Chapter 2: In Haec Verba

Sometime post-season-1. In which Matt is sick and Foggy helps out.

The line just keeps ringing. Just like it did the last time he called, and the time before that. This time he leaves a voicemail. "Hey, Matt. It's Foggy. Again. Just wondering where you are..." He steps into the conference room and lowers his voice so that Karen can't hear. "I gotta be honest, buddy, ever since this whole you-know-what business, I can't help wondering if you are dead in an alley somewhere when you don't pick up, so… An answer would be appreciated."

Their relationship is still shaky. He'd be lying to deny it. Matt being the Mask comes with a whole set of brand spankin' new trust issues, and Foggy finds himself annoyed by the mystery of it all, and on edge from constantly lying to Karen. Oh, where did Matt get that split lip? Oh, why is Matt so late for work? Oh, where is Matt tonight that he can't join us for drinks? It's getting old fast.

So yeah, Foggy is still a little, tiny, itty bitty bit angry.

He searches the Internet for Daredevil sightings. Nothing comes up. Is that better or worse? Foggy thinks back. Matt was at work yesterday. Everything seemed fine, but everything always does with Matt. Broken bones, fifteen stitches in his shoulder, massive city-wide explosions - everything's fine. For all he knows, Matt could have fallen off a fire escape the night before, was nursing a broken rib, and now has said rib through his lung and is dead on his apartment floor.

Okay, calm the fuck down. He probably just unplugged his alarm clock by accident. Clumsy sonuva-

"Morning, Matt!" Karen's voice lilts from the reception area. "Coffee?"

Relief washes over Foggy. See? he thinks. You were just being paranoid. Rib through a lung! Pfft! He steps out of the conference room in time to see Matt leaning his cane up against its usual corner. He must have nodded to Karen's offer, because she's breezed past him and is preparing his cup - white, no sugar - while Matt sheds his coat. Foggy watches suspiciously as Matt stiffly turns. He gives his crooked Murdock smile. "Morning, Foggy."

"You're late," Foggy points out, feigning nonchalance. "That's kinda weird."

Matt shrugs, but Foggy isn't fooled. He follows Matt as the man heads for his office, knuckles brushing the wall to guide himself. "I turned off my alarm by accident," Matt explains, accepting the coffee cup Karen brings him.

Foggy's eyes narrow. He shuts the door behind Karen's departure and turns to fix his friend with a stern look. "I don't have super senses, but even I can tell when you're lying badly. You turned off your alarm and didn't hear your phone ringing four different times this morning?"

"Yeah." Matt nods, setting his coffee cup down without trying it. "When is our meeting with the Andersens? Eleven, right?"

"Remember that talk we had about trust, where you're supposed to tell me stuff and not keep secrets from me anymore?"

Matt nods again, leveling his usual placid expression in Foggy's direction. He has his glasses on, but Foggy can see him blinking behind the dark lenses.

"Yeah, well, you're breaching our new contract."

"Objection - there was no contract."

"Don't deflect with humour, Matt." Foggy sits down across from his desk. "You're all sweaty and rumpled and you let Karen make you coffee - so I know you're lying. Where were you this morning? Were you out Daredeviling all night?"

"Keep your voice down."

"It is down! Karen doesn't have super senses!" Foggy leans back, twisting to look at their friend through Matt's office window. "She's wearing headphones, anyway!" He turns back to Matt. "Talk to me, man, because you're kinda looking like crap on a cracker right now, and I don't want to find you facedown at lunchtime because you have a pathological problem accepting help from other people!"

At the end of Foggy's tirade, Matt sighs, one hand on his desk and the other in his lap. He seems to be considering something, eyes downcast behind his dark glasses in a perfect mimicry of sight. "This isn't that, Foggy." He lifts his face, no doubt approximating Foggy's general position based on his scent and the trajectory of his voice. "I didn't fall six storeys into a dumpster and then not tell you. It's nothing like that."

"Then what is it?"

