So What Comes Next? (You Tell Me.)
By the time Karen woke up, Matt had brought her to her apartment. He tucked her into her bed, then sat there at the end of the kitchen table, head in his hands, waiting.
He wasn’t waiting for long. He wondered why. Was she just that strong? Was it just because she was so much older than he was when he Turned? It had taken so much longer for him.
She stumbled into the kitchen and sat down heavily. “Please tell me I got black-out drunk and hallucinated that.”
“I promised I wouldn’t lie anymore,” Matt said, trying to paste on a charming smile. He fidgeted, tapping his fingers up and down the legs of his sunglasses. He wanted to put them on, to protect himself, so bad- but she deserved better. He needed to be open, honest, vulnerable, because it wasn’t fair to her for him to try to… Distance himself from the situation, guard himself, lock himself away where it was safe.
He had to trust he wouldn’t get hurt in the process. And anyway, even if he did… Karen wouldn’t hurt him unless he really, well and truly deserved it. (He already deserved it.)
Karen breathed out through her nose. “Okay.”
To her credit, she only sounded marginally hysterical.
“So,” she hummed, faux-conversationally, “What was that then?”
Tapping his glasses wasn’t enough, he realized belatedly, after he noticed his leg was bouncing up and down too. He hoped Karen didn’t notice.
She definitely would.
He sighed, pressing his mouth and cheeks into the palms of his hands. “A vampire.”
“Excuse me, I thought you just said, a vampire,” Karen said, like she was pretending to be amused- but she really wasn’t.
He flinched away. “A vampire,” he repeated, once again hoping she wouldn’t notice. He was failing at keeping his voice steady, but he kept trying anyway. This wasn’t about him.
“Okay,” she said, and now she really did sound a little hysterical. “Norse gods, aliens, magic- why not vampires?” She ran a hand through her hair before fisting her hand through it, tugging lightly on the roots. It was a nervous habit of hers. “Why do you know what it was?”
That was just like her. Hitting the nail on the head, as always.
“I’m gonna- I need to call Foggy. It’s, it's not fair to tell you without telling him.” He abandoned his glasses, standing up so he could pull his phone out of his back pocket, fumbling for it with shaky hands.
He could feel the Look she was giving him, but she didn’t say anything, so he continued.
“‘Yello? Tryna make guacamole but you’re one avocado short-” Foggy began.
“Foggy,” Matt said.
Foggy immediately stopped. “Matty?”
“No one’s in danger, so don’t freak, but I need, need you to come by Karen’s house. I have… one last thing to tell you guys, one I didn’t know how to tell you before.”
“I’ll be right there. This better be the last.” Foggy hung up.
Matt let out a shaky sigh and tucked his phone back away, before sinking back into his chair. He buried his face in his hands once more, keeping himself from drifting away by counting Karen’s breaths.
“So. What’s this about?” Foggy said carefully as he walked into the kitchen. “You two dating or something?”
Matt couldn’t quite help the twitch of his nose in disgust. Luckily, Karen reacted the same way, so she wouldn’t be offended. “Ew, Foggy. That’d be like dating you.”
“Yuck,” Karen agreed. “But we’re getting off topic.”
He could always count on her to stay focused when information was on the line.
“Yeah, okay. Um. First, let’s catch you up to why… Yeah,” he said. Where was his silver-tongued, lawyer-esque abilities with words?
Probably fighting with his issues of getting close to people. Foggy and Karen were just like that.
Foggy sat down next to Karen, and Matt couldn’t help but feel like a child in front of their disappointed parents. Which was weird, considering he’d only ever had his dad, so he'd certainly never been in any similar situation-
Even in his head, he was stalling. He was so lucky his friends were so patient, so willing to let him gather his thoughts. He couldn’t disappoint them further.
“So. I’ve been looking for this guy. For, well, a while now. And I couldn’t find him- he was very smart, even though… Yeah. Um, I realized I couldn’t find him at night, but maybe he was less careful during the day? I’m still not sure if he was just careful or if he knew I was protecting the city, so… Might as well try, you know? Nothing else was working. But looking for him as Matt Murdock would be kinda tricky, ‘cause you know, Matt Murdock wandering town alone… wouldn’t really work. So I came to the office, and grabbed Karen since she was there. Then I found the guy, and told Karen to stay back, ‘cause I knew how dangerous he was, and she wasn’t… couldn’t have been ready for it, and I couldn’t explain it right then. Except, Karen didn’t really stay back.”
