Archive of Our Own

“One portion of Special K coming right up,” Foggy chirped.

It was morning, they’d all had a good night’s sleep (by post-apocalyptic standards anyway), and Foggy was in a good mood. Matt had been quiet, but that in itself wasn’t always unusual.

Not even Karen was complaining about the stale taste and the lack of milk.

Matt liked his cereal crunchy, just like Foggy. Karen soaked hers in water, which Foggy thought had to taste fucking awful. Maybe she secretly put sugar in it? Maybe she just liked them soggy. Foggy wasn’t sure what it was, and never asked.

Coffee, though. God, he missed coffee. The real stuff, with unskimmed milk and sugar and foam. Not the instant stuff they’d had for a little while. Some days it was harder to accept that, never in his whole life, would he ever be enjoying pumpkin spiced latte again.

Still, today Foggy decided not to let the absence of caffeinated hot beverages deter his good mood. He plopped down on the futon, two packets of cornflakes in his hands, handing one out to Matt. They both fumbled to get them open, Matt having more trouble with his shaking muscles.

“Don’t get crumbs all over our bed, okay?” The remark was more jovial than anything. They’d be lucky if Matt didn’t make a bunch of whole cereal flakes fly across the fucking mattress.

Matt put a few flakes into his mouth, and carefully chewed. Foggy smiled. The guy could get such a kick out of sounds and textures. Any kind of crunchy cereal had to be way up there with the best of exciting edibles.

But then Matt put the box away after all of two bites. He leaned back to lie flat on the futon, and tucked his arms in front of his chest, his wrists crossed and twisted, rubbing the knuckles of his fingers up and down his sternum.

Foggy frowned. This wasn’t like Matt. Matt never refused food. As in, ever. Well, maybe that one time, when they’d all had the stomach flu. God, that was fucking awful, and—

Damn. Was he sick again? Cheerfulness turned into a slight sense of panic, skipping straight over alarm and worry.

“Matt? Why are you not eating? Are you sick?”

Matt scrunched up his face before he answered. “Foggy, hurts.”

“Where? Your stomach?”

“No. T... M-mouth.”

Foggy wasn’t sure what that meant, until Matt gingerly poked at his left cheek with his finger, drawing a pained, whiny face to go along with it.

“Shit. You’ve got a toothache?”

Matt’s eyes briefly narrowed, which was fucking weird, because why would he do that? A carryover from childhood days? Or just a facial expression everyone was prone to making at one time or another?

Matt whined. Of course he did. “Tooth. Yes. It hurts.”

Shit. A toothache wasn’t good. In fact, it was effin’ terrible, because there were no dentists or drills or amalgam fillings or, well, whatever the hell one needed to fix a damn toothache. And now that he took a closer look, Matt’s whole left cheek looked a little swollen.

And the worst part was, they didn’t have any more of the amoxicillin. He’d given the last one to Matt when the knee wound was starting to show new signs of infection, just before it finally closed up. And Foggy had a feeling that, whatever this was, it wasn’t going to go away on its own.

Basically... they were fucked, one way or another. He tried not to go into a full-fledged panic.

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It had taken some gentle convincing, but Matt had eventually let Foggy look into his mouth. Which was tricky, because the only functioning flashlight they had left was one of those rather massive, clunky, plastic ones with a handle at the top. Matt had whined a lot. And twitched. And shivered.

Foggy could only conclude that it seemed to be the very last upper molar, way in the back. It looked like it had a crack, which would make a certain kind of sense. Maybe from a fight with an alien or a feral, possibly weeks or even months ago. And then it had festered and ultimately gotten infected, and now they were paying the price. Foggy wasn’t sure what to do.

And because fate had apparently decided to be a vindictive bitch, of course it didn’t go away by itself. Foggy had to suffer for it just as much as Matt, because Matt was being whiny, twitchy Mr. Antsy Pants at night, and not only didn’t he get any sleep himself, but he also made sure Foggy didn’t get any either. Something had to give.

Matt was down in the garage, because he couldn't go on the roof—too much rain today—doing whatever it was he did down there. Which this time around probably included a fair bit of solitary whining. Foggy decided to use the opportunity of their relative privacy to talk it over with Karen.

“We have to do something about Matt,” he stated.

“Like what?” she replied in that ho-hum tone of hers.

“Extract that infected tooth.”

“You a dentist now, too?”

“No, Karen, if I was a dentist, I’d have found a way to fix it without violently yanking one of Matt’s molars out of its socket.”

“Why don’t we just wait, maybe it’ll clear up.”

“We’ve tried that. It’s only getting worse. Have you looked at his face lately? He also stopped eating yesterday, which is, like, super alarming because I know him, and he’s always hungry.

“So let me lay this out for you. It’s not gonna clear up, and then the pus will start building, and it’ll eat up half his jaw, and it’s gonna be messy and disgusting and painful as hell. And eventually he’ll die of sepsis because all the antibiotics we have left are both expired and incompatible with his fucked over metabolism. And who will find us food then, huh? It’s pretty simple. We don’t have him, we either starve or get torn to shreds by aliens.”

Granted, maybe not the most impassioned argument ever presented, but these days Karen was better convinced by practical facts than emotional pleas. Foggy tried hard not to let the corresponding images blossom to full clarity in his mind, because saying it out loud already made him want to gag.

She shot him a look. “And how do you propose to violently yank a molar out of Matt’s mouth without him going apeshit and knocking you unconscious?”

“We still have some ketamine.”

She gave a little grunt, which Foggy could only interpret as acceptance of his counterargument. “He’s not gonna like that.”

“Yeah, no shit.”

And as if on cue, Matt entered the room, his face twisted in a pitiful grimace. “Do not want,” he simply stated, then repeated with more insistence, “Don’t want. I don’t want it.”

Of course he’d listened in to the whole conversation from down there, the little fucker.

“Newsflash, buddy. We don’t want it, either.”

He flopped down on the futon and curled himself into a ball. “I don’t want it, Foggy.”

Foggy sat down on the edge of the futon, keeping a careful distance. Matt was touchy enough as it was. And this had to be bad, because Matt not eating was sending up huge fucking alarm flares into the night. The only related memory Foggy had was vague—a tooth infection that led to a root canal years ago. He’d then decided that a toothache was one of the worst pains there was.

“Matt, I’m not sure what else we can do. It’s gonna get worse if we do nothing. I can promise you that.”

“Foggy, fix it. Can fix it.”

“Yeah, that’s what I’m trying to do.”

“Don’t want you to... Mm. Out. Take out tooth. Hurts. I don’t want this.”

Foggy hung his head and sighed. This had fuck my life written all over it. Or, more likely, fuck our lives.

He extended his arm and let his hand rest softly on Matt’s hip. “I know, buddy. We’ll sedate you when we pull it out, you won’t feel it. And it’s gonna be better afterwards. That’s the only way we can fix it.”

“I don’t want,” Matt mumbled. “Puke.”

Oh damn, yeah. The ketamine. But maybe that was the least of their problems. Or at least a lesser one, all things considered.

Matt let out a little whine, and it tore right into Foggy’s heart. He started rubbing small circles with his thumb on Matt’s bony frame. “So what do we do, Matt?”

“I don’t want,” he mumbled again.

“Don’t want what?”

“This. All. It hurts.”

Yeah, geez, they were going in circles. “Matt, I’m not gonna do this if you don’t want me to, okay? But this has got to hurt like hell as it is, and you haven’t eaten anything since yesterday. Don’t you want it to get better?”

“Get better,” he repeated.

“See, the thing is, I’m not a dentist. I might be reasonably skilled at stitching up a wound or, I don’t know, resetting a fractured bone. What I can’t do is clean out cavities or heal an abscessed tooth short of pulling the whole damn thing out. Which I’m still not the least bit qualified for, by the way.

“So trust me when I say I wouldn’t even be suggesting this if I could see any way other than extracting that infected tooth of yours.”

Matt’s only response was another whine. Foggy’s only response was another sigh. They were both surprised when Karen contributed to the conversation.

“He’s right, Matt. That thing’s gotta come out.”

And was it true concern Foggy could detect in her voice? No, that would have had to be in his imagination, right?

“Matt?” Foggy tried again. “Will you let us do this?”

“Hold on,” Karen interjected. “Us?”

Foggy gave her a look he hoped was shooting ice picks. Icicles at the very least. “Yeah, I can’t do this alone.”

“Oh hell no. I’m not gonna put my fingers into his mouth and risk getting bitten by a fucking feral, domesticated or not.”

Matt perked his head up slightly. “Not hurt Karen. I will not— You. I... will n-not hurt you.”

“There,” Foggy said, “You got a whole sentence out of him. In case you can’t tell by now, that’s kind of a big deal.”

“No, no, no, no, no. You’re not guilt-tripping me into this. You’re on your own with this one, Foggy.”

Matt let out another pained whine, but then struggled into a sitting position. He made sure to face Karen, and Foggy could tell he was trying very hard to aim his eyes at her face. It was almost uncanny how the old Matt used to do that. He wouldn’t put it past the new Matt to be using that as a tactic right now. Or maybe it was just instinct that actually made it past the virus-ravaged wasteland that was Matt’s brain.

“Ka-ren,” Matt said. And look at that, it even got her attention. “Need, mm, help. For Foggy. For m-me. It hurts. Karen, you can? ...Help?”

Foggy just watched. And listened. This wasn’t his battle to fight. Not anymore.

He tried not to stare, but stole a glance at her face. She chewed her bottom lip, and he could practically see the angel and devil waging their war on either shoulder.

Matt lowered his voice, and it was so quiet that it was barely audible. “Please?”

There was a flicker of... something on Karen’s face. Empathy? Compassion? Was she still capable of those things? She didn’t say anything for a long time, and the silence in the room was absolute. It dragged on to the point where Foggy was about to dispel it, when she finally said, “All right.”

“Thank... you,” Matt’s voice was low. Stuttery. Raw and honest enough to make tears prickle in the corners of Foggy’s eyes.

He let out an audible breath through his nose to counteract the awkwardness that was spreading through the room quicker than wildfire. “Well, I’m glad that’s settled, then. Shit. How do we even do this? I hope Eric’s put a pair of decent pliers down in that garage.”

Matt whined for the next fifteen minutes while Foggy went tool hunting.

+-+-+-+-+

The only usable instrument Foggy found in the garage was a pair of rusty plumbing pliers. Yeah, fuck that shit, those weren’t gonna work.

He went back to the apartment, ignoring a growling Matt on the futon. Karen was flipping through some gun magazine. Foggy didn’t want to ask where that had come from. He held up the pliers. “Hey, Karen? Please tell me Eric had another secret stash of tools, cause this is the only halfway usable thing I’ve found, and, yeah, in our case... it’s not really usable at all.”

She sighed exasperatedly, like he was asking for an enormous goddamn favor. With a shrug, she said, “There’s a military crate in one of the shelves where he kept all his shit. Have you checked there?”

“Guess I’m gonna have to take another look.” He drew in a long breath. He still wasn’t good with climbing stairs up and down. Damn that leg wound. Damn the aliens.

He found the crate in one of the shelves tucked away in the corner. Of course it was locked. Couldn’t she have mentioned that?

“Foggy?” he heard her voice from upstairs.

“Yeah?” he called back.

“You can stop looking.”

He was panting by the time he reached the top of the stairs, limped over to where Karen was crouching in front of a folding metal toolbox. She held up a pair of long-nose pliers. Neat and clean, like she’d regularly and meticulously maintained it.

“Does this work?” she asked.

He took it from her and worked the handle. “Yeah, that’s perfect. Or as perfect as it’ll get.”

“I’ve also got these.” It was a pair of small diagonal cutting pliers.

He took them as well. “The more, the merrier, right? I’ll have to disinfect these. Thanks, Karen.”

She just gave a quick nod, and that was that. Yet, it told him there was still a human being underneath that tough, cold exterior.

Foggy got to work on the preparations, thankful that they had running water, more or less, and that camping stove Matt had brought back the other day—including gas and everything.

It took a good while to clean all the joints and grooves of the pliers, boil them, and for good measure also soak them in a copious amount of medical alcohol. He wasn’t gonna take any fucking chances, all right?

