Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Orientation smelled like dry-erase fumes, ambition, and the inside of a brand-new backpack. Foggy Nelson elbowed the door with his hip, two iced coffees sweating down his fingers, and attempted a polite smile that came out like a grimace. The Contracts professor tested a microphone by breathing into it like Darth Vader. Half the room flinched. The other half took notes on it.

Front row, a guy with a white cane didn’t flinch at all.

Foggy clocked him the way you clock a fire alarm or a good escape route: automatically, like this will matter. Ironed shirt, tie straight, hair that probably behaved for most people. The cane tip traced the aisle with neat little arcs. When the mic squealed, the guy didn’t even twitch. No head tilt or tracking the speakers on the wall. Okay. Stoic.

Foggy wrangled one coffee onto the desk next to his and the other under his seat, promptly kicked it, and baptized his shoe in mocha. Beautiful. Syllabus week, and he’d already invented the world’s first caffeinated sock.

“Welcome to Contracts,” Darth Vader said, the mic catching only every third word. “Let’s… obligations…consideration… I call on—Mr. Murdock.”

The guy with the cane lifted his head. The room rustled. Foggy held his breath and—not to be dramatic—his soul.

Mr. Murdock turned toward the voice. The hall was a reverb nightmare; Foggy could barely tell where sound ended and ego began. Murdock’s chin tipped, interested. Then he answered.

Clean, precise, with If-then clarity even. He mapped out offer, acceptance, and the part where everyone lies to themselves about intent, and Foggy felt something unclench in his chest, like he could trust civilization again.

When the applause-that-wasn’t-applause (law student shuffling) died down, Foggy leaned over. “That was—uh—ridiculously good. Do you want the non-soggy coffee that I haven’t yet destroyed?”

Murdock turned his face toward him, close enough now that Foggy caught freckles and a tiny scar at the jaw. “Sure. Thanks,”  he said, smiling. It was a really great smile, and Foggy blushed, glad—was that bad? —that the hot guy beside him couldn’t see it. Murdock reached out, found the condensation ring Foggy’s disaster had made, and Foggy quickly slid the coffee over far enough to meet the now-wet fingers. 

“Thanks,” he said again. “I’m Matt. What’s your name?”

“Foggy,” Foggy said. “And before you ask, no, that’s not my real name, it’s just that Franklin hits wrong unless I’m wearing a bowtie, which would clash with my hoodie collection and, well, so I’m Foggy Nelson.”

The smile widened, like Matt was filing that somewhere important. He touched the iced cup, seemed to consider it, and then left it where it was. “Nice to meet you, Foggy.”

The mic boomed back to life; three people hissed. Matt didn’t. He faced forward, and Foggy realized he wasn’t taking notes and didn’t even have a notebook in front of him. Which, duh. Blind guys don’t need paper and pen

Foggy took notes loud enough for both of them.

After class, the hallway turned into a salmon run. Every upperclassman named Chad emerged from the walls to sell outlines from “a clerk who totally used these,” and Foggy, generous by both nature and mistake, tried to block one with his best fake smile.

“We’re good, thanks,” he said, angling half in front of Matt. “We believe in studying the old-fashioned way. With equal parts desperation and panic.”

Chad did not, in fact, go gently. “Buddy—first semester is where GPAs go to die. I can—”

Matt tilted his head and said, real pleasant, “I can’t read them.” It wasn’t a bid for sympathy; it was a weather report. And, yeah, Chad left to hunt easier prey. 

Foggy exhaled. “Be glad you’re not spending $200 bucks on a PDF of Comic Sans, color-coding, and despair.”

“Lucky me,” Matt said. There was laughter in it. He tapped his cane tip once against the tile. “Do you know where the dining hall is?”

“Yeah it’s—” Foggy started to point down the corridor before remembering that pointing was useless information. “To the left,” he corrected, then, “Sorry—uh—do you want an elbow or…I don’t know your—”

“Sure,” Matt said. “An elbow is always nice in a crowd. Just walk normally, but try to remember that we’re two-people-wide now. When you get to doorways.” 

“Okay.”

Matt’s hand found the back of Foggy’s arm, just above the elbow, with the ease of someone who’d done this a thousand times before. And, somehow, that made Foggy feel like he hadn’t screwed up yet, miraculously.

They navigated a tide of tote bags and ambition. In the cafeteria, sound ricocheted off cinderblocks and cutlery. The fluorescents hummed like they were holding back tears. Acting on instinct, Foggy placed Matt’s hand on the back of a chair and watched to make sure that worked. It did. Matt sat down and started folding up his cane. 

“Want me to go get coffee? The hot kind?”

 Matt just kinda smiled politely and didn’t answer.  Oookay. No coffee. Scrambling for what to say next, Foggy launched into a joke about the professor’s impression of a respirator. Matt nodded at the wrong time, and the rest of Foggy’s internal monologue tripped and face-planted.

Right. Okay. Foggy felt heat climb up his neck. Matt wasn’t vibing with him. That was fine. Totally survivable. He’d get over this sick little feeling in his gut. Not like he wasn’t used to rejection.

“Yeah, sorry,” he blurted. “I talk when I’m nervous. Which is…always, apparently. This place is loud and—”

A siren screamed.

Not a siren. The fire alarm. The lights hiccupped. Somewhere, a ballast stuttered, and the room’s hum pitched into a headache needle. People groaned; chairs shrieked; a security guard waved everyone toward the doors with the air of a man who’d rather be anywhere else.

Beside him, Matt went very still. Still like he’d been unplugged. His grip on his folded-up cane loosened so much that he dropped it. Foggy didn’t really track it because every camera inside him swung to Matt.

“Hey,” Foggy said, and the word felt wrong, like throwing a paper airplane into a hurricane. He tried again, softer, “Matt?”

Nothing. Not a flinch. Matt’s breathing had gone fast and shallow.

“I can’t—too much—Foggy?”

“Yeah.” Foggy stood, moved to block the flow, and then swallowed. He did the least-law-student thing he’d done all day: he reached out and pressed his palm flat to Matt’s sternum, hoping that was okay. 

“Here.” He guided Matt’s hand back to his arm. It was a signal and, somehow, also a promise. Matt rose, legs finding the floor one decision at a time. Foggy steered them outside.

“Sorry,” Matt said finally, when they were standing on the sidewalk in the shade of a big tree. Matt’s voice sounded raw. He’d stuck his cane into his back pocket and was using his free hand to pinch the bridge of his nose. “The alarm, the lights—it’s complicated.”

“That’s okay,” Foggy said, and meant it. He kept still and watched Matt closely. He was in pain now. That was clear. And really pale.  “How do I… help? Do you want quiet? A joke that’s a B-minus at best?”

“Just. Gimme a minute. Sorry,” Matt said again.

“Hey, you don’t need to apologize. Half the school was ready to riot over that alarm. You just got there faster than the rest of us.”

That pulled the faintest flicker of a smile out of Matt, but it faded quick. His hand slipped down, hovered like he was about to ask something and hated himself for it. “Would you…walk me to my dorm?”

“Of course,” Foggy said, fast. Relief hit him. It felt good to be asked, even though this was definitely more necessity than trust. 

“I’ve gotta go to the dorm office anyway. Housing screwed up my assignment, so I’m supposed to beg forgiveness or bribe somebody with cafeteria cookies. Opps. Forgot to get those. But, anyway, two birds, one awkward stone.”

Matt gave a small nod and rescued his grip on Foggy’s elbow again. Together they wove through the stream of students headed to the quad. By the time they got to the dorm building, Foggy was pretty sure he’d babbled through at least three entire topics—pizza quality, subway delays, the existential terror of student loans—and Matt had politely endured all of it.

At the desk, the RA on duty flipped through a folder with the enthusiasm of a DMV clerk. “Nelson? Right. You’re in 314 now.” He handed over a key.

“Cool,” Foggy said, turning to Matt. “What about you?”

Matt lifted his own key, already hooked to a plain metal ring. “Um. Well. I’m in 314.”

Foggy blinked. Then blinked again. “Wait. What?”

Matt’s mouth tugged into a quiet smile, and he shrugged. 

“Looks like we’re roommates now?”

For a beat, Foggy just stared. His brain short-circuited, fizzing with a bolt of pure, ridiculous elation. Roommates. With the hot guy. The brilliant, calm, unfairly good-smiling hot guy. He felt the laugh crawl up his throat before he could stop it—too loud, too Foggy, the kind of sound that made strangers scowl in coffee shops. But he couldn’t choke it down. It broke out of him anyway.

“You’re kidding. Uh-oh. Is this a cosmic joke?”

Matt shrugged again, “Could be worse.”

Foggy’s grin spread helplessly as he hitched his bag higher on his shoulder. His chest was fizzing like he’d just gotten away with something he wasn’t supposed to want. “Yeah. Could be Chad with the Comic Sans outlines.”

Matt’s smile deepened like he was in on it now. Almost conspiratorial.

Foggy’s stomach did a full-on backflip. He scrambled to sound casual, like this wasn’t already the highlight of his semester, maybe his whole year. 

“Alright then,” he said, forcing his voice steady, trying not to let all the stupid happiness show. “Guess you’re stuck with me, roomie.”

Inside, though, his pulse hammered out the truth: he was already in too deep. He wasn’t good enough, he never was, and he was going to fuck this up somehow, sooner rather than later. But for now—just for now—he got to walk beside Matt Murdock and pretend it might not all fall apart. 

Chapter Text

Foggy shoved the door open with his shoulder and flicked on the light. The room was bigger than he’d expected—two twin beds shoved to opposite walls, a pair of desks that had seen better decades, and the faint smell of radiator heat and lemon disinfectant.

“This is us,” he announced, trying for cheerful. His voice came out too loud in the small space. “Welcome to Casa Murdock-Nelson, where the carpet is older than we are and the window doesn’t shut all the way, so enjoy your authentic New York City draft.”

Matt stepped in behind him, cane tapping lightly over the threshold. He was so composed it made Foggy feel his own hot-mess-itude. Matt’s button-down was still crisp, and even though he wasn’t wearing a tie, he could have. He looked like the whole day hadn’t touched him. Foggy’s hoodie already had a mustard stain on it, and his sock was still damp from the coffee thing earlier.

He hovered a little, watching Matt’s hand trail along the edge of the desk before finding the chair. Did he need help? Was it polite to ask or was offering insulting? Foggy’s brain spun uselessly between do the right thing and don’t be weird about it until he realized he was just standing there with his backpack half off his shoulder like a total duffus.

“Uh, left bed or right bed? Totally your choice,” he blurted. “I mean, unless you have, like, a system. Or a feng shui preference, or—sorry, that sounded—ugh, forget it. Pick whichever you want.”

Matt’s mouth quirked, not quite a smile, more like he was humoring him. “Right’s fine.”

“Cool. Great. I’m a lefty anyway.” Foggy dumped his bag on the other mattress and immediately regretted how much dust poofed up.

For a while, they unpacked in parallel silence, Foggy hanging up hoodies, Matt setting out neat stacks of books and a braille slate. Foggy pretended not to stare, but every time Matt’s fingers brushed over a page, or he tilted his head like he was listening to something no one else could hear, Foggy’s stomach did a traitorous flip.

He shouldn’t be this gone already. He barely knew the guy. And yet here he was, thrilled and terrified by the thought of brushing teeth in the same sink. Roommates. Actual roommates. Yeah, he was going to fuck this up.

“Hey, Matt?” he said finally, fumbling with a desk lamp cord. “If I ever…say the wrong thing, just…tell me, okay? I don’t want to be that guy.”

Matt paused, cane folded neatly on his bedside table. For a beat, he just looked at Foggy—well, not looked, but turned toward him in a way that felt sharper than sight. Then he gave a small nod. “Alright.”

The overhead light flicked, buzzing faintly. Foggy exhaled like he’d been holding it in all day.

Matt nodded once, like the conversation was over, and that should’ve been the end of it. But Foggy’s mouth was already running, because silence always felt like a test he was destined to bomb.

“Good, ‘cause—full disclosure—I’m an only child. Which means my sharing skills are, uh, kind of theoretical. Like, I can share, I’m not an asshole, but it’s not like I grew up splitting cookies or trading G.I. Joes. I had my room, my stuff, my mom’s constant commentary on how messy it was, and that was it.”

Matt’s head tilted just slightly, the kind of micro-shift Foggy was already starting to recognize as him listening closely.

“And this—” Foggy gestured at the twin beds, the whole sad little box of a room—“this is actually my first time in dorm housing. Couldn’t swing it before, so I commuted. But I got this scholarship, and suddenly here I am, with…a roommate.” His voice cracked upward on the word like he couldn’t believe his luck, though he quickly tried to cover it. “So, uh, yeah. You’re kind of my guinea pig. Roommate trial run.”

Matt’s mouth curved again, soft at the edges. “I’ll try not to make it too difficult for you.”

“No, I mean—” Foggy waved his hands, nearly knocking over his lamp. “You’re probably way easier to live with than me. I snore. And sometimes I stress eat at three a.m. And also? I’ve never successfully folded a fitted sheet in my life. So you’ve been warned.”

That got a laugh out of Matt. Small, but real.

Foggy beamed, ridiculously pleased with himself.

Then Matt said, quiet but even: “I was an only child too. Different circumstances, but…yeah. I get it.”

It was said lightly, but there was something in the tone—like it brushed the edge of something heavier, something Matt wasn’t planning to unpack.

“Well,” he said, clearing his throat, “two only childs—children? —in one room. What could possibly go wrong?”

Matt’s smile tilted wry. “I guess we’re about to find out.”

They kept unpacking in the kind of silence that wasn’t really silent at all. Matt’s movements had a rhythm to them—shirts folded with neat edges, shoes aligned under the bed like soldiers in a row. Foggy tried not to stare, but his eyes kept sneaking over, cataloguing.

Out of the corner of his vision, he caught Matt’s hand moving almost automatically, fishing a small orange pill bottle out of a side pocket in his bag. He twisted the cap, shook two tablets into his palm, swallowed them dry. Imitrex. Wasn’t that a migraine med? The action was practiced, too practiced, like brushing teeth. Foggy filed it away without comment, though something in his chest constricted.

He busied himself tugging sweatshirts onto wire hangers while sneaking another look. Matt didn’t dump his stuff like Foggy did—he placed it. Toiletries squared off, books aligned, closet organized. The whole thing screamed ritual, like order was more than just preference.

Foggy glanced at his own side—t-shirts tumbling out of the half-zipped duffel, socks rolling loose in a pile like they’d staged a prison break—and felt his ears burn.

“Guess I should warn you,” he muttered, trying for light. “I come from the school of chaos theory. It’s not messy, it’s…organic.”

Matt’s face went blank as he slid another, slightly different-looking cane into a narrow slot between desk and wall. “As long as it stays on your side, we’ll be fine.”

That landed. He wasn’t scolding or even being critical. He was just being matter-of-fact, and Foggy heard the subtext loud and clear. Of course, Matt needed things consistent without any tossed shoes in the middle of the floor or surprise chairs dragged sideways. Foggy pictured him tripping over a stray backpack or barking his shin on something and immediately vowed to give himself a personality transplant. Like, now.

“Yeah,” Foggy said quickly. “Totally. I’ll, uh—make sure. Like, if I move something, I’ll give you a full State of the Union. There’s gonna be a weekly address, charts, handouts, the works.”

That earned him another laugh that sounded…warm, and God help him, Foggy soaked it up like sunlight.

Matt touched his desk again, fingertips brushing the tidy row of supplies, then he touched his watch that must have had Braille on it or whatever. Foggy saw his brow crease right before he took a deep breath and straightened his shoulders.

“I’ve got another class,” he said, already sliding his jacket off the back of the chair.

“Oh.” Foggy’s heart hiccupped. “Well, hey, I can walk with you. It’s no trouble. I was gonna—”

Matt’s head tipped his way, sharper than before. “If I need help, I’ll ask.”

The words stung. Foggy’s stomach dropped. He hadn’t meant to—had he just made Matt feel patronized? He opened his mouth, apology ready, but Matt sighed and added, softer, “Sorry. It’s just…been a day. The orientation, the alarm, moving in—”

“That’s okay,” Foggy said quickly, too quickly. He nodded like a bobblehead, clutching at something smooth to say. “Law school Day One is like running a marathon in combat boots. You’re good. I’ll, uh—I’ll stay out of your way.”

Matt gave a small, tired smile and slipped out the door, cane in hand.

The latch clicked, leaving Foggy alone with the lemon-scented radiator air and his pulse thudding in his ears. He dropped onto his bed, buried his face in his hands, and groaned. First day and he’d already made himself sound like a clingy, overeager idiot. Roommate trial run? Pathetic. 

His bag was open at the foot of the bed and, without thinking, Foggy unzipped the side pocket and found a crinkling package he’d shoved in there earlier—chocolate chip cookies, vending-machine variety.

He tore it open too fast, crumbs dusting his lap. He ate one, then another, chewing without tasting, more reflex than choice. The sweetness barely registered, but the act of doing something, filling up empty space to keep his chest from caving in.

Just when he finished eating the whole package–which took a total of about seventeen seconds—his cell phone rang. 

It was his mother. 

Chapter Text

Foggy sat on the edge of his bed, phone warm against his ear, staring at the pile of snack wrappers beside him. He hadn’t meant to eat them all. All the mini-chocolate chip cookies, an empty bag of pretzels, the crumpled remains of something that had definitely once been peanut butter cups. He couldn’t even remember opening them. Talking to his mom had done it—the steady drip of comments that always felt half like love and half like indictment.

“Yeah, Ma. Well, I was gonna label everything,” he said, his voice tight. “But my roommate’s blind, so unless he’s secretly a superhero, Post-Its aren’t gonna work.”

There was a beat of horrified silence before she burst out with: “They stuck you with a blind one? Franklin! How are you supposed to study with that? You’ll end up doing all his work for him, mark my words. Honestly, the school should’ve—”

“Ma,” Foggy cut in, pressing a palm against his temple. “I can already tell he’s brilliant, okay? Smarter than half the class already, without even taking notes. Definitely smarter than me.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she snapped. “You’re going to graduate with honors, and we both know it.” 

Foggy’s stomach twisted. His eyes flicked to the wrappers again, shame rising like tidewater. “No pressure.”

“You’ve worked too hard to be dragged down by someone else’s…limitations.”

“Everyone has limitations,” he said, closing his eyes as a wave of heartburn rose up his chest. That had been happening a lot lately, but he tried not to think that it was another stomach ulcer. 

Before his mother could pile on more, his phone buzzed with another call. Karen. Thank god. Salvation.

“Gotta go, Ma. I think it’s one of my professors calling.” He hung up without waiting for her goodbye, frantically jabbing the screen.

“You’re my hero.

“Foggy!” Karen’s voice burst through, warm and bright, cutting through the residue of his mom’s tone. “Tell me law school hasn’t chewed you up and spit you out yet.”

He laughed and heard the relief in the sound, “Not yet. But my mom almost did. You just saved me from a full-blown lecture about roommates and counting calories. She was thrilled to hear Columbia paired me with a blind guy,” he deadpanned. “Almost as thrilled as when I got braces in eighth grade and she told me I looked like a jack-o’-lantern someone carved wrong.”

Karen groaned. “Please tell me she didn’t.”

“Oh, she did. And that’s just one of the classics. Greatest Hits of Mary. Nelson. Available on SoundCloud and guaranteed to ruin your self-esteem.”

“That woman,” Karen said, exhaling hard. “You know, some people get baby books full of their milestones. You just got roasted.”

Foggy laughed despite himself. “Pretty much.”

They let the silence stretch a second, not uncomfortable. Karen was one of the few people he could sit quiet with without feeling like he had to audition for her approval.

“So,” she said more gently, “tell me about this roommate of yours. You said he’s blind?”

“Yeah.” Foggy scrubbed a hand through his hair, the wrappers on his bed crinkling. “Matt. White cane, the whole deal. He’s—uh—he’s handling it like it’s no big thing. Honestly, he’s so put together it’s a little scary.”

Karen’s voice softened, warm and certain. “Then you lucked out. Someone who knows how to take care of himself? That’s good for you.”

Foggy hesitated, then blurted: “And he’s…hot. Like, unfairly hot. Perfect jawline, ridiculous smile, probably got angels ironing his shirts. And meanwhile, I’m here with a neon-yellow stain on my hoodie and a sock that still smells like mocha.”

Karen laughed, bright and unhesitating. “Only you.”

He groaned, flopping back onto his mattress with his arm over his face. “Kill me now.”

Karen laughed, warm and knowing. “Sounds like someone’s got a little bit of a crush.”

“Please. I barely know him.” He paused. “But, yeah, maybe. He’s…God, Karen, I’m just waiting for him to realize I’m a mess with snack wrappers on my bed.”

“You’ve always said that about yourself,” she said softly. “And I’ve always told you you’re selling yourself short.”

“Yeah, well, he’s way out of my league, just like you were—are—whatever.”

“Hey, we only stopped dating because you told me you were into guys and crushed my heart.”

Foggy snorted, then grinned. 

“Sure. You were so crushed that you said, “That explains a lot”, gave me a hug, and we went to a baseball game and had a great time.”

“I think you should have a different kind of good time with Matt.”

 “You know me. I’ll just pine for him from afar. At least he can’t see me blushing. Perk of the situation. Probably good he can’t, uh…see other reactions either.”

Karen sputtered. “Nelson!”

“What?” he said, mock-innocent. “I’m just saying. Roommate situation could be way more awkward. At least if he hears suspicious noises, I can claim it’s just my Hulu subscription.”

Her laughter softened into something steadier. “You know, you don’t have to keep this all bottled up with just me. If you wanted to tell people—”

“Karen…” His voice dropped, thin at the edges. “You remember what happened last time I told a guy.”

“I do,” she said carefully. “But not everyone’s Brett Kelp. Not everyone’s cruel. Someday you’re going to tell someone, and it won’t end with bruises. It’ll end with some lucky guy kissing you back.”

He swallowed hard, throat tight. “Yeah, well. Someday feels a long way off.”

“Maybe,” she said, kind but insistent. “Or maybe it’s closer than you think.”

Foggy let out a laugh that was more defense than humor. “You’re always the optimist.”

“Someone’s gotta be. And for the record? If this Matt guy makes you smile when you talk about him the way I can hear you smiling right now, then crush away.”

“Yeah. I don’t think I’ll be able to stop myself,” he murmured, and pulled another empty wrapper out from under him. “But, with my luck, he’s even more Catholic than my mother and would tell me to go burn in hell if he knew about me.” 