“In my defense, you launched yourself at him and he tried to bite you. There was no way I wasn’t going to help,” Karen told him sternly.
“You should have,” Matt replied, his voice strained. “Because, well, it wouldn’t have really bothered me. Anyway, I…” His words dried up.
Before he could panic, Karen burst out, “He stabbed him, and the guy turned to dust and blew away in the wind, like flipping Rasputin in Anastasia!”
Bless her, for saying it for him.
“What.”
Matt winced. “So, the thing is, the guy was a vampire.”
“What.”
“That's not any less weird than it was the first time you said it,” Karen noted, sounding morbidly amused. “Anyway, that's what I said, and then he insisted on calling for you,” she huffed. She was probably salty about having to stew in questions while waiting for Foggy.
“‘Cause there’s a story here, isn’t there?” Foggy said flatly, and wow, he reacted even less then Karen did. That was… rather concerning. His heart rate had barely picked up.
Matt hesitated, but nodded. “You see… Um, I don’t know how to… Well…” His tongue tripped over itself.
“Spit it out,” Foggy told him. He didn’t sound angry, but he certainly didn’t sound like Matt’s Foggy.
“I, I knew he was a vampire, because… Because so am I,” he whispered, his words rushing out of him like he only had a few seconds to tell them before he lost the chance forever.
He cringed, waiting for their reactions. He waited for them to recoil in disgust, start shouting on him, walk out on him.
He was not prepared for Karen to say, “Oh, makes sense.”
He could feel Foggy staring at him, before putting his head in his own hands. “Okay,” he said, words muffled.
Matt couldn’t do anything but blink in shock. “Why? What? How are you so calm?!”
“To be fair, nothing’s really shocking at this point,” Karen told him drily. “We both like in New York, and we know you. Like, I’m definitely still processing, but honestly? Not the weirdest thing I’ve ever heard.”
“Speak for yourself,” Foggy grumbled. “I am absolutely freaking out right now. But okay. Okay, okay, okay. So. My best friend is a vampire.”
And with those words, Matt couldn’t move. He felt paralyzed, like he was one of the vampire's victims.
“Wait.”
Matt flinched, turning to face Foggy instantly, knowing what was coming.
“You’re Catholic.”
Okay, maybe he didn’t know what was coming.
“Oh my gosh, you are! How does that work?” Karen gasped, sounding almost offended she hadn’t thought of it first.
Matt sighed. “Just because I’m a vampire doesn’t mean that God isn’t real,” he told them drily, rolling his eyes.
“Sure, but don’t holy things hurt vampires?” Karen asked slowly.
“Eh. Yeah, kinda, but you get used to it. It’s not so bad. Now way close to bad enough for me to even think of missing mass,” Matt scoffed.
“Matt.”
“Well, look. God hasn’t kicked me out of His church yet, so I have no excuse not to come. Just because I’m a creature of the night and it hurts doesn’t mean that I can’t at least try to make it up to Him for being… this way. Like, I’m definitely going to Hell, but I can at least show God I’m sorry, right?” He said, fiddling with the sleeve of his shirt.
“Matt.” Foggy and Karen spoke in unison.
(Matt was so screwed.)
He hurried on to say, “Father Lantom thinks there’s a purpose in me being a vampire, anyway. He doesn’t think that I won’t be able to go to Heaven or anything, which is nice of him I guess. He thinks I have some role to play I’ll only be able to play as a vampire. I don’t know.” Matt shrugged, like it didn’t bother him and never had.
“We are so talking about this later,” Foggy told him darkly. “For now though- How did you become a vampire?! Did you, I dunno, inherit it or something?”
Matt scoffed. “Vampires can’t reproduce,” he said, rolling his eyes.
“What.”
“Well then, how?”
Matt reached up to touch his eyelids self-consciously. He didn’t like the feeling of his calloused fingertips on his sensitive eyelids, and quickly brought his hand back to his lap. “So. When I said that I got blinded by chemicals… I wasn’t lying, but that was a half-truth.”
Foggy and Karen settled further into their seats, and he could feel the weight of their full attention on him as he cleared his throat.
“So, um, thing is, vampires are just like people- there’s so many types, personalities, professions, you know. I’ve technically only met one vampire, but I know enough to explain this. Anyway, so just like there’s good and bad people, there’s good and bad vampires. Obviously it's more complicated than that, but you get the point. So, mad-scientist vampires exist, just as mad-scientist humans do. And they have a little more power than your average human, so they’re more dangerous.
