Who: Matt Murdock, Elektra Natchios When: Wednesday, January 10 Where: Elektra’s room What: Hello, I’m not dead. Warnings: FTB, but very handsy (and smoochies) at the end. I'd say it's very R. They deal with their toxic relationship and then don't deal with it at all. Status: Complete in Gdocs.
tap tap tap
The sound of Matt’s cane striking the floor created a sound that helped his echolocation abilities give him a sense of his surroundings. When he asked one of the crew which room Elektra Natchios was staying in, there came with the information an offer to be led there, but Matt declined with the reply that he could manage himself. The layout of each level in the residential areas of the ship were exactly the same, which helped, but once he got the the first level and stepped out of the elevator, he could hone in on where Elektra was staying by her scent alone - her cabin was close by.
God, he’d forgotten how he’d missed that scent. After she was brought back from the dead, the Substance that ran through her veins altered her in more ways than one. Karen told him that Elektra came from before that happened, from just before her own death where he cradled her in his arms on the rooftop after their fight against the Hand. He expected (and hoped) Elektra would reply to the post he’d made over the network, but she was conspicuously silent. Maybe Matt should’ve taken it as a sign that she needed her space, but that reasoning lasted all but an hour before he went searching. After everything that happened, he needed to meet with her.
Cabin 115 - Matt stood in front of the door, and for a moment hestated. Would she still blame him for her death, for abandoning her? That’s what she’d told him in the tunnels below Midland Circle as they fought one another. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, then built up the nerve to knock despite his reservations. He then waited, holding his cane with both hands in front of him, wearing the ridiculous Hawaiian shirt the staff had left on the bed of his cabin.
So much of who she was now and who she had been then converged the moment she heard that knock. She had seen his post, elected to ignore it altogether, and immediately regretted the decision. It had been months since Elektra had last seen Matthew, the one she’d known in Tumbleweed had been dating Trish--someone she now held dear and in high esteem. She would have to check on her mindset now that Matthew had been returned, no doubt absent of any memories of his experiences in Tumbleweed.
Summoning up the courage to listen to Karen and answer the door, Elektra wandered up to the door in naught but a long t-shirt that skirted her knees. She had little concern for socialization for the most part, and so had retired to her cabin to enjoy a glass of wine with a book. It was just the distraction she had needed, too, in order to prevent her from rushing to the medbay and checking on him herself.
When she opened the door and beheld the sight of him in such an unusual shirt, any negative emotions clinging to her like darkness itself got cast to the wind. She laughed shortly, then brought the glass of wine to her lips, and mentally thanked him for electing to wear something so absurd as to break the ice.
Perhaps she could do this after all.
“Come in, Matthew,” she greeted, stepping aside to allow him entry. “You found me. I won’t run. Not from that godawful shirt.”
“Is it really that bad?” Matt asked, jokingly. “I’ll have to take your word for it. I think I’ll start a collection while I’m on this cruise.” He got Elektra to laugh and invite him into her cabin, which he felt was an achievement, given that she told him they shouldn’t meet together. If he could keep that momentum going, then maybe he’d be able to find out why, and maybe, hopefully change her mind. His wide smile softened into something sweeter. “It’s good to hear you laugh.”
He turned his head curiously to one side - Elektra was sharing her cabin with somebody, but that person… and a very strange person at that. “Who is your roommate?” he needed to know. “I’ve never picked up scent like that before.” Something so completely different, .it didn’t even seem human.
When it came to Matthew, Elektra could never ultimately resist him. It had taken her years to come back around, per Stick’s urging, but she hadn’t really wanted to resist. She loved him, she always would. That was the problem, wasn’t it? Loving him while knowing she was the worst thing for him. Weakened by that smile, she shut the door behind him. He was here now, locked in -- metaphorically, of course.
“It is immeasurably bad,” she answered, arms folded over her chest as she moved around him. Laughing was something she had learned how to do naturally in Tumbleweed. Friends had taught her a bit more about humanity, riding on the wave of change he had instilled in her before she died.
Grasping his arm, almost to prove to herself that he was truly here, she gave it a gentle tug in favor of immediately answering his curiosity. “This way to the couch, Matthew. Have a seat, I’ll pour us both a glass of wine and tell you about my unusual roommate.”
Once settled in, a half-open bottle and two glasses already on the table (as though she had been expecting him), she poured a full round for them both. “My roommate is an alien to us. A good person, I expect. Shame they put her with me.”
Matt didn’t need to be taken to the sofa, he could’ve found it on his own, but he was pleased when Elektra took the incentive. Her contact was gentle and reassuring, which was a huge difference from the last time they were together according to his timeline, when they were engaged in an intense fight that was somewhere between a death match and sex.
He sat on the sofa, was able to identify the type of wine Elektra choose as soon as she uncorked the bottle, and gladly accepted the glass when handed to him. The topic of aliens intrigued him, and he was curious to know more details, but how Elektra ended her sentence made Matt grimace and shake his head. “Don’t say that. There is good in you. Maybe you refuse to see it, but I can.”