Matt stands to grab his briefcase and starts to say something, but then he stumbles, barely catching himself on the edge of his desk.

Foggy takes two swift steps forward and catches him under the arm. Immediately, he gets a clearer picture of what's wrong. "Christ, Matt, you're burning up."

"Just a cold…" He sags. Disengaging himself, he sits back down.

"You're going home." Foggy starts packing up his partner's briefcase.

"I wanted to be there for the meeting with the Andersens."

Foggy nods with exaggerated pretend sympathy. "Bummer."

"No, seriously, Foggy - if the kid is lying about where he was, I'm the only one who can find that out for certain."

"We talked about this, too, Matt! You can't just go listening to people's heartbeats in secret, it's creepy. We covered this. Clearly your fever is addling your brain." Foggy snaps the briefcase shut and steps back over to Matt's side, plucking at the seam of his sleeve to signal him to stand up. "Let's go."

"Foggy."

"No! You're not going to get other people sick by being irresponsible!" He knows that appealing to Matt's sense of duty to others is the only way to convince him. And like a good Catholic, Matt takes the ugly guilt-ridden bait and stands up.

Foggy guides Matt out of the office, telling Karen on their way, "Reschedule the meeting with the Andersens for Friday afternoon."

Matt tenses. "Foggy - "

Foggy's having none of it. "No arguments!"

Poor Karen doesn't even get the chance to ask what's going on before they're both out the door.

By the time they get back to Matt's place, Foggy is wrestling with the idea of calling Claire. Which is to say, Matt looks like he's in bad shape - and since Matt likes to hide his discomfort from other people, Foggy is left to assume that what he's seeing is just what's leaking through his friend's iron-clad defences; so in other words, he's probably a lot sicker than he looks. Which is already somewhere near deathly on a scale of one to not breathing. It could be worth it to have Claire check and make sure that he's not actually dying. Just for peace of mind.

Matt sets his briefcase and cane down on the table, shivering slightly. Glasses come off next, and he rubs the indentations from the bridge of his nose.

Sighing, Foggy goes to Matt's room and grabs him some sweats. "Clothes," he says, holding them out.

Matt's fingers close around the soft material. "Thanks. I can take care of myself, Foggy."

"Right! That's why you almost collapsed at work."

As he passes him on his way to the bedroom, Matt sighs noisily. "I did not almost collapse. I was nowhere near collapse. I just wanted to be present for the Andersen meeting. I would have gone home afterward." The door shuts behind him and Foggy can hear the sound of fabric shifting, necktie being pulled off.

"I'll let you know when I believe you," Foggy replies, raising his voice so that Matt can hear him through the door, before remembering that that's totally unnecessary. Super senses. Right.

The door opens again and Matt stands framed in it, one hand on the doorjamb for support. "What's gotten into you lately?"

"Your pathological problem with accepting help." Foggy is disproportionately proud of having invented that phrase. "Or being seen at a weakness. Or both."

Matt gives a long-suffering sigh and makes his way to the couch. "That's not… I don't have a pathological problem with accepting help."

"Like hell you don't!"

"Volume, Foggy." Matt winces.

Foggy whispers, "Like hell you don't." He sits across from his friend. Matt's eyes follow him, seeing but not seeing, fixed on some spot near his head but never quite making eye contact. "Exhibit A. The night I discovered it was you in the mask, bleeding to death, you were planning on calling me?"

"No."

"No. So you would rather have died on your living room floor than call me and ask for help. Exhibit B. A month ago when you took a dive off the side of a building and thought it was just a twisted ankle. Were you planning on calling any of us then?"

"Foggy, you know why - "

"No. Exhibit C - "

"Okay, I get it." Matthew gives a gusty sigh, his face colourless. "Okay. You're right, I have a problem asking for help. But it isn't - pathological - I just… I don't want to drag you into anything."