So, anyway, there’s like a cult, and they’re obsessed with the idea of turning people into, like, super vampires or whatever. Anyway. I’ll get back to that in a minute. Vampire blood is kind of corrosive, but if it mixes with your blood, gets in your system… You Turn.” Matt rubbed his fingertips, tasting his own blood on the air. He’d picked at his nails until they began to bleed. He was probably going to get a lecture about that again later- unless they forgot about it. He hoped they would forget.
“So, there I was, right, shoving that old man out of the way of the vehicle. And I get this stuff dumped on me, right?” He rubbed his wrists anxiously. “And it gets in my eyes. It’s like acid, because vampire blood, and the blood has all these chemicals in it. And I guess I should explain here, um. The vampire the blood came from was killed, that's where it all came from. The cult was experimenting on him. They wanted to make Enhanced vampires, but it killed him. So they sucked all the blood out, with all the samples they'd kept from him, and were transporting it to see if they could experiment any more with it.” He was struggling to put things in order. He’d never had to tell anyone before.
“So. It gets in my eyes, and the blood destroys them, so I got blinded. But my blood got contaminated with the super-blood, not sure how it worked, but it did,” he rambled. “So when I Turned, I didn’t turn normally, I guess.” He scrubbed harder at his skin. “Can’t even be a normal vampire,” he laughed, but there was little humor in the sound.
“So now I’ve got all this vampire-stuff, but it's whacked up, even for a vampire. I didn’t get the healing or mock-immortality vampires are supposed to get. Instead, I got extra senses. Vampires already have keen noses, ears, wicked sense of taste and smell, clever eyes, the whole package. I got all that, but enhanced. Normal vampires have maybe a third of my senses. Except, obviously, my sight. They have me beat there,” he laughed again, the hollow sound unpleasant to his own ears. “It’s not fun getting Turned, though. Especially when you’re nine years old and have no idea what’s going on. Anyway. So I told you a little about my mentor, right?” It not being ‘pleasant’ was putting it far, far too kindly.
“Uh, the blind dude. Stick, right?” Foggy said.
“He’s blind and a ninja and trained you. That's all we know,” Karen agreed.
“I didn’t tell you anything else? Huh,” Matt mused. “Anyway. So he’s a vampire too. He’s the one who told me what was going on. He taught me everything I know about it. He’s the only vampire I’ve ever met.”
“Wait, but how didn’t you know?” Foggy wrinkled his nose. “Like, by the time he found you, you definitely had to recognize what you were, or else you would have starved and stuff, right?” He was tilting his head like he was confused. He must have picked that up from all his years of knowing Matt.
“What do you mean?” Matt tapped the table with his fingers. “It was only a few months after I got turned, and we were poor but not quite that poor?” It had always been a concern for Matt, but he’d never starved, exactly.
“Wait,” Karen put her hand flat on the table. “I thought you said Stick trained you for less than a year before he left you.”
“Yeah?” Matt confirmed, trying to stop fidgeting.
A moment of silence, and then, “Please tell me he found you later and taught you how to fight then,” Foggy breathed.
“Of course not,” Matt snorted. “He didn’t contact me after that, until, you know.”
Karen whimpered and thunked her head onto her arms.
“What? What’s wrong?” Matt squirmed. “What’d I do?”
Foggy was pinching the bridge of his nose and breathing very carefully. Matt couldn’t miss the way both of their hearts were racing.
“Matt,” he said steadily. “You’re telling me. That you. Were a soldier. When you were a kid.”
“Eh, not exactly,” Matt corrected. “I failed the training and he left. I was too attached to him, or something. So I was never a soldier, and never fought in his war or anything.”
Karen let out a tiny, muffled scream. Matt doubted it was loud enough for Foggy to hear, but he definitely heard it.
He did not jump.
He doubted either of them would be able to call him out on it, considering Karen’s face was still on her arms, and Foggy was frozen. He was just mouthing something over and over again without putting any voice to it.
Which was rude.
“What?” Matt was starting to get frustrated. “So I was a little young to fight. Big deal. Just means I should have started being Daredevil that much earlier, instead of wasting it all on trying to make Stick proud, like an idiot.”
“No,” Foggy hissed. “Those are bad thoughts, Matt. And oh my gosh my best friend is a child soldier.”
“Was,” Matt corrected again. “Again, I never fought in the war or finished my training. ‘Soldier’ is debatable. Maybe it kinda sucked, and maybe it screwed me up just a little bit, but I definitely would not have survived this long without his teachings.”
