To The Vines

by Dark Caustic

He's trying to pin down the exact moment it happened. If love is something you seep into gradually – like wading out into the water and not noticing how deep you are till you're watching bubbles rise to the sunlit surface – or if love is something that happens suddenly, like getting hit by a car or struck by lightening. Matt/Foggy

1. I can't get my head around it

March, Senior Year

Matt finds himself in front of one of the rose bushes that line the dormitory building he and Foggy live in.

Foggy had told him when the buds came in after the winter frost melted, and two days ago informed him that they'd bloomed again – the same dark pink color they had been in the fall and all last year and the years before, but, still. Matt likes that Foggy thought to tell him, like he does at random times, random intervals, random things.

He's never condescending about it. No, it's more like someone turning up your favorite song when it comes on the radio – an attempt at a little something to make your day brighter.

That's what it is. Foggy makes things brighter and Matt wasn't sure that was a possibility before now.

He waits for the group of women coming down the walk to be out of earshot before he tries it.

He's alone and he just wants to know what it feels like, not because he is actually gonna see it through or anything – Matt's not an idiot and he knows a bad idea when it looks him in the face – but just…

Just cause.

"I love you," he says out loud. He rolls each word over his tongue gently, just to see how it feels, how it sounds, to say that out loud. What it would feel like to say that to Foggy in their dorm room, while Foggy is studying and the heat of the afternoon is pleasant like a good beer buzz. The way Foggy would stop writing and look up and Matt would hear his heart pick up and his breath catch and maybe, maybe he would say it back.

Maybe.

"I love you," he says again, quieter this time, breathier.

He's not that stupid though, Matt knows a bad idea when he trips over it and that would be a bad idea. Bad idea like telling Foggy he can hear his heartbeat and knows he lies every time he talks to his mother on the phone and says school is great and everything is going well.

The way Matt knows he was lying when Foggy told his mother that there was no one in his life on the phone last night.

Which is why he's here, saying it where no one can hear him, where it will do no harm. Just to get it out, just a taste, something released into the atmosphere and maybe that'll be enough to get the feeling out and let him sleep at night.

He's trying to pin down the exact moment it happened. If love is something you seep into gradually – like wading out into the water and not noticing how deep you are till you're watching bubbles rise to the sunlit surface – or if love is something that happens suddenly, like getting hit by a car or struck by lightning.

And here, with the conundrum planted fully in his heart, he still has no idea. One moment they were strangers, the next he would happily turn the world upside down for that man.

XxX

Late September, Freshmen Year

He used to have these episodes sometimes. That's what he likes to call them, to remind himself that they're short and they will pass and everything will be all right. As he got older, they get fewer and farther between, but they would still happen once in a while, and they were terrifying every time.

The human mind is full of folly and though he sometimes thinks himself better than that, shit happens to remind him that he's as flesh and bone and blood and panic as the rest of them.

It's like this: he'll be fine one moment, he'll be himself and his senses fill in all the gaps – the smells and temperature and sound and feeling – he has no problem painting his mental picture in gold and red and it's okay. He can take care of himself.

And then suddenly it's just gone and he's hyperventilating, lost in the black, lost in so, so much black.

There's noise, of course there's noise but that's half the problem. It's like this switch gets flipped in his mind and suddenly he can no longer pull apart the different noises, it's all one wall of white static and that makes everything inside his head spin faster.

When he was younger, freshly blind and freshly orphaned, it felt like the episodes would just happen. They were one more horrific thing to pile onto his already derailed life. As he got older, got more experienced with his senses and his lack thereof, he got more control over them, more control over himself, over his life.

But, then again, enough stress on anyone will snap them.

And as much as he tried to keep his head about him, moving into the dorms was stressful - perhaps a little more than he'd expected.

In the dorms, everything was new. The building, the lifestyle, the sounds and smells and vibrations in the walls. Matt thought he was taking it all in stride. He knew, logically, that the dorms weren't terribly different from the orphanage - all those people piled into one building together. But, somehow, it was different. Less organized, perhaps. Less formal control dictating the resident's lives, maybe. He wasn't sure what about it was different enough to make him wary. But he was doing okay, adjusting just fine.

Until. Well. Until he fell.

The second step to the bottom on second floor landing was a hair shorter than the rest. A minuscule abnormality that he took note of the first time he went up those steps and had been careful to not let it trip him up every time he climbed those stairs, several time a day – except for that one time. And that one time he didn't was the time it sent him sprawling.

Matt hit the floor with a tiny crunch – a pencil in his pocket – but still managed to roll over his ankle like a bitch. The tiny flash of pain and panic in the fall sent his entire world skittering sideways, the orange hue of it falling out of view of his mind's eye and leaving

him submerged in total darkness.

It was like he'd gone blind all over again. He's nine years old on his back in the street and watching the world fade away into nothing and never return.

And it's not just the sudden lack of his world on fire, it's the way he could no longer avoid getting overwhelmed by the barrage of sound around him.

The hum of the air conditioner became vague and threatening, doors opening and closing at impossible distances, somewhere, someone watching TV laughs like a bark and it all melts, like the colors of the painting running into something muddy. A singular wall of sound inside his head, large and rattling and indistinct. He lost control of his breathing, felt it growing tense inside his chest and he gasped for breath, sweating through his clothing until—until Foggy.

Foggy was suddenly there, saying his name with a sharp, horrified edge to his voice. "Matt?"

One hand on Matt's shoulder, the other cradling the back of Matt's head, searching for a bump to sooth.

Matt hung onto that. Something solid in all that dark (like his father's hands a million years before-)

He had no idea how long he'd been there or how long Foggy had been there, hovering over him, but Foggy just kept saying his name, waiting for a response but Matt could barely control his breathing, yet alone speak.

"Shit," Foggy said, the hand on his neck going to Matt's chest. "Matt, relax, take a deep breath," he ordered gently and Matt struggled for a moment and then complied. Foggy's hand then resting his breastbone and Matt focused intently on it. On where each of Foggy's fingers lay across his body, the way his breathing made Foggy's hand lift and fall.

"Matty, are you okay? Can you hear me?"

Matt managed to nod, not okay enough to talk yet but that seemed to be enough to get Foggy to relax the slightest bit.

Matt reached up and wrapped his hand over Foggy's wrist, keeping Foggy's hand pressed to his chest.

"Can you talk? Do you need to get to a hospital?" Foggy asked.

Matt gained control of his breathing again and let out a deep breath like surfacing from a long dive. "I'm okay," he gasped out.

"Jesus, you don't sound okay," Foggy said and Matt could hear the tremble in his voice and the thunder of his heart – a little louder than the rest of the din.

"Language," Matt said, trying for playful but he was still not okay enough to pull that off. His voice fell too flat, his hand still tight on Foggy's wrist and a feeling crept out of the back of his mind that if he's not careful, Foggy will let go and he'll be lost adrift in the black again.

"Sorry," Foggy said, "I forgot. But you scared me. Are you sure you're okay?"

"Yeah," Matt said and tugged on Foggy's wrist till Foggy got the message and helped Matt leverage himself up into a sitting position. "Really," Matt continued. "I'm fine, I just… I scared myself, that's all. I'm still not used to the dorms and…" he trailed off but it seemed to be enough for Foggy.

"You scared me too," Foggy replied, not pulling his hand away from where Matt's still had a tight grip on it. "Here, do you need help?" he asked after a few moments of silence.

Matt was still for a moment – the urge to prove he's not made of glass was always a strong one – but Foggy had yet to give him the impression that he thought of Matt that way – so he tentatively nodded and let Foggy pull him to his feet and hoped this episode wouldn't change Foggy's opinion of him.