Foggy doesn't waste any time looking affronted, he knows Matt can't see it. "I'm in it, man," he says, stretching his arms out to the sides. "I'm in it of my own volition, so just… y'know, stop. Get over it." He gets to his feet. "Alright. I need to go do damage control with the Andersens. I'll come over when I'm done. You okay here? Have everything you need?"

Matt nods. "Yeah, I'm fine."

"If you need anything, call me." Foggy places extra emphasis on the last two words. "Don't let me come back here and find you dying of Ebola or something."

The laugh that tumbles from Matt's lips is a relief from his stubborn stoicism. "Okay, Foggy. Okay."

The door closing behind Foggy is deafening to Matt. There's never any quiet, not for him, but right now it's exacerbated by the violent maelstrom of pain in his head.

Foggy's right. He has a problem asking for help. He doesn't want to be anybody's burden. He doesn't want to be treated with kid gloves. He hates that. Hates it.

But there's a chance he overcompensates. He knows that, but he doesn't know how to stop. He needs to stop, or Foggy's going to start taking it personally. No, correction - he already has. He's just too damn nice to bring it up most of the time.

Quiet fills the apartment and Matt lets himself fall back against the couch cushions. He can hear the neighbours talking downstairs, the sirens from six blocks over, the dog whining from three streets down. He turns on the TV, loads up Netflix, and selects the first movie he finds with descriptive narration. He can't have quiet, but he can be distracted, lulled into calm. The storm in his head keeps pounding and pounding, the pressure threatening to split his skull - but somehow, over time, he falls asleep.

When he wakes up, he knows that several hours have passed, even though he can't see the afternoon sunlight slotting through the windows. He feels hot and cold by turns, and his skull is still split open at the seams. He pushes himself upright, and the walls and floor trade places. He presses a hand to the side of his head to steady himself, but his memory-map of the apartment is all wrong now and he stumbles on his way to the bathroom, nearly tripping over the coffee table and just managing to catch himself on the doorfame of his washroom. Cane, should have grabbed the cane. His stomach heaves as his knees hit the tile. His chin grazes the porcelain of the toilet bowl half a second before his insides spill out of his mouth, and when he's empty and boneless, he falls back against the side of the tub, gasping for breath and grimacing at the acid in his mouth. Vaguely, he wonders if he's going to be okay since all his internal organs have been flushed down the toilet, but there's no time to ponder on it. His senses are shutting down again. Everything oscillates for a minute between too loud and not loud enough before it settles.

Relative quiet, and cool blankness again. Matt falls asleep on the bathroom floor.

The next time he wakes, it's to voices. Familiar, warm, and much too loud. He winces at the noise and someone says, "Shh." The world is not on fire. It's blank, dark. There's a rushing sound in his ears and his clothes feel scratchy and uncomfortable, despite that his sweats are lined with soft, brushed fleece. Someone's hands are on his face, his shoulders, pulling him upright.

"Foggy…"

The hands are connected to a voice, which says, "Yep. I'll forgive you this time because you left your phone by the couch."

Matt doesn't understand. Forgive him for what? Apologising is the first thing that comes to mind. Mea culpa. Oops. "Sorry," he mumbles, or tries to.

"Oh, my God," says a second voice as Matt allows himself to be led out of the bathroom. The voice is female, also familiar. Karen. "Should he… go to the hospital?"

The very thought makes Matt cringe - prickly sheets, oppressive noise, the stinging taste of antiseptic. Drugs that will either amplify his senses to unbearable heights, or dull them to terrifying uselessness. "No," he moans. "No."

Beside him, Foggy gives a shake of the head that Matt can feel, and covers for him as always. "Nah. Don't think we're at brain damage levels of fever yet."

Matt tries to say something to Foggy, but it doesn't come out intelligibly, even to him, and he soon feels fingers on his jaw, turning his head in the other direction.

"Vomit breath, dude," Foggy grates.

"Sorry."

"S'okay."

They're a tangle of shuffling feet and clumsy limbs and Matt loses track of where they are. It comes as a shock to him, not being able to figure out where he is in his own apartment. That's never happened before. He always has a clear map of the place in his head, and his mental compass is never wrong, not in here. Except for right now. Right now he's lost in the woods, in the dark. He feels himself shiver.