*** 

Foggy lay on his back, staring at the ceiling while the fan clicked like an old metronome. The city noise outside was a lullaby that refused to work on him; every honk and siren just wound him tighter. Tomorrow was already breathing down his neck—syllabus readings, Socratic terror, the eternal dread of being called on, and freezing. Add to that the fact that he was sharing a room with someone objectively hotter than any guy had a right to be—currently wearing a black t-shirt that showed every muscle and boxer briefs, emphasis on brief—and, yeah, sleep wasn’t happening.

He turned onto his side, ready to count cracks in the plaster. That’s when he heard it.

Matt. Not awake—his breathing was wrong, shallow, sharp. His hand twitched against the sheets. Then he said something, half-mumbled, half-choked: “Stick. No. Stop—”

Foggy sat up fast, heart jerking. A nightmare. A bad one.

“Matt?” he whispered.

Nothing.

He fumbled for his lamp and snapped it on, flooding his side of the room with weak yellow light. The brightness didn’t even register. Matt’s face was twisted, body tense, like he was fighting something invisible.

“Matt, hey—wake up, man.” Foggy leaned forward, uncertain. Was it safe to shake him? He hovered, then froze when Matt suddenly moved.

In one violent surge, Matt flung himself out of bed. He landed crouched, bare feet slapping the floor, head jerking side to side like he was lost. His arm groped out into space.

“Hey—”

Foggy caught the outstretched hand, but that was a mistake. The grip turned into leverage, and in a blink, he was slammed onto the floor, breath knocked from his lungs. Matt’s weight pinned him, strength like iron.

“Shit!” Foggy wheezed, heart pounding. “Matt—it’s me! It’s Foggy!”

For a second, only Matt’s hard breathing filled the space. Then something shifted. The name seemed to get through—he blinked, confused—and suddenly he scrambled back like he’d touched a live wire.

“Foggy—I’m sorry,” Matt rasped, voice raw. His hands shook, fingers flicking like they’d gone numb. Then he rocked once, twice, breath catching. When he pressed his palms to either side of his head, it looked like he was warding off a hurricane.

Recognition spiked through Foggy. He’d seen this before. His childhood friend Blake, during a meltdown—the rocking, the frantic hands, the way the world got too loud, too much.

“Fuck. Okay. Hang on.”

Instinct moved before thought. Foggy got up, heart hammering, and came behind Matt on the floor.

“Easy. It’s me. Don’t kung fu me again, okay? I’m gonna try something.”

He crouched carefully, like approaching a spooked animal. “I’m about to do the Temple Grandin cattle chute thing. Please don’t kill me.”

With that, he wrapped his arms tight around Matt from behind. Not gentle—firm, containing. His chin hooked over Matt’s shoulder, his grip locking down.

Matt stiffened, breath flaring—but Foggy held on. “Whoa,” he said low, steady. “You’re safe. I’ve got you. Just breathe.”

Slowly, the fight drained out of Matt’s frame. His shuddering breaths eased. The clenched fists loosened. To Foggy’s shock, he sagged back against his chest, trembling but no longer trying to break free.

Foggy anchored them both in the quiet. He could feel Matt’s pulse hammering under his arm, still fast but finally slowing.

“Yeah,” Foggy murmured, half to himself, half to Matt. “This is working. But say the word and I’ll let go. You’re not trapped.”

Matt didn’t say anything. He just kept trembling, small sharp jolts against Foggy’s arms, like every nerve in him was still firing off alarms.

Foggy held on tighter. Not crushing—just steady, the way you’d hold a shaking ladder while someone climbed down. His own heart was galloping, but he forced his breath slow, even, hoping maybe Matt would catch the rhythm.

Minutes—or seconds, time had gone weird—passed before Foggy noticed his own arms starting to ache. He shifted, carefully, adjusting the lock of his grip so Matt stayed braced against him.

“Okay,” Foggy whispered, more to fill the air than anything. “So, not the first night roommate story I thought I’d get. I figured, worst-case scenario, we’d fight over fridge space or who left socks on the radiator. This…” His chin brushed Matt’s shoulder. “This is a little more intense.”

Matt shuddered once, then let out a sound that wasn’t quite a word but wasn’t nothing, either. It almost felt like permission.

So Foggy kept talking, quiet, rambling, the way he always did when silence got too sharp. “You’re good, you know. You’re safe. Nobody’s here but me, and I’m about as dangerous as lukewarm soup. I promise I’m not gonna let you tip over.”

Matt’s head dipped forward just slightly, the tension in his shoulders loosening a fraction.

Foggy let out a shaky breath. He’d done this before, as a kid. He knew the shape of it. But he hadn’t expected to need it again, least of all with the guy he’d just met. The guy who’d already managed to knock him flat—literally and otherwise. Rarely had he ever been trusted with someone’s raw, exposed self like this, and the truth was, it terrified him—because he was always the one who broke things. Said the wrong thing, pushed too far, made himself a joke before anyone else could. But here, right now, Matt was the one unraveling, and somehow Foggy was the one holding the thread.

He kept his arms firm until the trembling under his hands softened to an occasional twitch, until Matt’s breathing slowed into something closer to steady.

Finally, Foggy risked loosening his hold, just a little. “Better?” he asked, voice low.

Matt didn’t answer with words—just a small, exhausted nod.

Foggy let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding and stayed right there anyway, still anchoring him. Because if he let go too soon and Matt slipped back into whatever hell had dragged him under, Foggy knew he’d never forgive himself.

Matt shifted first. A slow, reluctant tug forward, like he was testing whether Foggy would let him go. Foggy loosened his arms, cautious, and Matt pulled himself upright, folding in on his knees. His hair stuck damp to his forehead.

“I shouldn’t—” His voice cracked, low and hoarse. He swallowed. “I shouldn’t be here. I’ll…I’ll talk to Housing tomorrow. Get reassigned.”

Foggy blinked, floored. “Wait—what? No. That’s—come on, man. You had a nightmare. I snore and laugh too loud and have really stinky shoes. You don’t see me volunteering to move out.”

Matt flinched, like the words hit wrong. “It wasn’t just a nightmare. I—” His hand flexed, helpless. “I hurt you.”

Foggy rubbed at his shoulder where the floor tile had bitten into him, but shook his head fast. “You didn’t hurt me. You startled me, sure. Little impromptu wrestling match. But you stopped. You heard me.”

Matt’s jaw worked, a muscle ticking there. “I might not always.”

Foggy exhaled slowly, trying not to press too hard. He wanted to ask—who was Stick? What had Matt seen, gone through, that left him fighting battles in his sleep? But every line of Matt’s body language told him the wrong question could shut the door, possibly for good.

So he kept it light. “I doubt they’ll let you file a transfer request after one night.”

That earned him a disbelieving frown.

“And I don’t want you to,” Foggy added quickly. “You’ve got your… ways… and I’ll adapt. You don’t freak me out, Matt. Okay, maybe for thirty seconds, but then—you calmed down. 

Matt’s breath caught, faint but audible. His hands were now resting lightly on his knees.

“No one’s ever—” He stopped, shook his head once, like the words were too heavy. “What you did. That helped.”

Something tightened in Foggy’s chest. He’d acted on instinct, reaching for the memory of Blake rocking, and somehow, impossibly, it had worked here too.

“I had a friend once who had sensory issues,” he said, softer. “I’m glad I knew how to help.”

They sat there in the dim lamplight, awkward and quiet, both pretending not to notice how much had just shifted. Foggy felt it anyway: the realization that Matt Murdock wasn’t nearly as put-together as he’d looked and how that only made Foggy want him to stay more, not less.

Foggy cleared his throat. “Uh…you want some water? I mean, it’s the only fix I’ve got, unless you’re craving stale Oreos.”

Matt shook his head quickly, already pushing up. He snagged the jeans draped over the chair and yanked them on with brisk efficiency, as if the extra layer could shield him from the rawness still etched across his face.

“I just…need some air,” he muttered, voice low and frayed. He grabbed his cane from the nightstand, fingers lingering on it like it grounded him. Then, softer: “But—Foggy—yeah. Uh….”

He cleared his throat. 

“Thank you.”

Before Foggy could respond, Matt slipped out, the faint tap of his cane trailing down the hall until it disappeared.

Foggy stayed on the floor a moment longer, the echo of Matt’s weight and heat lingering against him. Finally, he dragged himself back onto his bed and stared up at the ceiling again. Sleep was still nowhere in sight, but weirdly, in the middle of the unease and adrenaline, one thought kept circling: 

Matt Murdock had let him hold on. And it had worked.

Chapter Text

Foggy woke up to the sound of water sloshing through pipes, distant voices rumbling on the other side of the walls, and the muffled rush of city traffic outside moving constantly like ocean waves. Matt’s side of the room was arranged into a museum exhibit titled Order Restored. The only sign that last night had actually happened was the fact that Foggy had a bruise on his shoulder that had to be shaped like the tile pattern on the dorm floor.

Matt’s bed was empty but made; his cane was gone. Foggy sat up, rubbed at the bruise he wasn’t planning to mention, and killed ten minutes with the coffee pot, telling himself he wasn’t waiting. When the door finally opened, Matt stepped in like the poster child for composure, every trace of last night filed away. At some point, he’d put on shoes and changed shirts. 

“Hey. I made coffee,” Foggy blurted out. 

Matt raised one eyebrow in a “duh” gesture.

“Which, yeah, I guess you can smell. Here— “ He grabbed one of the steaming mugs, held it out, then froze halfway, because what, was Matt supposed to psychically know it was there? “Um—okay, dumb question, how do you usually…”

“Just touch it to my hand.  I’ll take it,” Matt said, walking forward without tapping the cane. It made a faint scrape on the floor.

“Okay,” Foggy did what he was told, watching Matt claim the mug. “Cool. Great. Next time I’ll skip the interpretive dance.”

Matt’s mouth tilted up in the ghost of a smile. Foggy’s ears burned. Matt fingered the rim of the mug before taking a cautious sip. 

“So…When’s your first class?”

“Nine. You?”

“Also nine.”

“Wanna go get breakfast? We could detour through the dining hall and grab some rubbery scrambled eggs.”

“Okay.” Matt said. 

“Really?”

“Yeah, really.”

“Awesome. Great. Yeah. Let’s go.”

In the hallway, students pinballed around them. When Matt’s hand landed on Foggy’s arm, just above the elbow—clean, practiced—Foggy got a warm feeling in his belly. Together they navigated the chaos and Foggy watched the way heads swiveled when they passed by. How was Matt so popular already? It was day two, and lots of people were trying to say hi to him. Thing was, he didn’t always realize they were doing it.  Sometimes Matt didn’t react until somebody stepped closer or touched him on the shoulder. This made sense—being blind meant not seeing the nod or the eye contact that belonged to the “hey”. But then, at the elevator, a girl with a messy bun said, “Matt!” from somewhere to their right, and Matt didn’t seem to hear her, so she tried again, getting closer, “Matt, hi—it’s Priya, from Torts.”

Only then did Matt turn toward her, smile landing perfectly. “Oh, hey Priya. What’s up?”

Foggy watched this all happen and couldn’t help but wonder what he was missing. Was he crazy, or was something just a little bit off?

When they spilled into the dining hall, it was morning-loud. Cutlery scraped against plates, someone’s laugh bounced off cinderblocks, the hum of the overhead lights throbbed like a headache. Foggy guided Matt’s hand to the back of a chair, and the move worked just like it had yesterday. Matt folded his cane, sat down, and arranged his satchel with an economy of motion that made Foggy feel like a walking junk drawer.

A guy wearing a Mets hat across the aisle looked at Matt, lifting a hand in greeting (not that that did him any good). “Hey, Murdock! You crushed it yesterday.”

Again, Matt didn’t react, so Foggy lifted a hand to acknowledge the guy. Two other conversations flared behind Foggy, a machine whirred somewhere, someone dragged a chair across the floor, Foggy could see Matt’s shoulders tensing up.

Foggy leaned in. “Too loud?”

“Yeah, it’s—” Matt produced a half-shrug/half-flinch. “There’s a lot of… input.”

“Yeah, it sounds like a thousand ducks in a blender,” Foggy said, and when Matt’s mouth quirked, he added, softer, “My friend Blake used to get scrambled by noise. We don’t have to stay here if you want to leave.”

Matt sobered at that. “Foggy, it’s not your job to make things work for me.”

“Yeah. No. I know that. I’m just trying to—”

“Be helpful. Right,” Matt said with an undertone of weariness that reminded Foggy of himself when he was talking to his mother. He’d long ago lost track of the times she’d told him that she was “only trying to help”.

“Sorry,” he murmured. “I’m shutting up now.”   

Matt sighed and ducked his head.

“No. I’m sorry. I should have said no to coming back here. It’s hard to make sense of this many overlapping voices. If people address me directly—if I know it’s me they’re talking to—then I do okay, but—” He rolled a shoulder. “This is…a mess.”

Foggy nodded like he already got it, because he did. 

“Yeah. That makes sense,” he said, deciding not to press for specifics. Sensory overload was something he recognized. He could slot that into a box he understood and call it good. “And you know what sounds marginally better than rubbery eggs? The beagle cart outside.”

That got him the barest hint of a smile, which Foggy counted as a win. Matt pushed back from the table with easy precision, shaking out his cane in one motion. Together they threaded their way out of the dining hall. The air in the hallway was cooler, less jagged, and Foggy let himself relax just a little. Bagels, fresh air, maybe a chance to reset.

But the universe wasn’t done.

On their way out, karma delivered a gift from hell in the form of Brett Kelp, who leaned against the doorframe like Punchable Faces: The Documentary had a casting call. His eyes slid to Matt’s cane, then dragged slowly up and down Foggy with a predator’s smirk.

“Faggy Nelson,” Brett said, loud enough for heads to turn. “Finally found a boyfriend, huh? Figures. Only way you’d get one is if he can’t see you’re busted.” 

Each word detonated in Foggy’s chest, and he was twenty again, standing outside the Blue Note, flying high, drumming up just enough courage to—get a split lip and three fractured ribs. Fear spiked, hot and immediate, chased by anger that tasted like blood.

Matt’s hand tightened on his arm, and then, to Foggy’s shock, he spoke, his voice even but edged like steel wrapped in velvet: “That’s interesting. Usually when someone works this hard to humiliate another guy, it’s because they’re terrified of…outing… themselves.”

The words hit, and Brett’s smug smile fell off his face, eyes flashing. 

“What the hell did you just say to me?”

“You want me to repeat it?” Matt asked, turning his face toward him with unnerving precision. “‘Cause I’d be happy to.”

Brett’s jaw flexed. The easy arrogance was gone, and what replaced it was raw, simmering anger. He shoved off the doorframe hard enough to rattle it and stalked away without another word.

The hallway felt too bright, too loud. Foggy’s pulse thundered, caught between wanting to shrink and wanting to throw his arms around Matt in pure, reckless gratitude.

Matt’s head had angled toward him with a kind of not-sighted attention that made Foggy feel seen anyway.

“You okay?” he asked, offering Foggy yet another lifeline.

Foggy barked out a laugh that came out wrong, too sharp. “Define ‘okay.’” His palms were damp; he rubbed them on his jeans like that might erase the memory of Brett’s voice. “Sorry, he brought you into this.”

“Don’t be sorry,” Matt said simply. “He should be.”

That steadiness—that certainty—rattled Foggy more than the insults had. He wasn’t used to people standing up for him. His throat worked. He wanted to say thank you, but the words stuck, snagged on everything he wasn’t saying. Brett wasn’t just some random jerk. There was history, bruises, betrayal. “Faggy” and “boyfriend” were darts tossed at a bullseye. 

Foggy shrugged, aiming for casual and missing by a mile. “Guess law school’s not exempt from assholes. Surprise.”

Matt’s brow furrowed subtly. “He went for you hard. I take it you two know each other?”

The air around them thickened. Foggy’s pulse spiked, panic-bright. Say no. Or say it was nothing. His mouth went dry. He managed: “Not really. Guys like him don’t need reasons to be assholes. They just need targets.”

He could feel Matt still watching—or whatever the equivalent was—and something in Foggy clenched. He wanted to blurt out, I’m not gay just to shove this whole thing back under the rug where it belonged. But he couldn’t make himself do it. Not to Matt. Not when his stomach was already tying itself in knots over every smile, every brush of contact.

So he jammed his hands deeper in his hoodie pocket and did what he always did: he made a joke. “Anyway, congrats. You’re officially my ‘Hallway Hero of the Year’. The trophy is a stale vending-machine Danish.”

Matt’s mouth quirked, accepting the out. “I’ll put it on the shelf next to my casebooks.”

Foggy chuckled, but his chest still felt raw, stretched between relief and fear. Brett had dragged him back toward the closet door he’d nailed shut years ago, but Matt—steady, unflinching Matt—had cracked something open he wasn’t ready to deal with.

Chapter Text

It wasn’t even 2 o’clock, and Matt was already fragged. His morning classes had gone fine—he’d answered when cold-called and followed all the socratic zigzags well enough. But “passing” was a full-time job, and whenever the classroom air rustled with shuffling papers—whenever more than one conversation overlapped—his concentration threatened to fray.

God, he was tired.  He’d spent days—weeks, really—cataloging everything from the stairwell echoes to the vibration of each elevator stop. A blind student had to know their environment better than anyone else. And a DeafBlind student had to memorize the whole fucking world. So much of Matt’s life was spent trying to assert order over chaos.  Right now, his side of the dorm room was perfect with his clothes hung in strict columns, casebooks aligned, assistive devices all squared up. 

A facade that said: See, I Belong Here, Right? 

And, yeah, it was a lie, and he knew it. Hadn’t it taken months of preparation just to get this far? He’d mapped his routes over and over, tracing and re-tracing raised-line diagrams. He’d spent whole afternoons walking the quad with his senses cranked up to the highest tolerable level. He’d met with the ADA office at least four times and endured their polite disbelief as he explained that, yes, he could keep up with the coursework as long as he was granted access to the resources he needed. Each step had taken so much work. That was the true tax of his sensory reality: endless trial and error, relentless effort, and never—ever—letting himself give up.

Trying to pass—keeping secrets—took the heaviest toll. Deafness, the full truth of it, wasn’t listed on any of his paperwork. If Columbia thought he couldn’t follow lectures at all, the scholarship from Father Lantom would evaporate in a heartbeat, as would this shot at a better life.

He hadn’t expected to be assigned a roommate. Hell, when the mix-up happened, his first instinct had been to march straight to Res Life and demand the single he’d been promised. The urge had spiked hard—panic-bright—because letting someone get close risked exposure. Big time. Secrets got spilled in close quarters. His deafness, the meltdowns, the nightmares—and, God, the shame that came with all of it…

But then Foggy had crash-landed into his life with a laugh that was way too big for hallowed halls. He filled silences with nervous chatter. He was a walking contradiction—awkward but steady, needy but generous. Smart, funny, all elbows and apologies…and underneath it all, he seemed to carry the one thing that Matt kept losing track of—

Hope. 

That was the word. Hope, like a stubborn flame that refused to get snuffed out.

Walking across the quad, Matt tightened his grip on the cane. He should have put in for the single. He’d meant to. Foggy deserved better. And he could have gotten seriously hurt. It shouldn’t matter that, for the first time in…how long? He couldn’t even remember when…he hadn’t crashed into the agony of sensory overload. That hold.  It had been unlike anything Matt had ever experienced and the relief was so sharp it felt dangerous. Was that all he wanted? A security blanket in the shape of a roommate with a big heart and no mute button? Or was it already more complicated than that?

The worst part was knowing that whatever goodness there was to be found in Foggy’s company—wouldn’t last. What happened when Foggy found out the full truth—that the blind guy wasn’t just blind, but deaf too, cobbling together the world from the bumps and knocks and random vibrations that touched the air. 

Stick had been right: he was a mutant freak that nobody could trust. 

And Foggy talked. 

A lot. 

Would he keep a secret this big? Or would he run the first chance he got, like everyone else did? Well… almost everyone else. 

Matt shook himself, rolling his shoulders, forcing the thoughts down. He couldn’t afford to let his thoughts wander. He tapped his cane from side to side. What he needed to do right now was make it to class, follow the route he’d practiced, and get through the next lecture. Simple.

Except nothing ever stayed simple.

The path across the quad was already crowded with students weaving in unpredictable lines around him, their heartbeats and footsteps colliding in jagged syncopation. He forced himself into the tide, tilting his head to try to catch the contour of the nearby buildings, keeping the raised-line map alive in his head. 

But halfway across, the whole picture suddenly broke apart.

Out here, there weren’t walls to bounce vibration back to him, no steady reverberation to mark distance. Air currents just dispersed, scattering voices and movement into chaos. One group laughed, sharp and too close; another buzzed as they rushed past like angry wasps against the breeze. Someone zipped by on a skateboard before jogging footsteps got cut off abruptly by a bicycle that shredded the rhythm Matt was clinging to.

He slowed, recalibrating, but the landmarks wouldn’t cohere. The sun was high and diffuse, the quad too wide, the edges dissolving into openness. His practiced mental map slipped, and with it, his orientation.

By the time he reached what should have been – Hall, the air felt wrong, emptier than expected. The currents had shifted, and so had his bearings. Matt stopped cold, pulse quickening, chest going tight. He’d been so sure of the turn—positive that he’d lined the sycamore tree up on one side, and the coffee cart on the other—and yet the vibrations underfoot didn’t feel right. The air currents were thinner here, the building mass off-kilter. His cane clicked against stone, but not the kind he’d memorized.

Damn it.

He felt the face of his watch. 2:02. Already late. He’d wasted ten precious minutes pacing down the wrong stretch of the quad, and now he was going to walk in after the lecture started, branded as the disabled guy who couldn’t even find the right classroom. His stomach knotted.

Stick was right. Too slow. Too weak. Too broken.

Matt rubbed his chest, trying to ground himself. Day two of law school, and he was already proving everyone right.

His hand drifted to his phone before he could talk himself out of it. He hated asking for help. Hated it. But he thumbed Father Lantom’s number anyway.

The line picked up with a familiar chuckle. “Matt. Don’t tell me you’ve already charmed your professors into throwing you out.”

Matt closed his eyes on a wave of despair.

“They should,” he hissed. “Because I’m fucking up.”

There was the faintest pause, then Lantom’s voice came as calm and warm as ever. “Hey. Slow down. Tell me what happened.”

“I went the wrong way. I’m late. Day two, and I can’t even get to class on time.” His hand pressed harder against his chest. Stick was right.

