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Fill: Foggy is going blind, 7a/7

[(Anonymous)]

The scare that sent him to Philadelphia on a tear wakes Foggy up in other ways, too. He finally begins to understand how much he has been treading water, acting as though everything is fine, like the Good Days haven't been thinning out, stretching fewer and farther between until he has to redefine what a Good Day looks like. He thought he'd been preparing, watching Matt and practicing with the cane and memorizing routes through his home, but he'd only been shoving everything to the back of his mind. So, as soon as he wakes up the morning after his evening in "Paris," he calls Matt's doctor, the specialist, and makes an appointment, which he actually attends. The doctor is brusque and professional and helps Foggy find resources for living with vision loss; "Blind Lessons," as Foggy calls them in his head. He looks into getting a seeing-eye dog because dogs are awesome, not matter what Matt says. Karen even helps him do some research on therapists who work with recently blinded people, and Foggy buys her cookies from her favourite bakery to thank her.

He thinks he's doing quite well.

Of course, absolutely none of this prepares him for the morning he wakes up and his world has gone finally, permanently black.

At first he thinks he is maybe still dreaming, so he buries his head in his pillow and hits "Snooze" on his alarm without opening his eyes. Nine minutes later, his alarm rings again, jolting him from his doze, and when he opens his eyes, he finally realizes what has happened, and the panic consumes him like a flash fire until he can't hear anything but the dull roar of rushing blood in his hears. He's dimly aware that he has begun to hyperventilate as his head jerks around like some grotesque marionette impersonation, uselessly searching for any corner or flame of light he might be able to focus on. His fingers clench and unclench around his sheets (are they my sheets? he thinks as the panic ratchets up another notch, am i even in my own apartment?); he squeezes his eyes closed against the truth and buries his face in his pillow. Wails once, twice into the tear-soaked fabric--the sound of a child abandoned in the wilderness. He finds himself curled in the fetal position without remembering quite how he got there, legs folded tight into his chest. High, whining sobs replace the wailing and, though he'll never be able to confirm it visually, some remote part of his brain informs him that he looks absolutely ridiculous.

Eventually, the panic levels off and slowly releases its grip on Foggy, and he can hear his own ragged gasps still pressed into his pillow, now waterlogged. His first coherent thought is to call Karen and tell her he won't be in to work. He reaches for his phone, feeling around for a moment before finding it; then, he completely blanks. He can't see it. It's a damned touch screen. Everything he's been practicing for, the accessibility controls, the voice commands, have flown entirely out of his head. Even in these past few weeks he's been using the accessibility functions almost exclusively as his vision deteriorated, but the panic starts to creep in again as he stares in the direction of his hands, and he can't think of the next damn step.

"No," Foggy commands himself out loud. "Stop." His own voice rings loud in his ears; strangely, it's what finally grounds him enough to sit up and completely catch his breath. Dizziness swamps him as he moves to vertical and he cannot stop blinking, trying to clear the vision he no longer has. His brain stutters, tries to adjust to the contradiction of having his eyes wide blown-open and seeing only blackness.

His phone alarm goes off for the third time. Seven sixteen a.m. His phone was the last thing he looked at before falling asleep the night before, he remembers. Not a sky salted with stars, or the red Manhattan sunset, or the faces of his friends or anything worth remembering. Just a fuzzy dim impression of his phone's lock screen with its boring stock photo background, setting his stupid alarm and turning the screen off with a click.

This time when he cries, muffling the sobs with his hands, his whole body heaves with despair instead of panic, an awful, sucking feeling that tears through his chest and leaves him hollow.

--

"Karen?" he croaks into the phone, an hour later.

"Foggy, hey!" she says. Her voice is bright, but there's a hint of concern lurking there as well. "Where are you?"

His grip tightens on the blanket covering his knees. He's managed to make it to the living room, his progression embarrassingly slow, hands stretched out tremblingly until they hit the piece of furniture nearest to his bedroom, his old sofa, and he sat down gratefully. Logically, somewhere beyond the low-buzzing panic and the dizziness, he's marveling at himself, at how unsteady he feels without his eyes, even in his own home. Matt was right, he thinks, grudgingly. This is nothing like practicing with my eyes closed.