Matt had dozed off at some point, but woke again and whined some more, now veering dangerously into whimpering territory. Foggy wasn’t sure if it was from pain, the smell of cleaning agents and alcohol, or from impending ketamine-induced puking doom. Probably all of them combined.

Karen had uttered variations of, “Can you shut the hell up, Matt?” which had done absolutely nothing.

In the end, she’d huffed and left with the words, “I’m in the garage. Get me if you have to.”

The day was coming to an end, so Foggy wasn’t sure what to do. Daylight would be helpful. Should they put this off until the next day? Might be best.

He went over to where Matt was still curled up on the futon. “Hey Matt? You think you can make it until tomorrow? It’s getting dark out,” Yeah, well, that didn’t mean much to him, but whatever, “and I’m not sure we should be doing this at night.”

“Hurts,” Matt mumbled weakly. Foggy had heard that word one too many times lately. Which said a lot, because Foggy had seen Matt parkouring through the city with broken bones and open flesh wounds, not once uttering a complaint.

“I know. And maybe it’s time to bring out the Tylenol. That should get you through one more night.”

“I don’t want it.”

“The pain or the drugs?”

“Every—mm. All.”

“Yeah, well, the thing is… I need to catch some sleep if I wanna do this without wreaking more havoc in your mouth tomorrow. And that doesn’t happen if you keep tossing and turning next to me all night. That’s where the painkillers come in. You get that, right?”

“Foggy, yes, need to sleep,” he reluctantly admitted. “Don’t want. I don’t want it.”

Jesus fucking Christ. He sighed. Loudly. “Don’t be a dick about this, Matt.”

He pouted. Or tried to, because that didn’t really work well with a half swollen, pain-addled face. “Not… a dick.”

“Yes, you are. So here’s what’s gonna happen. Either you take the Tylenol and let me sleep in peace, or you sleep on the couch with Karen. What’s it gonna be, pal?”

“I don’t want this,” Matt said again. Like a petulant fucking five-year-old. This, apparently, was Foggy’s life now. Fantastic.

“Aaaank, wrong answer. Tylenol or Karen. You choose.”

“Not… with Karen.”

“So painkillers, then.”

Matt grumbled something. Foggy decided to ignore it and dug around his medical supplies for the Tylenol. There was a lot less than he thought. Shit. Karen must have been at the stuff, she seemed to have a lot of headaches. He made a mental note to talk to her about that.

He weighed his options for trying to get Matt to eat something. Didn’t they still have some of that instant soup? The chicken broth with the tiny noodles. That might work.

Foggy sat down again next to Matt. “Hey Matt? What do you say I make you some soup, huh? Would you eat that?”

“It hurts.”

Of course. What had Foggy expected? “I know it does, but maybe if you’re careful? I think it would be good if you ate something. Or at least tried. Please?”

“I don’t want, Foggy.”

The broken Matt-With-A-Toothache record. Foggy sighed again, and there was a sudden knot in his stomach. All he wanted to do is smother Matt in a big hug and take all the shit away. Not just the toothache. All of it. He wanted all of this to be over. But, yeah, fat chance.

“Foggy. You... are worried.”

He let out a short huff. “Yeah, no shit.”

“About... me.”

“Who else would I be worried about, dumbass?”

“Foggy, I am okay.”

“No, you’re not. You’re in pain. And you’re not eating. This worries me. A lot.”

“Can, mm, eat. I can try.”

Oh Jesus, now Foggy had actually managed to guilt-trip Matt into eating. Still, best damn accomplishment of the day, even if he did feel somewhat guilty about it. But not enough to abort his attempt at feeding Matt chicken broth.

“Okay, then I guess we’re gonna have an actual warm meal. How long’s it been? Weeks?" Since the MREs ran out. "Karen’s gonna be all over this. See? You’re making me do a good thing.”

Matt chose not to comment, probably because speaking wasn’t a preferred activity right now.

It took another fifteen minutes for Foggy to have a pot with noodle soup going. The aroma alone made his mouth water. Funny, how an alien apocalypse could lower your standards to the basest of desires. Cause, man, hot food that tasted of something other than cardboard or stale dust!

He ladled some of the broth without noodles into a mug for Matt to let it cool down for a little bit. Then he went to the door to the garage, calling down the stairs, “Honey, I’m home. Dinner’s ready!”

“Not hungry,” she called back. There was a good amount of disdain in there.

“It’s getting cold, are you sure?” God, this was ridiculous, yelling up and down the stairs.

Silence.

Suit yourself, Foggy thought, and dug around in the cupboards for a clean cereal bowl. He picked the one with the blue polka dots and the chipped rim. The salty scent, the herbs swimming on top—this was bliss. He could hardly wait to get a first taste.

It was then that Karen’s head poked round the doorframe. “What do you mean, it’s getting cold?”

“There’s noodle soup on the camping stove.” He shrugged. “It’s instant. You know, like everything else in this shithole, but, hey, it’s somethin’...”

She lowered her head, the look on her face very self-conscious. “Too late... uhm... to change my mind?”

“Knock yourself out.” He pointed at the pot, then tried to balance his own bowl and Matt’s mug in both hands as he went over to the futon.

“Hey Matty? You ready to give this a try?”

He knew Matt wasn’t sleeping, even though he’d become very quiet and still, save for the tremor.

Matt just grunted, and Foggy had a suspicion that eating soup was about the last thing he wanted right now, but wasn’t sure how to say no without upsetting Foggy. Who shamelessly decided to abuse Matt’s guilt for the guy’s own good. Strings attached—so many of them, and Foggy was gonna pull them all.

“I know you don’t want to, but you promised, okay? Come on.”

“Not...”

“Not what?”

“Did not p...pr... Mm.”

“We’re not discussing semantics. And, yes, I realize you don’t know what that is, but you know what? I don’t care. You can smell this, right? Take a good whiff and then tell me it doesn’t smell awesome.”

“It smells. Good.”

“See? Let’s eat. What do you say?”

Foggy held the mug out to Matt, moved it closer to his face. Total, shameless coaxing. And it worked, because Matt stirred, then sat up.

“You wanna use a spoon? It might still be a little too hot for you.”

Another noncommittal grunt. Foggy pushed the spoon into Matt’s left hand, the mug into the right. There was little resistance. Nelson 1, Murdock 0.

Matt’s face scrunched up in pain when he maneuvered the spoon into his mouth. It didn’t help that the tremor made the movements of his hand less than precise. Yet, he never said anything and just swallowed the savory fluid.

He hesitated on the next spoon, and Foggy had a hard time watching. It was painful to see the battle warring on his friend’s face. He was clearly hungry, but clearly also in agony. The two of them had zero overlap to work with.

“It really hurts, huh?” Foggy said, his voice almost cracking on the last word.

“Yes.” His voice was barely audible.

Karen was watching them cautiously from over on the couch, eating her soup in greedy spoonfuls, hissing once when she burned her lip.

“Maybe a straw would help,” she commented off-handedly.

“Hell yeah, you’re a genius, Karen.”

Matt’s head twitched, a big question mark all over his face. So Foggy explained. “Remember? The bendy straws you have in your tactile collection. Your, uh, backpack.”

Foggy thought Matt liked them because of the concertina folds he would finger for ages, and the tiny sound they made when you pulled them apart. He’d watched Matt extending and pushing them back together for a whole afternoon once. And then he’d tried to explain to Matt how to use them for their intended purpose. With mixed results and a whole lot of spilled water.

Foggy pulled out the backpack from under the futon and dug around in it. Dust clung to some of the seams and folds. He picked out a light green straw and stuck it in Matt’s soup mug.

“Remember how I taught you to suck on it so that the liquid comes out the other end?”

“Foggy, yes,” Matt mumbled.

“Try that, with the end in your mouth away from your infected tooth.”

It took Matt a few tries, and it was still messy, but it worked. Page 1, Nelson 0. Murdock for the winning touchdown!

Matt emptied the mug in no time, then held it out to Foggy. “Foggy, can I...? More? Have more?”

A-ha. There was the Matt Murdock he knew and loved.

“Coming right up.”

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Foggy’s night was short and fitful. Yes, Matt had eventually swallowed the Tylenol—as high a dose as Foggy dared give him. It had helped to a degree, but even with Matt silently curled up next to him, Foggy was too antsy.

Matt was keeping his distance more than usual, which only made Foggy worry more. His mind was going in circles around broken off teeth with roots still stuck in the gum, and flesh wounds leaking pus, and a slowly dying half feral, decaying from the inside.

He must have eventually fallen asleep, because the sky was dusky outside when he woke up from Matt growling next to him. The growl crossed over into a whine. A growly whine. Matt was making sounds Foggy had never heard from him. And Matt wasn’t touching him at all, curled up in a tight ball with his head buried in his bent arms a good ten inches away. This wasn’t good.

Foggy turned to face him, brushing his fingers along Matt’s lower arm. “Hey Matty,” he whispered.

“Foggy,” he murmured, and God, it sounded miserable.

Tears shot into Foggy’s eyes, and he softly let his fingertips run along Matt’s skin in the barest of caresses. The only response was a little whine in the back of Matt’s throat.

“You want more of the Tylenol?”

“No more. Make... No more. Make st-stop.”

“Soon, Matty. When the sun is up, we’ll make it stop, okay?”

“Now. Pl-please, Foggy.”

A tear spilled from Foggy’s eye. Fuck. He pushed himself up and reached for the bottle of Tylenol on the floor. A glass with water was also still there.

He sniffed, dragged his hand across his nose, cause... Shit, Matt. Stop making me cry, okay? And, yeah. Foggy’s life was as much pain-filled suckage as Matt’s right now.

Another soft brush against Matt’s hand made him flinch, and Foggy gently took his palm and placed the painkillers in them. “These’ll help. For a little while. Please take them, okay?”

And he did. Wordlessly. The physical pain was etched into his features, and Foggy was crying again. He combed his fingers lightly through Matt’s short hair, hoping he would find comfort in the gesture. Matt seemed to relax a little, and Foggy kept doing it until the drugs took effect.

This he could tell when Matt scooted closer and pushed his forehead against Foggy’s. Gingerly, not making any sound. Foggy cried some more until Matt’s hand found Foggy’s cheek and traced a tear there.

They fell asleep again until Karen softly shook Foggy’s shoulder. “Foggy?”

“Hunh?” he mumbled sleepily.

“It’s getting late. We should get this over with.”

Shit! He’d overslept. They’d had a plan, and... shit.

“What time is it?”

“Hell if I know. You’re the one with the fucking watch. Late morning, maybe?”

Foggy wasn’t sure where he’d put the damn thing. He hadn’t worn it for a few days, hadn’t needed to count anyone’s pulse for a while.

“Okay, yeah, let’s do this.” Man, he sounded less convincing than the day before, even to himself. “Just... let me wake up first.”

“Hey, it’s your party,” she grumbled.

Some party.

+-+-+-+-+

“Matt? Are you ready to let us do this?”

Matt was hunched into one corner of the couch, cause Foggy had declared that the best approximation of a dentist’s chair they had. Eventually, they would have to put him face down over the armrest, for lack of any of those fancy little saliva-sucking nozzles or any other decent fucking dentistry tools. Foggy didn’t want to take any chances to have Matt choke on his own spit. So that left having to let gravity work for them.

They’d dragged the coffee table nearer, where Foggy had everything prepared. He’d meticulously gone through everything. The ketamine, the tools, the disinfectant, the gloves (Karen had insisted on wearing two pairs, and Foggy had joked that she should put condoms over each finger for good measure), mild salt water and an empty syringe for flushing, the flashlight, towels, gauze pads, the works.

He was nervous. Understatement of the century, actually. He was as jumpy on the inside as Karen was outwardly when she paced around the room. But someone had to be the goddamn bridge over troubled water in this mess of a storm. So here he was. Again.

“Foggy, yes,” Matt mumbled through a jaw he didn’t want to move more than necessary. He’d been like that ever since he woke up again, and Foggy couldn’t blame him.

“Okay. Okay, uh... Yeah. Let’s do this. Matt, can you come here?”

Damn. He wasn’t ready. So not ready. This was a fucking disaster waiting to fucking strike.

Still, he found that his hands pulled the meticulously calculated dosage of ketamine from the vial into the syringe, and his brain and willpower were trying to catch up, and it was all going to hell. And then the needle plunged carefully into Matt’s half exposed buttock, who flinched but never made a sound.

