usingthelaw | ic inbox.

On the list of things Eliot Spencer hates, 'jails' rank surprisingly low, especially when compared some of the places he's been locked up. At least the NYPD isn't going to stick splinters under his nails or subject him to aural torture. No, the problem lies in the fact that he's stuck without the usual backup of his team, since he had to ditch his earbud when it became apparent he wasn't going to be able to make a getaway.

Parker is probably still yelling at him to just punch everybody. But there's just something about hitting a cop that rubs Eliot the wrong way. They're mostly good guys trying to do a good job, after all.

The last thing Nate had said before the forced radio silence was something about getting him a good lawyer. Yeah, well...there's a driver's license for one 'Dylan Blake', a bloody diver's knife, a stolen gun with half a dozen murders attached to it, and about $14 million in uncut diamonds sitting in evidence processing right now. All of it bearing fingerprints that Eliot can only pray Hardison has been able to link up to his alias before the big red "CLASSIFIED" shows up on the AFIS search.

Better be a really good lawyer.

[ continued from x ]

You remember that fudge sauce?

[ continued from x ]

Oh, you know, nothing. These lips are sealed.

There is blood all over my sheets and no discernible source.

[A turn here, a choice there, and it's Matt Murdock who bleeds out in Elektra's arms, her heartbeat and her plea in his ears: stay with me. Unseeing eyes slide shut, and Matt breathes in her scent, his city, one last time. He breathes out, and then—

(There's a clause in his will that leaves most of what he has to Foggy and Karen and Elektra. The rest goes in boxes, given away to the nuns at St. Agnes'. There's a clause in his will that states his wishes to be buried near his father. There's a letter with his will, in his familiar horrible handwriting, meant for Foggy: thank you, and I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. The letter is dated just two months ago, the last update to the will maybe a month ago—like Matt had known this would happen, someday.)

And then—

(Someone digs up his body. Someone wraps it in cotton—he'd hate that, if he'd known. Someone slips away from the cemetery, to a prepared safehouse. Someone steps into a restaurant and says to Alexandra we may not have the Black Sky, but we have her companion.)

And then—

The next breath he takes tastes like copper and rot. He throws the stone lid off for air, and falls out onto the floor on unsteady legs, like a newborn kitten. He isn't supposed to be here, he should be—he should be—

Home, says Alexandra, this is your home now, and the man you were before you came to us is immaterial. There's something formal in her voice, a hint of disappointment, like he isn't what she expected. Like he's not the one she wanted, but the one she's had to content herself with instead, the one she's settling for and watching for a hint of failure. But we brought you back for a purpose, and I trust you'll be able to fulfill that purpose.

Some things stay the same: a man of the Chaste dies in Cambodia. Jeri Hogarth says to one of her newest lawyers, I need you to keep an eye on Jessica Jones. An earthquake shakes Hell's Kitchen.

Some things are different: there's a case being hastily built against Midland Circle. Alexandra sends her hound out, to dismantle it, tells him the address of a man named Franklin Nelson, and that perhaps is where her control unravels, just enough that instead of lying in wait, alert and ready to pounce on one of the lawyers involved in the case, he stops in his tracks on the fire escape. Something shifts, in his head, and he eases the window open, steps inside. The scent is familiar: there's cold coffee on the kitchen counter, half-eaten lasagna poorly sealed in a Tupperware container, lingering traces of someone's department store cologne. He can hear music, downstairs, a tinny voice singing a muffled ballad.

He leaves the sword leaning against the couch, drifts into the bedroom. No one there, still, but when he checks the closet his fingers catch on worn fabric, the letters printed on it having faded over time and use. Someone's scent clings to it—an old, familiar one. Home, he thinks.

He returns to the couch, curls up with the hoodie in his hands. He shuts his eyes and drifts to sleep.]

Edited 2018-02-25 02:40 (UTC)

I just had a flashback of something we did in second year. Now I can't go back to sleep.

[A minute later:] Did we really pass out under a statue of a founding father after finals?

Calling all lawyers

@takesabeating

@takesabeating

idk they're happy again shush

told you i'd do it, the hell is a timeline

reasons why u don't leave an amnesiac zombie ninja in ur apartment