“Hey Matty,” Foggy croaks, “hate to ask, but could you maybe get me some water? There should be some bottles on the, uhm, right side of the door. I think. Watch out for random piles of crap though.”
He sounds guilty. Matt wants to think that it’s mostly about the mess, but he can’t help but suspect that it’s as much about asking Matt for favors. As if Foggy hadn’t been tripping over himself to help out when Matt had been the one laid up sick last week. He hadn’t just brought Matt water and bananas, but he’d also stomped up the stairs with the last of their beer to bribe the guys in the room above them into (relative) silence.
Frowning Matt pushes away his books and gets on his feet. Safe in the knowledge that Foggy’s huddled deep underneath every blanket they own, Matt effortlessly weaves past the piles on the floor. The plastic bottle crinkles as he grabs it. Instead of lobbing it across the room, he makes his way to Foggy’s bed.
Heat radiates off the lump hidden underneath the blankets. Foggy smells sick, all kinds of bodily fluids mixing into a thick porridge of stench. Matt can taste it, deep in the back of his throat. He swallows hard, forcing away the urge to gag. Besides, there’s something else. A scent that doesn’t quite belong. Matt wrinkles his nose, too distracted by the mystery to notice the rustle of Foggy unearthing himself from underneath the blankets.
“Dude,” Foggy asks, his voice sleepy and baffled. “Did you just smell me?”
“Of course not,” Matt lies, thrusting the bottle at his friend by way of distraction. “Here. Drink.”
A yawn swallows half of Foggy’s thank you. The yawn’s followed quickly by another, even though Foggy’s slept for most of the weekend. Matt frowns again, reaching out with one hand until he finds his friend’s shoulder. From there he navigates to Foggy’s face, brushing sweaty strands of hair out of the way before resting the back of his hand against his friend’s forehead. It’s mostly for show, but it also gives him new information.
Foggy’s tense, his jaw clenched and the muscles around his eyes tight.
“You have a fever,” Matt says. Also a headache, he doesn’t say. And you’re squinting, as if the light’s hurting your eyes or the room’s too dark to see properly. Oh, and you haven’t left your bed for anything but bathroom breaks since Friday.
“Thank you, Captain Obvious,” Foggy grumbles, tugging Matt’s hand away.
“Headache?”
Matt does his best to make the question sound like a casual guess. Foggy just grunts an affirmative. The sound’s followed by a loud pssht as he unscrews the top of the bottle and takes several greedy gulps. He drinks like he hasn’t seen a drop of water for days, when in fact Matt heard him drinking from the tap in the bathroom just-
Oh.
“You need to check your blood sugar,” he says, already fumbling next to the bed for Foggy’s backpack. The scent, the one mingling with the stink of illness… he inhales deeply and now he can almost taste the sweetness. It’s cloying and fruity, leaving him with the urge to rinse his mouth out with mouthwash.
“Hey,” Foggy says, slow to react. “What? Matty, what the hell-“
Matt unzips the backpack without explaining, fingers brushing against crumbs and empty candy wrappers until he finds the little zippered bag. Foggy has two kits actually, one in his backpack and one in the pocket of Matt’s coat. Hands, warm and damp, wrap around Matt’s wrists, holding him still not by force as much as by their mere presence.
“What’s the matter with you?” Foggy asks, pronouncing each word clearly. As if speaking to a particularly slow child. He sounds annoyed, but also worried. Matt finds that he resents that for a multitude of reasons. The most important one being that Foggy has no right to be so careful, so mindful of and kind to everyone around him when he takes such poor care of himself.
“You need to check your blood sugar,” Matt repeats, forcing down the spark of anger.
“Yeah, I heard you the first time, mister mom. FYI, I checked my blood sugar this morning. It was high, sure, but I’m sick so that’s not unexpected. Anyway, I took extra insulin to compensate.”
“Check it again,” Matt insists. Adding, somewhat weakly; “You emptied that bottle in seconds.”
“I’m sick, I even have a fever. I get to be thirsty. Who died and made you the blood sugar police?”
But Foggy doesn’t sound as sure now. He releases his grip on Matt’s wrists. Accepts the little bag and plays with the zipper. Matt nearly growls with impatience. Instead he breathes deep and slow, steadying himself. He’ll not be able to convince Foggy of anything if he’s stupid with frenzy. Something about the smell disturbs him though.
“Don’t you have to be extra careful when you’re sick,” he wheedles. “I’m sure you told me that.”