Foggy sat down next to Matt, and Matt was all over him, trying to clamber into his lap, curl himself into all of Foggy’s accessible body surface areas.

“Jesus, dude, easy. I’m not going anywhere, okay?”

He patted Matt’s upper arm and tried to ease him into a better position. Matt just struggled closer and pushed his forehead against Foggy’s.

Foggy sighed a small sigh. “Matt, listen to me, buddy. This doesn’t really work, okay? Can you lie on the couch with your head in my lap?”

Matt mumbled Foggy’s name, and something that sounded like a yes, but he didn’t move. Foggy nudged him. “Come on, Matt. You can do this. I promise I’m not leaving.”

Matt acquiesced, already a lot more sluggish. They were getting there. Foggy’s hand found the nape of Matt’s neck and rubbed soft circles there with his thumb. “Not long now, Matty. It’ll all be over soon. You’ll feel better, all right?”

The minutes ticked by, slow and apprehensive and a whole fucking eternity. Karen was still pacing, and Foggy wanted to yell at her to stop, but bit his tongue. He got it, understood the notion. He wanted to join her so fucking bad.

Storm. Troubled water. Bridge.

He was the goddamn Brooklyn Bridge. Solid and sturdy and carrying all the weight.

And then Matt jerked, scratched at Foggy’s thigh with blunt fingernails, arched his back like he was being shocked with a defibrillator. He tried to push out of Foggy’s grasp.

Karen stopped in mid-pace, watched with an expression of horror at a rebelling, now clearly delirious Matt. “What the hell is wrong with him?”

Foggy tightened his grip around Matt’s upper arms and pulled him close, tried to get Matt’s ear near his heart.

“Nothing, it’s the ketamine. He's fighting it. His body thinks it's shutting down, like it’s confused what’s going o— Geez, Matt!”

Matt was whining and now pedaling his feet against something invisible behind him, his body already sliding off the seat cushions.

“Help me hold him still,” Foggy told Karen.

She was fucking frozen to the spot.

“Karen!” he barked.

She snapped out of it and came closer, but didn’t dare touch him.

“He’s not gonna hurt you. He doesn’t even know up from down right now.”

“Yeah, and that’s the part that scares me.”

“He saved your fucking life!” Foggy all but yelled at her.

Matt was now writhing on the floor, whining more loudly, flopping around with the sedation already taking hold of his muscles. Foggy kneeled over him, tried to pin his flailing arms at his sides. “Shh, Matty, shh. It’s okay. It’s gonna be over soon. Just stay calm.”

Karen eventually kneeled down and held his legs at his ankles. He kept bucking and struggling.

“Why is it taking so long?” There was an edge of panic to her voice.

“Give it another minute, he’s almost there.” Cause Foggy could tell. He’d done this before. Well, not while Matt was fully feral, but still…

And he was right. Another half minute, and Matt’s body gave in, his muscles fully relaxing. Foggy waited another ten seconds, then asked Karen to help him lift Matt back onto the couch.

They put him belly-down and adjusted his position so that his head was draped over the armrest of the couch, towel under his chin. Foggy fussed with the pillows and blankets that his chest was propped up with.

Karen tried to position Matt’s arm between his body and the back of the couch. “He’s still twitching a lot.”

“Yeah, that’s normal. It’s the virus. The ketamine won’t stop that.”

There was a big damn revelation written all over her face. “So the head twitching, he’s not doing that deliberately?”

Foggy huffed. “No. Jesus, you hadn’t figured that out already? The virus fucked with his body big time. It’s a miracle he’s this functional. Matthew ‘Miracle’ Murdock right here, in all his skinny-ass glory.”

“Wow, that’s…”

“Yeah.”

“Shouldn’t we tie him up?”

Hell no! That was Foggy’s first reaction. Matt and restraints were the sure-fire recipe for fucking disaster. Every. Single. Time.

Karen elaborated. “Cause I really don’t wanna be clocked in the face by a half-conscious feral while we’re trying to pull things out of his mouth that aren’t meant to be removed.”

Foggy narrowed his eyes. Maybe… maybe she had a point. There were all the involuntary movements. Technically, ketamine was a sedative, not an anesthetic. Matt might try to paw at them when they started rummaging around in his mouth. It wasn’t a half-bad idea, if they made sure to remove the restraints before he came to.

“Do you have anything we can use to tie his hands together with?”

Karen thought about that. “Well, uh… No. You’re not getting my one good scarf for this.”

Was she serious? “Is that our only option?”

She went into the storage room, came back with something crumpled in her hands. It was flesh-colored. “Pantyhose?” he asked.

“Yeah. That works, right?”

“Uhm… yeah. It should. If we tie it tightly enough. He may not look like much, but he’s a tough little motherfucker when he sets his mind to it.”

They turned Matt on his side and bound his hands together in front of his chest. Something inside of him still screamed at Foggy that this was wrong, wrong, wrong—with a capital W. But it was the smart thing to do. He tried to tell himself that. It didn’t really work.

By now Matt’s body was completely limp. Foggy checked Matt’s reflexes and eye movements, which were now absent. His pupils were fixed and dilated. They were good to go. Shit was about to get real.

Foggy wanted to piss his pants. Not only because Matt looked graceless, and miserable, and very helpless when they turned him back onto his belly. Matt’s position also meant Foggy would have to basically operate upside down, with Karen trying to shine the clunky flashlight at an angle where he could see enough not to pull out the wrong damn molar. It was going to be a fucking miracle if they all came out of this unscathed. More or less.

“Hold on,” Karen said. “I have an idea.”

She wrapped another towel around Matt’s neck. Which looked fucking weird, but the idea was that it would help with the involuntary head twitching. Not a half-bad one by Foggy’s standards.

And then Foggy knew he had to get this show on the road. He put on the latex gloves and lay on his back on the floor, with his head on a pillow. He had to slide sideways so that his head was under Matt’s face, and instructed Karen to position the flashlight. It was awkward at best.

Well, actually, it was fucking awful. There was zero room when you tried to do this with two people in a cramped space. Foggy’s fingers were too stubby to do anything useful in Matt’s mouth, and his arms started getting sore after half a minute of having to hold them up.

Matt flinched hard whenever Foggy even came near the infected area. Karen jumped forty feet in the air every time, and Foggy threw an impatient, “Flashlight, Karen!” at her.

In the end, Foggy stopped inspecting Matt’s mouth, because what was there to inspect anyway? He couldn’t see a damn thing all the way in the back, with this fingers all up in there. A drop of Matt’s spit landed on his forehead. How the fuck had his life got to this point in space and time?

He realized he was stalling. And it was time he stopped, the tooth had to come out. He wanted to gag.

“Can you hand me the long-nose pliers?” he asked Karen.

She did, and he adjusted his position. “I know it’s difficult, but a little more light would be great. And I kinda need you to hold his mouth open.”

“I can’t do both at the same time,” she shot back.

“I know. Can you, I don’t know, sit with your knees tucked up, and stick the flashlight between them?”

“I’m not a fucking gymnast, Foggy!”

“News flash. I’m still not a dentist, but here we are. I mean, geez, could you be any more pissy?”

“Gripe at me one more time, and you can do this by yourself.”

Foggy sucked in a long breath, tried to calm his nerves. “Okay. Sorry. I’m just… I don’t want to fuck this up. I need you. Please.”

She sighed. Then she did what he’d suggested. “Like this?”

“Yeah, that’s good. Okay, I’m going to—“ He swallowed. “I’m going to pull the damn thing out now, okay?”

“He better not bite me.”

“He won’t.”

“How do you know?”

Truth was, Foggy didn’t. Matt was completely out of it. But somehow he hoped he knew that it was Foggy and Karen who were prodding around in his mouth, and not some random foe that needed to be repelled by any means necessary.

“Just hold his mouth open. It’s gonna be fine.”

He thought he could hear a lowly hissed, “Jesus,” from her, but he ignored it, just like the blotch of drool on Foggy’s chest that was getting soggier by the minute.

He reached in with the pliers and fumbled the prongs around Matt’s last molar. Matt bucked, and Karen immediately let go of his jaw. Teeth clamped around Foggy’s hand, but not hard enough to do real damage.

“Ow! Fucking hell, Karen!” he shot at her.

“Sorry,” she mumbled, then her fingers found a hold around Matt’s jaw and pried it open again.

“He’ll flinch. It’s a pain reflex. Whatever he does, don’t let go.” Booyah. Boss-dad-Foggy voice.

Foggy tried again, tested the hold of the prongs, tried to accommodate Matt’s knee-jerk defense reactions.

He waited for the next twitch of Matt’s head, and then pulled. Matt whined, growled, struggled, drooled a lot. Karen didn’t let go. There was a sickening crack. Something gave way, and Foggy’s hand jerked back at the sudden release of traction.

There was blood and drool and only half a tooth between the prongs. Foggy stared at the thing. At least the roots were still attached. His hand was shaking.

“Fuck,” he muttered.

“What?”

“It must have broken in half. The other half is still in there.” He wanted to puke.

“Then pull that out too.”

Foggy closed his eyes, swallowed against the acid rebelling in his stomach to claw a way out. “Shit. I can’t do this.”

“You can, Foggy. If anyone can do it, it’s you.” It came out kinda boss-mom-Karen.

Yeah. He could do this. He totally could. Just one more tiny half of a tooth, right? And then it’d all be over, and it’d clear up, and Matt would be okay. Matt. God, Matty. He could to this. Had to.

He breathed in and out. Twice. “Can you open his mouth again?”

She did, and adjusted the flashlight. There was blood and something Foggy didn’t want to think about, and it was messy, and just… fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. But, nope, no two ways about it. It had to be done.

One more sharp intake of breath, and he adjusted the pliers, and pulled. Hard. Yanked. Matt bucked and protested. Another crack, the tooth came away. Something warm ran along his fingers. Foggy pulled his hand out, and there was the other half, with roots, bits of pink flesh, mangled in blood and clots of pus. Some of the latter dripped from Matt’s mouth onto Foggy’s shirt.

Karen let go of Matt’s jaw and bolted. As Foggy lay there, the pliers including the rest of the tooth clattering onto the floor next to him, he heard Karen retch into the toilet. The rain picked up and drummed quietly on the windows above him.

All on board the train to Shitfest Central. Next stop: Fiascoville.

+-+-+-+-+

Well, maybe fiasco had been a bit of an exaggeration—Foggy had to admit that to himself. 'Cause as soon as Karen stopped dry-heaving, pale and shaky, she took a swig of water, wiped her hand across her mouth, and went back to where Foggy was trying his best to tend to what needed tending.

“Sorry,” she mumbled. “Guess I don’t have the stomach for this.”

“Are you okay?” he asked tentatively.

“Do I look okay?”

Fair enough. None of them were. They were light years away from even remotely okay.

Foggy had tried to clean out the wound, but it was difficult without the light shining where he needed it, and Matt unable to keep his mouth open wide enough. And of course there was the twitching and the flinching, and it was just...

“Let me help,” she offered.

“Are you sure? This is pretty disgusting.”

“Yeah.”

“Okay.”

He worked in silence, grateful for the assistance. He tried to flush the socket with the syringe as best as he could, but he didn't have a syringe with a curve, just the little three-mil things that he still had a stash of from all the way back when they lived in 6A.

Foggy moved like clockwork, pulling up the salt water and forcing it into the hole he'd just made in his friend's mouth, over and over. There was still gross shit coming out. He didn't even know there was that much room in Matt's skull.

Maybe the virus had left some space behind when it steamrolled through, he thought, and swallowed a delirious laugh that was trying to come out of him. Nope, no time for that. He was still on a dinner date with Matt's disgustingly foul-smelling mouth pus.

Karen broke the silence after what felt like the millionth syringe, with an eloquent, “Jesus.”

“Uh-huh,” Foggy agreed weakly, although he wasn't sure what he was agreeing to.

“How long was that shit festering in there?”

“Knowing Matt? From the day he was fucking born.”

She snorted. Matt snorted right behind her, and growled faintly whenever Foggy jammed a new syringe full of salt water in his mouth. The guy was going to be tasting salt for weeks. Salt, and whatever that pus tasted like. Alien buttholes, probably. If they had them.