"Can you…" Matt started, cleared his throat and tried again. "Can you help me back to the room?"

"Yeah, of course," Foggy said and Matt could hear the relief in his voice. Foggy wasn't gonna push it – was gonna let Matt do whatever he wanted and that twisted something in Matt's chest. Foggy just wanted to make sure Matt was okay. He scared Foggy but Foggy wasn't gonna let that be a reason to mother hen him.

Maybe that was the moment.

The first step towards confessing love to rose bushes because he never will be strong enough to say it to Foggy.

Foggy let Matt wrap his arm through his and they slowly climbed the stairs together.

"You weren't down there long, were you?" Foggy asked.

Matt, finally getting some of himself back, could hear the worry thick in Foggy's voice and it wasn't…

It wasn't like the nuns who worried because it was their job or their calling or like the teachers who worried about the poor blind kid. Foggy was worried because Matt was his friend and he doesn't want his friend to hurt and something that had gone quiet and cold in Matt's chest years ago woke up with a twinge like a sharp bruise.

Matt shook his head and assured Foggy that no, he wasn't down there long, even though he actually had no idea how long it was.

"No, a few minutes, maybe. Just lost my footing and then," he scratched at the back of his head with his face turned away. "Panicked just a bit," he admitted.

It felt like a dare. His whole life, admitting to any weakness was like opening his throat for the bite but he…he trusted Foggy not to take the bait, not to treat him like glass because of one mistake. He wasn't sure why. He hadn't known Foggy all that long, but there was something so sincere about the man, it made him feel like the risk would pay out.

Still, his heart pounded around that bruised feeling in his chest and there was a voice in his head pleading, please let me be right, please don't prove yourself to be like the rest.

Foggy finally opened the door to their room and helped Matt inside, and as soon as Matt was stable, took his hands off him.

The world was still black and messy and suddenly, surprisingly, cold without Foggy's hands on him.

Matt locked up again, standing just inside the room, both hands clasped on his cane and carefully trying to will his reality back into existence but it didn't work. The black stayed firmly in place.

He could hear the pieces of the puzzle – the hum of the tiny fridge Foggy put under the window, the cars on the street below, the squeak of a chair on the floor in the room next door – but someone slammed a door and he startled and everything went smeared painting again.

He didn't fall down again but he did take a sharp breath through his nose and grip his cane tighter.

Sometimes, sometimes he thinks Stick was right to leave him.

"Matt?" Foggy asked from somewhere to his left. Matt had no idea what Foggy was doing and it made him dizzy. "Do you…need something? Are you alright?" Foggy asked again, hovering but trying not to.

Matt shook his head. He's not glass, the dark voice in the back of his mind reminded him. He was stuck on the edge of pushing Foggy away or letting Foggy in.

It'd been too long since he'd let anyone in, the instinct to shut down was overwhelming.

"Okay," Foggy said and Matt's glad Foggy was talking again, things felt all right when Foggy was talking. "Anything I can do for you?" Foggy asked, which, honestly, was just another way of asking if Matt was all right without asking the question verbatim again.

Matt opened his mouth. Closed it. Opened it again. Repeated the action twice more and Foggy got the hint.

"Whatever it is, just ask, it's okay," Foggy said. He was such an eager puppy – Matt would've been annoyed if he wasn't so fucking endeared to the asshole and a tiny bit scared by how dark his reality was in that moment.

"Can I listen to you breathe?" Matt asked.

There was a small silence in which the dark voice in Matt's mind fills slowly with terror. What a strange request. Foggy probably thought he was a freak and was merely pretending to be his friend because he's blind and today would be the day that Foggy asks for a different roommate. Someone less difficult, someone more normal.

But before it could spiral completely out of control, some other voice told Matt, gently, stop it, you know he's never lied to you.

That was it. Even in that state where the world was shadow filled and Matt couldn't pull Foggy's heartbeat out of the noise of the street below, he still knew Foggy to be sincere because he had been every moment up till then.

"Yeah, of course," Foggy said sounding perplexed. "Like, how, exactly?"

"Sit down," Matt ordered gently. "On your bed, on the side of your bed," he amended. "And I'll sit next to you."

"If this is how you hit on women, that would explain your lack of dates," Foggy joked and Matt cracked a smile – small and watery but it felt good – that Foggy wasn't making it a thing, that all he wanted to do was help in whatever way Matt needed.

"I don't date because I'm trying to actually pass my classes, Foggy," Matt retorted.

"Hey, I just agreed to let you listen to me breathe, don't get mouthy," Foggy said, sounding closer. That was good, meant that Matt was already coming down if he could hear how close Foggy was.

"Here," Foggy said and then two of his fingers gently touched the inside of Matt's wrist. "Let me help you." His voice was soft, his touch light. Giving Matt all the room on earth to turn him down.

Matt let Foggy lead him to the edge of his bed and the pair sat side-by-side, stock straight.

"So just… breathe?" Foggy asked after a moment. His voice had a tiny rise in it – he was uncomfortable.

Matt nodded, swallowing thickly around the sudden knot in his throat.

"Okay," Foggy said and Matt heard him take a deep breath in and then let out with a ridiculous sound followed by a short giggle. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry," Foggy apologized quickly. "I'll be serious. But, jeeze, Matt, you scared me. I thought… I thought the worst for a minute."

"You thought I'd died?" Matt asked in disbelief. All he did was trip. Like an idiot but it wasn't that big of a deal.

"No, I thought you'd broken your leg and were gonna need to move to a room on the first floor and I'd have to get a new roommate. Couldn't stand a new roommate. I might have to start wearing pants around the room if they move someone in with me who can actually see."

Matt let out a tiny chuckle. "What a travesty."

"Glad you think so, but I'll have you know that I'm a fine specimen of a man."

"Sure," Matt agreed sarcastically, leaning into Foggy just a little.

There was a beat between them, a gentle silence and then Foggy carefully placed his arm around Matt. "This all right?" he whispered.

"Yeah," Matt breathed, a line of tension down his back relaxing, the twinge in his ankle feeling distant. There was a few more moments of silence before Matt slipped a little closer to press his ear to Foggy's chest. Foggy hummed a tiny sound of approval and Matt liked the way it felt, the vibration of it against his body.

Foggy didn't speak more than that, just breathed slow and even and let Matt listen to the sound of his chest rising and falling, giving him something to focus on, till the embers of Matt's burning world returned.

XxX

March, Senior Year

He goes to class and then to a study group after his conversation with the rose bush, getting back to his room just before dinner.

Foggy and him have been eating dinner together every day their schedules allow since becoming roommates three years ago. But tonight, when Matt opens the door to their room, he can hear the shift of Foggy's feet on the floor – he's fussing with his hair at a tiny mirror balanced on his dresser.

Matt can smell fresh shampoo; the crumpled, still-wet towel at the foot of Foggy's bed and the sharpness of the cologne that Foggy never wears but is wearing now.

Matt closes the door behind him and makes his way to his own bed. "You're wearing cologne," he says matter-of-factly.

Foggy makes one tiny frustrated noise in the back of his throat over his hair before slapping the comb down on his dresser and saying, "Yeah, I, uh, got a date." He doesn't sound so sure though.

It's been awhile since Foggy had a date and Matt's still not sure if getting coffee with the girl who busses tables at the diner three blocks away from campus counted as a date or not.

"Really?" Matt says, pressing his tongue between his teeth and aiming a smirk in the direction of Foggy's voice.

