Archive of Our Own

“Tell me you’re innocent.”

Matt sits on Foggy’s couch, shivering and soaked and bleeding. His lips are turning blue from the cold, not their usual blush red, and his eyes are dead. Not dull from lack of sight (and yet somehow still so warm) but dead. Nothing in them.

Devil’s eyes.

“I’m innocent.” Matt tells him obediently, voice just as dead as his eyes are. No smile, staring straight ahead and hands clenched tight enough on his thighs that the knuckles turn bone-white.

“Tell me that this is some kind of twisted joke. Tell me you weren’t lying to me for years. Tell me that you’re not in trouble, that you’re not putting yourself and everyone around you in danger.” He takes a shaky breath. “Tell me that you’re not wearing a mask every fucking day of your life and every moment that you’re with me.”

A small, bitter smile quirks Matt’s mouth. There’s not a hint of joy to it.

“But I’m not wearing a mask.” He tells Foggy dully. “See?”

He holds up the battered remnants of cloth, a pitch black mask that Foggy’s only seen once but he already hates.

“Is that the only mask?” Foggy asks softly, and he feels sick. “Because it looks to me like you’re still wearing one.”

Matt’s smile slips. His (dead, dead, dead) eyes flicker down towards the mask, and a moment later he’s tearing it in half. Then again and again and again, until finally he lets the pieces fall to the floor like black snow.

“Should I do that with the other one too?” Matt asks cruelly, fingers trailing up along his cheeks, smearing blood like war paint along the skin. “Only I’m a little attached to it at the moment, you see. Sentimental.” His fingernails dig into the skin, testing.

“No. Jesus Christ, Matt.” Foggy whispers, horrified. He takes an unsteady step forward before can stop himself. “What the hell happened to you? Why are you acting like this?”

Matt laughs, and it’s not dead—it’s dying, weak and wounded and wet with unshed tears.

“I’m not acting.” He admits, voice choked. “This is what I am.” He swallows, eyes darting up to Foggy’s and it feels like he’s looking. Is he even blind? He’s lied about everything else. “This is why I wear a mask, Foggy. So you don’t see.”

“What changed?” Foggy asks warily, taking another step closer. Matt’s hands are still on his face, and Foggy’s terrified that one wrong move will finally make the nails break skin.

Foggy’s not sure he can handle any more blood. Not a single drop.

“I needed you to see me now.” Matt murmurs faintly. “I need you, Foggy. Please.”

Covered in blood, practically soaking in it, lightened by the water and seeping into the fabric of Foggy’s couch. It will never look the same again. Every time Foggy sees it, he’ll see the blood.

He'll see Matt, dazed and pale and so close to crying. Eyes wide and dead but so, so desperate.

Foggy shudders and takes the final step, dropping the blanket he’s been holding (security blanket, soft and warm and held like a shield as though it can protect him from this) over Matt’s shoulders. He takes a deep breath and sits, shuddering again when Matt immediately wraps an arm around him and tugs him closer, practically nuzzling at his hair like an overgrown kitten. A proud cat that’s celebrating a happy hunt. Hunt…

“Is it your blood?” Foggy asks bluntly, feeling it drip through his shirt, all over his skin. It’s mostly rainwater, he tells himself. Just rain. Doesn’t even leave a stain. It’ll wash right off in the shower, down the drain and Foggy’s skin will be as pale and freckled as it always was.

It will never look the same again.

“I don’t think so.” Matt muses absently, like he’s honestly not sure if he’s hurt or not. How can he not tell? Does he not feel anything? Numb, maybe. Foggy understands that. He feels a little numb too. "Maybe a little, but mostly not.”

Foggy considers for a second pushing Matt away, running to his bedroom and locking the door and calling the police. He has the feeling that he wouldn’t make it more than a step. Matt’s arm is gentle around him, but that could change at any second. Foggy can feel the firm muscle hidden under (bloody, ugly, make it stop) clothes and skin. Matt's strong. So strong. If Foggy ran...

“Whose is it?” Foggy wonders hoarsely. Matt sighs, pensive.

“Fisk. Nobu. Wesley. A man…another man. A guard. I don’t know his name.” He rattles off the list like it means nothing, like he didn't just say that he's covered in the blood of at least four different men. God. Foggy pulls away a little, pretending it’s just to glance at Matt’s face. Still not normal, too sharp and dark. It's like looking in a funhouse mirror. Where is the Matt that Foggy knew yesterday, his best friend, the man who was made all of wry smiles and soft edges and warm eyes? Where is Matt? 

“And they’re in custody now?” Foggy forces himself to ask. “You hurt them, but then you stopped and you called the police and they’re in handcuffs. That’s what happened, right?”

It might be true, Foggy thinks with a sick lurch of hope. It’s crazy to consider anything else. Matt’s a sweetheart—he once ran out in the middle of traffic, waving his stick like a madman, to grab a puppy that had been hit by a car, and he’d sat on the sidewalk and held it while Foggy got help. He’d been covered in blood then too, but the look on his face when they’d stood in the clinic and the vet said Matt saved the dog’s life…it was beautiful. Innocent and shy and happy, and not like this.

Dead eyes.

Matt is silent for a long moment, silent and unmoving like he's made of stone. Hard, cold, polished marble. No softness left. Finally, he answers.

“You know that’s not what happened.” He offers quietly, voice calm, and it sounds almost chiding, like Foggy is a child that is being purposefully obstinate. Foggy is too numb to be offended, but only just. 

“No.” Foggy shakes his head, ill. “No, I don’t. You didn’t. Matt, tell me you didn’t.”

“You want me to tell you a lot of things tonight.” Matt muses, breath ghosting across Foggy’s ear. Foggy shivers and he hates that it’s not because he’s scared. Matt's breath is warm. It's still so warm, even when the whole world seems to have gone cold. “But never the truth.”

“I want it to be the truth.” Foggy feels like he might cry. “But I’d settle for a lie.”

“No, Foggy.” Matt tells him gently, and Foggy hates it. “No more lies.” And he sounds so kind, so warm, so Matt, and Foggy hates it, hates it, hates it. He sounds almost like Matt again in one of his more solemn moods. Matt goes to church when he gets in those moods. He prays all the bad feelings away.

Did Matt forget how to pray?

“Why?” Foggy begs, voice cracking. “Why are you doing this?”

Matt rests his head on top of Foggy’s, sighing. It's such a familiar gesture that it aches a little. Matt’s done this before, a million times—usually when Foggy’s sad and needs to feel like someone’s there. Like he’s not alone. And it always felt so good, so comforting, to know that Matt was there. Matt was with him. Foggy wasn't alone.

Foggy thinks he might rather be alone.

“You know what they did.” Matt reminds him softly. “All of those people, all those lives. Elena, Foggy. Do you really think that they didn’t deserve to pay for their crimes?” Foggy swallows. Elena. Oh, god. Elena. But...but that's not...

“In court.” Foggy whispers, wrecked. “They broke the law, so the law was supposed to punish them. Not you.”

“Sometimes the law’s not enough.” Matt tells him patiently. “That’s what I do. I fill in the empty places that the law can’t reach. I help the people that the law can’t help.”

Foggy shakes his head at that, sharp and sure.

“You didn’t help people tonight. You killed them.” He reminds Matt flatly. Matt’s arm tightens around him for a second—not a threat, just an unconscious reaction to the accusatory words. Matt hates when Foggy gets upset with him. He's not great with conflict in general. 

Except apparently he is. So much blood. 

“Self-defense.” Matt offers, and it’s soothing. Conciliatory. “They attacked me first. I was just defending myself—a bit more effectively than most people, but I can’t help my training. You’ve seen the videos. You know what I can do.”

Even before the videos, Foggy had known about boxing. It was just one more thing to love about Matt—he’s so cool, he can kick bullies’ butts and look gorgeous doing it—but Foggy had never thought it would be like this. He’s never seen it out of the gym, never with Matt covered in blood and not quite all there. And the video, that night with the bombs…

“Hostages.” He realizes dully. “Those officers, those people. Was that really you?” There’s a sharp intake of breath.

“No, Foggy.” Matt denies swiftly. “Of course it wasn’t. How could you even think that?” He honestly sounds so very hurt by the idea that Foggy could ever think him capable of such brutality. The guy who is covered in the blood of four other men right now is hurt that Foggy thinks he could have a few extra bodies' worth of blood caked on there somewhere. It's absurd. It's totally nuts. There is a moment of blank, disconnected amusement that sparks in Foggy’s mind at the insanity of Matt's reaction.

“Seriously? Because I’m supposed to know what kinds of murder you’re capable of now?” Foggy asks, a little hysterically. “Based on what? My extensive past experience with your psychopathic homicidal tendencies?”

Matt flinches. Foggy feels it against his skin, and it’s the most Matt’s emoted since this thing, this nightmare, began.

“I’m not a psychopath.” Matt whispers, sounding positively gutted now. “You know that. You know how much I care about people—how much I care about you. I didn’t do this for the thrill. I did it because I had no other choice.”

And he sounds genuine, so very emotionally injured by what Foggy’s said, like Foggy’s the one at fault here. Wounded duck, Foggy remembers thinking fondly. A handsome, wounded duck that you just want to hug until he smiles again.

Foggy doesn’t hug him. He stays very still under Matt’s arm, heavy on his shoulders, barely even breathing.

“But do you even feel guilty about it?” Foggy wonders, voice cracking. “You just killed four people.” He almost chokes on the words. “Do you even care?”

“Of course I do.” Matt promises him swiftly, but Foggy’s not so sure he’s telling the truth. He’s doing that thing, the one where he says the words with great solemnity and a straight face, takes special care to keep his voice even and measured on the ones that aren’t right. He lies on those words.

‘Of course I do.’ Every word crisp and confident, soothing and smooth.

Liar.

“What did you…” Foggy licks his lips. “How did you do it?” Matt hesitates, obviously sensing that he’s walking through a minefield.

“Snapped necks. It was quick.” He says, like this is something comforting. Like he’s not covered in blood, which means he did a hell of a lot more than snap their necks. “I had to get them to stay still, so there was some…but the necks, that was quick. I didn’t draw it out more than I had to. It was…”

“What, merciful?” Foggy finishes incredulously, easily piecing together what Matt was about to say before he thought better of it. Smart man. Unhinged, murderous man, but a smart one.

“It was more than they would have done for me.” Matt defends tautly, stung. “Knives, guns, fists—they weren’t just going to kill me, Foggy. They were going to slaughter me. Would you have preferred that to this?”

Foggy thinks for a moment of checking the news in the morning while sipping sleepily at coffee. Oh, it should be a sunny day. Oh, looks like the Cubs won. Oh, Garfield, you and your wacky feline hijinks.

Oh, Matt’s dead.

“No.” Foggy admits, the word torn from his throat, ragged and raw. “Never.”

Matt sighs in relief, and Foggy realizes that he wasn’t sure what Foggy’s answer would be. So Matt’s not entirely lost in his own violent little world. He has some vague idea of how much he’s just broken things.

“Thank you, Foggy.” Foggy freezes, eyes wide and breath catching, when he feels gentle lips press against his temple, just a quick brush of icy skin on skin. A kiss.

No, no, no. Foggy can’t hold back tears at that, because it was so tender and sweet and Matt’s covered in blood and he’s talking about killing and being killed and he doesn’t even feel guilty and…and…

And Foggy loves him. Matt is a monster, and Foggy loves him. 

“We should burn the clothes.” Foggy offers dimly. Matt stiffens against him in surprise. “That’s what they do, right? On TV, they burn the clothes." All his years watching CSI come rushing back. He always thought he'd be the hero, the one solving the crimes. He never thought he'd be the stupid accomplice that was trying to cover things up. "And they use bleach on the bloodstains and take like ten showers to get all the blood off their skin. And..and fingernails, right? I remember people get blood stuck under their fingernails. So we should…we should…”

He’s sobbing and he can’t breathe and it feels like he’s being buried alive, darkness bleeding in and the whole world crushing him under its weight. This whole thing is surreal. It's a nightmare. 

“Foggy? Take a breath.” Matt urges, sounding alarmed. “With me, alright? In.” Foggy shakes his head, panicked. He can't breathe. He can't. Matt squeezes the back of his neck gently with one hand, just hard enough to make Foggy feel it. Strong hands. “In, Foggy.” Matt commands, and there's just the slightest stern edge to his words. It's a command this time, not a request. Strong hands. Snapped necks. Foggy gasps, a desperate and ragged breath of cold air. “And out.” Foggy coughs on the exhale, and Matt rubs his back through it. “In.” Foggy shudders, but obeys. “And out.”

They do this for five minutes before Foggy can do it on his own. Matt keeps rubbing his back.

“I think I’m going to be sick.” Foggy admits shakily, stomach aching. Matt shakes his head.

“No you won’t.” He comforts Foggy easily. “You have a strong stomach.”

Foggy thinks despairingly that he’s probably going to need it. So much blood.

“Do you know how to do this?” He asks, hands on his knees and taking steadying breaths. Matt was right: Foggy has a very strong stomach. He hasn’t thrown up since he had the stomach flu in kindergarten, and he’s not going to throw up now. “You must have had to cover your tracks before when you wore the mask. Not...this. But other stuff, right?”

Matt shrugs cautiously.

“I wash my clothes and get my injuries bandaged up. It’s never really been a problem." He says it absently, like he honestly hasn’t considered until right now that there might be something to cover up this time. Not just assault. Murder. Blood. “Could I borrow some of your clothes? Getting dry seems like a good first step.”  

“Borrow…” Foggy looks at Matt’s expectant face and swallows. Clothes, right. “Could you take a shower first? I don’t want…”

I don’t want more bloodstains to clean up. Matt understands the words Foggy doesn't say, of course he does, because he's Matt and he knows Foggy like the back of his hand. Matt nods, giving Foggy a fleeting smile and running a calming hand one more time down Foggy’s back before he stands.

“You should take one too.” Matt advises, tone kind. “Would you like to go first?”

Foggy weighs his options. If he goes to take a shower, he’ll be leaving a murderer, a man who he’s starting to realize that he doesn’t know at all, with access to kitchen knives and softball bats and a dozen other makeshift weapons if Matt decides he’d rather not have witnesses. And Foggy will be naked and vulnerable and he won’t stand a chance if Matt attacks him. Trained criminals didn’t, and Foggy’s a soft couch potato who hasn’t gone to the gym in months.

If Foggy doesn’t go to take a shower, he’ll be sitting here covered in blood that’s soaking into his skin more with every second.

“Yes.” Foggy decides, and it takes him a few tries to get his shaky legs to work but he finally struggles to his feet. “There’s a first aid kit in the closet, if you need it.” He offers stiffly.