Karen talked again, anyway. “He's really gotta stop hiding things from you.”

“No shit. I've been telling him that for years.”

Foggy huffed, and frowned at another really disgusting tendril of really disgusting yellowish pus that came out of Matt's mouth. Foggy didn’t get the chance to roll sideways to avoid it. Not that it really mattered, his shirt was already ruined.

Karen swallowed hard next to him, but held on, determined and steadfast. She even dabbed away some of the ooze that dribbled down from Matt’s lips. Matt would have been fucking proud. Foggy surely was.

He briefly met her gaze. “You know how he is. Hates showing weakness. He needs to be seriously fucked up before he even starts whining about it. I mean, Jesus, he ran around like a maniac with his stupid knee, and, well...”

He winced at the memory. Black water and vomiting. “Which really blows, because it has to get to levels of fucking agony before he even thinks to pipe up and complain.”

Foggy had forced another half dozen syringes through, and all he was getting now was foamy salt water mixed with blood and drool. He fought back the urge to flush through all the water they possibly had, to keep doing it until Matt dragged himself out of the ketamine. If it got infected again, trying to convince Matt to put him back under was gonna be like... well, like pulling teeth.

He sighed and rested his arms back on the floor for a long minute, feeling the tremble in his muscles from the strain. He wondered if that was how Matt's tremor felt.

Karen stared for a minute before removing her hands from Matt's jaw, wiping her gloved palms on her jeans. Matt growled and kept dripping all over Foggy's clothing.

Another thirty seconds, and Foggy got himself moving again, grabbing a gauze pad and making it into a semblance of a little ball before carefully jamming it against the nice new hole where Matt's last molar used to be.

One thing he knew with absolute certainty: he did not enjoy shoving his hands up there. Not because of the virus or twitching or anything else, but because he was dicking around with his friend's unconscious body, and that always made him freak the hell out. Matt sedated with only piss-poor, reflexive reactions was far too close to Matt dead and gone and Foggy left holding the body he'd been trapped in for his short and (seriously) fucking shitty life.

“Shouldn't you be putting stitches in?” Karen asked as he tilted Matt's head so his jaw would shut and hold the gauze in place.

“This isn't like his knee. I could see that wound. What I can’t see is up into that. I can't tell if I got all this shit out.” He gestured to the mess of blood and pus all over his shirt, and winced when he actually did get a look at it, because, fuck, there was a lot of it. “I don't want to stitch it shut and seal it in. We'll be back in this same situation in a week. That is, if Matt would ever let me go near him again for fucking it up the first time.”

Foggy knew the gauze pad was less than ideal. Matt would probably want to get rid of anything foreign in his mouth as quickly as possible—although Foggy wasn't too sure if his sense of touch extended to his gums and teeth. Probably. And it'd probably feel like a mouthful of sand or gravel. What a lucky guy.

And Foggy was the luckiest guy ever. Who else could say they'd performed dental surgery on a fucking feral (with needle-nose pliers, Jesus Christ) without getting his throat torn out?

But now that he had the time to take a breath and really look at Matt, he felt he had already accomplished something. There were fewer physical and audible protests. Maybe it was already hurting less, now that all the gross shit had come out, some of the pressure gone, the infection actually having room to start healing.

He softly brushed his hand against Matt’s clammy forehead, pushed away a short strand of hair that was plastered against his sweaty skin. “There now, Matty. That wasn’t so bad, was it?”

Karen sat back, braced herself with her hands against the floor. Her face drew into a pained grimace. Her stitches had been out for a while, and she usually didn’t complain, but Foggy knew it was still bothering her if she moved the wrong way. Her voice was heavy with exhaustion. “I don’t know about you, but I beg to differ.”

Foggy groaned and struggled into a sitting position, removed the latex gloves with a thwack, and waited for the blood to flow back into his hands. His spine popped audibly as he tried to stretch it out, and wiping at the front of his shirt with one of the towels did little in terms of improvement. His injured leg throbbed like a bitch when he got up. He was getting too old for this shit.

“Help me turn him onto his side, will you?” he asked Karen.

They put Matt into recovery position on the couch, his injured side up, and removed the restraints from his wrists. Matt made weird snorting noises when they moved him. Karen still flinched whenever he did.

Foggy made sure his face was tilted down over the edge of the seat cushion. Light pink spittle was still dripping out of his mouth, and probably would for a while. Karen crammed a towel under his head and one on the floor next to the couch. Damage control.

Foggy sat down where Matt’s feet were curled against the backrest. He placed one hand on Matt’s calf, feeling the slight tremor even through his leg, and let his body sag back. He never wanted to do anything like this again. Ever.

Karen was cleaning up the instruments and the rest of the mess. “Don’t throw away the tooth, okay?” he mumbled, then closed his eyes and took solace in the soft noises of her shuffling around, mopping up the drool, fumbling with something in her toolbox. There was still rain pattering onto the window panes, smearing murky-grey rivulets down the glass.

At some point she asked, “How long’s it gonna take for him to come out of it?”

Foggy shrugged, but kept his eyes closed. “I don’t know, it’s not an exact science. Three or four hours, maybe?”

She gave an acknowledging grunt, and more soft clattering from the storage room followed. He startled when something soft was thrown into his lap. Matt snorted again.

“Go change. Your shirt is disgusting,” she told him.

Oh yeah. Drool and pus and discharge. Fucking gross.

“Thanks,” he muttered and heaved himself into a standing position. The bathroom suddenly seemed very far away.

+-+-+-+-+

Foggy had dozed off there for a while, back in the same position with a clean shirt on, his hand still on Matt’s leg. Karen had claimed the futon for a change. Foggy couldn’t blame her. It was way more comfortable than the couch.

It was a pronounced twitch from Matt which jerked Foggy back to wakefulness, and he started up from his slouched back position. No, no, no, no, no. Not yet. He wasn’t prepared. “Shit,” he hissed, quickly scrubbing one hand over his face.

He rinsed one of the plastic buckets from the bathroom and took it to the living room. Post-ketamine sedation requirement #1: Puke bucket.

The two damage control towels were soaked in places, so Foggy got two fresh ones. A washing machine would come in handy right now. At least Matt wasn’t drooling buckets anymore. Post-ketamine sedation requirement #2: Items to mop up the possible results of uncoordinated puking.

He got one of the blankets from their stash and put it at the foot end of the couch. Matt had a tendency to panic and flail around a lot before he fully pulled out of it. Post-ketamine sedation requirement #3: Straightjacket substitute.

He filled a mug with water and put it at a safe distance on the coffee table. Matt was always thirsty when he was past the vomiting stage. And now that they had plenty of water at their disposal, Foggy wasn’t gonna withhold any. Post-ketamine sedation requirement #4: Copious amount of fluids.

He dragged Matt’s backpack out from under the futon. Post-ketamine sedation requirement #5: The tactile collection.

The noise woke Karen up. Her voice was beyond tired. “What’re you doing?”

“Preparing.”

“For what?”

“For the impending Matt-coming-out-of-sedation shitfest.”

“What do you mean—shitfest?”

“Hey, you were there when he woke up in the truck, right? It tends to get messy. I like to be prepared.”

She shifted, then groaned. “Messy, how?”

Foggy sighed. Jesus Christ. “Just messy, okay? He’s not good with the whole, I don’t know, waking up part. Maybe it’s the ketamine. That stuff causes hallucinations when you use it recreationally, right? Can you imagine what hallucinations would do to someone who has no concept of vision? It freaks him the fuck out. He flails a lot. It’s messy.”

“And what’s that for?” She pointed at the backpack.

“He likes to fondle stuff. It’s a tactile thing. Something to do with his senses. I don’t know.”

“Yeah, I’ve noticed. And you need that for…?”

“It calms him down sometimes.”

“Ah.”

That’s all she said, and Foggy wondered if maybe she was jealous. Just a tiny bit. And Foggy also realized just how much like a parent he must seem right now. Concerned, boss-dad-Foggy, with all the secrets to his fosterling’s happiness. Yeah, that was pretty much the definition of his and Matt’s relationship these days.

A half growl, half moan came out of Matt’s mouth, and Foggy let the backpack drop where he stood. He was crouched by the couch in a flash, his hand back at the nape of Matt's neck. “Hey, buddy, I’m here. Make some room, I’ll sit with you, okay?”

He gingerly tried to lift Matt’s torso up, avoided jostling his head as best as he could. Somehow he managed to get Matt’s unaffected cheek to rest on his thigh. Foggy held on tightly to his shoulders.

There was another growl, and Matt moved his arms, tried to grope around for leverage, for something to push himself up from.

“Hey, hey, hey. Don’t get up just yet. Easy. I’ve got you, buddy. Let’s take this slow, okay?”

Matt flopped back into Foggy’s lap with a grunt, then whined, pawed uselessly at his aching jaw. Another whine, this time stronger. More struggling. More limp flopping around. Like the very first efforts of a newborn foal on unsteady legs trying to fight its way to the milk bar. Foggy hated this part.

Matt got stronger with every attempt to struggle into a sitting position. And then the disorientation started. A strangled whine came from his throat. His hands waved wildly, tried to push Foggy away.

“Shh-shh-shh-shh, it's okay, ” Foggy pleaded, his voice quiet and gentle. “Matty, shh, shh. You're okay, it's just me. Not gonna hurt you. No, no, no, stay. Stay down. Hey—no, Matty, no, it isn't real. It's not real. It's just me. It's Foggy.”

Karen’s voice from over on the futon was, irrationally, full of intimidation and worry at the same time. “Is he hallucinating?”

Foggy’s eyes never left his friend. “Yeah. I told you this gets bad. He—”

Matt let out another growl, followed by unintelligible syllables. And then a tortured, “F’g-gy! Stop!”

“What is it, Matty? Are you seeing something?”

“Help. A lot. Foggy, a lot!" His usual lack of elocution, muffled also by the cotton in his mouth.

“You’re seeing a lot of things? Like what? Colors?”

“A lot! K... Don’t want, hurts, don’t, help, Foggy, help!”

“Tell me what it is, then maybe it’s not so scary. Do you see light? Something bright?”

“Yes. Lot. Br— Help!”

“Images? Like pictures?” God, Matt wouldn’t know what those were. “Do you see what things look like? In your head?”

“Look. A lot. Don’t want. I don’t want, Foggy! No, help, Karen, help, don’t, Foggy!” The panic came back, fast and merciless.

“Shh. I know. These images, they’re not real, Matty, they’re not real. They’ll stop. Just listen to me. It isn't real.”

Matt started sobbing. Soft and desperate and near-silent. He was shifting around, uttered another one of those horrible quiet sobs.

“Help. Foggy. Help.”

“I know, I know. It's not real. It's not real. Just listen to me. Can you listen to me? Can you hear me? Matty.”

Matt's sobbing got faster and whining noises started coming out between sobs. Foggy held on tighter. Matt was now struggling with more force, had wormed his way out of Foggy’s lap and out of his grasp. He scrabbled uselessly against the back of the couch, and Foggy got up to try and keep him from doing any serious damage to himself.

“Shh, Matty, shh—”

“Help, help, help, help, help—”

He bucked and struggled, and Foggy tried to pull the blanket around him, but Matt wouldn’t have any of that.

Foggy hissed over to Karen, “A little help, please?!”

She moved. Slowly. Cautiously. She was afraid. Afraid of a half-sedated, hundred-twenty pound delirious feral with his mind miles away from coherence or sanity.

A desperate edge tainted Foggy’s voice when Matt started pawing again at his cheek. “Just be still, Matt. Just listen, it's me, it's Foggy. Foggy and Karen. We won’t hurt you. You gotta keep still, you’re gonna hurt yourself.”

Karen wasn’t sure what to do, stood rooted to the spot next to Foggy. He guided her through it. “Hold his arms close to his body. I wanna try wrapping him in the blanket. He’ll make this worse if he opens up that wound again. God, I fucking hate this.”

Karen struggled against Matt, barely keeping the upper hand. Him and his sinewy ninja power. It was a combined effort, but somehow they managed to roll him into a blanket bundle so that Foggy could hold him still, keep him calm in an endless stream of hushed tones to coax him back down onto earth.

Eventually, Matt quieted down, and Foggy loosened the blanket that was still furled around Matt’s body. Endless relief flooded his system when Matt finally got a shaky grip of the world around him and realized who was talking to him.