"Fuck you," Foggy shoots back. "I do have a date."

"You're not that lucky."

"To have a date?"

"To fuck me," Matt says and ignores the way the words make the back of his neck go hot. Foggy's heart is beating hard, but it was before Matt started speaking, too. He's nervous. Matt hears him run the palm of his right hand over his pants to rid it of perspiration.

"Yeah, don't remind me," Foggy snarks back.

"So who was drunk enough to give you her number?" Matt asks.

"Why do you think she had to have been drunk? Maybe I'm just that charming."

"Whatever keeps you warm at night."

He knows Foggy stuck his tongue out at him, but can't tell him that. The slick sound of it sliding past his lips, the tiny hum Foggy doesn't know he makes when he does it. It's sweet in the ridiculousness of it but Matt can't drop the guise he's been wearing since Stick walked out on him.

But if he ever were to tell a soul – it would be this stupid, silly bastard. But it's only a matter of time till some woman sees how amazing Foggy is and snatches him up. Hell, it could be happening right now.

"In all seriousness," Matt says, listening to Foggy tie his shoes. "Do I know her?"

"Yeah – Marci."

"Marci?"

"Don't sound too surprised," Foggy says, but he sounds fond.

"She seems like a handful," Matt says and then snaps his mouth shut. She's smart, a little bit ruthless and probably very pretty, but he doesn't know her well enough to make judgments on her character.

"She's the right kind of handful," Foggy says and Matt swears he can hear the fucking wink.

"That all?" Matt asks.

Foggy doesn't say anything for a moment, when he does, he sounds serious and… a little bit sad?

"You know it's not," he says.

Matt can feel a shift in the air, like maybe Foggy's looking at him a little bit hard, and for all the world on fire, there are still some details left to be desired. He can hear Foggy swallow thickly though, run his palm down his pants again, then he's collecting his keys and wallet.

"Hey," Matt says. "Have fun. Don't do anything I wouldn't do."

"Don't limit my evening like that, Murdock," Foggy says, but there's not enough lilt in his voice.

Matt pretends there was and grins at him. Foggy pats him on the arm on the way out.

Matt sits in silence for a few moments then pulls out his phone.

Drew doesn't remember him at first.

They only met once – at some mixer Foggy made him go to at the start of the semester. He's on the soccer team, a bit taller than Matt, healthy as a horse and it gives him a nice, clean smell.

He doesn't pretend Matt's asking him on a date. That's something Matt likes about him – he's direct. Tells Matt he can come over now if he wants.

He has Matt undressed and on his bed within half an hour and he's kissing him like it's the most important thing in the moment. He hasn't shaved since yesterday and Matt likes the way his stubble feels, likes how strong his hands are, the way he's holding onto Matt's hips and rubbing their bodies together. It's a slick-slow warm up, setting a fire beneath Matt's skin, but it's good. Distracting. The smell of his sweat – crisp and sharp – and the rock of the mattress springs creaking beneath them, the rasp of his cotton sheets on their skin.

Drew confesses – and that is what it is, a confession – that he doesn't like penetrative sex. Not top, nor bottom. And his heart rate is elevated from the situation but Matt can still hear how sincere he is.

Matt doesn't care. A hook up is a hook up "And sometimes," he says, one arm hooked around Drew's neck, "society is too hung up on viewing penetrative sex as the only 'true' form of sex because it mimics heterosexual sex."

"You're such a geek," Drew says, tiny smile on his face. Then he gently nips at Matt's bottom lip.

He slicks them both up in some generic, unscented lube and wraps his hand around both their lengths. Matt bucks up as he starts to stroke, the two of them moving in tandem to a sharp and pleasant end.

Afterwards, Drew lets Matt cuddle up on his chest for twenty or so minutes. It's when he starts to drift – just a little, just because there's no way to get a better night sleep then to get a good fuck – Drew stands up and says he's got plans, he needs to shower.

The don't be here by the time I get back is heavily implied as he takes his towel towards the bathroom.

Matt sits in the middle of his bed for a moment. Listens to the water turn on in the other room, the sound of the air moving in from the window, a microwave beeping next door.

He feels cold.

He wonders if Foggy cuddles. If he would let Marci stay against his chest as long as she wanted. If he tells silly jokes or lets the silence stay comfortable around them. If he spoons up to her in his sleep, and likes the way she looks in the morning with her hair mussed and no makeup.

He probably does. Foggy is sincere like that. A whole package sort of guy, even if he acts like a dog sometimes. Matt knows it's an act; he's not really that shallow.

He hopes Marci knows.

He gets up, rubbing the lube off his body with the corner of Drew's blanket before getting dressed.

Before he leaves, he steals one of Drew's t-shirts right out of his top drawer.

XxX

April, Sophomore Year

Foggy called him drunk.

Foggy called him drunk from a bar four blocks from campus. The one that let underage people in even though they had been cited for it before.

Foggy called him drunk and asked Matt to come take him home.

Matt was simultaneously unsuccessfully studying history while listening to the X-Files (He knows better, he really does. But sometimes even he is less than the perfect student) when he got the call.

He sat up on his bed with his phone to his ear and listened to the slurred request one more time.

"Matt," Foggy said. "I need you to come get me and take me home."

"Take you home?" Matt said. "You know you called Matt right?"

"Yeah," Foggy said. "Matthew Murdock. Murdock. Matthew. Matthew Murrrdock. Mmm."

"All right, all right," Matt cut him off with a tiny chuckle. "You do know I'm blind right? Or are you so drunk you forgot?"

"No sir, not at all," Foggy slurred. "Blind Matthew Murdock. Beautiful blind Matthew Murdock. Matthew Murdock, the kid hero from Hell's Kitchen. Yeah, I know you're blind."

Matt giggled a little. Foggy sounded like he'd been having a good time, Matt wasn't sure why he wanted to leave. "I can't drive, Foggy."

"I didn't say to drive!" Foggy defended, his voice rising and Matt could hear someone shush him. Foggy apologized and tried again at a more respectable decibel. "I just want you to come get me, take me home. Please, Matt, I'll do you a favor, your laundry or something. I will explain, just come get me."

Foggy's grasp on time was very tenuous in that state, which was good, because he didn't notice how quickly Matt arrived.

Foggy was hidden out in a corner with three people Matt had never meet before – two women, and a large man who sounded a little angry in his breathing but Matt figured he was the sort of man who existed slightly angry.

"Thank god," Foggy said, his voice low enough that his companions didn't hear him but Matt did and it made him smile.

"This him?" the woman closest to Foggy asked.

Foggy knocked over two glasses and nearly upended the table scrambling to his feet. "Yes," he said, slurring and fumbling for Matt's arm.

Matt let him link their arms together like they often did, ever since the episode on the stairs freshmen year. He could feel Foggy sway slightly on his feet and helped steady him.

"Matt," Foggy said, "Amber, Katrina and Logan. Old friends from high school."

Matt could feel the way Foggy stiffened a little over the word "friends", like doing a shot of hard liquor. Unpleasant. Not his friends.

Matt smiled anyways, went with it. "Nice to meet you," he said.

"So he is real," the other woman said – Katrina. She sounded the way smoke tastes – vapid and slightly dirty.

"Yes, now it was nice catching up with you but we must be going," Foggy insisted.

"Aw, Foggster, don't be that way," Katrina huffed.

"No, really, things to do, people to meet, you know. Busy busy. Some of us actually got into college," he said and started to pull Matt away with a tiny, sarcastic salute.

Matt felt Logan watched them leave, breathing thick through his nose like he wasn't used to it. Something off about the whole situation, but he didn't press Foggy.