“No, I’m alright. Barely a scratch.” Matt assures him, and Foggy’s not sure if that makes it better or worse. That means that almost all of the blood isn’t Matt’s.

“Okay.” Not ‘good’ okay, but ‘if you say so’ okay. ‘I don’t want to ask any more awful questions and get any more awful answers’ okay. Foggy shuffles off to the bathroom.

As soon as the door’s closed, he’s tearing off his shirt, tossing it into the shower and turning on the water as hot as it will go. The pants follow, and everything else too, and Foggy stands there shaking and cold with rain, watching as the red turns a blush pink and swirls down the drain. The clothes are still dirty, still bloody no matter how long the water soaks them. Why are they so dirty? Blood's mostly water, right? It should wash out like water. It should wash out. Foggy needs it to wash out. He needs to wash the clothes, make sure they're not contaminated anymore so that it's safe to step into the shower himself and get warm. God, he's so cold. He wants—cold. Fuck, you need to use cold water on blood, not hot. Fuck. Foggy quickly turns the dial to the lowest setting he can, but it's useless. The blood's not coming out now. Too late. Always too late. The blood look darker now, dirtier, deadlier. God, it's not even Matt's blood. Matt's fine. This was someone's blood. Someone was walking around with this blood in their veins, thinking and feeling and laughing and loving, and then Matt came along and suddenly...Foggy swallows down a hysterical hiccup. So, the clothes are ruined. Fine. It's fine. He'll dry and burn them later. He turns the water back up to scalding. He's cold enough already, and the clothes are already ruined. He needs heat right now.

He leaves the shower on for a while longer without stepping inside, just letting the steam fill his lungs and loosen the tightness in his chest. He can't bear to actually step into the shower, where the (dirty, bloody, filthy, ugly) clothes are huddled together in a dark little pile. He can't. God, what if he has to touch them again? What if he gets more blood on him? What if, what if, what if. Eventually, some ossified part of Foggy that’s a good roommate remembers that Matt needs some of the hot water too, and it's cruel to waste all the hot water away like this. Foggy takes a deep breath, turns the temperature down again as low as he can handle, and steps into the shower. He spares one moment to kick the clothes as far into the corner as he can, and shivers at the feel of wet, slick fabric sliding against his skin. He showers quickly, scrubbing hard at his skin until it’s the same soft pink as the blood was on the tile.

He almost keeps scrubbing until it’s red.

Foggy finally stumbles out of the shower and dries off as quickly as he can, not wanting to leave Matt alone for any longer than he has to. It’s only when he’s finishing up that he realizes he didn’t bring a change of clothes. He glances at the dark, dirty pile of clothes still lying in the shower, and shakes his head once, sharply. No way in hell. 

“Fuck.” He pulls at his hair, hard. The motion flickers at the corner of his eye and draws his attention to the mirror.

Foggy looks exactly he same as he did this morning, and yet completely different. Same face, same hair, but his eyes are wide with something wild. A wounded animal. He looks haunted, battered down to something raw from the inside out. Is this him now? Is this what he’s going to see in the mirror every day for the rest of his life? He hates it. He thinks he’s never looked so ugly in his life. He closes his eyes so he doesn’t have to see anymore. He doesn't know how long he stays there. It could be seconds, or maybe whole minutes. He just stands there in front of the mirror, eyes squeezed shut, and pretends for a short blissful while that none of this is real.

He doesn't hear Matt coming. Later, that will be unnerving, how quietly Matt can move without being detected, but now Foggy is too tired to be startled. Foggy shudders when he feels something warm and soft slipping over his shoulders, his body automatically shrugging into the motion like he’s done a hundred times before. His robe feels the same too, the faded, well-loved thing that Matt gave him for Christmas one year. Foggy wears it every night that he needs comfort, even on the most sweltering nights of summer when it sticks to his skin with sweat. It’s Matt’s favorite color.

Blood red.

“You’re shivering.” Matt murmurs in warm concern, arms wrapping around Foggy’s waist and pulling him backwards to rest against Matt, back to chest. “Are you cold?”

No, I’m terrified. I’m scared and sick and you seem to just assume that I can handle this. That I’ll accept you, trust you, love you the way that I always have since the moment I met you. And that’s so selfish of you that it makes me even sicker.

I hate you.

I love you.

“A little.” It’s not a lie. He hesitates, glancing down at the arms cradling him close. Long sleeves, dark blue rather than black. Foggy’s favorite pajamas, the ones that Matt always steals when he sleeps over. Foggy has no idea why Matt likes them so much. They're the wrong size for him, and they're old, and the elastic is all worn through on on the pants, and Foggy should have ditched them years ago but they're so warm and soft, and he's a sentimental sap about these things. Foggy wears them every chance he gets, but there's no reason for Matt to love them the way Foggy does. There's no reason. “I thought you were going to take a shower before you changed.”

“Mm.” Matt squeezes him a little tighter, humming in lazy agreement. “I was, but you didn’t like the blood. I just stepped out, stood in the rain a while longer and wrung out as much as I could. So, Nature’s shower.” He adds with that dry humor that Foggy loves so much. “Did I get it all?”

Only one of them can really check. Foggy takes a deep breath and forces his eyes up.

He still looks shattered, completely broken. Matt looks fucking blissful, soft smile and softer eyes reflected back at Foggy through the mirrored glass. When Foggy takes a sharp breath at the sight, Matt’s smile softens even more, warm and sweet.

“Nothing left.” Foggy whispers roughly. “Nothing.”

“Good.” Matt leans forward and down, lips pressing against Foggy’s neck in an idle kiss. There’s nothing uncertain in his expression, just a tender sort of trust. It’s like he thinks this is normal now, that just because Matt showed him how severely twisted his psyche is, he can show Foggy everything else too. And Foggy can see it now, reflected back at him in the mirror. He can see everything. He can see...

“...Matt, are you in love with me?” The words hurt to say, catching in his mouth like shattered candy. You think it’s sweet and lovely, and then you bite down too hard and it breaks and cuts you and makes you bleed.

And it’s still so sweet. That’s the worst part.

“I was so scared to tell you, but I don’t have to be scared anymore.” Matt’s expression is awed and ecstatic, a fragile happiness that could shatter at any second. Hard candy smile. “I’m so happy that I don’t have to hide from you anymore, Foggy.”

Should I be hiding from you? If I run, are you going to hunt me down and drag me back and never let me go?

“You never had to hide.”

I should have hidden instead.

Matt is quite the gentleman. He gracefully offers to sleep on the bloodstained couch.

At this point, Foggy is left with a dilemma. If Matt sleeps on the couch, he’ll be wearing Foggy’s favorite pajamas and they’ll be just as bloody as the clothes Matt was wearing when he…

Foggy doesn’t want blood on his favorite pajamas.

Really, the only other places for Matt to sleep are the floor and Foggy’s bed—oh, and Matt’s bed at Matt’s home, but Matt doesn’t seem too eager to leave. The floor is obviously an attractive option from Foggy’s point of view, because he wants to sleep in his own comfy bed and dream that this night never happened, and that will be hard to do if Matt’s sprawled out next to him. Hell, Matt might want to cuddle—he’s being very affectionate now that he has the green light. So sleeping with Matt in the same bed is probably a bad idea, even though they’ve done it dozens of times over the years as a friends thing.

On the other hand, kicking someone to the floor is kind of incredibly rude, and being incredibly rude to a murderer who has tasted blood tonight doesn’t seem wise. There’s also the fact that it’s Matt, and Foggy hates being mean to Matt even when Matt is apparently crazier than Foggy thought.

Foggy lets Matt take the bed. He says he’s going to sleep on the couch, and even when Matt assures him that sharing the bed would be absolutely fine—Matt actually does want to cuddle—Foggy insists. Matt eventually gives him a brief kiss on the forehead and a content smile and settles into bed.

Matt sleeps like a baby. A murderous baby.

Foggy doesn’t sleep on the couch. Actually, he spends the night writing a list of pros and cons for calling the cops right now and locking Matt in the bedroom until they come. It makes more sense than Foggy’s earlier idea to lock himself in the bedroom, anyway. No other exits, not good to be cornered in. His list goes something like this:

Pros: Matt is insane. Matt murdered people. Murder is wrong. Murder is illegal. If you testify against Matt, they’ll probably offer you a good deal and only Matt will be arrested. You are a good person, and murder is not good. It would be immoral not to call the cops. It would be dangerous not to call the cops. If you don’t call the cops, you’ll be stuck with this for the rest of your life and you’ll never be able to escape it.

Cons: You’re in love with him.

Foggy stares at the list for a very long time. Then he tears it up and throws it in the trash, picks up the pieces of Matt’s mask and throws those in the trash too, and goes to sit in the kitchen and stare at the wall until the sun comes up.

Matt wanders out of the bedroom just as the first timid rays of sunlight are peeking through the window. He looks well-rested and cheerful, and his hair’s a mess and his stubble’s coming in a little, and it’s such a familiar sight that Foggy finds himself in a sort of trance as Matt walks towards him. For a second he can pretend that everything’s okay.

“I should go back to my apartment.” Matt admits regretfully. Yes, yes you should. You should have gone back hours ago. “But I’ll call you later. We have a lot to talk about.” I’ll just bet we do. “How are you feeling?”

“Peachy keen.” Foggy offers dully. “Good morning.” He adds belatedly. Matt beams at him.

“Good morning.” He responds balmily, and leans over to peck Foggy on the cheek in hello. Foggy’s too surprised to pull away. “Talk to you soon.”

Foggy’s favorite pajamas are a long-sleeved shirt and sweatpants, so Matt will only look a little bizarre walking down the streets in them. He’s taken the spare cane that Foggy keeps in his room just in case, and he looks like an scatterbrained blind man who rolled of out of bed too lazy to get dressed properly.

Which is all true, except perhaps the scatterbrained bit. Matt appears to have planned everything out perfectly.

“Bye.” Foggy tries to say enthusiastically. Matt seems to buy it hook, line, and sinker. He keeps beaming, and leans over to give Foggy one last kiss on his other cheek before heading for the door. He’s got his black clothes folded under one arm and they might as well be some spare workout clothes for the gym. There’s nothing sinister about them at all. It’s eerie.

“Try to get some sleep, Foggy.” Matt orders gently. “You barely closed your eyes all night.” Foggy freezes.

“How do you know that?” He asks warily. Matt shrugs bashfully.

“I know what you sound like when you sleep.” He offers. “I’ve been around it long enough.”

He says it simply, like it’s normal to memorize…what? Breathing rates? Matt was asleep, Foggy’s sure he was, but somehow he still seems to know that Foggy was awake based on sound. Foggy knew Matt had pretty good hearing, but filtering out sound to scan his surroundings while unconscious is a whole new level of weird.

“Oh. I’ll try.” Foggy promises. “No caffeine for me today.” Matt nods agreeably and opens the door.

“Love you.” He waves, and he says it easily like he’s said it a million times before. Then he’s gone.

Foggy waits about one minute before sprinting for the closet. Color-protecting bleach for his brighter clothes, oxygen based. Google claims it can keep blood from showing up with luminol, so Foggy dabs the couch with water and then with the bleach, cleaning up the floor while he works and thanking the Lord he doesn’t have carpets.

It won’t work, he thinks. If the police ever come knocking, Foggy will be caught in a second. He’s not a professional, and he’s desperate and clumsy. It’s still better than nothing though. After he’s done, he packs as many clothes and extras as he can in the shortest amount of time, and he starts to leave the bedroom. As he does, he notices the pictures he keeps on his dresser.

He’s sentimental, and so he keeps photos. Memories. They’re all the people who are important to him. There are his parents and sisters on Christmas, and there blurred just at the corner of the picture is Matt walking past the camera with Foggy’s present tucked under one arm. The bathrobe, and Foggy’s whole family had laughed themselves sick at the odd and domestic gift. Foggy had worn it all day just to spite them.

He looks happy.

And there’s him with Brett, who looks long-sufferingly amused. Matt’s thumb slipped into the frame just a little, because asking a blind man to take a picture is rarely a good idea. There’s Karen in a recent one, posing dramatically as a model as a joke. Matt’s smirking in the background, looking greatly amused by the whole situation.

And finally, there’s one of his oldest pictures, a faded photograph of him and Matt after finishing their L2 finals. Matt’s wearing a bright red Columbia sweatshirt that Foggy bought for him, and Foggy’s wearing Matt’s glasses, and both of them are beaming and flushed and happy.

Matt’s always there. Every single picture, and Matt’s there. They’re always together, sharing all the important moments, and Foggy liked it that way. He loved it. So happy.

Foggy walks over to the pictures, picks them up one by one, and smashes them onto the floor as hard as he can. Glass goes everywhere, and it crunches under Foggy’s shoes as he keeps walking.

An hour later, a rather irritated Marci Stahl is opening the door to her apartment.

“I know I don’t deserve it, but I really need a place to stay for a day or two. Nothing more, I promise.” He rushes to say before she can slam the door in his face. “I can pay you mini-rent if you want. Any price.”

Marci considers him for a second, arms crossed and lips pursed. Finally she shrugs and waves him in lazily.

“I charge a fortune for rent.” She warns him, and Foggy nods gratefully. “If you’re having a mental breakdown—which you clearly are—I wouldn’t have thought I’d be your first option. What about Murdock?”

Foggy swallows and doesn’t answer, shuffling over to the couch and putting his bag down. When he dares to look up, Marci’s watching him with narrowed eyes, expectant. Foggy bites his lip.

“Matt and I are fighting.” He admits quietly. Marci nods slowly.

“That would qualify as grounds for a breakdown, I suppose.” She allows. “I honestly thought you two were incapable of having arguments about anything other than obscure trivia. I suppose a spat is probably earth-shattering for you.”

Foggy can’t even muster up the energy to glare. Marci frowns, moving closer.

“It was bad, wasn’t it?” She muses. Foggy nods. “So why here? Why not your parents’ house, or your other friends’?” Foggy looks away.

“He’d know to look there.” He explains reluctantly, and he hates that he has to think about it. “You were the only person that I could think of that Matt wouldn’t think of. Not—no offense. It’s not a bad thing. It’s just that he…”

“He hates me.” Marci finishes easily. “Don’t worry, it’s requited.” She pauses, thoughtful. “And a discreet hotel wouldn’t suffice because…?” Foggy blinks, and it’s not from surprise. It’s from blinking back tears.

“I didn’t want to be alone.” He confesses in a whisper. “Sorry, it’s stupid. I can just—“ Marci pushes him back down with one manicured finger when he tries to stand. She stands in front of him, looking down at him. Shockingly, it doesn’t seem condescending—a first in their relationship.