Without wu wei, you’re useless. Unless I push you to the fucking brink, you fail every time. I thought you had more in you, but I was wrong. 

“Whoa, Matty,”—Lantom’s voice softened, as steady as a hand on his shoulder—“listen to me. Being late to class is not proof of anything except that Columbia’s campus is a maze designed to keep First Years humble. You’re not failing. You’re learning.”

Matt’s throat tightened. “I should have had it down by now. I practiced. I—”

“And you will,” Lantom interrupted. “But you’re not a machine. You’re a man who’s fought for every inch to be where you are. One wrong turn doesn’t erase that.”

Matt swallowed hard, anger ebbing into exhaustion. “I hate this.”

“I know,” Lantom said gently. “But that’s why I’m here. To remind you that one stumble isn’t the whole story. You’ve already proved you belong, son. Showing up a little late doesn’t change that.”

Matt exhaled, shaky.

“Now,” Lantom said, “Just try to ease everything down. Take a second and tell me what you notice around you.”

Matt tilted his head. He got the resin off a tree to the northeast, and then the bitter curl of espresso, and he suddenly understood what had happened.

“I’m one building over,” he murmured.

“Ah, good, see? You just needed a slight course correction. This is not a catastrophe,” Lantom said with the hint of a smile in his voice. “Adjust, square your shoulders, and walk in there like you meant to be late.”

Matt let out a breath that was almost a laugh.

“You know how to take a punch, Matty,” Lantom said. “Call me after class. I want a full report of your brilliance. You’ve got this.”

“Yeah, okay, thanks, Father.”

“Anytime. You can call me any time. I mean that.”

“I know,” Matt said, fighting to keep his voice steady because Father Lanthom did mean it. He —and Sister Maggie—were the only two people in the whole entire world who did. 

*** 

In the stairwell in Lenfest, Matt smelled concrete dust, sweat, floor wax…and, God, so much more. He was dragging himself back toward his room, every muscle begging for rest, when the air shifted and someone—a man—stepped in front of him, blocking the landing. A crisp vibration began as he spoke:

“I knew I’d catch you alone eventually.” 

The scent profile—Bleu de Chanel over acetone and leather belt polish—told Matt who it was. What had Foggy called him the asshole? Brad? No Brett. Matt took a deep breath as a flood of adrenaline cascaded through his system, sharpening every contour of the stairwell. Vibrations bounced cleanly off the cinderblock walls, outlining his opponent’s stance—wide, aggressive, but not committed. That particular mix of stress hormones spelled out the words “untrained coward” across Matt’s mind. 

“You’ve got guts, mouthing off to me this morning,” Brett said. “Out there, I’ve gotta play nice with the blind guy. Here? Nobody can see what happens to you.”

Matt tilted his head, tracking the staccato hammer of Brett’s heart and the rasp of his breath. He waited, still as stone. He was more than ready when Brett lunged.

In one motion, Matt caught his wrist, twisted, and dropped his weight. The chin na hold locked tight, snapping Brett’s balance and forcing him to his knees with a choked cry. His pulse thrashed as Matt trapped his joint cleanly in a way that wouldn’t leave a single mark.

“Careful,” Matt said evenly. “Struggling will only make it hurt more.”

“Shit–fuck—let go of me!” Brett croaked, muscles straining against the inevitable.

“Not yet. First, tell me what you’ve got against Foggy Nelson.”

Brett writhed, heartbeat jackhammering. “He—he’s a fag—”

Matt increased the pressure, cutting off Brett’s words.

“What? Say that word again. Give me an excuse to break your wrist.”

Brett made another futile attempt to free himself. Matt felt the humidity of his sweat, the pulse of his frantic breathing. 

“Fuck you. H–he came onto me so I fucked him up just like I’m gonna—” Brett screamed or at least Matt was pretty sure he did. Just a little more pressure would make the bone snap. 

“Here’s what you’re going to do,” he growled, projecting his voice downward without shifting his stance. “You’re going to stay away from Foggy or there will be—consequences. Am I making myself clear?”

Brett jerked uselessly, still on his knees, trapped in the hold. Matt remained utterly implacable. 

“Say yes.”

“Motherfucker–god—shit–” Brett hissed, spittle flying.

“Try again, Brett.”

“Fine! Alright! Yes.”

“There you go. That’s the right answer.”

Matt released him fast, stepping back as Brett stumbled up, chest heaving. Expecting another attack, Matt ducked his head and waited, ready—but when no lunge came, he smiled a little, mouth curling up. Moving slowly, deliberately, he ticked his cane against the concrete once, and then again, continuing on his way. 

“Try not to trip on your way down,” he murmured, letting his shoulder bump Brett’s as he passed. “I’ve heard these old stairwells are dangerous places.”

***

It wasn’t until later, standing in front of the closed dorm door, fishing his key out of his pocket, that a slight wave of dizziness hit. Matt pressed a palm to the wood to steady himself and suppressed the urge to take a deep breath. Stick had blended mindfulness techniques with stress positions. Meditation was torture in the most literal sense. Filling his lungs now would trigger nausea. Already, in memory, he could feel his muscles begin to burn. His fingers went numb, and he dropped the key. Then the door gave way under his hand and, stumbling, he fell against something—someone—would have fallen except—

“I’m okay,” he rasped, trying to extract himself from Foggy’s grip. Three pulses bloomed over him that he knew were words, but they burst on contact, losing all form. Pulling back, he bumped into a wall—that wobbled. Because it was not a wall. 

“Christ. Give me a—” fucking minute. A fucking anchor. 

Matt’s next breath felt like acid. So did the one after that. Wincing, he grabbed his chest and got caught in a swell of panic. Why? It was Foggy in the room with him. Not Stick. No wooden staff was going to whip through the air. He’d done nothing to warrant punishment. Except—

“....hear me?”

“Yes,” he croaked. “I can hear you.”

A lie. A totally desperate lie. 

Foggy’s palm cupped the back of Matt’s neck, and he sank to his knees in instant submission, muscle memory taking over because it was so deeply ingrained. He expected the hand to keep pressing until his forehead touched the floor. Stick’s next words would be, Don’t move until I tell you to move.

Soon, the soles of his feet would begin to scream as the flogging began. Moist breath streamed against his ear, and Matt felt his whole body go tense as he imposed the discipline of stillness on himself. He clenched his muscles, made fists, crushed them even tighter. Tighter. Tighter. 

Then something cold pressed to the back of his neck, and he flinched wildly just as a gentle hand cupped his cheek. It was the gentleness that startled him as much as the cold…wet…a washcloth? 

He had to breathe through clenched teeth. He couldn’t really do it. Jesus, it hurt. And then a wide, flat palm came to his chest and began to rub without applying pressure. Cool fingers brushed his hair back from his forehead. 

“...gonna help you move.”

Matt shook his head. He couldn’t–wasn’t allowed to—but then strong hands pulled against his locked arms, and some kind of slow, inexorable pressure was tilting him sideways like a boulder inching its way down a hillside. A sweatshirt-wearing boulder. It was Foggy, not Stick, and he smelled like coffee and French fries and sun-warmed cotton.

“...having a flashback…safe to come back…just me…”

Matt tried to speak Foggy’s name and got pulled back against something soft and solid. Thank God he wasn’t on his knees anymore. That meant—so many things that he had no words for, and Matt felt a strange sense of freedom when a heavy arm came across his chest like a seatbelt, and the breath near his ear shaped the words, let go. 

He should have felt trapped, but he didn’t. This was something Stick never would have done. Not ever. 

“Bad day?” Foggy murmured. “And here I thought my pop quiz in Civil Procedure was rough.”

Matt let out a shaky breath that was almost a laugh, surprised that he could even come close. He should have felt ashamed, collapsing like this. Instead, all he felt was the terrifying relief of being held—

And the quiet terror that he wanted it to happen again.

Chapter Text

Foggy’s legs were still tingling from sitting too long on cold tile. He rose gingerly without taking his eyes off his roommate. Matt had finally gotten onto the bed, sitting hunched in on himself, arms tight across his chest it looked like he was trying to hold the whole world in. The room was quiet except for the faint hum of the overhead light and Matt’s still-uneven breathing.

Sitting on the bed across from Matt, Foggy rubbed his palms on his jeans, damp and useless. He’d handled it — kind of. Got Matt through…whatever that was. A flashback? A panic attack? Both? Whatever the diagnosis, Nelson Industries had officially launched a new division: Emergency Roommate Services. He should probably order business cards.

His chest still hurt because seeing Matt like that—locked up so tight, fists shaking—had rattled him worse than he wanted to admit.

He liked it way better when Matt was the guy who had it together and nailed every answer in Civ Pro. Who walked the quad with that steady cane-tap like he owned the place. Intimidating as hell. Untouchable.

Not the guy who’d just…folded. Right into Foggy’s arms, like the floor had vanished.

Foggy shifted, watching Matt rock forward just slightly, barely moving yet clearly trying to bleed his tension out in tiny, invisible doses. It reminded him too much of Blake back in high school, trying so damn hard to mask when he was overloaded. Pretending everything was fine when it obviously wasn’t. That was the kind of pretending that ate you alive.

Foggy’s instinct was to tell him — You don’t have to do that, you don’t have to pretend with me — but the words got stuck. So he sat with Matt and did his best to project an aura of quiet acceptance.

The truth was, he did accept all this. He didn’t mind it. Being the guy Matt leaned on felt weirdly…good. Was that terrible? What did it mean that he was okay with—all this?

He leaned back, let out a shaky laugh that wasn’t really funny, and muttered, “Roommate orientation did not cover this. Pretty sure we were just supposed to buy matching shower caddies. Guess I’ve launched a start-up: Sarcasm & Support, LLC. You’re my first client.”

Matt’s head shifted a fraction at the sound, and Foggy felt that pull in his chest again. God, he wished Matt would smile, just a little. Instead, he clamped his hands under his armpits and shifted forward—the picture of pent-up stress. 

It occurred to Foggy that the biggest favor he might do for Matt right now was to leave the room, give him space, so he could stim or rock or do whatever without an audience. He started to rise.

But then Matt’s head snapped up. His hand twitched out, not toward his cane, but vaguely in Foggy’s direction—hesitant, like he wasn’t even sure he wanted to make the gesture.

“Stay,” he rasped, voice low, worn thin.

Foggy froze halfway standing and something tight unwound in his chest. Okay. Okay, so he wasn’t just intruding. Matt wanted him here.

“Alright,” Foggy said, lowering himself back onto the bed with as much casualness as he could fake. “Lucky you, full package deal. Sarcasm & Support, LLC also offers the premium sit-here-and-shut-up option.”

For a long moment, the only sound was Matt’s breathing hitching in and out. Then he rocked forward again, slightly, shoulders curling.

“Hey,” Foggy said softly, leaning forward just enough so that (hopefully) Matt would know he had his full attention. “You don’t have to lock down on my account. Don’t mask. Whatever you need to do to get through this—move, rock, shake it off, whatever—it’s fine with me. Or if you’d rather I look the other way, I can do that, too. No judgment.”

Matt’s shoulders tightened at Foggy’s words, like he couldn’t quite believe them. His hands stayed clamped under his arms, elbows digging in, every inch of him broadcasting tension.

“People don’t usually…say that,” he muttered, wary, like the words might turn back on him.

Foggy shrugged, trying for light. “Yeah, well, people suck. Present company excluded.”

Matt tilted his head, like he was listening for the hidden snicker, the sharp correction he’d learned to expect. None came.

With a sound close to a scoff, he suddenly pushed to his feet. For a second, he swayed, then squared his stance like a fighter setting himself in the ring. His arms came loose from their stranglehold, shaking out with sharp, clipped motions. He rolled one shoulder, then the other, hard and deliberate, exhaling through his nose like he could purge the tension that way. His neck cracked when he tipped it side to side.

Foggy stayed put on the bed, doing nothing but watching.

Matt paced a short line across the tile, hands flexing open and closed. He exhaled again—forceful, audible, the kind of move that said stay in the fight, get your head back in the game.

Matt gave one more shoulder roll, slower this time, and let his arms drop loose at his sides. He didn’t look relaxed, but something had shifted. 

“Thanks,” Matt rasped, “for…what you did.”

“No big,” Foggy said softly. 

Matt nodded once, shoulders still taut but better. The silence stretched, teetering toward awkward and Foggy’s brain, ever the opportunist, seized on the first halfway-safe topic it could grab.

“Speaking of big…” he started, then winced. Terrible segue. “So, uh, in Civ Pro today? When Jacobs went on about personal jurisdiction? None of it stuck with me I think my brain bailed halfway through and went to buy hot dogs instead.”

That got him the faintest turn of Matt’s head.

“You didn’t get minimum contacts?” Matt asked, voice still rough but steadier.

“Sounds like a discount phone plan. ‘Sign up now and get free texting in Delaware.’”

Matt’s lips curved just a little. “I guess…if you want…I can walk you through it.”

Foggy blinked, then grinned. “Really?”

“Yeah. Really.” Matt’s jaw worked once, like he was bracing himself, then he added, quieter: “Least I could do. Plus, it helps me too. Focusing on the material.”

“Right. Okay. Cool.” 

Foggy scrubbed at the back of his neck, suddenly warm despite the draft from the window. “Great. Yeah. It’s a study date, then. I mean—not a date-date, just—” he shut his mouth before it got worse. “You know what I mean.”

Matt let the silence linger just long enough for Foggy to want to sink through the mattress, then he gave another of those small, enigmatic smiles. “Yeah. I know what you mean.”

“How should we do this? Should I get my book? Are we doing this now or—”

Matt didn’t seem to be listening anymore—at least not to Foggy’s voice. He ducked his head, rubbed one shoulder, and just kinda…zoned out for about half a minute. Foggy trailed off, watching him closely again. The moment passed, and Matt came back to himself. 

“Um. Sorry. What?” 

“Should I get my book?”

Matt turned all the way toward Foggy.

“Oh. Your book. Sure. Yeah. Get it.”

Still watching him, Foggy reached for the book, which required halfway standing up.  

“Don’t worry, I’ll keep my riveting doodles in the margins to a minimum. I know you don’t need a stick-figure flow chart of Pennoyer v. Neff.”

Matt huffed—an almost-laugh—and reached for his satchel at the foot of his bed. What he pulled out wasn’t a casebook at all but a slim black device, about the size of a paperback. He flipped a switch, and Foggy caught the faintest mechanical click as a line of little pins shifted across the surface.

“What’s that?” Foggy asked before his brain could tell his mouth to maybe, just maybe, shut up.

Matt angled it slightly. “This baby is a Brailliant BI 20X. It’s a braille notetaker, and it lets me keep up with lectures and pull up cases without lugging a ton of volumes around.”

“Sweet.”  Foggy leaned in a little like he was getting a look at an alien artifact. “So you can…what, read the cases on that thing?”

“Yep. It syncs with my laptop and case files. I can type notes or read off the braille display here.” His hands demonstrated with the kind of fluidity that only came from hours of practice. “Not flashy, but it works.”

“Not flashy? Dude, my notebook is literally a spiral with a half-detached cover. That thing looks like it could launch a satellite.”

That earned the tiniest curve of Matt’s mouth. “Pretty sure Columbia would revoke my scholarship if I tried.”

Without ceremony, Matt crossed the short gap between their beds and sat down right beside Foggy. Their knees bumped, and then Matt’s hand touched Foggy’s thigh—just a brush, quick, like he was just confirming exactly where Foggy was. An orientation move.

But Foggy felt it like a spark.
Oh. Oh, no.

He tried to glue his attention back to the book in his lap, to the lines of case law that had made zero sense an hour ago. His ears went hot. Play it cool, Nelson. It’s totally normal to be sitting shoulder-to-shoulder with the ridiculously hot, secretly complicated guy you just peeled off the tile floor. Totally normal.

Matt didn’t seem to notice the meltdown brewing two inches away from him. He angled toward Foggy, posture loose now, fingers moving across the braille display with a surety that made Foggy’s throat tighten for reasons that had nothing to do with Civ Pro. 

“So,” Matt said, voice low but steady, “minimum contacts. Think of it like…footprints. If a company leaves enough footprints in a state—employees, offices, ads—they’ve walked themselves into that state’s jurisdiction.”

“Okay, yeah,” Foggy said, suddenly really glad that Matt couldn’t see his face, which might as well have been a neon sign spelling out the word LUST. 

“Yeah. Footprints. Got it.” His voice cracked just slightly, which he covered with an overly casual cough. “Like Hansel and Gretel but with subpoenas.”

Matt let out a genuine laugh, a sound that made Foggy’s heart…and elsewhere….swell.

After a while, a rhythm asserted itself—Matt’s calm explanations, Foggy’s dumb metaphors, their shoulders brushing now and then like it was no big deal. And Foggy told himself he was just learning about minimum contacts…not daydreaming about maximum ones…or calculating how many shoulder-bumps counted as precedent…or secretly trying to invent a new doctrine called ‘proximity jurisdiction’…

Chapter Text

Matt folded the paper slowly so it wouldn’t tear, thumb smoothing waxy creases into a thin band. The cone paper still held the cool-cream smell of vanilla, and, touching it, he could feel, in memory, the ghost of Stick’s laugh, gruff but warm. He tied the strip into a loop with fingers that weren’t clumsy anymore and felt how even the knot was, how it pressed lightly against his own pulse when he slipped it on over his wrist to check the size. Perfect.

In the training room, the air smelled of mildew and old concrete, cold even in summer. Dust lived in the walls, powdered into the cracks. Every breath carried the sting of lime and the faint sweetness of paper rot from the boxes of cast-off hymnals shoved in the corner. The floor was hard, unyielding, no spring at all, just a slab that stung bare feet and made every fall count.

Stick was the only warmth in the space, if you could call him that—old leather, cedar oil, the faint wooden tang that clung to his staff. He was a fixed point Matt could always find, his outline stamped in the air. Matt had held the bracelet out and Stick’s fingers—dry, callused—had brushed his, taken the loop. For a breath, warmth had moved between their hands. The band had slid over Stick’s knuckles, settled at his wrist. It had sat there, light despite the promise it offered.

Matt’s chest opened. He felt safe. Chosen. Seen.

Then the air shifted, and Stick’s staff lifted. Matt felt the intent to spar hover in the room, so he braced himself. This was muscle memory after countless hours—years—of training with his Sifu. He hadn’t expected Stick to say much, sure, but there should have at least been a hair ruffle, a fake punch to his chin, and for something this, maybe a rumbled, Thanks, kid. 

Instead, the force of Stick’s strike caused a change in barometric pressure: a sudden collapse of spac,e and if Matt hadn’t moved—

He staggered back, corrected. Okay. This was going to be one of the hard training days—

The next blow had come too close to the throat to be a “hard day.” The staff would have crushed his trachea. Jesus. A third strike swept for his knees so he jumped to clear it.

This was wrong.

Matt’s focus leveled up so he could see the room with his skin. Stick’s footfalls were distinct, heel-to-ball, predatory and precise. The leather wrap of the staff creaked against his palm, and Matt’s body chose for him: he ran.

He rode the wall up, cat-leapt, and dropped behind Stick, snapping a kick into the tendons at the back of the knee. Stick shifted an inch, and the kick glanced off. Staff. Crack. Forearm. White heat. Matt rolled with it, hit the concrete in a tuck, and came up on his feet. He was good. He was good. Two years of drills lived in his muscles like loaded springs. His balance was a tightrope he could dance.

“Better run.” 

Matt felt these words from the drum of Stick’s chest, no sound, just impact along Matt’s sternum. The onslaught went feral. Teaching taps and pulled strikes were gone. Stick drove him through combinations too fast to name. The basement became a map he read with his shins and shoulders, each boundary answered with a ricochet: wall, beam, raw floor. He angled for space and Stick denied it; he pressed for a clinch, and Stick shucked him off with a wrist-turn that savaged his elbow.

Matt’s breath tore. The staff whistled as absence, a vacuum in the air, and, when it landed, he couldn’t blunt it. He redirected what he could, absorbed what he must. His body started taking inventory even as it failed: right rib hot, left forearm numb, knee swelling—

Something colder slid in: fear. It sharpened him further. He dropped under the arc of another strike and bolted.

Up the stairs, up–up–out the door—hallway—walls that made the whole space ring like a struck bell in his bones. The world fed him information in pulses: air pushing around a corner meant open stairwell; grit underfoot meant exterior service exit; the updraft at the top of the stairs meant the alley was warmer than the hall. He cleared the rail. Hands slapped, swung, released. Fire escape. Rust flakes whispered against his palms. Cat balance on the rail, hop, vault. Rooftop gravel ground underfoot; tar stank in the heat. He flew. The city turned into a diagram he could touch: parapet, ductwork, antenna, gap. He took the gaps.

He had never moved like this before. Hadn’t known he could. It was terrifying, exhilarating. Stick followed like gravity.

Matt felt him in every structure: the metal groaned different when Stick hit it, the roofline answered his landings with a heavier thud. Matt shot left across a narrow drop, caught a ledge with his fingertips, and swung—skin tearing—and rolled onto the next roof. The air shifted behind him. Stick didn’t swing. He stepped. He stepped through the gap like there wasn’t one, following relentlessly.

Matt’s adrenaline spiked. He could lose him in the market—croweded bodies, crossing currents—but the thought collapsed as soon as it formed. Stick would find him there, too. Stick would find him anywhere, because Stick had made the world legible, but he could use that same legibility to hunt. He was better, faster, stronger—

Matt angled into a stairwell because it was a tight space with better echoes. He was acting on instinct, seeking the kind of walls that shoved feedback into his bones. Bad call. Stick was on him. Matt pivoted and, in desperation, he attacked—forearm strike to diaphragm, heel to ankle, wrist turn to staff—he got the staff—

But Stick took it back with small, efficient cruelty that taught him more about leverage in one second than months of drills. The return strike pinned him across the collarbones; wood bit. The pressure climbed by degrees until panic exploded behind his sternum. He couldn’t get a full breath; he forced a hard exhale, and it scraped like glass.

He clawed and caught Stick’s sleeve. Stick moved, not even letting him have that inch. Matt’s hand closed around nothing. He was pinned. It was over. But he wouldn’t beg.

Stick’s weight settled, pressure not letting up. Matt felt Stick’s in-drawn breath and then absorbed the vibration of Stick’s voice as it traveled into Matt’s—words without sound, a message stamped directly into him: Your Sifu died today. Now the real training begins.

Matt’s heart ricocheted. He was shaking. He hated that he was shaking. 

In that moment, love tarnished to terror.

