AN: You get this now because for the next two days, I actually have to be out of my house.


"Huche!"

Foggy pokes his head out from behind his laptop.

"What was that."

"Dust."

"Lies!" He slams his hands down and gets up. Matt winces-there's a loose screw in that desk that screeches every time it's jostled, and he's about thirty seconds away from either ripping it out, tightening it, or hurling the desk out the window to make it stop. "You were out all night, weren't you."

"Don't be absurd."

"You were. I knew you would be. Every time someone mentions 'endangered children', you go. Also, you brought bagels, which you only do if you've been out all night and feel guilty."

Yeah, that last one's true. He refuses to confirm or deny the first one.

"Besides," Foggy continues, pacing up and down and nearly knocking over the (nearly empty, his throat's killing him) water cooler. "you look like death, you sound like death, and you've sneezed like, thirty times in twenty minutes."

His voice has risen steadily throughout the conversation and Matt's quiet, "Foggy...volume..." goes either unheard or ignored.

"So." he finishes, leaning against the doorframe with the air of one who has won and knows it, "you were out all night. In the rain. Own it."

"Okay. Yes. But nothing happened, there was a mugging, that's all."

"You're sick now."

"It doesn't work that way..."

"You have a cold, though."

"It's dust, I told you-"

"Karen? Would you come here?"

Oh, this is unfair. He expects the criminals to gang up on him. But his own friends? Really?

He lays his head down on the desk and feels his glasses fall off his nose. The sudden relief in pressure is a gift.

"What's up?"

"Does he look like death to you?"

"I'm fine." His insistence is ruined by another sneeze, and he pretends not to hear Karen's little squeak of 'too precious for this world'. "Really. It's allergies."

"You sound like death." she says. "Look up."

No.

They don't leave and he finally looks up.

"Yeah, you look like death."

"I do not-"

"Matt, buddy, you really do."

Humph.

"I'm fine."

"Go home."

"I don't need to-"

A car alarm goes off two blocks over and he cringes at the sudden blaring. Foggy makes the little noise he makes when he's been proven right.

"Go home."

"We can handle things here, Matt." Karen says kindly. "If you need to go home and rest."

"She means get out before we carry you home."

No. And they will not make him. He's fine, he's had worse.

Saying so only makes the other two huff at him and position themselves on either side of him.

"Out. You're banished to your apartment until you look less like dying. And no going out!"

"I-" He cuts himself off with another sneeze. "I can sit here and do paperwork."

"Matt." Oh, no. That's Foggy's 'Guilt Trip Imminent' voice. "Suppose some poor, dear, sweet gramamma comes in for advice. You sneeze near her. She goes home, carrying your germs, and not only gets the flu herself, but she gives it to her dear, precious, prematurely born grandbaby. How can you live with yourself?"

"Foggy..."

"Go. Home."

"You're just going to stand there and distract me until I leave, aren't you."

"Yup!"

He sighs and promptly starts to cough. It's times like this that he's really not sure if friends are worth it if this is what they do to you.*

"You really should go home."

"All right, all right..." But he doesn't have to like it. "Let me just get my-"

"I got it!" There's a flurry of paper-gathering and the sounds of folders being tucked into his briefcase. "Now go home and sleep. No reading, no paperwork, no nothing. Sleep."

"I'm fi-"

"If you say you are fine one more time I will get the air-horn." Foggy threatens. "Don't make me get the air-horn."

"Why do you have an air-horn?"

"Amazon Deal of the Day."

That...really doesn't answer his question, but the coffeemaker is making a sound like it's dying and it's grating against his eardrums. Maybe he can go home and work. It's not like they're going to know unless they call, which they won't because he might be sleeping.

"Do you want us to take you home?"

"No."

"Do you promise to go straight there, then?"

"Yes." he groans. "I promise to go straight home. I swear on..." He shrugs, picks up the stapler that has seen better days and may have been used as a weapon, if the stale scent of blood and chipping on the back is any indication. "This. I swear on the stapler."

There's a beat of silence and Foggy snorts.

"Yeah. Sure. Get out."

"Feel better, Matt."

Well. At least one of them is being nice to him. That's probably on purpose-some twisted good-cop bad-cop routine.

Humph.

He gathers his cane and briefcase and wishes that the owner of the panicking car would please come shut it up.


His intent was to go home and work. Really, it was. But then he ended up having to work in his bed, because the neighbour across the hall was running the vaccuum and he was desperate to put some space between them.

And then he fell asleep.

He comes to with the worst cricked neck of all time and a lingering pounding in his head...no. Not in his head. On the door. And it's not really a pounding, just a steady knocking, but...

"Hang on." Oww...speaking hurts. Speaking really hurts. "Be right there..."

Delivery guy-he can smell flowers.

"Hello?"

"Matthew Murdock?"

"Yeah." Who is sending him anything? The last client they had sent peanut butter cookies to the office, and those are long gone. "Who are you again?"

"Oh, right. Miss du Maurier heard you were sick."

WHAT.

How? Why. Why is this his life? Foggy will never find about this, he can't. He won't.

"That doesn't answer my question." Gotta keep up appearances.

"She sent you...I don't even know, man, carnations? They're white and fluffy." They are indeed carnations. "There's a card."

"Thanks."

This is weird. And creepy. And bad. Very bad.

"Uh-huh. Enjoy, man."

The card's in braille-technically it's a get-well-card (the letters on the front are raised glitter, anyone could feel them out), but the message inside is most certainly not.

Thanks for the help, darling. Thought the flowers might brighten up that drab apartment of yours. -A

Yeah. Why is this his life.

"Foggy. Foggy. Foggy."

Oww...is his ringer breaking? He didn't set it up to be that loud, he knows he didn't.

"Hello?"

"DUDE." Foggy's excited and freaked out at the same time. "You'd never guess what just happened."

"What."

"Yeah, du Maurier just came by. Like, half an hour ago. She brought us an office plant and check with zeroes on it."

He's not so sure about the check.

"Tell me you didn't cash the check."

"I didn't. I said we couldn't take it. Kept the plant, though."

At least there's that.

"That's exciting."

"Yeah, she said she hopes you feel better soon." He's noticed. "You doing okay? You sound weird."

"Dozing off."

"No. No! Whyy?"

"You said to-"

He's cut off by Karen's voice in the background: "Pay up and let him go back to sleep!"

"You cost me twenty bucks!"

"Sorry?"

"Screw you, Murdock-okay, okay! I'm hanging up, don't pull-!"

Click.

Matt puts his phone down and wonders, what, exactly, it is they do when he's not there. Do they make bets like this all the time? Is that a Thing?

He probably doesn't want to know.

He turns his attention back to the carnations. He should put them in water, he supposes-it's not their fault they were probably bought with Murder Money.**

He should have asked what the plant was, he realises belatedly. It's probably a venus flytrap or something with thorns.

He'll find out tomorrow.


*They're worth it, Matt. Most people aren't nice enough/dumb enough to give you stitches after rescuing you from a dumpster. IN CASE YOU NEEDED REMINDING.

**Drug money, but what Matt doesn't know won't hurt him.