“Holy shit,” Foggy says when Matt finally arrives at Josie’s and carefully leverages himself into his seat. Every muscle, every particle in his body aches. “Let me guess; I should see the other guys?”
Frankly, yes, though he desperately prays Foggy will never, ever have to.
Still, Matt’s thrown off by the question. It feels completely out of context, or maybe Matt’s the one out of context. He’s not sure. His mouth gapes open, moves around words that refuse to come.
Pain explodes as the movement stretches and aggravates the open wound on his bottom lip, and he cannot begin to imagine how he must look to Foggy right now. He does remember how his dad would often look right after a fight, though. His face huge and swollen, brow bloodied, bottom lip fat and split, busted open like an overcooked sausage.
Matt must look a lot like that now.
Next to him, Foggy’s body language shifts from loose and good-natured to wary and suspicious. It was a joke; he’d meant it as a joke and Matt was supposed to have taken it as such, especially since it was one Foggy has employed often whenever Matt’s been back from the boxing gym. And now he’s sitting here not responding the way Foggy expects him to. “I’m fine. Just have to be more careful.”
“Okay, just. I worry about you, you know?” Foggy’s voice is tender and earnest, and Foggy means well, he knows he does, but he also knows his friend’s concern stems from his long-standing believe in Matt’s vulnerability out there in Time Travel Land, which is unfortunate. He understands now that the front he’s carefully constructed these past several years must seem confusing and contradictory, given Foggy’s experience of him.
Well, that’ll all get up-ended soon enough.
“Yeah, man,” he says. “I know you do. Just. Thank you. You know. For looking out for me.” Matt can smell that distinct scent of salt in the air just as Foggy blinks back unshed tears. Then Foggy’s hand inches across the sticky bar top toward his own folded ones, and Matt makes himself go very, very still.
He is incredibly aware of his own breathing. It’s the only thing he hears.
Foggy never makes contact, though, just snaps his hand away as if it had been burned, as if Matt himself was too harmful to touch, and he does his very best not to react. He can’t let on that he knows about all this drama unfolding, can’t let himself feel even the tiniest bit slighted.
“Anyway,” he says with a feigned laugh, hoping to alleviate some of the tension hanging over them.
“Have you noticed,” Foggy starts, and Matt has to swallow a smile; Foggy’s also aiming to redirect the conversation from the weirdness of the last few moments, “that we are still haven’t had our orders taken? I mean, why do we keep coming here, the service is terrible.”
“Wait. I thought we keep coming here because the service is terrible.”
A beat for effect, then: “I do believe you have a point.”
“I know I do. It’s why I said it.”
Just then Josie materializes in front of them. Right on cue. “What’ll you have, hun,” she says to Matt. She says it flatly; a rote response to one of a thousand interactions she’ll have to weather tonight. But it’s also her way of letting Matt know she’s there at all. Just don’t make the mistake of suggesting to her face that underneath the layer of stone-cold indifference lies a bleeding heart; he’s been a patron at this particular bar long enough to know you may just end up wearing some of it.
He opens his mouth, almost asks for his usual--whisky, neat--but settles on ginger ale instead. “Hope you’re not the designated driver,” she mutters before jotting down Foggy’s order and then vanishing off to wherever it is she goes.
“...you’re not, right?” Foggy inexplicably says.
“What, driving? Of course not.” He makes it a point of raising his eyebrows and screwing up his face, like Foggy should know exactly what kind of idiot he is. Foggy answers in a forceful, emphatic whisper, “no, that’s not…. I mean.” He leans in close. “You know.”
Matt understands ‘you know’ in this context to mean ‘traveling,’ so he leans in to say in the same low voice, “I assume you mean that euphemistically.”
Foggy none-so-subtly clears his throat. “You assume correctly.”
“Okay, well. I’m not. Not at the moment, anyway.”
“Not at the moment,” Foggy repeats blandly. Like he doesn’t quite understand what that string of words even mean.