He didn’t move. Didn’t cry. He nailed himself into stillness because stillness meant survival in this moment. He memorized each point of contact where the staff pinned him, committed every pain to a ledger. He would not forget. 

When Stick finally backed off, Matt felt a soft brush against his cheek. It was the bracelet, balled up and dropped.

***

Matt woke with a hard flinch. The sheets rasped against his skin like sandpaper, every thread snagging. His T-shirt clung damp at the collar, seam raw against his neck. The pillow under his head had gone sour—synthetic fill baked flat and holding the ghost of too many wash cycles. The detergent clung too floral.

The room thrummed with movement. He felt it through the mattress first: a drawer grinding on its track, the shudder traveling up through the frame into his back. A scatter of impacts followed—pencils shifting in a cup, pages riffling—each one a percussion against the air. They hit like a series of jabs.

A burst of alcohol stung his nose, spreading fast and acrid—Foggy’s cologne. The molecules clung sharp in Matt’s sinuses until his stomach rolled.

Foggy’s voice threaded through the room, Matt felt the soft percussion of consonants brushing the air, the low thrum settling into his chest through the bedframe. This was only their third morning in the dorm, but Matt already knew that cadence: Foggy was talking to himself, moving around, rushing through the small rituals of morning.

Matt caught a scrap here and there—“…backpack…” “…late…” “…coffee, Nelson…”—isolated words surfacing and sinking before he could pin them down. The rest blurred, not sense but texture, the hum and ripple of a man pacing the tile, shirt rustling, drawers sliding, footsteps pushing air in brief currents.

The meaning slipped past him, but the presence didn’t. Foggy’s voice made the room less sharp. It was a tether in the air he didn’t have to hold onto, only feel.

Still, Matt couldn’t stand staying in bed any longer. The sheets rasped like sandpaper, every fiber abrading. He got up only to feel the fabric of his shirt crawling over his skin like ants. He clawed at the hem and dragged it up in one rough pull, ripping it over his head. The rush of cooler air hitting his chest was like a gasp of relief. He rolled his shoulders, shook his arms loose, and tried to breathe past the itch in his nerves.

And then he registered the stillness.

This was not the natural lull of a room. It was Foggy freezing up. The soft footfalls, the rustle of books, the soft mutter of his voice—all of it stopped, and the absence landed on Matt’s skin heavier than a shout.

Fuck. He’d forgotten about his scars. He didn’t need sight, right now, to know what Foggy was looking at. Most of the scars were fine and silvery—or so he’d been told—nearly invisible unless you were close. But a few, the blade-carved ones, stood out, ridged and discolored. They announced themselves whether Matt wanted them to or not.

The stillness pressed into him, heavy, thick. Matt stood rigid, shirt fisted in his hands. Heat crawled up his neck. 

“Matt—What—”

“It’s from training,” he said quickly, words clipped. “Martial arts. You take hits.”

The silence stretched. Then Foggy’s voice came again, soft and unsteady. “That’s not just training.”

Matt’s jaw worked, shoulders knotting tighter.

He took a step closer, careful but deliberate, and Matt felt it instantly—the shift in the air, the faint push of Foggy’s body heat. His skin prickled. He edged back half a pace, not much, but enough to keep the distance.

The air between them went taut, charged. Neither spoke. Foggy didn’t press forward, but he didn’t retreat either. He just stood there waiting.

Matt’s pulse drummed at the base of his throat.

“Somebody hurt—”

“Ancient history,” Matt said, cutting Foggy off. He shifted back another half-step, then another, angling toward the bathroom, shirt still twisted in his hands. Retreat. Just get out.

But the doorway to the bathroom hit him like a wall. The sharp bite of Foggy’s cologne pooled there, layered with the sweet-slick cling of shampoo and the artificial burn of all the VOCs still clouding the air. It was too much. Too chemical.

He pivoted back toward the dresser, trying to find another t-shirt. His fingers shook, fumbling at the drawer pulls, catching cloth, tugging fabric that slipped and tangled. He swore under his breath.

The air shifted again—Foggy moving closer.

“Don’t.” Matt’s voice snapped as he kept fumbling, dragging a T-shirt half out, crumpling it. “Just—leave.”

The word hit the room like a slap, but Foggy didn’t let it land.

“Yeah, sure,” he said quickly, deflecting the sting, “I’ve got class, so I’ll see you later in Civ. 

Foggy shifted toward the door, but stopped before he got there. 

“Matt, I’m leaving…but I’m not scared off.”

The words hung there for a beat before the latch clicked and his footsteps faded down the hall.

The stillness rushed back in, filling the room too fast. Matt didn’t believe him—but God, some reckless part of him wanted to.

Chapter Text

Foggy’s sneakers scuffed across the quad, his backpack cutting into one shoulder, and all he could think about was the way Matt had looked bare-chested in their room just minutes ago. For a second—a greedy second—his brain had gone straight to lust. Because Matt was built, no denying it. For a split second, Foggy’s brain short-circuited: broad shoulders, muscle lines sculpted like a Renaissance statue. But then—those scars. Long and thin like pale etchings, but some thicker, ridged, impossible to miss. His stomach had dropped so fast it made him dizzy. Those weren’t sparring marks. Foggy might not know much about martial arts, but he knew the difference between training and torture.

The image wouldn’t leave him: Matt stiff with embarrassment, fumbling for a shirt, those awful scars standing out against skin that had no business being marked up like that. And the way he’d recoiled—like Foggy’s presence was just as dangerous as whatever had carved him up in the first place.

Yeah. No. That was not okay.

Foggy shoved his hands in his pockets, head ducked against the September light. He kept replaying it all, running himself in circles. Was he helping? Or just setting himself up for another one-sided, train-wreck of a “friendship,” the kind that burned hot, left him bloody, and proved he was too easy to use?

He was so caught in the loop that it took him a while to notice the prickle at the back of his neck. That sense of being watched. He glanced over his shoulder. Of course, there was Brett Kelp trailing him with a pack of his equally smug, equally rich friends. They were keeping their distance, but the laughter carried—derisive—meant to reach him without being obviously about him. Intimidation 101.

Foggy’s stomach knotted up, and he tried to make his brain fast-forward to class, to anything else, but instead it slid—like it too often did—back to Brett.

Last spring. Nights in the city around NYU when he should have been studying for finals or working, doing anything else. But Brett had that smile, that easy, golden-boy charm that made you think you were lucky just to be standing in his orbit. Foggy had convinced himself it meant…what he wanted it to mean. That the brush of Brett’s hand, those sly jokes, the not-quite-accidental closeness—they all added up to more.

Except they didn’t, and they were never going to.

Brett ran hot and cold, pulled him in with a smile one day and iced him out the next. Gaslighting came baked in, little jabs that made Foggy doubt his own memory. And the power imbalance was always there—Brett with his prep-school polish, his trust-fund ease, making NYU feel like his own personal playground while Foggy scraped by on loans and extra shifts at the campus coffee shop.

It hadn’t really sunk in until after the alley next to the Blue Note, after the split lip and cracked ribs, when Foggy finally understood that the whole thing had been a performance. Brett’s, not his. A game Foggy was never supposed to win. And now here he was again, hustling across Columbia’s green, with Brett in tow like a shadow he couldn’t shake.

Foggy fished into his back pocket, fumbling for his phone. Screw it. He needed a voice that wasn’t laughing at him, wasn’t judging him, wasn’t carrying around a smug cologne cloud of old wounds.

He thumbed Karen’s number before he could talk himself out of it. She picked up on the second ring, voice bright with the clatter of the city in the background.

“Let me guess, you overslept again.”

“Nah. Present and accounted for. Just… needed a friend.” He ducked his head lower, angling away from Brett’s line of sight, trying to look like he was on an ordinary call and not a crisis-lifeline-in-progress.

Her tone shifted in a heartbeat, sharp and warm all at once. “Why? What happened?”

“Couple of things. My roommate is not okay. Like, capital-N, capital-O, capital-T. And then—” Foggy swallowed, throat tight. “I saw…something I wasn’t supposed to. Scars on his back. Old ones.”

Karen exhaled softly. “Like…from abuse?”

“Yeah. And I’m worried, confused, overwhelmed, pick your adjective. He doesn’t want me to ask questions, didn’t want me to see—because, duh.  But I can’t un-see it, y’know? And I keep replaying it in my head.”

“Yeah, because you’re Foggy-bear. You care. And of course, you’re already invested. You can’t help yourself. Sounds like he’s been through some real bad shit in his life.”

“Yeah.”

“That sucks. But he’s lucky to have you in his life. He probably doesn’t know that. But, if he’s smart, he’ll figure it out pretty quick.”

“I doubt that. I’m probably screwing things u,p and there’s yet another room transfer in my future.”

“Not true. Quit selling yourself short.”

Foggy glanced behind him. Shit. He was still being stalked.  

“You said there were a couple of things. What’s the other thing?”

“Oh, nothing, just an ambush predator named Brett Kelp.”

“Bastard. Where is he? What’s he doing?” she asked, zeroing in fast.

Foggy’s stomach clenched. “Just following me across campus with his—” he glanced back again, voice going bitter—“his board of trustees. I guess he’s getting a kick out of heckling me on my way to Contracts.”

Karen drew in a quick breath. “Okay, strategy time. Step one: don’t engage. Don’t give them a show. That’s what they want. Two: stick to open spaces with lots of witnesses. Three: stay on the phone with me.”

Despite himself, Foggy smiled. “What, you gonna take the train to ride to my rescue?”

“Bet your ass. I’ve been looking for an excuse to knee that fucker in the balls,” Karen said, then, softer: “You’re not what he said you were, Foggy. You never were. Don’t let him write your story.”

The words framed his heart like ballast, solid and grounding. He adjusted his backpack and picked up his pace, focusing on the path ahead instead of the laughter behind him.

“Thanks, K. You’re a lifesaver. I’m heading into the building now. Tons of people. I should be okay from here.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah. I’m good.” Foggy said, denying the fear that had been percolating inside him the whole time.

“Okay,” she said skeptically. “If you’re sure.”

“I am.”

“Alright then. Go learn about torts or whatever, future lawyer. Call me after.”

Foggy ended the call and slid the phone back in his pocket, jogging up concrete steps and joining the flow that led to his lecture hall. Karen had his back. So did plenty of other people. He wasn’t alone. And maybe, just maybe, he could figure out how to be the kind of friend Matt needed without losing himself in the process.

***

Matt’s skin still itched. He’d pulled on another T-shirt—smooth cotton, softer, less abrasive—but it didn’t erase what had already happened…what Foggy had seen. The moment was still palpable: Foggy freezing, the air going heavy and falling like a dropped stone.

Matt tightened his grip on his cane and forced himself to keep his stride steady. He had to function. That was job one. Keep moving, keep upright, get to class. The alternative was yet another spiral, yet another collapse.

The quad was a storm, bodies in motion, voices crashing into each other until the whole space turned into a churn of currents and sharp impacts. He rode the edges of it, tilting his head to map the obstructions—the tree trunks, the cement benches, the blur of feet—and made his way toward Jerome-Greene. He hated how people moved out of his path like blindness was a communicable disease, like brushing against him would spread it. They parted too quick, too wide, always with that shiver of pity dragging in their wake.

He was used to it. Didn’t mean he liked it.

Inside the lecture hall, he maneuvered toward the front row, brushing past the chair-desks that jammed the aisles and would snag his cane if he wasn’t careful. He needed to be in the front where there were no obstacles, just clean air and his recorder angled toward the professor’s lectern. He found a seat in the same general area as Monday, sat down, and started folding up his cane.

The chair beside him was open.

Empty.

His stomach gave a tight twist.

Part of him wanted Foggy to appear out of the chaos, drop into the seat with a huff of breath and nervous commentary about how Civ Pro was going to eat him alive. Matt wanted the anchor of his presence because, yeah, it had already become just that. He wanted proof that what had happened this morning hadn’t wrecked everything after all.

But another part of him—the raw, flayed part—prayed Foggy stayed away. Because if he didn’t sit down, Matt wouldn’t have to endure it: the awkward silence, the shifts, the unspoken reminders that Foggy had seen more than Matt meant to show.

Matt rubbed his palms on his thighs, trying to ground himself with rhythm. He kept his face angled forward, but every nerve stretched toward the doorway.

He sat forward, trying not to care whether the chair beside him stayed empty.

Then air shifted—heat edging close, fabric brushing as someone dropped into the seat. Foggy. Matt knew him instantly by the press of his presence against the margins of Matt’s awareness.

He’d braced for awkwardness, but that wasn’t what met him.

Foggy’s pulse ran fast, sharp, beating out of tempo with the easy rhythm Matt had catalogued in the past few days. His breath made shallow currents against the space between them. Under the reliable scent profile lay a sour thread, fresh, cutting through like acid.

Matt frowned.
Something had rattled him—recently. And if it was Brett Kelp who’d already been warned off once…

Unacceptable. 

“You okay?” he murmured.

Foggy startled just slightly.

“Sure. Yeah. I’m fine,” he said too quick, pulse not slowing down.

Matt angled his head, listening deeper.

“It’s nothing,” Foggy added after a beat, quieter. Then, almost like he couldn’t stop himself: “Just…some people don’t know how to take a hint.”

Matt sat still, but inside, something hot and dark coiled up his spine. He’d promised Father Lantom that he’d finally turn his back on all of Stick’s lessons. He was here to study, to get his law degree, to take a different path in life, but none of that changed the fact that…

It was time to go Hell’s Kitchen on Brett Kelp’s ass.

[The kids are away, so I had lots of writing time today!]

[Also, just a reminder that I'm not interested in paying for any art for this story. I went to school for Folklore, okay? ...I have NO money! LOL!]

Chapter Text

Jacobs announced that they’d be breaking into groups of four, and within seconds, the room dissolved into chaos. Desks screeched across tile, backpacks shuffled, and conversations collided in midair like bumper cars.

Foggy ended up huddled into a cluster with Matt, some kid in a Brooks Brothers blazer whose name he’d already forgotten, and a girl with acrylic nails who apparently thought words were supposed to be like shotgun pellets: loud, fast, and fired in every direction.

Matt angled toward the group, recorder still running in front of him, and, in that even way of his, he said:

 “Could you—when you speak—say your name first? I can’t always tell who’s talking unless I have that anchor.”

He said it like it wasn’t a big deal. Like he was asking them to pass the salt.

Blazer Boy looked mildly confused but nodded. Nail Girl, though, just steamrolled ahead. “Yeah, okay, but guys, seriously. I think Pennoyer is, like, the dumbest case ever, because hello? Territorial sovereignty? What is this, the 1800s? Anyway—”

She didn’t even finish before Blazer Boy started up layering over her with “Actually, I read a note in the Yale Law Journal—”

The cross-talk ensued and it was an instant soup of syllables. Foggy glanced sideways at Matt. His face stayed neutral, but Foggy could see it—the faint tightness at his mouth, the way his fingers pressed flat to his thighs. This was not going the way he needed it to go. 

He tried again: “One at a time, please.”

Nail Girl barreled through like she hadn’t heard him. With a sigh, Matt tilted his head slightly toward Blazer Boy, then toward Nail Girl. His jaw stayed taut.

Foggy jumped in fast, partly to rescue, partly to put a stop to Nail Girl’s filibuster.

“Foggy here,” he said, deliberately following Matt’s protocol. “And I’m voting in favor of Pennoyer being the dumbest case ever, though I’d like to reserve the right to amend when we hit International Shoe.”

That bought him a flicker of relief from Matt and maybe even the ghost of a smile—before the chaos resumed. 

Blazer Boy was mid-sentence when somebody in the back row cracked a joke–loudly–about “suing the Pope.” It landed wrong and a girl with a crucifix necklace snapped back with a voice sharp enough that the whole row stiffened. A chair screeched, voices spiked, and suddenly there was a little tempest breaking out halfway across the room. Heads turned. Even Nail Girl refrained from another monologue, craning for a better view.

Everyone reacted except Matt, who just said: “—so jurisdiction hinges on whether the state asserts power inside or outside its borders, right?”

Foggy frowned. It was as if the outburst across the room wasn’t even happening, Nail Girl and Blazer Boy weren’t twisted in their chairs to rubberneck, and half the class wasn’t trying to reenact reformation in real time five rows back. Weird. Why was Matt just plowing forward? On instinct, Foggy reached out and brushed his arm, saying, “Uh, Matt—hold up a sec.”

Matt turned toward him, confused, expression clearly broadcasting: What’d I miss?

Foggy lowered his voice to fill him in real quick, all the while wondering why he was narrating mostly non-visual stuff to the one guy in class who was supposed to have radar ears. “A couple rows back, somebody told a bad Pope joke and a girl got pissed, so now a mini-meltdown is happening, and the whole room’s watching.”

Matt ducked his head and gave the smallest nod, silent now, embarrassment rolling off of him.

Foggy leaned back, pretending to jot something down in his notes while sneaking another glance at Matt who was keeping steady, outwardly anyway, but Foggy had already started to spot the cracks: the tight grip on his thighs, the way he kept tilting toward whoever spoke like he needed the angle just right. And now this. Talking straight through a classroom dust-up like it hadn’t even happened.

It didn’t add up, and Foggy’s brain, traitor that it was, immediately went into lawyer-mode cross-examination. Was Matt zoning out? No—his questions were too sharp. Hyper-focused? Maybe. But no, that didn’t add up either. It was like he was tuned in…but on the wrong channel.

Foggy tapped his pen against his notebook, keeping his face casual while his stomach got tight. He wanted to ask what was really going on, but he already knew how that would go: Matt would stonewall, retreating behind that too-calm voice of his, that deliberate composure.

“Wanna hitch a ride?” he asked when class was finally over, and, without speaking, Matt took hold of Foggy’s guide arm. The now-familiar clatter of his cane unfolding could barely be heard over the cacophony of everyone stampeding toward the exits. 

“Last step,” Foggy murmured when they’d reached the top row. What did it mean that Matt nodded to acknowledge these close, but quiet, words?  He’d spoken in an undertone. If it wasn’t a hearing problem, then what? Foggy thought, again, of his friend Blake’s spectrum disorder. Was this some kind of Autism-type thing? 

“Up for lunch?” Foggy asked once they were free of the crowd.

Matt’s grip on his arm tightened, just a fraction too firm to be casual. 

“Not the cafeteria,” he said. His voice was normal, but the way his thumb pressed hard against Foggy’s sleeve gave away the strain.

“Okay.” Foggy nodded like that was totally expected. “Yeah, sure. We can skip the herd stampede. What about a truck? Tacos, falafel, dumplings—dealer’s choice. Then we’ll find a spot away from the human megaphones.”

Matt hesitated, but then gave a small nod. He didn’t let go. If anything, he clung a little tighter as Foggy steered them across the quad.

Foggy played it cool, but inside he was buzzing. He felt less like Matt's guide than his lifeguard. Matt was holding on like he had to, like he needed the anchor, and God help him, Foggy liked that more than he should. But the tension radiating off Matt was real enough to keep him steady. Whatever this was, it wasn’t easy for him.

Foggy steered them under the shade of an old elm, its roots buckling the ground like knuckles under a rug. 

“Okay, park yourself here. I’ll grab the food and be right back. Don’t let anyone steal my backpack.”

When he returned, bags warm and greasy in his hands, Matt had lowered himself to the base of the tree, one knee drawn up. The posture seemed relaxed…but it wasn’t.  He tilted his head toward Foggy’s approach before speaking.

“Are there a lot of people here?”

Foggy glanced around. The quad was still buzzing, but this patch was half-hidden by branches and an awkward jog in the path. “Nah. Pretty secluded. We’re good.”

Matt gave a small nod, then drew his knees up, crossing his arms tight across his stomach. He curled forward. For a moment, he stayed locked there, then a subtle motion started—his torso rocking, just a fraction forward and back, forward and back. Small enough that a passerby wouldn’t notice.

Foggy crouched down, setting the food between them, careful not to interrupt the rhythm Matt had found. He kept his tone soft. 

“Being in class—that’s a lot of masking, huh? A lot of concentration.”

Matt turned his head just slightly toward Foggy. 

“It’s…pretty loud,” he said finally. His voice was rough around the edges.

Foggy nodded, peeling the foil back on a burrito. “Yeah. Law school, brought to you by the fine folks at Ringling Brothers. I get it. I mean, I barely understand half of what people say when they’re all talking over each other, and I don’t have to work as hard as you do.”

Matt’s mouth pulled into something that could be called a smile if you squinted. He uncurled enough to put his hands on his knees, flexing his fingers once before forcing them still.

Foggy watched him close. He wanted to say, whatever it is, you can tell me. It’s okay. But the air between them was too taut.. Instead, he tapped a wrapped foil burrito against Matt’s hand.

“A got you the jumbo. Fuel up.”

Matt huffed out a quiet breath—maybe amusement, maybe just exhaustion—and he accepted the food.

“Thanks. I’ll pay you back.”

For a while, they ate in companionable silence under the elm, wrappers crinkling softly. Foggy kept sneaking glances. The way Matt sat, posture like he was braced for impact even here, in the shade, away from the chaos—it made Foggy’s chest ache. He wasn’t sure if Matt realized how obvious it was, or if he was just too tired to keep up the act.

Foggy thought of how much work it had taken for Blake to get through the average school day, the immense effort that went into looking “normal.” And Blake could see. 

“Hey,” Foggy said after a while, quiet enough to keep it between them. “For what it’s worth, don’t mind filling in the… gaps… if they happen. If you need me to.”

Matt stilled, burrito halfway to his mouth. Then, without answering, he took a slow bite and chewed deliberately, turning his gaze away.

“Not if…” he murmured, almost too quiet for Foggy to hear. “When.” 

Foggy’s throat tightened at the correction. 

“Okay,” he said carefully. “When. It’s no big.”

Matt didn’t move or say anything for a while. Then he reached into his pocket with his free hand and pulled out his phone.

He hesitated—just long enough for Foggy to register it—and then held it out across the space between them. “I just realized I don’t have your number in my contacts yet.”

It was said simply, casual even. But, to Foggy, it felt totally loaded, like Matt was offering much more than just a routine exchange between friends.

“Oh yeah.”

Foggy was unable to stop his slow, lopsided smile. “Sure thing. Tech support’s part of the package deal. Sarcasm, snacks, and speed-dial.”

He took the phone carefully, thumbs moving to add his number, and forced himself to play it cool. He kept up a steady stream of jokes about being good for emergency beer runs or 3 a.m. ramen noodle pick up, and, under his skin, something warm bloomed. Because Matt Murdock wasn’t the kind of guy who handed over trust–no matter how small- easily.