“Hey, Matty... you hear me now?”

The response was soft, and there was joy in it, the total fucking ecstasy at being back in the world he actually lived in. “Yes. Foggy. Hear you.”

“There you are. Jesus, man. That was a pretty bad one.”

Matt grumbled and his hand came up to gingerly touch the left side of his face. “Hurts.”

Foggy let out the shortest of laughs. There was still a whole lot of relief mixed into it. “Yeah, dude, I’d be surprised if it didn’t hurt. We yanked a fucking tooth right out of your gums.”

He was already moving his tongue around. “Out. Is, mm, inside sm— Mm. Out. I don’t want it.”

“No, Matt, leave that in. It’s just a bit of gauze, and it’s important. It plugs your wound. There’s a hole in your gum where that infected tooth was. Do you remember any of that?”

“T-tooth. Don’t. I don’t… mm. Rem— Don’t know.”

“It’s okay. I’ll show it to you later. How badly does it hurt?”

“Hurts.”

“Badly?”

“N… Not. Not a lot.”

“Less than before?”

“Bef— I don’t know.”

Jesus, this was a futile endeavor. Maybe Matt wasn’t fully there yet. And then there was another whine, and—

“G'n'puke.”

Foggy’s reflexes were lightning sharp, and he had the bucket under Matt’s face before he could struggle fully upright. Foggy helped him bend over as best as he could.

There wasn’t much for Matt to hork up in the first place. Lots of dry-heaving, which was to be expected. The gauze pad came right out with it. And Matt flinched harder and harder, every time the stomach acid worked its way up his esophagus. Cause, shit yeah, that had to burn like hellfire with the now unprotected open wound in his gum.

In the end, it was as much whining as it was retching, and Foggy wanted to cry again. He rubbed soft circles over Matt’s back with one hand, finding all the shushing noises he knew, to whisper them into Matt’s ear.

When Matt was done, he deflated like a slashed tire. Foggy caught him and guided him softly back to lie down in Foggy’s lap. His fingers toyed gently with the hair at Matt’s temple, fingertips brushing against the skin there.

“Foggy,” Matt murmured.

“Yeah, I’m here. What do you need?”

He swallowed. “Th— Mm. W-water.”

“Hold on.”

Post-ketamine sedation requirement number four. He reached for the water and held the mug out to Matt.

“Here, you wanna do it yourself? Be careful, though. You’ve got a hole in your mouth, okay?”

Matt reached out with his right hand and titled his head up. Some water dribbled down his chin and throat, but most of it made it where it was supposed to go. Matt swallowed it down with a pained grimace but didn’t complain otherwise. Yep. Definite progress.

They stayed like that for a while, no one talking, just basking quietly in each other’s presence. Matt had shifted around a bit and pressed his nose into Foggy’s groin now, his back towards Karen. Foggy was softly running his hand over Matt’s shoulder.

Karen stole glances at them, which Foggy ignored. He knew she envied what they had, even at the worst of times, such as devastatingly messy post sedation aftermaths. But compared to Matt, she was an insignificant blip on Foggy’s radar right now. Which he knew he should feel a tiny bit shitty about, but couldn’t bring himself to care.

Matt fell asleep eventually, and Foggy watched Karen get up a few minutes later. She came back with a glass of water and a Snickers bar, both of which she held out to him.

He looked at her, startled, and took only the water. She continued undeterred to hold the candy bar in his face.

“Karen, I can’t take that.”

“Yes, you can. You’ve been going non-stop, when’s the last time you ate something?”

“Last night, just like you.”

“Yeah, all of two sips of watery chicken broth. I’ve been saving this for a special occasion. But watching the two of you, you need it way more than I do. And I know how much you like Snickers. So.”

He scrunched up his face in a lopsided, questioning grimace. “Share it with me?”

She gave him something that came uncannily close to a smile. “Deal.”

The crinkle of the wrapper woke Matt, which still amazed the shit out of Foggy. For all intents and purposes, he should be fast asleep. It had only been five minutes. Foggy nibbled at his half of the Snickers. Matt rolled onto his back and grumbled, “I want.”

This made Foggy smile. He broke a small piece of the chocolate coating off that trailed a tiny thread of caramel when he pulled it away.

“Now, before you eat this, Matt, you need to listen to me. Karen and I, we pulled a tooth out of your left upper jaw not five hours ago. That’s why it hurts. I give you the chocolate, you’re not gonna chew it, okay? Just keep it in your mouth until it melts. Try not to use the left side of your mouth. Can you do that?”

“Foggy, yes.”

“All right, then.”

Matt stuck the chocolate in his mouth like it was the most fragile piece of eggshell he’d ever touched. His tongue moved it into his right cheek. He sucked on it for a long time, a vaguely happy expression on his face. Foggy melted just a little bit, along with the chocolate. This man.

He broke off another piece of chocolate, and some of the nougat. The peanuts weren’t approved Matt food quite yet. Matt happily sucked on that too.

Karen eventually reached over and gave Foggy some of her Matt-suitable Snickers parts. Matt tilted his head in her direction. Yeah, he could tell exactly what she was doing. His expression went from vaguely to definitely happy.

What a fucked up family they’d become.

+-+-+-+-+

The day dragged on. Matt slept a lot. Trips to the bathroom were wobbly, and Foggy made him sit down on the toilet the first two times. He tried to leave Matt alone in there, but, boy, he was clingier than a barnacle. Almost as bad as after their reunion.

What caught Foggy’s attention when they were back on the couch was that Matt was drawing a face. Half concentration, half disgust. He was moving his tongue around in his mouth, then grimaced again.

“What is it?” Foggy asked.

“Tastes. Mm. Tastes not good.”

“Is it bleeding?”

“Mm. No. Don’t... Don’t know. It tastes.”

Okay, discharge then, probably. Ew, gross. Matt was licki— No, Foggy didn’t want to think about it. “Do you want me to flush it out with the syringe? There’s probably still some pus in there.” And, ew gross.

Matt let out a little growly whine. “Don’t want it.”

Uh, yeah. Who would? Not a surprise.

“Okay, then we gotta put another gauze pad in. I don’t want you dicking around with your tongue in that wound if we want it to heal any time soon.”

“Don’t want. Foggy, I don’t want this.”

“Stop being a dick and listen to me, okay?”

“Not... Don’t want it. Tastes. Out. Foggy. Tooth out, don’t want. Don’t, out, tastes, puke, hurts, don’t.” He was babbling now, his was voice was more whiny, teetering on the edge of panic.

Foggy made his tone as soothing as he could. “It’s okay, we’re not gonna pull out another tooth, okay? No more sharp instruments in your mouth, I promise. But you’ll have to let me get up for this for a minute.”

“Foggy, no!” Full-on panic now. Matt’s hands were grabbing fistfuls of Foggy’s shirt.

Karen was already on her feet. “What do you need?”

Foggy wanted to cry and hug her at the same time. He hoped the gratefulness translated. “Can you get me some of the gauze pads and the latex gloves? The flashlight, too. And... thanks, Karen.”

She nodded and went to get it out of Foggy’s medical bag. Foggy made sure to keep both hands on Matt, comforting and safe. Matt was softly whimpering in his lap, his fingers twiddling idly with a crease in Foggy’s shirt, and Foggy thought maybe it was the hallucinations. Maybe he was afraid they’d come back. Cause he could be seeing the nicest, calmest, gentlest image, and it would still terrify the crap out of him.

It took a few minutes, but Karen came back with the supplies, all of which she put on the coffee table within easy reach.

“Is this okay? Do you need anything else? A towel?”

She deserved a kiss on the forehead for that. Except she’d slap him across the face if he tried anything like it, so he just held on to the mental image for now.

“No, I’m good. Thanks.”To Matt, he said, “Okay, buddy. Turn on your back and open your mouth for me.”

“I don’t want. Hurts. Puke. Out. Want. I don’t. Don’t want.”

He was just reiterating nonsense now, and for a split second, Foggy wanted to shake some sense into him. He quickly pushed the notion away.

“Yes, it hurts, and, yes, I know you don’t want any of this shit, but guess what. It’s gonna help you. And it’s gonna help me, because it’s gonna make you heal faster. And it’s gonna help Karen, because you’ll be a lot less whiny and clingy. So win/win/win, okay? Come on. Please don’t make this more difficult than it has to be.”

“Foggy.”

“Yeah, that’s me. The one trying to talk some sense into you.”

Foggy shifted his thighs under the little weight Matt still had on his bones, tried to get him to turn around, but Matt clung on. There was no reasoning with him when he was in panic mode, so Foggy changed tactics.

“Hey, hey, shh,” he soothed. He started softly combing his fingers through Matt’s hair, which for some reason it always made Matt melt into a puddle of puppy drool. The desired effect was soon to follow.

Okay. Ready for step two. “Hey, Matty? Wanna come up here for a hug?”

Matt was only too eager to comply. A warm forehead pressed against Foggy’s.

Step three. Foggy gently untangled Matt’s fists from his shirt while keeping his forehead against Matt’s the whole time. He made sure to maintain contact with his hands and then… step four.

He carefully maneuvered away, an inch at a time, until their only physical contact was Foggy’s hands gently holding on to Matt’s wrists, his thumb tracing invisible circles there. Foggy edged away until he could sit down on the coffee table opposite Matt. He placed his hands on Matt’s thighs.

“See, buddy, you’re okay. I’m still here. No need to panic. Now, are you gonna help me out with this, or not?”

A slight pout was written across Matt’s disproportionate face, but at least the distress had faded. “Foggy. Mm. I want to help.”

“So that’s a yes?”

“Is yes.”

Foggy patted one leg. “Good. Now, Matt, I need you to listen to me very carefully for this.”

Boss-dad-Foggy voice at full capacity. Engage, Number One.

“There’s a hole in your gum where your tooth used to be. There’s some disgusting stuff coming out of it. That’s what tastes funny. But in order to heal, the hole needs to close. So I’m gonna have to put one of these gauze pads there to soak up the funny stuff. It’s really important that it stays in there for a while. You hear me? It’s important that you don’t play with it with your tongue, or move it around, or spit it out.

“And I know you’ll want to do that, because you’re not gonna like having gauze in your cheek, but let me say it one more time, okay? It’s im-por-tant that it stays in there. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

“Foggy, yes,” Matt confirmed meekly.

“Tell me what I just said.”

“Mm. Im— Mm. Foggy, I don’t know.”

“Try.”

And there it was again. The I-know-what-I-wanna-say-but-the-fucking-words-just-aren’t-there face. But this time, Foggy didn’t have mercy.

And then Matt tried. “Tooth is out. Foggy, you fix mouth, mm, inside. Th— Mm, don’t know. Blanket. To stay inside a lot. A lot minutes inside.”

Yeah, close enough.

“Okay,” Foggy told him. “That’s good.”

Karen commented from over on the futon, “Wait. You actually understood any of that?”

“Yeah. He was trying to say I’m gonna put something soft in his mouth he won’t want in there but needs to keep there. Right, buddy?”

“Foggy, yes.”

“You two should write a dictionary.”

Foggy smiled. “You’ll get the hang of it. And he’s getting better at it. We’ll get there.”

He put on the latex gloves, took the gauze out of its wrapper and balled the gauze pad up as best as he could. “I’m gonna have to put my fingers in your mouth for this, okay, Matt? It might hurt a little. You okay with that?”

“Mm, yes.”

“Now, can you lie back on the couch and open your mouth for me?”

Matt did without protest. Boss-dad-Foggy swoops in for the win again! He shined the flashlight into Matt’s cheek with one hand, then carefully guided the gauze ball where it needed to go. Matt flinched, whined a little, but endured. Foggy was super proud.

“Now bite down. Gently.”

Foggy could tell Matt didn’t want to hurt him, with his fingers still between his jaws. Like a lioness picking up her cubs by the neck. It was kind of endearing.

He pulled out his fingers, and Matt’s jaw closed. Foggy gently wiped his thumb along Matt’s temple for the briefest of moments.

“There we go. Now, you don’t have to bite down on it so hard. Just enough to keep it where it is. Does it hurt?”

Matt just hummed. Okay, stupid question when you’d just been asked not to move your jaw. “Lift your left hand if yes, your right hand if no.”