His legs hit the edge of the bed and then Foggy's hands move, guiding him down onto it, pushing his shoulders, tugging and prodding him to move. Matt tries to cooperate.

"So not helping," Foggy grunts.

Oh. "Sorry," Matt says again. His head hits the pillow a split second before he senses Karen in the room. Almond-mint shampoo, her long hair whispering over her shirt as she moves. Something cool and damp alights on his forehead and he resists the urge to moan with pleasure as it etches out a swath of relief along his fevered skin.

He falls asleep in the middle of whatever Foggy is saying to him. Instructions. Something. A sigh. Sleep.

Half a second later, he opens his eyes, and the room feels different. Empty, quiet. The air has changed somehow. It is no longer vibrating with the breath and movement of two other people. He's alone, lying on his back in the middle of his bed. No, it's been more than half a second. It's been hours. Several. The storm in his skull has abated, but as he lifts a hand to touch his face, he realises that the pain isn't gone, it's just relocated to his joints. The large muscles of his back and shoulders ache deeply. He breathes through his nose, willing his body to move. Stick's voice floats to him from a buried memory, telling him to suck it up, and even though he tells the voice to fuck off, somehow it's motivated him. He drags his right arm up, out, down. His fingers fumble for the button on his clock. "Eight-oh-seven pee-em," it says in a tinny voice, the inflection on all the wrong syllables. He presses it again for confirmation. Eight oh seven. He doesn't know what day it is. He pulls his arm back into his nest of blankets and groans from the effort of it.

Movement from the living room catches his attention and he realises he can smell food. Thai. Mild. Coconut rice.

The process of sitting up has him close to tears, but he feels like there is something he's supposed to be doing. His joints are screaming. A cough claws its way out of his throat, and once it's begun, it won't stop.

When the spasm relinquishes its grasp on his lungs after what seems like hours, Matt's throat is raw. Foggy's hand is on his then, and it's jarring to realise he never even heard him come into the room. The other man is lifting his hand, fitting it around something cool and smooth. Curved. Glass. Water. He's not sure what it's for. Washing something, maybe.

"Drink," Foggy explains. Of its own accord, the glass floats toward his lips, the smooth edge like ice against them. The water traces a frigid path down his throat, and it calms the scratching sensation that made him cough.

Knuckles brush his forehead; Foggy is pressing the back of a hand to his face. The whine from his joints says Matt must have jumped from the contact.

"Sorry," mutters Foggy, above and in front of him. "You're really, really hot though, man."

Matt tweaks the corner of his mouth upward. It takes most of his concentration. "Thanks, but I don't swing that way."

"Hilarious."

He lifts his eyes to an approximation of where Foggy's face ought to be. His mind's eye tries to build the features of his face based off a touch memory from five years ago, but it's a lot of effort right now and it's quickly abandoned. He envisions Foggy as an avocado instead. An avocado with long hair. He wonders if he has an accurate idea of what an avocado looks like. It's been so long since he's seen one.

"Seen what?" Foggy asks. The mattress sinks slightly as he sits beside Matt.

"An avocado," Matt supplies, still obediently sipping water.

"Slow down."

Matt isn't sure what he is doing that is too fast, so he stops everything. He even holds his breath for a second, but then he feels rather dizzy and he thinks that Foggy couldn't have meant that.

He hates how muddled up he feels right now. Even as each ridiculous thought crosses his mind, he knows they're stupid. Foggy isn't an avocado. Glass isn't ice. Boohoo, Stick taunts in his brain. He's curled up in the back of his skull, meditating. Poor Matty can't think. No world on fire, just blank and dark. Neverending dark. No, not even dark. He can't even see dark, it's just… nothing. A big fat blind spot, like when you're about to get a migraine, or when you've looked at the sun too long. Just nothing.