When Foggy passed the phone back, their fingers brushed, and he felt it like a current. He looked away quick, pretending to fuss with his own foil wrapper. No one had to know how grateful he felt or that he was way more drawn in than he had any right to be.

Chapter Text

The subway was a hive, a press of too much all at once. Heat rising from the tracks, metal grinding and screaming against itself, bodies shoved in around him like an undulating tide. Every breath was a sour cocktail of sweat, hot rubber, and engine oil. By the time the doors opened at 42nd, his lungs had already decided for him.

He’d bolted. Cane tapping too frantic to map, shoulder catching a pole, then the surge of bodies spat him out onto the platform. Up, up, the steep stairs, collar damp and choking at his throat.

Now, he was in an alley near the station, pressed back into the narrow alcove of a locked metal service door. The slab of it hummed cold through his shirt, anchor and cage at the same time. He was breathing too fast, ribs flaring hot against the constraint of his button-down. His hands shook as he fumbled for his phone, and the air was thick with the scent of metal, sour beer, old grease from a vent overhead, and the faint ozone prickle of the city wiring. His skin was one big nerve ending. God, it hurt. He couldn’t get small enough. Couldn’t be enough.

He thumbed a pre-programmed number, and when the vibration buzzed to life, he brought the phone not to his ear but to his chest, holding it flat to his sternum where he could feel the voice best when it came.

It came. A gentle pulse against his bones, low and steady.

“Matty?”

“I could do subways with Sam,” Matt rasped, words scraping out too tight, too fast. “When I had Sam, I could do it.”

A beat. Then the voice vibrated into him in the shape of calm. I know.

Matt’s throat clenched. His fingers tugged at his collar, pulling it away from skin that felt raw.

 “He—he made it so I wasn’t—like this—” His breath broke, scattered against the doorframe. “He’s been gone six months and I still reach for him.”

The phone thrummed against his chest again. Of course, you do.

Matt pressed his back harder into the door, ribs screaming with each inhale. Sam’s absence was a shape, as unbearably real as the door at his spine and the city pressing on the other side of the alley. He should be able to bend down right now and feel soft fur, a warm, steady heartbeat, the lick of a wet tongue. The sturdy weight of a harness handle should’ve been there under his palm, grounding him, guiding him. Instead, it was open air and nothingness.

“I can’t—” His words cracked apart. “I can’t keep—” He shut his mouth on the rest, jaw locked tight, because saying it would make it too real: I can’t keep doing this alone.

The voice at his chest came again, slow. 

Hey, Matt. Listen to me. I want you to put your hand over your heart and pretend it’s me. I’m with you. I’m right here, alright?

“Father—”

Let go of everything except my voice and the touch. Your hand is my hand, okay?

“Okay.”

Matt pressed his palm over his heart and dragged in one ragged breath, then another. The alley still reeked, his collar was still too tight, his skin still screamed, but under it all was the low vibration of a voice that told him he wasn’t lost.

I’ll come find you. We’ll walk the rest of the way together.

Time slid away and went strange. Matt couldn’t have said whether it was five minutes or thirty, only that the alley kept breathing its foul breath against him and the metal door at his back never warmed. His palm and the phone’s hum against his sternum were the only things keeping him in place. Father Lantom’s voice moved through bone and blood, pulling him through the long blur.

At last, a new vibration brushed the air: footsteps slowing at the mouth of the alley. Matt stiffened, pulse spiking, until a hand touched his arm. Gentle. Certain.

“Easy, son. Easy,” Lantom said—not from the phone this time but right there, voice moving through the air and through the hand on his sleeve.

Matt’s knees loosened. He caught himself on the doorframe, but it was Lantom who steadied him.

“Got you. Hey, if I’d known you wanted a private confessional, I’d have reserved you something better than a service door.”

Relief cracked through the pressure in Matt’s ches,t and he couldn’t help himself; he started shaking.

“Father—”

“Whoa. Okay. Take a minute.”

“Don’t tell me to breathe.”

“No. I won’t. Stay with me.”

Lantom grabbed Matt into an embrace, holding on tight. Tight.

“You’re with me. Not back there. Not back then.”

Matt’s body wanted to lock, to kneel like obedience would keep him safe, but the weight anchoring him now wasn’t force. It was warmth. Cloth pressed against his cheek, a steady chest pressed close to his, the faint smell of incense clinging to wool. There was staff here, no barked orders. Just presence.

His hands fisted anyway, caught in a tremor that wouldn’t quit. His ribs still flared like a cage around him, but the voice moving through the body in front of him—low, patient—was something he could hold.

“That’s it,” Lantom said softly, not telling him what to do, only naming what already was. “Right here, Matty. That’s all you have to be. Stay right here with me.”

Matt leaned into the press of shoulder to shoulder, trying to burn away the memory of Stick’s basement drills, the smell of lime dust and sweat ground into concrete. The alley smelled too similar, but at least, here, there was a different anchor.

“When will I get over this—” Matt started, then bit back a curse, chest jerking with the effort.

“There’s no timeline,” Lantom murmured. 

The words didn’t erase the ache, but stayed with him, forming a handhold that he clung to. Slowly, the tremor in his body eased, not gone, but dulled. He stayed tight, braced against the press of too much city, but he wasn’t drowning.

“You’re never alone,” Lantom said after a moment, gentle but certain. 

Matt exhaled sharp, shaky. He hated how raw his voice felt when he whispered, “It doesn’t feel like that.”

“Then we’ll make it feel right again,” Lantom answered. “Step by step. Starting with getting you out of this alley.”

Matt nodded, focusing on the hand braced at his elbow. 

“Subways are cruel masters,” Lantom added quietly. “If I had to ride them every day, I’d probably end up in an alley too.”

Matt’s breath stuttered, but the faintest sound escaped him—half a snort, half a sigh.

Lantom bent down. There was a plastic scrape, then his cane was handed to him. 

“Come on,” Lantom said, still steady at his side. “Let’s walk. Wednesday mass won’t start without us. And…” His hand squeezed once. “Patience is a virtue.”

***

The rectory was still warm with the smell of incense, though here it mingled with something gentler: black tea, cardamom, and the faint waxiness of old wood. Matt sat at the small table near the window, hands wrapped around a mug he couldn’t quite bring himself to drink. The steam clung too thick. Too floral. Still, it was something to hold.

Lantom lowered himself into the opposite chair, robes rustling. “So,” he said after a beat, in that way of his that wasn’t really a question so much as a hand extended. “How are things really going?”

Matt gave a sharp laugh. 

“Depends which category you want. Academics? I’m doing okay. So far. With the roommate, though…not so okay. I mean, Foggy’s—” He stopped, scrubbed his thumb along the mug’s rim. “He’s great. Too great. He’s already closer than I should let him be. Too easy to lean on. Too perceptive.”

Lantom didn’t respond right away. He just let silence settle. When he finally spoke, it was with that steady gravity that always made Matt feel seen. “You know, most people—if you came out and told them you’re deaf—would just simply not believe you.

“Because of how I process sound and speech.”

“Yes. It just seems too far-fetched. They’re not going to jump straight to ‘alien experiment escaped from Roswell.’” Lantom said, humor simmering in his voice. “They see you track a room, answer quickly, navigate well. The deafness is invisible. When you were a child, we thought it was a sensory processing disorder. That was the label that made the most sense. Especially after you passed your hearing tests with flying colors.”

“Yeah,” Matt said, voice low, rough. “And you went way above and beyond by sending me to school to learn PT. Protactile saved me. It worked. I thrived there. Made friends. Started to…move on.”

“From experiences you should have never been exposed to in the first place.”

Matt knew the shape of guilt too well not to feel it in Lanthom’s voice. He sat back in his chair.

 “What Stick did to me wasn’t your fault.”

“You say that,” Lantom answered quietly, “but it happened right under my nose. And I didn’t know.” His hand flexed once on the table, then stilled. “That’s on me.”

Matt shook his head. “Excuse my language, Father…but that’s bullshit.”

“We can agree to disagree there,” Lantom said with a sigh.

Needing something to do, Matt took a sip of his tea and then grimaced, instantly regretting it. 

“Tell me this. If Foggy finds out that you’re…let’s just say divergent...how bad would that really be?”

“I can think of some ways,” Matt said, covering the top of his mug with his hand just to feel the warmth, trying not to think about how his high school girlfriend Sophia D’Angelo had reacted when he’d finally told her the full truth. Tried to, anyway. That had not gone well. 

Matt turned the mug in his hands, thumb worrying the seam in the ceramic. He could have let the conversation end there, but something pressed at him.

“It’s not just that he—Foggy—is perceptive,” Matt said finally. “There’s also the fact that…I know he’s attracted to me.”

“Ah,” Lantom said, unsurprised.

“Yeah, ‘ah’,” Matt echoed, huffing out a quiet, humorless laugh. 

“He’s made his feelings clear, then?”

“Not with words, but…I don’t have to guess. When you can track body chemistry, you can stop wondering about stuff like that. The shifts in pulse, the sweat, the way the air around someone changes—he doesn’t have to say it. I feel it.”

“How does that make you feel?”

“It’s…complicated.” Matt shook his head.

“I hope you’re not saying that because you think I have a moral objection. Because I don’t.” Lantom said gently, like he was swatting away a gnat of doubt. “Attraction is human and this is not the ancient world. The Church might not always make room for nuance, but I do. You don’t have to defend yourself on that score.”

Matt nodded, then drew in a deep breath and decided to tell Lantom the truth,

“The truth is, I’m flattered. But he’s attracted to the wrapping paper. And, even though some of the truth has already leaked out, he has no idea how messed up I really am.”

Matt’s hand tightened on the mug, and his throat worked before he found words. “So…I don’t know what to do because he’s already closer than I should let anyone get. And I don’t know how to stop it.”

“You don’t have to pass with absolutely everybody at Columbia, Matty,” Lantom said gently. “No one’s asking you to be a superhero.”

“That’s what Stick wanted me to be.” The words burned coming out, heavier than he meant.

“Yes,” Lantom said, his voice coming out fierce, almost guttural. “And, God forgive me, but I wish I had the power to damn that man straight to Hell.”

Matt surprised himself by starting to smile, just a little. 

“Since when did you believe in eternal conscious torment?”
“Well, you know I’m a universalist who believes in ultimate reconciliation…but that doesn’t stop me from hoping that even men like Stick will be forced to face the harm they’ve done.”

Matt let the words sit, the weight of them settling against him. For the first time since the subway, the thought of standing up didn’t feel impossible. He could make it out of this chair and back to campus. And tomorrow—he might figure out what to do with Foggy.

Chapter Text

It was Friday night, and Matt was in trouble.

The floor thudded under his shoes with every bass line, walls vibrating with the rhythm until it felt like the whole house had a heartbeat that wasn’t his. Voices overlapped and crashed, impossible to separate, too many pulses, too many perfumes, sweat souring into alcohol. His cane was useless in the crush, bouncing off knees and chair legs and beer bottles left where they didn’t belong. Blind—in the real way—was one thing, but being functionally deaf was another. Both together—like this—meant he was floundering.

And the worst part? He knew exactly—but still couldn’t believe—how he’d gotten here.

It had started small with just a coffeehouse and the promise of a poetry reading he thought he could manage because it’d be structured. Contained. He’d planned to sit in the front and listen to Trevor from torts do his “righteous slam.” He’d come, be social, clap politely, and then bail.

But Jessica (Nail Girl from Civ Pro) had been there, and she’d had other ideas with her voice pitched loud enough to cut through steamers and grinders. She’d spotted him hovering near the back and swooped in with a cheerful, “Come sit with us, Matt!” Before he could angle a graceful exit, she’d tugged him into a seat.

When the poems dissolved into chatter, she’d steered him again, hand tugging on his elbow. Come on. Live a little. A few of us are just gonna grab some drinks and chill for a while. It’ll be fun. He’d let himself follow because it was easier than refusing. And because her constant commentary, even if grating, filled the gaps where he’d otherwise have been stranded in silence.

By the time he realized her “few friends” had multiplied, it was too late. He’d been folded into their orbit and swept along, block by block, until suddenly there was a house party swallowing him whole. Jessica’s voice was probably still nearby somewhere, but now it was just one more thread in the tapestry of chaos, no clearer than the rest.

Matt gripped his cane tighter and tried to orient. The house was a maze. There were too many bodies shifting around him, brushing past, laughing, yelling over the music. He angled toward what he thought might be a hallway, but the press of the crowd sealed it off before he got there.

His cane caught uselessly on chair legs, feet, and god knew what else. He tried to breathe through it, but the air was thick with spilled beer and weed smoke. Jessica’s voice—his only tether for most of the night—flared somewhere to his left, then vanished under a surge of drumbeats or maybe laughter. She was gone. Shit.

Matt dug into his pocket and flipped open his phone. The keypad was blessedly physical, familiar under his thumbs, though his hands shook so badly he almost dropped it. Muscle memory guided him: left, down, down, down, right. Guesswork. Please let this work.

He pressed the phone flat to his chest, not caring if anyone thought that was a weird thing to do, and waited for the vibration that meant connection, praying for the pulse of a familiar voice.

***

Foggy was halfway through underlining Palsgraf in his torts casebook when his phone buzzed across the desk. The tiny screen lit up with a single word: MATT.

He flipped it open, already frowning. “Hey, man—”

Music. A low thud of bass like the phone was pressed directly against a speaker. Jesus. Then, faint and ragged:

“Foggy. I’m lost.”

Foggy shot to his feet. “Matt? Where are you?”

The voice came suddenly clearer, like he’d moved the phone close to his mouth:

“Foggy. I hope it’s you. I can’t hear you. I can’t hear anything, and I don’t know where I am. There’re too many people here, too much—” The words broke off in a harsh breath. “Can you—fuck—can you please come get me?”

Foggy gripped the phone with both hands and pressed it tighter to his ear. “Yes. Of course, I’ll come get you. But where are—”

Matt talked right over him. “Listen. I know you’re talking, but I can’t get the words—” A swallow, audible even through the noise. “Just…please call Jessica. From Civ Pro. The one who was in our discussion group. She brought me here. She’ll know the address. I think. Please—”

The line crackled, then went muffled like the phone was pressed against fabric. The party roar swallowed everything else. Then the connection cut off.

“Matt? Shit.” Foggy hissed, snapping his own phone shut, pulse hammering.

Jessica from Civ Pro was not in his contacts. Hell, he didn’t even know her last name. But she was loud in class, always drawing attention. Somebody in the dorm had to have her number.

Foggy grabbed his wallet and hoodie and bolted into the hall, pounding on the nearest door. No answer. Next door—two bleary-eyed 1Ls blinked at him.

“Do either of you know Jessica from Civ Pro? Long nails, talks like she’s running for Congress?”

One of them laughed. “Yeah, she was at our section mixer. I’ve got her number.”

Foggy shoved his phone over, too wired for politeness. “Oh, thank God. I really need to ask her something. Punch it in. Please.”

Thirty seconds later, Foggy was dialing, pacing the corridor. The call connected over a wall of noise—voices, music, someone chanting “Keg–keg–keg!”

“Uh, hello?”

“Jessica, this is Foggy Nelson—Matt’s roommate. Don’t hang up.”

A beat of silence. “Oh. Right. Yeah?”

“Is he—Matt—at that party with you?”

“Yeah, somewhere. Why?”

“He called me. He’s not okay. I need the address of where you are.”

Her hesitation was like a hand on the brake. “It’s just a party, he’ll be fine—”

“Jessica.” Foggy didn’t raise his voice often, but now it came out firm, sharp. “He is not fine. I need the address.”

Finally, she rattled it off. Foggy was already moving, phone snapping shut, wallet in hand.

Matt had called him. A desperation move. And now he had one job: get there and find him.

***

Foggy was out of the dorm doors before his brain caught up with his body. The address Jessica had rattled off wasn’t anywhere near Columbia housing—it was down in the Village, closer to NYU territory. That meant one thing: subway.

He jogged the few blocks to 116th, phone clutched in his hand like it might buzz again with a lifeline, then pounded down the stairs into the station. The air was hot, metallic, rank with garbage and grease. He swiped his MetroCard, heart knocking against his ribs.

The downtown train screeched in, and he squeezed inside, clutching a pole while students, tourists, all pressed in around him. He tried to focus on the map above the doors—Times Square, transfer to the 1, shoot down to Christopher Street. Then hoof it the rest of the way.

The ride was brutal. Too long. He couldn’t stop hearing Matt’s voice, ragged in his ear: I can’t hear you. I can’t hear anything.

Foggy’s stomach twisted. He couldn’t imagine being both blind and deaf, even temporarily. Talk about the ninth circle of hell. 

By the time the train jolted into Christopher Street, Foggy was off the pole before the doors fully slid open. He pushed up to the street, lungs burning with the sprint, and followed the bass that rolled down the block like a wave.

It was coming from a three-story brownstone, windows open, lights blazing, the stoop crowded with smokers. Cups in hand, music spilling out so loud the whole building seemed to shake.

Foggy cut through the pack on the steps, ignoring the stares, and pushed into the crush of the house. The air was thick, humid, hazy. He had to squint just to see across the room. He shoved forward, craning, looking for a flash of dark glasses, the tap of a cane, anything.

Nothing.

Think, Nelson. He won’t be center stage. He’ll be hugging a wall, searching for air, or pinned somewhere he can’t get out.

Foggy’s pulse kicked even harder. He ducked his head and forced his way down a narrow hallway, calling: “Matt?” His voice cracked on it, half swallowed by the music.

All he could think was: Please be okay.

***

The house was alive in the worst way. Every surface pulsed—floorboards, drywall, even the air itself—as if the bass had teeth and was chewing through him one beat at a time. Too many bodies brushed past, sweat slick on his arm, elbows bumping, voices colliding. He couldn’t parse any of it. He got no words or direction.

He’d tried to edge toward what might’ve been a hallway, cane forward, but it caught uselessly on shoes, table legs, the lip of a rug. Someone kicked it accidentally—or maybe on purpose—and the jolt rattled up his arm until he lost his grip. The cane clattered to the floor and was gone, swallowed by the crowd.

He pressed his back against the wall, palms flat, as if he could anchor himself to the drywall. It vibrated anyway. Everything did. His skin was screaming, his lungs were tight, throat dry.

He dug into his pocket and flipped the phone again, thumb trembling across the keypad. It was useless now. No vibration meant connection. Nothing. Just dead air.

So he stayed put. The only strategy left: don’t move, don’t fall apart, wait.

His ribs hurt from trying to keep his breath even. Every muscle in his legs felt like a coiled spring. He couldn’t orient on any of it, couldn’t—

A brush at his sleeve.

He flinched, jerking away from it, but then it came again: steady, deliberate, not the random bump of a stranger. A hand settled on his forearm with weight and patience. Foggy?

Matt froze, every nerve locked on that single point of contact.

Then a hand pressed flat to his chest, grounding him. Next, the sweep of an arm around his waist was strong and encompassing.

This wasn’t a clumsy move. It wasn’t tentative. It was Foggy, wrapping around him like a shield.

Relief came sharp, overwhelming. Matt gripped Foggy’s shoulder and let himself be steered.

***

Foggy could barely hear himself think over the racket, but he didn’t need to. The second Matt’s arm came around his shoulders, he knew the only thing that mattered was getting him out.

“Got you,” he murmured more for himself than Matt, because Matt clearly couldn’t track. Tightening his grip, Foggy steered them both through the meat grinder of bodies. Every few feet, somebody jostled them—beer sloshed, laughter ricocheted—and Matt leaned harder, shoulders stiff, like each brush was a lick of flame burning him.

Foggy pushed forward, muttering a steady stream of excuse-me’s that no one heard. He used his bulk like a snowplow, edging gaps open, keeping Matt tucked close to his side. When the door finally came into view, Foggy aimed them straight for it.

Then—blessedly—they were out.

The cool air slapped him in the face. Compared to the oven inside, it was glorious. Night air, damp concrete, the faint bite of car exhaust—he’d never been so grateful for New York in his life.

Matt sagged against him like he might fold right there. He’d fisted Foggy’s hoodie, white-knuckling it.

“Okay. Okay, we’re out,” Foggy said, scanning the street. A few smokers were clustered farther down the block, but otherwise it was clear. He drew Matt away from the doorway and down the porch steps—that was tricky. They’d both nearly fallen. Once on the sidewalk, he’d guided Matt a few dozen paces away from the brownstone and got him over to the low stone stoop of the next building, where it was shadowed and a whole lot quieter.

Matt resisted sitting for half a second, then let himself sink down, elbows braced on his knees, head bowed.

Foggy crouched in front of him, one hand still anchored at his arm, the other hand palming the back of his neck.

“Okay. We’re outside. You’re safe.”

Matt’s head tilted toward him, jaw flexing. 

“I still can’t hear you,” he rasped.

It was quiet here. The music was distant. A breeze sifted through the leaves of a tree overhead. Were Matt’s ears ringing? Was this like post-rock concert tinnitus? What?” 

Something in Foggy’s chest twisted. He slid his grip down until his hand wrapped Matt’s wrist, squeezing just enough to say I’m here without words.

“That’s okay. I’m not going anywhere,” he murmured, low, even though, for whatever reason. Matt couldn’t process his words. It didn’t matter why. If Matt said he couldn’t hear him, then that was his truth. Period. Enough said.

Foggy let the silence stretch, just holding on while Matt’s shoulders shook, the worst of the party’s chaos bleeding off him in tremors.

“It’ll come back in a minute,” Matt said, speaking low, His elbows digging into his knees, head bowed.

Foggy’s throat went tight. Truth be told, he wanted to ask a hundred questions but couldn’t. Not yet.  

A pair of students staggered by on the sidewalk, laughing loudly, and Foggy shot them a glare sharp enough to cut glass. They veered off.

After a while, Matt straightened a fraction, dragging a hand back through his hair. He turned his face toward Foggy, eyes closed behind his sunglasses. “It’s getting better.”

“Good,” Foggy said softly, even if he wasn’t sure Matt could catch it. He gave Matt’s wrist another squeeze, not letting go. “But…what’s getting better exactly? I don’t understand what’s going on here.” 

Matt took a breath like he was fighting something down. Then, quietly, carefully, he said: “I’m deaf. For real. Profoundly deaf…but my other senses—touch, smell and taste—are…heightened above normal levels. So, I can process what people say by the way it feels. Shapes, pressure, cadence, texture, trajectory. It’s all tactile. I know you probably think I’m crazy…but I’m telling the truth.” 

