Man Candy

Nicole Clevenger (May 2015)

Notes: A fuzzy yarn pom-pom of h/c and friendship, with much less angst than I usually manage and all kinds of bromance. I regret nothing. Mostly just a personal exercise to see how well I could shift my focus away from the visual cues on which I so rely. Based entirely in the canon of the Netflix adaptation, and set nowhere specific other than before any hidden identity reveals. I had fun doing it, and I hope someone out there enjoys reading it as well.

My first for the fandom. I make no money, because they don't belong to me.

Matt rises to consciousness sluggishly, his head wrapped in layers of cotton wool. The unfamiliar dullness of his senses sends a flood of adrenaline through him; his eyes snap uselessly open. For a moment, he has absolutely no idea where he is.

He forces himself calm, to lie still and focus. Everything feels muted, distant, and his entire body aches. The path of his fingers tells him he's dressed more Matt than Mask, a cotton t-shirt and baggy sweats instead of the body suit. Bedsheets tangled around bare feet. So not on the street then. Slowly – too slowly – the sounds of his building begin to seep in and confirm this.

There's no taste of iron in the air to suggest injury, just salty sweat and a chalky dryness that coats his tongue. He struggles to remember where he was last night. Who he'd fought. His nose doesn't seem to be working properly, and there's a second where he wonders if it's broken. But no – it's pressure, not pain, that's interfering with his sense of smell. Matt groans, realizing now what this is.

He doesn't get sick very often, but when he does it's more debilitating for him than most. Especially with a head cold, the fuzzy confusion playing havoc with the perception he so relies on. Matt sits up, shifts so that his feet are flat on the floor. His head's heavy, uncooperative, and with the change in altitude a thick throbbing starts up. He drops it into his hands, making himself listen for the background noises that he knows should be here.

He has to reach for them: the ticking of pipes, the sounds of life in other apartments. He can't hear the hum of the billboard outside, difficult as it can often be to ignore. It's lost under a murmur of street traffic, and he finds himself missing the incessant noise in its absence. He feels uprooted without it, a constant so much a part of this place.

He realizes now that his alarm is still sounding; he swipes for it with a hand and misses. It doesn't bode well for the rest of the day.

But he refuses to simply sit here; they've got a client coming in at ten. And the speed at which he's likely to be moving means he can use all the time he can get. Matt makes another pass at the alarm, finding the button to silence it this time. Tells himself to quit wallowing and pushes his uncoordinated limbs upright.

The heat and steam from the shower help a little, and by the time he's dressed he's feeling closer to himself. Matt stands in front of the open refrigerator for a few moments, the crisp air cooling his face as he debates breakfast. In the end a banana seems easiest; his fingers play over the fruit bowl on the counter until they find the smooth recognizable shape.

He's got no appetite, but he leans against the counter and makes himself finish it. There's value in routine, in self-control. In nutrition. He can hear out of one of his ears now, a blessed clarity next to the clogged mess of the other side. He tilts his head about as he stands there, bringing ambient noises in and out of sharpness with this new unilateral focus.

It's annoying. Unbalancing. He hopes it doesn't last very long.

Getting to the office is an exercise in concentration, and for the first time in a long time Matt's feeling a bit too much like the blind man the rest of the world sees. The noises of the street come buffeting against his left side, piercing and exaggerated especially when compared to the muted compression still weighing on his right ear. It's disorienting, and he frowns when he misjudges the rise of the curb on the next corner and stubs his toe.

The headache is doing little in his favor; Matt flinches as a siren splits the morning a few blocks behind him. Standing safe on the sidewalk, he takes a deliberate breath of the city air. Squares his shoulders and resets. He pretends to himself it means nothing when he notices that he can't smell the hot dog stand that he knows at this hour is already set up down the street.

Generally his walk to work is a pleasant one, a way to organize his thoughts and connect with his city. Today it exhausts him, and as he walks down the hallway toward the office Matt's glad that his friends' lack of heightened senses means they probably won't be able to smell the sweat he can feel prickling between his shoulderblades. He takes a moment to wipe any dampness from his forehead, to run a hand through his hair and unclench the muscles in his jaw. His white knuckle grip on the cane.

Matt pastes a smile on his lips and pushes open the door. Karen's here but Foggy's not; she's brought donuts. From the place near her house, more than likely. It bothers him that he can't tell.

"Good morning," he says, shooting for cheerful. It's nearer to puberty-struck teenager, a croak more than anything. Matt clears his throat, giving a tiny embarrassed chuckle that's not entirely for show. "Sorry, let's try that again," he says, in a voice closer to his normal one. "Good morning."

"Good morning," she returns, and he can hear the frown in her echo. So not as stellar a save as he'd hoped then. He can only pray he looks better than he feels.

"Donuts?" Matt asks, trying to deflect her attention. He props the cane against the wall while he takes off his jacket and hangs it up. Makes his way toward his own office. Karen follows, and he can tell by the way her body blocks the air flow from the outer room that she's leaning against the doorframe.

"Yeah I just thought, you know, client."

This time his smile is more genuine. "It was a nice gesture. I'm sure Mister Dorian will appreciate it."

"Do you want one?"

Matt drifts his fingers over the edge of the desk, the top of his chair. He sinks into it, trying not to look too grateful to finally be sitting down. "No. Thank you."

"You okay?" Karen asks.

"Of course," he says. "Why wouldn't I be?"

Simpler to lie to people when you don't have to meet their eyes with your own; impossible to truly force the same emotions there that you can shape with the rest of your face. Matt gives her his best innocent expression. He hasn't seen it in what feels like a lifetime, but experience has assured him that it usually works.

"No reason," she says.

Whether Karen believes him or not, she turns to go. Matt rubs at his eyes. Immediately drops the hand when he hears her turn back. She pokes her upper body through the doorway, a brush of her sleeve across the doorframe and a tiny creak where her fingers wrap around the old wood. He looks up to where he knows her face should be, attempting to appear both alert and interested.

"Foggy called," she tells him. "He's running a little late. Apparently his power cut out last night and his alarm didn't go off. But he swears he'll be here in time for the meeting."

"Okay," Matt says. "No problem."

"Sure you don't want something? Coffee?"

He doesn't, but he suspects letting her do something will make her feel better. Maybe lend enough normalcy to divert any lingering concerns. "Coffee would be great. Thanks."

She leaves to get it, and Matt slumps in the chair. He removes his glasses, tossing them onto the desk; the thin frames tap a short staccato beat as they unevenly settle. He presses the heels of his hands against his eyes, working to focus through the sticky humidity filling his head. His eyes hurt, the flames in his vision eating through to the organs themselves.

Enough of this; he has things to do. Matt sits up, gropes around the space in front of him for his glasses. He locates them again without too much trouble, his fingertips finding first the flat lenses. It doesn't matter if the oil in his prints leaves a smudge there. He won't notice.

Matt puts them back on, opens his bag and pulls out his laptop and braille display terminal. He's got everything set up on the desk by the time Karen returns. She sets the mug down; Matt gives her a smile but doesn't reach for it. Acts like he's absorbed with reading something, because he's confidant that from her angle she can't tell that his computer's still on its start-up screen.

If she can see that the small refreshable dots aren't rising and falling under his shifting fingers, she doesn't comment on it. "I was thinking that when Foggy gets in we could have a quick meeting," Matt says. Feeling the need to say something.

"Ooh, morning meetings. We're getting so professional." She sounds more relaxed than she did before.

"Well we'll try not to let it go to our heads." Matt's smile feels painted on.

He spends the next half hour going over their notes, listening for Foggy's arrival and tracking Karen's movements around the other room. Twice he hears her start for his door, only to change her mind and busy herself with something else. He has use of both ears again – a glorious sensation only able to be fully appreciated with its return – and it improves his mood considerably. If he can shake this headache as well, this day's going to be far easier to get through than he'd expected.

He remembers the coffee only when Karen comes in to offer a refill. It's room temperature, the mug still full. "You need more…? Oh," she says. Matt looks toward the cup without seeing it, reflexive when her words tell him she's doing the same.

"I'm good."

The front door opens and Foggy bustles in, all shampoo and aftershave and startled frustration. There are few things in ordinary life as jarring as beginning your day with a missed alarm. He's still clearly rattled, shuffling footsteps that can't choose a direction. Breathing a bit faster than normal, and his heartrate increased to match.

"Hi," Karen says, going out to meet him near the door. There's a rustling of fabric and a moment of mingled breath, and Matt pictures her helping Foggy free himself from his coat. "What happened?"

"Dunno," Foggy replies. The heavy wool catches on the coat rack by the door; one of the buttons clicks against the wall beside it as the material comes to rest. "Think it was just my building."

"Want coffee?"

"More than you can imagine. Hey – donuts!"

Foggy moves further into the office. Cardboard sliding over itself as the box opens, a gooey sound as glaze is separated from sugary glaze. Matt hears Foggy take a squishy bite, and his next statement is garbled around it. "You're a keeper," he tells Karen. "I love a woman who can appreciate the twin importance of both sugar and caffeine."

"Too bad," she says lightly. "Because I also appreciate a man who doesn't talk with his mouth full."

Foggy swallows, a gulping comedic noise. "There's your problem," he teases. "Your standards are way too high."

