A/N: I am not quite sure where this one came from. Obviously Lios is still on a Daredevil kick (she will eventually get back to those who have left lovely comments, thank you all) (she has no idea why she is writing in the 3rd person).
Alternate universe in that it diverges from canon. Much darker than my other fandom story and a little bit sad. I believe nothing to be explicitly graphic in any way. It's just feels, but then, isn't it always?
Title taken from the wonderful words of Oscar Wilde, "The truth is rarely pure and never simple."
Never Simple
As they sat down across from Karen Page for the first time, arms resting on a table that rocked on its four unsteady legs, Foggy said,
"You sure know how to attract the crazies, Murdock."
His voice was low enough to avoid courting attention, a well practiced stage whisper from years of acting as another man's sight. Matt let his eyes close behind his glasses for a moment and shoved away the urge to smile. That would be completely inappropriate in a holding cell after all.
Afterwards, Foggy latched onto his arm, more a hindrance than a guide as Matt navigated his way out of the precinct.
"You should have seen the way she was looking at you, mate." he said, mouth running a mile a minute as usual. "Chicks really do dig the blind thing, thinking you're all innocent and harmless and in need of supervision. Maybe I should get myself some glasses and a cane. It's not like I'd actually tell them I'm visually impaired, but if they'd assume? That's plausible deniability right?"
Unable to stop himself this time, Matt giggled in response, laughing so long that he lost his breath and had to stall by the main door of the building until he caught his breath again. A female officer (middle-aged, African-American, heavy smoker) approached and asked if he was ok.
"We're fine, we're fine." he wheezed, accepting her gesture of holding the door open for him with a smile and a breathy thank you.
"See? They all just fall over you! Even the old ones!"
He stood in front of the full-length mirror built into his wardrobe, hands twitching nervously where they fell by his side. It didn't matter that he couldn't see himself in the reflection. It felt wrong to dress anywhere else but before it, as if a crime against nature or at least, against fashion. He ran a trembling hand down the length of the black outfit, smoothing all of the imaginary wrinkles he pictured present before tightening and retightening the belt on his trousers for the fourth time. With a final loud gulp, his hands rested on his head where the bandana acting as a mask was placed. He closed his lids, defying the inbuilt instinct to keep them open and took a deep breath in through his nose.
He blew the air out noisily twenty seven seconds later.
"No matter how many times you put that thing on, you're always gonna look ridiculous, man."
Matt doesn't turn around to locate his friend, lounging comfortably behind him on his own bed. The tone of his voice is matter-of-fact and honesty and Matt can't decide at this crucial moment whether he appreciates that or not.
"Well, I can't see my fashion picks, Fog. What's your excuse?"
Matt knew his voice was harsher than usual but he can't help it. Adrenaline is flooding his body making him itch in anticipation of some action. Foggy doesn't appear to mind either way, giving a good belly laugh. Matt could hear the smile in the reply he delivered.
"Ouch, Murdock. And here I thought you appreciated my taste in hight cuture all these years."
Matt winced. "Haute couture, Foggy. Please don't ever speak the French language again. A thousand poodles just died in Europe at your vulgarity."
"Yeah, yeah, wise guy. You knew what I meant, it's all good."
Silence fell between them and Matt's hands moved again, rubbing absently around his neck and willing away the tension there.
"You don't have to do this, Matty," said Foggy quietly, his murmur more serious than Matt had ever heard him speak before. "You've already helped so many people. Whatever debt you think you owe has surely been paid by now."
"I can keep helping people, Foggy."
"I know, but sometimes I wish you'd help yourself."
The words were more honest than Matt would like to acknowledge. There was no judgement in them, but there wasn't quite understanding either. Matt knew his friend would never understand him or his sense of duty. Life had always been a lot more clear cut in the mind of Franklin Nelson.
"But why would I do that, Fog," he started, grateful that the mask was wound too tight to allow his eyes to water. "When I've got you to do that for me?"
He thrust the paper bag into the sergeant's arms, awkwardly fumbling as Mahoney almost dropped it, catching hold just in time to prevent the precious cargo from meeting the pavement.
"Just, don't say anything," began Matt, waving a nonchalant hand as he spoke. "For your mum, right?"
There was a burning silence between them, an awkward tension and Matt was dying having to remain standing there, holding his ground. He had a desperate urge to flee away from the scene but judged that to be unwise in the company of an armed police officer. He heard the other man unfurl the bag and peek inside, his breath inflating the paper ever so slightly for those few seconds. Mahoney huffed and chuckled slowly, folding the bag up once again as his cursory examination was complete.
"Foggy told you, then." the sergeant said, just as Matt makes the decision to walk away. He nodded in response.
"He might've mentioned it before. Normally I wouldn't want to encourage anything but, um-"
"It's Murdock, right?"
"Yeah."
"Thanks, Murdock. I suppose I'll be seeing you around a lot."
"Yeah, probably."
