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When you rollover in bed, you startle and find your hip knocking against another’s, an unpleasant, bony collision. Matt wakes up slowly, his nose scrunched up, one eye open in a squint, despite the ‘shhh'ing noises you made at him. His left arm reaches out for you, gentle fingertips tracing wherever they could reach, rubbing the path down your arm and to your waist. “_?” His lips open and close in a small yawn. “’S something wrong?” His hand wraps around your waist, gently squeezing the little spillover of fat from your tight sweatpants. If he weren’t afraid of knocking his teeth against your’s, he would’ve nuzzled your nose with his.

“It’s nothing, Matty.” In the dark of the early morning, you call him the nickname you always pull out when you’re being sweet on him. Half-asleep, he lets out a satisfied hum and pulls you closer, his blind eye shutting once more. His lips find the crown of your head, passing over and over your forehead, listening to the beat of your heart. “Just can’t get to sleep, ’s all.”

Your heart skips, and he struggles to keep his face straight. There’s a fine line between the way your heart jumps when you lie and the way your heart jumps when he does something you particularly like, and he can’t decipher it so early in the morning. He slips his hand underneath the back of your shirt, running his fingers down the ridges of your vertebrae carefully while he figured out what to say. “’M always here if you need to talk.”

You’re far too quiet for far too long, and he worries that you’d already fallen asleep. He doesn’t move to jostle you back into awareness, just sighs and hooks his nose onto your shoulder, sliding down in the bed.

With open, tired eyes, you roll over, facing away from him, holding your tongue in your teeth.

-

Foggy is the first one to notice the soft exhaustion that had set into your features, and Karen moves swiftly after him, the pads of her thumbs swiping across the dark circles ghosting underneath your eyes. “Matt been keeping you up all night?” Foggy comments over the lid of his coffee cup, disguising concern in gentle teasing. “I mean, the guy’s a regular Casanova- I know his moves aren’t going to waste on y-”

Karen cuts him off swiftly, holding her mirror compact up like a red stop sign. “Is everything alright, back with Matt?” She fishes in her back pocket for a tissue, then presses the edge of it along the sides of your face, wiping off little beads of sweat.

“Nothing’s wrong with me and Matt.” You bite down on your lip, hesitantly reaching for the tissue to dab at the back of your neck. The summer heat was doing a toll on your make up and your self confidence. “I’ve just been running on empty. You have any coffee left to spare, Foggs?”

“Half a pot.” He answers absentmindedly, regarding you in a manner that reminds you that he cross-examines people for a living. Honestly, you wish you were even half as good as either him or Matt. You nod at him, but notice that he doesn’t even react. He shakes his head once, twice, three times, then palms his cell phone, holding it up. “Gotta make a call- you two ladies can hold down the fort while I’m gone, yeah?”

“But of course, Sir Fogs. I and my-” Karen playfully kicks the ancient photocopier. “- Trusty steed will certainly keep the fort secure.”

And, while any form of humor from Karen would get him to crack a smile, Foggy just moves silently out of the door, as if he didn’t even hear her. She shoots you a confused look, then stands in a hurry when she finds you pouring boiling coffee into the crook of your thumb, down your now bright red palm.

You hadn’t even noticed.

-

Matt shows up late to work, his tie crooked and a series of bruises on his knuckles that he hides by keeping his hands low. He finds you like magnets find iron, immediately drawn to you, a smile like sunshine on cold days. “You shouldn’t let me sleep in like that,” Through the rims of his glasses, you see his eyes crinkle into laughter lines and you feel a bubble of his infectious sunshine work its way into your heart. Matt’s smile could cure cancer, you were certain. “I know I must’ve convinced you, but we both know I can’t be held accountable for what I say when I’m tired.”

Both Foggy and Karen are tense and silent, like strings pulled taught, unsure as to how to clue their blind friend into your weary state. Instead, you take the initiative, fixing his tie and planting a kiss on his cheek, feeling the close buzz of a recent shave. When you pull away, your voice sounds like silver linings on the edges of clouds, far past the storm brewing on your face. “You’re far too persuasive at eight a.m.. When you want something, legal jargon just spills out. I felt like I was going to be hit with a case if I didn’t let you sleep.”

“Filing lawsuits against my own employees?” He makes a soft hissing sound through his teeth, his lips pulling to the side. “Even I’m not that blind.” Karen’s burning holes into your back with her eyes, and you want to turn around, remind her of the pepper spray on her keychain, remind her that everyone has their own problems and- and-

“I’m sure you’d figure something out.” You pull away from him, just before his hand comes up to hold itself against your waist. His fingers close on empty air, his eyebrows wrinkling. You hurry through an excuse, your heartbeat thu-thumping its staccato lie. “I need to get a head start on getting the Braille translation for this case.”

Matt licks his lips and looks in the general direction of the one formal desk they had. “Ah, well, better get started, then.” He clears his throat, looking around for Foggy when he hears the door open and close, signaling your exit.

