Syncope (Books and Broken Bones Edition)

N. Clevenger (June 2017)

Notes:You guys are just the best. Seriously. Buoyed by your love, I immediately jumped into finishing another of my languishing stories; you would have had it a week ago, but as always it just kept getting longer. It's a law school fic – chronologically the first (finally!) in this unconnected and poorly-named series – and a return to writing from Matt's POV because I missed it so much. Warnings for a bit of swearing and a lot of nausea, in case you're sensitive to those things. By now I think you've got a pretty good idea of what's coming next.

Netflix/Marvel canon. I make no money, because they don't belong to me.

Gravel crunches under his shoes as he walks, and he counts the segments of the path in his head to the soundtrack of its faintly grinding symphony. There's little other noise around to drown it out; it's early, but it is Friday night. This part of campus is virtually deserted.

The library had been fairly empty too, despite it being only a week until mid-terms. Most of the traditional resources there are of little use to him, but the quiet makes it a good place to study. Usually. Tonight there'd been that guy at the other end of the long table, the one who wouldn't stop clicking his pen. The definition of maddening. Matt had wasted more time trying to tune it out than he'd spent actually reading; when he had stopped reading entirely and instead began to calculate the motions it would take to go over there and rip the thing out of the guy's hand, he'd decided that he might as well leave. Go home, sleep if he can. Get up before dawn and go running while everyone else is still in bed. Start again fresh.

Streetlamps delineate the path, their high fiery flare always a consistent twenty feet apart. Four more and his turn. They're an easy marker, one he doesn't have to search for; Matt lets his attention drift, listening to the bits of distant conversation that the wind wafts his way.

Seriously, I'm starving. Pick something. Just call him. He was totally into you. She's gonna kill me when she finds out. Hey sexy thing. Let's get a pizza. I'm not worried about it; it's cool. Maybe tomorrow. I'll call you. You should totally get it in blue. Eighteen. Please leave me alone.

The tone of the last one stops him abruptly, and he tries to determine where it originated. He looks for the voice again – female, tense – but can't find it. Matt stands motionless, rewinding through recent memory. To his left, he thinks. There's a copse of trees that way, substantial and rustling in the breeze. He cuts across the grass, heading toward them.

"There are people waiting for me." That same voice, a hint of flowery perfume.

"Don't walk away like you're too good to talk to us." Alcohol. Someone's obviously started their weekend early.

The click of heels on pavement. The metallic jingle of a zipper, a bracelet. "Please –"

"Come on, why you gotta be like that…"

Three people, two standing close and one a few feet distant. That fast frightened heartbeat a dramatic contrast with the relaxed pace of the others. Matt can't tell if there's actual ill-intent or just overzealous flirting, but either way the advances obviously aren't welcome. Either way the girl is scared.

The hazy shapes shift as the smaller one tries to pull away, coalesce again as she's pulled back. "Where're you going? I just want to talk to you."

"I think it's pretty clear that she doesn't want to talk to you," Matt says, skirting the last tree to join them on the sidewalk.

"And I think you should mind your own –" It's an automatic sounding retort, abruptly broken off. "Holy shit, seriously? What do you think you're gonna do?"

The ghost of Stick in Matt's head is highly amused; an echoing smile twitches at his lips. He's used to being underestimated, frequently uses it to his advantage. "Try me," he says.

Both guys are laughing. Matt doesn't care. He stands calmly where he is as the taller one breaks away from the girl and walks lazily toward him, lets the guy's shove to his chest push him a step back. "You think you're some kind of hero?" Another shove, another step. The girl hasn't left yet; he wants at least to get them as far from her as possible. "Shouldn't have gotten involved, Hero." Shove. Step.

"Don't hurt him," the girl pleads from her rooted spot.

The downside to being underestimated is that sometimes people put themselves in unnecessary danger when they assume he can't take care of himself. The guy's breath – warm and drenched in beer – shifts off Matt's face as he turns back toward the girl. She'd been nearly forgotten; Matt had hoped she'd be smart enough to use the opportunity to get away.

