Work Text:
The first thing Foggy Nelson learns about his new roommate as he gets to know him after his admittedly less-than-stellar introduction is that Matt Murdock is smart. But not just smart, like those nerds who he just knows will ace all their tests through the years even though it’s fucking Columbia Law School and this shit is hard, no. No, Matt Murdock, though incredibly bright in all of their classes, just seemed to know things. Like, he always seems to know where Foggy is even though he can’t see him, always grabs Foggy’s arm at precisely the right angle to allow Foggy to comfortably lead him through the crowded streets. He can always tell when Foggy’s leftovers are about to spoil in the fridge, even without opening the door to take a whiff. And he always just knows when a pretty girl is smiling at him from across a bar. Lucky bastard. The thing was, it doesn’t even make Foggy jealous, Matt knowing things. It’s just part of who he is, Foggy knows.
The second and more pressing thing that Foggy learns about his roommate is that Matt apparently hates being happy. While no, Matt’s never come out and said Yeah, I’m a fucking masochist, Foggy is perceptive as shit when he puts his mind to it. Matt Murdock may know things, but Foggy Nelson has taken care to learn Matt Murdock like the back of his hand.
It’s the way Matt wants things; wants things, but doesn’t pursue them, or lets others have them, or stays silent when others take them from him. It’s the way he eats plain chicken and rice every night even though Foggy knows he’d rather have noodles from that place down the street every once in a while. It’s the way Matt doesn’t say anything when their Torts professor practically congratulates him on answering a question correctly, like it’s a goddamn miracle that a blind guy did the reading to prepare. It’s the way studies so hard for so long, even though Foggy knows Matt would like to indulge in a few more trips to Josie’s, all because he’s afraid of falling behind. For all that Matt harps on about the injustice in the system and helping those who can’t help themselves, he never seems to remember that he deserves to have nice things too, that he deserves to take a break.
Which is why Foggy is not prepared for the sight that greets him as he walks through the door one evening in early December, shivering and stumbling from a wild night at the library studying for his first final examination of the year.
Matt is hunched over his desk, resting his head in the crooks of his arms that are splayed across an enormous tome that can only be their Intro to Crim Law textbook. His legs are tucked seemingly impossibly under his body on the chair so that his feet aren’t touching the floor, possibly to conserve warmth since it’s December, and the insulation in their dorm is absolute shit. Foggy’s knees ache just looking at him. He’s snoring quietly and even at a distance, Foggy can see a darkened patch of page near his mouth that signals drool. Drool. Matthew “I-can-go-days-without-sleep-and-still-function-just-fucking-watch-me” Murdock is so tired that he’s curled up like an armadillo and ruining his precious second-hand textbook with spit. If Foggy were a better person, he would tiptoe across the room, wake him up, and bundle him into bed before passing out himself to get a good night’s sleep.
Foggy is not a good person. Not even close.
Matt’s head snaps up the moment the flash goes off on Foggy’s phone, and for a moment he looks so confused about what’s happening that Foggy can’t help but giggle. It’s the sound of laughter that finally alerts Matt to rest his unfocused gaze on Foggy’s left ear. The expression on his face is one of bewilderment, like he can’t even imagine how he could have fallen asleep in the first place. His hair is matted on one side. Foggy’s heart warms just a teeny bit.
“Did you -” Matt coughs and clears his throat, scratchy from sleep. “Did you just take a picture of me?”
“Dude, there is absolutely no way you could know that. You can’t see the flash!”
“So you did take a picture of me.”
“I had to document it, you know, for science or something,” says Foggy, the smile still brightening his words. “I didn’t think that position was possible for an adult male to contort themselves into without training to be in, like, Cirque du Soleil.”
“I was comfy,” mutters Matt, pulling his legs out from underneath his body and stretching them.
“Comfy?” says Foggy incredulously. He pulls up the picture on his phone and waves it in Matt’s face as though Matt would be able to see proof that what he felt was wrong. “There’s no way that gymnastics contortion could possibly feel comfortable.”
“It was not a gymnastics contortion.”
“You looked like a pretzel.”
The effect of Matt’s glare is diminished by the large yawn that creeps bretayingly through his lips. Matt pulls his legs up to his chest again and rests his cheek on his knees. Foggy takes better stock of his roommate; sees the bags under his eyes, the unkempt hair, the reddened fingertips that indicate a long day of pouring over text books. He’s shivering from the draft coming from the poorly insulated window, but he must be exhausted. But then Matt’s fingers creep again toward the text, his eyes closed with a resigned look on his face that lets Foggy know that he would rather do anything but study. Which brings Foggy to the third thing that he has learned fairly quickly about Matthew Murdock: he is the most stubborn son of a bitch to grace the halls of Columbia University. Maybe even New York.
“It’s after one in the morning and we don’t even have class tomorrow. Don’t you think it’s time to hit the hay?” says Foggy, pulling off his scarf and coat to hang on the flimsy IKEA coat rack he’s had since undergrad.
“I need to finish these last few chapters,” Matt says around another yawn. He reaches up to rub at his eyes, reddened from lack of sleep.
“You, my friend, need to get some shut eye. Go a few rounds with the Sand Man. Grab a Matt-nap.”
“You can go to bed,” Matt gestured vaguely to Foggy’s side of the room with the hand he was not using to read. “I promise not to get annoyed that you’re making me study in the dark.”
“You’re hilarious, Murdock.”
