Matt could hear them through the door and his earphones weren’t helping much to dampen the shouting. The staticy voice of the reader couldn’t capture his attention when he heard Foggy’s voice so loudly all the time. Not when he had to listen to every tremor and how Karen’s voice was breaking despite the volume.
He hit the pause button with a sigh and tried to focus on his own heartbeat for a moment. His own fingers scraped over his skin when he covered his eyes with his hands, trying to shut out at least some of the sensations. It made the fire dim, but there was always the sounds and smells and touch left. Still too much to bear.
The words just washed over him, fleeting and incomprehensible. There was only the feeling left, the anger and sadness in both their tones that pressed against him and made the world spin. It was so heavy. And it happened too often. The only thing Foggy and Karen seemed to do these days was scream at each other. Shout and yell and when they weren’t raising their voices so hard he wanted to clench his hands over his ears and cry they’d be sniping at each other. Exchanging mean and insensitive comments until the fight started. It wasn’t even about anything anymore.
He almost felt they enjoyed hurting each other, that Karen liked it when Foggy’s breath hitched and he slunk back to Matt’s office to sit with his laptop and pretend he wasn’t crying. And Foggy had to like it when Karen stumbled over her words and got quiet and fragile, when his words hit the wrong spot. Slipped right through her cracks and hurt. He had to like it because Matt could hear him smiling.
There was something about his voice that said his lips were turning up into a cruel laugh, nothing of the usual warmth but something sharp and full of edges. He hated the quiet jabs more than he hated the shouting. But the sound was too much now. Too harsh, too heavy. He needed it to stop, needed his ears to stop ringing. Needed them happy again. Needed them to go out and get drunk and laugh instead of scream.
He knew they liked each other, their hearts betrayed it clearly, even their voices showed it when they had a civil day. Karen lost the uncertain edge to her voice that barely anyone ever picked up on and Foggy seemed more animated. Happier, busier and so much more confident than he usually was. He covered it up easily, how insecure he really was. It was simple to pretend he was unlikeable to him, easier perhaps, to think that, because then nothing could let him down. Then the pretty women he always saw Matt bring home didn’t mean anything.
Matt had wanted to talk to him about it. About Electra. About how after his first time there was never another because of how much it hurt. Because of how his world of fire suddenly burned, lashed and seemed to singe his skin. Too many sensations, too much at once no matter how pleasurable. It wasn’t a pleasure to have sex with anyone. He hadn’t even touched anyone anymore after that, he didn’t need to. But Foggy seemed to make it all about who was in his bed and nothing he could do or say would make him see that it wasn’t even true. He’d stopped, somewhere along the way, stopped trying to explain. Stopped making excuses or denials. Just nodded along and accepted it as another quirk in an already quirky relationship.
If Foggy wanted to believe he was some womaniser because of his blindness and how polite he was, he could go ahead and believe it. He could deal with the jabs and comments on it. It didn’t really hurt, because he didn’t care. He wasn’t lonely, not really. He had Foggy and Karen too, even if they didn’t understand. They weren’t blind. They didn’t have the Devil in them, it was ridiculous to want them to understand. It had been clear enough from the beginning that no able-bodied person could comprehend what it was like, no matter if they had empathy in spades.
Dad perhaps, of all of them, had been there. He’d always done his best for him. Something shattered in the other room. His patience shattered with it. For a short and terrifying moment the Devil roared in his ears and then faded. Leaving just him and the anger. It wasn’t anger, not exactly. It was sadder, darker, he was numb with it. Disappointment. That was what it was. He was so very disappointed with them. Both of them for hurting each other like they did. They liked each other too much to fight like kids, except neither of them seemed to see it, unwilling to admit it perhaps. Too scared, so scared that they’d settled for catfights and yelling. The chair clattered against the floor, the harsh smack of wood against wood accompanying the constant waterfall of sound. He shouldn’t have but time stopped flowing smoothly, coming in fits and spurts.
Every step was like the rumble of thunder, like stones rolling down a mountain. Inevitable. He seemed to be running and slowing down at once and every step brought him closer to the door. He saw their outlines through the glass, saw how close they were. Almost nose to nose, shouting in each other’s face in some pathetic attempt at domination. Both trying to gain some control over the situation as the other was slipping away from them. How could they not see they were making it worse? It had to be clear that this didn’t help, but somehow neither of them noticed how they were splintering under the weight of the constant fighting. He noticed. He noticed and he was done with it now. Done with the hurt and the pain.