“It was very bad, then. I’ve never seen you this shaken up.” She tells him. “And whose fault was it?” Foggy can’t answer. Marci nods. “I thought so. What did he do?”

Foggy shakes his head, looking down at his shaking hands.

“I just…we fought.” He evades. This would be a good time to ask for help, but the same pros and cons for telling the police also apply to Marci—perhaps even more so, because Marci’s vicious.

“Did he cheat on you?” Marci asks bluntly. This time the blinking is from surprise.

“What?” Foggy stares. “No. Of course he didn’t—we’re not even together!” Are they? Matt keeps kissing him.

“And yet you’re more married than my parents are.” Marci mutters, seemingly to herself. This time Foggy musters up a brief glare. “Okay, no cheating. I’d have been shocked if he did—he’s completely devoted. In a pitiful way, certainly, but it’s undeniable.”

Foggy smiles bitterly.

“It’s not his feelings for me that are the problem.” He murmurs. Matt loving him is about the only part of this that isn’t a problem, but it’s so tangled up with everything else that Foggy can’t even enjoy it. “It’s everything else.”

Marci nods slowly.

“And that’s all I’m getting, isn’t it?” She presses. Foggy nods back, and Marci sighs. “Fine. You have two days to get over your lovers’ tiff, and then I’m kicking you out. I’ve got work on Monday, and I don’t have time to babysit you.”

She says it harshly, but she’s letting him stay without arguing and it’s already more than Foggy hoped for.

“Absolutely. Thank you so much, Marci.” Foggy whispers. Marci’s frown deepens, and she glances at the door.

“I had an appointment.” She mentions absently. “Should I reschedule?”

It’s completely negating her previous statement, essentially offering to skip her appointment just to watch Foggy. This is why Foggy dated her for so long—underneath that hard shell of cat-and-mouse cruelty, there’s a decent woman hidden deep inside. Somewhere. It only comes out on rare occasions, but Foggy appreciates it every time.

“Hair?” He wonders wearily. Marci nods shortly. “It already looks fantastic—you’ve clearly been conditioning. But I suppose trying something new is always fun. Say hi to Fabio for me.” Marci rolls her eyes, but she seems relieved that he’s offering something vaguely jokey.

“If I hadn’t slept with you so often, I would bet a fortune on you being gay.” She informs him bluntly. “I’m sure Fabio sends his love.”

Foggy watches her brutal pump heels clicking away, a matching purse slung over her shoulder. She pauses at the door and turns.

“Depressed isn’t an attractive look on you. Work on that before I get back.” She commands. Then she leaves, and Foggy’s almost smiling.

He spends maybe an hour staring at Marci’s wall, because this is apparently his new hobby, and then he pulls out his laptop and starts hunting.

It’s a long day, filled with Google searches Foggy honestly never thought he’d type into his search bar for any other reason than a bored Web-surfing session at 3 AM.

Do some blind people have superpower-level sleep hearing?

Can murder ever be morally acceptable?

What makes someone have no guilt?

What are the differences between sociopaths and psychopaths?

How do you spot a psychopath?

How do you date a psychopath?

Can a psychopath fall in love?

To be fair, Matt might not be a psychopath. He just happens to fit a lot of the criteria, Foggy notes.

A) Failure to conform to social norms with respect to lawful behaviors as indicated by repeatedly performing acts that are grounds for arrest. Frequent vigilantism and law breaking. Check.

B) Deceitfulness, as indicated by repeated lying, use of aliases, or conning others for personal profit or pleasure. Wears a mask and lies about it. Seems to enjoy wearing the mask (and possible enjoys lying about it). Check.

C) Impulsivity or failure to plan ahead. Matt can be impulsive, but there are other times when he seems almost Machiavellian in his strategy. Half-check.

D) Irritability and aggressiveness, as indicated by repeated physical fights or assaults. Violent vigilante. Check.

E) Reckless disregard for safety of self or others. Picks fights with crime syndicates. Has enough experience in getting beaten up to have a routine about injuries and aftermath. Check.

F) Lack of remorse, as indicated by being indifferent to or rationalizing having hurt, mistreated, or stolen from another. Apparently assaulted dozens of people. Definitely killed four people. Only seemed worried about Foggy being mad, not about assault or murder. Triple check.

Foggy’s been making a lot of lists today, and none of them give him the answers he wants. Not a single one. But Matt can’t be a psychopath. Every single site, from shady to vaguely legit, says that psychopaths don’t love. Matt loves him. No empathy, and Matt empathizes with him. He knows when Foggy’s sad and how to cheer him up. He’s cried with Foggy and laughed with Foggy and supported Foggy through everything. He empathizes with Karen and Foggy’s family too, and he saved that injured puppy, so it’s not just an isolated thing. Matt cares.

Not a psychopath. He just happens to fit almost all of the criteria, but that doesn’t mean anything. Psychopathic tendencies, maybe. A little sprinkle of ASPD. Not a full-on psychopath.

Matt’s just a normal mass murderer with a scrambled sense of morality. What a relief.

Foggy carefully shuts his computer and puts it down before he can throw it at the wall. As soon as it’s on the table, as if on cue, Foggy’s phone rings. He sees the little clock in the corner of the screen, and realizes with vague shock that it’s been hours and hours since he started researching. Then he sees the caller.

Avocado-in-Law is calling.

Foggy stares at the phone screen in numb panic. He can’t talk to Matt, not right now. Not after all these Google searches and lists. He’ll freak out. He’ll say something stupid and incriminating, or else something that’s just cruel. Foggy lashes out when he’s angry, he knows that. This is not a situation to lash out in.

So Foggy waits in mute silence for the phone to stop ringing. Then he pulls out his fluffiest sweater from his bag and punches it for a solid minute. And then he buries his face in the poor abused sweater and screams for five minutes.

He catches his breath, switches out sweaters, and repeats.

At some point, he falls asleep in the middle of screaming into his sweater. It’s sudden, and also rather lucky that he doesn’t even up suffocating since he fell asleep with his face completely covered.

Marci does not seem impressed.

“Three missed calls from Murdock, one from your secretary friend, and a cable-knit pattern pressed into your face. Productive day, hmm?” Foggy packs away his cable knit sweater sheepishly. “Dinner costs extra.” She informs him tartly, but an hour later Foggy has forced down a dinner of ridiculously healthy and expensive food for free.

So Foggy dated Marci because he thinks she’s secretly not evil, and he broke up with her because of her horrible taste in food. And every other aspect of life, including selling her soul to Landman and Zack. Foggy did much better for himself, poor but happy at Nelson and…

“Oh.” Foggy pushes away the rest of his horribly organic meal, and it feels heavy like lead in his stomach. He considers going for the sweater again, but he thinks the pattern might still be on his face from last time. What Foggy really wants to do is scream at Matt until his problems go away, but Foggy is aware that this plan has a few flaws.

He’ll wait until Marci’s asleep and then go back to screaming at sweaters. He’ll also make some more bulleted lists detailing what an idiot he is and how very many poor life choices he’s been making lately.

Loving a maybe-psychopathic murderer tops the list, although packing three cable-knit sweaters instead of a toothbrush is definitely in the top five.

Marci ignores him for the rest of the evening, either retreating to her room or usurping the TV to watch her shows, ignoring any weak input that Foggy offers. It’s a token action on both sides, Foggy thinks. Foggy can’t concentrate enough to actually care what’s going on with the screen, and Marci knows it but still makes it a big deal because it gives him something to do other than wallow.

Marci chooses to watch the news, and at eleven there’s the breaking news about Fisk. All of the information on his dirty dealings has been made public, and all of his accomplices are being arrested, but that’s not the headline— the real story is that no one knows where the newly dubbed ‘Kingpin’ is.

Well, Foggy has a few ideas. Matt’s smart—Fisk is probably at the bottom of a lake somewhere along with his three companions. Foggy closes his eyes and takes a deep breath to keep from feeling too sick. He’s still not going to throw up—honestly, the grossly healthy meal made him feel sicker than this—but he feels like he should, and that’s almost worse.

If Matt had done anything less than what he did, Foggy thinks that at least he wouldn’t be stuck in this awful, gray limbo. He’d be furious, and that would be better than this. But it’s not just the mask—it’s murder, and apparently that’s too much for Foggy’s brain to process. He’s gone beyond anger to this dark, dazed haze.

And then he sees the woman. Vanessa Marianna, and she’s standing there in the corner of the screen, refusing comment, and she knows. It’s clear in the set line of her shoulders and the cold serenity of her face. She knows that Fisk is never going to be found. She knows why—he didn’t flee the country or go into hiding.

That’s jarring, seeing what Matt’s actions have caused. That is a woman who’s mourning a man. Fisk isn’t a monster that Matt conquered. He left people behind.

Vanessa Marianna knows what Fisk did, too. She must know that he ruined lives and took them. There’s no way she doesn’t. And she’s still there. She stands by him anyway, even after there’s no one left to stand by.

Can Foggy do the same for Matt?

“I might have to find a new job after Landman and Zack’s indiscretions hits the news.” Marci admits, watching the screen. “Stark might be alright. He certainly incurs enough lawsuits and the company’s golden, financially.”

Foggy hums in vague acknowledgement, still watching Vanessa Marianna. No one’s mentioned Nobu or Wesley yet, so they must not know about them. As for the guard, the one who Matt didn’t even know the name of…Foggy’s not sure if he wants to hear about him. He doesn’t want to hear anything about any of this.

He watches the whole news report, and then pulls up other ones on his laptop. He’s not sure how much time passes before Marci intervenes, shutting down his laptop forcibly and ordering him to be quiet while she sleeps.

Instead of counting sheep, Foggy counts all the reasons that he’s going to hell. He falls asleep by the time he reaches twenty, but there shouldn’t be twenty reasons to list at all.

About nineteen with them have to do with Matt.

Sunday’s worse than Saturday. Any remaining panicked anger has drained out of him with the long scream sessions, and all that’s left is a numb sort of realization that this is his life now. He’s not going to turn Matt in.

All he has to decide now is if he’s going to try and stick it out as an unwilling accomplice, or if he’s going to quit the partnership and tell Matt to stay away from him.

He spends most of the day deliberating over this. His phone died somewhere in the early AMs, so Foggy doesn’t have to worry about distracting phone calls from avocados-in-law.

He should go. That’s the right answer. He should quit, toss that shiny new sign into the trash and tell Matt never to come near him again. He could make something up for Karen and his family, some plausible excuses for dissolving a friendship that’s lasted almost a decade. Foggy can’t think of an excuse yet, but he should be able to. He’s a lawyer—probable excuses are his forte, and the less truthful they are, the better.

He spends all night tossing and turning, and in the morning he calls in sick. He can’t face Matt yet, but he’s certainly not going to tell Matt that. He calls Karen instead.

“Foggy?” Karen answers, and she sounds sleepy and surprised. Foggy gives a forced smile even though he really doesn’t have to. Karen can’t see.

“Hey, sorry to bother you.” Foggy apologizes, trying to sound casual. “I just wanted to let you know I wasn’t going to be coming into work today.”

“Why?” Karen asks, sounding concerned. “Are you sick?” Foggy holds back a desperate giggle.

“Mental health day.” He explains, weary and wry. “I’ll be fine. Can you…can you tell Matt for me?” Foggy can’t talk to him, even on the phone. He’d break in a second.

“Why don’t you want to tell him?” She asks carefully, and then makes a small sound of comprehension. “Is Matt—is Matt why you’re taking a mental health day?” Foggy can’t answer. It’s so obvious that people are figuring it out within a few sentences without seeing his face. “Oh, Foggy.” She sighs, pitying. “I’ll tell him. Just…when you’re feeling a little better, talk to him? He’ll be miserable without you.”

Well, he can join the club. I’m the president of being miserable.

“Thanks, Karen.” Foggy tells her gratefully. “See you tomorrow.” Probably not.

As soon as he hangs up, Marci pounces.

“So, are you going to ‘break up’ with him or not?” She presses pointedly. “Because all of this heartbroken sighing and moping is starting to wear a little thin.”

Tough love, Foggy reminds himself. Marci uses tough love—or at least tough like.

“We’re not together.” Foggy tells her just like he did on Saturday, even though he has no idea what he and Matt are. Matt likes to kiss him, and Foggy likes to kiss Matt back when he’s not freaking out about Matt’s hobbies. They love each other.

Foggy’s just not sure how everything else fits in there. Love isn’t all you need, despite what the musical greats tell you.

“Foggy Bear, you’re being annoying. Brooding is Murdock’s thing, not yours.” Marci chides. “And if you’re not together now, you will be soon.” Foggy opens his mouth. “No, you know you will. You two are incapable of forming lasting relationships outside of each other.”

“I dated you, didn’t I?” Foggy points out, stung. Marci snorts.

“My point exactly. I’m the longest girlfriend you’ve ever had, and that’s a little pathetic. I bet Murdock hasn’t had one longer than a week.” This is true, as far as Foggy knows. There was the burner phone lady, but Foggy had only known about that one for a few days and Matt hadn’t seemed devastated about it ending. “And let’s be honest. As impressive as you were in my bedroom, I think we both know that you would have preferred being in someone else’s.”

“Marci, no.” Foggy argues immediately. “That’s not true. You were the only one I was thinking of when we were in bed together. Matt’s just…he’s Matt.” It’s all the explanation he can offer. Marci seems to understand, oddly.

“So you’ve got a choice. You can own up to that, suck it up and actually talk about your problems, or you can run away to sulk and break your own heart in the process. Your pick.”

Foggy stares at her, mouth ajar. That’s Marci’s business voice, the shark voice that means she just went for the jugular and she’s waiting for you to bleed out and give up. She’s never lost a case when she uses that voice, and her case this time seems to be…

“Why do you want Matt and I to be together so much?” Foggy wonders, puzzled. “You don’t even like him.”

Marci sighs, and there’s almost a hint of fondness in the exasperation.

“Believe it or not, I’m not a demon. You were a good boyfriend, despite the fact that you were in love with someone else at the time. I reward that in an ex.”

So Marci wants Foggy to be happy, Foggy translates incredulously. He knew that Marci was hiding kindness deep down, but this is fairly overt and personal. He smiles tentatively.

“You were a good girlfriend, despite that fact the you weren’t in love with me then or now.” He offers. Marci shrugs the point. “But Marci…what if Matt did something awful? Not cheating.” He adds hastily when he sees Marci’s face. “But something bad. Really bad. And I didn’t know if I could forgive him, even though I really want things to be normal again. I want things to be the way they were before.”

“You slipped out of the hypothetical tense there at the end.” She informs him, indolently amused. “But I guess my sage advice would be that nothing is ever the same as it was before. That’s how time works. It goes forward, and you can’t change the past. You look at the future, and you decide what mistakes you want to make today instead of regretting the ones you made yesterday. Get it?”