Foggy was drunk but not falling down and he seemed a little more sober once Matt got him out into the fresh air.

"You gonna tell me what that was about?" Matt asked as they walked back to the dorms. Neither one of them had unlinked their arms.

Foggy was silent for a while. Matt listened to the steady tread of their feet, the soothing rhythm of it. Foggy would lean into him now and again – mostly because he was drunk but a little bit of it felt like Foggy just wanted to check that Matt was there, that Matt was real.

But, Matt decided that he was making that up to stroke his own ego. Foggy was just tipsy and that word is rather literal.

"I wasn't popular in high school," Foggy finally confessed. "Big shock, I know. Fat geek with long hair from a family as redneck as you can get in New York City, you'd think I'd be the biggest social butterfly, but I wasn't. In fact, I was the school's laughingstock. So I decided to aim for something better, worked hard, studied my ass off and got myself into a good school. After I got my acceptance letter I told myself I would never, ever let anyone make me feel that bad about myself again. The way those jerks back in high school did. You know – that Eleanor Roosevelt quote about how you shouldn't give anyone consent to belittle you.

"I didn't realize it wouldn't actually be that easy. Go out for a drink and those three jerks wander in and suddenly I'm seventeen and pantsless behind the bleachers again. It was like everything I worked for was meaningless for a moment. I'm always gonna be some fucking joke."

"Foggy," Matt said, drawing to a stop and causing Foggy to turn towards him. "You're not a joke. High school isn't who you are. Don't let those assholes ruin your buzz. Few years, you're gonna have your own office and they'll still be right there – drinking two dollar beers and trying to figure out how they're gonna make their paycheck last past rent day."

In the silence that followed, several cars passed them and the night breeze picked at Matt's hair.

"You're good people, Murdock," Foggy said. "Thanks for saving my hide."

"Anytime," Matt replied and offered Foggy his arm again.

The two fell back into stride, back to campus.

"Were you really pantsless behind your high school bleachers?"

XxX

April, Senior Year

Matt doesn't always study in his room but the study room in the library has a vent that is squeaking this week and if he listens to it for one more minute, he's going to rip the vent out of the wall and possibly go on a killing spree with it, so he's studying in his room.

Foggy is… also studying in their room. At least, Matt's pretty sure he's studying.

He's sitting quietly in the corner with several books open but Matt has heard neither pen on paper no turning pages in a while but he can also hear from his breathing that Foggy isn't asleep so… Foggy is pretending to study in their room.

It doesn't bother Matt until he's several hours in and really hitting his stride when Foggy interrupts the silence with, "Marci likes to be bitten."

Matt loses his place on the page and also, suddenly, can't remember what subject he was even studying.

"What?" he asks.

"Marci. We… uh. You know, for a few weeks now."

"Have sex? She's your girlfriend, I assumed as much. You're twenty-one and going to be a lawyer, you can call it by it's legal name."

Matt can practically hear Foggy rolling his eyes. Sometimes, he wishes he'd been blind from birth because then he wouldn't miss it, but sometimes he's glad because he can fill in the blank spaces where body language says what words just can't.

"Yeah, Marci likes to be bitten during sex."

"You sure you should be repeating this?" Matt asks.

"You gonna tell anyone?"

Matt shakes his head.

"I mean, best friends, no secrets?"

"I'm not sure that extends to our sex lives."

"Can it just this once?" Foggy asks.

Matt mulls it a second. He doesn't want to intrude on Marci's privacy, but he also knows he's not the kind of person to spread it around. If Foggy is gonna confide in someone – might as well be him. Besides, Matt feels a little possessive, tight in the chest sort of a feeling at the idea of Foggy telling his secrets to anyone but Matt. So he makes an open-handed please continue sort of gesture.

"That's mostly it. Marci likes to be bitten. I don't mean like a playful nibble, she likes to be bitten, hard enough to leave some gnarly bruises. Really, really does it for her," he says, but he's not bragging. He sounds like his throat is dry, like he's something cornered.

"And you don't like biting her?"

"I guess… no. I mean, like, I'm not some super vanilla fucker. We don't have to do it missionary style by candlelight with Barry Manilow on the radio, or something, I just," he sighs, shifting a little in his chair. "I just don't like seeing bruises on someone I care about and thinking that was me, I did that. Even if she likes it, she wants it, she asks for it, it still…makes me uncomfortable." He trails off a little at the end, scratching at his right elbow with his left hand.

"Why don't you tell Marci that?" Matt asks.

Foggy shrugs and then sighs when he realizes Matt can't see him shrug and therefore he can't derail the conversation that easy. "I don't know how to bring it up. It seems relatively harmless. Like a hickey, kinda. It's not like she's asking me to hit her."

"But you're afraid she might."

"Hey," Foggy says putting his hands up in the air like surrender. "I don't judge what consenting adults do on their own time, it's just not all for me."

"No one said it had to be."

"What if it's a breaking point for her?" Foggy asks. He's leaning forward in his chair now.

Matt shrugs. "Then you guys break up. Stay friends, don't stay friends, whatever. Just be civil at least, and she'll go on and find some dude who will bite her and you'll find some vanilla chick with a Barry Manilow collection."

"Fuck you, Murdock," Foggy says but there's a hint of laughter in his voice.

"Is she the one?" Matt asks.

"You did not just ask me that like we're women in some chick-flick."

Matt huffs a laugh. "Yeah, I did."

He hears Foggy shift his weight back in the chair, imagines his shoulders falling with quiet sigh he lets out.

"I mean, I guess not but what does that even mean? That is something we just get from movies. The One. No one ever really finds The One. They find the person they want to team up with for the rest of their life. That's all. What would The One even look like?"

That dark, half-dead place inside of Matt twitches around a bruise that feels like it's bleeding. "I don't know what they would look like," he says. "But I imagine you get along with them, not all the time but most of the time, when you do argue with them, you'd rather be having a stupid argument with them then a civil conversation with someone else. They look out for you when it counts and when it doesn't. I mean, I'm extrapolating from relationships that I know have worked out, but what do I know? I've never been there."

"Yeah, me neither," Foggy says.

"I guess that doesn't matter. Talk to Marci. Tell her you don't like it, tell her why. She'll think it's sweet, trust me," Matt says, already turning back to his books to find his place.

"All right, but if you're wrong, you're buying the booze when she dumps my sorry ass."

"Sure thing," Matt says.

The next day, Matt finds his rosebush again. Early, early in the morning, the sun just rising and that time on a Saturday means the solitude is easy to come across.

He just…

It hurts to stand by and watch, or listen to Foggy continue on his life, that he's not even sure Foggy's talk of them working together in the future is real or just some fleeting fancy. If Foggy is gonna marry some woman and move out to the suburbs and get some nice, well-paying position with a corporation and never think of Matt again. He's gentle, kind, thoughtful. It's just a matter of time till someone else – some lucky lady – sees that in him and wants him as badly as Matt does.

He doesn't know if Marci is the one or not. Foggy is self-deprecating enough to date someone not right for him. Which is perhaps one of the reasons Matt never said anything.

Pity sex is more bitter than sweet and Matt doesn't want this tainted. Sometimes, even the hurt of unrequited love is beautiful in it's own way.

He runs his fingers over the blossoms and leaves of the rosebush, slowly, so not to catch himself on the thorns.