He's still finishing the donut when he ducks into Matt's office, but try as he might Matt can pin down no details more specific than a vague sense of sweetness. Maybe one of the cherry-frosted ones, coated with those little sprinkles that seem to get everywhere. He's uncertain if he's really picking this up, or simply inventing it with the knowledge that those are usually the type Foggy prefers.

"Rough morning?" Matt greets him.

"Yeah, you could say that." His heartbeat is getting more even the longer he spends in the office. As he's slowly finding a handle on the day.

"Relax," Matt says anyway. "Get settled. We've got –" His finger flicks over the display to bring up the time. "– at least twenty minutes."

"Cool." Foggy doesn't leave, though. "So what's up with you?"

The question trips up his fingers' progression over the text; it's barely a twitch, but Matt wouldn't be surprised if Foggy caught it. "What do you mean?" It almost sounds as nonchalant as he attempts to pitch it.

"Uh, you're kinda pale, man. Like maybe you had a worse morning than me." Now a smile turns up the edges of Foggy's voice, as a different thought occurs. "Or a better night."

"I'm fine," Matt insists. His own crafted hint of a smirk meant to imply that perhaps Foggy's on to something.

"Uh-huh." His oldest friend is not as easily dissuaded as their new one, however. "Seriously, Murdock. You should see yourself."

"Funny," Matt says.

Foggy doesn't correct himself; from anyone else, Matt would have dismissed the comment as a careless slip of the tongue, the verbiage of sight so ingrained in society's speech. Followed usually by a stumbling effort of overcompensation, an assault of reparations that he's grown tired of dealing with. He understands it, of course, this discomfort and generally heartfelt desire to repair any assumed damage done. But it's always refreshing when he doesn't have to face it with Foggy.

Odds are good that the phrasing was intentional anyway. Matt knows there's no malice in it. Appreciates Foggy's unerring ability to make him feel more like everybody else.

"I have a headache," he admits, when Foggy still does not move. Hopes it will be enough. "It's no big deal." He can't help but look away from the lawyer. Even if he doesn't have to meet the other man's eyes.

"Okay." A new wave of coffee wafts into the room, fresher than what's coming from the mug on his desk. Karen, bringing Foggy his cup. "Let me know if you need anything, I guess."

Foggy takes a sip, and Matt can tell it's too hot by the little convulsive double-swallow. He winces in empathy, but he's absurdly pleased to have caught the tiny noise. Maybe he's fighting off whatever this is.

"You want to go over anything?" Foggy asks, after his spate of overdramatized spluttering dies down. "Before Mister Dorian gets here?"

"Yeah, I figured we could talk. We might as well set up in the conference room. Five minutes?"

"Sure," Foggy says, finally leaving Matt's office.

To call the spare space a conference room is perhaps to overstate it a little; Matt gets this without having to actually see it. But they all understand they're in the early stages yet. Building. The work they're doing more important than the frills of decoration, than an excess of square-footage. He's left his computer in his office with the coffee, has come empty handed. Karen and Foggy will take notes. Matt will listen, and read over them later.

The legs of the chair scratch across the meager carpet as he slides it out; Matt bumps his hip against the edge of the table as he goes to sit, and he hopes that Foggy's not yet entered. The recognition that he doesn't instantly know – that he has to stop and consciously locate the man – puts a dark shadow over his budding optimism.

No, he can hear Foggy and Karen walking about in the other room. Matt tries to get it together, working his jaw in an effort to ease some of the pressure in his ears. The donuts are in here now, the box sitting open in the middle of the table. An offering sickly cloying, and he squirms a bit in the chair as if he can somehow get away from their scent.

A few minutes later the other two join him, and they spend some time going over what little they already know from the phone call Karen took a couple of days ago. Alfonse Dorian, fifty-two, recently fired from a construction company with which he'd worked for over twenty years. Wrongfully so, they were to contend, as a result of too many days absent while caring for an ailing grandson who had no one else. They'd done some superficial research on the company, on the man himself. Next step was to meet him, to fill in the rest of the details and see what they can do.

Matt struggles to balance his participation in the conversation. Not so little that they'll suspect something's off. But not so much that it'll seem he's trying too hard.

Mister Dorian arrives, a quiet man – small, Matt's muffled senses say, wiry – who jumps straight to the point. The little room seems noticeably warmer with his added presence despite his lack of size, and Matt's thankful for the directness with which he answers their questions. They have a lot of the information they need already, and the interview begins to naturally wrap itself up after only a half an hour.

"So you think I gotta case? My grandson, he's better, but he ain't great. I don't have a lotta time to waste here. Need to find another job."

"There are child protection laws in place, Mister Dorian," Matt assures him. "As well as those pertaining to time away from work for the guardian who cares for that child. I think we have a good chance at a settlement. Or your job back, if you want it."

His throat closes wrong around the last word, sending him coughing, unexpectedly desperate for air. "I just need money to look after the boy," Dorian says, over Matt's attempts to stifle the fit.

Karen presses a bottle of water into his hand. "Excuse me," Matt mumbles, unscrewing the cap. The water soothes a throat that until now he hadn't realized was sore. "I think we can help," he forces out redundantly, after a few sips. Uncomfortable with the silence that's now hanging from the ceiling.

"Yeah," Foggy says, getting to his feet. There's a swish of his sleeve against the side of his jacket as he raises his arm to offer a handshake to their client. "Thanks for coming in, Mister Dorian. We'll be in touch soon."

Skin against skin, noises of the other man standing up from the table. Matt is certain Foggy's darting glances his way; not because he can hear the motion of his head as he turns, but because he knows his friend so well. There's really nothing he can do about it. He drinks more of the water, concentrating instead on getting his breathing back under control.

"Nice guy," Matt says, in the deafening stillness that follows the closing of their front door. His voice sounds rougher than it should, and he doubts he's the only one who hears it. "Hope we can do something."

"Me too," Foggy agrees. "You okay?"

"We should go out to the construction company today." Karen's still behind him; he can feel the intensity of her attention lasering into the back of his head. "Talk to somebody. Get this done quickly."

"Yup," Foggy says flatly. He's closer now, perched on the edge of the table just over a foot away. "Not what I asked, though."

"I'm fine," Matt says. It's too near to the growl of the Mask. He blames the impression on the sand in his throat. Tries unsuccessfully to clear it.

"You, my friend, are looking less 'fine' with every passing minute." It's all concern. Matt doesn't think he's ever met anyone as sincere as Foggy. "Come on, man. Not all of us have those… extra super-focusedblind people senses." Foggy's hand flips through the air, a vague gesture meant to encompass whatever ridiculous powers one might imagine granted to the non-sighted. A fraction of Matt's real abilities, he's sure. But it makes him smile, a tiny quirk tugging at the corner of his mouth.

"Help me out here," Foggy says.

This close the other man's body heat is adding weight to his own, and Matt resists an impulse to loosen his tie. "I think I'm getting a cold," he eventually says, seeing no good way out of this. "Really, it's no big deal."

He gets the sense that the repetition of this phrase is doing exactly zero to allay Foggy's worries. But he's not really sure what else he's supposed to say. It really is no big deal, just a cold. He'll survive. People do.

Foggy continues to study him from the front, Karen from behind. If everything weren't such a pain in the ass today, he'd get up and leave them here to stare at each other. Instead Matt sits bearing up under inspection, finishing the water and pretending patience. Gathering strength he shouldn't have to look for. Allowing them a few well-intentioned moments to delude themselves into thinking that they have some sort of true say over his life.

It isn't long before he's had enough though, and Matt's shifting to get up by the time that Foggy speaks again. "Why don't you just go home, man? I can totally handle the thing – I'll take Karen with me. It'll be like a field trip."

"Can we stop for ice cream?" Karen chirps up. Her voice too high.

"What kind of field trips did you go on? I should've gone to that school."

The fabric over Karen's shoulders whispers as she shrugs. Silk? Cotton. "I like ice cream," she says. "Sue me."

"I can do that," Foggy answers.

If Matt has any hope that this banter might be enough diversion to avoid the original subject, it isn't a thought left to linger long. "Come on," the other lawyer says, turning back to Matt and laying a hand over the wrist that rests on the arm of the chair between them. "I'll get you a cab."

"No." He won't be coddled, not even by his closest friends and no matter how well-meaning the emotions that guide their actions. "I'm not dying, guys," Matt says, with a laugh that he doesn't think rings too false. He stands, his confidence buoyed when the movement goes smoothly. "I'm going with you," he tells Foggy.

His chin might be raised a bit too much. Too defensive. Matt tries to twist the motion into a casual turn of his head as he subtly lowers it.

"No need, man. Why work if you're feeling crappy? The beauty of running your own firm, am I right?"

It's a point well made, and for a second or two Matt allows himself to soak in it. But he doesn't feel that bad, not really. Certainly not on the grand scale of punishments he's been put through. He truly is interested in achieving a positive and speedy conclusion to this case, and this bug's just irritating enough that going home probably means nothing more than hours of dazed lounging around, achy and without distraction. Might as well try to be of assistance for now.

He tells Foggy as much. Tells them both. Karen's plainly on Foggy's side in this – since Matt's gotten to his feet, she's been inching ever so slightly closer to him. It's incredibly gradual. He wonders if she even recognizes that she's doing it. "If I feel any worse, I'll go home," he promises. "What time do you want to head over there?"

