Tenebrae factae sunt

It's not easy to unlearn an entire lifetime of relying primarily on sight. You find yourself standing at crossroads with no idea which direction traffic is coming from and unable to tell whether or not you are in immediate danger because you don't control anything. The traffic seems to be coming from all directions. You don't even know if you're on the pavement or not. The world is smelling all its smells, blaring all its sounds, assaulting you with noises and resonances and hums and echoes and thuds and crashes and jingles and crunches and clatters, and you can either take them all at once or shut them all down.

You don't know what all the sounds mean yet.

No sighted person has any idea how difficult it is to relearn everything again. How to do simple household chores. How to read. How you feel silly and stupid and slow and helpless. Just making a cup of tea. How do you pour boiling water into a mug without splashing it everywhere? Without burning yourself? How do you even know if the mug is full or not?

…

He's nine and he sits on his bed, hands gripping the raspy cotton sheets. Every morning is still a shocking experience. He continues to see in his dreams, so waking up to darkness is still perplexing. For a moment, before he opens his eyes, he still mouths a rehearsed prayer, our Father who is in heaven, please, please, so when he opens his eyes and nothing changes it still hurts to be denied. He doesn't know if this is just how things must be (Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven) or if he's being punished for something else-

be careful of the Murdock boys, they got the devil in 'em-

He sits on the bed wincing at the raucous wails of the world. People laugh, cry, speak, shout and sing all around him. The substitute for sight is not invited. It doesn't help him, it just makes his world a rumble mess of chaotic impressions and he can't control them. There is no order to madness.

Some days are tolerable. They scream at his ears, sting at his nose, scratch at his skin, but he tries to shrug them all off, because if he doesn't his father will see he struggles. He will see it and he'll be so sad his heartbeat will skyrocket. Daddy will turn his head and cry silently believing he doesn't know, and he hates when his father cries. Battlin' Jack Murdock was not made for crying.

The apartment is empty. His steps echo everywhere and he wrestles with the world of noise, fighting to turn it off as he sits on the kitchen chair where he left his braille textbooks.

It's been two months.

He knows where everything is in the apartment; most of his chores are already done with uncertain hands but effectively. Still, his father doesn't know how horrified he is with himself. How he has virtually stopped eating and haven't gotten much sleep since this all started. How he paces back and forth tripping on things, having fits of crying and feeling his life is over. He's been a good child all his life, getting good grades and pats on the head, reading books and books that cover the walls of his bedroom, and they're all useless now. When he thinks of that he wants to scream. He wants to kick and shout and break things at how he'll never be able to read them again. He used to be the best student, he used to be intelligent, all his value was in hiding behind good grades ("Hey, I don't want you to end up like your old man") and it's now all over. It's all over.

He's tired of faking wellness, the stress so heavy on his shoulders his neck feels thick. He tries to make sense of the books in braille while the words in bumps scratch his fingertips, the world shrieks at his ears, it is painful, uncomfortable, and he feels repeatedly doing this will be next to impossible. The joy he's always derived from life is gone, given way to feelings of despair, hopelessness and the horrible fear of contending with this indefinitely.

Matt swallows, he feels like he's ingesting glass. Aimless despair is rolling off him in waves.

He wants to cry but he's a Murdock, and Murdocks aren't supposed to give up.

His fingers go over another set of bumps, the meaning unrecognizable. They aren't words, they're just lumps of raised paper and he'll never be able to read them. The fear is gripping his throat, distress mounting in a crescendo, and he doesn't know when he went from sitting on the chair to the kitchen floor, screaming and sobbing against the tiles.

He's stupid and useless and so afraid.

And then his father is here. Daddy is here, collecting him from the floor, raising him to his lap and protecting him from the world. His heartbeat is wild, panicked at finding his son on the floor crying and making a scene, but the panic is made of love and not disgust.