"I love you," he says to the flowers again. Imagines how he would say it to Foggy. Imagines if it's something that would come out on a drunken stumble back to their dorm, or if he would build up to it. Convince Foggy to go to dinner with him one night – somewhere nice, away from campus, and between dinner and dessert he would tell him. Flat and simple, lay it out on the table with no expectations. Just to have it out there, just so the air is always clear between them. Foggy was the one who had said no secrets that first day they'd met, and he might not be a lawyer just yet but he knows omission is just as much as a lie as a verbal one.

Foggy's bed was still empty when Matt left this morning. He stayed out with Marci all night and Matt tries not to think about him in her room somewhere, if he told her he was uncomfortable and she was understanding or if he decided to just stay and do whatever made her happy. Which frustrates Matt because he wants Marci to see that Foggy deserves to be made happy too.

Matt rolls the pad of finger across a petal and imagines it the flat of someone's tongue, gentle and slick, pushes his hand further across the rose and thinks about Foggy's voice in his confession last night. Like he's afraid the tiniest dissent will be reason enough to leave him. He wonders if that's happened a lot to Foggy in the past – getting left behind for being himself. He's so damn sincere, Matt can see why Foggy's personality would be off putting to some people but it's just another reason why he loves the guy.

Matt's never had anyone bite him before. Maybe no one ever tried because he's blind and it would seem like a cruel surprise in the heat of passion. He wonders, briefly, what the appeal is. Wonders what it feels like to have Foggy press his teeth up against him, nip at the flesh, but would never ask him to.

He deliberately pricks himself on a rose, just to see what it feels like, just to think about the cleanness of the pain, sharp and thick on his thumb. Thinks about how Foggy was probably shy the first time, a playful nibble and Marci would've demanded more, the kind that bruised, the kind that hurt.

There's so much pain in the world all ready, Matt's not sure why anyone wants to add more. But, like Foggy, he tries not to judge.

"I love you as you are," Matt says in a shaky breath, feeling the blood trace down his fingertip.

That's what Foggy deserves, Matt thinks. Someone who loves him, awkwardness and all. There's a gentleness to Foggy that Matt doesn't want to wake up one morning and find it gone, doesn't want a girl with pretty hair and sharp lips to erode away.

Foggy's not back by ten that morning, Matt fishes out his phone and calls Drew.

"Apparently I'm not on the soccer team," Matt says with a smile after Drew says hello. "My roommate just informed me the t-shirt I've got on says 'Columbia Athletics' on it or something. Either way, I seem to have accidently grabbed one of your shirts the other night and, well, I didn't notice for the obvious reasons."

They hook up after Drew's morning practice and before lunch is served in the dining hall on campus. Drew on his knees in front of Matt's bed, the flat of his tongue smooth and slick across his length like the petal from earlier. Matt holding onto the edge of the bed and coming with a tiny cry and his toes curling. He returns the favor with a little less fervor than Drew delivered, but if Drew notices, he doesn't complain. He's simple like that – an orgasm is an orgasm and those tend to be pretty good no matter how one accomplishes it. Matt respects that about him.

Matt asks him for one more round – flat on his back on his silk sheets, the blankets of his bed cast aside and Drew grinding their hips together above him, pinning him down to the bed. He turns his throat up and asks Drew to bite him – hard – right where shoulder and neck meet. Feels the bruise begin to form, the blood rushing to the surface, the way Drew grinds down once more and comes hot and wet across his stomach. Two more strokes and Matt's there himself, his hands clutched at the athlete's back.

It takes him longer than he thinks it should to collect his breath.

Drew doesn't hold him – there are no perfunctory cuddles this time. Drew doesn't pretend this was anything other than what it was.

Matt kind of wants him to. Kind of wants him to get back on the bed and put his arms around him and have Foggy walk in on that, listen to Foggy's heartbeat when he finds Matt naked and tangled up in some other man.

But, then again, that's just manipulation and Matt is a lot of things, but he'd like to believe himself a little bit above that.

Drew kisses him on the cheek and collects his stolen shirt before he leaves.

The smell of sex is so overwhelming, Matt opens the window, tears the sheets off his bed and goes about putting himself back together.

When he returns – hours later with his sheets washed – Foggy is back in the room, face down on his bed.

"You all right?" Matt asks feeling for the corners of his fitted sheet. He can tell from Foggy's breathing that Foggy is not asleep.

"Yeah," Foggy says into his pillow and Matt knows he's lying.

Matt drops his bedding and goes to sit beside Foggy on his mattress.

"Fog," he says and pokes him in the shoulder. "What happened?"

Foggy rolls over and looks up at Matt. Matt hears something hitch a little in his voice and then Foggy's hand is on his neck and it's right over the bruise Drew gave him not two hours earlier. The bruise is hot but Foggy's hand is hotter and it takes Matt two breaths and four heartbeats to realize that Foggy can see it and doesn't need to touch it but he's doing that anyways.

"You had a good night," Foggy says and his voice is level, a little hurt maybe, but not mean.

Fuck. Matt is so screwed. Foggy doesn't even lash out when he's hurt. How can anyone be that gentle?

"Uh," Matt says and gives a little cough, his hands fidgeting with the fabric of his pants. "Morning, actually."

He can feel Foggy nod, the vibration down his arm from where his hand is still heavy on the bruise on Matt's neck.

"That's…that's good, Matt. Was she hot? I bet she was," Foggy says and then flops back down on his bed. Matt can hear him put his arm over his face. He hasn't been crying – Matt would've smelt that – but he sounds a little watery.

"Yeah, he was," Matt stumbles over the pronoun a little and Foggy doesn't catch it. "I take it you and Marci broke up?"

"That obvious?" Foggy asks.

"I'm sorry," Matt says.

"No you're not," Foggy retorts.

Matt's face falls and he fidgets a little more, hand restless over the seam of his jeans, the noise heavy in the otherwise quiet room.

"Shit," Foggy says and sits up. "I know you meant that, I'm sorry, Matt. It's just…" Foggy trails off.

"Did you love her?" Matt asks, knowing he might be pressing fingers to wounds.

"I don't know," Foggy says. "But I liked her. We talked all night. I guess it was kind of mutual. We just," Matt knows he's making some sort of vague hand gesture – can hear the rustle of his shirt and feel the movement in the air – "Aren't that way for each other. We're gonna be friends. I think she actually means it, too. I'm just," Foggy exhales loudly through his nose. "I'm just tired of only ever being anyone's friend. It's like being good but not good enough."

"Foggy," Matt says, heart suddenly in his throat and Foggy is giving him his whole attention. "You're not—You're good," he says. "Anyone who thinks you're not enough is undeserving of you anyways." He wants to say more but the bruise on his neck is aching and the cut on his thumb still twinges a little so he lets it go.

"Thanks, buddy," Foggy says and claps a hand on Matt's knee. "You're not so bad yourself."

XxX

December, Junior Year

In retrospect, he should've heard it before he opened the door, but Foggy was trying to be quiet and the dorms have always been a little loud and he was going through his mental list of homework and other odd chores that needed to be done that night so he just—opened the door right into it.

"Shit," Foggy hissed, high and breathy and the room a little warm, a little humid.

Matt closed the door behind him and heard the rustle of clothing, a zipper pull and then he smelt it – lotion and precome. Shit.

"Uh," Matt said, color rising warm in his cheeks. "Sorry, I can—I can come back?"

"Naw," Foggy cut him off. "Awkward roommate moments bound to happen." He was still breathing a little bit hard and Matt kind of wanted to leave on principle but, for whatever reason he was never able to pin down, he stayed.

"I suppose that's true. Anyway." He moved over to his bed and put his bag down.

"I thought you," Foggy said, pausing to swallow, finally getting his breathing even again. "Had a late class right now?"