“I haven’t told you shit,” Foggy grumbles, even as he unzips the bag and pulls out his blood glucose meter. “You either found that out from the internet or you’ve spoken to my mum. Again. Or, knowing your very special level of control freakishness, Murdock, you cross-examined some unlucky med student. Now, unless you want me to stab you by mistake you better shift it.”
Matt shifts, placing his hands underneath his thighs to keep from fidgeting as he waits. He can smell the blood, even though the test only requires the tiniest drop of it. Turning his head towards Foggy he can make out the shape of his friend, but he can’t read the answer on the meter any more than he can make out the expression of Foggy’s face. What he can do though is pick up on the increase in Foggy’s heartbeat.
“Well?” he says, licking his lips.
Foggy doesn’t answer, just gently pushes Matt aside along with the blankets. He shuffles, in bare feet by the sound of it, to his closet where he rummages through his stuff. Things fall to the floor at random, do doubt creating several new hills of soft clothing before Foggy finds what he needs. His heartbeat stays high through it all and he’s huffing. As if he’s out of breath.
Matt stands up, meaning to close the distance between them and offer his help.
“Stay where you are,” Foggy orders at once. “I’ve accidentally turned the floor into an obstacle course. Sorry about that. I’ll clean it up in a second. Just need to check my ketone level first.”
And with that, he shuffles off to the bathroom. Matt does his best to turn his attention elsewhere, sitting back down on Foggy’s bed and rubbing his fingers across the woven threads in one of the blanket. There’s a pattern of bobbles and dips in the fabric. Breathing slowly – counting to four when inhaling, holding for seven, exhaling for eight – he recreates the pattern in his mind.
Eventually Foggy returns. His heartbeat’s loud and he’s sweating.
“I have to go,” he says. “I just have to get dressed and…”
Strange sounds follow. A bare foot scraping against the ground. Air moving. Fabric fluttering. It’s not the sounds of someone dressing. Not as Matt knows those sounds anyway. He lifts his head, trying to make heads and tails of what his other senses tell him. Foggy’s moving around their room, flailing with his limbs. It would be funny, if it wasn’t for the toll it seems to take on him.
“Are you kicking all your stuff into a giant pile?” Matt eventually asks, trying his best to not judge.
“Why, yes, I am,” Foggy snipes, panting as he moves the giant mountain of clothing and random stuff up against the wall. “Just being an everyday hero, saving my blind roommate from falling on his skinny ass. No, no, please sit down. No need for standing ovations.”
The words startle a laugh out of Matt. Foggy laughs too, only it turns into a wheeze.
“You call your doctor?”
“Yeah. Kinda. Called his office, anyway. They want to do some tests or something. I’m not sure.” Foggy sounds more embarrassed than worried. “High blood sugar and high ketone levels makes for sucky combination, I suppose.”
“Okay,” Matt says, standing up again. On the way to the door he grabs his cane and his glasses.
“Okay what?” Foggy asks, his voice coming from somewhere near the floor. Finally putting on some socks and shoes then. “Where do you think you’re going, Murdock?”
Matt doesn’t answer, just waits patiently until Foggy’s back on his feet. At that point he lurches forward and attaches himself to Foggy’s arm, fingers digging into the thick fabric of his friend’s jacket until he has a good grip. He’s not going to let Foggy walk out that door alone. Not when he can hear his friend’s heart racing and smell the sweet sickliness which rolls off him in waves.
“I need some fresh air,” Matt says. It’s not even a lie. “A chance to stretch my legs.”
Foggy doesn’t believe him. But he’s not enough of a dick to pry Matt’s finger lose either.
Later – at some point between Foggy throwing up in the bushes outside the medical center and Matt calling Mrs. Nelson to let her know that Foggy’s been admitted overnight for observation – Matt decides to count the whole thing as a win rather than a near disaster. He reminds himself of that, over and over again like a mantra, as he sits by Foggy’s bed. He’s pretending to listen to cartoons while he’s actually just keeping track of his friend’s heartbeat.
Matt’s memorized that fruity smell now. Categorized it right next to the sulfur-like stench of a gas leak. He won’t let hyperglycemia or ketoacidos sneak up on them again. Won’t let Foggy slip away from him into a diabetic coma or worse. Won’t lose the best friend he’s ever had.
“Stop brooding,” Foggy mumbles. “It’s giving me a headache.”
“That would be your high blood sugar,” Matt points out with fake cheer.
“That your medical opinion, Dr. Murdock?”
“That’s right, Mr. Nelson.”
On the screen, Road Runner appears to have tricked Wile E. Coyote off a cliff again. Foggy laughs in response and Matt exhales slowly, allowing the last of the tension to leave his body.