There's a brief stand-off, a stretch of time that pulls longer and longer until it threatens to become something else. Or maybe that's just the taffy in his brain, dragging apart and intertwining together. "Whatever," comes Foggy's eventual conclusion, an almost carefree concession after too endless a span of them all frozen here. Matt wishes he could see the man's expression. "An hour sound good?"

Foggy's straightened up; Matt's got his fingertips on the top of the table, and he feels the vibrations when it loses the man's weight. Karen still hasn't said anything. Her unusual reticence tickles at the short hairs on the bare nape of Matt's neck.

"Sounds good," he parrots. Seeking the same note of nonchalance.

Matt escapes to his own office, and it feels undeniably like escape no matter how much he tries to persuade himself otherwise. Separate from his gratitude for the motivating emotions, there's a burden to other people's concern. It pushes him to try all that much harder to do whatever he can to combat it, regardless of whether he has the energy, lest it morph into a sentiment nearer to pity.

It's a narrow line. Often ill-defined.

He doesn't go so far as to close his office door; this would be an aberration too much out of character to ignore. It means he has to devote a lot of his focus into appearing busy, healthy. Into sitting up. The two of them seem to be simply roaming aimlessly around out there, and Matt can't necessarily always tell when they're looking in his direction.

Both of his ears have returned to their wooled-over state now, an insidious torture of muddling softness and ringing pressure. Matt can hear them talking to one another occasionally, sporadic mumbling about mostly trivial things, but the concentration required to make out their conversations is bought with an increase in the intensity of his headache. He doesn't think they're discussing him anyway, at least not with any assumptions of secrecy. Any other day, and they know he'd hear them with no effort at all.

Karen does venture in when Matt begins to cough again, bringing with her another unrequested bottle of water. She sets it directly in front of him without speaking, a distinctly nonverbal remark, but he knows from the hitch in her breath that there remains something she wants to say.

"Still not dying," Matt reminds her. Gently, but loudly enough that they're both certain to catch it. "Just a bit under the weather."

It stalls whatever thoughts she'd been about to express, and once more Matt's ostensibly left alone. As if he can't sense them hovering out there. He opens the second bottle, drinks. If nothing else, he's apparently going to be kept well hydrated.

He dreams a brief dream of ibuprofen, but he can picture the new bottle he's just purchased sitting forgotten in its crinkly plastic bag on the side table at home. He could simply ask. Wouldn't even need to get up. He doesn't, and refuses to decide if his silence tastes more stubborn or masochistic.

The hour passes; Foggy's shaggy bulk fills his doorway. "Matt. You still wanna go?"

"Yeah." He's lost the last ten minutes. Maybe more. He wonders if it's more or less difficult to tell when a blind man's staring off into space. "Let me just…" Matt's abruptly unsure where the sentence is supposed to be going. "I'll be right there."

"Great," Foggy says. Everything about him is shouting the opposite.

Matt checks his pockets for his phone, his wallet. Leaves his bag and computer, opting not to deal with the hassle of extra unnecessary weight, slight though it may be. He hates that he's thinking like this. Debating these petty considerations. He's given a sharp reminder why, however, when he pushes up from the desk. A slap of vertigo backhands him from out of nowhere, knocking him down into the chair.

For a few minutes he sits still as stone, a child playing statue until he sees if he's been caught out. There's no hurried footsteps, no cries of alarm. Matt attempts to relax his shoulders. It seems his sudden descent has gone unnoticed.

Cautiously, he tries again; the world is infinitely more stable the second time around. Matt shapes his lips into a smile. Or something less dour, at any rate. As an afterthought he grabs for the water bottle, a sweeping motion toward where he thinks he left it; his hand bumps the coffee mug instead, and he feels the thing tip. It rights itself, but he wastes a couple seconds more in a tense exploration with his fingertips to assure himself that any spills are confined to the ceramic sides rather than splattered on anything lying about on his desk.

By the time he finds the water and exits his office, Foggy's got his coat on. It's a guess, based on the way he stands close to the door unmoving. Waiting. Matt joins him, and there's a shifting of the air as his own coat is handed over. No argument. He trades with Foggy, the half full plastic bottle for the armload of draping fabric, and takes another shot at that elusive smile as he slips his arms into the sleeves.

He can't tell if it works. Once he's got the coat on, the water and his cane are directed into his hands. Foggy holds the items up between them, content to remain like that until Matt wraps his fingers firmly around both. The bottle is shoved into a pocket as Matt turns to say goodbye to Karen.

"Want us to bring you back ice cream?" Foggy asks from behind him.

"Actually, do you mind if I go?" The metal hooks fastening the straps on her purse clink against each other as Karen picks up the bag. The faintest of squeaks as her fingers clutch at the leather.

"Not at all," Matt's quick to respond. "Mister Nelson? Do you have any objections?"

"I do not, Your Honor." Foggy's hand lands on Matt's shoulder; he leans in close enough to nearly rest his chin on top of it. "Have you ever known me to object to the company of a beautiful woman? Even if she's usually hanging on your arm?"

Foggy's doing his own version of hanging off of Matt; there's maybe an inch separating them where the man presses into his space. Not making Matt shore up any of his weight, just incredibly near. It's a physical intimacy born from years of friendship.

Though born from isn't exactly accurate. Foggy's tactility had been a feature of this friendship from the beginning – a pat on the back, an arm slung over a shoulder – and something Matt hadn't been prepared for in his new law school roommate. More precise to say that the years had lent Matt an easier acceptance of the all the random amicable contact. Not because he hadn't welcomed it at the start, but because he'd had to learn how to let it in. People tended to gravitate toward one of two extremes around him, nervously distant or crowding with extraneous offers of assistance, and it's rarely fun to be groped by a stranger, no matter how well-intentioned they are.

But Foggy has always been different, in so many ways. He's warm where he leans against Matt, and he smells of vague concepts like comfort and home. Matt's eyes drift closed without his permission as he savors the simple familiarity. He's confidant Foggy can't see it from behind him, and Karen's facing down the opacity of his glasses.

Another moment and Matt rouses himself, blinks open damaged eyes. "Somebody bang a gavel and let's get out of here already," he mumbles. He'd meant for it to be louder. Funnier. Foggy laughs anyway, a puff of exhale that's close to his ear.

A breeze has picked up out in the street; it tickles at his stuffed nose, tingles over skin that alternates too hot, too cold. Matt waits with them, virtually useless in their search for a cab. A better day, and he might have been able to spot one before they did. It rankles, to stand here so blind.

He's feeling a bit sorry for himself; the arrival of a cab breaks the spell, gives him the distance to snap himself out of it. It pulls up to the curb with an unexpected rush of wind and squeal of rubber against cement, tires scraping against the sidewalk as the driver miscalculates. Matt hadn't heard it coming, muddled and absorbed in something dangerously akin to self-pity, and it's only because he's behind them that Foggy and Karen miss the startled twitch he silently curses himself for.

They slide three into the back seat; Foggy all the way to the far side, Karen in the middle. Matt taps into the footwell with his cane, plays fingertips over the roof, the edge of the door. He gets in and pulls it closed behind him. Stuffy back here, and he keeps his body turned as much toward the door as he can without making it too obvious. In this thick air he suddenly feels disgustingly germy, a neon sign of contagion.

Foggy gives the driver an address; Matt smothers a fit of coughing in the crook of his elbow. The man in the front seat has no verbal response to either of them, but he rolls down his window as he accelerates away from the curb. The fresh breeze flows over Matt's face as they weave through midmorning traffic. He tries to slip into a light meditation, to let the cool air revive him.

The construction company has an office in a block of offices, a series of boring carbon-copied buildings that absorb more than reflect sound. Squarish, Matt gets. Squat. Two floors. No, three.

If he'd hoped to impress himself with what should be a child's play test, he's disappointed. Foggy takes Matt's arm as the cab pulls away, a barely there hand on his bicep. The unfamiliar path leading to the front door is flat, lined with a few trees. Nothing he's unable to navigate on his own, even in this state, but Matt doesn't protest.

Karen precedes them; her heels click over the concrete, a traceable trail. There's the sound of suction as she pulls at the door, a resistance between atmospheres in and out. Matt's cane ticks over the threshold as she holds it open for him, the stick working with his fingers to describe the size of the entrance. His picture is incomplete, shaped without enough attention paid to the much trampled carpet. It doesn't include the frayed hole his shoe finds just as he steps inside.

Foggy had released his arm when they got to the door, but Matt feels his friend's hand reach for him again when he stumbles. It's an instinctive reaction, and unnecessary; he keeps to his feet on his own. Foggy's fingers close around empty air, short of his arm. Matt gives him a little wave, to reassure him that he's okay.

He's grateful when Foggy lets it go without comment; his friends join him in the entryway. It's not really a lobby. More a hallway prefaced with mailboxes and elevators, the former discovered when he'd tripped and found their icy ridged metal as he'd reached out to steady himself on the wall. The elevators are obvious, ubiquitous steel rectangles blocking air and deep rumbling vibration with their sleek doors; the chasm-like looming feel of them, even when closed, is something that remains the same everywhere.

The newer ones like these, anyway. The elevators in the plentiful older buildings of Hell's Kitchen are all rattle and no substance. Able to be heard nearly a mile away. With their own charm, Matt thinks – he'd regret a world left with nothing but this thrumming cold steel. But it can be somewhat disconcerting when one's forced to rely on them as the only choice for transportation. The repair of some of those old ones seeming questionable at best.