Matt grew serious then. “And there’s a big reason I’m telling you this now, and it’s not just because this whole thing gave me enough proof for me to explain this all and have you all believe me.”
“We would have believed you, Matt,” Foggy sighed, rubbing his temples. Matt had given him a headache. He was such an awful friend. “Maybe it would have taken a little while, but we would have.”
“What’s the reason?” Karen was getting them back on topic. She was amazing. She definitely wasn’t feeling great, but here she was, being incredible as always. She lifted her head enough to rest her chin on her arms.
Matt cringed anyway. “This… is why I wanted you to stay back, Karen. That vampire… He was feral. He, didn’t, didn’t know how to control his bites at that point. He may never have known, I don’t know. He was panicking, when he bit you. He didn’t just paralyze you, like he would have normally, instinctively. He ended up injecting you with some of his blood.” Matt took in a shaky breath. “Karen… You’re a vampire now.”
Both of them were silent, beyond their regular body sounds. Except they weren’t quite regular, now. Their heart rates stuttered, before picking up so fast he could feel their pulses in their ears. The rush of their blood, pounding adrenaline, quickening of breath.
Their bodies reacted to the news.
But they didn’t.
He held his breath, caught in his teeth, refusing to let it out or replace it. He could taste the staleness in it, but he couldn’t make himself release it. The moment stretched on ahead of him, endless, eternal, the miserable future, straining and stretching ahead of him like so much terrible taffy.
“What?” Karen finally gasped, her voice small and broken, shattering the moment.
He cringed, unclenched his jaws, forcing his lungs to inflate, then deflate, then inflate again. He had to be ready to explain, had to-
“Your heart is already slower,” he murmured. “Your- you’re colder now, your blood is thinning already… And your stomach is growling, I can hear the rumble though I doubt you can, definitely not yet, and I bet you’re confused, because nothing you think about sounds good right now, right?”
She stared at him, mouth parted slightly, shallow breaths echoing from it, inaudible to everyone else. Would it be to her, when she had finished Turning? He didn’t know. He almost thought he could hear just how fast she was thinking.
“Take a good sniff,” he encouraged quietly. “Foggy smell pretty good right now?”
Foggy shifted uncomfortably. “Matt-” He probably felt like prey all of a sudden. Matt was ruining this- he was only making things w o r s e.
Karen’s heart hammered like a hummingbird’s- which, for a vampire, is rather alarming.
“But that’s okay, don’t worry,” he continued. “You’re a modern vampire- we know better than we did in ye olden times. As long as you don’t go feral, there shouldn’t be any instances of you draining anyone, and no instances of you drinking from anyone unwilling. Or, even, at all- there’s other options. And no, I don’t mean animal blood, though you could if you wanted.” He wrinkled his nose.
“I-” Karen whimpered, and Foggy scooted up close, apparently getting over his little fright, in order to rub her back gently.
“Instead, you’ll probably consume mostly coconut water, and whatever else you decide you want to eat, though you shouldn’t eat any regular food for a while until your body gets used to things. And, um, I’ll help you with all of this, obviously, and, uh, your senses, your new form, and-” his rambling bled out of his mouth, getting faster and faster as his nerves rode higher and higher.
“Stop for a minute,” Foggy snapped.
Matt flinched, before recovering and holding perfectly still.
“Okay,” Foggy said, a note of apology in his voice. He’s taking charge.
Matt shouldn’t be so relieved.
“So. You’re a vampire. So’s Karen, now. We can’t stop this?”
Matt spat out a laugh, so sharp he was amazed it didn’t cut their ears until they were bleeding ripped-open-gushing-blood-pain.
“No,” his voice cracked, “Once your blood mixes with vampire blood? That's it for you. Bye bye, humanity,” he laughed again, but he was shaking.
So was Karen. She was trembling, and he realized she was probably staring at the table at this point, unable to respond.
“Hug her,” he told Foggy without warning.
“I- what?” Foggy spluttered, still trying to process.
“She’s cold. She’s in shock and she’s becoming a vampire- she can’t regulate her temperature like this. She needs body heat. I can’t give her that, because I’m colder than she is. She still has vestiges of her original warmth, though it's fading quickly. I’ll get a blanket to help trap in the heat, but you need to hug her until she’s back with us.”
The words felt strange in his mouth. Was this him? Was he the one saying this? Was this real? Was Karen really becoming a vampire?
Was his worst nightmare coming true, the cause of his greatest dream coming true?