Foggy takes a moment to appreciate the fact that he actually dated someone like Marci. Sure it was hellish at several points, but she’s still a smart woman who cares in her own way, and for a soulless corporate cog she’s actually incredibly altruistic. She’s a catch.

Just not Foggy’s catch.

“That sage advice was actually sage.” He notes, impressed. “And in regards to planning my mistakes of today: what if Matt is going to keep doing really bad things?”

Not murder, but the mask is clearly a long-term plan.

Marci rolls her eyes, obviously not impressed by his subpar ability to figure out her complex philosophical theorems on his own. 

“Then you plan your mistakes around his mistakes.” She drawls faux-patiently. “Or you cut and run. Or you tell him to stop doing these vague ‘bad things’, put your foot down, and then probably still stay because you’ll both implode without each other. Very codependent relationship.”

Marci doesn’t understand, obviously. She probably thinks the ‘bad thing’ is something like Matt sneezing on Foggy’s cereal or forgetting to make their bed—because obviously he and Matt are domestic and sharing a bed, at least in her mind. Or maybe she thinks Matt lied or stole Foggy’s clothes, which are both true.

Most people’s minds don’t jump straight to: my best friend is a murderer.

“I don’t know if I can do it.” Foggy admits, voice raw. “I don’t know if I can stay.”

Marci sighs.

“Well, you certainly can’t stay on my couch for the rest of your life. You’ve got to talk to him at some point, or he’ll end up searching the city for you with flowers and apologetic poetry.”

Or a mask. Foggy takes a deep breath. Marci’s right that he can’t just run away from this, and not just for the normal emotional closure reasons. Matt would literally end up searching the city for him, and he could find him. Matt’s always been able to find him, and Foggy had thought it was awesome at the time because it was like they had a connection. It was a sort of magic, like they had a bond between them that linked them together, that couldn’t be broken.

A chain.

Foggy doesn’t know if he wants to break it, even if he can.

 He stands up slowly and starts shoving what little he’s unpacked back into his bag. When he’s done, he looks up at Marci with a weak smile.

“Thanks for everything, Marci.” He says, and he means it. “I’ll get out of your gloriously styled hair and start making some mistakes.”

“You do that.” Marci holds open the door for him, looking stern. Even as he gets past her though, the firm line of her mouth softens. “If he screws up again, let me know. I have a wonderful divorce attorney who owes me a favor. And my couch is open, provided you sign a binding contract to become my servant before you move in.”

Foggy’s smile twitches into something more genuine.

“So, just like when we were dating.” He jokes halfheartedly. “Thanks again. I’ll get your rent to you later. Can I pay in coupons?”

He walks away before Marci can inform him that he cannot pay in coupons, she only takes cash and maybe unusual sex acts.

He goes home and carefully cleans up the shattered glass from the pictures. None of the photos are ruined, he notices—he wonders if that was just luck, or if he somehow subconsciously aimed them to do the least damage. He stacks them gently back on the dresser and promises to buy new frames later.

Then he goes to work.

“Mental health half-day?” Karen asks kindly, and she looks gratifyingly pleased to see him. Foggy nods, and she smiles. “Good. It doesn’t feel the same without you here.”

Foggy forces a smile in return. He is happy to see Karen, to know that some things haven’t changed.

“I know. I’m the special little ray of sunshine that brightens up this place. Which is lucky since we can’t afford electricity to brighten it up instead.” He brags, trying to sound flippant. “I’m gonna go say hi to Matt, okay?”

Karen nods, face relieved.

“Good. He’s been sighing sadly all morning.” She confesses. Of course. Poor baby. Foggy flashes Karen another smile and heads off towards Matt’s office. He feels a little like he’s walking to the gallows.

He opens the door slowly, and finds Matt sitting at his desk. There are about a dozen paper cups of coffee around him—Matt abuses caffeine to try to jolt himself out of minor bouts of depression—and his fingers are tapping restlessly at the wood of the desk in front of him. He’s completely wired.

Their sign is on the desk, surrounded by coffee cups. Nelson and Murdock, and it looks even better than it did the last time he saw it. It’s sleek and bold and somehow proud too. Happy. That shouldn’t be possible, but it is. Maybe it’s because Foggy was so happy when he bought it, and Matt was happy when he saw it, and then…

Elena, and the world shattered around them. But that sign’s still there. Nothing about it has changed.

Matt’s lips quirk into something that’s wary and rueful and not quite a smile.

“Welcome back, Foggy.”  He says quietly. “How’s Marci?”

Foggy swallows hard.

“How do you know about Marci?” He chokes out, and he has a flash of panic that despite Marci’s inspirational words, coming back might have been the worst idea he’s ever had. How would Matt know? Stalking? Is this stalking, or does Matt have him bugged or lojacked, or what the hell is going on?

Matt’s smile widens into a smirk, knowing and anticipatory. He pushes one of the fuller cups of coffee towards Foggy and gestures for him to sit down.

Foggy steps forward warily and watches as Matt traces the names on the sign with deliberate care. Matt’s fingers linger on the first name, touching each letter with indolent appreciation, one by one.

Nelson and Murdock.

“I told you before, Foggy. We have a lot to talk about.”

The thing is, Foggy had sort of assumed that murder was an anomaly for Matt.

Matt’s been so good afterwards, saying and doing all the right things. Kind and supportive, and he doesn’t come to work with a single bruise (that Foggy can see). He tells Foggy about his senses—so, not stalking but an automatic sensory lojack that Matt seems all too happy to use. He answers every question Foggy has.

Foggy is afraid to ask questions that he doesn’t want to know the answers to. He hadn’t thought that this was one of the questions he should be afraid to ask, because he hadn’t thought it was a question at all.

He’d thought that Matt’s crime was something committed in the heat of the moment, overcome with emotion and fear for his life. Fisk was dangerous, lethal—despite Foggy’s misgivings, there is no doubt in his mind that Fisk and his friends would have killed Matt if they had a chance. What Matt did was wrong (so, so wrong), but he almost had a good reason (not really, not at all).

Foggy can’t think of a good reason for this one.

“Why are you so sure that I killed him?” Matt asks curiously.

Curiously. There’s not a hint of wounded betrayal at the accusation, a gasped denial and a wave of heartbroken tears that Foggy could think something so awful about him. Matt’s sitting in his office chair, hands folded on the desk in front of him, glasses off and shoulders relaxed. He’s not smiling, but he’s not frowning either. It’s his mildly interested face, the one he gets when he starts reading a book and he thinks he might like where it’s going.

“Because I know you.” Foggy says, and it hurts to say. “I looked at the cop-fight video, reread all the stories, every piece of information I could find, and I know you.” He tosses the newspaper on the desk. “You didn’t even snap his neck. You fucking tortured him.”

Matt’s eyes flick once towards where the newspaper fell, although there’s no way he can be looking at the picture. He tells Foggy that he really is blind, he can’t see a thing, and it must be the truth. Matt never lies to him anymore.

Sometimes Foggy wishes that he would.

“I didn’t torture him.” Matt denies, and there’s a thread of fond exasperation in the words. It sounds like: ‘Oh, you. You’re so silly, Foggy. I just murdered him, stop being so adorably dramatic.’

Foggy grits his teeth.

“They think he died from choking on his own blood.” Foggy offers sharply. “Although they’re not quite sure. It could have been from the punctured lung or the violent head trauma. Do you remember which one it was, Matt?”

Matt regards Foggy quietly for a moment. Heat, Foggy remembers. Matt says that he can’t see things, but he can see fire. He can see Foggy waving at him, offering a hand to lead him, Foggy burning brightly in his arms when Matt holds him.

‘It’s beautiful’, Matt tells him with a wistful smile. ‘A guiding light—you give me something to follow.’

So Matt can hunt him. That’s what Foggy gets from this conversation. Foggy could wear the best disguise in the world, and Matt could ‘see’ right through it in a second and follow him anyway. A guiding light. There’s nowhere to hide.

Foggy’s not so sure that he wants to hide anymore.

“I don’t remember, actually.” Matt tells him, and there’s just the slightest edge to his voice that makes Foggy’s muscles tense. “I was a little too busy trying to save the man that your ‘victim’ had just shot.”

Oh. Foggy blinks, the tautness shocked out of him. He glances down at the paper again. Another man…

“There wasn’t anyone else.” Foggy points out slowly. “No one else was there.” Matt shakes his head, expression dark.

“Not as glamorous as this one, so they might not notice for a while.” He tells Foggy bitterly. “But there was someone else. I tried to get him to a hospital, but it was…he died. An hour later, on the operating table. I was listening—I heard the doctors call the time of death.”

“God.” Foggy feels a chill just at the thought. Hearing someone’s life slipping away and knowing that there’s nothing you can do to help. Foggy can’t imagine the feeling. Apparently Matt doesn’t have imagine it at all.

“I didn’t kill the shooter at first.” Matt remembers, voice distant. “I didn’t even hurt him badly. Just a leg, I just broke a leg. He’d shot an innocent man, and I only broke his leg.” He sounds disgusted with this fact. “But then the man died, and he was crying while I was carrying him and he couldn’t even say anything and he…he used Suave Green Apple Shampoo.”

Foggy can’t help a flinch at that, his hair—too long, needs a trim but he can never find the time between earth-shattering revelations and betrayals—brushing against his shoulders. A strand drifts across his face at the motion, and he recognizes the scent. It’s the same shampoo he’s used for years.

Suave Green Apple.

“Matt…”

Matt stares up at him with wide, dark eyes. Foggy can’t tell if they’re blank from the horror of the memory, or the lack of guilt for what’s coming next. Not from blindness, because Matt’s eyes are never blank from blindness.

He sees too much.

“It felt like you were dying.” Matt whispers. “All I could smell was blood and green apple, and he was dying in my arms and it was you. It could have been you. And when they said he was dead, I just…” His hands clench into fists, and Foggy can see the unforgiving hardness of them for a moment before Matt relaxes again. “Broken leg—he hadn’t gotten very far.”

Foggy takes a shuddering breath.

“You didn’t have to kill him.” He says, and he tries to sound accusing but it comes out weak. The way Matt said it, Foggy felt like he was dying too. “And even if you did, you didn’t have to do it the way you did.”

Matt shakes his head.

“I did just as much as I had to.” He argues resolutely. “I only hit him until I was sure he understood the lesson. Unfortunately, that was about five minutes after he died.” He gives a bitter laugh, darkly amused. “Oh, now I remember. It was choking on the blood that killed him. For once the papers got something right.”

Foggy takes a step back before he can stop himself. That laugh. But then he remembers that Matt laughs when he’s nervous, when he’s scared or upset or hurt—when he doesn’t want to laugh at all. And his fake laughs sound nothing like his real ones. The fake ones are carefully controlled, but a sliver of desperation always works its way in anyway.

Matt’s cold smile is trembling at the corners, threatening to splinter apart at any second.

“I’ll stop using the green apple shampoo.” He offers quietly. Matt blinks, and there goes the smile. Just genuine surprise and something hopeful. That sliver of desperation again, a splinter itching under the skin. “That will help, right? I’ll use—I don’t know. Strawberry or something. Anything but apple.”

Matt remains still as stone for far too long, and then a new smile slips shyly into being. Tentatively grateful.

“Thank you.” He rasps. He hesitates. “Foggy, can I…?” He rises slowly from his desk. Foggy stands perfectly still, forcing himself not to take any more steps back as Matt approaches. He closes his eyes tightly when Matt reaches out to brush tender fingers along his cheek. “You don’t have to be scared. I’d never hurt you.”

“I know that.” Foggy does know that, actually. Matt would do a lot of things, but he wouldn’t hurt Foggy. He’s never even yelled at him. He did these horrible things to other people, and he doesn’t feel guilty, but he’s never touched a hair on Foggy’s head except to stroke it like he’s doing right now. “It’s not me I’m worried about.”

He opens his eyes. Matt’s eyes are soft again, all of the dead Devil faded away again. Hiding until Matt needs it, until he can’t keep it locked away anymore.

“I only kill the people who deserve it.” Matt promises softly. Foggy swallows. “I swear to you, I only do it when I absolutely have to.” He says vehemently.

You didn’t have to do it this time, but you did it anyway. Foggy bites back the words. He glances back at the paper and sees something that makes his blood ice right in his veins.

Headline: “Is The Devil Taking His Pound of Flesh?”

And Foggy saw that, and that made him sick too, but he already saw that this morning. But Matt says ‘kill’. He doesn’t say that he killed those two times and he’s never going to do it again. He said ‘kill’, implying a trend of something in past, present and future. Matt says kill, and right there at the top of the page…

Obituaries: Page 13.

Foggy never reads the obituaries. That’s a depressing thought, those people consigned to a sentence or two in black and white that no one ever reads. But there are names there, every day, and Foggy’s never given them a second thought.

So many names.

“Matt…” Foggy almost stops there, because he doesn’t want to know. He really doesn’t. He wants to tear up the newspaper and go to his desk and never think of anything ever again. “That night with the blood, was that the first time you ever killed someone, or just the first time that you thought I might figure it out?”

Matt’s lips part in surprise, eyes widening just a fraction. And Foggy thinks it’s okay, but then Matt gives one long, slow blink and a sly smile flickers to life on his face.

“I think you would have figured it out a long time ago if you didn’t have your preoccupation with comic strips.” Matt offers kindly. “You were always too busy giggling to even notice page 13.”

Foggy can’t take his eyes off the paper. Page 13, and Matt knew exactly what he was talking about. Foggy didn’t even mention the newspaper, and Matt knew.

“Are you one of those sick killers that has the newspaper clippings as trophies?” He asks numbly. Matt snorts.

“That would look a little odd, a blind man with printed newspapers.” He points out wryly, and it’s a joke. Foggy’s eyes snap back towards him.

Matt’s still got that sly smile, but there’s an added quirk to it now. A ‘ha ha’ quirk, because he told a little joke and he expects Foggy to laugh. Matt talks about killing people, and then he makes a joke, and Foggy remembers, Matt didn’t show a hint of remorse for actually killing the man. For failing to save the other victim, the one who smelled like green apples—that he regretted. But for the murder?

Nothing. As soon as they started talking about page 13, any guilt disappeared. Foggy’s not even sure it counts as guilt in the first place. Rage, a sort of twisted transference of his protectiveness for Foggy, regret? Yes. But regret isn't remorse, and it isn't guilt either.

“That’s what would be odd?” He hisses. “You—I can’t believe you.” But he does, and that’s the problem. “So what, you’ve got some cute little audio file stashed away instead, listing all your victims?”