Doesn't matter – he's not taking the stairs. Or scaling up the outside of the building. At least not in the daylight, and certainly not with Karen and Foggy here.

One of them moves an arm to depress the elevator button. Karen. Lighter, less displacement of air, and something undefinable about the arc of the motion itself. She smells of soap. The plastic button sticks as she clicks it, and a tiny vee of a frown cinches between Matt's eyebrows as it takes longer than it's supposed to to determine exactly what kind of soap it is.

He hears hair brushing across collars, skin, as they both look around the space while they wait; from the echoes of it, there's not much to see. Thirty feet stretching away from them, walls decorated with a handful of flimsy frames beyond the bank of elevators. One of those hanging plaques is the building's directory, Matt assumes, more than likely covered with the same plastic as the cheap art. It's a protection against potential vandals – a lock and key deterrent aimed at those who would scramble and steal the rearrangeable letters – but he doubts whomever put it up considered that it effectively keeps him from being able to read the directory on his own.

A stairwell at the end of the corridor, more a distant sense of emptiness than anything. One that stretches up, up. Up, up, up… Matt shakes himself out of this hazy wafting repetition, blinking behind his glasses. Makes himself detail the stairwell in concrete facts. Number of steps between landings, distance between walls and how much of an effort it would require to propel up those instead of using the stairs themselves. The enclosed area isn't that far away. It shouldn't be this difficult to track the shape of the reverberations, the currents of air. He pushes himself to really see the space. To nail down every mundanity about that stupid staircase that they're not even planning to use.

Never know when an alternate route will come in handy. He's absolutely not doing it simply out of a mulish desire to prove to himself that he can.

Matt's frustration has curled his left hand a tight fist in his coat pocket, the incessant beat of his headache tightening the clench of his fingers. He tries to relax both of his hands when he recognizes the tension in them, but only flexes the one out of sight. His cramped fingertips find something forgotten made of cloth in his pocket, a folded square that's not part of the coat's lining. Crests and dips that make up crisp fabric corners. And a loopy stitching that forms the swooping MM of his initials.

A silly thing, a half-spoof present from Foggy to go with their graduation suits. He'd ordered the monogrammed handkerchief the day they'd gone to get measured for their new clothes, sneaking off to conspire while Matt was trapped under the tailor's tape. The suits a foolish expense perhaps, but they had decided together early on that they'd treat themselves when they made it this far. Matt remembers he'd been thinking that maybe off the rack still had its perks, about the time that his best friend had seemingly disappeared and there was a strange man intent on determining the length of his inner thigh.

He'd known nothing of the gift until later, not until the big day itself. Standing next to each other in their room, putting the finishing spit-polish touches on their outfits. He'd made a joke about them not needing to fight for the mirror; Foggy had abruptly ducked away, reappearing in front of Matt to push something into his outer breast pocket.

"Let me see," Matt had said, pulling it back out again.

Foggy had seemed a little sheepish, fidgeting while Matt traced the custom embroidery and delicate edging. Made some remark about Matt needing all the help he could get to look good. As if it were nothing, a throw-away stocking stuffer. Matt had been moved, the emotions of the day already ballooned and circling; he remembers how his throat had suddenly closed up, how he hadn't been able to speak. A moment shared, both understanding what it was without having to put words to it. When Matt could form sentences again, he'd warned Foggy that the thing had better not be neon yellow and let his friend arrange the handkerchief back in his pocket.

But it was never something that he actually used, and at some point it had apparently found its way into one of the pockets of his coat. His fingers toy with it now as they stand here.

"What's the deal with this elevator?" Foggy grumbles from off to his left. "There's three of them, man." This directed at Matt.

He doesn't mention that he's figured this out on his own already. That the elevator they're waiting in front of is stuck on the floor above, with an obnoxious buzzing signaling that someone is blocking the doors. Doesn't respond at all, beyond an ambiguous twitch of his head that could possibly be taken for agreement. Foggy turns to face forward, and Matt pulls the handkerchief out of his pocket to wipe at his nose.

The cloth square must have been in the coat the last time it was dry cleaned; it smells of tetrachloroethylene. The harsh chemical solvent scratches at the inside of Matt's nose, and he sneezes.

"Not a word," he mutters, as the elevator finally dings its arrival. The car bumps into its slot as it settles; there's a burst of air as the doors pull apart. Two men exit, middle-aged and involved in conversation. Matt takes a small step back, away from the doors and closer to Karen. He pinpoints the moment the man passing nearest him notices the cane and glasses, by the almost imperceptible hitch in the stranger's gait.

The two men leave the building, the opened front door bringing inside the smell of the honeysuckle that dots the bushes and a wisp of wind that swirls through Matt's hair. It lights up the sweat he can feel now at his temples, an influx of coolness. He stands for a moment too long, head cocked and eyes closed, and it isn't until the warning alarm begins to buzz again that he realizes Foggy and Karen are already waiting inside the elevator. Matt moves into the car with them; one of them releases the door. The useless handkerchief is crumpled back into a pocket, a wad of fabric in his fist.

He does his best not to sniffle. To get himself out of this cramped huddle that his shoulders have shaped themselves into.

"Does anyone know we're coming?" Matt asks into the humid silence.

"Element of surprise, my friend."

His tone is pure Foggy, casual and amused. But Matt can feel the stiffness in the body beside him, and he suspects that if Foggy's not actually openly studying him right now, it's an effort of self-restraint. "And what happens if there's no one available to talk with us?" Matt asks.

"Then you can chat up the pretty secretary, while Karen and I make friends with anyone else we can find. Get the lay of the land."

Matt quashes a cough, not a full blown episode this time but a couple of minor spasms kept contained behind smashed lips. His chest jerks with the attempt to suppress them. "How do you know she's pretty?" he croaks, digging into his pocket to fish out the bottle of water.

"Your luck, man. Of course she'll be pretty."

Matt drinks. "I might not be her type. You might have to take this one. Or Karen." He turns a bit in her direction, gives her a smile. It bothers him that he hasn't heard her voice much today.

"Matt Murdock declining an opportunity to flirt? You must feel like crap."

"I'm fine," he insists pointlessly. The elevator stops with a jolt that reverberates up from his shoes. The doors slide apart.

Another hallway, this one all closed doors and with what feels like the same quality of art. The potted plant Matt's cane taps against smells of plastic, a faint scent overwhelmed by the surfeit of cleaning chemicals that permeate the carpeted corridor. He tries to ignore the way everything feels so drenched in them. Makes himself focus instead on the number of offices they've passed. The amount of people inside.

Foggy beside him, Karen lingering behind. "Here," his friend says, as he finds the door they're looking for. The knob turns under the other man's hand, with a soft snick as the bolt slips free.

Matt enters the office, drinking more water in an attempt to rid his mouth of the tang of bleach, ammonia. His tonsils feel swollen, pulsing and bright red. "Hi," Foggy says, presumably to the woman that sits behind the desk. "Is Mister Esteban in this morning, by any chance?"

"Oh, no – Mister Esteban rarely comes out here." Forties, it sounds like, with a rich chestnut voice. She has a cat, or has been spending a lot of time around one recently; the animal's smell is woven into the fabric of her clothes.

It's a decently sized construction company, enough to have three small bases of operation spread throughout New York. Only about fifty employees in all, and Esteban the man at the top. Matt searches his memory for another name, wishing Foggy had called ahead to make an appointment.

"Charlie Warner." It's blurted out as soon as he comes up with it, a faulty filter somewhere in his brain. But mumbled, and this gives Matt the chance to repeat it as more of a polite request. "Mister Warner. Is he in?" Audible this time. Less like a demanding child.

"He is." A pause, as if she's checking something. "He's on the phone, though. If you'd like to take a seat, I'll find out if he has time to see – Um, I mean... talk with you. He might have a little time to talk with you. I can check his schedule. To see. To find out." She's working herself up to flustered, and Matt's lips tug into a smile devoid of any actual feeling.

"Thank you," he says kindly. A gentle hint that she can go ahead and stop scrambling. Karen touches Matt's arm, and he lets Foggy handle the who- and what-fors as she directs him to a collection of chairs.

Not a very large room, this front reception area. Windows to his right, opposite the door; the strongest scents of coffee and roses. The latter seems a somewhat odd disparity for the office of a construction company, but Matt narrows it to a specific point on the receptionist's desk. A bouquet, then. Not an overall decorating choice.

A breeze flutters the corners of several papers in a concentrated area on the wall behind the woman; tacked up photos, or company notices. A bulletin board directly under an air vent. Matt wonders that it doesn't annoy her, that endless flapping. A background constant so near to where she sits. It's annoying him, and he's suffered through it for less than five minutes.

Foggy appears, drops into the chair next to Matt. On the other side of him, Karen pulls something out of her bag, Maybe her phone. "She's going to see," Foggy says, and by the way he keeps his voice down, it's clear that this repetition is on purpose.

Matt snorts. He schools his own voice just as low, not wanting to make the woman any more uncomfortable either. "You want me to go flirt with her? It seemed to be going so well."

"Nah, I think you were right – it looks like she's eyeing Karen." Karen has no comment; it's difficult for Matt to tell if she's listening. Probably not – there's no sign of a reaction. Foggy shifts in his seat. "By the way," he continues, "you definitely have to teach me that one."

"What's that?"

"However you could tell – from out in the hallway – that this chick, you know… digs chicks. Quite a skill, my man. One that would save me a lot of time."

