Chapter Text
Bone ground into concrete. Every muscle burned, and his shoulder joint creaked when Stick jabbed it with his cane, and Matt flinched hard enough to almost lose his balance before he forced himself to sit up even straighter, hands open on his thighs. He was trembling all over. A drop of sweat fell from his armpit. He could feel his heartbeat throbbing in his temples and fingertips. Stick was talking about breathing from the lower dantian. He was supposed to be iron wrapped in cotton. Instead, he was made of steel rods that were wrapped in pain.
Hold.
Don't move, boy.
No—the part of him that was no longer a boy—thought. I can move. I fucking will.
He did move, feeling like he'd been buried alive. Matt pushed himself up out of the dream—up from the basement—and out from under the weighted blanket, which was heavier than a lead apron. God, he couldn't breathe because all his air was trapped inside him, deep in the lower dantian, where control was rooted.
Except it wasn't. It wasn't.
He wheezed and stumbled out of bed, drunk on panic, until a hand caught his arm and he spun around, reeling.
"Matt. It's me. Don't—"
Foggy ducked when Matt struck out, a slave to his reflexes.
"—deck me," Foggy finished, as breathless as Matt was when they both crashed into a wall. Foggy’s back struck first, hard, but Matt caught his head before it could strike drywall, growling, “Sorry.”
“That was convincing,” Foggy said, making Matt flinch, air leaving him in a startled rush that turned into something like a laugh halfway through. “It really sells the apology when you sound like you chain-smoke and eat nails for breakfast. Don't kill me."
"Foggy—"
Matt touched his face, rough with doubt, sloppy. Had Foggy actually ducked the punch? His fingertips picked up everything: skin oil, stubble like fiberglass, muscles bunching, ripe breath gusting. No swelling or split skin.
"Bad dream?"
Matt flinched again as Foggy's voice shattered over him. The vibrations—separate but organized—staged a coordinated attack that felt like a blast of shrapnel. He understood the words inside the order of the shards.
"I shouldn't have grabbed—"
Foggy stopped when Matt's palm clamped over his mouth.
Don't talk.
Foggy's sorry was a fist circling Matt's chest, and he might as well have used rough-hewn granite. Matt took a step back. He needed to get away from all this—Foggy's hands and voice, the waves of warm, humid breath that smelled like streptococcus. Even the meaty-wet rush of Foggy's heart beating, muscle shifting, blood flowing, and bones moving inside flesh was making Matt sick. He'd felt trapped in the dream; now he wanted to get back in bed and crawl under the weighted blanket.
Just wait, he signed, raising a hand to ward Foggy off. As he moved, his shirt shifted against his skin like sandpaper. A flash of anger made him grab the back of it and yank it off, hissing against the scrape. He dropped the shirt and stood there, panting. Foggy's weight shifted, and Matt took another step back, dizzy now, enraged.
Don't touch me.
Even his own signing, the contact of skin-on-skin was abrasive. He needed to stop this from snowballing, but, in his mind, was Stick saying "lower dantian" and "Control the flow". A suffocating pressure started to build in his chest as the floor under his bare feet began to feel like concrete. He tried to sidestep out of his body. He didn't want to make the full switch to Maggie's mode yet. That would sweep him with relief for a while, but then become a position he had to hold. Was there anything in between?
Yes. It started to happen, but it wasn't good. He was getting ripped from the fabric of himself. Threads were breaking. The raw stuff—all the pain and sickening vividness—started to become the "cloth" of his body that he was pulling away from. Soon, he'd be two things—fabric and self. He was about to de-realize. That was bad. When that happened, all that connected the two parts was blood vessels of dread.
Breathe, he told himself. Don't rip free. Detachment wasn't freedom. He almost flipped the switch into Maggie's mode, which would feel like being inside a silent movie (or as close as he could conceive of that). In Maggie's mode, there was clarity created by the vibrations of sound. It was beautiful, embroidered, like walking in the mist, but staying there was like standing en pointe. It was impossible to stay there for the whole dance. What was he supposed to do, switch back and forth from heaven to hell all day long? Take six more herb capsules?