“That would be incriminating. Law school taught me better.” Matt offers, and it’s still teasing. “I just have a very good memory—and it’s not a trophy thing. It makes sense to keep track of them.”

“Lot to keep track of, huh?” Foggy wonders, and despite the fact that Matt’s not funny a hysterical little giggle bubbles up in throat. “You go alphabetical in your brain like you do with your filing cabinets, or is it more of a chronological thing like a happy memory scrapbook?”

“Foggy…” Matt sighs, and he sounds a bit disappointed. “It’s not a trophy thing, and there aren’t a lot to keep track of. Honestly, I’m not a serial killer.”

“Oh, really?” Foggy returns skeptically, voice high. “Okay, so tell me. List them off right now.” Matt opens his mouth to argue. “Karen’s not here and we’re too poor to afford cameras. Go, Matt.”

Matt sighs again, but closes his eyes and starts reciting.

“Adam Eden. Ryan Sampson. Alan Tobin. Maria May.” So Matt’s an equal opportunity serial killer. Joy. “Lex Bryant. Ryan Callahan …”

Foggy has to sit down after twelve names. He has to dig his nails into his palms after twenty to distract himself from screaming.

“…Wilson Fisk. And yesterday was Andrew Meyers and John Doe.” Thirty. That’s thirty names. Andrew who choked on his blood and John Doe who…John Doe.

“You’re counting the man with the green apple shampoo, aren’t you?” Foggy asks quietly. “The one you tried to save.” Matt’s jaw is tight.

“I don’t know his name yet.” He agrees flatly. “I’ll tell you when I do.” Foggy bites his lip. Thirty names, but…

“But you didn’t kill him.” Foggy points out. “How many of the rest were people you couldn’t save instead of people you killed?”

Matt smiles bitterly.

“Not nearly as many as you’re hoping for.” It’s all he says on the subject. It’s already more of an answer than Foggy wants. “Murderers, abusers, rapists—I only pick the ones who prey on people who can’t defend themselves. The ones who leave scars that will never heal, the ones who will do it again if I don’t stop them.”

“Prison, Matt.” Foggy murmurs, staring at Matt’s earnest face. He sounds so sure of what he’s saying. “That’s why we have prisons.” Matt shakes his head, brows furrowed in sudden frustration.

“Appeals, plea bargains, short sentences, lack of evidence—some of them don’t even get caught in the first place. Foggy, it doesn’t work. This works. This is exactly what we do at the office every day. We fight for people. I just…I take it a little further than you do. But it’s the same.”

It’s not the same. It’s so not the same that it’s laughable—that hysterical laugh again, the one that means it’s not funny at all except in the worst way.

“Did you even try it?” Foggy wonders. “Doing it the right way?”

Matt bows his head just the slightest bit, and the change in angle makes his eyes go a truly terrifying black.

“I tried for two months.” He says with brutal emphasis. “Two months, and he hurt her every night, and no one did anything. Not the police, not Child Services, not her mother. And then five minutes, it took me five minutes with him and he never touched her again. He didn’t touch anyone else either.”

Because Matt killed him. The way he says it, that weighted hate, makes Foggy think it was probably the first time Matt ever killed anyone. He thinks back carefully. First name Matt said…

“Was his name really Adam Eden?” Foggy asks, and he still feels sick but there’s just the tiniest bit of incredulous amusement that’s real. “Genesis of sin, giving in to temptation?”

Matt snorts, and the hate’s still in his eyes but his mouth has softened from the thin line of rage to something almost rueful.

“Religious family. The girl’s name is Eve.” He admits. “I still check on her now and again. She’s doing so well. She lives with her aunt, and she has sleepovers. She’s not afraid of her own home anymore.”

You really shouldn’t be conducting surveillance on the families of your victims, Foggy thinks, but he’s not sure. He has no idea what the etiquette for this sort of thing is. And does Adam Eden really count as a victim? He was such a monster that maybe…

No. No, that’s not right. Adam was a victim. He was a monster, but he was a victim too.

“Do you do that for everyone?” Foggy questions, cautious. “Check up on the other people involved?” Because that begins to look unnervingly like stalking, and Matt doesn’t need any more crimes piled on top of this right now. Or ever.

Matt shakes his head.

“Just Eve, and even that’s not intentional. I just recognize her voice. I heard…” He swallows. “I heard it a lot. Before.”

Oh. Foggy swallows too and stands carefully from Matt’s chair. Matt looks so heartbroken that Foggy finds his instincts kicking in. Protect Matt, comfort Matt, keep Matt from breaking apart. Not like glass. Hard candy.

Matt must be able to sense him coming, because he reaches out and touches Foggy’s shoulder gently before gathering him into a hug. It’s what Foggy usually does, to make sure Matt’s ready for a hug and doesn’t get freaked out by the extra contact. Matt’s never done it for Foggy before. Does he think Foggy might freak out too? And Foggy probably should, but he doesn’t. He just hugs Matt back for a long moment, maybe a little harder than he should but Foggy’s desperate at this point. Matt feels the same, except that Foggy can feel a few more sharp angles—Matt’s getting skinnier. They’re different that way. Foggy eats when he’s stressed and Matt fasts.

It must be a Catholic thing, the fasting. Denying yourself worldly pleasures to bring yourself closer to God. And that’s frightening, that Matt might be trying to get closer to God at this point.

“You’re religious too.” Foggy points out carefully. “Do you think God cares if you murder people?”

He pulls back cautiously to check Matt’s reaction, although Matt keeps his arms around Foggy’s waist so it’s impossible to step completely away.

No sudden epiphany of crushing guilt spiced up by classic Catholic asceticism. No dawning horror. Just a thoughtful slant to Matt’s mouth, like he’s probably considered this question before in some detail.

“I thought He would.” Matt admits slowly. “It’s in the Commandments: Thou shalt not kill. And I thought that there would be some sort of divine punishment if I did it. It’s why I tried so hard not to, but after…nothing happened. No lightning, no locusts, no sign that He was angry.”

Way to drop the ball, God.

“Don’t you people believe in Heaven and Hell?” Foggy tries another angle. “A final judgment, not just one right now?”

Matt nods, still pensive.

“I suppose.” He admits easily. “But there would be something before that. Some warning or reward to guide you. And after I finished with Eden, right after, you called and said you broke up with Marci, and that I was ‘the bestest Matty in the world’ and you loved me more than cookies. You were wasted at the time, but also very heartfelt. So, as far as signs go…” He shrugs. “It seemed pretty clear.”

That pinpoints the date of the murder, at least. Foggy doesn’t remember the specific conversation—he was very wasted—but he remembers breaking up with Marci. He’d woken up the next morning, tucked into bed with a glass of water and an aspirin on his bedside table, and Matt had been cooking breakfast.

Matt must have come over to take care of him mere minutes after murdering someone. Foggy has no idea how someone can just flip an internal switch like that, go from a vicious killer to someone who laughs at Foggy’s hangovers but still makes Foggy greasy bacon to help him feel better.

“Clear, right. Clearly God was listening.” And clearly God either condones murder or genuinely does not care. Or, or Matt’s got Hell to look forward to, and that’s somehow the worst option.

“It’s not that I’m a zealot.” Matt explains earnestly. “I don’t see Jesus in burnt toast—for more than the obvious reason—but it’s something to think about. And even if it is evil, it’s a necessary evil.”

Foggy looks him up and down. He looks like Matt. He talks like Matt, except for the fact that he’s talking about killing people. He hugs like Matt, and he smiles like Matt, and everything seems exactly the same as it was before.

But Foggy can see his eyes now, and that makes all the difference in the world.

“How do you know I’m not going to turn you in?” Foggy presses, because challenging a serial killer is always a good idea. “How do you know I’m not going to go tell—“ Not Brett. Don’t draw attention to him. “—Somebody about all of this as soon as I’m alone?”

Matt doesn’t even hesitate. He gives that secret little smile that Foggy knows and loves, that he’s loved for years and it looks exactly the same as it was before, and he tugs Foggy closer to press their foreheads together gently.

“Because you love me just as much as I love you.” He murmurs softly, voice so tender that it makes Foggy ache. Foggy swallows hard.

Hard candy. Matt’s breath is warm and there’s something sweet to it—cherry, Foggy thinks. Wild Cherry Life Savers, the ones Foggy hides in his desk drawer, and that might finally explain why Matt’s lips are always so red.

“But what if I do?” Foggy wonders hoarsely. “What will you do?”

Matt takes a slow, steady breath.

“I won’t stop you.” He promises, and his voice isn’t that overly even tone that trips Foggy’s mental alarms. Not Matt’s lying voice. “I’ll walk with you to the police station. I’ll confess, tell them every single name, how I did it and why. Anything you ask me to.”

Maybe Matt’s poker face is better than Foggy thought. This close it’s hard to tell, except that Matt’s eyes are so close, dark but not black like before. Soft brown, those little flecks of green like emeralds in earth and Foggy loves them. And Matt can’t look back, see Foggy’s plain dull blue eyes, but if he could Foggy thinks Matt would love them too.

“If you ever do it again, I swear to God I will turn you in.” Foggy whispers. “I will.”

“Mm-hmm.” Matt agrees, and there’s something so happy to the hum that Foggy’s sure Matt knew Foggy couldn’t go through with it this time. Safe gamble. Foggy’s eyes narrow, annoyed by Matt’s easiness with the situation.

“And stop stealing my candy, you asshole.” He adds sharply.

Matt chuckles, tilting his head to press just the lightest, gossamer kiss to the corner of Foggy’s mouth. Foggy closes his eyes again and lets it happen, because this is the one part of his new life that he actually wanted. That he thinks he always will want, no matter how warped and wrong the rest of his world has become.

Matt pulls away, smiling slow and sweet.

“Absolutely. Never again.”

Too much enunciation, too solemn and measured. Foggy honestly thinks Matt’s not aware that he does it, but it’s a very handy reference. Lie. Foggy prays for the first time in years.

‘Never again’. Please be lying about the candy.

Karen teases Foggy about his new macabre mindset.

“The obituaries again?” She asks, leaning over his shoulder to get a better look at page 13. “What ever happened to your comic strips?”

“I still read them.” Foggy grits out. “After the obituaries.”

They’re a celebration of a sort. Foggy only allows himself to relax and enjoy them after he finishes checking. Old age passes the test, and so do children—although Foggy prays for every one. He’s been praying a lot lately. Ones that are explicitly stated to be natural causes are alright too. The ones that are vague about the details and fall in a certain age range get flagged mentally.

He watches Matt’s face carefully when he comes into the office, and deliberately shakes the newspaper a little so he knows Matt can hear the sound. Matt shakes his head minutely and shrugs every single day that Foggy silently accuses him. Not today, apparently.

Then he usually does something completely dickish like asking Foggy to check the weather.

“Cloudy.” Foggy will say through a sharp smile even when there’s not a cloud in the sky. “Could be storms.” And Matt smiles right back, but it’s kind and a little teasing.

“Cloudy? Are you sure you don’t mean Foggy?”

And Karen laughs at the horrible joke because she’s a nice person, and Matt drifts into his office like he’s on a cloud.

If Foggy’s still skeptical, he’ll corner Matt later. Every time the answer is the same, and Matt’s voice is calm but not too even. Nothing, I promise. I haven’t stolen your candy either, in case you were wondering. 

Foggy counts the Life Savers every time he comes into work. Life Savers, and that’s just an added fuck-you from the universe. Life Savers. One day Foggy comes into work, and Matt’s sitting on Foggy’s desk and sucking on a Cherry Life Saver.

“Sorry.” Matt apologizes, and he looks rueful and more than a little sheepish. Foggy freezes, eyes darting towards where Karen’s cussing out the fax machine for the hundredth time this week. He looks back towards Matt, striding forward and bracing his hands on Matt’s knees.

“You fucker.” He hisses, face inches away from Matt’s. Matt shrugs easily, and there’s just the briefest flash of a pink tongue when he flicks the Life Saver over in his mouth. Licking his lips. “Who?”

Because it’s not just about the Life Saver. That much is obvious.

Matt nods meaningfully towards Karen, and Foggy takes a shuddering breath. He straightens back up, grabbing Matt’s hand and tugging Matt up with him. Matt goes willingly, stepping just a little too close so their chests are pressed together.

“Karen?” Foggy calls carefully. “Matt and I are going to take a lunch break.”

Karen pops her head into the room. Foggy turns his head just enough to look at her without letting Matt slip out of his peripheral vision.

“It’s seven o’clock in the morning.” She points out doubtfully. Then she seems to take in the scene. The two of them standing close enough together that they’re sharing the same air, and Matt’s twisted their hands so that they’re linked together instead of Foggy’s grasping at Matt’s viciously. “Ah. Lunch date. Got it. You have fun.”

Foggy considers for a moment telling her the truth, that it’s not a date. He’s interrogating Matt about committing a felony. Many, many felonies. Then he thinks that Matt probably doesn’t want other people to know, and Foggy’s not quite sure how he’ll react if people do. Karen’s not dumb. She probably would have turned Matt in by now.

“Right. Date. C’mon, Matt.” Foggy yanks him along. Matt has the sheer, galling audacity to wave over his shoulder at Karen as they go.

Not somewhere public, because Foggy doesn’t want other people listening in. They could go home, but Foggy wants answers now. He drags Matt into the first clean(ish) alley he can find.

“You take me to the nicest places.” Matt teases. Foggy glares at him, poking him hard in the chest.

“You promised.” He growls. Matt nods.

“Yes, but only about the candy. I know you noticed that.” He offers, indulgently pleased.

“And what are you sucking on right now?” Matt grins and rolls the candy over with his tongue again, deliberately. “Why? Why did you…”

“Mugging. He stabbed the victim after he got her money.” Matt informs him. He bounces on his feet. “I saved her. I stopped the bleeding, got her to the hospital on time. She’s going to be okay.”

And he looks so proud that it takes Foggy aback for a second. There’s some little bit inside him that responds automatically to the sight. He wants to clap Matt on the back and say ‘good for you, buddy’ like Matt aced an exam, because Matt’s proud face is something to encourage.

Not this time.

“Is that why you’re so happy?” Foggy wonders bitterly. “Or is it just the killing thing?” Matt smiles sympathetically, reaching out and touching Foggy’s shoulder.

“Not the killing.” He assures Foggy. “Foggy, I saved someone. Come on, that’s something. That’s everything.” He seems honestly surprised that Foggy’s not more enthusiastic about this.

“Why’d you kill the mugger then?” Foggy asks, insistent. “If you saved her, why did you have to kill him?” Matt blinks. “Exactly. You didn’t.”

Matt regards him pensively for a moment, obviously trying to find the right words.

“I don’t go into these things planning to kill them.” He tells Foggy slowly. “I only go as far as I need to. Sometimes that means killing, yes, but it’s never my only goal.”