Matt screams into him, through him, does not seem to know how to stop, and his daddy does not know how to make him. Daddy clasps his arms around Matt's small body saying nonsenses, holds him close and jumps into the dark with him, refusing to leave him alone. Mumbling soothing gibberish against his hair, rocking him to calmness on the kitchen tiles. He's not going anywhere.

And it's alright.

It's alright

…

The sprint is madness and he knows it, but he can't stop it.

Void is crashing around him; he has to dash to escape it. Maybe it's just a bubble of nothingness and if he runs fast enough to any direction he'll burst through it, so that sound and form can shape into existence again. Reality is fleeing. He's so dizzy he can barely stand let alone run, his sprint is more reeling than running. He needs to find his daddy – please, please, please – before he disappears around the edges. He-

Something solid and fast strikes him and he's flung against the asphalt on his back, the whoosh of what must be car tires passing inches of his head – he's on the lane! – his glasses are knocked out of his face. Frantically, he pushes whatever it is out of his way to stand – a bike, it's a bike – in order to run again, fueled by fear and desperation, head swimming, vertigo assaulting from all directions, nausea crawling his throat. Another pair of hands try to help him, touch his elbow, but he jumps sideways and runs and stumbles and runs.

A whirlwind of terror bordering on hysteria, existence is black and mute. The ground under his feet and the friction of the air are the only things that attach him to reality. He doesn't know where he's going as he knocks people out of his way skidding and tripping until his knees are on the sidewalk again, somebody steps on his hand, copper on his tongue, the world too wide and too cramped in a little space and he doesn't know if he's dreaming or if he never existed at all. His head throbs, his ears hurt, his eyes sting. Dizziness lurches him to the ground and his stomach flips. He must be moaning or gasping, but he can't hear himself.

Daddy… Daddy…

And then the 'world on fire' slips back into place, dissolving unawareness like mist.

Slowly, perception returns, the buzz of the streets and the sound of his raspy breaths are on his ears again, even if slightly muffled. Relief is so overwhelming he nearly chokes. His senses sharpen and focus, the sounds of the city blaring wildly but well invited, space awareness coming back and he knows where he is. He knows where he is. It's just two blocks from the office, not far at all, he was going in the right direction even completely lost, relief makes him more lightheaded.

"Hey, man, are you okay?"

It's the voice of a teenager, concern for a stranger. There are people around staring, some coming closer to help, others just curious. The boy is about to touch his shoulder, hesitation marking his movement pattern, but it's impossible to listen for either gentleness or veiled hostility. I'm fine, he wants to say, but nausea makes him heave. The words are stuck in his throat, his own heartbeat too loud for him to focus on anything else, the breaths coming strangled and ragged and he can't get enough air.

No.

No, no, no. Don't panic anymore, don't panic, there's no reason to, it's over.

He has to get out of the streets and hide before his body decides it doesn't know how to breathe, get up, get up, Matt. It's not the right place for this. He's already made too much of a scene of himself for whoever was watching or got knocked down by his drunk sprint.

His brain refuses to stop calling his father.

"Call 911, Billy." It's a woman now, her voice mature and kind. He doesn't notice when she kneels in front of him; her hands are rubbing his arms up and down, up and down, shushing him. He gags. He wants to recoil – she's not dad – but the hands are gentle, the voice is soothing and his body slackens (it shouldn't). "It's okay, darling. It's okay, you'll be fine."

She smells of lavender and is probably in her late fifties. The way the air moves around her says she's dressing denim and a microfiber jacket lined with faux-fur, the soft tingle of what must be steel bracelets coming from her wrists, she smoked a cigarette two hours ago. There are other voices talking around him, phones being picked, whoever is Billy is already calling 911 (they should be calling Claire). He can hear the voice of the operator asking what's your emergency, but he tries to focus on the woman and her shushing so his body stops fighting him. Concentrate enough to calm down, to breathe, to be steady. The air is saturated with water, it will rain soon. The wind is freezing and he is hot. He shivers against her touch-

It's over. It's over.