It had been a joke, but he suspects Foggy knows this. "Extra super-focusedblind people senses," Matt says.

The ordinary watch he wears allows him to track the passage of time, not to check the actual hour but to measure segments of it by counting the beat of the second hand. He wears it mostly for sentimental value – a gift from his father long ago, oversized then on his thin child's wrist – and if he wanted he could easily find something with an audio readout. He has plenty of other ways to recognize the hour, from the simple cues of a day to an ingrained knowledge of how long a specific span of time feels. He'd spent enough waiting alone for his father to come home, in his own personal hell of dark flames, to not be intimately aware of how long the minutes take to creep by.

But he hasn't been paying attention, not to the second hand ticking against his wrist. Not to anything, really, beyond the throbbing in his sinuses and that fluttering paper behind the receptionist's head. When Warner comes out to meet them from some other room, Matt is unable to say how long they've been sitting here.

"Gentlemen. I have a couple of minutes, if you wanted to come back to my office?"

Foggy's shoulder is warm under Matt's palm, a solid familiarity as they move through the unmapped space. Waren's office is crowded, a big desk taking up most of the room, and nearly every available flat surface is covered with nebulous piles of papers and books. There's a distinctive odor to the ferric compounds in the blueprints spread about, an identifiable bouncy hollow sound that their tubed rubberbanded bundles make when they're relocated out of the way. But despite all this evidence of planning and construction, Matt can tell that it's dress shoes – not work boots – that Warner wears as he leads them in. He wonders when the last time it was that this man got his hands dirty on a job site.

He feels the muscles roll in Foggy's shoulder as his friend raises the arm for a handshake. Matt breaks their connection, and by the time Warner's turned to him he already has his own hand outstretched to facilitate the social contact. "Mister Nelson? And… Murdock?" Warner finishes, meeting Matt's offered hand with his own. A firm grasp, without being overpowering. Matt can smell the same eau de chat the receptionist is wearing, coming from all over this guy's clothes as well.

"Sit," Warner says, and Matt finds the back of two chairs close together in front of the man's desk. He takes one, Foggy the other. Matt hears Warner walk back across the room, out of the office door; he returns quickly, carrying something that he has to twist to wrangle through the doorframe.

"Chair for Karen," Foggy informs him quietly, in response to the searching tilt of Matt's head. The chair's four feet thump to the carpet as it's set down behind them; Karen thanks the man as she sits down. The door is pulled closed, and the office immediately seems to contract in size.

"What can I do for you?" Warner asks politely, settling behind his desk. As if his secretary has not passed along Foggy's introductory preliminaries. A dance of polite convention. And a way to feel them out before anything concrete has been said.

"We represent Alfonse Dorian," Foggy says. The lack of reaction assures Matt that the man already knows this. "On the grounds of wrongful termination from your employment."

Warner sighs; it sounds almost wistful. "Yeah, Alphonse… Good guy. Really good guy. Hated to let him go."

His heartrate is slow, even, and the timbre of his voice rings sincere. "You're aware," Foggy asks, "that Mister Dorian is the sole caregiver for a minor? That the child's been sick?"

"Sure, and I feel for them. But I'm trying to run a business. I need guys on the payroll who can work, you know?"

Construction is a thankless road, almost as brutal as the life of a boxer. Warner seems genuine, but Matt questions again how many years are set between this desk and the last time this man was knee-deep in cement and lumber. If it's been too many for him to truly recall the realities of the back-breaking labor. The only reason Dorian is still doing it after all of this time is because he has to, his absences in no way motivated by an unwillingness to do the job.

Warner's sympathy feels legitimate, for whatever that's worth. Maybe. Matt's having trouble trusting his senses today. Ordinarily he'd take up his third of this conversation, but he lets Foggy and the other man talk. Listening his only participation.

Listening is bringing enough problems. The glasses give Matt something to hide behind as his attention fades in and out, masking his distraction. Though eyes that don't focus have an ambiguity of their own. Difficult to tell where his mind really is, he imagines, when it's impossible to tell where he's looking. Not that anyone would dare to call him out on it. Except probably Foggy, though even he wouldn't do it here.

The receptionist is making more coffee, a quick grinding of whole beans that releases a new whiff of the pungent aroma. It's almost lost under the cat smell, the lingering odor of stale cigarette smoke that clings to the man before them. Matt can hardly breathe through his nose now, but some things are powerful enough to burst their way across anyway.

He sniffs, clears his throat. The discussion around him does not pause, but the cardboard corners of a tissue box are pressed against his hand. Foggy, no doubt – Karen's too far away. Matt's vaguely embarrassed, and his cheeks feel flushed with it. He pulls free a couple of the soft squares of paper, and the box is returned wordlessly to wherever it came from.

There's an unidentifiable hum coming from somewhere. Like a television on in another room.

Karen's taking notes, he knows, but it's an effort to pick out the sound of her pen leaving marks on the pad. It's there, but Matt can't concentrate on anything else until he makes himself find it. It's hot in here, the air off and motionless. Or so he assumes, until he realizes he can hear a vent working in this room as well.

"Ray has the final say in these things anyway," Warner says, and it takes Matt a second to pick back up the threads of the conversation. Esteban. The boss who rarely comes to visit from Manhattan. "I'm really not trying to be a dick here. Send over your paperwork, and I'll pass it along to him. Have our own guys take a look at it."

The hum is growing louder, but Matt's still unable to put a name to it. It inches in from the edges of the room, from under the door and up from the baseboards.

He wipes at his nose with the tissue, stifles a cough. It's got to be seventy degrees in here, a big jump from the temperature outside. He'd really like to take his coat off. But his body feels awkward, unusually clumsy, and he suspects the whole procedure will be more trouble than it's worth. The meeting seems to be winding down anyway, and he'll just have to go through the hassle of getting it back on while trying to maneuver in this close unknown space. He forces himself not to fidget.

At least ten minutes more, each passing one adding its length to the dragging discomfort. Matt tries to separate them as they tick by, count them to break them down into manageable things. But he's too distracted to establish their pattern, losing the flow again and again as other sensations intrude. Sweat smearing the inside of his collar as he shifts his neck. The cat hair that tickles his nose, covers his tongue and itches at the back of his sore throat. That obnoxious humming. The one that's growing hands and fingers to press its sweltering weight on every part of his body.

Matt removes the cap from the water bottle, knowing even before it reaches his lips that there's almost nothing left. Barely a swallow, a cold liquid bubble that disappears down his esophagus without taking the time to soothe anything in its wake. The coughing he's trying to fight down chokes itself out anyway.

He wants out of this room. He needs out of this room.

A rare flash of panic, though he doesn't have much breath for it steal away. A second of frightening blankness – blindness – and Matt's reflexive inhalation sounds ragged to his ears. Nearly a gasp. He doesn't have the presence of mind at the moment to determine if he's the only one who's noticed.

Calm, he tells himself. Be calm. It takes far longer than it normally does for his body to obey this instruction.

And now there's a hand on his arm, a grip over his shoulder too tight to be a gesture of simple camaraderie. Matt almost shrugs it off before he registers the friendship in it – the touch an unwelcome surprise in all this disorientation – but a few thudding heartbeats later and he recognizes it as Foggy's hand. Concerned, judging by the tension in it.

He tries to relax under it, to use it to pull himself back from wherever in the hell he'd just gone. Foggy's standing, it abruptly occurs – he's a lot taller than Matt remembers – and he realizes he should be doing the same. He has to use the armrest to leverage himself out of the chair; Foggy's hand readjusts its hold, but it never leaves his shoulder. Matt makes it to his feet, and he's irritated that it feels so much a victory.

Standing only makes the omnipresent humming more oppressive though, making it more difficult than it should be for Matt to negotiate his way out of the office. There's a tinny ringing to the noise now, high-pitched and grating. His cane tangles with the legs of some unseen piece of furniture, and Matt thinks that if he could just identify it – the noise or the furniture, really – that it would somehow make this all easier to bear with.

Their journey out stretches longer than the one they made in. There are courtesies of farewell that Matt doesn't actually take part in, focused as he is on convincing his feet to track, on moving them forward and in a relatively straight line. It's not something he has to concentrate on often, despite what strangers might think upon seeing the cane. If it weren't an energy-draining effort so all-encompassing, this loss of his usual agility would be seriously pissing him off.

But there's no space for anything other than that groping hum, beyond his task of one foot in front of the other. He doesn't even notice the flapping pushpinned notices this time around. The building noise compresses his skull between damp palms, trills louder the harder it squeezes. Matt struggles to find the contact with Foggy, the hand still on his shoulder. The one hand in all this sweaty pawing that he knows is real.

It's the sharp right out into the hallway that gets him, a swinging turn more exaggerated in his head than can be measured in a curve of mere inches and feet. It carries with it a sweep of vertigo that puts the earlier one to shame, an arcing follow through that flips carpet with ceiling. "Hey, guys…" Matt murmurs, stumbling.

He thinks he hears Karen give a little squeak; the grip on his shoulder spasms painfully, something that would have been impossible not to notice were he not battling through this swirling mist just to stay upright. But he isn't upright any longer, more sagging against a wall. Matt isn't certain when that happened. How much time he's lost. But he can feel the undeniable solidity of a wall at his back, Karen and Foggy hovering. Crowding. Foggy's hand still on his arm, a support he suspects is the only thing keeping him off the floor.