FILL: the one where foggy has diabetes (2/4)
He sounds guilty. Matt wants to think that it’s mostly about the mess, but he can’t help but suspect that it’s as much about asking Matt for favors. As if Foggy hadn’t been tripping over himself to help out when Matt had been the one laid up sick last week. He hadn’t just brought Matt water and bananas, but he’d also stomped up the stairs with the last of their beer to bribe the guys in the room above them into (relative) silence.
Frowning Matt pushes away his books and gets on his feet. Safe in the knowledge that Foggy’s huddled deep underneath every blanket they own, Matt effortlessly weaves past the piles on the floor. The plastic bottle crinkles as he grabs it. Instead of lobbing it across the room, he makes his way to Foggy’s bed.
Heat radiates off the lump hidden underneath the blankets. Foggy smells sick, all kinds of bodily fluids mixing into a thick porridge of stench. Matt can taste it, deep in the back of his throat. He swallows hard, forcing away the urge to gag. Besides, there’s something else. A scent that doesn’t quite belong. Matt wrinkles his nose, too distracted by the mystery to notice the rustle of Foggy unearthing himself from underneath the blankets.
“Dude,” Foggy asks, his voice sleepy and baffled. “Did you just smell me?”
“Of course not,” Matt lies, thrusting the bottle at his friend by way of distraction. “Here. Drink.”
A yawn swallows half of Foggy’s thank you. The yawn’s followed quickly by another, even though Foggy’s slept for most of the weekend. Matt frowns again, reaching out with one hand until he finds his friend’s shoulder. From there he navigates to Foggy’s face, brushing sweaty strands of hair out of the way before resting the back of his hand against his friend’s forehead. It’s mostly for show, but it also gives him new information.
Foggy’s tense, his jaw clenched and the muscles around his eyes tight.
“You have a fever,” Matt says. Also a headache, he doesn’t say. And you’re squinting, as if the light’s hurting your eyes or the room’s too dark to see properly. Oh, and you haven’t left your bed for anything but bathroom breaks since Friday.
“Thank you, Captain Obvious,” Foggy grumbles, tugging Matt’s hand away.
“Headache?”
Matt does his best to make the question sound like a casual guess. Foggy just grunts an affirmative. The sound’s followed by a loud pssht as he unscrews the top of the bottle and takes several greedy gulps. He drinks like he hasn’t seen a drop of water for days, when in fact Matt heard him drinking from the tap in the bathroom just-
Oh.
“You need to check your blood sugar,” he says, already fumbling next to the bed for Foggy’s backpack. The scent, the one mingling with the stink of illness… he inhales deeply and now he can almost taste the sweetness. It’s cloying and fruity, leaving him with the urge to rinse his mouth out with mouthwash.
“Hey,” Foggy says, slow to react. “What? Matty, what the hell-“
Matt unzips the backpack without explaining, fingers brushing against crumbs and empty candy wrappers until he finds the little zippered bag. Foggy has two kits actually, one in his backpack and one in the pocket of Matt’s coat. Hands, warm and damp, wrap around Matt’s wrists, holding him still not by force as much as by their mere presence.
“What’s the matter with you?” Foggy asks, pronouncing each word clearly. As if speaking to a particularly slow child. He sounds annoyed, but also worried. Matt finds that he resents that for a multitude of reasons. The most important one being that Foggy has no right to be so careful, so mindful of and kind to everyone around him when he takes such poor care of himself.
“You need to check your blood sugar,” Matt repeats, forcing down the spark of anger.
“Yeah, I heard you the first time, mister mom. FYI, I checked my blood sugar this morning. It was high, sure, but I’m sick so that’s not unexpected. Anyway, I took extra insulin to compensate.”
“Check it again,” Matt insists. Adding, somewhat weakly; “You emptied that bottle in seconds.”
“I’m sick, I even have a fever. I get to be thirsty. Who died and made you the blood sugar police?”
But Foggy doesn’t sound as sure now. He releases his grip on Matt’s wrists. Accepts the little bag and plays with the zipper. Matt nearly growls with impatience. Instead he breathes deep and slow, steadying himself. He’ll not be able to convince Foggy of anything if he’s stupid with frenzy. Something about the smell disturbs him though.
“Don’t you have to be extra careful when you’re sick,” he wheedles. “I’m sure you told me that.”
“I haven’t told you shit,” Foggy grumbles, even as he unzips the bag and pulls out his blood glucose meter. “You either found that out from the internet or you’ve spoken to my mum. Again. Or, knowing your very special level of control freakishness, Murdock, you cross-examined some unlucky med student. Now, unless you want me to stab you by mistake you better shift it.”
