Chapter Text
If Foggy wasn’t so obviously distressed Matt would laugh. Okay, Matt laughs anyhow.
He can practically hear Foggy’s scowl when he says, “C’mon buddy, you owe me this one. Remember Rachel Cline?”
Matt winces. Rachel Cline. They were partnered in Wills. She had a tendency to smell like acetone and too much Chanel No. 5. She popped her gum. Constantly.
She’d also been somewhat infatuated with Matt. (“It’s that mug of yours Murdock, it blinds people to the part where you’re a raging asshole.” Foggy had said drily when Matt had bemoaned his fate. “Gee. Lucky me.”)
“Technically I didn’t ask you to do it.” Matt points out tactfully, though mentally he’s already preparing an overnight bag and deciding which of his readers he’s bringing with him.
“Oh, you’re right. Technically you slid up to me in the hallway and stuck your hand in my back pocket. In front of Rachel and everyone else in Evidence. And you didn’t even have the decency to buy me dinner after. I felt used.”
Matt does at least have the decency to blush. “I’m not great at improvising.”
He hadn’t meant to do it, but Foggy had greeted him so warmly, like he was honestly better for having Matt in his sight even though they’d only been apart since they’d said good bye to each other that morning. Matt’s smile had erupted like it always did when Foggy was so obviously happy (obviously happy because of him). And he could smell Rachel, rapidly approaching, so he’d stepped into Foggy’s personal space and Foggy hadn’t even flinched, hadn’t tensed or hesitated, just dropped his arm over Matt’s shoulder and leaned his weight into Matt’s side—he’d smelled of coffee and buttered bread and the cold January air—his hair loose and falling over Matt’s shoulder when Foggy ducked his head close to share his earphones with Matt. It wasn’t a stretch to wrap his own arm around Foggy’s waist, and if Foggy’s pulse had skipped a full beat quicker, if his body temperature had inched a fragment warmer, Matt didn’t have to try and decipher it. (It was better for them both if he didn’t.)
“Aw, did you miss me babe?” Foggy had teased, good humor masking the confusion that made his Adam’s apple bob when he swallowed. And Rachel was there, well within ear shot, could undoubtedly see them among their classmates, waiting for the previous class to let out so they could file in into the lecture hall, so Matt tilted his head towards Foggy, so close his nose had brushed Foggy’s hair and he’d slipped his hand into Foggy’s back pocket.
“I always miss you.” Matt had grinned back, and that was the god-honest truth, though Foggy wouldn’t have been able to hear it if it were a lie. Which it wasn’t. Matt hadn’t understood the significance of that truth until later, after Foggy’s fit of raucous laughter had quieted into hiccups, after they finally took their seats in class, after Professor Montenegro lectured them into a zombie-like stupor. Not until Matt was lying in bed, listening to Foggy’s uneven snores less than eight feet away. I always miss you.
Foggy’s heart skip-jump-stutters in Matt’s ears but when he answers there’s an underlying snicker in his voice. “You don’t say?”
Matt closes the book on his lap, reclines against his headboard. “So, which cousin’s getting married?”
Foggy throws his arms in the air in victory. “Thank you! Thank you Matty, I am—you’re a true American hero, my friend. I am going to buy you so much beer.”
“I thought you said it was an open bar.” Matt reminds him, smile flicking across his face as Foggy continues to jump in place at the foot of Matt’s bed.
Foggy flicks his wrist, waves off Matt’s point, “Shut up and let me lavish you with sweet words Murdock.” Foggy’s happiness runs through his voice like an electric current, charges the air between them and sparks in Matt’s chest, makes everything bright.
Matt’s smile deepens. “If you must.”