His eyes have closed and he opens them, needing to do whatever he can to wrest back control. Foggy must've been watching for this, because he waits to say until now, "Hey, buddy – you okay?"

He sounds scared, but less so than Karen when she suggests that maybe Matt should sit down. He doesn't want to worry either of them any more than he already has, and he's got no plans to sit on the carpet of this hallway. No matter how recently it's been cleaned.

Instead he works to straighten up, into a position that's somewhat less of a jumble of miscellaneous uncooperative limbs. "Yeah," he tells Foggy, disregarding Karen's comments entirely, "I'm okay."

He's truly not, though, and it's becoming harder to lie about that even to himself. The world still rocks around him, a sloshing of sound and sensation that keeps sending everything upside down. With so few stable points of reference, Matt can't see anything. The continued motion is overwhelming. And it's making him feel more than a little sick.

"You know I don't believe you, right?" Foggy says.

"Yeah," Matt forces out. The hold on his arm alone is saying as much, fingers digging deeply into his bicep. "You should work on those trust issues, by the way."

"Or stop associating with stubborn liars."

It's said lightly, but it instantly makes Matt think of the Mask. His double life. All the tiny lies that comprise it.

"Just a little dizzy," Matt admits, hoping this also explains the wince accompanying the previous thought. "It's going away."

He wills it to be true. He doesn't want to spend anymore time in this corridor. Not with the whole thing coated in chemicals, and not standing a stone's throw from that construction company's door. Matt has no way of knowing how far south of graceful his exit had been. He's got no desire to have one of them decide to go to lunch, only to come out and find them still here.

The back of Foggy's hand comes to rest against the side of Matt's face; he flinches, and for a moment there's nothing but stupid confusion. "You're really warm, man," his friend says, while Matt's still trying to work out that the hand on his face and the one on his arm aren't somehow the same appendage. "I thought you were before, back at the office, but now I'm sure."

It takes too long to connect the word office with Matt's image of the place, to recall the events to which he refers. Foggy leaning on his shoulder, ostensibly just hanging around. Matt's lips twitch, with what on a different day might be a smile. Clever Foggy.

The hand on his face disappears, leaving nothing but a memory of blissfully cool fingers. It reappears at his throat, gently tugging at the knot in his tie. Matt thinks to protest, but by the time he can remember the words it's slipped loose. When the top buttons of his shirt follow, he feels like he can finally breathe again.

Better, at any rate. As if Foggy's performed some kind of magic trick, the vertigo begins to settle into a low simmer.

"Time to go home," the other man announces with finality, claiming the rights to the decision. "You're gonna clock out for the day, and we're going to get you into bed."

"Please don't say it that way," Matt says, managing a calculatedly comedic moan.

"Why not?" Foggy asks, carefully peeling him off the wall. "I'll have you know, I am a snuggle monster."

"No idea what that means," Matt tells him, as they weave an unsteady path toward the elevator.

Trek is the most applicable description he can give to their trip downstairs and back to the street, and with every capricious step Matt leans more heavily into the man walking beside him. There's a general sense of Karenness floating around them as they move – he scowls when his brain can come up with no better phrase then that – but she seems to be both everywhere and nowhere and after a while Matt stops searching for her. He fixates instead on the sound of Foggy's breathing, close to his ear and far less erratic than his own.

He loathes this. Hates that he can't do his job, that he can't even get around easily right now without help. He feels guiltily like he's reinforcing some stereotype, as if these difficulties stem from some kind of personal failing. He should be more capable than this. Regardless of extenuating circumstance.

Foggy props him up once they stop at the sidewalk; Karen, he assumes, is off in search for a cab. Too exhausting to try and track her, the noises of the street fluctuating between blaring and whispering at unpredictable volumes. He can hardly hear the muted engine of a car that passes in front of them, but there's a jackhammer at least a block away that seems to be drilling directly into his temple. The loudest sounds come shrieking, swelling rapid and unexpected, and it reminds him too much of waking up blind in the hospital after the accident. He beats back another flicker of panic, focusing instead on the faint hint of Foggy's aftershave.

"Still with me, Murdock?" Foggy asks softly in his ear.

"I think Warner and his receptionist are having an affair," Matt responds, tired of his health being the day's sole subject.

"What? How'd you figure that one? Or is this just some kind of fevered, nonsensical rambling?"

"I always make sense. Sometimes you just have trouble following along."

"Now I know that's not true." At some point while they've been standing here, Foggy's shifted his body so that Matt's shoulder is resting close to his collarbone, Foggy's chest a broader base to take his weight. He can feel the man braced against him, a collection of muscles coiled in support.

"Which part?" Matt asks, playing along. Conversation is an effort, but it's a distraction from the lingering vertigo. The pounding in his head.

Foggy's breath smells like coffee. "The part about you always making sense, obviously."

"Cat hair," he explains. "They were both covered in it."

Foggy scoffs at this. "Points for the Holmesian deduction, man, but a lot of people have cats."

Matt can't tell if Foggy honestly doesn't believe him, or if he's being obstinate simply to keep him talking. "Same cat," he insists. Though now he's not really sure.

"Whatever. If this lawyer thing doesn't pan out, you'll always have your future as a gossip columnist, I guess. Cab's here."

Ordinarily getting into a taxi means stepping into a swamp of fractured stories, a lot of them staggering and rancid. The only benefit to this cold, Matt thinks, is being unable to smell them. Foggy directs him in first, and he realizes only after his hair brushes the doorframe that he'd almost cracked his head on it. Matt slumps against the window of the closed door, feeling useless. Wrung out. Foggy wedges himself into the middle this time, the outside of his leg pressing along the length of Matt's. The connection anchors him in a way that nothing else can in his feverish turmoil. He closes burning eyes, trusting his best friend to see him home.

It must be that he dozes – a bald lie to try and claim meditation – because when his leg jerks under an unexpected touch to his knee, Foggy's telling him that they've reached his apartment. Matt's eyelids feel sticky, and he thinks there might be drool on his chin. But he remembers an objection now that should have been made earlier. "My stuff. It's all at the office."

He'd meant it as their next destination, hasn't yet opened the cab door. Foggy gives his shoulder a nudge. "Lucky for you I still have that spare key. Get out."

"But –"

"I can go pick it up," Karen volunteers from the opposite side of the car. She sounds farther away than he knows that she is. "Grab a few groceries?"

"You don't have to do that," Matt says. He wonders if the cab driver is accustomed to all this back seat indecision.

"I want to," she argues.

He doesn't have the energy or wherewithal to try and persuade her that this kindness isn't really necessary. Or to face the idea of having both of them in his apartment. The only thing he wants right now is uninterrupted silence and sleep.

"Mashed potatoes," Foggy says, giving Matt's arm another tiny shove. "Split pea soup. Practically all you can force down him when he's got a cold." Surprise turns Matt's head toward him, but he can tell from Foggy's voice that he's still facing Karen. "I'll take a look once we get up there. Text you if there's anything else."

"Guys," Matt interjects, wanting to remind them that he's still sitting here. "I can do my own shopping."

"You can." Foggy reaches an arm across Matt's body to open the door. "Doesn't mean that you have."

They leave Karen with the cab, make their way up the steps to his building. Slowly. It's a crawling speed that would probably drive Matt crazy under any other circumstances; at the moment it still borders on too fast. When Foggy finally unlocks the door to Matt's apartment, the dress shirt is clinging to his skin.

"Shower," he hears himself mutter, leaving the cane by the door.

"Good idea," Foggy says, splitting off toward the kitchen. The reply trips up Matt's feet; he hadn't intended to announce his plan. Hadn't realized he'd had a plan at all.

Foggy starts to say something else. Doesn't. It saves Matt from having to reassure the other man that, yes, he's perfectly capable of managing a shower without help. Because he is. Absolutely.

The shower consists mostly of standing limply under the water, his forehead against the tiled wall. The standing is a feat in and of itself, a performance he would have predicted easier. He feels betrayed by this body he knows so well. It's usually so willing to do whatever he asks of it, and Matt doesn't know what to do without that. As the hot water sluices over stiff and aching muscles, he works to convince his body that they really are still on the same side.

With the fever he overheats quickly, and with a frustrated growl he flips the hot water completely off. It's a dumb thing to do; a blast of heavenly relief, but within minutes he's freezing. Shaking. Matt doesn't move, even as the trembling cramps his muscles and his teeth begin to clatter together. He isn't sure what it is that he's punishing himself for, but still he continues to stand there.

Eventually it seeps into his muddled mind that he's being ridiculous. Matt turns off the shower and hauls himself out; he doesn't have to concentrate to find the things he needs here, the layout of his bathroom all part of subconscious routine. The bedroom's the same, and he's into clean sweats and a tee and back out into the brick-walled living room running entirely on auto-pilot.

"Uh-uh," comes Foggy's protest from the kitchen, as Matt throws himself down onto the sofa. "Bed." It's muffled; it sounds as if he's eating. Matt sniffs the air, but he's not getting anything.

He's still shaking. "Quit trying to get me into bed, Foggy." He can't remember if he'd had that blanket out here, the one Amanda had left. He'd meant to return it to her, but a new job had taken her out of town and she'd told him to keep it. He feels around a bit on the leather, but can't find it. "You know I love you. But we're just good friends."