"What, is this hero your boyfriend or something?"

A softly stammered no is the only response. Matt hears the crinkle of a paper bag, the sound of the other guy swallowing. "Hey. Talk to me," he tells the one in front him.

This gets his focus back, that breath hot on Matt's cheekbone. "You keep interrupting, Hero." Shove. Step. "You shouldn't do that." Shove. Step. "Because now I'm going to kick your –"

Matt grabs his wrists and pivots, taking out the guy's leg and flipping him to the ground.

The laughter cuts off. The girl squeaks in surprise. The guy on the sidewalk scrambles up a safe distance away; he's angry now, breathing hard. There's none of the cocky playfulness from a moment before as he rushes at Matt, but alcohol and rage make him clumsy and it's easy to parry the punches. Matt's not throwing any of his own, distraction still his main goal. He doesn't want to hurt these guys. Not really.

Maybe a little. Stick certainly likes the idea.

Matt ducks a wild swing, comes up to crack the guy across the face with his cane. More jarring than painful, but there's a choked expletive as his opponent staggers backward. Matt searches for the girl, finds that she still hasn't moved. "Go," he says in her direction. "Get out of here."

"But… Hey, look ou–"

He realizes he's been paying too much attention to her, to the guy he's facing down, just as the third member of the group smashes into him hard from the side. They go down together, the impact knocking most of the breath from his lungs. Blanking his senses. He thinks he hears the staccato receding beat of heels on pavement. Stick cackling at his mistake. His struggle to breathe isn't helped at all by the weight of the guy on top of him, by the hard edges of the laptop jabbing into his ribs. The twisted shoulder strap of his bag's trying to strangle him. And the arm trapped under all of this is screaming.

There's a grappling scuffle for dominance, flailing attacks that land on both sides. Matt's right arm is useless; he's mostly using his legs, trying to create some space. A lucky knee connects with bone, and the guy instantly slumps. He's dead weight across Matt's lower half.

Matt wiggles awkwardly out from under him, looking for signs that there's been no permanent damage done. Heartbeat strong, breathing even and steady. Should be okay. He attempts to stand; when the vertigo forces him back into a crouch, he turns the scrutiny on himself. On the flames pulsing up from his fingertips to his shoulder.

It's another mistake of misplaced attention, and he's rewarded with an arm slung around his throat from behind. Matt's hauled to his feet; the world dips sideways. An electric current rips up his arm, down his side, stealing away his breath. Stick warns him to end this now. Quickly, before there are any more witnesses. Before he becomes one more unconscious body left to be found.

He flings his head backward, and there's a burst of pain and a crunch that's a bit too satisfying. The hold falls away with a howl; Matt stumbles the other direction. It takes a precious few seconds to reorient his senses, to distance himself from the whirling in his skull, the burning in his arm. He holds the injured limb close to his body, tight against what are definitely bruised ribs. Forces himself to look beyond his own damage in order to locate his opponent.

There, on the ground. A muffled string of curses woven through with a moan. It's more of an effort than it should be to focus on the rest of the picture; the fire wavers and sparks, distorted by the rising whine in his head. The other guy's still out where Matt left him. The girl finally seems to be gone. As far as he can determine there's no one else around, but there's no telling how long that will last. He needs to get out of here while he can.

He's two steps away when Stick hisses a frustratingly necessary reminder about evidence left behind; there's another flush of dizziness as he turns back around. He'd dropped the cane when he'd been tackled, he thinks, and he shuffles a few steps in that direction. Matt doubts that either of these two are going to admit to being beaten by a blind guy, but there's no sense in leaving any more proof that he was here. He steps carefully between them. Neither show any signs of moving, even the conscious half of the duo. Matt tries to stay out of arm's reach, but the guy seems content to remain a crumpled heap.

He finds the cane with his shoe, nearly ending up on the ground himself when he steps on it and it rolls beneath his heel. His ribs protest as he bends to pick it up. The laptop bag shifts against his hip, and there's a rush of anxiety when he wonders briefly if his computer's broken. It's a concern set aside when he straightens, and the whine in his head gets distressingly louder.