Josie arrives just then with their drinks, and Matt, with his focus centered entirely on Foggy, on their conversation, startles at her voice. “Right in front of ya,” she says by way of apology, sliding his soda forward. The bottom of the glass scrapes across the wood grain as it goes, the path well-worn and familiar. She stops just short of his folded hands, and some of the soda sloshes onto the bar in front of him. He resists the urge to move his hands out of the way, to hide them, to keep his raw and swollen knuckles from coming into contact with cold, acidic liquid. Instead, he keeps his hands firmly on the sticky bar top, and offers Josie a warm, grateful smile along with a polite ‘thank you.’
“Anyway,” he repeats after she’s disappeared again, “here’s to us.”
“To us,” Foggy agrees. “To Nelson and Murdock.” And Matt has to do a small internal dance at that, because Foggy’s finally, finally gotten it right, gotten the order right. It means this thing that has been quietly brewing in the background of his life is a real thing that’s really happening, and things are finally, finally coming together. He knows it won’t last forever; he knows that, but he also knows that this new hopeful thing is something worth fighting for. And he plans on doing just that. While he still can.
*
“Well, I’d say I’d know it when I see it, but. You know.”
“You’re hilarious.”
“I do try."
“Man, I just can’t-- I mean, you’ve really been there. Really for real. Like, we haven’t even meet the real estate agent, but you know the place well enough to describe it in full detail.”
“Oh, shit. Did I travel without realizing it? I mean, my clothes don’t survive the trip usually, and I’m pretty sure I’m not naked right now, but if you don’t know, then I must have. I know it must seem weird, but I promise I can explain! See, we’re actually good friends in the future and I am-”
“--Not funny.”
“Wait, so. Does that mean you just lied to me? Because I’m pretty sure you said I was. Actually, you said I was, and I quote, ‘hilarious.’”
“Sarcasm, Matthew. Learn it. Live it. Love it.”
“Anyway. So the appointment is all set up? With the Realtor?”
“Yup. Monday morning, eight a.m. sharp.”
“Cool. I um. I should tell you I won’t be around for breakfast on Sunday.”
“‘Won’t be around’? Matt. What’s more important than freshly baked bagels, let me ask you.”
“I have things. To do.”
“Things.”
“Are you just going to repeat everything I say? Yes, things.”
“And are you going to actually tell me about these oh so important things, or do I have to guess. Oh wait, I know! You are such the sly dog. You have a date you didn’t want to tell me about. I am hurt, nay scandalized that you couldn’t trust your ol’ pal Foggy enough to…”
“No, hey, listen. I don’t have a date. I. Uh. I’m planning on attending Mass this Sunday.”
“Whoa. That’s-- Okay, no, that’s actually not all that surprising, but. Just seems kinda out of the blue. It is kinda out of the blue, isn’t it?”
“Eh. I’ve been thinking about it for a while. Met the priest traveling once; thought maybe it’s time to make it official.”
“Oh wow, look at you. Okay, so. What’dya say we grab something after, then.” “Yeah, maybe.”
“Cool. See ya when I see ya.”
*
Matt is… in the process of building himself an outfit. It’s nothing fancy, just a simple, practical affair made of easily attainable pieces meant more for ease of movement than anything else. It’s a far cry from the devil suit thing he’ll eventually end up with, but it’s a good, solid start. He plans on adding onto it incrementally, as he expects experience will be his best teacher from this point on.
He stands on his roof overlooking the city and listens. Really listens. There’s so much pain, and so much of it digs its sharp claws right into his skin, and he knows , he just knows that he has to do something about it. Knows he can’t keep his head in the sand anymore.
God. For so long he was just this dumb, naive kid. It’s actually kind of amazing how long he’d been in denial.
Well, he knows better now, and he’s decided; he ‘s finally going to do something about it.
First though. First he has something important to take care of.
