The Weapon, ch 4/? Kept!verse
So much thanks to trishabooms for playing cheerleader for this fic.
Oh, and any concrit/commentary, whatever for this fic you might have, I'd love to hear it.
Karl. Matt. Kept!verse.
( The Job )
Oh, and any concrit/commentary, whatever for this fic you might have, I'd love to hear it.
Karl. Matt. Kept!verse.
( The Job )
I'm having a little issue with this diabolical uncle thing, only I'm incapable of figuring out/articulating what my problem is. So I'm going to asks some questions (which you don't need to answer) with the intent that maybe you'll be clever enough to parse through my confusion and determine where I've gone off track.
Okay, despite the icon (which looks older, IMO) you've described (and now blatantly told me) I'm dealing with a mid 20-ish individual. (Young enough to still be distracted by the theatrical presentation and his attraction to Karl, but disciplined enough to analyze both and know he ought to resist. Able to plot a slow, cautious revenge - committing his business and network to the cause - but still internally hesitant and second guessing himself.) It's all a fantastic and engaging portrait, except... why has he been left alive long enough to come this far?
The timeline as I understand it. At 15, parents are killed. Before he's 20 (whether she went bankrupt "within a year" of parents death, or Matt's emancipation - it was all before he had access to money) Anna dies a slave to his uncle. Villain now has all money, except for Matt's trust... which uncle appears to have been uninterested in (or unable to access) because post age-20 Matt used whatever inner strength he'd acquired in his lean late teens to bribe a copy of the records, have someone look them over, and spend the most recent of five years devising his revenge (or at least, scripting what he'd say to his assassin.)
So is it that uncle got what he wanted by the time of sister's death (something he hadn't acquired with parents' death) such that Matt was irrelevant to him? Personally that seems poor planning on his part, but hey - I don't (yet) know his motivation. Or is it that sister proved herself a threat post-parents' death, such that uncle had to destroy her BUT she managed to protecte Matt - either by sending him overseas (and somehow out of uncle's reach) or by convincing uncle (via interrogation?) that Matt was clueless and thus not a threat.
You don't need to explain why, but I'm left with a man who has taken little action in the past 8 years - other than presumably in my mind attempting to watch Matt and/or bribe people close to him. Given the speed with which Matt's acting now (quick purchase, the untraceable location they were just at) I *thought* Matt's main advantage was that he'd previously been slotted "not a threat" but knows that once uncle discovers him stateside and/or his recent significant cash flow (assuming uncle *could* uncover that information). But the near ending line "before he’s too strong to touch" implies there's something ELSE motivating Matt to move right now. Because seriously? A man who a decade ago assassinated his brother's family and acquired much of his empire can only have gotten stronger in the meantime.
I guess I just need to know (eventually, by the end of the story - not *now*) that there's a valid reason why uncle didn't remove this loose end. A man who enslaves and kills his niece doesn't seem the sort to just overlook his underage nephew.
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You're on the money with the time-line. Mat's mid-twenties now. Karl about a year younger than him.
because somehow I suspect Karl's backstory is going to be worse?
Go ahead and sympathize with Matt. What was done to Karl was insidious. What he knows of what was done to him is less traumatic...and again I'm struggling to get it into the narrative. Sort of like Jensen's past in the homeless!verse.
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