Something agitates his ear and Matt freezes. Foggy's breath fans over his face - coffee, peanut sauce, coconut rice again - "Relax." Something slides into his ear canal. Tympanic thermometer. He doesn't remember Foggy getting up to get it. He feels like he's underwater.

The thermometer beeps, leaves his ear, and then speaks in a flat, mechanical voice: "One-hundred-two-point-zero-degrees-Fahrenheit."

Foggy pulls a face. Or he probably does, Matt thinks. Trying to guess at all of his nonverbal cues is exhausting now, however, so he stops.

"That sucks," his friend says beside him. "Maybe you should… take something for it." His hesitation is because he knows Matt won't. He never does. Nothing that could dull his senses, or worse - amplify them.

Matt tips himself sideways so that he falls onto his pillow once more, pulling his legs up. His shins brush against Foggy's hip. His friend's heartbeat echoes in his ears and he latches onto it in the not-dark-darkness, timing his breath to every fifth thump. "Sleep," he mumbles into the pillow.

Foggy's hand appears on his arm, disappears just as quickly. Receding footsteps. He falls asleep to the sound of Foggy's heartbeat and the monotone of the evening news.

The third time he wakes, it's to a sensation of total suffocation. This should panic him, but it doesn't, as if it's happening to someone else. Maybe it is. Foggy's hand feels cool on the back of his neck and suddenly he re-enters his own body with a slam. He coughs, sucks a ragged breath around the taste of vomit in his throat, and realises he's hanging over the side of the bed, half supported by his friend, the wastepaper bin sitting on the floor beneath. He knows because he can hear the crinkle of the bag that lines it. Good. Easy cleanup. He hopes he didn't miss when he puked. He chokes and wonders if this is what drowning feels like.

"Don't fight it, man," Foggy advises. "Just breathe."

That seems important. Breathing. Is it? It must be. Foggy's smart, even if he pretends not to be sometimes. His advice is to be trusted. Always full of good ideas, that one. Good old Foggy.

"Hunh." The noise is coming from Matt. He bites it back and shoves himself upright, setting the room to spinning on the y-axis. He holds his head as though this will steady his world. Cold hits his lips and he realises through the rushing sound in his ears that Foggy is trying to get him to drink. Another good idea. Matthew peels his hands away from his temples and holds the glass, but his fingers layer over Foggy's on one side and the other man doesn't let go. Just as well - Matt's grasp doesn't feel too firm or steady. The glass disappears and he feels Foggy's hand on his leg, just below the knee. He's tangled up in blankets and Foggy is sitting on top of the edge of them, effectively pinning him beneath the fabric.

"What time is it?" Matt asks over the rushing water sound. His voice is so hoarse it sounds like Daredevil's growl. He scans the room. Still no world on fire. It's smouldering a little now, though, and he doesn't feel quite as blind.

"About one."

Alarm lances through Matt's chest. "In the afternoon?"

"Nah, man, the middle of the night."

"Why are you still here?"

Foggy's laughter comes in a cascading scale of tenor notes. "Why do you think?"

Matt scowls, or he thinks he does. He's never seen himself do it, not his adult self. He hopes it's effective. "I can take care of myself."

"So you said, like, a dozen times. But it doesn't hurt to have some backup so you don't, say, destroy your white carpet with vomit."

Is his carpet white? "Were you asleep?"

"Not quite." Foggy's heart rhythm stays normal, neutral. He's telling the truth. The mattress springs up and Matt's legs are suddenly freer, signalling Foggy's departure from the bed. The wastepaper bin is swept away, the bag crinkling as it's tied off.

Matt wrinkles his nose. "You don't have to do that, I can - "

"Can't hear you!" Foggy calls on his way out of the room. "Go back to sleep, Murdock."

He does. Mainly because he's envisioning Foggy as an avocado spinning out of the room, and he knows that can't be right.

Foggy's phone chimes with a text message alert as he returns from putting the bin bag down the rubbish chute. It's five minutes to one in the morning, but he knows it's Karen. They've been chatting on and off throughout the evening. He washes his hands and unlocks his phone.