“So it’s completely accidental?” Foggy presses. “Just luck of the draw which ones end up dead?” Matt hesitates.

“I can get a little more aggressive if…” He starts carefully. “But only when I have to. I promise.”

Only when he has to. Foggy watches him for a second, and then he shakes his head sharply.

“No.” He says, and it’s jarring. “No, I can’t do this.” He pulls his arm from Matt’s grip and turns. “Police station. Now.”

Matt takes long strides to reach his side, tucking his hand into the crook of Foggy’s elbow. He doesn’t even try to stop Foggy, just keeps pace and stays quiet. When Foggy dares to glance over when they pause at a crosswalk, Matt’s face is calm. Peaceful. Like he can sense Foggy watching, he tilts his head in Foggy’s direction and he smiles. It’s sweet and serene, and Foggy almost turns on his heel and walks back, because he can’t do this, not to Matt.

Foggy closes his eyes tightly and takes a shuddering breath. Then opens his eyes, waits for the light and keeps walking. Forward.

There’s another moment of panic when the get to the heavy doors of the police station, but Foggy doesn’t even let himself hesitate this time. He lets Matt go briefly to open the door, and when he looks back Matt’s just standing there waiting, still smiling.

Foggy wanted him to run.

He takes Matt’s arm again and starts leading, and there’s Brett, right at the desk. He looks up when they walk in and sighs.

“I don’t have any information, no matter how many cigars you bribe my mother with.” Brett tells Foggy bluntly. “But it’s a slow day and I could use a distraction. You two got another song and dance for me?”

Foggy can’t force a single word from his throat. He just stands there, struck dumb, and watches as Brett’s eyebrow raises more and more as time passes. He does not look impressed with Foggy’s song and dance. Matt steps in.

“Foggy has something he wants to tell you.” He urges, shaking Foggy’s arm gently. “Go ahead, Foggy.” Foggy turns and looks at him, and he knows how scared he must look but it’s not like Matt can tell. He knows though, somehow, because he squeezes Foggy’s elbow. “It’s okay. I understand.”

Foggy can’t even breathe now. He just keeps staring at Matt, who’s smiling and looking like Matt, he looks like Matt and not like a killer and Foggy wants to see his eyes, suddenly. Not the red glasses, but his eyes.

“I…” He stops, and Matt’s smile widens, softly encouraging. “I need to…”

He can’t get the words out anymore. They hurt in his chest—they don’t even make it to his throat. And Matt doesn’t say a word and he can’t see, but he just keeps his face turned towards Foggy, expectant and kind. He looks fond. Foggy’s standing in a police station about to turn him in, and Matt looks fond.

He looks like he’s in love.

“Yes?” Brett prods, annoyed. “You need to what?”

Foggy takes a deep breath. He doesn’t look away from Matt’s face.

“I need to tell you that Matt and I are dating.” And those words come out easily, flow off his tongue smooth like honey. “And I love him.”

Matt swallows hard, and the smile fades for just a second before it’s back, a million times stronger and brighter. And there’s something in it that’s somehow more than love.

It’s worship.

“Okay…” Brett says, still annoyed. “Not really a shocker. I thought you two were already together.” He considers. “Were you two already together? Is this just a late announcement? Because we all know.”

“Of course you do.” Foggy sighs, defeated. Everyone ‘knows’, from Marci to Brett. “Great. Thanks, Brett.”

He tugs Matt back, and Matt goes happily, following far too close even for a man being led.

“Is that really it?” Brett calls after him, bewildered. “You walked down to the station to brag about your fairytale romance?”

Fairytale, right. If this is a fairytale, then Foggy’s just as much of a villain as Matt is, now. Villains aren’t the ones who get happy endings. Foggy beams over his shoulder and nods.

“Got to show off my Prince Charming.” He offers lightly. “See you later, alligator.”

As soon as they’re outside, Matt moves his hand so that he’s gripping Foggy’s arm and leading instead. There are a lot of convenient alleyways in Hell’s Kitchen, Foggy muses as Matt shoves him into one. Good for secret conversations about illegal and immoral activities. And for kissing, apparently. The kind of kissing that leaves you shaking by the time it’s over, leaning against the other person for support. Foggy’s mouth is probably as red as Matt’s is by this point from being bitten so much, and when he licks his lips he can taste cherry on them.

“I would have done it.” Matt swears vehemently, a little breathless. “I would have.”

Foggy smiles weakly.

“I should have done it.” He laughs wanly. “I think I’m going crazy. This is wrong. This is so, so wrong. But I can’t…” Matt nods and kisses him again.

“I know.” He whispers. “Thank you. It’ll get easier, I promise.” Foggy blinks.

“No it won’t.” He argues flatly. “I’m not built for secrets. I’m not built for any of this. Something’s going to go wrong, and I’ll be a loose end, and you’ll—“

“I’ll protect you.” Matt finishes heatedly. “No one will think you knew a thing.”

“Yes they will!” Foggy argues fiercely. “You heard Brett. People assume things about us. They’ll assume you told me, and they’ll be right.”

“Then I won’t get caught.” Matt said like that’s just something he can decide, put in his planner and depend on. “I’m good, Foggy. I won’t get caught.”

“Everyone gets caught.” Foggy reminds him dully. “Sometimes by people like you. What if there’s another person just like you out there, a punisher who kills people instead of stopping them the right way? You’ll be on the other side of things, and I doubt that’ll be as fun for you.”

Because Matt is having fun with this, at least in some way. Sucking on Life Savers and smirking, and no guilt at all. If Matt could feel guilt, none of this would be happening. Things might be okay again.

But he doesn’t, and this is what Foggy is left with: a candy-stained mouth and a creature that’s more devil than man.

And Foggy still loves him.

“But what are the chances of that?” Matt points out, skeptical and amused. “We’ll be okay, Foggy.”

‘We’. Matt goes right for ‘we’ instead of ‘I’ or ‘you’, and why shouldn’t he? Foggy’s in on this now. He doesn’t want to be. He thinks he’ll probably regret it for the rest of his life, but he’s in on it. Foggy reaches out and carefully slips Matt’s glasses from his face, tucking them into his pocket. Matt doesn’t flinch. He doesn’t even blink. He just watches Foggy with dark eyes—and he does watch, somehow. Matt’s always watching.

“We’ll be okay because you’re going to stop.” Foggy decides, watching Matt’s eyes. “We’re not doing this again.”

Matt bites his lip. He blinks once. Thinking.

“Foggy…” He starts carefully. “I think you need to consider the bigger picture here. This is important. It’s saving people before they become victims, not avenging them after. I know it’s hard for you now, but it will get easier.”

“You don’t know that.” Foggy hisses. “It’s always been easy for you.”

He knows it’s true. Matt has said that he avoided murder because he thought he’d get in trouble for it Upstairs, not because he had some personal rule against it. No guilt.

“That’s not…” Matt can’t seem to finish the lie. “Foggy, I’m doing so much good. Yes, I...I have a few screws loose. My mind doesn’t work the right way. I know that. It never has. But it doesn’t have to be a bad thing. I don’t have to be a bad thing.”

Doesn’t work the right way. It never has. So Matt knows that there’s something wrong here. Foggy supposes that makes sense—Matt grew up Catholic. Surrounded by all that guilt, and he must have figured out pretty early on that he was different. Foggy wonders if Matt ever felt guilty about not feeling guilty.

And looking at Matt’s eyes, hearing his voice, Foggy thinks that Matt’s mind is never going to work the ‘right’ way. Forget having a few screws loose—Matt’s mind is scrap metal, broken bits and pieces rusted together with sharp edges and battered shine.

“Say your top five happiest memories. Now.” Foggy orders. Matt doesn't even hesitate.

“My father teaching me to cheat at cards.” He starts, pensive. “Making him the ugliest clay coffee mug in the world for Father’s Day, and him drinking from it even though the handle snapped off. Meeting you. Our first case together and meeting Karen. You saying that you love me is #1 on the list.”

All normal memories, Foggy muses. Nothing sinister there. They’re the sort of memories Foggy would have picked before all of this, if he’d had to guess. They seemed like the sort of things Matt would find important, that he’d cherish. Good memories, good emotions.

“Where do the murders rank?” He presses. Those are the new variable. Foggy has to see how they fit into this. Matt shrugs.

“Not even in the top hundred. Probably not the top thousand.” Matt tells him honestly. Is that because Matt really doesn’t like them that much, or because he just happens to have a lot of even happier memories? Foggy’s not sure. Matt is very talented at equivocation. He always has been.

But he’s not lying about the top five. And those are all good. The last three even coincide with Foggy’s top memories, except that Foggy saying that he loves Matt is surrounded by some of Foggy’s worst memories now. It still counts.

Good things. Not just bad things.

“Winning me that teddy bear at Coney Island.” Foggy interrogates.

“Twenty-two.” Matt answers immediately. He appears to have actually thought about this, or else his brain really is like a happy memory scrapbook.

“Your first birthday at my parents’ house.” He tries. Matt smiles wistfully.

“Eleven.” He admits. “Ten is when your father knit me that sweater for my first Christmas at your parents’ house.” He adds for Foggy’s benefit.

All those holidays. Matt’s been spending holidays with Foggy and his family since they met. That’s eight years of family holidays, at least. Mom gets an extra pumpkin for him on Halloween. Foggy’s sister dyes eggs with him on Easter. Matt has a Christmas stocking, and Dad taught him how to sew his own name on it with sparkly gold thread.

Matt is family.

All of Matt’s happiest memories are the ones that Foggy hoped to hear. These memories are the Matt that Foggy thought he knew. The only Matt that Foggy knew. And somewhere in between holidays, Matt starting killing people. It was years ago that the killing started, but last Christmas Matt sang carols with the family after drinking too much eggnog, and then he drank even more eggnog and accidentally kissed Foggy under the mistletoe because he thought Foggy was someone else.

…That little liar. He must have heard Foggy’s heartbeat going crazy. He knew.

The point is, this all happened after Matt started killing. All of the Nelsons told Foggy for the hundredth time that Matt was a keeper, and that maybe Foggy could teach him to sing a little better for next year. Next year. Foggy’s not the only one who loves Matt. Foggy’s not the only one that Matt loves. Matt isn't a monster.

“Hearing Eve Eden laugh for the first time after you killed her father.” Foggy asks softly. Matt’s jaw tenses for a second and his eyes flick away. Then they’re back and as dark as ever.

“Eight.”

Eight. Top ten. Okay, so the murders aren’t ranking high, but the consequences are. And Foggy has to admit, making a little girl happy isn’t the worst #8 in the world. The story behind it is sick, but #8 itself is something that Foggy can almost agree with.

Almost.

“Me saying that I don’t understand and I hate what you did, but I’m starting to think that I’m going to stay with you anyway. That I…that I love you anyway, and I probably have more than a few screws loose too.” Foggy wonders quietly.

Matt swallows, and when he tilts his chin up just a little into the motion the sunlight catches his eyes and makes them bright. And they’re not bright—it’s just a trick of the light. Soft and dark and kind and cold, but never bright. It’s nice to pretend though, sometimes.

“New #1.” Matt whispers, voice hoarse. “Please, Foggy.”

He sounds broken, and there it is. Hard candy shattering, and it’s going to end with one or both of them bleeding.

He yanks Matt into a tight, brutal hug. It’s just for a second before he’s pulling away, even though Matt sways after him. It changes the angle of the sunlight on his face, slipping from Matt’s too-dark eyes and hovering around his too-red mouth.

Thanks for the helpful hint, universe. I get it. Doubly damned.

“You never do it again. And if you get caught for what you did to those people, you’re on your own. I’m not going to help you.”

The problem is, Matt can tell when he’s lying. Heartbeat again, which is significantly creepier than Foggy’s reading of Matt’s vocal inflections. But Matt can tell, and Foggy knows his heartbeat just spiked. Foggy would help him. He’d hate himself for it, but he’d help. Matt’s smile is slow and satisfied.

“Yes, Foggy.” He agrees obediently. “I’d never ask you to.” He wouldn’t have to ask.

“You don’t tell anyone what you did.” Foggy adds firmly. “Not anyone. To be a total cliché for a second: we take this to our graves.”

Matt’s eyes narrow thoughtfully.

“Karen might be difficult.” He muses. “She’s smart. And I think she’d understand.”

“No.” Foggy says sharply. “No, she’s not crazy. She wouldn’t understand.” I don’t understand either. “Why would you even think that?”

Matt pauses for a moment, gathering his thoughts.

“She’s not the same as I am, but when it comes to extremes, to that finality…I think there’s a part of her that she doesn’t let us see. I think that part of her could accept it.” He offers slowly, before shrugging off the chilling statement. “But I’d rather not have anyone knowing. You’re a special case.”

Foggy’s chest is tight with something like fear. He does not need two serial killer friends. And Karen wouldn’t. She’s not like Matt. She feels guilty about a lot of things, big and little. She’s not a killer and she hates killers too. Sure, she’s shown support for Devil of Hell’s Kitchen, even after his murder got tagged in the papers, but that doesn’t mean that she could accept…accept…

So, two murder enthusiasts and one enabler. Fantastic. Good social circle.

Foggy needs to start hanging out with his other friends more.

“Good idea. Keep her out of it as much as possible. Ben too, and Doris. They’re too morally upright for this kind of thing, and a reporter knowing your deep dark secrets is a bad idea. And if you even think about telling our family—“

“Our family.” Matt repeats slowly, a shy smile flickering onto his face. “Really?”

Foggy clears his throat, face turning an embarrassing red that he’s glad Matt can’t see. Now is not the time to be embarrassed.

“They love you. You’re practically an in-law at this point, except that my parents like you more than they like my sister’s partner. Hell, they probably like you more than they like their biological kids.”

 “That’s not true.” Matt laughs, but he looks childishly happy at the thought.

Matt desperately wants a family, Foggy thinks. He was lonely when Foggy met him, and he’d been terrified that first Christmas. He’d changed ten times before they left and spent the whole trip there practicing how to say hello in the best way. He was scared of not being accepted, which was something that Foggy hadn’t seen him worry about around other people. Matt honestly didn’t seem to care much about his classmates’ opinions of him, although he charmed them lazily all the same.

Family’s different, for Matt. Family is important, especially Matt’s own.

“You can’t tell them.” Foggy orders again. It would break their hearts. Matt nods earnestly.

“I won’t, I promise.” He agrees, and dances forward to peck Foggy on the mouth again. Cherry. Their family can never know. “You’re the only one I’ve ever told, and you’re the only one I ever will.”