"Professor cancelled it to give people more time to write their final papers," Matt explained matter-of-factly. "Is this your designated masturbation hour?" Matt asked and he was trying for joking but the silence that followed made him realize that he had embarrassed the hell out of Foggy and that he was probably right. "Sorry, it's really not a big deal, perfectly normal-,"

"If you give me some healthy young man bullshit speech right now I swear I will hit you with my comparative politics book and that thing is bigger than some eastern European countries," Foggy cut him off.

"Understood," Matt replied with a smile and pulled out his notes.

Foggy didn't move, stayed seated stock still on the edge of his bed and Matt wasn't sure how to diffuse the situation.

Matt sighed after a few moments, fingers shifting restlessly over the pages of a textbook, but not really reading. "Hey, Foggy," he said after he started to worry that Foggy was going to stay that way forever.

"Hm?"

"What do you… I mean if you don't mind me asking," Matt started, not even facing Foggy. "What do you use?"

"Use?" Foggy asked and Matt heard him shift a little, a good sign.

"Yeah. I mean, I didn't hear any… uh. Porn, I guess."

"Are you really asking what I masturbate to?" Foggy asked but he didn't sound like he was shutting the conversation down, more like he was just confused.

"Yeah, I guess so," Matt said. "I never… It's fake. You can hear how fake it is so I never…"

"Watch porn?" Foggy asked. "Shit, I mean, listen to porn?"

"Yeah," Matt said. "Doesn't do it for me, you know?"

"Yeah," Foggy said. "Guess magazines don't do it for you either."

Matt relaxed a little, Foggy sounded lighthearted, the awkwardness drifting away.

"Not really," Matt agreed. "I know they're typically for women but, hey, romance novels do the trick sometimes."

"Hm. Not surprised but I never tried it," Foggy said.

"So then you…?"

Foggy sighed. It was a resignation but not a bad one, he didn't sound angry or sad, just like he was about to talk about something he'd never talked about before. Which wasn't terribly surprising. Most people don't really like discussing their masturbation habits.

"Fantasize," Foggy said. "I just use my imagination. I uhh… Few years back, I saw a documentary on the porn industry and it really unsettled me. The way they treat women, I just. No one should have to hurt in order for me to get off." Matt can hear him shrug. "Capitalistic society, the best way to get something to stop is to cut off its funding. I know, I know porn isn't going anywhere, but I thought I figured it couldn't hurt to not throw my money at it."

Matt was smiling and he didn't really realize it until Foggy said, "What?"

"That's just so… Good," Matt said. "I mean, you're a good person."

Foggy shifted a little and Matt imagined that if he was closer to him, he would be able to feel him growing warmer with embarrassment.

"Yeah, well, got to be a man of your own convictions or else you're just a liar."

"That is true."

"Besides it's… It's more personal. Just fantasizing, I guess. No one is feeding you a fantasy, you're exploring what you want. What you think the pleasure of sex should be, even though it's all fictional, in your own head, it's not… It's not as fake, not as distant. At least, to me."

Matt gave a tiny gentle laugh. "You know, I think the same thing."

"Well, this is one of the oddest conversations I've had this year."

"Sorry," Matt said again.

"Don't be," Foggy replied and he sounded a little bit pleased. Matt's heart pounded a little out of time.

XxX

May, Senior Year

This time, he does hear it, and smell it, and even feels the vibration of the creaking bed through the floorboards but walks in anyways.

He's furious Foggy would let Marci pity fuck him. If she's not gonna give Foggy the sort of things he needs – the sort of love he deserves – Matt is gonna speak his fucking mind.

Except, as soon as he's standing in the doorway and the bedsprings have ceased their squeaking and he can sense two pairs of eyes on him and fucking smell it much much clearer, closer.

It's not Marci.

It's not even a woman.

He knows Foggy is on his back, his breath hard and heart pounding and legs bracketed around the waist of a man that Matt does not know, but can tell he's got a nice body. He's tall and wiry and smells like weed and he grunts out, "Ya mind?"

"Uh. Yeah, sorry," Matt says and closes the door.

He stands in the hallway for a moment. Hears Foggy drop his head against the mattress and say, "Fuck."

"It's okay," the other man says and Matt can hear him lean in and kiss Foggy. His lips are damp and probably soft. He kisses wetly and Matt's mouth goes dry, his blood feels like it's falling down into his feet and he can't move.

They're trying to be quiet. Foggy's hook up – or boyfriend? Would Foggy get a boyfriend and not tell Matt? – is now kissing Foggy's neck and shoulder, rubbing his hands over Foggy in a soothing gesture, hushing him a little.

Then he asks, so quietly that Matt has to strain to hear it, "You wanna keep going?"

Foggy swallows hard and Matt hears his hair brush along his bedspread as he nods and says, "Yeah, yeah, it's fine. Keep going."

Matt turns and walks away and keeps walking and – it's not a conscious effort, but he finds himself at the coffee shop on campus that Foggy took him to the first day they met.

He orders a cup that he doesn't want so he's not loitering and then sits in the corner table with his back to the wall and does not move for hours.

XxX

December, Freshmen Year

Matt was one of a half a dozen people planning to stay in the dorms over the break.

Foggy kept asking him to join him back at his parent's place. "Dude, it's just a few blocks, really, when you think about it. Besides, Hell's Kitchen, old stomping ground and all that. Don't you want to be somewhere not here for a bit?"

"And still have to share a room with you?" Matt asked, but he was smiling. "Your teenage bedroom nonetheless?"

"It's that or the couch and if you sleep on the couch, you have to deal with my grandfather getting up at five a.m. to listen to NPR in the kitchen. I wait at least until dawn before turning on NPR."

Matt laughed. "Really, I'll be fine, Foggy. Go home, spend time with your family."

Foggy slumped against the wall. "I don't like it," he confessed.

"Don't like what?" Matt asked. "Your family?"

"No, they're fine. I don't like you here, alone."

"Foggy, I can take care of myself."

"It's not about you taking care of yourself. I don't doubt you can take care of yourself. I just don't want you to be lonely," he said.

"Who says I'm not lonely when you are here?" Matt asked, trying to deflect.

"Wow, ouch," Foggy replied, pretending to rub at an imaginary wound on his chest. "You're going to be vicious in court."

"So they tell me."

"But, seriously, it's Christmas, you should be with people who care about you. You know, that's what all those cheesy movies and songs are always saying."

Matt focused his attention in Foggy's direction for a moment. "That's… That's very kind of you," he said.

"So you'll come?" Foggy asked and Matt could hear his heart increase a little – he was excited at the idea of Matt coming to his house, meeting his family, being there on Christmas morning.

"Don't you have other friends you'll be seeing? I don't want to be the third wheel between you and your family and your other friends."

"Other friends," Foggy said with a laugh. "It's like you don't know me at all, Matthew Murdock." His voice was humorless then. He was working his mouth but not talking, maybe running his tongue over the back of his teeth in frustration – Matt could hear the slightly wet sound of it. "I don't," Foggy said and dropped his voice even lower. "Don't really have any other friends. Let's just say I wasn't popular in high school."

"You don't have to be popular to have friends," Matt remarked, his voice wasn't as kind as he meant it to be. Shit.

"Then where are your high school buddies? Old orphanage friends? Anyone else invite you home for the holidays?"

Matt shrugged and shifted slightly away from Foggy's gaze. "No, no other invites. And, I dunno, I've always been kind of a loner, I guess."