Whatever it was, it's over.

"I-I-I'm fine."

His heartbeat doesn't have to skip for him to know it's a lie.

…

It's nine a.m. already and he's still throwing paper balls over his desk to hit the trash can, having annoyed Karen to death for forty minutes and doodled on his notepad for twenty. Matt is late and he's impatient. They'd planned to go over a list Brett gave him of possible future clients and he's not about to start on it alone. They're supposed to be partners, the boring stuff needs to be shared equally, not only Karen's food, old burritos and Josie's eel drinks. He tries not to be annoyed when he considers Matt is late because he's most likely overdone with his Daredevil nuttiness again. He looks at his phone, refraining from calling. Okay. It's not like an hour is too much of an office-crippling lateness.

He sighs. Today is an abysmal day on its own, with the unexpected cold that is outside and the sky so dark his bed almost effectively convinced him it was still yesterday. It's too chilly for such a sunny week and a perfect day to stay under the duvet watching Netflix, not running after imaginary clients (or thugs, in Matt's case). A thunder booms outside and he realizes a light sheen of rain is patting the window. He signs again, feeling miserable.

"Coffee?" Karen asks from outside, yawning softly for the tenth time. He shakes his head, ninety percent sure she didn't go back to her apartment again last night. With Matt skipping most of his sleeping hours scurrying around the city dressing red tights and Karen avoiding her bed like the plague, he doesn't know how this office still runs with him being the only one that still freaking sleeps.

He knows Matt would smell Sleepinal in his coffee half a week before he put it there, but maybe Karen wouldn't notice his shenanigans, sleep an actual night and look like a drowsy koala the next day. It would be both beneficial to her and a little funny in a preposterous way (hadn't she been accused of first-degree murder after being drugged once). He's dismissing the idea entirely when a finger points straight to his face.

"Don't you even dare," she says, nursing a huge mug of coffee. It might as well be a gallon of Coke.

"What? I didn't do anything!"

"You have this look on your face you normally have when you're planning something I'm very sure I won't like."

He makes a face. "That wounds me, Karen. I wasn't planning anything."

She rolls her eyes. "Liar."

The rain outside starts smacking the window with an open palm. Foggy imitates her and rolls his eyes too, imagining the drenched state in which his friend will open the door. Matt used to do that with an absurd frequency back in Columbia, as if carrying an umbrella was beneath him.

"I bet your gallon of coffee Matt'll get here wetter than Free-Willy."

"Hm? Why? You think he didn't know it was rainy?"

"He probably did," Foggy waves his hand in the air to demonstrate the incongruence of this all. "Not that he cares to do something about it."

"I'm sure you're exaggerating," she takes an amused sip of her mug and he eyes her raising an eyebrow.

"Wanna bet?"

Karen looks at her coffee defensively for a moment but raises both eyebrows later motioning with the ludicrously big mug. "Okay, but if I'm right you'll have to hug Matt and confess how much you missed him."

"What? Why?!"

She actually manages to look straight at him while giving off the impression she is rolling her eyes again. "You've been annoying me to death with your impatience since you arrived. If I knew better I'd bring you a box of crayons."

"Now, my dear, that's totally unfair. I was here working my ass off reviewing this list to get us the most awesome, rich and virtuous clients in this city."

"Right. And the doodles and paper balls are all about case studies."

Light feet step on the corridor outside and the door opens. They stop bickering to check when Matt enters the office decidedly dry, a hideous pink umbrella in his right hand instead of the cane.

Karen's eyebrows shoot upwards again at the absurd sight, muttering to him a 'you lose'.

"You actually have an umbrella?" Foggy asks, half statement and half question, undecided between feeling glad his friend doesn't look like a drowned puppy and annoyed he lost the bet. "You must start asking people what's the color of the stuff you buy, buddy."