Matt smirks slightly but then turns back to his reading. How Foggy handles these next few minutes will be crucial according to his self-made guide, The Care and Feeding of Matthew M. Murdock, which he developed sometime around the end of September because Matt never appeared to do normal human things, like leave a dish out for longer than ten minutes, or eat ice cream when he wanted to, or go to sleep before four in the morning on a weeknight. If anyone asks (which Foggy can’t imagine anyone will), the guide is completely necessary and not at all creepy or stalker-like.
So he lets Matt think he’s given up and starts to get ready for bed. As he strips and pulls on pajama pants, Foggy watches Matt out of the corner of his eye. Sees the sluggish pace of his fingers as he reads. Sees his free hand twist and tug at the hem of his shirt in the way that tells Foggy that he’s trying to stay awake. Foggy rolls his eyes. Time to initiate step one in the plan to make Matt get some fucking sleep.
Foggy grabs a zip-up hoodie that’s dangling off his bedpost, surreptitiously sniffs it to make sure he’s washed it recently, and with the finesse of a cat, drapes it over Matt’s shoulders.
Matt turns his head to squint in Foggy’s direction. “What are you doing?”
Foggy shrugs, then winces. Verbal communication, Nelson, come on. “I just shrugged. I don’t know, you looked cold and I figured you could use it.”
Matt stares at somewhere in the vicinity of Foggy’s forehead for a while. He seems to be warring with the need to argue with Foggy that he’s doing fine, and with the fact that he’s too tired to argue, at least not too heatedly. So Matt just nods slowly and turns back to his work without saying anything.
Foggy retreats to the bathroom to give Matt some space. He brushes his teeth, brushes his hair, brushes the smell of old musty library books from his skin. Takes a piss so he won’t wake up in the middle of the night. Washes his hands because Matt always seems to know when he doesn’t because Matt just knows things, that’s the first thing Foggy ever learned about him, remember? Matt knows things, but Foggy does, too, and if he’s correct, Matt will have taken the next step in Foggy’s plan.
Sure enough, Matt’s already slipped his arms into the hoodie and zipped it most of the way up his chest, allowing his free hand to burrow into the sleeve that’s just a bit longer than he’s used to wearing. The pace of his fingers has slowed some, and Foggy knows that the warmth is making him drowsy.
“Sweatshirt’s not so bad, is it?”
Matt grunts grudgingly. “Yeah, it’s…”
“Comfy?” Foggy snickers.
“Yes, comfy,” concedes Matt. He pauses his reading for a moment like he wants to say something else, but then ultimately decides against it. He presses his fingers so hard against the page that Foggy thinks he might rub off all the letters.
“Wonderful. I’m gonna turn the lights off now, all right?”
“Be my guest.”
Foggy flicks the switch and stumbles a bit in the dark as his eyes adjust to the lack of light. He climbs underneath the covers, burrows into the mattress, and pulls out his phone. With a bit of sadistic glee, he plays Candy Crush with the sound turned all the way up. He can tell Matt is annoyed by the way he flinches every time Foggy swipes a set. But Matt’s a determined bastard and also a spiteful one, because he lets Foggy almost reach his high score before saying loudly, “Do you think you can turn the sound off?”
“But then how will I know if my candies match?”
The blue light of Foggy’s phone illuminates the room so that he can clearly see Matt pull in a deep breath to steady himself. “Would you stop if I told you it’s giving me a headache?”
“Would you go to bed if I told you it would get rid of that headache?”
Matt bites out an incomprehensible response but finally lifts his fingers off the page. Step three is in progress, thinks Foggy in triumph. “Why won’t you just let me study in peace? I’m not sick or anything - you don’t have to take care of me.”
“Because you look,” Foggy says slowly as he shines the dim light of his phone across the room directly onto Matt’s face, “like you haven’t slept since the Yankees last won a World Series. And while they may not be the Cleveland Indians or anything, that’s still years, my friend. Years, as in plural. Like, numerous years. A practical plethora of years.”
Matt crosses his arms and says, “Why do you care what I look like at two in the morning?”
Foggy rolls his eyes so hard he thinks they could fall out the other end of his skull. “Gee, I don’t know, maybe it’s because I prefer to have my best friend happy and healthy instead of walking around like an undead zombie who won’t stop muttering about tortious interference during his waking hours?”
“I don’t- I… I’m your what?” says Matt, the anger giving way to confusion that Foggy doesn’t understand until he looks at Matt’s tired, sad face and then...and then: oh. And then Foggy gets it.
He disentangles himself clumsily from his comforter and crosses the room. Matt flinches slightly when Foggy places a hand on his shoulder and folds him into a hug.
“You’re my best friend, Matt,” Foggy says into Matt’s hair, sending the dark strands flying upwards and then back down again. Matt stiffly returns the hug, like he’s not quite sure how to give out or take affection, but he’s willing to try. “Okay? I’m just worried about you.”
“Okay,” Matt agrees, melting into the hug a bit and resting his head on Foggy’s shoulder.
They stand like that for a bit and Foggy can feel his friend relax more and more as time goes on. Eventually Matt starts to yawn, and Foggy guides him to the bed and helps him get under the crisp sheets. Matt pulls the comforter around himself and shifts into a better position so that he’s lying comfortably on his side.
“Comfy?” says Foggy, grinning down at his mess of a best friend, who’s finally closing his eyes.
“Super comfy,” breathes Matt.
And then he finally goes the fuck to sleep.