When it subsides a little, Matt can hear people. Still far down the path, but headed this way. Time to leave. He adjusts the bag's strap on his shoulder, holds his cane in his left hand. He can't really bend the fingers of his right. But, like the laptop, it's not something he can deal with now. He needs to get away from here, regroup.

"You broke my fucking nose," comes a garbled snarl from the sidewalk. A rubber scuff against pavement, a half-hearted flail of a kick that misses Matt by more than a foot.

"Maybe next time you'll listen when someone tells you to leave them alone," Stick growls in Matt's voice as they pass him.

His choice of direction is motivated only by the oncoming people; Matt turns the opposite way. Trying to judge how far distant they are, he moves as quickly as he can down the empty path. It's difficult with this vertigo rocking the world at every step. He's having trouble even walking in a straight line, having to continuously recenter himself when his cane keeps finding the edge of the sidewalk.

Stick scoffs at his excuses. Begins a monologue dissection of his errors during the confrontation.

His hand feels swollen to twice its size, his right arm a mess of nauseatingly wet heat. Bent at the elbow, it's pressed protectively into the soft folds of his sweatshirt across his stomach. His glasses are crooked, one of the nose pieces digging into his skin. He wonders what he looks like. There's a bench up ahead, low and solid and smelling of wood and metal; he misjudges the boundaries of its dark blurry outline, defines its hard dimensions with a knee. His body hisses its displeasure as he tumbles down onto the seat.

It takes a couple of indulgent breaths before he can wrest himself upright out of this slumped position. Matt adjusts his glasses, tries to flatten his tousled hair. He can smell blood, traces it back to his knuckles. He runs his fingers along his face, his hairline, just to be sure; there's a tender spot over his right temple, but no broken skin.

Hoping that there's little outward damage to be noticed by anyone passing by, he shifts his focus internal. The bruising down his right side is fairly superficial, an annoyance he can easily hide. But his arm…

Fingers curl into an experimental fist; they get no further than a twitch before pain roars up to his shoulder. Clutching at his elbow with a gasp, he reflexively casts his senses out to see if there's anyone close. The response isn't as immediate as it should be. When he finally decides that he's still alone, he grits his teeth and forces himself to concentrate as he flexes his fingers again. This time he's more prepared for the bolt that shoots breathless past his elbow, and he's able to localize the injury to his wrist. Probably his ulna. Probably the same spot that it's already been broken twice before.

"No, I have no idea who he was. He just showed up and saved me."

Matt's head comes up fast at the familiar female voice, and the night sloshes around inside his skull. He'd gotten farther from the scene of the fight than he'd thought, but still not far enough if campus security opts to start searching. Especially if they've got the girl in tow. Maybe if he ditches the glasses and cane she won't recognize him, won't be able to point him out.

But if he shows up at home without them, there's definitely going to be questions from Foggy. Better to be safe and just go.

He tentatively pushes himself up with one hand, pleased when things remain relatively stable. Deciding to cut through another set of trees and take a different path back, he walks for five minutes before realizing he's going in the wrong direction. He's too busy ignoring the throbbing in his arm to notice. Stick's too occupied with his chant of broken, broken, broken to comment.

Matt turns around, retracing his steps with a sigh. Broken means medical attention. More importantly, broken means having to come up with a story to explain how it happened. Something that'll no doubt paint him pathetic, color him in hues of fragility. Some silly lie about tripping over his own feet.

The toe of his sneaker catches on nothing and he stumbles. He's never heard Stick laugh so hard, inside his head or out.

Maybe it's not actually broken. Maybe it's simply a vicious sprain. An injury he can disguise until it becomes more manageable. Stick calls him an idiot and a liar, but Matt resolves to wait until the morning and see. He'll have a better sense of the damage in the morning, when it's not so swollen. He can figure out what to do about it then.