*
“Forgive me, Father. It’s been. Too long since my last confession.” And once Matt opens his mouth and starts talking, the words just spill out, like a deluge. All those old wounds, wounds he didn’t know he still carried, wounds that still rot and fester in the dark depths of his subconscious; they all come bubbling up to the surface now as he unburdens his soul; tells this priest about his dad, about how he’s been thinking about him a real lot lately, about how they’re alike, and how they’re not, and importantly, about how they both got the devil in ‘em.
“But do you have anything to confess. This is confession after all.”
And when Matt asks the priest for forgiveness not for what he has done, but for what he will do, the man’s stunned silence fills entire libraries.
When he finds his voice the other man manages, “what is it you plan on doing?”
That night Matt frees the devil for the first time. Tonight it’s sex trafficking, but who knows what’ll come next. God. He thought he knew what he was getting himself into, but he had fucking idea, did he.
He does know this: it feels good to do good, and he doesn’t want to stop.
*
“Didn’t have a date my ass,” Foggy says when he calls Matt the next morning. He hurts. Pretty much everywhere.
“I swear I didn’t.”
“Uh huh. Well, come on. Up and at ‘em. We’ve got so much time! And too little to… Actually, strike that. Reverse it.”
A long pause. “You never laugh at my jokes.”
“You’re right; never.”
But before meeting the Realtor, they grab coffee first.
“That is quite the shiner you’re rocking.” Foggy says. He sips his double espresso mocha hazelnut latte or whatever it is. He sounds upset, though Matt suspects he might be imagining it.
“Just have to be careful,” he says, playing it off like it’s nothing.
“Uh huh.”
Foggy saw him just the other night; he knows full well that Matt’s sporting a brand new injury.
Matt shrugs. “Sometimes… finding clothes isn’t. Ideal.” Even though he hasn’t traveled recently, and he has not, will not, not ever, beat the snot out of some poor soul just for something to wear. And he hates himself for implying so.
Foggy just responds with a stretched out “Jesus,” like he’s come to some new and entirely distasteful understanding of who Matt even is now. Like, as a person. He shifts uncomfortably under his friend’s scrutiny and as he does, he worries at the leather strap of his cane. It doesn’t really help.
Foggy checks his watch, says, “ ready to rock and roll?”
And Matt nods. Here it is; time to go.
*
They look at a few different places, none of which meets Matt’s approval.
He finds reasonable excuses for rejecting each of the properties they look at but Foggy’s getting frustrated. Sure, he’s doing his best not to show it, but Matt can tell.
“I’ll know it,” he assures after he’d rejected both places they’d toured so far.
Foggy makes some kind of deep guttural sound at the back of his throat. He thinks Matt can’t hear it, but of course he can.
He understands. He really does. Plus, Foggy’s mentioned hating feeling beholden to Matt’s impressions of the future before, hates the fact that he feels trapped within the confines of time as if Matt himself controls its unfolding. He doesn’t, of course he doesn’t, but he understands. Understands where Foggy’s coming from. Understands why anyone might think Matt, of all people, would have any kind of say in these things.
“This is getting ridiculous,” Foggy mutters as they leave the third property of the day. It’s getting to be late afternoon; the sun is setting, and he and Foggy, and their poor, harried Realtor would like to wrap this all up and go home already.
“Fog,” he mutters back. “Trust me on this. I know what I’m looking for.”
“I am trusting the blind man to know what he’s looking for. That’s just fantastic.”
“Hey. Have I ever been wrong about this sort of thing?”
“How would I know?”
“Yeah. You might have a point there,” because who can keep track of what someone else may or may not know.
The third time’s the charm though as they trudge up endless flights of stairs into the office Matt knows will be the future home of Nelson and Murdock, Attorneys at law. He can’t help the goofy grin threatening to take over his entire face when he enters the conference room. This is it. This is the very room where he smacked his head from underneath the conference table that will eventually live here.
He turns to Foggy, trying to tamp down his enthusiasm.
“Yeah?” Foggy asks, and Matt grins widely at him.