Foggy’s first instinct was to argue—not because he didn’t believe Matt, but because the word crazy had no business here. Still, one look at Matt’s face, pale and tight, told him this wasn’t the time for a semantics debate.

Instead, he gave Matt another squeeze and just said, “Okay.”

Matt shook his head, baffled. “Okay?”

“Yeah. Okay. You’re deaf. And you’ve been dealing with it in ways I can’t even wrap my head around.” Foggy’s voice came out steady even though his stomach was doing a slow somersault. “You don’t sound crazy. You sound like somebody who’s been working a double shift just to survive.”

Matt’s fingers flexed, and his shoulders dropped a fraction. “You…believe me?” His throat worked.

“Yes.” Foggy sat back on his heels, still close enough to keep the grip between them. “Thank you for trusting me with the truth. I don’t take that lightly.”

Matt shook his head again. Foggy felt disbelief behind the gesture, and it knocked something loose in him. Because if Matt had been carrying this alone all this time—deaf, overloaded, translating the whole damn world by touch—then no wonder he’d looked like he was going under now.

For a long moment, neither of them moved. The Village hummed softly around them—traffic, laughter, music leaking from the brownstone—but in their little pocket of shadow, it was just two guys on a stoop, sitting close together.

Finally, Matt’s grip eased, though he didn’t let go. His voice was quieter now, pitched more natural, like his inner gauge was creeping back online. “It’s worse in crowds. Too much vibration. I can’t…separate things…and it can take a while before my ability to make sense of sound comes back.”

Foggy nodded. “Does this happen a lot?”

Matt didn’t answer right away, which was answer enough. He dragged a hand through his hair again and exhaled. “Let’s just say I like…controlled environments.”

Foggy let that settle. “Yeah, I get that. So let’s get back to the dorm. I’ll get us a taxi so we can go straight there.” 

Matt angled his head toward him, dark glasses catching the streetlight. “Foggy…Why are you doing this? We’ve known each other for less than a week.”

“So? I’m a softie. And we’re friends, right?”

Matt hesitated before moving his hand to the normal guide position in a way that seemed downright symbolic at this point. 

“Okay. Yeah. Right,” he murmured.  

They started down the block together, heading toward a busier intersection. They didn’t speak, just walked, and after a while, in the darkness between streetlamps, Foggy smiled. 

Chapter Text

The cab’s vinyl seat buzzed faintly under him, like a bee caught in a jar. He barely felt it. Touch had gone muffled, distant, like his skin was wrapped in gauze. Normally, that would’ve been a mercy after the overload of the house party, but instead it left him suffocating in his own body.

Smell filled the gap. Overfilled it. Cigarettes—three different kinds, stale and acrid. Onions and grease clung to fabric. Pine-scented chemical fog bled from a plastic tree somewhere nearby. Beer dried sour on his own shirt. Sweat, skin, and car exhaust sucked in through the vents. It all stacked and stacked until breathing felt like getting gassed by a bioweapon.

He dragged in a lungful anyway, then another. Not because it helped, but because if he stopped, the panic waiting under his ribs might get loose. He tried rocking forward and back in small repetitive movements—but it didn’t cut deep enough to reach the places that felt trapped. His body was a locked room.

Desperate, he turned his face toward Foggy, trying to orient. But the dulled touch made even Foggy’s solid warmth feel faint, like pressing against a wall through heavy fabric. He tried to hook onto it anyway, but his breath was stuttering, shallow. Too tight. Not enough air.

A shift came then. Foggy’s hand, moving decisively, snapped his seatbelt loose. Fingers worked open the top buttons of his shirt, giving his chest room. A window cracked, and cool night air gusted in, clearing some of the toxic shit away.

Relief sluiced through him, raw but temporary. His throat loosened enough for one shaky exhale.

He tilted toward Foggy, grasping for more of that relief, more escape from the locked-in panic. His mouth found Foggy’s almost before the thought formed. This wasn’t romance. It was medicine, a shock of distraction that cut through the weight and pressure.

When he broke off, he said hoarsely, “I’m sorry.” But his body leaned right back in, already wanting more.

Foggy’s body chemistry flared. Bright, unmistakable lust sliced through the haze, answering without words.

That was consent, so Matt leaned into it. They kissed again. And again. Each press of mouths a little steadier. The absence behind Matt’s eyes and ears didn’t matter, nor did his muffled skin. Not while Foggy’s body answered him with taste and scent, heat and weight. Chemical certainty.

Finally, he tried to force himself to pull back. He couldn’t really do it, but he did manage to make himself speak, words gusting out between kisses. “This is…so not romantic.” Another kiss, harder. “I’m being an asshole, but—” his hand tightened on Foggy’s sleeves, needing the anchor—“don’t stop.”

He felt Foggy’s response: the vibration of chest against chest, the pulse racing under his hand, the way Foggy leaned into him instead of away. Their mouths collided again, messy, yearning. Matt’s chest eased fraction by fraction, muscles unlocking with each glorious—wet, silky, hot—connection.

“God…,” he rasped, the words spilling into Foggy’s mouth before he kissed him again. “Thank you.”

Foggy’s pulse spiked, heat rolling through the air between them. Matt drank it all in, savoring the taste of desire, greedy. The panic was still there, waiting in his chest, but Foggy’s arms came around him and squeezed until he felt held in place.

Then, suddenly, the cab lurched to a halt and Foggy drew back without letting go completely. The driver said something, voice too fast, too low; Matt couldn’t catch the words. He lost the thread completely after that. Foggy answered, there was a shuffle, the shift of a door—and then he was being tugged out onto the street.

His cane was gone, lost somewhere back at the party, swallowed up by the crowd. He hated how naked it left him—hand gripping Foggy’s sleeve too hard, like a kid afraid of the dark. Deaf, blind, both in the absolute sense tonight. He couldn’t build any of his usual maps. There was just— absence. People assumed his world was dark and silent, and it was easier to label it that way for them when they asked. But the truth was different. Darkness implied that there was something there, filling the space. Silence, too, was conceived of as some kind of equivalency—the opposite of sound—but what he really lived with was absence. Try to see and hear out of your elbow…there’s simply nothing to receive, no baseline. Matt carved meaning only out of what remained.

Doors opened—he felt the pressure shift across his skin, the change from outside exhaust to disinfectant-laced air. The floor under his shoes became tile. But otherwise, he barely knew where they were. Foggy led him, steadily, with patience.

The elevator was…a problem. The lurch of momentum sent his stomach spinning, his balance faltered, and he swayed. One knee almost buckled, but then Foggy clamped two hands on his hips and held him upright. He tilted toward that warmth, breathing against it, fighting back shame.

Then their floor. Their hallway. Finally, with the turn of a key, he was home, and it was awkward and awful…and wonderful, because Foggy was staying with him, tugging him into the bathroom as if he knew what needed to happen next. Yes, hands were already tugging at his beer-soured shirt. Foggy got it. He understood that if he didn’t wash everything off and reset, he was going to disappear into himself.

Naked—how had that happened? —Matt staggered into the shower and let the water run hot, for the shock of it, over his skin. A curtain slid, and then Foggy was there.

“You don’t have to,” Matt rasped, meaning it. Needing to be clear, he found Foggy’s cheek with his palm. “You deserve better than this. Better than me.”

Foggy answered him with a kiss, and it wasn’t gentle.

And then the hot water steamed up around them. Even here, the scents burned—cheap shampoo, fragrance mixed into everything damn thing, the sharp mineral tang of water against old pipes. Too much. He pressed his face into Foggy’s skin, nuzzling his neck and, wrapping both arms around him, he just…held on. Foggy’s arousal spiked, close and undeniable, but he didn’t push, didn’t seek his own pleasure.

Gradually, the dullness across Matt’s skin began to lift. His fingertips brushing Foggy’s arm no longer felt muffled—they sparked. Touch was back. His nerves woke up, alive and hungry. And with it came a shift inside him: from survival to desire.

He leaned back just enough to kiss Foggy properly this time, by choice. He slowed down, attuned to the small catches in Foggy’s breath, the hitch of his chest, the quickening pulse under Matt’s hand. In the kiss and the touch, he discovered that he wanted to cause these things. He wanted Foggy Nelson.

Smiling, he tipped his forehead against Foggy’s and whispered against his mouth: 

“Let’s start over. You haven’t been getting my ‘A’ game.” He traced Foggy’s cheek with his thumb. “Not to brag, but I’m very…very… good with my hands.”

Foggy huffed a laugh, which melted into a groan when Matt began to prove that this was true.

Chapter Text

The cab smelled like a dumpster behind a White Castle—cigarettes, fried onions, mystery grease—but Foggy barely noticed. All his focus was on Matt, who looked like he was trying to personally win a gold medal in “most painful breathing ever.” His chest was hitching like every lungful of air had a cover charge.

“Hey, hey, I’ve got you,” Foggy murmured, and wow, that came out steadier than he felt. He fumbled Matt’s seatbelt off, then his own, and went after the buttons on Matt’s collar like he was defusing a bomb. Window down, night air rushing in, thank God—that helped a little.

And then Matt moved in and kissed him.

This was not a polite, “thanks for helping” kiss. No. This was a panic attack wearing the mask of a make-out. Desperate, raw, straight up, I need this or I’ll die. Foggy froze, brain short-circuiting, when Matt jerked back with a hoarse, “I’m sorry.”

No way. Fuck that. Kiss me again.

And apparently Matt was a mind reader now, because he leaned back in. Holy fuck. Foggy’s body betrayed him instantly. Pulse slamming, already hard, kissing back like it was his one shot at the big leagues. It was messy, uncoordinated, a little teeth, a lot of need—and Foggy’s only coherent thought was: Oh God, it’s really happening.

Every kiss drained some of the panic out of Matt, until he was rasping against Foggy’s mouth: “This is so not romantic. I’m being an asshole, but—don’t stop.”

No way in hell was Foggy stopping. Dude could set him on fire, and Foggy would still be like, Yes, chef, one more please.

Unfortunately, the driver broke in—loud, pissed, definitely not on the “Nelson/Murdock smooch train”—and Foggy had to surface. Oh shit. The cab had stopped. They were here. He flung some bills at the guy without looking and hauled Matt out by the arm.

The elevator ride was brutal. Matt swayed like a drunk sailor on leave, knees buckling, so Foggy got both hands on his hips and just held him upright, whispering the kind of soothing nonsense you’d use on a feral raccoon. By the time the key turned in their dorm door, Matt was basically a half-collapsed tent.

Foggy thought bed, but Matt staggered bathroom-ward instead, so: “Right. Okay. Shower.” He steered him without even hesitating.

And then—oh boy—Matt just let him strip him down. Every layer sticking damp to his skin, each one making Foggy’s pulse climb another notch. The air got so thick with need it might as well have been its own weather system. Jesus.

Matt stepped into the shower, water blasting down, and Foggy hovered in the doorway thinking: Leave. Be noble. 

Who was he kidding? Wild horses couldn’t—

Matt’s palm was on his cheek, his voice shredded but deliberate: “You don’t have to. You deserve better than this. Better than me.”

Foggy’s chest cracked in half. Bullshit, he thought, and kissed him with everything he had.

The steam wrapped them in heat, and Matt’s arms came around him like Foggy was the last sturdy thing on Earth. And maybe he was.

Little by little, Foggy felt the panic leaking out of him, replaced by something else—desire. Matt’s touch slowed, gentled. And when he kissed Foggy again, it wasn’t about survival. It was pure hunger.

“Let’s start over,” Matt said, speaking low against his mouth, a crooked smile slipping through. “You haven’t been getting my A-game. Not to brag, but I’m very…very…good with my hands.”

Foggy let out something between a laugh and a groan as Matt proved it wasn’t just talk.

***

Foggy was wrecked. Full-body, steamrolled, post-hurricane wrecked. He lay there on his back, sheets damp under him, every muscle humming like he’d just finished a marathon he hadn’t trained for. Correction: a marathon Matt Murdock had personally invented and then dragged him through.

They’d somehow migrated from the shower to the bed, though Foggy had no memory of the journey. Teleportation seemed like a reasonable explanation. He might actually be dead—flatlined in a dingy cab somewhere—and this was heaven.

Matt was sprawled on his back, still damp, skin hot as sin. And Jesus, look at him. Foggy couldn’t not. The planes of his chest, cut with lines of muscle that seemed both effortless and unfair. The curve of his shoulders, the lean taper of his waist. Gorgeous. Even though—those scars. Faint ridges, pale striations, like stories carved into him. Foggy’s chest burned with curiosity, but the thought of breaking the spell by asking…No way.

Instead, he let his hand wander, reverent, tracing the slick line between Matt’s pecs. He bent his head, instinct saying to murmur something stupid into Matt’s ear. Except—oh, right. He can’t hear.

The realization hit like a cold drink after too much whiskey. Trippy. Matt felt sound?

He wanted to blurt out a bunch of questions—what’s that like to have high-def skin? How do you tell the difference between words and, like, the TV? How much concentration does it take?—but he wasn’t about to throw a pop quiz in the afterglow. Not when Matt was stretched out beside him like a Michelangelo sketch with the ink still drying on the page.

Foggy leaned in, lips brushing Matt’s temple, and let a low murmur vibrate out of him. Not words that mattered—just breath, sound, something to lay against Matt’s skin like a caress.

Matt shifted, a lazy smile tugging at his mouth. Foggy felt it more than saw it, the curl of humor like heat under his fingertips.

Okay, so maybe it was kind of sexy. The whole “voice-as-touch” thing. No wonder overload hit him so hard, though. If everything was dialed up with no off switch…

Matt shifted suddenly, rolling with the kind of grace that made Foggy feel like a sack of potatoes in comparison. One second he was stretched out beside him, the next, he was on top—damp, heavy, all heat and pressure pinning Foggy down into the mattress. His mouth found Foggy’s again, slow and certain, nothing desperate this time. Claiming.

Foggy made a noise—half-groan, half-protest—but his hands were already sliding up Matt’s back, hooking there, because who the hell was he kidding?

When Matt finally broke the kiss, he didn’t move far. Just hovered close enough that Foggy could feel each word as breath against his lips.

“You know,” Matt murmured, voice low, “I knew. From the beginning. About you.”

Foggy blinked. “About me…what?”

“That you wanted me.” A smile ghosted across Matt’s mouth, faint but sharp. “You didn’t say it, but you didn’t have to. I could smell it, taste it, feel it in the way your body changed when I was near.”

Foggy’s stomach swooped. “Jesus, Matt—”

“I know it’s not fair,” Matt cut in, tone dipping serious. “Sometimes it feels like I’m prying into things I shouldn’t. But I can’t help it. It just comes. Body chemistry, adrenaline spikes, the rhythm of a pulse. I can tell when people are lying. When they’re afraid. When they’re angry. And when they’re…” His mouth curved again, wicked this time, “…aroused.”

Foggy’s face went hot. “So what—you’re telling me you can basically read me like a mood ring?”

Matt dipped his head, lips brushing Foggy’s jaw as he breathed, “Yeah. I can smell…lust.”

Maybe he had high-def skin because the words sank into Foggy’s skin like a brand. He shivered, caught between mortification and the kind of thrill that burned straight to his gut. Foggy let out a shaky laugh, though it came out closer to a groan. 

“You can smell lust. Christ, do you have any idea how messed up it is that I think that’s, like…the sexiest thing I’ve ever heard?”

Matt’s grin was sharp, dangerous, and God help him, Foggy felt his stomach flip. Not the bad way—the hot, dizzy way. Matt Murdock, sex god, sprawled naked and damp over him, pinning him like he was worth pinning. Like he was wanted, too.

Except—

Except Foggy’s brain couldn’t leave it there. Not without yanking him sideways.

Because sure, it made perfect sense why he wanted Matt. Look at him. Carved muscle, cut jawline, body like it was built in a lab for sin. Gorgeous even with the scars—hell, especially with the scars, because they meant survival.

But Foggy?

Foggy had one secret. One ugly, heavy secret that Matt’s heightened senses hadn’t picked up on—not yet. 

He didn’t know about the nights when Foggy locked himself in the bathroom door and smuggled in the family-sized Doritos bag, eating until he hated himself enough to lean over the toilet and undo his mistakes. The way water from the tap became a weapon—glass after glass to help him purge, rinsing out what he couldn’t stand to keep inside himself.

And then he’d stare in the mirror, stomach clenched and raw, cataloguing every flaw: the gut, the soft edges, the way nothing about him looked like Matt.

Why the hell would Matt want him in return?

The Pillsbury Dough Boy. That’s what he was. Soft where Matt was steel. Pathetic where Matt was…perfect.

Foggy swallowed hard, and Matt stilled. His head tipped, like he’d just caught a change in the wind. Slowly, deliberately, he touched the side of Foggy’s throat with light fingertips.

“Hey.” The word brushed out low, almost too soft to register as speech. “What just happened?”

Foggy froze. “What do you mean?”

“Your heart’s racing,” Matt said, tone stripped of heat now, all seriousness. “Have I scared you? I know my abilities are pretty…freakish, but—”

“No. It’s not that. Not at all. I think you’re totally amazing, and I don’t mean that in the stupid ‘you inspire me’ way. I just never thought I’d get so lucky and—“ Foggy tried for a laugh, but it cracked halfway out. “I guess you’ve got me kinda worked up—”

“No.” Matt’s hand didn’t move from his throat, steady as a stethoscope. His other palm flattened over Foggy’s sternum, holding him in place with terrifying gentleness. “I know what that feels like now. This is…something else.”

Foggy looked up at him—at the damp, dark hair, the closed eyes, the fierce concentration pulling at his brow—and he felt naked in a way that had nothing to do with not wearing clothes.

Matt’s thumb swept once against the hollow of his throat, grounding. “Talk to me, Foggy.”

“I’m—okay, I am scared that you’re not going to like what you end up finding out about me.”

Matt shook his head, thumb caressing Foggy’s throat. “I know what it’s like to have secrets. I won’t judge you.”

“Yeah, well.” Foggy tried for levity, but it came out thin. “You say that now. But you’ve got this whole superhero polygraph thing going on. And me?” He huffed, the air catching. “I’ve just got…flaws.”

Matt shifted closer, pinning him more fully, his chest warm and damp against Foggy’s. “You also have talents,” he murmured. “Many talents.” 

“I won’t push,” Matt added, his expression softening. He lowered his mouth until his lips brushed Foggy’s temple. The whisper of it hummed right against Foggy’s skin. “You don’t have to give me everything right now. Just…stay.”

Foggy breathed out a laugh. “You’re literally on top of me. Pretty sure I’m not going anywhere.”

Matt smiled faintly, but his hands stayed where it was—one on Foggy’s chest, one at his throat—like he was promising to keep him tethered, whether Foggy liked it or not.

And God help him, Foggy liked it. Terrified, twisted up, self-doubting as he was—he liked it more than he could say.

Chapter Text

Foggy’s hand stayed pressed to his chest, and through that steady warmth Matt could feel the questions hovering, unasked.

“Not many people know the full truth about me,” he said, turning his face toward Foggy until their foreheads almost brushed. “I mean, I’ve got friends from school who are DeafBlind, but they think I’m the same as them. We use PT to communicate.”

“PT?”

“Pro-tactile Sign Language,” Matt explained. “It’s like ASL, but it isn’t visual. The whole body becomes a canvas. It’s a lot more advanced than Annie Sullivan fingerspelling water into Helen Keller’s hand. It’s our own language.”

“Mm. I like the sound of that,” Foggy murmured, voice brushing Matt’s temple. He smiled as he spoke, and the vibration that carried through Matt’s skin was sensual in its own right.

Matt chuckled, lifting a hand to slide his fingers into Foggy’s hair. The chemistry in the air shifted, and Foggy’s body hummed with all kinds of unspoken invitations. Matt thought they would kiss again. But instead, Foggy murmured, soft but certain:

“Teach me your language. Please.”

The words shot straight to Matt’s heart, and he closed his eyes. Was this really happening? 

“You already know how to touch me,” he sai,d and Foggy groaned. This time, the kiss happened. Full, insistent, and Matt let himself sink into it—taste, heat, breath, all of it. For a moment, he wasn’t explaining or hiding or translating anything. He was being.

When they finally broke apart, Foggy’s forehead rested against his, breath uneven. “I’m serious, though,” he said, quieter now. “I don’t just want to half-ass this. Any of this. Teach me what you want, how you need me to be there for you. I’ll learn.”

Something tight in Matt’s chest loosened. This was so rare. Unprecedented really. Foggy wasn’t lying. Matt knew that with absolute certainty. At least in this moment, he did.  

“Alright,” Matt said, hesitating only for a beat. “Give me your hand.” 

Foggy did, lacing their fingers together. 

“You’ll have a talking position and a listening position. Let me show you how to listen.”

Matt curled Foggy’s middle and ring fingers down to make the classic “I love you” handshape in ASL, then he notched his own hand under Foggy’s index finger and pinky, molding them down.

“Now you’re latched on so that whatever I sign, you’ll feel it.”

“Okay, wow,” Foggy breathed almost reverently. “This is cool.”

Matt’s mouth curled up, then he tightened their joined hands just enough to steady the connection.

“I’ll just teach you how to fingerspell at first,” Matt said. “We can do the Miracle Worker thing at first until you learn more.” 

Matt demonstrated the alphabet along with the signs for “Yes” and “no”.

“There. Congratulations. You’re officially bilingual,” he said.

Foggy snorted. “Great, now I can fail in two languages at once.”

Matt’s chuckle lightened the mood. Their fingers didn’t let go.   

***

Foggy woke up Monday morning and, for a few astonished seconds, thought he’d dreamed the whole weekend.

Then he felt the exaggerated warmth of his extremely cramped bed, and his body hummed in a way that no amount of coffee could replicate because there was Matt. Not dream-Matt. Real Matt. Sprawled on his stomach, one arm tucked under the pillow, hair mussed, his bare shoulder looked way too good in the early light.

Foggy lay there staring like an idiot, brain looping one sentence over and over: Friday night actually happened. And Saturday. And Sunday.

Two days ago they’d been roommates with unresolved tension, and now, by Monday morning, they were—what? Friends with benefits? Fuck buddies? Lovers? Whatever the label, it felt like he’d been let in past some locked door that Matt never opened for anyone else. The kind of access that he never dreamed he’d get, and he wasn’t about to take for granted. Not ever. It was like winning the fucking lottery. Literally..