Their housing lies at one end of the campus, and he debates continuing down the street to the CVS to pick up some kind of bandaging. But navigating the store and its customers – not to mention the extra trek there and back – feels like too much work. Every step ricochets up his right side and down through his arm, and the world still flickers with the occasional sickening shiver. All he really wants is to collapse on his bed and deal with his wounds in private.

Well that and for Stick to stop laughing.

Two other people join him in the building's creaky elevator, the volume of their conversation like a cymbal crashing next to his ear. Matt tugs the sleeve of his sweatshirt down over his swollen hand, forces himself to stand straight with the arm at his side. But they don't seem to be giving him any undue attention; it gives him hope that he can pass his roommate's inspection. He exits on his floor, working to keep his gait normal and trying to coerce his lips into something that's closer to a smile. He drags a hand through his hair again as he reaches their door.

Foggy's got company.

Matt freezes with his fingers wrapped around the door knob, stalled by the anomaly of a male voice he doesn't recognize. He tries to recall any recent talk of weekend plans. Thinks about turning around, maybe going back to the library. A flood of sound suddenly blares from someone's speakers, unexpectedly flipping the hallway and bumping Matt into the doorframe. Stick pokes at the sore spot on his temple and whispers head injury. Matt swallows, takes a breath and opens the door.

"Murdock! Excellent timing! This is my cousin Ben, and the three of us are about to go out on the town. A little food, a little drink, a celebration of friends old and new. Leave your stuff. Let's go."

Matt's smile feels cracked and glaringly artificial, and he tries not to wobble under the battering of Foggy's enthusiasm. "Nice to meet you, Ben." He crosses the room to his bed, turning away from them to hide the wince when he awkwardly pulls the bag over his head with his left hand. The nerves in the fingers of his dangling right are keeping a steady beat that radiates up to his elbow. "But I, uh… I have a few things to do. Sorry. Maybe next time."

"Like what?" Foggy demands, his footsteps sliding him seamlessly into Matt's personal space. It's not an uncommon habit with his roommate, and something he's still trying to get used to.

Right now he feels trapped against his bed, the backs of his legs pressed up against the mattress. "Like study. I don't know what kind of a deal you've got, but some of us have midterms coming up."

"Okay, A: it's Friday, and there are rules about studying on a Friday. B: you have a scholarship –"

"Which has a GPA requirement…"

"And C: you already get better grades than anyone else I know. Try again, Counselor." There's a long pause, and Matt guesses that Foggy's looking him over by the way his tone narrows suspiciously. "What's wrong with you? You seem… I dunno. Off."

Matt keeps his chin up, resists the urge to hide his hands behind his back. "Nothing's wrong with me. I'm just not that hungry. I'll grab something later."

"Uh-huh." Foggy sounds absolutely unconvinced.

But the room is gradually tilting around them, and Matt's desperate to elevate his wrist to relieve some of the accumulating pressure. When Stick points out a temporary escape, he takes it. "Fine," he says, carefully sliding out from between Foggy and the bed. "Just give me a minute." He heads for the comparable solitude of the bathroom, making an effort to move as naturally as possible.

He's not sure he manages it, but nobody says anything; he tries not to let the bathroom door slam as his weight sags against it from the other side. He rests there for an exhausted minute – eyes closed and his angry wrist held against his chest, already worn out by this performance – and absently listens to the food discussion happening in the other room. Matt really doesn't want to go, but to explain why is definitely going to ruin his empathetic roommate's good mood. Possibly even the night, if it prompts Foggy to change his plans.

Which it actually might. The guy is constantly surprising him.

So he'll go fake his way through an hour, excuse himself and come back here to have the room to himself. He can do that. It's only an hour. Stick has his doubts, but Matt pushes off the door to stumble the few steps to the sink. He flushes the unused toilet as an excuse for the time he's already spent in here, turns on the cold water and clumsily attempts with one hand to splash more of it on his face than onto his clothes. It wakes him up somewhat, but not as much as when he submerges his wrist in its icy stream. He does the best he can to clean up the unseen abrasions that he can feel on his knuckles.