"See, that's what I mean," Foggy said. "We've both been solitary, before. But not… Not now, yeah?" The way he asked it – it was like getting hit a little bit. Like he wasn't sure if Matt considered him a friend or not. Like Matt was just putting up with him.

"Yeah," Matt said. "Not now."

Matt didn't go right away. There is something to be said about a little bit of solitude. But he did join Foggy four days into the winter break. He slept on the trundle bed in Foggy's childhood room. He let Mrs. Nelson make a fuss over him, listened to NPR with Foggy's grandfather, gave and received several hastily purchased gifts and tried not to think about why no one got close to Foggy before.

XxX

May, Senior Year

Foggy doesn't say anything when Matt finally gets brave enough to go back to their room.

It's almost dusk.

It doesn't smell terribly of sex. Foggy's opened the window at some point to air it out, changed his sheets, took a shower, threw out the trash.

He doesn't turn towards Matt when Matt comes in.

Matt stands in the doorway for a moment, giving Foggy time to tell him he still needs space or something, but when Foggy says nothing, he closes the door quietly behind him and goes to sit on his own bed.

"If you…" Foggy starts, he sounds like he might have been crying at one point, his nose a little clogged. "If you want to request a different roommate, I would understand," he says.

Matt pauses. "Why would I do that?"

"I know that you're not… that you don't… that most people are…"

Foggy can't get the words out. Foggy talks all the time and now he can't talk at all.

Matt almost stops breathing.

"I mean, I understand if you are uncomfortable because I'm sometimes interested in other men," he says, his voice so level Matt can tell he's been practicing that line for hours. "I won't be insulted if you don't want to share a room with me anymore."

"Foggy, I don't care who you sleep with," he says. "It doesn't make me uncomfortable. It's your body and your life and it's utterly inconsequential to me who you have relations with. I'm sorry I walked in on you," he says, trying to sound comforting but not sure he is. "I didn't see anything for what it's worth," he adds in a poor attempt to lighten the mood.

It doesn't work.

Foggy is crying now. "I knew you'd try to be so cool about it, Matt. But I also know it's not that simple," he says. "Everyone, they just…" he sniffles, takes a breath and when he speaks again, his voice is almost even. "Just tell me you're gonna switch roommates. Just don't do it behind my back. Say it to my face."

He sounds almost vicious, a line of hurt in his voice that he's disguising with anger and Matt feels like he missed a step. Something's really not right.

"Foggy, do you want me to get a different roommate? Do you want a different roommate? Look, I'm sorry I walked in on you, I'll be more careful. But it doesn't have to be a big deal if you don't want it to be. And if you're so uncomfortable about it, you are more than welcome to request a room change yourself but I'm not bothered by it or by you or your preference or whatever it is you're so scared about, Foggy, I promise. You don't need to change roommates if you don't want to," Matt says.

There is a short silence that hangs between them. Foggy sniffles a bit, Matt can't stop his hands from fidgeting. He turns his face away a little, feeling the words out in his mind before he finally says them.

"And, if you did, if you left, I would miss you, Foggy."

It's like throwing the gauntlet down, letting that feeling out. He likes Foggy – the eager puppy that he is – he loves that kid and now he's scared that some stupid little incident is gonna tear up everything between them and Matt's not sure he'll bounce back from that. Not sure he'll ever let anyone in again if Foggy leaves.

Foggy's the only one to ever treat him the way he needs and wants to be treated. He never acts like Matt is breakable but still lets him lean on him when he needs, and he's suddenly scared that Foggy's gonna walk out that door and take everything from him. Because Foggy was right that Christmas – he doesn't really have anyone else. And Foggy's not just anyone – he's the person Matt loves.

He loves how Foggy is passionate and a bit reckless and he's smart and tender-hearted and eager. He has a vibrancy to him that life forgot to give Matt when the cards were being dealt. It reminds him of sunrises – the golden light and the warmth of day melting away dew. It's rare and Matt, perhaps selfishly, doesn't wanna let go of it.

"Really?" Foggy says and Matt can hear he doesn't believe him, not one bit and Matt doesn't know why. He's always been honest with Foggy. "You'd miss me?" he repeats.

Something breaks, that bruised place inside of Matt is ringing with the pain of it. "I'd miss you so much," Matt says. "You're my friend, Foggy. Of course I would miss you."

Foggy cries a little bit harder for a moment. "I'm sorry," he says wetly. "I just assumed you'd be uncomfortable."

Matt shrugs. "If I were uncomfortable it would be a sort of pot, kettle situation."

"What?" Foggy asks, his tears slowing. Matt hears his heartbeat make a noise like a stutter and he'd give anything to put the man at ease.

Matt shrugs again. Who he is – it doesn't really bother him. Never has, but he's also never really talked about it either. Catholicism, the hectic nature of the orphanage, a general lack of close friendships, he's never felt comfortable enough to talk about it, and it never really seemed to matter. He's always been the sort of person to do what he wanted to do anyways.

But, still, it feels daring to lay out all out there to Foggy. Because Foggy deserves to know and Foggy is the only one Matt would dare trust with his more delicate feelings anyways. Foggy's the only one who's ever really cared about Matt in the past decade.

"I've been known to sleep with men sometimes," Matt says. "Stopped caring terribly much about gender a little while back. Maybe I never did, I'm not entirely sure. I guess the term is bisexual, I never thought about it too hard. So, maybe, maybe that makes it safer for you here, in this room, Foggy. 'Cause we're the same, I think."

Foggy has stopped crying but he's quiet for a long time. "But, when we met, you said—You implied that you didn't, you weren't…"

Matt turns his face towards the ground. "Well, I wasn't… I hadn't acted upon it yet. At the time, I mean. And I was still a bit in denial about it myself and, don't take this wrong Foggy, but I wasn't sure I'd be comfortable living with someone who found me attractive in that sense. Not because I'd think they'd do something but just that it might be uncomfortable. I didn't know you yet, I was keeping my guard up. I never meant to hurt you. I know you now, I know you'd never do anything without consent, and I'm not stupid. I understand that being attracted to men doesn't necessarily mean you're attracted to me."

"Oh," Foggy says and there's such a mixture of hope and hurt in his voice.

Matt's heart is in his throat. He's so close – telling the truth but not the full truth.

Lying through the omission.

"Then again," Matt says. "That's sort of become another pot and kettle situation."

Foggy shifts forward on his bed a little but doesn't stand up. "What?" he asks, his voice more breath than anything.

And, fuck it, Matt's probably gonna need to go ahead and request a new roommate. Cause he's gonna say it, he's really gonna fucking say it and Foggy is gonna turn him down because Foggy might think he's cute or hot or some nonsense, but they're just friends and it's gonna ruin their friendship but he suddenly can't help himself. He's been alone since he was nine years old and he's gone and done the stupidest thing imaginable and fallen in love with his only friend. But it was Foggy who said no secrets so then, no secrets.

"I love you," Matt says. He raises one hand up in some sort of what are you gonna do about it gesture.

It's scary. Those words out there now, for Foggy to make or break him by them.

But it does feel better than saying it to a rose bush.

It feels like letting loose a weight he's had on his back for too long, but also like stepping up to the gallows and dropping the noose over his neck himself.

"I'm in love with you," he says again. "I love everything about you. I love that you are gentle and kind and passionate and caring and silly and I love that you are always yourself and please, Foggy, don't think you need to change a damn thing on my account."

"You," Foggy's voice is thick with disbelief as he repeats it. "You love me?"

Matt's fingers twitch against each other. He feels like he might cry now, but he doesn't, he manages to hold it together. "Yes," he says. "I understand if you… if you want to live with someone else. Someone without a stupid crush on you, but you. You deserve to know."