New Message: Karen Page 12.56am

How's it going?

Foggy wonders how to answer that. Matt's ridiculous with fever. Delirious, maybe, but he's always been sensitive to fevers. He knows now that it's probably from his spidey senses overreacting as they do to everything. He rolls his shoulder to stretch it and types out:

Not bad. Matt just puked on me. Pretty sure I win Best Friend of the Year.

The response comes quickly.

New Message: Karen Page 12.56am

He puked on you?

New Message: Karen Page 12.57am

You decided to stay?

Rounding the couch, Foggy takes a sip of the lukewarm beer sitting on the coffee table and drops himself down before replying.

Well, not ON me, on me. Near me. Whatever, it counts. Yeah, I stayed. I couldn't leave with him going on about avocados, he's liable to walk off the roof in confusion or something.

He wonders if that sounds too bad. Indeed it must, because Karen's next message asks if he's delirious and whether that means they should do something (like put him in a cab directly to Metro General), but Foggy shakes his head to himself. He tells her that no, Matthew always gets stupid when he has a fever, it's kinda his thing. He hopes it will pass for believable. It must, because Karen doesn't push the issue. A few minutes pass and he thinks the conversation is over, when his phone chimes again.

New Message: Karen Page 1.11am

Avocados?

Foggy glances through the open bedroom door, watches Matt roll over and moan softly in his sleep. He types:

Long story. Ask him sometime.

Karen promises that she will, and the two of them say goodnight. Foggy stares blearily at the television, watching replays of the news. There won't be any Daredevil sightings tonight. And if there are, they'll be fake or mistaken. He's the only one in the city who knows that, and it feels like a precious secret, a small conspiracy with himself.

He falls asleep to a replay of Last Week Tonight, the room awash in the billboard's white glow.

It's four when something jars him awake. He blinks his eyes open, nearly jumps out of his skin when he sees Matt standing over him, his blind stare going right past him. "Matty?" he croaks, confused, disorientated. He clears his throat. "What's up?" The question is too casual, he realises, because Matt looks gravely distressed in the artificial light pouring through the window.

"We need to leave." Matt's voice is strained, thin. He finds Foggy's arm, peels him from where he's slouching against the back of the couch, and his touch is far too warm through Foggy's crumpled day shirt.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa. What?" Foggy pushes himself to his feet, catching Matt's arm before he can walk away. "Leave? Where? Why?"

"They know. They know who I am, they're coming. Get your coat." He turns, bumps the coffee table, corrects his course toward the door. Stops, because Foggy has a firm hold on him.

"It's not real, Matt," Foggy says, and he is pretty sure it's true. He shakes the cobwebs from the inside of his skull. He's never been a quick riser, always sluggish and slow in the morning. If this can even be called morning. Still too early for that, by Foggy's standards. He sighs. "It's not real."

Matt turns to face him, tilting his head. Foggy thinks he must be listening to his heartbeat. The idea is slightly less unnerving each time he has it, and the part of him that wants to stay angry is irritated at how mundane it's becoming.

"Not… Not real…?" Matt sounds confused. That's an understatement. Matt sounds… undone. Un-Matt.

"Yeah, dude," Foggy goes on. "You're sick. Fever's making your brain play tricks on you. Let's get you back to bed."

But unfortunately, Matthew isn't convinced. He wrestles his arm out of Foggy's grasp and takes a few steps away from him, turning to face him in the expanse of the loft's living area. "No, I'm not, Foggy. I know what I saw."

"Are you sure? Because last I checked, you're blind as a bat."

"You know what I meant."

He does, it's true. He also knows that bats aren't blind - they've covered this before - but that's not the point. The point is that Matt is halfway across the flat, getting on his coat and shoes and grabbing his cane, and if Foggy doesn't stop him, he's going to go outside and walk into traffic or something. "Matt." Foggy runs a hand back through his shaggy hair and crosses the space in a few long strides, reaching out and grabbing Matt by the arm again, spinning him around with a firm but gentle grip. "Matt! Listen to me. This isn't real, it's a dream. You're dreaming. Maybe hallucinating. I don't know the technical term."