He'd be happy to stand here all night – the cold water pure bliss, the first alleviation of the pain since it started – but lingering is only going to add to the case that Foggy's probably started building against him. Matt shuts off the tap, noticing as he pulls his sleeve down over his wrist that it's starting to seem a bit constricting; he opens the medicine cabinet, sure that Foggy has something that could help with the swelling. But there's two bottles in there with unidentifiable pills rattling around inside, and Matt's not going to make a guess. He closes the squeaky cabinet door and puts back on his glasses.

"Ready," he says as he comes out of the bathroom. It rings with far more conviction than he feels. He crosses to the bed, finds his cane where he'd dropped it. "Where are we going?"

"I was thinking of The Last Stop," Foggy answers. "But Ben's got a car, so we could go pretty much anywhere."

Ben's the cousin who's been driving around the country, Matt remembers now. He smells like he hasn't showered in a couple of days, hasn't washed the clothes he's wearing for a lot longer than that. Matt's got no idea if it's strong enough for anyone with a less sensitive nose to notice, but he's got no desire to be stuck in a car with this guy. Plus anywhere they drive to will be more of a hassle to get back from. The bar's within walking distance. "The Stop sounds good," he lies.

They move out into the hallway together, and Foggy hesitates briefly. Maybe expecting Matt to take his arm, but there's no way Matt's fingers are going to be able to grip the cane if he transfers it to his right hand. So he ignores him. Foggy takes the hint, starts off toward the elevator.

It's not unusual, but Matt's always amazed at how good Foggy is at deciphering his hints.

The place is busy when they get there, but another thing Foggy's great at is finding empty tables in what Matt considers chaos. Tonight he's especially grateful for this skill. He stands waiting near the door forcing small talk with Ben, the crowd assaulting his senses and the girl on his other side an explosion of boisterous gestures that keep flying dangerously close to his injured arm. It can't be more than five minutes before Ben announces that Foggy's found a spot, but Matt's already got a headache. As he follows Foggy's cousin across the room, Stick helpfully suggests that maybe he should stop grinding his teeth.

Ben's apparently got an endless supply of stories, and Foggy seems to be enjoying them. To Matt it's just a droning over the din, but he works to pretend like he's paying attention. He avoids the food they order but accepts the beer, hoping it'll dull the sheen of his brutalized senses. When it doesn't, he has another.

The third one's probably a mistake – considering he can't remember the last time he ate – and getting from the table to the restroom is a major feat of concentration. The crowd's just a smear of noise and bodies; every step feels treacherously unsteady. But people must be getting out of his way, because he's got a remarkably clear path.

He wishes he hadn't had that thought. Now he's paranoid that people are staring.

Nothing he can do but put one foot in front of the other in what's hopefully a fairly straight line; it takes days to get where he's going, but he makes it without incident. The door closes behind him, dimming the noise to a low rumbling thunder, and he finds himself alone. Too bad he can't enjoy the solitude. While Matt understands that nobody would describe the odor of a public restroom as pleasant, to his senses the miasma borders on excruciating. Certainly someplace to be avoided if at all possible. He doesn't linger.

But when he opens the door to a tidal wave of crushing sound, he decides that he's not quite ready to return to the table yet either. Matt leans his back against the wall, breathing in the wisps of fresh air coming from the open fire door at the far end of the short hallway in which he's standing. Not much of it reaches all the way to him. What does carries different scents from the haze in here, and he channels his focus into naming them. Cigarette smoke, curry. A dumpster near the door and beef cooking down the street. A few people approach him, pass by; hypervigilant over any accidental contact with his injury, he holds his right arm safely close.

His shoulder aches in its unnatural stiffness; his forearm's a deafening throb. The only part of the thing that doesn't really hurt anymore is his fingers, and that's only because the sensation in them has numbed to an intermittent tingling. There's no comfort in this. Somebody in this place has a shriek of a laugh, and Matt winces when it arcs above the clamor to stab him in the eardrum. He should go. Find Foggy and Ben and say his goodbyes, stagger home and pass out. Maybe throw up first. God, he feels like crap.