Matt lifted both hands.

“Hurts a little?”

He lifted his left hand.

“Yeah, that’s probably normal. You okay with this?”

Matt lifted his left hand again.

“Okay, awesome. That’s really good, Matt. Keep that up. We’ll beat that infection before you know it.”

Amazingly, Matt never once messed with the gauze pad. Kept his jaw still, didn’t even growl or whine. Foggy made sure he kept his hands busy, circled him through his tactile collection until he found something he was happy with. Today it was the hair scrunchie that he fingered and pulled this and that way.

Foggy checked the gauze after half an hour, again without protest from Matt. It looked as if the wound had dried up, a clot plugging the hole where the tooth had once been. Foggy vaguely remembered something about a dry socket that Candace had once talked about when they’d pulled out one of her wisdom teeth. That was a long fucking long time ago.

So, yeah, a clot was good. They needed to make sure that stayed in. He might have to get out his boss-dad-Foggy voice at regular intervals. He hoped it wouldn’t wear itself out.

And Matt seemed happy enough. Well, as happy as a half-feral with a healing abscess in his mouth could be. Another small victory right here, ladies and gentlemen.

+-+-+-+-+

Night fell like it always did during New York winters—early and quickly and fucking cold. Karen used to do things in the garage on her own a lot during the day, but as soon as it got dark outside, she always made sure to be upstairs. And not just for the lack of light. Foggy had a feeling Matt kept an ear on her most of the time when she was down there.

They were all sitting with blankets wrapped around their shoulders on their respective beds, several layers of clothing, sipping on some kind of herbal tea that Matt had brought back a week ago. Foggy wished once more they had sugar. Granulated sugar. Powdered sugar. Raw sugar. Any sugar.

And while the hot tea was great, they had to start being more careful with the camping stove. The propane tank wouldn’t last forever. And then it’d be back to crunchy noodles and cold water. Foggy wondered how long pre-cooked noodles would keep without a fridge or freezer.

Matt was sitting with his back against Foggy’s, both for the warmth and the physical comfort. He was idly toying with something, but Foggy couldn’t tell what. Something else from his tactile collection. And Foggy was bored. They got bored at night a lot. He figured maybe he should try to take up learning Braille. Cause at least that’d be something useful. Or marginally useful.

“Hey, Matt?” Foggy asked.

“Hm?”

“How’s your tooth?”

“Hm.”

“Is that a good, or a not good, or a I-don’t-wanna-talk-because-it-hurts, or a leave-me-alone, or what?”

“Is good.”

“Yeah, shut up, Matt, cause ‘good’ is not something you say when you have a barely healed abscess in your mouth that a shit-ton of pus came out of barely a few hours ago.”

“Hm.”

“How much does it hurt?”

“Not a lot.”

“Can I feel your cheek? Is it hot?”

“Is not warm.”

Foggy sighed. This was like pulling gum from underneath the sole of a shoe. “Come on, let me feel it. If you’re lucky, you’ll get a hug out of it.”

Hug, fuck yes! Matt was all over Foggy within seconds. He held the back of his hand against Matt’s cheek. It was warm, and hard to really say through the scruff of Matt’s beard. But it didn’t feel alarmingly hot, which was good enough for Foggy. Matt also didn’t flinch a whole lot, so the ‘not a lot’ probably had some merit.

As soon as Foggy withdrew his hand, Matt’s forehead came against his, and Foggy allowed himself a smile. He wondered if Karen was listening in. If she was envious. She could probably use a good hug. Except she’d still go apeshit if Matt tried anything like that. Or even Foggy. Well, maybe someday…

Matt scuttled around in Foggy’s lap and eventually draped himself across Foggy’s thighs, arranging the blankets around them. He reached for something next to him and kept fingering it. Foggy could now see it was the Lego brick he’d picked up in a kid’s room during a scavenging run. A blue one. He wondered what the thing would spell in Braille. What if they all said, ‘Fuck you, dude?’

And then he decided to check with Matt. “Does that brick spell anything, Matt?”

“Br… what is this?”

“The thing you’re holding. It’s a Lego brick.”

“Lay-go. Has eight. Not six.”

Oh, right, yeah. Braille had six dots per letter. So they didn’t spell, ‘Fuck you, dude,’ apparently.

After a short silence, Matt prompted, “Tell story?”

Foggy sighed. “Come on, we’ve used up all the good ones. Go ask Karen.”

“Karen, tell story?”

“Do it properly,” Foggy chided.

Matt grumbled, then said very slowly, “Karen, can tell… can you tell story?”

“Tell a story, Matt,” she corrected him.

Matt didn’t bother repeating it. The point had been made. Her voice was strained. Tired. They were all tired, but it was still early in the evening. “I don’t think I know any," she said. "None worth telling, anyway.”

“You watched movies, didn’t you? TV shows?” Foggy chipped in.

She let out a hollow chuckle. “Yeah. Desperate Housewives and Grey’s Anatomy. Everyone slept with everyone. A lot of hot, gay sex in cramped break rooms. And then McDreamy died. That sucked.”

“Wait, McDreamy died? When did that happen?” Foggy asked, suddenly interested.

“In, like, I don’t know. Season ten or eleven. That shit ran forever. I kinda lost track.”

“Was it really dramatic? Like a plane crash, or something?”

“The plane crash, he actually survived. Meredith’s sister—well, half-sister—died in that one. And McSteamy. Shepherd died in a car accident. Not all that dramatic, actually. It was kind of a let-down.”

“Heh,” Foggy said. “Looks like I didn’t miss much when I stopped watching that trash.”

Matt shifted in Foggy’s lap. “Is not good story.”

Foggy tapped Matt’s shoulder. “See, even Matt thinks it’s trash. What kind of movies did you watch?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “Chick flick stuff, I guess? I liked Harry Potter. Read the books, too.”

“Harry Potter, hell yeah!” Foggy cheered. “I don’t think we covered that yet. Matt, you wanna hear about a boy who goes to wizarding school with all his wizard buddies? It’s pretty awesome.”

As if Matt was gonna say no. Of course he didn’t. Foggy and Karen got halfway through jointly retelling the first book before they all fell asleep with images of Hogwarts floating around in their heads.

+-+-+-+-+

Foggy slept fitfully, woke up what felt like every half hour, worried that Matt was picking at the clot in his tooth hole, and then it’d come out, and it’d take five hundred times as long to heal, and they’d be back in tooth agony hell, and, dammit, Matt. He’d given Matt another emphatic speech about it before going to sleep. He hoped it had gotten through to his scattered brain.

It was the middle of the night, and Matt’s head was back where it usually was, pushed between Foggy’s shoulder blades, his body pressed as closely to Foggy’s as possible. But Foggy also knew Matt wasn’t sleeping right now but was trying to keep himself as still as possible. He’d been yelled at enough for letting Foggy sleep at night to know not to get too restless.

Matt let out the softest of whines. It vibrated against Foggy’s spine. He turned away from Matt and lay on his back. Matt immediately snuggled his head into the crook of Foggy’s neck. His short hair tickled Foggy’s ear.

“How badly does it hurt?” he asked softly. He wondered if Matt would understand a ‘on a scale from one to ten’ question.

Matt just hummed. Not good enough, bro. “Come on, you have to tell me if it’s bad. Is it bad?”

“Foggy, no. Is not bad.”

Foggy moved his head to try and get a look at Matt, but it was too dark to read the minutiae of facial expressions. “You’re not lying to me right now, are you? Cause you need to be honest about this shit. I mean it, Matt.”

“Foggy, no, not. Am not. It hurts not a lot. Want... can not sleep.”

“You want some of the Tylenol?”

The answer was immediate. “No.”

Yeah, senses and everything. That aversion to meds had endured even the fucking brain wrecking virus.

“Did you pick at the hole, Matt?”

“Foggy, no!” It came out with such conviction that Foggy believed it without question.

It was then that Foggy heard Karen stir on the other side of the room. “I have something that might help. Hang on.”

She peeled herself out of the blankets, fumbled with what Foggy thought were her shoes, and went down to the garage with the flashlight. Foggy didn’t have the slightest clue what she might be doing down there in the middle of the night that could help.

Matt suddenly went very still next to him, muscles taut, his breath catching in his chest.

“What is it, Matt?”

He growled. “Karen. Is outside.”

“Karen went outside?”

Matt sat up, the blanket falling into his lap. He had feral alarm beacon written all over himself. “Outside not good. Karen outside not good.”

Foggy sat up too, suddenly wide awake. “Are there aliens nearby? Ferals?”

Matt twitched, listened. “No, not, mm. Karen outside is not good. Rain. Foggy.”

“I’ll go downstairs.”

Matt was by his side as soon as Foggy got out of bed, not just to guide him in the dark. He wanted to go for his rifle, but then Foggy heard the reinforced garage door close again and Karen’s steps drawing nearer. She came back up the stairs and hesitated when she saw both Foggy and Matt were standing in the middle of the room. The cone of light from her flashlight illuminated the floor between them.

“Why are you up?” she asked, perplexed.

“You went outside.”

“Yeah. Just for a second. To get this.” She held something out to Foggy.

He ignored it. “You shouldn’t be going outside alone in the dark without telling us. Did you get rained on?”

“No. Jesus.” Her voice was huffish. “Condescending pimp daddy much? Chill, Foggy, it was literally just a second. Because, excuse me if I’m just trying to help your whiny little asshole here!”

Foggy bristled. “First of all, he’s not my asshole. He’s a person. Just like you and me. Second of all—“

He stopped. Matt was tugging gently at his sleeve. Him and his goddamn heartbeat mood detector. He hated conflict between them. Always had, and still did. It was why he tended to hide so many things from them.

Foggy sucked in a sharp breath, tried to make his voice sound less acerbic. “Second of all, let’s forget you said that. So what do you have there?” He pointed at her hand.

The thing she held up looked at lot like a Ziploc bag with liquid inside. “A cold compress?” she said, like it was painfully obvious. Which it wasn’t.

Foggy tentatively took it from her. It was cold. Not quite icy, but near freezing temperature. “Where’d you get this?”

“I put a few of these outside yesterday. Under the eaves, so they wouldn't get rained on."

Karen, the fucking genius, had been at it again. “That’s… that’s pretty good.”

She just huffed out a breath and went back to the couch. Foggy decided not to make a big deal out of it. Heated arguments at stupid o’clock were pretty much at the very bottom of his agenda.

He turned his attention back to Matt. “Come on, buddy. Disaster averted. Maybe we can get some more sleep. What do you say?”

He steered Matt back to the futon where they both snuggled back under the blankets. Foggy held the Ziploc bag out to him. “And check out what Karen got you. Hold it against your cheek. Don’t startle, it’s cold.”

Matt took it, propped himself up into a kneeling position, and felt the object up, squeezing it so that the liquid inside made the bag all wobbly and uneven. “Why?”

Already a victory that he wasn’t asking What is this? “Cause it’s gonna help get the swelling down. Make your cheek hurt less. Come on, try it. You don’t have to use it if you don’t want to.”

Matt hummed noncommittally in response, but held the bag up and very skeptically placed it against his cheek—like it might have cactus spines on the outside. Foggy had to bite back a smile at the mental image. Not funny, Nelson, he chided himself.

“It might work better if you lie down and just let gravity do its job.”

“Gravity?” It came out like ‘grab-ee-ty’, “What is this?”

“It’s why all things fall down. It’s like a fundamental force of nature. Something about... Oh God, I don’t know how to explain this. I sucked at physics.”

It was Karen’s voice that drifted over from the couch. “Objects attract each other, like any two objects in the universe are drawn to one another. Einstein, and all that. I could go into the whole planetary orbits part, if you want.”

“Uh, no. Let’s keep it simple. So, uh, yeah. Gravity basically.... just happens, okay? It’s, like, a planetary law. Things fall down. It’s like magic.”

Matt let out something that sounded like a hmpf. Nevertheless, he lay down on his good side and placed the bag on his cheek. The plastic made tiny crackling noises from the tremor of Matt’s hand that he held it with.

“Gra. Bee. Tee. Bee-tee. Grabeety. Ma. Gick. Har-ry.” he repeated nonsensically.