Foggy moved again, not speaking. He didn't advance. Matt could feel his attention. He was radiating worry, and that was the only thing about him that didn't hurt.
I'm trying to focus without…
His signs trailed off because he didn't know how to say the rest.
Without thinking about the times Stick choked me with his cane while I knelt, or pistol-whipped me with it, or…
He thought of Maggie telling him to let go instead of grasp. All those times, as a kid, when he was drowning in his senses. She wouldn't say "Breathe". She'd taught him to try to open his hands because if he could do that instead of making fists, he was thinking about his hands—just that.
He did that now, and smelled a hint of lavender and starch as if Maggie were standing right next to him. Was she? No. It was just Foggy standing four feet away, stinking and thumping and waiting.
Matt opened his hands.
It was always small things that Maggie had told him to do—take his tongue off the roof of his mouth, unclench his jaw, wiggle his toes. Each thing was a task he could accomplish even when everything hurt. He needed to choose a tolerable scent and pretend it was the only one. Foggy had plenty of smells Matt loved that had nothing to do with oral bacteria. Matt chose one of the indescribable ones that had to do with the way his skin, warmed from sleep, got touched by light from the rectory window. That scent was findable among all the rest, and he went there—just there. He took a step forward because he could. Foggy needed to stay where he was, and he did, thank god, but the one step forward was okay.
The good scent held, so he chose another good thing. Foggy's heart was allowed to be big and messy just like he was. God. Everything about that beat was a miracle, so the "louder" it was, the better, and, hell, it didn't have any rough edges. All of those soundwaves were rounded and thick in a good way. He wanted that pumping muscle to be strong—so strong and steadfast that it lasted forever.
He took another step forward. What else?
Foggy shifted his weight again, and Matt started to think about the fact that he'd gained one of the five pounds back that the doctor said he needed. The creak of those floorboards under his feet could be "loud" too. He wanted that. He wanted more of Foggy. That steadiness. That waiting patience. That could come through with force. Intensity wasn't bad when it meant good things. Matt could accept it as symbolism.
He took another step forward. They were within arm's reach now. Everything beyond Foggy waited to hurt him…but Foggy himself was safe now. That was the key. Focus on him. Foggy's warmth was all sweat-shirt-soft; he smelled the right way now, that big, strong heart was doing its complicated contractions, and Matt relished all of this.
Reaching out, he put his fingertips on Foggy's chest. When the fabric started to burn, he moved his fingers up, seeking skin. He got the pulse point at Foggy's neck and felt him swallow. Matt almost flinched back at the movement, then he decided that throat mechanics was the same as heart mechanics. All the workings of Foggy's body were allowed to hit him hard. He'd absorb them with gratitude.
Down at his side, his fingers brushed Foggy's. He kept his touch light, they both did, and finding the right position, Matt fingerspelled, "whisper".
"Okay," Foggy breathed, nodding cautiously. "Is this okay?"
Matt nodded as he turned his face away. Gratitude aside, Foggy's breath smelled awful, and the intensity of it made him stop breathing. God. What was the rest of the world going to smell like if this was already bad enough?
Don't take this the wrong way, but…
Matt shook his head and reassessed. Was he going to ask everyone in his life to take three showers a day and use mouthwash every few hours? That wasn't doable, so he changed what he was about to say.
…Can you sign without touching me too hard?
Foggy's fist came lightly under his palm, just the brush of knuckles as he said 'yes.' Matt kept the contact minimal, palm hovering ready to pull back if he had to. How much of this hair-trigger signing could they do before it was too much? Was the foul swamp-whisper better?
Shit. He was already tired, and the pit of his stomach quivered. What the hell was the next step?
What's it like? Foggy asked. Getting better?
Matt withdrew his listening hand and shook it out, trying to ease the burning sensation caused by the signs. It felt like something between sandpaper and the throb of touching something frozen. Foggy's hand wasn't cold, of course, but the pain was similar.