But Matt didn’t do that because he couldn’t bear keeping secrets anymore—at least, that wasn’t the only reason. Foggy knew he was connected to Fisk, that he was furious about Elena, that he had bruises a lot, that he could fight like a pro and that he was mysteriously unavailable on every occasion that the masked man made the news. Foggy would have been able to connect those dots eventually. Matt was circumventing Foggy figuring it out by himself and being alone to freak out about it. Foggy thinks that might have been why Matt stayed so long that first night—not to stop Foggy, but to observe his reaction and work around it.

Psychopathic tendencies at the very least. Pseudo-psychopath.

The joy wasn’t fake though. Nothing about his reactions was fake. Matt honestly wanted to tell Foggy. He was just smart enough to know not to.

“Promise me you won’t do it again.” Foggy urges, because Matt seems to be big on promises today. “And don’t use the candy as a loophole again. Say: ‘I promise that I will never…’” He swallows. “’I will never murder another person again.’ No, actually, say: ‘I promise that I will never kill another person again.’ You’d use self-defense as your new loophole, and we both know you can take someone down without killing them.”

“But what if I actually do need to kill them in self-defense?” Matt presses curiously. “Does that count?”

Foggy sighs, frustrated. Matt’s actually haggling about killing people.

“Yes, Matt.” He replies through gritted teeth. “That counts. If you’re defending yourself, you can break their legs, you can break their arms—you cannot break their necks.”

“But…” Matt’s eyes flick away again for a second. Thinking, always thinking. “Okay, what about if—“

“Whatever you’re thinking of, it counts. Shockingly enough, killing counts as killing.” Foggy cuts him off before Matt can make it any worse. Matt opens his mouth. “It’s murder or me, Matt. Choose.”

Foggy hates ultimatums. It’s a petty power play, and he’s always found them unfair and manipulative. In this case though, it’s his only leverage. Guilt trips will never work on Matt, but this will. The alternative is much worse than a little shameful manipulation.

“You.” Matt decides immediately. He doesn’t even think about it. “Always.”

Jesus. Matt’s so devoted that it seems dreamlike. All that would have to be different would be the killing, and Matt would be perfect. Foggy thinks he could even handle the vigilantism, at least after a while to vent about it, but murder?

“Okay. Good. Thank you.” Foggy says awkwardly. “Good.”

He wonders if he should kiss Matt again. On the one hand, he always wants to kiss Matt and Foggy’s so full of relief and love that he thinks he might burst. On the other hand, kissing someone after delivering an ultimatum seems a bit unkind. It’s like giving them a reward for doing a trick, and that’s not fair.

Matt decides for him, slipping to Foggy’s side and taking his elbow again before leaning over to kiss Foggy’s hair.

“Good.” He agrees, and he sounds confident. He sounds like he thinks he can do this.

Foggy’s not sure if that’s a good thing, in some ways. That means that Matt thought he could do it before, and he just chose not to. That’s…bad. That’s pretty bad.

But the past is the past, Foggy tries to convince himself. Marci’s right. You plan your mistakes for the future. Foggy can do this. He has to. Matt doesn’t know it, but he’s given an ultimatum too. Foggy learns to keep a secret burning in his chest, or he loses Matt to a life sentence in a lifeless prison cell.

He glances over at Matt.

“We need to go back to the office. Karen’s waiting.” Foggy points out, disgruntled by the thought. Can Foggy really just act like everything’s normal? Can Matt? “Do you think you can pretend to be sane for a few hours?” Matt grins, and it shows too many teeth and Foggy somehow both hates it and adores it at the same time.

“Absolutely. It’s one of my favorite games.”

“I should have killed him.”

Foggy watches as Matt collapses on the bed, burying his face in his hands. He’s actually rocking a little, back and forth, and he looks more lost than Foggy’s ever seen him.

“I should have killed him. I should have killed him. I should have killed him. I should—“

“Matt.” Foggy says firmly, kneeling down in front of him and pulling Matt’s hands away from his face. “You did the right thing. I’m proud of you for not killing him.”

Matt’s crying.

“I should have killed him.” He whispers again blankly. “I hate this. I hate this.” Foggy hates this too.

Matt’s gotten like this a few times, lately. It’s almost like withdrawal, in a way. Matt’s gotten so used to murder as a solution that he doesn’t quite know how to handle things without it. He’s had some episodes—depression, anxiety. Too much coffee, too little sleep. And he still kisses Foggy. He still smiles after, happy, and tells Foggy that he’s sure about his promise. He made the right choice. Foggy over murder.

But then he has a night like this, and he’s miserable. It looks like he’s falling apart. 

And Foggy hates it. He feels like he’s the killer now. He feels like he’s destroying Matt from the inside out.

“You’re doing so well.” Foggy soothes, squeezing his hands. “Matt, it’s been three months. You’d be getting a chip if this were AA. Red, I think.”

Matt does not seem comforted by the idea of a red chip.

“And what if he does it again?” Matt challenges hoarsely. “It’s assault now, but he liked it. He won’t even get jail for a year, and then he’ll be out. He enjoys hurting people. What if it escalates? What if he starts killing people too?”

Foggy wants to point out that Matt has killed people and he still assaults them, but Foggy thinks he should probably pick his battles. Besides, it’s different with Matt. It has to be.

“You’ll stop him. You got his heartbeat and voice, right?” Matt’s eidetic memory is good for a lot of things, especially when it’s bolstered by his senses. “Okay. So you listen.”

Matt shakes his head, eyes closed tightly. Tears are leaking out anyway, running down his face and he’s never been this bad before.

It’s getting worse.

“There are too many.” Matt gasps. “I can’t keep track of them all. They’re so loud.” He shudders. “You know it’s not like drinking. It helps people.”

“You’re already helping people.” Foggy reminds him. “What you’re doing is enough. It’s more than enough. It’s more than anyone could expect you to do.”

“Not me.” Matt chokes out. “I expect more. I know I can do more. You just have to let me…” It's the closest to guilt that Foggy's ever seen in Matt, a perfectionist's agony that they could have done better if they'd just had more time, more tools. Less rules.

“I can’t do that.” Foggy says softly. “Matt, you know I can’t.” Matt shudders again, turning his hands so he’s clutching at Foggy’s instead. He almost holds too hard, but not quite because Matt never hurts him.

“Please.” He begs. “I can’t even think anymore. All I hear is screaming and sirens even when I know they’re not really there. I’m going crazy, Foggy. Crazier. I’m going crazier.”

Foggy honestly did not think that was possible until this moment. Matt’s already pretty crazy. But this? This isn’t prison-crazy.

This is asylum-crazy.

Foggy stands slowly, pulling away his hands so he can sit on the bed behind Matt. He holds out his arms and Matt moves into them, but he’s still hunched over and he’s gone back to wrapping his arms around his knees. He looks beaten down and fragile, and that’s not ever what Foggy wanted from this.

“I think…” Foggy swallows, looking at the back of Matt’s head. Messy hair—Matt forgot to brush it this morning. He’s been distracted lately, forgetting lot of things. Too busy hearing screaming and sirens. “This isn’t working, is it?”

Matt’s shoulders tense, but after a long moment he shakes his head without turning around.

“I’m sorry.” He murmurs. “I’ll try harder.”

“What? No.” Foggy denies, alarmed. “It’s not about you trying harder. You’re trying as hard as you can. I know that, and I love you so much for it. I just mean…” He takes a deep breath. “I think I need to do some thinking. That’ll all I mean. Brainstorming. Ideas. I’ll think of something that works better.”

The thing is, there’s really no middle ground here. Matt either murders people or he doesn’t. So Foggy either has to think of a way to make this easier for Matt, or he has to let Matt relapse. Matt’s right, this isn’t like drinking.

It’s a different kind of addiction.

Matt finally crashes at 8 PM the next night.

It’s three hours after Foggy switched him to decaf and about one hour before Foggy would have been desperate enough to break out the Benadryl. Matt always topples like a domino after taking one, but Foggy prefers not to drug his friend, even with Matt’s consent.

Foggy rolls over and watches Matt sleep for a minute or two. Shadows under his eyes, hair even messier than it was yesterday, and he’s lost enough weight that it shows in the curve of his cheek. He’s killing himself like this. Foggy slips carefully out of the bed, cursing Matt’s luxurious silk sheets for making such luscious whispers of sound as Foggy moves. Luckily, Matt seems gone to the world. He doesn’t even twitch.

It’s cold enough out that Foggy grabs a pair of Matt’s gloves when he pulls on his coat. Matt really does go only for the best, Foggy muses as he flexes his fingers in the soft wool. Foggy has no idea how he affords it.

He closes the front door as quietly as he can, and then he starts walking.

Matt told him the address a while ago, during one of their many Q&A sessions about Matt’s checkered past. Foggy’s never gone here. To be honest, he was afraid to. He knows that it’s important if he’s going to untangle this mess to something resembling sanity though, so he trudges along through the cold even when it starts snowing.

He stops at the chain-link fence and just stares for a moment. It looks dead, and Foggy wonders if that’s just because it’s empty or if it’s because trains are a relic of the past. Either way the place has that creepy, skeletal feeling of a place that’s been left to crumble with no one around to care.

Lots of scrap metal, Foggy notes. Broken bits and pieces rusted together with sharp edges and battered shine.

So this is where it started. Scrap metal mind meets scrap metal world.

Foggy gets through the gate with no trouble. He was worried he’d have to climb the thing, and he’d been expecting maybe barbed wire and guard dogs because Foggy’s imagination is a melodramatic pessimist, but it’s easy. It’s not even locked.

He wanders across the train yard, frost crunching under his feet where it gathers on the few plants brave enough to survive here. It sounds like walking on broken glass. Picture frames shattered on the ground. Candies breaking and making you bleed.

Foggy stops stepping on the plants.

He’s not sure where it happened. Nothing here jumps out as an ideal murder locale—except for the whole place looking like something from an atmospheric suspense film. There are no pools of blood or chalk outlines. That makes sense, Foggy supposes. This was years ago. Years and years. No one even remembers.

There are no sudden epiphanies, no eureka moments. Foggy thinks he must walk over every inch of that train yard, and all he feels is cold and soggy from the snow. He doesn’t understand, and that means he can’t tell Matt yes and that means Matt’s going to keep fading away. Foggy can’t let that happen.

Matt is not going to be like this place. He’s not going to crumble with no one around to care.

“You’re a friend of the angel’s, aren’t you?”

Foggy freezes, turning slowly towards the voice. It’s a little girl with two long twin braids and a knitted cap with cat ears on it. She looks surprisingly solemn for a girl her age, but as she walks closer Foggy can see that there’s just the smallest smile that’s hiding in her eyes.

“Angel?” Foggy asks curiously. The girl nods, stopping in front of him and looking up. She’s small too, delicate like a doll but there’s a stubborn set to her jaw that makes Foggy think she’s anything but fragile.

“He’s the reason I come here.” She explains. “Are you looking for him?”

“I…no. I’m not looking for anyone.” Foggy tells her, and the girl nods sagely.

“But you know him.” She decides. “You’re lucky. I’ve never even seen him.”

“I’m…sorry?” Foggy offers cautiously. Do all little girls search around abandoned train yards for angels? “Why are you here, sweetheart? Shouldn’t you be back home?”

The girl considers him for a moment. The dull light of the streetlights make her eyes bright and pale, and she looks washed out, faded like an old photograph.

“I’ll go home soon.” She assures him. “First I have to pray.” She looks him up and down critically. “Do you want to pray with me?”

Foggy blinks. He’s pretty sure most little girls don’t pray in abandoned train yards while looking for angels. But he’s very sure that he’s not going to leave a girl out here in this creepy place alone, so he nods.

“I’m not very good at it.” He admits. The little girl pats his arm as she passes.

“You just put your hands together and say amen.” She instructs firmly. “After I say the prayer.”

“Thanks.” Foggy says, a little amused but mostly warmed. He turns to follow after her. She seems to know exactly where to go, because she doesn’t stop for anything. She walks right to the middle of the yard and stands still, gesturing for him to join her. Foggy clasps his hands together. “Good?”

“Good.” The girl agrees. She takes a deep breath. “Thank you very much for saving my life, angel.” Foggy waits for more, but she just nods sharply. “Amen.”

Foggy looks around them and then back at the girl. A little girl that walks alone in a place that used to be a murder scene. A little girl who is here for a reason, and who prays to an angel that saved her life.

“You’re Eve, aren’t you?” Foggy whispers. The little girl smiles.

“So you do know the angel then.” She sounds triumphant. “He must have told you.”

Angel. She has to mean Matt. There’s no other person she could possibly mean.

“He…did.” Foggy confesses slowly. “Do you know what he did here?” He can’t help but ask, wary. Eve nods.

“He did something very bad for a very good reason.” She tells him serenely.

Foggy stares at her. Something very bad. She’s using vague terms, but if she knows the location and the consequences, she must know what happened. Children are much smarter than adults want them to be. And she’s thanking Matt for what he did.

“Are you happy, Eve?” He wonders, and it’s entirely too invasive a question but Eve doesn’t seem to mind.

“Yes.” She says simply, and then she thinks for a moment. “Is the angel happy?”

Foggy can’t answer for a long time. Eve just stands there, eyes pale and patient. Finally Foggy smiles ruefully.

“We’re working on it.” He sighs. “I want him to be happy.”

“Because you love him.” Eve finishes matter-of-factly. Foggy jumps at the assertion.

“How do you know that?” He doesn’t even think to deny it. At least Eve doesn’t seem to care overly much about her angel possibly being with a man. Smart, even for a kid.

“I just know.” Eve explains. It’s a decent explanation, to be fair. Apparently everyone assumes that he’s in love with Matt, from Marci to Brett to little girls who have just met him five minutes ago. “It’s okay. It’s a good thing.”

“Oh. Thanks.” Foggy mutters a little blankly, still surprised by the blunt assessment.

“And he loves you?” Eve pushes, because she is apparently destined to become a therapist somewhere down the line. Calm and asking all the hard questions.

“Yes.” Foggy admits. “A lot.” Eve smiles again, and it’s satisfied and proud.

“That’s a good thing too.” She offers like Foggy might need some instruction on this point. “What’s your name?”

Foggy probably shouldn’t be giving out his name to people who know he has a connection to Matt, but Eve seems to have a good head on her shoulders. Besides, Foggy knows her name. It’s only fair.

“Foggy.” Eve laughs, her nose wrinkling a little in the motion. She really is an adorable kid.

“That’s a funny name.” She informs him, and Foggy shrugs. “But I like it. I’ll add you to the prayer. ‘Thank you for being his friend. Amen.’”

Foggy blinks, tearing stinging at his eyes. It’s a good prayer.