"I'm not going to be in today," he says as steadily as he can. He's honestly not sure he could even make it to the bottom floor of his apartment building without another panic attack. "It's... It happened. I'm blind."

"Oh, Foggy," Karen says quietly. Suddenly he hears Matt in the background, making questioning noises. Then it's Matt's voice speaking into the phone.

"You're sure?" Matt asks into the phone, brisk and clipped.

"Pretty damn sure, yeah," Foggy snaps back.

"Karen, close up, please," Matt orders. His voice softens a little and he turns back into the phone. "We'll be over as soon as we can, Foggy."

"No, Matt, you don't--" But Matt has already hung up Karen's phone, and Foggy doesn't bother calling back.

They make it to his apartment in fifteen minutes flat, which has to be some kind of record considering the amount of annoyed honking he can hear outside. When he finally shuffles to the door and opens it, he tries to smile at them. He can feel it wobbling on his face.

Karen reacts first, coming in for a hug, and Foggy flinches hard at the unexpected contact, her touch jarring his already jangling senses.

"Sorry, I'm sorry," she apologizes when she pulls away. "I didn't mean to startle you."

"It's fine. You didn't have to come."

"Have you called your doctor yet?" Matt asks, his voice moving past Foggy and into Foggy's entry way. Foggy tries to listen to his footsteps and turns in his general direction, but of course he has no idea how accurate he is.

"No," he throws out into the black. Then he freezes in momentary panic--he turned so fast, so instinctively, to face Matt, that he forgot to ground his sense of direction by grabbing a wall or doorframe, and now he's not sure which direction he's actually facing. He reaches behind him, searching for the wall, and finds only air. Suddenly dizzy, he leans back too far and stumbles over his own feet.

"Um... Karen?" He determinedly manages to keep his voice light and joking and steady, does not, does not let the hot shame bleed through, even a little. "Mind helping a brother out over here?"

"Yeah," comes the little whisper from somewhere in front of him, and then her voice is closer, and he can smell her shampoo. "On your right," she says as she takes his elbow and leads him, hesitant but trying to trust her, to the couch. He sits back down and resolutely does not sigh with relief.

"That will get better quickly," Matt says, somewhere on Foggy's left. The armchair, Foggy thinks. "The disorientation, I mean. Especially in familiar spaces."

"Oh, good," Foggy says. "I've only been awake for an hour and I'm already sick of not knowing where my own bathroom is." There's an awkward silence, and Foggy sighs. "Kidding, guys. I know where the damn bathroom is."

"You should call the doctor," Matt says. "Let him know it's progressed."

"I know," Foggy replies, running a hand over his face. He's still blinking too much, still trying to find light where there is none. "I will."

"How are you feeling?" Karen asks, beside him. Their knees are touching, and she's fidgeting a little.

He doesn't mean to be cruel; it's an innocent question, and Karen doesn't pity him, she just wants to know how he feels, and he knows this, but he bristles anyway and his words come out in angry, sarcastic bites. "Other than being fucking blind, I'm spectacular. How's life treating you?"

"Foggy," Matt snaps.

Foggy's logical half is telling him to cool it, that they care about him, that there is absolutely no reason to explode but the anger bubbles up so fast, so rough and and violent that he has to clench his fists to keep from hitting something. "What, am I not allowed to be angry about this? I'm sure you were a perfect darling after your accident, but we can't all be Saint Matthew." It's a name he's only ever used gently and jokingly and the past; now he throws it like a javelin, intending to hurt. He can't see the wince, but by the silence that follows, he's pretty sure he hit his mark.

He's suddenly itching, the horrible irrational fury crawling under his skin, so he pushes himself up and walks, hands out, to his kitchen. He finds the fridge fairly quickly and feels around inside until he finally grabs the neck of a beer bottle. He hears footsteps walking toward him, heavier, indicating Matt. They stop nearby.