To be near him again was the gentlest sort of electricity. Elektra took a seat beside him, swirling the contents of the glass around carefully, and decided to scoot as close as she could next to him without being too terribly obvious. That was her problem, too, in the end. When faced with her greatest weakness, she could hardly resist temptation.
“I’ve had some time, you know, to reconcile that prospect,” she voiced tentatively, then took a sip. “Maybe there is, Matthew, but it doesn’t really matter. A little bit of good does not make up for the bad. It doesn’t forgive, the bad doesn’t relent. It thrives and survives, much like I did unexpectedly, did I not?” She looked directly at him, then, breath steadying. “You fell because of me. The Black Sky. Am I wrong?”
The way Elektra sat near did not go unnoticed, and Matt smiled to himself, hiding it behind a sip from his glass. He was still smiling when he told her, “You forget who you’re talking to,” then became serious as he continued, “I fight the same demons. Maybe not as bad as you, but then again I wasn’t raised by Stick who would constantly remind me I was little more than a weapon to be used in a battle. Yes, we have our natures, but forgiveness and redemption?” He chuckled ruefully. “Catholics are big on that.”
He then paused, remembering his last moments before he lost unconsciousness. “No, I did not fall because of the Black Sky. I didn’t even fall because of you. I fell because a 37 story office building fell on me. But you were there, and I was doing exactly what I’m doing now - telling you that you’re never too far gone that you can’t return. The question is, do you you want? “
Elektra had wanted so badly to find a way to validate her demons by practically shouting at the walls Matthew had died because of her. She had felt good for one fleeting moment, then awoke in Tumbleweed in critical condition. Listening to him, the warmth in his voice, drew her right back into his shroud. She had not awoken as the Black Sky in Tumbleweed, but as a woman on the precipice of a greater change. One she had undergone profusely in his absence, but there was that lingering remorse in her heart when it came to Matthew Murdock.
“If it hadn’t been because of our history, do you think you would have still fallen under that building? I don’t. I don’t have to remember being there to know what goes on in your heart, Matthew.” Keenly aware of the toxicity she held in his life, she also recognized the balance that they could bring one another. She only had to want it.
“I want to be good,” finally Elektra answered, resolute. “I won’t become that person you saw then.” In that, she was less sure of herself and so took a long sip of the wine to ease her nerves.
“And they call me a martyr,” Matt blithely commented, trying to insert a bit of humor into the conversation., Elektra was close enough for him to rest his arm upon the back of the sofa just above her shoulders, and with his fingers, gently stroked her soft, silky hair. “Who knows what would’ve happened? It’s true, I went into the tunnel under the building to fight the Hand, but I stayed behind when the others left because I wanted to get through to you. For what it’s worth, we died in each other’s arms.” He wouldn’t bring up that just before that happened, they’d been locked in an intense fight between one another.
“I know your heart, Elektra,” Matt consoled her, “And I know you won’t become the Black Sky. You only turned into the Black Sky after they’d pumped that Substance shit into your body and brought you back to life, then brainwashed you into believing it was your destiny. Between them and Stick, filling your head with all sorts of violence, naturally those qualities are going to be prominent. What you always needed was somebody who’ll love you for who you are, and not for the weapon they wanted you to become.” Matt’s head turned slightly in Elektra’s direction. “I hope I can be one of those people for you, but if you insist on not wanting me around…” Matt hesitated, not sure how to finish the sentence. His natural instinct was to keep trying, but he realized how stalker-ish that would be.and the thought made him grimace. Instead, he went with, “... I’ll still always believe in you.”
He was making it increasingly harder to resist him. Fingers in her hair, the gentle lilt of his voice, she couldn’t help but to be enticed by it. No matter what she had said when she was brainwashed, it wasn’t true. She had died trying to save his life, wanting to do good. Elektra feared the path ahead of her, one twisted up in darkness far beyond her own control.
That they would die in each other’s arms, however, painted some semblance of peace. Curling closer against him, forehead against his temple, she took a moment to really breathe in the life of him. He was truly here, back among the living and in her life. How could she possibly desire him to vacate the premises of as much? She didn’t want to live her days detached from Matthew, she only believed it was the best course for him.
It was his lasting words that stirred something greater in her, prompted Elektra to cup the side of face. Her heart thudded with a warmth for him, one she did not bother to even try and snuff. “Matthew, I have always loved you. It isn’t about pushing you away, you did nothing wrong to me. Whatever I said to you under the influence of the substance as the Black Sky, it doesn’t matter. It wasn’t true, none of it was until the very end, until you reached me.” She may not have lived it, but she understood herself, and more importantly: she knew him. “Before you decide what it is you want of me, know this: you are better off without me, but I am not better off without you.”
What Matt didn’t want to tell Elektra was how she hadn’t been redeemed at the end - that instead of fighting against it, she fully embraced the killer inside, accepting that reality as her own. Matt tried to reach her, but failed - if he told her that, Matt understood it wouldn’t help Elektra’s opinion of herself, so he decided to keep it as his secret. As far as he was concerned, she would never know.