Matt leans the thing against one of the walls stiffly, as if his limbs are immobilized in plaster.

"Borrowed," he explains quietly, shoving his hands inside his pockets, about to enter his office ignoring further clarifications as if he isn't an hour late. Karen smirks and motions Foggy to go and meet his side of the bargain. He sighs, standing up.

"O dearest, my heart's missed thee with such fierceness it cannot contain itself!" He recites shakespearely, catching a mildly startled Matt in an awkward hug.

Matt allows Foggy's embrace, but doesn't return it. He only gives his friend a small smile that seems to hover between a grin and a grimace. Feeling the slight tremors running through his friend's body, Foggy releases him and steps back to look him over, brow furrowing.

Matt looks like the cold is really affecting him. Then again, he doesn't really seem to have dressed for it. He's wearing grey dress pants and a thin, white button-up shirt, his tie skewed. The only concession to the shitty weather is his usual grey suit jacket, which he is hugging to himself. His face seems paler than usual and he can't seem to calm his shivering. The cane and the glasses are nowhere to be seen, there's dirt and what looks like blood on the knees of his pants.

"Hey, buddy, what happened to you?"

A beat.

"I-I… I dropped my cellphone…" Matt stumbles on his words, uncharacteristically. "Had to kneel to recover it. It was…" He trails off, tapping the device on his pocket as if he only now realizes it is still there. "I slipped."

Foggy exchanges glances with Karen.

"I think you hurt your knees there," she comments lightly.

Matt seems to consider what she says for a moment but his legs nearly fold. He catches himself on the doorframe before Foggy reacts, and straightens as if nothing happened.

With that, everyone goes silent, the only sound that can be heard is the rain outside and how in some weird way they can almost hear how he trembles. A very weird sound.

"Matty, you're shaking…" Foggy states with a worried look.

"I'm-"

"If you're about to say you're fine, okay, I got it, you're fine. But I can see you're cold and your knees are bleeding." He drags Karen's chair close and pushes Matt onto it, asking her for the first aid kit in the restroom. She complies quickly, licking her lips and leaving with a concerned look.

"What're you… doing?"

"Being a mother hen," Foggy answers setting his jaw, snatching his coat from the hanger and throwing it on Matt, kneeling in front of him to roll up the legs of his pants unceremoniously. "Law is my second degree, apparently."

Matt goes quiet, allowing him to do what he wants but resting the coat on his lap instead of dressing it, as if shuddering to death is the best way to go about this. Another thunder booms, lightning illuminating the room. At the unnatural light he realizes Matt looks exposed without his glasses, slightly fainty. Foggy refuses to comment, revealing the angry abrasions on his friend's knees to the office's dimming lights. He sighs.

"I won't complain because I've seen worse."

Matt smiles briefly, as if it pains him, nodding. "You sure have."

"This isn't a Daredevil thing, is it?" He asks, voice low.

A feeble shake of the head.

"Fine."

Matt is in one of those moods in which he won't speak if he doesn't want to, and this doesn't look like his regular macho bullshit. Foggy cleans the blood with a rag, disinfecting the wounds with the medicine Karen brings and applying gauze, itching to interrogate but disturbed by the odd incessant shaking. He's about to take the coat and dress his friend as if he's a toddler when he notices the grazes on his hands too. Karen hovers behind him, looking bothered but tongue-tied.

"Seriously, Matt, what did you do?"

They're granted just another minute refusal. Definitely not in a talkative mood. Foggy reopens the first aid kit.

…

The day is spent in silence and the list isn't seen to. Matt is in his office, mute and pale, his band-aided fingers over the same paragraph on the same stack of paper for hours; Foggy and Karen pretend they're not hovering. They don't accomplish a thing all day.

About eight p.m. Matt leaves quietly with his spare cane, refusing a ride, Foggy's coat, Karen's coffee or a drink at Josie's.

He's still shaking.

