Chapter 1
The first time that Foggy held Matt was a revelation, a kind of gut-punch certainty that knocks the air out of his lungs. It doesn’t feel like any of the times he’d held Marci, or Karen, when they dated briefly. It’s something new altogether, something more akin to the fear that took hold of him when he first found Matt on the floor of his apartment, bleeding out and groaning. He grips Matt tighter, whispering softly into his ear and he hears him murmur quietly. They rock together, with Matt’s head buried in Foggy’s shoulder, Foggy’s hands carding through Matt’s auburn curls, breathing in, breathing out.
He can hear Matt’s heartbeat, something that feels all the more intimate and close now that he knows that Matt can hear his even when they aren’t sat this close, this together, and there’s a certain sense of domesticity in it.
Matt looks up at Foggy after a while, after the noise outside has quietened, and he isn’t feeling as overstimulated or world-weary, and Foggy looks back at him, sure that his heart-beat betrays every emotion, every feeling, that he feels so full, so fit to burst with love.
“Are you feeling okay now, love?” Foggy begins, lowering his voice in case Matt’s senses are still slightly delicate.
Matt smiles. It’s a soft thing, his smile, all sunshine after storms, and hearing piano in the street unexpectedly. It has the same effect every time, from their college days, right till now.
Foggy nudges Matt’s legs from where they were sat on top of Foggy’s thighs, and they feel like dead weight. He stumbles for a second as he stands and Foggy reaches out a quick hand to steady him.