Matt leaned comfortably into Elektra’s hand and smiled, savoring the sensation of her touch. “Don’t idolize me, Elektra. I’m far from perfect. But…” he moved his face closer to hers, “... I think we can balance one another’s imperfections.” Elektra’s accelerated pulse did not lie, nor did his own. His lips light grazed hers in an experimental kiss that was more like a taste, before going in for a second time, pressing their mouths together.
Deny his good as much as he could, Matthew would never deter the view she had of him. She practically thrived off the goodness in him. He may have been far from immaculate, but he was as close as a human could get. She had struck the chord of change because of him, and through that--she’d found a path of her own in his absence.
“Oh?” The fire between them crackled to life again in a way she didn’t think would ever occur again. One kiss, light as can be, left her wanting more. She’d almost forgotten what this was like, it had been so very long. Her fingertips tensed against his cheek, practically inviting him in for more. This time, she met him in kind, shamelessly shifting onto his lap to straddle it without so much as breaking contact.
Sliding her arms around his neck, she reminded herself to slow down--he’d been injured. Perhaps there was more, too, that they needed to say.
“Stay?” She mumbled against lips, ultimately breaking from him with ragged breaths interrupting her words. “I have missed you, Matthew.”
A few hours before, Matt was in a hospital bed, brought back from the brink of death, but thanks to the cruise ship’s medical procedures, the only thing he was suffering from was a bit of soreness - nothing he hadn’t handled before, and definitely not the sort of thing that would deter him from this moment with Elektra. He hummed with pleasure as Matt shifted beneath Elektra’s weight, making himself more comfortable as he became aroused. Hands firmly placed upon her hips, he slid them down to cup her buttocks, hopefully making his intentions clear.
Just in case, he told her in a murmur, “I’m not going anywhere.” Matt then pressed their foreheads together and confessed, “I’ve missed you, too”, even though by his reckoning, he’d just been with her a short while ago, fighting one another beneath Midline Center. But that wasn’t the Elektra he missed - this loving, sensual, intimate Elektra was the one he’d been hoping to find all along, and was so happy to find her. “I thought I’d lost you.”
In their worlds, losing her would be the best thing for him. She only didn’t want him to be lost in the process. Above all else, Elektra wanted him to stay in the light and to embrace it, because he had so much good to offer the world. In between the blood and broken bones, moving in the shadows was his heart eclipsed by light.
The intimacy of their reunion then was palpable. She had resisted him when he was there twice before, watched him take up with a woman who had become a very dear friend, then reeled with the loss of him. She had taken the disappearance quietly hard, but coped. Perhaps it had all been for something, for this moment of wasting no time in kissing him hungrily again. Her heart swelled with affection lust-laced affection.
“You didn’t,” she responded breathily, straining not to press into him again for a moment. “I was hiding here,” and waiting, in a way, for him to return. She’d been desperate to know what truly had become of him. “Do let me make it up to you in the bedroom, would you?”
Elektra’s response about waiting for him in this alternative universe was exactly what Matt wanted to hear, and he smiled with approval, nearly laughing out of joy and relief. But his humor disappeared when she invited him to her bed, returning to a concentrated state of desire. “Do you need to ask?” He gave arse a squeeze. “Though, if we’re not quick, we may not make it to the bedroom.” He finished this thought by nuzzling her ear and lustfully whispering, “I’ll take you right here,” and punctuated his sentence by nipping at her earlobe.
There was a reason to make it to the bedroom, wasn’t there? Elektra wasn’t known for her rational forward thinking. Groaning at his touch, she wanted him to do just that. Hands slid down to fumble with his shirt, caution thrown to the wind like she intended to do with every article of clothing to his name at that moment. She should have been staying away, but resisting him when he wanted her and she had missed him silently proved impossible.
“You’d have to be quick here,” she realized aloud. She had no idea when Mantis would return. As she rocked gently against him, Elektra attempted to remember that important face. Her roommate was pure, not someone she wanted to taint. “So, be a dear and cart us to the left. I’m taking my time with you, Matthew.”
Matt inclined his head to the left as Elektra indicated, using his echolocation to find the door, and to prove that he was well enough to follow through on his promises, he planted his feet firmly on the floor and using strength and balance, rose from the sofa while firmly cradling Elektra by her ass, lifting and expecting her to twine her legs around his torso as he carried her in that direction. Not needing to see where he was going gave Matt the ability to bury his face in the slope of her neck to kiss and nibble along the way.
Like an old habit, she had wrapped herself about him. Cupping the back of his head while she supported herself with a hand on his shoulder, legs tight about him, she reveled in the feeling of him. She had truly missed Matthew. Even now, latched to his body, it didn’t feel like enough. She didn’t deserve him, knew he could do better, but she was lost to what little shreds of decency she had learned.
Karen was right, too. It wasn’t just her decision to make.
So, for at least one night, she would give in to his wants and forget everything else.