Stick makes exaggerated whimpering noises. Goes back to prodding the bruise on the side of Matt's head.

Any minute now he's going to move; he assures himself of this despite his eyes being closed, despite the fact that the wall behind him still supports most of his weight. He pulls in a deep breath through his nose, and with it comes the scent of a familiar perfume.

"Oh wow, it is you. I just… I mean, I can't… I mean…" A gulp of air. "Thank you."

She's a flurry of nervous energy and motion, forced into uncomfortable proximity by the confines of the narrow hallway. Matt feels like he's been slapped. He's too off-balance to have this conversation, doesn't want to have it where someone might overhear and connect any dots. In truth, he'd hoped he'd never run into her again.

He thinks about feigning ignorance, but she doesn't seem to have any doubts about his identity. And he hasn't even changed his clothes.

"Are you okay?" she rushes on; his arm immediately falls from its braced position against his stomach. "I ran for help when that guy knocked you down. My phone was dead, so I had to find one of those security phone thingies. I thought they… I didn't know what they were going to do to you. But then we got back and you weren't there so I hoped that meant you were okay. You are okay, right?"

"I'm okay," Matt assures her smoothly, even dredging up a fluttering smile. She's a lot smaller than him, he notices now that she's standing so close. "Are you okay?"

"I wouldn't be if it wasn't for you. That was crazy. How did you –"

He shrugs his left shoulder. "I just got lucky. What did you tell the security guys?" He thinks it sounds as nonchalant as he'd intended, but he's having trouble separating his own voice from the cacophony in here.

"Well I had to tell them something. It's not like I beat those guys up. If I could've done that, I wouldn't have needed the rescue. But I didn't tell them, um… you know. I didn't tell them anything that would point to you. The way you disappeared, I figured you didn't want the attention."

It's a relief. He's had enough of being the local celebrity. "Thank you."

"No, thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Not a lot of people would have done what you did, and I'm never going to forget it. You were amazing."

A flush of embarrassment floods up to his ears, and he's hoping it's too dark for her to be able to tell. "I'm just happy that you're alright."

People are coming and going around them, and the girl keeps inching nearer. Her perfume tickles at the inside of his nose. That screech of a laugh pierces his eardrum again, and Matt flinches. The cramping beat in his wrist keeps time with his pulse.

Suddenly there are big stumbling footsteps heading this way; he puts his good arm up between the girl and the impending menace, takes the minor impact when the guy staggers into them. The alcohol splashes about in the intruder's glass, and Matt thinks he's probably got beer on his sleeve now on top of everything else.

"Saving me again," the girl says, once the guy's tripped past them. "Are you sure you're okay?"

His hand's on her shoulder, soft cotton under his fingertips. He drops his arm. "Of course."

"Because you're shaking."

"I –" He hadn't noticed, doesn't know what to say. The hallway presses thickly, and escape feels like the best option. "Look, I'm sorry, I have to go. My friends…"

"Oh. Sure. Me too."

Everything wavers when he pushes away from the wall; that whine is back, ringing above all of the rest of it. "Have a good night," he mumbles, sidling past her. It feels abrupt, rude. But he needs to get out of here.

"Hey, what's your name?" she calls to his back as he walks crookedly away from her.

Matt pretends he doesn't hear. Keeps walking.

When he returns to the table, Ben's spinning a tale of time spent in San Francisco. Matt doesn't want to interrupt; reluctantly he slides back into his seat. It feels good to be sitting down, even if part of his brain insists he's still moving. His thoughts feel too loose, his body too rigid. His senses warped by the overpowering thumping from his wrist under the table. He hopes his new friend doesn't decide to come over and try to join them. He really wants to go home.

"… party?" Foggy's voice crests over the bass line of whatever's playing on the speakers. He bumps the side of Matt's shoe with his own. "Matt?"

He hadn't realized Ben's story was done. He'd missed the ending. "Party?" Matt echoes.

"Yes, party. You know, the one you said you'd go to? The one that we both know I only got invited to because of the assumption that I'd bring you along?"