Matt shifts, placing his hands underneath his thighs to keep from fidgeting as he waits. He can smell the blood, even though the test only requires the tiniest drop of it. Turning his head towards Foggy he can make out the shape of his friend, but he can’t read the answer on the meter any more than he can make out the expression of Foggy’s face. What he can do though is pick up on the increase in Foggy’s heartbeat.
“Well?” he says, licking his lips.
Foggy doesn’t answer, just gently pushes Matt aside along with the blankets. He shuffles, in bare feet by the sound of it, to his closet where he rummages through his stuff. Things fall to the floor at random, do doubt creating several new hills of soft clothing before Foggy finds what he needs. His heartbeat stays high through it all and he’s huffing. As if he’s out of breath.
Matt stands up, meaning to close the distance between them and offer his help.
“Stay where you are,” Foggy orders at once. “I’ve accidentally turned the floor into an obstacle course. Sorry about that. I’ll clean it up in a second. Just need to check my ketone level first.”
And with that, he shuffles off to the bathroom. Matt does his best to turn his attention elsewhere, sitting back down on Foggy’s bed and rubbing his fingers across the woven threads in one of the blanket. There’s a pattern of bobbles and dips in the fabric. Breathing slowly – counting to four when inhaling, holding for seven, exhaling for eight – he recreates the pattern in his mind.
Eventually Foggy returns. His heartbeat’s loud and he’s sweating.
“I have to go,” he says. “I just have to get dressed and…”
Strange sounds follow. A bare foot scraping against the ground. Air moving. Fabric fluttering. It’s not the sounds of someone dressing. Not as Matt knows those sounds anyway. He lifts his head, trying to make heads and tails of what his other senses tell him. Foggy’s moving around their room, flailing with his limbs. It would be funny, if it wasn’t for the toll it seems to take on him.
“Are you kicking all your stuff into a giant pile?” Matt eventually asks, trying his best to not judge.
“Why, yes, I am,” Foggy snipes, panting as he moves the giant mountain of clothing and random stuff up against the wall. “Just being an everyday hero, saving my blind roommate from falling on his skinny ass. No, no, please sit down. No need for standing ovations.”
The words startle a laugh out of Matt. Foggy laughs too, only it turns into a wheeze.
“You call your doctor?”
“Yeah. Kinda. Called his office, anyway. They want to do some tests or something. I’m not sure.” Foggy sounds more embarrassed than worried. “High blood sugar and high ketone levels makes for sucky combination, I suppose.”
“Okay,” Matt says, standing up again. On the way to the door he grabs his cane and his glasses.
“Okay what?” Foggy asks, his voice coming from somewhere near the floor. Finally putting on some socks and shoes then. “Where do you think you’re going, Murdock?”
Matt doesn’t answer, just waits patiently until Foggy’s back on his feet. At that point he lurches forward and attaches himself to Foggy’s arm, fingers digging into the thick fabric of his friend’s jacket until he has a good grip. He’s not going to let Foggy walk out that door alone. Not when he can hear his friend’s heart racing and smell the sweet sickliness which rolls off him in waves.
“I need some fresh air,” Matt says. It’s not even a lie. “A chance to stretch my legs.”
Foggy doesn’t believe him. But he’s not enough of a dick to pry Matt’s finger lose either.
Later – at some point between Foggy throwing up in the bushes outside the medical center and Matt calling Mrs. Nelson to let her know that Foggy’s been admitted overnight for observation – Matt decides to count the whole thing as a win rather than a near disaster. He reminds himself of that, over and over again like a mantra, as he sits by Foggy’s bed. He’s pretending to listen to cartoons while he’s actually just keeping track of his friend’s heartbeat.
Matt’s memorized that fruity smell now. Categorized it right next to the sulfur-like stench of a gas leak. He won’t let hyperglycemia or ketoacidos sneak up on them again. Won’t let Foggy slip away from him into a diabetic coma or worse. Won’t lose the best friend he’s ever had.
“Stop brooding,” Foggy mumbles. “It’s giving me a headache.”
“That would be your high blood sugar,” Matt points out with fake cheer.
“That your medical opinion, Dr. Murdock?”
“That’s right, Mr. Nelson.”
On the screen, Road Runner appears to have tricked Wile E. Coyote off a cliff again. Foggy laughs in response and Matt exhales slowly, allowing the last of the tension to leave his body.
Everything’s going to be fine. He’ll make sure
---
Hope it pleases <3