He’d wanted to tell them about being a vampire, so bad.
He’d give anything for them to not have to know.
He forced himself to his feet, and next thing he knew he was tugging a heavy, thick comforter off a bed- Karen’s. It smelled like her, and why would she have another bed?- and lugging it back to them, wrapping the plush thing in a tight cocoon around his friends as if he could only protect them from this nightmare if he wrapped it tightly enough, kept them warm and comfortable enough.
But warmth and comfort didn’t mean they were safe.
He stood there awkwardly for a moment, as Foggy whispered to Karen (Matt blocked it out as best as he could. It wasn’t for him.) and tried his best to comfort her. He was in shock too, though.
Matt was fine. He should be fixing this.
He’d only make it worse.
The next thing he knew, he’d hopped up onto Karen’s counter and wedged himself into the corner, where it met the wall, tucking himself into a tiny ball, like some foul creature of the night suddenly faced with a blindingly bright light.
Maybe he was in shock too, maybe he just felt guilty (like he should), maybe it was just cold in the apartment- he couldn’t tell. He was shivering, and despite his position, there wasn’t any heat to conserve. Funny, how he still had that instinct.
He probably looked like a frightened child.
He was so useless to them, couldn’t protect them, couldn’t be normal for them, couldn’t even explain things right to them.
It was all his fault.
Matt was so cold.
—------------------------------------—------------------------------------—------------------------------------
Once Karen started to return to… well, herself, Matt found himself moving. The last thing he wanted was for them to see him- they’d pity him, and try to comfort him, because they were so kind and even though he didn’t deserve it at all they would try to make it all about him.
(or worse, they wouldn’t, they’d be so mad, so b e t r a y e d, they’d-)
But this wasn’t about him.
While he was in the kitchen, and Karen was so cold, he might as well make himself useful by bringing her something warm.
She shouldn’t have any human foods in her right now, but she deserved to at least have something hot. Tea would be the least offensive option to her Turning body right now, so he began preparing it.
Karen seemed to be studying her hands, taking stock of her body, inspecting it as if the changes would be visible.
(Maybe they are. He wouldn’t know)
By the time she looked up, steel in her spine and her will gathered around her like all the armor and weapons she could ever need, he had already slid over the cup of steaming tea.
She grabbed it, absorbing the warmth from the heated ceramic, breathing it in. “Thanks,” she said hoarsely, before clearing her throat.
She looked up, but Matt wasn’t there.
He didn’t know when it’d happened. He still was focussing on the sensory input created by his best friends (Did he deserve to call them that, when he-), so he hardly noticed the environment around him changing. It wasn’t like the distance meant anything to his senses- especially not when he was focusing entirely on them.
He forced himself to take stock of his surroundings after registering her breath quickening in alarm.
Where was he? Why wasn’t he there, comforting her?
He was a coward, that’s why.
He’d fled, at some point, and it didn’t matter that he didn’t remember doing it. He was on her rooftop, for whatever stupid reason, shivering in the wind, scrunched up on the highest part- on top of the door for roof-access, for the little garden up there. Karen didn’t come up here though. It wasn’t hers.
And he had the feeling he hadn’t come up through the door, anyway.
Stupid.
He couldn’t make himself unscrunch, though.
He didn’t realize he’d drifted off again, to… wherever he’d been going, until he registered their presence again.
“Matt?” Foggy called, looking around the roof.
He’d used the door.
He wasn’t going to look up. Matt could just wait there, silently, until he left. Matt was good at silence. It was easy to be silent. He couldn’t hurt them if they didn’t even know he was there. (he couldn’t be hurt if they didn’t know he was there-) It was safe. For all parties involved.
But Foggy was confused, and concerned, and sad. And Karen, standing next to him, shivering, was scared, and cold. They would just keep looking for him.
And they deserved answers.
Before he realized what he was doing, he had unfolded himself and thunked down next to them.
“I’m sorry,” he told them.
They just seemed relieved, weirdly enough. They should be more scared. That was the reaction he was used to- the only reaction he should receive. No one should be relieved at the sight of him, that was-
“Come back inside, please,” Foggy told him.
Matt could never say no to Foggy.
(Why had he been on the roof?)
They didn’t ask, thankfully. He didn’t have an answer, anyway.
He pulled himself together, as much as he could, cobbled up with his desire to be good enough for them, he refusal to let them down any more than he already did, and his determination to not be w e a k.
They would hate that entire train of thought. He stopped thinking it.