Right. There's a party. "Fog…" His brain scrambles, but there's nothing beyond Stick's too-gleeful repetition. Broken, broken, broken… "You should take Ben," he finally suggests lamely, as if Ben wasn't going with them anyway. "Introduce him to some people."

"Aw come on, Murdock..." Foggy's louder than usual, his words not quite slurred but definitely rounded at their corners. Matt wonders how many beers he's had. If he can trust Ben to look out for him. "You said last week that you'd go to this thing. You have to go to this thing."

"Leave him alone," Ben interjects. "He's got some place else to be." Matt feels a brief surge of gratitude for this stranger. At least until the tone twists into a flippant falsetto. "Thank you, thank you, thank you. You were amazing."

Matt flinches at the overblown impression, obviously intended to entertain and insinuate. It gets Foggy's attention, and the table shifts as he leans forward into it. "Okay, now that sounds like a story I definitely should have already heard."

"It wasn't like that." Matt tries to smooth out the scowl, to make the denial sound less defensive. "You misunderstood," he says to Ben.

Foggy's not buying this, broadcasting his curiosity from across the small table. Ben's not letting it go either. "I'm never going to forget it," he repeats, ridiculously breathless and out of context. Matt curses himself for not being more aware of his surroundings. Stick doesn't disagree.

He forces an amicable smile and a huff of a laugh, takes a swig he doesn't want from what's left in his bottle. The beer slides sour down his throat, and the room shimmies when he shakes his head. "It wasn't like that," he says again.

"Well I absolutely need to hear exactly what it was like," Foggy says. "On the way to the party. But first, the bathroom." Minute vibrations travel through the vinyl booth, the table, as he gets to his feet. "Who knows? Maybe I'll meet my own mystery lady while I'm there." He turns away, humming along with the new song that's started.

The night drops soddenly and unexpectedly onto Matt's shoulders, a weighted blanket – scent and noise, bodies and motion, alcohol and pain – stitched through with his exhaustion. It sags his shoulders, drops his chin toward his chest, before Stick has to remind him that he's not alone. He lifts his head, straightens. It's a struggle when everything feels so heavy.

"You should bring her to the party," Ben says. "I think she's still here."

Matt makes a noncommittal noise, has another drink just for something to do. He can barely swallow it. He can feel himself trembling now; it's uncontrollable, and an odd contrast to the sweat on the back of his neck.

"Seriously, she's really hot. I mean, I guess that doesn't matter to you, right? But she is. Really hot. Hell, I'll take her if you don't want to. Just introduce me."

He's not sure if it's his own irritation that colors this so lecherous. Decides he doesn't care at the moment. He needs some air. Solitude. Maye then he can come with a valid excuse for skipping the party. "Excuse me," he mutters as he slips out of the booth. His wrist shouts a protest at the change in position, shifting and bulging against the restrictions of his sleeve. "I need to make a phone call."

"Hey, don't be like that…" Ben latches onto his right arm above the elbow; reflexively Matt pulls away. He smacks the side of his hand into the vinyl padding of the booth, and the jolt reverberates all the way up to his back teeth. He clamps them together against the howl, the regurgitated beer, pushing up from his throat.

The world sparkles, nothing staying still or whole long enough to be identified, and he sucks in air through his teeth as he searches desperately for the direction of the door. His choice feels uncertain and frighteningly far away. He mumbles to Ben that he'll be right back, uncaring that it's probably not loud or coherent enough to be understood. His only concern is getting out of here before he throws up.

Though, as he tries not to stagger toward what he hopes – god, please, it has to be – is the fire door, he recognizes that unconsciousness is its own concern. The room's taken on a strange rubberband effect. Stretching away only to snap back with a disorienting unpredictability. Too difficult to get a good sense of the glittering space, so he concentrates instead on the faint hint of fresh air that he's praying isn't merely his imagination. He looks for the foul odor of the restrooms, a good directional marker.

But everything's just beer and liquor. Cologne and sweat. The bass beat drums against his skull.