"You should be so lucky." Foggy's voice come closer, and now Matt can definitely hear him chewing. "All this? I am one fine piece of man candy, my friend. It's just cuz you can't see it that you don't know what you're missing."

"Man candy?" Despite the fact that he's got what feels like his whole body tensed in an attempt to keep Foggy from seeing the shivering, the silly expression makes Matt chuckle. "That better not be the last of my granola," he adds.

"Granola. Bah. Do you know me at all?"

Matt lets his head fall back onto the sofa. Tries to arrange the arms crossed over his chest to appear casual, rather than the effort at warmth that they are. His glasses are in the other room with his discarded suit, Foggy being one of the only people around whom he's comfortable not wearing them.

"You don't have to stay," Matt tells him.

Foggy doesn't answer, his footsteps passing where Matt sits and moving into the bedroom. Matt pushes himself up against the cushions, listening to determine what it is that he's doing in there. He's about to get up and go check when he hears him coming back out.

"What're you doing?" Matt asks. Not because he's truly concerned, but because it's his apartment. His space. There's a petulant desire suddenly to assert this.

"Relax. I had plenty of time to go through your underwear drawer when we lived together."

A blanket drops out of the sky, draping heat that lands half over Matt's head; it isn't Amanda's, it's the one from his bed. He thinks he intends on getting out from under it, but in the process ends up burrowing much deeper. It's fleece, soft, its warmth the best thing he's felt all day. When Foggy sinks into the sofa beside him, Matt slouches down onto the pillows at the other end in what has somehow become a cocoon.

"Seriously, you should sleep," Foggy says. "I can wait for Karen, if you want. Put away groceries before I head out."

"Still just a cold." He isn't sure the mumble makes it all the way out of the blanket's folds. "Go home."

"Just a cold now. Remember the pneumonia? Oh wait – you don't. Because you were out of your head delirious for two days before you'd let me take you to the hospital."

Their second year. "I remember waking up in the hospital." What he remembers is the terror of it. Coming to in those unfamiliar surroundings, drugged and disoriented.

"Everyone who was there that day remembers you waking up in the hospital."

It had taken Foggy a long while to break through, to convince him that he wasn't still a boy, that he wasn't reliving the accident. By the time his friend's voice finally started to register, Foggy had sounded close to hysterical himself.

"It wasn't that bad." He's pretty sure that both of their memories say it was.

There's a silence that wanders about the place, not awkward but companionable. A silence he's shared with Foggy a thousand times. Matt settles into it, closes his eyes.

"You want Karen to get you anything?"

"No." In truth, he'd prefer she not come over at all. He likes Karen, considers her a friend. But she's not Foggy, and when she gets here he's going to have to get up. Interact.

But he can't say that. She's doing him a favor, and he's grateful.

Matt drifts in the quiet, wondering absently how Foggy is occupying his time. It sounds as if he's just sitting there. Matt doesn't have a TV, no magazines or oversized art books to flip through on his coffee table. No coffee table. And all of his books are in braille. It's possible Foggy's snuck a couple of his own paperbacks onto Matt's bookshelf, though. It wouldn't be the first time.

Normally he'd be unable to relax like this, with somebody else lingering just a few feet away. But if he'd ever any worries about Foggy hanging around while he sleeps, they'd been crushed out of necessity when they'd roomed together. He wouldn't have gotten any rest at all if they hadn't. Matt listens to his breathing, a steady rhythm at the opposite end of the sofa. It's the melody of a well-known lullaby.

When his front door opens, it wakes him from a dream of his father lying motionless under his hands. Still warm, like he might get up at any moment. Sticky with blood that Matt can still feel on his fingers even after his eyes blink open. A series of gradual connections tell him that he's home, that he's on his sofa. That he must have fallen asleep, and that now he's got more company.

Murmured conversation from near the door, the rustling of paper bags. Matt pushes himself up into a position that can more easily be called sitting, drags his hands over his face to try and banish some of the cobwebs. It doesn't work. The dream clings to his shoulders even as the blanket's slipping off of them, the fever making it difficult to snap himself out of the loop. Karen and Foggy carry the bags into the kitchen, and Matt makes a reflexive swipe toward the floor and his glasses.

It's where he would have left them – near his head where he's not going to step on them – but it isn't until they're on his face that he realizes he should be surprised that he'd found them there. He'd left them in the bedroom with his clothes. Foggy must have brought them out with the blanket, knowing Matt would want them whenever Karen finally arrived.

It makes Matt smile, and gives him the energy to throw a greeting their way. "Hey guys," he calls to the kitchen, his voice reaching easily through the open floor plan. Rougher than he'd expected it to be, but he thinks fairly upbeat. He wants to let them know he's awake, that they can stop tiptoeing around. Most people make more noise when they're trying to be quiet anyway.

It surprises them; Matt hears something fumbled, a muffled curse. Foggy. "You're still supposed to be sleeping," his friend says. "Go… be sleeping."

Matt isn't sure if this is actually funny, or if he's just got a wire crossed somewhere. A tiny snort of a laugh twists itself seamlessly into a bout of coughing, and he fights to smother a groan when he can breathe again.

"What do you want? Orange juice or ginger ale?"

Foggy's still in the kitchen, and Matt thinks he's trying a little too hard to sound unconcerned. "Water." His voice is a creak of a thing.

Footsteps. The wood of the floor is smooth and cool under his bare feet, his head too heavy to raise off the cushions. Had Matt been more aware he would have felt Foggy's motion, known about the arm stretching toward his face. As it is, when Foggy's hand comes to rest on his forehead, his entire body jumps underneath it.

"Sorry, buddy." The hand lifts away again, and Matt frowns with its loss. "You got a thermometer?" Foggy asks.

He wants to make a crack about Foggy playing nurse, but he doesn't have the strength to shape it even remotely witty. "Leave my stuff alone," he grumbles instead, licking his dry lips.

A glass appears from out of nowhere; Matt's hand is lifted from his lap. Foggy deliberately combines the two. Matt can tell the other man's worried – he's not usually this mothering. Considerate and concerned, sure, but not often this hands-on. It's what Matt appreciates most. That Foggy doesn't treat him like he's fragile.

He drinks, obediently, because it might make Foggy feel a little better and because he's thirsty. When he's finished most of it, he goes to set the glass on the floor and Foggy takes it out of his hand. "You hungry?" he asks.

Matt's saved from having to come up with an answer to this by Karen moving out of the kitchen. He works to sit up a bit straighter. "Karen. Thank you," he says, turning his head that way as he hears her walk around to the front of the sofa. "How much do I owe you for the groceries?"

"We can figure it out later," she says. "Can I use your bathroom?"

"Of course." Matt points toward the direction of his bedroom. "Through there."

He realizes something as her steps get further distant. "Sorry about the mess," he calls, to what he assumes is her back. Not a mess by most people's standards, but he's thinking about the heap of a suit he'd left in an uncharacteristic pile on the floor. Any clutter just makes it more difficult to get around, so it's no hardship for Matt to always keep the place neat. The upside being that there's a lot less frantic tidying up should unexpected company suddenly show at his door.

If the scoff he hears from Foggy is anything to go by, the other man does indeed disagree with Matt's definition of the word. But his friend returns immediately to his earlier focus. Maybe suspecting he'll get more honesty with Karen out of the room.

"Food," Foggy says. "What do you want?"

Matt flips a hand through the air, a vague motion of dismissal that he'd meant to be more concrete. "Not hungry." The thick pulsing in his head has localized itself now to a burning pressure behind his eyes. He lets them fall closed, at least until Karen returns.

"Have you eaten at all today, man? Because you gotta eat. I'm pretty sure it's in the rules somewhere."

"Banana," he mumbles, his mouth not wanting to form all the syllables. "Rules?"

"Sure. On the list somewhere above 'Never leave just half a slice of pizza,' but after 'Bros before hos.'"

"So bros before food?" He hears it leave his lips, and he isn't certain it makes any sense.

"Yes. If that's what it comes down to," Foggy says. It's more serious than the rest of the conversation. But now his tone shifts back into lightness. "But today it doesn't. What do you want to eat?"

"Nothing." He knows he should. "What time is it?"

"Lunch time."

Matt scowls at the evasion, allows the expression to deepen into the lines of his face so that Foggy's sure to see it. He can hear Karen coming back out to join them though, and he wipes it away as he struggles to lift his head.

"Here," she says. He thinks it's directed at Foggy, but her thin fingers place something long and plastic into his hand. Matt runs his fingertips over it. His thermometer. Use of the bathroom merely an excuse then, and they are definitely conspiring against him.

It makes him more tired than annoyed, but he does feel inarguably loved. It's just that he's spent so much of his life on his own. Self-sufficient. Despite his protestations, the only thing he wants to do right now is go to bed and sleep. But he refuses to do that with both of them here.

He sees no way out of this, short of throwing a tantrum and stomping off to his room, so he eventually obliges them and sticks the thing under his tongue. Matt has no idea what it might say, but it has an audio readout and it's going to say it aloud. For everyone to hear. He can only hope it doesn't sell him out.

Karen sits down on the chair opposite, her breathing sharpening now that she's facing him. He feels like he's on display, an exhibit in a zoo. Freak show, his brain hisses, before he can avoid it. A taunt well-worn over the years, even from within his own head.