-

Karen’s the first one to break the silence, her voice harsh but assured when she tells Matt that whatever was going on between you two better not be what it looks like. Her teeth are half-set, a borderline snarl of protective instinct, an accelerated heartbeat. She came to work for a man that would protect the weak, not-

She stutters, and Foggy takes over, trying to say everything he struggled with over the phone. “It looks really, really bad, Matt.” He summarizes, in time with Karen’s thinning lips. “This is, like- Shit, you know that one class where we went over the signs of domestic abuse? _, she’s got circles so dark around her eyes that we could teach kindergarteners shapes with them.” He pauses, breaths in and out. He’s going down the check-list, one by one. “Low self-esteem, symptoms of depression, inattention-”

Matt opens his mouth once, twice, but closes it, unable to think of anything to say that wouldn’t sound awfully self-incriminating. Instead, another phrase comes out of his mouth, “I already have the Braille transcription of the case- does anyone know where she’s actually going?”

Karen’s shoulders jump up to her ears, and she’s on her feet before Foggy, jamming her toes into her maryjanes. “Shit, shit, shit-” Foggy stares at her, as if doing so would somehow clue him into the situation. She tosses him his keys, and they hit his shoulder uselessly, resounding like a tambourine. “She’s not showing signs of depression, she’s actually depressed!”

Foggy’s eyes flew open, his words coming out in a horrified whisper, listing the last symptom. “Thoughts of suicide.”

The last thing either of them hear of Matt is the sound of his cane smacking harshly against the doorframe.

-

He finds you on the rooftop of the apartment building you share, your heart the slowest he’s ever heard it, the most at-peace he’s ever heard you. He pauses, a moment of uncertainty as to what he should do, but there’s a selfish part of him that can’t help but think about St. Agnes, about how he felt after his father died. And, in that second, he throws his cane to the side and feels himself launch forward, his arms like steel bars against your chest, like solid 'please don’t’s. He crashes backward, holding the both of you so still that he could forget the boundary separating the two of your bodies, could feel you melt into him.

“Matty?” You speak around your heart-heavy tongue, feeling two-parts nausea and one-part terrified for your blind boyfriend fumbling around on a rooftop. “Matty, what are you doing here?”

“We’re just…” He trails off, having to catch his breath. He’s knocked it out of himself when he came crashing backwards. Certainly not his best idea. “We’re having a chat. About what’s…”

“Nothing’s wrong, Matty.” Thump thump thump. He can’t tell if it’s from the adrenaline or the lie.

“I’m calling bullshit.” His breath ruffles your hair. “So, either you tell me about why you’re on top of a roof-” He pauses, listens for a second. He mutters to himself, “Fuck, I didn’t know we were on the edge.” Yeah, that would explain why your heart was almost beating out of your ribcage. “Or we never get up. Never. I swear, I will keep us both up here, and I’ll coach Foggy in court over the phone and Karen will bring us bread to eat and we’ll have to kick the vultures away to keep them from biting at us.”

You 'harumph’ indignantly, then let the breath out slowly, and he knows he’s pinned you, metaphorically. “It’s nothing serio-”

“You were about to jump off our apartment building. I’d say it’s pretty serious.”

“I wasn’t going to jump!” You say quickly, truthfully, and that bewilders him. “I was just… I don’t know…” You think for a second, your heart rate slowing down. “Getting some perspective? I started coming up here during our lunch break- makes me feel better. The wind in my hair, looking down and seeing everyone look the same-” You stop, wrinkling your nose.

“What’s on your mind, that you need an adrenaline rush to calm you down?” Closing the case, Matt launches his final question, wishing he could see even an eighth of the physical cues you must’ve been giving him.

“You have to promise not to laugh.” Pause. “Or be offended.”

“It’s about us…?” He’s been trying not to make assumptions, but it’s kinda hard not to, when you say things like that.

You make a sound like a balloon deflating, and he panics, holding you down against him again. “No, Matt, it’s…” You blow a raspberry into the air. “I’m just having job worries, okay? Just a little insecurity about my place in the workforce. Like I said, nothing big.”

He presses his nose into the back of your neck. “It’s obviously big enough for you to lose sleep over. You’re not telling me the full story.”

You roll over on Matt, ribs hitting ribs as you needlessly make eye contact. He appreciates the thought, but he wishes he could tell you about the fact that his ribs had just healed from getting kicked in, and that he’d just experienced enough pain to knock out an elephant. “Since Karen came along, I just kinda, sorta, uh-”

Amidst the burning pain in his torso, everything clicks together. “You’re not being replaced, _.” He says, quickly, almost horrified that you’d even think like that. “God, _, I would never replace you. You’re…”

“I love Karen.” You defend yourself, your fingers splayed against his chest. “I love her and the life she brings to the office, but I just feel unneeded.”

“I could never replace you.” Matt repeats, his eyes closing, his fingers protective. “You’re so important- to Foggy, to Karen, to me, to those kids down the hall that you like to give candy to…” Pause. He leans up, brushes your nose against his. “There’ll always be a place for you, wherever I am. If there isn’t, I’ll make one.”