“Yeah,” he says to his friend. Then to the their poor beleaguered Realtor, “we’ll take it.”
Re: Always Crashing in the Same Car part 20
Frankly, yes, though he desperately prays Foggy will never, ever have to.
Still, Matt’s thrown off by the question. It feels completely out of context, or maybe Matt’s the one out of context. He’s not sure. His mouth gapes open, moves around words that refuse to come.
Pain explodes as the movement stretches and aggravates the open wound on his bottom lip, and he cannot begin to imagine how he must look to Foggy right now. He does remember how his dad would often look right after a fight, though. His face huge and swollen, brow bloodied, bottom lip fat and split, busted open like an overcooked sausage.
Matt must look a lot like that now.
Next to him, Foggy’s body language shifts from loose and good-natured to wary and suspicious. It was a joke; he’d meant it as a joke and Matt was supposed to have taken it as such, especially since it was one Foggy has employed often whenever Matt’s been back from the boxing gym. And now he’s sitting here not responding the way Foggy expects him to. “I’m fine. Just have to be more careful.”
“Okay, just. I worry about you, you know?” Foggy’s voice is tender and earnest, and Foggy means well, he knows he does, but he also knows his friend’s concern stems from his long-standing believe in Matt’s vulnerability out there in Time Travel Land, which is unfortunate. He understands now that the front he’s carefully constructed these past several years must seem confusing and contradictory, given Foggy’s experience of him.
Well, that’ll all get up-ended soon enough.
“Yeah, man,” he says. “I know you do. Just. Thank you. You know. For looking out for me.” Matt can smell that distinct scent of salt in the air just as Foggy blinks back unshed tears. Then Foggy’s hand inches across the sticky bar top toward his own folded ones, and Matt makes himself go very, very still.
He is incredibly aware of his own breathing. It’s the only thing he hears.
Foggy never makes contact, though, just snaps his hand away as if it had been burned, as if Matt himself was too harmful to touch, and he does his very best not to react. He can’t let on that he knows about all this drama unfolding, can’t let himself feel even the tiniest bit slighted.
“Anyway,” he says with a feigned laugh, hoping to alleviate some of the tension hanging over them.
“Have you noticed,” Foggy starts, and Matt has to swallow a smile; Foggy’s also aiming to redirect the conversation from the weirdness of the last few moments, “that we are still haven’t had our orders taken? I mean, why do we keep coming here, the service is terrible.”
“Wait. I thought we keep coming here because the service is terrible.”
A beat for effect, then: “I do believe you have a point.”
“I know I do. It’s why I said it.”
Just then Josie materializes in front of them. Right on cue. “What’ll you have, hun,” she says to Matt. She says it flatly; a rote response to one of a thousand interactions she’ll have to weather tonight. But it’s also her way of letting Matt know she’s there at all. Just don’t make the mistake of suggesting to her face that underneath the layer of stone-cold indifference lies a bleeding heart; he’s been a patron at this particular bar long enough to know you may just end up wearing some of it.
He opens his mouth, almost asks for his usual--whisky, neat--but settles on ginger ale instead. “Hope you’re not the designated driver,” she mutters before jotting down Foggy’s order and then vanishing off to wherever it is she goes.
“...you’re not, right?” Foggy inexplicably says.
“What, driving? Of course not.” He makes it a point of raising his eyebrows and screwing up his face, like Foggy should know exactly what kind of idiot he is.
Foggy answers in a forceful, emphatic whisper, “no, that’s not…. I mean.” He leans in close. “You know.”
Matt understands ‘you know’ in this context to mean ‘traveling,’ so he leans in to say in the same low voice, “I assume you mean that euphemistically.”
Foggy none-so-subtly clears his throat. “You assume correctly.”
“Okay, well. I’m not. Not at the moment, anyway.”
“Not at the moment,” Foggy repeats blandly. Like he doesn’t quite understand what that string of words even mean.