He replayed flashes of it, his chest glowing with something akin to awe. The two of them lost in ecstasy, touching in the dark, learning each other’s bodies, joining in the…um…deepest ways. But not just physically. They’d talked for hours, laughed, told embarrassing stories, bonded over shared bowls of microwaved ramen, and then wrestled over a pillow until Matt pinned him, both of them breathless and grinning until laughter turned to kissing. 

Now, even the smallest, most ordinary things suddenly seemed extraordinary. Foggy had never had a weekend like this one—transformative didn’t even cover it. He felt rewired, like someone had installed a brand-new operating system into him.

The thought of facing the real world seemed criminal. He wanted another day—or ten—sealed up in their little cocoon. No classes, no casebooks, no pretending to be normal.

With a groan, Matt stirred beside him, shifting closer, and Foggy’s whole body went hot. He reached out, almost without thinking, and smoothed a dark curl off Matt’s forehead.

Yeah, he thought, swallowing down the lump in his throat, why the hell didn’t life have a damn pause button? 

***

Monday hit like a brick. The Student Union was chaos.

Crowded tables. Espresso machines hissing like angry cats. Muzak bleeding overhead. Half the campus jammed inside, and Foggy was suddenly hyper-aware of every single obstacle between them and their study group.

He was also hyper-aware of Matt because now he knew what Matt was really up against.

“I’ve got your back,” he said when Matt’s hand tightened on his arm. “We can move to the library—or outside—anywhere quieter.”

Matt gave him a wry look. “I can tell you’re talking. No clue what you said.”

Right. It hit home—Matt stitching the world together blind and deaf, building a map from smell and vibration and God knew what else.

“Sorry,” Matt added. “I’m just not tuning in right now. Trying to…stay above it all.”

Foggy nodded reflexively, though Matt couldn’t see him. He got it, but still—if they stayed long, Matt was going to get a migraine just from the smell of a hundred armpits, never mind everything else.

Foggy’s gut twisted. He wanted to help—clear the whole Union like Moses parting the Red Sea—but the last thing Matt needed was a smothering co-pilot. So he kept steady, strategizing ways to get them out.

He spotted their study group at a corner table: Jessica (Nail Girl) holding court, Trevor leaning back like he was practicing his next slam poem, Blazer Boy looking like he’d rather be anywhere else. And a girl Foggy barely knew. Misty? Maybe.

She didn’t look good. Pale, wan, dazed. Foggy resisted the urge to ask if she was hungover or auditioning for Corpse Bride.

Instead, he guided Matt to a chair, then sat down himself. He opened his mouth to float the “relocate” idea when Misty jolted upright, chair scraping. She fumbled her notes into her bag, eyes darting toward the doors.

Foggy followed her gaze and saw—

Brett Kelp.

Golden-boy smile in place, tray in hand, sauntering like he owned the place.

And Misty’s whole body went rabbit-still, terror in her eyes. Then she bolted.

“What the hell?” Blazer Boy said.

“Bet she had to go pray to the porcelain gods,” Trevor added.

“Oh yeah, she’s totally horking,” Jessica chimed in.

Foggy said nothing. He couldn’t stop staring at Brett, wondering what the hell he’d done to put that look on Misty’s face.

Chapter Text

Fear had a taste—bitter and metallic—like old coins. The new girl had been more than just nervous or a little freaked out. No, she’d radiated terror as she jolted out of her chair. Matt felt it in the spike of her pulse and the change in air pressure as she bolted. He’d smelled it in the cloud of perfume and sweat trailing in her wake. 

“She was looking at Brett right before she left,” Foggy murmured, leaning in close, breath brushing his cheek, adding to the rhyme of his voice vibrations. 

Nodding, Matt’s jaw tightened. Of course, it was Brett. He was already trouble. And now he was looking like more than a petty tormentor. New Girl’s reaction had been too visceral to dismiss. Brett Kelp wasn’t just some arrogant bully making a nuisance of himself. He was a predator.

***

They didn’t stay in the Union. Thank God. Foggy angled them outside, guiding him around clustered tables and milling crowds until the heavy door shut behind them. The change was instant. Noise dulled, scent thinned, and the world settled back into something Matt could actually process.

Relief slid like a warm hand down his spine. He hadn’t realized just how tightly he’d been wound, and it felt good to relax knowing that Foggy would take care of both navigation and small talk. Those seemed like small things, but to Matt, they were huge.

He’d actually told Foggy about his deafness, and that, too, was huge since only two other people (if you didn’t count Stick, and Matt tried hard not to) who knew. He’d braced for recoil. For the disgust he’d spent years armoring himself against. But, instead, Foggy had simply…accepted, listened without judgment, asked the right kinds of questions, and learned the alphabet in record time.

And now, here, Matt could finally set the burden down, if only in one person’s presence. He hadn’t realized how hard it was to carry until he let it go. Passing as hearing with everyone else would still be exhausting, inevitable. But with Foggy, he might actually be able to let his guard down. At least a little. Sometimes. 

***

At the table, their knees brushed and, later, Foggy’s fingers slid into his under the table, and their fingers linked—a secret tether. It surprised Matt how easily he let himself hold on.

The others didn’t notice. Jessica launched into a monologue, Trevor layered his drawl over hers, and Josh (not just “Blazer Boy” apparently) tried to cite something from the Yale Law Journal. Again. As usual, this created a mess of overlapping voices.

Usually, it would’ve had to sort through the chaos, headache brewing and shoulders burning from the strain.  But Foggy started helping, surreptitiously, repeating key points, redirecting, keeping the flow as single-threaded as possible without making it obvious. Somehow, he managed to slow everyone’s pace down so that Matt could track cadence, feel the shape of the conversation, and for once it didn’t cost him everything. Relief was its own kind of ache, gratitude, too—and, God help him—underneath all of that came a flicker of unease.

He’d known Foggy for exactly one week. One week. Just seven days. And already, this—hand in hand, bodies brushing, Foggy translating chaos into clarity—felt like oxygen to him. It felt necessary.

Which was dangerous.

Foggy could wake up tomorrow and decide Columbia wasn’t worth it. He could transfer to Harvard, Yale, anywhere. Matt had spent his life relying on no one but Father Lantom and Sister Maggie as touchstones. The rest had been fierce independence and survival through self-reliance. He couldn’t let that change. Not now. Not for someone who might vanish at any minute and decide to follow the whims of fate.

Foggy’s knee nudged his again, deliberate, conspiratorial, and Matt drew in a deep, steadying breath because, really, he had no reason to think Foggy wouldn’t keep choosing to stay.

***

Civ Pro limped to a finish with all four of them, in their breakout group, pretending to understand Pennoyer and minimum contacts while really just circling the same three points until Jacobs called time. In almost an exact repeat of their study group earlier, Foggy did his best air-traffic-controller impression, fielding Jessica’s filibuster, Trevor’s tortured metaphors, and Josh’s Harvard Review flexes into something Matt could follow without giving away the game. By the time the group dissolved, he felt like he’d run a small law-school daycare, but at least Matt looked less carved-from-stone than when they’d walked in.

Still, Foggy didn’t miss the fatigue in the set of his shoulders or the way his cane tapped just a little uneven as they headed out. Matt was running on fumes and trying not to show it, doing the classic iron spine, stubborn pride, ‘nothing to see here, folks’ thing.

“Food truck again?” Foggy suggested as they cut across the quad. “Dumplings? Tacos? Falafel—anything greasy enough to revive the dead?”

Matt gave a small nod, and they set off across the quad, but, halfway there, the sky cracked open, drenching them in a full-on September downpour. It was cold, fast, and hammering them in seconds.

“Crap—” Foggy yelped as they broke into a run, backpacks thumping, sneakers slipping on slick stone, Matt trusting Foggy to steer. They barreled through sheets of rain, soaked through, laughing in disbelief. And, by the time they stumbled into their dorm, dripping and panting, it didn’t feel like defeat. It felt exhilarating, like they’d outrun something bigger than the weather.

Joy buzzed in Foggy’s chest—wild, clumsy, wonderful—and then, as soon as their door snapped shut, Matt turned toward him, grinning in a way that stole Foggy’s breath.

That was all it took.

Backpacks hit the floor with two heavy thuds. Matt’s cane clattered after them. And then they were on each other, wet clothes sticking, hands fumbling for buttons and zippers. Their kisses started messy, rain-slicked, half-laughing—but they caught fire fast. Heat bloomed under the damp, steam rising between them as Matt pressed him back toward the beds they’d pushed together on Friday night like a symbol of their togetherness.

Every tug of fabric was a battle, every kiss hotter, deeper, until laughter turned to groans and they forgot the storm outside entirely.

For once, Foggy didn’t overthink it. He just let himself get lost.

***

The storm had settled into a steady percussion: rain drumming on the roof, water hissing through gutters, cars sighing past on the slick street below. New York kept grinding, loud and restless, but up here—wrapped in heat and damp sheets—it all felt distant.

Foggy lay on his side, propped on one elbow, idly toying with Matt’s fingers. Matt’s eyes were closed, lashes dark against his cheekbones, face unguarded. Every so often, his chest rose deeper, then fell back into the shallower rhythm that told Foggy even sleep never fully unknotted him.

Foggy’s gaze drifted lower.

A scar cut just beneath Matt’s collarbone. It wasn’t surgical, and it sure as hell wasn’t accidental. Thin but jagged, it was a pale slash written with cruelty across good skin, and Foggy’s chest went tight. Who had come at him with a fucking blade?

Carefully, he traced it, asking without words. I see this. What happened?

Matt didn’t move. He might not even be awake—he’d been drifting in and out for half an hour—but then, as quietly as the rain, he spoke.

“His name was Stick,” he murmured, voice low, calm. “And just like the name implies, he wasn’t much more than a living, breathing weapon.”

Foggy froze, his fingertip hovering.

“He tried to turn me into a weapon, too,” Matt went on, words drawn out of some dark, half-dream place. “But it didn’t work. He thought my… abilities… made me special. Eventually, he decided I was too flawed, so he did me the favor of walking away.”

Silence came again, except for the steady rain on the roof.

Foggy’s throat burned with a dozen responses—questions, fury, comfort—but he swallowed them all. Matt had given him this much, and he wasn’t going to push.

Instead, he slid his fingers into Matt’s hair, cupped the back of his neck, and whispered into the space between them.

“I think your flaws make you perfect.”

Matt’s brow twitched—just a flicker—but he didn’t answer. His breathing evened out, and Foggy stayed right there, holding on.

After a while, the weight of Matt’s honesty shifted something inside him and, before he could second-guess himself, Foggy guided Matt’s hand down, settling it over the stretch marks on his belly—the ones he always tried to hide.

His own breath hitched. “Not exactly Michelangelo’s David down there,” he said with a half-laugh, eyes stinging.

Matt just hummed low in his throat, utterly unbothered.

“Yeah, well, David’s overrated,” he murmured, thumb brushing gently across Foggy’s skin.

Foggy’s throat closed. Jesus. Trust a half-asleep Matt Murdock to gut him with four words.

The storm thrummed steady—roof, gutters, passing traffic—but for once Foggy didn’t care about his endless to-do lists or the voice in his head that never shut up. He just lay there with Matt’s hand steady over the part of himself he hated most, and let the moment ease a pressure he’d held onto for years.

Matt’s eyes slipped shut again, breathing settling into an even rhythm. But his hand stayed exactly where Foggy had placed it—warm, heavy, sure.

And Foggy thought: maybe this was what it feels  like to stop fighting yourself for five minutes. Maybe this was what it feels like to be chosen. Scars and all.

Chapter Text

The screen reader’s voice had started to blur into nonsense hours ago—synthetic syllables collapsing into each other like a bad translation. Matt pinched the bridge of his nose and tried one more keystroke combination. No dice. JAWS could handle Word docs, PDFs, even case databases if he wrestled them long enough, but PowerPoints? Forget it. Slide after slide of “image, image, image.”

He’d been on the phone with tech support for over an hour, rubbing the knot at the base of his neck while a guy who sounded twelve ran him through the same useless script. “Have you tried rebooting?” Yes. “Have you tried changing your settings?” Yes. “Can you just ask a friend to read it to you?”

Matt ended the call before he said something he’d regret.

The walk to Disability Services was supposed to clear his head, but the office only made things worse. His casebooks—the ones he’d requested weeks ago—were still stuck in the pipeline. “High demand this semester,” the coordinator said in her overly practiced sympathetic tone. “I promise we’ll get them to you as soon as we can.”

Which meant what? That he was just supposed to fall behind until they felt like catching up?

By the time he left the building, the ache behind his eyes had sharpened into something hot and mean. He just wanted to get back to the dorm, shut the door, and hit reset.

Crossing Broadway, he angled his cane, mapped the surge of air when the light changed, and stepped forward—only to feel a hand clamp down on his arm.

“Careful there, buddy. Here. Don’t worry, I’ll get you across.”

Heat shot to Matt’s face. Not this again. He hadn’t asked for help. He didn’t need it. But giving a stranger an Ableism 101 lecture wasn’t worth the energy. By the time his shoes hit the opposite curb, his whole body was locked tight with adrenaline, like he’d been ambushed. Fantastic. Another notch on the “patronizing rescues” scorecard. Maybe he should start carrying raffle tickets—congratulations, you’re the thousandth person to manhandle me across a street. He needed a distraction, something to help him regroup.

Snacks. A vending machine run would fix this.

Except when he got to the ground floor of Lenfest, he couldn’t find the damn common room. Usually smell gave it away—burnt popcorn, the oily tang of pizza reheated too many times—but tonight the air was clogged with nacho cheese, egg rolls, reheated fries, Axe body spray. A sensory landfill.

He circled once, cane clicking against wrong doors, then again, chest tightening with every misstep. By the time he gave up and headed upstairs, it felt like the whole building was laughing at him.

Finally, at his own door, he slid the key into the lock, stepped inside—only to catch his toe on something bulky left half in the walkway.

“Fuck.”

He pitched forward, caught himself on the dresser, and seethed.

“Shit—God, I’m sorry!” Foggy’s voice, quick, guilty. “That was me—I left my bag out. I’ll move it—”

Matt straightened, jaw tight. “It’s fine,” he snapped, still thrumming with the day.

“Sorry.”

Silence stretched. Then Foggy shifted, the air moving with him. “Hey—”

A hand touched Matt’s arm, light at first, then steadier. “You’re locked up tight. Everything okay?”

Matt nodded automatically, then felt his jaw flex. Every instinct told him to retreat, deflect. But Foggy’s hand moved to his back, warm, waiting. It took effort to straighten up at all. If he’d been alone, he’d already be pacing out the tension or rocking it down, but doing that in front of Foggy still felt too raw. Instead, he rolled his shoulders, cracked his neck and flexed his fists a few times.

“Talk to me,” Foggy murmured.

“I just—ran into a few snags,” Matt admitted reluctantly. “JAWS won’t work with PowerPoints. Tech support wasted an hour of my life. Then Disability Services didn’t have the books I need.”

He deliberately skipped the part about being hauled across the street like luggage.

“It sounds like you need snacks,” Foggy said, rubbing his back.

“Yeah, well, I tried that already and couldn’t even find the common room because there’s no Braille signage and the whole building smells like a food court.”

Matt’s throat went tight. He braced for a pity-laced pep-talk

Instead, a drawer squeaked, and something clinked.

“Fortunately,” Foggy said, “I have a solution.”

Matt frowned. “What kind of solution?”

“A liquid one.” Another clink, then the neck of a bottle nudged his hand. “Vodka. Trevor’s emergency stash. I liberated it in exchange for taking over the care and feeding of his contraband—and woefully neglected—goldfish. We are now pet owners, if you can call a sickly fish a pet.”

Despite himself, Matt huffed a laugh.

“You did what?”

“I commandeered a goldish. What of it? Trevor didn’t even name the poor guy,” Foggy said. “Now, if only we had our own Braille label maker, we could tag every damn thing on this campus. ‘Microwave. Coffeemaker. Pop-Tart stash.’ Problem solved.”

Almost smiling, Matt said, “I actually do have one. A Braille label maker. It’s old, but it still works.”

“Oh, Matty,” Foggy said, radiating amusement and triumph, “you just made my night.”

***

The second Matt admitted it, Foggy’s brain lit up like Christmas.

“You’ve been holding out on me?” he demanded, already stuffing the vodka bottle into his hoodie pocket. “Come on. Time for a field trip.”

Matt frowned. “Field trip?”

“Yeah. Operation: Civil Rights.”

Five minutes later, they were weaving down to the Lenfest common room like a pair of very determined burglars.

Foggy slapped the first strip of tape on the door. “Okay—this door is now officially labeled: COMMON ROOM, MOTHERFUCKERS.”

Matt snorted, and Foggy grinned. Score.

Inside, Foggy went to town, narrating every placement like a game show host.

“Microwave: labeled NUKE IT GOOD. Coffeemaker: LIFE SUPPORT. Vending machine: CAPITALISM IN A BOX.”

Matt laughed again, and Foggy thought it sounded better than a 4.0 GPA.

By the time they staggered back to their room, half the appliances in Lenfest had been upgraded with crooked tape, and Foggy was riding high on his own ridiculousness.

He didn’t stop there. Not when the label maker was still warm in his hands.

“Phase Two,” he announced, dropping to his knees in their tiny dorm room. “Room 304.”

The vodka bottle: LIQUID THERAPY
The mini fridge: COLD, BUT JUDGMENTAL.
The microwave: HOT POCKET DEATH RAY.
Their ramen stash: NOODLE-BASED ECONOMY

Matt was chuckling now, sprawled on their pushed-together beds, sipping from his cup like this was prime entertainment.

Foggy, emboldened, went rogue. His shoe: LEFT, PROBABLY. Matt’s cane: BLIND JUSTICE. His own forehead: PROPERTY OF COLUMBIA LAW—until Matt peeled it off with a noise of pure exasperation.

Finally, Foggy turned solemnly to Trevor’s pitiful goldfish, floating with all the charisma of a damp paper towel.

“Final target,” he intoned, punching out the tape. “Our pitiful pet is hereby named: ADA COMPLIANCE. She’s a girl, I’ve decided.”

Matt nearly choked, laughing so hard he almost fell off the bed, and Foggy thought: mission accomplished. 

Chapter Text

Tuesday morning, Foggy woke to weight and warmth. Matt was curled in close, one arm heavy across his middle, his breath ghosting steady against Foggy’s neck. For a few seconds, Foggy just let himself sink into the rare, ridiculous luxury of waking up like this. He’d never shared a bed with anyone like Matt before, never dreamed he’d be so lucky.

Then his phone buzzed, same time as always, and he fumbled it off the nightstand, squinting at the glow. Another text from his mom: Big test soon, right? Study hard, Franklin. Remember what’s riding on this.

“But no pressure,” he murmured as his chest tightened. He slid the phone face down on the nightstand and shut his eyes.

Matt shifted in his sleep, murmured something Foggy couldn’t catch, and pressed even closer. It should have helped. It did, in a way. But the relief tangled with guilt, and guilt tangled with panic, and pretty soon Foggy was staring at the ceiling again, mind racing. He still had three chapters of Civ Pro to finish reading before class, a briefing due for Torts, outlines to catch up on. And the Civ Pro test—Jesus. It was Friday, and he was nowhere near ready.

Matt’s hand shifted against his ribs like he was soothing, even in his sleep. Foggy let himself breathe with it for another beat, then carefully slid free and swung his legs over the side of the bed. He sat there with his head in his hands, thinking about everything he had to do, and wondering how much longer he could balance it all—Matt, his mom, his professors—and still make it look easy so no one would really know how bad things got inside his head. Joke, deflect, evade—pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.

 Behind him, the sheets rustled.

“Fog?” Matt’s voice was low, sleep-rough.

Foggy straightened, pasted on a smile before glancing back. “Hey. Go back to sleep.”

Matt didn’t. Instead, he pushed up onto one elbow, brow furrowed. “Your heart’s going a mile a minute.”

Shit. Foggy tried to laugh it off. “Guess the caffeine is doing its job, huh?”

Matt tipped his head. “I don’t smell any coffee, or tea…or Redbull.”

Foggy’s grin wobbled. He turned toward his desk, reaching for a casebook he didn’t really want to open. “Yeah, well. Sometimes my body just runs on pure anxiety. Saves money at Starbucks.”

The bed creaked. A moment later, Matt’s arms slid around him from behind, solid and warm, pulling Foggy back against his chest. One palm settled firmly over Foggy’s heart.

“Hey,” Matt murmured low, “What’s going on?”

Foggy froze. His first instinct was to clam up, but Matt’s hand was right there, feeling every stutter of his pulse, and the quiet steadiness in his voice made lying feel impossible.

He let out a shaky breath. “It’s just my mom,” he admitted, words low. “She texted again. Same old stuff about loans and not screwing up. And I keep thinking about the Civ Pro test on Friday and the pile of reading I’m behind on, and—” He cut himself off, throat tight.

Matt didn’t say anything right away, so, embarrassed, Foggy let out a short, helpless laugh.

“God, listen to me. I sound like the world’s biggest cliché. Overachieving mama’s boy with a panic disorder.”

“No, you sound like someone under too much pressure,” Matt said simply. 

The words caught Foggy off guard. His chest loosened just a little, enough for him to lean back into Matt’s arms instead of pulling away.

Matt shifted, pressing his lips briefly to Foggy’s neck, nuzzling. “Alright, worst case scenario, we flunk out—”

Foggy huffed. “Not funny.”

“—and then we reinvent ourselves. We’ll become vigilante superheroes. You can be my sidekick: Captain Cold Pizza.”

Despite himself, Foggy snorted. “Who says I'm the sidekick? That’s your plan B?”

Matt’s mouth quirked. Foggy felt the motion on his skin. “Yeah, well, it’s either that or we become rogue ADA compliance officers with old label makers and absolutely no shame.”

With a chuckle, Foggy let his head fall back against Matt’s shoulder. After a while, he said, “Thanks for making me laugh.”

“It was my turn,” Matt said, palm still over Foggy’s heart.

***

He started the day telling himself to just take a “diagnostic” practice test for Civ Pro, something to reassure himself he wasn’t as far off as he feared. Instead, the score glared up at him from the computer screen like a death sentence. Thirty points lower than he’d thought. Thirty.  His stomach turned over, the numbers burning into him: You’re so, so, SO, not ready.

Torts didn’t help. Professor Denzin introduced some bizarre new theory of liability that seemed to undo everything Foggy thought he understood, and by the end of class, he was scribbling question marks in the margins while his head pounded.