Foggy chuckled lightly. There. More words added to the vocabulary repository. Not particularly useful ones, but any addition was worth a green checkmark in Foggy’s book.

+-+-+-+-+

“Matt, do you want to eat something?”

Not a question Foggy would usually ask, cause the answer would be obvious. But, well, there was the tooth abscess and all. The reason Matt had stopped eating in the first place. Alarm flares. Post apocalypse shit they kept having to wade through.

“Yes. I want to. Mm. Hurts not a lot.”

Breakfast was usually whatever cereal Matt had brought back, but it didn’t take a stroke of genius to figure out that crunchy cereal was the right food to eat less than 24 hours after makeshift dental surgery.

“Tell you what, why don’t you have some of that leftover soup? We can go back to cereal tomorrow. I think there’s a packet of Cheerios left.”

“Mm. Ch… Hnn.”

What was he trying to say? “What, Matt? Didn’t I just say you can’t have Cheerios today?”

“No. Foggy. Not ch-ch— Want, mm, I want…” Matt went over to the couch and fumbled for something underneath it. He came away with the crumpled Snickers wrapper.

It was Karen who supplied, “Oh, that’s real cute, Matt.”

“You liked the chocolate, huh?” Foggy said.

“Shockl…” Matt mumbled.

“Chocolate. Come on, you can say it. It’ll go nicely with gravity and magic.”

“Shock-lett. Grabeety. Is magic.”

Karen groaned in mock exasperation. “Oh God, we created a monster. A chocolate-craving monster.”

Foggy chuckled, then sobered. “No, but seriously. We don’t have any more chocolate. You need to savor that shit. It was a special treat. One of Karen’s. Because we were all having a shit day. All we have left is cold soup and stale cereal. Limited menu today due to alien invasion. We apologize for the inconvenience.”

“I want to... to eat water that tastes. Tastes good.”

“All right. Soup for you. It has tiny noodles, too.”

And Matt enjoyed those, even though Foggy could tell he was still having a hard time coordinating his mouth into eating things with his right side only. There was a lot of grimacing and hissing and grumbling, but eventually Matt held out the empty bowl and asked, “More?”

“Sorry, that’s all we got, buddy. I can offer you Rice Krispies soaked in water.”

And then Matt ate those too. More like sucked on them until they disintegrated in his mouth. Foggy still thought they had to taste God-awful. But apparently, to Matt calories were calories.

And then it was back to… boredom 101. It sucked that they couldn’t go outside. Karen was off downstairs again. Probably to dick around with her guns. Or some other shit Foggy didn’t question. She’d talked about that generator for a while, but he didn’t know enough about mechanics to really follow what she was saying.

Matt was already bouncing around the apartment. Foggy decided now was as good a time as ever to go back to the medical textbooks. Was this how medical students used to spend their time? Their own years at Columbia had become kind of a blur. He didn’t know how to do ‘carefree and happy’ anymore.

Unfortunately, what Foggy should have realized by now (but kept conveniently forgetting) was that reading in peace with a bored Matt around was pretty much impossible.

“Foggy,” he said out of the blue, hovering too close.

“Yes, Matt?”

“Foggy, tell story.”

“No, Matt, I’m reading medical texts, okay? Those are not good for stories. Go and… I don’t know, play with that stuff in your backpack. Go count something.”

Matt counted the items in his backpack. It didn’t take long.

“Sixteen,” he proudly said. And then, “Foggy.”

“Yes, Matt?”

“Foggy, I want to, make. Please.”

“Make what?”

Lots of humming. Missing words. “Make.”

“I don’t know what you want, man.”

Then pouting. Some moping. Then Matt snuggling close to him, pushing his head under Foggy’s arm that was holding the book. “Geez, Matt, I’m trying to read, okay? I can’t cuddle right now.”

“Foggy, am cold.”

“Take a blanket.”

More pouting and grumbling. This was madness. Foggy knew he’d snap at Matt eventually, which he needed to avoid like the plague, because then there’d be pouting and moping and, if he was really fucking lucky, crying.

“Matt, come on, why don’t you lie down for a while. It’ll be nice and warm under the blanket.”

“Don’t want... mm, to sleep. I have... a lot sleep.”

“No one says you need to sleep.”

“Don’t want to lie.”

“Okay. You’re bored. I get it. I mean, why are you already getting this antsy? We only just pulled a fucking tooth out of your mouth yesterday. Your face looks like a disproportioned pumpkin. It’s just not possible that you’re this lively already.”

“Pumm...keen? What is this?”

“A vegetable. A big, fleshy, round one. They used to—“ No, Foggy wasn’t going to go into the whole Halloween thing, cause that’d initiate a whole new trail of questions.

“Foggy. Outside. I want... I want, mm, to go outside.”

“It’s raining, you can’t go outside.”

“Has stopped.”

Foggy looked out the window. Heh. Indeed. Still, more dark clouds were rolling in, and there was the matter of Matt’s tooth, so Foggy shook his head.

“No, Matt. Rules one and four. You do not get to go out when you have any sort of open wound. And it doesn’t matter if it’s in your mouth or elsewhere on your body. Tell you what. Why don’t you listen to your music for a while?”

Matt huffed out a breathy sound. “Not good... mm. Bat. Mm, bat-ter. Ries.”

“Are they empty?”

“No. Are okay. Batteries are, mm, not more minutes a lot.”

“Okay, yeah, I know. I told you to save them. But, geez, I don’t know. Maybe another half hour or so? You can listen to spring. Or summer. Which was your favorite again?”

“Winter,” Matt said without hesitation.

“Yeah, how could I forget?”But then Foggy had an idea. “Hey, hold on. I almost forgot.”

He went over to the kitchen and turned over the glass that Karen had put the two cleaned tooth halves into. They tumbled into Foggy’s palm. He went back to the futon with them.

“Matt?” He brushed his thumb along Matt’s right hand, which he knew meant he should hold it open. Foggy carefully put the two pieces of tooth into them. “What do you think this is?”

Matt reached out with his other hand, then put the tooth pieces into his left hand so he could use the good one to inspect the small objects. He hummed lowly to himself as he turned them around with his thumb and forefinger. “Is not a lot. Mm. Metal.”

“Almost. Come on, you can guess what this is.”

“Tooth?”

“Bingo.”

“Is mine?”

“Yeah. It broke apart when I pulled it out. That’s why it’s in two pieces.”

“This are mine?” he repeated.

Foggy frowned. He’d already asked that. But, oh— “Yeah, you can keep those if you want to. Totally yours. Kind of a memento. To forever remind you of that fun time with the awful pain and the ketamine and the puking and the hallucinations.”

Matt grumbled. “No. Not fun, Foggy.”

Foggy grinned. A little bit. “Don’t I know it?”

“Memory. I, mm… I remember. Foggy, Karen, you fix it. Help me. Tooth is… makes memory. Remember, here, inside.” He tapped the side of his head.

And Foggy melted again into a puddle right by Matt’s feet. “Aw, come here, you old softie.” He couldn’t help himself, folded his arms around Matt’s shoulder, and pulled him close.

He struggled feebly for a moment, then said, “Ow.”

Foggy let go and laughed. “Now you’re being a wuss?”

Matt kept playing with the tooth, and Foggy knew they had a winner. Finally silence. At least for a good while.

Not as long as Foggy had hoped, though, because Matt got restless again after half an hour. He placed the two tooth halves gingerly on the coffee table and rummaged around in his backpack. He got out the round plastic container that once used to hold gummy worms, which Foggy thought Matt liked because it smelled nice. He would sometimes also drum his fingers on it, reveling in the different sounds it would make. Matt pried open the lid and put the tooth pieces inside.

The unhappy, disappointed look on Matt’s face told Foggy this wasn’t gonna cut it. Matt was looking for a place to keep the tooth safe. Something small and secure. This cried opportunity. Foggy had learned not to let those slide if he could.

“Matt, I have an idea. Can you go get Karen? I wanna run something by her.”

Matt hesitated, lifted his head, eyes hovering somewhere near Foggy’s chest. He mm’ed again, then said something unintelligible that had Karen’s name in it.

“You gotta speak up if you want me to hear it.”

Matt pressed his lips together, didn’t repeat it. “Come on, Matt. She’s not gonna bite. Deep down, she likes you. She just doesn’t know it yet. Go help her find out. Can you do that for me?”

Guilt-tripping Matt worked nine out of ten times, and Foggy felt a little shitty about keeping to resort to it, but whatever worked, right? Matt went down to the garage, and Foggy enjoyed the few minutes of silence and the newly acquired knowledge that there were eight carpal bones in a human wrist. Matt might have possibly broken or cracked every damn one of them at one time or another.

When Karen trudged up the stairs, the expression on her face wasn’t too happy. Foggy didn’t dare ask what Matt had interrupted down there.

She addressed Foggy. “So, uh, you wanted something? He was going on about Foggy and help and a whole lot of word salad I couldn’t make out.”

“Well, actually, Matt wanted something.”

She turned around and let her eyes linger on Matt, but then quickly looked away again. “Yeah, well, he can’t really express himself, so…”

“Oh, but he can. Come on, buddy, tell her what you need.”

Matt pulled his chin close to this chest, his eyes hovering near his feet. He looked as if he wanted to sink into the floor. “Foggy, don’t know.”

“Yes, you do,” Foggy pressed on. “You can talk plenty if you want. I’m not gonna be your mouthpiece all the time.”

Matt waited. Karen waited. Foggy sighed. “Show her at least, Matt.”

Matt went over to the coffee table and knelt down where the gummy tub was, picking up one of the tooth pieces. “Tooth. Mm, I keep tooth.”

Karen looked on. “Yeah, we kept the tooth. So?”

“Is mine. I want... I want to keep it.”

“No one says you can’t keep it.” She looked at Foggy. “Did you tell him he can’t keep it?”

Foggy shook his head. “Nope.”

“You’re not helping.”

He shrugged. “This is his show, not mine.”

Matt lifted the plastic container, shook it a little so that the tooth pieces slid around in it. “Is not good this. Foggy not help. Karen, can help?”

Karen’s brow was creased in a confused expression. “You want me to help? With what? Can you speak in whole sentences?”

He took a long time to think about it, and a sigh escaped Karen’s lips. “Today, possibly? I have stuff to do.”

“Tooth. Mm, I want to keep it. This inside is not… Not good. Is b— Is a lot… It is a lot for… Hnn.” Matt’s face twitched, and Foggy could read the frustration in it. Tears were already starting to form—that fucking inability to pluck the words from his brain that he so desperately needed, and the fucking misery of being fully aware of his mental shortcomings at the same time.

“For God’s sake, Karen, he wants you help him find something small where he can keep the tooth. Cause that plastic tub is way too big. Please don’t say no.”

She bit her lip, her eyes carefully trained on the miserable, small, hapless heap of feral crouched on the floor. “Okay,” she finally said.

A tiny ray of hope spread across Matt’s face, which, in turn, made Karen’s defensive demeanor soften some more. Yep, Foggy thought, she definitely had a soft spot for the guy. One that was getting bigger, the more time she allowed herself to spend with him.

And somehow, miraculously, she offered to let Matt help her find something. They started in the storage room, and even though Foggy was sure she’d have something or other that must be suitable with all her tiny tools and equipment and whatever gun cleaning shit she kept back there, they came back empty-handed. Matt looked disappointed.

“Hey, no sulking,” she told him. “Cause you know what I always say? You don’t have it, you go build it.”

“Karen, you can make?”

“Yep, we’re gonna make you something for your tooth.”

The smile that spread over Foggy’s face was almost as big as the one on Matt’s.

“Karen, you can make!” he repeated happily.

“Yes, and you’re gonna help me.”

“I… can help?”

“Yeah, come on,” she gave him a soft thump on the upper arm, which made Matt flinch. He still wasn’t good with anyone other than Foggy touching him. “Let’s go downstairs and get started.”

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Humerus, radius, ulna. Carpus, metacarpus, phalanges. Eight fucking carpal bones he didn’t remember the names of. And then all those shoulder bones and joints and ligaments. Foggy’s head was spinning with Latin names he’d never even heard before. Time to call it a day.

He hadn’t seen Matt and Karen for a while. Hours, probably. Faint noises had drifted up at times. Sawing, hammering, a frustrated swear word or two. What the hell were they doing down there? Foggy stretched his arms in the air, moved his head from side to side. His spine protested loudly.