The door creaked when he opened it, momentarily deafening him, the painful screech buzzing in his ears. Karen and Foggy didn’t even see him, hadn’t heard the door over the sound of their own voices.
‘Shut up!’
Foggy’s mouth shut abruptly and Matt heard his teeth click together. Karen was blinking at him and her heartbeat slowed and sped again. He must have shocked her. His own voice had shocked him, because he was barely speaking, growling instead, like the Devil had to come out somehow.
‘Matt, buddy, whats up?’
Foggy’s voice was wavering and his heart beat an uneven rhythm, speaking of unease and confusion. It was almost as if Foggy thought he wasn’t doing anything wrong -and wasn’t that an appalling thought. That his friend, his friend, who used to be kind and awkward and funny and would stick with him through the deaf jokes and any other demeaning things his classmates and professors could come up with thought it was fine, thought it was normal to shout at someone.
His voice only deepened with fury now.
‘Sit. Down.’
Karen scrambled for her chair and he felt the blood rushing from her face rather than hearing it. She started fumbling with a bit of paper, no doubt staring at it too, obscured by her hair. Matt hoped she felt at least a little ashamed of herself.
Foggy made a movement as if he was going to sit down on the floor right there, but thought better of it before he could and went for a chair.
Matt took a deep breath, trying to push the Devil away so he could talk without scaring the bejesus out of his friends, but the Devil wouldn't go. Normally they were only of one mind on the streets, when Matt's knuckles cracked with the impact on someone's jaw and blood was heavy in the air. Only now he and the Devil were in perfect accordance once again.
His friends needed to stop hurting each other and start -urgh- kissing already.
Foggy was looking at him, trying to gauge his feelings and looking more confused by the second. Matt almost envied him, now he was here he wasn’t entirely sure what to say. Just that he had to say something.
‘If you two don’t stop yelling and start talking, this firm won’t be Nelson and Murdock for long,’ he hissed at him and a part of him quailed at how vehement he was. Yet it was true, he would rather clean his hands of this, rather work on his own, than spend another day listening to Karen and Foggy trying to tear each other apart.
Karen made a choked sound of shock and Foggy tried to crawl into his shell, shoulders hunching and spine curling. Matt had the feeling one of them had to be turning puppy eyes on him now, trying to appeal to their side, that they were the righteous one. Bad luck that he was blind and that he had a vested interest in making sure there were no fucking sides anymore.
‘Call me when you’re through,’ he said, sounding far calmer than he felt, and walked out the door, taking care not to slam it behind it no matter how much he wanted to.
Only when he was sitting at Josie’s, marvelling at how different her clientele seemed during the day, he realised he’d left his bag and his cane at the office. It was a surprisingly acceptable loss, even if he would have to sneak back after hours to get them.
Josie gave him a cup of coffee anyway, likely out of pity. Matt felt absurdly thankful and sipped it in silence at the bar, letting his thoughts wander. They seemed to buzz now, all the details of his latest case running through his mind now he was away from the oppressive atmosphere. It was positively typical that this would happen now, just when he had suddenly declared to the world that he would rather leave his own firm than stay between his fighting friends, but he let it.
Maybe he could take his caseload with him somehow and do those cases in his own time. He wasn’t, whatever Foggy might think, delusional. He knew they had to make money, that he had to pay rent, but he knew that his clients did too. And that they often had far more mouths to feed, and so much more riding on the outcome of their cases. Thier money, their pride, their livelihood or their homes. But neither his nor Foggy’s career would be broken or made by what the rest of the world perceived as charity.
Josie refilled his cup.
Matt did his best to smile at her but something about her air told him he probably hadn’t succeeded.
He wished Foggy got it sometimes, even though his friend did get it in his own way. And hopefully he and Karen were making out in the office right now or better yet, in either of their appartments doing unspeakable things.
He suppressed a shudder and focused on the low murmur of the television instead.
Someone knocked on the wood of the bar, like they were inviting themselves in and Matt marvelled a little at the fact that something so simple as the news managed to occupy him so intensely he had barely noticed any time was passing at all.
Claire was leaning against the bar, the air of disinfectant still clinging to her under her casual clothes. By the smell of leather she was holding his bag and if she was holding his bag, she had to be holding his cane as well.
He nodded at her, unwilling to find out if his voice still held the Devil. Claire slid into the seat next to him and chugged the dregs of his coffee with the air of a starving woman.
‘Karen called me,’ she said after a while. ‘You won't have to stay away long. Give them a day to get over the shock and a day to get used to the idea.’
It occurred to Matt she was smiling at him and he should probably respond somehow, so he smiled back.