Lucidity seems to return for a moment and Matt's expression of determination is rapidly replaced by one of confusion. "Not real?" he parrots again.

"Nope. Please go back to bed, man. Please."

Matt lifts a hand, pressing it to the side of his head. "I don't…" He sways.

Foggy barely reacts in time when Matt pitches forward. The unexpected armful of fevered lawyer throws him off balance and he lists sideways against the wall, trying to use it to gain some leverage and get them both back onto their feet. After a moment, Matt adds his own strength to the effort - what little of it he has, that is - and somehow they both get upright again, though Matt is leaning heavily on Foggy. "Okay," murmurs Foggy, leaning down to see his friend's face in the semi-dark of the entryway. The other man is pale, sweating. "Just take it easy. We're going back to bed. One foot in front of the other."

He isn't sure how, but Foggy manages to get Matt back to his room. He guides him back into bed, wincing at the moan that exits Matt's lips as he lies back down. "Feel sick again?" Foggy wonders aloud, casting about for the bin.

"No," says Matt, shaking his head a little against the pillow. "Just… Ohh." He spreads a hand over his head.

"You want some ibuprofen or something?"

His voice is muffled by the pillow. "No. Jus' wanna sleep."

Foggy drags the blanket up over his friend and leaves him to it. To be honest, he wants the same. Matt is a terrible patient. Not on purpose, at least. But he is. Foggy drags a blanket and pillow out of the linen closet and camps out on the floor outside Matt's room. Just in case. If a delirious Matt wants to try to run away again, he'll have to trip over Foggy first.

Some three hours later, he's woken by sunlight streaming in through the windows and the sounds of someone making barely-stifled unhappy noises behind him. He opens his eyes, confused for a moment to find himself on the floor of Matt's place. He's lying on his side in a tangle of blankets that smell like cedarwood, and when he hears Matt groan from somewhere nearby, he remembers. He's impressed - they made it to morning without another escape attempt. Foggy sits up and gathers the blankets and pillows off the floor, dumping them in a chair. Matt's awake and there's no need to leave things lying around to trip him up.

"Foggy…?" comes a drowsy voice behind him.

Foggy turns and sees Matt sitting on the edge of his bed, scrubbing a hand down his face. Crossing his arms, Foggy leans in the doorframe of Matt's bedroom. "You with me, Murdock?"

"Is there somewhere else I should be?" Matt replies, and for a moment, Foggy thinks he's still lost in the fever-haze, but then he quickly catches on that Matt was being sarcastic. "What are you doing here, Fog? What time is it?"

He checks his watch. "Early still. Do you seriously not remember last night?"

"A little, not much… ow." He's stretching, cramped joints popping audibly. He peels sticky fleece away from his chest.

"Well, lucky you. How do you feel?"

"Like shit."

"Up to eating?" Foggy turns his back and heads for the kitchen. Behind him, Matt gives a noncommittal noise that he assumes to be an affirmative. It's not a negative, at least. He opens the fridge, leans down to the crisper, grabs something. "Here," he says, returning to Matt and placing the fruit in his hand.

"What's this?" Matt turns it over and over between his hands, running the pads of his fingers over the pocked skin.

"You kept talking about an avocado last night at one point. Maybe you had a craving." Foggy laughs.

Matthew grins feebly. "I thought you were an avocado. Last night."

"Well, I am. The best damn avocado."

Matt laughs, but the movement causes his face to go through two shades of grey to a pale green. Much like an avocado, himself.

a/n

I'm still experimenting with writing using non-visual descriptions. Please R&R and let me know if I made any silly mistakes with the parts from Matt's POV. I received some guidance from someone who is totally blind with no light perception, but there may still be mistakes. All input is appreciated. Thank you.