Josie arrives just then with their drinks, and Matt, with his focus centered entirely on Foggy, on their conversation, startles at her voice. “Right in front of ya,” she says by way of apology, sliding his soda forward. The bottom of the glass scrapes across the wood grain as it goes, the path well-worn and familiar. She stops just short of his folded hands, and some of the soda sloshes onto the bar in front of him. He resists the urge to move his hands out of the way, to hide them, to keep his raw and swollen knuckles from coming into contact with cold, acidic liquid. Instead, he keeps his hands firmly on the sticky bar top, and offers Josie a warm, grateful smile along with a polite ‘thank you.’
“Anyway,” he repeats after she’s disappeared again, “here’s to us.”
“To us,” Foggy agrees. “To Nelson and Murdock.” And Matt has to do a small internal dance at that, because Foggy’s finally, finally gotten it right, gotten the order right. It means this thing that has been quietly brewing in the background of his life is a real thing that’s really happening, and things are finally, finally coming together. He knows it won’t last forever; he knows that, but he also knows that this new hopeful thing is something worth fighting for. And he plans on doing just that. While he still can.
*
“Well, I’d say I’d know it when I see it, but. You know.”
“You’re hilarious.”
“I do try."
“Man, I just can’t-- I mean, you’ve really been there. Really for real. Like, we haven’t even meet the real estate agent, but you know the place well enough to describe it in full detail.”
“Oh, shit. Did I travel without realizing it? I mean, my clothes don’t survive the trip usually, and I’m pretty sure I’m not naked right now, but if you don’t know, then I must have. I know it must seem weird, but I promise I can explain! See, we’re actually good friends in the future and I am-”
“--Not funny.”
“Wait, so. Does that mean you just lied to me? Because I’m pretty sure you said I was. Actually, you said I was, and I quote, ‘hilarious.’”
“Sarcasm, Matthew. Learn it. Live it. Love it.”
“Anyway. So the appointment is all set up? With the Realtor?”
“Yup. Monday morning, eight a.m. sharp.”
“Cool. I um. I should tell you I won’t be around for breakfast on Sunday.”
“‘Won’t be around’? Matt. What’s more important than freshly baked bagels, let me ask you.”
“I have things. To do.”
“Things.”
“Are you just going to repeat everything I say? Yes, things.”
“And are you going to actually tell me about these oh so important things, or do I have to guess. Oh wait, I know! You are such the sly dog. You have a date you didn’t want to tell me about. I am hurt, nay scandalized that you couldn’t trust your ol’ pal Foggy enough to…”
“No, hey, listen. I don’t have a date. I. Uh. I’m planning on attending Mass this Sunday.”
“Whoa. That’s-- Okay, no, that’s actually not all that surprising, but. Just seems kinda out of the blue. It is kinda out of the blue, isn’t it?”
“Eh. I’ve been thinking about it for a while. Met the priest traveling once; thought maybe it’s time to make it official.”
“Oh wow, look at you. Okay, so. What’dya say we grab something after, then.”
“Yeah, maybe.”
“Cool. See ya when I see ya.”
*
Matt is… in the process of building himself an outfit. It’s nothing fancy, just a simple, practical affair made of easily attainable pieces meant more for ease of movement than anything else. It’s a far cry from the devil suit thing he’ll eventually end up with, but it’s a good, solid start. He plans on adding onto it incrementally, as he expects experience will be his best teacher from this point on.
He stands on his roof overlooking the city and listens. Really listens. There’s so much pain, and so much of it digs its sharp claws right into his skin, and he knows , he just knows that he has to do something about it. Knows he can’t keep his head in the sand anymore.
God. For so long he was just this dumb, naive kid. It’s actually kind of amazing how long he’d been in denial.
Well, he knows better now, and he’s decided; he ‘s finally going to do something about it.
First though. First he has something important to take care of.