Eve does look happy. Matt was right—she’s doing well. And what happened here was important enough that she walked out in the middle of a snow shower to the middle of a frozen train yard. She must have been doing it for a long time, because she knows her way around. She knew where to stand and what to pray.

She’s still saying thank you after years and years.

“This is the part where you say ‘amen’.” Eve urges him kindly. Foggy clears his throat and wipes his eyes roughly with soft wool gloves.

“Amen.” He murmurs, only remembering to clasp his hands together after. Eve seems to be a no-nonsense kind of lady, so Foggy does things in the right order just to be sure. Clasped hands first. “Amen.”

“See? You’re a good prayer.” Eve encourages. Foggy shrugs bashfully.

“You’re a good teacher.” He compliments, and Eve nods like this is obvious. It is. “What do we do now?”

Eve points towards the gate.

“We go home.” She enlightens him. “We’re done praying, and it’s cold.”

Foggy grins, eyes still a little damp at the corners but feeling warmer than he has all night.

“Very practical.” He approves. He hesitates. “Do you need me to walk you home?”

An adult male stranger following a little girl home does not sound like a socially acceptable option, but Foggy doesn’t want to just ditch her. Eve shakes her head.

“I know the way.” She assures him. “It was nice to meet you, Foggy. Say hello to the angel for me.” She’s already slipping away like a skinny little shadow, although she pauses at the gate to look back at him. Foggy waves.

“He’ll be very happy to hear it.” He tells her truthfully. “Thank you.” Eve waves back just once, and then she’s gone. Foggy waits for a good minute to make sure she’s far enough away, and then he sighs. "You could have said hello back, Matt.” He calls out quietly, voice wry. There’s a moment of quiet, and then Matt slips from the shadows as easily as Eve slipped into them. It’s not fair—Foggy can’t slip into shadows. Why can everyone else do it?

“It’s not a good idea for her to get attached.” Matt explains softly, but his face is turned towards the direction Foggy saw Eve leave from and he looks wistful. He’s already attached. “I want her to move on and forget this part of her life.”

“Hmm.” Foggy hums ambiguously, not willing to call Matt out on the half-truth. “You heard her prayer?” Matt nods, a sharp motion.

“I liked the new part.” He admits. Foggy smiles, sticking his hands in his pockets as he walks closer.

“I like it all. They should sing it in church.” He suggests idly. “Much nicer than all those Latin chants you people do. Those are kind of menacing.”

Matt snorts, the wistfulness fading a little from his features.

“You make it sound like we’re summoning Satan.” Foggy clears his throat. “Don’t make a Devil joke.”  Matt commands, and Foggy shrugs.

“Well, not out loud.” He bargains. “Speak of the Devil and he shall appear.” Foggy mock gasps. “Poof! He appeared!” Matt glares, but the effect is ruined entirely when he shivers. Foggy sighs and closes the distance. “Idiot. Why did you run out without a coat?”

Matt shrugs, rubbing at his arms sheepishly.

“I forgot.” Foggy rolls his eyes.

“Well, at least you remembered your shoes.” He mutters, looking on the bright side. “Okay, here.”

He goes to stand behind Matt, slips his hands from his pockets and unbuttons his coat before draping it over Matt’s shoulders. Matt shrugs his shoulders and arms into the sleeves, and it reminds Foggy of something…

Ah. Right.

He wraps his arms around Matt’s waist. Matt makes a small sound of surprise but doesn’t pull away, leaning into it after a moment.

“You’re shivering.” Foggy muses, remembering that night and their conversation in a shaded sort of detail. “Are you cold?” Matt breathes out shakily and nods.

“A little.” He admits hoarsely. “Should we go home and…and get warm?”

Foggy nods agreeably.

“Very warm.” He agrees. “Hot toddy for me and warm milk for you.” Much like Benadryl, Matt has warm milk and he’s snoozing the second after he drinks the last drop. “But first I need to give you something.”

“Like a present?” Matt asks uncertainly. Foggy hums in thought.

“I guess. More of a token, really.” He amends. He lets go of Matt’s waist so he can offer what he slipped from his pocket before he gave Matt his coat. He presses it into Matt’s hand—the dummy forgot gloves too. “There. I promised you a red chip.”

Matt almost seems to stop breathing. He’s running his fingers over the token again and again. From behind him, Foggy can see that his fingers are trembling.

“This is…” He stops, taking a ragged breath. Foggy nods, waiting patiently. “Foggy, what does this mean?”

“You lasted three months.” Foggy explains simply. “So you earned a red chip.” Matt shakes his head, turning to look at Foggy with a frown and wide eyes.

“But this isn’t a chip. This is…this is candy.” He argues, and it’s not the reaction of someone feeling tricked about their treat. Matt doesn’t care about the red chip. Matt wants the candy.

Cherry Life Saver.

“And you earned that too.” Foggy gets it out slowly every word is a soft word instead of a weak scream that he’s doing this, he’s actually doing this. This is not going to end well. “Thank you so much for trying for me, but people like Eve need you to try for them too. And I need to start trying for you more. So I’m trying.” He smiles warmly. “Matt, eat your candy.”

Matt doesn’t eat the candy.

“Really?” He rasps. Foggy nods, and it’s easier than he wants it to be.

“We’ll go home and work out the details while you drink your milk.” Foggy decides firmly. “But yes.”

So this is his schedule for tonight: Go back to a serial killer’s apartment. Talk at great length to a serial killer about his serial killing methods. Make a serial killer warm milk with just a little honey and vanilla to help him get to sleep. Tuck a serial killer in and kiss him goodnight. Sleep next to a serial killer. Repeat as necessary to get the desired effect. What's the definition for insanity again?

Foggy thinks with a detached sort of trepidation that this might be his schedule for a very long time. That’s not nearly as terrifying as it should be.

A slow, incredulous smile. Foggy watches as Matt carefully undoes the plastic wrapper, tucking it into his pocket because Matt is a conscientious serial killer who doesn’t litter. His fingers hold the candy delicately, like it’s some kind of jewel, and he stops more than once as he raises it to his lips. Not because he’s changing his mind, but because he’s giving Foggy time to change his.

Foggy just keeps watching. Eventually there’s no more room to stop and wait, and Matt touches the Life Saver to his mouth. Matt waits. Foggy watches.

Matt eats the candy.

“Don’t bite down. You’ll hurt yourself.” Foggy advises, even though Matt’s probably eaten more candy than he has over the years. “Home?”

Matt nods, takes Foggy’s arm, and lets Foggy lead him home. He’s sucking on cherry candy the whole way, and he’s never looked happier. Foggy still has no idea if this is the right choice, but it makes Matt happy. It makes people like Eve happy. And if it's wrong (and it is), then Foggy’s already on God’s blacklist for not turning Matt in, if God even cares. Foggy might as well enjoy it as it lasts.

Apparently eternal damnation involves candy. 

Matt tastes like cherry today. Foggy kisses him back anyway. Matt was right.

It gets easier.

“Bruise.” He murmurs, running a finger over Matt’s shoulder. His shirt is just barely slipping off of it, the first few buttons on the front undone. Matt nods, shifting his shoulder forward into the touch. “Do you have others?”

“Self-defense.” Matt agrees, and it’s not his lying voice. “Just like you wanted.”

Foggy spreads out his fingers and laying his hand flat over the bruise until he can’t see it anymore. Until he can pretend it doesn’t exist.

“I didn’t want any of this.” He reminds Matt quietly. “I just wanted you.”

Matt reaches up, a gentle hand covering Foggy’s and a gentler smile on his face. He doesn’t look like a killer. He looks kind and calm and adoring. He is, Foggy supposes. He’s just a killer too.

“And you have me.” Matt promises warmly. “I know I’m not the best gift, but it’s the thought that counts, right?”

Foggy smiles, moving his hand away and forcing himself to look at the bruise again. Foggy hates seeing Matt hurt, even when he knows for a fact that the other guy looks much worse. The killing might get easier to handle, but this part? This is never going to be easy.

“Yeah. It’s the thought that counts.” He agrees. He stares at the bruise for a few moments. “Do you need to see your lovely night nurse?”

Foggy likes Claire the second Matt finally lets them meet. He realizes in that same second that she has no idea that some of Matt’s bruises come from something other than simple fighting.

That’s probably a good thing, although it’s also one that’s not going to last. Matt just had to surround himself with brilliant people who never stop looking for answers. At this point, Foggy's making bets with himself about who's going to find out first. His money's on Marci, because Foggy's been checking in with her weekly to prove that he still doesn't want to 'divorce' Matt and she asks a lot of pointed questions. She also hates Matt, so she already assumes the worst about him. Karen's a close second, because she likes Matt and likes the Devil and assumes the best about them. Ben's a hardcore reporter, Doris is a shrewd reporter's wife, and Brett is a cop trained to observe.

It's a matter of time, really. They’re going to have to start planning for damage control and sales pitches—somehow Foggy doubts Ben Urich can be convinced to let a murderer roam free just because Matt has a lovely mouth.

“No, just bruises.” Matt assures him before his smile widens wickedly. “Want to check?” He’s already finishing undoing the buttons and letting the shirt fall to the floor.

“I believe you.” Foggy tells him wryly. “You don’t need to turn this into a Chippendales performance.” Matt ignores him, stripping down to nothing but that wicked smile and waiting expectantly. Foggy sighs. “Yes, you are an Adonis among us—or maybe his lovechild with Narcissus. Mythology, man. Pretty wacky. Inordinate amount of swan sex."

“I’m not narcissistic.” Matt argues. “I think you’re much more handsome than I am.”

Foggy snorts, but he’s already pulling his tie off. He's ready for a nap, because attempting to ignore Matt's flirting takes a great deal of effort and gets exhausting if done for long periods of time. Today was one of those long periods of time. Matt was looking smug all day during work, and he kept sucking that stupid candy. When Karen wasn’t looking, it honestly looked like softcore candy kink pornography.

“Bold statement, considering you have no idea what I look like.” Foggy muses. “You did it to actively help someone in the moment?” Matt knows what he’s talking about and nods. “No chance of the criminal getting caught by police?” Matt shakes his head. “No chance of you getting caught by police?”

Matt groans, reaching forward to help Foggy with his buttons.

“I followed all the rules.” He promises. “Which I think you stole from Dexter, by the way.” Foggy narrows his eyes.

“I wouldn’t have to tell Dexter Morgan to stop stealing my candy all the time.”

Truthfully, Foggy doesn’t eat the Cherry Life Savers anymore. They’re still in his drawer at work, and there’s a plain glass jar of them in his kitchen, but Foggy never touches the things. They’re not his candy anymore.

He doesn’t eat them, but he tastes them all the time.

“Sorry.” Matt doesn’t look very sorry. “Let me make it up to you?”

He pulls gently on Foggy’s hands, walking backwards towards the bed and tugging Foggy with him. It’s unfair, really—Foggy can see, and he’d have tripped by now. The universe just moves itself around to make Matt look good.

“You want to have sex.” Foggy realizes. Not just naked cuddling after a long day. Sex. “Now.”

Matt nods happily.

“I’ve been wanting to all day.” He admits. “You should have slept over last night.”

And right there is the reason that Foggy can’t just close his eyes and pretend this is a normal relationship. Matt was sucking on candy all day, which means Matt killed someone last night. He killed someone, and he still wanted Foggy to sleep over before and after that killing. He wanted sleepy morning kisses and walking to the office together and flirting over paperwork. Matt wants so many normal, wonderful things. Unfortunately, he wants them after doing terrible things.

He doesn’t even seem to realize that this is a bit not good. He doesn’t seem to think that there’s anything strange about slipping from lethal to lovesick in the space of a minute—no, he knows there’s something strange about it, but only when he remembers to know that. Otherwise?

No guilt.

It’s such a tiny thing, just one small building block of a mind, but it changes a person in a way that nothing else can. Foggy wonders if Matt would be happier or sadder if he could feel guilty. It would probably destroy him—there’s something about Matt that makes Foggy think he would take to guilt like a wounded, handsome duck to water. If he could feel guilt for all the things he does? It would be a slow suicide.

So, this is probably better for Matt. The only question is: is this better for Foggy? Matt’s not quite right in the head, Foggy knows that. Psychopathic tendencies supplemented by undeniable anger issues? Not a good combination.

And Matt does have tendencies. In addition to hitting almost every hallmark sign, he also has a habit of manipulating people with superficial charm—flirting, mostly. He doesn’t really seek out interpersonal relationships either. In fact, all of Matt’s friends are based on instant connections. If Matt doesn’t have those, he doesn’t bother with anything other than shallow acquaintanceship. Combined with everything else, it paints a pretty persuasive picture.

But it’s Matt. It’s not just some random stranger in a clinical study or on a police bulletin.

Matt bought Karen a Frappuccino with extra whipped cream today and he’s trying to teach himself to knit Foggy’s dad a sweater to match the one Matt got that first Christmas, and he’s a terrible knitter so Foggy has to redo most of it when Matt’s out of the room.

Matt made Foggy take on a pro bono case last week because ‘we have enough money, and we could have even more if we moved in together and split the rent’. They don’t have enough money, and they might have to move in together if they want to avoid moving into cardboard boxes instead. Foggy wonders if Matt might be taking on so many pro bono cases for this very reason. Well, the joke’s on him—Foggy’s apartment sucks and Matt’s is amazing, and if Foggy moves in he’s going to take over Matt’s closet and hang weird art on the walls.

Matt has nightmares, not about what happened but about what might have happened. What might happen in the future if he’s not careful. Losing his family, losing his friends, losing Foggy. He doesn’t feel guilt, but he feels fear. Joy. Sadness. Anger. Hate.

Love.

“Top or bottom?” Foggy sighs, defeated. Matt laughs, falling backwards onto the bed with entirely unfair grace and pulling Foggy down on top of him.

“Both.” He decides, grinning. “It’s a weekend. We have time.”

Abnormally strong sex drive. There’s another sign. But Matt doesn’t treat it like a game or tool. Matt’s face when they’re together is rapt and tender, practically glowing with happiness. And yes, he likes to try new things in the bedroom, but they’re more…exotic than deviant. Foggy has kinks he didn't even know existed before he met Matt. He's very okay with finding more, and he's definitely willing to experiment with Matt.

Foggy wouldn’t fuck a serial killer. He would sleep with a serial killer though. In every sense of the word. Every night.

When Foggy kisses him, Matt arches up into it, tangling his hands in Foggy’s hair and smiling, red lips even redder when Foggy finally pulls away. Bruised cherry. The lights are dim, and his eyes look black again, the way they do sometimes when Matt says certain dark things with certain dark smiles.

Devil’s eyes. Angel’s mouth. Foggy can finally see all of Matt, and it’s beautiful.

“I’m so happy that you don’t have to hide from me anymore, Matt.”