"Foggy," Matt murmurs. He takes a halting breath, like he wants to say something else, but instead he moves forward and wraps his arms around Foggy's shoulders. This time Foggy manages not to flinch, but it's a close call. The anger still festers in Foggy's chest, but he forces himself to stay, to not pull away. Trying to take the comfort Matt wants to give him, he rests a hand on Matt's back, the soft fabric of his jacket sliding under his fingers.

"Sorry," he mutters into Matt's shoulder.

"Get some sleep." Matt presses the words into Foggy's hair, so gentle it almost tears Foggy in half, and breaks the embrace. Foggy nods, knowing Matt can sense it.

When Matt and Karen leave, the door closed with a soft click behind them, Foggy opens his beer and takes a long, long drink.

--

The next several days are a study in the nine levels of hell. Foggy gains more bruises and scrapes than he's had since he was a child playing carelessly in the streets of Hell's Kitchen. His parents visit on that first day, a few hours after Matt and Karen leave, clearly expecting him to break down into tears and let them hold him, but the dull fury still churning it's ugly way through his system keeps him stone-faced, at arm's length. His good humor and usual jokes only fly when they have harp barbs attached, meant to wound. His parents leave bewildered and sad, promising to call, and he hates their pity.

Slowly, agonizingly, he works outward in a rough spiral to expand his comfort zone inch by inch; the bedroom-bathroom-living room-kitchen circle gains the hallway closet, the storage area, the hallways around the building, and eventually the lobby. He manages to call the doctor on the second day, but he's booked completely up and can't see Foggy for another week and a half.

Matt and Karen both call him and text him every day, though they don't come over uninvited again. Foggy doesn't pick up their calls, only listlessly listens to his phone read out their text messages. He knows they're worried when he doesn't answer; he can hear it in the spaces between their words, the way they don't talk about It, only keeping him informed on how their cases are going and telling him inane silly stories about their day. One morning, as Foggy walks by his front door, he trips over something flat and hefty; when he picks it up, he discovers that it's a file folder filled with research on their latest case, typed up in Braille, and, presumably, slipped under his door.

Once, in college, Foggy had given in to the curiosity and, when Matt was at the library studying one night, he'd tied a handkerchief over his eyes and walked around their dorm room. It had been unexpectedly awful; each time his foot or shoulder caught the edge of something, a wall or a piece of furniture, he'd gotten angrier and angrier until he had ripped the handkerchief off and threw it as hard as he could, his heart racing to beat the band.

That same fitful, helpless rage simmers in him now, multiplied tenfold now that there's no handkerchief to rip away. It finally boils over three days After, when he miscalculates where the end table is for approximately the thousandth time, and stubs his pinky toe on the wooden leg. The leash breaks and he screams, something wordless and horrible. He drives his foot into the end table over and over until the heavy wood rattles. He sweeps his arm around until he finds the lamp perched on top of the table, some ugly green monstrosity that he would give anything to be able to see again, and throws it as hard as he can. It lands somewhere to his front-left with an immensely satisfying crash. The table upends, finally, with a thud and he kicks at it one last time; but this time he misses, kicking only empty air, and the momentum knocks him to his knees. His kicking foot throbs, wet with what he assumes is his blood; his knees sing from where they hit the floor. He screams again, and it feels like he's exorcising some demon that's had its hold on him ever since his world went dark.

Eventually his screams are just echoes bouncing around his apartment, and he's empty, gasping, his entire body left feeling bruised and mottled, a wasteland of color he can't see. The demon is gone, nothing but despair left in its wake. He stays on the floor for a long time, past the point of his knees aching against the hard wood, past the point of his back going stiff like an old man's. His apartment has gone cold by the time he gets up, the pathetic warmth of the late autumn sun leeched away with the turning of the earth, and begins the slow process of blindly cleaning up his mess.

Fill: Foggy is going blind, 7b/7 COMPLETE!