"You love me," Foggy says and this time it's not a question.

Matt nods. He waits for Foggy to say something else, maybe to get up and leave, he's not sure.

"Were you ever gonna tell me?" Foggy asks.

"I don't know," Matt says and it's not a lie. "I didn't know how you'd react. I don't want to lose you as a friend, Foggy. I don't have anyone like you and I won't—I won't act on it," he says. "Please just don't leave, we can pretend this whole day never happened."

Foggy stands up then, his heart tripping double-time in his chest. "What if I don't want to pretend today didn't happen?"

Matt nods. "Okay then," he says, swallowing around the lump in his throat, the sudden pain in his chest. "You don't have to."

Foggy's moving towards him, slowly, like he's afraid he'll spook Matt or something. "What if I want you to act on it?" he asks.

There's crushed paper in his mind, an old man telling him he's not worth his time and his father dead behind their home and then there's Foggy's hand on his shoulder and Foggy's so close he can smell his breath and the two feelings are folding up in on each other. Being worthless and worth something and Foggy isn't turning him down.

"Matt," he says, so close Matt can feel the heat off his body, hear the shift of his long hair against his shirt. "I think you should kiss me. If you want," Foggy says and that's what seals it – that little push for consent. This beautiful bastard who doesn't wanna hurt anyone, who won't even watch porn and made sure Matt wasn't alone on Christmas and is asking for a kiss.

Matt nods, and smiles and says, "I do want, very much."

Foggy's grinning, Matt's sure of it. He puts one hand on Matt's face – gentle, like Matt is delicate, but not because he's disabled, but because he's precious, because he's priceless, and then Foggy leans in, but not all the way. An offer, a halfway point.

Matt is more than delighted to meet him there, slides gracefully in and their lips touch and for a moment – it's everything. There's no noise and no world on fire and no darkness, there is just Foggy and Foggy's lips on his and Foggy's hands on him and the smell and taste and feel of him, their bodies pressing together.

He's not sure who grabs who first, but then they each have handfuls of clothing and are tugging each other as close as they can get, their legs tangled up in the other's, swaying dangerously on their feet as they kiss and kiss and kiss.

"Foggy," Matt breathes when they part, petting his face gently with his fingertips.

Foggy has the biggest grin. Face-splitting. It feels good under Matt's hands, real and warm and it's bursting in his chest to know he did that, fuck, he did that.

Foggy has a hand on Matt's lower back, keeping him close, pressed up against him.

"I love you," Foggy says and it sounds like a prayer from a nonbeliever – desperate and hopeful, a single lifeline in the dark. "You fool, I've loved you a long time."

Matt leans in to kiss him again, nibbles down his jaw a little, enjoys the way it makes Foggy's knees quake and his hips twitch. "How long?" he breathes into Foggy's ear.

"Since the night you walked me home drunk," Foggy says.

"That was ages ago."

Foggy nods under Matt's fingertips.

"Fuck," Matt says.

"When did you… When did you know?"

Matt shrugs a little. "Since you picked me up off the floor? Took me home for Christmas? I don't actually know, Foggy. I just knew."

Foggy nuzzles his face into Matt's neck, his hands still clinging like it's not quite real. "Good enough for me," he says.

They kiss some more and eventually settle down atop Matt's bed but don't do anything other than kiss just yet. They're getting used to this, to it being real, to love being returned. Matt can't get enough of being able to touch Foggy – feel the soft curves of him and the sharp lines of his bones, the silky texture of his hair and the vibration of his voice in his throat.

As much as his world on fire reveals, there is still so much he can't see and getting to map out Foggy's body with his hands is like being liberated from a long night.

Foggy gives as good as he gets, the gentle way he tips Matt's head back to kiss him, his hands on Matt's jaw, his fingers nimble, carding through Matt's hair so carefully, so carefully.

After dark, they're still tangled together. Foggy slumped down a little to rest his head on Matt's chest, one arm across his stomach and Matt's arm over Foggy's shoulders.

Matt's dozing a bit, enjoying the moment, the warmth, the way their breathing has fallen into sync. He doesn't know that he's ever been this content, or if he has, it's been so long he can't remember.

"I really was pantsless behind the bleachers," Foggy says out of the blue.

"Hmm?" Matt asks, waking up a little.

"The night you walked me home. The night I was drunk and you rescued me. I never answered you."

"Oh?" Matt asks, not really sure where this is coming from but he can hear and feel Foggy's heart thundering in his chest.

"Yeah," Foggy says. "I. Uh. There was this guy," he says. "Jock, popular, on the swim team. Gay. He was gay and pretending he wasn't," Foggy explains with a little shrug. "Which I didn't hold against him. I didn't advertise that I was, ya know, not straight myself. It was high school."

Matt hums his ascent and rubs Foggy's shoulder a little.

"We – to this day, I'm not sure how it started happening, but it did – we started fooling around. But it didn't feel just like fooling around. We weren't just having sex, he made me feel," Foggy shakes his head. "Like I was something, important or something. We'd stay up late at night talking and when it was just us, it didn't seem to matter that I'm, well, this," he says and Matt can feel the blush working his way up and over his body. "Nerdy and pudgy and socially awkward."

"Foggy," Matt tries to say but Foggy shakes his head and Matt knows to let him say whatever it is he needs to say.

"At school, we'd pretend not to know each other. I had my geeky friends and he had his jock friends and it was all very clandestine and sometimes we'd sneak off during our study periods and find somewhere to make out or fool around. Stupid teenage stuff."

Foggy's quiet for a moment like he doesn't want to finish the story, but Matt already knows where this is going.

"We got caught. It was like something out of a terrible teen-flick. He'd just gotten me out of my pants and we were under the bleachers in the gym and we got caught by the drill team coming into practice and he just… stepped back and played the whole thing off like a joke that he'd set up. Pretended he set me up for that moment of humiliation. Laughed at me along with the drill team and it was around campus before the end of the day.

"He tried to apologize to me later. Gave me some bullshit about being unable to come out of the closet. I wouldn't have any of it. Even took a swing at him, I think. Some of it's a little hazy. I tried not to think about it. It didn't matter, in the end. I was a laughing stock and my friends abandoned me and he ripped my heart out."

"Foggy," Matt breathes, leaning over to kiss his hair. "You didn't deserve any of that."

"I know," Foggy says and Matt can feel the tiniest, saddest smile on his friend's face. "I know I didn't. But. That's why. I was afraid it would be just like that all over again. You would see me with a guy, get uncomfortable and leave me."

"Never," Matt says. "Never, never, never. Even if I wasn't – even if we didn't – you're my friend, Foggy. I know you. You would never mistreat me."

Foggy huffs a tiny laugh, warm and gentle across Matt's jaw. "Yeah, you're right. God, you're such a sap. But I love it, don't change. I'm sorry, I was just so afraid that you'd be uncomfortable that I wasn't straight and want to move out and I'd lose my friends again. I'm no stranger to being the butt of a joke, it was them abandoning me that almost did me in, you know?"

"Then they weren't your friends," Matt says. "Friends wouldn't do that to you."

Foggy's voice is thick in his throat, all that old hurt resurfacing. "That's the thing though, till that moment, they certainly felt like my friends."

Matt rolls over a little, pressing his face into Foggy's hair. "I promise, I'll never treat you like that."

Foggy tucks his nose alongside Matt's, threads their fingers together. He doesn't speak but Matt can hear his heart, it's steady thrum of happiness, the way Foggy shifts into him.

They're going to be all right.