He tried to sit at the kitchen again, but Foggy dragged them all onto Karen’s uncomfortable couch. He flung the blanket around them, and tucked them all in.
Foggy was very warm.
Matt was not.
“So,” Foggy started, when they’d both all settled in, Matt and Karen comfortably tucked under Foggy’s arms, soaking in his warmth. (He’d always run hot. It was one of Matt’s favorite things about him.)
“So,” Karen agreed. “Vampires don’t need to drink human blood?”
Foggy winced a little at her words, but his heartbeat was steady. Her’s was too.
Matt appreciated it. It was grounding. He knew where he was, and he knew they were safe.
“In recent times, vampires have found… alternatives, to drinking blood. Coconut water is one of them,” he told her quietly.
“So I’ll get all my… nutrients, from coconut water?” She asked, skeptically. She wanted all the details, as always. It didn’t matter what she needed to do to get it.
It was comforting. Familiar.
“Pretty much,” he told her. “We’re gonna need to buy some coconuts. I’m told it's better fresh.”
“I’ll buy them,” Foggy immediately offered.
Karen squeezed his shoulder, but seemed to be focused on Matt’s words. “You’re told?”
“Yeah,” he agreed.
“You don’t drink coconut water?” She pressed.
“Not normally.”
“I’m assuming you don’t drink other people’s blood without permission,” she said flatly. “So what do you do?”
Matt blinked. “Did I not- um, I said there are multiple types of vampires, right?”
They both nodded.
“Okay then.”
“... Matt, what do you do?” Karen reminded him.
“Oh. Um, sorry. I’m kinda spacey right now. I don’t know why,” he mumbled.
Foggy tugged him in closer, and Matt rested his head on Foggy’s shoulder. He was so warm.
“I’m, uh, a different kind of vampire than you are,” he said.
“What does that mean?” She was going to lose her patience soon. He needed to stop being such a useless waste of space.
“Um. So, there’s a whole bunch of types of bats, right? We’re kinda like that. You got the most type humanity is most familiar with- because it directly affected them, before we learned how to… fix that. But ‘vampire’ doesn’t actually mean ‘bloodsucker’ like humanity thinks it does. Your type does have that title, though. Obviously, considering the blood you got was from a bloodsucker. They’re kinda the most dangerous, because if they get Turned without knowing, or don’t have the right resources… Well, there’s a reason they’re the most common. Because there are more feral blood-drinkers, and… It’s just more likely that someone gets Turned because of a blood-drinker, and generally a feral one, just from situational purposes.” He needed to explain his thoughts in a clear, concise way, and stop rambling and being generally confusing. His thoughts weren’t working right, though. “But they aren’t the only types of vampires. I’m not a ‘blood-drinker’ vampire. I know a lot about it though because Stick was. He… wasn’t feral, but he was not the best example of the blood-sucker community, though. I know a little more now, from research.” His skin was crawling. He wanted to scratch at it. He was too warm to move though. “So don’t worry, I won’t mess you up.”
(More.)
“Alright,” Karen said slowly.
“What are you, then, buddy?” Foggy asked.
“Oh! Um, the blood that Turned me was from a fruit-bat vampire,” Matt said.
Karen snorted. Foggy also seemed to be holding back laughter, his shoulders twitching minutely with the urge.
“What?” Matt snapped crankily.
“I’m sorry, it's just, that's perfect. That fits you so well,” Karen said, muffling her laughter with her fist, like that would keep him from hearing it.
“It’s a little anticlimactic,” Foggy agreed, voice strained slightly with amusement. “A lot cute, though,” he said, and Matt could hear the way his nose was scrunched up in his determination to keep from laughing when he reached over to boop Matt’s nose before wrapping it around Karen again.
Matt couldn’t help jerking back slightly. He was probably cross-eyed. “Excuse me?!”
Karen wasn’t even trying anymore. She was full on, doubled over, cackling and snorting like she’d never seen anything funnier in her life. “You- you look so- so offended!” She gasped out, clutching her midsection. Matt hoped she’d fall off the couch. She seemed to be getting pretty close to it- but Foggy just tugged her back on.
Foggy, who was laughing just as hard.
Matt knew he probably looked like a pouting child, with his arms folded, his slouching position crammed into the side of the couch, as far away from those heathens as possible, and whatever expression was on his face.
He didn’t care.
As annoyed as he was, though, he wasn’t really mad. He couldn’t be- not when his heart was this full, heavy with the warmth brought by those two goblins.
The conversation was not over, but neither was this. This little family of his.