[(Anonymous)]

He still dreams in color, in bright, happy scenes. His waking hours are the nightmare; when he's asleep, he can see again, the faces of his friends and family perfectly sharp and clear. Matt, his teeth shining as he smiles, knuckles clear of bruises, no new stab wounds to speak of. Karen, all her golden hair hung over one shoulder in soft glossy curls, her shoulders weightless and free of burden. His parents, pushing him on some swingset in Brooklyn. His sisters, their braids flying, chasing him around the house.

Waking up is agony. There are a few days after he breaks the lamp when he just checks completely out of linear awareness; he unplugs his new talking clock, silences his phone alarm. He eats when he's hungry, so he doesn't eat; he sleeps when he's tired, so he's almost constantly in bed. The days and nights bleed and blend together so easily that it's almost hard to believe there was ever a reason for the distinction. Sometimes he wakes up with tears on his face; sometimes he makes it halfway to the kitchen for a glass of water before forgetting what he was doing and going back to bed; sometimes he doesn't open his eyes for hours, making bargains with himself that if he just waits another few minutes he'll be able to see again once he does open them.

Some time later, he wakes up from a dream in which Matt was chasing him across the Columbia campus dressed in his Daredevil suit, both of them laughing crazily, and he feels somehow, infinitesimally better. He orders his phone to read out the date and time for him: "Sunday, November third, 5:35 p.m." says the toneless voice. Four days. He's been checked out mentally, despair drowning him and starving him, for four days. He runs one hand down his face, tiredly, listens to his furnace kicking on, his refrigerator running, the tv murmuring still from when he turned it on some two or three days ago so that he wouldn't drown in the dark. He blinks a few times, still searching for a light, but just like before, he doesn't find one.

He sighs and gets out of bed. Plugs his clock back in, corrects the time. Sets his alarm for Monday morning. Turns off the tv. Sits on his couch, feels around for the folder Matt or Karen had slipped under his door. Finds the first Braille bumps with his fingers and begins to read.

--

He goes back to work the next day, still limping ever so slightly from destroying his end table. He takes a taxi, still not trusting his sense of direction anywhere other than his apartment building, and clutches his cane as he tentatively steps out onto the sidewalk, into the brisk November air.

"Door's right in front of ya, 'bout ten feet," the taxi driver says helpfully.

"Thanks," Foggy says, and he means it. He makes it to their second floor office door without incident, and, with a deep breath, pushes it open.

--

It's not easy. It's the hardest thing he's ever done, getting up every day and going back to work, asking for help with things he never used to even think about. More than once he finds himself snapping at Karen, punching a wall so he doesn't aim for Matt, breaking down into frustrated tears. He goes to therapy and starts taking antidepressants and anti-anxiety meds. Some days it seems impossible to take one more step without wrapping a rope around his neck and kicking a chair out from underneath him.

But Karen is patient, and Matt is understanding. When he cries, they hold him; when the trips or runs into things, they patch him up with gentle fingers; when he apologizes for yelling at them, they forgive him, easy as a breeze. The days he can't get out of bed begin to dissipate, grow fewer and farther between, until they're mostly a distant memory.

One day, several months after his eyes fail, he's laughing at something Matt said, and his chest feels lighter than it has in a long while. After a moment, he realizes that Karen has gone abruptly silent, and he turns in her direction.

"Karen?" he asks. "Everything okay?"

"Yeah," she says softly. There's a grin creeping at the edges of her voice. "It's just... I think that's the first time I've seen you really smile since October."

It's the first of many.




(A/N had to split this into two because I hit the character limit, wow. was not expecting that! anyway. it's finished! hope you like!!)

Re: Fill: Foggy is going blind, 7b/7 COMPLETE!

[(Anonymous)]

Loved it

Re: Fill: Foggy is going blind, 7b/7 COMPLETE!

[(Anonymous)]

OP here. This was absolutely amazing, so much better than I was hoping for when I posted the prompt! Thanks so much for writing it!

I'm glad you decided to finish on a happy note :)

Re: Fill: Foggy is going blind, 7b/7 COMPLETE!

[(Anonymous)]

Oh, anon. Wow. This was so difficult to read. It was beautiful and amazing and your pacing and grasp of describing emotions is brilliant, but for exactly that reason Foggy's despair was palpable.