After Torts, he got an email with his work-study assignment. Foggy’s shift was two evenings a week at the Law Library’s help desk—right when he needed to be cramming. There might be cram time at that job (he was lucky not to get the cafe gig), but still, he stared at the email on his phone irrationally hoping it would change if he just pressed refresh. It didn’t. And as if the universe wanted to land one more punch, his afternoon seminar assigned a group project, due the same week as the Civ Pro exam. Foggy could already see it coming: he’d get paired with people who wouldn’t pull their weight, and he’d have to do most of the work himself. That’s how group projects always went.

By the time he made it to Civ Pro, his anxiety had settled into a low-grade roar. Matt sat beside him, using his streamlined Braille notetaker with that quiet, intense focus of his, and Foggy tried to match it, but the ruled notebook paper in front of him just kept blurring.

When class ended, Matt took his elbow lightly, as usual. 

“Food truck time?”

This was their routine—hit the falafel stand and decompress—but the thought of food made Foggy’s stomach fill with corrosive acid. He forced a smile. “Can’t today. Gotta hit the library instead.”

Matt tilted his head in that skeptical ‘I don’t smell any coffee’ way.

“You sure?”

“Yeah. Rain check.” Foggy guided Matt out of the throng but then extracted himself, shouldering his bag and leaving before Matt could ask any more questions. 

The library wasn’t the sanctuary he hoped it would be. Nope. It was just another kind of pressure cooker. He tried to outline Civ Pro but ended up doom-scrolling the work-study schedule again and the group project details, scribbling lists he knew he'd never finish. Hours bled away. By the time his stomach growled, the dining hall was closed, so he went to the Student Commons, where he seriously overcompensated by getting an enormous Burger with fries, two cookies, and a large soda. He downed it all fast, trying to fill the gaping hole inside him with grease and sugar, but it didn’t help. Of course. It made things worse. Shit. A lot worse. By the last bite, his gut ached, and guilt made him seriously queasy. He felt bloated, disgusting.

Ugly.

Stupid. 

Time to press control-Z and undo what he'd just done. Right now. Pronto. 

He found a single-stall bathroom down the hall, locked the door, and turned the faucet on full blast. The sound was cover, but also--

He cupped water in his hands and drank until his stomach was at total max capacity. Then he leaned over the toilet and forced himself to throw up. Once. Twice. Again. He purged until pretty much all the food was gone and his eyes were watering. The saggy lightness in his belly was too familiar. It felt both bad and good at the same time. He rinsed his mouth with more water, trying to erase the taste, and then flushed twice to get rid of the evidence.

When he straightened, his reflection was pale and wet-eyed, ashamed, but at least the nausea was gone. He splashed water on his face, straightened his hoodie, and told himself it was done. He was fine. That was the last time. Well, probably not--deep down, he knew it wouldn't be-- but the fact that it could be was all that mattered now...and nobody had to know that he'd ever done this. 

By the time he made it back to the dorm, he was relieved that Matt wasn’t there. He went straight to the sink and brushed his teeth. Twice. Swishing mouthwash until his gums tingled. He didn’t want to risk Matt kissing him and tasting puke.

He spit, wiped his mouth, and stared at himself in the mirror one more time. His face looked normal again. At least that's what he told himself. 

***

The door clicked open, and the first thing that hit him wasn’t the usual mix of dorm room scents; it was Foggy.

The Mouthwash was sharp, but it still couldn't cover the faint, undeniable bite of stomach acid that hovered beneath. Foggy had vomited. Recently. The smell clung to his shirt collar, too, diluted but there. He wasn’t sick. Matt catalogued that automatically: there wasn't any congestion or heat in his sweat, no immune response. This was… something else. Woven through Foggy's bloodstream like a thread was some kind of anxiety med.  Xanax? It was about half an hour old and still active in his system, smoothing out his pulse in a way that wasn’t natural.

Foggy was seated at his desk, shuffling papers. His heartbeat jumped when Matt entered, then settled back into a rhythm that was not quite as even as it had been moments before. His voice, when he spoke, was light—too light.

“Hey, man. You eat yet? Commons was a madhouse.”

Matt let the words bump into him. It was the edges that he tracked, the catch before Foggy breathed, the heat of guilt under his skin, and the false ease in his tone. This was all an act, and not a very good one. But Matt knew better than to call it out. At least not yet.

“Hey. Yeah. I ate.”

He toed off his shoes and set his cane by the wall, moving like nothing was wrong. If Foggy ever knew how much Matt picked up without trying, how every spike and dip in his body chemistry read like neon, it would feel like surveillance. Like living under a microscope. And Matt refused to do that to him. So he didn’t ask questions. Instead, he offered comfort, moving across the room to put his hands on Foggy’s shoulders and lean down to kiss his temple.

“Long day?” 

Foggy let out a breath that was too quick to match the smile in his voice.

“Yeah. You?”

Matt nodded faintly, fingers brushing over Foggy’s hair. He could feel stress pressing at him like a forcefield, filling the air between them, but for now, he hovered outside of it. Quiet. Waiting.

"Come to bed," Matt said softly. It was not a request.

“Why? Are you going to have your wanton way with me?”

“Yes. Later.”

“Matt, I really need to study—”

“Five minutes. Come on.”

With a sigh, Foggy got up, and Matt felt the scrape of chair legs and the shuffle of feet before the mattress dipped.

"Lie on your stomach."

Matt followed Foggy, climbing onto the bed, straddling his thighs. To start the massage, he focused on the shoulders, kneading, slow and deliberate, coaxing tension out of knots that felt like piled rocks. Foggy groaned into his pillow. Matt kept the rhythm steady, then shifted to long strokes down his spine. After a while, he switched to firm circles at the small of Foggy's back. He let the measured weight of his hands guide each knot apart. He took his time and stayed there patiently working until the rigidity under his touch finally began to ease.

“That’s better,” Matt murmured, leaning down to speak in Foggy's ear, the warmth of his chest hovering close. “Just let yourself rest.”

The air shifted as Foggy’s hand brushed Matt’s thigh, asking a question, his body tilting toward something... more. Matt smoothed his fingers through Foggy’s hair and bent to kiss his temple.

“Later,” he murmured. “I’m gonna blow your mind.”

“Oh, Yeah?” Foggy asked, already half-asleep.

“Yeah, and I want you to have the energy. You know, so you can applaud after.”

Foggy snorted. "You do think highly of yourself."

"Mm."

Matt eased off so that, no longer straddling him, he sat on the bed next to Foggy, whose breathing was beginning to deepen. 

"I don't think I can sleep," he mumbled.

"Yes, you can," Matt said, rubbing his back. 

"Got too much to do."

"Mm. You'll get there."

"Matt--What if I--"

"Shh."

Ten seconds later, Foggy started to snore. 

Chapter Text

A few hours later, Foggy woke again, this time alone in bed. Matt was at his desk, the glow of his laptop screen bouncing off his face, big Braille, casebook spread open next to him. A low, relentless voice was rattling out of the little device hooked up to it.

Foggy blinked at it. “What fresh hell is that?”

Matt sighed and sat back in his chair, rubbing his neck. “It’s JAWS, my screen reader. Annoying, isn’t it?”

Foggy sat up, hair sticking in about five directions. He listened harder. The voice was flat, robotic, chopping off half-formed sentences at warp speed. It sounded like Siri and Stephen Hawking had a lovechild and force-fed it crack.

“That’s how you study?” Foggy blurted. 

“You get used to it.”

“Used to it? That’s like saying you get used to dental drills. Jesus. Civ Pro is bad enough without having to listen to it through a kazoo.”

That got him the faintest quirk of Matt’s mouth. “Maybe you should help me, then.”

“Help you?” Foggy rubbed his face. “You’re the one who makes sense of all this crap. I’m just barely hanging on.”

Matt turned toward him a little. “Yeah, well, it takes me twenty minutes to find what you can see in 5 seconds.”

“Want me to—do something to…you know…help?”

“Be my eyes.”

Foggy started to answer and then stopped as suspicion prickled. “Wait. I just used the H word, and you didn’t get stubborn-face. Are you playing me? Like, reverse-psychology law school edition?”

Matt shrugged. “Maybe a little. But you really would be helping. Even if it’s kinda a ploy.”

Foggy groaned, but dragged himself out of bed anyway. “Fine. But if we both flunk out, I’m suing you for malpractice.”

***

It turned out Matt wasn’t wrong. Foggy flipped through the Civ Pro text, calling out terms and headings, and Matt honed in like a bloodhound. Together, they made the mess of minimum contacts and personal jurisdiction almost legible.

“Okay, so if Pennoyer was the crusty old dinosaur—” Foggy started.

Matt cut in, dry. “You’re oversimplifying.”

“I’m dumbing it down to my level, which is how teaching works.”

Matt’s mouth twitched. “Alright, go on then, Professor.”

They went back and forth like that, Foggy filling in the visual landmarks and trying to distill concepts into something understandable while Matt added the detail back in but at a manageable pace. For once, studying didn’t feel like drowning—it felt like running a relay race. And maybe…winning.

At some point, Matt disappeared into the corner with a kettle. When he came back, he set a steaming mug of something herbal in front of Foggy.

Foggy blinked. “What’s this? Shouldn’t we be pounding espressos like every other sleep-deprived masochist on campus?”

“Tea is better,” Matt said simply.

Foggy took a sip. It tasted faintly floral, soothing. He raised an eyebrow. “Wow. Columbia Law Library meets spa day.”

Matt didn’t answer, just kept tracing lines across the Braille.

Later, just as Foggy was starting to sag over the casebook, a banana slid across the desk into his space.

He looked at it, then at Matt. “Seriously? We’re snacking like minions now?”

Matt’s expression didn’t change, but there was something faintly amused tugging at his mouth. He didn’t comment.

Foggy shrugged, peeled it, ate. The steadying effect didn’t hit until later, after the tea, and the textbook pages, and the laughter. After the knot in his stomach had unwound degree by degree. It wasn’t lost on him. The tea. The banana. The way Matt had slid them over without a word.

He’d begun to piece it together. Matt could smell things nobody else could. He could taste moods. He could track heartbeats. If his senses were really that sharp…

Foggy swallowed hard. Maybe Matt knew. Maybe he’d known from moment one, and this was all his way of saying: I’ve got you without making Foggy admit a damn thing out loud.

The thought should’ve been comforting. And it was…but, still, his stomach clenched.

“Y’know,” he said, his voice too casual, “being your roommate-slash-boyfriend is a lot like living with a polygraph machine, isn’t it. I’m guessing that the polygraph can also smell what I had for dinner and…” 

He trailed off and rubbed his damp palms on his jeans. 

“I’m not going to judge you,” Matt said softly. 

That should’ve been the end of it. Sweet, simple. But Foggy’s laugh came out a little jagged. “Yeah, well, then you’re the only one who doesn’t.”

Matt didn’t answer, and before he could, Foggy started running his mouth. He couldn’t help himself. 

“Dude. You could totally run a black-market lie-detecting business. Make bank. Me, meanwhile? I’m screwed. I’ll never get away with anything again.”

“Foggy—

“Forget it. I’m shutting up now.”

Matt’s hand found his arm—firm, steady, not letting him spiral off into another self-deprecating tangent.

“You don’t have to get away with anything,” Matt said, voice low. “Not with me.”

The words landed heavier than Foggy wanted them to, because they weren’t a joke, and they weren’t an accusation. Just steady fact. Which somehow made it worse. His throat went tight.

“Yeah, well,” Foggy muttered, trying for flippant. “Easy for you to say. You’re not the one constantly trying to prove you’re worth the tuition. Or your mom’s faith. Or your roommate-slash…um…boyfriend?...’s insane patience—”

“Stop.”

The quiet authority in that single word startled him. He looked up, and Matt wasn’t smiling, wasn’t teasing. Just… there. Focused.

“You don’t have to prove a damn thing to me,” Matt said. “Not tonight. Not tomorrow. Not ever.”

Something inside Foggy cracked at that. All the words he might’ve thrown back shriveled, and all that was left was the pulse thundering in his ears.

Matt shifted, not pushing, just guiding, until Foggy was folded against him in a full embrace. Strong arms wrapped around his back, steady and certain, while Matt’s hand stayed at the nape of his neck, thumb rubbing slow circles like he had all the time in the world. The tea-scented warmth of him, the slow rhythm of his breathing, the grounded weight anchoring him—it all wrapped around Foggy until the static in his head finally started to fade.

And for the first time in longer than he could remember, Foggy let himself believe it.
This was the safest place he’d ever been.

When Matt finally leaned back enough to tip his forehead against Foggy’s, his mouth curled just a little.

“You can take the question mark off the word ‘boyfriend’.”

Foggy gave a short, startled laugh. “Seriously? We’ve known each other for, like, eight days.”

“Yeah,” Matt said, brushing a hand down his arm. “And in eight days, you’ve already made it impossible to imagine doing this without you.”

Foggy’s throat closed as his whole body filled with a feeling that was very much like carbonation. Like champagne bubbles. He let out his breath and, for once, he didn’t try to fill the silence with more words. Instead, he leaned in for a kiss that was…incendiary. When they eased back, he huffed out a baffled laugh. 

“I gotta admire it.”

“What?” Matt asked.

“How you don’t do casual. You go straight to serious heartthrob energy.”

With that, Matt grinned, suddenly not looking serious at all. 

And, God…that smile…

Foggy was a gonner.  

Chapter Text

The subway was better this time. Not easy—never easy—but better.

Matt stood swaying lightly with the train, one hand hooked around the metal pole, and took inventory. No raw panic at the roar of brakes. No full-body lurch into vertigo when the car jolted. Just the usual overload of too many bodies packed close together, too much deodorant and hair gel, and the awful stench of garlic breath mixing with Bounce dryer sheets. His skin buzzed from the vibration of the wheels, but he kept his balance. He even caught himself cataloguing progress like it was a quiz: less dizziness, fewer missteps. Passing grade.

By the time he surfaced onto the sidewalk near the church, the sharp air cooled him. Rain lingered from the day before—petricor stitched into the stone, runoff sluicing into drains. The old oak outside the church had its own exhalation, tannins rising. It steadied him before he even set foot inside.

Mass gave him what it always did: ritual. His fingers traced the pew, familiar wood scarred by decades of restless hands. His breath followed the rhythm of spoken prayers. Vibrations bloomed against his skin as voices lifted together. The incense was faint but deeply familiar, a smoky anchor curling into his sinuses. When Sister Maggie’s hand brushed his elbow to guide him to communion—a courtesy he didn’t really need but appreciated anyway—he tilted toward it instinctively. Her pulse was just as steady and familiar as everything else was here. He’d always loved the way her scent greeted him with traces of her simple, practical life: soap, starch, ink, and the faintest trace of wax clinging to her sleeves.

It should have carried him through.

But when Mass ended and he stepped into the side hall, the air shifted. The door to the basement must have been cracked open, and from the dark stairwell beneath came a smell he wasn’t ever prepared for, even though—in its own way—it was just as familiar as the sanctuary. He caught the scent of oiled wood, damp plaster, the metallic tang of old blood ground into the walls. 

His body braced before his mind caught up, and the memory slammed into him like a punch in the gut. Stick’s staff sliced the air. The blow across his ribs was sharp enough to drop him. Just as sharp as the order to get up, to endure. The weak die fast, Matty. You need to be hard.

He staggered, one hand against the wall, chest tightening. His senses fractured under the weight of it. Every echo in the stairwell rang like a strike. His skin remembered bruises blooming. His pulse stuttered, too fast, drowning him in the rush of his own bloodstream.

He was back there, barefoot on concrete so cold it leeched straight into his bones. No mats, no padding, nothing between his body and unforgiving surfaces. Stick would bark a command, and Matt would fold himself into a “meditation” pose, knees screaming, spine held rigid until every muscle quivered. Minutes stretched into hours. The air was heavy with dust, chalk, his own sweat—and always Stick’s voice, a rasping lash.

When he wavered, the staff cracked down against his shoulder or thigh. Not enough to cripple—just enough to punish. Stick said pain was information. Pain was the only real teacher.

Matt’s lungs burned, his legs spasmed. He clamped his teeth together.

Don’t flinch. Don’t cry. Don’t need.

“Matthew.”

Sister Maggie’s voice touched him. There was command in her tone, but it was not like Stick’s. Her hands clamped around his upper arms, and she got close, right in front of him. Then something with a bright, almost floral scent came under his nose. Basil. Fresh, earthy, unmistakable.

“Breathe. Come back to me. You are here. This is now.”

Fervently, she palmed his cheek. 

“Open your mouth.” 

Something touched his lips. Chocolate. He tasted it, bitter and sweet, blooming across his tongue.

“There. That’s better.”

His heart slowed by degrees. Sweat cooled on his neck.

“Come with me,” she said simply, “Can you walk?”

He nodded, and she steered him away from the stairwell.

Her office smelled of books and herbs—lavender tucked into a dish on the desk, old leather bindings breathing dust. Matt sank into the chair she guided him into, still trembling faintly, his chest tight but no longer seizing. He rubbed his face and then sat forward, putting his elbows on his knees, willing himself to stay present. The basil still lingered in his nose, and the taste of chocolate clung to the roof of his mouth.

“Alright?” Maggie asked, giving his shoulder a squeeze, her voice steady but kind.

He swallowed and nodded, though the knot in his throat made it a shaky thing.

“Good. Drink some water.” She set a glass into his hands, curling his fingers around it until he steadied enough to lift it on his own. He drank, coolness spreading through him, tamping down the heat of panic that had flared in his blood.

For a while, they sat in silence. She didn’t push, didn’t press him to explain. That was part of her way—she knew when silence itself was medicine. Slowly, his pulse stopped racing like he was still under Stick’s command.

Only then, when his hands no longer shook, did she speak again. “For the sake of distraction, why don’t you tell me how school is going?”

The shift startled him, but the bluntness was…very her. And it brought a kind of relief for being ordinary.

He huffed out a breath, a half-laugh that revealed more fatigue than humor. “Overwhelming.”

“Ah. Well. Good,” she said, without missing a beat. “That means you’re learning.”

He could sense her faint amusement, and for the first time since the basement door, Matt felt a corner of his mouth lift.

“Father Lantom tells me that you’ve made a…particular friend.”

“Foggy?” The name slipped out unguarded.

“What kind of name is Foggy?”

“It’s what you go by when Franklin doesn’t suit you.”

Maggie’s silence somehow carried an air of approval. She would now forever refer to Foggy as “Franklin,” Matt knew, even as she secretly preferred “Foggy”. 

“What do you like best about him?”

“He makes me laugh,” Matt said automatically before adding, “And he’s all heart.”

“Two admirable qualities,” she said softly. “Keep him close.” 

It was late by the time he got back to Lenfest. He unlocked the door, stripped off his jacket, toed off his shoes, propped up his cane, and then crawled into bed beside Foggy. The warmth of him—and sheer exhaustion—pulled Matt under fast.

But the basement clung.

In his sleep, he was back there, staff cracking against bone, Stick’s voice striking like a lash. 

***

Foggy heard Matt moan and opened his eyes just as the bed jerked. He had enough time to roll off before Matt sat bolt upright in bed, chest heaving. Foggy’s own pulse spiked, but his brain snapped instantly to rescue mode. Nightmare plus sensory overload. He’d seen this before, and he knew the signs now.

“Matty—hey, hey. Okay—” 

Moving fast, Foggy scrambled up, got into position, and wrapped his arms tight around Matt from behind, chest to his back, sealing him in. Containing without restraint. His cheek pressed to Matt’s temple, anchoring him with warmth and breath.

They rocked. 

Foggy went with it, syncing up, making the rhythm something shared instead of isolating. His voice stayed low and steady against Matt’s hairline, the vibration meant to soothe more than the words themselves. “You’re okay. You’re safe. I’ve got you. It’s just us.”

Matt’s arms were clamped under his ribs, rocking like the motion was the only thing keeping him sane. So Foggy shifted with him. It was weird, yeah—swaying together in the dark like some busted metronome—but if it helped, it helped.

“We’re rocking,” he said. “That’s fine. We can rock. Call it…a team sport. You and me, human lava lamps. Very soothing. Very vintage.” His tone was light, but steady too, threading humor into the anchor he was trying to be.

He pressed his palm flat against Matt’s chest, right over the frantic thrum of his heart. Kept his voice close, where Matt could feel it.

“Whatever’s happening, we’ll get through it—I’m not going anywhere.”

Matt’s breath shuddered, still jagged but slowing a fraction. Foggy squeezed tighter.

“That’s it. Just breathe. Nobody’s grading you on recovery time. You don’t need to ace this, you just…need to be.”

The rocking eased a little, Matt’s back pressing more firmly into Foggy’s chest. Foggy kept them fused together.

“Good,” he whispered. “You’re doing good.”

Foggy kept the rhythm until Matt’s breathing started to lose its rough edges, then carefully shifted, guiding him back toward the mattress. “Here. C’mon, lie down with me,” he said softly, nudging him down. 

“Can you?”

Matt went, but the restless twitch of his shoulders and the way his chest kept hitching told Foggy that they weren’t out of the woods yet.

He lay down beside Matt, tried the usual—an arm around his waist, their foreheads close—but Matt’s muscles kept tensing, like he was ready to bolt even lying flat, maybe especially lying flat.

Foggy thought for a second, then just…went with instinct. He draped himself across Matt, not all the way—he wasn’t trying to crush the guy—but enough. One arm stretched firm across his chest, palm pressed flat like an anchor. One leg slung over his, a steadying weight. Half pinning, half cocooning.

Matt went still for a beat. Then a long, shaky breath shuddered out of him, and something in his frame eased. Not all at once, but enough for Foggy to feel the difference—the stiffness bleeding out.

“Yeah,” Foggy murmured into the dark, voice close to Matt’s ear. “That’s better, huh? Human blanket. It’s not glamorous, but it’s what you’re getting tonight.”

Matt’s hand shifted faintly against his arm, not pushing away, holding on.

Foggy stayed right there, his own body going still, keeping his weight as firm and even as he could. And as he did, the thought hit him—obvious and overdue. What Matt needed wasn’t just touch. He needed pressure. Something steady enough to hold him together when his world started flying apart.

A nice, big, heavy weighted blanket. That’s what he needed.

Foggy felt his throat tighten as he pressed a little closer, heart aching with the simplicity of it. Matt shouldn’t have to wrestle with the world every damn night, not if something as basic as a blanket could help.

“Alright, Nelson,” he murmured to himself, “mission acquired.”

For now, though, he just stayed, being the blanket, warm and heavy, a makeshift shield until the tension in Matt’s chest finally eased all the way.