Karen had been working at their firm for two weeks, three days, twelve hours and forty seven minutes when she entered the room they jokingly referred to as his office at eleven thirty p.m. He didn't know she had been carrying the bottle of rum until she set it down on his table, right in the middle of the papers he's working on. He pulled the speaker out of his right ear as she placed two glasses down beside the bottle, and folded his hands together as she poured two generous servings of the liquor. Without saying anything, she picked up one of them and carefully placed it in his right hand before grabbing her own. She moved to sit on the foldable chair that always stayed to the left of his and crossed a leg, glass resting in her lap.
Matt heard her take a cautious sip of alcohol, but couldn't bring himself to do the same, the very smell of it irritating the lining of his nose. He could sense her intentions, to get him drunk and loose-tongued, ready to spill all of his secrets. He refused to make it easy for her, stubborn as always.
She downed and refilled her glass three times before she summoned the courage to talk. Perhaps the drink hadn't been for him at all, his glass merely a courtesy.
"Matt," she said at last, her voice barely louder than a whisper. "Who is Nelson and why is his name on the door?"
He didn't answer her for a long time and when he did, his words were slurred and his eyes were leaking.
His first impressions of Franklin call-me-Foggy Nelson were…uncertain. His roommate was boisterous and overt and a polar opposite of his own reserved personality. In his head, the imaginary voice of Stick reprimanded him on his choice in company, insisting he move immediately to avoid being infected by the idiocy. Matt doesn't of course, and the thought of his mentor, mad and disapproving, was all that was needed to convince him that a friendship with Foggy was exactly what he needed.
There was something extremely refreshing about being around the other man who undeniably had a kind heart and a good moral compass (even if it did sometimes pretend to waver). It was never hard for Matt to love Foggy, the first true friend he ever had. He was the wingman who'd insist on visually vetting every girl who got near him on your behalf of course and insisted on asking for Matt's homework to skim through to get some ideas, Matt, I'm so desperate I'll even learn Braille. Foggy took him home for Christmases and spring breaks when he had nowhere else to go, to a father slapping him on the back and referring to him as son and a mother hugging him tightly. To a home.
"What happened?" asked Karen, sniffling and not even trying to disguise the fact that she was crying.
"One day, we were sitting in Josie's and he had our whole careers planned out on the back of a napkin. Nelson and Murdock; Attorneys at Law written on it in inky black pen that smudged against my fingers." He rubbed his index finger and thumb together. He could almost feel and smell the ink once again. "I made a promise then, you know? That we'd have our firm one day no matter how little money we had and whatever it cost. That was it, the dream of two stupid kids from Hell's Kitchen."
Karen rose from her chair, swaying slightly as she left her empty glass on the hard plastic. She moved until she stood behind him and wrapped her arms around his neck. Her body shook, and he knew his did too as he leant back and let her support him.
"He never graduated, Karen." he mumbled, blinking fast. His heart was beating out of his chest. "He, h-he was killed in a car accident, a taxi, a month before we were supposed to sit our last exams. W-we'd had a fight and he didn't come home that night. I thought he was just mad. But then, but then this girl we knew, one of his exes, she came running over to our room the next morning. She was crying so hard and I didn't know why. And she, she told me, she-"
He broke off, unable to continue. Karen whispered his name over and over, stroking his hair with two of her fingers and holding onto him tightly.
"I-I-I promised him, Karen."
"I know you did, Matt, I know."
Four days later, Karen walked him into the office, one hand on the arm that usually held his cane. Every time she touched him now, he thought of Foggy and it hurt. But then the part of him that would always be Foggy slapped him across the back of his head and told him he was an idiot for not enjoying the company of a beautiful woman. She giggled softly as they passed the handwritten sign and paused at the edge of his desk. He cocked his head in her direction, not having the words to ask her what she's doing.
She laughed again, louder this time and danced around him, standing up on the tip of her toes to adequately reach his face from behind. She covered his eyes and giggled again.
"Karen, what are you doing?" he asked finally, at a loss.
"I'm giving you a surprise."
He nodded at first, before freezing. "You know I can't see, right?"
She nodded herself and hmm'd happily, acting as awkward as ever. "I know. I'm just having a little fun."
He took his own turn to laugh in disbelief, wondering at just what his life had become, standing in his empty office of his newly established law firm and being teased by his secretary. She released his eyes and took his hands instead, holding onto them firmly for a moment before directing them to something cold and metallic on his desk.
"I didn't have much time, or money really." she said, watching him as his hands felt out raised and flat edges in the shape of letters. "But I thought that if we put it up outside on the wall, well, it would be a start."
She let out an oof in surprise when he caught her in a hug, squeezing tightly and ignoring her protests. He laughed again and she joined him, leaving them both bent at the hip with tears streaming from their eyes. He mumbled something about how amazing she is, about how his partner in crime would have loved her. She retorted, in between gasps, that he would of course, that every man could love her.
From the back corner of the room, Matt could hear a tut and a rather loud sigh.
"One day, Murdock, I'll figure out how you can always tell they're attractive."
A/N: Apologies, I don't know why I did it either.