they could just keep referring to the man who could arguably be the father of modern philosophy as 'that French dude'. Did he exist, or was he just the figment of someone else's imagination? "If we're not real then n- none of this matters. This arena doesn't matter. The people around us don't matter. It doesn't matter how we live our lives, how we treat each other." Matthew's brows furrowed as he dug himself deeper into a hole of despair that he didn't quite comprehend. It was probably a mistake to be thinking themselves into circles here, but well, nothing mattered anymore did it? "It doesn't matter what we do. Someone's already written the last chapter." Matt sank a little deeper into the water, the tension returning to his shoulders as he became increasingly agitated. Oh. My. God. Matt was going full banana balls. Just being in the same water as her had broken his adorable little brain. So Darcy did the only thing a naked woman in a hot spring could do. She punched him in the arm as hard as she could. “Hey!” she yelled, ready to punch him again. “Snap out of it! This nihilism thing you got going on is starting to freak me out.” The punch came out of nowhere and he half-yelped as he shifted in the water, splashing about a bit. He'd probably be the first idiot to accidentally die in a hot spring in the arena if they kept fooling around like this. "Sorry, I just- Well- are you done yet?!" He didn't want to seem insensitive but she was making him uncomfortable. “That depends,” she said, feeling feisty. “How real are you feeling right now? Because if my nudity, which you can’t see and isn’t even near you, is making you stop this existential questioning, then yes. But if you’re going to go back to brooding, then I might just stay naked forever.” “NO- It’s not- I can’t even see what you’re doing,” he protested. “I’m sure you look- you look great but I have a girlfriend.” Did she know she was his girlfriend? Probably not. Not yet. They were just- screwing. And Matthew was far more emotionally invested in their screwing than he probably was willing to admit. “I don’t - I mean maybe she won’t see me again but - could we just- not?” Darcy just stared at him for a minute. “... I’m not trying to come on to you, Matt. Like… That’s so far from my headspace right now.” She laughed, shaking her head. “Dude, I just want to feel clean for a few minutes. I can’t make us not be here, I can’t do anything about your love life, but I can do that. Your virtue is safe with me, believe me.” He forced himself to relax even though he thought she might throw another punch. Now he felt more than slightly embarrassed for jumping to conclusions. Still, he shuffled away from her a little, keeping his hands to himself underwater. “I’m glad she’s not here. At least she’s not going to die in my arms,” he muttered. Asking Matthew not to brood - what should he do then? Sit there like a poor impersonation of hobo Jesus and look pretty? Darcy sighed heavily and pulled herself out of the spring. She heard him mutter to himself, but he was curled in, closed up. She could try to pull it out of him, what he meant by ‘at least she’s not going to die in my arms, but she wasn’t an emotional terrorist, forcing confidences with people. If he wanted her to know, he’d tell her. So instead she focused on drying off, using her good hand to try to squeegee water off her skin before she got dressed. “Look… It’s not that you’re not attractive, okay? You are. In another world, maybe I would have come onto you. I wouldn’t have randomly stripped down to do it, but I probably would have done it.” She walked over to where her clothes were draped and started getting dressed as best she could, leaving her underthings to dry for the time being. “But this isn’t the time and it isn’t the place. Even if you didn’t have a girlfriend.” Darcy took another heavy breath, her voice dropping low. She kept it as steady as she could, but there was no hiding the thickness caused by bottled up emotion. “What I need is someone to keep me sane here, not a meaningless pump on a cave floor. Because I am scared. I know I’m going to die down here eventually. And I am all alone. Pretty much everyone else down here had time to make friends with others, but I haven’t. There’s a few people I started to get to know, but I seriously doubt they’re worried on my behalf.” She sniffed loudly and pulled up the hem of her shirt to wipe her eyes. She’d thought, after they talked in the bunker, that maybe they could be friends. Maybe she’d been wrong. "No I- I don't want to talk about this." The topic was cutting too close, too deep. It made Matthew visibly upset. He hadn't properly dealt with losing Elektra after the emotional rollercoaster of her coming back into his life, manipulating him and taking him out for a spin just like old times. He was so close to getting her back, willing to