…

The woman's name is Amparo. She's a descendant of Puerto Ricans and Billy is her teenage son who's battled with anxiety for the last six years.

They think they know what's happening to him, she keeps shushing him and counting his breaths as if it's supposed to help (it does) but all he wants to do is escape and at the same time lie down and never get up again. It's absurd how much it hurts to breathe.

His lips are numb.

He manages to control the nausea and get up just as it starts to drizzle. They insist he waits for the ambulance but he doesn't, he needs to go, he needs to work, you don't know what you're talking about. They insist he borrows one of their umbrellas because they can share one and they obviously don't have trouble breathing (Stick wouldn't; surrounding oneself with soft things isn't life, it's death. He'd walk in the rain, tough, heir of the Spartans-)

someday those silk sheets are gonna crawl up behind you, wrap themselves around your throat and choke you to death-

Out of indignation, he takes the umbrella.

…

He's twenty-nine and he sits on his bed, hands gripping the smooth silk sheets. This morning is still a shocking experience. He continues to sense it in his wracked nerves, and just sitting here in silence is still horribly petrifying (never mind he can hear the world shriek outside, his own silence is louder than earsplitting rackets). For a moment, before he makes any noise, he still thinks a rehearsed prayer, our Father who is in heaven, please, please, so when he heaves a shaky breath relief comes for listening – he's not being denied.

Is this Thy will?

He sits on the bed clinging to the raucous wails of the world. People laugh, cry, speak, shout and sing all around him. Tonight, he wants to hear them. They scream at his ears, sting at his nose, scratch at his skin, but he can accept and embrace it all, because if he doesn't he has nothing else.

A tidal wave of impressions extends from all corners of perception until he's reconciled with reality – grounded feet and regular breaths, covering well every vulnerable part of himself to hide from nonexistence, because daddy is not here to do this for him. There is a dull ache behind his eyes and a faint ringing to his ears, but he ignores the pain expanding his senses, clutching all he can grasp with the ferocity of a scared, tiny, cornered thing. He prefers the overload of information to detaching from the world ever again.

Echoes.

Bearings.

Safety.

Confusion settles.

He could call Claire and tell her what happened, tell her he was only walking when the void crashed around him and he is too scared to crawl out of himself to even mention it, terrified it will happen again just by the active speaking of it. He doesn't know why he's so scared, Daredevil shouldn't be scared (Daredevil isn't scared, it's only Matt who is).

He could've talked to Foggy, he could've approached Karen, he could've said "hey, I was going to the office when the world slipped from my grasp and I fear if I move a little to the side or take a wrong kind of breath I'll be stuck in the void forever". He'd asked Foggy for help before, he'd told Karen he couldn't do that alone ("You're never alone, you never were").

He doesn't.

I don't know what happened.

Somebody help me.

Daddy?

I don't know what I did different.

Help, help, help, help.

He can't voice it, he doesn't know how to. The one he wanted to hear him can't. And he's too afraid to stay quiet but too frightened of losing himself again. Because his father won't be here to catch him if he falls and he still doesn't know if God hears (or cares about) devils like him.

He feels so alone.

And so he does what only he can do. He impersonates Daredevil and walks into the night, because Hell's Kitchen needs its devil more than he needs himself, and Murdocks never quit.

It's easier to deal with somebody else's fear than sit shaking in silk sheets. Their worries he can dissolve into nothingness, but the devil can't collect his terrors in a glass container and beg God to be spared from them.

There was only one person who ever willingly jumped in the dark with him and he is dead.

And it's alright.

It's alright.

(It isn't)

...

Daddy,

Karen put a chengyu calendar over her table, the words are printed in hot stamp and I can read if I run my fingertips over them. Last week one of the idioms read, "one day, three autumns", meaning that when you miss somebody, twenty-four hours can feel like one thousand and ninety five days.

I miss your protection, your tired gaze, the way you made me breathe when I suffocated in darkness.

You.

…

I will never have you again.