Everything's very heightened, Matt signed, knowing that statement didn't convey even a fraction of the truth. I'm trying to focus without… switching.
"What do you need me to do?" Foggy whispered. Matt half-turned away.
Mouthwash, he said helplessly. I'm sorry but—
By way of answer, Foggy started walking past him, presumably heading to the bathroom. Matt turned to follow him because Foggy's heartbeat was the only thing keeping everything else from crashing over him.
Three steps later, Matt plowed into a chair. He knew it was a chair because he caught the top of it by reflex to keep it from falling over. A second later, Foggy was back, fingertips brushing his arm, asking with this one wordless gesture, are you alright?
Matt was not alright. No. How the hell was he supposed to navigate while trying to stay under the protective umbrella of one heartbeat as individual grains of grit were stamping themselves into the soles of his bare feet, the waistband of his sweatpants felt like a scouring pad, and the chair had delivered a blow too much like Stick's cane.
"Foggy—"
A quick, light hand came to his face like Foggy trying to catch something before it could fall. Matt grabbed Foggy's wrist and held on as tight as he could, which was barely a grip.
"Another pill?"
Foggy turned his own face away this time as he spoke, and Matt nodded with tears in his eyes.
"Maggie said to saturate your bloodstream. Frequency, not higher dosage, is what works."
Foggy shifted before pressing a pill into Matt's hand.
What would it taste like? He needed water this time just so he wouldn't have to endure whatever explosion the herbs might make on his tongue.
Take me with you to the bathroom, Matt signed, finding Foggy's guide arm. Needing it more than he ever had before. Each step made the world waver and then recalibrate around him, again and again.
The world of minutia was ever-changing, a cacophony of sensory details. He tasted the air the way a snake did, got lost in blended-scent zones, hated his pants.
By the time they turned the corner into the bathroom, Matt was trying not to breathe, and wanted nothing—absolutely nothing—to touch his skin. He blanched when chlorine and iron bloomed into the air along with a spray of tiny water droplets. The glass Foggy tapped against Matt's knuckles made him flinch, because everything did now. He didn't want the water to coat his tongue in chemicals. He was going to feel the entire progression of the herb going down his throat. He might even feel his stomach digesting it. Jesus. He hoped not.
Mouthwash cut into the air like a flaming blade. Fuck. Foggy should have warned him. Matt swayed, one hand grabbed for balance while the other hand clamped over his nose to block the burn of the menthol. A second later, his sinuses were freezing. He turned, shoulder hitting a wall, and started to cough.
Foggy hooked an arm around his waist and moved him. There was an enormous shudder. Air pressure changed. He was being turned, and then a hand spread wide on his chest.
Where?
Hallway. Bathroom door closed. We're out.
Raw, dizzy, sick, lost, Matt squeezed his eyes shut, knowing that the only relief was the switch where Stick crouched waiting for him in the corner of that lovely, painless, richly etched landscape, waiting for him. He could go there and fight a different battle. Which one was better?
I need to switch, he told Foggy, on the verge of panic.
But then he didn't switch. Instead, his seams started to rip again because some part of him would rather strip thread and tear ragged holes into the fabric of himself rather than confront Stick again. Foggy's hand smoothed over Matt's clenched fist, then, and that touch—just that—felt like a rescue because it stopped the next thread from breaking.
"I'm here," Foggy whispered. "Do whatever you need to do."
Mint wafted over Matt's face because somehow, amid all the chaos, Foggy had done what Matt asked him to do.
Because it wasn't chaos for him, some inner voice said. This is all your chaos. Foggy's on the other side, standing in the bathroom, mostly calm, spitting Listerine into the sink, while you freak out two steps away.
I don't want to switch, Matt admitted. And I don't want to stay here. I'm stuck.
It was true. He was totally jammed between a rock and a hard place, with nothing to do but take another pill and keep fighting. Resisting was a fight. Letting go was a fight. Everything was a fight now.
And Matt genuinely didn't know how long he could keep doing this.