give everything up and live out the rest of his life running away with her. And this whatever it was between him and Natasha - maybe it wasn't anything after all. But he didn't have to deal with his losses here when he had her. "Wait. Don't go." He could hear that she was going - hear the water move, the shuffling, the flapping when she shook out her clothes before putting them back on. Maybe he couldn't see the cascading layers of red fabric caressing her skin, but as the water level rose by barely more than a millimetre, he didn't need his enhanced senses to know that she was leaving. "Don't go." He wouldn't admit out loud that he was scared either. Deep-seated abandonment issues from a mother who didn't want him, a father who never came home, from Stick and from Elektra coupled with his newfound vulnerability of being alone in the dark made his voice strain and crack. It was easy for Matthew to make assumptions about the common factor that was wrong that made them all leave. "I'm sorry. I said I- I'm sorry about what I said." He didn't know what he'd said wrong but clearly he must have. "I'm sorry." Darcy slumped, watching Matt in the water. He looked as upset as she felt, like a wound that had barely scabbed over was scraped raw again. She slid down sat on a only-slightly-damp rock. “You don’t have anything to apologize for.” Her voice was still thick, still heavy, but mostly tired sounding. It was a lot of work to stay optimistic and she was wearing thin. “I’m not leaving. I… I was just getting dressed so you’re not uncomfortable anymore.” Maybe it was the nerves, the feeling of being on edge, frazzled and frayed on the edges. Maybe the heat of the water was getting to him. Maybe he just felt guilty for making her feel like she had to cater to his discomfort. Either way he clambered clumsily out of the water, sitting down with his scarred back to the wall. His boxer shorts were soaking wet and the floor felt especially cold. Lukewarm water dripped from his fringe to the space between his legs. The sting of the water getting into his head wound barely showed on his face. “If you need someone to keep you sane I’m the wrong man for the job,” he said softly. “But you’re not going to die alone.” Not if he could help it. Darcy didn’t want to cry. She didn’t. It was liquid she couldn’t afford to lose. But knowing that didn’t keep the tears she’d tried so hard to deny from spilling down her cheeks. For a second, she was glad he couldn’t see. She wasn’t a pretty crier. “Depends on what a person calls sane, I think.” For Darcy, it was someone to look after. She’d spent so many years being there for Jane, that the loss of that kind of relationship left her feeling off-kilter rather than relieved. But as awful as these Games were… With Matt? She had something close to that, at least for a little while. Maybe she was being selfish. Darcy cleared her throat, still watching Matt. “I’m sorry. For punching you. I shouldn’t have done that. I need to learn better ways to cope with…” Fear? Panic? “Stuff.” He was the last person she needed to apologise to for lashing out with a fist. With a shrug and a small shake of his head, he groped around for his shirt and stood up before slipping it back on, seemingly not bothered by the way it clung to his wet skin unpleasantly like cling film. “A little warning would be nice.” He could take a punch or three, probably better than most would be willing to. “Your glow stick still on?” “No way. Surprise attacks are the way to go.” Mostly because she was short and had a short stride, so her best bet was to attack and run away, whether it was physical violence or haranguing people into eating like they were human and not a Science Machine. Darcy stood and shuffled to the edge of the spring to pluck the glow stick from the water. “Yeah. It's starting to fade a little, but it's still good.” "Let's go then." He brushed away stray strands of hair plastered to his forehead with his hand, flicking some of the excess water out. Wiping his hands dry on his shirt, he pulled his pants back on and stepped into his shoes. It wouldn't have fazed him to go traipsing around in mysterious caves pantsless, but he didn't want to cut himself or get bitten by anything waiting for them. He took a few steps in the direction of Darcy's voice, his strides more confident than they had ever been since this whole thing started, and held one upturned hand out towards her. Far be it from him to withhold olive branches from anyone. "You tell me what you can see, I'll tell you what I can feel." Darcy finished slipping on her socks and shoes and looked up just as Matt approached with an open hand. She smiled up at him and took the offered olive branch, using it to pull herself into a standing position. She was really wishing they’d thought to bring the cots with them when they left the shelter. “Let’s go.” |