"One hundred point four degrees Fahrenheit," the thermometer chirps, in its traitorous computerized voice. Matt pulls it out of his mouth and tosses it onto the cushion beside him.

"Not dying," he repeats pointlessly, for what feels the tenth time today.

He's guessing they're not convinced, by the way nobody seems to be leaving. There's a span of friendly conversation – mostly between Karen and Foggy, who's perched on the arm of Matt's sofa – and at some point he concedes to let himself sink a bit down into the cushions. His eyes are on fire, his world nothing but a smear of heat, and he can't stop blinking them behind his glasses in an attempt to be rid of it. He doubts she can see it, from her seat in the chair. Still he insists on not simply keeping them closed.

There's tissues and more water and endless hedging comments about food, and the mood settles into a jovial sincerity that Matt can feel even if he's unable to fully participate. He doesn't want to spoil it. But it's exhausting. Both of his ears are clogged up again, and he's having trouble following even the words of the conversation, let alone trying to describe to himself all of their subtle nonverbal cues. He's too hot, sweating now, and if he didn't have guests his damp shirt would be already off.

Karen says something about making sandwiches, and Matt's this close to making a remark about them moving in. He bites it back, knowing that it's going to come out harsher than he wants or really means it to. Knowing that he's being unfair. He feels rotten, but he doesn't plan to take it out on them. It's simply that he's unaccustomed to having his pain on parade. Wants nothing more than to hole up in his bed alone until this all goes away.

But she's already off to the kitchen, presumably in search of something she'd bought because Matt doesn't remember having sandwich supplies. Difficult to say, actually. He's having problems remembering what day it is. He blows his nose, tries to add the wadded tissue within the limits of the growing disgusting pile on the floor by his feet. He needs a waste bin. He needs to go to bed.

Foggy slips down from the arm of the sofa to land on the seat cushion, a tiny bounce that vibrates the whole piece of furniture. "How're you feeling?" he asks. Pitched, Matt suspects, in a voice intentionally too low for Karen to hear.

He flicks through a handful of answers before choosing one. "Cranky," Matt says, with a wry twitch of his lips.

Foggy laughs. "Okay. Well. Yeah, I imagine you'd like us out of your hair."

Matt finds Foggy's arm between them, worried that he's wounded his friend's feelings. He wraps his fingers around the other man's wrist. "It's not –" He has to work to form the words. "I don't want you to think I'm not grateful..."

"No, hey man – I get it."

"I just want to sleep."

"Sure. I hear you," Foggy says, rolling right over the top of Matt's feeble defense. "It's just that, sandwiches, man. Karen's already out there making them. And you know how she is – if I don't let her do it, then she'll just get more concerned. And if she gets more concerned, she's going to want to come back again later. To, you know, tuck you in and stuff." A pause with timing worthy of a stand-up comedian. "Unless of course that's what you want. In which case I'll just make myself scarce right now."

So, not offended then. Foggy's still playing him. Blaming their continued presence on Karen, in the hopes that Matt might eventually eat something.

"Shut up, Foggy." There's no anger behind it. "Please. Just stop talking."

"Don't worry. We'll be gone soon."

This last is said softly, and nearer to his ear. Matt feels the cushions shift as Foggy rises to go help Karen in the kitchen. He resigns himself to attempting to eat something. Swishes a mouthful of water around, as if this might somehow combat the unusual dullness of his tastebuds. So very connected to the sense of smell, and neither wants to work with him right now.

They're busy in the kitchen long enough that Matt begins to doze again. The alley had been wet, all puddles and blood, but he hadn't noticed until much later that the toes of his shoes were soaked through. Nothing registering but his father's still body, mimicking life already fled. Gone forever. As he'd crouched there sobbing, trying to capture one last picture of the man's features with his fingers, he'd wanted nothing more than to hear that familiar voice one more time.

He almost gets it; in the split second between dream and abrupt awareness, he'd swear he hear hears his dad whisper his name.

Matty…

His heart's racing. Matt swallows, sits up. A couple of moments of focus places his friends still in the other room, laughing over something. It takes almost every trick he knows to get his breathing to slow down. But he finally manages it, and when they come out soon after bearing food, the only sign of Matt's anxiety is the thumb he's compulsively running over the stitching at the edge of the blanket.

He forces himself to stop when he recognizes it.

The sandwiches are simple; turkey, mayonnaise. It seems like they took a lot more time to prepare than the amount of effort that would ordinarily be involved. Matt wonders if Foggy had been stalling her out there on purpose, either to let him sleep or just to be able to spend some time alone with her. He knows Foggy's attracted to Karen, that he'd wish their relationship to be more. Not because the man's said anything. Because of the way everything about him lights up when she's around.

Eating is a mechanical process, lacking even an ounce of joy. He can't taste anything, and it's a battle to chew with his mouth closed while also continuing to breathe. The dryness plaguing his tongue, his throat, lumps the bites of sandwich into a solid ball of unpleasantness that he has to fight each time to swallow. Halfway through he simply gives up, the plate resting in his lap. A grunt escapes him when the back of his head finds the sofa more solidly than he'd meant for it to.

He's fading fast, and everyone knows it. They don't linger long over lunch, probably mostly because Matt can't find the energy anymore to even pretend to be a part of the group. He wants to, he really does, but interacting has become far too much work. He's not even embarrassed anymore. He's just done.

Karen gets up to leave, and it's all he can do to shape both syllables of her name. She puts a hand on his shoulder, the briefest of contact. Matt hadn't expected it, but he's too exhausted to flinch. "Feel better," she says.

"I'll see you tomorrow," he gets out. He listens to them walking toward the door, and catches Foggy saying something about dishes.

Just as one pile of clothing hardly constitutes a mess, three plates don't exactly seem to qualify as dishes. But he supposes he should have figured that Foggy wouldn't necessarily go so easily. Matt hears the door close behind Karen, and he decides that he doesn't mind.

"You know I was kidding about the dishes, right?" Foggy says, as he crosses back over the room. "Do them yourself, you lazy bum."

This dredges up a puff of an honest laugh from Matt, his head hanging limply over the top of the couch. He pulls off his glasses and pinches the bridge of his nose.

The plate is lifted from his knees. "You done with this?" Matt can hear chewing; Foggy's started eating it already.

"Yeah," Matt says anyway.

The blood beats against the inside of his skull; his cheekbones, his throat. Muscles, tendons, bones. His fingers pulse with it, swollen and useless. Matt flexes his hands in and out of cramping fists, knowing that there's no way he's going on patrol tonight. It might be something like a miracle if he can drag himself into his day job tomorrow.

He has no grasp of how long it's been, when Foggy finally speaks again. "Okay, Murdock. Up." Matt rolls his head over the cushions in that direction, but that's as far as he gets. "Come on, Counselor. On your feet."

Negotiations with his body have completely broken down while he wasn't looking, and nothing Matt's telling it to do seems to be getting through. If he had any strength left to devote to being horrified, he expects that he would be. Matt raises an arm up to Foggy, a silent request for assistance. Despite being prepared for it, the rapid change in altitude brings with it a disorienting rush.

Foggy offers stability; Matt's not too proud to accept it. He leans into his friend for a moment, waiting for the world to resettle.

He walks into his bedroom on his own, toes cautiously seeking the pile of clothing that he has no desire to trip over. They never do, and – though he can't be positive without walking the entire room – he suspects that the bundle's been relocated. Following a hunch, Matt trails his fingertips over a chair and is rewarded with a mountain of fabric. Probably Foggy then. Something tells him Karen would have taken the time to fold them.

"Thanks," Matt says to the man he hears coming into the room behind him. He finds the edge of his mattress with his thighs, and allows the momentum to carry him forward to land face first in the bed. It takes a bit of wriggling, but he gets his legs up without having to lift either his head or his chest from the sheets.

"I'm not breaking out into my karaoke version of 'That's What Friends Are For,'" Foggy tells him, from near the doorway. "Because it was only that one time, and you promised we'd never have to talk about it. And it's absolutely never happening again. At least not without comparable quantities of alcohol."

"S'good song," Matt mutters into the sheets.

"Even when I sing it?" Something compact lands on the bed, fairly close to his face. Matt's arm snakes up just enough for his fingers to identify it as his phone. "I'm gonna go. Before we both get it stuck in our heads."

Too late. As soon as Foggy says it, the lyrics begin to cycle in his brain. In good times/And bad times… Matt groans, and if he'd had the leverage to do it without moving he would have chucked a pillow toward the man by the door. "… hate you…"

"That's what they all say. Do you think I should be concerned?" It's plainly rhetorical, and Foggy continues without really pausing for an answer. "There's water there, on the nightstand. Kleenex. Ibuprofen, if you want them." Matt wonders when he set all this up. "I know you're not wild about cold medicine, but Karen grabbed some. Out on the counter. Box says two every six hours."

"Thanks," Matt says again. It's muffled, and all that he can manage.

"You've got your phone. Call me if you need anything." This time he does want a response. He waits until Matt musters up a nod, an awkward motion when he still doesn't raise his head. "Seriously. Call me."

"Mmph," is the noise Matt makes. He vaguely wonders how one might spell it.

"Locking the door behind me. Your bag's on the side table," he hears Foggy say. He also thinks he hears, "Idiot."

He's not awake long enough to catch the front door closing. This time Matt dreams of marshmallows. A warming fire, and that winter break they spent at Foggy's friend's cabin in the snow.

Comfort. Home.

end.