*
“Forgive me, Father. It’s been. Too long since my last confession.” And once Matt opens his mouth and starts talking, the words just spill out, like a deluge. All those old wounds, wounds he didn’t know he still carried, wounds that still rot and fester in the dark depths of his subconscious; they all come bubbling up to the surface now as he unburdens his soul; tells this priest about his dad, about how he’s been thinking about him a real lot lately, about how they’re alike, and how they’re not, and importantly, about how they both got the devil in ‘em.
“But do you have anything to confess. This is confession after all.”
And when Matt asks the priest for forgiveness not for what he has done, but for what he will do, the man’s stunned silence fills entire libraries.
When he finds his voice the other man manages, “what is it you plan on doing?”
That night Matt frees the devil for the first time. Tonight it’s sex trafficking, but who knows what’ll come next. God. He thought he knew what he was getting himself into, but he had fucking idea, did he.
He does know this: it feels good to do good, and he doesn’t want to stop.
*
“Didn’t have a date my ass,” Foggy says when he calls Matt the next morning. He hurts. Pretty much everywhere.
“I swear I didn’t.”
“Uh huh. Well, come on. Up and at ‘em. We’ve got so much time! And too little to… Actually, strike that. Reverse it.”
A long pause. “You never laugh at my jokes.”
“You’re right; never.”
But before meeting the Realtor, they grab coffee first.
“That is quite the shiner you’re rocking.” Foggy says. He sips his double espresso mocha hazelnut latte or whatever it is. He sounds upset, though Matt suspects he might be imagining it.
“Just have to be careful,” he says, playing it off like it’s nothing.
“Uh huh.”
Foggy saw him just the other night; he knows full well that Matt’s sporting a brand new injury.
Matt shrugs. “Sometimes… finding clothes isn’t. Ideal.” Even though he hasn’t traveled recently, and he has not, will not, not ever, beat the snot out of some poor soul just for something to wear. And he hates himself for implying so.
Foggy just responds with a stretched out “Jesus,” like he’s come to some new and entirely distasteful understanding of who Matt even is now. Like, as a person. He shifts uncomfortably under his friend’s scrutiny and as he does, he worries at the leather strap of his cane. It doesn’t really help.
Foggy checks his watch, says, “ ready to rock and roll?”
And Matt nods. Here it is; time to go.
*
They look at a few different places, none of which meets Matt’s approval.
He finds reasonable excuses for rejecting each of the properties they look at but Foggy’s getting frustrated. Sure, he’s doing his best not to show it, but Matt can tell.
“I’ll know it,” he assures after he’d rejected both places they’d toured so far.
Foggy makes some kind of deep guttural sound at the back of his throat. He thinks Matt can’t hear it, but of course he can.
He understands. He really does. Plus, Foggy’s mentioned hating feeling beholden to Matt’s impressions of the future before, hates the fact that he feels trapped within the confines of time as if Matt himself controls its unfolding. He doesn’t, of course he doesn’t, but he understands. Understands where Foggy’s coming from. Understands why anyone might think Matt, of all people, would have any kind of say in these things.
“This is getting ridiculous,” Foggy mutters as they leave the third property of the day. It’s getting to be late afternoon; the sun is setting, and he and Foggy, and their poor, harried Realtor would like to wrap this all up and go home already.
“Fog,” he mutters back. “Trust me on this. I know what I’m looking for.”
“I am trusting the blind man to know what he’s looking for. That’s just fantastic.”
“Hey. Have I ever been wrong about this sort of thing?”
“How would I know?”
“Yeah. You might have a point there,” because who can keep track of what someone else may or may not know.
The third time’s the charm though as they trudge up endless flights of stairs into the office Matt knows will be the future home of Nelson and Murdock, Attorneys at law.
He can’t help the goofy grin threatening to take over his entire face when he enters the conference room. This is it. This is the very room where he smacked his head from underneath the conference table that will eventually live here.
He turns to Foggy, trying to tamp down his enthusiasm.
“Yeah?” Foggy asks, and Matt grins widely at him.
“Yeah,” he says to his friend. Then to the their poor beleaguered Realtor, “we’ll take it.”
*