The picture that greeted him when he went down to the garage was… well, kinda sweet, really. Karen and Matt were both hunched over a work bench in the corner near the window.

“Can you hold this?” Karen told Matt.

Foggy drew closer to get a better look. They were working on a tiny wooden box to which they were putting finishing touches. It had little metal hinges and even a small latch in the front that Karen was affixing there. No wonder they had spent hours on this.

Matt looked up at Foggy, his face happy and proud and beaming with all the sense of achievement in the world. “Foggy, look. Box. Is box. For me. Is box for tooth.”

Aha. Another new word, though the K and the S kinda came out as separate consonants. “Yeah, I can see that. Looks pretty good.”

Karen gave him a chiding look. “Pretty good? Come on, we poured our lifeblood into this. I think it deserves way more than a ‘pretty good’.”

Foggy laughed. “All right, all right. I haven’t even really seen it yet.”

“BoxFoggylook!” It came out as one word, because Matt was very excited, and it was a little contagious.

“Do it in a proper sentence, and I will, Matt.”

“Foggy, look box this.”

“Nope. Try again.”

“Foggy, look this box.”

“Almost, Matt.”

“Foggy, look… Mm... Don’t know, Foggy.”

“Look at this box.”

“Foggy, look at this box.”

Karen held it out to him, and Foggy inspected it more closely. And, wow, it was pretty damn fantastic for the fact that they’d basically put it together from wood strips and scrap metal. And he told them that, and Matt’s face would be splitting two if that grin could possibly get any bigger.

Foggy looked at Karen and mouthed a very grateful ‘Thank you’ to her. She gave him the most genuine smile back that he might have seen from her since… well, since aliens decided to fuck over humanity.

And then Foggy had a thought. “Hey, Karen, you wouldn’t happen to have liquid glue, would you?”

She frowned. “Well, uh, I have wood glue. It’s a little viscous. We used some of it.”

“Yeah, that might work.”

“What for?”

Foggy didn’t say, just smiled a sly smile. “You’ll see.”

It wasn’t easy to convince Matt to let Foggy have the box. Because, hell, it was the second thing he truly owned, and he’d helped make it, and that ranked even higher in Matt’s mind than the CD player. And rightly so, Foggy thought. Matt’s little tooth treasure memory box.

He promised Matt he’d get it back as soon as he could, and that Foggy was going to make it even more special. Somehow, that had convinced Matt.

Foggy asked Karen to babysit Matt for a little while longer, and she didn’t even complain. “Come on, Matt, help me clean this up, yeah?”

He was only too happy to comply.

Foggy went back up to the apartment with the glue and a pencil and got to work on his little project. He hoped it would work out and he wouldn’t fuck this up.

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“Foggy. Box. Where is?”

“It’s ‘where is the box’, Matt.”

“Where is the box, Matt?”

Foggy couldn’t help but chuckle. “You did that on purpose, right?”

Matt huffed out one of his weird laughs. “Yes.”

“You’re hilarious.”

“Where is the box, Foggy?”

Geez, the little shit didn’t forget anything, did he? Foggy wasn’t sure it had been long enough, but it had been three hours. How long did wood glue take to dry? “Let me check something first, okay?”

Foggy went to the kitchen where he’d put the box in one of the cupboards. He carefully felt if the glue was dry, and decided that it would have to be good enough. He regarded his handiwork again, and, yeah, it had actually turned out quite nicely. Thank God.

He took the box over to where Matt sat cross-legged on the futon and handed it to him. “Here. See if you can figure this one out. Be careful with it, the glue might not have completely hardened yet, so don’t rub too hard.”

Matt felt it, and then recognized that something was different. His right index finger very gingerly slid over the raised bumps at the top of the box where Foggy had meticulously spelled something in tiny Braille dots.

“Can you read it, Matt?”

He felt for it again, ever so gently, as if it was the most delicate thing he’d ever touched, and tried to decipher what it said. His lips moved silently, trying to string the letters together.

“Matt,” he said out loud after a long minute. Then he read out single letters. Putting them into words was a concept he hadn’t fully grasped yet. “S. T. O. O. T. H.”

“It says ‘Matt’s tooth’,” Foggy explained.

And there was that happy, gratifying, heartwarming smile again that Foggy could watch all day.

And suddenly there was a warm forehead pressed against his, and a breathy, “Thank you, Foggy,” in his ear.

“You’re welcome, buddy,” he said, smiling just as widely.

Matt broke the physical contact and then ambled over to where Karen was standing. He stood awkwardly, not sure what to do, and for a split second he looked as if he might have moved in for the hug, but Karen shifted her weight, and then the moment was gone. So Matt just stood and said, “Thank you, Karen.”

She gave him a small smile. “You’re welcome, Matt.”

He promptly went to put the two tooth halves in, completing his new, little treasure trove. He felt the Braille dots over and over until Foggy told him he should probably let them dry until the next day to make sure they didn’t come off. Matt then put the box on the window sill, well out of the way so it wouldn’t get accidentally knocked over.

Foggy watched the silent reverence that radiated off of Matt, and thought overall, it had been a good day. Better than most. Tooth extraction aftermath notwithstanding.

And while Foggy was reminded of that, he figured he should probably make sure everything was okay on that front.

“Hey, Matt? Can you tell me how your tooth is.”

“Tooth is inside box.”

“Don’t get cute with me. You know what I mean.”

“Hurts not a lot.”

“Can I take a look?”

“I don’t want,” Matt grouched.

“I know. Your cheek is still swollen. I’d like to know if it’s healing okay. You don’t want a repeat performance of yesterday, do you?”

“Don’t want, it hurts, puke,” Matt immediately responded.

“You’re making my point. Come on. I’ll get the flashlight and then you’ll let me look, okay?”

“Hm.” Not convinced. Didn’t matter.

And of course there was a fair of complaining and whining involved while Foggy went through the motions. Luckily everything looked okay to Foggy. Or as okay as he could tell with his extremely limited knowledge of dentistry. The gum around the wound looked a little red and sore, and Foggy had another memory of Candace and her wisdom tooth.

He took off the latex gloves he’d donned. “Looks okay to me, buddy. But there’s something else I’d like you to try. I’d like you to rinse your cheek with salt water. It’ll help with the swelling and keep the wound clean. We’ll probably have to teach you to do that. Are you up for that?”

And there it was, that eager puppy look that spread across his face whenever the words ‘learning’ or ‘teaching’ were involved. “Foggy, yes!”

“Awesome. Give me ten minutes.”

When Foggy had warmed up the water on the stove, just about tepid to conserve as much propane as possible, he sat down on the coffee table opposite Matt and mixed salt from their salt shaker into the warm water.

The spoon clanged against the wall of the mug as Foggy stirred it, which caught Matt’s attention. Foggy dipped in a finger and tried it. He couldn’t be sure, but the concentration tasted okay. There was so much playing by ear where his abysmal to nonexistent medical skills were concerned, that he couldn’t even begin to count the volume that made up the enormous gap in his knowledge.

He turned back to Matt, the salt water mug in one hand, and an empty water glass in the other. He drew in a breath, cause he had a feeling this was going to require a good deal of explaining, some coaxing, and a mountain of patience.

“Okay, now, uh, let’s see,” he started. Geez. How was he going to explain this? “What I want you to do is rinse that wound in your gum with the salt water. Which is in this mug.” Foggy raised it. “But it’s not for drinking, okay? You have to spit it out again afterwards. Into this glass.” He raised that too.

“So you just gotta take the water into your mouth and kinda swill it around in your left cheek. So that it reaches the hole in your gum. And then you spit it out again. Does that make any sense to you?”

Matt hummed. Not a good sign. What Foggy needed was a clear yes. “Do you need me to explain it again? Differently?”

Matt thought hard. Scrunched up his face in intense concentration. He was moving the jaw muscles on his right side around, too. Kinda like a dry-run. Quite literally. “Foggy, okay,” he finally said.

“You wanna give it a try?”

“Yes.”

Foggy gave him the mug, and Matt took a careful sip. He swallowed it down right away, sticking out his tongue with kind of a blergh sound. “Foggy, tastes. Not good.”

“Yeah, I know. It’s the salt. But that helps with cleaning the wound, and prevents more infection. Please don’t swallow it. You have to spit it out again. Try again. A little more water, cause you have to swill it in your cheek. Kinda like using your cheek as a pocket that fills with liquid. And then move it around a little. But not too much cause that’s not good either. It... man... it’s hard to explain.”

Matt tried again, actually managing to get the water into his cheek. What he had trouble with was the swilling around. And the spitting out. He swallowed it again before Foggy could even say, “No, Matt, don—“

“Is not good.”

“No, not good. You have to spit it out, okay? Let it come out of your mouth afterwards. So you just, I don’t know, you keep it in your mouth and, like, push it out. Kinda like blowing.”

Matt eagerly took another sip, pocketed it in his cheek, took a breath, and... “Matt, no, not—!”

He blew. Hard. A spray of lukewarm water hit Foggy all over the face. He should have seen this coming. And he may have laughed if he didn’t know that it wasn’t gonna upset Matt. So instead he just took the towel and wiped his face dry.

“Is not good a lot.” There was a discontented pout tugging at Matt’s features.

Foggy sighed. What even was his life? That mountain of patience was quickly eroding. “Okay, so no more blowing. Let’s try something else. How about you just tilt your head forward and open your mouth a little, let the water flow out. Into the glass. Yeah?”

Matt was really getting into this now, the eagerness turning into ambition. Foggy wasn’t sure if that was a good thing.

Salt water was pocketed in Matt’s cheek again, a little more proficient this time, and then he hung his head, held the glass in front of his chest with his shaking hand, and just limply opened his mouth. An uncontrolled surge of water gushed into Matt’s lap. Little of it landed in the glass.

Foggy eye-rolled again, hard, because oh my God. Karen was making subdued tortured owl sounds behind him. Matt let go of the glass and wiped uselessly at the wet fabric on his thighs with his palm. “Not good. Water. Here. Not... Help, Foggy.”

Foggy took in a long breath through his nose. Patience. Yeah. He could do this. How could he do this? How did you teach something that required fine motor skills to someone who couldn’t see?

And then he had an epiphany! Because Matt could see. Just not in the classic sense.

He took the mug from Matt’s hand and the glass out of his lap. “Okay, buddy, we’re doing something different now. Cause you’re gonna watch what I’m doing. With your hands. Here.”

He guided both of Matt’s hands to either side of Foggy’s face. “Just feel what I’m doing, okay?”

And Foggy went through the whole process, swilled the water around, let Matt feel out the movement of his muscles, his lips, his jaw. Then Foggy put the glass under his mouth, pursed his lips, made sure that Matt was feeling them, and spit the water neatly into the glass.

A small grin was playing at Matt’s lips when his hands came away from Foggy’s face. “I try. I know. Foggy teach.”

“Yeah, let’s see what you’ve learned.”

And Matt tried it again, and lo and behold, it actually worked. Not perfectly, and there was still some spillage, but he deposited most of the water back in the glass. And he tried again. And again. Better every time.

When the mug was empty, Matt beamed at Foggy with a triumphant expression. “Foggy, is good?”

“Super awesome, buddy. Come on, high five!”

“High f... What is this?”

“Give me the glass. Hold up your hand. Make your palm flat, turn it towards me, and stretch out your fingers.”

Matt did, a little awkwardly, and Foggy clapped his own palm against it. Matt startled, not sure what to do with that.

“High f... five?”

“Yeah, cause it’s five fingers. People do it when they’ve accomplished something, when they’ve done something well.”

Matt put the empty mug on the seat cushion next to him. Then he held up both palms in the air. “High ten?”

Foggy laughed. “No, it doesn’t work like that. It’s only high five. You just do it with one hand.”

“Why?”

Karen giggled behind him, and Foggy shot her a look. “You explain it to him, then.”

She harrumphed. “Heck, why not high ten? You can high-ten people whenever you want, Matt.”

His smile widened, his hands still in the air. “Karen, high ten?”

“Yeah, why the hell not?”

She got up, walked over, and clapped both hands against Matt’s. Then she high-tenned Foggy as well.

High point of the day. All three of them laughed for a full five minutes.

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THE END